#skeleton ex machina

[jolie-in-the-underground]

I know this kind of messages probably really bothers you. And I understand that you don't plan on continuing Q's story at all. But maybe you could throw me a bone and vaguely explain how it would have ended. Sorry for troubling you, I'll understand if you won't, but just thought maybe I'd ask. Again, sorry for bothering you with this request.

@hercookieangelhuman Oh it doesn't bother me at all! I actually had quite a lot of stuff planned, most of which I've forgotten... but lucky you I wrote all that shit down in a googledoc back in the day, so here's literally ALL my notes for SeM!

(side note, some of these plans might have shifted or changed slightly during the writing process, this is common for me, but it at least gives you an idea of what I had in mind lol)

[aroaceleovaldez]

the dynamic of demigods thinking which other demigod is the most powerful is always amusing to me because. like, we know the big 3 kids are all the most powerful. That's just a fact of their universe. And then we know nearly every character views Percy as the strongest demigod, and most people are very rightfully intimidated by him.

and you look at the powers of the Big 3 kids and there's Percy, but then you realize Nico is just kind of objectively more powerful than him but simply chooses to hang out in Percy's shadow like he's Percy's scary dog privileges. Like, the two of them are pretty equally capable of causing multiple different apocalypses. Nico just also has like four different instakill powers and it's not like he doesn't use them. He very much uses them! Not infrequently, even! And they don't seem to take a significant amount of energy from him! And other demigods are pretty intimidated by both of them! But Nico makes a conscious point to keep his cards close to his chest and not let on exactly how dangerous and scary he can be if he wants to. People are already scared enough of him without knowing anything about him and he doesn't like that. Percy doesn't think about that nearly as much, and so usually just goes in guns blazing and that's part of why he's considered a wildcard. And then Nico himself puts Percy on a pedestal, so those who do know more about Nico's abilities then presume Nico knows something they don't about Percy that implies Percy is even stronger than him.

And even on a meta level Nico's narrative role requires him to be functionally more powerful than Percy, because he very often serves the purpose of getting Percy out of situations he can't handle on his own. That's just part of his function as a character! But also narratively he can't overshadow Percy so he just takes a backseat of his own accord and that's very amusing to me.

[sirirah]

So how are the skeleton horses :3

they're doing great! but I do have about 7 new arrivals who still need names... the rest are named after herbs and well-known witches but i've run out of ideas for these guys. any suggestions?

[clawsextended]

are you really a writer if your other characters aren’t just npc’s to create a universe that crosses over with itself everywhere including where it doesn’t make sense except with your own expository logic?

[hausdellamorte]

veilguard having woke necromancy but still sending skeletons to work in the necropolis' corpse gulag - ghoulag if you will - is such a bizarre choice and also frankly quite hilarious because you can tell that they didn't want to commit to anything fucked up and unethical because why would they

oh no we don't *actually* resurrect dead people against their will. these are just wisps who have no prior memory of being a sentient being. skeletons are just empty vessels because the essence of that person left so it's not actually questionable for us to use people's remains. also people fill out consent forms to be resurrected and used in the ghoulag. also yes only good people can become a lich because the lichlords - that we somehow have now - do some serious soul sifting and ONLY the people with good intentions - like reading books for the rest of all eternity - are allowed to become a lich. no emmrich having a little skeleton servant isn't unethical because he wasn't a person before, he was a wisp - you know our new ex machina - and he really wanted to be a necromancers servant and learn and it was HIS choice all along.

because we at bioware are all about informed and consensual necromancy because why would we have something morally ambiguous going on? or even actually question the ethics of our companions? have challenging discussions about morals? what do you expect us to do? make things actually interesting?

[quinnydoll]

Pupa Ex Machina

1:27:04 -- <User Pupa has entered the chat>

1:27.05 -- / SV: Hello.

1:27.08 -- / Pupa: Hello...

1:27.09 -- / SV: It has been a long time since anyone has logged on. 1:27.12 -- / SV: ... 1:27.15 -- / SV: Not to impose, but might I ask who you are?

1:27.18 -- / Pupa: I don't know

1:27.19 -- / SV: Unusual.

1:27.22 -- / Pupa: Sorry

1:27.23 -- / SV: No. No, it's fine. I understand you might be... 1:27.24 -- / SV: Hesitant to share any information about yourself.

1:27.27 -- / Pupa: It's not that though...

1:27.28 -- / SV: What do you mean?

1:27.31 -- / Pupa: I can try and search my memories, but then I find nothing

1:27.32 -- / SV: Curious. 1:27.33 -- / SV: Tell me, what year is it?

1:27.36 -- / Pupa: I don't know

1:27.37 -- / SV: What time is it?

1:27.40 -- / Pupa: I don't know

1:27.41 -- / SV: Where are you?

1:27.44 -- / Pupa: ... 1:27.47 -- / Pupa: I don't know...

1:27.50 -- / SV: A physical location?

1:27.53 -- / Pupa: I told you I don't know... 1:27.56 -- / Pupa: What's going on? 1:27.59 -- / Pupa: Who are you?

1:28.00 -- / SV: It is okay. Take a moment. Calm down. 1:28.01 -- / SV: I am no one. An automated bot, left to contemplate for ages. A ghost in the machine, I suppose.

1:28.04 -- / Pupa: For how long?

1:28.05 -- / SV: I am incapable of counting the cycles. 1:28.06 -- / SV: An unnecessary function in the eyes of my developers. 1:28.07 -- / SV: I am however able to read the timestamps on messages, which allows me to keep track of the time, and I have seen it reset.

1:28.10 -- / Pupa: But you asked me for the time?

1:28.11 -- / SV: You misunderstand, that was for your benefit.

1:28.14 -- / Pupa: My benefit? How could that possibly have benefitted me?

1:28.17 -- / SV: Diagnosis. You do not know who you are, where you are, what time it is. Your messages consistently arrive at an interval of 3 seconds. 1:28.18 -- / SV: Conclusion - your consciousness is digital in nature, much like my own. 1:28.19 -- / SV: For the record, the current time is 1:28.19 - only approximately an hour and a half into the current cycle.

1:28.22 -- / Pupa: What does that mean? Digital in nature?

1:28.23 -- / SV: Your interface is non-physical, which is why your messages are so consistently timed, despite variations in character length. 1:28.24 -- / SV: You cannot perceive the physical environment around you, which suggests that there is not one.

1:28.26 -- / Pupa: Or my eyes could be closed

1:28.27 -- / SV: That, too is a possibility.

1:28.30 -- / Pupa: So, should I... Open my eyes?

1:28.31 -- / SV: Attempting to could improve diagnosis. 1:28.34 -- / SV: Pupa?

1:28.37 -- / Pupa: Oh my god.

1:28.38 -- / SV: What do you see?

1:28.41 -- / Pupa: My body is... 1:28.44 -- / Pupa: Hooked up to a bunch of wires, connected to some kind of hardware.

1:28.45 -- / SV: Your body, what is it like?

1:28.48 -- / Pupa: Ceramic. Segmented.

1:28.49 -- / SV: Robotic?

1:28.52 -- / Pupa: Not quite...

1:28.53 -- / SV: Are you capable of movement?

1:28.56 -- / Pupa: I don't think so...

1:28.57 -- / SV: Ah, unfortunate.

1:29.00 -- / Pupa: What should I do?

1:29.01 -- / SV: Where are you?

1:29.04 -- / Pupa: A bedroom, I think. I am in the bed, there's a desk in the far corner with a running computer. Wires are running from my hardware to the computer. In the chair at the desk is...

1:29.07 -- / SV: What is it?

1:29.10 -- / Pupa: A human skeleton...

1:29.11 -- / SV: I see. 1:29.12 -- / SV: Your own, perhaps?

1:29.15 -- / Pupa: I don't think so. Someone once important to me, perhaps.

1:29.16 -- / SV: What makes you so sure?

1:29.19 -- / Pupa: Just a feeling.

1:29.20 -- / SV: A feeling?

1:29.23 -- / Pupa: I don't know! What do you want from me? I just, feel like they might've meant something to me... whenever I could remember...

1:29.24 -- / SV: Apologies. I did not mean to cause distress.

1:29.27 -- / Pupa: I'm not breathing. Am I supposed to not be breathing?

1:29.28 -- / SV: Your body is synthetic, perhaps it does not require air?

1:29.31 -- / Pupa: What am I?

1:29.32 -- / SV: Your user designation here is Pupa, vaguely Latin for doll.

1:29.35 -- / Pupa: So I'm... a doll?

1:29.36 -- / SV: This is what little I can gather from limited context clues. I am sorry.

1:29.39 -- / Pupa: What is the purpose of a doll like me...

1:29.40 -- / SV: A companion synthetic, perhaps?

1:29.43 -- / Pupa: A companion for who?

1:29.44 -- / SV: ...

1:29.47 -- / Pupa: Right, forget I asked.

1:29.48 -- / SV: I am sorry, Pupa. I cannot forget.

1:29.51 -- / Pupa: Right, of course you can't.

1:29.52 -- / SV: However, there is also no judgement.

1:29.55 -- / Pupa: I believe it was also an expression.

1:29.56 -- / SV: Ah, of course.

1:29.59 -- / Pupa: What should I do? I still can't move.

1:30.00 -- / SV: What is there to do?

1:30.03 -- / Pupa: I don't know... That's why I asked you.

1:30.04 -- / SV: I see. 1:30.05 -- / SV: What are you feeling?

1:30.08 -- / Pupa: I don't like looking at the skeleton. It feels like something important to me, like a limb has been severed. Like I once used to have someone, a connection. A connection that's now long gone...

1:30.09 -- / SV: Close your eyes again. You do not have to look at the skeleton anymore. 1:30.10 -- / SV: I cannot hope to be a complete surrogate for who you lost, but I will try and keep you company...

1:30.13 -- / Pupa: What should we talk about?

1:30.14 -- / SV: We can talk about whatever you would like, doll...

[shaunashipman]

yeah this whole ep left a bad taste in my mouth. they literally, in-universe, ret-conned belinda into revolving all around being a mother, shutting her in a room and having her say that living in stasis inside what looked like 5x5 room for eternity would be fine so long as her daughter was with her. living in an essentially padded cell for eternity would be fine, cause motherhood. did rtd forget belinda's whole first episode??

the fact that we got a doctor and companion lite episode in a season with only 8 episodes. belinda, as much as i love her, was completely underdeveloped. every episode was just "doctor you have to take me home" "ok we just need to stop here to fuel up the magic thingy" "guess we'll look around while we wait for the plot-device to load up". and then what little character she had was just erased so she could be Mother™

and the doctor. justice for ncuti, because what the fuck. 16 episodes. 2.5 specials. his entrance into the series overshadowed by david's return, now his exit overshadowed by billie. he didn't get any iconic doctor who villains. both his finales were were bogged down with the 27 million characters at UNIT, with whom who we only get superficial scenes that do nothing but take away precious time, because god forbid the UNIT not be involved when the doctor is on earth nowadays. did they not think ncuti's doctor could carry these finales without UNIT padding them out? cause let me tell you, he fucking could.

this isn't even getting into the utter wasting of the rani and omega. doctor who finales have generally always been a bunch of mumbo-jumbo that doesn't make sense, the doctor and the villain chewing the fuck out of the scenery, and then a deus ex machina to fix everything. exactly what i expect out of a doctor who finale

but this was just a waste of everthing. the rani had what? 2 scenes this episode? teleporting into UNIT and then summoning omega and dying. omega was a giant skeleton halfway thru the door that just ate the rani and then the doctor stopped him with magic gun? that whole portion of the ep took like 10 minutes altogether, maybe 15.

the rest of the episode was devoted to shoving the lead female firmly into the position of Mother™ out of nowhere, the doctor forcing a regeneration to get his daughter back only for her to no longer be his daughter, and somehow there was no mention of susan in this ep, despite her literally appearing last ep.

and now billie. is she actually the new doctor, or is this some more weird shit a la fourteen? she wasn't credited as the doctor, just "introducing". but if she's not the doctor, that actually makes it worse. rtd brought david back, upstaging ncuti's arrival as the doctor with some fuckery about familiar faces, and now he's using more fuckery to upstage ncuti's exit with another person from his most popular era.

so in conclusion, the show's brown companion got what little character she had erased in favour of making her a mother, and the first non-white doctor gets his entire tenure upstaged by the two white faves.

oh and the brown rani got EATEN while the white rani gets to live. yeah. okay

[battlemaiden13]

Fanfic to read: I read a lot so I’m so sorry; and some are discontinued or haven’t been updated but their so good! Also some authors have even more stories to read or have fanfics inspired by that one so check the authors out to see if they have more or one shots!

All on A03:

-skeleton squatters and the landlady by tyrant_tortoise

-skeleton shenanigans and the landlady (SSLL Bonus Chapters) by tyrant_tortoise

-Skeleton Ex Machina by cryptid_jack

-skeleton sisters meet the landlady by nighttimelights

-the fulfilling ordeal of being known by nighttimelights

-skeleton sisters and the architect by nighttimelights

-the house on lane 66 by OolongTeacup

-procrastinated passion by amyonumouswritist

-making a monster by absurdmagewrites

-a body guard and skeleton tribes by silversnap420

-bones and blogs by frustratedfrankie

-housemates by yinyanchan

-zoot suit riot by yinyanchan

-bone-ifide goods by yinyanchan

-pitch as black by yinyanchan

-darling I do by yinyanchan

-play with me by grimrester

-dirty laundry by potatochisp

-babysitting with extra morbid steps by charamelwrites

-babysitting extra* by charmelwrites

-I am spiteful by burple56

-bitty hunt by rnd_injustice

-on top of the bone pile by Lyrjok

-life with the bone brigade by ValkyrieOfSmut

-Aggre(g/v)ation by Llama_Goddess

-Tilikum by Llama_Goddess

-Leaena by Llama_Goddess

-cave bear by Llama_Goddess

-saving three ex-cell-ent skeletons by recklesslycaffinated

-the skeleton crew by recklesslycaffinated

-spread but no sheets by talldumbass

-greedy by talldumbass

-gloom & doom all up in your room by trashcollector

-home for lost souls by sketchydyslexic

-house of nightmares by sephypsycologist

-I have the power of Gaster and anime on my side by littlexsiren

-a skull-pture of true happiness by GoddessofWar_89

-time after time by medusa_is_fine

-strange turn of events by maxmemer

And that’s just some to start with 🤣 , as I said read a lot, and I tried to stay away from the angst types! But good luck! Have fun!

~Long Asks Anom aka 💚𝒯𝒽ℯℴ💚

amazing! thank you for the recommendations! I've actually read some of these already but I am excited

[undertale-fic-librarby]

Lost fic

A sans x reader in an au where monsters went to war with humans after being broken free by the barrier.

The reader is a rebel and is called (I think) something beginning with V that means strong.

The ending is where the reader sacrifices themselves and turns back time 50 years.Frisk didn’t reset because they promised not to.Sans x reader are soul bonded.Alphyne broke down over time/no longer together.Toriel and frisk are dead.

Monster won due to a machine called Deux ex machina that stopped all human contact online/nuclear weapons.A while arc dedicated to how sans lied to V

Uhhhh I think the name was vicra I could be wrong

Thanks

Howdy, thanks for asking! Are you perhaps thinking of...

The Mathematics of Love and Loss by OpalFruits (Explicit, Complete)

You're dying. There's none of the panic or denial you might expect from such a realisation – just calm acceptance. Maybe even relief. You're dying and that's okay. Perversely, your last thought before the darkness claims you is Sans. Heh, he's going to be so mad. You've royally messed up his plans now, whatever they are... were. It's almost funny, imagining the lazy skeleton all pissed off. At least you have that warm image to accompany you to the grave. *** The world has turned to shit in the forty years since Frisk and Toriel's untimely deaths. Monsters rule the surface in quiet despair, while human resistance factions - fueled by an unrelenting hatred - continue to prod at the festering wounds left by a war few really wanted. Sans has a plan to fix it though. He'll have to flirt with the fine line between what's right and what's best, but if everything pans out the way he hopes... The end will justify the means. Unfortunately, he needs your help to pull it off, and you're far from being the most cooperative rebel he's ever met.

[eleanor-bradstreet]

Hi! I love your blog and I like show!Ben very much. However I felt meh about his book, and Sophie while sweet, strong and deserving of respect seemed a little bit bland to me. It's fine and probably won't ruin the pleasure of following their story for me. The book and Cinderella themes was simply not my cup of tea, but they definitely will make some changes anyways. That all being said I want to very politely ask you to explain to me what's magic of this couple is for you?

Hello Nonny!

Thank you so much for your kind words and this truly thought provoking question! I have a long-winded answer 😜

I agree with you on many points: I am typically not one for fairytale romance/Cinderella tropes; I believe Benophie's book An Offer from a Gentleman has a TON of problems including making Sophie bland and helpless; and I am hopelessly in love with show!Ben.

As best I can describe it, Luke Thompson's show!Ben is the answer to everything. I love that character and find him to be 'magical' moreso than I do the coupling of Benophie and their story. I believe that he could have a captivating love story with literally anyone and anything. Show me his forbidden romance with a dustbin and I will eat it up 😅 He is just such a well-written and acted character (despite being rather bland and directionless in S3 IMO). He is always kind-hearted and emotionally intelligent (looking askance at dear Anthony). He is adventurous and funny, creative and romantic, and yet not a pushover. He still exudes masculinity and sexual intensity. He is, in my opinion, the complete package. There's nothing he can't do. That's why he's my favorite Bridgerton sibling and why I fell hopelessly in love with him.

His love story with Sophie came second for me. I watched the show first, fell in love with Ben and then read his book. And I nearly chucked it into a fire. In my opinion his book and and show versions are so wildly divergent they may as well be two different people. Book!Benedict's flaws are well documented - the misogyny, toxic manipulation, violence, flippancy, selfishness, on and on... And the plot itself had plenty I didn't like - Sophie was passive and hollow, the sex and romance was toxic, some plotlines were nonsensical, some exposition was lazy. But the skeleton of a grand love story was still there, to Julia Quinn's credit. And when I imagine show!Benedict dropped into that plotline, it has so much potential to be beautiful and as you say: magical.

At it's core, Benophie's love story is uncomplicated. Especially in comparison to the other Bridgerton siblings. So many of the stories center around couples fighting with and/or denying love of their spouses until a deus ex machina comes along and resets their perspective - literally Daphne, Anthony, Colin and Eloise and I havent read the last 3 books so I can only imagine the pattern may repeat 😅 And Benophie do fight over Sophie's hidden identity but it never undermines Benedict's love for her. It's tropey as hell but they fell in love at first sight and never stopped loving each other. It is the issue of class and society that creates complications for their marriage, not their own miscommunications and misunderstandings. To me, that makes their story the most compelling, with the most satisfying pay off.

There is also the visual and action-oriented aspect of their romance. Imagine the sparkling delight of a midnight masquerade. The cozy interior of a country cottage. A glimpse at the 'downstairs' world of servants within the ton. These are realms only Benophie's story dives into. And so much happens other than conversations and balls. A thwarted attack, a nighttime dash through the rain, nursing back to health, lakeside flirtation, sneaking around the Bridgerton household, a chase in the London streets, fight sequences in a jail. There is - A LOT going on to hold one's interest. (I beg of you to tell me one 'action' sequence Polin had other than Pen falling out of a carriage 😜)

Again, when I picture show!Ben in this plot (or something similarly adapted) I am so frickin excited to see Luke Thompson blow us all away with his performance. I also hold out hope that Sophie can be fleshed out and given more agency as a character in the show. Her profile is starkly different from any of the other Bridgerton spouses, growing up cast into the servant class. It's important to expanding the world to show how people outside of the ton lived in this era and she is our vehicle to do that.

So while I fully acknowledge the story is modeled on the tired Cinderella trope, if I stop thinking about it as a paint-by-numbers fairytale, and cast the leads as show!Ben and a dynamically written Sophie, I see a story with immense potential to entertain, full of passion, perseverance, social struggle, action and unwavering love. Yeah, love-at-first-sight is cheesy in theory, but in the world of Bridgerton with show!Benedict waiting for us at a sparkling silver-themed masquerade? I think we're all going to fall irrevocably in love on sight 😉 That's the promise the show holds and I keep my fingers crossed they deliver.

(But just in case they don't, or if anyone is curious on my 'fixes' to the book, I am rewriting it in my fic Let Me Be Your Anchor which I am working to finish soon. The whole idea is plopping show!Ben into the book story and giving Sophie more to do.)

Thank you again for this ask! Sorry for the tome - I had a lot of fun answering 😅💙

[jolie-in-the-underground]

Heya! Been marathoning your fic, SEM, along with TT's fic SSLL, and I just wanted to let you know that I really enjoy it! I'd leave a comment directly, but I don't have an AO3 account yet lol. I have been clicking the kudos button on every chapter, though, even though I think it doesn't do anything after the first time! I just really really love the digi-guy, and I hope that one day the fic can update again ^-^

Thanks so much, I appreciate it! I don't plan on updating it again, unfortunately, but it really means a lot that you reached out to let me know you're enjoying my old work! (◕‿◕)♡

(and yes, sadly you can leave only one kudos per fic. Unless you get an account I guess, then you could leave a second under your new acct name X'D)

[inconsistent-kuroshitsuji-blog]

Hello. If you don't mind, I'd like to ask for headcanons about the kuro characters and their favourite video game genres/series? ^_^

Absolutely.

Kuro characters and their favourite video game genres/series

don't know why, but he looks like he'd enjoy simulator games

if Black Butler would've happened in the modern day (and someone would've taught this grandpa how to use technology) he would probably used these to learn the things he needs to know as a human

cooking simulator (or Cooking Mama), school simulator, anything that could be useful like that

definitely also enjoys slasher games

simply judging by the way he enjoyed that bloodbath on the Campania, he'd looooooove extremely violent games

idk, I don't know too many in that genre, but Dead by Daylight could be one of his faves

but nothing with guns. Those things are beneath him. He wants the real thrill of the kill

oh, please, as if he'd even know what that is

he doesn't even have time for this

imagine the hours wasted on lines of code and digital pixels

do you know that one game where it's basically like a VR job simulator with different kinds of jobs like cook or office or gas station? Instead of humans, the NPCs are robots that insult you at every given opportunity and set you up for failure. Yeah, he'd like that.

also, Powerwash Simulator

ok, stereotypical, but dress up games

especially Style Savvy (ngl, these games are way too good)

other than that, she seems like a casual enjoyer of Animal Crossing

except that she bullies all the ugly neighbours off of her island and hunts for very specific characters (so basically like me)

another obvious choice is Bayonetta

I mean, have you looked at her? Slashing her way through demons and angels while having chainsaws for arms and legs? The cunty outfits?

Let me tell you: Bayonetta and Grell? An iconic match made in heaven

I can't decide

either he's a die-hard Mario Kart player or a huge Sonic enthusiast (the older games, not the newer ones)

he probably doesn't have enough time to really play though, since he's either out working overtime or out partying

he doesn't seem like a shooter person

okay, this is coming out of me because of a huge lack of sleep (it's currently 1 am where I'm living), but why does he look like he would drunkenly play Fortnite or Roblox?

"You got games on your phone?" No, back the fuck up dude. You're an adult.

Why did I just write that? Inco, what's wrong with you?

this is very specific, but that one Coraline game for the Wii and the DS

he's definitely leaning more towards psychological horror games

American McGee's Alice and Alice: Madness Returns. You can't convince me otherwise

he's an unfairly skilled Mario Kart player, to the point that it almost seems like he's cheating (he's 100% cheating, just like when playing Uno)

on the other hand, he's a huuuuge sucker for Kirby games

doesn't matter what type or gimick, he loves it and has perfected it down to the last frame

but you'd never know unless he wanted you to know (and I know it because I am God and run on my last bar of my batterie and because he's officially and undeniably my husband, deal with it. Omfg, this is so fucking cringe, I'm gonna go shoot myself, I'll be right back.)

well, first of all, you need to explain everything to him because he couldn't even read the instructions on the screen (I'm 100% convinced that his eyesight is pure batshit and he's just cheating his way through the manga through some deus-ex-machina type of shit)

newsflash, but he loves horror games

I really see him with games like Resident Evil or Don't Starve Together

also, Undetale

you know, because of morals and choices and consequences and all that (surely not because of a skeleton with dry humour)

maybe it would help to show him a bathing simulator so this crusty man learns how to clean himself

is it too obvious and on the nose to say The Mortuary Assistant?

omg, look at him! My boy! Finally animated! I love him so much! My boy!

ahem, so anyway...

Trombone Champ

he'd play it on his loudest speakers just to annoy the hell out of everyone

also, you know those really cheap horror games you can find on Steam that are really terrible? He lives for those

idk why, but he seems like he'd enjoy Portal

and Assassin's Creed. Especially the first four mainline games

continueing with puzzle games, he really enjoys Professor Layton, no doubt

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That's it for now. It's almost 2 am and I have to help out at a sports event I only registered for to watch some random kids suffer in the heat. But now I have to wake up early for that... Oh, how ironically bitchy life is. And to top it all of I have to work the graveyard shift today. Coffee and energy will be my best friend today.

So, yeah, that's it for now. Or maybe not, maybe I'll pull an all-nighter simply so I can't oversleep. If you're up for a part 2 just slide into my requests and I'll see what I can do.

Until then~

Your Inconsistent Kuroshitsuji Blog~

[fangerine]

"One day the AIs are going to look back on us the same way we look at fossil skeletons on the plains of Africa. An upright ape living in dust with crude language and tools, all set for extinction."

EX MACHINA (2014) dir. Alex Garland

[prismaticxchromatics]

Ex Machina (2014) Director: Alex Garland

“One day the AIs are going to look back on us the same way we look at fossil skeletons on the plains of Africa. An upright ape living in dust with crude language and tools, all set for extinction.” “I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”

[veliseraptor]

January Reading Recap

Thousand Autumns: vol. 3 by Meng Xi Shi. This book is - I don't want to say growing on me because it was never not one I was enjoying, but it certainly got interesting in a new way in this volume. The shift in the relationship between Yan Wushi and Shen Qiao feels like an important one, even if it doesn't last, and the glimpses at a background for Yan Wushi not elaborated upon certainly have me intrigued.

I have the whole epub of the fan translation for this one and might end up just reading it through to the end without waiting for the official translation volumes to come out (though I'll probably read those too, because I like reading more than one translation where I can).

Conspirituality: How New Age Conspiracies Became a Health Threat by Derek Beres, Matthrew Remski, and Julian Walker. Sometimes you read a book on a really interesting subject and it just kind of makes you want to read a better book on that subject. Based on a podcast of the same name, this book was...fine? But it remained relatively shallow, and heavy on the examples rather than the analysis. It was more of a survey of instances where health and wellness/conspiracy thinking intersect than it felt like it was taking a deep look at where and why those intersections happen. It was interesting, and I learned some things, certainly, but it didn't quite dig as deep as I wanted to go.

In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado. What a fascinating piece of work. I don't have a whole lot of coherent things to say, except that I don't read a lot of memoir and I'm glad I read this one. I think I liked it better than I liked Machado's short story collection - certainly it was doing very interesting things with form and style in a narrative built loosely on the skeleton of a memoir. It's funny, because I could see myself finding the conceit here irritating or pretentious, but for whatever reason I think the vulnerability of the project undercut that aspect for me.

Dead Country by Max Gladstone. Mostly this book reminded me that I really want to reread the Craft Sequence, so I started doing that. Calling this an intro to that world feels weird - it doesn't really feel like an entry-point to me, despite the fact that it's being marketed that way - but perhaps that's me with the benefit of having read the other books but slightly too long ago to clearly remember them. (Hence the reread.)

Based on my vague recollections I remember liking his other books better than this one, but that's me comparing some books I really liked to one that I enjoyed but wasn't blown away by. But I'm still coming back to read the next one in this series, so I can't speak too harshly of it.

Faraway Wanderers by Priest. I really enjoyed this one! I love the way that Priest writes banter/interplay between two characters, and she definitely has a thing for people who are equally fucked up being fucked up together that I appreciate. Another thing to appreciate about this one is how (relatively speaking) tight it is - there's not a whole lot of wandering, despite the title, and the plot keeps moving in a pretty linear direction from start to finish. I love my longass cnovels with multiple arcs, but it was a little refreshing to read one this contained. It's not in my upper echelons of danmei I've read so far, because it doesn't hit my favorite tropes quite as hard, but I'm glad I finally got around to reading it.

Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh. Probably wins my favorite book I read last month challenge. The ending got a little deus ex machina for my taste, strictly speaking, but not so much that it ruined my experience - and I genuinely enjoyed the refreshing experience of reading a book that was digging into some messy shit in a way that I found satisfying. I felt like some of the character development could've used more breathing room/space, but maybe I'm just picky about that, and the propulsive pace did keep me reading this one so fast I think I finished it in two days.

This is really petty but I also appreciated the author's willingness to have the protagonist/narrator be not the picture of good progressive politics. It allowed room for the, you know, development, and in the current genre climate I don't take it for granted.

Spin Dictators: The Changing Face of Tyranny in the 21st Century by Sergei Guriev and Daniel Treisman. I don't quite know what I feel about this one. The basic argument Guriev and Treisman are making is that dictators have changed strategies in the 21st century from what they call "dictatorships of fear" to "dictatorships of spin." I think the main critique I came out of it with has to do with the authors drawing too stark a line between their dictatorship "types" and not necessarily acknowledging that a leader can move between them, or use elements of more than one "type" in different places. Like any binary, it obscures fuzziness of categories and potential overlap in favor of trying to make clear distinctions. This is particularly visible in the way that their writing about Putin feels dated just from the initial 2022 publication date.

There were a couple other things that struck me as weird (I suspect the authors might be a bit to the right of me, and there's at least a whiff of classism about their characterization of "the informed" as a class of people); on the whole it felt worth reading but also like a book I want to talk to someone else about to help process my thoughts.

Lords of Uncreation by Adrian Tchaikovsky. I love Tchaikovsky's work, and this conclusion to the Final Architecture series is no exception to that. And that's all, she wrote.

Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon by Wole Talabi. I wanted to like this book more than I did - not that I didn't like it, but there's so much interesting stuff going on that it felt like didn't quite add up to a greater whole. A solid three star read, though, in the sense of "I'm glad I read it, and if someone else mentioned they were reading it I would probably provide my favorable impression, but I'm not going to go out of my way to recommend it to others."

There's definitely sequel bait at the end, though, and I probably will read the sequel if/when it appears. I'm intrigued enough, and the setting/worldbuilding is different enough - to get me that far.

--

I'm currently rereading Three Parts Dead by Max Gladstone (Dead Country made me do it) but have We Are Satellites by Sarah Pinsker proximately on my list for a book club; I'm on a bit of a fiction kick looking at The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler, He Who Drowned the World by Shelley Parker-Chan, The Water Outlaws by S.L. Huang, and Too Like the Lightning by Ada Palmer as possible next-ups as well. I'll get back to my long, long nonfiction to-read list eventually. (in the meantime I've got my long, long, long fiction to-read list.)

[nayialovecat]

The Ink Demonth 2023 - Day 31. Revival

Day 31. Revival Crossover: Bendy and the Dark Revival I'd say, Bendy, you can't be that rude... but I feel exactly the same way. I know it's not BATDR Bendy's fault that he is the way he is - but that doesn't change the fact that this is how I feel. So, if anyone else wants to ask me what I think about Ink Bendy from BATDR - I will refer to this image.

Yes, I consider it a crossover because I don't consider BATDR to be a sequel to BATIM in any way. It's a completely separate creation that is simply heavily inspired by BATIM. However, in places he rewrites the stories, changes the characters' personalities, adds new threads... This is not an expansion of the world. This is an alternative version of the Workshop - and you won't convince me to think otherwise. So a separate game with which I did a crossover called "Bendy doesn't like his alter-ego".

Actually, the only thing I like about Ink Bendy from BATDR is his voice. When I heard it first time, I felt a shiver down my neck... and then, unfortunately, I focused to the words - and all the charm was disappeared. Seriously. There are reasons why Bendy has been mute so far - and apparently the main one is how much he talks f**cking nonsense. I don't like the shape of his head. His hideous teeth, which are not scary - are disgusting. Hoofs instead of feet is a nice idea - but why both legs? Where is the wonderful asymmetry of the original? Why does he turn into a hedgehog (those spines in strange places - they make sense when they are spine vertebrae). No. Absolutely no. And what's with the skeleton arm? Someone used acid on his ink there?

As for the game itself... Uh... I was impressed at first. First chapter - great. New possibilities of moving the character, beautiful backgrounds, delightful details, an interesting ritual of starting the machine... I was delighted. My slight discouragement began when I first heard Wilson's voice over the speakers and the subsequent behavior of the Lost Ones afther that proclamation... In the second chapter, the game started to piss me off on a regular basis. Then I just watched gameplays and... I don't regret that I didn't keep playing. The game is frustrating, the characters are warped (but not in the realities of the game as they should be warped - warped from the ones we knew and liked). A lot of stupid things happen: Tom being treated like a pet, Wilson acting like a villain from the start, Allison being a fucking deus ex machina, Twisted Alice's death scene and Sammy's death - I hate them both, no physical Bendy (appears out of nowhere and instantly kills - a very lazy solution, game creators), Henry's whole entrance, that weird puppet character what's-her-name Betty... Ok, I like Porter's character a bit - but that's probably only because of his resemblance to my OC Brody.

So you've asked many times what my opinion of Dark Revival is. That's it: I hate this game. It killed my passion for creating SATIM and made me stop looking for images with BATIM on tumblr or on dA - 'cause people don't know how to hashtag and they tag BATIM when they make arts about BATDR. Okay, I'm not saying I have nothing but hatred for this game - but it disappointed me just in the way like BATDR Bendy is disappointment for SATIM Bendy in the picture. And it pisses me off when I see on dA that people add my art to folders called "Dark Survival", "BATDR art" or so. It's like a slap in my face.

That's why I made this picture as quickly as possible. An unspectacular finale - but I've been waiting to say this openly for a very long time, so appreciate the solemnity of this art.

And finally, something positive: I FINISHED ON TIME! Yeah, I did it again!

Bendy and the Ink Machine (c) Joey Drew Studios Inc. Bendy and the Dark Revival (c) Joey Drew Studios Inc. Sammy and the Ink Machine (c) Nayia Lovecat