#always take my writing with a grain of 'this user has the memory of a hamster and the fixating tendencies of a Jack Russel Terrier'

[larrythefloridaman]

If you're still doing character bingo. Cosmic 🖤

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[this-week-in-rust]

This Week in Rust 520

Hello and welcome to another issue of This Week in Rust! Rust is a programming language empowering everyone to build reliable and efficient software. This is a weekly summary of its progress and community. Want something mentioned? Tag us at @ThisWeekInRust on Twitter or @ThisWeekinRust on mastodon.social, or send us a pull request. Want to get involved? We love contributions.

This Week in Rust is openly developed on GitHub and archives can be viewed at this-week-in-rust.org. If you find any errors in this week's issue, please submit a PR.

Updates from Rust Community

Newsletters

This Month in Rust OSDev: October 2023

Project/Tooling Updates

rust-libp2p v0.53 has been released

Zellij 0.39.0 released

Officially Qualfied - Ferrocene

Rocket's 4th v0.5 Release Candidate

Observations/Thoughts

Writing Rust Bindings for My Python App

A four year plan for async Rust

Cursed Rust: Printing Things The Wrong Way

Rust for JavaScript Developers: An Overview of Testing

Why Golang instead of Rust to develop the Krater desktop app

Google Rewriting Android's Binder In Rust With Promising Results

Dump Rust Struct or Enum Memory Representation as Bytes

How Open Source Projects are Using Kani to Write Better Software in Rust

Creating High Performance Asynchronous Backends With Burn-Compute

Goodbye Python, Hello Rust: Building a RAG CLI Application with Orca

Variadic generics, again

Using Rust, Chrome and NixOS to Take Headless Screenshots for Social Sharing

sudo-rs' first security audit

Destructing trees safely and cheaply

Edge IoT with Rust on ESP: NTP

Rust Walkthroughs

Using Modern Linux Sockets

Miscellaneous

Migrating SecureDrop’s PGP backend from GnuPG to Sequoia

[video] 10x faster - taking charge of the compiler backend

[video] RISC-V Vector Extension in Rust

Embedding simple CSV file in Rust application

Crate of the Week

This week's crate is floem, a native Rust UI library with fine-grained reactivity.

Despite receiving no suggestions, llogiq is reasonably pleased with his choice.

Please submit your suggestions and votes for next week!

Call for Participation

Always wanted to contribute to open-source projects but did not know where to start? Every week we highlight some tasks from the Rust community for you to pick and get started!

Some of these tasks may also have mentors available, visit the task page for more information.

Ockam - Make ockam identity delete (no args) interactive by asking the user to choose from a list of identity names to delete (tuify)

Ockam - Make ockam tcp-outlet delete (no args) interactive by asking the user to choose from a list of tcp-outlet aliases to delete (tuify)

Ockam - Make ockam project show (no args) interactive by asking the user to choose from a list of projects to show (tuify)

If you are a Rust project owner and are looking for contributors, please submit tasks here.

Updates from the Rust Project

366 pull requests were merged in the last week

dropck_outlives check whether generator witness needs_drop

account for ref and mut in the wrong place for pattern ident renaming

add a stable MIR visitor

add all RPITITs when augmenting param-env with GAT bounds in check_type_bounds

add diagnostic items for a few of core's builtin macros

add support for pre-unix-epoch file dates on Apple platforms

add the Span of the move keyword to the HIR

also consider TAIT to be uncomputable if the MIR body is tainted

avoid the path trimming ICE lint in error reporting

avoid unnecessary comparison in partition_equal

check binders with bound vars for global bounds that don't hold

consts: remove dead code around i1 constant values

coverage: replace impossible coverage::Error with assertions

derive TyEncodable/TyDecodable in rustc_type_ir

detect misparsed binop caused by missing semi

detect object safety errors when assoc type is missing

do not ICE on constant evaluation failure in GVN

do not assert in op_to_const

don't check for alias bounds in liveness when aliases have escaping bound vars

don't emit delayed good-path bugs on panic

don't pass -stdlib=libc++ when building C files on macOS

enable cross-crate-inlining when MIR inlining is enabled

enable parallel rustc front end in nightly builds

fallback for construct_generic_bound_failure

fix excessive initialization and reads beyond EOF in io::copy(_, Vec<u8>) specialization

fix incorrect trait bound restriction suggestion

fix order of implementations in the "implementations on foreign types" section

guarantee representation of None in NPO

guarantee that char has the same size and alignment as u32

hint optimizer about try-reserved capacity

inline and remove create_session

make sure that predicates with unmentioned bound vars are still considered global in the old solver

make the randomize feature of rustc_abi additive

match usize/isize exhaustively with half-open ranges

prepopulate opaque ty storage before using it

pretty print Fn traits in rustc_on_unimplemented

recover from missing param list in function definitions

refactor: move suggestion functions from demand to suggestions

remove obsolete support for linking unwinder on Android

remove support for alias -Z symbol-mangling-version

remove support for compiler plugins

replace switch to unreachable by assume statements

set max_atomic_width for riscv32*-esp-espidf to 32

turn const_caller_location from a query to a hook

use FxIndexSet in the symbol interner

use derivative for Clone/PartialOrd/Ord/Hash in rustc_type_ir

use global cache when computing proof trees

use the correct span when emitting the env! result

warn users who set non_exhaustive_omitted_patterns lint level on a match arm

when encountering unclosed delimiters during lexing, check for diff markers

enable src/math for all UEFI targets

intrinsics macro: fix non-weak aeabi generation

this enables math module for riscv32 targets

stabilize const_maybe_uninit_zeroed and const_mem_zeroed

stabilize file_set_times

fix switch_stdout_to on Windows7

add track_caller to transmute_copy

delegate <Box<E> as Error>::provide to <E as Error>::provide

support enum variants in offset_of!

feature gate enums in offset_of

override Waker::clone_from to avoid cloning Wakers unnecessarily

codegen_gcc: fix vector compilation error

cargo: feat(trim-paths): set env CARGO_TRIM_PATHS for build scripts

cargo toml: Pull out the schema

cargo: fix an unhelpful panic message

cargo: implement -Ztrim-paths (RFC #3127)

cargo: merge trim-paths from different profiles

rustdoc: accept less invalid Rust

rustfmt: fixes comma added to comment in where-clause

clippy: unused_enumerate_index: don't ICE on empty tuples

clippy: add unused_enumerate_index lint

clippy: fix dbg_macro semi span calculation

clippy: fix enum_variant_names depending lint depending on order

clippy: fix get_first false negative for VecDeque

clippy: new lint: unnecessary_fallible_conversions

rust-analyzer: add generate_mut_trait_impl assist

rust-analyzer: import trait with alias

rust-analyzer: skip checking token tree count for include! macro call

rust-analyzer: fix docs path for derive macros

rust-analyzer: vSCode metadata. category:formatters

Rust Compiler Performance Triage

A difficult week for triage, due to what appears to be system-level disruption to measurement apparatus, yielding transient noise (and potentially masking actual problems). The main non-noise performance change was huge regression to bitmaps introduced by PR 117131, and that already has a fix in-flight fix (PR #117542). The other thing worth noting is that the parallel rustc front-end has been enabled in the nighlty builds, which has introduced some overhead that was expected by wg-parallel-rustc.

Triage done by @pnkfelix. Revision range: 650991d6..7b97a5ca

10 Regressions, 4 Improvements, 3 Mixed; 3 of them in rollups 68 artifact comparisons made in total

Full report here

Approved RFCs

Changes to Rust follow the Rust RFC (request for comments) process. These are the RFCs that were approved for implementation this week:

Add "crates.io Policy Update" RFC

Merge RFC 3498: "Lifetime Capture Rules 2024"

Final Comment Period

Every week, the team announces the 'final comment period' for RFCs and key PRs which are reaching a decision. Express your opinions now.

RFCs

No RFCs entered Final Comment Period this week.

Tracking Issues & PRs

[disposition: merge] Add T: ?Sized to RwLockReadGuard and RwLockWriteGuard's Debug impls.

[disposition: merge] Tracking Issue for file_create_new

[disposition: merge] feat: implement DoubleEndedSearcher for CharArray[Ref]Searcher

[disposition: merge] TAIT defining scope options

[disposition: merge] Add std::hash::{DefaultHasher, RandomState} exports (needs FCP)

Language Reference

No Language Reference RFCs entered Final Comment Period this week.

Unsafe Code Guidelines

Decide on zero-sized offsets and memory accesses

New and Updated RFCs

Arbitrary self types v2.

Call for Testing

An important step for RFC implementation is for people to experiment with the implementation and give feedback, especially before stabilization. The following RFCs would benefit from user testing before moving forward:

No RFCs issued a call for testing this week.

If you are a feature implementer and would like your RFC to appear on the above list, add the new call-for-testing label to your RFC along with a comment providing testing instructions and/or guidance on which aspect(s) of the feature need testing.

Upcoming Events

Rusty Events between 2023-11-08 - 2023-12-06 🦀

Virtual

2023-11-08 | Virtual(Boulder, CO, US) | Solid State Depot - The Boulder Makerspace

Placeholder: Boulder Rust Meetup

2023-11-09 | Virtual (Linz, AT) | Rust Linz

Rust Meetup Linz - 34rd Edition

2023-11-09 | Virtual (Nuremberg, DE) | Rust Nuremberg

Rust Nürnberg online

2023-11-10 | Virtual (Bangalore, IN) | Learn Everything About Programming

Getting started with rust-lang

2023-11-12 | Virtual (Tel Aviv-Yafo, IL) | Code Mavens

Rust in Israel - Rust Digger

2023-11-14 | Virtual (Dallas, TX, US) | Dallas Rust

Second Tuesday

2023-11-14 | Virtual (Kyiv, UA) | Yalantis Education

Довгий шлях до першого комерційного досвіду або до чого тут Rust?

2023-11-15 | Virtual (Cardiff, UK)| Rust and C++ Cardiff

Building Our Own Locks (Atomics & Locks Chapter 9)

2023-11-15 | Virtual (Richmond, VA, US) | Linux Plumbers Conference

Rust Microconference in LPC 2023 (Nov 13-16)

2023-11-15 | Virtual (Vancouver, BC, CA) | Vancouver Rust

Nightly Night: impl Trait in Type Aliases

2023-11-16 | Virtual (Charlottesville, NC, US) | Charlottesville Rust Meetup

Crafting Interpreters in Rust Collaboratively

2023-11-16 | Virtual (Vilnius, LT) | Vilnius Rust and Go Meetup Group

Enjoy our first Rust event

2023-11-21 | Virtual (Berlin, DE) | OpenTechSchool Berlin

Rust Hack and Learn

2023-11-21 | Virtual (Washington, DC, US) | Rust DC

Mid-month Rustful

2023-11-23 | Virtual (Edmonton, AB, CA) | Edmonton R User Group - Yegrug

Edmonton R User Group Meetup: R and Rust, like a match made in heaven

2023-11-28 | Virtual (Dallas, TX, US) | Dallas Rust

Last Tuesday

2023-11-29 | Virtual (Cardiff, UK)| Rust and C++ Cardiff

Atomics & Locks Book Club Final Chapter! (Chapter 10)

2023-11-30 | Virtual (Charlottesville, NC, US) | Charlottesville Rust Meetup

Crafting Interpreters in Rust Collaboratively

2023-11-30 | Virtual (Dublin, IE) | Rust Dublin

Automating expertise with cargo-semver-checks

2023-12-01 | Virtual (Cardiff, UK)| Rust and C++ Cardiff

Rust & C++ Christmas Game Jam Kick-Off!

2023-12-02 | Virtual (Kampala, UG) | Rust Circle Kampala

Rust Circle Meetup

2023-12-05 | Virtual (Berlin, DE) | OpenTechSchool Berlin

Rust Hack and Learn | Mirror

2023-12-05 | Virtual (Buffalo, NY, US) | Buffalo Rust Meetup

Buffalo Rust User Group, First Tuesdays

Europe

2023-11-09 | Barcelona, ES | BcnRust

11th BcnRust Meetup

2023-11-09 | Paris, FR | Paris Rustaceans

Rust Meetup in Paris

2023-11-09 | Reading, UK | Reading Rust Workshop

Reading Rust Meetup at Browns

2023-11-21 | Augsburg, DE | Rust - Modern Systems Programming in Leipzig

GPU processing in Rust

2023-11-23 | Biel/Bienne, CH | Rust Bern

Rust Talks Bern @ Biel: Embedded Edition

North America

2023-11-08 | Boulder, CO, US | Boulder Rust Meetup

Let's make a Discord bot!

2023-11-14 | New York, NY, US | Rust NYC

Rust NYC Monthly Mixer: Share, Show, & Tell! 🦀

2023-11-14 | Seattle, WA, US | Cap Hill Rust Coding/Hacking/Learning

Rusty Coding/Hacking/Learning Night

2023-11-15 | Richmond, VA, US + Virtual | Linux Plumbers Conference

Rust Microconference in LPC 2023 (Nov 13-16)

2023-11-16 | Mountain View, CA, US | Mountain View Rust Meetup

Rust Meetup at Hacker Dojo

2023-11-16 | Nashville, TN, US | Music City Rust Developers

Python loves Rust!

2023-11-16 | Seattle, WA, US | Seattle Rust User Group

Seattle Rust User Group Meetup

2023-11-21 | San Francisco, CA, US | San Francisco Rust Study Group

Rust Hacking in Person

2023-11-22 | Austin, TX, US | Rust ATX

Rust Lunch - Fareground

2023-11-28 | Pasadena, CA, US | Pasadena Thursday Go / Rust

Monthly Rust group

Oceania

2023-11-21 | Christchurch, NZ | Christchurch Rust Meetup Group

Christchurch Rust meetup meeting

2023-11-28 | Canberra, ACT, AU | Rust Canberra

November Meetup

If you are running a Rust event please add it to the calendar to get it mentioned here. Please remember to add a link to the event too. Email the Rust Community Team for access.

Jobs

Please see the latest Who's Hiring thread on r/rust

Quote of the Week

For Binder to continue to meet Android's needs, we need better ways to manage (and reduce!) complexity without increasing the risk.

The biggest change is obviously the choice of programming language. We decided to use Rust because it directly addresses a number of the challenges within Binder that we have faced during the last years.

– Alice Ryhl on the Linux Kernel Mailing List

Thanks to Vincent de Phily for the suggestion!

Please submit quotes and vote for next week!

This Week in Rust is edited by: nellshamrell, llogiq, cdmistman, ericseppanen, extrawurst, andrewpollack, U007D, kolharsam, joelmarcey, mariannegoldin, bennyvasquez.

Email list hosting is sponsored by The Rust Foundation

Discuss on r/rust

[reflectionsofacreator]

So like. I kinda sat down to write about this one, and I feel like I don’t know what to write about. There’s a lot to write about, but like... [scrubs face] it’s like, there’s a lot of emotional (sledge)hammers with this one, and it’s hard to pick apart so I can actually talk about it. Paralyzed by there being so much, you know? 

God writing this one was like pulling teeth, tbh. 

Buckle up lads, this one clocks in at over 2k. Mobile users I’m so sorry. 

I think the first thing I’m gonna tackle is the name of this one. It’s called The Truth, but in the context of Clay, that previously had an incredibly specific meaning. “The Truth” wasn’t so much a phrase as it was referring to the real truth of the Precursors and the nature of Eve and Adam, and the truth of humanity as a whole. Historically, every mention of “The Truth” around Clay refers to that specific idea, and now we have a new thing that uses the same name. It’s kind of interesting too, because the Truth that Clay shared was very explicitly something he was giving to other people, after learning about it for himself. And in this case, this is Truth that he’s being given, either about his situation, or the situation of his successor. 

This memory opens up with a doctor and Warren Vidic talking, after the episode that Clay had with the Bleeding Effect, and the doctor makes mention of Clay having been here a year already. He administers a medicine that’s actually an anti-psychotic, as a way of trying to stabilize Clay’s deteriorating mental state. There’s no guarantee that it’ll actually work, is the issue, mostly because the Bleeding Effect isn’t exactly a well known mental condition, and what everyone knows about it is simply what they’ve found out via the Subjects. Which is a very small group of people. I do wonder, though, about the Bleeding Effect as a .. hmm, genetic thing? It’s seeing the memories of your ancestors superimposed over your own perception of the world, and it’s implied that it’s because of the Precursor DNA that you can even have that happen, because it’s linked to Eagle Vision. Or at least, that’s what I’ve gotten so far, I could be completely wrong. 

The conversation with the doctor gets shooed away in favor of a conversation between Clay and his father, and like. I really wonder at the timing of it, if it’s supposed to be a conversation that Clay had while he was in Abstergo. It’s possible that it was a conversation that happened before Clay got sent in, but he sounds too resigned and weary I feel like, to have it happen outside of his imprisonment. Another reason why I feel like it’s after is because the last conversation we heard with Clay and his father was during the Bleeding Effect, when Clay was telling him about the Assassins, and things dissolved into a fight when Harold made it about money. This conversation feels like it’s a while after that, after Clay’s resigned himself to not being able to really convince his father of anything. 

Before Clay dives into the mainframe, there’s another glitch, which causes your controller to rumble. The screen goes noisy, and what shows is an exit at the end of a long walkway. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen glitches or hallucinations, but it’s freaky literally every time. 

We watch as Clay starts to hack through Abstergo’s systems after that, and the actual design of “going into” the mainframe is covered in a dozen different firewalls. It’s a neat sort of visual way to show just how hard Clay’s hacking is, as well as how many firewalls there are, because if he gets caught, he can get killed. 

Right before he goes in, on the right side of the “mainframe” is a code cipher. 

This is a Caesar cipher with an alphabetical shift of 3, and it reads  "Lucy, she Is aLways behind You." The capital letters spell out LILY -- traditionally lilies were associated with death. Now, you could interpret this as “Lucy’s got his back, she’s his teammate.” Which like, maybe. But with the addition of the word lily, and knowing that Lucy betrays him... nah. It’s more like she’s a threatening presence that needs to be watched. 

Clay snoops through Vidic’s mainframe and learns that Vidic is specifically after Desmond. Now, we know that this is at least over a year of Clay’s being here, and that Desmond was captured September 1st. What I’m really saying is just how long did Abstergo know about Desmond, and what lengths did they go to research him before they took him? Another question I have is like -- I know ac1 said that Abstergo found him via his fingerprints for his motorcycle license, but just how would that give them access to his genetic profile. Granted, that’s probably some early installment weirdness of ac1, but. (That being said, I remember reading a fic where they made mention of Desmond donating plasma for cash, and that’s how Abstergo found him, which is more believable than fingerprints....) 

I also can’t help but wonder like -- what’s going through Clay’s mind as he realizes that the Desmond Miles that Juno spoke of during his Bleed is the next Subject, and his successor? Or is it that he was completely unsurprised because Juno gave him a look into the possible future with the Calculations? 

Anyways, Clay finds out what Vidic wants, and excitedly says that they can leave, and we follow the path to see what looks like a broken stone circle at the base of two beams of light. 

(The wireframe is just the gameplay mechanic) I have... no earthly idea what this is, or what it could possibly mean. I think this is the only broken structure you see in all the memories, Desmond or Clay’s. It’s vaguely reminiscent of a broken film wheel, but I’m not sure if that’s what it’s supposed to be. But like, it’s so goddamn conspicuous because it’s the only broken structure we find. ls it supposed to symbolize a broken trust, a loss of faith after witnessing the “play” unfold?? .

Speaking of the “play”-- what the fuck. What the actual fuck. Is it supposed to make me uncomfortable? Because by god it did that. The sharp departure from how the rest of the narrative has been told is jarring as fuck, especially because it’s so like, proper. I swear, all that’s missing is like, a slightly off-key oldtimey music track and you’ll have a full blown horror segment. Maybe I’m just being dramatic, but like -- finding the broken wheel when that’s already something weird, having the camera forcibly taken away from you so you can watch this performance. And like, just listening to Warren monologue at Lucy is disturbing as well, for reasons that are hard to articulate. 

It’s like -- Meta wise, I know why she’s not talking. Her voice actress, Kristen Bell, had left and didn’t renew her contract (as her contract was only for 3 games), thus not being able to voice Lucy for any further appearances. IIRC, this is actually why Lucy was written to die, instead of simply recasting her, and then they had to scramble to make the “She’s a Templar!” twist work. Jury’s still out if it did or not, but like -- I do appreciate them trying to explain why she defected during her undercover years, but like... Ugh. It still leaves such a sour taste in my mouth, because it’s obviously a writing scramble and not a cohesive narrative that was plotted from the beginning. 

For a comparison, Clay’s story and ultimate fate feels complete, it feels alright. Yeah, it’s arguably a worse fate than Lucy, he died twice over, but like. We knew he was dead from the first moment we saw him, we knew that there was only one way that this could really go, a tragedy. There was a clear progression of his story, and the fact that you know how it ends. That being said, I do wonder about Clay’s death as a Subject in ac2, before the plotbeats of Lucy being a Templar were set in stone for Brotherhood. I know that the 20 glyphs in ac2 did talk about how Lucy was there when Clay killed himself, but I kinda doubt that it was in the same context of “she was supposed to save him but deliberately betrayed him due to her loyalties”. I guess what I’m getting at is that Lucy’s story feels terrible due to the writing surrounding it, while Clay’s feels deliberately terrible because that was the point. 

Back to my original point of “Lucy not talking”-- while there is a meta reason for it, I kinda want to ascribe a narrative reason, despite the meta outweighing the narrative. 

Lucy is characterized by almost never showing the full extent of her feelings or motivations, leaving you to wonder what’s actually going on in her head constantly. Sure, she leaned on Desmond a lot, but there’s also an undercurrent of a power imbalance there, and we always got the sense that she kept more to herself than she revealed. By having Warren talk at her, we’re further kept from knowing just what she felt about all of this, and instead we’re given another glimpse of the strange relationship that Warren and Lucy had. 

Warren was her boss, but also her superior in the Templar order, and the man who saved her life from his own company. Back in ac1, Lucy recounts to Desmond how she was attacked in the middle of the night, going to be silenced by Abstergo so she couldn’t talk about the Animus, only for Warren to save her life by telling the men to stand down. The assailants were people that she interacted with every day, even ate lunch with. This is after she’d been with Abstergo for a while, and finally feeling like she was being taken seriously with her work (as well as her undergrad thesis/work) she was going to be killed to keep quiet. We don’t actually know why Warren saved her, but it’s my firm belief that that’s when Lucy changed alliances to the Templars.

However, I do wonder about the confrontation between Lucy and Warren at the end of ac2, during the credits. I know, I know, her being a Templar wasn’t really a thing in ac2 (I think), so therefore you have to take it all with a grain of salt, but like. The conversation here brings attention to it, where Warren tells her “Make sure you look very upset. You need to be convincing.” And I can’t help but wonder if Warren and Lucy ended up trading insults that hit way too close to home in order to further the deception... It wouldn’t be hard to pretend to be hurt if she actually was hurt by what he said, y’know? 

I think the last thing about Warren’s speech that really bugs me is like -- he tacks on the whole “Oh, yes. Once inside their hideout, perhaps you might ask the Assassins why they left you alone for so many years.” And like. That just gets under my skin in a lot of ways because like-- he’s got a point, the Assassin’s methods are Rather Horrible™ with how they completely cut her off for a deep cover mission at seventeen (no I will not ever be over that), but the way he says it just. He’s clearly manipulating her to entrench her further onto his own side, and I just. Ngh. I kinda wonder if the delivery of the line was intended for the audience rather than Lucy herself, because she already knows all this, and for him to bring it up feels like an insult to her intelligence. It feels kinda slimy in a way that I can’t really describe. Or maybe it’s just because I just do NOT like Vidic. 

There’s also the question of like, how did Clay see this -- this is all dramatized for the sake of us, the audience, but did he watch this via video feeds or something??? The thought of him watching Lucy and Warren talk about his successor is kinda jarring tbh. Also this throws a wrench into the ending of ac1 (though tbh what DOESN’T throw a wrench into ac1) where they were going to dispose of Desmond only for Lucy to intervene. Is it because Warren and Lucy were operating on their own project that wasn’t exactly approved by the Templar higher ups?? Or something?? 

This whole memory says that Desmond was their goldmine for the amount of genetic information he held, so why would the higher ups -- wait. Unless the whole thing was a ploy by having Lucy speak up in “defense” of Desmond in order to get him to trust her some more.... Hrm.... Granted that fits, it’s just a sort of way of re-contextualizing the ending of ac1... 

Waves hand anyways Clay finds out about this plan for Lucy to gain Desmond’s trust and give them the data, and then we finally have control again. There’s this sort of distorted error noise, and the red blocks start to fill up the room, threatening you as they force you closer and closer to the screen, which only shows a picture of a door with a strange symbol on top of it. 

This is the symbol for 3 Juno, an asteroid in our solar system that’s the 11th largest, and contains 1% of total mass of the asteroid belt. It was discovered September 1st, 1804, by Karl Ludwig Harding, and initially considered to be a planet, along with a few other asteroid/dwarf planets at the time. It was given this symbol, ⚵, like how Mercury, Venus, and Jupiter all have their own symbols. 

Aside from the obvious “hey that’s Juno, she’s the big bad of this shit”, there’s a couple things that stood out to me. The date of discovery, September 1st -- that’s the same date that Desmond got captured by Abstergo, gives me pause. I’m not sure if it’s something that was intentional on the dev’s part, or if they were just looking for a symbol that would represent Juno. Either way, that’s enough of a coincidence that it makes me feel unsettled, the same way that Lucy was bothered by the date of the satellite launch being 72 days away. It might just be an honest coincidence, but considering that this is Clay we’re dealing with... nah. 

Another thing that the AC wiki told me is that this is also the symbol for the Instruments of the First Will, an in-universe religious organization that worships the Precursors, and specifically Juno. Now, this organization doesn’t actually appear until at least ac4 Black Flag, and continues on all the way through Syndicate. This is more like an early bird cameo than a full blown reference, as we still have to get through ac3, But it’s still interesting to point out and look at, and wonder what’s going on with it all. 

Anyways, the door itself is actually part of the screen, and impassible, and it stays that way as the bricks come closing in, chasing you. It’s really tense tbh, with this feeling of claustrophobia on top of the revelations you were forced to watch. It also doesn’t help that like. You had control wrenched away from you so you could watch the conversation, and the speech was long enough to lull you into maybe putting your controller down to watch, and then with a rumble you suddenly have control again and are being chased towards a door that doesn’t open. 

The picture of a door becomes an actual door after the blocks get closer and closer, and we break through into the light, and onto memory 7.

If you like what I do, or want to see any other sort of analysis, consider buying me a ko-fi!

[leviathiane]

SHOW US YOUR WROR RAW UNPROCESSED WHOLE GRAIN ORGANIC NOTES

this is going to be a long-ass post i am so sorry to Everyone! i take a lot of notes.

So, as You specifically know (as well as all of my lovely Soggers) I take a LOT of notes. Obsessively. I write fucking everything bc i have very little memory and very much paranoia. This results in literal Piles of notes. Raw planning, on paper, on my phone– doodles of scenes im brainstorming, bulletpoints, entire SCRIPTS– it’s all there but scattered (I’ve got scenes planned in the margins of my goddamn anthropology notes and deciphering it was a NIGHTMARE) 

I won’t even upload all the photos of my writing notebook, because itd be like 50 pages of illegible nonesense. but heres a couple of planning phase pages. (may be hard to read, I dropped this notebook both into some tidepools, into a creek on campus, and accidentally leaked my waterbottle onto it in my backpack :/) 

if you can’t tell already, yes they all look exactly like this. Some are even more illegible, because I wrote them with the notebook half under my actual class notes. Because i wrote most of them in class. During lectures. And pretending very badly that i was not doing exactly that. (pay attention in class please i got away with this bc i was filling up elective units) 

I’m also flat out MISSING a large portion of my notes bc some of it? isnt even in the damn notebook. its on a sheet of binder paper, or on the empty back of an assignment. I’ve now lost most of those notes, but the ones i do still have are just as (even more, actually) indecipherable chicken scratch: 

Wow, how clean and tidy and easy to follow! i am in hell. 

and this doesnt mention the PAGES and PAGES of outlines that are on my laptop, and the pages of outlined scenes that are on the notes app of my phone. if i put them all, you would have entire chapter spoilers up to the very end of the story so i cant post a lot of them– and also theres just a goddamn lot of them. currently i have 16 pages of outlining. There are no spacing breaks. It is a solid 16 page block of text. Looking at it gives me a migraine. 

some assorted notes which i have dredged up from the deleted parts of the main draft google doc go all the way back to when i started Wror in June and they are Barely more readable than my handwriting on sheer account of: articulation is not my strength. These include: 

“Ch 8 plan: sabo gets trained specially, awakens his armament haki, beats ace in a bunch of spars and proves himself to be anything but vulnerable. The boys are like “we fucking recognize that technique ryu taught you before us!!” and goad ryu into finally starting them both on basic haki training, just to awaken it, since sabo already has. Also this is the chapter that ace finally confronts ryu for his devil fruit after ryu confirms that some devil fruit users can’t be hurt without haki and ace immediately catches onto that and tries to slam his pipe through ryus head. It doesn’t work, ryu catches the weapon with a haki covered hand, to avoid turning to flame with hit and ace just gets frustrated and accuses ryu of hiding his devil fruit, because he remembers what he saw in grey terminal and that now that he has seen haki he can distinguish it from what he saw and he’s sure no one could do what ryu did. He calls ryu a hypocrite for coddling them even after telling them to stop coddling sabo and ryu has to sit them down and explain that yes he does have powers and he has been hdiing it and explains his reasoning. However instead of understanding th eboys just get fired up and say they don’t wnt to be scared of fire, especially not when it means ryu isn’t taking them seriously in a spar. Ryu finally agrees to start them on desensitization training for fire trauma. Fire desensitization training happens on the beach, so that they have water nearby in case things get out of hand. At some point ace gives ryu a considering look and is just like “if you have a devil fruit that means you can’t swim either right?” and ryu is basically just like “lmao yeah” and then ace immediately attempts to drown him. Lots of murder attempts in ace’s department toget his older brother to be less of an idiot with little success lol(extra: ace tried to attack ryu earlier both to confirm that ryu has a devil fruit that would force him to use haki to hide it, and because he now knows that he CAN’T hurt ryu without haki and as thus can’t beat him and make him admit he’s awake without being good at haki.)” [chapter 8] 

“Small sabo lost his hat and goggles in the incident and while he doesn’t remember having them future sabo notices he looks uncomfortable and keeps touching his hair and head. Ace yells at him for it thinking he bandaging are bothering him and that he can’t touch them but little sabo just comments that something about it feels wrong. Luffy blurts our that he had a hat, like luffy does, But he doesn’t now ace begrudgingly mentions that they can’t get a new one in town. Future sabo doesn’t even hesitate and just plops his own hat onto his younger selves head. It clearly too big for him, and almost falls over his eyes but he grins up at future sabo and is like “wow!! Thank you! I’ll take care of it till I have one of my own” and creates a paradox like Luffys own hat. The footsteps younger sabo has yet to fill. This HAS to happen AFTER the talk where they explain that future and past sabo are both the same person, to give little sabo that pressure.” [chapter 9]

“(Right after this older sabo takes them down to the ocean so that they can play a little and desensitize themselves and immediately fucks himself over when he goes weak in the water bc he somehow fucking forgot his own devil fruit again and now even younger sabo is on his case about not letting him near the fucking ocean that little goddamn HYPOCRITE—) )” [for chapter 9]

“Ch 9 plan: they finally leave dawn island. Starts with the boys getting a haircut after training and luffy mentions how long it’s been since they’ve last needed a haircut, giving sabo and ace time to point out that it’s been 2 months now since ryu joined them, and that sabo was completely healed by now. The boys are now aware of the basics of haki, and while luffy hasnt awakened either yet ace and sabo both have a little bit of weak armament haki. (sabo won’t awaken observational haki until he gets his memories back) ryu tries to sneak off into the city to steal a boat but his brothers refuse to leave him behind and keep sneaking out after him, not wanting him to go alone and saying that since he’s been training them they’re clearly stronger and he needs to let them do this. Ryu eventually just lets it go because why the fuck not it’s a dream and they make him feel better. They get the boat out on open ocean and finally fucking sail out, cheering loudly, ryu struggling to make them all calm down but also not really trying. He’s happy as shit, and they’re all so excited and happy and sabo dips a hand into the waves and then smiles so fucking wide and tackles ryu so violently they both nearly tip into the water and it’s just very very good. “ [also for ch 9] 

** I flat out dont Have any outlining from before chapter 6, because i only started actually outling chapters after that. i tend to just sit down and Write up until i hit a plot point or writers block and then am forced to actually think it through and plan rather than letting it come naturally. thats also why the quality and editing is better in later chapters despite everything being written within the same time frame. 

besides entire chapter outlines, there are the scene specific phone notes like:

“(ADDED) Right after they leave dawn, when sabo is sure they’ve gotten enough of a head start, he calls Garp. He doesn’t say who he is, but that all of the boys are safe and happy with him and has them all talk into the phone to assure him that they’re fine. Garp is honestly just pissed off he doesn’t know who’s calling and when he asks sabo just laughs and says a disobedient brat before hanging up. “

“(ADDED) TO EXPAND ON CH 3: sabo gets offered the chance to go with dragon, and he hesitates on the offer to go through with his previous life with the family he’s made in the revolutionary again. He almost agrees, because the bought of losing them in this lifetime is near excruciating but reminds himself swiftly that it’s no place for his brothers and not what they’d really want, and he wants selfishly to be with them as long as he Can until he “inevitably” wakes up. The boys are visibly relieved by this, especially ace. (Sabo gets asked who he is by dragon, who wants to know more about the stranger with his son, but dragon has always been quicker to make connections no one guessed and he just smiled knowingly at sabo and tells him he’s sure the other will have no trouble finding them if he’s in need. Sabo in turn warns him to keep Kuma close, and to look for a slave girl named koala.)”

I have…. many of these. I have Many of Everything. 

finally, i have scene doodles. if i hit a bad writers block it usually helps me to sketch scenes or the character designs to regain my grip on what the hell is happening in the plot– Breach of Intention has character design sketches, pakcbond has MANY scene sketches, even some of my nsfw has some sketches. my wror skecthes arent Good of course, I am an art teacher for children and that means i am more often explaining the color wheel and brush techniques over drawing perfect human replicas– and i just dont really make a lot of fanart? ive never drawn sabo before but i sure have a bunch now. i wont include close ups because they genuinely suck but heres an example pic 

So… yeah thats about everything. this is a VERY long post and yet i only included like maybe ¼ or 1/5 of all the notes i have dbskhjgfkjadns lmk if anyone wants more (or notes for my Other stories, which contain NO WHERE the same absurd amount of shit that wror does.)

[tinselt-blog]

The Decision I Made That Will Talk to Me forever

This is a promised story I have decided to publicly tell in hopes that it is awakening for one of you reading this. I am very fortunate to have an addiction that wasn’t as fatal as many addictions can be, but I wouldn’t read this story and take it as something good. I will use the word is and has towards my addictions, because although I may not be on anything currently, I will always believe I am an addict.

This story dates a little bit. When I was 12, I broke my arm pretty severely. The bone in my wrists had to be reset twice, meaning the bones were broken twice. I broke both my ulna and my radius in one clean sweep in a skating accident, as well as 3 of the teeny tiny ones in the rotational movement, wrist part thing. I’m studying to become a brain doctor, so take what I say with a grain of salt. Basically, after my surgery I was given pain pills. I was 12 and I was given oxycodone. I remember the first night I took the pills and I had severe panic attacks all night. My mom, who was all for natural, holistic medicine, immediately made me consume a shit ton of water to flush it out of my system. I grew up with parents who had me get the bare minimum vaccinations. I have frequent migraines and my medication is basically a strong Tylenol with some sort of anti-anxiety meds that make me loopy. Basically, what I am saying, is that I was never exposed to medications of any type and my body had a pretty harsh reaction to the pain pills. Fast forward to the beginning of high school, I was straight edge. I didn’t like the use of marijuana in any instance, I thought alcohol was bad and that drug use was a choice. That summer came and a made a couple new friends. They were amazing, but then I learned they smoked every day. Everything I had thought about drugs, got replaced by this idea that maybe not all drug users were bad. I was respected for being straight edge and even prompted to keep up with it. Of course, having these friends that I had come to love and cherish made me want to try weed. When sophomore year came around I smoked my first bowl. The ashes were black by the time it was passed to me and I coughed out black smoke, gagging over the burnt rubber taste. I felt sick with myself for allowing myself to do this and told myself I would never again. The urge came back. The few moments of peace that the few hits had given me, was so soothing. I felt warm, wrapped in God’s blanket. I began smoking cigarettes and as lame as I know I sound, smoking a dab pen to hide the weed in my own house so my parents wouldn’t catch me. My lungs slowly turned to shit. I was a singer, I preformed in a national choir for about two and a half years. We would travel the world and all around the country singing. The choir was very hard to get into with a limited number of seats. It was my favorite thing to do, until I started coughing at the end of each song. I had caught mono after drinking out of a cup of a carrier. My health was absolute shit at this point and on top of that I smoked a lot to pass the time. I decided to take cough syrup one night that I couldn’t fall asleep. I had never taken cough syrup before this, never knew how it would affect me. Once again, I had never really had medication before and so the cough syrup hit me very fast. I saw Jimi Hendrix perform a concert, there were floating leprechauns in my room, I had a whole clan of penguins just chilling next to my bed. It felt like a distraction from my anxieties to watch the illusions my brain would create. I would lie there with rosy cheeks, warm with synthetic happiness. My cough didn’t get any better and neither did my habits to get high. I remember my mom taking me to a throat specialist and pretending to have a panic attack, so they couldn’t put a camera into my lungs just to find that they were black. Occasionally if I could shell out the money, I would buy prescription pain pills for an intense high on  my roughest days. My life continued to go in this downwards spiral, where I couldn’t control myself and I couldn’t breathe. It took months before I could finally say stop. I got a job where I didn’t want to be high all the time. I took the steps to get off the medicine, and my head ached for days and I couldn’t stop vomiting randomly, I had a fever for a week, but it was worth it. I hit an all time low, I felt depressed, scared. It was hard to shower and look at myself in the mirror and say look at you. My weight had dropped slightly. It wasn’t until my first day of work that I really felt ok. When the job ended, so did that natural high that came with it. I began to use my old habits again. Another couple of months, blurred from my memory. I remember being in a car one day, realizing how out of it I really was. The conversation was hard to follow, and my memories were memories I would never knew how much I would want, until there came a day that the other person involved in them would be gone. This withdrawal was probably the hardest. It was the one that I wanted to be using the most. I stopped not out of choice, but out of need. I began to mentally collapse after losing someone close to me and the drugs made it worse. It was the first time that the drugs had hurt me. Stopping was painful. I stopped cold turkey and even the thought of doing them made me sick. My body was sore for months after all the vomiting and sweating. I would miss school to stay back for a few days to flush my system. When it was all over, I felt limp, lifeless. I was a walking zombie. My life had revolved around getting high and the people I once loved, were no longer my allies. I created a new world, with clean people. I lived in a world that I wanted to live in and I was so happy. During my use, I was beginning to fail classes, before I was a straight A student. I now had the opportunity to focus. I wish this was the end of the story, but it isn’t. Freshman year came around. I had the worst breakup of my life, I had my school deny that I was sexually assaulted, my mom was sick. I began to panic. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t hold food down, I couldn’t get out of bed. I went back to the only things I knew, and that was the biggest regret of my life. I had spent over a year sober and now I was returning to things that made me, well, not me. It sent me into a frenzy. I began to act out, get angry, emotions I never had before. This was the first and only psychotic breakdown I have had. I couldn’t control any aspect of my life and it felt as though the grains of sand that I had taken me years to collect, were now slipping through my fingers. Reality wasn’t there. I got better slowly, through care and practice. The biggest moment I can remember is being slipped shrooms. I began to get paranoid. I thought the rainbow was hurting me, people were trying to steal my teeth and worst of all I thought my dead friend was out to get me. I was out in the middle of nowhere and I called my mom to come and get me. I don’t remember how I got home, the last thing I remember is being able to turn on my location tracker. We’ve never talked about it, but I know how she felt. I know she felt sad that I had to put myself through this. At this point I had developed my illness and I was severely underweight. I had lost about 25 pounds and I couldn’t hold food down. Sometimes nothing would stick for 2-3 days, and with that happening, every time I would smoke, I would just fall asleep. After awhile it became embarrassing to be with the people I was with and I knew I was a joke. I stopped smoking all together at that point, but quickly picked the cough syrup up. It wasn’t until recently where I had to tell myself to stop. I have been sober for almost a week now and I hope to God that week turns into years. I’m sick of feeling debilitated by something controlling me, sick of being 19 and stuck. I went through the vomiting, the sweats and now I’m here, making a blog. Making a blog to reflect on when I’m 40.

I want this story to stand how it is. Remember that anyone could be using any substances at any time. As a friend we need to stand by their side and get them the help they need when needed. I reiterate many times that my body is sensitive to doing substances and I am prone to vomiting when my inner balance is thrown off. I don’t want people reading this to freak out or state it wrong, because we all go through different things when it comes to our bodies. I was nervous about writing this, because this was such a private time in my life. People knew I got high, which is fairly normal, I just don’t think they understood what I meant. I have a large year of my life where I can only remember bits and pieces. To anyone that believes these substances have zero effect on you, that’s wrong. I’m not trying to sound like a mom or be a bitch, I just want people to grow up strong and healthy. To me, the occasional joint doesn’t hurt me, but the more I learn about myself, the less I want it. This is a story of warning, not just a story. Please take in to consideration other’s opinions.

[wisteriafield]

Dark Souls

send me a tv show/book/fandom and i’ll say the top 5 things i’d change about it 

Since each of the installments are vastly different, I’ll either assume that you’re just talking about the first one, or I could do one for all 3. Yeah lets do that I’ve got a lot on my mind and really want to talk about Dark Souls

As a sidenote, for DS1 and DS3 I’d like an arena much like the DS1 arena where you neither gain nor lose anything but you get to challenge whichever boss you want in their arena like you’re selecting a bonfire to warp to or w/e. Either found near the end of the game or a place you can access early but updates as you progress.

DS1

There’s not a whole lot I have a problem with in this game, but there are some glaring issues...

I miss the Dark Wood Grain Ring a lot, after playing lots of DS2 and 3. And easy ravioli steps, ones that have invul frames too.

Change backstab detection and confirmation

Have you heard of anyone that joins Princess’s Guard? Possibly consider reducing the FTH requirements to make the covenant-exclusive miracles more accessible, or at least make more useful rewards

Maybe actually confirm if joining Way of White helps you not get invaded

This is the only game I can reliably parry in but that’s also because it’s probably the easiest game to parry in and it’s kinda ridiculous, especially given how powerful criticals are in this game.

I personally dislike humanity mechanics and found it better handled in DS3, it’s necessary for what the game is, but it would be nice if it was less monotonous to farm the item version of it, compared to all of the fun ways (invading, cooping) that only get you “soft” humanity.

There’s nothing you can really do about how easy it is to twink a character in this game because of all of the core parts of the game design that make it so strong (the accessibility of the master key, invading with 99 humanity items, getting like +5 giants armor and a +5 chaos weapon and being invincible against new players, etc) You’d have to change a lot of things.

Also I wish I didn’t have to look ugly everytime I died but it’s the price I pay for being bad.

DS2

I don’t necessarily mind Soul Memory, but it feels like the inclusion of the Apage Ring makes the mechanic redundant and harder to manage than Soul Levels, but I do appreciate that twinks are much rarer just because of how much more effort you have to go through just to do it.

Both Aggro persistence and range are kinda ridiculous, while the game stresses stamina management much harder than DS1 or DS3, their reception to sound makes it so you’re often outnumbered 4:1. Maybe we could do with like 1 less Alonne Knight?? Just a suggestion.

Enemy animations just seem really stiff but also can be really subtle (like the way hollow bastard sword enemies can just suddenly charge into you like they’re using a spear, which is just weird). It’s like the worst of Monster Hunter’s animations (aka Gen 1 monsters with Raths doing their instant charge that sends you flying)

Make gear you can only get from killing one-time NPCs drop easier and not force people to use like 50 Ascetics

Hollowing is ugly but in a cartoonish way, the drastic change of your appearance over 5% of your max HP is ridiculous, in my personal opinion.

Also there’s questionable area design which I guess can’t be helped because of the game’s development circumstances, such as taking an elevator UP into a volcano/lava area after passing through a mining colony. or having to go through a special shrine that requires powerful souls because some chest high rocks are covering the proper path.

I do miss kicking though.

DS3

I could write a whole paper on Covenant reforms in particular

Sorcery Reform (and Miracles to a certain extent): Allow Sorcerers to hold off casting spells similar to Bow-users. In DS2, there’s enough variety of sorceries you can use to keep people guessing (even if everyone and their mother will have Homing Crystal Soulmass and Crystal Soul Spear, there’s still other spells you can and should attune to mix your game up). Change scaling of INT and FTH so builds don’t have to get 60 of either stat in order to see sufficient damage, they have to dump enough points in ATT as it is, this also drastically tends to limit the amount of weapons they have available to them. maybe I’d consider reducing FP costs too, having to split Ashen Estus Flasks with your regular flasks just makes life a lot harder in PvE than it does for Quality builds, and not even having access to spells makes up for that due to the way INT investment affects spell damage. Maybe the complaints are exaggerating (I wouldn’t be surprised). I’ll get back to you on this when I start my non-quality build characters.

Strengthen split damage weapons. This tends to cause Refined/Hollow infusions to be your choice of infusion for 90% of weapons. THAT in turn is also caused by many weapons being quality weapons in general, if you don’t run quality builds, too many weapons end up being underwhelming. This would also put less of a demand on STR/DEX points for INT and FTH builds and open up a lot more options for them.

Remove auto-summoning from Blades of the Darkmoon. Upon using the Red Eye Orb, to reinforce the lore of them having a feud with Aldritch Faithfuls, allow them to invade players with the Aldritch Faithful covenant in any area regardless if the area boss is dead or not; remove Proof of Concord Well Kept with this change. (Seriously why did they make the same covenant twice?)

Increase the lower bound of Blue Sentinel summon range; Move Way of Blue to become accessible in Firelink Shrine as opposed to the end of the first area (this is probably where low level embered players will run into invasions the most anyways). Allow their White Sign Soapstone to be used in invasions to create Signs Requesting Cooperation in Blue Sentinels’ worlds (this is something new they added in DS3 for NPC questlines that I find underused). They can interact with the sign and be summoned where it was placed. Way of Blue hosts can use this and then hold out until an answer arrives, or perhaps use it to lure an invader into a pincer attack. I’d also disable summon signs when you get invaded since hosts tend to run back to the bonfire for safety to summon more people, thus occupying slots that could be used on a Blue Sentinel. Blue Sentinels should always be able to locate the Host as well, and should be ignored by enemies and cannot hurt them either. Blue Sentinels are there to protect the host, but protecting them from enemies in the area is NOT what their concord tells them to do, they are there for the invader and the invader only. If there’s one thing I learned over the last few days: Equip Way of Blue when going through areas yourself.

There’s a recent glitch that allows people to invade AND enter boss fights as if they were a phantom. The main issue with this glitch is that the invader is not announced in the world, but can be sent back home with the Black Separation Crystal if the host is careful before entering the boss room. The most dickish thing I’ve seen done with it is someone invading the boss room and killing a questline NPC in a certain boss fight. I’d like to see this included since this is discovered to be how the Mound Makers covenant was originally supposed to work. DS3 needs to give incentives to summoning Mound Makers and there really aren’t any except for the fact that they’re probably better at fighting invaders than your sunbros are. The only thing is that once the Mound Maker enters the boss room, they have to land the finishing blow on the host or they get nothing, and can’t just sit there to let the boss kill them. 

(Extra) Instead of weapon reinforcement checks permanently barring you from lower reinforced hosts, either scale down the reinforcement to their level or don’t count weapons in the Item Box.

(Extra... again) I have to admit that estus drinking and healing speed make invasions much longer and tiring than they should be (but not as long as Demon’s Souls pvp where apparently everyone has 99 dank). The fact that roll stamina cost is so low combined with the fact that you can turn which is more important than the fact that you can move in general while drinking makes estus really strong, I might change this for healing Estus but not for Ashen Estus.

I don’t know if it’s really that important, but it really bothers me that it’s literally impossible for you to learn the Proper Bow gesture by summoning Yellowfinger Heysel unless you want to end Sirris of the Sunless Realm’s questline (also, the amount of gestures you need to learn by summoning NPC phantoms is something I’m not very fond of) and thus possibly deny access to both the Mound Makers covenant AND Blades of the Darkmoon in a single NG.

I could make another note about broadening weapon diversity by changing their moveset, like how 90% of straightswords outside of DLC have the same Stance and how all of them swing the same for the most part. Only 2 Greatswords have unique R1s and one of them is complete shit thanks to said note about how Split Damage is in a really bad place in this game.