#Ego Reduction

[yellowmanula]

I'm training to be able to speak in a way that completely removes any intent of power from my words (or any power that might generate itself). I want to speak so that my words can simply be accepted or not, with the reach of my message forming organically, without the support of symbolic capital. I'm training to reduce my words to what I truly think or am still coming to understand. In my opinion, this requires battling the ego, distinguishing externally imposed needs from those essential for proper functioning.

I’m training myself to not feel jealousy, to engage in only healthy competition, to cultivate good mental habits, assertiveness, and clarity without illusions. I’m training for balance between asceticism and a shout of vitality.

I’m not aiming for an ego-free expression; rather, I strive for a level of detachment where you can hear and see the thought ❤. It’s incredibly difficult because I have a tangled, contradictory nature, but I want this.

[moiraimyths]

Before we call anon rude because let’s see it from their perspective, imagine getting an entire feast to eat. That can be pretty hard to start with so much that’s going on, but if they start with one thing they know they’ll like (aka one character they like) that can be the start for them leaping to other characters to finish the story and the bigger story. I struggle the same way to start book series if I don’t have at least one character that drives me to read it, it’s all about what can be the hook to push them through. Sounds like the anon is neurodivergent (just a guess) so they might genuinely not see it as rude and see it as a solution to even play the game to start with.

Btw absolutely adore the game, the complex and rich characters making them all so unique is amazing. The art is so pleasing to the eyes I love it!! I’m waiting for it all to get out at once so I don’t get too impatient. Shae however interests me the most, which routes will have the most lore for them? Will there be routes that give more lore in general based on decisions you make or do they all share the same amount? (I mean general lore not just Shae lore)

Apologies; we are not trying to accuse any asker of being rude! We are simply explaining our perspective as the developers / are trying to broadly encourage folks to dip their toes into other areas of the story outside of the main route(s) they're interested in, especially considering some routes will be made available sooner than others, and these other routes will likely contain additional scenes/lore of everyone's fave(s) regardless! We want to give each main cast member an equal amount of love (and lore) regardless of their overall popularity, so our goal is not to tut-tut anyone for having strong preferences for one character over the others, but rather to explain that you may be surprised by how much *more* you learn about your preferred characters in the other routes. That's all!

For Shae... Well, they were a foot soldier for one of the worst periods of the War. Lore wise, any other story that touches on the War will likely have content relevant to them and their experiences. ^^

[scottguy]

It's just MORAL VANITY. Their ego over the good of Americans or EVEN over Palestinians.

How is being selfish in your vote moral? You aren't fixing anything. You ARE making things worse.

No one respects that.

This is the thing with the "I won't vote for Harris" supposed leftists.

None of them will tell you how allowing Trump to be elected helps.

Because they don't have an answer.

Because they don't really care about anything other than how they personally feel.

Actual leftism involves making pragmatic moves. The public will for revolution doesn't exist, and we live in a two party system. If you want to fight that system, great. There are things like ranked choice voting and the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact we need to be fighting for. But those are fights that have to happen year round, at the state level, and not just in an election year.

And in the meanwhile, you vote defensively and strategically, in an attempt to save as many people as possible.

Saying you aren't voting for Harris isn't taking a stand against genocide. It's putting your head in the sand and admitting you care more about your own comfort than making a difference in the world.

Why aren't you getting involved in your local politics? Why aren't you running leftist candidates at a local level, so you can move them up in the system and eventually move the political discussion left. You want to know why politics have moved right? It's because the right wing has been doing that for decades.

Your refusal to participate won't save a single life.

It only means you're abandoning everyone else.

[mydeaddad]

having a dissenting opinion on twitter when u struggle to eloquently articulate urself is worse than hell actually

[zincbotted]

nobody fucking understands stanford pines like i do

[bunnyboy-juice]

is there anything more addictive than people pining for/complimenting your dynamic with your dom 🥰💕

[theshinypumpkin]

One fundamental misunderstanding I think people have about prideshipping is that it's just about ego and an undying desire to win. It's really reductive and doesn't take into account the following things; Kaiba was brought up to believe love was either a vulnerability that could be used against him, or an endless series of sacrifices he would have to make. Of course he rejects every direct piece of affection and assumes it is all false. Likewise, Atem has spent his entire life prioritising others and not really having the opportunity to process his own feelings. Duty comes before his own wants, and being with Kaiba actually allows him to acknowledge them. Kaiba rejects fate and challenges forces outside their control, which have been a continual source of stress on Atem. It is refreshing. Atem shows Kaiba the good in the world, and in turn, Kaiba shows him how to love himself outside of the things he does for others. Pre-DSOD, Kaiba has basically had his emotional walls torn down, only for the person who pushed his way in to disappear, and Atem has had to leave his friends behind for the sake of Yugi's growth. Of course it's Kaiba who hunts him down, despite Yugi being the better duelist, because it is not about pure skill anymore. It is about personal philosophy. Throw in how they're basically deified in their respective times, their dynamics with their loved ones, and shared passion, and you have an extremely nuanced ship.

[postapocalyptic-cryptic]

oh shit??? maybe I have??

I love thinking up an interpretation of a novel and then immediately running to the library search to see if I've ever had an original thought

[wickedsmille]

Tim stares at Jason at an event. Jason catches him. Tim steals some looks, Jason steals some looks. Then Tim goes inside to do the clean up after offering so Alfred could take a knee. Jason corners him inside.

Jason: I noticed you've been looking at me

Tim: Wow the ego

Jason: Tell me I'm wrong

Tim: You're wrong

Jason: Here's the thing, I'm great at spotting liars

Tim: Apparently not

Jason: Fuck, do I like 'em feisty and you? You're taking the cake, baby

Tim: As much as I love the unsolicited and unwarranted pet names, I was kinda in the middle of something

Jason, hoisting Tim up onto the kitchen counter and running his hands along Tim's legs: Have to wait, cause I'm in the middle of something too

Tim: You're used to getting what you want, aren't you?

Jason: Contrary to popular belief, being a crime lord isn't all sex, control and violence. That's reductive thinking

Tim: Oh and what's this then?

Jason: Seduction, is it working?

Tim, leans in a kisses him: I don't know, is it?

Continued here

[megamuscle885-blog]

Worm as a MMORPG

Twelve classes split into three categories;

Defensive: Brute, Breaker, Mover, Stranger

Offensive: Striker, Shaker, Blaster, Changer

Support: Tinker, Thinker, Trump, Master

Forgive me if I misuse some terms it's like 2am and going to bed early wasn't helpful.

Brute is pretty obvious, it's a Tank who tanks with their face. Facetank. They get a high health pool or damage reduction or a natural regeneration. They most overtly take damage and make it smaller damage somehow. The same is true for how they do damage, they get ways to take small damage and make it big.

Breakers with their forms let them have at least two health pools and they usually switch between them to allow the other pool to heal, and gain abilities to mitigate damage and control the pace of the fights. I think the term is off-tank?

Movers are like a dodge tank, like matadors. They bait out the enemy's attack and then get out of the way somehow. They can semi-DPS but it means they have to stop getting out of the way of attacks to deal real damage rather than chip damage, so they can't afford to pull too much aggro.

Strangers are aggro masters, doing sabotage to draw heat away from the frontline, joining the frontline to pile on flanking damage, roaming the backline to counter-Stranger and protect the supports. Roaming tanks that need to know pretty much all the other classes to be effective. TF2's spy and scout rolled into one.

Strikers are straightforward damage dealers. They get in close and get to slap you with something useful. A lot of their gameplay is getting close and staying close. In PvP it's the world's most interesting game of tag, with strikers able to move people out of position just by approaching, but runs the risks of being focused down, same reason people don't focus Tanks in PvP unless forced to. Strikers usually take advantage of the Trigger system - which I'll explain later - to give them the edge needed to get in close.

Shakers are more like facilitators of damage rather than outright damage dealers themselves, but rarely you get someone who's got the right power to do something destructive. It's more about removing cover and opening up firing lines, flushing out the supports, cutting the tanks off from their teammates, and preventing the same from happening to your own team. Pure Shakers have an incredibly high skill ceiling and exceptional game knowledge and might drop damage altogether, becoming a semi-Support. They can tell when pushes are coming, when the supports have a Stranger causing sabotage or a Striker diving into the backline. If a Brute hasn't taken charge of a party, or a Master isn't co-ordinating the team, Shakers step up to control the flow of the battlefield by controlling the battlefield itself.

Blasters are the same as Strikers, but focus on range and keeping themselves at range. Think a critical hit/damage build. They're the reason the Shakers control the battlefield, the reason Brutes can limit the amount of damage they take in a single attack to a certain level, the reason Strangers have to leave the frontline. They're also the ones most responsible for laying on damage in the PvE. You can't just set them up in a sniper's nest and leave them to pick off mobs, cuz of aggro, but so long as they do move between shots they usually get to set up, take a shot, and leave while the tanks wrangle the mobs back into place. You can usually tell if a boss fight is going well or not based on how much DPS the Blaster is putting out. If everyone else does their job, the Blaster will be able to put out the damage. If the Blaster is constantly having to move or blast mobs, someone isn't doing their 'job', and Blasters can be toxic and get an ego as a result.

Changers adapt to both the battlefield and their opponents as rapidly as possible. They're a wildcard dps, a duelist DPS, in PvP they need to be as unpredictable as possible, in PvE they need to know who and what they're going up against. They play very similar to Strikers and Breakers too, only they don't get a second (or more) health pool and they don't get the more potent I Win buttons that a Striker can get to crowd control a fight. They jump in, switch up their damage types or movesets, down their target and jump back out. They're a multitool and have toolsets to help them dismantle just about any of the other classes in a 1v1, but like the Stranger they need to know the capabilities and powers of who they're fighting to cinch the win. Hotly debated in the community because there's so many opinions about builds that Changers often feel like they've built wrong, leading to a lot of hate from their team and a lot of enemies feeling they have cheat builds

The supports are all playing a resource minigame built into their classes.

Tinkers probably have the highest build variety in the game. Even including some of the limitations their specializations put on them, they can still pretty much do any of the other classes. Exceptionally high skill ceiling and floor as a result; if they want to pretend to be a Brute, Thinker or Blaster, they have to know the role. Half of the main gameplay loop for a Tinker is spent out of combat, in the PvE and resource gathering mechanics. The more time you spend grinding materials, the more materials you have to build tech. Eventually though, you hit a cap on how much innovation you can do and you have to take that tech into fights to both test the new tech and also gain new data to turn into new tech. You get materials and data from both PvE and PvP, but PvE turns out more reliable common materials and PvP turns out more reliable common data, with the rarer stuff flipped. Rare materials as a result of battlefield damage or pieces of costume blasted off in PvP, rare data as a result of exploration and boss battles. The class is a bit harsh to new players who don't have the same time and effort the older Tinkers have to put into their equipment and do experimentation, which is a valid critique of the system and Tinkers are probably the most patched, nerfed and buffed class of them all, something that probably won't change until the main mechanic of the class is reworked.

Thinkers are very similar to Tinkers, except that they don't need to deal with materials and solely focus on data gained in PvE/PvP. Over the course of the fight and using as many points of data gathering as they can, they build up something like inspiration points, which they can throw out to teammates for damage boosts or damage reduction. At the start of PvP battles, nobody knows anything about the enemy team, and the Thinkers have to model the enemy in real time, revealing the fog of war and shutting down strategies while trying to advance their own. Tattletale figuring out Clockblocker and Aegis switched costumes is a pretty good example of denying the enemy strategy. Thinkers do get a lot of abilities to protect themselves, and sometimes you'll get frontline combat thinkers who can fight and communicate the capabilities of the enemy team more directly, by getting into fights with them and figuring out a way to survive long enough or disengage to pass the info along. But at the end of the day, they're usually not dangerous or tough enough to stand up to most other classes. The purest thinkers are truly game changing though, capable of ruining the enemy team's strategy long before they get to employ it. Of course, just because you've revealed the enemy team's plans and capabilities doesn't mean they're not still on the battlefield, so they still need to be fought. Thinkers are directly tied into battlefield objectives. Gain access to the security room to give your thinker eyes and ears on the foyer the enemy team is busting into. Move to capture the high ground so your Thinker has a vantage point. Capture an enemy team member so your Thinker has someone to interrogate.

Trumps are all about powers. They boost powers, they sap powers, they develop new powers. A good trump is always looking for anyone flagging in a fight and anywhere they can plug up gaps. They're almost always the main healer too, jumping in and using their power over powers to switch things up so their team is taking less damage, or recovering from it, and forcing the enemy team to back off or chase them down to stop the effects. There's good interplay with the other classes too, like getting the Thinker to tell them info on the enemy's powers to make a nullifying dive worth it. Bad trumps can seriously fuck up their own team's powers if they don't know what they're doing, which means that every time a Trump is on the team they are heavily interrogated as to their abilities and how they alter powers. If you've ever been screamed at for playing Mercy or Medic 'wrong' you're dipping your toe into a Trump's daily routine. Their powers come with resources and charges attached. Drain or nullify a power and you increase your own. Or three wishes and you can spend them on any power you want. Touch and imbue someone with damage negation, or superspeed, or regeneration, but you can't do too many charges at once.

Masters are the most flexible supports depending on what they master. They're split between three main roles based on the source of their minions, which is their resource minigame. Summoners pull minions from the battlefield, which makes them great in both PvE and PvP, because they can hardly be disarmed, but their minions are usually otherwise mundane and don't usually have high damage or health numbers. Bugs, for example. Which means they have to get pretty creative, huh? Controllers directly attack the enemy team, or sometimes puppet their own team members to grant them effects. A controller might take a bunch of Brutes as minions and become a Brute tank themselves, splitting the damage between them instead of getting damaged himself. Similarly, Controllers can just snatch an enemy teammate to turn against their own team, usually functioning like a Stranger, with the enemy team not knowing until it's too late, or until a Thinker spots the sabotage. Creators generate minions from themselves or sometimes the environment. Where Summoners get lots of mundane minions, Creators usually get a potent single or handful of minions with high stats or abilities of their own. An indestructible minion that lays waste to the enemy team until a Thinker can figure out where the Master is. A wave of custom minions built out of a biomatter resource the Master needs to manage.

Next up is the Trigger system.

When you create your character and their power, you can choose to mix up two or three power categories, with a thinning of points if you decide to go diverse, or you can keep the points in a single category and go for a pure class role. You can single trigger or double trigger, the latter makes your power more potent, even if you spread across two classes, but locks you into that class. Single triggers can later go for the second trigger and get a whole new tint on their original power, often choosing to add on the capabilities of another class, but they don't get outright buffs the way a double trigger usually does.

I don't know how to do grab bags as a fun mechanic. I think I'll stop here, it's been an hour. A few more things? I've never played City of Heroes but I heard it was fun.

The game is called Parahumans Online. Might be a fun no powers AU where Taylor is an up and coming Master Summoner and falls in with the Undersiders, a new villain guild.

[stump-not-found]

you mentioned once before how you think ford makes bill worse... do you mind explaing how/genq (this is NOT an attack in any form or way! youer characterisations of bill and ford have been ON POINT every chapter that gets realsed and every comic you draw... im really curious as to how ford makes bill worse to understand it too)

i unfortunately do not remember saying this ! i say a lot of things with my mouth

i do think those two are like an emotional feedback loop . kind of got crabs in a bucket vibes, if the crabs were stabbing each other, and the bucket was also stabbing the crabs . at first it was fun but then one crab said "i don't want to stab anymore" and the other one went "FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU" . like you do . im prolly gonna ramble a bit so shoving it under the readmore lol

hrmmm if i had to guess it's probably just the fact that ford is not a great dude . and he genuinely just likes bill's attitude and behaviors, even the nasty stuff . because it's really gratifying to be around someone who sees your hard edges, and instead of being repelled by that they're like . fuck yeah . then you both just feed into that infinitely and giggle for ever lalala . it's not even like ford broke the cycle willingly he just got his feelings hurt about bill lying and bill decided to blow his entire shit up because he's just a sad, pathetic coward . will do anything to protect his stupid ego even if it means ruining everything all the time constantly . sure you could have gotten everything u ever wanted but that would have required you looking even a lil vulnerable so honestly man you honestly should just blow up your office building tbqh

also i genuinely don't know that bill has had many people in his life that actually like him so i gotta believe ford was like the worst drug known to man: validation

all this being said i'm not really someone who likes to think of any one person as like . bad or evil . it's reductive and boring, for both bill and ford . bill's definitely worse but he's also not human ?? not that that really matters because humans do some incredibly heinous shit . there's not a one-sized-fits-all moral answer here . also bill's just silly he's just a silly guy

so yah if ford makes bill worse its probably just that he's the one guy who's gonna hear bill say "just don't call me late for dinner" and actually laugh for real at that joke . and then also goes into a whole worship kink which i cannot imagine helped the bill situation at all . like idk what i would do if i met the literal smartest guy in the world & he built me a basement shrine with little to no prompting just because i gave him an epic blowjob . i think i would also go insane

well actually no i would hate that . personally . but i'm not a triangle . maybe being a triangle makes that like . normal and fun who knows

[burst-of-iridescent]

i've been thinking of the meaning behind the blue spirit ever since i read this great post because it's one of the more complex aspects of zuko's character in a very interesting way. the blue spirit persona is intentionally meant to be a little morally ambiguous, a metaphor for the conflict that exists in zuko himself when he dons the mask — a clash between who he is, what he wants, and who he thinks he should be. after all, the alter ego tellingly disappears for good at the moment that all these three facets align: when zuko does the right thing for the right reasons, he disposes of the mask and immediately undergoes his spiritual metamorphosis into a happier, freer version of himself.

it would be reductive to say that the blue spirit represents zuko’s goodness, because the more accurate interpretation in my perspective is that it personifies the rift that exists between zuko as himself and zuko as an agent of the fire nation. as the blue spirit, zuko is free to act for himself, to do things that would not be traditionally expected or allowed of him in his true position. a prince would have no need to steal, let alone from the rich; the blue spirit robs the wealthy to provide for himself and his uncle. the heir to the fire nation throne would side with zhao, keep the avatar from his bison to impede his journey; the blue spirit aids the avatar instead, whether for aang's sake or his own.

i can see why some people view the blue spirit as representative of zuko’s selfishness or a way to satisfy his own wants, but imo that’s the whole point. zuko’s identity and expected interests as crown prince are intrinsically at odds with zuko himself and his personal desires, which is what creates the need for the mask in the first place. metaphorically, the alter ego is the beginning of zuko’s journey to realising that this incompatibility exists by design, and that there must be something deeply, fundamentally wrong with the FN for his own needs and wants to be so drastically opposed to those of the nation that is supposed to provide for him.

the blue spirit exists as a consequence of the FN failing to care for its own, and the fact that zuko uses it to defy his country and its expectations of him (even if initially for selfish reasons) highlights how even at his worst, zuko is not emblematic of the fire nation — despite being its symbolic future figurehead — and thus foreshadows his eventual turn against it.

[venussaidso]

I was gonna keep quiet about this but now I'm gonna say it.

I think Purva Phalguni has some conflict with Ashwini.

After a lot of thought, I really believe that Chris Hemsworth has Purva Phalguni Moon. Especially after my recent Venus themes post. Also his character in Furiosa just gave off that barbaric Venusian male archetype I briefly brushed on.

First of all, even though there are obviously other nakshatras at play between these two characters (such as Revati vs Ashlesha), Blair Waldorf and Serena van der Woodsen are still respectively played by an Ashwini Moon native and a Purva Phalguni Moon native.

And isn't it interesting that Thor's enemies have been played by mainly (possible) Ashwini Moon natives? With one being Magha native — but that barely counts even though I'll just mention it because it completes all four Thor movies.

Thor (2011) / Avengers (2012)

Loki played by likely Ashwini Moon Tom Hiddleston.

Thor: The Dark World (2014)

Malekith played by Magha ASC Christopher Eccleston.

Thor: Ragnarok (2017)

Hela played by Ashwini Moon Cate Blanchett.

Thor: Love & Thunder (2022)

Gorr the God Butcher played by Ashwini Moon Christian Bale.

This needs a fucking essay (need more media data though).

Also Valkyrie's introduction in Thor: Ragnarok was her constantly humbling him after he lost his throne to Hela. She quite actively degraded him, not caring about his previous status & titles. And Valkyrie is played by Ashwini ASC Tessa Thompson. Ashwini women were kinda throwing him around in that movie.

The superior, high & mighty Thor keeps getting put into place by a Ketuvian. In my Venus Dominant Themes part 2 post, I did slightly brush over the Ketu x Venus dynamic in which Ketu can also reduce Venus when it gets too boundless and dangerously indulgent. Ketuvians, often being forces of pruning & reduction, can make them a source of humbling. Exactly why they fall into tropes of taming wild beasts, indirectly or directly reducing the ego of others, and portraying scammers.

Notice how Thor was so arrogant, to the point of stupidity in Thor (2011), that Loki caused his downfall which indirectly helped him grow into a better, humbled prince after being banished by Odin.

In Thor: Ragnarok (2017), Hela literally destroys his Mjolnir and sliced his eye out. All of this makes him a greater, better fighter — but he comes out all the more humble too.

This Venusian theme is also in the movie The Emperor's New Groove, where an emperor lives in extreme abundance and he is arrogant. Much like how Thor was initially introduced as a spoiled, arrogant prince who lived in the golden city of Asgard.

The emperor's extreme vanity and arrogance leads to his ultimate downfall. He is transformed into a llama. In this journey, he learns to be humble, down-to-earth and compassionate. He is voiced by Purva Ashada Moon native David Spade.

Thor's arrogance and stupidity, though manipulated by Loki, led to his banishment from Asgard to Midgard where he wouldn't be able to lift Mjolnir anymore until he proves himself worthy of it. He remained powerless and helpless in a world he isn't familiar with, away from his riches, status, and titles. Just as the llama is clueless in the jungle he's thrown into. Their arrogance no longer tolerated and their status showing for nothing.

I believe this might be a Venus nakshatra trope. Because it's all linked to overcoming the show aspects of Venus. I'll come back to this with a part 3 essay to my Venus Themes series.

[chiiroptereh]

[Please zoom in, there's a lot of detail! And a massive file size...ouch]

Hi guys, long time no post! Been working on Art Fight and life stuff, but I've got something kinda fun for you.

This is a compilation exploring how a mortal Bill may interact with our world if there were still some kinda Euclidean instincts buried in there. Y'know, before the Book of Bill ruins all my headcanons >:P (EDIT: IT HAS BEEN READ. YAHOOOOOO)

Also quite an experimental piece as you can probably tell. Lots of details on both said headcanons and the art stuff under the cut, but I invite you to study the colorful texture yourself beforehand and think about what it might be representative of, just for fun because I got some really cool answers from my friends when asked :]c

TL;DR: the headcanon is that Euclideans have exceptional eyes for geometry. They find things like symmetry, tessellating patterns, graphs and fractals very aesthetically pleasing. If pushed into our 3D world, they feel comforted by the familiarity flat objects/spaces bring, as well as high-contrast patterns. Shadows especially are a familiar dimensional reduction that may bring them much comfort.

Bill would surely not be happy about these inclinations, constant reminders of a past long gone, but I'm not sure he's even aware of them here :P I think his ego gets in the way to the point where he just views these interests as common sense, which, of course, us lame humans just don't understand because we aren't nearly as cool as him. Of course he likes perfectly symmetrical leaves and staring at the kitchen floor, it's called taste, look it up!

And yet, he can't seem to shake the strange sense of melancholy he gets from viewing his own shadow.

~ End of TL;DR, long version below! ~

🔺 Headcanon Development

So, the catalyst of this idea was in relation to my friend and I's AU ( @love-triangles-au ). TL;DR, Bill's brought back mortal, meets another triangle named Y.V. (it's his hand holding the paper in the piece, actually), at some point they fall in yaois together, you know how it is. And, in writing a pair of triangles (or, more broadly, writing from the perspective of a different species), something I've had to consider was that you really can't get much further removed from a human being than sentient geometry.

The anatomical aspect was mostly figured out (see my piece on Bill's eye-mouth), but I wanted to consider what psychological differences might be at play. I wanted them to be weirder, more alien, double-so for Bill. At first I explored these possibilities through the lens of Bill and Y.V.'s relationship, specifically the question "what might a triangle find appealing about another triangle?"

Well, really the only things that came to mind were straight lines and symmetry, anything related to the geometric form of such a creature. That's more-or-less where that ended until the thought struck me that there's no reason this aesthetic appreciation couldn't extend to the rest of the environment, and then further when I realized, "wait, this is a species that is designed to live in a 2D environment. Like, they should seriously be really weird. I need to push this like 200% more."

So...yeah! I did some thinking and brainstorming with others and came up with a pretty long list of things a Euclidean in our world may be inclined to enjoy or find some level of comfort in. It's worth noting again that in this piece specifically this is a mortal/powerless Bill, so he can't really escape this Earthly environment. IF he's aware of these instincts at all (and that's a big "if"; when have you last been cognizant of your own instincts let alone known where they were stemming from?) I think he'd have snuffed them out in immortality and/or purposefully gone against them; he doesn't take kindly to being told what to do.

In order from left-to-right, top-to-bottom, here's an explanation for each!:

Flat objects such as paper are something he may find particularly engaging. It's basically 2D!

Tessellations are especially fascinating, and our world has them everywhere in the form of tile floors. Symmetry and such a predictable pattern...as the infinity of the starry sky might for us, the infinite potential of tessellations might invoke a similar sense of awe in him. Add on the maximum contrast of black on white kitchen tiles and the forms are only even better defined! A sensitivity to contrast would be very helpful for a 2D being navigating their environment.

Fields are flat and open, much like Euclydia itself. Laying flat may make him feel a little more at home.

More tessellation in the honeycomb of hymenopterans (bees, wasps and friends)! It helps that pain is hilarious.

The city is an absolute treasure trove. Rectangular buildings, precise architecture, square sidewalks and straight lines abound...he may as well be looking at a rainbow or an art gallery! I think a Euclidean's brain is very fine-tuned to mathematics, especially in regards to trigonometry. What may appear to be a straight painting might appear obnoxiously crooked to him.

Zebras are high-contrast :]

Another flat surface, another relaxing space <3

I think graphs are about as high as high art gets to most Euclideans.

I've touched on shadows before, and for good reason; truly they must be something borderline magical to the Euclidean and perhaps bitterly nostalgic.

This one kinda speaks for itself. Dweeb.

🎨 The Artsy Stuff

Lately I've been trying to find ways to fit more color into my work, as color is perhaps one of my favorite things in the world. My wardrobe is rather garish; my dad jokes that you could see me from space. My fursona is obnoxiously bright for a reason -- I feel my soul is a very colorful one!

I also realized recently that I don't actually know the exact style that speaks to me. I could talk about the phenomenon of the "style crisis" that many artists have all day, but in my mind the best cure for this feeling is to go against it entirely and begin stealing as much as possible.

So, I've tried to keep an eye out for more sources of inspiration everywhere I go, physical and digital. I've tried to train my mind into making a habit of considering, "can I do anything with this?" everywhere I go, and it recently paid off!

The glittery rainbowy texture you see plastered all over Billiam is this one, a photo-manipulated set of fruit stickers. I must confess I've been obsessed with this image for the past 72 hours, and this seemed like a good excuse to try it out!

I worried throughout the process if it might be so abstract that it loops back around to being horribly deliberate, if that makes sense -- like each sparkle was not a piece of a whole but rather an object in itself -- but it seems like that hasn't been a problem, so I'm grateful for that :Dc

I hope it can dazzle and delight you as it does me, but as long as you find it fascinating at the very least then I consider it a success! I really enjoyed hearing my friends' interpretations while workshopping it, and got tons of amazing answers from opal to kaleidoscope to fossilized bone marrow! I truly believe that the best art has some room for interpretation and it really excites me to be surrounded by that kind of creative energy that follows said pieces. That definitely adds to my pride in this work. It's weird, it's colorful, it's detailed and yet ambiguous. I'm feeling pretty autistic about it

Alright, I think that's about it. Thanks for listening!

[seat-safety-switch]

We are in sort of a crisis, you and I. Amazon has its tentacles in every industry across the globe. Once, we cheered the death of the old gatekeepers of retail, only to find ourselves now not knowing who to trust. When you order a part from KZYBYG Tools, how do you know if it's any good compared to POIYAT?

Reviews won't help: they're run by teams of millions of robots, swarming on each new brand. After enough actual humans get mad at their two-swings-and-you'll-miss-it hammer, they simply wrap up the brand entirely and buy another thousand cybernetic evaluations. Be that as it may, I still left reviews when I was wronged by a tool.

Early on in childhood, I discovered that I have a unique power to make those in authority insanely angry for no good reason. Book reports, field trip reports, court stenography: these were all theatres for massive conflict in my younger days. I bring this power to the Amazon reviews now. My words puncture egos half a world away.

How do I know that it actually makes them angry? Because I've lured out the engineers. That's right. My technique is two-fold: one, call out a technical detail of the tool, and two... get my facts wrong. They can't resist responding to that. Then I just ignore them. Eventually, some pencil-neck cost-reduction asshole shows up on my front lawn, demanding to debate me about whether or not external-Torx security screws are in fact weaker than the regular kind.

This can't last forever. Eventually, the tool manufacturers are going to realize that all their prize cheap-ass engineers have mysteriously disappeared after taking an unannounced rage vacation to my property. By that time, though, me and the dozen or so engineers that I've trapped in my basement are going to have our own garbage tool brand all over Amazon, slamming their sales down. Customers can't resist: the shipping is slightly quicker. We might even try to make a store or something, where you can come in and buy it. Same day. We'll have them on shelves. Just ignore the handwritten notes inside, pleading for help or at least food and water. That's what we call a quality guarantee.

[clonerightsagenda]

I am not going to say TLT is about fossil fuels because it's about a lot of things and it's reductive to boil it down to anything, but a society fueled by necromancy/death magic/corpses is reminiscent of our society fueled by and built with petrochemicals (oil, natural gas, plastic), and given that within the necromancy framework the role of the cavalier is to be metaphorically, literally, and/or spiritually consumed, it's interesting that the first cavalier was the planet Earth. This new world is still based on devouring the planet.

Does this make Paul a metaphor for nuclear fusion I'm joking but I suppose the question Alecto must resolve is whether we can escape needing to consume to survive.* And maybe we can't - stop trying to make your carnivorous pets vegan - but can we find a method of consumption that's less destructive?

(Some people may see Paul as that answer but I am a Hater who isn't into ego death.)