#:) i'm probably using none of these terms correctly

[felikatze]

programmers hate me for my insane workarounds to very simple things i do not know how to do

[maryland-officially]

Ok I'm genuinely confused here so don't be mean please. All of this is /genq /nbr

I have a dissociation disorder and I'm questioning plurality (I would be considered traumagenic if I am 1). From my understanding of systems, they're formed through trauma that happens before the age of ten. The brain puts up amnesia barriers and the child's personality doesn't form correctly, so multiple alters are formed instead.

Endos confuse me. They're systems that say they somehow did this without trauma? How do they fit into this? Like, I want to be supportive but some of the rhetoric I've seen genuinely pushed me into a panic attack once (it was a post saying basically you can just make headmates whenever if you want and for fun, you don't need trauma or anything which I think made me upset cos... Why would someone want to be a system and how could they view it as a whole as fun?? & the idea you could just manifest it out of thin air confuses me deeply)

I'm sorry if you don't want asks like this but you're a relatively big blog and I've just seen you say you support endos so I figured you'd be a good person to ask.

Explanation below cut because it got long ^^

Ah, well. Most, if not like all endogenic systems, are non-disordered or use that term.

Endogenic systems can form in many different ways -- we're traumagenic, but we're pretty sure there are some endo alters, and we usually find them by talking into the void of the brain and getting a response that isn't from somebody established-- I'm sorry, this isn't very helpful, but think about it like:

Talking to yourself in your brain, and then suddenly you realize that you do not in fact control the person/alter replying, and that is not you. That's kind of what it's like.

Think of a cave:

At first, you think the echo is yourself. And it probably is, or it could be. And then the echo doesn't say what you say anymore -- it changes it and it isn't exactly 'you' speaking. Well the brain is the cave and the echo is a headmate forming.

This is the way that WE know about when alters form. It's a bit like this. We/a member thinks that we/they're thinking to our/themselves, and then bam. somebody different. not formed from stress or trauma

I'm sure there are other ways this could happen,, but none that we know of

so instead of uhm

I've seen this diagram/things like it to describe DID + plurality, so I'll explain with this.

This is an adult brain

This is a child's brain

This is the child's brain developing

With this model, DID (from what I've seen,,) looks like this.

The circles spread out, and might combine into large circles between themselves but not a full one as the brain develops

I'm not sure how accurate this model is, but I've seen people use it to describe DID. This is a sort of simplified version that makes more sense but is probably less detailed

Anyway let's say an endogenic systems starts as a large circle -- though,, this might not always be correct and is probably not majorly correct, since brains take a while to develop (im so sorry if this diagram is confusing. The circles are supposed to resemble child's thoughts/personality traits and how they assemble into a person. Or at least i think--)

Well anyway, an endogenic systems would look like this in my brain:

A part of the person kind of drifts off into its own thing

And then it might turn out like this

Sometimes there's a piece that there's no way to know where came from. They just kind of appear. They might have dropped from the brain, who knows? It can be hard to tell.

These can be fictives, or other alters.

Anyway this is my take/diagram on how endo systems form. It's probably inaccurate, but hopefully we got it mostly right ;;

[dollsahoy]

do you have tutorials you trust for getting into patchwork fabric making?

Unfortunately, my introduction to the concept of making clothes from patchwork came from a 1970s craft book that I checked out of a library in 2000, and I've been working off of my memory of that ever since.

If I remember correctly, the book was part of The Complete Encyclopedia of Crafts; looking online tells me that was a series of 24 books published in 1975. Searching with terms related to that found this, and I am 99% sure the shirt on the cover is the patchwork shirt project from one of the volumes of The Complete Encyclopedia of Crafts that the library had

That appears to be a British magazine, so the hardback book series was probably a reprint for the US market.

I will say, that subject combination of "patchwork, beadwork, enamelling, and mobiles" also sounds very familiar, so I'd guess the 'encyclopedia' volumes were direct reprints of the magazines, too--I distinctly remember the topics in each volume seemed very random, and definitely not arranged in alphabetical order like I expected from something calling itself an encyclopedia.

I suspect none of this has been any help in answering your question, so I'm reblogging so other people can share their sources

[the-radio-demon-blog]

Alastor, I’m giving you an explanation, but fair warning, you might be a little unnerved after reading this.

Well, you have what we youngsters call ‘simps.’

I hate to be the person explaining this to you, but it was gonna happen eventually.

You see, a ‘simp’ is a person who loves another person. But like on an almost excessive amount. There are different levels of ‘simpery’.

Level one: staring, basically just being hopelessly in love. (Example: Jake couldn’t tear his eyes away from Alice. She was so beautiful, he didn’t know how she woke up like this. Perfect hair, perfect smile, perfect…well, everything.)

Level two: I’m going to use you for this level. You see, when you simp for someone, you probably want to pat their head or brush your hand through their hair.

In your case, your simps want to touch your ears and know if you have a tail (let’s say you do for this explanation) The ears are pretty explanatory, they look fluffy, obviously you want to pet them unless you’re weird.

The tail thing…well it’s difficult to explain…basically, people write and draw…uhm…*couch* suggestive *cough cough* things about your tail. However, it isn’t always sexual. Some people use it for art practice or writing practice or just draw and write about it for fun! It’s like your ears, people think that it looks fluffy and want to pet it.

Level Three: *winces*…dirty thoughts…I’m not going to delve deep into this one, I know you don’t like it…but…people buy…body pillows with your picture on it…they imagine…doing you know what (*cough cough* sex *cough*) with you…and…other…ahem…suggestive things…heh…

Level Four: Obsession. This level is the most dangerous. Not only is the person experiencing all the previous levels, but they also cannot get enough of you. They want to do everything for you. They want to do anything for you, anything and everything. They want to be near you all the time. Basically a typical obsession.

So..yeah…that’s why you have so many people offering their souls to you for such little prices (hugs, ear pets, cuddles). They simp for you, on these different levels of simpery.

So there. And explanation as to why people want to pet your ears, cuddle with you, hug you…other things.

Sincerely,

A fan that regrets explaining this, but did it because it was necessary to have you maybe understand.

Simps?

Well, Level One appears to be endearing so far.

Ah, so is that why so many people have been obsessing over my ears? Well, I suppose that is slightly understandable.

Suggestive things about my tail? Why in God's name would they want to do that???

Alastor's eye twitches. People buy body pillows of me??? Dear God, almighty. Eugh. No, no, no.

Level Four actually appears to be somewhat useful. As long as it's not a Vox level obsession. Obsession is a resourceful tool when it is used correctly.

Hah! Simpery! What an interesting term! Well, I suppose its working out for me so far! I just...sincerely hope none of them are on Level Three. Alastor cringes with disgust. What a carnal thing to do!

I do appreciate the explanation, my dear fan. It was quite helpful. You know, Niffty loves to coin that term for me...wait.

Niffty calls me a simp? A simp? Ugh. I'm going to have to speak to her about this. I should've seeked out an explanation sooner.

[radioisntdead]

I'd love to see a funny drabble or headcanons of teaching some of the older (date of existence old) characters modern slang.

Angel: Rizz~

Alastor: No.

Rosie: ah don't worry about it alastor, the boys too crude to have rizz, hes def. Delulu.

Alastor: NoOoooo.

Good evening my dear! I couldn't figure out if you meant hazbin characters like Rosie explain slang to Alastor or the reader doing that so I assume it's the latter so it's the reader teaching everyone slang.

It escalated slightly with the reader being invested in online drama, I was influenced by Nicole Rafiee's chronically online girl explains series

Chronically Reader teaching people slang and driving old people insane headcanons

Warnings: none aside but I think I lost braincells because I read articles on recent slang meanings, I felt like a 50 year old woman trying to figure out what slang her child is saying, was this how my mom felt when I was saying YEET for literally everything?? Also how many people are saying skibidi, gyatt etc etc for them to be considered slang??? IS THIS AGING???

Well, I'll be blunt, being chronically online is what probably got you sent to hell in the first place.

You got to hell and just decided to be a menace, which I respect, for better or for worse, in this case for worse.

When Alastor was alive his slang was Bee's knees, corn shredder, the Cats pajamas, etc etc and then you waltz in the hotel with all your "Rizz" and "It's giving Red-40 dye." It was like you were determined to drive him insane!!

Because you were!

He avoids you like the plague, and you hunt him down like the deer he is, like you stand outside his room with a board of modern slang + online drama because why not.

You recruit Rosie to help you and she's just all for it, you and her team up, Alastor was long overdo for his slang education anyways, when was the last time she told him what they meant? 2005? 2006? 2010?

I'm pretty sure everyone in this fandom agrees that Rosie keeps up to date with all the slang, I think she draws the line at whatever the fuck gyatt means.

I have personal beef with that word get it away from me.

Alastor doesn't like the majority of this "newfound slang" but he'll use it to troll people, like Vox.

He'll be beefing with him and just go "You have no Rizz." or "The rizzless TV box is Delulu" or something and Vox just blue screens.

Velvette definitely teaches him and pimp grimace the newest slang.

You get along well with her, y'all talk shit about people you don't know and spill the tea on the people you know, the DIRT you have on the other two Vees, and the mild dust specks she has on the hotel crew, like that acting exercise with Angel and Sir Pentious or the time one of the egg Bois got BOILED.

Angel dust knows the top coat of recent slang like Delulu or it's giving, the more elegant ??? side.

You can ramble to him about whatever influencer drama you know of, he's fully invested because so and so did WHAT and soso jiwa DID HUH?

Husk on the other hand...

There is not enough Alcohol in the hotel for this, you stroll up to the bar with a whole whiteboard of modern slang + meanings AND internet drama, he can't leave the bar and so he's just stuck listening to you and praying that the alcohol makes him forget.

It does NOT.

Do people still use bussin'?

He doesn't like that one.

You could teach modern slang to Lucifer, he WILL not use it correctly.

Niffty already knows all the fanfiction slang, from Omega-verse, to everything else, like what the fruits mean [Note I was looking up fanfiction terms to refresh my memory and good grace the FLASHBACKS to my Wattpad days. I DODGED SO MANY BULLETS.]

Now to the part I've been looking forward too....

SUSAN.

She doesn't like modern slang, she doesn't know WHAT your talking about, she is low-key interested in the influencer drama you talk about but everything else? she's going "Young people these days!" "The disrespect! What even is a Rizz? That's not a word!"

Don't you dare explain to her what a Skibidi toilet is, that will kill her.

She likes you though, congratulations you're used as the Susan distraction whenever she's nearby.

This time NOT TO JOJO SIWA'S KARMA MUSIC VIDEO

Good evening folks! I've found that chugging an energy drink has the same effects of me being very sleep deprived but more hyper, this was longer bUT it didn't save even though I HIT SAVE DRAFT.

Anywho I hope you enjoyed, thank you for tuning in, Tomorrow is angst day and I WROTE. Then Thursday is a more wholesome fic where as per usual Valentino dies.

Psst, you should join our discord!

[dazeddoodles]

Given that the Human AU takes place in the 90s (we know the hags are in their mid 40s during the series + late 40s in the timeskip so we can assume the Clawthorne sisters & Raine likely meet in the late 80s early 90s) Raine wouldn't have a way to describe themself - as the term non-binary didn't even exist - while the idea of gender nonconformity was a thing there wasn't really a widely known term, meaning the poor thing lacked a proper way to describe their gender expression :( I can't find a clear source for when the term non-binary was coined - but the most popular answer seems to be the early 2000s? (somebody correct me if I'm wrong) The way Raine would've describe themself would likely be genderqueer, as that term gained popularity with lgbtq+ advocates in the early 1990s. While Raine wouldn't have a proper label to describe their gender expression, they would still have the concept of they/them pronouns (gender neutral pronouns for an individual have been around since the 1400s <3)

I got similar results when I looked it up, which is why I'm kinda vague about Raine's gender identity in human AU drawings that take place when they're kids (drawings of them as adults take place modern day so I use those terms then). If it had to come up I'd probably have someone say "They're not a boy or girl".

But they do use gender-neutral pronouns. Although I'm aware that realistically most people (like school staff) probably would not refer to them like that, again that's not something I want to focus on (that's for a different Au)

On Instagram, I threw around the idea that young human Raine, the little trickster, lied about being a girl or a boy depending on the situation (ex: "This is the girl's bathroom!" "I know I'm a girl???"). To the point that none of the students (except Eda and co.) knows their actual gender.

Alternatively, you can interpret it as while at school Raine is viewed and referred to strictly as a boy or girl (by teachers and other students) offscreen. But the focus is on their relationship with Eda so we only see her refer to them correctly.

[ziipzeepzop-eez]

Here’s something fun you could try doing, I really liked the Leo x unicorn reader so why not something more magical. How about Rottmnt x younger sister but get this she’s a MAGICAL GIRL like sailor moon or even pretty cure. I would like to imagine she had sailor moon’s personality just for fun.

If you couldn’t from the user name am a huge magical girl fan😅.

Wassup friendo! Aw, I'm glad you liked it =) Ayyyeee but mira mira- *casually slings arm around your shoulders, leaning in conspiratorially* This is a pretty rad idea, save for the fact that I have next to zero knowledge about Sailor Moon and ... Pretty Cure? Is that what it's called? 😅 I hope I'm saying it correctly ajshdjdhd /gen!

As far as being something more ✨magical✨ with rottmnt and a magical sister, all I can imagine is her having a cool Sailor Moon transformation every time they gear up for battle and:

Leo is infinitely jealous each time. Why doesn't he get a super cool glowy transformation when the moment strikes too?? Seems homophobic to him. (/lhj) (Just wait til he unlocks his mystic abilities, he'll be back to himself in no time. Probably tries to outdo you in terms of showy glowy magic girl aura.)

Donnie wonders how it's possible for you to exude legitimate sparkles ("HOW IS THIS GENETICALLY POSSIBLE?? SIMPLE: IT'S NOT.") but gets used to it since, yk, you're his sister ajshdjd

Mikey gets just as sparkly and you do purely vibe-wise!! — I definitely believe he wholeheartedly adores the magical aspect of his sister and it just makes his little mystic heart so happy ╰⁠(⁠*⁠´⁠︶⁠`⁠*⁠)⁠╯

and Raph would generally be positive about it!! It's just that when it interferes with missions and hero work or what other, he gets a lil stressed :>

— Especially when you go all magic time right 👏🏽 in the middle 👏🏽 of 👏🏽 the 👏🏽 battlefield pleaseeee he would be frothing at the mouth. Not above asking "if you can do this later" lmboooo. (He means well I promise, he's just a big brother 🥹)

In terms of being magical: if this were to be their biological sister then the magic itself would be their inherent mysticism!! rather than if it were to be a sister with origins unknown/different from the boys; heck, you could have a whole other magical bloodline out there somewhere and they're just. none the wiser. (well, everyone except for Donnie. that man knows things nobody else does.......... nor should. shivers in fear.)

Ayo but overall, they'd love their magical sister. That's on Pizza Supreme in the sky fr.

Idk man imma have to evaluate on this now. Might turn it into a ✨professional✨ req/hc list. Dunno. Might get a lil silly with it. What do you think?

[ashenxrogue]

No one asked me, but here's why Childe Ajax Tartaglia probably isn't 34

To preface this, no, I have not read the 4.2 story leaks, I have no plans to, and frankly, I don't care what they say as they do not change the following math. It could literally say point-blank that Childe is 34, and I would not agree with it.

I'm just here cause I found the 14+20 argument illogical. (14 being the age he fell into the abyss and 20 being the number of years ago that the disappearances started in Fontaine)

And a fair warning, I am bad at reading what my tone is unless it is blatant. If any of this sounds hostile, it was not my intent, and I am likely unaware that it reads as such. This is just how I write when I am trying to be as clear and understandable as possible.

So, why is it unlikely that Childe is 34? It's because of his mother and his number of siblings.

Childe has 3 named younger siblings and an unknown number of older siblings. 2 being the bare minimum and at least 3 being the more probable based on the original Chinese. And, because Chinese is not something I know how to translate correctly beyond a basic level, here's the copy/paste directly from the wiki explaining why Childe most likely has at least 3 older siblings.

As noted above, the Chinese version of "Tartaglia's Letters to Home" mentions 哥哥姐姐们 "older brother(s) and sister(s)," suggesting he has at least one of each. In "Character Story 5", he is called the 三子 "third son," which suggests that he has two older brothers and an unknown number of older sisters. Alternatively, the term 三子 "third son" could be ambiguous and indicate that he is the third child with two older siblings of unspecified gender. Combined with the clue from his letter to home, this would suggest he has one older brother and one older sister, but this possibility is less likely given the interpretation of the original Chinese. His phrasing of 哥哥姐姐们, with the plural marker 们, would be an unlikely way to refer to a single older brother and a single older sister; it instead suggests he has more than one of either older brothers or older sisters (or both). If he only had one of each, he most likely would have simply written 哥哥姐姐 without the plural marker. Therefore, the most likely possibility is still that he has two older brothers and at least one older sister.

Now, time for the math featuring hypothetical ages for Childe's siblings and mother. To be generous, I will be using ages at the extreme ends of the possible ranges, favoring the ends that make it more possible for Childe to be 34, saying that he has exactly 3 older siblings, that none of them were twins, and while also taking into consideration their mother's health and wellbeing.

First, we have to determine how old those 3 older siblings are. I will be giving each a 2.5ish-year age gap, as it is suggested that someone wait 18-24 months before becoming pregnant again. So for our hypothetical math, I'll say the oldest sibling is 40.

For their mother, I'll be going with 18 as the age she had her first child. (This is as low as I am willing to go; personally, I think this number should be at least 20, if not higher.)

So, for her to have a 40-year-old child, she currently would be 58.

But we're not done; we have the 3 younger siblings to add. To simplify things, I will only focus on Tuecer since he is the youngest, so his age is the only one that matters. The general consensus (that I also agree with) is that Tuecer is somewhere between the ages of 8-12; I will be using 12.

At 58, their mother then would have been 46 when she had Tuecer.

While this is not impossible, at this age, their mother is 6 years into the potential range of beginning menopause and has an extremely low rate of 3-4% at most of successfully becoming pregnant.

This is incredibly low and is the youngest their mother could be if we set Childe's age to 34 without endangering her health.

Their mother's age if Childe is 10 years younger? 48, setting her at 36 when she would have hypothetically had Tuecer and outside of the potential onset of menopause and that 3-4% rate of pregnancy occurring.

So, statistically speaking, it is incredibly unlikely that Childe is 34; thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

[journaldetruthwatcher]

Intelligence Intercept Title: 'Series Choir' Source Location: Unknown, Neutral Space

[The recording starts.]

These profane creatures that are the warped forms of Singers, even of the Fused, the Choristers- his term, not mine -are supposedly an 'improved form of Fused'. Created by the sick bastard of a Truthwatcher.

[There is a long pause in the recording, broken up by the sounds of papers being riffled with.]

If I'm reading these notes correctly- whhich for the record are an absolute mess, his mind is utterly inhuman -he made these things after his "Amalgams" were deemed a failure. I've never encountered those constructs before, which makes sense…somewhere in this mess he pretty explicitly states that they were a failure.

[A pause in dialogue, though papers are being moved and a metallic sound can be heard.]

Figuring out what those were was difficult…I think that they were an attempt to make 'human fused'…they were deemed a failure because…of…some...reason…I honestly haven't figured that out…but based on what I understand a Chorister to be like, it was probably some sort of 'efficiency' issue. Resources, time, investiture, something. Anyways-

[A pause in dialogue. A creaking of wood accompanied with a sigh can be heard in the middle. The pause ends as the creaking is heard again.]

His raids on Rosharan aligned systems were concentrated on those with relatively high Singer populations…he was looking for a self-sustaining population he could deposit in his void. He seems to have gotten it…then he replicated the Fused in a round about way…I'm not smart enough for this bullshit!

[A sigh can be heard.]

He stripped the souls of connection and cognition is what I think these can be summarized with. Uh…he begins to deviate from simply using Hemalurgy like he historically has, though that is implied to have happened several years after starting this project. Probably in the void then… Why do I have to do this? He hasn't detailed what he used, but he made note of Sel, Threnody, and if I had to guess, an undiscovered planet named 'Canticle'. I think he learned Dahkor, used the weird shade stuff, and…whatever a sunheart is. He's vague, but that's my only guess. After a period of time, he was able to continue on…over some period of 'generations' he was able to make these souls what effectively amounts to spren, and over several more 'generations' he was able to make them produce forms in the Singers he had entrapped. Storms, this is sick. Um, next he fine tuned the 'blueprint' forms…skipping ahead in the timeline for the end results for common changes; They have dense musculature, hardened carapaces, 'perfect gemhearts', they generate small quantities of various light by what I'll summarize as 'being alive', they gain multiple sets of vocal cords, and their brains seem to become rather extensively added to. Everything except for the gemhearts were done early on. He uh, he tried a lot of surgeries and methods to make the 'sunhearts' work. They appear to have killed the 'spren' each time he tried to get them to change forms…I'm not sure why or how, but the apparent solution was to make the 'sunheart the core for the gemheart'…again, I'm not sure how exactly that solves his issues, but that makes the gemhearts 'perfect'.

[A button being pressed can be heard.]

Add 'Canticle' and 'Sunheart' to the Lightweaver network's keywords.

[A button being pressed can be heard.]

Lets see, where was I? Right, the changes…apparently they are to 'improve on the design of the Fused'. The powers and immortality of the Fused, but none of the insanity. Same basic principle, a spren grants the surge and heavily changes the Singer- it should be noted that unbonding that spren kills the Singer -but the spren doesn't possess the Singer. Stormfather, how does someone get this twisted? The physical changes are to 'elevate the singer appropriately'. Stronger, tougher, smarter, faster…though it doesn't seem particularly extreme compared to some forms, it is more just…compact I guess? Hidden may be a way to work that. So, the vocal cords…I was concerned what that could be for, but I think it was just a mad science thing…what I can gather is that they speak with four voices simultaneously, but they can each somehow speak in different rhythms? It doesn't seem to have any further purpose, atleast none that I've found. Their brains…they were modified rather extensively. Like their physicality, it seems to have had a focus on 'compacting', more power in the same sized skull cavity. They think slightly faster, a portion was added to attune to and process multiple rhythms at once, an unused portion which was either intended for something that was forgotten or was placed there for the Singer to use themselves- both seem equally likely given the slightly odd structure -, and a large portion of it- what amounts to a third hemisphere -is dedicated to an 'instinctual understanding' of their surge. That got 'programmed' during the 'specialization' stage…several decades later it appears. The 'perfect gemheart' grows overtime, on average sixteen years, that much is very clear atleast. He writes extensively how frustrated he is that the investiture gained to actually induce that change 'fully' takes so long. Several of his deranged Mistspren even wrote encouraging notes near those lines. We already knew he wasn't keeping them captive...but, damnation.. Anyways, so, light. They aren't limited to the…light specific variations of surges…something to do with the 'perfect gemheart'…again, I don't really know what that is… they generate small quantities of lifelight when they eat and drink food, they generate a small quantity of voidlight when they sleep, and a small quantity of stormlight when they breath. All three of those processes are similar to storing into the appropriate metalminds, just a different variety of investiture that those qualities are being 'stored' as.

[The sounds of a large number of papers being moved can be heard.]

It should be noted that…somewhere in this mess is mention of the planned prison systems for these creatures. If we ever crack into the void, we should be wary of powerful and consistent 'magnetic solar dust storms' which will be heavily invested.

[The sound of creaking wood can be heard.]

If the stars are invested like he plans, those storms will act similar to highstorms, just on a more cosmic scale, which will give the Singers in those systems stormlight and crem analogues…besides each variety possessing access to a surge, that is more or less all of their shared traits I found. If I find more pressing information, I will submit further reports, but they seem to be mentally stable Fused with less facial expressions…not really as warped as I was expecting when I was assigned to this place…

[The recording ends.]

(Inspired by this depiction of Singers, which I love.)

[lunanoc]

for the game and as retaliation, give info/snippet on the dmbj abo thingie

thank you for asking <3

this is probably the most self-indulgent one on the list someone somewhere is definitely judging me for this 🏃‍♀️

it's a wip because this is 100% a Long Fic in the making, and it's also something that strays into heavy complex topics via parallels that need to be treated correctly and i'm hesitant to try

i have one (1) snippet that's a bare bones really really unedited tentative beginning does not represent the final product:

It’s raining again. Wu Xie wonders when that will stop being a novelty, or at least something worth taking note of. Even now, over a year after settling here, it’s like he’s still surprised to see an abundance of rain in a place aptly named Rain Village. Reclined in his chair on the porch overlooking the yard, he breathes in the late afternoon air that still carries with it the scent of dry ground from before the rain, now mixed with the heady musk of humidity that steadily overtakes it, and takes comfort in the soothing smell of petrichor, strong enough even his broken nose can pick up on it. Wu Xie lets his eyes fall shut as he sighs contentedly, basking in the first sense of comfort he’s felt in days. He’s been inexplicably on edge lately, fatigue a veil that drapes him in every waking moment, enough that both Xiaoge and Pangzi have noticed. Xiaoge had leveled him with his indifferent gaze long enough before he’d set off for the mountains three days ago that Wu Xie is more than certain Xiaoge has taken notice, and had no qualms about showing his disapproval. Wu Xie would likely be more offended if he hadn’t learned by now that for Xiaoge, in matters concerning Wu Xie’s health, disapproval and concern often go hand in hand. A sigh, aborted even as it swells in his chest, says much about Wu Xie’s own feelings, having troubled Xiaoge over trivial problems as he so clearly has, though he has yet to find the root cause of his discomfort. From the amount of times Wu Xie has caught him glancing in his direction when he thought Wu Xie wasn’t looking, it’s obvious Pangzi has taken note of it too. He decided that if Pangzi has anything to say, he’s not one to beat around the bush about it, and so Wu Xie is content to let it be. None of them are in the habit of coddling each other, and he’d rather it not start now. As far as Wu Xie’s concerned, it’s nothing life-threatening.

it's not the most original idea, but a/b/o au with all the ramifications it implies, where both xiaoge and pangzi are alphas, and wu xie is a beta. or so he thinks. somehow the intake of snake pheromones, especially at the rate that he does during sand sea, triggers a differentiation and he becomes an omega, and almost dies from a violent first heat. this brings up a whole bunch of problems wu xie can't deal with all at once, and so he picks the most urgent one that is becoming someone who can be influenced in some capacity through pheromones is a dangerous weakness when fighting the wangs, and so goes about hiding his new nature through excess use of suppressants and masking agents. no one ever discovers it, and wu xie tells no one, not even pangzi

it's only when the sand sea plan ends, and then when xiaoge comes back from the gate, that the other problems resurface, namely the fact that wu xie has never really come to terms with being an omega, something he rejects because he's ingrained that omegas are inherently more vulnerable people, and because of course he does, instead of confronting the problem, he buries it under more supressants

another problem is how this makes his feelings towards xiaoge, that he's realized exist by now, all the more complicated, because wu xie subconsciously imprinted on him because of them so some part of him believes that xiaoge is his alpha, and in his mind it makes any relationship even more impossible because he feels like xiaoge would feel forced to reciprocate. bonus points, the choice of yucun as a place to live is partly subconsciously influenced by the fact that broken nose or not, xiaoge's pheromones smell of petrichor, and it brings wu xie comfort

all this culminates in wu xie's supressants failing as they inevitably would have, and him having another violent heat xiaoge (and pangzi) have to help him ride out (not in a porn way, though that can come later. maybe), which forces the truth out in the open with the reprecussions it entails. pingxie do end up together, but not before wu xie makes peace with himself and realizes his nature doesn't define him, and to unlearn a lot of things about it

i'm honestly not sure anyone would read something like this but the self-indulgent part of it is because this literally stemmed from just wanting wu xie nesting and xiaoge taking care of him and general softness

[disease-danger-darkness-silence]

My ex-husband took a huge turn for the worse last night. I'm... Not actually handling it well. He damaged me, but most of it was just because he's an impulse-driven person: he thinks, he does. Cause and effect never really appealed to him as a lifestyle.

He was not being malicious, 99% of the time. He was just being an agent of chaos and making unwise life choices, consequences be damned. I happened to be married to him so I got the fallout.

There were some things he did that were malicious but not meant maliciously - they were the result of his own insecurities. He was jealous that I was better games than him, so he hogged the gaming system. He was absolutely garbage at MTG so he laughed when I couldn't understand the rules.

His mental issues are not an excuse, just the reason, but I... Forgave? Not quite the correct word but I let go of the resent ment, I suppose... Him for it a long time ago. I only have so much energy for hatred, and I'm busy using it on people who deserve it.

Anyway. He's probably gonna die this week, but my kid quit her job to take care of him. If you can help in any way, I put together a website with the gofundme, the Amazon Wishlist (assuming he gets better; if we can get him to sleep we can get the CPAP on him and he may have another few weeks in him, and we'll need those things), the Walmart wishlist (for food and stuff), and the mealtrain website because none of us has the energy to cook right now.

I just. I don't know how to handle this correctly. You know? He's my ex. I should hate him, because he did wrong me terribly, and he did hurt me a lot. I'm still deeply emotionally scarred because of his actions. But I can't see someone suffering like this and not give a shit. I just don't have it in me. We've been on cordial terms for about a year, year and a half, and I even crocheted him a scarf before all of this went down, spending a lot of time (allegedly) stealing really nice yarn from Walmart to make a warm one with pockets sized to his long torso. I spent 13 years with him. That counts for something, right?

[six-costume-refs]

I did the math (hopefully correctly, is Six math a thing like girl math yet??) that likely means nothing as Six is just insane, but assuming the Boleyn tour cover groupings stays the same in the future (big assumption, I know), if Wesley is A/B/S/P, it’ll mean both her and Cassie cover 2 roles each of the Boleyn tour alts while both also covering 2 roles each each for Ayla and Aubrey, while Cassie covers 1 of Kristina’s and 3 of Sierra’s roles and Wesley covers 3 of Kristina’s and 1 of Sierra’s (this feels the most complementary of all the options).

However if Wesley covers S/C/H/P, Cassie’s coverage for each alt stays the same obvs but Wesley would cover 2 roles each of every alt in both companies which long term could be beneficial depending on the length of Cassie’s contract vs Wesley’s.

Like I said, none of this probably applies as Six is just a ~wild~ beast of a show (and I still have a gut feeling Wesley will be A/S/H/P rendering all of this nonsense haha).

Okay hi I had to make a spreadsheet to visualize this. Including it for anyone else who might desire to see it.

I totally see what you're saying and that actually makes a ton of sense!! I don't know that it would happen just because I assume they don't feel like they need the covers to be that specific/technical (as in an additional four covers gives them a TON of extra room to move things around irregardless of what covers they are). And, frankly, Six hasn't always made the cover choices that make the most mathematical/logistical sense (hello, double covers). But it is a very smart thing to point out and I'd love to see them use that level of logistical/mathematical sense in the future.

I do agree that A/S/H/P is most likely. My technical reason for that is a little simpler: the obvious S/P, but then Boleyn Tour has double A/C and B/H so it would be better for Wesley to cover one of each which knocks out A/S/C/P or B/S/H/P. Of course that still leaves a few options, but I personally think A and H are the most likely so I'm going with A/S/H/P.

Also, what a year of manifestation with new covers. Courtney Mack having talked about most wanting to play Parr as principal to now being principal Parr, Abigail Sparrow saying she would most want to play Parr and joining Canada as S/H/P. And now we have Wesley, who said during Bliss 3.0 that she'd also want to play Howard/Parr and is now presumably covering at least one. Also said she'd want to wear the A/H/P costumes so it will be crazy if she actually gets A/S/H/P!

[lurkinglurkerwholurks]

Safe House

First posted: September 23, 2018

Focuses on: Jason Todd and Damian Wayne

My favorite bookmark: "This is so soft and feels oddly melancholic"

Tier: Top 20 in terms of hits, kudos, bookmarks, and subscriptions

This is my "behind the scenes" series where I indulge myself horribly by annotating my fics. Link to the fic itself above. Thoughts below the cut.

As I said in the original notes, this story came from yet another conversation with @starknjarvis27 about potential misconceptions about Jason from kids who weren't around to know him before Ethiopia. When their dad won't talk about who he used to be, and who he is now is so different, it's all guesswork. She spun that talk out into This Above All and I made Safe House.

And heyyyy hey hey, hello to my first double meaning title! 🥳

The safe house was supposed to be empty. The last time Damian had surveilled the tiny, one bedroom apartment, it had been neatly neglected—the cupboards fully stocked, the furniture sheeted, the air stale. It had been foolishly lax of him to assume that the apartment would remain untouched for so long, but his options had been limited.

I was very new at writing Damian here, but I enjoy writing in his voice. He's such a fun mix of fastidious old man, snobby teen, and insecure child.

Damian hesitated in the unlit entryway. He could see the light from the living room down the long, narrow hall, and the muffled chords of an acoustic guitar filtered out from a stereo. If he took a step backward, he could open the front door and slip out again before he was noticed.

If I remember correctly, I roughly planned Jason's safe house along the outline of a friend's apartment that I know well. I'm very bad at mentally picturing spaces, so it seemed the safest way to make sure I didn't mess up. Even still, over the years, I think it's shapeshifted a few times.

Todd. Wonderful. Of all the potential occupants.

Damian, it's his apartment. (This does imply, though, that Damian is more comfortable even with Tim than with Jason.)

“Leave your shoes on the mat,” Todd said after a pause. He turned back toward the living room and said over his shoulder, “I just cleaned the floors.”

Clean freak Jason Todd is a headcanon near and dear to my heart.

Damian knew the outline of his mother’s ties to Red Hood’s genesis and had never been able to parse whether the man felt grateful or resentful, nor how those feelings then translated to Damian.

In my universe, Talia/Jason never happened because I don't like it.

Damian realized as he padded down the hall in his socked feet that he had never been alone with Jason Todd before without someone else in the next room. The Manor had never felt so far away.

I bumped up against this line writing a later fic (I don't remember which one) because I wanted to keep this true and consistent, which meant I couldn't just send Damian over to Jason's for whatever I needed him to do.

Damian expected to find the apartment much like he had seen it last, just with a few lights turned on, a few dustcovers pulled back. Instead, as he stepped blinking into the lit heart of the apartment, he found himself in a warm, comfortably appointed living room. The original furniture had been artfully arranged and new furnishings added. The living room now boasted a faded but plush area rug, a few potted plants, and a full bookshelf, none of which had been there before. It wasn’t a full room—the walls were still mostly bare, the furnishings either from IKEA or pulled from a curb—but it was lived in.

All that careful dancing for nothing. If Jason's space is this nicely appointed, then he's pretty well settled, which places him pretty far along the family's timeline in terms of how he's doing with Tim and Dick and Bruce etc. That's the real backbone of how I piece things together, and I don't think Damian could have avoided Jason for that long over there, which means this is probably operating off on its own timeline. Of course this is just me being picky. No one else will notice or care and odds are I'll forget I ever said this by the time it becomes relevant for some other fic, because at almost 100 fics, the details are becoming a little hard to keep track of.

Everything in Todd’s drawers were too big, almost laughably so. Damian scrubbed his hair with a hand towel, then set about rolling up the legs of the sweatpants he had grabbed. He remembered Grayson mentioning once how underfed and—he thought the word was scrawny—Todd had been when he had first come to the Manor. Damian couldn’t believe it. The Todd he’d always known was larger-than-life. Case in point, the Han Solo t-shirt Damian chose to slip on that could double as a parasail.

Firstly important because Jason's physicality helps nod to how much has changed for him, beyond death and resurrection, and how Damian only has access to his recent past. But also I vaguely remember picking Han Solo for a reason, and I can't remember what that reason was now. Maybe just Jason and Han both vibing on "Never tell me the odds."

Todd sat in a wingback chair next to the space heater, his socked feet propped up on a faded purple ottoman. He held a book in his lap and didn’t look up from its pages when Damian entered. “This is my night off, so you better not have brought any crap with you. If I have to punch someone tonight, I’m gonna be ticked,” Todd muttered. He flicked a finger back toward the kitchen. “Tea. Counter.” He had already served himself with a porcelain cup and saucer that looked strangely similar to Alfred’s preferred set at the Manor.

Jason really is one for creature comforts once he allows himself a safe space. It was fun trying to decide what he would want and also what he could afford and where he might get it. But also, Alfred would likely have been his first introduction to tea, so of course he would assume that what Alfred does is the One Correct Way.

“I didn’t know you read,” he blurted out when the strain became too much. Damian fought another grimace. He could almost hear Drake laughing at him.

99% sure that piece of dialogue came directly from my chat with Stark. ("How do you write realistic dialogue?" I mean, it helps when you're physically saying it out loud in conversation.)

Todd did glance up at that, peering up beneath dark brows and through— “I know you’ve been in my room, you snot. What do you mean you didn’t know?” He had been, many times, though Damian wasn’t sure how Todd knew that. He had been careful to leave everything as he found it.

That em-dash was a cheap trick to hold the reveal a few more lines.

Of course Damian is a relentless snoop, especially about someone like Jason, an intriguing and potentially dangerous mystery.

Jason didn't know-know, he's just very good at guessing accurately because he also knows Damian would snoop as a matter of curiosity and survival. Also maybe Damian wasn't quite as careful as he thought.

With the warm, dim lights, settled in his wingback chair with a book, his spectacles, and the softest-looking sweater Damian had ever seen, Todd looked… well, he looked like Father.

My most beloved headcanon, that Jason and Bruce unconsciously mirror each other in so many ways that neither suspect.

Todd settled back in his chair and closed his book. “You sure are chatty tonight, brat.” His tone felt like showing teeth, but with the intention to playfully nip instead of to bite. That was something Damian understood, something that made sense to him even if he didn’t understand the exact why of the playfulness. Damian took another sip of tea.

I was pleased with that phrasing, because I did want to convey that Jason's casual insults usually mean less than how he says them, and framing it in terms of a big dog play-fighting with a puppy seemed both relatively straightforward and a comparison that Damian would instinctively understand and use as his own personal lens.

But also, Damian: "Why is Red Hood acting nice??" Jason: "Look at the baaaabyyyyy."

Todd lifted one shoulder, a half-shrug Damian had seen him do before. “It’s my night off. I could smell a storm coming. No one ever comes here.”

Oh. I forgot about this line. Apparently this is not the safe house that appears most regularly in Mutual Aid etc.

Todd was… He couldn’t say. Grayson insisted that they were brothers, and not merely by law. But Damian knew Grayson. He knew Drake and Cain as well, though they had their own veils of inscrutability. He didn’t know Todd. What scraps of information he had were contradictory and, he suspected, muddled by the emotions of those who conveyed them. Not to mention the contradictory attitudes of Todd himself, who at times seemed to have no regard for anyone at Wayne Manor, but at other times would, well, take Damian in out of a storm and make him tea.

The absolutely irresistible allure of the Much Older Cousin who comes and goes in mystery. Also, as much as Damian is set up to sneer at and look down on Red Hood, they have too much in common, so of course Jason is a tantalizing puzzle.

He hesitated, then added, “Besides, no one talks about you. Not truly.” He peeked up at Todd through his eyelashes and so caught the twisted grimace on the man’s face before he could hide it behind his own teacup. “You mean other than as an object lesson,” Todd said. “Or bogeyman,” Damian admitted, then hastened to add, “Not so much anymore, not now that you’ve stopped killing.” “Have I?” the other man shot back, but Damian only frowned.

That exchange definitely came from my initial conversation with Stark. Also, Jason is such a poser. Dude hasn't killed anyone in AGES.

Damian picked up the book he had been reading. He had expected perhaps one of the pulpy detective novels that Father enjoyed, but instead found himself thumbing through a battered bind-up of The Lord of the Rings. It was a classic, to be sure, but weighty and heavily marked with carefully drawn blocks of yellow, pink, green, and blue. The inside cover had the stamped name of a secondhand shop, but the highlighted lines felt newer.

I can't remember if I absorbed fanon to choose LOTR here or if it just felt right. I know a lot of fics prefer Pride and Prejudice as Jason's book of choice, but the boy needs a distraction from the storm and this felt like a choice Baby Jason and Bruce would have bonded over.

For while the stacks were straightened and neat, the number of books overwhelmed the crooked little construction and made the plywood shelves bow. Damian didn’t recognize all of the titles, but he could pick out 18th century romance novels, 19th century thrillers, translations of ancient poems and epics, modern adventures… the variety was endless. The owner seemed to have no niche focus but instead delighted in everything, though not a single tome looked new.

I looked at my own shelves for this paragraph and then added in bits from more erudite folks of my acquaintance. (I am not a huge fan of the capital Classics.)

“You’re in school?” “Don’t think I’m smart enough?” Todd snapped back. That…wasn’t out of the question, though now that Todd said it aloud, Damian could hear how ridiculous the sentiment was. Of course Todd was smart enough for anything, much less something as stupid as school. Red Hood’s base cunning was part of what made him such a formidable opponent and ally. Damian also couldn’t picture Father choosing to care about a stupid child. Intelligence was important to him. And even the thought of being quasi-related to an idiot pricked Damian’s pride. Todd was a Wayne. Sort of. Therefore, he must be intelligent.

Jason is touchy about his perceived intelligence. Damian isn't an idiot, even though he formerly assigned to Hood one type of intelligence but not another. Also his statement about not being related to stupid people is 10000% me. My relatives are allowed to be fallible. They're not allowed to be stupid.

“I hate school,” he hissed. “You spend your days how you please, you patrol when and where you want. Why would you trade away even a fraction of that freedom for school?” “I loved…” Todd paused, seeming to weigh the truth of his own words before tossing aside what he was going to say. “I didn’t love school either. I could hold my own, but P.S. 81 was an underfunded joke, and going to Gotham Prep was like getting tossed in a shark chum. I liked learning, though. Always have.”

Straight fanon gleaned from a million other fics for Damian, plus my own spin on fanon for Jason, because a blanket statement that he loved school felt off for the reasons mentioned above.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard Todd speak with unvarnished sincerity. 

I love Jason forcing himself to be even slightly vulnerable for a specific reason. He's hungry for it. All the posturing has to be exhausting. But he has to have a reason to lever himself into it. Right now, the lever is the traumatized kid sitting on his floor.

“You breathe a word of this to Bruce and I’ll feed you to Killer Croc.” Todd had leaned forward in his chair to glower at Damian. The soft-spoken confessor was gone, replaced by the gravelly Red Hood. Unfortunately, he had lost his edge with Damian somewhere around his second cup of tea.

I really enjoy Jason losing his edge and being unable to get it back no matter how hard he tries.

At Todd’s quizzical look, Damian rolled his eyes. “I will not subject myself to interrogation in order to fix your petty problems, Todd. I will defend Father’s honor with my life, but his oblique examinations are distasteful.” Todd narrowed his eyes, making Damian roll his own again. “Tt. He wishes to know if you are well. He wishes to know if you seem well-rested, if you seem well-fed, if you seem happy, but will not ask. For a man adept at directness, he can be truly maddening. So you have nothing to fear. I have no wish to subject myself to such foolishness.”

Damian: We are all subjected to interrogation on your state WILL YOU PLEASE JUST TALK TO THE MAN I am tired of writing up reports on your vital statistics.

Damian scowled, but then admitted, “You are not as odious as I first believed.” He didn’t want to speak what had been in the back of his mind for weeks now, but his honor and pride demanded it. “I… understand that you were instrumental in my return. Thank you.” Todd frowned and tugged on the cuffs of his sweater until the sleeves pulled up almost to his knuckles. “I wasn’t given a choice. Probably wouldn’t have helped if I had been.” Even as the words punched Damian in the chest, Todd looked up, blue eyes clear and uncharacteristically unguarded. “But you ended up with a better deal that I got, and I’m glad. So you’re welcome, or whatever.”

And there we go. Damian truly believed and hoped the safe house was empty. He just needed somewhere close by to hide. But before he probably wouldn't have risked it without the proof that Jason did actually care whether he lived or died. Which is why the seeming dismissal hurts so much here. He doesn't have context to know that Jason would have refused for Damian's sake. Better not to come back at all than to come back the way Jason had.

The older man drew in a breath, eyes flitting toward the curtained window, then back to Damian. “What got you tonight? The smell?”

I hate POV terms like "the older man" and would find a way to work around it if writing now. But also I'm decently sure connecting the Pit to the smell of ozone has been used many times in other fics, I didn't come up with that.

Todd either ignored Damian’s shudder or misinterpreted it. He tapped his cup. “Aromatic tea helps. Fills your nose with something else. I like using one of Alfred’s blends. Happier memories.” He tilted his head in the direction of the radio. “Music, for the noise. And distractions.” Classwork abandoned in favor of a retreat into a familiar fantasy.

I like that Jason's finally reached a place where he's healthy enough to comfort himself instead of using his own wounds as further punishment. Good for him.

“I should have warned you.” Todd’s mouth was turned down, but not in anger, or if it were, it was at himself. It was, Damian realized, what Todd looked like when he felt guilty, and he filed away the knowledge for later. “When you came back so different, I didn’t think you’d have the same issues.”

I don't know much at all about Damian's death and resurrection, canonically. I think I heard he came back with temporary powers or something, which is silly, so I ignored that completely. (Best practice for relating my fic to canon is that unless a specific detail is mentioned, it probably didn't happen in my universe.)

“It sucks,” Todd agreed, and for once his forthrightness soothed instead of rubbing Damian raw. “And it may never get completely better. But you’ll learn how to cope.”

Damian desperately needs the safe, soft comfort that someone like Dick can give him as his bedrock. But it also makes sense that Jason's more bare bones approach would be its own comfort, given Damian's upbringing and suspicion.

This was also my first fic that had the honor of being turned into a podfic!

[jedi-bird]

I am trying to get ready to sleep because I'm very tired and have to get up early tomorrow and my brain has decided that now is the time to remember horrible things.

I got told recently by someone close to me that I couldn't possibly understand how much grief weights on you or how guilt eats at you. I didn't take it well. Because no, how could I understand?

How could I know what it's like when I was the one home alone when my grandma stopped breathing? When my family yelled at me for stepping out the room for a moment to grab the stamps that they had asked me to get. When they yelled at me for not trying harder. None of them know what it's like to forcibly break the ribs of the one who raised you and loved you unconditionally. None of them had to deal with calling for help while also having to manhandle your loved one onto the floor. The thud of her head hitting never leaves me. They told me I didn't do enough, that I failed, that I didn't care. The dispatcher was the only one who told me that I was going to be okay and that I was doing everything correctly. I got yelled at for not calling family fast enough, despite spending the entire time on the phone getting talked through life saving measures. My mom yelled that if I had just stayed in the room she wouldn't have left us.

Except I did do everything right and it was never going to be enough. It took years to realize that and come to terms with it.

I get told that that was different. That I needed to let it go. I've made peace with the past as much as I'll probably ever, but no. Clearly I'll never understand.

I try not to compare what I went through with what others experience. Everyone experiences grief in unique ways. It is not my place to say what hurts one person but not another.

It galls me that they think it's okay to do that to me.

I am the only one in the family who understands the medical terms used at doctor's appointments. I am the only one who knows the difference between procedures and testing. I know what various bandages are for and the best places to find them. I know how to clean wounds and keep things as sterile as possible in a home setting. I've had to explain what each life saving measure meant; they didn't believe me until the nurse told them all what I said word for word.

I don't know why my brain decided to think about this tonight but it's maddening. I don't want to stay up late thinking and worrying and trying to find peace again. I want to sleep. I am going to try and if it's not possible then I'm getting up and writing; I will not sit in bed all night again pretending to sleep.

Sometimes, I really hate my brain.

[mentalisttraceur-software]

histdir

So I've started a stupid-simple shell/REPL history mechanism that's more friendly to Syncthing-style cloud sync than a history file (like basically every shell and REPL do now) or a SQLite database (which is probably appropriate, and it's what Atuin does while almost single-handedly dragging CLI history UX into the 21st century):

You have a history directory.

Every history entry gets its own file.

The file name of a history entry is a hash of that history entry.

The contents of a history entry file is the history entry itself.

So that's the simple core concept around which I'm building the rest. If you just want a searchable, syncable record of everything you ever executed, well there you go. This was the smallest MVP, and I implemented that last night - a little shell script to actually create the histdir entries (entry either passed as an argument or read on stdin if there's no entry argument), and some Elisp code in my Emacs to replace Eshell's built-in history file save and load. Naturally my loaded history stopped remembering order of commands reliably, as expected, which would've been a deal-breaker problem in the long term. But the fact that it instantly plugged into Syncthing with no issues was downright blissful.

(I hate to throw shade on Atuin... Atuin is the best project in the space, I recommend checking it out, and it significantly inspired the featureset and UX of my current setup. But it's important for understanding the design choices of histdir: Atuin has multiple issues related to syncing - histdir will never have any sync issues. And that's part of what made it so blissful. I added the folder to Syncthing - no separate account, no separate keys, nothing I must never lose. In most ways, Atuin's design choice of a SQLite database is just better. That's real, proper engineering. Serious software developers all know that this is exactly the kind of thing where a database is better than a bunch of files. But one benefit you get from this file-oriented granularity is that if you just design the naming scheme right, history entries never collide/conflict in the same file. So we get robust sync, even with concurrent use, on multiple devices - basically for free, or at least amortized with the setup effort for whatever solution you're using to sync your other files (none of which could handle updates from two different devices to a single SQLite database). Deleting a history entry in histdir is an "rm"/"unlink" - in Atuin it's a whole clever engineering puzzle.)

So onto preserving order. In principle, the modification time of these files is enough for ordering: the OS already records when they were last written to, so if you sort on that, you preserve history order. I was initially going to go with this, but: it's moderately inconvenient in some programming languages, it can only handle a 1-to-1 mapping (one last-modified timestamp) even though many uses of history might prefer an n-to-1 (an entry for every time the command was called), and it requires worrying about questions like "does {sync,copy,restore-from-backup,this-programmatic-manipulation-I-quickly-scripted} preserve the timestamp correctly?"

So tonight I did what any self-respecting drank-too-much-UNIX-philosophy-coolaid developer would do: more files. In particular:

Each call of a history entry gets its own file.

The file name of a call is a timestamp.

The contents of a call file is the hash of the history entry file.

The hash is mainly serving the purpose of being a deterministic, realistically-will-never-collide-with-another-history-entry (literally other causes of collision like hackers getting into your box and overwriting your memory are certain and inevitable by comparison) identifier - in a proper database, this would just be the primary key of a table, or some internal pointer.

The timestamp files allow a simple lexical sort, which is a default provided by most languages, most libraries, and built in by default in almost everything that lists/iterates a directory. That's what I do in my latest Elisp code in my Emacs: directory-files does a lexical sort by default - it's not pretty from an algorithmic efficiency standpoint, but it makes the simplest implementation super simple. Of course, you could get reasonably more efficient if you really wanted to.

I went with the hash as contents, rather than using hardlinks or symlinks, because of programmatic introspection simplicity and portability. I'm not entirely sure if the programmatic introspection benefits are actually worth anything in practice. The biggest portability case against symlinks/hardlinks/etc is Windows (technically can do symlinks, but it's a privileged operation unless you go fiddle with OS settings), Android (can't do hardlinks at all, and symlinks can't exist in shared storage), and if you ever want to have your histdir on something like a USB stick or whatever.

Depending on the size of the hash, given that the typical lengths of history entries might be rather short, it might be better for deduplication and storage to just drop the hash files entirely, and leave only the timestamp files. But it's not necessarily so clear-cut.

Sure, the average shell command is probably shorter by a wide margin than a good hash. The stuff I type into something like a Node or Python REPL will trend a little longer than the shell commands. But now what about, say, URLs? That's also history, it's not even that different conceptually from shell/REPL history, and I haven't yet ruled out it making sense for me to reuse histdir for that.

And moreover, conceptually they achieve different goals. The entry files are things that have been in your history (and that you've decided to keep). They're more of a toolbox or repertoire - when you do a fuzzy search on history to re-run a command, duplicates just get in the way. Meanwhile, call files are a "here's what I did", more of a log than a toolbox.

And obviously this whole histdir thing is very expandable - you could have other files containing metadata. Some metadata might be the kind of thing we'd want to associate with a command run (exit status, error output, relevant state like working directory or environment variables, and so on), but other stuff might make more sense for commands themselves (for example: this command is only useful/valid on [list of hosts], so don't use it in auto-complete and fuzzy search anywhere else).

So... I think it makes sense to have history entries and calls to those entries "normalized" into their own separate files like that. But it might be overkill in practice, and the value might not materialize in practice, so that's more in the TBD I guess.

So that's where I'm at now. A very expandable template, but for now I've just replicated basic shell/REPL history, in an a very high-overhead way. A big win is great history sync almost for free, without a lot of the technical downsides or complexity (and with a little effort to set up inotify/etc watches on a histdir, I can have newly sync'ed entries go directly into my running shells/REPLs... I mean, within Emacs at least, where that kind of across-the-board malleability is accessible with a reasonably low amount of effort). Another big win is that in principle, it should be really easy to build on existing stuff in almost any language to do anything I might want to do. And the biggest win is that I can now compose those other wins with every REPL I use, so long as I can either wrap that REPL a little bit (that's how I'll start, with Emacs' comint mode), or patch the common libraries like readline to do histdir, or just write some code to translate between a traditional history file and my histdir approach.

At every step of the way, I've optimized first and foremost for easiest-to-implement and most-accessible-to-work-with decision. So far I don't regret it, and I think it'll help a lot with iteratively trying different things, and with all sorts of integration and composition that I haven't even thought of yet. But I'll undoubtedly start seeing problems as my histdirs grow - it's just a question of how soon and how bad, and if it'll be tractable to fix without totally abandoning the approach. But it's also possible that we're just at the point where personal computers and phones are powerful enough, and OS and FS optimizations are advanced enough, that the overhead will never be perceptible to me for as long as I live - after all, its history for an interface with a live human.

So... happy so far. It seems promising. Tentatively speaking, I have a better daily-driver shell history UX than I've ever had, because I now have great reliable and fast history sync across my devices, without regressions to my shell history UX (and that's saying something, since I was already very happy with zsh's vi mode, and then I was even more happy with Eshell+Eat+Consult+Evil), but I've only just implemented it and given it basic testing. And I remain very optimistic that I could trivially layer this onto basically any other REPL with minimal effort thanks to Emacs' comint mode.

[scrollsfromarebornrealm]

wip: in the land of coldfire

Mathye stared at Deacon Clem.

"I... don't think I heard you correctly." He said. "It's being suggested that I do what?!" The younger hyur chuckled nervously, adjusting his glasses. Mathye's black temper was not only legendary in the Congregation, but in the sacred halls of the Cathedral and Vault as well. But his devotion to Halone and spiritual power was second to none among the priesthood, not to mention his more...liberal views were a badly needed panacea. Those who attended the rites and services Mathye presided over always sung his praises, finding comfort and reassurance--a few had even whispered of healing. For his part, Mathye shirked any and all praise, which only elevated his standing in the eyes of many.

At least he's not bitten my head off yet... "You are the foremost--and currently the most senior... Hearer, to borrow the Gridanian term for it, amongst us. For this plan you're well qualified, you have experience with Coerthas' elementals..." He trailed off as Mathye shook his head.

"No. I..." Merciful Halone, where could he even begin? Mathye thought wildly. The scheme was absolutely batshite! It reeked of a command being issued from behind the safety of a desk. He inhaled.

"Yes, I do know the rites and rituals to pacify elementals. Yes, I've participated and conducted them on my own. But such work is not going to help the situation here." He began. "The Shroud is...an entirely different entity. Not to mention..." Clem watched as Mathye bit his bottom lip in thought.

"Isn't the prevailing theory the eternal winter is ice elementals being given dominance over the weather?"

Halone help us he has no fucking idea! Mathye thought. And probably better to keep it that way. Coerthas' woes stemmed from the fact that the prayers of the people had caused the eternal winter--an inadvertent primal summoning of sorts. Something had gone wrong somewhere in the magic--Riven theorized that Phoenix's imprisonment by Bahamut probably had kept the primal's revitalization aether from breaking the spell and restoring Coerthas to normal.

"First off, I doubt we actually even have elementals out in Coerthas anymore." He began. "The screaming I Hear when I'm picking up on elemental activity makes me think more of undead spirits and wraiths." Clem's eyes widened and he quickly gestured a Halonic symbol for safety with his fingers.

"Fury have mercy!" Mathye didn't respond, but the scarred bite-marks on his good ankle throbbed slightly.

"Honestly, our elementals are probably dead." He said bluntly. Clem had shown himself to be a logical man. "If not dead, then driven insane past all reason. Take your pick, and add in whatever godsforsaken magic that keeps the winter going. No harmony and peace ritual or rite can fix whatever's wrong with them. And even if I could call one to me, there's the chance we could get a bloody flash-freeze and then well, nobody's coming back from that, now are they?"