#obviously there's some stuff that's way more accessible with like. electricity. like. i can get to the second floor. for example

[classicslesbianopinions]

the other thing about being disabled in academia is everyone is like "yeah we can't do much about the buildings they're old :/" as if "old" being a synonym for "inaccessible" isn't just a constant reminder that the people who built the school did not imagine that someday someone like me might study there

[takami-takami]

Like a Candle at Both Ends.

includes— hawks x reader. minors dni. smut.

warnings— sub!keigo. reader uses a strap. double penetration with a twist. multiple orgasms. overstimulation. dacryphilia. cum as lube. slight feminization (of keigo). slight degradation. some brattiness. face-sitting mentioned.

In which you blow the birthday boy's back out like a candle. Topping Keigo with a fleshlight underneath him, that way he gets so overwhelmed he cries. ♡

You're at least ninety percent sure Keigo won't remember a damn word he says, tomorrow.

It's a pity, truly, that his gorgeous babbles of incoherency that entertain you aplenty in bed will only live on in your memories; but you suppose you can't really blame him. It would be difficult for any man to remain focused in this situation— let alone one who gets as lost in the floaty depths of subspace as Hawks.

You've always known your boyfriend to have a penchant for indulgence. If the tabloids get one thing at least half-correct, it's that Keigo is quite the glutton for satisfying his baser urges.

Tabloids call him a foodie. They snap pictures of him at different restaurants every afternoon during his usual two o'clock lunch breaks, sinking his teeth into delicacies with a moan, only to wash it down with the most caffeinated coffee he can get his mitts on.

And those same tabloids write adorable little periodicals about how their media darling just loves a little something to eat.

But you know better.

The reality is, it's more that Keigo is simply a brat who likes to indulge. He likes to be pleased.

He likes to fill and be filled, to stuff and be stuffed; but you don't blame them for not reading between the lines, there. You suppose you do have the unfair advantage of seeing him make that same, satisfied face after you've milked his cock to empty itself past the point of shooting blanks.

If anyone on this earth is privy to a crucial little piece of information the rest of the world doesn't know, it's you. The paparazzi that flock like vultures outside local diners in the hopes of catching the number two may snap pics of him smiling to himself as he digs in, but they don't have the slightest idea what else Keigo likes to sink his teeth into.

Namely: your neck, if he's lucky; cock throbbing in your vice grip, on days you grant him permission to teethe at your skin until the splotches of color from his marks settle like satisfaction in his chest. 

But mostly— and especially, on nights like tonight— the revered, dignified hero Keigo Takami just sinks his teeth into the pillow like a goddamn whore.

Right now, as Keigo lays on his front and bites back some rather pathetic sounds, the plush pillow beneath him is looking unbearably chewable to his eyes. Your delicate hand is reaching around his body like a serpent, snaking underneath his pelvis to grip his sensitive length so carefully in your palm; and the man below you is beginning to suspect he might need another outlet for his sexual frustrations, soon.

"I c-can do that myself," Keigo releases the pillow and sputters, though his body doesn't protest in the slightest. In fact, his hips arch away from the toy positioned below, in order to allow you rightful access to his cock.

"Yeah, obviously," you answer with a squint, sliding your fingers along his length. "But I want to do it for you, so I will. Are you complaining, Kei'?"

"Mm. No," he hums the right answer, shifting comfortably to rest his cheek against the pillow and settle his weight on his knees. "But I might start complaining if you don't hurry it up. I don't take this long when I put it in you," he whines, smushing his cheek further into the fluff to resist the temptation to look down. He doesn't flinch a bit when you thread your fingers through his hair in response, practically petting him.

Still, Keigo sighs in pleasure rather than dissatisfaction when he shuts his eyes. He can't deny that your soft skin feels incredible on his cock, crackling with electric charge; but the fleshlight trapped beneath his hips is enticingly lubed and ready for him, and that simple fact is causing him to grow impatient. The way you're rubbing his tip against its entrance doesn't help in the slightest. It feels more agonizing than pleasurable, at this point.

"Stop playing with it and put it inside already," he groans. 

"Aww," you coo. "Are you feeling pent up today, Keigo?"

It's meant to be a tease, but the response you get is heartbreakingly genuine.

"A little bit, yeah," Keigo answers truthfully, cocking his head to the side for a second. His neck pops with the motion, achingly, and he cracks his neck the other way to make it look intentional. Still on his belly, he crosses his elbows and tucks his chin atop his arms. 

Keigo looks genuinely fatigued when he blinks. Black lashes rest on his cheekbones a little longer than usual today, and you're aware that the only thing hiding his prominent eye bags is a few layers of expensive, caked-on concealer. 

You swallow a pang of resentment at the sight. 

Next year, you'll be sure to make a few phone calls with some choice words and demands you refuse to budge on.

Somehow, the urge to spit an uncharacteristically shrill "let me speak to your manager" over the phone to some HPSC bigshot isn't quite as strong as the urge to spoil Keigo tonight, instead; to make your baby forget the press interviews his handlers drag him to, around this time every year. The meetups, the galas— even those photoshoots you're silently a bit thankful for because he looks so irritatingly handsome in them.

You take out your irritation on his wings, gripping the sensitive primaries in one fist. To his delight, you begin to stroke the sensitive, silky bristles along the sides of his feathers, teasing them with your fingertips.

"Woah, woah, woah," Keigo smirks. The plumage of his wingspan preens with the attention, arching into your touch like a purring, spoiled housecat. "Easy there, doll. What's gotten into you today— oh, fuck me."

The moan dies down into a pleased rumble in his chest; and before he knows it, his hips arch just like his glorious wings, grinding his backside against the pretty, pink appendage strapped to your hips by a few medieval-looking buckles.

"Nothing," you lie. "Just wanted to shut you up, but it's not working all that well." 

"Liar," he snides. "You know that makes me loud, baby."

"Wasn't exactly trying to hide that, but nice try."

Your palm finally guides his tip into the toy, slipping it deep inside while he sighs in momentary relief.

But the relief is just that. Momentary.

Keigo's hardly bottomed out for a dozen seconds before he's whining and trying to press himself back against the tip of your strap, too.

"Oh my god," you laugh genuinely, dumbfounded by how quickly he begs for the next little indulgence on the list. You're too busy popping the lid of a plastic tube and drizzling your strap with lube to babysit him; so for now, you ignore his whorish little display for attention. 

"You want it that bad, already," you ask, slicking the length and plopping the tip against his fluttering rim, giving him a few lovetaps.

"Yeah," Keigo smiles, deliriously. "Wanna feel you fucking against my prostate. Give it to me."

Cheeky. On another day, you'd deny him strap altogether for acting like he doesn't need to do anything to earn it.

"Tell me if anything feels weird," you say instead, kissing his shoulder once while you grip the tip in one hand, pressing it against his hole. "Does it feel okay?"

"Mm, yeah," he rolls his shoulders. "But can you, uh, let me just lay here a little, at first? You know, while you do your thing?"

Keigo shakes his hips in an attempt to look enticing with the shameless request. "I'll be really good. Promise."

"You're such a fucking pillow princess," you accuse as you slide inside his already prepped hole and begin to move; and just as quickly as you utter it, the pseudo-insult backfires in the form of a high pitched, utterly pleased moan below you.

"I-I can be your princess," Keigo immediately agrees, with some nods alongside each of your thrusts. When you sink into him, he sinks his teeth further into the pillow than his mind sinks to delirium— deeper than his pride sinks down to a new low. 

"I'm yours, I'm your princess," Keigo repeats. "I'm your fucking princess," he moans, reaching one hand back to claw those delicately manicured fingernails into the meat of your thigh. Each nail is meticulously cut, shaved down like the hair on his lithe body and painted an iridescent gold to match his eyes under your bedroom light.

It's whiny when he pleads, "fuck me"— and it sounds even more pathetic when he squeals it. 

With every infuriatingly slow thrust of your hips, Keigo makes a show of displaying his greed. He drags you into him, vice-grip in one hand locked in your flesh to pull it flush into his. His other hand busies itself clutching the drool-soaked pillow against his bare chest for stability.

You treat him delicately, fucking him too slow for him to even think of blowing his load? Oh, that makes him growl through his teeth.

"Just blow my back out, already!" He practically mopes, cock still throbbing in his toy. You can hear the purse of Keigo's lips, his adorable, jutted bottom lip that you're certain is wobbling at this point. 

"C'mon," he grits. "Didn't anyone ever tell you that you should, like… Keep your promises? They're no good if you don't, y'know."

There are only a few days in the year Keigo is allowed to act out like this, and he'll be damned if he doesn't capitalize on them to the fullest.

The brat's gonna put you in an early grave at this rate, you think. You may not be able to punish him today, but you certainly can give him exactly what he wants. 

And when you do give him what he wants, the reality becomes abundantly clear: he can't actually handle it.

When you speed up, he pants like a dog— or, more aptly given this pretty little position, dripping submission and precum while he gets his ass stuffed, face down— Keigo pants like a bitch.

With his tongue far too heavy for his mouth, he resorts to whimpering into the pillow— his poor little crutch. The fleshlight is still squished between his pelvis and the bed, so every thrust you grind against his ass milks his cock, too. It's impossible to keep his head clear and focused when he's stimulated on all fronts; but bless him, Keigo does try.

He tries so hard, pathetically, to focus through the sounds of his lubed cock rubbing against the wet silicone, through the full feeling stuffing his insides at the same time.

Yet even still, it's not enough for him. He snarls in frustration as he shoves his hand between his thighs to adjust the cocksleeve, angled so he can stuff more of his cock in it, enveloped down to his base and pressing near-painfully against his balls. 

Fuckin' perfect, he sighs, finally able to direct his attention to his lovely partner digging out his guts from behind.

"Make me your b-b—" He starts and trails off, brows pinched with effort. "Make me yours," he corrects.

Oh? You tuck that little tidbit away.

You suppose it's been countless minutes since you began railing the poor, whimpering pup beneath you. That is, if you were to judge by the rasp in his voice that builds each time he cries his heart out.

Keigo is, despite it all, a very, very good boy. He gives you his visual cues when he feels that telltale tingling in the swollen, blushing tip of his cock; the one that lets him know how close he really is to bursting along the edge. He tenses his already defined muscles and looks back at you with the cutest puppydog eyes, just to make sure you know he's close. 

"I'm gonna cum," he warns verbally, too.

But you don't stop.

If his muscles weren't tense enough before, they certainly are now.

"Baby?" Keigo near-panics, turning a bit to gaze up at you pleadingly. Your floral bed sheets twist into spirals under each of his fists, wrung in a manner not unlike his cock. "Baby, I-I said I was gonna cum."

"Yeah, I heard you the first time." You peer down your nose and eye the bead of sweat that slithers down his neck. 

You watch the tremble of Keigo's hips as he does his best to keep his position poised like a prized showdog, dutifully still. He resists the urge to meet your strokes, instead offering every scrap of control to you as he lets the length of your strap carve out his insides. With every angled rock of your hips, the tip of your curved cock rubs against his poor prostate, stimulating it and making it a nightmare of an endurance test to hold himself back from spilling.

Habit is a powerful thing. Of course, Keigo's body recognizes the familiarity of this song and dance. His cock, ever well-trained, expects you to deny its release; to still your hips and cause his balls to ache, heavy with deprivation, just like you always do.

But tonight, you don't stop. 

Your hands are still gripping his hips and your strap buckles are still clinking with your desperate movements. Your pelvis keeps pressing him deeper, manually pushing him in and out of the toy below; and he begrudgingly accepts your generosity, because it's possible that you just felt a little altruistic today. 

After all, it is his—

"I'm gonna cum," Keigo whimpers. "Fuck, baby, I'm gonna cum!" 

And with his nails tearing at the sheets, Keigo's world goes white; almost as white as the sticky mess he makes of his poor little toy, tip flooding it with rope after rope from his throbbing cock.

It rings in his ears when he climaxes, overloading his poor brain with endorphins and making him scream into the pillow he chomps down on.

Still, your delicate hands guide his hips back and forth, ignoring his babbling to watch him fuck his own cum into the toy. 

If it pleases you to watch Keigo continue the motion long after your hands have retreated, you keep it to yourself.

"Ah," he nearly shrieks, high pitched and pretty. "Too much! Ah, fuck, baby, please—"

"Yeah? How does it feel, sweetheart?"

"W-Wet," Keigo hiccups, hips stuttering just the same as his voice. He paws at the sheets when he continues, kneading them in his palms like a kitten. "So fucking wet."

"Mhm," you hum, sitting back on your haunches. You decide to make him use his words for your entertainment, to sate your indignance at his prior tantrums. "And why is that, babe?"

Your palms slide possessively down his hips and up the curvature of his back, meeting his arch. They trail toward his shoulder blades, fingers splayed as Keigo tries to chase them; and to your amusement, he hardly looks to be in the proper state to process the fact that he's actually being mocked, let alone protest it. 

To Keigo, all he knows is it simply feels good.

Keigo answers obediently, instead. It takes you by surprise, the way his unabashed filth spills without shame. Arousal pools between your thighs, but your body remains still— if only to watch the way he fucks himself on your cock, balls deep before he does the same using his own to the fleshlight below.

"Because it's stuffed full of my cum. It's s-so wet, full— fuck," he slurs, voice airy and utterly uncontrolled when he draws his hips back onto your thick, pink strap, down till his ass meets your pelvis; and he thrusts his cock back inside the toy, the subsequent shlick somehow louder than how he runs his mouth. 

Back and forth, in and out, Keigo irreverently milks himself from both ends. The motion of it smears his own spent along the sides of his cock, acting as the most obscene lubricant. It's messy, unbearably loud in its slick sounds.

It must sound as satisfying to hump as it feels, Keigo thinks. His lip wobbles at the thought, hoping it impresses you, and he bites the pillow below him.

"Aww, it's full?" You don't bother to muffle your laughs as you kneel behind him, simply watching as the once-powerful hero below you does all the work and fucks the snark out of himself, for you. The sound of your condescending laughter breaks him, whittling down his vocabulary as his mind sinks to that familiar, fuzzy place.

The silicone is unbearably tight around his length, even though you were careful to pick one out that he could fit into. The thickness and length of Keigo's cock does tend to make shopping for toys a chore, you muse.

You're not complaining, though. You'll take a couple extra hours of scrolling through fleshlight reviews on forums for the well-endowed before making a purchase, if it means you can keep getting split open by his massive cock when he bends you over the bathroom vanity.

Or the kitchen counter. Or the leather couch in your living room. Or the nearest single-stall restroom sink after you accidentally call him something you shouldn't have in public.

But tonight, the nicknames you call him sound nothing like "sir."

They sound like "puppy", like "sweetheart", like "good boy."

The ribbed, silicone rings inside are designed to squeeze his cock with each stroke. It normally feels simply pleasurable; though, after an orgasm that explosive, his cock feels nearly raw in its sensitivity, nerves exposed like live wiring and sparking electricity all the same.

"It hurts," Keigo squeaks through his fat, wet tears; and you begin to pull out and fuss over him. 

That is, until he wails and grips your thigh close in his claws.

"Wait, I want it to! Don't pull out, please don't, please don't pull out. I was so close," he slurs.

"Already?" Your face scrunches with disbelief.

"Uh huh," he nods furiously.

And just like that, your grandiose plans of discovering how much is too much for the glutton end up fizzling out. 

"Figures you'd be into overstimulation," you roll your eyes, palm slapping once against his behind as you watch it go from fleshy peach to red. "Whore."

"Huh?" Keigo drools. He sounds like a lost puppy, brain too fuzzy to register a single word— well, other than whore, but that's only because that word made his cock feel kind of nice.

"Not gonna remember a damn word you said tomorrow, are you," you ask, watching him rock his hips in desperation, drowning in his own pleasure. "Too lost when you get fucked, huh, puppy?"

"Mm-mm," Keigo shakes his head furiously, blonde tufts sticking up like stray feathers. At the sight of it, you're overcome with a sudden urge to claw at his scalp. 

"Mm! Love you," he adds for seemingly no reason when you yank his neck back by the roots, throat bobbing with his strained swallow.

Heart pounding like the percussion of a heavy metal drum with moans just as erotic, skin slick with sweat and cock wet with his own release; this is the man Keigo is reduced to as you take charge once more. You bully his prostate, thighs burning with effort and breath panting in his ear. Your left hand releases his scalp to grip his jaw and keep his back arched into your chest, while your right shamelessly milks his cock, fleshlight in hand.

It's too much. His moans are broken, climbing in pitch like a crescendo until the dam breaks and his mind shatters once more. 

You know how loud Keigo can be. You're well aware, well prepared; yet, like every time you make him sob and scream when he cums, it travels between your legs like lightning, regardless. 

After he collapses into the sheets, it takes Keigo ages to catch his breath. His body still shudders and twitches with the aftershocks of his orgasm, wings flapping twice before tucking against his shoulder blades, submissively. 

There's drool on the pillowcase, you note; and it's been chewed to bits.

When you pull out, he gasps. You rub the tip against his twitching rim in an attempt to soothe him, and his gasp settles into a sigh.

"Good?" You're out of breath, yourself, when you dare to ask. "You look like you lost one of your nine lives, for a second."

"Eh, it was alright," he smirks. "Could you do it again? I wasn't paying attention."

"Shut the fuck up," you slam the pillow against his side. "You're such a brat."

"You love it," Keigo teases, rolling onto his back and stretching. He exposes his belly. Blissfully comfortable, fucked-out, and entirely satiated.

His eyes nevertheless catch between your legs as you unbuckle the strap and let it fall unceremoniously. He wets his lip and swallows, pupils dilating.

"C'mere," Keigo says, making grabby hands. Expectant, he shifts in eager anticipation, settling into an acceptably comfortable position as you place your thighs on either side of his head— he won't be moving for quite some time, after all. 

"Oh," you add, pretending as if you suddenly remembered something. "And Keigo?" 

"Mhm?" He hums, craning his neck toward your core, eager to lap himself another helping to fill.

"Happy birthday, baby."

[general-brain-rot]

So, what's up with Saturation in Truth Scrapper?

It's probably the most intriguing part of the teasers that I'm hooked on so here are some thoughts and ramblings while I think really hard for fun about media,,,,

I see you seemingly inconspicuous book mention, "Saturationpedia", I see you....

In Truth Scrapper's trailer and teaser shots, we see a lot of faded gray-toned environments/characters with a few colored (or Saturated) things seemingly painted in at random, until we think that Saturated things serve some kind of purpose and were made that way! Whether it's crucial magical powers or just quality of life stuff is yet to be seen, though there are sections in the trailer that allow Sosotte to "prepare (insert item here)" and we watch the items BECOME Saturated in front of us, so obviously it's a manual thing, and likely important enough for gameplay progression!

So, let's assume Saturated items have magical properties that are likely critical to gameplay and the life of those in the Dwell. Like Sosotte's scrapbook that claims to, at a single touch, relay everything written in the book back into Sosotte's brain while ALSO combatting the intense memory issues she suffer from to a degree. There's also mention of Betz's thread being saturated specifically in this post which makes me think it'll have some sort of magic property? Since it's tied all around their body I'm inclined to think it's something that supplies strength with his knight status, or maybe it's something more diabolical like holding them together somehow?? I keep thinking back to the photo shot of Betz holding their own hand around their throat while also reaching out to the viewer, likely Sosotte. The thread could be a puppet themed thing, or a visual indicator that the thread is holding *something* together for Betz's sake. This is my speculation, I am unable to be normal.

I'm also not forgetting about this part:

This makes me feral, we don't technically know who is asking to "forget", but we can assume it's Sosotte considering having access to the scrapbook and the other returning visuals of forget-me-not flowers from her, but I have endless questions. Why does she want to forget? Is it more useful for her to forget? Why does saturating the flower do this? Is it the cause of her extra poor memory, and if so then what's causing the normal memory loss of other Truth Scrappers coming to the Dwell? These are questions I will think about more, later, but for now we press on.

We see other saturated items around that aren't from our main cast of girls! Like the lampposts in the Dwell, what's that about? Could they be quality-of-life enchanted like how they might always give off the perfect amount of light without electricity or something? Also, what about that one shot of the train? If it's Saturated, that could be how the train functions. There's also Marcel's eyes! Zer eyes are the only ones with color (at least in the trailer), not including the individual we see with the Saturated blindfold and eye pattern, and I'm inclined to believe that zer eyes have some supernatural property to them that we'll see in gameplay.

Last point (for now~), the only shots we have of inside the cave at The Dwell have colored streamers and moths. NOW, WELCOME TO MAXIMUM SPECULATION ZONE FRIENDS. The streamers I have very little clue about, they look to be tied all throughout parts of the cave that show signs of other people having been there since there are a few shots of the moths in just a bare-bones cave backdrop. It could be a guide of some kind? Like how larger forests that have a lot of foot traffic throughout the world will have ribbons tied to trees or other noteworthy landmarks to guide hikers, there are a few forests like that in Japan that I can think of off the top of my head. If they're Saturated, it may act like a spiritual guardrail that could dissuade travel into non-ribonned parts of the cave? Especially if people have been getting attacked and "losing their will", a local or some other Truth Scrapper could have come down to put safety measures in place for future travelers.

Now for the moths, other than some of the features of people we see (Amour's hair, Betz's earing, Sosotte's hat, etc), these moths are the only other living things we've seen thus far that are saturated. Not only that, but they seem to be EVERYWHERE in the caves, so I'm inclined to believe the moths have either 1) symbolic importance, 2) direct story importance, or some combo of both (or a secret fourth option, the moths are just for freaking funsies). Symbolically, moths go through metamorphosis which can indicate some greater change happening in the Dwell, but also moths are often seen as symbols of decay with eating clothes or scavenging carcasses. If *something* in the Dwell is making Truth Scrappers "lose their will" somehow and affecting their memories, then moths would kinda be the perfect fit. Eating away holes into the fabric of memory of those who travel too far into the Dwell, changing them irreparably through a memory-flavored metamorphosis, these Saturated bugs may become more prominent the deeper into the caves we travel and indicate the strength of whatever negative affect may be down there, or they may just be a subtle hint to the player to be thinking about it at least. I will continue to have thoughts but man,,,,,,,they're gonna be all over the place. I'm already replaying Heaven Will Be Mine in anticipation for some character analysis one day >:3

Please accept my brain thought crumbs and keep doodling Sosotte so prettily, she is the cutest ever~

[obsessedgames505]

could you tell us more about the world they live in? it seems like a unique blend of technology and magic

Ok honestly this question is pretty difficult to answer because I thought I’d answer visually but it’s too hot in my part of the world to draw cause I’m sweating up a storm, so you’re getting my rambling texts! While some things are subject to change, these are the stuff currently set in stone for this world.

So anon is right, I’m going for a blend of magic and tech in the world of MAS. I was initially inspired by Zelda: Breath of the Wild in terms of how it worked before moving onto my own thing. Imagine if people in the medieval era got access to BOTW technology. Best way I can describe it with words. Most if not all technology is powered by runes (magic language that can command elements, classic stuff) and can be used in a lot of different ways from small letters to light up a closet to huge complex spell circles able to power an entire city! Most of the runes the world uses are electric and energy based runes, obviously, but others runes like water based ones are used for plumbing and fire based runes are used for some older stoves and fireplaces. (By the way, i know I’ve also said glyphs in the past but in this context glyphs and runes are used interchangeably. I just like the word glyph cause I’m an owl house fan)

You’d guess with most people being supernatural and connected to the elements in some way (demonstrated by Delilah), these kind of runes would be most unnecessary but that’s not really the case. While there are people who absolutely use their element to the fullest to basically be a superhero, they’re like the YouTubers/Tiktokers of the world. Performing tricks and stunts for the camera and sometimes being insanely good at what they do (while other times being a complete and total nuisance). It’s not like other people CAN’T use their element as a superpower, but like in the real world most people have a semi normal job and are just trying to get by without an influencer messing up their day. Also, evolution didn’t really favor those who either blew up or fried everything they touched so it’s why a lot of people don’t try to use their element to the maximum.

This obviously isn’t the case for celestials. Those guys run on pure magic and magic only, no combination with tech at all. Their opinion of the little mortal people are pretty low even with all their advancements in tech, but the fact that they were able to create such tech at all is already a feat in itself so screw those guys.

I promise, when it gets to be cooler and a little less bearable to be in the sun, I’ll draw up a few diagrams of what the heck I’m talking about because I don’t know if this made any sense XD

[yourlocal-underpaid-babysitter]

I went to the zoo today with my friends, I had gotten a steroid epidural below my L5 vertebrae just this morning and I HATE sunlight but we all have to go separate places for summer and it was nice weather so we had to do a thing

So we wandered around a public zoo, made jokes about the animals, gave them silly names, imagined adopting leopards (I will have one), and made a telenovela out of a very entertaining puffin

But again, I dislike sun, I'm sensitive to it

I am also chronically ill with chronic pain and fatigue and for the past 8 months have had horrendous back pain and have been avoiding walking or sitting if possible, plus steroid injections can cause more pain right after and also headaches

So I was hooked up to a portable TENS unit. This was my first time ever using a mobility aid that is so visible and uncommon. A brace or even KT tape, people don't make assumptions, they assume you are a hurt athlete or twisted something. You aren't SICK you are just wounded.

But a bunch of wires sticking out of your shorts and connected to a little device on your belt that is flashing constantly? That's not normal.

Immediately I got flagged by security, it was the first time i had to explain what it was to someone with a taser on their hip. They were elderly and not cops, and barely even looked at me or the device before giving me a thumbs up.

I was so nervous.

Then later, when I was watching some penguins, I looked down and there was this baby in a stroller next to me. I started pointing stuff out to her because I can't help myself from interacting with kids (I have a problem) and her parents were nice and then I turned away and heard

"Oh no sweetie don't touch that"

I turned back to see her little chubby hand reaching for my TENS unit, she was no where close to it. I smiled and said "I don't think you want that, it is not a phone I promise"

Her dad laughed and said "it has buttons, that's all she needs"

So I joked "yeah but all those do is make it shoot electricity, no fun colors or noises!"

It was so sweet and wholesome.

I stopped worrying for a bit.

Randomly I would remember i was in shorts and a cropped tshirt, that the wires stuck out over the hem of my shorts, I would tuck down what I could, but I was also pain free and that is worth so much.

The only other notable thing was as we were going back to our dorms, the TENS unit was loose cause I had sat with it on and then stood and then bent down to pick something up and so it fell and was still connected and working, just like dangling at my side.

My friends were teasing me, asking for me to hurry up and I huffed out a "right sure, ask the one with wires coming out of her to hurry up."

And there was this guy walking by so obviously trying not to laugh.

I am pretty sure I was carrying way too many things because the thought of putting things in my bag was not coming to me. Also the band of my high waisted underwear were showing and I had wires holding this thing at my side as I groaned.

But just how simple it was, just how he laughed and did not stare or ask any awkward questions...

I'm 20... in 3 months I will be 21.

That TENS unit is probably going to be one of the more discreet accessibility device I have in my life. I am constantly using braces and KT tape, but again, less people look to hard or understand what that means.

Sometimes it is really hard for me to accept that this is me young, that this could be my best time (pain wise, I know I can be happy and still have pain)

My body is getting worse, I have always teetered on the edge of 'just ill enough it fucks with me but no one else has to know' and I'm starting to reach the point of 'everyone has to know or I have to be okay with them thinking I'm crazy' I know that soon I'll be looking down the path of 'if they don't know then they are stupid' and it frustrates me a lot

I'm open about my health, I'm happy describing my mobility aids to people, but I get frustrated or anxious when I have a new one like today. It was a positive experience, and I had very little pain with it on.

Learning to live and make accommodations for yourself is hard. I just wanted to share my good day.

Now I'm going to curl up in a ball in a very dark room because my head is killing me.

[helly-watermelonsmellinfellon]

I've been playing Tower of Fantasy.

The Bad:

The open world is atrocious. Even lowering the fps can't stop the freezing and lagging. With ping below 10, I should have no problems when Genshin, HSR, and DBD give me no issues.

The character models bug way too much.

The enemies respawn in just a couple minutes, so I can't even pause to check my newest achievement before I'm suddenly dying.

Yeah. You can die while in the menu.

In fact, you can peruse the menu, and if you push either of the analog sticks, your character will still move. Even when you aren't on that screen.

Same thing happens when you're looking at a telescope. Twitch even the slightest and you'll walk off the damn cliff despite somehow being engaged in something that requires you to use movement and buttons to complete a task.

If you have to do a quest in a place that usually has a specific type of enemies, those mobs will be replaced with quest-specific mobs, BUT when you finish the quest, the former mobs will spawn in right on top of you and you can die by getting hit too many times suddenly.

You need to use a cursor to still access some places on your screen, but you have to hold down L2 and that touch pad at the center of the controller. It doesn't work have the time, and the touch pad makes you crouch, which L2 aims the bow. So, you have to mash hitting them at the same time to get the cursor to pop up, and even then, it also lags. I tested this out with 2 different controllers and it's not them that are effed up.

Basically, the HUD is very unfriendly to console players despite the game being available on console!

The animations during dialogue are atrocious. And you can't skip through certain things until the animation stops. Even if the speaking is finished first.

There are many screens where there is text, but no sound, and you can't just Skip or go past them. One took almost 30 seconds of time just for fourteen words.

Tutorials are lacking and the explanations don't make sense.

The plot is hard to follow, and I genuinely don't know what is going on. We just have to keep turning on these tower things and then whatever? Why? What is this even about?

How am I supposed to gaf about these characters when they voice acting isn't up to par and the animations of conversations between characters is stiff and ugly af?

The models for the hands don't even grab their weapons. In cutscenes when people pick up or grab things, their hands just stay stiff and look like plastic.

A lot of the playable character designs look the same.

The teleports/spacerifts or whatever are a struggle to use.

If you want to interact with ANYTHING you need to be standing perfectly still before you even get the prompt. If want to entire a domain or teleport somewhere, you CANNOT budge even a little or it cancels.

The jetpack lacks in height or distance, and I'm confused on how a piece of electricity-powered technology requires player stamina just to use it. And why, since it uses stamina on you, does it not do more with that stamina? I should be able to launch myself to the moon with it ffs.

The Good:

Challenges. They have a variety in terms of challenges you can do in mini domains? I've so far done timed platforming, side-scrolling, and maze-run kinds of challenges. The game doesn't lag while doing them and the visuals are nice. The rewards are very good.

Variety of weapons to use. Your active character can use any of them it seems, and they perform differently, but awesomely.

Rewards are very generous. I've been playing for 1 week and already have 5 SSRs. And I'm due for 2 more very soon. Exploring in the open world while a hassle, does come with the stuff you need for gambling. I've done a lot of pulling already.

Customize your character, which is pretty cool. Obviously, I layered on purples of all sorts. There's a lot to choose from and I typically run around as the MC rather than anyone else tbh.

You can do tasks with other players to get rewards faster.

Double-jump option, and the dodge allows you to close distance mid-air quite nicely.

I like the fighting and exploring but the story is lost on me, the lag is unreal, and the best thing of it all was finding out characters can swap weapon types.

And yeah, that's it.

[bombshellsandbluebells]

(didn't even get to the part where Ford comes in, but I loved the idea of a sentient Mystery Shack that grows to love Stan - mostly because Stan ends up treating the place more like a home than Ford ever did and goes through all those years alone with him and wrote a drabble)

At some point, Stan realizes he should clean the house. The epiphany comes around the same time he realizes he should also take care of himself—eat, probably, since he can't recall when he last did that. Shower now that he has access to one—even though the thought of using Ford's shower because the man himself can't makes his skin crawl so much he wants to peel it off.

He'll start with the house, then. It feels less like stealing a space that shouldn't be his if he convinces himself it's for Ford's sake—tidying the books and washing out the mugs growing their own ecosystems as some kind of apology. 

As soon as he starts cleaning, though, the mess seems endless. He wonders again at the state his brother had been in—at the barbed wire and panic, at the blood stains in the bathroom—and he wonders if the fear had come from Ford knowing what was beyond the portal, if he'd known the nightmare Stan was dooming him to, if he was even still—

He loses a few hours cleaning the kitchen, scrubbing everything from the floors to the inside of the fridge, but that's a few hours not spent tearing his hair out over the portal, and it feels nice to succeed at something for once. Even the house seems to breathe a little easier in the space he clears—though he can't really explain what he means by that. 

It's just a building, obviously, but it seems…happier. Like it's proud of the changes he made. Whatever, grief is weird, he knows that—their Ma had hit denial so badly after their Bubbe passed it took a full two months for her to even admit she'd died. If he feels better because he tells himself Ford's house is happy he cleaned it up, who cares.

 At least it will help him get out of bed tomorrow. 

-------

About two months in, Stan realizes there are probably bills of some sort he's ignoring. He's never owned a place of his own, but he remembers the whole song and dance with his parents, pouring over electricity and water bills at the kitchen table and debating which ones would be easier to argue—arguing with each other about who had dropped the ball on making enough sales that month.

Considering his new business is based out of the house, he can't risk losing power, which leaves him hunting around Ford's stuff for old utility bills—with no luck. His brother is probably the least organized person he knows, and it looks like that hasn't changed much. Somehow the man can keep up a meticulous system for his bookcase that doesn't make sense to anyone else but can't keep important documents in a folder somewhere. Hell, Stan would take a messy drawer.

He practically tears the house apart but can't find anything, getting increasingly pissed with every upturned cabinet—pissed at Ford for not taking better care of his house, pissed that he's not even here to deal with this, pissed that Stan's now actively seeking out bills to pay like some kind of lunatic. By the time he finally finds a number for Gravity Falls' one electricity company in the yellow pages, he's mad enough to curse out the employee on the other end when he informs him they have no record of an account for Stanford Pines.

"Then how the hell do I have power?!" he yells before realizing it's probably in his best interest to not reveal the fact that Ford has somehow slipped through the cracks and ended up with free power this whole time.

When the guy tries to talk Stan into setting up a new account, he quickly hangs up. 

So it's a mistake, probably—one actually working out in Stan's favor. Or Ford set up a generator somewhere he's yet to find. Either way, he just has to hope whatever's keeping the lights on doesn't decide to crap out on him soon; he could use the extra money he'd waste on bills right now. The Hut isn't that successful.

"Please," he says weakly, not quite sure who or what he's talking to. The concept of electricity itself, maybe. "Just—don't go out."

Maybe it's just his imagination, but the light above him seems to burn a little brighter in response.

Whatever. Grief works in weird ways.

–

It becomes harder to shake it off as just grief. 

Sometimes when the endless slog of the portal is getting to him, the lights burn brighter. Despite never paying a gas bill of any kind, the house stays warm around him. He never seems to lose anything, either—no matter how many times he misplaces something, it turns up right when he needs it. Sometimes it's not even something he's looking for: painkillers on the kitchen table after he smashes his fingers, Around the World in Eighty Days sitting innocently on his bed just when he starts thinking he needs to take his mind off of things for a bit. Once, he mentions missing the ocean out loud and turns the corner to see a painting of just that where he knows it wasn't before.

Terrifyingly, the first thing he thinks of are ghosts. Maybe Ford hadn't even made it to whatever lay on the other side of that portal. Maybe he'd just stuck around where Stan couldn't see him anymore.

He dares to ask one night, sitting in the kitchen where he'd first felt the feeling of not being alone, almost too scared to get an answer. The room ripples around him in reply. The light above him flickers. Stan watches it, trying to swallow down the sudden dryness in his mouth.

"Blink once for yes, twice for no," he says.

No, the house flickers.

He drops his head into his arms and just breathes. Squeezes his eyes shut so they stop feeling so wet. "Okay," he says. "Not the weirdest thing I've seen, I guess."

The way the light flares feels almost like a laugh.

Sentient Mystery Shack, who is really biased towards Stan, so when Ford tells Stan he has to give it back after the summer it’s on sight.

Ford keeps tripping over nothing, nothing is where it's supposed to be and somehow he keeps running into closets when he tries to go outside.

But the worst part, the WORST part is that Ford's lightbulb just won't. Work. No matter what he does it keeps flickering and exploding.

Ford is spiraling. 

There is no reason why it shoudln’t work. All his trial runs work perfectly. He’s already checked the Shacks wiring three times and relearned this dimensions science from the ground up. 

Nothing works.

The Rift? Bill? The impending apocalypse? Eating? Sleep? Who cares about that. 

WHY. WONT. THE. LIGHTBULB. WORK???

It doesn’t help that Stan keeps laughing at him.

“Then you do it!” Ford eventually snaps at Stan.

Stan shrugs and with a little song under his breath screws his own lightbulb in. It works perfectly.

Stanford screams.

[peace-coast-island]

Diary of a Junebug

Collecting sparkly blue shells and falling into the mechanical keyboard rabbit hole

Thanks to a good deal I got from a secondhand store, I’ve unexpectedly fallen into the world of mechanical keyboard modding. Before, I never really thought that much about mechanical keyboards other than thinking they’re cool and I like the aesthetic.

What I didn’t expect was to be fascinated by the process of building and modding a keyboard. Not did I expect to become interested in what makes a keyboard “thock”, which means make it sound sort of deep and marble-y. Who knew you could do so many things to make a keyboard sound different?

From what I gather, part of the reason why building keyboards is a thing is to make it to what you want, whether it’s sound or the feel of pressing the keys. I’ve also seen people make their own custom keycaps and I think they’re cool. As much as I’d want to try to make my own keycaps, I don’t have the confidence to attempt to. Resin is something I’ve heard to be temperamental, so you have to really, really follow the directions to a T. Even though I consider myself a crafty person, I don’t think I’m ready to attempt resin yet.

So I managed to get a 65% mechanical keyboard from a secondhand store for - wait for it… $11. Yes, I’m serious. A mechanical keyboard for gaming with RGB and is hot swap for $11. I was curious about the actual price and was surprised to find out that it costs $70. To think I managed to get a pretty much new electronic like that for only the fraction of the price? That’s definitely a steal!

Since the keyboard was just plain white, I decided to look into keycaps. I naively thought I could DIY some keycaps like I’ve seen on social media, only to be scared off by resin and the amount of work that goes into making it. And from there, I got curious about learning about mechanical keyboard like how to build one, what switches are, the different kinds of keycaps… Yeah, I ended up getting really interested in mechanical keyboards for some reason. Not that I’m complaining - it’s good to have interests in things you’d never expect to gravitate towards.

It’s one thing to fall into a rabbit hole yourself, it’s another to meet up other people who fell in too. And so it’s fitting that we put together a sort of mini event involving sparkly blue shells that can be converted into various electrical parts. Isabelle and Arabella sent me the blueprints for keyboard parts, so it’s safe to say that we now have access to pretty much everything we need to build a keyboard from scratch, as well as make our own custom keycap sets.

Joining us for this event are Pai, Aymn, Latte, Sadiki, Amina, Nabil, and Nahla. Sadiki, Nahla, and Pai were meeting with Safiyya and Aymn regarding the Lunar Forest’s affairs while Nabil and Amina tagged along. Pai was really here just as a witness since Connie has to stay in Marippe to take care of stuff over there. She has a lot to say as arriving there was pretty eventful.

Pai said the trouble started when Connie decided to enter Marippe through north Adrikha where it’s basically just barren desert. There’s a reason why that route is rarely used. The more conventional way is to travel through Petrichor Harbor, which is in west Marippe. However, it’s usually hectic over there while Port Maritoise in the south is a lot cheaper if you’re coming from the north desert.

There’s other routes from Adrikha that lead to Maritoise, but Pai said Connie insisted on taking the north desert route since it’s shorter in distance. While that is technically true, that doesn’t mean it was easy. However, that was nothing compared to what they had to deal with later on when they actually arrived there.

As with traveling anywhere new and unfamiliar, you’re bound to get lost. It turns out that Marippe has a unique transportation system and Connie and Pai made the mistake of not doing any research about it ahead of time. The system’s actually pretty straightforward, but obviously, if you’re not from there, it takes time to figure out. So that was their first mistake.

So it took Connie and Pai a while to figure out the layout of the station, which Pai said was embarrassing as the elevator was literally right in the back. And then they misread the boat schedule and ended up on the wrong line, which they didn’t realize until Pai accidentally fell off while looking around. Fortunately, she wasn’t hurt badly as she just fell in the water and it wasn’t too deep.

Apparently, the conductors are used to it as most people disregard safety rules. And yes, some people jump off halfway to get to certain places, so it’s not prohibited or anything. In other words, they take that into consideration, so falling off shouldn’t pose as a great danger. At least Connie and Pai were the only passengers there. I’d hate to imagine what it would be like if other people were there as it would be even more embarrassing.

And it turns out that they were in the wrong spot. So they had to go back to where they started. By then, Connie and Pai were getting frustrated since they’ve been on their feet for over a day now. They were arguing over directions when some formal looking guy approached them. To their surprise, he offered to help out by escorting them there even though he was headed towards the opposite direction.

A couple days later, it turns out that the man who helped them out happens to be the esteemed Guardian of Justice and Order. Basically, he’s one of, if not the most powerful person in Marippe. Pai said for someone who’s a big deal, he doesn’t act like it. She said he’s kinda like Mei where people go quiet when they show up, and they seem kinda confused about that because they probably don’t really understand their status and how the general public sees them.

While on the way back to Maritoise, they had an unexpected encounter when Her Excellency Lady Roselyne jumped on the boat to give Connie and Pai a warm welcome to Marippe. Pai said the whole thing was weird. Like, she was apparently spying on them and waiting for the right moment to show herself. Then she declared a duel with Connie out in the streets, only to immediately backtrack when Connie agreed. From there, things got really awkward and she hopped off.

Yeah, I wouldn’t know how to respond to that either. Pai said it was understandable that the justice didn’t say anything when she showed up because she seems like a handful to deal with. Nahla doesn’t know Lady Roselyne personally, but she did warn Connie about her “interesting” personality and to watch out for that. From how Pai describes her, Lady Roselyne sounds like an overly dramatic theater kid who acts like the world is a stage and they’re the center of attention.

In other words, if they need intel, they’re better off seeing Justice Fontaine since he’s direct and clearly knows what he’s talking about. Pai says he’s serious and no nonsense in public, but kinda awkward and sorta clueless in private. He does seem like a polite and reliable person so Pai has a feeling that they’ll be working together a lot.

After going back to Maritoise, Connie and Pai met Beryl and Ruby, twin performers who are kind of a big deal. Since Beryl and Ruby were headed towards the city too, they let Connie and Pai tag along with them. Fortunately, that ride went smoothly. And they even ran into Eloise, the reporter they met in Bonsai, who happens to be a fan of Beryl and Ruby.

Of course, stuff happened afterwards, which is why Connie has to stay in Marippe for a bit. Beryl pretty much gave them a grand tour of the city as well as some interesting intel. In return, Connie helped bail him and Ruby out when they got caught in some conspiracy.

For legal reasons, Pai can’t talk too much about that aside from it being somewhat linked to an even bigger problem regarding the country as a whole. All she knows for certain is that something’s been wrong for a long while and that Justice Fontaine and Lady Roselyne have been trying to investigate that for some time. Now that they kinda have something, they’re trying to figure out what to do next, if possible since they still have so little information. Sounds like they’re in a difficult position.

As for Beryl, Ruby, and their younger brother Topaz who’s not a performer, they’re currently under investigation for a different matter. After all, there’s a reason why Beryl was targeted specifically, which is because he and his siblings have ties to a certain organization that has a questionable reputation. The fact that they hid that from Connie and the general public is a huge deal as it made things more complicated in terms of their innocence being called into question.

All Pai can say is that Beryl had his reasons, which is why Connie still went out of their way to help him despite not trusting him completely. Pai doesn’t think he’s a bad guy, but she notes that he’s a performer, so it’s hard to tell when he’s being genuine or not. With Ruby and Topaz, it’s even harder for her to tell since they’re not as outspoken and are more in the background.

Aside from that, Pai says the siblings were super friendly and helpful, so she hopes things will be less awkward later on. The Underground’s already a divided faction as it is, so it wouldn’t be fair to judge the siblings on that alone.

Well, that sounds like a wild ride. Connie and Pai are pretty used to kind of thing where they start off with wit one, then it leads to another, and it kinda escalates. Right now is kinda like the calm before the storm part as the Justice is planning something, leaving Connie and Pai with no choice but to wait around. Whatever’s going on, I hope they get to the bottom of it.

Overall, it sounds like Connie and Pai are having an eventful time in Marippe. It won’t be long until the others will be dispatched there for missions there once things hopefully settle down. I’m looking forward to visiting there too.

The sparkly blue shells kinda remind me of geodes. They’re also kinda big and heavy, so we can only gather a few at a time. One shell can make a lot of small parts, meaning we can easily get a set of keycaps or switches in one go.

Like me, Aymn, Sadiki, and Nahla have fallen into the rabbit hole of mechanical keyboard modding. Aymn has a small collection of keyboards for things like gaming, work, and personal use. He’s dabbled a bit in modding, usually some tweaks here and there to improve the typing experience. He’s also taken commissions for friends like the Knights, though he says he’s no expert. So it makes sense for him to take the lead in helping us build our keebs.

Sadiki and Nahla have dabbled a bit in keyboard modding too and they want to dive deeper into it. Sadiki’s been looking into getting a gaming keyboard, as well as building a mini keyboard for traveling. He’s also got a small collection of custom keycaps he commissioned from various artists that he hopes to use.

Nahla’s made keycaps with resin, which she said was as temperamental as they say. She made a couple and about half turned out good, the other half looked nice, but were unusable. She has flowers, mooncakes, cute creatures, sparkles - all the cute stuff that adds charm to a keeb. If the idea of resin isn’t scaring me off, I’d definitely want to try making keycaps!

She’s also looked into some unusual mods to improve the sound of a keyboard like using pennies and resin, for example. I’ve seen foam and tape pop up a lot as stuff you can do to improve the sound if you’re interested in a more deeper “thock” sound rather than the high pitches clacky sound most keyboards have.

To think that we’re putting random things inside a keyboard to change how it sounds. I mean, that’s kinda the point of modding. We make tweaks and do stuff here and there to give us a better typing experience. Because I’m on the computer a lot, I want to have an enjoyable typing experience, which I think will help improve my productivity. Also, I just like the idea of customizing a keyboard with pretty keycaps.

I have to say, though, lubing switches is tedious. While crafting is a magical process, we haven’t figured out how to make switches that are already lubed. I went over the blueprints with Isabelle, Arabella, and Reese several times, but we were unable to tweak it the way we wanted. Basically, the some of the switches would come out deformed or don’t work properly. I don’t know the hows or whys other than there’s limits to crafting stuff. Maybe there really isn’t a rhyme or reason, like many things in life. No use looking into it too much. If we gotta lube, then we’re gonna lube.

So we played around with switches. There’s like a million different kinds in all kinds of colors. There’s linear, tactile, clicky - there so many possibilities, it can get a bit overwhelming. I found out that I’m a tactile person, which seems to be the popular one.

Building a keyboard takes time, but I think the end result is worth it when it turns out good. I’m still very much a newbie when it comes to modding, so I mostly stuck to the manual. Foam does improve the sound and get rid of the pingy hollow sound, which I prefer. I also prefer thicker keycaps as the sound’s more muted and less clacky. Sometimes you have to play around to figure out what you like, which is basically a lot of trial and error.

I think my favorite part is the keycaps because that’s how you can really personalize your keeb. That’s what got me interested in keyboards in the first place. I like pastels and muted colors - anything that adds a nice pop of color, really. I also like using keycaps with cute doodles to make it look more fun. Like for the arrow keys, instead of arrows it’s hearts, or something. Or the esc key being a cute doodle like boba or a coffee cup. Just little things like that to add some personality and charm.

I hope my new keyboard helps improve my productivity. The fact that I really enjoy the typing experience on it is a good sign in my opinion.

Read on AO3

[batmansymbol]

Panicking about climate change? Consider subscribing to a carbon removal or offset service.

What with the heatwaves, the fires, and the billionaires on their private jets, I've been seeing more climate doomism on here than usual. I get it. Everything feels terrible. And it can be so frustrating to see stuff about personal carbon impact when you're already washing your laundry on cold cycles, biking to work, eating less meat, etc., and meanwhile the US Senate is killing energy initiatives.

But if you have climate anxiety, I HIGHLY recommend subscribing to a carbon-negative project. My carbon subscriptions help me sleep at night. They have been my antidote to feeling helpless.

Some quick math. In the US, there are 74.5 million Netflix subscribers. And in 2020, the US had CO2 emission averages of 14.2 tonnes annually per capita.

So, if every US American with a Netflix subscription took out a subscription that offset their emissions, that'd be 1.06 billion tonnes annually: over 3% of total global emissions (34b tonnes). And that's just if a subsection of the US population did this.

Obviously this is an oversimplification. Carbon offsets are admittedly more expensive than Netflix. Also, offsetting usually works by funding projects elsewhere to reduce global emissions, so it's overall less efficient than, I don't know, the US getting its shit together and funding public transit, which would cut emissions at the source.

But the point remains: collectivism does exist, and we CAN do something about the emissions that we're unavoidably responsible for.

Enter these services, all of which do carbon offsets that are effective, additional, verifiable, and permanent.

WREN. I subscribe to Wren. You pick a dollar amount per month, and they funnel it toward carbon offset projects worldwide. They offer a carbon calculator, personal suggestions for how to reduce your footprint, and are generally awesome. An example of their projects: in the last six months, they enabled 12 Indigenous communities in the Amazon to reduce local deforestation by a staggering 84%, preserving 180,000 acres.

CLIMEWORKS. Climeworks is more expensive per kg removed, but I subscribe to this one too and LOVE this project. It's direct capture, meaning their factories suck CO2 out of the air and sequester it in rock. I want this to scale SO, SO badly. Climeworks doesn't just prevent or reduce emissions—it's carbon NEGATIVE, which is massive. And it's fully permanent: once the Climeworks facilities sequester the carbon in rock, it's there forever (unlike, say, tree-planting, which relies on the lifespan and health of the tree). Climeworks, like Wren, is a no-minimum subscription. You could do a dollar a month.

ECOLOGI. Pretty similar to Wren, but with high emphasis on tree-planting! Ecologi is big on reforestation, and other recent projects include access to clean cookstoves and providing renewable fuel to farmers. They do tree-planting gifts that would be an awesome option around holiday time.

NORI. A carbon-removal marketplace that connects its users to farmers, who submit plans for carbon removal and storage! This one has more of a businessy bent to it, but you can outright buy a tonne of CO2 storage in a transactional way.

To finish off with some good news: the US has joined China and Europe in hitting the 5% tipping point for electric car adoption, the costs of renewable energy have cratered, and China is set to hit its emissions peak earlier than anticipated (huge for the world's largest emitter).

Hang in there.

please feel free to share this post!

[slashingdisneypasta]

Slashers and: Arm Wrestling

Rules are simple! You arm wrestle until you admit defeat. Also, no re-do’s.

Want arm wrestle them yourself? Check here!

💪 First of all- Chucky and Tiffany disqualify themselves. Sorry, but they're… you know… a lil diminutive in his preferred state. But that means they get to be the judges! They're short and so can stand on the table and get a good look at things XDD Tiff, give us the details please.

💪 Monty doesn’t really try and basically lets Thomas beat him (Not that he could have beta Thomas in the first place XD ) and then drops out, because he doesn’t wanna go against Hoyt… Can you blame him?? Last time he was on Hoyt’s murder side, he lost both his legs.

💪 Drayton… oh, this whole damn thing is his fault, in the first place XD He bet that Bubba could beat all their asses at arm wrestlin’, and then proceeded to get annoying about it, until Michael and Freddy had enough of it- which, admittedly, didn’t take much doing. He falls out next, though, losing to every single one of his opponents (Jason lays the older man’s hand down gently because he’s his pseudo-brother, Freddy tricks him into screaming at them about something and letting go, Chop natters on in his face until he just let’s go to get way from him before the count down even began, etc) until Luda crushes his knuckles and he’s gotta forfeit XD *Sweatdrop*

💪 Billy... oh, Billy. Come on- pfft, please. I have very little faith; I dunno.

💪 Nubbins is out next, though that really took some doing XD It wasn’t until he drew a straight razor on fucken Michael for not forfeiting if he’s too weak to even move him and Michael snaps it in half with his bare hand. Nubbins would rather record the action, anyway…

💪 Next to bow out (Gracefully, because all she wanted to do really was show she was a force not be fucked with- she couldn’t care less about being the ‘champ’. So she gets out while she’s ahead and unbeaten) is Luda Mae. Momma is strong, guys. She’s a cook, right? A home cook at least, so she’s always lifting heavy skillets and big ol bags of flour, whipping stuff (Especially since she doesn’t have access to an electric mixer!), and kneading dough?? She’s got great forearm strength and absolutely crushes Drayton’s knuckles XD She beats Drayton, obviously (My god, Hoyt and Monty were filled with so much pride XD They were so damn chuckly about it- and honestly Chucky laughed his ass off, too), Chop Top, Billy and Hoyt. Then she got up, and asked if anyone wanted any tea.

💪 Chop Top then got distracted by the tea… XDD He’s surprisingly strong, those wiry arms of his offering tough muscle rather than scrawniness, and he’s too stuck in his own head to care too much about whatever dirty trick the deep-fried Christmas tree thinks to throw at him. He beats Drayton, Stu, Nubbins, Hoyt and Freddy.

💪 Then Stu is in the same boat as Chop! They're both tall, and wiry- he lasts a little longer, though, cuz you know... obviously, he's got a few more sandwiches, at his picnic. He also enjoys tea, though, and watching the others as well cuz this is awesome! XD He first beats Billy, though XDDD

💪 Next is Hoyt! He, like Chop, also beat Freddy- but did it quite differently XD Freddy starts taunting him and then… suddenly… feels something? Prodding into his stomach? He looks down and its Hoyts fucken shot gun under the table, his finger on the trigger and a daring look in his scary mug. Say another damn word, you over-done grit. Anyway though- Hoyt’s pretty strong (I sure wouldn’t challenge him, he survived boot camp) but he’s only a man and could never beat Michael or Jason. He’s sure mad about it, but gives up.

💪 Okay now… Bubba is without a doubt the strongest mortal Slasher (Not including Thomas- they are the same person)… he’s always carrying that big ass chainsaw, and liftin’ stuff for Drayton ‘Noodle Arms’ Sawyer, too, like sacks of suspicious meat and a step stool… and he beats everyone (Apart from Michael 🙄. And he doesn’t go up against Jason)… until he gets to the cheating Bastard we call Freddy. Freddy basically… um… may have traumatised him a tad in order to win. ON THE BRIGT SIDE THO- Bubba totally broke Hoyt’s wrist :D :D :D

💪 Now we have Freddy. Okay so- Freddy knows he’s physically he’s not up to scratch, compared to some of the others (Jason, Bubba, Thomas- even Hoyt), and his strength is his brain… so he decides to play dirty. Yep? Shock horror, for who could have foreseen this coming? I know XD He taunts, he teases, he kicks under the table, he bribes Chucky to call him the winner when its close (Happened one time- with Hoyt), and he wore the glove when it came to Michael. Jason inevitably takes him down though after what happened with Bubba- the table actually smashed.

💪 Thomas on the opposite end of the spectrum plays nobly, and by a set of rules (LUDA RAISED HIM RIGHT)- and he’s an absolute monster of a man so he goes far of course XD Unfortunately, in the end, he got exasperated by Michael (Like Nubbins- and I’ll tell you why in a moment) and raises his hands in surrender. I’m out.

💪 Now, we don’t actually have a winner between our last two opponents… for one simple reason.

💪 Michael cannot lose… but he also can’t win, against Jason.

💪 See, where Michael lacks in physical structure- he makes up in sheer stubbornness. He refuses to lose. He will not move. Not even if Jason or Thomas absolutely crush his fingers like pipe cleaners, not even if Freddy slices them almost to smithereens. And he certainly wont move if Hoyt shoves a gun in his crotch (But he will give him a dirty look). So, he won’t be able to push Jason down (Bubba or Thomas or apparently Nubbins- either) as per arm wrestling rules… but they will never be able to push him down, either. So… stalemate.

💪 Jason on the other hand is the whole package XD He’s strong as an ox, like Bubba and Thomas (Living in the woods all those years really did wonders). But he’s also headstrong as hell- like Michael of course. And he can also be crafty like Fuckface Freddy.. In normal circumstances, he would be unstoppable ^^  

💪 (So in my heart of hearts, Jason is the winner)

[strawberrycinema]

Hi! I’ve taken Ember on planes many times now, and I’ve got some advice based on good and bad experiences that have actually happened to us. Obviously there’s the general advice of making sure the carrier fits under the seat, checking with your airline about their policies, etc. These are more specific tips.

If you have money to spend, the thing you want to spend it on is the carrier. Something easy to clean, breathable, that will fit under the seat and protect your pet in the event of turbulence or somebody accidentally hitting it with their foot or luggage.

The first thing you need to be prepared for is the car rides to and from the airport. If you’re using your own vehicle, it could be worthwhile to have an accessible litter box for him. Especially after the flight he is going to need to have the option to relieve himself. He may be overwhelmed as well so making a space where he can both stretch his legs and curl up and hide is best.

Line Ricky’s carrier with one of those puppy training pads for potential bathroom accidents. Tape it down under whatever blanket you have for him. Have an extra in your bag for the return trip and just in case you need to change it.

Some airports have pet rest stations. Identify where they are, and see if you can call ahead to find out what they have. They haven’t been particularly useful to me except to have a place where Ember can get out of her carrier and stretch while I keep an eye on the door to make sure she can’t get away.

Keep him hydrated! Planes are dry and Hot. Not over hydrated tho. You don’t want him to pee. In the end, though, a little accident is better than being dehydrated for a cat. Just make sure it doesn’t get on the plane carpet or seat or anything else (hence the puppy pad).

They have made me take Ember out of her carrier to go through security every time. They make me hold her as I go through the machine. If your cat is resistant to that, I’d let them know that there’s a risk of him getting loose and ask for an alternate way of going through security.

Stuff you will need:

an empty water bottle that you can fill after going through security. If your cat is like Ember he may not want to drink a lot, so it doesn’t have to be big

A silicone water bowl that you can empty out and stuff back in your bag. Does not have to be very big

A couple of empty plastic bags. There may be accidents, and you may have to hold on to the trash for a long time before being able to dispose of it.

Baby wipes. If your cat has an accident you may need to clean him up, or his carrier, or something else. These go in the aforementioned plastic bags if you don’t have another way to dispose of them.

It’s also worthwhile to have one or two small towels for drying-off. This can go in the plastic bag if it gets soiled. I like to have one for mopping up water and one for drying off.

Hand sanitizer for you. Obviously.

Lint brush for you.

Portable electric fan, because it can get hot under the seats

Something to drape over the carrier when you’re waiting in line. It’s loud in the airport and it’ll be nice for him to have some quiet if he needs it. Check periodically to make sure he isn’t getting overheated

Optional: the manufacturers behind the thunder jacket have a calming paw goop you can put on his paws that he licks off. Ember likes it a lot and it seems to work, but it may just be that licking something calms her.

Thunder jacket did NOT work for Ember. She has long fur and got too overheated.

Sometimes flight attendants are understanding and will let me have Ember’s carrier on my lap so I can speak to her and reach in to pet her. Ask them and let them know it’s to keep the pet calm and quiet.

Bad things that have happened: the first time Ember had gabapentin (the anti anxiety med from the vet), she pooped herself on the plane. It didn’t get anywhere, but I did have to clean her butt at our layover because the gabapentin made her sleep the whole time. It was freaky for me not to be able to wake her up.

Other bad thing that happened: a flight had no A/C and she got overheated. I had to take her out of the carrier and put an electric fan in front of her face and paws and dab water on her mouth. The flight attendant brought ice water for her and was very understanding of me taking her out, but be prepared just in case people are hateful. Ember was fine, but obviously exhausted after the flight and we had to keep an eye on her. Bad signs are if your cat is panting, drooling, or if his paws are sweating.

If you want to go the gabapentin route, it may be easier. Your cat is less likely to get worked up about the noise and light and strange smells. The downside is he might not be able to control his bladder, and you might be freaked out seeing him out of it. Going without medication runs the risk of him being upset and crying the whole flight, which will make you worried and will make other people potentially annoyed, and obviously he will be unhappy as well. Just be prepared for whatever decision you make, and talk to your vet about your choices and potential side effects or things to be worried about.

Make sure your destination has a dark place to hide with a litter box ready when you arrive. When I travel with Ember I arrive straight the the bathroom where there’s a litter box, water, food, and somewhere for her to hide ready to go. I comfort her and then shut the door when I leave so I can be sure she’s hidden in a known location where she won’t be underfoot in the unpacking chaos. Then I go back with her when things are settled and let her have the option to come out when she’s ready.

Taking a pet on a flight is as stressful and manageable as I imagine taking a toddler is. You have to be aware of them at all times, you have to make decisions with them in mind, you have to be prepared for there to be poop or crying or attempted escapes. But many cats are great traveling! Aside from the two really bad experiences Ember and I had, we mostly go through the whole thing with only a little more trouble than I have flying by myself, and significantly less trouble than I have flying with my family. I hope this hasn’t stressed you out more than you already were. I was terrified taking Ember with me on a plane the first time. She was terrified at first. But lots of people saw her and asked to talk to her and babies giggled seeing her and we made it out tired but perfectly fine.

Good luck to you and Ricky! Safe travels.

Hi Ricky's mom again, Ricky is going to be going on a plane soon which he's never done before, he'll be with us the whole time and I want to make sure he's as comfortable as possible so if you have recommendations on how to best make him comfortable on the flight I'd love to hear them (he will have his blanket, his mousie, some extra cat nip mousies, and we plan on occasionally feeding him treats)

[kanoyachi]

okay time to talk more about the inarizaki band au :3 look at the art again :3

background stuff? there's a lot under the cut

- aran's mom owns a small local music store, she had been a long time flute teacher and sales manager there and became the owner when the previous owners retired, which was around the time aran was eight years old.

- the miya twins' mom teaches musical theater at a local middle school in addition to giving voice lessons at the music store! because she wasn't going to leave her two young kids alone at home while she was at the music store, she would bring them to work and they'd just hang out inside the shop. that's how they met aran, who was also around the shop all the time because of his mom!

- the twins were just generally rowdy so their mom thought learning an instrument would help them get their energy out. they got to play around with some of the instruments in the music store (under the supervision and instruction of employees of course, who loved them), and osamu gravitated to the bass because he liked the way the sound reverberated in his chest when the played it, while atsumu liked all of the instruments.

- starting from age nine, the twins both got lessons in guitar, drums, and bass, with the condition that they eventually pick one instrument, but osamu stopped guitar lessons after two sessions and drums after six, but kept with the bass for about a few months before mainly learning things himself. atsumu stopped guitar and bass after one session each, but kept with drum lessons for about a year because he didn't have a set at home. he gets a small electric drum kit (one of the cheaper ones) for his twelfth birthday and from then on he'd spend hours daily playing.

- aran's mom has a massive cd collection at home, and aran would spend so much time listening to them as a kid, and would just lay on the floor and sing along with entire albums in one sitting. his mom has a lot of chaka khan's albums so he sang a LOT of her songs. he may be a dude but you best believe that he is every woman for the four minutes the song is on. all this singing (and the vocal lessons he got for a short period of time when he was around 12) made his diaphragm really strong. his regular speaking voice is a pretty normal volume but he can easily make himself heard over loud noises. guy can PROJECT. he starts learning the guitar at around the same time he gets vocal lessons!

- the music store puts on open mics, and aran asks the twins if they want to perform with him sometime. they obviously say yes because they love aran and also performing. they do a cover of she's a rebel by green day and it's a tiny bit of a mess—osamu thought the song was over about two seconds before it was actually over and atsumu messes up half of the major fills but he keeps time and aran forgot the lyrics to the second verse for like two seconds but they all had fun so they decide they'll do it again.

- suna was introduced to rock music and all its related subgenres as a young kid, thanks to a cousin of his who loved it. he spent a lot of time on music forums in middle school thanks to having unsupervised access to the internet (which affected him in a number of ways), but but when he was thirteen decided "listening to music as a coping mechanism is not enough i have to eat it [and play it myself]," and saved up his allowance for a while to get a ridiculously cheap guitar secondhand. he learns how to play with youtube videos and articles, but a lot of times just either learning songs by ear or looking up tabs for hard songs and brute forcing it.

- around a year after suna starts learning how to play the guitar, his family moves to amagasaki because of his dad's new job. a year after that he goes to the music shop after school to get his guitar restrung because the strings are beyond dead.

- kita is the one on shift when suna brings his guitar in, and is appalled by the state of it. he figured out pretty quickly that suna never learned how to properly take care of an instrument so he. doesn't really lecture him, but explains very thoroughly what he should be doing to take care of his instrument. it feels like a lecture to suna, though.

- kita's granny plays the koto and knows how to restring one, as well as do maintenance on violins and shamisen. as a kid, kita would be mesmerized watching her work with the instruments, which she usually fixed for family friends. in his first year of high school, he gets a job maintaining the instruments and doing repairs at the music store aran's mom owns, although the repairs he does are mainly limited minor adjustments and restrings. he's still being taught how to do more major things and work on a wider variety of instruments!

- kita didn't have a ton of other things to work on, so suna is just waiting around the shop for the next hour or so for his guitar to be done, testing out different guitars and stuff when he meets aran, who recognized that suna's uniform is from the same school he goes to, and they talk about music and guitar for a bit.

- aran and suna meet again when the latter is back at the music store to buy picks and a new guitar strap and aran happens to have his guitar so he invites suna to play with him and suna says yes because well. why not. so they play a song they both know and have a lot of fun!

i havent fully decided on how the twins meet suna and he gets fully like. adopted into their little band but. yeah!

[munchflix]

MUNCHFLIX - HELLRAISER (2022)

IMDB BLURB: A take on Clive Barker's 1987 horror classic where a young woman struggling with addiction comes into possession of an ancient puzzle box, unaware that its purpose is to summon the Cenobites.

WARNINGS: Gore, sex, butts, flesh suits, drug use, addiction themes, and general Clive Barker levels of weirdness. GIFs under the cut contain gore-type stuff

RATING: HAWT.

Munch: I've already seen this twice. I would happily see it six more times. And I might.

Biscuits: We have already both seen this, we watched it together but we're gonna watch it again for Munchflix and pretend we haven't seen it.

M: And Biscuits is gonna play with slime and combat his crippling margarita addiction.

B: I'm not an alchoholic.

M: Denial is the first stage. We open in Belgrade, Serbia. I don't know why.

B: I don't know what Serbia has to do with it. There's a lady picking up a mysterious package from a random guy. She's shopping on behalf of Mr. Voight. And then we're at some weird party which is being put on by Mr. Voight.

M: And then there's this hunky twink guy. I think he's possibly a sex worker. There's some people just fucking in the corner. He comes and talks to the mystery woman from earlier, we can't tell if he's just really into cougars or just really out of place at the party. They establish that Mr. Voight would be really happy to meet this guy.

B: He's into twinks, apparently.

M: Or murder! Probably murder, this IS a Hellraiser movie.

B: And if you DO drugs, you go to hell before you die.

M: The twink gets access to the super secret puzzle box vault and we see the Lament, which is fucking BITCHIN' in this movie. It has so many cool ass phases and for once, c-gen is on my side, even though most of the effects on the box look practical. I'd love to know which it is. Either way, I love it. It's really cool to see the box get to do something more than just rotate once and then shoot out cheesy electricity.

Fun box, oh fun box, small and square and dark.

B: The Twink is like hey this is a really cool puzzle box thing you have, mind if I tinker with it? The Twink is like - hey if I solve it do I get a prize? and rich guy is like, I do! And this sets off NO red flags for this twink guy. He gets stabbed. UH OH.

M: Well that's what he gets for playing with demonic puzzle boxes in basement of a rich weirdo's mansion. I mean...the warning signs were here. Now he's going on a magical drug trip and the box is reconfiguring, and oopsie daisy...there's chains coming out of a hell place.

B: Is it inappropriate to put Fleetwood Mac's The Chain on a hellraiser playlist?

M: I'm not sure there are like...a lot of appropriate songs to put on a hellraiser playlist, but I put Rub Some Bacon on It on a Hannibal playlist so...I might not be the right person to ask.

B: He should've just rubbed some bacon on the Lament.

M: I wonder what would happen if you just like....used fake blood on it. Like stab a pig with the Lament. Would the Cenobites be like super pissed or just like, well - gotta take this pig to Hell!

B: *makes a margarita anyway* so Voight is praying to what we assume is the cenobite god, Leviathan, while the twink slowly perishes in the background and OH SEX.

M: This line kills me though...How's my speed? Is it good? WHO ASKS THAT DURING SEX? So we're introduced to Riley and her boyfriend Trevor who we kept calling Tim. And her brother and his boyfriend and their nondescript roommate.

Note: Munch specifically requested that I not make a gif of him saying this line, so I took a screenshot of it instead :)

B: Her roommate...exists. And there's Colin - fuck, Colin is such a gay name. Might as well have named him Sebastian. Or Preston. Francis. I can say this because I'm gay.

M: Okay but Colin is a mensch, he deserves better than what he gets but no spoilers.

B: Riley's overprotective brother Matt doesn't like Trevorimothy, because he seems like a junkie dude and Riley is a recovering addict.

M: These two obviously have a very healthy relationship. Riley blames everyone for her problems and Matt is a controlling douche so...

B: But Matt is right. No spoilers though. Timmy is bad. So Riley goes to hang out with her shitty boyfriend Tyler but he has an IDEA. They're gonna go steal a thing. And make lots of money. He knows of an abandoned storage unit that has a billionaires shit in it.

M: This is not at all suspicious. This part of the movie really confused me. It will make sense later but right now it's like, why did they ever think this was cool.

B: This guy looks like Chris Evans if they turned the Chris Evans slider down to like...50 percent.

M: *laughs* You right...you right.

50% opacity Chris Evans

B: Riley looks SO much like this girl I went to high school with, it's bugging me out.

M: Riley immediately abandons sobriety and starts boozing it up right before they go break into this storage unit, because that's a stunningly good idea.

B: The first step of a good heist is getting shitfaced.

M: So inside the storage unit, there is a single storage container. Which contains a single tiny vault, and inside that vault there's a BOX and inside that box there's another box but it's THE box. And again, none of this seems at all weird to Riley.

B: As the old saying goes, that's a bit sussy.

M: So hey here's the Lament, and we're gonna just take this. I'm sure it's worth something. It does have this like vantablack spot on it that I love because it just looks like a portal to nothing.

B: Matt and....Colin, are laying in bed, tits out, reading poetry to each other. This is what gay men do. They lay in bed and read Byron. But Riley is back.

M: And Matt is NOT gonna let this go. He's gotta go out there and yell at her. She's obviously drunk and lying about it but there's gonna be a fight.

B: Shitty apartment? This doesn't seem like that shitty of apartment! There's five bedrooms, Riley! But he's like, I don't care that you broke your elbow, and he kicks her out.

M: Colin is like, no don't go but Riley is outskie. She's gonna go make some BAD DECISIONS, that are gonna involve beating up her car, taking drugs and messing with a hellbox.

B: It looks like she walked like...a block away. She walked down the street to her car. Get out of my house! Okay fine! *walks down the street* She finds her secret stash of pills and pours them on the street and then is like, no wait I want my drugs.

M: Way better to be high while you're summoning demons, right? She downs three pills of unknown substance and goes and sits in the kiddie park a block away from her apartment to be all high and solve the Lament.

B: Ooh, the parts move. It's a puzzle! At least in this movie it does stuff.

M: I'm obsessed with this thing. Riley worries that she broke it but then immediately twists it up again. A blade pops out but somehow she avoids getting cut by it. This is gonna make some cenobites very unhappy. And then whoooooo the drugs kick in. For the record, if you haven't taken something in a long time, like say percocet, and then you pound three at once, you're gonna get high as shit. And not in a fun way.

B: And then pinhead is here and is like - that was your blade. This is my blade! It was meant for me! And then they literally open a hole into Riley.

M: I actually thought this was really cool. Basically turning her into a human Lament.

B: And the chains shoot out and grab Matt but nah, he's okay. Then he's like I gotta go find my sister. I don't gotta call her, she's only a block away from the house.

M: She literally is! Her car's right there! Oh shit there she is on the merry go round! That was easy. He grabs the box and accidentally stabs himself.

B: I don't know how he didn't notice the giant blade sticking out of it. Then he's like - I gotta go wash my hand right now in this stank ass bathroom. Oh yeah the box like, absorbs the blood in this one and then it starts moving on it's own.

M: We will later learn it is reconfiguring itself for a reason, because there's like 7 levels you gotta get through to get the cracker jack prize but no spoilers.

B: Oh yeah there's blood coming up out of the drain like that scene in IT, and then whoops! Hell.

M: Matt is seeing walls move around and Riley's still too stoned to know wtf is going on and then Matt SCRAEM. But she runs into the bathroom and he's gone.

B: The cops come and are like - you're high as fuck on drugs. Nothing seems out of the ordinary tho. Riley's like - oh, I know nothing. I was dead at the time. Leave me alone. Also hey there's my puzzle box.

M: Colin and roommate....Nora? Laura? Who knows. Anyway, they really wanna know where the fuck Matt is but Riley is telling them about hallucinatory monsters and bleeding hands and he went into the bathroom and just disappeared!

B: No spoilers but the roommate chick isn't that important to the movie.

M: Riley makes another good decision to run away to Treve's apartment but he's showering all sexy like so it's time for some more banging!

B: She's like no we must have sex immediately. She didn't even bring her stuff in.

M: Timbo is wildly unconcerned about his speed this time but it's moot because she's seeing cenobites.

Chatterer likes to watch

B: The one hallucination in this movie, but at least there's NO DETECTIVES.

M: I would not have loved this movie so much if there were detectives. I don't care if they were the coolest most well written detectives in the world.

B: Riley is like - hey check out this box we stole and Timmy is like - OH FUCK NO because he's a bad guy but no spoilers.

M: So they decide they gotta go figure out things about the box so they go this like hospice place to talk to Serena, the cougar from the beginning who got the box for Voight.

B: She's got cancer now or something now? We don't know why. They're like - we'd like to talk to you about our lord and saviour jesus christ.

M: But not really, they found a box and they'd like information, now! Too bad they're not detectives, they could be sitting this woman at a metal table with a single lamp playing good cop bad cop. It'd be epic. Best hellraiser movie ever.

B: But Serena does kinda know because she worked for Voight and she's like - no that box is pure evil. Trombo is being super rational right now and being like - Riley no we should really not be getting mixed up in all this box shit but Riley does not care.

This shot of the box moving inside the bag is pretty cool though.

M: Serena is harbinging really hard right now, telling them all about Voight seeing things and doing some evil shit. And then Serena is like - hey I'm just gonna take this hellbox because it's bad but then they fight over it and it gets turned again.

B: And then Serena gets stabbed which means she's gonna get dragged to hell now because that's how it works.

M: I actually have so many questions about how it works. Getting stabbed just sentences you to hell no matter what kind of person you were? There's no nothing, just helldeathpain forever because you got a cut? That's kinda fucked up.

B: I mean, the rules were pretty loose in the other films.

M: They never really do explain it very well in any of the mythos tbh. Draw your own conclusions. Meanwhile! Serena is about to have a very bad time because in this movie, getting stabbed means you goin' to hell. Riley and Tilda have fucked off to do..something else. And we get our first FUCKING TERRIFYING LOOK at the cenobites. This wheezing motherfucker is so scary to me. This death rattle noise and the exposed lungs, oh my god.

Nice lungs!

B: But the rotating torture pillar is back. And more cenobites!

M: I love that they are still very bondagey but they're literally clothed in flesh, it's honestly just the neatest thing to me. I love the look of the new ones.

B: She's looking up information about Mr. Voight on a search engine that looks like google but totally is not and she finds out that he disappeared under mysteeeeeeeeeerious circumstances, because of course he did. And a picture of his freaky millionaire house. Trevor is outside having a uh...phone call.

M: Apparently Voight was kinda kinky too, but we're not really surprised to hear that. Serena has also mysteriously disappeared.

B: It's been a minute since I had alchohol! When we did hellraiser revelations I was so drunk. Riley has deduced that the box is up to something. Colin is calling! Colin's callin. *snort laugh* Nobody appreciates my dad jokes. Colin is like Riley come back but she's not gonna because she's a woman on a mission and that mission is to uh....uh...do some shit with this box.

M: She accuses Trimothy of not believing her but he does, and he really does because he's fucking sus, and I'm kinda mad because I was rooting for him the whole movie. He's like the only dude who makes any sense in this movie.

B: Riley naturally drives all the way out to this crazy kinky ass millionaires sex mansion because that's a good idea.

M: She's made only good decisions this entire movie. I get that there's some allegories here about addiction but also, this box is obviously bad news and this millionaire guy was also obviously bad news. Riley just happens to find the one tiny window into this creepy lament configuration looking metal maze around the entire mansion. Natch.

B: *back with another margarita* what's happening?

M: *dies laughing*

B: She got into the mansion, okay. We got the house in a cage, we don't want it to get away.

Despite all its rage, it is still just a house in a cage.

M: Gotta keep my sex dungeon safe. Riley does what anybody in a horror movie would do and immediately just starts messing with shit. What does this switch do??? What does this one do??? Oh that one opens and closes weird doors. This one opens the skylight to Leviathan, god of Hell! Nifty.

B: Now she can unlock the front door. For reasons. She's gonna be like, yo Travis you gotta come see this shit. Oh yeah and she finds his creepy study which is totally intact and full of weird drawings of cenobites and tons of information just laying out about the box and hell for her to find.

M: Serena cleaned out his estate but not very well, apparently. We learn that Voight is well aware of the cenobites and box and all the configurations of the box. Each level represents a favor of some sort that can be curried from Hell if you get it throught all six configurations but no spoilers. I'd really love to see what all of these looked like.

B: And then she sees her dead brother but I guess she doesn't really know he's dead. He's just disappeared.

M: But it's not at all weird that he would also just be hanging out in the rich weirdo's mansion, but apparently he's missing some flesh and she's like OSHIT but then Colin and Troy and Roommate have all showed up.

B: How convenient. Riley is not leaving though, and Colin's gonna give her a pep talk. Riley wtf are you doing running off and running around abandoned mansions? Oh and Tony and ...N..ora are gonna go fuck around for a minute but this is actually important.

M: We know this movie is kinda slow, but believe me, the payoff at the end is fucking amazing. Stay with it.

B: Stuff happens. Trust us. Colin notices that Voight has a fuck dungeon. That's not really relevant. Now Nora is gonna do what people in a horror movie do and just press all these random weird switches! What could possibly go wrong! While Todd is drinking in the bathroom.

M: Nora opens a secret passage, because of course he has that. Colin is getting a quick overview of the lore.

B: The box offers a reward to whoever finishes it. Life, knowledge, love, sensation, resurrection, power. Long ago the six nations lived together in harmony....

What’s your pleasure, sir?

M: I'd really love to know like...what any of these are. Is knowledge just like infinite knowledge of pain? Is life just like eternal suffering? Wtf does resurrection do?

B: Who knows but if you have the final configuration the cenobites are like - what you want fam? And you're like uh....McDonalds. What if the guy...he...like..uh...

M: You good?

B: I was trying to come up with a joke. Riley was like - hey maybe the box can resurrect Matt - and Colin should have been like - wait, Matt's dead? Nora is trapped in the creepy secret tunnel and Taylor is like wtf. Nora's just like - hey just flip those random switches until it opens up again.

M: Again with the really good decisions. Riley has LOST THE BOX. That's probably bad. Someone else has it. It's Veidt. I meant Voight. He stabs Nora in the back with the box, and again I have some questions about how this box thing works. Who is it working for? Voight? Riley?

B: I think it's just working. I don't think it cares who gets stabbed and who's doing the stabbing, it's just like BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD. Everyone is like Nora are you okay and she's like NO I GOT STABBED. Colin pulls it out and now she's bleeding profusely because that's what happens.

M: Nora is like - there's a man in the walls btw, but they gotta get her to the hopstita. Riley of course, grabs the box. Because i'm sure it'll be helpful. Everyone piles into Tate's van and they get going. But not really. Because portals are opening behind and in front of them and suddenly the road is going nowhere because that's how Hell do.

B: They don't know where they're going, or they do but it doesn't matter. Meanwhile, Nora is fucking dying.

M: I love this elongated shot effect to show that the doors to the other realm or whatever are opening. It's very effective for an old trick. Nora is suddenly very alone and not in the van. Oh and there's cenobites. MY BOY.

B: Lookit this dude. It's the teeth chattering guy from Hellraiser. The most overrated cenobite ever.

M: You're gonna get some hate for that.

B: He's overrated as fuck. They had to put him in like every movie. But also, the other cenobite everyone knows. That one with the pins in their head.

M: Excuse you, her name is HELL PRIEST. Also she is cool as fuck. She looks amazing. Girl, your glow up. I really enjoy the changes, they're much like the book versions. Pinhead is playing this girl's throat like an instrument by sticking her head pins in there and making Nora scream, which is really fucked up and also very cool.

B: Oh yeah, blood, and then Pinhead looks directly at Riley in the mirror and then Nora's entire back falls off, all of it, just blech. And now Nora's gone, she exploded into blood in the back of the van. How you gonna explain this to the police??? Why is all her blood in the back of your car? Uh...we don't know.

M: Riley blames herself but Ted is like, listen this is not the most pressing issue right now. Maybe we should go back to the house, because otherwise it's the wilderness or the endless road. Colin and Terrance are getting into an argument while Riley just runs off and is like HEY FUCK THIS BOX I'M GONNA THROW IT.

B: Pinhead's like, no don't. Also have you given any thought to resurrecting your brother? Who we killed. Because we could do that.

M: Just kill two more people and we'll totally give your brother back, it's cool. But Riley is like no that's bad so Pinhead makes the box stab her so now she's gotta or she's gonna go to hell.

B: Sacrifice some more bitches or it's you! We're super short on bitches down here. Not enough motherfuckers. Also you've got two homies left right here!

M: I do feel for Colin, he really just like got dragged into all this shit and now everyone is dead and Riley might be coming to kill him. Also the earth just opened up and the 10 foot tall Chattery boy is now after them so they HAVE to run to the mansion and Colin is busy failing his wisdom save.

He’s one hell of a unit.

B: Meanwhile the chatterer dude is pinning Tanner and Riley behind a gate and Riley is like, well I could kill Tanner but she stabs the chatterer instead.

M: I love Pinhead's tiny tiny malicious smile there. This surprised the hell out of me. So it's goodbye chatterer because apparently it really doesn't matter who you are as long as you get stabbed. Meanwhile the box is assuming it's second to last form.

B: Colin is like WTF DO WE DO NOW. Also Tucker got his arm half bit off so he's kinda bleeding out all over now. Colin at least has the wherewithall to close the door.

M: The cenobites cannot pass through the magical bronze gate things in and around the fuck mansion for some reason. I don't know why, they're magical beings.

B: Magical anti cenobite properties. They tourniquet him to stop the bleeding, and we've talked at length about the dangers of those things. Riley conveniently finds very strong drugs right next to where Trent is bleeding to death but she's gonna let Colin hold on to them. Seems like it should be a Chekov's gun but it's not. MA THERE'S A WEIRD LOOKIN' CENOBITE OUTSIDE.

M: Blink, motherfucker. Some of them don't even have eyeballs, I mean....but they are just standing there....menacingly. Outside the mansion. Waiting for...something. Riley is gonna come up with a plan. Plans are neat.

B: Oh but here's the part where we get the plot twist, Travis was actually a BAD GUY! Voight is here and he's got some weird ass device going through him. Just straight through him.

M: On my first viewing, I was like that is hokey as FUCK but then we find out it's literally playing his nerves like a music box and that's honestly hardcore as hell.

B: All you had to do was follow the plan! You gotta do the box thing for reasons, Toby, you should have opened it yourself. The point here is that Theo was siding with the bad guy all along so now we can't root for him anymore.

M: He did kinda orchestrate this whole thing and put like, tons of people in danger and get a lot of people killed. Riley is just like - well it worked on Chatterer so we're just gonna stab more cenobites with it. But first we gotta figure out how to let only of them inside the mansion so we can stab it. Riley and Colin still don't know that Tyson is bad and he's sitting there on the floor bleeding to death.

B: I don't know why he's sitting on the floor, it's his arm that's injured. So they're literally just gonna open the front doors and Terry is gonna flip switches so they can let in just ONE cenobite. Colin's like - this is a bad idea, which probably, yeah, it is.

M: Riley's just gonna walk out there and be like psspsspss, come here cenobite. Come on! Just one of you tho! She tells Pinhead to take her and honestly, SAME. I am down. S tier forever.

B: Oh yeah this guy's arms just FUCKING OPEN UP, they just split in half. Nice, brutal, grody, I like it! But somehow only the gasping dying wheezing cenobite is coming inside.

M: Not at all sus.

B: They definitely don't know it's a trap. We'll just sacrifice this guy, nobody likes him anyway.

M: His breathy asthma noises are just keeping them all awake.

B: It seems very innocuous but then it suddenly breaks it's arms out of it's spine cage and takes off like a Romero zombie, but then it gets caught in the door and it's skin just PEELS OFF. This movie is nasty.

M: It so is and it's glorious. Also Riley dropped the fucking box outside of the door where the wheezing cenobite is caught all bleeding and gross so now Colin has to go get it but someone stabs him! It's Voight.

B: And suddenly Thaddeus is upset with him but Voight is like I don't fucking care. I like how he took the time to go put on a suit jacket. Get all dressed up for his meeting with Leviathan.

M: Riley is like WHAT THE FUCK, TRISTAN YOU USED US AND PEOPLE ARE DEAD and he's like - sorry.

B: Voight's gotta give us some exposition. What happened is obvious? It is NOT obvious, sir. He's like hey I'm rich and I've had like all the experience on the planet so I called up the cenobites and they were like hey so we're gonna put this device right through you to tear up your nerves for eternity.

M: He was seeking pleasure but he KNEW what the cenobites were so honestly...who's really at fault here.

B: You made a deal with the devil. After his entire monologue the configuration finally decided to change.

M: It was just being polite. Also, can I just say, maybe making ANOTHER deal with the devil isn't your brightest idea, eh?? Riley is screaming at Colin, who has been fucking stabbed, to get up and get going and Tyrone is like no stop.

B: All the blood coming out of the box and gravitates towards the weird Leviathan sunroof. I don't know why but it looks cool. Things running up always look cool.

Stuff running upwards always looks sick: known fact.

M: Meanwhile, actual Leviathan is descending on the fuck mansion, and Colin is running away.

B: Go back to your room young man and wait for the cenobites. I don't know what's going on with this mask guy. He doesn't have a head! This other cenobite shows up for like one scene, what's up with that?

M: Pinhead is like, well...guess it's time to go in now. Door's open, oh wait. No it's not.

B: Mister fucking bad guy closed the doors, and cenobites are like vampires apparently, you gotta invite them inside. And Voight is like pretty patties turned my face purple! Also I'm gonna try and hold the cenobites hostage.

M: Seems like a solid plan. Also yelling and cursing at them.

B: Riley manages to squeeze through the gate the wheezing cenobite is stuck in so it must not be closed that hard and she's got the box and she opens the doors which is bad for Voight but also Colin.

M: Exit stage left, pursued by cenobite. The gasp is now here and she's like well I have to kill you because you got stabbed by the box, no hard feelings.

B: She wraps some wire all around him that digs into his flesh, Riley hears him screaming and she's like no don't kill Colin!

M: Voight is trying to bargain with Pinhead to take the nerve device out of him but Pinhead is like, yeah nah. We worked hard on that thing.

B: Cenobites don't accept returns, but they do accept exchanges. No store credit. Like Gamestop, but Fleshstop. This scene has weirdly erotic undertones. Maybe overtones.

M: I don't think they're undertones at all. I think it's pretty intentionally erotic. One of the things I like about this Pinhead, she comes across as little bit more weirdly sexual.

Bark bark bark woof woof... respectfully

B: Riley is like well I gotta stab Tex to save Colin, and she does. Meanwhile Voight is having his device removed. He's throwing up blood and metal bits.

M: It's honestly hardcore. He's got a whole...hole through him but they magically knit him back together and it's a neat effect. It looks practical. Pinhead is like hey about that wish......and a gigantic chain comes down through the sunroof and impales him.

B: Meanwhile fuckin' Trombone is getting kind of flayed alive by the gasp cenobite but he was sus so it's okay.

M: It's no less than he deserves. Voight is getting pulled into the hellosphere and Pinhead finally says the iconic line. I would've loved to see more of the weird leviathan shit. Or just see the milkman show up but nobody's gonna get that reference unless they read the comics.

B: Read the manga, you fool. Riley and Colin are just...gonna leave I guess. Now that my horrific incident of terror is over, how about some breakfast?

M: Oh nah she's got a wish now too because she murdered her boyfriend.

B: I think it's like a bit of genie situation. Bit of a monkey's paw.

M: Ya think??

B: She sees her dead brother again.

M: After everything she's seen tonight, she's gotta be like nah. Just nah. And she does. And Pinhead is like well, your choice. Now you gotta live with the consquences of your actions!

The council will decide your fate.

B: You have selected casual bongos.

M: If I had to listen to casual bongos for eternity that might be hell. So Riley's punishment is just to go on living and be riddled with guilt and feel bad. Which is honestly kind of brutal. Reality is the harshest punishment. Way worse than being flayed alive for an eternity.

B: Riley and Colin do the morning after walk out of the mansion and Colin is like wtf just happened and she's like I made a choice and he's like NO I MEAN LIKE WITH ALL THE FUCKING FLESH MONSTERS AND SHIT HELLO?!?

M: He doesn't really but he should have. And now we see Voight and his penis all sacriligiously laid out inside what I assume is Leviathan getting his skin pulled off and all fucked up because apparently power means you're a cenobite now. I guess it beats the alternative? And Leviathan is just a big glittery diamond thing from inside.

B: His eyes turn into cenobite eyes.

M: Little bit of blasphemy but it's a very cool look. And the movie is over! Yay! I hope they make more. I want to know what some of this other shit does, yo. I want more fucked up flayed cenobites.

B: I want more...Pinhead. More of Jamie Clayton as pinhead. I'm gay but like....it's just an androgynous hell creature, it's fine.

M: Yes. I love that they didn't try to fucking emulate Doug Bradley and just let her do her own thang. It's very similar type of thing, very serious but also a little fucked up.

B: Her appearance is much more similar to the book versions.

M: It's wonderful.

B: I went into this movie thinking, when I saw Pinhead and I saw that they cast a woman as Pinhead, I thought maybe they were going back to the Kirsty Cotton lore but it didn't work out that way. It would've been kinda cool.

M: I actually wish they would've used some of that shit for the movies, ever, where Kirsty and Pinhead have this epic showdown and she becomes the Hell Priest. But instead we got detectives.

B: No detectives in this movie, 10/10. I am interested to see what the other gifts are from the configuration. I wanna see what cenobites think love is. It's not a perfect movie, but compared to some of the other Hellraiser movies, this shit is TOP TIER.

M: It's gory, it's got some twists that I didn't even see coming, it's fun and sexy and I loved it. I do think the cenobites were a wee bit overdone, but I like that they were clothed in flesh and so much of it looked practical. I like the scarification thing and I like the pieces of the lament kind of showed up in their designs.

B: I was kinda sad that they didn't bring back my boy butterball. Gasp was kind of based on the female cenobite but still.

M: That wheezing cenobite tho, ugh. It takes a lot to unnerve me but that thing did it. Still, 10/10, totally fucks.

B: Nonbinary Pinhead can get it.

M: It is here for the taking, baby. I'm gonna end this before it devolves into just us talking about how much we would bang the new Pinhead.

B: They horny for this one!

M: Munch and Biscuits out, yo.

[beckface]

Electric take: Human Maria would be a type 1 diabetic, since she's not an energy monster anymore. And hell, you could totally apply this concept to canon too.

FR, Maria could be such good child disability rep. Her canon struggle with  managing her diet on her own could be a parallel to lots of human medical conditions. As it stands right now, Maria doesn't have anyone supporting her/managing stuff for her, so she makes a lot of "bad" choices because she's hungry and wants energy :( even at the cost of potentially fufilling relationships. Remember when she was torn between being Eileen's pet and nomming on the electric snowman... and the snack won out? Remember how tired she was in the jar? These sorts of medical conditions are real things some kids struggle with, even with caring parents/access to good doctors/medical care. And symptom wise... honestly, Type 1 diabetes wouldn't be far off from what Maria goes through. I mean obviously type 1 diabetes doesn't turn you into a kaiju when you eat a lot or shrink you to the size of a beta fish when you don't, but either way, I think it's a fairly close match. It really seems like her bodies inability to store energy for later and use it through the day really messes with her, and that the best way to manage it would be, instead of calcuating activities, the calorie counts needed for that activity, and providing insulin for those calories, something like careful "meal" planning with the right amount of energy to keep herself at a healthy and manageable size. You know????

And if Eileen and her developed a good friendship, I can see her helping her throughout the day when Maria's guardian isn't there. I'm sure that if Eileen saw it as a medical thing she'd do her very best to look out for her friend and keep her on track. Meanwhile obviously Maria benefits because her size and energy levels aren't drastically shifting all the time, and also, good friends :D

I adore your Maria and Eileen ideas sm THEM

It would be great to see a character like Maria, that’s very ND coded on top of everything else, get to have the people around her create a system that allows her to live a normal life! Speaking from experience, a lot of times kids who are either mentally or physically disabled can feel sometimes like they just stick out like a beacon of electricity. They either don’t have enough and are too small and invisible, or they’re too much and zapping the energy out of the people around them.

I’ve said this before, but it would be so fun to see an au where Maria figures out a diet plan and can stay the size of a normal kid, keeps her helmet, and just goes to school with the rest of them. Obviously it wouldn’t exactly get easier for her, she doesn’t STOP being a being of pure energy, but she would have loved ones and a support system to keep her on track. She can still be a villain and lose herself every once in a while, mostly because I like her as a villain, but overall she’s just a normal, hyper kid that is great for clingy Eileen to be best friends with.

Allow me to go on a tangent a bit and give some ideas for how Maria might bond with the other kids besides Eileen. Give this girl friends.

Becky- It’s career day, and everyone’s parents are coming in to talk about their jobs and things. Maria is feeling insecure about her not having actual parents and just being adopted by either her caregivers or Eileen’s mom. She starts sparking and Becky can sense that she might go on a distressed rampage, and to do her hero duty goes to try and talk to her and prevent that. Maria becoming a student is fairly new, so Becky still has her guard up, but that’s making Maria even more tense. At some point during the conversation Maria explodes like “WHY DON’T YOU JUST LEAVE ME ALONE! Go be with your perfect FaMiLy!” and Becky realizes what this is about. She apologizes for being skeptical of Maria and sits down with her and tells her that she’s adopted too. Maria is surprised by this, and the two talk more. Maria thanks Becky and they hug, leaving Becky’s hair all frizzed. Becky then heads back to the Botsfords while Maria goes to join Eileen and her Mother, feeling happy. Maria and Becky start getting along really well unexpectedly

Violet- Violet is very open to new people and very kind generally, so she would be the FIRST person to welcome Maria to the school. Maria and Eileen together would then proceed to talk her ear off. Eileen, being Eileen, kinda tries to steal Violet away from Becky and Scoops, saying that her and Maria make a BETTER trio, and it’s her birthday so she can do what she wants. Violet doesn’t want this obviously, but she tries to be polite while trying to get away. Maria doesn’t realize that this is a situation that has happened many times before, and doesn’t realize that Violet is uncomfortable, she’s just excited for a new friend. So when Violet puts her foot down and tells Eileen to leave her alone, Maria feels really bad. Eileen is just being grumpy the rest of the day while Maria is a ball of anxious energy (lol) and eventually she goes up to Violet after school to give her a long-winded apology, and please give her a second chance. Violet explains that she’s happy to be friends! She just doesn’t want to be forced into anything. Maria understands and relays this information back to Eileen, who actually listens now that someone she trusts is explaining it to her. The two start respecting Violet’s boundaries more and they all get closer

Scoops- Scoops interviewed Maria on the first day of school because duh, and he got so excited by just how MUCH content he got from her endless talking. He asked her to join the news club. Her favorite thing is being a news anchor. Maria and Scoops have that type of friendship where they just talk over each other for an hour and it’s the most fun thing ever

Tobey- Tobey cannot STAND her at first (tbf he can’t stand anyone) because she talks to him happily and does not pick up on any of his sarcasm or jabs. Over time he gives up and stops trying to be snotty to her and just listens to her talk and gives his dry input every once in a while. Man refuses to admit that he enjoys it.

Victoria- Victoria and Eileen were already close just on the basis of they were the only two kid girl villains. Victoria likes having another girl villain, especially one who is so easily impressed by everything even mildly cool she does.

[lunar-wandering]

are y'all ready for lore drop lets go into lore drop

right so this. started cause i was like "what if... phantom thief robot" and then got WAY too into the concept of HOW phantom thief robot

so Phantom Thief Bot, was, likely initially, a jewel appraiser robot. since he wasn't made for doing Much, he ran on an older kind of power source (will drop more lore on power sources later), which basically works by taking some form of energy (possibly fire?) and putting it through a gem to convert it into the different energy he runs on. obviously after time this would wear out the gem, but since he was a jewel appraiser and also wasn't really doing much, this wasn't a concern at the time

and then he ended up no longer being in the jewel appraiser business. somehow got hired by a wayward magician. somehow (likely through the magician making bad decisions), he ended up getting illegally upgraded, adding a bunch of extra compartments and stuff to make magic tricks easier. however, the upgrades were too much for his outdated power system, causing the gems he uses to degrade faster- hence the need for more.

boom, the How of Phantom Thief Robot is solved.

but. i did not stop there.

see, then i started thinking about, well, what his Prime Directive? all the robots in this universe must have a prime directive, they can't function without one. (it doesn't override all of their actions, or force them to do anything, but it typically dictates what their general goals in electronic life are... usually).

Prime Directive's can be messed with- Access's initial prime directive was "Evil Evolution"- which was shortened to "Evil Evol." in his actual code for the sake of convenience. when he was re-activated by the meteroite (yes that is what is canon now), his Prime Directive got flipped to "Live .Love". (to most other robots, when their prime directives get Flipped, they stop functioning completely, cause it renders their code a useless mess).

Phantom Thief Robot's Prime Directive, was, initially, probably something about jewel appraisal. however, in the illegal upgrade, it was changed, and it was done improperly.

Phantom Thief Robot's current Prime Directive is, basically, "Make wishes come true". The Prime Directive was put in with positive intentions but... because of it being done incorrectly, it's glitched. if someone says "i wish-" in front of Phantom Thief Robot, he literally cannot stop himself from trying his hardest to fulfill said wish in some way. (in some cases, this can go to the extent of causing him to malfunction, if he tries to complete two contradictory wishes at once, it's too much for his code/body to handle).

(also side note; malfunctions are different from glitches in that they're fixable. a glitch is a key part of a robot and cannot be fixed unless they want to wipe the entire robot's personality completely and be left with a blank slate. a malfunction is as simple as rewriting a very tiny bit of code or replacing an arm).

so!!! that's Phantom Thief Robot lore,

OH RIGHT. POWER SOURCES.

okay, so, the z-model robots living in the city (and around the world for the most part) are all connected to a wireless power grid that allows them to gather and transfer electric energy to each other- essentially they all kinda power each other through something equivalent to the internet.

Access, being an x-model robot, as well as one who was meant to be deactivated, is not connected to The Grid. as a result, he has no way of recharging. (he can lose energy, and he does, since i've decided that he has a railgun and uses his own energy to power it).

but he must have some way of recharging. i debated for a bit if he could steal other robots energy kinda like a vampire, and while ive concluded that yeah, he probably could...

he mainly gains energy through lightning strikes.

there's an area nearby, that gets a lot of stormy weather (do not ask about the weather situation in this world for this to be possible i am not that far ahead of myself yet), and literally lets himself get struck by lightning.

he has to be careful over-charging though. it doesn't happen to z-model robots since they can share excess energy, but if Access has Too Much he literally goes Power-Mad from the electricity frying/controlling his circuits. fun times all around.

robot/android named Axis that gets tossed out by his creator (Dr.X) on day 1 for being glitched, ends up in the trash heap, was meant to be deactivated but for some reason (possible meteorite in the trash heap?) he reactivated.

ends up in the middle of a town, finds out that Dr. X frequently sends x-bots to attack to try and take over, said attacks are usually felled by humans or z-bots.

Axis figures that there's probably a stigma around the letter x in general and so when asked for his name starts going by "Access" instead.

part of the identifying x-mark on him got damaged/smudged when he was tossed, so the people/person that finds him assume he's a y-model bot, an old prototype model that hasn't been used in ages. (a y-bot shouldn't have been this advanced, but yknow they're still finding out more about the robot testing sites so it's not that far out of the realm of possibility).

somehow, Access ends up fighting off x-bots, and kinda accidentally becomes like, a town hero??

...basically the plot here is that Access has to protect this town while hiding the fact that he's actually an x-model bot while also hiding that he's glitched. shenanigans ensue.

[trainsinanime]

Trains in Wednesday

If you watched Wednesday (2022 Netflix TV show), then you've probably wondered what the train was, and whether it makes sense. The answer to that is: Sorta, by accident!

We see the train briefly in establishing shots in a number of episodes, but especially episode two, where it pulls into the station. The station is full of American flags everywhere, and the show is set in America, so as you'd expect, the station and train are from…

…Romania, actually. Not quite Transylvania, but close (at least the castle, I don't actually know about the station). This train is a CFR class 96 DMU (diesel multiple unit).

Picture by Stefan Bichler (Stbichler), via Wikimedia Commons, published under CC BY-SA 3.0

To much the rest of the world, this type of train is known as a Siemens Desiro. Specifically it is nowadays known as a Siemens Desiro Classic. There are plenty of other trains named Siemens Desiro, generally with a suffix, that are technically and visually completely different (e.g. the ones for the UK, Russia, Belgium, the newer ones for Germany and Israel, the one for Malaysia… all completely different trains).

The Desiro Classic was designed to offer better service on rural German branch lines, with high acceleration, level boarding, air conditioning and accessibility. Several other companies built similar trains during the late 1990s and early 2000s as part of a big program to modernise Germany's regional rail lines, and all of them managed to sell theirs far and wide beyond Germany as well. Siemens in particular managed to get a good foothold on south-east Europe. They sold significant numbers of these trains to Austria, Hungary, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Romania and Greece, as well as Denmark in a different direction. Most were diesel, but some electric versions also exist. Romania in particular got 120 trains (all diesel), about half of which were produced locally, which makes them the second-biggest user of this type after Germany.

As a train designed to continental European standards, it does not meet US-american crash worthiness requirements, which are all designed around "the heavier the train the better", and have largely ignored "built stuff in to avoid collisions". As a result it can't run on the US mainline rail network. And so you'd expect me to say that this makes no sense in the US, and I'd really like to…

…but as it turns out, for almost any early-2000s low floor German DMU, you can find like one or two lines in the US were these were used as a super innovative regional rail project. For the Desiro, that place was North San Diego County, California, where twelve of these trains run under the name "Sprinter" between places I never heard of (Oceanside and Escondido) in the greater LA metro area.

Picture by Amtrak455, via Wikimedia Commons, published under CC BY-SA 4.0

Different colors, obviously, and I think it got more AC units on the roof, but it's still the same train. The lower crash standards means that it's considered "light rail" in the US, meaning it legally counts as a better type of tram, and freight trains can't run when these trains are running.

Twelve of these trains isn't a lot, but it's still more than the three Bombardier Talent DMUs (a similar type by a different company) that used to run in Ontario, and that people always bring up whenever I talked about a Bombardier Talent somewhere.

Wednesday is set in Vermont, obviously, far from California. But Nevermore and the town of Jericho are clearly fictional, and it's absolutely possible that in the alternate universe of the show, there is a branch line in Vermont that got these trains in the mid-2000s. It's a bit of a stretch if you get down to it, e.g. with the Romanian colours (and for that matter why is the station electrified? Is Jericho a junction on a branch of the North-East Corridor?). But it's way more plausible then the show's love triangle.