#originally it was a standalone

[fiddles-ifs]

will this be a standalone?

Nope! Greenwarden has two books planned!

[mothcpu]

rehash of my SAYER AI construct designs from a couple years back

iamsayer.com

[kagooleo]

to an aura guardian, island guide, a loyal mentor and protector who remains true 🌊

[kirby-the-gorb]

[yea-baiyi]

what if i wrote an essay about how the way the nimona movie is in conversation with the original comic. about the shift in dynamic between ballister and nimona from gen x-millennial to millennial-gen z. how the themes and conflicts explored in the story were changed as a result. and how every aspect of the movie was painstakingly adapted to perfectly communicate the new perspective and message. what if.

[loupy-mongoose]

How could Clover's skirt cause pain to her broken tail in that scenario?

Warning: Discussion of injury and self-mutilation ahead, as well as SPOILERS (I'd call it minor, or at least non-detailed) for the Guardians of Ga'hoole book, "The Rise of a Legend".

I'm not thinking so much that the skirt itself causes pain. Although having the skin pull on the injured spot might hurt a little.

I'm thinking more like a Lyze of Kiel situation, from the aforementioned book. (For context, he is an owl.) In that book, one of his toes/talons gets injured and causes him chronic pain. So he rips it off.

Clover is no stranger to pain--She can and will handle it in bursts. But I can see her getting fed up with chronic pain, especially if she sees a way out of it.

Alternatively, maybe something else ripped off her tail and part of the skirt, so she decided to finish the job.

[scrawnym4]

i love custom dakimakura review photos because they range from sexy naked furries to this

[gla55t33th]

[i-heart-hxh]

Togashi's Letter Part 1 and Killua's Influences

Regarding the contents of the TV program reading Togashi's letter, they were reported on in this article. I haven't seen any extensive translations of it yet (people are working on it I imagine), so here's a Google Translation of it and the results of running it through Deepl. I didn't edit either of these because of the probability better translations are incoming anyway. These translations are certainly not perfect of course, but at least it gives you a good idea of what he said!

Also, contained in this letter there's some fascinating info on some of the influences for Killua's character:

Here's (again, thank you) @yyh4ever's tweet on this:

https://x.com/mori_yyh4ever/status/1724494313558520224?s=20

Here are the translated lyrics of the song that was referenced (Shounen by Kuroyume), and here's the song itself.

Here's the first volume of To-y, though it doesn't seem any more of the manga has been translated into English (there's also an anime, but it's old/fairly obscure as well).

MPD Psycho is actually a fairly well-known manga, it's not difficult to find info on it or places to read it!

Anyway, I'll post if I find better translations, and let's also look forward to next week, when we'll get some sort of info about the ending of the series!

[one-bunny-a-day]

25/08/2023

[snakebites-and-ink]

CW: Pet whump, institutionalized slavery, implied past abuse, caretaker is in fact the new master, I’m new at this so if there was a warning I missed please lmk.

It was a normal day, at first. A calm day. Caretaker and Whumpee were in the kitchen. Whumpee was standing casually in the kitchen space and would simply move out of the way if Caretaker had to get to something past them. The pet had come a long way since Caretaker first bought them, when Whumpee would kneel in a corner trying to make themself as small as possible, and not do anything without permission except beg.

Now Whumpee would move around the house freely and take care of their basic needs without permission, and was more-or-less comfortable asking Caretaker for other things they needed or even wanted. Caretaker was proud of them.

Unfortunately, there were still things that could bring Whumpee’s fear out from wherever it still lurked within them.

Not having been paying close attention, Caretaker wasn’t quite sure what caused it: whether Whumpee got distracted, or Caretaker moved in a startling way somehow, or if the glass was just wet and slippery. Whichever it was, the glass of water Whumpee was holding unexpectedly slid from their grasp.

Two sets of eyes widened as the glass crashed to the floor, spraying glittering clear water and glass shards everywhere. Startling, but not a serious thing…to Caretaker.

By the look of things, it was serious to Whumpee. They looked afraid, almost panicked, at how they had messed up. Face pale, Whumpee paused in shock for a single moment before immediately moving to pick up the sharp shards.

“Stop!” Caretaker shouted. Whumpee froze. “Don’t use your bare hands. Use the broom and dustpan, then go over the area with a vacuum to get all the tiny bits that the broom might have missed.” As Caretaker spoke, they leaned over the broken glass with the broom held out so that Whumpee didn’t have to risk cutting their feet to go retrieve it.

Whumpee accepted the broom and started sweeping the shards. They still looked quite afraid, but the instructions seemed to have given them something to focus on and directed them away from blind panic to a more controlled fear. Whumpee was sweeping the glass away from—never towards—where they were standing, and not touching any of it directly.

Satisfied that Whumpee was out of danger and figuring that a second body at risk of getting cut would only complicate things, Caretaker said, “I’m going to the living room. Don’t cut yourself.” Whumpee nodded obediently and Caretaker carefully stepped out of the room.

Whumpee finished cleaning up their mess, trying in vain to ignore the dread that had settled in their stomach. After putting away the vacuum, they went to where their owner had sat down and knelt in front of them.

Caretaker looked up from what they were reading and frowned in concern, noticing how tense the pet was. “What’s up, hon?”

“I finished cleaning. I’m ready for my punishment, Master.”

Whumpee’s heart raced in fear as they wondered what their owner was going to do about this mishap. Caretaker had been lenient with them so far, but they hadn’t broken anything of Caretaker’s before and weren’t sure what the punishment would be. They couldn’t help but think of how their old master would have punished them for a slip-up like this.

“Wasn’t having to clean up the mess sufficient punishment?” Caretaker asked.

Whumpee froze. They were trapped. If they said yes, it could be seen as them trying to escape punishment. If they said no, they could be seen as disagreeing with their master. Either one could only make their situation worse. After a few seconds of panicked hesitation, Whumpee gave the safest answer they could: “I wouldn’t know, Master.” Caretaker’s expectant look told them that that answer wasn’t enough, so Whumpee added, “but I’m used to harsher punishments.”

Caretaker’s face did the thing it usually did when Whumpee talked about the time with their previous owner; it softened with compassion for Whumpee, hardened with cold anger towards Whumper, and got kind of sad, all at the same time somehow. “Oh, Whumpee,” they said sympathetically, “you don’t need any punishments like that. Dishes are replaceable, and more importantly, I know it was an accident. If you were to willfully rebel, I would have to be harsh with you, but otherwise I see no reason for your consequences to be anything worse than fixing the problem your mistake caused.”

Whumpee could have sobbed with relief. Not only were they not going to be punished any further for this, but now also they knew such lenience would be a pattern they could rely on for the future. “Thank you, Master,” they said, tension draining out of them.

Caretaker put an arm around Whumpee’s shoulder and drew them closer, and Whumpee leaned into the owner who was so much kinder than anything they’d known before. “You’re welcome, hon, but you don’t need to thank me for something as basic as that. I’ll never treat you like your last owner did. You’re safe here, and I hope one day you’ll understand that as a truth rather than just as a statement,” Caretaker murmured into Whumpee’s ear.

I’m starting to, Whumpee thought.

[iavenjqasdf]

❄cubbification🐻

I don’t mind the Cubs. I’m not really a big sports guy, so I don’t know if they’re like, problematic or anything. They kinda just seem like any other baseball kinda team to me? (Please let me know if I’m ever swerving out of my lane by saying something like that, by the way; I’m really trying my hardest to learn and do better.)

But when you're visiting the beautiful city of Chicago, and you're so cold from having just got kicked out of the hostel where all your stuff is, because they don't believe that you ever checked in or were ever supposed to be in there in the first place, and when you start to choke up in frustration they say they’re going to call the cops if you don’t immediately leave the property, so you have no choice but to run out into the cold city night without even a jacket, snow swirling all around, catching the taillights of passing Ubers in a shitty bleary unromantic gray kind of way, and you try to take a hit off your $10 disposable weed pen ($14 after tax) for a bit of warmth, that little disposable oil battery that you were so brave for sneaking through the TSA all the way from Cali (where the weed is cheaper AND it's actually good for you), but the light blinks because its out of juice and you don’t know where you can go to recharge it, and suddenly you realize as you're standing on the curb that a kind stranger has found you and is offering to give you a real taste of Chicago if only you'd get in the back of his big warm car, and hey, the whole reason I came here was because I want that authentic experience, and also to not freeze to death, and who better to make both of my dreams come true than a local, and he's even wearing a Cubs hoodie, you kinda can’t say no, right?

So I climb into the second row of his nice toasty American-made SUV, and he punches Portillo's into the GPS and I buckle up, and suddenly it’s just like I’m a kid again, going out to eat with my parents-

well, just one of them, but that’s accurate to my childhood experience, too.

He asks if I have anywhere to be, if anyone’s expecting me anywhere, and I get a bit whiny when I say nooooo, but he just chuckles and tells me that that's good because he’s gonna show me someplace really cool, and I say that sounds nice.

My legs dangle around as I begin to warm up. I look out the window, and the traffic lights and snow are a cute little screensaver again, instead of a bitter cold reality I can’t shelter myself against.

I reflexively try to take another hit off the weed pen, forgetting that it’s still empty. He tells me not to smoke in his car.

It’s kind of hard to say no to in the moment.

We pull into the Portillo's drive thru, and I squint through the snowy window, unable to read the menu. He says don’t worry, I’ll order for you, so I settle back into my seat, listening to the faint Christmas music playing from inside the restaurant, or maybe from the car ahead of us, but also enjoying the otherwise mostly silence in this one.

A few minutes later, the window hands him three bags, and he hands one back to me as he pulls back onto the road. I gleefully tear into it, there’s a big thing of fries and a sandwich with beef and gravy and several types of peppers (I'm sure there's a term for it, but I'm not a local foodie, so I don't know what it is, sorry), and he hands me a big milkshake too, and I’m so excited and so happy, I have warm food and warm feelings and feel safe and happy again.

The next several minutes are spent laser-focused on ravenously devouring my meal, and it’s only when all the food is gone, all the greasy wrappers and fry boxes and an empty Styrofoam milkshake cup carefully crumpled up and placed back into the bag for easy disposal, that I sit back, rubbing my stuffed overfed belly as I glance out the window again.

All I see is a gray dead snow stretching into the dusk all around, and I realize we’re no longer in the city, or any place I can actually recognize.

I ask where we’re going, and he doesn’t answer. I theorize he just didn’t hear me, and continue not testing that theory.

It’s getting kind of cold again; I realize he's had his window sill cracked this whole time and the heater isn’t on anymore, so all the warmth has slowly leached out of the car into the dark snowy expanse, draining my energy along with it.

I scrounge around, and realize the floor of the car isn’t covered in plush limousine carpet; it's just old clothes strewn around. With the Italian beef aromas now safely contained within me, I realize it smells kinda bad in here actually.

I awkwardly tug at the door handle; not because I want to hurl myself out onto the road or anything, just to see if it would open, for future reference. But it doesn’t. I try taking a hit off the weed pen, but it's still empty.

I think about asking where he’s taking me again, but I realize there really can’t be a good answer to that question at this point.

My stomach grumbles, and I wish I was back somewhere warm and safe again.

---

It’s dark out when I come to again.

(Yeah, so I fell asleep. It was actually my choice to do that. In this weather, 5 miles from civilization might as well be 500, and I'm not asking for another ride even if one comes. I gotta maintain appearances, conserve my strength, wait for the right moment to make my lucky escape back to the civilized world.)

From back here, it’s hard to get a good angle on his face, dimly lit up by the navigation app on his phone that says we’re only a few minutes away from somewhere.

His brow tightens; he must've noticed me waking up. I think I ask him where we’re going again, and maybe he just didn’t hear again, because he definitely doesn’t answer.

He still hasn't closed his window, but he’s now wrapped in a crusty old green and yellow blanket, the one I remember staring at on the floor as I dozed off.

If I’d woken up with really miraculous timing, maybe I could’ve gotten away while he was getting that, but if I had that kind of luck, I probably wouldn’t be locked in a stranger’s car on a dark snowy night to begin with.

The GPS helpfully informs us that we've arrived at our destination.

He pulls off the side of the road onto a dark shoulder, overlooking a sad little ditch; it's only a couple of feet down, but it’s flat enough all around that it'd be enough to hide me from the road for long enough that he’d get away with it.

He kills the lights, and I hear him unbuckling his seatbelt, form silhouetted by a distant streetlight, flurries of white piling up on the glass and all around us as he emerges from his blanket cocoon, tugging his hoodie off.

I unbuckle my seatbelt, too, shivering and whimpering as I scoot back to the third row, but he doesn’t miss a beat, just keeps approaching me in the dark with that silent unknowable menace.

By the time I hear his switchblade click open, I barely even have to react. I knew it'd be coming any second now. I’ve read movies, I’ve seen books.

"Didn't your mommy and daddy ever tell you not to get in a car with a stranger?" he asks. Kind of a shitty joke to make to someone with divorced parents but whatever.

The light behind him crescendos, his blade catching the reflection just so. Horns swell on the soundtrack, the sight of it burns into my wide terrified pupils as he raises it over my cowering form. The dark space is illuminated for just a moment, then for another moment, and then another, getting brighter…

And those horns are starting to sound a lot like a truck’s-

The entire world slams apart around me as an out-of-control 18-wheeler veers off the road into us, ramming through all those feet of steel designed to deform and crush, deflect the impact away from my vulnerable little body. We tumble around in the washingmachinelike sleetstorm of twisted metal and shards of ice and cold glass and ragged shirts and stale fries and a big heavy bleeding body as the disaster skids into the icy dark. As the SUV comes to a rest on its ceiling, I somehow find the strength and coordination to scramble my way through, using a thick piece of cloth that catches underhand to wriggle out through a jagged windowpane, squirming towards the fire illuminating the flurries under the darkest indigo sky, a beacon blazing in the darkness, like the cherry at the end of a cigarette of a trailer, brandishing the BUCK-A-POP'S DOLLARSTYLE MERCHWORLD logo in chic saturated colors, paint peeling off from the heat of the flames roaring all around.

In the numbing cold, I tug the tattered cum-stained Cubs hoodie I'm holding onto my scared shivering body. It smells like menace and onion ring grease, but it provides me with enough warmth that I’m able to stay conscious until the paramedics arrive at the scene and get me to stop sitting cross-legged on the snow, breathing in the toxic merchandise fumes, still trying to hit the dead weed pen clutched tight in my fist.

When they finally pull him out of the wreckage, they find the switchblade lodged in one of his arteries, honey mustard still clinging to his lips.

ao3

[hallowshumour]

💫🧫SPECIALISED AXITOPES 🧫💫

Axitope can adapt to have an incredible variety of body shapes, only limit is imagination.

What exactly are they're specialized for? Only the axitope know for sure.

[himawanai]

canto IV thoughts: starts screaming

[taakosleftshoe]

So. There was a noticeable lack of silence in the beginning of today's Steeplechase episode. For those familiar with my nanofather insane post, you know I'm already on the case faster than Darla Davis.

Episode 35 followed up the rather offputting Krystal with a K intro with the Steeplechase theme song, and then... immediate dialogue, in media res...

Far weirder to me than the silence.

True, Justin could have just gotten over the bit since it'd been three episodes. Maybe the Nanofather truly is gone.

But I don't buy that. Not for a second.

Episode 33 ended with dialogue from Orwell, the gorilla-dactyl. Episode 34 we still had a solid six-second silence, then discussion period before Justin recontextualized them, presumably because Orwell was done speaking.

But 35. There is less than a second of silence. No fucking silence. It's just Orwell. Last episode Orwell was there at the start but he was just ominously staring at them right? Like he wasn't actively conversing with them, there's a precedent.

My current understanding of the nanofather is that he goes through electricity or energy and is specifically more able to inhabit animatronics, as we've seen with Geltfrimpen. When he's in hardlight, he can't really talk, just observe. In the arcade machine he was able to speak a bit, but it was weak and he seemed to be running out of time. In those moments, he is able to interact with the characters.

When the other nanofather intros start he isn't talking to the characters, though, he's talking to the players and audience. When he is talking to us/the players, he's called us spirits, and he seems to have a physical form but it's like... The mechanism is THROUGH the park. He connects to the animatronics and it's a bridge to the characters. There is a secondary function that connects him to us that was taken away when they were put in Kidadelphia. Not necessarily from the characters though. Because he manifests in electricity/animatronics and well... the animatronics of jungle island are FROM Steeplechase originally so he could have inhabited them that way and a part of him still be connected. Remember, he is scattered. He is not in one place, not in one form.

The significance of this episode is that we have further confirmation of the divide in how he interacts with the audience versus the characters. Justin makes a clear point that in Kidadelphia, they are disconnected from the main source of power within Steeplechase. If you connect this to the ways he's spoken with the audience, it makes sense-- we are heard through the "horn" and the walls.

Additionally, if we recall when he inhabited Geltfrimpen, creaky man said he was shattered in several places across the world. That shows that he, as he exists within the universe of Steeplechase, is not bound to the confines of the park (unless "the world" is the park).

TLDR The Nanofather exists in Orwell. He is sort of a spirit within the animatronics, it would seem. Or something close to that. He seems to have reverted back to observing rather than speaking, due to his weakened state.

Either that or Kenchal Denton killed him too hehe

[chiropteracupola]

I wonder if the 'can't do anything because everything has too many tiny little steps in it' problem is why I haven't been able to finish writing anything recently...