#Read Numbers Spreadsheet Developed

[art]

Creator Spotlight: @camberdraws

Hello! My name is Camber (any pronouns), and I’m a mixed media illustrator located in the southwestern United States. I love drawing everything, but I have a special interest in depicting strange creatures and environments, often accompanied by abstract imagery and mark-making. Professionally, I’ve worked creating concept art and 2D assets for museum exhibits, but currently, I am engaged full-time as a software developer and make standalone illustrations in my free time. I’ve been posting art on Tumblr since I was a teenager, and the site has been very welcoming towards my work to this very day!

Check out Camber’s interview below!

Did you originally have a background in art? If not, how did you start?

I’ve had an interest in drawing since I was barely sentient, but at thirteen years old I decided to become “serious” about art. I was all about reading tutorials and doing a ton of studies. I would tote my heavy instructional art books to school every single day (my poor back!) Despite all this, I decided to forgo art school in favor of a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science at my local college. Alongside my major, I received a minor in Art Studio with a specialization in fine art, which totally changed my views on creating artwork and drastically changed my style.

How has your style developed over the years?

As mentioned previously, my style did a 180 after I studied under some very skilled fine art professors! As a kid, my drawings were very realism-heavy and inspired by video game concept art. I mostly worked digitally, too. During college, I was thrown for a loop when we were instructed to do strange things like, for example, make a bunch of marks on paper using pastel, WITHOUT looking, and then turn said marks into a finished piece of art! I quickly and deeply fell in love with abstract work, and especially appreciated images that are not easily parsed by the viewer. Since then, I’ve made it my goal to combine abstract mark-making with more representational subject matter.

What is one habit you find yourself doing a lot as an artist?

Hmmm, one habit I really enjoy as an artist is strictly tracking the amount of time I spend drawing! I currently work a full-time job wholly unrelated to art, so I have to be careful with my time if I want to spend enough hours drawing each week. I created a spreadsheet that allows you to enter the amount of minutes you’ve drawn each day and calculate how much drawing time you still need to reach your weekly goal (I aim for 20 hours a week.) Having such a clear, numbers-based objective keeps me motivated to work like nothing else!

Over the years as an artist, what were your biggest inspirations behind your creativity?

I know this is a common inspiration, but Hayao Miyazaki’s work has been rewiring my neurons since I was a child. Seemingly all of my artistic interests can be summed up by the movie Princess Mononoke: it has strange/abstract creature designs, a strong focus on nature and environmental storytelling, and a mix of dark and hopeful themes. Additionally, I’ve been deeply inspired by video game series such as Zelda, Okami, Pikmin, and Dark Souls. But arguably, none of these have influenced me more than Pokemon! I’ve been drawing Pokemon since I could barely hold a pencil, and I haven’t stopped since! I believe my love of designing creatures originated with my endless deluge of Pokemon fanart during my childhood.

What is a medium that you have always been intrigued by but would never use yourself?

I’ve always been fascinated by 3D mediums and am so tempted to try them out! Whether that’s 3D models created digitally or sculptures made from clay, I profoundly admire artists who have this skill. Oftentimes, it feels like I don’t have time to delve into a totally different artistic paradigm. However, I feel very strongly that learning new skills can enrich your current work. I should take that advice and someday give 3D mediums a shot!

What is a recent creative project that you are proud of?

I am in the process of creating an art book (a dream of mine!) and have been executing smaller drawings of concepts I find interesting from both a visual and storytelling standpoint. A recent drawing for said book is that of a snail made of ink with an ink bottle as a shell, and it went absolutely viral! I’ve never had an experience like this as an artist before and it has been spectacular! I was able to open a shop using my newly acquired art printer and sell many prints of my snail. Creating something original, directly stemming from my interests, and having that resonate with so many people has been unreal. I couldn’t ask for more as an artist!

What advice would you give to younger you about making art that’s personal or truthful to your own experiences?

I would tell my younger self to chill out and experiment more! I was so caught up in the idea that I needed to have a realistic style to be considered “good.” I also believed that technical skill was the only measure of how worthy my art was. That’s not to say technical skill doesn’t matter, but I now firmly believe the creativity and voice of your ideas far outweigh the skill of execution in terms of importance. Technical skills should elevate ideas, not the other way around. Once I began to revel in strange ideas and stories for my work, depicted oftentimes in odd styles or mediums, I truly found my voice as an artist.

Who on Tumblr inspires you and why?

My peers here on Tumblr inspire me more than anything! Sharing my work with contemporaries and giving each other support brings me joy like no other, and keeps me motivated to continue creating. I wouldn’t be where I am today without them! @beetlestench, @theogm-art, @trustyalt, @ratwednesday, @phantom-nisnow, @svltart, @mintsdraws, @mothhh-hh, @jupiterweathers, @thesewispsofsmoke, @picoffee, @fetchiko, @kaisei-ink, and @pine-niidles just to name only a few!

Thanks for stopping by, Camber! If you haven’t seen their Meet the Artist piece, check it out here. For more of Camber’s work, follow their Tumblr, @camberdraws!

[sightseertrespasser]

"I have a whole other tangent I could elaborate on about Tacnet specifically" Staring at you with big HUGE eyes. I would love to hear the tangent

Alrighty then.

First things first, what is Tacnet?

Sometimes also referred to as a Battle computer, Tacnet is short for Tactical Network and its ostensibly the worlds most demented excel spreadsheet.

In more literal terms, Tacnet is a type of supercomputer.

Supercomputers are incredibly useful pieces of technology. Able to run simulations, predictive algorithms and utilizing real world statistics to essentially speculate the past, present or future. The bottleneck for a regular old supercomputer is that someone has to sit down and manually input all the information necessary for those calculations.

You want to know what kind of gun made that specific bullet hole?

Well first the supercomputer needs the ballistics data off as many kinds of guns as possible, then it needs data on the material that was shot, and it also needs as much information as possible on the bullet hole in question.

You skip out on any of that input and the odds of the supercomputer being correct gets progressively lower.

Problem is, the supercomputer can’t actually think, and therefore can’t estimate how accurate its own calculations are. A computer works in total binary. If it only has the ballistic data for three kinds of guns, it doesn’t matter how much the bullet hole doesn’t match the data sets its been provided, the supercomputer will select whichever of the three matches the hole the most closely.

A computer, no matter how advanced, is incapable of knowing when it doesn’t know something.

But people on the other hand. . .

We turn now to an ambitious young R&D developer many millennia ago.

Once upon a time, this member of Research and Development was on the team responsible for designing new Cold Constructed mechs for Sentinel Prime. And they had a GREAT idea.

“I’ve got it!” They say, unaware of the ominous music rising in the background.

“The great powers of the supercomputer cannot be realized within its current limitations! Its greatest flaws are that it must be stationary, it must be manually fed information and all calculations it does generate must be reviewed by a thinking mech!”

Their coworkers groan. It’s too early in the morning for this shit.

“Therefore!” The mech says, quickly sketching out a box full of smaller boxes that is supposed to be a computer and the miserable approximation of a mech.

“We simply remove the separation, and make the mech itself the data intake for the supercomputer!”

Lightning crashes in the distance, someone tiredly gets the fire extinguisher. Again.

It’s not a hard sales pitch for a totalitarian government to go “Yeah we want super-cops. Here’s the money, make it happen.”

And in a tale as old as capitalism, an untested feature was rolled out with catastrophic consequences.

If you’ve read my tangent on how Crashes work, then you already know about logic cascades.

Tacnet is a supercomputer. A tool. Like any tool, it’s only as good as the person using it, and someone who really doesn’t know what they’re doing is liable to hurts themselves.

So what can Tacnet really do in the hands (or processor) of a master?

Some psychic-type level nonsense. Anyone who’s gotten the hang of their Tacnet, in their own fields of expertise, are able to know exactly what will happen before anyone else.

Let’s compare Smokescreen, Bluestreak and then Prowls Tacnets and how they’re used.

Every Tacnet starts the same, but can be developed and trained to excel at different things.

Smokescreen - Place Your Bets

Smokescreen has trained his to work best for gambling. “Training” can be anything from downloading tables of statistical analysis to personally observing the phenomenon and making notes.

Let’s look at rolling dice. If you rolled a six sided die, any number is equally likely to be rolled. Or 16.67 % odds for each.

So if 3 dice are rolled, then every total value outcome from 3 to 18 must be equal odds as well, right?

Nope! If three six sided dice are rolled, there is a 12.5 % (or 25% if you combine them) chance it’ll be a 10 or 11. And that’s out of sixteen possible outcomes.

So if you know the difference but your opposition doesn’t, then suddenly you have a huge advantage while betting. And this is just the most simplified example I can think of.

If you’ve got the time, statistics are absolutely wild and there’s a mathematical equation for pretty much anything.

All Smokescreen has to do to get good at a game is learn the rules and then plug in the numbers. You know how card counting will get you banned from most casinos? Well Smokescreens worked that out too. Talking to other players (collecting preexisting data points) he can find the average of how much he can win in a night before people get too pissy.

Another thing Smokescreen has going for him (especially over Prowl) is that Smokescreen is much better at reading people. He doesn’t just have statics on the games, but the players.

Mapping out the connections between individuals and taking personal motivations into account, Smokescreen at his peak can not only predict who the winners will be, but he can also predict who will loose on purpose, who will bet the most, who will cheat and who will seek to take their winnings by force.

Experience, experience, experience is the golden ticket.

Also, it’s Smokescreen himself who has to craft the profiles of his victims gambling buddies. Once fleshed out, Tacnet can do wonders mid game, giving Smokescreen room to focus on his social schemes instead.

Luckily, after the burning of Praxus, most people don’t really know what a Tacnet is truly capable of. So Smokescreen looses just often enough to keep folks from realizing that he always knows how every game will play out before they even start.

Bluestreak - Shoot Your Shot

Going in the opposite direction of utility, Bluestreaks Tacnet is all about kinetic calculations.

This fucker is doing the type of math that’s more letters than numbers. Constantly.

Air resistance, velocity, acceleration, gravity, weight, density, temperature, vector, displacement and time.

There’s equations that call for each and every one of those factors, usually in combination.

Your average sniper, even a good one, is usually considering wind speeds, the pull of gravity and the distance from the target when lining up a shot. Bluestreak is taking in all that and then working out the influences of about 15 more factors on top of that. Even before he’s picking where exactly on the target he’s going to hit. Since remember, if he’s got data on not just his own weapons but his enemies defenses, then it really becomes as simple as “would you like them disabled or dead?”

Aim is no longer a question of ability, but an equation to be solved.

Still, physical capabilities does play a part since a steady hand goes a long way towards realizing those calculations.

Tacnet may crunch the numbers, but Bluestreak is the one who has to find all the details relevant to the shot and pick which ones to feed to the machine.

Additionally, Bluestreaks Tacnet in particular has the experimental feature of massively increasing the amount of sensory data he can take in per second, effectively causing him to perceive things in slow motion. This is less something Tacnet is doing, and more a case of Bluestreaks own processor utilizing the bandwidth normally taken up by Tacnet.

Tacnet itself takes a substantial amount of power to run. Normally, it causes problems by siphoning too much power from other systems to do its job (see logic cascade crashes). But Bluestreak has the funny little quirk of somehow doing that in reverse. So when his sense of time dilation becomes maxed out, Tacnet isn’t running the formulas to help him shoot anymore, it’s just Bluestreaks own skills at that point.

Outside of that rare circumstance, Bluestreak is effectively playing with aimbot in real life.

Prowl - Know Your Fate

So we’ve established that Tacnet is powered by mathematical formulas and data collection.

What would happen if someone just, kept going? Kept feeding it? Building up more and more infrastructure for Tacnet to grow around until it has a point of reference for almost anything?

You get an oracle.

Prowl puts the Tactical back into Tacnet. He’s essentially the Jack of all Trades and Master of several of those subjects actually.

Sure, Smokescreen has him beat for behavioral analysis, and Bluestreak is leagues beyond what Prowl can calculate for trajectories. But no one has doubled down on what Tacnet can really do like Prowl has.

You know that (not actually true) statistic about how humans only use 25% of their brains? That’s your average Tacnet user.

Prowl just happens to be insane.

He is constantly taking in new data. He is constantly taking notes, making observations, stripping it down to the raw numbers involved and packing it away into monumental resource centers for Tacnet to refer to.

You ever see someone who’s really good with excel sheets and then see them do some shit you didn’t know excel sheets could even do?

It’s kinda like that.

If you’ve ever read the classic Sherlock Holmes stories, a lot of what makes Sherlock so effective is having such a detailed knowledge of the world around him.

Let’s go back to the bullet hole analysis.

Prowl could look at the bullet hole and tell you after two minutes: “It was this specific Cargo vessel at this time with an illegal weapon.”

From the outside, this looks like a baseless guess. But to Prowl it looks like this:

a) The gun must be a new imported weapon as nothing he currently has on file matches the marking its made in that kind of material.

b) The shooter not only missed their shot, but was shooting downward at an excessive angle. Indicating this was a very large mech firing downward at a much smaller target, likely a mini bot.

c) The shooter can be exactly tracked by looking at the local registry for recent out bound flights, specifically ones with no cargo.

Why? Because the shooter is most likely a transport shuttle. Easy access to imported goods, very large but not a war frame (hence the missed shot) and having failed to kill their victim, would flee town immediately without waiting to take on cargo.

Of those two minutes it took, he spent 1:30 waiting for the flight records to load so he could look up the name of the shuttle.

Scale those skills up to a war room, and Prowl not only knows why an enemy troop is retreating, but where they’re retreating to, what losses they must have taken and whether or not it’ll be worth it to finish the job.

Prowl isn’t smart because he has a Tacnet. Tacnet is OP because Prowl is that smart.

When I write his perspective, Prowl often has an accuracy percentage attached to his calculations. Tacnet isn’t the thing making those estimates. Prowl is the one judging how accurate Tacnets suggestions are.

Dudes just a freak.

—————————

In summary, Tacnet is like if you had every kind of calculator in your pocket and the only limit was how many equations you’ve added on and the amount of information you can feed it.

That last bit is the biggest challenge for Tacnet, as conflicting or flawed data can cause. . . Issues. Aka Logic Cascades. Aka “Why can’t I make it make sense.” Disease.

Let’s just say there’s a reason not many people know what Tacnet is capable of, as a lot of early Praxian Enforcers could be taken out by confusing emotions, plot holes, and particularly well executed magic tricks.

Doesn’t exactly inspire confidence when your new shiny police force can be hospitalized by watching Back to the Future 2.

Being one of the first Cold Constructs built with a Tacnet, Smokescreen figured out how to mostly get around that glitch early on and taught Prowl and Bluestreak how to do the same. In this particular setting, Tacnet is poorly understood and best kept mostly secret for those reasons.

(Bizarrely, between Tacnet and the radar uses of doorwings, Prowl and his brothers would actually be really good at predicting the weather.)

———————————————————————

Bonus bit: Good fucking lord it would absolutely terrifying if you could somehow combine Smokescreen, Prowl and Bluestreaks skills into like a Tacnet hivemind or something.

Though with wing speak, to an outsider that’s probably what it already looks like.

———

The three brothers look at the same bullet hole, silently communicating in a way the local non-Praxian officer couldn’t pick up on.

“Oh yeah, looks like Rotor didn’t like Brick cutting into his half of the dirty money. Slippery little guy but you can find both their hideouts here and here.” Smokescreen, the eldest, pulls up a map for reference.

Prowl is already out the door, Bluestreak is lining up a shot through the window.

“What is he. . ?” The other officer looks from Bluestreak. Then to Prowl, trailing off, “Where is the other one. . ?”

“Oh Prowls off to arrest the shooter.”

“But he’s a grounder, can’t Rotor fly?”

A shot rings out.

“Not anymore!”

[annadiplosis]

A few months ago I posted a couple photos of my index cards, saying I still didn’t know how and where I’d keep them, and I’ve since developed an Archiving System that combines the cards with a digital spreadsheet and has taken more hours than I will ever admit.

So, since I don’t have a “notebook system” to speak of, I'd like to share the way I archive my journals / sketchbooks / whatever you wanna call them, because I’m very proud of it, and who knows, someone might find it helpful :)

WHY I NEED AN ARCHIVING SYSTEM

The reason I don’t have a notebook system is because I use my books for absolutely everything, from sketches to grocery lists and journaling. It is crucial to me to not have any restrictions or expectations when it comes to my books, and that’s how I’ve managed to fill 43 of them over the years.

But of course, when you’ve been using notebooks without a system for most of your life and you want to read a specific entry, you can easily spend a full hour flipping through a sea of paper until you stumble upon those notes on the Bubonic Plague you took in 2011 or whatever you were trying to find.

SO HERE’S WHAT I DO

When I finish a notebook, I try to determine what its most important contents are: stuff I might want to reference in the future (project ideas, meeting notes) or is very characteristic of a period in my life (friends' drawings, travel logs). Every single page contributes to making the notebook what it is and gives it a unique personality, but not all of them are gonna be keepers, and that's fine (I'd even say fundamental, at least in my case).

These are the extremely generic categories I sort my Chosen Entries into. It's similar to the dot system so many people use, just applied retroactively:

🟣 Study notes 🔵 Work 🟢 Personal 🟡 Projects 🔴 Misc

And here's where the real archiving begins. This info goes into:

1. THE INDEX CARDS

(I always write them in Catalan; this one's a mockup and most of these are not real entries)

A little piece of cardboard with the notebook number, its start and end dates, and most important contents. I keep each index card inside its corresponding notebook, either in its own backpocket or an adhesive one I stick there myself.

This way, whenever I want to take a quick look through the book, I get a general idea of its contents at first glance. Sometimes, just holding it in my hand and reading the index card brings me back to the time when I was keeping it, and that time-travel feeling gives me a rush like no other. I don't know if you can tell, but I'm crazy about my notebooks.

2. THE SPREADSHEET

Same as before, just a couple more pieces of info (number of months, physical description) added to a file with the rest of my notebooks' data. Again, these are not real entries for privacy and language reasons, but they're very similar to the kind of stuff I do keep. The spreadsheet helps me find specific entries with a simple ctrl+f, and it's also a bird's-eye view of my progress through the years as a notebook keeper. I can see when my interests shift, how long some of my most important projects took to come to fruition, and even similar types of entries that repeat every few years which I wasn't even aware of before putting it all together. Absolutely fascinating stuff.

I hope this was useful, or interesting at the very least! If you’re a notebook keeper trying to find their own archiving system, my main advice would be to start early so you don’t have to deal with almost two decades of material like I did :’)

If you have any questions, don't be afraid to ask.

Good luck 🖤

[vanillatwistgirl]

Numerology Observations:

Numbers are literally everything, they have their own meaning. Remember when you see synchronized numbers yeah even them. Every number has their own purpose and here the observation on what these mean exactly.

Life Path 1: A natural-born leader, someone who is self-reliant, independent, and driven to achieve. You might thrive in entrepreneurial roles or in situations that require innovation.

Life Path 2: A peaceful, diplomatic soul who seeks harmony in relationships and values cooperation. You might be naturally drawn to roles where empathy, understanding, and teamwork are essential.

Life Path 3: The communicator and creative spirit. This number thrives in artistic and expressive endeavors, such as writing, performing arts, or speaking.

Life Path 4: Practical and stable, someone who is grounded, disciplined, and focused on building lasting structures, whether in business, relationships, or personal development.

Life Path 5: Adventurous and versatile. The 5 is all about freedom, change, and movement, often excelling in environments where unpredictability or novelty is present.

Life Path 6: The caregiver and nurturer. Life Path 6 is often responsible, empathetic, and deeply caring for others, thriving in roles that require a protective and nurturing touch.

Life Path 7: Analytical and introspective. The 7 life path is drawn to intellectual pursuits, often excelling in philosophy, research, or spiritual development.

Life Path 8: Powerful and authoritative, 8s are typically driven to succeed in material and business realms. They often have a strong ability to manage, organize, and lead.

Life Path 9: Compassionate and humanistic, 9s are often focused on service to others and making a difference in the world. They tend to have big hearts and global ambitions.

If you’re looking for a numerology reading, I can provide a personalized reading based on your birthdate and name.

Here is an example on how it's calculated, I'm choosing only date of birth.

Birthdate 22/10/2001 Add, all the number 22 (Date, keep as it is because it's a Master number)

10: 1+0 = 1

2001: 2+0+0+1 = 3

Now add: 22 + 1 + 3 = 26 → 2 + 6 = 8

Your Life Path Number is 8.

And what it means: You were born to lead, build, and manifest abundance. You have the rare combo of vision and execution. Think CEO vibes, boss energy, or someone who can handle both the spreadsheet and the soul-searching.

Note : 22 is a master number and it represents the Dream Builder (divine purpose, higher mission).

[notebooks-and-laptops]

When I was a kid there was this thought experiment I remember that went something like this:

There is a world in which nobody has to 'work' for a living. Instead, people pay for things with hours of their lives. So for example; instead of working for 8 hours a day to afford rent, you would give your landlord 8 hours off your lifespan in order to afford rent.

As a kid this was a story about the way in which we give our time to work, but I always think about this story when people bring up the time saving capacities of AI.

Because if this world existed, if I could give up parts of my lifespan equal to the number of hours I work at my job to not work at my job...well. I wouldn't want to. Because I am still existing in that time at work, still building the person that is me (even if the work is shitty sometimes or I'm frustrated or tired). I wouldn't want to give up my time on this earth because I don't black out when I go to work; I make friends, I laugh, I chat, I exercise my brain.

And AI...it kinda feels that way? I've worked on data cleansing before and it can be so mind numbing to do but playing with the data in a huge spreadsheet helps your brain to understand that data. Doing research for a uni paper and finding and collecting sources that helps your brain to understand the sources and develop an argument as it reads through each one in turn, in a way you wouldn't get if you got AI to do it for you. If you get AI to write your emails or your essay then you've lost the experience of how to write these things, how to communicate and argue and persuade.

The AI is making things quicker, but it's taking away experiences which are vital to the lifespan of whatever you're trying to do; it's taking away time from YOU where you learn and put in effort and exercise your brain and your skills.

[shingekinohyrulewrites]

Tequila Hallucination

You've had a crush on Professor Kujo since walking into his Intro to Marine Science class. After a chance encounter while out drinking, you have a memorable night with him.

Read on AO3 here

SMUT AHEAD 18+ ONLY WARNINGS FOR :

Handjobs, cunnilingus, unprotected sex, creampie, mentions of breeding

Just a reminder friends that while Professor/student relationships seem hot in theory, there is a HUGE power imbalance in play.

College was the number one experience that you had been looking forward to since you started high school. When the topic came up freshman year, you began building a roadmap to college. You mapped out what classes to take, what GPA to maintain, and what colleges were the best fit for you. As you progressed from a freshman to a sophomore, you started narrowing down your major choices and, by the time you were a junior, you were dead set on California State University at Monterey. It had the major that you wanted (Marine Science) and was far enough away that you were out of your parent’s grasp but not too far that you could still visit home for holidays and breaks. Plus, the campus was close enough to the beach that you could go hang out there to study!

The roadmap that you had developed shifted to college and, once you were accepted into CSU Monterey and gave them your intent to enroll, you began deciding what classes to take for each semester. Your college counselor had suggested you take your General Education classes first, knocking out each requirement to get into the Marine Science major faster. When you had to register for classes, the counselor assigned to you was surprised at how in depth your plan was.

“You . . . have a spreadsheet?” they had asked, eyes wide.

Freshman year was spent taking only Gen Ed classes, crossing them off your spreadsheet and taking classes over the summer to advance your progress. Your classmates were impressed with your dedication, often asking you to help them plan out their programs and asking you for advice.

When you started your sophomore year at CSU Monterey, you were excited to cross off the last of your Gen Ed requirements so you could shift and focus entirely on the Marine Science major. You immediately made an appointment with your counselor to make sure you were still on track, and they had laughed when you walked in with a worried look.

“You are the last student who needs to be worried,” they had remarked. “Look at how organized you are!”

“I know,” you pouted. “But a lot can happen! Who knows what could change.”

“Oh, stop,” they sighed, shaking their head. “All is going well. You can take your first Marine Science course next semester.”

The idea of being one step closer to your major had you working even harder, and your first semester was spent at office hours or in the library. Social activities were on hold, no matter how much letting off steam sounded appealing.

Second semester rolled around, and you were finally taking your first Marine Science course. The course, Marine Science 1, was the first introductory class for the major. Given the competitiveness of the program, you had been told that you had to complete the Gen Ed requirements, including an Economics class and three Mathematics classes (where you had struggled in each one). A few of your high school classes had been applied to your program, which was why you were able to sign up for Marine Science 1.

The course was described as an introduction to the field of Marine Science and would include introductory terms and concepts. In order to take the next one in the series, Marine Science 2, you had to pass with a C or higher. The thought of getting a C made your eye twitch, so you made a promise to yourself to get an A.

The morning of the first class you woke up early, sitting up in your bed and stretching before gathering your bathroom things and shuffling into the communal bathroom. You took your time getting ready, satisfied with your appearance before making your way over to the dining commons to have a filling breakfast. Marine Science 1 was your first class of the day, set to start at 9 sharp. The lecture hall was near the dining commons you were at, so you took your time walking over there before finding a bench nearby to wait to enter.

There was an 8 AM lecture before the class, so you occupied yourself with checking your backpack to make sure you had all of your supplies before scrolling through your phone. The class was let out at 8:45, and you brushed your way through the exiting crowd and into the large lecture hall. Smiling to yourself, you sat in the third row in a middle seat before gathering your supplies and getting ready for lecture.

The lecture hall filled up quickly, and you noted that the Professor hadn’t arrived yet. Maybe they were running late? Did they have first day jitters?

Do professors get first day jitters?

Shaking your head, you glanced around you and noted still no professor.

“Very unprofessional,” you muttered to yourself.

The clock ticked closer to nine, and you wondered if the class would be cancelled. Your heart sank in your chest at the thought, and you began preparing yourself for the worst. Sighing, you checked your phone, seeing the time change to 9.

“Sorry I’m late.”

A deep voice rang out through the hall, causing everyone to go silent. You swiveled your head just in time to see the professor hurrying down the aisle. He was a blur as he rushed by, and you didn’t get a good look until he was standing at the podium.

He was hot.

He was dressed all in white, giving him a slightly ethereal look. A white trench coat hung down his long legs, a purple turtleneck underneath tucked into white pants. You swallowed thickly as you observed the way his clothing seemed to stretch along his muscles. A white hat sat on his head, but he removed it to run a hand through his dark hair. While his hair was styled neatly, you could tell that it was slightly unruly, as a few loose strands stuck out in curls.

“My name is Professor Kujo, and I will be your professor for Marine Science 1 this semester.”

He finally looked up, revealing a pair of intense blue eyes. They looked around the lecture hall, taking in the size of the audience before settling on you. You felt a shiver run up your spine at how strong his gaze was upon you. The moment was severed when he cleared his throat and opened up his presentation.

The first lecture went by too fast, and you found yourself feeling slightly disappointed as you left. Professor Kujo had gone over his background, revealing that he was working on his PhD and mostly did research in the area by campus. He had presented at different conferences and revealed that some of his research papers would be assigned reading for the course. Overall, he was an impressive man and you found yourself drawn to him.

It seemed you weren’t the only one. You overhead girls whispering as you walked out about how hot and gorgeous Professor Kujo was.

“Do you think he’s single?” one girl giggled.

“I didn’t see a ring on his finger,” her friend replied.

As the semester went on, you realized that Professor Kujo was strict. He seemingly exerted order in every aspect of his life, and it spilled over heavily into his course. You had a feeling he rarely gave extensions for work and expected his exams to be difficult and full of details that you couldn’t miss.

Your predictions came true when midterms rolled around. Professor Kujo had been kind enough to supply a study guide, but once you went over it you realized there was a lot you had to brush up on. Every moment was spent studying from the day he passed out the guide. Thankfully, your other classes had midterms you could breeze through, which meant you could focus on Professor Kujo’s class.

“Why don’t you just ask him for help?”

Your roommate, Anne, was walking with you to the library. The two of you had booked a study room and intended to stay until dinner.

“Are you kidding?” you gasped. “Professor Kujo would probably ding me for that.”

She rolled her eyes.

“I’m sure he wouldn’t mind.”

Thankfully, you managed to pass the exam with a B+, and Anne announced that you two would be celebrating.

“I got us some fake IDs for the occasion!”

The two of you took an Uber to the adjacent college town, using your new IDs to get into the newest club. It was packed, the smell of sweat and alcohol permeating the air. Anne rushed to the bar to get shots while you glanced around to take note of the place.

“Here, cheers!”

You clinked the shot glass before throwing the drink back. The burn felt delightful, and you realized you really needed an outlet. You sent Anne back for another round of shots which you took before dragging her out to the dance floor.

Two drinks and an hour of dancing later, you were feeling awesome. You moved to the loud bass, laughing as Anne grinded against you. She had a much better tolerance than you and was entertained at how drunk you were getting. A few guys had come up to try and dance with you two, but Anne only allowed the cute or non creepy ones to get close. While you hadn’t thought about taking anyone home, the thought began to form in your mind.

It was nearing midnight when you realized you didn’t want the night to end. You were now three drinks in and had crossed over into drunk territory. Anne dragged you to the bathroom so you both could use it before returning back to the dance floor. At this point the club was packed, having to push through tightly packed bodies to get back to dancing.

“Girl, you need some water. The last thing I need is for you to get blacked out.”

Anne waggled a finger at you in warning.

“Do not go anywhere or talk to anyone. I’ll be right back.”

You gave her a sloppy salute in response. Rolling her eyes, she turned and disappeared towards the bar. She had left you on the outskirts of the dance floor, leaning against a random table. You hummed along to the music and turned your head upon feeling someone approach you.

“Yo! You look like you need a drink!”

A tall guy wearing a CSU Monterey sweatshirt was holding a bottle of tequila. He grinned down at you, wiggling his eyebrows as he jerked his head towards the bottle.

“Come take a handle pull! This shit is expensive!”

The rational part of your brain, albeit very small at this point, was yelling at you in protest. The rest of your very drunk brain ignored it, and you shrugged at the guy before grabbing the bottle.

“Fuck it.”

You threw your head back, pouring the tequila down your throat. You knew it was expensive because it didn’t burn as it went down, which led to you drinking more than you should have. The guy whooped as you took your last sip and handed him the bottle, wiping your mouth with the back of your hand.

“Oh fuck yeah! You’re pretty cool!”

He high fived you before heading to the next table. Your vision was beginning to swim, and you realized now that you shouldn’t have done that. Sucking in a breath, you closed your eyes to steady your breathing. Once it felt like the world was clearer, you slowly opened your eyes.

Professor Kujo was standing across the club, staring at you with an amused expression.

You blinked furiously. You were trashed, right?

Closing your eyes again, you shook your head furiously before opening one. Professor Kujo was still there, the image unchanged. Shame flooded through you, and you realized your Professor had seen you drinking underage.

Oh God, what if he lowers my grade because of this?!

Without thinking, you rushed into the dance floor. Anne’s warning floated through your ears, but you knew you needed to hide. A group of frat guys were near the middle, their tall figures allowing for you to crouch down a little. One of them noticed you and dragged you towards the circle, but you tried pushing him away.

Okay, no dancefloor.

You headed towards the hallway that led to the bathroom. The line was long, the end of it trailing into the main part of the club. Sighing, you turned around and decided to find Anne. It seemed even more crowded, and you realized it would be impossible. The dance floor seemed to be the only option, so you walked around the edge of it before you found a semi-empty spot you could hide in for now.

The shock of seeing Professor Kujo had sobered you up quite a bit. You were able to pay attention to your surroundings better, and you realized that the DJ was playing much better music. Bopping your head, you figured that getting back into the groove and dancing was all you could do right now. Letting go of your embarrassment, you let your body sway to the music.

You glanced around yourself in search of Anne or Professor Kujo. You didn’t see either of them, so you shrugged and kept dancing on. Anne was probably stuck at the bar with how crowded the club was, and you hoped that Professor Kujo would realize this was out of his realm and leave.

At least, you hoped he had left.

Why had your Professor been here in the first place?! Was he a secret party animal? Did he come here to have a drink and let go? Was this where he picked up girls?

For some reason, the last question bothered you. Scoffing, you furiously shook your head and forced yourself to focus on the music. Your dancing picked up, and you realized now you wanted to find a guy to take home to forget about your Professor. Glancing around you again, you realized most people were beyond drunk at this point and that there was no point in even approaching them. Sighing, you wondered if maybe it was time to go.

“You seem lost.”

A deep voice rumbled in your ear, causing you to jump. It sounded familiar, and you glanced over your shoulder to see Professor Kujo standing there. Now that he was closer, you were able to get a good look at him. He was wearing a black dress shirt tucked into dark pants, with a pair of sneakers finishing the look. His normally stoic face had a slightly amused look as he peered down at you.

“P-Professor Kujo,” you stammered out.

Gently taking your arm, he guided you off the dance floor and towards the back where more tables were. The music began to fade, and eventually he was able to talk to you without needing to be so close.

“What a surprise seeing you here,” he said.

“I could say the same about you,” you responded shyly.

He studied you for a long moment.

“Do you normally drink this much?”

Shit, he had seen you.

Without thinking, you blurted out, “Only after stressful exams.”

A slow smile tugged at his lips.

“Really? I expected someone as studious as you to not struggle with exams.”

Your heart fluttered in your chest. Had he been taking note of you this whole time?

“W-well,” you nervously laughed. “Even I have my flaws.”

“I doubt that.”

He examined you again, blue eyes seeming to soften the longer he looked at you.

“You fascinate me.”

You couldn’t help but stare back in response. After a moment he laughed, shaking his head before asking you questions about yourself. You fell into light conversation with him, surprised at how easily you two seemed to get along. He was asking you why you had chosen to study Marine Science when you felt your phone buzzing in your pocket.

“Sorry, give me a second.”

Anne had sent you a series of texts. The first had been asking where you were, before she began narrating a cute guy buying her a drink. The last text read sorry babe, you went MIA. Taking him home. Going back to his, so don’t wait up for me ;)

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah, my roommate is going home with someone.”

He cocked his head to the side.

“Well, I hope that’s alright with you.”

You shrugged.

“Why don’t we go dance?”

Before you could respond, Professor Kujo grabbed your hand and began directing you towards the dance floor.

“P-Professor Kujo!” you yelled out over the music.

“Jotaro.”

He turned around to respond, leaning in towards you.

“Call me Jotaro.”

His hand never left your hips as you danced together. Despite this, he kept a respectable distance. It seemed he was more interested in seeing you move more than anything. You had tried a few times to turn around and grind on him, but he seemed reluctant to let you do so. He was able to follow along to the beat well, which surprised you given his large size. After a while, though, he began to move closer to you. The hand on your hip tightened, especially when he noticed other guys looking at you.

“It’s getting late. Are you doing okay?”

Your phone said it was near one. You were feeling fine, and you told Jotaro so.

“Well, how about we go back to my place?”

You responded with a slow nod. Jotaro reached for your hand, interlacing your fingers before leading you out of the club. Given how late it was, the temperature had dropped, and you shivered. Jotaro let go of your hand and instead wrapped an arm around you, pulling you close to his side. He slowed his pace to walk alongside you, and you breathed in his scent. He smelled . . . nice. Whatever cologne he was wearing was probably expensive.

The club only had valet parking, so he slipped his ticket to a worker and turned his head to look down at you.

“Are you hungry? Do you want anything to eat?”

You shook your head.

“Okay, we’ll just head straight to my place then.”

A few minutes later a sleek Audi pulled up. Jotaro opened the passenger door for you, and you slid in. He settled into the driver’s seat and took off. A part of you had wondered where your Professor lived. Did he live in the college town? Did he commute from outside of Monterey? There was a part of Monterey that was much wealthier than the rest, and you wondered if he was taking you there.

Jotaro was quick to turn on the heater, and you felt your body relaxing in the seat. The drive was quiet, the only sound soft jazz playing on his radio. He drove carefully, stopping properly at stop signs and never running any yellow lights. You noticed he was driving towards the freeway, and you figured he probably lived just outside the city in a nice suburb. Your mind ran wild, wondering if he lived humbly in a small apartment or condo or if he lived luxuriously in a large home.

Professors didn’t make money, right? Or were you being callous?

When you turned onto the freeway, Jotaro spoke, startling you from your reverie.

“You still doing okay?”

You nodded in affirmation, and he fell back into silence. The freeway was empty given the late hour, but he still kept on driving cautiously. You read each sign that you passed, watching everything fly by and continuing to imagine the home that you were being driven to. After about fifteen minutes of driving, you noticed he was exiting towards where the main beaches were located.

Okay, so definitely a house.

The smell of the ocean wafted through the car’s vents, and you breathed in the scent deeply. Even though it was late, the moon was shining just enough to illuminate the ocean softly. You watched in awe as the waves lapped towards the shore, the beach close enough that you could walk if you wanted to. Jotaro pulled off from the main street towards a smaller street, and you realized you were finally in his neighborhood.

“Sorry for the long drive. I wanted to make sure I was a decent distance from work.”

“This isn’t too far,” you assured him. “Plus, it’s a nice drive.”

He glanced at you from the side of his eyes as he spoke.

“It is.”

The streets were dark but his headlights lit them up. You took note of each house you drove by, your eyes getting wider with each one you passed. They all looked expensive, and you realized that Jotaro either came from money or was really good with money.

“We’re here. Let me open the gate.”

The home in front of you was quite possibly the most beautiful home you had ever seen. It was in a Cape Cod style, a neat white picket fence lining the lawn in front and leading up into the home. A small lawn sat to the right side of the home, with long, gray stairs leading up to the entrance. A small gazebo-like structure was built over the stairs right before the door, with a lamp illuminating the spot underneath. Jotaro pulled into the driveway, shutting the car off before slipping out. You followed him up the stairs, trailing behind him quietly as he unlocked the door and gestured for you to slip in.

The inside was just as beautiful. You followed him into the living room, where he sat down on the sofa. The living room had a door that led onto a patio where, not too far from it, the beach was. You sat carefully on the opposite edge of the sofa, glancing around you while Jotaro stared at you.

“Would you like a tour?”

You perked up and nodded. Chuckling, he stood and you followed him. The tour began in the dining room, where a table for twelve sat. Five vases filled with flowers sat in the middle, serving as decoration. The patio that you had seen from the living room ran alongside the dining room, and you could faintly hear the ocean in the distance. From there you went into the kitchen, a large open space with shiny appliances. You leaned against the island as he talked about the history of the house. He led you upstairs towards the bedrooms and bathrooms, showing you each individual one. The tour ended in his bedroom, a large room with a door that led right onto the sand.

“So? What do you think?”

“You have a beautiful home. How do you afford this?”

He sat at the edge of his bed.

“My parents helped me out. I also do a lot of research, so I have a pretty steady income.”

I’ll say.

Jotaro patted the spot beside him, and you nervously sat there. You glanced everywhere but at him, trying to memorize the details of his bedroom. A desk sat in the corner near the door leading outside, and it was stacked with various books on Marine Science. It seemed he worked hard at home just like he did at school.

“Hey.”

When you turned to look at him, his face was close to yours. You jumped back but he gently grabbed your waist, bringing you closer.

“Hey, I didn’t mean to startle you,” he spoke softly.

“I-it’s okay,” you replied.

“Why are you so nervous?”

You blinked up at him.

“Um, well you’re my professor.”

He slowly retracted his hand from your waist and looked away.

“If anything, I should be the nervous one here.”

He cleared his throat, seeming to gather himself before he turned to look at you again.

“I . . . have never slept with a student.”

You gave a slow nod.

“Okay?”

He studied you as he spoke.

“The only reason I went out to that club tonight was because I needed a drink and some noise to distract myself. Work has taken a lot out of me lately.”

“I’m guessing you don’t do that often?” you teased.

“Not at all,” he sighed. “But a coworker mentioned it was a place for a good time.”

You raised an eyebrow. Another professor said that? Maybe a TA . . .

“Anyways, what I’m trying to get at is . . .”

His hand resumed his previous position on your waist and his ocean eyes looked deep into yours.

“I am insanely attracted to you.”

“P-Profess - Jotaro,” you whispered.

“There’s something about you that’s drawn me since the beginning. You caught my eye on the first day, and your work ethic swayed me.”

He scooted closer to you.

“I think the alcohol I drank tonight has emboldened me. Normally I’m a very guarded person. I’m sure you’ve noticed that in lecture.”

“Oh, I definitely have,” you laughed.

A small smile tugged at the corner of his lips.

“Can I kiss you?”

You answered his question by leaning in forward and pressing your lips against his. He tasted faintly of beer mixed with what you could only assume was his natural taste. You let out a quiet groan into his mouth, your hand reaching up to rest on his shoulder. It didn’t take long for the kiss to become sloppy, and after a moment you both broke apart to catch your breath.

“Undress and on the bed. Now.”

You carefully slid off the bed and began removing your clothing. Jotaro watched you for a second before he began doing the same. Your eyes trailed his movements, watching as he yanked his dress shirt from his pants and swiftly began unbuttoning it. He revealed exquisite muscles, his abs rock hard and a happy trail peeking out from the top of his pants. You were slipping off your undergarments when he unzipped his pants, pulling them down his long legs and leaving him in his briefs, where his large erection strained against them.

“On the bed, lay down.”

Jotaro mirrored your movements and laid down beside you. You lay on your side as you reached for his face, pulling him into a kiss. As you kissed him your hands slid down to his hips, tucking your fingers into the waistband before pulling them down. His cock sprang out, and your eyes went wide upon seeing his immense size.

“Wow.”

He chuckled, watching you as you leaned over him. You hesitated before reaching for his cock with your right hand. It twitched as you made contact with it, and you heard Jotaro hiss under his breath. You wrapped your hand around it, mouth dropping in surprise as your hand didn’t fully wrap around it. Sucking in a breath to steady yourself, you began stroking him at a slow pace to start. Jotaro let out quiet groans as you kept on, and you glanced over to see his eyes shut. Smiling to yourself, you leaned over his chest and licked up a stripe along it before kissing it.

“Fuck.”

You felt his hand come up to rest on your shoulder, pulling you flush against him. Smirking, you picked up the pace, tilting your head to see the way his face was scrunched up in pleasure. Your hands moved faster but his hand shot out, preventing you from going on.

“I don’t want to finish yet. Let me take care of you instead.”

He pulled away from you, crawling off the bed. You were about to ask him what he was doing when you were suddenly yanked towards the end of the bed. Jotaro was kneeling on the floor, a mischievous glint in his eyes.

“Put your legs together.”

You obeyed him, pressing your legs together. His large hands shot out, holding onto the back of your thighs and pressing them up towards the ceiling. It took you a moment to realize he was about to go down on you, but before you could object his mouth was on you. Your hips tried to jerk up but his grip on your thighs was so strong you were basically immobilized. Moaning out his name, your hands fumbled slightly before tangling in his hair.

“J-Jotaro,” you gasped out. “Your mouth feels so good.”

He hummed against you, the vibrations sending a pleasurable shiver throughout your body. His tongue circled your clit before diving into your opening, trying to reach as deep into you as possible. Your fingers tightened around his hair, pulling him closer to you.

“Mmm, baby,” he groaned against you. “Pull harder.”

The combination of the vibrations and his words barreled your orgasm closer to you. You yanked harder and his mouth worked faster against yours. Stars began to dance behind your eyes, and when his mouth closed around your clit and sucked hard you came with a cry of his name. He continued to gently lap against you as your body shook under him, hands still holding onto his hair before letting go as you melted into the sheets.

“You’re really good with your mouth,” you managed to mumble out.

Jotaro chuckled as he stood off, stroking himself to the sight of you below him. Your eyes were closed, and you felt his breath ghosting over your mouth before he kissed you.

“Can you move?”

Nodding, you cracked open one eye. He jerked his head towards the middle of the bed, and you slowly settled there. You looked up at him as he knelt on the bed, towering over you as he continued to stroke himself.

“Do I need to get a condom?”

You shook your head.

“No, I’m on birth control. Plus I haven’t been with anyone in a long time.”

He nodded, his right hand grabbing onto the back of your left thigh.

“We can stop. You just tell me the word, and I will.”

“Jotaro,” you frowned. “I want this. Are you going to fuck me or not?”

He grabbed his cock and began aligning himself with your entrance.

“You asked for it.”

You opened your mouth to give him a teasing remark but cried out instead. He was huge, and even though he had prepped you by eating you out and giving you an orgasm it still stung. His hand continued to hold onto your thigh, spreading your leg open to allow himself to fuck into you deeper. Your hand came up to hold onto it, your other hand supporting your head with each thrust.

“You’re so big,” you whined out.

Jotaro smirked and gave a hard thrust in response. You felt his balls smacking against your ass, and you realized you wanted him to fill you up until you were brimming and spilling out.

“Damn, I didn’t realize you were that perverted.”

Your eyes shot open. Shit, had you said that out loud?!

“I can do that for you, baby. You want me to breed you? Fill you up? Make you a Mommy?”

You bit your lip, feeling yourself clench around him. Fuck, maybe you were perverted.

“I’ll take your pussy’s response as a yes.”

He leaned down to grab your other leg before pushing your legs over his shoulders. The new angle had him slipping in even deeper, and you were practically screaming at this point. You were thankful his neighbors were really far apart because you were sure that a noise complaint or even the cops would be called.

“Fuck, you just got even tighter,” Jotaro panted out.

Your mind was completely blank as your second orgasm began to form deep in your core. Mouth lolling open you tried to tell him but a string of slurred words came out instead.

“Have I really fucked you that stupid?” he laughed.

You tightened around him in response, cutting his laugh off.

“Fuck, I’m about to come. You better take everything I give you.”

His words were the bullet that set your orgasm off, your voice cracking as you moaned out his name. You felt him finish inside of you, feeling warm as he filled you up with his cum. His arms were shaking as he gently let go of your legs, letting them fall back onto the bed. When he pulled out you let out a whine, feeling a little of his cum slipping out. A large finger pushed it back in, and you heard him click his tongue.

" Can’t waste it, baby.”

He laid beside you, sweating and panting. Your mind was woozy, already beginning to drift off to sleep. A part of you knew you should get up to clean yourself up but you were exhausted from the drinking, dancing, late hour, and the intense sex you had just had.

“You okay?”

You gave Jotaro a weak thumbs up, to which he chuckled.

“I would offer to run a bath but you look tired.”

You gave another thumbs up. He carefully lifted you, cradling you as he pulled the covers back and gently laid you back down. The pillows were comfy around your head, and the warmth of the blankets plus Jotaro pulling you against him lulled you to sleep. Just as you were drifting off, you heard him whisper into your hair.

“I hope you don’t think this is a one-time thing. I want to get to know more of you.”

As much as you wanted to respond you couldn’t, instead replying by curling into his side and pressing a lazy kiss against his chest. Seemingly satisfied, Jotaro kissed your head, the two of you falling into a deep sleep.

[witchyintention]

Where It All Began: The Ancient Roots of Witchcraft

Witchcraft didn’t appear out of nowhere like a mysterious cloaked figure under a full moon. Its roots stretch deep into the soil of human history, sprouting from the primal desire to understand, interact with, and occasionally charm the forces of the natural world. In essence, witchcraft was humanity's first attempt to make sense of life’s mysteries—birth, death, illness, and those pesky harvests that sometimes failed to cooperate.

Mesopotamia: Magic at the Dawn of Civilization

In the ancient lands of Mesopotamia, magic was woven into everyday life like the intricate patterns of a Sumerian tapestry. Priests and priestesses doubled as magicians, using rituals to appease gods or ward off mischief-making demons. The Assyrians and Babylonians developed complex systems of divination, like hepatoscopy (reading the entrails of sacrificed animals) and astrology, where the movements of celestial bodies were believed to influence earthly events. Think of these practices as ancient spreadsheets for managing cosmic chaos.

One standout Mesopotamian magical figure was the āšipu, or exorcist. Armed with incantations and symbolic objects, they combatted evil spirits with the confidence of someone holding a holy water squirt gun. Their spells were recorded on clay tablets, many of which have survived, offering us a peek into their magical toolkit.

Ancient Egypt: Spells, Deities, and Afterlife Insurance

Move over Cleopatra—Egyptian magic deserves its own red-carpet moment. For the Egyptians, magic (heka) wasn’t just a tool but a divine force that existed before creation itself. Gods like Thoth and Isis were thought to wield heka with unparalleled mastery, inspiring humans to follow suit.

The Egyptians had spells for almost everything: curing snake bites, securing a prosperous journey in the afterlife, or even ensuring a good hair day (yes, beauty magic existed). Amulets were their magical multitaskers, offering protection, health, and a little pizzazz. The famous Book of the Dead was essentially a magical user manual for navigating the perils of the afterlife. If reincarnation were an obstacle course, the Egyptians were determined to ace it with cheat codes.

Greece and Rome: The Birth of Western Esotericism

The ancient Greeks and Romans didn’t just dabble in magic—they wrote dissertations on it. In Greece, philosophers like Pythagoras and Plato explored metaphysical concepts that later influenced magical thought. Pythagoras, for example, wasn’t just a math guy; he believed numbers had mystical properties. So next time you curse algebra, remember it might have been a magical tool at some point.

The Greeks also gave us some of the earliest grimoires, such as the Greek Magical Papyri. These texts were chock-full of spells, invocations, and recipes for crafting magical potions. They even included tips for summoning deities or spirits, proving that ancient people also loved a good life hack.

Meanwhile, the Romans took a more practical approach to magic, using it for love, revenge, and keeping those pesky neighbors in check. Curse tablets, thin sheets of lead inscribed with hexes, were buried at sacred sites to call upon the gods for justice. It’s basically the ancient equivalent of subtweeting someone, but with higher stakes.

The Far East: Mysticism and Balance

Across the globe, ancient Chinese and Indian traditions were also steeped in magic and mysticism. In China, Taoist practices incorporated rituals, talismans, and alchemical experiments to achieve harmony with the Tao, or the natural order of the universe. The blending of spirituality and practicality was key, with many rituals aimed at promoting health, longevity, and prosperity.

In India, the Vedic texts described rituals and hymns to invoke divine powers. These practices evolved into a blend of spirituality and mysticism that still influences Hinduism and other traditions today. The emphasis on balance and connection to universal energy feels remarkably modern, doesn’t it?

Shamanism: The Universal Foundation of Magic

Before the rise of organized religions, shamanic traditions thrived across cultures from Siberia to South America. Shamans acted as intermediaries between the physical and spiritual realms, often entering trances to seek guidance or heal their communities. Whether they were chanting, drumming, or consuming psychedelic plants, shamans were the original multi-class characters—part healer, part mystic, part community leader.

The tools of their trade—herbs, bones, and natural objects—laid the foundation for many magical traditions that followed. The use of sympathetic magic (the idea that like affects like, such as using a doll to represent a person) can be traced back to these early practices.

Magic Across Africa and the Americas

In Africa, magic and spirituality were deeply intertwined with everyday life. Practices like Ifa divination in Yoruba culture involved intricate systems of symbols and interpretations, revealing paths to healing, growth, and understanding. Meanwhile, in Mesoamerica, civilizations like the Maya and Aztecs used rituals and offerings to communicate with their gods, often centering around natural cycles like the harvest or the movements of the sun and stars.

The connection to nature in these practices wasn’t just poetic—it was practical. By aligning their magic with the rhythms of the earth, ancient people ensured their survival and fostered a sense of harmony with the world around them.

The Bigger Picture

From the rivers of Mesopotamia to the temples of Egypt and beyond, early witchcraft and magical practices were about survival, connection, and understanding the mysteries of existence. These ancient roots remind us that magic isn’t just about casting spells—it’s about fostering relationships with the forces that shape our world, whether they’re gods, spirits, or the natural elements.

Now, when you light a candle, hold a crystal, or write in your journal, remember: you’re participating in a tradition as old as time. How’s that for a little magic in your day?

[sunnymusingsao3]

The Half-Life of Sixty Seconds

Words: 6626 Rating: Teen and Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Tim Drake & Lonnie Machin, Tim Drake/Lonnie Machin Summary: Based on Red Robin #16. Missing Scenes and Relationship Building. Tags: Pre-Relationship, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Developing Relationship, Developing Friendships, Missing Scene, Pre-New 52, New Earth, Medical Trauma, Canon-Typical Violence, Coma, Based on Red Robin #16, Comic: Red Robin (2009) #16

Preview:

The problem with thinking like a detective is not actually that thinking like one is too strict or structured. There’s organization on a document, but Tim’s mind is not a bullet journal. It’s not a legal form, it’s not a spreadsheet, it’s not a ledger.

It’s messy and human and creative. Loose, unstructured, instinctual. Detectives aren’t good at solving cases because they work like machines; it’s much the opposite. It’s that creative mess which aids in seeing between the structure of presented facts, reading the code, and then cracking it. It’s like tracing a spider web back to its center. There’s an observable track leading exactly where one needs to go— a veritable method to the madness— but it’s still art, all the same, even to the broom that ruins it.

So, when Tim is presented with a countdown, it’s not just a mechanical, factual understanding of time that pushes hard against the inside of his ribs; it’s a too-clear visual of a digital clock-face, neutral and unyielding, counting down from sixty in his neocortex. Artistic and messy and emotional.

There is only one place to go once one is caught in the web.

00:59:99. He doesn’t even know what’s happening, yet, but dread spreads in his stomach regardless because there was a piece on the chess board that he didn’t see, and now he’s in check.

He grits his teeth and demands information.

By 00:56:19, he has a location, and by 00:54:43, his feet aren’t on the pavement anymore, while Ulysses Armstrong lies there frozen, trapped by Tim’s last-ditch effort to see the guy to justice.

As he takes off, he tosses half-formed instructions to the bystanders who stopped to see Red Robin use a guy to ollie down a stoop, and it’s like he can hear his own voice on a time delay, like he’s listening to both the live scene and the news broadcast at once. It’s shrill and tense, and even in his own head, it sounds like his vocal cords are pulled too tight, like they’ll snap at any minute.

He doesn’t stop to think too hard about that— his brain, while no computer, is still running calculations in prestissimo tempo, flying through his mind as quickly as the freezing Gotham wind passes over his exposed cheeks, chapping the skin there, and on his chin, his lips. He is moving at a blistering pace, and he still won’t make it for another twelve seconds.

00:43:01. He dips his left shoulder and careens through a tight curve, one of the fastest he’s pulled off with the new glider. If he wasn’t counting building numbers like dandelion fluff on the breeze, Tim would pass time thinking about the effects of adrenaline on a trained skill. But he, more than most, has examples plenty of that very thing, dating as far back as when he was twelve and still unable to wear the colors he was training for.

The windows of 515 Roussos Boulevard’s penthouse apartment are splashed in plum and claret from the setting sun, and it’s the perfect target for a bullseye. Tim’s cape slackens.

00:28:03 and he shatters the plate glass with the force of his dive, hitting it with the hardened armor of his elbows and knees first. It isn’t even a contest; the barrier explodes, and his feet crunch on the powder and shards beneath them, and it doesn’t even matter that it all went everywhere because Lonnie evidently wasn’t in any danger of getting hit by it all— because all Tim can see of Lonnie at first is a goddamned metal tube.

It doesn’t feel any less horrifying when he rotates and finds Lonnie’s head exposed at one end. His cheeks are sunken, and he’s so pale that Tim would have thought him dead if he hadn’t been talking to him that very morning.

Red Robin’s voice is sotto voce soft, though when the only other sound in the room is the dull murmur of equipment, it sounds loud as a gunshot, even over the blood rushing in his ears. “Lonnie…”

Two images splinter in his mind. One, his friend now, lying with his eyes shut and a disarmingly neutral expression written into the too-sharp angles of his face— the other, a direct antipode; Lonnie, cheeks flushed high with color, green eyes lit with gold and will, and impassioned words of revolution in no shortage on his sharp tongue.

Like yesterday…

“What did he do to you?”

[Read the rest on AO3] Note: You do need to be logged in to read. Apologies for the inconvenience. Until I can be sure that AO3 is not being used to train AI, my works will remain open to users only.

[talenlee]

Dev Pile 2025-06 — Starter Kit

Making dev piles is a new experience for the blog in that they are explicitly deliberately timely. Where most of the work on this blog is thrown weeks, sometimes months in advance if it doesn’t fit neatly in a single spot, I am trying to make sure I write any given Dev Pile article covering the ‘week before’ the article goes up. This is a new kind of work for me, and it’s necessitated working ahead.

The week this article is being ‘written in’ is the week after Cancon. I had a plan for this week: I was going to spend the week writing an article developing the game dev I did, at cancon, in the dull periods at the table between the sales. Thing is, this year, that did not happen – Cancon was pretty much completely constant, so much so that the first day I didn’t even notice I never pulled out my notebook and what notes did get taken during the whole event were surface, or sketching out some minor ideas.

Therefore instead of a single intense focus here, this is going to be something of a hello and hey, here’s how to get started article about game making, tools, and prototyping.

Who Can Make Games?

You can make games. I can make games. Anyone who wants to can make games. The access you have to industrial scale production equipment to make the game you’re designing into something that looks like conventional product is a little more attainable than you may think, thanks to modern tools.

The core of you making games is this: Can you explain a set of rules to another player that let them understand how to play the game?

Great, then you’ve made a game. The next step is working out how to make that game the kind of game you want it to be. And to paraphrase what Adam Savage once said, the difference between doing game development and screwing around is just writing things down.

Tools

First things first, if you have a tool you like for any of the stated purposes, then you should use the tool you like. The tools I describe here should all be free, but that can make them less convenient in ways you may not like.

To write rulebooks, I use LibreOffice. This is a text editor in the same vein as Pages and Word, and much like Google Docs. We’ve pretty much solved ‘writing in a document for a computer user to read’ as a format, and that format has been kinda the same for thirty years. Notably, a formal editor like this lets you do tables and give texts formatting entries like heading styles, which means you don’t have to work to translate that stuff to a website like a wordpress content management system. Under the hood, these two things know how to talk to one another.

Notepad is a valuable tool as well for when you need ‘scrap’ text – no formatting, just some numbers or the like, but literally anything will do here.

Almost inevitably any given game design I have will need a spreadsheet. Sometimes a spreadsheet lets me present a skeleton of a game, with say, a sheet of 52 entries that just indicate the information on a card’s face. That means I use LibreCalc, but I only started using that seven months ago, when I learned about the IFS function. The version of Excel I was using from 2007 didn’t have this ‘new’ functionality, and I found that very useful. You may ask: How often do you need ‘IFS’ in game development and the answer is never. There are definitely thihngs I can use spreadsheets for, but these functions are not super necessary.

To do visual editing I use GIMP, pronounced ‘noo-imp,’ because gimp is a silly word to use in everyday conversation and it has worn its welcome out in my tongue. GIMP is a program that takes some getting used to, but the heart of what it is is a powerful photoshop-level program that puts almost everything it has directly under your control, including warp tools, healing tools, stamp tools and other simple filters. I will usually use GIMP to generate a template file or example for how a card should look, and then, when I want to put those cards into a file to make a pdf for printing, I turn to…

Scribus! Scribus is my layout and DTP program that I avoid using in every situation I can. I dislike Scribus interface a lot, and as a result, I route around it – I try to make sure that if I’m doing something in a design that Scribus ‘could’ do, I will ensure that Scribus is the only thing that can do it, and if something else can do it, I’ll do it that way. This is a combination of familiarity and convenience: Scribus is by no means a bad program, I’m sure, but I don’t like using it and it feels very easy to break things, which means when I do use it, I’m probably using it ‘wrong,’ and a Scribus expert would want to correct my technique.

For making simple slideshow videos, where I just show a thing, talk about it, and move on, I use the program OBS, which you can use for rules tutorials or explainers. OBS has its own ability to do slides – which you can make in a slideshow program like Google Slides or powerpoint or Prezi if you like – and then you talk over it, advancing the slides in OBS. It’s a very powerful, very flexible tool, but I can understand if it’s a bit overwhelming to start with.

If you want to record audio for your game, which is a cool thing to do, I use Audacity. It’s a simple audio program if you’re just using it for its basic functions, but it can be great if (for example) you want to record audio diaries of your creation process.

Also, mixed in with this is, cardboard, paper, scissors and glue. Playing cards need a standardised form so you can make a ‘blank’ deck of cards by taking an ordinary deck of cards and putting large, white, laundry stickers on each face, ‘wiping’ it so you can write what you want on the face.

Art Though?

I use free art where I can. There’s a lot of art assets, paid and free over on itch.io, which you can definitely use to make your game work look more interesting than base. And of course…

Bandaid tearing off time,

There are free image generators that you can use if you are comfortable with that. My advice is that you should only ever use generators for ‘zero value’ forms of media; that is, nothing you intend to sell and nothing you intend to use as identifying for yourself; don’t use a generator for a logo for your identity or brand, for example, because that’s uncopyrightable and then someone can just copy it. Even if they don’t, the fact they can undermines the copyright value of designing your own logo and title.

But yeah, image generators are available online. When I need an image for an example, the one I recommend using is dezgo, because it doesn’t require a login, doesn’t require you to pay money, and all it asks of you is time to let it finish working. You’re not going to get timely bulk media out of it, but that means, in my mind, that any artwork it generates is going to be worth scrutinising and editing to make it more appropriate to your needs. This is part of a greater conversation, but for now, the important thing is that if you’re going to use generative tools you need to make sure you recognise what they’re bad at and what they’re bad for.

Getting Started?

Alright, you have some tools to make what you have in mind more possible. What I recommend you do, and I will delve more into this later in the week, is make a prototype, and then, once you have the prototype, look at it seriously.

You’re going to have to get your head around the question what do I like without asking the followup question why at first. What is it about your prototype that satisfies you? What would you change if you could? Why isn’t it satisfying to you, what about it makes you concerned. Are there things you haven’t thought about because of biases you have? Is it a game you can’t play with one hand?

The point is the prototype marks the point you start finding out. You don’t need a perfect game to prototype – indeed, I have a lot of very ugly games as prototypes and I think those ugly prototypes work really well as a place to start working out what to do next.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

[fuckthisshitimin]

THAT DAMNED SPREADSHEET

DOES ANYONE TO HEAR ABOUT MY ADVENTURE IN THE SPREADSHEET?

Cause I'm pretty damned sure I know what getting "High" on Milgram means.

Talking about his being rejected by the Magnus Institute, Samama said:

[That definitely feels like when it all started. […] Well, after that it all just went downhill. Didn’t get into Oxford, so I went to Nottingham.]

And that does not sound like what one would say about something that happened when they were, like, eight. So I went to take another look at the spreadsheet. Of course I was wrong, because The Magnus Institute burned in 1999, so he couldn’t have been more than nine, but I found out other stuff.

A thing that bugs me in how I’ve read some discussing the spreadsheet is that Sam has the highest empathy score, and that it made him “too nice/good” for the Institute’s purposes (not necessarily this directly but it has been implied, including in the “recruiting future avatar theories, and… well, implying that low empathy makes you more likely to become a literal monster is quite disgusting, actually).

First, I think we got one thing wrong on the Kohlberg column. Since they are kids, it doesn’t seem shocking that they’d be around stages 1 to 3 of his “Six stages of moral development”; but it doesn’t say Stage 1, 2 or 3 it says Level 1, 2 or 3, and I don’t think it’s a mistake.

His six stages are divided into three levels: Pre-Conventional (1,2), Conventional (3,4) and Post-Conventional (5,6).

People in stages 1 and 2 (Level 1) have a sense of morality that is linked to the direct consequences of their actions on themself — stage 1 is “don’t hit the dog because you’ll be punished” and stage 2 “give her half your banana and you’ll get half her chocolate bar” (very simplified).

People on stages 3 and 4 (Level 2) have internalized their surrounding’s sense of morality and act accordingly — stage 3 being “I’ll get a good grade in being a person by following the rules” and stage 4 “the rules I learnt are true and real, failing to follow them is Wrong and upholding them is Right” (idem).

People on stages 5 and 6 (Level 3) have a personal sense of morality that is critical of societal norms — stage 5 being “there are rules, and those rules can and should be changed through compromise to be fair to the greatest number”, and stage 6 “unfair rules should not be followed, direct consequences like punishment are irrelevant when it comes to deciding to do what it right” (very, very, very simplified).

If I’m right, the spreadsheet is so much more understandable.

First thing I wanted to do was put numbers on how singular Sam’s results are:

He gets “High” on both Milgram and Asch when the overwhelming tendency is that the higher your other scores are, the more likely you are to get “Low”, and the numbers were, indeed, that among the 49 children who scored “High” on both, 33 were in Piaget’s stage 1, 15 were in stage 2 and only Sam was in stage 3.

The 33 kids who were in stage 1 are the opposite of Sam:

(Abbreviating so it’s easier to compare values but P=Piaget, K=Kohlberg, Ps=Prosocial, S-A=Sally-Anne, U=Ultimatum, EI=Empathy Index)

33K: (P) Stage 1 :: (K) Level 1 :: (Ps) Low :: (S-A) Fail :: (U) Unfair :: (EI) ≥62%

Sam: (P) Stage 3 :: (K) Level 3 :: (Ps) High :: (S-A) Pass :: (U) Fair :: (EI) 98%

So that’s weird. And when I went to filter by Kohlberg levels… absolutely no kid that was on “Level 2” scored High on Milgram and Asche.

In fact, among the 99 kids on Kohlberg Level 2, none got “Low” for prosocial, none got “High” on Milgram, only 2 got “High” on Asch.

And when we read “Level 2 (Conventional Morality) instead of “Stage 2 (Pre-Conventional Morality, what benefits me directly)” we can make sense of this: 

“To reason in a conventional way is to judge the morality of actions by comparing them to society's views and expectations. […] Conventional morality is characterized by an acceptance of society's conventions concerning right and wrong. At this level an individual obeys rules and follows society's norms even when there are no consequences for obedience or disobedience. Adherence to rules and conventions is somewhat rigid, however, and a rule's appropriateness or fairness is seldom questioned.” (by Kohlberg himself, from Wikipedia)

Adults can be Level 2, by the way. Adults can even be Level 1. Subjects of the Milgram experiment are displaying peak Level 2 behavior.

“High” on Milgram is “Did not electrocute/Disobeyed”

“High” on Asch is “Did not conform”

GOSH THAT IS SATISFYING

Bonus: the average empathy index is 79,1%, the median is 82% with 116 kids below 82%, 13 kids at 82% and 120 kids above. Of the 116 kids below the median, 11 got “Low” on Milgram. Of the 13 median kids, 3 got “Low” on Milgram. Of the 120 kids above, 91 got “Low”.

If we take the average instead, of the 163 kids more empathetic than the average, 100 got “Low” on Milgram, and 2 got “High”, of the 86 less empathetic than the average, 5 got “Low” and 59 for “High” on Milgram.

So actually here, low empathy is inversely correlated to willingness to hurt if ordered to.

And it makes sense. Low empathy is often associated with anti-social personality disorder, autism, depression — and you know what’s very associated with anti-social personality disorder? Disobedience.

Now I have to make another post about the weird kids in red's names.

[mitigatedchaos]

I've been doing some conceptual sketching over the last several weeks, chewing on the limited technology zones idea that I've been working on. (It's not just an excuse for fictional detectives.)

Rather than proposing a single solution, this post covers some of that thinking, to provide you with concepts to chew on.

The Medieval1900/1960s/1990s/2010s/+ tech zone poll was based on a general sense regarding the speed of movement and the speed of information, and noticing that in the year 2000, "the Internet" was still a place you went to (by sitting down at your computer), and not a cyberspace layer that surrounds the planet.

But what, exactly, would "1990s/Y2K computer limits" cash out to? 800x600 pixel resolutions? 800MHz processors?

Just what was this mysterious "it factor" we would be trying to bring back by making computers slower and less advanced?

From my notes:

One way to view virtual reality is that the VR environment has extremely low weight, and is therefore extremely mutable. Any physical good, such as a sports car, can be simulated, and in almost any number, which raises a question: why buy a real sports car when we can simulate them? People are at risk of getting lost in virtual reality, with simulations becoming more satisfying to them than real life, leading them to underinvest in their real life. We can think of technology as altering the ratio of effort to environment change. High effort is required to move dirt with a shovel. Low effort is required to move the same volume of dirt with a bulldozer.

The assumption behind the zones-by-tech-level question is that beyond a certain point, except for medical technology, additional high-tech development is superfluous, because virtual reality means that nearly arbitrary sensory experiences can be generated relative to an agent's sense limits.

Demand results when the expected value of a change in the environment loops back through the agent, resulting in a potential change in behavior.

The point of video games is to produce a high stimulus feedback relative to the amount of effort. (I read that in an article on GamaSutra once years ago, and it really stuck.)

In a virtual reality environment, reward signals can become disconnected from agent well-being.

Movies, television, and books appear to be less addictive than video games and social media. What separates them? Interactivity appears to be the primary difference.

With this in mind, I was then able to work backwards and develop an intermediate regulatory concept: interaction frames.

With a book, the content is static the entire time. With a DVD, you press a button and then the DVD may play to completion. You might skip back to a previous scene, but there is no need for further interaction.

A paged website is static until you update the page. With continuous-scroll social media, new content is always being added, and at any moment you may receive a notification to get into an argument or that someone liked your post. Video games in general tend to have continuous interaction.

This model does not adequately address the situation, and, importantly, cannot distinguish between a video game and a spreadsheet program like Microsoft Excel.

We can adapt a concept from gambling: human beings seek mastery or identification of patterns, and the randomness of gambling prevents mastery of the pattern from being achieved. A spreadsheet is very much not random, while loot drops in many video games are quite random!

We could at least measure commands to produce random numbers, or require registration of pseudorandom number generators.

However, this is still insufficiently general. Simulator games may generate complex behavior from simple rules. Are we stuck regulating "game-like elements" by committee? That doesn't sound right.

Still, people do get bored of single-player games, either by mastering the gameplay, or when they get used to the story elements of the game. A visual novel is more like a spreadsheet or a book than like a slot machine.

Also, not all social media seems to be equally addictive. Why were chatrooms seemingly less dangerous than twitter?

There is an anticipation of information gain (informative tweets). There is an anticipation of exciting experiences (someone shows up to fight!). Also, from the user's perspective, it's somewhat random.

In a chatroom, there are fewer people, and they stay for longer. This means that (1) you have more information about them and their positions, (2) you have more incentive to be cordial, and (3) because there is a limit to how much they can have gotten up to while you weren't looking, there is a limit on the anticipated amount of new social information.

On Twitter, there is an endless stream of new people to argue with, and they can show up at any time. You can post about some chalupas you made yesterday, and some lunatic will show up to fight you. Thus, there is always the background anticipation of an (emotionally stimulating) attack.

In a chatroom, if someone would attack you over chalupas, you already know him as the chalupa guy. In real life, an argument is limited by space and time - the chalupa argument ends by default when the bar closes and the chalupa guy is no longer within earshot, and you cannot reopen it until you see him again.

Tumblr is slower-paced, but things like "likes" are continuous, so there is always the incentive to check in to see how your post is doing.

This allows us to get into a model based on food.

There is a dieting strategy involving not buying junk food at the store, so that it is not at your house when you get a craving for it.

This implies that the craving is a temporary impulse or peak, and that it just has to be outlasted. If the craving were uniform, the strategy wouldn't work, because the dieter would just buy the junk food at the store.

(This suggests that the baseline craving for drugs is higher, because drug addicts are willing to take much more extreme actions to feed their addictions, over a longer time period, and that the symptoms for withdrawal (a more constant negative stimulus) are worse.)

So is control in the hands of the agent, or is it in the environment? Is there choice, or not? The dieting strategy appears to split the difference - removing junk food from the cupboard is a kind of prosthetic self-control and willpower shifting. Willpower exists and can be exercised, but is limited, and reserves vary over time. Altering the environment at a point of high willpower can reduce willpower requirements in later contexts, until they are within the window of reliable feasibility.

This suggests a strategy of altering the digital environment to enable users to act on meta-preferences for prosthetic self-control.

For social media services, this suggests regulations imposing new usage modes. For example, it might be required to provide access to third-party user interfaces, which might do things like hide the number of likes. Alternatively, a user might receive all the tweets from a specific set of accounts as a daily summary. Since social media companies require revenue, this access might be a paid service based on average foregone ad revenue. It's a matter that would require a good deal more consideration.

For other items, as part of a broader social movement, we might imagine users being able to buy dedicated hardware. Attempting to control interactivity via software requires a great deal more regulation and is easier to bypass. By contrast, we might imagine a hardware module that writes to a virtual canvas at some rate. The user could then scroll the canvas without receiving updates until the next refresh.

The user could buy an appliance device with built-in limits, similar to not bringing junk food home from the store.

Regarding welfare...

If social media makes people insane, then refraining from social media is pro-social, but suffers from a coordination problem.

However, that's more speculative. More broadly, this is about the liberal concern of consent under capitalism, and what it means to consent to technology. There are two considerations, in tension.

If you have to either use a technology or be homeless, then can you really have been said to have "consented" to the technology?

On the other hand, why should everyone else be expected to subsidize some guy using a horse and buggy?

Maximization of pattern efficiency is likely to be hostile to the continued existence of the human species, not that differently from how hard drugs distort and kill people. On the other hand, insufficient pattern efficiency means reduced production, which may mean making hard moral choices and having wasteful suffering that could have been avoided.

(Regulated capitalism is actually pretty good about consent relative to production levels, compared to say, feudalism or command economies.)

The conventional liberal response is a universal basic income - this neatly ties up many questions of consent by removing the greatest point of leverage - but this is problematic, as it involves redistributing labor to able people who may not be working at all. I've been working on an alternative based on "universal basic land," but I'm not satisfied with it yet. The essential idea is that land and materials are scarce, while labor (directed effort) and capital (configurations of materials) are variable. If life support (sunshine, air, food, water) is guaranteed, then trade is a net benefit (rather than resulting in potential gradual loss of life support due to lack of leverage).

[oiblackestsheep]

MBTI Judging Cognitive Functions Explained Fast & Dirty

Seems we have a new member of the MBTI community @loupdelta who wants to learn more about the cognitive functions, so I figured I'd put this together real quick for a quick little reference! Perceiving functions have their own sister post to cut down on space.

Judging Functions

Purpose: How you make decisions

Extraverted Thinking (Te): Relying on external logical information that is generally accepted among the broad population to be true and factual. Think cold hard numbers on a spreadsheet. This information is usually very quantitative and objective. 2 + 2 = 4 is always true and nobody can argue against that from a "different perspective".

Introverted Thinking (Ti): Relying on internal logical determinations made by what the individual personally identifies as sensical. This is a more qualitative and subjective type of logic that can often that can take the form of if A = B, and B = C, then that means A = C. There is a followable pattern, but it is through the lens of an individual person that hasn't necessarily been proven to the masses. Think "logical flow chart".

Extraverted Feeling (Fe): Relying on external emotionally-sensitive information that is generally accepted among the broad population to be observable and appropriate. Think "read the room" with this function. These people will make choices that support peace and well-being among the collective group because they see maintaining harmony and functionality as a collective as one of the most important goals.

Introverted Feeling (Fi): Relying on internal emotionally-sensitive determinations made by what the individual personally identifies as moral and just. Think "speaking from the heart". These people will make choices based on what they think is justifiable coming from their own values that they have developed often times through their ability to empathize with other people. You can also think "treat people how you wish you were treated".

For your reference, below are all 16 types with the order in which their cognitive functions are placed (essentially, in order of strength). I've organized them by their strongest judging functions.

Note: All types have both thinking and feeling functions because everybody has the capacity for using logic or emotional-intelligence to make decisions. The order showcases the order of preference each type operates with.

High Ti users (xxTP) INTP: Ti-Ne-Si-Fe ISTP: Ti-Se-Ni-Fe ENTP: Ne-Ti-Fe-Si ESTP: Se-Ti-Fe-Ni

High Fi users (xxFP) INFP: Fi-Ne-Si-Te ISFP: Fi-Se-Ni-Te ENFP: Ne-Fi-Te-Si ESFP: Se-Fi-Te-Ni

High Te users (xxTJ) ENTJ: Te-Ni-Se-Fi ESTJ: Te-Si-Ne-Fi INTJ: Ni-Te-Fi-Se ISTJ: Si-Te-Fi-Ne

High Fe users (xxFJ) ENFJ: Fe-Ni-Se-Ti ESFJ: Fe-Si-Ne-Ti INFJ: Ni-Fe-Ti-Se ISFJ: Si-Fe-Ti-Ne

[nevermindirah]

Who talks to who, for how long and about what, in The Old Guard (2020) dir. Gina Prince Bythewood?

I got curious and so I watched the movie taking a lot of timestamp notes. way back three and a half years ago now, I watched this movie for the first time bc I like gritty action movies, and it's a really good one of those. I'm still obsessed with it all this time later because it's full to the brim with well-drawn characters who have compelling relationships with each other, and boy howdy does the data show it.

I was especially curious about who spends how much time alone together on screen, so I coded all the scenes with that in mind, and I found some really interesting patterns in the breakdown of scenes where just two characters talk, where one character is the sole focus, and when three characters talk.

the winners of course are Nile and Andy, our dual protagonists, who spend 10% of the movie's total runtime alone together. they also spend a lot of time with our dual friendly antagonists, Booker and Copley. scenes featuring combinations of just these four characters make up 40% of the total runtime.

Joe and Nicky show up less in this analysis because they're side characters who mostly appear in group scenes, but wow are they richly drawn side characters. they're key players in all but two scenes where four or more named characters talk.

read on for many numbers and much analysis of what it all means!

Andy Nile 0:12:20 Nile Booker 0:06:00 Andy Booker Copley 0:05:22 Andy Booker 0:05:01 Andy Nile Booker 0:04:56 Nile Copley 0:04:18 Nile alone 0:04:07 Andy alone 0:03:31

Andy Celeste 0:02:49 Merrick Copley 0:02:41 Joe Nicky 0:02:24 Nile Dizzy Jay 0:01:33 Andy Quynh 0:01:31 Andy Nile Merrick 0:00:52 Booker alone 0:00:32 Copley alone 0:00:28 Nicky Kozak 0:00:27 Booker Quynh 0:00:21 Copley Keane 0:00:09

(the spreadsheet, if anyone's interested in digging deeper with me)

of the 12 min that our main characters are alone together on screen, almost fully half is super duper antagonistic:

4:26 is the kidnapping sequence

1:29 is their conversation outside after Nile's nightmare featuring the iconic "me and those three men in there will keep you safe" "like Quynh?"

and 7 seconds is Nile glaring daggers at Andy after walking over all those bodies in the church

the other half breaks down like this:

2:14 is them connecting over their mortal families — where Andy makes Nile give her phone back at the end

1:45 is Nile telling Andy she's not doing this, that she's going back to her family — Andy pushes with "we'd do the same for you" but then relents and gives Nile the car

50 seconds of them gearing up for the last segment of the fight — Nile tries to get Andy to wear a bulletproof vest, she jokes around with "is this gonna be like the last signal?" — it's operations-focused but there's a real warmth between them by this point in the movie (this scene starts at 1:41:45, just 13 min before the credits roll)

and 1:29 of Andy looking at Nile like she hung the moon (which, extremely valid and relatable!) and Nile saying that the time Andy's got left "you're gonna spend it with us"

Nile has an uninterrupted 4:18 sequence with Copley that speed runs the same general shape of her arc with Andy, hella antagonistic to teamwork, though the latter here is more of a professional camaraderie than the real warmth we see Nile develop for Andy.

in this context Nile's arc with Booker is remarkably different. their first scene alone together is 1:11 in total, intercut with Andy killing mercs elsewhere in the church, and it's sort of their only scene with friction between them. Booker keeps telling Nile to wait for the signal without explaining what that means, annoyingly continuing Andy's grand tradition of not fucking answering Nile's reasonable questions, ugh. though another way of framing this is of course that he's too busy packing her a change of clothes while showing off his tits for her. as I noted in a previous meta, the end of this sequence is the one time Booker lies to Nile (claiming he doesn't know who the mercs are when he has at least a basic idea, though we don't know for sure whether Copley involved him in this specific plan).

after this Nile and Booker have two more scenes alone together and they're both extended conversations: 3:14 for their conversation alone in the cave after Andy leaves, and 1:18 when Nile joins Booker on the balcony outside the bar. both of these conversations are remarkably intimate for how little these characters have interacted beforehand. remember, 6:02 total of Nile and Andy alone together with heavy animosity (Andy shot Nile in the head ffs!) before things between them started to warm up. granted, the conversation where they first start to warm to each other is right after Nile's cave scene with Booker and Andy's scene with Celeste, so an argument could be made that this was the point in the movie where Nile started to feel ready to open up to the other immortals generally and her first one-on-one conversation once she got there was with Booker before Andy. I'm not saying you have to ship them just because they get so close so quick, but the numbers sure do make it clear that us BoNers aren't making this shit up out of nowhere.

Nile and Booker's heart-to-heart in the mine is the third-longest one-on-one conversation in the whole movie — third after Andy kidnapping Nile and Nile's sequence with Copley, which are both heavy on action and exposition and antagonism, making this the longest intimate conversation in the movie. their other heart-to-heart, 1:18 on the balcony outside the pub, is on par with Joe and Nicky's 1:17 in the van.

there's also a 51 sec sequence during the Merrick tower fight where it intercuts pretty much equally between three subsets of the action: Andy going off on her own with an axe, Joe waiting for Nicky to wake up after that head shot, and Nile and Booker being drift compatible when Nile's gun jams. we're not making this shit up out of nowhere.

ok back to our blorbos in chief. we get 4:07 of Nile as the sole focus, and 3:31 of the same for Andy.

the sequence of Nile going through hell on base just because she fucking lived (laser eyes @ her squad forever) lasts 1:14 and includes a few lines from minor characters. we get 15 sec of her first dreaming of the others and waking up unmoored, then a 20 sec reprise with her nightmare of the first person she killed. the sequence of her driving away from Copley's then figuring out what the empty gun clip means is 48 sec. and then, one of the things that stood out to me the most in really digging into these numbers: just how frequently and for how long the camera lingers on Nile's face in this movie.

extended closeups of Nile with no dialogue and no montage:

10 seconds staring at the car she crushed, killing Merrick in the process but somehow not herself

36 seconds in the elevator

and a whopping 44 seconds of listening to Frank Ocean

that's fully 1 minute and thirty seconds of this movie's 2 hr 5 min credits-included runtime devoted exclusively to long takes of Nile Freeman's face.

Andy's sole-focus time is a little less tidy, because the majority of it isn't precisely focused on her like with Nile. we get 15 sec of her staring at her hand, realizing her immortality is gone. I could have coded all the pieces of the movie more granularly to find all the moments where we get Andy reaction shots, but I also could've done that with all of them and I'm but one humble spreadsheet lover, and it's more interesting to me that Gina primarily uses other kinds of film language to put us into Andy's perspective.

1:35 of her cutting through all those mercs in the church — other people are active in this scene, but they're not shown as people, and the horror of that is exactly the point, for the viewer, for Nile, and for Andy herself

41 sec of her voiceover at the opening of the movie, over clips of the kill floor scene

1 min of her moodily sitting in the car after the pharmacy and flashing back to Lykon's death

the Andy/Quynh flashback sequence that's a subset of Nicky and Joe narrating to Nile is 1:31, so counting that alongside this flashback here brings us to a total of 2:31 of Andy/Quynh(/Lykon) alone together screen time. almost precisely equal to Joe and Nicky's total 2:24 alone together.

further underlining Booker and Copley as our tritagonists, we get one scene of on-screen alone time for each of them: 32 seconds of Booker being drunk six months later and 28 seconds of Copley reacting to the kill floor footage. it's easy to focus on the Andy in a Union uniform element of this Copley scene, but a photo of his late wife is visible in almost every frame. I went back and double checked — only 3 sec of those 28 don't contain that photo of his wife displayed proudly between the kill floor footage and the Civil War photo, 3 sec of Copley in closeup. now that's what I call environmental storytelling.

we get almost exactly 5 min each with the sets Andy + Booker + Copley, Andy + Booker, and Andy + Nile + Booker. ABC and ANB conversations tend toward driving the plot and fleshing out detail about immortality, though a decent chunk of ANB in the "is this a Rodin?" part of the cave scene is Nile and Booker talking about following the money (their first moment of drift compatibility!) while Andy angsts nearby, and a decent chunk of ABC at Copley's place is Andy and Booker's heartbreaking "this is what you wanted" "not like this" exchange while Copley awkwardly hovers. just under half of Andy and Booker's 5:01 on screen alone together is about his betrayal, 2:13 across three scenes. the other half breaks out pretty evenly between them talking about Nile, making battle plans, and just being pals.

has any mid-budget gritty action movie ever done it better? even the infodumps are full of character and relationship details.

I also find it noteworthy that Booker and Copley are never alone together, and they never directly acknowledge anything about their relationship. we know from what they tell other characters that they've been in contact before the events of the movie, probably for some time in some detail. we know they worked together to ultimately enable the cartoon-villain antagonists to do their villainy. Copley is direct about how these results were absolutely not what he intended, and we can infer from Booker's behavior that he wasn't aiming for decades of medical torture either. but we get no information about how they feel about each other. now that I'm looking at it with this frame, it seems like the absence of information is itself a kind of telling — Booker and Copley maybe purposefully avoiding 1:1 contact, purposefully treating each other as mere acquaintances when others are around, because to do otherwise would be to look their guilt in the eye. oh shit I think I might have given myself a whole new meta idea on this tangent here: Copley and Booker as mirrors for each other.

disclaimer as we're nearing the end that there's inevitably going to be bias and error in something like this. I measured by seconds not milliseconds and I wasn't always precise about where I paused to note timestamps at scene changes. sometimes I included what ended up amounting to several seconds of establishing shots and sometimes I didn't. and there are a bunch of edge cases where there's more than one way to count who was an active part of which scenes, like for example:

I separated out Andy and Booker's opening motorcycle stalking and Don Quijote chat from the later part of what was probably just one scene in the script, where Booker talks to the hotel clerk while Andy interacts with tourists nearby

I included all as one Nile + Dizzy + Jay scene the sequence where Dizzy and Jay talk to each other about Nile before they go into the med tent and act shitty to her face about how Nile's still alive

I counted as Copley + Merrick the conversation in the car where Keane and Kozak are present and react on camera but don't have lines per se

similarly I counted as Andy + Booker the "she wants to talk to her family" exchange after Nile and Nicky leave the dinner table; Joe's still sitting there next to them but he doesn't say anything and the camera doesn't focus on him

I didn't try to delete the time where Andrei said/did stuff from the 4:26 Andy kidnaps Nile sequence but I did remove a Keane cut-away from a later Andy + Nile scene

so much has already been lovingly written about how well Joe and Nicky spend their short on-screen alone time and rightly so. I don't have anything new to add there so I'll take a moment instead to shout out to the 27 sec of Nicky telling Kozak to go fuck herself, and also the iconic Joe headbutting Merrick. fuck, this movie is so so good. every moment is a delight.

[lavender-long-stories]

Hello!

For the ask game

14. Where do you get your inspiration?

And/or

17. What's your writing process like?

Thank you for your time!

14. Where do you get your inspiration?

Well, my answer for this used to be (and still in part is) my own stories because there is nothing like writing an interaction with a side character that triggers the 'oh no, they are cute' in you or watching some kind of media would sometimes make me want to write something in a similar theme, genre or vibe.

However, now the answer would maybe be 50% that and 50% the existence of @nikandrros because even if I come up with the idea myself if I bounce it off of Nari, it will come back at me with force, and that force can cause us to spiral into talk about it until we have a full plot in 4 hours. Also, Nari can sneeze, and for some reason, my brain goes, 'I should give a character a cold.' They are a gem.

17. What's your writing process like?

Oh boy.

So. My writing process is both the most erratic and the most organized thing you will ever see.

Keeping track of the date chapters go out? What chapters are done? Edited? Should it be done within the month to keep on personal timeline goals? SPREADSHEETS, CHARTS, MULTIPLE NOTION BOARDS PERFECTLY CURATED.

I can tell you right now how many words and chapters I have written for every completed or ongoing story that I have written in the last two years. I can tell you WHEN I finished a chapter. I can tell how many chapters I need to edit at a glance (the answer is currently 47 o.o help).

My actual story writing process?

Basically, a page that has a pile of, usually unorganized, notes that are everything from 'cute kiss under a tree' to 'Hanabi kills a man and full details on how' on one side and a 'plot' on the other.

The 'plot' is usually a list of vaguely described scenes (what happens and who is in POV) that normally spans no more than 5 chapters ahead of where I am currently writing. When I am out, I sit down and plan the next few scenes and repeat forever. I used to not plot scenes at all and write completely from a blank page and notes, but I found that this system sped up my actual chapter writing without compromising my preferred write-the-plot-as-I-go style.

Sometimes, I know where I am going and have to figure out how I get there because the first 50 chapters have been entirely to get to the one point I wanted the story for in the first place (hello, House Husband), and sometimes (most the time) I have a really strong idea for a story and just know I will figure out where I am going when I get there. I don't mind if it gets slow in the middle. I don't look at it as filler, I see it as slice-of-life. I like that. I don't want to watch action all the time. I want to see the character I'm attached to just live.

I write more in the form of scenes than I do chapters, and I just put as many scenes that fit in the 1.5k-2k chapter size.

Because of this, unless I have posted the ending chapter number on AO3, *I have no clue how many more chapters a story will be, even if I know it's ending soon.* Sorry to anyone who has ever asked. I genuinely don't know. Every guess I have ever made was wrong.

For editing, each story chapter goes through Grammarly Pro and LanguageTool before I do a single read-through for typos (I can't see my own errors. It's a nightmare. It's the worst part. I hate it.), and it gets marked in the database that it is ready to post.

Juggling multiple stories?

If I forced myself to work on one story and lost interest in it, you would never see me again. I write anywhere from 4 to 7 active stories at a time, and I may be working on some other things (unless they develop into unexpected obsessions).

Once a story goes into my active rotation of weekly Monday uploads, we get into my spreadsheets. I like all of my active stories to have a backlog, meaning finished chapters ready to post, of around 2 months, which is 8-10 1.5-2K word chapters per story.

This might sound excessive, but when I'm frustrated or burnt out on a story, I like the room to put that story down for as long as I need, so I don't ever hate it. (Example: I wrote so much of Better Late, at one point, it was 6 months ahead, and then I didn't touch it for a full two months.)

Because of the backlog, I largely just write whatever I want with the occasion 'oh shit' moment of wanting to make sure that the stories I have been less interested in get their attention when I see my *spreadsheets* show me that they are getting low on backlogged chapters.

New Ideas?

I am constantly almost starting new stories, but I have a kinda self-rule that, for me to put a story out, it has to already have a backlog of over 2+ months, or I have to wait until it does. I never want to get stuck and have a story miss an upload because of my poor planning.

So this sound insane now that I am writing it out but I didn't decide this system and run with it this is just want ended up working for me.

TLDR

For posting, I have spreadsheets to track when chapters are released, and I use the digital equivalent of a pile of sticky notes for note-taking. Edit once and add to the pile to be uploaded.

I am going to end my explanation there, I am sure I have more to say, but it took me way too long to write and edit this post already.

I guess if anyone has questions, feel free to ask.

𝙰𝙾𝟹 𝙰𝚌𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚝 𝙻𝚒𝚗𝚔 <- to see what this system put out Notion Writing Template <- for a watered down version of my chapter tracking system

This post was in reference to this Ask Game

[voxofthevoid]

Wait I— WHAT— 500k+ words for JJK? Alone? Oh my god. I’m one of your new readers, and I’m blown away by not only your word count but the wRITING LOGS?? How?? Do you keep track of your WIPs?? Do you write consistently, period?? Do you have any advice for someone who can barely squeak out a paragraph to describe a vision in their brain?? Please bless me with your skills, Vox-sensei 😭🙏

Welcome to my madness 🤣❤️

Okay, in all fairness, I'm usually not this unhinged productive. Last year, for instance, my total word count was only around 250k (iirc). I'm sure I wrote more than that from 2018 to 2020, but my logs from those are divided by fics/chapters or weekly.

... I've, uh, tried a lot of shit over the years.

Which is an important point! I've been posting to ao3 for nearly a decade now (not consistently, but I don't think I was away for more than a year or two), and I've been writing in some capacity for around 15–17 years now. There's been a lot of trial and error over the years, plus changing life circumstances leading to varying energy levels and writing time. The main factor is inspiration; if it's there, I'll write a lot, but if not, I'll be a potato.

So with all that in mind!

Logs

I do keep track of both my word count and my WIPs. I've got color-coded docs and spreadsheets even because I'm a fucking nerd. I've got pictures of it floating somewhere on this blog, but my fic folders tend to be nested, numbered little monstrosities.

WIPs

I call them WIPs sometimes because they're extensively detailed outlines mostly, but the more accurate term is ideas/plot bunniesdemons. I don't work on more than one story at a time. Typically, I start something and write it in narrative order until it's done. There are exceptions—my current fic was started in a post-236 frenzy, and I set aside the PWP I was working on for it. But usually, I only actively write one story at a time while everything else gets developed/outlined as inspiration strikes.

Consistency

You could say I write consistently, yeah! I don't do it every day because I take breaks whenever I finish a chapter (and of course, life throws curve balls sometimes), but typically, I write around 22–25 days a month. I set aside a few hours for it. Average daily word count also varies, but these days, it's 1.5–3k. When I'm really in the zone, it can reach 5–6k.

I'm a hobbyist writer with no aspirations of writing professionally, so my approach to the whole thing has been to wing it and see where it takes me. So I haven't really done anything with the concrete goal of improving. The best (and only) advice I have is very boring and cliche though: read and write.

Read widely if you can and narrow in on the kind of style and genre you like. Note down passages or turns of phrase that struck you and figure out why. You'll absorb a lot automatically, but I've heard people recommend emulating styles on purpose as a writing exercise.

Mainly though, the best and easiest way to improve is to keep writing. Technical rules can be learned pretty easily, especially with how many resources are available online now. Field/subject-specific reference materials are also abundant. But developing your own style and improving the flow of your prose are things that need practice. And it never really stops, especially because your writing will continuously evolve in more ways than one.

This got way longer than I intended. Oops? Thanks for asking though, anon. I did have fun replying!

[mappingthemoon]

recent things

I was tagged by @gowns five days ago while I was in a state of being mentally checked-out from everything while simultaneously scrambling to finish all the work on my desk before EOY. But now, I am on WINTER STAYCATION!!! & trying to maintain realistic expectations re: how much burnout I can self-heal within the next two weeks (the answer is none). Anyway!

Last song you listened to: “Feel” by The New Sound of Numbers, and just before that, developing a new appreciation for the whole of Garbage: Version 2.0 :D

Last movie you watched: Time Cut (Hannah MacPherson, 2024). I do watch a lot of bad movies on purpose, but this was like… ultimately a 90-minute commercial for [a certain Italian-American casual dining chain] masquerading as a time-travel story, so that was kind of annoying. I haven’t looked at N-tflix for like (*checks email*) 3 years and wasn’t aware of like, just how bad some of their ‘content’ has gotten. But they do have a few things I’ve been wanting to see, and since I’m an over-35 I don’t know how kids these days watch free movies anymore (*logs into slsk* *tumbleweeds*), so I signed up for one (1) month, ugh.

Last show watched: Last night I fell asleep to an episode of the Noel Fielding baking show. I don't really have the time or attention span to keep up with shows. We did catch up with Rick and Morty this year (having last watched szn 4 ca. 2020) but I might be kinda done with it now.

Currently reading: Sun Moon Earth: The History of Solar Eclipses from Omens of Doom to Einstein and Exoplanets / by Tyler Nordgren (2016). Just before that, I read Equus, which I had picked up at a thrift store a couple years ago after hearing that my birthdaughter (then aged 15/16) had recently seen a production of the play :v

Current obsession: Man, I don't know. This reminded me of a meme I made: Aries Waiting for Their Next Hyperfixation to Drop (the image is Spongebob Waiting) and when I looked it up I was sad-surprised to see that I'd posted it way back in January. Have I been obsession-less all year?? Hmm. I will say, though, that for the past few years, I've spent a lot of my free time excavating, organizing, and cataloging my personal archive, which feels like some weirdly necessary and appropriate thing to be doing in the early years of middle age: where did I come from, where am I going, and all that. This started as a memory exercise several years ago, when I realized I could no longer accurately remember provenance details for items from my past, such as zines, or name everyone in old high school photos, etc. I used to be the kind of person who could pick up a trinket from my shelf and tell you where and when and under what circumstances I got it and why I still keep it, but I just don't have that capacity anymore (the Lifetime Piling Up feeling), so I started making spreadsheets and documents -- books, zines, music, movies, concerts, tattoos -- and maybe it has spiralled into a bit of a self-obsession -- t-shirts i miss, cameras i once knew, ceramic bowls of beads and other tiny objects that live on my dresser -- buuut I dunno, man, I've gotten like 10 different zine ideas out of this process so far, and I feel that I'm doing some kind of psychological Work here -- actually, I feel very similarly to the type of Nesting Behavior I was doing in the last months before my birthdaughter was born 18 (!) years ago. It's like tying up your loose ends and getting everything in order before Death, in the Tarot sense of the word, meaning Transformation. I think that I have been craving a Transformation for quite some time, but I feel so directionless and I don't yet know how it will manifest. Anyway. Big Winter Solstice vibes, right?

Tagging: @pitchburgh, @hthrrloooo, @madmoths, @an-inconvenient-dandelion, @hesterparr, @rustbeltkitsch