#thank you very much for the question!!!

[ponycycle]

What's your biggest hyperfocus and how did you discover it?

I had to think on this for a minute because I wasn't sure if it was true anymore. If it wasn't this then it would be something like MLP or motorcycles (it was tempting to say motorcycles!).

I think it's fair to still say personal computers, though. I'm not sure about when my first contact with them was, but I know a major development was when my dad bought our first PC, an IBM AT clone. (I think I still have most of the parts for it!) I would have been like, 7-9 years old at the time and I was fascinated with it. I ended up breaking it as a kid, because I was trying to figure out what all the DOS 4.0 commands did by running them... when I got to FDISK I rendered it unbootable by pressing buttons. A friend of my father's recovered the situation (I think he used Norton Utilities to recreate the partition table).

I can name pretty much every PC that we had as a family or I had personally:

-Aforementioned IBM AT clone (8088 with a Tatung Hercules monitor, DOS 4.0) -386SX that came from who knows where (Went straight from orange Hercules to VGA colour!!! Windows 3.1) -Tandy 1000HX (long term loan from a friend) -Cyrix 586 (dogshit computer - had fake onboard cache, a common scam at the time, crashed constantly. Windows 95) -468DX4 (think I built this from scrounged parts. Win95, slower than the other PC but way more stable) -Pentium II 233 (also built from scrounged parts. First PC I overclocked, gaining 33 mHz! So fast!!! Windows 2000... but later got repurposed as a Linux-based router) -AMD Duron 800 (built with NEW parts - parents gave me a budget to built a family computer. Windows ... 98? XP? Probably changed multiple times) -AMD Athlon XP 1600 (built with NEW parts - I truly don't remember where I got the money in highschool to put it together, but it was probably every penny I had) -AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ (admittedly I didn't remember this offhand... but I did have the physical CPU lying around to check. bought off the shelf very cheap as old stock for my parents to use. Windows Vista. Later upgraded to an Phenom X4, also for very cheap. This PC still lives running Windows 10 today!) -Intel Core 2 Duo Q6700 (built in a cute Shuttle XPC chassis. Eventually burned out a RAM slot because apparently it wasn't rated for 2.0V DIMMs. Windows 7) -Intel Core i5-2500K (I used this computer for YEARS. Like almost a decade, while being overclocked to 4.4 gHz from nearly the first day I had it. Windows 7/10) -AMD 5800X (Currently daily driver. Windows 10)

Not mentioning laptops because the list is already long and you get the point.

I actually did attempt to have a computer related career - in the mid 2000s I went to a community college to get a programming diploma, but I dropped out halfway. There was a moment, in a class teaching the Windows GDI API, where I realized that I had no desire to do that professionally. I did learn things about SQL and OS/400 that randomly came in handy a few times in my life. I did go back and successfully get a diploma in networking/tech support but I've never worked a day in that field.

Unprofessionally though, I was "that guy" for most of my life - friend of a friend or family would have a problem with their PC, and I would show up and help them out. I never got to the point where I would attempt to like, re-cap somebody's motherboard, but I could identify blown caps (and there was a time when there was a lot of those). As the role of PCs has changed, and the hardware has gotten better, I barely ever get to do this kind of thing these days. My parent's PC gathers dust in the corner because they can do pretty much do everything they need on their tablets, which they greatly prefer.

Today though... I used to spend a lot of time reading about developments in PC hardware, architectural improvements, but it doesn't matter as much to me anymore. I couldn't tell you what the current generation of Intel desktop CPUs use for a socket without looking it up. A lot of my interest used to be gaming related, and to this day the GPU industry hasn't fully recovered from the crypto boom. Nearly all of the games I'm interested in play well on console so I just play them there. I still fiddle with what I have now and then.

It is fun to think back on various challenges/experiences with it I've had over the years (figuring out IRQ/DMA management when that was still manual, Matsushita CD-ROM interfaces, trying to exorcise the polymorphic Natas virus from my shit). Who knows, maybe I'll get to curate a PC museum of all this shit someday haha.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Thank you all for an incredible 500 days of love and support. I offer you: answers to questions that no one has asked.

(As always, more can be found in the tags <3)

[gdn019283]

Merlin and Arthur were always bickering, and every compliment and praise they actually gave each other was never direct and explicit, but always masked by some jokes, except for some significant times during the show.

But I want to talk about Merlin’s deep devotion, the way he talked about Arthur to other people, which I believe is very, very different, and has another meaning completely.

Imagine if Arthur hadn’t been unconscious or away when one of these moments happened and saw Merlin showing how blended his life was with his, that he had devoted it entirely to him (and probably still is, even after all those years later to Arthur’s death):

“I will make Arthur king.”

“Arthur is a better and more worthy king than you ever were.” (and this one was directed to Uther, of all people, someone who had always believed both in life and death that Arthur didn’t have any worth, and therefore considered his son’s life meaningless).

“Everything I do is for him and he just thinks I’m an idiot.”

“You have faith in Arthur?” “I trust him with my life.”

"He can't die! It is my destiny to protect him. We haven't done all the things we're meant to do!"

“I willingly give my life for Arthur’s.”

“Will you give yourself to the spirits to save your prince?” “It is my destiny.”

And most of the times where Merlin risked his life for Arthur, he didn’t even know.

That’s why the ending leaves a bitter taste in your mouth.

“I know now.”

No, Arthur, you don’t, and Merlin had just started telling you, had just admitted that you were his destiny, the mere purpose and sole reason as to why he was still living, and you didn’t know the half of it.

Merlin could have finally show how devoted to Arthur he had always been.

But his so called destiny snatched that chance away from him.

[naffeclipse]

Talk about your monster husband ocs coward (affectionate❤️)

Everyone, the tumblr user themeeplord is bullying me (affectionate <3)!!

You have no idea how normal I am about my monster OCs. They're so lovely just let me—ahhh!

Hawthorn is a Mothman monster. His wings are based on the garden tiger moth and he is so fluffy! He has a thick fuzz on his neck and chest and is a warm, cuddlebug. He also possesses bright orange eyes that pierce the darkness and startle the unfortunate late-night hikers or anyone piercing into the woods after midnight.

He has a thing for hanging out in the thick woods near where the MC lives. Wherever he goes, bad omens follow. He really shouldn't be near MC—he knows he'll be the death of his precious little human, but he can't help it. He's drawn to the MC like a moth to a flame (heheh). He's delightful and gentlemanly, but don't let that fool you. He's got a possessive stretch a mile wide and does not take kindly to anyone giving the MC looks or reaching out for a too-familiar touch. He will bristle and buzz, and fly swift and silent through the darkness to chase after anyone to ensure the MC stays all to himself. He is a bad omen, after all.

Grease is an oil demon! He feeds off of fear, literally, and delights in terrifying people in the night. His body is slick and iridescent, and he is constantly dripping black goo from his person. He is capable of shifting his form to hide in a puddle, slink underneath doors, or bubble through a crack in a broken window. He's got wicked sharp teeth, and eyes like a tiger but with a pale, unsettling blue color. He possesses tendrils on his head that constantly drip and a long, slick tail that he can use to grab MC by the ankle. He's terribly seductive and charming, terrifying but mischievous. He likes to say 'boo' just to watch MC jump. Of course, he's not all tang and salt. He's got a sweet side that rouses in a protectiveness over MC. He's possessive, sure, and he's marked his claim with the oil stains on MC's work apron, but he's got an ooey-gooey center of sweetness that MC occasionally finds when he blushes at a stray touch or a nice comment about him.

Calmo 91, otherwise just called Calmo, is a robot. Constructed in the 90s with a box TV screen head to match, he has bright yellow optics in the screen face along with thick wires falling behind his head in a ponytail-like fashion. He is cool and difficult to read but wickedly intelligent and learning much about humans and affections. His body is a thin endoskeleton with plastic matt gray coverings that give peeks of blue, red, and yellow wires at his metallic joints. He's got a mysterious past the MC is attempting to unravel that he truly wishes the MC would leave be. He's got much to learn about technology but he quickly figures out how to connect to the MC's phone for texting, phone calls, and other useful things of course, like keeping tags on where MC is and monitoring MC's heart rate. Useful tools. Modern technology. Living in the MC's house, he gets to spend more domestic time with the human he decided is kind and generous, but the MC occasionally finds him at the foot of the bed in the darkness, his yellow optics strangely switched to red until the MC says his name and his optics revert back to yellow again.

[worshipjim]

[fantastic-nonsense]

I love your thoughtful SoC meta! I would love to know your thoughts on Kaz and Jesper’s relationship. Specifically, I adore Kaz but one thing in particular that always seemed so dark to me was that he enabled Jesper’s gambling addiction even though he obviously does care about him. Kaz is obviously willing to do a lot of fucked up things in service of his goals, but this one in particular, toward his own brother figure, I find sad. It’s kind of addressed during their fight at the end of CK but still feels a little unfinished.

I love Kaz and Jesper's relationship. There's sooooo much to dig into there (way too much for a single meta); it's super juicy and complicated, and one of the best complexities of it is that they often enable and feed off of each other's trauma. The pre-canon status quo is a situation where Kaz and Jesper are, in many ways, using and abusing each other as a way of avoiding dealing with their own trauma. It's a fascinating push-and-pull dynamic because neither of them are pushovers and yet neither one is particularly interested in facing their Issues™ head-on, and they both seemingly recognize that in each other and give each other an uncharacteristic amount of grace in helping the other avoid dealing with it.

In Kaz's case, that most often looks like enabling Jesper's gambling addiction and then repeatedly bailing him out of trouble under the justification of "he's loyal and competent, it would be wasteful to let the other gangs kill him." In Jesper's case, this looks like ignoring Kaz's countless and extremely obvious issues in favor of playing the loyal second. Basically, it's not just Kaz enabling Jesper's gambling addiction; it's also Jesper enabling Kaz's unhinged ruthlessness with little pushback other than a few snarky comments.

They also project a lot of their own issues onto each other! Kaz pushes Jesper away in part because he's projecting the grief and blame he feels over Jordie's death onto Jesper, but Jesper is using Kaz's ruthless pragmatism to escape the crippling disappointment of returning home to face his father's judgement for being a college drop-out, gambling addict, and gang member. And Kaz withholds praise and verbal declarations of trust from Jesper because he hates acknowledging that he cares about people, but Jesper uses Kaz's emotional detachment as a crutch to avoid dealing with his own commitment issues by pining after a boy he knows will never reciprocate his advances. This status quo is, of course, insanely unhealthy for both boys long-term, but where would we be if any of the Crows actually dealt with their issues in a healthy way?

That dynamic, imo, is also only possible because Kaz and Jesper have known each other for longer than anyone else in the main crew; Kaz may have let Inej in further, but he let Jesper in first. As far as we know, Jesper is the first person Kaz genuinely lets past his mile-high walls since Jordie died...but he very deliberately holds him at arms' length in a way that he does not with Inej (something that Jesper notices and is jealous about!). Being "the first" in this case unfortunately comes with a lot of baggage, and Kaz and Jesper would both lowkey rather die than talk about how much they care what the other thinks of them.

Kaz clearly didn't recruit Jesper looking for a friend or someone who reminded him of his dead older brother; he recruited him because he saw someone with a useful skillset who he preferred to be at his side rather than in a rival gang or dead in the canals. It's to Jesper's credit that he managed to break through those walls anyway, but there's only so much he can do in the face of Kaz's armor. And like Inej, Kaz's closed-off personality and actions hurt Jesper repeatedly. But he stays anyway, because he (like Inej) sees the boy underneath the mask that Kaz wears and cares a little too much to let him go:

“He wouldn’t—” Jesper stopped short, and then he laughed. “Of course he would.” Jesper flexed his knuckles, concentrated on the lines of his palms. “Kaz is…I don’t know, he’s like nobody else I’ve ever known. He surprises me.” “Yes. Like a hive of bees in your dresser drawer.” Jesper barked a laugh. “Just like that.” “So what are we doing here?” Jesper turned back to the sea, feeling his cheeks heat. “Hoping for honey, I guess. And praying not to get stung.” Inej bumped her shoulder against his. “Then at least we’re both the same kind of stupid.” “I don’t know what your excuse is, Wraith. I’m the one who can never walk away from a bad hand.” She looped her arm in his. “That makes you a rotten gambler, Jesper. But an excellent friend.” “You’re too good for him, you know.” “I know. So are you." -Ch. 17, Six of Crows

Kaz is unused to verbalizing the trust he places in others and actively in denial about how much he cares about them until Crooked Kingdom; he spends his time deliberately being cruel and pushing people away even as he proves over and over again that he doesn't actually want them to leave him. This casual assholery hits those closest to him (Inej and Jesper) the hardest because they are clearly trusted with his life but not with his heart, and that hurts them both.

For Inej, resolving that behavior looks like giving him an ultimatum ("I will have you without armor or I will not have you at all") and telling herself to walk away unless he meets her challenge. For Jesper? That looks like duking it out on top of the Geldrenner when they're both at rock bottom, because of course that's the only way either one of those boys is ever going to verbalize the tension that underlies their relationship. There's just a lot of baggage and mutual toxicity and unsaid words that neither of them are very interested in dealing with until everything comes to a head during the Clocktower fight.

I think we also forget that the Kaz-Jesper dynamic we see in the majority of the duology is not their normal dynamic: it's how they interact when Kaz is mad at Jesper. And a mad Kaz is, within the scope of canon, a pretty cruel Kaz, which is something that I think a good portion of the fandom likes to handwave away in favor of pointing towards Kaz's active attempts to be better in the back half of the duology.

Ultimately we only see the "normal" Kaz-Jesper dynamic for the first 12 or so chapters of Six of Crows (when the Dock Fight/Eyeball Incident happens) and the last few chapters of Crooked Kingdom. Those chapters are a really interesting look into what that relationship looks like when they're on good terms. It's clear that they're good friends, trust each other a hell of a lot, and joke around with each other quite a bit (the "saves ammo" joke in the parley chapter, their interactions during the Hellgate breakout, the "man with a knife!" "man with a gun!" exchange immediately after Kaz throws Oomen overboard, etc), but we also see the stress points: Jesper getting mad at Kaz for not telling him about Big Bolliger's betrayal, Kaz sending Wylan with Jesper during the prep chapters to keep an eye on him, and Jesper's bee and honey conversation with Inej on the Ferolind, for example.

These stress points are what fracture and crack in the aftermath of Jesper accidentally alerting the other gangs that they were headed out on the Ice Court Job and nearly causing Inej's death, and further buckle under the stress and pressure that Kaz and Jesper deal with during the following month and a half: the Ice Court job, Van Eck kidnapping Inej on Vellgeluk, Colm showing up in Ketterdam, and the Sugar Silo/Auction scheme.

In this way, I think Kaz enabling Jesper's gambling addiction is less about Kaz being actively cruel towards someone he sees the ghost of his brother in and punishing Jesper for the sins he percieves Jordie to have made (which is also true, and a meta for a different time!) and more about the weird balance of toxic mutual leniency Kaz and Jesper have allowed the other to provide for them for over two years...and how that leniency breaks down once it's not just Kaz's life or time on the line when Jesper fucks up.

Put more succinctly: for a long time, Kaz and Jesper existed in a toxic balance of enabling each others' worst impulses and behaviors, which was only able to be verbally addressed when they were both at rock bottom, desperate, and seemingly had very little left to lose. This conflict is somewhat addressed and resolved in the conversation where Kaz refuses to give Jesper the last of the parem and offers up a tiny bit of information about Jordie—showcasing his own growth and how he's finally trying to break the cycle by refusing to enable Jesper's self-destructive tendencies—but that level of tension is unable to be properly resolved in one single blowout argument. And I think it's deliberately left a bit unfinished because neither of them are really in a place where they're ready to address everything they've left unsaid for so long, even in the epilogue chapters.

However, we do see the beginnings of that reconcilitaion (Kaz asking Inej to tell Jesper that he's "missed around the Slat") and the story ends on a hopeful note regarding Kaz's commitment to removing his armor, which implies a lot about the resolution of that dangling thread. And of course, we know that by Rule of Wolves they're back to being thick as thieves and fucking around as usual, so clearly they hashed it out at some point in the in-between (and personally? I don't think it took either of them very long after the CK epilogue chapters to do that hashing out).

tl;dr: I love it when two traumatized and emotionally constipated teenage boys use each other to avoid facing their own personal problems and then get into a fistfight to avoid talking about how much they care about each other. Top-tier dynamic. Chef's kiss. I could talk about them for hours.

[sskk-manifesto]

Bungou Stray Dogs: Dead Apple and how “ability users” (opposite to “normal people”) learning to accept themselves through the acceptance of their own abilities is a queer metaphor of acceptance of own's sexual orientation and gender: an essay by me

[vynnyal]

Turns out Sunlit Trail isn't quite done just yet, so after all that they just send you to a dead end 😂

[ithinkitwasvodka]

MIN HO? MORE LIKE MEAN HOE

[ruvviks]

The Dobrynin family is a corpo family through and through, rooted in Arasaka and Orbital Air going back by several generations; though their powerful position within the corporate world ends with the children of Nadya and Matvey Dobrynin. With Vitali and Daniil fired from Arasaka and Kang Tao respectively— the former indirectly getting his parents fired, too— and Roksana having refused to set foot within a megacorporation from the start, the family begins crumbling apart at the very seams when clashing interests lead to grudges, betrayal, and pointless acts of revenge. ↳ read the unrevised fic here if you're interested!

taglist (opt in/out)

@shellibisshe, @florbelles, @ncytiri, @roseeway, @stars-of-the-heart;

@lestatlioncunt, @katsigian, @radioactiveshitstorm, @estevnys, @adelaidedrubman;

@celticwoman, @rindemption, @carlosoliveiraa, @noirapocalypto, @dickytwister;

@killerspinal, @euryalex, @ri-a-rose, @velocitic, @thedeadthree;

@kanos, @swordcoasts, @ordinarymaine, @claudiawolf, @strafethesesinners

[theokusgallery]

nick is so bad tell him i want him (i have short black hair so im basically sunny)

Nick says thanks! :D

[garlic-and-vanilla]

This ask is in your inbox because my brain has apparently chosen to title you as The Illithid Understander and I feel like you might have interesting thoughts to contribute to this topic (please don’t feel obligated to respond tho!)

When I played through bg3 for the first time, what really stood out to me about the Emperor as a character was that he is full of ambiguity. Many of the questions about him, on both a personal level and on a broader level as an illithid, simply do not have concrete answers in canon. I thought that it was so neat how the writers enshrined a vessel for open dialogue regarding some of the biggest themes and questions of the game/story in a character. I thought the whole point of the Emperor’s character is that there’s no One Right Answer about: its intentions, its morality, how much it still is or isn’t Balduran, how much it is or isn’t a monster, why it cares so much about the PC, if it made the right choices, etc.

Which is why I was utterly shocked to find out that SO many people played the game and just… unquestioningly seemed to think that many of those aspects had concrete answers. That this character that, to me, was defined by ambiguity, had been determined by so many to simply be Evil.

I have my own theories about each of the questions/ambiguities listed above, of course, based on my interpretation of canon. But I see them as just that, theories and interpretation. Maybe my perception of the Emperor as a bunch of unanswered questions is just an interpretation, too, but then what was the writers’ intent? (Did my success in high school English classes make me overly confident in narrative comprehension? Lol)

I’ve read many an interesting take on the Emperor on tumblr and ao3 that seem to vibe generally with the whole It’s Supposed to Be Ambiguous thing, and I’d love to hear your take.

First of all this is so funny and I am so honored to be The Illithid Understander lmao.

Second I am very sorry I haven’t answered this sooner. Alas I am not used to ever receiving asks and just now realized I even have one. And what a wonderful message!!!

Honestly I think you fuckin nailed it my man. In a game that spends so much time and energy asking the player to think about questions like “what does it take to be a monster,” “what aspects cause a person to become monstrous,” and “when does it become worth it to become a monster” the Emperor is the ultimate answer. The non-answer. His character embodies all the questions the game wants to ask, and then doesn’t answer any of them for you.

The game shows you characters and says “this is a monster.” Ketheric Thorm is a monster, and Orin and Gortash, despite how sympathetic their backstories and motivations might be. It shows you cycles of abuse, manipulation, cult mentality, and indoctrination. The power of grief, love, fear, and ambition to lead people down monstrous paths even as they think they’re doing the right thing, or the only thing.

You as the player character directly help your companions navigate these themes. You see how they’re affected, how they struggle, what they might become if they choose to give in, and what they become if they don’t.

Do they become monsters? Do you let them? Do you encourage them?

The game shows you clearly what monsters are, and waits to see if you’ll become one yourself.

Withers asks you, “Do illithids have souls?”

He claims they don’t, initially, but that story is contradicted the moment he meets the Emperor in the High Hall, and when you meet him after undergoing ceremorphosis yourself. There’s also lore out there that says illithids do have souls— non-apostolic ones.

So far as the game is concerned, I’m not sure there’s supposed to be a solid answer to that question. I think— like you do— that it’s supposed to be ambiguous. He is not a character the game points to and says “here is a monster.”

I agree with you wholeheartedly that the Emperor is made of ambiguity. The lack of answers are my favorite thing about him. He’s a mass of unanswered questions that you look at and see the themes of the story inside.

Is the Emperor a monster just for being a mind flayer?

Is he a monster because he came to embrace the power his illithid nature brought him?

Because a friend turned on him, claimed he was lost, and he killed them in self-defense?

Because he dominated Stelmane, a situation we have no context for?

How much of his behavior is genuine? How much of Balduran remains, and how much is illithid? Does he even know himself? Does it matter?

He’s a big mystery. We simply do not know everything about his past. We don’t know how much of his behavior is real, or an act. We have to make the deliberate decision to take him at his word, or not. To trust him, or not. To love him, or not. All of this complicated by the reality that his mind and experience are alien to us (a whole other post by itself).

Ultimately, there are no answers except what we come to decide about him for ourselves.

Some people have decided that he’s evil, for various reasons, and sure, that’s certainly a way to answer the question. To end the ambiguity by deciding the Emperor is, after all, a simple monster.

But isn’t it so, so much more interesting if he isn’t?

[swinging-stars-from-satellites]

this whole fear of repressed memories regarding sexual abuse has been following me around for years, probably since I became aware of memory loss/repressed trauma in the first place, but idk why it's been so intense this summer and it's really really frustrating how every time I think I've worked through it and gotten over it, I see a picture or someone says something and I'm all "I'M SCARED THAT THIS FAMILY MEMBER RAPED ME AS A KID AND I JUST CAN'T REMEMBER IT" and like. it's so frustrating because it's literally a symptom of OCD or whatever that I can't stop going over and over and over this, and it's driving me nuts that I can't seem to trust my own mind

[baby-xemnas]

dead strawhat! booo dead strawhat!! 😂

he is so damn MEAN. she already wasnt hiding that she cares about luffy A LOT you didnt have to test her 😭😭

[relaxxattack]

Do you perchance have some music recommendations for the different quadrants? Working on playlists for my fantrolls ships but I'm so bad are finding songs with the right lyrics...

yes! i actually have a whole playlist for both moirallegiance and kismesissitude, and a work-in-progress for auspisticism.

(while it's always really hard to find songs that fit these extremely specific alien emotions, auspisticism is the most hard to find for me, which is why that one is unfinished and mid😭)

my favorites on each are probably “Anchor”, “MakeDamnSure”, and “In The Middle”.

[lovvecherrymotion]

thoughts on Nace's antibiotic tit milk please

i feel like drinking it would fix all my problems