#Holiday (module)

[bruiseeasily]

it's been way too long and i apologise but starter call maybe?

[dogcollarpunk]

//through gritted teeth// I'm being so Self-Organized and Time-Managing Right Now

[whentherewerebicycles]

goooood morning from my beautiful green living room. we got up at 6:15 today (sleeping in lol). I have had a busy morning so far—long meeting with my boss + shorter meetings with the HR team and my team lead. but now I am done with being on calls for the day and can dig into this stupid graphic design work (HUGE sigh). I do not want to do it at ALL so I am trying to break it down into smaller steps.

distill this super unwieldy overview they gave me into a simplified timeline

look at canva + articulate for timeline options (choose the simplest possible version)

input info into timeline graphic

finish copying over images and priorities into leadership section

look in the canva business section for simple templates for project recommendations

marshal my strength and figure out what next steps are (I’m so bored my brain is shutting down lol I can’t figure out what else needs to happen). figure out if there’s anything more I need to do today… then tomorrow

I am going to allow myself to do no work for 20 min (until 11am) and then I will get up and try to do a burst of concentrated work from 11-12 to get through as much of that list as possible. then I will take a break and look for my preexisting letters for these students to figure out how much new drafting I need to do. hopefully not much??

[immortalsins]

sorry for the rant. i shouldnt do this. got a group project meeting today (it’s due friday) and my lab partner (thought she had my back) just asked me a question about my design concept (i’m the only one who has bothered to come up with something) that i answered already in my explanation on the shared onenote (so she obviously hasn’t read it) and that’s pissing me off a bit to be completely honest

[oatbugs]

somehow i do a lot and also i do nothing at all .

[gayspock]

ive been feelinglike such shit lately & bro this assignment is not helping -_-

[diegogtratty]

well that's the first, and last time that i attempt mirror dungeons in limbus company on hard difficulty

[theprotagonistisdead]

we are talking about some essay in my german class and i'm not sure whether we're supposed to have written it already or are planning to write it?

[jessicalprice]

culture isn’t modular

I did a thread (actually several) on Twitter a few years ago about Christianity’s attempts to paint itself as modular, and I’ve been seeing them referenced here in the cultural christianity Discourse, and a few people have DMed me asking me to post it here, so here’s a rehash of several of those threads:

A big part of why Christian atheists have trouble seeing how culturally Christian they still are is that Christianity advertises itself as being modular, which is not how belief systems have worked for most of human history. 

A selling point of Christianity has always been the idea that it's plug-and-play: you don't have to stop being Irish or Korean or Nigerian to be Christian, you don't have to learn a new language, you keep your culture. 

And you’re just also Christian.

(You can see, then, why so many Christian atheists struggle with the idea that they’re still Christian--to them, Christianity is this modular belief in God and Jesus and a few other tenets, and everything else is... everything else. Which is, not to get ahead of myself, very compatible with some tacit white supremacy: the “everything else” is goes unexamined for its cultural specificity. It’s just Normal. Default. Neutral.)

Evangelicals in particular love to contrast this to Islam, to the idea that you have to learn Arabic and adopt elements of Arab culture to be Muslim, which helps fuel the image of Islam as a Foreign Ideology that's taking over the West.

The rest of us don’t have that particular jack

Meanwhile, Christians position Christianity as a modular component of your life. Keep your culture, your traditions, your language and just swap out your Other Religion Module for a Christianity Module.

The end game is, in theory, a rainbow of diverse people and cultures that are all one big happy family in Christ. We're going to come back to how Christianity isn't actually modular, but for the moment, let's talk about it as if it had succeeded in that design goal. 

Even if Christianity were successfully modular, if it were something that you could just plug in to the Belief System Receptor in a culture and leave the rest of it undisturbed, the problem is most cultures don't have a modular Belief System Receptor. Spirituality has, for the entirety of human history, not been something that's modular. It's deeply interwoven with the rest of culture and society. You can't just pull it out and plug something else in and have the culture remain stable.

(And to be clear, even using the term “spirituality” here is a sop to Christianity. What cultures have are worldviews that deal with humanity’s place in the universe/reality; people’s relationships to other people; the idea of individual, societal, or human purpose; how the culture defines membership; etc. These may or may not deal with the supernatural or “spiritual.”)

And so OF COURSE attempting to pull out a culture's indigenous belief system and replace it with Christianity has almost always had destructive effects on that culture.

Not only is Christianity not representative of "religion" full stop, it's actually arguably *anomalous* in its attempt to be modular (and thus universal to all cultures) rather than inextricable from culture.

Now, of course, it hasn't actually succeeded in that--the US is a thoroughly Christian culture--but it does lead to the idea that one can somehow parse out which pieces of culture are "religious" versus which are "secular". That framing is antithetical to most cultures. E.g. you can't separate the development of a lot of cultural practices around what people eat and how they get it from elements of their worldview that Christians would probably label "religious." But that entire *framing* of religious vs. secular is a Christian one.

Is Passover a religious holiday or a secular one? The answer isn't one or the other, or neither, or both. It's that the framing of this question is wrong.

And Christianity isn’t a plugin, however much it wants to be

Moreover, Christianity isn't actually culture-neutral or modular. 

It's easy for this to get obscured by seeing Christianity as a tool of particular cultures' colonialism (e.g. the British using Christianity to spread British culture) or of whiteness in general, and not seeing how Christianity itself is colonial. This helps protect the idea that “true” Christianity is good and innocent, and if priests or missionaries are converting people at swordpoint or claiming land for European powers or destroying indigenous cultures, that must be a misuse of Christianity, a “fake” or “corrupted” Christianity.

Never mind that for every other culture, that culture is what its members do. Christianity, uniquely, must be judged on what it says its ideals are, not what it actually is. 

Mistaking the engine for the exhaust

But it’s not just an otherwise innocent tool of colonialism: it’s a driver of it. 

At the end of the day, it’s really hard to construct a version of the Great Commission that isn’t inherently colonial. The end-goal of a world in which everyone is Christian is a world without non-Christian cultures. (As is the end goal of a world in which everyone is atheist by Christian definitions.)

Yet we focus on the way Christianity came with British or Spanish culture when they colonized a place--the churches are here because the Spaniards who conquered this area were Catholic--and miss how Christianity actually has its own cultural tropes that it brings with it. It's more subtle, of course, when Christianity didn't come in explicitly as the result of military conquest.

Or put another way, those cultures didn't just shape the Christianity they brought to places they colonized--they were shaped by it. How much of the commonality between European cultures is because of Christianity?

It’s not all a competition

A lot of Christians (cultural and practicing), if you push them, will eventually paint you a picture of a very Hobbesian world in which all religions, red in tooth and claw, are trying to take over the world. It's the "natural order" to attempt to eliminate all cultures but your own. 

If you point out to them that belief and worldview are deeply personal, and proselytizing is objectifying, because you're basically telling the person you're proselytizing to that who they are is wrong, you often get some version of "that's how everyone is, though."

Like we all go through life seeing other humans as incomplete and fundamentally flawed and the only way to "fix" them is to get them to believe what we believe. And, like, that is not how everyone relates to others?

But it's definitely how both practicing Christians and Christian antitheists relate to others. If, for Christians, your lack of Jesus is a fundamental flaw in you that needs to be fixed, for New Atheists, your “religion” (that is, your non-Christian culture) is a fundamental flaw in you that needs to be fixed. Neither Christians nor New Atheists are able to relate to anyone else as fine as they are. It's all a Hobbesian zero-sum game. It's all a game of conversion with only win and loss conditions. You are, essentially, only an NPC worth points.

The idea of being any other way is not only wrong, but impossible to them. If you claim to exist in any other way, you are either deluded or lying.

So, we get Christian atheists claiming that if you identify as Jewish, you can’t really be an atheist. Or sometimes they’ll make an exception for someone who’s “only ethnically Jewish.” If the only way you relate to your Jewishness is as ancestry, then you can be an atheist. Otherwise, you’re lying. 

Or, if you’re not lying, you’re deluded. You just don’t understand that there’s no need for you to keep any dietary practices or continue to engage in any form of ritual or celebrate any of those “religious” Jewish holidays, and by golly, this here “ex”-Christian atheist is here to separate out for you which parts of your culture are “religious” and which ones are “secular.”

Religious/secular is a Christian distinction

A lot of atheists from Christian backgrounds (whether or not they were raised explicitly Christian) have trouble seeing how Christian they are because they've accepted the Christian idea that “religion” is modular. (If we define “religion” the way Christians (whether practicing or cultural) define it, Christianity might be the only religion that actually exists. Maybe Islam?)

When people from non-Christian cultures talk about the hegemonically Christian and white supremacist nature of a lot of atheism, it reflects how outside of Christianity, spirituality/worldview isn't something you can just pull out of a culture.

Christian atheists tend to see the cultural practices of non-Christians as "religious" and think that they should give them up (talk to Jewish atheists who keep kosher about Christian atheist reactions to that). But because Christianity positions itself as modular, people from Christian backgrounds tend not to see how Christian the culture they imagine as "neutral" or "normal" actually is. In their minds, you just pull out the Christianity module and are left with a neutral, secular society.

So, if people from non-Christian backgrounds would just give up their superstitions, they'd look the same as Christian atheists. 

Your secularism is specifically post-Christian

Of course, that culture with the Christianity module pulled out ISN'T neutral. So the idea that that's what "secular society" should look like ends up following the same pattern as Christian colonialism throughout history: the promise that you can keep your culture and just plug in a different belief system (or, purportedly, a lack of a belief system), which has always, always been a lie. The secular, "enlightened" life that most Christian atheists envision is one that's still built on white, western Christianity, and the idea that people should conform to it is still attempting to homogenize society to a white Christian ideal. 

For people from cultures that don't see spirituality as modular, this is pretty obvious. It's obvious to a lot of people from non-white Christian cultures that have syncretized Christianity in a way that doesn't truck with the modularity illusion. 

I also think, even though they're not conceptualizing it in these terms, that it's actually obvious to a lot of evangelicals. (The difference being that white evangelical Christianity enthusiastically embraces white supremacy, so they see the destruction of non-Christian culture as good.) But I think it's invisible to a lot of mainline non-evangelical Christians, and it's definitely invisible to a lot of people who leave Christianity.

And that inability to see culture outside a Christian framing means that American secularism is still shaped like Christianity. It's basically the same text with a few sentences deleted and some terms replaced.

Which, again, is by design. The idea that you can deconvert to (Christian) atheism and not have to change much besides your opinions about God is the mirror of how easy it’s supposed to be to convert to Christianity.

Human societies don’t follow evolutionary biology

The Victorian Christian framing underlying current Western ideas of enlightened secularism, that religious practice (and human culture in general) is subject to the same sort of unilateral, simple evolution toward a superior state to which they, at the time, largely reduced biological evolution, is deeply white supremacist.

It posits religious evolution as a constantly self-refining process from "primitive" animism and polytheism to monotheism to white European/American Christianity. For Christians, that's the height of human culture. For ex-Christians, the next step is Christian-derived secularism.

Maybe you’ve seen this comic?

The thing is, animism isn’t more “primitive” than polytheism, and polytheism isn’t more “primitive” than monotheism. Older doesn’t mean less advanced/sophisticated/complex. Hinduism isn’t more “primitive” than Judaism just because it’s polytheistic and Judaism is monotheistic. 

Human cultures continue to change and adapt. (Arguably, older religions are more sophisticated than newer ones because they’ve had a lot more time to refine their practices and ideologies instead of having to define them.) Also, not all cultures are part of the same family tree. Christianity and Islam may be derived from Judaism, but Judaism and Hinduism have no real relationship to one another. 

But in this worldview, Christianity is "normal" religion, which is still more primitive than enlightened secularism, but more advanced than all those other primitive, superstitious, irrational beliefs.

Just like Christians, when Christian atheists do try to make room for cultures that aren't white and European-derived, the tacit demand is "okay, but you have to separate out the parts of your culture that the Christian sacred-secular divide would deem 'religious.'"

Either way, people from non-Christian cultures, if they’re to be equals, are supposed to get with the program and assimilate.

You’re not qualified to be a universal arbiter of what culture is good

Christian atheists usually want everyone to unplug that Religion module!

So, for example, you have ex-Christian atheists who are down with pluralism trying to get ex-Christian atheists who aren't to leave Jews alone by pointing out that you can be atheist and Jewish.

But some of us aren’t atheist. (I’m agnostic by Christian standards.) And the idea that Jews shouldn’t be targets for harassment because they can be atheists and therefore possibly have some common sense is still demanding that people from other cultures conform to one culture’s standard of what being “rational” is.  

Which, like, is kind of galling when y’all don’t even understand what “belief in G-d” means to Jews, and people from a culture that took until the 1800s to figure out that washing their hands was good are setting themselves up as the Universal Arbiters of Rationality.

(BTW, most of this also holds true for non-white Christianity, too. I guarantee you most white Christian atheists don’t have a good sense of what role church plays in the lives of Black communities, so maybe shut up about it.)

In any case, reducing Christianity--a massive, ambient phenomenon inextricable from Western culture--to the specific manifestation of Christian practice that you grew up with is, frankly, absurd. 

And you can’t be any help in deconstructing hegemony when you refuse to perceive it and understand that it isn’t something you can take off like a garment, and you probably won’t ever recognize and uproot all the ways in which it affects you, especially when you are continuing to live within it. 

What hegemony doesn’t want you to know

One of the ways hegemony sustains and perpetuates itself is by reinforcing the idea not so much that other ways of being and knowing are evil (although that’s usually a stage in an ideology becoming hegemonic), but that they’re impossible. That they don’t actually exist. 

See, again, the idea that anyone claiming to live differently is either lying or deluded.

There are few clearer examples of how pervasive Christian hegemony is than Christian atheists being certain every religion works like Christianity. Hegemonic Christianity wants you to think that all cultures work like Christianity because it wants their belief systems to be modular so you can just ...swap them. And it wants to pretend that culture/worldview is a free market where it can just outcompete other cultures.

But that’s... not how anything works. 

And the truth of the matter is that white nationalist Christians shoot at synagogues and Sikh temples and mosques because those other ways of being can’t be allowed to exist. 

They don’t shoot at atheist conventions because there’s room in hegemonic Christianity for Christian atheists precisely because Christian atheists are still culturally Christian. Their atheism is Christian-shaped.

They may not like you. They’re definitely going to try to convert you. They may not want you to be able to hold public office or teach their kids.

But the only challenge you’re providing is that of The Existence of Disbelief. And that’s fine. That makes you a really safe Other to have around. You can See The Light and not have to change much.

What you’re not doing is providing an example of a whole other way of being and knowing that (often) predates Christianity and is completely separate from it and has managed to survive it and continue to live and thrive (there’s a reason Christians like to speak of Jews and Judaism in the past tense, and it’s similar to the reason white people like to speak of indigenous peoples of the Americas in the past tense). 

That’s not a criticism--it’s fine to just... be post-Christian. There’s not actually anything wrong with being culturally Christian. The problems come in when you start denying that it’s a thing, or insisting that you, unique among humankind, are above Having A Culture.

But it does mean that you don’t pose the same sort of threat to Christianity that other cultures do, and hence, less violence. 

[mwydyn]

First 5 units of one of my modules are available to study early which is wild and incredibly convenient 👀

[burstfoot]

Hello! Here's an update on all of Arknights' currently accessible auxiliary material as of May 2024! There's plenty to check out, so I hope this is helpful for some!

Animation

Arknights Prelude To Dawn (S1) and Perish in Frost (S2): [Crunchyroll]

An adaptation of the main story, up through Chapter 0 to Chapter 6! It's much more fast-paced than the in-game story, so I wouldn't use it to replace actually reading it, but it's very cool to see some of these scenes in full animation. Season 3, Arknights: Rise from Ember, has been announced! Lee's Detective Agency: [Youtube]

A mini-series animated in a chibi style with a comedic tone. Focused on the adventures of the Kuroblood-illustrated Lee's Detective Agency! Distributed by Crunchyroll globally, but entirely free to watch.

Closure's Secret Files: [Youtube]

A cut-out styled series of shorts hosted by Closure which outlines a lot of the game's basic mechanics!

Holy Knight Light: [Youtube]

A short OVA focusing around Penguin Logistics delivering a package, celebrating Arknights' first anniversary. Officially posted to Youtube!

Kay's Daily Doodles: [Youtube]

Another free, comedic Youtube mini-series, posted to the offical Arknights Youtube account and focused around Ceobe! Here's some additional animations! Each event usually also has a 15 second 2D animated preview of the event, but there's so many of those that I can't list them all. Anniversary Event 3D Animations: Zwillingstürme im Herbst So Long, Adele Lone Trail Where Vernal Winds Will Never Blow Il Siracusano Ideal City Stultifera Navis Invitation To Wine Near Light Dossoles Holiday Under Tides Bonus 3D Animated Shorts: Legend of Chongyue Arknights Special - IL Siracusano Lo Scontro Youtube Shorts: Ch'en and Lin's Watermelon Splitting Game Part 1 Ch'en and Lin's Watermelon Splitting Game Part 2 Amiya's Siracusan Food Guide Part 1 Amiya's Siracusano Food Guide Part 2 Amiya's Special Gift Doctor's Gifts in Return 1 Doctor's Gifts in Return 2

Comics, Manga, Manhua

Officially Translated:

Rhodes Island's Records of Originium: Rhine Lab: [Offical Source]

A canon manhua centered around the circumstances that lead to Silence falling out with Saria and joining Rhodes Island with Ifrit, as well as Ifrit's attempt to save a dying infected stowaway on the landship. Essential reading for understanding the Rhine Lab storyline and characters - read it right after Mansfield for when it was chronologically released! One of the characters, Darya, is mentioned in both Ifrit's module and briefly in Lone Trail.

Rhodes Island's Records of Originium: Blacksteel: [Official Source]

A short story focusing on the lives of the Blacksteel operators aboard the landship. While it often gets overshadowed by the Rhine Lab manga which is bigger in scope, this is a great read especially if you're interested in Franka or Liskarm.

Rhodes Kitchen -TIDBITS-: [Official Source]

An anthology story related to the cuisine that's important to a variety of operators. While it might seem unassuming, the art is gorgeous and it's really well-written! The Blacksteel, Rhine Lab, and Rhodes Kitchen manga have all been sold in physical copies, if you're interested in having them in print!

Prelude Suite: Cadenza Virtuosa: [Official Source]

An epilogue to Hortus De Escapismo focusing on Arturia's background, with the second chapter serving as a prelude for Zwillingstrume im Herbst! An excellent read to get better insight into Arturia's character.

Angelina: Sketches of this Messenger's Journey: [Official Source]

A more comedically focused manwha, centered on the adventures of Angelina travelling across Terra as a Messenger! Currently updating, with recent chapters focusing on Sami and Siesta!

Unofficially Translated

The Dagger's Inheritors: [Youtube]

A 15-minute short 3D animated film about W's past and relationship with Theresa, released for the 5th Arknights anniversary. Arknights Comic Anthology: [Mangadex]

As the title says, a series of non-canon anthology stories regarding the cast of Rhodes' Island! Some of the chapters on Mangadex for the later volumes of the Comic Anthology specifically have been machine translated, but the same is not true for the other manga shared here. Chapters are hit-and-miss, but the whole series is generally a fun read! See the original post for specific chapter suggestions.

123 Rhodes Island: [Mangadex]

A series of non-canon gag comics for the CN server, usually updated when new operators or events release!

Arknights: Operators!: [Mangadex]

A compilation of shortform manga posted on the official ArknightsJP twitter account! Thank you to @sleepywoodscans for their work on personally translating these!

Arknights: A1 Operations Preparation Detachment: [Mangadex]

Part of the Terra Historicus website and not yet officially translated, focusing on Fang, Kroos and Beagle before they join Rhodes Island, and a catastrophe striking the Columbian city of Tkaronto. Thank you to @pooce-art for their translation work!

Other:

Arknights Ambience Synesthesia: [Youtube]

A series of concerts (4 so far), focused around Arknights' music! A live performance has been done every year, with skins released in-game for the concert's theme & 3D animations produced featuring the skin's cast in 2022, 2023, and 2024.

Monster Siren Records: [Spotify] [Official Website]

Arknights' official (and-in-universe) record label publishing game OSTs, themes for almost every 6 star operator that releases, and occasional bonus songs.

Arknights: Endfield: [Twitter]

An upcoming 3D action gacha game from Hypergryph, set in the far future of Arknights' universe on another planet. Currently in closed beta testing for both EN and CN servers!

UNOFFICIAL:

Some fandom-developed tools that might be of use to you are: The Arknights Terra Wiki. While it is a very accurate source for in-game data, take the explanation of in-game story and some specific claims with a grain of salt. The FANDOM version of this wiki is currently no longer mantained and subject to vandalism! Given you can translate or read Chinese, PRTS.wiki is the current best resource for game assets!

As well, the Arknights Story Reader can help you catch up on stuff you don't want to or can't read in game! Jacob Moreau on Youtube provides voiceover readings of many in-game stories as well.

Finally, Aceship's Toolbox provides access to a variety of tools, including a levelling calculator, a calculator to ensure the best recruitments, and all the CGs, backgrounds and character sprites that are available in-game as of So Long, Adele (as far as I'm aware, the sprite/cg gallery is no longer being updated.)

Conclusion:

Thank you for reading! I hope this provided some new information to you or is an easy reference source in the future. Some things, such as merch (i.e. board games) or the official lore book have not been included due to not being accessible or translated for EN players. I'm happy to continue to provide more information like this to make the art surrounding this series more accessible! If you have any questions, feel free to send me an ask.

[sweet7simple]

Mech Pregnancy and Protoform Development of Gestating Sparklings

Here is what I have compiled on Cybertronian "reproduction" from More Than Meets the Eye, specifically the Holiday Special and Volume 5:

Holiday Special:

So this would be the protoform development for a forged sparkling and it lends support to that, if Cybertronians gave birth to their own Sparklings, then they would likely be an egg-like form (yes, I know it's not actually a sparkling, but can we all agree that Swerve is strangely well-informed on protoform development for forged Cybertronians?)

So what would slide out from the gestation tank has no discernable features yet and still needs hours if not days before the protoform resembles an adult Cybertronian, but I still don't have an answer for the size of this thing - at what point does it reach its full size? Cybertronians before the war went to academies, so what point does the protoform receive an education instead of having relevant information jammed into its brain module right before deployment like a MTO cold construct?

(More under cut)

But, let's be honest, I am going out of order here. Let's go to Volume 5 where we encounter a hot spot of re-ignited sparks on the moon:

So this is being constructed cold.

And this is forged - as well as the official story for how cold constructed bots were made, which apparently differs from the truth. Here is the truth for how cold constructed sparks were actually formed:

So all cold constructs were made from the matrix - but what if they did come from igniting healthy sparks to make new ones?

What if you used the energy of two sparks to create an entirely new one and that sparkling attached itself to a parent spark for some time before it dropped to a gestation tank (this is common in fanfiction and I love it so much, it makes the most sense)? As these two orbs of immense power and life resonate with one another, creating waves of energy that can be interpreted as pleasurable for the interfacing bots, excess energy could gather itself into a separate orb that borrows the life code from both parents, becomes randomized, and this creates a new life code for a separate entity. It stays in the spark chamber for a period of time - I don't know, decoding or storing energy or something, I am very bad with electronics - before dropping down to an artificial gestation tank.

And this is where the valve/plug comes into play if you so desire because now we have the issue of, where is the spark going to go? It needs a protoform. It needs the materials to make a protoform. It also needs liquids.

Cybertronians seem to live off energon and anything you can make from energon, but there have been references and images in the comics of Cybertronians have oil as a waste product, so they need a separate compartment for oil away from their energon tank and they also are said to have (in fanfiction, at least): oral solvents, lubricant, transfluid, optic fluid, etc... All those will require their own compartments and they will all have either been diluted from the energon or will have an origin in a separate liquid that isn't mentioned. Let's keep in mind that they will also need some sort of oil for their hinges and their nanites for upkeep.

So I believe these gestation tanks are where the Sparklings develop their egg-like protoform with all these liquids that they themselves can't make yet, and I think they get what they need from nanite colonies as there is no umbilical cord (not unless you want the bots to have belly buttons). I like to think of them as nannyites - nanites that, once a protoform hits the gestation tank, have latent codes that becomes active and now have protoform-related tasks versus whatever tasks they did beforehand. The nannyites will likely take these resources from the carrying parent, everything from fluids to energon stores to living metal that the nannyites will adapt or make compatible for the sparkling.

So this carrying parent suddenly has fewer nanites colonies themselves, a thinner layer of living metal, and depleted storages of fluids.

Hear me out, hear me out: Valveplug interfacing helps the carrying parent because transfluid will contain necessary materials for the protoform.

I am going to take it a step further and say that it is that first shot of transfluid into the gestation tank during spark and valveplug interfacing creates input that electronically signals to the receiving parent to gather the excess energy from the spark play via centripetal force like a satellite and that force signals the excess energy to turn on life codes it recycled from both parents and create its own life code. That transfluid inside of the gestation tank also turns on those latent codes for the nannyites to get the compartment prepared. It's that first dose of necessary materials and every dose of transfluid after that is stored in the gestation tank for the protoform.

Which brings me to the idea that I have seen on AO3 where bots go into heat:

What if a mech goes into heat as a way to store transfluid from their partner?

I am largely talking out of my ass here because I don't know anything about how machines work, but I know there are a lot of hormones and signals and work that goes into human pregnancy.

The downside of this is that, if all bots were once forged and now they are, let's say, "birthed", then these constructs would be artificial: the gestation tank and the fertile centripetal force with its satellite sparkling and the interface array with its gestational passage and the nannyites and the transfluid. These would have to be constructed cold and surgically added, and you would have to create codes that turn on these cascading or stacking protocols (I don't know the correct computer term for when one event triggers another event triggers another event and so on) and you would have to manufacture filters and tanks and lines for the creation of gestational lubricant and transfluid.

This is just me rambling because I can't stop thinking about all this, but I am not ready to write a mechpreg story.

Please talk to me about Cybertronian reproduction, I am not normal about this.

[jmphysicsjournal]

Revising for my quantum computing module which I am very behind on. Luckily, I only have three exams this year. I've gone home for the holiday, and it's so nice to be able to enjoy my mother's cooking while preparing for exams. However, I will have to go back to uni early to finish off and submit my thesis.

[scarletttries]

Roman Roy x Shiv's Best Friend!Reader Headcanons (Succession Request)

Pairing: Roman Roy x Shiv's Best Friend Reader

Rating: Fluff

Word Count: 1.6k

Request: "Hi! If you’re still writing for succession, can I suggest headcanons for dating Roman while your shiv’s best friend? No pressure of course!!"

Author's Note: Celebrating his win this week, here's some headcanons for Roman Roy falling in love with his sister's best friend 🥰

- No matter how much time passes, Roman can still vividly remember the first time he saw you. It was a Tuesday afternoon, shrouded in monotony and teenage angst, sat at the dining table closely guarded by a tutor who'd been hired to make sure he got at least a passing grade to finish high school with. Despite being nowhere in sight he could still feel the oppressive judgement of his father breathing down his neck as he struggled to understand the notes laid out in front of him, the frustrations rising inside him and threatening to spill out in tears as his tutor joked that 'this should be easy!' Then the sweet sound of laughter cut through the pressure and the noise, like a windchime chirping out the loveliest tune in the middle of a storm, whipping his head around to find the source.

- It had taken two weeks of pleading and a thorough background check, but Shiv had finally been allowed to have a friend over to the house. You had been her classmate for years, but as you both readied yourselves to head off to the same college next year, you two had grown that much closer, your friendship cemented as you planned parallel lives on that first step into adulthood. Your first time visiting her stately home you found yourself pulling your school blazer more tightly around your shoulders, the echoing fortress sending a chill through you, its classy interior feeling hollow and uneasy. As you drifted through winding corridors Shiv led you into a grand dining hall, throwing her designer bag on one end of the oak table and saying you two could finish your homework here before you go upstairs to her room.

Despite the tutor's protest that Roman needed all the concentration he could muster, Shiv only laughed and set about teasing her brother for his supposed incompetence. Despite only a few months difference in your age, he looked so small to you, younger and more vulnerable, like he hadn't quite stopped being a little boy yet even as he strived to become a man.

"I remember that module from last year - don't feel bad, it took me ages to understand it all. You'll get there." You threw him a soft smile as you pulled your own folders from your bag, earning a scoff from Shiv and a hopeful look from Roman. Your gentle kindness seemed to lift his spirits and take the weight off his shoulders, the rest of his afternoon spent throwing desperate glances your way, mentally pleading for you to stick around and smile his way again.

- You and Shiv only grew closer as you shared a college dorm, more often than not visiting her during the holidays and giving her an ally in the misogynistic environment she called home. Each time you visited, Roman had grown up a little more, transforming from that meek boy to a young man who at least considered himself charming, even if that wasn't exactly what anyone else thought. You always found that no matter how confidently he drifted into the seat next to yours, catching up in easy conversation as old friends do, you couldn't help but still see a flicker of that sad, scared boy you had first met in his eyes, a part of him seeming to never really heal from whatever a childhood spent as a Roy entails.

- You and Shiv had so many milestones passed side by side, so in turn Roman was there to celebrate you with each one. It was hard to tell whether he applauded you or Shiv more loudly as you walked across the graduation stage, and when you landed on the first step of your chosen career ladder, the biggest gift basket you recieved was proudly signed 'Love, Roman.' He was there with a housewarming gift when you got your first apartment, a bouquet of flowers for every birthday, and all the while insisted he'd do the same for any of his old friends.

- His lack of subtlety made it easy for you and Shiv to deduce his true feelings, your best friend slightly disgusted by the thought of anyone dating her little brother, but the softest part of her knew you'd make him happier than anyone else could, two decades of friendship a testament to your positive impact on the lives of those you cared about. And after a few less than successful romances with big city executives who couldn't stop bragging about what they brought to the table, you couldn't help but enjoy the thought of spending more time on the receiving end of Roman's loving gaze.

- And so you put yourself out there, accompanying Shiv into the Waystar building on a Friday afternoon and giving Roman an overwhelming rush when you tapped lightly on the glass door of his office, giving him the same sweet smile you had offered him in consolation all those years ago. The advantage of a glass office was that you could clearly see the way he bolted upright in his chair, running his fingers through his hair as he awkwardly half-jogged to the door and flung it open with more force than he intended.

"Fuck, hey! What are you doing here? Do you need me to help you find Shiv?" He seemed almost out of breath as he spoke, voice wavering in pitch, trying to get a hold of himself.

"Actually I came to see you. I wanted to know if you were free for dinner tonight?"

"Like me, you, Shiv, maybe Ken?" His forehead creased as he spoke, frowning at the uncomfortable flips his stomach was executing in return for your eye contact.

"No, just the two of us? Like a date." You clarified, watching the gears turn in his head as if the request he'd so often fantasized about making didn't actually make sense when uttered aloud. Finally the penny dropped along with his jaw, his eyes growing wide and wild as he nodded in silence, unable to conjure the words he needed for once in his life. Taking pity on him, you spoke again, "Cool, what time do you finish here?" As you gestured to the desk behind him, you seemed to remind him of where he was - in his work place, in plain view, stuttering and tripping over himself for all to see. That wouldn't do.

"Uh - i'm done now. Fuck it, let's get out of here." In a singular moment of courage, Rowan grabbed the jacket he'd discarded over the back of his chair in one hand, and reached for you with the other, letting out an excitable giggle as you laced your fingers through his for the first time.

- After the most comfortable first date you had ever been on, Roman gave you no chance to get bored of him, or think about anyone else. After decades of pining, he decided that one night was enough to make him your boyfriend, quickly planning his whole life around you, and making sure an evening couldn't pass without you on his arm. His heart still hammered in his chest every time he got to touch you, but he tried to ignore that and act as if you had always been together, partly because in his head he had been yours for years, even if you hadn't been his in return yet.

- You both have to endure a lot of jabs and taunts from Shiv, although at least half of them are made with love. She makes a serious affair out of dividing up your time between her and Roman though, not willing to lose her best friend even if her brother is the happiest she's ever seen him.

- For Roman you feel like a comfort blanket at every family event, a physical reminder of the kindness he deserves and that there is someone good in this world that cares about him. When his father is especially vindictive or cruel, Roman clings to you under the table, a gentle squeeze of your hand meaning safety to his fragile inner child.

- Roman has spent so long captivated by you, desperate to be in your favour, soaking in the warmth of presence, that now he can't get enough. Given his lack of meaningful adult relationships he doesn't have a frame of reference for how he should act, or how to manage his emotions. He'll feel like a frantic teenager in love, unable to let go of your hand no matter how difficult it makes navigating a crowd, discussing moving in and plans that span 'forever' after only a few dates. It makes perfect sense for him, because you're the only person that's made him feel this way his entire life, so of course you're going to be together forever.

- Every time you plant a soft peck on Roman, he'll let out a sweet hyena giggle, before repaying you with a matching kiss, euphoric in his newfound appreciation for affection. It's not just physical affection either, although he does find himself clinging to you and begging you to run your fingers through his hair and down his back. He cherishes every sweet word you say, almost to the point that he really believes them. He rereads the texts you send him like they are poetry in themselves. His heart swells when you describe him as your partner and introduce him to your friends, not ashamed of him or your feelings, making Roman stand a little prouder in himself.

- That first moment of kindness that you showed Roman sparked a small light inside him, a flickering hope of a life of kindness and joy that he could only ever picture with you. Now getting to face that reality is so much brighter than that young, stressed, despondent boy could have dreamed.

[immortalsins]

whyy am i tired & unmotivated. cant possibly be anything to do with todays task, Complex Numbers II

[hazelsmirrorball]

We Aren't Partners | Hazel Callahan

summary: Hazel Callahan has a love hate relationship with another gotham vigilante. The only way to fix their relationship is with thanksgiving leftovers parings: Red Hood! Hazel Callahan x SpiderWoman! Reader warnings : English isn't my main language, so excuse any mistake! authors note: This is based on a one shot I did a few years ago. Hope you guys enjoy, this will probably be multiple parts if you guys like it. Thank you once again for reading. Lot’s of love. 

The cold air consumed Y/n’s body while she jumped from roof to roof. She tried to keep herself warm but it was impossible. The cold holiday breeze was upon them and even though she had been swinging left and right all that movement didn’t stop her  body from getting cold. When she finally found the person she was desperately searching for, she  smiled and felt her body get completely warm. Y/n sneaked up to Hazel  hiding behind her back the surprise she had for her. Y/n took small steps attempting not to catch her attention. 

“You do know I can feel you’re here, right? There’s no need to sneak up on me. You’re not that discrete. I can spot a annoying spider from miles away.” she scoffed into the darkness, her tone rougher than usual. Y/n rolled her eyes, her shoulders dropping in disappointment. 

“Happy Thanksgiving! My dear Red Hood. It’s great to see you too,” Y/n responded sarcastically while sitting next to Hazel on the edge of one of Gotham's buildings. She wrapped her own body in a hug trying to warm herself. 

“ I didn’t even know Thanksgiving was today,” Hazel muttered while looking at the view in front of her, not even glancing at Y/n once. Which was the complete opposite to what she was doing, Y/n couldn’t take her eyes off Hazel. If Y/n could, she would admire Hazel for a lifetime. 

“Well, remind me to get you a calendar for christmas then, sweetheart,” she replied with a giggle leaning towards Hazel to hear her better. Hazel moved a little to the side leaving space between them, not in the mood for Y/n’s touch.

“I told you it wasn’t professional you calling me pet names.  Wait, didn’t you say you had a party tonight an…”

“Red Hood, actually listens to what little old me has to say? That’s quite surprising,” Y/n asked while bumping her elbow on Hazel’s side. God, she wished she could see her face.

“As I was saying… Don’t you have a place to be instead of annoying me? I bet your family would love to hear you annoy the living shit out of them.”

“Well actually I do but, I decided to leave really quickly to bring you something. They won't mind me disappearing for a few minutes, they are quite used to it by now,” She took the item from behind her back and placed it neatly on Hazel’s lap.  

“What 's this?” Hazel asked, looking down at the container. Hazel’s gloved covered hand softly grazed on top of it, inspecting it like it were a bomb. 

“You told me a few weeks ago that you didn’t have a place to spend thanksgiving. I invited you to my family’s thanksgiving party and since you denied wanting to keep your identity a secret, I decided that I should bring you some food from my house. My parents make loads of  food and it’s Godsent so, there you go.”

Hazel stayed quiet. The only thing that could be heard was her rough breathing due to her voice modulator. Of course she had a place to go on thanksgiving. She wasn’t going to tell the girl that she had million invitations falling at her feet after she told her she didn’t have anything to do on the holidays. Hazel had decided not to, she wasn’t in the mood to be thankful for anything and she knew as soon as her family got there she would be instantly annoyed so Hazel opted for the option of going to the Wayne Manor. 

Hazel also had Y/n’s offer, as much as she tried to push the girl away, it was impossible. Hazel worked alone, Red Hood wanted to work alone but found herself with her trailing behind. Y/n was nice, nice to everyone, nice to her. Hazel didn’t want to ruin that, she was too pure for this world and everything Hazel touched ended up being horribly wrong.

 So the seven times Y/n had invited her to her family's thanksgiving party, Hazel had said no. Her main excuse being her secret identity, which she easily resolved by telling Hazel that she would show her identity to make her feel more comfortable and if she still didn't feel safe she could come in her suit.vWhich Hazel also denied.

“Thanks” Hazel responded softly while turning to look at her. Hazel wished she could look at her face to see what she was thinking.

“I expect you to review the food a one through ten and the container.”

“What about it?” she asked, not understanding completely what Y/n was implying.

“Bring it back, so I can give you more food on another occasion. If you don't, there's no more food for you,” She said softly.

“Don’t you have other containers?” Hazel asked, turning to her completely. 

“Well, this one is special. It’s red, because you’re Red Hood. Get it?” She responded laughing hard.

“You know it's not funny when you have to explain the joke.” Hazel responded sarcastically while rolling her eyes.

“Tough crowd. I have to go but enjoy your food, partner” Y/n responded while running away.

“We aren’t partners!” Hazel yelled while looking down at the container in her hands. She slowly looked at the small note placed on top of it and smiled.

A little piece of my family for you, no one deserves to spend the holidays alone. If you don’t have anyone to spend Christmas with, you can gladly come over.

love,

your favorite spider partner.

Thank you for reading! xoxo.