#THERE IS NO WORLD IN WHICH I WOULD PAY TO USE THE BASIC FUNCTIONS OF A SOCIAL MEDIA APP

[risingsunresistance]

if twitter keeps going as downhill as it is i'm gonna end up A LOT more active here. at this rate i'm gonna lose my private account bc the site is genuinely unusable now

[meanbossart]

Hey! I was thinking of trying to write something for you about DU Drow but after a trying to gather stuff about him via your page I’m struggling to get something substantial for his personality- like I get it mostly (I think?) but it’s hard to put into words (which makes it easier for me) so if it’s not too much to ask; how would you explain DU Drows personality and maybe some of his values? - if you don’t mind! I love your art BTW!

Man, this is a tough ask and I MADE the guy. The fic is definitely the best place to see his personality in action, but it is also 20 chapters long so far - and I'm a fairly reasonable man.

Before I get to any descriptions, there's two important things to note: A) Overwhelmingly, his looks do not match his demeanor. and B) DU drow is extremely hedonistic in practice. He might claim to have certain beliefs or standards but hardly ever practices them.

Anyways, I present to you: The guy, more-or-less summarized to the best of my abilities.

BEHAVIOR: Purposefully standoffish. He wants to be noticed, but he does not want to be bothered. He's a little bit stiff with his body language and mostly makes use of head/neck gestures to assert his sentences and signal his level of interest. On that note, me makes it extremely obvious for the socially-versed individual to tell what he thinks of them - he hardly ever tries to hide if he's disinterested, annoyed, or having a laugh at your expense. He expresses emotion through his face a normal amount, but his default look is eerily bland, and subtle emotions might go unnoticed because of his eye-color and thin brows.

As it is with most people, the more uncomfortable he is with a situation the more stiff and inexpressive he becomes, and vice versa.

SPEECH: DU drow is very much well spoken, and simultaneously very blunt. He abides by most conversational formalities (definitely more formal than you would assume him to be) and basic etiquette. He will greet you and he will say please and thank you even if clearly not meaning it or feeling like you're unworthy of the gesture. Sometimes, he does it just to be patronizing.

With all of that in mind, he has a tendency to use violent turns of phrase and analogies to express himself, this applies to both negative and positive feelings. That being said he's aware of social norma and knows full well when things are or aren't appropriate, even if sometimes he chooses to ignore that and be weird anyway - usually with the purpose of intimidation.

He is the most earnest and sincere with very close friends (quite literally only Astarion and Shadowheart) and rather curt with everyone else unless you catch him in a particularly good mood. He's a little chummier with dwarves and duergar (he finds them amusing and fun to hang out with) and reserves a slight bit more tenderness and kindness for children and mothers, especially if they're elves. He's also fond of animals. He is dismissive of gnomes, goblins, bugbears, half/full orcs and hobgoblins. He despises githyanki and drow. He treats humans fairly respectfully but thinks they are a far lesser race than pretty much all others.

He has a very dark/offensive sense of humor and a tendency to make well crafted, but cruel jokes or quips about sensitive topics. This goes for everybody, including people he's on good terms with.

VALUES: Here's where things get tricky. DU drow is both a hypocrite and a unreliable narrator of his own story, not to mention deeply unfamiliar with his own inner-workings and feelings. Politically, he would be the guy who doesn't vote, doesn't want to pay taxes and dreams of living off the grid, who thinks everybody should pull themselves up by the bootstraps and that it's a dog-eats-dog world. He hates systems of government, authority figures, hierarchical structures and archaic customs. He believes it would a chaotic but functional world if people governed themselves.

In practice, he doesn't stand for anything and gladly overlooks injustices and things that don't align with his supposed values as long as they favor him, or just don't get in his way, and easily makes exceptions for things on a whim. He's indifferent to slavery; unless it's Astarion's. - He thinks humans are a worthless pet-race, except for his dearest and nearest friend, the half-elf Shadowheart. He thinks Half-orcs are intellectually inferior, but he will gladly be chummy with them if they amuse him and make for good-company during a night-out.

INNER WORLD AND INTIMACY: DU drow is extremely unfamiliar with his own emotions and very often comes up empty when he has to justify or explain anything that is based on feeling, while simultaneously operating on impulse and instinct for the vast majority of the time. He is subject to fear, resentment, and insecurity as much as anyone else, but carries a deep shame in acknowledging his own vulnerability at all. He is very intense when it comes to love, however, and shows no reluctance in expressing it through his words and actions towards the people he cares about. He does care for the levels of comfort of those dearest to him though, and doesn't bombard them with it unless the moment is right, or if overwhelmed into doing so. The same applies to physical affection - he's extremely comfortable with it, but cares deeply for respecting the boundaries of his loved ones. When it comes to strangers, he only touches them outside of combat if there is some kind of power-game at play.

A couple of other things that might be of note:

-He likes creature comforts, but is also fine with going without them and won't ever complain about having to live, sleep, or survive in less-than-ideal circumstances as long as he feels in control of the situation. -He can be enticed by valuables and gold because they make the immediate future easier, but he doesn't seek a life of vast riches. -He is not an alcoholic but probably has a binge-drinking problem. -While he is fond and respectful of animals, he has no issues killing them if the situation calls for it. -He pretty much always believes himself to be the most impressive person in the room. -He is not a vain man, but very much likes the way that he looks and to have it be acknowledged by his partner. -He believes faith, religion, and gods to be a waste of time.

[fadeawaywithyou]

inspired by the new minecraft movie trailer and how it reminds me of a shit jumanji, here is my take on the minecraft plot. this took me like 5-10 minutes, so it's not super serious.

I actually want to try spitballing a better plot in about five minutes-

Unnamed Man in Blue and Unnamed Woman in Green wake up in a forest and meet each other while exploring. Anyway, the Plot is killing the ender dragon. Why? It's the most basic thing about minecraft. The achievement is literally called "free the end" so maybe flesh out why. So, the plot is Gather Materials, Find Stronghold, Defeat Ender Dragon, and the end scene is them looking out into the world and talking about going on other adventures. In the movie they come across a variety of monsters, but specifically a Warden and Wither. The Warden could be a genuinely scary chase scene where they don't kill it. Maybe they have to summon the wither as part of a beacon fetch quest.

The movie has lots of references to minecraft community things. minecraft youtubers and developers act as cameos in people they meet. "don't dig straight down" is on a sign near a cave/town's quarry. Maybe they find books similar to those survival guides i saw in all the scholastic book fairs. Have someone hum Don't Mine At Night or go "awww man" when a creeper explodes. Have a reclusive but friendly town of "hermits" (hermitcraft). maybe you pass by someone saying "the aether is just a conspiracy/myth!" just, things the community of all ages will recognize and go "hey! the thing!"

other:

They decide on the names Steve and Alex themselves, idk when though. The nicknames of Green and Blue between them can stick around. Also while i'm here, idc about romance. have them be friends, or partners by the end, or implied whatever.

I want Steve and Alex to have a personality but also have a generic backstory for the "blank slate" appeal and function of their in-game selves. I have a couple ideas- amnesia or being an everyday person, for example. maybe they are orphans, idk. Waking up in a forest is all i'm set on because that could be the equivalent of "spawning in."

I also have a fun idea where it could be an entirely implied Isekai. ("implied" is the keyword because it's never admitted and the only canonical dimensions are the nether, overworld, and end.) Not like the movie, where you aparently watch them get Isekai-ed, but with how they react to Tree Physics, magic, monsters, etc. and people going "you're not from around here, are you" and/or "how do you not know what X is? have you been living under a rock?" (which would then introduce the audience to minecraft concepts and exposition.)

they live in a "post-age of heres" world where it could be implied that the Old People who build all the strongholds and shit are long dead and they disappeared going after the dragon. this immediately puts an added sense of danger to the quest. also an underdog story.

i also would like a reason WHY Blue and Green can defeat the dragon while the others can't beyond "they are the main characters." this could be the new thing the movie brings in, like a new enchantment or making netherite something the Old People didn't have but necessary? idk, this could go into "movie-verse" logic and doesn't necessarily have to be in-direct canon to the game.

you know those characters that minecraft made a while ago? like the different races and genders? those skins could be characters in the movies.

the soundtrack does have the most popular minecraft sounds, in-game sound effects are used, but maybe some "movie remixes" or maybe they pay and jump through hoops to have Revenge playing for the end Credits.

also this is all animated. embrace animation.

[alpaca-clouds]

Money is worthless, actually

Just a quick something, I wanted to share with you guys. Because in a weird way I consider it to be quite hopeful.

See, here is the thing: Money is worthless. Technically it is worthless. You cannot do anything from money. You cannot make food from money. You cannot build a house from money. You cannot knit a sweater from it. Not from the coins, not from the paper, not from imaginary numbers on your bank account.

If for some reason money just vanished tomorrow, people would not in fact die. They just would find other ways to deal with it.

Money was originally probably partly invented, because it made both the collection of taxes - and the payment of people working for the "empire". Most societies before just... shared. They literally shared, because they knew that their society worked better if everyone just got, what they needed. Often it was on the basis of "gift" societies. To translate it into a modern understanding (because we still kinda do that): "You need eggs to make a cake? Sure. I will give you some. But next week, when I gonna need some butter, you will give me some of that."

It makes the economy trudge along just a bit easier. But it is not required for it to work.

Money has only worth as long as the people agree that it has that worth. Which is usually what happens whenever a currency collapses: People no longer agree that the currency holds any worth. Yes, we can now go and argue about all those methods of inflation and what not. But the baseline thing that happens really is not that there is too much money, but that people agree that the money hence is worthless.

So, basically... Money is worthless.

Right now it is mostly just used as a tool of oppression, because it is linked to power. It can buy you power more than it can buy you anything else.

But we would not need it to make a society function. Which is also why I like to build my utopias around the idea of societies without money. Where people just get what they need, because it is the best for everyone.

Because whenever there is something like money around, someone will hoard it and it will inevitably lead to bad things. So...

Yeah. In the second Doctor Strange movie it is played for laughs that there are many worlds without money where you not pay for stuff. But... Why play it for laughs? Why not take it serious. You know?

Just a thought.

[clarina04]

In my previous post, I talked at length about why I think Winters and Eugene Roe are the second most perfect pairing after Winnix, so I'll share my opinion on my third place winner, which is Roe and Speirs.

Unfortunately, we don't see them together much during the series, only once, (they don't even communicate with each other) but knowing both of their personalities, I think they'd have a lot of potential.

Basically, they're both introverts, they don't talk much, they keep a few steps away from everyone, but while Roe is respected and loved for who he is, Speirs is more feared and people try to avoid him as much as possible. They're similar, yet they emanate so much different energy, and I think we all feel that perfectly. Eugene has a positive aura that makes you feel safe when you look at him. He's aloof but a sweetheart, caring about the people around him, their needs, their injuries, their physical/mental health and trying to do all he can to help keep them alive. People trust him implicitly, because Eugene has proven time and time again how good a person he is and how conscientiously he carries out his duties. We viewers also like him a lot (for me, he and Winters are the absolute most sympathetic characters).

And then there's Ronald Speirs, who we immediately know as a ruthless, cold-blooded killer, incapable of empathy for either enemies or his comrades. People are spreading malicious rumours about him, which we as viewers can decide whether to believe or not, although I would add that the directors/writers have done a perfect job in this regard, as they have created the character of Speirs in such a way that it gives you the creeps. Just think of the intense, lifeless look he gives others, his emotionless face, his mechanical demeanour, his silent movements reminiscent of a beast stalking its prey, his harsh words... It's as if the creators of this show deliberately wanted us to believe everything bad we hear about him without doubting it.

And now the justification...

We know that Eugene is there to save lives by being a medic, but Speirs doesn't believe at all that he or any of his comrades can come home alive from this war and he makes no secret of that (think of the scene with Blithe in the third episode). Unlike Winters, he doesn't try to inspire those he sees as afraid or desperate, but on the contrary... he even dampens their spirits by showing them no empathy. He tries to make them understand why it is good to be able to turn off their emotions completely and function like a machine, but this attitude only makes them more afraid (again, I can cite the case of Blithe, who was just as terrified as before after Speirs' "advice", but when Winters was there and he tried to shake him up so he could keep fighting, the curse was broken, because once he fired his gun, he was no longer afraid, and that was thanks to Winters).

Just think how interesting it would have been to listen to a conversation between Speirs and Roe, where their world views clashed. They don't even need to talk about these things specifically, just a mere sense of how different their mindsets are. As they would try to make the other understand their own point of view. Roe, who believes in God and prays to him regularly, and Speirs, who can no longer believe in anything and who has long since accepted that he is dead.

And the other thing I would have also watched at least one scene of is the two of them getting into a fight about something. Again, I can only cite the scene in episode 5, where Eugene is yelling at Winters and Welsh for not paying attention to how many ampoules of morphine they gave Moose when he was accidentally shot. Imagine how much more tense the already incredibly tense situation would have been if Speirs had been there instead of Welsh and Roe had been yelling at him. Because I'm pretty sure he would have yelled at him the same way. Eugene doesn't look like he's afraid of any of his superiors, and it's well illustrated in this scene. Even Winters and Welsh respect him, they let him lecture them, because they know exactly that Eugene is right and I have a feeling that Speirs would have reacted the same way they did. He would have kept quiet and I think this because in episode 10, when Grant is shot in the head, Speirs does everything he can to save him. That's the only scene where we see him and Roe together (I wish we could have gotten some interaction on how it all went down between them) and when they find that brain surgeon who finally performs the operation. Here it becomes clear that Speirs actually does care about his people and is not a heartless monster who doesn't care about anything because "we're all dead anyway". Like everyone else, he is tired of the horrors of the war, fed up with it all, and this incident was caused by a drunken idiot, not an enemy soldier. As it was said in the episode, people died the same way after the war was over. And Speirs didn't want any more unnecessary casualties. Enough had already died. That's why he was so desperate, and why he searched everything he could to find the right person to save Grant's life, the one he stayed with all along, interlaced his fingers with his and stroked the back of his hand. And in the meantime, there was Eugene, to whom he didn't speak, but together they fought for the life of a comrade.

The series doesn't reveal what kind of a man Speirs was before the war, (nor about Eugene) but he is certainly more empathetic than we get to know him in the very first episodes. He had his oddities, he had his unsympathetic manifestations, but overall I don't consider him a bad person. He's just a victim who's been emotionally destroyed by the war, but by the end of the show I think he's pretty much back to his old self, or at least changed if he was always like this. He's resurrected.

Overall, my opinion is that they deserved more screen time and interaction, because very interesting conversations could have been generated, which might have even deepened their relationship. Eugene could have been the one to change Speirs' outlook on life with his thinking, or at least help him understand the importance of life and why they are fighting (my god, the amount of angst and hurt/comfort that could have come out of this... I still can't believe the creators didn't take this opportunity and see the potential in the two of them...). And of course I can't forget how intense and satisfying it would be to watch two such strong characters bickering, shouting at each other to prove themselves right, and wondering which one would break first, which one would finally see that the other was right... which one would apologise first and in what form.

[schnee-gheist]

Talking 'Bout Static (Atlas!au)

(This is to explain the main premise that this au branches off on, which is Static/Snow. Both words define the same thing, so I am going to be using them interchangeably, though Static is going to be the 'official' definition of it.)

Static itself is a dimension shelfed between the Infinite Realms and the Living World. It is also a state of being. Similar to its own position, beings who are interchangeably in-between life and death have a stronger grasp on their powers within the dimension. Ghosts and Humans, however? not so much.

Human brains and its basic understanding cannot handle the constant droning and abysmal sight that is given within Snow, and typically die from an overload of information almost instantly. If the human has lost one of its senses beforehand, they are able to exist for slightly longer, but the physical pressure typically implodes the body after about 13 minutes.

Ghosts do actually have a way to survive within Static! If the ghost was to willingly give up what little humanity and sanity it possesses in return of functioning by pure instinct and obsession alone, it can survive within Snow! Granted, that ‘surviving’ is being a feral creature of sin named Noises, a Noise singular. But it still does exist somewhat! No longer considered a ghost or conscious, but points count for something, right? (A group of Noises is known as a Wave).

Newly formed ghosts coming from the Living World are able to survive Static if they happen to temporarily slip into it while transferring their core and soul in the Infinite Realms. They do need to actually end up in the Infinite Realms eventually, or else they will become a full ghost and be affected by Snow accordingly.

It is unknown if a Halfa is able to survive or stay sane within Static.

Accessing Snow is quite difficult, but not as difficult as you may think. Travelling in-between dimensions has a rare chance of teleporting you into Static. This is why freshly made ghosts can fall into Static with no warning beforehand. Natural portals can also do this, but the typical green swirls it has will be replaced with, well, Static. So as long as you pay attention to the physical properties of a portal, you can tell whether or not it is to Static, or to the opposite dimension of the one you are currently inhabiting. (Infinite Realms to Living World and vice versa). 

It is unknown how to detect a Static portal when creating a permanent portal, remain cautious when travelling within them.

Static's liminality in relation to dimensions is also connected to their absence of connection to Time. Meaning the appearances of Static portals happen in every timeline, every moment, and during the absence of every moment as well, measured as it is. This appears to carry over onto Noises in some way.

Now, with all of this information in mind, wouldn't it be terrible for a young Hlafa to fall into Static, be captured by a Wave, be used as a stable beacon to infinitely generate and replace all ghost portals with Static ones, and force themselves to march onto the Realms and Earth to kill all humans and transfer all ghosts into Nosies, leaving the isolated humans and ghosts to attempt to fight off these creatures (and some freaky guy named Atlas what the hell), with no idea on how to stop the invasion of Static? That would be quite terrible, wouldn't it.

;)

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

s3 episode 1 thoughts

wow… how much time has progressed… and to think, a mere two months ago, i barely knew these character’s names, let alone that they will likely stick with me for eternity...

let us begin. as we always must do.

okay, so i’m reading the episode description: scully is facing a possible dismissal!!! i know she broke rules but it was for FRIENDSHIP and LOVE! does that not count for anything anymore?!

(spooky noise) (dried up alien shot) (voice of disembodied narrative) last season on the X files…

(a recap of cig man burning things)

we open back in New Mexico, to Albert describing his relationship to memory and history: “memory is radiant and immutable, while history serves only those who seek to control it” <- banger line.

anyway. we see the smoldering ruins of that train car that was once full of aliens. but not a single mulder in sight…

cig man is breaking into the kind people’s houses!! he and his cronies are conducting violence… THEY HIT ALBERT IN THE HEAD NOOO??? HE IS A HERO... cig man, you are less than a mosquito to me

scully time!!! she’s on the scene… guess she didn’t get far back to DC. “where is he?” she asks, and they look at each other with concern in their eyes. oh, they don’t know...

eric walks into the room with a terribly beaten face... NOOO ERIC, THEY SHOULD HAVE NEVER DONE THIS TO YOU.

now scully is screaming for him on the cliffs whilst the smoke still billows from the train where he was last seen… no response… it is not looking good for our friend mulder!!

she finally tries to go home, and a helicopter is shining on scully. RIGHT on her. this is not good for driving. they run her off the road with no regard for anyone's safety??? could have caused a MASSIVE pileup.

anyway, they grab her and it’s upsetting, asking where the files are and she says in the trunk. do we believe her??? it’s a copy of some of them, but not the DAT, which i would guess means the original cassette tape... oh nooo i’m scared… i mean she couldn’t deny it, but it’s also not looking good for the secrets she was trying to keep. so, without the "DAT", they just leave.

back at the FBI, they are telling her she needs to take a leave of absence. she is looking at the ground and it is once again giving student in the principal’s office. NO PAY OR BENEFITS??? you can't do that... what if she needs to go to the doctor......

i guess she is a doctor but the point stands. you NEED insurance in these parts.

she gives them her badge and gun and says she thinks mulder is dead :( NOOOOO you cannot admit defeat

skinner says “don’t think this hasn’t been difficult for everyone” and she is holding back a very very very biting remark but actually manages to hold it back, so god only knows what she wanted to say. a stronger woman than i.

until she leaves the room, that is!!! skinner comes out to talk to her and OH SHE IS MAD!!

“what about the people who are poisoning agent mulder’s water? whose protocol was that? the men who killed agent mulder, the people who killed his father- they aren’t meant to be found”

“we will find them”

“with all due respect, sir, I think you overestimate your position in the chain of command” <- OHHHH TEA. she basically said, you're a liar working for liars and perpetuating lies. meanwhile WE'RE the only real bitches at the function and one of ‘em’s dead because of YOUR pet cigarette man. SICK!!!!! truly evil.

now she has to find some work to pay the bills skinner!!

(i don't think skinner is evil, i just think he's a dick sometimes and that pisses me off more than sheer evilness. EACH time i think i have him figured out. he does something that proves me wrong)

one last visit to mulder's office before she leaves. she's going to take the real files on the cassette and they are GONE??? to whom have they gone…..

back in new york city. it's a meeting of the minds, all the big names in the world of covering up the existence of aliens. cig man is saying everything is fine, mulder is dead, and all the files are back. ALLEGEDLY!! i believe him on no accounts.

GASP scully going to her mom’s house… she walked there barefoot at night because her shoes hurt her :(

“i’ve made a terrible mistake. dad would be so ashamed of me” NOOOOOOOOOOOO DON’T SAY THAT!!!

(i cannot speak to the moral character of her father but if it were me, i would say it was doing the Right thing that counts far more than following corrupt orders from a corrupt system. and this is further proof that she is one of those people who Has to do the right thing or the guilt will consume her... )

and she DID do the right thing!!!! she just doesn't have faith!!!! i'll cry!!!

buzzards back in New Mexico… oh........

HAND SPOTTED!! white man’s hand in the rocks. is it mulder smushed?????? 

IT IS!! albert and co are hauling him out of a hole, and he’s looking quite dead, but he seems to have hid in a cave with the aliens. good on him for finding a convenient hole to duck into.

they’re doing a ceremony to call the Holy People!!!! i hope it works because remember, the calusari said mulder knows the devil and that seems contradictory...

hopefully they were just lying.

scully back home. sleeping in bed. answering the door, for someone knocks.

it’s FROHIKE???? i cackled. WHY does he know where she lives! and also why is he here when she is in her robe! well. i guess mourning will have you up and about at odd hours.

he drank a whole bottle of what looks like vodka...? and described mulder as “a redwood among mere sprouts” i laughed... it's so genuine. we all know a frohike, for better or for worse.

he assumes that she will be next in line for hunting The Truth, to which she replies, “i’m soon to be out of a job”. but she's a doctor, so it is gonna be okay. maybe she can just leave the last few months off her resume and get letters of recommendation from her professors. doctors, high in demand.

"and like rats, they just scatter back into the woodpile” she says, when discussing how these secretive people pull the strings behind the curtains. i took note because this is a yeehaw-sounding saying.

i guess we don't ever learn where she grew up, because it probably wasn't in one place, with her dad in the navy... but still. such a phrase is giving some sort of appalachia.

frohike brings bad news: the thinker was killed EXECUTION STYLE and found in a landfill... this is soooo fucked up. she is shocked they would do something so stupid and i was like ??? but ohh she's talking about tracing the bullets!

(i only realized this much later. i won't lie)

back in New Mexico, albert is working overtime calling the Holy People to come help, and mulder's floating out in space as he contemplates leaving this plane… 

people are surrounding him. perhaps the holy people or his ancestors??

but no, it is... DEEP THROAT??? I’VE MISSED YOU!!! it was nice to see him again, even for a brief moment in the astral plane.

he’s going on, very theatrically, about the absence of time in whatever it is inhabits after life: “i come to you, old friend, with the dull clarity of the dead, not to beckon you, but to feel the fire and intensity that still live in you…. there is truth here, if that is what you seek, but there is no justice or judgement, without which, truth is a vast, dead hallow” <- he has been reading Shakespeare in the afterlife 

no i actually loved that line. it goes hard. "the dull clearity of the dead". i'm eating that arrangement of words up

cutscene: aliens being gassed and locked in the railroad car. that’s…. Horrific 

(this scene takes mere seconds, and isn't addressed again in any real way in the episode, but holy. it was. unsettling. what did these bastards do to them....?)

back to the commune with the deceased. it's Bill! mr. mulder! he opens his eyes at his dad’s voice. his dad says he’s very sorry for lying about the whole alien thing, and says he is the memory; “if you were to die now, the truth would die, and only the lies survive us”. so no pressure whatsoever. /s

seemingly awake now, he asks if his sister is in the realm with the rest of those who have passed. and he learns she isn't there yet, so i'm pretty sure that makes up his mind, that he'll go back. but imagine if the answer was yes, she was there... do you think he would have still found the strength to return?

back in D.C., scully has to take the visitor’s entrance to the FBI :( but the security guard knows her!!! she is friendly in this way :) she beeps suspiciously... but he lets her though. i suspect that she might be hiding something... but what?

she's waiting for skinner. and ohhh skinner didn’t call her “agent” this time...ohhh the vibes are…….. not really vibing. it is uncomfortable.

she is bringing the news article to him and suggesting cross running the weapon that killed the thinker with the weapon that killed mulder’s dad to get some answers. this seems reasonable to me! he says she has been relieved of investigative duty and basically dismisses her. but she just wants to be helpful!!!! can you blame her??? she just wants to be HELPFUL, skinner, she wants her friend back and not dead. so please DON'T say something catty right now, i SWEAR.

SKINNER. I HATE YOU SOMETIMES. “ohhh the systems would have went off” so there is no need to cross reference the weapons. they’re killing people executioner style!!!! do you really think the people at the police department wouldn’t cover such a thing up?!?!? come ON let's use our heads!!!

he parrots her earlier line about him not having as much power as he thinks... ohhh you bitch. you should both be on the same team here and that team is "please let agent mulder be ALIVE"

he’s all “oh, you just wanna be helpful because you want your job back?” and she very firmly says NO. i just want answers. and honestly, she is handling this way better than i would be. because i would be biting and clawing skinner at this moment. to imply that she just wants her JOB back when she's trying to bring him information regarding a bunch of mysterious deaths, including that of her PARTNER?!?!?

so he says to bring him the cassette tape that she DOESN’T have or otherwise sit tight and let them do their job. and there is unbridled rage in her eyes but it somehow manages to not escape beyond body language and again, applause. 

pause. i’m actually so pissed on scully's behalf right now. and i just KNOW filming these scenes had to be fun.

as always in skinner's office, Bill Clinton watches over everything. his eyes are cold and uncaring. like a god who has abandoned its creation.

the MINUTE she leaves his office, cig man enters... SICK!!!! he's asking about the tape that he earlier claimed to the squad in new york that he got back… “that’s unfortunate”, he says, when he learns she doesn't have it. did he PLANT IT ON HER?? is that what the beeping was? do cassettes beep on metal detectors? i had some as a kid, i just remember feelings of plastic when holding them <-op was NOT onto something here

upon leaving, she is confused about the thingy beeping again. “you wearing a necklace or something?”, asks the security man. “no, not today”, and...... OH.... THE VISUAL INDICATOR THAT SHE HAS LOST ALL FAITH IN THE FORM OF HER CROSS NECKLACE BEING ABSENT. AUGHHHH TEARING MY SHIRT. ripping my hair out in grief. but that leaves the real question: what is in there?

she goes to the doctor, who looks at her neck. SOMETHING IS IN HER SKIN??? embedded in there. oh... it’s scarred over and they’re gonna pull it out, and i'm thinking i might gag if they show it, but thankfully they cut then. WHAT DID THEY DO TO HER IN ALIEN LAND????

back to the New Mexico cam!!! mulder progress!! three days of chanting and he is asking for water!! good news. 

back to D.C. no extraction scene visible, thank god. COMPUTER CHIP???? IN HER NECK??? did they microchip her... so they can track her location... or is it some sort of coded information... oh this is soooo evil

back talking with melissa!!!! my witchy best friend!!! melissa wants scully to unpack her memories, but can you blame her for NOT wanting to do that?? does reliving alien testing sound fun to you??? but, despite her reservations, she goes to a hypnotherapist anyway because she is a good sister and melissa played the "please? for me?" card

(damn, this show sure has a lot of hypnotherapy. it’s funny because i have never encountered it at all outside of this show. maybe it was the big thing at the time? and they wanted to be cool and trendy?)

but we’re back now, in repressed memory town, circa the Duane Barry era. regarding whoever was conducting the tests on her, she says she couldn’t resist them. hey what does THAT mean!!!

things look close to getting revealed when she says it’s time to go. like i said, i can imagine this is probably top ten worst sensations of all time.

so she drives back home and skinner is there??? HUH???? she looks sooooo gagged. and i was too.

(tell me why. oh god this is awful. tell me why my first reaction was “she must be going back to her mom's place... and he’s dating scully’s mom”) (cue the "i'm going to start dating her HARDER" scene from the office)

back in New Mexico. to end the ceremony, mulder must not do any work, change clothes, or bathe for 4 days. PLEASE DO THIS THING MY FRIEND. the boys give him a pouch for sunflower seeds, which he asked for during the worst of his fevers. the sunflower seeds... that when he heard them as a kid, reminded him he was not the last person in the universe... my sweet babygirl, who is a grown man breaking many many laws... glad to have you back in our world

albert shares that he went to the origin place, so overall, this mission seems to have been a success. so please, mulder, do NOT screw this up!!! sit in a hotel room and eat your seeds in your dirty clothes just do NOT break the rules of the ceremony that just saved your life.

scully calls skinner, asking why he was at her place, and he denies ever being at her apartment. BUT cig man is sitting right in front of him soooo it wouldn't have been a good time to talk anyway...

mulder is monologuing into the abyss, as he has found a way to infiltrate scully’s dreams!! very impressive!!

cutscene to his father’s his funeral. scully is there. because she is fundamentally good. she hasn’t met his mother before, right? i recall thinking earlier their first exchange might not go well, because of the whole sacrificed the “sister” for her in the hostage exchange deal thing...

but it actually goes as well as a first meeting a funeral can go. and without citing her prophetic dreams, scully tells her that she has a strong feeling he will be found. scully engaging in the supernatural...? are her sisters words ringing in her ear? or does she interpret a prophetic message dream as a message from the subconscious. i don't even think she knows.

meanwhile, a suspicious man watches this. he wants to talk to her away from the others. he makes some vague sort of reference to the UN league of alien safeguarding, and he says with confidence that mulder is dead.

AND THEN HE STARTS DESCRIBING HOW SHE WILL BE MURDERED???? okay could we GET any more unsettling. survey is saying no. anyway, she will be murdered with either with an unregistered weapon and people who will be out of the country right after the crime has been committed, or by someone she trusts visiting her house. uh oh… skinner looking sus

she asks why she is worth killing: "you want something they don’t- justice” hmm. many such cases in american history.

this guy claims to be tipping her off because his colleagues are acting “impulsively” and her death would just draw attention to them. i mean they have already killed like, 3 people if you count presumed dead mulder, but maybe one more would really push it over the edge?

mulder’s mom comes home. AND HE’S THERE!!!! in different clothes. 4 days had best have passed. i refuse to contemplate that he violated the terms of the ceremony.

okay, back from the dead, and he is interrogating his mom about his dad. she is not answering any questions- does she truly not remember or is she just deflecting... she wants to know what the deal is, and he grabs a gun and says it has to do with samantha. and leaves ominously. that man sure does want to make a dramatic exit.

missy wants to come over (scully calls her sister missy!), and she says to come over. but then someone immediately calls and hangs up- a universal sign of danger, as scully knows. she tries to call missy back, but she doesn't pick up the phone. so she calls back and she says she’ll go over to missy's place instead. the air is very very tense. something is about to go down. but what? 

running to her car. and IT'S SKINNER? he says to get in the car. scully goes in anyway but is very clearly suspicious he’ll kill her. AND SHE PULLS THE GUN ON HIM WHEN THEY GET TO MULDER'S PLACE!

“don’t turn around, or I’ll blow your head off” TEAAA! let out some of that rage i was earlier commenting was so well managed.

“don’t think I won’t do it, you son of a bitch” “no, I believe you” <- LMAOOOO he knows she is NOT messing around. and he does everything she asks of him, even sitting on his hands.

NOOOOO MELISSA GOES TO SCULLY'S PLACE AND KRYCHEK SHOOTS HER????? WHAAAAAAAAAAT???? he looks down and realizes it isn't scully, so he tells his companion that they should just leave. absolutely useless flop of a man. how did he even get into the FBI. maybe they'll just take anyone.

back to mulder's place. skinner claims he has the tape, and that he took it from mulder's desk. then why would he have sent her on the fool's errand of trying to find it? and now they BOTH have guns drawn on each other… as someone approaches the door…. presumably mulder coming home???

OHHHHHH this is the first time i have wanted to drop absolutely EVERYTHING and go straight into the next episode, writeup be damned. AUGHHH. what about melissa!!!!!! please let her make it PLEASE I CAN’T WATCH SCULLY ENDURE THIS!!!! can you imagine if she walks in the door and sees her sister bleeding out... hopefully krychek was too much of a failure to even land a lethal wound.

and honestly, from the moment I laid eyes on Krychek way back in s2, so long ago, i KNEW that he was a fucking rat. like. evil evil evil. idk how they’re gonna try and make me like him again if they decide to keep him on as a recurring character, but i truly do NOT give a fuck about what sort of backstory they come up with for him. i’m choosing anger over healing here. 

i’m that guy by the cork board pinning things with string and smoking a cigarette until all the things line up because truly WHAT is going on!!!! 

really great episode; the pacing and suspense were fantastic, i feel pumped to start a new season, i have a million questions but in an exciting rather than an overwhelming way, skinner you are once again on thin ice!!!

[necronatural]

world of wuthering clockroach

OK I don't have him but I looked up his story/voice lets go

after cathy dies, widowing gregor, dante is an asset brought in to assist with the hunt. dante roughly understands that they're basically property to these people but is kind of intrigued by the contract here being cemented through marriage

gregor is a suicidally depressed asthmatic with life-destroying sleep apnea so he wasn't paying attention to the marriage contract and isn't particularly interested in dante. He spent his entire life trying to avoid people who would use him for his money and then his wife he was proud to marry emptied his savings and died for her work and now the man who blames him for it and ruined his life is trying to kill him and everyone around him.

dante is understanding at first but then as they keep getting dismissed - even for the entire purpose they were transferred to the edgar family for - they start getting Pissed Off and go from meekly trusting that Gregor knows how best to handle things to really annoyed they aren't being utilized OR romanced and decide to be proactive.

Dante trying to consummate the marriage: critical failure. Again, life-destroying sleep apnea, this man has almost no hormone activity. He is medically celibate.

Dante trying to get to know Gregor: critical failure. Too traumatized to function.

Dante trying to participate in the hunt: ineffective. No one spares them any time and don't have anything for them to do because their purpose is to kinda just hang back until the worst case scenario. But they're allowed to watch.

Dante trying to stop the hunt: gets really sour about being ignored they start negging Gregor and complaining about how wow he's so obsessed with the man looks like Dante is intruding on his time with his real husband 🙄

Falling...In Love? 😳 : Dante is really aggressively doting on Gregor which immediately makes Gregor freak out because he just spent 3 years in the worlds most loveless marriage. But Dante coaxes him, helps manage his break times, and holds him in their arms every night ... ❤️

Since Gregor has someone sleeping in his bed watching him sleep for the first time ever he has someone for the first time noticing he literally stops breathing for a bit before having nightmares and can thus order a CPAP machine. They were really banking on this making him less depressed but unfortunately Gregor's life was simply ruined during the time period he aged into the condition so he only marginally improves. They finally consummate the marriage and he's so brittle he can only go one round and falls dead asleep. They don't have the heart to tell him they have the drive and endurance to go all night. He seemed to really like the 10 minutes of cuddle sex and that's what matters.

(At no point is Gregor aware Dante can resurrect their contractors from the dead, which is the entire reason they were provided to him, and he will not find out until he loses the hunt spectacularly and is horribly dismembered.)

[justanotherpersonsuniverse]

Hey Cap!! Miscellaneous PN meta question :)))

I’m curious if you’re planning on having Zoe appear in PN? Similar to a lot of characters in ML, she has a hell of a lot of potential! Especially with how her relationship with Chloe would function and change over time… but the creators kind of fumbled the bag with her and didn’t utilise a lot of her interesting aspects.

Well, as far as I’m aware they didn’t. I’m ngl, I’ve not watched all of season four (maybe about half of it) or any of season 5, I got distracted and then saw spoilers and was like “damn wtf?” and haven’t been able to start watching it again.

Anyway! I was curious if she’ll appear and what your thoughts on her are (in canon and / or for PN, I’ll take either!) cause I know that you’re diverging from canon more as Panthera goes on (which makes sense, it’d be a total continuity error if you didn’t!) but I actually can’t remember which season you’re using as the cut off for when you’ll stop paying attention to canon / have the finale. 

I just realised since one of the main traits they gave Zoe’s character was ‘being good at acting’ it’d be funny if you made the characters reference the theatre arc just basically going like “lmao yeah, I remember that, that was crazy Juleka got stabbed. Anyway.” And she never got the opportunity to be in her element. Though she does have enough going on what with being moved to a foreign country by her mum who doesn’t give a shit, suddenly having Chloe as a sister and maybe throwing a wrench into whatever dance Alya and Marinette have going on that it wouldn’t be the end of the world.

(I might just want another theatre arc. I genuinely cannot wait till I get back to Adam and his bullshittery and Juleka’s rejected depression hours during my reread. More notes in general will be coming soon, hopefully once or twice a week as I settle into college!!)

(Also I didn’t have very strong opinions on Zoe aside from “damn they fumbled. Anyway.” until I managed to fit her into my own overly elaborate miraculous fic plan. Her relationship with Chloe is so fucking sad and convoluted because of canon and my own plot ramifications and I’m looking forward to writing it so bad. Then I got curious about any plans / thoughts you have about her :3. dw, I won’t go on about my own au in these asks, I just may reference it as context for some questions!)

as always, anything that veers off into spoiler territory; keep it to yourself!!! :3

Zoe will in fact make an appearance! Cleaning up how Audrey covered her existence up or how she exists but Zoe will make an appearance! I think she’s too much of a lost opportunity for depth and stuff to not give my go at in Panthera.

[cursedmoon-doll13]

Based off conversations I’ve had in the server about the wizarding world and my thoughts/speculations as well as some headcanons regarding it.

Tl;dr overthinking world-building details

First of all: the living paintings. I have sooo many questions, like are there magical brushes that need to be used or do you simply enchant them with magic? What is the limit to this? If I doodle a stick man on a page and I enchant it does that mean it comes to life somehow? Also, there’s a lot of darker potential when it comes to this. Is there a black market dedicated to selling certain paintings? What about someone who will paint your deceased loved one for grieving purposes? Has someone ever fallen in love with a painting like we do AI? Are they fully sentient or are they similarly limited as an AI? And this isn’t even getting into photographs taken with a camera.

Speaking of black markets, while of course you have knockturn alley and your borgin and burkes, the real itching question in my mind isn’t on cursed or strange magical objects. It’s on drugs. Or specifically potions. Considering that basically mind-controlling love potions aren’t illegal, what sort of potions actually are? Or - I’ll do you even better - is there a muggle trade for the usual stuff (like say coke) which is made easier with owl post? Is there any sort of policing on non-Hogwarts owls? There must be a ministry force that cracks down on illicit trade with owls. Do they monitor the air for broom flyers as well? There must be some fine you have to pay if you reveal yourself on a broom to random muggles.

Yes we have the ‘are you a witch or not?’ Scene, but I also think for a lot of people who use magic, it would be interesting if they forget they can’t function without it. Someone who has been using magic their entire lives to do house chores suddenly not knowing what they’re doing if their wand snaps. Not even out of ignorance but just because it’s never how they’ve done things, like it’s their natural inclination towards magic. Since there seems to be a bit of anti-muggle bias in the books, I think it would be interesting to see how wizards struggle in comparison.

Also, while this is really more of a book thing, it seems that wizards don’t really know how to ‘dress like muggles.’ In the movies, Ron dresses exactly the same as Harry and Hermoine, but if we were following the books I wonder if he would dress very differently. Of course most of the time they would be wearing the uniform, but if you lined up a bunch of different kids from both pureblood and muggle backgrounds, I imagine they would have quite differing tastes in fashion.

Speaking of fashion. Are there wizarding fashion magazines? Specific trends exclusive only to wizards really? Like, obviously nothing is stopping a non-magical muggle from wearing a pointy hat, but given the history of it I would imagine all sorts of different styles of robes and hats emerged over the years. Even if it was simply minute details, we know from our own fashion history that it isn’t uncommon for wild trends to pop up. Maybe a craze for feathers or flowers or encrusted gemstones, or certain materials and fabrics that became popular.

We really don’t get a lot of information on clubs at Hogwarts from what I can see. Of course we have duelling club and quidditch and such, and I can imagine behind the scenes there must be wizard chess and gobstones clubs. What about music and drama clubs? Are there instruments only exclusive to the wizarding world? Can you enchant musical instruments to play themselves? Are there plays that are only known to the wizarding community or do they also do Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet sort of affairs? I imagine that certain Purebloods would look down on muggle playwrights, or really any sort of muggle artist in general. But still, you can’t tell me that the Malfoys or some other prestigious wizarding family don’t make visits to some magical opera house.

Also. Is quidditch the only big wizarding sport? We had duelling before yes, and again gobstones etc., but what about more physical sports? Aside from the more strenuous spells and flying (which tbh doesn’t seem that physically taxing anyway if you’re just going slow on a Cleansweep) I can’t help but wonder if many wizards are horribly unfit. I mean, given that they tend to live much longer on average compared to non-magical muggles, is it just the magic or is it also special wizarding yoga or pilates or something lol.

Quidditch itself is also an extremely dangerous pastime/sport I mean holy shit. While they do seem to have charms for cushioning, you’re often many, many feet up off the ground and if you fall off without one you could literally go splat and die. Just break your neck, snap and you’re dead.

We hear about certain bands that seem exclusive (or at least known) to the wizarding world e.g The Weird Sisters. There’s also Celestina Warbeck. Since the British wizarding community seems quite small compared to the wider population, it’s possible that there aren’t as many music groups around in it. There still seems to be radio frequencies though, in regards to the aforementioned Celestina scene and the rebel broadcast in Deathly Hallows.

Could there ever be an overlap? Like wizards who decided to break into the muggle musical industry and who are also enjoyed by the wizarding community? On the topic as well, since Arthur Weasley had his obsession with muggle technology, there must be others who are similar to him right? you can’t tell me there isn’t a wizard Ariel or something who tried to leave and integrate with muggle society. Not even a squib, but a wizard who just rejects it all. That’s a story that needs to be told.

All this just begs the question of how advanced is the technology in the wizarding world? Since apparently the modern stuff doesn’t do well in Hogwarts, where is the cutoff point? Maybe you can’t bring your gameboy into school, but what about a record player and vinyls? You just know muggle students in the past have tried to sneak all kinds of weird shit into Hogwarts with them.

Since we know that there are stories and tales exclusive to the wizarding community (Ron’s childhood stories in Deathly Hallows and Tales of Beedle the Bard I believe?) are there also popular wizard fiction authors outside of those who were penning school textbooks or autobiographies i.e good ol’ Gilderoy Lockhart?

I feel like there definitely must be. It makes me wonder how much genres such as sci-fi, (would it be a thing?) horror, romance & erotica etc. would differ in contrast to muggle novels. Especially historical fiction actually, since many of the notable figures may be different.

Getting into darker territory now. For an extremely skilled wizard, I think transfiguring someone in order to kidnap or kill them would be a likely move right? Or at least trying it. I mean if you turn someone into a bug you can squash them, or even into a small animal you can stuff them in a bag or something. Hell, transfigure a person into furniture if you’re feeling really nasty. I know this is fucked up but that’s the point lol.

I also wonder exactly how severe your crime has to be for you to get shut away in Azkaban? Like for petty theft and other minor charges. Of course if you commit a homicide then you get thrown in the slammer, that makes sense, and unfortunately so does Hagrid’s sentence to an extent since the Chamber was pretty dangerous. But do you just get a fine? Are there other holding cells in the ministry you get put in? Somewhere that isn’t Azkaban;;;

Also what about wizard serial killers? Not to be gruesome, but I imagine there are all sorts of options available to magical opportunists. Yes, you have the killing curse, but also you could literally just light someone on fire or leviosa them 50 feet off a tall building. It’s not that hard lol

Also are… Are there collectible cards for them…? I mean tell me there isn’t a true crime community in the wizarding world as well jekfkfktn

To reiterate my point with wizards all using magic for stuff, I wonder if any of them have considered like idk. Using a gun instead? Guns are most certainly not super advanced technology and they can’t be blocked really so… There’s a solution Tom and it’s called a glock

Basically all I’m saying is that there’s a missed opportunity to explore wizard crime bosses.

If any of this is explained in later books or spin-offs, I apologise. I’m only using the original books as reference, and even then it’s been a wee while lol.

[mrsdarkandyandere7]

Many many unhealthy dark thoughts about Tangerine’s yandere tendencies. 100% do not condone this behaviour. Get out or get help if you find yourself in a similar situation!!

My thoughts:

Tangerine’s housewife kink is out of control. Put his Darling in an apron and the man can barely function; all he would think about is taking her to bed.

He would be the type of man who would get turned on by his Darling doing the most mundane chores around the house - ironing his shirts, baking, crocheting a soft toy for one of their children - activities he considers feminine and which feed into his housewife kink.

His expectations of his Darling are unhealthy and unrealistic.

Once she was living with him Tangerine got rid of any clothing he deemed “inappropriate”. Now his Darling’s wardrobe consists mainly of dresses and skirts and he expects his Darling to adhere to this dress code.

He gets angry when his Darling makes independent decisions as he wants them to be utterly dependant on him. His Darling doesn’t have access to their own money and instead is given an allowance. Tangerine would also insist that his Darling pay via card so he can see all transactions they have made.

Gradually Tangerine would isolate his Darling from anyone he thinks are bad influences. Initially he would constantly phone and text his Darling and would become very angry if they didn’t reply immediately and would subsequently punish them (in the bedroom) for their “neglect”. He then realised it was easier to put a tracker on their phone and cameras inside their house so he knows where they are at all times. In his mind this isn’t an invasion of privacy. Instead it’s a way to protect his Darling because she is innocent and naive and unable to make informed decisions.

He definitely chips away at their self confidence as he wants them to be completely reliant on him.

He is rarely gentle in bed with his Darling. He would never beat his Darling, but he is fascinated with the physical, mental and emotional limitations of his Darling.

100% uses their children as a way to punish his Darling by limiting contact or accusing her of being a bad mother. The latter is never true as he would never have children with someone he would deem “unworthy”, but he has found that such accusations are a good way to punish his Darling. Of course their children know nothing of these punishments.

Tangerine absolutely adores their children and thinks they can do no wrong. They are perfect because they are hers and they are his. Anyone who insults his children or his Darling have basically signed their own death warrant.

It is incredibly twisted and abusive, but Tangerine is madly in love with his Darling and wouldn’t be able to survive without her. He needs her more than she needs him, and he knows this hence his suffocating clingyness. He wants to be the centre of their world like she is the centre of his.

To outsiders their relationship looks normal. Just very very traditional. And even when their children are grown up their kids don’t see anything wrong with their parent’s marriage. And Tangerine deludes himself that his Darling is happy with their marriage. Whether she is or not is something she only knows…

Sorry for this long and dark rambling about yandere!Tangerine. But after reading your fic I have been unable to think of anything else. Again I do not condone Tangerine’s actions!!!

I absolutely loved this, such an interesting perspective on dark Tangerine.

Totally agree on the kids. Tangerine seems like he'd dote on his kids, especially if it is a little girl, and he'd be the best dad for them, teaching them how to stand up for themselves and also self-defense so they know how to protect themselves. Just imagine Tangerine losing his patience at the PTA meeting 😂

Feel like he'd really enjoy the whole idea of having the perfect marriage with reader but at the same time, he ruins it with his toxic controlling atittudes.

(also don't worry, we know that all of these dark fics and thoughts are NOT supported irl. This is just FICTION, so no one should take this seriously, please).

[fights4users]

More assorted system headcanons

I’ve been doing a lot of individual post ones lately, slightly larger than these but not enough for an essay. I haven’t really had big post ideas lately but these are fun and I like to use them in writing (and anyone can for anything I put out btw)

Here’s some more after this one [ Sleep | drink ]

Encom system has (or used not to) no currency system, it’s more efficient to just let everyone about their way to do what they need to do. It keeps everything productive and less complicated… that was until paywalls went up. When the company got more greedy and secure things went a bit sour. Now you have to pay to travel to certain domains and it’s a hastle. Some know how to jump or get around paywalls others have a card from their users that gives them permission (basically a in world translation for paying to access a site)

However the Grid had currency from the start both as users were intended to eventually come in and they needed something to do with so long without purpose, they have their entirely own system that’s mainly made up but they ahear to. Clu doesn’t regulate it- mainly because it keeps the masses busy

Encom still utilizes physical buttons, keyboards and switches alongside some touch screen- while The grid is purely touch or holo screen (mainly for aesthetic, that’s the way most of it was built)

Another way to recuperate energy would be to plug in/charge sort of like a phone. Computers themselves are constantly plugged in and most of the time programs get energy simply through functioning but this is a more direct way, that also helps to skip a sleep cycle which takes much longer.

Similar to all programs using it/it’s interchangeably with gendered pronouns I can see them having open and undefined relationships. There’s not exactly jealousy as Counterparts are a bond that goes well beyond the way we view relationships, i don’t know if this makes sense

There’s a fate worse than Deresolution or deletion for programs …  obsolescence. You’re not dead but you’re also not running, not being used and you haven’t for a really long time. Existing but not, installed but the users and soon those you know forget you’re still there. Sort of a living-dead situation. (At least being derezzed your energy is recycled back into the system, not just wasted)

Coming from the Encom system Tron mourns buttons and the physicality of everything- it’s his “old man yells at cloud moment”. Whatever the digital version of ‘grandpa’ would be that’s what the betas (teens??) call him. “What was it like when the computer was invented?” *punts child* he’s two years older than the grid itself don’t do this to him

Encom is very abstract in everything, more often than not furniture is more of a low-resolution 3D abstract than a actual chair (if you’ve seen CGI from the. 80s- that) it’s much less representative of our world beyond programs reflecting users. There’s never ending horrors if you step just outside of where you’re supposed to.

Pac-Man is a “Grid eater” as described in the novelization. (Sark 100% put some poor soul in the Pac-Man maze,) types like him can be contained there’s others that are like worms and destroy-all viruses that you better just derezz— however sometimes they’re just sort of lumbering deep beneath out lands not hurting anyone so it’s 🤷‍♀️ Go there at your own risk

[still-a-morosexual-help]

Unnamed GN! MC × Mammon

Fake Fic Title Meme - In which I got sent titles and wrote an extremely detailed summary of the fic I would have written for said title:

Leave a comment?🥺 because they mean the world to me and feed a starving soul🐸

So the last anime episode of S2? Where they're all playing baseball Lucifer, Diavolo, Barbatos, Simeon, Solomon & Luke against Satan, Belphie, Beel, Levi, Asmo & Mammon? Satan was the only one playing seriously from his team with the others all doing there own thing, Mammon actually played well but only when Satan promised to pay him for each time he actively engaged in the game

You know how canonically Mammon is really good at math and able to solve math problems in his head while MC sucks ass at even basic math? & how he's good at making mechanical things/machines to the point that he finds the whole process of it fun meaning he's gotta know & be good at physics too? 

ANYWAY;

MC's the water boy, they get to listen to how happy and content Lucifer is about how the day is going and how everyone is enjoying a good, normal family day and nothing catastrophic is happening for once and isn't it terrible that humans coined the phrase "Thank you God" to be used during this kind of miraculous situation but his actual dad is God and they left on bad terms when he rebelled and got kicked out of the house and actually looking back on it yeah he has a fuck ton of Daddy issues what can you expect it's pretty damning after all that his worst fear is his father and all of this is to say he doesn't know who to arbitrarily thank for this day but by Go- oh see here's another one why is his life so hard and then they turn around and listen to Satan maniacally monologue about destroying Lucifer via baseball of all things. So anyway, it's a normal day.

Satan and Mammon are the only ones on their team who are actually playing, though they're still managing to get through just the two of them. Satan is pitching and Mammon catches anything that comes even somewhat towards him, he even goes out of his way to fill in for some of the others and then he immediately extorts Satan because most of Mammon's skill set is behind a paywall. But still it's impressive.

Since Satan's team doesn't really have the needed functioning players and it's just two people they end up taking a lot more breaks than would be normal. 

During one of these breaks MC & Mammon are standing under the shade, he's drinking from a bottle of water when they finally ask;

"So how do you do it?"

"Huh??" bored or tired or both.

"How do you," they wave their hand about, "catch the ball every single time?"

He watches them with a tilted head and a cocked eyebrow before shrugging his shoulders and looking away again. "I'm fast."

"Yeah no. It looks like you know where the ball's going to be before Lucifer even hits it..."

He doesn't reply. He's studiously staring at a bird on a tree, tipping the bottle to his mouth, hand clenching around it so hard it crackles.

They look at the tree and the bird and then back at him, again and again as something dawns on their face - until it's transforming from bored curiosity to something of pure manic delight. "WHAT!? What is it!? Is it embarrassing!? It's embarrassing isn't it!"

"No! Shuddup! Fuck off! It ain't embarrassing you-"

"Then why don't you say! What's with that face Mammon!? C'mon tell me! I'm your best-"

They're leaning into him, poking at his cheek while he struggles to push them away, their voices overlap until their words are barely discernible.

They're still poking at his cheek and making their demands and he's choking out complaints and trying to bat them away, and they're both leaning so hard to the right they're in danger of over balancing when he finally croaks out;

"It's math!"

"What" they say as they take a step back, their entire body freezes and their face falls instantly into a blank expression.

"It's math and a little physics too, maybe," Mammon says to the tree again because he's not looking at them and his ears are turning red as he goes on to explain things like wind speed and gravity and different forces acting on the ball, the strength behind Lucifer's hit and the angle he hit it at, making it easy to calculate when and where the ball will land. And because when Mammon starts spilling his secrets he never can seem to stop, he goes on to talk about Satan's reaction time and running speed vs Lucifer's and how once Mammon has the ball he can keep negotiating with Satan to drive up the price Satan is willing to pay for it but how he knows the exact second to stop trying to raise the price because if he pushes for too long and they lose Satan won't be willing to actually pay and he'll lose his trust in Mammon's usefulness during the game. So he needs to calculate the time he has so that he can create a sense of urgency in Satan making him increase the price by leaps and bounds but also allows them to win.

After Mammon finishes he's still facing away and he waits and waits and waits but doesn't get any reply so he whips around ready to snap at them for pushing for an answer and then giving him the silent treatment but he pauses when he finally catches sight of them.

They're standing straight but still like this ->🧍facing him, eyes wide, pupils dilated, face striken and paled - ashen even - he isn't even sure if they're breathing.

"O-oi," he snaps, voice quavering, he rushes towards them and gives them a hard shake by their shoulders "IF I THOUGHT THAT'D FRY YA DUMB BRAIN I WOULDN'T 'VE SAID SHIT YA FUCKIN' IDIOT!" he's shaking them rapidly and they're flopping around like a fucking limp ass noodle and he's not 100% sure whether he's hallucinating the steam coming off their head or not and holy F U C K he killed his best friend, the love of his life, etc etc just 'cos he forgot they didn't have two braincells to rub together, specially when it came to numbers and fuck fuck fuck- 

Cut to 15min later - they're sitting on the sidelines sheepishly listening to Lucifer who's looming over them and giving them a very stern yet concerned lecture about overheating and heatstroke and human bodies and how much hell he's going to give them when they return home and he gets them to scrub the whole house down with a toothbrush for managing to cut his life span down by centuries in just a few seconds. 

Mammon is standing near them, forehead pressed to the wall, all but dead to the world as he drowns in horrified guilt even as Satan tries to convince him that no humans can't die from being too stupid to comprehend math, he's almost 70% - well maybe 60.....50% sure.. actually wait let him check this - it's not really bringing Mammon any comfort

They rub at the back of their neck and try to weakly apologise but Lucifer's lecture is drowning them out and as they do they catch Asmo staring intensely at them from a few feet away. Their hands drops off their neck as their arm flops down and a look of horror passes through their eyes when they make and hold direct eye contact with Asmo, whose own face is impassive yet still managing to convey something that can be categorised as "mockingly amused" that says plain & simple 'I know what you are'

Because of course being the personification of Lust he felt the exact moment, 15 minutes ago, when there'd being a sudden intense spike of lust just as all their blood instantly rushed south

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

If you want more fake fics like this under a variety of AUs (human, different first meeting, mer, witch & familiar etc) check out the whole compilation on AO3 here

[wri0thesley]

I am so sorry if this is invasive and weird, but may I ask what you work as? I'm at the stage where I have to build my future and I know you don't have an age specified but you seem to be doing really well (at least from the posts we've seen, again I really hope not to be invasive) for yourself and your partner and 25+ is still young! Again, I hope this isn't mean or weird, I'm just curious. (and severely nervous. First year of college is ruining me harder than any fictional man.)

ahh anon i'm afraid that the answer is probably not what you're looking for!

for the record, i am 27, i just find getting fandom older a little scary, especially having it listed right there!!!

i actually intended to be a performer and a singing teacher (my degree was going to be in music & musical theatre); unfortunately, due to a plethora of reasons (mostly my undiagnosed autism, unmedicated ocd/depression/anxiety combo, a nervous breakdown and my partner's physical health declining) i dropped out of my degree before the end of my first semester.

for about three years or so after that i was severely agoraphobic. talking 'can't answer the door' agoraphobic; 'never left the house alone, and even when with someone only went to the doctors and therapy' agoraphobic, 'rotted in my bedroom in an absolutely non romanticised way' agoraphobic. i was on the equivalent of disability because i literally could not function. meanwhile, my partner, who lived with me and my parents was getting physically worse whilst i was mentally struggling (since then haz has been diagnosed with ehlers danlos syndrome, fibromyalgia, lipoedema, thyroid issues and a lot of other things; they have a lot going on). i DID access several therapies, had . . . a couple of very bad relapses, went under crisis teams and all of that stuff (i had occupational therapy too which was HONESTLY i think one of the most useful things and helpful things for me in the long run; i cannot imagine what i would be like if i hadn't had the occupational therapist the crisis team found for me).

(coincidentally, if you are an og jojo follower you probably remember how bad it was; i've said it a hundred times, but running this silly little reader-insert blog probably helped save my life at a time when i had almost no contact with the outside world. i couldn't leave my bedroom, but i had my blog and i had my little internet friends and discord server).

i have gotten a lot better.

haz, unfortunately, has not gotten better physically and probably never will. they need help with a lot of things most people don't even realise disabled people might need help with. brushing their hair, fastening clothes . . . when haz first moved in, they were doing the same dance-intensive college course that i was. we danced maybe three or four hours a day. nowadays, haz needs me to hold their hand and keep them steady when they go from our bed to the bathroom (the room next door).

so i don't really 'work' as anything. well, my therapist would tell me off for saying that; the uk government classes me as an 'unpaid carer', which basically means i am on call for haz literally 24/7 and they pay me the pittance that is carer's allowance (carer's allowance assumes you care at least 35 hours a week, and pays you the privilege of about 45 pence per each of those hours. if, like me, you live with the person you care for and do more than those hours, it gets . . . yeah. oof. the government unfortuately know that most unpaid carers are loved ones and family members of the person who needs care and won't just stop doing it, and they'd be in the shit if we did because trained carers are expensive, so they can get away with that - FUCK the tories, honestly.

i am EXCEEDINGLY lucky that i live in a cheap area of the uk, that haz and i are internet savvy enough to be able to access carers/disability discounts, that we are in rent-controlled social housing (which my crisis team helped find for us because living with my parents was taking such a toll on us both, woo!!!!), and that we've been able to access services to help on the nhs. i got my autism assessment and diagnosis; haz is under several pain management teams.

all in all, i'm happy. i'm so much happier than i was seven years ago when i'd dropped out of university and felt like a huge failure, because all of my life i was a gifted overachiever and i thought my self-worth was tied to my academic achievements (and as an extension, what roles i got in what shows and when and who saw me and so on). i don't have a lot of money (i am a bargain shopped fgbnkjgjnfb) but i know what i like and because i'm Older Now (tm) i've amassed collections of it.

i am absolutely sure that you'll boss college, anon! that you will find that thing that works for you (one day i would LOVE to go back and get my degree! pre-covid i had an acceptance for a creative writing degree and i was getting ready to go back to uni as a mature student, but haz's health got bad again and then covid happens - and now ofc i have my autism diagnosis i can access so much more help!). but even if you don't, you can absolutely find happiness without 'traditional' success.

i don't have a lot in the grand scheme of things. but you're right in that i am doing pretty well, in terms of where i am, and where i've been. i have my own little home. i have my partner of ten years who is my soulmate in every conceivable way. i've had experiences that make me feel so happy i sometimes cry when i remember them. i have my own little cat now!!! things still stress me out. but i have come so so far and when i feel down i remember that.

good luck anon! i believe in you <3

[highly-important]

The Hollow Knight Spotlight

I am seeing a lot of platformer games that mimic the visual style and atmosphere of Hollow Knight. And honestly, go for it, I am not here to criticize that choice.

But I think a detail that imitators miss is the way the character spotlight functions in Hollow Knight / Silksong.

On a basic level, platformer games rely on some level of contrast between the foreground, ie: platforms you can jump on / interact with, and the background, ie: things you cannot interact with. 

But what ends up happening is the background can feel too disconnected from the foreground, which might hurt a feeling of immersion. The background might be a feature of telling the story or setting the atmosphere, but its not necessarily providing useful information beyond that.

When games try to integrate the background and foreground, it can sometimes be hard to tell what you can and can’t interact with. It might be harder to make difficult jumps, or easier to fall off platforms or get lost in the space.  

Compare the original Cave Story screenshot with the Cave Story 3d screenshot. I am not trying to judge either of these games, but the 3d version sacrifices clarity for atmosphere and immersion.

I think Hollow Knight / Silksong gets the best of both worlds because of the spotlight. Within the spotlight, the foreground is clearly delineated from the background. And outside the spotlight, the foreground is more integrated into the background.

This also creates a hierarchy of information. Our eyes pay more attention to areas of higher contrast, and less attention to areas of low contrast. The spotlight creates more contrast, and platforms within the spotlight require more attention.

And the background itself suggests the information we need to know about the space. In the above screenshot, we know the lower right area is more open, and there is a wall on the left and a ceiling at the top. But we can see the passage to the left that Hornet can go through. And the background suggests there is a hole in the ceiling above Hornet that she can climb up or fall down, even if those elements are off screen.

In this background we can see the floor is collapsing, suggesting a hole we can go through.

And as the player gets closer to it, its much easier to see what is solid ground and what the player would pass through.

I think this really mimics how our actual vision works. We can see things farther away from us that might be interesting, but we have to get up close to them to see the details. 

It is a way the designers hide secret rooms, create a sense of exploration, and also make spaces tense or mysterious.

yeah sorry, maybe this is nothing revelatory. I’ve just seen several indie games trying to mimic the Hollow Knight spotlight, but I feel like they miss its actual function. Its not just making stuff darker. I think its cooler than people might first realize.

[littlestpersimmon]

Posting this again! But expounded upon.

Writing a short story about a wonderfully boring disabled transmasc aged 42 who likes to appear feminine (but he is a man at heart!) a jaded but once renowned magician in a world where magical spells are copyrighted and taxed on + his whirlwind romance with a young, hotshot, asshole sorcerer!

In my notes I just called him "professor" and the younger guy "hotshot TA". I don't have any names for them yet. The professor is beautifully tanned and coded south/southeast asian and persian and has long, salt and pepper hair in very loose and soft ringlets tied back carelessly, meaning many smaller ringlets escape his hairtie.. he has cute crows feet and laugh lines and he dresses of course like A Wizard.

ANYWAY.

You guys know how like.. when people look at inventions in the past and scoff and be like "I could have thought of that.".

That's how people in the world view the professor. His written spells are weak, meek, and considered "homely, run of the mill, kitchen witch pennyspells" that anyone could've come up with; In the past, people marveled at the simple ingenuity of his spells. Now it's sneered at for being very basic, though the professor always knows how to smile and invite other people to improve upon his magic. Seemingly, never offended and always unaffected.

In my story, the professor pretty much invented sympathetic magic- he invented it to help other disabled folk make spells and magical tools that can make life easier...... like creating magically charged prosthesis, self operating earpieces and stuff like that. Buuut Because the professor is naive and Believes In The Goodness Of The World, he does not copyright any of his spells. Now, Other witches took that sympathetic magic and started using the base formula and immediately capitalized on it, mass producing low-quality tools from it.

Everyone started turning on the professor for inventing sympathetic magic, because "back then" magical tools had to be crafted painstakingly by hand, more potent and less breakable, and thinkpiece upon thinkpiece was written and scapegoating on the professor. Magicians all live in workshops, universities and ateliers, and the professor lives in one particular Special university that was an abandoned lighthouse that got towers and towers and towers built on it, to function as discussion rooms, meeting places and classrooms! A lot of the elder witches still understood the importance of the professor's work, so they let him stay in one of the towers. In these towers he holds classes under his big telescopes and orreries; though few come because his "kitchenwitch" magic is seen as emasculating and cringe lol.

In their world, their magic is drawn from many sources, but because Capitalism, some engineering witches have created fairy-veins and sun-discs and numerous receptors. These things "amplify" and "route" magic- without these amplifiers, magic would be near useless in their world. The professor uses a very old type of amplifier that draws energy from hearths (fire), and only one company maintains hearth magic, and he has to pay titanic fees and taxes for the receptor to continue to be in use- which is why he, an esteemed, 40 year old inventor.... highly respected (even though considered cringe) professor with SEVERAL awards, lives paycheck to paycheck.

Anyway he tends to mind his own business, satisfied he neither died as a hero nor lived long enough as a villain, but just someone seen as silly and overrated. Of course until hotshot TA comes along under the pretense of wanting to learn from The Professor, who is Pleasantly Surprised that such a renowned and fiery young mage wants to learn his crafting of simple, kitchenwitching.

The professor would be Devastated when he finds out that the university professors sent the hotshot TA to him to train under him and learn the ropes of the university life because they want to kick him out!!

"Twenty years of service and it didn't mean anything!!" So obviously a resentful rivalry between the professor and TA comes about, until one day, while trying to get the TA to light a candle, the professor finds by accident out that TA is unable to manipulate elements- which is the simplest form of magic one could learn. It's like. A disability in the thaumaturgy community. He'd be flummoxed at how the TA even GOT IN the university (which is sadly still ableist). It's like managing to get into juilliard without knowing how to play do-re-mi. It's like being very good at art but unable to draw a square. The professor laughs, but not because he thinks it's funny that TA was running a con, and is disabled just like him, but because, he's in so much disbelief. But then of course, an opportunity for the professor, who is the master at simple magic, arises. He will teach the TA how to "mask", if the TA could convince the board of magis that run the university to let the professor keep his job. Obviously this will only end in the soft-hearted professor, who has always fought tooth and nail for the rights of disabled magicians, to not really expect the TA to fight for him to be able to keep his job, BUT WORTH A SHOT ANYWAY. And yeah they will fall in love eventually and kiss and all that. BUT FIRST. Gay turmoil !