#can form those emotional connections with something inanimate

[decompose1]

i think there’s divinity in gross and ugly things. i think the radical love and acceptance of what is weird and nasty is angelic and i think there is something holy about indulging in the neglected/looked down on/outcast/unacceptable parts of this world. you should let yourself be weird

[sailorblossoms]

[I wrote this post like a diary entry, personal feelings here, I like to write my thoughts down to process them and also purge them so I don’t have this whole mental debate every time someone appears in my notifications to say something to spark it etc etc]

I can be very "don't knock it till you try it" about things, and part of what actually made me realize how acespec (or demi) Simon reads, how much he centers his desire in Baz etc is actually engaging with content that argues the opposite. I remember when I was still reading the books (I think it was february, last year?) I saw something like "we can all agree Simon likes more than one gender based on [insert boobs quote]" and I was like "oh sure, totally" – it was... months? later that I went back to that like "wait a minute... no, we do not agree, please read that quote again but slowly." Or it was seeing content where Simon was into Agatha that made me realize the difference between the assumptions people make vs the things that are actually said by Simon and Agatha and how they express it vs (maybe more importantly) the things that are never said. Seeing Simon portrayed as ~typical young boy crushing on the Pretty Girl~ is part of what made me realize how he’s not actually like that – and likely has never been like that – with her. The way he expresses himself in what he thinks and the formative things from the past he shares (like saying he has always “wanted her” in a memory where he is actually wondering how it feels to be like her) (and the things he never thinks!) about her doesn’t support it. The first time I read that inanimate objects I was like "so he was attracted? yikes" (my first read with those two, even before giving them any thought, was a constant "yikes"... I Did Not Like their Vibes, I'll tell you that much). It was a second or maybe a third read of that scene that got me like "oh, this sneaky little mess is not even answering the damn question here.... he completely avoids giving a real answer until he starts saying he doesn’t think he was attracted... You almost fooled me, Simon. You almost fooled me..."

Part of me realizing how Simon is really not experiencing attraction whenever he says someone is cute or whatever is looking at content that argues otherwise – it's in seeing why this is argued. Or how, despite me seeing the appeal and loving some characters who are Total Sluts, when it’s Simon I’m like “I don’t knock your game or your hoe ways but I might as well call you Willy or Jon or something.” It’s just became essential to who Simon is, to me, the things he’s communicating when he’s calling himself a “Baz-sexual,” and the way in which he doesn’t see the appeal of sex for the sake of sex. I've personally come to hate slut Simon AUs, actually (there's a difference between being A Slut and being horny) (Simon is only horny around one person) (I understand that sometimes, the appeal is no deeper than “X is hot, the people want to see X fuck!!” but to me it doesn’t apply here because it just stops feeling like it’s him and not Willy boy or whoever.) 

I don't write as much about Baz only because of how clear he is in his thoughts, whereas Simon is easy to misinterpret, or tricky to figure out, but: I also don't think Baz would be into the Slut Life, or that he would be into or remain into someone who's enjoying a life of slutdoom (as a compatibility thing, I mean. This dude sees mule-headed Simon sticking his chin out to single-mindedly commit and he's suppressing an exasperated sigh and a boner) (his exchange with Dev makes me think he's pretty chill about others being Sluts, but I don’t think it’s something he wants for himself or would be into in a potential partner; he dreads a future where he might be sneaking out to sleep around – which to me speaks more to how he doesn't think he would fall in love with anyone who isn't Simon, rather than him desiring casual sex. He wants emotional connection and devotion and commitment and monogamy). I have a stronger "nope" reaction with Simon, and I think part of it it's that Simon hits a very specific spot in the way he engages with intimacy that I don't often see in media, much less with male characters. It’s part of why I’m drawn to him, and like I said: when you remove the things he communicates with his “baz-sexual” comments, I think an essential part of what makes the character goes missing and... I miss it, when it’s not there. I think about how in the MRB AU, even when Simon didn’t hope for more than just Baz’s friendship, he was completely unable to keep his attention away, or look for something with someone else. He wasn’t going to the clubs or hooking up to decompress or something, it was all Baz for him. Not to be crass, but as soon as even the concept considers him sticking his dick in non-Baz orifices (outside of the very specific comphet scenario where he is notably not even turned on) I'm putting my hands in my pockets, whistling as I look for the exit. Nothing to see here, for me. Just not for me. 

I recognize that part of it it's that I'm here for snowbaz exclusively and I'm not even a little bit interested in reading them in any sort of romantic or sexual scenario with anyone else (or any lasting thing that could come out of it, like co-parenting with someone else or a divorce scenario where there are still ties or something like that) which means there are plenty of stories what I would normally be totally into! but as soon as I cast Simon and Baz in the lead roles specifically... that kinda puts a damper on things, for me. I would read the fuck out of certain stories and concepts, but not necessarily with them. I don’t mind when it’s like, past experiences that are meant to inform things about the characters (but who the ex is it’s none of my business!) I don’t think every story is for every character (although I understand some find the appeal in this sort of approach). Part of the appeal with those two for me is in the ways in which they love each other and how much and how unhinged they are about it (it’s only ever been Simon for Baz and... it’s only ever been Baz for Simon! Even though he dated before! half of this blog is about noting the latter haha he might be less obvious or less direct, but it’s there) For everything else... I’d just rather look elsewhere

[art-monsters]

hellooo. i read ch 3 of art monsters and came here to give my definition of art. art is an expression of the artist's thoughts and feelings at a fleeting moment in time. art captures that moment and keeps those thought preserved for future generation to gaze upon and wonder what that piece of art truly meant at the time. but that piece of art not only captures the artist's thoughts, it captures everyone's thoughts who gazes upon it. art is a collection of feelings of artists and viewers coming together. and that is what i think art truly means.

art as wonder

art is made to preserve. it's meant to capture and contain the uncontainable. how do you save a feeling a memory gives you? how do capture something as fleeting as a thought, save the ephemeral?

what is the magic that makes a work from the 1400s capable of capturing a viewers thoughts and emotions hundreds of years later? what magic blends the feelings of different individuals throughout time? how can an inanimate object contain so much? form connections? collect feelings?

there's an indescribable magic, a hopeful quality about your definition of art. for that reason, i'm placing you in the optimist group with regulus and james (though your definition is more in-line with regulus' thoughts)

[4thelivingdead]

explaining henry's healing powers

i initially came up with this because i draw henry a little differently from other characters -- like his eyes are very big and shiny, and when i draw him crying his tears are glowy & have little rainbows on them. meanwhile the other characters have kinda dull eyes (i like to make them look scary) & i don't usually put any detail in tears and sweat and stuff. this difference is bc i draw him with the robots a lot & i want to give them a lot of contrast -- so you can tell who's a breathing human immediately even when the robots have human forms

i was like ok i really like this detail actually. can i make it relevant in Second Chances in some way? so this is the explanation:

so emotions work differently here right. objects can be "infected" with emotions & if they're strong enough they can become sentient. also those "emotion beings" need to feed themselves with the emotion they were created with to live. like bot Charlie, made with Henry's grief. but inanimate objects coming alive is extremely rare. henry could do it, william couldn't. he could make his victims become animatronics yes. but those robots were children before that so he didn't create life from scratch

so what if Henry's a lot more connected with that magical side of emotions than other characters. he feels everything too strongly. he gives up parts of his soul to people and to things all the time. people can tell how he feels from afar & he can immediately affect other characters just with touching them. this leaves him feeling eternally empty and tired, and he likes robots bc he wants to feel less -- he wants to be one

Agony's the strongest emotion. that's what Charlie's made of

Rage's a close second. that's Circus Baby

then there's Love that is healing (not only romantic love)

usually it can get you up from ur bed when you're sad or something. it can heal wounds when it's stronger (John and Jen w Charlie)

anyway i'm sure you know where i'm going with this!!

Henry can heal other people's wounds -like real bad wounds- if he loves them. but since he gives them a part of him when he does, the healed person needs that love back so the pain doesn't return

this is how Michael could look like a normal person again after being scooped - Henry took him in and they were like father and son - but it also made Michael super dependant on Henry

when Henry realized he was trying to replace Charlotte with someone else again, he left, and Michael started rotting again :( so he desperately looked for him for years until FFPS.

[inbarfink]

Doll Witch

Sometimes they are cheerful elderly eccentrics with a house filled with old toys and older memories, sometimes they are young faces with old souls who cling to their stuffed animals as their only friends, sometimes they are gloomy doll collectors maintaining a pristine collection of strangely-alive-looking toys. Whoever they are, Doll Witches are melancholic Spellcasters with a heart lost in the past and a talent for giving new life to old things.

Doll Witches' Emotional Focus is the emotion of Nostalgia. While some Doll Witches also theme themselves after a specific era and gain power from the Nostalgia they and other people feel for that bygone era, they all use imagery of dolls and other toys - in their eyes, the closest thing to a universal symbol of the long-gone past. Some Doll Witches have a childishly cheerful exterior, while others are more openly melancholy - but they all carry a deep longing for something long gone, homesick for the kind of home you cannot go back to.

They see themselves as preservers of memories, caretakers of joy carelessly thrown away. It is a Doll Witch’s duty to keep those happy memories cherished and well-taken-care-of, so they can be remembered and revisited. Doll Witches are very sensitive to the power of memories and the emotional connection imbued into objects. As such, they have a unique knack for animating inanimate objects. They all have at least a couple of living dolls under their command, but they can bring to life any item imbued with the power of Nostalgia.

Doll Witches tend to hoard, their houses are museums of antiques and trinkets. Not only is it hard for them to part with their own precious mementos, they love collecting the Nostalgic junk of others. Not just from the practical perspective that Nostalgic items are a source of power and are easy to Animate - they just love to preserve and keep memories in general. When attempting to perform a transaction with a Doll Witch, what you should remember to bring is not any traditional form of payment, but an item of emotional significance to you.

Some Doll Witches simply wish to immerse themselves in the fantasy they yearn for, using their doll-minions and other magical powers to construct intricate Nostalgic fantasies. Other Doll Witches are more measured, trying to balance the healing joyful effects of Nostalgia, without utterly falling into fantasy. Doll Witches understand Nostalgia better than anyone, and that means they understand that it can be dangerous. The most benevolent Doll Witches can help you relive the fantasy of Nostalgia, or wake you up from it.

However, even the kindest Doll Witches are not above using Nostalgia to make others do their will - sometimes selfishly, sometimes for ‘the greater good’. They know how to read people, and it will take them no time to identify what is your Nostalgic weak-point, and they will tag at your heartstrings like puppet-strings. Humans, much like their beloved dolls, are easier to control when they are imbued with Nostalgia

In addition to their unique knack for animating objects, Doll Witches are known to have powerful talent for Illusions, Divination and Mind-Altering spells. Doll Witches are among the few spell-castings traditions with access to Time Magic, but their control is limited. Doll Witches may speed up time but cannot under any circumstances turn back or stop time, the entire source of their magic is based on the fact they cannot go back.

[shameonjune]

my thought on prostitution

hot take: if u condone pr*stitution, whether it is consensual or not, you are not as "woke" as you might think you are. also, i'm not taking just about female pr*stitutes, but male ones as well. those clients no longer recognize the workers as actual human beings, but rather just a inanimate object. like john locke has mentions in his essay in chapter 20 (in the link below) that if you love something for their function, that love is a love for inanimate objects; and if you love something from building connection with them, that love is a love for animate beings.

it is degrading, exploitive, and dehumanizing. not to mention the poor work environment and safety. prostitution and the condoning of such thing is a sign of moral decay in society. "but my body my choice!!!!!!" sure. it is your body. i'm not telling you what to do. ultimately it IS your choice. i just hope people would be more considerate when referring to this topic. god, social media really has messed up the actual definition of that phrase now from what i've observed.

i'm not saying this because mY rEliGioN sAyS sO🤓🤓🤓(moral in regard of religion is subjective anyway so i'm not even touching on that subject here). i'm bringing this up solely because i'm genuinely and fundamentally concerned about the well-being of s*x workers and the overall impacts on how we, as human race, view one another. do we even care that the other party is also a human????

"but humans are primates!!!!!! we have primal needs!!!!!!" dawg go touch grass. as a matter of fact, go eat those grass. we are different from other animals. humanity has the ability to form complex reasonings, at least better than other earthly species. that's one thing we can do better than others. we generally can take up emotions from others- so therefore, why should we not care about the well-beings of other workers?

anyway i'm getting off-topic now byeeeeeeee

god i'm just so mad for no reasons lollll

might as well share my thoughts on s*x working in general soon idk

[saraelisaperezpierrez]

6. Emotional Design

The emotional experience that someone can have when presented with a product, is a key factor for the user’s decision to buy it. Emotional design is consider under two perspectives, as mention by Ho, A.G. & Kin Wai, M.G. (2015) it can be consider as ‘a tool that designers can use to deliver their messages and emotions, while others have believed that it is a kind of experience and response when an individual is using an object. Meanwhile, some researchers have regarded emotional design as a means to establish consumer expression, and as a representation of the users' identity or personality.’ (Ho, A.G. & Kin Wai, M.G., 2015, pp 10)

When we as designers focus on the emotions of our design, besides the functional and ergonomic aspects, it can allow the users to feel a stronger bond with the design and, they can have a more positive and meaningful experience. However, the emotional connection that people have with inanimate objects, is not something new or unheard of, there are even many archeological findings that demonstrate the importance of the materialistic culture, although it is most commonly found that hard to get products or those that required longer hours in crafting, used to be considered as a higher value, both in their intricate value and also in the emotional value that they were given. And in today’s industrialized and materialistic society, this has become harder and harder to witness. As mentioned by Jonathan Chapman (2005) ‘Although emotional attachments are not extinct yet, durable connections between users and their mass manufactured counterparts are very rarely forged.’ (CHAPMAN, J. , 2005, p.62).

As I’ve mentioned before, I graduated as an industrial designer, and which part of industrial design includes product design, and sometimes it’s not very clear the way in which we as designers can add that emotion to our products, successfully being able to create a connection between the users and the products is clearly easier said than done. However there are many strategies that can be used, for example, creating empathy or sympathy to a product, by having the user identify or find a sense of intimacy with the product, this can also be achieved by the form of publicity used for the product. Another strategy is by creating a sense of participation between the user and the process of using the product, for this is very important they have very clear understdanding of the characteristics of the target population. And also another way is by having the users acquire a sense of control, for modern society having a sense of control over their environment results in positive emotions.

As it was mentioned at the beginning, it is a topic of debate how to consider emotional design and the two common perspectives in which it is considered. We have spoken now about the perspective of having the users feel a personal experience when using the product, and since this can result in very personal and distinct scenarios, it is very open for interpretation and a product that can be considered as emotionally strong by some people can be seen as irrelevant by others. Now the other perspective of emotional design, which is when the designer is able to deliver a specific message has to following different strategies.

For designers to transmit their emotional messages through their products, we can add clear direct images that the users can relate to; for example, as mentioned by Yi Chen and Runchu Chen (2020) ‘Taking children’s education products as an example, the coding suit Kano Harry Potter Wand developed by Kano and Warner Bros Consumer Products has an emotional packaging design in terms of narrative interpretation. The film plot is combined to give the product legend and story.’ (Chen, Y & Chen, R., 2020, p. 2). But also, the use of symbolism and metaphors could be applied to achieve this emotional connection with people. Some metaphors and symbolisms can be more obvious than others and it is important to note that the interpretation of these symbolism is also dependent on the users’ background, culture, etc. It is a complex and very interesting topic since both strategies face their own complications, and are dependent on many external factors.

******************

References

CHEN, Y & CHEN, R. (2020). ‘Design thinking based on reflective level in emotional design’ E3S Web of Conferences [Online] 178 p. 02082. Available from - https://doi.org/10.1051/e3sconf/202017902082. [Accessed: 27th November 2022]

DING, M., DONG,W. (2018) ‘Product color emotional design considering color layout’ Color Research & Application. [Online] 44 (2) pp 285-295. Available from- https://doi-org.ezproxy.herts.ac.uk/10.1002/col.22338. [Accessed: 27th November, 2022]

HO, A.G., & KIN WAI, M.G. (2015) ‘Emotion Dsign, Emotional Design, Emotionalize Design: A review on their Relationships from a New Perspective’ An Internal journal for All Aspects of Design. [Online] 15 (2012) pp 9-32. Available from- https://doi-org.ezproxy.herts.ac.uk/10.2752/175630612X13192035508462. [Accessed: 27th  November, 2022]  

CHAPMAN, J. (2005). Emotionally Durable Design; Objects, Experiences & Empathy. London: Earthscan.

COOPER, R. & PRESS, M. (1995) The design agenda: a guide to successful design management. Chichester / New York / Brisbane / Toronto / Singapore: John Wiley & Sons

[libramonthlyhoroscope1]

Dream about poop

Life is an amazing journey. We spend on average 6,000 hours of time on the toilet. At age 76 the average human produces 24,320 lbs of poo - which is the total weight of around three to four hippos! At some point, everyone will be asking questions like 'What is my purpose in life?', "Is there life after the death?", or "Why did I have a dream of poo?

Dream about poop

What is the dream psychology on poop dreams?

Sigmund Freud was a famous dream psychologist in the 1930s he analysed thousands of dreams and came up with a detailed, valuable interpretation from a neurologist's perspective. Poop dreams in his manuscripts connect to the following: control in situations, unsettled emotions, humiliation, worry over money, concerns about others and that finances will play on the dreamer's mind. 

Spiritually, Poop in dreams is about how we navigate our life. When one dreams of poop, this is symbolic of a situation that has become rife with stress. This dream is so much more spiritually than you can ever imagine.

Is poop in dreams good or bad dream?

We feel poop it is a nasty disgusting thing to do, but this is a chance of removing all those toxins from your body. You are two distinct people. One goes about his or her daily life – taking care of the family, following routines, going to work – day after day without thinking, much like a machine. It's like a continuous loop of the same thing. Before you fall asleep at night, you may spend hours thinking about your day. And then there is the other you; the night-time, dreaming you. Think about a dream as a key to a greater life. Your dream life runs parallel to your daily life, and the dream state is not unreal; it is just synchronized with another dimension, so what is the dream telling us. I think this dream is good, it is telling you to remove those “toxins” or difficult situations in life. Removing for the greater good! 

In life, we sometimes feel dissociated from both our spiritual natures and the world around us because we are caught up in the fast pace of daily life, rapid communication, and transportation. Mind and body are now two separate forms of consciousness. This has led to two lives. We must be sincere in our efforts to maintain a connection. There is no interaction, or at least no significant interaction, between mind and body. We tend to see the body as a machine or as something that is different from ourselves. An interesting author called Drew Leder argues that dualism enabled us to create a mechanistic view of the body and its functions. It seems the world has become more materially wealthy, but less spiritually rich. The phenomenon is also called the "absent body." The reason I mention this is that when we dream we are ‌outside our own bodies and I would like to now consider what this dream is saying in regards to quantum physics.

In addition, most of us will have a poo dream at some point in our life - that is probably why you are here reading this. To understand what this dream can mean for you, we have to consider complex questions about humans, the universe, and their immediate natural and inanimate environments. We also need to look at the relationships between people and their past and present lives. Here is a video I have done on this so you can play while reading my article.

I can remember myself having a dream about overfilled toilets with poo all over the floor. It was above all shocking, but it actually means something.

[canmom]

i was just reading your old dumbing of age posts, and also i've been carlaposting (see my #carla rutten tag if interested). There's still not a lot of carla appearances but she's been on my mind (maybe cause I always latch on to the most transhumanist character, even though they're usually not that transhumanist?) so I wonder if you have any carla thoughts you'd like to share from the four years since you made those doa posts

oh hi there! Glad those old livereads are still entertaining people. lessee...

ngl, when I read this ask I mostly just thought "who?" since I have definitely not been keeping up with Dumbing of Age in that period (or webcomics in general really - K6BD is the only one I check semi-regularly nowadays.)

I really need to add some of the webcomics I used to read to Tachiyomi (assuming they're supported), but they're in that awkward place where I remember the early strips well enough that they're not super exciting to reread, but I don't remember the later strips well enough to find my place or indeed, remember who any of these people are. some point I just need to lie down with, say, Gunnerkrigg Court or Honey Crab and catch up on what I've been missing.

anyway! you asked about Carla! a quick check of the wiki confirms she was the acerbic, roller skating, trans girl character, who I was very taken with at the time I read it. I guess she had a lasting impact on me, in that Dumbing of Age reminded me that 1. roller derby exists and 2. they let trans girls play it, which I have since made a couple of attempts to do (the most recent being cut off by the pandemic, but hopefully I won't have lost too much when it's safe to skate once more). so thanks for that one Carla! I wonder what sarcastic comment you'd make.

since I don't really remember this comic very well, that's about all I can say, but let me go on anyway.

I guess I'm no longer in a place where I fixate on any and all trans girl characters in fiction, and instead come at them from something of a more analytical perspective these days. Carla seems fun though!

I was totally unaware that she was based on a robot car who became a gynoid from It's Walky!; all that went right over my head so at the time I read the comic, she was just a surprisingly cool character. obviously a lot of trans girls identify with inanimate objects in some way - robots most often, but really can be anything - so if she does have a car TF fetish going on later, good for her lmao. sure hope someone showed her Adolescence of Utena.

from the handful of strips I re-sampled, I don't think I'd get along great with Carla - no doubt I'd take some of her constant stream of mean-but-not-serious jokes to heart, and we'd both get frustrated with each other. I guess you could argue some of that would be Willis's particular voice, and the somewhat affected, sharp exchanges of a gag-a-day webcomic, rather than something 'essential' to the character. it's curious to imagine how my own personality might get simplified and abstracted if I had to be a webcomic character.

uh, what else, what else? the business model of Dumbing of Age is pretty curious to me - not the patreon part, that's pretty universal now, but the part where he draws porn of his characters and sells it on Slipshine. I feel like it wouldn't be too difficult develop that into some kind of analysis of how the emotional connections we form with fictional characters factor into erotica, a niche that often goes unfulfilled hence fanfiction etc.; in any case Willis approaches it with a certain irony (you go on slipshine and the thumbnail says 'Walky does a sex'), I guess to puncture the likely embarassment of someone paying money for porn of a webcomic they like?

in any case, idk if it's just something he does for fun or like, a major source of income, but in any case it's unusual, since in my experience webcomics are usually either strictly sfw (the vast majority), strictly porn/sex comedy (e.g. I Roved Out, Oglaf, basically all the other content on Slipshine), or mostly sfw stories aimed at adults with the occasional nsfw scene as fits the narrative (e.g. Souls Foreclosed, Kill Six Billion Demons, The Less Than Epic Adventures of TJ and Amal, The Meek). 'read the story, now wanna pay for the porn?' seems like a model that makes some kind of cynical sense, so I'm surprised more authors don't adopt it.

Anyway, this is a little interesting because I have been wondering about making another attempt at creating a webcomic, since animation takes approximately forever to do so if I want to tell an original story, 'webcomic with occasional animation' in the manner of Homestuck, Honey Crab or Ava's Demon may work as a compromise. I don't think I could manage a perpetual, years-long webcomic. I have no idea how someone like Willis or the Schlock Mercenary guy (is that still going?) manages to keep producing enough material to fill up the buffer for all those years of daily comics but it's very impressive. Still, the comics I would aspire to draw like are the more 'graphic novel' kind, with big pages, varied panel layouts and camera angles, maybe even playing around with web tech to add a little interactivity and motion. Stuff that would keep it interesting and novel to create, punch through that ADHD.

Though thinking about it, Willis's strength is, I guess, much like Hussie - developing a huge cast of reasonably fleshed out characters, drawing them quickly on model with a variety of expressions, and having the confidence to synthesise storylines and let them play off each other. Many of the most successful webcomics lean on something similar: you can use all the gimmicky 'infinite canvas' techniques you want, and that can really accentuate a project and take it to another level, but the artistic Cordyceps that really worms its way into peoples' brains is "just" that character writing. Without that you still have nothing... good to remember...

[one-abuse-survivor]

is it childish too still sleep and buy stuffies at 16? my mum keeps telling me that and it hurts

Nonnie, let me tell you something. I'm almost 23 years old. I'm only a few months away from finishing my dissertation and graduating university. I've lived on my own for years. And I still sleep with a stuffed toy every single night! A very big one, at that. (I live with my dad and his wife now, and they've obviously found out I sleep with it. They didn't say anything at all about it!)

I don't think it's childish or silly to still sleep with and like stuffies at any age. Why would it be? They're soft and cute, and they make for nice decoration to make rooms more colourful. I honestly don't think I know anyone my age who doesn't have like 20 stuffies in their room still, and one of my irl friends my age texted me just today to help me choose a stuffed toy to buy herself.

As to sleeping with them, people of all ages do it for all kinds of reasons—I personally do it because it brings me comfort for trauma-related issues, but also because I sleep better when I have something to hug. I'm sure other people simply enjoy the feeling of having something there to act as a barrier between them and the edge of the bed, or got used to grasping something in their fist in their sleep or to bumping against stuff in the bed while they roll around, and it'd be weird to sleep without those things.

But even if it's because you are emotionally attached to your stuffies or having them there brings you comfort... I still don't see anything weird about it. Everyone needs comfort. Everyone needs to feel like there are certain things that will always be there as a part of their lives. It can be your music albums, your books, an old toy that was your favourite as a kid, a kitchen plant, a collection of photo albums, a tablecloth you inherited from your grandma, a pretty rock you found in the summer of 1976 and has been sitting by your bed ever since... Humans form emotional connections with the inanimate objects around them all the time. This is not a shameful thing. Not even if the things you are attached to are socially believed to be "childish" and marketed toward kids because they're soft and cute. Puppies are also soft and cute, and everyone is allowed to like them!

I'm really sorry your mum is making you feel bad for liking stuffies. I really hope my answer helped a bit, and please know liking stuffies doesn't make you any less capable in life or any less deserving of respect.

Sending a virtual hug ❤️

[fortheloveoflizards]

ive actually been a fan of wof for years now, im just not super active in the fandom and i guess id like to be? so here i am, sending u an awkward ask lol. anyways, the more i think about animus magic, the more i hate the way tui executed the concept? like theres barely any consequences or limitations. dragons can do whatever they want with it, which is bad for the plot. idk what are ur thoughts?

Hah, this isn’t awkward at all, I actually do have a lot of thoughts on animus magic, particularly how it differs in each tribe. I think giving each tribe different types of magic, as well as individual drawbacks on top of the general “you go crazy if you abuse your power”. Though I think the latter could have worked as more of a “if you use your power selfishly, it’ll turn on you” sort of situation? In my headcanons, each tribe has a type of magic they work best with, and a type of magic that puts strain on their physical form.

As the tribe closest in appearance to traditional European dragons, I like to headcanon Skywing animus magic as Weather and Element based. Stuff like creating storms and controlling wind currents is easy to imagine, but also magic pertaining to emotions, often fueled by the feelings of the animus themselves. A Skywing animus might find it easiest to use an object to better conduct magic, like a branch or, most commonly, crystals of different types. Skywing magic is what you would call “cast spells”, meaning they have no need to write or say what they wish to do, just think or “feel” it. As for drawbacks, emotional instability is kind of obvious, huh? There’s also bad weather being attracted to the animus, and parts of their body slowly turning into whatever object they used to channel their spells. As an example, using crystals in his spells might result in an animus’ scales turning into crystals themselves, whereas an animus that used a branch to direct air currents would notice her tail growing small twigs and leaves out from between her scales. The magic Skywings have most difficulty with is Herbal and Brewed magic. I feel since Skywing magic is very much based on action and emotion, it would be difficult for a Skywing animus to properly channel it in such a passive way.

Mudwing animus magic is perhaps my favourite to think about, it being what I call Herbal or Brewed magic. Mudwing animi specialize in potions and medicine, though this is more of an inherent tribe skill, their magic works best when imbued into food or drink. To continue with this technique, “power-ups” would be cool to see. Potions to give a dragon super strength or speed, or to keep their scales permanently warm so they can always breath fire. I think Mudwings would be most likely to use so called “magical ingredients” for their spells, as in the act of the animus using an ingredient makes it magic, rather than a normal dragon including it in their stew. I don’t feel there would be much room for drawbacks when it comes to Mudwing magic, so I’m gonna say there isn’t one. However, I will say Brewed magic is one of the hardest to perfect, as if a quantity of ingredient is even slightly off, disaster is imminent. Transformation magic is likely to be the hardest for a Mudwing animus to use. While Brewed magic is hard, it’s precise and a recipe can be done a hundred times for a hundred different dragons, and the effects never alter. Transformation magic is the opposite, in that the spell must be altered for every dragon, as every dragon is slightly different.

Next up is Sandwings! They lean most towards Written and Solar based magic. As you can guess, this means their magic is linked at least partially to the sun. Though they can’t control them, Sandwing animi often have very keen senses when it comes to the weather and seasonal changes. Change itself is a big thing for Sandwings, so seasonal magic is common. Sandwings also find writing spells easiest, as the spell is then precise and exactly as they need it. Sandwing riddles, told at parties or in passing as a fun conversation topic, have their roots in animus magic. Sandwing animi also enjoy the company of animal companions, usually camels or vultures; animals that can carry scrolls and items for the animus in question. The downside for Sandwing animi can be either mental or physical. They can start forgetting things, losing track of time, generally being scatterbrained, which eventually leads to them losing their entire memory. Or, their scales begin to darken, although I’m undecided on what kind of colour they would turn. Should they just turn golden or maybe more of a sunburnt orange or red. Perhaps even black. I dunno, maybe all three. Spoken and Lunar magic are the clear opposites of Written and Solar, so it’s pretty obvious why a Sandwing animus would have trouble in this area. Sandwing magic can be very picky, kind of like a sadistic genie that goes by what a wisher says, rather than what they mean. A dragon has to be very careful how they phrase a spell, which is hard for most Sandwing animi, hence their avoidance of Spoken spells.

I think my Seawing animus headcanon is the closest to being confirmed in canon, since the Seawing animi we see using their magic are usually using what I’ve called Spoken and Lunar magic. This includes regeneration(like healing of themselves and others), curses, transfiguration of objects and generally verbal commands. And for the record, “verbal commands” is usually, like the animus test the Seawings take, telling an inanimate object to do something. Lunar magic is connected to the moon and the tides, opposite to Solar magic. This can mean it gets stronger under a full moon, and gives a Seawing animus a kind of bond to the ocean the more they use Lunar magic. As with Sandwing animi, the magic that comes most natural to Seawings involves change. Changing tides, moon rotations, drifting currents and rips, all those factor into their magic’s strength, in and out of water. Seawing animi can also suffer a lowering of inhibitions, and can suffer what I call “going feral”. Theirs is the most noticeable, though this final drawback can affect all tribes. I like to think the more a Seawing animus uses their magic, the more they start to look like a deep sea creature. Brighter glowing scales, thinner scales overall(sometimes so thin you can almost see their insides, bleurgh!), elongated, thinner teeth, and increased speed of growth to their whole body. As you can probably guess, Written and Solar magic are the areas that cause the most trouble for Seawing animi. I’m not sure what else to comment here, since I feel it’s pretty straightforward, so there you go.

Rainwings! The tribe I’m most like! I feel that since the average Rainwing can change the colour of their scales regardless of magical ability, Transformation magic would be a perfect match for any animi that might exist in the tribe. Transformation magic includes form shifting of themselves and others, body hrror/torture(which differs from simple form shifting because it’s specifically supposed to cause pain) and transfiguration of objects. Transformation magic requires knowledge of how the specific dragon’s body works, moves and how their mind reacts to things. You might think the average Rainwing is too self-centered to be capable of that kind of perceptiveness, but I believe they’re more perceptive than they’re portrayed in-canon. I think the most noticeable consequence of a Rainwing animus using their magic is their scale colours “glitching”. If the Rainwing is naturally purple and green and they try to turn red and blue, areas of their scales might change slower than the rest, or not change altogether. A camouflaged Rainwing might suddenly find themselves bright pink and orange. Stuff like that. Weather magic is most difficult for a Rainwing animus, since it requires a lot of, I guess passionate emotions? Weather magic is loud and aggressive and takes a lot of power to control. It also relies heavily on being strongly connected to every emotion, and can backfire terribly on a dragon that doesn’t know how to wrangle that kind of power.

Mind and Time magic is what I’ve assigned for Nightwings! I felt it fits with their whole Mystical Infinite Powers aesthetic. Obviously, Mind magic includes mindreading and and Time magic future vision - which were most likely a gift from a Nightwing animus a long time ago. Other abilities include fate writing(a spell that can change an otherwise unchangeable future), enchanting, illusions, and changing minds/the perceptions of a dragon. This magic is actually relatively simple to perform, and one of the most used types by all animus dragons. That doesn’t make it any less powerful or dangerous, in fact it’s probably more dangerous that it’s so easy to use. Nightwings certainly haven’t been using it for the best purposes. This is the magic I think is the root cause of dragons losing their minds, since “Mind” is like one whole half of the magic. The unfortunate thing is that Nightwings are excellent bullshitters, so they at least last a while before anyone figures out something’s wrong. The side effect of using other types of magic is most notably scale discolouration, to the point that there are records of completely white, full-blood Nightwings. Since Icewings and Nightwings are Enemies For Life I figure their magics would clash just as much, out of principal. Reflective magic in particular requires the user to be self aware, to know their faults and, if only momentarily, be at peace with them. Nightwings are pretty in denial about a lot of stuff, it’s part of the culture they’ve built up.

Finally, Reflective and Defensive magic is the natural inclination of Icewings. That means shielding and barrier magic - which can be physical or psychological, insightful magic, illusions and star spells. No insightful magic is Not future vision, if you make that comparison in front of even a regular Icewing you will be murdered. The Icewing mind is typically pretty guarded already, as we see when Moon tries to read them. I like to believe that an animus a long time ago used their Gift to make it so Nightwings can’t read the tribe’s minds, or at least not easily. This would be an example of a psychological barrier spell. Star spells are tied to the stars(no duh) like Solar and Lunar magic are tied to their respective namesakes. However, as opposed to change, star spells are constant. Once one is cast, it stays forever. Almost all Icewing magic is a star spell of some kind, making other dragons very wary of an animus born from the tribe. Thankfully, the fact that Icewing magic includes that of Defense, it’s rarely used for aggressive purposes. I believe Icewing magic would backfire by crystalising within the user’s bones, making their joints stiff and their mind fuzzy. They may dissociate from the world and eventually be lost, as with Sandwings. As I said, Icewings and Nightwings are opposites in magic, though there are overlaps which serve to infuriate both tribes. Considering Nightwing animus magic supposedly came from Icewings, the former retained some of the abilities of the latter.

There you are, my thoughts on dragon magic. This turned into much more of a headcanons post than an answer, so I hope you don’t mind. Thanks so much for the ask, and I hope you find content creators that make you feel safe being active in the fandom!

[cowtale-utau]

Oh I would absolutely love to learn more about human magic!! And for a soulmate, would an S/O’s magic match their skelly soulmate? Or would it be unique to them?

So I can probably make several decently large posts on magic, both human and monster, but for now I'm going to try to do a concise (ish) post on where I'm pulling my HC's for magic from, how it works, and what it can do. I'll also probably include a bit on some known existent mages (cough Frisk/Chara cough), and you asked for some info on soulmates so I'll see what I can do with human souls, soulmates, and monster/human soulmates. (in my drafts I called this the “short version”, it will not be short)

So I'm largely basing human magic off the Mage system from the table-top pen-and-paper rpg Mage, part of the World of Darkness franchise. The Wiki for it has lots of good info and interesting lore if you wanna read into it.

It works in 'spheres' or nine branches/types of magic/facets of reality. Now I'm bending a lot of the lore so don't assume this is a perfect match for the Mage RPG. I used it as a template to work from, and have incorporated some of the lore, but I've also dismissed and altered other large chunks of Mage RPG canon. (basically if you play Mage or read the wiki, don't @ me, I know it's “wrong” ok, I wanted it that way ;p)

Correspondence Essentially the “space” half of time/space. Covers things like teleportation, levitation, flying, and remote viewing. Combines with other spheres to create distance/ranged/area effects. Also allows for the creation of sub-space. It is limited however, in that it only covers space. To move a body, one must combine it with Life. For an object, Matter. Correspondence is a sphere that is fairly easy to learn the basics, and extremely difficult to master.

Entropy Chaos, Order, Luck, Destiny, Creation, Destruction. The natural order of things. The ability to sense and manipulate probability and patterns. Allows one to tap into the natural entropic cycle. The more complex an “object” the easier it is to break. Much like Correspondence, one must be able to use the other applicable sphere(s) to achieve an effect. A tricky sphere to use and control. It tends to be a bit resistant to manipulation by most Mages.

Forces The sphere that allows manipulation of “energy”. Light, heat, vibration, radiation, gravity. While this can be done instinctively, that tends to be sloppy and dangerous. The more one understands about the energy/force they're trying to manipulate the better off they'll be. However one should be mindful that they do not allow the knowledge gained to restrict them. Magic cares not for what human science says is or isn't true. How easy the sphere is to work with depends largely on how much effort one puts into learning the background knowledge. Or how how willing they are to risk brute forcing it.

Life Anything living, or with life energy. Can be used to heal, or unheal. Modify biological entities. Create disease or grow plants. Restore youth. Life as a sphere has many wonderful, helpful applications, and just as many horrifying ones. One can heal and cure and fix, but also cause untold damage. To fully grasp and master life, one must understand how life connects to itself, and the cycles in which it exists. The chain between predator and prey. How simple it is to learn is largely dependent on how much understanding you already have of the subject you're trying to alter.

Matter Non living/inorganic things. Also covers all the elements on the periodic table. Works very well when combined with other spheres. Entropy to break an object, Forces to animate inanimate things, Correspondence to move objects, Time to alter them temporally. Allows the Mage to alter but also to see and understand the make up of an object. Arguably one of the easiest to learn and use, given that it inherently allows you to pick up understanding of what you're working with on the go.

Mind Covers consciousness and how a person perceives reality. Knowledge, imagination, emotion. Can be used to alter memory, thinking, emotions, perception, and concentration among other things. Mind is a bit different from other spheres in that one does not need an understanding of how the “mind” works to utilize it well. Talent in this sphere comes down to mostly practice and natural inclination.

Prime Primal Energy, the raw magical force of the world. Often considered an almost Holy Power. A Prime Mage can detect/sense magic, enchant objects or living things, cut off another Mage's access to magic and it is often used to bolster or power other magics. Prime is the source from which all other magic springs. Having skill in Prime is tricky as there's no deeper understanding to help you, beyond the understanding that you can't understand. That it is a power beyond you, and can strike back at any moment.

Spirit Something connected to but separate from the concept of souls. The culmination of hope, emotion, and thought. A skilled Spirit Mage can touch or even pass through the wall between the tangible world, the void, and what lies beyond. Allows one to reach out, speak to, and interact with spirits lost to the physical world. A Mage less morally inclined could even, with enough power, subjugate those beings. Using and mastering the Spirit sphere requires a strong understanding and sense of self, while also being able to release physical/material ties and limits.

Time Time is sort of self explanatory. Though time as a concept is not a straight forward as many assume. Very much subjective to the observer. A Time Mage is more aware than most that while time naturally moves forward (mostly), it contracts and dilates, whirls and twists. It jumps, and branches, and curves back on itself. A Time Mage can know the exact time at any time, and sense distortions in the time line. They can slow time, rewind or loop, create anchor (save) points, and with enough skill they can outright time travel or exist outside the timeline entirely. To master Time is to understand it as an esoteric and inexact science.

Humans pull their magic externally. This is both more freeing and more restricting than monsters. They can do just about anything they can imagine, assuming they can figure out how, have the respective understanding and magical inclinations, and the world allows it. Sometimes whatever source, force, whatever, the magic comes from, disagrees with a Mage. And the backlash can be catastrophic. And while a Mage cannot “drain” themselves to the point of death, they can over channel, and over load. The end result is the same.

Related Side Note ; Monster magic is much more free form and almost entirely “intent” based. This means technically any monster can learn any magic type. However some souls are better suited for certain types than others. Some just can't muster up the intent needed. They also tend to not be able to do things quite on the scale that Mages can. Monster magic is pulled from themselves. It's a part of their soul, and fueled by their soul. They have a much more limited pool. Mind you, some monsters still have immense pools of magic they can pull from, and high regen rates, but still ultimately are more limited than humans. (Side note, if a monster uses up their “pool” the can continue using magic, but its a good way to die very quickly as it drains on their souls directly)

As for existing Mages, the obvious would be Frisk/Chara. Correspondence and Time. Possibly Prime. I'm actually unsure on Spirit, but leaning towards no. If you want more on that lemme know. I could discuss it a fair amount I think.

The other part of your question ; Soulmates.

There are essentially three types of bonds that fall under what most would consider “soulmates”. Kindred Spirits, Soul Mates, and Twin Flames. Any of these bonds can be platonic, romantic, or anything in between. Friends, lovers, rivals.

Kindred Spirits – Compatible. Someone with who you find forming an easy, comfortable bond. Often very similar to ourselves in a comforting way. Someone to whom we easily relate and connect to.

Soulmates – Complementary. A near perfect resonation. The traditional idea behind most soulmate lore. One can meet multiple soulmates in their lives, though they're not quite as common as Kindred Spirits.

Twin Flames – Twin Flames are the other half of an incomplete soul. A perfect mirror. Both the same and opposite in everywhere. Twin Flames rarely exist in the same world at the same time. When they do they are often both drawn to and repelled by one another. It is a bond existing beyond defining, beyond platonic/romantic labels. You're greatest ally, worst enemy, deepest love, your Twin Flame, is undeniable bound to you no matter what.

While Kindred Spirits and Soulmates won't necessarily have “matching” magic, their magic is often compatible/complementary to some degree in it's natural leanings.

If you want more info on anything specific, let me know. 💜

[homestuck-session-analysis]

Hi! I wanted to ask if you could do a session between a seer of space, sylph of void, mage of blood, maid of life, heir of time, knight of breath, thief of light, prince of light, rogue of heart and page of hope? Its 10 players which is pretty big so i understand if you dont feel up to it, either thanks in advance! :)

Here you go!  The way this story unfolds is really interesting, so I wish you the best of luck!

Seer of Space

Personality: Seers are exceedingly intelligent, bright, and calculating.  They are the people who seem to be wise beyond their years, though they are often afflicted with hubris.  As a Space player, they would come off as a dispassionate observer with an uncanny awareness of things happening around them, as well as someone with a phenomenal artistic and creative sense.  They very much are the tortured artist, and I can envision them struggling with creative block.

Abilities: The Seer of Space would get visions of other locations.

Session Contribution: This player basically knows everything that’s happening at any given time.  The Space player’s quest calls them to breed the Genesis Frog, and knowing where it is will definitely be a big advantage!Sylph of Void

Personality: Sylphs are people who have a great sense of someone’s potential, and they tend to be driven to help in any way possible.  This can make them seem to be incredibly nosy and a little annoying, but they have nothing but good intentions.  As a Void player, they would be a living representation of “ignorance is bliss.”  They solve problems through distraction and comfort, never really addressing the heart of the issue at hand.  Is it healthy?  Not really.  Is it effective?  Kinda.  A Sylph’s biggest weakness is that they can’t seem to grasp when something is a lost cause.

Abilities: The Sylph of Void would be able to literally erase injuries by making them disappear, as well as induce amnesia.

Session Contribution: This is somehow a very good healing class.Mage of Blood

Personality: Mages tend to be very intelligent and bright, but also tend to be jaded and cynical.  However, they gain their knowledge through experiences, often painful ones.  As a Blood player, the Mage will likely have a lot of experience with relationships and teamwork, thus making them a strong leader.  However, the Mage has experienced some extreme betrayal or manipulative relationship, causing them to be distrusting and bitter.  Alternatively, they might have grown up in a society hostile to them, and they had to learn how to conform to it or suffer forever.  Either way, the Mage of Blood learns from the darker side of humanity and uses that for their own benefit.

Abilities: The Mage of Blood would be able to use their knowledge of interpersonal connections to bring people together, and they will perhaps be able to use those bonds to their advantage.  Maybe they can forge a bond between two people magically, like some form of second degree glamour.

Session Contribution: The Mage of Blood isn’t a commander and leader...they’ve worked their ass off to achieve the level of ability they have.Maid of Life

Personality: Maids often feel a great deal of responsibility that was pushed onto them without their consent.  They feel that it is their job to ensure that everything is working properly, even when they are not recognized for their efforts.  As a Life player, their personality may manifest as a manic go-getter, possibly a manager or a ruler of some form.  Maids also tend to rely on others to feel valuable, so please make sure she knows they are perfect just the way they are.

Abilities: The Maid of Life would be able to resurrect the dead and perhaps give life to inanimate creatures.

Session Contribution: Hello healer my old friend.Heir of Time

Personality: Heirs tend to come off as very dumb, but a more accurate term would be happy-go-lucky.  They are very much a representation of “ignorance is bliss,” for they tend to grow up very sheltered and secure, especially under by aspect.  As a Time player, their source of security would, ironically, be change and moving forward.  This Heir would value personal growth very heavily, and difficulty appears once they form a more stable sense of self and life becomes stagnant.

Abilities: The Heir of Time would avoid danger through time travel, though it would take a while to be able to use this ability on a non-incidental level.

Session Contribution: The Heir of Time’s time travel can be very helpful in avoiding doomed timelines, and I can also see this as an offensive player.Knight of Breath

Personality: Knights are a very insecure lot, typically using their aspect to attempt to create a facade that makes them seem more impressive.  As a Breath player, the Knight would pretend to be overly easy going.  However, they aren’t easy going at all.  They tend to instead be scared of commitment, or afraid of conforming to society.  They can’t be held down, because if they are, then they’ll suffocate.  To develop as a person, they should learn to trust others and lower their walls.

Abilities: The Knight of Breath wields the wind, as well as freedom.  They would be able to bring people to think for themselves.

Session Contribution: Knights are called to sessions that don't have enough of their aspect for them to win, and in this case, that means that the players are probably too conforming and not at all individualistic.  Perhaps the Mage of Blood is doing their job too well?Thief of Light

Personality: Thieves are extremely ambitious and tend to appear to be very selfish and overly self-confident, but their confidence is an act of false bravado.  What makes a Thief a Thief is their overwhelming sense of envy toward others, especially when it comes to their aspect.  As a Light player, the Thief would be jealous of the luck, success, intelligence, and/or attention of others.  This makes them an attention whore.  Thieves need to learn how to be happy for other people and allow them to prosper, while finding and accepting their own worth.

Abilities: The Thief of Light would be able to steal knowledge and/or luck.

Session Contribution: They are gonna mess your shit up.  Make them feel important and smart.Prince of Light

Personality: Princes have fairly destructive personalities and resent others, mostly because they strongly resent themselves.  Their self-hatred often leads to them harming others, either intentionally or unintentionally.  As a Light player, the Prince will likely feel too smart and dumb themself down, or always get attention and hates it.  They would also be the kind of person who attacks smart people and believe that it’s impossible to know.  Princes need to learn how to accept accountability for their actions and accept themselves for who they truly are.

Abilities: The Prince of Light would be able to induce amnesia, shoot lasers, and perhaps bypass a person’s luckiness.

Session Contribution: Princes are called to sessions with an obstructive surplus of their aspect, so this Prince’s presence implies that your enemies know too much, or perhaps your players might know too much.  Perhaps something to do with your observation classes?  Whatever it is, it is up to your Prince to prevent this from harming the session.Rogue of Heart

Personality: Rogues are very selfless people, as they share a worldview with Robin Hood.  Their strong sense of justice and equality makes them easy to talk to, as they are very respectful.  They are also very spunky and ready to do what’s right!  As a Heart player, they tend to be empathetic.  Sometimes, the Rogue puts themself into danger to right a wrong, so make sure they understand that it’s okay that life isn’t always fair.

Abilities: Allocating a person’s emotions and identity can have countless implications, but a late-stage power they can likely harness is body-swapping.  Empathy is also a likely ability.

Session Contribution: This player is important in creating mutual understanding and respect among the teammates.Page of Hope

Personality: Pages are known to be very weak and impressionable.  Like the knight, they are very insecure about their weaknesses, but instead of acting impressive, they display their weakness in hope that someone will help.  As a Hope player, the Page would likely be very open-minded and trusting of others.  This naivety causes them to be taken advantage of very easily.  They can only grow once they learn who they should trust.

Abilities: The Page of Hope would be able to provide hope to your team and eventually use Hope to bring about their fantasies.

Session Contribution: Eventually, the Page of Hope may be your saving grace.

Interpersonal Dynamics

The Sylph and the Prince are gonna be really close buddies, and I would stay away from them.

I believe the Prince and the Knight are heralding the Mage of Blood going mad with power.

The Rogue and the Knight are best friends, because they are the only people who understand the other.

The Thief and the Page need to be kept apart.  Please.  The Page will suffer.

The Maid and the Mage will work together to advance their vision.

The Seer would be kinda friends with the Knight and Rogue, but they tend to distance themself from everyone.

The Heir will be close with the Rogue and the Sylph.  Heir/Sylph actually has a pretty good synergy here.

Session Overview

Too Bright!: Your Prince of Light is more important than your Thief of Light.  The Prince has a job to do, and the Thief has a job of making everything about them.

Leader: The Mage of Blood will be the official leader, but the Prince of Light and the Knight of Breath tells me that they will start a dictatorship with their powers.  The Knight of Breath is probably the more compassionate leader.

Offense: Prince, Thief, Knight, and maybe Mage and Rogue are more than good enough.

Survival: The Sylph of Void isn’t the best Sylph, but the Maid of Life definitely makes up for that.  Also, your Heir of Time will be fine.

Foresight: The Heir of Time probably isn’t that good at predicting things that will happen, but the Seer of Space would know anything that’s happening around them.  Also, the Mage of Blood would also know a lot about the players, so they could probably predict how people would behave.

Loyalty: The Thief has to go, man.  Also, the Mage is gonna stage a coup, but at least everyone is going to work together until the Knight and the Prince deal with it.

Breeding: The Seer of Space would know where the necessary frogs are, and I suggest the Rogue and/or the Knight for help.

Overall: Your team is very fragmented (when the Mage isn’t doing bullshit).  If your Mage is a good person, you don’t really have anything to worry about...your players are strong and they will work together in a way that works.  If not, then everyone is going to fall apart and maybe everyone gets killed.

]>>Maso

[bluesunsdusk]

Evfra ranks the Milky Way species

under a read more for length

Krogan: Kesh is one. Large, versatile, upfront, blunt, have been through hell and come out fighting. They are a species of survivors. They know a lot about other Milky Way species in regards to how they treat each other. That is valuable information. Apparently, they used to give birth to many children before this was stripped from them by the turians and salarians. Good warriors, they never give up. Their clan system makes those on New Tuchanka effectively a large family with communal child rearing. I have concerns for how to manage their growing population in generations to come, but it should be manageable. They can be difficult to deal with and very dominant. They also scare the children. 8/10

Asari: Blue, seem nice, have a positive disposition towards aliens and are quickest to attempt to understand another species. Intelligent, pretty. Sometimes, they fall face-first into what Liam called the “uncanny valley,” however. They can be duplicitous and the species most likely to talk down to and dismiss more short-lived species. While understandable, it is also annoying. 6/10

Salarians: They are very intelligent and also short-lived. They created the genophage to use against the korgans and put the responsibility on the Turians when it's brought up, because the Turians deployed it. The Salarians, however, are notorious manipulators and should have known what Turians are like when it comes to war. There would have known that would happen and simply don’t wish to admit their responsibility in the fate of the krogans. They also look like unexalted kett. Tann is one... 4/10

Turians: Kandros is one. They have many good soldiers, are generally disciplined, and look less uncanny due to their entirely different appearance. Their noses are...interesting. Many claim they are less duplicitous than asari and salarians. Not good salesmen. Their voices are interesting as well. Their martial knowledge and prowess could prove beneficial. Unfortunately, their appearance also makes some look exalted at first glance. The first few of them spotted by the Resistance had been mistaken for a new breed of kett. They are horrid with emotions, they are clearly a predator species, they scare children perhaps more than krogans do, they deployed the genophage against the krogans and many still believe that was a good thing. 6/10

Humans: Ryder is one, which could be both good and bad. Jaal does speak well of Liam and Cora. Humans are, as the Krogans, headstrong and versatile. They are as capable of several of the traits noted in other species as those species, though taken to less extremes. Humans seem to have an ability to bond and empathize with the oddest of things, such as inanimate objects. That is, in a small way, comforting to know. 6/10

With more on the way, the list will expand and change, but there can be a judgement made based on the limited data provided.

Elcor: They sound like they will be confusing due to their severe lack in emotional expression through anything other than pheromones. They speak very slow and droning and may have difficulty adjusting to our people. Having something other than bipeds in Helius as intelligent species would be an interesting change in scenery, at least. They look a lot less uncanny than the humans, asari, and salarians due to not looking like angara in almost any way. That helps. 7/10

Vorcha: They aren’t something I’d like to see waking up... or at all. They look terrifying. Some traits make them look like someone sharpened a kett and bound human skin over it. Their leg structure being similar to angara doesn’t help in the slightest. Why are they growing so many spines? What purpose does that serve other than gutting something? They look somehow sharper than the turians. From the other species, it can be gathered that they are not very intelligent and that they are always found fighting. At least, the chances of them successfully lying to anyone are low. Them coming to Heleus is unlikely. 2/10... Maybe 3/10

Keepers: Word is that they will not be coming to Heleus because they are intrinsically bound to the Citadel, an ancient space station, since before the asari arrived on the scene. 10/10

Batarians: Batarians... aesthetically... The four eyes are off putting on a face like theirs, and their noses are very odd, as are their mouths. Their teeth do not make for a very approachable appearance. Batarians are said to be harsh and overly blunt. They also have a society built on slavery. If they intend to take that with them, I will have to beat that idea out of their heads as soon as possible. If I can’t, the rest of my people will. There will be no slavery in Heleus, whether I can help it or not. 2/10

Yahg: I’ll be honest, they look like an architect tried to mate with an eiroch and the union bore fruit. It seems a salarian got lost in there as well. They killed the people who tried to contact them on behalf of the Council because their body language was off. And some people thought angara were too volatile... Glad they won’t be coming here. 10/10 unless they were coming here. Then, they’d get a 3/10

Varren: Not intelligent, but they remind me a little of adhi, only smaller. A lot more manageable as companion animals. Adhi need to imprint from infancy. Not nearly as smart as adhi. however. They seem very soft. 10/10 Then again, their ability to breed rapidly and survive in almost any environment could make them a highly invasive species... Hm. 6/10

Volus: Small rotund suit-wearing species that breathes methane. They won’t be able to take many worlds the angara would be interested in, unless they usurp control of a vault, somehow. The chances of them succeeding at such a thing is unlikely. They’ve been in “Citadel space” longer than humans and serve crucial role, yet they are not welcomed into their highest leadership ranks. Volus are apparently good merchants. Trade is different in our culture. I wonder how they’ll adapt. No strong feelings looking at them, one way or another. 5/10

Quarians: Another suit-bound species. It’s surprising the Nexus had none in their ranks, hearing how experienced this species as a whole is with living in a flotilla. Such expertise would have been invaluable. Quarians are said to have a mutualistic relationship with the native flora and bug life of their homeworld, making their immune systems incredibly weak... Simply thinking about it makes me uncomfortable. How often they would get sick. That they chose to go to another galaxy with contaminants that they have zero resistances against is brave, considering. They lost their homeworld in building the Geth after the synthetic species became self aware and drove them off. I know how hard losing one’s home is. I feel for them, even if their aggressors were of their own making. 7/10

Geth: The AI created by the quarians and the reason they lived on a flotilla. There is not much on them as a species other than their light speed communication and how advanced they seem to be. I can’t say I have enough data to form an opinion on them. 5/10 --// Though, it’s 7/10 when taking @ssvdromio into account. ))

Drell: Drell are a reptilian species adapted for life on arid planets. They would love Elaaden. The hanar have taken them as a subservient species and the drell seem to be honored by this. Stars know why... What is interesting about them is how they process and store memory. A result of the scarcity on the planet that caused the hanar to take them in. I wonder how different it is from our memory. Apparently, they secrete a venom from their skin as well. 7/10

Hanar: The hanar are a...what Ryder called a jellyfish-like species. They are pink and aquatic and float with the use of biotics. Their communication is through bioluminescence. They are largely reliant on the drell and keep them in a form of indentured servitude as repayment for taking them onto their homeworld, despite the fact that drell are ill-suited to the climate. Furthermore, the majority are zealous in their belief of the enkindlers. I have reason to believe the ones coming to Heleus will not be as bad. However, If they do try to spread that nonsense to my people, we’ll have a problem. 4/10

Protheans: They are extinct, which is unfortunate. There has been speculation of what the specie looks like, most of them not pleasant on the eyes. Why do tentacles come from the face in one of the speculations? Horrifying. The Hanar renditions are a lot more palatable. All is known in that they connect through beacons that project information and memories to the user. It sounds familiar, in a way. 6/10

All of them lose a 1 off their score for assuming there will be space for all of them in the long term and seemingly not considering that another galaxy would be as inhabited as their own or simply not caring about the complications.

[frankchurchillsaysrelax]

It wanted to be written so I let it.

1x13 coda

Michael looks up when she calls his name, the awed smile on his face slipping at the look of apprehension she can’t hide.

“Can we talk now?”

He looks sheepishly down at the guitar, something so foreign to her and a reminder that she really doesn’t know this side of him, before nodding and standing. He sets the guitar back in its stand reverently, eyes taking it in like it’s the eighth wonder of the world, something precious and holy. It’s stupid to be jealous of an inanimate object so she swallows down the uninvited emotion.

As soon as he is sat beside her she wastes no time. “What happened to your hand?”

A series of emotions form over his face in ways she can’t decipher, like trying to follow a conversation in a language you’ve never heard. Finally his features settle on something she recognizes, guilt.

“I can’t,” he starts, pausing to choose his words carefully. “I can’t explain it. Not now. Hopefully someday I can tell you, but just, not now.” His eyes, wider and more open than she’s ever seen them, beg her to accept this answer.

Maria likes to think she’s an understanding person, empathetic and not only because of her psychic abilities. She isn’t stupid though and she won’t let a pair of sad hazel eyes walk all over her. She can’t let this go, not if it’s the answer she’s been searching for.

“Guerin, if whatever happened to you can help my mom then you have to tell me.” Steel coats her voice in a way she doesn’t recognize.

“Maria no, no.” She startles when his hands grasp onto hers. She’s thought a lot about those hands recently. Reluctantly remembering the way they feel on her skin, the strength of them when they hold her. She remembers his left hand being weaker but no less gentle. Both hands clasp hers now with equal pressure, thumbs stroking her knuckles in identical patterns.

“I swear, if it could help your mother’s condition I would tell you in a heartbeat.” His grip tightens as his words grow more desperate. “That’s not how it works. I promise.”

For the first time in nearly twenty years Maria gets a glimpse of him. What had always been a dead channel on the emotional wave of Roswell was now crackling to life, flashes of what she normally read in people peeking through.

Secrets swirl around him, so entwined there is no way to separate them. Floating but heavy with the weight of them, they hold him back just as much as they keep him standing.

“Fine, let's talk about whatever this is that’s going on with us.” The hopeful feeling she had when he first walked in is slowly waning. She doesn’t know whether to hold tight or let go entirely. “Alex is my best and oldest friend. Did you talk to him before you came here?”

She gets her answer in the speed he turns his head to avoid looking at her.

“Alex and I are o-“

“Save it, Guerin.” She withdraws her hands from his, that loose grip on hope slipping even more. “I might not be able to read you but Alex is an open book and whatever you have is definitely not over.”

She catches the spark of something that flashes in his averted gaze. He’s silent for a long time but she waits as patiently as she can. Finally his stare returns, radiating so much pain that it feels like a punch to her chest. Maybe that’s because she knows what’s coming.

“I love him.” The words hurt, but less so than she would have thought. Pain is lessened when your heart already knows the truth.

With a deep breath Michael continues and she listens like the good friend she’s always been. “But so much has happened over the last ten years. Stuff I can’t even begin to unpack” His hands twitch like he wants to reach for her again but instead he slides them into his pockets, shifting back on his stool. “It hurts to be with him, and I need, I need to move on.”

He looks so lost she can’t help but lean forward and hug him. A self preserving part of her yells that it’s not a good idea to touch him, not when their romantic connection is dying before it even takes its first breath. As has been the case so often in her life, self preservation is pushed aside in favor of offering comfort and protection.

He holds onto her, clings is more accurate, his breaths short and fast. She waits for him to settle before moving back to her stool, a safe distance between them.

“I support you if that’s really what you want. But it can’t be with me.” She clears her throat, her decision is made but still hard to swallow. Michael looks sad but understanding, like he also knew where this was headed all along. Acceptance comes easily to him. His lack of fight should hurt but it only makes what she has to say easier.

“I care about both you and Alex and I respect myself too much to act on these feelings. I like you, Guerin. A lot, and who knows, if things were different maybe we could have been something great.” An image of the two of them in high school conjures in her mind for some reason. It’s so out of place that she quickly pushes it away. It has no place here.

“Maybe if you and Alex ever fall out of love,” she meant for it to come off as light and teasing but she doesn’t miss the way he flinches, and she knows then and there that day will never come. The words hang between them, cut off as abruptly as their potential relationship.

Michael closes his eyes, his chin dipping low towards his chest. “I’m sorry, Maria.”

“Hey, no.” She waits until he’s looking at her again, shaking her head gently at the guilt still shining in his eyes. “Never apologize for how you feel.”

The smile he offers is thin but sincere. “So what now?”

Maria knows that of the two of them she has far more knowledge when it comes to navigating emotions so she has no problem taking the reins on this one.

“Now,” she succeeds in keeping a light and easy tone this time, tentative smiles growing on both of their faces, “we do that whole awkward avoiding each other thing for a while and let the feelings fade, because they will.” Now that they’ve laid everything bare she believes that, she has to.

“And then, what I think we both really could use right now is a friend. Not to sound like a broken record, but you’ve been there for me a lot lately when Liz and Alex couldn’t, and selfishly I don’t want to lose that.” She places a hand on his arm, a perfectly friendly gesture. “And I want to be there for you too. I just need some time.”

Michael sighs, his shoulders relax, and Maria can practically see his defenses rebuilding themselves.

“Friends huh? That sounds good to me.” His cockiness is back and she hopes that her attraction to that is the first thing to fade because it really is annoying.

“Great,” she forms a sickly sweet smile, something familiar for them both. “Now get out of here, we’re closed.” He laughs and she can’t help but follow, the tension wrapped around them fading to the edges of the room. She wants it to stay there but there’s one more thing she needs to say. “But Guerin, I really do think you should talk to Alex. Maybe you and he-”

Michael doubles over so suddenly that at first she thinks he may have passed out. He’s bent in half, his hair brushing against her leg, and his hands clutching his head in obvious pain. For a second she wonders if he is faking just to avoid talking about Alex, but the long, anguished groan that fills the air is painfully real.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” Her hands flutter to his back, touch light and unsure.

As quickly as it comes the pain seems to stop and Michael rises, staring straight ahead and yet not looking at anything. Fear has stolen his color and made his eyes shine with tears. Maria doesn’t need to be able to sense what he’s feeling because it’s written all over his face. One tear makes its descent; that’s terror. Another follows for loss. The rest fall in a wave of overwhelming sadness.

“I have to, I have to go.” She doesn’t want to let him leave, not in the state he’s in, but before she can say anything he’s already stumbling out the door.

For all of the answers they’ve just found, he is leaving her with a pile of new questions.

[ask-glados]

GLaDOS Liveplay [Part 2]

Something I forgot to mention in the last part is that in The Final Hours of Portal 2 eBook on Steam, the developers said that the reason behind the 50,000 year time skip was because they wanted to separate Portal 2 from the events of the Half Life universe. I personally think connecting the two universes could be pretty epic, so I don't understand why they're so against it. 

Here’s the quotes from the eBook:

So, apparently they have giant laser beam generators somewhere and they just portal those lasers over to each test chamber, for some reason. That's Aperture for ya, lol.

This test chamber is actually another one from Portal 1. When you walk in, GLaDOS moves the old High Energy Pellet Launcher out of the room and replaces it with a Thermal Discouragement Beam (a laser). She replaces the receptacle too.

[from Portal 1]

GLaDOS gets her first dose of that solution euphoria as you solve the first test, and she suddenly sounds more laid back. She tells you to pace yourself because she needs to keep you busy while she fixes up the facility and figures out how to replace you with less dangerous test subjects. She doesn't want to keep you around too long because you might try to escape the testing track and kill her again.

She definitely sounds more relaxed now, her initial rage wearing off as she becomes more comfortable in running the facility and being in control again. Also, apparently she was planning to replace the High Energy Pellets with Lasers back in Portal 1.

GLaDOS is still trying to corral all these panels back into line. They even appear to have little hints of personality to them, some of them spinning around playfully, and they all have round circular lights that seem to indicate an AI core. In fact, a lot of things around Aperture seem to have AI cores. It's even mentioned by GLaDOS in CO-OP that she made Atlas and P-Body out of cores she took out of scientific calculators, so apparently Aperture just puts AI cores in everything. I'll point some of them out as we go along. It'll be like a game of 'spot the AI core'!

This also ties into another thing I wanna comment on. I’ve seen people theorize about the panels and other things in the facility being like a part of GLaDOS’s body that she can feel through, and I disagree. Throughout several chambers, you can see these panels goofing off and acting as if they have a mind of their own. I think it’s only her chassis that acts as her body, and while she IS hooked up to the rest of the facility through wires, I don’t think stuff like panels being broken actually ‘hurts’ her. Let me put it this way: Her body is her chassis, and all the things in the facility connected to her chassis are like tools she’s holding. It’s like a million arms she has spread out across the facility, holding tools. So if you break one of those tools, it doesn’t hurt her, it’s just taking that tool away from her or ripping it out of her hands.

Now, she's moved past telling you how much you made her suffer and trying to make you feel sorry for her, and has moved on to try taking hits at your self-esteem and trying to make you feel guilty for it.

This elevator room looks much better since GLaDOS is fixing up the facility. There's less broken screens and you can see a much clearer view of their weird portaling laser thing, lol.

GLaDOS fixes up another test chamber just as you walk into it. She can barely keep up with you with how fast you're solving them.

And naturally, she takes another shot at your self-esteem. She doesn't actually think you are fat, she's just trying to get under your skin and upset you, because she knows that ‘weight variances’ can upset humans. She even says so in CO-OP:

"Did you know humans frown on weight variances? If you want to upset a human, just say their weight variance is above or below the norm."

She actually has protocols on how to mess with test subjects psychologically that involve taking shots at their self esteem to keep them compliant. Notice she is following the protocols listed for "orphans" when it comes to Chell. 

"Shame-based psychology." "Opportune moments to obliterate [self-]esteem." "Scorn [and] flattery used in an ironic context and naked contempt." “You’d perform this test better if you had parents.”

This is from an interactive website ApertureScience[.]com that was run by the developers before Portal 2's release. [ half-life.fandom[.]com/wiki/ApertureScience[.]com ]

She can still barely keep up with you since she's multitasking — trying to rebuild herself and the facility, as well as keep you at bay in test chambers. Once again, she tells you to slow down.

Another attempt to taunt you and lower your self-esteem.

She's still barely keeping up with you to clear your path in time and have the chambers ready.

Now she's just being petty and trying to make you feel discouraged and depressed.

Once again, she's trying to guilt-trip you by saying how she has to do all the work around here while you get to have fun with the test chambers. This is always something she's bitter about — how she does all this work and no one gives her any credit for it. Obviously, it's because she terrorizes people, but she doesn't realize that. She thinks she should be treated with intense respect, regardless.

An interesting thing to mention about the "wing of glass" she mentions here is that there is actually a deleted Cave Johnson line where he mentions building a wing of glass.

"Now, the lab boys were adamant that I do not give you any hints on these tests. To be honest, they think I'm spoiling the results just by talking to you. Hizenstein Uncertainty Principles and so forth. I’ll give ‘em something more practical to be uncertain about: their next paycheck. Anyway, overruled. If you think I'm affecting your decisions, in any way, don’t be afraid to speak up. I’m not made of glass. That reminds me: Caroline, do we have a wing made out of glass yet? Let's get on that, Caroline."

I think that makes it that much more hilarious that Caroline is now here in AI form, cleaning up his mess years later. XD

[ tcrf[.]net/Portal_2_(Windows,_Mac_OS_X,_Linux)/Unused_Lines ]

She's still trying to keep up with you and move the panels out of your way in time. She's slowly but surely catching up.

She's still taking shots at your self-esteem, and she couldn’t even bear to be subtle about it, so she literally explains the insult just to make sure you got the metaphor.

And she’s still trying to make you feel guilty for killing her.

The Companion Cubes were created to test how test subjects could gain an emotional attachment to an inanimate object. At the end of the Companion Cube chamber in the first Portal, you were forced to "betray" your inanimate "friend" by incinerating it. So, here GLaDOS tries to get under your skin by destroying the cube multiple times and calling it worthless, implying that you don't deserve friends and that any friendship you thought you had in any Companion Cube is worthless.

Also, a neat little detail: if you listen closely, the Companion Cube plays the tune of "Cara Mia."

She's still having trouble fixing up the facility, but she's getting there. She's been working on fixing the nuclear reactor core, which was nearing meltdown back at the beginning of the game, as mentioned by the Announcer in the Relaxation Center. The reactor core splits atoms to boil water into steam, and that steam turns the turbines, which are what power the generator to create electricity, which is why you see the lights flicker when the turbines start giving her trouble. The turbine's fan blades are likely heavily corroded, rusted, or gunked up after all this time, so she has to leave to attend to that. She manages to find a quick way to taunt you by pretending to give you a sped-up hint that she knows is beyond a human's hearing comprehension — just another way to flaunt her superiority as a supercomputer to you.

What she actually says is a quote from the very first paragraph of Moby Dick:

"And methodically knocking people's hats off. Then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can."

This could be a subtle fat joke because whale = fat. But Moby Dick is also a tale about a man's obsession with revenge against a whale who bit off his leg, and GLaDOS is clearly obsessed with revenge, so I wouldn't be surprised if this was a favorite book of hers that she decided to quote from. Also, if you look at the context of this line in the paragraph it comes from, it's talking about this guy saying that when he gets angry enough to "knock people's hats off," he knows he has to get to sea and hunt that whale to vent that rage.

GLaDOS isn't there to comment when you beat this test because she's busy fixing the turbines, which ends Chapter 2, and also Part 2 of this Liveplay! I really hope you're enjoying it! :D