#General Technical Papers for Presentation

[krazytechnews]

How to Manage Your Mail Digitally with a Virtual PO Box

In today’s fast-paced, digital-first landscape, managing business communications efficiently is more critical than ever. Enter the virtual PO box—a modern solution designed to revolutionize the way businesses handle their mail. Gone are the days of relying solely on traditional post office boxes that require physical visits and limited accessibility. Instead, virtual PO boxes offer a seamless and…

[loredwy]

Alternatively: No binarie 👍

[jellyfishsthings]

Miscommunication is key

navigation , dc navigation

WARNINGS: funny miscommunication, the kids love you (maybe a bit too much)

requests are open

dividers by @cafekitsune

It started, as all catastrophes in the Manor did, with eavesdropping.

Tim was in the hallway, allegedly “cleaning the thermostat” (read: tweaking the heat setting so Steph would stop stealing his hoodies), when he heard voices coming from Bruce’s office. Your voice. And Bruce’s.

Tim had no idea what the argument was actually about. Something about boundaries? Trust? Printer ink? But the tension in your tone made his stomach clench. When Bruce said, “Maybe we need to take a step back,” Tim’s heart dropped.

He called an emergency family meeting in the Batcave.

“Dad and Mom are getting divorced.”

Jason looked up from his sandwich. “They’re not even married.”

“Details!” Tim cried, pacing like a war general. “We could still be split up! This is how it starts. A little coldness, a few missed dinners, then boom—visitation schedules and emotional trauma.”

Dick blinked. “Do we... get split up?”

“Technically, no,” Damian said. “We’re all legally tied to Father. Except for Jason and Stephanie.”

“What happens to us?!”

“Don’t panic,” Steph said, reading from her tablet. “Worst case scenario, we stage a legal rebellion and declare the manor a sovereign child-state.”

“Or,” Tim said, eyes wide, “we get adopted. By Mom.”

Silence.

Then chaos.

“She’d never say no to me,” Dick said confidently.

“I’ll bribe her with cookies,” Jason offered.

Damian narrowed his eyes. “I call emotional manipulation.”

Cass held up a whiteboard: Why not all of us?

So it was decided: Operation Adoption began at dawn.

They convened in the attic. Because the Batcave was under Bruce’s territory, and this was neutral ground.

Dick paced.

Damian sharpened a pencil aggressively.

Cass ate grapes and watched everyone like she was waiting for someone to cry.

Stephanie had already made t-shirts. “Team Mom 4 Lyfe.”

"We need a plan," Tim said, eyes red from Googling "how to stop a divorce you caused by being a messy adult child."

Jason held up a sheet of paper. “What if we ask her to adopt us?”

Dead silence.

Damian blinked. “You mean legally abandon Father?”

Jason shrugged. “It’s called strategic custody realignment.���

Phase One: Woo the Parent

You found your morning coffee already made.

By lunch, your office had been vacuumed, your planner color-coded, and a tray of Damian’s surprisingly excellent macarons appeared on your desk. Something was clearly up.

Dick followed you around like a golden retriever. “You look radiant today. New serum? Or just naturally ageless?”

“You want something,” you said flatly.

“Who, me?” he asked, wounded. “I’m just basking in the presence of my favorite future legal guardian.”

You blinked. “What?”

Jason appeared in the doorway. “Can I interest you in... a bribe?” He held up an embarrassing baby photo of Bruce in a sailor outfit.

“Jason—”

“Don’t make us pick sides in the fake divorce!”

“What fake divorce?!”

“Mom” Steph said, slipping in dramatically, “we’re prepared to make a case. Visitation is a nightmare, and you make the best pancakes. We’ve chosen you. Please accept custody of all emotionally damaged gremlins present.”

You stared at the room of hopeful, slightly unhinged faces.

“Did Bruce put you up to this?”

“Not unless he’s also asking for custody of Alfred,” Tim muttered.

Then Tim slid to you a small note, like they did in those spy movies he liked,  that said "Meet us in the living room in five"

Phase Two: The Pitch

The moment you entered the living room, the lights dimmed.

“Hello?”

Dick dropped from the ceiling.

Literally.

“Hi,” he said cheerfully, landing in a perfect split. “Can we talk?”

All five of them appeared like spirits of guilt, blocking your path to the kitchen. You sat them all down. “Okay. Walk me through your logic.”

Tim pulled out a graph titled Projected Emotional Outcomes Based on Custodial Assignment.

Jason had prepared a PowerPoint. “Slide one: Why Mom is the Superior Parent.”

Slide two: A chart comparing your hugs to Bruce’s handshake-head-pat combo.

Slide three: An animated pie labeled “Pancakes.”

Damian presented a legal document signed in crayon: WE THE CHILDREN CHOOSE THE COOLER PARENT.

“Steph notarized it,” he added.

“She forged my signature,” You whispered.

Steph held up a PowerPoint remote. The TV flashed on. First slide: "Why You Should Keep Us In The Event Of Inevitable Divorce."

You blinked. “Excuse me—what?”

Tim cleared his throat. “We’ve noticed rising tensions in your domestic interactions.”

Cass handed you a binder titled Custody Proposal: Draft 1.

Dick pointed at a bar graph. “Notice that under your influence, emotional stability in the household has increased by 46%. And we’ve had fewer vigilante-related injuries. Except Jason. But he’s a wild card.”

Jason saluted with a juice box.

You pinched the bridge of your nose. “You think Bruce and I are getting divorced because we argued?”

Damian crossed his arms. “Historically, that is how war begins. ”

Cass stood.

She held up flashcards. One had a stick figure with a cape hugging a heart. Another said ‘We Love You.’

Then she did the unthinkable.

She signed: Please don’t leave us.

Stephanie wiped away a tear. “It’s not manipulation if it’s true.”

Then Cass handed you a video montage she’d edited titled “Adoption: A Love Story,” scored with sweeping instrumental music and slow-mo scenes of you handing out snacks.

Damian climbed onto your lap. “You’re warm and you smell like cinnamon. That’s mom stuff.”

Your heart cracked, then melted.

“I’m not leaving Bruce,” you said gently. “We were arguing about printer ink.”

Silence.

“...Printer ink?” Tim asked weakly.

“He keeps buying magenta in bulk! Who uses that much magenta?!”

The kids slowly looked at one another.

“Abort mission,” Dick said.

“Too late,” Cass signed. “I already filed the motion with the fake Batkid Court.”

“Look,” you said, softening, “you don’t need to panic. Even if Bruce and I ever did break up, you’re not losing me.”

“Promise?” Tim whispered.

You cupped his face. “Swear it.” 

Jason sat beside you on the couch. “I get it if you ever want to get a divorce. Bruce is...Bruce. But you? You’re the only one who remembers to buy snacks we actually like. You’re the one who puts notes in my lunch that say, ‘Don’t stab anyone, even if they deserve it.’ That’s love.”

Dick: “And you help Bruce. Even if he’s being a Bat-Butt.”

Damian knelt. “Legally, I am already a Wayne. But if you filed paperwork, I would accept a hyphen.”

You couldn’t breathe.

Pause.

“So you’re saying we wasted $40 on matching ‘Adopt Me’ t-shirts?”

Later that night, you walked into Bruce’s study and flopped dramatically onto the couch.

“Your children tried to get me to adopt them today.”

He looked up from his paperwork. “Just today?”

“They had charts.”

He nodded. “Ah. The charts phase. Comes right before the emotional blackmail.”

You stared. “This has happened before?”

“Oh, absolutely. You’re the third person they’ve tried it with.”

You gasped. “Who was the second?”

“Alfred.”

You considered this. “They have good taste.”

Bruce smiled faintly. “They love you. That’s all this was. A weird, mildly terrifying love letter.”

You leaned back. “I almost said yes.”

“You still can. We’ll co-parent.”

“Until the magenta ink breaks us.”

He chuckled, kissed your forehead, and added, “Alfred already drafted the adoption paperwork. Just in case.”

Outside the study, eight Batkids listened through the door, celebrating silently.

“See?” Dick whispered. “Still a family.”

Jason wiped away a fake tear. “Group hug?”

“No,” Damian said. “But I will allow a high-five.”

Cass gave him one. It was perfect.

And the family stayed very much intact.

[markscherz]

I'm sorry... snake paper? Are things heating up in the snake researcher fandom?

16 February 2024: A team of researchers (including a generally well-respected anaconda expert) found minimal and partly contradictory genetic differences in green anacondas over an enormous area, summarily dismissed all previous work on the taxonomy of green anacondas, and gave the mitochondrial lineage concerned a new name, along the way making some huge fumbles that show plainly that they have no idea how taxonomy works or what certain technical terms mean. They published the work in a journal from a suspect publishing house that is known to rush, skip, or ignore peer review as and when it suits them. And apparently there was some suspicious funding involved, though I don’t know much about that. They made a media storm with ‘a new anaconda!’ but within minutes there were people raising huge red flags about the paper, for the reasons enumerated above and others.

The response from ‘the community’ has been swift and harsh, but mostly fair, in my view. The discussion on ResearchGate reflects this pretty well. There are some bad takes about keeping ‘wokism’ out of science; I would argue that it remains critical to incorporate native peoples, knowledge, and languages into taxonomic work—just not the way this was done, in flagrant and intentional conflict with the established methods and protocols. There are also responses in the discussion by the lead author that show that he is evidently impervious to all of this criticism, and stands by the belief that the work and taxonomic reasoning is sound.

19 March 2024: two papers were published simultaneously in Bionomia, that both enumerate and rebut the problems of the original paper. And I know there are more on the way, though I don’t know if they are all going to be completed now that two responses have already been published.

The one thing I would weigh in on from my perspective is that it is the *taxonomy*, and not necessarily the evidence presented in the paper, that is the biggest problem. Species are described based on mitochondrial data alone all the time. Some of the results are quite interesting. But the taxonomy of the paper is a mess, full of contradictions, cherry-picking, and terminological errors. In the hands of competent taxonomists, the work might have been much more difficult to dispute. But also, no competent taxonomist would have assigned a new name to this lineage; there are too many existing names that would have priority, if it is worth recognising.

Undoing public perception of there being a new anaconda species will take years, if it can ever really be achieved. Always easier for media stories to go around than corrections.

TL;DR big snake paper made big mistakes, and within a month was dismissed. It has probably done lasting damage to perception of anaconda diversity.

[jollyparaphernalia]

The Stagemaster

(What's Kingswap?) Meet the Stagemaster, the main antagonist of this little Kingswap AU i've been cooking. The fellow who could have been Siffrin, had their life not taken a different path. In this post, I'll cover a bit about where he came from, their personality, what they're capable of, and other bits and pieces.

Well...maybe not everything. A fellow has to keep some mystery to himself.

As a blanket statement, this AU is just full on spoilers for 'In Stars and Time', and any content warnings that apply to the game apply to this post under the cut!

So...where'd the Stagemaster come from? How'd our Beloved Siffrin end up like this?

Truth be told, no one is born a villain, and the Stagemaster is no different. As I spoke a bit about it in the previous post, the Stagemaster starts in a different place than canon Siffrin; already a young adult, staying in Corbeaux before the Island is disappeared. Think of him as the equivalent of a university student away from home.

Awwww, look at them! So full of whimsy and so many thoughts in that little head of his! I'm sure nothing bad will ever happen to him ever.

He has a life, he has goals and desires, he has friends in Corbeaux (who aren't The Party we know), and he also has strange dreams but that's not a big deal.

Unfortunately, we know how this ends - The Fella Who Could Have Been Siffrin wakes up one day without a name, without any memories of where he came from, and a whole city and House of people who don't know him anymore. Sure, he has some memories, like why he was studying in Corbeaux, that he had people who he loved, but everything else is just swiss cheese in his head.

He doesn't take it very well.

At some point after the Big Forgetting, after trying to reclaim ANYTHING that's his (and failing miserably)...Not-Siffrin makes a request. A small, selfish wish...for just a little bit of control in their life.

You've heard of eating stars, but I present the thrilling sequel(?): Hugging a star so hard you shove it into your ribcage.

And so is born a stranger with nothing to lose and a general spite of having his life messed with...and a desire to mess with other peoples lives in some form of messed up retaliation. Crashing out and making it everyone's problem.

So, What is the Stagemaster Capable of? Is his gimmick still freezing time, or does he have a new skillset?

Both! But the focus for the Smaster is a new thing called 'Control Craft', inspired partially by ISAT Siffrin's view that he was controlling or puppeting his friends/family like actors...so, the Stagemaster takes that concept and makes it very literal!

He also has the floating Disembodied Hands because I Think That's Cool.

Well before the start of the Loops, and even earlier before the King starts his Time Freezy thing in the main timeline, the Smaster is living his best life, playing with their toys (the toys are other people.) He's sort of a travelling ghost, wandering at his whims to hone his skills, so he's messed with all sorts of places across several countries before even starting his grand torment of Vaugarde.

Vaugarde has it too good, in the Smasters opinion, so, he wants to just subject its people to being Crabs-In-A-Bucket and fighting among themselves before he freezes them. He's pretty petty like that.

The rarity of his Tears makes it a bit hard to do the freezing thing...so it's very convenient he is able to outsource them to this Suspiciously Present Sadness That Technically Shouldn't Exist In This AU!

What Kind of Person IS the Stagemaster, Anyways? What's Their Personality?

I'm going to be so real with you, reader, I just threw a bunch of villains whos vibes I really liked into a blender

( Emet-Selch (Final Fantasy 14), Dimentio (Super Paper Mario), Count Bleck (Super Paper Mario), Cheline (Phantomarine (Please read Phantomarine)), Lord Dominator (Wander over Yonder) Fandaniel (Final Fantasy 14))

But in all seriousness, I went with a more low down approach to the Stagemaster - the ISAT fandom generally likes focusing on the more Unhinged, Manic version of Siffrin we see from Act 5, and it's a good approach! I love unhinged manic Siffrin, but, I really wanted to explore the more quiet and avoidant aspects of both Siffrin and Loop (while still being theatrical and fun to watch), while also adding some new bits into them.

(If you know where I stole these quotes from, you get a cookie)

I will be so real with you, the Stagemaster is just fun to draw in general, especially peeled (Without the hat or the cloak)

Also...strangely...He knows a lot about the party. Weird!

I'm sure it means nothing.

Hey, I've read the Intro post to the AU, and there's this talk of the Stagemaster having a Big Form and a Little Form That Exists At the Same Time - whats with that? Are they Clones?

Not clones! But the same person with two bodies.

But...why does he need this?

You see...the Stagemaster did his whole Thing in Vaugarde, with ruining communities and friendships and stuff...and then went 'yeah, lets move on, time to do Dormont'. Unfortunately, for him Euphrasie, the Head Housmaiden, kind of planned in case he set his sights on the House of Dormont, and forced him to 'go loud' as it were.

Hey, do you also remember why there's so many locked doors in The House of Dormont in baseline ISAT? And the Party eventually figures out it was the Housemaiden's actively locking stuff up to keep the King in? That also applies to this AU.

Long Story Short: Euphrasie played him like a fiddle, put up enough of a fight to force him to Go Big Mode, and then before she was frozen, she activated the whole Orb Door dealio, trapping the Stagemaster in the House.

Even in an AU where Siffrin isn't the looper, Euphrasie still gets to be his metaphorical jailer. Because I think it's funny.

Sure, the Stagemaster could just sit on his laurels. He technically already won, the Time curse is spreading, Vaugarde will be trapped eventually...but so will he. And he would rather be Free than to Win, so...The Avatar comes into play, allowing the Stagemaster to pick up the pace of his Freezing Vaugarde thing, and to have some fun.

This also lets the Stagemaster have a presence in the Pre-Loop Orb Quest the Party goes on to open the Big Orb Door.

But uhhh...

yeah the smaller form is much weaker and the Smaster gets his ass kicked in a straight up fight, forcing him to be sneaky during Orb Quest Antagonism. Usually he cultivates and wrangles powerful Sadnesses for the party to fight.

Eventually, the party suspects that maybe the Stagemaster is weaker than everyone thinks, that he's hiding in the House of Dormont because the Party will easily defeat him, so he's stalling for time to freeze Vaugarde.

Yeah, he's turned the Party into a way for him to free himself. (Funny, then, that they're never getting out of this House anyways, because a certain long haired Knight trapped himself in a silly little Timeloop) (Unfortunately for Clovis, our swapped King...he's not the only one here who is aware of the loops. Good luck, Clovis!)

And that's all for today! Thank you for reading! Hopefully this is the last 'Pre timeloop' info post before I actually get into the Time Loops Proper...But it's so fun to speculate and imagine snippets of the previous adventure!

(As always, a special thanks to the ISAT discords AU channel for listening to my brainrot, and thanks to everyone who's expressed such enthusiasm for these posts!)

[tanadrin]

The recent talk about what would the democrats need to do the next election cycle to undo whatever damage done by Trump is possible to undo, and the observation that the US political system does already have to tools to do it on paper got me thinking, specifically about why this is happening much more than how

The present situation in the US, in a lot of ways, reads like a crisis of political will more than anything to me. But what I can't for the life of me come up with is, why is this will so lacking?

Even right now, a lot of Trump's actions could be halted if the political will existed to do so - not just among the politicians, but the average American person. Fed workers physically blocking DOGE employees, or just all the IT personnel forgetting all the server passwords and having a convenient server outage, hell just actually heated protests instead of some peaceful marches could make a dent. And politicians could of course also do more, all sorts of high ranking figures from illegally fired officials to House and Senate members could for example respond to the "move fast and break things" approach by, themselves defying dubious-but-technically-maybe-legal exercises of executive authority first and waiting for a lawsuit second, instead of the other way around. But that too, of course, needs to rest on an energised base that would appreciate this sort of thing to make the very real personal risk worth it

All of which sort of comes back around to political will - there exist solutions, but there seems to be an utter absence of actual electoral enthusiasm amongst the average American about actually using them - about asserting that this is a big deal and having a fight about it. Enthusiasm from the centre and left of it, anyways - the US right has sort of manifested that exact energy, and is using it exactly to do what they're doing right now

So like, what happened/is happening there with it? Why is the average American that actually participates in political life so apathetic to all if it, even the ridiculous bullshit they express a dislike for every time a poll or vote actually gets them to express an opinion on?

I am hardly an expert on this, but I think a big part of it is 1) the rot in the Republican Party specifically, and 2) the collapse of leadership in Congress generally, and I think these two things are related.

Movement conservatism has been hollowing out the Republican party as a "normal" political force for decades, and it really ramped up during the Bush years, when conservative political leaders and legal figures had to make increasingly contorted arguments for blatantly unconstitutional actions whose real justification was something like might makes right. The victory of Obama in 2008 accelerated the collapse because a certain kind of white American saw a black man get elected president and just kind of went crazy; they had to construct a post-hoc justification that wasn't "I still actually believe in the Jim Crow era racial hierarchy," and they couldn't really.

Movement conservatism also drove polarization in Congress starting in the 90s under Newt Gingrich, and Congress becoming a place for scoring political points rather than enacting policy, plus increasing deadlock (which again, accelerated under Obama, when figures like McConnell decided the play was to be as obstructionist as possible) de facto devolved a lot more responsibility on the executive and judicial branches. But you also saw, for instance, complete dereliction of duty to control and oversee warmaking and surveillance power under Bush--because, you see, that might open you up to some kind of political attack! Congress now is simply terminally afraid of taking a stand on anything, since to do so might endanger individual members' chances of re-election. And now that the Republican party is a Trump personality cult, there's no non-Trump wing of the party to appeal to against Trump's worst excesses; and feckless Democrats, who do not know how to actually demonstrate political leadership anymore, think the only solution to declining popularity is to try to chase the things that Trump does that seem to not be completely unpopular. Of course much of the electorate is zoned out--everything that comes out of any politician's mouths these days (save Trump and AOC and a couple of others) is a stock phrase that's been through a dozen focus-groups. The signal-to-noise ratio is abysmal, most political media does this simpering both-sides thing where they have to somehow act like the dull centrists and the rabid fascists both have valid points, and cynicism/doomerism/conspiracism runs wild on the social media that most people get their political coverage from anyway.

(And it doesn't help that the way American political parties are organized is stupid, and leaves them without any kind of central apparatus that can shape and direct political strategy when they're out of power)

obviously i am flattening out a lot of nuance and detail here for the sake of fitting it all in two paragraphs, but in the most general terms that's what i feel like is going on

[sergeifyodorov]

Hi!

This is maybe a bit left of field, but I love your blog and you seem very knowledgeable so maybe you (or one of your followers?) have an idea.

Can you recommend some reading material on sports in general? It can absolutely be hockey related but I’m talking sort of bigger scope. More specifically, how (team) sports relate to society as a whole, what role it plays for humanity, maybe it’s history? What about the fan culture?

For context, I come from a pretty academic family where growing up there was this all encompassing prejudice of “it’s for stupid people” (which is clearly stupid in itself). I guess I’m trying to break the mold, but all of it is culturally very new to me.

It can be books, articles, essays, anything.

I realise I sound like a nerd, but. Maybe?

I love this q!!! I'm going to list some of my favourites, but I also haven't read everything (or even most things) so I'll leave it open to the floor to add to. If you have recs for this anon, please reblog with additions!

Moneyball by Michael Lewis and its semi-not-really sequel Big Data Baseball by Travis Sawchik are about the analytics revolutions in baseball - Moneyball about the original one that sparked from amateur mathematician Bill James' writings, and Big Data about the inception of the Statcast era about fifteen years later.

The Game by Ken Dryden is a biography by one of the greatest goalies and minds ever to play the sport. I would recommend almost anything written by Dryden, but this is really his masterwork.

17776 is a work of fiction written by Jon Bois, but I feel like it fits within the scope of your question anyway - thematically it seeks to ask and answer why we play sports and what they mean to us. It's also written and presented online for free and you can just google it, so you don't have to hunt through your libraries or buy a copy!

The Game of Our Lives by Peter Gzowski is a rarer one, especially if you're not Canadian, but I have a personal connection so I'll always recommend it anyway. It's written about Wayne Gretzky during his initial NHL season, and examines the way we think of greatness, what makes hockey players great (on a technical as well as social level), and the ideal of a Great Hockey Player as it relates to Canadian national identity.

Along that thread, I'll finally recommend the works of sociologist Kristi Allain, who's written multiple papers on the construction of Canadian identity both within hockey and within media discussing it, and the socialization and experiences of Canadian and non-Canadian hockey players.

[alchemistc]

fascination with your presentation | bucktommy 1/1

read on ao3

Tommy likes to touch things. It's just a random quirk of his that Eddie's noticed - a hand sliding along the back of the couch as he follows Eddie into the kitchen to grab a beer, fingers balancing along the table as he leans, elbow pressing into the frame of the doorway like he's gauging the space between walls.

He's tactile - a smack to the space between his shoulders, fist bumps and high fives and teasing hair ruffles when he's got Eddie pinned in the middle of a spar and they both know Eddie isn't getting out of it.

It's nice. There aren't a lot of men, especially with their background, in their line of work, who are remotely comfortable expressing affection like that.

He's a fan.

Christopher is less so, when Tommy lays a big hand to the crown of his head and goes for a noogie. He huffs, rolls his eyes, rolls his head forward and away from the touch, makes some noise about a call he's supposed to make later that night and how he doesn't want his hair messed up for it, and Tommy holds his hands up in apology, fighting a grin as Chris smooths his hair back down.

Eddie's used to it already, so it takes him a second to really notice Tommy rounding the edge of the table to flick through papers and pictures and receipts tacked to the fridge as he digs through one of his drawers in search of the bottle opener he knows he has stashed in here somewhere. Eddie's more of a twist cap beer guy, but Tommy's oddly flavored fancy bottles always need an opener.

"Here," Tommy says, and Eddie turns just in time to catch the keys Tommy slings at him.

"I don't like your truck that much," Eddie tells him, which is a lie.

Tommy tips his head forward to indicate the keys. "Bottle opener, Diaz."

Which makes sense. He should get one for himself, actually. It's a little shocking neither one of them carries a utility knife on them. The preparedness rules maybe didn't stick after discharge as well as they could have

Tommy's gaze drifts, and Eddie watches his head tilt, ring and middle finger reaching up to tap at one of the pictures on the fridge. Chris and Buck, a few years back, some trip to the museum during either Buck or Chris' dinosaur phase. Buck's holding a giant stuffed pteranodon ("Pterodactyls were smaller and had cone-shaped teeth and backward-projecting crests, actually, and this isn't technically the most accurate depiction anyway, it's generally accepted they probably had feathers, now." -- So, definitely Buck's phase, now that he's remembering.) and Chris has a specific brand of smile across his face that Eddie has quietly dubbed his Buck-smile. Something around the edges of his eyes that's always just a little brighter for Buck.

"Cute picture," Tommy says, and Chris's eyes draw to it as Tommy taps his knuckles once-twice to it before dropping his hand to his side.

It's not the first time someone in this circle of three has brought up Buck.

The first night Tommy'd been here, camped out on the couch watching a game, Chris had had a million questions, and Buck had come up pretty naturally over the course of them comparing disasters they'd been a part of, or worked.

Chris had brought up the tsunami, which had led to a back and forth where they discovered Tommy had likely flown right over them at least once during that disaster of a day, and then it had evolved into Chris memorializing all of Buck's greatest (most traumatizing) hits - pinned under a fire engine, climbing a crane tower in the middle of a county wide panic about a shooter targeting firefighters (he doesn't bring up Eddie being shot, which - maybe they should revisit that at some point, make sure Chris isn't burying that), Buck getting struck by lightning, Buck taking charge in the bridge collapse.

And obviously, if Chris was gonna debate Star Wars, he was gonna bring up Buck's involved opinions on Machete order and OG vs Prequels vs the Somehow Palpatine Returned era, and be delighted that Tommy's opinion differed from Buck's, because that made Chris the victor in that ongoing battle.

Buck is a big part of Chris and Eddie's lives, so he's gonna be dropped into conversation. Nothing strange about that.

Tommy always calls him Evan, which is a big old dose of whiplash every time, and he can't think why he does that, because despite Buck introducing himself (weirdly) as Buh-Evan Buckley, they've seen each other since, and no one else Tommy talks to calls him Evan, so he doesn't know why Buck hasn't corrected him.

Chris' mouth does something strange as Tommy keeps looking at the picture, his expression going a little curious in a way Eddie can't quite parse, and then he's grinning. There's no reason to be suspicious, except for the way he actually puts down his phone to engage with Tommy as Eddie passes a beer off.

"Yeah, Buck always takes me to exhibits every time there's a new one. He's cool like that."

Tommy hums around his first sip, expression placid, posture relaxed. "Maybe I could take you to the next one."

Christopher's eyes narrow.

Eddie's lost.

"Uh, not without Buck. Carla took me once without him and he pretended to be fine about it for weeks until I asked him to take me again. He was not happy we went without him. But you could come with us."

Tommy tap-tap-taps his finger against the rim of his bottle, unfazed by the slightly territorial way Chris had phrased it. Eddie's fazed. Eddie is not sure there's not a second layer to this conversation he's missing. "I'll look it up. Jot it down in my day book."

Christopher is too young to have a clue what that means, but he doesn't seem to be quite done with whatever the hell it is he's got going on right now. "Good," he says. "Buck's single right now, so he's got a lot of extra time for stuff."

Tommy's gaze flits to Christopher's, and Eddie doesn't have a fucking clue what's going on, but it's a weighted look for half a second before Chris' gaze turns back to his phone.

"You have his number, right? Maybe you should call him and figure out a day we can all go."

Something happens around the corners of Tommy's mouth that he hides by tipping the bottle mouth against his lips again. "Yeah. I've got his number."

For a second Eddie wonders why, before he remembers catching Buck down at Harbor before the fight. When had Buck gotten his number?

"Cool," says Chris, eyes already glued back to his phone. "We usually get lunch first. Buck really likes pizza."

"Everyone likes pizza," Tommy says, eyes glimmering with mirth that Eddie absolutely does not know the source of.

"Yeah, but Buck's picky about it. He says there's a perfect pizza to crust ratio that most places don't get right. Also he likes it when they have a stone oven, and the little pizza risers."

Tommy rolls his tongue over his teeth. And - why is Eddie watching this interaction so carefully? It's not like he's worried Tommy's gonna say something weird to his kid, even if his kid is being weird.

"I'm gonna go throw the game on. You hungry?"

Tommy's eyes shift to meet his, and Eddie feels that same frisson of excitement he gets sometimes when Buck is paying close attention to him. "I could eat. Not pizza though. There's nowhere around here with a good stone oven."

"Dad likes pineapple on his pizza, his pizza opinions suck."

Eddie tosses his hands up. This is an old argument, one created entirely by Buck because Chris hadn't minded a good Canadian pizza before Buck declared war on them. "Pizza's just pizza. I was thinking Chinese, anyway."

"Can we get those spring rolls Buck always gets?"

Tommy's gaze slips to the fridge one more time, eyes drifting across the picture he'd pointed out earlier, before he unclips the menu for the Chinese place down the street from its spot half-covering the calendar to hand it off to Eddie. He spots the circle around their plans for Thursday and reaches out to touch the date.

"You invite anyone else for Thursday?"

Eddie rolls his top lip over his bottom one. "Buck hates basketball, turns me down every time I ask. I might ask Chim, though, he and his brother always liked to play."

Literally nothing in Tommy's expression changes, but Eddie feels like he's reacting to something in that sentence anyway. He's trying to figure out how to cut the weird tension in the room when Christopher starts listing off his order, and he's so distracted by trying to get a list prepared to call that he misses two thirds of Chris and Tommy's continued conversation, which is somehow, for some reason, still about Buck. Geez, is Chris pissed that Eddie's got a new friend? He should invite Buck next time he makes plans to hang out at home with Tommy.

----

"It was a date," Buck tells him, a week and a half later, while Eddie's staring at his phone like looking hard enough might make it, and his relationship with Marisol, maybe disappear. Just for a little while, while he squares things up with God.

Eddie tosses his phone, turns to look at Buck in the second before it computes, manages to pull back just enough so that it's not a full, ridiculous double take.

"When you and Marisol ran into me and Tommy, we were on a date."

"Really?" Buck usually tells him the second he's interested in someone, because for some reason he thinks Eddie has any idea how to have a loving, lasting relationship, even though Eddie's been lobbing live grenades straight at love since he was fourteen. He hadn't said a word to Eddie about -

Well.

Well actually --

Well shit.

Oh, he's definitely giving Tommy and Christopher both shit about this later.

"Wait, Tommy's gay?"

A whole host of things are suddenly lining up -- Buck at Harbor the afternoon before the fight, and Buck asking half a million questions after the fight, and Buck and Tommy both picking at the thread of Christopher's praises for the other, and -- Buck had been jealous. Buck had been jealous of Eddie spending time with Tommy. Buck had shoulder checked him to the court and sprained his ankle because he liked the guy enough to lose his head about it.

Oh, he's gonna hold this over all of their heads for sure.

Which for the moment is apparently not that great an idea because Tommy'd pressed pause after one date, which is fast even for Buck. He tells him so.

"When we ran into you guys I kinda made an idiot of myself and he said he doesn't think I'm ready." Buck looks -- sad. Disappointed. Nervous, hands rubbing at his thighs like he's soothing himself. It's a fair point, on Tommy's part, even if he doesn't know all the details.

(Something about hot chicks pings in the back of his mind, but he shelves it for later.)

Buck's never really hinted at romantic inclinations in that direction, although some of his comments about good looking guys are making a little more sense, in retrospect.

"What do you think?" Eddie's pretty sure he knows the answer to this question, but he asks anyway, because Buck likes to work these things out. He likes to talk about them. Eddie imagines not being able to articulate exactly what he was feeling without wondering if his friends would think it was weird probably (definitely) contributed to his wildly dramatic behavior the last few weeks.

Geez, Tia Pepa would be eating this telenovela shit up.

"I kinda can't stop thinking about him," Buck tells him, and it's a voice Eddie's not entirely sure he's ever heard from Buck before -- at least when he's talking about someone he's into. Buck's always got a checklist and a trillion rationalizations. Now he just sounds... smitten.

And Tommy is too, Eddie thinks. He is absolutely gonna call him out for pumping his kid for information. Maybe accuse him of only befriending him to get to Buck -- see if he can make the unflappable Tommy Kinard flap, a little.

"You should call him," Eddie tells him, already imagining double dates with a partner of Buck's he doesn't hope will spontaneously combust in the middle of dinner. Maybe between Tommy, Chris and Eddie they can finally convince Buck to go to one of the car shows he's always rolling his eyes at. Maybe Tommy and his terribly hidden romantic side can actually match Buck's crazy.

Eddie hugs Buck on his way out the door and feels the tension drain from his shoulders.

Maybe touched starved Buck will get to enjoy that little tactile quirk of Tommy's, too.

[liketwoswansinbalance]

What would you do if you knew you couldn't fall??

Did you mean "fail?" Unless you meant literally falling, I will answer as if you wrote "fail." You can correct me if that is the wrong interpretation, and I could answer the question again.

Assign first-class experts to solve the world's problems... so I wouldn't have to do it all—assuming the technicality is that I start the projects, then they probably would not fail. Would that loophole work? (Realistically, if it didn't work, I don't think I'd actually be altruistic enough to do all that...) Would I have to see the projects through to completion? That's quite a lot of work. But doing this would likely mean I will probably have a clean conscience for the rest of my life, ideally, because, I know I should if I had the power to do so.

In relation to #1, even if this is non-necessary, also assign people to figure out if there's life on other planets. I just want to know. Don't need to contact whatever is out there—I don't want anything to go wrong. I'd just want to possibly spy on them for a little while. The problem is: spying is unethical, so I'd have to convince myself that I'm either doing it for cautionary reasons or as a longitudinal, naturalistic "study." This could be a pandora's jar, so I might take it off the list.

Cure stupidity and herd mentality. (Curing all physical ailments is built into no. 1 already.) Or better yet, get someone else to do it. (At the same time, we could argue that these qualities are part of being human or flawed, and that we shouldn't tamper with our human-ness. In which case, just no. Also, we would lose part of our former connection to literature, pre-cure. For instance, we would no longer comprehend the meaning of the trope: "love causes poor judgment." So, would it be worth it? Even if the world were terraformed and otherwise reshaped in more metaphorical ways to be "perfect," I think we would still manage to invent new problems because it's what we've always done as a species. Thus, there needs to be a reasonable stopping point. And, I'm not sure what that point is, meaning several other items on this list might have to be struck out.)

Have the world's politicians be... better somehow? Ensure they are sane and moral, that they trust science, are scientifically-literate... I feel, perhaps, like we might get better results if we chose science-fiction writers, particularly those who've managed to predict our present and know how to do social commentary. They seem to be aware of and actually care about the state of humanity. (I'm not really well-informed enough to make any decisions, but I know well enough that the world needs people of varied knowledge and skillsets to continue on. So, I'm not completely, intentionally trying to valorize only what I'm interested in. I'm just biased like any other human being is.)

Delegate everything I don't like doing to competent people (like cooking), and reap the benefits of the exact outcomes I'd want every time. If they were successful, I'd never have a problem with dust and no one would ever move my stacks of books and paper, which often collect dust.

Turn myself immortal and gain eternal youth. (This should probably be item no. 1 on the list, actually, to account for how long the first few tasks could potentially take.) Then use those means on others who would want it done. If it's someone I don't like, I could still let them become immortal, and would just tell them after this favor not to cross paths with me again. I would also try to convince anyone I want to keep around to stay.

No. 6 would attract too much publicity. I'd need a way to continue being relatively anonymous, except for what I would selectively want to be recognized for. (If I couldn't fail at it, I'd love to become the next "Shakespeare" or some kind of literary giant... and maybe then have the world forget about me... and be rediscovered and reinterpreted by future generations who use my original and/or revolutionary works as required reading in their syllabi. That'd be striking and cool. I'm not sure how I would stop suffering from belatedness though.)

Find a way to never sleep, never eat, never exercise, and not experience cognitive decline. I would only do the ones I like doing.

Find a way to resurrect people from the dead. (I already know this has too much margin for catastrophe, so there would have to be restrictions on what can and cannot be done. At the same time, I am also aware this would violate nature, so it might have to be removed from the list. Who am I to decree the rules?)

I haven't addressed religion yet. I'd have to find some way to alleviate my guilt, but that's more of a temporary fix and not a real solution. I'd have to find some way to remain a mostly good or at least harmless person, assuming I'm mostly one now. If there's no reason for anyone, any force, or anything to object to my existence, I would hope I would be allowed to continue on with my plans.

If there were some way to affirm what I think my personal beliefs are, that would be great. At the same time, that defeats the point of faith, and so, I'm not sure what to do about this dilemma.

Learn everything I want to learn now that I have infinite time to learn it (and infinite time to procrastinate).

Consume all the media I want to consume and also never miss new installments or works of art because I wouldn't be outlived by creators.

Become some kind of successful writer. I mentioned this before, but to specify: maybe a novelist or maybe an academic critic—why not both?! Sky's the limit!

Eventually, if I could never fail, I might wonder about whether anything could ever be a challenge or worth doing anymore. (Doubt that will happen since I have a fear of failure anyway—and being cured of it would be a wonderful reality to live in!)

And so, I could want to die eventually. (Again, highly doubt that will happen.)

In case: It's not my top priority, but: study philosophy, so I don't become corrupt, apathetic, or suicidal since I know things can happen to the human psyche after too long.

If no. 1 didn't happen, and humans were faced with climate change as well as other problems, then I would want to die before the planet were barren and ruined, so I wouldn't have to live under dystopian conditions.

Some of the above might not happen because I may procrastinate too much. That would suggest that the revised item no. 1 should be: conquer procrastination once and for all, and only then proceed in a rough order.

[cripplecharacters]

Hello! For context this character is, like most characters in this world, an animal/human sort of mix/hybrid.

I was wondering how visible a one sided facial paralysis would look on say, scales? Or maybe, how to show/draw it? It's quite obvious on human skin, what with the sagging/lack of movement compared to the non paralyzed side, but with scaled animals (thinking lizards here) they're not exactly super physically expressive to begin with/scales don't exactly act the same as human skin.. And while they do have an odd sort of mix, I don't really know how to simulate paralysis on the scales part? And there isn't much information I can find, so I figured I'd ask for y'alls opinion!

I can't give much more information, the character is very WIP but this is how far I've gotten :']

(quickly adding, they do have (a?) strabismus, which will help I guess with conveying a facial difference in general but yeah.. still stumped on drawing the paralysis)

Thanks in advance!

Hello!

Interesting question! Doing research for this ask I actually learned that reptiles apparently have the same cranial nerves as humans which is pretty cool. I mostly referenced this paper for context.

So first thing you can do is to choose which condition specifically they have/which nerves are actually paralyzed. Because of the "one sided facial paralysis" I'm assuming you mean a reptile equivalent of CN VII palsy (commonly caused by Bell's palsy in people) but if they have strabismus then they would need to have CN III/IV/VI palsy (or just have it for a non-paralytic reason).

I tried to make a short list of how the all the possible CN [insert Roman numeral] palsies could present in a lizard. If you want the equivalent of Bell's palsy, skip to CN VII. The other ones also cause paralysis, just different kinds. All of these can be either on one or both sides.

CN I/II/VIII/IX/X/XI: not visible. CN XI technically affects the muscles (which is visible) but not of the face. CN III/IV/VI: yeah just strabismus. You can look at this image to see what the difference between them is since it's convoluted to explain via text. CN V: the CN V nerve has three branches. 2 of the 3 (V1+V2) are irrelevant here because they're purely sensory but something to consider for the non-visual stuff. TLDR you can have paralysis of 1 (any of them), 2, or all 3. For visible paralysis: mouth being asymmetrical i.e. doesn't open as much as the other half (the V3 branch). As a sidenote, CN V dysfunction also can cause one of, if not the most severe kind of pain called trigeminal neuralgia, at least among humans. IDK if that's the case for non-mammals since I wasn't able to find much about it. CN VII (the one you probably want to know about): "in general, the only parts of the face of reptiles that moves are the eyelids in species that have them." according to the paper linked above. So scientifically speaking it just doesn't show up* on scales. If your lizard has eyelids then they'd probably have ptosis. CN XII: tongue not moving properly maybe? In a lizard or a snake I guess that would count as a facial difference since it's usually out.

*-not all kinds of paralysis on the face are visible. In both humans and reptiles most aren't visible. If you give your lizard CN VII palsy and it doesn't show up like it does in humans, that's not erasure, that's a different species. If you want to show the non-motor part, then it's also responsible for taste. But you can't emote with scales, it is what it is.

You can also obviously give your lizard other kinds of paralysis, but they aren't visible, just sensory/functional. I'd also encourage you to look up the invisible effects of nerve paralysis, because there are a lot and they can affect functioning just as much (if not more) than the visible part.

Since all of these palsies are very only-one-part-looks-affected you can give them a condition that causes multiple of these for a more 'obvious' effect if that's what you're looking for. Traumatic injuries, stroke, nerve infections, multiple sclerosis, idiopathic congenital, CHARGE syndrome, Moebius syndrome, Guillain–Barré syndrome, etc. can all cause multiple cranial nerve dysfunctions (as a note, some syndromes are more likely to cause one over the other).

I was able to find one photo of a lizard with strabismus but not literally anything else. If any followers have any awesome photos feel free to share.

Hope this helps,

mod Sasza

[thecutestgrotto]

question! im considering doing dividers as gifts for my friends and I was wondering if you had any tips? is it a better idea to hand draw the designs to avoid any potential copyright issues or is using free to distribute clip resources okay?

I know how to draw and do edits just fine I’m just not sure what other graphic artists do in this regard

Hi anon! Okay, so this is going to be a little long winded and maybe stuff you might know about the process, but I hope it’ll be helpful as a guide for others too maybe? Tips under the cut otherwise everyone’s gonna have to scroll through it.

So, for everyone needing some help, I present:

The Official™️ Dividers & Graphics Guide

->For tips on how to use dividers on your posts click here

1. Personally, I LOVE Canva because it has a library of pre-uploaded elements and it’s super easy to use. Like if I search stars hundreds of individual elements come up as results.

(I know some people also use Visme, which I don’t have any real experience with, but it’s an alternative with good reviews.)

As long as you are not claiming each individual element is your own creation, you’re in the clear. People making graphics like these almost always use premade elements and combine or edit them into a unique piece. That being said, if you claim that an individual element is your own, you’ll probably be called out. I don’t know how familiar you are with the community so forgive me if I sound condescending: the graphics/digital art community is a wild place when it comes to plagiarism but it’s good that artists look out for each other.

Anyway. Creators that upload designs/elements/templates to Canva are aware that they can be changed/edited. If you have Canva pro (which I recommend because you can do transparent PNGs so easily) some elements are only available via pro subscription and you’re compensating the creator for the use of the element and however you change it.

Basically, the divider/graphic is yours, but the individual elements are theirs. You don’t need to give credit because it’s like using stamps or stickers. For example: You wouldn’t typically use Lisa frank stickers on a coloring page and then credit Lisa frank in the corner of the paper. ⚠️I strongly urge you to stay away from AI art. Generators steal from artists to create what the user searches for!⚠️

For tips about finding more images click here

2. Hand drawing can get a little tricky. You have to be careful with your dimensions and even file size sometimes. In my personal experience, if you’re new to this type of graphic art you should wait until you’re comfortable with it. It can get confusing. I’ve had MANY graphics come out a blurry, frustrating mess and I’m by no means the best divider maker/graphic artist on the planet.

An extra example: my Cute Coquette set vs my Dark Siren set. Technically, there’s nothing wrong with the coquette ones, but they look fuzzy/blurry. I made them when I was first starting out and I struggled with how to line up the right dimensions. I keep them up because as much as I don’t like how blurry they are, it shows my progress and I’m rather fond of them. It’s not even close to what I do now, like the Dark Sirens, which even zoomed out have a lot of detail but are clear and defined. 🤷🏻‍♀️

3. To avoid said blurring, I recommend using these canvas sizes:

Banners and headers: 1055px x 500px, I’ve also done 3000px x 500px.

Standard Size Dividers: 3000px x 240px

Thicker/Thinner Dividers: Basically you can go as thin or thick as you want as long as that first number is 3000px. I added a screenshot of ones I’ve used recently that might help.

I think if you’re using software like procreate, the canvas sizes are the same but you’ll have to go through some extra steps if you want to get it into canva or whatever graphic editing software you’re using.

4. Lastly and most importantly, just have fun. Play around with the settings and figure out what works best for you!! You of course can DM me with more questions, but I hope this at least helped a little bit.

🩵🌸

*Edited 2 hours after posting to add personal examples, and this little guide can now be found in my navigation post!*

[loveharlow]

my unpopular obx opinions that no one asked for (unfiltered and in detail)...

Sarah cheating on John B was not unexpected. She ran into the arms of Topper Thornton whenever the opportunity presented itself which bring me to my next point...

Sarah does not like being a pogue. I believed she liked the initial freedom and adventure but when shit gets tough, she runs back to what reminds her of her old life (*cough cough* Topper). She has the luxury of being on the fence of Kook and Pogue sometimes.

Pope is technically the real main character of the show. On paper, yes, the show is about John B finishing the treasure hunt that his father started. BUT, after season 2, it was clear that the entire treasure itself revolved around Pope, a direct descendant of the man the treasure belonged to and I don't think we got enough of that.

Pope is a stronger character than he is presented to be. I think the show highlighted his self-defense capability in seasons 2 and 3 but it's widely ignored that this man has gone up against Rafe on multiple occassions and lowkey beat his ass. (Rafe beat his ass too but still).

Kiara will forever be wrong for how she did Pope. She treated him like SHIT. Like, if I was Pope, I genuinely could not be friends with her after like. P4L my ass. And then there are people who call him butthurt but if the roles were reversed...Hardcore Kie fans can defend her all they'd like but after a certain point, there was no excuse for her to be leading him on the way she did. She knew she didn't like him in that way and that's very clear from the start of season 2, but she proceeds to sleep with him and then tell him off.

Ward is a better father than Big John. Y'know, I pondered on this for a bit. And I am standing by it. Big John would break both of John B's legs and throw him onto a set of train tracks if it got him closer to finding the gold and excuse it by saying some shit like "But you didn't die, did ya, Bird?". Like that man was ALIVE for almost an entire year and made no attempt to contact his son. Ward is a criminal by all means but most of the time, at least what we saw as viewers, he was doing it for Rafe.

Cleo deserves more screen time and a better backstory. I know she's a new character and all but like WHAT'S HER LAST NAME?? Like does she not have one? Is she not real??

(edit) Kiara is very insensitive to the feelings of her friends and overall generally self-centered. She literally acts like her parents are the worst in the world. I get it, they don't like her friends and they are indeed hypocritical towards the pogues considering her father was one. But in season 2, she gets in the car and says "this shit would be so much easier without parents" next to JJ, aka the one with an abusive father. Not to mention, she's seen how John B fell apart after his father disappeared and how hard it's been for Sarah to go against her father.

CLEOPOPE BEST SHIP.

Anyway, I did this out of boredom. I had to take a break from actual writing for a moment.

[damnfandomproblems]

Fandom Problem #7410:

Those people are playing with fictional dollies in a corner of the internet where blocking and ignoring has long been a thing. If you're in a position where seeing a pair of fictional drawings kissing will give you psychic damage AND you can't ignore it after rolling your eyes or making an "ew" face (something people often but don't expand on because why bother?), maybe that's your problem, not other peoples', and you should avoid those tags etc, like the rest of us. It's also very telling that people in certain fandoms are totally okay with certain kinds of abusive ships, but simply go after people writing the "wrong" kinds of abusive ship, but as soon as any other kinds of ships are present, they will flip out. They'll yell at someone for shipping the Lannisters, while concurrently reposting fanart of Will bleeding to death where Hannibal, who has a knife in his pocket suggesting he did the deed, is holding him adoringly. Drawing gore is somehow fine, but a ship where the characters are eighteen and nineteen is the devil's spawn, even though both in real life are bad, and on paper, neither character is being harmed. They are concepts, dollies, not real people.

Like, "bad ship" has no meaning - it's become a stupid matter of "my fictional thing is fine, yours crosses the line, even though technically, it's just as bad, or not bad at all" because... It's all. Bloody. Fiction. Yet nobody's going to bat an eyelash if someone watches the Saw movies, or if someone is a horror aficionado and loves horror movies in general, but so many people, especially younger kids, have issues with sexual content in particular. It's just a rebrand of Christian puritanism and moral paranoia. Everything and everyone is a pedo to them. They look at new media through the lens of "I must ensure this show, person, etc isn't a pedo". Yeah, there are creepy people on the internet, some people get off on certain stuff. It doesn't mean everyone who draws an age gap ship is a creep - just like how everyone who likes gore isn't a murderer, even though there are, indeed, people who get off on murder. There are kinks for literally everything. I mean, there's an entire website devoted to celebrity feet for Christ's sakes. But for some reason, nobody ever looks at fictional depictions of non-sexual abuse (or even anything else), and wonders if someone is getting off on that. But a lot of people still are. Nothing is sacred.

If someone is posting graphic content of something in a tag, they should be tagging it. With scenarios like that, MAYBE (emphatically) you could make a case for it being "harmful". But even then, this is the internet. Fandom spaces are not like Club Penguin, they do not have a responsibility to assume the burden of parenting or making someone's individual choices for them or clearing out as soon as a minor is in the space, and there's an inherent knowledge that we all will, at some point, run into things that gross us out because fandom spaces are a melting pot of different ideas.

And you have a right to be grossed out by a lot of stuff. There's a lot of disturbing, weird, icky shit out there. But it's not about harassing the people who make it, who have shown no signs of actually being a bad person. It's about putting the onus on yourself, like an adult, to avoid the content. There's no use in self-harming by seeking stuff out, going into certain tags, etc when there's a high chance you'll see something that squicks you. Because at the end of the day, you are responsible for your own content consumption and browsing, and you are responsible for understanding the risks of being in certain spaces. If someone is unable to understand this, and cannot exercise self-control, they shouldn't be in those spaces, possibly online at all.

Signed, a very, very bone-tired fandomgoer of 40+ years.

[pipinpali]

Unlike pt. 2

–--

2/?? — Fractured Fascination

<-first - next ->

TW!: Blood, Injury

Word count ~ 1100 words

—--

Jone walked home through Dalsby's damp and slush-filled streets much quicker than usual. Partially, it was from the rain that had suddenly started barreling down in the already cold weather. Partially, it was because he wanted to get his groceries home. Partially, it was a long day at the school he was training to work at, and he wanted to have a quaint evening to himself. But really, it was the slight weight in his coat pocket that made him rush.

Jone had briefly heard of tiny people before in the past, about maybe three to four years ago. "Smallfolk," the news had called them, "the newly discovered cousins of mankind!" And despite knowing of their ever present, but very ignored existence in his town, it was shocking to actually see one– let alone carrying one home.

He eventually reached his door and half-mindedly pulled out his keys...realizing he had placed the smallfolk in the same pocket. The student received a panicked yelp in response; the cloth of his jacket swaying slightly with the miniature man's sudden movement. Immediately, Jone retracted his hand with the keys, muttering a quick apology as he opened the front door.

He haphazardly dropped the groceries he had cared about just a bit ago by the front door as he walked in, as well as his scarf and ear warmers that went flying onto the floor.

Jone then walked back to his desk after he hurriedly made his way into the kitchen to grab his first-aid kit.

"Okay... I'm going to lift you up now. Please don't be scared," Jone stated carefully. He hadn't a clue if the man spoke a lick of English since he didn't say a word during their time spent, so he tried to speak slowly and gently to get the general point across.

After waiting patiently for a response that didn't come (or one he didn't exactly hear), Jone hesitantly reached into his pocket and retrieved the smallfolk. He struggled from beneath his fingers, and the experience was more than strange — not to mention fascinating for the relatively average man.

A single delicate and shakey arm pushing against his digits, the other pinned against the panicked smallfolk's side. The faint heartbeat against the base of his thumb fluttering so inhumanly fast with the concerningly thin and writhing torso surrounding it. His quick and strained breathing was the only other noise in Jone's usually quiet home aside from the rain pattering against his roof outside.

Jone realized he was staring and far longer than he– well, technically unintended. He placed his hand on his desk and opened his palm, allowing the smallfolk to roll off with a pained grunt. Jone reached for the med kit, opening it with a click that made the stranger flinch.

He watched as the man sat up hunched on his knees, watching him in return, his little sharp eyes warily tracking each and every movement. Jone made sure to do things as slowly and as quietly as he could to avoid startling him again.

"You don't have to be scared," Jone assured as he took out supplies, finally looking away, "I don't intend on harming you." The smallfolk remained silent, his narrowed eyes never leaving Jone's face.

Eventually, Jone retrieved a few alcohol pads. He took his eyes off the smallfolk for a moment to rip the paper-like packaging open. "Well– this will sort of sting... nothing too bad, though. I'll need you to stay stil– wait, stop–"

The man's head swiveled up to stare back at Jone, his sunken eyes wide. Of course, the moment Jone had looked away, the stranger managed to crawl halfway across the desk.

He yelped and recoiled as one of Jone's hands loosely cupped around him, the other hovering over with one of the alcohol pads. The larger of the two carefully slid the cold wipe beneath the blood-soaked, makeshift shirt. The smallfolk hissed at the sensation, tightly shutting his eyes as his chest heaved. It went from his side to his arm, and then his leg — which, on closer inspection, was broken.

Jone pulled his hand back, his palm shifting beneath the trembling smallfolk. With careful precision, he pressed a band-aid over the bleeding wound, grimacing at the sight of it. The cut wasn’t deep enough to hit anything vital, but the sight of blood on such a fragile body still turned his stomach.

As he rifled through the med kit, his fingers landed on a roll of bandages — much better suited for the job. He hesitated as he brought it closer, his movements slowing as the smallfolk’s sharp, fearful breaths quickened.

The task was painstaking. Jone’s fingers cumsily fumbled with trying to get the bandages around the man's miniscule limbs, the scissors shaking slightly in his grasp. Each snip of the blade made the tiny man flinch, his fragile body recoiling from the sound.

“It’s alright,” Jone murmured as he cut yet another misplaced bandage, "please stop struggling..." He received a frightened yelp and a panicked jerk away after it was removed. Luckily, he only had one last thing to patch up... but unluckily, it was the broken leg. Jone felt sick just staring at it.

He improvised a splint, breaking the wooden bit off of a cotton swab he got from the med kit. He delicately slid his forefinger beneath the smallfolk's leg, his thumb lightly brushing over top. He winced sympathetically as he heard him gasp in pain, knowing what was about to come.

Jone leaned forward in his chair as he began to very slowly, very gently, shift the broken bone into place. The stranger caught onto what he was doing, his eyes widening, darting to look up Jone. He was preparing both himself and the smallfolk, preparing for a quick and hopefully painless–

—Tug!

The man screamed in pain, reeling back against Jone’s palm. His face glistened with tears, his breath shuddered with strained sobs; almost as if he was trying to suppress the pitiful sound.

"...I'm almost done, alright...?" Jone carefully put the makeshift splint beside the smallfolk's leg and shakily, yet efficiently wrapping them both.

"There," he breathed, slowly withdrawing his hands. The guilt that churned inside of Jone wanted him to continue speaking to the smallfolk. But, with the man as he was now, questions and small-talk could wait for later.

Jone's mind roamed back to what he meant to do before this: go home, put groceries away... Dinner. It was far later than he ever had it before, and his hunger became apparent as it came to the forefront of his mind. And, from the man's gaunt form, he assumed he was hungry too.

"Try to get some rest," Jone said, placing the warm hand towel across the smallfolk's freezing body. He pushed himself to stand from his chair, moving towards the kitchen.

What a day.

—--

THIS TOOK A WHILE HUH.

Ran into,,,, many issues writing this,,,

BUT ITS HERE !,

I also made a drawing that includes a part from this chapter .

[formlines]

Blue and Red (Where Little Bear Learned to Hide from the Sun)

Ursala Hudson

from the website: “My mother was a Chilkat ceremonial regalia maker, and now I am one too. Weaving regalia for ceremony can be a heavy responsibility, as a finished robe embodies generations of ancestral knowledge and hundreds of hours of technical labor. At the same time, it is a great honor to be the instrument through which our ancestors speak their stories and dreams.

One of the most influential mentors in my life has been Cecil Touchon, who is a non-Indigenous American contemporary artist and theorist. Cecil was a close friend of my family and spent many studio hours training us in the art of collage. He encouraged us to collage on watercolor paper with large blank margins on all sides, and to work intuitively, simply, and quickly. Collage work became a fun family pasttime growing up, and allowed us a regular practice in traversing the present moment, outside of ancestral tradition or the weight of preparing for ceremony. It was another way to bring together my family of mixed heritage and culture.

In Blue and Red, I use my primary art medium of Chilkat and Ravenstail weaving of my Tlingit homelands to depict an abstract contemporary “collage” on woven “watercolor paper” with large margins and my signature “signed” on the bottom edge. Instead of three hours of cutting and pasting, this weaving took over 50 hours from start to finish. I honor my greatest influences, from both within and without my Indigenous heritage, respecting the profoundly valuable lessons they both have offered me. “Blue and Red” tells a story about the contemporary Indigenous present.”

– Ursala Hudson

[redpenship]

As requested, here is an edited version (although I left some stuff in that doesn't really need to be there, like the whole section on the NPT) of my paper on nuclear strategy in the Sonic Adventure series:

None of this is good, Vector. That’s why it’s called war. 

- Knuckles the Echidna, in Sonic Forces (2017)

Sonic the Hedgehog is a very weird video game series. 

(Author's note: the quality of this paper does not reflect the majority of my academic writing. It was for a 200-level (beginner's) English class wherein I was encouraged to do whatever I wanted and not worry about tone, topic, etc. I also wrote it in less than a day after having written 3 other papers the same week, and was suffering from sleep deprivation and brain fog while writing it. I have not included my references in this post because they were done in Chicago footnote format and don't paste into Tumblr well. If you want more info on anything I mention, I will gladly provide sources on said topics! Ty ty)

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Sonic the Hedgehog is a very weird video game series. 

This statement has nothing to do with its varying quality of gameplay. Sonic the Hedgehog is weird because its surface presentation as a colourful, furry-adjacent Dragon Ball rip-off disguises its extremely fascinating perspectives on warfare. The games frequently feature weapons of mass destruction in its stories, which allows for interesting analysis on the strategies used in-game and how it relates to American perspectives on nuclear war. The first game analyzed will be Sonic Adventure, which depicts an attempted nuclear strike on an American city. The second game analyzed will be Sonic Adventure 2, which features an attempt at WMD-boosted bargaining. These games will be used to answer the following research question: which side does Dr. Eggman take in the Borden-Brodie debate on nuclear weapons strategy? 

As a brief explanation, the Borden-Brodie debate is about how nuclear weapons will actually be used in a nuclear war between two states. This debate emerged in the late 1940s and early 1950s, as theorists attempted to predict the future of war after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Borden predicted that nuclear weapons would be used as “big artillery” to support regular military attacks, whereas Brodie predicted that the devastating effects of nuclear weapons would make war between two nuclear weapons states (NWS) inconceivable. Brodie appears to have won the debate as nuclear doctrine shifted to favour deterrence during the Cold War, but we must consider the following idea: perhaps, in the grand scheme of things, there has not been a conflict worth using them for just yet.

What is the geopolitical situation in Sonic the Hedgehog? Technically, the series takes place on Earth, but it’s a little different. Instead of the United States, there is the United Federation, instead of Greece there is Apotos, and instead of Africa there is Mazuri, because even the fun cartoon animal game cannot keep itself from generalizing the entire African continent into one entity. These countries are predominantly inhabited by humans, who live on the continents, and the animal-people (like Sonic and friends) live on small offshore islands. There has never been an explanation for why this separation exists, and while it could be fun to explore potential reasons, that is not the point of this paper!

Dr. Eggman typically begins his campaigns of world domination on these islands. He captures small animals to be used as batteries in his machines and builds extractive industrial plants, such as oil refineries and chemical plants. Sonic opposes him in the earlier games because he is harming the environment, and this has turned into a standard rivalry as the games have continued and Eggman’s evil plans have grown in scale. As soon as the games give the characters spoken dialogue in Sonic Adventure, Eggman’s schemes move away from resource extraction and towards using huge weapons and awakened ancient gods in order to conquer the planet. This is where the weapons of mass destruction come into play.

The first depiction of a WMD in Sonic the Hedgehog is in Sonic Adventure, where Eggman attempts to murder-suicide Station Square (in-universe San Francisco) by firing a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) at the city while he is still in it. He does this because he is upset that his plan failed, although perhaps he was attempting to show us mercy by wiping all the Silicon Valley bros off the face of the planet. Regardless of exact intention, his attempt to nuke Station Square says a lot about his perspective on nuclear war, which will be discussed below. 

When dealing with an enemy, their perception of you and their own weapons are crucial to understand. The norm in nuclear doctrine is that nuclear weapons are used in retaliation to extremely high levels of threat. However, this has not always been the case—in the 1950s, they were generally perceived as really big bombs that could be used in combination with normal artillery. This theory was emphasized most by the radically anti-communist William Borden, also famous for testifying against Oppenheimer in his security clearance review, who argued that nuclear war will target military infrastructure and end when one side in the conflict has run out of weapons. Therefore, it is in the best interest of the United States to possess as many weapons as possible because it is the quantity they possess that will render them victorious. City-busting occurs after the war, when you are free to hurt your enemy’s civilian population without fear of retaliation. Or, perhaps, when you have nothing left to lose—which is exactly what happened in Eggman’s case. 

Borden predicted that nuclear weapons states would disperse their launchers and military bases to make them harder to strike. He likewise predicted the use of nuclear missile-equipped submarines (SSBNs), which are used strategically for second strikes; submarines are hard to find, and can be positioned close to the enemy, making them very useful for retaliation. This is precisely in line with Eggman’s attack in Sonic Adventure 1, which used an SSBN close to the enemy’s civilian population as a last resort punishment after he incurred heavy losses. Whether or not this was a smart thing for Eggman to do is up in the air—the SLBM appeared to be an attempted surface burst on a city, which would actually minimize casualties when compared to an air burst detonation, so it is very likely that he cares more about building cool bombs than understanding how to use them properly—but it is clear that he is a champion of the Borden expectations of nuclear warfare nonetheless!

Eggman’s arguably insane, vengeful attack on Station Square stokes fears of nuclear armageddon that were hyper-present during the Cold War. Although he has been referred to as Dr. Eggman exclusively so far in this essay, this is not the case in Sonic Adventure—Tails, the character present in the city while the attack happens, refers to him as “Dr. Robotnik”. The character’s “real” name is Ivo Robotnik, which was given to him by American translators in lieu of “Eggman” when the classic games first released. It may not be surprising that American translators at the end of the Cold War decided to give an industrialist who primarily wears red an Eastern European sounding name. Russians are disproportionately featured as enemies in video games, eclipsing both the Axis Powers (typically Germany or Japan) and Arabs (as terrorists) in studied games. In wartime, framing one’s enemies as irrational is a core component of propaganda. Depicting someone named “Robotnik” as a self-driven madman who is willing to nuke an entire city when he loses feeds into assumptions that the enemies of the United States are not rational, which is then used to justify US hegemony on the international scene—someone has to keep these unruly states in line! This is especially true for the non-proliferation regime, which has been regarded by some states as neocolonial. India, a nuclear weapons state, has argued that the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons is discriminatory because it does not ban vertical proliferation. This stance generally purports that non-proliferation treaties are used to keep nuclear weapons out of “undesirable” hands while allowing nuclear weapons states to maintain and build on their own stockpile (vertical proliferation). Fears of certain states (such as Iran or North Korea) acquiring arsenals are presented as imminent dangers because enemies of the United States are always inherently irrational, and therefore cannot be trusted with such powerful weapons. The idea of “rationality” has been weaponized in service of white supremacy—and to a lesser extent, the patriarchy—for centuries and it should surprise no one that an international nonproliferation regime, largely built by and for states who were founded and are sustained on the premise of white supremacy, would prop up inequality and keep nuclear weapons only in the hands of those who “deserve” them. Although Russia is not a victim of this regime, it is frequently depicted as irrational and untrustworthy with nuclear weapons. Robotnik’s attack on Station Square is reminiscent of this rhetoric. 

Of course, Sonic is a Japanese video game, which should grant it some leniency in the depiction of a nuclear attack as inherently irrational and violent. But for American players, who are meant to perceive this as an attack on a fictionalized version of their country, the implications are more specifically anti-Russian.

Sonic Adventure 2 flips this script a bit: as it would turn out, Eggman is American, and members of his extended family were killed in a coverup operation by the Sonic equivalent of the US military, Guardian Unit of Nations—typically abbreviated to GUN. His grandfather, Gerald Robotnik, was commissioned to research immortality and weapons of mass destruction aboard the space colony ARK. One of his creations was the Eclipse Cannon, a giant laser capable of destroying the planet. 

Between games, Eggman has seemingly underwent the same attitude shift as every other NWS during the Cold War, because he has now discovered that WMDs can be used to threaten your enemies into getting what you want. On the ARK, Eggman activates the Eclipse Cannon and does the following:

1. Uses its laser to destroy part of the moon in a show of force; 

2. Threatens to use it against the Earth unless he is crowned emperor of the planet; 

3. Gives Earth 24 hours to accept. 

Did Bernard Brodie predict the plot of Sonic Adventure 2? In his earliest work The Absolute Weapon, he argued that the absolute power of a nuclear bomb would make wars too costly to fight. The primary purpose for governments would therefore be to avoid war at all costs, since any of them could result in devastating nuclear war. Brodie also wrote many pieces laying out strategies of nuclear deterrence, which continue to be used to this day. 

There is a common knee-jerk reaction to Eggman’s story that I see in fan discussions of the game. Many comments feature the following logic: “Why would Eggman blow up the planet he wants to rule? Either the writer is stupider than me, or Eggman is lying!” This is a very understandable way to perceive his threat with the Eclipse Cannon—why would someone make such an unreasonable threat? Does he really expect it to work? Who is going to buy this?

The game provides no insight into the general reaction to this by the world’s governments. However, Sonic and friends believe his threat right away, and race to the ARK to stop him. They are correct to do so—Eggman does end up trying to use the Eclipse Cannon against the Earth, but it does not work because Gerald Robotnik programmed it to fail if ever used. Therefore, we know that Eggman was not bluffing about his threat to destroy the planet at all. We know that he was actually going to do it. So, why do fans of the game continue to argue that Eggman’s threat was pointless? 

Bernard Brodie’s concept of the absolute weapon has become the mainstream view of WMDs in the public consciousness. We fear nuclear weapons because of their destructive power and believe that no conflict could ever require their deployment. We believe other NWS hold the same concerns. This perspective is then projected onto Eggman by fans, who mistakenly assume he should foster the same feelings about WMDs. The assumption that Eggman was not willing to go through with his plan, or that the world’s governments would not surrender to him, requires Eggman to value his own life over the success of his empire. The first Sonic Adventure game has Eggman attempt to nuke a city he is standing in. A suicidal, last-ditch plan to take over the world is perfectly in-line with his character. What is the point of living if he cannot have his way? What is the point of a planet’s existence if he is not the one in charge? These are the questions driving Eggman’s decisions in the games. 

Sonic Adventure 2 does not reject Brodie’s theories, but does provide a counterargument: deterrence breaks down when one’s ambitions outgrow the potential retaliation for acting upon them. Eggman’s dream of ruling the world was stronger than his will to live. Mortal terror was not enough to curb his imperial ambitions, and the Earth was almost destroyed as consequence of this perspective. 

When the two games are measured against one another, it becomes apparent that Eggman has taken a very clear stance on the Borden-Brodie debate: he is a supporter of the Borden perspective on nuclear war! He does not believe in absolute deterrence and treats WMDs as usable tools in his arsenal, even at a potential detriment to himself. His actions in Sonic Adventure 2 align his views with one of Borden’s biggest theories: the winner of a nuclear war will not be the state who inflicts the most damage on their enemy, but rather the one who does not run out of nuclear weapons first. Eggman is determined to be the last one standing—even if it means standing alone atop the ashes of the world.