#I added alt text this time like a good human being

[missveryvery]

FengQing dynamics, book vs fan interpretation, General Thoughts about Clown Generals:

Mostly me trying to stare at canon and figure out what these dumbasses think about each other and what their actual relationship is, what's actually written instead of my hopes and dreams for clown love.

we all keep writing/drawing Mu Qing being the mean one and Feng Xin as the nice one but....Feng Xin is the one that relentlessly says horrible things to him, usually unprovoked.

Feng Xin's insults:

That he hates him, that he never wants to see him again, that he's lying, that whenever he sees him doing something it absolutely must be for personal/nefarious reasons, that he's happy when xl does crimes, he's untrustworthy, that he's always scheming, that he thinks he's better than he is, that he wouldn't be where he is without Xie Lian.

Mu Qing's insults are:

that Feng Xin is just as "disloyal" as him for leaving. Basically, his usual argument is "you are just as bad as me." This is his big thing, arguably his only thing.

He maybe thinks the bathhouse is Feng Xin's fault, like he took them somewhere perverted on purpose

His statues? whack.

Says Feng Xin made a big deal about nothing about Xie Lian stealing.

I'm wracking my brain here because a lot of them aren't personal insults so much as making fun of him for something rather than saying he's a bad person. Like he tells Xie Lian about the Ju Yang thing. That's not something Feng Xin did wrong, it's something embarrassing that happened to Feng Xin.

Here's one:

Actually, rereading this, I wonder if he meant Xie Lian...? Since that's the person who they felt like couldn't tell who was a ghost. And Feng Xin has always been able to discern ghostness so far so that seems weirdly specific. Which is nuts because I think we all feel like Mu Qing should insult his intelligence all the time (Feng Xin isn't as dumb as I wish he was, though so...)

I'm extremely guilty of all of this, to be clear. And I don't know why. Sometimes I carefully have Feng Xin realize he was awful and be apologetic, sometimes deal with it.

But probably most of the time, offhandedly, I'm like "Ah yes mq wouldn't catch him in a trust fall", which is something I just saw on my dash. when it's demonstrably, literally untrue, right?

They would both catch each other without hesitation. They literally do! Even when it's at a great risk to themselves!

I think the difference is what they think will happen:

Mu Qing, idk I could go either way. He might know that Feng Xin will catch him because Feng Xin is Like That. Or he might think it's a big question mark.

By Tong'lu he says something to the effect that he's running from them because they'll just kill him if they get ahold of him. But by then things have been escalating. Feng Xin hit him during the avalanche thing off screen and Mu Qing was surprised by it and asked why he'd hit him. We saw Feng Xin punch him before (after ghost city arc), but Mu Qing wasn't confused as to why that time. In other words, normally he might completely trust him but the events of the book threw everything out the window.

But I can't say for sure what Mu Qing would think would happen.

Weirdly, Feng Xin's response is the more complicated one.

Feng Xin does NOT think Mu Qing will or has serious doubts. Except...that's just what he'll verbalize. Literally what happens in the book, he gives no visible indication that he even remotely believes Mu Qing's explanations at Tong'lu.

It's only after Mu Qing suddenly disappears that the narrator tells us that he wasn't as convinced of Mu Qing 's guilt as he acted. He was just pissed and being an asshole. Mu Qing's disappearance is what actually shakes Feng Xin's belief in Mu Qing.

They have another argument earlier about JL:

-Feng Xin assumes the worst

-Mu Qing explains

-Feng Xin backs down for the moment (and goes to have a nervous breakdown)

-but when he sees him again he starts attacking him (avalanche scene), and this fight is bad enough that they've actually pulled weapons on each other

-This fight/argument continues until Hua Cheng shows up and they have bigger things to worry about

Then we have this:

Feng Xin's pattern might be:

Get mad, assume the worst, say things he doesn't mean, eventually calms down about it/acts like it's fine.

There are a couple times where he's argued into shutting up. It's just that he will bring that thing out, that he has been acting like he calmed down about and accepted, when he's mad.

I think he actually does at least subconsciously believe an Mu Qing Explanation PowerPoint. Why? Because that's what his overall behavior reflects. Or, even if, let's say he doesn't believe anything Mu Qing says ever, thinks he's the fucking worst: he still goes on little adventures with him and hangs out with him.

He doesn't suffer people he dislikes very much, does he? He doesn't even want Xie Lian to hang out with Hua Cheng! He's very "don't associate with those kinds of people." Actually, basically everything you "know" about Feng Xin, is not quite accurate by the end of the book, just like it is with Mu Qing.

Anyway, he still happily puts Xie Lian in a dress with Mu Qing. That's basically the definition of a sworn brother.

But at the end of the day, even though I think this is all very shitty behavior on Feng Xin's part and jail for Feng Xin, jail for Feng Xin for One Thousand Years, their relationship is something Mu Qing likes. He cares what he thinks about him. He doesn't want Feng Xin to think badly of him. Despite Feng Xin being the least generous person with benefit of the doubt, he still defends himself with him and the only other person he does that with is Xie Lian. Everyone else he's accepted he can't do anything about.

Like they must be having good times together that they both find worthwhile or they wouldn't be together. He must find things about him that he values.

Best guess is: he admires Feng Xin's selflessness and devotion to "what's right", the same way he thinks Xie Lian is cool. He wants to be around these two people. These are also the aspects he fucking hates the most and says are stupid and pointless and will get you killed. He hates this behavior, he rants about it, he is horrified by it, and yet he is someone who does it over and over and over again. And it always comes back to bite him in the ass.

As for what Feng Xin likes about Mu Qing...I don't know. Like I can't even guess. He likes the Queen a lot who is gentle and kind hearted and he likes the bravery and toughness of JL. He idolizes Xie Lian. But at no point does he assert Mu Qing is anything but the opposite of those people. Even when he has evidence to the contrary he forgets it or dismisses it. So I really have no idea what a canon reason is for him to like Mu Qing.

Maybe he thinks "I'll go with him because it seems fun or interesting" and "I have to protect him" and doesn't consciously attribute any part of that to Mu Qing.

It's possible he doesn't actually like him, as much as I hate to admit it, this would be mind-numbingly realistic for a guy that doesn't like thinking deeply about things. I think a lot of people don't think too deeply about friendship, because most of the time it's about familiarity and proximity and availability. We both like this activity, you're the person I know, we do it together. I'm sure you've met people, even married couples, that when it comes down to it don't actually like each other, they're just together out of familiarity and habit.

I do wonder what it would have been like if Mu Qing had died, that's kind of the usual outcome for a character like this, I feel like I rarely see in an adult book where a character like this has a suicide mission and then is ok or not, idk, very fucked up by it at least.

I do think they're friends, canonically, but I think their relationship is very unlike what we're used to seeing. But I also think mirrors closely a lot of relationships you see in real life, especially with dudes who hang out but don't figure out a Very Important Subject Ever.

Mostly this was just me making notes to myself and then I thought I'd share.

[punkeropercyjackson]

I've always thought Ramona Flowers was an absolutely great character.Even before i got to reading the comics or watching the show she gave me good vibes and once i finished ny readings,i was super confused at the reputation she gets because what the actual fuck are people talking about????I get that a few times she wasn't well written but for the most part,she was exactly what the people think the show changed about her:Her own person and not a Manic Pixie Dream Girl.It's right there in the text and even some dialogue that she's a decontruction of the archetype,not a bad example of it and she's got tons of good qualities like she does a few bad ones because she was written as a human just like Scott and everybody else in the main cast and i think it's really unfair she's constantly being used as a punchline for things that aren't even applicaple to her and has become slang for 'basic alt girl who objectifies herself for men' when even in-universe she's pretty open with not wanting to be seen as that because again,she dyes her hair for HERSELF and dresses for HERSELF and does her hobbies because SHE enjoys them and it's irrelevant that irl dudebros still missed the point and of Scott Pilgrim himself because he's the bad guy until he grows he fuck up and works on himself(and on that note,Knives Chau is such a caricature of asian girls and the freak ass pedo thing with her and Kim Pine later on makes it so i wipe it from the series since supposedly O'Malley only added that to enforce how bad Scott is but never called out Kim so it was just projecting and not an actual characteristic of Scott and Kim's seeing as he has Scott find it gross yet had him do it anyway and same for Kim and Knives shouldn't have to deal with it and i will be rewriting her as real rep).Ramona Flowers they could never make me hate you

[trenchgardens-ooc-ooc-ooc-ooc]

i'm sure One Million Kazillion people have asked you this but if not Perpep for the ask game?

Just one more! This is specifically for Beforan Perpep. Not Bard's Collage or Alternia. Perpep

favorite thing about them Playing her is so fun. She's just a little guy. She is just a little guy, yknow? I also love how she talks. Its not the best transcribed on my part but its just cute. Her intonation is cute.

least favorite thing about them Probably just my... like. Inability to keep up with her timescale... I decided all my ocs have some time distortion shit going on with them because of my executive dysfunction. There are. several things in her drafts that are there because i wanted to draw a picture for it and never did. There are... so many...

favorite line Ok so if youve been here for a while, she once was really mad at Raveri, the other Raveri, and wrote a whole rant about him. That was funny I liked that. I also liked the time she was talking about the horrorterrors and drew one of them with her text.

brOTP Uhhhhhh I still dont really get this im ngl. An otp but platonic, so either a qppr or like... just being good friends? buddies? Well that'd've probably also been old Raveri. They were sopor chess buddies. They did sopor slime and played chess.

OTP Uh... Hm... Yknow, again, I don't really ship Perpep. I guess her alt!self Oftcas has an 'otp' with (B!)Detheo. Their wierd fuckin biuniversal asses. Postgame she has a pitch thing going on with Somati, but her whole situation makes it kind of... I think her intimacy is pretty heavily wounded. Yknow... from being a human pet. Being without a relationship after so long of it being the default is hard though. Something that happens during the game that makes this part easier, but she does feel it really intensely. It's why she gets with Somati actually. Its technically pitch and she thinks of it that way even if it resembles a pale relationship a little more because of how Perpep is. It's not entirely NOT pale on somati's part, but it is pitch. Not the angry kind of pitch though, the like... theyre two individually really chill people who start fucking with shit to compete when theyre together. Mentos and coke ship.

nOTP Shrugs. You'd probably think I'd say Perpep and her culler, but thats narratively interesting to me. Uhhh I guess she would be really bad with Alpha Detheo. Like they wouldn't mix at all and their preconceptions about the other would clash so bad i think they might just kind of avoid eachother a little bit. Curiosity on both sides, with fear twinging Perpep's and logical guilt on Detheo's. Logical guilt being like... not guilt guilt but like. Ah a version of me hurt this person in a very sick way. This has added a level of morality to my self image that is troubling and I will have to consider deeply what went wrong in my other life to ensure something like that does not happen in this one. Also I should stay away from Perpep because she definitely doesn't want any more Detheo in her life. (Not entirely wrong on that last count but not right either)

random headcanon Perpep is the cuddliest motherfucker on the planet. During her session, about from the Entering when she loses track of Cinimon to her death during the Among Us conference between her, Miyers, Respit, and Sphinx, she's really fucking nervous and crabby because of touch starvation. Thats actually part of why she throws so much shade during that little meeting. She's not got a lot of emotional skill, so when she feels negatively, those emotions leech into her other emotions like dye in water. She has a hard time distinguishing between different stressors almost. Like if her emotional state was a body, and her stress was caused by a horsefly biting her on one side, she would project the same anger in every direction. She's new to this, yk.

unpopular opinion uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh My unpopular opinion is you should go on her blog and look at the posts under #captures and appreciate those drawings :-)

song i associate with them Ohoho. Hold on let me get the Perpeplaylist Taroko by August Greenwood Death by Melanie Martinez New Normal by Jack Stauber Boys Will Be Bugs by Cavetown I Can Talk by Two Door Cinema Club Otherside by the Red Hot Chilipeppers Sports by Beach Bunny (Voiceclaim also) Wreckingball specifically the cover by The Orion Experience In that order. LMK if you have any guesses on how her timeline fits to those. I feel like its pretty obvious but I am also the writer so yk.

favorite picture of them

This is stil the funniest thing ive ever drawn i think. She flashbanged herself poor fishie.

This one which is still way detailed. Im kinda sad no one ever asked about the collar, to get a closer look at the picture, the bullet, the rook, the tiny grub hons, the necklaces, the bident, or . any of that. I also planned to have it be more obvious that those are *somati's* clothes. If you look in captures you'll see his dad's dead body. Thats where she got the sgrub disks. College and Exec disorder got in the way of the pictures of Snapdad i planned for Somati to post... I might end up redoing that though. Shrug.

And obviously this picture from her postgame band on Continua. LOOK At her. she is such a sweetie.

[dreameasel]

* / The Family History : Immediate

Vinc.ent Tho.rpe (43. Le.e Pace) and Harl.ow Spa.lding (34. Mai.ka Monr.oe) are the divorced and very estranged parents of Xavi.er Tho.rpe.

A write up about Xavier's parents I originally did months ago on a personal blog of mine which i've only lightly edited. Because I'm not a supervillain it's all under the cut.

Harlow is in the nebulous place between the Othered/Paranormal entity community and normal society as her psychic abilities aren’t something she was born with. Harlow drowned in the family pool when she was about 2 years old and ever since has been able to see and communicate with the dead and other entities. Because she’s not born with it or from an supernatural family if she’s considered an one of them or not varies on the opinions of other people — and some just think she’s flat out crazy. The real issue however is that she’s basically a big neon sign to the other side and came from a family with no knowledge or experience with the occult so her life has been extremely hard. She and her family had to learn magic and about the occult the hard way and quickly to try and keep her safe.

Fresh off killing her first boyfriend who turned out to be a serial killer trying to use her as a human sacrifice because of her abilities, Harlow (18) met Vincent (27) when he was hired by the parents of a rich girl she went to school with to help with a paranormal problem. The rich girl had previously asked Harlow to stick around the house with her because of the things going on in there and despite not even liking the girl Harlow agreed on principle. The family had actually hired several famous/well respected paranormal investigators/psychics/etc to deal with the issue at that time but only Vincent and Harlow ended up being real/up to the challenge. While he’d initially dismissed her by the end of the conflict with the demon Vincent came to respect her and offered to take her under his wing. 

What was supposed to be a mentorship turned into an affair and Xavier was born. They got married but over time the marriage became strained. Harlow, now more mature and more aware of what she wanted from life wanted to pursue things that didn’t align with what Vincent wanted/was doing (wow big shocker ). Adding strain to that was how she was increasingly mentally unstable and completely untreated for her mental illness and Vincent's solution to conflict is avoidance. Which meant she didn't get treatment and her behavior got worse while he spent less time with her and their son.

Eventually it came to a head when Xavier was 7 and the two separated and began going through a VERY messy divorce. Harlow fought tooth and nail for 3 years but Vincent just simply had more cash and firepower on his side and she basically lost all custody of Xavier. Her decision to take on dangerous cases regardless of if she got any payment along with her troubled mental health history had been the final nail in the coffin had Vincent put her in. She was left broke, unable to spend really any time with her son and was publicly trashed in the tabloids.

Harlow now works as a traveling medium/exorcist/paranormal investigator type trying to help people who are dealing with things similar to the horrors she had to deal with as a kid. She and Xavier talk frequently via facetime/text/etc as she always tries to make time for him even when she’s busy on a job. She’s always been extremely supportive of him and his interests and very encouraging. She does everything she can to make sure he knows she loves him. Harlow has two full sleeves of tattoos that run from her fingers all the way up onto her shoulders where they then meet in a collar of neck tattoos. some of the tattoos are magical and for protection. Some were designed by Xavier which yes, she does brag about.

Harlow is actually a pretty good-natured but rough person. She likes alt rock and heavy metal and that whole end of things. She’s got like, “the teacher who’ll let you fuck off in class and leaves in the middle of a lesson for a smoke break” kinda energy. She lives out of a van and is basically out here like “man, who am i to judge?”. She’s also extremely safety conscious and ready for a fight 24/7.

Vincent on the other hand is someone who’s very in his own head which is what’s ended up causing so much strife for his family. He’s driven, ambitious and determined. Intentionally or not he’s very self-centered. He does love Xavier and part of why the divorce was so bitter was because he still loved Harlow and felt betrayed by it. He just you know… kinda fucking sucks and is focused on his career and doesn’t get that people like, can’t fucking read his mind and know he cares about them. and he can't read theirs and know they don’t want to live to begging for his attention. He consistently puts his work and networking ahead of his loved ones and despite the fact that he and Xavier have an intrinsic affinity because of their similar abilities the two interacting is like alien communication. Vincent has been so removed from Xavier’s life that he doesn’t even realize 90% of the time that he doesn’t know who his son actually is.

Vincent is the kind of seer who’s just so suck in the shit he’s seeing in his visions that he doesn’t really look at the present much. He’s always been a fairly introverted/internal person which has only gotten worse with time. He keeps thinking that things can wait, or he’ll have time later for personal things but then years go by without him really registering. Xavier getting assaulted and then a year later arrested and accused of murder has been big wake up calls for him but he has no fucking clue what he’s doing here. He has no idea how to talk to Xavier about it or what he should be doing about any of it and sadly his first thought is always how to do damage control for their image and not you know, how his son is. he is like, literally Cat’s in the Cradle by Cat Stevens in human form it’s very embarrassing of him.

Character inspo for Harlow: the kid from 6th Sense, every horror movie protag some demon is trying to possess or murder, John/Johanna Constantine and Sidney from Scream.

Character inspo for Vincent: Cat’s in the Cradle by Cat Stevens. literally anything I’ve ever learned about workaholic/rich/celebrity parents or famous psychics.

[seriously-mike]

So You Want To Use AI-Generated Images Commercially?

Fuck off. And keep fucking off until you're out of my sight. Not because of any moral issues, but because whatever the marketing goons tried to sell you, they're ripping you off and bullshitting you with a straight face.

First, the generators, despite being merely large-scale statistical models, have no concept of consistency. The level of human interference into generation process to keep everything consistent between images is large enough at the general level to have you hire an actual artist who will do it by hand instead. At specific level, it's outright hopeless.

I saw a good example in a Facebook reel today. Some goth chick fed the frames from a five-second video of her getting up and walking towards the camera into an image generator with what I assume is the same prompt and the result was a jittery mess with details being drawn completely differently every frame, even despite the Image-To-Image process trying to stick to the original concept at least a little bit.

Another one was a guy trying to have the generator draw the portraits of four public personalities: Ralph Baer, Shigeru Miyamoto, Andrzej Sapkowski and a fourth guy I forgot. Not just every one was in a different style, but Miyamoto's likeness went off the rails like an absolute motherfuck. It added some twenty years on top of his current age and made him barely recognizable, if that.

Second, time spent on refining the prompts, yanking the lever and binning failed attempts is time wasted. Particularly to those even dumber than you who have no idea how the entire shitshow works, but demand Results (With A Capital R) in less time than required to load the model and run a render with enough steps to get something barely convincing. Look, even I don't exactly know how it works beyond mathemagics and fairy dust.

Third, 3/4s of what you read about image generators online is complete horseshit. That includes positive and negative prompts. If you know how the original datasets were built (read: a web crawled bot scraped images and their alt texts off Google Images and made them into a database), it becomes obvious. A lot of folks bang terms like "4k photoshopped trending on artstation" into positive prompts like fucking apes, thinking it will yield results - it won't. Particularly thanks to the nature of alt-text, which is widely used by screen readers for visually impaired people, so it needs to be short, sensible and to the point. And negative prompts are magical thinking as well. Realize this: when the datasets were built, they did not include any of the typical AI-generated fuckups like distorted torsos, too many limbs etcetera. This becomes obvious when you get the thing you explicitly asked the generator to avoid over and over again. And finally, you need to remember that StableDiffusion asking you to set the image dimensions as multiplies of 64 is there for a Reason. The Reason being, 64 by 64 pixels is the smallest area the model can render, and even then it's often a part of a larger element described in general terms.

Fourth, online generators themselves are a scam, more or less. Some defend themselves by having their own, custom-built datasets, like Leonardo AI - these guys dared to build a Stable Diffusion 2.1 datasets when everyone else sticks to 1.5 version. Others, like mage.space, are bullshitting you - when I went through the list of the generators they want you to pay ten bucks a month for, I found nothing but stuff available for free on HuggingFace and CivitAI, based on SD1.5. Half of them I already had downloaded. Not to mention, online generators usually don't have the fancy plugins you can use with your local machine install (I do know that LeonardoAI lets you use ControlNets, and that shit is next-level even despite the general wonkiness described above). That, of course, is true for StableDiffusion, but Dall-E is just as shit and Midjourney might do a couple of things better, but it still wipes out in a good few areas.

Image generators are good only for memes, shitposts and Tijuana bibles. And you'd need a special kind of schmuck to pay for any of those.

[the-ghost-king]

Will Solace Headcanon's because I think too much:

Nobody asked for these, but you can have them anyhow, because Will is soft and I want to talk about him

This boy was absolutely obsessed with the Barbie movies as a kid, like obsessed. His favorite was probably Princess and the Pauper, or one of the mermaid ones.

He also definitely had a Monster High phase, I don't take criticism (his favorite was probably Vipierina or Sirena- I probably spelt those wrong)

(Maybe an Ever After High phase too... But that was probably towards the end of his doll phase)

He was totally into Victorious, Big Time Rush, and all the other "classics"

He had a pair of bright pink cowboy boots that he wore all the time (Texas, am I right?)

Something like this (I don't take criticism it's canon now):

The second pair of shoes might look funny because I edited a picture of my boots, but that's something similar to what I mean by "rainbow boots".... Maybe a little bolder though, leather colors instead of just stitching.

He wore those shoes everywhere until he was like 7/8 and he basically refused to wear any other shoes- Naomi bought some duplicate pairs in bigger sizes

When he finally did outgrow them/start wearing other shoes, Naomi bought him a pair of rainbow ones as a replacement (because rainbow boots are cool damn it)

He didn't (and still doesn't) hardly eat any sugar, he likes sweet things but he always feels really tired after so he just doesn't eat them all that often (Strawberry Ice cream will always get him though)

He got his ears pierced for his kindergarten graduation, just little pink studs (because I hc him as being born in October)

His mom tried to talk him out of getting both his ears pierced, but Will wanted it done that way so she relented- it looks really nice though so she didn't regret giving in

Will doesn't like dangling earrings because he doesn't like how they feel when he moves his head, so he mostly just wears studs/posts, and small hoops

You will get him to wear dangling earrings if they're something odd

Will has a whole collection of really nice earrings and another collection of crazy ones, like hamburgers and fries or tiny ranch bottles

Will has some weird affiliations with shoes

To start off he absolutely hates shoes (like Dante Quintana level of hatred for most shoes)

But when Will does find a pair of shoes he likes and will actually wear they're usually obnoxious in some manner

For example, his bright cowboy boots

He also enjoys shoes like Crocs, slides, Birkenstocks, Vans (because he's bi/pan/omni), and the bulky white Fila shoes

Will is basically a VSCO girl, full stop 🐢

(He buys those Shelly Cove shirts, Ella Elephant, and the Whale ones too- idk the names)

He has friendship bracelets on his wrists all the time, he doesn't really wear expensive jewelry (except for his earrings and later his wedding ring) but he values the braided thread bracelets just as much

He takes them off when he's in the infirmary because they're a hygiene/safety concern and he doesn't want them ruined

He'd wear oversized shirts but he's a little tall so he struggles to find anything that fits him big

(I personally hc him to be like 6"2-8 but to each their own; if you don't understand my Americaness then 182-207cm)

He wears those sweater crop tops that all the tik tok gays have? They wear them with sweatpants and bulky white tennis shoes...

These:

(I struggled to find an "appropriate" picture, but similar to this)

He overheats a lot (he's basically a human furnace) and he likes them because they keep him cool~

(He's definitely cut off old T-shirts from camp/bands/vacations into crop tops too once they start getting a bit older- he probably cuts off old hoodies too)

Flower Crowns ✨

He is really good at making them, he did it a lot as a kid (him and all his friends would make necklaces/bracelets with wildflowers/weeds on the playground) so he does it at camp too

Will is "best friends" with everyone, even the Nymphs who don't usually like most of the campers welcome him excitedly

Will doesn't understand why people at camp like him so much, but who wouldn't want an extremely nice southern medic to take care of them?

Also Will is like, genuinely soft

He's a Patroclus type character- just genuinely good at heart in all ways

That's a quality hard to find in a lot of demigods, especially those that are battle tested, but Will is just so unapologetically kind

(The fact that he's attractive definitely adds to his likeability )

He's not model level attractive but he's still a 10, he's "girl next door" kind of pretty (like a male version of Penny from Big Bang Theory or similar)

He probably gets a 7w6 on the enneagram test (he definitely has 8 wing access though, he just leans 6)

(Nico is totally a 6w7, fight me)

Will usually ends up the leader in a lot of different situations, he's mature, intelligent and respected so people usually just naturally follow his lead

He doesn't usually trust other people to be in control of a situation because he doesn't think they're considerate enough to the situation, and because of this he finds them unfair

If Nico or Clarisse is around he usually steps down and let's them handle the situation 100% because he trusts them full heartedly

If Will gives leadership to you in any way that's how you know he trusts you- most people he gives trust to situationally, like the 7 and Reyna

(Part 1/?) I definitely have more to say/add to this but I'll stop here for now because it's lengthy!

(All the pictures do have a alt text added)

[into-the-afterlife]

Saw that other anon and your response and I wanna say, just imo, the “not my type” line and all the debate between shippers and antis over it is so silly to me. First off, the dialogue is literally missable. Both me and my sister chose “think I’m dyin’” or wherever it was- so we didn’t even know about it until we saw it online. If it’s missable, it’s not important. Secondly, you can essentially make female V Alt’s twin. It’s actually insane. And I’m sure you could make her resemble Rogue if you try hard enough. Thirdly, even if you don’t make her look like them- odds are she’s still a super hot girl lol and like....don’t tell me that’s not Johnny’s type. Fourth- that line was 100% added to throw off the emotionally constipated cishet men who would panic if they thought for even a second that there was a man who potentially thought they were cute stuck in their heads. And lastly- like y’all said- CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS. I can’t imagine taking every line in a piece of fiction at face value. Blows my mind that some people do. Humans are complex, so a good fictional character is going to be as well. At this rate, anyone who uses that one line as an argument against SilverV needs to quit being so stubborn lol. Thas just me tho 🤷🏻‍♀️

I’ve been thinking for a bit about how to respond to this, and I’d like to say this:

For me, fandom is a sandbox. What that means is that I don’t tend to engage with fandom fights (tbh, this ask is the first I’d heard of shipping wars in the Cyberpunk fandom), and that I don’t look for the text to provide objective facts. That doesn’t mean I don’t argue and analyse my case for headcanons. I’m writing an entire essay series on one ship, after all. But I don’t need my ships to be confirmed by creators, and I don’t treat ships as the One and Only Ship That Can Ever Happen. I’ve focused a lot on Johnny/V on this blog so far, but I also absolutely adore Judy/V, Takemura/V is hot as hell and Kerry/V has really grown on me since getting into the Cyberpunk Tumblr fandom.

I want to say this because – and feel free to correct me if I’m wrong – this ask feels like it’s trying to get me to take sides in a fight, not join a debate for fun in my free time. But assuming this is an invitation to a friendly debate, here’s my opinions on what you’ve said. Opinions, not signals that I’m joining a fandom fight.

I am...unsure about whether missable dialogue in a game can be considered important or not. Most of the dialogue in the game is technically missable, after all, and yet I’d consider it important. This feels rooted in a larger debate about storytelling in games vs non-interactive forms of media, one that would likely require its own essay to go into properly.  Your point about making V look like Rogue or Alt feels similar. So I’ll leave those be for now.

I definitely agree with you about hot = Johnny’s type, though. Tbh, anything on legs is probably Johnny’s type xD

I also agree with you that that line feels...tacked on, hurriedly added to dissuade a romantic reading of Johnny and V’s relationship. It’s clear that the writers know how to write a friendship between Just Two Chooms. Jackie/V shippers exist, but they seem much rarer than other shippers, and I personally can’t read them as anything other than friends. So it doesn’t seem like a slip-up for that line to feel out of place so much as a mandate.

I don’t think ‘emotionally constipated cishet men’ are the root of that line though. I know a lot of Cishet Male Gamers (TM) in real life. And 99% of them wouldn’t have a problem with an M/M romance arc in a game. I think it’s much more likely that the marketing department’s idea of what cishet men wanted was the source of that line, rather than actual, factual cishet men’s opinions or the dev team’s prejudices. After all, they do have a canonical M/M romance arc in-game.

And to round off, I will say that it was only a single commenter on the essay who said that about the line. Everyone else who’s commented across Tumblr, Reddit and AO3 have engaged in good faith.

[megamikethomson]

SOHBA DIGITAL MARKETING COMPANY

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Here’s how we see it – there is an ‘On-line Sales Funnel’ that looks much like the image below.  Most people who have a Website in Small Business are starting to realize that they don’t automatically get found on the Internet and need to take action to get more Customers on-line.  Some have started with Search Engine Marketing and some are dabbling in Social Media but not that effectively.  Our goal here is to do the following:-

Create an effective On-line Sales Funnel that works best for your Small Business We want to have you everywhere that your Customer looks, if your Customer has a preference for Facebook then you need to be there, if others have a preference for YouTube then you need to be there. And here’s our points of difference – we don’t just drive relevant traffic to your site BUT we also look at how to turn that Client into a lead and Into an actual converted Customer. Online Sales Funnel3 So here’s the FIRST STEP TO TAKE…

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This is where all companies start so they can be found organically in the Google Charts (if they haven’t already had this done). It falls into the Search Engine Optimization category where your site is optimized to ensure you are indexed correctly in the Search Engines/Directories.  There are a number of rules and regulations that Google/Yahoo, etc have that need to be implemented in order for your site to be found.  Gone are the days where you could just enter 25 Keywords into the back-end code and be done with it.  Now you need to keep everyone happy and it’s hard work a) getting you the top then b) keeping you there!  But this is where the beginning of the journey.

3.1) Keyword Search

This is where a search is run in Google Keywords so it can be ascertained as to what exact Keywords and Phrases are being typed into the Search Engines so we are not guessing what your Customers are typing in.  This is very useful to help you select a good Web Name to purchase (if you don’t already have one) and to determine what top Keywords and Phrases need to be implemented to your Website.  You will be provided with a report with the relevant recommendations.

3.2) One-Off Search Engine Optimisation Campaign

Once the Keyword Search has been conducted and your top 25 Keywords/Phrases have been selected they will be implemented correctly to your Website.  The following items would be covered:-

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This section varies according to your business you run.  Once your business has been assessed recommendations are made for which Social Media Channels to tap in order to be most effective.  For example an Accommodation Provider typically use Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google+, Pinterest and Trip Advisor – a Coaching company could use Facebook,  Blog, YouTube, LinkedIn and maybe even Twitter.  No matter what some steps are better than none!

By doing the ‘Get Started’ step will cover the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Social Media Setups of Points 1 and 2 of the Sales Funnel.

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Go to the – ‘seo company in pakistan’ Page to see how feasible it is to get your Small Business off the ground

>>To Maintain?

So once you have your Website up and implemented the SEO and Social Media Setups you now shift into the Maintenance Phase of the Small Business On-line Marketing Cycle.

There are a number of ways this can be tackled as Google now wants the most relevant searches as possible for their browsers, as quickly as possible.  To achieve this some/all of the strategies can be implemented to your On-line Digital Marketing Campaign:-

Create other Social Media/On-line setups after the key one’s have been addressed – eg a Blog, etc Google Adwords/Facebook Adverstising can be setup on your behalf (we also have free vouchers for those who wish to try it out) and we provide a small report on performance with recommended edits each month We create specific targeted and relevant Social Media Campaign messages (not stuff about how your staff member is off to buy a burger!) that are positioned correctly over a set amount of months and work in tandem with your off-line marketing so they work hand-in-hand together Results can be tested and measured so after a period of time so we can make the necessary adjustments and improve your results. This covers the ‘Search Engine Marketing (SEM)’ and ‘Social Media’ sections in more depth of the first and second points of the On-line Sales Funnel.

Online Sales Funnel2

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It doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg to do this – we understand Small Businesses do not have a lot of cash to throw around.  Take a look at feasible it is, go to the ‘seo digital marketing agency’ Page

>> To Get Serious?

So this is where you start taking your position on-line seriously.  You realize there is huge potential custom you are missing out on and you want to close up that gap as quickly as possible.  This is the phase where we address points 3 – 6 of the On-line Sales Funnel:-

Online Sales Funnel3

We look at ways to improve the buying experience for your Customers on-line If you are interested we can implement software that can track where your Customers are looking (called ‘Hotspotting’) so we can ascertain where the best places are to place your ads/products We can implement some software that will record the shopping route of your customers so we can see exactly at which point they are abandoning cart/not contacting you We analyze what most other companies do not – exactly why most visitors coming to your site and not buying and how to change that More advanced Google Advertising techniques are used – eg Re-marketing (you can show Google Ads to customers who have left your site to go and look at your competitor websites) We look at implementing specific Landing Pages with New Lead Generation Forms on to track specific deals and test and measure results It’s encouraged that New Lead Forms are integrated into your current Website that feeds into one of our recommended Customer Relationship Management Programs We devise and can implement an ‘Up-sell Sequence’ (branded emails that promote specific messages/products to your existing Client base) – so many people work very hard to get new customers but the current Client base is the easiest way to get new business as they are alreay converted Customers. We also look at advanced strategies to enhance your on-line digital presence to increase your catchment area. Recommended Time Per Week – 2 – 5 Hours

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>> To Get Super Serious?

Normally you will be reading this page if you have already conducted the first 3 Phases of the Small Business On-line Digital Marketing Cycle. ie got ‘Started’, done ‘Maintenance’, moved into the ‘Serious’ phase and now into the ‘Super Serious Phase’ or you are a larger Company looking for Advanced Strategies and Tactics to take your Competitors head-on.

This is for the Serious Players where:-

We cover any areas in Phases 1/2/3 that have not yet be covered to date (any missing SEO/SEM/Social Media/Planning) and implement it An in-depth Competitor Analysis Report can be conducted with a view to find out what your Competitors are doing so you can match it and do better We look at ways to significantly increase your numbers to your sites ideally with a dedicated marketing budget that can cover both Google and Facebook Advertsing If you have a Blog (and if you don’t have one this can be created for you) we look at writing Keyword Enriched Articles with auto-feed to your Website We conduct Article Submissions to sites such as Squidoo, Ezine Articles, etc Guest Blogging tactics Specific Social Media Campaign developments – eg Pinterest Pin Board Competitions, etc. A number of specific ‘Landing Pages’ with different offers all integrated into a Customer Relationship Management System can be created We actively seek Client Reviews (one of Google’s new ‘musts’ for being found) Mobile Website creation (if not already in place) and tactics implemented Strategies to further Engage Facebook and Google+ Fans (another new adjustment to Google’s requirements to being found) Quality backlinking strategies implemented Email write-ups and cross-sell tactics created Vlogs (Video Blogs) Plogs (Phone Blogs) Video Marketing Mobile Marketing and Viral Marketing Strategies. These are just a few of the items that are covered.  Rest assured that each month someone is working to get you on top of the game on-line.

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Enjoy

[dradelcra]

What the hell is in HJ-7???

(or possibly as close as an amateur can get)(Re-Upload)

(pt 1, because figuring fictional science is actually hard)

I apologize, this was originally colour coded for easier reading but adding the ‘keep reading tab’ only exists on the laptop and it neutralizes the lovely colours. I had highlighted important elements, chemicals and sections of the chemical’s reaction.

Nonsense below:

Now we already know that this chemical concoction is practically a thing of magic. Now whatever the heck that salt Dr. Jekyll was using is surely important because it’s state of purity is what makes or breaks the man.

Salts, in chemistry, are electrically neutral ionic compounds of oppositely charged ions. What does that mean? Opposites do attract (or in this case ying and yang it out). That probs explains why the salt ingredient is so important (lmao, cause y'know hyde (-) and jekyll (+). Anyways, we aren’t on that rn. We are on chemistry not philosophy.

There are a bunch of ‘white’ salts (irl), and since Robert (author) himself doesn’t know how the 'potion’ worked, we can assume that it’s something of some fiction monstrosity of something that actually exists. Might just be table salt.

Sorry, just had to pause this to say that, in my curse of events:

EVEN IN FICTIONS SOMETHING EITHER HAPPENS BEFORE OR AFTER MY DAY OF BIRTH. IT’S A CURSE I AM TELLING YOU!

Anyways, back to the analysis (i will be saying this often because this is being typed with my train of thought).

The thing that all salts have in common, is as I forementioned, the opposite ions (+ and -) which cancel each other,making it neutral and that it occurs in a solid state. (bookmark this because we’ll be needing her later in the text).

There are also some powders and a phial- i don’t major in chemistry, what the hell is a phial?

Ah okay, so you have the audacity to make me feel dumb by using alt names but can’t name your chemicals, huh ROBERT??

wait, phial glass? Is that how it’s spelt? I always heard the term but-

Anyways,

HJ-7 consists of phosphorus at least, being mixed with other contents, causing it to be red and pungent (Please note that phosphorus can be naturally (or as natural as it can get through heating) red.

Also (if it is red phosphorus):

This shit is not made for human consumption, no wonder Jekyll felt like he was dying.

It typically doesn’t dissolve in most liquids. It does, however, combine with halogens…

But, when we go further in text to 'colour change’, then it likely isn’t red phosphorus.

Phosphorus, also comes in a purple form (known as scarlet/violet phosphorus) but that’s derived from white phosphorus dissolved in carbon disulfide (and low-key being evaporated by the sun), but here Hyde jumps straight from a red liquid to a violet one.

That could possibly mean white phosphorus was in the red liquid, and was possibly mixed with carbon disulfide (and something to simulate the radiation of solar energy) to turn it purple. (being generous and assuming that the mixture changed because of phosphorus being the main element and not something else).

Crystals, I’m guessing refers to the salt, brightened the red mixture and caused witchy bubbly (effervescence).

Me: Proceeds to low-key cry.

I should also mention that carbon disulfide (contaminated with impurites, which is basically whatever isn’t it) gives off a foul-odur, or how you say pungent.

Bubbly or effervescence, presented in the text, is usually due to a chemical reaction producing oxygen (as far as I know).

Okay, bringing back the salt tab. I think it may be Sodium Bisulfate, one, because it’s chemical formula contains oxygen (NaHSO4), two, it is white, three, it is formed by partial neutralization of sulfuric acid by a sodium base (yes table salt can be used), and four, it is a stable and dry granular (crystal) product, thereby fitting the description of the white salt Jekyll used.

Now, why did I highlight neutralization? Because it can go wrong. (If I’m right, purity means that it’s the chemical compound of the item alone with no other additives, so say if my sodium bisulfate somehow had remains of sodium chloride during the neutralization process, then it is deemed impure).

The oxygen within the formula could possibly be released when reacting with the red phosphorus mixture, causing the effervescence, because when phosphorus reacts with oxygen it literally catches fire.

Hey, bubbles!

OH FUCK

REMEMBER THE CHEMICAL CHANGE I SPOKE OF EARLIER THAT NEEDED RADIATION.

GUESS WHAT ALSO RADIATES HEAT!!!!

FIREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

and being supposedly compressed in a small phial (because who needs lab safety), small, whatever consistency this thing is right now, slosh would heat up rather quickly. Dare I say, very hot.

Okay, turns out Dr. Jekyll likely used a Bunsen burner instead of relying on chemical reactions to explode heat the elements. Good to know, wish Lanyon mentioned that. Forget what I said about the fire.

Please note: Phosphorus glows this colour (green).

Another addition: How do we combine the Phosphorus, remember that I said it dissolves in?

That’s right, Halogens.

And you know what’s a halogen? Bromine.

WHAT COLOUR IS BROMINE?????

FUCKING

RED

(blood-red even)

But, now we have a problem.

I don’t entirely know how everything reacts with everything but I do know this: white phosphorus+bromine makes phosphorus bromide…

and that’s clear…as in clear in colour.

At least it fumes that fits a description.

I should also mention that Phosphorus reacts a bit…explosively…with it’s solvents and sadly, it does not fit the description of Jekyll’s calm and cool sliquid (solid-liquid) creation.

Unless, boil and smoke meant, sort of blew up lab, but I survived and it’s okay.

And also, it turns out that sodium bisulfate removes halogens…yeah, our phosphorus dissolvent.

DAMNIT, IT’S FALLING APART!

So close…why couldn’t the real life chemicals react similar to the fictional unnamed chemicals??

Sadly, i’m not a quitter.

Bruh

It explodes with everythinnnnggggg!!!!

Now I know how Dr. Jekyll felt…

Alright,

slight good news.

if Jekyll somehow is able to slowly add bromine to phosphorus bromide (which violently reacted before) in an environment of 0°C followed by a slow addition of water then it shouldn’t explode and becomes phosphoryl bromide.

This is pale orange and reacts with carbon disulfide, but we aren’t doing that yet.

Slapping more water on it’s liquid form turns it into Phosphoric acid and hydrobromic acid.

Now, you may be asking…

You just wasted my time, why didn’t you just start with Phosphoric acid???

Well to be fair…it hadn’t occured to me and-

“Phosphorus is an essential part of life. When combined with oxygen to make phosphates, it holds our DNA together, makes our bones strong and carries out fundamental chemical reactions within our cells” - The Guardian

So logically…I started with it.

Alright, so Phosphorus is therefore very important in doing it’s Hyde thing.

We have (white phosphorus + bromine; assuming, pre-made outside with proper fire safety) Phosphoric acid + carbon disulfide*  + ???? (red liquid) + sodium bisulfate (our salt) + heat= ????.

*I’m taking out carbon disulfide because our Phosphorus is now Phosphoric acid and we don’t need it. It will also kill if they are combined.

-End of Day 1-

Status: Failed

(What do you guys think will work? I’ll wait a bit before starting Day 2 to hear your responses).

(I’m thinking Phosphoric acid and Potassium Hydroxide since it has both phosphorus and becomes a red liquid. We can also bring back carbon disulfide if we do).

[bladekindeyewear]

HS^2 bloggin’ mainline 2020-05-19

Figured an upd8 was coming, it’s felt like enough time has passed for one.

Huh, looking at my last post I’d completely forgotten I was supposed to play through Pesterquest sometime... work is busy and stressing me out a bit, I’m not sure when I’ll have the energy on the side to do that.  (Maybe I’ll livetweet it like I did Undertale a while ago, but this time not looking at my twitter replies so I don’t get spoiled by One Guy™?)

Also, including bonus commentary on A Threat Sensed.

Okay, going in completely blind.  I’d guessed from context that we’re hopping over to Meat side to get a chapter there before we can come back to actually see Yiffy?

Yep.  Okay, what is this about exactly?

(Agh, dammit, I’ve been copying and pasting so much at work remoting into Windows lately that now I’m automatically trying to hit control-C instead of command-C to copy.)

> CHAPTER 9. How Goes The Eulogizing, Dear?

CONTENT NOTE: This chapter contains Child Abuse.

Which one???

Wait

JANE: (Where is he?) JANE: (It's a question I've found myself asking many times in recent days.)

Holy SHIT we get two Candy chapters in a row???  So we might see her right away??  No, it’s gotta just be another tiny glimpse.

(Has two Candy chapters in a row happened before?  Future Boots, scroll back up and put this here. FUTURE BOOTS: “I forgot to scroll back up and put that here.” EDIT: Also, not the first time with two in a row, but it IS the first time with THREE in a row, huh.)

So Jane has to be talking about either Tavros or Dave.  --Oh, if this was a Candy Side chapter title, I guess Rose or Jade is eulogizing Dave for John?

> (==>)

JANE: (Where now is our merry savior?) JANE: (Where is the horn that was honking?) JANE: (Where is the cape and the codpiece, and the...) JANE: (The...) JANE: (Oh, fiddlesticks.)

What?  Is she reading a childrens’ book?  --Oh.  She’s eulogizing Gamzee.  So that gives us a third option, where the rebellion crashes the funeral somehow, probably audiovisually rather than in person.  (Which would make sense, given Candy practically began with Gamzee crashing Dirk’s funeral.)

> (==>)

Ah never mind, she’s still writing it.

That sure is a single button drama-remote that’s going to be pressed at some point.  Oh, and who the fuck keeps a spork in a pen cup???  --No no, don’t say it’s one of those pens with a spork at the eraser end, either ready-made or rubber-banded to the side.  That would make sense.  You totally know it isn’t that and is just a spork.

JANE: (Okay, poetry is out.) JANE: (What else?) JANE: (Hrm...) JANE: (I've always been pretty good at crying on cue.) JANE: (Could I try staging an emotional breakdown?) JANE: (That could work; playing to people's humanity.)

Why were you crying in Jake’s arms about his death if you didn’t care that much?  Did you just want him to hold you and kinda make him feel in on things again?  Or did you just cry yourself out about him?

JANE: (Or whatever is the more inclusive term.)

I bet the rest of Earth C figured out a more inclusive term millenia ago FUCK I accidentally added millennia to my dictionary misspelled instead of correcting it hold on--

...There, killed the entry for it.  ...Huh.  Take a look at my Chrome dictionary’s custom-added words over the years, apparently:

Caliborn Eridan Kanaya Matriorb Meenah Tavros alchemiter dichotomic nephilim reblogged uncaptchalogues uncaptchaloguing

That’s fun.

Okay back to reading. Millennia.  Phew!  Where was I.

JANE: (One really good and calculated weep could do it, I think.) JANE: (But then there's the danger that I might get carried away and do it for real.) JANE: (And I can't risk that.)

So still feeling something, just too used to calculating over the past years.

JANE: (What can I say about him that will stir up their emotions?) JANE: (Do I mention the stuff about the milk?) JANE: (Think Crocker, think.)

WHY would you-- how much did Gamzee normalize adult breastfeeding?!

JAKE: Ahoy over there!

Not the best time.

(The thing with the divorce papers from the Epilogue and John implying he was planning with Jake to execute something that sounds like a divorce... is that going to be sprung here?  Did her lawyers send the divorce papers way back when she was in a fit of pique, and he just had them available to sign now at the tactical moment? Or... let me pull the exact text...)

JOHN: now, harry anderson, i know that you and tavros haven't always gotten along. JOHN: but i am going to have to ask you to try and look out for him for the time being. JOHN: your uncle jake and i... well, i'll explain later. JOHN: let's just say that gamzee isn't the only family member jane is losing today.

(So is John going to submit the papers? Or did they already go through a while ago and default custody to John or something who’s going to adopt him too or some nonsense?  And did he plan this out with Jake NOW, or a while ago, and if only a while ago, is Jake going to KNOW whatever John’s about to pull in that respect is about to happen??)

> (==>)

Butte

Janepalme

> (==>)

JAKE: Er... how goes the eulogizing, dear?

Gah.  I completely forgot again that capitalized-first-letter chapter names don’t mean KANAYA is saying them.  That probably makes a lot more sense out of my wondering about the chapter title earlier to those of you who didn’t realize I was making that mistake.

JANE: It turns out that it's mighty difficult to find touching things to say about a person, the relationship with whom was predicated on deep-seated mutual loathing.

Hah!

--A loathing you regarded as largely more important to you than Jake ever was, by the way.  You asshole.

JANE: I imagine this is one of the reasons no funerary tradition was ever established on Alternia, besides the barbarism of their culture. DIRK: Jesus christ. JANE: Not only did a significant proportion of their interpersonality depend on romance in the form of hatred, but it was a society based on cruelty and violence. JANE: What reason could they have had to provide for the dead? JANE: What kind of last rites could they have even imagined?

I wondered for a moment why (bg!)Dirk of all people would react to a single line of her starting to bring up prejudices, but then I realized that (1) Brain Ghost Dirk is a little more Jakey, and (2) Dirk knew that more ranting would follow the first line.

JANE: I can't think of anything good to write about him because deep down, I hated his guts. JANE: But he was and is beloved of the multitude, so I have to think of something regardless. JAKE: Im not sure i understand. JANE: Don't worry your pretty little head about it. JANE: This is politics, Jakey. JANE: Lying through your two front teeth about people you hate is about as good a definition as it's possible to get. JANE: But, by gum, is it tiring work.

Mm.  It’s a position Jane put herself in, but it’s still a legitimate position once you’re there.

JANE: The funeral is tomorrow, after all.

Got it.

DIRK: Dude, the bowl. JAKE: Hm? JAKE: Oh, right. JANE: What is it now, Jake. JAKE: I brought something for our guest as well. JANE: You mean the prisoner. JAKE: Y...es.

Wait, bowl?

Oh god damnit which of you had the idea to feed her with a DOG BOWL.  Either of you could have thought of it, and either of you would be horrible for it.

> (==>)

Huh, that outfit on Yiffy looks familiar, like a reference to something.  And a black tail?  This definitely isn’t quite the look I was expecting from Jade Plus Rose, but I suppose the snazzy tie is a Roseish vibe.  Also reminiscent of Jade’s old Dead Shuffle dress.  Formal wear and soccer cleats??

JANE: She's over in the corner. JANE: Don't worry, she won't bite. JANE: I've seen to that already.

WHAT THE FUCK DOES THAT MEAN.  I don’t see anything over her mouth!  Did she stick something in it, or drug her?  File her fucking teeth???

I mean I did forget the Child Abuse trigger warning to be fair.  Hoping whatever would be on her mouth is just not shown in-panel yet for stylistic reasons.

> (==>)

JAKE: Its only mac and cheese, sorry. JAKE: Its all I know how to make, haha. JAKE: ... JAKE: I um... hope you can safely partake of cheese? JAKE: ... JAKE: Well, JAKE: Bon appetit.

How the fuck did Jake eat on his island then?  --Oh right, preserved food cans that Grandma Jade stored up, I think I remember.  Why would cheese not be a thing for them, if it’s fine for Jade?  I know he’s probably not just worried about lactose intolerance.

Either way, if she’s drugged here, that’ll mean we won’t get a good idea of her for a while, so which is it...

> (==>)

DIRK: Bon appetit. DIRK: Seriously dude? JAKE: (What? Did i pronounce it wrong?) DIRK: Jake. DIRK: You put the food in a fucking dog bowl. JAKE: (It was all there was, ok???) JAKE: (I feel awful enough as it is without you getting on my case about it.)

Ah, missed the bone pun.  AND, yeah, Jake, you’re a fucking idiot, you could have put it in a cup or something.

JAKE: (So far ive yet to see anything come of that brilliant plan of yours.) JAKE: (Are you sure sending that message to the others was enough?)

Okay, so he IS coordinating this slightly.

> (==>)

Horrifying image to contemplate, eh Jane?

Or anger-inducing?

> (==>)

Seems about right!

> (==>)

Oh that’s a GREAT exasperated Jane face.

JANE: I hope you're not expecting dessert, young lady.

I like how Jane didn’t notice, comment on, or care about the bowl.  How can you hate a kid so much??

> (==>)

Oh I know why I felt like I recognized the outfit style, it’s because it’s ANIME AS FUCK.  Feels like some Persona 4 Arena nonsense, and I say that not having played any of those games or even remembering what they looked like.  Also, white hair, black fur’d dog parts?  Nice change of pace.

YIFFY: GRRRRRRRRR... JANE: Oh no you don't.

Red text?  What color exactly... “#D00009”?  Huh.  That’s nowhere near Alt-Callie’s #FF0000, and darker than Dave’s #E00707.  In fact, let me go back and check those spilled color pins the commentary pointed out from an update or two ago...  no, the red pin is #E63225, closer to Dave’s color.  (Also, is Yiffy blocking the doorway out?  That’s a pretty slack chain then.)

Did Jane see to it that she wouldn’t bite with like, a water spray bottle?

(EDIT: Oh my FUCKING GOD, THAT's why it's #D00009...)

> (==>)

FUCK I didn’t notice the shock collar in the Yiffy image!  FUCK YOU, Jane.

> (==>)

Keeping someone in line with collars, especially ones that punish whenever one strays out of line, has always been a decent way for her to mix in some Doomy control of others to show how she’s “grown” to balance her main role and her Tiara-controlled-like inverse for more power.  Doom in part represents boundaries that you can’t cross without getting hurt or punished.

> (==>)

FUCK, those little buck teeth!?  D’:

JANE: That's more like it.

She HAS to have more of a reason for hating her than hating her parents, right?  Like, more than that and general racism applying to partdogfolk?

> (==>)

Hey fuck off with that!

> (==>)

This is a pretty cool ima-- are those piercings on her dog ear?  I didn’t notice that in the first shot, neat.

JANE: You've been a thorn in my side ever since I agreed to enroll you at the academy, little madam. JANE: Back then, I was doing a favor for two old friends who made a disgusting mistake. JANE: I'm no longer going to play nice with you just because of your parents, however. JANE: That truce is over. JANE: Do I make myself understood?

What the fuck?  WHY would you do that?  Why does Jane run "Ms. Paint’s Home for Inconvenient Girls”?  What did Yiffy do to piss her off so much there, how much trouble could she have caused?

I don’t know if she’s referring to the behind-Kanaya’s-back part as disgusting or she’s just being MORE racist.

> (==>)

JANE: We don't want you passing out during the ceremony, do we?

Oh, just showing the hostage off during the clown funeral, huh?  Classy much?

> (==>)

JANE: Now, be a good hostage and get some rest, Yiffany dear. JANE: We've got a big day tomorrow.

For a politician, Jane’s not good at looking at herself in a mirror.

> (==>)

JANE: Night night. JANE: Hoo hoo.

> (Yiffy: Lights out.)

Huh, dream stuff is gonna be relevant out in Candy then? *click*

Okay, dark background all of a sudden.  Properly dramatic?  You even have to highlight the non-link “>” part of the Next link to see it.

> (==>)

-- thespiansGlamor [TG] began pestering adamantGriftress [AG] --

Well, I don’t know WHY it’s happening, but the white-backed pesterlog suddenly on the dark site framing is certainly evocative.  Of like, a mood, or something.

TG: i thought he was pretty quiet down there. TG: we'll make a rebel of him yet! AG: Lol. AG: I think it's more that he can't sleep. AG: I know how he feels. TG: yeah. TG: today was a lot. AG: ... TG: do you wanna talk about it? AG: Ugh, not you as well.

It’s really jarring to transition between Homestuck’s “kids jarringly mentally resistant to freaking out about the end of the world” to HS^2′s more realistic “kids traumatized by their first firefight even though it was an overwhelming victory-escape”.

TG: but seriously, do you? AG: Not really. TG: not even about... you know? TG: her? AG: No. TG: ... are you sure? AG: A8solutely. AG: What are you, my moirail? AG: Just leave it, Harry. TG: ok.

Are they about to have an “I wonder what Yiffy’s like” talk?

> (==>)

Very similar Tav/Vrissy convo to the previous one.

GG: I havent ever shared a bedroom before,,, GG: Not even for a slumber party,,, AG: Tavvy, you are just a8out the saddest person I've ever met.

Well, we have an even better idea how horrible Jane can be with kids, now.  From Nanna to THIS is quite jarring.  I wonder how the double Nannasprites that must still be around here somewhere feel?

> (==>)

TG: nothing about my dad is cute. TG: what are you even saying. AG: Lmao. TG: seriously! TG: i think he has something against that word, even. he gets super weird about it. AG: He's a strange and funny m8n. TG: yeah. TG: ... TG: i think something bad must have happened.

...um.  What?  Why would John have some sort of trauma about the word cute or being called it?

Did John dress up as a hint of his buried June ambitions as a kid and Dad lavish him with “SO CUTE” praise in an epic supportiveness backfire that caused him to shelve the idea of wearing non-masc clothes and being happier on the flipside of gender ever again???  Because if that’s how June gets canonized as promised, it’s a little harsher than the back of my mind was hoping.  I guess it kind of had to be though from the premise of how it was read into his childhood for the original idea, though.  Fuck, I hope this Cute business is about something different from that (like a Terezi reference or such) just to get less John Sads.  (But still June.  Definitely still want to get June.)

> (==>)

Oh, and now Vrissy is doing nothing but talking about what she said she didn’t want to talk about, of course.  (Also I like how JANE’s now being called the Batterwitch.)

AG: And the worst part was they didn't even fight a8out it! AG: That made me madder than 8nything else. AG: It felt like I was the only person who even W8S mad! GG: I dont think thats true,,, AG: What would you know a8out it?! GG: Maybe nothing,,, GG: Sorry,,, GG: Its just,,, GG: To me,,, all the way through the conversation,,, aunt kanaya looked even angrier than you,,, AG: ... AG: Adults are so fucking weird.

Guh, I don’t want to be reminded how hurt a good chunk of the fanbase is by Kanaya getting hurt this badly.

Original Tavros was always SLIGHTLY perceptive of others sometimes, but maybe perceptiveness is being hinted at as a Tavros specialty?  We still don’t know his classpect/hero-title or have any firm guesses based on purely him evidence.  (Also, frightened kids of abusive households tend to learn to get perceptive pretty fucking quickly I hear.)

> (==>)

TG: dad was sitting in the cafeteria with aunt jade and your moms. TG: it looked like they were discussing something important... they were whispering and stuff.

[etc etc] Alright, the what-happened-to-Dave bit.  And I imagine they’re kind of helping John grieve there, since Rose and Jade have talked that out already.

TG: aunt kanaya's was the only face i could see. TG: she was standing next to them, but she wasn't looking at what was going on. TG: almost like she couldn't bear to. AG: I doubt it. Kanaya's got a8out as much Emotivity as a very reclusive stone. TG: ok, i think that is bullshit but whatever. TG: she saw me standing there, but didn't say anything. she just shook her head slightly, and pointed back out into the hallway i came down.

Yep, giving them some space to grieve.  Also-- gosh, shouldn’t Vrissy have the same emotive senses that Aranea implied Vriska shared with her?  Kanaya isn’t that EXPRESSIVE but she’s certainly full of emotion.  Also, I hope part of her not bearing to watch wasn’t lingering anger toward Jade and Rose mixing with that, but there probably was a bit of that too, though Dave being gone is so much harsher than that. --I just realized they might not have broken the news to Karkat yet, either.

AG: I guesadxcxzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz TG: vrissy?

Put to sleep by someone slumping down on your phone keypad, or surprised by something about the other conversation?

Oh shit, “other conversation” reminded me I didn’t look at Tavros’s chumhandle:

glutinousGymnast [GG]

HHHHHhhhhuh.  Hm... huh? hhhh.  huh?  what, but.  Why would.  ?????

I really don’t understand what that chumhandle or any of its entendres should signify in this context.

Also, this means for our new four kids we have TG, GG, AG, and ??.

> (==>)

GG: I think she might have succumbed to sleep quite suddenly,,, GG: It would explain the,,,,,, interesting messages I've been getting for a while,,, TG: hehe. TG: i guess that tracks. TG: she does that from time to time.

That’s... strange.  Homestuck’s taught us to be suspicious of that.

TG: ... TG: tav? GG: Yes,,, harry anderson,,,? TG: what does it feel like to know someone who's died?

Who is Harry referring to? (EDIT: Yes I know Gamzee for Tavros, but I meant Harry talks like he's worried he'll have to feel that way soon?)  Is he just kind of inferring that something bad might have happened to Uncle Dave?  Got that perceptive “parents are about to tell me about a death in the family” vibe?  Or did he overhear more than he let on to Vrissy?

...alright, that’s the last page of this update.  Looks like this chapter is going to continue to have a good bunch of grieving, or talk around it.

---

Now for Bonus Commentary for A Threat, Sensed.  For some reason I have a dim memory of like... reading this myself without commenting on it?  Or skimming it?  But I’m pretty sure I didn’t do that.  Weird.  Must have imagined doing it.

Ah, I think I saw the opening paragraph scrolling Patreon, and my mind kinda filled in the blanks, this is still looking new to me.

Okay, mostly banter and japes in the commentary here.  About Dirk “throwing a huge tantrum in his philosophy cave”.

We’ve had quite a bit of speculation on whether this is “really” Andrew. To that, I think we’d say that it doesn’t “really” matter.

Really?  That was speculated about?  :/

Here we discover that Dirk has not, as some people have speculated, been directly intervening into the Candy timeline, or influencing it in any way. In fact, he has a very hard time seeing anything going on there at all.

Mhmm, and that was a pretty important thing to learn.

A couple of years ago I might have agreed with the take that everything happening in Candy is simply too outlandish to ever happen naturally, without direct, villainous interference, but that was before literally every fucking batshit insane thing that has happened on Real Life Earth started going down, and now I will believe literally anything. 

This is a nice bit of distraction from the idea that at least the opening parts of the Candy story were written/narrated by Original, Alive Calliope over on meat side.  To refresh your memory of what was pointed out to me:

ROXY: back when jade first got all effed up callie saw somethin and it made them freak out ROXY: it took me weeks to convince them that it was safe to come home ROXY: but now we got the opposite problem and they arent leavin the house at all ROXY: they stay home all day with the blinds drawn paintin some weird ass shit on the walls TEREZI: WH4T? ROXY: its not as bad as it sounds i promise ROXY: some of it is like ROXY: weird and violent?? ROXY: like lotsa nasty purple blood and um ROXY: nudity???? TEREZI: >:? ROXY: yeah yikes ROXY: but MOST of it is cute stuff like... various combos of all of us being happy and gettin married and shit ROXY: anyway thats kept callie kinda busy

Which tracks with the initial out-of-character-seemingness of almost everyone at the start of Candy, and how they kind of tried to railroad things back onto the “Happy??” track after Dirk derailed it with his weird self-accumulation suicide, along with some of the flowery-idyllic descriptions of characters seeing each other bathed in a halo of light and such.

Of course, they’re not going to out-and-out STATE that Calliope was at fault for that narration, helping the Candy story not necessarily fall out the way it did “naturally”, until we finally get a glimpse of her on the heroes’ ship in Meat probably still painting the continuing Candy events, inspiring them into the void of the singularity with her latent powers.  Til then, it’s a bit of misdirection whenever the topic is to be brought up.  Along with a mix of Roxy’s late-Candy point to John of more or less “why COULDN’T we have done this naturally? you don’t know”.

He might even think that he has more direct power over the narrative than Hussie does himself. Surprise, motherfucker, you are a fictional character.��

:p

I’ll quote this next part in full:

There’s been talk of whether or not this bonus was written in the two days between its release and the Yiffy reveal chapter. The answer is--no. It was written over a month ago. But I think the things it addresses were not difficult to suss out. Obviously, Dirk is highlighting the issues that the readership are having with Yiffy, in his typical Dirk fashion. If it seems a little defensive, well...I suppose it is. Yiffy is one of the two hard lines drawn in the sand, and all of us love her, and we’re hoping that everyone else will love her too. But more than that, it focuses on the fact that update culture has a rhythm to it--shock, revulsion, acceptance (or not), and then excitement (or not). Will it follow that pattern this time? Who knows. I guess we’ll find out. 

Yeah, given what was going to be dropped on us I expected they would have had exactly this lined up, especially because Andrew specifically mandated Yiffy.  --I wonder why they aren’t mentioning that somewhere in the commentary and only on one of their Twitters?

Also quoting this:

There’s something both incredibly “cringe” and self-indulgent, as well as philosophically intriguing, about the author arguing with his villain, especially since he’s writing both halves of the conversation himself. You are, for all intents and purposes, trying to solve a problem that you have created for yourself. You are looking an aspect of your personality in the eye and asking, hey, what the fuck, man?

But in the end, isn’t that what every story is? Trying to untie knots that you put in the rope yourself?

Since it’s part of the central struggle of this story, and kind of the question Andrew’s tried to imply with every Homestuck work about what right we have to keep these characters trapped in a story, and if they’d be better off escaping it.

I’m really trying to avoid quoting so much of this, since the commentary is paid...  but I think we can make an exception here?  I’ll have only quoted about half of it; just, the really plot-important half.  Plus, I left out a LOOOT of japes.

Dirk has a certain idea of how stories are supposed to go. That’s pretty much what the Epilogues is about. The audience also has a certain expectation of how a story is supposed to go. In a way, the Epilogues were also about that. They were taking a story that had reached the traditionally “acceptable” happily ever after, and saying, wait, no. What happens next? Thinking past happily ever after in any story is a terrifying prospect. Once Cinderella marries the prince, what then? Sure, she got what she wanted, but who knows that it will be everything she dreamt it would? What if she changes her mind, if not today, what about ten years from now? What if the prince dies of malaria? 

And I’m...

Yeah I don’t have anything else to add here, I’m kind of out of brain juice to think about this tonight.  BUSY day I had.  Y’all take care!

[argentdandelion]

The True Power of NEO (Part 3 of 4)

To see previous entries in the series, check out “The True Power of NEO” tag on the ArgentDandelion blog. Made with help from CinnamonAzzy and Ihasafandom.

Tactic 1 (Explode the Exit) and Tactic 2 (Offense Over Defense) Responses

Using his NEO form as a block of explosives to seal the exit was a good idea, and exploding the exit while the human was in the room was, while riskier, still pretty good. Even using his box mode as a living wall to delay the Human’s progress was better than switching to his Mettaton NEO form to fight the human.

If his NEO form is anything like his EX form, Mettaton should logically be able to attack with it. As mentioned, Mettaton EX has strong attacks, numerous bullets, and a variable bullet pattern with a unique SOUL Mode mechanic. Assuming Mettaton NEO is even more effective at attacking and has some way to dodge or endure strong attacks (e.g., by flipping into his supposedly invulnerable original mode), attacking the human is a pretty reasonable option.

Indeed, he would, theoretically, have more time to prepare to fight the human in the Genocide Route than in other Routes, since he doesn't engage the human in TV segments. However, during that time, Alphys would be busy evacuating others, and so couldn't work on his body. (This assumes she both works quickly and the body was nearly done anyway)

Yet, this tactic depends on him being able to attack. He doesn’t attack, bringing up the question of whether he even can.

Can He Emit Bullets?

If the combat systems for his EX/NEO form were the last feature to be added, without Alphys' fine-tuning, he might enter combat with no attack capability. Mettaton, out of faith for Alphys' work or sheer haste, may have assumed Alphys installed some combat capabilities in his NEO form before he changed into it. It is also possible Mettaton finished the body himself while Alphys was doing something else, which might explain the missing eye and silly leg-shaped pauldrons (possibly made from spare parts). In this case, his lack of combat capabilities comes from his lack of skill in building robots.

It’s possible that, as soon as ghosts merge with their bodies, they can’t attack, or that there’s some learning curve or dormancy period before re-accessing offensive magic. Mad Dummy/Glad Dummy might support this: though many monsters keep fighting once spareable, as soon as Mad Dummy fuses with their body, they stop attacking. Mad Mew Mew, on the other hand, hadn’t actually fused with her body at the time of the battle. Assuming this hypothesis is true, Mettaton unexpectedly fused with his body and didn’t have enough time to re-learn how to make magical attacks.

The “dormancy period” supposition is a little weakened, though, by the observation Mettaton fuses with his body in his Mettaton EX battle and has no problem with bullet patterns. (Although many of his attack patterns are unusual objects or not projectiles.)

Death Explosions

One might argue that Mettaton is hoping the human will trigger his death explosion, and he would survive it if he hadn’t fused, or the explosion would kill both himself and the human if he had fused. However, this idea of a lethal explosion is weakened by one of his lines in the near-Genocide Route:“Yes, Asgore will fall easily to you”. This suggests he thinks the human will survive the explosion. Perhaps he, knowing the sheer power of even a whiffed strike, extrapolates that the human’s defenses are also very high.

Oddly, Mettaton’s explosion does not do any damage, in either the Genocide Route or Neutral Route. Mettaton wouldn’t have reason to deliberately explode his body in the Neutral Route. It’s possible his body exploding is a side effect of him reaching 0 HP, and Alphys hastily upgraded that to be useful in combat. However, given Alphys was evacuating Hotland, even with her super-fast working (assuming she doesn’t simply swap Frisk’s phone with a new one and re-adds two phone numbers), she probably didn’t have time to run simulations on whether Mettaton’s explosion would block the exit.

“You Wouldn’t Kill a Human, Would You?” Response

Turning into Mettaton NEO may have been a tactic to break the human’s will for killing, thus protecting humanity. (and perhaps monsters) If a human absorbing a monster’s SOUL gains great power, the genocidal Human would have a lot more power to kill humanity with Asgore’s SOUL. If Mettaton believes he can’t kill the Human, for whatever reason, then removing their will to harm humanity and kill anyone but Asgore is the next best thing.

Undyne believes the genocidal Human intends to destroy all of humanity, and Mettaton himself believes the Human is a threat to humanity. The genocidal Human would surely be a threat to humanity when they’re willing to kill a human. By that logic, changing into a more humanoid form wouldn’t give Mettaton “psychological armor” at all.

Perhaps he planned on doing the “you were holding back” speech after the human beat him up or “killed” him, thereby breaking the Human’s will to exterminate by showing they weren’t “entirely evil”. From an out-of-universe perspective, this makes sense. Papyrus often stops players from progressing on the Genocide Route, not because he’s no threat, or doesn’t attack, but because of the sheer guilt of killing him. Even in his dying words, he shows faith that the human can do better.

So Why Does He Act Like a Threat?

One might ask, “Surely Mettaton realized he can’t fight back? Why, then, does he act so tough?”

Mettaton seems to have good acting skills (in certain contexts, at least) and there’s evidence he’s good at improvising, acting like nothing is wrong, and hiding his discomfort.

Mettaton seems good at improvisation: when the Human doesn’t behave as expected in the Hotland TV segments, he seems to improvise lines. Mettaton apparently thinks ahead for the possibility the Human completes the tile puzzle, and says: "I only deactivated the flames knowing that Alphys would have anyway." If the Human fails the cooking show puzzle, Mettaton acts as if that time is when his show has a commercial break, and he's not going to destroy the human without a live television audience. Outside the Genocide Route, he knows Alphys plans to come to Frisk’s “rescue” and “deactivate” him, but he blocks the door. He also re-arranges the CORE, hires mercenaries to kill Frisk in the CORE, and offers a lot of money for Frisk’s SOUL to entice Muffet to kill them. He figures Alphys will tell Frisk to flip Mettaton’s switch, but that’s what he wants: to premiere his new body. However, when the human doesn't even step on a green tile, he's clearly stalling for time saying "well well well".

On hiding his pain, up until his arms fall off, his pained expressions are very subtle: it's impossible to notice he's in pain at all without lining up his expressions. (above) When his arms fall off, he looks shocked or pained, but then regains composure. If hit after that point, his pained grimaces are pretty subtle. He still attacks without arms, though he stops dancing. When he loses his legs, he’s shocked for the whole turn, but then closes his eyes (as if hiding a grimace) and still smiles. He also still attacks...faster, even.

However, his skill in hiding his pain isn’t perfect. Mettaton’s text shakes when the final blow is dealt in the Neutral fight, suggesting a quaver in his voice. (possibly of pain) He's clearly saddened when the final blow is dealt, although that's probably emotional, rather than physical, pain. Near the end of his death speech, he says: "I might seem like I'm dying now, but...Dr. Alphys can always repair me." He says the second part with a sad grin, making it not very persuasive, but the very fact he’s considering that and trying to act like everything is fine when he’s dying says something about his impression-management.

If one assumes he’s good at hiding his discomfort and acting as if nothing is wrong, he could plausibly act like everything’s fine even when his plan has gone off the rails. After all, it’s likely he fused with his body prior to or during the fight with the Human, and he surely felt this. It’s possible he’s hoping he can intimidate the human into fleeing or use some variant of Tactic 3 (“You Wouldn’t Kill a Human, Would You?”) to guilt-trip the human into losing the will to kill human beings and any monsters but Asgore. Even if that fails, he might still be going for Tactic 1 (exploding the exit and, ideally, taking the human with him) but he knows he’ll die in the process.

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[breakingbadfics]

Death of the author

CW: Light discussion of politics, mentions of the Alt-Right, and White Supremacists. 

Consider this a “Change of Pace” entry. I’m trying to figure out what the next essay is to be about as well as the eventual long term for this blog. 

I wrote this essay back in mid 2019, long before the idea of this blog would come to mind, it’s been lightly edited prior to posting and added to. and I think this essay shows some of my influences much more heavily than my other writings.

What does My Little Pony and The Matrix have in common?  Death of the Author. 

Death of the Author is not to be confused with “Separating the Artist from the Art,” a self explanatory concept to distance a work from a creator who’s beliefs are more than a little unpleasant, easiest example is acknowledging that, yes,  H.P. Lovecraft was a Mega-racist, however, his contributions to the horror genre have created a base that is nearly ubiquitous with the genre to this day, like wise with Orson Scott Card. this concept in itself is an especially controversial subject, but is not the focus of this piece.

Death of the Author is what allowed The Matrix, a movie with a collection of metaphors about being an lgbt person, and an activist for the rights of yourself and your allies to be grossly misinterpreted as a way to justify being a bigot, the most egregious misinterpretation being that of “The Red Pill Scene.”

In the context of the film, The Red Pill Scene is the part of the traditional heroes story where the hero “accepts the call”, Neo is quite literally making the choice to leave the safe world he’s been living in behind and embark on his adventure that will result in a death and rebirth into being The One who will save humanity. In the now very much understood to be the direct metaphor, it’s a scene in which Neo, the stand-in for a lgbt person, specifically a trans person, is being told by a much older lgbt person “You are trans, you have the choice to embrace it, but regardless of what choice you make from here on out the road ahead is going to be bumpy and rough on you, because the system around you is designed to make sure people like us aren’t able to prosper, and if you join us, you won’t be able to opt out.” 

That is the very understood metaphor that most people accept with the modern understanding after The Wachowski’s came out as Lily and Lana in the “post-matrix trilogy” reality of the real world.

However due to the Moral Neutrality of Death of the Author in other circles the Red Pill(and all the other metaphors in the film) takes on an alternative meaning. And I can be “polite” in my explaing the bad take on how this scene plays out, but just to hammer the point home we’ll get dirty so you can know where the take is coming from, The Red Pill Scene for White supremeacists, and The alt-right (but I repeat myself) is such.  Neo, a disgruntled white person is being told that the world is controlled by soulless machines. Jews, people of color, etx. Everyone around him is mind controlled and can and will attempt to stop him from saving the people smart enough to also realise they’re being held captive by non-whites and save them all. This of course, all being told to him by Morpheus, a black man. So have fun working your head around that. 

This of course the most extreme example being the most ubiquitous, poke around on chan sites and sooner or later you’ll see the phrase “red pill” having been memetically adjusted to mean “hey tell me about this thing” or even more specifically “I already had an opinion about this but either way I want you to confirm my choice.” But I digress. 

These two interpretations are so wildly on the opposite ends of the spectrum that the only commonalities between them is “You will likely need to be violent at some point” 

I’m naturally only covering the two interpretations, the matrix itself has been picked apart by an untold number of people and people interpret it in as many ways as possible in terms of philosophical meaning. That is the nature of Death of The Author. 

Death of the Author also covers in a round-a-bout fashion, selective canon, a subjective acknowledgement of canon elements throughout a long lived franchise- see; Star Wars, Star Trek, the belief that there was never any sequels to The Matrix. This variant of the philosophy allows one to be able to continue interactions with a text, specifically a text that consists of multiple volumes (or contributions, each one made by an individual author) but also deny interactions with parts that they personally dislike. 

More often than not, you can attribute the death of the author to a bad take in a case of fiction, another primary example being Fight Club, often missed for the scathing critique of unhealthy male behaviour and propped up as some sort of moral guideline for how to live your life. Which is again, not to say this is the fault of Death of The Author as a philosophy, it is morally neutral, these bad takes can more often be attribued to the simple fact that unless directly stating it most attempts at satire or parody will have a contingent of people who agree with what is said, not what is meant, and death of the author unfortunately does make that..very easy, for good, or ill. 

Where does My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic fit in with all this?  Well there are certainly alt-right members of the brony fandom who are painfully missing the point, but we’ve already dwelled on the negative enough, so let’s get happy. 

In Episode 1 of Season 1, the first part of a two part pilot, in the background of a shot during a party scene; a pony with a grey coat and blonde mane and tail is seen in the background. This particular pony stood out the most amongst other background characters due to a mistake caused by the animation staff. According to the supervising director at the time, this particular error was spotted after hasbro greenlit the episode for air, and because it amused him he chose not to order a correction so it was left in as a nice little easter egg. 

The nameless background pony would eventually be caught by 4chan among other places and very rapidly developed a following of fans and given a nickname, Derpy Hooves. This particular following and new nickname would echo back to shows staff becoming the name internally referred to by the show’s staff. 

Friendship is magic creator Lauren Faust, who also enjoyed the popularity of the character when asked in an interview would state that a character named Ditzy Doo existed in an unaired episode, that would be implied to be this particular background pony, So naturally now depending on the fan this particular character would be reffered to as either Derpy Hooves, or Ditzy Doo.  

Ditzy Doo would go on to become a recurring easter egg with in the show, something similar to that of “where’s waldo” but with horses. This practice would continue until episode 14 of season 2  where the character would have a set of spoken lines and would be addressed by name. This however resulted in a degree of controversy in which some people expressed concern that the presentation of the character was an offensive attempt at portraying people with mental or physical disabilities. This event resulted in the episode being altered in future airings and the character disappearing from the show for the vast majority of Season 3. Beyond Season 3 the character would continue to appear until season 5 where they would finally have a voiced role in the 100th episode of the show, and then eventually having another speaking role in the christmas special “The best gift ever.”  It is also worth noting that Hasbro never gave her an “official name” with almost all of Ditzy’s merchandise either having no name present, or more often than not a singular image of a muffin in place of a name, even going so far as to have “Muffins” be the credited name she was given in all voiced instances of the show. 

Muffins, Ditzy Doo, or Derpy Hooves isn’t the only case of background characters growing a large following of fans with in the show; a variety of characters have been swept up by the fans, given names and personalities built entirely out of bit gags. Lyra, Bon Bon, Vinyl Scratch, Octavia Melody, and who knows how many more have all been seen in background moments which would be built on by fans and then echo back into the staff to be integrated into the show further. One would say this is fanon but at the end of the day, the writers and show staff had very little more intent with the characters beyond “does this background character look good?” and “Does this bit part character stand out enough to automatically be recognizable for the bit they need to be doing” it is still what I believe to be an example of Death of The Author, an act of choosing to ignore the intended meaning,and giving what amounts to window dressings a full life as fleshed out characters in fan content and in small instances of the show; an interpretation separate from the writers original intent. 

Now the question is does someone need to actively defy the author to participate in The Death There-of? No. I don’t believe so.  In much the same fashion no one need actually be a clan member to inadvertently say or do something that's passive aggressively racist(yes a bit of an extreme, I know) one need not actively defy the author, merely ascribe to an alternate interpretation of a work of fiction. Refer to Fight Club, the film does everything it can with out directly stating “most of the people in Fight Club and later Project Mayhem are bad people, because they were already doing the things Tyler Durden was ascribing to” and almost unilaterally all the bad takes are built around this idea that they’ve achieved the perfect ideal masculine because they’re the “living in the moment, violent psychopath” nihilist the movie is actively condemning. 

The simple fact is that death of the author ultimately, in a grand scale amounts to this; did a writers intent show through hard enough for their intent to be heard? And Subjectively, how much does a person believe in the meaning that they, or the writer themself have imparted into the story? 

[jimclassicstoycollection]

Transformers

Masterpiece 25

Tracks

Tracks is a Masterpiece Transformer which I bought off of a Chinese Ebay seller. I’m not sure if this is an official toy, or just a really good knock off, but I got for about $30.

I’m not exactly sure if I would call Tracks one of my favorite Autobots, but I love his alt mode of being a Corvette Stingray.

Collector’s Card:

Like all MP Transformers, Tracks comes with a collector’s card. It’s Tracks in all three modes, with the series number, and on the back we see his stats, and a bunch of Japanese text.

I’m not gonna lie...I’m not a big an of the art work. I love good Transformers box art (especially with the G1, Siege and Earthrise toys), but what’s on this collector’s card isn’t winning me over...

Track’s colors don’t pop, the back ground is dusty and muted, and I’m not a fan of the posing of the robot mode or the pose.

Accessories:

Tracks comes with quite a few things.

Flight stand-

Well it’s a flight stand, what more do you want? It’s solid black with a silver Autobot stamp on it. It has three hinges; the base one, and second one are ratcheted, while the one at the top isn’t... for some reason.

Which is a problem because the tip hinge isn’t floppy, but it’s not load bearing...You peg Tracks into the stand you’ll have to position the other two ratcheted hinges to into where they need to be, and hope that the third will stay in place. 

Raule-

Raule is Tracks’ human friend; he was only in two, or three episodes of the G1 cartoon, but he was a memorable character.

The figure is a static object, he’s painted well, aside from the blob of paint at the base, and he don’t have any facial details, just the sculpting details.

Blaster- Not the gun, I’m talking about the Autobot, Blaster in his boombox mode; it’s a nice touch. I suppose, technically you could say that I also have a MP Blaster too. >:D

Hand gun-

Tracks is armed with a tiny hand gun. There’s not much to say about it, it’s gray plastic, with painted silver. It looks okay for what it is; my only issue with it is that sometimes it can be tricky to place in Tracks’ hand.

Flight gun-

This gun is also painted silver, and clips onto the from of the corvette to be used for the flight mode. It looks like something else, but this is a family friendly channel. Who am I kidding, no it’s not; but I’m not saying what it looks like...

Vehicle Mode:

Tracks’ vehicle mode is a blue Corvette Stingray with red flames on the hood; he was making it cool before Hotrod. 

Personal bias, I love the curves this car has to offer.

The hood opens up to reveal the engine; it’s pretty much just a superficial layer of sculpting but it is a nice touch. 

The car has rubber tires and it rolls pretty well, however I’m concerned that the  under kibble might get caught on things if you’re not careful; so I’d be mindful of that.

Flight Mode:

That is a flying car, alright.

Transformation to the flight mode does require opening up the back end of the car a lot, and the back end is quite fiddly, but once you get everything out and where it needs to be this is fun for what it is. 

I wouldn’t exactly call Tracks a triple changer since he still retains the look of the Corvette, just with added wings, intake engines, maneuvering rudders and rockets. It sounds like a lot, but it really isn’t.

Transformation:

Transformation to robot mode gets easier the more you do it. At first I hated it, but after doing it a couple of times it’s not so bad. The back half of the car where the arms, wings, and rockets come out will never not be a fiddly mess, and I am concerned about the thinner plastic which has been used to hold the back end on; that is a part which should be dicast metal.

Robot Mode:

In robot mode Tracks looks a lot bigger than his car mode; must be that mass shifting...

I’ve always appreciated Tracks (original G1 version’s) unique look; I don’t think he ever had a mold mate within the Transformers series; I know there’s a red variant of the G1, and the MP Tracks, but I’m pretty sure the red one is his old Diaclone toy.

But as a car-former bot Tracks has a pretty unique look to him.

His royal blue colors, the popping yellow and red Autobot symbol, Tracks’ random red face, and even the wings coming out from behind the shoulders

Looking at Track from the front, everything looks like it should; he’s what a 21st Century update to an 80′s toy should look like, however once you turn Tracks around he can be a bit bulky, and irritating.

It’s the back end of the car; it’s just big and floppy, and it just doesn’t peg in anywhere.

Tracks can also be placed on the stand too for more action poses, and let’s go over his articulation:

Ball jointed head, three different joints which make up the shoulder joints (integral for transformation) bicep swivel, bend at the elbow, wrist swivel, wrist flex (part of the transformation), hinge at the fingers, waist swivel, universal hips, thigh swivel, bend at the knee, and ball jointed foot.

That’s not too bad, though I do admit I’m concerned about that ball jointed ankle

Final Thoughts:

Tracks is pretty cool!

Masterpiece Tracks has a great vehicle mode, a pretty fun transformation, and a decent robot mode. All things considered I’m glad I didn’t pay up to the amount of $70 for this figure...

...but keep in mind, “Some people got the juice, and some don’t!”

[theorynexus]

52 is a great number!  It is also the number we’re at, now.

What, you want to go through a mental battle for predomination with the force of nature that subsumed fricking Caliborn?  I mean, sure, he wasn’t influenced by human culture, so that version was bound to be different, but I’m pretty sure much of the horribly irksome traits that made him him came from his heart, not from his upbringing.

It is beautiful that Alt!Calliope feels it necessary to note exactly why Jade has a clear expression visible to others. There’s just a whole lot of subtle humor packed into that revelation.   Additionally, it’s nice to see that Alt!Calliope recognizes the important distinction that they are the two different versions of Jade, despite their Heartfelt connection. It is very interesting to see that Jade’s first thoughts are about what the other Jade had just been through. It’s nice to see the symmetry with what the Jade who drifted into the black hole had been thinking of, before her mind gravitated to Alt!Calliope’s siren song.

Yaaayyy, echoes reaching out across timelines and instances, flowing into and affecting beings seemingly disconnected, yet who both at different times had primacy of Relevance!   (I am here obviously ignoring the fact that the Jade who died was split off before Game Over: she was from the Game Over side of the Retcon, regardless, and the Collide side of canon has been split into two different versions of herself who have similar levels of importance too, so it’s not like there isn’t a parallel level of distance from “primacy”.    These things are relative. The important part is their proximity to the two archetypal “main” versions of the Kid, and that they act as representatives of these sides.)

A relatively sound argument, Narrator 1, but you seem to have been outmaneuvered. 

Yes!  Most excellent, o’ Muse!   I am curious why you need to (partially?) possess Jade’s body in order to accomplish that, but I am willing to accept this as a necessary sacrifice, potentially. Jade does still seem to be in there, and I trust that you, as subtle as you can be, will not impede her own will too terribly badly?

Hehehehe... HAAAA HAHAHAHAHA!!!      Indeed, indeed!  I am glad you see things in a manner congruent to my own understanding, o’ Muse. I suppose I might, perhaps, even be able to cease referring to him as “Narrator” altogether, rather than simply adding the demeaning “1,” at this point. Curious, I am, though, what precisely is referred to by “my horizon.”   There are multiple possible things which I think could satisfy this, from a spatial, temporal, or metaphorical (thus metaphysical) level: It could refer specifically to the meta-temporal conditions that are considered “after the destruction of the Green Sun,”  It could refer to the white void beyond the darkness of the Furthest Ring, which appears to have always been there, rather than to have been created as a result of the devastation the Green Sun Black Hole’s emergence/creation/completion caused, or It could refer to all areas beyond the realm of Canon. There are other potential interpretations, as well, but these seem like the ones most likely to be the actual antecedent idea which her verbiage referred to.

Vagueblogging?    As for the other matter:   Hmm. That sets a condition to a potential reversal, after which Calliope loses her grip.   I wonder how things will develop, and if it��s just that she intends to inundate the narrative with her text, or if the smaller font there is indicative that she’s actually clamping down on his ability to produce any of his own at all. Oh, and... I guess maybe this suggests that Jade’s personality may be suppressed for some time. Given there are ending conditions to it, the sacrifice may be even less than I thought it might be, so I will in fact continue to accept this.

I am really, really glad that Calliope can sense Alt!Calliope, and that we have received such a rich description of the friction between sides of the narrative divide! <3

It’s also somewhat nice that Alt!Calliope is aware of and/or instantly capable of properly using the gender/lack thereof(?) they (both Calliope and Roxy) identify with. ‘T’is very intriguing that the information was already there, and there were no hickups which Dirk might have mocked Alt!Calliope with.

Hmmmmm-hmm!~   Okay, thanks for clarifying the conditions of the possession.

Hy-po-crite.  Disgusting.  Particularly considering his interference in the narrative is treating others’ lives like playthings, and resulting in great harm--  just like Caliborn.  I suppose this is yet another reason that they had the same Denizen. (Related: I am reminded of the fact that Dirk was the only one of the Alpha Kids that actually bonded with Caliborn, and who that Cherub seemed to consider as a friend.)

The point Dirk made would actually be pretty good, if it weren’t for the fact that her Muse powers almost certainly (as she demonstrates) kept her in constant contact with the world, over the course of the ages. Also:  He’d better go get some aloe or something--- that burn looks painful.

Fool, the point is that it’s so sharp that any motion at all over its surface will bring about a cut-- gravity, wind pressure, and the flow of the silk in any vector other than directly downward or perhaps perpendicular to the blade would naturally give a potential frictional force, which the blade geometry naturally would amplify via wedge-based simple machine mechanics!     No lever action is necessarily needed!          ... Not that he’s not correct to suggest that the flowing motion of the swordplay is not the normal reason for a katana making a cut.

This is very, very true. Also how Debate works. I appreciate both such realities.

This... is just absolutely beautiful. The above paragraph is too. So much so that I shall not repost it here, but rather, shall urge all those who view my text to journey to Meat 27 and experience it for yourselves. Magnifique. (It also reminds me of the impotent rage which Caliborn vented toward Calliope before his false predomination in the distant future of this very universe he foolishly claimed that he, presumably alone, had created for the other Jade.)   ... Post Script Edit:   I feel bad for Callie, feeling like they had to run away like that~

[nimbleprocess]

24/3/20_Illustrator2

In this weeks session we explored Illustrator further by rendering using the pen tool and different colour options, creating a personal monogram and the use of Ai and Ps as a fluid pair. 

This weeks session was a little different, being an online session using Adobe Connect, raising its own issues and tasks despite the lesson itself. Please bear this in mind when moving forward with my blog and thank you for your understanding. 

-- stage 1 --

Renderings:

We started the further exploration into Illustrator through the pen tool. When manipulating a shape or drawn line, the direct selection tool is perfect. You can select individual points of a shape, or multiple at a time in order to create the perfect lines. 

In order to directly copy a shape inside another, with perfect distance between the two lines, you can use offset path. Its a tool that isn't used that much, but when you need it you can create absolutely perfect lines. 

When using the pen tool, both Alex and I usually draw half of a mirrored shape and then copy and mirror the drawn line using TransformReflect. You can then press Cmnd Y to bring us the wireframes up, you then can select the two mirrored points with the direct selection tool, use Cmnd J and join the points together. 

The final step to the renderings is to add colour and keep in mind the order of the layers when colouring. To move the layers about you can use Cmnd [ ] to get them into the right order. Remember to have a play around with the thickness of the lines to get a sense of depth and dimension. 

Instead of the Apple Watch task I decided to do the iPhone task instead, as I have used rendering in Adobe Illustrator quite a lot and wanted a bigger challenge. In the time given in the lesson, I was able to render the back of the iPhone with fairly accurate gradients. I don’t use the gradient tool very often but I learnt quite a lot when playing about with it today.

Below: On the left is the example and on the right is my rendering.

-- stage 2 -- 

Monograms and the Gestalt Principles:

The Gestalt psychology is the  theory that we see things as a whole rather than individual objects. Gestalt psychology or gestaltism is a school of psychology that emerged in Austria and Germany, based on work by Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Kohler, and Kurt Koffka. 

It gets us thinking about principles of layout and why things look right or wrong, we can use these principles to get us out of a design jam and prompt us to think about what might not be working. Rather than seeing individual elements we see the relationships between them, objects will be perceived in their simplest forms. When designing we need to think about context and what helps our brains perceive the world around us. 

The six main principles are:

-Figure-Ground

-Similarity (relationship between objects through similarly in shape or colour)

-Proximity (how close a shape is to another)

-Closure (negative or blank space, filling in the gaps)

-Continuity (guiding the eyes)

-Order 

By human nature we perceive lines and curves as a single element, e.g. a roundabout. The mind will attempt to fill in details that aren’t actually there, meaning that white space or negative space design can work. According to Gestalt psychology, the world is different from the sum of its parts. The mind will always attempt to fill in gaps or work through continuation, when the eye is compelled to move through one object and continue to another object (often used in typography based logos). With continuation you can guide the eye from one object to another through compelling with guidelines or gestures. With continuation the design implies that an element is there when isn't really, allowing our mind to fill in the gaps through implication. 

Using implication and negative space is so simple but so effective, thinking about the shapes and context you are working with will allow you to create a thoughtful and unique logo. 

Using my initials, NB, I created a few monograms in the lesson. I only managed three in the time given for the exercise. I like the third logo and it goes to show how developing an idea over and over gets you to a better final render. 

Inspired by modern minimalist design, my logo would fit in well in a sports scene, being very sleek and masculine looking. It is important to keep in mind how something relates to its context and how it visually fits into it. 

-- stage 3 --

Using Photoshop and Illustrator together:

When creating a workable document, it's important to use layers, grids and guides. This will help us get an accurate document to work with across the above suite. 

In Illustrator, we can create a grid bu going to object-path-split to grid. With this we can the create a gutter (InDesign usually uses 4.322mm gutter). Adding these grids to the top layer and locking them will show a guide over the image, with accurate layout. 

Working with Photoshop and Illustrator together, rather than saving the file as Jpegs and placing them as Jpegs, you can move a .psd file straight into Illustrator. 

Cmnd+Tab scrolls trough apps quickly!

To find a file from another Adobe software, press ALT and double click it to open the original file.

-- reflections -- 

I will definitely be updating this blog in the future with my own personal branding. I really enjoy creating logos and although it is difficult to create something for yourself, it is important to have your own personal brand. 

The essence of personal branding is reducing a persons whole career, identity and skillset into its visual essence. My client has a background in design and works as an in-house graphic designer for a gaming company. This will require an insight into both the design and gaming world in order to marry the two fields together and create an effective personal brand.

-- inspirations --

One logo designer that inspires me is Paul Rand: 

Left: Logo for IBM, 1956; right: 8-bar version 1972 

He skilfully uses contrast and minimalistic colours alongside negative space to create memorable brands. His work isn’t exactly colourful, but he notably followed the Gestalt principles and from this created some of his own:

“A logo derives meaning from the quality of the thing it symbolises, not the other way around.” 

Designers should see logos as a means of converting messages. Rand however sees a logo’s meaning by association with the brand or product itself. Not that logos are insignificant, but that they are free to be designed however one chooses. They are visual language of marking something, not the context itself.

 “The only mandate in logo design is that they be distinctive, memorable and clear.”

This means a logo doesn’t necessarily have to directly visually depict the company it is trying to represent. The subject matter of the logo has relatively little importance, and sometimes it is better to have a completely free logo!

“Simplicity is not the goal. It is the by-product of a good idea and modest expectations.”

A logo has capabilities, but like everything these are limited. Trying to sum up every point, key detail and context of a brand will create a cluttered logo. Focusing on key points or elements will in itself generate beautiful simplicity. Don’t strive for the end goal, instead create a considered and refined concept and simplicity will naturally derive from this. 

-- further development -- 

To further develop my monogram branding, I created a few more logos that I could possibly use or use as inspiration in the near future.

Working from the Gestalt theory and Paul Rand’s principles, I created a personal logo based on my initials, nicknames and current brand name. 

Above: An idea I tried based on the morse code for the letter N. I like the look of it, but think it could use a little more creativity. The logo idea and execution is a little basic for my liking. Maybe generating an idea around iconography will work more in my favour. 

Two other concepts I created were edits of the N shape. I wanted my logo to look fluid and Nimble, like the name of my personal brand. Creating a sense of movement and speed was important to me when creating this logo. I think I created good sense of movement through the implication of arrows, giving my design a sense of direction, literally. 

I created two styles of this directional logo, matching bottom text with the weight and style of the logo. I think I prefer the second logo as it has a more clear sense of direction and movement. Although I like these logos, I am still not satisfied with them as a final design. 

I ended up revisiting my third logo to make the N and B lines match, I much prefer this as a logo, and though there are still a few edits I would make, I am pleased with my exploration of Illustrator rendering. 

[crystalninjaphoenix]

The Second Crossover Episode

Septics Inverted

A JSE Fanfic

People seemed to really like the first one, so I wrote another! Because there are a lot more boys that can meet each other across worlds, and a lot of these encounters are going to be...not so good. But some of them could be positive! Be optimistic, despite how most of my AU is just...villains

Again, you can find Swap Boys content on @huffle-dork​​‘s blog!

Read the intro story: Part One | Part Two

Various other AU-related stuff found here

Still not sure about adding the taglist to not normal AU material, but here I go anyways | Taglist: @evyptids​ @awkward-bullshit​ @watermelonsinmyattic​ @asunachinadoll @a-humble-narcissus @metautske​ @odysseus-is-best-boi​ @acuriousquail @beerecordings

Alt spent what felt like an hour wandering the streets before he finally admitted it: not only was he lost, but he wasn’t even in his city anymore. He recognized absolutely nothing. Every street turned where it was supposed to be straight, and every twist was actually a crossroad. He didn’t know where he was, or even how he got here. Alt stopped running right under a street lamp, looking around at low, dim buildings he’d never seen before.

He sat down hard on the curb and put his head in his hands. Why did this happen to him? Why couldn’t he just go home, see his cat, and be left alone? He wanted to blame Magnificent, but the magician had been seemed just as confused as he was back in that museum-type place. So he didn’t even have that explanation. He could feel tears prickling at the back of his eyes. He didn’t belong here. And he didn’t know how to get back, or if anyone would bother to come look. Nobody looked the last time. His shoulders started shaking as he let the tears fall.

“Excuse me? Are you okay?”

Alt looked up, hurriedly wiping his eyes on his jacket sleeve. There was a man staring down at him with concern. He wore a dark red hoodie and black jeans, and he...almost looked like Jackie. But less tired, and with longer hair, long enough to be held back in a ponytail that peeked out from inside the jacket’s hood. “Wh—yeah, yeah I’m...fine,” Alt said, pulling up his bandanna.

“Most people don’t cry when they’re fine,” the man remarked. “What’re you doin’ out here? Don’t you know it’s dangerous?”

Alt laughed. “You’re out here.”

“Well, I can take care of myself. Not everyone can. Not that I’m saying you can’t,” he hurried to add, seeing Alt’s eyes start to darken. “I just want to make sure you’re not in trouble. Or, you know, causing trouble.”

“I’m fine,” Alt insisted, resolutely turning away. “I’m just...lost. I’m new here.”

“Well, do you know where you need to go?”

Alt could feel the tears again. But he blinked them away. “I can figure it out.”

The man gave him a peculiar look. It wasn’t pity, thank god, but it was something similar. Sympathy, maybe. “Look, I’m still worried about you, not gonna lie. I’m out here with a friend of mine. If you want, you can just...hang around with us? It’s better to travel in a group.”

His instinct was to deny help again. But he forced himself to take a step back. He was alone in a strange city, Magnificent was on the loose along with what must’ve been some sort of evil duplicate of himself, and he had no idea what to do. And this guy wasn’t being a bossy ass about going with him, just giving him an option. “...fine,” Alt grumbled, standing up. “Maybe for a little while.”

The man practically melted with relief, smiling. “Great! I left him over on the corner, he was texting a friend. C’mon, I’ll show you.” He started to walk away, making sure Alt was following him. “Oh, my name’s Jackie, by the way.”

Alt faltered in his steps. “Wait, really?” He’d just been thinking about how this guy reminded him of Jackie. Was this...?

“Yeah. You, uh...okay?” the other Jackie asked. “You got really pale all of a sudden.”

“I just—I have a friend named Jackie, too,” Alt explained. “You, uh, kind of...remind me of him.”

The other Jackie laughed. “Cool. Good to know we’ve got another doppelganger out there. Besides you, I mean.”

“We?”

“Yeah, me and my housemates. We all sorta look alike. Some differences, but in general we’re, like, clones.” Jackie looked ahead. “Oh hey, I can show you. Chase!”

They’d reached the street corner, where a man was leaning against the pole of the traffic light. He was wearing a red snap-back cap pulled down, and was absorbed in his phone. The man looked up at the sound of the name ‘Chase.’ “Oh hey, you finally decided to come back. Find out what that noise was?”

Alt stopped, staring with wide eyes. He wasn’t sure his heart was beating. “Ch-Chase?” he asked in a strangled voice.

This other Chase gave him a weird look. “Yeah, that’s my name. Why, you heard it before? And also, you okay, dude? You look like you’re having a heart attack.”

Alt took a few steps back, reexamining what he was seeing. There was a lack of toned muscles that came with a life of fighting crime, and no freckles in sight. But there was absolutely no doubt. He’d know Chase’s face anywhere, and this was him, but he was so different. And wrong. Alt found he was breathing very quickly but he just couldn’t stop. “Th-this isn’t how it’s s-supposed to be,” he said, gasping. “I just want—I just want to go home. Why can’t I go home?!” When he shouted that last question, a glitch slipped in, vibrant pixels blinking into existence and fading away again.

The two others immediately snapped into action. The other Chase dropped his phone, letting it fall to the ground, and his hand went to his belt, where he pulled out a gun that had been belted there. The other Jackie jumped back, reaching into his hoodie pocket and pulling a large pocket knife out, flipping open the blade. “What do you think you’re doing?!” Chase demanded, pointing the gun at Alt.

Alt, for his part, was just even more confused, but that confusion was now mixed with fear. That caused his glitching to intensify. “I—I d-don’t know what—what are you—”

“What, did you think you could fool us like that, Anti?” Jackie demanded.

“Anti...?” For a moment, Alt panicked, thinking these bizarro versions of his friends somehow found out his real name when he’d never even told the real ones. But then he remembered. “W-wait—do you think I’m that—that other glitch? Black clothes? Eye-patch and scarf?”

“Well who else—?!”

“Jackie, wait.” Chase reached over and slowly lowered Jackie’s arm so that the blade of the knife wasn’t pointing at Alt anymore. He did the same thing with his gun. “I think we should hear him out.”

“Hear him—” Jackie glared at Chase, clearly exasperated. “C’mon, this is clearly a trick.”

“Well, I think maybe it’s not,” Chase snapped back. “I mean...look at the effects. They look...different.” He made a vague sort of gesture to the glitches surrounding Alt. “Anti has always had the same ones, why change now?”

“Uh, how about to fool us?”

“Jackie, just...trust me on this.” Chase looked back at Alt. “So, you’re saying you saw Anti?”

“Y-yeah,” Alt stuttered. This rapid turn of events was making his head spin. “He found me, and he offered to help me because apparently I don’t know what I’m doing, and I told him to fuck off and ran away.”

“Good idea,” Chase grinned. “If you hadn’t done that, there’s a good chance you’d be dead right about now.”

“I—what?” Alt stared incredulously at Chase. “You’re serious?”

“Dead serious.” Chase nodded sadly. “The whole bunch of us have been targeted by him multiple times. He’s serious bad news. People around him disappear, and if they’re lucky they’ll reappear needing therapy. He’s been after a friend of ours for a while now, and eventually he’s gone after the rest of us. That’s why we all live together, safety in numbers, you know?”

Alt’s glitching had completely subsided, but he hadn’t even noticed. He knew there’d been something off about that guy. The way he laughed, the way he never blinked, the way he referred to Alt as “human” as if he wasn’t. And why he’d been so insistent on helping Alt mere moments after acting all pissy towards him. It must’ve been a trap.

“Look, dude.” Chase put the gun back into his belt. After a moment of reluctance, Jackie folded the blade back into the handle of the pocket knife, but didn’t put it away. “If Anti’s got his eye on you...you’re in trouble. You need to get somewhere safe.”

Alt looked around. “I don’t...know where safe is. I’m not from here.”

Chase and Jackie glanced at each other. “Well, I think it would be better if you...stayed with us, then?” Chase suggested hesitantly. “Not permanently if you don’t want to, but...we have some protection set up at our house. It...might help?”

Alt considered it, shoving his hands in his jacket pockets as he thought. It would be pretty nice to have a place to stay in this new city. And, well, it was Chase. Maybe not the same Chase, however that worked, but Chase nonetheless. He was a good guy. “Okay,” Alt breathed, nodding. “Maybe for a little.”

Chase smiled. “That’s great dude! We can head home now, cut the night short. This is a bit more important.” He laughed. “Oh, hey we, uh, never caught your name. What was it?”

“I’m Alt,” Alt said immediately.

“Alt? Cool name. C’mon, we can show you the way.”

“No,” Anti whispered, eye locked on the feed from the street’s CCTV camera. “Nò,̢ ͝n̵o,̧ no!̡” He rammed his fist into a nearby metal shelf, hard enough to scrape the skin off the knuckles. As always, he felt nothing. “You fucking i̷d͞io̵t̸!”

Sam flew over from their perch on top of one of the CPUs, gently rubbing against the curve of Anti’s neck, catlike. He absentmindedly reached up to stroke them with one finger. “I guess it’s not really his fault. He’s not from here, he doesn’t know. Not even the people who live here know. But...who trusts a total stranger just like that?!” Sometimes, despite his ability to step into the deep recesses of their minds, Anti felt he would never understand humans.

He leaned closer to the screen, debating whether or not it was a good idea to swoop in and get the kid out of there. It would certainly get him out of immediate danger, but then again, he might go running back into it afterwards, still refusing to accept Anti’s help. Not to mention it might paint him as even more of a bad guy. “What’s this guy’s deal anyway?” Anti muttered. “Where did he come from? Why can he glitch? You wouldn’t happen to know, would you, Sam?”

Despite the throwaway nature of the question, Sam zoomed up in front of Anti’s face, swishing their tail once. They’d agreed early on that that gesture meant yes. “Wait, you do? How? What’re the answers?”

Sam, of course, didn’t answer, though their iris squished flat in an are you kidding me? look. “Right, right, can’t talk.” Anti watched the kid and the two freaks on the screen for a moment. “Alright, guess it’s time to play the guessing game. You know the drill, Sam, I spit out random ideas and you confirm yes or no. Let’s make this one quick.”

By the time they reached the house, Alt had managed to fill in the other Jackie and Chase about everything that happened, all the way from the colorful lights that had taken him and Magnificent to the museum, to seeing that weird other almost-Magnificent in the black mask, to his encounter with Anti. They listened carefully, taking every detail. Or at least, Jackie did. Chase took a slight detour to text someone on his phone shortly after Alt mentioned the black-masked magician. But he listened after that.

“Here, we are, home sweet home,” Chase said, pulling open the door. “After you, new dude.”

Alt ducked inside, taking in the spacious living room with an archway leading to what looked like a dining room, and an open hallway ending in a flight of stairs. It looked friendly enough. But instinctively, his eyes darted about, taking in the entrances and the windows. There was a man sitting in one of the armchairs, wearing a red vest and a derby hat, face hidden behind a book. Alt glared at him. He seemed familiar.

“Hey, Jameson?” Jackie said, entering the house after Alt. “Put the book down, buddy. I think you should meet someone.”

The man put the book down, and Alt gasped. He looked like Dr. J. What was the deal with the lookalikes?! For his part, this Jameson looked just as shocked. But he smiled, and gave a gentle wave. {Hello, there.}

Alt shrieked, backing up quickly and running into the now-closed door. He scrambled for the doorknob. He couldn’t—not this again—

“Alt! What’s wrong?” Chase waved his hand in front of Alt’s panicked face. “What happened?”

“He’s in my head!” Alt cried. “I can’t—I c-can’t—”

“Whoa, dude, it’s fine!” Jackie placed a reassuring hand on Alt’s shoulder. “Jameson can’t talk, but he can project—you know, in a telepathic sense. He’s just saying hi.”

Jameson had closed his book and stood up by this point. He walked over to the coffee table and grabbed a pad of paper and a pen. He flipped through it until he found a blank page, and started writing.

“Look, I promise you it’s fine,” Chase said to Alt, his tone reassuring. “If he could mess about in there, he would’ve done it by now.”

“How do you know he hasn’t?!” Alt demanded.

Chase hesitated. “I guess we don’t. But that’s what trust is.” He paused, and looked back over to Jameson. “You sure?” he asked. Jameson nodded.

“What’s happening?!” The question came out sounding more panicked than he would’ve liked.

“It’s okay, Alt,” Jackie said. “Jameson just told us that since you’re uncomfortable with the whole...mind situation, then he won’t project to you. That’s what the paper is for.”

Jameson smiled again, a bit smaller this time. He held up the paper for Alt to see. Unfortunately, he was still across the room. Alt’s eyes narrowed. He glitched closer, causing Jameson to jump, and grabbed the pad straight out of his hands, reading what he’d written. I’m terribly sorry. If I’d known how you felt about it, I never would have tried in the first place.

Alt glared at Jameson. “Fine. Fucking fine, whatever.” He shoved the paper back at him, then glitched onto the couch, ending up curled into the side.

Jameson blinked, looking back and forth between Alt and Jackie and Chase. “It’s a long story,” Jackie sighed. “We should wait until everyone’s home to explain it.”

“Lemme guess,” Alt piped up. “You have another housemate who’s German? Goes by the nickname Schneep?”

“Yeah, actually,” Chase said, visibly surprised. “That’s the doc. He usually works late at the clinic. How did you know?”

Alt laughed. “Well, sounds like I didn’t know everything. Never would’ve pictured Schneep as the doctor. God, this is—this is fucked, dude.” He shivered. “I—I don’t know what’s going on. Everything is switched around and I don’t...I don’t know why.”

“I actually have a theory,” Jackie said, flopping down on the opposite end of the sofa than Alt. “But I should probably wait until at least Schneep is home.”

“What makes you think I am not already?”

Alt jumped at the sound, twisting in his spot to see a version of Schneep, wearing a white coat that was torn at the cuffs over a blue sweater, leaning against the arch to the dining room. There was a steaming coffee mug in one hand, and his blue eyes were rather intense through the pair of glasses. Alt just stared at him. He couldn’t have heard Jackie, could he?

“When did you get home?” Jackie asked. “I expected you to be—be working for some time now.”

“It was a slow day.” Schneep walked over and plopped into the other armchair. Jameson also sat, reclaiming his seat and leaving Chase the only one standing. “I decided to come home early. And it seems I was a good idea, because I would have missed that.” Schneep took a sip of the coffee, staring at Alt over the top of the rim. “You are not Anti. But I saw what you did, and that is what Anti does. I wonder why this could be.”

“Uh...I don’t know,” Alt said, honestly bewildered at this point by all the differences, yet all the similarities as well.

“Alright, time for my theory,” Jackie said, sitting up straight. “I think you’re from another dimension. A parallel universe.”

Everyone seemed to sharpen at that. “That’s possible?” Chase asked. “I thought that was science fiction.”

“So did I!” Jackie said excitedly. “But I can’t think of anything else. Alt seems to know who we are, but things are different, and he has the same powers as Anti but is also clearly not the same—even that Magnif-who cares could be explained. He kinda sounded like a different version of Marvin.”

“Marvin?” Alt asked.

“He’s...one of the housemates,” Chase admitted. “But look! He’s not the same as your version. He’s a bit of a bitch sometimes, but not, like, evil.”

Alt frowned. He hadn’t stuck around to see much beyond the first confrontation between the magicians, but that didn’t seem right. But...as he thought back on those memories, he started to wonder if he was wrong. The images were spiraling in front of his vision, and...maybe he’d been {wrong}? Maybe he’d been wrong. This Marvin dude was fighting Magnificent, after all. “Fine, whatever,” Alt grumbled, slumping further into the couch. “Just don’t make me look at his ugly face.”

“I doubt you’ll ever even see it,” Chase chuckled. “First of all, never takes that mask off, he’s a bit sensitive about it. Second of all, he’s pretty much a hermit, goes back and forth between the basement and his room and only comes out for food. Pretty easy to avoid the guy.”

Alt rolled his eyes. “Didn’t you guys say you had another one beside him?”

“Jack,” Jackie explained. “He’s asleep right now. Plays video games for a living on YouTube. Also kinda reclusive, doubt you’ll see him at all.”

Alt checked his bandanna, it had started to slip and needed readjusting. He didn’t like how these guys were talking like he’d already moved in. He was just staying with them for a little while, that was all. Just long enough to figure out what the deal with Anti was, how to get him off his trail, and how to get home. That was it. {But who knows how long that would take?} Could be a while...

“Do you guys...have an extra bedroom?” he asked. “I’m...kind of tired.” It was all of a sudden, too. The long night of adrenaline must’ve been wearing on him.

“You can use mine,” Chase offered. “I can crash on the couch while you’re staying.”

“Oh. Uh, thanks, man.”

“No problem, dude,” Chase gave a thumbs-up, accompanied by a cheesy grin. Alt couldn’t help but smile at that, not that they could see it under the bandanna. Guess some things were universal constants.

“Oh, before you go upstairs,” Schneep said. “Jameson is wondering if there are any others from your universe who came over, if that is indeed what happened. And I am as well, frankly.”

Alt thought back on it. “I don’t think so. Other than”—he made a face while simultaneously shuddering—”Magnificent. I haven’t been able to find any if they did come through. And...I think the two of us were the only ones in range? So...no, the answer’s no.”

Chase had no idea where he was, or how he’d gotten here. One moment, he and the others had been looking for Alt, after that stupid magician had gone after him again. They’d been getting close, he was sure of it, but then the next moment there had been a noise and a rush of colored light, and Chase had found himself standing in a park, completely alone. 

This wasn’t the same city. He’d been patrolling it for years, he knew his city, and this wasn’t it. But the question was, where was he then? And where were the others?

After a while of wandering, he came across a drug store. It looked abandoned, or more accurately that surreal sort of empty that only came late at night when the white lights of the store showed off how few people there actually were. There was only one car in the parking lot, an old minivan. A woman with shoulder-length blonde curls was walking towards it, clutching a white paper bag in one hand and her keys in the other. Chase was hesitant to approach her, since it could easily come off the wrong way, but after a moment of silent thought, he decided it would be for the best. He’d just make sure to keep his distance.

He approached her slowly, staying a few feet away when he called out, “Excuse me?”

The woman dropped her paper bag in shock, two bottles of over-the-counter medicine falling out. She spun around, eyes wide. “Chase?!”

Chase gaped in turn. “Stacy?” He hadn’t recognized her. She looked...different. In tons of minute ways, but what he noticed was what he called the “tired parent look.” He’d seen it enough on Jackie, but never Stacy. She didn’t have kids, that’s why Jackie asked her to babysit for him. Did she? “Oh my god, I’m so sorry, I didn’t realize it was you.”

Stacy didn’t say anything, just took a few steps toward her car. She adjusted her grip on her keys while also fumbling about with the clasp of her purse. She seemed...on edge. Scared, even. “Uh...” Chase glanced around. The parking lot was as empty as before. He pulled off his mask, thinking maybe that was the problem. “You okay there?”

“Fine!” Stacy squeaked. She’d managed to open the purse, and was now looking for something inside without taking her eyes away from Chase. “I was just—ah, Trev got sick and we were out of cold medicine, so I went to pick some up and I left them with a sitter—told the sitter to expect me back in twenty minutes, it’s already been twelve, I think—”

He had no idea what she was talking about. But he was picking up that she was...scared of him? Of him? That couldn’t be possible. Something must’ve been up. “Well, you dropped the bag of medicine,” he pointed out helpfully. “Here, I can help you pick it up—”

“No!” The word was more like an instinctive shriek. Stacy had pulled her phone out of her purse at this point. “I mean, thank you but I’m fine, I’m good, you don’t need to come any closer.”

“Stacy, is something wrong?” Chase asked, eyes lined with worry. “You’re acting strange.”

“No, I’m not! You—you—you know that.” There was a small flash from her phone’s camera, and Stacy immediately paled. “I-I-I-I didn’t mean to take a picture. You know how this works, new camera so confusing!” She laughed nervously. Her thumb was moving across the screen, tapping in very specific places.

“Stacy, if you’re in trouble, you know I can help you out.” Chase was starting to get desperate at this point. There was no way he could be misinterpreting this. She was scared. Of him. All he could think of was that maybe being seen with him was a risk of some sort. But what could she have gotten mixed up with for that to be a problem?

“I highly doubt that, Chase.” She made eye contact with him, and Chase realized she had been vaguely watching his hands the whole time. Her thumb had stopped. “Not when you know what the trouble is.”

“When I know what—?”

The question was cut off when Stacy suddenly dropped her phone with a small gasp. It landed screen-up on the asphalt of the parking lot. The phone was showing nothing but blank static. And then, with a fizz and a hiss, the static spread out from the phone, until it was a solid mass on the pavement. Chase gaped at it. The mass glitched, and morphed, and suddenly in a blink there was a man standing in front of Chase, dressed in dark colors except for the green scarf around his neck and the white eye-patch covering his right eye.

He looked familiar. But...it couldn’t be. “Alt?” Chase asked hesitantly.

The man looked at him and shook his head. “Not the one you know.” He turned to Stacy. “This is going to take some explaining, but basically this guy’s safe.”

“I’m safe?!” Chase repeated, bewildered. “Alt, what’s happening?”

“You shouldn’t c̛all̛ ̀me̷ ̶that ,” the other Alt said, his voice gaining an electronic filter. “It’ll probably just confuse you.”

Chase folded his arms. “I can’t possibly be more confused than I am right now.”

Stacy looked at the other Alt. “Anti? I’m...actually with him on that.”

Chase blinked. “An-Anti?” he repeated.

“My name,” the other Alt—Anti—confirmed. “The real name of your Alt, too, though I got the impression it wasn’t something he gave away easily—and now you’re staring at nothing like you’re having an existential crisis, great.”

It couldn’t be possible, could it? Alt couldn’t have been hiding that this entire time, right? Why? Chase turned around and put his head in his hands as he took this new fact in.

“Hey!” Anti pixillated into existence in front of him, glaring. “Crises later! We got more important shit to worry about!”

Stacy sighed. “He always does this.”

“Because it’s true! God, how can you get a̢n̶yt͏hin͝g̛ done like this?!” Anti grumbled indistinctively for a few more seconds, then fixed Chase with his best dead-eyed stare. It worked; Chase immediately stiffened. “Look, my fr—acquain—compan—fuck, I don’t know how we relate to each other, but their name is Sam and they told me you, and this Alt I met earlier, are from a parallel universe.”

Chase had to laugh at that.

“What are you...? I'͝m seŗi̴òus, Vlog-Man.”

“I know, I know you are, but...” Chase forced himself to stop “It’s just...god, that sounds so absurd. My life has truly become a comic book.”

“Well, you got the outfit for it, hero-type,” Anti said, giving Chase a once-over. “I hope you’re at least better than the one we have now.”

Stacy shuddered at that, just straightening up from where she’d bent over to pick up the bag she’d dropped. “Anti...if-if he’s alright, then I didn’t need to text you?”

“Not really. But it’s good practice for if the other one shows up.”

Chase looked between them, head turning rapidly. “Okay, so lemme get this straight. I am in...an alternate dimension. Alt is also here. You are not the Stacy I know, and you’re not...Alt. I’m assuming there’s another me here? Is that what got you so on edge, am I, like, a supervillain here?” He asked the last question with a crooked grin, but it slid off his face when Anti and Stacy still looked dead serious.

“Not exactly a supervillain, but not a shining example of a good person, either,” Anti drawled.

“Oh.” Chase fell silent for a moment, then started up again with what he thought was the most important topic. “You said you saw Alt? Was he okay?”

“He was,” Anti said grimly. “I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but Alt’s gotten himself into some real serious shit. He’s in danger.”

The five of them sat around the kitchen table. Jack was still asleep, and would be for a while, and this Alt person had just stopped moving around upstairs. “So, to get to the point of this,” Jackie opened up the meeting. “What’re we going to do about him?”

Marvin scowled, leaning back in his chair. “I don’t fucking know. The other me was an asshole, you think this other him is one too?”

“Actually I think he’s the good twin,” Chase laughed.

“I do not think he functions on the same rules,” Schneep said, staring at the ceiling like he could see through it to where Alt was sleeping. “For one thing, I do not think he needs to take the naptimes. And I thought that he was very immune to whatever it is Jamie does.”

{He is,} Jameson confirms. {Or at least, his mind is a beast to get through, walls made of titanium. This one, however...most unusual. His mind is like an open door, but surrounded by traps. Easy to get into, provided you don’t set any of them off.}

“You didn’t seem to have much trouble,” Marvin said, a smile ghosting around his lips.

{Well, I have a lot of practice,} Jameson replied with the same phantom smile. {And it seems someone left the door open in the first place.}

“Y’know, we still haven’t answered Jackie’s original question,” Chase said. “What are we going to do with him?”

Schneep shrugged. “Well, I was thinking that since last time we did not learn the hows and whys of the glitching, we could try again?”

“Henrik...” Jackie warned. “You know that Alt can probably die, right? Not like him.”

“I know, I know,” Schneep sighed. “But I think it would be worth a try.”

“I’m just gonna say that I’m still pissed you didn’t share like you were supposed to,” Marvin muttered.

“I was going to! It was a two-week arrangement! Is not my fault it started to fall apart and got out.”

“We’re not going to go full operating-room-magic-basement on Alt,” Chase said firmly. “Not when there’s a chance he could just tell us.”

{I agree with Chase,} Jameson said. {We will not resort to that until we have no other way.}

Jackie sighed. “Well, that’s better than nothing, I guess. And we’re not going to kill him.”

The others all murmured agreements. The real question was, why would they get rid of their one possible chance to figure out how Anti worked? Why would they pass up an opportunity to get rid of him forever?

In the corner of the dining room, a hidden camera buzzed, the sound too quiet for the human ear. Usually it didn’t do that. But a spark of dark green electricity had just invaded its systems, and it was reacting badly.

At least three from the parallel universe had made it over. But where had the third gone? And more importantly, were there any more? Only time would tell.