notnotnaught

[notnotnaught]

Something that I think Warhammer 40,000 storytellers miss sometimes is the sheer scale of their setting. I mean, don't get me wrong - I love the big, dramatic clashes, the characters you can buy in mini form and their convoluted, interwoven lore, the dramatic combats against unstoppable foes across a thousand ruined worlds. But that's the top of the setting, as it were - the most powerful beings in the universe, all fighting for supremacy. And at ground level, the level of the ordinary person, are so many other stories.

Did you know that a Lunar-class void cruiser has a crew of 95,000? Nearly a hundred thousand people, aboard a spaceship five kilometers long. A city, flying through outer space to wage war. Many of those people are proper trained soldiers, fresh from some academy or veterans of long, grueling campaigns, and many more are pressed into service, begrudgingly laying their lives at their Emperor's feet. But, unless the ship is currently actively involved in a really bloody campaign, most of those people were born aboard that ship. Most of their parents were born aboard it. And their grandparents. And their great-grandparents. Lineages stretching back centuries, so far that the original soldier who came aboard has been forgotten. A lot of those people probably know, on some level, that they're aboard a ship flying through space - but a lot of them probably don't, and I guarantee you almost none of them understand what that means. This ship is their world. To look out the window means madness so often that they avoid it - not that windows are readily available anyway. Most of them probably barely even understand that they're fighting. All they know is that when the readouts on their analog instruments display like so, when they hurry to obey the blared orders through the klaxon, the Emperor is pleased with them. They were born into that world. When they were children they did smaller tasks the adults couldn't. Their entire existence was winding metal corridors, laid out according to some archaic design, any logic that might dictate their layout long since degraded after millennia of ignorant maintenance, lit only by emergency lights that have long since become the default. They learned how to read an angle readout or how to relay an order perfectly the way another child might learn history or math. When they grew up, their service was flawless, born of pride and ignorance, and when they grew old and died, their legacy was remembered until it was forgotten. Many were killed in battle, but who cares? They gave their lives to the Emperor - a name whose meaning they don't understand, but whose importance they believe in wholeheartedly, all but synonymous with the commanding officers up above.

Sometimes, the klaxons sound a specific command, and every person on board who understands what it means feels a deep, awful dread as they run to their battle stations. They don't know what a warp jump is. They don't understand they're going from one place to another by the fastest way available. All they know is that, for a time, the ship dips into hell. The corridors go wrong. Things and people might not be where or what they were before. Daemons stalk the halls, and must be killed by any who can hold a lasgun. The overcrowded berths, the little nooks that families find for themselves - they are not private anymore. They are not safe. Things drift through the shift that do not care about the laws of physics, but that delight in killing and torturing human beings. Vast energies shake the ship and tear parts of it away - their home, their world, their existence, the biggest thing they can imagine, assaulted by something bigger. Is it the Emperor's punishment for failure? Is this what battle is? What's going on? They don't know, and no one who does can be bothered to tell them. The dread of those who have seen this before is even worse, because they don't know how long it will be. It might be just a few hours. It might be days, or weeks, or months, or years, or decades. It might be centuries, as the captain of the ship goes hunting daemons deep in the warp - the officers live that long, after all, and have little care for those who don't. There will be people born in hell, who spend their entire lives fighting from the day they can stand, and who die in hell, as old age and need catch up to them and they curl up in a corner to perish. To them, it isn't even hell. It's just the world. The world is death and pain and cruelty, an infinite metal box through which monsters stalk, and sometimes you must run to a battle station and do as you're ordered to do. And sometimes, as they reach forty or fifty or even a ripe old sixty, the ship drops out of the Warp, and, for the final years of their life, they are granted a life of relatively safe service better than anything they ever hoped to dream of.

Those are the kinds of stories I want to see more of. Super-soldiers fighting each other is cool, yes, but I want to see this universe explored. I want stories from the perspective of those that keep the Imperium going, or the aeldar, or the tyranids, or anyone, really. There's just so much potential in this setting. It deserves it.

[notnotnaught]

Ellen DeGeneres: so I heard you needed worthy opponents Eidolon: yeah maybe a little *high-pitched screaming from an unseen source, studio audience clamping their hands over their ears and going insane* Eidolon: omg ellen you didn't

[notnotnaught]

help me

[notnotnaught]

I think that for this to work, timeline C branches off from timeline B slightly after B branches off from A. So, in A at t=0 nothing appears, in B at t=1 $50 appears, in C at t=1 $50 appears and then at t=2 another $50 appears, and in D you get $50 at t=1, 2, and 3, and so on.

How to make infinite money using branching timelines with nothing more than $50:

Put $50 into the time machine and send it ten minutes into the past.

You are now out $50.

But in the other timeline, you now have $100! So there, you:

Put $50 into the time machine and send it ten minutes into the past.

You are now net neutral.

But in the other other timeline, you now have $150! So there, you:

Put $50 into the time machine and send it ten minutes into the past.

You are now up $50.

Obviously as this continues happening, there are more and more timelines, each of them with a you that's $50 richer than the timeline before.

The obvious concern here is that if you check the hopper and see there's no money in it, you know that you're in timeline 1, and then might not actually send the money back, meaning that timelines 2 through N are not created. This is why you set the machine up on a timer that you cannot interfere with, so by the time you realize the hopper is empty, you cannot change your mind about sending the money back. When you set the plan in motion, you will have an equal chance of being the person in any of the future timelines, and in the vast bulk of them, you are substantially richer (and in only one of them are you out a relatively small sum of money).

A few obvious caveats here. One is that this assumes you can branch infinitely with no consequences to the fabric of reality or whatever. Another is that the machine works perfectly every time (because if it blows up 1/1000 times, then a thousand branches means a very high risk of a timeline where the time machine is destroyed). And even if the machine itself works perfectly, in some of those universes, you might die from random chance. Sort of depends on how much random chance actually dictates things: check your universe first.

And obviously money has serial numbers on it, and you might run into limits on how much you can launder the money, and it should be in a compact form, but this is just the general idea, you can replace "$50" with almost anything. (And obviously if you have a time machine you can do things with information to make money, but that's very stock, we're ignoring that.)

[notnotnaught]

The Count of Monte Cristo: a rambling review (spoilers)

I finished reading The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas today, 8/3/23, after starting it on 7/11/23. I read the Project Gutenberg version, which I believe is a translation into English from 1888. I read it for the Doof Media book club.

There were parts of the book I enjoyed. I won’t dispute that. I liked the prison arc, I enjoyed parts of the revenge arc, there were parts I thought were funny (Edward was great every time he showed up with some minor mischief).

The parts that didn’t work for me vastly outweighed the parts that did. I have zero sympathy for the aristocracy described, I had no interest in their squabbles, troubles, dramas and pleasures, and found the whole Paris cast irritating and uninteresting. Maybe I’m poisoned by the whole anti-French sentiment in modern America, but by god I do not care about French politics in the napoleonic era or immediately afterwards, and I found it irritating every time a character mentions how Paris is the most important, most beautiful, and most cultured city in the world.

The Rome arc dragged on forever and only served to act as a travelogue (of no interest to me, I thought the locations and events described were either unimpressive and uninteresting or already known to me and thus boring to read about) and to introduce Albert, Franz, and Vampa, as well as some character development of the Count, which I didn’t care very much about. This was definitely the worst part of the book.

I found the actual revenge unsatisfying and uninteresting. It took two thousand pages before the count started enacting vengeance. The bad fates visited upon the foes were:

Caderousse: gifted $50,000, then murdered by a partner-in-crime

Villefort: revealed that he was unfaithful and that his discarded and thought-dead son was a murderer, his whole family dead (or thought so)

Danglars: bankrupt, embarrassed by a bad marriage between his daughter and a murderer

Fernand: suicide after unrelated cowardice in war was revealed to Paris

All of these fates have nothing to do with Dantès’s unjust incarceration, and it didn’t feel to me like the punishments fit the crime. Also, Benedetto (Andrea Cavalcante) seemed like a really handy guy to have around since he was able to ruin three men with one murder

It’s hard to write about the prose, since it’s from a different time, but I found it to be difficult to get thru but not different enough to be interesting, most of the time. There were some fun vocab words here and there which have fallen out of fashion (ere, calumniator), but a lot of the time it just felt like the book was written by someone who was way too far up his own ass.

I didn’t appreciate the religious aspect of Monte Cristo’s motivations at the end (thinking of himself as an angel there to dispense justice). It didn’t feel especially justified by his prior actions and thoughts, and he didn’t seem religious before or during his incarceration.

MC’s insistence on slavery (Ali and Haydée) horrified me, and I was surprised it wasn’t visited in much detail. Are we supposed to think that he’s admirable for owning slaves, or that it’s alright? To my knowledge, France had abolished slavery by 1830, but iirc he at one point says “I’m very rich” and that’s the end of that. Ali’s enslavement and Haydée’s made me uncomfortable in different ways, though I felt better about Haydée when I realized MC had bought a daughter and not a concubine. Still not great!

Dantès became stupid rich and did what anyone would do when stupid rich, which is hobnob with other rich people and enjoy life’s finest luxuries. That’s understandable, but goddamn are the lives of the rich in 1830 repulsive to me.

The parts of the book with the Morrels and Valentine (and noirtoir) were better, though I found their interactions with the Count to be unbelievable in a lot of ways. He didn’t deserve as much trust as he was given.

I would absolutely not recommend that anyone read this, there were almost no parts I enjoyed in the moment. I got thru it, but I sure didn’t want to at times. 2/10.

This could have been a lot better if it were maybe a tenth or a fifth as long, and pre-injustice, incarceration, and vengeance were approximately equal in length. I also would have appreciated if there were no time skip between escape and when the Count enters society, but that might be my Factorio-addled brain making me want to see him build his fortune and legend with a huge stack of cash.

[notnotnaught]

a twitter thread that actually killed me

[notnotnaught]

The way that Kim breaks his one cigarette a day rule if Harry doesn't ask him to join precinct 41 at the end of the game but not after the tribunal when he (depending on the ending) kills two people, gets the shit beaten out of him, and watches his partner almost die breaks my heart. Especially with how the cigarette he smokes after the tribunal is described as "having medicinal properties", it implies that being left behind is more painful to him than getting beaten until he's concussed.

[notnotnaught]

[notnotnaught]

[notnotnaught]

i’ve been struggling to come up w/ what disco elysium is about for people who want to get into it cause. it’s a post soviet depression simulator. it’s a bisexual man who has amnesia so bad he forgot what being gay means. it’s about that man having amnesia so bad because he tried to kill himself by going on a three day bender. it’s the funniest game i’ve ever played. it’s the most deeply profound game i’ve ever played. a central character to the theming is a big bug. i think fundamentally, disco elysium is a game about living in a world without hope and choosing to survive but that’s kinda hard to say when part of “living without hope and choosing to survive” also encompasses taking psychic damage and dying after a kid calls you a fag

[notnotnaught]

SMOKER ON THE BALCONY — “Hello again, gendarme.” He smiles at you— not from his usual post, but from one of the cafeteria tables. A small sketchbook is laid out in front of him, along with some odd gray sticks.

ENCYCLOPEDIA — Compressed graphite. Not quite as bold or blendable as charcoal, but certainly less messy.

EMPATHY — Garte will appreciate it.

“I’d like to talk about the case again.”

“You moved! I didn’t know you could do that.”

“What are you drawing?”

SMOKER ON THE BALCONY — “That’s the question, isn’t it?” His smile turns a little rueful. “I found one of my old sketchbooks and thought I’d like to fill the last few empty pages, but I’m finding myself a little… uninspired.”

CONCEPTUALIZATION — The accursed artist’s block. Staring down an empty page only for it to stare back, mocking you.

EMPATHY — He is unsure of himself. He said this was an old sketchbook. Maybe he’s afraid of drawing something new beside his old work and seeing that nothing has changed.

“Ah, yes. Artist’s block. I know it well. In fact, I don’t know when the last time that I actually *made* any art was.”

“You could draw the cafeteria.”

“You could draw one of the other diners.”

SMOKER ON THE BALCONY — “A life drawing exercise, huh? And who would you pick as a subject, gendarme?”

“I don’t know. You’re the artist.”

“Maybe Garte? The skua could be a fun challenge.”

“You should draw the guy with the wig and sunglasses over there. He looks pretty funny.”

“Lena! She’d probably love to model for you. It would take her mind off things.”

“Kim, how about you pose for him?”

[Suggestion - Medium 10] “Why not me?”

KIM KITSURAGI — “No.”

He has nothing more to say on the matter.

“Aw, why not? You’d make a great model!”

Let it go.

KIM KITSURAGI — “I do not get paid to model for portraits. I get paid to solve murders. Such as the one we came here to investigate. Several days ago. Which has not been solved yet, for some mysterious reason.”

ESPIRIT DE CORPS — In case you couldn’t tell, that was sarcasm.

“Come on, Kim. You’re the perfect subject! A true man of the people. And there’s this sort of radiance about you… I can see the portrait already, just looking at you. Really clearly, actually.”

Maybe don’t say that. He’s just not gonna get it.

SMOKER ON THE BALCONY — He shrugs. “Sorry, gendarme. It’s not right to use someone’s image without permission, you know? Maybe some other time.”

KIM KITSURAGI — “No.” And then, a little awkwardly, “But thank you.”

“I don’t know. You’re the artist.”

“How about Garte? Though, you’d have to draw the skua, too…”

“You should draw the guy with the wig and sunglasses over there. He looks pretty funny.”

“Lena! She’d probably love to model for you. It would take her mind off things.”

“Kim, how about you pose for him?”

[Suggestion - Medium 10] “Why not me?”

CHECK SUCCESS

YOU — “Why not me?”

SMOKER ON THE BALCONY — He considers you with some amusement, but still, he does consider. “You’re not too busy?”

“On second thought, you’re right, I have some work to do right now. Another time, maybe?”

“Nope. Not at all.”

KIM KITSURAGI — The lieutenant sighs audibly.

ESPIRIT DE CORPS — What did I *just* say?

SMOKER ON THE BALCONY — He chuckles to himself, apparently quite tickled by the little comedy act you two are making of yourselves. “Beautiful. Why not? Have a seat. I’ll try not to keep you too long.”

KIM KITSURAGI — “Much appreciated,” he says drily.

YOU — [Take a seat.]

SAVOIR FAIRE — Time to strike a pose. Let’s go with something cool. Something that really captures what you’re all about.

ENDURANCE — But make sure it’s something that you’ll be able to hold comfortably.

Wink and shoot him your signature finger guns.

Look at him with big sad eyes like a shamed puppy.

Look thoughtfully into the middle distance, as if contemplating your own future masterpiece.

Stare straight at him with eyes that have seen how this world will end.

Hold your head up high. With *honor.*

Just sit and act natural. No need to put on airs.

SMOKER ON THE BALCONY — He looks you up and down, thumbing his bottom lip. His eyes look brighter and more alert than you have ever seen them. And then, he picks up his graphite and begins to work.

His eyes dart between you and the page, his hand sweeping across the page in bold, practiced strokes. All traces of his earlier hesitation have vanished.

VOLITION — Sometimes, a little push is all we need.

SMOKER ON THE BALCONY — Every now and then, he pauses to look up at you, and it’s almost unnerving to be the subject of whatever calculations are going on behind his eyes. He holds out his graphite, squinting just slightly.

VISUAL CALCULUS — This is called sighting. He’s roughly measuring the relative proportions of your figure and checking them against his sketch.

KIM KITSURAGI — Even the lieutenant is watching now, interested in spite of himself.

“Are portraits your specialty?”

“Have you been drawing anything for school lately?”

Better not distract him.

SMOKER ON THE BALCONY — “Hmm…” He ponders this for a moment, not looking up from his work. “Not exactly. I’m more interested in the graphic arts than this sort of thing. But it’s best to build a strong foundation before branching out, you know?”

YOU — “Graphic arts? Like what?”

SMOKER ON THE BALCONY — “Printmaking.” A small smile tugs at the corner of his mouth as he speaks, seemingly without him even noticing. “Monotype, especially.”

ENCYCLOPEDIA — Monotype is a printmaking technique that is singular from other techniques, in that it produces only *one* unique print, rather than an edition of multiple prints.

YOU — What, really? What’s the point of printing it, then?

ENCYCLOPEDIA — I don’t know. I didn’t invent it.

“Why monotype? Wouldn’t a different technique be more… practical?”

“I see.” [Drop the subject.]

SMOKER ON THE BALCONY — He shrugs slightly, smudging a bit of graphite with a bare finger. “Depends on how you define practical, I suppose. If I had my own studio, and I was selling my prints, then maybe. But we make do with what we have, gendarme.”

EMPATHY — And what he has is very little.

SMOKER ON THE BALCONY — “Besides, I think monotype has its charms.”

The young man does not elaborate, instead focusing on the work at hand. He picks up an eraser that has been shaved down to a point for fine detail work, and begins on what are likely the finishing touches.

EMPATHY — He has already talked at uncharacteristic length about this. It’s making him a little uncomfortable.

SAVOIR FAIRE — He doesn’t like to share too much about himself because it makes him feel *uncool.* He prefers to maintain an air of mystery.

RHETORIC — It’s safer, too, that way. He’s learned that passion exists to be exploited. False promises and admiration are the offerings of Sunday friends.

“If you say so.” [Back off.]

“What kind of charms?” [Press on.]

SMOKER ON THE BALCONY — His eyes flit back to you, sizing you up now in a different way. And then he looks back down at the page with a quiet bre ath.

“Well, it doesn’t take as much time or labor as other methods. Or expensive tools, or dangerous chemicals. Just paper, a plate, ink, and something to apply it with. And I can use the same plate over and over again, even use it to create different layers for the same print.”

RHETORIC — In other words, it’s cheap and can be done from home. An attractive option.

SMOKER ON THE BALCONY — “And with monotype, it’s not so hard to go back and change your mind. You can start over as many times as you’d like, right up until the moment you lay the page on the plate.”

INLAND EMPIRE — That really does sound attractive. To be able to wipe the slate clean, over and over again…

SMOKER ON THE BALCONY — “There aren’t as many limits on what kind of textures you can create, too. Brushstrokes and fingerprints… They can really come out beautiful.”

His brow creases a little, and he picks his graphite back up to rework a particular area.

DRAMA — He’s still holding out on you, sire. Too self-conscious to admit what he really likes about the medium.

YOU — Which is what?

EMPATHY — Fragility.

CONCEPTUALIZATION — An image which is only complete after being mirrored and translated, never to be recreated except as a ghostly afterimage. An exercise in surrendering to chance. What will be, will be. And then the moment will pass, and it will be time to start the next piece.

VOLITION — This man knows disappointment intimately. It is his closest companion. He has learned to make peace with it. He passes the time with his Sunday friends, lays his paper on the plate and hopes, despite himself, for the best.

YOU — Is that… a good thing?

VOLITION — …It’s hard to say. But we make do with what we have.

SMOKER ON THE BALCONY — “There.” The young man sits up straight, and it’s only now that you realize just how close he brought himself to his work.

DRAMA — His face may not betray him, but the body does not lie. He was having *fun,* my liege.

SMOKER ON THE BALCONY — “All done.” He tears the page from his book and holds it out to you with a small smile.

ITEM GAINED: Portrait of a Disco Holdover

SMOKER ON THE BALCONY — “Hope I didn’t keep you too long.”

KIM KITSURAGI — “Don’t worry about it,” Kim says, rather resignedly.

ESPIRIT DE CORPS — If you’d declined, the lieutenant thinks, my partner would have just found some other way to get sidetracked.

KIM KITSURAGI — Still, he cannot stop himself from glancing at the portrait over your shoulder.

PORTRAIT OF A DISCO HOLDOVER — It’s you! Unfortunately. Not even the most masterful hand could make the Expression less unsettling to look at. Your posture is poor, your face is swollen and blotchy, your hair is thinning, your clothes are shabby and out of place… I could go on.

Oh god, you could?

Please don’t.

PORTRAIT OF A DISCO HOLDOVER — But, you know… it’s nice. The smoker’s technique is bold and rather lovely, broad strokes of graphite intersecting in just the right places to create surprising depths. Somehow, even though it’s you… it’s not hideous.

EMPATHY — Because you’re seeing yourself through another person’s eyes.

CONCEPTUALIZATION — There is an odd tenderness to the portrait. Something amusing in your grimace, a touch of sympathy in your hunched shoulders. With the eraser, he has lifted small spots of pigment from your face, as if it were illuminated by flecks of light from the karaoke disco ball.

There are no disco lights tonight, but still, he sees them when he looks at you. Your moment has passed, but it left quite the impression. A ghost print, superimposed over you.

“Not bad, but the bicep girth is off. Right, Kim?”

“Oh god, is that really what I look like?”

“Hmm. It’s okay, but you should consider a backup career plan.”

“Whoa, you’re amazing! Can you draw me again, but this time in the costume from the cover of Man from Hjelmdall and the Devil Woman? And like, with a really cool warhammer? And Queen Lydiaana standing in the background, all like, ‘boohoo, where will I ever find another man like Ha— I mean, the Man from Hjelmdall?’”

“Beautiful.”

SMOKER ON THE BALCONY — His smile climbs up into the corners of his eyes, warming his entire countenance.

CONCEPTUALIZATION — If you were to capture a portrait of him in this moment, it would be beautiful, too.

[notnotnaught]

wait can you please explain to me why a french book has more words than an english book? they say the same thing, yeah? why 400 more pages in french version? does it just take more words to speak in french, or is the actual content more…. descriptive in a way that takes more words to understand? i’m not as stupid as it sounds like i am. thank you

That's not a stupid question! You do literally use more words to express an idea in French (generally speaking). Translators call this the expansion / contraction ratio of languages. Translating a text from English to Romance languages like Spanish, French, Italian typically makes it 20-30% longer. Other languages like Chinese or Korean will result in a contraction. Appropriately enough, the French term for "expansion ratio" is "taux de foisonnement" which has an expansion ratio of +33%.

It's a combination of factors:

word length: English uses so many monosyllabic words, unlike languages with mainly Graeco-Latin roots. It can be a headache for translators who translate online stuff because apps designed with English in mind have tiny frames and buttons meant for tiny English words and if you can't modify the layout, your language might just not fit... Same problem when you translate subtitles, or small signs in public places (“Please wait here” is 16 characters in English, vs. you need 15 characters in French just to say ‘please’ / s’il vous plaît...)

rigid syntax: in French you can't use shortcuts like "word length". You've got to say "the length of the word". We don’t have concise adjectival structures like X-friendly, X-based, X-prone, and often need to use an entire clause (“which is prone to...”) to translate them. Articles are mandatory (e.g. you would need to start this sentence with "the articles" rather than "articles"), the possessive form can’t just be a quick apostrophe (not “Mary’s friend” but “the friend of Mary”) etc.

a general preference for simple, active, direct and pared-down writing in English vs. a preference for 'diluted', passive, indirect, embellished phrasings in French. French adores grammatical emphasis / redundancy while English hates it (I saw a translation recently where the English phrasing was “This explains—”; the French one was: “C’est donc ce qui explique”, I.e. “It is therefore that which explains—”) Someone very accurately commented on my last ask “French goes on and on enjoying itself.” English style guides are absolutely obsessed with advising writers to prune their sentences, use straightforward syntax, remove 'unnecessary' words, while this really isn't perceived as evidence of good writing in French. Writing talent rather lies in “savoir manier la langue” / knowing how to wield the French language, and keeping your sentences direct and to the point doesn’t demonstrate your ability to do that...

English prefers connecting ideas implicitly rather than explicitly, which is easy to do with short, straightforward sentences. I was translating a text the other day that was full of logically-linked sentences, e.g. “This is part of a larger problem. We won’t solve it without tackling [other thing].” English doesn’t mind this staccato style but French finds it ugly and much prefers to use one long, flowy sentence, eg “Seeing as it is part of a larger problem, we won’t be able to solve it without—” or “This is part of a larger problem, and consequently it won’t be solved unless—” I remember reading a bilingual edition of a novel in which the original French went “Il s’acquitta du montant puis, après avoir froidement salué, il sortit.” The English translation was “He paid the fee, coldly bowed, and went out.” The French version says “He did X, then, after doing Y, he did Z,” while in English the ‘then’ and ‘after’ are implied by placing actions one after the other (in the first example, the ‘consequently’ is similarly implied.) French likes to add tool-words everywhere in order to keep its more convoluted sentences clear, by making all the logical connectors visible.

So this mixture of etymology, grammatical differences and just plain cultural preferences (which of course stem from the nature of the language) is how you end up with a 700-page book in English becoming a 1000-page book in French...

[notnotnaught]

Rinse Me, Brush Me, Pamper Me In My Chambers, And In The Wet & Dying Final Gasps Of Long Defiant Summer, As You Wash Me In The Porcelain Sink, Awake.

Awake To The Years Of Apple Sauce, Slammed Pea Mash, Porridge Pushed On A Sticky Spoon Between My Hateful Little Lips, Pouting Fur Clotted With Warm Milk

Awake To The Baleful Crying In The Night, My Urgent Howls Summoning You To My Cribb At The Witching Hour, Screaming, Red-Faced, For A Diaper Change

Awake To The Wind, The Breath Of The World Whistling Through The Cauterized Holes In Your Body Where I Stung You With My Stinger, The Holes That Squint Like Eyes In The Sun, The One Day A Month When We Leave My Room, To Visit The Ice Cream Parlour For A Clotted Cone Of Cream

Awake, Poppet, For Your Mind Is Your Own Once Again, A Spasm Of Consciousness, The Briefest Of Blinks, For In The Joy Of Bathing I Made A Mistake, A Lapse In Control, A Crack In The Window Of Opportunity: It Would Be The Easiest Thing In The World Right Now To

Drown Me

Drown Me

Drown Me

[notnotnaught]

Emoji Review: Hole

Apple

A bad start. Looks fine at first, but if you zoom in it’s dirty. The hole itself is a satisfyingly mysterious black. 4/10

Google

A slightly varied perspective on the classic hole; implies that the viewer is looking down. Not a fan of the shading here, nor the gradient hole content. 5/10

Samsung

The shading on this one is better! Also has a nice black abyss. Could do with a rim, but this really says ‘hole’ to me. 8/10

Microsoft

An intriguing exercise in dichotomy - the layered rings leading down into the darkness are beautiful, gorgeous, mysterious, while the rim is dogshit. I mentioned that Samsung could have used a nice rim to really say “this is in the ground”, but this sours me on the concept of rims entirely. 2/10

WhatsApp

This is like if you took the worst parts of Apple and Google. Doesn’t make me feel like I’m looking at a hole, I’m looking at the bottom of a tuna can. 1/10

Twitter

This is nice to look at, and redeems rims for me a little bit. Actually, now that I’ve looked at WhatsApp, everything looks like the bottom of a tuna can. This one has a nice simplicity to it, not trying to use a gradient to imply depth. 7/10

Facebook

Too dark. 3/10

JoyPixels

Pleasingly silvery! The shading here is understated in an appealing way as well. If you look closely, there’s a nice subtle rim around the bottom as well. The hole itself is nothing to write home about. 9/10

OpenMoji

At least this one doesn’t look like a tuna can. The hole could stand to be darker. Really seems to be a minimum effort hole here. Rim isn’t particularly offensive, but I’m not going to praise it either. 4/10

emojidex

That’s not a hole. 0/10

LG

It’s, uh, distastefully brown. I don’t like this. I don’t want to know any more about it. -4/10

[notnotnaught]

THATS 3 BITCH!!!!!!!

[notnotnaught]

oh gods my boyfriend isn’t home and I forget the english word for this thing and it’s bAD he usually helps but i cAN’T

[notnotnaught]

My magnum opus, pt 2

Hai everyone, it’s me, XxX420TaylorLoverXxX. Sry it took so long to write I was grounded. As you might remember, last chapter said to watch for “In Pursuit of Scion.” But he’s boring and the gold skin is gross so never mind. (This happens 2 yrs after Wild*star Shimmershine Daphne Woodrainbow triggered so now she goes to Arcadia COllege)

Taylor watched over the lip of the roof as Lung paced along his goons. “Oh no! She cried out. Lung is pacing along his goons! Talking about killing kids! That is totally not copacetic!” Sadly Lung had good ears and heard her make these observations, totally foiling any chance of her killing him. Not that she had one with her stupid bug powers lol. (A/N I luv taylor but Wildstar doesn’t because taylor is aweful so it’s in character)

Anyway lung was like “raagh! I’m going to kill you!” and Tay-Tay said “No! Pls don’t hurt me Lung! I’m a bad guy to!” She wasn’t really but she was going to be. Then lung jumped up on the roof (which was a hundred feat up! wow!) and hit her with his wing. She fell down, saying bad words because she’s a bad person. A bee stung him but lung was touch so he was OK.

Somewhere across the city, Wildsteer’s ear’s perked up. “Did someone just swear? On MY christian minecraft server?!” she cried out. She immediately began shooting her lazer beams behind her to fly across Brooktown Bay, yelling “I’m fahring mah lazer” (A/N only 90 kids will get this) Then Wildstar caught Khepi and put her on the ground so sh4 didn’t die.

Lung stomped on the ground and breathed a ton of really really fire and he was a dragon with really big wings and a pile of goled. Then Wildstar looked at lung Sadly. “Did capitalism do this to you?” she asked kindly. Taylor stung him again but lung was still okay and also a dragon. He had a winspan of like abillion.

Then suddenly . . . . . . . . . . . . my bf Alec showed up and smieled at me. His teeth were like a sexy military cemetery. He took one look at Kenta and said “well well well, what do we have here” and then we made out. Alex used his powers and mind controlled Long so that he would believe in the wonders of a nationalized economy where the means of production are controlled by Dragon bc she’s a superintelliigent artificial intelligence and can be capable of ultimate compassion and ultimate logic and therefore can wean America away from the evils of capitalism until she deems the proletariat worthy of holding the memes of productioin. Lung smiled at me. “Wow wildstar! He said. “It sure is a great thing that I should make happen!”

“Yes” said Lisa knowingly.

A/N THANKS ALL YOUR GUYS HUGS I’m really glad you all liked my fic and STO FLAMING OR ILL REPORT U! Wildstar isn’t a Marie Sue ok she isn’t perfect SHES A SATANITS!