#I love data so much this is enrichment for me

[tardis-technician]

Got a chance the look at Fandometrics. The fact that the doctor is in the top TV show character list three separate times. Iconic.

[proxycrit]

I love your au!!! I love how the hylian duo look like gremlins, I LOVE the expressions and sass constantly and the changes to the lore, the worldbuilding and also the emotions (OUCH). I love their relationship with purah and each other and the new champions. I love the depth you gave Yona and her relationship with Sidon and Mipha. I love how link feels comfortable talking to sidon in addition to sign, I don't know if he does that with anyone else but Zelda unless its absolutely necessary (eg: just launched out a cannon and is paragliding down, so hands are busy) (side note: i love how much of an adrenalin junky/gremlin he is!!)

I do got a few questions! Will the pair get the sheikah slate again (so say link has the slate and zelda the pad), and can both slates do the warping and item storage (food, ingredients, armor, weapons, etc) (if so: no WONDER link was so upset! His collection!)

Does link have access to the ultrahand abilities (ik you said not The ultrahand, but what about fuse or ascend or rewind etc?) Where is the mastersword??

Does Link still have the champions' abilities, or did he lose those when their spirits moved on at the end of botw?

I know these are a lot of questions but I can't stop thinking about it!! The last few updates sent me back rereading the whole au and now its just vibrating in my head and giving me no piece

This is long and rambly, just know I am very much enjoying this au! Its silly and fun and touching and cute. Thank you for working on it!!

Oo some notes (also ty for circling my au haha im glad other people fixate like i do)

(Prewarning— i did not finish totk despite putting triple hours in it, so a lot of this story is being written while playing, though i know the big broad strokes thanks to cultural osmosis and video essays. A lot of Familiar Familiar builds from my playthrough with BOTW over TOTK, so the sheikah influence is significantly stronger and I will always choose botw characterization over totk characterization as a result.)

That aside

1. Sheikah slate’s dead. Rest in pieces, link’s rare collectable korok poop. Purah’s extracting as much data as she can to put on the purah pad but you can see the dread in her eyes whenever she has to tell link resurrection is not possible.

2. No idea about the zonai arm powers yet— im thinking about ascend, but the longer i go through this story the less likely ill hand it to him just due to immersion breakage. He and zelda will be getting sheikah gadgets from purah though! Maybe ill have a scene of him wandering through the sky island shrines, but without zelda warning rauru he and sonia wouldnt have prepared anything for the hero of the future. (But i DO love ascension and fuse. Lowkey dislike the building mechanics from a concept art pov because the green glue makes me want to cry, but it’s FINE i GUESS)

2b. Master sword’s chilling in korok forest. Link put it back in this au because of Reasons (part of his and zelda’s characterization in this au is to discard their past roles and embrace the present, not as knight and princess but as hero and researcher. They both have to face the reality those roles aren’t dead, but it’s a work in progress. I may also never address it. This “one off hehe lemme draw some guys” idea quickly spiraled into a web comic series so apologies for the vagueness, because i too am watching them adventure with dread and awe and i don’t know where they’ll go with it. They literally write themselves.

3. Rip champions, their ghosts are Gone (but their influence remains. You go mipha, keep haunting the narrative girl, i love you)

I know that some of these story notes don’t quite match up to what totk states is stone cold canon, but that’s the joy of fan work! Anyways sorry for folks who i have NOT answered asks of— i have a lot of them and I’m much better at the drawing and writing part then the socialization aspect (please feel free to peak in to my zoo enclosure ever so often though. I need the enrichment)

[binaural-histolog]

Zotoro, Scihub, and more Cool Hypnosis Papers

CW: severe nerdery

I don't have an academic background, and while I've been poking around at hypnosis nerdery for a while, I was limited to an extent by what I could get my hands on.

This is especially important when it comes to the academic texts. There's only so many books out there on theory, and a bunch of it doesn't make sense until you go back and read the actual papers.

For example, I knew that Kirsch had something to do with placebo and expectations, but I only had a vague understanding of what and how. A paragraph critique in Theories of Hypnosis wasn't enough to give me the proper context.

Until I decided I was going to rewrite the newbie guide to explain hypnosis from a modern neuroscience perspective and then I was committed to pulling the citations and digging up the actual papers.

At first I was doing it by hand by pasting things into Scihub and downloading the PDFs. This sort of worked, but at some point there are just too many PDFs and it's work to keep them consistent.

This is where Zotero comes in. It's a PDF database that is set up to scan for academic fields and give you a UI for finding, reading and annotating the PDFs. It syncs between MacOS, Windows, and iOS and keeps the annotations and highlights. And even better, it's got plugins.

Specifically, it's got a plugin for Scihub. You can add a DOI number and it'll pull the abstract data for the paper, and then you can right click and it'll download the paper from Scihub automatically.

It doesn't cover everything. Some stuff is too new for Scihub, and I've had to fallback to https://reddit.com/r/scholar to request articles, but there's so much stuff.

In particular, you get the sense of how academic papers can be a conversation, an argument, or a lawsuit. You get to see the most brutal putdowns phrased as passing comments. And the grudges and ego can go on for decades.

There are a couple of papers that I recommend everyone read, because they're just great at summarizing the field and current thinking.

The response set theory of hypnosis reconsidered: toward an integrative model

I love this paper not just because it goes over response expectancy theory from the inception to the general whittling down from "Once expectancy effects are eliminated, there may be nothing left" to response expectancy as 25%-35% of suggestibility and the addition of a "readiness response set" to cover the rest of it... but also because despite Kirsch's hand in response set theory and response expectancies and being in a journal issue devoted to Kirsch's career and achievements, he is not an author to this paper that is reconsidering his work. Instead, he gets a hand clap.

In closing, Irving Kirsch has greatly advanced our understanding of hypnosis. The construct of expectancies that he articulated and championed for decades has well withstood the test of time and replication. We extend our personal gratitude to him for his shaping influence on our personal views of hypnosis and for his many contributions to the field of hypnosis that he so immensely enriched.

I'm not sure what I'm looking at, but I love it.

How Hypnotic Suggestions Work – A Systematic Review of Prominent Theories of Hypnosis

This is a preprint, but it's comprehensive not just in how it picks out theories of hypnosis that are more recent than the book, but also in how it pokes holes and points out weak points in the various theories. It's also recent enough to talk about fun new things like predictive coding and interoception and somatosensory feedback.

Hypnosis and top-down regulation of consciousness

Devin Terhune's papers are always good to read. His papers read like a story where every chapter builds on the last one. This one is a "synthesis of current knowledge regarding the characteristics and neurocognitive mechanisms of hypnosis" and I can't tell you how many times I've read through this paper by accident because I wanted to pick a point out of it and got sucked into it all over again.

[kit-williams]

I guess I'm doing more of that self insert

I have to thank @yawnderu's König character study post and @wordstome for their Königcore bible post and of course oh and @ghouljams for their König as well... there are too many cod dearies who helped me create this idea of him

But the part that really inspired me was this

so yeah enjoy

My clothes were nice and warm still. I still blamed Ghost for me forgetting what I was going to program but honestly it wasn't really important just stuff they gave me to keep me busy... enrichment really. I could look at the news and internet and my chats from my phone, when they weren't busy data scraping it, but I couldn't interact at all. I was in the kitchen making myself some hot chocolate to ignore the fact that I missed my baby and yet he had mommy right there with him.

I took the mug of now warm milk out of the microwave, I wasn't going to fuck up the militarily British men's kettles by heating up milk in them for some hot chocolate. I crouched down in front of the fridge trying to find the whipped cream I keep in there for my hot chocolate. I perk up when I hear it and smile at the massive man putting it down having taken some to eat as well as put on my hot chocolate. "Thanks Hans."

It embarrassingly took me a very long time to figure out Hans was König... I should have seen it coming really. I mean who else is nearly 7 feet tall? and speaks German... in my defense I have been very out of sorts. He plucks down the mini marshmallows for me... my 5'3 height as last time he caught me trying to go at them I had climbed up on the counter and just looked like a dog that had something in their mouth that they weren't suppose to have. In reality I just was embaressed I was climbing onto the countertop like a child.

"Koboldchen tell me about your day and what you need done." I hear him say as I sip my drink and sit down... and well prattle to him.

König was so helpful it hurt. I wasn't use to living on my own... I never had and I never could... I knew that long before I graduated high school or college. Luckily everything was usually automated and could just be taken out of my account but I still struggled so hard. König reminded me of how my husband would just patiently help me. He didn't mind my weird quirks... he let my fidgiting hands move over his calloused ones just letting me get some sort of stimulating satsifaction.

There was also something else that hurt so much... it hurt with Johnny and it hurt with Hans... just how blue their eyes were. It was like he was still right there ready to pick me back up and laugh at me for this dream. To tell me I've obsessed a bit too much and that it's time to focus on something else. Though I was jealous at how lovely the red in his hair looked but I continued to talk.

------

König could tell she was spiraling hard around a drain... Price had informed him of what was going on and the possibility of getting in on the ground floor if things followed suit about Ukraine. But, lucky for his Koboldchen... he was there. He wouldn't lie that he took a strong fondness to her after helping her when he found her hiding between buildings clawing at her skull and unresponsive to his voice and touch. He remembers helping her while someone went to find Ghost as she remained non verbal and he just talked.

She was a helpless thing and she knew it and embraced what she was good at to stave off the way her figurative plane was still crash landing... limping in its descent. And he knew why... he saw what was on her phone. I would kill for you. The message had popped up while they were discussing... and he watched the intimate text exchange like an unwilling voyeur But please make sure I never get the chance to. I'm scared I might be too proud about it. She was madly and obsessivly in love with a man she could not chase after anymore. And it was eating her alive. The love of her life was right there yet so far out of her reach.

For König he doesn't remember when he fell for the weird little creature just playing with his hand. Was it when she just chirped out 'Numa Numa' with Soap and Ghost... oh she loved to sing songs that the three early thirty year olds knew... like a joke that he knew about but was just a little too old to have been part of the same culture. Was it when she just asked him to crush her in a hug to ground her, to hold her so tightly she bruised but the way she sighed in his ear as the anxiety left her eyes. Or was it at first sight just seeing her a helpless sad thing that when Ghost had come to collect her she clung to him like a wounded animal.

Hans was okay not being the love of her life... he was okay with playing second fiddle to a man he knew nothing about except the passionate and near constant texting and speaking... pictures... videos... a life that has her eyes glittering with devotion to a man who he didn't know. As long as he could be by her Hans was fine as she allowed him to be close... to touch. She was like a dog recently left at the shelter confused but wanting those pets and comforts she was so use to.

"Do you want me to come by and make you dinner or is Ghost doing that tonight?" He asked softly knowing full well Ghost and Soap hovered around her as much as they could.

"He's gone for awhile. Yes. I don't want to be alone." She said putting her forehead on the table and just moved his hand to her scalp where he gently scratched.

"Of course Kobold." He said scratching the top of her head humming softly.

Oh yes he had been a voyeur of her texts but he was a snoop heading onto websites she said not to and seeing things he wasn't expecting really... but he was pleased to know that he fit into a definition of something she liked.

[astraythealterhuman]

🌪️Sɱσƙҽ ϝυɾιҽʂ🌪️

☁️¡Hola de nuevo, amigos! This post is about something very close to me, because I will be talking about my Smoke Fury kintype.

☁️Just to clarify, Smoke Furies are a Night Fury subspecies that is not portrayed in any httyd media, but since I don't certainly know if it is an original subspecies, I won't label it as one for now.

☁️I haven't seen someone in the non/alterhuman community use the Smoke Fury term before, so I assume there isn't any information about this subspecies and that I might be the first one to write data about them.

☁️But, have in mind that I will talk from my experience as one, and not all that I say is the full and only truth that exists about this subspecies, since I know there might be other fellow Smoke Furies out there.

☁️If you are one and have any information that I didn't write here and can be useful to enrich the Smoke Furies knowledge, please contact me on private messages and I will be sure to add that information to this post.

☁️Now, let's get started!

☁️Information☁️

•Smoke Furies are a subspecies of Night Furies, these subspecies have almost the same powers and physical abilities as the Night Furies.

•Their body shape is the same as the Night Furies, but their size is slightly bigger. Their skin color can vary between different shades of grey, plus, the spines on their bodies are white colored, larger and more pointed.

Furthermore, what characterizes them most are the white spiral marks that are scattered throughout their body, along with other white colored markings, or patterns, and their white colored under body. Smoke Furies can have blue or yellow eyes and their plasma is always the same color as their eyes.

•Males and females don't have any aspect that differentiates them from each other beyond their sex.

So far there has been no indication that an alpha Smoke Fury exists or can exist.

•This subespecies is lonely and independent, but they are happy that way, they like minding their own business and they like to be left alone, they enjoy the peacefulness. Although, they can still bond with other dragons even if they are not from the same species, but they definitely can't be tamed by humans. They can be very territorial too, but not always, it depends on the individual.

•Although, Smoke Furies have almost the same powers and physical abilities as Night Furies, they lack of the retractable teeth ability and the lightning cloak power.

Instead of this last one, Smoke Furies have the power to partially turn their body into smoke, to be able to blend in with fog and gray clouds. This power can prevent any attack from causing them too much damage, but they can still be damaged since their body is still physical.

Smoke Furies have more strength, especially on their wings and therefore they have more speed. Because of this, they are capable of forming small wind tornados the size of a medium room, but it doesn't last much, since it is an artificial tornado

•They usually hunt during the day, preferably on cloudy days, as they cannot find a natural way to blend their colors in the night. However, depending on how bad the hunt went at day, they may also hunt at night, but this is very rare.

•Smoke Furies seem to love and enjoy rainy days, thunderstorms, hurricanes and anything related to having gray clouds and water.

•Lastly, their diet consists of fish and meat, just as Night Furies, but they have to eat more because of their bigger body, and the quantity they eat can be increased by the strength or powers used in the day.

☁️That's all the information I have gathered for now! But will update this post as soon as I discover something new about this subspecies.

☁️If you have any questions about something related to the topics I touched in this post, then I'm more than happy to answer them! You can leave your question in the comments section or in the question box.

🍓Disclaimer: The images used on this blog don't belong to me, they belong to their respective authors on Pinterest. (At least that's where I got the images from).

[matchstickdolly]

I see you've finished your epic dark conclusion to Lucifer S6! I'm sorry but I can't bring myself to read it yet, maybe in some distant future I will but it all still hurts to much and I'm not into sadness!

After reading your final (sigh) note and good bye I suddenly realized you've removed Marks of the Beast from your works! Its left me so much sadder because I loved that story and had hoped after you completed 'Sorrow' you'd return to it and give us more but alas you probably need to move on! Do you think you might ever share it with us again? I'm still so curious about your take on Chloe as a prophet!

Thank you so much for all the wonderful stories and head cannons you've given us! Truly you have enriched my life with your words!

I'm so sorry I had to remove Marks of the Beast (and I'm so honored you enjoyed it!). Removing a fic is not something I usually do, but I decided that story was one I wanted to tell elsewhere. It won't appear again in the Lucifer fandom or any other fandom.

Honestly, I don't intend to write for fandoms going forward. Thanks to social media, the vibes aren't what they used to be, and with the advent of OpenAI and similar companies, corporations can profit off fan writers every time we post. (I have my doubts whether even locking down fics does anything. These data-scraping enterprises have a vested interest to get around our defensive efforts.) I don't want to participate in it, even if there are things I do still love about fandom. That's way more information than you asked for 😂, but yeah, that's where I am now. Still writing, but only original.

I'm really glad my stories gave you something while I was here. I have not forgotten your comments! You left me such amazing ones, and they're all preserved in my email. 💜

[thetravelingbard]

A Weekly Aside (2)

09/21/2024

“Travel does not exist without home....If we never return to the place we started, we would just be wandering, lost. Home is a reflecting surface, a place to measure our growth and enrich us after being infused with the outside world.” - Josh Gates

I have taken up writing in the park near my house these past few weeks. I have never been especially good at consistently journaling. However, from my perspective, moving to Scotland is as good a time as any to try, try again. Anyway, today it was what could be considered “typical Scotland weather” with gray skies and horror movie-esk wind. I found myself sitting in shorts, of all things, writing again in my teal little notebook.

When writing today, I found myself considering the idea of ‘home’. I’ve always believed that home is defined by the people you lay your heart with and not so much any actual location. As I settle myself into life in Edinburgh, with love and light in my heart, I find myself missing the people stretched across several thousand miles. This is not a new phenomenon for me, do not let me fool you. Growing up I had family stretched all across the east coast. In college, some of my closest friends ranged from CST to GMT. I am no stranger to long distance friendships. Now that I am outside of the bubble of childhood and my undergraduate degree and forging my own path forward into my 20s, I find myself wishing I could share these moments with my people. It’s these moments that I thank the wonders of modern technology. I know there is endless harm the media has caused in modern society, I am by no means dissenting that. However, I will always be grateful for the ability to connect with people so effortlessly. It’s a bit like being able to bring home with you.

Retrospection aside, let’s get to the life update. This week was the first week of classes. I’ve been trying really hard to compartmentalize things and focus on only one semester at a time. I’m taking three classes this semester: International Relations Theory; Gender, Politics, and Representation; and Core Quantitative Data Analysis 1 & 2. My favorite is by far the second one. I was worried about the quantity of readings required, but so far it hasn’t been too bad. I’m still waiting for the shoe to drop, haha. 

I wanted to pursue International Relations not necessarily for just laws or specific policies, but to learn about people and demographics. My background in Psychology and Communications should hardly make this a surprise. Honestly, I am interested in applying my studies, in all three courses, to people in some way or another. I hope to steer my dissertation in this direction as well. I’ve been told by probably every professor and advisor to start thinking about a potential dissertation topic, which I have been, do not worry, but beyond that…I’m trying to not get too ahead of myself. I don’t really have to begin planning until February, so I do not need to get ahead of myself. 

Aside from that, I’ve been really just trying to adjust to a new routine. I went to a female singing group this Thursday that I am optimistic about as well. I forgot how much I love singing in a choir. Once my tutorials (smaller groups based on the lectures) start this upcoming week, I’m hoping to get a better grasp onto what my schedule is going to be looking like. I’ve also been applying to jobs like crazy, but haven’t had any luck so far. Finger’s crossed! 

Cherish those you call home, wherever they are. 

<3 Serena

[tysonfurybattlepass]

fighting is just as much a mental exercise as it is a physical one. example from last night:

first time sparring with guy named david. immediate assessment within the first 20-30 seconds of round one is that he is an orthodox (right-handed) fighter with a traditional muay thai body structure. suggests a proficiency in kicking.

second assessment within the first 60-90 seconds of round one is that he likes to utilize the right round kick to the thigh as both a damage dealer and as a distraction to set up more complicated punch combinations. i, a southpaw (left-handed) fighter, am particularly vulnerable to right round kicks. so the fight now becomes a matter of “how can i mitigate his weapon i am most susceptible to, and how can i use that weapon against him?”

the answer i come up with after about minute 2 is to fire my left hand straight punch as soon as i detect his right round kick coming. i can tank some hard shots to my legs because theyre tough from experience, so i will gladly allow him to hit my thigh if it means he is too off balance and distracted to properly defend my punch to his face.

now remember that while all of this is happening, david is also running the same data analysis on me! as the rounds progress, we change our behaviors to adjust for each other. we are constantly learning and adapting and problem solving and experimenting!

anyway i love being autistic and in combat sports this shit is so enriching 10/10 recommend

[thegeminisage]

star trek update time. last night we did voy's "before and after" and "real life."

before and after:

i liked this one actually although kes with TOM PARIS was a huge shock. but it actually works well because then it has you asking well wtf about b'elanna and she's. dead.

also shoutout to when janeway died right in front of chakotay (again) and he did the thousand yard repression look. king

i also like kes's new hair, even though i prefer her old hair. it helps her LOOK older. i bet it was easier to pull off than those ears, too

i did NOT like the EMH's new hair. put that cueball back so help me

it's fun to see how he swaps names depending on his mood, although i think it would be neat if he settled on a permanent one

YEAR OF HELL MENTION. i have heard so much about it and i can't wait to see it for myself

real life:

this sucked bad.

okay, i think the problem i have with the holodeck, other than holodeck episodes usually not being my cup of tea, is that we have a horrific double standard about how real the people in it are based on what vibes we are feeling that day. the doctor is obviously a real person (but the version of him that got killed by the borg in the tng movie is obviously not). that holo-village from ds9 was full of real people. but what about sex slave deanna from tng? is she real? are the combatants in worf's klingon training program real? when they die and come back when he reboots the program, do they remember doing that? do they feel pain? the aborted holo-julian from his eugenics episode, is he real? how about the npcs from picard's mystery novels? moriarty (of all people) seemed to become real, and his gf was real, but was he real before he figured out the holodeck? what separates real holopeople from not real ones?

what about this little girl who was created to enrich the doctor's life and then forced to DIE HORRIBLY because b'elanna decided he was doing the enrichment wrong? is she not real, too? the emh grieved her. her holo-family grieved her. is their grief real?

like, we could easily get to the bottom of this. we could make some fast and quick rules about which holopeople are sentient. it would make for FASCINATING sci-fi, the way the debate about data's sentience made for great TV in tng. and yet we just...don't look directly at that issue at all. it's based on vibes and whatever whoever is writing the episode feels like. it's ANNOYING and it's LAZY and it takes me out of every single holodeck scenario

like, either the girl is not real, which means all of this was to put the EMH through simulated grief, or she IS real, and they created this little girl to murder her. what the hell

anyway, huge bummer of an episode. i hated it <3

TONIGHT: an exercise in whiplash as we do ds9's "ties of blood and water" and "ferengi love songs." sssssigh

[zablionsea]

What's going on? It sure is - Arcade Edition

I took photos of my what the cat plush at local arcades where I lived before moving. Here are those:

The critter in my purse on the way to meow's first arcade visit. Love the way its little eyes are peeking out :3

I ended up replacing this purse a month or so after with a canvas purse. It tore a hole, and I decided it wasn't worth replacing with another crappy nylon one.

A visit to Groove Coaster (I think it was 4) before the servers shut off. Rest in peace, pal.

.....I'll make this wordplay again: WhatCat re:||VERSE.

I'm not very good at this game, but I figured meow should visit a bullet hell for enrichment.

Ah yes, meow visits the land from which meow's friend Jonathan originated. (also this was my first time playing PIU, hence, why I can't handle a 4) (I mean I still can't now, but that's not the point SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH)

Then came later trips, to the same arcade.

Behold, bisexual what.

meow looks content, perhaps Exceed Gear reminds meow of a similarly-named weapon style in a certain NOISZ arcade port... who's to say?

A little spot just for meow to rest.

Looks like Sumire and Hitori aren't the only phoenixes meow has gotten to meet, after this.

My last visit, which was to a different arcade than the previous ones. It's farther away, but generally has a better selection (important to me is maimai and Taiko no Tatsujin). Also, there's local server support for WACCA Reverse, which was great to use. The save data even carried over to where I moved, so that was good to find out (I didn't know how that worked at the time)

I got very lucky with Puyo Puyo Fever being brought back onto the arcade floor during my last visit before moving. The presence of this game is what caused me to discover the wonderful local arcade that housed it. I even wrote a paper for high school about the joyous experience of going to what felt like gamer heaven for the very first time. It's so fitting my last time here mirrored my first time, in that way.

What also got to see I believe Mr. Driller G, which was very cool. I'm bad at this game, but I had fun anyway. Getting to see this and play it was exciting in of itself. I really need to get Mr. Driller Drill Land for my Switch one of these days.

Vivid Wave was fun, although as a newbie with no e-amuse card, I generally didn't notice any significant difference between this and Exceed Gear. Still, was fun.

Funny thing is that I believe I knew from hearsay that MARENOL was in vivid/stasis as some sort of secret boss but hadn't unlocked it myself (based on my achievements timestamps).

That final visit is special to me, not only because of how much mental real estate this arcade has taken up for me over the years but also my first time playing an arcade rhythm game with other people. Two friends (or perhaps a couple? Idk) were playing maimai FiNALE and played with me, and I had fun even if it was awkward as hell ahaha.

It was a good note to leave my home state on and begin the next chapter of my life.

...

Finally, a bonus photo of what with my DS/3DS game cases, which are currently packed into a cardboard box ready to be loaded onto the moving truck:

[eldritchamy]

hellloooooo ask for you amy. tell me about a minor character from your writing / worldbuilding

Thank you for watering my crops (giving me enrichment in my enclosure) by sending an ask

The unfortunate thing here is that my creative process is largely TOP DOWN, rather than BOTTOM UP, so I have a lot of CONCEPTS and some smaller scale details about the world, but in terms of CHARACTERS? Almost every named character has a pretty direct impact on the main plot and I can't really say much about them without getting into a bit more detail about the bits of worldbuilding or story they're connected to than I want to publicly post about.

And yet, behold, I must put a page break anyway.

The first one (and really almost ONLY one) that comes to mind is Jones/"Jonesy", a character who will be introduced in chapter 1 (like, opening scene), and won't have much (if any) relevance after that point, but saying much about him would require going into detail about the organization he works for, The House of Cards, which is kind of like a John Wick style Continental/High Table thing that's REALLY INTERESTING but too much of a "some data scraper would love to grab this idea for some company to steal and copyright" risk for me to really want to discuss outside of like, private messaging.

YOU, SPECIFICALLY, I would be willing to talk to about it if you wanted to maybe add me on discord. There's a NUMBER of things from the world and story I would love to loredump about and get your thoughts on, honestly.

He's basically the character who acts as a sort of messenger/recruiter who brings Ash into the first arc of the plot. There's not all that much to say about him because his role is SO minor (unless something changes). All the interesting stuff about him is really stuff about "The House" (think "The House Always Wins").

The House of Cards is divided into factions based on the suits in a deck of cards. The card suits in this world do not perfectly correlate to the ones we know (there are six instead of four, for starters). The ranks/authority/responsibility/clearance levels are based on the face value of the cards. Jones is a Star (the suit for messengers, couriers, etc. think of stars as the "connect the dots" faction), and his rank is 7. Rank 7s are called "Luckies". So "Jonesy" is a Lucky Star. And yes this WAS set up just to make it an Alien reference.

I would LOVE to say more, because the House is one of my favorite factions in the lore, but not on tumblr.

Almost every named character that currently exists exists because they are relevant to some specific organization, historic/lore event, or worldbuilding concept that I can't super comfortably talk about. Or, alternatively, there just isn't much to say about them.

There's a vampire-owned nightclub type space in the raunchier part of the main plot city (basically a red light district, might call it something like the Scarlet Borough depending on how I end up dividing the city up). The club is most likely called Crimsin and it functions as both a vampire safehouse and a kink space with a focus on S&M and particularly bloodplay (think consensual vampire feeding). The vampire who runs it is either Victoria Sarkov or Alina Caedir, I haven't decided. More likely Victoria. Alina probably does something else. I have not made fleshed out backstories for either of them currently, apart from an alternate cross between them being used as a character in my Forgotten Realms campaign. Which won't be relevant for this, since it's a fully original setting.

They're not huge fans of Cass. Cass is a very unusual vampire created in a very specific way who had some very specific experiences that all wrapped up into making her DECISIVELY the most powerful vampire in the world. Cass is basically a "first generation" vampire created DIRECTLY by some very powerful magic, and the circumstances of the casting made the spell especially potent. The vampires on Une aren't. Cass would be, as a base, the equivalent of an Original from TVDverse, plus some telekinetic abilities. Plus the equivalent of a Planeswalker spark. Plus a general massive power boost she got during the Horizon War when she drank the blood of .... something I won't talk about here. :)

Victoria doesn't love that she isn't the top of the food chain (especially considering Cass is much younger than her, and not originally from the same world), but for the most part they keep their distance from each other. Ash sometimes bothers Victoria for information. Vic tolerates this for 2 reasons: Ash is very, very tasty (there are Reasons for this) and an occasional patron in good standing, and Cass (whom Ash is very close with) is one of the only people that can substantially threaten Vic, although she's not likely to without a reason.

It's in Vic's best interest not to give her one.

Most of Une's vampires are a little intimidated by and somewhat resentful of Cass because she's one of their only real threats. For the most part Cass is utterly indifferent to them and minds her own business because she couldn't care less about vampire politics.

The other meaningful threat to vampires is angels, since they're the other major group of innately powerful semi-immortal people. Saints (the most populous of the angel subtypes in the Inner Realms) make up a meaningful percentage of the main city's governmental structure and especially law enforcement (kind of like Ravnica's Boros Legion). They also mostly leave vampires alone as long as they're not causing problems. Vampires are a known quantity of the world, but they're not a contagion that will spread uncontrollably without interference. Becoming a vampire is a slow and very much intentional process, it's not something that can really happen by accident. The only time vampires are a problem are when there are problem vampires, and problem vampires are usually dealt with by the rest of vampire society.

For the most part, the best way to keep vampires in check is to let vampires keep EACH OTHER in check. So places like Crimsin do not operate outside the law, they're just a fact of the world.

This got off topic a bit.

[simply-sithel]

My dudes... I don't know if I'm the last one to learn this, but I come bearing good news! Google's Apps Script is amazing and makes Spreadsheets & Slides so much more powerful!

Tumblr is hardly the best platform to talk about code on but this was a game changer! As a minor helper on @renegadepublishing's yearly exchange, my scripts let me keep up with the growing quantity of entries and while I only figured it out at the end of this year's labors, it will be so very, very, very helpful for next year's.

Will tuck further ravings under the cut but the short of it is that it (A) let me programmatically pull deets from AO3 to enrich final report and (B) let me programmatically fill the results slide show with data.

Coherently flowing prose often fail me when shifting to a technical discussion, so to break down the work:

this was all in JavaScript. I obviously love Kotlin more these days, but it felt painless/rather accessible being in JS

the primary 'key' passed around for the entries (when participents submitted updates and final entries) tended to just be the fic URL (plus gifter/giftee names) - a good UUID but carries no meta info

almost (tho not all) of the entries were hosted on AO3 which made programatic scraping possible

we definitely needed the author & fic name... which required visiting the page. And once you're on the page, why not grab more details? In the end we wound up scraping: title, author, last update, word count, fandom, rating. And while there's more one could collect, we lacked the space to visually display it along with the results. Remember-- the point is the typesetting!

Apps Script let you make URL requests [getContent]

I used the Cheerio library to process the page's contents and let me comb through it using jQuery. Link goes to GitHub page, which has the Script ID you'll need to import it in the Libraries section.

I found the Google Sheets APIs easy enough to read/work with -- just lots of arrays, really. Also, the quotas that you get seem generous to me (for a free product)

AO3 specific note : had to append "?view_adult=true" to the URLs if I wanted to bypass that check screen, but I also had to handle locked fic, which keep you at a reduced info lock screen. Be sure to test E rated & locked fic when drafting your script (Incognito Window is your friend)

Here is the Gist of the pictured script-- it was a 'round 2' edit where I went back and pulled Rating & Locked status : [LINK]

The above refers mostly to the Sheets side of things. The other most magical feature was the population of Slides w/ sheet data!

Notes as follows:

images are my current weakness-- had to go in later and adjust/layout/upload images manually. SUPER LAME. Next time I'm going to dig into pulling images from the drive...

I was able to embed links programmatically into the slides but it was VERY HACKY code. The generation of the PDF links was still a manual task, and while I imagine I could script that, sounds hairy (I want to avoid all things Auth)

The {{name_pattern}} was/is only a stylistic choice. Doing a find & replace on something so distinct is safest tho.

I did not use Alt Text on my things but I think going forward, it would be how I'd ID/address the non-string replacement actions (finding the right shape to anchor a URL link on was finicky the way I did it)

Here is my (very messy!) script for populating the slides: [LINK]

For next time:

using a script to pull tags/fandoms/pairings will make the gifter/giftee pairing process sooooo much smoother (so far it's been very manual!! Bless @aetherseer's tenacity!)

I need to figure out image imports/population of the slides... ignoring any aspect ratio/size issues

[elisgeorge]

Did you know there are services that offer free university-level modules, for free?

I am one of those people that are obsessed with learning, but structured courses are expensive. Not these. Here are some links if you, too, are obsessed with the pursuit of knowledge and want to learn something (for FREE!)

EdX is my personal favourite. It offers loads of subjects that are usually taken from university courses, and the ones that I have done are pretty good. These can all be taken for free, or you can pay £40 to take the assignments and recieve a graded certificate. Now, the catch here is that most of the courses are archived, which means that, occasionally, some of the links won't work and you have to be creative with the readings. I have found this to be a pretty minimal issue though, and it is worth it.

I recently took this EdX course about 19th Century literature and it was excellent. Some of the links were broken so I took some creative liberties with the readings, but I read all of the books discussed and used the course materials to critically analyse them as I did so. I didn't follow the course exactly, but it was still an enriching experience and something I wouldn't have thought to do otherwise.

Another good one is OpenLearn, which is a branch of the Open University. The OpenLearn courses are usually pretty good, although some can feel a bit lackluster and basic. Don't expect super in-depth courses, but they're good for an introduction to a subject, or to top up your skills in somethign you haven't done in a while. These offer free certificates of participation, so they're great if, say, you want a career change but you haven't studied data science since college. I enjoyed the classes I took, but I wouldn't say they were as challenging as EdX.

I recently took this OpenLearn course about Hadrian's Rome. Classical history is something I'm interested in and this was a great way to guide my study of an aspect of it.

Coursera is a very popular one. Similar to OpenLearn, these courses can sometimes be a little surface-level. These also have a much larger focus on building transferrable skills than developing cultural knowledge and learning for your own enrichment. Even so, there are some wonderful gems on there if you're willing to scroll through and find them. Coursera is also great because it has project-centred courses, where you work towards a finished product under the (virtual, recorded) guidance of an expert. Think of it like a corporate skillshare.

Last summer I took this Coursera course about screenwriting. It was project based, and I came out of it with a fully realised first draft of a pilot episode of a TV show. I realised through this process that maybe screenwriting wasn't for me, but it allowed me to get out of my comfort zone with writing and explore that avenue that I would have probably always wodered about.

OpenCulture is a good database of free courses that then redirects you to other websites, but you have to be willing to sift through the sludge with this one, as some are more worth your time than others.

Another good way to find free courses is to search for them on university websites. I have found that most US universities (and loads of UK ones too, though it is less common) offer free online courses. You have to be careful here, because sometimes they will say they are free but actually the 'free' part is viewing the syllabus.

You might be thinking 'what is the point of a course that doesn't get me a qualification?' and I'd say 'I get you, because I felt the same way,' but if you're anything like me and love learning, they're a godsend. Of course, there is nothing stopping you from finding all of the course content online, and I'd actually encourage you to do that alongside the courses, but knowing where to start is the difficult part. There is so much information to learn about any given topic that it can be overwhelming. These courses provide you with a structure that you can then use within your own wider research to learn about subjects you maybe don't want to commit to in a formal setting.

I'm not paid by any of these websites, I just think the monetisation of knowledge is wrong and awful and disgusting and anyway to beat that should be celebrated and shared and used as widely as possible.

Happy learning! :)

[corruptedcodelines]

CORRUPT-TRIO'S PREFERENCES

(tagged by @not-that-dillinger )

(Sorry it took this long! Just now saw this on the blog. Some of these answers will be coming from the headcanons I have of them in the physical world... an opportunity they haven't had the chance to experience yet in RP)

Animal: Abraxas- Strangely enough he loves small animals he was told about from Flynn in a past life... Hamsters, Mice, Tiny birds... they are just so... small... precious.... it... reminds him of someone... Tronzler- Dogs. (Cats) He can't stand the sound of their purring... too close to... that sound... it's triggering (the purring makes him feel less alone... that he wasn't the only thing that was broken) Tyrace- Insects. They... remind him of the gridbugs that would occasionally keep him company in the Outlands.

Flower: Abraxas- Crocus Flowers. Tronzler- Forget-me-nots Tyrace- Purple Hyacinth

Scent: Abraxas- Seafoam Tronzler- Metal. (Fabric) Tyrace: Caves and wet rock.

Coffee: Abraxas- Aversion to the drink. Tronzler- Black with a touch of caramel Tyrace- Expresso Frappe with so much chocolate syrup it is almost classified as a syrup itself.

Tea: Abraxas- White Tea with Jasmine, cold Tronzler- Buttermint Tea, A mix of vanilla and spearmint. (Won't go near the stuff) Tyrace- Lady Gray, his User's Favorite.

Drink: Abraxas- His previous tea order. Tronzler- Iced tea lemonade, fresh spring energy (You need to drink...?) Tyrace: Hot chocolate

Food: Abraxas- Quick foods you can take on the go, sandwiches. P̴͚̿r̶̳̔ò̶ͅg̶͕͝r̴̖̽a̷̼͠m̷̮͂s̵̤̔ Tronzler- Turkey and dressing, light on gravy, salad, breadsticks (You need to eat? Noodles... He guesses...) Tyrace: Soups and Chili.

Dessert: Abraxas- Fruit Tarts Tronzler- Strawberry Shortcake Tyrace- ANYTHING chocolate

Article of Clothing: Abraxas- Hoods and things with tight arm covers... but still athletic in nature. Tronzler- Soft but functional longsleeve Tees... button ups. The looser clothing is freeing to his circuits... not as stifling to his Encom circuitry as his Clu-given Gridsuit. (Facemask and leather jackets... anything that feels confining or tight. It's comforting) Tyrace- Shawls and Scarves, anything drapy... like he could hide in it.

Candy: Abraxas- Skittles. All types. Tronzler- Not a fan of candy (mini m&ms, he likes to drop them on the ground and try to hunt them all down for enrichment) Tyrace- CHOCOLATE... and rock candy

Left or Right Handed?: Abraxas- Right Tronzler- Ambidextrous favoring right (Ambidextrous favoring Left) Tyrace- Right

Sloppy or Neat Handwriting?: Abraxas- His past self once had beautiful handwriting... now... its shaky and scratched... but still legible. Tronzler- Neat and crisp with slight flourish... but somehow hard to read. (Slanted and sharp like the letters were cut rather than written... but perfectly legible. Clu made sure of it) Tyrace- Shaky, squiggly, but without any slant... as if every letter was written slowly and meticulously to be sure it could be read.

Clean or Messy home?: Abraxas- Dragons hoard of things... he has his own way to organize that mere mortals could not comprehend. Tronzler- He is sentimental, and likes to keep things to recall memories to... but he still manages to keep order and a calm sense of clean even in the host of trinkets. (Has a hidden closet in Tron's room of little things he collected. Each one has a perfect, measured grid to fit into.) Tyrace- Birds nest of rocks, interesting things, too many data logs to try and write things down feverishly for fear of forgetting.

Shower in Morning or Night?: Abraxas- Defragging is impossible for a Virus... best he could do is sit by the Sea... wade out... and lose himself in tainted memory. Tronzler- He prefers Defragging at the end of the Millicycle, it scrapes of the feeling of working. He can't stand User showers and baths. (The heck is a defrag...? He's like trying to baptize a cat for anything bathing related) Tyrace- Evenings... but he hasn't had a defrag since the old system... too afraid of losing any more moments...

Tasks done Early or Last minute?: Abraxas- Slow, steady, but efficient. Always just on time. Tronzler- Early as possible. Tyrace- Struggles, but always makes it.

Love Language?: Abraxas- Quality Time Tronzler- Acts of Service (What is love... gift giving in the form of killing your enemies and bringing you their empty disks. Very dead mouse left on your doorstep coded.) Tyrace- Words of Affirmation and Quality Time

Belief in Love at first sight?: Abraxas- No. Tronzler- Yes... Yori. (WHAT IS LOVE?!) Tyrace- True love... Love... that will... last... is something... only time can... forge.

THANK YOU FOR THE TAG!

Ed's preferences

Some Edcanons. If you care.

Animal: Birds

Flower: Lavender or hydrangias

Scent: Lavender,

Coffee: latte with four shots of espresso and enough sugar that it's practically sugar... but only if the situation's dire.

Tea: Lavender earl grey or Lavender chamomile. Alternatively Jasmine green tea

Drink: Grapefruit juice or lemonaid

Alcoholic Beverage: Golden Dream (cocktail), sambouca (liqueur) tequila (liquor), white wine or hard seltzer.

Food: Pho, street tacos (with corn tortillas), mole enchiladas, butternut squash soup, or pot roast.

Dessert: Creme brulee or mochi ice cream

Article of Clothing: hand-knit beanie made from qiviut yarn, gifted from a friend in college.

Candy: Salted Licorice (or any gluten free licorice)

Left or Right Handed?: Situationally ambidextrous but favoring his right hand. He used to favor handed until an incident in middle school where he broke his left wrist.

Sloppy or Neat Writing?: Depends on spoons for the day. Usually neat cursive, but if he's been doing to much stuff that strains his wrists it progressively becomes worse.

Clean or Messy Home?: ...lived-in. He rarely has the energy to do a deep clean, but will do chores here and there as energy permits.

Shower in Morning or Night?: Mornings, only because the ratio of times he actually goes to bed versus crashing is... concerning.

Tasks Done Early or Last Minute?: Depends on priority level, and generally broken into smaller chunks spread out but planned so that he can get it done with some buffer room, though usually completed ahead of schedule

Love Language?: Gift giving and acts of service

Believe in Love at First Sight?: ...You mean that isn't something that was made up in movies? People actually do that??? Still sounds fake.

tagged by: Stolen from: @the-expatriate

tagging: @wanderxdusk / @starstruckxstray, @mysticbluejay, @first-frost-fallen-snow (for Raye, but also any muse you like), @evecolourshock (your choice of muse), @corruptedcodelines, and anyone else who sees this and would like to do it. Of course, there is never any pressure to do it if you don't want to.

[why-animals-do-the-thing]

I have a kitten that is... Very loud and talkative. I am pretty sure she is actually getting her needs met (plenty of enrichment and good food and gets to go outside on a harness). Still I am anxious that she is actually unhappy since she has the habit of meowing very loudly when she wants something. This is kind of a stupid ask but I assume she is just a vocal cat and likes to talk?

Some cats just have a lot to say! And remember, classical conditioning is a real thing: if you respond when she meows at you, you’re encouraging her to repeat the behavior because you’ve just proved to her that it works!

You know your cat best. So you’re going to be the person who really has the information to figure out how she’s feeling. That’s super hard when you’re anxious, I get that. I’d suggest making some notes so you have some objective data to look at when you worry. Record what she does during the day, what situations she’s meowing in, and what happens after. Is she sleeping all cozy and comfortable? Is she playing? Is she meowing at you when she wants food? When she wants attention? When she wants to play? I’d just record that, like on my phone. And then you can look at it and see “oh, she meows at me when I’ve been on the computer for a long time and she wants pets” or “she screams at me when her bowl is empty.” If she starts meowing at you at new times and you’re concerned about why, take notes, and treat it like a puzzle! Personally, I love talkative cats - I never have to guess when they want something because they damn well tell me. Loudly. Repeatedly!

It also sounds like you’re a conscientious owner who is actively thinking about what your kitty needs and wants - which means she’s much more likely to be fulfilled and contented than an animal living in a house who isn’t. The fact that you’re worrying tells me you care and that you’re paying attention, and that is reassuring from an external perspective.

[creekfiend]

Lambchop has peaked my curiosity about buhunds, and I’m curious to learn more about them, so would be ok if you describe what’s it like to own one? Like what’s their character, if they’re affectionate, etc. Are they a bit more biddable and affectionate than other spritzed? I think you did mention once that lambchop is not completely to standard character wise, so how does she differ?

Sure I'll try!

I actually would say Lambchop is on standard for temperament for 95% of stuff but she's also turned up to 11. And she shows some unfortunate overarousal which spirals into dog aggression which SHOULDN'T be common in the breed but the more people I talk to the more it seems to be getting more common :/ it can be hard in a rare breed where people are very tight lipped about drawbacks and also most of the prominent breeders keep their dogs in show kennels so they don't have much data on how the dogs do in home/pet environments. The breed culture in the US also is quite old school in that puppies tend not to be raised with much thoughtful Socialization protocols or placed in homes on fit... dogs that go to "pet homes" tend to just be the dogs that the breeder thinks won't succeed well enough in the show ring or in performance. Not all the breeders are like this but... I know of maaaaybe 2 that place on temperament and what the puppy owner is looking for? That's MUCH more common in the icie community, weirdly, to the point where i very often recommend icies to people who like Lambchop, just bc the breeders in that community tend to actually live with their dogs and have more temperament data 🤣 and they're VERY very similar breeds.

They're very intense and VERY affections with people. Chop has never met a stranger and absolutely adores meeting new people and loving on the people she knows. They're very energetic and need lots of outdoor enrichment. And lots of... hmm. The trainer I'm working with talks about opportunities to make choices -- autonomy. Really smart dogs can develop behavior issues when they have very few opportunities to exercise autonomy in their lives so I am trying to set up ways to give her more of that like installing a dog door so she can decide when to be outside and when to be inside, that kind of thing

Herding spitz are crazy trainable. Lambchop adores tricks and engagement. Your mileage may vary with this one because I do know some people who have individual dogs that are "hard to motivate" but overall they LOVE to work with you and solve puzzles.

Reactivity is an issue in the breed moreso than a lot of other spitz. More herdy dog stuff imo. Icies are like that also. Almost every one will go thru a phase of it in adolescence at least. Another related breed that struggles with reactivity less is the norrbottenspetts, but they're also less biddable! So it's sorta a trade off lol

I will say if I wasn't disabled Lambchop would be a dream dog for me. Like if I had the brain space and energy to really get down to brass tacks and get her out for hikes 3 times a week? And if I had been properly prepared on what to expect in terms of intensity, energy level, and some of the common breed pitfalls regarding arousal issues? But unfortunately I wasn't and so we both kinda went in blind and it's been a struggle. She's been on her meds almost a week now and they're helping a LOT. we will get through it but it's been rough.

I think the Nordic herding spitz are perfect for a lot of people but its hard bc you have to find a breeder and community who will be honest and supportive of newcomers. The Icelandic sheepdog community has a lot more of that culture from what I have seen. But I can certainly recommend people to contact about buhunds to talk to more about the breed also; a good friend of mine is on the breed club board and has been in the breed like 20 years so she knows a lot. And I know several great icie breeders!

SO YEAH idk I really love herdy spitz but they can be a challenge and also you gotta find the right people which i guess is true of a lot of breeds hah. I hope this helps some! Here's a pic of Chop doing a doge meme impression for you