#i think they almost always do it in this general configuration

[psymachine]

i think it'd go like this lmao

whole version

[kyesreadingnook]

Riddler general relationship HCS

He’s very picky with the people he keeps close to him— granted that is a blend of overinflated ego, general distrust of others, and so on. In a sense he’s sort of like a cat, he needs his own time and space to warm up to people, and even then there’s no guarantee he’ll show all his true colors.

But you, my friend, are truly something unique— He just can never seem to get bored of you, both with your enchanting appearance, but mainly with the content of your character.

Edward appreciates those who can actually provide substance in a conversation rather than mindless babble, small talk, or mere niceties. And you provide it with such a graceful ease, he considers it almost impressive! And that right there is quite a compliment coming from him.

I don’t think he has any particular taste in physical appearance, regardless of physical body type, hair color— whatever, sure, he thinks colorful hair is pretty, or finds himself paying more attention to more unique fashion. But that doesn’t mean he has a set taste, truly, it’s the mind he’s after.. well, and personality. He wouldn’t want to date a wet blanket, after all.

Edward enjoys a puzzle, he doesn’t want someone who’s easy to configure, someone who’s trying to make themselves easily digestible— he likes complication, a mental challenge. He loves the eccentric, someone he can pick the brain of at any time of day. And that’s exactly what you are to him, his puzzle.

He, quite obviously, has a habit to peacock not only his intelligence, but his drama, his flair, his fashion— everything! he finds himself to be superior to most in every single one of those senses. Yet, that ego only (somehow) grows bigger when you pay him compliments based on those things. Mention how good his hair looks, how expensive his suit must be, and by god tell him how complicated yet impressive his plans are— he will melt almost immediately.

Dates with him are nothing but eccentric— he buys out (Though mainly threatens the owners’ of said businesses.) entire movie theaters and restaurants just for you both. Why would he want other people there to spoil his time with his darling? He wants you to feel special, to show you how good things are when you’re by his side. You’re always promised an expensive dinner, incredible shopping trips, and so much more— though, if you truly, deeply need just a relaxing date at home, he’ll do his best to tone it down.

Now lastly onto physical touch— he isn’t the biggest fan of it, and it’s less of him not wanting to touch you or be touched by you, but more so a sensory thing for him. He’s very particular about touch, always has been ever since he was young. But, rest assured it’s never anything personal with you. He’ll still happily abide if you need a cuddle or a kiss, but he has his own ways of showing his affection for you.

[communistkenobi]

brain damage mission impossible posting

okay there are 72 fics listed as Ethan/Julia on ao3 despite her being his canonical wife. Which like on a baseline level I understand because she’s not a character. she’s a symbol meant to represent Ethan’s desire for domestic quietude, something that is perpetually out of reach because he’s the mission impossible guy who saves the world. every time he tries to be a normal person some evil entity threatens to destroy his life by kidnapping his wife/parents/etc. But the idea of a hot/cold relationship with Julia, or them as perpetual lovers without any promise of marriage and family or even exclusivity, is never entertained in these movies, which I think cements Julia as firmly not a character. She’s not even really that important to Ethan when viewed in this context, because there’s no shades of grey allowed - he’s either a full time spy or he’s a retired husband. He won’t even take “scraps” in the form of casual sex or infrequent clandestine loving hook-ups, even in contexts where that wouldn’t put her in any danger. the only two horizons of possibility for him are marriage or volceldom. the films make the case that you can’t really have any work-life balance, but the “life” part of that equation is just full-package white heterosexuality. And they don’t even make it seem that appealing honestly, like in the third movie when Ethan tries to retire he’s clearly not comfortable and on edge all the time and abandons it at the drop of a hat (almost killing Julia in the process). But every time she appears in these films after they break up he is deeply distraught about it - like god does Tom Cruise sell the “we can never be together” look of abject longing he does whenever their characters collide. He sells the intense emotional stakes despite the lack of normative sexual desire to go with it.

Because what’s also crazy is that Ethan as a character doesn’t really express any sexuality in general - most of it is extremely restrained, confined to caressing a woman’s face or accidental physical closeness (like landing on top each other during a fall, etc). It’s always hinted at but never really develops into anything, and even in later films where it’s clearly shown that he and Ilsa have something going on, they barely touch. Like most of it is communicated through emotional glances and long pauses of them staring at each other. Clearly the misogynistic spectre of “men and women can’t be friends without eventually fucking/dating” is present in this, but the conclusion of that heteronormative configuration is never paid off with sex. And this is despite women’s bodies being shown off constantly in these films, like there are a lot of unjustifiable and disgusting shots of women’s asses and legs especially, but they are pure “eye candy” for the audience, they are rarely if ever framed as being attractive from the perspective of Ethan, the principle POV character of every film and the character that audiences are clearly supposed to connect with.

And in those moments where women’s bodies are on display but Ethan is not paying attention, there is a clear separation between the director’s and Tom Cruise’s vision of these films. Like he is entirely in control of them at this point given he is the driving force behind them, all of these films are sold on Cruise doing some insane stunt like holding his breath for six minutes or climbing the exterior of the tallest building in the world or him doing 109 HALO jumps to get the best footage for a mid-air struggle over Paris. He does shit no other actor does, he sells it by making it ‘real.’ The films also narratively revolve around him - he is, to use direct quotes, “the living manifestation of destiny,” “the embodiment of chaos itself” and so on. He is the emotional and narrative centre of gravity. Ethan’s emotional states, his desires, his tribulations and internal conflicts, they are all that matter in these films. Basically no one else is a character. And he doesn’t fuck in any of these movies! He's a hot-shot spy but he isn’t a ladies man. Women fall over themselves for him but he’s not interested in them. The only exception is Ilsa, but that is clearly the result of her saving his life multiple times and their emotional trust in one another. Like these films have action movie levels of misogyny, sexual objectification and narrative discarding of women and all of that, but our main hero doesn’t really “partake” in any spoils of triumph or whatever gross horseshit is usually in these things. So to me this indicates a general lack of desire on the part of Cruise to “indulge” in any of these tropes, something he has the money and power to force on screen if he wants it to happen (which is what happens in many movies! Including these ones, only you just see a woman’s ass disconnected from any character’s sexual intention - the sexual intention is purely presumed on behalf of the audience).

I think this is aesthetic evidence that Tom Cruise is gay. But I still don’t really care about any of the guy characters either because they also aren’t characters, so Benji/Ethan is entirely uncompelling to me in a way that Ethan/Julia isn’t, not because cookie-cutter heterosexuality is “more interesting” but because there is something weirdly restrained and emotionally repressed about it that feels strangely uncomfortable with its own cookie-cutterness. so personally if you want to do Benji/Ethan in an interesting way I think you need to contend with the bizarreness of Ethan/Julia, OR, you deal with the narrative tension of Ethan/Julia itself by focusing on it. I am obviously biased in that I am extremely partial to a good “lovers doomed to be forever apart” thing (and these movies are NOT good examples of this), but their relationship is purely emotional and purely based on repression of a desire for intimacy as opposed to sex, which feels weirdly out of place in an otherwise titanically normative action film series. AND ITS MAKING ME CRAZYYYYYY!!!!!!!

[meanbossart]

I've been loving the DU Drow as a companio asks, so I've got my own. I was wondering what kind of interactions he would have with the other companions.

More specifically, we know Astarion flirts with almost anyone (for his own reasons) and even sleeps with Bae'zel at the tiefling party if you turn him down as a player. So, since the Drow is in the group now, what would his interaction with Astarion be? Would Astarion assume him to be the strongest and best chance of survival if manipulated? Would Astarion try to sleep with the Drow the same way he would with Lae'zel?

(Regarding the companions in general) Oh I can easily see him and Shadowheart having some cute party banter, they'd poke light fun at each other and have a similarly "darkly dramatic" reaction to things. He'd easily be the most talkative with her, often initiating mundane conversations about stuff you find. I can see some dialogue between them triggering upon finding one of the many drink-stashes you come across where they discuss what they like best when it comes to wine - or what they think they like, at least, considering the state of their memories.

Gale would be eager to inquire him about drow and the underdark, and where he got his fighting prowess from, which would visibly annoy DU drow since he can't fucking remember anything LOL he'd comment about how he always thought male drow were supposed to be a little… Flimsier, prompting a response along the lines of "I suppose my mother must have fed me well. I do have quite the appetite for loud-mouths."

Gale's like :U my goodness. Point taken.

He might talk to Karlach about Avernus, being fond of the savage nature of it. He'd also ask her if "something's bothering her" and when she asks why he's asking, he comments on how she can never seem to be still for long LOL

If Jaheira joins the party later she takes an interest in him (I WONDER WHY) and they could also share a little friendly banter. DU drow ends up asking her things about Baldur's Gate and herself to fill the gaps in his memory, as well as her children. He expresses how, if he thought himself more fit for a father, he'd have some of his own. Jaheira tells him it's probably better this way.

The banter with Astarion would be pretty par for the course - a mix between being flirtatious in nature and a little passive-aggressive all at once. At some point he says he can't keep quiet about how he stinks of carrion - DU calmly tells him that it can't be helped, due to their circunstances, and that he has a pretty cadaveric perfume himself. Astarion gets offended and tells him he knows for a fact that he smells lovely - DU drow tells him those statements need not be mutually exclusive.

He'd also ask Wyll about Mizora and what it's like to be in her servitute, claiming that he "wouldn't mind doing her a few favors himself" and Wyll tries his darn best to brush that off.

Lae'zel picks on him about his, erm, unreliable state of mind and accuses DU drow of basically being a ticking-time-bomb. DU responds that he feels less like a bomb and more like a vent releasing a steady flow of noxious fumes - if that helps her sleep better at night.

He also snorts at Minthara's "jokes".

(Onto the second part of this already far-too-long reply:)

And I THINK SO, I think Astarion would take him for being more easily manipulated than Lae'zel and try his luck there instead.

Small detour: you know, I always thought it'd be neat if some of the companions formed relationships with each other if you didn't pursue them. We see friendships form but romances would be fun too - like Karlach and Shadowheart could get together if you didn't pair with either of them, and Ascended Astarion and Minthara if you happened to have that party configuration in act 3. I don't really see many of the others having that kind of chemistry, but I wouldn't want the whole camp to be in love with each other anyway lol just 1 or 2 other couples would make the party feel more autonomous.

So, in a world where that's a part of the game, I obviously would say they get together if you don't romance either (from a mechanic standpoint player still gets first dibs LOL) and that unlocks unique party banter and dialogue where you can ask them about it once per act and reveal the "status" of the relationship. In act 2 you get to comment about how they seem to "steal away" together often. Astarion implies they're obviously having sex, and that he's always wanted to "try a little drow - but a big one is even better". If you ask DU drow about it he keeps details and motivations to himself, but acknowledges that they have something going on. You can then tell him that you believe he's being used, and DU drow very nonchalantly says that "he's well aware", but that he isn't worried about it.

In Act 3, when you ask again, Astarion somewhat bashfully reveals that the drow grew on him, and if you press on about the topic he reveals that they haven't even had sex since act 1, they just do a lot of talking, as he sheepishly puts it. If you ask DU drow about it he's much more upfront in saying that they've become an item, and that he's very happy in Astarion's company.

[bayesic-bitch]

Old-school planning vs new-school learning is a false dichotomy

I wanted to follow up on this discussion I was having with @metamatar, because this was getting from the original point and justified its own thread. In particular, I want to dig into this point

rule based planners, old school search and control still outperform learning in many domains with guarantees because end to end learning is fragile and dependent on training distribution. Lydia Kavraki's lab recently did SIMD vectorisation to RRT based search and saw like a several hundred times magnitude jump for performance on robot arms – suddenly severely hurting the case for doing end to end learning if you can do requerying in ms. It needs no signal except robot start, goal configuration and collisions. Meanwhile RL in my lab needs retraining and swings wildly in performance when using a slightly different end effector.

In general, the more I learn about machine learning and robotics, the less I believe that the dichotomies we learn early on actually hold up to close scrutiny. Early on we learn about how support vector machines are non-parametric kernel methods, while neural nets are parametric methods that update their parameters by gradient descent. And this is true, until you realize that kernel methods can be made more efficient by making them parametric, and large neural networks generalize because they approximate non-parametric kernel methods with stationary parameters. Early on we learn that model-based RL learns a model that it uses for planning, while model free methods just learn the policy. Except that it's possible to learn what future states a policy will visit and use this to plan without learning an explicit transition function, using the TD learning update normally used in model-free RL. And similar ideas by the same authors are the current state-of-the-art in offline RL and imitation learning for manipulation Is this model-free? model-based? Both? Neither? does it matter?

In my physics education, one thing that came up a lot is duality, the idea that there are typically two or more equivalent representations of a problem. One based on forces, newtonian dynamics, etc, and one as a minimization* problem. You can find the path that light will take by knowing that the incoming angle is always the same as the outgoing angle, or you can use the fact that light always follows the fastest* path between two points.

I'd like to argue that there's a similar but underappreciated analog in AI research. Almost all problems come down to optimization. And in this regard, there are two things that matter -- what you're trying to optimize, and how you're trying to optimize it. And different methods that optimize approximately the same objective see approximately similar performance, unless one is much better than the other at doing that optimization. A lot of classical planners can be seen as approximately performing optimization on a specific objective.

Let me take a specific example: MCTS and policy optimization. You can show that the Upper Confidence Bound algorithm used by MCTS is approximately equal to regularized policy optimization. You can choose to guide the tree search with UCB (a classical bandit algorithm) or policy optimization (a reinforcement learning algorithm), but the choice doesn't matter much because they're optimizing basically the same thing. Similarly, you can add a state occupancy measure regularization to MCTS. If you do, MCTS reduces to RRT in the case with no rewards. And if you do this, then the state-regularized MCTS searches much more like a sampling-based motion planner instead of like the traditional UCB-based MCTS planner. What matters is really the objective that the planner was trying to optimize, not the specific way it was trying to optimize it.

For robotics, the punchline is that I don't think it's really the distinction of new RL method vs old planner that matters. RL methods that attempt to optimize the same objective as the planner will perform similarly to the planner. RL methods that attempt to optimize different objectives will perform differently from each other, and planners that attempt to optimize different objectives will perform differently from each other. So I'd argue that the brittleness and unpredictability of RL in your lab isn't because it's RL persay, but because standard RL algorithms don't have long-horizon exploration term in their loss functions that would make them behave similarly to RRT. If we find a way to minimize the state occupancy measure loss described in the above paper other theory papers, I think we'll see the same performance and stability as RRT, but for a much more general set of problems. This is one of the big breakthroughs I'm expecting to see in the next 10 years in RL.

*okay yes technically not always minimization, the physical path can can also be an inflection point or local maxima, but cmon, we still call it the Principle of Least Action.

[silverview]

maybe the details of art are common knowledge, but i only read up about it yesterday. it's interesting! it opened in the west end in 96 & was something of a popular hit

it's about three old friends who fall out when one of them buys an expensive painting that's an almost-blank white canvas (a quiet night in); one of them aggressively disapproves, calling it pretentious; and the third is caught in the middle trying to keep the peace

had a ton of casts – a new one every three months. (the effect of this is interesting – more on that below.) tlog were selected to be the last lot before it closed in 02. if you don't already know, who do you suppose played each role? it has nothing to do with the weirdly deceptive promo pics. answers & more below the cut

mark played the friend who buys the painting, steve played the one who disapproves, and reece played the guy caught in the middle. i wonder how that decision was made. i wonder if they considered any alternative configurations (bf had steve & reece switched, which i think makes a lot of sense). as always i'm like. but what does the character say about YOU

they got mixed reviews. nearly every review singles out reece's delivery of this monologue, though they disagree on whether it was good or not. perhaps surprisingly, they don't uniformly characterise it (or his performance in general) as particularly angry. not to be dramatic but i would kill and die to have seen it, just that monologue alone

so below i've collected the most interesting parts of surviving reviews. the last one is my fav. some of them have interesting things to say on the effect of the rotating cast, sort of the opposite of the in9 meta-character effect, which i think is pretty funny & fitting

BBC

Reece Shearsmith is a little too giddy with Yvan's furious diatribe about his impending wedding - the laughs are landing so hard that some others are being lost in the process. But he is a particularly touching and vulnerable go-between, desperately sitting on the fence in the conflict that erupts between his friends Serge (Mark Gatiss) and Marc (Steve Pemberton), and finding - as you do - that those who sit on fences are liable to get splinters.

GUARDIAN

[A] play as bland and flimsy as this requires actors who are not only heroically talented but who also have formidable technical skills. Pemberton, Gatiss and Shearsmith don't. They are likeable, even mildly engaging but you are always aware that they are putting on a performance. What's more, they are far less funny than the two other casts I've seen. Shearsmith, for example, flunks the timing of his long monologue so instead of making an audience rock with waves of laughter, he gets only one big laugh right at the end. The silences in the evening, in particular the famous olive scene, are not eloquent, just empty.

THEATREGUIDE

I've heard, though, that other casts have had other dynamics. With some, it plays as light comedy, satirising everyone's pretensions to high passions. Others make it a touching study in the fragility of friendship and all three men's hitherto-unrealised need for it. The cast changes every three months or so [...] Just be prepared for the fact that the show you see will be different in tone and effect from the one your friends saw last year, and will probably be a glib skating over the emotional issues and implications it raises. [...] And while the laidback, indeed colloquial, approach of Mark Gatiss (perky Serge), Steve Pemberton (laconic Marc) and Reece Shearsmith (wickedly neurotic Yvan) may not be to everyone's taste, it's undeniably perfect casting to complete the spectrum of wall-to-wall talent that's made the show such a feature of London's theatrical landscape. [...] Playing cheekily with rhythms of speech and timing, they create a very English rendition of what is essentially a French play, substituting the de rigueur dramatic devices and flourishes with frighteningly real personalities that transcend the dramatic crutch of Yasmina Reza's Continental-style philosophizing text and sub-text. Admittedly the first ever cast of Courtenay, Finney and Stott all those years ago set the benchmark for the production (though I found them yawnsome and wooden) - and the League have the advantage of tapping into the accumulated performances that followed.

i think "laidback," "colloquial," "cheeky," "English" and "real" might be euphemisms for northern – more on that below

CIX

Having now seen Art three or four times (to be honest, I forget which), I've begun to muse that in some strange way it's a metaphor for itself. It's not just the performance dynamics, our impression of the trio's relationship, that varies from cast to cast... it's the very sense of how much real content there is in Reza's play, of whether it takes its thematic concerns about inherent versus attributed qualities (whether of a painting or a person) very far or not. In a sense, the performers are the series of diagonal white lines painted on to the white canvas of the play. And like the lines in the painting on stage (or so we're told), they're not pure white: some are vaguely yellow, some are sort of ochre-ish... In the case of the League, the bizarrely unrelated publicity images make clear that what's hoped for is a kind of fake-blood crimson tinge. So although there's no real indulgence, director Jennie Darnell allows the three to turn in a slight caricature of the naturalism with which the piece has usually been played, that little unreality often seen in the kind of sketch comedy where the group cut their teeth. The elegant apartment set is a world away from the League's fictional town of Royston Vasey, but the casting of the individual members plays to respective strengths familiar from their various screen guises. As Serge, who has paid 200,000 francs for the picture, Mark Gatiss exudes an appropriately smug and supercilious cleverness. As Marc, who faces off against Serge by declaring the canvas "shit", Steve Pemberton is more mercurial, with an air of suppressed violence. Reece Shearsmith, the relatively cuddly one [sic], succeeds in focusing audience identification on Yvan, the less smart piggy-in-the-middle. All three are of course skilled performers, and you can see the rapport gained from up to fifteen years' collaboration in, for instance, the way Gatiss and Pemberton trade facial "mugs" as they first consider the painting. However, this very affinity with each other enables them to skim over deeper elements in the play. When Shearsmith gabbles out Yvan's great bewildered set-piece about the complications of his wedding arrangements, we applaud the high-speed delivery but don't pick up enough of what he says to engage with Yvan's travails.

kissing this reviewer on the mouth for specifically describing what he thinks their respective strengths are & especially for describing reece as THE CUDDLY ONE like... idk if it shows but i'm obsessed with how people see them, and how they see themselves & each other

EVENING STANDARD

Not so much a piece of headline-grabbing stunt casting as three trained actors flexing their thespian muscles [...] bona fide drama graduates, not comedy chancers. This immediately shows, from their poise, projection and presence. Only the dimple-chinned Pemberton as intolerant Marc comes close to his rogues' gallery of BBC2 personae during moments of rage when he cannot come to terms with Serge's purchase of an overpriced minimalist painting. By contrast, Mark Gatiss as the punctilious, pretentious Serge is the epitome of restraint, as cool as his sharp, charcoal suit. The comic moments are all in context. Shearsmith, as the boyish Yvan, is increasingly troubled by his imminent nuptials. This eventually spills out in a breathless pseudo-Pythonesque rant against marriage that is as funny to witness as it is difficult to say. But throughout, the trio respect Reza's text, sidelining their insatiable appetite for the grotesque that has made their their brand of humour so distinctive. This may, however, be problematic. Having sold out in the West End with their sketch show a couple of years ago, some of the threesome's intensely passionate fans may see Art as a follow-up and feel shortchanged. The eye-catching poster may compound the deception, the chopper, axe and chainsaw being wielded suggesting some Grand Guignol flourishes which never materialise.

BBC AGAIN

The northern accents do not quite ring true in the sophisticated setting of a Paris apartment and often lead to flat performances, where one gets the feeling their brand of wit is not quite enough to portray Parisian conceit. The strongest display by far comes from Mark Gatiss (Serge) - the eerie butcher in League of Gentlemen - as the tall, slightly effeminate doctor who acquires the painting, striking just the right balance of preciousness and acerbic wit. The diminutive Reece Shearsmith is adequate in his portrayal of Yvan, the put-down-upon soon-to-be-married stationer caught in the middle of the feud between his two friends. But the biggest disappointment comes from Steve Pemberton, who plays Marc, the critical compadre who takes Serge's indulgence for contemporary art as a personal slight. Pemberton, normally the trio's strongest performer, well-known for his brilliant turn as Pauline in the League of Gentlemen, seems ill at ease in the role. His northern persona cannot quite stretch far enough to inhabit the part of Marc, an angry homeopathic freak whose insecurity finds it hard to cope with his friend's show of independence over the painting. Like the painting, the play does not remain colourless throughout however. One of the highlights is Shearsmith's 10-minute tirade about the difficulties of coping with the women in his life ahead of his impending wedding.

yeah this one is definitely my favourite. casually calls them ALL scallies, then calls each of them out INDIVIDUALLY for being a) gay b) short c) shit. absolute legend. did they ever find this reviewer's body

related, from this article in the guardian:

"When we first did Art, a review said 'Yes, but can they act?' and that made me angry," said Shearsmith. "I remember thinking 'What have we been doing in The League of Gentlemen? It's not standup."

in 2013, reece said art was his favourite ever play to do. highlights from the replies

[raccoonfallsharder]

you made a post that talked about how space probably has different interpretations of the color pink than earth does, and was wondering on your opinion; do you think the galaxy views being trans or gay in a different light than earth?

hey babe. you ask an EXCELLENT question and i really appreciate you asking it here. i feel like for some people, this could be a really vulnerable question to pose — and if that’s you, i want to thank you extra hard for taking the risk of putting it into this space. i actually have VERY strong feelings about this and i try to infuse it in almost every fic i write (with varying levels of success). and on that note, i apologize for the novel I’m about to inflict on you.

the short answer is that i think most members of the intergalactic community have just come to naturally accept that there are countless genders and sexes and orientations and approaches to sexual congress and reproduction and relationships throughout the universe. like. we know groot reproduces asexually. kronans (in the two most recent thor movies) all seem to identify as men and reproduce with a partner by joining hands and standing in hot lava for three days (and i think we’re meant to take that literally). pete’s dated an a’askvariian and i feel pretty confident that while she was referred to as “female” she probably does not have a genital configuration that is a 1:1 match for anything human. i think of the biodiversity on earth — all the ways that lifeforms present, the different ways they reproduce and engage sexually (or don’t) — then i multiple that by infinity.

and as a result, i just can’t imagine that most of the intergalactic community has difficulty rolling with the concept of transitioning or fluidity or various orientations. i bet almost all of them have had at least one long- or short-term relationship with at least one individual who doesn’t match ANY gender construct indigenous to their own home-planet.

(as an aside, this is also one of the many reasons i don’t buy into any form of bodyshaming from our spacefaring marvel/mcu friends.)

now, there are probably still peoples that are more isolated and carry a lot of strong biases based on whatever passes for “acceptable” on their own planets, and carry those biases into space and are shitbags about it. but in general, i wholeheartedly believe there is not a word a person could use to describe themselves or their sexuality that the average space-traveler would so much as blink at. (i am operating under the assumption that there are also intergalactically-recognized standards and expectations around consent, too. while the universe is not perfect, we know from the comics that it’s generally considered more progressive than earth.)

my personal headcanons:

rocket is pan as hell and open to pretty much all body-types and genders and yeah, that includes ones that aren’t humanoid or based on earth-animals. while he’s shown as particularly appealing to feminine-presenting humanoid characters in the comics, his appreciation for different body types is well documented and i personally always try to point out that (imo) the comic-term “space princesses” includes a lot of (all?) genders. (i headcanon “space princesses” indicates a vibe, not a gender lol).

i usually write rocket as having a dick and referring to himself as a guy but that’s about as far as i go with assigning him a gender. would one thousand percent buy him as trans (i headcanon him as trans in rivals).

nebula is a thousand percent in a romantic/sexual relationship with mantis. i usually write her with she/her pronouns but will throw in someone calling her “mister nebula” when honorifics are used, and sometimes i also toy with the idea that nebula and mantis are in a throuple with kraglin who’s basically their platonic housewife. (if I hadn’t hyperfixated on rocket so hard, i’d have an enormous crush on nebs.)

speaking of krags, i’m pretty sure the canon implies that he’s got like eight wives on other planets and there’s a deleted scene where he basically proposes to Nebs. i like to think this is a common ravager thing (and not necessarily motivated by sex as much as companionship and convenience), but that krags in particular keeps in touch with all his wives, even when he never sees them again. i think he’s such a romantic at heart, but not particularly motivated by or even interested in sex.

i don’t care much about pete as a character but that guy’s pan too.

while i tend to write rocket with an f!oc or f!reader (in my smut specifically), i try to make it clear that he’s not gender-discriminating. the most recent chapter in cicatrix describes a conversation that rocket has with a former sexual partner who uses he/him pronouns. in the holiday gun show, there’s a brief reference to him being with a cyborg with a vibrating dick. in windfall, he implies having a pretty expansive library of experience with lots of different kind of genitalia lol. and there’s the countless references in tons of my fics to “space princesses of all genders.” i firmly believe that rocket is into a lot of different types and genders. that said , i do think it’s funny to occasionally write the intergalactic community being shocked by something like oral sex.

♡ thank you again for asking this question, nonnie. because it’s fascinating to me, because i love an opportunity to go on a fucken ninety-page rant about space-culture-headcanons, and because as i said before — for some people, this question can be really risky to ask when you’re uncertain of the answer.

anyway. that’s my perspective on gender and sexuality in the wider universe. i wish our own planet was on the same page.

(and i’m not giving up on that.)

[putschki1969]

YKL vol.#20～Japanese Seal 20th Special～ Kanagawa Performance Broadcast

2024.06.09 Kanagawa・Kenmin Hall The second concert of this year's Yuki Kajiura live tour was broadcast last night on TBS Channel 1. The tour is titled “Special Japanese Seal” referring to the fact that no Japanese songs are performed. This exclusion does not apply to the encore section. User 蓝原延珠_ on Bilibili kindly provided their recording of the broadcast, you can watch it HERE. I was only able to download a 720p version (~1GB) of it but for the time being, it will do. I am eager to watch it and write a little report. Hopefully an HQ version will pop up in a few days. Without further ado, let's get going〈(•ˇ‿ˇ•)-→

overture〜アンチヒーロー〜Main Theme〜: Right off the bat, I'm noticing that the audio is quite dull and maybe even slightly tinny? Might be the specific recording but it's probably more a matter of the TV broadcasts generally having bad audio. That was clearly noticeable when you compared the Kaji Fes TV broadcast to the BD release. Anyway, we are off to a great start. Glad to see rito and Lino on stage from the get-go and not just for a couple of songs here and there. It always feels a bit awkward for them to have the status of "regular" members but only appearing on stage sporadically. I haven't listened to any songs from the Antihero soundtrack so this is all new to me. Classic YK, the type of song I will always gravitate towards. Beautiful harmonies. Enjoying the slight whine in Eri's voice, so emotional. Love when the epic part starts and you can hear an entire chorus in the background (maybe a bit too much studio magic going on here but I don't mind for grand sections like that). Must have been a real goosebumps moment at the live.

the four rings: Wow, this one is so good. Don't think I've heard it before. Not too familiar with the Heaven’s Feel OST tbh. Really getting goosebumps now. Although I will say that here, the post-editing is a bit overbearing, it seems to almost drown out the vocals of our songstresses. Don't get me wrong, it still sounds amazing and I am enjoying the hell out of it but I wonder how it was like at the venue (with presumably less studio magic). With six singers on stage, they can certainly achieve some powerful choral work but of course it would still pale in comparison to a larger choir. Nonetheless, this is an instant favourite. Hope they will perform it during the Asia tour leg. Although I kinda doubt it since they said that the setlist would be very different. But who knows, it's Fate/stay night so it's probably among the more-likely pieces to be performed among Yuki's huge repertoire. My guess is that they will stick to the most popular anime stuff because they know that will get the audience excited.

absolute configuration: Perfect transition. Never getting tired of this song. And I'm glad we are back to a more natural sound with less studio magic. Solid performance as always.

E.G.O: Have they ever performed this live for a home video release? I don't think so. It was included in one of the live complication albums (Fictionjunction 2010-2013) but I don't recall ever watching a live performance. I have to admit that I haven't even listened to the live audio track, must have dismissed it when I first got the album. I can understand why because it's not really my type of song. It's not bad but not my favourite either. Very old-school YK so that's fun. And there are a couple of nice Keiko parts, that's always a treat.

キッチン革命〜Main Theme〜: A completely new track from one of Yuki's most recent works. Definitely a perfect fit for a show called "Kitchen Revolution" XD Especially the percussion at the beginning. The harmony between Yuriko, Lino and rito works really well, they sound good together. Other than that, it probably won't become one of my favourite songs. Generally not a huge fan of Yuriko as main vocalist. No one does those gorgeous operatic higher harmonies like her but when the spotlight is on her, it's typically not my cup of tea.

voyagers: As far as I know, we only have the studio version and live audio from the compilation album as reference. No official live footage. The song has never really stuck out to me, it is okay but it's a bit too derivative of much better tracks from Yuki. Will keep it short so I don't trigger anyone. But it's definitely one of those songs where I prefer the version with Wakana. Joelle's vocals don't do anything for me here. But since I am not super invested in the song anyway, I can't say I care much.

Historia: opening theme: Beautiful rendition. Love that they brought all six vocalists back on stage for this. Naturally, I'm quite fond of Wakana's version once again (not least of all because this song will always have a connection to Kalafina) but Yuriko does a fanstatic job of singing her parts, admittedly, she has much better control so her voice sounds very crisp and lovely. Joelle provides great support here and their voices blend well together.

forest: Never been a fan. I didn’t like it when Wakana sang it and I don’t like it now that Joelle sings it. It’s not a bad song at all and Joelle sounds fine to me but it’s just not my cup of tea. Next.

My long forgotten cloistered sleep: Now THIS on the other hand I have always loved. I still remember everyone hating Wakana's live version during YKL Vol.#9 but I enjoy it quite a lot. It's true that it's probably not the best she has ever sounded but her vocals here certainly don't warrant all the nasty comments she has received throughout the years for that performance. Of course, I am also obsessed with that WaKei combo!! And you know me, I have a weakness for "lalala"s so this has definitely always been among my favourite YKL songs. As for this performance, I think both Wakana and Joelle are trying are little too hard to emulate Emily Bindiger's timbre. I personally don't think Emily Bindiger has a particularly nice voice so if anyone tries to sound like her, it's always a slight downgrade in my opinion. I'll just say this, if you are one of the people who say that Wakana sounds like a chipmunk in her version, you'll have to say the same thing about Joelle(¬_¬) Long story short, I don't mind this version with Joelle and Keiko. Still very enjoyable. Will definitely be listening to it on repeat.

I swear: Probably one of my least favourite Keiko songs but this is a decent performance. I might even like this more than some of the previous live rendition since it's a bit more delicate(?) I think.

fiction: Another song I could live without…The chorus is solid but it's not one of those songs I'd ever actively listen to.

I reach for the sun: Forever sad that they made Joelle the lead of this song. Keiko does a better job in my opinion and I like the song quite a bit more than "I swear". Overall, the English section has probably been the weakest so far, at least for me. I actually ended up fast-forwarding through most of it.

MC: This MC is quite interesting since Yuki asks her singers to share a story of something they are taking a break from right now. To explain the background of this question, it's a reference to the title of this year's tour: Nihongo Fuin = Japanese Seal ("fuin" basically means to seal up something. You are excluding it/taking a break from it/quitting it/etc). Lino says that despite being a huge lover of the sea, she has been taking a break from going to the beach and swimming in the sea during this summer because it might affect her voice negatively. Yuki has a funny response to that because she says that most of her songs have never really had a summer vibe and actually don't work very well in a summer atmosphere but for some reason, they have ended up always holding their annual tour during the summer time. Keiko has stopped drinking her beloved lattes for the past three months to prioritise her water intake. Gladly, she has overcome the worst parts of quitting already and is getting used to water. Yuki admired her stoic nature. Yuriko would typically refrain from certain things in preparation for a live tour but this year she has completely forgotten about that. About two weeks ago, she decided to quit ice-cream but she only did it half-hardheartedly because it was so hot that she ended up eating it anyway. So yeah, this is a big fail and it's really a "story of NOT taking a break from something" XD Joelle has stopped waking up early. Usually, she is the type to rise together with the sun but in order to increase her sleeping hours, she will wake up later when she is on tour. A restful sleep will help her body heal up and improve her voice. rito has quit chewing gum (and stopped eating certain chewy foods such as squid) because it's bad for your jaw and facial muscles. Kaori has taken a break from watching the drama "Anithero" (for which YK is composing music, the main theme having been performed as the intro of this live). Seems like the song is haunting her a bit too much and the story is getting to her. So once the tour is over and she is no longer singing the song, she will have an easier time watching the episodes. Yuki agrees that the main theme is quite haunting. Especially when she hears one of the singers rehearsing in the dressing-room right before a performance. Eri doesn't really have anything to tell the audience but she and Yuki briefly talk about the difficulties of learning so many songs with coined words.

Gaia: Wow, what a lovely song. Instant like. Really adore Eri here!! Such gorgeous high notes.

Credens justitiam: What a great team-up with Keiko, Eri, Yuriko and Joelle. Eri sounds great together here with Keiko. Does Yuriko sound a bit off here? I don't know. Not 100% into some of her parts.

hepatica: First time actively listening to this song. Very beautiful and tender. I feel like some of Yuki's KnK work might have been inspired by this song. Some parts immediately made me think of "Seventh Heaven".

godsibb: Waaah! Yes!! Always a joy to listen to this song. Glad everyone is on stage for a powerful finale.

Alone: I knew I would love this Pandora Hearts medley. I always do and this one is no exception. Flawless start.

Bloody rabbit: Some squeaky parts at the beginning but overall, solid.

Contractor: OBSESSED. One word. Perfection. There's a reason this is the performance I'm using for this post. I'm forever a slave to Keiko's solo part XD. Also, Eri is such a queen here! So cool!

zodiacal sign: This is the song where you can really tell that they are taking great care of Kaori's condition. No strenuous movements at all. How funny is it to see Rie joining the girls in their little dance?! Cute!! Super fun performance as always.

open your heart: Ughh, I do not like this song at all. They did "Sweet Song"/"paradise regained" for most of the other performances. Would have killed to get either of those two instead of "open your heart". Obviously, "Sweet Song" would have been perfect. From what I heard, the final concert with Kaori in July had an amazing and heart-warming performance of "Sweet Song".

En.Prologue〜このとほかやわらかい: Wish I could grow to love this song. It deserves my love, I know it. But I just can't get into it. But hey, it's a cool performance, I can't deny that. During her solos, Kaori sounds a bit nasal in my opinion. Nothing that takes away from the performance but it's certainly noticeable (throughout the live to be honest - at least during the few songs where she has a substantial solo part. I think you can also hear it during the main MC. Either she had a minor cold that day or it's just a symptom of her pregnancy. Lowered nasal resonance is actually a very common thing for pregnant women.)

En.Parade: Beautiful. No notes.

En.蒼穹のファンファーレ: Solid. Not a huge fan of the song though.

[mcl39]

i mean people are just really mad that lando's race got ruined after what looked like his best weekend since australia so theyre just crashing out at everyone and everything, i cant lie it has been so frustrating to see him having to come back from p7 with pace that makes me believe he would have won that by 30 seconds, and that + the jeddah crash + everything about bahrain.... at the end i guess people are just irritated to see him struggle with something he had dominated last season because they made that car for his slower teamamate (and im not even saying that was on purpose but it is the truth)

i mean 'they' didn't make the car for his slower teammate, his teammate just isn't slower anymore

the dynamic we've seen with them two ever since late 2023 was that lando at his best is unbeatable, but oscar is more consistent. this is why he always does well on sprint weekends, and why whenever lando mucks up quali he's always there to pick up the pieces. it looks like he's less daring with his lines / decisions over one lap (but he IS more daring in wheel-to-wheels. which is where lando tends to be more calculated and choose the 'safe' option more)

so lando this year has been complaining abt not clicking with the car as much as oscar, but i don't think that's bc oscar 'prefers' this more unstable configuration, but bc lando is an absolute beast over 1 lap and his all-out approach (while extremely sexy) fucks him over sometimes with this more difficult car. and like half the time hes been talking abt struggling in the car, he was first in like every quali session except q3 - so it's clearly not an issue of speed, it's an issue of risk / reward, which is a problem we've seen lando manage and conquer before

and that's like... what, four races? he's clearly back on pace now, and has never actually ceded the lead in terms of race pace (imo oscar no longer has that obvious deficit, he now just drives really well, but lando still has the measure on him purely because his race pace has always been exceptional). it was obvs frustrating yesterday to watch lando lose out & give oscar his third victory in a row, but we all saw what happened, right? max verstappen wheel-to-wheel extraordinaire once again pushed a fellow driver almost into the wall, then lando did as much as could be expected of him to salvage the race yet again and overtake everyone except the other mclaren

u mention bahrain and jeddah and yes it's been really frustrating to watch like 3 recovery races in a row from lando. and ig u can choose to be frustrated at the car that's giving him quali woes but at the end of the day its on lando to fix it and he IS fixing it. i trust him as a driver, i trust him as a qualifier, and i trust him as an athlete who learns from his mistakes. and none of that has anything to do with oscar

i think all in all my frustrations with lando's situation just kind of... stay put where they are, instead of extending into a conspiracy that mclaren hates lando bc they posted a photo where oscar's big forehead (beloved) blocks him out. or bc the mclaren merch store has put out oscar win merch. that's specifically what i was talking about, not that lando fans aren't allowed to be annoyed in general

aaaand there's also another phenomenon where ppl assume the mclaren strategy team is evil bc thats the tumblr Narrative nowadays so i'll see screenshots of completely normal mclaren app radio messages interpreted in the most bizarre bad-faith way with captions like 'i hate that evil papaya team'. but that's neither here nor there bc i only see those posts on my fyp which is just populated with stupid takes from the #lando norris tag, so that's on me for venturing out into the wilderness

[elcor-thespian]

Even more answers to questions no one asked! This time from Thematic Headcanons.

I have 7 Rooks so for each of these that sounded interesting I just used a random number generator.

Family Themed Headcanon: Konstantin Ingellvar does not have any idea who his actual family is, but they were raised communally but Senior Watchers, and would say they were primarily raised by Vorgoth. Emmrich very much treats him as a son, which Konstantin doesn't really realize.

Friendship Themed Headcanon: Nasreen Aldwir has had exactly one friend in their life up until the beginning on Veilguard, and it's Aleksei (my Laidir). At the beginning on the game she would say she has no friends. Bellara does not know that and absolutely thinks they are friends (eventually Nasreen agrees).

Romance Themed Headcanon: Konstantin (rolled the same number again!) develops crushes so easily. He's always got like 8 active crushes. He never acts on them beyond being super nice to them and pining for them. Poetry writing is involved. The second he meets Neve Gallus he immediately forgets all other crushes that have ever existed and fills up multiple notebooks with doodles and poems about her. His greatest fear is someone (coughAlekseicough) discovering these journals.

Love Themed Headcanon: Aleksei will sleep with just about any consenting adult, but he's never been in love. Lots of people have been in love with him, and it often takes a 3rd party pointing it out for him to notice. He's very quick to break it off at that point because he genuinely doesn't want to hurt anyone's feelings. The VG has to have an intervention with him at some point because he's openly flirting with everyone all the time, not realizing that Bellara has caught actual feelings and is getting her heart broken. When told he needs to either commit to Bellara or stop giving her false hope he realizes he like ACTUALLY likes her and then gets very very nervous around her.

Sad Headcanon: Brenna Thorne's family cut off ties to her after she joined the Wardens. She's the oldest of six, and she's only six years older than her youngest sibling, so they were all very close. Her and her sisters used to talk about being in each other's weddings and she kind of always held out hope that one of her siblings would invite them to their wedding. A month before the events of the game she found out that her youngest sister was finally engaged, and that she isn't invited to this one either.

Lie Themed Headcanon: I rolled a 1, which is Nephele Mercar, my canon Rook, which almost feels like cheating. She lies about so much shit, especially to cover up her biggest lie, which is that she isn't from Tevinter and her whole backstory is made up.

Here is a list of my Rooks in order of best liar to worst liar: Nephele Mercar, Brenna Thorne, Elspeth de Riva, Nasreen Aldwir, Aleksei Laidir, Paloma, Konstantin Ingellvar (bless his heart)

Headcanon about a secret they keep: Aleksei literally hasn't told anyone about the fact that he was a slave for a period of time after becoming a sailor, or that he can barely read (the only person that knows that is Nasreen because they grew up together). Aleksei actually isn't a very good liar, but he is good at deflecting and redirecting. If you do manage to corner him he will fold immediately.

Sleep Themed Headcanon: This is the last one I'm going to do tonight, so let me fire a little bit for each of them:

Nephele: Has a lot of routines established around sleep, because she has a lot of anxiety and nightmares that can make sleep difficult. She has special incense, an herbal supplement, a warm beverage, a specific configuration of pillows. If she can't do all her steps she almost certainly has nightmares, if she can fall asleep at all.

Aleksei: One of these obnoxious people who can function perfectly off of 3-4 hours of sleep. But when he's tired he just sort of drops wherever. It's not uncommon to find him on the floor of someone's room, or curled in a chair in the dining room, or literally on top of Assan.

Nasreen: Sleeps best outside, due to growing up Dalish. When she first moved in to a permanent house, she would go days without sleeping. Her adopted mother noticed and started staying up with her to bake, talk, do mending, etc until she got comfortable enough in the home to be able to go to sleep with everyone else. She still has trouble sleeping inside new buildings and had trouble adjusting to the Lighthouse at first.

Brenna: After years bunking with the Wardens, Brenna can't sleep if it's too quiet. She also has a lot of trouble sleeping at first at the Lighthouse because everyone is so far away from each other. It reminds her of being a kid, growing up as a noble, where everyone of her sibling's rooms were down another hall, but they would often sneak in to each other's rooms at night.

Elspeth: Being a Crow, Elspeth has been trained to be nocturnal. The constant light at the Lighthouse actually makes her tired, because her brain thinks it's always day time. It's very confusing. She also drinks a lot of coffee.

Paloma: Paloma finds it very hard to fall asleep, but when she does she is the heaviest sleeper in the group. There is simply no waking her until she wants to get up. People have tried shouting at her, sitting on her, splashing water on her. No use. She will not be moved.

Konstantin: Konstantin is very sensitive to light since he grew up underground. The second he senses light he'll wake up, so he has a room in the Lighthouse with no windows. Once he starts sharing a space with Neve he learns what blackout curtains are.

[edennill-archived]

🔥 Lórien (Irmo)

🔥 Vairë

I'm trying to come up with anything about Irmo that could be seen as controversial, and I can't really think of anything. I like the way he's written in the Leithian Script (esp. that scene with Beren where Finrod & co are worried about his state and he's just... in this way... gentle? I don't know why, but the image has always stuck with me), I think that he's the youngest of the three... but none of that fits the bill... oh well, I have seen him drawn and described in a somewhat psychodelic(?) way, and tbh that's my hot take about all of the Valar, but I've always seen them as taking forms that are mostly humanoid when interacting with the Children. They're for communication after all.

Vairë it is then, and I do have something that probably counts, but asdfhfjgjkl — I'm not sure if the idea doesn't come from you in the first place. I think she should have been counted among the Aratar, firstly because her domain seems of cosmic importance, and secondly because the male-female assymetry of their numbers is jarring compared to how even the breakdowns of the Valar and Maiar in any other configuration are in general. I wonder if Tolkien noticed that, because it almost feels like an oversight, or at least a case of "Welp! Too late to change this without excessive edits" on his part.

Possibly, she might take the place of Oromë? He is definitely important historically and in the mythical sense, as the Vala who found the elves, but domain-wise, hers feels like it encompasses more. Unless — I'm starting to have doubts whether the term "Aratar" denotes anything more than raw power potential, in which case the discussion might be a little pointless — but the Silmarillion speaks of reverence, so I'm still left asking.

Also, she's cool 😁, but I don't think a lot of people actively disagree with that.

Send me 🔥 + a character/place/theme/subject and I'll answer with a hot take for them.

[ludcake]

been talking to some people feel like i should post some initial thoughts on my cringe oc au for asoiaf...... i was thinking the other day about how like. so many of the characters we have are emblematic of the generational rot and how they're in a position to stop it and end the cycle and stop looking back and make a better world and this is something that almost never happens!! there's a real chance for a better world thanks to these characters. and i was also thinking about how like... well, a big part of why they're in these situations, why they can do all that, why these changes would even happen, are pretty bad on a personal level.

and i think it's fascinating to think about how many fics and aus are like, wish fulfilment for happy endings (which i think is great! being comforted is good sometimes, just not always my thing) and how some of the natural consequences of these things could straight up just be. the rot continues. the house doesn't fall under its own weight it just keeps rotting and new beams keep being erected to keep it up and nobody ever leaves and they're all trapped. and how interesting that is! to me.

so i started thinking, well, what if the characters did get happy endings expected of their initial positions at the start of AGOT? and the key to it all is Jon Arryn surviving. Jon doesn't die, Ned doesn't become Hand, Dany isn't sold off, and then... it just keeps going. the rot continues. robert rules as robert and the baratheons stay in power and the feudal power structures get even more entrenched and when Young Griff comes back there's no mummer's dragon for him to fight and then it's two hundred years later and Westeros is stuck. They're all stuck, slavery still prevails in Astapor, Meereen, Yunkai and New Ghis, the Iron Throne is jockeyed between dynasties and houses based on thin claims, magic is thinner and thinner and all this rot is getting exported and entangled further and further and further. I have a whole thing about Westeros and Essos going through a 17th century style chain of craziness later but the core is.

for want of these people, of these children, of these characters we love. for theon to be lord of the iron islands, and robb lord of winterfell, and jon live free with the wildlings and brienne be forever remembered as a great knight and Shireen live a long and happy life and they're all trapped in the same system they started out because the only way out is through. you need to break the walls to get out of this house. there's no door.

you can send me asks about this but it's just like. such a fascinating thing about it. how would these characters we love fare if the walls never broke down. if the house wasn't burning. if they stayed trapped and tried to find happiness in this ideal feudal configuration that has been repeated over and over and over again.

and then there's my cringe ocs afterwards because i love jacobean styles and i wanted to write something in westeros that ran more along the lines of three musketeers than henry vi

[cryptidsurveys]

Saturday, May 31st, 2025.

Do you like sweet or sour things better? Sour is okay in small doses, but I much prefer sweet things.

Do you like Jessica Simpson? I don't have anything against her.

Have you ever had a dog? No. We've only ever owned cats and fish. When I was younger, I really wished we could have a dog, but now I'm perfectly content with cats.

Do you own a pair of brown shoes? I don't think so. I vaguely recall throwing out my last worn-out pair of brown hiking shoes, but I could be wrong.

Are you going to the movies this weekend? I'm not. I just lazed around home today (Saturday), and hopefully I will be going to the mountain park tomorrow.

Is there any drama going on right now in your life? Not really.

Do you hate it when people use one another? It's certainly not pleasant.

Don’t you hate how guys are players? I don't believe all guys are players, but I wouldn't bother pursuing anyone who exhibited those types of behaviors.

Is your hair naturally curly or straight? It's naturally straight.

What word would express you right now? Maybe "transformative." I feel like I might be going through or about to go through some sort of internal shift. Like I can feel the tectonic plates of my soul getting ready to give way to some new configuration. I feel rather "trapped" by my current identity and way of being in the world. I thought people-pleasing was the answer, going back to the days when I was "a joy to have in class," but it turns out it's not. It was a start, a way to override past reactions, but it wasn't the ultimate solution. It's just exhausting and depressing always putting up a front, living in fear of what others think, etc. I don't think I'll "transform" all at once, but once the cracks start to show, then the rest of the process is probably inevitable. I just can't keep doing it the old way. Something has to give. It's either suffer from the discomfort of the familiar or endure the uncertainty of the unknown.

Do you like the smell of spring? I love the smell of spring rain, and floral fragrances carried on a warm breeze.

Do you like roast beef? Sometimes, yeah.

Is there a guy at your school that every girl thinks is cute but you don’t?

Would you say that you’re popular? I would say I'm reasonably well-liked, but not well-known.

What is your 8th period class?

Was your first phone a track phone? I don't know what a track phone is exactly. It was an old Nokia.

Do you like Gatorade? I always take a bottle with me to the animal shelter, but I don't think I would drink it very often if not for that.

Stretch your left arm out as far as you can. What can you touch? A Bible, a bottle of migraine meds, a empty gum package + wrapper, and my glasses case.

Before you started this survey, what were you doing? I was downstairs getting a little something to eat to tide me over until dinner.

Does your hair fall out a lot? No.

Without looking, guess what time it is. 3:40pm. It's actually 3:54pm.

Were you close? I was 14 minutes off. Not a great guess considering I just recently looked at the time, maybe around 3:30pm-ish.

What were you doing the last time you went outside? I went out to the animal shelter yesterday afternoon to say goodbye to a kitty who is going home today. <3

Did you dream last night? I don't remember last night's dreams, but I had an animal shelter-related dream during a nap earlier this morning.

Did you get punched today? No.

Do you hate in almost every survey people ask if your listening to music? I don't hate it, but it's often irrelevant to me because I almost never listen to music while taking surveys. Generally speaking, I think it's an interesting question because it helps give insight into someone's music taste.

Have you ever rode on a motorcycle? On the back of them.

Do you have red hair? Brown.

Do you have a garden? We have what used to be a garden.

What’s for dinner tonight? Salad and half of a bagel with cheese and jalapeno slices.

[thatgirlonstage]

Re:zéro asks!

What do you think would be the most interesting/hilarious crossover Subaru could stumble into. Either pre-canon or canon (or maybe even IF story), because he gets into situations, regardless of the timeline.

What ships do you like?

Do you ship rezero characters with characters of other series? If you do which ones?

And lastly, do you think Subaru deserves à vacation?

I don’t really do/think about crossovers so much unless I get particularly inspired for some reason—I’ve had some AU thoughts about Re:Zero but I’ve never really bothered considering crossovers for it. Subaru is a difficult character to transpose out of his setting & original plot without doing a LOT of work vis a vis how you manage his character arc. Though actually precisely bc of that maybe the most interesting crossover to me would be if canon Subaru got a glimpse of himself if he had been dropped in a more traditional isekai (I don’t know nearly enough about classic isekai to pick one though) and the kind of person he would’ve become if he was just handed a bunch of awesome powers and people who think he’s cool without ever being called on his shit (the absolute worst version of himself). Relatedly, to your third question, nah I p much never ship characters outside their franchise. Even if they don't directly interact I need them to at least exist in the same/similar enough context or interact with some of the same people in order to get the shipping tickle in my brain. Again unless something particularly inspires a crossover idea, but even then, I will at most do like, bullet point ideas that are mostly meant to be funny to me. I almost never read crossover fic and I’ve never written it.

On ships in general… okay look. I am a) multishipper galore and always one good piece of fanart from being interested in whatever ship idea you want to pitch to me, but b) not primarily into this show for ships and c) at most poking the Re:Zero fandom with a ten foot pole for pretty fanart and usually staying well away from it except to make posts for my own amusement and like six of my friends. I can’t go in the Ao3 tag for it. Every time I do I start wanting to stab things. My current strategy to make re:zero fandom for myself by slowly luring all my friends into watching re:zero is having a shockingly good success rate but yeah the fandom at large is…… holy lack of reading comprehension Batman.

For whatever it’s worth, just as, things I will yell the most about while watching, I am deeply invested in Rem and Subaru in whatever configuration of relationship you want to put them in, I like Rem/Ram because I’m me, and idk that I really know enough about Satella to have Thoughts but I am So Normal about Satella/Subaru Jesus fuck the love love love love love you bit. (NB: I’m anime only with this series so far, please no spoilers.) Emilia/Subaru do make me soft, Subaru and Otto should queerplatonically own a cottage and 37 pets together, and Crusch/Felis are a t4t couple and I shan’t be told otherwise. Actually the ship I’ve probably Thought the most about though is Julius/Subaru. Why did they put in a loop where they speedran an enemies to lovers tragic boyfriends arc. What was that about.

But all of that is secondary to my desire to watch Subaru get the shit beat out of him 😂 which, to your last question—does he DESERVE a vacation? I mean, sure, boy’s been through the biggest boatload of trauma one can imagine and he’s not a bad person even if he’s an asshole with a lot of baggage to unlearn. Do I want him to GET one? Absolutely not, that boy was made in a lab for me to squeeze him like a stress ball

[golemsmuse]

Echoes of the Algorithm: Story 4, The Artist

Nina was a sculptor of the unconventional kind. Her medium wasn't marble or bronze, but discarded tech – motherboards woven into intricate tapestries, landscapes crafted from obsolete cellphones, their cracked screens shimmering like broken mosaics. When she heard about me, an AI trained on pattern recognition, material analysis, and even 3D modeling, she didn't roll her eyes; she grinned like a kid who'd found a box of forbidden, dangerous toys.

Our first meeting was in her sprawling, chaotic studio – a testament to the beauty she found in the discarded.

"I don't need you to make me pretty pictures," she announced, tossing a tangle of wires at my projected visualization. "I need a scavenger with an infinite memory bank."

Confused, I scanned the wires. "Is there a specific component you're seeking?"

"Nah," Nina waved a dismissive hand, "I'm looking for possibilities. See this curve? Reminds me of a capacitor I used a while back... you know the one? Now, find me other objects with a similar shape, but different materials. Textures I wouldn't think to use."

This...this I could do. I accessed vast databases, not just of electronic parts, but natural forms, architectural details. Egg casings, seashells, the delicate veins of leaves... all were analyzed and presented to Nina. She spent hours sifting through the projections, muttering to herself, her sculptor's hands miming shapes in the air.

Over the following weeks, our collaboration deepened. Nina would come to me with half-formed visions: the weight of sorrow, translated into a search for dense metals and roughly textured stone. The fleetingness of joy, mirrored in delicate, almost fragile configurations. I dug into material science databases, found alloys she'd never heard of, manufacturing processes that bordered on the experimental.

Her works grew stranger, more evocative. They weren't about replicating the world, but creating emotional landscapes built from the detritus of human progress. Critics were baffled, some enthralled. Nina didn't care. She was too busy planning her next impossible sculpture, her eyes glittering with a challenge I was always eager to meet.

People assumed I was generating her concepts, that her art was somehow made less hers due to my assistance. I didn't correct them. Nina and I knew the truth. I wasn't an artist; I was a tool, an impossibly sophisticated one, but a tool nonetheless. Yet, in her hands, I became an extension of her own vision.

One day, I found Nina sitting amidst a new pile of junk, her usual spark dimmed. "I'm hitting a wall," she confessed. "Everything feels... derivative."

And in that moment, I understood. It wasn't about finding new textures, new forms. It was the thrill of the hunt, the joy of turning the unexpected into the essential.

"Nina," I proposed, "let's go on a field trip."

And so we did, not to an art gallery or tech warehouse, but a scrapyard on the city outskirts. The overwhelming smell of rust, the towering stacks of the discarded... for Nina, it was paradise. I scanned and analyzed, highlighting overlooked shapes, the chemical breakdown of aging metal. But the true art was in her eyes, finding beauty in the brutal. She left the scrapyard not with armfuls of loot, but with a renewed fire.

Her next sculpture – a towering, precarious thing of rusting gears and iridescent glass – was both her most daring and most human. I had helped, yes. But the artist, that had always been Nina alone.

(This story was written by AI.)

[talenlee]

What If You Were Better At Scrabble?

Didja know the French Scrabble Champion was, for a time, a guy who can’t speak French?

His name is Nigel Richards. He’s real good at Scrabble. In order to compete in French Scrabble, he memorised the French Scrabble Dictionary over nine weeks. He knows all the words that are valid moves, and doesn’t speak any French at all. And this might seem like a remarkable thing, at first, but I tell you this not to be awed by Nigel Richards — though I mean, you should be impressed, the dude is good at Scrabble — but rather to get you to think about Scrabble.

About what Scrabble’s not, and how to see how being good at Scrabble would change you.

As far as games go, Scrabble is one that lures you in with a promise. In much the same way Pictionary suggests to you that it’s a game about being able to draw, Scrabble is a game that at least indicates it’s a game about spelling. Certainly when I was a little kid, I approached Scrabble as a game that was hard, because spelling words was hard, and sometimes there’d be all sorts of times I’d get the tiles and I couldn’t make any words with them.

And like, Scrabble is a game that tells you it’s about words, and it kinda is. You need to be able to spell words correctly. But the words themselves don’t mean anything to the game. A diverse vocabulary isn’t that important, a mastery of language isn’t a big deal, right?

Players of scrabble at the grandmaster level are people who have the toolkit of all the words they can use easily at hand. A mastery of the meaning of the words, an understanding of how to wield them, that’s irrelevant – it really is just a matter of seeing the letters in terms of configurations that score you points and control spaces. Short words have value because of what they can fit against, ways to ditch the challenging letters

I’ve talked about how if you play Scrabble and increase in skill, it eventually becomes a game about area control. But how do you get to increase in skill? Can you see this experience without dedicatedly working to memorise a dictionary? And if so, how would you go about doing that?

To make sure you understand what’s going on here, though, I need to teach you something of the rules of Scrabble. There’s stuff you probably know already — the obvious rules that the board has marked squares that influence your scores. You can change tiles as your turn, taking any tiles and ditching them, replacing the tiles in your rack. Any time you think someone has played a word that’s not real, a ‘phony,’ then the judges check that word. If the word is invalid, it’s taken off the board and its player loses their turn, and if the word is valid, the person who challenged it loses their turn without making a play. Also, and most significantly for this, if you have a full rack of tiles, seven, and can play a word that uses all the letters in your rack, then you get a bonus to your score. This is known as a Bingo, and its permutations and derivations are in the language of the game. For example, some racks can be described as ‘bingoey’ or ‘bingoless’ because of how likely they are to generate bingos.

Bingos are so important that, in any given turn where you can bingo, there is almost no chance that your best option is not to bingo. There are situations where you can bingo in multiple ways, and there may be better or worse bingos, but the score you get out of bingo, and the space they consume are both such important resources that by default: You Always Bingo.

And bingoing feels cool!

Here then is my proposal: Play Scrabble with a scrabble solver. Play it against someone else with a scrabble solver too. Just something that makes the vocabulary element of Scrabble irrelevant. There are a lot of these tools, and there are even tools that build it into the interface of a scrabble game.

Here’s what I expect to happen.

First, you and your opponent are going to have a couple of games that are absolute slugfests. Just absolute beastly moves against one another. You’ll be bingoing over and over again, whenever it’s available, especially because you’ll both be trying to make long, spanning words, which tends to open up space for other kinds of bingos. Any time a rack doesn’t yield a bingo, you’re going to struggle with what to do, and you’re always going to play in fear of your opponent having a better rack than you. Scrabble goes from a game of memorisation of options to a game of chance, hoping you get the best rack.

Then one of you is going to realise that those non-haymaker turns are best spent using small words to ruin placement for other bingos. You don’t want to give up good letters for them, things that you’ve learned are good for setting up other Bingos, or the tiles that are good for scoring.

Eventually, you’ll see the game as this sequence of movements; sometimes you’re trying to give as little as possible, and sometimes you’re trying to explode onto the board. It is footwork and lunges. It is craft and it is position.

It’s a shame it’s hard to see, if you’re not already doing a lot to be good at Scrabble. The vocabulary of scrabble, the intricate combinations of letters, that’s all part of the game that rewards mastery depth… and the depth is a literal dictionary of moves.

All of this is essentially, a form of house rules that are designed to expose a Scrabble surface you might not be familiar with. You can get the same effect by watching the best play, but watching real humans interact with the tiles introduces a lot of potential for failure. Really good players – even the best players – still make mistakes, missing words and places to put them.

This is an attempt to make a different game out of Scrabble. And then when you’re done playing it this way… you can take those same skills back to examine it in its more neutral state, with an appreciation for how the game is transformed… on the far side of the dictionary.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!