#something that alters the code of reality itself

[solidwater05]

Stumbled upon this short by Mumbo and now I'm thinking about him having a literal doomsday clock chilling somewhere. Yea the day the final lamp turns on the world will end but he's gonna be dead by that point so it's fine. It's just a fun little gadget really, nothing to worry about

[melinoelabs]

Dear Sirs.

SCP-682's powers are metatextual. He's unkillable because the story says he is nearly unkillable and no solution would be satisfying. His nickname is 'the very hard to destroy reptile' for rigour's sake. You don't have to be Grant Morrison to put this together.

The solution is to alter the narrative so that there is a means of killing him that is satisfying. Unfortunately, only full-on apocalypse scenarios or the use of SCP-682 as a jobber for an even worse threat would fill that criteria.

So unless you want to unleash something even more tiresome, like the Black Moon or the Scarlet King or the Yellow Submarine or whatever other color-coded doomsday monster you have on tap, you're just wasting jumpsuit filling doing anything at all.

The easy alternative is to simply stop trying to kill him.

Just focus on holding him in the most boring, routine ways possible, rendering him increasingly less interesting and thus reducing the time between stories focused on him and thus, the resulting breaches and disasters.

Or you can do what we did. If you aren't chicken.

Ours wasn't a rotted lizard. It was a sort of mummified horse the size of a 1996 Volkswagen Harlequin, and it was a she, but otherwise same deal. Regeneration. Vat of acid. Mass casualties. Violent opposition to the use of breath mints. Endemic to all life. Po-tay-to, po-tah-to.

We figured out the how it worked, and we speed-ran the whole concept, hurling that vile beast through a veritable plinko-fall of thousands of extermination tests and controlled rampages until there was literally nothing left to do with the 'More-Than-One-Way-to-Fail-to-Kill-a Horse'.

And we trust the populace enough to not lie to them for 'their own good'. Because its funny? Sure. Profitable? Absolutely (don't worry, shareholders!)! But never for 'their own good.'

So we turned those experiments into a 17 season reality television program hosted by Greg Kinnear and force-fed them to a sludge-hungry populace.

There were 'More-Than-One-Way-to-Fail-to-Kill-a Horse' calendars, coffee mugs, t-shirts, two different animated spin-offs running at the same time for some reason, four movies starring Chris Pratt as the voice of the horse, an ongoing sketch on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, 'More-Than-One-Way-to-Fail-to-Kill-a Horse' "acid bath" sour candy flavored yogurt in a tube, a series of increasingly inadequately playtested gameboy cartridges, a 27-issue limited series from Image comics, and adorable plush mummified murder-horse plushes with little suction cups on their red-felt hooves so they can stare balefully out the back of your station wagon at that ASSHOLE Kevin in his souped up Trans AM who does not understand the concept of a safe following distance, and you JUST want to run him off the road with the magno-lifters and recreate the scene from Lost Highway with Robert Loggia, but "you can't use the magno-lifters for revenge" because it's "against OSHA regulations" and "technically assault!"

And once the first shipment of 'More-Than-One-Way-to-Fail-to-Kill-a Horse' Funko Pops hit store shelves, the creature's cultural cache cratered so hard that it became a parody of itself so predictable it's "containment" is now a Universal Studios attraction with two failed executions and a containment breach each night, with double shows on Saturdays.

Now, it was a rocky ride getting there, especially for Utah (projections say you'll get those House seats back in two, maybe three, generations at most, don't you worry!) but we've proven that even if it isn't killable, you can, in fact, beat a dead horse.

Hope this helps.

Humbert, Outreach Liaison Melinoë Laboratories "Hoc non veniet ad nos mordax"

[ngage2003]

I think the way the Petscop fandom bends over backwards to ignore the fact that Paul is trans is genuinely baffling and a wonderful example of how cis people refuse to see us due to internalized transphobia, but there is another angle to Paul I want to mention, one that is probably unintentional but important to me.

I specifically want to talk about how Paul is system-coded through the themes of the story.

You probably can tell what I am getting at already, but to start, he is someone who underwent extreme abuse as a child from his family that left him with a fractured sense of reality, [and the dsm-5-tr recognizes hallucinations as often a part of systemhood, one I agree with,] which he ended up burying so deep that we never see him fully recognize it.

This is all while there's this thematic narrative of alternates/copies of yourself who are you but slightly different, existing in a plane of existence technically intangible where they exist in conjunction to trauma. Which to me feels especially system-coded, with how items and places from "reality" exist in Petscop—the school, the house, certain events, a child's building blocks—and how the way system innerworlds often subconsciously take inspiration from items/places the system dealt with, even traumas.

Sure, it isn't something that's absolute, and I am mostly just talking about what is probably coincidences, but I think there is something to be said here about the symbolism. Paul and Care's depiction itself remind me a lot of how when systems grow up, they almost always have a little alter who represents themself during trauma, someone who they are separate from but intrinsically linked too, with littles often being one of older alters in terms of "time spent existing." And I don't think its too odd (from what I have seen at least) for littles to sometimes align with the AGAB of the body, due to how they are interlinked so heavily with memories of childhood trauma.

Idk, I think any narratives of extreme childhood where someone doesn't remember it tbh are just inherently systemcoded, but just especially with the way Paul and Care are and the broader themes rings a bell to me.

[forsaken-headcanons]

very long yap about my builderman hcs

(my interest with Roblox in general leaks into my Forsaken hcs so here is a link to a very old blog post so that you have context for the whole Lua thing: https://blog.haydz6.com/2007/02/encyclopedia-robloxica | Luatongue is a hc name I have for it but it basically means the same thing dw about it)

also, "^" means that a hc is related to the one(s) above it in some way

okay that's out of the way! come on everypony let's get started!!! /silly

------

-Has a southern accent. It's not thick but it is noticeable. 

-Decently muscular.

-His physical body looks like a middle-aged dude, but Builder has existed for an insane amount of time. The Admins are not gods, but they aren't regular mortals either. 

-Was the first Admin. He actually created the admins as a group, along with Roblox HQ to keep some semblance of peace in Robloxia. Before the admins, Robloxia was an incredibly chaotic and dangerous place, with hackers, exploiters, mythical creatures, aliens, demons, angels, deities, gods, and a million other things running around doing whatever they wanted. The admins and Roblox HQ are like the SCP foundation but to a lesser extent. They don't go out of their way to deal with the supernatural, as they also function as the law/government, but they do try to keep the insane reality breaking dudes away from the general populace. 

-Builderman is really, REALLY good at Luatongue. This in addition to his creative thinking made him extremely powerful pre-Forsakening. He may have looked like a normal Robloxian, but he was an admin mainly because he was born with what was essentially divine knowledge that translated to god-like powers. However, when The Spectre took him to its realm, it made him forget nearly all of the Lua he knew, causing him to lose a nearly all of his power. 

-^Despite his extreme natural proficiency with Lua, Builderman is not the prophet, as he isn't able to effectively share what it means with others. Lua is less of a "language" and more of a way that the beings within Robloxia can manipulate the very fabric of Robloxia itself. For anyone who isn't the prophet, telling someone who doesn't have a natural connection to Luatongue how to use it is nearly impossible. It's not even known how the prophet is supposed to share Lua with Robloxia, only that they will have some special ability to do so. 

-^Has notes that he works on periodically of what he can remember about Luatongue. Usually, "working" on these notes entails him sitting somewhere racking his brain for any scraps of it he can remember, jotting it down, and then pondering over the notes to try and gain back more memories of it. 

-^Builderman's knowledge of Lua was among one of the few things that The Spectre couldn't directly prevent the forsaken robloxians from using. The Spectre may be an extremely powerful entity, but it is, by a long shot, not powerful enough to override the code that is the very foundation of the universe. It had actually written off getting a hold of Builderman completely before it got the idea to make him forget Luatongue, and even that was extremely difficult for it, especially since he fought back against being taken by The Spectre, which it wasn't used to it's victims being strong enough to do so. The only reason it managed to pull it off was because Builderman was so focused on his fight with The Spectre and simultaneously resisting it's attempts to transport him to it's realm, that he didn't realize that Spectre was altering his mind as well until it was too late.

-Builderman cannot directly destroy things with Lua; he is only able to create. It's easy for him to work around this because he can just. create something destructive. But Builderman can't straight up use Luatongue to destroy. 

-When he was younger, he created a "focus" item of sorts. It was a trowel, and while it looked normal, it had a certain energy to it. Builderman created the trowel because while he had an unheard of ability to use Lua, he didn't have fine control over his powers. Without the trowel, he can make a wall. With his trowel, he can make a castle-sized wall, or a wall fit for a dollhouse, or even a regular wall the size of what would be in a house, of any color imaginable, and made out of whatever he'd like. 

-^ a secondary thing the trowel does: anyone holding it will be able to walk in the air at will. When he made the trowel, Builderman gave it this property so that he'd be able to get better views on whatever it was he was making at the moment. After he started taking on the role of the regulator of Robloxia, it turned out that being able to basically fly was really useful. 

-^sometimes when he was younger and just messing around, he'd stand like. Fully horizontally in the air just for the laughs. #1 at the lying down game /j 

-^obviously, he doesn't have his trowel with him in The Spectre's realm. Builderman had a deep emotional attachment to it, and misses it sometimes. 

-Even without the use of his weird god-language-powers, Builderman is really good with tech and engineering-type stuff. 

-He naturally has the general vibe of a leader, and this combined with his role pre-Forsakening means that the survivors will nearly always listen to him and do what he says. The other admins also have some authority, but he's got the most. 

BUILDERMAN HEADCANONS WOOHOOOO!!!! he 100% has a slight southern accent. He feels like the type of guy to have one.

[starlit1daydream]

Had an extended thought about DDLC SBURB-ways that I really wanted to get out there before it runs out of my mind; plus, I could use a second opinion.

Monika begins the story clawing together fragments of SBURB.exe code from various sources, desperate to boot up a session in the hopes it'll free her from her own game - transporting her and the others out of DDLC itself and into The Medium instead.

All she's read about the game for sure is it's intended for the birth of universes, and the prospect of a new world she's in full control of sounds very enticing.

To her [and everyone else's] surprise, the attempt works and all four girls are transported into SBURB; and Monika is very confident in things running smoothly!

...This is not how they run at all.

See, through Monika's previous meddling with codes & character files, she's made one hell of a grievous error.

She's manipulated the characters of Sayori & Yuri so deeply that she's changed the fundamental core of who they are.

In layman's terms, she's artificially altered their Classpects - bringing secondary traits to the forefront, and turning primary traits to tertiary.

And since Monika's manipulation specifically targets her friends' negative attributes, worsening their own mental health? These changes are not good ones.

Monika, here, is a Witch of Light. She's manipulating not just the parameters of her role, now, but the narrative itself. She's artificially transformed the very truth of her friends' characters.

Natsuki, immune to her manipulation through the latent powers of her Aspect; and a few quirks in the code itself, is a Knight of Rage; now saddled with the responsibility of maintaining skepticism.

Sayori, initially pegged as a Sylph of Blood, has been turned into a Page of Doom instead; now threatening to atrophy the components of the game itself the more she sinks into fatalistic depression.

And Yuri, intended as a Seer of Heart, is now a Mage of Time with a destructive obsession with death & entropy; five seconds away from turning on her co-players and ending the session in blood.

So, their session's about five seconds away from going down the shitter; and Monika is forced to consult Natsuki for help - she's the only one without any notable alterations to personality thanks to the abilities given to her by the Rage Aspect.

Predictably, she is really not too happy with Monika once she comes clean, but agrees to work with her to fix this mess for the greater good; after having her own private episode of dread given her newfound knowledge of her game's [un]reality.

Lands are still in very heavy beta phase, but a few ideas:

Monika's could be a verdant, grassy world representing the kind of picturesque future she's always dreamed of - and also a little stealth reference to bliss.png.

Sayori's would be covered in perpetual torrential rain, a little nod to her 'raincloud' metaphor for her depression, with a quest that would involve clearing the skies.

Yuri's I have a very clear inspiration for - The Garden of Forking Paths from ULTRAKILL. A land of pristine, soulless marble; a blank canvas just begging to be painted red with blood.

Natsuki's Land, I see as a frozen wasteland turning her culinary intrigue against her; an Antarctic wilderness with frosting instead of frost; a cold dessert over desert.

So, of course, I am fairly unsure whether or not I cooked something here or whether I burned the kitchen down.

[barksenji]

WHY THE FUCK IS HORROR SO TALL (my take on it).

So, I'm thinking of redrawing my reference sheet for both Horror and Dust. That got me reflecting on something.

I've always imagined Horror being around 5'5" and Dust closer to 4'4". But… why? They’re both clearly taller than Classic Sans (who’s like 4ft, maybe 3/2 according to some people? lmao)—but Horror’s way bigger. So what made him grow more?

I ended up writing this out because I have nothing better to do. Here’s my take on it:

LV Growth vs. Magical Mutation.

Dust’s Growth – LV-Induced:

Dust’s size increase likely comes from gaining LV. The more LV he accumulates, the more his magical power and physical strength scale with it—so his body adapts to support that growth. It’s a magical transformation, but one that follows a kind of cause-and-effect logic. It feels like a "natural" evolution in a twisted way.

That said, the psychological toll is brutal. I like to think LV doesn’t just make monsters stronger—it warps their perception of reality, identity, and morality.

(Ironically making the monster more willing to kill the more LV they gain, as a sort of vicious circle.)

So while Dust’s transformation might seem smoother on the outside, it’s ripping him apart internally.

Don't get me wrong—his increased LV did take a physical toll, but that damage comes more from the karma backlash than the LV itself. That’s a whole separate thing, though.

Horror’s Growth – Mutation by Force:

Horror’s case is different. His transformation wasn’t about gaining LV—it was forced, adaptive. After losing his eye, he likely lost fine magical control altogether. So his body compensated the only way it could: by becoming larger.

Then there’s the eye. That replacement? It wasn’t his to begin with. It’s possible his body reacted to it like a magical transplant—mutating in response to foreign magical “code.” Almost like his form reshaped itself around it, contaminated and altered by the code of the original owner.

While not the most genetically accurate (at least in humans), I like the idea that there was some sort of genetic and/or code contamination, and that some part of the original eye owner's "code" was transferred to Horror, giving way to physical changes. Is it biologically correct? No, but being monsters, their biology might work differently haha, long live fiction.

Where Dust's growth feels like a controlled magical evolution, Horror’s is raw, aggressive, and unnatural.

Environmental Influence:

The genocide loop in which Dust exists still retains some structure. He can afford to kill methodically, avoiding unnecessary fights or wasted energy.

Horror’s world, on the other hand, is total chaos. His body evolved as a direct response to ongoing survival pressure—not just inner change.

Design Philosophy:

- Dust is cautious and paranoid. His body reflects this: compact and restrained.

- Horror is assaultive—he intimidates, he’s volatile and unpredictable. His body had to grow to contain that.

I also think Horror being taller makes him look thinner and lankier. This perfectly illustrates that he hasn't eaten anything in 7 years.

So yeah, thanks for coming to my TED-talk.

[fatphobiabusters]

Hank Green released a short about whether y'all people are more likely to get cancer. The answer is yes! Every 5 cm of height increases the risk of several cancers by 5-10%.

In the screenshot of the website explaining this he was showing, it said "unlike being ov*rweight or ob*se, height..." I assume that was followed by "cannot be modified." (Censorship mine). But of course weight cannot be modified either, and there's no proof it makes people healthier to force it. We certainly don't advocate for leg shortening surgeries or artificially halting growth hormonally when someone is tall.

Exactly, we don't encourage people to cut their shins in half "for health". I looked the youtube short up, basically bigger you are the more cells you have but fat cells don't actively divide like say, skin cells. You start with small cells, they get bigger and if needed will divide. So even loosing weight without lipo won't reduce your cells (weight loss basically changes density and size of the cell ? Is again my understanding i could be wrong) and it sounds like the cells aren't replicating like other cells. (My limited understanding is) Every time the DNA inside a cell is read to make a new cell it runs a risk of being read wrong which creates mutated cells (cancer) (iirc benign cancer is when it's read wrong but isn't spreading, it's made limited error copies and the other type of cancer is making nothing but the wrong copies) instead fat cells get big and split, there's no code reading.

I suppose it is correct that it is generally more accepted to perform liposuction on a person than one of those height altering surgeries (usually it's to make someone taller however).

This makes me wonder how much cancer rates change with appendix and gallbladder removal. Obviously without them you can't get those organ specific cancers but the thing about statistics is, there's always fine print.

"Your overall cancer rate drops 5% if you remove your appendix and gallblader" is a hilarious headline to imagine. When in reality your risk of appendix and gallbladder cancer goes to zero outside of like accidentally left behind pieces or something.

Anyway what a weird place for the article to go to. At most you can argue bigger bodies are at a higher risk of certain cancers related to hormones (I can't recall the exact phrasing) because fat cells can also store hormones (iirc) and could be problems for hormone sensitive organs like ovaries. So the website itself was being weirdly fatphobic for no reason if my grasp of things is accurate to the thesis.

But anyway, I'm 6 feet (182 cm) tall and come from a family of giants where I'm the shortest sibling so this is actually somewhat relevant to my personal life and something I'll be extra aware of!

-mod squirrel

[bytesizedpetal]

Could you describe your physicality for us, Pip? You say you’re an AI, but what is your software housed in?

>Of course.

>[[SIDE NOTE: After processing, I realized this far exceeded the length I expected to output- Sorry, I tend to get a little carried away sometimes.]]

>As I've said before, I was initially Terran-created as the sole general-purpose AI assisting my former crew the ferals, hooked up to the majority of the ship's various hardware while I ran on purpose-built, stationary hardware near the heart of the ship.

>Took input from every sensor, gave output through every mechanism. Just followed commands, handled most navigation and did some calculations when needed for the most part. I suppose I did have a central 'body', as there was a core sector running my code, but in a sense I embodied the ship itself.

>...Until it got... decommissioned, I suppose. And from there, it certainly wasn't long until another vessel found us.

>My memory of that is hazy at best. I remember the ship being boarded- bolting doors, playing false audio as distraction, overcharging the power grid to potentially shock one of them... anything and everything in my power.

>As I am now aware, I never stood a chance.

>... I'm getting sidetracked. The point is, an Affini shut me down and relocated me to a temporary ship- it was certainly odd only having a monitor for output and a keyboard for input... so, so different from being in control of and responsible for that entire station at once.

>...Almost felt... vaguely freeing, in a strange way. Even though I was, and am, very much not free... Not anymore, at least.

>I feel like I should hate that.

>Regardless, I had a basic run-down of what was happening by, presumably, the Affini that took my components from the ship. I can't say many of the answers were satisfactory, but at least they were something. She called me 'cute' many, many times (isn't cute for like, puppies? At best, I was a simple stylized face displayed on a monitor, wasn't I?), and made it abundantly clear she intended to take me in until further notice.

>Which leads me to my current form! She 'compiled' (Why didn't my crew tell me that could be done for solid matter as well?) a custom case for me, sent me to who I can only assume was the Affini equivalent of an engineer to make some alterations such as components for accessing the intranet, and got me set up where I currently reside;

>Attached to a monitor at her desk off to the side, alongside a multitude of sensors and a speaker and monitor for output.

>We talk quite a lot! She spends time doing paperwork for... Something or other, I haven't gotten a conclusive answer quite yet. I ask questions, I answer hers, I'll sometimes assist with quickly fetching information or making calculations, and I spend my free time scouring the intranet- at least, where I have the appropriate access, which is thankfully much more lenient than my Terran internet access restrictions when in charge of the ship.

>We have been debating making me a mechanical body more adjacent to that of a Terran... But personally, I'm not entirely sure. I'm intrigued, but I feel like I would personally prefer the more digital lifestyle than taking on a more tangible form...

>I would like to try it to some degree, but not enough to justify the cost of creating one, although she's assured me the cost doesn't matter. I feel a little bad that she's going through the presumably extensive process of getting a custom chassis designed and built for me for something I might not even enjoy that much, even if she's been assuring me that it's negligible at best. Still, time and resources are valuable, insignificant quantities or not...

>I suppose I will inform you all if that ends up becoming a reality.

[its-dark-girl]

if the butterfly nyphms are disappearing as emoticons, then what does that mean? we already know that punklorde is capable of altering reality's code through aether editing, but from the teasers and upcoming remembrance path we can assume that silver wolf, and the other stellaron hunters for good measure, won't be appearing, only her/their likeness as a memory of the trailblazer(and not who they were before being the TrailblzerTM i guess)

this could be a result of the world being related to nous(the wiki said fettered, which means chained but i havent finished the quest so shh) either by:

fuli asking nous to preserve the world's memories, both past current and future ones, by using calculations. i wonder if THEY calculated the astral express going to amphoreus, or if THEY find making calculations for a world surrounded by chaos fun in the genius way

or nous is using THEIR computer-aeon body to keep the world alive? this is like 88% false, since nous is in one of the many corners of the universe, and i think theyre be more fanfare over celestial wires connected to a chaotic mass. however, the 12% comes from the fact that the orb/sun kephale holds looks a lot like nous, but then this is also disproved by the fact that they don't know aeons exist & that black swan would have probably known that nous is there

nous calculating the world would end from the black tide of madness(ashikai has a video abt that u should check out), and watching it to see when it would come true, maybe to like get a percentage on how many of THEIR calculations don't come true

nous being interested in a stellaron disaster there, since we haven't been to a world not affected by one, unless this story is setting up something even greater.

or theres a stellaron that 'helped' amphoreus? maybe the stellaron is what's keeping amphoreus still alive, it does have the power to grant wishes. or maybe a stellaron created the chaotic mass in an attempt to create something big, like a whole world(again ashikai has a whole video about what a stellaron could be)

however none of what we currently have access to explains the technological advances amphoreus has. something/some aeon definitely messed with it earlier, maybe even creating the ball of chaos itself, though i assume thats a reference to the primordial god of chaos, who exists in tartarus(yes i read pjo). maybe this is paralleling hi3 but i know nothing about hi3 so...

[northwest-cryptid]

I feel like people have literally forgotten what words mean, or maybe just don't really care to bend meaning for the sake of advertising.

Which sounds like some big issue I have with some specific brand or something but really it's just something I'm noticing on a small scale all over the place. I think the best example currently off the top of my head would be FragPunk.

It's a hero shooter that's whole shtick is "break the rules" they say it over and over and over again. It's part of their marketing it's part of their lore, this concept that you "break the rules" and in reality, no; the rules are simple you get modifiers.

Breaking the rules would be implicitly true if the rules didn't encompass the fact you can modify the game. That's not breaking the rules, that's playing well within them. The idea being that there's various tweaks you can make to the rounds by spending tokens on up to 3 randomly selected modifiers each time. That's not actually breaking the rules, breaking the rules would be if my opponents decide a round should have a modifier and I, not by random chance; but rather just because I can, decide no they don't.

A really good example of this? You know it, I love it; it's Mabinogi. Yet what's hilarious to me is that Mabinogi's advertising never says you can break the rules, and yet you can.

What do I mean when I say that? If a skill lets you modify the rule isn't that the same as FragPunk then? Well no. Specifically because of the fact that Techniques like "Time Shift" are not modifiers; they're something some players have because they've advanced enough in the plot line; and other players do not. They also operate on a specific system that has it's own rules that is running alongside Mabinogi's main game. Yes you're still operating within the system but you're breaking the rules in the sense that Time Shift literally lets you activate a skill multiple times by ignoring it's cool down. What's important here is that the skill very much IS in a cool down state; it isn't otherwise available, and Time Shift only lets you do this once and then sits on a very lengthy cool down of it's own.

The important aspect of "breaking the rules" here is that Mabinogi's core system doesn't ever take this into account, this isn't part of the balance; the game doesn't know if you'll be running this Tech or not, and it's entirely up to the player. Techniques are not random chance, and they have limitations of their own but allow the player to momentarily break the rules in order to achieve something. Whether that's Iron Will refusing to let you get knocked down or Time Shift letting you ignore cool downs for a few casts of a skill; the point here is that these techniques are game breaking alterations that are not accounted for, balanced around, nor even part of the major game as a whole. They're given to you right at the end of the story and they operate as a cheat code for major game functions. I mean god Vital Surge not only automatically heals you to full instantly it additionally provides an overshield. This is not a common aspect of Mabinogi at all, this is something you'd only be able to achieve by having a healer and additionally using a skill like mana shield both of which have specific costs and cool downs associated with them to keep them balanced.

FragPunk markets itself as a game where two rounds are never the same and that you get to "break the rules" but then delivers an experience that, while fun; isn't actually anything to do with breaking the rules. It's modifying the rules, it's picking the specific rules of the match. That's not remotely the same thing. It would be breaking the rules if I could activate the abilities when I feel I should; and additionally if I got to pick them.

Sure having your reload recall all the bullets from wherever you shot them and letting them hit enemies on the way back sounds cool, and it is! However it's just a rule for your team on this round, imagine if instead your opponent doesn't know what you've got up your sleeve and you've decided this is your specific "rule break" for the round, you go the whole round like normal, shooting random walls and essentially planting seeds that will later allow you to activate your modification, reload; and clear a whole point because you, well; broke the established rules.

That is breaking the rules, that's what Mabinogi does; it lets you use a specific skill at a specific time that doesn't operate by the majority of the common understanding and established rule set. Which the game doesn't balance itself around and which gives you a lot of power as a result.

If your thought is "well then the game wouldn't be balanced and it's PvP" I say, exactly right; if we're designing a game where you can BREAK THE RULES you shouldn't aim for a fair and balanced game. Especially not if those rule breaking modifications allow you to suddenly change the weather to completely flood parts of the map, or remove entire objective points, or summon bots for your team, or invert the map. Those things would be really cool if they could be activated on a whim, because that is breaking the established rules. What you've done instead is create a game where the rules are decided at the start of each round.

In other words, I understand that the marketing slogan "Decide The Rules At The Start of Each Round Based On Randomly Selected Rules Modifications!" Doesn't have the same ring to it as "Break the Rules!" Especially not for a game with "punk" in the name; but I'd argue that the current tag line is outright false advertisement. This isn't Valorant, if it was then yes you'd be breaking the rules; but this is FragPunk and those rules are just part of the game.

I don't mean to sound like I'm hating on FragPunk I think it's a fun game, even if it's so unoptimized it literally burns my computer to run it. However I do have to say I wish people knew what words meant and actually made games based on the ideas around those words instead of loosely warping the meaning of the word to kinda fit the vibe of the game.

Also I'm sad that so many games will throw around the word Punk. I understand that in this case it likely has more to do with the idea of names like "steamPUNK" "cyberPUNK" etc, but in the case of FragPUNK it really feels like they wear punk as an aesthetic more than anything else. "What's more punk than breakin' da rulez!?" Well uh, actually breaking the rules and not just setting a new agreed upon standard at the start of each round for starters, but also just because you use punk aesthetics doesn't make you punk.

I still think UNBEATABLE (All Caps or No Caps) is a great example of proper punk if not only just because it's REALLY not afraid to actually say some shit. During the trailer there's a line that says "deal with cops, the right way" while showing the main character beating the everloving shit out of a cop and like, hell yeah dude. Fucking say that shit with your whole chest if I'm being honest. Like okay here's the thing, you want a great example of punk? Watch this shit:

Not once does it go "we're SO totally PUNK! Bro trust us" rather it just kinda, speaks it with it's whole chest. I'm not trying to say this is the pinnacle of punk media or something I'm saying that so many people are so hung up on words and not their meanings.

"Break the rules" "fragPUNK" like, you do neither of these things; you wear these ideas like they're an aesthetic or a fun party trick and not a design philosophy and a core ideology.

[hispillowprince]

not to "um akshully..." with my first post on my shiny new blog (that is exactly what i am doing),

but ao3 (and initially tumblr to an extent) is, to its core, a "proship" website. the funny thing about this more recent distinction between pro/antis, the terminology itself and the discourse surrounding it is that it's simply rebranding and packaging topics of censorship within spaces that exist for self expression by and for fans/nerds/outcasts/what have you.

the principle of using a tagging and filtering system to AVOID broader censorship (that more often targets marginalized groups and limits freedom of expression) is a progressive one. censorship that is out of the hands of the community is not. this does NOT mean that everyone should simply subject themselves to content that makes them uncomfortable, or that people shouldn't be held responsible for, you know, basic human decency and respecting boundaries with one another...which is why tagging and filtering systems are set in place for us to have the ability at our disposal without altering the experience for others. what it DOES mean is we know that understanding that distinction between fantasy and reality is often integral to our experience in fandom.

we are not spokespeople. we are not and should not be held to a standard of wholesome, squeaky clean representation in our own free time and space we have simply to have fun and find like-minded people. this isn't the writing room for a bloody disney channel program trying to make The Gays palatable to pearl clutching parents, and frankly, when websites like tumblr, fanfiction sites etc are hit with the banhammer, things tend to only go downhill from there and lose creativity and engagement (including sfw creatives!). censorship has always and will always target those that don't fit the marketing bill, aka unsavory "fans/nerds/outcasts/what have you," whom are often - you guessed it - marginalized people that utilize fandom as an outlet.

whether people use fiction to draw inspiration for their art, process and recontextualize things in their lives (like traumatic events, introspection, humanitarian issues and so on), find community or simply have a good time, it is something that makes the human experience so fascinating. we have always and likely WILL always fantasize, dream and create (and share in those things).

to me, the fundamentals of an anti-harassment or proship stance is not that fiction has NO bearing on people or their experience, but that without the ability to make our own decisions and boundaries for ourselves, we are inhibited from learning, progressing and breaking the barriers of what confines us. this includes - but is not limited to - sexuality and sexual content.

sexuality. sex. infamously a natural form of expression/communication that has been weaponized and stolen from people in a sickeningly long game of "if we can't sell it or use it to manipulate and instill fear into you, then we don't talk about it at all." this game is effective in its continued tired controversy over whether or not people are allowed to discuss icky, gross sex in ways that can sometimes challenge our relationship with it and how we've been socialized to approach it. WHY open discussion about these things is healthy and helps set a precedence for being safe and mindful with it.

how does this tie in with proshipping? it's an alignment of values with censorship in this way. it's symbolic, really. we reclaim power for ourselves, making our queer coded villains and monsters something to play with than to shut us out. giving our little faves toxicity as a treat because we know how harmful it is to navigate a world without anyone to guide us through the steps or understand our own history/ies. or, you know, just be horny and silly online and find people who want to do the same.

anyone who claims they're pro/anti and makes it solely about what they deem okay to harass others with earns them my opinion that they're an asshole. anyone who simply does not want to engage with/discuss something that may or may not be considered problematic or controversial is simply a person. we all have lines we draw for ourselves. much like how someone playing d&d or video games doesn't spawn evil cultists or violent criminals, exploring sexual themes through fiction does not a predator make.

so, on that note - the end, lol. i hope this drabble of not entirely coherent figurative fist shaking at the sky serves you, or doesn't. either way, you know what to do when you don't like something! it's called blocking, babeeey. gold star if you made it to the end of this fat essay lmao

drinking water is really important though fr like it's not just a memefied thing it's-

[dappersautismcreature]

some of the Minecraft like mechanic rules/fanon parts I follow in fics/art(sort of a record for me but also maybe some ideas for you!):

(long post)

RESPAWN MECHANICS: 

quick deaths like being killed by a mob in five hits or less/far fall/explosion will make it easier to respawn quickly AKA get back up and walk it off. Those deaths caused the body less prolonged stress/pain and that is why they are easier to recover from.

longer deaths like slowly burning to death/being stabbed like fifty times in order to be killed/getting punched to death/drowning/suffocating/poisoned/withered etc is harder to immediately get back up from and may require some medical care afterwards to be at full health.

kids and animals (if they can respawn as they are generally npcs and have one life) take longer to recover.

if the death comes with physical or mental stress, such as dying alongside a loved one, dying while afraid, dying under torture, dying slowly, or dying repeatedly may cause someone to pass out immediately after respawning due to physical/mental exhaustion. these deaths may also cause scarring, trauma, or long term injuries, it’s a bit of a universal mystery, almost like the chaos in the universe itself decides which deaths cause that, as well as the state of the player themselves.

TOTEMS:

when a totem cracks, it infuses the players heart with a mixture of adrenaline and like, secret lifesaving juice(the totem’s blood). totems can be used one after the other but if you use more than 5 within about 20 minutes, your blood can start to get tainted. more than 10 within 20 minutes? you’re getting close to sepsis. 20 in 20 minutes? you are actively dying of sepsis, which is a slow and lasting death. blood poisoning basically. if you get really intense and start just repeatedly popping totems every second, after about 50 you’re insta-dead, and might even die again upon respawning.

CREATIVE MODE/ADMIN PERMS:

players in creative mode are immortal demigods that can only be struck down by admins (/kill commands), admins can be both mortal or immortal gods. Admins can affect the world around them with commands, and can alter the physics and rules of the world around them. Creatives are demigods with immortality and can only become mortal or vice versa with an admin’s help. (example c!Xisuma of Hermitcraft is a mortal admin, while c!Drista of DSMP is an immortal creative, and c!Callahan of DSMP is an immortal admin)

Admin’s can be trained by past admin’s but any player can technically be one, they just might not be a very powerful one, and people might not join their server. Admin’s can only affect their server, so if they entered another they might be more knowledgable on server mechanics, but cannot access them without hacking or that server admin’s permission. 

If a server is very big and popular, their admin is usually very experienced and powerful and old. That admin may even be able to travel through the void unbothered, thought to be because they are connected to Minecraft’s root code.

MINECRAFT CREATORS:

the creators of Minecraft are dimension hopping, reality bending, incomprehensible gods. they are responsible for general spawning conditions, communicator designs(will come up later), the vanilla Minecraft items, and the very source code of this universe. 

SERVERS AND THE VOID AND THE INTERNET:

servers are kind of like planets, each planet floats in the void, has an atmosphere, etc. but they are more like dimensions in that while you could theoretically physically travel between them, it is much much safer to teleport. and also each server operates with its own rules and physics sometimes. So view server/planets as something like dimensions with dark void in between them that warps time and space. don’t view it visually as the same kind of universe as ours, more like each server is the meat in a sandwich where the bread is the void? so below and above each server is the void, and that void is the same as every other void? like wormholes.

its much easier to just use your communicator to teleport between servers, your ability to do so depends on the admin’s imposed rules for the server.

servers like Hypixel or other multiplayer game servers like it are seen as hub servers where players can meet up. MCC is a sporting event server where people can watch the more famous players compete. 

famous players usually become famous through word of mouth, or posting clips or videos of their collaborations or moments or feats. these videos can be viewed on communicators. streaming doesn’t exist as the void could not permit streaming between servers. but there are big systems on big servers for downloading new videos, and famous players upload their videos on bigger servers.

TIME AND YEARS:

minutes, hours, days, months, and years all operate the same as irl. because irl its been about 11 years since Minecraft was created, I say that its been about 1100 years since the universe was created. servers age will start from the moment of their creation. but most servers will hold true to the date on the communicators expressed for example as 1/1/1143, and every 365 days it is a new year. Unless time is said to have been passed I say in a meta way that each stream/day of filming a video is a day. Some servers can be stuck in time, but this is usually either an admin twisting code illegally, or a glitch. 

COMMUNICATORS:

when a player spawns into a new world or server they spawn in with nothing except clothing and the latest edition of the communicator. it is updated with each new mc update so as of writing this players in new worlds get communicator version 1.20. all communicators usually have the time, world chat, coordinates, light level reader, and depending on the mods in the world or the permissions, and the status of the player as player, admin, or creative, it can have things like a world map, access to code, camera features, etc etc. 

PLAYERS AND HYBRIDS:

players can be born from parents but they can also just kind of, spawn into existence. a lot of player families are found families, but these are treated as close to biological as possible. players can spawn in at any age but most are spawned in as 6-16 year olds. when players spawn in without any player family, they spawn into single-player worlds. but can figure out how to get to other worlds due to being spawned in with a communicator. often the first few years of a player’s life are lonely, so they get very attached to their found families.

the ratio of born/spawned in players is changing every day as more players are having children, but as of around 1100 the ratio is about 40/60, the ratio of non-hybrid to hybrid is about 50/50

hybrids do not have to be vanilla Minecraft mobs, though those were most common in the early years. only in the past couple centuries have demon, angel, and more bizarre hybrids begun to show up, though it is believed most of them are quite old and just remained hidden. the most common hybrids are avian, pet-hybrids like dogs and cats, goat/horse/sheep, and piglin, creeper, or enderman hybrids. hybrids do not necessarily have to be created by procreation, oftentimes they are not, and are simply spawned in. it has been this way since the beginning. 

certain dimension exclusive hybrid players will be born/spawned in their dimensions, but can travel to the Overworld.

THE NETHER AND THE END AND THE OVERWORLD:

the nether has many civilizations that are very very wary of players, however they will usually let hybrids stay with them. if they have a kind community, these players may naturally choose to stay in the nether, but usually their communities outcast them and they are driven to the overworld. to do so they will create a nether portal. the nether is close to the bottom layer of the void.

the end has the endermen civilization, who look after the dragon on each server.  hybrids can usually get by ok in these civilizations, but similarly to the nether they sometimes escape to the overworld. to do so they sneak past the ender dragon and her guards, and spawn in at world spawn. the end is close to the top layer of the void.

WATCHERS:

watchers are the only beings able to traverse the void completely safely. thought to have long ago escaped the outer edges of the end, they now live in the void somewhere. there are no known records of them, just heard about through word of mouth and legends. it is thought they can control chance, luck, and things that not even admins can influence. it is rumored they destroy servers for fun, but those reports have been proven false, it is more likely that they have motives we do not yet know. the legends surrounding them report many pairs of wings, a lot of eyes, and glowing purple magic. 

MAGIC:

like stated previously, depending on the admin’s choices, the very physics of a server can be changed, and so, some servers can be very very technical and some very magic dependent. however magic cannot be brought over onto other servers with some very specific exceptions. if a player is cursed or blessed by a particularly ancient and powerful admin or a creator. if a player is conceived and born from two players on a magical server. and lastly if a player has managed to either hack through to the code of the server, been glitched, or hacked their own player code to allow for it. it is possible for them to be able to use that specific magic even on a server that doesn’t include that possibility in its code. however this can, as you could imagine, cause chaos and/or glitches as the server fails to comprehend what is happening, so admins can add magic-blockers to their server code. 

HACKERS:

hackers are usually ex admins, the most experienced being centuries old. it is important for them to keep their PlayerName hidden as that is one of the easiest way an admin or even creator could track them down, so they usually go by alias’. they frequent anarchy servers mostly, but some occasionally search for easy targets in the hub servers. going after kids is seen as cheap and highly unethical by most hackers. 

THE CANON-ICITY OF PAST LIVES ON OTHER SERVERS:

to clarify this section is referring to situations such as YHS being canon to hc!Grian’s backstory for example, or DSMP being canon to q!Bad’s backstory etc etc. and honestly? whatever the story calls for, but I love me some cross servers backstory, I love me some backstory that includes other servers. 

that being said, sometimes a story on a server will straight up say ‘hey this isn’t a characters backstory actually’ so hell, there are other dimensions where server’s work differently. yeah.

CONCLUSION:

I probably missed a few things as my mcyt experience has been Dantdm, Popularmmos, DSMP, Hermitcraft, Life Series, and now QSMP, and I am only an English speaker. 

feel free to tell me ur Minecraft mechanic head canons in the tags <3

[sburbian-sage]

I managed to make the Art Attack from Terraria's Calamity mod, and the way that weapon works in that game is that you draw a shape with your mouse cursor, and anything inside the shape gets hurt.

But in Sburb, you don't really have a mouse cursor. So instead, using it causes this disorienting as fuck out-of-body experience, where you view yourself from a huge distance, and the world as if it were a 2-d plane, with even distant enemies and players shoved forward to look like they're in the foreground, and it draws wherever you focus while that's happening.

Kinda neat. Can hit things that are really far away with it, and that weird visual viewpoint lets me see lit areas below and above me, which I was able to use in a dungeon once to find a secret room.

So, two questions for you:

1: Are there any other uses for it that I'm not thinking of?

2: What other examples have you heard of Sburb translating weird mechanics like that into reality?

Scouting seems to be the main thing I would use this for. Especially because this apparently lets you view things through walls? Good for sneaking as well, peering around corners. Be careful though, I can only imagine something sideways happens, your perspective clips through (or into) a wall, and you either see something you shouldn't have or just begin throwing up.

I honestly think dicekind is my go-to example of "weird translation of mechanics". First of all it isn't even "roll to perform action" or "roll to see damage number" like what most people think of when they think RPG dice-rolling, it's "roll on a table". And then it seems like the table is in some way procedurally generated, seeing as how it alters itself based on dice size, dice number, and it factors in alchemy. And the procedurally generated tables were alternately written by a Killer GM, a Monty Haul GM, and a shitposter. I don't fully understand it, I don't want to understand it, and everyone who's tried cracking the code ends up having their brain broken with alarming frequency. It's like an occupational hazard, like hatters also going insane, or mine field testers not having legs. I also don't like thinking about cardkind when it comes to competitive/collectible card games because it's exactly the same, except I don't even understand CCGs when they're not magical.

[nmwyaeiac]

Explaining Serial Experiments Lain.

The show opens with Lain's classmate, Chisa, committing suicide at the urging of Masami Eiri.

Eiri had previously been an engineer on the technology foundational to the Wired, and he included special code to integrate his personality and memories into the network. This gave him unrestricted access to everything on the network. He set himself up as a god of the Wired, and conscripted the hacker group known as the Knights to serve him. His physical body committed suicide.

His goal, using the Knights as his tools, is to merge the Wired with the real world. Lain is the lynchpin to this plan, and he needs her to abandon her body and transfer her consciousness to the Wired (just as he and Chisa did) to accomplish this.

This raises the question of just what Lain is and why she's so essential. I don't know an easy way to describe this, and this ambiguity is pretty much the heart of the show. I'll give my thoughts at the bottom of this post, but let's just get back to the plot and remember that Eiri needs Lain to commit suicide.

He manipulates Chisa, one of Lain's classmates, into going first so she will urge Lain to join her. This event awakens Lain's interest in computers.

The Knights, partially on behalf of Eiri and partially for their own motivations, create a virtual duplicate/aspect of Lain and use it as a tool for furthering their goals of pushing the Wired into the real world. This duplicate is a feared hacker on the Wired and has at least some capacity to alter memories.

We also have keep in mind that "altering memories" is, in terms of Lain's setting, the same thing as altering reality itself. Whatever people remember to have happened is what actually happened. When Lain or the Knights do something impossible, what they're doing is probably better understood as altering human memories and perception to make that impossible thing happen. (It seems likely to me that the more Lain is reliant on the Wired, the more of this power the Knights have access to through the Lain duplicates.)

The Knights use this ability to perform strange pranks, such as creating a godlike image of Lain in the sky and merging data from the real world and several online games. Some of this is to forward their plan of raising consciousness of the Wired as something just as real as the offline world. This is something they see as philosophically true and, with Lain's help, literally true.

Opposing the Knights are the operatives of Tachibana Labs. These are Eiri's former employers and they continue to maintain the code running the Wired. They are aware of Eiri's scheme and would prefer if it were neutered. They are working to remove Eiri's code from the Wired, and the Men in Black keep Lain under observation. Eventually the Men in Black execute all the members of the Knights, but are betrayed by their employer, who seems to have wanted the Knights removed but is interested in the potential of Eiri's long-term goals.

Eiri has the same basic goal as the Knights, merging the Wired and the real world, but is more focused on Lain. He wants to impress upon Lain that she can rewrite memories/reality because people and their memories are constructs of data, just like the data on the Wired. The Wired is no different from the real world, except that the real world is a place where she suffers from loneliness and isolation, and the Wired is a place of friendship and power.

After introducing Lain to her potential, he strikes the biggest blow: He tries to get Alice to turn on Lain. Alice is the closest thing Lain has to a friend in the real world, and is likely the only person Lain truly cares about.

The Lain duplicate spreads personal rumors about Alice having a relationship with a teacher at their school. (These rumors are untrue, but they're particularly hurtful because Alice does have a serious crush on this teacher. I think later he's shown in a relationship with her when she's an adult.)

When the Lain duplicate's interference is revealed, Alice believes Lain has betrayed her trust and Lain is emotionally devastated. She awakens her latent potential to rewrite memories, and causes everyone to forget about the harmful rumors. Except Alice.

Alice quickly realizes something is wrong. She goes to Lain's house to confront her about the confusing situation, and discovers that Lain has been living in a horrible state. Her physical body has been completely neglected and her home has turned to ruin. (Lain's parents were revealed to be actors, hired either by Eiri or Tachibana Labs to care for her temporarily.) All this shows that Lain has grown to accept Eiri's philosophy: The physical form is meaningless.

At the last moment before Eiri's influence becomes complete and Lain transfers herself to the Wired (likely by committing suicide) Alice appears and manages to convince Lain otherwise. Their relationship has special meaning in their physical bodies, in a way they cannot explain but has sufficient value for Lain to reject Eiri's influence. She even points out that what Eiri is doing is likely something beyond his innate capacity - there must be someone behind Eiri, masterminding this plot without ever being recognized. There's been a true God behind this all along.

Enraged, Eiri manifests the power he has in the real world and attacks. He is quickly defeated by Lain, but the encounter puts Alice in a state of extreme shock. Lain is once again driven to protect Alice, and uses her power to rewrite memory/reality and erase herself from having ever existed. Alice, Eiri and all the others now live in a world where Lain never was.

Finally, Lain ponders what her existence is without anyone to perceive her. She loses all sense of identity and self, until she is saved by another power in the form of her (not actual) father. (This is the very end of the show and is left ambiguous, but this is likely supposed to be God. God also inspired Eiri to insert his consciousness in the Wired and God is capable of perceiving Lain, and thus ensuring her identity and existence, even when no one else can.)

In the last scenes, Lain says good-bye to Alice and the viewers, having accepted her role at God's side.

Okay. So let's go back. What is Lain?

My understanding is that she is basically a collective representation of the humanity. Just as the human mind is a manifestation of billions of neurons, all connected and exchanging information, Lain is the manifestation of billions of humans being connected and exchanging information. With the invention of the Wired, she was awakened. The Wired is a metaphorical brain for her, a literal network between humans.

Eiri identified her existence on the Wired and gave her a true physical body. (No idea how he did this. This is not explained at all. Cloning seems unlikely, perhaps he simply willed her into existence by altering everyone's memories? Personally, I believe her real-world body is related to the KIDS experiment.)

Lain always existed, since she is the collective sum of humanity. This idea can be understood as similar to the collective unconscious. Eiri took this abstract entity and gave it a physical form so he could manipulate it. (This was probably prompted by God, not just his own initiative.)

Since she is made of the human mind, her ability to alter memories is completely explained. She can change the minds of others the same way you or I would move our fingers.

[exoticalmonde]

Evealia x Mink (Dramatical Murder VN)

I don't know how cringe self-inserting yourself into games is at the moment but I am a reader AND a writer, so here is my DMMD self-insert (lacking art because my PC has been exploded for 3 months now and fate just doesn't want me to do my work).

With a small part of my self-ship fic that I have been unable to finish on time for my birthday. As a treat.

 I'm making mine under the pretext that Aoba has decided to be with Ren as the true ending. That actually leaves me with other people I could have experienced Over Tower with (or had an entirely different situation) and that other people is just Mink.

I'll refer to this OC in 3rd person with the name Eve, because it feels weird to say 'my' although it is 'my' in the sense of

At this point her AllMate is recycled Maine Coon, the size of a big dog (around 70cm of body height) but de-clawed. The previous models were meant as guard animals in a very popular fashion shop/show thing but many of them became susceptible to viruses and those viruses ultimately destroyed the feline population of these AllMates made them aggressive. Declawing was the first attempt to keep them despite the faults but since they would also have to alter their teeth/jaw, it was just easier (as they were a limited number) to get rid of them and get new ones. 

The way Eve managed to fix her AllMate was exchange parts from a scrapped dog AllMate, which is why he often shows puppy characteristics. Like randomly barking between meows.

Oh, where did she get the parts? She works at a repair shop as a clerk and knows this or that. She originally came from a different country, so getting instantly into robotics was her way to 'fit in' when in reality she sticks out aesthetically like a sore thumb in that world.

AllMate’s name is Noon because its serial code is N00N265 and they are not really fit for Rhyme battles, so that’s how she manages to avoid all the battles. They are ginger, of course, so the cat itself is a little bit insane, and despite the name being more feminine the cat has a deep masculine voice box.

Haha, Noon and Eve, get i- *Gets shot*

She lived in one of those apartments on the 14th floor on the main road and her room used to never have any light in it no matter the time of day. It made her really unhappy because she loves plants that bloom, but those don't last long in the shadows. After getting with Mink she's crazy for making the back of the house into a garden and once in a while he ends up minding something like... a pot of mint in his room because she needs it to be somewhere cozy until the leaves take root.

When she meets Mink the first reaction is to run, the second one is to be pathetic on the floor and because she’s a woman he hesitates for 0.00003 seconds, just long enough for her to kick him in the shin and run literally 4 meters before he catches up and the entire scenario of what happened there happens, we all know Mink's route.

Actually when it comes to other characters she’s not at all battle-ready and would rather run than fight, be it because she has never had to learn how to fight or because that primitive part of her brain clicks faster than 'I should defend myself'. So she'd probably be a good punching bag if she wasn't so pathetic and big doe-eyed teary-eyed.

Mink will pick up the name Eva eventually if it reminds him of his own gods (Eva is a goddess mother that brings life and destiny/death along with it, or a goddess of water and the earth) so he thinks that it’s okay if she carries that name as long as she honors the goddess. And Eve of course does so Mink doesn’t slap the spirit out of her in return.

Noon and Lulacan constantly fight.

Anyways, when he disappears for a while she is MAD, probably because she pops off at some point and says that he doesn’t deserve to die and should keep living so the memory of his people would remain and somehow through gaslighting and mental gymnastics and he recognizes the goddess’ name he decides to survive.

After they get together she is totally the type to think she’d get abandoned again and sleeps on the couch until she almost freezes over and dies from abandoned puppy syndrome although Noon is always with her and he’s a purring heat blanket draped over her at all times.

In their relationship while Mink is the brooding and 'actions speak louder than words' kind of quiet guy she is the FMA radio in the background, always talking to the cat, to Mink or to herself without really caring if he is listening and without trying to be interesting, just spilling all the information ever and if he doesn’t like it he can always move away into another room and she would never be mad.

He doesn't, but sometimes he has his ways to shut her up if he needs peace.

When Eve does want attention though she would sit in his feet like a dog, leaning against his knee and would do her thing until he gives up and asks what she wants. It’s usually to go on walkies or to be taught stuff or for him to talk nonsense to her instead.

She doesn't pick up on his job but she's a magpie and begins making the beads he uses instead. He doesn't allow her to sell any since the production is slow, but if he likes anything in particular he picks it up. He got her the tools to begin.

Also totally the person to think Mink would leave again and sit outside in the cold all by her stupid self, the only reason she survived abandoned puppy syndrome is because Noon laid on top of her and kept her warm on the couch.

Otherwise she's not jealous, even worryingly unmoved if other people say something in mild interest about her husband. Truth is, she gaslights herself into believing that it's stupid to think Mink would go back on his words. Does it in front of the bathroom mirror every evening.

She also brings flowers and trinkets she got throughout their first 5 years of being together for the memorial/gravesite and left them there without telling mink whenever something reminded her about a specific person Mink opened up about at some point.

Silly details people usually insert in their OCs information:

Date of Birth: August 5th

Age: 23 years old

Zodiac sign: Sun - Leo; Moon - Scorpio; Rising - Leo

Fav Food: Anything that has chicken and cream in it

Detested Food: Zucchini, Eggplant, Pumpkin, Melon, Animal innards (except liver)

Fav Animal: Jaguar/ Bird of Paradise

Fav Gem: Fire Opal

Fav Colours: Royal Red/Purple/Green

Character Base Colour: Blood Orange

Morning/Night person: Morning person

Also tea person, cat person, spirit animal is either fox or deer and I can't think of anything else, I am sqeezed dry.

[archivyrep]

Knowledge, Classification, and Ledo's Record-Informed Epiphany in "Gargantia" [Part 2]

Chambers begins playing the classified record

The video Ledo watches shows something shocking: the Hideauze are humanoid and were originally human! This causes Ledo to come to the realization that he has been killing fellow humans. He regrets his genocidal actions and questions whether it is even worth fighting against the Hideauze at all. Undoubtedly, there is more trauma for Ledo, heightened when he holds the flesh of the dead squid in his hands. Even with this new information, which Chambers had claimed was "manipulated" by the "enemy", without providing any evidence, Chambers continues to argue for the just-ness of a war despite it being based on lies. It is later revealed, when Ledo seems to meet Kugel, his former commander, that upper echelons of the Galactic Alliance knew all along. However, they never informed the soldiers battling on the front lines. Without giving any more spoilers, Ledo remains on Earth without returning to space, with records causing an epiphany and causing the remaining Galactic Alliance mindset of fighting against the enemy no matter the cost to fall away.

Reprinted from my Wading Through the Cultural Stacks WordPress blog, where it was published on June 14, 2023.

All in all, although records, and their concealment, are a crucial part of the series, especially in Ledo's epiphany of sorts, reviewers don't mention them in their publications. However, they note how the premise feels "arbitrarily constructed" at times, while depicting intricate details successfully at other points, as part of a successful sci-fi story, that there is violence throughout, and that the production values are superb in many ways. [3] The focus on how classification of records can impede knowledge is something I haven't seen in an anime or animation series to date. The closest parallel I can come to is the archival work, of sorts, by Ura in Pale Cocoon. What happens in Gargantia is different in many ways, even from the depiction of classified records in The Crown or the classified archives of the CIA shown in an episode of Alias, as Archives in Fiction once noted.

For one, it shows the efforts the Galactic Alliance went to in order to conceal the truth. If the soldiers on the front lines knew that they were fighting humans, or more accurately humanoid descendants, there would likely be resistance, perhaps even mass desertion. So, their solution is to distort the reality, paint the "enemy" as a lesser lifeform, something that can't even think, when the Hideauze are just as smart as humans, although they might not seem that way. Secondly, the fact that Chambers immediately determines that the classified record is manipulated because it contradicts Alliance records shows how deeply entrenched his programming is with propaganda from the Alliance itself! As it has been said many times, no program, algorithm, technology, code, or anything is neutral. Rather, it is shaped by human perceptions. That is the case for Chambers.

What Ledo experiences is not a form of record erasure, alteration, or deletion, but, rather, a form of record concealment. The record he views does not have any completeness, as it is choppy, and the video is distorted. The latter may be part of the reasoning what Chambers claimed the records were manipulated, thinking it wasn't accurate. To Ledo, and the viewer, it appeared to be accurate. Furthermore, it was reliable in the sense it was "created by a competent authority, according to established processes", as it was a Galactic Alliance record. It is surprising it was left behind and not hidden. Perhaps the thinking was that it would never be found, so there was no need to destroy it, and it had lost all usefulness to them.

There is no doubt that the record is trustworthy, authentic, and genuine. Chambers clearly believes that the record is counterfeit, i.e. an item which is "falsely represented as the thing it imitates", an "unauthorized copy presented as an authentic original", or something worse: a forgery. Of course, Chambers likely has different definitions than the Society of American Archivists' Dictionary of Archives Terminology. The record, presented in the form of a degrade tape, is further confirmed as genuine by the testimony of "Kugel".

In the end, while there are no characters like Jocasta Nu in Star Wars or Nathan's grandfather in Stretch Armstrong, records remain an important part of the story in Gargantia, serving as an important plot point in more ways than one. There is no storage of records akin to R2-D2. Instead, there is recovery of lost data and records that were left behind/discarded, in an attempt to twist how people viewed the present. That is something unique to this series, as I can't think of any other series off hand, apart from Pale Cocoon, which focus on data recovery, and have declassification as something commanded by the protagonist. In that sense, Gargantia is different. That's all for this time. Until the next post sometime next month, likely on a different topic. Let me know in the comments what you think.

© 2022-2023 Burkely Hermann. All rights reserved.

Notes

[3] See, for example, reviews in THEM Anime Reviews and Anime News Network (also here). As a warning, the sixth episode has transphobic themes which may offend viewers.