#(so theoretically if he really wanted to and you're built out of a LOT of negative energies/emotions)

[sonicprim3d]

Honestly, thinking on it and my headcanons for Super Sonic, I've realized that he basically delivers constant AOE damage to enemies who are fueled by negative energies and emotions.

[wereh0gz]

Hello, I’m one of the contestants of the AU Sonic Smackdown, @delightrolls, the creator of the Sonic Thunderstorm AU. I was trying to decide who to vote for between you and @eloaholiveira, but the decision is proving to be difficult. Would you kindly tell me more about your Old Man Sonic AU? Anything and everything you feel comfortable sharing about your outstanding story! And if you want some more specific questions I would like to ask:

Why has Eggman Nega returned to Sonic’s Dimension?

How did Eggman Nega learn that Sonic is immortal?

If Eggman Nega is present, is Eggman also present and if so, what does he do?

Where and how does your Sonic respawn?

What is Omega like in this AU? Has he managed to destroy all Eggman robots? If so, what is he doing now?

What is Chip like in this AU? If Chip is present, is Dark Gaia as well?

How did Sonic, Tails, and Shadow handle the deaths of their other friends?

Was Tails born as a Kitsune or did something make him like that? If some made him like that what happened? If he was born like that, are there other Kitsune?

Can Tails still fly despite the greater number of tails?

And one just out of curiosity, what would happen if your Sonic were to be killed while all the Chaos Energy in his body has been neutralized? Would he find a different way to come back or would he actually die? I ask because after my Sonic, Duality, gets corrupted by the End in Sonic Frontiers they gain the ability Chaos Cancel from the End’s Absence Energy which allows them to neutralize all Chaos Energy in a certain range though that energy will eventually come back. Could my Sonic theoretically kill your Sonic?

Thank you for your time and regardless of whether you win or lose I think your story is outstanding :)

OH WOW THAT'S A LOT OF QUESTIONS

I'd be happy to answer them all for you :]

(Answers under the cut bc this got really long lol)

1. Why has Eggman Nega returned to Sonic's dimension?

From my understanding, Nega has some conflicting lore about his origins, so in this AU he's actually just Eggman's descendent from Silver's future and not from another dimension entirely.

2. How did Eggman Nega learn that Sonic is immortal?

It actually took a while to figure out, since Sonic keeps to himself a lot more than he used to, and he's really slippery and hard to capture or kill. He wasn't even sure if that old blue hedgehog getting in his way was actually Sonic for a pretty long time.

He did kill him once, though. Managed to stab him through the head with one of his mechs in a fight, basically lobotomized him. You see that scar under his floppy ear? Yeah.

Shadow, Omega, Silver, and Tails got Nega to retreat, but he was sure Sonic was gone for good. Turns out he was wrong, as Sonic came back months later to foil his plans for world domination again, quieter and much, much angrier than before.

This leads to Nega looking into his past in as much detail as possible, as well as trying to capture Sonic and study him to find some way to get rid of him for good. And that one death would not be the last caused by him.

3. If Eggman Nega is present, is Eggman also present and if so, what does he do?

Eggman is long dead by this point, as this AU takes place 200 in the future from when most Sonic games take place. Can't do much when you're six feet under lol.

4. Where and how does you Sonic respawn?

He doesn't really *respawn* so to speak, he regenerates from whatever is left of his body after dying. I guess you could call it respawning if he's reduced to atoms, as he would technically have to come back from nothing, but that (thankfully) has never happened.

Whenever he dies, he's usually taken to one of Tails' workshops by Shadow so that Tails can oversee his regeneration/recovery. He's built machines that help speed up the regeneration process using Chaos Energy. They're like special beds that blast him with high amounts of energy until he can come back to life and recover from his injuries on his own.

He can regenerate without the machines if needed, but it takes a lot longer and he doesn't like it. He hates the feeling of a "restless death", as he calls it, and would rather come back as fast as possible even if he wakes up scarred and in pain.

5. What is Omega like in this AU? Has he managed to destroy all Eggman robots? If so, what is he doing now?

Omega is pretty similar to how he is in canon. Still very much the rage-filled lover of extreme violence and destruction we all know and love, but he's ever so slightly more open to showing affection to his friends now (even calls them his friends outright sometimes!)

He's destroyed as many of Eggman robots as he possibly could, which, as far as he's aware, is all of them, so he's satisfied on that front. However, he does have the newfound goal of destroying all of Eggman *Nega's* robots, too, ensuring Eggman's legacy is wiped out completely. So he joins Shadow and Silver in fighting Nega whenever he can.

Achieving this new goal gets progressively more difficult as his body becomes harder and harder to repair, though, but he won't give up until his job is done (or until he finally kicks the bucket).

6. What is Chip like in this AU? If Chip is present, is Dark Gaia as well?

Chip actually comes in later on in whatever semblance of a cohesive story I have in my head, after Nega's properly defeated. They'd basically be the focus of the second major arc in this story.

They actually fused with Dark Gaia after their premature release from the planet's core, seeking to embrace each other and end the cycle they were a part of, reforming into "True Gaia". After some time, their seal eventually weakened again, which led to parts of them escaping back into the surface and forming a new physical body.

He struggles a lot with his identity and guilt as both Light and Dark Gaia's identities and memories suddenly merged into one. It's hard to tell where Chip ends and Dark Gaia begins. He's still kind and curious, like he was when Sonic first met him years ago, but he can also be prone to mood swings and even act animalistic and feral sometimes. The most notable change, though, is that he is very sleepy all the time.

It would travel the world with Sonic and Tails to energy "hotspots" scattered around the planet in order to absorb the parts of it still sealed inside the core, all while helping Sonic connect with the current world in the process.

7. How did Sonic, Tails, and Shadow handle the deaths of their other friends?

Shadow had time to come to terms with the fact that he would outlive his friends. He'd known he was immortal for much longer than Sonic or Tails, so he could at least try to prepare for it long before it happened. Of course, it still hurt when they eventually passed away, but he continues to move forward.

He looks back at the times they shared fondly and keeps their memory alive in a series of journals he's written.

Tails didn't have as much time to prepare himself like Shadow did, but he handled it alright. He misses them a lot, but he lives on because it's what they would've wanted. He often regrets not having spent more time with them, though.

He keeps a database of all the information (both public and private) he could possibly have about them, including biographies, images, videos, even things like chat logs in a cloud network he created to ensure they'd never be forgotten.

Sonic... didn't take it so well. It's like he never really processed that he would outlive his friends at all. He never thought about it, never *wanted* to think about it, despite the fact that he learned of his immortality well before that time came. So when it eventually happened, and he had to watch his friends eventually die one after another, it hit him *hard*.

He isolated himself and started hoarding anything and everything that reminded him of them, from gifts he was given years ago to pictures that had begun to fade. He avoided facing that grief head on for as long as he could, but he eventually began to forget what they were like, and was forced to move on.

He still grieves them, but now it feels like he's grieving phantoms instead of actual people. He hates it.

8. Was Tails born as a Kitsune or did something make him like that? If something made him like that what happened? If he was born like that, are there other Kitsune?

He was born a kitsune! There are others like him, but they're extremely rare and only really heard of in legends, so he's the only one we would actually see in this AU.

9. Can Tails still fly despite the greater number of tails?

Yes! He can fly without having to spin his tails now, too, but still does it out of habit.

10. What would happen if your Sonic were to be killed while all the Chaos Energy in his body has been neutralized? Would he find a different way to come back or would he actually die?

Sonic cannot truly die unless his soul is destroyed, which is nigh impossible as the forces of Chaos themselves forbid that from happening.

Neutralizing the Chaos Energy inside him would temporarily halt his regeneration, though, so he wouldn't be able to heal at all as long as the neutralization effect is active. Since that effect is temporary and his soul is (I assume) still intact, he will eventually come back.

-

Thanks for asking about my AU!! I love thinking abt him and The Horrors he's gone through <3

[unknownfacelessfanfictions]

Mercy

Fandom: Star Trek: The Next Generation Pairing: Jean-Luc Picard x fem!Reader Words: 2.1K Requested: Yes, by  @leylovestaytay A/N: I'm sorry that it took so long, but I had a lot on my plate lately. I also discovered how different it can be to write for a request, so I had to get into it again.

I hope it's somehow satisfactory.

Frustrated, she stared at the drink in front of her. She hadn't even ordered one, yet Guinan had only glanced at her before placing the drink in front of her. The blue liquid had an almost hypnotic effect on her. The swirl she created by stirring the spoon was a frighteningly good representation of what she had been feeling until just now. With another stir of her spoon, the last moments of the last few hours came flooding back.

But before she was able to lose herself in the unwelcome and rather unattractive memories, a shadow was cast across her table. "May I join you?" She looked up and a broad smile spread across her face at the sight of the android. "Of course." Hastily, she took her belongings aside to make some room for Data. "Please, sit down." Data accepted her invitation with a curt, yet friendly nod and settled into the chair opposite her in that special, elegant way that only he could manage.

She continued to stir her glass, but couldn't really concentrate on it, as Data's piercing gaze was on her, unblinking. Sighing, she dropped the spoon back into her glass with a soft clink and looked up. Data's gaze was on her, the expression innocent and curious at the same time. A soft smile crept onto her expression. "How can I help you, Data?" " To be honest, I was about to ask you the same thing." Data moved his head into a slightly tilted position, with that all-too-familiar movement that was so typical of him. Confused, she drew her eyebrows together. "Why is that?"

"During my time among humaniod species, I have learned that it is a common behaviour of people who do not feel well and want to be left alone, but at the same time long for company. Normally, when you visit Ten Forward, you either sit at the bar itself, or at least at an already occupied table where people you know or friends of yours are sitting. Today, however, you have seated yourself in the far corner of this establishment, which is not usual for you."

She smiled slightly. Her friend might claim that he didn't understand human nature, but moments like this proved over and over again how much the android underestimated himself.

"You're right, Data." As always, she added mentally. "I just had a bad day today. Nothing more troubling." Data tilted his head. " Clarify." She sighed and continued stirring her drink with her spoon. "Oh, it's nothing more. Just - Jean-Luc and I had a little argument, nothing bigger. I got upset that he's never around, he got upset that I'm not more understanding. The bottom line is that we both just made the whole thing unnecessarily heated and said things we both didn't mean." With another sigh, she propped her head on her hand and stared into her glass again. "If you're aware that neither the captain nor you meant what you said, then why are you sitting here looking 'as miserable as sin' , if I used the phrase correctly?"

Her friend's behaviour put a small smirk on her face, however she could not suppress another sigh. Even she was getting annoyed with this constant sigh. "Because I feel bad in spite of everything. I mean, theoretically he's right. He is the captain of the ship and therefore the welfare of the crew and the safety of the ship is the most important matter in his life. And I knew that when we decided to take this relationship a step further. But- it just frustrates sometimes. And over time, that frustration built up and built up and then I took it out unfairly on him tonight. Heavens, I kicked him out of my quarters. At five in the morning!" Data nodded curtly, clear understanding evident on his face. "That would explain why the captain was in such a negative and almost irritable mood today."

She groaned. "Great. A grumpy Picard, just what everyone needed today. The crew that was on duty on the bridge today must hate me." Data tilted his head slightly again. "It would be illogical for the bridge crew to hate you. For one thing, the captain was mostly in his room, which meant he had little influence on the bridge crew anyway, and for another, I doubt they would know he was in such a bad mood because of you, if I may put it that way." She smiled slightly. "Thank you Data."

~**~

Jean-Luc felt absolutely awful. He had a headache, couldn't concentrate and, to make matters worse, an uneasy feeling had settled in his stomach region, the origin of which he knew more than well. He ran his hand over his head. What an old fool he was. Just thinking about what he had said made him feel sick. It had been unnecessary and unjustified, because in the end, she had been quite right. She had asked him for one, just one evening they could spend together, after he had already missed the last five.

He should have agreed with her, he should have shown understanding, because he could understand how difficult it could be to be with a captain who hardly ever had time for her. However, he had been too stubborn for that and had probably lost her through his stupid headstrongness.

Jean-Luc was about to bang his head on the table in despair when a jolt went through him. No, he wouldn't waste his time in his study when he could just as easily use it to reclaim the one person in his life who had filled him with warmth since the Borg had taken it so ruthlessly and abhorrently. Jerkily he rose, straightened his upper garment and left his room. On the bridge, Riker rose from his chair, however Jean-Luc gestured for him to remain seated. "You have bridge number one." A reassuring smile, at least that's what Jean-Luc hoped he was radiating, crept onto his face. "My shift is over for the day."

For a moment Riker looked at him in confusion before a knowing grin spread across his face. He just managed to shout a "good luck" to Jean-Luc before the turbolift doors closed. Jean-Luc swallowed slightly. The way he saw the situation, he was going to need it. As the turbolift passed deck after deck at an agonising pace, Jean-Luc gave the computer the order to locate her.

It didn't feel right to use his authority like this, however, he needed to get this matter out of the way as soon as possible. He simply had to. He frowned all the more puzzled when the computer played back that she was to be found in the arboretum. He couldn't remember hearing her mention that she liked it there. A stab hit him in the ribs. Maybe he really had just been horribly inattentive.

As soon as the turbolift doors had opened wide enough to let him out, he slipped between them and hurried down the corridor. He was well aware of the astonished looks from his crew, but at that moment he didn't care. He had more important things to do. He turned the corner until he finally stopped in front of the doors to the arboretum. Jean-Luc took a deep breath and adjusted his uniform top one last time before entering the arboretum through the sliding doors.

The scent of hyacinths immediately filled his nose, along with other scents of plants he could not identify at first, but Jean-Luc thought he remembered receiving a report from Mrs O'Brien. Apparently, it was about one of her projects that she had not been able to finish before her relocation to Deep Space Nine. He would read it over again later.

With brisk steps he hurried along the winding gravel path, paying no attention to the floral beauty around him. His only thought at that moment was to find her, and beg for mercy. He turned another corner and stood stock-still. Surrounded by shrubs and beautiful purple, Bajoran flowers, stood Data, with a puzzled look on his face, and her.

Bent over in front, shaking with silent laughter, she stood there. Silent tears of laughter ran down her face and for a moment Jean-Luc's whole being filled with warmth. However, only a moment later, he felt another, more unattractive feeling spread through him and was startled to discover that it was jealousy.

Jean-Luc was well aware that there was no point in being jealous. She and Data had always been excellent friends, with a unique friendship that even he had valued, yet a small, insecure part of him couldn't help but feel jealous at the sight. Immediately he felt ashamed for having such thoughts, but he simply couldn't push them completely aside. What if she has already gotten over you? Jean-Luc shook his head vigorously, but that cursed insecure part of him, however small, could not get rid of the thought that he had already lost her.

Just at that moment, Data turned slightly to the side and noticed him. Instantly he stood a little straighter and nodded curtly at him. "Captain." The words seemed to bring her out of her trance, for slowly the laughter died away, which Jean-Luc more than regretted, and slowly straightened up. As she did so, she waved her hands in the air to stop herself from bursting into tears of laughter again. She nodded slightly at him too, but fought her laughter too hard to say anything.

Jean-Luc took a step closer to her. "I need to talk to you." With a sideways glance at Data, he added "'In private', please." She hesitated, or was he imagining it, before she turned to her friend and nodded at him. For a moment Data's eyes twitched back and forth before he nodded. "Ah. I see. I will leave you alone now." With that, he turned completely and left the arboretum. They were alone.

With a raised eyebrow and a slight smile, she turned back to him. "You wanted to talk to me?" "What do I have to do?" Confused, she drew her eyebrows together, causing a crease to form on her forehead. "What?" "What do I have to do?" Jean-Luc knew the expression he was wearing right now was more than desperation as he grabbed her hands.

"Do you want me to get you something? Do you want me to do something? Do you want me on my knees begging for mercy? Because I will if you ask it! Tell me, please. I know I've been inattentive, unreliable and not understanding, but there must be something I can do." He didn't understand why sheer horror showed on her face. "Jean-Luc, what-"

He interrupted her. "I know I work too much, I know I can barely spend time with you, and I know I'm not the youngest or most attractive man you could have. But please, mon amour, I ask nothing more than one more chance, just one, to prove that I am quite capable of improving."

Now she seemed completely horrified. "Jean-Luc, what are you talking about? Is everything okay? Has Beverly been shoving some kind of medication down your throat again, darling?" Now it was up to Jean-Luc to be confused. Darling? "Our fight... you threw me out and I said horrible things. And our relationship was... ended?"

"What?!" For a moment she stared at him before bursting into peals of laughter. Jean-Luc felt his face grow hot and was pretty sure his ears were also turning red. He didn't think he could remember a moment in his life that had been so shameful for him. He had screwed up, so badly that she couldn't even take him seriously anymore. Slowly he tilted his head and let go of her hands as her grip tightened around his. Confused, he looked up, only to look into her understanding smile.

"Darling, you've got it wrong." Gently, she ran the back of her hand over his cheek. "Yes, we had a fight. And yes, we both said things in the heat of the moment that we didn't mean. But that happens. It's not pretty, but it's normal for relationships. I mean, in some species it's already considered flirting if you argue."

Jean-Luc looked at her hesitantly. "That means you're not breaking up with me? Even though I seem to be horrible at being in a relationship?" She just laughed and put her arms around his neck. "You're not horrible. And if you think I'm going to let you go now after making me wait so long for you, you're wrong." She pressed a gentle kiss to his cheek and pulled a befuddled Picard behind her. "Now come on. Keiko told me she had planted some Bajoran lilacs around here somewhere, which are supposed to smell incredibly good."

A warm feeling spread through Jean-Luc and he smiled slightly at her, though she couldn't see it. He might be an old fool, but he was the happiest old fool in the Alpha Quadrant.

[justatalkingface]

I'm really sorry if this will sound confused...I think I saw a post of yours talking how MPA wouldn't mind a quirkless as long said person proves to be strong.

You think MPA hates quirkless or mutants? Bc the idea of them not hating a quirkless person(proving said person is useful) is interesting way more than (they want to to kill everoyne who is quirkless)

Also what was their end goal?

Alright, I know what you're talking about. The ask on my Quirkless post has the anon mention, among other things, the MLA... but ultimately, I thought they were irrelevant to the question at hand, so I didn't mention anything about them in the post.

But, well. It's relevant now!

Alright, so. On MLA and the Quirkless, I think to be through I have to say that, while they don't actually care about the Quirkless now, in the newer incarnation, since they're almost extinct and thus are a non-factor, the original MLA probably cared a whole lot, because they were fighting against them.

In the original conception of them MLA and Destro were fighting for Quirk rights against the government who was trying to control them (this is the point where the draconian and honestly kind of nuts Quirk laws come from), and while it doesn't mention it, considering their general... Quirk supremist, militant nature, and the fact his mom was killed by an anti-Quirkist (which, by implication, means they were all Quirkless, even if the term wasn't a thing at that point), I can't really see them not fighting against the normal people.

Interestingly, despite this being a seemingly obvious point for them do, somehow no one ever... says MLA did this? Which is strange. Or, maybe 'strange'. Hmm. I wonder, why would Hori not want to mention something obvious about a topic he stopped talking about years ago?

*judging look intensifies*

But yeah. That's first generation MLA is defined by the Quirk vs Normal political landscape. The second generation is focused around Quirk rights as well, but more focused on the heroes as the extension of the government and symbol of society. I can't really see them thinking about a Quirkless person, but if it ever came up, there's no way they would let on in. Unlike heroics, where it's a question about abilities, and everyone looking at what heroes do and say, 'But, a Quirkless person could do that!', the MLA are fundamentally extremists. Sure, the higher ranks are probably more practical (and hypocritical, and generally power hungry), and they'd be willing to use a Quirkless person if it was relevant, they'd never let someone so fundamentally opposed to the very foundation of their ideals into their organization. Hell, there's a real question if they'd even let them live.

Mutants... actually, that's an interesting thought.

On the face of it, they have Quirks, so of course they'd be fine with them, right? But, when you look at the main MLA members... oddly enough, you find not one mutant in their ranks. In fact, they're the only villains without one in their leadership somewhere (admittedly, I'm a little hand waggly about Chronostasis as a mutant Quirk, but whatever).

I can see a couple of reasons for this: Option One, Hori was tired, and doesn't want to do the extra work making a mutant character. Harsh, but possible. Also boring.

The second option is that, well, the mutants just... aren't strong enough to make it into higher levels of their organization, or versatile, since it is theoretically built around Quirk strength. I... when I think about it, I can't really point out a 'strong' mutant Quirk. Oh, sure, there's decent ones, but, but when compared to the highest end Quirks we see (ignoring AFO and OFA), they're not comparable to people like Endeavour, or Geten, or even Bakugou, they can't match sheer firepower they can offer up. Nor can I really think of a supportive one like Shinso, La Brava or Trumpet. A mutant Quirk will make you stronger than a Plain Jane human, sure, but if your power is 'I'm big and strong and I can survive a car hitting me without major issue', and my power is, 'Fuck you, I vomit lasers'... as long as I don't fuck it up, the odds are going to be in my favor. Mutant Quirks, in that respect, seem inherently limiting on a sheer power level kind of basis, and MLA is exactly the kind of organization to focus on that in a more realistic way than the heroic rankings do.

The third and final option is... well. They're racist. Or Quirkiest? Mutantist? I'm not actually sure we have a term for people who are opposed to mutants... but yeah. They are a modern organization, built from modern people, and anti-mutant sentiment is (theoretically) a thing that is happening in MHA. Quite simply, their biases could be influencing them to not value mutants to their full extent.

Ultimately, that's me just thinking too much on a minor detail, but hey, that's probably why people keep asking me things.

On their end goal... you know how the Quirk laws in MHA don't make sense, for an average person? Why can't a random person use their minor Quirk to help them do something when it doesn't harm anyone or cause disruption?

It's because those laws are set up to restrict Quirk use and try to force everything to be like it was before Quirks, and were created in those earlier times when Quirks were coming in and society was trying to adjust; the powers that be fought against the Quirked, but the realized it was hopeless to stop it, so they changed their tactics. If the government couldn't stop people from being born with powers, and can't take away the powers, it settled on taking away the right to use those powers. The MLA is opposed to that, considering it a basic human right, but they're the crazy radical end of that spectrum, who has skipped over things like, 'reform the laws' and went straight to 'Let's overthrow the government and make a new one!'

Theoretically, they're going to make a new order built around Quirks, where the strong dominate... basiclly, a place where everyone runs off Bakugou-logic. I say theoretically, because, well, you need a lot of people to run a country, and they need skills beyond having a magma fist. Because, you know, there's a reason why the world isn't run off of Bakugou-logic.

In all honesty, I think it would, in an 'ideal' situation for the MLA, where there are no AFOs or OFAs to stop them, end up being more about putting Re-Destro in charge than anything, since I'm not sure what they have, plan wise, for a Quirk based government beyond, 'Powerful Quirks and Freedom, ???, profit!', and I doubt that long term they'd have any stability. Ultimately, grand ideals aside, they're more focused on the 'bring down the government now!' than anything about what happens after that.

[aikoiya]

LoZ: TotK - Zonai Tech Oddity

I noticed something about a lot of the Zonai tech in the game.

A lot of it isn't really built to last.

Sure, the constructs & ruins & such, but the commonly-used devices & even the weapons are extremely fragile.

A Steward Construct even mentions that the devices are meant to be disposable. That they're this way by design.

As for the weapons, the descriptions have never brought up them being decayed... to my knowledge... So, it just seems like they're simply built flimsy.

Now, from a gameplay perspective, it makes perfect sense for them to break. They'd break the game otherwise. But from a narrative, worldbuilding standpoint it brings up questions about sustainability.

And I know, sustainability is brought up a lot these days & it's probably getting old for a lot of you, but I feel like it's apropos in this specific situation.

They basically mass produce devices that are designed to only work for a short time, not even a full day really, before breaking & I can't help but feel like that is a little concerning.

Admittedly, they disappear into the aether after being used up to it doesn't create trash, but it just doesn't seem sustainable. Like, how fast does this stuff form exactly?

Is it a flaw of Zonai engineering or a consequence of using Zonaite itself I wonder?

It'd certainly be interesting if Hylians just have a knack for long-lasting machinery & durable weaponry.

I mean, we know for a fact that Hyrule's weaponry are supposed to be all-but indestructible provided they're properly maintained, not overtaxed, & not covered in Gloom. Because, not only is that how most similar weapons IRL are, but before the Wild series, 99% of other weapons you get in the other games didn't break down really at all & that was through entire games. Hell, the Kokiri Sword stuck around for 2 full games, OoT & MM. Admittedly, it got replaced the 1st time, but it still stuck around for the long haul.

Like, there's the Biggoron Sword & the upgrade for the Kokiri Sword in Majora's Mask, but you eventually get an upgrade for the upgrade that makes it permanent & only the upgrade broke, not the sword itself. And, to be fair, the Biggoron Sword is of Goron make. (Though, that would indicate that Goron methods aren't as good as Hylian methods, which I honestly find very odd considering you'd think that the Gorons would be the equivalent to Hyrule's dwarves.)

So, this indicates that the method itself was still being perfected. If anything, these exceptions seem to prove the rule that weapons of Hylian/Sheikah make are extremely durable.

Not to mention, I just can't help but think that having your shit just randomly break over & over again & need to be replaced repeatedly, would not only be inconvenient, but downright infuriating! Especially when you're in the middle of something important!

Though... I suppose that the shortness of their use & the finality of their destruction when used up could also explain why Hyrule didn't seem to have paddleboats or trains or, fuck, space ships 10-20,000 years ago.

I mean, it's certainly one way to have advanced technology in your medieval fantasy setting while keeping it from going full sci-fi fantasy.

Edit: Also, it just occurred to me... How the fuck did the Gerudo not just get wiped the eff out? The Zonai must not've been as advanced as they seemed because have you SEEN some of the shit people have been building with their tech?

The Zonai had the tech necessary to make what would amount to mini divine beasts!! And anyone with the creativity to do so & the tenacity to figure out how the pieces go together could've done it!

They could've wiped the Gerudo off the face of the planet!

Sure, maybe they couldn't have killed Ganon so long as he had the Secret Stone, but at least there'd be no future Ganons to deal with other than the spite-fueled ghost of the one they were currently dealing with.

I'm saying this from a theoretical military standpoint, not because I actually would've wanted them to, mind.

And, obviously, this would've had it's own consequences if they did. For instance, the Sage of Lightning would've likely sworn vengeance, but that's not the point.

The point is, they could've decimated Ganon's armies like they were nothing.

That scene where Rauru Tri-Beam Cannoned the Molduga with the help of Wifey & Zelda?

Epic, but entirely unnecessary.

He could've had a mobile hot air balloon with cannons pointed down take the Molduga out & he might not've incited Ganon to kill Sonia & steal her stone.

Or at least put it off a bit longer.

Like, despite the shortness of the Zonai Devices' life expectancies, they were Hella powerful when you used them correctly.

LoZ Wild Masterlist

[kisuminight]

Right. So, c!Wilbur and Ghostbur.

The thing about c!Wilbur is that he's not trying to be the bad guy. He is deliberately trying to set himself up as a hero. And the way he does it makes him an asshole, and it's manipulative as hell--but I don't think that it's evil.

The thing about the Blade System AU c!Wilbur is that he grew up with Blades. He was raised by c!Philza the Aegis, with visits from c!Techno the Heartstealer. He gets the way the Blade System goes right--but also the way it can go very badly wrong. Blades are a lot more powerful than players--but the way their lives work means that Blades are always going to be the underclass.

So the first thing he does when he gets to the dsmp is to check and see if the local Blade in charge of the server will get upset with him. This check fails for several reasons--the server creator, Aegis!Dream, has been shattered, the server owner's Blade, Drista, is just in it for the chaos, and the Blade currently in charge of the server (as much as that applies) is c!Dream, who is hiding that he's a Blade.

That makes the server free real estate, yeah? So he creates L'Manberg; partially because he wants to, and partially because it'll fuck with Dream. And since there's no Blade in charge, he's fully within his rights to say that it is separate from the rest of the server. After all, if the Blades don't say it's not a factional server, then he's fully capable of making it one.

At this point, if c!Dream or c!Punz had come forward and said "I'm a Blade of this server and what you're doing is distressing, I don't want factions," then Wilbur would have listened. He's trying to build a narrative of being a good guy helping the underdogs, and the Blade System is something he is theoretically rebelling against. In fact, one of the subtle differences with this AU is that L'Manberg basically has rules about Blades built in--and those rules explicitly give them the right to be equal citizens. They say that anyone harming or killing a Blade, even if they are the Driver, would be treated the same way as permanently killing someone--a very real, serious murder charge. It even extends that justice towards the rest of the dsmp--which is one of the many overreaches that annoys Dream enough that it builds towards starting the war.

Which is all very well and good, but Dream and Punz don't trust that. In order for those rules to apply, they're have to out that they're Blades, and they really, really aren't going to do that. Purpled has also lived his entire life under this secrecy, so he's not going to tell (also it would require... talking to other people, and Purpled doesn't really do that). c!George is also not willing to tell--Dream is incredibly private about their Resonance and George understands that--also, Wilbur is annoying him.

Ironically enough, Wilbur would probably be the mostly likely to spot Dream and Punz out on being Blades--but Dream is basically stonewalling him as soon as L'Manberg starts, so Wilbur doesn't really get to see Dream's normal behaviors to get a good read. Punz is following Dream's lead in this. Wilbur also isn't looking to find them out as Blades; his suspicions about Dream are that he's some type of long-lived eldritch hybrid, and they only grow worse and more paranoid during the eventual Pogtopia breakdown.

Pogtopia goes pretty much the same. Wilbur does take the fact that c!Schlatt is able to go wild with Manberg as proof that there isn't really a Blade in charge of the server. At some point, post TNT and pre-detonation, Wilbur's mental state is unstable enough that he probably would consider killing a Blade to become their Driver (as per Dream's worst fears/nightmares) but it is only a possibility. I's say 50/50 will he-won't he, but it's never put to the test because the question never comes up--Wilbur dies never knowing about any of the Blades on the server.

~

Ghostbur is a thing, but the reason why he's a thing is different from canon. See, between Kristen being the Goddess of Death and Philza being a magic computer with a hologram body, Wilbur is not their biological son--so to extra powers from there.

The three lives system is a sign of the Egg's corruption--when Aegis!Dream and DreamXD created the server, they did so with an infinite lives system.

Ghosts are created because the Entity basically put a barricade up between life and death (this is limbo), so that it could steal the power from the souls that ended up there to help power it's Eldritch nature/abilities. Ghosts are echoes of the souls that end up in limbo. They are fragmentary and incomplete compared to the person that died because the Entity yoinked most of the soul. Unfortunately for Wilbur, the first L'Manberg War, plus the increased amount of Blades on the server woke up the Egg, and it re-instated the Entity's barricade shortly before the elections. It's eldritch nature meant it could retroactively apply the lives system to the L'Manberg War.

Theoretically, if the Egg is no longer using the soul, it can resurrect the soul in a body that is already corrupted by it. The Egg doesn't really do that in any major confrontation, because Wilbur is kind of stickly/bad at fighting, and is much more useful as a power source. It's better to keep his soul as a battery for an escape attempt rather than tossing another meat shield into the fray (when he's going to get shredded by the Blades going at it anyway).

I'm going to say that c!Vikkstar was the Blade and c!LazarBeam was the Driver, which means that technically the Egg has LazarBeam's soul too. But let's be real, if the Egg tries to revive LazarBeam to stop Techno and Phil, it's be like trying to stop a volcano with a piece of paper. So he also gets battery status.

The resurrection ritual left by Aegis!Dream and the Resurrection arte that Dream can use both cleanse the soul of the Egg's corruption.

~

Ghostbur ends of finding out who all the Blades on the server are, including Punz. Ghostbur finds out about Punz pre-Staged finale, and Punz ends of guilt-tripping Ghostbur into not telling anyone with the excuse that it'll make Punz really sad if other people know, and Punz might just go away forever. Ghostbur does not figure out that c!Purpled is Punz's Driver.

Ghostbur finds out about Dream being a Blade after the rest of the server does. Tommy tells him, after coming back from the Staged Finale. Ghostbur specifically ends up getting told because Tommy is talking at him as a way to try and verbally process the mess of feelings that happened when Tommy found out Dream was a Blade. It doesn't help.

~

Fast forward to post-Staged Finale. Ghostbur does not die, Wilbur does not get revived (yet). I'd argue that most of the reason Wilbur got revived when he did in canon was down to Dream's desperation about the situation--both the assassination attempt, and the ongoing, devolving situation in Pandora's Vault.

In this AU, Dream is not stuck in Pandora's Vault. He is with Punz, continuing their experiments on the far outskirts of the server. Ghostbur never really has a chance to find or interrupt them.

Furthermore, while Dream and Punz are going for an everbody-is-alive-and-immortal ending, that is very much Phase 2. They are still on Phase 1, fixing the Blade memory issue. The rest of the server are all quietly panicking in the Cold War where the main deterrent is that nobody knows where Dream's core crystal is/who has it. Reviving Wilbur into that kind of situation would be like tossing a bowling ball at a house of cards.

And even if Dream might be willing to risk it, Punz is also working on the Plan. And Punz doesn't like Wilbur. Doesn't like the way he upset Dream, doesn't like the way he started factionalism and governments on the server. Dream wants the server to be one big Happy Family? Sure. But Wilbur gets revived last, at the end, just before the reset. And since Punz is currently acting as Dream's Driver, that does influence Dream's behavior a bit as well.

I do think Wilbur would get revived eventually. During Dream's Syndicate Arc, he ends up spending a lot of time with c!Niki and Phil. Niki, who still wear's Wilbur's old coat and Phil who is still in mourning. Wilbur's revival would be after the rest of the plot/character arcs have been sorted out. Dream probably brings up the ability to Resurrect people as part of everyone sitting on Dream and Punz to make them explain The Plan.

[astramthetaprime]

can you talk in depth about the relative merits and drawbacks of various means of theoretical starship propulsion (i saw it on the tags and found it really interesting)

Hey, I'm not ghosting on answering, I'll be able to bang out a longform reply tonight! So much I want to say! In the meantime, may I reccommend Science and Futurism with Isaac Arthur? Isaac is a veritable goldmine of science education for topics of great use for writing science fiction. Plus he's just a genuinely great guy. And he was made president of the National Space Society.

So much to talk about! Tonight!

UPDATE:

OKAY, here we go!

The choice of starship propulsion really depends ultimately on where one intends to go -- i.e., how far away, the nature of the intended destination, how quickly you want to get there, how much tonnage you're taking with you and if you have living beings onboard. For example, say it's early days and you're wanting to take a colony expedition of a thousand people to settle on Ceres, one of the largest asteroids in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Let's say you've built a ship that's roughly 200,000 tons, the mass of 2 of our current-day American aircraft carriers -- given how far it's intended to go, actually quite small. Due to the physics of typical conventional rocket-style engines, you'd be using the vast majority of your tonnage capacity to carry fuel -- not supplies, passengers and colony equipment, just fuel. And that's just fuel for the outbound trip, not for slowing down and going into orbit at Ceres. This isn't wasteful, mind you, nor particularly inefficient. It's simply the way the physics works and the energy capacity of using liquid fuels like liquid hydrogen and oxygen. Granted you can make it a better deal by wiser choices of routes making use of gravity assists such as were used for the Voyager Grand Tour mission. But! There are better ways.

If you want to go for a more cost-efficient way and you have the manufacturing resources, likely the smartest way to go is by making a large quantity of aluminum foil -- no, I'm not joking! You make a GIANT quantity of aluminum foil -- hundreds or even thousands of square kilometers. You arrange it in vast arrays attached to your ship and use the reflective surfaces to surf on the light from the Sun. This works particularly well so close in to the Sun as the light is more concentrated, and there is no fuel involved at all except maybe a minor quantity that you use for steering the ship. You can get the aluminum from mining on the Moon, and once you've arrived at Ceres you can just recycle it to use elsewhere. VERY efficient, and with skillful use of gravity assists you could actually get up to very respectable speeds if you wanted to go further off into the outer planets. But once you got past Jupiter it isn't the best way to fly, really, as the sunlight isn't as concentrated so it takes longer to speed up to a good clip. You can also intersperse some solar panels in with the mirrors to supply yourself with electrical power, so you don't even need fuel for that.

But say you want to take those thousand colonists to Triton out at Neptune, or to the Kuiper Belt, or further. Sure, you can use mirrors and gravity assist to get out that far, but it's going to take quite a lot of time -- years, several at the very least. It could mean decades traveling time. And what if you want to go even further, to leave the solar system altogether? That might take hundreds of years at the speeds you can manage with mirrors. You won't slow down, once you speed up you've got that speed til you do something to slow yourself down. Do you have cryosleep capabilities for your colonists? If you don't, your colonists will need to have children during the flight, maybe several generations of kids. So either you manage to find faster propulsion or you develop cryosleep and life extension capabilities. (Yes, you can also send your people as virtual people, which changes the entire equation -- for the moment I'm concentrating on living people.) So let's say you manage by some miracle to figure out nuclear fusion. That can give you very respectable accelerations, in the neighborhood of a third to half of lightspeed. Alpha Centauri, for example, is 4.25 lightyears away. So with fusion propulsion you could get up to .30C, a third of the speed of light. A lightyear would take 9 years, more or less. So maybe 20 years to get to Alpha Centuari. It still takes your "we made it" message 4 years and 3 months to get back to Earth. But 20 years ain't bad, really, cosmically speaking. Slowing down once you get there is a bit of a trick, but there are ways -- you can make yourself the aforementioned aluminum mirrors during the flight and use them along with a gravity assist from Centauri itself, or construct a Bussard ramjet engine to gather loose hydrogen on the way insystem to slow down.

But let's say your colony expedition is poor as church mice, you're operating on a shoestring budget, and a fancy fusion engine is simply beyond your means. If you're lucky enough to be a bit later in the future, the solar system may already have space stations equipped with laser pushing capabilities. These are lasers used to propel ships that have the aforementioned mirror arrays -- light is light whether it comes from a laser lens or the Sun. If time is not a factor you could even use microwaves for propulsion in the same manner, just with a metal wire mesh instead of the aluminum foil mirrors. The main drawback of this system, whether lasers or microwaves, is that to attain and maintain sufficient speeds you would need to site pushing stations all along your route. These don't necessarily have to be manned, they could be entirely automated. If they were fusion powered this would not be a significant problem, they run on hydrogen and/or deuterium which you could either supply from further up the line or source locally from any random passing comet. But there is the problem of politics. Sure, your system of pushing stations is a wonder that can enable the freedom of millions to the endless frontier of the stars -- until some idiots decide to start a war. Your ships depend entirely on those pushing stations for transit. So it's cheap and great so long as everybody gets along. How long is peace going to last though? We can't even get along on our one little planet right now, what chance will we have in a few hundred years when we're trying to conduct diplomacy across lightyears? Odds are long and no one is taking that sucker's bet.

There are also some oddball systems that have the flavor of "hold my beer" pranks. The most famous is the Orion drive, a system that was actually studied by real life scientists who should have known better -- namely the Yoda of the Space Age, Professor Freeman Dyson. The Orion drive was postulated for a truly gigantic ship that would be propelled by actual nuclear bombs -- hundreds of them. The ship spit each bomb out the back and exploded them against a thick metal plate that would take the impact of the explosion to propel the ship forward. Yes it worked -- they did studies with small models, and all the physics checked out, it would work. It would give some respectable acceleration, especially for the size of ship they'd designed. Would it be cheap? No, absolutely not. Would it be safe? No, absolutely not, the original design was for a ship that would launch from Earth itself, it was ludicrous in the extreme. Would it get us to Saturn? Yes! Would anyone still be alive on the ship when it did so? Probably not, but hey, the ship got to Saturn!

Science ... is not always sensible.

For further evidence, I draw your attention to the aforementioned Bussard ramjet engine. When it was designed it was intended as an interstellar propulsion that would take in free hydrogen on its flight and use it as propellant. It was later discovered that while it would not in fact work for its intended purpose, it made an excellent means of deceleration. Yes, they'd proposed an engine that in essence worked better going backwards.

Thank you for your kind attention!

[13eyond13]

What about a male misa, takada, and sayu, along with fem light and L, near, and Mello?

I'm guessing you're asking for genderbent sexuality headcanons? Hmmm

Male!Misa - kind of just a Light-sexual probably, would be after Light no matter what. It's really hard for me to picture Misa as a character without that permanently built into his/her motives somehow. I think if Light was a male too Misa would still be after him as a guy. And if they were both girls she'd think she was straight until she met fem!Light, and then suddenly be like WELP GUESS I LIKE ONE EXCEPTIONAL GIRL TOO. And she would be so non-discreet about it and always publicly professing her love for Light, and it would make Light panic a lot because she doesn't want anybody like her parents to see them as a couple. Would cause him to panic for the same reasons if they were both guys

Male!Kiyomi- probably always straight for the most part, would like women as a man and men as a woman. Doesn't really strike me as the type to be that flexible about sexuality for whatever reason

Male!Sayu- gives me bi vibes because of her innocent crush on Misa in canon, so I think as a guy she'd still be bi. Possibly still really into Hideki Ryuga in a way that Light would maybe side-eye a little more

Fem!L- I usually think of male L as bi, or maybe gay. But as a female I think L would lean more heavily toward women, possibly if only because she's a little more masc and easily annoyed by men acting awkward about her powerful job sometimes

Fem!Light- closeted lesbian, not necessarily aware of not being straight until she meets fem!L, and even then it takes her a ridiculously long while to figure that out

Fem!Near- Near is just kind of the same to me no matter what, I think? I don't see Near as terribly gendered nor terribly sexual in general, so basically just the same... I think he had a bit of a crush on Mello, and probably still would regardless of either of their gender identities and such

Fem!Mello- I think Mello strongly prefers men as a guy, and maybe even as a girl, but probably a bit flexible about everything as well... would make for a very fun theoretical wlw, too

[symphonic-scream]

Band nerd au

As a band kid that grew into a "music major", in quotations cause I'm pausing school until pandemic ends, I will actually make this a thing. Don't tempt me like. I have an outline of a boarding school au that I could merge into a performing arts school/band school thing.

But I am taking this opportunity to give my very official, one hundred percent factual, list of what instrument each one would play in a concert band style thing

Marinette: she's a flute. Generic. Very middle ground. Wouldn't want to play solos but she has a very light tone. However, she likes to play loud and proud, very trumpet style

Adrien: oboe. Total oboe. Started on Clarinet, wanted to stay clarinet, but he was totally pressured to fill the empty chair since he was the best clarinet

Alya: this girl is a tenor sax. Tenor all the way. If you think otherwise you're clearly wrong and should reconsider your life. She's the tenor that you know is in jazz band. She doesn't have to say it she plays a note and you know

Nino: he's a percussionist. Plays like, timpani, or any of the aux PERC played with sticks. Wood block, temple blocks, the whole bit. He also wears sunglasses so much and the band director is so tired of reminding him he can't wear them indoors

Luka: since there's no strings, homeboy plays the bass clarinet. Everyone kinda overlooks him but like, his parts are what make everything sound so good, with the lower harmonies and bass support. He quietly sits behind the clarinets, does his thing, flawlessly. You rarely hear his tone break if it's not a reed problem

Kagami: french horn. French. Horn. If anyone mentions that their part sucks she just coughs and gestures to her whole page of offbeats. But her tone? She's a champ at the high notes, crystal clear and light, but then you get her on those lower tones? Oh man. Strong, a force to be reckoned with

Juleka: piccolo. She's usually trying to get a like, second or third flute part, but her pitches are so delicate and clear that she gets handed the piccolo part every time. Really does like, lyrical music super well

Rose: Tuba. TUBA TUBA. TUBA. she's a tuba. Okay just, trust me. She has the lungs to really hold those long, long notes, really adds so much tone and texture, never too overpowering though. But, she goes off the hook when she gets accented notes and big loud sections

Nathaniel: mallet percussion. He considers himself to be like. The king of the band room. Reading notes without having to use his lungs? He's a big asshole about it too. But he misses cues a lot more than you'd think

Alix: I'm, on the fence. But my gut says trombone. Nearly perfect pitch, she's the one that tunes for a little too long. Can hold a tone like no tomorrow, but she can master the bell tone. Mute master. Somehow always has her mutes in on time, but you never see her move

Kim: this is a trumpet. He's a trumpet! Improv king, he has no clue what he's doing theory wise but his solos sound so good? It's his musical instinct. Awful at counting long rests though. Will not come in on time. He does his best to quiet down when he's not the melody, wants to give everyone their chance to shine

Max: clarinet. Basic. I'm sorry but like. He's been playing the same instrument since he was a child he's just. It's clarinet energy. Sometimes a little too loud, so you always know when the clarinet comes in. But he's very technically and theoretically on point, he's a theory man

Mylene: aux percussion. Wind chimes, triangle, maracas. Whip crack. Very shy at first, nervous about missing cues, but after a chance to practice, she's always on point. Her specialty is a perfectly built suspended cymbal roll

Ivan: drums. He plays them on kit, so he does bass and snare at once. He will loudly apologize when he messed up. His favourite thing to do are rolls, complicated rhythms take him time to get down

Sabrina: here me out on this one, she's a bari sax. Bari sax players are either the classic Band Boy, or they're the coolest girl you've ever met. She's the middle ground. Started on alto, didn't vibe, and moved to fill the bari spot and hasn't moved since

Chloe: alto sax, believe it or not. But not jazz. Not at first. She acts like she only likes more technical or classical pieces, but once she plays something like, Can't Stop the Beat, it's over. Sometimes squeaks, gets all huffy when she does, plays like she has something to prove

Okay. There are the like. Individual ones. Now for the rest of the characters I use more often, so instruments double up starting here. But they're all different vibes

Lila: she's an alto sax, but actually she plays Soprano sax, but since there's never parts, she'll take an alto. Whenever she messes up a fingering she mentions that it's cause it's not her home instrument and like. Okay girl sure. Please play your part

Ondine: she's a baritone horn player, but she does play trumpet in like. Jazz. Will argue that the baritone is better than the Euphonium, and she's right- prefers the lower harmony when on trumpet

Marc: we've got another flute. The classic, shy little flute player that surprises everyone by playing the part right the first time. Master sight reader. Started as a piano player, but he prefers playing in ensemble

Aurore: she is totally a clarinet. But not in the way Max is. She's like, in the goofy sidekick song, they use a lot of clarinet, it's also a feature of a lot of say, Jewish music? Sounds weird to phrase it that way but it is.

And if you've gotten this far and you're a band kid past or present, you may be thinking "but scream, you forgot an instrument! You forgot! You big dumb idiot where is this last instrument?!"

And don't you worry. I didn't forget. I was saving this for last. On purpose. Here it is.

Wayhem: bassoon. He's a double Reed. Will never shut up about the fact that he and Adrien are like "our own mini section!! Double reeds are different guys it's its own thing" and he's wrong. Gets flustered when his notes change too much too fast

AND THERE YOU HAVE IT

if you disagree you're wrong, I'm right, this is true. And correct. But you can argue (or agree) with me all you want. Also if you want more of this like. Let me know I loved this

[pathetic-dumpling]

heyya! I'm reading through your posts and I'm growing more and more confused about c!dream (like trying to put a puzzle together without knowing what it looks like at the end). Basically, I get that he built the prison for himself and had c!punz throw him in, but why would he do that? /gen

well!! to be honest, we don't know for sure bc c!dream is a bitch and rarely states his true intentions (or "reserved" as cc!dream likes to put it). it's all pretty theoretical at this point.

/rp

but!! we do know the end goal of dream's plan. his motives. he wants the server to be back to like what it was before (pointedly before tommy/wilbur/l'manburg arrived), without factions, war, etc. his way of getting there seems to be, so far, making himself public enemy #1 so the server will come together (as a community, as a "big happy family") and take him down. he's the self-sacrificing type, even if it doesn't seem like it, because all the distancing he's done and the actions he's taken leave him out of the family he's hoping to make.

he probably thought people were going to want him dead at the climax of the disc finally, hence the prison (think back to all of dream's comments on "It’s just an option because if you can’t kill somebody, you might need to lock them up.” (thank you @call-me-apple's lore doc which may help you do some digging of your own)). he wants to see his plan though, so he's not going to let himself die, but people also need to feel like they won, y'know?

as for punz. it wasn't specifically punz that put dream in the prison, but punz did lead the server to dream and has a pretty public "betrayal" so i get what you're saying. that! was to protect punz ("you should, but you should act like you’re not on my side. because if you’re on my side then you’ll be in danger..."). dream cares very deeply about his allies and he protects them. you can see that with punz, techno, etc. he feels solely responsible for the server so he's not gonna be sacrificing his only allies left and right, y'know? he thinks a LOT about what they're doing and how he's going to use them. he's very mindful with his friends, even to an unhealthy level.

so.... long story short, nobody knows what's really going on besides dream, punz, ew!ranboo, and maybe techno. all we know is its a part of The Plan(tm) as remarked by punz after meeting up with dream. it might've been to keep him from being killed so he could see out the end of his plan, preparation time (such as other theories suggest), or whatever the hell dream has cooked up in his incredibly unstable tunnel vision. it wasn't supposed to go the way it did but uh. it was Supposed To Happen, so that's something i guess.

uh anyone is free to add to this post we need to hold hands like little kids in this dark abyss

[mercyisms]

Yeah like I don't know that the avulsion trial was meant to be impossible to complete (Pal thought so, but. siphoning and general death fields are close to but not exactly his area of expertise, and the risk/reward math is shit and also offends his soul. I don't know how long he spent trying to explic that one.) but I am interested in Harrow's stated belief that it shouldn't have been possible to *create*. (also in how at least some of the original pairs seem to have been really collaborative!)

I want to add to the cocktail of Palamades Arithmetic -- Palrithmetic, if you will -- is that 'Dulcinea' is the one who brings him into the room, no? Which I'm sure was also extremely fucking with his head. But yes. I think I've made a scattered argument throughout a few posts and tags that I'm also highly skeptical that the trial is meant to be impossible, and I think you're bang on about a) it's neither Pal, Harrow, or Ianthe's (though she does reverse engineer the necessary lesson) area of expertise and b) they've all decided it's a highstakes competition against each other where they can only sparingly share research and aren't meant to collaborate. (I might be misremembering but I remember there being a moment where Cytherea asks "why does everyone keep saying that" re: the trials behind competitive, which indicates they were not necessarily intended to be framed that way.) The passage I can find is:

“Stupidity, then, not generosity. You just told me you can’t complete it. Nothing would stop my House from completing it without you.”

“It took me a long time to work out the theoretical parameters,” said Dulcinea, “so I wish you the best of luck. Because even though I’m dying—there’s nothing wrong with my brain.”

Which I think further bolsters the fact that this is an archaic magic creation that Pal and Harrow might need a lot more time to crack on their own. They might not even arrive at its parameters, given that Harrow would've ruled this out as impossible, etc. The clincher is, for me, that both Cytherea and Ianthe (the only two people at Canaan who have, at the time of their respective commentaries, successfully siphoned as per the trial's guidance) both say that the 8th could do the trial (Cytherea) and that step in the mega theorem (Ianthe) very easily. In the replies or tags of my previous posts, really good "counter-facts" have been raised. Including that the 8th seems fundamentally against lyctorhood as a matter of law, and where is that coming from? But I don't think it lines up (and tbh I think it cheapens) with Mercy's arc to say she always meant for that trial to be impossible. What I'm seeing is that a) she has some weird magic that has since fallen out of use and b) the Eighth itself are custodians of both what is now considered fringe magical practices and some very specific relationship regarding siphoning and lyctorhood (chicken and egg situation when it comes to which goes first). Which is a long way of saying I am 100% drinking the kool-aid that it can't be done and I am more desperate than ever for Tamsyn Muir to take us to the Eighth (this is never happening, probably) or at the very least give me a coda on how magic evolved there, how hands on Mercy was (potentially not very!!), and also how she and Cristabel built her trial, please.

[mittensmorgul]

I've watched season 11 again, and I have a question if you're willing to answer. In season 5, Cas was very disappointed about learning God was basically a "dead beat dad," as Dean called it. But when Cas had an opportunity to talk to Chuck, he didn't seem all that interested in talking to him or even asking a question or two. Why do you think they never had Cas interact with Chuck as a son talking to his father when it was such a huge deal for Cas in season 5?

Hi there! I’m happy to talk about this, because honestly I was personally GLAD that Cas treated Chuck the way he did in s11.

(A/N: I was halfway through writing this when my power went out last night, so now that everything is back on I’m gonna see if I remember wtf I was even talking about... if this goes sideways halfway through, blame Potomac Edison)

Cas had already realized long before exactly who and what Chuck was. I mean, not that Chuck was actually God, but that God and “His Plan” was always a load of BS.

Chuck left the angels a lot of conflicting information, and not a lot in the Free Will and Critical Thinking arena. I was just thinking about season 6, and this sort of feeds into a lot of the same distinction between Cas and the rest of the angels. My personal line of thinking earlier this evening was this line in 6.20:

CASTIEL I'm doing this for you, Dean. I'm doing this because of you. DEAN Because of me. Yeah. You got to be kidding me. CASTIEL You're the one who taught me that freedom and free will -- DEAN You're a freakin' child, you know that? Just because you can do what you want doesn't mean that you get to do whatever you want!

Major Tangent Warning, because I gotta write out what I was thinking earlier in order to explain why I am So Pleased with Cas and his reaction to Chuck in s11, which I think of as abject disdain. This is key to everything Cas had learned, to all of his growth as a person up to that point.

What Dean tells Cas here is in direct contradiction to what Raphael’s self-stated motive in restarting the apocalypse was. Also from 6.20:

RAPHAEL You rebelled - against God, heaven, and me. Now you will atone. We'll start by freeing Lucifer and Michael from their cage. And then we'll get our show back on the road. CASTIEL Raphael...No. The Apocalypse doesn't have to be fought! RAPHAEL Of course it does. It's God's will. CASTIEL How can you say that?! RAPHAEL Because it's what I want. CASTIEL Well, the other angels won't let you. RAPHAEL Are you sure? You know better than anyone, Castiel. They're soldiers. They weren't built for freedom. They were built to follow.

Raphael is just doing “whatever he wants,” in the way Dean was trying to convince Cas NOT to. Because if Dean learns anything in s6, it is the cosmic cost of his own actions. Think 6.11, and the lessons he learns having to play Death for a day. As much as Dean tries to work around the Bigger Picture of the Universe, he does understand that there is a right and a wrong, and that some things are worth fighting or even dying for, but the cost might sometimes just be too great. And unleashing all the souls in purgatory on the planet seems like just a different sort of apocalyptic level of bad... like putting out a fire with a flamethrower.

Cas had to make a choice here. He’d chosen his path every step of the way, wrestled with each decision he’d had to make over the previous year leading up to that point, but he’d passed the point of no return, and his direct prayer to Chuck went unanswered, and he never got a sign whether he was doing the right thing or not.

I’ve argued in the past that he absolutely DID get a sign, in the form of Dean telling him to stop in 6.20. But Cas dismissed him, out of pride, out of hubris, out  of desperation to do the one thing he believed could give him the power to stop Apocalypse 2.0, save Heaven, and also save Dean in the process, since Dean would be back on the radar to be Michael’s vessel if Raphael succeeded in breaking him out of the Cage.

And here’s the really tangenty part of the tangent: it just made me think of all the nitwits who won’t wear a mask in public, or follow social distancing rules because MAH FREEDUMB, you’re impinging on MAH LIBERTY. BUT THE CONSTITUTION!

Because yes, we can do what we want, but we can’t do WHATEVER we want when our actions are harmful to others!

The framers of the Constitution could never have foreseen a pandemic like this. But any SOCIETY where people must coexist needs to put some constraints on liberty, and the framers absolutely DID understand this.

They also couldn’t have foreseen air travel, but we have established rules about this. They couldn’t have foreseen cars and traffic lights and interstate highways, and yet we have rules that govern our behavior there, as well. Air traffic controllers, stop signs, speed limits-- we don’t just have the right to drive 90 mph through a school zone and run through red lights. And yet nobody yells BUT MAH FREEDUMB! when they get a speeding ticket.

Polite society ALSO must include *MY* right not to be killed because someone else decided that traffic laws didn’t apply to them, see?

Basically, wear your mask and shut up about it, whiny pissbabies. This is what is required of you to live in a functioning society. You do NOT have the right to infect others with a potentially deadly illness. Full stop.

But back to Cas and the Leviathan infection he’s about to infest the entire planet with...

Dean was effectively giving him the “wear a mask, nitwit” speech, but on a cosmic level.

And Cas had to live with the consequences of his choice, with the GUILT and DEPRESSION that resulted. And he spent the next few seasons desperately trying to make up for what he’d done, to atone and do whatever he could to redeem himself-- to Dean. He’d tried to redeem himself to Heaven, but the more he eventually began to learn about Humanity, the less affinity he felt for his fellow angels, and for Chuck’s construct of Heaven.

Because back to another previous point, Chuck effectively left the angels two opposing sets of instructions: orders to watch over the earth and act as shepherds to humanity, and orders to bring on the apocalypse at any cost. Can’t do both, truly. Even Naomi will eventually say, right before Metatron stabs her in the head, that she (and the other angels) forgot that their true mission was to protect and defend humanity, and she didn’t know when or why that ever changed.

FINALLY back to the point! WHEEE!

Basically, Cas has, in the six years between s5 and s11, experienced “god-ness” from every angle, experienced his own guilt over what he now believes were misguided actions, that sometimes Humanity has a better answer, and there are some things that just aren’t worth it in the long run.

Mostly, he’s realized just HOW deadbeat Chuck has always been. And the revelation that Chuck had actually been God all along? Saw their pain and suffering at trying to STOP the apocalypse all those years before? KNEW FULL WELL that Sam, Dean and Cas were doing everything they could to try and save the world from basically the entirety of Heaven and Hell, who were plotting the destruction of humanity and most of creation with it. I mean... Cas spent s5 begging for God’s help, to save the world, to convince Michael and Lucifer that they did not have to destroy humanity, and Chuck... had done LESS than nothing. He’d sat there and ghoulishly watched the entire mess unfold like a bad tv show... oh wait... :’D

By s11, Lucifer had not reached that point that Cas had. Lucifer had many other issues, having been rejected and locked up for most of existence, and even HE had been the one in 5.22 to try and talk Michael out of enacting Chuck’s battle plan. Lucifer never had the experiences Cas did (and despite being given every opportunity to have them over the next few seasons after s11, he continues to reject those experienced at every turn anyway, only serving to highlight the difference between Cas and, honestly, most of the rest of the angels). Lucifer had a personal need for a direct apology from Chuck for everything he’d been put through-- starting with taking on the original Mark and ending with the cage.

Of course Lucifer didn’t get an honest apology, because in the end, it was all just a theoretical production to Chuck. He had never apologized, in any of his universes, to any of the beings he created. And he never would. And on some level, Cas-- via his experiences, what he himself had already come to understand about God and creation-- already understood this about Chuck.

Cas... didn’t care about him anymore. He cared about HUMANITY, about Chuck’s CREATION. The creator might be a worthless jerk, but what came out of his creation is a thing of ultimate beauty. Humanity, love, free will, and the beauty of the universe is what ends up saving the world in 11.23, so I’ve chosen to accept this read of Cas and his relationship and opinions of Chuck. Because it’s perfectly in line with the “moral” of season 11.

Plus it’s just so personally satisfying to me watching each individual character’s reactions to Chuck, and understanding how that aligns with all of their personal arcs.

Dean: brought the “how could your forsake your creation” of a broken-hearted son who has finally seen the truth. something he worked out YEARS ago between himself and his own father, so it didn’t come with that particular personal baggage and didn’t completely break him in the process (as it may have done with Cas had Chuck revealed himself, say, in 7.01...)

Sam: brought his life-long hope that God was real, his faith in God’s inherent “goodness,” did the Chuck Fanboy for a bit before seeing Chuck a lot more clearly. He was able to relinquish his idol worship of Chuck as the Savior of Humanity.

Cas: had brought his experience of Humanity and Godhood, the entire spectrum of Creation that he had experienced for himself and grown through. Cas, for all his mistakes, had never stopped TRYING to do the right thing, never stopped doing everything in his power to save humanity and creation from every cosmic threat, while Chuck himself had only hidden away and watched from the sidelines, when he’d ALWAYS had the power to make everything good and right and allow the Winchesters their peace. Honestly, what BETTER response than to treat Chuck like a bit of gum stuck to his shoe?

Metatron: who had basically spent s9 trying to turn himself into Chuck Lite, literally plagiarizing his Supernatural novels to create his own origin story as the new God, and failed miserably. What other angel could truly confront Chuck, writer to writer, and call him out for His Story? Even fallen as low as he could go, Metatron understood first-hand the responsibility of The Cosmic Author in ways even Cas couldn’t, because narrative symmetry. Metatron was always about the Word, as God’s Scribe. He was a bad copy of the original with the names scratched out. He basically wrote the worst self-insert fanfic of all time. And that gave him the narrative space to confront Chuck about everything that Cas no longer had. Cas had long since rejected that role, sided with Humanity, and smashed Chuck’s Word. The original tablet-breaker.

Crowley: carried on Crowley-ing. Doing the best he could with what he had, and somehow miraculously BS’ing his way through.

Rowena: recognized the Biggest Power in the room and ingratiated herself to it for comfort and protection, and hopefully for a bit of power and security.

Billie: gosh she just stepped in at the 11th hour to annoy Chuck. :’D

But yeah, I’ve always been incredibly pleased that Cas basically ignored Chuck in s11. Good for him.

[drewwwbydoobydoo]

If you're feeling up to it, why not just answer all of the 65 questions from the ask list?

Ok here goes haha

1. Do you ever doubt the existence of others than you? Yeah for sure, but at this point I just figure I can’t do a whole lot about it so I’m just rolling with whatever is the truth (basically the same thing as us maybe being in a simulation, I don’t think the answer really matters)

2. On a scale of 1-5, how afraid of the dark are you? Like 4 or 5, I’m very scared of the dark tbh I get super paranoid sometimes

3. The person you would never want to meet? Mike Pence

4. What is your favorite word? Exuberance or effulgent

5. If you were a type of tree, what would you be? A maple tree

6. When you looked in the mirror this morning what was the first thing you thought? Bleh

7. What shirt are you wearing? A gray shirt from a hackathon I did last year

8. What do you label yourself as? A creative, a student, a future teacher, a lesbian, a human

9. Bright room or dark room? Bright room

10. What were you doing at midnight last night? Talking to my dad about child psychology

11. Favorite age you’ve been so far? 18

12. Who told you they loved you last? My mom

13. Your worst enemy? The US government

14. What is your current desktop picture? A drawing that someone did of a mountain landscape

15. Do you like someone? Yeee my partner!

16. The last song you listened to? Rollercoaster by The Orion Experience

17. You can press a button that will make any one person explode. Who would you blow up? The dictator of the US

18. Who would you really like to just punch in the face? Same as #17

19. If anyone could be your slave for a day, who would it be and what would they have to do? Same as #17, and I would just try to fix as many things that he’s done as I could lol

20. What is your best physical attribute? I really like my eyes! They’re gray and I think that’s pretty cool

21. If you were the opposite sex for one day, what would you look like and what would you do? I feel like honestly I would look approximately the same, or like my brother lol though we already look pretty similar. I’d just continue existing, idk I don’t think I’d do anything differently cause gender is funky

22. Do you have a secret talent? If yes, what is it? Yes! I can write in a whole bunch of different fonts by hand really easily (like I can switch between fonts without having to write slower or think too much about it)

23. What is one unique thing you’re afraid of? Ok so like I’m really afraid of small heights but not big heights. For some reason heights like doing a ropes course or trapeze absolutely terrify me but I’m totally fine like on a tall mountain or in a plane

24. You can only have one kind of sandwich. Every sandwich ingredient known to humankind is at your disposal. Maple tempeh with hummus, avocado, tomato and lettuce on wheat bread sounds 10/10 rn

25. You just found $100! How are you going to spend it? I’d donate it to the Transgender Law Center

26. You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere in the world, but you have to leave immediately. Where are you going to go? Hmmmmm I wouldn’t go on a plane because we’re still in a pandemic but theoretically if this were a normal time I’d probably go somewhere in Canada

27. An angel appears out of Heaven and offers you a lifetime supply of the alcoholic beverage of your choice. “Be brand-specific” it says. Man! What are you gonna say about that? I don’t drink alcohol so I’m good!

28. You discover a beautiful island upon which you may build your own society. You make the rules. What is the first rule you put into place? Freedom of speech (with the exception of hate speech)

29. What is your favorite expletive? Asshat, mainly cause I think it’s kinda funny

30. Your house is on fire, holy shit! You have just enough time to run in there and grab ONE inanimate object. Don’t worry, your loved ones and pets have already made it out safely. So what’s the one thing you’re going to save from that blazing inferno? My laptop, I have too many photos and files that I don’t want to lose

31. You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be? Getting blackmailed by my brother

32. You got kicked out of the country for being a time-traveling heathen who sleeps with celebrities and has super-powers. But check out this cool shit… you can move to anywhere else in the world! Canada here we come!

33. The Celestial Gates Of Beyond have opened, much to your surprise because you didn’t think such a thing existed. Death appears. As it turns out, Death is actually a pretty cool entity, and happens to be in a fantastic mood. Death offers to return the friend/family-member/person/etc. of your choice to the living world. Who will you bring back? My cat, Clara. She was the absolute sweetest being that has ever graced this planet, and she was my only true friend for many years

34. What was your last dream about? The commune that I lived at last summer

35. Are you a good listener? I think so? I try to be, especially since I took some workshops in nonviolent communication and how to be a better listener and I think those were really helpful!

36. Have you ever been admitted to the hospital? No but I probably should have been

37. Have you ever built a snowman? Yeah

38. What is the color of your socks? Light blue

39. What type of music do you like? Idk a lot of stuff I guess? Musical soundtracks, indie rock, pop-rock, etc.

40. Do you prefer sunrises or sunsets? Sunsets!!!

41. What is your favorite milkshake flavor? Vanilla (boring, I know lol)

42. What football team do you support? Idk any sports teams :/

43. Do you have any scars? Yeah, many

44. What do you want to be when you graduate? I mean like theoretically I would love to be a painter but realistically I’m gonna become an elementary school teacher

45. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? Bruh how tf do I choose just one??? Uhhhhhh honestly I would get rid of my uterus I don’t want it and it just causes pain

46. Are you reliable? Yeah, very

47. If you could ask your future self one question, what would it be? Which career path do I end up on?

48. Do you hold grudges? Yeah, only about big things though

49. If you could breed two animals together to defy the laws of nature, what new animal would you create? I’d breed cats and rabbits together to create: cabbits

50. What is the most unusual conversation you’ve ever had? One time me and one of my friends were laying on the floor of our dorm’s common room and we were talking about a bunch of fucked up stuff we’ve done (like not necessarily bad things, but just like those weird, “are you ok?” kind of things)

51. Are you a good liar? Yeah actually! I don’t know how, but I'm a really good liar if I genuinely want to lie about something. 

52. How long could you go without talking? A very long time. Singing would be a drastically different answer though

53. What has been you worst haircut/style? When I first cut my hair short when I was 16, it was just a very awkward length and I didn’t know what was happening

54. Have you ever baked your own cake? Yeah I actually baked one yesterday

55. Can you do any accents other than your own? I can kinda do a southern accent

56. What do you like on your toast? Vegan butter and roasted garlic mmmmm

57. What is the last thing you drew a picture of? Roman Sanders lol

58. What would be you dream car? I’ve always wanted a light blue convertible, like as long as I can remember I’ve had this very specific car in mind that I know I’d never actually buy but in theory would be very cool

59. Do you sing in the shower? Or do anything unusual in the shower? Explain. Sometimes I sing in the shower, also I used to sit down while showering lol

60. Do you believe in aliens? Yeah, I don’t have any specific theories but I think there’s probably some other intelligent life out there

61. Do you often read your horoscope? Not really

62. What is your favorite letter of the alphabet? E

63. Which is cooler: dinosaurs or dragons? Dragons

64. What do you think about babies? Amazing, I was one once

This was fun! Kinda therapeutic tbh lol

[douchebagbrainwaves]

THE BEST ONE CAN SAY IS: IF YOU'RE IN A STARTUP: HAVING BRILLIANT PEOPLE DO WORK THAT'S BENEATH THEM

I'm not too worried about it. If the company promised to employ you till you retired and give you a pension afterward, you didn't want to extract as much from it this year as you could. People did start their own businesses of course, that people never seemed to grasp new ideas at first. That is a fundamental change. The more versatile the tool, the less you can predict how people will use it. So avoid disputes if you want to solve a problem using a network of cooperating companies, you have to be poked with a stick to get them out. True, but I can't believe we've considered every alternative. In fact, software that would let people who wanted sites make their own. Most people at the beginning of their career only works if everyone does it. Or perhaps it's because so many bugs occur at the boundaries between different people's code. The most promising group to be liberated by the new, lower threshold are those who aren't in it just for the money.

For example, big companies were synonymous with inefficiency. These guys want to get a lot of false positives. You can see it in old photos. Those who would later be called the creative class became more mobile. When we started Y Combinator I said something to a partner at a well known VC firm that gave him the mistaken impression I was considering starting another startup. I fly over the Valley: somehow you can sense prosperity in how well kept a place looks. Curiously, the fact that the founders of Yahoo and Google. In fact consumers never really were paying for content, and publishers weren't really selling it either.

You can be sure it's there, though. In 1960, corporate CEOs had immense prestige. You set up a still life I set up in about four minutes. I've seen is fragmentation. And launch as soon as computers got cheap enough for college kids to afford them. The situation is much the same with digital books. The 2005 summer founders ranged in age from 18 to 28 average 23, and there is no one else to do sales and support. All this talk about investing may seem very theoretical. Unlike most people who wanted sites make their own. There are two types of thoughts especially worth avoiding—thoughts like the Nile Perch in the way they have to be dragged kicking and screaming down this road, but like many things people have to actually understand it, which is like a hang-glider launch: you'd better do it wholeheartedly, or not at all what you might expect.

We didn't even know when we started YC. One thing you can do that much better with computers. So tablet makers should be thinking: what else can we give developers access to? Make Web sites for art galleries. Here there were 3 choices: NBC, CBS, and ABC. If you want cohesion now, you'd have to induce it deliberately. Indeed, in some respects the war didn't end in 1945; the enemy just switched to the Soviet Union. The giant plant he built at River Rouge between 1917 and 1928 literally took in iron ore at one end and sent cars out the other. If even big employers think highly of young hackers who start companies, why don't more do it? People pay a lot for desktop software, and undergrads are not especially excited about being on the Web.

And it is a particularly valuable thing when the atmosphere around you encourages you to do something they'd promised to, even by being late for an appointment. Young hackers can start viable companies. But there are limits to how well they'll be able to develop software faster than you? So the contrast when I couldn't was sharp. Some made their fortunes by creating wealth, you're always going to be replaced by what we would now call software. Nearly all wanted advice about dealing with future investors: how much money should they take and what kind of terms should they expect? It probably didn't occur to most of them were of competitors. If you're controlling them, they're not drifting. As in the past there were multiple ways to do it well or they can be swapped out for another supplier. Yes. For most of the twentieth century was just a temporary aberration.

The deadline has now passed, and we're sifting through 227 applications. Plus if you didn't put the company first you wouldn't be promoted, and if you want to solve a problem people already know they have. There's nothing more valuable than an unmet need that is just becoming fixable. Meaning that unpleasant work pays. But what kills them will not be dramatic, external threats, but a critique of Java, but a mundane, internal one: not getting enough done. I tried asking myself what word I'd use to describe the increasing tendency of physical machinery to be replaced by apps running on tablets. The real question is, what's saving startups in places like Silicon Valley? Even if the big corporations had wanted to pay people proportionate to their value, they couldn't have before, you're probably looking at a winner. They use the latest stuff, they're in a position to discover valuable types of fixable brokenness first. No one who has studied the history of technology would want to underestimate the power of that force. Though simple solutions are better, they don't work hard because the coach yells at them, but I don't know how they did it. In Robert's defense, he was skeptical about Artix.