#zones of thought

[input-command]

Made a Tine! Her name is "Seeker" or "Ramdimirukam" Carver and I have been obsessed over this book/species for a while now.

Tines are a pack species from "A Fire Upon the Deep" - What you see here is one character, spread between four fragments. They use those patches on their heads and hips to transmit thoughts through the air, and to receive thoughts of nearby members. I very highly recommend the book. It is so much better than I can do it justice

[timberwind]

sketching up my ideas for what Tines look like. big fan of the funny hivemind dogs.

[badninken]

He's been hauled around by so many people and animals at this point in his life that he's starting to rate them by size and comfort level.

He's literally bent over backwards on a horse ridden by three other men here. He's having this thought in the privacy of his own mind while frowning at the sky, still shot full of lead bullets btw. Peak Law moment.

Episode 690 at 20:54 (the voice acting for this line is amazing)

[quirkycatsfatstacks]

Review: A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge

Series: Zones of Thought #1Author: Vernor VingePublisher: Tor Science FictionReleased: February 15, 1993 (Re-released March 20, 2007)Received: NetGalleyFind it on Goodreads | More Sci-Fi Summary: In a distant future, myriad races populate a cosmos where mental prowess aligns with spatial coordinates, spanning from the sublime intellects of the Transcend to the rudimentary faculties of the…

[ao3commentoftheday]

Get his ass 🗡🗡 - an Ides AO3 skin

Get the code (and instructions for how to use it) on github

(note: when scrolling, works written by other people will have the same cream background as the site, but works written by you will have a yellow background)

[chryseis]

FYI every purchase of any of The Adventure Zone music on Griffin McElroy's Bandcamp will be entirely donated to the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund for the rest of 2023. His music is set at 'name your price', and the McElroys are also going to match the donations.

If you've listened to even a bit of any TAZ campaign, you surely know what a fantastic musician Griffin is, and there is no better time to purchase his music than now.

[twilight-zoned-out]

Some things about Allan:

He’s the only one who reacts to the narrator

He’s the only doll (besides the Weird House) who isn’t swayed in some way by Ken’s takeover

He also declares himself as “Ken's buddy" (making canon his official box description) which makes his inability to be swayed more interesting

He has bendable legs (probably the only reason he tries to jump the fence instead of going around like everyone else)

He easily decked a half-dozen construction Kens and could probably singlehandedly win the Ken fight

He seems to know more about the real world than most Barbies

He knows what NSYNC is 

He knows about other Allan copies living in the real world (I’m trying to figure out if he made this up to convince the humans he can live in the real world, but even if he did, how does he know what NSYNC is???)

There are no other Allan models

[hinamie]

long way home

[livelaughlovesubs]

I had a super cute (?) Idea today I gotta share this

Imagine a vibrator that is connected to an app on your phone, but to make it move, you have to press a button. Not like an on/off button, but that it only moves when your finger’s on the button. So, if you don’t press it anymore, it stops vibrating.

That, and you convince your partner to wear it inside him under his clothes. Saying something like: “I’ll press it whenever I think of you ♡” before both of you go about your day.

Then throughout the day, you’d just randomly press the button every time you think of him, before letting go and going back to your usual routine. And he’s just shaking trying to hold back a moan at some place, yet feeling fuzzy at being ‘notified’ you just thought of him.

[emacrow]

You have something that belongs to me.

The world was shaking within a void of Glowing Green as the Justice League was listening on what John was explaining that the Infinite King that supposedly is a Protector has been gone off the rails in straight panic for the past 4 months straight because something very life or very death Important was taken from him and he been on a rampaging hunt throughout the multiverses, literally tearing and reforming them as he went, as John described the tip from Deadman.

Unfortunately, what was important to the Infinite King is on this earth. John immediately cut off Bruce as trying to fight him all together even with Superman that Infinite King would easily squish Superman like a mosquito with only just a tiny breath.

Just let the Infinite King find what he is looking for and pray that it is safely unharmed so we may survive afterward.

That was 3 hours ago after Batman went back to gotham, as Batman stared in horror of a larger then Life elderitch being had both of his arms deep in Jason's chest.

"You have something that belongs to me." The Infinite King hissed.

Just hearing the hitched Gasp in Jason's voice was reeling in the terrible flashback of that night that triggered his fight instinct, only for the very shadows seemingly holding him back by literally force.

Only for the Infinite King to pull out a tiny lararus Pit coated goopey naked 4 year old girl sobbing out daddy with her arms stretched out, doing tiny gimme hands toward the king.

"Oh Ellen..."

Jason's body was seemingly unharmed, beside the raspy breathing that was slowly developing into a hyperventilating hysteria after being chased like a hunted rabbit from a savage starving wolf for three hours straight by this elderitch being in Crime Ally.

The Large humaniod Elderitch being with several glowing green eyes that was a nightmare fuel, mixes together with stars, galaxies, and secrets untold slowly shrank more and more becoming more human in a gruesome fascinating way that would Haunt Bruce's nightmares for years to come.

the Infinite King was now a Teenager with glowing white hair defying gravity, tanned star coated skin, large teaey icy blue eyes in a black winter suit with a DP symbol delicate, holding the whimpering little goopey girl close to his chest, covering her with a star covered cape now blanket as he kissed her forehead looking at Jason.

"Jason Peter Todd, I am sincerely thank you for letting my daughter possess your core after she accidentally went off on her own and accidentally dipped into the deep end up Tainted Ecto portals. Your core will be healing in a few months after Ellen had kept using yours to save her own destabilizing."

"I must go now before she began to destabilize more, but here is my contact ritual." The infinite King disappeared into a clearer glowing green lararus Pit portal after a good bow, leaving behind a note on Jason's lap.

The coms were suddenly back on as Tim's voice could be heard.

"So the reason why Jason was all Trigger gun happy was cause he was accidentally pregnant with the infinite king's daughter?"

[bet-on-me-13]

Dark Secret

So! Danny was discovered pretty quickly after his first battle against the Lunch Lady. His hair turned white, and his body shape was a little different, but he largely looked very similar to his Human Form, so it was only a matter of time really.

Thankfully he was assumed to be a Metahuman.

He didn't look like any other Ghost, the closest resemblance was his hair and eye color, but even that could be explained away. Also his parents were adamant that he couldn't be a Ghost because he was still Sentient and not Evil, so he must just have powers that just looked similar to Ghost Powers esthetically. Probably as a result of the Portal Accident, which he used as an explanation for how his powers awakened.

Danny also avoided using the more obvious Ghost Powers like Intangiblity and Invisiblity, sticking mostly to the most basic Flight and Energy based Powers he got to be as generic as possible. If anybody saw otherwise, it was a trick of the light or a trick of the Ghosts.

Danny became the Hero of Amity Park, always pretending to be something else. It was his darkest secret.

Unfortunately because the public never saw a Ghost like Phantom on a positive light, their perception of Ghosts never changed. Nobody believed that Ghosts could be anything aside from Evil, and as the knowledge of Ghosts and the Ghost Zone began to spread around the world that perception became more and more commonplace.

If Danny had been revealed in the early days, it could have been salvageable, but nowadays if his secret was revealed he would have to convince the entire world that everything they knew about Ghosts was wrong. It would practically be impossible.

Even when he joined the Justice League when he became an Adult, he still had to hide his secret. Years of hiding made sure he could conceal his true Nature from the magic users on the team, but he still had to be distant from the team just to be sure.

While all this was going on in the Living Realm, his adventures in the Ghost Zone still happened as normal. He saved Pandora and the Acropolis, dethroned the Tyrant King Aragon, managed to defeat Pariah Dark in Single combat, and even became recognized as a Great Warrior by the Far Frozen.

After years of hiding, he actually felt more at home in the Ghost Zone than in the Human Realm. There he could be his true self without having to hide a huge part of his identity, and people accepted him for who he was. Sure he had enemies there, but he also had more real friends outside of Tucker and Sam.

He was content with his double life, acting as a Hero to the Public while hiding his true self, and secretly going to the Ghost Zone to be himself among his friends and even his enemies.

Of course it all came crashing down when he Anti Ecto Acts finally passed.

Now there was a Legal Path for Humans to enter and profit off of the Ghost Zone. Beyond just being able to legally kill and experiment on Ghosts, the Acts also allowed Humans to claim parts of the Ghost Zone as their own Property, enslaving the Ghosts residing there, and destroying the Ecosystem of the Zone because there were no laws preventing it.

And now Danny had a choice.

He could either side with the Humans to which he was a Hero, allowing them to destroy the Ghost Zone and Enslave the denizens living there with the full support of the Government, or he could side with the Ghost Zone, betraying Humanity and the people he had been protecting for years, but trying to save those who had accepted him for his true self years ago.

To him the answer was obvious.

[timberwind]

here's a feature that the more advanced digital radio cloaks could have (besides improved range, encryption, multi-channel support, and custom connection graphs with tuned delays and stuff) a loss of signal script. the user could set up custom loss of signal scripts for their individual members and then in the event of an unexpected disconnect it could help keep the singleton calm and keep them from behaving unsafely. an extremely simple one that just plays back or loops prerecorded mindsound would probably be a lot better than nothing. a particularly clever tine might set up a repeating mantra of instructions with gaps between for responses from the singleton that are intended to be replayed later (so the recording behaves like drum memory does in some early computer architectures). more advanced ones could set up the singleton with the virtual computer interface tine as a sort of odd duo. if you go to advanced it might end up being like *connection dropped, emulating all other members* and then the pack has to do a git merge when the singleton regains connection (probably the emulated members stick around as log file like things that can be interacted with but tend not to chime in of their own accord without something important to say). there's a certain tipping point in technology where the interesting stories can happen and i think it's usually right around the development of new capabilities. (although, imagine a multiplanetary choir in the mid beyond linked by ultrawave - their navy could be frighteningly competent for the depth, especially if they found good solutions to the routing problem of distributed computation)

Oh I love this! There's room here for some really good characterization - a lost tine in the Beyond dealing with a partially-emulated sense of self, an old pack maintaining a "thought cabinet" of emulated past members and passing it on to offspring... I definitely agree also about crossing technological tipping points and all the rapid change that can cause being being a really fun story topic - a tine-human expedition from the top of the Slow Zone into the Beyond in a flotilla of ramscoop ships, or a first colony Out There... these could be good story hooks for some fic I think.

(Brief fill-in for those who haven't read the books: tines are a species where each "individual" is the gestalt of a pack of three to eight sort of wolflike creatures, each critter's on-its-own-nonsentient thought combining into a conscious whole by a kind of distributed ultrasound 'telepathy'. A choir is what happens when lots more tines than can form a discrete individual pack live together - they form a shifting and disorganized morass of thought that is... sort of alien to both discrete packs and humans.)

I have found myself thinking about how intelligent choirs in the beyond would act too... I suppose you can imagine lots of different ways it could go. I like to think you could get some kind of prosperous coexistence, possibly even with packs sometimes choosing to temporarily dissolve themselves into choirs as a sabbatical, or to assist with some great task, and coming back with new insights (and sometimes coming back very much changed by the experience). Sort of a little bit like the Pattern Jugglers from Revelation Space, maybe. Perhaps, if what Johanna says in Children of the Sky about the way the choir on the raft conceptualizes things continues to hold true, sentient choirs shoot off into modes of consciousness that are undoubtedly sentient but also still weird to us - like the Powers in miniature.

Of course, a fun sort of horror take on it would be a sort of hard-takeoff choir coming into existence accidentally, like a version of the Blight just for tines. The last remaining individual pack on a first expedition to the far Beyond/low Transcend, cowering in a corridor on a hab orbiting a cold red star... feeling the call, no, the demand of its reconstituted peers, the overwhelmingly more powerful consequence of a sudden relaxation on limits on just how complex and distributed a mind can be...

Also I would really like to chat in realtime about tine worldbuilding with you sometime, anon! My direct messages are always open if you'd like to drop in. No pressure if not, of course.

[ryssbelle]

Drew a bunch of Marinettes in a bunch of different artists styles it was a lot of fun!!

Artists who's styles I mimicked: @buggachat @hamsternamedmarinette @ladybeug @sabertoothwalrus and @anna-scribbles all epic artists 🤟😎

[livinghalfway]

Mini Prompt: Hit and Run

It’s a surprisingly quiet night in Gotham, because of this everyone is currently gathered on some random rooftop for the time being; even Jason.

Bickering and joking taunts are being thrown around by all of them when suddenly a figure is zooming past most of them. Only for the unknown threat to tackle Jason. Throwing the two of them across the roof.

When the two finally come to a stop the unknown, a boy with white hair and green eyes, is on top of Jason. Just as everyone is recovering from the shock and rushing to help, the boy slams his hand deep into Jason’s chest. He is then pulling out a toxic green substance.

They try to attack the threat and get him off of Jason, but everything just goes right through him. Luckily the boy doesn't seem to want anything to do with the rest of them, and just as quickly as this all started it's over. As the boy simply disappears from sight right in front of them all.

Jason on the other hand is left on the ground gasping for breath. When they finally get him calm enough to tell them how he's feeling the first thing Jason tells them is that the pit rage is gone.

[starry-bi-sky]

bruce and danny being fuckign nerds together,,,, they are being the BIGGEST nerds. geeks. if you will

these losers are color-coding the most inane bullshit. they are making diagrams for things you've never even thought of. they are having the time of their lives

"what are you two doing?"

Danny, sitting criss-cross on a table, hunched over a spread of papers and a bunch of different jello cups, his back is gonna hurt SO much: color-coding jello

Bruce, sitting in a nearby chair, also criss-cross, scribbling on a graph paper: hm [agreeing]

Alfred, already exasperated and SO fond: may i ask why? and on what parameters?

Danny: we're basing it off which flavors are the most mentally stimulating and for which subjects :}

Alfred, SO fond: ah. i see.

Danny, snapping his head over to Bruce and leaning over: wh- no-- no. Buzz, I told you: lemon-flavored jello stays strictly in the 'smelling salts' category--

Bruce, still writing on the graph paper: mn. no.

Danny, nearly sprawled across his back, faux-outraged: strawberry is NOT good for math-- you fucken HEATHEN--! Give me that pen!

Bruce, did that solely to rile up Danny, now trying not to smile: hnm.

[luminique]

lighter is a loser. idc i said what i said. behind all the cool nicknames and stylish glasses is someone who looks at you with so much love in his eyes.

it’s unfair that he is a fire attribute because he always ends up lighting a little bit of his clothes or hair on fire when he gets flustered by you. something about seeing you smile, excitedly laughing to him about your day, has him pushing his sunglasses up a little more and staring off to the side. the rest of the sons of calydon can CLEARLY see right through him though. they knew the ominous undefeated champion had a soft spot but seeing him loosen his red scarf and clear his throat was when they knew he was head over heels for you.

he doesn’t have the best memory but even he’d remember small details about you. what drink you’d prefer, which sunglasses he wore had you blushing like crazy. his love for you is quiet on the outside but deep down, it’s a blazing fire that cannot be contained.