#there is an easter egg in it. but it's not in the form of decodable text

[brushstrokes-art]

POV: You are a supercomputer looking at your favourite little construct. (+ alt under the cut)

[riacte]

Unconventional format / mixed media / meta / epistolary fic ideas:

Script format but the characters slowly break fourth wall until they grow self aware and scream to leave but the script confines them.

Mock up notes of an author's fic outline only for a "fan favourite" / "author's darling" character to gain sentience and influence the story. The character changes the outline to suit their own agenda, and their changes are marked with a different colour whereas black text means it's the author's will. Maybe another character using another colour gains sentience. The different colours fight for dominance. Mom says it's my turn with the keyboard hey what the fuck man excuse me I'm literally trying to save my family can you guys let go and let me write your character arcs in peace OH FUCK OFF

Recipe fic. The story is told via those unnecessarily long backstories on a recipe blog in which you learn about someone's grandma or a breakup or literally anything. Bonus points if the actual recipe deals with worldbuilding (what ingredients are available? What utensils are used? How to serve this meal? Woohoo Dungeon Meshi) or in-cheek recipes (eg. "Recipe for making up with your estranged mother - Step 1: Mix patience, nostalgia, and filial piety and let it marinate for ten years. Step 2: Throw that shit into the trash because you're better than that")

Travel fic. A character is lost and trying to find their way somewhere. GPS directions, googling "x place to x place", tickets and dates, train station maps, leaflets. It gets weirder and weirder. You never get closer to your destination. You're walking around in circles. It's always 10 meters away. Where are you going and where have you been?

Receipts. Try to infer what a character is doing judging from the weird things they buy together. Also yipppee inflation tracker. On the other side, maybe it can be about a cashier/ shop owner getting to know their customers and what they order.

Written from the pov of an non-native English speaker, all the English words are italicized whereas their native tongue are the only words not italicized. Inspired by Kupu rere kē by Alice Te Punga Somerville. This is because I got salty about people from Ao3 Reddit saying they won't read a fic in all italics.

Murder mystery / "Among Us" style impersonation fic strictly using the chatfic format. Characters and readers will have to figure out which character has been killed and replaced from the way they text and use emojis. This is also because I got salty about Ao3 Reddit being a wee bit pretentious about emoji usage in fics. Maybe emojis can be important plot devices! Some people prefer to sign off messages with a heart emoji of their signature colour, so won't it be weird if they use another coloured heart? How about someone using lapslock suddenly using proper capitalisation and full stops? Can you tell if someone's phone has been stolen? What if someone's mother is pretending to text like their child? Why is someone suddenly only using UwU speak? Is it a bit, or have they been replaced?

Innocuous second person POV until the last line where it's suddenly revealed to be first person POV all along and the "I" has been stalking and narrating "you".

Other fun bits / Easter eggs / secrets to hide:

Decoding within the text itself. Maybe we get given instructions to find a word in x chapter on page y on the nth line. And when we as readers collect all the words, they form a sentence that spells out an important fact which the characters are oblivious to. Or maybe the in-universe characters find a book with the same title as the irl fic with a bookmark in it, and if you go to where the bookmark is stuck irl, you'll find the murderer plainly stated. The rest of the fic is about the readers having hard confirmation of who the murderer is while characters don't know.

A phrase is subtly repeated throughout the text of the fic and is spelled out with the letter that begins a sentence. It gives off the effect that the narrator is screaming and crying into the void (to the readers in the fourth wall) while trying to avoid detection. Bonus points if the same word is repeated for pages and pages to the point the lack of sentence variation feels weird and clunky.

Morse code!! I love morse code! Using onomatopoeia to convey the dots and dashes! The sound of rain pattering on the tin rooftop— drop, drop, drop. A low whistle of a train rumbling in the distance. He slowly sharpens his knife, creating a shiiing sound. A lengthy, high pitched squeal from his kettle. A dog barks. A sharp knock. His heart thumps. Dot dot dot, dash dash dash, dot dot dot. SOS. Maybe a character's death scene spells out the name of their mysterious murderer. Maybe a character is reminiscing their deceased loved one and the scene spells out what the deceased person would've wanted to tell them— "LIVE ON" or "I LOVE YOU" or something.

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Heyyyyyy just wondering if you have any terms for like a modern day pop band, if you don't thats fine i just love your posts so i thought to drop by. toodles!!❤️🩶🎶🎶

Some Pop Music Vocabulary

Catchy Hook - A memorable musical phrase or lyric that captures the listener's attention.

Chart - A ranking or list of the most popular songs based on factors such as sales, streaming, or radio airplay.

Chart Performance - A song's position on music charts, indicating its popularity and commercial success.

Count-off - The numbers spoken to establish the tempo of a pop song immediately before that song begins.

Crossover Appeal - The ability of a song to attract listeners from different musical genres, expanding its reach.

Easter Egg - In popular culture, it is a hidden message, joke, reference, or image in a body of work meant for fans to decode or crack.

Frontperson - The main singer or leader of a musical group.

Hit - A popular and successful song that receives widespread attention and achieves high levels of popularity.

Radio Airplay - The exposure a song receives through regular rotation on mainstream radio stations.

Radio-Friendly - Songs that are suitable for airplay on mainstream radio stations due to their broad appeal.

Strophic Form - Referring to vocal music in which the text changes but the music stays essentially the same.

Supergroup - A group of pop, rock, or jazz musicians playing together who are also famous separately.

Support Band - A band that performs before the main one in a concert or other performance.

Top 40 - The set of 40 songs that have been bought by the largest numbers of people in the previous week.

Vamp - In popular music, a short, repeatable musical figure usually placed at the end of a song’s introduction.

Sources: 1 2 3 4 5 ⚜ More: Word Lists ⚜ Writing Resources PDFs

Thanks so much, you're so sweet! Hope this helps with your writing <3

[okiecookie20]

EXO Theory Dftf (don't fight the feeling)

In this post I will try to point out and decode clues. I made some conclusions to arrange the eras in order. Let's start by analyzing the main theme.

• EXO was travelling to Exoplanet as seen in the dftf teaser pictures.

The word HISTORY is shown in several languages in the starting. The setting is similar to what we see in History mvs:

Exo evacuate EXOPLANET with the help of a spaceship. I believe that History, chronologically, happens before Dftf.

Here is Exo's Kcon Australia 2017 vcr which depicts their spacecraft was going to crash land.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by EXOPLANET (@wearexolina_)

The bright Exo logo at the end might be a symbolic representation of exoplanet. The spacecraft crash lands on one of the other extra terrestrial planets on which Power takes place. Notice how the exos don't have their powers in dftf which they acquire in the form of orbs in Power mv. Hence, Power happens after Dftf.

Now I'll talk about two main theories which lead to different conclusions for this section of the storyline:–

#1 The Emergency landing promo pics show them on different planets each representing the 6 members' (no Yixing🥲) powers. The album logo shows a radar locating the 9 members. It is also present in the vcr above. As part of their promotions, they released a game called EXO Ship Saga in which each mem has a different planet. The theme seems pretty straightforward: they travelled to different planets, maybe used escape-pods because they were going to crash land in the vcr above.

This theory might be able to explain the story of parallel universes as well as the ending of Power with Baek falling in an ocean.

#2 After reaching the planet shown in Power, they were scattered to different cities on Earth (Pathcodes) as comets seen in the beginning of Dftf. As of now, many of us are confused which of these happen in the chronology (they land in cities or on planets). They must have tried to evacuate it since the Red Force has come to know they are all together and have acquired their orbs. Let's go with the second theory: I believe Pathcode comes after Power.

Why? Proof: in Tao's pathcode, he was reading a newspaper and it said that 10 comets were visible near earth (ot10 era) hence they landed in different locations in Pathcodes.

The comet Kyungsoo saw in Dftf mv could be the one appearing in Let me In and explains their isolation in Sing For You.

At the end of Dftf mv, they approach a portal and there is falling snow in space?! This could be another hint that Sing For You comes later in the story and not before Dftf.

• In Ep 02. One giant leap teaser video, Kyungsoo is the only one who looks back with a robotic sound. Also, he is the only member emersed in green light in the concept pics of Dftf. Smth definitely seems off but we'll leave it at that for now.

From 2:56, they dance in the spaceship with some blinking red lights behind. These could be cctvs as I pointed out in Rover (mini theory) and Obsession. In this era too they are under surveillance.

• SM included easter eggs from previous releases (code numbers) which means a lot as the group has matured artistically alongwith more involvement in production and shares a great bond with their fans (releasing this album for EXO-Ls with Yixing🐑 during the drought❣️).

There were other things I wanted to discuss but due to the confusing timeline I tried my best understanding plot holes. This mv is undoubtedly connected to many others and with the possibility of parallel universes, it has become complex.

Of course I asked more questions than solving them hehe but I love Exo. Do share your thoughts & THANKS FOR READING! Also, missing SeKai😭❣️

[onyxbird]

In Their Name

Summary:

They were widely considered to be one of the best in the business—in any business—at deciphering encoded messages from supervillains. It was a weird form of job security for a reporter, but in a world of superheros and supervillains, you take what you can get.

This message, however, was from the Overlord, the longest-standing and most mystery-shrouded supervillain in the city. It was by far the longest decoding task of the reporter's career... and the strangest format. (AO3 link here.)

...

“EVIL WILL RISE. WE ARE LEGION. ALL HAIL THE OVERLORD WHO SHALL REIGN OVER THIS LAND. PROSPERITY AND PLENTY ARE THE PRIZE OF THOSE WHO JOIN OUR CAU.”

The reporter sat back from their whiteboard and sipped their tea.

They were widely considered to be one of the best in the business—in any business—at deciphering encoded messages from supervillains. It was a weird form of job security. The newspaper loved it, of course, because it ensured them the scoop on whatever the latest supervillain was up to. They had initially worried about getting on supervillains' radar, but, ultimately, the villains wanted their messages to be deciphered—otherwise there was no reason to encode a coherent message. In fact, the reporter was fairly certain some of the paper's anonymous tip-offs came directly from the villains themselves.

Hero organizations and law enforcement were probably the worst part of the deal. They needed the help, but they wanted the decoded messages kept under wraps and especially didn't want it advertised that the newspaper managed to decipher the clues before the police. The paper and the cops had come to a detente of sorts years ago: the paper continued to publish whatever deciphered messages they saw fit, and the closest hero league got a courtesy heads-up with the deciphered message before it hit the front page. The paper didn't call attention to the fact that the superheroes and the cops couldn't figure it out without help… unless the other side started trash-talking first. (They seemed to have learned after the first few times.)

This message had been by far the longest decoding job of the reporter's career.

“The Evil Overlord” had been taunting their foes for years that their manifesto was openly published and that no one had managed to find and decipher it yet. Every word and image they released had been pored over by investigators, journalists, scholars, and hobbyists in search of hidden meaning. There was plenty of fodder for the search. Overlord had their fingers in pies all over the area.

Hell, there was an entire collection of local businesses in the region that everyone knew to be a front for Overlord. Owners Erik, Victoria, Isobel, and Lyle, the self-proclaimed children of their ever-masked villainous parent, made no secret of their allegiance. Out-of-towners were generally baffled that no one had shut down a known supervillain-owned business front, even if no one had been dig up admissible evidence of legal wrongdoing on the part of the business itself. Locals mostly shrugged—law enforcement and the superhero league together had failed to touch Overlord and their organization for decades; what else was new? Legally the businesses were squeaky clean, the prices were pretty good, and their staff was well-paid and well-treated, with competitive benefits. If your city was stuck with a resident supervillain, might as well reap what fringe benefits you could, right?

Their advertising, signage, and even coupon fine print had been scrutinized for hidden messages almost as much as Overlord's overt proclamations of doom, with absolutely no luck in finding the fabled “manifesto.” They did occasionally conceal a marketing easter egg, e.g., a passphrase or set of instructions to collect a free “Evil, Inc.” coffee mug. (The reporter had the entire collection: Nine were displayed on the shelf above their desk; the latest one, a rainbow-themed June design with each full-height letter of “EVIL, INC” in a different color, contained their current cup of tea.)

They were all looking in the wrong place.

To be fair, it had taken the reporter a long time to figure it out themselves, even with their experience.

It was common knowledge, of course, that Overlord's own children's names spelled out “EVIL.” They frequently highlighted it themselves—it was, after all, the official explanation for why they called their businesses “Evil, Inc.” And on the face of it, that was a simple, self-contained joke—the Overlord had only four children.

…Right?

The reporter no longer recalled exactly what had drawn their attention to the employee birth announcements in the first place, but they did remember the names they'd noticed in that first batch: Hadley, Arwen, Ivy, and Liam. HAIL.

It was a minor thing, easily explained by sheer coincidence, or by the newsletter author having some fun with acronyms once they saw the collection of names. They probably wouldn't even have registered it if it hadn't been an announcement from the local acronym-of-sibling-initials company. And at the time, no one else was really looking—those births long pre-dated Overlord's earliest claims of having published an undiscovered “manifesto.” But the reporter hadn't become a supervillain decryption expert by not chasing patterns down just for curiosity's sake.

Finding the earlier parts of the message wasn't trivial. Access to back issues of the employee newsletter wasn't exactly front and center in the company's public-facing communications; the early formatting and wording of the announcements had varied, and, in perhaps the biggest hurdle to deciphering the message, not every employee's baby was part of the pattern.

Still, once you tracked down all the announcements and figured out the indicators that flagged which ones were part of the message, it was a simple a matter of listing the names in the order announced (not always corresponding to birth order) and adding some spaces and punctuation.

Walker, Ian, Lucy and Lily (twins). Regina, Ibrahim, Sara, Eli. William and Earl. Ana, Robert, Evie. Lori, Edward (Jr.), Gabriela, Imani and Omari (twins again), Nathan. Allison, Laci, Laetitia.

The reporter had been quietly keeping track ever since, watching the message slowly, slowlyunfold. It was about at the point the message hit “who shall reign” that they started to suspect Overlord had never intended this to become a thing and just wasn't sure how to end the “tradition” without insulting the next employee who wanted to include their baby. (“Prize” had been a particularly amusing section to observe—whoever organized this effort had clearly gone to some contortions in terms of message planning and announcement order to make little Zachary the 3rd, aka “Tripp,” fit into the message.)

The phone on their desk chimed a gentle reminder—one hour until Jason's Little League game. The Evil, Inc.-sponsored team, the Minions of Darkness (also home to four of the letters in “Prosperity”: Peter, Ollie, Ignacio “Nacho,” and Tyler) had been having a blast this season, and Jason had been bouncing off the walls all week about their upcoming game against the Metropolis Lions.

Lyle, who ran the Evil grocery store closest to the baseball field, always supplied snacks for the team, and the reporter had promised to swing by and pick them up on the way. (They wondered, as they had many times before, whether they should ask if his parent wanted their “manifesto” to be revealed or to remain a mystery to those who didn't find it for themselves.)

They sorted the latest Evil, Inc., birth announcement (Angela and Uri) into the folder with the rest, scrubbed all traces of the message off of the whiteboard, and flipped off the lights on the way out of their office.

Hopefully Lyle included some of Evil's store-brand alphabet cookies this week. They tended to forestall the away team's commentary about the terrors of living in a city with an active supervillain, and besides, all the kids loved them!

[everswift]

So glad I read your post because I was so MAD when certain fans made Speak Now TV all about her rumoured exes and not the songs themselves and how relatable they are even now

both wrong since speak now tv is factually about me (the person who has been asking for a taylor swift x fall out boy collab for precisely 10 years)

jokes aside, yeah, i feel like the fandom has a tendency to judge her songs too much according to what they assume the song is about instead of its own merits (like innocent has incredible writing imo and a lot of ppl seem to dislike it bc they can't separate it from the kanye incident). i feel like her work very much has that thing where the specificity is what ends up making it so universal. and yet instead of appreciating it for what it is, we have a tendency to treat her confessional songwriting as just another form of easter egg to decode the spectacle we've made out of her private life. many many thoughts

[caatws]

Hello, idk if you have been asked this already, but do you think Gunn made it clear that Gamora is not a guardian despite her understanding Groot? And do you think that he made it clear in the movie (and on his tweet) that Gamora and Peter are never getting together at some point despite her understanding why she fell in love with him? I have seen some people claim she doesnt like him nor the guardians, and that Peter doesnt love this Gamora because its not his.

honestly? looking at just the movie by itself, without everything happening irl, i don't think there's enough there to 100%, beyond a shadow of a doubt, prove or disprove gamora being a guardian. i do think the film asserts gamora is at "home" somewhere else now with the way the clip of her reuniting with the ravagers was included in the dog days are over sequence, seemingly to parallel it with mantis and peter leaving the gotg. (also this isn't fully related but i don't think we've ever gotten to see gamora have a group hug with the gotg or emote that way with them and i'm salty lol but 4 years passing offscreen before her death will do that to ya i guess)

i've also seen some ppl interpret the photo of everyone at the end as kind of a Look, She's Still One of Them In-Universe moment, but tbh that photo was giving me cast's last hoorah on their final project in this franchise together Ever more than any kind of message abt the in-universe character relationships. it was giving "omg it's everyone's last day on set in costume together!" rather than canon family photo to me. and i mean gunn may be detailed in his work but he isn't taylor swift lol. we aren't playing 3d chess to decode secret meta messages abt the canon through easter eggs here

standing by itself, again, i think the movie is left pretty open-ended, aside from peter returning in some form without the others in the future, but let's revisit That Tweet again for the sake of this ask:

gunn is saying "you are 100% correct" to op interpreting the film as "quill accepting she isn't his gamora and leting go, while gamora understands how she was able to fall in love with him." i don't think this statement or the storyline suggested in the statement can fully prove or disprove whether peter and this gamora would ever fall in love in the future for certain, but it sounds like gunn probably had no plans to ever put them back together romantically - at least, not with this gamora. (but considering gamora and the rest of the gotg are done in the mcu but peter will be continuing solo in whatever form that takes, i think it's fair to say canon starmora is probably just going to remain a thing of the past)

and to make it clear, i Do think this was a solid arc for peter with This gamora considering the circumstances that vol 3 takes place within. it felt natural and like a rly good approach to grief, which i respected. if starmora had to get some sort canon send-off after one of them died, this was a pretty strong one to me.

the "you are 100% correct" part of this tweet with its implications for starmora was honestly never even part of my focus on or questions abt this tweet personally - it was the "real family" part that had me kinda ??????

bc i think that vibes kinda weirdly with the note the film ends on, since it seemed a lot more open-ended than gamora having a Real or Unreal family. and like i said before, it's the use of "real" here that sets up this binary of Real and Unreal Family or Real and Less Real family, and i think it's more than fair for gotg fans to not respond to the implied binary here very positively! and once we start connecting the irl dots of gunn's tweet with things like the gamora merch situation, the picture it starts to paint does not seem to favor gamora being A Member Of The GotG(TM)

but again, now that most of our gotg canon is done for good in the mainline mcu, i don't think we'll ever have a for-sure answer here one way or another, aside from whatever comes from peter's supposed future appearances

[iroascinetalks]

Deadpool 2 movie Avengers age of Ultron Easter egg 😮

Movie Name - Deadpool 2

"Deadpool 2" is a 2018 superhero film that follows the wisecracking mercenary Wade Wilson, aka Deadpool, as he forms a team of mutants called X-Force to protect a young boy with supernatural abilities from the time-traveling soldier Cable. The movie is known for its irreverent humor, over-the-top action sequences, and self-aware commentary on superhero tropes.

**Welcome to IroAs Cinetalks **

At IroAs Cinetalks, we're passionate about unraveling the rich tapestry of cinema. Join us as we dissect the nuances, decode the symbolism, and celebrate the artistry of filmmaking. From hidden gems to mind-bending theories, we're here to ignite your love for movies and spark lively conversations that will keep you coming back for more.

🎥 Ready to dive into the world of cinema? Hit that subscribe button and let's embark on a cinematic journey together!

[doodleferp]

Monsino Map Decoding Update!!! (spoiler warning)

Link to previous freakout post: https://doodleferp.tumblr.com/post/623224885207040000/yall-im-up-tryna-decode-the-monsino-map-from-the

So what feels like a week ago, I decided to try and decode anything I might be able to find on the map of Monsino locations that was revealed to us in The Girl in the Woods. I wasn’t really getting anywhere trying to unblur the photos of the map I had already taken, so I decided to pull a MatPat and watch the scene where Carrie finds the map a quarter-frame at a time to uncover any additional Easter eggs.

What I found was something that blew my mind even further.

On the map, on Pennsylvania, I shit you not, there is an icon that is a dead-ringer for the Look-See.

Take a look:

That’s Look-See, all right. He’s there, he’s riGHT THERE. This ho knows a Look-See when she sees it, and that? THAT IS A FUCKING LOOK-SEE.

Additionally, I had some suspicions about another icon that I saw in one of my OG screenshots. It was very vague and I couldn’t make it out with my amateur Photoshopping, but I thought it looked like something with antlers. And GUESS WHAT IT WAS.

YEP. The FUCKING MORDEO. Right there in West Virginia (and uncomfortably close to home sweet Ohio). Monsino knows about not one, but TWO heavy-hitters of the Crypt Monster Universe (three, if I can figure out what the mind control icon is all about. Maybe the Kinderfänger? The monster from Tethers?). This only serves to confirm my suspicions and overall theory, so I’m gonna lay that out for ya right here:

The Monsino Corporation is trying to make monsters. I don’t know how, I don’t know why, but that’s their ultimate agenda. They want to make more of these suckers, or at the very least, study them or wherever they come from.

Here’s my main reasoning: the Freaks in the film Taste. For those who haven’t seen the film, I’ll summarize it here: two step-siblings, Clover and Malcolm, have to fight their way through their neighborhood after a shipment of meat from Monsino Farms turns out to be royally messed-up and turns anyone who consumes it into a ravenous beast called a Freak, rather grotesque creatures whose sole thought is what they’re going to eat next to fill the hole in their hungry tummies -- be it fruit, veggies, or human beings. Mostly human beings. Something I liked about Taste is that it ended on a hopeful cliffhanger, which isn’t something I’ve seen too often from Crypt. Usually the shorts end with implications that the monster is still there or that the main character is just about to get chomped on by a monster or something, but Taste ends with Clover and Malcolm going out to kick some cannibal butt, their newfound sibling bond stronger than ever, and that makes me really happy.

But as much as I love these two, the Freaks are what I feel to be a big point of contention in the Monsino puzzle. What intrigues me about these monsters is how similar they are to one of the heavy-hitters previously mentioned -- the Mordeo. Here’s some key similarities, just to name a few:

The way they’re formed. Both monsters are created through eating meat. The Mordeo is created when someone consumes human flesh out of desperation to survive. While not as bleak as the Mordeo, the Freaks are created when humans consume the likewise tainted meat.

Their transformation. As they are created, both monsters undergo a graphic transformation in which they lose their humanity. The Mordeo’s transformation is quite instantaneous, with the victim turning almost immediately after they consume the forbidden meats. The Freaks’ physical transformations are slower, but like the Mordeo their personalities disappear almost immediately after they consume the meat.

Their ravenous hungers. Both monsters are slaves to their vicious appetites. They want that human flesh and they don’t care who they have to kill to get it, be it the crazy hermit they only saw once in the alleyways or their identical twin sibling who they’ve been with since birth.

Get the picture? It’s my assumption that in their goal to study monsters, Monsino attempted to create a Mordeo through scientific means rather than supernatural. But since human testing is frowned upon, they had to find another way to test their theories -- and what better way to see the effects firsthand than to distribute it to a neighborhood under the guise of giving out free samples of a brand-new product?

That brings me to my next point -- Somnidyne.

Making its first appearance in Dream Screechers, Somnidyne is a drug that “relieves fear, inhibits paranoia, and supports sympathetic nervous systems". In layman’s terms, it’s designed to help people with severe phobias or anxieties function in day-to-day life. Sounds tame enough, right? Wrong. Apparently, a nasty side-effect of Somnidyne that they don’t put on the bottle is that it makes people experience nightmares so intense, it’s almost impossible to distinguish them from reality. Hell, one guy even died from these things. That made enough people raise hell over this that Somnidyne was pulled from the market

In the film, we get to see what the drug actually does: instead of helping you conquer phobias, it makes you a potential victim to a hella monster called the Dream Screecher. Now, it’s not exactly clear how exactly you encounter this Dream Screecher, so here’s my guess on that: Monsino wanted to study the Dream Screecher, but it inhabits in an alternate level of our reality -- meaning we can’t see it and it can’t see us, which is why they created Somnidyne. We only ever see the Dream Screecher when the main cast is on the drug, so it most likely acts as a mini-portal to wherever the Dream Screecher lives. Monsino may have had a bit more leeway when it came to testing this on humans, but perhaps they didn’t feel like taking the human test subject route and decided to give it to a bunch of people and see what would happen.

Which brings me to my last points -- the map Carrie found in The Girl in the Woods, and the Torment Fragments.

Torment Fragments are weird purple crystals that originate from portals to the Plane of Torment, the realm that The Brute supposedly hails from. These things also seem to be able to create monsters, such as the case of The Mauler and Miss Annity. A.D. has a map of this Plane of Torment, as revealed in The Girl in the Woods. But the map that we really need to pay attention to is the second map, and it’s the one that really puts the nail in the “Evil Monsino” coffin.

A.D. has a map of what looks to be every Monsino business location in the United States. Monsino ain’t just limited to farming -- from what I’ve been able to decipher, they’ve got Monsino Therapeutics, Biotech, and a pharmaceuticals HQ in New York. It looks really fucking official, too, which makes me wonder what postion A.D. was in for him to get one of these.

What makes me go even more off-guard are all the P markings on the map. If you look down in the bottom left corner, what little we can see of the map’s key identifies the P’s as portals to the Plane of Torment. And all those blue mountain-lookin’ things? You can’t make it out as well, but look at the key again and the blue lines are identified as “torm”. I’ll bet my left ass that the full ID is “torment fragments”, because those lines ALWAYS seem to spawn around the portals.

And even more so -- what’s the deal with all these mini monster icons? We got a clown-looking thing in Texas, and the Mordeo and Look-See symbols as previously discussed. What does Monsino want with all these portals? I can understand them needing to ID the Mordeos, but what makes Look-See so important to them? Do they wanna disect these monsters? Do they want to replicate them? What is Monsino’s game, and how long until we see things unfold? I get that with the second wave of COVID coming up here in the US, things are gonna be slower in entertainment than usual, but I can’t take it.

Crypt TV, we need answers. And we hope that you’ll provide.

TL,DR: Monsino is secretly evil and wants to make monsters, which is why they ID’d the Look-See and the Mordeo on their company maps.

[moondeerdotblog]

On F$&king Up Careers

Can anyone guess the best way to derail a career in journalism?

Wait until after your pick up your English degree (minoring in Mass Communications ‘cause you were at the best damn journalism school one could hope for after all and just not showing up to class Freshman year at Georgia Tech, and initializing your collegiate transcript with a whopping 0.18 GPA, shouldn’t keep you out of Grady entirely)

Where was I … oh yeah … wait until after you graduate (the first time) to be diagnosed with dysthymia and ADHD.

Okay, who wants to do another? You wanna know how to build ridiculously complex applications (after teaching yourself how to process audio signals into a chroma-based spectrogram to feed to the neural network (after you taught yourself how to build … a neural … network) that can take data from a spectrogram of chroma values and match them to the likeliest of seventy-four patterns forming a musical chord (not the chord, mind you, but the relationship between its notes) which it turns out works because you trained it six ways to Sunday since as luck would have it you had already built an application for which you’d figured out how to encode and decode MIDI files making it a breeze to generate 500 hours of audio consisting of all seventy-four variations of the intended matchable patterns multiplied by the twelve chroma values multiplied by the number of octaves within which sound is audible to the human ear multiplied by the twelve different MIDI instruments for broadening the timber) and be utterly … unemployable?

moondeer.blog/uploads/2021/78083cd14d.mov

Turns out this was even easier. After rebalancing your neural chemistry via some #GDCymbalta and some #MFAdderall, go back to that university you had hoped might turn you into a journalist, pick up that BS in Computer Science, be interested by everything (so much so that it is a struggle not getting lost inside one obsession after another). Then don’t need money. Follow what interests you for at least five years. That’s it (Does the bitterness come through? Kinda worried the bitterness isn’t coming through).

Did y’all think it would get complicated again? Nope. In this country, if you don’t build a resume by working for someone within five years of your graduation … you are un-f$&king-hireable in Silicon Valley my friends.

But, OMG, put your projects on a resume and you look like every recruiter’s dream. So you get to do tons of interviews. Feel like spending a day on the Google Campus. You got it my friend. Wanna shoot the breeze with some Apple engineers over the phone? Done. I still get emails from recruiters for whatever it was I stuck on LinkedIn like a decade ago.

Bonus if you read this far:

I embedded an easter egg in that run-on sentence. Took a dual-brain to create it. Unknown as to whether it takes one to spot it.

Still here huh?

Anyone interested in how the 0.18 GPA came about? The college adjustment course I spent like two weeks attending (the one failing to mention classes were droppable), despite my never returning the rest of the quarter, gave me a ‘D’.

What? Fine, okay, I will tell you my secret. How to earn a college degree with some undiagnosed ADHD.

⑴ Be able to pull out a ‘C’ on any test you take … without studying OR showing up to class. (Notice that a ‘B’ will be necessary should the professor enjoy popping quizzes and grading attendance).

⑵ Should problems arise with ⑴ (maybe you couldn’t get yourself to class for a test or a project was going to take more than thirty minutes) ya better drop that course quick, there are only so many ‘F’s you will be able to carry should you want a passable GPA.

⑶ Once you’ve clawed your way to Senior (if year seven is still called Senior) year, you finally get to relax a little. No graded attendance. Classes feel like a little book club. The essays are a snap. Simply wake up an hour or so before due, eat a bit of breakfast, and about thirty minutes before class get situated and start writing. Bring your finished paper (that is only three pages long ‘cause by now the professors are only interested in what you have to say that they haven’t heard before) and hand it in. Easy peasy. All the ‘A’s on those papers cancel out any pop quiz nonsense.

[y2s1-20192020]

PHASE 2 - ALTERING DEVICE

We are currently living in a world best put by Liam Young as an age where "our generation’s cultural legacy are large data storages instead of libraries".  An age where "objects listen and talk back.  An age where "everyone boasts technology being the answer but never asks what the question was". The infrastructure has become so large it’s practically invisible (call on technology with...)

But with every new invention, misuse follows. The last few decades have been focused on the contemporary type of warfare - terrorism.  However, with this new age of technology, a new kind of terrorism known as cyber terrorism has officially begun ��� a battle fought in both the domestic front as well as international fronts.

By tracing newly formed parallels and ruptures, time could be used as a structure where cultural, historical and political phenomena could be derived. Thus, resulting in a handful of alternative projections of what could happen in the not so distant future ranging from as the aftermath of not WW3, but WW4 as predicted by Einstein (hinting that humanity would resume back to the dark ages).  Or more “realistic” projections such as an inc. in mass surveillance as a way for the government to combat this contemporary terrorist resulting in questions about whether we would trade personal security for privacy. 

In this age of increased surveillance, privacy is becoming a commodity of the old world and is rapidly moving further away from our reach.  The ultra-privacy cloaking Accessory is a privacy-enhancing wearable that was inspired by i-phone accessories such as the anti-glare film which shields your phone from eavesdropping. The accessory would cloak your phone from both digital and physical surveillance by techniques implemented by computer vision dazzle (CV Dazzle).

The accessory transforms the hand into a mess of pixels confusing the computer’s vision. The goal is to keep biometric recognition algorithms from seeing regularities and patterns in the typical detection points of the hand so that cameras will be unable to record and surveil you.

DEMONSTRATION OF PRODUCT ON PIN ART - This is just one of the “camouflage” techniques I implemented into the design of the accessory.

The product is essentially a disaster kit for a worst-case scenario in the distant future where we have little to no privacy as everything we do is being scanned and surveilled via special biometric camera scanners implemented around the whole city.  The product trains people with the art of digital camouflage to further retaliate mass surveillance by allowing you to either build via instructions or configure personalized designs through a precision configuration app.  The absurd over the top exaggerated features on the product could be justified as "the very thing that makes you invisible to computers makes you glaringly obvious to other humans”.

The intentional obscurity of the use is meant to embed enough curiosity within the public so that it becomes viral as a way to advertise/propagate the product. Inspiration for the distribution of the product comes from "Banksy museum art" and how the art is being inserted into places where they are not supposed to be. The product would be placed in another box as a ruse and will Infiltrate stores of all sorts. 

As the product is an open rebellion against the government, the dependence on masking/deceiving the true nature and purpose of the product relies on the manifestation of Easter eggs and hidden messages all over the product - only for the eyes of ones who are worthy enough to detect and decode the message.  However, the problem isn’t only top-down, but it is also peer-to-peer (Facebook), thus a further proposed idea that I wanted to propose was to extrapolate the accessory from just a glove to an entire suit, proposing the idea of the virtue of the many – (inspired by protests scenes in the new Joker film).  If the whole community wears it, then everyone is somewhat camouflaged and becomes invisible.

Video demonstrating the narrative of the alternative projection (in the not-so-distant future)

[meleadh-blog]

Day 2, part ½// The British Museum and the ride there: First picture is of the Rosetta Stone. The stone is considered a decoder because it has 3 languages on it. During Napoleon’s time, the people were able to transcribe the Egyptian hieroglyphics because they were able to read 2 of the 3 languages on the stone. The writing was actually a peace offering from the Egyptian king Ptolemy V to the priests, saying that he would go down and visit them instead of them coming up to visit him Memphis, Egypt. Later, when a French soldier found it in 1799 in Rashid, or Rosetta, in the Nile Delta, they were able to transcribe it by using the other two languages, which were in Ancient Greek and Demotic script.//The second picture is of Rameses the 2nd. Napoleon tried to steal the sculpture of Rameses, but he failed and left the hole in the right chest. The sculpture was successfully stolen by an Italian with the name Giovanni Belzoni, floated by barge. However, he left the legs of the sculpture, which are still in Thebes.// The third picture is of three Greek goddesses, most likely (left to right) Hestia, Dione, and Aphrodite.// The fourth picture is of a sculpture from Easter Island. The sculptures sit facing outward the island. The native people who used to lived there formed a habit of hunting all the mammals and birds that didn’t fly to extinction, then competing to get birds eggs ad become the “bird man”. When Europeans brought disease, the people eventually died out.// The fourth picture is of the view at the top of the British Museum steps.// The last picture is of Josie sitting on a train in the tube. The seat she sits in is in the corner. She had to jump to get onto it, but it’s her favorite seat. 😂 Today was very fun!

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Delicate (Taylor Swift song) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Delicate" Single by Taylor Swift from the album Reputation Released March 12, 2018 Format

• Digital download • streaming

Genre: Electropop Length: 3:52 Label

• Big Machine • Republic

Songwriter(s)

• Taylor Swift • Max Martin • Shellback

Producer(s)

• Max Martin • Shellback

Taylor Swift singles chronology

"Gorgeous" (2018) "Delicate" (2018)

Reputation track listing

"Don't Blame Me" (4) "Delicate" (5) "Look What You Made Me Do" (6)

Music video "Delicate" on YouTube

"Delicate" is a song recorded by American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift, for her sixth studio album Reputation (2017). It was released on March 12, 2018, as the album's fourth American single and sixth overall. Swift wrote the song with the producers Max Martin and Shellback. "Delicate" has been labeled as an "electropop love song"[1] with lyrics about "worrying how the guy she likes will like her for her and not worry about the media's perspective of her."

Big Machine Records From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Parent company: Big Machine Label Group Founded: September 1, 2005 Founder: Scott Borchetta Distributor(s) Universal Music Group

Genre

• Country • pop

Country of origin: United States Location: Nashville, Tennessee, U.S. Official website: bigmachinerecords.com

Big Machine Records, LLC is an independent American record label specializing in countryand pop artists. Big Machine is based on Music Row in Nashville, Tennessee. The label was launched in September 2005 by former DreamWorks Records executive, Scott Borchetta, and initially became a joint venture between Borchetta and country singer Toby Keith. As of November 2014, the music company consists of 88 employees—in the areas of music publishing, management, and merchandising—and four office buildings. The business also oversees numerous imprints, including Valory Music, that are under Big Machine Label Group.

Among the artists signed to the label is Taylor Swift. Swift's father owns a stake in the record label. Other artists include Reba McEntire, Tim McGraw, and Rascal Flatts.

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[codemageddon-gf]

CodeMageddon DAY 2 SUMMARY

DAY 1 | DAY 2 | DAY 3 | DAY 4 | DAY 5 | DAY 6 | DAY 7 | DAY 8 | DAY 9 | DAYS 10-13 | DAY 14

Hello, CodeHunters!

Around 4pm GMT, Discord user Davekara made his way to The Crooked Horn to find last night’s clue. He went on a two-hour trek to find the correct totem pole, where he was met by Agent Ci, one of the CodeMageddon creators! Ci streamed the event on Perisocope: https://www.pscp.tv/BlackerySplodge/1MYxNAmAZXzJw

After a lot of searching, Davekara was able to locate the coded clue!

This was a combined cipher of Vigenere and Caesar, two ciphers seen in the show. With the key 'Time', this decodes to MANY RUMOURS TELL OF GIFFANY'S PRESENCE IN THE CITIES OF PINES MALL (Solved by Discord user HopeCvon).

Upon closer inspection with a blacklight, Davekara noticed that there were dots above letters decoded as M, O, and A. This led us to the Mall of America in Minnesota! (Shoutout to discord user Shaduf who guessed this location before the blacklight message was discovered.)

Discord user Sodapop ( @imessedup-bettertryitagain ) and one of our mods Papu ( @colors-of-summer ) met up in the mall and began to search for the next clue in places that related to Gravity Falls and Giffany (aka arcades, GameStops, anime stores). This too was streamed on Periscope: https://www.pscp.tv/ColorsOfSummer/1OwxWAVoPOnGQ

Eventually, with a bit of searching, the next clue found was inside of Eagle Anime Store, in the form of a QR code which the Time Agents symbol in the center.

This led to a dropbox with a audiofile titled “Ciao Ed Duo.mp3” from Blendin that was in Morse Code.

The first part of the recording was solved quickly by Discord user MDave to be “J O I N T H E T I M E A N O M A L Y R E M O V A L”, but the second part was at a quicker tempo and took much longer. But MDave eventually came through and decoded http://8agency.org/bblandin/.

This led to a website of pure evil. This website led to many CodeHunters feeling confused, and it was quite overwhelming––but nevertheless, our CodeHunters pushed through! After nearly 9 grueling hours of code cracking and easter egg hunting by the entire team, hidden in the codes of the site / an ascii Bill / an ascii axolotl: were not one, but two locations!

Through viewing the source code, CodeHunters figured out that a majority of the information was a red herring and that they needed to focus on “choosing the correct path”. There were literally pages of Latin text, random ciphers, music puzzles, and sets of coordinates, which were all fake paths.

This was quite challenging because the site acted as a maze––if you clicked on even one wrong page, you would get trapped in an endless labyrinth of useless pages, and would not be able to get back to the correct path without restarting!

CodeHunters started to team together to map the entire site, but eventually decided this was a futile effort. While this was happening, other hunters pieced together the correct sequence of messages, which was:

“Choose the correct path Its very simple All you have to do Is Hold Out Your Hand And make a deal I'll make everything right again Make the right choice What do you chose”

Now CodeHunters just needed to find a way to link those messages together in the website.

Eventually, the correct path was found:

START http://8agency.org/bblandin/17-8593.html cuarj http://8agency.org/bblandin/04-4623.html sv    http://8agency.org/bblandin/02-2473.html qgm   http://8agency.org/bblandin/20-1696.html estyv http://8agency.org/bblandin/21-7897.html drsxu http://8agency.org/bblandin/01-4535.html oek   http://8agency.org/bblandin/02-6298.html ukq   http://8agency.org/bblandin/21-7915.html jxyda http://8agency.org/bblandin/20-4288.html or    http://8agency.org/bblandin/12-8470.html dtz   http://8agency.org/bblandin/03-5011.html ftmf  http://8agency.org/bblandin/10-8507.html ogmdv http://8agency.org/bblandin/19-9383.html vav   http://8agency.org/bblandin/05-6131.html tjp   http://8agency.org/bblandin/04-2549.html hzfwo http://8agency.org/bblandin/14-7788.html sghmj http://8agency.org/bblandin/20-3295.html

This source code led to coded messages.

When one set of messages was decoded, it revealed Clue A.

http://8agency.org/bblandin/03-5011.html : “aWalk Past” http://8agency.org/bblandin/01-4535.html : “aMabel St” http://8agency.org/bblandin/04-4623.html : “aBetween the” http://8agency.org/bblandin/02-2473.html : “aPortland, ME” http://8agency.org/bblandin/02-6298.html : “aFind the Boulder” http://8agency.org/bblandin/04-2549.html : “athe crossroads” http://8agency.org/bblandin/05-6131.html : “asmallest” http://8agency.org/bblandin/10-8507.html : “atwin pines”

Discord user Shaduf was able to piece this together to reveal a location: 5 Mabel Street, Portland Maine.

Sorted by number lowest to highest: Mabel St, Portland, ME Find the Boulder Walk Past the crossroads Between the smallest twin pines

The second set of coded messages were part of Clue B.

When put in the correct order, the clue revealed this set of numbers which would need to be “used at the place the map indicates”

12-8470:  /D.png         16 of 33, 2 14-7788:  /C.png          9 of 92, 6 17-8593:  33 of 33, 3         0         64 of 64, 1 19-9383:  30 of 30, 2         27 of 92, 4 20-1696:  26 of 64, 2         15 of 42, 3 20-3295:  <None> 20-4288:  26 of 30, 7         19 of 33, 1         31 of 92, 3 21-7897:  16 of 64, 2         23 of 42, 3          7 of 30, 4 21-7915:  87 of 92, 3         47 of 64, 8

The clue also consisted of a blot image, which CodeHunters laid over a map to reveal a location in Washington DC. Specifically: the George Mason Memorial.

This was all solved around 8:30 EST, which was deemed too late for the hunters to begin searching the locations, and the hunt was originally put on hold until tomorrow.

But it turns out our intrepid CodeHunters just weren’t ready to quit! They were able to remotely solve the DC clue by finding a website online that contained transcripts of the memorial’s inscriptions: https://www.nps.gov/nama/planyourvisit/george-mason-memorial.htm

Using the code from the Time Agency website, Discord user Shaduf was able to determine: “each paragraph on the description had a number of words that was like 33, 92, etc so the first number was what word and the second number was the letter within that word”

This led CodeHunters to https://cm2017soos.tumblr.com, and the password was correctly guessed to be fixinit1. This tumblr contains both some Stanfiction written by Soos, and a number puzzle.

Our intrepid CodeHunters quickly got to work trying to figure out this number puzzle!

The first box in each row corresponded to a Stanfic. The second number indicated the paragraph, third the word, and fourth the letter! Using this method, CodeHunters were able to put together:

DISNEYROSEGARDENSIXTOEIGHTPM

This leaves us with two clues to locate tomorrow:

5 Mabel Street, Portland, Maine

Disney Rose Gardens, Anaheim, California, from six to eight pm

And our hunt is once again on hold until then!

Happy Hunting! x

Credit to Discord/reddit user SenseiAurelius and @deviouslydoomed for helping compile today’s summary post!

[nizaammajothigameart-blog]

Media Discourses #1

In my first lecture we discussed and debated communication theory. The Shannon-Weaver model. So, what is it?

 Beginning with the two key components, the transmitter and a receiver. That which is being beamed across from the transmitter would be information, data, energy or material. What could potentially disrupt the flow of this information is something called noise, interference.

 An example of this could be whilst watching TV, bad weather may disrupt the signal which then would leave you with your favorite TV show dropping in and out or disappearing completely. Due to this you would not receive the complete form of information intended by the transmitter. In between this transaction there are several key components, the medium, signal, information, message and channel. Let’s put this into practice. A smoke signal would be the message/information, the fire/source would be the transmitter or medium. The light/atmosphere would be the noise and/or channel. And the eye would be the receiver of all this.

 Now we can include the concept of encoding and decoding. This is what happens in our everyday lives and across different cultures and countries. The same message can be interpreted many ways by different people. For example, an inside joke could make a group of friends laugh, but someone outside of that social circle may not understand it and could even get offended.

 Moving to the next addition to this theory, a constant feedback loop, cybernetics, a control system. An example of this could be sales for a record label. When a record label releases an album, how it is received by audiences may impact the next album they release. Depending on artist and genre, if something did not do well at all, it is very unlikely there will be a follow up similar as income and sales for the record label determines its survival. What can increase the chances of making the music well received? Here we have Redundancy and Entropy. 

Redundant art or information is something a large portion of society will decode quite easily. Cultural norms such as flashing lights on a police car send out a universal signal of emergency. At the same time, the police car does not need another set of lights to communicate no emergency, so the absence of a message can be a message itself. An entropic message is something that is unpredictable, in contrast to something that is redundant.

 How does all apply to me and my specialized field?

 I want to get involved in hard surface vehicle art, and then introduce VR to my project. But what will be my message? My own thoughts are telling me that whatever it is, I will have to have a decent balance of entropic and redundant information. With entertainment design/art it is important to get users engaged but also have a sense of unknown that they can discover whilst engaged. Easter eggs, surprises, rewards. For my specialized field, noise could be things like unrealistic materials or inaccurate modelling. They key for me will be trying to replicate reality and accuracy in my model to the best my ability.

Graham Williamson, 2014, SLTinfo, UK, from: https://www.sltinfo.com/entropy-and-redundancy-in-human-communication/

[moondeerdotblog]

On F$&king Up Careers

Can anyone guess the best way to derail a career in journalism?

Wait until after your pick up your English degree (minoring in Mass Communications ‘cause you were at the best damn journalism school one could hope for after all and just not showing up to class Freshman year at Georgia Tech, and initializing your collegiate transcript with a whopping 0.18 GPA, shouldn’t keep you out of Grady entirely)

Where was I … oh yeah … wait until after you graduate (the first time) to be diagnosed with dysthymia and ADHD.

Okay, who wants to do another? You wanna know how to build ridiculously complex applications (after teaching yourself how to process audio signals into a chroma-based spectrogram to feed to the neural network (after you taught yourself how to build … a neural … network) that can take data from a spectrogram of chroma values and match them to the likeliest of seventy-four patterns forming a musical chord (not the chord, mind you, but the relationship between its notes) which it turns out works because you trained it six ways to Sunday since as luck would have it you had already built an application for which you’d figured out how to encode and decode MIDI files making it a breeze to generate 500 hours of audio consisting of all seventy-four variations of the intended matchable patterns multiplied by the twelve chroma values multiplied by the number of octaves within which sound is audible to the human ear multiplied by the twelve different MIDI instruments for broadening the timber) and be utterly … unemployable?

Turns out this was even easier. After rebalancing your neural chemistry via some #GDCymbalta and some #MFAdderall, go back to that university you had hoped might turn you into a journalist, pick up that BS in Computer Science, be interested by everything (so much so that it is a struggle not getting lost inside one obsession after another). Then don’t need money. Follow what interests you for at least five years. That’s it (Does the bitterness come through? Kinda worried the bitterness isn’t coming through).

Did y’all think it would get complicated again? Nope. In this country, if you don’t build a resume by working for someone within five years of your graduation … you are un-f$&king-hireable in Silicon Valley my friends.

But, OMG, put your projects on a resume and you look like every recruiter’s dream. So you get to do tons of interviews. Feel like spending a day on the Google Campus. You got it my friend. Wanna shoot the breeze with some Apple engineers over the phone? Done. I still get emails from recruiters for whatever it was I stuck on LinkedIn like a decade ago.

Bonus if you read this far:

I embedded an easter egg in that run-on sentence. Took a dual-brain to create it. Unknown as to whether it takes one to spot it.

Still here huh?

Anyone interested in how the 0.18 GPA came about? The college adjustment course I spent like two weeks attending (the one failing to mention classes were droppable), despite my never returning the rest of the quarter, gave me a ‘D’.

What? Fine, okay, I will tell you my secret. How to earn a college degree with some undiagnosed ADHD.

⑴ Be able to pull out a ‘C’ on any test you take … without studying OR showing up to class. (Notice that a ‘B’ will be necessary should the professor enjoy popping quizzes and grading attendance).

⑵ Should problems arise with ⑴ (maybe you couldn’t get yourself to class for a test or a project was going to take more than thirty minutes) ya better drop that course quick, there are only so many ‘F’s you will be able to carry should you want a passable GPA.

⑶ Once you’ve clawed your way to Senior (if year seven is still called Senior) year, you finally get to relax a little. No graded attendance. Classes feel like a little book club. The essays are a snap. Simply wake up an hour or so before due, eat a bit of breakfast, and about thirty minutes before class get situated and start writing. Bring your finished paper (that is only three pages long ‘cause by now the professors are only interested in what you have to say that they haven’t heard before) and hand it in. Easy peasy. All the ‘A’s on those papers cancel out any pop quiz nonsense.