#cunninglydisguisedkeybearer

[stirringwinds]

headcanon: it varies, but generally the nations think of themselves as human. human dreams, ideals, stories, and worldviews, they’re certainly more human than not

yes that’s what i think too. i’ve gone into a lot of Discourse about the dirt children being inhuman and even kind of eerie at times with their immortality, but at the core of it, humans made them in their image. they’re not detached or above the feelings and politics of their people. they feel all those emotions and passions at a heightened level, in fact. they’re not human but also more human than ever. and; even their immortality is conditional isn’t it? not eternal life. they are born, they live, and they all die too. someday. they just don’t know if it’ll be 80 or 800 years. 

[storylocke]

stray concepts

Initially inspired from this “episode” of Voice Thoughts from very early in the series but for some reason I got struck by the idea again over the weekend. It’d probably work out much better as an original concept if I flesh it out fully, but I was talking to @cunninglydisguisedkeybearer and thought I’d share the gist of it. 

Anyway, I know the concept of the "build your own child" trope has basically been done to death, but I'm still amused. Its like some alternate reality where robots have gotten so advanced, they're basically people and can be made for all kinds of services, potentially even age, not sure on that yet. Yadda yadda you know.

But its funny cause (currently) the main plot unfolding is with the Quinnel / Descartes family where we have three particular bots at the heart of all this. 

1) Napoleon, an older model meant to be like a general care giver... Hilariously not very "caring" himself because as an older model he doesn't /quite/ have the emotions thing down. Although, even if he doesn't feel things the way people do, he's good to understand many of them to know what needs to be done. For example, Mistress Johanna gets upset when something breaks, but he doesn't need to be told to fix it, he sees she's upset and goes to see why. Not sure on the "if they can age" thing because he'd have grown up in his role if he did and if not, then he does still look like an older version of his fellow unit. Even as an older model, I don't see him being much older than Pepe in reality. Definitely old enough to drive either way because he's also the chauffeur ( as well as house cleaner, cook, general assistant)

2) We have Pepe, his younger, livelier companion, who's basically just meant for entertainment: Sings, dances, tells jokes, memorizes entire books he can quote from or read to you, list goes on. And naturally, seems much more human-like than his senior often asking questions and trying to get him to understand feelings since he claims to have them himself. Leo greatly doubts this and firmly believes such "feelings" probably comes from too much poetry XD

They both stay pretty busy though, since the mistress seems to be some wealthy something or other. Loves to travel and have company and I get the feeling even in this verse these units aren't really the norm. Some celebrity trend that seems to be going around if you happen to have some 3mill+ bucks to spend for all your needs

They're both fully aware and content with this though. And Pepe even likes to joke about "how would I know? I'm just the entertainment XD" when not helping the Helper over here. Which brings us to number 3

3) Richard Is by far the youngest of the trio. If they don’t age, it might seem weird that someone might want a model of a boy, but Gracie actually is a celebrity of sorts so she has all the assistance and security she could hope for. Johanna got into the trend first, obviously, and Grace was more fascinated by the thought of a personal companion than an aid. While the little one is programmed to do lots of things, D's mostly just meant to be a companion since she doesn't have a spouse or kids of her own. Which being the most advanced he has a distinct intelligence and knack for learning. Not that he begrudges his “mother” for it, and he does like to help around the house or when traveling, meeting and showing off to her friends, but also kind of reaching that age of "what's the point?" Not in a negative way, but genuinely wants to know his purpose since he doesn’t seem to have everything together like his "cousins" seem to whenever he talks to them during visits (Leo will claim that Pepe is an overheated mess don't ever think he "has it together") 

But really, they all have their short comings, like Leo will admit he doesn't have the memory banks his younger partner does and has to either retain information for key words or even often has to delete things for room and hope it was just minor, unimportant details. Also being older tends to break easier. Not often, but even he gets "sick" sometimes |D

Pepe, much as he jokes about it, honestly doesn't know how to do a lot of things since he never has to do anything he's not supposed to. There was a scene to play out with them driving and Pep was drumming on the dashboard and Leo be like "Do you mind? -w-" 

which Pepe be like "fiiiine can you turn on the radio at least? -w-"  "Nothing is stopping you from doing it yourself."  "-STAAAAAAARES AT IT- Uh...... I get to? o.o"  "....I forget, you never sit in the passenger's seat. -clicks-"  "Yeah... Its kind of weird not having Mom with us for once...>.>"

Which the reason they were out anyway was because bitty unit either got a special message from his creator (and to all units of his series) to come see them, or he may have just left of his own for a little "soul searching" and heard the creator was in the area and be like "maybe he can tell me what's wrong with me lately." Naturally his "mom" is very upset by his sudden disappearance and her sis was either already visiting or went to see her soon as she heard and the other two were trying to stay out of the way while the women tried to explain to the police this very special bot might have been stolen in the night (as him just leaving without warning seems impossible) And its kind of sweet because the bots kind of start arguing because Pepe is like "we should go after him..." While Leo is just like "there's no reason for us to leave. It would only make things worse -w-"

And finally it came to Pepe going "look at them. -physically turns bro's head to the room- Stop thinking over the semantics and tell me what's the first thing to come to mind >/"  "........ .... -whirs a little like a sigh- That Mistress is upset because she has lost something." "And?" "And it is troublesome I do not know how to immediately fix this other than to find what is lost. It would make her happy-"  "Exactly-!" "-cuts in somewhat sharply- But she would only be more upset to lose us as well. This is a not a case for one of your stories." "Theeeen... We talk to her? If she gives us permission, then she couldn't be upset. She knows where we are 83"

Which... Point. Talks are had, preparations made, much fussing over her boys to be careful and stay together, and loans Leo one of the cars. 

(Though now I crack up at the image when Pepe was probably new and made Johanna cry over a play or novel or something and got berated out of no where because HOW DARE YOU >O)

It was funny that while they were having the deep discussion in the car (as well as Pepe starting to wonder a little too late if the mistress will be okay without them to do everything for her, Leo would like to remind him  she did plenty before they came and often does things just fine when he's under maintenance... Even if she's always glad to get him back. She'll be fine) meanwhile the sisters are having a similar conversation all "but what if they get__? Or Leo breaks down? Or Pep gets lost? Or..." "They'll be fine lets just worry about your own for now |D;;" "How can you be so calm??? D8"

Richard eventually comes across Serena bot saying she was on her way to meet their maker as well and probably teams up to travel or something. I'm not sure what would come of meeting his maker, though going with the runs, it’s very likely Lysandre. Could be a recall in the works, could be raising an army, who knows

Meanwhile the other two were on their way to an expert (and probably the "doctor" they usually see when things go wrong anyway so familiarity for a good starting point) who Leo hopes might know something about the newer series to help them as well as maybe install a sort of tracker in each of them so they can always tell where the other is in case they get separated. Pearl is actually a human friend of theirs that’s possibly wanting to be an expert himself or works with the doc. Either way, he’s too antsy to stay home and finding out they’re off on “some kind of adventure” is insistent to go with them. I’m not sure if he goes with them initially or they run into him farther down the road and realize if they don’t take him with them, he’ll just go anyway, so it’d be safer to stay together. (Besides, he can always help patch them up, as he probably brought up the first time in trying to convince them he should come.) Once they get to the real doc though (Rowan, maybe, if we wanted to be nice?) he does have some supplies for them, including the trackers, but would do them one better and figure a way for them to track their cousin as well, though finding D is still gonna be no easy deal since he's actively on the move. Probably the secondary tracker would have to go to the Pepe just because, again, Leo is having to drop memory space for his own as is |D;;

The tracker part does fine at least, get them on the right trail. Bit of a road trip of discovery of their own (hey, family bonding time XD) but that...  Brings some adventures of its own. For how it keeps coming up, I'm sure Leo’s memory thing is gonna wreck my heart when either something goes wrong or he tells something big to Pepe so it won't be lost when he has to give up something important. Also if vaguely following Run stuffs, might be the in-verse reason behind his inevitable coma / time lapse. On the upside, he does get to pick and choose what he deletes at least, so its usually kind of like having notes everywhere and tossing out the grocery list when you get home. And sometimes Mistress will go over things with him like "would you like to save these___?"

Though in a large shift like with installing the tracker, that requires like actually going into the programs control option on your computer and clearing out stuff that hasn't been used for a while. Troublesome though because you know that just because something hasn't been used for a while doesn't make it "unimportant" It that does make me laugh to think of him getting home and being like "Dusting.... -curiously twirls duster in hand- Hmm.  Um.... Mistress, may I ask something? |D" and her probably brushing it off because they'll work on that later. Not THAT important! It was minor at the time, promise!

But that's also a slippery slope for wondering if he'd come back with a whole new skill set because how much they had to learn on the way XD

On the upside, he does still have a ton of memory, so it wouldn't even show as a problem for the longest time, just things like that quip earlier of "oh, right, I forget you hav never done this." But we also have to note he's the general house servant. He's got like hundreds of recipes and cool cleaning tips he can dump before anything big comes up XD

...Either that or he passes them to Pepe so he can read them back to him at a later time. Which just brings up the humor of much later Pepe being at a party  all like "Fun fact! Did you know the song Yesterday was originally going to titled Scrambled Eggs? Speaking of, I know a cool trick for eggs" and everyone expects a trick... But he just reads off the recipe (Mistress may need to do some manual clean up with the little one when they get back. He doesn't know how to forget things since memorization is his specialty XD)

But, uh... I guess that’s everything for now. Like I said, there’s a lot to be fleshed out if it goes anywhere, but I’m rather amused by the concept. ^w^

[prokopetz]

Which tabletop RPG that you’ve played has had you rolling the most dice on a regular basis? - sincerely, a person who loves throwing around lots of dice

Depends on how you define “regular”.

Exalted, particularly the 2nd Edition, can spike pretty high for big attacks, potentially rolling up to 30 ten-siders in one go for a starting character. You can’t bust those out very often, though. Tenra Bansho Zero‘s dice pool sizes spike even higher - I’ve seen a player bounce over a hundred dice at once, but you can do that maybe once per session, with a correctly built character.

In terms of the size of regular dice pools (i.e., the sort of thing you could expect to see on every roll), I want to say Shadowrun 4th Edition, or maybe some of the West End Games stuff clocks in the heaviest I’ve ever actually played. Possibly Dogs in the Vineyard as a corner case; your regular dice pools can be huge, but you only actually roll that pool once per conflict, in order to establish your resources for the subsequent betting minigame.

[crtter]

WAIT NO I HAVE A BETTER ONE ‘60s -kun iyami, ‘80s -kun iyami, -san iyami

!!!! Omg… Now this one’s harder…

Ok so having any incarnation of Iyami as my employee trainer is probably the worst choice of the three since positions of power tend to get to his head. For this one I think I’d choose… 60s Iyami. Not that he’s exactly nicer, but I think he’d be a tiny bit more chill than the other ones.

Now, I feel like both -san and 80s Iyami would be equally lousy as lab partners and leave most of the work for me to do and the downsides to be stuck in an elevator with either of them would be pretty similar. With that in mind, I think I’d choose… -san Iyami as my lab partner and 80s Iyami to be stuck with, if only because between having to listen to Japan’s answer to Gilbert Gottfried and Nasal Boy complaining for ten hours straight, I feel like the second option would be a little easier on my ears.

Revised FMK meme!

[madeofmobsandmissingno]

looking back on it, they did overreact - a lot - they're still not sure what to make of drive - they're quiet. tend to keep to themselves. don't do much - but their sibs (especially the younger set) have latched on to them - and they don't seem to be doing it entirely out of spite - sometimes amber thinks that it'd be nice to have someone to talk to who isn't constantly setting things on fire - and sure, drive is a horrible abomination - but so are the voices, and they're not going anywhere

1) I feel like Drive has this weird two-ness about their existence, that like yeah, they have a bunch of memories about what they did previously, but it all feels like it happened to an entirely different individual who does not have any of the same motivations, and honestly they’re trying to move past that

2) But at the same time they haven’t developed any new characteristics besides being quiet and wanting to occasionally destroy a landmass? It’s difficult being drive right now

3) Honestly a little doctor-esque yeah? Maybe a reach but you get it

4) Amber feels like that about literally everything that’s not them (both in terms of setting things on fire and being horrible abominations) (but then they’re made from the ground-together ashes of their immediate forbears, so who is Amber to judge???

[rtgame]

:respectful nod:

not sure what the context is behind this but [respectful nod] 

[curestardust]

ooh! could you gif the spiral heart splash star please?

:o of course! i’m always happy to see splash star requests :3

[threefourthstime]

lab partner/elevator/trainer: red, abe, evan

lab partner: abe because i feel like he’d actually, like, do the lab

elevator: evan, hopefully from a good timeline. i think he’d have good memes at least

mcdonalds trainer: red because i’m not entirely sure my fast food trainers irl didn’t kill a man

[tomblr-in-action]

personal least favourite tumblr canard: 'white people have no culture.' it's less common than it used to be, i think, but /holy shit/ do you think apple pie and little league are coded into the human genome and all other cultures had to be developed off 21st century white american culture? do you not realise how racist you're being?

I hate that sort of thing to. Like... do you think “Americans” don’t have culture? Do you think Europeans don’t have culture? Everyone has culture! It’s just harder to understand that your OWN culture is culture because to you, it’s just what you’ve lived.

[prezaki]

h, o, t, u, x

H - What is your favorite source text for fandom stuff (e.g., TV shows, movies, books, anime, Western animation, etc.)?

Hrm, difficult. What I consume the most is anime, but the easiest to fandom for is manga to me. Anime are something I watch casually, but when I start reading the manga as well is when stuff gets serious, I suppose.

But yeah, overall I’m a weeb. Books are harder for me to actually get into fandoms for and with movies I always feel like there isn’t enough material.

O - Choose a song at random. Which ship or character does it remind you of?

I clicked a random song Youtube recommend so I wound up with Childhood Blues by Gumi. The first ship this makes me think of is Berry and Tasuku from Tokyo Mew Mew, though I guess Tasuku would be the girl and Berry the boy if anything, haha.

T - Do you have any hard and fast headcanons that you will die defending?

OKAY FOR TPP... I will never give up on Anniversary Red being set in Virtual Kanto. I know it’s not the most popular HC in the bigger part of the fandom on Reddit, but I don’t think any TPP climax got me as much as this one with this specific version of lore. (Okay, Emerald was pretty intense too thanks to... thinking the world will literally end, but.)

For other fandoms... yeah I got a few, but I can’t really think of anything from the top of my head right now other than SHU KURENAI IS GAY, uh.

U - Three favorite characters from three different fandoms, and why they’re your favorites.

Daina Kurogami from Beyblade Burst - A GOOD KID. He has such relatable amounts of pressure he puts onto himself but he grows so much as he learns to cope with them. ALSO A GOOD CONSIDERATE FRIEND...

Isuke Inukai from Akuma no Riddle - I love confident girls who could step on you, especially if they have a tragic backstory. 

Londo Mollari from Babylon 5 - there is something endearing about one man just consistently fucking up his life and whole franchise....

Y - What are your secondhand fandoms (i.e., fandoms you aren’t in personally but are tangentially familiar with because your friends/people on your dash are in them)?

I feel as if I’ve seen Yuri on Ice because it was on my dash so much, haha. Osomatsu-san is similar :| 

[childhoodgod]

New blog congrats!

thank u mitzi!!! ily

[origamihoshi]

happy birthday 🎉

Thank you~

[cawwriting]

The Aftermath

(Commisioned by @cunninglydisguisedkeybearer thank you!))

The sun was rising over the horizon, purples and blues stuck out against a white background of sky just like the purple and blue bruises that exposed themselves along the white skin of the sea of dead clones, the color that stood out the most though was red. Usually red was a color of passion, but here it was a color of despair- the color of blood- the color that surrounded the four boys as they looked around their home. As if it could not be worse they were all filled with the deep stress of dread and despair, they had committed murder before but also before their actions had never held any consequence, the bodies and or evidence of their destruction always seem to disappear by the next morning.

Currently Tord, Tom, Edd, and Matt stood in the center of their living room with a shared expression of shock and a mutual feeling of panic.Matt spoke up first as he knelt down next to one of his own dead clones, he brushed his fingers along it’s jawline and then sighed. “So...beautiful to die so young.” He whispered which in turn earned him a harsh smack to the back of his head by Tom who seemed the most calm out of the four. “We need to get rid of these before they start to smell, what about the director guy? This is his fault right? He should have to deal with the bodies not us!” His voice began to raise at the end of his statement showing just how panicked he was.

Tord looked around for a few minutes before he finally decided to speak up, he seemed unsure of each word and movement he made, slowly taking steps toward their blood splattered front door. “I- am outta here, goodbye frie- oof” He was interrupted though, backing up into edd who had been suspiciously silent this entire time. “You aren't going anywhere Tord, you are going to help us.” His voice was off, something was wrong and he seemed deeply disturbed, locking the front door to keep Tord from leaving and then moving towards the opposite wall to stand near Tom.

Tord then moved away from Edd, tripping over a body and falling back toward matt who instead of catching him let him fall over the table. Tom laughed but it was short lived, who could even be genuinely happy at a time like this. Edd then picked up a clone, throwing it over his shoulder and then moving toward the back sliding door with little to no ‘pep in his step’. “Come on guys, grab a body and get to the back we have some digging to do.” His voice was still just so unsettling, how badly had this experience affected edd? His voice to just be precise was shaky and quiet, his eyes wandered and his face stayed blank. His movements were smooth and choppy at the same tie as if he were a robot that had been over oiled but the truth of the matter was is he was probably suffering from some kind of shock.

Eventually the other men in  the house one by one began picking up bodies and lugging them outside, it was tough, absolutely grueling work, but none dared disobey Edd no one was quite sure what he was capable of at this moment. Tord seemed the most hesitant surprisingly, he did not want to touch the bodies he so mercilessly and easily killed. Matt was trying not to think about the blood which was now coating his clothing and skin and Tom made it very known through his constant complaining that he did not enjoy this one bit. Each body that was moved outside was another grave they needed to dig in their backyard, how would they ever find the room to make such a graveyard?

After about four hours of absolutely horrid work all of the rotting bodies were finally pulled from the foul smelling house to the outdoors, where things looked as if they would get worse very soon. Dark rumblings of distant storm clouds pooled up in the distance ready to drop down on the boys at any waiting moment, the smell of rain wafted some of the rotting scent away which would aid in remaining undiscovered, but it also put them on a time limit. They needed to finish before the rain would hit them otherwise the bodies would become heavy and bloated, much too so to finish the job.

Matt leaned against their fence, his back to the wooden posts, he was exhausted and covered in blood that was now coagulating and drying, it was all pretty much a disaster for him. He couldn’t stand doing this ‘peasant’s work’ any longer, and so he went into the house to take a shower, though he was stopped by someone grabbing the back of his jacket with a white knuckled hand. “You are going to help us fix this, you helped us kill now help us hide the bodies!” It was Edd, tears in his eyes as he pulled Matt away from the door and locked it as well. It was then that the four got to work digging, the plan was to make their entire backyard a mass grave. Six feet deep, sixteen feet wide, thirty feet long. Their backyard was small but it would have to do. Where else would they do this? The front yard?

Once they had buried all of the bodies they were wet from the rain, tired from working, stressed from the trauma, and sick from all the blood. Once Edd unlocked the door all the boys rushed inside and instantly began fighting over who got to use the two showers in the house first. Consequently Tom and Matt won that argument and were the first to hit the showers, this left tord and edd alone to clean the downstairs mess. It all smelled so putridly though that it was hard for either of them to get much accomplished.

In the end, the bodies were hidden and since there were no records to indicate they existed in the first place they were never even searched for. Edd returned back to his normal, happy, cola drinking self and everything went back to how it usually was, no one dared talk about the massacre of the clones ever again.

[prokopetz]

Do you know any TTRPG system where you can play as an organisation/conspiracy/corporation or something like that?

(followup to previous) Like, not as the head of the organisation. As the organisation itself.

You’ve to a couple of major options that I’m aware of

Nobilis - Player characters are gods of various reality-defining principles, fighting a cold war against sparkly goths from beyond space and time over the universe’s right to exist. Being an organisation isn’t an explicit character option, but being as it’s possible to play as an abstract concept, an organisation isn’t much of a stretch. It’s no good for low-powered games, though; a typical starting character is able to perform miracles that affect the entire observable universe.

Sufficiently Advanced - A transhuman sci-fi game with a very high cap on what a valid starting character’s capabilities can look like. It’s admittedly more common to use the Infrastructure scale to play, like, a sapient city or a starship’s AI, but there’s no actual rule against being some sort of multiform hive mind instead. Player characters are limited to the lower end of the Infrastructure scale, so you’ll have to be content with “only” consisting of several thousand people.

Those are both pretty gonzo, though. If you’re looking for something more along the lines of a low-key conspiracy game where you play as the conspiracy (as opposed to a high-ranking member thereof), I’m afraid you won’t find much in the way of tabletop RPGs - that’s really a more popular premise in board or card games. Might I suggest Illuminati? The latest edition isn’t out yet, but you can download a free playtest deck in PDF form from the linked site.

[crtter]

if the dub doesn't give iyami an over-the-top obviously fake french accent what is even the point

Oh God that’s all I ask from them. If nothing else, then please give Iyami the most ridiculous exaggerated cartoon French waiter accent ever. I wouldn’t even care if they changed his laugh to “hon hon hon”

[madeofmobsandmissingno]

if it hadn't been for some grade-a first class voices-brand bullshit the tppverse would likely be gone - but the day was saved - amber's not too clear on the details, they were kind of dead at the time - and when amber and the living reality that is the truest self of the fossil gods dove to the deepest layers of reality to destroy OLDEN - and they broke it into its component parts - while the-world-as-a-whole was burning away the glitches - and amber's conduit was pulling the host away

1) When would you say these two events - “thwarting OLDEN plans” and “destroying OLDEN” occurred? Cause in my mind they haven’t happened yet, or is this a not-streamed event for you?

2) the-world-as-a-whole is an excellent name for the pantheon, I will also accept “that-which-is-and-shows-the-way” and “terrible spinal pain”

3) amber’s conduit? also which host?