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halloweenbitch2764 · 6 months ago

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I am not sure if there is a limited number of characters. If so, just do the bachelors. If not, do both bachelors and bachelorettes.

If you do reactions/headcanons, a reaction to finding out how strong the farmer is would be amazing. I love the idea of the farmer from Stardew Valley being inhumane strong, but most of the towns people doesn't know it.

I will do my best! Also, you're dating in these just FYI. Heart event spoilers!!

Alex

You were hanging out with Alex outside of his house as you tended to

You had finished all your chores for the day already

"Want to take Dusty for a walk?" Alex offered since you two really weren't doing much else

You nodded, and Alex got Dusty's collar and leash from inside

When he came back out, you had already coaxed Dusty to the edge of the fenced-in area.

"Don't worry about getting him out, I got it." Alex stated but you were already leaning down

You supported Dusty as you picked him up and set him down outside of the fenced-in area

It didn't take much effort

Alex stared in amazement, collar and leash grasped in hand

"What?" You asked as you pet Dusty

"You're, like, super strong!"

You couldn't help but laugh at his reaction

Sam

Sam had decided to come visit you while you were working on your farm

You still had some chores to finish up

Sam watched curiously as you did your chores

Feeding the animals, milking the cows, collecting eggs, etc.

A bale of hay sat in the corner of your barn

You decided to move it and hoisted it onto your shoulder, balancing it and carrying it somewhere new

It was just taking up space in the barn anyways

You didn't notice Sam who was watching intently

He didn't know how much the bale weighed but he could tell it wasn't something to scoff at

"Woah." He murmured to himself

Shane

You, Shane, and Jas were hanging out as you tended to do

It was a warm sunny day and you had finished most of the work on your farm

Jas had mostly been playing while you and Shane conversed

Jas had seemingly become bored and wanted some attention

You would have never assumed she liked attention as much as she did before you got to know her

She did seem like the quiet type

"Hold me!" She playfully demanded

And who were you to deny her?

"She's kind of-" Shane started

You picked her up with ease, hoisting her to your shoulders and balancing her

"-heavy..." Shane trailed off

He couldn't believe how easily you picked Jas up, much less tossed her around playfully

Even he struggled sometimes

You giggled at his reaction, and Jas giggled from the attention

"She seems pretty light to me." You teased, which caused Shane to blush

Harvey

You were hanging out with Harvey in the clinic while he finished up some work

He looked over at a piece of equipment and sighed

"What's wrong?" You questioned

"I just need to move that machine over a ways."

"I got it!" You volunteered, hopping up from the chair and going to the machine

"No, it's okay-"

"Don't worry about it Harvey, I'll be careful."

You knew he was worried about your well-being as per usual

He sat back down in his chair

"Just tell me where you want it."

You moved the equipment with ease, putting it where instructed

Harvey had a blush on his face, seemingly enarmoured by your strength

"What?" You questioned

"Just glad to see you're in good physical health." He waved his hand a bit

You internally giggled

Elliot

Elliot had decided to rearrange his furniture while you were over one day

He was struggling to push his piano over to the new spot

"Let me try!" You offered cheerfully

He seemed hesitant but nodded and stepped aside

You took your position and moved the piano to the new spot easily

It seemed effortless to Elliot

He was speechless

You saw the expression on his face and quirked your eyebrow

"What's wrong?"

"Oh, nothing. Just didn't think you'd be able to move that so easily. That was quite impressive!"

You smiled, blushing slightly from the praise before waving your hand

"It was nothing."

Sebastian

You were hanging out with Sebastian at his house when Robin called for you

"I'm sorry to bother you, but can you help me move some of this wood?" Robin asked

You nodded happily and Sebastian followed you two, knowing he could help if needed

Not that he was particularly strong but he assumed it would be better than nothing

You easily lifted the wood (which was heavier than it looked) and moved it to the small pile that had been started

When you were done Robin offered to compensate you for your work but you told her it was okay

Sebastian was speechless

He knew you were strong, but you were stronger than he thought

"You're stronger than I thought you were." He complimented

You blushed and smiled

"Guess it's from working on the farm."

#x reader #stardew valley #stardew valley x reader #sdv #sdv x reader #stardew valley headcanons #stardew valley elliott #stardew valley fanfic #stardew valley sebastian #stardew valley alex #stardew valley shane #stardew valley sam #stardew valley harvey #sdv alex #sdv sebastian #sdv sam #sdv shane #sdv harvey #sdv elliott

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radiance1 · 1 year ago

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If you asked Danny how he found himself in this situation, he wouldn't be able to give you a short answer. For you see, Danny was a Prince, heir to the throne that will never be his (and thank the Ancients for that) and an ageless being who will stay around for eons to come.

He out-lived his family, friends, entire town. Except for Vlad, that man wouldn't die so easily to something like old age, much less when his empire still stands.

Regardless.

Danny has been summoned only a handful of times, all of which were either mistakes or some mortals who wanted to summon something for shits and giggles.

He liked the last ones, they usually have pretty good food.

However, the last summon he's answered, a mistake, was done by a handful of wizards who weren't exactly happy with the results they got, so he made fun of them severely for their mistake and then their master- who was apparently watching in case things went wrong- turned him into a cat after he could a bit too... excited.

So, how did it escalate from there?

It was a simple thing, really, he encountered a few injured cats, and then nursed them back to health. Then those cats kept coming back to him, again, and again, and again, the first few times with injuries, but later they came just to be around him and chat sometime.

Then they started bringing other cats around him, skittish ones they were, not exactly keen on letting him take care of him the first few times, but just like the ones before, they soon came around to consider him as a friend of sorts.

Then that repeated, and repeated, and repeated.

Then suddenly, he found that he had acquired a family of sorts, one made of feral cats that were as chaotic as his own, previous, family was and more. It was... nice, when he realized that, that he had a place, a foothold, in the mortal world and not just as Prince of the Infinite Realms.

Although, the amount of grandpa jokes when he revealed his age- 150 is still young, he'll have you know- was something that took getting used to. But it was nice to know they were comfortable enough to call him that.

There were some special cases among his little Familia. A few of them had what this world called meta-abilities, ranging from such like superstrength, enhanced durability, super speed to things like telekinesis, teleportation, flight, etc, etc.

One of them even had the ability to separate their body parts.

He kept an eye on those that had these abilities, no doubt that multiple people would try and kidnap them for nefarious purposes. Though they were incredibly small in number, caution is best to be kept, especially in a city as dangerous as that of Gotham.

He's never really made himself known to anyone other than his little Familia and a certain cat-themed criminal. He preferred to stay in his little warehouse, watching the days pass while taking care of a few kittens here and there, sleeping, eating, managing to use that Tv and computer he stole that one time to watch whatever thing is one.

It was a very calm life, all things considered.

Of course, then came a disturbance in said life, when the apparent rival Familia's wanted to meet him for one reason or another. Helpfully supplied by the first to have join his Familia, a cat with an immortality ability that he named Kevin.

Of course, he never knew Kevin had was immortal, but seeing him die one too many times and watching him get back up was prime evidence that he had one.

Apparently, his Familia was regarded as a relatively new one in the city of crime, and the other cats that were considered 'Heads' wanted to meet him for quite some time, especially when is got as big as it did and Kevin, glorious, glorious Kevin, has been going in his place to said meetings, and this district of Gotham they occupied was considered their territory.

Danny was blissfully unaware of this until today. But he decided that Kevin, sweet, hardworking, death-defying young Kevin, can continue engaging in cat politics, he wants no part in such things and Kevin has proven himself capable of handling it!

As much as he didn't want a part in this, he was persuaded to go at least once and can then leave everything up to Kevin. So he goes there, does things, talk to other 'Heads', being very vocal in his body language about how he couldn't really care less about being there.

Of course, he had to care when he sees Batman being thrown through a nearby wall and seeing as how he's heard about him from a friend (Catwoman has made it very clear how she felt about him on numerous occasions whenever they met.), he wasn't exactly keen on seeing him being smushed into a paste, so he went ghost, pure black fur being replaced by glowing white.

And then slammed right into a battle with Bane.

Kevin he swears to the Ancients if you for some reason try to get into this fight and die again, he will treat you like a kitten for the next three weeks.

#dc x dp #dp x dc #dp x dc crossover #dpxdc #dcxdp #dc x dp crossover #ghost prince danny #Danny is a cat #I swear to go if I see another Warrior cats in my tags #I will #Do nothing #But think about my life because I have only consumed a few episodes of Warrior Cats material and question myself.

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wirewitchviolet · 1 year ago

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How a Computer Works - Part 1 (Components)

I am about to teach you on a real fundamental, connecting up electronic components level, how a computer actually works. Before I get into the meat of this though (you can just skip down below the fold if you don't care), here's the reasons I'm sitting doing so in this format:

Like a decade or two ago, companies Facebook pushed this whole "pivot to video" idea on the whole internet with some completely faked data, convincing everyone that everything had to be a video, and we need to start pushing back against that. Especially for stuff like complex explanations of things or instructions, it's much more efficient to just explain things clearly in text, maybe with some visual aids, so people can easily search, scan, and skip around between sections. It's also a hell of a lot easier to host things long term, and you can even print out a text based explainer and not need a computer to read it, keep it on a desk, highlight it, etc.

People are so clueless about how computers actually work that they start really thinking like it's all magical. Even programmers. Aside from how proper knowledge lets you get more out of them, this leads to people spouting off total nonsense about "teaching sand to think" or "everything is just 1s and 0s" or "this 'AI' a con artist who was trying to sell me NFTs a month ago probably really is an amazing creative thinking machine that can do everything he says!"

We used to have this cultural value going where it was expected that if you owned something and used it day to day, you'd have enough basic knowledge of how it worked that if it stopped working you could open it up, see what was wrong, and maybe fix it on your own, or maybe even put one together again from scratch, and that's obviously worth bringing back.

I'm personally working on a totally bonkers DIY project and I'd like to hype up like-minded people for when it gets farther along.

So all that said, have a standard reminder that I am completely reliant on Patreon donations to survive, keep updating this blog, and ideally start getting some PCBs and chips and a nice oscilloscope to get that mystery project off the ground.

Electricity probably doesn't work like how you were taught (and my explanation shouldn't be trusted too far either).

I remember, growing up, hearing all sorts of things about electricity having this sort of magical ability to always find the shortest possible path to where it needs to get, flowing like water, and a bunch of other things that are kind of useful for explaining how a Faraday cage or a lightning rod works, and not conflicting with how simple electronics will have a battery and then a single line of wire going through like a switch and a light bulb or whatever back to the other end of the battery.

If you had this idea drilled into your head hard enough, you might end up thinking that if we have a wire hooked to the negative end of a battery stretching off to the east, and another wire stretching off to the east from the positive end, and we bridge between the two in several places with an LED or something soldered to both ends, only the westernmost one is going to light up, because hey, the shortest path is the one that turns off as quickly as possible to connect to the other side, right? Well turns out no, all three are going to light up, because that "shortest path" thing is a total misunderstanding.

Here's how it actually works, roughly. If you took basic high school chemistry, you learned about how the periodic table is set up, right? A given atom, normally, has whatever number of protons in the core, and the same number of electrons, whipping all over around it, being attracted to those protons but repelled by each other, and there's particular counts of electrons which are super chill with that arrangement so we put those elements in the same column as each other, and then as you count up from those, you get the elements between those either have some electrons that don't fit all tight packed in the tight orbit and just kinda hang out all wide and lonely and "want to" buddy up with another atom that has more room, up to the half full column that can kinda go either way, then as we approach the next happy number they "want to" have a little more company to get right to that cozy tight packed number, and when you have "extra" electrons and "missing" electrons other atoms kinda cozy up and share so they hit those good noble gas counts.

I'm sure real experts want to scream at me for both that and this, but this is basically how electricity works. You have a big pile of something at the "positive" end that's "missing electrons" (for the above reason or maybe actually ionized so they really aren't there), and a "negative" end that's got spares. Then you make wires out of stuff from those middle of the road elements that have awkward electron counts and don't mind buddying up (and also high melting points and some other handy qualities) and you hook those in there. And the electron clouds on all the atoms in the wire get kinda pulled towards the positive side because there's more room over there, but if they full on leave their nucleus needs more electron pals, so yeah neighbors get pulled over, and the whole wire connected to the positive bit ends up with a positive charge to it, and the whole wire on the negative bit is negatively charged, and so yeah, anywhere you bridge the gap between the two, the electrons are pretty stoked about balancing out these two big awkward compromises and they'll start conga lining over to balance things out, and while they're at it they'll light up lights or shake speakers or spin motors or activate electromagnets or whatever other rad things you've worked out how to make happen with a live electric current.

Insulators, Resistors, Waves, and Capacitors

Oh and we typically surround these wires made of things that are super happy about sharing electrons around with materials that are very much "I'm good, thanks," but this isn't an all or nothing system and there's stuff you can connect between the positive and negative ends of things that still pass the current along, but only so much so fast. We use those to make resistors, and those are handy because sometimes you don't want to put all the juice you have through something because it would damage it, and having a resistor anywhere along a path you're putting current through puts a cap on that flow, and also sometimes you might want a wire connected to positive or negative with a really strong resistor so it'll have SOME sort of default charge, but if we get a free(r) flowing connection attached to that wire somewhere else that opens sometimes, screw that little trickle going one way, we're leaning everyone the other way for now.

The other thing with electricity is is that the flow here isn't a basic yes/no thing. How enthusiastically those electrons are getting pulled depends on the difference in charge at the positive and negative ends, and also if you're running super long wires then even if they conduct real good, having all that space to spread along is going to kinda slow things to a trickle, AND the whole thing is kinda going to have some inherent bounciness to it both because we're dealing with electrons whipping and spinning all over and because, since it's a property that's actually useful for a lot of things we do with electricity, the power coming out of the wall has this intentional wobbly nature because we've actually got this ridiculous spinny thing going on that's constantly flip flopping which prong of the socket is positive and which is negative and point is we get these sine waves of strength by default, and they kinda flop over if we're going really far.

Of course there's also a lot of times when you really want to not have your current flow flickering on and off all the time, but hey fortunately one of the first neat little electronic components we ever worked out are capacitors... and look, I'm going to be straight with you. I don't really get capacitors, but the basic idea is you've got two wires that go to big wide plates, and between those you have something that doesn't conduct the electricity normally, but they're so close the electromagnetic fields are like vibing, and then if you disconnect them from the flow they were almost conducting and/or they get charged to their limit, they just can't deal with being so charged up and they'll bridge their own gap and let it out. So basically you give them electricity to hold onto for a bit then pass along, and various sizes of them are super handy if you want to have a delay between throwing a switch and having things start doing their thing, or keeping stuff going after you break a connection, or you make a little branching path where one branch connects all regular and the other goes through a capacitor, and the electricity which is coming in in little pulses effectively comes out as a relatively steady stream because every time it'd cut out the capacity lets its charge go.

We don't just have switches, we have potentiometers.

OK, so... all of the above is just sort of about having a current and maybe worrying about how strong it is, but other than explaining how you can just kinda have main power rails running all over, and just hook stuff across them all willy-nilly rather than being forced to put everything in one big line, but still, all you can do with that is turn the whole thing on and off by breaking the circuit. Incidentally, switches, buttons, keys, and anything else you use to control the behavior of any electronic device really are just physically touching loose wires together or pulling them apart... well wait no, not all, this is a good bit to know.

None of this is actually pass/fail, really, there's wave amplitudes and how big a difference we have between the all. So when you have like, a volume knob, that's a potentiometer, which is a simple little thing where you've got your wire, it's going through a resistor, and then we have another wire we're scraping back and forth along the resistor, using a knob, usually, and the idea is the current only has to go through X percent of the resistor to get to the wire you're moving, which proportionately reduces the resistance. So you have like a 20 volt current, you've got a resistor that'll drop that down to 5 or so, but then you move this other wire down along and you've got this whole dynamic range and you can fine tune it to 15 or 10 or whatever coming down that wire. And what's nice about this again, what's actually coming down the wire is this wobbily wave of current, it's not really just "on" or "off, and as you add resistance, the wobble stays the same, it's just the peaks and valleys get closer to being just flat. Which is great if you're making, say, a knob to control volume, or brightness, or anything you want variable intensity in really.

Hey hey, it's a relay!

Again, a lot of the earliest stuff people did with electronics was really dependent on that analog wobbly waveform angle. Particularly for reproducing sound, and particularly the signals of a telegraph. Those had to travel down wires for absurd distances, and as previously stated, when you do that the signal is going to eventually decay to nothing. But then someone came up with this really basic idea where every so often along those super long wires, you set something up that takes the old signal and uses it to start a new one. They called them relays, because you know, it's like a relay race.

If you know how an electromagnet works (something about the field generated when you coil a bunch of copper wire around an iron core and run an electric current through it), a relay is super simple. You've got an electromagnet in the first circuit you're running, presumably right by where it's going to hit the big charged endpoint, and that magnetically pulls a tab of metal that's acting as a switch on a new circuit. As long as you've got enough juice left to activate the magnet, you slam that switch and voom you've got all the voltage you can generate on the new line.

Relays don't get used too much in other stuff, being unpopular at the time for not being all analog and wobbily (slamming that switch back and forth IS going to be a very binary on or off sorta thing), and they make this loud clacking noise that's actually just super cool to hear in devices that do use them (pinball machines are one of the main surviving use cases I believe) but could be annoying in some cases. What's also neat is that they're a logical AND gate. That is, if you have current flowing into the magnet, AND you have current flowing into the new wire up to the switch, you have it flowing out through the far side of the switch, but if either of those isn't true, nothing happens. Logic gates, to get ahead of myself a bit, are kinda the whole thing with computers, but we still need the rest of them. So for these purposes, relays re only neat if it's the most power and space efficient AND gate you have access to.

Oh and come to think of it, there's no reason we need to have that magnet closing the circuit when it's doing its thing. We could have it closed by default and yank it open by the magnet. Hey, now we're inverting whatever we're getting on the first wire! Neat!

Relay computers clack too loud! Gimme vacuum tubes!

So... let's take a look at the other main thing people used electricity for before coming up with the whole computer thing, our old friend the light bulb! Now I already touched a bit on the whole wacky alternating current thing, and I think this is actually one of the cases that eventually lead to it being adopted so widely, but the earliest light bulbs tended to just use normal direct current, where again, you've got the positive end and the negative end, and we just take a little filament of whatever we have handy that glows when you run enough of a current through it, and we put that in a big glass bulb and pump out all the air we can, because if we don't, the oxygen in there is probably going to change that from glowing a bit to straight up catching on fire and burning immediately.

But, we have a new weird little problem, because of the physics behind that glowing. Making something hot, on a molecular level, is just kinda adding energy to the system so everything jitters around more violently, and if you get something hot enough that it glows, you're getting it all twitchy enough for tinier particles to just fly the hell off it. Specifically photons, that's the light bit, but also hey, remember, electrons are just kinda free moving and whipping all over looking for their naked proton pals... and hey, inside this big glass bulb, we've got that other end of the wire with the more positive charge to it. Why bother wandering up this whole coily filament when we're in a vacuum and there's nothing to get in the way if we just leap straight over that gap? So... they do that, and they're coming in fast and on elliptical approaches and all, so a bunch of electrons overshoot and smack into the glass on the far side, and now one side of every light bulb is getting all gross and burnt from that and turning all brown and we can't have that.

So again, part of the fix is we switched to alternating current so it's at least splitting those wild jumps up to either side, but before that, someone tried to solve this by just... kinda putting a backboard in there. Stick a big metal plate on the end of another wire in the bulb connected to a positive charge, and now OK, all those maverick electrons smack into here and aren't messing up the glass, but also hey, this is a neat little thing. Those electrons are making that hop because they're all hot and bothered. If we're not heating up the plate they're jumping to, and there's no real reason we'd want to, then if we had a negative signal over on that side... nothing would happen. Electrons aren't getting all antsy and jumping back.

So now we have a diode! The name comes because we have two (di-) electrodes (-ode) we care about in the bulb (we're just kind of ignoring the negative one), and it's a one way street for our circuit. That's useful for a lot of stuff, like not having electricity flow backwards through complex systems and mess things up, converting AC to DC (when it flips, current won't flow through the diode so we lop off the bottom of the wave, and hey, we can do that thing with capacitors to release their current during those cutoffs, and if we're clever we can get a pretty steady high).

More electrodes! More electrodes!

So a bit after someone worked out this whole vacuum tube diode thing, someone went hey, what if it was a triode? So, let's stick another electrode in there, and this one just kinda curves around in the middle, just kinda making a grate or a mesh grid, between our hot always flowing filament and that catch plate we're keeping positively charged when it's doing stuff. Well this works in a neat way. If there's a negative charge on it, it's going to be pushing back on those electrons jumping over, and if there's a positive charge on it, it's going to help pull those electrons over (it's all thin, so they're going to shoot right past it, especially if there's way more of a positive charge over on the plate... and here's the super cool part- This is an analog thing. If we have a relatively big negative charge, it's going to repel everything, if it's a relatively big positive, it's going to pull a ton across, if it's right in the middle, it's like it wasn't even in there, and you can have tiny charges for all the gradients in between.

We don't need a huge charge for any of this though, because we're just helping or hindering the big jump from the high voltage stuff, and huh, weren't we doing this whole weak current controlling a strong current thing before with the relay? We were! And this is doing the same thing! Except now we're doing it all analog style, not slapping switch with a magnet, and we can make those wavy currents peak higher or lower and cool, now we can have phone lines boost over long distances too, and make volume knobs, and all that good stuff.

The relay version of this had that cool trick though where you could flip the output. Can we still flip the output? We sure can, we just need some other toys in the mix. See we keep talking about positive charges and negative charges at the ends of our circuits, but these are relative things. I mentioned way back when how you can use resistors to throttle how much of a current we've got, so you can run two wires to that grid in the triode. One connects to a negative charge and the other positive, with resistors on both those lines, and a switch that can break the connection on the positive end. If the positive is disconnected, we've got a negative charge on the grid, since it's all we've got, but if we connect it, and the resistor to the negative end really limits flow, we're positive in the section the grid's in. And over on the side with the collecting plate, we branch off with another resistor setup so the negative charge on that side is normally the only viable connection for a positive, but when we flip the grid to positive, we're jumping across the gap in the vacuum tube, and that's a big open flow so we'll just take those electrons instead of the ones that have to squeeze through a tight resistor to get there.

That explanation is probably a bit hard to follow because I'm over here trying to explain it based on how the electrons are actually getting pulled around. In the world of electronics everyone decided to just pretend the flow is going the other way because it makes stuff easier to follow. So pretend we have magical positrons that go the other way and if they have nothing better to do they go down the path where we have all the fun stuff further down the circuit lighting lights and all that even though it's a tight squeeze through a resistor, because there's a yucky double negative in the triode and that's worse, but we have the switch rigged up to make that a nice positive go signal to the resistance free promised land with a bonus booster to cut across, so we're just gonna go that way when the grid signal's connected.

Oh and you can make other sorts of logic circuits or double up on them in a single tube if you add more grids and such, which we did for a while, but not really relevant these days.

Cool history lesson but I know there's no relays or vacuum tubes in my computer.

Right, so the above things are how we used to make computers, but they were super bulky, and you'd have to deal with how relays are super loud and kinda slow, and vacuum tubes need a big power draw and get hot. What we use instead of either of those these days are transistors. See after spending a good number of years working out all this circuit flow stuff with vacuum tubes we eventually focused on how the real important thing in all of this is how with the right materials you can make a little juncture where current flows between a positive and negative charge if a third wire going in there is also positively charged, but if it's negatively charged we're pulling over. And turns out there is a WAY more efficient way of doing that if you take a chunk of good ol' middle of the electron road silicon, and just kinda lightly paint the side of it with just the tiniest amount of positive leaning and negative leaning elements on the sides.

Really transistors don't require understanding anything new past the large number of topics already covered here, they're just more compact about it. Positive leaning bit, negative leaning bit, wildcard in the middle, like a vacuum tube. Based on the concepts of pulling electrons around from chemistry, like a circuit in general. The control wire in the middle kinda works in just a pass-fail sort of way, like a relay. They're just really nice compared to the older alternatives because they don't make noise or have moving parts to wear down, you don't have to run enough current through them for metal to start glowing and the whole room to heat up, and you can make them small. Absurdly small. Like... need an electron microscope to see them small.

And of course you can also make an inverter super tiny like that, and a diode (while you're at it you can use special materials or phosphors to make them light emitting, go LEDs!) and resistors can get pretty damn small if you just use less of a more resistant material, capacitors I think have a limit to how tiny you can get, practically, but yeah, you now know enough of the basic fundamentals of how computers work to throw some logic gates together. We've covered how a relay, triode, or transistor function as an AND gate. An OR gate is super easy, you just stick diodes on two wires so you don't have messy backflow then connect them together and lead off there. If you can get your head around wiring up an inverter (AKA NOT), hey, stick one after an AND to get a NAND, or an OR to get a NOR. You can work out XOR and XNOR from there right? Just build 4 NANDs, pass input A into gates 1 and 2, B into 2 and 3, 2's output into 1 and 3, 1 and 3's output into 4 for a XOR, use NORs instead for a XNOR. That's all of them right? So now just build a ton of those and arrange them into a computer. It's all logic and math from there.

Oh right. It's... an absurd amount of logic and math, and I can only fit so many words in a blog post. So we'll have to go all...

CONTINUED IN PART 2!

Meanwhile, again, if you can spare some cash I'd really appreciate it.

#computers #computer science #history #electronics #education #relays #transistors #vacuum tubes

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she-posts-nerdy-stuff · 1 month ago

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How to knit a Six of Crows blanket!

Hi my darlings, after posting quite a bit about my Grishaverse knitting projects I’ve had a few people ask if I have any kind of pattern or instructions for the Six of Crows blanket I made. I completely drew it myself and (as someone who has never designed a real pattern) figured it out as I went but I thought I’d do my best to put together a step-by-step guide of what I did for my one so you can try it if you’d like to! If you do this and share it anywhere then if you could please credit me for the design that would awesome <3

My finished blanket is approximately 117x120 cm, or 46x47 inches, and it looks like this:

Yarn I used: so sorry I can’t remember and I don’t have the information right now but if anyone wants me to I can update this when I find it; I know that it was bulky weight though

Needle size I used: 9mm

Stitches you need to know how to do: Knit and Purl

Other techniques you’ll need to know: the fair isle method for colourwork, and possibly how to back a blanket but I will explain that in more detail because I had to learn how to do it for this project

Tags: @marielaure @spike-is-not-a-dogs-name @scenemime @worth-this-and-more @wisegirl29 @atac-agent @uttermywish @feralipadkid @fairytalesofforever

Guide below the cut!!

Step 1: the first thing you need is a chart, because this is knit in fair isle. I’m sure there are proper softwares for designing fair isle charts but I uploaded a photo of the six of crows book cover onto a free drawing app called Ibis Paint X, went over it in flat colours to create a more 2D design, superimposed a grid over the top, and then went round every individual square of that grid and edited the image so that there was one colour in each square (ie, pixelated it). The fun thing about doing it like this is that you can easily change it to be whatever size you want by changing the size of your grid (each square represents one stitch). As I mentioned before, if you use the same yarn as I did and the exact same chart as I did it comes out to be around 117x120 cm or 46x47 inches; it’s pretty square and smaller than your average blanket, which is perfect for what I wanted but might not be perfect for what you want so you might want to adapt that if you’d rather a different size. This is what my chart looked like:

Step 2: casting on and knitting! This is the most fun bit, in my opinion. My grid is 103 stitches wide so and I wanted to have a border all around the edges so the first thing I did was cast on a full row in the cream yarn that I wanted to make that border from, with two more stitches

1) Cast on 105 of cream yarn. This should be the number of stitches across the x-axis of your pattern plus 2, to create a border either side. This cast on row will then create a one row border at the bottom of your work.

2) K1 in cream, knit first row of pattern, K1 in cream

3) P1 in cream, purl second row of pattern, P1 in cream

4) repeat steps 2) and 3) until the pattern is complete

5) complete an entire row in cream yarn

6) cast off - this is always so exciting!!! This is when you get the first real sense of accomplishment, in my opinion

I don’t have loads of progress photos, I’m afraid, but this is what mine looked like when I first cast off:

(The edges are curled here so you can’t see the border on the sides, but it is there, also the lighting is rubbish sorry)

Step 3: Weave in all the ends. Gonna be super honest this step is deeply boring but incredibly important; there are a lot of ends to deal with here. Sorry I don’t have a photo of the wrong side of my work but if you imagine at least one loose end for every section of colour change you can gather that it’s a lot haha

Step 4: Backing!! Now there can be different methods of backing depending on what kind of fabric you choose, I can’t actually tell you what kind of fabric I used other than that the colour was called ‘luna grey’ because the label didn’t actually say what it was so I just decided to go for it. I could only buy it in metres or half metres so I had to get 150cm and then trim the excess. Remember to cut your backing fabric larger than your knitting!! - you need lenience to sew it in. I chose a soft fabric that wasn’t very stretchy. If you get a stretchier fabric you might want to use something to band the knitting first so that you avoid pulling it out of shape.

Lay the right sides of your two pieces (fabric & knitting) together and securely pin three sides.

Once your right sides are pinned together you can go all around your three pinned edges and sew together. Sewing is not my forte so if it isn’t yours either don’t worry, what’s good about this is that your stitches won’t actually be seen once the project’s done so don’t worry too much if they aren’t super neat. I used a running stitch and caught the underside of the knitting without going all the way through so that I knew my stitches wouldn’t be visible. If you want to add extra security, you can go round this sewing section twice. I personally hand sewed this, I think you could use a machine if you wanted to but be careful that the knitting doesn’t catch.

This is an exciting bit because you can really start to see the finished project

Once you’ve sewn your first three sides what you essentially have is a giant inside out pocket, and you can turn it right side out so it looks something like this:

Sorry it’s not a great photo.

After this I trimmed off the excess fabric and just sat and stretched everything out to make sure it was sitting properly and I was happy with it. If you’re also trimming off excess fabric, remember to leave the same amount of lenience (I did about five centimetres/two inches) as you did for the original edges!!

Then fold your lenience fabric inside the pocket and pin it nice and securely. I used a YouTube video to learn an invisible stitch to close this edge and it worked really well once I’d gotten the trick of it, I was really pleased. I practiced it on the excess fabric is cut off first and I definitely recommend that, it was really helpful

And then that’s it!!!

Here is my finished project again:

I am so overjoyed with how this came out!

I hope that this guide was somewhat helpful, though I realise it’s clear that I don’t write patterns and am probably not very good at describing what I did so I’m sorry if anything was unclear. If you try this let me know, and if you share it anywhere please credit me! 🖤🖤

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blackynsupremacy · 2 months ago

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redk!clark shenanigans part 3

part 1

part 2

taglist: @afrogirl3005 @rosiestalez @stereotypicalbarbie

synopsis : redk!clark is the type of dude when you drop him first (because you’re honestly just fed up!) and you’re finally in a good place in life, he would text you out of the blue to reel you back in. he doesn’t really want you to walk out of his life, so you’re not getting rid of him that easily, girl.

if you’ve ever seen those memes with future texting, it’s those type of vibes.

pairings: redk!clark x fem! y/n (i’m imagining her as meagan good again. reader can do a self insert or use another fc. the choice is yours and i want to be inclusive!)

fandom: smallville (2001-2011)

also featuring: chloe sullivan and kate ross (pete’s twin sister/oc fc: tatyana ali)

warnings: long asf, swearing, redk!clark, toxic behavior, a little bit of angst, some suggestiveness,manipulation, implied hook up, y/n regretting her decisions, y/n being weak in the knees again!

congratulations to y/n for finally dropping redk!clark kent, smallville’s local gentleman turned badass and player. anywho, her skin is glowing, her grades are showing tremendous improvement, and life has just been better in general. she’s smiling a lot more!

she’s not going through this alone though. fortunately, she has chloe sullivan and kate ross to help y/n properly get over him. they haven’t seen him around in a few days. if they did happen to run into clark at school or around town and he asks about her whereabouts, they would make up an excuse that she was really busy with (an extracurricular/job) or she got a new number. he’s gonna find out soon enough that was some bullshit.

it’s a friday night and the girls decided it was time to get dolled up and go out to celebrate y/n’s freedom from clark’s fuckery. they’re all chatting and filling their table with laughter when y/n hears her cell phone vibrate. she flips open the device and looks at her text messages, skimming through each word cueing her deep sigh and eye roll..here we go again. y/n closes the phone down and places it back in her purse. it vibrates again and again..now kate and chloe are getting suspicious, giving each other knowing looks. let’s just say that the silence was indeed loud.

“so, uh…who’s blowing up your phone at this hour?” chloe inquired, tilting her head.

“it’s just my mom reminding me to do something when i get home.” y/n replied as she shrugged her shoulders to ease the tension.

“oh, so she’s reminding you five times?” kate asked, her elbow on the table with her chin resting on her knuckle. she raised a brow then narrowed her eyes before finally addressing the elephant in the room.

“it’s clark, isn’t it?”

“no.”

“bullshit!” the girls exclaimed.

“fine! it was clark. he said he hated how things ended between us and that he was blind to how really important i was to him. he also said that without me, he feels so weak.” y/n confessed.

these were his words. he wasn’t blind to shit considering he has x-ray vision. not weak either because the guy had super strength.

chloe and kate couldn’t help but to roll their eyes and shake their heads at this foolishness, but who were they to judge? they both fell for the charming farm boy they grew up with at one point during their lives. hell, they even both attempted to cross that line of confession and dating him for real, but they let that go to preserve their friendship with each other and with clark. it’s messy, but it was clark kent. smallville’s local knight in shining armor. how could any girl let go of him completely once they’ve been attached? it was just his new bold and unpredictable attitude that rubbed them the wrong way. hopefully it’s just a phase.

“he also said to meet at his place so we could talk things over. if he really wants us to work things out, i should be there in the next 10 minutes…” with each word, the volume of y/n’s voice started to diminish as she looked around and bit at her bottom lip to avoid the awkward, yet frustrated glares of her friends. “maybe i should go to hear him out and get some closure…”

“wait, wait, wait!”, chloe objected shaking her head. “if my memory serves, you said that last time was the last time. did you not catch him in another lie of him seeing lana before taking you out, correct?”

“….yes, but he sorta made it up to me.” y/n’s face heated up as her mind wandered to the semi-passionate endeavor her and clark shared in her bedroom after the argument that concluded their last date. she thanked the Lord above that her parents were out of town and that clark respected her enough to not push any further than what she was comfortable with. kate and chloe's eyes widened from sudden realization to complete astonishment.

"before you guys shame me, no, we didn’t go that far, but you know how guys are always saying i can’t drop clark due to the fact that i’m always wrapped around his finger?”

(reference to pt 2 iykyk)

y/n recited her friends past warnings as her fingers signaled air quotation marks.

“i guess you can say that literally and figuratively.”

silence filled the trio once more before they all heard another vibration. y/n flipped open her device and checked her text messages again. her eyes skimmed over the text for a few seconds before her fingertips made a few sounds to type a response to the person on the other end. after one press of the “send” button, she stood to her feet and pushed in the chair before greeting her friends a formal goodbye, “that was mom again. she said she needs me home asap. i’ll catch you guys at school?” the girls gave her nod and a “mhm!” before they watched their friend power walk out of the restaurant to her parked honda accord.

after they saw the car speed off into the night, kate sarcastically chuckled and shook her head before gazing at chloe, finally breaking the silence.

“we both know damn well that she went to go meet up with clark right?”

“i know…” chloe replied.

“yeah.” kate nodded and gazed below at the ground with a tight lipped smile as she fiddled with her fingers.

meanwhile…

10 minutes. it sounds like a lot of time, but not so much when you’re deciding on which path to take. right for the l/n’s house, left for the kent’s. her eyes darted in both directions, her heart thumping in her chest. it was only a matter of time before she could switch the turn signal up or down. she began to think. think of the times her friends were there for her at her lowest. the temper tantrums. the late night rants on the phone. the fake smiles for her parents. the tears that soaked her pillow. all because of him. his arrogance, his brutal honesty yet he lies, his shameless flirtation with other women. his eyes…his words…his kiss…his touch…his affection. damn, damn, damn! her mind was finally made up. she put the car in drive and made the turn onto the path of her destination for the night.

“hey, look, i got your messages. you said you wanted to talk things over, so let’s talk, clark.”

y/n stood with her arms crossed against her chest and faced the male before her standing outside the kent house as if he were expecting her already. he looked comfortable in his black tank top and grey sweatpants with his hands in the pockets. even under the moonlight, y/n could still see that same lady-killing smile of his and icy, blue eyes that she adored so much that it made her heart swell.

“it’s about time you showed up, beautiful. you don’t know how much i’ve missed you lately.” he pulled his pink lips into a smirk and took a few steps closer to her as his eyes never did pull away from her own. “i don’t think talking out here in the dark would do us any good, so how about we go somewhere more quiet and…” he took a beat of pause, “private.” tilting his head in the direction of his loft in the barn.

y/n sighed, licked her lips, and started walking in the direction towards clark’s loft with her arms still crossed. little did she know that his eyes carefully zeroed in on the sway of her hips with each step she took and possibly even the sultry, black matching set underneath her clothes.

oh, this was going to be a long night.

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thewritingmagician2022 · 4 months ago

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Hi! I have a bit of an uncommon ask; would you be willing to write the brothers+dateables (just the dateables if that's too many characters) with a MC that...just seems to know things before they happen? They never say anything about it or redirect the conversation, but they've snagged Luke on the collar seconds before a demon comes sprinting around the corner or a car speeds the red light, and always seems to know what a person's saying before they even finish saying it.

Idk, I like the idea of an MC who's been through time shenanigans before (bc time shenanigans be like that), I think it could have some really interesting effects, especially around lesson 16

This is a fun ask and it’s interesting to me because I tend to be someone that dreams about things before they happen - usually years in advance and it’s such mundane moments that I don’t even think about it until it happens in real life and I’m like hey! 👀

Despite the coolness of this ask, it’s obviously very delayed and not very fleshed out because I couldn’t find it in my brain/creativity to do it justice. I’m sorry for that and I hope you were able to find it elsewhere!

Lucifer: Lucifer is more than a little suspicious at first. It’s one thing to have a human down here in the Devildom but quite another to have one with the ability of precognition. It puts him and his family and the kingdom at potential risk; if you’re having visions about the future, it’s hard to keep any secrets or keep you in line as you may be a step ahead of him which really throws him off his game. So he’s keeping a careful eye on you at first and instructs you tell him about all of the visions you have, at least until he’s sure that he can trust you. Then he’s going to use that nifty little powers of yours to help stop his brothers before they can cause too many problems for him.

Mammon: Mammon thinks it’s both cool and freaky. He definitely wants you to keep it a secret just between the two of you so you can use it to his, excuse me, your advantage. He would absolutely bring you with him while gambling in the hopes that you’ll be able to see the winning numbers or colors or machines. It would make you even more invaluable to him, especially when you save his hide by warning him pre-emptively about bounty hunters or Lucifer coming after him or even just a RAD project that he may have forgotten. He’s a little in awe of you honestly.

Levi: Levi thinks you’re super cool! It’s like you have a superpower like one of his favorite anime girls. He can’t wait to be your sidekick as you work your way through the Devildom with your secret powers. He gushes over them/you every time you use them, especially when you use them for something nice like making sure Luke doesn’t get plowed over in a hallway or you keep something of his safe from Mammon. Occasionally, he does let you use it for gaming. He won’t let you warn him ahead of time of things in his games because it feels like cheating but if you’re playing co-op, well, he can’t exactly stop you and if you become practically undefeated realm-wide, that’s just a bonus.

Satan: Satan loves a good mystery and research so this is perfect. You have no idea where this elusive power comes from nor do you have any idea how to control it. That means he’s going to do a full deep dive getting your history, learning all about what the preminitons are like for you and what their usual subject matter is, tracking them to see if there’s any triggers or precursors he can identity. It’s like a fun game for him. He absolutely loves it when you get information that involves Lucifer because he and Belphie want to use it to their advantage for pranks, and he also loves how incredibly human you are with your gift - you use it kindly for everyone around you, always saving them from danger or distress or even just to spare their feelings.

Asmo: Asmo is easily freaked out by your power. Don’t get him wrong, he adores you and loves how special and unique you are - of course everyone should be super jealous knowing he gets to have the superpowered human. However, he is lowkey creeped out by it because he is so easy to startle. Pulling him out of the way of a random food fight? He shrieks. Snatch something out of his hands because it’s actually cursed? He’s got tears in his eyes both of gratitude and fear, also maybe a little bit of arousal because wow, you really do take such good care of him, don’t you?

Beel: Beel is the definition of the surprised pikachu face meme every time you use your powers. It’s like he has short term memory loss when it comes to this so whenever you manage to answer a question that’s so far unasked or catch something flying at you or you save one of the brothers from falling down the stairs, Beel looks at you like you’re a superhero. He’s just very impressed with you all the time anyway and he does his best to make sure that no one bothers you about or for your gift. You’re not some little sideshow pony for people to use for their gain and he’s going to make sure no one treats you that way.

Belphie: Your gift breaks his heart a little. Belphie wonders how much you knew, how much you know now. Did you always know that he was going to betray you and did you still choose to befriend him, to heal his family, to love him anyway? Did you know it would work out in the end or did you just hope for it? Or did you have no clue about his betrayal despite being aware of so many other things? He doesn’t know what’s worse actually - if you were ignorant and blinded or if you walked into his home a knowing martyr. It makes him want to project you, especially when all you seem to do is protect others with your gift. You’re always rescuing everyone else, heedless to the danger of the present and the pain of the past. He does his best to support you in any way possible, especially when the visions are something stronger and deeper than just making sure Beel doesn’t eat his last cookie.

Diavolo: Diavolo had no idea when he selected you as the exchange student that you had such a wonderful gift. He sees it as a sign from the universe that he picked the right person; it’s just another reason that you’re perfect for here, for him. Especially because you actively use your powers to do the good and right thing. Where others could and would choose to be selfish or manipulate others or gain power, you do your best to ensure everyone’s safety and happiness. He finds you and your gift incredibly endearing and wonderful. He’s just so thrilled that he has such a talented little human around to prove their goodness and usefulness. He also very much enjoys watching you have fun with your gift, whether it’s causing some trouble with Solomon or Mammon or Simeon, and he doesn’t let anyone scold you for it because he thinks it’s so much fun to watch you make your own way down there.

Barbatos: Barbatos was at first a little unsettled by this power of yours. He’s grown quite used to being the unsettling, omniscient person in the group. It’s not every day you meet someone who can see through time, even with visions as mundane and innocuous as yours usually are. It makes him suspicious in the beginning but, as he grows to trust you, he helps you deal with your powers both in terms of handling the visions/honing your skills and in terms of coping with the things that you may see. Once you’ve built that strong relationship between you, he absolutely loves to create chaos with you. You both like to be as ominous and vague as possible, using your unspoken twin bond thing to communicate and leave the others in a constant feeling of being a step behind the both of you.

Solomon: Solomon is deeply curious; he’s a man who knows everything about the past and you’re the person who knows everything about the future. He’s met humans with powers before, some even with the power of pre-cognition, but yours are the most erratic and it’s a very interesting coincidence that you happened to be brought in as the exchange student at RAD. He’s definitely going to ask to run tests and experiments on you, a bit like Satan but much more hands on his approach. He wants to figure out the origin and the extent of your powers, and he’s certainly okay with stirring up some trouble. It’s not unusual for him to use your powers as an excuse for why he did/didn’t something, even if it’s not true, and he uses his magic to help you harness your gift to turn into something consistently useful.

Simeon: Simeon is almost as curious as Satan and Solomon (must be an S name thing?). He does wonder where your gift comes from - if it’s a Gift from his Father to be used to better the world around you, which he sees happening every time you save one of them from a near death experience or even just give them the answer in class in RAD because you knew the professor would ask them, or if it’s a curse because he’s seen the haunted, lonely, terrified look on your face when you’re confronted with the visions of darker things than the others can even comprehend. He knows you don’t share those visions with everyone; you tend to keep them to yourself and work to make sure they don’t happen. Simeon is the one who sees that look and steps in to stand by your side and support you so that you don’t have to bear the responsibility alone. To make things a little light for you, Simeon encourages you to use your gify for fun. Between your visions and Simeon’s angelic grace, no one doubts whatever you two say and that means you can get away with so many things and keep yourself out of trouble. It might be a little bit naughty of you but you think you both do more than enough for the Devildom to have earned this little mischeif.

#obey me #obey me imagines #obey me asks #obey me satan #obey me beel #obey me belphie #obey me mammon #obey me asmo #obey me diavolo #obey me lucifer #obey me simeon #obey me solomon #obey me leviathan

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tangyangie · 1 year ago

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— 𝐗𝐈𝐀𝐎 𝐆𝐄𝐍𝐄𝐑𝐀𝐋 𝐃𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐃𝐂𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐍𝐒

he likes hearing you whisper to him. he thinks your voice is soothing. he doesn't fall asleep easily—but having his head rest in your lap as you slowly drag your fingers through his hair while muttering soft praises... there's just something about it that he just can't resist.

speaking of touch, he allows you to experiment. but, allow is overstatement. the first time, he's resisting a ton—going on and on about how he could hurt you and all of that. you get on your knees and put your blood, sweat, and tears into pleading and begging him to let you hug him. he relents, eventually.

(he ends up enjoying it so much more than he thought. he goes to you almost every day for any kind of touch.)

he takes you to the highest peaks in liyue, watching you marvel over the sights. he simply sits cross-legged with his cheek resting on his fist.

he takes time to gather things for you during the day. he might collect a few rocks or flowers he finds, bringing them back to you—oblivious to your sobbing over how cute it is.

he likes when you hold his hand. not just in a regular way, but when you're gently rubbing the back of it with your thumbs, tracing his scars with your fingers, or lifting it up to your mouth to kiss it—he loves it all.

god, he is so stubborn.

don't count on going anywhere alone if you're not armed or he knows you can protect yourself. he has one hand on you at all times, making sure you don't silently disappear out of nowhere.

"xiao, i'll be okay. it's literally a ten minute walk from the bottom of the wangshuu inn."

"i'm going with you."

he watches you sleep. not in a creepy way!! it just comforts him, seeing you breathe so softly. watching your chest rise and fall in rhythm... he can't get enough. he'll just stand in the corner, making sure that your dreamland is safe. no nightmares bother you at night—he gets rid of them. you make sure to thank him!!

you're his best friend. he can't imagine doing most things without you after he does them with you for the first time. it would be so unnatural for him to go sit at the riverbed alone, or ask for almond tofu in the kitchen... he does these things with you.

you're his number one priority. i guarantee, if you say his name, he'll drop everything and rush to you, making sure you're safe and nothing's wrong. even if he's in the middle of something else, talking to someone—even the traveler, or anything.

he will adore you for hours. sit him next to you, and he'll just stare at your face in complete silence—but there's nothing you need to communicate. you know everything you need to from the way he looks at you.

you fell first, but he fell much, much harder. of course he would be apprehensive, falling in love—it's definitely not strange, knowing him. but, once he's warmed up to you and can trust you, he falls head over heels. and lands on his head—that's how much he loves you.

you weave flowers into his hair or make small crowns out of them, and place them atop his head. he's confused why you're so insistent on him keeping them, but he doesn't complain. once you make him a new one, he hangs it somewhere safe—somewhere he knows no one will take it or it won't get swept away.

zhongli checks up on you guys. even if you don't know him that well, you warm up to him easily with how kind and encouraging he is. he ends up accidentally embarrassing xiao in front of you. he honestly doesn't realize it. he's literally just a grandpa so sweet.

he gets blown away when you kiss him. when it's unexpected? his eyes are wide and he's completely frozen. when it's super obvious a kiss is coming—like, you're two centimeters away from him and touching his face, he feels his soul escape him when you kiss him. it's so endearing that every kiss is like a first kiss just because of his reaction to every one.

other than that, his kisses seem to last a lifetime when you're alone together. he doesn't want to let you escape—as your lips break apart, he chases them back. traps you between his arms unknowingly, completely focused on kissing you.

when he gets jealous, it hits him like a truck—which is an understatement. he feels like he's been his with a sixteen-wheeler, a rocket, and a planet—in that order.

he doesn't mean to—he's just so insecure about his relationship capabilities. spies on the person who's with you, making sure they don't take things too far. if they make you uncomfortable, best believe he's cutting their hand off. he's not. he is.

sometimes you just. collapse. you literally just strengthen all gravity in yourself and fall as dramatically as possible onto xiao. sometimes you do it completely out of no where and catch him so off guard—he quite literally scrambles to catch you.

"oh, no—gravity is increasing upon me!!"

"hey, what the hell are you do—y/n!"

"no, i'm being serious!"

you guys have little cooking sessions together!! you try expanding xiao's diet from just almond tofu—and it's really funny seeing him try these new foods.

xiao was already disgusted just looking at brussels sprouts, so what made you think he was going to enjoy them as a food?? it's actually hilarious—an adeptus hurling in a trash can.

"woah, is that the adeptus from wangshuu inn—?? what happened?"

"brussels sprouts."

"...excuse me?"

"don't ask."

he gets super, super flustered when you kiss him either on the nose or the diamond on his forehead. he just?? goes haywire??? his mind completely empties itself and you swear those little swirls for eyes (🌀) have taken over his face.

near the beginning of your relationship, he still had a pretty hard time processing physical touch. so, his solution was to ask to do innocent things that involve touching you—such as doing your make-up, painting your nails, or fixing your clothes.

sometimes you see his face soften whenever he looks at you. it's not exactly a smile, but when it comes to xiao, this is close enough. although, one time—when you were by the water, playing with the current, you could see a certain grump with a dumb, soft, lovestruck smile plastered across his face.

notes. i did not expect this to be so long... but i have tonsss of xiao headcanons so it felt like i was betraying tumblr if i didn't post them.

#screaming in the void #and the void screams back #fluff #hee hee #xiao #xiao genshin #genshin xiao #genshin impact x reader #genshin #genshin impact #xiao x reader #genshin x reader #xiao headcanons #genshin headcanons #xiao x reader headcanons #for you #reader fic

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softerstill · 3 months ago

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How are you doing today little marshmallow? Hopefully stuffing that fat belly of yours even fuller like a good piggy. Here’s a fun question for you would you rather have no limit to eating and be able to just stuff that belly as full as you want no matter what or gain twice as much fat from the same amount of food you currently eat. Hope you’re having a good day!

Tired but glad to be home now ☺️ Making dinner so soon I will be stuffing ✨

I’d definitely choose having no limit, I mean I gain easily so I figure I could push myself to whatever gaining heights I really feel like (maybe I’m wrong 😂), and I’m not big on super fast gaining. But I still feel like eating sometimes when I hit my current capacity limit. Think of the absolute destruction I could do to a buffet! I would love to see the faces of people nearby that watch me get a ridiculous number of plates.

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hobiebrownismygod · 1 year ago

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VENOM - Part 1

Venom!Hobie Brown/Spider-Punk x Fem!Reader

Synopsis: The Venom Symbiote is a canon event for every Spider-man, so Hobie Brown must have one of his own, right?

TW: Cursing

WC: ~2.7k

A/N: Based off of @fiepige's Venom!Hobie post!! Check them out, their page is really cool and they have concept art!!

Taglist: @therealloopylupin2099 @spiderrinn @l0starl @daydreaming-en-pointe @itsparis-07 @vileviale @puff-hugs @s6onder

Prev|Next

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Hobie repeated the numbers in his head over and over again as he crawled towards the entrance of the facility, terrified of setting off one of the alarms. It'd taken weeks of research and spying for you to get him the code, and he knew that if he messed it up, he wouldn't get another chance like this.

889376

Hobie lowered himself from the ceiling, hanging upside down in front of the keypad as he slowly inputted the numbers, being careful not to get one wrong. He felt his heart stop as silence fell.

The door made a quiet whirring noise, before unlocking and opening itself for him. He breathed out a soft sigh, taking a deep breath before silently entering.

Why was he breaking and entering into a multi-million dollar science lab that was heavily guarded by some of the greatest security systems in the nation? Because you'd told him to.

Just a month ago, you and the rest of his gang had received intel regarding the V.E.N.O.M soldier that Osborne used to wreak havoc on the city. Although you'd all already known that whatever powered them wasn't exactly...from this world...you still had no idea how to stop them.

That's where this heist came in.

Hobie believed that if he was able to steal the data situated in the lab, he'd be able to learn more about the V.E.N.O.M. soldiers...and hopefully figure out how to defeat them. It was a smart plan, but one that would prove difficult to carry out.

That's how he ended up here. Crawling along the length of the ceiling while examining the inside of the room that, according to his blueprints, would contain the data he needed. He dropped himself down onto the ground, crouching slightly as he approached what looked like a large glass cell.

It reminded him of a terrarium almost, something that was meant to cage those that could easily escape. In this case, 'those' stood for whatever was powering those soldiers. What was it? He wasn't sure.

All he knew was that this was the original. Where Osborne took his inspiration from, the thing that paved the way for the V.E.N.O.M. technology he used to terrorize the city today. See, Osborne's super-soldiers didn't actually use the original power source. They used a synthetic version of it, created by some of Oscorp's finest scientists, forced to perform a nearly impossible feat with a tight deadline.

But they'd done it. They'd duplicated whatever was in that cell. And now...it was Hobie's turn to find out what exactly this power source was.

As Hobie approached the glass, he could hear a slight squelching sound, so quiet that it was barely audible. Where was it coming from? He peered into the cage, hand pressed flat against the cold exterior. He couldn't see anything.

For a moment, he wanted to open the cage, maybe take a look inside, but he thought against it. There was nothing there. Could they have moved it? He cursed under his breath. Their intel wasn't exactly up-to-date...there was a chance that the power source had been moved.

Biting back his frustration, he turned his attention towards the large computer sitting on the desk next to the cell, pulling up the keyboard and glancing down at the messy scribbles on his wrist. The prewritten bypass codes, in permanent black ink, stood out against his dark skin, just legible enough for him to input them without making a mistake.

He began to scroll through the contents of the computer, pulling out a flash drive from his pocket and stabbing it into the side, the upload beginning almost immediately. While he waited for the files to load, he walked back towards the cell, hands in his pockets.

The small screen on the side of the door had begun to flash, little red warning signs appearing. He clicked past them and a page with graphs and charts opened up with a beep. He squinted slightly as he attempted to read the writing.

Beep

No Host Detected

Host?

Beep

Symbiote Pheromone Levels Spiking

Symbiote?

Hobie furrowed his brows in confusion, trying to click on the page again to make it larger. Instead, his finger accidentally brushed against the open button.

Beep

Are you sure?

The warning message popped up. Hobie hesitated for a moment, glancing back into the cell. He pressed 'yes'.

The door to the cage made a quiet whirring noise before it slowly opened, allowing Hobie to cautiously step onto the white tile inside. He could feel his spider-sense acting up, but he couldn't see anything. He entered the cell fully, hands up defensively as he looked around. And then he saw it.

Beep

Host detected.

On the floor in front of him was what looked like...a glob? It was jet black, and he could make out some slight ripples on the surface of it's skin (skin??) that shined when the light from the bright bulbs on the ceiling hit them in just the right place. It was slowly approaching him, not slithering or crawling like an animal, but extending itself out and pulling itself forward.

Hobie was taken aback by the sight, in such shock that he barely even noticed how much his spider sense was flaring up. He stared at it and it stared back up at him. When he tilted his head to the right slightly, it tilted its body the same way, as if it was mimicking him.

Hobie didn't know whether to laugh or run away.

"Unauthorized entrance"

He snapped his head back as he heard the robotic voice sound over the speakers, alerting the entirety of the building of his presence. His heart dropped. "Fuck" He muttered under his breath, shooting one last glance at the glob before walking back towards the door of the cell. He almost didn't notice it latch onto his boot.

"Wot the-" He let out a small yelp as he saw it crawling up his boot. He attempted to kick it off, and it fell to the ground, but instead of trying to crawl towards him again, it pushed itself back slightly. Hobie looked at it amusedly for a moment before a chill ran up his spine in realization. It was acting like an animal. An animal about to strike.

It pounced towards him, faster than he could react. He tried to dodge out of the way, but it extended itself out, something Hobie'd never seen before, and it latched onto him, forcing him to stumble and fall onto his back. He sat up quickly, eyes wide with fear as it began to climb up his chest.

He tried to pull it off, grunting with exertion, but it was too late. Hobie watched in horror as the symbiote sunk into him.

"He's in there!"

He didn't have time for this.

Ignoring the fact that the so-called symbiote had disappeared, Hobie jumped up onto the ceiling, sticking onto the rough surface and heading towards the vents he came through earlier. The guards entered and aimed their guns at the ceiling, but he was already gone, having climbed through the vent without a trace.

____________________

"A symbiote?" You asked, folding your arms over your chest as you leaned back in your chair. He nodded in response, fidgeting with his fingers nervously. "What the hell is a symbiote?"

"I don't know. It's probably where the tech came from. 's the original V.E.N.O.M. mech. Or at leas', it looked like V.E.N.O.M. mech." He replied, bouncing his leg up and down.

The two of your were sitting in the living room of his canal boat, going over the contents of the flash drive that he'd just barely escaped with. He'd been able to download most of the files, but they needed an encryption code to access, which neither of you knew. The whole heist had ended up being a waste...except for the fact that he said he saw the original mech.

"What do you mean it looked like the V.E.N.O.M. mech?" You asked confusedly, tilting your head at him. "Was it not the same?"

"No." He shook his head and put his hand against his face, nibbling on his fingernails. "It was this weird...gooey...stuff." He said awkwardly.

You pushed his hand away from his mouth. "Don't do that. Are you okay? You seem nervous." He looked up at your concerned face and his expression softened slightly. "I'm fine. Jus' still on edge." he said quickly, shoving his hands in the pockets of his vest.

"Look, tha' symbiote thing did something. It kind of-" he cringed, knowing that your response wasn't going to be positive, "-latched onto me."

You froze. "What."

"It melted. It melted on top of me, an' then it jus' disappeared. Like I absorbed it or somethin'" he said quietly, his fingers moving back towards his mouth.

"Why would you go near it?" You asked, shock spreading through your body. "Are you insane?"

"I didn't know it would do tha'!" He voice turned defensive as he leaned back slightly, eyebrows furrowed in frustration. "I didn't even know it was there! It just appeared out o' nowhere!"

"Okay, okay" you put your hands up to calm him down, or more to calm yourself down. "How do you feel? Did it...change anything?"

He stayed silent for a moment, thinking it over. "I feel great actually."

You raised your eyebrows. "Really?" You asked curiously.

"Yeah. I mean, I'm a bit nervous but that's just 'cause I almost got caught." He stood up, stretching his arms out, a smile appearing on his face as he realized that he was in fact feeling much better. "I feel amazin'"

"Amazing?"

He ignored you and jumped up, sticking his hand to the ceiling. "Huh. I didn't even realize 'til now."

"Okay, let's not jump ahead. We still need to figure out where that thing went." You said, gesturing for him to sit back down. "Did you really just...absorb it?"

He wasn't paying attention to you. He was looking down at his hands weirdly, inspecting them as he stayed sticking to the ceiling. "Hobie!" He looked back at you. "Yea?"

"Can you sit back down?"

"Yes ma'am." He unlatched himself from the ceiling and plopped back down onto the couch. He looked down at himself curiously before glancing back towards you. "You don' think that thing attaching itself t' me is gonna change my powers, do you?"

"Why do you think that?" you asked, eyes widening slightly as you thought about that idea. What if?

"Well, if it's the original V.E.N.O.M. tech, it should act like the tech Ozzy's groupies use, right? Maybe I could use that-"

"No."

"Wot?" He looked at you confusedly. "What do you mean, no?"

"We are not planning another riot when you haven't even figured out what that thing's done to you, Hobes." You said with an eye roll. "You're taking this too easy."

He gave you one of those starboy grins of his. "Come off it, I'm Spider-Man, remember? I'll be fine. Might as well put this t' good use." He said with a wink.

"Put what to use? You don't even know what that thing's doing to you-"

"I'll figure it out along the way." he interrupted, leaning back with a smile. You smacked your forehead in annoyance while he gave you an amused look. "'s cute that you care about me so much-"

"Don't. Even. Start."

"Alright, alright" he put his hands up defensively. "I'm jus' messing with ya."

You gave him another glance. "Are you sure you feel okay?" You tried one last time.

"Peachy."

"Fine." You grumbled, standing up and heading towards the kitchen. "You want something to eat?" You asked, opening the fridge and peering inside.

He followed you, leaning against the counter as he watched from behind. "I'll have a yogurt or something."

You squinted. "I don't think we have yogurt."

"It's right there." he said, vaguely gesturing towards the contents of the fridge.

"Where?"

"Here, jus' let me-" He pointed his hand to towards you, attempting to shoot a web towards the fridge. Suddenly, instead of a web coming out of his wrist like usual, something else appeared.

You watched in horror as his arm turned black and extended towards the fridge, grabbing onto the yogurt before pulling it back. You looked at Hobie and he looked equally as confused, staring down at the container in his hand in shock.

"What the fuck was that?!" You exclaimed, taking a step back.

"I-I don't know!" He replied back, his voice just as high-pitched and nervous as yours was. He held his hand in from of him like it was a weapon, pointing it out. "Tha's new..."

"NO SHIT?!"

"Don't yell at me!" He said, eyes wide.

"What was that thing?!"

"I don't know! Maybe it came from-" his jaw dropped. "You don't think-"

"The symbiote." You both whispered together. "I don't remember V.E.N.O.M. soldiers being able to do that" You said nervously. "Well, it is the original...it probably has some different abilities?" He asked, obviously trying to play it off.

You stared at each other in silence. "You know wot? It's fine." he said, opening up the yogurt container. You watched him in shock. "Are you mental?" You asked, approaching him, throwing your hands up in the air. "How are you okay with this?"

"Well what else am I supposed to do? I don't know how t' get this thing out!" he said defensively, mouth full of yogurt. "I'll figure it out later. I'm hungry." He mumbled, shoveling another spoonful into his mouth as he looked away.

What the hell?

Why was he acting so weird? You'd have never expected him to be okay with some weird gooey alien controlling his body. And since when did he like yogurt?!?

"You're hungry?"

He nodded in response, tossing the empty container into the trash and sifting through the items in the fridge as he searched for another item to attack. His eyes landed on a bag of...frozen shrimp.

He pulled it out curiously, putting it near his face. "What is this?" He asked, looking at it as though he was on the brink of starvation. "...frozen shrimp?" you replied cautiously. "Don't tell me you're gonna ea-"

It was too late. He'd already opened the bag and was crunching on the pieces as if they were chips. "Hobie!" You exclaimed, jaw dropping as you watched him. "What are you-" You stopped yourself, barely able to process what you were seeing.

He just shrugged in response. "I'm hungry."

"FOR FROZEN SHRIMP?!?"

"It smells good!"

His ears perked up and he put the bag down, as if he'd heard something. "Do you hear tha'?" He asked, walking towards the window near the two of you.

"Hear what?"

He pressed his ear to the glass of the window. "Someone needs my help."

"How-"

"I gotta go. Spider-man duties." he interrupted, taking another handful of shrimp in his hand before he grabbed his mask off the couch.

"What are you-"

"See you later, love!"

"Hobie-!"

And just like that, he was gone without another word, swinging off into the distance, faster that he usually did.

Strange.

You stared into the distance, still trying to process what'd just happened. You couldn't help but feel as though something was off. I mean...obviously something was off, but there was this feeling in the pit of your stomach that made it seem as though something far, far worse was going to happen.

It was best not to dwell on it. The best thing for you to do right now was to figure out the encryption code for that damn flash drive. Only then would you be able to figure out what that symbiote really was. And what it could be doing.

End of Part 1.

TAGLIST

MASTERLIST

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thankskenpenders · 1 year ago

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Sonic Superstars!

Superstars is out! And guess what? It's good! It's a worthy new entry in the series, and I mostly like it. Mostly. Except for the handful of parts I don't. As usual, allow me to share my thoughts.

(For the record, I got the PS5 version of Superstars. I can't speak for how it plays on older hardware like the Switch, or how the weird Steam version that seems to make you log in with Epic runs. But I encountered zero performance issues, personally.)

General thoughts

The thing is, aside from two notable flaws I'll discuss in greater detail below, I can sum up my feelings on most of Superstars quickly. You see, it's... a Sonic game. This will either be a blessing or a curse depending on who you ask. It's not a bold new take on the series that'll blow you away, but they also didn't fuck it up. There's no catch this time! There's something refreshing about that straightforwardness, given how rare it is to get a regular-ass New Sonic Game from Sega. It's just a new classic-style game where you can play as Amy, set on a new island with all new zones, and Fang is in it! This might be damning with faint praise, but that's what it says on the tin, and they did a good job overall.

(It also has co-op. That's nice. I didn't play it in co-op.)

It plays exactly how it should. At no point did anything feel Wrong. The graphics might not have the absolute highest fidelity, but I think the character models look really nice, and the levels look appropriately good with vibrant color palettes. A couple zones like Sky Temple gave me Klonoa vibes, which I like. One zone is an absolutely incredible homage that I won't spoil. The story here is minimal (as expected), but there are a few good moments of telling the story through the gameplay, particularly one very cute sequence with Trip. I did find a couple stage gimmicks moderately annoying (Speed Jungle 2 and Press Factory 2, looking at you), but like... I could say the same thing about Mania, and also damn near every other Sonic game ever made. There's always That One Level. Superstars may not raise the series to new heights, but it generally executes well on the standard beats of the series. It's an easy recommendation for all fans of 2D Sonic.

Really, aside from the two big flaws (we'll get to them), this game's greatest crimes are simply not being quite as good as Mania, and also coming out the same week as the more creative and polished Super Mario Bros. Wonder. If we hadn't gotten Mania, I would easily be calling this my favorite 2D Sonic game since... what, the Advance trilogy 20 years ago? I like the Rush games, but if you asked me to replay one or the other, I might have a better time with Superstars. And, yes, it beats the hell out of Sonic 4. It's not even close. Anyone who says this game is exactly like Sonic 4 is just being a hater.

...I guess I would say that $60 is a bit steep for this, but you know it'll be on sale for a more appropriate $30-$40 in a few months. This isn't a Nintendo game we're talking about here.

Nice little tweaks

Superstars also features a number of welcome quality-of-life updates over Mania, bringing it more in line with the design ethos of modern platformers.

You have infinite lives! No more getting a game over on the final boss and having to redo the whole final zone - or, god forbid, the entire game

Time overs are gone! It'll warn you before you go over ten minutes, but I have no idea why because it doesn't kill you anymore

The game features a hub from which you can easily replay previous levels, rather than needing to beat the game or put in a cheat code to unlock the level select

This means you can easily go back and hunt for any special stage rings you missed. However, as a tradeoff, it seems like you can only get one Emerald per zone now, rather than being able to get Super Sonic by the end of the first or second zone

You can swap characters between levels! No more having to start a whole 'nother save file to play as Tails

And those characters even have optional little movement tutorial rooms available from the hub, which is great for new players who may not know about things like the Drop Dash

And, finally, checkpoints now feature arrows pointing in the direction you were supposed to be going, in case you forget upon respawning

Of course, while you might not be getting game overs, Superstars certainly compensated with some bosses that kicked my ass.

Bosses

Here's what I would consider notable flaw #1.

I have mixed feelings on the bosses in Superstars. I don't think many of them are poorly designed - in fact, a lot of them are good, and offer fun moments of spectacle. But for a 2D Sonic game, they're REALLY long and drawn out, and by the late game this was starting to get draining.

Bosses tend to be the type where you have to dodge their attack patterns for a while until you get the chance to hit them exactly once, MAYBE twice. A few bosses seem to have quicker options if you abuse your post-hit invulnerability or play as a character with a double jump, but many will either be completely invincible or run away to the background for long periods of time, making it impossible to damage them outside of the allotted windows. And even if it seems like you'll be able to get in a second hit, many bosses turn invincible and skip ahead to the next attack pattern as soon as they take the first hit. Again, most of these fights aren't BAD, but because of this behavior they sometimes take almost as long to beat as the entire levels preceding them. This didn't bother me much early in the game, but against the more challenging bosses towards the end that kept killing me several minutes into a long fight, it got tiring. The final boss of Story Mode probably took me like an hour.

While this certainly isn't an uncommon style of boss design, part of me suspects they did this for the sake of co-op players. For one, playing in co-op means that you don't necessarily have to start the entire fight over if one person dies, so I assume the length is less of an issue. But in particular, true classic-style Sonic bosses that you can just hit repeatedly with good timing would go down in a few seconds against a team of four players. Likewise, the swarm of clones from the "Avatar" Emerald power would probably obliterate every Genesis era boss with one button press. So I get why every boss needs all these invulnerability periods, but still. I at least wish they'd made some of those attack patterns shorter and given you more frequent opportunities to deal damage.

Emeralds and their powers

Speaking of the new Chaos Emerald powers: they're neat, I guess? They're fine. I didn't use them much. Actually, I kept forgetting I even had them - although the game will play a noise and show an icon in the corner of the screen to remind you any time you reach a spot where a specific power is useful. Avatar, the first power you get, is at least good for getting a couple free hits in on the trickier bosses. Yellow's ability to slow time is obviously good, but, again, I always forgot I even had it and made it through just fine without it. I was also pleased to realize that the swimming power is useful for the water levels and not just for climbing up waterfalls.

Oh, and the new grappling-based special stages kind of suck, but they're not the worst, and I'll at least give them credit for trying something new. (Motion Sickness Zone from Sonic 1 does return as a bonus minigame, but I only did it once lmao.)

Battle Mode

I haven't played Battle Mode. Couldn't tell you if it's good or not. It did, however, give us official designs for Metal Tails and Metal Amy after all these years, and also it let me make this:

...Okay, enough beating around the bush. Let's talk about the thing that REALLY drags down the experience.

The soundtrack...

(This lengthy section on the music will feature some light spoilers for things like zone names and themes.)

Now, don't get me wrong. There are some bangers in here that I've been listening to on loop. But this is one of the most inconsistent soundtracks I've ever heard, and I'm not sure I've ever played another game where the music has such a sharp dip in quality in the back half.

As anyone following this blog knows, prior to release I was a little obsessed with trying to gauge what the soundtrack would be like. "Jun Senoue" and "new Classic Sonic game" naturally evokes the memory of Sonic 4, but from the start we knew Tee Lopes was involved as well, and almost all of the music previewed before released leans more towards the sound of Sonic Mania than anything else. I was hopeful! I was excited! Jun deserved another chance at doing another classic Sonic OST, and Tee is one of my favorite game composers of all time between his Sonic material and other works like the TMNT: Shredder's Revenge OST. I frequently thought back to this Sonic 4 remix medley by Jun and Tee as a reminder that these two could really be the dream team, bringing out the best in each other's work.

Sure enough, the front half of the game is largely dominated by the Mania sound, whether it's a track by Tee himself or one by an in-house Sega artist that's compatible with his style. Pinball Carnival Act 1 by Rintaro Soma (an up-and-coming composer who wrote a bunch of the Cyber Space themes in Frontiers) takes obvious inspiration from Mania's Studiopolis Act 1, to the point that I was shocked when Sega posted the track and revealed it wasn't written by Tee. Act 2, however, forges more of its own sound by leaning into the act's spooky haunted carnival theme. And despite being the music lead, the only level theme that I know for sure was written by Senoue in the front half of the game (Bridge Island Act 1) was actually arranged by Tee Lopes to give it more of that Mania sound. Hell, the level clear jingle is literally just the one from Mania. A few level themes by other composers don't quite match that style, but they fit in well enough.

But there are early signs that this sound won't be consistent throughout the game. Our first warning of things to come is the boss music:

youtube

When early copies started floating around and the soundtrack leaked, many, many people hoped that this was merely a placeholder, like the literal Sonic 4 Episode II music used in the earliest previews of Speed Jungle, and that it'd get replaced with a day one patch. Oh, those poor, innocent fools...

Even if you don't mind the poor production with the returning Sonic 4 faux-Genesis sound, this is a very simplistic thirteen second snippet of music that then plays a second time in a higher key before it loops. This wouldn't be the end of the world if the bosses were as short as the ones in the Genesis games, of course, but they're not! This theme is used for a ton of lengthy fights throughout the game, including an EXTREMELY long and tedious autoscroller boss at the end of Golden Capital Act 2. Maybe I would've enjoyed the bosses in this game more if they were paired with some earworms that'd get me hyped up and sell how cool and exciting the fights are supposed to be, but grating songs like this just made the minutes spent fighting those bosses feel like an eternity.

Still, boss music (and menu music) aside, all of the level themes in the front half of the game ranged from decent to great, with the peak easily being the phenomenal Lagoon City Act 2 by Tee Lopes. And then... I got to the back half of the game. And the Mania style completely disappeared, replaced largely with the dreaded Sonic 4 sound. That isn't the style for EVERY song in the back half, but even the ones that try something different tend to be weaker than the material from the first six zones, with less engaging melodies and less intricate arrangement. Many sound straight up unfinished, leaning on extremely basic synth patches with no personality. And there isn't a single track from Tee in the back half. He just disappears from the project altogether.

What this means is that we go from this absolute banger by Tee Lopes in zone 6, which elevates what's otherwise a bog standard desert level to a thrilling adventure:

youtube

To... this, in zone 7:

youtube

It's EXTREMELY jarring!

The thing is, this is actually one of the better tracks in this style. I have to assume this is by Senoue, because you can totally hear a good Adventure or Heroes era Senoue track in there once you get past the crude synth replication of the Genesis era Sonic sound. Senoue is still a great composer, as you can hear clear as day with Bridge Island, but he's working with a restrictive sound palette that doesn't play to his strengths at all. If only he'd bust out that damn guitar, or at least pick some better synths.

(And no matter what people will tell you, no, this is not an accurate recreation of what the Genesis's YM2612 chip really sounded like, nor is it representative of what it CAN sound like at its best. Go back to the Streets of Rage 2 or Ristar soundtracks if you need a reminder.)

While I can at least see what the Press Factory tracks were aiming for, some other faux-FM synth tracks are just really bland. They don't have anything interesting going on, and they also don't seem particularly tailor made for the levels they accompany. They're just attempts to mimic what Sonic 1-3 sounded like on a very literal level. Take, for instance, the Golden Capital Act 1 theme, AKA "we've got Sky Sanctuary at home." While the better level themes in this game enhance the mood or even completely carry the vibes of a level, the weaker tracks can really suck all the air out of the room and make a level feel like more of a slog.

What kills me is that there are, in fact, a couple examples of how to do throwbacks to classic Sega FM synth music well on this very soundtrack! They're just not the Sonic 4 type tracks. I love the Frozen Base Act 2 theme, presumably composed by legendary Sega composer Hiroshi "HIRO" Kawaguchi, who's responsible for all-time classic arcade soundtracks like Fantasy Zone, Out Run, Hang-On, After Burner, and more, as well as the hacking and pinball themes from Frontiers. Maybe to an untrained ear this doesn't sound all that different, but it has a catchier tune, better instruments, and stronger production overall. I'm also a fan of the track for Sky Temple, which isn't perfect, but it blends a few Genesis-esque instruments like the Sonic 1+2 snare with other instruments for a richer sound. If the whole soundtrack sounded more like these examples, I'd definitely be complaining less.

I really just have to wonder... how did this happen? How did this end up being so inconsistent? Many fans on social media are jumping to the conclusion that Senoue is just extremely stubborn and refuses to ditch the style from Sonic 4. I can't deny this possibility, but some things just don't add up. The almost complete lack of "retro" style music in the promotional material. The fact that the style just suddenly shifts halfway through the game, then disappears for the final zone, as if that's not the note they want to end on. The complete lack of any tracks by Tee Lopes in the back half. The focus on the Mania-style tracks in the bonus "mini soundtrack." And most perplexing of all, the fact that three of the first tracks you hear in the game were Senoue compositions that were given extra attention with arrangements from Tee Lopes.

This is pure speculation on my part, but it almost seems like they straight up ran out of time.

Perhaps Jun wanted more of his tracks to get full arrangements from Tee, or for Tee to contribute more songs, but things were down to the wire and they chose to leave in some of the raw Sonic 4 style demos. The soundtrack being crunched out in a matter of months at the end of development would certainly explain why Speed Jungle had to be demoed without its music a mere four months ago. It'd also explain why a game that's only a few hours long needs NINETEEN composers listed in the credits. And also the fact that multiple zones just have completely different, unrelated music by different artists across their acts. Did they need multiple artists working on different acts simultaneously, completely independent from each other with no time to cross reference each others' work, due to extreme time constraints? I'd buy it.

Ah well. It's not the end of the world. I've heard worse Sonic music. But I'll always think of what could have been...

At least the final battle with Eggman at the end of Story Mode has a pretty kickass boss theme, which ALMOST makes up for how bad most of the preceding boss music is (and the fact that that very difficult fight doesn't have a checkpoint between phases and took me like an hour to beat lmao). It even seems like it might be written by longtime Phantasy Star Online composer and recurring Sonic contributor Hideaki Kobayashi. That's the guy who wrote NONAGRESSION!!!!!!!

The postgame

Speaking of beating Eggman! It turns out Superstars has a good deal of postgame content, as merely beating the last zone with all the Chaos Emeralds doesn't take you to the true final boss. In order to do that, you'll need to do something else.

Before we hit the big spoiler warning, I'm going to give any future players who are still reading a warning. If you value your sanity... don't force yourself to do all the postgame stuff. Don't make the mistakes I did. It's not worth it, and it may very well knock your personal score for the game down a couple points.

----------------------------------------------------------------

SPOILERS FOR THE STORY, UNLOCKABLES, AND THE POSTGAME BELOW THIS POINT

YOU'VE BEEN WARNED

----------------------------------------------------------------

The bonus scenario

Sonic Superstars has a big surprise in store for anyone who beats the main story. For the first time since... what, Silver? In 2006? We finally have a brand new playable character in a new Sonic platformer! (I wouldn't count the player avatar in Forces as a full-fledged New Character.) Yes, after the credits roll, you unlock Trip as the super-secret fifth playable character. I was really excited to see this. Trip is cute, even if her masked appearance from early in the game is perhaps a more unique design than a Sonic-ified lizard girl who can only vaguely look like a real sungazer lizard. She IS the first new Sonic character Ohshima has designed since the '90s, though, so she gets points for that - and she gets even more points for literally turning into a dragon when she goes Super. We love a girl who can turn into a dragon, don't we folks? And her playstyle is fun, too, with a double jump and the ability to roll along walls and ceilings.

But Trip isn't just playable. Like Knuckles before her, she gets an entire alternate story mode of her own, which somewhat remixes the level layouts, generally makes things more challenging, and swaps out Eggman for Egg Robo. I was so excited to see this! It really felt like the game had so much more in store for me than I'd anticipated.

...Then I spent probably around three hours attempting to beat the new final battle with Fang at the end of Trip's Story. And it made me regret doing Trip's Story at all.

Once you learn the patterns, a lot of them are actually piss easy. But the difficulty comes down to a few misguided factors:

The fight is LOOOONG. On a successful attempt the whole thing will probably take the average player about, like... seven or eight minutes? Maybe longer? This is where I really started to get pissed at the game for making me wait through these stupid attack patterns before I could attempt to hit the boss once.

The fight is divided between two phases, one with Fang in a vehicle and another with him in a giant robot, with no checkpoint between them. Dying to one of Fang's bullshit attacks on the second phase means having to redo the ~5 minute first phase all over again. And, worst of all...

Fang has multiple projectile attacks that are guaranteed instant kills, even if you have rings.

Also there's a stupid desperation headbutt attack that can really easily catch you off guard and kill you, but I only got that far in the fight once.

It's the instant kills that got me. If those fucking immobilizing net attacks just made you drop your rings, or you could at least wiggle out of them by mashing buttons (EDIT: apparently you CAN do this but you literally have to button mash so rapidly that it's a crapshoot whether or not you'll physically be able to do it), it would have been totally doable! Kinda fun, even! Slow, but pretty cool in terms of spectacle. But nope! Three hours! Three hours on this! This is, without a doubt, the hardest boss I have ever faced in any Sonic game, period, and one of the hardest bosses I've ever seen in ANY game. All because of one attack pattern where making a tiny mistake means starting over.

The glitches didn't help, either. Something about the way the circular boss arena was set up in both stories' final battles seems to make the floor intangible sometimes for non-player objects. Occasionally my dropped rings, enemies I was supposed to knock towards Fang, or one of Fang's insta-kill projectiles would just fall through the floor randomly. This definitely wasn't my main problem, but it helped drive home the idea that this fight just wasn't worth my time.

After three hours of attempts, I gave up. I just went and looked up the ending of Trip's story, as well as the contents of the Final Story, on YouTube. Turns out I made the right call, because boy, that true final boss looks like dogshit. It's just a very dull fight against a big generic cartoon dragon. Apparently this is the thing Eggman was looking for. It appears and is defeated with little fanfare. I think I liked it better when I assumed the scary dragon being foreshadowed was just Super Trip.

...Also, hey, what's up with The End being very conspicuously visible in the background of the last zone?? I know it's just a cheeky cameo, but, like... isn't it supposed to be sealed away in Cyber Space right now? Should I be taking this literally? Does this have lore implications? This is one hell of a way to remind people that the timeline's been reunified, I guess

Closing thoughts

I really hate to part ways with Superstars on a sour note like this, because like I said up top, I mostly enjoyed my time with it! It's really just a small handful of particularly frustrating bosses and the inconsistent soundtrack that drag it down. Other than that, it's solid as a rock. Maybe wait for sales if you're not dying to play it, but it's definitely worth playing for any Sonic fan. Just... skip the true ending. I would have stepped away MUCH happier with this game if I'd done that.

I wanna try to end this on a more positive note but I'm tired, so, uhhhh... look, you can unlock a Metal Nights skin for your Battle Mode bot!!

Anyway back to jamming to about half the soundtrack on loop while pretending the other half doesn't exist, and looking forward to the continued Fang Renaissance with his upcoming IDW miniseries

#tkp post #other media

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ghost-bxrd · 9 months ago

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What would fae!dick and Bruce's relationship be like? Would they fight, woild they be loyal to a fault, would they even separate? Faes do love living in one place after all

Hmmm, well if we go with the option of Dick growing up mostly in the human world being more accustomed to attaching himself to people rather than a place I’d reckon him and Bruce would end up growing quite close.

Of course, the manor becomes Dick’s permanent home and reacts to the presence of an other being rather quickly, but at the core of it? I think Dick would use Bruce and Alfred as his anchor, with Jason and Tim and all the others joining over time.

And loyalty… well, the creatures I grew up with were never divided into good or evil. They were very versatile, much like humans. One could be kind and sweet in one story only to turn monstrous in the next, usually dependent on how they’d been treated by the human of the story. Dick is kind and loyal by nature and I headcanon he only shows his more “monstrous” side when he’s truly irked or feels he’s been wronged in some way (which is… a very subjective thing for fae).

Bruce offered Dick a home and a family, both things that certain type of other creatures value very much and consider sacrosanct. It may not win him over right away, but it goes a long way in building that fundamental trust that’s gonna end with Batman and Robin roaming the streets as a team.

On Bruce’s part… most things he does that are considered “gift giving” and “offers of kinship” are accidental. Because, well, he’s not fae. And he’s new to this child-parent thing and is totally winging it but it??? Seems to work ok???? And he finds that bribing Dick with food and old trinkets makes the boy more approachable, so that’s what he keeps doing until Dick starts coming to him on his own, without additional prompting.

Bruce is super happy because he thinks he’s doing this parenting stuff right and his son ward is warming up to him.

Dick is grudgingly charmed into accepting Bruce and Alfred as “his” humans. (It’s really hard to stay cold and distant with all the good food. And Dick may be fae but he’s been around humans all his life. He gets lonely embarrassingly easy. And he thrives and hugs.)

Sheesh ok getting off topic again. To sum it all up: I think their bond would be pretty strong and not easily broken. There’s mutual trust going on, but Bruce would have to learn to make compromises with Dick very early due to his… otherness. All those strict rules wouldn’t go over well with a fae. at all. Especially not if Dick found out who got his parents killed.

Consequently I think the monumental fallout that ends with Dick moving to Blüdhaven wouldn’t happen. At least not in its original severity. Mostly because Bruce had to get accustomed to Dick having a strong mind of his own years ago, and because he found out that being “rude and downright disrespectful” is an easy way to have a murder of crows with a suspicious number of eyes and wings chase you around for weeks on end. (Not to mention the deer incident. Bruce swears deer should NOT have that many rows of teeth.)

So yeah, they still argue. They still fight. But it’s usually just small spats and gets resolved rather quickly. ✨ and now that Dick’s finally settled down? Yup. Sorry. That’s HIS stretch of land now. He’s got his magic sunk into the very roots of it. Thank you and good day. And may the gods help anyone who tries to take it OR his humans away from him. 🌳

#fae dick grayson #the other things from the woods #dick grayson #batfamily #bruce wayne #batfam #Batman #headcanons #ghost talks

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speirslore · 7 months ago

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domestic john brady hcs

(a/n: so.... i went a little insane today and wrote these but hopefully someone else enjoys them! pls send me an ask if u want to chat about brady because he might be ruining my life right now... just a little bit.. also this includes vague mentions of pstd)

lmk if you would like to be on my taglist! @ronsparky @bcon24 @blueberry-ovaries @1waveshortofashipwreck @beautifulbluejay

okay starting off... imo john brady is super domestic like he definitely has had a 2.5 kids and a dog, white picket fence fantasy for a good portion of his life <3

and he loves routine... most days you come home to soft jazz music playing and john sitting on the sofa, brows furrowed in concentration as he flips through a book, pipe in his mouth, and the familiarity always makes you feel so warm

john is very loyal... and can definitely be stubborn and determined, but it all stems from a protectiveness over you and the love you two have

yes he can be a bit sassy or snappy especially from others people's perspectives but john is a really great partner

he has a tender side that you see very often but others might not immediately pick up on... i think john is super attentive and caring in his own, analytical way, and that's extended to all the people in his life that he cares about

when you first meet and start dating i do think he is a mess trying to flirt and gets very flustered very easily, especially if you're more confident in your own flirting abilities... but he quickly gains confidence in that area

john is not hugeee into pda

but does like to be touching you in some way, like hand on the small of your back, around your waist, head resting on your shoulders (or vice versa), he loves all of it

john is SO supportive: you want to go to/finish school? go for it! he’s your number one supporter, no matter what stage of life you guys are in

if you're already married and have kids by then, he definitely helps you study after the kids go to sleep

will help make flashcards to study and proofreads over your essays for you

obviously music is a huge part of his life whether he sticks to teaching music after the war or pursuing something different, it’s a huge part of him and loves getting you equally obsessed with it

will most certainly be in a community choir/orchestra of some sort and is so proud of it... loves spotting you in the crowd and having you there to support him

is ever the realist, very practical about settling down after the war, having kids, buying a house, etc... he genuinely enjoys budgeting and ofc couponing... he gets very into it

john really values your opinions and input on all things

i think john's love language is mainly words of affirmation... like okay, yes he can be a little snarky at times but john is extremely thoughtful

he's great at picking up on your emotions and how you're feeling

words of affirmation- complimenting, uplifting, and supporting you is how he communicates that he cares

when john can tell you're upset, he wants and will do anything to solve whatever problem there is and make you feel better

john is really perceptive, like annoyingly so, "what's wrong? are you sure you're okay?" you can't fool him at all

he really prides himself on knowing the people he loves

a big problem solver, will come up with a game plan to tackle whatever you come to him ranting/upset about

john can be fiercely protective, especially after the war- after he's seen so much loss first hand. not even jealousy really and it's never because he doesn't trust you or is possessive, it stems more from how much he loves you and how vulnerable that makes him feel sometimes

is he as impulsive and scrappy as curt or bucky? no but could definitely be pushed to that point and definitely will not let himself be intimidated by some asshole at a bar (referencing a specific event when you were dating back in new york after the war, john does not take lightly to someone trying to upset/scare you refusing to take no for an answer)

he definitely does enjoy you doting on him afterwards, cleaning the nasty bruise and scrape on his jaw/cheek

i think john would for sure enjoy pet names, he loves any symbols or reminders of how close/intimate your relationship is, specifically loves "honey", "dear", or an occasional "darling"

your relationship starts to have some serious old married couple vibes very quickly, like months into dating you?

john is a not so secret romantic

would be annoyingly good at big romantic gestures, is the best at anniversaries

john lovesss and really romanticizes the idea of settling down, knowing someone that deeply, someone else being your person, your soulmate, having children, and having a shared life

he does believe in true love and soulmates and would blush furiously if you were to ask him about it but he'll manage to get it out, barely able to look at you when he's affirming, "yeah i think you're my soulmate. nbd."

wants to know all about you, even the most trivial things i think he would be so interested in learning about

for sure one of those people who's had a list of baby names they've had picked out since childhood

john is a great person to share a life with, he's organized, methodical, responsible, and respectful

would be the sweetest dad, would feel perpetually unprepared and terrified for fatherhood

would always be researching the best foods, products, etc

like not full helicopter parent/soccer mom but he's very involved and always trying to find new experiences for your kids

LOVES planning the annual brady family road trip in the summer when all the kids are out of school and y'all take off work

he always creates such a detailed and efficient route and makes sure to get everyone's input on where they want to go and want to see... that's when he's in his element fr

he would love having a bigger family and knowing each of his children's different personalities and interests

i think he does struggle after the war with ptsd, especially during the winter when it's super cold outside

he has to get out of this initial phase of pushing you away out of not wanting want pity or sympathy

there's embarrassment and shame there and it's hard for him to navigate that and he doesn't want to burden you or others. doesn't want to be fussed over or taken to the doctor like a child, doesn't want to feel broken

for a while he struggles with falling asleep and would always make excuses about coming to bed late, only once you're sleeping, because he's embarrassed about how long it takes for him to fully relax and actually feel safe enough to sleep

it gets better with time... and when john realizes how much he values transparency and vulnerability between the two of you and after you reassure him it's not burdening you or dumping anything on you

might be (is) a lip biter like first time he did it was on accident, he just got very excited but you both quickly discover he lovesss it

i think john is masterfully good at foreplay, especially if we assume he was raised in a good ol' catholic family... yeah he has the foreplay down pat

he's methodical in everything he does... including uh... physical intimacy

john has a lot of self control and he prides himself in that... but he is also soooo sensitive he just thinks it's incredibly unfair

like just running your hands through his hair and scratching his scalp lightly, oh he's meltinggg

john absolutely has to have the perfect music for everything including anything physical... he'll break away from a heated kiss to to flip through vinyls, hunched over the record player while you're lying in bed like... babe... come back pls

a very intense lover like his eye contact, his touch- firm grip, his voice- always lower and quiet, intense in the best way possible

oh and once you're married he loves always mentioning or name dropping "my wife," in conversations

overall... john brady loves being in love! he loves having little inside jokes, petnames, shared memories, etc and wouldn't trade it for anything in the world <3

#john brady x reader #mota x reader #mota headcanons #mota fanfic #john brady headcanons #mota imagine #masters of the air x reader #john brady

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poisonedprose · 2 years ago

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Can I get something SUPER angsty where chishiya always acts like he hates the reader, but the reader is just really energetic and loves making new friends. And chishiya gets so annoyed (cause he's getting feelings) that's he uses the reader to get the cards, you can come up with the ending with semi-happy ending or happy ending

₊˚✧ don't take it personal

chishiya shuntaro x gn!reader angst

warnings: violence??, implies that chishiya likes the reader

masterlist

Loud music and screams from occupants of the beach could be heard throughout the beach, even in your secluded room. The sun was just beginning to set and you were preparing yourself for whatever Chishiya had in store for you.

━━━━

A quiet knock grabbed your attention as you put on a jacket, ready for the game that you had to attend. "It's open!" You called out and the mysterious knocker let themself in. "Chishiya!" You exclaimed when you saw him. "Y/N," His voice was even more monotone than it normally was. "I need you to do me a favor." You practically cringed hearing the words come out of his mouth.

"Chishiya needing a favor? I must be dreaming." You laughed but he still stared at you with a dead expression. "I'm serious, I need your help to steal the cards." You were in shock. "Steal the cards? Chishiya, what the hell are you thinking?!" Your heart was racing just thinking about it. "Tomorrow, when Aguni gives his speech, meet me by Hatter's office." He said as he left, closing the door behind him.

━━━━

Aguni was giving his speech. It was now or never. Your feet trudged against the floor. They carried you just outside of Hatter's office. Chishiya was already there, along with Kuina, Usagi, and Arisu.

"Y/N, quickly, when you go into Hatter's office, look for a safe. Once you've found it, I'll give you the code." He ushered you into the room quickly. "You know the code?" You were confused, surely Aguni hadn't told Chishiya. He said nothing, instead choosing to leave you in this foreign room all by yourself.

You quickly began looking for the safe, and to your surprise, you found it quite easily. "Chishiya, I found it." You whispered into the walkie-talkie, that you only just realized he gave you. "8022" You quickly punched in the numbers.

Your heart dropped when it didn't open. Was Chishiya wrong about the code? You didn't have much time to think about it before you were pulled to your feet and your hands were secured behind your back.

It all happened so quickly. You were on the ground, with blurred vision, someone was screaming. That's when it clicked. He set you up. You should have known. He'd always make it clear how much he despised you. Even going as far as telling you if it came down to it, he would use you as a human shield in the games if he had to. How could you be so foolish?

None of that mattered now as you felt the blood come up your throat. The taste of metallic filling your mouth. "Alright, Niragi, that's enough," Chishiya spoke in monotony. "I should kill this bitch for trying to steal the cards." Niragi spat out. "I'll take care of it." Your heart dropped as you heard Chishia say that.

Your limpish body was dragged out of the militant's sight. Only stopping once Chishiya was sure no one was following. He leaned you against a wall and sat you up, crouching down to your level.

"Get away from me!" You threw weak punches at him. "Hey, hey, calm down. I don't know why you're mad at me, you're the idiot who found the wrong safe." He took off his white jacket before wiping some of the blood off your face with the sleeve. "No, you gave me the wrong code." You spat blood at him. "That was unnecessary." He used the same jacket to get the blood off his face.

"You know, what's unnecessary? Using me for part of your dumb plan, when all I ever was, was nice to you! And don't even get me started on how you almost got me killed and now are trying to play the hero." You scoffed but continue to let him clean your face.

"Actually, I thought you were smart enough to know the safe wouldn't be out in the open." He laughed, probably at your naivety. "You're an asshole." "Yet, you still want to be friends with me." You rolled your eyes. "No, I do not. I am done with you." You pushed him off you. "That's a shame because I really like you." He smiled and got up before walking away.

"Do you actually mean that? Wait, you can't just leave me here! Come back! Chishiya!!" You whined as he looked at you and laughed. And of course, he came back, how could he leave someone so pretty to bleed out in the hallway?

#! ♠ ₊˚✧ aib .#i hate this so bad #alice in borderland #aib #alice in borderland x reader #chishiya shuntaro #chishiya alice in borderland #chishiya x reader #chishiya angst

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bomberqueen17 · 8 months ago

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*vibrating slightly in place*

So ok. When I was in kindergarten, my classroom was arranged so that four desks were linked together, so we were in little groups. I used to regularly vibrate my desk and the three it was attached to, with three other children in them, across several feet of floor space, until the linked desks ran into the teacher's desk, which was larger and did not move with the force of my vibrations. I was a good student, but hard to control, and markedly uneven in my ability to like. Do anything. "Well," my mom said once, upon beholding my entire spectrum of a report card, "we'd just hate to be bored."

When I graduated with my bachelor's degree, seventeen years later, my mom said "I never thought you could do it," and when I, shocked, said "what?" she said "well what with your ADHD and all," and I said "my what?" and she said "well, i never wanted to shake your confidence, and I thought once they put a label on you it'd be over, but you super have like, turbo ADHD. Why, what do you think your deal is?" She said it nicely and not in those words at all, but it was the first time I'd ever really realized that I wasn't just mildly eccentric, I did seem to actually have something wrong with me.

I've been trying to get a diagnosis ever since. I've never been able to. I had no health insurance at all for a huge chunk of my twenties, which put a damper on things. One doctor told me "you'd know if you had that" and when I was like "I... do" she was like "no i mean. you'd already be being treated." Which shows a wild and totally unwarranted optimism in our medical system, but she was a resident. The doctor overseeing her care of me suggested I try taking fish oil capsules. To "rebuild my brain tissue".

I did. It didn't help. I still buy them but mostly I use them now to get my cat to take pills.

Eventually in my 30s my doctors started sort of believing me maybe, or at least realizing they couldn't really brush me off (I have gotten... less easily-cowed as I've aged) but they were all like "oh, I can't evaluate that. You'll have to research and find a place that can do a neuropsych eval for you. Insurance doesn't cover those. So good luck. Have some antidepressants in the meantime."

I slid into my 40s, still undiagnosed. I read as many self-help books on the topic as I could find, did all the checklists I found. They all said "girl you super have like turbo ADHD." I tried meditation. I tried divination. I tried bullet journaling, which was hilarious. I tried yoga.

I actually damaged myself doing yoga and am banned from yoga, but at least I'm in physical therapy now. (Word to the wise: if you have really really flexible hip joints, don't fucking do yoga. "Usually I don't have to tell people not to get into that position," said my bemused physical therapist. "Oh," I said, blissfully bepretzeled. "It feels super good." "Mm," she said, "you've torn your labrum. Stop doing that." Now I do really, really boring stretches that don't feel nearly as good, but I also can walk without limping, so. Like. We take the good with the bad I guess.)

Anyway. My PCP in January was like "wait you didn't follow my super vague directions to go see 'the guys downstairs' and see if they can squeeze you into their eleven-month waiting period to get an evaluation that i cannot mention without saying it's several thousand dollars and your insurance surely won't cover it? you must not want this diagnosis very badly!" (At no point has anyone ever given me a phone number for 'the guys downstairs'. I still don't know what she meant by any of those directions. This PCP and I technically speak the same language but I've never understood a single thing she has told me and I don't think she understands a word I say in return, everything I tell her seems to be such a shock to her. You blame antidepressants for your weight gain? I've never heard of that. Ma'am please look up what the incredibly common side effects of antidepressants are.)

I called around but noplace both took my insurance and was accepting new patients. Finally I gave up. Then my Dude went on our insurance company's website and took over the search. He found that there's some kind of concierge service thing, which the insurance company normally charges $450/mo for but our plan includes it, because it's pretty well-hidden on the website and most people aren't ever going to find it anyway. So he said, you know what, I am going to instigate a query on this.

They took two weeks but eventually came back with a list of 13 places, most of them not remotely local. Ten of them were red X's, disqualified for varying reasons-- one because the phone number didn't work, another because it's a seven-hour drive away and doesn't do telehealth. One was in New Jersey. None of them were the local places I had already called.

Two of them were valid, but the insurance wouldn't cover the evaluation for various reasons.

One of them was fully covered, the insurance company said. So I went there.

Their website said "no you're not we can't see you". But Dude was like, call them on the phone. Surely, surely, the concierge service couldn't have lied??? Bet, I said, and called them and left a message, and said to him, if they call me back I will eat a hat.

But they did. They called me back. "Our insurance checker widget is down," they said. "But we do take your insurance! We can see you. We just don't know how much it will cost."

Ominous.

But. They could see me later in the week, via a telehealth appointment.

So I signed up.

The appointment was this morning. I turned up. Their insurance checker thingy still wasn't working so they couldn't be sure how much the appointment would cost me. I at this point don't care, and gave them my HSA credit card, and said do what you will.

I waited 45 minutes and then texted the number they'd texted me from with the confirmation, and a moment later the guy showed up. "Whoops," he said, "that system isn't working quite right either!"

He talked to me for like. Three minutes, and was like "yeah that sounds. Pretty textbook. I'm going to prescribe you stimulants." He then proceeded to take a very basic medical history, and I recognized all the questions because I have researched stimulant medication for ADHD so much. And he was like "We're going to start with Adderall, check at your pharmacy in like an hour." And then he gave me extremely useful and detailed instructions on how to take it, when to take it, what side effects to worry about, what to expect, what to note down in case it might mean a problem, and how to be safe about it. (He asked me three times if I'd ever been suicidal, and it had also been in the online pre-screening. I am aware that can be a rare but very serious side effect of stimulants!)

And then I went to Rite-Aid and I now have 16 pills in my possession, and i am going to wait until tomorrow morning to start taking them, and I am already scheduled for my follow-up in 15 days.

I have absolutely no idea how much any of that is going to cost, but for the record the pills were eleven dollars.

So. I don't know why the last decade of my life has been spent being told that a comprehensive and unattainably expensive neuropsychological evaluation was my only option. Maybe this place is a disreputable pill mill or whatever. But. I am going to get to try to medicate this disorder that has warped my entire life to this point, and I am going to try to see if I can't have some more control over my life, and if it doesn't work then at least I will know, instead of on my deathbed being like "i wonder if i'd ever tried amphetamines maybe I'd have been able to finish a project ever in my life, guess we'll never know".

Which was what I was starting to genuinely think was going to happen.

Literally though why can't a primary care doctor just refer you to a psychiatrist who can then decide whether you need an assessment or whether your condition is likely to respond well to a basic diagnosis?? I get needing the whole nine yards if you're not sure what's wrong with this kid and you don't want to give them the wrong thing-- like I know misdiagnosing a bipolar sufferer with depression can give you really bad outcomes, for example-- but-- I don't know? I don't know.

I just want to be able to start and finish projects. What I'd really love is to be able to make to-do lists meaningfully, as that is an ability I did used to have and now absolutely don't. I legit cannot make a to-do list in any meaningful or useful way.

So we'll see. I'm going to keep a journal and the real test of whether the pills work is to see whether I can actually keep the journal.

But I need to find some kind of edible hat, at some point, just to keep my word.

#about the author #actually adhd

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lifid-er-tilgangslaust · 20 days ago

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My TUA OC'S

Okay, so, I wanted to share my TUA fanfiction OC's for a long time now. Finally, here they come!

The story which they are part of is called "Kraken & Peregrine" (it's a Diego x OC fanfic), the sequel to it is "Kraken & Peregrine: Here comes the end" (this is still ongoing) and there are a few more sequels to come, as I'm determined to write about all four seasons (and other events related to the story that are still a surprise). The fanfic can be read on Wattpad, under the name of @city_of_angels98, unfortunately, as for now, it's only available in Hungarian (my native language), but if there will be some of you who'd love to read it in English as well, I would be more than happy to translate it for you!

Let's dive in!

Name: Everley Macy-Williams

Alias: "The Peregrine"

Birthday: 01.10.1989

Place of birth: London, England, UK

Love interest: Diego Hargreeves

Faceclaim: Kat McNamara

A little bit about her backstory:

She's one of the 43 children born on October 1st in 1989. Same as everyone else, she possesses the Marigold. Her powers include super speed, and she's also able to open portals from one place to another (she cannot open portals through different timelines, though, only in the timeline she's in). Her mother, Eleonora was approached by Sir Reginald Hargreeves back in the days when Everley was still a newborn, intending to adopt her baby, but she sent him away and decided to raise Everley herself, even though she was young and all alone, without any support system. Everley grows up in the suburbs of London, and she tries to control her superpowers on her own, but she's unable to get fully in charge of them, so she cannot use these powers whenever she wishes, not even when she gets older. She's fierce, brave, hot-headed, empathetic, kind, stubborn and slightly cleptomaniac.

In 2019, a week before Reginald's death, Everley's mother is murdered. After the mysterious circumstances of her death, Everley decides to search for Klaus Hargreeves; she's willing to pay him to contact her mother because she wants to find her killer and get revenge, so her mother can rest in peace. Of course, she arrives at the Hargreeves house at the worst possible moment, on the exact day of Reggie's funeral. And the one opening the door for her is none other than Diego Hargreeves, who reluctantly agrees to let her in - into the house and slowly, but surely into his life too.

Name: Daniel (Danny) DeRulo

Alias: "The Punk"

Birthday: 01.10.1989

Place of birth: Union, Kentucky, USA

Love interest: Five Hargreeves

Faceclaim: Jack Dylan Grazer

His backstory:

His parents died in a car accident when he was only 5 years old. He was adopted and raised by The Commission, as soon as they realized he possessed a power that could make him the perfect human weapon: he can control the inside of the human body (organs, blood, etc.). Yes, he is also one of the 43. They train him and he soon becomes the Number One assassin at the Commission. They send him to missions where he has to kill people countless times, but as the years pass, he grows to realize this is all fucked up and wrong and demands they let him leave to forge a life for himself. The Commission doesn't want to let him go, so they lie to him, telling Danny he can retire "soon", but "until then", they give him another job to distract him from leaving: they send him way past the date of the Apocalypse, requesting he finds out whether mankind would be able to populate the Earth again after such a catastrophe (they are cautious not to let him ever meet Five Hargreeves - I won't spoil why -, even though both of them heard several stories of each other during the years, so he's sent to Europe and Asia instead of North and South America). Of course, outside of this job, they still use his assassin abilities occasionally. Despite his sad past, he's bubbly, kind, selfless, silly, and extremely intelligent, but he can easily be angered.

Years and years pass without his "promised" freedom ever getting fulfilled; at 61 years old he finally snaps and decides to take destiny into his own hands; he tries to escape and prepares himself to deal with the consequences of being a fugitive. But when he tries to tamper with a briefcase, he miscalculates something and the briefcase ends up not moving backward on the time frames of history, but instead, on his body. As soon as he realizes this and closes the briefcase, he's already in the body of his 15-year-old self, with the mind of a 61-year-old. The Commission forgives him, though, and he ends up working for The Handler for a couple of weeks so he can "prove his loyalty again". That's when he hears the story of Five and how the same thing happened to him too. Danny decides he must find and help him out so both can get rid of the Commission controlling their lives once and for all. However, Danny doesn't even imagine that meeting Five will result in him falling for The Boy instantly.

On Everley and Danny's relationship:

As they both happen to join the Hargreeves family almost at the same time, they grow a strong bond very quickly over being "the outsiders", and as time passes, even treat each other as siblings, being loyal af when it comes to one another.

Here's one ship video for you of Everley and Diego:

I have ship videos of Danny and Five too, but Tumblr only allows me one/post. :( I also have trailers and "manips", would anyone be interested in seeing them? I could share them in a separate post.

@old-man-yaoi-55 @5five5five5five5five5five I promised you I would tag you if I ever make this post, so pls pls add your OC's if you'd like.

And PLEASE anyone else who has any TUA fanfics going on, feel free to share/add your OC's here, I wanna know them all ❤️

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