#Extension project

[deerspherestudios]

Hello hello! I'm excited to announce my submission for the Monstrous Desires 2024 Jam: Astronought is out! 🌑🎉

If you're interested, I really hope it's not with the expectations that it'll be similar to MO. I really wanted to try out different things with a new character and had a lot of fun with the process!

Be sure to heed the general warnings, and if you're sensitive to body horror,,, maybe sit this one out hjhs (tbh it's my first time attempting it so it's probably not even that graphic but just a heads up! There will be mentions of fleshy things!)

Anyhoo, I don't know if MO enjoyers will like it, but it's certainly a game I made! If there's any bugs/issues I'll get to them as soon as I can! Maybe you'll like it, maybe you won't; I made it, so have it! <3 /aff

[heartorbit]

catch us if you can! ☆

[kindest-little-fella-in-town]

hear me out…. hear me out………

[bonefall]

a while ago you said that Starclan cats design kittens and customize them with patterns and colors from their parents genes. So, do the clan cats raise any eyebrows when it comes to people who know cat genetics? Is there a geneticist who is holding their head wondering how these two cats have this colored kit while their starclan designer was just playing around? Or do the Starclan designers still have to stay within the rules?

Basically, do the humans notice that some of these clan cats are sparkle cats lol

I try to not get too "lost in the weeds" since the humans aren't the focus of the story, just taking care that they DO have real motivations behind their actions rather than construction crews materializing out of nowhere to Do A Chaos, but...

First, the genetics of cats in Albion are different than humans in equivalent Great Britain.

Partially, this is because I honestly just don't really enjoy learning about in-depth genetics or applying them realistically. I like drawing anime characters and writing anime battles, so they have anime genetics. But more than that, off-screen, the intelligence of cats has altered the timeline of this world.

If cats really were capable of higher thinking, that totally would have had some butterfly effects. I like dropping crazy alt-history and then not elaborating on it, because it's funny. Archimedes' cat helped him invent a death ray, btw.

On that note of genetics though, you guessed right. StarClan designers DO have to work with what they have. Whatever the genetics of this alternate universe of cats are, every kit born still abides by the laws of nature.

Which brings me to...

Second, the researchers do notice that the Clan cats are special. In fact, there is a "study of magic" in this universe-- Thaumatology. "The science of wonder."

(There's no world where magic actually factually exists that science isn't all over it lmao)

Thaumatology facts I haven't shared so far since it's all offscreen and just Bonus Worldbuilding;

It is a "soft science," not a hard one.

It has a LOT of problems with replicability. Thaumatologists and Quantum Physicists have a lot of in-jokes.

The most well known (to the point of being a cliche) is "magic and quantum particles both hate being watched."

Magic is highly variable based on a bajillion very personal factors, like emotion, environment, culture, personal background, etc, so it's severely difficult to re-create it in controlled environments.

Thaumatology has a lot of overlap with sociology, archeology, and theology, so people from these fields work together a lot.

There was absolutely not a dedicated Thaumatologist working in the Research Team early on, sadly.

It was probably discovered when the Battle of the True Eclipse blew out a bunch of field cameras.

It's pretty common that photography equipment fritzes out a bit during "supernatural" times like eclipses, but the damage was extensive enough to be noteworty

The Clan cats were initially notable just for the fact they had advanced culture.

Cats are usually comparable to crows and monkeys, in this universe. So cats with fire and a crude writing system were enough to SHAKE the field of zoology.

The fact they're cats helped a lot. The public loves cats, enough that since their discovery after Speckletail attacked a bulldozer, massive outcry has secretly helped the Clans several times.

The discovery that the culture also has Thaumatological elements is more of a goldmine for a scientist than the public, though.

It's common knowledge that "animals are magic," because humanity projects traits onto them. "Of course they do, they're cats...?"

The Thaumatologist is freaking out because "THE CAT IS PROVABLY DOING ITS OWN THAUMATURGY"

Most people don't know the difference between Thaumaturgy (the functional work it does on the world) and Thaumology (the study of that as a whole), so this particular scientist is going to have a hard time explaining WHY this distinction is so special.

(And possibly even offensive to certain groups, who would insist only humans are capable of this)

In any case, eventually there would be Thaumatological interest in the Clan cats, but they weren't there in the mid to late 2010s when BB!ASC takes place.

[mizuribbons]

this fucking extension is giving me too much power

[sideblogdotjpeg]

ive been thinking about the red string superstition recently and also sol bufo always and it makes me sick how uncannily caldwell tanner has made sol to perfectly target me personally

(+ cropped versions !)

[thy-lovelylionheart]

1x03 vs 4x03

[howlsofbloodhounds]

yall think color and killer ever had a talk about what would come after, or if, color managed to fulfill his mission and rescue killer. if they’d stay in touch, if they’d still talk, if they’d go their separate ways. and like, color of course wants to still be friends or at least keep contact, but he of course asks killer if he wants him to stay even after killer’s free. like do yall think they had that talk.

the confirmation that they’ve actually grown to care about eachother and trust eachother and want to stay together, that color has come to care about killer as his friend, rather than initially because it was the right thing to do, and color would’ve helped anyone who had asked him for help to escape a dangerous situation. and maybe he shouldn’t have grown so attached to someone in such a dangerous situation where he could easily lose killer, but he did.

[fatehbaz]

"The most fashionable bathing station in all Europe". British industrialists and American mining investors plotting the colonization of the Congo, while mingling at Ostend's seaside vacation resorts. Extracting African life to build European railways, hotels, palaces, suburbs, and other modern(ist) infrastructure. "Towards infinity!"

---

In 1885, King Leopold II achieved an astonishing and improbable goal: he claimed a vast new realm of his own devising, a conjury on a map called [...] the Congo Free State. [...] [A] fictional state owned by the king, ruled by decree, and run from Brussels from 1885 to 1908. [...] This was [...] a private entrepreneurial venture [for the king]. The abundance of ivory, timber, and wild rubber found in this enormous territory brought sudden and spectacular profits to Belgium, the king, and a web of interlocking concession companies. The frenzy to amass these precious resources unleashed a regime of forced labor, violence [millions of deaths], and unchecked atrocities for Congolese people. These same two and a half decades of contact with the Congo Free State remade Belgium [...] into a global powerhouse, vitalized by an economic boom, architectural burst, and imperial surge.

Congo profits supplied King Leopold II with funds for a series of monumental building projects [...]. Indeed, Belgian Art Nouveau exploded after 1895, created from Congolese raw materials and inspired by Congolese motifs. Contemporaries called it “Style Congo,” [...]. The inventory of this royal architecture is astonishing [...]. [H]istorical research [...] recovers Leopold’s formative ideas of architecture as power, his unrelenting efforts to implement them [...]. King Leopold II harbored lifelong ambitions to “embellish” and beautify the nation [...]. [W]ith his personal treasury flush with Congo revenue, [...] Leopold - now the Roi Batisseur ("Builder King") he long aimed to be - planned renovations explicitly designed to outdo Louis XIV's Versailles. Enormous greenhouses contained flora from every corner of the globe, with a dedicated soaring structure completed specifically to house the oversize palms of the Congolese jungles. [...]

---

The Tervuren Congo palace [...]. Electric tramways were built and a wide swath of avenue emerged. [...] [In and around Brussels] real estate developers began to break up lots [...] for suburban mansions and gardens. Between 1902 and 1910, new neighborhoods with luxury homes appeared along the Avenue [...]. By 1892, Antwerp was not only the port of call for trade but also the headquarters of the most profitable of an interlinking set of banks and Congo investment companies [...]. As Antwerp in the 1890s became once again the “Queen of the Scheldt,” the city was also the home of what was referred to as the “Queen of Congo companies.” This was the ABIR, or Anglo-Belgian India Rubber Company, founded in 1892 with funds from British businessman “Colonel” John Thomas North [...].

Set on the seaside coast, Belgium’s Ostend was the third imperial cityscape to be remade by King Leopold [...] [in a] transformation [that] was concentrated between 1899 and 1905 [...]. Ostend encompassed a boomtown not of harbor and trade, like Antwerp, but of beachfront and leisure [...] [developed] as a "British-style" seaside resort. [...] Leopold [...] [w]as said to spend "as much time in Ostend as he did in Brussels," [...]. Ostend underwent a dramatic population expansion in a short period, tripling its inhabitants from 1870–1900. [...] Networks of steamers, trams, and railway lines coordinated to bring seasonal visitors in, and hotels and paved walkways were completed. [...] [A]nd Leopold’s favorite spot, the 1883 state-of-the-art racetracks, the Wellington Hippodrome. Referred to with an eye-wink as “the king incognito” (generating an entire genre of photography), visitors to the seaside could often see Leopold in his top hat and summer suit [...], riding his customized three-wheeled bicycle [...]. By 1900, Ostend’s expansion and enhancement made it known as “the Queen of the Belgian seaside resorts” and “the most fashionable bathing station in all Europe.” Opulence, convenience, and spectacle brought the Shah of Persia, American tycoons, European aristocrats, and Belgian elites, among others, to Ostend.

---

Leopold’s interventions and the Congo Free State personnel and proceeds played three pivotal and understudied roles in this transformation, all of which involved ABIR [British industrialists].

First, it was at Ostend that an early and decisive action was taken to structure the “red rubber” regime and set it in motion. In 1892, jurists such as [E.P.] had ruled, contravening [...] trade laws, that the king was entitled to claim the Congo as his domanial property [...]. Leopold [...] devised one part of that royal domain as a zone for private company concessions [...] to extract and export wild rubber.

Soon after, in 1892, King Leopold happened to meet the British “Colonel” John Thomas North at the Ostend Hippodrome. North, a Leeds-born mechanic [...] had made a fortune speculating on Chilean nitrates in the 1880s. He owned monopoly shares in nitrate mines and quickly expanded to acquire monopolies in Chilean freight railways, water supplies, and iron and coal mines. By 1890 North was a high-society socialite worth millions [...]. Leopold approached North at the Ostend racecourse to provide the initial investments to set up the Anglo-Belgian India Rubber Company (ABIR). [...]

---

One visible sign of Ostend’s little-known character as Congo boomtown was the Royal Palace Hotel, a lavish property next to the king’s Royal Domain, which opened in 1899. With hundreds of rooms and a broad sweep of acreage along the beachfront, the palace “occupied the largest space of any hotel in Europe.” [...]

King Leopold met American mining magnate Thomas Walsh there, and as with North, the meeting proved beneficial for his Congo enterprise: Leopold enlisted Walsh to provide assessments of some of his own Congo mining prospects. The hotel was part of [...] [a major European association of leisure profiteers] founded in 1894, that began to bundle luxury tourism and dedicated railway travel, and whose major investors were King Leopold, Colonel North [...].

At the height of Congo expansionism, fin-de-siècle Antwerp embodied an exhilarated launch point [...]. Explorers and expeditioners set sail for Matadi after 1887 with the rallying call “Vers l’infini!” (“towards infinity!”) [...].

---

Text above by: Debora Silverman. "Empire as Architecture: Monumental Cities the Congo Built in Belgium". e-flux Architecture (Appropriations series). May 2024. At: e-flux.com/architecture/appropriations/608151/empire-as-architecture-monumental-cities-the-congo-built-in-belgium/ [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me. Italicized first paragraph/heading in this post was added by me. Presented here for commentary, teaching, criticism.]

[inconceptual-nonsense]

Born to draw podcast ship fanart, forced to be doing college algebra 2 as a junior in highschool :(

[stillwithmeisonlyyou]

"Do you feel ashamed, when you hear my name?

...

Anyway don't be a stranger"

But it's Regulus to Sirius years after, because he's still broken inside from when his siri left him, but he has matured enough to admit he doesn't want him to be a stranger and they have missed so much of each other's life already. And it is all bittersweet.

[psychiatricmentalhealthfacility]

Search for Psychiatry Psychiatrist Psychiatric Mental Health Facility on the Planet Earth - Time Travel Crime - Violent Crime - Witness Intimidation and Evidence Tampering or Concealment - Non-Voters Labelled as Artificial or Proven Criminals

[mcytegg]

Roshambogames Teammate tierlist 👍

its basically just my incredibly biased personal opinion on who i think ro would work well w in a team. (mapicc gets his own tier bc he is mapicc.)

[xulips]

✂

[artbyblastweave]

Thinkin’ about The Siberian

I was sitting on a draft that said something to the effect of “Worm AU where Manton pulls an NBC Hannibal and moonlights as The Siberian on top of being a globally respected parahuman studies researcher. Is this anything.”

Then I thought about this a little more and realized that this might not be far off from what actually happened. There’s a throughline in Manton’s interests, in his trajectory through life, where he’s trying to figure out what you can use powers to get away with doing to people- about identifying constraints and overcoming them. 

He’s the guy who somehow credibly catalogued, and got his name associated with, the fact that powers generally can’t be used to pop people like balloons, and he did so reasonably early in the timeline, in the nineties at the latest. That’s.... an interesting direction to take your research! When people are just coming to terms with the fact that parahumans are real he’s out there taking careful note of whether they can manifest their powers inside people to instantly kill them. How did he test that? What capes did he collaborate with to test that? What did those conversations look like? Did the IRB at a minimum issue any revise-and-resubmits?

And then, of course, he gets picked up by Cauldron (also known as the infinite untraceable victim depot) to work on improving the vials- gaining a sufficiently in-depth understanding of what they are, how they’re made, and what they can do to people that when Cauldron told Legend that Manton had gone rogue and was the one creating C53s, he found this plausible. You’ve got the guy who’d later become the backbone of the Slaughterhouse 9 basically systemically cataloging every conceivable way a power could violate someone’s physiology- first from without, and then, at Cauldron, from within.

Then, when he pulls the trigger and gives himself powers, the resultant ability is essentially a distilled refutation of the Manton Effect- a minion that can obliterate anything, eat anything, delete any material from existence, viscerally dismember people in a unity of conventional and esoteric, power-enabled violence. And he’s insulated from the consequences of his actions on two levels- in terms of Siberian’s invulnerability, but also in the discrepancy between his form and that of his minion. He mixed the vial that gave him that power himself.

Essentially- I don’t think Siberian is something that just happened after a psychological break following a messy divorce. I think Manton basically pre-committed to becoming something like The Siberian, spent most of his career working towards some form of transcendence through superpowers, and the messy divorce was downstream of the cracks starting to show as he got closer and closer to what he’d been chasing.

Now to segue into a complication that’s more directly supported in the text- it’s Worm, it’s always complicated- Master powers spring from loneliness. My theory is that while Manton wanted apotheosis, and while he’d probably been gearing up for a rampage for a while, he genuinely didn’t want to do it alone; he wanted a sidekick. Hence why he bothered pursuing a family in the first place, hence why he fed his daughter a vial, hence why his own projection ended up looking like his daughter after he accidently made her explode or whatever with the bad vial- a monkey’s paw restoration, giving him back a facsimile of the person he wanted to take along for the ride, and making his capacity for violence inseparable from her presence.

This is why he joined up with the Nine rather than remaining a solo act; it’s why he engages in a bad imitation of the Parent/Child relationship with Bonesaw; and it’s why he seeks out Bitch as a candidate. His interest in her candidacy parses to me as genuine- Even moreso than Bonesaw, even moreso than Jack, Bitch has arrived at a no-frills fuck-you-I-do-what-I-want outlook that’s very appealing to Manton. He wants to have a murderer-daughter relationship!

But Rachel got where she is the hard way, by having a life that sucked a lot, by getting near-constantly kicked around! She has a clear reason to be so angry! Even if all my postulations about Manton having a long game are complete bullshit, there are several stages at which Manton had to actively opt in to the same lifestyle and reputation that Bitch was forced to adopt as a basic survival tactic. He didn’t have to start eating people! He’s a tourist! His “freedom” is inseparable from his distance, his disguise. Rachel’s “freedom” is just the freedom of having nothing left to lose.

All of this to say- In an interlude in which Bitch has an extended internal monologue about how people with families have the opportunities to be assholes and monsters to a captive audience, it is absolutely not a coincidence that she’s scouted by a would-be parental figure who proceeds to be an asshole and a monster in front of a captive audience, before trying to buy her affection with a puppy. In rejecting Manton, Rachel dodged an esoterically-packaged but ultimately very familiar bullet.