#Parallel Environments

[faisalakhtar12]

GitLab Environments: Your Cloud Playground Blueprint

Remember when you were a kid and tried to build the ultimate LEGO castle? You had all these cool pieces, but figuring out how they fit together was the real challenge. Well, welcome to the grown-up version: building your serverless cloud playground! Let’s take a bird’s-eye view of our LEGO set… err, I mean, our solution components. The Grand Blueprint: Components Overview Imagine you’re an…

[sersi]

Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) dir. Joss Whedon Avengers: Endgame (2019) dir. Anthony and Joe Russo

[kokoasci]

some concept stuff (nova worldbuilding)

[cosmicquilt]

"Is black the absence of light - or the presence of color?"

the darkness in his eyes is from the absence of any light that would usually find the color underneath...

[r0bee]

I'll contain my rambling explanations in the tags but believe me there are layers here that I tried to convey

[A Soft Place To Land from Waitress // vaultknight + Rose Maclean/Moldaver]

[mollysunder]

There's a really bad case of irony for that fact that Vander is depicted surrounded by yellow flowers, while Viktor built a sanctuary(?) in the Sump amongst yellow roses.

Yellow flowers, including roses, are supposed to represent friendship, but both characters are defined by the loss of key friendships. Vander with Silco, and Viktor with Jayce, the former loss sealed Vander's doom and we've yet to see the fallout of the hextech duo.

Of course there could be more to it. Maybe yellow flowers hold specific cultural significance to Arcane's Zaun. Maybe this is more of a demonstration that through the power of the hexcore, Viktor was able to make a place like the Sump able to support vegetation. It's a feat not even the Firelights have achieved and offers new possibilities for Zaun where plant life is highly coveted as a sign of wealth and power.

There's a lot to think about.

[ruvviks]

// oc deep dive.

tagged by; @aztarion and @devilbrakers, thank you so much!!

tagging; @mojaves, @deadrlngers, @ordinarymaine, @claudiawolf, @adelaidedrubman and YOU!

What common/uncommon fear do they have?

Nathan has a lot of fears stemming from his paranoia. Tangible ones such as getting captured or killed by MOBIUS, his friends walking away from him, or someone following him home; as well as more unrealistic ones, such as somehow ending up back in STEM, or getting stuck in a time loop, or a giant sinkhole all the way to the core of the earth opening up right at his feet.

It also happens often enough that certain actions don’t necessarily scare him, but make him uncomfortable or highly on edge (often with good reason); think of someone locking the door of the room he’s in– especially when it’s just them two– or getting too close without warning. He often fears people he gets too close to will end up treating him like the Administrator did, which is why it takes a while for him to let Sebastian get any closer physically, despite warming up to him relatively fast.

A more uncommon fear he has is waking up one morning and having lost one of his senses or his ability to speak. Aside from the mental erosion that had become a growing issue among Union citizens, MOBIUS observed a similar kind of process in its agents who regularly jumped in and out of STEM for general maintenance and the like– presumably caused by the constant changes in brain activity, which more than often led to exactly what Nathan’s fear mentioned above describes. While he was among the agents who worked both in and outside of STEM on the Union environment, he was lucky enough to never suffer the consequences.

Lastly, he is deadly afraid of Anima. Despite not having shown any other symptom of succumbing to the STEM domination process, Nathan would have started seeing her around sometime before Lily vanished– presumably got her attention after some of his escapades in the secret labs in the Marrow– and he has not been able to sleep soundly in STEM ever since. While his fear of her mostly acts up when he’s in a STEM environment, it definitely translates over to the real world as well; during bad mental health episodes he has auditory hallucinations of her, and she makes regular appearances in his nightmares too.

Do they have any pet peeves?

When people are too passive. Nathan can’t stand it when he’s expected to initiate everything, from conversations to taking action, both in a work context (scheduling meetings, deploying new code) as well as personal context (scheduling to hang out, doing household chores). He also doesn’t like having to constantly ask people to do what they’re supposed to do– though this irritation more than often extends a little too far, to things he is expecting of people but never told them about.

Loud and unexpected noises, especially when done on purpose. Fireworks would be a great example of this, and they piss Nathan off no end. He gets snippy when people raise their voice at him for no reason, or when they keep banging their fist on a surface to get others’ attention.

Getting cut off in traffic. Nathan’s road rage is easily awakened and he can get a little drastic with it. His reflexes are fast enough to brake on time to avoid ending up in someone’s trunk, but will in that same breath speed right back up to crash into them on purpose as revenge for pissing him off.

What are three items you can find in their bedroom?

A large ring binder full of old code snippets, notes from various projects he worked on back at MOBIUS, and all his research ranging from neuroscience all the way to electrical engineering. Nathan is a little old-school in that regard– he’d much rather have all his research physically with him than save it all to some online storage platform and risk losing it like that.

A jigsaw puzzle, made entirely out of different pieces that he’s collected over the years (stolen from others’ puzzles, found in various locations, stolen directly from the store, etc). The full piece would total up to nearly 2000 pieces, though it is still missing a large chunk in the center; the result is an abstract piece containing mostly darker colors, though with various bursts of color scattered around like flowers in a field. Nathan isn’t the artistic type, but the project keeps him busy and he considers it a type of self-expression.

The knife he killed his parents with when he was sixteen years old. He’s not entirely sure why he kept it all those years– perhaps to remind himself what got him to where he is now, or because it’s the only thing he still has from that time of his life. Either way, it’s kept safe in the top drawer of his nightstand, easy enough to reach in case someone breaks into his apartment.

What do they notice first in a person?

First: State of mind, overall mood. How approachable do they look; can he afford to lower his guard or does he need to tread with caution, can he get close without worrying about a knife to the stomach or should he keep his distance? Nathan rarely shows immediate interest in someone’s overall personality, he would rather want to know which of their emotions he’s gonna have to deal with during their interaction(s).

Second: Body language. Ties in with the first thing mentioned– cautiously watching for threats, waiting to see if they make a move to touch (or harm) him so he can step out of their range. But it also extends a little further; Nathan tends to mimic others’ body language in conversation to make himself appear more approachable. If someone gestures a lot, he will do the same.

Third: Their smile, if relevant. Smiling is an eye-catching action to him, since he’s not one to quickly do so himself. It’s attractive to him; if someone smiles at him, you’ll be able to catch him staring.

Fourth: Scars, and other (skin) details. Nathan isn’t one to ask about them, of course– but they’ll catch his attention anyway, for a brief moment, since some of them already tell a story on their own even without words.

Fifth: Nervous tics, if relevant. By this point he’s been in conversation long enough to pick up on the little details– a slight thrill or shakiness to their voice, a thumb running over the side of their index finger, a nose twitch. In some cases it eases his mind, knowing the other person isn’t confident in their conversation either; in other cases it sets off alarms in his mind, and makes him wonder if there’s more going on than what they’re showing or telling him.

On a scale of 1 to 10, how high is their pain tolerance?

Physically: 7. While he doesn’t quite look like it, Nathan can take a hit or two. Most of his injuries happen in STEM– though with the way the technology works, the pain is very much real, and in some cases the scars are lasting even in the real world despite the damage having been sustained in STEM. To an extent, Nathan even enjoys the pain; it’s grounding for him, and keeps him from dissociating. When it gets too much to handle he simply drinks it away.

Mentally: 10. Nathan’s life has been a constant downward spiral; sent to a youth detention center after being wrongfully accused of killing his younger sister, and he was bullied relentlessly there, which continued until long after his release both at school and at home. At MOBIUS, he was required to work shifts in their HQ as well as in the Marrow, in the Union STEM environment– he was required to be mentally strong, or he would have already started suffering from mental erosion by long-term STEM exposure after his first few trips in. It takes a lot to break him (or so he likes to believe).

Emotionally: 4. Once you get past all the barriers, Nathan is pretty sensitive. He doesn’t deal well with rejection or misunderstanding, and is prone to assuming things are all his fault the second something goes wrong. It’s easy to upset him, though he won’t easily show; but the damage often takes a while to repair.

Do they go into fight or flight mode when under pressure? (Or freeze or fawn?)

Fight, more than often; though it may appear as flight at first, since Nathan’s favored combat approach is stealth and he will always find cover before doing anything rash. In certain cases, however, he would be more likely to freeze; especially anything related to Anima or an enemy type like her, where fighting is out of the question, and he knows that a single wrong move can mean his demise.

It translates to non-combat situations too– often willing to talk to people but his initial response is to get defensive and close himself off, and if not given a moment to regain himself it can lead to either fighting or freezing; biting back with similar ferocity or shutting down altogether, unable to pick up his rational train of thought in the heat of the moment.

It really depends on the type of confrontation, though; taking his own state of mind and who else is involved into consideration. He’s known to fawn when a situation starts feeling a little too familiar– generally surrounding the abuse he suffered from partially his parents, but mostly the Administrator.

What animal represents them best?

Wolf; bordering on dog motif, but cautiously so, requiring infinite patience and understanding to win his trust. Nathan is loyal and guarding to those he cares about, but he values his freedom– his choices and decisions are his and his alone, and anyone who tries to take that away from him will suffer the necessary consequences.

How would a stranger likely describe them?

Curious, above anything else. Distant, reserved; surprisingly well-spoken, almost technical in his interactions with others as if the whole conversation is pre-programmed in his mind. Nathan isn’t necessarily cold towards others, but people would also not be quick to describe him as kind; though there is a certain warmth to the way he speaks and looks at people, despite the fact he very rarely smiles and isn’t one to quickly compliment someone else.

Appearance-wise, people tend to notice the white strands in his black hair first. They’re clustered at the front of his head, and match with the white hairs in his left eyebrow and the white eyelashes in the outer corner of his left eye. Nathan has very pale and rough skin, patchy but dark facial hair covering up most of his acne (/scarring); and part of the skin around his left eyebrow is lacking pigment, though it’s a little hard to see. He has very pale and bright blue eyes, which can be a little unnerving when staring at them for too long. Many people cannot maintain eye contact with him for very long.

Do they have any hobbies?

Nathan’s career is directly intertwined with his hobbies, and he enjoys working on code even long after cutting ties with MOBIUS. Software development, application optimization– his laptop runs on an operating system that he coded entirely himself, and whenever he has some time to spare he can be found tweaking and optimizing it and adding new features.

To no one’s surprise, he’s a gamer. Shooters, roguelikes, survival horror– he does not play all too often as his schedule often doesn’t allow for it, but he generally doesn’t have a hard time playing on higher difficulties and enjoys the challenge. Nathan has tried his hand at game design and development too, but stopped quickly when he found it too similar to developing the Union environment in STEM.

And last, surprisingly, would be writing. Journaling, some sort of attempt at poetry, or articles he would want to send in to some website or appropriate magazine but never does– a lot of Nathan’s writing is for his eyes alone, but it helps as an outlet, it keeps him grounded. For a while after leaving MOBIUS, he worked on writing tech manuals for various employers to earn some extra cash, which also ties directly into his interests.

[snivel1]

What if I swapped their puppet types😳

[daeneryscel]

“alicent making homophobic remarks the night of laena’s funeral isn’t cool considering laenor was shown to be heavily grieving his sister and didn’t deserve to be attacked during it (not to mention it was an obvious ploy on alicent’s part to divert attention from her committing literal treason).”

“b-bUT WHAT ABOUT DAEMON AND RHAENYRA FUCKING-“

i’m not gonna lie i don’t particularly care that they had sex that night. was it disrespectful? for sure. did it harm anyone for them to do it? it, in fact, did not. two consenting adults having sex away from prying eyes and keeping to themselves < an entitled boy purposely calling a girl at her mother’s funeral (whom he had never interacted with before) a pig and ridiculing her grief. laena’s storyline was cut short because the writers decided she wasn’t important enough to make into a proper character that isn’t at the mercy of other characters (it’s something i’m forever going to be salty about, daemon and rhaenyra loved her with all their hearts and were absolutely devastated when she passed) but out of those two scenarios who do you think she would be more upset with?

the people who bring this up in retaliation cannot handle alicent taking any criticism whatsoever. in all honesty i wouldn’t even care if her fans would just say ‘yeah, it was shitty. don’t really care though.’ it would at least save me the time of reading think piece after think piece on why alicent deserved to get her lick back against rhaenyra for her lot in life (caused by otto and viserys) by focusing on her pain rather than her son’s. these are the same people who try to claim that most of rhaenyra’s children and step children secretly hate her, due to wanting ‘complex and nuanced relationships’ to occur (they actually also can’t handle that rhaenyra was a great mom all around to all of her kids, and that maybe they need to be focusing those feelings on the green kids with their parents instead). let’s be serious for just one moment: it makes more sense that the children who were neglected by one parent and abused by the other having complicated familial feelings than children who were (for the most part) raised in a relatively stable and loving environment.

[booksandmore]

okay but howl and gojo are the same person in different catergories am i right or i right

[number1villainstan]

"do you ship them as friends or do you ship them romantically" i ship them as It's Fucking Complicated

[ramblingandpie]

Slightly frustrated with ds9 that Ziyal and Jake don't interact? Like. Assuming I've done my math right. She's 21 when she comes to the station, and he's like 18. They are age peers. They're both artists. And their dads hate each other. So much possibility for dramatic tension if they become friends!!

[museofthepyre]

Do Eden's parents know about Harlow? What are their opinions on him?

They do not, and if they did, they probably wouldn’t like him all that much. Eden’s parents have the moral sensibilities of ‘a grandma who you can’t swear around because she might have a heart attack’. The pearl-clutching type, who like to think they’re the pinnacle of polite society. It’s all a performance to hide the mess inside (dual metaphor here— their family has some major secrets to cover up, as well as the fact that the home itself is quite literally… a mess inside. Eden’s mother has hoarding compulsions, their house is packed full of unkempt junk, but you would have no clue just looking at it from the outside. The outside is very well maintained. Sorta tangential but it contextualizes why they’re like this 😅)

Anyways they’d (hypocritically) look down on Harlow. They’d think his job as a taxidermist is nasty, they’d think little of his prospects in life because they equate success with image- and they wouldn’t want Eden hanging around with him. Harlow would think they’re stuck up assholes. He is correct. They are stuck up assholes.

[loualcott]

camilla & charles kinda remind me of the rosier twins i fear the brain rot is extreme

[egginfroggin]

It's taken me seven months to realize that I paralleled Emmet having dreams about a blurry recollection of his brother telling him to come home with Ingo having a nightmare about a distorted version of Emmet telling him that he failed entirely in Pandemonic Paradise.

They both feel like they're failing the other, but in different -- yet similar -- ways. Emmet can't come home yet, and is making his lookalike wait; Ingo failed Emmet entirely, and believes that Emmet is dead as a result of that negligence.

Both are manifestations of feeling an absence, albeit in different contexts, and both wreak a level of havoc on their recipient's mindset.

I reiterate, this was unintentional. The things I realize at three in the morning sometimes, man.

[kedicatt-cotl]

Does he deserve a second chance in life?