#episode tag: Interface

[star-trek-fandom-confessions]

#617

I kinda wish the TNG episode Interface had concluded with Silva La Forge and the crew of the Hera revealed to be alive. I didn’t mind the actual conclusion of the episode (that aliens from the planet were communicating with Geordi to help them) but I would’ve preferred the other scenario. I also wish that at some point, either in the remainder of TNG or in Picard that we’d gotten a definitive answer as to what happened to the Hera. Even if the ship had been confirmed destroyed and the crew killed, I would have liked that better than the ship just having gone missing and its disappearance never solved.

[intersex-anthology]

Closing post

This is the final post in my little Intersex Tumblr compilation blog, but I hope you continue to engage with Intersex Tumblr! 💛💜💛 The #actually intersex tag is probably the most newbie-friendly tag for folks to follow! (Beware: the main #intersex tag is routinely spammed with porn and terfs).  I’d also like to highlight the following Tumblrs for more stories about intersex experience:

@intersex-culture-is @intersex-confessions @the-intersex-experience

Also, @our-queer-experience has a bunch tagged with intersex, and you can read it here.

You may also want to have a look through the archives of @intersex-suppport, especially for any posts regarding the specific variation(s) that you think you might have!

To reduce overlap I intentionally tried not to reblog too much from those tumblrs, and focused instead on reblogging content from individual, personal blogs.

I’d like to thank everybody whose posts I reblogged here. Sharing your experiences publicly is important and reading posts like the ones I included here made a big difference for me when I was deciding if intersex was a label that made sense for me. 💛💜💛

For even more intersex experiences, I recommend:

Inter_view: an intersex podcast (7 one-hour episodes)

The Interface Project (21 profiles, each has a brief bio accompanied with a short video)

#MyIntersexStory (57-page brochure by OII Europe)

Intersex: Stories and Statistics from Australia (274-page report by IHRA)

The I in Us: intersex radio show (has LOTS of episodes)

If you’re questioning your intersex status, I echo others in this anthology that getting involved in the community is really beneficial. I personally found it made a big difference for me.

In addition to the links provided in the previous post by intersex-support, you can find intersex organizations via:

Intersex Wiki: Intersex organizations

Intersexions Project Map

 💛💜💛

[sihedwu]

Crystal Theory: The Binding, The One, and Everything

Alright everyone, the time has finally come to step onto the slippery slope and delve into the depths of uncertainty and various interpretations. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Today we’re gonna break down the Crystals and everything connected to them. We’ll even talk about the Medulla Crystal, by the way.

Crawling through the tag, I see you guys like to tell each other scary stories, like the Medulla Crystal is made of - get this! - actual BRAIN. Talk about nightmare fuel! >:D

Also, while lurking on a foreign website, I stumbled upon a really interesting take that the Aerrow and Piper duo were destined to be, like, the messiahs in our favorite show (hey there, I know you’re reading this >:D).

But to me, there’s something missing in all of this, like we’re seeing everything but still missing something super important. And now we’re gonna try to figure out what exactly that important thing could have eluded us. Let’s go.

Review of Hints

So, if you’ve been paying attention to the show, you’re probably aware of all the basics, such as, for example, that crystals can possibly be manufactured (episode “The Masked Masher”). But that’s not enough, we need new information. Let’s try to extract it from the hints that Mr. Asaph Fipke so kindly provided us. Let’s review them.

Our first stop is the episode “The Black Gorge”. Let’s remember the plot: our heroes decided to fly over the Black Gorge, but “something” sucked the energy out of their crystals and they fell down. But Piper found a solution:

She launched the Condor using this crystal, since the Black Gorge doesn’t affect it for some reason. Let’s remember this, it’ll come in handy.

Our next stop is the episode “Storm Warning”. Again, let’s remember the plot: the heroes stole a box of Leech Crystals, which steal energy, from the Cyclonians, and they discharged the Condor’s crystals. However, Piper again saved the situation by telling Stork to get rid of the crystals.

As we can see, as soon as Stork put the crystals in the isolator, the energy miraculously fully restored, and the Condor was able to take off. Let’s remember this and move on.

Our next stop is in the episode “The Lesson”. Let’s carefully watch what Arygyn will do now:

Let’s not get stuck on it, let’s remember it and move on.

Now let’s take a closer look at the episode “Five Days”. This time, there’s not much to comment on, it’s enough just to see it once:

Someone sees a glimmer of kindness in our beloved Master Cyclonis in this scene, while others quite reasonably ask: “who made that picture?” For us, it’s important that a photo can be stored in a crystal. Let’s remember this.

Our last stop is in the episode “The Key”. In this episode, we are introduced to the Binding.

We won’t dwell on them too much, just note that the abilities transferred through them are very reminiscent of the properties of some crystals. Let’s remember this and move on to the next step.

Fundamental Principle of How Crystals Work

So, let’s write down what we learned:

The Black Gorge somehow absorbs the energy of crystals, but does not affect the Solaris Crystal

If you drain the energy from crystals, and then remove the absorber, the energy of the crystals is immediately restored

Arygyn can turn off a crystal

Photos can be stored in crystals

Some abilities transmitted through Binding resemble the abilities of crystals

The inputs have been received. Now we can try to interpret them. I propose to do this with the following three postulates:

Postulate One: Information Can Be Stored in Crystals

This postulate is probably obvious, but its significance is far from obvious. For now, let’s focus on the fact that, in addition to photos, it should be possible to store, for example, a control program for a Suit of Untold Vengeance in a crystal.

Judging by the fact that the Medulla Crystal affects the user, we can assume that it is controlled using a neuro-interface, and the Medulla Crystal acts as a kind of “intermediary.” But that’s not important to us. Let’s move on to the next postulate:

Postulate Two: All Crystals, Without Exception, are Energy Receivers

Even the Solaris Crystal. It may sound crazy, but this assumption is fully consistent with what we see. If crystals receive energy from somewhere outside, then the miraculous restoration of energy after Stork hid the box in the isolator requires no explanation, and turning off in the Black Gorge can be compared to losing signal on a cell phone when you are outside the coverage area. However, the Solaris Crystal is still incomprehensible, as is the scene with Arygyn, so let’s move on to the final postulate:

Postulate Three: Binding is a Channel Through Which Crystals Receive Energy

So, the last postulate is quite straightforward. The scene with Arygyn should now become a little clearer, but the Solaris Crystal still requires explanation. Apparently, crystals are constantly and continuously in Binding, otherwise they would have turned off in the Black Gorge once and for all, as Arygyn seems to have done. However, in this case, we will have to assume that the analogy with cellular communication is not entirely correct, and in the “poor coverage area” the Binding simply weaken, but do not disappear completely. Weakening, they cannot provide the Condor’s take-off and the operation of the main systems, but are still able to maintain the Solaris Crystal in working order. The function of the Solaris Crystal is to accumulate solar energy; to store it, it uses the energy received from Binding. Most likely, there is not enough energy in one crystal to lift the Condor into the air, so the following explanation suggests itself: with the help of the energy accumulated by the Solaris Crystal, you can “strengthen” the weakened Binding. Apparently, this is exactly what Piper meant; in any case, this seems like a plausible explanation.

Binding and Information

According to the third postulate, this technique should be perceived as a temporary transformation of the user into a crystal. How exactly such a transformation occurs, I, unfortunately or fortunately, do not want to and will not explain, so let’s immediately move on to “unique” crystals, for example, this one:

According to the first postulate, to make this artifact, we need to record a “spell” - let’s call it that so as not to drown in the wilderness - of transforming an object into cheese in the crystal. This example is indicative, but other “unusual” crystals work in a similar way. We won’t dwell on them, let’s move on to the next point.

Source of energy

So, we assumed that crystals receive energy from somewhere outside. This entails the assumption that somewhere on Atmos there must be a source of energy for all crystals without exception. Drawing an analogy with cellular communication and, in principle, with radio waves, it is quite logical to assume that the source of all crystalline energy should resemble the TV towers and antennas familiar to us. Following this logic, the purpose of this structure becomes quite transparent:

Somewhere at this moment, an image of an incredibly advanced civilization may arise in your head, possibly reaching or very close to type 1 on the Kardashev scale, which built this transmitter to meet its energy needs. However, despite the fact that this conclusion seems logical, there are no explicit indications in the canon that this is the source of energy. With the same probability, it may be, for example, the core of the planet, and then the image of an incredibly advanced civilization will have to be seriously revised, and the purpose of this structure will remain a mystery. But whatever the source turns out to be in the end, our assumption leads us to a problem that we will now try to solve.

The One

In the episode “Origins”, this character claims that Piper is “the One”. The meaning of his words remains very, very vague to this day, but now we can try to assume what is behind them. First, you should ask an important question: since we assume that all crystalline energy is transmitted through Binding, then why are crystals needed at all on Atmos? You can just train “crystal mages” who will use Binding with the energy source, and no one will know grief. And so it turns out that this statement fits very conveniently into the picture of the world that we have just outlined. Thanks to it, we can assume that not just anyone is able to use Binding directly with the energy source, which is why they need crystals in order to be able to use this energy at all. Thus, I propose the following interpretation of these words: Piper is the primary crystal mage, that is, able to use Binding directly with the energy source. Master Cyclonis, in this case, will be a secondary crystal mage, that is, able to use Binding with crystals already connected to the source, but not directly to it. I believe this explanation is exhaustive, so we can move on to the final part of this analysis.

Piper’s Illness

Well, the moment has come to try to jump above our heads and stretch the facts to make our interpretations work on Atmos. Based on the third postulate, her illness can be explained as follows: Binding themselves are harmful to health, and their constant use will inevitably lead the user to such an outcome. However, Piper did not use Binding for 6 weeks and still got sick, and Cyclonis uses it like there’s no tomorrow and nothing happens to her from this. It is impossible to explain this just like that; we need a new entity. In order not to be completely unfounded, let’s try to derive it from these scenes:

We see that as soon as this aura covered Piper, she immediately felt better, and that Cyclonis clearly knows something that Piper doesn’t know (and doesn’t want to tell us). In order not to go beyond the third postulate, we will have to assume that secondary crystal mages, passing crystalline energy through themselves, cannot fully control it. Even after interrupting Binding, a residual charge remains in them, which, if not removed, will sooner or later bring any crystal mage to this state. Thus, I assume that Cyclonis, unlike Piper, knew that deactivation was needed to work with Binding. And in our case, Leech Crystals can act as deactivators. As for Piper’s healing, in that case we will have to assume that at this moment she used Binding directly with the energy source, thereby removing the residual charge. It sounds very doubtful, but there seems to be no better option…

So, I don’t think I’ve forgotten anything. If you’ve read this far and haven’t died of boredom, then congratulations. I do not claim to be the ultimate truth, just thoughts out loud.

Thank you all for your attention, bye.

[steamberrystudio]

28/04/2025 Devlog!

Hello everyone! Here is the tumblr update coming in a day late due to a hectic weekend and me being forgetful!

Summary Bullets:

Finished Wil's expressions for Chapter 6

Started on side character expressions

Worked on some new sprite stuff

Received the final background

Worked on POV scenes

More accessibility stuff

Art:

Not much in art news this time. I worked on some new sprite stuff for this episode and also received the *last* BG. I feel like I've been getting BGs for this game forever after having them done, then redone, then a lot of them redone again.

Writing

Worked on Asher's PoV scene that will go out with Chapter 6 but is about the events of Chapter 5.

One down...five to go.

Other Stuff:

Coding sprite expressions. Ugh.

I got all of Wil's expressions done for Chapter six and started on the side characters. My goal is to work through all the side characters since they have fewer lines than the LI and I can tick them off the list a bit faster.

Then work on the LIs.

I'm estimating there will be 2000 - 2500 expression switches in this chapter. And I've got about 1100 of them done. So. Huzzah. 

I also continued to work on some accessibility related things - mostly the way self voicing interfaces with the glossary. 

I think by my last update, I'd mostly fixed the issues with self voicing and the glossary, customisation, and affinity screens.

With the glossary, it was realising there was no signifier for the glossary hyperlinks other than the link being coloured differently. So I had to add a notification to that, which was simple enough.

But then it became an issue of finding the new entries in the glossary. So I added a "NEW!" tag to them.

But then the self voicing wouldn't read it. ╰(*°▽°*)╯

No matter what I did. ╰(*°▽°*)╯

This is why "adding alt text" sometimes isn't enough. Because sometimes for whatever reason it is, the self voicing won't read it. Or it reads it twice. Or it has some other weird issue.

So I fixed that finally. After a short struggle.

But there is still an issue where it's reading stuff in a weird order and I want to fix that *if I can* - however it's on the back burner for now so I can make progress in other areas.

Something else I did in that regard was go through and look for every hard scene transition where the narrative text and dialogue does not make it clear a transition to a new location happened...

And I added alt text that just indicates there was a scene change to a new place.

This will hopefully allow people to follow the story a bit easier if they're just listening because there won't be any sudden and silent changes to a new location.

And finally I have been going in and writing up glossary entries for all the people and places you encounter. The main purpose of this is to allow me to add in descriptive text that describes the person or place *without having to insert it into the story narrative as alt text*.

This will allow people to read the descriptions only if they want to. They can do it when they want and they can go back and re-read them if they want. I still have to go back through and add all the unlock statements since those have to be done manually but that is, again, something I will tackle later.

Upcoming Weeks:

I will be focusing on expressions and POV scenes first and then going on into flowcharts and the remaining things. So for the next two weeks at least, it'll be expressions and POV scenes.

And hopefully I will remember the update in two weeks and actually touch base again then.

[nerimaemae]

Then vs Now - Galatariel edition!

Thank you so much @lynxden for tagging me!! <3

Ok first, I can't really talk about my gal separately from my Gpose journey, so for that I'm sorry!

When I first started the game, I went straight to Miqo (it was also free trial, but never noticed the viera lol)

I stayed as this Miqo for a month only (whole March 2023). Was also my first time trying out the Gpose thing for real. God the ammount of pics I took that month.. Also, I hadn't discovered Reshade/Gshade yet!

After that 1st month of gameplay, I got my lvl 50 fantasia, gone Viera and never looked back! Those here are the exact first and second pics I took of her as a bun.

The mount pic was a lil too ambicious, it was only a month since I started gposing, barely knew anything, everything I did on Anamnesis fucked up all the poses.. and I also stared messing with Reshade.. but I also felt REALLY happy with the progress with gposing within that month!!

I even did a comparison at that time lol I was amazed bcs the first time I entered Gpose, I just wanted a gear ref pic and it was all so complicated. I accidentally hid the interface, didn't knew How to bring It back and I force closed the game /nice/

For around 6 months, I took sooo many pics! It helped me a lot with some "head issues" I deal with. Drawing has been my main hobbie since I was a kid, was in college for the same area, did a lot of freelance work, It was always good. But for years I've dealt with BD episodes, at least 3 depressive ones for year, and everytime I stopped drawing and had to get the skills back, was like this for ~8 years. Gpose helped me as a creative outlet a lot. Because it'll be around a 1 and half years that I don't draw anymore.

So yeah, my life is kinda depressed as shit and that's why I love doing those happy things \o/

When DT arrived I was like NOOooooOoo bcs those new face bones made me feel the same thing I felt the first time l opened this thing. Decided I wouldn't open It again. It didn't worked for more than a half day. Then I took that as a challenge lol and it's been REALLY fun!!!

This year, with the attention my pics got somehow, I was able to connect with so many amazing people on the community, and I loved to share any kind of knowledge and learn even more from others 🙌

Hope you all have a nice New Year's Eve and even better 2025! Luv you all ❤️

[storgicbytes]

taking this out of tags RIGHT NOW

tags by @navy-leader

this. makes me go fucking insane. continuing

im still going fucking insane about my last tags

there's NO possible way of victim not seeing something that was streamed on alans channel and respectively streamed in the outernet. its canon that avm original was streamed there. even if it wasnt every episode of avam it is still there. victim lives there and knows what outernet has (and most likely knows about oranges and cg existence. not their powers but existence from at least an avm original episode)

and given that vic learned about chosen and that he was wanted. that victim KNEW about their existence and chased after them. that he had seen something that made him realize that chosen inherently had ties with alan??

one of my thoughts is that only specific stuff is accessible to outernet in canon. maybe not even the whole content of vids. (though the avm original was sixteen minutes and in "the king" it is seen that the video streamed is also sixteen minutes) which could explain how victim only knew a small bit of stuff and didnt just see the a bit of a whole thirty minute willingly and went "well thats all i gotta know about it".

its likely victim accessed chosen(and possibly dark) videos streamed and connected the dots by recognizing alan, similar methods of torturing chosen and the interface of alans pc.

(since its canon victims torture is on youtube and possibly chosens its kinda fucked if they accessed it as well. which perhaps made them even more vengeful)

thought. was showdown something that was streamed or something that was uploaded on youtube? at least the beginning of it?? and victim knew only bits of it???. it could be possible that victim knew about chosen&dark place of living and darks technology. from just bits of information and his company couldve investigated it? but ultimately didnt find chosen nor dark there. and therefore placed a damn bounty on chosen. and they mightve used leftover darks technology there for their own shit. victim knowing about darks tech and possibly small pieces of the showdown could also be explained that he didnt seem to mind the events taken before yellow coded the cursor into the outernet when going through chosens memory. but it does make me think whether victim knew that the cg went back to the pc and therefore didnt place wanted posters of them ??? did he know about darks death and therefore didnt place wanted posters of dark?? wouldnt he try any means to find how to get to alan? is it possible that only the cursor and tscs awakening parts of the showdown video were erased and vic, again, wanted to see more to it (i had a thought that he couldve known what is up with the showdown due to having surveillance technology but im doubting it because chosen and dark lived really secludedly from the city).

but in case the showdown was somewhat seen? by other sticks? and vic couldve known about darks and chosen terror shit from other sticks/a news outlet? oh my god i just realized something

so theres a comic about me wondering how did sticks treat chosens&dark terror in the internet and possibly outernet too. that dark blasted a whole fucking beam in the sky near the stickcity and it wasnt unable to be seen. could victim see that???? could he connect the dots that it was hollowheads power??

the rocket logo. dude. i JUST THOUGHT about it yesterday. and it made so much sense to me

my possible thought was. that victim did escape alanspc through the ip/pc sky. somewhat. in one way or another. and it was the reason why a rocket was picked as the corporations logo.

a rocket is something that is able to literally fly to the sky. to access the higher parts of the world. the ip/sky part of it that had a wormhole to alan in it. the person victim chased after.

and given that rocketcorp specializes on tech. another reason to it besides victims knowledge and ability to use it before and deciding to bring it into the outernet and devote a whole company to it. a rocket is literally something that is made of technology. and since they had to chose a logo that symbolizes tech

victim chose something that represented his goal.

fucking insane about it

i basically treat it as a base for my theories that victim established/reformed a corporation that used internet technologies he himself brought into the outernet (in one way or another). but his company is widely known as a regular tech company that produces all different kinds of it. including domestic stuff like tvs and surveillance cameras and also weapons. but due to technology and digital stuff literally forming the internet and outernet itself they also act as some force in the outernet that upkeeps and protects its citizens. since theyre the only ones with that kind of power

and all these projects that cover many areas of technology that are made by them are used to cover their shady underground shit like. the box and torture and victims true goal (which i believe he could be secret about even to his mercs and colleagues)

and that the point of victim bringing internet technology there. his whole plan of revenge.

it is done in order to protect his kind from something that he experienced. giving them a mean to defend themselves. ESPECIALLY after knowing cursors of users can be manifested in the outernet and damage sticks.

and he is the kind to be ruthless about it if it means creating safety. something he lacked.

(violence and oppression cant be solved with peaceful talks kind of mentality)

im fucking INSANE about this right NOW.

also. another thought

giving the possibility that victim "fell down" from the ip/sky. him providing the internet with basically "divine power" that regular kind of outernet sticks didnt have. him trying to protect outernet sticks from danger and death.

makes the interpretation of victim with angelic/halo symbolism in the fandom so much more sense. and so fucking amazing. oh my god i NEED to make something about this idea.

tom you opened a whole different dimension to my thinking and it fills in the holes ive thought about. im going to be so fucking insane and annoying about this.

pinning this. im

(go to tags here if you want to see my another idea of victim that is so fucking. mind changing to me)

[snowbellewells]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

I'll freely admit I wasn't tagged - and this may not be of interest to any of my followers - but I thought it looked like fun, so I'm giving it a try. I haven't done one of these fic writer asks in a bit, so it felt like it was time. :)

How many works do you have on AO3? I have 94 separate works on AO3, though a couple of those are collections of one shots, so it might seem like more. On ff.net I have an even 100, but way back in the day I wrote some fics for Criminal Minds and Castle before I found OuaT. (I was a big time propoent of Morgan and Garcia becoming a couple... ;P)

2. What's your total AO3 word count? Okay, short of trying to look at the count of each separate story and add up all 94 of them, I'm not sure how I locate this. Let's just say, it's a lot of words.

3. What fandoms do you write for? Now, pretty much solely for Once Upon a Time. In the past I have written fic about the Backstreet Boys (yes, I know, but what can I tell you?) Criminal MInds, CSI:NY, NCIS: Los Angeles, Moonlight, Castle, and a couple Lord of the Rings missing moment one shots.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos? Hmmm.... let's see, shall we? My fic with the most kudos appears to be a one-shot I wrote for CS Neverland New Year: "Fight for me When it Matters' with 130 kudos, followed by a gift fic written for @teamhook, also a one-shot, called "Thick as Thieves (or Princesses)" with 123, then a three-shot birthday fic for @searchingwardrobes titled "One More" and a two-shot I wrote way back when season three was airing called "Under the Weather" - both of those have 86 kudos. Last is a two-shot birthday fic I wrote for @kmomof4, "The Weight of the Crown (is a Feather on the Waves)", with 85 kudos.

5. Do you respond to comments? I should do better at that than I do. I love and treasure every single comment. They make the hard work feel completely worthwhile. I do try to answer as many as I can, but since most people have migrated to AO3, I don't do as well as I did on ff.net. For some reason I have a harder time following the comment and response page interface on that site than I did on the other one. (I know, I in the very small minority there, but to each her own, I guess?)

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? Honestly, you've probably not going to find my angstiest fics on AO3. They're old enough that I'm not sure I have ever moved them over from ff.net. I wrote a Lord of the Rings fic once "What Went Unspoken" (mostly missing moments that fleshed out Boromir's character and motivations, etc. before going to join the Fellowship) that is certainly bittersweet rather than fully happy at the end. I also wrote a post-episode fic for the short-lived, but AWESOME, show Moonlight "Forever Waiting" that was melancholy for sure.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? That's honestly hard to answer! I enjoy the angst - and especially love the hurt/comfort - but I usually have my stories end happily by the time they have finished. Particularly when writing for our pirate and princess, I figure they've already been through so much that they deserve their happy ending (beginning).

8. Do you get hate on fics? I have been pretty lucky in that regard. Way back when I first starting writing and posting OuaT/CS stories, I did occasionally get comments that thought I was including Snow and Charming enough, or that I was having Killian do things for Emma that the commenter thought her parents would or should instead, but other than those gripes, I've largely had kind and thoughtful commenters by and large.

9. Do you write smut? To my mind, I don't technically write much smut. I do occasionally attempt a love scene, but I don't feel like it's something I am especially gifted at writing. If something of mine is labeled "M" it probably means somewhere it gets about as close to smut as I'm able to do. (How's that for an uncertain sort of answer?)

10. Do you write crossovers? I haven't played with crossover in fic writing a lot - though I've read some AMAZING ones along the way. I do have one fic from way back in the first CSSNS event @cssns18 that mixed up Moonlight and OuaT, which I was pretty proud of: "Tasting Forever". And I have a long-delayed idea to do a Timeless x OuaT crossover, but it feels awfully ambitious to plot out, and I have a lot of current WIPS that I feel deserve to be finished up first.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? I don't think so?

12.Have you ever had a fic translated? Not that I know

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? I have co-written a couple of fics with my writer friends @whimsicallyenchantedrose, @jrob64, and @kmomof4, which was lots of fun! And I also wrote a Revolutionary War era au fic with @jrob64 and @sotangledupinit, which was also an exciting new challenge.

"Cave Cruises, Cabin Capers, and Cracked Craniums", "Destination Dream Weddings, Driving Disasters, and Dented Derrieres", and "Freed to Love"

14. What's your all-time favorite ship? That's difficult to answer as well, because I tend to love each of my chosen ships in a special way and for their own specific reason. It's probably CaptainSwan (I mean, I spend a lot of time thinking about them, even though the show has been over for nearly a decade!) Still, if Graham had lived, I think Gremma could have given them a run for their money! I also loved and adored Dr. Quinn and Sully and Pacey and Joey on Dawson's Creek (probably my first two ships before I really even knew what shipping was), Morgan and Garcia on Criminal Minds, and Wyatt and Lucy on Timeless.

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? I am not putting anything here. I fully intend to finish all of the fics that I have started. Sometimes it takes me entirely too long to do so, but I won't leave it unfinished forever.

16. What are your writing strengths? I like to think I'm pretty good at setting a scene or creating atmosphere/mood. And I feel like I'm decent at writing dialogue that feels real and true to the characters.

17. What are your writing weaknesses? I am terrible at coming up with titles! I mean, it's a genuine struggle over what to call the thing ever. single. time. Also, as previously mentioned, I'm awkward at the smut. And I can do action/fighting scenes (sort of) but it takes me a bit of struggle, and then I'm still doubting if it works even when I finally call it "done".

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? It would be cool to have a character who is from another place be able to speak dialogue in that language. I don't speak a second language, however, so while it would be neat, I'm not able to do it. I have referred to my friend who speaks and teaches French for a few phrases and endearments from time to time. though!

19. First fandom you wrote for? The first fandom I wrote for was probably little stories I wrote for my college friends and I starring the Backstreet Boys, and also Dawson's Creek fanfic.

20. Favorite fic you've written? Oh goodness, I don't know! Truly, I"m not being difficult, thanks hard to say. Some I'm really proud of because I tried something new for me and felt like I accomplished it. Some I just really liked the way they turned out, and so on. But often the ones that get the most comments and love, are not the ones I expect to do so.

I have probably tried to answer this question before, and I might have even said something completely different the last time around, but for the sake of trying to answer, I'll go with "Villian's Happy Ending" a sort of 3b spec fic I wrote between the two halves of OuaT's third season. It's never gotten a ton of feedback, but I was always really pleased with it. Or a tie between "The Case of the Heart in Armour" and "For All Life and For All Time". Both of them are set in the Victorian era (which I ADORE!) and have OuaT characters mashed up with some supernatural elements and themes and characters from traditional British lit. Both were challenging and a bit darker than I had written previously, and I felt like the stretch was worth the effort.

Okay, so, it said to tag five people, but please don't feel pressured if you'd rather not do this. I'd love to see your answers if you do it though! Tagging: @kmomof4 @jrob64 @whimsicallyenchantedrose @spartanguard @searchingwardrobes

[kismetconstellations]

@sockdooe, Yep, that's the one. No offense to the author, but it's really irritating to see a fic tagged with relationships that, as of two-hundred thousand words in, still haven't been so much as hinted at.

Would this author appreciate it if someone tagged a two-hundred thousand-plus-word Shiro/Keith or Lance/Hunk fic Keith/Lance? I sincerely doubt it.

Be courteous to your fellow fans and tag things properly, please. I don't think that's too much to ask.

My biggest issue with "Curtis" is that it's glaringly obvious that Shiro was married off to him at the absolute last minute in an attempt on the part of the showrunners to win online brownie points for being the first to depict a gay wedding in a show aimed at children. And, to try to cover their asses after being slammed with accusations of Burying Their Gays for killing Adam.

They used Shiro, who they planned to permanently kill after confirming that he's gay, as nothing more than a tool for their own personal benefit. And, it deservedly backfired on them spectacularly.

I still love Shiro/Keith, but, at my heart, I've found that I'm a multishipper for the both of them. Especially Shiro. Had the writers put in the effort, they could have made me care about, or, at the very least, tolerate his afterthought of a marriage. Shiro deserves to be happy. He deserves love. Even if I hate that it comes with the implication that he left his dream of exploring space and his newfound sense of purpose in being part of the Coalition and defending the universe behind to stay on Earth and become a house-husband.

Instead, "Curtis" is such a non-entity, his name is never once spoken onscreen. He and Shiro never have a conversation outside of shouting impersonal orders at one another in the heat of battle. And, he isn't even drawn consistently from one frame to the next.

For the life of me, I cannot tell if "Curtis" is meant to be in his late twenties, or his forties.

He also has no personality to speak of, outside of maybe liking animals, per a conversation he has with Acxa, rather than his "future husband", and Shiro only looks away from the Atlas's console interface to make eye-contact with him once.

In an entire thirteen episode season.

The showrunners had an opening to give Shiro and "Curtis" an interaction that would have hinted at some degree of chemistry, or even basic platonic affection for each other. When Shiro is slapped across the bridge of his ship- something I still deeply despise- "Curtis" could have rushed to his aid, expressing concern for his captain. Instead, it's Veronica, an actual character, who is at Shiro's side, checking on him and helping him to right himself.

"Curtis" does nothing more than sit and stand on the sidelines, soundlessly gaping at the events playing out in front of him.

That is why I call him a piece of set dressing. His only purpose is to fill out Shiro's bridge crew. They could have utilized any species of alien, a Taujeerian, a Balmeran, one of those deer-esque people from Season Three's Changing of the Guard, for the exact same purpose and absolutely nothing would have changed.

Since there seemed to be some sort of unspoken rule forbidding the show from having more than one LGBTQ+ main lead/Paladin, it honestly would have made more sense for Shiro to marry Coran.

They, at least, have a relationship.

Low bar, I know.

And, that's if you believe that Shiro needed to be in a romantic relationship for his sexuality to matter.

I don't.

Shiro, on his own, is enough. Adam dying didn't take Shiro's homosexuality away and turn Shiro straight. Shiro is still a gay man, whether he kisses a human male-shaped piece of set dressing onscreen or not.

I've made my feelings on Shiro/Adam fairly clear. Realistically, unless Adam underwent some intensive therapy and soul-searching to learn how to be more open, warm, and compassionate with Shiro, they never would have rekindled their relationship, even if Adam had lived and the desire to do so was still there. He and Shiro parted ways on poor terms, and while Shiro didn't appear to resent Adam for it, there would, undoubtedly, be lingering feelings of bitterness that a tearful reunion and rush down the aisle wouldn't resolve.

Shiro was brutally punished by the show's narrative for choosing his dream over Adam. Maybe Adam would feel some sort of regret for that, had he seen his ex return to Earth with a scarred face, prematurely silver hair, and one arm. But, going off of Adam's established characterization and how he acts like he's the rational man while Shiro is an irrational and hysterical woman, the temptation on Adam's part to lord the consequences of Shiro's choice over Shiro- "If you had just listened to me, maybe none of that would have happened"- would very likely surge to the forefront over any desire to offer comfort.

And, that's if Adam hadn't fully moved on and started a new relationship in the interim. Shiro's time in space amounted to two years for him, while it was five years on Earth for Adam. That's an ample enough span to have mourned his lost love, and begun at least considering getting back out there and dating, again.

What it seems to come down to is that people who are vehemently against the mere idea of Shiro and Keith being romantically involved with each other and have no desire to explore any other prospects because their true focus lies elsewhere (Keith, Lance, and pairing them together), but still wish to maintain the guise of wanting happiness for Shiro, pair him off by default with his canon love interests. Regardless of the fact that Adam was shown to be a not particularly great partner, and these authors have to invent a personality for "Curtis" whole-cloth, since he is completely lacking one in the source material.

They don't care how transparent it is that the showrunners hated Shiro and mistreated him at every turn, but still wanted to use his sexuality to garner praise and online asspats. They don't care that the sloppy, half-assed manner in which the wedding was handled unintentionally implies that married life aged Shiro twenty years in the span of six.

(As my sister said, they made Shiro look like he could be his own grandfather.

What did this show have against bishounens? How do you take a supernaturally gorgeous man and turn him into your average middle-aged salary man from any given manga or anime? He's supposed to be thirty-two, here, not fifty-three. I hate this aged-up design. Sincerely. The glasses could have been cute, though I don't understand why the staff needed the disabled man to have failing eyesight on top of everything else. ["You took my hand." Then his whole arm. "What more do you want?"] But, the hair and chin scruff are mortally offensive.

Just the other day, I came across a fan redesign that's a vast improvement on all fronts.

Shiro, sweetie, I'm so sorry that these clowns insisted on treating you like garbage all the way up to the bitter, loathsome end. TT___TT )

All K/L authors care about is sticking Shiro in a "happy" relationship, no matter how out-of-character, and slapping a flimsy Band-aid on his trauma in service of their ship. You can't treat Lance and Keith like the most depressed people in the universe who only have each other as everyone else has moved on to lead happy, fulfilling lives, if you also have Shiro isolating and buried in his work, believing himself to be a "broken monster" unworthy of love.

[ao3feed-skystar]

Ghost of you

read it on AO3 at https://ift.tt/fN7yxp0 by damn_these_bitches_gay Skyfire is has been out of the war as he no longer needs to transport the Autobots on earth, allowing him to focus on studying the planet he crashed on. but he gets distracted thinking of his past lover that had been destroyed sad that he will never be able to see him again. or so he thought Words: 4668, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English Fandoms: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One, The Transformers (Cartoon Generation One) Rating: Explicit Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Categories: M/M Characters: Starscream (Transformers), Jetfire | Skyfire (Transformers) Relationships: Jetfire | Skyfire/Starscream (Transformers) Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Ghost Starscream (Transformers), Sticky Sexual Interfacing (Transformers), Voyeurism, Size Difference, Size Kink, Ghost Sex, skyfire is the one with the dirty mind, Possession, Consensual Possession, based on Ghost of starscream episodes, probs set between ghost of starscream and ghost in the machine, starscream isnt as insane with skyfire, Praise Kink, Sort Of, skyfire is practically off duty now skylynx is the autobot taxi, he gets to research now :D, Masturbation, porn with a side of plot but the plot is in my head, Not Beta Read, We Die Like Starscream, new to writing read it on AO3 at https://ift.tt/fN7yxp0

[stellanslashgeode]

ao3 wrapped [writer's edition]

1. How many words have you written this year?

266,592 so far but I'm not done yet.

2. How many works did you publish this year?

14, though I think 2 were carryovers from last year.

3. What work are you most proud of (regardless of kudos/hits)?

I'm really proud of how Way of the Mynock is turning out and it will definitely be my longest work. BUT overall, I am most proud of Permission to Come Aboard, Admiral because I was hesitant to dip my toe into the Thrawn series and it was well-regarded by that fandom and I was asked to put it into a Thrawn Rare Pairs collection. That just tickled me.

4. What work of yours has the most hits?

Way of the Mynock by far, only one to get over 2k which isn't a lot but I've only been at this two years so I'm pretty small. And it's not close to done so it'll just keep persevering.

5. What work of yours got more feedback than expected?

Dissonance and Upheaval has 40 comments and while half of them are my replies I'm tickled that something with such a wonky high concept engendered such engaged readers.

6. Favorite title you used?

Serpentes Tremens is one of which I am particularly proud. Poor little drunken snake.

7. If you use song lyrics, which artist did you pull from the most?

That's gotta be Kate Nash. Way of the Mynock wouldn't exist without Skeleton Song, though the chapter titles aren't exclusive to that.

8. Pairing you wrote most this year?

Only 4 out of 14 were not Barrissoka so I remain that bitch.

9. Favorite pairing you wrote this year?

Vampire Barriss and vampire hunter Ahsoka followed closely by Emerie Karr and Riyo Chuchi.

10. What work was the quickest to write?

I wrote I Love You, Fulcrum directly into the AO3 interface in under an hour.

11, What work took you the longest to write?

Dissonance and Upheaval took a lot of research, and I have to be in the right mood to get the vibe.

12. How many WIPs are you taking into next year with you?

I am hoping to get a few finished, but it looks like seven as well as four or five I have planned but haven't started.

13. What's your longest work of the year?

Way of the Mynock is at 82,571 and not even half done.

14. What's your shortest work of the year?

I Love You, Fulcrum is 756 words young.

15. What WIPs are you taking into next year with you?

idk how this one is different from 12. Way of the Mynock might not even be completed next year. I'm taking it into the Sequel Trilogy era and I'm still on Rebels/Andor. I am hoping Don't Get Captured, Dissonance and Upheaval, and Serpentes Tremens will get finished by the end of the month. Contrasts is giving me trouble. It will get done when it gets done. I haven't even finished the first chapter of The Convor and the Tooka Cat. Poor Operations Other than War is just lying there at the bottom of the ocean.

16. What is your most common "Additional Tags" tag.

Probably "Fusion of Star Wars Legends and Disney Canon". I'm a slut for that one.

17. Your favorite character to write this year?

Tempted to say vampire Barriss but Emerie was really fun to write since she had some standout episodes but didn't get much backstory or closure in canon. NAH, nah scratch that. It's the Seventh Sister, actually. Both versions of her.

18. The character who gave you the most trouble this year.

Post-Tales of the Jedi Barriss. Still getting to know that girl. After having this version of her in my head post TCW it was hard to connect with new canon.

19. What's one paring do you want to explore next year?

I want to get more into Anidala, if I can find the time. I find them very easy to write and I want to explore the space since they're usually background in my work.

20. Which work of yours have you read the most?

Finishing up Dissonance and Upheaval has me reading the whole series over and over so I get the tone right.

21. How many kudos did you get this year?

482 which pleases the heck out of me as a small creator. That's over half my total!

22. Which work has the most comments?

Way of the Mynock at 52 so far.

23. Did you do any collaborative works this year?

No, but I will next year.

24. Did you write any gifts this year?

Three, same as the number of licks it takes to get to the gooey center of a Tootsie Pop.

25. Did you receive any gifts this year?

Nope, but it's not over yet!

26. What is your most common category?

A tie between Explicit and General Audience, which makes sense. They're usually the short one-offs.

27. What do you listen to while writing?

I often pick either one artist or genre for a story. Dusk of a Golden Age is all Dead Can Dance, for instance.

28. Favorite work you wrote this year?

You know what, it's hard to choose but I think my words in her voice is my most personal and I am really happy with how it turned out.

29. Favorite line/passage you wrote this year?

“Why, Miss Offee. You are sopping.”

30. Biggest surprise while you were writing this year?

I didn't expect to have so much fun writing a Sith character having a philosophical debate.

[karanseraph]

Mind the tags.

This is the main fic I worked on for "Kinktober" and here I am at the end of November (technically it's already turned December in my zone) just posting the final of the prompt-based chapters using prompts from Transformers Kinkfest 2024, TF Rare Pairing Fest 2024, and Transformers Kinktober 2024.

I may write one more chapter, as a couple of the events included a free choice at the end. But, at five parts, the prompt-based content that I felt applied to this pairing is there. (And I have other WIPs that really need attention.)

It's Transformers Dirge/Dead End, which is a crack ship rare pair, I guess, but one I've shipped since like ten years ago when I was writing Transformers Animated-based AU fics. It's pretty much based on their names. I like them being dire, doomy, spooky bots together.

There's like concepts of a plot, but not really a plot where everything gets answered or resolved. It's more like connected episodes to string together the prompts.

Fic's Explicit, "Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings", M/M (bots), with "choose your gear" type interfacing.

[cybertron-after-dark]

Quick rules post!!

I take requests for both drabbles and headcanons about a whooooole lot of transformers continuities. There's no hard limit on how many characters in one ask, but remember that the more characters you ask for, the longer it will take. An ask might not always get done in a timely manner, and I hold the right not to respond if I'm uncomfortable or if I simply have no answer I could think of.

Sometimes I post nsfw, it will always be given the #valveplug tag and marked as mature.

Addendum: I post a lot about my little fan project called Wayward Sparks, feel free to block that tag if you're just here for the canon stuff. But if you really wanna know more about it you can ask 👉👈

Specific will and won't do lists are under the cut

Continuities

Know 'em (things I know really well and am comfortable writing for)

-Animated

-Beast Wars

-Prime

-Cyberverse

-Rescue Bots (the original version)

Sorta Know 'em (haven't seen/read/played it all, but I'm familiar with some parts. Ill probably write for them but it's not a guarantee I'll know everything and everyone)

-Robots in Disguise (2001)

-TF One

-G1

-IDW comics

-Knightverse

Don't Know 'em (i have no idea what's going on here yet, I will not currently write for these because I'm completely unfamiliar, though that may change in the future)

-Earthspark (NO SPOILERS FOR ANYTHING BEYOND THE EPISODE "HOME," PLEASE)

-Unicron Trilogy

-Fall of Cybertron/War for Cybertron games

-Beast Wars Second/Beast Wars Neo

-anything from that weird stretch between g1 and beast wars honestly (Headmasters/pretenders/whatever the hell else happened in the dark ages)

-marvel comics

-dreamwave comics

Hell (please don't remind me that these exist I am so tired)

-Beast Machines

-War for Cybertron: Kingdom

-Robots in Disguise (2015)

-Rescue Bots Academy

-Bayverse

Subject Matter

Will Do

-canon x reader

-canon x canon

-canon & reader (platonic)

-canon & canon (platonic)

-poly ships

-human reader

-cybertronian reader

-other species that don't fall into human or bot reader (just specify, please)

-nsfw

-sticky, spark, tactile, EM field, and/or plug n play interfacing

-mass shifted/holoform bot

-bdsm

-medical kink

-belly kink/stuffing/vore/hunger kink

-monsterfucking

-consensual somno

-breeding kink

-honestly I'll do most kinks, if youre not sure feel free to ask. Freaks are welcome here

-violence

-darker themes not listed in the won't do category

Won't Do

-canon x oc

-yandere (not because I object to depicting abuse, when done responsibly, i just hate how horribly out of character the entire trope requires you to be)

-incest/stepcest

-underage

-rape

-bestiality/feral (this does not apply to characters simply existing in a beast mode, but it does apply to beastformers or cassettes who do not speak and have shown no indication that they can consent)

-ddlg

-scat/watersports/emeto/foot stuff

-raceplay/detrans kink/anything with clear harmful political overtones

[wellhalesbells]

TAG SOMEONE YOU WANT TO KNOW AND/OR SOME OF YOUR BESTIES

Tagged by @kikiroo - thank you, my darling!!! *friendly shark bites at you*

Last song: Probably either The Man or Anti-Hero by Taylor Swift. I just spent a week with my sister on vacation and she had just watched the Eras Tour movie so she was getting both of those stuck in my head all the time, and then we'd have to listen to them ofc.

Last movie: It was Host by Rob Savage (or at least it was when I started this, lol). I watched it 'cause I saw something on Insta about the Top 10 Scariest Movies according to what the average resting heart rate is for it. I didn't find it very scary (got me at the end though, woo boy) but I did love it - but then I love things that use the pandemic well and this definitely did imo. Plus it's all structured around (and shot through) a Zoom interface so it's only, like, fifty-seven minutes long because that's all you get when you don't pay for Zoom, haha.

Currently watching: Goosebumps, Last Week Tonight, The Fall of the House of Usher, Two Sentence Horror Stories, Our Flag Means Death and Ghost Files and I am half-assing all of it. I've either only started the first episode or only watched the first episode on all of those. I have no staying power these days. Though I am only one ep behind on Last Week Tonight \o/

Other stuff I watched this year: Unfortunately for you guys, I write fucking everything down and it is now the tenth month of the year. I GOT RECS. Well, Meg 2: The Trench, which is a cinematic masterpiece and I will take no questions on that (unless they're Joming related). (Cognizant of the month) Here are spooky things I watched this year and liked a lot: X, The Black Phone, The Menu, Terrifier and Terrifier 2 (this is definitely only for gore fans though), Bodies Bodies Bodies, Cocaine Bear (also a cinematic masterpiece, also not taking questions), Interview with the Vampire, Wednesday, Severance, Evil, The Last of Us, Over the Garden Wall, Magpie Murders, What We Do in the Shadows, and Shining Vale (haven't started the second season yet!). Also really liked: Paddington, Nimona, Barbie, Spider-man: Across the Spider-verse, Vivo, Derry Girls, The Bear, The Boys, Mythic Quest, Only Murders in the Building (I haven't watched the new season yet though but I expect great things), Reboot, Tuca & Bertie, Los Espookys, Barry, Extraordinary, Crashing (I literally watched it three times in a row - watching Sam and Fred fall in love 👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻 plus I fucking love Jonathan Bailey - I consistently find him ridiculously charming), Hacks, Avenue 5 (so sad this got canceled when I feel like it just hit its stride), Staged (I've watched it probably six times now), Abbott Elementary, A Black Lady Sketch Show, Ted Lasso, I Think You Should Leave Now (just for that one sketch, you know the one and, if you don't, I am HAPPY to tell you about it!), Unstable (petition for Fred Armisen to be in everything though, right?), Black Mirror, Central Park, Elite (I haven't watched the new season yet!), Reservation Dogs (ditto), The White Lotus, Good Omens, Letterkenny, Minx (what's ditto but for the third time?), Heartstopper, Sasaki and Miyano, and The Other Two.

Shows I dropped/didn’t finish: I'm behind on everything all the time so I'm only going to answer for shows I dropped and I don't think I've dropped any this year?

Currently reading: The Dead Take the A Train by Cassandra Khaw & Richard Kadrey (about halfway through), House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski (I'll be reading this until I die, I think), Cunk on Everything by Philomena Cunk, The Fragile Threads of Power by V.E. Schwab (nearly finished!), The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight by Jennifer E. Smith, My Darling Girl by Jennifer McMahon and The Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice (decided to do a reread of the IwtV series this year since I never actually finished it and only got to book ten and I read it way too long ago to remember anything that's happening if I just picked it up now).

Currently listening to: My calendar alarm telling me to go to my dog's vet appointment.

Currently working on: getting at least a third of the way through My Darling Girl

Also absolutely no pressure tagging @andavs, @callunavulgari, @piratefalls, @clotpolesonly, and anyone else who wants to do this!

[scrumptiousbeardturtle-blog1]

Identify the Latest Trends and Make Data-Driven Decisions

In addition to making a watchlist, users of this service can bookmark movies that capture their attention. By adding a video to their bookmarks, viewers may quickly access it whenever they want without having to look for it again. When looking through various genres or categories and finding a number of fascinating documentaries that one may not have time to see right away, this tool is quite helpful, thanks to xmltv information!

This application includes the tagging capability to aid customers in staying organized and remembering why they bookmarked a specific movie.

To their saved movies, users may add tags or labels like "action," "romantic," or "must-watch." As a result, when customers go back to their bookmarks, they can instantly tell what kind of movie it is and locate the one that best suits their preferences or present mood.

The user interface of xmltv source is designed to provide a seamless and user-friendly experience. It has a grid-based structure similar to a TV guide, allowing users to quickly cycle between platforms and programmes. The interface allows users to navigate across several categories such as entertainment, sports, and news to find specific content. Furthermore, EPG/IPTV interfaces usually have powerful search options, allowing viewers to quickly locate their favorite episodes or movies.

[storgicbytes]

one of my BIGGEST and important rambles on ava that questions a lot of stuff that was accepted as factual a lot of times

dimensions, rocketcorp and virtual reality in ava

initially inspired by these tags from @sticksstonessteel and the thinking about rocketcorp simulations. and a certain hc i saw on ao3 once and remembered

eventually it turned into an existential crisis. im sorry moots

warning: OKAY. so. this is very clumsily made and its an assumption made both of canon info and theories that might feel as a complete reach.

this text touches upon possibility AND obscure ideas that might not have definitive proof in canon. there might be not a direct link of events here. but it is very, VERY long and touches many different subjects at once. takes of this long ramble are bold (i could also mention strangely opposing points in the text because i re-thought many concepts along the process of this ramble and mightve not noticed it)

i was wondering about the way the technical-machine device stuff intermingles with the whole literal mercenaries (and a box used for torture) thing. but these tags made me think not only of that

what we've seen so far is that rocketcorp controls a variety of tech, both pc-like interfaces that only they have access to and more "regular" tech, like tvs on which videos from youtube can be played on. [kings backstory]. we've also seen a variety of different tech in the wanted-the box episodes, but not much of it can be used outside whatever advanced shit theyre doing inside the corporation. one of these things however can be used which is surveillance tech, it feels like an important thing to note given that the importance of the corporation might suggest that rocket is responsible for city surveillance in one way or another as well

yet how exactly does a tech corporation tie in with mercenaries, weaponry (and literal torture)?

• rocketcorp

given, again, the grand variety of tech they possess and advanced technology they use, them using literal devices that real world users/sticks from a pc would use (control panel of the box) and it being restricted to them only made me think of something. the whole story of ava/m is built inside digital realms, outernet and internet. taking that into account, obviously, any kind of technological advances in these worlds are crucial to the way of how sticks in it interact with their already technological reality. which made a tech company like rocketcorp so influental in the first place

due to a piece of rocketcorps existence in the king episode and ava s2 teaser and prior to the release of the box i had a thought that the company specializes and presents itself as a "domestic" tech company. not the kind of company that meddles with grand technology and digital stuff, but the one that is accustoming citizens of the outernet with regular tech such as the mentioned tvs. the work of the mercenaries was always perceived to me as just an underground shady work of a company. but the box and a reminder of the chosens wanted poster made me rethink and question whether rocketcorp specializes on technology that changes and affects the reality they're living in, outernet and dimensions itself

i tried to observe the possibility of it and came around to three big thoughts, the most major one being the last

first thought that can give something to this thought is that mercs tech weapons influence physical properties of their world — ultimately damaging objects and people (like it was with the corndog stand and chosen), rendering the objects out of their usual state and bringing actual pain or messing with the state of a stick.

(its also worthy to mention that in the corndog short, prior to the merc and chosen chase appearing onscreen people in the short were already running away, and it does make me wonder if it happened out of potential fear of these weapons or, maybe, potential fear of the chosen one? bringing me back to my post on thinking how chosen & dark crimes were perceived in the internet and possibly outernet)

the fact that weapons changing literal existence of an object and glitching them are available to mercenaries of rocketcorp is a pretty big thing

another potential argument for it is about the memory scanner itself — a thing used for intrusion into a literal brain (code?) of a person. the obvious thing aside – the scanner literally looks like a vr helmet and i initially thought that it was its function before i saw what it was used for

the whole fact that this kind of advanced technology exists, honestly, surpassing the already existing level of technology in stickcity is something that could potentially connect victim and rocketcorp respectively to an ability to meddle with a literal living being, their memory and potentially their code. victim, aware and knowing the process of being directly created from someone's hand might've acquired the knowledge of influencing a stick's literal process of living over the course of all the years. which brings me to my major point:

• dimensions

we all know about the fact that initial pc programs are able to be used in the outernet, which by itself is an interesting discussion of internet and outernet intertwining once again. we know that rocketcorp and pc sticks use interfaces that real world users use. and we know about the existence of the adobe tool board that agent uses literally all their screentime and the adobeflash instruments in victims office. it wasnt a surprising thing to see given that we have mostly explored the way of how pc and internet programs work throughout the series, and it was thought about that well! nothing surprising about these tools being in the outernet as well, mustve acquired it from somewhere! (and honestly, given all the new insane character plot i didnt think about that deeply either)

over the course of events happening in the outernet we have never really seen pc apps used there physically prior to season 2, except for one time of alan's cursor being used there... that required an insane amount of coding and manifestation of the cursor in the outernet space that couldnt be achieved without a stick that is familiar with with a pc.

not only talking about yellows feats, the creation of darks portals is something worth mentioning as well. we know that he is extremely skilled in coding, with it most likely being his main activity (aside from terrorism) in his life in the outernet. no sticks that we've seen created something like literal dimensional portals, like dark did — and he is a stick that is accustomed to the pc and internet as well. and oh, orange. bringing their stylus to outernet and have it revoked almost immediately when caught (which is not surprising at all anymore, that the mercs and rocket workers took an immediate interest in it given canon information and all these theories lol)

and, unsurprisingly, purple, king and the unknown merchant in "the king" episode as well. we know that the minecraft icon could be accessed through a travel to a pc, and that purple was first introduced literally inside of a mac — and the whole bit of purple coming to alanspc trying to steal the icon that the cg had.

(another thought to mention is about the interdimensional travel — the whole fact that the internet and the pc realm is able to be accessed through programs brought to the outernet. (e.g. minecraft portals). but again, these programs were initially coming from a pc, and didnt exist in the outernet. where the actual hell did the blue merchant in the king episode come from????)

this whole fact shows that the only way to access pc programs in the outernet is for something or someone to bring it there.

and victim, posessing all the tools of the whole program he was created in, wouldnt be able to get it through regular means. whether that means acquiring it from someone's elses hands or going to a pc by themselves.

• virtual reality and the position of rocketcorp in outernet

now, im going to bring up outernet and internet intertwining again. outernet sticks do not interact with pc programs physically, like all avam main characters do.

the only times we've seen pc programs and apps physically interact with outernet were shenanigans with the cg, hollowheads, purple & king. people that actually had access to a pc in one way or another.

(..and the damn merchant.)

the fact that these programs existence is quite rare in outernet and maybe even unknown to some, having rocketcorp being a full-on restricted company with classified information, having high influence over tech, exchange of pc programs being seen as a shady activity(!!!!) (the king episode),

— could rocketcorp be somewhat of a main corporate that controls the fabric of the outernet and internet itself, being some sort of a power force and government-ish corporation to the outernet? perhaps, them being seen as officials that have limited knowledge of unaccessible pc programs and internet itself and exclusive (even divine?) power of it that only they are able to possess, providing it to the outernet, initially making them "the people in power" that stand higher than regular sticks of the outernet?

(essentialy, making victim a literal fucking dimension mastermind)

• important part about outernet sticks (that ill probably ramble about in an another post independently)

supposing that rocketcorp does possess power... would they have control over what they decide to stream and show with their tech?

the tv that we've seen in the king episode didnt show any other episode except for the minecraft one. heck, it could've been the only thing shown there.

and in general, it begs the question: are outernet sticks that never traveled beyond its space even aware of internet?

and could've they interpreted the episode above as just fiction, along with the confirmation that our main characters are the ones that are inherently tied with the pcs and the internet in different ways?

(PLEASE tell me if there's proof that confirms otherwise because its a very bold statement given how much outernet and internet are interlinked in the main story. its 2 am i havent slept sometimes i have amnesia and i might be forgetting something very crucial. this assumption was not fully comprehended by me before specifically because most outernet sticks are the same type with the cg and it was confusing when i was just getting back to avam a few years ago)

we also know about the box itself. or, to be more accurate, the boxes. the ones that both chosen and second were trapped in, at the same time, in different places. the ones that were, quite literally, simulations. the ones that have also used pc programs tools.

simulation isnt something that was seen as an ordinary occurence, but it was literally seen twice in the rocketcorp in the same episode. creation of a simulation doesnt seem like an activity that could be used by ordinary sticks either. giving potential highest influence of rocketcorp over pc and internet technologies and its providence, are they able to give simulation experience to others, allowing regular sticks to experience different dimensions in a controlled way? say, for example, in a game?

whoa finally i got it out of my brain. im going to drop family guy pose style

afterthought rollercoaster:

• as far as i remember we didnt see outernet citizens interact with internet like users do, but we do know they possess tech such as television again, that can be bought. there IS tech such as computers (tdls room) but we havent seen them being used by sticks that werent exposed to the concept of the pc and the internet. there is a possibility i missed out on outernet sticks using phones or other tech, but even with this, its possible that our internet is simply not accesible there

• given the possibility of rocketcorp delegating all technology and simulations, providing it to others, possibly allowing smaller companies to use their resources in different cities... is there a possibility that rocketcorp might've been responsible for the gold simulation incident?

• going back to weapons of the mercs, i do wonder whether, even with the pc apps ability to be used in the outernet, the apps themselves having any kind of influence over processes in the outernet — given the whole glitching thing that literally messes with physical objects and people. it is just my own theory, but i dont believe that the glitch thing that is embedded in these weapons comes from the outernet, either

• okay this is going to be a wild concept you dont have to read it

talking about the creation of outernet and the whole race of stickmen, right now i am tending to believe that outernet is still an extension of internet that might've appeared with its creation. i was always open to accepting it but slightly confused by the concept of outernet being natural (bc i constantly try to find logic in worldbuilding el oh el) and tried to suggest a theory that sticks of outernet might've also been created directly (which does feel like a reach atp). with the concepts i discussed in this ramble i dont really feel that confusion, but im honestly not abandoning the idea of creation at some point, either: specifically i had a thought that when outernet first appeared first sticks of that dimension were also created, potentially them finding a way into outernet in some way. but eventually outernet was built as an independent place for their kind and prospered by itself like any civilization would

oh my god im going to drop with exhaustion. but im so happy i got it out

self portrait of my sticksona right now

[this-week-in-rust]

This Week in Rust 526

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

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

Updates from Rust Community

Official

Blog: Launching the 2023 State of Rust Survey Survey

A Call for Proposals for the Rust 2024 Edition

Project/Tooling Updates

ratatui: a Rust library for cooking up terminal user interfaces - v0.25.0

Introducing Gooey: My take on a Rusty GUI framework

Two New Open Source Rust Crates Create Easier Cedar Policy Management

Introducing FireDBG - a Time Travel Visual Debugger for Rust

Fornjot 0.48.0 - open source b-rep CAD kernel written in Rust

Committing to Rust for kernel code

A Rust implementation of Android's Binder

Preventing atomic-context violations in Rust code with klint

Rust for Linux — in space

Observations/Thoughts

Rust is growing

A curiously recurring lifetime issue

The rabbit hole of unsafe Rust bugs

Faster Rust Toolchains for Android

The Most Common Rust Compiler Errors as Encountered in RustRover: Part 1

Nine Rules for SIMD Acceleration of your Rust Code (Part 2): General Lessons from Boosting Data Ingestion in the range-set-blaze Crate by 7x

What I Learned Making an embedded-hal Driver in Rust (for the MAX6675 Thermocouple Digitizer)

Rust Walkthroughs

Rust: Traits

Write a Toy VPN in Rust

Getting Started with Actix Web in Rust

Getting Started with Rocket in Rust

Generic types for function parameters in Rust 🦀

Benchmarking Rust Compiler Settings with Criterion: Controlling Criterion with Scripts and Environment Variables

[series] Multithreading and Memory-Mapping: Refining ANN Performance with Arroy

[series] Getting started with Tiny HTTP building a web application in Rust

Miscellaneous

Embedded Rust Education: 2023 Reflections & 2024 Visions

The Most Common Rust Compiler Errors as Encountered in RustRover: Part 1

Default arguments for functions in Rust using macros

[audio] Rust in Production Ep 1 - InfluxData's Paul Dix

[audio] Episode 160: Rust & Safety at Adobe with Sean Parent

Crate of the Week

This week's crate is constcat, a std::concat!-replacement with support for const variables and expressions.

Thanks to Ross MacArthur for the self-suggestion!

Please submit your suggestions and votes for next week!

Call for Participation

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

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

Ockam - Fix documentation warnings

Ockam - Library - Validate CBOR structs according to the cddl schema for nodes/models/secure_channel

Ockam - Implement events in SqlxDatabase

Hyperswitch - [REFACTOR]: [Nuvei] MCA metadata validation

Hyperswitch - [FEATURE] : [Noon] Sync with Hyperswitch Reference

Hyperswitch - [FEATURE] : [Zen] Sync with Hyperswitch Reference

Hyperswitch - [REFACTOR] : [Authorizedotnet] Sync with Hyperswitch Reference

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

Updates from the Rust Project

386 pull requests were merged in the last week

enable stack probes on aarch64 for LLVM 18

add new tier 3 aarch64-apple-watchos target

add hexagon support

add the function body span to StableMIR

allow async_fn_in_trait traits with Send variant

cherry-pick "M68k: Fix ODR violation in GISel code (#72797)"

AIX: fix XCOFF metadata

-Ztrait-solver=next to -Znext-solver

actually parse async gen blocks correctly

add a method to StableMIR to check if a type is a CStr

add more suggestions to unexpected cfg names and values

add support for --env on tracked_env::var

add unstable -Zdefault-hidden-visibility cmdline flag for rustc

annotate panic reasons during enum layout

attempt to try to resolve blocking concerns (RFC #3086)

avoid overflow in GVN constant indexing

cache param env canonicalization

check FnPtr/FnDef built-in fn traits correctly with effects

check generic params after sigature for main-fn-ty

collect lang items from AST, get rid of GenericBound::LangItemTrait

coroutine variant fields can be uninitialized

coverage: skip instrumenting a function if no spans were extracted from MIR

deny ~const trait bounds in inherent impl headers

desugar yield in async gen correctly, ensure gen always returns unit

don't merge cfg and doc(cfg) attributes for re-exports

erase late bound regions from Instance::fn_sig() and add a few more details to StableMIR APIs

fix ICE ProjectionKinds Deref and Field were mismatched

fix LLD thread flags in bootstrap on Windows

fix waker_getters tracking issue number

fix alignment passed down to LLVM for simd_masked_load

fix dynamic size/align computation logic for packed types with dyn trait tail

fix overlapping spans in delimited meta-vars

ICE 110453: fixed with errors

llvm-wrapper: adapt for LLVM API changes

make IMPLIED_BOUNDS_ENTAILMENT into a hard error from a lint

make exhaustiveness usable outside of rustc

match lowering: Remove the make_target_blocks hack

more expressions correctly are marked to end with curly braces

nudge the user to kill programs using excessive CPU

opportunistically resolve region var in canonicalizer (instead of resolving root var)

properly reject default on free const items

remove unnecessary constness from ProjectionCandidate

replace some instances of FxHashMap/FxHashSet with stable alternatives (mostly in rustc_hir and rustc_ast_lowering)

resolve: replace visibility table in resolver outputs with query feeding

skip rpit constraint checker if borrowck return type error

some cleanup and improvement for invalid ref casting impl

tweak short_ty_string to reduce number of files

unconditionally register alias-relate in projection goal

update FreeBSD CI image

uplift TypeAndMut and ClosureKind to rustc_type_ir

use if cfg! instead of #[cfg]

use the LLVM option NoTrapAfterNoreturn

miri: visit the AllocIds and BorTags in borrow state FrameExtra

miri run: default to edition 2021

miri: make mmap not use expose semantics

fast path for declared_generic_bounds_from_env

stabilize type_name_of_val

stabilize ptr::{from_ref, from_mut}

add core::intrinsics::simd

add a column number to dbg!()

add more niches to rawvec

add ASCII whitespace trimming functions to &str

fix cases where std accidentally relied on inline(never)

Windows: allow File::create to work on hidden files

std: add xcoff in object's feature list

codegen: panic when trying to compute size/align of extern type

codegen_gcc: simd: implement missing intrinsics from simd/generic-arithmetic-pass.rs

codegen_llvm: set DW_AT_accessibility

cargo: clean up package metadata

cargo: do not allow empty name in package ID spec

cargo: fill in more empty name holes

cargo: hold the mutate exclusive lock when vendoring

rustdoc: use Map instead of Object for source files and search index

rustdoc: allow resizing the sidebar / hiding the top bar

rustdoc-search: fix a race condition in search index loading

rustdoc-search: use set ops for ranking and filtering

bindgen: use \r\n on windows

bindgen: better working destructors on windows

clippy: add new unconditional_recursion lint

clippy: new Lint: result_filter_map / Mirror of option_filter_map

clippy: don't visit nested bodies in is_const_evaluatable

clippy: redundant_pattern_matching: lint if let true, while let true, matches!(.., true)

clippy: do not lint assertions_on_constants for const _: () = assert!(expr)

clippy: doc_markdown Recognize words followed by empty parentheses () for quoting

clippy: fix binder handling in unnecessary_to_owned

rust-analyzer: deduplicate annotations

rust-analyzer: optimizing Performance with Promise.all 🏎

rust-analyzer: desugar doc correctly for mbe

rust-analyzer: dont assume ascii in remove_markdown

rust-analyzer: resolve alias before resolving enum variant

rust-analyzer: add minimal support for the 2024 edition

rust-analyzer: move out WithFixture into dev-dep only crate

rust-analyzer: fix false positive type mismatch in const reference patterns

rust-analyzer: syntax fixup now removes subtrees with fake spans

rust-analyzer: update builtin attrs from rustc

rust-analyzer: fix fragment parser replacing matches with dummies on incomplete parses

rust-analyzer: fix incorrectly replacing references in macro invocation in "Convert to named struct" assist

Rust Compiler Performance Triage

A lot of noise in the results this week; there was an lull in the noise recently, so our auto-inferred noise threshold went down, and thus five PR's were artificially flagged this week (and three supposed improvements were just reverting to the mean). Beyond that, we had three nice improvements: the first to debug builds in #117962 (by ceasing emission of expensive+unused .debug_pubnames and .debug_pubtypes), a second to diesel and serde in #119048 (by avoiding some unnecessary work), and a third to several benchmarks in #117749 (by adding some caching of an internal compiler structure).

Triage done by @pnkfelix. Revision range: 57010939..bf9229a2

6 Regressions, 9 Improvements, 3 Mixed; 5 of them in rollups 67 artifact comparisons made in total

Full report here

Approved RFCs

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

No RFCs were approved this week.

Final Comment Period

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

RFCs

[disposition: postpone] RFC: Precise Pre-release Deps

Tracking Issues & PRs

[disposition: merge] Support async recursive calls (as long as they have indirection)

[disposition: merge] make soft_unstable show up in future breakage reports

[disposition: merge] Tracking Issue for ip_in_core

Language Reference

No Language Reference RFCs entered Final Comment Period this week.

Unsafe Code Guidelines

No Unsafe Code Guideline RFCs entered Final Comment Period this week.

New and Updated RFCs

RFC: patchable-function-entry

Call for Testing

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

No RFCs issued a call for testing this week.

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

Upcoming Events

Rusty Events between 2023-12-20 - 2024-01-17 🦀

Virtual

2023-12-20 | Virtual (Vancouver, BC, CA) | Vancouver Rust

Adventures in egui app dev

2023-12-26 | Virtual (Dallas, TX, US) | Dallas Rust

Last Tuesday

2023-12-28 | Virtual (Charlottesville, NC, US) | Charlottesville Rust Meetup

Crafting Interpreters in Rust Collaboratively

2024-01-03 | Virtual (Indianapolis, IN, US) | Indy Rust

Indy.rs - with Social Distancing

2024-01-09 | Virtual (Dallas, TX, US) | Dallas Rust

Last Tuesday

2024-01-11 | Virtual (Charlottesville, NC, US) | Charlottesville Rust Meetup

Crafting Interpreters in Rust Collaboratively

2024-01-16 | Virtual (Washington, DC, US) | Rust DC

Mid-month Rustful

Europe

2023-12-27 | Copenhagen, DK | Copenhagen Rust Community

Rust hacknight #1: CLIs, TUIs and plushies

2023-12-28 | Vienna, AT | Rust Vienna

Rust Dojo 3: Holiday Edition

2024-01-11 | Reading, UK | Reading Rust Workshop

Reading Rust Meetup at Browns

2024-01-11 | Wrocław, PL | Rust Wrocław

Rust Meetup #36

2024-01-13 | Helsinki, FI | Finland Rust-lang Group

January Meetup

North America

2023-12-20 | Austin, TX, US | Rust ATX

Rust Lunch - Fareground

2023-12-27 | Austin, TX, US | Rust ATX

Rust Lunch - Fareground

2024-01-06 | Boston, MA, US | Boston Rust Meetup

Beacon Hill Rust Lunch

2024-01-08 | Chicago, IL, US | Deep Dish Rust

Rust Hack Night

2024-01-09 | Seattle, WA, US | Cap Hill Rust Coding/Hacking/Learning

Rusty Coding/Hacking/Learning Night

2024-01-09 | Minneapolis, MN, US | Minneapolis Rust Meetup

Minneapolis Rust Meetup Happy Hour

2024-01-14 | Cambridge, MA, US | Boston Rust Meetup

Alewife Rust Lunch

2024-01-16 | San Francisco, CA, US | San Francisco Rust Study Group

Rust Hacking in Person

2024-01-17 | Chicago, IL, US | Deep Dish Rust

Rust Happy Hour

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

Jobs

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

Quote of the Week

The Tianyi-33 satellite is a 50kg class space science experimental satellite equipped with an operating system independently developed by Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications—the Rust-based dual-kernel real-time operating system RROS. RROS will carry out general tasks represented by tensorflow/k8s and real-time tasks represented by real-time file systems and real-time network transmission on the satellite. It will ensure the normal execution of upper-layer applications and scientific research tasks, such as time-delay measurement between satellite and ground, live video broadcasting, onboard web chat services, pseudo-SSH experiments, etc. This marks the world’s first official application of a Rust-written dual-kernel operating system in a satellite scenario.

– Qichen on the RROS web page

Thanks to Brian Kung for the suggestion!

Please submit quotes and vote for next week!

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

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