#{Muse: Failed Science Experiment}

[mixelation]

reborn au stuff: oto musings

i'm considering what sorts of things happen in oto & tori and orochimaru's relationship

tori's goal is to get into a lab and get her hands on fuinjutsu resources. i'm not going to let her have perfect recall for her techniques, and she needs them for researching chakra.

i think her getting to her goal is a lot of her going to orochimaru and saying things like: well if a summons can use chakra, why can't i use animal chakra? and then he gives her free reign of some supplies/ a space and is like "alright, why don't you run the experiment, then" fully expecting her to fail. except tori KNOWS this game so the first few times she asks questions she already knows the answer to. orochimaru wants to push her to her limits and see where she fails, and tori is not ever going to show him her limits

so she eventually gets full lab access and she gets a lot of one-on-one time with him. he does like having a little science student to mentor. she is one of his favorite.

but thinking about the oto characters we know orochimaru favored or liked, he uh. he DEFINITELY mostly likes people with high combat prowess. so at some point, i think tori will run into a problem where she is like, "Well, no, I just want to know about chakra for the sake of knowing about it. I don't really care about how to use it to kill people."

And Orochimaru very much does care about using jutsu to kill people. He's a scientist but he's also a ninja. Obviously you should want to know about chakra so you can make more jutsu. He's disappointed Tori is not naturally good at combat, and he's even more disappointed that she's unmotivated to get better.

i'm imagining tori finally being like: "fine, i'll show him i'm just as deadly kimimaro (fuck you, kimimaro)" and she goes out and finds some random ninja and traps them in a barrier.

the random ninja is from one f the major villages, who are still traipsing through Oto even as the war is basically just minor scuffles now. ideally it would be a canon character. i was debating someone like genma or hayate.

tori does not break a sweat trapping this random ninja. she is very small and civilian-coded and wily. also they cannot get out because even if she hits like an academy student, she is a fuinjutsu master.

and then i can't decide if she drags them off to orochimaru, kills them, or frets over it for hours and then lets them go. the first one fits into tori's characterization of "increasingly does horrifying shit for petty reasons" and has the narrative payoff of maybe some sort of Consequence down the line depending on the character. the last one leans more into Tori setting herself apart as not a low-budget Orochimaru and someone who might do horrifying things but ultimately doesn't enjoy hurting people, and has the narrative pay off "could be really funny later"

genma: oh..... that girl

genma: no, i don't like her. she's creepy af and she scares me

tori: (is literally 12 and a genin and can't even tree walk properly)

so rn i'm leaning towards the latter. we can of course let tori keep whoever for hours in a horrible cramped space and monologue at them. as a little treat

also i guess she goes back to oto and is like "guess i'm simply morally better than everyone else (SHRUG EMOJI)" after torturing some random guy for no reason all day

[preciousmomentsfigurine]

hey, is anyone still here? looks like the last time i was on here was two years ago and change. things are really different now, but i guess then again it would be weird if they were the same

i was thinking of returning to this dead site because for a good fifteen years it was a big part of my life and provided me with a unique way to express my thoughts and ideas and feelings and opinions and musings to an audience of people who can hear me but not truly know me outside of my words that i share on this platform. and on the same coin i enjoy following the lives of people i know nothing about and watching their stories and selves develop and evolve from a complete distance in every sense

i'm five months sober now

i have a hard time pinpointing when exactly i became an alcoholic, but i guess i could say i dealt with it in some degree for about eight years, and progressively, as it always goes

i graduated with my masters last may (2023) in critical media studies where i spent my time writing and researching feminist cultural social and media theory. i produced a great deal of work i was and am very proud of including a thesis that is honestly my life and heart's work but unfortunately over the course of those two years my drinking escalated rapidly and by the end i was manically and drunkenly banging out papers and essays in the dead of night sleepless and naively inspired

somehow i got a 4.0 though despite that. everyone in my life always says i played off my drinking well anyway. beats me how or why

once i graduated i practically immediately began drinking all day every day while somewhat-hardly-kind-of-not-really looking for work which was fruitless and i quickly learned my degree i worked so hard for meant practically nothing to employers who were merely looking for experience i dont have outside of my teaching background in grad school

for almost exactly a year i was drunk 100% of the time i was awake

same old story, at some point i switched to bottom shelf pints of vodka, which constituted my breakfast lunch and dinner. sat on my couch in my filthy apartment occupying my filthy poisoned failing body either watching tv or causing problems somehow

this was when i was twenty-nine. for a while now i had known in my heart of hearts i wasnt someone who would ever be able to handle my liquor or drink like a normal person, whatever that means, and that too much was never enough, and that it was literally impossible to function so long as booze was a part of my life. any attempts to "cut back" or "take breaks", i knew, would end the same way, which was waking up to shots of room temperature vodka and being a prisoner to the worst shame a person can feel

i figured once i turned thirty, which was this march, that would probably be about the time i got sick of my own shit and said goodbye to the bottle. which i undeniably felt a kind of affection toward as if it were a lover. still do in a sense and thats why ill never flirt with it again

my sobriety date is april 16th 2024. my last drink was a shot of vodka at 8:30 am on the 15th after creating massive gashes in my upper arm the previous evening during a blackout fight with my boyfriend

im still unemployed and extremely mentally ill and my bipolar has gotten progressively worse over the past couple of years and will likely continue to according to what the science says and all of that. after my last manic episode last month i adjusted my meds (again) and for now they seem to be working but i don't hold my breath really

i do AA and i like it a lot, i do it my own way, i have a sponsor who approaches the program liberally and progressively and shares many of my comorbidities and has allowed me the freedom to define my relationship to the program and god in a way that works for me and i have made incredible strides through this. i have become a far far far better person.

being sober is easy and i never want to drink. not once not ever

ive never worked so hard on myself in my life because i got as close to death as i ever had and ive been very close at many points in my life for many years. when i was drinking i knew i wouldnt make it to see 35 if i continued as i was

therapy, AA, meds, a whole fucking lot of discipline

ive been with my boyfriend for two years and wed like to get married. thats nothing that will happen anytime soon but it is nice to think about. he has been by my side through unimaginable things that any sane person would not have stuck around for. he is my heart and my soul

im also trying to start applying for jobs again but im genuinely on the fence if i am capable of holding a full time job due to my severe mental illness. im exploring a bunch of options right now as far as that whole thing goes. the future is very uncertain as always

let me know if you see this or remember me or anything.

bye for now

[thalialunacy]

[for the @calaisreno MayProWriMo, which we're halfway through, whaaaat. take heed: I'm gonna call this one nc-17/nsfw/explicit; also smol cw for John being a middle-aged white dude who tries hard.]

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11) (12) (13) (14) (15) 16: experiment (17) (18) (19) (20) (21) (22) (23) (24) (25) (26) (27) (28) (29) (30) (31)

'The true method of knowledge is experiment.' -- William Blake

John's birthday do turns into a Rosie-themed party, but he doesn't mind. He's chuffed, truth be told. And not at all biased.

Luckily, all the other adults present are also not at all biased, so she has a willing audience for her various toddler antics, and throws herself into them full-speed.

'Perfect,' John says aside to Sherlock as Rosie demonstrates to the twelfth guest how to use her new rocking horse. The thing is solid. 'She'll wear herself down and pass out as soon as I put her to bed.'

Sherlock glances down at him from where he'd been watching a folded-up Stamford give the toy horse a few rocks before listing to one side and plonking down onto the carpet dramatically. 'You have plans?' he deduces easily while Rosie's giggles spin through the air.

John clears his throat. 'Possibly.'

Sherlock's lips curve into a smile, even after he turns his focus back to the room. 'Indeed.'

---

'In the spirit of science, there really is no such thing as a 'failed experiment.' Any test that yields valid data is a valid test.' -- Adam Savage

In true contrarian form, Rosie fights the fight of the exhausted and over-stimulated when John tries to start her bedtime routine after finally shoving all the guests out the door. He gets more water on him than she does during her bath, she ends up with backwards jammies on because she absolutely refuses to wear them any other way, and she has declared her disgust with every single one of their normal bedtime stories before he can blink.

John loves her to the ends of the earth, but he's suddenly feeling some strong nostalgia for his bachelor days. Very strong. Very. Strong.

A few moments before his patience is truly drained to nil, there's a knock on the door and Sherlock sticks his head in. 'Rosamund?' he asks, walking over and meeting her gaze. 'What's all this?'

'Don't want bad story!' she exclaims with watery eyes, like the idea is tantamount to state-sanctioned torture.

Sherlock glances at John, who just shrugs wearily. 'There's no accounting for taste.'

Sherlock snorts. 'Alright, Watsons. Here's the plan. Watson the Elder will go have a bath and some tea, and Watson the Younger will listen attentively while I tell the most riveting story of all time.'

He tucks her blanket back around her and she settles a little at his touch. Then he starts in with That Voice, and she's no match. 'Long ago, there once was a woman named Marie. She was from a land far, far away called Poland.' John makes a noise, and Sherlock in turn makes a shooing motion at him.

Plodding his way down the stairs, John muses that all of Sherlock's Rosie stories have involved female protagonists, usually non-fictional. They're not a particularly outwardly 'woke' bunch, the residents of 221 Baker St, but John reckons it's the little things. Like raising a daughter with heroes like Marie Curie.

It's not something they've even discussed, as her caretakers, and affection for Sherlock hits John hard in the chest. He's the luckiest bastard in the world, he really is.

---

'Argument is conclusive, but it does not remove doubt, so that the mind may rest in the sure knowledge of the truth, unless it finds it by the method of experiment.' -- Roger Bacon

That appreciation is still lingering when John exits the loo in his bathrobe to find Sherlock sprawled on the kitchen table, which is a new one, reading a book that looks about as old as the earth itself.

'Feel better?' he says without lifting his eyes to John.

John nods, approaching him. 'You left out the part where Marie Curie died of radiation poisoning, yes?'

'Obviously,' Sherlock says, easing his legs over the edge of the table until he's sitting on it like a normal person, but still reading. 'That will keep until she's at least four.'

'Right. What's the book about?' John asks as he makes his way between Sherlock's knees.

Sherlock holds up a pointer finger. 'One moment.'

John shakes his head with a small smile, then without really considering it he rolls his palms up Sherlock's thighs. The detective is still wearing his party trousers, fine wool John really doesn't want to know the cost of, and it feels smooth and satisfying under his skin.

He leaves his hands at the top of Sherlock's thighs, pressing lightly into small spaces. Sherlock coughs. 'If you distract me, it'll take even longer.'

John raises his hands. 'Fine, fine. I'll just be in bed.' He lowers his voice a little. 'In your bed.'

Sherlock goes very still, eyes staying glued to the page. But his thighs tighten around John when he tries to back away.

John chuckles, and debates the merits of keeping his hands to himself. But before he's decided, he's interrupted.

'Done,' Sherlock announces loudly, slapping the book shut and putting it down on the table with only a modicum of care. He pulls John into him immediately, but his brow is a little furrowed. 'Do you mean it?'

'We've shared beds before,' John strings him along with.

Sherlock tuts. 'John Watson, don't be coy, it doesn't suit you.'

John sobers, and then nods. 'I want… ' He goes for the plain truth. The opposite of coy. 'I want to sleep in your bed, and I'd prefer it'd be after some orgasms.'

Sherlock makes a noise John's not sure how to interpret.

'If you want,' John adds lightly. 

Crystalline eyes search John's face. 'Aren't you tired?'

His smile blooms slowly. 'Yeah, I am. But not too tired for this.' He reaches up to cradle Sherlock's face in his hands, and kisses him, slow and steady, feeling the beat of his heart.

---

'If I experiment enough, I get a deeper understanding.' -- Terence Tao

The first word gets drawn on Sherlock's right hip.

John's left index finger traces eight letters while his right hand tucks into Sherlock's pants and draws them down and off, his mouth following then trailing along hot, hard skin. He knows Sherlock's watching, and likes the idea that he's being at least a little unpredictable.

He's not done this before, but he's done this before. His tongue, and palate, and salivary glands adjust without much fanfare.

The second word, also eight letters, is then stencilled into Sherlock's right thigh, where the hair is downy, and the tendon cords under John's hand.

'John--' Sherlock murmurs roughly. 'What--'

John, on a whim, tries a thing with his tongue, and Sherlock cuts off with a groan. Then John finds himself so involved he forgets to do the next word until Sherlock pulls him up into a tight embrace.

John lets him, because it leaves him in the perfect position to tongue the ten letters into Sherlock's long, exposed neck.

'John, really. Your penmanship is--' His breath catches as John uses a few teeth. '--terrible.'

John huffs a laugh, genuinely amused. 'Doctor, remember?'

'No excuse,' Sherlock says blithely, then starts pulling away.

John is unashamed to admit he tries to stop him, tries to keep him close. Sherlock's gaze softens, and he leans back in.

'Not going further than this bed,' he says against John's mouth. 'It's just that I have something I wish to do.' He smiles, slow and long, and says, 'You did just have a bath, did you not?'

John searches his face, feeling scorched down to his toes at the implied invitation. His thumb traces the fourth word, only four letters, into the thin skin of Sherlock's unbroken wrist, and Sherlock's eyes widen fractionally.

'Perfect,' Sherlock says, then captures his mouth in another kiss. 'Turn over.'

'Your fracture,' John protests. 'It isn't fully healed.'

Sherlock rolls his eyes, and John is reassured he's still the same as he ever was. 'Which is why you should turn over. I'm going to kneel at the foot of the bed. That alright with you, Doctor?'

 'Oh, hell. Yes.'

The fifth word-- Well, John is surprised it took this long for the tables to turn, really, but the fifth word gets bitten into the rounded flesh where John's upper thigh tucks into his arse, before he has a chance to rise up onto his hands and knees. All seven letters, nibbled precisely into sensitive skin while Sherlock's uninjured hand teases at the goal.

'Jesus God,' John mutters weakly. 'Sherlock--'

'Up,' Sherlock says with a tap. John levers himself into position with a grunt, and barely has time to steady himself before Sherlock licks into him.

'Fuck,' he hisses, almost surging forward but being caught round the hip by Sherlock's good hand, steadied.

And then absolutely taken apart.

'Sher--' he falters, ages and a moment later, panting and trying to hold onto his clanging heart. 'Please, come here, I want-- I want you to come with me-- Oh, fuck.''

Sherlock's groan reverberates into him, and John falls onto his forearms, arse held in the air purely by strength of will. He'll congratulate himself later.

When Sherlock pulls away and climbs back onto the bed, John is caught in a messy web of lust and turns over just enough to pull Sherlock down onto his side. 'Please,' he says roughly, reaching for Sherlock's prick. 'Can I--'

'Yes,' Sherlock hisses, seeking out reciprocation. 'Whatever you want.'

And they sync up without too much struggle, racing to bring the other pleasure, and John can't quite remain tethered when he feels Sherlock's tongue tracing the sixth word over his heart. 'Sherlock,' he whispers. He tenses, and it's over; he's awash with sensation and floating away.

---

Seven steps of the scientific method: 1) Question 2) Research 3) Hypothesis 4) Test 5) Analyse 6) Conclusions 7) Communicate.

'You know,' Sherlock says enough moments later that John can focus on him again. 'The seventh step is debatable.'

John smirks sleepily, reaching blindly for his pants to wipe the majority of the evidence off their skin. 'I'd say communication is the most important part, actually.'

Sherlock huffs; John feels it on his temple and decides he's not moving for a while. And it takes a while for Sherlock to say what John can tell is brewing in his mind, anyway. It's alright. He can wait.

'What was that about, truly?' Sherlock finally asks quietly.

'Well,' John says, thinking as he traces figures, meaningless figures this time, into Sherlock's arm. 'Sometimes experiments are about demonstrating a known fact that’s already proven. '

'And this one proved…?'

John's hand comes to a stop. 'Oh, come on, you know what.'

Silence stretches after that statement, and John finally raises his eyes to meet Sherlock's. A smile spreads across his face at what he sees there.

'Just that I love the hell out of you,' he says matter-of-factly.

Sherlock lets out a stream of breath he'd apparently been holding. 'A reasonable conclusion,' he mutters, bringing their mouths together.

John grins, knowing exactly what Sherlock is saying with those words, and lets him have it.

[❤️]

[blood-starved-beast]

hi hello just came here to say that i *really* enjoyed your musings on lady maria, you just analyse her in such a realistic scrupulous way it's very delectable♡

Thanks! I'll admit my interpretations are a bit atypical to what the fandom usually sees of her ( I mean, I have discussions on other platforms about this). But I just, as someone who has worked in Research involving animals that ultimately have to be put down for science, how the narrative presents Maria is very damning.

We first learn of Maria from the patients at the Research Hall, not having known of her beforehand other than vaguely alluded to via the Doll and the Hunter's Bone. The patients who are medically/scientifically tortured, dissected/vivisected, are living in abject squalor, are being turned into giant heads and are literally losing their minds, and their bodies dumped to rot as fertilizer in the gardens (for the flowers Maria loves I might add) once they no longer serve their purpose. And yet, they love her. These people tortured and denied any form of humanity cling to her like she were a Saint, like the Virgin Mary even, despite her not actually doing anything to improve or prevent the situation.

That is a very powerful first impression - that Maria cared enough about these subjects to give them kindness enough that they automatically cling to her yet lacks the absolute empathy to actually, you know, not experiment on them. That mentality is necessary when working with research animals, but these are people. And that initial impression is not something I can easily overlook regardless of what her actual aim was with the laboratory. This impression is heighten if you take the popular fan interpretation that Maria had some affection for Saint Adeline. Like, oh boy.

What that leaves me to interpret then, is that Maria at best someone of compromised morals, at worst someone who is somewhat two-faced. To assail her failing morals, her kindness is meant to be more self-gratifying, to "prove" to herself that she is a better person than she actually is. It is, in part, a performance cause at the very least it is not reality. There is delusion there but unlike some male Bloodborne simps on reddit it's cause she's deluding herself at the very least, or at most she is doing enough to give the impression she is helping somewhat. You know, like those rich fucks who hand out water bottles during a crisis and then go "that's enough philanthropy for one day :)" while being in a position of power to do actual meaningful change and doing nothing. Or that even if she is an awful person, there are people who are worst than her out there. And maybe that's enough.

I do think she gets to a point that she realizes it though. How fucked up she is/what she's done. That in part of is ultimately what kills her, that and the ultimate futility of her actions, how she slowly chipped and chipped away whatever person she was when she started to ultimately become the monster of her own creation. No better than the Vileblood family she rejected at first (if not worse than them in some respects). But instead of doing anything more meaningful about that Heel Realization she kills herself, dooming herself to being constantly minded that amongst all the Living Failures, she herself reigns Supreme.

[jorriimmian]

JORRIIMMIAN is a fandomless alien multimuse, surrounding an original science fiction/romance story, Gods & Crowns: A Galactical Fairytale.

This story is an unending labor of love with my longtime collaborative writing partner, @notsomajestic!

@feliivian — my writing partner & the other half of this story.

@criminalhcart - my sideblog for exploring side characters, side stories, crack / shitposting adventures, and alternate universes.

singleverse ; multimuse ; semi-active ; highly selective ; OC-friendly ; fandom-friendly ; crossover-friendly ; xeno-friendly ; accepts memes

WARNING — DNI minors & antis. I am 30+ and this is a proship / profiction space.

The following dark & triggering themes will be explored: adult / minor ; age gaps ; alien genitalia ; alien reproduction ; alpha / beta dynamics ; arranged marriages ; cannibalism ; child death ; enslavement & trafficking ; explicit dubcon & noncon ; explicit gore & violence ; heat cycles & rut cycles ; incestuous siblings ; male pregnancy ; miscarriages ; misogyny & female objectification ; sexual coercion/pressure ; supremacist & racist beliefs ; unhealthy & dark romances ; voyeurism & exhibitionism  ; xenophilia

GENERAL: [ artworks ] — [ aesthetics ] — [ incorrect quotes ]

PLAYLISTS (not completed):

Characters: [ galanon ] — [ galron ] — [ evesani ] — [ jeren ] — [ lyrenn ] — [ surtr ]

Ships: [ galanon / desgazah ] — [ galron / veresil ] — [ cazasen / jeren ] — [ rolvfern / aruceni ]

Groups: [ the mournside brotherhood ]

Locations: [ ti'los lovatol ]

SYNOPSIS —

Planet Jorrimm has been locked in an expansion war against Planet Feliva in their shared galaxy system; however, the two kingdoms are forced to shelve their rivalry once an unknown entity begins destroying their scouting fleets.

When their respective attempts to remove the invasive force fail, the two kingdoms reluctantly turn to one another, bring it with it a tentative proposal to combine their militaries and resources so that they might combat and eradicate their mutual enemy.

And to ensure the peaceful merging of their civilizations, the two kingdoms agree to a marital union between their only heirs, Galanon and Desgazah.

To ease the two volatile, stubborn princes into following through, a courtship period is put into place — alternating every three months, one prince will stay with the other on their homeworld, familiarizing themselves with one another, and to learn and understand the other's world and culture.

RULES —

⇀  All original artwork of the story's characters are commissioned and credited.

⇀  Paragraph-styled roleplay is preferred.

⇀  I DO NOT participate in “reblog karma”, though I do try to make the effort to send things in when I can (or if it interests my muse).

⇀  I have no triggers and I am willing to roleplay / explore anything.

⇀ You MUST be 18+ to write with me.

⇀  I WILL NOT put NSFW content under “Read More” cuts. (I will, instead, tag and label these posts accordingly.)

⇀  I roleplay DARK and TRIGGERING themes:

You are within your right to decline from writing these types of themes with me, and I encourage you to do so if you're uncertain/uncomfortable! You are expected to respect and be tolerant towards myself and those who are willing to write these types of themes. You are expected to either blacklist my tags or simply unfollow / block me if blacklisting is not enough. Reminder: Your self-care is your responsibility.

⇀  Please, DO NOT unload your personal life’s baggage onto me.

I have my own issues to contend with, and I’ve also had two extremely negative experiences being someone else’s support system. So, please, don’t come to me about any self-depreciating thoughts of suicide, self-harm, deleting your blog, doubting the quality of your writing, etc. I am not that kind of person for you, I'm sorry.

⇀  Shipping

The majority of my muses have a significant other played by @feliivian. However, the following side characters are open to shipping: — Daldic — Torigon — Veresil

[hriobzagelthewanderer]

A VERY DESCRIPTIVE PROFILE OF YOUR MUSE. Repost with the information of your muse, including headcanons, etc. if you fail to achieve some of the facts, add some other of your own!

NAME: Hriob Riebe Zagel, past incarnation was known by Krakonoš/Rübezahl depending on the region, other past (known) incarnations include Gammal vän Kunskap, Vǫlundr, Unferth, Fergus MacRoich, and Humbaba of the Cedar Forest. 'True' Names and identity are extremely important to Hriob, not only due to his Fae nature.

NICKNAME: Being of Fae nature, nicknames are both important and paid little attention to. Hriob has been known to others as Rob, Robby, Hiro, 'Oh no its You Again', and a variety of similar nicknames. On rare occasion, Hriob will 'borrow' one of his predecessor's preferred aliases, 'John', when he wishes to remain as anonymous as possible.

TITLE(S):  Hriob's more proper titles, againLord of Fantastic Weather, Prince of Gnomes, King under the Mountain, The Brewer of God-Booze, the Lonely Forest Sage, Herr Erlkönig

AGE: Apparent physical age is set somewhere nebulously between 27 and 31. However, due to a number of factors, including a non-linear experience of passage through time and space, and extremely reduced aging rates from multiple factors, Hriob's 'True' age - discounting his past incarnations entirely, is closer to over a hundred years at least but still unknown even to him. With his past incarnations, he is at least well over 4,000 years (with Humbaba being recorded during the 3rd Dynasty of Ur circa 2100 B.C.E.) with estimates going as far as over twice that time frame.

SPECIES: Human-Fae Hybrid. Specifically, Hriob is a Greater Fae Lord - a being on par with the likes of King Oberon and Queen Titania - with incorporated traits of other magical entities, inhabiting a human body with a number of small 'tweaks' as symptoms of his long-term presence within it. He can transform into a far more bestial, Chimeric-looking form when emotionally charged or in dire circumstances, but he tends to prefer being 'as human as possible'.

SEX: Male

NATIONALITY: Czech/German/Polish. Exact percentages are, if known, not disclosed publicly.

INTERESTS: Nature, animals, science (especially physics, biology, metallurgy, and computer science), philosophy, culinary arts (especially baking and brewing),

PROFESSION: Normally, Hriob is 'self-employed' - running an entrepreneurial enterprise selling alcoholic beverages of his own design through a craft-brewing business, specializing in magically and alchemically over-charged varieties of such, but overall he considers this a 'side-hustle' in the long term: a surprisingly profitable hobby but a hobby nonetheless. His true 'profession', such as it is, is a Servant of Gaia - the Collective Life Force of the Planet(s), a Scholar of the Arcane, and a self-made Humanitarian worker specializing in problem-cases involving those tied up with the mystical world.

This varies but generally holds true for other verses: One verse has him effectively retire from his self-imposed jobs, Another has him shift focus to Education specifically as well as Vigilantism, but there is a Specific Timeline where he expands his one-man efforts into a full, highly specialized and exceptional organization of roughly-like-minded individuals.

BODY TYPE: The best description for his figure is trapezoidal, meaning he is somewhat top-heavy with broad, wide shoulders, but despite being rather stocky and solidly built he is not perfectly square either. In regards to musculature he fits the 'Strongman' typology, being large and not especially tone in his physique but far from 'overweight' - instead being covered in large, thick layers of softer, 'working' muscle.

EYES: Soft Slate/Stormcloud Grey. Have an Icy Azure coloration in the right light, either from the presence of a tapetum lucidum in his retinal structures, ambient glow from use of magic, or both.

HAIR: Very dark Red hair, more like the dark crimson of drying blood than what most people consider 'red' hair. This shade darkens and saturates further in the presence of bountiful ambient life and/or magic, and conversely lightens/washes out as the area around him becomes more 'dead' in either respect. His hair style is essentially all-but-untameable bedhead with wavy, almost feathery locks reaching as far down as mid-neck at their longest.

SKIN: Very pale and light skin, marred with many old scars of all kinds, but especially those left by stab and slash wounds. The hands in particular are rather calloused and rough, from countless kinds of activities including cooking, woodworking, metalworking, rock climbing, leather-working, and handwriting.

POSTURE: Usually upright and strong, almost tree-like, with a penchant for expressive, animated arm-sweeping when excitable. Has a bit of a slouch when sitting somewhere for too long.

HEIGHT: 7'10". Transformed 'Monster' state reaches 15', 17' when antlers are counted, with a wingspan over 45' from tip to tip.

VOICE: Hriob has a low, deep baritone for his normal speaking voice, but has been known to reach low tenors and deep double-bass at times when pushing the limits of his range. While extremely loud when shouting, his average tone often comes across as both soft and breathy, yet oddly resonant and clear to listener's ears.

While there are multiple possible voiceclaims for him, ranging from Villie Valo of HIM to Yoann Lemoine of Woodkid, but at moment the best fit is Vincent "Jake" Jones of the band Aether Realm.

SIGNATURE OUTFIT: While variations exist for most any given timeline, most often Hriob sticks to a simple formula with his clothing; a nearly-full-body underlayer, with comfortably warm or potentially reinforced clothes on top, ending with a notably large cloak and walking stick of some variety. His secondary outfits almost always are some variety of formalwear or suit, though some verses reverse the priority of both outfits.

SIGNIFICANT OTHER: Verse dependent. Some verses allow for limited polyamory, but generally he sticks to single-target devotions.

COMPANIONS: Verse dependent. At present in most verses he has three different Familiars bound to him; an Owl, a Swedish Valhund, and a Piebald Bull Moose.

ANTAGONISTS: Verse dependent

STRENGTHS: Kind, gentle, strong paternal instincts, takes promises seriously, extremely potent empathy, Physically powerful, durable, and enduring to superhuman levels, extremely quick reflexes, highly adaptable, intelligent, and cunning. Master of many forms of magic and related arcane topics. Effectively immune to disease, toxins, and poisons.

WEAKNESSES: Chronic Interventionism, prone to manipulating people even if with good intentions, emotions can run rampant even if honed with logic, powers and strength of power/health are all co-dependent on the presence of ambient life and magic around him.

FRUITS: Hriob primarily favors berries like blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries, as well as citrus such as Grapefruits and Blood Oranges. Other fruits of note include Pomegranates, Apples, figs, and cherries.

DRINKS: Herbal teas of many varieties, especially self-made blends. Black and Green teas are secondary to herbal blends, but not unappreciated, with Chai, Oolong, and Earl Grey being close favorites among those varieties.

ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES: Hriob is supernaturally immune to the effects of alcohol, but nonetheless heavily prefers most form of beers, especially Mead, as his primary form of beverage outside of teas. He is equally decent with wines and other harder spirits, with Rum being a standout favorite among those, but for the most part he prefers lighter grain-based alcohols... with the seasonal exception of a heavy focus on Eggnog around the Holidays.

SMOKES: Hriob does not enjoy the smell of any kind of smoke, save perhaps incense or woods used to cure or roast meats. Tobacco and Marijuana both are hard passes for him in such a form.

DRUGS: Hriob does not touch pharmaceuticals or recreational drugs outside of Alcohol, in no small part due to his effective immunity to nearly all of them. His

DRIVER'S LICENSE: Hriob, for several reasons, has almost unanimously been disallowed from operating any vehicle of any kind, but generally prefers walking anyways. For long distances, he generally uses his mastery of Space-Time Magic to effectively teleport himself to where he needs to be directly. If in an Urban setting where appearances need to be maintained, he will use Public Transport.

Tagged By: @chronicparagon

Tagging: @gingerhoneycakes @cosmicdreamt @thxpatriarch @project115 @forbiddenwoodlands @airxn @hraunwyf @swansongtm @arcanescholxr @bleedinghearth @melodiadraconis

[grimkkr]

plotting call !

evil entity that will most likely ruin your life needs YOUR help for the mission board!

eitri canonically lives in a forest she booby trapped herself and would love to test some new ideas on some poor unsuspecting seminar attendee. none of the traps she has set up follow osha guidelines. a couple of them might even be breaking the geneva convention. oh, and don't let her catch you! she's brewed up some sort of mysterious potion to further simulate an interrogation. can you survive eitri's horrors? she might give you extra credit for her next exam if you can. +1 SWORD TAKEN: YARNE

eitri is working in the infirmary, hoping to use the influx of patients as an opportunity to test out some new medicines and procedures she has been researching... it all looks incredibly dubious, to be honest, but she assures you her advancements in science have been praised the world over. are you looking to learn about these ground breaking developments in medicine? or are you the fearful patient under the knife, trying to convince eitri all you really need is a vulnerary?

ghost hunting but the ghosts are made by eitri. she's running some hush-hush experiment on the downlow, trying to figure out a way to put a soul into an inanimate object, and her failed experiments have been running amok and causing havoc across the monastery. she offers you a pretty penny if you'll help her round them up so she can bring them back to her lab for further study. be careful, though... there's something weird about them. TAKEN: FAYE

eitri is extremely interested in nonhuman muses and muses with powers she has never seen before. what she's not interested in, though, is the scientific ethical code. maybe watch out for that.

[mmaurysiek]

how does a mechanism of a Mechanism work? - vague musings

(please do argue and share your own headcanons if you'd like! I'd love to start a discussion :3)

I imagine that the origin story of these functionally unbreakable mechanisms was simple. I mean, look at the inventor -- a disabled ADHD vampire. Carmilla had to be fed up by having yet another version of a working artificial eye unexpectedly start breaking on her at least once every few decades or so.

(what i don't get is - why not just go on living with one eye instead - but I guess that literally unlimited amount of spare time and Carmilla's love of creative tinkering have played a huge role in that)

Hence, a sci-fi dream of a prosthetic/medical device that:

seamlessly or near-seamlessly connects with the nerve system and provides natural-like neural feedback,

is as effectively self-repairing as Carmilla's own vampire flesh,

doesn't require the user to remember charging it, as it passively collects whatever (eldritch) energy it needs from the environment.

Near-perfect for a space-faring vampire scientist with ADHD!

And when you already have that sort of tech, why not use it to improve other people's lives? And sure it has worked, at least to some degree. Not that most mortals would live long enough to truly appreciate the unbreakability of these mechanisms, but still, it's improved people's lives. And it got Carmilla enough rapport with the locals to keep the G-Pol's investigations (and their "serial killer" charges - honestly, a girl has to eat!) off Carmilla's back. So it was very practical to have different types of these little unbreakable miracles at hand (an advanced enough science is indistinguishable from magic), ready to use for strangers who'd need them, and pay for them.

Jonny was an accident. See, usually that sort of surgery is pre-planned. Usually, a significant amount of effort goes into keeping a patient safely alive thorough the surgery process. There was no way to guess (and thus test) beforehand what would happen if one of these little miracles got connected to an extremely fresh corpse. I mean, why would anyone waste one of these on a corpse, fresh or not, if not for the desperation of a parent who refused to let death win? (necromancy is just first aid that's delivered late)

And so the eldritch clockwork blood-pump fussed with the entire body, integrated the flesh into its template design, most likely as a powersource, a battery, and included that "battery" in its self-repair function.

mechanical heart: - access point, - medical-grade steel (microwave-safe), - it pumps blood in timed pulses, - maximum simplicity to minimise vulnerable break points, - smart pacer + fallback clock (1.17 pulse per second) note: his brain should be filtering the noise out note: Jonny, what the hell, trauma symptoms aren't "side effects"

extra notes:

- the access point should have allowed for DYI repairs, but Jonny is more likely to try to break something than to fix it,

- he may be one of the people who can hear their own heartbeat,

- the fallback ticking tempo of the device is just slightly differently paced than ticking of an analogue clock.

So the medical device that was supposed to keep its user alive - and it has the side effect of keeping its user alive. Like, infinitely, and through experiences that no mortal should've been able to survive.

I expect that Jonny's newfound immortality was a surprise to Jonny and Carmilla alike. I expect that they didn't know why it had happened for Jonny and not for other people. When the effect had reoccured with Nastya's blood replacement - that may have narrowed down the why, but still left a whole lot of variables that might or might not be necessary for a mechanisation process to take.

Jonny, Nastya, Ashes, Ivy, Scuzz, Brian - none of them would've been able to survive without what they had replaced by the mechanism. There are mentions of failed mechanisation attempts, but going by how many of the potentially important variables are kept, and yet at least some prove to not be necessary later? Carmilla actively tried to avoid mechanisations that could fail over those variables. Carmilla chose to keep those variables in every attempt, chose to avoid the risk of trying to mechanise the people who didn't meet those variables - the scientific method put aside for the sake of something more important.

mechanical lung (internal) - access point, - medical grade steel, - oxygenates blood, - air filters note: Ashes, please stop testing the capacity of the filters. these filters need time to self-clean

extra notes:

- the access point was placed on their back due to a lesson learnt with Jonny and for the sake of everyday comfort and ease of accessing the lung area directly,

- the fallback pace was set to a resting tempo to better allow for "sleeping it off" until the mechanism fixes itself (no need for another Mechanism getting slightly hyper during a malfunction)

mechanical brain (opening the cover illustrated) - extra batteries allow for higher performance, - cannot be turned off, - AI with personality pre-programmed - don't treat her like a baby, she is learning - make backups!!! nanorobotic blood - not intended for warm-blooded species, - was to be temporary, - not mercury, WTF - thick, silver, liquid, transports nutrients maintain bio-heart - do not replace! - do not attempt to remove! - more in the manual note: where?

Has Brian mechanised that priest, effectively?

And then there is the Toy Soldier - who has mechanised itself by a process notably inverse to everyone else's. The Toy Soldier who has replaced a part of its self-repairing wood-based body with a fleshy-meaty component it's scavenged out of a very fresh mortal corpse. (wood is more versatile than metal, for those with knowledge and patience needed to work with it.)

The Toy Soldier did not need a voicebox to survive. Gunpowder Tim was mechanised after Carmilla left, but he could have survived as a blind mortal, too. Raphaella gave herself a spinal structure to attach two extra limbs that she never had as a mortal (in the world shaped for humanoids - more of a social hindrance than a boon) - was she even dying before the process? Marius wouldn't die from being one-armed.

- metal-bone fusion zone should not move, - openable casing (responsible for eye movement), openable shell, lenses and filters, neural interface (tech-nerve fusion zone) note:any mistakes in the fusion zones will be permanent note: use eyelid slices to cover the shutters to make sure they don't fuse permanently open!

I think the lines by Tim's eyes are sort of a gate in the flesh, installed so that the space around his mechanism-eyes would be accessible for repair -- it's much easier to open the mechanism the way it's designed to open than to exercise the futility of trying to separate it from the flesh it's fused with. I think that part of Tim's mechanisation was replacing his still-healthy eye sockets and part of optical nerves, too.

mechanical wings: spinal fusion 1 (neck), attachment port (triangular), motion support (also triangular like 4 extra scapulas), 2 "rib" processors, spinal fusion 2 (lumbar region), neural cabling through the vertical middle column parallel to the spine

Raphaella can swap between the wing models, but the port for connecting them, her mechanism, stays firmly there.

Can TS, Marius and Tim take their mechanisms off? I think not, at least not TS nor Tim.

mechanical arm - notes: Marius, why? All the fucking weapons were two-handed and it was marketed as cutting-edge tech and it was a war-zone liability: the arm can be separated by cutting through the stump fusion zone around the stump neural interface cannot be accessed, cannot be fixed unknown contents between the stump and the elbow elbow: the joint is made out of three: pivot, hinge, and another pivot unknown contents of the zone between elbow and wrist - pressure and temperature fluctuations happen wrist appears to be constructed like the elbow, but the functionality is partly broken a broken spread-fold structure mid hand - it can only spread and needs external pressure to fold fingers have two hinge joints each, except for the thumb that has the base joint constructed like a smaller version of the elbow external fixtures improve the functionality

is the self-healing factor is likely to be more intense around the mechanism?

Jonny is an unreliable narrator, what is the chance that the story about trying to use a black hole to separate his mechanism and flesh has happened?

Unlike medical devices and prosthetics - a mechanism has a primary function of keeping the flesh attached to it alive at all costs. The medical / prosthetic function is secondary. Unlike contemporary prosthetics, these mechanisms cannot be taken off.

At least some (if not all) of the Mechs are gonna yearn for the impossibility of taking those off -- mortality aside, it'd:

- it'd make cleaning much easier,

- it'd be nice to relieve the muscle tension from having one's body-weight distributed differently than what the humanoid body is prepared for,

- the neural feedback that's only partially compatible with the nerve system is disorienting, and makes tasks that require any precision - extra difficult.

like, my own biological optical wiring has a tendency to go weird, so at times it was literally easier to just cover my eyes (eyelids wouldn't fully cut off the light) and go around do stuff sight-less - than to keep dealing with sensory overload of just slightly wrong light - unfortunately, i never had a computer with enough RAM for a fully functional NVDA (non-visual desktop access)

I definitely think that Tim would sometimes do that.

I definitely think that Marius would default to doing precision tasks with his left hand. I may be ambidextrous (more like ambisinistri honestly) myself, but this rant is also very very insistent on it (content warning for medical abuse and discussion of ableism) :

i've ran out of steam before i could figure out the precise inner mechanics of each mechanism, but i guess this long rambling post is long enough?

i'd love to hear other people's ideas!

[kamreadsandrecs]

Title: Singer Distance

Author: Ethan Chatagnier

Genre/s: literary fiction, historical, science fiction

Content/Trigger Warning/s: parental abandonment

Summary (from author's website): The odds of the planet next door hosting intelligent life are―that’s not luck. That’s a miracle. It means something.

In December 1960, Crystal Singer, her boyfriend Rick, and three other MIT grad students take a cross-country road trip from Boston to Arizona to paint a message in the desert. Mars has been silent for thirty years, since the last time Earth solved one of the mathematical proofs the Martian civilization carved onto its surface. The latest proof, which seems to assert contradictory truths about distance, has resisted human understanding for decades. Crystal thinks she’s solved it, and Rick is intent on putting her answer to the test―if he can keep her from cracking under the pressure on the way. But Crystal’s disappearance after the experiment will set him on a different path than he expected, forever changing the distance between them.

Filled with mystery and wonder, Ethan Chatagnier’s Singer Distance is a novel about ambition, loneliness, friendship, exploration, and love―about how far we’re willing to go to communicate with a distant civilization, and the great lengths we’ll travel to connect with each other here on Earth.

Buy Here: https://bookshop.org/p/books/singer-distance-ethan-chatagnier/18754404

Spoiler-Free Review: Gosh but I wish this book had been able to live up to what it was trying to do. I can see it, can almost smell it, tbh, but DAMN does it not follow through.

Pros: the language is really genuinely lovely. The narrator’s voice isn’t DISTINCT, but it’s quite lovely regardless. The author certainly knows how to paint images, and string them together in a way that makes for lovely reading. I got to hand that to them.

I’ve also got to hand to them the concept behind this novel. While the idea of communicating with aliens isn’t a new one, I kind of liked the spin presented in this book: pre-radio, using Earth’s surface like a giant signboard to talk to the aliens living on another planet who happen to communicate in a similar way. It actually makes a certain kind of sense, though the environmental damage is staggering (and is briefly touched upon in the novel).

What I DIDN’T entirely like about this novel was it felt so navel-gazey in an almost self-indulgent way. I liked the attempt to explore the concepts of distance - not just between planets, but between people, and between the self and memory. It also attempts to tackle the concepts of wonder and awe and curiosity, All interesting, of course, but there’s a meandering feel to the plot that feels like the long road trips that are described in the first and latter third: like blank spaces between origin and destination. The plot, such as it is, consists of all these musings and ideas but they aren’t held together by, you know, ACTUAL PLOT.

Another thing that’s unfortunate about this novel is how the female characters get lost in all that navel-gazing. At a certain point I found myself wishing that this story was being narrated by one of the female characters instead; maybe then there’d be a bit more dimension and depth to this book than the narrator was providing.

And then there’s the ending. Gosh, but that ending landed about as well as an untrained person trying to imitate Simone Biles and just. Failing utterly. I can see where it’s trying to go, I can see what it’s trying to do given everything that came before it, but it plopped right into the middle of a cliche and I was reading that last line going: “That’s it? THAT’S IT?!” Honestly disappointing.

Overall, this is a novel that has Ambitions, I guess, and tries to get there with truly lovely language that’s quite pleasant to read, but damn does it get lost on the way - and, worse, that ending does NOT stick the landing. YMMV I guess, but I’m largely disappointed by this.

Rating: two equations

[sundrde]

(  muse n /  26  /  cis female  /  she/her  ) — did you see  vivienne moore  wandering around the island today? they kind of look like  zendaya  from certain angles? i heard around town that the  baker is  altruistic and  cordial, but also  diffident and  stoic. people say that they remind them of  clear frames with lenses that are lightly fogged,  baggy knitted cardigans, and  the sound of soft laughter echoing through the kitchen, and  good days by sza is definitely their theme song. they seem like a nice enough person, but we all know how hard it is to keep a pristine reputation in a small town.

hi everyone!! i'm jojo, and i'm stoked to be here :) here's a quick rundown of vivi, and if you'd like to plot, feel free to hit me up!!

ꔛ ۫ ✿ dossier, basics.

full name: vivienne iris moore

nickname(s): vivi, viv, v

age: 26 years old

date of birth: july 14

birthplace: saint james, missouri

current residence: kings haven, massachusetts

gender: cis woman, she/her pronouns

orientation: pansexual, panromantic

occupation: baker at early gull and business owner

ꔛ ۫ ✿ dossier, history.

vivi was adopted by a sweet older couple when she was four years old and raised in the countryside of missouri

family was everything to her. she was close to her parents, and they always provided her a childhood full of unconditional love and support :') her fondest memories of them involved baking sweets every sunday afternoon

growing up she was always the outdoors-y type, appreciating nature and all of it's beauty. aside providing assistance in tending the farm, she was always found hanging out by the fields or water, reading a book or knitting

as an only child living in the literal middle of nowhere, on top of being homeschooled, her social skills ... needed some help!! small talk with the elderly came easy, but with peers and those her age? seemed impossible. even up until now, with slight improvement, she continues to be more reserved

her experience with public school began in high school. it was hard for her to fit in and make friends, so she kept a tight-knit group and focused on her studies

she was then accepted into the university of massachusetts, and 4 years later, received her bachelor's degree in agricultural sciences

a part of her wanted to go back home after graduating, but her parents convinced her that it was time to be selfish. so, she settled down in kings haven and it's been her home since!!

now she works as a baker at the early gull to make ends meet. her real passion is her currently failing business, where she crochets little plants and flower bouquets and sells them online

ꔛ ۫ ✿ dossier, facts.

isn't a big fan of the elite and the wealthy - due to the fact that they've screwed over her parents and their business in the past. she'll be cordial towards them, though maintains a distance

has a green thumb!! she has a lil fruit and veggie garden at her place and will sometimes share the harvest to neighbors and friends

acts like a mom that is worried about ur well-being

is so old fashioned that she hasn't upgraded her phone in years ... and prefers phone calls over texts ... sends letters in the mail ... listens to music on an ipod nano and pays $1.25 per song ...

loves to bake!! her specialties include macarons and any fruit pie imaginable

has a lil mini schnauzer named pepper

[cagedchoices]

kiss roulette (maeve)

kiss roulette

24. a sleepy kiss

@killjoysanonymous

It's an almost cruel irony just how strongly they've been set up to fail at something that shouldn't even have been a test in the first place. 'And there's only one bed' is a concept straight out of some cheesy romance story, but it's also a reality observed by the duo staring down at the solo queen-sized bed available in their rented suite. And soon enough, feelings and questions they've each tried to bury and forget are pried open at the instant they respectively slip beneath the covers. Is this love, and if it is, is it real?

Not that Caleb understands the world as such, but a human on the most basic level of biological comprehension is nothing more than a collection of electrical impulses trying desperately to make sense of its environment. A person is little more than a meatsack firing off a series of synapses that create a chain reaction of chemicals that result in a thought. The thought then cascades into a look, a word, a gesture that spirals into chaos and the ruin of mankind itself. 

Humans are powered by a science that they seldom possess the capacity to even try to think about. Most never question whether their experiences are real or not, if the things they feel are authentic and true or just some story they tell themselves to define who they are, or why they act in the ways that they do. Sleep is a prime example of the same process by which entire civilizations have been brought crumbling to their knees.

But it's the drowsy press of his mouth he offers up to Maeve's that surpasses any notion of war or love or reality that ever has or ever will exist in any possible future. He can barely keep his eyes open, which is fine for this — they're not necessary for kissing anyway. He can taste just a suggestion of sherry lingering past her lips, the slightest mix of almond, caramel, and grape wine that she'd had in lieu of a real dinner.

The more time he spends around her, the more the line between their kinds is softened and obscured. It hardly matters that she isn't A human in the legitimate sense of the word. But then a wave of guilt washes over him, or something with a similar effect, and he breaks off the kiss.

His chin comes to rest soundly on her shoulder, words musing quietly. "This is insane, isn't it? Us..."

[thegirlwiththelilactattoo]

No. 6, or a Writing Process

Once upon a time, my writing process was as follows: write an entire paper based on vibes and evidence from readings. Let the argument develop organically. If at some point I didn't like the writing style, argument, or anything else, delete the entire paper and restart. It didn't matter if I had 1 page or 8, if I didn't like the paper, I would rewrite the whole thing from scratch.

Most of the forms of taking stock of ideas before writing haven't worked for me. Outlines in their I/II/III/a./b./c. are too structured to be hold the all the ideas happening in my head that cannot be made sense of in roman numerals. For me, the process of writing is where I start making connections and synthesizing ideas. It's the part that I like and enjoy. I need to dump fully formed ideas, musings, considerations, secondary and primary data on a page and only then can I make sense what all the information is telling me. I couldn't tell you how one idea builds into the next or where one ideas flows into the other because I need to write it first. I need to experience it and make the connections, and develop the ideas.

As a college student, this manifested in my terrible habit of writing and deleting thousands of words until what I had on the page was as if someone had lovingly made sense of the red stringed conspiracy board in my head. This worked fine for me in college. Like was it entirely inefficient? Absolutely! Did my papers suffer for it? Nope!

It's only in grad school that I've had to reevaluate this process. In No. 4, I talked about imposter syndrome. I never used to be an anxious writer. In college I felt very confident about my skills as a write, it wasn't until grad school that I started to feel like an imposter. I'm hyperaware of how my own writing style fails to match up to scholars in the field or my peers. I am compelled to self edit constantly to emulate "good" prose and that makes writing feel impossible. It's another thing grad school has taken from me, the joy of writing confidently and unashamed.

Now that I am responsible for writing a 60,000 word document in the next 13 months, I have tried to find ways of working that support my writing and thinking process.

Mind Mapping

Mind mapping is one of my first steps to dealing with anxiety. With a mind map I am dealing with the known. The data I already have and my general ideas. It's also the most legible outline I have to convey to my committee members that thinking is happening.

My first step before writing is to summarize the points that I want to make in a paragraph. I try to cover the main ideas in broad strokes and craft a short thesis. For me, this has to be as open as possible. If it's too specific and maps out each move, I feel restricted and anxious.

Once my summary is complete, I make a mind map. I'm in the social sciences and working quite interdisciplinary, so the mind map helps me to organize my thoughts and the breadth of data visually. This is a must for me. It's very similar to an outline, but something about the blobs feels much less stressful. I've used MindMup (free) and am currently using MindNode (paid).

I basically use the mind map as a quasi outline to get the general idea of the logical path of my argument and the main pieces of evidence I'll use to craft my argument. This also serves as the basic structure of the chapter organization.

Because the mind map is relatively general, I feel free to explore various lines of thought, which then leads me to my Zero Draft!

Note: I also use a similar mind map in the literature review process either through an app or on a bulletin board like how I describe in this post.

[Alt text: Screenshot of a mind map. The original content has been covered with boxes to generalize the categories. The first node says Argument One which leads to another node that says Literature Review. It then branches off to three child nodes that say Data 1, Data 2, and Data 3.]

Zero Draft

I'm currently at the Zero Draft phase of my first chapter. This topic is mentioned in Joan Bulker's Writing Your Dissertation in Fifteen Minutes a day, where most of her advice for writing your dissertation is to just...write.

This is the part of writing that is really fun for me, the infodump. I use a zero draft to do all the messy thinking and linking of ideas. I leave ideas unedited and clunky. I move from section to section at my leisure. I delete things. I write notes to myself about ideas I want to develop or lingering questions that I want to address.

It's the draft where I feel free to just say anything without justifying myself. As such, I don't really make any concrete arguments in this draft. It's kind of like sculpting the body and later I figure out what the head will look like.

The zero draft is for messiness that I will then refine in a later draft. Once my zero draft is written, I have a good sense of what I actually want to say and can rewrite my first draft to most effectively say it. It's essentially like doing a reverse outline.

Closing Thoughts (???)

Writing can be such an opaque process and academia thrives on this "figure it out own your own" mentality. I've never really found writing advice that spoke to my own particular neurodivergent way of thinking, so I hope this is helpful to at least someone else!

[stevensaus]

The Casual Disregard Of The Neurodivergent Voice

I had the pleasure of watching the 2017 BBC2 TV movie "Chris Packham: Asperger's and Me" (IMDB, BBC) recently. The whole film is (as far as I'm aware) NOT available for purchase or viewing any longer, although Packham's new documentary, Inside Our Autistic Minds, is available on the BBC iPlayer for those in the UK. There were two brief instances from "Asperger's and Me" that really highlight why I have such a big problem with Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA) as well as its largest proponent, "Autism Speaks." I excerpted the two clips for this discussion (YouTube, Vimeo), though I've transcribed the audio below if you cannot watch or the embed is broken. In the first section, Chris Packham (the host) is speaking to Joann, whose autistic son is being treated with TMS during a clinical trial. PACKHAM: You’ve brought up an autistic son. I think a lot of people probably don't realize the enormous amount of energy and the difference that impacts on the family. that's hard. JOANN: it's very hard and that's why autism is very isolating for families. it's it's exhausting to meet the needs to meet the safety, you know, there's divorce, there's bankruptcies... because everything goes into the safety well-being and treatments for our kids. PACKHAM: it's it it is you know painful to watch I've been there I've struggled myself so you know in that sense you know you're looking for any form of cure at times you see him failing and that's that's uncomfortable. If another therapy arose whereby you could cure autism. What would you think of that? JOANN: I think on a bad, frustrating day, I'd say yes. I think on a day like today, where I've never been so proud of him, I'd say no. It's complicated, but on the on the bad days, absolutely. There's two things of note here: Joann's not quite hidden reaction to the idea of a "cure" is the first. The second, and more important one, is that while Packham speaks of the the challenges his autism has caused for him, Joann (without malice) focuses on the ways that her son's autism has effected the family. The second clip is a stark contrast. In this section, Packham interviews Vincent Strully, who founded the New England Center for Children, which heavily relies on Applied Behavioral Analysis therapy. During the introduction to this bit, Packham commented on how unfriendly the school Strully founded is for those with sensory processing issues, which is common in autistic people. Strully compares ABA to "chemotherapy," awkwardly trying to joke that chemotherapy was originally considered "poison." Except that is a fairly accurate description of chemotherapy -- it's just that chemotherapy is designed to kill the cancer faster than the patient. Strully, who is NOT a doctor of any kind, as he only holds a bachelor's in political science, is clearly unaware of this fact. Yet Strully has unexpectedly made a perfect analogy. ABA is about deliberately removing autistic behaviors so that "professional observers would not be able to tell the autistic child ." The question -- just as it is with chemotherapy -- is whether or not that treatment is worse than what it proports to cure. That is a deeply personal and subjective question with chemotherapy, and one where there is no one-size-fits-all answer. Packham muses on this throughout the documentary. He recognizes that he has relatively low support needs, and while the world may be difficult at times for Packham, he recognizes that other people with higher support needs may have a far worse subjective experience. Strully, on the other hand, has absolutely no hesitation in knowing what is "best" for other people. STRULLY: This is educational chemotherapy for these kids. Who wouldn't deny them the chemical or medical chemotherapy they need for their cancer, but to deny them the the work that we and our colleagues around the country are doing successfully? Is, you know, it's just wrong. PACKHAM: If you could, would you cure autism? STRULLY: If I could, of course. And that would be a prayer come true. Strully's language makes it clear that he views neurodiversity as a disease -- he literally compares autism to cancer -- and that the goal of the treatment is to make autistic people more convenient for society, not the other way around. The quick, thoughtless arrogance that Strully shows here seems like it should be the exception. It is not. Physicians -- even those who are the heads of "Autism and Psychology" at major healthcare corporations -- who acknowledge that "each person with ASD presents unique experiences which can make finding effective care more difficult as it’s often personalized to an individual’s specific needs" will then immediately turn around and advocate that ABA therapy is the appropriate therapy for all autistic people. While "Autism Speaks" continues to receive criticism from actually autistic and neurodivergent people, the organization -- which is also a staunch advocate of ABA -- is regularly cited by network and cable news. The optimistic part of me thinks that ABA's popularity is due to big business, with its largest proponents and advocates either not being qualified (cough Strully cough) or are burdened with enormous financial conflicts of interest. The pessimist side of me thinks that ABA's popularity is because of its patronizing arrogance that values other's convenience over the autistic person's needs. But it does not have to be this way. On the "1800 Seconds On Autism" BBC podcast, Packham was interviewed by hosts Robyn Steward and Jamie Knight (audio, transcript). One of the things Packham talks about is working with his allistic (or neurotypical) colleagues. Packham said, "...very often I'd be working in situations which I was finding suboptimal or occasionally difficult. But now I'm just candid and upfront, and I find that the people that I work with are enormously respectful. They might do very often small changes, which mean that I can become a far more effective and productive part of the team." When I mention these kinds of accommodations to others, I often get a lot of pushback. The allistic person seems to expect that there will be huge, taxing demands made of them. Their focus is not on the overall productivity of the team, but instead on how inconvenient whatever accommodations will be for them. Consider: It is now commonplace to talk about people with "different learning styles" and to make sure that any training -- including the most routine annual training at a workplace -- makes an effort to address visual, auditory, kinesthetic, and reading/writing learners. Yet a neurodivergent person's need for specific, detailed instructions or direct communication styles is somehow seen as too great a burden. Instead of minor changes being made to improve both the employee's quality of life and the effectiveness of the work unit as a whole, neurodivergent persons are forced to work in allistic conditions. A personal example: I work quickly and effectively with fast and rhythmic music in the background, with as few vocals as possible. (Thank goodness for Digitally Imported.) If there are conversations or other snippets of "words" flying about (such as in the lyrics of pretty much any top 40 pop song), it makes it extremely difficult for me to focus. But for years my co-workers actively tried to exclude my few selections from the music playing at the office. As I wrote in 2019: the people around you would rather make you listen to music you hate all the time rather than let a single song you care for play once every hour or two. How would you feel in that situation? How hurt would you be after seeing that your peers would rather have you be uncomfortable all the time rather than give up their preference for what they want all the time? That even though you went out of your way to make sure others felt included, they actively excluded you? I did not realize at the time that my own flavor of neurodivergence was what made it so disruptive and difficult for me. But I definitely realized how much their actions had both my productivity and feelings of isolation. The mindset behind ABA and that kind of lack of accommodation is unneeded, wasteful, and cruel. Like Packham, I am certain there are those neurodivergent people who would take a cure, where the differences in their brains get in the way of what that person wants. And make no mistake, I am far more aware than most of the emotional, financial, and even physical toll that neurodivergence can take on a family. But I also wonder how many people feel that way not because of their own needs and desires, but because everyone else simply cannot be bothered to take enough time to think about someone else's needs. Featured Image by nugroho dwi hartawan from Pixabay Read the full article

[makers-muse]

What unique benefits does our STEAM lab provide? 

Today’s students need skills that go beyond traditional academics, preparing them for a world driven by innovation and problem-solving. Our STEAM lab offers a dynamic environment where students engage with Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics in ways that ignite their curiosity and build real-world skills. Here’s how our STEAM lab creates unique learning experiences for young minds. 

1. Hands-On Exploration and Experimentation 

Our STEAM lab emphasizes learning by doing. Students work on hands-on projects like building simple machines, coding games, or designing circuits. These activities allow them to understand complex concepts in a tangible way, fostering an experimental mindset where they can learn from trial and error. 

2. Promoting Interdisciplinary Learning 

STEAM blends multiple disciplines, helping students make connections between subjects. For example, a project on designing a bridge might involve engineering, physics, and art. This interdisciplinary approach encourages students to think holistically, seeing how different fields interact in real-world applications. 

3. Fostering Creativity and Innovation 

Creativity is at the core of our STEAM lab. Here, students are encouraged to think outside the box, design unique solutions, and express themselves through various projects. Whether it’s coding a story or creating an artwork with robotics, they learn that creativity is essential in problem-solving.learn more 

4. Building Essential 21st-Century Skills 

Our STEAM lab focuses on more than just technical knowledge. It promotes critical thinking, collaboration, communication, and adaptability—all skills essential for future success. Working in teams and sharing ideas helps students understand the importance of different viewpoints and builds their communication abilities. 

5. Boosting Confidence and Resilience 

Tackling challenges in our STEAM lab helps students build resilience and confidence. By working through complex tasks and sometimes failing before they succeed, they learn persistence. This growth mindset is invaluable, encouraging them to approach future challenges with determination and self-assurance. 

6. Inspiring a Lifelong Passion for Learning 

Our STEAM lab sparks a deep, lasting interest in learning. Through engaging projects and hands-on exploration, students find joy in discovery. This enthusiasm often translates into a long-term passion for STEM, arts, and creative problem-solving, setting the stage for a lifetime of curiosity. 

Ready to experience the benefits of our STEAM lab! 

Provide your child with a learning experience that extends beyond textbooks. Discover how our STEAM lab can inspire creativity, confidence, and a love for STEM.Unleash your child’s potential with Makers’ Muse! Explore our hands-on STEAM programs and ignite a love for learning today. 

[xaracosmia]

ꕥ — WELCOME TO EXO COSMIA, SHADOW THE HEDGEHOG. 🌑

ꕥ  — OOC INFORMATION;

name / alias: Cyan age: 26 pronouns: She/Her ooc contact: @SOLXDSNAKE on Twitter other characters in xc: Nicholas D. Wolfwood, Red

ꕥ  — IC INFORMATION;

name: Shadow the Hedgehog age: approx. 16, chronologically 50+ pronouns: He/Him series: Sonic the Hedgehog Series canon point: Latest game (Sonic Forces) app triggers: medical experimentation, body horror, mass death, death of a child, disease, government cover ups, unreality, memory loss, identity loss, manipulation, unreality, aliens.

personality:

Shadow is not hard to understand. However, if you were to ask anyone about him, the responses will be as varied as they are colorful: he’s an asset, a liability, a friend, a harbinger of doom, he’s up to no good, he works to benefit mankind. All of these statements have a degree of veracity to them, to an extent.

Truth is, Shadow is a mystery.

Even those “close” to him struggle to understand his intent, motives or emotions— for they are always hidden behind a permanent scowl, inscrutable expression and an aloof, snarky demeanor.

Truth is, there’s much lost to time.

Shadow is aware of his altered mind. It’s been that way since he became a shooting star, crash-landing on the surface. Bad actors have tried and failed to use this condition to their benefit while also trying to take advantage of hedgehog’s introspective nature, his curiosity and loyalty. In the end these memories are everything he is, they are his burden.

Truth is, more complicated than it seems.

His monolithic worldview makes Shadow… difficult, to interact with. He’s stubborn, has a mighty superiority complex and prefers to do things his way, and that’s the real problem. The hedgehog is an anti-hero through and through, he has an odd moral compass and more layers than the green ogre ever explained, nonetheless, it’s easy to see that his subdued temper can rise quickly and he’s not above less than heroic methods to get what he wants.

The agent is also, intelligent. Always scrutinizing everything, asking, taking notes, in the end he was built for science, and medicine and— of course, the mission to protect, in his own way.

Truth is, Shadow is the Ultimate Lifeform.

And that is not hard to understand.

something your muse struggles with: Grief / Anger / Relationships (in general)

your muse’s greatest strength: Loyal / Cautious / Smart

history / background:

Project Shadow was a top secret medical and military research program spearheaded by Prof. Gerald Robotnik PhD. backed and funded by the United Federation and the Guardian Units of Nations; however, not everyone involved had the same goals in mind.

Prof. Gerald believed that he could outsmart the two organizations while he worked on the project of the Ultimate Life, a living creature that would embody immortality, peace and protect Earth, with that DNA, he could cure disease and make a better world for everyone, including for his immunocompromised granddaughter, Maria.

(He would have never gotten there if it wasn’t for a long, dark, helping hand from the depths of space— but I digress.)

Eventually, the research gave fruit with the birth of Shadow. Prof. Gerald was ecstatic but nobody was happier than Maria who became Shadow's first and best friend. Almost immediately, Shadow became more than an experiment, he was loved by his new family, and the researchers were fond of him.

G.U.N. and the United Federation were disappointed by the project, and disagreed with the scientists, thus they decided to forcibly shut it all down and silence everyone involved.

On one fateful day, G.U.N arrived at the ARK unannounced and they made sure nobody would be left to tell the tale. Nobody but Shadow, whom thanks to Maria, got to an escape pod and Prof. Gerald captured by G.U.N.

The project fell into obscurity, what happened at the ARK became legend, and people would have forgotten it all if not for Prof. Gerald's grandson finding out about the incident.

So, Dr. Eggman would infiltrate G.U.N., and awaken Shadow from his long sleep.

powers / abilities:

First things first, what is Chaos Energy? Chaos Energy is an all powerful, mystical and little understood type of energy present everywhere in the universe. Manipulation of Chaos Energy can warp time and space as well as be channeled into attacks. Shadow by nature collects and stores huge amounts of Chaos Energy within him.

Chaos Control: The user needs to be in possession of a Chaos Emerald, this technique is overpowered as it can slow or stop time and bend or manipulate space.

Chaos Spear: Spear shaped bolts of Chaos Energy that can be fired.

Chaos Blast: A powerful explosion of energy that destroys everything in a 20 yard radius.

Chaos Snap: Similar to Chaos Control but Shadow can perform it without a chaos emerald, it allows him to teleport short distances.

Chaos-Space Attacks: With Chaos Energy, Shadow can distort space and transform it into energy - turning it into force fields, orbs of black matter or using it to cover his fists with said energy, etc.

Chaos Rift: A tear into space, mini black hole.

Chaos Healing: The use of energy to mend wounds.

Hammer Space: With the control of space, Shadow can hide in hammer spaces for brief amounts of time. It’s also where he carries his inventory.

Teleportation.

Acceleration based floating/flying.

Black Arms Biology, what? (Yeah to be added ™.)

inherent abilities:

Superhuman Strength, Speed, Stamina, Senses and Metabolism.

Really sturdy.

Restoration & Regeneration.

In tune with Chaos Energy.

Immortality.

Partially Immune to disease.

Skilled gunmanship.

Acrobatics and athleticism.

Intelligence and cunning.

Curling up into a ball and using homing attacks, and spin-dashes.

Knowledge of Black Arms language.

Very familiar with science/medicine.

Sharp teeth, claws, night vision, animal.

Could blow up if he does not have his inhibitors, this is something he cannot control.

items / weapons:

Seven Chaos Emeralds: Mysterious jewels with incredible, reality bending powers, legend has it that once all of them are together, a miracle will happen.

Inhibitor Rings: Shadow is a being that’s naturally full of chaos energy, he also attracts said energy to himself, in order to remain stable he needs the inhibitors.

Air Shoes: Shadow’s Air Shoes allow him to use his stored chaos energy in order to effectively skate around at incredible speeds.

Gerald’s Diary: It contains top secret information.

Dark Rider: Cool bike.

Picture of Gerald and Maria.

Picture of Team Dark.

100 Rings.

A Chao named Umbra, chao also have chaos powers but much more limited.

starting ability: Chaos energy manipulation starting item: Umbra

extra:

Can you see all of me, walk into my mystery.

Shadow has all Chaos Emeralds but I will share if more Sonic characters are apped.

This guy is so Mentally Ill.

4 feet (approx.) of whoopass.

Very extensive beauty routine, likes dressing up.

Loves lavender.

Technically a soldier working for the government.

He’s the ultimate lifeform.

(Keanu Reeves crying meme)

discord id: perfectexistence

[hospitalterrorizer]

diary242

5/16-17/24

thursday - friday

closing 2morrow.

i watched this:

really incredible i think. feels like a bizarre, ecstatic investigation of the medical-scientific apparatuses that have produced our current world. it's perhaps less critical than that, and it differs from say tetsuo and pinnochio 964 in that it, rather than using technology and mutation as a poetics/clusters of metaphors for a life against the normal, it seems to put technology on both sides, as producing experiments and tests which will go on to enforce the norm. from this perspective it seems more critical, although its motives are blurry, in truth, i think what is really exciting in it is that it keeps the potential for being an outsider, and for experiencing excitement, in the realm of not being mutated physically but being posed against the forces which seek to experiment and expand knowledge. the boys produce interpretations, this is different from the task of science, they claim they are already dead, they are self-possessed corpses who travel the logics that inscribe/write (write is important here, they are descending from texts that inform them, and from there they too might find a path in which to go astray), and eventually counter those logics with interpretive acts.

it is also extremely angura, a really interesting thing was happening with the early jp cyberpunk film stuff. i like how informed this one is by theater, since it is a play put to film i guess that's not surprising but it is shot incredibly well for that kinda thing.

something so fascinating about how the protagonists express their violence, the fighting with one another at the start.

i was thinking earlier, i wonder if a lot of the very interesting cyberpunk anime i've seen owes more to this kind of outre and avant garde stuff than anyone really thinks to talk about. i mean, i think so, seeing tetsuo is enough in some ways, however i think there's more to it than that. in some ways the psychotic set design in this film here recalls like, lain's cyberspace. there is something liberating to me about knowing that these levels of abstraction really can be reached anywhere as long as one tries. poor lighting, willful digitalism and odd use of greenscreens, the non-space created here, suggesting nothing but offering a space for the actors to really move, climb, struggle, yes, it is the struggling, the grappling with themselves is constant. that is something lost in lain, easily. something that shows like texhnolyze try and approach. but ultimately, right now, this kind of thing produced on film has a more pointed set of politics. malice@doll, maybe, retains some of that though i am not sure. chiaki j konaka is too spiritual at times. this is lovely and beautiful, as are the other things i've been seeing recently (soon i need to get to rubber's lover (always on the mind... gerorisuto)), for the fact of the body, engagement with it, knowing one can't turn back from it and that the body is a warzone of utilities pointed against the act of living, a set of measures against the body to make one always know oneself, and so on. it's not that most anime fails there, it's just some of the stuff lots of people talk about. it's odd.

shoujo, in my experience, with the elongated bodies and so on, seems to express the body better in ways. the eyes as a whole atmosphere one is lost it. that is physical, to the point of horror, but a lovely horror, lost in another's eyes, lost in my own eyes, what they see, the reflection without occupant, the mirror capturing the act of mirroring (here lispector's writing on mirrors in agua viva is coming to me oddly).

anyway, this musing is fun but i want to save this kind of energy for actual writing which i am perpetually too exhausted for right now but i have a good opportunity, i need to send some stuff to my friend for that.

today, i also worked on like...3 songs. 10 done now. i really do think "done". one of the songs was really rough though!!! ableton kept crashing, i think that one's fine. i really don't know if that one can really even be worked on atm. we'll see though, it's been worked on enough probably.

listening to peggy march's i will follow him right now. i think i need to watch scorpio rising again soon. i love that movie. i love anger, kenneth, anger.

gosh, what a song and film.

i think soon i'll watch this:

glad this channel has a film from korea, this one seems pretty interesting, i like giant factories.

thinking of movies with giant buildings absorbing, or feeling like they absorb whole places people lived, i am reminded of hakuchi the innocent, which is based on an ango sakaguchi story, as far as i know a lot of his work is still untranslated, which is sad, because that movie makes him seem extremely interesting. i need to rewatch it. it comes back to my mind a lot, i think it's maybe one of my favorite looking movies ever and deals w/ japan's horrific position in ww2 and its attempts to sanitize itself kind of, at least in an off-side kind of way.

but it really is insanely beautiful looking, for something from 1999, it feels like one of the most intense grapplings w/ showa era aesthetics and efforts to update them and contend with what they can mean, in that way it really reminds me of a lot of ero-guro art and ofc angura, but in particular suehiro maruo comes to mind, especially the ww2 and japanese nationalism angles, i wonder if the story the movie adapts was something he ever read (probably, i think sakaguchi is on similar footing to kenzaburo oe, who is talked about besides dazai at times)

maybe one of the most insane uses cg ever, just so totally amazing. the movie really does come to mind a lot, so i guess that means it means a lot to me but the first time i saw it, honestly, i had no idea how to feel. but it keeps coming to mind, all these years later, so it i guess really has a ton going on.

i should see what else makoto tezuka has done, always crazy to me that he did something as crazy as that movie.

i watched this before bed:

funny, i think. cute in a way too, it really does feel like a hokey 70s anime which i like a lot.

anyway, i need to sleep now, i go to work late tomorrow so i think i may sleep in a bit tomorrow but whooo knowssss.

looking forward to getting more mixing done too, 1/3rd of the way through already basically, that is really good i think. still need to figure out cover art and stuff... or like, get started. aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. one thing at a time i guess.

so,

byebye!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!