#apparently gen 2 is my go-to

[hallawayheart-moved]

birds eye (eye emoji)

[raeathnos]

.

[deadsetobsessions]

Sea Cryptic! Danny AU- Pt.4

[Pt.1] [Pt.2] [Pt.3] [Pt.5] [Pt.6] [Pt.7] [Pt.8] [Pt.9] [Pt.10]

Danny was sitting in the back, his backpack obnoxiously taking up the seat next to him, when the door to the lecture hall creaked open near silently.

“What are you in here for?” Danny asked the guy who crept into class. He sympathetically took his backpack off the Seat of Shame and allowed the guy to sit down. Funnily enough, they had the same hair and eye color.

“Gen Ed. Undecided. You?” The guy grunted quietly back.

“Environmental studies. I’m Danny.”

“Tim.”

With the implicit understanding of two people in a required class they could not give less than two fucks about, Tim and Danny tuned back into the lecture. When the class was assigned group work, Danny looked over to see Tim softly snoring, head slammed down on the table.

“Tim. Wake up, dude.” Danny poked his shoulder.

“Huh? Class over?”

“Nah, we got group work. Discussion board.”

“Oh shit, thanks for waking me up. Wanna team up?”

Danny shrugged. “Sure. We should aim to post it in the middle so the professor doesn’t read our answers to the class.”

“Yeah, sounds like a good idea. Any idea what we’re talking about?”

“Kind of?”

“Good enough for me.”

——

Tim Drake kept seeing Danny Fenton around on campus.

“Danny! Dude, what are you doing?”

Danny turned, gloved hands full of crumpled trash. “Picking up after the student population, apparently.”

“Didn’t think environmental studies was that serious.”

“Global warming is very serious, you jerk,” Danny smirked at him, crossing the grass to put the trash into the trash can. “Reduce, reuse, oil shouldn’t be spilled in water and all that.”

“Basic stuff,” Tim grinned. Nice, he basically had a friend past Bernard now!

They were friends, right?

“And yet humanity fails to comprehend it. Incredible. Incredibly stupid that is.”

“They get it. Major corporations just don’t care.”

Danny sighed. “True that. You on your way to your next class?” He took off his biodegradable gloves off (nitrile and nylon, baby!) and chucked them into the trash.

“I’ve got free time, actually. Prof cancelled for his daughter’s surgery.”

“Oh, shit, that’s rough! You wanna go downtown and join the strike?”

“A strike? What for?” Even as he asked, Tim hiked his bag higher onto his shoulder, ready to go. They fell into step as the two left campus.

“Apparently, Quillan Pharma was doing some shady shit at their manufacturing plants. I think it’s like killing kids, and pouring toxins into the ground.”

“Oh, shit.”

“Yeah. Oh! Poison Ivy’s gonna be there!”

Tim blinked. He casted a sideways look at Danny. Sure he’s been here long enough to know… but it couldn’t hurt to check. “You know she’s an eco-terrorist, right?”

“Okay, but like… people suck sometimes. And all she’s asking for is like don’t kill the planet. And she doesn’t do that whole mind control thing too much anymore! The Sirens are so cool. Plus, one of my best friends at home might actually kill me if I don’t try to get her autograph. Poison Ivy is like, Sam’s personal hero.”

Tim snickered. “Yeah, okay. Mind if one of my friends join? His name’s Bernard.”

“The more the merrier,” Danny nodded. “Ooo! Hot chocolate. Want some?”

Danny bought three drinks as Tim trailed behind, texting Bernard.

“He said yes.”

“Cool! We should meet up somewhere before the drinks get cold.”

Well, Danny got the autograph. Tim got a new friend, and Bernard got a drink from his crush.

——

“Oh, you’re the glowing dude that Batman always talks about!”

Danny blinked, eyes scanning the wing-like cape and the yellow emblem on the hero’s suit. Danny was indeed glowing, stars and nebulas freckling across neon green skin, and glowing hair the color of a white dwarf star, tinged with the blue from his ice core.

“I… have absolutely no idea who you are,” Danny lied, like a liar. He’s found a surprising niche of entertainment in messing with the local vigilantes and he’ll be damned if he missed this opportunity.

He heard a snicker from the comm lines as Red Robin visibly brushes it off.

“I’m Red Robin. Why are you picking up trash?”

“Picking up after you humans, apparently.”

The both of them blink, feeling a weird sense of déjà vu. A moment of awkward silence passed before they both shook it off.

“Are you here to help? No offense, but the track record for you people is terrible.” Danny strode over and grabbed a bag. He opened it, and shook it at Red Robin’s face. “See? Batarangs, these odd bird looking ones, the R’s. Seriously, pick up after yourselves!”

“Oh, woah, can we have these back?”

Danny yanked the bag back before Red Robin could get close. “Pay me. These were incredibly tedious to pick up. Especially the batarangs. I mean, I even found a whole bunch of old rusted ones in the middle of the bay. What did you do, dump an entire bag in there from the air?”

Red Robin sighed and took out a wad of cash, with tracking fluid all over it. Danny grimaced, smelling the odd scent on the money. “That’s not real cash. It smells off. Are you trying to give me counterfeits because you’re broke?”

Red Robin gaped, oddly offended. “No! They’re real!”

“Doesn’t smell like it. It’s stinkier than the trash. Go get the one with the money, the litterer. Tell him I’ll be back the next full moon. I don’t want to talk to you anymore.” Danny grumbled, disappearing on the spot to watch Red Robin flounder with the stack of cash and the piles of dead bodies on the shore.

“What the fuck even is my life these days?” Red Robin wondered out loud, stuffing the cash back into his pocket. He looked over the plastic wrapped bodies and slumped, sighing.

Oddly enough, Danny felt a sense of sympathy. Well, he’s not getting paid for sympathy. He’s not getting paid at all tonight, actually. Danny flew off, plunging once more into the depths of the significantly cleaner waters, and used his ice to scoop out oil stains.

Danny glanced around and sighed. He had a lot of work to do.

——

“So you’re saying he’s like a werewolf mermaid fae child immortal god thing, right?”

Bruce grunted.

“B, what the hell are you smoking these days? You know drugs are bad, right? Do we need Superman to give you that PSA?” Jason snickered.

Tim, massaging his arms from having to haul an ungodly amount of dead bodies, grunted. He’s so similar to Bruce that it gave the people currently in the cave hives.

“He said full moon. I don’t think we can track him with regular stuff. The bugs kept shorting out.”

“Oh boy,” Dick sighed. “Don’t fall off the spiral cliff, Tim. You’ve got midterms to think about so no stalking the guy.”

“Yet,” Tim shot back, changing out of his suit.

Bruce grunted, setting aside a huge stack of cash.

[yosh-iro]

i now have both a costco card and a credit card like a proper adult :)

[nostalgebraist]

Honestly I'm pretty tired of supporting nostalgebraist-autoresponder. Going to wind down the project some time before the end of this year.

Posting this mainly to get the idea out there, I guess.

This project has taken an immense amount of effort from me over the years, and still does, even when it's just in maintenance mode.

Today some mysterious system update (or something) made the model no longer fit on the GPU I normally use for it, despite all the same code and settings on my end.

This exact kind of thing happened once before this year, and I eventually figured it out, but I haven't figured this one out yet. This problem consumed several hours of what was meant to be a relaxing Sunday. Based on past experience, getting to the bottom of the issue would take many more hours.

My options in the short term are to

A. spend (even) more money per unit time, by renting a more powerful GPU to do the same damn thing I know the less powerful one can do (it was doing it this morning!), or

B. silently reduce the context window length by a large amount (and thus the "smartness" of the output, to some degree) to allow the model to fit on the old GPU.

Things like this happen all the time, behind the scenes.

I don't want to be doing this for another year, much less several years. I don't want to be doing it at all.

----

In 2019 and 2020, it was fun to make a GPT-2 autoresponder bot.

[EDIT: I've seen several people misread the previous line and infer that nostalgebraist-autoresponder is still using GPT-2. She isn't, and hasn't been for a long time. Her latest model is a finetuned LLaMA-13B.]

Hardly anyone else was doing anything like it. I wasn't the most qualified person in the world to do it, and I didn't do the best possible job, but who cares? I learned a lot, and the really competent tech bros of 2019 were off doing something else.

And it was fun to watch the bot "pretend to be me" while interacting (mostly) with my actual group of tumblr mutuals.

In 2023, everyone and their grandmother is making some kind of "gen AI" app. They are helped along by a dizzying array of tools, cranked out by hyper-competent tech bros with apparently infinite reserves of free time.

There are so many of these tools and demos. Every week it seems like there are a hundred more; it feels like every day I wake up and am expected to be familiar with a hundred more vaguely nostalgebraist-autoresponder-shaped things.

And every one of them is vastly better-engineered than my own hacky efforts. They build on each other, and reap the accelerating returns.

I've tended to do everything first, ahead of the curve, in my own way. This is what I like doing. Going out into unexplored wilderness, not really knowing what I'm doing, without any maps.

Later, hundreds of others with go to the same place. They'll make maps, and share them. They'll go there again and again, learning to make the expeditions systematically. They'll make an optimized industrial process of it. Meanwhile, I'll be locked in to my own cottage-industry mode of production.

Being the first to do something means you end up eventually being the worst.

----

I had a GPT chatbot in 2019, before GPT-3 existed. I don't think Huggingface Transformers existed, either. I used the primitive tools that were available at the time, and built on them in my own way. These days, it is almost trivial to do the things I did, much better, with standardized tools.

I had a denoising diffusion image generator in 2021, before DALLE-2 or Stable Diffusion or Huggingface Diffusers. I used the primitive tools that were available at the time, and built on them in my own way. These days, it is almost trivial to do the things I did, much better, with standardized tools.

Earlier this year, I was (probably) one the first people to finetune LLaMA. I manually strapped LoRA and 8-bit quantization onto the original codebase, figuring out everything the hard way. It was fun.

Just a few months later, and your grandmother is probably running LLaMA on her toaster as we speak. My homegrown methods look hopelessly antiquated. I think everyone's doing 4-bit quantization now?

(Are they? I can't keep track anymore -- the hyper-competent tech bros are too damn fast. A few months from now the thing will be probably be quantized to -1 bits, somehow. It'll be running in your phone's browser. And it'll be using RLHF, except no, it'll be using some successor to RLHF that everyone's hyping up at the time...)

"You have a GPT chatbot?" someone will ask me. "I assume you're using AutoLangGPTLayerPrompt?"

No, no, I'm not. I'm trying to debug obscure CUDA issues on a Sunday so my bot can carry on talking to a thousand strangers, every one of whom is asking it something like "PENIS PENIS PENIS."

Only I am capable of unplugging the blockage and giving the "PENIS PENIS PENIS" askers the responses they crave. ("Which is ... what, exactly?", one might justly wonder.) No one else would fully understand the nature of the bug. It is special to my own bizarre, antiquated, homegrown system.

I must have one of the longest-running GPT chatbots in existence, by now. Possibly the longest-running one?

I like doing new things. I like hacking through uncharted wilderness. The world of GPT chatbots has long since ceased to provide this kind of value to me.

I want to cede this ground to the LLaMA techbros and the prompt engineers. It is not my wilderness anymore.

I miss wilderness. Maybe I will find a new patch of it, in some new place, that no one cares about yet.

----

Even in 2023, there isn't really anything else out there quite like Frank. But there could be.

If you want to develop some sort of Frank-like thing, there has never been a better time than now. Everyone and their grandmother is doing it.

"But -- but how, exactly?"

Don't ask me. I don't know. This isn't my area anymore.

There has never been a better time to make a GPT chatbot -- for everyone except me, that is.

Ask the techbros, the prompt engineers, the grandmas running OpenChatGPT on their ironing boards. They are doing what I did, faster and easier and better, in their sleep. Ask them.

[funkopersonal]

Im quite literally so done with this shit. i keep on going back and forth between hiding all the i/p related tags, but then I realize that its seeped EVERYWHERE. It's in the motherhood tag, and jewish history tag, and everything else. I can't fucking escape it. I opened tiktok yesterday to see one of my favorite characters (iron man) weaponized to support the one group that wants to see me dead, the user saying that iron man would support palestine, and be an antizionist because he "spoke out against the public" and he wasn't like the sheep. It frustrates me to no end this horrible cycle of fucking misinformation that exists.

As a Gen Z, I simply do not understand how its reached this point? I can't even write all my feelings and information about how shitty this is in a single sitting because 1) it'd be too long and 2) my joints wont let me write that long. But how did it reach this point?

How did it reach the point where jewish/isreali stores are fucking marked to notify the public. Their windows are being broken and the stores are being robbed. How did it reach the point where jewish students on some campuses are told to stay home? how they're harassed out of specific areas, and campuses have been made unsafe? How did it reach the point that people literally have written "I ♡ Houthis & Hamas" and "no mercy for Jews."? How did it reach the point that there are nazi symbols, and hanging deadmans, and communist symbols being drawn on college campuses? How is it possible that students are calling for the end of jewish student unions and hillel international on campus? that'd be like calling for the end of the fucking muslim student organization, or disbanding an african-american affinity group. Which would never be acceptable, but apparently its fine when its jews.

I'm sick and tired of all the horrible conditions of palestenian cities being blamed on israel. Palestine is its own country. They had their own government until they elected Hamas to lead them. Hamas, who diverted all their funds to the military. Hamas, who uses hospitals and public spaces as their bases. Hamas, who built miitary tunnels under cities so that when they're invaded, the cities will collapse on itself. Hamas, who steals all humanitarian aid from its citizens. Hamas, who controls palestenian media and teaches hatred to its children. Hamas, who wants their citizens to become martyrs for their country, to die for their goal. Hamas, whose number one goal is to eradicate all jews. Hamas, who denies the existence of the holocaust. Hamas, who enlists children as soldiers and suicide bombers. Hamas, who has has never expressed an interest in a 2 state solution.

Is this the organization you consider freedom fighters? because i dont think they should ever, in any context, be called that. Hamas is nothing but terrorists.

Yes, the deaths and treatment of palestenian citizens is horrible. but no, this is not a genocide. Israel is trying to rid them of Hamas, because quite literally, no country should ever be forced to live in "harmony" with a terrorist group. Especially one who denies their existence and actively wants to kill them all. Israel has been letting palestenians get jobs in the country, has let palestine use their resources and water, all for years. They've let hamas continously bomb them, they've gotten used to a life of bomb shelters in every residence. Hamas has done nothing but crippled their country's own economy and society.

None of the surrounding coutnries want to let in palestenians, or live with palestenians. Egypt wants to annex Gaza, and Jordan wants the West Bank. In fact, they did own that land for a part of history! Yet Israel has let palestenians govern themselves for years, even when Hamas originally came into power, they didn't interfere. Not until they were provoked.

Yes, Israel has flaws. But welcome to the fucking real world, princess. Every country has flaws. Even America, you dipshits. This is not a little fandom for you to play sides on. its not some fictional world that has a black and white solution. Yes theres going to be deaths, just like in any other WAR. But you really can't call for the destruction of a country on the basis that they're trying to make sure they're allowed to stay a country? Because guess what honey bunchkins? "from the river to the sea" really doesn't mean what you think it does. It just means that you want to kill all jews, or at best, forcefully remove them and scatter them around the middle east. (to countries that have killed them in swaths in the past. To countries that have emprisoned jews for helping others escape. To countries that avidly hate jews and want them dead). I don't understand how that would mean peace in any way shape or form?

Not only that, but half of "protestors" and "activists" for palestine, haven't even done basic research. They dont know what river or sea theyre talking about. They dont know that "palestine" was not a palestenian state in 1948, but it was instead a BRITISH MANDATE, that was NOT fully occupied by palestenians. In fact, "palestenians" weren't a thing. Palestenians are just muslims and arabs from countries like syria, who lived alongside jews and christians in the same land (which was largely uninhabited for the most part). Yeah, you heard me right.

Honestly my thoughts on this issue are so scattered its so hard to make a solid points when I can just keep on going forever.

Fact is, Israel deserves to be a country. No one should be supporting Hamas. Everyone should be supporting the eradication of Hamas (and I mean Hamas not palestenian citizens). I don't get how these are debated, and seriously don't understand how citizens of america are so quick to support a terrorist group, to resort to antisemitism.

Im so done with this all. I cant believe we have to tell you gentiles that stoning a 13-year old kid for being jewish is horrible. That throwing a brick through an israeli-owned cafe in New York is horrible. That students not being able to be on campuses because of their religion or ethnicity is horrible.

This has to end.

Do your research, or don't speak (and terrorist-controlled propoganda channels don't count).

[omartinyosef]

ST5 POTENTIAL SPOILERS!!!

GUYS I FOUND THIS ON REDDIT AND ACTUALLY IT'S QUITE INTERESTING

ST5 Leaks/Fleaks

Gen Plot

Season picks up briefly where we left off in 1986 before jumping into either late 1987 or early 1988. The season is contained entirely in apocalyptic Hawkins. Things with the government are shaky. Owens doesn't appear in the beginning of the season and it's unclear if he's returning, but Ellen Stinson is the new Owens. Hawkins is like a combination of the UD and Kamchatka.

Labyrinths/Mazes being important to both the supernatural plot and the interpersonal relationships. They're inherently linked.

Two songs to be featured are 'Listen to Your Heart' and 'Alone,' both of which were apparently foreshadowed in a previous conversation between Hopper and Joyce, similar to how Hopper's "I'm the puppet, you're the master" to Joyce in S3 basically foreshadowed Eddie's 'Master of Puppets' in S4.

S1 and 2 scenes being referenced are "Nancy and Mike's conversation in the bathtub" and "Hopper + Lando Calrissian"

Lots of importance in COLOR CODING and blocking from the final shot of S4, and a good chunk is told in the costuming—like passing the torch from one character to another as their arcs overlap. For example, Hopper and Will share the "am I the curse and therefore putting my loved ones at risk by being near them?" sentiment for S5, therefore their wardrobe in the final shot of S4 is similar. Joyce/Jonathan and Nancy/Mike's costuming also similar for the same reason, whereas Eleven stands out because she's the first one coming into her own this season. The white for her represents shedding of false skins.

Character duos this season will be primarily dressed in colors of blue/green and yellow/red.

There's lots of symbolism and foreshadowing for every character in S5 from the moment Will touches his neck in the last sequence of S4.

S4 focused on themes of lies and miscommunication, and everyone is going to have to work through these lies before they can defeat Vecna.

Murray and Argyle are both back. Dimitri and Yuri don't seem to be in the beginning of the season.

One thing left unresolved with the Russian plot. Something important will happen involving the machine and the green liquid from the Starcourt bunker. Reference of Dustin vowing to die with Steve when they initially discovered it.

Hopper, Joyce, Mike, Will, and El had to be away from Hawkins, otherwise Vecna wouldn't have won.

An important death that they're nervous about given the reception to Eddie (not Joyce or Jonathan—see details below).

Eleven

We'll see her unlike we've seen her before. A badass who doesn't take shit from anyone. Not a Monster, not a Hero, Jane. Think: adult El could be headed for a Charles Xavier type role.

Erica, Lucas, and El will share scenes together.

El has significant blocking and development with many characters this season.

Max, Eleven & Max

The "kaleidoscope of colors" from a script the writers posted makes a feature in both the scene where young El remembers her mother's love in order to defeat Henry in the lab, as well as the scene where El revives Max. This is significant because it's the first time we see El using her powers on someone in a non-violent way.

El was able to revive Max because of she, herself, being revived in the bunker by Brenner and Co. It's a show, don't tell moment from the writers.

Max getting Vecna'd was foreshadowed in the beginning of 2x01.

Will, Henry/Vecna, The UD

Filming was supposed to commence mid-June, but Noah and Jamie were set to begin in May due to more complicated costuming. Will is going to require heavy prosthetics at some point.

Will's character design is blocked in three stages. The more the UD bleeds into Hawkins, the more connected to it he feels. The gates being open will physically influence him, especially when he's not as mentally strong.

He's kind of like "the card up Vecna's sleeve."

It appears they want to confuse the audience about Will.

Will wrestling with his own morality

Henry/Will mirrors. Will will sympathize with Henry because, unlike El, he knows how and what Henry thinks, and he can feel him.

Vecna and Will are very similar, but the difference is Will is made stronger by love not hate. They will play into that duality.

Vecna was nerfed in S4 compared to how we see him in S5. He'll be much stronger.

At the beginning, he'll be taking a hiatus while he plans how to divide and conquer now that everyone's back together in Hawkins.

Soteria will be the key to saving Will. If they want Will to be untraceable to Henry, they'll have to insert it into his neck and it'll be painful. Vecna not having access to Will fucks up his ability to leave the UD.

Byler/Mileven Triangle

Apparently, it's complicated and up in the air as of now.

Mike dealing with guilt this season. He feels guilty/responsibility for El. He feels stuck in a loop that keeps him from a truth he's scared to face.

Will and Mike to spend a good chunk of the season together based on character designs and blocking.

Will telling El that Mike won't like being lied to comes back with the painting. During a pre-time jump scene in 5x01, while everyone's together plotting how to defeat Vecna and brainstorming how to save Max, Mike brings up the painting El commissioned for a D&D analogy. Will has to pull Mike aside and confess he lied about El commissioning the painting. Mike gets angry, because he doesn't know about Will's feelings and feels embarrassed that Will thought he was that pathetic he needed to be given a pep talk. Their own version of a "fight you can't come back from." Immediately after their fight, we get the time skip.

Mike's character motivations are unclear and seem to be kept under wraps. After the time jump, he and El won't be talking as much because he's keeping the details about Will's painting from her. She's gonna ask what's wrong between him and Will, and he lies/is very vague.

Joyce, Hopper, Jopper

Joyce feels immense guilt/responsible over Bob's death since she's the one that asked him to help in S2, which is why she pushed Hopper away at first.

Hopper has a secret from S1 that was never addressed, and it comes back to haunt him.

Joyce sustains an injury in S5 that is reminiscent of the way someone was injured in S3, but it isn't critical and she'll be okay.

Jopper are the most established couple after the time jump. Lots of bickering still, but Hopper trusts Joyce more than he ever has.

Jonathan, Nancy, Jancy

So far, does not seem like a breakup is happening.

Jonathan's still lying about the college letter and distant because of it, and Nancy thinks he's not as into the relationship and that there might be someone else. She confronts him, which leads to a talk. She's touched by the lengths he would go to try and protect her and any of their future children even from himself.

A moment where we're led to believe Jonathan dies but doesn't, like Hopper in S3.

Hopper-Byers Family

These five characters slowly unraveling their arcs together and have always been closely linked. Their perfect endings are together.

We see the family combining, especially in relation to El.

Joyce gets to witness Hopper being paternal and tender towards the boys.

Scenes with Joyce, Jonathan, and Will

Hopper being back lifts a weight off Jonathan's shoulders.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So, now time to shine.

''(...) sentiment for S5, therefore their wardrobe in the final shot of S4 is similar. Joyce/Jonathan and Nancy/Mike's costuming also similar for the same reason, (...)''

Okay. How did we see Nancy in S4? Confused. Confused with the love triangle between Jonathan, her and Steve. Jonathan is her actual boyfriend. And Steve is her posible love interest again.

So, putting this in byler language: Nancy = Mike Jonathan = Eleven Will = Steve

If Mike's and Nancy's character's clothing is important at this point of the time line and that means they feel similar feelings, this could mean that byler has a chance. BUT then we read this: ''(...) He (Mike) feels stuck in a loop that keeps him from a truth he's scared to face.'' And

''Mike's character motivations are unclear and seem to be kept under wraps.''

THIS LITERALLY MEANS BYLER. FOR REAL. Like byler could be endgame. Also, remember Eleven's injury in S3? Do you remember the leak of a shoe covered in blood?

It's Joyce. ALSO YOU CAN READ THAT WE'LL HAVE SCENES BEFORE THE TIME JUMP. And here it comes. Look at this freaking hair:

Does this look more like this

or this?

The season 4 bowl cut right? So maybe this is right in some part? I dont know. But that could make sense why Will is wearing Mike's pants, because his clothes were in California by that moment. But i really do think that the pic that was leaked a few days ago is before the time jump.

Im so late with this info haha :) but i kinda think some things here make sense. Even if this is too well explained to be a leak.

[clockwaysadmin]

City Pigeons Bleed Green

Update Subscription Post

(Since apparently this is going to be my Trauma Tuesday fic...)

Ship: gen batpham

Ao3 Link

CW: canon typical violence, blood, stitches, panic attacks, bad parent Fentons, experimentation, dehumanization, self esteem issues, more tags to be added

"Do you have a place to go to?” The kid laughed again. Somehow it sounded worse this time. “That’s the thing. I do. I might, I guess. Just no one is going to believe me.” “Why won’t they believe you? Where do you need to get?” Tim asked. The kid looked up. Jason felt Tim tense against him. Hell, Jason tensed. They were the wrong color, but Jason knew those eyes, those brows, that slope of the nose. Everything was just a little sideways, but Jason knew that face. He knew what the kid was going to say. “I need to get to Bruce Wayne.”

All parts are being posted here on Tumblr in their first draft version. The fic will be posted to Ao3 after it goes throughan edit.

All things related to this fic can be found in the 'city pigeons' tag on @clockwayswrites. Major links are below.

Part 1, Part 2 Part 3, Part 4 Part 5, Part 6 Part 7, Part 8 Part 9, Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14, Part 15 Part 16 Part 17 Part 18, Part 19, Part 20

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[absolutebl]

Pit Babe - it's time for a Trash Watch!

I had to. Well, no I didn't, but COME ON. It's like Thailand is negging me. Let's burn rubber, shall we? Burn rubbers...?

The things I had been told going in about this show:

it's about car racing (this bores me)

it stars Pavel (my BL ult bias, he is my icon for a reason)

it started as an omegaverse y-novel but the A/B/O aspects would be stripped from the BL series

it's high heat

(There some chatter about whether point 3 was a mistranslation of something the author said, but don't bother me with trifles.)

Here's a definition of omegaverse:

Omegaverse, also known as A/B/O (alpha/beta/omega), is a subgenre of speculative erotic fiction, and originally a subgenre of erotic slash fan fiction. Its premise is that a dominance hierarchy exists in humans, which are divided into dominant "alphas", neutral "betas", and submissive "omegas".[1] This hierarchy determines how people interact with one another in romantic, erotic and sexual contexts.[2] (Wikipedia)

In my experience and opinion, omegaverse archetypes and tropes are often used to strip out female characters (and The Feminine) and as a tool to excuse extreme hyper-masculine behaviors without a critical feminist lens (leading to lazy characterization). Just as heat is an excuse to get nkd quickly, A/O/B is often an excuse for taboo and dubious consent actions and behaviors. Do I get why writers/readers enjoy it? Yes I do. Do I personally like it? Not particularly. (Although there are always exceptions.)

Putting all that aside, the above represents my foundational knowledge before Pit Babe started.

Oh and that the familiar BL faces appearing in this show were follows:

Pavel Naret (aka Pavel Phoom) from 2 Moons 2 & Coffee Melody - Pavel is a fluent English speaker, a bit of a drama monger, and a motorcycle rider/car-dude, this role suits him

Nut Supanut from Oxygen & Something in My Room - has an amazing voice, his somewhat wooden acting has improved steadily since Oxygen

Pon Thanapon - one of Star Hunter's stable first seen in the Gen Y series (where he stole the appeal of an intended pair), also v good in Make a Wish, I wish he'd get a lead role as he has a likable screen presence

Pop Pataraphol from La Cuisine - he's playing the Alpha rival and I'm not convinced he's suited to this role

Michael Kiettisak from Love Sick, Oxygen, Call it What You Want, Till the World Ends - playing the comic relief this time rather than his usual tortured stoic... huh

All the rest are either fresh faces or older experienced actors. Interesting mix. They must have some money behind this.

And now, get out your marshmallows! The dumpster is on fire! Let's start the roast.

Episode 1 - Platypus, Pickles, Pavel, & other Smoking Hot Problems

This first segment told with a 4 day retrospect, because I decided to do a trash watch only after @aliceisathome said I should.

My initial reaction:

the sheer audacity of Thailand being like "PitBabe is not omegaverse" and then serving "Alpha" to us on a platter in the first sex scene is

how dare

but also

what the actual fuck is going on? what world are we living in where a/b/o is LIVE ACTION ON OUR SCREENS?

we getting heat, knotting & mpreg next?

apparently this is my reality now

I'm not sure what weird quantum time stream I've jumped into but someone was all,

yes the whole world is hella screwed, but also...

Thailand has decided live action mm fanfic is gonna win it the culture wars

and I'm beginning to think they may be right

BL is now the platypus of the film industry

4 days later:

Considering how much chatter this caused there's a part of me that wondered if it was all intentional and a marketing ploy (to say it wasn't omegaverse when obviously it is). In which case... brilliant Machiavellian tactics, production.

But Thai studios are rarely this calculated in their promo. So I think it's all accidental. But it certainly caused a raucous few days on Tumblr.

On a completely different note, Babe's house looks like it started life as a particularly inventive Olive Garden. Or is that just me?

More random thoughts:

Pavel has had work done, why honey? You were the definition of perfect.

The smell thing is great, I love stuff to do with scent and necks. If omegaverse brings this to the table, fine. But...

Being all Alpha perfect butch manly man = I do not like Babe at all, I kinda want him to be brought down a peg. (Woo... pegging!) I never like narratives that glorify the captain of the football team (side eyes Cdrama CEO romances and Love O2O), Babe better have depth and damage (forget the pegging) of some kind or his behavior will get old FAST, faster than he drives (also, forget the pegging idea)

Nut is ideal in the Beta role. I mean, that's Way's character right? We all can see that. If it's not intentional, it's a miscast. I love how soft he is as as screen presence. He's great in this part.

None of the other characters are sticking out to me yet, but I'm prepared to love the side dishes in this, please make them swoon worthy!

I'm glad they didn't hold the Charlie = trickster reveal off, I like knowing he is a double agent up front.

Finally, with respect to an adequate trash watch, I'm in a pickle.

How am I going to drink for this show when there is so much else airing on Frigay? I can't keep track, if I'm drunk.

I need a strategy for this trash fire if the puns and snark are to spout forth! (HA Fourth!)

Controlled burn?

Anygay, see you all next week.

Episode 2 - Side Dish Addiction + Second Lead Syndrome are both infecting me at once

[FYI I gotta have my backup computer to watch this so that's why Imma sometimes be delayed getting the trash out to the curb.]

3 minutes! 3 minutes in and I needed to pause and wax snarkful. (Ouch, bet that hurts. Is waxing snark similar to a Brazilian but for BL? Is that why they all so hairless in The Sign?... I digress, where was I?)

Okay so the subber said Daddy but I don't think that word means what they think it means. Because Way said simply nong paa.

Usually they'll use the English word Daddy (pronounced Dah-deee) for, ya know, Actual Daddies (tm).

Wait wait:

Calling Daddy Actual

(My dumb sci-fi loving arse will see myself out the back before I start drawing Battlestar Galactica = Pit Babe connections. TOO FAR ABL. Too far.)

Look, I like the tension in this show. It's good to set up an unlikeable Alpha dog and then immediately turn him into an underdog, makes him a bit more likable. I still don't like Babe, but now at least I'm on his side.

Charlie = cute but v sus. Fortunately for him, Babe = cute but v thick.

Everyone calls Charlie Babe's dek. Yes sounds a bit like what you think but also means kid/child and SHOULD be translated as boy in this show. Why doesn't the subber get that? They a sub...ber after all. (I'll see myself out.)

Honestly, the script writers might know what they are doing with abo but our eng sub translator sadly does NOT. I'm so glad this is coming now in my BL watching life. When my ear and knowledge of Thai is so much better than it once was. Others much be SO CONFUSED.

Snicker. They just fucking with us, but it's fun to watch the mpeg speculation abound.

File this one under: Thailand's trouble with ESL plurals and also "you should have Pavel helping with these subs" sweethearts.

Production knows entirely what it's doing with this show and its omegaverse shizz (even if the subber doesn't) and I am very much enjoying the online carnage that results.

This dumpster fire continues off screen into the blogosphere and I continue to roast things over it.

Meanwhile, hi Pon! You so adorable! When you gonna lead out a BL for us?

Is Idol Factory stealing all of Star Hunter's talent? Are they the Red Racers of the BL world? These are the questions I ask myself as I watch this.

Is that AGE GAP I smell before me?

Is the 20 yr old college kid meant for the pit boss? Cause you all know I am a slut for age gaps.

Moment of a/b/o: Jeff's fear of touch/heightened personal space would be a plot marker for "baby doesn't want Alphas close cause he smells like an omega" but of course this show it not omegaverse. Not omegaverse at all.

nuh-uh

Linguistic corner!

Lung (sounds a bit like loo) is uncle(ish) it means basically a male relation older than phi. So Alan is the oldest in the crew.

Alan calls Jeff nu (which the subber translated as boy I would have gone with cutie or little one). Nu is a diminutive affectionate term that's technically gender neutral but is most often used by/on cute girls/women. Jeff did NOT like it. Then Alan sort of dodges through pronouns/particles settling on phi for I, ger for you, and ja for a particle. This is interesting because ger & ja kinda lower his age and status into a casual sphere. Not more intimate more equal to jeff... fascinating.

I love the new "Korean" red racer, he drinks my brand of soy milk. He is now my baby snake in the grass.

Get it? Snake.

He and Babe should end up together.

The fight wasn't bad, do both actors have kickbox training in their backgrounds?

Who am I kidding, I care only about Uncle Alan and Nu Jeff now. All others are irrelevant to me.

Also...

WHERE IS A BOY FOR WAY?!!! Or a Daddy. I do not care. (Methinks nether does he.)

I am now captain of the Way Appreciation Society. Let's all find a way... to get him some dick.

Also the BTS stingers are tons of fun. Looks like the set was a blast.

Finally, and I mean this kindly. Why isn't Noh Phouluang in this? He should have been cast as Winner. Bah. I'm biased.

But one should be with Noh.

Episode 3 - Side Dishes Delux

Gayest bridge n Thailand has made its obligatory appearance.

How much do I love uncle & nu? They are SO damn cute. Also nu flustered is the best kind of nu.

I could not care less about Babe and Charlie. Except I do love the smell thing.

Way will break my heart by getting his broken. He is right tho.

Tra la la. I feel like this is a bit like KP 2.0.

Charlie is a such a princess (and ace manipulator). Good thing Babe clearly likes being buttered up.

Babe's backstory was more interesting than I expected, I didn't think we would go so far into the paranormal side of a/b/o. I like it and I hope they lean into it quite a bit more. Make it part of the plot.

Unlike the kissing thing which seems to have been gotten over rather quickly.

I gotta say I'm enjoying the corporate sponsorship jockeying and tension more than I thought I would. I'm curious as to who Jef and Charlie are working for and what their motivation is. The plot itself is keeping me intrigued and that is rare for me with BL.

So no trash talk this ep, I was largely absorbed and entertained. I didn't event need booze. Shocking behavior on my part.

#giveWayaboy2023

Episode 4 - I (who never ship) am shipping the impossible

Here’s the thing. I just want this to be a better story than it is. Right now it’s kind of like a soap opera. I don’t hate lakorn, I really don't. To Sir With Love is a glorious chewing of the diamanté scenery (completed with death glitter). But...

If this is gonna be a soap opera it needs to lean into the messy side more than the tailored high concept side. Support characters and evil needs more screen time.

Instead, right now, I don’t know where I am with this show because it doesn't know where it wants to be. I’m kind of dangling in the middle of a dirty situation. It’s uncomfortable for me, and the show feels uncomfortable for the performers. 

Also... I have questions.

Yes, of course I want to know what Charlie & Jeff are up to. Why can Jeff see the future?

But more importantly I NEED to know why Babe has a flying saucer bed?

That kind of lighting makes nobody look good, especially not at that angle. It’s very traumatic and I’m not wild about the shag rug either. I have concerns about Babe's taste. I guess is what I am saying. 

On a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT note:

There’s absolutely no chemistry to justify this, but I have decided that I am going to personally advocate for, and ship, Way and the interloping not-really-Korean. They are both sort of own-moral-code types. I have tiny crush on Kim, and Nut is the prettiest, and Way is Best Boy so there it is, I would like them to hook up, please & thank you.

#giveWay2Kim2023

Arrow guy is cute, too. Will we get to see him bone?

Is he going to be another one of the adopted alpha super-kid pets?

What the hell, throw Arrow Boy a bone! All hot boys in BLs deserve bones.

Plot thickens.

Hah.

Thickens.

(I am an immature idiot.)

Episode 5 - wait wait way-t, can arrow boy have Way?

Look, BLabies, I didn’t get any screen caps this episode because frankly there wasn’t anything worth capturing.

I guess Charlie really does love Babe? Very dramatic if idiotic saving from the burning car. But Babe has gone to the broken Alpha place of extremely unlikeablability (frankly he was almost there at the start). If I were Charles B Spectacled I would be OUT by now. 

Is that?

NO.

Don't get the plastic bowl.

No white towel sponge bath. Please kill this trope.  

I mean, it's not as bad as singing, but that's because NOTHING is as bad as singing in a Thai BL.

AND the main boys are back together.

I don’t find their relationship or Babe’s lack of senses a particularly interesting aspect of the plot.

Unless, of course, Babe is pregnant and that's why he lost his Alpha sniffer.

BUT I do love the sides.

Jeff = the introvert precog who can’t/wont do people and Alan = the extrovert people person who WANTS but doesn’t understand him. 

Were Jeff and Charlie ALSO raised by Evil Daddy MacEvilPants? 

I liked the way Arrow CEO & Way looked at each other. Way, hon, give up on Babe (he sucks) and get thyself a billionaire bf with great aim and BDE.

On a completely different note, the best thing about this show is the blooper reel. That thing with the green smoothie going down his pants was hilarious!

In conclusion, this was a green smoothie down the pants episode. I was entertained, and it’s probably gonna be good for the plot in retrospect, but it was kind of squishy and unpleasant at the time.

Episode 6 - Are they actually listening to us now? Is Tumblr bugged?

This was a fun ep full of like actual racing and shizz.

Whatever.

Charlie is on the team now. All the teams, apparently.

Can we talk about Jeff and Alan?

The apology scene! Did you hear that Alan dropped to chan/ger? Eeeee!!! So cute. (He equalized their relationship in a soft way.)

Get it with that language play hottie. Next up: lengua play.

Please & thank you. 

Meanwhile, as all of the Internet knows, they went fully in for omegaverse - no bars.

I have to say, one of the greatest typos (or whatever) in existence is enigma instead of omega.

That's where I personally would rank in the omegaverse.

Hello, my gender is... enigma.

 Apparently it's a/b/o and sometimes e!  Also sometimes switch-ee 

Oh I'm very proud of myself with that one.

Funfunfun

Charlie. Babes. When a man asks to be thrown up against the wall. You throw him against that wall.

OMG is that arrow boy looking at Way in the bar?

3 seconds later.

Noooo.

Wait come back.

Noooooo.

That’s what I actually want to watch! 

OMG. Who said nu was the first step to teelak?

I flipping love Alan. 

Ah the boyfriend ep. Thank you, but I still don't trust Charlie.

Poor Way.

But nice crying jag, and I don’t say that often in Thai BL.

Now let him go, Way.

A boy with his arrows is waiting. 

(source)

Note for the future: tumblr has a bug that stops allowing edits after a certain time/number, thus my full trash often occur in 2 segments as a result. Click on the "abl trash watches bl" tag for the full thing if you're reading this and later episodes are missing.

[cometcon]

I've been getting increasingly pissed off at stuff like this with Helluva Boss for a while now so I'm running out of room for patience and giving the benefit of the doubt.

I'm not Deaf/HoH but I do have audio processing disorder and I have been involved with the Deaf/HoH community through learning Auslan and needing some of the same accommodations in my life so it's becoming increasingly apparent just how much they get short-changed by a society that does not care and has to be pressed constantly for the bare minimum of accommodating anyone other than the expected default abled demographic.

I'm sorry but while having a character who signs was fucking amazing to see even as a Hearing person

and it's been genuinely great to have the last episode of Season 1 with actual subtitles and all of Season 2 up to this one having actual subtitles

SEASON 1 STILL HAS FUCKING AUTO-GEN

We have to read T R A N S C R I P T S to understand what's going on in the entirety of Season 1 except for the final episode because while Hearing people who aren't affected by needing actual subtitles seem to think autogen and otherwise having to engage with just a transcript is good enough, news flash, IT ISN'T. Autogen has been getting better but it still fucks up (if your accommodation doesn't bring everyone up to speed with the same access as abled people your accommodation isn't good enough) and if your video is older like Season 1s are then they're FUCKING AWFUL. Even good autogen takes more energy to engage with than proper subtitles making it still more difficult than it needs to be to engage with a video.

This has annoyed me for a while but I was hoping they just needed some time to sort out someone to go make subtitles and put them up.

At the very least I figured ok, they're at least putting proper subtitles up for Season 2. Took them until OOPS came out to do it if I recall correctly, but they did it. Strange they stopped at the end of Season 1 but ok, whatever. Give them time.

Nothing has changed. It's been 3 years and nothing has changed.

Then The Full Moon dropped directly after Mammon's Magnificent Musical. I was expecting there to be proper subtitles since Season 2 now is being given them upon release.

...

So basically fuck anyone who needs proper subtitles.

This

is officially lip service to look good, not proper representation.

You can't follow this with fucking autogenerated bullcrap pretending to be accommodation.

I saw someone sending an ask in an hour or so ago to another blog to talk about The Full Moon and mentioned offhandedly in it that they had to look at the transcript to catch a line they wanted to understand and talk about.

I'd been hoping they would just put the subtitles up maybe a day or so later at least.

IT'S BEEN A WEEK.

Vivzie doesn't care about Deaf/HoH people. She chucked the kid in for brownie points. And hey, sure, brownie point rep is better than no rep, but it isn't actual representation and really doesn't deserve that much praise if you immediately follow it up with a fucking AUTOGEN ENGLISH ONLY EPISODE.

Sincerely, fuck you too.

EDIT: There are proper subtitles on The Apology Tour, so I'm glad for that at least. It came out like two weeks after The Full Moon meaning it had to be in production at the same time so idk why they could put subtitles on release for TAT and not TFM, but whatever. And hilariously (read: mystifyingly and infuriatingly) enough, THE FULL MOON STILL ONLY HAS AUTOGEN AS OF THIS EDIT BEING TYPED ON THE 25TH OF JUNE 2024. Why? Why is it the only one without subtitles in S2? Why is S1 still all auto-gen even now, right up until the Kesha-song episode? Spindlehorse continues to confuse and annoy me with their flipflopping on their supposed caring about accommodation.

[lightofraye]

Debunking Nonsense Against Jared

There's apparently some crap about Jared that is just absolute nonsense. Full of lies and bullshit.

It'd be one thing if people just didn't like him. It happens. Not everyone is likeable. You're not expected to like him. But don't pull up lies to explain why you don't like him. Especially when they've been debunked again and again and again.

1. The "racist" tattoo. Y'all, this is nonsense. It's been debunked over and over and over. It's not a racist tattoo. For one, it's lacking the logo of "Come and take it", which would make it a racist tattoo. But a lone star above a cannon does not a racist tattoo make.

Jared is a proud Texan. He also donates to many a charity and organization that help people, speaking out about them often. Not to mention, prior to pro-gun rights appropriating the symbol and logo, it stood for a proud history in Texas. Jared would've known.

So how about instead of focusing on a mere tattoo, come up with more proof that Jared is a racist? Hmm?

Besides, if you're mad at Jared's tattoo, are you then mad at Jensen's t-shirt, which did show the saying as well?

2. Fighting with fans online. Oh come on. Misha's done it. (Misha's done worse, in fact.) Danneel's done it. Jared doing it does not a bad person make. And I don't think he's done it in a long time.

And of course, people will go "Danneel was hitting back!" And? What's the difference? Jared was hitting back too. Danneel went a step farther most of the time, siccing her followers on them, threatening them with Clif, even ran crying to Clif because people were being "mean".

3. RE: Prequelgate. Give me a fucking break! Jared was right to be upset! He called and texted Jensen for hours before he gave up and responded to that tweet about The Winchesters announcement. Jensen also lied about not being allowed cellphones on The Boys set. When they weren't filming, they were allowed. (Of course they can't have their cellphones on their person during filming, unless it suited the scene!) Besides all that, Jared honestly didn't know about it! Kripke was even shocked when he learned Jared didn't know! Supernatural and its legacy is as much Jared's as it was Jensen's! The whole freakin' industry gave Jensen a massive side-eye for his unprofessional behavior. Kevin Smith, a man who has directed, written, and acted in the industry, thought it was uncool. Also, Jared wasn't drunk.

4. Supposed bully accusations. I'd need to see more of this to believe it, but outside of occasionally putting Misha in his bullshit place, I've never heard of Jared bullying anyone. Everyone he's worked with has sung his praises. The only one who hasn't is Misha and that's because Jared won't let Misha put him down. And in fact, has had to step in to stop Misha from torturing Jensen. So fuck off with your noise.

5. His fanbase. Is he now responsible for his fanbase? I never knew that. What about Misha's fanbase sending Jensen death threats for denouncing Destiel? Has Misha ever stopped that? What about AAs hoping for Jared to suicide after Walker was cancelled?

6. What about Genevieve? Oh come on! Do I like that Gen is featuring the kids a lot? Myself, no. But if Jared was truly bothered by it, I'm sure he would've spoken to Genevieve. And Gen isn't any different than many other mommy influencers. I'm not keen on exploiting the kids like that, but would you say the same about Danneel abruptly grabbing the kids at Wales Comic Con and dragging them out for a photo op? All because she had no one in line for her autographs and desperate for attention?

7. Jared's Hair. Apparently there are some claiming Jared had gotten hair plugs. My response to that is: So what? Misha's had plastic surgery (trust me, it's obvious--his eyes and clearly lip fillers). Danneel's had worse--her hair is fried, bad extensions, plastic surgery galore that has ruined her hair line because of facelifts, fillers, Botox, and breast implants (twice!). Jensen's likely had a bit of work too.

So. Fucking. What. About Jared's hair?

--

Come up with truthful reasons to hate Jared, hmm? Not bullshit.

[roughdaysandart]

Rough Day Comic 0-1 "Other Talents"

💗PLEASE REBLOG TO SUPPORT!💗

SERIES MASTERLIST

Based on Rough Day by @no-droids

SERIES GEN WARNINGS: non-canon typical gore/blood, violence, light language, implied nudity, implied trauma (Blood, depression, anxiety, bullying, sexual), typos and general lore errors possible (plz lmk if you find any I enjoy accuracy)

See end for bonus content and credits.

LISTEN TO THE ACCOMPANYING MUSIC FOR A CINEMATIC EXPERIENCE! (LINKED AS YOU GO)

TRACK 1: REPROGRAM (only track til end credits)

END CREDITS TRACK: A FRIEND -GUITAR COVER

Up Next: CH 0-2: "Rules and Habits"

"And yet, only when she was absolutely certain he wouldn't see ...shed let that nagging curiosity get the better of her, make an exception...and-"

AUTHORS NOTE:

Well, this is the moment we've all been waiting for, sickos! I'm so proud of what Ive learned and been to accomplish these past few weeks (digital-art and writing in general), and have so much gratitude for all of the wonderful people who have followed along and encouraged me thus far. Most of all, thank you to the wonderful @no-droids for creating the fic in the first place. I cant wait to continue posting what's in store these next few (probably) years.

Thanks so much for reading! I hope you'll consider checking out my homepage for updates, sneek peeks, more depravity, the star wars mega-pinterest boards, and the unofficial soundtrack! 💗

Next chapter coming.....whenever its ready...in-person school is aboutta start and im going to pace myself and figure out how to balance going in person for the first time in a year...workin' and well...life, which includes this depravity and you all 💗!!!

Cheers, Sweet Girls. 💗

-M (@roughdaysandart)

CREATOR CREDITS

Credit to @saradika-graphics for the amazing dividers!

Credit to all of the talented artists making covers of the songs I link!

Credit to Brittany Broski for introducing me to RD/Ao3 this late in my life

Credit to...anyone else my mushy brain forgot (lmk ya'll)

credit to my drug-induced psychosis?

ERRORS/DISCREPENCIES/INNACURACIES (feel free to add)

Sweet Girl was drawn on the cover before her design was finalized, and so her clothing as well as her body are not exactly the same as how she appears in the series.

On page 5, Din is supposed to be laying in the cockpit's main compartment listening to the closed door, not in the mini hall where the ladder resides.

on page 9, there is a spelling error (talens--> talents)

On page 12, the rendering of the Crest's hull is a bit too wide (most dramatically apparent by the fresher door's length), the hull should be a tad more narrow. In addition, the flooring coloring is somewhat inaccurate, needing to appear more metallic instead of similar to the roofing textures and colorings

On page 12, the handle of the fresher door is supposed to be on the left side, not the right.

Speaking of the handle: I understand that manual doors are somewhat uncommon in the SWU, and it would be inconsistent for the Crest to have one when the cockpit and cot doors are auto, but I wanted to stay consistent with the descriptions in the original fic. In chapter 2, SG is described to slide open the door with her hand as she sees Mando standing outside. But I didint want to just purley stick to the fic's details and ignore in-universe discrepancies, so i thought of how this somewhat odd/niche detail could still make sense in this setting. I figured that with the inclusion of a control panel within the fresher (seen in later chapters) in addition to the one bewteen it and the cot, the option of an automatic function would presumably still be available aside from the manual one (which could be there for the purpose of giving the user a speed or distance preference or to avoid pinching etc.)

on the page beginning with "to say the least", the mini-halls' roof is suppposed to have a window. Therefore, the lighting of the space is somewhat innacurate.

[darks-ink]

Welcome back! I saw you are taking story ideas so I wanted to submit two of the prompts I wrote for Phic Phight.

1) Danny's excuse when someone notices the resemblance between Fenton and Phantom and comes too close to his secret: The ghost is his dead twin who he ate in the womb. This might have more truth to it than he originally thought.

2) Long ago Clockwork had and lost a child, the young Ancient of Space. Even with his Sight of time, he could never see what became of them, only that they disappeared. Now another being that evades his Sight has crashed into his existence. Another child, and this one a boy with the stars in his eyes and the cold of space in his veins.

I hope you like either of these!

Thank you! I went with #1, but admittedly it turned out a little short.

Duplicity

Rating: Gen Warnings: focuses on vanishing twins & the formation of ghosts, especially in connection to each other Words: 770 Additional Tags: Post-reveal, Good Fenton parents

[AO3]

---

“You know, one thing still confuses me about ghost cores.” Danny resisted the temptation to fidget when three pairs of eyes turned to him. “Or, uh, the cores of half-ghosts, at least?”

“Do tell, Great One, and perhaps I can answer.” Frostbite turned further to face him.

“Well, um.” Danny’s eyes darted over to his parents, briefly, before returning to Frostbite. “Isn’t it kinda weird that my core is more stable than Dani and Vlad? Like, I thought Dani was just because she was a clone, so she was destabilizing, but apparently Vlad got really sick as he was developing his powers? But I was, well, fine?” He shrugged, unsure of how to put his thoughts into words.

His mother hummed thoughtfully, but didn’t say anything. Neither did his dad, though he did frown.

“Of course not. Both other half-ghosts you refer to had to develop their own cores, growing them from scratch. You, on the other hand, absorbed yours from another ghost, thus stepping past the initial growing pains.”

Danny felt his heart stop. His core freeze. Thoughts grinding to a halt.

“Excuse me?” he blurted out, automatically, incredulously. “Are you telling me I killed another ghost?”

“No, no.” Frostbite lifted his hands, voice dropping into a soothing tone. “Although it is not unheard of for proper ghosts to fuse together into one, this sort of core-binding is only possible with blob ghosts.”

“And blob ghosts aren’t truly sentient, right?” Maddie hummed in thought, saving Danny the effort of trying to figure out what, exactly, Frostbite meant. “They’re barely more than free-floating ectoplasm, which is common here in the Ghost Zone.”

Frostbite nodded. “Indeed. A more developed ghost couldn’t have been absorbed in such a manner, so there is no need to worry, Great One.”

“That’s a relief.” Danny heaved a sigh. It still felt weird to imagine that his core wasn’t originally his, that it had developed separately, but, well. At least he hadn’t killed someone in the process.

“Although,” Frostbite suddenly started, interrupting Danny’s thoughts. “It is very unusual.”

“Oh?” Danny felt like slapping himself. Why did he ask for more information? He regretted asking in the first place. Knowing more wasn’t going to make himself feel better, was it?

But his parents would probably have asked if he hadn’t. Right? Yeah, definitely.

“Typically, ghosts require some form of connection to be present to bind together. Two fully-formed ghosts can fuse over shared goals or other such traits, but such a thing isn’t possible with a blob ghost. To absorb one of those, a more tangible connection is required.”

Frostbite eyed Danny, but he couldn’t quite read the emotion in his eyes. “Obviously the power of the Ghost Portal let you bypass the part where you weren’t a ghost yourself—” or perhaps he was dying and turning into a ghost anyway, “—but that connection would’ve still been necessary.”

But how. What? Who? The blob ghost must’ve come from somewhere, something, someone, but Danny couldn’t imagine, couldn’t think—

“Oh, that makes sense,” Maddie said, voice casual. “Danny absorbed his twin in the womb, so it makes sense for him to do the same thing with his twin’s ghost.”

“What?” Danny blurted out, turning to her in shock. “I had a twin? A twin I absorbed?!”

“Well, yes.” Maddie nodded, looking at him in confusion. “Of course, it happened fairly early on, so he wouldn’t have become a real ghost. But the impression of it, the potential of a twin gained and lost, that would’ve been enough form a blob ghost.” She turned to Frostbite. “Right?”

“Right.” Frostbite nodded back. “And yes, a connection like that would have worked quite well. A connection of blood and spirit, an action repeated. An echo between life and death.”

Danny shook his head. Well. Jerked his head side to side. “Are you serious? Why are you all acting like this is—this is normal, totally expected?”

“I thought you knew, honey.” Maddie was frowning at him now, confusion deepening. “Weren’t you the one who started using it as a cover?”

“What?” He blinked at her, then realized. Yes. Yes, he had been using that as an excuse for the resemblance between Danny Fenton and Phantom. A dead twin, a ghost which looked just like the living Danny. “I didn’t—I didn’t think it was real.”

“Oh.” She shot an uncertain look at Jack, then Frostbite, then turned to him. “Well. You know now?”

Danny stared at her, incredulous. Then shook his head. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess I do now.”

But what the hell was he supposed to think of all this?

[colubrina]

idk if you have a TikTok or if you keep up with the HP fandom over there; but apparently manacled by SenLinYu was posted on Amazon for purchase (not by the author). It’s since been removed but was up for more than a couple days. And there were individuals on TikTok that just didnt understand why others were getting so upset. Like let’s disregard the fact that someone other than the original author profiting off this work, but I actually saw people that were very firm in the belief that they could sell fanfic. Whether that be through book binds, cases like this, or commissions/Patreon. I’m an elder gen Z, and I remember coming into the fanfiction spaces pretty early on maybe like 07-08?? I think I was 9-10 reading HP fics on fanfiction.net and very vividly remember everyone being super specific about “this is not my sandbox, I’m just playing around” or “If you recognize anything, it doesn’t belong to me”. So I’m always surprised by people that really don’t see a problem with it. I’ve even seen people claim that it will either fall within the limits of fair use or that it would be a PR nightmare for someone to go after someone. I guess I was 1.) just wanting to rant about how shortsighted I think it was to someone that was around in fanfic space before 2015 and 2.) get thoughts from an author that I feel like has had several popular/successful fics in the fandom.

Yeah, I've got a TikTok. I never post anything, but I try to share anything people make that's nice about my old fics. I always have this half-assed feeling like I should make things but I don't. (https://www.tiktok.com/@colubrina_)

2. Congrats to Senlinyu on her book deal - very cool!

3. And yeah, I saw that people were doing that, and I wish I was surprised but I'm not. There's always been a not-insignificant part of the dramione fandom that sees the fics as 'belonging to the fandom.' They will post them on sites where the author doesn't want them. They will host PDFs online even when you directly ask them not to. They will rehost fics authors have taken down, orphaning them on AO3 so they can't be stopped. They don't see it as stealing because they see the fics as public property. It was probably just a matter of time before they started trying to host them on Amazon. It's frustrating for sure, but it does feel a bit like 'here we go again.' It certainly doesn't fall under fair use, and I think Manacled might be one of the very few fics that will have a legal department eager to keep it offline so the publisher can make their money from it, but other people will be less fortunate. Fic has become enough of a part of the ecosystem it's not at any kind of risk as an artform. But, yeah, it sucks. Be nice to your authors. Respect their wishes. Don't do this shit.

[inky-evergreen]

Here's my redesign of Frida that's apart of my version/rewrite of the reboot. Frida is definitely one of my favorites out of the gen 2 clones buts it's sad that she doesn't have that much development and personality. Like you can describe the other clones personality in much more detail that Frida's which sucks. Like she doesn't really have that much flaws and flaws are basically a staple in clone high character so it just feels like the writers didn't really try hard. And the only times they really focused on her character are episode 2 and 8 from season 3 which breaks my heart as a Frida fan.So she's probably one I change the most(?). I just want to give her justice and give her the same appeal that the others clone have.So here's some info about my version of Frida

•Frida is a socially weird but chill artist who wanted people to accept her for who she is apart from her clone mother for so long that she gave up and started not caring about anything or anyone that isn't close to her.

•Frida likes the simple things like painting her weird drawings in her studio and observing nature.The only thing that she doesn't like being simple is her wardrobe where she feels like she could express herself other that her artwork.

•She also likes to keep to herself and doesn't really like to be in the spotlight. Like she doesn't care about half the people in the school so what gives. But her friends are Harriet and Confucius so that gets flown out the window sometimes. Like how Harriet convinced her to become class president with her so they could be popular together.

•Speaking of popularity Frida isn't the most popular person in school anymore that title belonging to Confucius. I mean people know her but she isn't the same popularity level such as her friends. Like if there was a rating between her Harriet and Confucius she would be last.She doesn't go out of her way to get to know everybody since she didn't want to know them in the first place.

•If Frida was a song she would be A Ballad of a Homeschooled Girl by Olivia Rodrigo

•She can't get a reasonably time of sleep for the life of her. She usually sleep between the times of 12 something pm through 5 am. But she sure does sleep during school mostly she sleep at things she doesn't find interesting.

•Doesn't like being compared to her clone mother and has a EXTREMELY complicated relationship to her clone mother. She also has massive identity issues.

• Absolutely do NOT talk about her middle school through freshman years cause she isn't to proud of them. Like if you tough she was weird and awkward now you just had to see her when she was 13.

•Like explained in Tophers info dump, Frida and Topher are mortal enemies for an unknown reason. She's more obnoxious in hating him though like calling him out publicly and accusing him of doing something that isn't woke.

•She changes personalities DRASTICALLY when she's around her friends. With her friends she gets to be herself and is more happy unlike when she's out in public. She's mostly dismissive out in public giving her a "cool" aura too her.

•Has a weird sense of humor like she finds stupid things and things that most people won't find funny funny (sometimes she's embarrassed ashamed about that fact though).

•Has very complicated feelings towards Cleo

• Basically the sudo "Gandhi replacement" out of the new cast since bro is still a popsicle in the timeline in my rewrite (at least for now hehehehehehe). And since Frida and Abe friendship is more apparent in my rewrite to that Abe kinda sees Gandhi in Frida sometimes. Like she act kinda similar to Gandhi just a calmer and less hypered out version of him. She also parallels him in her friendship with Harriet and Confucius (Like Harriet paralleling Abe and Confucius paralleling Joan that type of stuff).

• She can sometimes be rude and brutally honest to the point that it seems rude (but most of the time she means well). She can also selfish and disrespectful. Keeps huge grudges like her relationship with Topher. Acting a little childish and very impulsive, insecure and handles conflicts very poorly. She also can be judgemental of new people and imidetly thinks they have wrong intentions that resulting in acting dismissive towards that person.She has periods of times we're she acts irrational mostly of her bad sleeping schedule.

•But Frida is a pretty cool person if she cares about you. She's enthusiastic, extremely loyal, would give you solizied advice (even if it's harsh). Would always make you laugh and is fun to be around. Determined to be herself even if people don't like her. She usually stays quite and listens to either Harriet or Confucius rambling but when she gets excited for some she gets EXCITED. Like she would talk about that something for hours. She can be optimistic at times and would reassure you if your feeling down. She also playful and would playfully tease you sometimes as a sign of friendship. She cares and love her friends deeply and would move heaven and earth for them. She may look cold and "cool" on the outside but she's a loving and genuine person.

[deliriumzer0]

Gen Loss' shooting location

I'm super into dead/dying malls so I knew what mall it was as soon as I saw the ending of Ep 2, but I didn't wanna post anything about it until after Ranboo had left NY just in case. I'm not about to facilitate any creepy behavior, you know?

So GenLoss was filmed at the now-closed Galleria at White Plains, which -- fun fact! -- is the same mall used for interior mall shots in the movie Eighth Grade (so everyone who enjoys Ranboo/Bo Burnham connections, there's a fun one!). It opened in 1980 and positioned itself as the mall for "normal" people, in contrast to the more upscale Westchester mall nearby. Sadly, that other mall is still alive & kicking, while this one was closed at the end of March 2023. There are apparently redevelopment plans in the works to turn it into mixed-use (retail + residential) space.

I was too curious about what some of the stores used in the shoot used to be, and how much of what I saw in GL was set design and how much was already in place, so I looked up old directories & photos of the mall to see if I could sleuth some of it out. In case anyone else was curious about the set designers' work, or is into retail history, I figured I would share my findings!

The central elevator area of the mall in GenLoss, and how it appeared in 2019. (Screenshot from the 2019 video linked below)

Apologies for the multiple different angles on this one, but this is all the same area, first in GenLoss (right after Ranboo starts walking away from the panel where Hetch is appearing), then from the Fleabitten Adventures 2023 video, then from the Raw & Real Retail video from 2019. (Couldn't resist screenshotting the drone ad on that last one, lol)

In the GenLoss screenshot, at the far right edge of the Sears entryway, you can see a bit of the painting left behind, so my guess is the GL set decorators got rid of that artwork for the shoot.

The screen where Ranboo first speaks to Hetch in ep 3. The empty store behind them was an American Eagle Outfitters at one point, but it was already closed by February 2023. (screeenshot from Fleabitten Adventures 2023 video)

Here's a before & after of this directory panel. (Screenshot from the Fleabitten Adventures 2023 video)

The store full of "props". In the original store photo (Google's only photo of this shop), you can see how the existing shelves were repurposed for GL. Also way at the far end of the store there's a black & white photo of someone with a basketball that was left hanging up.

I had a hard time finding a closer angle of this Victoria's Secret, but in case you were curious, here's one from the Raw & Real Retail video lol.

Where Ranboo almost left but Hetch stopped them: a Kay Jewelers.

The streamers are sitting in the following establishments: My Kitchen, Bourbon Street Cafe, Sarku Japan, Dunkin' Donuts, and of course Charley's. The last empty storefront was a Burger King before it emptied out. (Photo from Foursquare, cropped by me)

The Dental & Foot Care storefront is unchanged except for the seating out in the open area. It was a rounded wooden bench set as of Feb 2023 (screenshot from the Fleabitten Adventures video), but for GL it was the standard metal benches found throughout the mall. Not sure why.

Going far back enough, this was a Radio Shack. Couldn't find ANY photos of this particular location though, so here's the only photo I could find of what it was in the interim: a dress shop called Gloria's. (Photo from Yelp)

This one is my favorite part. :) As of February 2023 (screenshots are from the Fleabitten Adventures video), the "Heart of the Facility" is this weirdly sparse artsy furniture store called Home Splash. But before this, what the shop's facade was designed for, was...

A Charlotte Russe location. Ranboo died in a fucking Charlotte Russe. When I learned this, I could not stop laughing.

More/Sources:

https://www.reddit.com/r/deadmalls/comments/zupwhw/the_galleria_at_white_plains_ny_in_late_afternoon/

A great youtube video from Fleabitten Adventures walking through the whole mall in February 2023

Raw & Real Retail walkthrough video (from 2019)

A shorter walthrough video from HELLOTHISIS4U

Photos from FourSquare

I didn't cover everything I learned here, just the stuff I thought was coolest (and that I had images of), so please feel free to flood my ask box with questions about what certain things used to be!