#as long as I'm not around people I don't really need to anyways

[itsbenedict]

From the beginning | Previously | Coin standings | 60/70 | 36/36

Walter wants to go check out what was happening down in that sunken temple, but Adea doesn't want to just leave all this dirt sitting here- and she's just plugged in that coin miner thingy, so they'll need to sit around for a bit to see if it works anyway.

IT PREVENTED ROOK POWER EXTRUSION is OVIOS NETWORK EXPENDITURE REPORT. Apparently, about 14 years ago, the municipal government started deploying some project called the OpenVista I/O Station network. OPENVISTA is, on paper, an independent startup, but apparently it's a shell corporation established so Thinrar could dodge some of his own restrictions on public works. The report details the budget that went into constructing and deploying these things- though it's not clear from the report exactly what they do.

Apparently a construction company called WIREFRAME MOCKUP was hired to simultaneously build a mall named TARGETED ADVERTISING... and force an underground funeral home type facility run by SLEEP MODE to surrender something called the LOTUS VEXOR, in exchange for letting them keep the rights to their land (which they'd been retroactively granted thanks to a surveying loophole). The project took years and went way over budget, despite someone named DEADLOCK DETECTION being sent from Thinrar's office to oversee it personally. But 14 years ago, she apparently managed to get her hands on it- a key component of the OVIOS network, somehow. The cover op, the mall construction, is set to open in a few days.

TIN RUNT CONCOCTS A QUART O' CACTI concerns an AQUATIC CONSTRUCTION CONTRACT, offered by COLLUSION to a well-regarded specialist contractor named REGRESSION TEST. It's mostly an email chain with said contractor, who had a thousand questions about the nature of the work and the equipment she was being paid to install. The emails- sent to her by someone named JUST-IN-TIME COMPILER- are evasive and noncommittal, and seem primarily concerned with getting her to agree to various nondisclosure agreements and security measures.

REGRESSION TEST's job, apparently, is just to demolish the wreckage at the build site, create some waterproof housing with enough space for maintenance staff, and install the provided equipment. That's all she's allowed to know about the HILARITY! BE A FILIAL E-CYGNET.

SPRITZ? REPENT, WRY ED COOLHAXX! is a strange set of files called PROXY WIZARD CONTEXT HELPERS. It's a dossier on... various random people in town. A university researcher with no friends, a family of small-time crooks down by the docks, various guards at this very tower, and a handful of other random citizens with no clear connecting factors. The files describe the details of their lives over a disconcertingly long period of observation, and note things that are missing from those lives. Family members they don't have, friends they've lost contact with, coworkers who quit recently. There's transcripts of interviews with some of these people, but nothing stands out as particularly odd.

There's also profiles on various properties for rent, and some odd shorthand notes that appear to describe how long they've spent vacant and what's wrong with them. And... a bunch of copies of old missing persons cases, with all the names blacked out. And statements from investigations of incidents where... disasters were averted for reasons no one understood, like an out-of-control trolley being diverted onto a track by some good samaritan who never identified themselves.

[ed: Yeah, chew on that one, FF. You'll find out what I'm on about eventually.]

This is all weird, and rings a few bells, but you're not sure what to make of it just yet. In the meantime, Adea collects 10 Coin from the minter- which seems to have really raised the ambient temperature in the room. It's probably fine, though, right? The heat's dissipating into the stone, for the most part.

Adea consults with Walter and formulates a guess. He'd been drawn underground by some mysterious force when he woke up, right? If your daughter ended up here too- and it stands to reason, because you were all right there in the same place when the blast(?) went off- maybe she was pulled down there by the same force! It's possible he just missed her- she could've gotten lost in those underground tunnels somewhere. Best to give it another once-over with an extra pair of eyes.

You head through the ancient pyramid, which... seems to be more extensive, and in better repair than it used to be. When did all this construction happen? Finding a crack in the floor leading down is more difficult than before. Earlier, it hadn't been difficult at all- Walter says some part of him knew which way to go. Did something change?

Neither of you are feeling any supernatural pull downwards anymore. The area below- save for some additional pyramid construction- is almost entirely unchanged. Which... does mean that there is a GIANT SKELETON, still. Several of them. You find a reasonably well-hidden spot to lurk and install the WIFI ACCESS POINT in the REVERT A BANDANA SURGERY SUBTERRANEAN GRAVEYARD. Files include:

Someone took issue with the performance assessment of a robot horse, around, like... thirty years ago? The email is RE: PONY SERVITOR 2076 SCORECARD, and they're not happy.

You've heard of saltwater taffy, but mousewater taffy is considerably harder to manage. Someone's done it, though: ENCODED::: WRANGLED MOUSEWATER TAFFY.

According to the LANCE GLANCE RECRUITER: PI ROTATION IS OUT. He's in charge of recruiting people who've had a close shave with spears, and he prefers to measure lance angles with tau.

An island nation called Haiti, which you've never heard of, is really mad about something- but they don't seem to want to be mad. IRATE HAITI WISHES MELLOW??? Really?

There'd been a lot of development on a faster-than-light utensil, but the product has been getting worse over time. See, a TORTOISE PROVED WARP FORK REGRESSED in this paper.

There's an invitation to the LETTERED CORRECTNESS FOUNDATION, an organization devoted to putting letters in the correct order. Sure would help if these guys weren't hallucinatory!

To be continued | 60/70 | 32/32

[likeabxrdinflight]

I haven't wanted to acknowledge this possibility because there is such a psychological component to it, but on day five still feeling pretty fatigued I have to consider the possibility that this illness may in fact be covid

If it is, it's a lot milder this time around than it was the first time I had it. But still...five days of fatigue isn't typical for other viral infections, certainly not head colds, even if it's not as dramatic as it was the first time.

[icewindandboringhorror]

Lineup of all of the characters that appear long enough to need a visual representation of them in the game lol

[deoidesign]

I have a question, but it may be already have been answered in the story (my brain is just not the best with memory).

Since vampirism symbolises for you chronical illness (which, omg, that is a hot take I've never thought off before and love from now on), does Steve count as chronical ill, too, with the whole halfvampire thing going on? So, would his uncontrollable time jumping each month be a symptom of that chronical illness?

not in the story, no worries! Just a possible interpretation and my personal intent when writing.

As a small aside I personally don't like to think of chronic illness as something that people "count" as, so to speak, it's an extremely personal label and incredibly varied between individuals and as with all disability there is never such thing as hard lines or black and white... but I understand why you worded it that way and I understand what you're asking.

So, yes, Steve is also chronically ill within this framework. The entire comic is sort of shaped around this, to be honest! I mean he canonically has some pretty extreme memory issues... He's also canonically homeless (not that this is an illness but I just mean it's something I think most people forget about him when discussing him). And, yes, his condition is uncontrollable and is severely impacting his ability to live the life he wants to live.

He has just been barely coping up to the point we meet him, and has been very desperate which is what led him to creating that list of deviations. He has periods where his body is out of his control, he is unable to form relationships, he hurts others without meaning or wanting to... Yeah. He's metaphorically relating to a lot of things, really.

So, yknow, you're welcome to interpret him as you'd like! for me I relate a lot with my various issues and conditions and thus that's why I've projected on him the way I have, but of course I would understand entirely different interpretations of what is inherently metaphorical.

[my-thirteenth-reason]

kicking my feet and giggling (<- just got apologised to)

[aftermathing]

.

[rotisseries]

i don't read enough loz fic to know what the popular fanon is so maybe this already exists but there should be a revali and zelda besties agenda i think it would be good for them

[katya-goncharov]

maybe i SHOULD just try to get a different job that would be better suited to me

[lasnevadaslaborunion]

I genuinely do love the prison arc and find it fascinating and I wish it was easier to find content and analysis about it that didn't veer to any of the Very Not Fun extremes

[hua-fei-hua]

we have moved on to persuasive speeches in comm class n bc we have so little time left in the semester they're gonna be partner debates, so i have grouped up with the guy in there with whom i started talking abt genshin a while back, n we're just like. "fuck it. let's just do the ethics of gacha games and whether they should be regulated like gambling in casinos"

[non-un-topo]

Have to thank my partner for realizing before I did that talking about kids with people makes me extremely dysphoric --- whereas I thought I just had a problem and hated children or something lol

[kyaruun]

Hiiiiii nyaaaaaaaa I was wondering if you knew like uh if I wanna do computer programming I'd apply for compsci??? Though they're different I see lots of schools have compsci but there are No Schools with computer programming so I was wondering if. You know if they lump them together a lot of times

<- looking at schools,,,

disclaimer: i am spanish and we have a completely different educational system than the US but i hope my experience might serve a bit! also forgive me for (probably) using the wrong terms for everything </3

i assume with computer programming you mean only programming. coding. idk how things are over there but as far as i know STEM students usually get some programming done at a basic level in their first year(s) but if you want to learn programming in a more "professional" sense you need to do computer science. welp my degree is called computer engineering but i think it's the same? similar? i hope it is

i don't think there is a programming only school because it's one of many skills you're supposed to get in the field. everyone can program. i promise there are a lot of tutorials online that do a much better work at teaching programming than many uni classes!! i know math students that have taken like 2.5 subjects on programming and do things A LOT better than half of my classmates

the thing with computer science is you need a lot more skills that just coding. maths, for starters (which i suck at lol) if you wanna understand algorithms or do anything in the AI or machine learning field. it really depends on what you'd like to do afterwards because most of the time you will end up coding some way or another. but it's sprinkled with some more stuff in between ^^

like yeah 99% of the time people associate cs with coding and just coding and as the local 4th year computer engineering student i can definitely say coding isn't everything. the first years are more code heavy because you needed to get used to the basics. but then there is documentation (class diagrams, use cases, etc.), there's everything related to requirements gathering (user stories, interviews, a bazillion documents where you need to find out what a client might want for their app), ui/ux design, project management (which is an area you might enjoy!! pretty much organazing a team and making sure everything is up to date and everyone is working) and a loooot more stuff. i can only talk from my own experience as a student focusing on software development

tldr: if you're only interested in programming mayyybe you should read into those compsci schools, see what they're offering and think if that's something you like! if you like coding enough to make an actual job out of it you might want to a) do computer science or something like that or b) learn on your own but in a deeper level. by this i mean there are many tutorials online that only go through the very basics and there are some really interesting/useful topics they don't cover or might be needed for professional work

[danmeichael]

i’m polite and i’m not going to um actually someone on their own post because their thoughts and feelings have intention and nuance that are not visible to me as an outsider in their brain but if you’re wondering, the reason visual mediums emphasize height differences between characters is (sometimes size kink but also) to add visual contrast between characters and emphasize their personalities and how other characters perceive them through their designs.

a character who is described as imposing and bulky will 100% of the time be drawn exaggeratedly tall even if they are only a couple inches taller than the POV character.

characters that are young will be drawn exaggeratedly short in highly stylized series because that’s a very clear visual indicator of their youth. yes highschool students are usually a similar size to the adults around them, but making highschool students shorter than their teachers visually emphasizes the divide between adult and child. Have you ever seen series where characters that are like, 7 years old come up to the knees of adults? yeah that’s not how it works but it easily says to the viewer “this is a tiny baby child”

character heights may also seem to change between scenes to emphasize the emotions of the people in those scenes. a normally tall character may be drawn small in contrast to another in order to visually express the characters’ feelings of helplessness, or to emphasize how cool and impressive the impossible odds of the battle are.

realistic heights are often just not as visually diverse. they feel bigger and larger than life when you experience those height differences in the real world, but when put 2D onto paper or screen it just doesn’t feel as impactful. so artists remake the impact through exaggeration

[spitxlfields]

I am going to blame how I’m feeling on the fact that I got my first dose of the smallpox/monkeypox vaccine yesterday and then slept for 13 hours.

Regardless, I’ll be around since I need to get some computer stuff done anyway.

[bumblediary]

went to the movies with the acquaintance today

[allisonreader]

Laundry is done for now. We'll see if any writing actually gets done.