#the way this time they have been going extra powerful with their propaganda

[ember-knights]

We are talking about millions of people being exterminated... No food no water no electricity. Total blockade. Any aid gets bombed. Gaza has been bombed nonstop. Thousands murdered. Children murdered. No one can get in or out. Death Camp. Extermination. Wiping Gaza off the map.

Basically... a Holocaust.

Ironically, a bloody holocaust.

And Hamas are the terrorists??? REALLY????

[cubitodragon-moved]

Yesterday Mike added more fuel to my “Tubbo is bugged” theory and it’s making me extra worried about what’s going to happen this week LOL.

This post is rambly and long, so I’m sticking things behind a cut!

Mike’s memories of the last 3+ weeks are scrambled and foggy; an interrupted El Quackity treatment? Unclear. But between saying he doesn’t remember anything and then spouting off pro-Federation propaganda (something his anarchist ass would never willingly do!) and fiercely trying to pin blame to Fit as a traitor, a comment by him during one of the questioning sessions stood out to me.

When Fit asked who told him his janitor duties were fake/a front, that he couldn’t be trusted, he said Cucurucho.

We and FitMC know that the Feds are sus of Fit, but they’ve had no actual concrete evidence that he’s been misusing his position to obtain information. And yet now Cucurucho, supposedly, is informing Mike of this so called betrayal?

If we think back to the prison cleanup in August, there was a room that had a chess board map on the wall. Only two pieces were present: a queen and a pawn. And the pawn was positioned on a clear way to indicate it’s meant to represent Fit. A warning - possibly to Fit from the ghost entity in the Prison (or someone in a neighbouring pocket dimension, if recent ruminations and theories on the server have any legs) that aided Pac and Mike, OR the Federation itself, reminding him of who has the power and who is always watching.

But they have yet to take any action. And always praised his work when completed.

Enter: Tubbo. Who arrived on the Island as part of a group rescued from a mysterious location. One with lots of strange blocks, code-eggs, frozen floors and who himself was frozen away. Shortly after, Mike and Pac ventured back to that location to explore, and when he entered the tower, the floor vanished and Mike fell. Fell down into a pool of water at the bottom of a trap lined in black concrete, and then frozen.

During Mike’s absence, Tubbo has gotten to know the “morning crew”, has gotten up in everyone’s business. I’ve outlined some highlights in another post. But more recently, every time he talks to Fit about his cleaning job, he’s picked at it again and again. Freaks out over the badge and keycard - especially over the keycard. (This feels important, for more than just Tubbo’s excuses of it being bugged, but I can’t put my finger on why, yet.). Tubbo whines when Fit won’t give him direct insight, or tell him detailed specifics on what he’s found on the job. Fit has made it clear he will not jeopardise his position to satisfy Tubbo’s need to meta-game win over the system to know everything, resulting in accusations, and Tubbo commenting privately to his own chat that this makes Fit untrustworthy in his eyes. Tubbo has been careless with some of his questions. They’ve been asked topside, sideways comments uttered with side eye. He wants to KNOW what Fit is after.

And Fit did spill to Tubbo that he’s not just there for the obvious. Yes, He IS looking for something. Yeah, he IS trying to find things out about the Codes, the Eggs, and the Federation - he wants his beautiful baby boy (made in Heaven by God Himself) back home safe and sound.

But this has not been successful, never mind the long absence of any work in the last few weeks..and we the viewers know that things he has found have been incomplete, or need more time to cook before he goes to others with evidence. Fit is meticulous, his life on 2B2T trained this into him in order to survive. You don’t last 10 years in an anarchy wasteland without being prepared. Better and safer to leave things unsaid than having to walk them back later. And there’s no point in sharing what isn’t relevant to the matter at hand.

And now Mike - who Fit calls friend, who he bonded with, who he swore to help locate Walter Bob with - said Cucurucho told him that Fit was a traitor, and wasn’t looking for what he said he was, even point blank accused him of lying yesterday about what he’s looking for. And when pressed about what he’d found so far when on janitor duty, Fit had to admit that no, he hadn’t found anything related to the Eggs or the Code.

Mike seemed to take that as proof of his lying about what he’s doing. That what he was told was right. But admitting to a lack of success doesn’t make one a liar. And Fit telling him he found nothing is also a smart play - lose lips sink ships, and better to be thought incompetent. Especially if the Federation are now trying to flush you - and perhaps your ties to your employer, outside the island - out into the open.

The Federation did not know about Ramón’s furnaces until Tubbo did. And they didn’t know Fit was in it for more than the obvious until he spoke with Tubbo. They can’t get Tubbo to take on Fit, but they can use a different pawn they have on the board instead.

I may well be completely off base. And I’ll be delighted if I am. It’s been so much fun to theorise about the lore on QSMP! But mark my words, we need to pay much more attention over the next 48 hours. And who knows what everyone will come back to in a week’s time?

[asthe-crow-flies]

ok i’ve been thinking, and i think either tim didn’t blow up the whole moon, or he didn’t know that’s what would happen

i mean, think about it, the lunar cannon being aimed directly at london is framed as being important, and besides the lunar soldiers, only people from britain are fighting in the war. this implies that it was expected to only blow up london, at most britain.

if the lunar cannon had enough power to blow up the whole moon, it would have blown up a lot more than that. now, physics is not my strong suit, but i think it’s pretty safe to say even though the whole planet wouldn’t have been blown up, everyone on the planet would have died.

but if it only had enough power to blow up a city, maybe a country, it shouldn’t have blown up the whole moon.

now, the options from here are:

1) the moon didn’t get blown up all the way, just got a new crater, and that was poetic license. this is pretty good all around! means that probably the earth was not destroyed by debris, and the loss of life was only pretty bad, rather than an extinction event. this is a pretty reasonable option, since the mechs lie for the sake of the narrative all the time

2) it only being supposed to blow up london was conjecture by the earth governments, or propaganda by the moon kaiser (to get fewer people to fight), and it did blow up the whole moon. this is pretty bad all around. everyone on the moon, and most likely everyone on earth dies. if it was propaganda, it backfired pretty bad (wait, ha, get it? backfired?). this is is a plausible, if less likely option, since one would hope people would check what precisely the cannon was supposed to do before going (or deciding not to go) to war.

3) the lunar cannon WAS NOT SUPPOSED TO DO THAT and tim messed it up when he did whatever he did to it to make it fire without the codes. this could be either on accident, or on purpose without thinking about the consequences. this is bad for absolutely everyone, because, again, most likely everyone dies. and it’s especially bad for tim because it’s entirely his fault, and if it was an accident, he was not expecting that to happen. if it was on purpose, he would know he could have won without killing everyone and destroying everything he’d ever known. either way, he would not be having a good time! this is a pretty reasonable option, as making the cannon do something it very much was not supposed to do seems well within tim’s abilities, though i would have to wonder where the extra power came from.

basically, tim almost certainly wasn’t expecting the whole moon to blow up when he did that, and there’s a decent chance it didn’t and jonny just thought it would sound better if they said it did

[echooefrost]

TGGTVAV x TGS AU!

Ok so Sage has always been talking about The Gentleman’s guide to Vice and Virtue and I finally got around to reading it and to say the least… I LOVED IT, every part of it! Whilst reading this fantastical tale, I just COULD NOT stop thinking of the Jekyon parallels to Monty and Percy… Just AGRGHHH they are all such big, lovable, queer Victorian idiots! Anyway If you couldn’t tell by the title of this post, I slam-dunked that book into my favorites pile and hastily made another AU. (also,,, SPOILERS! I am warning you. But what are you doing? Go read this book already!) 

In short I’ve basically taken The Characters from TGS and dumped them into the storyline/plot of TGGTVAV, In saying that neither Jekyll or Lanyon are strictly Percy or Monty, if that makes sense? I contemplated this over and over and I just couldn’t cram Jekyll or Lanyon’s characters into Monty or Percy’s. as an example; Lanyon’s personality is a lot more similar to Monty’s than Percy but Lanyon isn’t bisexual (a big aspect of Monty’s character) Yet at the same time both Lanyon and Percy play the Violin, both have dreamy freckles etc. But he just doesn’t fit into either of them, same goes with Jekyll; Jekyll and Monty both share similarities but are both very different, yet not different enough to take the role of Percy. So with all of that confusing explanation, Jekyll and Lanyon remain themselves with a few extra ~touches~: 

Jekyll is going to be sent to the mental asylum in Holland due to the existence of Hyde. Lanyon finds out about Hyde when he involuntarily transforms in Marseilles. 

Lanyon still plays the Violin and brings it on the Tour with him (for the reasons of plot accuracy and me pushing the Violin-Lanyon propaganda) 

Lanyon takes Monty’s position of power (as in his father is an Earl, and sends them on Tour) although Lanyon is rich, racism still very much exists and isn’t a terminated theme.

Before I continue and as a side note: Felicity Does not exist. As much as I wanted to work her into this, I just couldn’t without complicating a bunch of things, and as I said this is an Au, my au and I can do what I want - I do love Felicity but She just wasn’t going to work here.

Frankenstein (still a woman) takes the role of Mateu Robles because I thought it would be fun to play on the idea that Frankenstien created life and that Mateu’s panacea can heal people. After researching and experimenting, Frankestein tried the potion on Elizabeth but it stopped her heart, similar to how Frankenstein's original creation (the creature) ended up killing her love. I thought it would be interesting, that because Frankenstein kind of killed her wife, she created Helena and Dante the same way she made the creature, although they technically aren’t human, Helena and Dante still look and act like humans, and they believe Elizabeth equally as their mother as they do with Frankenstein. (Don’t ask me how a WLW relationship would work in the 1800’s ,,, everyone just thinks that Frankie is a guy {kind of like in TGS} ) 

Queen Lucy is Scipio because a.) We need more female badasses and b.) take ONE LOOK at her character design and Tell me she DOESN’T Look like a pirate queen- I also just think Lucy is a super fun character that I wanted to incorporate here. 

Those are about all the added things/changes - the rest basically just follows the same points of the plot :0 

If I’m completely honest, I probably won’t do much with this I just had an idea and wanted to share it :))

Here’s a little image of them - Also I gave them both slightly longer hair because I looked at fanart of Percy and fell in love. 

[tallerthantale]

What Does Aziraphale Actually Believe, Part 1: What Does it Mean to Believe Something?

To a large portion of the fandom, there has been a struggle to process many of the things Aziraphale has said and done. We look for ways to make sense of how he acts, and get frustrated by how the things he says contradict themselves. For someone with a background in cognitive psychology, the self contradictory nature of Aziraphale is not particularly surprising. 

This is the first of a series of ten posts. Most posts will be going through the events of the story in chorological order. This first post is extra long and entirely psychology foundation, but I would strongly recommend reading through it, and if you can find the time after, I'd really recommend going through the links as well.

We are going for a bit of an adventure through about 3k words on the nature of consciousness, optical illusions, the dress, memory, false memories, unconscious bias, autism, trauma, cognitive dissonance, confirmation bias, conspiracy theorists, propaganda, and deradicalisation.

This is from the perspective of cognitive psychology not clinical, it will not improve your mental health, and it has the potential to induce an existential crisis or several but it is worth it. Knowing how our minds work has a lot of utility beyond understanding Aziraphale, though making sense of him is hopefully a fun motivation.

Because I really am this much of a pedant, I’m going to quickly address the elephant in the room: Aziraphale does not have a human brain. However, since his behaviour lines up with real life human behaviour I’m going to approach this as if his mind essentially runs the way a human brain would run a mind, because that is how the story is written. 

What is Consciousness?

Most of what our minds perceive, judge, interpret, think, remember, feel, ect�� occurs in a mental space we have no perception of, often called the subconscious. Most people will have heard the term before, but I think most people misunderstand the scale of it and the power of it. The ongoing questions about consciousness vs. subconciousness aren’t in the form of ‘is the subconscious really a thing?’ No, the modern question is to what extent is consciousness really a thing?

Consciousness is an experience. What we think of as ourselves, the ‘central executive,’ the entity that we perceive ourselves to be, is a conglomeration of memories, thoughts, judgements, perceptions, and feelings that the rest of our mind produces for us to have at that moment in time. Much of it is approximately real, much of it is wholly fabricated to suit the moment. This is because there are major gaps in how much we can realistically perceive, understand, and remember at any particular point. It would be outrageously burdensome to actually process and load all the information for real, so our minds make up short hands and approximations for expediency, and feed that to us in a manner we experience as if it was directly perceived reality. That's a lot to throw at you, so I'm going to break it down.

Perception is an Assumption

To help get across how blended the construct of our experience is, let's consider the visual field. That is the representation of what we are seeing, or what we experience ourselves as seeing. Only a very small area in the centre of our vision is able to sense detail. The rest is only sensing vague cues of large scale changes. But we don’t perceive it that way, because we remember the detail that was there the last time the centre of our vision passed over that space, and our minds guess what details were probably there if we haven’t looked for a while. When something changes in an area we are constructing from memory and inference, we don't notice. The parts of our visual field that we are seeing in real time, and the parts that our mind constructs based on what it assumes is probably there are in no way distinct within our conscious experience, and that lets us navigate the world much more smoothly. The vast majority of what we visually perceive is constructed from memories and guesses. If those constructions weren’t incorporated into our vision, we would be massively visually impaired. 

Even for things we are seeing with detailed vision, we rely heavily on contextual cues that make assumptions we don’t realise we are making. (If you only follow one link in this post, follow that one, it's a 43 second video.) Consider that objects that are a solid colour are not a solid colour in terms of the wavelengths bouncing off of them, as they get hit by light sources and have highlights and shadows. The distinction between seeing blue because that is the wavelength that hit the retina, and seeing blue because the greyish blend that hit the retina was coming from a sunny patch, and you can infer that the object was blue from the context, is seamless. Unless the context is missing, and that grey might actually be a white object in a shadow. Then it might be all seamlessly white in the visual field, just as if it was white light entering the retina. And that's how millions of people saw a blue and black dress, millions of people saw a white and gold dress, but very few people saw a grey and brown dress. Yes, the actual dress was blue, but my point is that the pixels weren’t. Bluish grey light hit all our retinas, but half of the viewers had a dark blue object appear in their visual field and half had a white one appear. 

It is important to keep in mind that the vast majority of the time these context cues, assumptions, inferences, ect… put together a construct that works really well. The amount of resources required to keep our minds running is enormous and the size of our heads is a serious safety issue for people giving birth, even with all the energy saving assumptions and shortcuts. Given how much of our experience of reality is effectively an educated guess, we really are getting it right most of the time. Our minds are really good at what they do, these processes exist because it is adaptive to have them. Try to remember that, because it is going to be hard to hold on to that perspective as I move on from sensation and perception.

Working Memory

Our conscious experience is constructed for everything. Our thoughts, opinions, memories, that we have ‘with awareness’ is limited to what is, in that moment, loaded into a conceptual mental workspace called working memory, that can typically load about 7 things at a time. We can bring things from the larger library of remembered things into working memory by asking the part of our minds outside of our conscious awareness to give us the thing, and most of the time it will. But recall doesn’t always work. If the parts of our mind outside of awareness don't feed a thing into working memory, we can’t experience it, and they can feed something into our working memory if we want it there or not. The edges of what we think because it represents a coherent well considered world view consistent with our principles and values, and what we think because our minds fed it to us out of expediency or habit are just as seamless as the construct of our visual field. 

Things that do enter into our awareness are often altered by the time they get there by influences that are not reported to our conscious experience. Most of the shifts are within the category of cognitive bias, and are not considered to be pathological, because allistic people have most of them to a substantial degree as a default.

There is a long list of identified types of cognitive bias. Learning about cognitive biases doesn't stop people from having them, because it isn't the conscious mind that has the bias. The information we perceive as the raw facts has already been edited by the bias before it is loaded into our working memory awareness.

We often give ourselves the impression that when our thoughts, opinions, and ideas are moved out of working memory, they are preserved for us in an archived state, and returned to our consciousness later as we left them. There is no basis for that. Memories are incomplete, fade over time, and are reconstructed to appear whole through inference the same as our visual field every time we recall them. Each recall reworks them a bit more, and with the right sort of nudge, they can be substantially altered.

Autistic people are resistant to cognitive bias, but not immune. In the field of psychology that resistance is often referred to as autistic people having a 'failure to engage top-down processing' which makes me roll my eyes into my skull, because that is essentially saying 'a failure to be cognitively biased.' The irony of that is not the whole picture though.

Just like how optical illusions happen due to the fact that the visual field is constructed mostly out of really good guesses because we can't process the full information in real time, cognitive biases exist because of the shortcuts we take that make quick thinking possible. Autistic people think more accurately, but we do it by processing a mountain of information exhaustively, and that doesn't happen in a timely fashion. When I say exhaustively I mean it in every sense of the word, and we can't turn it off for expediency even if we wanted to. There are life situations where that really is disabling, particularly when we are exposed to mass sensory information.

So far we have been talking about non pathological biases, errors, and limitations. Pathology is not required for us to end up with a heavily distorted picture of reality, and when mental illness is involved it is exaggerating the downsides of cognitive mechanisms that are present in everyone generally. These are differences of degree, not of kind. Predictable patterns of biased perception and thinking associated with symptoms of mental illness are referred to as cognitive distortions.

As much as our minds can feed us altered things to believe for expediency, they can withhold others. If it isn’t helpful to have this particular belief right now, or this particular value in this situation, our minds can fail to load it into our awareness at all, particularly if it goes against an active self-schema, (interpretation of the self.) The various ways this can happen are referred to as motivated forgetting by the more clinical style psychologists. For the purposes of understanding Aziraphale, I’m mostly talking about relatively short term motivated forgetting, conveniently not recalling a particular fact at a particular moment. 

More deeply repressed memories that get wholly buried for years can be a thing…. But… The validity of long term motivated forgetting should not be taken as an endorsement of the practices that purport to retrieve those memories. Those practices can make you remember more things, but those things are unlikely to be true. Just as there is no dividing line between what we see in our visual field because light hit our retina and what we see in our visual field because it was there last we checked, there is no neurological difference between a real memory and a false one. That means if you use hypnotherapy to ‘recover’ memories of a trauma that didn’t actually happen A) there is no way to separate the false memories out later B) you have given that person trauma that is just as real as if those things had actually happened. 

If we have features of ourselves that we aren’t at peace with, the mind can refuse to allow knowledge of that into conscious awareness. If what was expedient to believe now isn't expedient any more, the new iteration of the mind doesn’t need to load the memory of the old beliefs existing. If a previous experience conflicts with our current experience, the memory of the previous experience can be altered such that consciousness preserves the perception of continuity.  (Link is a short video, waaatch iitttttt.)

Cognitive Dissonance

Technically 'cognitive dissonance' refers to the discomfort of perceiving yourself to believe contradictory things, or perceiving yourself to be acting in a way that contradicts a belief. Generally people bring up the term to describe the behaviour and thought patterns people engage in to avoid that feeling. To put it simply, people reconcile behaving in a way that is inconsistent with their beliefs by changing their understanding of the world to suit their behaviour more readily than they change their behaviour to align with their beliefs, and people will creatively reinterpret information to prevent their beliefs from contradicting their sense of self. The Wikipedia page has many examples establishing these patterns. I want to emphasise a point here that is often overlooked; these are the entirely typical behaviours of mentally healthy people. Cognitive dissonance and the associated behaviours are not a pathology.

The deeper explanation of why these patterns occur is hard to swallow. ‘What we believe’ isn’t a real thing in the first place, at least not in the way we like to imagine. Just like consciousness, it is a temporary constructed experience. It would more accurately be described as what we are currently telling ourselves we believe. (But what about confirmation bias? Doesn't that mean people are rigid in their beliefs? Oddly, no. Hold that thought, I'll get back to it later.)

The phenomenon of our beliefs changing to accommodate our behaviour is described as ‘belief follows action.’ In the world of psychology, thinking a thought counts as an action. We act, and then afterwards construct an experience of having decided to act, along with the supposed basis. Our conscious experience represents the order the other way around, even in controlled settings where we can measure the actual order electrically. We do what we do, observe what we are going to do, or think a thought about a situation, then form an idea of what we believe in order to make sense of it after, and then construct a memory of ourselves having had the belief first. The actual reasons for our behaviour are not directly observable to us, and are more the realm of behaviourism than cognition.

What we have in our memory is a library of things we hypothetically can recall, can think, can know, that our minds draw from in order to put together a temporary construct of 'what I believe' that best suits explaining our actions to ourselves at that time, with little regard to if that explanation is accurate. That gets loaded into working memory, and we experience it as our worldview. Since cognitive dissonance is a feeling produced by having an experience of contradictory ideas and actions in our conscious awareness, and resolving cognitive dissonance is about eliminating that experience, often the easiest way to resolve cognitive dissonance is to simply not load a belief while a contradictory belief or action is occurring.

Nothing stops us from storing massively self contradictory beliefs in the library. It's fine as long as they aren't both bumping around our working memory space at the same time. Working memory capacity is generally only about seven things, so avoiding loading the contradictions simultaneously is actually pretty easy if none of them contradict our sense of self. When we load an opinion, we don't need to also load the basis for the opinion. So if someone believes in abolishing all taxes because no government organisation can ever be trusted, and also believes we should hero worship the police, because they say they serve and protect, they can load "abolish taxes" and "hero worship the police" simultaneously without having an experience of cognitive dissonance.

Do they really believe no government organisation can ever be trusted? They believe it when they need to rationalise hating taxes to themself, or hating a particular organisation. It's an option that can get retrieved from the library, and when it's in working memory it is everything we imagine a belief to be. When it isn't in working memory, it functionally doesn't exist to the conscious mind.

It's fun to take these shots at conservative politics, and there are reasons conservative politics is full of obvious examples, but I'm going to emphasise; beliefs functionally not existing if they aren't in our awareness is not a pathology. This is the normal behaviour of a typically functioning healthy human mind. Mental illness does not equal when people's minds do things we don't like, no matter how good our reasons are for not liking them.

Confirmation Bias, Conspiracies, and Cults

The fact that the library can contain contradictory things, and our minds can pick and choose in motivated ways what gets represented in consciousness when, doesn't mean the options are limitless. We usually need some degree of justification to put something into the 'things I can believe' library, though when it comes to miscellaneous factual information 'I heard some one say it' is enough of a justification an alarmingly large amount of the time.

Confirmation bias is the tendency to retain beliefs in the face of contradictory information. People often describe it as people being impervious to having their beliefs changed. I think people describe it that way because they aren't on board with belief follows action yet. If you want to change what someone believes, motivate them to change their behaviour first. Belief will follow action. It's not that we haven't studied it, it's that we don't like it.

We want the solution to be that we change people's minds with evidence. It doesn't work, because giving them the evidence, even if they fully absorb it, just gives them options for potential beliefs, and it won't go into their 'what I believe' construct without an incentive, especially if their social context incentivises against it.

Confirmation bias can prevent us from tossing out beliefs prematurely. If we see something that looks like it disobeys physics, we might look for magnets or wires before we decide gravity is fake. That is an adaptive feature, but like most adaptive features, it has limits and it has downsides. The biggest limitation is that it doesn't do a whole lot to stop us from adding new optional beliefs to our collection. The biggest downside is that the power of confirmation bias relates to how much the belief has to do with your sense of self, and nothing to do with how well supported it is by evidence.

When we are talking about intrenched political beliefs, or other ideas that heavily relate to our sense of self and community, things get relatively fixed as to our broad conclusions. However, our broad conclusions are only a small portion of what we believe. When people think about a person prone to extreme confirmation bias, they often imagine it being a matter of rigid inflexible thinking. But it isn't. Coming up with new reasons to discount seemingly contradictory evidence, reinterpreting older evidence, finding new ways to reach the same conclusion based on a new set of facts, ect..., is all very creative and fluid. Conspiracy theorists are known for this. What makes the conclusions different to the supporting evidence it that our conclusions are tied to or actions and our sense of self. For a conspiracy theorist, maintaining the gist of the conclusion preserves their identity and their place in the community. Everything else is changeable.

Remember, belief follows action. If we participate in an opinionated community, we will believe what makes that make sense. If our survival depends on continuing to be involved in a social circle, we will believe what makes that make sense. Deradicalisation (from hate groups) and deprogramming often requires providing people a whole reboot of their life while they are still in the very early stages of working on themselves. No matter what new information you expose them to, even if they absorb it into the library of things they can believe, as long as their life is dependent on the communities that radicalised them (to hate) their minds will be highly incentivised to keep rolling back to forming 'what I believe' constructs that validate those connections. Not because they consciously decide it's better, because the part of their mind outside of their awareness that constructs what they believe doesn't include all the options. Most of the time it only includes the SAFE options. Being willing to help get people out by offering community support BEFORE they have reworked themselves is the only way to make deradicalisation happen at scale.

Propagandist news uses the Firehose of Falsehood because most people are relatively limited in what rationalising beliefs they can spontaneously generate for themselves. A network spewing dozens of self contradictory reasons to keep your political affiliation provides viewers an array of optional opinions to keep in the library. It doesn't matter that they can't be true at the same time, as long as they aren't in working memory at the same time. The more options you have of what 'what I believe' can be, the more tools you have to rationalise staying on the team, and staying in the community.

Individual Differences and Differing Individuals

For most of us, our behaviour is pretty consistent, what we are willing to believe is moderately narrow, and therefore our constructs of ‘what I believe’ can get remade as more or less the same thing over and over. However, if you have a mind that can believe quite a lot of different things, is prone to whimsical behaviour, and / or spent formative years needing to act a certain way to survive, it can learn to produce quite a lot of very different constructs of ‘what I believe’ in order to rationalise a wide range of behaviour. 

While extensive and empirical cognitive psychology underpins how it is conceptually possible for people like that to exist, the actual patterns of rotating belief systems and what causes certain people to have them more than others is a topic that it is hard to look at empirically. There are logistical issues when it comes to measuring beliefs that flip in and out of conscious awareness based on context even with participants who would enthusiastically and honestly participate, and in many cases these patterns show up in people who would never willingly subject themselves to treatment or evaluation, which would make it impossible to have decent data on them even if we had a good way to measure it.

Because of that, much of the discussion of these patterns falls into the realm of psychoanalysis, which is a mixed bag of philosophy that sometimes likes to represent itself as a science, and has a lot of problematic history. Having spent a lot of time around survivors of severe childhood trauma and being one myself, I do think modern psychoanalysis gets some things right. However, I do want to be transparent about the fact when I talk about what causes some people to be particularly susceptible to unstable beliefs, rationalisations, and motivated forgetting, and when I discuss how that plays out, we are leaving the realm of science and entering the realm of ‘this is what some people are like according to the people who have thought about it a lot.’ 

For most people our sense of self identity will contain the generated constructs of what we believe toward a relatively fixed-ish core set of very similar ‘what I believe’ options, though fixed core beliefs cause problems of their own. For people with certain trauma responses, the sense of self can be the source of tremendous instability. If the sense of self is fragile, threatened, terrorised, split, ect… the mind can get pretty cavalier about changing out beliefs, memories, and opinions to protect itself, and even switch out the sense of self. We can end up having wildly different self-schema in different circumstances. This self can't cope with this situation? New self.

The library of 'things I can believe' can contain things that would cause cognitive dissonance if paired with one self-schema, but works fine with this other one. An extreme form of this can present as dissociative identity disorder, however that is very rare and not what I am getting at. Most of the time differing self-schema or self-states aren't that partitioned, and share access to most memories.

With an unstable sense of self, ‘what I believe’ can end up being a tool on a Swiss army knife of possible belief systems that get taken out as needed, all while the conscious experience of the central executive maintains a seamless perception of a coherent and stable worldview. When people are like this, it is far more noticeable from the outside than it is from the inside, and that is by design. Having awareness of how unstable your own beliefs are wouldn’t be expedient, it would be cognitively dissonant, so you don’t know about it. 

This pattern is a big part of what is going on with Aziraphale. There is a very broad set of things he can believe, but it’s down to the individual situation if he believes a specific one at a particular time. He won’t see it as him picking and choosing his beliefs, whatever he believes in that scene looks to him like the only thing he would ever believe, no matter the fact that he will believe something else the next day. There are also certain things outside of his awareness that he knows but won’t perceive, because they are dangerous to his sense of self, but those things can still impact his behaviour. 

Thank you for reading though! The future posts will be a lot more to do with the story, and probably about half the length each.

Post 1/10

End Note: This post is the most likely of the set to be revised in some way. That is because the concepts I’m seeking to get across here are very hard to digest even for people within the field of psychology. Finding ways to more effectively communicate these aspects of how our minds work is a bit of a passion project for me, so if you see areas that are confusing, bits you want more elaboration on, questions that are unaddressed, ect…, please let me know. I am very interested in working out more methods of getting these ideas across. 

If you are interested in reading further into the subject outside of my internet ramblings, Wikipedia pages, and think piece articles, I would recommend getting ahold of a cognitive psychology textbook as a place to start, the internet has ways.

[punks-never-die205]

Honeysuckle: Red

afab!reader x Vampire!Eustass Kid

cw: Vampire AU with blood, violence, gore, some very marginally dubious consent, 18+ only

Summary: Vampires are real, and the World Government has ways of maintaining the balance of power and peace between humans and Vampires. Most of it is simple extortion, but one person's desire for freedom threatens to upend the delicate balance and change the world completely.

Tag List: @keiva1000

Chapter 5: Enthralled

You sit on the small sofa in your room, watching a small fire that you risked starting in the hearth. You’d made sure to pull the curtains and even used a few books to keep them tight against the wall so that the small warmth and light didn’t cause any extra issues.

You didn’t know how long Kid was going to be gone, but worry made the minutes seem even longer. You’d worked so hard to adjust to being awake at night, but you were diurnal by nature, and without any company, or chores, it was hard to stay awake.

You wanted to. You wanted to be up when he came back. Even if he yelled at you or got irritated about it. Something in the back of your mind just… wanted to be there when he got back.

He hadn’t even truly scared you earlier. Five days was enough time to realize that he was intimidating, and terrifying when he wanted to be, but he wasn’t a monster. He wasn’t a voracious, mindless beast, sniffing out his next meal like some wild animal.

He wasn’t like what you’d been raised to believe Vampires were like.

You’d expected that at least some of what you’d learned would be factual, but the more you thought about what you knew versus what he knew, and what you’d experienced, the more you realized it was all propaganda. The only way to know the truth was to learn it for yourself.

The only way to do that was to travel.

Traveling meant not staying in the manor with Kid, but it wasn’t like you had a strict schedule. There wasn’t any harm in staying for a while. Long enough to learn from him. Long enough to build up the strength and stamina to look after yourself.

Did Vampires travel?

You’d been told they made lairs, or nests of a sort, and rarely moved from those. Instead, they relied on thralls to do things for them. Tend to chores, offer up blood to their master, go fetch victims. Evil Vampire stuff.

All the reasons why Honeysuckles were protected and controlled the way they were.

An unexpected sound pulled you from your thoughts and you stilled. Focusing entirely on any other sound you could pick up you held your breath. The front door hadn’t slammed, but it had opened, and closed, you were certain.

It seemed too soon for Kid to have returned, and you weren’t sure what to do. If it was Kid you wanted to be able to see him, but the effects of your blood would last much longer, and if he was out blowing off his energy and anger it would be an hour at least before he even started to cool down. At least, with your blood empowering him, he wouldn’t be feeling exhaustion like usual for a long while.

There was more than one person, you realized, muffled voices you didn’t recognize sounding against the boards of the house. They weren’t harsh and curt, like orders between marines, they were more relaxed and jovial.

You heard someone call out for Kid by name, and then another voice. Big booming voices that would carry easily through the entire manor. You can hear them working through the house, a few of them less-booming, adding to the chorus.

Voices turning from reverie to concern.

Getting up off the small sofa, you walk closer to the door, trying to make out the voices. You can hear them coming up the stairs.

“- he wouldn’t leave without good reason.” One voice says.

“Where the fuck would he go though?” Another asks.

“I mean, it’s Kid, he could just be tearing through the forest cause he’s bored.” The third voice sounds more muffled than the others, and you aren’t sure why.

The only thing that matters is that they sound like they know Kid well, and that’s going to have to be good enough for now. They sounded concerned too, and you can at least tell them something.

You open the door, and the hall goes completely quiet. Your eyes meet three sets of eyes on very tall, very surprised faces. One man towers over the others, but none of them are short. One wears a mask and has a cascade of blonde hair, the other almost looks like he’s wrapped in barbed wire, until you realize it’s all tattoos.

There’s a long few seconds of silence between all four of you, the sounds of other people in other parts of the manor still calling out for Kid.

“… Hi.” You manage, straightening up a little and opening the door more. “You’re… Eustass’… friends?”

The mask man nods, the other two just stare at you mutely.

“I’m…” You step out into the hall, finding it hard to meet their slack-jawed gazes. “Eustass said I c-could stay. He was here… but he, um… ate…” You tug the collar of your shirt up a little. “Got… angry, and then left, and told me to… to go to my room.”

“Your room?” The mask man repeats in disbelief. “That room?”

You nod. “He’s had me use it the, um, last couple of days. Nights.” You correct. “I’ve been cleaning, and earning my keep, and… and not just taking advantage of him.” You try to assert.

Your words seem to be enough to break whatever was bothering the other three and they all laugh. The tattooed one and the tall one are both nearly howling, and the masked man’s shoulders move, but you don’t hear anything coming from him.

“Take… advantage…” The tattooed man gasps, hands on his knees as he works to catch his breath. “Of Kid!” He devolves into laughter again, nearly crying from it.

The laughter seems to have gotten everyone else’s attention and soon the second floor hallway has twenty or so people in it, yourself included. It’s an eclectic gathering at the least. After a few more rounds of laughter among the others, you get some introductions, and have names to put to faces. You offer your name in return, but nothing more.

Killer is apparently the appointed spokesman of the group and steps toward you. “If Kid ran out of here angry he might be out all night. Are you hungry?”

“A little. I did get to eat breakfast before he left, so… I’m not starving.” You look over the people in the hall and look back to Killer. “Are you all his thralls?”

There’s a collection of giggles through the gang again and Killer shakes his head. “Kid, Heat, Wire and I are all vampires.” He explains. “Kid might be big and imposing, but no one needs twenty thralls.”

“Then, there’s four masters of the house?” You question tilting your head. That didn’t seem right either and Killer shakes his head again.

“We all follow Kid’s lead.” He clarifies. “The Government would call it a coven, but instead of a collective, we all just decided to let Kid call the shots.”

“Him?” You ask the question with disbelief before clamping your hands over your mouth. Chuckles shift through the group, and there’s a good natured feeling among everyone.

“Has he hurt you?” Killer questions, and you shake your head. “Done anything cruel?” He prompts and you shake your head again. “He’s loud and blunt, but not so bad, yeah?”

You smile a little and nod your head. Killer ruffles your hair, hand warm and heavy, almost as big as Kid’s. “He’s a real bastard sometimes, but he’s a good guy. Smarter than he acts too, and that’s why we follow him.”

“Let’s get you something to eat.” A taller lady with bright curly orange hair says, holding out her hand. “We just came back with a ton of supplies, so we can make whatever you like.”

You reach out and put your hands in hers, letting her lead you after a small hesitation. Kid had only told you to go to your room, he hadn’t told you to stay there. He probably knew the crew would be back before he was, and just didn’t want you wandering around the manor.

“Do you know how long he’s been gone?” Hip asks, as Quincy and Killer moved around the kitchen, working on making food for the whole crew.

“It… has only been three or four hours.” You admit nervously.

“Do you know why he was angry?” Killer questions. He’s not even facing you, working on cooking.

“I… yes, but… I,” you stammer nervously. You can feel embarrassment rushing through you. “I don’t know if I should say anything.” You admit in a very small voice.

There’s a long quiet in the room before Dive pipes up. “Did you call him fat or something?”

“Huh?” “Dive!” “Why would he even care!” “I don’t know!” “By the seas child, what was that?”

“He’s been eating people food again and maybe he got fat!” Dive yells, stamping her foot on the seat of the chair she’s standing on. “We haven’t seen him in weeks.”

The entire crew’s eyes turn to you, and you look around nervously. “Um?”

Dive rolls her eyes. “Was our idiot captain fat or not, keep up!” She snaps, smacking the table a little.

Hip smacks Dive against the back of her head. “She’s not going to understand your form of admiration you pig-tailed idiot.” Hip takes a deep breath as Heat grabs Dive, putting a hand over her mouth and keeping her arms pinned. She’s mumbling and growling the entire time but neither Heat nor anyone else seems bothered by it.

“… Did you insult the captain?” Hip questions after a moment.

You shake your head. “I did not.”

“Did you tell him you’re a honeyblood?” Wire questions flatly.

Aside from Wire, Heat and Killer, all eyes turn to you again. There’s no hiding the answer to his question, as you flinch. The continued stares cause you to put a hand over the teeth marks you’re certain have been clearly visible from the start.

“I did.”

“Before, or after?” Killer questions, back still turned to you, his focus still on cooking.

“… Before.”

“You’re from the facility.” Wire says, and you nod.

“Well… Shit.”

[dokidokitsuna]

LADYBIRD In the Works #1

I figured it’s about time I stop dragging my feet with this project and start actually seriously working on the things I’ll need for the first episode. Designs, music, actually finalizing the script, et cetera. So welcome to Ladybird in the Works! ^^

I haven’t really talked about the Admirers yet, but they are an essential pillar of the worldbuilding: they’re a worldwide organization of normal humans that work to care for and support Ladybirds (at the lowest level) and structure society around their importance (at the highest level).

They began as a small group of people who happened to have personal encounters with The Veneration shortly after the apocalypse, usually the close friends and family members of the first Ladybirds. Eventually they went out in their communities to sort of “preach the gospel” of The Veneration, letting people know that humanity hadn’t been totally abandoned to die, and that higher powers were working to give them a second chance.  The Veneration noticed this, of course, and brought these people together with the other three gods to help rebuild society with the invention of the Sanctuaries. After that point, they focused their attention on their Ladybirds, and founded the Admirer Authority in Sanctuary V to establish laws and procedures to govern them.

There are many subcategories of Admirers, but these three are the main ones: Medics care for wounded Ladybirds, and are usually responsible for going out to recollect their blood if they lose all or most of it. They also care for new Ladybirds before and after their initial surgery, when they receive their Apple Cores…which I’ll talk about some other time~. Scouts are the main link between the public and the Ladybirds: they recruit new Ladybirds, educate existing Ladybirds on doing their jobs, and organize events to celebrate Ladybirds and collect donations. They are also in charge of managing Admirer stations, rest stops where Ladybirds can find maps, food, and supplies, and news bulletins on recent events. Finally, Guardians work on the battlefield and help protect civilians, so the Ladybirds can focus on actually killing the Scales. They are in charge of watching for Scale attacks, educating the public on evacuation procedures, and guiding them to emergency shelters when the time comes.

Public opinion on Admirers is mixed…most people revere them, and see becoming an Admirer as the next best thing to becoming a Ladybird. People will happily donate to Admirers and allow them to exercise authority over other public institutions…even though they’re kinda supposed to be their own separate thing…

On the other hand, there are many people who see Admirers as a giant Ladybird propaganda machine, and dislike their Ladybird-centric mentality-- the way they seem to prioritize the health and welfare of Ladybirds over that of equally-needy civilians, or even each other. In that respect, their existence kinda implies that there are three kinds of people in the world: God’s favorites (Ladybirds), their indentured servants (Admirers), and ‘collateral damage’ (everyone else…). Anyway, the Admirers will have just minor background/extra roles in Episode 1 and most of the early plot…it’s only later, when the Ladybirds run into their first Admirer-turned-antagonist, that they actually start to think about what they mean for society.

...I think I’m in love with ELyTRA.🥺 She’s just so pretty and cute all the time; I don’t even care that she’s technically a propaganda icon! >_< Which I guess means I designed her perfectly for her role in the story. ^^; She won’t be in it for very long; I’ve only explicitly planned for her to appear in this first episode. I might have her make cameos throughout the series though, or maybe she’ll catch up to the heroes again while she’s on tour~.

As is often the case with in-universe celebrities (at least in Western shows) ELyTRA is going to briefly come down from her pedestal to help the main characters with their personal problems…and kill a few Scales while she’s at it. ^^ This is why I designed some civilian clothes for her here-- her Ladybird outfits are reserved for concerts, since that’s her main job.

This is also why I put this little demo of her debut song together, which I’m hoping to use in the actual video. ^^ It’ll be like, this scene where Nell is trying to fight Scales on her own for the first time, even though her sister told her to stay with the civilians and she barely knows what she’s doing, and she’s definitely about to get killed…when suddenly she hears this distant voice, and as it gets closer and clearer she realizes that the in-universe equivalent of Beyoncé is coming to save her. XD I hope my plans don’t change too much; I really want to keep that scene in the story.

[mariacallous]

We've already discussed how the Israel-Hamas war is the latest conflict where people are poring over social media and news channels looking for updates on what, exactly, is happening. After all, whether it’s news about our neighborhoods or communities on the other side of the world, the web is where we go to find updates.

And it’s another reminder that misinformation is often big business, and it’s everywhere: fake news and fabrications, half-truths and obfuscations, and flat-out lies and propaganda. The rise in AI-powered deep fakes has only made the problem worse and increased the amount of untrustworthy content out there.

So is it actually still possible to filter truth from lies online? We don’t yet have a foolproof way of checking—perhaps that’s a task AI could be trained on next—but there are ways to limit the likelihood of being fooled.

Know Your Sources

Some online sources are clearly more reputable than others: It’s right to be more skeptical about a post by an unknown X user than it is about something from The New York Times or The Washington Post (or WIRED). That’s not to say citizen journalism can’t be useful, because it absolutely can, but be wary of taking it at face value.

It’s not just the source that’s important, it’s the number of sources. Like Bernstein and Woodward, you need to get information backed up and verified by more than one source whenever possible. If you’re looking at a video of an event, for example, look for more recordings from other people, taken from different angles.

If you’re not sure about a particular source, check its history—which is fairly easy to do on social media. Does their most recent post match up with what they’ve posted before? Are they posting a lot of generic content that can’t really be authenticated? How many followers do they have, and how are they interacting with them? These can all be useful factors to consider.

Check the Context

As well as checking the sources of particular stories, photos, and videos, examine the context around them. You can look at whether a video clip is one of a series, for example, or something that seems to have appeared out of nowhere.

Context can extend to whatever the content is showing. If it’s a demonstration, for example, check to see if there’s any other record of it elsewhere on the web and ask a few questions—do the photos and videos match up with where they’re supposed to have been recorded? Are there any pieces of evidence (like police uniforms) that tell you where this is happening?

Sometimes there are context tools built into the platforms themselves: You might see false information warnings on Facebook, for example, if a post has been flagged by other users. You might also see what are called community notes attached to posts on X (formerly Twitter), adding extra context about what has been posted. These can be useful signals to consider, though they're not fallible.

Spot the Patterns

Fake news is often designed to spread as quickly as possible: If something is shocking, inflammatory, or surprising, we’re more likely to pass it on to other people. On social media especially, that can quickly mean inaccurate content starts trending, which of course means it’s then shared by even more people.

With that in mind, look for posts that seem engineered to go viral—to provoke a reaction—rather than to provide information. Misinformation and fake news will often come without any real context attached, such as a source, a location, or an accompanying link that directs you to something similar (like a longer version of the same video or a related story).

Be particularly cautious with posts and media that are furthering a particular cause or course of action. Sometimes a little bit of cynicism is all you need—and sometimes you just need to take a beat and evaluate what you’re looking at again, rather than instantly assuming it’s correct and sharing it elsewhere.

Do Your Research

There are now several services dedicated to flagging misinformation and fake news reports. You may have heard of Snopes, which doesn’t just dispel urban myths, but also tackles contemporary news stories, complete with background and fact checks. Take, for example, this video that was incorrectly labeled as featuring a Palestinian flag, when it was in fact a Puerto Rican flag.

Courtesy of the Annenberg Public Policy Center comes FactCheck.org, which does exactly what its name suggests. It examines claims and counterclaims put forward by governments and other organizations and explains what’s true and not true about them. Here’s a story about an online video that misrepresented how Ukraine conscripted women into serving in the military, for instance.

There are other resources, including another fact-checking service from Reuters, that can be useful, especially when it comes to photos and video. There’s no guarantee that the content you’re unsure about is going to be covered by one of these sites, but it’s certainly worth checking.

[variousqueerthings]

I feel like I need to make a little rundown of everything UNIT and Kate Stewart has done since being re-introduced in s7, but I also want to finish watching classic!who so I can make that comparison more effectively. certainly in pertwee-era of doctor who there was some critique and analysis of UNIT's methods as a military group and that the doctor kind of had to work with them to begin with because he didn't have a working tardis (+ already knew the brigadier and UNIT from troughton-era)

liz shaw and jo grant both start with UNIT and both leave UNIT, partially after narratives where they're at odds with what the institution represents and how easy it is for it to abuse power and/or simply make bad choices to begin with (liz taking the doctor's side several times and eventually quitting, although with that slightly lazy--pseudo-feminist "she didn't want to fetch the teas" explanation given post-leaving when there was definitely a lot more going on for her than that, but I think that was the way the actress was feeling so I can see the meta reasonings in it, and jo figuring out that she believes in different ways of protecting the earth joining a radical group and yeah ok straight up getting engaged to that welsh guy after two days, but she was considering leaving before then anyway), and sarah-jane just enters spaces and acts like she belongs there and nobody knows how to tell her to leave, but she's frequently not on UNIT's side so much as the side of Truth (I say, we now enter fourth doctor era so we'll see)

but yeah, the brigadier was there from the beginning, and there's yates and whatshisface, so there's the humanising faces depicting UNIT as essentially for good from the get-go, despite episodes where they're definitely antagonists. but then reintroduced in nu!who s4 as... not quite comfortable to the doctor/partly as that season's narrative of how the doctor affects their companions for worse and inspires them to become soldiers. so they're not the bad guys in the same way torchwood of s2 were, but they aren't comfortable allies either

so now I'm on s9 and... dunno. they're not quite what they were at the beginning, and they're not what they were in s4. more than anything they feel like a get-out-of-jail free card for whatever writer needs to do something that would be easier to solve with a big handy institution with guns, but don't want to analyse the idea of a big handy institution with guns, so we're told that UNIT is "good" but I keep waiting for someone -- osgood and/or bingham -- to become that next liz shaw, and for kate stewart to be confirmed an antagonist based on said rundown I haven't made of her actions, which at best are often ineffectual and at worst some near-villain shit

rtd in the new specials continues writing UNIT the way it has been since s7 -- the same issues and questions about it are at the forefront, with a couple of new ones thrown in (an institution that's very diverse does not make it any less a paramilitary institution and in fact makes one highly suspicious of its propaganda campaign), but I hope he remembers some of the ways they caused problems during three's era, or the way his own original run at least complicated the doctor's feelings about them and I hope he ends up reintroducing those complications with fifteen but x 1000

and. kate stewart needs to become an antagonist. in my opinion. she'd make a very good antagonist, considering how much history there is between her and the doctor. that's another post though, but I want to make a list of every time KS has tried to deal with a situation with extra-judicial violence, because it is practically every episode she's in (if not every episode she's in)

I can buy the doctor feeling some kinda way, because UNIT was the brigadier, was liz, was jo, was yates and whatshisface (sorry I have forgotten his name), was a time where they were stuck and in need of help and UNIT did help them, and then it was also martha and now mel... the doctor built real personal connections with UNIT, but as a structure it is hiiiighly dubious At Best and fully just no-good the majority of the time

[shaniacsboogara]

I made an AI write an episode of Puppet History about Shanesweep

The camera fades in on the set of Puppet History, where the Professor is sitting behind his desk, surrounded by various historical artifacts and documents. Ryan Bergara sits to his left, frowning as he reads over a stack of notes. A third chair is positioned to the right of the Professor's desk, and it is soon occupied by a smiling Steven Lim, who waves at the camera.

Professor: (beaming) Well hello there, students! Welcome to another exciting episode of Puppet History. Today, we're going to be discussing an event that's very near and dear to our hearts here at the Watcher network: Shanesweep!

Ryan: (rolling his eyes) Oh boy.

Professor: (noticing Ryan's attitude) Now now, Beef Boy, don't be a sourpuss. This is a very important historical event! After all, Shane Madej winning the Ultimate Tumblr Funnyman poll is nothing to sneeze at.

Steven: (grinning) I have to agree with the Professor on this one. I was rooting for Shane the whole time.

Ryan: (sarcastically) Well, that makes one of us.

Professor: (clearing his throat) Now, as you all know, the poll was a heated battle between Shane and the legendary Weird Al Yankovic. At first, it seemed like Weird Al had the upper hand. But then...

Ryan: (interrupting) Can we just skip to the part where Shane wins?

Professor: (chuckling) Alright, alright. I can tell you're just chomping at the bit to hear the results. So, after an intense few days of voting, Shane emerged victorious!

Steven: (clapping) Yes!

Ryan: (sighing) Great.

Professor: And it wasn't just any old victory, mind you. One of the Watcherinas even sent Shane a trophy in the mail to commemorate the occasion!

Ryan: (smirking) That's cute.

Professor: (leaning in) Oh, and let's not forget about the propaganda. The Watcherinas were so unhinged and insane, they really went all out with the campaigning.

Ryan: (raising an eyebrow) Propaganda?

Professor: (nodding) Oh yes. Memes, gifs, videos, you name it. They even got Watcher to reblog the poll on Tumblr with the caption, "We did it Joe!"

Steven: (laughing) That's amazing.

Ryan: (grumbling) I don't see what's so amazing about a bunch of internet trolls rigging a poll.

Professor: (smiling) Well, that's one way to look at it. But from another perspective, it just goes to show the power of community and how passionate people can be about something they believe in.

Ryan: (nodding) I guess you're right.

Professor: (clapping his hands) Well, speaking of believing in something, it's time for our quiz! Are you ready, gentlemen?

Steven and Ryan both nod, and the Professor grins widely.

Professor: Excellent! Alright, first question. What year did Shanesweep take place?

A multiple choice question appears on the screen:

A) 2018

B) 2020

C) 2023

D) 2050

Ryan and Steven both quickly scribble down their answers.

Professor: (smiling) Alright, let's see what you got. Ryan, what did you choose?

Ryan holds up his whiteboard, which says "C".

Professor: (barking) We've got a couple of sea dogs

Steven: (laughing) I also chose C.

Professor: (grinning) Well, you're both correct!

Professor: (holding up the coveted cup) Now, it's time to reveal who the winner of today's quiz is. And the winner is... Steven Lim!

Steven: (grinning and holding up the cup) Yes! Thank you, Professor!

Ryan: (looking incredulous) What? But I got the same answer as him!

Professor: (smiling) That's true, Beef Boy. But you see, Steven made a really funny joke earlier, so I decided to give him some extra jellybeans. It's all in good fun, right?

Ryan: (grumbling) I guess.

Steven: (laughing) Thanks again, Professor!

As Steven continues to thank the Professor, Ryan can't help but feel a bit resentful. He's been coming to Puppet History for months now, and he's never won the coveted cup. But before he can say anything, the Professor suddenly looks up, his eyes widening in shock.

Professor: (gasping) Wait a minute... Steven, I think I know what's going on here.

Steven: (looking concerned) What do you mean?

Professor: (leaning in) I think... I think you might be an alien.

Ryan: (looking surprised) What?!

Steven: (laughing nervously) What are you talking about, Professor? I'm not an alien!

Professor: (shaking his head) Oh, but I think you are. You see, there have been some strange things happening around here lately. Mysterious lights in the sky, unexplained power outages... I think you might be here to study us.

Ryan: (looking skeptical) This is ridiculous.

Steven: (laughing) Come on, Professor. You're just joking around, right?

Professor: (shaking his head) I'm afraid not, Steven. I think it's time for a little test.

The Professor reaches into his desk and pulls out a jar of peanut butter. He holds it up to Steven, who looks confused.

Professor: (smiling) Do you like peanut butter, Steven?

Steven: (nodding slowly) Um, yeah. I guess.

Professor: (grinning) Well then, let's see what happens when I give you a little taste.

The Professor dips his finger into the peanut butter and holds it out to Steven, who hesitantly takes a lick. Suddenly, his eyes widen and he starts convulsing.

Steven: (shouting) I am an alien! I am an alien!

Ryan: (looking shocked) What the hell is going on here?!

Professor: (calmly) It's alright, Ryan. I knew this day might come. You see, Steven is from a planet that's allergic to peanuts. It's how we were able to finally confirm his identity.

Steven continues to writhe and convulse on the floor as the Professor calmly explains the situation to Ryan. Eventually, Steven recovers and stands up, looking sheepish.

Steven: (rubbing his head) I'm sorry about all of that, guys. I guess I really am an alien.

Professor: (patting Steven on the back) It's alright, Steven. We're just glad we could finally figure it out. And who knows? Maybe now that we know you're an alien, we can learn even more about the universe!

Ryan: (still looking bewildered) I can't believe this is happening.

Professor: (smiling) Well, that's the beauty of Puppet History, Beef Boy. You never know what you're going to learn or who you're going to meet. And speaking of learning, I think we've got time for one more question before we wrap up.

Ryan: (nodding) Alright, let's do it.

Professor: (grinning) Alright, here we go. What historic event happened on March 10th, 2023?

Ryan: (thinking) Um... I don't know.

Steven: (smiling) I actually know this one! It was the day that Shane Madej won the Ultimate Tumblr Funnyman poll!

Professor: (smiling) That's right, Steven! And what's even better is that one of our amazing Watcherinas sent Shane a trophy in the mail to celebrate his victory.

Ryan: (looking a bit annoyed) How did you even know that, Steven?

Steven: (shrugging) I just spend a lot of time on Tumblr, I guess.

Professor: (laughing) Well, there you have it, folks. Another successful episode of Puppet History in the books. Join us next time for even more historical hijinks!

[cookinguptales]

a few times I've had anonymous asks like "you should start a patreon!" and I am always like "what would I even make one for" and those anonymous people never tell me so idk if they're interested in my meta or my tarot readings or my fiction or my essays on religion/folklore/history or what

that said I did actually make a placeholder patreon a thousand years ago before they upped their fees (because they said that anyone who made a patreon in like the next day would get grandfathered in lmao) and I just never. used it. because I was like "well, patreon is for people with talent SO."

but I have to be honest like -- with this new story I'm writing, I really love it! and I fully intend to release it for free like I do all my stories, but I find myself wanting to write all these little extra scenes and essays on historical context and artistic influences and stuff as well as just wanting to be able to give like... basic writer's commentary...

and I keep thinking "maybe this is actually a good use for the patreon? you could release a base version for free and if people are interested in extras they could go to the place where you're posting them?" and then I think "no, no one would ever pay for early access to your work or to your ramblings about how the story of the minotaur is really likely just propaganda reflecting the historical attic frustration towards (and eventual triumph over) a semi-foreign naval power they'd been paying tribute to"

and then I think NO there are plenty of people with no talent who have thriving online presences you have plenty of talent!!!! and there has to be someone who wants to learn about ancient greek sacrificial customs as couched in h/c romance.

and if no one does want that, well like. it's not like you'll be out anything for trying. you're writing it either way because you've got fucking brain worms, so you might as well experiment with a new way of posting it.

and yet I do kind of have a weird mental block when it comes to charging money for much of my work, and I don't know if that's because I spent most of my life writing fanfic or it's because I have an aversion to the life of a professional writer or if it's just garden-variety imposter syndrome!

...so idk, that's what my brain's been doing lately lmao.

[kimikiui]

Why You Should Vote for Hakupo

Hello. Good evening, morning, afternoon, brunch, sleepytime whatever time it is for you right now. I am here to sell my little autism creature to you. This is going to be a fairly long post so, just sit tight.

The second round of polls will not be out for a couple of hours. I wanted to reblog the post with this, BUT- I have class at 3 when the polls are released. Plus, gotta get those non Hakupo believers before they vote for anyone else, amirite?

Also the stickers used between catagories are the official line stickers by Pikomaru ➜ https://store.line.me/stickershop/product/3951590/en

Reminder; It's only Shinji sweep until its Hakupo sweep.

No, I'm not putting a section breaker because even if you don't read it, I want you to see the sheer size of this... It's an essay at this point. Let's get started shall we?

What is a Hakupo?

Hakupo Tsukishiro is a energetic and powerful masculine voicebank for Utau (and amadeusy but we dont talk abt brunnnoooo). He was released all the way back in 2010 and has had many important milestones in his 13 years of distribution. Four compilation albums, 7 voicebanks, 2,500+ fanarts (that i all have), and uses by really awesome people *points to the crowd*. That's all of you guys out there. <3

Hakupo as a character is inspired by moe, thanks Clarice. Like most moe characters, he's a bit air headed and happy go lucky person. His positive attitude is sometimes brought into original songs he's featured in, which just makes me smile- girlbosses love a good pick me up song.

Also he has a stupid little coat and pants. This is all you need to know to vote for Hakupo, but I will continue forward incase you are still on the fence.

Cool Hakupo Facts

He almost has the same exact suggested range as Miku (C3 to E5)... His is actually larger... he goes higher (C3 to G5).

The "Do Re Mi FâåÁaæ↓" incident of Christmas 2020, contact me I will elaborate further.

There is a little bit of an evil twin thing going on. Yeah. This is a win.

His genderbend design Kohaku is revealed when you turn down the brightness of his official reference sheet (he pulled a scott cawthon guys).

He hates to be called cute and have his head patted... which is cute.

Despite looks- His description says he has curly hair come on guys- LITTLE FLUFF.

By looking at his official Twitter bot, there's a few extra things we can learn about him. He is very stupid, very impatient, has a horrible sleep schedule, bad at multitasking, and can't stand still (I can elaborate more on these if asked).

I wrote a 43 page Utau cartoon pilot script with Hakupo as the main character. Shameless plug.

I also wrote my college admissions essay about Hakupo. Thanks for getting me into college Bobo!

Sick Bobo Uses

Get boboed.

What does Bobo mean to me?

I found Hakupo 7 years ago now, sitting in the middle of an Utau melody. I told myself I would just turn off my tablet and listen to the music. Yeah that worked- guess who was next after the screen turned off. BOBO! I needed to see the little creature creating this melody. I turned on the screen, and was not disappointed. Fancy twink in a oversized tailcoat with weird pants. I remember rambling to my mom later about how cool he was, why he was so unique, and why this one specifically caught my attention.

He's been my special interest since then, everyone around me knows Hakupo wheather they like it or not. He's about 80% of everything I draw, 50% of what I talk about, and 100% of my little creature I snuggle up with every night.

Literally.

I have a Hakupo bodypillow. Can't sleep without him.

Anyways, he's helped me find a lot of my best friends *coughcoughmeatcoughrevcough*, never fails to make me happy, and helped everyone around me realize I'm extremely autistic. The least I can do is write an ungodly long propaganda post while drinking my coffee at 9 am.

Stan Bobo Oobieero.

Hakupo Memes for Propaganda

GO VOTE FOR HAKUPO ON @utaupoll AT 3 PM EST

Thanks, have a nice day.

[faetaleplots]

A Meeting to Remember. Or Not.

It's taken me way too long to post this, but-

“They first met when Alex hired Morgan to scare some potential investors away from some property assuming that Morgan would like, rough them up in an alley and not dress up like a ghost and pretend like the property is haunted, which Morgan did. It was shockingly more effective than beating people up in an alley.” -Lighthouseraiders

this fic is 4k

TW: swearing

Technically Alex could have just snapped the investors out of existence or dealt with them some other way on their own, they were powerful enough that it would probably take them under a minute to do so. Counter point, if they went around attacking civilians, supposedly unprovoked it could ruin the entire ‘brooding and mysterious and don’t approach the rabid dog even though it just looks lonely™’ vibe they had going, which would kinda suck. So instead they took the classic ‘too powerful to really care, get a henchman to take care of it for them™’  way out. They opened a search tab on their phone, typed in “villain for hire” and watched pages of results show up. They scrolled to the very bottom of the first one without even looking at all the hero propaganda and news articles about successful or failed attempts on heroes’ lives, and skipped the first twelve pages that came up. Thirteen had always been a lucky number for Alex. A link caught their eye and they scrolled, though Alex couldn’t pinpoint why it did. Still, they clicked it, curious enough to check it out. The link led Alex to a blog, interestingly enough, though there were very few posts on it. At the top in large font it advertised: 

E-tier villain for hire

No questions asked

Payment negotiable

Will work long term

Will take care of people

Will not act as bait for heroes

Will set traps for enemies

    Will work undercover

Underneath that was an email and a phone number, which Alex assumed were for contacting the villain in question. They browsed the site for a few more minutes (there really wasn’t much else on it) before shrugging to themself and clicking the email. They liked the part about “taking care” of people, not to mention that few low tier villains ever set boundaries because they were afraid it would make higher tier villains dislike them and either not hire them or kill them. So Alex would send this person an email and if they didn’t like the E-tier villain’s work then they could just kill them. Simple as that. Satisfied with their solution, Alex began composing an email.

Morgan hated his job. He hated working in customer service and he hated being forced to put up with people’s shit everyday. And for what? Just so he could earn minimum wage so he could live in a shitty, literally illegal apartment, and use the little money that was left after rent to feed himself. Although most of the time he didn’t even do that. It was an awful way for anyone to live, but it was downright shameful for someone who called themself a villain. 

And yet it was still somehow better than being his brother’s sidekick. Being a sidekick was horrible. As a sidekick to a hero, he wasn’t technically working for the FA, legally making him an independent contractor, which meant that they were legally allowed to pay him less than minimum wage, charge him to rent the costumes he wore from the FA and he would be charged extra if the costume got damaged. It meant he had no insurance, and pretty much couldn’t leave. It was an entirely corrupt system that financially ruined any sidekick as long as they didn’t die first. And then the FA had the audacity to call themselves the “good guys”. 

Morgan groaned into his couch when he heard a notification from across the room. His phone must still be in his bag, which he’d dropped at the door the second he got into his apartment, which sucked for him because he didn’t want to get up and face the cold floor. On the other hand, that was a notification from his email, and no one emailed him, so…

Morgan held his blanket tighter and braced himself for the cold that came with the floor (or really just anywhere) of his apartment in any season other than summer. Morgan hopped his way over to his bag, snatched his phone, and booked it back to the couch faster than he’d ever run from the police. Once he had returned to the safety of the disintegrating couch, hidden beneath his one blanket, Morgan unlocked his phone and opened his email, praying that the notification hadn’t been for spam.

He almost deleted the email, seeing that the sender was unknown, but he hesitated. It had been sent to the email that he’d put on that website he set up a while ago, so maybe…

Morgan bit his lip as he scanned the email, becoming increasingly relieved that he hadn’t deleted it. It was from some higher tier villain who needed to get some investors off their property, a simple enough job. Morgan didn’t know who the villain was, but he supposed that if they were hiring outside people instead of doing it themselves or using their henchmen they wanted the task to be unconnected to them. At this point Morgan just cared if the pay was legitimate. And when he saw the payment proposed by them he had to make sure his eyes were working. That was enough to support him for the next two years, more than enough time to actually plan a heist like he wanted to— enough to help him actually kick off his villain career. He’d been a villain for about a year and a half already, but he hadn’t really gotten the chance to do anything. And the job honestly sounded way too easy for that much, but that meant that Morgan was willing to take the risk that it might be a scam. He quickly typed out a response and asked for more details.

This was going to be fun.

The agreed on date had been exactly a week after Morgan received the email and he had been filled with excitement all week. This was pretty much his first heist since running away from his family, and it almost made him forget how much he hated his life.

The day of the job, Morgan called into work, saying he was sick and wouldn’t be able to make it in, embellishing his performance with a perfected ‘sick voice’ and perfectly timed coughs. The moment he got off the call, Morgan left and locked his apartment and lugged his bags downstairs. Living on the top floor was awful, but it meant he didn’t have a bunch of people walking by his door all the time. Plus it was the only apartment available when he moved in and Morgan really didn’t want to go through the hassle of dragging his couch up or down stairs again.

He finally managed to make it to the closest bus station, both of his bags intact, though his back was less so. The bags were almost overflowing with gear and Morgan honestly dreaded the end of the day when he would have to lug everything back home again.

The bus arrived five minutes late, or at exactly the time Morgan had expected it to, depending on who you asked. The commute to the property wasn’t a long one, but it took Morgan outside of the area he was used to. Not that Morgan was surprised. He’d done his research, he knew where he was going. It didn’t change the fact that he was out of his comfort zone, but he knew what he was doing.

He was the only person to get off at the stop and all the other passengers gave him odd looks because of it. He supposed that was normal– he really didn’t look like he belonged around here. The neighborhood looked like one of those streets that actors would walk around dressed like Dickens characters during December where tourists could pay for a carriage ride or overpriced hot chocolate whilst people in clothing from the 1940s sang outdated and overrated Christmas carols. Meanwhile Morgan, wearing a pair of jeans he hadn’t replaced for two years and a shirt that he often used to mop up spilled coffee with a bulging and worn out backpack slung on each shoulder, looked like he’d been homeless for a while. It didn’t help that his hair was just the wrong side of shaggy and far too straight to look good by any means. But Morgan didn’t care what the stuck-up, judgy people on the bus thought of him– he had better things to think about.

It didn’t take Morgan long to find the property he would be protecting, and it took even less time to break into it. Checking his phone, he saw that he had about forty minutes until the investors were set to show up, meaning he had about twenty five minutes, counting on the possibility that they might be at most ten minutes early, and quickly went to work, setting up the house exactly how he’d need it to be.

Morgan had not counted on the blueprints he’d found online being for a different house, but they were similar enough and he was good at improvising. Unfortunately that meant he finished ten minutes after he’d planned on and had only just finished setting up the kitchen when he heard the front door open. Cursing under his breath, Morgan ran as quickly as he could to get into position, stepping on quite a few creaky floor boards, but sure that no footsteps were heard. It was a skill he’d picked up quite early on in his years living in his parent’s house.

By the time all three of the investors were inside the house Morgan was in position, a bit winded, though that was mainly due to the adrenaline coursing through him. He’d picked the perfect vantage point to see almost the entire first floor from where he was, and what he saw made him smirk. The investor that was furthest into the house (probably the first one to enter) was looking around a bit nervously. The second was rolling his eyes and the third seemed to be straining to hear something– probably footsteps. Who knew that being caught off guard would benefit Morgan’s plan?

“It’s an old house, George,” The second man was saying to the first, “Old houses creak. And old houses exist. But do you know what doesn’t exist? Ghosts.” He scoffed and pushed past the other man and into the kitchen. “We’re here for the property not it's history.” Morgan grimaced a bit. If they didn’t know anything about the history of this place that might take  his plan down a notch. Pity, it had been really fun to do all the research and to figure out how to incorporate it all into his plan.

“A– There was a woman who died here in the 1930s, though…” The third man spoke up. Good, at least someone else did their research. “She was this dancer– Margret Can?” Her name was Margret Cain, but whatever. “She, um, I think she went missing and ended up being found here in the 70s.” 

The man that had been called George turned to the historian, still looking around like the wall paper might come alive and eat him. “Found? What do you mean ‘found,’ Mike?” Morgan really should have been filming this all– maybe he should write a horror movie script about it at some point.

“Her body. It was found bricked up in the chimney. Since then this place hasn’t had anyone live in it for much longer than a few months.” Morgan could see George swallow and finally look away from the house to make eye contact with Mike. Perfect. Their pre-existing fear would benefit him greatly.

The tension was broken by the other man yelling at them from the kitchen. “Jesus Christ– this place will need a lot of work but boy will people pay big bucks for it when we fix it up. What are you two doing out there, making flower crowns? Get in here.” It seemed like he was in charge, or at least like he thought he was. The other two scrambled into the kitchen, taking in the cobwebs and dust covering all the counters. The kitchen sink was dripping, set up by one of Morgan’s cheap machines that he had made in the middle of the night, being kept up by coffee, energy drinks, and pure determination. He really hoped it didn’t explode. The idea was that it would drip exactly twelve times every half a second, wait three seconds, then repeat. The liquid that was dripping was a concoction Morgan had made of some very watery goo and the tiniest bit of red dye, so that you wouldn’t even notice the color as it dripped unless you really looked. But the more drips into the sink, the redder it would get. And Morgan had made certain that the kitchen sink’s drain was clogged. 

Mike noticed the odd dripping pattern first, cautiously inching over to the sink to watch the drips. Morgan can see a crease in the man’s brow as he sees the tint of color. “Keith? George? This water look a bit off to you?”

“Probably just from rust.” Said the man who must be Keith without turning to look. “Stop making up excuses and let’s move on.” George looked back and forth between Keith and the sink before seeming to decide that just moving on would be better for his sanity and leaving Mike alone with the sink and Morgan. Unlike the other two, Mike didn’t seem to be so quick to brush off the sink, creeping close enough to peek into the basin. Morgan really should have been recording this because he was pretty sure Mike had just broken the world record for highest pitch hit by human vocal chords. In the sink, covered in the reddish not-water, was a severed hand. Morgan had gotten it from an after Halloween sale a few years back and had taken some… artistic liberties to make it look more realistic. Honestly he was just glad it was finally getting put to good use– it had been sitting in his medicine cabinet for a while. 

Morgan was quite a talented artist when he was engaged in a project, and the hand had apparently been the tipping point for Mike. Pity, really, Morgan frowned as he watched the investor sprint out of the room fast enough that Morgan almost thought he had super speed. The E-Tier villain had been hoping they would last longer, but he supposed the other two would have to do.

Said pair of investors had jumped at the scream and watched as their coworker all but vanished back onto the street. A full five seconds of no sound other than the drip drip drip coming from Morgan’s invention.

“Weak.” Kieth growled. Morgan smirked, hearing the only partially hidden fear in his voice. “C’mon. Let’s go.” He turned on his heel, leading the way into the dining room, completely unaware of the feast that awaited them there.

When Alex hired someone to get rid of their investor issue, they had been thinking that said person would beat the investor would be beating the problems up in some alley somewhere. That’s what hired villains normally did. Well this one was apparently NOT normal. Alex had shown up at the house expecting to hand off the cash and never speak to the other villain again. Instead they found two of the three investors still in their house, climbing the stairs to the attic and looking quite terrified. Alex was already invisible from the fight they’d come from and decided they might as well stay that way while looking for the E-tier villain who apparently had no idea how to do their job. However, Alex was unable to find the villain just by simply looking around. They truly had no idea what the other looked like and they obviously weren’t in sight. Fine. Alex would just follow the investors and if the two men walked out of the house Alex would simply kill all three of them.

Of the two men, the one leading the was whipping his head around at every perceived sound, eyes wild, while the other man clung to his arm, apparently whispering something to himself. Alex slightly adjusted their senses, frowning when they heard, “Not real, not real, not real, not real-” coming from the mouth of the whispering man. 

“Would you shut up?” Alex winced as the other man whisper-yelled at his companion, shaking his arm free and reaching the door at the top of the stairs. “If it weren’t for you we’d be out of here already!” He turned the doorknob and looked into the abyss-like darkness for a moment before taking a breath and stepping inside. “Light switch should be here somewhere…” He muttered to himself. Alex could imagine the man feeling the walls for a lightswitch but couldn’t see him. “Aha!” The sound of a switch being flicked and a slightly concerning buzz of a light bulb broke through the darkness. “What are you doing on the steps you coward?” The leader scoffed at the other man. “Get in here.” The man reluctantly stepped through the doorway. The first man grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and hauled him farther into the room. Alex moved to follow the two of them but instead ended up walking into a wall of wood as the door slammed shut. Frowning, Alex teleported themself into the Attic instead, and what they saw… confused them to say the least, one might have said that it freaked Alex out. That was if one could see Alex whilst they were invisible and had a death wish.

In the time it had taken them to teleport into the room, the overhead lightbulb had been shattered, smoke or fog or something had covered the entire floor, a red light was coming from somewhere, and there was a third… being that was standing in the center of the room. It was draped in old grays and whites and lace and the slightest hint of greens and they melded perfectly into the fog as if it was part of them. The being took a gliding step towards the two investors, both of whom were trembling and clinging to each other tightly. Alex felt intimidated, and they weren’t even the one being advanced upon.

“You will leave. This is my place and you have no right.” Oh wow. That voice definitely fit. It felt like the walls agreed with the being. Agreed that whoever they were, they had full authority. Alex was actually considering giving the deed up to them. “You will never come back and you will never speak of this. Heed me for I have power not just over this house but now over you.” The two men were nodding frantically, scratching at the door like dogs in an attempt to get out to escape to stay alive. “Leave.” The being said with a finality and the door swung open with ease, hitting both men, not that they stopped to nurse their new wounds. No, they were far too busy getting the hell out of there and as far away as they could. Alex stood stock still, forgetting that they were invisible and waiting for the being to notice them and turn its rage on them. Instead the creature started laughing. “O-oh my god! Their faces!” The voice had changed completely, breaking the spell. The being trotted through the fog to turn something off (Alex later realized it was a fog machine) and began what seemed to be clean up, still laughing. Alex shook themself, realizing that this was their chance.

Whilst the other’s back was turned, Alex made themself visible once more, leaning up against a wall to make themself look cool. “Oh yes, their faces really were a sight. Suppose that makes it even more of a shame no pictures were taken.” Alex watched bemused as the other–who just a minute ago had been the most terrifying thing Alex had ever seen–jumped out of their skin. The being grabbed the closest thing to them and brandished their newfound weapon at Alex. Unfortunately, said weapon happened to be a can of hairspray that sounded empty. Alex snorted at the attempt and pushed their attacker’s hands down. “Relax, I’m not here to hurt you. Are you the E-Tier villain?” Alex was pretty sure they were, but it didn’t hurt to check.

“Um, yeah– who the fuck are you?” Alex decided that the other villain was not going to clock them with the empty can and removed their hands.

“I’m here to pay you.” They reached into the inside pocket of their coat and pulled out the cash they had promised in their email. “And my name is Alex.” They slipped the bills into one of the other villain’s hands and kissed their knuckles, winking up at them as they did.

The other villain looked thoroughly confused. “Um, okay?” Alex raised an eyebrow at them, part of them curious as to why this low tier villain was not begging for their mercy. That was normally what happened when Alex revealed themself to people.

“You know, typically when a person introduces themself it is polite to respond with an introduction of one’s own.” They prompted.

“Bold of you to assume I would be polite.” The other person had sass and apparently had no idea who Alex was. They were turning out to be quite entertaining.

Alex smirked, looking at the wall beside them, pretending to think. “Perhaps. Then again, I did just pay you.” They watched the other size them up before backing away slightly.

“Morgan. He/him.” He finally answered, glaring at Alex. 

“Well, Morgan,” Alex began, leaning back against the wall, “What you did up here was impressive and I think I missed most of it.”

Morgan turned away but Alex could hear in the tone of his voice that he was pleased with the compliment and proud of himself. “This was probably the easiest part.” He shrugged like it wasn’t a big thing.

“Easy?” Alex asked incredulously. “I don’t understand how you did a single part of that.” They would have assumed that Morgan had the power of creating illusions, except that would make him C-Tier at least.

Morgan was taking off the outfit that looked hand made, pulling it over his head, so his response came out a bit muffled. “Really it was easy enough. I just had to make a lightbulb that I could easily shatter, then time the breaking of it perfectly so that by the time the back up lights came on I would be directly in front of them.” Morgan shrugged again. “And the door was just strong magnets. All I had to do was temporarily create an electromagnetic field to demagnetize them long enough for them to get in and out. Don’t worry- I can take them out of the door so you don’t have to worry about that.”

Alex understood nothing that Morgan had just said but boy did they want him to keep talking. “Um, you said you did other stuff around the place? What did you do?” The spark that flared up in the E-Tier’s eyes was worth not killing the investors– Alex almost forgot that they had even existed in the first place.

Alex trailed after Morgan around the house as he gathered all his stuff into two overflowing backpacks, trying their best to follow Morgan’s rambling, though to be honest they were never all that good at science or tech, which seemed to be Morgan’s area of expertise. All the same, they listened intently, waiting for Morgan to breathe so Alex could ask for his number. For work purposes, of course. Unfortunately, the only time Morgan stopped talking was to take a call, after which he spat out a quick goodbye and rushed out the door, taking all of his stuff with him and leaving Alex behind with no explanation or phone number.

When Alex got back to their lair they decided to see if they could find more information on the other villain, but google gave them nothing and now they couldn’t even find the blog that had been how they found Morgan in the first place they groaned and shut their computer a bit more forcefully than intended, snapping in fully in half. Damnit. Alex had gotten this one, what, two days ago? And they’d actually liked the stickers they’d put on it this time. 

Despite their intent of finding Morgan again, the E-Tier slipped to the back of Alex’s mind and they quickly got caught up in other things. But they didn’t forget that day– the first day they met Morgan.

[gallus-rising]

the blood trade is like. This Siders are (comparatively) normal humans/animals and Denizens of Across are crab/bug energy constructs (that's part of why it's so difficult to cross the River bc you gotta take extra steps to keep your meat suit/outer shell functioning BUT ANYWAYS) death is cheap in this setting and there are a lot of ways to die but Not Really and the main way to die But For Real is to have your life force directly removed from your body, which is blood for This Siders and static for Denizens. you can live perfectly fine w/o all of your blood/static, but once you lose your last drop it's over, tho some ppl are tougher than others and become what are functionally sentient zombies. that's why Zafell was able to just kinda sew Rem back together. whoever Got Him knew he was a bloodmancer and chopped him up after the fact so he wouldn't come back

(note: physical wounds don't contribute to this. yeah some one can stab you and you'll start bleeding out but the "blood" that's being bought/stolen is a metaphysical type thing)

so! things you can do when you literally have someone else's life force at your disposal! lengthen your own lifespan, turbo charge your inherent strengths, use w/e inborn magic powers that person has/had. OR if you don't tell ppl abt all those things and distribute it in an impure form you can use it as a sick radical party drug and keep your population under check by supplying it non-stop

so basically Across is a cyberpunk dystopia. the leaders keep themselves strong and healthy, they keep their own population under control w constant party funtimes/propaganda/surveillance, bc you now have an unknowingly addicted and highly hedonist population there's a big demand for blood, in order to keep up w demand you gotta resort to shady tactics, since ppl need their blood/static to live they obviously don't like that, over generations This Siders grow to resent Denizens and Denizens are increasingly treating This Siders like funtime party fuel, so now they won't team up against you and overthrow the system! and you can make big bucks trafficking the blood back and forth which further incentivizes regular ppl to keep the system going w/o having to micromanage it all!!

This Siders can get all the same effects from ingesting static (some partykillers like Zafell use it to aid in their demon hunting, but it comes w drawbacks since so much of the knowledge of how to use it has been erased) if a This Sider and a Denizen were to properly team up that'd be a powerhouse (and is, in fact, the original state of things before the River split the cities) so it's very important to keep ppl distrustful of each other

an important guy to the blood trade is Mammon since he runs a highly successful loan/dept collection racket. the safest way to get blood outta ppl is to just pay them for it and sell it for a profit back in Across. Mammon is a "trusted" figure bc he doesn't tolerated independent killings in his territory. just make sure to pay him on time and you're perfectly safe :]

[dabblingreturns]

I replied to a post from @dulcieseptimus who was feeling ingredients like they needed more ducli content.

Fair enough, ducli is an icon....

But my mind whent to locked tomb Christmas because I very much have locked tomb brain rot and it's only a few days before Christmas so its on my mind.

And I have decided that john has probably kept some sort of zombie Christmas for a few reasons

He seams like a dude who likes a excuse for a party

I dont know enough about the use that standardize holidays play in empires but I am convinced that if the powers that be don't make them them society will provide its own.

People like a good solstice festival.....I have this whole theory about how the further to the poles, a society is, the more important the winter solstice/light festival/gift giving party is. But it makes sense that if your extreme between summer and winter temperatures are big, you want to make sure everyone has a coat for the winter. The empire doesn't have seasons and john is from New Zealand so Christmas is really a sumer holiday for them. But Catholisism clearly made a huge impression on him. And he is a bitch for nostalgia just like the rest of us millennials

So now that I have incoherently argued for the existence of an unnamed gift giving holiday in a made up universe. A holiday that the author has never mentioned or even alluded to. I will provide details.

I call it risemass!

Up until the Meriadic year 99981 of the emperor undying, Risemass was celebrated by all 9 houses in thier own ways.

First house got drunk on wine and shit talked each other. Augustine cooked and fought with Mercy. Cytherea talked about dead people, John watched in amusement. G1deon, thought the magic of "im working" kept skipping out.

Second house. Involves drinking and special extra good. And when everyone is supper tosted, they sing off brand carols and drinking songs and talk about how great they all are.

Third house i imagine a special ceremony were the importortant people at court tithe more gold to the empire. Then the prince gives the people gifts. Then everyone grabbs martinis and shit and brakes off into groups to shit talk everyone elses gifts.

Everyone puts thier boots at the foot of there beds the night before, and in the morning the right shoe is full of candy and the left has a new pair of socks. Everyone comes out of thier homes in there pajamas in the moring and they watch a traditional movie about risemass. But it's like a town center picnic with hot chocolate and propaganda. And they picnic all day with good food and kids running around and everyone in new socks.

In the morning everyone spends time with thier families with a special breakfast and special foods. And in the afternoon they all meet at the court or local government. And every household is given a small gift from the "emporeror" and its something they want or need. These gifts are actually from agustine, who has been running this program for 10000 years and has a loyal order of workers who are swarm to secrecy but they figure out what everyone needs and supplies it.

It's a big meal with drinking and they run debate club, we're everyone summits a topic and two randomly selected people have to go up and debate it for 5 minutes. And the watchers vote on the winner. There is a bracket. And a funny hat if you win...and your name gets written down in a book. It's seriously buisness!

Seventh house has its biggest garden show of the year. And people string trees with light. And get drunk of cider and write increasingly incoherent poetry.

Everyone fasts for 9 days before. They have religious services about thier righteous mission then everyone gets a holy religious metal or text. Its not fun per say....but it is very proper.

Every year, everyone gets together...and they orginize themselves in terms of size. And the reverend mother and father put out the new robes and shoes from the emperor. And the ninth forms a hermit crab shell line, trading clothes until everyone has robes and boots that are whole and warm and fit them. They also get to track how all the children have grown.

[seasurfacefullofclouds1]

Hi, I have been away from the fandom for a bit and have been catching up. So happy I got to see Louis this year. Can’t wait for the new album. I thought there would be the usual enthusiasm and anticipation. It doesn’t quite seem the same though does it. I have seen the Larries are ganging up and bashing him for not meeting their expectations. I remember when they used to say he doesn’t really want to be a solo artist seriously, he has proved them wrong hasn’t he? I guess they had to go for another angle. We are the ones who got him whatever little success he has, he better bow his head in acquiescence. Does he think that it’s for his music we supported him, or because we like him? He is so wrong. So, I guess not much has changed there. Saw Mr Styles has started acknowledging 1D this tour. I guess all those fruits must have replenished some of his brain cells that now he remembers that 1D was a thing or maybe the data mining did that when it captured the stats on Zayn’s high note post. Who can say? Anyway glad to see some of the people are still around!

Hi!

Ahhhh I’m so glad you came back to see Louis!! Whatever the fandom dynamics, I hope fans can still see that Louis is a great musician with a good heart, and he’ll always give a great performance.

It does seem that Louis has gained new fans since 2020, but many of them are Larries. From what I can see on Twitter and Tumblr (admittedly only the posts that Louies criticize)— a lot of new fans get bad information and manipulative propaganda from a few big accounts on Tumblr, which tilt heavily toward Harry’s favor. In their fandom perspective, Harry is mostly blameless in everything they don’t like about him (his womanizing image, his girlfriends, his greed, his ticket prices, the datamining, the concert ticket bait and switch etc.), while Louis is not only guilty for everything they don’t like about him (Freddie, Eleanor, Harry’s screw ups), but is actually ONLY about propping up “Larry.”

As for Harry’s acknowledging 1D, I think he only does that near 1D anniversary every year, doesn’t he?

Which doesn’t really matter, because Harry is here there and everywhere, on the radio all the time, his face peering out of every magazine, new Tumblr blogs from 16-year-olds sprouting up like weeds just to read and write Harry Styles fics. Harry doesn’t really need Larries anymore, but it’s a fun game to bait Larries and grab a few extra dollars. Side benefit: Harry gets to screw with Louis Tomlinson’s life, but “not in a cool way.”

Larries will say that Louis “larrybaits” too — but 99% of their “evidence” has simply been coincidence made up in their heads. They try so hard to equate Louis’ actions with Harry’s. Morally, ethically, in philosophical terms, they’re complete opposites.

It’s as if a person who is careful to treat others with compassion, to take care of the vulnerable, to act with loyalty to old friends and colleagues, to be a conscientious role model for young people, will compromise everything he believes to be with someone who thinks of himself and his friends first, who has purposefully cut off anyone without power or wealth, who pursues fame at any cost, who willingly surrounds himself with people who badmouth his friends and then ECHOES them to a big audience.

Louis is careful and painstaking in his songwriting and talks about it with enormous pride. Harry sings about his girlfriends as dripping pussies but can hardly put together a complete sentence about songwriting, and also plagiarizes shamelessly.

More so than the separation of physical distance, it’s now obvious that Louis’ and Harry’s separation in moral values is enormous. How can Larries reconcile it? You can only be willfully blind to it for so long.

@bulletprooflarry was the big Larrie who said that Louis didn’t want to have a solo career, and that when he talked about his album in 2017, he was lying. Her close friend @srlycris also believes— up to the present— that Louis was simply existing to support the really BIG STAR of the family, Harry the MCU star, the super entertainer. These are all the Larries who set up the foundation for the current Big Larries now.

Whatever happens with the launch of Louis’ second album, I hope that he doesn’t worry about the fandom too much and simply goes on with his musical life. To some degree, he can’t control the bias against him without having good PR, which he doesn’t seem to ever have. He isn’t a rookie and PR isn’t anything new to him: he can see what good PR looks like. It’s time for him to change his Twitter bio, blacklist some questions (about Harry and Larry), talk about tour, talk about songwriting, get some good articles out there, do photoshoots and fun live performances.

Welcome back.