#or maybe not. so many possibilities

[firstroseofspring]

i have exactly one million questions.

[rambles-about-minecraft-ocs]

one of my favorite things about zedaph is that on a server full of people that find strange and oft-overlooked minecraft mechanics or rare events and then see just how far they can push them in the name of spectacle or efficiency or world-breaking, zed is over here finding these mechanics in order to do the weirdest things he can think of in as entertaining a manner as possible

like i 100% have faith in zedaph's theoretical ability to be just as efficient or spectacular or world-breaking. if he wanted to do that stuff, i trust that he absolutely could. but thats so far from being his priority. instead, hes going to spend around a week of irl time focused entirely on eventually having the good luck to spawn in something insanely rare so that he can convert it into something even rarer, the result of which being something that 99% of the server reacts with complete and utter shock that it even exists in the first place, just because its zany and funny and he wanted to. and i love that

[abd-illustrates]

✨ My book is out next week! (on the 16th!)✨

I got some early copies in the post today and getting to actually hold 'em made me cryyyyy - I'm so happy and I still can't believe my art's gonna be in actual bookstores out in the big wide world 🥹💖📖

[ohhgingersnaps]

I'm seeing some frustration over fandom creatives expressing anger or distress over people feeding their work into ChatGPT. I'm not responding to OP directly because I don't want to derail their post (their intent was to provide perspective on how these models actually work, and reduce undue panic, which is all coming from a good place!), but reassurances that the addition of our work will have a negligible impact on the model (which is true at this point) does kind of miss the point? Speaking for myself, my distress is less about the practical ramifications of feeding my fic into ChatGPT, and more about the principle of someone taking my work and deliberately adding it to the dataset.

Like, I fully realize that my work is a drop in the bucket of ChatGPT's several-billion-token training set! It will not make a demonstrable practical difference in the output of the model! That doesn't change the fact that I do not want my work to be part of the set of data that the ChatGPT devs use for training.

According to their FAQ, ChatGPT can and will use user input to train itself. The terms and conditions explicitly state that they save your chats to help train and improve their models. (You can opt-out, but sharing is the default.) So if you're feeding a fic into ChatGPT, unless you've explicitly opted out, you are handing it to the ChatGPT team and giving them permission to use it for training, whether or not that was your intent.

Now, will one fic make a demonstrable difference in the output of the model? No! But as the person who spent a year and a handful of months laboring over my fic, it makes a difference to me whether my fic, specifically, is being used in the dataset. If authors are allowed to have a problem with the ChatGPT devs for scraping millions of fics without permission, they're also allowed to have a problem with folks handing their individual fics over via the chat interface.

I do want to add that if you've done this to a fic, please don't take this as me being upset with you personally! Folks are still learning new information and puzzling out what "good" vs. "bad" use is, from an ethical standpoint. (Heck, my own perspective on this is deeply based on my own subjective feelings!) And we certainly shouldn't act like one person feeding a fic into ChatGPT has the same practical negative impact, on a broad societal scale, as a team using a web crawler to scrape five billion pieces of artwork for Stable Diffusion.

The point is that fundamentally, an ethical dataset should be obtained with the consent of those providing the data. Just because it's normalized for our data to be scraped without consent doesn't make it ethical, and this is why ChatGPT gives users the option to not share data— there is actually a standardized way (robots.txt) for website servers to set policies for how bots/crawlers can interact with them, for exactly this reason— and I think fandom artists and authors are well within their rights to express a desire for opting out to be the socially-respected default within the fandom community.

[hanafubukki]

You must have really ticked off someone in your past life.

There was no other explanation.

Because how else would you explain your current situation?

Not only had you somehow ended up in the past, which your mind was still trying to make sense.

The past, not a dream, but the past.

You stared at the person in front of you before looking towards your hands.

If it was anyone else, you would have an inkling of how to deal with them.

General Lilia, done, been there and survived his dream self and know his future cute self very well.

Baul Zigvolt…you would eventually wear him down like you did his grandson.

Hell even with Meleanor Draconia, you would somehow be able to deal with her. If dealing with Malleus and Lilia’s dream world gave any indication.

But this…

A glass came into view.

“Here, have some water.”

You numbly took the glass that was offered to you, barely glancing up.

You took a sip and the man in front of you nodded his head in that oh so familiar manner that almost had you choking on water. It made your heart ache at the familiar actions.

He turned back around to talk to his colleague.

This man?

Well, he was the Knight of Dawn of course.

…of course.

You were fucking screwed.

Part 2 and Part 3 (each part takes place after some time has passed) or can be read as a stand-alone.

[merakiui]

a silly shoujo concept with jade where he picks up your notebook after you've left it in class. resourceful eel that he is, he flips through the pages out of curiosity. he's certain he'll just find your notes or doodles you've made out of boredom, but it never hurts to pry just a little. he won't tell a soul if he finds anything embarrassing. certainly not!

to his surprise, he finds a bucket list of sorts, which details all of the things you hope to accomplish by the end of your time at nrc. you're quite methodical about this list. there are academic goals. personal goals. social goals. you've checked some of them off: do well on this year's midterm. commit to an exercise routine. make more friends. etc. etc.

but then he happens upon the romantic goals. things like holding hands, kissing, cuddling, going on dates, sharing meals... he reads through every item on this specific list and finds himself blushing like a lovestruck maiden. it's not because of the nature of this list but, rather, the notes you've made in the margin: possible people to try this with: jade leech?

and his name is the only one you've written! :O is this...an indirect love confession? do you have feelings for him? is now a good time to hopefully try to kindle a deeper bond with you after he's spent so much time pining from the sidelines??????

tl;dr - jade wants to be the one to complete the goals on your romance list, but you're too prideful (and suspicious of him) to admit you'd ever think of him in such a light! that's too embarrassing! too much opportunity to be exploited. and jade's a bit of a shameless coward.

so he decides there's only one solution: he's going to try to court you. the mer way. the human way would be much too obvious, after all. ^^;;;;

[guest-1-2-3]

stumbling into the joy that are zukka canon divergence tropes. zukka in ba sing se where sokka discovers the jasmine dragon and is like zuko tea server??? sokka having a crush on the blue spirit and all the subsequent identity shenanigans. my old favorite zukka boiling rock fics where they get together while breaking out of a high security prison. not to mention zuko dies in the north pole and then is bound to sokka as a ghost (cough cough boomerangs and rainbows by mindbending favorite zukka fic ever go read it)! zuko joining the order of the white lotus early on and all the fun stuff that come with that. zukka canon divergence fics my beloved

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

💙❤️Happy Holidays!❤️💙

[crescentfool]

orpheus and thanatos 💚

[thetrolltolls]

dee as barbies 💖🎀👠

[milquetoad]

of the many injustices put forth toward the show by fans i think the most overall damaging and telling of a complete lack of critical viewership is the idea that sam riegel builds his characters with nothing more than the bit in mind. like you are only telling on yourself if you think characters like scanlan shorthalt and veth brennato are one-dimensional and depthless

[stuckinapril]

reminding myself on this busy morning that i also have dreams of taking piano lessons & singing lessons & also honing my writing skills & absorbing as many books as i used to when i was a kid & at the very least taking up cute tennis dates & dabbling into art & just becoming an artistic generalist. also reminding myself that there are pre-meds out there who managed to pursue something they’re passionate in (some are even professional athletes) & still excelled in medicine & if they can do it so can I

[tabbyrocks]

one thing I don't see talked about enough is how much better prototype Bakugo is compared to current bakugo.

I mourn the loss of prototype bakugo EVERY. DAY. he would of been funny. and not actually an asshole.

but most importantly, he would have been autistic coded.

HE COULD HAVE BEEN. AUTISTIC.

[robertdowneyjjr]

a soulmates au where your words only show up after you’ve met your soulmate. sort of like an insurance policy, you know, so you’re not left wondering whether every other person you meet is the one if your words are too generic.

in this universe, captain america has been recovered and active for several years now. he runs missions and saves the world with his ragtag team of superheroes formed by SHIELD. steve's become a celebrity, which he doesn't love, but it's something he learns to live with because that's life for public figures in the 21st century.

tony never became iron man because he walked away from his father's legacy the second he turned 18. he and howard are still working on their relationship, but maria couldn't be prouder and tells tony so everyday. he built his own company from the ground up and it's thriving under his leadership. he's only marginally famous these days and he tries his best to stay out of the limelight, guarding his private life as much as possible. that's how it's been for twenty years and he's happy.

they meet on a day when steve is tired, irritable and angry. he's just returned from a mission where two of his teammates were injured because of the faulty information they received. he goes out on a walk to let off some steam and he's just slipping his phone back into his pocket after rejecting fury's fifth call for a debrief when he slams right into tony.

tony was having a good day. he'd just sent out a new set of designs and decided to reward himself for it. he goes and gets himself a fresh, delicious, life-affirming cup of coffee and is just stepping out of the cafe with aforementioned cup when a walking brick wall comes out of nowhere.

good news is, tony had ordered a cold brew. once every few weeks that's just what he's in the mood for and it had been one of those days. bad news is, instead of drinking it he is now wearing it.

sticky and cold and more than a little shocked, tony barely has time to recover and figure out what happened when steve starts tearing into him.

“god damn it, watch where the fuck you’re going! that could have spilled all over me! idiot!” steve yells at tony. and on a normal day, he’d be apologetic and he’d never curse like this at a stranger. but he really didn’t need yet another thing to go wrong today and he’s on a short fuse.

maybe later, when he’s calmed down, he’ll think back on the cute man with the giant brown eyes staring at him in disbelief and start beating himself up over how he behaved.

at the moment, all tony can do is look at steve’s pristine white t-shirt that somehow has not a single drop of coffee on it, then look back down at his own chest. he has no words except, “wow. you’re a fucking asshole.” and he just turns around and walks away.

tony gets home and strips off for a rinse before he gets ready for his flight to london for a week of meetings. all the while he can’t help but think that angry blond man looked vaguely familiar and he can’t place where he knows him from. he doesn’t notice the new string of words tattooed down the side of his thigh until he’s in his hotel room half a day later.

meanwhile, steve gets home after his walk, after he’s checked on his teammates, after sitting with fury for three long hours to debrief, and finally washes the day off of him. before he gets into the shower, he notices something different about his reflection.

along his left bicep are the words, wow. you’re a fucking asshole.

he thinks back on the cute man with the big brown eyes and a chest full of coffee and wonders how in the hell he can fix this mess.

[harpyface]

My thoughts on the volta do mar

In-game, the Volta do Mar method was created to travel through the pale, being first used in the first successful voyage into the pale. Apparently it took years to develop the method, a "strict psychological regimen imitating the creation process of poetry."

In real life, the volta do mar is a Portuguese (volta do mar is Portuguese for 'Return from the Sea') sailing practice of, in simple words, sailing further out into the sea to avoid sailing directly against the wind and then catching winds that then move in the correct direction (useful since portugal is slightly north of the equator, blah blah wind directions)

While watching a playthrough, Joyce's description of Lely's tattoos reminded me of this 'return from the sea' business. Lely's tattoos are a history of his service, but originally the tattoo was a custom of sailors "mark[ing] their bodies to map their travels." "The sailor's soul would use it to fly back home if they should die abroad. This is a sort of… contraption. To be reeled back in by." If a sailor died, their soul would 'return from the sea'(😮).

The pale is likened to the ocean many times in Disco Elysium, so these tattoos and the volta mantras are very similar. They are linked even more when we see that the tattoo custom was begun "right after the discovery of Insulinde," so the creation of voltas and the creation of this tradition kind of bookend the eighth expedition. Likening the irl volta do mar practice and this in game example got me thinking about how exactly in-game voltas are used and created.

(Interesting note, Joyce describes these tattoos as "the silver cord" linking the soul and home, whereas irl, the concept of the silver cord is supposed to link the soul and the body.)

Personally, the concept that is pale was hard enough for me to grasp (even with it being an established fictional concept with, like, words to describe it.) It's "the opposite of reality," it's a property that suspends other properties, and it can damage human minds. According to Joyce, dialectical materialists argue that "pale somehow *consists* of past information, that's degrading. That it's rarefied past, not rarefied matter."

"They call it the *blend-over of the self*. The pale does not only suspend the laws of physics, but also the laws of psychology, maybe History, even… The human mind becomes over-radiated by past."

We can assume that this 'blend-over of the self' is true because of the Paledriver, who is observably pale-radiated and lost in worlds in lives that her body hasn't lived.

Operating on this theory, the pale is made of information, and I would also like to argue that pale is made of not only past information, but also future information, and information about alternate timelines.

In the moralist vision quest, we hear entroponetic crosstalk of Kim from the future *and* arguably an alternate timeline if he ends up in the hospital and doesn't end up at the islet. So pale is basically all information and possibilities.

The only explicit example of a Volta do Mar is from the Insulindian Miracle thought, and it's song lyrics from What If by Teho Teardo & Blixa Bargeld. This thought establishes that voltas are 1) Taught in schools and 2) Repeated like mantras while travelling. The voltas aren't mentioned in Sacred and Terrible Air, by name at least. Zigi does sing Helvetti, by Kauko Röyhkä & Riku Mattila, in pale, but that's explicitly a song and not a poem, and obviously he doesn't need to resist the effects of the pale (and if fact doesn't want to drive away the pale, based on his reaction to Nilsen's 'Communism is white' speech when it started to ward off the surrounding pale.)

When Joyce says that the method is a "strict psychological regimen imitating the creation process of poetry," my thinking was that it can't be as simple as reciting poetry while travelling through the pale. It might be, but wouldn't the process *be* the process of creating poetry and not 'imitating' it? Of course, it could just be referencing the research it took for the explorers to be able to safely traverse the pale, but I wasn't satisfied with that.

(I'll admit, when I first began building this theory, I didn't know that we had an explicit example of a volta, and it stumped me for a bit, but I think it works still.)

I've seen interpretations in which the poetic nonsense of voltas force the person to focus on reality/on their own mind, to focus on the next word in the sequence. But using the real world volta do mar technique as a base, I started building my own theory by considering that the voltas mirror the technique of the irl volta do mar. Voltas would be  performed by a person going deeper into the pale (whether mentally or physically) in order to somehow escape the effects more easily.

Having already established that the pale is information, it makes sense that the way to manoeuvre it would be via words and concepts. Prior to remembering The Insulindian Miracle thought, my theory was that, instead of pilots being *taught* previously written mantras, they were taught to create poetry while immersed in the pale. The pilot's mind would then grasp the floating information that is pale to string the words together into a distinct phrase/poem, intentionally going deeper into the pale to get enough material to work with. With the resulting phrase, it would be grounding enough to bring the pilot back to reality.

However, all of that is irrelevant when you consider the volta that Harry was taught.

Or is it?

The Insulindian Miracle solution says that "you were taught it at school. It is one of the Volta do Mar mantras repeated on the voyage that lead to the discovery of the Insulindian isola." I could interpret it as saying that voltas are written in advance, or that *historical* voltas are taught in grade school, just like we're taught historical documents or literature. Maybe children of Revachol are taught about the voltas that the discoverers of their isola used simply for academic knowledge. 

And as Joyce says, the Volta do Mar is also used by "other troubled souls even to this day." Ordinary people may not have access to the bank of information that is the pale, but they do have their own troubling thoughts that they can pick words and concepts from to still go through the same process that I've described in order to calm themselves or relieve stress.

I do want to analyse Kim's Volta do Mar skill at a later time using all of this, but right now this is what I have to offer :)

(An excellent post that I was inspired by is about the connection between water and memories by @/57sfinest, which I would like to briefly reference at the end of all this analysis. Imagine it as a triangle, one point is the ocean that the sailor's souls would have to return from (or the irl ocean that the volta do mar was used for, if you like), the second point is the past and memories, and the third point is the pale, the "rarefied past." It's all connected.)

[cryptid-crow13]

underground fighter

I have this idea and I can't get it out of my head so I am throwing it to the dpxdc tumblr wild.

Danny took a deep breath as he wrapped his left hand. He wrinkled his nose at the blood and grime he smelled over the cigarette smoke and alcohol. He ignored how his hand shook as he secured the end around his wrist. He heard the noise outside the room die down a bit and hopped up from the bench.

Danny ran himself through a few warmups before he heard the noise outside pick back up with an announcement.

"Tonight we have everyone's favorite, Wraith!"

People yelled out their bets and cheered when Danny stepped out into the cage. He blew out a slow breath and watched as the people in the seats above shivered. He kept a carefully blank expression even under the gaiter mask.

When Wraith stepped into his end of the cage he rolled his shoulders back and stared down his first opponent for the night.