#Can't Figure Out Desktop Computers? Read This!

[reticent-writer]

heyyy PLEASE I NEEDD Vox x teen! Reader. Where she’s like the Vee’s assistant, or Vox’s assistant or something like that and she sees Vox as a father figure? Tyy

I like this alot

✿✼:*ﾟ:.｡..｡.:*･ﾟﾟ･**･ﾟﾟ･*:.｡..｡.:*ﾟ:*:✼✿　　

the most chaotic job in all of hell, like there is never a peaceful moment in the Vees tower. Someone is always yelling, something is always being broken, and you are in the middle of it. The peacemaker.

Your soul belongs to Vox but you assist all of the Vees. Your like 17/18. You were a hacker before you died, you hacked into the governments software and was killed for it.

You did the same thing to Vox but he didn't get mad instead he offered a secure home/job for your soul. (Seeing that everyone is dead that sounds silly but you shook his hand anyway)

If Vox isn't around to calm down Val and Velvette you're the next best thing. Valentino can talk your ears off as much as he wants and Velvette can use you as a model

In hell you can travel through electronics like Vox

Most of your time is spent with Velvette and Vox, mainly Vox. Vox has you do a lot of work that he trusts no one else with like going to the overlord meetings when no one else wants to

You are genuinely nice, like the other overlords wonder why you're working with the Vees

Your room doesn't have a door, so to get to your room you have to go through electronics to a backroom type of place. It's still in the Vees tower but no one but you or Vox and get to it.

Vox made it like this so if you wanted to be unbothered no one could even knock on your door.

⋆ ˚｡⋆୨୧˚-Vox-˚୨୧⋆｡˚ ⋆

"Y/n are you awake."

You heard Vox from inside your room. You zapped you phone knowing that Vox you feel it. Basically saying you were getting up.

It took you 15 minutes to get ready before you teleported to the monitor room to find Vox watching random sinners on his big screen.

"I'm up, sir."

He dramatically spun his chair to face you.

"I hope it's been a hellish morning so far, what's on today's schedule."

You pulled out your phone and started to read off it, "the day doesn't start until 1 which is when the early talk show starts ot lasts until 3, at 5-7 is a game show, Velvette s show starts at 7, Valentino's live streaming a BDSM thing at 8, late night talk show at 10."

You looked at the time it was 8 am.

"Well since I'm free why don't we work on your mega computer." He offered. He likes how your face lit up and without wasting a second you dragged him to one of the quietest rooms in the building. In it was a desktop with a few wires connected to it.

Your mega computer was a project you started after you sold your soul. You hope it can connect to heaven one day and who is Vox to stop you.

⋆ ˚｡⋆୨୧˚-Velvette-˚୨୧⋆｡˚ ⋆

You were in Fox's monitor room untangling cords.

"Y/N COME HERE." Velvette yelled at you through her phone.

You sighed as you stopped what you were doing and turn went through one of the many TVs.

"Yes, Vel." You smiled, clearly Vox was rubbing off on you.

"Something is missing with this outfit, tell me what it is." She pointed you in the direction of a mannequin with a outfit in your preferred style.

"(￣ヘ￣）ᵁᴹᴹ a (whatever you want)."

She hummed and with a snap of her fingers it appeared.

"Better right?"

"Yes."

"Good it's yours, take it" she snapped again and the outfit was in your hands, "no go put it on, I wanna see it."

"Thank you."

"Don't thank me, put it on."

-It looked amazing-

⋆ ˚｡⋆୨୧˚-Valentino-˚୨୧⋆｡˚ ⋆

"Vox said your not aloud in the studio so the least your could do is read the script." He said as he handed you a think packed.

"Jailbird gets hard time" you read loud in disgust, "do you really think I should be reading this?"

He scoffed, "oh please it's not like I can't see your browser history. A03, wattpad, Quotev, fanfiction.net the list goes on."

You stared at him in disbelief.

"What... Aww is someone embarrassed." He squished your cheeks. Your face was beat red.

"Aw, Chiquita, I don't judge. You should see the more kinky scrips."

"Oh no thanks. I think I hear Vox calling me. Bye." You reached his pocket for his phone and with a poor you were gone.

After that you made it so no one could see any of your activity.

✿✼:*ﾟ:.｡..｡.:*･ﾟﾟ･**･ﾟﾟ･*:.｡..｡.:*ﾟ:*:✼✿　　

A/n: I don't like Valentino. I love his voice tho

[tiredandoptimistic]

thisisnotawebsitedotcom.com complete "riddle" questions and answers

When I first started looking through lists of keywords for thisisnotawebsitedotcom.com, I was confused by a bunch of them which, when entered, produced questions which seem completely unrelated to their trigger phrases. I realized that all the prompts are answers to other questions, meaning it's possible to put them in order and create a complete test. I doubt I'm the first to figure this out, but I still think it's super cool, so here's all the questions and how to find their answers!

(Apologies in advance for the photo quality, they're all described in alt text).

First, you enter the code "RIDDLE" to get "WOULD YOU LIKE TO PLAY A GAME?" which to me is proof that Bill at least has decent taste in movies.

Next, you can either type "NO" or "YES," to get either "YOUR LOSS..." or "WHAT"S MCGUCKET'S FAVORITE SODA"

The answer to this question is "MOUNTAIN DON'T," and while I swear I remember reading this someplace, I can't find the actual source.

Once you enter it, you get the question "WHAT'S A MEDIEVAL HOMONYM?"

Which can be found in the Dark Ages pages of The Book of Bill, in the border of the illuminated manuscript:

"LYRE LIAR"

"Anti-Cipher Tonic" appears near the end of the "Anti Cipher Society" pages, complete with an ingredients list:

The twentieth of which is "Harold's Ramblings"

When you enter it you get another question to which I cannot find the source of the answer, but going off the list of phrases that've been found, I'm guessing it's "UNION MADE"

Bill's government file can be found on the page about the 1940s, and is labeled with:

A number which gets you:

Okay and I swear this is the last one I can't show my work on, but wherever you find it the answer is "Grebley Hemberdreck"

A reference to the picture of Bill celebrating the bubonic plague on the Dark Ages page.

And that funky little rodent gives you:

A reference to Thurburt Mudget Waxstaff III of the Anti-Cipher Society and his eventual fate of being institutionalized:

Once you enter his number, you get a question about tracks in the snow:

Which is answered on Ford's missing journal pages about winter in Gravity Falls:

The tinsel snake gets you "THE 6TH OPTION ON BILL'S EDITING SOFTWARE?"

Which can be found on the page where Bill designs a cover for his book:

The sixth option, "Torture Mentally," leads to:

Which is yet another reference to the Dark Ages, and Bill's adventures with the wizard Xgqrthx the Unpronounceable.

Whose name produces:

An address which is provided on the 1990s Tri Angels page, in the mail order form:

Said address takes you to:

To answer this question, you need to do a little more digging around the website. When you enter the code "NAITSUAF," you get a letter from Bill attempting to recruit you into his MLM soul-selling scheme, complete with this note from his lawyer:

And once you enter the name "MULTILEVEL MARK," you get the final question:

(For some reason I haven't figured out, "CAESAR ATBASH VIGENERE" produces the same result as "MULTILEVEL MARK," so that's one way to skip to the end I guess).

Silas Birchtree is referenced in The Book of Bill on the Cults page:

But his full story isn't revealed until you enter "STOD EHT TCENNOC" on the website.

The whole document is definitely a worthwhile read, but there's really only one aspect that's relevant to our purpose:

It was Emmaline Butternubbins who killed Silas Birchtree (again) in 1952! And when you enter her name into the computer, it tells you that you've finally earned a treat. Huzzah!

(Interestingly to me a least, "EMMALINE BUTTERNUBBINS" and "BUTTERNUBBINS" both work as codes, but "EMMALINE" does not. I guess Bill's not on a first name basis with her).

Anyways, once you enter "DISPENSE MY TREAT," a folder is downloaded onto your device which is full of text-free versions of art from The Book of Bill, which you can use for desktop wallpapers or any other nefarious purposes your mind can conceive of.

I hope you've enjoyed going on this journey with me, because I've sure spent an amount of time on it.

[that-one-weird-kid-from-school]

Jevil and Spamton style swap

(Please, read further below!)

This is a fun idea that I had that if a darker enters a different dark world than their original one, they have to change their designs to fit in that dark world so that they don't turn into stone; I want to explain this in further detail in a future post, but the only thing that matters right now is that I'm redesigning Jevil to fit the style of Ciber Citty and Spamton to fit the style of Card Kingdom.

What I mean by "fit the style of" I will show you with our first case: Jevil.

Jevil is originally from the Card Kingdom, whose darkners are all based on toys; we all know that; it makes sense; that is the Card Kingdom's style, but the Cyber City residents are all based on computer programs, this type of Cyber City stile does not suit Jevil, so we'll have to change his design for him to fit in better.

Now, the first thing that we have to do is take the object that Jevil is based on, the Joker card, and see if it compares to something similar within computers; sadly, it does not.

Yes, there is the infamous Windows Solitaire, which is a basis for cards, but tragically, there is no Joker card in Windows Solitaire, so if he was in the Cyber City, he could not be the Joker card.

This is our starting point.

The problem is that Jevil looks very ugly so we need to loophole our way into giving him the jester stuff.

An idea that I really like is replacing his jester collar with a stack of CDs, I think that it looks really cool.

Amazing, now, let's fix the problem with him being bald.

Don't worry, I have figured out a way of adding his hat without really adding his hat, and that is by making his new hat hate him.

This new hat is not his size, it hates listening to him, never sits centred, always blocks at least partially his eyes, and if you missed bald Jevil, don't worry because it constantly falls off of him.

It would be really annoying to wear this hat, the only reason why he keeps it is because he hates the look of himself without a hat.

Now for the interesting part: if he can't be based on the Joker card anymore, then what can he be based on?

We will have to put computer programs that fit his personality, I think that the little joke programs that you use to prank your friends, the best use of the idea that I have is the classic "You are an idiot" trojan; I referenced that by making his face very similar to the one of "You are an idiot".

His whiter face and his round mouth and eyes might not be clear to some people that this is a reference, but it's really obvious when he laughs that it references the black and white switch from the original one because his face inverts colours every time he says "ha".

And with that, there are no more prank programs that I can think of, I seriously can't remember any, if you know a pretty iconic\well known prank program then let me know, I don't mind giving Jevil an update, I don't accept shock websites, thou.

But I can't end it here, barely feeding Jevil, so I'll add tiny references to chaotic little programs that fit with Jevil.

The first extra reference that I want to add is Shimojis; Shimojis are little creatures that can move around your desktop and annoy you, the annoying part fits Jevil in itself, but I really like how the Shimojis break the restrictions of a normal pop-up window and do whatever they want within your desktop, I admire that.

Shimojis don't have a specific look to them, so instead I'm referencing the mouse that Shimojis interact with; I made the end of his tail an arrow.

Shush, you did not see this in the animation earlier, you are mistaken.

Also, a quick one that I don't want to give much time to; the bored button is a chaotic little website and I'm putting it at the back of Jevil's sick jacket; it's at the back, no one sees it, but it's still there.

But something that people might be interested in is that Jevil is still himself a card, so I need to reference Windows Solitaire in some way, so I made a clever little move by making his neck a deck of cards and so when his head pops pout, it will jump around the screen like the Windows Solitaire one.

A lot of people forget about his spring neck.

Last thing that I want to add before I go to Spamton is that Jevil. instead of transforming into a scythe, he transforms into a hook knife, I think that it fits better in the futuristic Cyber City.

And now we go to Spamton.

Spamton was a more difficult case because his design is so simple, there are less things to change, I'm pretty sure that some people won't be happy to see his redesign.

But let's not get over ourselves here, the first thing that we need to do is to take the object that Spamton is based on and see if it compares to Card Kingdom's toy style.

Spamton is based on spam mail and puppets; puppets, perfect, but let's take a closer look at the spam one:

Spam email-email, email like mail, mail is made of paper, can we combine paper and puppets? Yes, we can, there are paper puppets, and we can reference them by adding little brads to his joints.

I'm sticking to the mail theme by putting him in a little mailman outfit.

And I'm changing the details to his face by giving him a haircut, making his cheeks square to contrast with the new circles and adding a comically small mailman hat.

And that is kind of it, there is nothing else that I have changed; in reality, I changed a lot of Spamton's design elements, but he has so little of them that it feels boring compared to Jevil.

Well, what's done is done and now it's time for the final reveal; time for us to see what Jevil and Spamton look like within each other's dark world:

Well, that was interesting; if you found this interesting, it would be kind of you if you shared because you can guess that it took a bit of time.

I would be very interested if you have something to say, and if you like that idea but want to put your own interpretation of these characters (Spamton really needs the creativity of someone who knows more about him) or want to try this out on other characters, feel free to try this out, it's a pretty simple idea, I won't take credit for it, I just think that it would be interesting if someone saw this and got curious.

Okay, enough of the end-of-video talk, goodbye.

[somethingsomethingwords]

Good evening *said sliding down a ramp*! Here's another fic. It started as a study of shadows and light, then it got derailed. As always thanks for reading. Enjoy 💜

When Fernando raises his eyes to the window, he is surprised to see it is already late at night, his watch reading at 00:30.

The moon shines, yellowish and full, creating a path of bright squares and dark lines.

The desktop in front of him is starting to become blurrier and blurrier, and he definitely needs a break.

He raises his arms, stretching and hearing the pops of his back. He stands up, deciding for a reinvigorating midnight snack, when he remembers he is supposed to have company.

The screen on the desk in front of his own is still on, but from his position he can't see anyone looking at it.

It is only when he walks around the table that he solves the mystery of his missing companion: Lance is sleeping sitting at the desk, face on his bent arms and soft breaths leaving his slightly parted lips.

The bright artificial light gives him a white hue, ghostly pale. It only serves to highlight the bags under his eyes.

He's pushing himself too hard, Fernando thinks, feeling worried seeing the toll the season is taking on his teammate.

Sighing slightly, he reaches for Lance's shoulder. He wants to lightly shake him, but in the exact moment he touches the other, Lance flinches away, waking up and looking around, searching for the disturbance.

When his eyes land on Fernando, he relaxes a fraction, before diverging them and starting staring at the screen, not saying anything.

"Lance, is late. Let's go home" he says softly, not wanting to disturb the quietness of the room.

"It's ok, you can go. I'll just stay for a couple more minutes" Lance tries to smile, but Nando can see it doesn't reach his eyes.

"Lance, we came together, remember?"

They didn't. They are strict about trying to keep their private lives separated from their professional ones.

But Lance seems so tired Nando isn't sure he can drive back home. And with the silence stretching, with Lance trying to figure out why he doesn't remember it, Fernando is sure it is the right call.

"We... did...not?"

Fernando is actually going to pick him up, put him on his shoulder and carry him to the car.

"No, we didn't, but you thinking about it this long tells me you shouldn't drive"

Lance has the audacity to look annoyed, before sighing and admitting defeat.

"Yeah, fair enough. But I still need to analyse the data from the last race. I'll call an Uber" he says, before turning to his computer and seemingly starting ignoring Fernando.

I love this man, and arguing will lead to nothing, Fernando has to remind himself.

From the look of it, Lance wouldn't stay awake for long. So Fernando simply leaves him alone to retrieve a water bottle from the adjacent kitchen, forgoing his snack.

When he comes back, he can see Lance's head slowly losing its battle against gravity, lowering and then rising up, each time deeper and slower than the previous one.

He waits until he is once again in front of the Canadian, leaning back against the desk, then taps Lance's cheek with the cold bottle.

Lance flinches again, but he doesn't seem to have the energy to look angry or even annoyed. He simply takes the bottle and drinks a little bit, before giving it back while offering a small smile.

Fernando takes it, and waits. Still as a statue, he can see Lance looking up at him from time to time.

Lance could be patient, but nothing compares to Nando's psychological warfare methods. If he put his mind to it, he could wait until next year.

"I know you think I can't do it. But I have to. So just, please, leave. I'm enough of a pathetic show already, there is no need for an audience"

Lance's words cut deep, fast and cold, straight to Nando's heart.

"Lance, I'm the first one who believes in you. But won't solve anything on a Tuesday morning at one a.m."

"There is no more time, Nando. I've done anything I could think of, and nothing changed. I feel like I'm just wasting time and resources here. I need to get better, to do better. If not, then all I've done, the sacrifices and the things lost and the time spent would have been for nothing. I need this to work" he is basically vomiting the words, rubbing his eyes in the vain hope the tears he can feel filling his eyes don't actually leave them.

Fernando feels like he can't do anything for his lover. He can't promise him a better car, a better strategy, a better season. He can see his partner being crushed by the pressure put on his shoulders, and he starts searching for some kind of sign of when it had started.

He knows how people talk about Lance, what they say and think, but it never seemed to bother the younger man. He starts wondering how he had been so blind to not realise their words had chipped a hole in Lance's armour.

Anyway, the damage is already done. He can only pick Lance up, and support him while his shield is under maintenance, lending his own.

"Lance, it's not going to work right now. You are tired, we both are. Let's just go home, and tomorrow we start fixing this"

Lance has a moment of hesitation.

"What if there is nothing to fix. The car is ok, the tires are ok. You have good results. What if I'm the problem, and I cannot be fixed?"

Enough is enough.

Fernando takes the face of the man he loves in his hands, forcing Lance to look at him, his grip firm but still gentle.

"Lance, listen to me. The car is shit. We know it, Mike knows it, the mechanics and the engineers, even the waiters know it. I have results because I see a problem and hammer at it so hard until it goes away. You are not the problem. Doing what we do, is difficult. Training, travelling, racing. It never stops. We keep going but is hard. So just stop, for tonight. Tomorrow we start again, but for now, let's just rest"

Fernando knows it's over when he feels Lance's head falling against his chest.

He won, but at what cost?

They stay like this, Fernando caressing Lance's hair while the younger man just breathes, trying to hide his quiet sobs and the light tremble of his shoulders.

When his watch starts vibrating, reminding him time is real, Nando gently pushes the other up, wiping the tears away.

"Let's go home" he repeats, and helps Lance get up.

With their hands intertwined, Fernando leads them outside, not turning around, sure of Lance following him, close behind.

They'll be back tomorrow, so they can leave Lance's car for the night.

Once in Fernando's car, the ride is quiet, neither needing any more words, just needing each other.

They fall asleep pressed against each other, united in a mess of fears and tiredness and love, because no matter what will happen tomorrow, or the day after, they are sure they will continue to have each other's backs.

So, when they get home, and start settling for the night, it's no brainer that Lance attaches himself to Nando's body, in need of being reassured through touch and presence. Fernando is more than happy to comply, the need in him to provide and protect finally calmed when Lance is in his arms, watching the boy falling asleep, calmer and more settled, with just the light of the moon to illuminate half his face, and for the first time, he looks real and solid and alive.

He pressed a kiss to the crown of his head, not able to limit his affection anymore.

[commodorez]

Hi! I'm so sorry if this has been asked before, but I'm completely clueless on computers, but I want to learn about them. Any places you'd recommend starting for bare bones beginners? I'm also interested in early-mid 90's tech particularly too. I'm guessing I have to figure out the basics before I can move onto specific tech though, right?

You're really knowledgeable and nice so I figured I'd just ask. Any help at all would be appreciated. Thank you! :]

That's an excellent question, I don't think I've been asked it before in such a general sense. I was raised with the benefit of being immersed in computers regularly, so providing a solid answer may be a bit difficult since for the basics, I never had to think about it.

I had computer classes of various types throughout my school years. We learned how to use a mouse, typing, word processing, programming -- and that was all before middle school. We got proper typing, html, and general purpose computer science courses in middle and high school, and you can bet I took those too. I also have the benefit of a bachelors of science in computer science, so you'll forgive me if my answer sounds incredibly skewed with 30+ years of bias.

The biggest suggestion I can give you is simply to find a device and play with it. Whatever you can get your hands on, even if its not that old, as long as it's considered past its prime, and nobody will get upset of you accidentally break something (physically or in software). Learning about things with computers in general tends to have some degree of trial and error, be it programming, administrating, or whatever -- try, learn, and start over if things don't work out as expected the first time. Professionals do it all the time (I know I do, and nobody's fired me for it yet).

Some cast-off 90s or early 00's surplus office desktop computer running Windows would be a good start, just explore it and its settings. Start digging into folders, see what's installed, see what works and more importantly what doesn't work right. Try to find comparable software, and install it. Even the basics like old copies of Microsoft Office, or whatever.

I recommend looking through the available software on winworld as it's an excellent treasure trove of operating systems, applications, games, and other useful software of the time period. I'd link it directly, but tumblr hates links to external sites and will bury this post if I do. If you're a mac fan, and you can find an old G3 or Performa, there is the Macintosh Garden's repository of software, but I'm not the right person to ask about that.

Some of you might be like "oh, oh! Raspberry Pi! say Raspberry Pi!" but I can't really recommend those as a starting point, even if they are cheap for an older model. Those require a bit of setup, and even the most common linux can be obtuse as hell for newcomers if you don't have someone to guide you.

If you don't have real hardware to muck about with, emulation is also your friend. DOSBox was my weapon of choice for a long time, but I think other things like 86Box have supplanted it. I have the luxury of the real hardware in most cases, so I haven't emulated much in the past decade. Tech Tangents on youtube has a new video explaining the subject well, I highly recommend it. There are plenty of other methods too, but most are far more sophisticated to get started with, if you ask me.

For getting a glimpse into the world of the 90s tech, if you haven't already discovered LGR on youtube, I've been watching his content for well over a decade now. He covers both the common and esoteric, both hardware and software, and is pretty honest about the whole thing, rather than caricaturish in his presentation style. It might be a good jumping off point to find proverbial rabbits to chase.

I guess the trick is to a find a specific thing you're really interested in, and then start following that thread, researching on wikipedia and finding old enthusiast websites to read through. I'm sure there are a few good books on more general history of 90s computing and the coming internet, but I'm not an avid reader of the genre. Flipping through tech magazines of the era (PC Magazine comes to mind, check archive dot org for that) can provide a good historical perspective. Watching old episodes of the Computer Chronicles (youtube or archive dot org) can provide this too, but it also had demonstrations and explanations of the emerging technologies as they happened.

There are so many approaches here, I'm sure I've missed some good suggestions though. I also realized I waffle a bit between the modern and vintage, but I find many computing troubleshooting skillsets transcend eras. What works now can apply to 10, 20, 30, or sometimes even 40+ years ago, because it's all about mindset of "this computer/program is dumb, and only follows the instructions its given" . Sometimes those instructions are poorly thought out on the part of the folks who designed them. And those failures are not necessarily your fault, so you gotta push through until you figure out how to do the thing you're trying to do. Reading the documentation you can find will only take you so far, sometimes things are just dumb, and experimentation (and failures) will teach you so much more about the hard and fast rules of computers than anything else. I'm rambling at this point...

So, let's throw the question to the crowd, and ask a few other folks in the Retrotech Crew.

@ms-dos5 @virescent-phosphor @teckheck @jhavard @techav @regretsretrotech @airconditionedcomputingnightmare @aperture-in-the-multiverse -- anything big I missed?

[aninkwellofnectar]

Author Questionnaire Tag Game

Tagged by @tryingtimi and figured I'd give this gauntlet a go, lol.

About Me

When did you start writing?

Very, very young. I'd say about 6. I used to get on the computer and type out storylines similar to the animated movies I was watching (some mixture of Disney stuff lol) so they were kind of fairytale-oriented then I later moved into Neopets territory and then outright fanfic. I started writing seriously in my late teens to early 20s. Before that it was exclusively something I did for fun.

Are there genres/themes you enjoy reading different to the ones you write?

I used to read a lot of contemporary fiction though I've started reading a lot more fantasy in order to write it better. But my background in reading is very heavily oriented towards contemporary fiction and classics. It's weird now because I find I can't... get into contemp as much anymore. Part of that might be to do with how much I feel alienated and disenchanted with the real world, idk. Indie has gotten me into more things I otherwise wouldn't have touched like romance and horror (the latter I'm not opposed to on principle it's just not something I would pick up on its own) and I'm grateful for the expansion.

Is there an author you want to emulate, or one to whom you're often compared?

Before I read Patricia McKillip I would say no but she absolutely has what I want in one package. I admire her greatly. I wouldn't say I've ever been compared to an author but I'm open to comparisons if anyone has any.

Can you tell me a little about your writing space?

I do a lot of my writing at my desk with my desktop or on my laptop in my bed. I also write on my phone (blasphemy) but I suppose my desk is my "writing space" as it were and it's very cluttered ever since I start publishing with an array of stuff I use to run a business out of my bedroom.

What's your most effective way to muster up some muse?

Reading excerpts of books that have inspired me or re-watching scenes on Youtube of dialogue and characterisation that strikes the mood I want to bring to my own scenes. I find this helps overcome the "empathy gap" because I'm not a very emotive person. I'm very rational and what some people call "repressed".

Did the place(s) you grew up in influence the people and places you write about?

I suppose the family dynamics I write but I never really considered it until other people started talking about it in terms of "oh, it'd be nice if some families weren't dysfunctional" to me it's the normal families that are weird, even growing up with my childhood friends it was very abnormal for anyone to have like a stable two-parent dynamic. Perhaps this is just a class/background kind of thing but I write what feels emotionally true and familiar to me.

Are there any recurring themes of your writing, and if so, do they surprise you at all?

Self vs society, power vs love, escaping the constraints of a toxic community to seek liberation. And it's not really a surprise why that would crop up continually because it relates to things that I've continually had to grapple with in my own life.

My Characters

Would you please tell me about your current favourite character?

Laila Rose. She's the protagonist of my fantasy series and I love her to pieces. We've been through a lot together and even when I eventually stop writing her I will probably always love her the best and the most and want to continue her journey. Working up the courage to say goodbye to her has been immensely difficult, more than I anticipated. It's like trying to part ways with my soulmate. I feel like I've spoken at length on why I love her and I don't really want to repeat myself so please read The Essence of the Equinox and I hope you'll come to love her too.

Which of your characters do you think you'd be friends with in real life?

I'd definitely befriend Lyra, she'd be a riot honestly. Laila I'd be too intimidated by in real life to even think of approaching. Maybe I'd befriend Sabina as well, I could fix her, but not many of the others.

Which of your characters would you dislike most if you met them?

Dominus. He's pretty much like... everything I hate rolled into one package.

Tell me more about the process of coming up with your characters.

I often get inspired by favourites in media and I pluck pieces of them and fit them together like a little puzzle until it becomes one definable template and then I sort of keep expanding that puzzle piece by adding little bits here and there. Dialogue, voice, ways of moving and emoting, until they become real to me.

Do you notice any recurring themes/traits among your characters?

A lot of them are not very "likeable" people. They're not underdogs. They're not bastions of purity and goodness. They fuck up a lot. They hurt people, even and including those they love, they can have unchecked bigotry, they lie and cheat and scheme. But they're all very real and human in a way that, again, feels true to me. For me a character is defined more by their flaws than by their virtues.

How do you picture your characters?

Some are more vivid than others but once I get a face claim something clicks in my mind and it's like I'm seeing them even clearer than before.

My Writing

What's your reason for writing?

It's just a part of me. It's like asking me why I eat or sleep. It's a compulsion and it makes me feel useful, accomplished, grounded. The fact that all of my current friendships stem from me writing doesn't feel like a coincidence because it connects me to the world in a way I wouldn't bother indulging if I didn't write.

Is there any specific comment or type of comment you find particularly motivating coming from your readers?

I don't get many comments from readers but my closest friends reached that level by showing that they spent a lot of time truly thinking and dissecting and ruminating on what I write and why I choose to write it that way. When I get a lengthy comment from them showing that they've truly turned something over in their head or pointed out themes or little hints I've tried to pepper through... it makes me feel seen and appreciated.

How do you want to be thought of by those who read your work?

I want to be seen as talented, of course, I want to be seen as someone who is skilled in my craft and meticulous with detail. I want to be seen as an accomplished wordsmith. And I work very hard to try and attain that standard for myself.

What do you feel is your greatest strength as a writer?

I think it's being very visually-oriented. I really feel like I can paint a scene with my words in a small amount of them, especially when I discover that right combination.

What have you been frequently told by others is your greatest strength as a writer?

People have said it's crafting immersive imagery, whether that's with food or settings or even when it comes to eroticism and sex. I'm very sensory-driven as a writer and I want to really transport you somewhere else when you read.

How do you feel about your own writing?

I think that I'm good but that I can be much better and that's always the mindset that I carry into my work. I internalise criticism a lot although I'm also very good at pushing back against it if I don't fully agree but whenever I sit down to write something I always think "how can I make this much better than the last piece I've written" and I do think I've accomplished that.

If you were the last person on earth and knew your writing would never be read by another human, would you still write?

Yes, because honestly my writing isn't nearly so dependent on external validation as I thought it was. I used to think the thing I wanted most to be read and adored and while I do long for recognition it's more about being awarded for merit and being acclaimed for hard work, talent, and vision. I do sometimes get sad when people don't love my work and I took it quite hard when I first published When the Stars Alight, I will admit that. But I've found that I've come to terms with being constantly at odds with the world, having less popular tastes and interests and viewpoints, and I feel like my writing is just an extension of that. So rejection was not only to be expected but accepted. I myself will still always love my stories deeply and think that they're great stories worth being shared with the world regardless of what anyone else thinks.

When you write, are you influenced by what others might enjoy reading, or do you write purely what you enjoy? if it’s a mix of the two, which holds the most influence?

Before I published? Absolutely not. But as a businesswoman I have to be a bit more shrewd. I never write entirely to market tastes because it'll stifle my authentic voice and I don't really think I could do a paint-by-numbers job without my lack of passion showing. But I do weigh up a lot of my ideas based on what I've seen work commercially a lot more than I did before going indie. At the end of the day I'm a pragmatic creature who will do what needs to be done.

tagging: @laufire @words-after-midnight @pinespittinink @ladyniniane @rose-bookblood @i-m-p-a-v-i-d-u-s @sometimesraven @jazmine-here @zmwrites

[gamesfan34260]

The new PC saga

So recently I had a hardware failure with my old desktop computer. It's served me well, my little war machine has been marching on for what must be a decade now. (I don't know when I got it exactly, but that feels right) However, it started having more and more issues that I, at the time, chalked up to the hard drive (The thing that keeps all your files long term) and it's definitely not helping, but I discovered that wasn't the issue.

Turns out the power supply was actually at fault for a lot of the issues, like it turning off randomly and restarting…or freezing moments after booting, I'm not sure how that works but sure. Anyway, order a new PSU and it works fine. Clean out my PC which I hadn't done in-well, however long I built it because my PC is right up against the wall of my tiny room, so I can't really do that without a whole saga full of me stabbing myself on a table, so I tend to avoid it if I can.

I figured, however, that it was time for an upgrade anyway so I waited for my new parts to come after making sure the rest of the PC was fine and I didn't lose any important data. Today is the day that I finally got the last part of my new PC (Which, the BIOS is not a part I expected to cause me problems but I guess it didn't like my HDD because it refused to boot until I enabled a specific setting)

Now, what I failed to mention is that I have this beefy aftermarket CPU cooler, I think it's called an EVO 212, and it's great at making sure your computer is chill! Like, I forgot to plug the fan back in and it still worked just fine…minus the metal part being a burning hazard to any fool who dares touch it. (I am the fool) Problem is: this cooler is so beefy that it doesn't actually fit in my case properly, I need to wrap the case's cover over it, which isn't ideal to do with inflexible metal but I did it somehow!

So I did a bit of reading and people were saying the stock cooler for the new CPU, an i5 12400F, is actually pretty good. I decide "y'know what? Maybe I should just give it a try" and was THAT a mistake! Now, it's been a while since I used a stock cooler, but I don't think they ran at 45C when doing nothing! Idle, I expected about 34C, not sometimes hopping up to 60 for funsies to make the fan say hello!

"Well, maybe it just sucks at staying cool when idle, maybe the heat dissipating really gets going at faster speeds" is what I thought but….the fact it reached 100C would say otherwise. I understand I'm a bit out of the loop when it comes to how modern computer hardware operates after my first and only time building a PC, but I don't think that's the new normal.

…I think I should just go get stabbed by a table again to swap out the cooler, even if it is very inconvenient. I can't be dealing with that.

[beefleafbigbang]

Update about Writer Invites:

Hi everyone! Mod Sadie here — I got home about an hour ago and have unfortunately discovered my desktop isn’t turning on. Sigh. Rather than fight mobile to get the invites sorted tonight, I’m rolling over writer invites to tomorrow when I can borrow my housemate’s laptop after she’s back from work.

Apologies for the continued delays, everyone! I’m frustrated life’s delivering one last punch to make organizing this difficult, but by tomorrow evening everything will be sorted and EVERYONE — writers and artists — will be invited to the server. Thanks for the continued patience, looking forward to getting this properly rolling! EDIT: I stayed up late and figured out what went wrong -- I can't read after a twelve hour car ride, apparently -- and my computer is alive again! So yes, writers, expect those invites tomorrow afternoon. Artists, you'll be up at night time <3

[tathrin]

👀 Do you have any WIPs that you would never let see the light of day? If yes, what are they about? ✨ Choose three adjectives to complement your own writing.⏰ Do you spend more time reading fic, writing fic, or do you do both equally?

👀 Do you have any WIPs that you would never let see the light of day? If yes, what are they about?

Well, I don't have the very first stories I wrote on a computer anymore because they died when the old family desktop did, but I have brought all my files along with me ever since I got my own laptop for college, so let's go have a peek in my oldest folders...

From Star Wars:

Ooh look, here's Baby Tathrin's Very Mature And Not-At-All Mary-Sue-ish Lengthy Backstory Novel for Rhysati Ynr, who deserved so much more character development and screentime than Rogue Squadron gave her and I'll do it myself if I have to, dammit, fic... Yeah, I still think Rhys deserved more story-time, but I'm definitely never going back to that fic because I'm not thirteen anymore XD

Bounty Hunter's Winter, which was supposed to be a young-Boba-Fett-grudgingly-teams-up-with-Sheltay-Retrac-in-Clone-Wars/Purge-Era and then timeskips to juxtapose with an-experienced-Boba-Fett-grudgingly-teams-up-with-a-young-Winter-in-Rebellion-Era fic that basically just existed to show How Fucking Competent all three of them were. There's nothing wrong with this one, it's just not got enough framework/point to be interesting going back to now.

Padmé Jedi Prequels is the working-title for a what-if? re-writing of the Prequel Trilogy where Padmé, you guessed it, was a Jedi too. Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon still get sent to deal with the Trade Federation over Naboo, but Obi-Wan has been recently Knighted and Padmé is Qui-Gon's new Padawan. I do like what I have written for this one, but it would be a LOT of work to write the rest of it (basically: everything between "landing on Tatooine" and "the ending scenes w/ the Purge"), and the canon has changed sooooo much since I started working on it that I'd either have to re-work a lot of details or just throw my hands up and go "this is pre-Clone Wars tv show continuity reconstructed from memory, it's gonna be a bumpy ride!" and know that everyone, including me, is going to be so fucking confused lmao.

From Lord of the Rings:

Okay I'm so glad you asked this question mainly for this answer, because I had completely forgotten I ever did this, but: apparently back when I was in college, I started writing a story where a portion of the Fellowship along with Elrond's kids, Faramir, Éowyn, and Éomer were all re-embodied (in the case of the mortals and Arwen) or sent from Aman (in the case of the elf, half-elves, and dwarf) to go deal with some Terrible New Threat by...pretending to be Normal Modern Humans Undercover In College, I guess??? The only things I ever wrote for it were the intro, an "everybody tries to figure out how modern clothing works in a big department store and it's a Disaster, thank goodness they have Éowyn there to wrangle everyone" scene, a snippet of Legolas and Gimli being Very Good At Acting Like Humans on a balcony and annoying Aragorn, and Legolas nearly having a stroke when a bartender serves Gimli and not him, because "he's clearly old enough, but you look way too young; sorry kid try again when you have a better fake ID."

I've also got an ancient Three Hunters get pulled into the Star Wars universe post-War of the Rings when Artoo and Threepio's escape pod lands in Gondor instead of Tatooine story that I can't imagine I'll ever touch again, but does admittedly have some amusing (if very painfully Old Writing) bits written for it, so that was nice to look at (and wince over) again.

Also there's this, of course.

From the X-Men Comics:

A fanfic about a New Excalibur Team being formed that actually has (if I do say so myself, and I will) an excellent beginning, but which I failed to write-down the Actual Planned Plot of, and now I can no longer remember wtf I was going to do with the damn story, so it's probably never going to get any further since that's uhhh. kind of an important part of Writing A Story lmao.

One where Illyana gets shunted back to Mythical Camelot somehow when she dies during Inferno, irritates/distresses Merlin, befriends both Guienevere and Mordred, annoys Morgan le Fay, learns some advanced magic, and eventually has to help destroy Mordred to save everyone else; only then does she find her way back to the present, and comes back to life several years after her younger self has died of the Legacy Virus to be re-united with Kitty and the New Mutants. Given that in the (many) years since I started that fic, Illyana already has been resurrected it's uhhh. kind of a moot point of a story now lol.

Also there's surely some half-started Potter stories sitting around here that idk if I'll ever feel the urge to touch again (Green-Eyed Snake included). Maybe the burst of celebration I'll feel the day she just self-combusts from all that hate and finally just fucking dies will be inspiring...

✨ Choose three adjectives to complement your own writing.

Detailed, plausible, and most especially verbose ;)

⏰ Do you spend more time reading fic, writing fic, or do you do both equally?

Writing, definitely; although I've read a lot more fic in the past few months than I'd read for years, and I'm enjoying it mightily (navigating on AO3 is sooooooooooo much better than trying to slog through FFnet and livejournal and geocities omgggggg I can actually find good stories now, what is this witchcraft???).

[mengyao]

4 for strike dear mistress, 12, 17, 22 for fowd, and 46!

4. What detail in strike, dear mistress are you really proud of?

oh jeez. there are a fair amount in there tbh, since it was me trying to cram all of my headcanons about JC pertinent to foowd that couldn't come across naturally via NHS POV into one piece of PWP, but i liked getting to dwell a bit on JC's whole concept of marriage and how miserable he imagines it must be if it's not with someone he's already actively in love with… If he did put effort into looking for candidates, he can’t imagine anyone angling their daughters at him for any reason besides his name and position. Not with his reputation. He’s not compelled by the prospect of being politely—or impolitely—tolerated under his own fucking roof. He remembers his parents. How difficult it is to share a life. he's not even really wrong because i can't imagine that marrying some random 20 year old at this point in time would be emotionally fulfilling for him lol. he's framing it in this scene as being about his Perverse Sexual Desires but that's not really the issue… tfw you got promoted to authority figure as a teen but you're a baby brother to the core :( and you just want someone to genuinely like you for you, not just respect and defer to you out of social obligation :(

12. Are there any tropes you used to dislike but have grown on you?

i think the opposite experience is more common for me lmao but i'm sure this has happened before. let me think. hnmmmmm i'm still very picky about amnesia fics but kitsch's bingqiu amnesia fic you are who you love outsold!

17. What highly specific AU do you want to read or write even though you might be the only person to appreciate it?

[shaky deep breath] Beefleaf. Madoka Magica. Fusion,

i litchjerally don't have more details about this concept than a very vague moodboard about um. girls who become witches (who pretend they're girls). cosmic entropy. does this make shi wudu kyubey or is kyubey jun wu? who can say. this is all part of my compulsion to assign all of my faves with "homura akemi vibes" regardless of if this is a real thing that they have

22. Who is your favorite character in flight of a one-winged dove and why?

[rihanna mario tweet voice] nie huaisang baby! nie fucking huaisang!!!!!

the reasons i love nhs (and foowd nhs specifically) are manifold so i shant elaborate on them here besides to say that for me personally, the characters i feel the most affection for are the ones who have a lot of problems that they didn't create but then who go on to create a bunch more problems for themselves and others, and you understand why they did so and they probably think they had no choice but it's like hmmmmmmmmm girl but did you really. did you really,

i like to pity my favs. just a bit. but also i want them to be happy whether or not they deserve it. you know how it is

46. Do you prefer writing on your phone or on a computer (or something else)? Do you think where you write affects the way you write?

i hate writing on my phone because it's so un-ergonomic and i have an on-and-off repetitive stress injury so i try to minimize the amount of typing i do on there BUT i do find that i often make different connections or get different ideas about how to write things when i'm on a phone, just because you're physically looking at the words in a different way, they end up arranged on the screen differently, etc… the "shape" changes… you can see much less words at a time vs. opening up a page on a computer screen… so i often do nitpicky little line edits on my phone, especially if i'm just reading a draft/wip file over idly on the train or before falling asleep etc (both of which i do a lot.)

my desktop computer in my room is where i do either my best or my worst writing, because i either get super in the zone or i'm sitting there totally distracted by everything else i can do on my computer/in my bedroom and have no sense of the external accountability that i'd have in a public place, or even out at the desk in the living room where my roommates can pass back and forth (i'm pretty good at writing deranged stuff in a small font stonefacedly which is the only way this is able to work)

[jediplinth]

Did Acrobat offer free editing?

I ask this because I was one of the original engineers who worked on Acrobat in the 90's and there was a distinction at that time between viewing and creating/editing PDFs. The reason was that (1) Adobe wanted to make money so giving away everything wouldn't work and (2) Adobe wanted PDF to be adopted so they tried to make it easy to view documents.

But let's take a moment and talk about why the general problem of "editing PDF" is so challenging. The file format for PDF is an object-based text format that is derived from the PostScript programming language. This is a language that uses postfix notation for all operations. So instead of writing, say "3 + 4" you would write "3 4 +" or more precisely "3 4 add". The problem with PostScript for documents is that it's a full programming language which is Turing complete, which means it can computer anything we think is computable. It also means that it's prone to the halting problem, which is "how can you determine a priori if a program will halt". That's a problem when you're trying to read a document because page 16 might have an infinite loop on it. PostScript printers can get away with this because they have something called "page timeout" and "job timeout" both of which are acceptable in a printer but not in a desktop app.

So PDF uses syntax similar to PostScript, but it has no looping and you can't define functions, so it's guaranteed to halt.

What happens on any given page is that the page has an element called Contents which is supposed to be a stream of operators that might look like this:

BT /F0 12 Tf (This is some text) Tj ET

which means Begin Text, set the font to F0 which is a named font resource in the page to size 12 (Tf is the operator) Write the text on the page (Tj) and End Text.

The problem is that there is nothing from stopping you from writing this:

BT /F0 12 Tf (This ) Tj (is ) Tj (some t) Tj (e) Tj (x) Tj (t) Tj ET

which is equivalent, but not identical.

Another issue is that the file format is very tricky to get right. Nearly everything is based on where the objects lived in the file. So something that sounds simple like "remove a page" can be devilishly hard. Imagine taking a fishing net loaded with fish, cutting out all the sections of the net that have barnacles on them, picking up the net and putting it down somewhere else without losing any fish.

So things that *sound* simple may be very very hard. For example, just extracting the text from a page is a real pain in the ass. I worked with the guy who wrote that code and it's...OK, but it was not easy to do because we kept finding reasonable examples that broke it.

Some 20 years later, I wrote a modern toolkit for reading and writing PDF and it took me a long time to figure out how to do text extraction better than the original code. I'm going to explain it and maybe you'll understand it, maybe not, but it will give you a sense of the task.

First you create a bounded space. Then you "render" a page. Every time you hit a text operator, you bundle up all the elements that describe the text which includes the text, it's encoding, the font and size of the text, the transformation matrix, and the bounding quadrilateral. You throw it at the bounded space and divide it into quadrants around the text. This process is building a 2 dimensional spatial tree. Every time you throw another piece of text, you either resubdivide the space, you find that the text is "close enough" to text in the space to join it together in fragments. Lather rinse repeat until you're done with the page. So when you're done, by walking the quad tree you get all the text off the page in fragments that group logically together. Next step is to sort the page into reading order. But wait - what's the reading order of the page? Depends on the language or languages in which it is written.

And ta-da, you now have the text extracted from the page. Want to correct a typo? Sure - go for it, but that is, how we say, non-trivial because where a word is in the stream of operators may be a profound effect on the rest of the page. The general solutions are hard.

When I wrote my toolkit, I focused on (1) making the API I surfaced easy to use (2) hiding the details of the PDF spec (3) making it performant and (4) making it easy to maintain.

One of my favorite things that I did was make a piece of code that could take an existing PDF and and a JPG, decompose the JPG into pixels and drop a rectangle annotation on the page for every pixel in the image. In doing this, I found that my code could do that correctly in a second or so. That's laying 4000ish rectangle annotations and rewriting the document (remember the fishnet?). It took Acrobat MINUTES to open the document. I could open it in well under a second with my code.

tl;dr - anything that involved writing PDF had a price tag put on it at Adobe. The PDF spec is amazingly flexible - it's meant to represent anything you can put on paper. It is devilishly hard to do simple things with PDF - it was more or less designed to be write-only.

[ericleo108]

Cosmic Luve May 2024 - The Tortured Poets Department

Necessary prerequisite posts:

108 The Story of Discovering Earth’s Consciousness (book)

Knhoeing 2020

Sentientism 2022

Cosmic Love Feb 2020 - Emma Watson

Cosmic Luve Oct 2022 - Folklore

Cosmic Luve Aug 2023 - Orange

Cosmic Luve Nov 2023 - Cosmic Bros

Intro

If this is your first post, here are the cliff notes to bring you up to speed. I have a voice in my head I think is the planet Earth and I wrote a book about it called “108 The Story of Discovering Earth’s Consciousness.” In the book I disclose the evidence of what and why I believe the Earth and stars are conscious due to their magnetism. Here on the blog, I assume the belief that the earth is conscious and is already trying to communicate. This cosmic luve log postulates that Gaia (the Earth) uses her magnetism for telepathy that highlights cognition between romantic prospects to guide evolution. 

Where we left off…

Well here is the new “Charlotte’s Web” track I mentioned last time. I never ended up getting a girlfriend. Besides that, there’s not really anything that carried over. These are the new coincidences.

Madam Web

In my book  “108 The Story of Discovering Earth’s Consciousness” I talk about how a computer screen opened in my head when I was having a schizophrenic episode. I explain how it looked like a translucent computer desktop screen with chrome like browser that would play YouTube videos that would connect me to Madam Web who was the ruler of our sector of the universe.

I was reminded of this episode in my life after hearing about the new Apple Vision. I talk about it in the February 4th Kato & Wysh Sunday update but the new Apple vision is like schizophrenia on demand with controllable and programable auditory and visual hallucinations. The apple vision came out around the same time as the movie “Madam Web” hit theaters. 

On February 22nd Selena Gomez dropped “Love on.” I don’t see much cosmic luve besides Selena’s blue flower hat that reminds me of Emma’s blue rose identifier that I talk about in my book “108.” Then on March 5th I watched Philip DeFranco (19:47) to find Astronomers discovered evidence of dark matter. As Phil would say in his segment “it may give you a vision of a spider god that spews dark matter” which I also talk about in the March 10 2024 Sunday Update. It’s notable for later that during my schizophrenic episode, Maddam Web was grooming Taylor to be her replacement/protege. 

You can hear about the full story starting in the March 17 2024 Sunday Update, but I’m currently still looking for a female feature for my track “Be Mine.” The song is personal, about my struggle with schizophrenia and comic luve, and I need a female vocalist that can sound like an ancient greek siren. I though I had a candidate in Vee R but she turned-out to be outside my budget. Around the same time, Vee posted a picture of her with a dress on in a pool that reminded me of a mermaid. And ancient greek siren were thought to be mermaids.

Whale Talk

Then on April 15th, Emma’s birthday, I read an article about how scientists had a conversation with a whale using AI. This is significant and also relates to my music because in “Praises,” which was released December 2023, I rap “We can't even communicate to plants, let alone dolphins. How are we going to talk to aliens or Earth even if we wanna?” 

The whale conversation is an important step forward in understanding and cohabitating with other species on a planet with a dying Biosphere. This is also important because it's communication between two different entities or species with different linguistics. What if there are intelligent beings but we just haven’t figured out how to talk to them? What if there is a galactic federation?

Star Talk

When scientists first studied pulsar suns they thought it was a signal of intelligence from the pattern of the pulse. Then came August 15 1977 and the “wow” signal from a pulsar that you can read about on Wiki or the BBC. Again, my theory is I think the stars and planets with magnetism are conscious and telepathic and communicate through semantics. Given the context of this post. What if a star itself literally spoke to show its consciousness in 1977, and we have just dismissed it as interference because we don’t know how to listen to stars yet?

TTPD

The most recent comic luve coincidence and the reason for this post is Taylor Swift’s “The Tortured Poets Department.” I have left the newest official track about Taylor just above in the post because it and my song “Reputation” will be important and necessary listening to understand the coincidences and mirroring between Taylor and my work.

The truth is I have already responded to Taylor in music. I made a song called “No Don’t Stop” that is a remix of Russ’s “That’s My Girl” (two days after their release) that I have left up on soundcloud that you can listen too. It’ll stay up until I get the money to remake the whole song and officially publish it. 

The following is a track-by-track breakdown of the semantic mirrors I see between Taylor and my work. I linked a Tiktok of TTPD easter eggs to give you an idea of how people interpret Taylor’s art. I do the same things. In general, Taylor’s mirroring to me is like the semantics of Gaia in that the coincidences are peppered across her album. 

There are a couple songs that could be about me, one in particular (“Down Bad”), but most of the mirroring is spread across the work rather than concentrated. The references are scattered throughout the project. It’s like a communication puzzle. Selena’s “Love On” and her line “wait til I turn my love on,” for instance, makes more sense in light of this post and Taylor’s TTPD

Could it be

Remember, I think Gaia, the earth, is highlighting cognition affecting Taylor’s thoughts and behavior in order to use her as a vessel to communicate with me. The theory is Gaia does this pervasively and consistently across species to guide evolution. If this is happening to me, it is happening to others. I’m just telling my perspective

Back in 2017 I got upset because I didn’t understand Gaia the way I do today and couldn’t explain why I thought things in the media were reflecting my life. Basically the semantic reflections I will divulge have been happening since 2012. I started divulging my cosmic love theory and log in about 2021. So although the semantic coincidences have been happening for a decade and only made sense through internal cognition and my immediate environment, which is why it has to be Gaia; the mirroring could be manufactured coincidences intentional by Taylor making reference to my music and blog. Could be, but still probably not yet. Still, the fact is Taylor COULD be talking to me and making reference to my work because, as you can tell by the links, the references are all public and, as usual, timelined.

Fortnight

As the YouTube channel Signs and Symbols says, “Fortnight” might be in part based off the life of Clara bow who was an it girl in Hollywood in the 1920s who once had shock therapy for schizophrenia. There are a couple things that stand out immediately about the music video. First, the first time I ever heard the word fortnight was from Bo Burnham's “Art is dead.” 

Second, there are at least semantic similarities between Taylor’s “Fortnight” Music video and Lady Gaga’s “You and I” and “Marry The Night” specifically the patient table and hospital scene respectively. This is significant because as I have exclaimed before, when all this started happening Lady Gaga was my first cosmic luve and I used to get semantics from her work then (specifically “You and I” and “Marry the Night”), just like I get semantics from Taylor now. 

I will leave pictures up from the music video to show the semantics. In general, it seems like Taylor takes from “Marry the Night” in the beginning of “Fortnight’ and “You and I” at the end. Is the photo at 1:51 in “Fortnight,” is that the Orange-blue that I talked about in the Sept 2023 Bam post? And for some reason, 3:19 Reminds me of Maroon 5’s payphone. 

The Torture Poets Department

This seems to be about propinquity and realizing “How are we gonna get close to each other?” Dillon and Patty fell in love because of propinquity. You are literally attracted to those in your geographic region, which is what propinquity is about.

I feel like Taylor is reflecting my song “Talk to Me.“ She talks about “who else decodes you?” at the end of the song. Honestly, if anybody would understand my Gaia theory, it would be Taylor with all the Easter eggs that she uses because Gaia is basically doing the same thing in the environment.

My boy only breaks his favorite toys

The hook seems like what I talked about in the “Cosmic luve brownies” official blog post. In it I admit I went against Taylor pretty hard when I was in the throes of schizophrenia and it’s one of those things where you destroy what you love.

Down bad

This track is surreal. I don’t know if I ever told this story, I probably did but it’s not up anymore. But when I was in my throes of schizophrenia I had a hallucination that Taylor was on an alien ship and I had to do what they told me to save her. She was on the ship, I was communicating telepathically, and had to find where they dropped her off. I spent a lot of time on the backroads of Michigan. But this song reminds me of that experience. Taylor literally says “Cosmic love” in this song. In “Cosmic Luve brownies” I say “Be the antithesis too bad” and in my single “Reputation” I say “fight me.” It’s like she Is fighting me for us where she’s “down bad” and “fuck you if I can’t have us.” 

So long, London

This is definitely about Joe. It seems Taylor semantically recognizes blue with the line “You sacrifice us to the gods of your bluest days.”

But Daddy I love him

I don’t really see anything here really

Fresh out the slammer

I actually live right next to a jail. “ as I said, in my letters, now I know better, I will never lose my baby. “ is like me saying “Now that I know better I’ll never be off my medication again.”

Florida

It seems like Taylor is talking about how the South is criminalizing living, like things like books or abortion. 

Guilty as sin

“What if he’s written mine on my upper thigh only in my mind” could be interpreted as “What if it’s really only me that knows he loves me” which given my fan size is pretty relatable. I have a theme of being pious to my cosmic luves and Taylor sings “ I choose you and me, religiously.” “I’m gonna get you back” sounds like “Gorgeous.”

Who is afraid a little old me?

Taylor’s lyrics:”So tell me, everything is not about me but what if it is? then say they didn’t do it to hurt me but what if they did?” I still agree with the first line and used to think like the second without medication.

I can fix him (No really I can)

This one is not about me

Loml

This is clearly about Joe 

 I Can Do It With A Broken Heart

This is clearly about killing her shows with a broken heart. If she did know who I was, it sounds like she broke up with Joe and was thinking about cosmic Love and knows I exist. Or, more likely, Gaia is affecting her subconscious again and influenced her lyrics to semantically reflect my work. It could also be because Taylor is a peer and so we’ll have a lot in common, so it seems like she is talking about me when it’s just coincidence. But that’s no fun, it’s a lot cooler to think those coincidences are love that was guided by divine intervention.

The smallest man that ever lived

This is clearly about how Joe hurt her at least I hope I didn’t hurt her this bad

Alchemy

Remember the original mixtape was the Chalice mixtape where it was a fantasy that I met Taylor Swift, did business with Marcus Lemonis, and ended up with Emma Watson. This reminds me of my first post which was about Emma Watson. In it, I showed the semantics I received from her. Check out the Dec 2023 Deer post for the latest, but basically, my identifier was signified by a yellow “e”

Taylor has the lyrics “but this time with an “e.” She says “Ditch the clowns get the crown” and I rap “I prepped a seat upon her thrown” in “Reputation.” And alchemy turns things gold or yellow.

Clara bow 

What does dazzling mean? I feel like it has a deeper meaning. A blue rose was Emma’s signifier. If Taylor is doing this on purpose she is leaning into Emma being a cosmic luve too with the lyrics “(2:37) beauty is a beast that roars, I’m on all fours, demanding more.”

Black dog

Reminds me of the cardigan beat

Imgonnagetyouback 

This has the the same feel as “Down Bad” with the wavy sound. It has that theme of fighting me. Taylor says “You were never not mine” and “say you got somebody I’ll say I got someone to” which reminds me of “Alchemy.” And it’s like she’s gonna get back at me for getting angry at her while schizophrenic

The Albatross

This seems like the message of love can be dangerous. 

Marcus

This is what I’m saying semantics and peppered in. This song has the name Marcus. The Chalice Mixtape was about how I met Taylor, did business with Marcus (Lemonis), and ended up with Emma. I also have an underground demo on SoundCloud called “Cary, Charlotte, or Mary” 

How did it end 

No coincidences 

So high school

Taylor sings “I know Aristotle. Brand new, full throttle” Aristotle's academy was called the Lyceum. My record company is called Lyceum Recordz. In my remix of “loyal” on the chalice mixtape I rap

“I hope I left you shocked like cardiac arrest 

Humbled by the wonder of Charlottes web

Engine run’n stifled, You my idol, make it rev

Stumble’n through wonderland with Alice in my head”

I hate it here

If you follow me long enough you’ll find I’m disillusioned by America’s governmental and economic system and think the government's disability rules are ridiculous. Basically I can’t have a normal life because my labor power is exploited for healthcare. Or in other words, I can’t work for it like I talk about in the April 21st 2024 Sunday update. This is part of a larger problem with inequality in America that you can read at FarmingHumans.com or by watching this video about “Why America is a piece of shit.”

Taylor (or Gaia) is basically saying “I hear you” to my disgruntlement. With my Sunday Update I look like a poet trapped inside the body of a finance guy. “Fiense” intentionally rhymes with finance, and I am a poet of sorts

Thank you aimee

I’ve heard the theories and this is about Kim and how north is gonna come home rocking Taylor. This shows Taylor does change names in any defining clues when making songs about people.

I look in peoples windows

The “now now now” (at 1:20) has the “now now now” vibes from Halsey’s “Now or Never.” This reminds me of being schizophrenic and how I used to look for Gaga and Taylor in New York or Emma and Selena in LA. She’s saying she looks in people's windows which is the same as saying “I see you everywhere.” Then says, “Does it feel all right to not know me? I’m addicted to that if only.” 

The prophecy

It’s an interesting choice of track order with the last track being so schizophrenic. What if I’m “E?” And it plays out like fools in a fable.

Cassandra 

This is about Kanye

Peter

This reminds me of the goal of my music which is to become financially free so I can afford to chase my cosmic luves

The bolter 

This reminds me of how I referred to Taylor as the “ice queen” in my “reputation” track 

Robin

I feel like this of inspired by Robin Williams and the dead poet's society.

The manuscript

I feel this entire album is about this song. It kinda feels like a cleansing or recovery and at the end, when she’s recovered, the story isn’t just mine anymore. I feel like it’s kinda a love song to her fans. She makes a show on a manuscript but by the time it’s done, you remember it totally different. Maybe that’s what cosmic love is like…

[surveysand]

one.

When was the last time you did clay work/pottery? middle school, i think? i can't remember if it was middle or elementary school where i last had a pottery unit in art class, lol.

Do you like art, hate it or just not mind it? i love it. i have a yearly membership with my city's art museum.

If you had to choose would you prefer dull pain for 12hours or sharp for 2? dull pain.

Koala or Kangaroo? koala.

Do you know the words to the national anthem of your country? yes.

Is your country ruled by a president, prime minister, queen or other? president.

Does blue occur in your national flag? yes.

Talking of flags. Do you like football/soccer? If yes, do you play and what position? no, just never been my type of thing.

Would you rather be a Model, Famous Scientist, Singer or Chef? famous scientist.

Would you rather be a pilot, crime scene investigator or estate agent? crime scene investigator.

Does making others happy really make you feel happy? absolutely. it's hard to be in a bad mood when i know i've made someone else feel good.

What colour literally doesn’t appear in your wardrobe at all? i have at least one item in every color, but orange is definitely the one least represented.

Do you actually read the answers others give to your surveys? i don't make surveys, just answer them.

Did you ever swear at a teacher in school? Why? no.

Have you ever pricked your finger on Holly or another ‘sharp’ plant? no.

Speaking of Holly, do you adore Christmas or does it bug you? i can get overwhelmed, but it is probably my favorite of the traditional holidays. i'm not religious, but i love winter and the music/food/etc. reminds me of my childhood which i hold very closely.

Have you ever wrote your own short story? What about a novel? Or perhaps you started and couldn’t finish? i've written several short stories for school projects, but never any novels. also, have never started and left anything unfinished.

Do you prefer SciFi/Fantasy/Action/Horror or Rom/Com/RealLife? i am not really a movie person, but i guess real life if i had to choose. the only movies i really watch are documentaries.

What do you have a lot of faith in [note: can be anything]? the true good in people.

Think of a material thing you want. Name it here (material, made or bought). Would $100/60 be enough for this item? How about $1000/600? i would love a desktop computer, but really don't know what brand exactly. i figure it would be at least $1,200, though.

Would you rather have a big house, a lot of kids or a high flying job? high flying job.

Have you ever been to a creepy/haunted/abandoned place? What did it look like and what were the circumstances? yes, i actually recently visited a (supposedly) haunted prison in my city despite having lived here for years and never gone. i went on a tour with my parents for a day together after my college graduation. i didn't think it was too scary despite getting pretty freaked out at paranormal stuff. What’s your favourite dip? french onion.

Chocolate Cookies or Fudge Brownies? brownies.

I give you a little baby puppy. What do you name him? it really would depend on the breed of dog.

Is crime a big problem in your area? not a ginormous problem (it could very easily be much worse), but i live in a very big city. so yes in comparison to other places.

What’s your town/city most well known for? importance in american history and annoying sports fans (which i am unapologetically a part of), lol. Do you know a Jack? What’s he like? How about a Lisa? What’s she like? yes, but neither very well. jack is one of my partner's best friends and lisa is one of my mom's close family friends. they're both nice from the limited interactions i've had with both of them.

Are most your friends older, younger or the same age as you? all the same age, except for one who is two years older than me.

Do you subconsciously hang out with those with the same star sign as you or as each other, perhaps due to certain personality traits? no.

Name 5 objects that you don’t have but would like right now? two bedside tables, a new mattress, a new bedframe, and a dresser. i really need to upgrade my bedroom furniture, lol.

When you have children, would you like twins? i wouldn't be opposed, but it's also not something i yearn for necessarily. Do you know any twins? If so, what are they called? yes, there were three sets of twins that i went to primary/middle/high school with, two sets were in my grade and the other set was in the grade below me. i won't name them fully for personal reasons (i.e., i'm paranoid someone i know would find this, lol), but their initials are as follows: c/c, j/z, and l/l.

If you were given the choice to choose your child’s gender, would you? honestly, yes. i would want a girl first.

What instrument would you love to learn how to play? piano.

Does the sound of knocking/tapping startle you? yes.

What’s the scariest story/urban legend/creepypasta etc you heard? i really don't know. those things i was never really into.

Do you miss someone currently? yes.

When was the last time you were in hospital? What for? a few months ago. i had to get an mri for some head pain i was experiencing.

When was the last time you went to the dentist? middle school, i think (i turn 23 in a few months). my family no longer has dental insurance and i can't afford out-of-pocket, but i know it's bad i haven't gone in so long.

Do you get along well with your family doctor/your doctor? yes, she's very nice.

What personality trait does nearly everyone in your family seem to have? we're all very loud, lol. everyone outside our family is always telling us to quiet down.

[ouijaban]

Glaciator 2.0 Summary

For all the Miraculous fans who don't speak French and are struggling to understand, here's a basic summary of the episode:

Ladybug and Chat Noir are arguing in the beginning because they were named "couple of the year" when they're not a couple. Ladybug becomes very angry with him (and with everyone else involved), and, seeing this, Chat resolves to respect her feelings and fall out of love with her, but this makes him very sad. There's a brief sad montage, Adrien deletes all the Ladybug computers off his desktop and watches a news report (which Marinette also watches and fumes about) and there's a tense conversation between Adrien and Kagami where he says that no one can help him with what he's going through, at the end of which Adrien is almost akumatised, which shocks Papillon. Meanwhile, Kagami accosts Marinette and tells her she needs to confess to Adrien because he's depressed. She gives her the advice to write a dramatic speech, which she then does.

While on the phone trying to get billboards depicting them kissing taken down, she sees Adrien crying in the park, and is going to give him a present out of the one's she's accumulated (it's cookware and not a hamster) but fumbles it, and he gets driven away by the Gorilla on Gabriel's orders. When he gets back, Gabriel awkwardly gives him an "I'm there for you, sorry I've been a bad dad since your mother" speech, but Adrien brushes him off, surprising Plagg, who thinks his cold family situation will potentially improve. After looking at a photo of his mom and resolving to not end up like his father, Adrien goes out as Chat to destroy the kissing billboards and demonstrate his respect for Ladybug.

Marinette can't figure out who to practice her speech with (it's really bad, some gibberish about how on the first day they met she saw three suns I think) but she sees Chat Noir doing this from her balcony and flags him down to play the role of her "boyfriend who's not yet her boyfriend" (lmao)

Basically they goof around and banter a lot– she won't say the name of the person she's talking about (ofc) so she at first addresses the confession to Chat Noir, which confuses him, and then replaces Adrien's name with "Buttercup," which makes him laugh and she gets mad because he's making the wrong faces in response and being a bad actor. He reads the speech aloud and she realises how stupid it sounds. Anyway, after rehearsal goes poorly, Chat proposes they take a break and so they go to the cinema. André gets the wrong idea and thinks it's a date, and gets mad because according to him Ladybug and Chat Noir are meant for each other, not him and Marinette.

At the cinema, neither of them like the movie. Marinette explains how she overthinks everything and so the version of her that comes out around everyone isn't the real her but rather a highly practiced one, and then the guy behind them yells at them to shut up. They leave, and it's raining so Chat uses the baton as an umbrella. He then says he's the opposite to her, and he can't help but say things even though he knows he shouldn't, speaking about his constant confessions to Ladybug. He says she hates him now, and Marinette immediately says that she doesn't, and that he's a good kitty 🥺😭

When they get back to the balcony, Glaciator accosts them and accuses them of being a couple, and Chat says he'll come back to rehearse again.

Ladybug shows up and they fight him; the whole time, Chat is correcting himself about what's ok and what's not ok to say to her now that they're just friends– for example, using "us" for him and Ladybug, calling her my lady, etc, but he's going overboard. Ultimately they beat Glaciator, give him the Magical Charm, and the two of them part on good terms, and Chat returns to the balcony to finish up the rehearsal. Marinette reads a few lines and then acknowledges that her speech is bad, and gives one from the heart instead.

In essence, what she says is that she had the wrong impression when she and the guy she likes first met, she took him for someone who was pretentious, but after getting to know him she's learned how kind he is, and is very much in love with him despite struggling to communicate that effectively. Chat is obviously moved by this (and like 2 seconds away from figuring out who she's talking about). They part happily– both saying that the person the other loves is lucky to have them, basically– and it cuts to a scene at fencing, where Adrien is killing it and no longer depressed.

Kagami asks Marinette if she confessed, to which Marinette essentially replies sort of but not really. Then it's revealed that Kagami's seduction technique came from a shoujo manga and Marinette tells her she needs to hang out with her and the gang more (lmao)

Meanwhile, Adrien restores the Ladybug photos he deleted off his computer earlier, and explains to Plagg that he's not going to give up his love for Ladybug. He says that Marinette opened his eyes, and that if he shows Ladybug the "Adrien" side of him rather than only the guise of Chat Noir, maybe she'll fall in love with him.

And that's it! Let me know if you have any specific French questions. If I missed anything, I apologise; this is entirely from memory, so there are definitely scenes I didn't describe in adequate detail.

[yvesdot]

PLEASE tell me about social media in the Sims

Oh my God thank you all I got these within MINUTES of that post. Sure!

INTRO

The Sims 2 was released in 2004. Because of that, there is no social media in that game. There aren't even cell phones or laptops-- Sims have big clunky desktop computers that they use for things like playing video games and looking for jobs.

The first expansion pack, University (released 2005), added cell phones, which in my experience players rarely use. You have to sit through 2004 game loading time to get to a community lot (public/commercial, as opposed to private, lot) which sells them-- you need to have a cell phone store somewhere in your neighborhood-- and after all that it provides little utility. The base game (TS2 without expansion packs/DLC) includes (free to use) phone booths on every community lot by default, and landlines are pretty cheap. In the game, you just don't need it.

Obviously, in real life I love having a personal phone and would never have a landline. I can check the time, browse various sites, research any question I might have, and chat with my friends who aren't around. I like always having my phone on me-- but I do not live in The Sims 2.

The Sims 4 does have phones. It also has a pack called Get Famous, which-- and I'm not saying I understand this at all-- allows your Sim to get some kind of quirk that defines them as a celebrity. My Sim's quirk was phone addiction.

I'm never going to play this stupid evil game again. ('ω')

But, okay, why is that my reaction to my Sim being addicted to their phone? Why does it bother me that they pull it out and browse, or whatever? Why do I never use TVs in my Sims' homes, and why don't I get them cell phones? Do I just hate realistic gameplay, or the modernization of the games? Am I a hypocrite for having pink CC laptops in half of my TS2 builds?

Turns out no I was right about everything obviously as always.

SOME REASONINGS

The basic answer is obvious: not everything realistic is something I want in my game. I wish mindless social media scrolling and binge-watching and capitalism didn't exist. I don't want to add CC Starbucks cups to my game because I don't need Starbucks to be in more places than it already is. Abortion mods personally make me sad, because abortion is a solution to a number of problems I wish we didn't have. In a game with distinct WooHoo (protected sex) and Try for Baby (what it sounds like) options which both make Sims just as happy, why can't every pregnancy be wanted and healthy?

Obviously, there are a lot of Real Life Things in TS2 basegame, like the fact that the central mechanic hinges on time and resource management: you have to figure out when to put your Sim to bed and when to take them to the bathroom to optimize everything else (fulfilling their Wants, making them money, causing chaos, etc.). I find myself much more entertained by planning my Sim's day around their varied needs than I would be trying to figure out TS2 tax mods. Then, too, everyone has a different threshhold for what they consider a good or bad realistic addition, including additions to gameplay. I can't play with the mod ACR (Autonomous Casual Romance), for example, because I am a control freak and if my Sims jump into bed with random people I explode. I'm not against any given mod, particularly because I know that it's just my personal taste to play so carefully. That being said, TS2 is in many ways a game about control: using all your power to help your Sims reach the goals you and the game set for them.

More importantly, though, I play the Sims character-focused. While I love building houses and towns, I don't think about the game as gameplay- or worldbuilding-first; all elements to me are a scaffold for the characters, or the Sims! I play The Sims because I love my Sims the way I love the characters I write and read about and the people I hang out with. This is actually the same thing people are doing with, say, ACR, because they like to feel like their Sims are more 'real' and have their own preferences. By default, for example, the game doesn't set gender preference-- you do, when you instruct your Sim to check out or flirt with or smooch another one. I do occasionally indulge in using ACR (with the main function turned firmly OFF) to randomize sexual preferences in my neighborhood so that I can be surprised. Of course, the latest version allows you to make everyone default bisexual if you'd like...

(I do, for the record, LOVE the people who make tax and abortion and death by illness and welfare mods. I find their ability to handle chaos and ride the wave hands-free admirable, and I especially love watching them play and reading their stories, because everything can hit the fan in an instant. That kind of adaptability and dedication is insane! I think individual players should be able to do and add whatever the crap they want to their games. Have no fear; I am not against the pregnancy-enabled Orgy Rug.)

So, in short, I want my Sims to be happy and fulfilled in good relationships. In my opinion, social media does not provide any of this. I know you want this to be at least 5,000 words of a response, though, so let me prove it to you ^__^

THE SIMS 2 BLOGGING WANTS

TS2 actually does have a comparable feature to TS4's cell phones, which is blogging. If you have the expansion pack FreeTime, your Sims can have hobbies, and let me tell you those little bitches Want nothing more than to Blog About [Hobby]. I have a mod now that tanks the frequency of these Wants and it still comes up too often-- I'm talking every time the Wants rerolled (another Want fulfilled, Sim went to sleep and woke up, etc. You get about 4 Wants each time), I'd get a Blog About [Hobby] Want and it drove me nuts. Yes, it's repetitive, but it's also... unsocial.

In real life, if I'm blogging or scrolling through Tumblr or whatever, I know that every individual user is a human person. I'm experiencing social interaction by chatting and peeping. I am, right now, chatting to beloved friend lazarusemma, in addition to two anonymous persons whom I appreciate very much for showing their interest in my interests. It's similar (but not identical to) my being at a party where my friend says "oh please talk about The Sims 2" and then two people yell out from the crowd, "yeah, talk about The Sims 2!" There is a demonstrable social aspect to all of it.

In TS2, though, there's no way to convey that your Sim is doing that. The reason phone calls work so well is that they're essentially identical to having a Sim walk by, appear on the lot, and chat to your Sim (other than that, of course, you can't play ball over the phone). You see the Sims chatting about various topics, the relationship bars go up, your Sim's Social need fills, and of course on your end you see your Sim walking around and making hand gestures as they talk on the phone. It's really adorable! And, importantly, it's character- and relationship-based. You see your Sim making social connections.

The blogging is a mystery. Is my Sim expressing strong opinions on crafting? Are they making friends through their LiveJournal? Is there drama? Who's reading that blog? I have no idea. It makes no coherent difference to my Sim's life to blog, whatsoever, which is simply not accurate to the social aspects of blogging in real life. It's like if you integrated sewing but all your Sims could do was sit at a sewing machine for 5 hours and nothing would happen. (In practice, sewing increases the Sewing talent & interest in Arts and Crafts, allows Sims to craft and then sell or keep usable items, fulfills Fun needs, etc.)

I'M CREEPING UP ON A CONCLUSION NOW

It's also worth noting that you can't really replicate IRL dynamics in the Sims this way to begin with. IRL I do not have people walking by on the lawn who I can talk to, not just because people don't tend to walk by but also because we live in a world where you might not like someone for reasons beyond "they have Level 10 interest in Money and I have Level 0" or "they have 0 Nice Points." People are transphobic in real life. Furthermore, travel in The Sims 2 is either simple (call someone you know to come over, and they show up within the hour) or impossible (Sims in two different neighborhoods can't & won't ever interact). The Internet solves a problem (physical accessibility of a person or resource) that simply does not exist in these games.

All this is to say that I find some of these mechanics "unproductive," in the sense that I see no benefit to them for the Sim's fulfillment, relationships, etc. If they write a novel in TS2, it takes hours and hours and hours and then it sells and they can take it out of the bookshelf and read it. Blog post in TS2? Into the ether. Does not affect anything in the game. It takes less time for two Sims to have a landline phone call than to call one of them over to the other's house, but when you have those two options, you don't really need IMs (real thing in TS2!) or cell phones. I'm racking my brain to find a use for cell phones and I guess if another Sim was using the landline it'd be helpful....? But I don't play in big families, so, again, subjectively useless to me. What I really want as an answer to any gameplay mechanic is: what goal does this achieve better than any other current mechanic? Writing a novel, calling a Sim, and using a sewing machine all have a good answer, while I personally feel cell phones and social media do not. That doesn't mean you can't add them, just that I find them useless.

So, at the end of the day, I'm right about not everything realistic being an inherently good gameplay choice, particularly when it forces me to remember substantive real life issues (I wish I had more control over my phone! I wish companies weren't inventing new ways to keep me scrolling!), while adding nothing of value to gameplay and forcing my Sims to stop what they're doing to perform an animation which has no material significance to their lives, meaning, no significance to my gameplay or investment. We should also be asking ourselves why we want to imitate real life, and whether we can, before we start doing it. Yeah, sure, you could integrate credit card payments into The Sims 2 basegame... but would it actually make the game more fun to play? What factors make credit cards necessary IRL, and do or should they exist in TS2?

I find this to be part of TS4's trend of throwing everything into the game to see what sticks, which for me made for pretty overwhelming initial gameplay, though I'm completely willing to admit I "played it wrong" by starting with a bunch of packs. (I didn't want them, but the copy I was... borrowing... came with them all.) I know social media in TS4 has been updated since-- I'm just not a fan of the game for other reasons, and personally, I don't think I need social media in my games no matter how well-integrated they become. I wrote this post for funsies (*‘ω‘ *) The Sims 2 reigns supreme!

[peanutpinet]

Lucas (mafia leader) x Reader (female)

A/N: I had this thought for days now and was like, ya know, just let it out. This is my first NCT (?) WayV (?) fanfic? Scenario? Yea XD For those who have read my past fanfics/scenarios, you know how horrible I am in explaining XD but yea, essentially I just imagine that you, the reader are a uni student whilst Lucas is part of the NCT mafia, "leader" of the WayV unit (I know Kun is technically the leader, but just for the sake of the story), okie, leggo

Sighing in defeat, you gathered all your books, stationery and some clothing before sneakily going out of your dorm and to your boyfriend's apartment since he gave you the spare key, saying that it was for emergencies or whenever you wanted to come over.

After texting Lucas that you were heading to his apartment, you went to grab a cab and head there. Truth be told, you never really went there and only got the address from Lucas. Which is why upon arriving, your jaw nearly dropped when you saw his apartment; even making sure whether the address Lucas gave last time was the exact one and making a mental note to yourself to look up things beforehand.

Upon arriving, you felt like you just came from the countryside to the big city. You went to the front desk and inform them who were you looking for, handing in your ID card and was immediately directed to the elevator, one of the securities pressing the highest floor of the elevator and left you in the elevator on your own.

Just when you thought that it couldn't get any fancier, the minute you stepped out of the elevator, you were amazed at the decor and the fact that there was only one door made it even grander. Taking out the key Lucas gave you, you were actually hoping that it wasn't the correct one and Lucas just sent you the wrong address but as it turns out, the key fits and you took a deep breath, walking into the room.

But on Lucas' side, he actually didn't receive your text message. So, the second he heard someone coming into his suite, he was already reaching for his gun because he wasn't really expecting anyone to come. But as soon as he heard your signature nervous voice, he felt relieved but worried at the same time. Did something happen to you?

"Lucas? Ar-are you in here? The people at the front desk just directed me here. I uh sent you a text" you called out

"I'm here sweetheart. Now, what brings you here at this late hour? Is there anyone I should be concern with?" Lucas stated, coming out of his bedroom

"Huh? Wow. I mean, no. Sorry, it's my first time here. I uh, I was just wondering if I could stay for the night. The dorm was so loud that I couldn't study nor sleep" you admitted, trying to avoid eye contact with Lucas, thinking that it was a lame excuse to come over

"Of course you can. I gave you the spare key for a reason, didn't I? Uh, sorry about the mess and all. I didn't expect you to come. I didn't receive any messages. C'mere sweetheart" Lucas mentioned, giving a hand motion for you to go to him

"Really?! I could've sworn I...(looks at your phone) I forgot to click the send button" you sighed, hitting your head as you went over to Lucas

"Hey, hey. Don't do that. You'll hurt your brain even more. No harm sweetheart. My place is yours. Come. I'll order some McDonalds as well if you'd like" Lucas cooed, bringing you into his office

"Damn. Two desktops?! Bro and this processor is the latest one?!" you commented, placing your bag down and immediately inspecting his desk

"Sometimes I play some games with the guys. Feel free to use it if you'd like. Lemon tea or coke?" Lucas asked, scrolling through his phone

"Lemon tea, no ice. It's worth the money better. Are you sure I can study here? Am I not disturbing you?" you questioned, sitting on the chair

"Not at all, sweetheart. It's almost 10pm. I'm done with work. You're free to use my computer. I've ordered your favourites already. I'm going to go for a shower for a bit. Feel free to turn on some music as well, alright? And please don't study for too long. I worry you'll hurt that gorgeous head of yours" Lucas chuckled, kissing your forehead before leaving you in his study room

After settling, putting on some music with your account (which was already in Lucas' Spotify), you grabbed your books and stationery then started to study for your finals. In the midst of it, you heard Lucas coming in with McDonalds; wearing a plain T-shirt and sweats.

Because there was only one chair in his office, with your consent, Lucas placed you on his lap as he was feeding you McDonalds whilst scrolling through his phone, occasionally leaning his head on your back as he does so.

After finishing the food, Lucas was about to get up and cleaned up so you could study a bit better since he knew you didn't like a messy space but when he felt your head slightly leaning backwards, he questioned whether you were already sleepy or not.

"What's wrong love? Tired?" Lucas murmured as he placed his chin on your neck, wrapping his long arms around your waist

"Huh? Oh? Sorry. I didn't realise I was leaning back" you yawned, scrubbing your eyes but Lucas stopped the motion

"Don't. Your eyes will get irritated. I think it's about time you sleep, hmm?" Lucas commented, tucking a hair behind your ear as he kissed the side of your cheek

"Hmm. I guess so" you sighed, leaning onto Lucas's chest

"Alright princess, let me just shut everything off. Kay, let's go to bed" Lucas chuckled, carrying your small figure in his arms and tucking you into his bed before going to the other side of the bed

The next morning, you were woken up by the sound of your phone's alarm but just stayed in bed whilst scrolling through your phone until you realised that you had exams that starts in 45 minutes. Immediately, you got up and went back to the study room to grab your clothes, without even calling out to Lucas and head to the bathroom to get ready.

After getting ready, you were so ready to rush out the door and call a cab until Lucas finally called out to you. Once you told him that your exam was starting in literally 15 minutes, he just chuckled and told you that he'll drive you there; which was a first since all this time, you guys just have dates near your campus since your dorm had strict rules and Lucas would just walk you there (A/N: how you guys met is a story for next time, lol).

After packing some food for you, Lucas grabbed his car keys in one hand and your hand in the other, making your way down to the parking lot where your jaw also almost dropped again since the car Lucas owned is probably enough to pay your whole entire undergraduate life.

Whilst in the car, Lucas told you to eat so you wouldn't be hungry during the exam. He also mentioned that he'll come to pick you up to celebrate finishing your finals since he knew that you've been stressing over this last final for weeks; saying that he'll treat you out.

Once you've arrived, Lucas pulled you to give a slight peck on your forehead, encouraging you to do well in your finals and that he'll see you right after you're done. You smiled and thank him. Getting out of the car, you saw nearly the whole campus that was by the front gate staring at you; even your friends were stunned before rushing to you, managing to get a glimpse at Lucas who just smiled before leaving.

"Gurl!! I knew your boyfriend was hot, but well off? You definitely hit the jackpot!!" one of your friends blurted

"Sis!! Can we save the conversation for later? I need to get this exam over with first" you bargained

"Okay, okay, good luck with your exams!! I'll see you later!!" your friend exclaimed as you went to your exam hall

Thankfully, the exam wasn't as hard as you'd thought. You didn't know if it's because Lucas actually helped you study since he actually knew the subject or something else but you were glad to finally be done with it. After the exam, you got a text from Lucas, saying that he'll be running a bit late which you didn't mind. Your friend, who was also done with her exam, came to your exam hall and didn't spare a second before plastering with all sorts of questions.

Asking you where you've been the night before since you weren't at your dorm; and when you told her you were at Lucas' place, she squealed, asking if you guys did anything spicy which you immediately cut her off, saying that you just went there to study because the rooms near yours were getting too loud and rowdy.

You also explained how kind and caring Lucas was; despite the amount of work he had to deal with, he was still soft when it came to you. Ordering your favourites from McDonalds, letting you just barged into his apartment whenever and even using whatever he had; hearing this, all your friend can do was just squeal, saying that Lucas was the perfect boyfriend.

And right on cue, Lucas texted you saying that he's almost at the front gate. Your friend saw your smile and teased the heck out of you before letting you off just because she supported your relationship; knowing that you had a rough past and it was nice to finally see you happy with someone; someone that genuinely cares about you.

But of course, life ain't that easy. Because just as you were skidding along the halls to the front gate, you accidentally bumped into someone and dropped your phone. You immediately apologised about to get your phone when the person you bumped into stepped on your phone. Looking up, you met with the campus' miss popular with her boyfriend.

"Can you please let go. I really have to go now" you sighed, looking up

"Can't your boyfriend get you another one? Oh wait, is he the one that you're meeting? Honestly, I dunno what he sees in you. Oh wait, I think I do. He's probably just in it to play around or probably did it because of a bet" the girl scoffed but you were just not having it and shoved her feet off, nearly falling if it weren't for her boyfriend being there

After getting your phone, you were about to make a run for it before she grabbed your hair, pulling you back and making you fall; calling you names and all. When you got back to your feet again, she nearly slapped you when you got ahold of her hand about to push her back when her boyfriend came and took your hand, twisting it behind your back, allowing an opening for her to get a good punch out of you.

It felt like forever since you were trapped between the two "bullies" of your campus and for Lucas, it meant something was wrong. It's been almost 30 minutes since he arrived and called you but there was no answer at all. Frustrated, he called Winwin to track your phone as he went in to find you; thinking that you were held captive by one of NCT's enemy.

When he did see you, he felt a slight relief that it wasn't one of NCT's enemy but he was still very much pissed at the sight. When the girl was about to hit you for like the 15th time, Lucas grabbed ahold of her arm, throwing her to the floor before looking at her boyfriend who turns out to be one of the bartenders in one of NCT's bars.

"B-boss..." the man stammered, letting go of your hand as you almost dropped if it weren't for Lucas catching you

"You better come to work tonight. We'll have a lil discussion about respect? Hmm? Make sure everyone comes. Or I'll just have to report Taeyong about this" Lucas growled, making the man cowered in fear

"N-no sir. Everyone will come tonight" the man stuttered as Lucas stood up, holding your figure firmly in his arms

"Good. Wouldn't want to make a big deal out of this hmm? Oh, and do bring your girlfriend while I take mine to treat the wounds you both caused" Lucas scoffed, bringing you out of the campus

Once you've reached his car, he gently placed you and put your seatbelt on before going to the driver's seat. Once he was in, he called Kun, telling him what happened and that he's planning to have a meeting later tonight in the bar. After the call, Lucas took your hand in his, stroking your knuckles as he drove back to his apartment.

Upon arriving, he helped you get out of the car and into his apartment. Inside, he brought you to his room before going to the bathroom and grabbing some medicine for your bruised face and cut on the lips. Lucas treated all your wounds as gently as possible, worrying that he might accidentally hurt you, treating you as if you're as fragile as an egg.

After he was done, he threw all the cotton buds and ordered some food for the both of you; knowing that you will tell him whenever you're ready. He put his hoodie onto you before bringing you to the living room to cuddle and just watch the whole day. Occasionally, food will come and it was all from your favourite restaurants.

After the next 5th Disney movie ended, you told Lucas that you wanted to take a shower and he told you that you can borrow any of his clothes. He even said that he'll run you a bath but you told him that you were just going to take a light shower which Lucas didn't mind. Whilst you were showering, Lucas prepared a T-shirt and shorts along with the hoodie you were just wearing.

After your shower and putting on the clothes Lucas prepared, Lucas came and redid the medicine on your wounds before going back to watching some heart-warming movies on the bed. Feeling better, you decided to tell Lucas what happened and whilst it seemed that he was calm, his mind was off wondering the endless possibilities of teaching the two that harm you; whether it'd be physically or mentally.

Either way, Lucas listened to all your rambles, wrapping his arm around your shoulder, leaning you onto his chest, giving kisses on your forehead, cheeks and occasionally your neck, chuckling when he saw you flustered; basically making you 10x better, treating you like a queen up until you fell asleep.

When you did fall asleep, he gently tucked you into bed, kissing your forehead, smiling at your sleeping figure before leaving the room to the bar where he was more than ready to make the two-person harmed you suffer; not forgetting to ask Hendery and Yangyang to come over to watch over you.

"Sleep tight sweetheart. I'll be back before you know it, alright? No one treats my queen like trash and gets away with it" Lucas mumbled, kissing your forehead as he left as quietly as possible

and let's just say that everyone in the bar that night experienced a side of Lucas that no one would like to see or hear ever again.

"Try and lay a finger on her again, I won't be so nice next time" Lucas scoffed, seeing all the staff looked down, especially the two-person who hurt you

A/N: I hope that this was alright but yea, this fanfic has been stuck in my head for days