#for context this is the first time in programming ever that i have been able to communicate with the user via anything other than plain tex

[dont-open-dead-inside-net]

*crawls out of IDE covered in blood* i can make popups now!

[n7punk]

Tumblr Backup Options: None of them do everything

Cheeky but true. I'll go through what's good and bad about each option though so you can decide which balances out for you.

Covered: native export, WordPress (kinda), TumblThree, tumblr-utils (kinda)

Native Export

If you go to "https://www.tumblr.com/settings/blog/yourblogname", at the bottom of the page is an export option

Once you hit the button to start the request, it will start processing. Feel free to log off, this is going to to take a few hours. You don't need to keep it open. ~22k posts took roughly a day for me. If you have a small number of posts and get stuck, you're probably broken.

When it's done processing, you can hit that download backup button and then wait some more as you wait for the zip file to download. Mine failed the first time after like twenty minutes, and then I had to start over. I think it took 1-2 hour(s) and I'm almost certain that was on Tumblr and not my internet. And that was the zip file! So make sure your computer can be on for a while before getting this started.

So what do you get?

A media folder, conversations folder, and posts folder

Media folder: Every single photo, gif, and video that has ever been on your blog or in your DMs. There is no context data attached (except for dm images which do say which conversation they're from at least), but they seem to be in chronological order because they seem to be titled by the post's ID (the string of numbers in the address bar after "/post/"). They look like "100868498227", "100868498228_0", "100868498228_1"

When you see something end with "_0" and up that means the photos are in the same post, so _0 represents the first image in the post, _1 represents the second, etc (at least, I think).

Conversations folder: HTML export files of every DM history you have on your blog. These are actually pretty well formatted, see example here.

Posts folder: html subfolder and posts_index.html file

posts_index.html: File listing every single post on your blog by post ID on its own line with no other context. Example of a line: "Post: 780053389730037760". The ID number will link to the post in the html folder

html subfolder: contains a submissions subfolder and stripped html file versions of every post on your blog. See below first what the post looks like on Tumblr, and second what the post looks like in the html folder

The way you seem to be intended to use this is to open the file index, select a post ID, and be jumped to where that post is saved as an html file, but I don't know why you would bother when the index doesn't provide any information about the posts inside it. The posts all have extremely minimal formatting. See a reblog chain below.

Notice I said ALL posts on your blog. Photo posts without a caption will just have a broken image icon and then the date and tags. Theoretically, it might be that if you unzip the entire export folder that allows it to automatically link to the image saved in your media folder. I have no fucking idea, unzipping the folder was estimated to take two hours so I didn't do it. Let me know if you do though so I can update this post!

The submissions folder is such a rabbithole I made a post just on it but long story short it's asks you haven't replied to

What do I see as the main reasons to opt for this option? 1) you don't want to download any programs or files from the internet just to backup your blog, 2) your blog is relatively small, so digging through the ID files isn't a big deal, 3) you mostly just want to download either the images (which will be browsable via thumbnail previews in the media folder if you unzip it) or conversation history, which are fairly well formatted, 4) you don't need to update your export often/ever, because you'd have to request it from the start and download the entire thing all over again, 5) you want to be able to read your text posts clearly and don't care about preserving the full formatting, and/or 6) you don't plan to reupload this information elsewhere (say on... a WordPress blog)

WordPress Automatic Ex/Import

Move your post's from Matt's right hand to his left! WordPress (another product of Automattic) has a native Tumblr importer found under your WP Admin dashboard for your site under Tools > Import > Tumblr.

How does this work? No idea! I hit import 2 days ago and it has done nothing. Maybe I'm stuck, maybe it's permanently broken. It says to contact support if it's been over 24 hours but they don't make that easy. I disconnected from Tumblr (you can only port over a blog you have the login of) and reconnected and it still said it was importing. I don't think it's ever going to do anything.

Presumably it's supposed to 1:1 import every post on your blog onto the WordPress site, which will result in a whole lot of stolen art because there's no way to select just your original posts. Also, you'd need enough storage on your webhost to house all the posts (this honestly might be my problem, but I was planning to delete all the non-original posts once it imported.... anything and backfill what it didn't get to). The one thing I'll say about this option is that it's the only one I've seen so far that exports drafts and queues as well.

I mean, if it exported anything. If this ever does anything I'll update this post, but either my blog is too large or this tool isn't totally functional anymore.

TumblThree

(previously TumblTwo, etc)

TumblThree is an all-in-one program requiring no extra downloads beyond the main Zip, and was last updated fairly recently at the time of this post. In order to run it, unzip it into one folder and run the main .exe. It has a full UI interface with lots of very descriptive helper text to help you select the right options for you without looking at the wiki. I think it's user-friendly for non-tech people.

There are a lot of options in TumblThree to change what output it gives you, but I'm going to start with the largely universal parts first:

Everything from one blog will be exported to one folder, no subfolders or sorting. As a result, the output is very messy and difficult to wade through, but post metadata and the photos are named in the same way so you can scroll, see an image preview, and then click on the metadata txt for that post and read the caption.

Depending on your settings, you can export all photos, videos, text posts, etc as their own files or exclude them from the export entirely. For the different types of media posts, you can independently select if you what to download just the media, just the metadata for it (everything that surrounds the post when you see it on Tumblr, such as the caption, OP, tags, etc), or both.

Master txt file: For every type of media metadata you export, a correspondingly named txt file will be created (images.txt, answers.txt, etc) that contains the text/metadata of every post of that type in one txt file. This is also the default behavior for exporting text posts.

Note: for text posts (which includes asks/answers), it only creates a master txt file if you do not select "Save texts as individual files", in which case it will only save each text as an individual txt file and not make a master file.

The formatting on these files is so brutal I won't even give examples, but they're unreadable. Being a .txt file, there is no native formatting, so it exports in html formatting.

Example: instead of a post that says "I want to go swimming", it exports: "I want to go < b >swimming< / b >" (minus the spaces around the b) as the post body, which is a big part of what makes it unreadable, because there are a lot of hyperlinks in all the header information listed below.

Each post in the master txt exports with: Post ID, date, post URL, slug, reblog key (no idea what that is), reblog URL, reblog name, title, [the text/caption itself], and tags.

Theoretically this means you could ctrl+f "cybertrucks" in the master txt file and then browse all your posts making fun of Tesla owners by tabbing through the returns. This is not possible with any of the previous options, and only is possible because it's all in one file, as ridiculous as it is, which is why getting that master file is so important.

For the trick to get both the individual text posts and master text.txt & answers.txt file, as well as my recommended settings and details on how updating backups works, see the read more at the end of this post.

The images.txt includes all the information listed above, but with the following additions: photo url (NOTE: this is the url on Tumblr, not a link to where it is in your folder), photo set URLs, photo caption, and "downloaded files" (NOTE: this is the name of the file it has downloaded)

The video.txt is similar to the above

The use case for this would be similar to what I described for text posts above: search keywords from captions, tags, etc and when you find what you think is what you want, copy the name from "downloaded files" and search your folder to find the actual image

I really hated TumblThree's output the first time I looked at it and then I realized the single file is the only way to make browsing tags workable, because otherwise you would have to have a folder for every tag, and posts with multiple tags would have to be duplicated between them. I'm not pressed on finding a txt to HTML converter right now but it could be an option in the future if you wanted to make things more readable.

Okay, let's get into the non-universal stuff you can customize in settings, because it's like, everything:

File names: We've already established you can search with the downloaded file name for images, but what will that be? Whatever you fucking want. Post date, reblogger name, post ID, post title, original file name, you can make it any and all of these in any order you want! You can have actually useful file names! Personally I like %e_%p_%q_%i_%x which exports as DateTime_PostTitle_BlogOriginName_PostID_IteratingNumber (note: you need some kind of unique iterator to be valid so two files don't have the same name, such as multiple photos from one post). Look how much searchable information that gives me, in chronological order! It decreases your need for the master txt file.

Tip I wish I thought of before doing my massive export: make one of the unique headers from the master txt file part of the exported file name so it's easy to search for it after identifying it in the master file.

Files scanned: this is the only method I've found that lets you back everything up, remember what it backed up, and then lets you add any new posts since that date without having to download the whole thing again. That's a game changer, but see the read more below for limitations.

You also have the option to rescan the entire thing if you want.

Post type: T3 (I'm abbreviating it now) also lets you export just your original posts, just reblogs, etc - again, giving you the most control of any options. It also lets you export replies. I, uh, would not do this because if you have any popular post on your blog it might have hundreds, or thousands of replies but hey, you can do it!

You also have the option to only download posts with a certain tag.

Blog options: You can export literally any blog you have the URL of. In fact, if you copy a blog URL while it's open, it will automatically add that blog to its UI and create an empty folder for it. It makes it easy, no private key required. I do have mixed feelings about the concept of exporting someone else's blog... but I'm also planning to do it to some of Crew-ra's blogs so... my digital horde must grow.

You can also queue blogs up and leave it to run through a lot of them. It is a lot faster than Tumblr's native export, I started this import well after I started typing this post and it took a few hours, probably not all that much longer than just downloading Tumblr's export took (and that's while running it alongside other data copy operations because I'm backing up a lot of stuff right now).

I do recommend doing a test export with a sideblog, I was able to use wild-bitchofthenorthwoods as a test import since it only has one post and it has media, so it was super quick.

(I do want to note, I think the number of downloadable items starts out matching the number of posts on your blog without scanning them until you start the export - but if you choose to export everything as its own file, you're going to end up with way more than that because a post with three images would be multiple files)

Things T3 cannot export:

Since in its simplest form it's just accessing the public upload of your blog, it cannot export your drafts, queue, or conversations

It cannot export posts as HTML files, and thus cannot export them with readable formatting natively

What do I see as the main reasons to opt for this option? 1) you don't care about exporting your DMs/conversations, 2) you want the ability to export only certain kinds of posts (original, photos, using a tag, etc), 3) you want to control the titles of the exported files 4) you don't mind wading through massive folders, 5) you want the ability to search tags (using the txt files), 6) you want the ability to update your export without starting over from the beginning, 7) you either don't want to reupload this information somewhere else, or you want to upload it somewhere that supports automatic HTML conversion (for instance, you can switch a Tumblr post from a rich text format to HTML, same with AO3, so you can put it in as HTML and then hit post to see it turn into a rich format. This techically makes T3 the most versatile/useful export option if you're planning to do anything with it other than browse your own files).

tumblr-utils

Full disclosure: haven't tried this one. But others have! tumblr-utils is a no-UI, python-based backup software. This means in order to use it you have to type commands into the terminal. If you don't know what I just said, don't use this one.

If you do, you'll need to separately download python and youtube-dl just to get this one running. You'll also need to give it your personal Tumblr API key and feed it commands deciphered from the wiki page I linked. Here are two different guides people have written on how to use it. Output:

Obviously I'm guessing based on the documentation, but one thing that is nice is this tool allows you to save each post in its own folder. Presumably each post is multiple files like we saw with T3, so this would make it easy to group them, but it also means you'd have to look in every single folder to find anything.

It seems to break posts up into timestamp folders by month, again, helping with management to narrow down where you have to search

It allows you to save only certain kinds of posts at a time like T3

It allows you to backup posts only from a certain time period (so if you keep a little .txt note of the last time you backed up, you can easily add only the new posts into your backup without having to start over from the beginning)

It allows you to only save posts under a certain tag like T3

It allows you to save only original posts

It's the only one I've found that lets you back up your liked posts

What do I see as the main reasons to opt for this option? 1) you don't care about exporting your DMs/conversations, 2) you want the ability to export only certain kinds of posts (original, photos, using a tag, etc), (okay now we get to the points that aren't also covered by T3), 3) you want posts to export already broken into folders, whether by post or by month, 4) you want to back up your likes, 5) you don't care what file names look like, 6) you're comfortable with the command line/coding and don't need a UI.

Summary:

None of these options are ideal for reuploading your files anywhere (except WordPress), but I do think TumblThree is the best of the options because of the written HTML formatting in the txt files being useful for websites that support automatic conversion (or require HTML input).

For starting another blog, WordPress wins. If it works. I'm trying to be generous here.

For searchability, T3 wins again.

For versatility... yeah you know it's T3, but tumblr-utils has a lot of the same features, too!

For sentimentality (aka conversations), it has to be the native export. There literally is not any other option.

For queues and drafts, the only theoretical option is WordPress. If it works.

For likes, the only option is tumblr-utils.

Every option does something the others don't, so theoretically to cover everything, you have to do all four options. Actually I would say do the native export if you don't have a lot of posts and aren't a freak like me, check it out, and if it doesn't work (I know it's finnicky) or you don't like the export, go with TumblThree. This also means you'll at least have your conversations even if you don't end up using the native export any other way.

And I wish it could go without saying, but don't repost people's shit, y'all. I'm backing up everything for my records only and it will never be shared with anyone else, or even browsed as long as using Tumblr instead is an option.

TumblThree adding to old backup quirks, recommended settings, & master file backup solution:

Adding to backup quirks:

From my tests, when you scan a blog you've already backed up to just add new posts to it, it does not update the master file, so if you want to update it, you'll have to do the steps I list at the end of this post. It might be possible it does update if you force rescan, but I highly doubt it.

If you scan a blog you previously backed up under more restrictive settings - say you only backed up original text posts as one file before and now you've selected to back up absolutely everything - it will only download up until the time you last backed up that blog. It will not blow past where you last downloaded to download all the photos and videos it didn't get before just because they're selected now. This is great for doing after using the master file solution I'm showing below, but if you do need to download everything after doing a more restrictive scan, you can once again follow the first few steps below to do so.

Recommended settings:

This will obviously vary by what you're trying to do, but one or two things weren't immediately obvious to me and I did say I think this was the best solution for less technical users, so I want give my personal recommendations. Settings can obviously be found under the settings button at the bottom of the screen (you may need to use the scrollbar on the UI for, which is separate from the scrollbar on the blogs panel), but when you click on a blog, when you click "Details" in the right sidebar, you can also see your most important settings at a glance and adjust them to whatever you want them to be "per blog". I believe TumblThree remembers what you last used for the blog and applies the things in settings only to new/other blogs.

The thing that is going to vary the most is how many different types of posts you want to back up (text, video, reblogs included, etc), so I'll leave that up to you. If you're going to export a media type, though, I generally recommend exporting the metadata too.

I already gave my preferred file names above and again that's going to be something that varies a lot by people. Hover over the "Filename template" box and it will give you all the options in the legend you can combine via underscores.

Leave "Skip .gif files" off unless you're hurting for hard drive space. This removes all the gifs from your download, and the reason this is provided as a separate setting is because gifs have relatively massive files (at least compared to a text file)

I'll be honest I haven't seen a difference between turning on and off "Group photo sets". Because of the way file names work, most conventions will naturally lead to photos from the same post all being in a row.

"Save texts as individual files": if you only want texts to be saved as their master text.txt and answers.txt files, uncheck this. If you want the individual files I highly recommend you also download the master file for searching purposes, in which case my recommendation is this:

1) Select to export texts only, leaving off all media options, and uncheck the "Save texts as individual files" option. 2) Export the blog. This will only result in two files, answers.txt and texts.txt. 3) Move these files elsewhere on the computer to save them. 4) With T3 closed, delete the folder for the blog and the blog's Indexes (see instructions at the end of this post for finding these). 5) Reopen T3, which shouldn't remember it ever saw the blog and create a new folder for it. Turn on the "Save texts as individual files", as well as any other media posts you want to download. 6) Export the entire blog again. 7) Move the texts.txt and answers.txt file back into the blog's folder.

I leave all other options on the Details tab off, except for:

"Force rescan" scans past the point it last backed up and searches the whole blog again. If you have a big blog, this is going to burn time. This is needed for the number of downloaded items in the panel to be accurate but I don't know why you would care or turn this on unless it lets you skip steps 3-4 above, but my blog is too big to burn through testing that, so if you try it, let me know and I'll update this post!

Master file backup solution:

See my 7 steps from above to skip having to do this, but if you accidentally do things out of order and then realize you still need the master files for texts post after backing everything else up, here's how you get it with minimal pain:

T3 will make an "Index" folder in both the main folder for the program where the exe is located and the destination folder where you have your blogs backing up (note: these were two very different places for me, if you just have it back up to the automatic Blogs folder within T3's folder, it might not create a second Index folder).

To make T3 "forget" what it has backed up previously so it goes through to the beginning and makes a master file that includes everything, all you have to do is remove the Index file(s) for the blog while it's closed so it doesn't remember it anymore. I backed my index up in another folder.

Check off for it to only download text posts, and then uncheck the "Save texts in individual files" option. This will cause it to only create the master answers.txt and texts.txt file on the rescan.

The combination of only going for one post type and only downloading one file for it means this rescan is relatively fast. When you look at your Blogs folder, you'll find a new folder has been created for your blog name (in my case, there was "n7punk" and "n7punk_2) and your output is in the new folder. I just moved it over to the original folder.

At this point you can restore the indexes, though I've only gotten it to half recognize them. I can get it to recognize my original n7punk folder so everything can stay there, but the total downloaded items is stuck at what it was when I did just the text posts. I don't really care, it was mainly the folder thing I wanted to fix. If you have lag between your last full backup and your master-only backup, this might cause some issues? I don't know because I made sure there wasn't lag, so I recommend doing another backup to add any missing items before doing this method.

You can also use this technique if you want to download only your original posts and then download everything else to a second folder. Adjust the setting to only download original posts, download the whole blog, close T3 and delete the indexes, rename the folder to whatever you want ("n7punk_original", etc), and then reopen T3 and set it to download everything and run it again from the start.

[crescencestudio]

๋࣭⭑ Devlog #47 | 4.26.25 ๋࣭⭑

no bc we r actually so back brothers ive got FOOD TODAY

We are ALIVEEEEE AND BACK AND BETTER THAN EVER ((FR THIS TIME!!!).

Before we get into actual updates, I wanted to give context on where my life's been at basically the past year. As many of you know, I got my PhD last December (YEAAAA) which meant for the second half of 2024, I was literally in a cave crunching my dissertation. Now, many people (including me) thought after I finished my dissertation, I'd be a lot freer for Alaris stuff. But since this year started, I've been completely preoccupied with some personal matters which kept me from working on Alaris as much as I wanted to.

While the personal matters aren't anything anyone has to be worried about, they did take up A Lot of my time, and I'm really happy to say that I am officially free from those obligations too!!! Meaning for the first time in literally a year, I am NOT drowning. And that time has already been used Very Fruitfully heh....heh....heh.....

WANNA SEE???

Writing has been on a bit of a stall, and the main reason why is something I'll talk about in the Miscellaneous section! But it's nothing to worry about since it's because I want to focus on other parts of the game right now. With almost all of the routes finished, I've noticed that the writing pace I've maintained has resulted in the art and programming aspects to fall a bit behind where I want those parts of game dev to be.

So recently, I've focused more attention on the art and programming components rather than writing. That being said, writing still makes slow but steady progress! Kuna'a's development edits continue to progress, and Etza's route is about to be sent to line editing, which is the last stage of editing for my writing process. This means once Etza's line edits are finished, the four Central routes will be COMPLETELY FINISHED!! Exciting right!!!!

For art, I can't actually show very many sneak peeks since it's mostly been CGs and character design commissions heh. But I am willing to give a slight sneak peeks of these character designs in these two beta screenshots

Sickest character designs by @saffein-e

While these sneak peeks don't represent the final character sprites, they are the OG designs created by bestie Saf. And even from the designs alone, the characters are stunning additions to the cast! I can't wait to draw them in my own style and hopefully do Saf's amazing work justice 💖💖💖 In these screenshots too, you can see some of the newer BGs and hints of overlays that we've added to the game to heighten the visual effects hehe.

I've also been working on CGs for Etza's route and am happy to say our CG count is currently at 26 completed CGs (5 sketched ones) out of 54! Now that I'm making an active effort to Lock in on the art assets, I'm hoping CG and sprite development picks up a bit in the coming months ^^

And finally... for the most exciting news!!!!!

ETZA'S BETA WILL BE OUT MONDAY!!!!

We have finally moved forward on the beta build front, and beta testers will finally get to play Etza's beta! Since I haven't shown much in-game screenshots from the betas in past devlogs, and you all patiently still read them, I thought this month would be a nice time to update you all on how things are looking in Alaris beta land.

In this beta, you obviously get to woo our neighborhood angel

Since it's been a while, this is a reminder of what the game looks like (LMFLSOA). I know for me it's been a while and honestly I forgot how proud I am of the art assets :') I love how everything has come together and how it looks in the game <3

Of course, Important Choices and fun cast dynamics are a few of our Favorite Things

Between the messaging interface, the chapter card, the phone call overlays, and many more little effects and stuff, I forgot how many assets are in this thing. Being able to code Etza's beta has been an amazing reminder of how much work I've put into Alaris over the years ^^

Which brings me to exciting news!!!! I will make the official announcement separately at a later time, but as a reward for people who actually read these things, you're the first to know. With Etza's beta coming out soon, that means the four Central routes will have finished beta testing. And with where things are at, I've made the official decision that...

Alaris will enter Early Access for the First Four Routes!!!

I don't have an exact date for when this will release since it largely depends on how quickly I can art. But I'd like to aim for a tentative Q3 release for the Early Access Build! More details will come when I make the official announcement, but it is extremely exciting to have reached a point where I can even put this out there to people!!!

I hope you all are excited, and I want to thank everyone who has been on this journey with me whether it's as a recent or long time fan!!

Finally, I haven't really had time for market research since I've been in the "Returning the Game Dev" trenches. But I do have other exciting news that I'll make yet another official announcement on later.

Aside from the new Alaris beta, I've also had another small side project I've been working on with some friends (very chill-like) over the past couple of months. It'll be the first Crescence Dark Fantasy entry in my collection of games, and it's definitely a different vibe from what I've put out so far.

Where They Wait will be a new game submitted to Ossan Jam with elements of horror, fantasy, and dark romance :3c I'm so grateful to the team I've worked with and all the work they've put into our little shared baby, and I can't wait for you all to play it! This will also be coming out WELL, Monday too LMAFLIDJLIFJ.

As you can see, we've been hard at work behind the curtain. Since I last talked to you all, we've made a lot of nice headway on the different projects I've had on my plate, and I'm excited to feel like we're hitting our stride on so many things!!!!

Until next time we talk, which will be Very Soon with all our exciting announcements coming up. Thank you as always for being patient with me and supporting me!

[asterlark]

me and den @unloneliest were just talking about murderbot and ART's relationship and i want to discuss how they quite literally complete each other's sensory and emotional experience of the world!!

there's a few great posts on here such as this one about how murderbot uses drones to fully and properly experience the world around it (it also accesses security cameras/other systems for this same purpose). but i haven't seen anyone so far talk about how once MB stops working for the company and consequently doesn't have a hubsystem/secsystem to connect to anymore (which for its entire existence up to that point had been how it was used to interacting with its environment/doing its job), after it meets ART, ART starts to fill that gap.

ART gives MB access to more cameras, systems, and information archives than it would normally be able to connect with while MB is on its own outside of ART's... body(? lol), but also directly gives MB access to its own cameras, drones, archives, facilities, and processing space. additionally, so much of ART's function is dedicated to analysis, lateral thinking, and logical reasoning, and it not only uses those skills in service of reaching murderbot's goals, it teaches murderbot how to use those same skills. (ART might be a bit of an asshole about how it does this, but that doesn't negate just how much it does for murderbot for no reason other than it's bored/interested in MB as an individual.)

we all love goofing about how artificial condition can basically be boiled down to "two robots in a trench coat trying to get through a job interview" (which is entirely accurate tbh) but that's also such a great example of ART fulfilling the role of both murderbot's "hubsystem" and "secsystem", allowing it to fully experience its environment/ succeed in its goals. ART provides MB with crucial information, context, and constructive criticism, and uses its significant processing power to act as MB's backup and support system while they work together.

from ART's side of things, we get a very explicit explanation of how it needs the context of murderbot's emotional reactions to media in order to fully understand and experience the media as intended. it tried to watch media with its humans, and it didn't completely understand just by studying their reactions. but when it's in a feed connection with murderbot, who isn't human but has human neural tissue, ART is finally able to thoroughly process the emotional aspects of media (side note, once it actually understands the emotional stakes in a way that makes sense for it, it's so frightened by the possibility of the fictional ship/crew in worldhoppers being catastrophically injured or killed that it makes murderbot pause for a significant amount of time before it feels prepared to go on. like!! ART really fucking loves its crew, that is all).

looking at things further from ART's perspective: its relationship with murderbot is ostensibly the very first relationship it's been able to establish with not only someone outside of its crew, but also with any construct at all. while ART loves its crew very much (see previous point re: being so so scared for the fate of the fictional crew of worldhoppers), it never had a choice in forming relationships with them. it was quite literally programmed to build those relationships with its crew and students. ART loves its function, its job, and nearly all of the humans that spend time inside of it, but its relationship with murderbot is the first time it's able to choose to make a new friend. that new friend is also someone who, due to its partial machine intelligence, is able to understand and know ART on a whole other level of intimacy that humans simply aren't capable of. (that part goes for murderbot, too, obviously; ART is its first actual friend outside of the presaux team, and its first bot friend ever.)

and because murderbot is murderbot, and not a "nice/polite to ART most of the time" human, this is also one of the first times that ART gets real feedback from a friend about the ways that its actions impact others. after the whole situation in network effect, when the truth of the kidnapping comes to light and murderbot hides in the bathroom refusing to talk to ART (and admittedly ART doesn't handle this well lol) - ART is forced to confront that despite it making the only call it felt able to make in that horrifying situation, despite it thinking that that was the right call, its actions hurt murderbot, and several other humans were caught in the crossfire. what's most scary to ART in that moment is the idea that murderbot might never forgive it, might never want to talk to it again. it's already so attached to this friendship, so concerned with murderbot's wellbeing, that the thought of that friendship being over because of its own behavior is terrifying. (to me, this almost mirrors murderbot's complete emotional collapse when it thinks that ART has been killed. the other more overt mirror is ART fully intending on bombing the colony to get murderbot back.)

in den's words, they both increase the other's capacity to feel: ART by acting as a part of murderbot's sensory system, and murderbot by acting as a means by which ART can access emotion. they love one another so much they would do pretty much anything to keep each other safe/avenge each other, but what's more, they unequivocally make each other more whole.

[max1461]

This has mostly disappeared from my corner of the internet over the last few years, but it used to be the case that every once in a while some story would go around about a corporation or a government doing some fucked up shit in pursuit of their self-interest, and people in the comments and reblogs would act utterly aghast that said government or corporation would do such a thing.

This was always baffling to me, and I have only ever been able to interpret it as a sign of profound naivety. Of course, I too think it is awful, sad, and unjust when people are exploited, killed, abused or so on by the institutions of our society. But "aghastness" is not synonymous with these things, to be aghast is to be (or present yourself as) in some sense surprised. And surprise is wholly unwarranted here.

I suppose this is part of my worldview that feels very fundamental, it feels deeply obvious, and I struggle to figure out how to talk productively with people who did not get the memo: exploitation and abuse of others in pursuit of self-interest is in some sense the natural behavior of agents in any kind of competitive context. It requires a lot of effort and coordination to mitigate this behavior. We do not feel "aghast" when someone is bitten by a dog. Dogs bite people, idiot! And corporations exploit their workers, lie, cheat, and steal, unless you work very hard to prevent them from doing so. And governments exploit and neglect their citizens, and go to war and kill and maim, unless you work very hard to prevent them from doing so. Individual humans, as members of a social species for which cooperation is paramount to survival, have quite a lot of specific programming whose purpose seems to be to discourage us from doing these things (empathy, loyalty, etc. etc.), and yet very often we still do them!

I have relatives who have a hard time believing in US atrocities abroad, on the grounds that "Americans are the good guys, and the US just wouldn't do that". This is very stupid! Do you think the US got where it is today without cracking some eggs? Bullshit. There's never been a government or a military in the history of humanity that "just wouldn't do that". I sometimes see posts on here from tankies, defending Chinese or Soviet atrocities on the grounds that these things must be Western propaganda, a socialist government just wouldn't do that. Again, I find this so obviously false as to be essentially beneath engaging with. We don't live in a just world! Often, a very effective strategy for achieving whatever it is you're trying to achieve will involve treating people like shit. It is what it is.

I'm not trying to play defense for injustice here. Obviously I think we should do as much as we can to prevent these abuses. But I think that doing so must start with basic recognition of the following: it is the nature of institutions—being as competition between them is essentially unavoidable, and being as their decision processes are unavoidably removed from the face-to-face social context which is so load-bearing in motivating respectful treatment between individual humans—to abuse people in pursuit of their (perceived) self-interest. This behavior is mundane and expected. It can be mitigated in various ways, ideological and structural, but it will probably always be with us to some degree. To look at it and express shock in any capacity suggests a completely misguided understanding of how the world works.

This is the first and most important thing I ever learned about politics or society.

[acquired-stardust]

Special Feature: Vana'diel - Digital Archaeology in 2025 and the Soul of Adventure (Final Fantasy XI, 2002)

Acquired Stardust is back after a long hiatus from writing with this special feature! Want to know what we've been up to over the holidays? Click through to read Ash's long story about uncovering a living fossil and checking off a bucket list item together with Larsa through their adventures in Final Fantasy XI's Vana'diel!

The love of and desire for 'adventure', even vicariously, is something that has been etched into the very soul of humanity from the earliest stages of our history - the oldest surviving literary narrative, Sumer's Epic of Gilgamesh, is over four thousand years old. From the time written language came into being we have dreamed of stories of great heroes roaming the land, contending with crisis and gods in equal measure.

The subject of today's feature is a series that itself often hearkens back to the Epic of Gilgamesh with abundant references throughout its now 16 mainline entries and countless spinoffs, and to really understand it in context is difficult given just how much the world has changed since the release of Final Fantasy XI in 2002 (arriving in America two years later). So different in fact it almost sounds like another world itself.

The early aughts were an incredible time to grow up, and it's one of the times in my life I've personally felt a sense of adventure most strongly. As a child of the first generation to grow up with easy access to computers in the home it felt like a time of infinite possibilities. Large numbers of emergent technologies and innovations had begun to rapidly change youth culture as well as erode the old order of isolated regional cultures. The rollout of broadband 'high speed' internet in 2001 to my area was a huge deal, finally breaking upstate New York out of dial-up internet limitations now unimaginable. Video games and the hardware on which they ran got infinitely more complex. Media from Japan continued its controlled flow into the west as anime like Dragon Ball Z left its indelible mark on my generation.

Somewhere in this confluence of rapidly expanding technology and rapidly shrinking cultural borders I found myself coming of age. Growing up in upstate New York with Knox's Headquarters quite literally in my backyard gave me an early love of history, but growing up a 'latchkey kid' afforded me control of my own time - I could do what I wanted when I wanted to do it all with minimal, if any, supervision. I was able to throw myself into whatever pursuit I wanted to without anyone looking over my shoulder, to decide for myself what I was interested in and who I was to become. The opportunity to find myself on my own is one I'm eternally grateful for, and to have done it in a time before far-right pipelines were anywhere near as omnipresent as they are now was a real blessing.

How this shaped up was, unsurprisingly, that I played a lot of primarily Japanese video games and watched a lot of anime. But in the early aughts there was still a comparatively very slow trickle of those things available in the west, and I was drawn primarily to two outlets that could expand my awareness of them. One was Cartoon Network's [Adult Swim] brand which would become a huge cultural player in itself and is perhaps a story for another time. The other was twice-defunct television channel G4, focused largely around video game programming such as documentaries in its series Icons and even airing thematically structured compilations of trailers, cutscenes and gameplay with Cinematech.

My love for history really blossomed in this period into complete obsession with hobbies. History was in my backyard, but it was also everywhere and In every little thing. And there were so many more 'little things' than I had ever previously known. The world was far bigger than I had ever imagined. There was always something new to see, each with its own universe of things to know about it. It was like surfing an incredible alternative cultural wave, topping the peak alongside countless other misfit kids of the Bush years. It's an experience unlike many others I've had in my life, and an incredibly special time that I will never forget. It created innumerable core memories, sometimes even from the slightest of things. One such core memory leads us directly to today's article.

The day itself was not unlike any other. I'd arrived home from school to an empty apartment and sat myself in front of the TV to spend my time on what I really wanted to be studying. As the aforementioned program Cinematech aired a rerun of one of its regular episodes I was caught off guard by a commercial for the then-upcoming Final Fantasy XI. It was a quick 30-second spot, but utterly arresting to someone who had up until that point (and indeed to this day) been completely obsessed with Final Fantasy. The game itself looked like one of the coolest things I'd ever seen, but the narration and logo noting that the game was 'online' blew my mind at the time. While certainly not the first Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game, it was the first one I'd personally encountered and the prospect of being able to interact with other Final Fantasy fans within the specific context of a Final Fantasy game rather than discussion of it was extremely tantalizing.

But there were a lot of questions to be asked. What was an online game? How did an online adapter work and how much did it cost? You'd have to pay a monthly subscription to play it? And what exactly was an HDD, anyway? Rather than deal with the hassle of answering these questions (which were likely to be met with a swift and completely understandable 'no' when the inevitable monetary costs were discussed) I drifted away into other areas of my hobbies. But the core memory of seeing this game for the first time had stayed with me all these years, and Final Fantasy XI had become something of a white whale to me. A game I'd always wanted to experience but never had the time or extra money for. An opportunity I missed out on, a time and place I should have been in. Part of that great cultural wave I should've surfed.

Larsa and I discussed getting into the game almost every year we've known each other (note: that's a long time) and always ultimately decided against it as we were already busy enough. That all changed in the later days of 2024 when we finally took the plunge and bought the game on Steam, a bundle containing all of the expansions for the game as well as a free 30 day subscription.

There are no two ways about it, Final Fantasy XI is extremely antiquated. In fact it's a game so old that it was released before Squaresoft even became Square-Enix. Setup of the game's PlayOnline launcher, notoriously referred to as 'the first boss of the game', is a pain and can alone filter out many looking to experience the game proper and we admittedly ran into a snag or two that at first did not look good for our future with it. But managing to make it through the initial hurdles was rewarded almost immediately precisely because the game is so antiquated. The PlayOnline launcher is a living fossil reminiscent of an earlier, intermediary intersection of culture and technology - a less connected world without social media or smartphones. Built-in mail services, profiles with information sections like hobbies, 129 pages of selectable avatars many of which from then-contemporary Square games such as Threads of Fate (1999), Ehrgeiz (1998) and Brave Fencer Musashi (1998) as well as other Final Fantasy games. It presents a shared language and collective frame of reference for culture of the era with the inclusion of some of those games that are now functionally extinct.

The PlayOnline launcher feels like walking the hallowed halls of not just a museum, but a genuine slice of time rather than a recreation or kayfabed reenactment. It feels like walking through a time portal directly to the transitional period between web 1.0 and 2.0. Absolutely remarkable to the point that I felt speechless fiddling around in its menus, its ability to remain untouched by modernization is nothing short of astounding. They say that you can never truly get your childhood back but the PlayOnline launcher feels like it manages to genuinely capture the way the world, and indeed the way we, were at the time. Like returning home after two-plus decades away only to discover everything is exactly the same as you left it.

There's a real sense of peace, wonder and belonging unlike much I've ever felt before. It was like spotting land from ocean and I was simply overcome with emotion. Overcome with the sudden acute awareness of loss, and having managed to regain some of what was lost. Overcome with the feeling of many people, each with their own lives as complex as my own, having tread these same halls over the course of what was now decades. Fiddling around with the launcher was genuinely one of the most surreal and vivid experiences of my life. And the absolute whirlwind of nostalgia wasn't through with me yet, the opening scene of the game featuring the iconic Uematsu-composed Prelude and narration by the actor who first made me want to get into the arts in Michael McConnohie. The game's English cast in general features many actors who defined that generation of voice acting and adds to the overall feeling of being a moment trapped in time.

Players are able to create one singular character (with the option to purchase more character creation slots for an additional fee), selecting from different playable races with their own distinct physical features, stat advantages and disadvantages. Character creation is rather limited by current standards, with each playable race having two 'genders', each having a number of preset faces and hairstyles. You are able to alter your character's height, but that is all the player can do in terms of customization beyond selecting preset faces and hairstyles, which are themselves tied to each other. The playable races are by and large the same initial races available in Final Fantasy XIV, though I find the Mithra preferable to XIV's Miqo'te as they're a bit more bestial and less anime catgirl. Much of the aesthetic is also rather similar to XIV, with plenty of recurring gear visuals recycled into XIV (along with plenty of monsters), though some of the cloth armor is more elaborate and creative as opposed to XIV's deluge of generic healer robes you will be inundated with. After creating your character you select one of three nations to hail from, each with their own storyline that ultimately converges by the time the final battle of the base game rolls around.

Larsa and I (playing Mithra and Tarutaru, respectively) embarked on Windurst's story, and the antiquated nature of the game is felt pretty much immediately. There are no quest markers and very little information about where to go or what to do, or even how. You will be thrown right into the deep end and expected to find your own way and make your own adventure. Maps are invaluable items able to be purchased by players for most of the game's expansive and sometimes rather empty areas, otherwise they will be flying blind. Which can be very troublesome but helps the overall feeling of an adventure being undertaken. It helps you connect more with the world and learn where things are. Roughly the first thirty hours of gameplay was spent exclusively on leveling our characters, figuring out the battle system and exploring, without nearly a single story scene due to focusing on experiencing the game naturally rather than following one of countless sometimes variously outdated guide.

On that front, the gameplay is certainly of a very slow pace for better or worse. Battles are menu-based like classic Final Fantasy games as opposed to the more modern action game style, and players' main form of damage in combat will be through auto attacks against creatures that for the first time appear in the world rather than as separate random encounters one loads into. These auto attacks can be quite quick (with some of the quicker classes being able to land more than one blow per attack) although some weapons will attack significantly slower. Actions taken during battle charge a TP meter that the player will be able to spend on 'weaponskills', damaging named attacks with their own built-in typing that can react to and resonate with other weaponskills resulting in an even more damaging 'skillchain', itself being further able to be paired with a magic spell for a 'magic burst' that applies even more escalating damage.

Figuring this system out is fun and can considerably speed up combat, and is another area in which the game encourages experimentation, rewarding those willing to invest time in tinkering with the game's six basic jobs (the player is able to freely swap to any of these basic jobs, and later the many advanced jobs as they are unlocked, in their housing) and multitude of available weapon types. Jobs are additionally able to be expanded through combination, assigning another unlocked job as a sub job that grants you access to that job's abilities, stats and gear in addition to those of your main job.

The pace of the game being rather slow works in its favor in regards to how its multitude of mechanics function together. It feels like every single action and event matters. Status effects such as poisoning, silencing and blinding can now turn the tide of battle one way or the other. MP, which the player uses primarily to cast spells, recovers extremely slowly and so their use of it must be carefully managed lest they be forced to literally sit down for minutes at a time to rest and recover. Items such as potions and ethers are incredibly valuable as a consequence of this. There is genuinely so much room for skill expression, planning and executing battles and it's very refreshing compared to many modern games.

The system itself, while deep and rewarding of knowledge, also has lots of little touches that help keep the experience from being excruciating. One example is the cursor memory effect that allows you to quickly recast spells and abilities as needed. Just as well in the years since release the game has seen the addition of the Trust system, an array of collectable NPC summons that scale to the player's level and fill multiple roles in the party that helps mitigate the declining playerbase and the large variance in levels and progress between the players that do still play.

These Trusts are able to be summoned at nearly any time and resummoned after falling in battle on a short timer, and they really help the experience of progressing through the game a ton. Speaking of timers and the overall pace of the game, it seems to be a recurring and somewhat intrusive element of the experience that you will likely have an opinion on one way or the other. On the one hand it makes actions matter tremendously, and on the other it can sometimes feel like every action including map traversal is stretched in hopes of milking players for subscription money.

Time gates themselves are not terribly uncommon to run into, with the quest that unlocks the samurai job featuring a several-hour real world wait associated with it that is wholly unnecessary. Final Fantasy XI is very much unafraid to make you spend your time with things like RNG drops for quests and conditional monster spawns. Some of this design philosophy also crept its way into the original version of Final Fantasy XIV, the notorious 1.0 that nearly spelled financial doom for Square-Enix after a turbulent period.

The base game's story scenes are few and far between, with a certain level of gravitas to the fade-to-black that comes with a cutscene due in part to that infrequency but just as much with how purposefully they are interspersed. The story itself is, at least at first, a bit simplistic and reminiscent of a rather vanilla Dungeons and Dragons campaign. Which works in the game's favor quite well as a platform for authentic and spontaneous adventure.

To that point, each job has roles to play in a party and depending on the situation you may find yourself in need of another player to help you through a particular challenge. While the majority of this can be mitigated through Trusts or clever uses of items such as Prism Powder to sneak by aggressive monsters, it is entirely possible for you to be stuck at various points if you don't already meet the qualifications or have another player on hand able to help you.

This was a particularly fascinating element of the experience to me and highlighted some of the ways in which culture has changed. While it is true that this is yet another way in which the experience can be stretched out, it hearkens back to some of the origins of the series in its obsession with Dungeons and Dragons. There are ample opportunities for 'hero moments', not all of which will be yours and yours alone. These days if we're holding the controller we want to feel like the hero at all times, but Final Fantasy XI is not afraid to give different people in your party the chance to shine at different times which very much feels in line with the tabletop roleplaying experience.

As a consequence of things taking so long it creates a real, genuine feeling of thankfulness for the players having their hero moments. The gratitude can really help forge some bonds among players which isn't necessarily something we collectively like doing anymore. Much of the design of the game facilitates a great sandbox for authentic adventure and is almost entirely player driven outside of the main story quest.

The sound design is also quite strong, with a strong team of composers including series veteran Nobuo Uematsu handling the game's staggering workload. There's a lot of standout songs, such as "Heavens Tower", but even those without direct experience with the game might be familiar with the Uematsu-composed "Ronfaure" which has been a fixture of live performances associated with the series at large for virtually as long as there have been such concerts. Plenty of nostalgic nods to previous games aurally help the game feel more connected to its predecessors as well, such as certain classifications of armor sounding identically to Final Fantasy IX party member Adelbert Steiner's armor when running.

The graphics variously hold up quite well. Character designs are largely strong (with many feeling right at home in this era of Square game) and much of the clothing design is pretty good as well, not featuring (to my knowledge) as many of the deviations that Final Fantasy XIV does with, for example, its recent 'streetwear' additions to the game. It's a rather cohesive aesthetic that looks somewhat like a cross between Final Fantasy Tactics and Final Fantasy XII. Geometry can be a bit blocky and skyboxes can be a bit splotchy, but there is still plenty in the way of beautiful vistas and cool sights to see even if they're roughly what a PS2 was capable of rendering (sometimes with great dips in frame rate on that system).

When launching the game it warns you to not play to the detriment of your real life, and when launching for the first time I assumed that a funny little quirk of when it was released and the relative unfamiliarity the world had with MMOs in a time before Blizzard's genre-defining World of Warcraft. This is not the case, and if the gameplay grabs you it is extremely easy to play for huge amounts of time without noticing it. We did not heed this warning and making our way through the base game took roughly 98 hours, mostly taking up just about all of our free time.

The game is also great about allowing the player to make lateral progress, which is to say grinding up various jobs to combine with each other, and not feeling like you've wasted your time despite making no forward progress through the game. It is shockingly addictive if the gameplay appeals to you. Final Fantasy XIV, clearly a spiritual successor of sorts to Final Fantasy XI, indeed recycles quite a bit of its predecessor but impressively many of the elements that do get rolled into XIV don't all necessarily feel like they've made their original incarnations irrelevant.

One particular highlight of the experience was the usage of a ferry that shuttles players between two locations in the world. Said boat's arrival must be waited for in real time, boarded and then rode for a trip that takes several minutes in real time. This ferry trip is not privately instanced and can see you bumping shoulders with other players also looking to make the trek aboard the ship. It was just one of many examples of the game design going to great lengths to encourage organic, player-driven sandboxy adventures where you're able to socialize rather easily.

Both games have tons to offer and there is plenty of reason to dip your toes into Final Fantasy XI to experience an incredible slice of history, all the more now with the Rhapsodies of Vana'diel storyline helping catch newer players up and Final Fantasy XIV featuring a crossover raid series with Final Fantasy XI. It is an incredibly large experience not meant to be pursued to 100% completion, so I urge you to pick your path carefully and divert only for what interests you, primarily for unlocking jobs to progress through the main story with. You will encounter plenty of outdated and dubious information on the internet for the game, with plenty of discussion dating back to 2007 being the last time things of a relevant nature were discussed in an easily findable way.

Vana'diel likely hasn't seen the last of Larsa and I, and I'm sure we'll resubscribe at some point to continue our adventure. Perhaps after reading some impressions of the experience in the current day you might decide take the plunge yourself. Rest assured, even now after all this time adventure indeed still courses through the veins of Vana'diel. And after all, hasn't adventure been what humanity has been chasing since time immemorial?

-- Ash

[666writingcafe]

Questions (NB 14A)

A Side Chapter That Takes Place During Diavolo and MC's Impromptu Vacation After The Kingsblood Crucible

Slight NSFW Content Warning

I should have known this was coming. We've pretty much exhausted all other topics of conversations during our time here at the villa. Still, I didn't expect him to broach the subject so...abruptly. We were simply sitting outside and watching the sunset when he glances over at me and states calmly,

"So, you've fucked my butler." I nearly choke on my drink.

"I-Is that a bad thing?" I ask, setting it on the table between us.

"Not necessarily. I just want to know how it happened. He's normally not one to indulge in such pleasures." I pull up my text conversation with Barbatos on my D.D.D. and show it to Diavolo. He gently takes the phone away from me as he reads that particular string of texts between the two of us. When he finishes, he hands the phone back to me.

"I didn't realize you were attracted to each other," he remarks.

"He's a nice-looking man."

"That's all?" I nervously swallow.

"Well...we've managed to bond over metal music in both timelines. In fact, it's what led to it happening the first time."

"Really?" I nod, proceeding to tell him about the events leading up to and after the Severa concert I went to with my version of Barbatos.

"I see," he responds once I'm finished. "The main reason that I asked is because I've noticed Barbatos growing more attached to you. His scent's grown a lot stronger since your arrival, to the point where it seems as though he's not trying as hard to hide it as he once did." He briefly pauses before adding,

"It's also beginning to overpower yours, which is a bit of a shame. You smell nice." Out of context, this would be very creepy, but I know his comment is innocent enough.

"Is he this territorial over you in your timeline?"

"Not usually," I answer. "He was pretty handsy before the concert, but I think that's only because he felt like he could get away with it in that context, if that makes sense." Diavolo nods his head.

"He likes keeping his professional life separate from his personal." We each take sips out of our drinks. "So, obviously Solomon and you are like an unofficial married couple, but what's your relationship like with the others? Is it similar to what you have with Barbatos, or do you merely see them as friends and colleagues?" I swallow nervously. Having the future king of the Devildom wanting to know this aspect of my life is nerve-racking, to say the least. Would he think less of me after this?

"Well...to put it simply, I'm a wee bit of a whore when it comes to them." Diavolo hums lightly in response.

"Wouldn't have pegged you as the type."

"I didn't use to be, but then the exchange program happened, and as I got to know everyone, feelings naturally began forming, and one thing led to another, resulting in me wanting to engage in those activities more and more often."

"Interesting. Is there anyone in particular that you feel the most drawn to?"

"There's three."

"Including Solomon?" I nod my head. "And the other two?"

"Well...there's Lucifer." Another hum, this one deeper and more drawn out. As if he's displeased.

"That's always been a bit of a sore subject between us," I tell him. "In fact, I think that's part of why we really didn't get along at first. I felt like you were taking advantage of him, and you thought that I was taking him away from you." Diavolo sighs.

"Lucifer...he means a lot to me. He's unlike anyone I've ever met, which makes me all the more attracted to him. But even if I'm successful in implementing my goal of uniting the three realms, I doubt there would ever come a time where I'd..." He trails off, appearing to collect his thoughts.

"At the end of the day, I have to consider who'd be fit to rule by my side, and even if I didn't have to abide by tradition, I just don't think he has it in him to be able to do it successfully." Well, this is interesting. I was under the impression that he'd marry Lucifer in a heartbeat if he could. He certainly acted that way in my timeline.

"You seem confused," Diavolo observes. "Is the relationship I have with Lucifer that much different where you come from?"

"In a word, yes." He sighs again.

"The biggest problem is the mark. Its influence is making him act increasingly subservient towards me, and I want my future partner to feel like they're equal to me. If I'm being stupid, I'd want someone to tell me that and help me change my behavior. That wouldn't be possible if I'm constantly surrounded by yes men.

"As it is, it's difficult to find objective people. They're either too afraid or too enamored to stand up to me. My father used that to his advantage. I won't make that same mistake."

"I see." I'm a bit surprised that he's being so open about all this. I mean, it's not like I'm going to tell anyone, not even when I get back home, but still. My Diavolo and I have never been able to get this close. We've had deep conversations, sure, but never about this.

"So, Solomon and Lucifer. Who's number three?" I find myself hesitating to answer. It's not that I don't want to; I'm simply too nervous about his potential reaction to be able to form words.

"It's okay, MC. Just move your head. Sound good?" I nod.

"Is it a member of royalty?" Nod.

"Is it someone from the House of Lords?" Shake.

"Is it one of their servants?" A confused shake.

"We generally treat them as part of the royal family," he explains. "After all, they help ensure that things run smoothly for us." Nod.

"Is it someone that I'd know?"

"Kind of?" Oh, so now my mouth decides to work. Diavolo tilts his head and studies me. A couple minutes later, he gets up from his chair and walks over to me. Leaning over me, he gently lifts my chin up so that I'm looking directly into his eyes.

"Is it me?" His voice is much huskier than it was before, making my heart begin racing. I'm afraid to tell him the truth, but I also know that he's going to see right through whatever lie I tell him.

Might as well be honest with him. It'd be better than the alternative.

"Yes." He smiles softly.

"Good."

Good?

Diavolo's lips touch mine, causing my brain to shut off momentarily. He's pleasantly warm. Makes me all tingly inside.

Even though the kiss doesn't last very long, I still find myself slightly out of breath when he pulls away.

"Strange," he whispers, taking a step back to give me space.

"What?"

"I thought that would have satisfied my curiosity, but I..." Is he getting nervous?

"You were curious about me?" He nods.

"After I first told you about my trial, I had a vision. It appeared as a brief flash of color at first, but when I was able to focus on it, it showed you and me sitting beside each other on thrones. Your behavior at the Kingsblood Crucible proved to me that you'd be more than capable of ruling alongside me, but then I began wondering how we'd even get to that point in the first place. If the House of Lords didn't like me allowing the seven brothers to live here, then in what world would they accept me marrying a human?"

"That hasn't stopped you from broaching the subject before."

"I figured as much, but I still wanted to know why."

"And?" Diavolo takes a deep breath.

"You taste ridiculously sweet. It's awoken something in me, and I find myself wanting more. In fact, it's making it increasingly harder to concentrate on anything else."

Oh. Is this how the others feel about me? It'd certainly explain some of their behavior towards me; I'm like a drug to them. Whether it's due to my powers, my ancestry, or something else entirely, I'm not sure.

But that's not really that important right now.

"Do you want me to enable you, or stop you?" I ask Diavolo.

"I...I don't know." A blush develops on his face, and he suddenly seems unable to look at me. I'm not used to seeing this side of the prince, but I can't say I mind it. It's rather adorable.

"Do you trust me enough to make the decision for you?" He nervously swallows before nodding his head, and I get up from my chair and stand in front of him. Standing on the tips of my toes makes me just tall enough for me to kiss Diavolo.

The next thing I know, I'm sitting in his lap as we practically devour each other. At least that's something that stays consistent across time and space.

I'm sure both of us are going to be littered with marks by the time we're done.

Taglist: @lost-in-time-wanderer, @fuzztacular, @dianedancer18, @sweetbrier2908, @flare-love, @completelyshatteredbrokenmschf, @thunderlightning351, @l3v1chan, @anxious-chick, @5mary5, @expressionless-fr, @tenkobitch, @interconnectedmatrix

[ottovonruthie]

On the James/Logan situation, it's probably coming down to Logan's driving and what James has been saying to the media.

When James first signed Logan he said their intentions in resigning him after his poor rookie season was to "nurture him" and "develop his talent". For context, Logan was part of Williams Junior programe, so he's a Williams driver through and through. He was announced to be picking up the second Williams seat in October 2022 after they decided to drop Nicolas Latifi during his third year racing for Williams and they honestly didn't have many options (Oscar notably got picked up by McLaren and De vryies who did well during Alex's leave for appendicitis by Alpha Tauri). It also should be known that James also joined Williams as TP in 2023, so it Jost Capito (past Williams TP) who decided to pull up a "underdeveloped" Logan. I put undeveloped in quotations because he was, he wasn't ready and needed that second year, but he isn't a bad driver. He preformed well during his F3 and F2 seasons, and it's proven by his performance in Charouz in 2021. Charouz was the worst car on the grid finishing last the year before, and Logan was able to score their first ever podium in F3. He also scored 102 points and placed 7th in the championship. This is actually insane, and to put into perspective, Charouz only scored a total of 127 points that year.

When he was signed, people had very high hopes for Logan out that didn't exactly pan out.

This year Williams has been relatively unreliable, not only in strategy but also in the car. In Bahrain he had steering problems, and in Australia he had his chassis given to Albon who had crashed in FP3. This caused a lot of outrage over this decision, and people questioning if it should be even allowed to do that. This was the first sign that Williams might not be exactly following what they were saying earlier in the year.

Logan would then be given an overweight chassis in Japan as they didn't have a spare chassis after Williams production of car parts was very backed up (they had this whole Microsoft word doc thingy and they were barely able to even have both cars ready for testing). Logan would from then on have a different spec car and get some 2023 parts on his car until Spain where he would get the updates. The funny thing is that they didn't even work. Silverstone where he finally and the updates working and on his car, he had his best performance of the season. After this we would get a article stating that James never gave any feedback, which was very strange.

James in that time though had been openly interested in replacing Logan this year with rumors flying from Carlos to Valtteri to even Esteban in taking the second Williams seat. Esteban had been reported to have had a seat fitting and was reported to have been planed to drive in Hungary if Alpine hadn't blocked the move.

Then we obviously hear that Logan and James aren't speaking, and take this with a grain of salt, but it's also said that Dorilton Capital (the new owners of Williams and an American investment company) wanted to keep Logan for the 2024 season, so it's spectated that James never wanted Logan in that seat.

In my opinion, Logan probably thinks it's unfair how he's not being given a solid chance and James has been shitting on him to basically anyone who will listen, and James just doesn't want Logan as a driver.

Thank you so much for this. I’m now fully caught up with the Williams’ drama. I knew he’d been driving the non upgraded version of the car most of this season but that’s it. But this is where I debate with myself, if they’re going to do all of this, wouldn’t it just be better to have not renewed his contract from the start and look elsewhere? I’m glad he’s getting the experience but it’s lowkey a waste of both of their times.

[commsroom]

i think it's worth noting how individualism and the "big picture" in wolf 359 are not opposite ideas, but in service of the same goal: people that serve systems, rather than systems that serve people. goddard's recruitment tactic (in its moderately less coercive form) is an appeal to meritocracy and exceptionalism. a once in a lifetime opportunity to be part of something, to matter. it's a lie, of course. but that's the promise.

goddard futuristics and the dear listeners are parallel forces with compatible goals. cutter's proposal is a humanity without humans (save for the select few, like him, who get to make the choices), and that's perfectly acceptable to the dear listeners, who have no concept of the individual. the dear listeners are the only truly non-human characters in wolf 359, and they're narratively presented as a hollow reflection of humanity - borrowing eiffel's voice + appearance, unable to understand music - the ability to replicate, but not create. i think the implications are pretty clear, in the context of wolf 359's anti-corporate themes.

back to goddard's recruitment: minkowski wants to prove herself, to be in command, but she's initially too caught up on doing things the right way to be a leader for the people around her. the only tip in the dssppm she forgets is the one about effective communication. even her musical: hera is the only one willing to take part, and minkowski will only give her a small role. hilbert is a scientist who seems to believe he alone can revolutionize medicine, with no outside input or cooperation. of course, he not only fails, but his research results in further harm. goddard selects for people with this type of self-centered ambition... and also for people who are deeply isolated. eiffel and hera were not recruited through flattery. they're company property, and they've always been aware that their 'choice' was either 'agree to this' or 'we'll make things worse for you until you agree.' even with such a small crew, this creates an underclass, and a very pointed attempt at division of interests. and explains a lot about s1 dynamics.

which isn't to say eiffel and hera don't have their own problems re: communication. goddard's AI program is inherently isolating and pushes for ruthless competition under threat of death. hera isn't used to being able to trust people, and is extremely reluctant to accept help, even while she's suffering. eiffel, as the communications officer, is an advocate for communication and an effective mediator, but he's also extremely self-centered. it's very purposeful that eiffel's part of shut up and listen is paralleled by maxwell's logs about the dear listeners: "i've spent so much time thinking about how we're going to get a message across, and i haven't been thinking at all about reception. but what if the first challenge is figuring out how to listen? how much have we already missed?"

wolf 359 is a show that highly values the individual, personal identity and personal connection, but with the condition that connection is key. every person matters, but no one can make it alone. at the heart of the show, what you have is a group of very willful, very disparate personalities who have to learn how to see beyond their own assumptions and understand each other as full people with their own lives and desires and interiority - and then learn to move forward together. ultimately, it all comes down to that exchange between hilbert and eiffel: "you did not beat me. you needed help from AI, from minkowski." / "uh, yeah. it's called being part of the crew. you ever meet anyone that could get things done all on their lonesome?"

[tightwadspoonies]

Food Bank Tips and Tricks

To give some context, both my wife and I are recently out of work, and likely to be for at least several months while she does CNA training and while I am in partial hospitalization for schizoaffective.

We are housing secure and otherwise okay, but we need to get our flexible spending (the kind of spending we have control over, so basically everything except housing, utilities, medical care/meds, and phone bills) down to as close to zero as possible, and that includes food.

My wife currently volunteers at one of the best food banks in the area (an Asian-specific one), and today she signed us up as clients. This post will take you through some tips and tricks to using a food bank, and some ideas of what to do with the food you might get.

Tips and Tricks:

Know when the food bank is open. It might be that they are open only once or twice per week, or even just on the 1st Thursday of the month. Even if they don't have a website, they probably have a facebook page you can look at, or flyers posted on community billboards that will give you this info.

Know what documentation you need, and bring it with you. Some are on the honor system, some will want proof of residency in their service area. Some might want proof of income below a certain amount. This is also info that might be on a facebook page or flyer. If not, see if they have a phone number, or better yet, show up during the distribution time and ask (preferably before you need the service).

Speaking of, start getting food at a food bank before you run out of food. One food bank can't generally provide all the food you need, so first try to use them to stretch your food budget as much as possible (use money or programs like WIC or SNAP to buy perishable food you generally won't find in food banks, and use the banks to fill in your non-perishables).

Again speaking of, don't be afraid to use multiple food banks. They generally aren't checking (unless the same organization runs multiple banks), and you will probably need more food than one food bank can offer you.

If you're more than a 1-person household, find out if the bank has special rules. You might be able to pick up twice or more for larger households. If the bank doesn't have a policy for this, you may be able to bring other household members (or just friends if on the honor system) and pick up more food.

Get there early to have access to the most variety.

Find out what other services your food bank offers. Some have connections to community services you may also want to use. Never be afraid of using services, because the more people they serve, the more money they tend to get. You're rarely, if ever, taking resources from someone else just by using a free service like a food bank.

You might get expired food. That's okay and you're gonna have to get chill about it. Check the chart below to see how long after the expiration date the food is still good:

Some food banks offer special perks if you also volunteer there, like access to the food they can't otherwise give away. For example, we got a 22lb frozen turkey they'd been trying to give away since thanksgiving.

If it's your first time, bring your own bags. Some banks offer bags, some don't.

Know that a lot of them are volunteer run, so don't expect customer service like you might at a store. Also, be nice. The volunteers may not know everything and that's okay. If you really need something or feel you're being treated unfairly, you can ask to speak with a volunteer coordinator, but that's probably as far as it will go.

What kind of food will you get?

Well, it is different food bank to food bank and week/month to week/month. It's very much a "take what they will give you and figure it out later" kind of situation. Individual items may not be in the quantities you would normally buy (for example, you might get a single apple or 2 small potatoes per person, per visit), but you might also get small amounts of lots of different foods.

Most will give you primarily non-perishable foods like canned vegetables, soups, and boxed mixes and cereals. Some food banks will have limited fresh items. As stated above, if you can, use limited money/WIC/SNAP on fresh foods and use the food banks for your pantry staples and non-perishables.

Bigger cities tend to have more and better banks, as they have access to more grocery stores which donate their near-expired food to them. There also may be more individuals donating in cities just because there are more individuals in general.

Sometimes, as in the case with us, there are ethnic-specific food banks in places like chinatowns and other places heavily populated with people of a particular ethnicity. Generally you don't have to be of that ethnicity to partake. The amount of food might not be different, but it might give you some variety if you've been eating a lot of oatmeal.

[ergodic-mentality]

Entry 5 - Housekeeping

Howdy Howdy.

Ok. So.

As someone with LONGTIME diagnosed ADHD (If I didn't self admit this, trust me, it would become apparent with time) I cannot stress enough how much having a digital recreation of a physical map for story writing helps with executive dysfunction. Highly recommend.

Context:

As a longtime Dork, a fan of Weird Fiction, and an Oldhead by internet terms, it should surprise no one that Remedy is one of my favorite game developers, and I am DEEPLY attached to Alan Wake as a franchise purely off of its deep analysis of the craft of writing and psychological analysis.

When playing Alan Wake 2 (Minor Spoilers for game mechanics I guess?) as the titular title character Alan Wake, you are stuck in a nightmare dreamscape shaped by your own art. As such, you constantly return to his Writers Room where, partially because its a real tactic, and partially because its a video game, you rearrange story elements on a massive chalkboard to effect the game world itself.

Image attached for all my visual learners out there:

Now, I've struggled a lot sometimes with my drafts and organizing my thoughts. I've loved writing for a long time. The closest I ever got to seeing something like this in media before was, admittedly, being shown the Always Sunny clip of the Pepe Silvia rant. While funny, being shown someone's mental shattering it turns out, not the most effective way to teach a writer a valuable tool.

Turning it into a puzzle mechanic utilized by an actual writer however? Very Cool.

Where am I going with this?

As it turns out, there are several programs out there that allow you to basically replicate this kind of visual story mapping out there if you just know where to look. One of the better ones, admittedly, I actually did not find out about until after college, where in my corporate job someone pulled it out (A business major friend of mine) as a part of a team building exercise.

Behold, my Miro board:

(This is not a paid advertisement)

What it is, I hope, a call to those who did not know about it that it is THERE. What it does is give you a nice big infinite void, and allow you to not only draw lines and flow tables and make nice little titles on things, but as you can see, toss digital physical sticky notes around and map things out VISUALLY.

I cannot stress how much this has helped.

Everything to the left of the center line was initial plot building for future drafts of Project Clown Crown. Side characters, plots, building up little color coded stacks of each note so that I know what corresponds to what.

Everything to the right? That's two days of manic work baby. As it turns out, much to my friend recently pointing out, Image and Dark Horse accept open pitches so long as you have an artist team, an elevator pitch for the work, and a solid 5 pages of sequential story telling that summarizes what you plan to do in the first arc.

This normally probably would have taken me a month of staring at a blank google/word doc until I came up with some kind of nigh-incomprehensible bulleted list spanning for pages. Instead, I can pump these ideas down visually now in a couple of hours, rearrange them, note them in shorthand and physically place them in space on timelines for my story.

I haven't felt this kind of power as a writer in ages. Admittedly, part of it is probably a friend actually thinking I have something worth pitching. Part of it is an own sense of self accomplishment and actually being able to visually SEE progress, rather than it just be abstracted word counts on a page.

Am I saying Miro is the only solution? No, I'm sure there are other tools or even better tools out there. All I'm saying is that this worked for me, and I will probably take a lot of my other drafts that I've been struggling with and do something similar with them. If you're like me, and you're struggling with writing or you've hit a wall and haven't tried visually mapping things out, give it a go. Can't hurt to try.

Anyway, I suppose I broke the surprise from Entry 4.1 early here, but yeah, looks like I might be trying to turn Project Clown Crown into an actual piece of media. About damn time I try to publish something. Can't call myself an Author without some body of work.

'til next time.

[nicotineculturetech]

18Trip Event - Precious as a White Light Chapter 9

Scene: Hama House Office

Kafka: Hmm… this part doesn’t have enough detail. If you don’t include one more layer of instructions, it’ll get stuck.

Ushio: Ah, I see. Does it look right like this?

Kafka: Yeah, that’s it. You’re good at fixing things as soon as you understand the problem. You’ve been studying properly—good, good.

Ushio: The way you’re praising me… I’m not a kid, you know. Besides, finding those problems in the first place is the annoying part.

Momiji: What are you two doing?

Kafka: Just a little something as thanks for the baking lesson. I’m teaching Ushio some basic programming as an introduction to robotics.

Kafka: He already has a grasp of the basics so he’s been learning on his own. He’s actually a really talented student.

Ushio: …Even if Oguro-san says that, after getting actual lessons, I just realized I was taking the long way around.

Kafka: You’re such a pessimist. I’m complimenting you, so just take it and be happy.

Momiji: Ushio-kun, I didn’t know you were interested in programming.

Ushio: …I want to be able to maintain and repair robots.

Ushio: Oguro-san is pretty good at teaching.

Kafka: This is nothing. Alright, let’s keep moving on to the next part.

Ushio: W-Wait, let me review the last problem first…!

Momiji: (Ushio is really serious about this. Kafka looks like he's having fun too—he must find it rewarding to teach.)

Momiji: (Somehow, even I feel happy just watching them.)

Scene: Hama House Living Room

Nanaki: Ah, Ushio, about the playlist I sent you yesterday…

Ushio: …!

Nanaki: How was it? I wanted to hear your thoughts if you had any.

Ushio: …The playlist was a thank-you for the lesson, right? Do I really have to give feedback for that?

Nanaki: I just wanted to make sure it actually worked as a proper thank-you. I had to put it together using only keywords without knowing the full context—I was seriously wondering what kind of test this was supposed to be.

Ushio: ("It’s a playlist of theme songs for my favorite characters and their ship."  …Like hell I’m ever saying that out loud.)

Nanaki: Besides, I want to settle this cleanly with no debts between us. If it's good, just say so. If it’s not, tell me that too.

Ushio: That’s… ugh…

Ushio: (How does he manage to pick songs that match so perfectly just from a few vague keywords? It's beyond impressive—it’s actually infuriating.)

Ushio: (…But, yeah, it was really good.)

Ushio: …Fine. From now on, we’re even. No more debts.

Nanaki: If you're making that face while saying it,  it must mean you really, really liked it.

Ushio: …Well? Could you stop twisting things to fit your own narrative?

Nanaki: It’s just a question.

Ushio: What???

Nanaki: …See, you immediately get all defensive like that. I won’t push it today, though.

Nanaki: But seriously, because of how vague you were, it was actually pretty tough on my end. Even after I sent it to you… I was worried the whole time wondering if I got it right so I kept digging.

Ushio: Eh?

Ushio: …Wait. You mean there's more?

Nanaki: Eh?

Ushio: I’m asking if you found other songs for this besides the ones in the playlist.

Nanaki: Yeah. …Wanna listen now?

Ushio: …

Nanaki: Oh, but I thought we agreed that we’re even now? So for the extra ones… I’ll play them if you tell me your thoughts on the first batch.

Ushio: …I can’t give any proper feedback  until I’ve listened to everything, can I? Just shut up and hit play already.

Scene: Hama House Entryway

Momiji: (Wait, is that Ushio-kun and Nanaki-kun… listening to music together!?)

Momiji: (I see, I see… These two have really gotten closer than before.)

Momiji: Fufufu…

Scene: Hama House Living Room

Ushio: …Hey, you. The suspicious one over there. What’s so funny all of a sudden? You’re creeping me out.

Nanaki: Chief!

Momiji: Ah! Sorry, sorry. Don’t mind me…

Ushio: No, no, no.  Ignoring an adult who’s staring at us while grinning like that is a serious risk.

Nanaki: Seriously, you really never learn, do you?

Ushio: Oh? Are you buying again today? (1)

Nanaki: Then please make a booking for tomorrow. (1)

Momiji: Sorry for interrupting. It was just such a heartwarming sight.

Nanaki: Heartwarming…?

Momiji: I mean, seeing how everyone has grown closer through making sweets. Especially Ushio-kun—you’ve really opened up to Kafka-kun and Nanaki-kun more than before.

Momiji: I’m just thinking that White Day is such a wonderful occasion…

Ushio: …………No way.

Momiji: Eh? Did I get it wrong…?

Ushio: You saw all that, and that’s your takeaway…?

Ten: Ahaha. She totally missed it. That’s just how Chief is, isn’t it?

Momiji: Wah! That scared me—Ten-kun and Kiroku-kun… Uh, what do you mean?

Kiroku: ……That’s so Chief-like....

Kafka: Oh? What’s everyone gathering for?

Momiji: Kafka!

Ten: Nah, we were just talking about how Chief has a real talent.

Momiji: Eh? What do you mean? Did I say something weird…?

Kafka: Ahh… yeah, you definitely have a certain talent and honestly, that’s part of what makes you so great, Chief-chan.

Nanaki: …Agreed.

Momiji: Ehhh!? Wait, am I the only one who doesn’t get it!?

Nanaki: (But that’s just who Chief is—everything about her, all wrapped up together.)

Kafka: (That’s exactly why she’s Chief-chan.)

Momiji: ……Kiroku-kun, Ushio-kun…?

Kiroku: ……Not realizing it is also one of Chief’s best qualities… probably.

Ushio: At this rate, you’re gonna be a full-fledged grandma.

Momiji: (What does that even mean~~~~~~!?)

(1) I cannot make sense of these two lines like within the flow of the conversation. Is this some kind of inside joke?  the jp lines were pretty easy to read so i just went for the direct tl i'm not getting lol if anyone gets this please tell me!!

[kxowledge]

Congrats on your PhD acceptance!!! Was this the uni you wanted to do your PhD in, or is it a 'safe' choice?

It’s both the place I wanted the most and the one where I thought I had the highest chances of succeeding. I don’t think there’s such thing as a “safe” option when it comes to PhD programs and there is no point in applying to schools that you aren’t fully convinced about, but this uni for me did feel “safe” in the sense that this was one of the programs I knew the most about how it would be.

Last summer when I narrowed down the schools I wanted to apply to, I came up with 10 names, all places I would have been thrilled to attend – submitting a good application is so time-consuming that it’s not worth spending time over something I felt lukewarm about. No university was perfect, but none had drawbacks I couldn’t live with. As I was very sick in the fall (and still not feeling 100%), I knew I needed to focus my energy and not apply to all 10 this round. So, I decided to apply just to this university, with the fallback plan to apply to the 9 others next autumn if I didn’t get in.

The reason why was twofold. Firstly, there’s timing – I had been building a good relationship with several people in the department and the supervisor I wanted was hiring this year and this year only. I had momentum I needed to capitalize on, whereas for the other schools which cycle I’d apply wouldn’t matter much.  Secondly, I thought that this was the program I would prefer over all others except one, given the choice. Two main reasons for this:

My supervisor!! I have concrete evidence that my supervisor will be a good one. She’s an expert when it comes to my specific methodology, which is super important to me, and she know so much about the topics I’m interested in – and she was the one introducing me to some of these in the first place. She’s very supportive and gives great feedback that actually pushes me further. She has a good network of other scholars. These are all things that will contribute to my success, more so than the name of the school. There are obviously great supervisors at other schools too, but here I know for sure

The money. In the context of the other universities I was considering (i.e. in Europe/UK), this is where I’m going to get paid the most. As I said, I would have also managed with a lower salary, but, trust me, knowing I’m going to get paid this much is a relief - living on £20k/€23k/$25k circa is too restrictive no matter the location. Not only I will not have to worry about money ever for the next four years, but I will also be able to put enough money aside to buy a house, because we're not talking about a 2-3k more, we're talking about almost double of what I would have gotten in other places. Because of the money and the benefits, I don’t have to feel like I’m putting my life on hold until the end of the PhD, but rather I can afford to do anything I want, be it travel or build a family or join the expensive pottery studio or whatever.

The drawback: this university is not well ranked worldwide. What will get my CV checked out for AP positions will not be the name of the institution, but rather my work, which is a lot of pressure because getting something under review at a top journal is no easy feat. At the end of the day, I would try to do my best and I would have high standards in any case, so at least I’m in an environment that will support me & if I struggle getting a job post-graduation I will have a safety net to fall back to.

The only place that would have been better / I would have chosen over this uni would have been INSEAD, but my chances of success with them were way lower (I’ve been told by them that my quant GRE score would already screen me out, even though I don’t even want to do quant research), so I don't mind too much not having applied.

[hot-take-tournament]

ngl kind of breaks my heart to see you used one of those ai bot things after the entire vocaloid debate. i really don't like that you did that and i'm a little disappointed. can you please not do that again?

I know - I do need to address this before anything else, because I fucked up

Please read the whole thing

If any of you don't know the context of this ask;

Basically, a while back I used the program AI Dungeon to generate a hot take for fun;

That's the program they use for those chaotic AI videos you find on youtube, like the ai ace attorney clown case and the sonic destruction scripts, which has some absolutely wild moments like these

I just put in a couple one-sentence questions to see what it would give me, not really expecting anything. But the take it did finally give me was not only completely depraved, but also felt like such a weirdly personal attack on me specifically that it left me genuinely speechless.

So, even though I didn't originally intend to do this, I decided to secretly make a poll for it claiming it was a submission, because I thought it might be fun to see if you guys could guess which one of the polls was the fake one, Blade Runner style.

I generated the take on the same day that submissions originally closed, but I only came clean about it last night because I started to feel super guilty about it after reading the vocaloid discourse - but the way I did it was vague, shitty and insincere.

I know it was 4 in the morning and I said I was going to get some sleep when I made the post last night, but after I saw the asks I immediately got about that post - like this one - I instead deleted it after like 2 minutes and spent the next 4-5 hours scouring the internet for as much information about this as I could find so I could get the full picture. This isn't the first time I fucked up on this blog because I didn't do my research, so I think I massively overcompensated - I really didn't want a repeat of that time the master post accidentally triggered multiple people's OCD; I still feel awful about that.

And as a result, I ended up passing out on my bathroom floor, which is why you haven't heard from me in a while.

I did genuinely read all the vocaloid discourse (asks, replies, notes, all of it) - but since I pulled this stunt ages ago, and the secret poll is already up, it was already too late. And it was because of that vocaloid discourse that I felt like it would just make me a hypocrite if I just swept it under the rug and kept quiet while everyone else was talking about the exact same subject, so I decided to just tell you guys as soon as possible because I'd feel shitty if I didn't - but I still phrased that post in a more light-hearted way because that was what I originally intended this whole thing to be, which was definitely a mistake, and I can't apologise enough for that.

And I know I didn't clarify this in that original post, but like I said, the program I used was AI Dungeon, which was something I remembered having fun with back in 2019/2020, spending hours generating unhinged Ace Attorney cases; and I remembered I still had an account from back then when it was still free to play, even though I hadn't touched it in 4 years - and I realised I would still be able to bypass the paywall using it.

I'd also just watched those snapcube Sonic Destruction videos that I linked above and it reminded me of that. And I dug up those old AI Dungeon Ace Attorney cases that I had generated and then recreated in objection i.o. back when I was 17/18, and had been sitting on my old computer's hard drive for ever since - and they still made me smile a little. So that's how I got the impulse to do this.

And that's also why, even though I knew about the writer's strike and do fully support it, it just didn't occur to me that the AI that gave us that same insane Sonic Destruction script that I'd just watched would be one of the programs the writers were striking over - I just assumed that it was only programs like ChatGPT, that can produce coherent scripts based on the accumulated information users feed into it; because those are programs that could definitely potentially be used to replace human writers. That's something AI Dungeon can't do, because it doesn't retain user input after you shut it down.

So I just saw AI Dungeon as that goofy ass confused AI that I loved as a kid, the one that provides insanely weird responses out of the blue as it desperately tries to cobble together a narrative, and it was used in videos that I still really like. And I thought it would be fine.

That was how I justified it at the time - but in hindsight, given how much I hate other GPT programs like ChatGPT, as well as AI art and all other generated content overall, it just makes me even more of a stupid hypocrite for making an exception for this one simply because I was blinded by nostalgia, and not bothering to look it up back then like I should've done. Because at the end of the day, a GPT program is a GPT program.

SO - Here's what I found online while reading up on it last night:

Because of the outdated GPT model AI Dungeon runs on, it isn't possible from a technical standpoint for it to learn like ChatGPT does. Even though it still uses a dataset, as far as I can tell it genuinely can't add to that dataset from user input except for when it explicitly asks for feedback (rarely, it will generate two responses instead of one, and ask you to pick the best one so it can learn - but you can turn that feature off.) And while it does try to learn while you're using it, it can't carry that information over between sessions. So even if you reload the same page again, it won't retain what it learned last time.

(Here's some information I found while combing ancient reddit threads that explains this better than I can)

But even if all of that is true, it doesn't matter.

Latitude, the developers of AI Dungeon, are super fucking scummy, and you shouldn't support them.

If you want to look up all of the many, many controversies surrounding AI Dungeon, you can - but I won't link them here, because serious content warnings apply.

Do not use this program.

I really hope the anon who sent this ask - and everyone else who called me out on this - stuck around, because I am so, so grateful that you all sent these, otherwise I probably would never have known.

I deleted the post almost instantly (because like I said, it was too light-hearted), and I'm really glad I did. And I swear I won't pull this shit again.

I know a lot of you hate the fact that I did this - that original post genuinely got me blocked by more of you guys than every single one of the polls combined - which is totally fair, and I wouldn't blame any of you for doing the same now.

I really just want to move on from this - but I can't just pretend that it didn't happen.

Support the writer's strike, don't use any AI programs.

I'm really sorry about this, and the fact that I didn't take it seriously enough - like I said, I promise it won't happen again.

</3

[bratbarzal]

I played and finished the game and I hate Abby so i’m curious to see why you like her? Not hating on you, just genuinely curious

I could talk about this game forever dw lmao I actually love you for this!! all under a read more bc spoilers

let me start by saying tlou1 was probably the first game I ever played with that really sat with me, I played it when it came out in 2013 and at least once a year since, and I literally spent the years between that and tlou2 theorising what could possibly happen to expand on the story, and I think going into it with the mindset that joel was likely to die probably helped me prepare a little for it (although nothing really could prepare you for that lmao). I've always had a really personal and deep connection to Joel and Ellie and their dynamic, but I went through something a little before tlou2 in my own life that I think maybe shifted my perception on it all enough that (if you played the game at the time of release you know how dark things got) I was able to look past a lot of the initial noise around it

I think abby is one of the most complex female game characters I've personally ever seen!! I think it's easy to hate her in the first play through, the game is literally engineered for you to do so, but after playing this game probably in the double digits by now, I find more and more about her that I understand or relate to or love every time

I think the context and timeline of the whole game is so important - we watch ellie slowly lose her humanity, slowly tear herself from who we know her to be - she tortures nora, she kills owen and mel, she kind of tunnel visions herself into this horrific revenge path with no way out, and everybody she loves ends up paying for it - tommy gets shot (and presumed dead until we see him at the ranch), jesse gets killed (rip to my golden boy), and then it's the immediate switch to abby's pov where we kind of see the opposite.

we start off with her and her dad back in salt lake, and as much as we don't see their whole story, and as much as they might not have gone through what Ellie and Joel did in part one, it's obviously supposed to mirror that dynamic. that was her actual father, the last blood connection she had in the world, and of course she's going to want to kill the person who took that from her.

And I loved seeing how the whole Joel thing sat with her from beginning to end - preparing herself to face him, dedicating her entire existence to doing so, separating herself from Owen who was sort of the last person truly in her corner, becoming the strongest physical version of herself she could, to then actually killing him and where we pick up with her after, having constant nightmares, realising that killing him never actually cured the pain she was riddled with, opening her eyes to the person she was becoming and trying to remedy it all somehow.

and you sort of end up with someone who is actively trying to make the best decisions and it's such a stark contrast to how you spent the first half of the game. she's trying to save these two kids from the middle of a war they want no part of - a war she's sort of been programmed into herself, and she's opening her eyes to the way everyone is so blinded by hatred that there's no consideration for the aftermath of it all (how she had been when trying to find Joel)

her relationship with lev and the way it sort of mirrors ellie and joel from part one (corny jokes, sarcasm, found family etc) really opened my eyes to all the ways she was suffering with her own decisions, and seeing how she took him in was the one thing that brought her peace really warmed my heart.

and also the way her and Ellie lost just as much as each other, if not more for abby (watched Manny get shot in front of her, watched yara get shot in front of her, found Owen and Mel both dead, ALICE!!!!! my sweet good girl Alice 😔😔 and not to mention all the friends she lost without even knowing like nora, Jordan, Leah, the girl with the game console in the hospital who I forget the name of lmao, and also literally technically all of the WLF because they were all blind to Isaac's war and went off to die)

I think her and ellie are so so similar, and I think seeing ellie only really make the right decision when it was all too late at the end of the game cemented that for me - if I still loved ellie after everything (and I did, but my god was it hard playing that last fight lmao) then I had to love abby too.

also helped that her gameplay was waaaaaay better - the bridge/the hotel, the rat king, scar island, experiencing all those as abby was unmatched tbh

ultimately, they're all prone to making bad choices because that's the world they live in, joel killed at the hospital without any thought for the consequences, abby did the same in jackson, ellie did the same in seattle, but watching abby work through her own and sort of repent through her relationship with lev made me love her, and watching ellie continue to choose a path of violence and revenge and lose dina, just like how tommy did so with Maria, sort of bumped them down for me

[puckpocketed]

19/07/2024 - Tory Pitner joins USHL in Focus: 2024 NHL Draft Edition

My transcript of Tory Pitner's interview with Paul Allan for the USHL. Lightly edited where unavoidable for clarity. Extra context in (round brackets) and adjustments for ease of reading in [square brackets]. Text in bold are all my highlights, stuff I thought was very interesting.

There's so much to say about how talkative he is. It's rarely useless chatter, it's always answering the question and on topic, and it's clear that anything he says is informed and well-considered.

I love how much he seems to think about his long-term development goals, and how his entire junior career up to the draft (and now beyond) has been about pushing himself in the right ways, finding people who he can learn from, working and working and chipping away at his goals. It feels like he could tell all the scouts exactly what they're writing about him if they asked him to break down his own game. I get the feeling he knows exactly what kind of player he is and where he needs to improve. He says, with such certainty, that his hard work will pay off. Like he knows exactly what trajectory he's on and that all he has to do is work to get there.

I like the way he thinks about leadership and responsibility, how he simply wants it, and how when he sees leaders he admires he does everything to take lessons from them. I am not surprised he's worn letters for so many teams he's been on. He's had the C twice; during his U-15 year and for the Hlinka Gretzky Cup. He craves challenge. He studies the game and loves it dearly. He can name just about every person who has ever helped him get to where he is, and he attempts to do just that. He is so, so smart. I don't know how else to sell people on this guy - I think maybe one day he's really gonna be something, whether it's as a player or a coach, or who knows. But I think I'll leave it at that and let him speak for himself.

Paul Allan: Well we’re joined now by a very busy young fella named Tory Pitner, former Youngstown Phantom who’s about to start his college career at the University of Denver. We’re excited to talk about a couple things here with Tory, it’s been a busy two years for Tory… You’re from Greenwich Connecticut, you’re an East Coast guy, but it appears to me that before you ended up in Youngstown, you spent some time on the West Coast with minor programs there; with the LA Junior Kings, the San Jose Junior Sharks, and then prep school.

So let’s talk about your path to Youngstown first, and then we’ll talk about the rest of the time here. It looks like you’re in a dorm room there at the University of Denver, so we’ll talk about that in a bit, but let’s talk about your path to Youngstown. How did you end up playing for the Phantoms and how was that — playing in the USHL [United States Hockey League] — [as] a place for you to develop as a young player?

Tory Pitner: Yeah, for sure. [It] started out like you said, I was born in Greenwich Connecticut and then I moved to Northern California when I was pretty young, and then played pretty much there in the LA Junior Kings growing up before COVID hit. So I was in that kind of system in the West Coast. Really great spot out there, with great coaches — Brett Beebe, Derek (inaudible, unable to find him on any backdated staff lists) — a bunch of great coaches I had out there.

And then Covid hit, and I made the decision to go and play prep school at South Kent, which is a school in South Kent, Connecticut, and basically that decision was a combination of being able to be on the ice every day, guaranteed ice, being able to have my academics and my athletics all in one place on the Hillside. I went to South Kent, played for [Jamie Russel (Director of Hockey Operations, Head Coach)] there. Really loved my experience, I thought it was great for me. That was the first time I was able to get on the ice every day and I think it was big for me, both for my development and maturity. Being able to figure out a schedule that works for me, because the schedule we had at South Kent was pretty similar to the one we had in Youngstown, and now the one I have here at D.U. So, great stepping stone for me into junior hockey.

And then, that year while I was at South Kent, I was drafted into the WHL [Western Hockey League] with the Edmonton Oil Kings and then I was also drafted into the USHL, after the year was done, with Youngstown. And kind of made the decision shortly after the draft there to head to Youngstown for a [variety] of reasons. Being able to play U.S. college hockey was something that was always a dream of mine. When talking to both organisations, both teams, I thought that the USHL and college in general was just the route for me to go. Looking at myself as a player I [felt] like, ‘I’m gonna need more time to develop,’ and I think the USHL is obviously an unbelievable league for development, being able to go in there and play against guys that are three, four years older than you when you when you’re 16 is something that I really looked at, and I embraced that challenge and I loved that opportunity.

I thought that the travel for us in Youngstown was a bit different than everyone else, but I thought that was good for me to learn how to navigate the roads. And, you know, going through junior hockey now into college hockey, there’s always going to be travel, and then when you get to the NHL level there’s going to be a lot of travel — granted, they travel a little differently — but I thought we did a pretty good job in Youngstown at that. So just, ultimately, the decision came down to; I wanted to play college hockey and I wanted to play in the USHL because I thought that was the best development league for me to get to college hockey.

So I was drafted by Youngstown after my U-15 year, and then decided to head back to South Kent for what would’ve been my U-16 year, but I ended up going and playing up — playing U-18 for the first [part] of the year. I wanted to go and I wanted to be over-ready to go to Youngstown, and so I thought that going back to South Kent, it was still a great situation for me. I went back and then went and played my affiliate games with Youngstown, and through my affiliate games talking with coach [Ryan] Ward and coach [Andy] Contois and coach [Brandon] Gotkin and the whole staff they have there, and based on how I felt in the games — I felt a lot more ready than I thought I was going to, so it didn’t really feel like a jump to me up to the USHL, it felt more like a transition. And that was something that — you know at the beginning of the year I didn’t wanna make the jump prematurely, but after going and playing those games I really found that it was a league that I could compete in and one that would be best for my development moving into college. 

At Christmas I finished my semester of school and decided to transition to Youngstown and it was the best decision I could’ve made honestly — ended up finishing the year with them. I think I played around 40-something games with them at the end of the year. And it was great, being able to be in the locker room with guys like Chase Pietila (PIT), another USHL guy that just got drafted, and Chase was kind of a role model for me — I still talk to him to this day — but he was someone who really showed me the ropes, showed me the league.

And Youngstown in general; Andy Contois did a great job of teaching me how to defend at that next level which I feel like is something that, for me, moving on now looking back on my career is something I’m super grateful for. Even though it was only a year and a half ago, it’s something I feel like is now a staple in my game that, before coming to junior hockey, you never would’ve known certain nuances about defending that you do now. Andy’s a great coach, he’s worked a lot with me, I’ve worked a lot with him about certain things I need to develop and will continue to develop. We still talk pretty regularly, too.

Just being able to go up and play those games and be in a locker room with those guys — like Shane Lachance (EDM), being our captain, there isn’t enough to be said about Shane Lachance. He is probably one of the best captains I have and will ever have had. Seeing him as a leader and being around him and seeing his ability to connect with every guy in the room is something that I really tried to take from and emulate. That was really great for me. And ultimately being able to play with the group of guys we had my first year in Youngstown was great. [Being] in practice every day was the best thing for me, because you have [William] Will Whitelaw (CBJ), who was going a million miles an hour on you on a gap drill, that — you’re stuck in mud — so being able to learn those things and play against those guys… I think my first year there we had five NHL draft picks; I roomed with Jacob Fowler (MTL) so I got to see excellence right down the hall. That was really something that, for me, was a great experience, and kind of threw me into the fire a bit with junior hockey, and was the best thing for me and I loved every second of it.

And those guys, after winning the Clark Cup with them, it can’t be understated how much of a bond everyone had there. We were together — you know, everyone could’ve gone home after, but we all decided we wanted to stay together and just hang out, because we knew we were gonna miss each other as a group, and we still — our group chat’s still active. We still talk pretty regularly. I talk with a few of those guys that I got pretty close with pretty often. And you know, [them] taking me in as a 16-year-old and really showing me the ropes led me to being able to jump into my next year, my 17-year-old year, my draft year, and have an idea of how it’s going to look; because I saw Stratty [Andrew Strathmann (PIT)] and Whitey [William Whitelaw], and Brandon Svoboda (SJS), [Matthew] Perkins (VAN), Fowler, I saw them all doing NHL interviews last year, I saw how that whole process went. It kind of eased my nerves going into my next year, because I’d seen it, I’d known what it looks like.

Being in Youngstown, they do a great job of bringing in high calibre players to have that experience. Me and Luke Osburn (BUF) went along with that process together this year and I thought it was great for me and Ozzy to push each other all year, being able to play games. We had another good team, we had another great group of players, great group of guys. Obviously, it wasn’t the end result we wanted, we ran into a great Dubuque [Fighting Saints] team and we just weren’t able to get it done. But ultimately I thought that this year was a great learning experience for me, too. Having to take on a bigger role with the Phantoms was something that I really embraced, and loved the challenge of, and loved the opportunity to do. I’m super grateful for the coaching staff and coach Contois for giving me that increased opportunity. Being able to wear a letter for them is something that I was really proud of. They looked on me as a leader in the locker room to kind of show the other guys the way; I thought that was really great for me.

The [other] opportunities I had this year as well, like being able to captain the Hlinka Gretzky team was something that was a dream of mine. Whenever I found out about the tournament, I wanted to go, but I didn’t just want to go; I wanted to be a leader on the team and make an impact. And, you know, we were able to do that; win our first medal — since 2016 I think it was — with the United States. Hopefully the team this year can follow that up and bring home gold. Then, continuing into the season playing for USA again at the World Juniors — didn't get the result we wanted but that was another great experience. To be around the top guys in the USHL and play with other guys that have been drafted before, and talk with other guys, talk with the coaching staff… They brought some of the best coaches from the USHL along; to be able to pick their brain every day, we have guys from that coaching staff, like Mike Leone, he’s now coaching in the AHL and I got to be on the ice with Leo every day for two weeks, which was something that I thought was great for me. Being able to be around those guys, too, who are now going to step into college and be great college players before going on to having great pro careers.

So those opportunities coming back in my second year was something that was really great for me. And I was super fortunate to have that, and then getting the call to come into Denver this year, and now being able to take all that experience and transition it into college. In our first [skates (?)] here, I feel pretty confident, so that’s something that definitely prepared me and I’m really grateful for.

A bit of a long winded answer, but yeah.

PA: That’s awesome. I do have a couple of questions for you though, and a couple of observations that I always… Everybody who’s involved with hockey over the years talks about the small world and you mentioned Jamie Russel there. Of course, Jamie Russel is a former coach at Michigan Tech. and Chase Pietila is from the — I mean, I don’t know how many Pietilas have played at Northern Michigan and Michigan Tech. of the the years. There's a bunch of them.

TP: So many. And Adam is on our team again, he’s [Chase’s] cousin.

PA: But what a whirlwind for you, and I know the Youngstown organisation is extremely proud of you, a 2-time All-Academic kid, too. And I know, Tory, as you were making your — one of the things you sort of left out there was the recruiting process, and what you were juggling there, and how that went along for you. We’ll get to Denver and how you ended up deciding to go play for the Pioneers here in a sec, but I want to talk about this past year going back to the Clark Cup Championship season.

During your minus-1 draft year you end up playing for Youngstown, and what a great time to jump on board with them and contributing to a Clark Cup Championship, the first one in the organisation. That’s pretty cool, but then you touched on the Hlinka Gretzky invite and the World Junior-A Challenge invite, and then you get to go to the NHL draft, get selected by the Colorado Avalanche; and then you get an invite to the USA Hockey World Junior Summer Showcase. And you’re oh, by the way, starting summer school at DU with workouts and [getting to know] all your teammates. How are you able to juggle everything and keep a clear head with all this stuff, Tory? For an eighteen-year-old kid, that sounds like a lot of things to consider.

TP: Yeah, yeah no, it’s definitely a lot. But like I said to you before we hopped on the call: I’d rather be busy than bored. So for me, I always want to push myself. Instead of just sitting in bed and watching Youtube or something, that’ll be the time I do my homework from my summer school courses and everything like that. Being here, I really love the schedule because we’re up early, we’re working out early, and then we go to class and then we get to come back, we get to skate with all the pro guys out here. And then you come back and you do homework and you get to do it all again the next day. You’re really fully immersed in the whole culture.

And I’d really say, just, how I’m handling it is; it’s the preparation I had before, from South Kent, getting to see what that model would look like — having school and hockey in the same place. And then being in Youngstown and travelling as much as we did; some of our bus trips, like when we went to Fargo for the Clark Cup, that was right in the middle of finals season, too. We’re busing 23 hours, we’re busing out to Fargo to play the [Fargo] Force.

You learn to prioritise different things. You learn how to manage your schedule pretty well. You know, it does suck. You can’t call your buddies as much. You can’t text, Instagram — none of that stuff really comes into play too much anymore just because you’re so busy. I really embrace it. And I think that it’s something — if I wasn’t busy I’d probably be a little more upset, if that makes sense. Like, I’d rather have this schedule where I’m constantly going and, you know, I think it’s pushing me. It’s a bit of [overload] training here in the summer, just with how much we’re actually doing, how much of a course load, how much lifts we have. Skating with the pro guys, too. Being out here at D.U., we have a great setup where a lot of the pro guys come back and skate. Being drafted to Colorado is great because you see Colorado guys coming into the locker room, you get to meet them, you get to meet guys in the NHL club and you get to skate with some of them sometimes. That’s really great for me in my development going into my freshman year here and ultimately to making the Avs.

But like you said, it's been a long summer, but it’s one I’m super grateful for, and I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

PA: Before we talk [about the draft], I do want to talk about your decision to go to Denver and play for the Pioneers, and the commitment process. How did the process — how did you decide that going to Denver was the best place for your development as a player and as a student?

TP: Right before the USHL Fall Classic, I actually started talking to a bunch of teams. I was previously committed (to UMass Amherst), but decided to decommit for reasons — just coaching change reasons, everything like that. So, I decided to decommit and the fit really wasn’t there anymore. Decommit, and then open up my recruiting process before the USHL Fall Classic, then go to the Fall Classic. And honestly don’t really focus on it too much. Just try and play my best hockey for my team, because that was my goal, that’s what I’m there for. It can’t be a distraction. But after the Fall classic I had a little bit of time off and I talked to a couple of schools, had a couple of Zoom calls. Right when I talked to D.C. [coach David Carle] and the Pioneers, I knew that it was probably the place I was going to end up.

Being a West Coast kid growing up there, they were the furthest West team before A.S.U. [Arizona State University] became a college hockey program. So growing up, you go to tournaments in Colorado, you always want to go to the D.U. games. You grow up like — I watched Will Butcher play (2013-17), and Will Butcher’s in the locker room now (25/07/2023 - Butcher has signed with Barys Astana, a KHL team; link, archive link). That’s so cool for me, and hearing those guys talk and what they see is the plan for me, what I see is the plan for myself, and both of those kind of aligning; it really just made the perfect sense. And obviously they have an unbelievable track record of developing NHL defensemen here at Denver, like if you walk through our locker rooms you look at the walls, NHL players are on the walls. You look at them and go, ‘they’re in the same shoes. I am there doing the same workouts. They were doing the same skate. They were doing the same schedule.’ And that really gives you confidence to keep working hard because you know that someone’s been through your path before, and if you keep working and you keep staying your path… and — not keep your head down — but if you just put your head down and work hard, then you’ll be able to achieve what you want to achieve.

After talking to them and hearing those things from the coaching staff — Ferg does a great job with the [defensemen] — Dallas Ferguson. Travis MacMillan does a great job recruiting, great job with the boards. All the staff here, there’s — I could list them all, but it really doesn’t do justice how much of a fit it really felt like, talking to them on the phone.

Once I really had that conversation, I felt that it was the best thing for me and kind of a no-brainer decision when you pull in where I grew up, how much success they had… And so I made that decision shortly thereafter, and I’ve been thrilled with it ever since. Kept in touch with them pretty much all year. Had a great open line of communication development-wise and just personnel-wise, just checking in and seeing how I’m doing as a person off the ice, how I’m handling that schedule that we have in Youngstown, just being that [travelled]. They were great with me, and now that I'm here, I couldn't be happier. All the guys here on the team are great guys and I’m really excited to be here and can’t wait to get started.

PA: You’re a two-time USHL All-Academic pick in your two seasons with Youngstown. Tory, have you thought about what you’re going to take for classes and what are you going to major in?

TP: Yeah, we just actually had that conversation with our academic advisor last week, so I’m kind of torn right now, but I’m leaning towards psychology. So what I’m going to do is my first quarter, I’ll take Intro to Psych and Intro to Business and Into To a bunch of those courses, because no matter what, they're all going to count for common core courses, so I kind of get to feel it out and see which one I’m going to take. Right now I’m probably leaning towards majoring in psychology. I’ll make that decision, we’ll all declare officially after our freshman year, so I have the year to figure it out.

But I’m really excited. I have a good course load, a lot of good challenging courses, a lot of fun courses, too, interesting ones. So it’ll make it easy when you're interested in the subject to be able to go in and learn and go to class. And it’s nice to be in an actual classroom again after two years of online school with the Phantoms. It’s something that you don’t really think about, but it definitely helps. And it’s nice for me as a kid that always wants to learn. I think that’s my mentality on and off the ice. It's just always wanting to learn, always wanting to get better. So I’m really excited for it. I think that summer school so far has gone well — knock on wood — grades are coming out pretty soon, but I feel pretty confident about it. So yeah, I’m just looking forward to it. And I think it’ll be a great experience off the ice in the classroom and both on the ice.

PA: Let’s wrap it up with your draft day experience in Vegas, Tory. Of course, you’ve alluded to it already; you were picked in the 6th round by the Avalanche and [inaudible]. That’s pretty cool. What were your thoughts, and tell us about the excitement that you experienced there in Vegas a couple of weeks ago? 

TP: It was a long day, I’ll give you that one. Got there with my family. We actually — we had a test on Thursday, so I took my test and I flew out Thursday night into Vegas and the draft obviously started Friday. And going into it, you kind of have an idea of a few teams that you thought could pick you, but you don’t really know where with how the draft’s going to shake out. You hear some things, but they don’t really hold true just because everything is crazy. You saw the draft. It went nuts after that third pick, pretty much everything changed. Just going in there, no expectations, just be grateful for the opportunity you have to be there and being able to be there with my family and my friends and some coaches, just people I hold close to my heart, was something that was super cool for me.

Busy week with everything we had, like dinners, breakfasts, meetings; everything like that with teams or with whoever — with your advisor, with your family. But it was ultimately a good time, you get to throw on a suit, get to go to the draft. The Sphere was obviously unbelievable; I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like that in my life. I was probably cranking my neck to see who the next pick was at the top of the board there. It was a pretty cool experience being able to sit around all those great prospects. And then, you know, I talked to Colorado quite a bit throughout the year, stayed in contact with them, and so I felt that they were one of the teams that I could have gone to, and so every time they were picking I was on the edge of my seat a bit.

And then finally you hear your name called after a long day, it was something that — a lot of relief, and just joy, gratitude. It was an unbelievable feeling. Really grateful having the Youngstown guys there. I wasn’t able to go and say ‘hi’ just because of how busy it was, which I was frustrated about, but it was good to see people that you hadn’t seen in a little bit and really share that experience with everyone that helped get you there, because that’s what it’s all about. I wouldn’t be here without all the people in my corner, all the people that have coached me going up, my mom; like everything, they’ve all been there for me in the past. I wouldn’t be there without them and being able to be there and celebrate that and going to the Avalanche is something that is super special for me, especially being here in Denver growing up.

They have an unbelievable D-core right now, and so you know that, going into it, they have a high expectation. And then going to Dev Camp and meeting the staff, you understand what that high expectation is. You just go and you work your hardest and you try and improve your game and adapt it to whatever they need so one day you’ll be able to play at the NHL level. And being here at D.U., I said it before, but having them right down the road and having some of their guys come back and skate and lift here and train here is something that’s super cool for me to get to see. Then obviously D.U. had Sean Behrens last year, who’s going to the Avs now, so getting to hang out with all the D.U. guys that were at Avs Dev Camp was great for me, especially all the defensemen.

It was really a perfect situation because even though we had summer school we were still able to go, and we wouldn’t have been able to go to dev camp if it wasn’t in Colorado, so that was awesome for me. I couldn’t be more happy. I’m really grateful for the organisation for taking a chance on me. And now it’s my opportunity, and pretty much all I have to do right now is go and prove them right. Prove to them that they got a steal and just make sure that they made the right decision, and go out there and work as hard as I can. [I’m] happy that they feel — they like me as a prospect, and I really enjoy [being] in an organisation like that. Obviously they have a great track [record] for success and I hope to get out to a few games this year and watch and cheer them on.

PA: Alright Tory, thanks very much for joining us on your busy schedule. Looking forward to seeing your career progress. You still got a lot of stuff to do this summer with the World Junior Showcase in Plymouth. I was thinking about Zeev Buium being there, William Whitelaw, Jake Fisher, all guys that you…

TP: All guys I know, yeah.

PA: And then the rest of the way with the Pioneers this winter with your schedule, and then after that. So best of luck and thanks a lot for joining us, and enjoy the rest of your summer, okay?

TP: Thank you. I appreciate that. Alright, bye.