#how to copy formatting in excel | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

commodorez · 1 month ago

Text

Start Me Up: 30 years of Windows 95 - @commodorez and @ms-dos5

Okay, last batch of photos from our exhibit, and I wanted to highlight a few details because so much planning and preparation went into making this the ultimate Windows 95 exhibit. And now you all have to hear about it.

You'll note software boxes from both major versions of Windows 95 RTM (Release To Manufacturing, the original version from August 24, 1995): the standalone version "for PCs without Windows", and the Upgrade version "for users of Windows". We used both versions when setting up the machines you see here to show the variety of install types people performed. My grandpa's original set of install floppies was displayed in a little shadowbox, next to a CD version, and a TI 486DX2-66 microprocessor emblazoned with "Designed for Microsoft Windows 95".

The machines on display, from left to right include:

Chicago Beta 73g on a custom Pentium 1 baby AT tower

Windows 95 RTM on an AST Bravo LC 4/66d desktop

Windows 95 RTM on a (broken) Compaq LTE Elite 4/75cx laptop

Windows 95 OSR 1 on an Intertel Pentium 1 tower

Windows 95 OSR 1 on a VTEL Pentium 1 desktop

Windows 95 OSR 2 on a Toshiba Satellite T1960CT laptop

Windows 95 OSR 2 on a Toshiba Libretto 70CT subnotebook

Windows 95 OSR 2 on an IBM Thinkpad 760E laptop

Windows 95 OSR 2.5 on a custom Pentium II tower (Vega)

That's alot of machines that had to be prepared for the exhibit, so for all of them to work (minus the Compaq) was a relief. Something about the trip to NJ rendered the Compaq unstable, and it refused to boot consistently. I have no idea what happened because it failed in like 5 different steps of the process.

The SMC TigerHub TP6 nestled between the Intertel and VTEL served as the network backbone for the exhibit, allowing 6 machines to be connected over twisted pair with all the multicolored network cables. However, problems with PCMCIA drivers on the Thinkpad, and the Compaq being on the blink meant only 5 machines were networked. Vega was sporting a CanoScan FS2710 film scanner connected via SCSI, which I demonstrated like 9 times over the course of the weekend -- including to LGR!

Game controllers were attached to computers where possible, and everything with a sound card had a set of era-appropriate speakers. We even picked out a slew of mid-90s mouse pads, some of which were specifically Windows 95 themed. We had Zip disks, floppy disks, CDs full of software, and basically no extra room on the tables. Almost every machine had a different screensaver, desktop wallpaper, sound scheme, and UI theme, showing just how much was user customizable.

@ms-dos5 made a point to have a variety of versions of Microsoft Office products on the machines present, meaning we had everything from stand-alone copies of Word 95 and Excel 95, thru complete MS Office 95 packages (standard & professional), MS Office 97 (standard & professional), Publisher, Frontpage, & Encarta.

We brought a bunch of important books about 95 too:

The Windows Interface Guidelines for Software Design

Microsoft Windows 95 Resource Kit

Hardware Design Guide for Windows 95

Inside Windows 95 by Adrian King

Just off to the right, stacked on top of some boxes was an Epson LX-300+II dot matrix printer, which we used to create all of the decorative banners, and the computer description cards next to each machine. Fun fact -- those were designed to mimic the format and style of 95's printer test page! We also printed off drawings for a number of visitors, and ended up having more paper jams with the tractor feed mechanism than we had Blue Screen of Death instances.

In fact, we only had 3 BSOD's total, all weekend, one of which was expected, and another was intentional on the part of an attendee.

We also had one guy install some shovelware/garbageware on the AST, which caused all sorts of errors, that was funny!

Thanks for coming along on this ride, both @ms-dos5 and I appreciate everyone taking the time to enjoy our exhibit.

It's now safe to turn off your computer.

VCF East XX

#vcfexx #vcf east xx #vintage computer festival east xx #commodorez goes to vcfexx #windows 95 #microsoft windows 95

197 notes · View notes

thesovereignsring-if · 28 days ago

Note

Hello! Your IF story inspired me to start my own IF game

Im thinking of using twine

And I would like to ask you if you had any tips or advice

Thank you!

Also side note I’m really excited and very interested in how this story is going to play out I already love the cast and can’t wait to see the rest!

OOoo thank you so much! I'm very flattered the game inspired you!

Twine has many different story formats, each with their own pros and cons. I personally use Sugarcube (I think next to Harlow, it is the most popular) so all my tips will be for Twine Sugarcube:

Basic tips:

Bookmark the Sugarcube V2 Document. This is your bible. It will have everything you need to use Twine. It's a daunting read, but I use it to troubleshoot when I forget how Macros work. I always have tab open for it.

Download a Twine Template. If you are brand new to Twine and making IFs, I heavily suggest downloading a template or two. Most of them come with tutorials and examples on how they work. Sometimes they even provide more helpful resources on Twine. I use Vahnya's Template II that I modified myself afterwards.

Study from pre-exisiting Twine IFs. Might be controversial, but I personally believe that diving in and seeing how other authors code and structure their stories helps a lot. Eventually you'll figure out a system and structure that works for you. It might not work for all games, but most Twine games can be downloaded and opened up in the twine editior. If you're worried about spoilers or upsetting people, feel free to download my game and see whats inside. I make multiple copies of the game, so any build I have out in the public is not the original build and therefore have no spoilers. I know it will look insane when you open it, but there's a method to the madness.

Writing and Planning:

Making an IF is no joke! Plan your story out, know your big variables, your branching routes and at least some part of your ending!! Try to stay as organized as possible. These projects and can will spiral out of control if you're not careful. I suggest having a giant excel sheet with tabs for important variables, chapter/scene breakdowns, wordcount and characters ect. Updating it will be a pain (that I am guilty of not doing) but will make developing easier. Even if you don't make a big project, its still good practise to do it.

#Stylesheet:

All the code in here relates to how the game looks. You can fiddle in there to configure the game to look how you want it to look. If you even want to see what element is tied to what ID code, the best thing to do is playtest the game (build >> play) and then leftclick and select "inspect element" you browser will open up the developer window and you see what elements are tied to what and even play around with the contents to test out CSS elements you like.

This website is a great resource on using CSS and other coding language. I personally used it many time to modify my game.

Helpful resources and Macros:

Chapel has made a LOT of custom macros that you can add to your game. You can find the list here.

But the most important one is the Pronoun Template. It might be confusing at first but one you understand how it work, its a great tool to have. You can even add gendered titles so that they work with the pronoun template.

Idrellegame is a great resource on coding in Twine. You can find the list here. It helped me out when starting out.

Exporting to Itch:

I never see people talk about Butler when it comes to uploading If games onto itch.io, so i'm doing it now.

What is Butler? Its a command-line tool that Itch made to upload your game onto Itch.io quickly and reliably.

The documentation is here. And I suggest coping and pasting the export codes onto a doc so you can use them for every update afterwards.

Here is a youtube tutorial you can follow along as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JCJa5iWREM

I personally have the Butler on the Itchio.app so that's its always up to date.

Thats all I can offer off the top of my head, if you or anyone wants some help on something specifically, feel free to DM me or drop another ask in the inbox. Always happy to help. Working in twine is very overwhelming for newcomers.

#answered asks #twine if #twine resources #interactive ficition #coding Twine Ifs

60 notes · View notes

literary-illuminati · 4 months ago

Text

2025 Book Review #10 – meat4meat (ed. Gray Levesque)

This is I think the first book I have ever read before it was published – as of posting the crowdfunding campaign is still ongoing! - so it’s a fun novelty to be able to say that I received an early copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. The book itself is also – well okay no, ‘fun’ is probably not actually the correct word, but it’s a body horror collection that succeeded at making me physically queasy at several points so it’s an unqualified artistic success in at least one dimension.

meat4meat is a short story horror anthology – specifically body horror, extra specifically body horror as written by trans and disabled authors (to quote the marketing copy, ‘by those who know it best’) – properly speaking it is an illustrated anthology, but that art wasn’t ready for inclusion in the copy I read, so I’ll stick to talking about the writing. Within the very vague remit the book sets out for itself, there’s no real unifying theme or much of a throughline between the eighteen stories included. They’re all very much short stories – I don’t think any were over twenty pages? - and flipping between them is a study in serial whiplash. Writing style, subject matter, thematic concerns and perspectives, even just conceptions of what ‘body horror’ means all vary drastically from story to story.

To be clear, I consider this a huge positive – it’s an anthology that really lives up to the potential of the medium, and makes an honest effort of capturing the diversity of perspective that’s pretty clearly part of the artistic project here. It also just keeps the reading experience from ever dragging or getting monotonous – if I do not vibe with one author (as is inevitable with these things), there’s a dozen and change others with entirely different takes on the subject. Even if it is somewhat grating to have one story use different paragraph breaks and spacing from the next.

I’m on record as often being pretty annoyed with how ‘horror’ as a genre label is used in books these days – which is to say how often it ends up being life-affirming tales of togetherness and found family but cast from the universal monsters catalogue – so for the sake of consistency I should really praise meat for really living up to the genre label. Even the stories happily framed from the perspective of something monstrously inhuman and happy about it are more than fucked up enough to still be compelling reading.

I’m also very much on record as thinkingthat horror is far better suited to short stories than novels; the extra length of which seems to bring a pressure towards explaining things and giving neat, validating endings on the one hand and on dragging out the tension past what the reveal can sustain on the other. This book’s an excellent case study of that – most of the stories are bare handfuls of scenes, hitting a particular beat or bit of imagery with as much force as they can; very nearly all of them can be summed up as ‘something really fucked up happens to someone’. Triumphantly happy and reassuring endings are thin on the ground, extended denouncements nonexistent. If anything, there are a couple stories that probably could have used a bit more space to breathe – ending up feeling more like imagery without the connective tissue or context to really make it land – but that’s just the natural tradeoff of the format forcing focus and writing economy.

Speaking of imagery – the book advertises itself as a body horror anthology, and it is not lying. There are several stories I would really recommend skipping if you have a weak stomach (which is, in this context, high praise). There’s also several stories that do take a more symbolic or oblique tack when discussing the ruin and gore they make of the human body (a couple of them are some of my favourites in the whole book), but I’d be lying if I didn’t say that the most memorable by far are the gleefully, explicitly vulgar and carnal ones. Here meant in the most literal sense of being fixated on the mess and meat of your body, the way parts of you can swell and suppurate and rot and burst before your eyes (though there are one or two that leave you acutely aware the only difference between horror and niche erotica is framing and perspective).

The anthology is themed around trans and disabled authors, and it’s really very interesting how different stories lean into that. Some are very literally and directly about e.g. the misery and desperate hope of looking for a doctor who can help you until you’re willing to look past every red flag from one who says they will, others are far more symbolic or metaphorical (or else simply aren’t stories I would have though to view through that lens if they were in any other book). There is little (though not no) body horror in the sense of shocking and gory violence or something directly inflicted upon you by an obvious outside force. Instead it’s the horror of the body being usurped or broken from within, horrifying parasitism, some invisible injury or lack making it impossible to do what is expected of you, or a terrifying transformation that’s only dimly understood as it’s lived through that predominate. There are, unsurprisingly, quite a few stories that are in one way or another about the horror of pregnancy, of some disease or failing leaving you so disgusting as to be exiled from conventional society, or both.

While there isn’t much of a unifying subject or throughline between all the stories in the book, the organization and ordering of them actually does a very good job highlighting similarities between specific pairs or small sets of them. One story that is in some sense about or preoccupied with pregnancy or disfigurement or parasitism or romantic connection will be followed by another with an entirely different setting, plot and subject matter which is still very interested in the same theme. It works very well to give the book a sense of cohesion and structure, and makes some of the stories feel like much more than the sum of their parts.

This is definitely a book for a very specific audience – the kind who will read a first story that starts with strange pupating growths breaking across the narrators chest being described in careful and loving detail, and happily power through as it mostly just escalates from there. But for that audience, I absolutely recommend giving this a try.

In which case, the crowdfunding campaign is still active until March 11th – you can back it here.

#book review #horror #sff #Gray Levesque #meat4meat #ARC

126 notes · View notes

enokito · 1 month ago

Text

Key | Back to Basics

I still don’t know how to format on tumblr so I’m basically just copying the way Saiint does it except also I’m on my phone

Inspired by her post on what kind of small sentimental items Ken might like to keep in their pockets. I like physical security pen-testing content, therefore my Kenadian operates somewhere in between irl security bypass strategies (slipping latches, picking locks, copying keys) and minecraft escapist tech.

WC: 715 | divider

First of all, Kenadian doesn’t consider himself a very sentimental person. He’s practical above all else, and has to be – he’s an escapist, after all, and the first part of escaping involves being (at least nominally) imprisoned. He’s honed himself, like a blade, to be excellent at this one particular thing, and so he sheds all excess like water, in favor of absolute practicality. An earring can get ripped out during a particularly tricky crawl glitch or pearl clip, a necklace can get caught on something and strangle or garrote him, anything reflective can catch a glimmer of light directly into a guard’s eye and get him caught.

Second of all, items can be lost or stolen even more easily than memories, and he wouldn’t be able to handle it. The idea of coming home and feeling unfamiliar walls closing in on him, the idea of seeing a photograph of himself with his friends, and not being able to recognize any of the faces (not even his own)…

Ken avoids stuff that freaks him out, and part of honing himself like a blade means that he operates on a hair trigger. And either way he prefers his life of transience, hopping from place to place, keeping small bases knowing that they’re impermanent, passing out on a friend’s couch after a few days of going non-stop. It’s fun, he loves adventure and playing with danger, and he loves narrowly slipping through to the other side and showing up at Avatar’s place unexpectedly. Therefore, Avatar is the one with his prison escape speedrun times framed on his wall; Wato is the one with the massive folder of all his escape room blueprints, Jammin’s got a pile of his laundry at her place even though he basically wears the same hoodie and black work pants every day.

But the carabiner clipped to his belt loop to hang at his hip, a matte steel gray and perfectly innocuous, is a gift from Wifies. The keyed-alike group set of keys he still uses are from Wato and his lockpicks are from Avatar, his under door tool is from Tundra and his traveler’s hook is from Void, his RFID badges were all printed and programmed by Maximum. He even still has the pair of binoculars Cory gave him while they were together, though he doesn’t use them anymore, and has gone back to just lowering his FOV or using optifine zoom. Jammin is also more of a builder than an escape artist, but he just ends up with more dresses and skirts and high socks whenever he stays the night with her, which he’s not gonna complain about.

The point is, his closest friends catch on to what kind of items have a chance of making it into his everyday carry packs, and gift him accordingly (if Parrot catches on one of these days, he is willing to finally get rid of those binoculars in favor of a spyglass).

When he’s in the zone, the pieces of a puzzle forcing everything else out of his brain, or when he’s on really good pace for a speedrun of some gauntlet or obstacle course, or holding his breath against the wall as guards make their rounds less than a meter away, Kenadian doesn’t need to be reminded of his friends. Would really prefer not to be distracted, in fact, since a single lapse in focus could get him caught or force him to reset the room entirely. But he’s also not mad when he notices the nail polish chipping off his fingers and realizes he hasn’t talked to another person in way too long.

He might not keep a permanent residence of his own, but that means “coming home�� can also mean greeting Wifies with a peck on the cheek and begging Wato to mend a tear in his hoodie from when it got caught on some dripstone, a mug of tea at Seawatt’s kitchen counter, seeing friends who don’t mind getting woken up in the middle of the night by Ken’s arrival at their back door. Ken belongs to himself before anybody else, won’t change who he is even with handcuffs around his wrists and a netherite ax held to his throat, but the people who love him don’t demand him to.

#kenadian

61 notes · View notes

saphronethaleph · 6 months ago

Text

No Homoi

“I’ve got the individuals selected for the program,” Halsey reported. “We’ve assessed all the available data and identified three hundred candidates.”

“Three hundred,” Admiral Jefferson replied. “This is because of the title, isn’t it?”

“Purely a coincidence,” the doctor said. “We had to pick a number, and three hundred was a nice round number.”

“I’m sure,” Jefferson said. “About that title, though. Why Spartan?”

“Three reasons,” Halsey said. “Firstly – the story of Thermopylae. It’s well known, cherished – a story of a small number holding out against vastly greater numbers.”

“For… approximately a week,” Jefferson noted. “Until the Spartans present were outflanked and completely destroyed. Along with seven hundred Thespians, nine hundred slaves, four hundred Thebans… and all in pursuit of a completely flawed strategic concept.”

Halsey frowned.

“That doesn’t change that the story is well known,” she replied. “The idea of Thermopylae is what I’m trying to invoke… it’s also the case that our training scheme involves beginning at the age of six.”

Jefferson blinked.

“...you’re… talking about the agoge?” he asked.

“Exactly,” Halsey confirmed. “I intend to create a training system similar to the one the Spartans used, in order to create the ultimate warrior. I realize it’s barbaric, but you can’t argue with effectiveness under these circumstances. The Spartans-”

“-had an excellent reputation,” Jefferson replied, interrupting her. “This reputation, however, is not the result of any unusual military prowess. I will concede that they were somewhat better disciplined than the norm for Greece in the classical period, but that’s an extremely low bar – they could wheel in formation and march. That’s about it.”

He adjusted his glasses, an old-fashioned affectation that was a trademark of his. “But that’s the issue – it’s by the standards of a culture where training for war is viewed with suspicion and any discipline at all is unusual. By the hellenistic period there were armies far better disciplined in the Romans, the Carthaginians, the Macedonians… the agoge is not a means of training for war. It’s a means of indoctrination, Doctor. How exactly do you intend to recreate it?”

“I don’t follow,” Halsey said. “I realize that applying discipline to young children isn’t seen well, but I wouldn’t describe it as not a means of training for war.”

“I would,” Jefferson replied. “The fundamental basis of the Spartan agoge was a process of indoctrination of child soldiers, including regular physical violence meted out by older boys to younger boys, deliberate starvation, and indeed it’s considered by some analysts that murder was the final graduation – murder of an unarmed slave by a night-time assassination, to be clear. There was also abuse by adult Spartans towards the children. And the result of all this did not produce especially capable soldiers – it produced soldiers slightly above average for their time period and culture, whose win-loss record is functionally a wash, and whose grasp of operations and strategy was extremely poor.”

He folded his arms. “Given the stated goal of this plan is to take the enhanced soldiers and use them as special-operations units to crush uprisings among the colonies, I hope you can see how I consider this to be an extremely worrisome association to make. In effect the training system you’ve described copies and is associated with only the most troublesome parts of Spartan society, except only that I dearly hope you don’t intend to make membership in the program contingent on the ability to continue paying into a communal pool of supplies and resources.”

Halsey looked down for a long moment, then back up.

“What was your thesis in the academy?” she asked.

“Mobilization in classical antiquity,” Jefferson replied promptly. “If you’re wondering, Doctor, I would advise you pick just about any other name – and I would also recommend delaying the selection process at minimum to the age at which augmentation takes place. Deracination as a means of training is a well established method of producing highly disciplined troops starting with adults – you do not, under any circumstances, need to start at age six unless the goal is to produce either cavalry archers or longbowmen.”

Halsey frowned.

“I had some really good candidates,” she muttered. “Are you telling me I need to wait eight years until I can recruit them?”

Jefferson matched her frown.

“You’re planning to augment at age fourteen?” he asked, then checked the files. “...aren’t you planning on doing bone augmentations? It sounds like it would be quite dangerous to ceramically augment bones in the middle of a growth spurt.”

Halsey didn’t answer.

“Doctor,” Jefferson warned.

“...we think it might cause bone pulverization,” she said, reluctantly, because those were words you never wanted to say next to one another.

Jefferson sighed.

“Completely redo the selection process,” he said. “Refactor trying to get the start date as late as possible and augmentations after growth spurts have taken place. And, for the love of God, don’t come back to me and tell me you still want to recreate the fucking agoge.”

He rubbed his temples. “I think about the only worse approach would be if you told me you wanted to call them the Waffen Super Soldiers…”

#halo series #spartan #halsey

34 notes · View notes

missmists · 1 year ago

Text

First bookbinding project a success. I think that my cat approves because he would not stay out of my photos. Five months in the making, but I couldn't be more pleased with the results.

I started with @armoredsuperheavy's amazing fanbinding tutorial to create a typeset of each work in @erisenyo's Burning Bright AU published on Ao3. Then had to reread the works in the new format and edit as I went to make sure everything was formatted correctly, (combined word count somewhere around 1.3 million) that took over a month all by itself.

I picked up a copy of Introduction to Bookbinding & Custom Cases by Tom and Cindy Hollander from my local library, to look at some detailed how to images and get multiple perspectives on construction methods. Excellent book, I do recommend.

My hunt for materials included a trip to Detroit with a side stop at Blick to look at decorative papers in person. Blick and the fine people at Hollander’s ended up having everything I needed to make covers. So between my brother kindly 3d printing me a punch cradle, making a DIY sewing frame of my own invention (courtesy of scrap lumber and a trip to the Lowe's hardware department), and three reams of late night printing, I managed to amass all my supplies.

Folding three reams of paper into signatures (the little bundles you sew together) takes about five days if you don't want to lose your mind or your place, and longer if you discover you need to fix things because that definitely happened. Then you get to unfold them to stab holes in them which is as terrifying at first and therapeutic by the end as it sounds.

Next came weeks of sewing books together, a magical process. I learned three new knots, repeatedly stabbed myself (because all forms of creation forcibly demand blood sacrifice) , and felt like I was roleplaying a monastic librarian from the time of Gutenburg. That's 600 years ago, 24ish generations, over 8million ancestors since then (by geometric progression, which excludes the possibility that any of my peasant ancestry is from small towns which is you know likely but I digress) and here I sat sewing pages together in a basement because story is the most sacred of human arts as it binds communities together and shapes perceptions of the self and our brethren, of outsiders allies and enemies, of the world as we know it and as it may come to be. Did I mention sewing books felt magical.

Then came the glue. So much glue. Multiple types of glue. All sticky. all stuck to me. I smeared glue with my fingers like a child.

At last it was time for the covers. Choosing combinations of the decorative papers and bookcloth and making sure I could get enough out of each material for what I needed. Precise cutting so many thanks to the architecture school professors who showed me how to properly cut chipboard. Then measuring and gluing, and more measuring, and more gluing. At last press a little groove by the spine and repeat eleven times.

Then I get to impress all my people with my latest and possibly coolest maker skill unlock, I am a book binder.

Bottom to top in the stack or left to right at the bottom are: These Things Written These Things Unsaid with Without Consent These Things Known with A Third Chance (or a First) Oh, The Way Your Makeup Stains My Pillowcase That Love You've Been Looking For All I Need Is To Be Struck (By Your Electric Love) To Open Every Door to Night, To Meet Each Rising Sun (my favorite) Love Is In the Hair (fanart of this one originally lead me to read the series, thanks @ash-and-starlight) Lessons in Proper Asset Management Tangled Up With You To Be Named, To Be Known (To Be Loved)

#fandom #fanbinding #book binding #book making #zukka #zukka nation #zukka fanfic #avatar #atla #atla azula #atla sokka #atla zuko #ao3 #ao3 fanfic #erisenyo

168 notes · View notes

honest-moth-of-silver-grove · 9 months ago

Text

GN! TA Reader x Professor Jonathan Crane Headcanons:

Characters: Jonathan Crane (Scarecrow); Gender Neutral! Reader

Universe: Nolanverse (Batman Film Trilogy)

Pairing(s): The beginning of a one-sided Jonathan Crane/Reader, if you squint

Word Count: 1.6k

A/N: It’s that time of year when I rewatch the Nolanverse Batman films and obsess over every frame that Cillian Murphy is on screen. (Okay, but he absolutely killed it, and what I wouldn't give to see him counter Robert Pattinson’s Batman.) This combined with reading some other Scarecrow/Reader fics has accumulated into this little plot bunny of my own. And yes, while I say these are headcanons, it’s more like extended fic. I truly tried to keep it short but, much like Dickens and Hemingway cannot seem to help myself when it comes to writing extended sentences. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

ALSO— in answer to the question you’re no doubt wondering—Yes! Answers to submitted asks will return after this deviation. I’ve just had this character circling in my head the past few days and I couldn’t get him out.

TW!: Slight Manipulative/Yandere (by Crane, but nothing explicit); Also, please beware the formatting gets more unhinged/distracting as you read on, so if you have tracking issues or sensitive eyes, please be wary

Catching Professor Crane’s Attention Would Look Like:

You were a great student, (obviously!), one the brightest and most dedicated in his class for you to be his TA.

At first, Professor Crane found your enthusiasm and attentiveness annoying. He pegged you for yet another professional student brownnoser failing to get on his good side.

Most of his TA’s enthusiasm eventually fizzled out once they realized flattery would get them no further in his gradebook. That, and his more advanced courses were incredibly demanding— they took a decent chunk of any student’s time and energy.

Much to his surprise, not only did your cheery demeanor fail to vanish, but you somehow stayed on top of every bit of work he assigned. On top of which, you excelled in your role as Teacher’s Assistant, practically teaching half of the lessons when he was too busy with his, let’s just say, other proclivities, to make it to lecture on time.

Jonathan was impressed when he learned you’ve spent nearly every spare moment you had in his official lab’s research library, reading through all of his previous labs’ notes and official documentation. He didn’t allow students, not even students of the Psychology Department, to make Xerox copies or check out his work— it was only available for temporary reading and viewing within the confines of his dedicated lab space.

He caught a glimpse of your notebook one day, having actually made it on time to be able to teach his lecture, seeing how meticulously you’ve copied down his experiments’ notes. In the past, only his most advanced students bothered to take notes on his previous work, and at best, they’d simply record the abstracts from his many published theses.

He should have found it alarming, as opposed to intriguing. If one was to truly study his notes, they’d find vague little inconsistencies across his verbiage from where he was forced to omit information to cover his tracks. A smart enough person might be able to piece together that something else had been his true point of study in his experiments, and that meant having to dazzle the university board with bullshit and bribery once again. He had to take care of you and neutralize the threat before that happened.

He should have felt resigned, indifferent to the unavoidable fate you’d just sealed for yourself. Instead, he wanted you to continue; he wanted to poke and prod you as you tried to figure it out. Observing you had turned into an utterly fascinating pastime to him.

He spoke to you after class one evening and enquired as to why you felt compelled to copy his exact notes down. Did you perhaps intend to parrot his findings as your own? Was this an ill-advised attempt at plagiarism? He comes off as cross, perhaps harsh, in his line of questioning, but he desperately needed to know how you’d respond to such an interrogative line of questioning.

The question of ‘Why?’ had been gnawing at his psyche for days, even during his newfound dealings with Falcone and his thugs, and that simply would not do. He could not get distracted by some suck-up student. His work on secretly developing the most stable version of his toxic compound all while flying under the radar of his nosy, stupid University higher-ups was much more important than the mental inner workings of some lowly college student. His intrigue slowly turned to anger.

After you tell him you’re more fascinated by “the why of the why”— all his ruminations stop cold. You weren’t flustered, weren’t defensive, weren’t sniveling and begging for his forgiveness like the ones who have come before you, oh no. Instead, you met his gaze directly and answered his question with what sounded like a riddle. Your evasive answer officially moved the dial and Crane’s intrigue became replaced with disdain.

How dare you?! Do you think your measly intellect could ever stump him? It would be almost laughable if it didn’t make his jaw clench and his nostrils flare. But Crane is nothing if not a control freak. So he did what any wise control freak would do, and decided to change the setting of the fight back to his familiar home turf.

“I see.” Professor Dr. Crane kept his answers curt and restrained as per his usual. “I must admit you’d be the first student applying such a subjective angle to your thesis all while using a rather definitive lens. We should discuss your topic in depth before you waste any more time writing potentially unobjective garbage. Office Hours are posted on my door. I expect to see you before our lecture next week.”

You were in your last year of University, with a declared double major in Psychology and Biochemistry, with a minor in Creative Writing of all things. By this time, you had undoubtedly outlined the controls for your upcoming psychological lab requirement for your Advanced Independent Study next semester. Of course, an Advanced Independent Study requirement for a Psychology Major was nothing compared to those seeking a Doctorate or Ph.D. However, it still involved a substantial amount of clinical time spent organizing and studying volunteers from your academic peers.

If his work on fear and fear stimulation hormones was a similar area of interest, it could prove bothersome. If your… experiment was similar enough in nature, and it failed to yield similar results, it might encourage the University Board to take a closer look at his synthesized “fear hormone”. The morons on the board had accepted his previous explanation of whatever pharmaceutical mumbo-jumbo he’d thrown at them. A little cortisol here, a little adrenaline there… And those fools had bought it hook line and sinker!

You arrived at his office the next morning, your usual bright and shiny self. Of course, you had signed up for the first available slot the following day, and of course, you showed up with even more coffee and donuts in hand.

If you were anyone else, Dr. Crane would feel insulted that you thought you could quite literally sugar him up. But judging from the sincere look on your face to the way your own eyes lit up when he accepted the coffee, made him think bribery was the last thing on your agenda. It unnerved him how he failed to find an ulterior, more insidious motive within you.

You explained that in your class lectures, you recalled Dr. Professor Crane had spoken about the major causes of fear, as well as its evolutionary purpose. You couldn't help but wonder, in the modern day and age, when humans were no longer nomads, no longer living in pre-industrial conditions, if that evolutionary aspect of fear hurt more than it helped.

Your lab proposal went as followed: You wished to pool a large group of students, determine what their primary and secondary greatest fears were, and then, through a series of pre-set further questions, see if you could catalog how many such fears either 1) helped the individual’s behavior, or 2) merely hindered it.

Jonathan found it a modest proposal, for your grade level anyway. And it would serve as a good taste of what working in either a clinical or research setting would look like after furthering your education and licensing accreditation.

Unable to stop ruminating over the personal reasons as to why you found this fascinating, his obsessive nature prevented him from striking your proposal down. ‘What could be the harm?’ He asked himself after giving your study outline his official approval. You were nowhere near his intelligence level. Even with all your scribbling and copying of his notes, it was unlikely you’d ever uncover his plot. Besides, should push come to shove, all he’d need to do was ask Falcone for a favor, have you bumped off before things started to get too involved, too messy…

But a little mess? A little chaos? The idea sent a chill down Crane’s spine. It was the thrill of the chase, the inevitable mouse and cat, predator and prey dynamics that drove him to master the power of fear for himself. It was that addictive rush of adrenaline— the way it stroked his well-deserving ego— the way his victims screamed and cried and begged for mercy before him.

Crane wasn’t oblivious as to why he relished such power. He was a psychologist after all. The doctor was well aware that childhood trauma was a powerful thing, an unstoppable perimeter in what made people tick. Professor Doctor Crane knew that he was rotten, yes— vile, at his core. It was that exact rot that enabled him not to care.

Fear was the ultimate equalizer, it was the ultimate revenge. No one, not even himself could ever truly escape it, not entirely anyway. No amount of toxin tolerance or cognitive behavioral therapy, medication, or meditation could stop the chokehold fear had on all human beings.

It seemed you knew that too… Why else would you have as much of a fascination with it? Why else would you scour his notes so intently? It was rather ironic, Jonathan thought to himself, one night, hidden deep in his basement Arkham Asylum Lab: it seemed fear ruled you just as much as it ruled him.

Perhaps, with the right persuasion, and the right exposure, you would be open to exploring greater boundaries and experimenting with fear.

Not once prior had Jonathan ever considered acquiring an assistant— someone to work on his toxin with. It was far too risky to have such little benefit. Everyone was far too stupid, too simple to realize the true greatness of what he was working on, the true greatness that Ra's al Ghul would help him release upon Gotham, and soon, the world. But you…. hmm.

You— he would have to keep a closer eye on.

A/N 2.0: Whoo! There you have it! My first official DC fandom post!

And if you enjoyed it, *Sabrina Carpenter voice* please, please, please REBLOG! Likes are great but Reblogs spread my writing much further.

Consider Tipping Me Via Kofi <3

#jonathon crane x reader #jonathon crane imagine #scarecrow x reader #scarecrow imagine #cillian murphy x reader #dc x reader #dc imagine #dc #hc

37 notes · View notes

darkmaga-returns · 4 months ago

Text

A Federal Government Publication Affirms That Education is “A matter reserved for the states”

About ten years ago, I stopped in a library in Medfield, Massachusetts, a town about 40 miles West and South of Boston. At its book sale, I found “Formation of the Union Under the Constitution” in 1943 which was published to celebrate the Sesquicentenial-150 years of the U.S. Constitution. It was published by the U.S Government Printing Office which was totally controlled by the New Deal Democrats. It is an excellent book that contains the History of the United States detailed information on how the U.S. Constitution was formed, copies, a circular letter from Governor John Hancock expressing his opposition to an Article V Convention, and a chapter of Liberty Documents from the Magna Carta to the Monroe Doctrine. Starting on page 121 of the book, we find a series of questions and answers. One of the most interesting questions in the book is found on page 128: “Where, in the Constitution is there mention of education? And the answer in this New Deal publication: “There is none; education is a matter reserved for the states.”

Since there hasn’t been any amendment added to the Constitution to make federal funding constitutional, the Department of Education, and all funds going to school and colleges are unconstitutional. The Department of Education should be abolished, and all federal government funding of schools must end. Sadly, there isn’t much political will to make this happen. But that can change. Let’s begin by letting elected officials at all levels know that we have a federal document published under a New Deal Democrat Administration that those who vote for and accept federal funds for education are violating their oaths of office.

27 notes · View notes

mulders-too-large-shirt · 1 year ago

Text

s2 episode 24 "our town" thoughts

this episode was quite spooky. because cannibalism is real. but something about scully about to get her head chopped off and boiled seemed more outlandish than all the aliens and the guy that kills people with his shadow or even lizard man eugene tooms!

which is strange. because those things are pretty outlandish! maybe its because it was so much scarier than even evil lizard men.

let’s jump in:

so this is an episode involving more meat. did we need more meat, after the earlier meat processing content in s2 episode 10? many are saying no. but not chris carter!

we begin at a dirt road at night. in the state of arkansas. we have an older man and a younger woman named paula in a car, which is not suspicious at all! /s

oh and now the old man choking? is this natural or did she induce it with some poison. i mean maybe he deserved it, if she did. he takes some pills, so I’m guessing it is due to natural causes. now she beckons him out to the woods.

into the woods. she says he has to catch her. is she luring him into a Bigfoot trap? we have yet to really see Bigfoot, and maybe he’s hungry. although Bigfoot is more Pacific Northwest than Arkansas, i think.

author's note: we tested negative for bigfoot in this episode :(

oh! this man tripped and is now surrounded by people with flashlights and very cool masks. get axe murdered, fucker.

back in DC! aforementioned fucker has been gone for 10 weeks and scully thinks the higher ups are sending them on a wild goose chase. “i’m not questioning the legitimacy of the case, just their motives in assigning it to us” <- damn, very well spoken by a rightfully suspicious woman

oh, but at the scene, someone saw a fire. and mulder says the fire is “supposed to be the spirits of massacred Indians” OH...

(mentally i was like, please do not be another scary Indigenous story episode. and we did in fact get that. sighs deeply. we can make things scary without making Indigenous people the scary ones! or using the trauma of genocide as a setting for spooky time! well, i'm sure you, dear reader, know that, so i shall not preach to the choir, but i will point out that these thoughts were going through my mind)

“these are only legends, mulder”, says a dismissive scully. and why is her hair looking excellent today. I mean not that it isn’t usually but damn. shoutout to the hair and makeup team.

the place on the side of the road where he went missing had a big fire! could be a bonfire, both parties thought. until mulder remembered a documentary he saw in college...

(hehehehe mulder spent college watching documentaries <3)

! MULDER LORE REVEAL ! wow it's been a while since i've gotten to format some text like that. he watched a documentary about an insane asylum in college and it gave him nightmares.

(and this may not be super relevant to his character, but to ME, it is, so i shall note it <3)

he's got the VHS from the doc all loaded up, and presses play on a guy rambling about a fire demon!! who was found in the same spot as the fire mark!!! dun dun dunnn

(love the implication that he either purchased his own copy of the documentary that gave him nightmares in college, or had to go rent it from the video store. both are wonderful possibilities)

cut to arkansas. mulder is on the scene holding a plastic fork from the ground. wearing his silly sunglasses. lmaooo idk why they make me laugh. what a serious gentleman.

sheriff arrives at the scene. he says the witch’s peg to ward off spirits is normal there and also that the fire mark comes from illegal trash burning. and, as an American i am aware of how Americans love an illegal trash burn. but still. suspicious.

sheriff says the missing man george was chasing women out of town. lovely sounding fellow /s

wife questioning time!! he left her years ago. oh, but tea: the day before he went missing he was going to cite major health violations in the chicken plant! hmm... a cause for murder?

mulder gives the wife his phone number. also mulder is also looking very good today. but that is an evil voice in my head that ought to be silenced.

noooo, it's chicken plant time. no thank you ma’am, i would be out in the car <3

paula from the woods at work in the plant!!! taking mystery pills. seemingly in pain??

chicken cutting cam. oh, this is not for me!

the agents chat with the manager, who says george was trying to shut them down. and while clocked in, paula is sweating. she just gasped in front of a whole bunch of chickens and some guy with very blue eyes. she sees a human head on the chicken stand and picks it up and throws it off. shoutout to this fake decapitated head and my best friends in the prop department for making such a funny creation.

(but of course, it was a hallucination, and she really just threw a poor chicken on the floor!!! his sacrifice was in vain... gone but not forgotten)

mulder is inspecting the chicken gutting operation and i've said it before and i'll say it again: he is braver than me.

ohh, more chicken drama: george was filing a lawsuit about “line hypnosis” and it was dismissed before he vanished! he deserved to win. is there a meat processing union? there ought to be. but he was the only one citing bad health practices, the other 3 workers said it was fine... sooo what’s the truth…

“what’s that” asks mulder, who then gets shown the feed processor, and asks “chickens feed on chickens?” <- heartbreaking realization. many of us remember where we were when learning this information. i'm sure it will stick with him forever. and i'm frankly surprised he didn't know already.

NAURRR THE SLUDGE AND BLOOD nasty nasty evil

OH plot twist: paula is holding the manager with a knife to his throat… scully telling everyone to calm down. personally i would be not calm. she said “don’t get excited” but me? experiencing an active hostage situation at my place of work? i would be excited

NOOO the sheriff shot her and she fell into the feed conveyor belt processing… thing. sheriff i KNOW you are covering something up. you will not hide from me.

SHE GETS GULPED INTO THE FEED BELT THINGY GAGGG it’s giving the jungle by upton sinclair that caused many american 8th graders to confront the corruption of the meat industry

paula had gone to the doctor about headaches… like george!!! doctor had assumed the condition was stress induced. and they did have similar symptoms.

treated them both with codine… ain’t that a bit strong?? this man doesn't seem to be a very good doctor, tbh. i mean i don't think the guy that works at the chicken plant to sew back on fingers needs to be an expert in everything but like. codine for headaches? umm girl.

mr. chaco of chaco’s chicken was paula’s grandfather… if i was a grandfather rich off of chicken money, my grandkids would not be working the processing line, let me tell u that much!

back to the agents: these two should not be looking as good as they do in a chicken processing plant. they had to really step it up today to compensate for the horrors of the set.

chicken man lives in a mansion. further evidence of corruption. paula, i would not have had you working in such conditions if i was your grandfather. there has been a deep wrong here, i can see already.

and he’s got a big hat and is feeding his chicken corn. not other chickens, like the feed he makes in his plant... seems he is aware of the ethical issues implied in his business. also, mulder with those weird ass glasses.

cacho is going on about the subject of chickens. and how he built this town. he sure is taking an awful lot of credit for creating a town, pretty sure that's a team effort mr. chaco. he's also going on about how he thought george was trying to tear him down.

AUTOPSY TIME!! rare degenerative disorder in da brain of paula. and scully has only seen it one other time back in med school because you can only really find it in an autopsy. nice work, doctor! <- i just typed “nice worm 🪱” so we'll let that stay for the added sense of whimsy it provides

but despite looking like a young girl fresh out of high school, paula was born in '48?! she was 47 years old. allegedly. this is not adding up. so they go on a quest to find her birth certificate and see what the truth is.

debrief in the car. so: odds are not great that she and george had the same very rare disease

during this discussion, our duo are run off the road by a chicken truck!!!! no! oh... he drove them into a river. mulder has shifted into rescue mode as the river is red with chicken gore. i feel someone might be distracting them and trying to get the body… (this was actually not the case i was just overly suspicious)

but more chicken drama: the driver had the same symptoms as george and paula! how can this be?!

“i just came up with a sick theory, mulder” (grabs her shoulder) “ooh, I’m listening” LMAOOOO this is sososo funny to me. yeah tell me ur sick theories scully you have my full attention.

GAG!! because it is both gross and shocking. her theory: what if someone put george’s body in the feed grinder, and then since it’s a prion disease, a chicken ate it, and someone ate a chicken, and it spread to the humans!!!! AHHHH! well that would be an epidemic, because they ship chickens out across the country… she glances knowingly, implying things could be very bad

the river is filled with bird gore from the plant BLECH... who allows this??!! please say there are some modern regulations in place to prevent this being done irl.

mulder says he wants it dragged, thinking that maybe george is in there. and the sheriff is hesitant to do this. once again, i’m onto you, sheriff. i mean, a river full of chicken gore: it would be a good place to put a dead body.

and bam! a body is found. or rather. many many many bones. many bodies. and they are still going. damn.

so, we have a ton of bones. scully can put them into 9 distinct skeletons, one of which is in fact george. i love that she can do that, put the bones into distinct skeletons. she knows it's geroge from a pin in his femur!

“all of them share one, strange detail though” “well, they seem to have lost their heads” “… well, besides that” <- LMAOOOO idk why this was so funny to me... he really thought he picked up on something but he did Not.

here's the linking detail: all the bones are smooth and buffed like they have been polished. ??? who is polishing bones? it sure isn't me, i'll tell you that much.

george’s wife is at the scene, learning her husband's body has been found, and she is sobbing. and the sheriff says “we’ll take care of you” now what does THAT mean? because it's not really sounding like the welcoming words of a man who is going to guide his neighbor through tragedy, and instead like there is something bigger at play here...

back at the plant, the doctor is mentioning another guy coming down “with the symptoms”…. omg. so this IS a known thing from the inside. mr. chaco knows but he isn’t doing anything about it!!!!! chicken dramaaaa goes crazy

scully at the scene of all the bones, carrying a bucket of chicken. lmao. she is braver than me, for i would have gone vegan the first moment i set foot in chicken processing land.

mulder does some digging: 87 people have disappeared in the area in 50 years! that seems... a lot? and he thinks the same person or persons were responsible. he thinks they were EATEN!! boiled in a pot.

“they used similar evidence to prove cannibalism among on the Anasazi tribe of New Mexico” okay: 1. why do you know that 2. need to look into these allegations for myself and 3. Anasazi… that is the title of the next episode!!! what could this mean!! another cannibalism episode?!

scully is very sad to say that paula could have gotten sick from eating george :( girl I’m not convinced the chicken is clean put it down NOW

cannibalism = eternal life? follow for more crazy mulder theories!

she puts aside the chicken……. good!

mr. chaco says “he’ll handle it” and george's wife doris arrives, saying she “can’t keep lying”… she says “she did it” (!!)

OH????? she... killed her husband? that is a bold thing to admit to.

“we’re gonna take good care of you”, says mr. chaco, which raises the question: are they a cannibal cult???? is that what he means when he mentions that he “built this town”???

now what the hell is going on. <- an interjection i stand by

mulder and scully are going to the courthouse to look at the papers and all the birth records are burnt!! doris calls mulder and says he’s afraid mr. chaco will kill her… they split up…. nooooo i hate splitting up!!! i watched so much scooby doo as a kid!

GASP! a guy in a mask like we saw at the very beginning of the episode is in doris' home!!! drumbeat playing while she screams…. overall, this is very not good, i wrote, referring to the use of Indigenous imagery for this murder, and also doris being murdered in the first place

scully at the scene of the murder ft. big ass flashlight. she gets in through the side door. gun: out. trench coat: open. looks: served. diagnosis: baby girl that could kill me, and i am respectful of the fact that she has this power yet refrains from using it on me.

mulder at mr. chaco’s house. mr. chaco has some… stuff in his home. including photos with Indigenous people and also bones. having human bones in your house, and especially on display, is not a good sign of ethics in play. and a skull. Oh! it says the skull is from a tribe in New Guinea... why tf does he have that. put it back???

at the back of chaco's parlor, we see a mysterious door. mulder is busting it open.

LORD ALMIGHTY, I DID NOT THINK THERE WOULD BE HEADS INSIDE??? HELLO???

so that must be where all of the heads that mulder noticed were missing have gone. they're sewn up sort of like shrunken heads. very spooky. once again, pour one out for the props department for such a creation.

noooo chaco is in the house with scully, who was investigating the call of doris. NOOOO HE KNOCKED HER OUT!!! this seriously needs to stop happening like i'm worried about the brain damage she is experiencing.

back to mulder cam. goodness. all of these heads.

in a field now. doctor is serving some soup. to a bunch of people. who are eating around a big bonfire. do NOT tell me scully is in that meal....

she is not. YET! but he is bringing her over to be roasted. and they ate doris! chaco is yelling about turning on each other and how they were only supposed to eat outsiders. girl you shouldn't be eating anybody last time i checked.

man in the mask shows up with an axe. and chaco is decapitated in front of scully. who is put into the decapitation thingy next. GIRL THIS IS FUCKED UP!!!

mulder on the scene, just in time. he shoots the dude in the mask.

“you alright?” he asks, brushing her hair back after lifting her out of the decapitation machine. my good friend, i would venture to guess that she is not quite alright at the moment!!! this will take an awful lot of unpacking!!!

sigh. but the tenderness of the near death experience. coming back to life in someone's arms. yeah i'll romanticize that.

TEA!!! the sheriff was the one under the mask!!!!!! i knew he was up to no good.

wrap up: chicken place shut down. unclear how many citizens of the town ate people. 27 have become ill with prion disease. chaco’s plane was shot down in 1947, and he spent 7 months with a cannibalistic tribe, and also he was born in 1902, so he was 93 at his death- so the cannibalism really WAS extending life. and we see some more feed being scooped to the chickens as scully says his remains have yet to be found. end scene.

HUH???? what in da hell. so what are we thinking kids…?

well, i'll tell you something: turns out i am afraid of cannibal cults, no matter how outlandish they seem! i guess when you get a villain or evil situation of the week show like this, you WILL learn exactly what kind of fear pushes your buttons. i can imagine almost nothing scarier than being led to the slaughter like scully was. seems a purposeful commentary on the meat industry, especially when taken in with the other meat episode this season.

so, if i were scully, i do think i would need to take a week or so off. but she is just built different than i am.

some things bugged me here. first of all, like i mentioned, you don't need to throw in Indigenous people to make a scary story. like is the thought of a bunch of arkansas cannibals not horrific enough? the scary was there!

second, i have not been doing a kidnapping count, but i feel that scully is getting the rough of the deal here. i believe in gender equality when it comes to characters being kidnapped. like, an even 1:1 ratio. why are we denying mulder his damsel in distress arc? does anyone think about how he would feel? how nice it would be to see scully burst in with a gun and shoot the fellow that was about to cannibalize him?

still, it is rare an episode actually spooks me, so i must give credit where it is due. even if it felt a little outlandish, your girl was frightened! scully needs a vacation now. i also thoroughly laughed at the sick theories line and his funny sunglasses.

it's funny to note, but i like the episodes that are either very silly and light hearted, or incredibly angsty the best. and that may seem contradictory, but you cannot tell me that one breath and humbug may be on opposite ends of the tone spectrum, but they are both objectively Perfect. i'll have to think more on why they are the best in my opinion, but i think honestly i would watch these two read the dictionary.

26 notes · View notes

radar-of-the-stars · 7 months ago

Text

Reviewing every Gameboy NSO game after spending 10 minutes with Each

Alleyway: This is a really solid clone of breakout, I was really impressed that level 2 was able to move so fluidly, I wish the paddle was faster

Baseball: This game desperately needs difficulty options, it was my first time playing and I was down 6-0 in the bottom of the second by the time my 10 minutes were up

Donkey Kong Land: Damn this game is ugly and has bad controls, especially in comparison to the SNES version, Pre-Rendered 3D DOES NOT WORK on an 8 bit system with a 144 by 160 screen and 4 colors

Dr. Mario: It's certainly Dr. Mario, a game I'm not very good at, the NES version is better because it has color

Game & Watch Gallery 3: Excellent collection of G&W Games, Egg is easily the best, the modern versions are beautiful

Kirby Tilt 'n Tumble: Really fun novelty. although I wish the jumping was controlled with a button rather than a gesture, the level design was a little simple, but that's probably just because it was the first few levels

Kirby's Dream Land: Amazing game, beautiful, made it all the way to Kabula before I ran out of time and I really wanted to just finish up the game, the movement is almost perfect even if you are familiar with Modern Kirby, one of the best games on the service

Kirby's Dream Land 2: This is Kirby's Dream Land but more and with Copy Abilities, the level design is a little weaker to accommodate the Animal Buddies, another contender for the best game on the service.

The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakinging DX: Obviously I cannot get a full grasp of a Zelda game in 10 minutes, I've played the game before and Link's Awakening is an Amazing zelda game, but in 10 minutes I can only really experience the controls, visuals, and music, which are all phenominal.

The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages: This is another great game, but the first 10 minutes were nothing but dialog and walking around the first village. the story was set up in a really interesting way, but there was nothing even resembling the action part of this action game

The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons: One thing I appreciate about the Oracle games in comparison to Link's Awakening is that they have a text speed option, meaning I was able to get all the way to the first dungeon, and I can confidently day that the controls are exactly the same as Link's Awakening

Mario Golf: I played the regular golf mode rather than the story mode, and it certainly was an 8-bit golf game, the controls were way more intuitive than I expected

Mario Tennis: This is shockingly well put together compared to NES Tennis, what makes a tennis game had clearly evolved since NES Tennis, the spritework is also beautiful.

Metroid II: Return of Samus: The same thing I said about the weakness of the format applies to Metroid as well. That being said, even with my limit of 10 minutes, this is the best atmosphere on the Gameboy, the controls are heaps tighter than Metroid 1, and the Metroid fights are super fun and chaotic.

Super Mario Land: It's a lot like the first Mario Bros, if that game was way shorter, way less polished, and way more creative. The controls are both stiff and slippery, but the enemies and locations in the game are so much more interesting than anything in most Mario games.

Super Mario Land 2: The 6 Golden Coins: If Mario Land 1 is a version of Mario 1 with worse controls and more creative ideas, then Marion Land 2 is Mario World with worse controls and more creative ideas, this is also a contender for the best game on the service

Pokemon Trading Card Game: I didn't even make it through the tutorial battle, but the tutorial has been very informative as someone who didn't even know the most basic aspects of the TCG.

Quest for Camelot: I have no opinion on this game, I spent the entire 10 minutes doing a fetch quest to unlock the sword. The game looks pretty at least

Tetris: This is my personal least favorite version of Retro Tetris, mostly because of how slow moving pieces is, other than that it's retro tetris

Wario Land 3: Very fun and very creative, the sprite art is amazing for an 8-bit system, although I spent the entire time feeling like I was missing a key part of my moveset, there were all sorts of places and things that I couldn't interact with, no matter what kind of form I was in

Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare: This is a much better example of Pre-Rendered 3D than Donkey Kong Land, although it still looks like a total mess. This type of game works really well on the Gameboy with its limited control, but I don't know how much horror you can actually get out of the system's weak screen and limited color palette

Blaster Master: Enemy Below: This is an amazing Blaster Master game, I consider it to be almost on par with the Blaster Master Zero games; the movement is very fun because of the car's springy animation, and the player wasn't too bad either. I was already lost and backtracking within these 10 minutes. Another contender for the best game on the service

BurgerTime Deluxe: This is very simple arcade fun, there really isn't much to talk about, there are slight puzzle elements in how you drop the ingredients, but other than that, it's not that deep. I got a game over right as my time was running out, giving me a high score of 21600.

Castlevania Legends: one of the more faithful "Gameboy versions" on an NES game, it's like a version of Castlevania III with more focus on exploration, and a slower player character. in 10 minutes I did not die, but I also did not see the end of the first level

Gargoyle's Quest: Way more fun than I expected, the wall jumps were really fun to pull off, although jumps in general were a little stiff and the first level was super claustrophobic

Mega Man: Dr. Wily's Revenge: These handheld Mega Man games are all super weird, makes me wonder why there aren't either of the Mega Man Xtreme games on the service, which are leagues better, anyways, the first handheld Mega Man games has really stiff controls and god awful level design that makes the NES game it's based on feel positively modern.

Mega Man II: This game loves instakill spikes, this is worse than Mega Man 4 NES, visuals are a lot better than Dr. Wily's Revenge. At least the Slide is here

Mega Man III: Of what I played, this is a huge step up, probably because the charge shot being here reduces the feeling of being ambushed by every enemy that the screen crunch causes, and this one is another graphical step up compared to Mega Man II, you can tell the developers are really starting to get a feel for the Game Boy's Hardware.

Mega Man IV: What the fuck happened? This game barely runs, the controls are downright baffling, the charge shot sends you flying backwards in a precision platformer, the enemies respawn the second they go off screen, it's like this game was made by corpses

Mega Man V: This one is a step back up, way more creative, a huge break from NES Mega Man 5, although it does inherit the slow down issues from Mega Man IV

#self post #gaming #game review #review #nintendo switch online #nso #mega man #legend of zelda #mario #kirby #game boy #nintendo classics

12 notes · View notes

poppitron360 · 1 year ago

Note

what frank headcanons do you have?

LOTS and they’re very Leo-heavy (Like everything I post). I make it no secret that I will defend Platonic Valzhang with my life- their friendship is everything to me.

1. Frank is more socially competent than he seems, he’s very aware of how others are feeling, and knows exactly what to say and do to comfort them. Specifically, he knows a lot about PTSD from seeing his mom and her military friends coming back from war, and so he knows what to do when one of his friends have flashbacks/nightmares. For such a big guy, he’s surprisingly gentle.

2. He does not let his lactose intolerance stop him. He will take that as a fucking CHALLENGE. At easter, he will wolf down chocolate like there’s no tomorrow (and then tomorrow comes, and he regrets everything).

3. Only swears in times of absolute crisis, so when he does it’s a BIG DEAL. One of the Legion hears Praetor Zhang say “fuck” and suddenly SHIT JUST GOT REAL.

4. THE BEST HUGGER EVER.

5. Refers to Leo as a “smol bean” on multiple occasions.

6. Other nicknames include “Jason’s twink” “twiglet” “that annoying little gnat” and “tiny stick boy” (all lovingly)

7. GIVES PIGGYBACKS (Sometimes as an actual pig)

8. One time, Leo convinced him to infiltrate a kid’s birthday party as the magician’s rabbit, steal all the cake, and leave.

9. Brilliant cook- excellent baker. Makes a lot of cakes and cookies (Percy helps).

10. After much encouragement from Leo, he turns into a dragon and finally gets the courage to breathe fire (he was too scared before).

11. Loves to read- MASSIVE BOOKWORM- Reads Hazel bedtime stories. Soon Leo finds out, and insists on snuggling in next to them and Frank reads them to sleep.

12. Similar to the piggybacks- lets people ride on his shoulders. Mostly Leo, so he can reach high places (short people problems, amiright?)

13. Okay if you ask me my headcannons, you know that no. 13 is always “THEY’RE A SWIFTIE”- Frank’s not a big a fan as Leo (who knows her favourite colour star sign and shoe size) but has a couple of her albums. He gets properly into her after Leo forces it onto Hazel bc she said she wanted to listen to more modern music. The three of them make friendship bracelets together. Hazel is a debut girlie.

14. Leo paints Frank’s nails for fun.

15. Frank is the go-to guy for the dyslexics. Percy, Annabeth, and Leo all come to him with things asking “what does that say?”. He doesn’t mind except when Leo wakes him up at 3am (has that kid has ever heard of a sleep schedule?)- especially to ask him to read something Leo himself wrote.

16. Similarly, he helps Leo copy up all his notes into a format that’s actually legible- after Calypso’s island Leo makes sure the crew is able to carry on without him if he ever went missing again (he also wants to keep a record of his work just like the Archimedes scrolls he found).

17. Lets Leo rant about machines. Sometimes he just smiles and nods (because he doesn’t understand a single word) but Leo appreciates Frank not telling him to shut up about it.

18. Pretty much an old man when it comes to tech. What Is A Meme.

19. Just pretty much an old man full stop, and I am here for it.

The thing is, I always have a million hcs and as soon as someone asks for them I forget them all. I’ll probably remember a lot more as soon as I post this, but here is what I got for now. I’ve also posted a shit-tonne of Valzhang hcs in (one of) my massive Valzhang rant post(s), so you can find that here. Some of my favs here are recycled from that.

51 notes · View notes

thestarminstrel · 1 year ago

Note

What’s something that you think Nicholas would know how to do that Seiji wouldn’t? (and vice versa?) (e.g. make a perfect soft boiled egg, recite the alphabet backwards, give a good neck massage, etc)

oh man i have had to THINK about this one. but i think here's my little list for stuff that nick knows:

with a little bit of cooking practice with eugene, nick gets really good at using up food about to go bad and actually making decent meals out of it (not that seiji doesn't know at minimum cooking basics)

simple mending for clothes (think needle and thread and small holes/seams)

nick is able to find almost anything online from movies to textbooks

dunno if this is a skill but nick can always pick up the wilhelm scream the first time he watches a movie, no matter how subtle it is

this is so not an original hc in any regard, but nick's really good at reshaving his undercut by himself and doesn't need a mirror for the back of his head

now seiji:

i don't know where the fuck i said this but i am convinced that seiji is an office suite guy. he makes the most banger powerpoint presentations, breezes through word formatting, excel sheets are scared of him. also uses outlook and i personally am giving him shit for it (so does nick)

mending books! it's such a specific skill but i imagine seiji has some limited edition copies of his favorite books and tries to upkeep them

origami, but specifically the harder ones. i hc that one of seiji's grandparents taught him and that's something they always did together

cursive and it's neat as a pin. his normal handwriting is also neat and compact, but seiji has the prettiest cursive and you can't convince me otherwise

this was such a fun ask and im sure more answers to this ask will appear in my brain over the coming few days, but here's the ones that readily come to mind :D

#the nick pirating thing is directly inspired by my best friend who is /scarily/ good at it. love that raccoon so much #fence comic #asks #nicholas cox #seiji katayama

20 notes · View notes

pll-reimagined · 7 months ago

Text

Pretty Little Liars: reimAgined

Hello Liars of tumblr!

I am a huge nerd for the Pretty Little Liars franchise – I adore the books (I’ve been reading them as far back as the original release of ‘Killer’), and while I love the show, I've always been more than a little disappointed that it wasn’t closer to the source material. During spooky season, I began both rereading the books and rewatching the show, and it gave me the creative inspiration to blend together the best bits of each canon into one cohesive narrative, start to finish. With that said, I present to you all my passion project, 'Pretty Little Liars: reimAgined', as what a retooled, more faithful adaptation could look like.

My primary goal is to tackle the books’ canon and adapt it to span across a number of 'seasons' in an episodic fashion - currently my plan is a 7-season format with around 13 episodes apiece, leaving wiggle room for more as I progress. I intend to weave in some aspects from the original show that were either invented FOR the show, or ones that it particularly excelled in translating… but not necessarily the ones people might expect. This will range from minor storylines and interactions to entire episodes from the OG - albeit through a different lens - if I believe it will help to flesh out characters and the tapestry of Rosewood at large, however this is not the priority. I may periodically condense, expand, omit, and/or change the order of storylines and arcs to make them stronger, and so as to cut down on unnecessary filler. I want for there to be nods that both book and show fans alike can appreciate while also keeping them in suspense over how events unfold; it'll feel familiar, but won't be a twin copy.

My overall creative concept is a period piece set in 2006 (so I'm keeping as much of the niche style and dated references from the books as possible), with a sense heightened reality and a focus on themes such as symbolism, luxury, and indulgence. Think less ABC Family/CW vibes and more HBO/FX, American Horror Story vibes: big on suspense, a dark and gothic aesthetic contrasting expensive and chic high society, somewhat realistic yet simultaneously a bit larger-than-life or fantastical, can range from slightly eerie to downright unsettling, and doesn’t shy away from vulgarity or adult themes and imagery, but does so tastefully and in moderation. Rosewood should absolutely DRIP with exorbitant wealth, lust, disdain, competition, and secrets, but in the flavor of Old Money. My vision is of a nice suburb in New England, where every yard has a white picket fence to hide the imperfections from your neighbors, and petty, political cold wars matter to your social standing at the country club.

The rewrite will have a more serious and mature tone: less teen romance (though, as it IS present in the books, there will still be some) and more focus on psychological torture, thriller/horror tones, the mystery surrounding the disappearance of Alison, the identity and motive(s) of ‘A’, and what ‘A’ puts the Liars through.

As of now, I have a very rough draft of the major story beats that I plan on covering, as I think the story starts to fall apart when you don't have your long-term mystery road mapped well in advance. My goal is for each story arc/season to feel well-balanced and important to the over-arching narrative, and the 'A' reveals are a large part of this. The 'A' thread is the most meticulous and delicate, as any misstep leads to inadvertent plot holes, which is exactly what happened to the show. Most importantly, the 'A' motivations need to make sense in relation to the Liars - that means no Shower Harvey's running amok in this fic!

I’m also going to fix some aspects of certain storylines, and the timeline in general, that were either rushed, dragged out, unnecessary, unrealistic, or flat-out didn’t make sense, adjusting the pacing where I deem it necessary (RIP Never Ending November). This is less so with the books, although they do have some instances - Sara Shepard wtf do you MEAN THAT ARIA STOLE THE STARRY NIGHT - and more so what I use from the original show. I want to give the story the proper room to breathe and the space to gradually build suspense, ensuring a structured flow for every episode within each season’s narrative arc.

I’m aging everyone up slightly, so the start of the series will take place on the last day of 9th grade (making the Liars around 15), and the time jump will be about 2 years, to the end of the summer before the girls’ senior year (making the Liars around 17). Hopefully this will make some of the plotlines a little less icky and statutory grapey when it comes to age.

I’ll also be combining book and show characters as I see fit, giving preference to the books. In particular, I'll be utilizing the ensemble of Rosewood Day students in a much larger capacity than the show did, so to increase the number of suspects while cutting down on extraneous random characters, effectively creating a small community of socialites not dissimilar to Gossip Girl. These people have largely known one another since childhood, and that should be reflected in their interactions.

I'm retelling the story through the mind and voice of none other than Alison DiLaurentis, and she will operate in a way similar to Mary Alice Young from Desperate Housewives: secretive, slightly omniscient, gone yet still very much a part of the Liars' world despite her absence, and playfully watching over her friends as they navigate past her disappearance. She serves as a narrator for the Liars’ inner thoughts and monologues, but will frequently provide her own insight on situations, occasionally injecting some dry humor into the series.

Lastly, the Liars will actually... y'know... lie lol. While the show captured their positive traits, it suffered from the fact that the girls either didn't do bad/selfish things at ALL, or they were coerced to by outside factors. The girls in the books are much more self-serving, petty, and willing to do bad things to achieve what they want. There will still be 'A' manipulation, however I want the general sense that the Liars are victims of their own actions. They should be much more uncomfortable in maintaining and balancing their social lives with the threat of ‘A’ always looming, poised to knock them off the top of the totem pole should their secrets be exposed. The outward appearance of perfection should be, at least initially, the driving force for the Liars. They’ll be more rational and cautious, making less immediate boneheaded and/or out-of-character decisions like the show portrayed, and a bit more reluctant to trust one another until after things have unraveled and bound them together.

I’m currently outlining the details for the first 'season', and I'm about halfway done with the prologue, which I plan to post by the end of the week to gauge interest. I'm open to feedback, so please let me know what you all think of my little passion project!

10 notes · View notes

bonzos-number-1-fan · 1 year ago

Text

TMAGP 14 Thoughts: Shedding Light

This was a pretty light one all in all. Which isn't too surprising given how short this episode was. Not a whole lot to dig into here which is probably for the best given the last few. However for the nerds into the numbers a couple of very interesting things did come from this one.

Spoilers for episode 14 below the cut.

Choco Leibnitz. Still incorrect. I think this is intentional and a Mandela effect thing. It's nice to see Celia and Alice talk and it's extra nice to see Celia not taking her shit. She's obviously jealous as hell and she's really the sort to make that someone's problem IMO. Not that I have anything against Alice or that I think she's evil. But she does have her flaws. It's also interesting to see how she's consistently digging for info and being generally fairly duplicitous about it. She didn't ask Alice if she had any thoughts on why but did lead her to offer her own. It obviously wasn't effective but it's a habit of Celia's to hide behind things like that. Such as mentioning she has a kid to obfuscate that she's got other secrets. Say something that is very clearly a big deal to drop on a first date and people aren't likely to think you're hiding further secrets. But if Freddy knows, we know. Celia thinking she was actually maybe kinda flirting for real was very cute though.

For the incident I've got nothing much to say. I don't like being too negative in these things but I have very little to say otherwise. I really liked the format of it but it was too short to really build it up effectively. There wasn't a lot to sink your teeth into here or enough of it to slowly build any real dread. I also thought this was a rare miss from Jonny on the performance. It didn't do a whole lot for me, unfortunately. I think there was a lot more to the concept than got explored and the transformation aspect is a bit out of nowhere. The mention of an institute is obviously an important detail here but I'll get to that in a bit.

I really would've liked to see more of Gwen and Sam talking about filing these things. I get why Gwen is so touchy and exasperated about it but it's still interesting to get into. It's also not the first time Sam gets given a classification that he later disagrees with in the filing. Hard to say if that means something but coming from Gwen it seems a bigger marker that Sam is incorrect than it does when it was Alice.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Incident/CAT#R#DPHW Master Sheet

Klaus Watch: Starting off we a new section that'll only be here when it's relevant. For those not in the know the old IT Manager at the OIAR, Klaus, has an excel spreadsheet named after him. This was found during the ARG and its a semi-corrupted list of OIAR incidents with CAT#R#DPHWs assigned. Along with some dates and some additional notes. The original German and a translated English copy is in the above link. Not every incident matches but he episode sheet links to it when they do.

CAT1RB4426 is a match. There isn't a date so just that alone is what I'd call a partial match. There isn't a guarantee those strings are unique after all. However it's one of the few with an accompanying note, "Mag". These notes are in German and "mag" is a German word but what it means is "like" or "to like". Which in context makes a lot less sense than the other notes tend to. Given the mention of an institute in the incident it seems pretty likely that "Mag" is short of "Magnus" and as such is a specific detail about the case. As was the note of "tinte" (ink) on Daria's incident.

DPHW Theory: 4426 seems pretty reasonable.

CAT# Theory: CAT1 is interesting in that it's another crack in the Person/Place/Object theory. This one was no more about people than any of the other transformations were and neither of those are CAT1's. But that whole theory already involves ignoring some things and assuming some other bits to make it work.

R# Theory: Another B for a thing I'd say is a B. Really very little to get into on these until something either doesn't fit or we get some significant new information.

Header talk: Transformation (Snake) -/- Horde is what Sam ended up going with on this. Rather than Snakes (Horde) -/- Infection as suggested by Gwen. Not the first time he's done that and one of these days I hope we'll get a misfile report. Clarification on what is or isn't junk data would be lovely.

#the magnus protocol #tmagp #tmagp theory #tmagp speculation #klaus = kl4-u5

32 notes · View notes