#Functionally it doesn't make a huge amount of difference but it feels like there's a good break point there so. 13 installments it is!

[lexicals]

God I'm already almost done with chapter 11 as well. Vibration increases

[ell-vellan]

A bunch of my random, non-story initial opinions of Veilguard, with the knowledge that I do and will love this game no matter what, because I need somewhere to put them all:

I kind of hate the color customization system?? I cannot figure out the brightness and saturation levels to make the colors I want. Am I just dumb?? What am I doing wrong here that all the blonde options look green

I do love the stylized look of the game, it's different from DAI but it has a unique flavor and the colors are very lush (for once in a DA game lol)

So far, rogue has been more fun for me than mage. Haven't tried warrior yet.

i wish we could have customized Inky's arm/prosthetic even a little

It's so cool that we get body tattoos and scars and we can customized which ones go where. Would have loved to be able to mix and match but I know we can't have everything (sigh).

It's pretty apparent as someone who has background with the games, but it would've been cool to have the tattoos labelled "Dalish," "Dwarven," "Lord of Fortune," "Crows," etc for story reasons (even though I'm sure it only matters to the small percent of us who are into the fanfic side of things lol)

Elven ears are huge again and we can't change that. lol it's whatever i guess

The thing about customizing heads based on 3 different heads is...hmm. It's difficult to get the hang of, but I'm glad that you can customize it so much? Still, it's been hard for me to figure out how to make that look good.

they let us check our character in different lighting and with different armor!! great idea

terrible idea: only 3 previous worldbuilding choices. I got spoiled to this so I was prepared. but what the heck was the point of the Keep? why did we waste our time with all of that if none of it was carrying over? Way to flush the previous 15 years of story down the drain. Who's the leader of Orlais and Ferelden? Who's Divine? Who got left in the Fade? Guess it doesn't matter at all! I'm okay that we don't know where our Hero of Ferelden is, it's been long enough in game that their part is done, but Hawke? boo.

At first I was so excited about the "random" name generator! But it's literally just like 15 pre-made names not sorted by race naming conventions that you cycle through. Could've been cooler. oh well I know most of their demographic just wants to kill things I guess

The elves look like dwarves to me for some reason? like they're stockier now, not lithe like DAI. Just takes some getting used to.

While I kind of miss the open world a tiny bit, just for the sake of feeling like we're truly exploring and less "point A to point B," it's also nice not to feel like i'm wasting hours of my time just walking through open nothingness and getting a million meaningless fetch quests

The voices are all so good

Rook's moves are cool, they're fun to play

Speaking of, why do we walk so slowly?! I'm sprinting 100 percent of the time.

Miss the search function for items, even the highlight/glimmer is faint enough with the lighting of the maps I missed a bunch of stuff the first ten minutes

I wish we had a teensy bit more unique dialogues/reactions based on our background/race, so far it's been quite a small amount

I'm undecided on the whole...armor system thing

the maps are gorgeous

I love how many settings we can customize, it's great. I don't care about combat and I can make that part so much less annoying and save myself a bunch of time spamming attacks to get back to the story, which is what I care about, lol

Solas is so hot like this. wow

[holopossums]

There's a lot of weird mentalities in fandom. I feel like incest and proship is tolerated way too much in some circles, and the way people deal with incest/proship in other circles isn't mature enough for me to agree with. Which is why I'm sort of stuck in this weird position where I don't agree with a lot of people.

Here's the thing: I'm not getting buddy-buddy with people who don't even have the spine, maturity, and decency to stand against making incest and sexual abuse titillating in any form. I'd advise that if you want to keep an ounce of respect from good people then do the same. Don't get buddy-buddy and don't interact with those sorts of people if you want to retain any respect.

Incest and sexual abuse in media is absolutely a huge social problem that's worthy of addressing. And I would treat it no different than, for example, framing racial violence in media as good. Or transphobia, or homophobia, or misogyny, or any other serious real social problem that requires careful, thoughtful framing when it is touched on as a topic, because the way it's treated sends a message. And that messaging is picked up by us on a subconscious level, which then feeds into our view on certain topics or certain people.

A person who makes incest/underage porn that is spun as a positive, titillating thing is functionally no different to me than someone who insists that, for example, racial violence or gender discrimination is okay to frame as a good and positive thing in stories. It's the exact same kind of disregard for a respectful way to depict a topic and treat the affected group. And it's the same lack of care and critical thought that makes proshippers and incest likers very susceptible to propaganda and bigoted narratives pushed by others who create media they like.

I've watched as the "fiction doesn't affect reality" crowd emulates talking points and behaviors from conservatives as well as actual predators. It's scary how people's lack of self-control and lack of desire to work on themselves with regards to how they approach media gets used against them. It can easily turn you into someone who cultivates a lack of care and respect for vulnerable groups without you even realizing it, and that's the insidiousness of it.

I see things like pro-incest and proship as a proud admittance of being weak-minded and unwilling to participate in critical thought about media, your relationship with media, and your personal impact in fandom and in the world. It's giving, "It makes me feel bad/ashamed to think about the larger implications of what I'm doing, so I just won't think about it. And if anyone questions/criticizes me, I'll regard them as a pearl-clutching puritan rather than a sensible and fair individual who's calling on me to have a sense of care for others and the world around me."

It's only one part of a much bigger problem, which is a slow shift in attitude away from critical thinking and care for others in our society. It affects more than fandom. But that bigger problem is a topic too big to tackle for this post.

At the same time, to spend copious amounts of energy going after these dogshit people instead of just shutting them out of your life and your personal spaces... that's not good either, you know? It's not good to obsess over them.

I take care of my own space - my own social media feeds and the Discord servers I run. I shut those people out of my spaces as much as I can, even when they are truly awful people who invade my spaces and don't respect my boundaries. And that is all I can truly do.

Sadly, even though it can be cathartic, the world doesn't get fixed by going after shitty people online who refuse to think about what they're doing because they're a bunch of weenies who don't have the maturity to work on themselves. The world better benefits by providing comfortable spaces for yourself and those you love, and focusing on educating others and spreading positivity.

You sort of have to adopt the mentality of "block liberally and leave others alone if they're outside your sphere, even if they're stupid as hell and gross and make you angry, but take no shit when your personal space and boundaries are invaded".

I feel like that is one of the only good ways to really deal with those sorts of people. Anything more will drain your time/energy that could be used on better things, and anything less allows people to walk all over you and make you feel bad.

[truestfeeiing]

7, 13, & 20 for Near? 🫶

7. What's something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you like?

yea!!! so i really like the way a lot of creators write about near's inner feelings. i think it's easy to write him off as too cold or an L copy but they really function totally differently! so i really appreciate seeing him be humanized and imperfect and emotional, in his own way. i also love the way fanartists depict him, the broad range from gremlin to cutie pie to bishounen. i myself am on the gremlin/bishounen side but haven't gotten to demonstrate it in my art yet.

13. What's an emoji, an emoticon and/or any symbol that reminds you of this character or you think the character would use a lot?

i most strongly associate puzzles with near. the way that everyone is a "puzzle" to be deciphered is a concept i like to make him grapple with (whether it's true or not). i think he's a huge proponent of 👍 in texting

20. Which other character is the ideal best friend for this character, the amount of screentime they share doesn't matter?

in terms of personality, probably naomi misora, right? she's incredibly intelligent as well and has similar ideals. i may be biased as a meronia stan but i think mello's fire is exactly what near needs, and he may be able to get a bit of that from naomi. i also think about the one art that always makes me laugh that goes "they're like oomfs.... to me" about near and L. i think they may not get along very well though. my second guess would be rester. i think he and near get along exceptionally well.

Asks here

[armory-rasa]

Bazubands part 1: A LESSON IN HUMILITY 🤣

So one of my projects for the winter break was to make a set of bazubands made for myself -- a middle eastern armor piece that provides all-in-one wrist/forearm/elbow protection, and the easiest way to get the coverage required for SCA fighting. (My garb is viking, but such are the exigencies of modern safety standards, that fighters usually wind up with a mix of armor types.)

Anyway, I packed up the necessary tools and materials and took them with me when I went to visit my parents, which is why the backdrop for these pictures isn't my usual workshop.

Found a pattern on google, cut it out of 10-12 oz veg tan, traced/carved/tooled it:

(You can see why this is the easiest way to get elbow protection, it's WAY less fiddly than trying to do articulated plates around the joint.)

Soaked the elbow cop again (because it was starting to dry out by the time I was done tooling), rounded it out and stitched it up:

Dyed it black, in my parents' backyard:

(And if you use Angelus dyes, that's how you keep from spilling it -- the box has little perforations so that it can hold the bottle safely upright.)

WAX THAT MOTHERFUCKER:

It doesn't show in that picture, but I have a metal bowl of wax (jeweler's casting wax) melting on the stovetop. I alternate between brushing it onto the leather, which looks like the picture above, and then putting the leather in the oven at ~200F, at 10-20 minute intervals, until the wax soaks in. Repeat until the leather is fully saturated and does not absorb more wax. (This often takes hours, so find something else to multitask with.)

But when you're done -- ta da!

Your project will be thoroughly waterproof, very strong and hard, with a low lustre. It's functionally ABS plastic at this point.

The next step was padding, so I got some sheepskin and and fitted it to the inside:

(idk why it's so fucking orange, but the alternative was kind of a mint-mucus green. I think the orange is growing on me though.)

Time to pattern the other, simpler piece of the bazuband, because they're hinged to enclose your full arm:

(I couldn't do this earlier, and therefore do both pieces concurrently, because I had no idea how much bulk the padding was going to add to my arm. I suppose you could wrap your arm in padding when you're measuring at the start.)

Slapped a quick design on it:

(And carved & tooled it too, though I neglected to get pictures of that.)

And then--

DISASTER, MY FRIENDS.

I put it in the oven, and it lost its gd mind.

WHAT.

Seriously, just -- words do not do this abomination justice. o_O

LOOK AT IT.

Coming so close on the heels of the Khorasan pouch, which had turned out absolutely perfect and has been more widely shared and lauded than anything else I've posted, this was a humbling experience. 🤣 Like, yes you're good, Gabriel, but you're not immune to fucking up.

So what happened here? Why did the same leather as the bazubands, undergoing the exact same steps and processes, turn out like THIS?

I'd have to repeat the experiment to 100% confirm my theory, but I'm pretty sure the critical difference is that I was speed-running this one, and I didn't wait for the dye to fully dry before I started waxing it. It wound up with, essentially, wet leather hermetically encased in wax, and since the water didn't have anywhere to go, it did weird things to the structure of the leather fibers when it started heating up. And because I don't often work with wax, I had somehow never run into this situation before, and thus already learned that lesson.

Ah well.

It wasn't a huge amount of leather, and it was only like two hours of work, so I'm not that fussed about it. (More embarrassed than anything else, at what feels like a very rookie mistake -- and conscious that it could have been SO MUCH WORSE if that had happened to the larger bazuband pieces, which had a lot more time and materials sunk into them.)

Anyway, I'm going to tweak the pattern a bit, make it narrower at the wrist and a bit longer, and change the design to something that matches the dragon better -- and let it fully dry this time. 😂

[magneticmage]

What are people's thoughts on a transgender Brosca or Aeducan?

Like we're told that Orzammar's caste system is based on one's same-sex caste, right? But, like, how complicated are someone's feelings towards their sex and how it differs from their preferred gender when the entire foundation of their culture is so sex segregated?

(Disclaimer; I'm cisgender so I'm not sure how to word all of this right without coming off as lacking understanding of nuances, accidentally coming off as rude and ignorant, or something, but I will do my best. Please be understanding that I am trying to NOT be rude, just might be a bit ignorant on phrasing things? Under a cut because it can be a bit ramble-y and maybe off-topic in some spots)

So transgender Brosca/Aeducan thoughts are hard to word, especially since I usually play my main ones as being cisgender, but even that is...a whole field of Thoughts.

Like I am aware that cisgender female Aeducan should actually be a different caste (probably some kind of noble or upper warrior caste, if I had to warrant a guess but your mileage may vary) than she is, but is considered functionally royalty in what probably amounts to no small part of her being her father's favorite child (because who cares about rules when your father is the king?). And that cisgender female Brosca is already defying some form of cultural expectation by being a casteless Carta thug rather than being a noble hunter like her sister Rica (nothing against Rica here, as I adore her, but Brosca not being one definitely seems to be a Choice, ya know?).

And if they are lesbian or any other orientation that isn't heterosexual, this also has added dimensions of its own as well. All of which is super interesting on how it comments on Orzammar society. Blah blah blah.

But like....what about transwoman Aeducan? Or transman Brosca?

Like how accepting is Orzammar society of such a thing? I'd assume not very much because of all the implications around potentially changing castes, which is socially frowned upon? Like it may not as big a deal for someone whose parents are roughly equal in terms of caste, but when there's a huge disparity between social ranks like, say, a noble lord and a servant caste mother? And, to digress slightly, it does make me wonder if some lower caste/casteless mothers have ever tried to pass off their assigned female children as sons, regardless of gender identity, all in hopes of a better life for their children. Like how Mary Reed's mom dressed her as a boy to keep getting money from her father's family. I mean, that's happened in our world to some extent as well. And how would someone whose intersex be viewed in this society? Do they just...like get to choose? Or is it a guess?

I don't have any answers.

Back to Brosca and Aeducan though.

How much does Trian's sexist comments about women being breeding flesh sting an Aeducan who views themself as a woman and choses to be one? Does their father most likely acknowledging them as his daughter publicly affect things? What about a Brosca that knows that their assigned sex at birth matching Kalah's is what cost them whatever caste their father was? How do they see those born the same sex as them that then go on to become noble-hunters wishing for a son, so their lives can get better? Does it make them angry or sad? Maybe a mixture of feelings?

Like I know that suffering and issues like these are not all that makes up a transperson's identity and I'm not saying it has to either. I know that some people face enough of these kinds of issues in the real world and would rather not have to deal with it in their video games and that's also okay. They can just decide their character is trans and not make it a big deal and that's a perfectly okay thing to do!

But I just...I have questions and am curious about how it might work in cases where they might want it to be a big deal? Is that a bad thing? That or maybe I worded things badly here or in a way that doesn't quite hit the mark because I'm not transgender?

If anyone else wants to weigh in here with their thoughts, like, please do? Or if there's better worded-meta out there, let me know because I'd love to read it.

Thanks for your time.

[ming-sik]

Thoughts on Veronica and how most fanfics seem to blame her well... *gestures to everything about her* this because of her 'lack of education' and not how she (and her siblings) may or may not have been targeted by the Lesiegang faction due to her lineage?

Ik most fanfics make it out that she's insaine for wearing veils while in the fanfic Ahrensbach wears veils to 'protect themselves from sun's rays' and treat it like canon and for importing spices from Ahrensbach as this huge threat to the duchy because (insert 100+ medical reasons) and honestly? It reads like someone who's wanting to become a bit closer to their dead mother by practicing things her dead mother practised (and don't get me started on how yucky I feel everytime when Rozemyne superiorly tells everyone how spices are ruining their stomachs and the amounts of spice they eat is 'unsafe', conveniently ignoring how spicy South Asian food can get yet not many over there's forming stomach ulcers or on the verge of death because they smell 1 tokbokki-)

Anyways, I'd really like to know your thoughts on this!

So previously I did not know that much abt aob fanfic but.

IMO the answer is that AOB is classist/misogynist/xenophobic and fans end up either picking up on that or being drawn to it. It's a pretty simplistic answer but it explains a lot of the really strange behavior that goes on.

Veils are pretty clearly an attempt to invoke hijab which is by itself fine, YS is actually desperately lacking cultural differences between duchies, and if that's a Lanzenavian custom that's been imported to Ahrensbach that'd actually mimic how wimples are at least believed to originate from hijab. However even the way canon treats veils is really weird. Veils shielding you from the sun is actually mentioned in p5v6 during this Detlinde pov chapter

but since Detlinde and Georgine are veiled indoors, they're also almost definitely worn for cultural reasons. All of which is again fine... except that they're the evil duchy. The veiled characters we see are Detlinde, Georgine, Veronica, and Aurelia(Fraularm and Alstede aren't veiled, so this is presumably an optional cultural practice). Three of them are villains, while Aurelia's reason is that she's ashamed of strongly resembling Veronica and wants to hide her face, which would be an absurd thing to expect of her, except that Ferdinand never shuts the fuck up about Detlinde looking like Veronica so she probably would face discrimination for resembling someone in her family. There is not a single even neutral female character... well, in Ahrensbach, but also specifically who wears a veil except Aurelia who's wearing hers for a very specific reason unrelated to her being from Ahrensbach.

Aurelia also gets discriminated against for wearing a veil, which would've been a decent way to show a conflict where a likeable character ISN'T portrayed as the unambiguous good party except that the story doesn't seem to think this is strange. No characters really push back on the validity of this suspicion and Aurelia herself seems to accept it as a matter of course. The fact that fans have obviously picked up on the fact that veils are meant to be a strange exotic cultural practice and are writing characters that way themselves is pretty telling.

As you say, it's fine to veil. There are a lot of reasons to do it from the utilitarian sun protection to propriety to her being proud of being from Ahrensbach, which is in itself neutral unless you accept the premise that Ahrensbach is the evil duchy or you think veils are inherently suspicious.

Veronica's lack of archduke candidate education is obviously irrelevant because she managed to scheme enough to create the Veronica faction. The women had a phd in machinations and knowledge of enough archducal matters to function as the Aub's first wife, so either she got an archducal education once she was married or she just didn't need it which could be how it works because unlike female aubs, female archducal wives aren't expected to take over their husband's work when their husbands are pregnant. Even if she was uneducated enough that she struggled with handling administrative duties, how this would lead to her abuse is a problem we apparently have our strongest misogyny soldiers working on because those two things are unconnected. In canon characters outside of Rihyarda are pretty uninterested in why Veronica or Gabriele are the way they are, but most people aren't evil because they're stupid, they're evil because they have what they believe to be a completely valid motivation for whatever heinous thing they're doing, and the way YS treats faction politics definitely could've been a major source of her desperation to solidify her power alongside her stated internalized misogyny. (Her internalized misogyny isn't necessarily the story's misogyny, but it is strange that this isn't really pushed back on and the only victim who gets much spotlight is Ferdinand despite Veronica seeming to target women much more harshly.)

None of this is a defense of Veronica, I disagree with the thing where she systemicatically abused and ostracized a massive portion of the duchy and my condolences to her victims, but the ways AOB chooses to signal that especially female characters are villains is notable and by notable I mean falls into some patterns. This is mainly that damnable Ferdinand's fault because he 1) will not shut the fuck up about how everyone he dislikes is basically his mommy reincarnated and 2) hates women so much it's unreal, so the fact that he's Rozemyne's main source for a lot of characters colors that. You could argue that this is him and other characters intentionally being written as unreliable narrators, but if that's true then it's a little strange that the fandom is so united on taking his word as gospel, and when read it does not come off that way. Veronica's deal being attributed to stupidity might come from how Ferdinand treats Detlinde if I had to find a reason for it, but honestly the machinations of the AOB fandom are in some ways incomprehensible to me.

The spice thing is just straight up racist. It's racist in canon, the way that all spices are lumped together when both nutmeg and chili peppers are "spices" despite having wildly varying flavors and effects is in itself racist. We don't get a single named spice. Are they talking about peppercorns? Chili peppers? Nutmeg? Cumin? What about ginger? Even assuming we're talking about specifically capsaicin, spicy food causing ulcers is mostly pop science, and the health risks beyond short-term pain pale in comparison to, like, alcohol. Spice tolerance is a thing and Rozemyne might not like a ghost pepper, but shockingly yeah cultures with a lot of spicy food aren't pretending to enjoy it as an elaborate bit(tteokbokki are Korean but I know what you're getting at). If Ahrensbach people eat food flavored with fantasy bird's eye peppers from a young age they're not gonna experience any problems from eating spice unless they have unrelated health issues.

As with everything the defense of this is probably that the characters are unreliable narrators. I've spent a lot of time arguing with people on this so at some point I just have to say that if every sympathetic character in the story is parroting something and no conflict ever arises from the fact that they're incorrect then the story is just having a character say something that is true in universe, and the fact that Ahrensbach and by proxy Lanzenavian culture are treated the way they are is xenophobic in Ahrensbach's case and racist in Lanzenave's. Fans are Like That because they pick up on this stuff and either uncritically accept it as just a thing that's true about AOB's worldbuilding that's neutral or were already prejudiced and therefore had no conflict when the story confirmed those prejudices. Which is another thing. If these characters are meant to be unreliable narrators, you'd think the fandom wouldn't uncritically accept character testimony so often!

[amoeganism]

🎈🍓🐞🩸 for both creatures !!!!!!!

SUPER LONG LORE DROP TIME!!!!! YIPPEE YAYYY

🎈 (balloon) - What does your character do at parties? Are they a wallflower or a party animal? Do they go with friends or alone?

when mayumi still went to school, she was almost never invited to parties and was generally avoided (she was an insane bully in middle school and freshman year to cope with her home life so #karma #rip #deserved) the ones she did go to though, no one talked to her unless they were super drunk or under the influence of other substances so she'd have a drink then leave. the people who did talk to her would usually cuss her out or try to take a swing at her. it never really changed for her and she knew that, but there's free food and drinks!!!

ryuji grew up in a smaller, more conservative town where parties were generally traditional festivals. he liked them and would go to as many as he could with his family and friends, but he thought crashing random functions with cokeheads and alcoholics was better. his reasons: a shit ton of drunk people are 1. funny, 2. dont gaf about him being there, and 3. he doesn't know anything about them and would be too fucked up to care about who they are

🍓 (strawberry) - Does your oc believe in anything? Are they superstitious? Religious? Atheistic? Has anything in their past made them this way?

mayumi doesn't believe in anything and was borderline nihilistic at one point in life. she doesn't feel like there's a need for her to believe in a higher being and even if she tried, she can never convince herself to do so. in her mind, if there's a god that's punishing her for not believing in it, then they can go fuck themselves

ryuji on the other hand, was raised in a non-religious household that didn't believe in anything apart from traditional japanese gods and goddesses. however he's tried to devote himself to christianity in order to "fix himself" because he has a crippling inferiority complex and unhealed trauma. it didn't work out and now he has an intense hatred for the church and religion in general cuz he thinks it failed him.

🐞 (ladybug) - What does a perfect day look like for your oc? What do they do? Who do they see?

mayumi would like to be in a tropical place out of a touristy area where no one knows her. she has a huge appetite and can spend an entire day eating around. she's also never been outside of japan so somewhere completely different would be like a dream. she's like one of those tourists who pretend to be a local but u can tell she's one cuz she's always taking pics LOL

ryuji fantasizes about living in a high rise apartment in the busiest parts of tokyo and see his face posted on a huge screen on the side of a building, right outside of his window. he'd actually really like doing business and he'd like to close off the day wasted at a club (and maybe make out with one person... or two.... or three....)

🩸 (blood) - Is your oc squeamish? Are they disturbed by the sight of blood? Have they ever been in a situation where they had to overcome being squeamish?

mayumi is not squeamish at all and is scared of pretty much nothing. she just does not GAF abt anything .... absolute menace like puts salt on slugs when she was a kid menace

ryuji isn't phased by bugs since he grew up in an area with a shit ton of crickets and cicadas and flies and shit. he used to make a quick buck by selling dried up cicadas to tourists for like 50 yen #businessman! small amounts of blood doesn't bother him and he finds horror movies boring. however any injury larger than a scrape GETSSS him like he'll curl up and gag kinda reaction -_-

[switch]

i really wish they would update faerieland employment agency just a bit. it's a really understatedly valuable part of the site in terms of allowing an entire class of many otherwise functionless items to serve a purpose, being a mechanism to continually remove said otherwise functionless items from the site- especially now that charity corner has been sent to hell forever-- and as another alternate route for people who either struggle with games or restocking for any reason to earn a good chunk of daily pocket change (making a minimum of 5k in profits from 5 free jobs for 25k in a day is perfectly feasible), and the tiering system enforced by the job coupons in theory keeps it from being a complete hellhole free-for-all, since people with a lot of money already should be incentivized to go do super jobs and leave more casual players alone with the free jobs.

i also honestly just think it's fun. i really like the quest systems on here.

admittedly if they did update employment agency to make it too much better it risks getting hyper-competitive since one advantage of it right now is not too many people bother with it currently, but i don't think it needs too much rebalancing either. releasing the job coupons through daily quests was a really good start for getting people to engage with employment agency more, since previously a lot of the coupons sold for twice as much as they should have in order for it to have ever been worth buying to use, but the issue remains that green and blues are inexplicably always worse than doing free jobs. green and blues have no reason to exist. i can't fathom why it was programmed like that in the first place, but i just wonder now if new TNT is even aware of that when they put them in here. i have to imagine that theoretically the easiest way to fix that would be to just increase the base minimums of the green and blues, but doing so without bumping up against the higher coupons' rewards is difficult. if we raise the other coupons' rewards too high just to accommodate making green and blue not useless everyone might just start killing each other over job coupons again and make the whole thing worthless.

if we assign red's min/max of 9k-10k down to green (which, in a bubble, 9k is lower than what some frees can be, but frees also can't reach 10k), we could then shuffle blue, red, and silver's values to something like (spitballing here, they should follow more of a consistent increase in pattern like the others) to blue = 28-30k, red = 38-40.5k, and silver = 45-50.5k, all without bumping up against gold's 55k and above. admittedly, those differences in profits might be so similar that it doesn't make for a huge difference, but you still get the advantage from higher tier coupons of just being able to do more jobs in one, so i don't think it would muck up their functional values too much...?

this could muck up the value of ever doing free jobs at all though. i admittedly can't foresee if greens and blues would stay so cheap due to being in dailies that it would always be worth just buying them and never doing frees anymore. maybe their price would stay high enough that it would just be something people do whenever you get one in a daily, and otherwise you'd stick with frees? anecdotally i've gotten four greens and one blue this entire time which feels like an okay amount.

although, uh, those values would bump them right up with lower tier brightvale coupons. brightvale job coupons are weird and i don't like them and i don't know what to do with them. maybe they'd also be fine because of the above 'value in more jobs' thing.

there is also the discussion that they could rebalance the jobs themselves (either ratio of quantity/reward, what items it seems to favor, etc), but i'm really not confident on that one. i'd be fine with the actual jobs being left untouched and just the coupons being rebalanced for now. the only thing i do think they should do is increase the number of jobs that spawn per round, in frees but especially in supers. it's absolutely barren and was just not made with how many players neopets would have one day in mind. but on that note, should more pinks or purple jobs spawn too? maybe increasing the spawn rate of all jobs would make pinks and purples a bit more feasible, but if more people are doing super jobs then pinks may still be too hotly contested. pinks should be the rarest due to being the most profitable, but "7 pinks jobs spawned in TWO WEEKS" is obscene. especially when gold brightvale jobs seem to spawn a lot more frequently than pinks or even purples given they have the same maximum as pink and are only 5k lower on the minimum, and are on average better than the also-rarer purples.

god i hate trying to factor in brightvale job coupons. why did they even make these things. agh. anyway, employment agency wasn't updated to the new layout so i don't think they're ever going to surprise-rebalance it like they did with other stuff, unfortunately.

[katsy-kitty]

ok I'm gonna be vulnerable for a moment

I'm prescribed Xanax* and while I know it can cause amnesia when taken in too large amounts, what happened yesterday is a bit different

I took one pill in the late evening because I'd only slept for less than 3 hours the night before and wanted to fall sleep earlier and also was feeling anxious. I waited for some time and decided it hadn't done that much of a difference, so I took two more. So, three pills in total - not that much.

Well... I don't really remember going to bed, but:

I woke up in my bed fully clothed - not bad; I sometimes do that even when sober

I left the computer, music, the TV, and the bathroom light on - not THAT hard to imagine; has happened before when sober

I apparently forgot to take my daily evening medication, which is a bit of shame because it improves my sleep quality and also should be taken daily

THERE'S A WHOLE HUGE 1KG PACK OF SALT ON MY DESK IN THE LIVING ROOM

MY BRA IS ON THE KITCHEN COUNTERTOP

THE MILK WAS OUT OF THE FRIDGE EVEN THOUGH I DIDN'T EVEN USE IT (also it was my last one and I doubt it's still good so RIP milk...)

I HAD SOME DRY, USED TEA IN A TEA INFUSER AND NOW IT'S JUST FUCKING ALL OVER THE DISH DRYER AND THE COUNTERTOP FOR SOME REASON

THE MICROWAVE DOOR WAS OPEN BUT I DON'T REMEMBER MICROWAVING ANYTHING (I WOULD have noticed because the light is on in the microwave when the door's open and I have a long corridor leading to the kitchen with the microwave at the end of it - that's how I noticed IN THE MORNING WHEN IT WAS LIGHT, so at night it would be extra visible)

I'd opened a pack of crisps, left one on the countertop and just left the rest OPEN on the countertop without eating almost any of it (I know this one doesn't seem that bad, but I'd never leave crisps wide open because they get stale)

THE SCARY PART: I DON'T REMEMBER ANY OF IT HAPPENING

THANKFULLY, when I checked in the morning, I DIDN'T MAKE ANY TUMBLR POSTS WHILE BEING A ZOMBIE (so all the deranged posts from yesterday are just me)

1.5 year ago, when I was doing reeeaaally badly, I took way more and then went to a birthday party of a person close to me, where I met some of his friends whom I'd only heard about before and had been excited to meet, AND I DON'T REMEMBER ANYTHING ABOUT THAT PARTY OR THE PEOPLE I MET EVEN THOUGH I ACTED AND TALKED NORMALLY AND IT WASN'T APPARENT TO ANYONE THAT I WAS FUNCTIONALLY A FUCKING ZOMBIE. And I cannot ever recover these memories afaik. Do you know how fucking scary it is to not remember what you did the night before? What if I did something reprehensible? What if I was outside and broke the law and got arrested? What if I did something extremely reckless? I DON'T KNOW WHAT KIND OF PERSON I WAS WHEN THIS WAS HAPPENING. I DON'T KNOW IF I WAS MYSELF AND HAD MY NORMAL VALUES AND OPINIONS OR IF I TURN INTO A DIFFERENT KIND OF PERSON. All I know, because someone close to me has told me, is that I am meaner and more egocentric. I DON'T WANT TO BE MEAN

btw for anyone wondering: amnesia IS a legitimate side effect of Xanax and not something specific to me. I'm not sure if all leaflets list it (I'm not in the US), but you can check Wikipedia for more info

*generic Xanax, to be exact, which is the same in effect btw

PS. I don't abuse Xanax anymore and even when I did, it didn't ever any feel-good effects for me; I only used it to numb myself / make myself go to sleep. I don't even see why people use it recreationally (apparently) because if I wasn't extremely anxious, like having a panic attack, it wasn't very helpful or pleasant to take.

All of the above doesn't mean that I am against Xanax. I think it's a great medicine for panic attacks because it (a) works, (b) acts extremely fast for something that's a pill ingested through the mouth.

But it's extremely important that people don't abuse it, and that's why doctors should be responsible when prescribing it and inform patients of the side effects and the harms of abusing it.

Xanax is also very addictive and the addiction is hard to break (not from personal experience this time). And abusing it can lead to long-lasting (I'm not saying "permanent") cognitive impairment even once you've stopped taking it.

[sirfrogsworth]

We might not know enough about guns to regulate them properly.

Some folks on the Left probably need to learn more about guns.

I've seen so many people pronounce loudly that banning the AR-15 is the single greatest thing we could do to stop mass shootings.

But I'm afraid it is much more complicated than that.

During the first assault weapons ban in the 90s, legislators had trouble defining the weapons they wanted to ban so they included details like no bayonet lugs or foldable stocks or pistol grips. I guess they were trying to find aspects that a lot of these weapons had in common in order to identify which guns to ban. But soon after, gun manufacturers just left these elements out of their designs and made essentially the same guns.

Despite some dubious statistics I've seen on Twitter about this 90s ban being amazingly effective, most experts found that the ban had little to no effect on firearm deaths or the lethality of gun crimes. People just used different guns that weren't banned.

Beyond that, the AR-15 is one model of gun from one manufacturer. There are tons of copycat designs from other brands. There are kits you can build yourself. You can even 3D print all of the non-metallic parts. Not to mention there are plenty of assault weapons that have similar characteristics. The AK-47 uses even more powerful ammunition.

And then there is this "ranch rifle."

It doesn't look like a scary Rambo gun, but it shoots the same bullets as the AR-15 and has large capacity magazines. It is functionally the same.

Would this be included in the ban? Or would our legislators think it is just a harmless varmint rifle used for shooting pests on the farm as the marketing suggests?

There is also the fact that most shootings take place at short distances where even small caliber handguns would be plenty lethal and effective for a mass shooting. Bigger rifles send the rounds out quicker and can penetrate better at longer distances, so the casualty count might be a little higher versus a handgun. But at the most common distances, I don't know if it would be a huge difference. Las Vegas might have been less deadly due to the shooter firing from a longer distance, but he could have also used much higher caliber hunting rifles, though with a slower rate of fire. If 20 people die instead of 60, that is certainly an improvement, but probably not the result people are hoping for with these bans.

I guess what I'm trying to say is there are so many options when it comes to firearms that I just don't know if gun bans are going to be the solution to this issue. I think focusing resources on identifying dangerous people and preventing them from getting weapons in the first place might be a better place to start. Mandatory training, gun licenses, liability insurance, and expensive background checks could all be used as barriers for a dangerous person to acquire a gun. We could also flag large ammo purchases.

Getting rid of one style of gun when there are hundreds of other flavors of gun that can do a similar amount of damage doesn't seem like it will do much in the grand scheme. Creating hoops for bad people to jump through so that hopefully they get snagged in one of them might work better.

If we were to do gun bans, I think it should be more like... every household is allowed one revolver for self defense and all other firearms must be secured at a gun club or shooting range.

But that feels like a pipe dream in this country.

The sad truth is the toothpaste may be out of the tube. We literally have more guns than people right now. How would we logistically confiscate millions of guns? Especially from people who might use those guns to try and prevent said confiscation.

Honestly, I'm not sure we can actually solve this problem. At best maybe we can make it slightly less bad.

[fantasy-anatomy-analyst]

I've got a bit of trouble figuring out how to draw the anatomy of winged humanoids. Your references on wing anatomy have been really helpful, but I'm not sure whether to make the wings an extra set of arms above the actual arms, or have them in the back like most winged humanoid depictions like angels etc

like these:

It seems like your winged people are the latter, but then I'm not sure if that fits with how their skeletal anatomy would look like with two pairs of scapulas on a single ribcage. That would be a bit crowded unless you move the arms more forward and closer together, and you would get something like the two arm-pairs again.

Can you help me?

sorry for the delay! my life got hectic with having to move house and all. I have posted about winged humanoid skeletal anatomy before, though it's a little old at this point. But for the most part I think it still works fine.

since then, i have taken my main oc with wings and kinda moved his arm shoulders around, so now his arm shoulders are more forward and downwards on his torso, like this:

not a perfect skeletal build, but it shows my ideas well enough. The two shoulder blades have different points of contact, and from a different angle the wing shoulder blades should be closer to the spine. Birds actually have incredibly small scapulas, all things considered. they're quite narrow and long. I don't know exactly how much they move, compared to human scapulas. but with the arm shoulder more forward and down, the two scapulas shouldn't interfere with each other too much. as for whether or not the motion would be restricted if the scapula is actually a modified rib, that's possible i think.

it might also just function a little more like a hip joint. your pelvis doesn't shift around a huge amount when you move one leg. not in the same way your scapula shifts when you move your arm, at least. the majority of motion i feel in my scapula always comes when i move my arms behind me, which pushes the scapula over my back. it moves in other ways too, but i think this back motion is the one that would cause the most trouble with the double-shoulder situation, and it is probably very restricted.

the musculature of the wings might also restrict this type of arm movement, so winged people just won't have the exact same range of arm motion as a normal human, and that's fine.

[uncloseted]

is weight loss really unsustainable? I'm in the process of losing weight simply because I feel like it but recently on my dashboard I saw a super long post talking about "set point" and epigenetics are the most important factors and just links to studies about how weight loss fails long term and scientifically our bodies won't lose weight "Your body, no matter what size you are, will respond to weight loss as though it is threatening your life." and it makes me feel really discouraged and confused.

This is one of those misinformation-laden topics that drives me nuts whenever I encounter it online, so I really appreciate that you've given me the opportunity to do some myth-busting. As with most things that lend themselves to misinformation (or, like, memed information?), there's some truth to what those people are saying, but the way that they've interpreted the information is overstated and sometimes totally wrong.

To see why, let's do a quick primer on how weight loss works. To understand weight loss, we have to understand thermodynamics - particularly, the 1st law of thermodynamics, which states that energy and mass can't be created or destroyed - it can only change forms. I think this is important to start with because a lot of people who talk about weight loss online speak as if there's a magic to it. On the one hand, you have people promising that "doctors hate this one weird trick to drop 100 pounds instantly" and on the other hand, you have people swearing that, "weight loss is impossible no matter what you do." But both of those violate the laws of thermodynamics - if you're losing weight, that weight has to go somewhere, and if you're expelling energy, your body can't magically create an equal amount of energy to maintain your weight.

Understanding that, we then need to look at how our bodies work. Every day, our bodies use up a certain amount of energy to keep us alive - things like breathing, circulating our blood, and keeping our temperature consistent. The amount of energy that a person's body spends on just staying alive is called our "basal metabolic rate" (BMR). On top of that, our bodies also use up a certain amount of energy for all of the other things we do in a day - walking, talking, typing, writing, scrolling, playing video games, exercising, etc. The amount of energy our body spends to keep us alive plus the amount of energy it spends for all of the other things we do in a day is called our "total daily energy expenditure" (TDEE). Our bodies get energy from the calories in the food that we eat.

When our body gets more calories than our TDEE, it (mostly) stores those calories as fat so that energy can be used if there's a point in the future where we're not getting enough calories. When our body doesn't get enough calories to match our TDEE, it goes into those fat stores and uses the energy from the fat to make up the difference. The fat gets converted to carbon dioxide and water, so we basically breathe, pee, and sweat it out. If a person is using up their fat stores for long enough, they'll start to notice weight loss, and if they aren't getting more calories for a long enough period of time, they'll die. Anyone who says otherwise has never met a person who's lived through a famine or who has had a disease like anorexia nervosa. If you deprive people of food for long enough, they will lose weight, and eventually their body will stop functioning completely.

All of that said, there are some factors that influence how easy or difficult it is for a person to lose weight. For example, our basal metabolic rates are influenced by age, sex, height, and weight. People who are taller, heavier, younger, and male have higher BMRs than people who are short, thin, old, and female. An 18 year old man who's 6'5 and 250 pounds will have a BMR around 2,275, while an 80 year old woman who's 4'10 and 89 pounds will have a BMR of around 763. Already, that's a huge difference. The older woman would have a way more difficult time losing weight than the younger man, just because it's very easy to eat 760 calories in one go. People who have a lot of lean muscle mass also have higher BMRs than those who don't, because that muscle mass takes a lot of energy to maintain. There are also some other factors, like genetics, gut bacteria, or not getting enough sleep, that seem to play a role in BMR that we don't fully understand. But all other things held equal, the effect of those other factors is less than a 10% difference - around 100-250 calories per day.

There are also some medical conditions that can impact BMR, causing what we refer to as a "slow metabolism". For example, in thyroid disorders, high thyroid hormone levels raise BMR and low levels decrease BMR, which is why people with hyperthyroidism are more likely to be thin and people with hypothyroidism are more likely to be heavier. But even for people with metabolic disorders, they can gain or lose weight under the right conditions - it just may be more difficult and require more intense measures than other people of their same sex, height, weight, and age.

All of that said, though, weight loss is unsustainable for a lot of people. Around 80% of all people who lost a significant amount of weight gain some amount of weight back, although I've hard a hard time tracking down the number of people who have dieted and then gained all of the weight back. So if it's true that our bodies are capable of weight loss and it's also true that 80% of people who lose weight gain it back, what's going on? There is some research to suggest that when people lose a large amount of weight, their body reduces their BMR more than would be expected for the amount of weight loss, making the weight loss harder to maintain, although this effect seems to be lessened when weight loss happens gradually. But this research is largely from the late 80s and early 90s, and doesn't seem to have been backed up in recent years. We do know that when a person loses weight, their body may make them feel hungrier, lazier, and increase food cravings, all of which can lead to reduced energy expenditure and increased calorie intake. So in that sense, the post you saw was right - our bodies do react to weight loss as though our lives are in danger, and they do take some steps to try and get us to stop. But that doesn't mean that weight loss is impossible, just that it's difficult to override those desires to eat more and move less.

From what I can find, I think the biggest factors are actually psychological and environmental. Many people view a diet as something that they're doing short-term, which means that they revert back to old habits once they've achieved their weight-loss goal. But those old habits were what caused them to need to lose weight to begin with, and so of course they result in weight gain. These might include things like eating to deal with stress, anger, sadness, or boredom, having a sedentary lifestyle, spending a lot of time around other people who overeat, a reliance on cars (instead of walking), not having enough time to cook, and reverting back to old habits of eating. Without making lifelong lifestyle changes, it's really hard to maintain weight loss. I know that's kind of a boring answer, but things with health and wellness usually are.

Before I finish up, I want to go through a few specific claims that people make and do some fact checking:

"Each body has a set weight, and it will always go back to that weight" : this idea was first proposed in 1953, and I think we can say that it's generally true. We all have an amount of food that we generally eat in a day and an amount of exercise that we generally do in a day, and in some sense, the combination of those two things leads to a general weight that our bodies settle at when we're not actively monitoring our weight. What's less clear is whether or not our bodies are actively changing our hormone levels to try to force us back to a particular weight. Some researchers think this "set point" is entirely psychosocial, some think that our bodies have a range of acceptable weights and intervene when we go over or under that weight range, and some (although I think this is a relatively small group), think that our bodies are always trying to force our weight to one set point. For me, this whole idea seems to be bunk just by virtue of the fact that people who have gained a lot of weight don't generally lose weight without trying. I feel like I only ever hear about set point theory when it's about weight loss, but never weight gain, and that you'd expect a lot fewer overweight or obese people if we all had a set point for our weight. But that said, it does seem like the jury is still out.

Epigenetic Effect on Weight: from what I could find, the research on this is fairly new, and there aren't many clinical studies to support this idea yet. However, from animal models, it does seem plausible that epigenetics play a part in weight and in obesity. Basically, the deal here seems to be that certain environmental triggers can alter the genes involved in metabolism and appetite regulation. While these changes may make weight loss more difficult because the body is making a person hungrier, it shouldn't be impossible to lose weight just based on these factors.

Thrifty gene hypothesis: the idea here is that some people have genes that are "thrifty" - meaning that they collect and process food more efficiently than other people, leading to weight gain. The researcher who came up with this himself later doubted this theory, and in general, it seems to have been discredited. Personally, I don't think this theory can tell the whole story, because if it were true, we would see more stable rates of obesity over time, and we know rates of obesity have increased over the last 100 years.

Healthy At Every Size: the idea here is that "health is a result of lifestyle behaviors that can be performed independently of body weight". By itself, this is very true. People of any weight can exercise, eat healthily, reduce stress, sleep well, etc. But I think, especially online, it has been taken to mean "people are automatically healthy at any size" or that weight doesn't have an impact on health, so weight loss is an unimportant goal. That aspect just isn't true. Weight is one of many risk factors that can influence whether or not we develop certain illnesses. All other things equal, people who are overweight or obese have an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, sleep apnea, osteoarthritis, and a number of different cancers. While it's certainly true that people who are overweight can live healthy lifestyles and aren't doomed to develop a medical condition, and while it's true that the stigma we have around weight isn't doing anyone any favors, losing weight is one of the biggest things that the average person can do to improve their health outcomes.

I know this is a long post, and I'm sure that in my quest to explain things as easily as possible I've missed out on some nuance, but I think what it comes down to is that weight loss is sustainable if you put in the effort to sustain it. It's not necessarily easy, but it is possible.

[rostomanologist]

For Noereen and Sonia: 2, 13 and 18!

ty for the ask !! <3

there's a lot of yapping so more under the cut :)

2. How much do they remember from the Dream? Did they have any particular experience in it before awakening?

13. How do they feel about death? Does it make them curious or scared? Do they wish to understand it or do they simply accept it?

18. [Free space for 3 pieces of trivia about your sylvari!]

Sonia:

2. it's hard to say what she remembers from the dream since she lives in it most of her life. however, her experience before awakening was rather vivid: first of all, it took much longer time for her to awake. second, the dream didn't give her the overall knowledge of tyria in the amount it gives to others, but instead let her explore its depths as a place. it also let her see more emotional memories of other sylvari. so upon awakening she didn't know where lion's arch was but could understand the concept of mixed feelings, for example.

13. at first, sonia was curious of death, but after being at the edge of it she prefers to stay on life side. she does accept the future of her dying (esp bc she feels her body is slowly fading) and is still curious to experience the mists, but she doesn't want to be alone upon her passing.

18. 3 facts!

1) sonia is disabled! she has something like FND (functional neurological disorder). when awake, she's usually fatigued and experiences movement problems, as well as dizziness, short seizure-like episodes and pain, so she relies on mobility aids and help of others. in the dream she's more active, though it doesn't mean her symptoms evaporate. she still gets fatigue and movement troubles (tho milder) from time to time.

2) her mobility aids are forearm crutches, powerchair (or should i say hoverchair) and her own magic :) her crutches also serve her as sceptres, and she uses them quite often in the dream. she also developed a fighting style using them. the hoverchair is a custom powerchair made specifically for her: it shares the concept of asuran hovering chairs aligned with the typical sylvari design. it's powered by magic and lacks wheels, instead floating comfortably over the ground, which is important for the grove's grassy and bumpy terrain. as for the magic, she uses it in the dream where she feels much more energetic; if she needs to go on long distances, she simply uses portals and blinks!

3) being heavily bound to the dream, sonia developed a very elaborate speech. when she was a sapling, it was very hard to understand her, as she used vague and complicated metaphors, and menders had to teach her to talk in simpler words. after some events in her life she involuntarily went back to her previous manner.

Noereen:

2. all noereen remembers from the dream is endless disappointment. her dream was bland, uninteresting, didn't fill her ambitions that were already blooming, no matter how she tried to explore it and answer to the challenges.

13. death is her main fear. her symbiosis with her legends is the only one thing that keeps her alive, and she Does Not want to know how death feels. all she wishes is to avoid death, even though her recklessness doesn't help in it at all...

18. 3 facts :)

1) previously her main legend was an echo of a white mantle inquisitor (probably lovisa), and their relationship was... rocky, to say the least. even though she weakened it by bonding with other echoes, it still haunts her from time to time, since it's the one her life depends on. she's also vulnerable to bloodstone frenzy because of it!

2) noereen has a huge bite scar on her side which is always partly healed. it looks fine, but if she loses her legends, it'll be a main cause of her death. nevertheless, she keeps it unprotected and it's mostly a miracle (and her bfs keeping her away from some of the fuss) how she's still alive exposing it like this.

3) she also has scars all over her body, but the side one is special not only by its nature, but also because it glows in different hue than her usual glowing. while her main glowings are pink, the scar is more reddish.

[bibookdemon]

Finally posting my stupid shit! Please know that there's some sus stuff uwu (it's not too bad, nothing explicit, but still kinda...iffy I suppose.) Also there is a mention of sh!IM READING THROUGH AGAIN AND REALIZING WHAT I WROTE PLEASE CHECK TAGS FOR TRIGGERS

Ok so like smth smth this lab is testing people to see if they can like, contact people of the past. (OK HEAR ME OUT MAYBE ITS KAIBA TRYING TO FIND HIS LONG-DEAD LOVE, ATEM, AND IT WOULD BE GREAT FLARESHIPPING AND HERES WHY) There are multiple people who get tested because they're getting paid to do so, and they have this 'coach' kinda, it's basically just ai trying to get into their minds and use different methods to get them in touch with the past. I imagined smth along the lines of 'Let the lines of reality and fantasy blur together' because that's like. A thing™️. And the first part of it is really just putting them in a deep sleep and monitoring the brain waves + body functions. They only do it for a couple hours every day so as not to exhaust the mind, and there are little things that allow the scientists to see that they potentially have the ability to contact the past. Time + that ability decides how long they are in the program for. Enter Yugi. Kame Game is going through a rough time, so he wants to help out and make a little money on the side to keep the shop open. It's Gramps' dream, and he loves it and his Gramps, he can't just let it die. It helps that he knew Kaiba in passing at school, though he never talked to him beyond a quite hello. Kaiba was the only person who never bullied him, tbh. (The only person outside of his friend group, because Anzu also never bullied him) So he goes, and his potential is off the charts. Now, every person has to sign a contract before they enter the program. On the contract it states that they are required to participate for as long as KC needs up to 3 years. They get compensated by day at a bit above minimum wage, so they do make a pretty hefty amount, and would be making a lot for 3 years. Because of Yugi's potential, he is given a room at KC and isolated from the outside world - for the most part. He can call/text/etc, but he cannot see friends or family in-person unless they get approved to visit.

They only get approved for like, once a week, so Yugi is pretty lonely. He hasn't even been allowed to meet Kaiba yet, and that's because he'll only get to meet Kaiba when he starts to venture into Ancient Egypt (within his mind) and Kaiba will need to be there with his tech. He'll have Yugi talk to Atem and use his tech to translate the thoughts into words + videos. So, because Yugi is isolated, and thanks to the mind exercises, he actually starts to dive deeper into that part of his mind. The coach + the deep sleep have successfully blurred the lines between real and fantasy, so now all he really needs to do is explore and break them. Enter the millennium puzzle, which, instead of a huge-ass gold necklace, is actually a small, 3d charm. It's about the size of a pin. He keeps it with him because Gramps gave it to him, and yes, he actually did have to solve it, but it was more like a mind-bender than an actual puzzle because of how small it is. When he solved it, he felt something deep within him, something that buried itself within but did not emerge. IT WAS insert risque joke here because I'm immature It was a connection with Atem, but at the time his mind wasn't strong enough to hold that connection in a more physical way, which would be possession, and eventually Atem forming his own body using some of Yugi's life force. Yugi felt the connection grow as he did the coaching, and that's why his stats were off the charts. He starts to get flashes of life through someone else's eyes: towering pyramids, endless deserts, foreign clothes. From there, it only deepens, grows more personal. He starts to see people he doesn't know, and then he starts to know them as friends/family. Then he starts feeling things: happiness, sadness, anger, frustration, joy, excitement. He forgets about it as soon as he snaps out of the flashes, however, so he never reports them. Because they also aren't active at the time he does his tests, the readings don't spike.

They only grow steadily with each passing day, each flash of someone else's life. Finally, they reach a point that Yugi is ready to meet this person, ready for the next step. He meets Kaiba, and Kaiba is just. He sees that Yugi looks like his lover, and he is shocked. But he also finds himself drawn toward Yugi, and not because of the way he looks, just the way he smiles nervously and waves, and the way flitting memories jump in and out of his head from when they attended school together. He ignores the feelings, however. He has a lover. The point of Yugi is to establish communication with his lover. And so Yugi is shown the next step. It's very sci-fi-y. It's basically this cylindrical tube that will fill with gel around him. He'll be put into a sleep wherein all of his body functions will stop. He will literally be dead. Like, legally dead. For a few hours. Every day. There will be nodes attached to him that will monitor brain waves, and he gets a fucking \~\~sexy\~\~ cool suit. It's either skintight ( ;3 ) with some awesome design or more like thin armor. Obviously he's hesitant, but he did sign a contract and he does need the money - turns out, Kaiba is now paying him double the amount promised - so he goes through with it. He does have one condition, however: the charm stays with him. Kaiba says it's fine after scanning it - it won't interfere with his tech. Now, day of, Yugi has a major panic attack and they actually have to give him some meds so that his anxiety doesn't mess with the process. Other than that, everything goes smoothly, and Yugi is 'dead' before he gets put in the tube and it gets filled. They initiate the process by doing the coaching again, this time using things like images and videos, all from Kaiba's memory. And so Yugi is transported to Ancient Egypt. He stands in a large chamber, staring at a sleeping figure in bed. Sleeping figure is, obviously, Atem, and Yugi immediately knows his name + remembers the flitting life and knows it was his.

So, he explains to Atem who he is, and Atem ends up remembering stuff too cause he felt the connection as well AND saw Yugi's life. They hit it off, and kinda bring up details of their lives, and Atem asks, 'Why are you here?' Yugi answers he is there via KaibaCorp, and Atem is. Atem is shooketh. 'Kaibacorp? As in Seto Kaiba?!' He is frantic at that point, and when Yugi says yes, his eyes light up with joy. His lover is alive and well. He demands to hear more about Kaiba, and Yugi tells him everything he knows. Meanwhile, back at KC, unbeknownst to Yugi, Kaiba is crying. He can hear/see every part of the conversation, and his heart holds so much love for Atem, all he can see is Atem, all he wants is Atem. The union is over too soon, however, and Yugi must leave. He comes back to being pulled into a hug by a crying Kaiba. 'Thank you. You found him. You found him.'

Yugi is just like 'wut' and thatttt is when the drama starts. (good drama) Kaiba explains that he once came into a power, a great power. The power led him to Ancient Egypt, where he stayed for close to a year under the Pharaoh's watchful eye. Atem is actually very smart/clued in, and when Kaiba told him he was from the future, he knew the man was telling the truth. So he decided he wanted Kaiba at his side, wanted to learn about the future. He figured he would die young due to everything that happened and etc etc, so he wanted to know as much as possible, even at the risk of his safety. (That's part of the reason Kaiba was crying so much. Atem told him often during their time together that his time was coming and also mentioned that he was reckless thanks to guilt about what his father did. No sense of self-preservation. So Kaiba did worry that Atem would die in the time he'd been gone.) Anyway, they fell in love over time, Kaiba falling for Atem's passion and never-ending love for his people, Atem falling for Kaiba's straightforward mind. They both had complicated lives and pride over what they'd accomplished. It also helped that they played similar games ^^ Unfortunately, Kaiba felt himself fading one day, and he told Atem, and the next day he was gone. Both of them were heartbroken, especially when Kaiba found that he couldn't go back to Egypt. And then, of course, there was the tablet. The tablet arrived at Domino's museum, and Kaiba for some reason went to look at it and that's where he found himself and Atem, both etched into the stone. He was able to keep his expression calm when he left, but once in the privacy of his office, he sobbed and broke a lot of stuff. Including the coffee pot. Actually, the janitor was very concerned and thought someone had managed to break in then ransacked the place. Now, the one thing with Kaiba is that I don't see him harming himself, but he unconsciously digs his nails into his skin.

And it had happened before, but it happened more after he had to leave Atem. He also chews his nails. Big time. Like, yeah, his nails looks awesome in the show/movie, but I can tell you he is a nail biter. I can sense it. He just wears fake nails lol. (Damn bro how you make them look so good, teach me!) He started the program a year later after hearing about people who supposedly could see the past. Yugi came into the picture about half a year into the program.

Anyway, from there (Yugi's first meeting with Atem) he basically just had Yugi go back each day and meet with Atem. Yugi asked if he had any messages to relay, but Kaiba wasn't ready yet to say anything. He wanted to get a feel for Atem. He was hesitant because yeah, his heart had already been broken once, what if it broke twice? After all, he couldn't exactly get back there and physically be with Atem. It would kill him inside to have to have a relationship via Yugi. Now, Yugi also met Atem whenever he slept. And he was physically there, but also not. He could feel, he could taste, etc etc. He made it his mission to find out as much as possible about Atem for Kaiba, and to become friends. He found himself attracted to Atem, but did not act on anything, instead shoving it down because ya know. Kaiba. Atem also started to fall for Yugi, but because of what happened with Kaiba, he refused to act on those feelings. He couldn't stomach heartbreak again + he had a gut feeling he was going to die soon anyway. He didn't want to hurt someone.

Yugi, having gone to such lengths to try to help Kaiba with his broken heart, actually won over Kaiba. Like, the attraction Kaiba felt before? He felt it taking over and filling his heart with such a deep love. Yugi was sweet and gentle and kind, and he figured that he and Atem weren't possible, so he kinda let the love grow. Yugi didn't feel anything for Kaiba, not yet, but he definitely knew Kaiba was handsome AND he had this strong urge to always be there for Kaiba.

Over time, things stayed about the same, that affection between the three kinda growing but no one ever saying anything. And then, one day, everything snapped. TK blamed Atem for everything his father had done, and Atem knew something was going to happen to him, so he kinda blocked Yugi from joining him in Egypt. Both Yugi and Kaiba knew something was wrong, but it was Kaiba who went into a full-blown panic, and it was Kaiba who knew what was coming. He told Yugi that Atem was going to die. And he hadn't even asked Yugi to relay a message.

Indeed, Atem did die. He actually welcomed the death. He knew someone had been lurking in the shadows, and knew what their intent was. Obviously he didn't expect it to be someone who had survived the horrors of what his father did, but he actually felt glad that it would be one of them killing him. And so Atem fell to the blade of TK. He actually smiled and walked up to TK, kneelung before him and offering his throat. 'It's ok. Though I'm sure you don't need to hear that to kill me. Just...do not feel guilt. Someone must pay off the debt weighing on my bloodline, and that must be me.' So yeah, Atem died, TK was actually pretty shaken afterward - he'd never killed someone who was so...innocent. Yes, he'd killed guards and he'd killed townsfolk, but never anyone who hadn't done atrocious things. Atem was a peaceful pharaoh, and kind, and pure.

And thisssss is where things get interesting, ok. Very interesting. Yugi knew the moment Atem died because he felt a sharp pain across his throat, then a sudden crushing presence in his mind, as well as his connection swelling to envelop all of him. It was agony for him, but his body was ready to let the pharaoh inhabit it, or he pretty much would've died. He did, however, have to go to the hospital. Kaiba was with him every step of the way, even as he cried. Yugi couldn't speak, so he figured that was the death of Atem, that was the end of everything. He also feared for Yugi's life, then.

He begged Yugi not to die, even resorting to praying to every god he could think of. (I mean. I think Kaiba is basically atheist.) He was by Yugi's side every step of the way, he was crying every step of the way, he hated every second of hearing Yugi cry out and watching him shiver with each painful flinch that racked his body. And then Yugi stabilized. He was ok. The doctors said he was in a coma, though. Next day, despite what they'd said, he woke. Except it wasn't Yugi who woke up, it was Atem. And Kaiba knew. Kaiba knew by the ancient words that graced Yugi's lips, the way his voice suddenly became accentuated, the way those eyes seemed to turn a caring dark red, the way his hand came up to caress his cheek and he deepened Yugi's voice as he said, 'My love.' And Kaiba cried again, this time a happy cry as he let himself be pet. And then Atem told him he must go, and reassured him he was just retreating into Yugi's mind so that Yugi could be present. Yugi had watched the entire thing, and he had a blush as he pulled his hand gently back, as well as a broken heart. Though he'd shoved down his love for this exact reason, he still felt like shit when he was basically rejected.

Following that, Yugi and Atem worked together so that they had equal times controlling the body, and so that it was convenient for Yugi. Yugi remained isolated, this time with no visitors, until he could figure out how to explain the whole 'Hey I have a pharaoh sharing my body' thing. He also made sure that Atem blocked him out when he wanted private time with Kaiba, whether it was just talking or...them having a different sort of reunion. ;3

So that meant he was blocked out when Kaiba and Atem decided to have a talk about him. It was obvious they were both attracted to him, and it was obvious they both wanted him. So they talked about it, about the possibility of having another lover. Atem was also very aware of how Yugi felt about them both, and how he pushed down his feelings.

It was on a day that Yugi was in control and Atem had managed to make himself a sort of ghost that both of them could see that they told him. They said they both loved him, and they both would like very much for him to be their lover. Yugi was quick to say 'Oh no no, that's fine, I know you two are involved, and I'm really happy for you!' They both grabbed Yugi's hands and said 'We want you to be involved too. We want it to be all three of us. We love you, Yugi.' And that was the day Yugi snagged himself two lovers. It was a very good day. It was also the day he discovered exactly how fun it was to be in bed with two people at the same time. ;3 (He couldn't walk the next day hehehehehhehehe)

And then it was finally time for Atem to get his own body. Yugi had enough life force in him to keep himself alive and form Atem's body, thanks to the love both Kaiba and Atem gave him. So, Atem got his own body, but this time it wasn't painful and no one ended up in hospital. I mean, except when Yugi convinced Kaiba to sit on his face, he mayyyyy have broken his neck.

-Most things are canon, such as Yugi's history with Anzu, Jou, and Honda, but he only knew Kaiba in passing, and, as I mentioned, Kaiba would only wave or say hi to him -Kaiba is more lovey dovey. He smiles, he cares, he's pretty sweet beneath it all. -Kaiba's power was the cube from DSOD, he found it locked away in one of Gozaburo's rooms. (Basically the same shit happened with Gozaburo) -Mokuba is the same as usual, but most people don't know Kaiba has a brother, and he's also pretty shy despite being a complete gremlin -They're all in their 20s, and Yugi attends an online college (during the time of him doing the program, he was taking a break from college to help his Gramps with Kame Game) -Yugi has much the same personality, he's very quiet and very caring/loving, will literally do anything in his power to help people out, but he definitely has a side of him that likes to push him out of his comfort zone. (For example, he once did skydiving with Jou. He also vowed to never do it again LMFAO) Also, for the record, Yugi is a switch that tends toward a more dominant position. (Hear me out. Atem is such a fucking bottom. Ok. Like, it's funny, I started out like oh, psh, yeah, he's totallyyyyy a top. But like. 1) He's sensitive. Very sensitive. He would grow used to things, sure, but I just hc him as always being so sensitive hehe. I mean he could be a top, but I feel like he would need a power bottom if that's the case. 2) Atem would quite literally die for his partner(s) he would also wanna worship them, and ya know, be at the mercy of them. I do think he would also want to be someone who claims another, but he also has insecurities I feel like and wants someone to claim him in order to tell him he has a place. It's not just smut. It's emotional smut. 🥺 3) Tbh I just love to read about Atem getting railed -They all have the same outfits, but Yugi picked out matching pajamas for the three of them. -Kaiba I see as a top, but I can also see him as a hesitant switch. He likes to be in control, but he actually goes to Yugi and Atem one day saying he wants to bottom. He's so shyyyy about it, it's really cute. Of course his lovers can't refuse an expression like that. Also, out of all them, Kaiba is the fucking loudest. He will scream his throat raw. Also Yugi is so down bad for those long legs, it is a thing. Yugi x Long Legs, I ship it. wheeze

[babycharmander]

CharAI and ChatGPT are 2 different AI. Each Character AI bot has to be programmed by hand by the user making them in order to function, and even then there is a limit to what you can set as the description, so you can't upload entire wiki pages or fanfic. The bot has to also be meticulously trained by users in order to get details about the character right using a rating system for each message generated. And even then the bot forgets and gets information wrong all the time. It doesn't research.

Looking into this, it does look like that previous anon was incorrect and that they are indeed two separate AIs, but I still don't trust it. It doesn't say what it was trained on, just that it was trained on "huge amounts of text," which is not comforting. It could be public domain, but they don't specify, so how are we supposed to know if it's ethically sourced or not?

There's just too much bullcrap going on with AIs to make me want anything to do with the text/image-generating ones, and I feel folks are being way too trusting with these things.

Years ago I talked about how cool it would be to have an AI/robot friend. But given most AIs these days are made to steal data from others and benefit corporations and governments in whatever way possible, my opinions of them have change drastically. In a perfect world, AIs would be wonderful, but we have to live with the reality that they're now primarily used as a tool for evil.