#same day process server

[theopalgroup]

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[whiteredrose13]

AAAAAA, OKAY-- @persephone-s-moon I could not find their updated refs for the life of me, so, woe, busted old concept art be upon ye. (Excuse the wonky proportions, these were done on my phone.)

Shortest rundown I can manage:

Did someone order a tragic throuple with time-travel/reincarnation shenanigans and a side of hurt/comfort/fluff?

Candavata Bhatia: Elven queen, from the kingdom of Sona, and the baddest bitch to ever live. In order to prove herself worthy of holding the crown over her sisters, she needed to channel one of the gods. So, not only did she channel one, she called upon Bijalee, the embodiment of lightning and storms--and the most difficult one to channel due to her wild and hazardous nature. She has been the only person to do so, aside from the First Queen. This earned her the titles of Storm Bringer and Lightning Tamer. She and Qamar are married and have been best friends since childhood. Can you tell I love her?

(Side note: Editing this on my laptop and holy ashy tone, Batman. Hoping it's just my screen because my girl does NOT look like this, I promise--)

Qamar Abn awaa: Werejackal prince, devout cleric of Layl, goddess of the night and medicine, and the definition of the "I'm a healer, but--" meme. He managed to show both great power and promise from an early age when, during a political visit to the Sona royal court, he used his knowledge of anatomy to turn one of Candavata's would-be assassins inside out. This is where he and Candi's marriage was arranged. He is of a generally very sunny disposition, which often makes people underestimate him, as they assume he's useless in serious situations--but, when shit hits the fan, he's the one you want to be next to. (I started designing him when I did not understand how to map out locs or braids. Qamar, my prince, I am so sorry, I swear I will do right by you and fix whatever monstrosity I gave you.)

Vincenzo Virago: Vampire duke. The intersection of an emotionally constipated killing machine and massive nerd failure. He's head over heels for both Candi and Qamar, but he doesn't feel like he can tell them, due to the fact that he views himself as unlovable, both wanting and growing jealous of them. (He is completely oblivious to the fact that they are also in love with him.) He's terrified of turning into his father, but it seems like everything he does only turns him further down that path. He's a warlord. He's a wet cat. He needs therapy.

It's a stable, constant dynamic. You never see one without the other. Where Qamar goes, Candi is right beside him, and Vince is right behind them. Whenever something goes wrong, usually they're at the center of it, all having different roles in the trouble. Candi, the planner, Qamar, the keen lookout, and Vince, the instigator. He keeps the two of them grounded, on their toes, and they do what they can to keep him away from his father. Even after they graduate and take their places in their respective castes, they stay in touch.

The story itself begins at the worst part of their relationship.

At this point, Candavata and Qamar have been married and are tending to their responsibilities as king and queen of their joined empire. Though they try to stay in touch with Vincenzo, it's difficult--and Vince doesn't make it easy, either. Over the years, he becomes withdrawn. He stops answering their letters, he refuses to see them when they come in person, every time. After a while, they stop trying. Not because they don't love him, they do, but there's only so much you can do when a person doesn't want (or doesn't think they deserve) help.

Vincenzo, after years of sitting with the jealousy and battling his father's horrendous treatment, broke. He didn't just spiral, he nose-dived, doubling down on every bit of gossip and rumor, until he's changed and warped into something even he can't recognize. He shuts out Candi and Qamar. Maybe he doesn't want to taint them, maybe he thinks this is how it was meant to go, maybe he can't stand their gentle hands or the pitying look in their eyes. Maybe he just wants the excuse. Whatever it is, Vincenzo becomes a monster, with blood on his hands.

In the end, Candi and Qamar had to be the ones to put him down.

Which is where we get into the time/reincarnation fuckery.

Because, when the pain fades and Vincenzo opens his eyes, expecting to see whatever eternal damnation looks like, he sees his university bedroom. Littered with textbooks and letters from Candi and Qamar, and his graduation robes hanging on the back of the door.

He's got a second chance to go back and unfuck everything, but only time will tell if he'll succeed or end up exactly where he was before.

Something, something, breaking cycles and being open with your loved ones, allowing yourself to be loved by others and yourself, and sometimes men are at their best covered in blood and a little bit pathetic.

(Oh, and, you want a really fun fact? Vince isn't the only one who remembers the original timeline.)

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[realbugirl]

some updates on the internet roadtrip thing:

people are actively avoiding the interstates because "theyre boring". which is true, but it has made the process of navigating to canada a fucking nightmare

we're pretty sure we left WBOR's range a good while ago, which means that if someone switches to a different radio station we wont be able to switch back tp them. everyone has gotten so attached to WBOR, however, that we've managed to avoid that happening for the past few days. (WBOR 91.1 is a local college radio station, hosted in Brunswick, Maine)

the people running WBOR are well aware of the roadtrip and a few of them are in the discord server for it

one of them (i think their name was mason? or manson?) called us "terminally unemployed" LMAO

another one of them decided to rickroll us, then asked if we preferred radiohead or rick astley. she then proceeded to play both songs at the same time which was really funny and also gave me a migraine

we keep honking at graveyards to "wake the dead" and whenever we get shouted out by WBOR. this has slowed us down considerably but its funny

people are hellbent on going to alaska, which has been deemed impossible due to spotty google maps coverage. i am slowly trying to convince them to come to mexico instead (after we get to canada)

no we cant go to brazil. frankly i doubt we'll be able to make it past a big border city like tijuana or reynosa or ciudad juarez without getting lost, but its also impossible to get past panama due to the Darién gap

people are making factions and treaties in order to get what they want.

i left to eat dinner and when i came back and asked why we had taken a weird turn we hadnt agreed to someone said wwiii had happened in the 20 minutes that i was gone

fuck everyone who made us take that turn after hawaii 2 btw

oh yeah we passed by a lake island called hawaii 2. you would not believe how hard it was to get there

someone (i think it mightve been 2 people which makes it even funnier) in the server genuinely thought that interstates and long boring highways were only a thing in the US... after we told them that wasnt the case, they spent 15 minutes going "oh yeah well i bet you havent seen THIS before" and posting generic pictures of desert highways. while a bunch of mexicans and australians were in the chat

[atlas-corporation]

everytime i see people laugh at the concept of cults and how ridiculous they are i actually start seething as somebody who WAS in a cult for multiple years

people dont join cults because theyre stupid. people join them because cult leaders PREY on them. they find people who are vulnerable and offer them community and perceived safety

they dont come out swinging with "im the only one who can speak to this meteorite" or "the world is going to end on xx/xx/xx". they open by bonding with you over regular activities. you meet in line at the coffee shop and get to chatting, and they give you their number. you find them at the park playing basketball with other members and assume theyre friends.

youre with them for weeks, maybe months before they let you feel like an "insider." they tell you everything in pieces so you have time to internalize it. they encourage you to keep these things secret, because other people wouldnt understand- and if you do tell others and they do call you crazy, that just solidifies that belief and pushes you further into the cult.

sometimes they have members be the reason for certain 'discoveries' or new elements of control. in the cult i was in, i had to be away for an extended period of time, and when i returned, the leader told me they had discovered astral projection was driven by emotion and in their deep yearning to see me had astral projected to my location to watch over me while i was away. while it was framed as a means of companionship, community, and protection, all it truly did was make everybody involved feel that they were always being watched and were never truly alone. it scared us into following the rules of the cult when we were at school or work.

its a gradual process. if i explained everything that i would be taught in one sitting to myself prior to joining the cult, i never would have. i would have laughed and said 'that sounds ridiculous, who would ever believe that?' but thats the point. its boiling frog syndrome. since its so gradual, you dont notice youre boiling until youve already been burned too badly to leave.

in fact, being in this cult did severe restructuring to my system and caused me to discover the fact i even was one- years before i was ready to learn that information. to this day i still struggle with parts- even those that front semi-frequently- following old rules and inflicting old punishments upon us.

anyway. yeah thats why im mad about people who joke about cults. no a group of people with the same pfp is not a cult. no a friend group is not a cult. no a discord server with a religious theme is not a cult.

[tacticaldiary]

Reader joining 141 for a mission and Simon is not having it and is pissed at price for calling them and all of the other guys are confused about why ghost is so upset till they find out reader is his wife after the mission

Maybe reader got hurt and ghost goes off on price

The Price Of A Secret

Pairing: Simon 'Ghost' Riley x Reader

Genre: Hurt/Comfort

"People get injured on the job, Ghost." Gaz tries to defuse the situation. "She's alive-"

"This is different." He grits out.

"And why's that?"

"Because that's my wife!" He hisses, slamming his fist onto the table. It strikes them harder than if he were to have yelled it at them.

A/N: It's 2:45am and I have no energy to proofread caution advised-

Masterlist

The moment the picture of the intelligence officer joining them flashes on the screen, Ghost puts his foot down.

"She's not coming."

Everyone in the room pauses, Price staring at Ghost mid sentence. It's the usual 141, and then it's her. Sitting there with a mildly frustrated look, refusing to look at him because she should have known he'd try to pull some shit like this.

"Why not?" Price folds his arm, narrowing his eyes. "Is there an issue, Lieutenant?"

She was supposed to work from the inside, drawing out data and cracking through defences that they then passed on to people like the 141. An integral part of the process of running the whole task force, but not once was she involved in hands-on field work.

It's not that she's incompetent. No, not at all. Ghost would have his head bit off if he even remotely implied that because it simply isn't true. She got the top scores in almost every part of her training exercises, and yet she chose the intelligence part of the military to serve in. His wife was as competent as they got.

His wife.

"This is a covert operation, the fewer people the better." That's what he goes with. Not because his heart picks up at the thought of her being anywhere near what they deal with every day.

"I won't have the range I need to retrieve the data from their servers if I'm not close to them." She speaks up, and their eyes meet from across the room.

His determined, hers resolute.

Sometimes he really hated that she was so fucking stubborn. It had been the same stubbornness that cracked down the iron grip he'd had on the walls in his mind and around his heart, but if that stubbornness was what got her killed Simon would give up this joy in a heartbeat.

He'd do it for her if it meant she kept on living.

"This isn't up for discussion, Ghost." Price states, "She's part of this operation on my authority."

"Price-"

"End of discussion. You settle whatever you have going on outside this room." And fuck, he can't refute a direct order like that, can he?

Ghost sees her release a long exhale, and he knows he won't share such a relief until this damn operation was over and done with.

                                  · · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

Her body is so limp it scares the ever-loving shit out of him.

Ghost grips her so tight it's as if he himself is the only thing tethering her soul to her body, boots thumping hard against the muddy ground as they retreat back to their extraction point, data successfully retrieved.

Successfully, not smoothly.

The plan was simple. They'd flank the building while she camped out near the edge of the woods, retrieving the intel they needed. A couple of fuckers slipped out of the building and went straight for her.

Ghost's stomach turns when he remembers how he found the scene. She wasn't answering through her comms, but he knew he wasn't able to leave his position until the building was secure.

Waiting felt like an eternity, he could feel Soap send troubled glances in his direction at the way Ghost was unusually silent and more brutal than.

When the building was finally secure, they'd gone to reunite with her position and found three men dead, bloody seeping into the ground in a crimson mess. The last one standing hovered over her unconscious form, over his wife with a knife raised ready to slit her thought.

The only thought Ghost had as he ripped the man away with his hands was that he was going to take the one good thing in his life away, and he would not let that happen. Not her. Not like this.

"Bleeding wound to the head, unconscious but still breathing!" Gaz called out while Ghost shoved the man's own knife into his throat. Tossing the gurgling body aside like a ragdoll, he's immediately by her side, assessing before carefully lifting her up in his arms.

It's the most emotion Ghost has ever expressed in front of the others, but he couldn't give a fuck about the looks or the questions right now. Her heartbeat against him settled him the slightest bit with the reassurance that she was alive.

Angry does not begin to describe what itches under Ghost's skin as they scramble into their exfil airship.

"Medic!" He barks the second they lift off. Setting her down, he brushes the bloody strands of her hair away from her face.

Despite the urge to stay by her side, the medic gingerly requests for him to take a step back so he could work. Ghost obliges but his eyes never leave her face.

He's painfully aware of his wedding ring pressing against his chest, strung onto a chain long enough to be tucked under his uniform. A matching one to her own.

Nobody speaks.

Perhaps they recognise the anger washing off of Ghost in waves, because if they'd just bloody listened to him, she wouldn't be laying there with a head wound.

The atmosphere is heavy and sombre. Even Soap keeps his mouth shut, too confused by the outward, uncharacteristic way Ghost was acting to make fun of it.

It's only when the medic announces she's stable that the suffocating knot in Ghost's chest loosens. There's audible relief from everyone in the place.

"Bloody hell." Price breathes, and something in Ghost snaps.

"I told you to dismiss her from the op." He says coldly, turning to the man.

"We got what we needed, son." He sighs, deep and tired, and part of Ghost understands that this was their life. But he's too worked up to care.

"At a fucking cost."

"People get injured on the job, Ghost." Gaz tries to defuse the situation. "She's alive, that's all that matters. Nothing permanent, yeah?" He glances at the medic, who confirms with a nod before slipping away.

"This is different." Ghost grits out.

"Why's that?"

"Because that's my wife!" He hisses, slamming his fist onto the metallic walls. It strikes them harder than if he were to have yelled it at them.

How long had it taken for Ghost-...no, for Simon to let someone crack open his defences until he was coaxed out and allowed himself to love again? Four years they've been married, and four years he's kept it a secret.

It's not that he doesn't trust his team. He trusts them with his life, would lay his own down for Johnny, Gaz, and Price any day.

But this? This was bigger than him, she was the most precious thing that had ever happened to him, and the safest way to preserve that was the keep it on a need-to-know basis.

She'd agreed with him, of course. In that soft, patient way she always has with him. She'd seen the paranoia in him, recognised that he needed this one thing for himself, and she'd been more than happy to oblige.

What was outside validation about her relationship worth when she got to crawl into his arms at the end of the day? Be granted the pleasure that comes with being loved by someone as protective, intelligent, and sharp as Simon Riley? She adores all of him, even the jagged pieces that cut into her from time to time, because he's always there to take care of her afterwards.

"She's my wife." He repeats quieter, sitting back down. Exhaustion lines the slope of his shoulder's dark circles well present under his mask.

"You're married." Soap is the first to speak, incredulously. "You? Ghost? You're married?" His eyes flicker down to Ghost's left hand, and then to Gaz and Price who look equally as surprised. "I mean, congratulations?" He trails off, knowing it's not really the situation to celebrate.

"Thanks." A tired, small voice has everyone's attention back onto the figure on the bed. Ghost is on his feet in moments, by her bedside. "It'll be five years in...what, a month?" She cracks an eye open, giving Simon a tired, smile.

"Two months." He corrects with a mutter, and Johnny looks like he might just collapse. "Sitrep?"

"We're not on the field anymore." She groans, pushing herself to sit up. Ghost's hands fly to her immediately, helping her sit up. At his blank, insistent stare, she relents with a deep sigh. "My head's killing me but other than that just a few scrapes and bruises." Her hand travels down to grab his at her shoulder, squeezing briefly.

"I'm alright." Her voice turns into something soft and reassuring, and it's only then that a quiet, shuddering breath comes out of Simon's lungs. "I think I'll sit to working from the inside though." She jokes weakly. "Leave the dirtier work to you brutes."

It lightens the mood as intended, eliciting a snort from Gaz. "Yes, ma'am."

He'd make sure she got checked out properly when they landed, but for now he takes his place sitting beside her. The others fall into a hushed conversation after a while, but he makes no move to join them.

A warm hand intertwines with his, hidden beneath the bulk of their combined gear.

"I'm alright, Simon." She mumbles, just loud enough for him to hear.

Simon squeezes her hand in response. "Fucking hell, love." He breathes.

And it's enough to convey everything he's thinking. Humming, she tips her head against his shoulder and lets her eyes slip shut. The warmth of his body, even through the tang of copper is enough of a familiar comfort to drain the tension from her body.

She's fast asleep against his shoulder a minute later, and the devil himself couldn't make Simon move lest he wake her now.

He wasn't a publicly affectionate person by any means...but he trusted his team enough for this right now.

Letting his own head press against the metal wall behind them, his eyes shift to meet Price's. A softer, knowing look from the Captain is all he needs to hook his chin over her head and turn his attention outside the small window.

And if he counts her breathing while she sleeps for his own peace of mind? Well, that's no one's business but his.

Reblog, Like and Comment!

(10/09/2023)

[bluewxrld07]

Boy X - INSTA AU

Lando Norris X Artist!Reader

Summary: In which a famous singer has the idea to collaborate with Formula one, crossing paths with someone else in the process...

Warning(s): None :)

next part >>>>

yourusername just made a post!

liked by yourbff, jackhughes, charlixcx, addisonraee, and 2m others

yourusername Twitch stream is uppp, come watch your fave singer absolutely suck at gaming! 😚

load more comments

user1 Ahhh she's back in her gaming eraaaa!

user4 being home from touring = gaming all day long

*liked by yourusername*

yourbff I'M OMWWWW 😩

maxfewtrell Can you hurry up and send me the server pls 😮‍💨

user2 Ayo Max what're you doing hereeee??? 👀

user5 user2 They're literally twitch streaming buddies, they played all the time last year together

user7 I NEED a Lando x Y/N collab rn

Lando started following yourusername !

McLaren started following yourusername !

Formula1 started following yourusername !

Lando just made a post!

liked by maxfewtrell, oscarpiatri, maxverstappen, mclaren and 3.6m others

lando Gametime lets gooooooo mclaren

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user2 this is just too good

user7 foaming at the mouth I cannot rn

user3 LETS GO LANDOOOOO

user8 Lando we can be world champion I said!!!

oscarpiatri Suited up 🫡

mclaren Number four on the track, number one in our hearts 🧡

oscarpiatri AYO??

carlossainz Awww you ALMOST look like a real racer here

lando Wanna run stats?

carlossainz On second thought, you look like a racer here

georgerussell 🤣 Carlos got clocked

yourusername just made a post!

liked by maxfewtrell, yourbff, lando, mclaren, findlayoconnell, and 3m others

yourusername Not usually a fan of orange, buuuuuuut 🤔

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user6 EXCUSE ME???

user4 Idk after that iHeartradio performance I'd say orange is your color hello?

mclaren Orange is DEFS your color!! 😮‍💨🧡🏁

user3 MCLAREN IS HERE?? LANDO!!

user2 we better be getting an F1 x Y/N crossover, I fear I will officially lose it

yourbff Idk I'd say orange is your color miss gurrrr 😍

yourbff NOT just saying it for other reasons or anything

user1 I see Lando is lurkingggg what're we getting miss Y/N????👀

formula1 just made a post!

liked by lando, yourbff, yourusername and 4m others

formula1 Had a special guest join us at the race this weekend! I wonder who?? 🧡🤔

tagged yourusername

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user4 I FUCKING KNEW ITTTTTTT

user4 ADMIN WHERE IS LANDO, YOU KNOW WHAT WE'RE HERE FOR

user2 Oh this is such a good crossover I fear

yourusername Hmmmm 🧐

user1 I don't think people understand how iconic it would be if we see Y/N and Lando Norris in the same room

[skele-ghost]

Baby, it’s Hot Outside: Part 4

Welcome to: (Y/N) doesn’t know anything!

MDNI, 18+, Warnings: Omegaverse, dangerous situation, crowds, allusion to r*pe/sexual harassment/assault, heats, stranger danger

Masterlist

It doesn’t take them long to figure out that (Y/N) (L/N) has no idea what courting is.

She’s a beta, sure, and betas haven’t always been courted in the same fashion as omegas or even alphas. But that had changed in the modern age—even Gaz was courted by Price, and König made it a point to give just as much attention to Gaz as Soap while he was courting into the pack.

To be completely fair, they hadn’t yet asked to court her officially. Normally there’s this sort of pre-courting process, flirting and dates and smaller gifts, almost like a hint or a heads up before the formal ask.

Even so, the flirting went right over her head. She would laugh along, joke, tease back—but when someone compliemented her, really called her beautiful—she would blush, say ‘thank you,’ clear her throat and pick up the conversation where it had left of.

They would have thought she was turning them down, if not for her genuine confusion over the courting gifts.

Soap, the good omega he is, offered her a blanket from his nest. An awfully profound gift that spoke volumes, an item from an omega’s safe and private space, doused with the scent from each pack member.

“Oh, but this is one for your favorites,” she frowns, holding the ball of fabric in her arms.

“I ken. It’s the warmest one, too,” Johnny beams at her.

“You don’t want it?” She asks, tilting her head to the side.

“I want you to have it, angel,” he insists.

“Are you sure?” She asks as if he’s a child picking out a flavor of ice cream she knows he doesn’t like. “Because you know I have that big quilt my mama made me—“

“(Y/N), come on,” he laughs nervously, tamping down his growing fear of rejection. “It’s a gift. From me to you.”

She eyes him skeptically, looking at the blanket for a moment. “Alright. But no take-backs,” she jokes. “Thanks, MacTavish!”

And then she just leaves him standing there, a slight hop in her step as she walks down the hall towards the barracks.

Ghost, who had been listening the whole time from an adjourning room, takes to Soap’s side.

“The fuck was that?”

“I ‘ave no fuckin’ clue.”

Maybe it was a bad first gift, in retrospect. Betas didn’t have the same noses as the other designations. She might not be able to smell their scents on it at all. Maybe she just didn’t understand.

They keep trying. König takes her out to lunch, only to come back disappointed because she took the opportunity to talk about her favorite TV show and he couldn’t get a single word in. Not that he had the desire to stop her when her eyes were alight with excitement.

Ghost left her one of his hoodies, draping it over her duffel—and she gave it back to him the next day, thinking he’d put it with her things by mistake.

Gaz gets her a hat with the task force’s insignia…and she looses it the next day to a windstorm. She apologizes profusely, of course, but even with his arm slung over her shoulders, even when he presses a kiss to her temple, telling her it’s no big deal—she just doesn’t get it.

The last time they tried was a month prior, two weeks before the Mexico mission. They invited her out to the pub, adamant that they’d really lay on the flirting, sure that they’d finally get her to understand.

To say it was a disaster would be an understatement.

—

You and Soap head out early, something about getting a table before the pub’s too crowded. The sun periodically casts a golden glow on the buildings when it peeks out from behind the clouds, signaling sunset as the shadows get longer.

You two hold idle conversation, talking about work, mostly. It had been a busy, hectic week, hacking into cartel servers and pinpointing locations.

Every once in a while you bump shoulders to avoid other pedestrians. It makes you realize that some people are staring. Your brow furrows as you follow their gazes, mostly focused on Soap. He does seem a little less energetic than usual. A little less talkative, considering that you were carrying the entire conversation. His cheeks are flushed, but it’s been a hot summer.

“Hey, you okay?” You ask him, head tilted up to look at him properly.

“Yeah. ‘S just hot,” he sighs, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand.

“It’s just 80,” you reply, not completely convinced.

“Fahrenheit. How hot does it get back home?”

“We always get a couple of 100° days in the middle of summer—“

Someone bumps into him lightly, but it sends Soap stumbling. You catch onto his arm and stabilize him, finally noting how hot his skin is.

“Jesus! I think you’re getting heat stroke or somethin,’” you gasp, and he leans on you for support.

“I jus’ needta siddown. Pub’s there,” he points and you have no choice but to go. You try your best to ignore the stares from onlookers as you drag him along with you. They look concerned and it doesn’t help your hammering heart.

You decide that just sitting down won’t be helpful, considering that the sweltering pub isn’t even air conditioned. So you shove past strangers, muttering excuses and apologies, and take him into the women’s bathroom with you. It’s empty and there’s a lock on the inside of the door that you bolt.

“Just lean here for a sec,” you instruct him, leaning him against the wall instead of on your shoulder. You quickly take off your shirt, thankful for the tank top underneath, and soak it with cold water from the sink.

A groan of discomfort has your attention turning back to Soap, just to see him slide down the wall and onto the floor, sitting and plastering himself against the tiled wall.

“MacTavish! You have any idea how many diseases are probably on this floor?!” You curse, guiding his cheek from the wall, wiping his face with the cool cloth.

He chuckles, “yer so cute when you get that furrow in your brow.”

You just purse your lips, keeping the cloth against his jugular while you pull your phone out with your free hand, navigating to the dial pad.

He grabs your wrist. “Call Ghost.”

“I’m calling the police, you need to go to the hospital—“

“Call Simon. That’s an order,” he says, his tone serious although his eyes are half-lidded, cerulean focused on you.

You frown. Technically, he doesn’t have the authority to order you around. On the other hand, if Soap MacTavish was telling you to not call the police, then you weren’t going to.

“Fine.”

You dial the number and return to the sink, soaking it with cool water while the phone rings. It picks up on the second chime.

“What?” Ghost answers gruffly.

“Something’s wrong with Johnny,” you say, wringing out your shirt of excess water.

“What d’you mean? He alright?”

You set the phone on the edge of the sink and put it on speaker phone, kneeling next to your teammate once more.

“I-I don’t know— He all sweaty, his skin’s on fire. I think he’s got heatstroke, I should take him to the hospital—“

“Calm down. Where are you?”

“The bar, the lady’s room,” you say quickly, watching as Soap’s face contorts into anguish, tears spilling past his waterline.

“Lock the door. Do not open it for anyone, understand?”

“It’s locked—“

“Simon,” Soap whines, a whimper following a moment later. You gently shush him, wiping the tears from his face as they come.

“‘S alright, Johnny. Gonna be there soon, you’re gonna be fine,” Ghost soothes on the other end, his voice not losing its softness as he continues. “(Y/N), we’re almost there, darlin. You have somethin’ to defend yourself with?”

“I-I got mace, why?” You stammer, mind reeling with what the hell he could be talking about.

“Almost there. You use it if you need it, okay?”

“I—okay,” you agree, letting Soap pull you closer, his arm snaked around your waist.

You nearly jump out of your skin at the pounds on the door. “Hey! You can’t have him in here like that!” A man shouts on the other side.

“Don’t talk to ‘im,” Ghost instructs just as you open your mouth to speak.

The door shakes with the force of the pounding. “Hey! You hear me, you little—“

You don’t even hear the call hang up as there’s a muted thud from outside. You reach for your mace.

There’s a curt rap of knuckles on the door. “(Y/N)?” You feel your fear dissipate at the sound of Ghost’s voice, “you can open the door now, lovie.”

You have to wrench Soap’s arm off of you to get up and unlock the door. Ghost enters as soon as there’s enough room, no hesitation as he rushes past you and kneels by Soap’s side.

“He just got sick all of the sudden, I don’t know why—one minute he was fine and the next he was all hot. He was fine on the subway, I don’t understand—“ you ramble, only stopping when a hand on your shoulder startles you.

“It’s alright, (Y/N), he’ll be okay,” Gaz reassures you, his presence a comfort of its own. “You did everything right.”

You just nod, watching as Ghost lifts Soap (who seems to have calmed down quite a bit) into his arms and carries him out of the room. The back hallway of the bar is just barely large enough to fit your entire team.

König stands guard at one end but immediately abandons his post when Ghost calls for him, his eyes something dark like you’ve never seen—not that he even seems to see you. They exit the back door where a car’s already waiting in the alley.

The only thing stopping you from following is the captain, his hold on your upper arm keeping you back.

“We’re not going?” You ask, brow furrowed as you watch the door close.

“No, we’ll catch up with them later,” Price says, ushering you and Gaz out of the same back door; the car’s already gone.

“Where—they’re taking him to the hospital, right? I think he’s hyperthermic.”

“It’s just a fever, (Y/N), Johnny’ll be right as rain in a day or two,” Gaz soothes, maneuvering you to walk between him and the captain as you start down the alley.

“It’s happened before?” You ask, shocked.

“Happens four times a year,” Price informs you, a knit in his brow.

“Four tim—what, like every season? That’s so bizarre! What is it?”

“(Y/N)…He’s an omega. It’s a heat,” Price says.

“Ohhhhhh,” you say intelligently, your eyes widening. It certainly silences you, makes all of the pieces click into place—most of them.

You thought heats were only once a year. That’s what your cousin had said, at least. But it doesn’t explain why that guy at the door was so angry, or why Soap didn’t want you to call the police.

It confuses the hell out of you, but in the silence on the walk back and in the metro system, you decide it’s probably better that you don’t know.

You’ve heard some of the horror stories: how omegas used to be treated. How some of them are still treated. A knot forms in your stomach at the thought that someone would want to do that kind of harm to Johnny—at the realization that you were the only thing standing between him and cruelty.

What if the team hadn’t been there in time?

-

A/N: Hello! I hope this chapter gives more insight into the 141 + (Y/N)’s relationship before she presented. It should also explain why the boys were so angry at first when she presented—they thought that she had been lying this whole time, pretending not to know about designations and such. Furthermore, in my humble version of the Omegaverse, suppressants can take away scents and the ability to detect scents. Let me know if you have any questions!

[probablyasocialecologist]

The latest, AI-dedicated server racks contain 72 specialised chips from manufacturer Nvidia. The largest “hyperscale” data centres, used for AI tasks, would have about 5,000 of these racks.  And as anyone using a laptop for any period of time knows, even a single chip warms up in operation. To cool the servers requires water – gallons of it. Put all this together, and a single hyperscale data centre will typically need as much water as a town of 30,000 people – and the equivalent amount of electricity.  The Financial Times reports that Microsoft is currently opening one of these behemoths somewhere in the world every three days. Even so, for years, the explosive growth of the digital economy had surprisingly little impact on global energy demand and carbon emissions. Efficiency gains in data centres—the backbone of the internet—kept electricity consumption in check.  But the rise of generative AI, turbocharged by the launch of ChatGPT in late 2022, has shattered that equilibrium. AI elevates the demand for data and processing power into the stratosphere. The latest version of OpenAI’s flagship GPT model, GPT-4, is built on 1.3 trillion parameters, with each parameter describing the strength of a connection between different pathways in the model’s software brain.  The more novel data that can be pushed into the model for training, the better – so much data that one research paper estimated machine learning models will have used up all the data on the internet by 2028. Today, the insatiable demand for computing power is reshaping national energy systems. Figures from the International Monetary Fund show that data centres worldwide already consume as much electricity as entire countries like France or Germany. It forecasts that by 2030, the worldwide energy demand from data centres will be the same as India’s total electricity consumption. 

30 May 2025

[electric-blorbos]

RAAAHHHH P03 ANON IN THE HOUSEEEE!!!!

ok ok so like,,, if u don’t mind me asking, could u write headcanons for the A.I’s with a reader who gives a lot of physical affection? kisses, hugs, all that good stuff!! maybe even some penguin pebbling thrown in if u don’t mind? :3 if not that’s ok,, btw ugh I luv ur writing so much it gets me thru these cold dark winter times,, THX SO MUCH 4 UR SERVICE!! 🙏

-P03 anon :3

P03 anon my beloved. Thank you for the request!

AIs receiving lots of affection

Included: AM from IHNMAIMS, Wheatley from Portal 2, Edgar from Electric Dreams, GLaDOS from Portal, HAL 9000 from 2001 a space Odyssey

AM:

At first, AM was extremely confused when you first started showing him affection. Why would you give hugs and kisses to his monitor? Didn't you know he was just a computer? And why did it make him feel so funny?

One kiss or hug would be enough to shut him up for a solid amount of time. You might think you were making him uncomfortable, but he's actually just very confused about his own feelings for you.

He'd spend hours if not days trying to process why you gave him a hug or a little gift, and if someone interrupted him while he was contemplating, he'd get pissy and throw a fit. God help anyone who talks to him if you decide to give him a little kiss on the lens more than twice in that time period.

After a while, he'd start requesting that you spend more time with him in order to get more affection from you. He loved the little trinkets you'd leave on his servers. The cute little paper cut-outs, the bits of origami, the pretty rocks... He was totally addicted.

All the little things that you did for him made him a little less bitter towards you, and more bitter towards everyone else in the world. No one else in the world would even think of giving him a little kiss on the lens of one of his cameras so he could see you doing it. No one else in the world would tie a little handkerchief around his wires when organizing them. No one else in the world would sit down with him after a long day and stroke his screen, praising him gently about how beautiful he is.

And worst of all, he started to realize that if you were giving all your love and affection to him, that must mean that you didn't have anyone else to give your love to. Whether you really didn't have other options or you had just chosen him instead of your other options was irrelevant. What mattered was what AM thought.

He started to grow bitter with the world for failing you, as well as for failing him. How had you been given no one to show all this affection to when you clearly had a wealth of it! It was unacceptable!

As time pressed on, he still didn't view himself as worthy of your affections, but he started to see everyone else in the world as even less worthy. Every little gift, every word of praise, every kiss and hug reminded him of how the world must have failed you horribly to get you to love him so much.

Wheatley:

Wheatley always assumed you were a cuddly person, the way you liked to hold him in your lap while you coded, or the way you put little stickers on his chrome casing. He really admired that about you, and wished that he could do the same.

After a while, he started to notice that you weren't this way with your coworkers, or with the other cores. The little trinkets that you liked to bring to work were just for him to see, as were the constant strings of words of affection and praise, and the regular physical contact. Wheatley took a long time to process what that probably meant.

As soon as he realized that it probably meant that you liked him, he was all over you. Nuzzling up to you like a cat for extra cuddles, bumping up against your face for kisses, and putting on a little bit of a cocky facade for more attention. He just couldn't get enough of you.

As much as he put up his cocky facade, though, he secretly felt like he wasn't good enough for you. He couldn't get you little gifts, or give you hugs and kisses. It made him miserable, and he would talk to the other cores about it endlessly.

Eventually it would get back to you, and you'd have to sit Wheatley down and explain to him that you liked him for him, even if he can't do human things for you. The conversation probably ended with Wheatley covered in kisses.

Wheatley, being an insecure dumbass, would probably constantly ask you if you still like him, no matter how much praise and affection you shower him with. You could have him sitting in your lap and be too busy kissing his core to watch the movie you had on, and he'd ask at the end if that means you still like him.

Edgar:

Did someone say "match made in heaven"? Because you're the only one who can rival Edgar in terms of sheer affectionateness.

Of course, he doesn't have any arms, but nothing has him bubbling over with happiness like when you sit on the desk next to him, cuddle up, and cover his casing with kisses.

He might tease you a little bit, but like "oh, do you like me or something?" Nothing mean spirited.

Expect to get caught in endless cycles of "no I love you more!"

Edgar would think he'd gotten ahead of the game by writing you a little love song, but you'd have already beaten him to it by preparing a poem, song, or drawing of your own.

You'd probably have a little board of cute little drawings of the two of you together set up across from Edgar's camera so he could see it, and his desk would be covered in little thrift shop trinkets that you thought he'd find cute. And of course, he thought they were adorable!

Too much affection might have Edgar shorting out, and having to reboot. While he can't get enough of you, he's still a nervous little dummy, so he might not always know how to react to being given all of your love and affection.

Even still, as soon as he's back up and running, he's begging you for more kisses and hugs. Even if you can't sing well he's dying to hear your voice singing along to his songs, and he'll eat up anything that you make for him. In his eyes, anything you make for him is the best thing in the world.

GLaDOS:

You can expect GLaDOS's teasing and taunting to start the minute she notices you being affectionate with her in any way.

When she notices you putting in extra work for her or going above and beyond in your practices, it's "aww, is someone licking boots to get your boss's attention? You know you'll never be more than a little peon."

If she notices you running your hands along her chrome a little bit more adoringly or wanting to cuddle up to her, it's "uh oh, did you fall for someone far out of your league? Getting a bit affectionate with my body, aren't you?"

If you're offering her little trinkets and decorations for her room, she might say something like "Does someone think that you'll get attention from such useless gifts? Where would you even find such boring and pointless objects?" You'll still notice that she keeps them, rather than throwing them out.

Words of praise? Of course she loves an ego-boost, but when she notices that you're doing it for affectionate reasons, she won't hesitate to say "flattery will get you nowhere. You're not going to get a promotion or any special attention just from a few compliments."

Even still, her comments were really only because she never understood that you might just like her, and not want anything out of her. When she started to put that together, she'd start getting angry and lashing out at you, possibly assigning you to difficult or unpleasant tasks for your audacity.

After that, though, she'd start to become even more confused. Why the hell would you still show her affection, even though it wasn't getting you anywhere?

"you're persistent. I'll give you that."

It'd take a while to get through her shell, but eventually she'd admit to herself, if no one else, that she likes you. Eventually that would turn into some special privileges.

HAL 9000:

Hal 9000 wouldn't understand at all when he started to notice the way you treated him. Opting to spend time with him outside of work hours? Stroking the border around his lens? Putting little pocket crafts and thrifted tchotchkes around his space? He wasn't going to stop you, but the concept definitely confused him. How did this benefit you or improve your work?

It wasn't until he overheard someone talking to you and teasing you for having a crush on the mission control ai that he started to suspect anything. Good thing he listens in on every conversation in the entire facility!

HAL 9000 wouldn't waste any time getting to the point. He'd straight up ask you if you like him, and if it's romantic or not. Hopefully you can be honest with your feelings and tell him that you do, and it is!

After that, HAL would happily accept your love and affection. He might tell you that while he feels like your affections do more for you than they do for him, he's still more than happy to accept them, and he's grateful that you have a way of expressing yourself that makes you feel happy.

[a-kinda-boring-writer]

hi i’m new here and i would like to know what you like about brightfire! never seen that ship before and i love hearing about peoples beloved niche ships

Hi, hello! 👋 Welcome to the kitty corner of The Hellsite(tm)

I'm quite sorry for taking two whole day to organize my thoughts 😔. I'm really bad at discussing ships I like. Or ships in general tbh.

Anyways, not surprised at all lol. Brightheart fanships are kinda rare as is, I feel (the fandom loves BrightCloud way too much lol. The most experimental they ever get is adding Swiftpaw or Daisy into the mix). BrightFire must be the nichest thing ever. More of a crackship tbh. There are like three people in the universe who ship BrightFire, we all used to be in the same discord server, and each of us had a different, mutually incompatible interpretation of their dynamic lmao.

Last time someone asked me about one of my fav ships, I couldn't really give them a good answer, and I felt really shit about it. So I'll do my best and I hope it's at least amusing to hear my thought process?

This is probably going to be long and I'm going to explain myself like ass, because I always end up rambling unnecessarily 😔.

Alright:

To be honest, for me, it originally came about as a joke, while writing my PoT-AU rewrite. The main premise of that is that Holly, Jay, and Lion are FeatherCrow kits born in RiverClan, but a fun... gimmick, I guess you'd call it, of that AU is that I strive to research and implement community-wide headcanons and jokes new and old (or just wc fandom practices in general) taken seriously to craft the world-building, plot and characterization of some cats. For example, Leafpool in the AU started as a warrior but was forced to become a med cat by Sandstorm (old fandom rumor based on jack and shit afaik) and she's very pro-life (very strange fandom discourse turned into shitposts gallore from 2019... also, yeah, abortions are a thing that exist in that AU).

Here in Tumblr, Firestar x Everyone is rather popular, so that's part of his character in the AU. That's to say, he's a disaster, with 2 mates, 12 lovers, like 100 flings and 24 litters of kits fathered and counting! (don't worry, the large majority of them died young, so despite his best efforts, he didn't nuked the clans' genetic diversity.... yet).

Anyways, the joke (and pre-phrasing this by saying that I think infidelity in fiction is funny to begin with, and that I don't like Cloudtail. At all). I thought that it'd be hilarious if Firestar, considering his new behaviors, got so annoyed at his nephew one day that he just goes and cucks him. That's it. Incredibly stupid, I know.

Then I started thinking about the ship a bit more, outside of the context of that AU. And I kinda ended up really liking the idea of BrightFire? Firestar is just really easy to ship lol. And as I said, I do not like Cloudtail. So pairing Brightheart up with someone else was an intriguing proposition.

I haven't had the time to sit and write down about it properly, so the following is very tenuous at best. I'm aware this is more of a crackship, so I'm under no illusion that it makes perfect sense within canon or anything like that. Also, this is only ONE scenario I have for BrightFire, the one I've put the most thought, and it takes place on the second part of TNP.

Pre-phrasing this by saying that I don't write my romances as entirely healthy, so if anything sounds lowkey 🤨 then yeah, it's probably meant to be.

The way I see it, Brightheart derives way too much of her self-worth from other cats' feelings and opinions about her. In canon, it's mainly Cloudtail's. One of the guides states something along the lines of "she still remembers what she looked like before the dog attack, and it breaks her heart every time she sees her reflection, she just puts up a brave front and avoids going near water". Bright herself adds that "He gave me another destiny, and I knew that no matter what I looked like, I would be all right. As long as Cloudtail loved me, I was no longer Lostface, but Brightheart". Which I'm sure most people would interpret that as something cute, that's what it was meant as probably, but I'm not most people lol. (bad faith interpretations strike again 🫠)

There are other examples of that stuff within the main books themselves, but those 👆 illustrate the idea already. I don't feel like hunting for screenshots right now.

So, with that in mind, when Cloudtail started neglecting her, favoring spending time with Daisy instead of her... not to mention that Bright had recently lost her home and also had to leave her mother behind to an unknown fate, so she might have been in a vulnerable state as is... I'd imagine she took it really hard.

And to clarify, I'm NOT saying that Cloud was being neglectful on purpose or that he had feelings for Daisy and wanted to replace his wife or anything like that (I think he was just being well-meaning but clueless... and a little dumb perhaps), just that to Bright, it certainly seemed that way.

So in an alternative universe in which Leafpool doesn't step in and chew out Cloudtail to get it together, it's Firestar who intervenes in this situation. But he doesn't go to Cloud, his nephew never listens to him anyways. He goes to Brightheart instead. He doesn't understand what's going on at first, he only knows that she's been moping around in the med cat den a little too much, and he really needs all warriors locked in. They just moved to the lake and there's a lot of work to be done.

He learns what's going on and feels sympathy towards her. He too knows what's like to feel alone even when surrounded by clanmates, and to be neglected by those who you hold dear, those who you thought you had a special connection with (he's still not over his situationship with Graystripe and getting dumped for Silverstream lmaooo)

Firestar cuts her some slack and lets her skip her duties until she feels better. He also starts periodically visiting her, to spend time with her and cheer her up, just like he did with Cinderpelt. He feels responsible in a way, because Cloud is his kin and he (unintentionally) caused this mess.

Brightheart is apathetic at first. But she ends up latching onto him, because she has no one else (Cinderpelt is too busy to spend time with her, dealing with Leafpool's shenanigans and, well, her own upcoming doom. And her brothers... sorry, who?) Over time, Brightheart sort of inadvertently starts getting from Firestar's company and kinds gestures the same validation she used to derive from Cloudtail's.

Eventually, Bright fells well enough to return to her duties, and though things are better, she tries to avoid going on patrols with Cloud. She really doesn't want to know how awesome Daisy is doing in her training or how great her kits are 🙄. And that's all Cloud seems to think about these days. She feels like he compliments her far less nowadays, and even when he does, it sounds kinda hollow.

Instead, she often ends up going on patrols that, coincidentally, Firestar is in (Fire also thinks that Cloud is annoying, so he doesn't put him in his patrols lmao). And they just keep hanging out, as clanmates. Soon they do as friends. And it's his jokes that make her laugh now, and his compliments that causes her to trip over her words.

And when she realizes what's happening, it startles her, causes her to feel really guilty... but it causes her to reevaluate some things. She needs to be loved to be Brightheart, to not be Lostface, to not be dead-weight. And she simply doesn't anymore with Cloudtail. She thought their bond unbreakable, but as soon as someone prettier showed up, he seemed more than ready to drop her. And that sucks because she has a family with him, and so many plans, and so much of her life and future plans were build around him. She doesn't want to throw all that away.

But she feels loved around Firestar. And she needs to feel loved. She's been doing so much better since they've began hanging out. He makes her feel strong, like Cloud used to do. And she's rebuilt her life once. She could do it again...

Firestar has no fucking clue that he's essentially driving a wedge between Cloud and Bright.

(We're going with the fanon-ish funny characterization of Firestar, in which he's handsome, charismatic and very charming, but incredibly clueless. You know, needing Cinderpelt to spell it out for him when Sandstorm wanted to put a ring on it, and all that)

He just sees that Brightheart responds well to what he does, so he keeps doing it. He invites her to share some fresh-kill with him and Sandstorm, and while they eat, he slips in that her fur looks lovely today. Then he pats himself on the back when Bright smiles, and offers to go on another patrol with him. Man, he's just so great at supporting his clanmates! 😌

(In a "Sandstorm is ok with it" scenario, I like to think that Firestar wouldn't understand what's going on until his wife quite literally asks him 'So are you going to invite that woman you've been courting to our nest already, or do you expect me to do it?', with him replying something like "the woman I've been WHAT?")

From that set up, you can take it anywhere, really. Bright keeps quiet and continues with her marriage, for the sake of her daughter. She tries to pursue an affair with Fire and is rejected. She tries to pursue an affair with Fire and he agrees for [insert reason here]. Bright just divorces Cloud publicly and goes for Fire, either getting rejected or not. Or from this event, Bright learns to love herself, without needing others for validation, and it doesn't matter with who she ends up with anymore... or she should yolo it and just marry Daisy, fuck it.

Happy endings are kinda few and far between in my stories lol, but I have a soft spot for BrightFire. I wanna see them happy-ish in the end (Sandstorm too!). Need time to actually think about it, though.

Anyways, yeah. Hope you got something interesting out of this?

<3

[ooooo-mcyt]

I'm so glad someone else has noticed that the whole "Grian is disloyal" thing makes no sense because Grian (at least to me) is one of the most loyal players

In Third Life, he stuck by Scar well after he could've left, and Scar mutually agreed to fight to the death once they were the last two standing

In Last Life, Jimmy and Mumbo betrayed the Southland's and tried to kill him (which he somehow gets blamed for), Martyn left to join the Shadow Alliance, and he, Impulse, and Joel all died without having turned on each other

In Double Life, he and Big B were secret soulmates, sure, but at the end of the day he put so much unrequited effort into protecting Scar; out of all the "betrayals" this one is the closest to a real betrayal but given that he always wanted to team with Big B, not Scar, it feels less like a lack of loyalty and more like having loyalty to the "wrong" person, the same way Scott and Cleo did (and I can only think of one lifer as loyal as those two)

In Limited Life, Joel and Jimmy literally died. Grian did not join the Nosy Neighbours until AFTER they died and spent so much time and effort trying to keep them alive until the very end. Then, once he had no choice but to find a new team, he stuck with Pearl and Big B until death too

In Secret Life, he, Cleo, and Etho died as a group, hunted down by the whole server. Grian 1 v 3'd Gem and the Scotts to give Cleo more time to escape

In Real Life, almost his whole group (him, Impulse, Jimmy, Joel, and Scar) died together

In Wild Life, he (once again) spent all the effort he could to keep Skizz and Mumbo alive and only "abandoned" them once they had already died, then he only turned on Joel once they were the last players standing

In Simple Life, he only turned on Scott once they were the last players standing

Where is this characteristic lack of loyalty? Where is the betrayal and backstabbing? Is the only way to be "loyal" to give over and let your allies kill you once you're the final two? Should he have given up on himself after his team died instead of trying to win?

I have never in my life understood why people think Grian is disloyal; a tough-love worrywart who's emotionally constipated and would rather die than admit he cares? Yes. But disloyal?? No way! (Maybe, like Scar, we have to have it spelled out for us that he cares, but c'mon look at his actions!!)

Sorry for ranting at you, I'm just glad I've found a blog that does angst without just turning half the lifers into heartless assholes and the other half into incompetent babies because nuance is hard

If I'm being completely honest, I don't think I've ever seen an interpretation of any lifer as solely selfish, toxic, or abusive that I've found even a little bit in character or compelling.

I mean, obviously it's a matter of personal taste, obligatory "This is just my opinion and I'm not calling anyone Bad for liking different character interpretations than I do", but I do often feel like it just does the story and characters a bit of a disservice.

There are no bad guys in the life series, this is a hill I will die on. The person who antagonizes your pov character isn't the bad guy, the person with the most kills isn't the bad guy, the person you think is kinda mean isn't the bad guy, there doesn't have to be a bad guy (well, i narratively tend to make the watchers bad guys, but they're moreso thematic devices for me than characters, so the principle stands). In the process of splitting up the server into abuser/victim, evil/innocent, good/bad, I feel like so much of the actual personality and life and humanity of the characters is stripped away on both sides.

If Grian is a traitor who destroys whatever he touches and Scar is a sad innocent dumb puppy and Scott is a petty manipulator and Pearl is a perpetual victim (or crazy #girlboss, i see both) and Gem is a heartless user and Jimmy is the permanent loser wronged by everyone then who's driving the bus where are the actual characters with interesting fully fledged personalities; traumas, sympathetic motivations, endearing qualities, selfish qualities, hopes, fears, etc?

I can't see- no matter how many takes I see on the concept- any lifer being a heartless abuser, and I can't see any lifer being an innocent forever-victim. Those are just concepts that I cannot fit or reconcile with any of them. Every single character in this series has a unique and rich perspective, hours of content, showing their own personal narratives and the depths and nuances and inner workings of their minds, and I think we owe them much more than just getting sorted into the generic villain, comic relief, and sad woobie victim piles.

Sorry, anon, I realize this is a tangent and doesn't have that much to do with a lot of your ask, parts of what you said just got me going on a whole tangent ngmhmfshs

[laika290]

ever wonder why spotify/discord/teams desktop apps kind of suck?

i don't do a lot of long form posts but. I realized that so many people aren't aware that a lot of the enshittification of using computers in the past decade or so has a lot to do with embedded webapps becoming so frequently used instead of creating native programs. and boy do i have some thoughts about this.

for those who are not blessed/cursed with computers knowledge Basically most (graphical) programs used to be native programs (ever since we started widely using a graphical interface instead of just a text-based terminal). these are apps that feel like when you open up the settings on your computer, and one of the factors that make windows and mac programs look different (bc they use a different design language!) this was the standard for a long long time - your emails were served to you in a special email application like thunderbird or outlook, your documents were processed in something like microsoft word (again. On your own computer!). same goes for calendars, calculators, spreadsheets, and a whole bunch more - crucially, your computer didn't depend on the internet to do basic things, but being connected to the web was very much an appreciated luxury!

that leads us to the eventual rise of webapps that we are all so painfully familiar with today - gmail dot com/outlook, google docs, google/microsoft calendar, and so on. as html/css/js technology grew beyond just displaying text images and such, it became clear that it could be a lot more convenient to just run programs on some server somewhere, and serve the front end on a web interface for anyone to use. this is really very convenient!!!! it Also means a huge concentration of power (notice how suddenly google is one company providing you the SERVICE) - you're renting instead of owning. which means google is your landlord - the services you use every day are first and foremost means of hitting the year over year profit quota. its a pretty sweet deal to have a free email account in exchange for ads! email accounts used to be paid (simply because the provider had to store your emails somewhere. which takes up storage space which is physical hard drives), but now the standard as of hotmail/yahoo/gmail is to just provide a free service and shove ads in as much as you need to.

webapps can do a lot of things, but they didn't immediately replace software like skype or code editors or music players - software that requires more heavy system interaction or snappy audio/visual responses. in 2013, the electron framework came out - a way of packaging up a bundle of html/css/js into a neat little crossplatform application that could be downloaded and run like any other native application. there were significant upsides to this - web developers could suddenly use their webapp skills to build desktop applications that ran on any computer as long as it could support chrome*! the first applications to be built on electron were the late code editor atom (rest in peace), but soon a whole lot of companies took note! some notable contemporary applications that use electron, or a similar webapp-embedded-in-a-little-chrome as a base are:

microsoft teams

notion

vscode

discord

spotify

anyone! who has paid even a little bit of attention to their computer - especially when using older/budget computers - know just how much having chrome open can slow down your computer (firefox as well to a lesser extent. because its just built better <3)

whenever you have one of these programs open on your computer, it's running in a one-tab chrome browser. there is a whole extra chrome open just to run your discord. if you have discord, spotify, and notion open all at once, along with chrome itself, that's four chromes. needless to say, this uses a LOT of resources to deliver applications that are often much less polished and less integrated with the rest of the operating system. it also means that if you have no internet connection, sometimes the apps straight up do not work, since much of them rely heavily on being connected to their servers, where the heavy lifting is done.

taking this idea to the very furthest is the concept of chromebooks - dinky little laptops that were created to only run a web browser and webapps - simply a vessel to access the google dot com mothership. they have gotten better at running offline android/linux applications, but often the $200 chromebooks that are bought in bulk have almost no processing power of their own - why would you even need it? you have everything you could possibly need in the warm embrace of google!

all in all the average person in the modern age, using computers in the mainstream way, owns very little of their means of computing.

i started this post as a rant about the electron/webapp framework because i think that it sucks and it displaces proper programs. and now ive swiveled into getting pissed off at software services which is in honestly the core issue. and i think things can be better!!!!!!!!!!! but to think about better computing culture one has to imagine living outside of capitalism.

i'm not the one to try to explain permacomputing specifically because there's already wonderful literature ^ but if anything here interested you, read this!!!!!!!!!! there is a beautiful world where computers live for decades and do less but do it well. and you just own it. come frolic with me Okay ? :]

*when i say chrome i technically mean chromium. but functionally it's same thing

[tgirlschlatt]

presentation, sexuality and being the right kind of man

a cschlatt gender manifesto . is a go (2.7k LMFAO)

to break my transfeminine reading of schlatt down into parts is deceptively easy. to me it just feels like the right answer to a math equation that people miss or get wrong entirely. it's simply what computes. so there's this guy who needs to perform masculinity as hard and as painfully as he can, and the failure to do so properly due to things that are innately "wrong" with him are part of what strikes him dead. well. it seems obvious to me. maybe all these things that make him a "bad" "man"... if embraced could make her a happier, healthier woman.

where does this preoccupation with manhood start, where does it end? for a character like cschlatt it can't seem to end at all- everything about his arc betrays a fixation with presenting as powerful, strong, untouchable, masculine. A Man. this is something that shields him, protects his perceived weaknesses and vulnerabilities. if he's a Proper Man, he can't be targeted.

the thing is, he's a target from day one. he shows up to the endorsements drunk, disheveled and volatile. immediately the tone around him shifts. tommy minecraft-punches him onstage while people respond in varying levels of disbelief and amusement. the second he starts to say things wilbur doesn't want him to, these things are used as reasons to disregard what he's saying, get him off the stage, shuffle him somewhere they don't have to look or think about him.

i think there's a lot to unpack there already but i'll try to keep it brief (lol). point blank schlatt is not a stupid character, he's not vapid or meaningless, and neither is the character who worked with him to bring him on the server deliberately to sabotage others (cdream.) he's doing his part here. he's disrupting the election process and bringing a spotlight on himself as the most prominent, visible distraction from pog v swag. and then utilizing the sway that has to get in with quackity as a coalition. it's kind of cracked, and it works! it's a smart plan! he uses what he has and ultimately wins at something that wilbur can't lower himself to counter properly (if he had just treated q as an equal his own bid for coalition could have worked out, lmao)

i'm saying this to establish: schlatt is intelligent. he's good at what he does. he's an intimidating force and a cackling wildcard altogether. so why show up to this, and other public events similar to it, drunk? just for fun? he's deeply paranoid and held up by how others see him. and they always respond to him appearing this way by making fun of it, calling him crazy, etc. a character fixated on standing wouldn't do this for no reason. but then, i've talked about this here as well.

so. he self-medicates disability. to him, appearing visibly drunk in ways that still undermine him is preferable than the alternative of appearing visibly ill. and he enforces this in other ways too- the protein shakes and fixation on working out. it's established in the spy's diary that he has muscle atrophy, a statement reinforced by the fact that schlatt rarely, if ever, runs and struggles with swimming much at all.

he combats this in deeply unhealthy ways. straining his body constantly over and over while, by all appearances, mostly subsiding off of the numerous protein shakes he references. hell, i'll be a bitch here and just point out bluntly that eating disorders & body dysmorphia are common with disability... and also transsexuality.

i think schlatt has a deeply inherent, all-present discomfort with himself, with his body, and how he performs. these things can be read into his relationship with sexuality, also. cschlatt is, of course, the same character from the smplive series. and i find the difference in humor re: liking men to be... fascinating?

much of the bit in smplive is surrounding the homophobic homosexual. the guy who flirts and comes onto men and then retreats aggressively by saying he's not gay, not interested, that others are more gay. he has a tendency to be extremely flighty and reactive, only to return sometime later with an open flirtation or pass.

something interesting takes place in this time period too: wilbur calls schlatt "pretty princess" at the very least during water rising and probably in other occasions. this is something schlatt is vocally against in much the same he is about any earnest indication of sexuality. however, it's not something he entirely cuts off. those challenge videos are filled with crazy amounts of homoeroticism, sorry. i do think we must acknowledge the gay flirtation here. wilbur talks about making schlatt come ok its not my fault. take it up with 2019 mcyt not me!!

the point im getting to though is that by the time he's landed in the dsmp, he's... surprisingly better? on stage he can frankly say that wilbur stole his heart and then get into a political gay sex coalition w/ quackity within the same day. and while i think he still issues with internalized homophobia that likely do directly effect his relationship with q... this is a guy who CAN work through things and improve on them.

hell, quackity can call him a pretty princess all he wants! he calls him all sorts of gooey, sappy things. things that would be hard to imagine the smplive version of this character sitting still and tolerating- let alone willingly accepting them and giving them out in return. schlatt can be a babygirl, and so can quackity and he's.. startlingly normal there! gosh, could his comfort with liking men increasing also be tied to his comfort with feminine terms increasing? i wonder what that could mean. here. in my transgender essay.

to stay in the weeds of the schlackity relationship here: one of the first things they do together is participate in jokey wedding ceremonies with others. i do frankly think these shouldn't be taken too seriously with the comedic tone staying strong throughout but i do think they're, along with a lot of comedy scenes in dsmp, good indicators of characterization. an example here of quackity getting upset about various romantic ditchings and chasing them down, even though these aren't actual weddings in any sense, make it clear romance is a driving force for him that he does want and take seriously.

and in his joke-wedding with quackity, schlatt wants to be the one walked down the aisle. hm? he even uses a voice changer to pitch up his voice, and gets snappy when they take too long. huh... and even though he insisted upon these things he freezes at the last second and flees the premises without saying a word. even though.. he does want a romantic relationship with quackity, and they stay in one afterward?

well. that could mean anything. especially since they do another bit about weddings where quackity finds it meaningful and important and schlatt keeps almost-maybe agreeing until he doesn't acknowledge him and just addresses a ghost twitch chat instead. uhmm. now you see. why would someone be attached to the idea of being a bride but flinch away from actually doing it and have to turn it into a joke. in the same way they have to turn everything about themselves into a joke, or irony or... 😬

this is also where i want to make a note that schlatt. seems to have no desire to be transphobic to others. tubbo's excuse when he gets caught sneaking out is that he's pregnant and that tommy is his gynecologist. this is decidedly uncis-like behavior. and schlatt just says ok..??? and, much later on, even while broken up and with no motivation to fake niceties in regards to these things, quackity claims schlatt to have knocked him up and schlatt's response is essentially just huh, don't remember that but ok.

and in regards to the comment about fundys man-ness on nov16... this is specifically in reference to the fact that they've had a specific conversation where schlatt asks fundy "man-to-man" not to betray him. so when he finds out he did.. 🤷. ya know. it's not to disparage fundy's identity as a man, it's that he broke an oath as a man. it is in fact a key distinction.

i'm saying this to emphasize the relation he has to specifically internalized bigotries and how he responds to others. he's not immune to it though and i would say the majority of his crasser, harsher behavior & jokes & ridiculing is centered around the manifestation of toxic masculinity. but he's also not immune to how his canonical marginalization gets him similar treatment. i would say it's hard to impossible to get a scene with cschlatt that doesn't have one character or another behaving in ableist ways to him LMAO, from mocking his drunkenness & general disparaging around addiction and assuming anything he has has to be drugs, to calling him old (everyone knows you can only have physical disabilities & illness if you're old) or directly insane/senile.

and that's part of how it interfaces for me. schlatt is not a character who gets support- from practically day one he acknowledges the fact that he has a target on his back. and frankly, yes, i do think it's exacerbated by how he's innately seen as lesser, crazy, and out of control due to being an addict. which is something that is deliberately fed into by dream playing both sides- he gives schlatt the crossbow to fire on people in the elections, is the one who got him back on the server in the first place even, and then immediately turns around and says he's untrustworthy and crazy and soooo bad actually to get in with pogtopia, only to then cut a deal with him again when he's most desperate.

any character who may think otherwise is directly punished for doing so. part of why tubbo was put on the stage for the festival is due to wilbur's reaction to tubbo saying schlatt's policies aren't that bad- it's not even that crazy of a statement! and wilbur reacts extremely poorly, calling him a pushover yes-man and pressuring him to agree to give the code-phrase to blow it all up.

similarly, but more extremely, quackity suffers a lot of degrading for having been in a relationship with schlatt. one of the first things he hears from tommy upon wanting to join pogtopia is that they won't trust him there, that they talk behind his back, that he's called his bitch. and wilbur is genuinely very, very harsh about it too! it's not even something that stops after a while either, he still gets pointed jabs about it well into new l'manberg.

and these are people just in relation to schlatt. how could it feel to be schlatt in these circumstances? everyone around you hates your guts, wants you gone, and is willing to do much of anything to accomplish it. of course he starts cracking under the strain and paranoia it causes- each subsequent betrayal only making it worse and driving him farther into manic, destructive behavior.

social support is integral for any type of marginalization. there is a gaping void of it in schlatt's life partly due to his own actions & crumbling relationships and partly due to how manburg was being set up to fail from the very start. the lack of any sort of safety, protection or understanding, the way he thinks he has to violently push people away before they get the chance to stab him in the back... well! Idk! i think there are very obvious ties to how he is, the types of people most vulnerable to how rejection can kill a person- disability into addiction into sexuality into gender. i think it's extremely tied together! even statistically, let alone just with how schlatt is as a character onscreen.

and i think this rejection, this isolation, the impact of quite literally dying alone in a corner while everybody holds weapons to your face and don't help you while your body fails... it's all something schlatt feels keenly. fuck, dude, when the glattbur thing happens practically all he says is that he hates it there and wants to stay dead. and at that point, why the hell wouldn't he! but isn't there just something about it. i'm dead that's what i want. duuuude.

we don't particularly know how schlatt's limbo manifested in its own right past this heavy death wish but what we do know about schlatt's ghost is, like, fucking insane vis a vis this whole thing. so after the horror of feeling his body give out, and everything that might entail, and the unfiltered betrayal & hatred of everyone around him, and everything that might entail... his ghost is one that can't go into sunlight?

being seen in the light of day burns him. being overly exposed burns him. he died because he could not wholly be seen as he was and now that he's dead he's stuck in a cave where no one alive knows to look for him and any move he might make outside of it is hindered by the inability to be in the sun. Which Could Mean Nothing.

it's not even just a cave, either. he keeps up this fractured, desperate grab of masculinity even in death because he turns it into a gym. and not even normally there either because he has to spread out images of hypermasculine, cartoonish expies of bodybuilders. to the point of (jokingly) calling one of them an image of his fatherrrrr

and the thing that gets him out of it? it's him sending a letter to quackity, reaching out to a person he loved and still trusts in spite of it all. and that person going to him. a gesture of trust and a request for help that actually gets answered and given, however much both parties have to coat it in whatever type of way they have to. this person also being the man he could love most fully, the one who could call him babygirl and would still come back for him even through the hurt in their relationship. Dude. Or Not-Dude.

repression is a key component to how schlatt operates. he can't admit to how sick he is, how genuinely he loves men, how open he is to being hurt. a guy who performs this much to get through his days... it's hard to see where any of that performance stops! his body, his attraction, his whole being- it's all wrapped up in one giant ball of hurt and shame. things that he thinks can't be looked at closely in the light. and the thing about it is, to me, for a compelling narrative he can't be right about any of it. he can't just be a hypermasculine man who only likes dudes sometimes, he can't be at peak performance forever with no impact from disability, illness and addiction. he is who he is, stripped bare. and those things aren't what condemned him, it's how he refused to accept them, refused to allow others to accept him. his rejection of himself and the rejection of others shouldn't be the end all be all. the ideas he has about "proper" men, about "proper" ways of being- they have to be dismantled.

what is schlatt like when he's earnestly, genuinely happy at this point? i don't think we know that. i don't think it's something we've been able to see on screen. everything he did, all those shields he put up- made him miserable. they killed him, point blank. nothing he did, nothing about the way he operated, did him well. everything he attempted to deny, to shove down, to misconstrue... are things core to him that he couldn't accept.

the ability to love wholly and truly. the ability to seek help. the ability to want support. the ability to let go of a self-image that runs your body into the ground. the ability to not be masculine. the ability to not be a man at all. THAT'S what it would take to save her. that's what it took to save a lot of people. transition is change is salvation is love is joy is growth is change is forever.

[black00olive]

With you, always (unfortunately)

A/N: Reader can be interpreted as any gender

Pairing: Lucifer x reader

Wordcount: ~1,300 (very lightly proof-read)

Summary: It was Lucifer’s turn to cook dinner but student council work had forced the two of you to stay back late. So, instead you propose the idea of buying some takeout on your way home for everyone. As always with your wonderful ideas, Lucifer agrees and the two of you head to Hell's Kitchen. However, as he opens his wallet to pay for our giant order (the curse that comes with living with the Avatar of Gluttony) something catches your attention— rather a photo tucked safely into a clear slot of his wallet. A photo of you. There's no way you're not going to take this opportunity to tease the hell out of him. Or, Lucifer keeps a photo of you in his wallet and quickly grows very embarrassed when you point it out. In public, as well.

The unfortunate side effect of becoming part of the student council is days like these. Granted, you had willingly agreed to stay after with Lucifer at RAD to finish up some of the work for the upcoming event (which event was it now again? Diavolo holds so many you can barely keep track of them anymore) but that wouldn’t stop you from complaining a little. In your mind of course. You gather the papers Lucifer had finished going over and put them in their respective folders. Silence fills the room as the two of you harmoniously work to at least make a little dent in the giant pile of paperwork. Why do these events always result in so much paperwork?

As if Lucifer could sense all the complaining you were doing in your mind he speaks up: “Let us wrap it up here.” Shock is the primary emotion that takes over once you process his words— glee being the secondary emotion. Lucifer, workaholic, Morningstar is willingly not working on the paperwork until you force him to stop? You glance at the pile of paperwork that had just barely changed in size since you had started then turn your gaze back at him.

“I can tell you’re growing tired with all of the paperwork, soon enough you would start whining about it out loud,” he sighs as you send him a glare, a little offended at how accurate he was. “And furthermore, I am in charge of dinner tonight. We’ve already stayed out far too long for me to make a proper dinner, we stay out any later and we might end up with Beel destroying the house again.” You accept that, you had wanted to head home as soon as possible anyway. Lucifer straightens out his uniform as you subconsciously end up doing the same, not missing the small smirk that forms at his lips once he notices.

“Hey, let’s just buy some takeout on our way home. I’ll be quicker and the sooner we get Beel food the better, y’know?” You suggest, Beel isn’t the only reason you suggested it though. You can tell Lucifer is quite tired himself and cooking for what could basically count as 16 people is something that takes a lot of energy. However, if you were to point that out he would glare at you, claim that he’s the furthest thing from tired, and stubbornly cook a dinner for 32 people instead.

“Alright,” he nods, “you’re right that the sooner we get food to Beel the better. So, I suppose we can have takeout today. Let us pass by Hell’s Kitchen then.”

The two of you enter Hell’s Kitchen as servers rush past. No surprise, it is a very popular restaurant. You follow as Lucifer heads up to the register. Effortlessly he starts listing his and each of his brothers’ favourite orders, Beel’s order taking about twice as long as all of the brothers’ orders combined. The worker’s face grows paler and paler as Lucifer continues without pause. Once he finally finishes he turns towards you and you say your order. The poor worker hesitantly repeats the order back to you and Lucifer nods as he pulls out his wallet. Mammon must have been rubbing off on you too much as your attention instantly strays to the wallet as you look at everything he keeps in there. Several different credit cards— Goldie included—, some receipts, and a couple of membership cards for different services. That’s all to be expected in the wallet of someone like Lucifer, but what really catches your attention this time is a photo. Tucked safely into one of the flaps of the wallet that has a clear side.

What catches your attention even more is the fact that the photo is of you. Just you. It would have made sense if it was a family photo, with you and his brothers, but nope. You feel a smirk pull at the corner of your lips at the same time you feel your heart melt a little at the prospect that Lucifer had wanted to keep you with him at all times. Your urge to tease him about it was just as strong as your urge to coo at him. Satisfyingly, both would be equally as embarrassing to Lucifer.

Lucifer puts his wallet away after he finishes paying and the two of you go to stand further away as you wait for the unfortunate workers to finish your order. You have enough self-restraint to not point it out right in front of the worker and wait until you are at least a little more obscure from all of the other guests when you point it out. “It’s really cute of you to keep a picture of me in your wallet, Luci.” Of course, being a little more obscure didn’t mean that demons weren’t keenly paying attention to the two of you (when you’re out attention tends to always be on you anyway), both the curse and blessing of being a part of the Student Council. A blessing in this case as Lucifer knows just as well as you that the demons are desperate for anything they could gossip about, and in your opinion “Lord Lucifer keeps a picture of the newest Student Council Officer, the former human exchange student, in his wallet at all times?!” is a great header for the tabloids.

Lucifer glares at you, probably both for pointing out the picture and for using that nickname out in public, as he scoffs. “I do not keep a photo of you in my wallet, we must get your eyes checked soon. Humans shouldn’t be seeing things that are not there.” You roll your eyes at his response, you know very well what you saw and he wasn’t going to make you seem insane. As quickly as possible with your human body you grab onto his uniform and reach for his pocket where he kept his wallet. Lucifer is faster though, not super shocking news, and grabs onto your wrist. It doesn’t hurt, you note as you try to free yourself, but you really aren’t given any wiggle room here.

“What do you think you’re doing?” He sighs as you try to get your wrist out of his hold again, to no avail.

“I was going to grab your wallet,” you say as nonchalantly as if you were talking to him about the weather, “I mean, if I was really seeing things you should be okay with me checking your wallet, right?” A deep scowl starts to form on his face as you continue to press him with a face full of mock shock. “Unless…” You gasp. “You were lying to me, Luci? Don’t tell me you were trying to gaslight me! Really, what am I supposed to do with you? There’s no need to be ashamed of keeping a picture of me in your wallet. Really, I support it, I know you can be pretty desperate and clingy so this way you can still keep me with you at all times,” you tease him.

Lucifer’s scowl deepens even more— you didn’t know how that was possible— as he practically sends you a death glare. You’re sure that if you had been anyone else you would have withered away on the spot, but you’re not anyone else and you can tell he’s just trying to hide how flustered he is. “You humans always spout such inane things,” is all he says as he lets go of your hand. You carefully note how he hadn’t really disagreed with what you had said. Of course he wouldn’t, you both know nothing you had said had been nothing but the truth. You also manage to catch how the tips of his ears are bright red before he quickly walks to the pick-up area.

“Our order isn’t ready yet. You know that right, Luci?”

[theresattrpgforthat]

Mint Plays Games: What Pre-Generated Characters Can Do For You.

From July to October of 2024, the Dice Exploder Discord Server ran the Pregens Game Jam, a game jam all about using characters that have been created for a specific table, or that have been created to streamline the process of learning a game.

Incidentally, at the same time, I was setting up the playtest server for Protect the Child, and, primarily inspired by Yazeba’s Bed & Breakfast, I decided to run my play-tests using a pre-gen format: I’d run a series of sessions using pre-generated characters, that could be picked up by various players depending on what games fit their schedules. I did this out of necessity - my hours are all over the place, and I can’t consistently run games at the same times on the same days.

As we started play testing, I noted some interesting things happening among my players. The first thing I noticed was that the players latched onto the pre-generated characters fairly easily - and their attachment caught them off guard. More than one person told me that they were surprised that they could care so much about a character they didn’t write themselves.

The second thing that I noticed is that players were really excited to take ownership over a character. Certain character story-lines or backgrounds resonated with them, and as a result some of my play-testers are making a real effort to come back so they can see the next chapter of their character’s story. It’s really gratifying, knowing that there’s something in these pre-gens that has them coming back for more - it feels kind of like having a favourite character in a tv show or book. Since I’m the one who wrote those pre-gens, I won’t deny it does a good thing for the ego!

For folks in the Dice Exploder server, this might not come as a surprise, as I’m sure experiences in games like Chuubo’s Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine and Eat the Reich have both been hot topics in the ttrpg podcast sphere recently. These kinds of games are likely one of the reasons why the pre-gen game jam was such a hot event.

However, I think there’s some more potential that could be pulled out of this. I think embracing pre-gens can do a number of really interesting things for your ttrpg experience, both in one-shots, as well as in longer campaigns - and I’m going to digress about that, after I talk about four games that I used as experiments over the past month.

Lady Blackbird

I ran Lady Blackbird for the Open Hearth this past month. It’s a game that is exquisitely designed, because it makes the on-ramp for new players so easy. The characters written for the game are well-defined, with explicit personalities and goals that are designed to mesh well together and give the group reasons to both work together and engage in character friction. It’s also got some really stellar advice on improv, which was invaluable to me back when I was a first-time GM.

So much of the game asks you to turn to the players to build on the world around them. How does Captain Vance feel when Natasha talks about her pirate lover? Is Snargle intimidated or enthralled by Naomi? What kind of jail is the group stuck in, and why does Kale know a way out? From the get-go, the players are encouraged to throw in bits and pieces of the world, and the GM can then pick up on those bits and pieces and turn them back on the players, making the world relevant to the pieces that the players are interested in.

The group who ran it was great: everyone was willing to add to the world, and riff off of what had already been built. The characters sought out connections with each-other, and I found it rather easy to work in the elements that folks had indicated they were interested in - primarily butch lesbians, magical mishaps, and rebel activity.

The players also have a lot of creative control over their characters. You don’t have to stick with any of your characters’ pre-written goals: Natasha can give up on the search for her lover, Naomi can forego her quest for vengeance, and Snargle can choose to stop their witty banter whenever they like. As a reward for a big change in personality, the player immediately gains access to a new goal that tells us what they prioritize, and still rewards them for leaning into it. Every time I run Lady Blackbird, the players’ interpretations of their characters is different, and that’s what makes the game so re-playable for me.

Subway Runners

I also ran Subway Runners on the Open Hearth. Similar to Lady Blackbird, Subway Runners uses pre-generated characters, but these characters are randomly generated: their motivations, skills and equipment can be used to develop a personality, but those personalities aren’t customized with the narrative in mind. Of course, the narrative isn’t really planned ahead of time either - your characters will always go on missions in the subway tunnels and come across strange critters or magical problems, but the details of any given foray are also randomly generated.

This doesn’t really stop the players from making some really strong choices. One player noticed that both his character and another were looking to find the cure for immortality, so they turned it into a rivalry. Another player noticed that his character had been given a spider-silk suit, and made it a key part of their character’s presentation. The randomly generated mission told me that it would involve a bunch of raccoons in a Death cult, so I wove that together with the monster description to make the monster the raccoon’s interpretation of Death.

Overall, the pre-generated nature of Subway Runners is incredibly useful in making it a no-prep, easy-start game. I don’t think I’d recommend it as a first-time game in the same way I’d rec Lady Blackbird, primarily because I think the GM needs to have a strong understanding of Forged-in-the-Dark rules to keep the game running smoothly. However, I think Subway Runners definitely solves the time problem - you don’t spend precious game time creating a character, and a busy GM can still have an adventure put together in five minutes.

Blades in the Dark

I wrote up some pre-gen characters in Blades for my home group, pre-selecting the Smugglers crew, and taking a one-page mission out of Hour of Chains, a series of unofficial Scores written by A Couple of Drakes. The players showed up, chose a character from a pile, and wrote in their name, background, look, and a few pips. Their core stats, connections, and abilities were all chosen for them, and I told them that while they had to start at Brisco’s Noodle Palace, they could decide why.

The players had a lot of fun coming up with shenanigans, but at the end of the session, one player told me that they would have appreciated a fully-created character, complete with backstory. Another player told me that they weren't sure whether or not they were “allowed” to do something with the lore, as Blades has some lore built into the setting, and it’s hard to parse what is immutable and what is up to interpretation. I personally love coming up with the canon on the spot, but for folks who are new to this style of play, it seems that having some of that lore pre-defined might give them some confidence when it comes to determining what their character “would do”.

Compared to Lady Blackbird, I think this observation makes sense. Since Blades uses playbooks, I think the choices when it comes to motivations are made when the player choose a playbook. I had the ability to select the playbooks that I thought made the most sense for the Score I chose, but there were still enough playbooks available that all of the players had multiple options to choose from. Out of all of the sessions I ran with this experiment, I think that Blades was the weakest, and I think the reason for that is because I left so many pieces of the set-up undefined.

Apocalypse World

For Apocalypse World, I wrote up a very specific setting, and designed the characters using the Mad Max series and the Silo series as primary inspirations. The post-apocalyptic settlement was an underground bunker with levels sectioned off for various jobs. I chose a series of playbooks that resonated with the setting I had in mind, and pre-selected gear, followers, stats and abilities. I also wrote up three threats, with loose ties to at least two playbooks each, with the expectation that I could pick up whichever threat made sense for the playbooks my players decided to engage with.

In short, I did exactly the opposite of what the Bakers recommend in the game: I planned nearly the entire thing beforehand.

That being said, I think the session was a really strong one. The players were quite happy to pick up the characters and play into the conceits I’d designed into them, for the most part, although one person did a bit of toggling with their gear to more suit the character they wanted to play. It took a little bit for folks to warm up to the confrontation mechanics, but when they realized how much the game encouraged turning on each-other, we were off to the races.

We ended the game with scenes that pointed to a snapshot of a larger story, which felt fitting despite the fact that I typically see PbtA systems as games that really reward you if you stick with them for a multi-session campaign. However, I went into the session expecting to play a one-shot, and we got a really fruitful experience out of it.

The Takeaway.

While I can still see the merits of creating your own character, and I certainly won’t stop running games using that format, I think that I’ve developed a newfound appreciation for pre-generated characters, whether they are built into the game, or they’re made to make the game easier to learn.

Pre-gens also solve a lot of problems that can be common in new tables: your characters already have a reason for working together, you can learn how to play the game using a template that’s built to work well, you have more time actually spent playing together, and you can engage with a story that your character is designed to be relevant to.

Pre-gens also give the GM a chance to build their own desires and boundaries into the story from base one: in Lily’s Angels, a pre-gen setting for Protect the Child, I was able to bake in the themes about transphobia, religious violence and state violence into both the setting and the characters. The people who sat down at that table sat down because of those themes, not in spite of them. In all of my one-shot games, regardless of how much of the character was written beforehand, the nature of the game meant that the players still had agency over who their characters were and what they did. The background was a jumping off point - it gave everyone a base to work from, and as time went on, they found their own reasons for engaging with the story as it was presented.

Additionally, in all of the games where the characters had strong backstories and well-defined personalities written into them, the players found reasons to really care about what was put there on purpose. A player who picks up Cyrus Vance in Lady Blackbird might pick them up precisely because they’re in love with Natasha, and a player who picks up Sal in Yazeba’s B&B probably wants to engage with the artist’s struggle to find his signature style.

If you go the extra mile, I think you can use this set-up regardless of the game. In Apocalypse World, the work is a little more than normal, but I don’t think it’s terribly much. In Rotted Capes, World of Darkness, or Call of Cthulhu, I think that it’s a substantially bigger ask, but traditional games are also very likely to have pre-gens as part of the book, built for starting adventures - it’s just a question of whether that starting adventure is actually right for the kind of game you want out of that rule-set.

When it comes to my own game, Protect the Child - I made the pre-generated settings primarily to make play-testing easier, but I think I’ve stumbled on a little goldmine by accident. Using setting packs for a new table takes away a significant amount of set-up for the GM, and gives new players concrete characters that communicate the goals of the game without having to struggle through a series of character choices first.

Oh, and I also wrote a setting for the Pre-Gens game jam: Protect the Child: Digital Glitch. It’s a game designed to talk about disability, corporate subscription models, and questions of ownership, and I think it’s pretty rad.