#I only have like 400 lines of code so far

[engiiiiiii]

first stages of a softbody, as in I have all of the easy stuff done, and none of the spring system stuff done. kinda fun to mess around at this point but it's causing a lot of collision errors for some reason. idk. not important (one point works perfectly but 100 don't? I don't get it...) hoping tomorrow I'll implement the spring physics and have to start doing the boring making tools part. my level editor currently just has a cool pastel rainbow gradient, but y'know. I can get the level editor done in a week. same with the other tools (lying to myself).

[mdhwrites]

My Frustration With Belos

As a presence, Belos is fantastic. He actually has probably some of the best animation in the series and arguably the best voice actor in the entire cast. He sells every line Belos has with a gravity and menace that the emperor might otherwise not have. He sells his anger but also his control and even after I stopped liking the show, I found my attention demanded when he desired it.

Unfortunately, as a character he absolutely fucking sucks and is almost impossible to take seriously.

He only functions as Belos. Not even Emperor Belos because once you bring in that title, you have to tilt your head and ask "Well, what is he as an emperor? How does he use his minions to enact his will? What is his will?" In that order:

He is a kind, stately emperor who only asks for one rule to be obeyed. Even if you stayed out of the fold, if you come to him willingly seeking forgiveness, you will be granted it and absolved of your crimes, like with the wild witch friend in Hollow Mind. He revolutionized the Isles, turning them from seeming small towns to a now interconnected nation (his rise to power is literally impossible with news being able to spread so people can fact check him) and brought safety and regulation to a land that has none (Terra acts like the Safety codes in Them's the Breaks are new or something so beneath a proper witch as to be able to be entirely ignored and no one cares.) No one faces persecution except those who flaunt breaking his one rule but you may be of any race, skin color, belief, etc. and he doesn't care. You are all equal in his eyes.

He uses his minions weakly. They are bumbling fools who are honestly better at party planning than they are at combat (look at... Literally any fight with the EC scouts frankly. The literal only wins they get is raiding an empty, unguarded house and attacking two exhausted, distracted witches who are out of power.) They are seemingly not punished for this though except supposedly at the higher ranks. Even then, they are merely demoted. Those who wish to leave also show no fear in doing so, as proven by the EC scout who says fuck this and goes off to join the cute cat coven. This displays a lack of interest in power or enforcement.

His will appears to be to bring order to a land of chaos. To bring structure and unity to a land that didn't have it. He will go to any length, including manipulation, lying and threats in order to obtain this. He keeps mystique about him, seeming to believe that being feared is stronger than being loved, fitting with his claims that the Titan speaks to him and wishes for a rather extreme societal change. One he will see to no matter what.

These are... Actually interesting. You know, until you remember his actual goal is the genocide of literally every living being on the Isles. Then they come across as incredibly stupid, inept and backwards for what ANY of his goals should be and that's without getting into how his plan explicitly left out the entire child population of the Isles. This means he didn't even actually want to get the job done properly before he fucked off.

That is befitting Philip and Belos though as actual manipulators. They both are on easy street as far as it goes. The one manipulation we see from Philip is by using two people who clearly want something from him and are interested in helping him so so long as he doesn't literally start throwing fists, he's fine. Belos meanwhile leverages Eda's curse against Lilith, an entire fake backstory against Hunter, and just being Kikimora's boss to get what he wants. Anyone not in the EC though he never manages once to actually convince of anything and he is pretty bad at actually keeping up his deceptions.

This is of course made worse by knowing that 400 years ago, that commanding presence that is Belos... Was actually just a whiny British bloke who couldn't even wait until after his victims were dead to gloat about it. I tooooootally still fear him, especially as S3 commits narrative contrivance after narrative contrivance to A: let him be ALIVE and B: to let him win, CONSTANTLY, without also murdering the main characters. Like he literally tells a group of witches and a monster "I'm saving your souls," while he has them all at his mercy, having already shown he was more than capable of beating them all... And leaves. Because he is REALLY bad at his goal.

And honestly, him being so bluntly tied to a movement, time period and ethnicity that all bluntly say he's Christian without saying he's Christian... Actually just kind of makes him worse. Knowing his beliefs makes his behavior BAFFLING. He has none of the actual zeal and fury of a crusader, who were so bloodthirsty as to have peasants march on their own as they screamed Deus Vult, nor does he have the actual politics and methodologies of colonizers. The closest he is is a missionary and that's not even the case because he's not interested in conversion, only genocide. He is just an asshole who has the label "Christian.

It says nothing. Most of his character says nothing. They slam you over the head saying he should be saying something, that his backstory should be deep and that he had grand plans but if you interrogate these claims, no he doesn't. He says nothing except "Christianity bad" and essentially condemns the ENTIRE RELIGION because of how little nuance there is to him, his backstory makes him look pathetic, whiny and potentially sympathetic which makes no sense with the rest of his character, and his grand plan was literally DESIGNED to fail because he never gave it any real thought or else he would have baptized witches into being in covens so they had the sigils from birth and he'd get ALL OF THEM.

He is perhaps the personification of what is wrong with TOH in this way. If you look at any one scene, it seems to promise so much. The animation is correct. The voice acting is correct. You can see what themes he's supposed to be talking about and can make a Twitter post very easily about it. But... These are all surface level and only function as moments.

As a whole story, as a whole character, it falls to tatters as you see there was nothing there except conflicting promises and basic fantasy tropes.

======+++++======

I'm trying to not blog about TOH as much anymore because I'm just kind of tired of it but Belos has always been a thorn in my side because there are so many scenes that are so effective with him but when I think of him as a whole, I have nothing but boredom and annoyance. So I wanted to properly explore that and highlight how little sense his character makes and why just consuming him like popcorn is functional, even good, but if you try to have him for dinner, you'll find only bones.

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

A Twitter you can follow too

And a Kofi if you like what I do and want to help out with the fact that disability doesn’t pay much.

[dataintegrationthoughtentity]

Changing Desktop Background From Your Name

「君の名は」から変わるパソコン/デスクトップ壁紙

In light of the new film by Makoto Shinkai, Suzume (スズメの戸締まり) being released, I thought that I would make something based on one of his previous films. Although personally I did not enjoy it as much as many other fans, Makoto Shinkai’s 2016 film, Your Name (君の名は) was released to great acclaim both in Japan and internationally. Despite my lackluster enjoyment of the film, I have to commend the studio, CoMix Wave Films, for their incredible animation. To me, the animation and art alone make it a movie worth watching. There is one moment which I personally find really cool in the film, which is the time lapse which plays as Zenzenzense (前前前世) by RADWIMPS plays in the background. This time lapse depicts the setting and rising of the sun in the countryside and Tokyo, which I think looks really pretty.

Incidentally, nother thing I have an interest in is desktop customization. I was initially searching for a background that would change in line with the rising and setting of the sun. Of course, this is somewhat of a tall order, as I also did not want to download too many wallpaper engines or other software that I would have a harder time learning. I settled on a wallpaper engine that seemed easy to use called Rainmeter, an open source desktop customizer.

Due to the fact that I could not find any desktop backgrounds I wanted to use and paired with my enjoyment of that time lapse scene, I decided to make a changing background using that scene from the movie. The project admittedly took a lot of time, as I had to screenshot all the frames of the time lapse, rename all the nearly 400 images, then I had to code a massive line of if elses (please don’t hate me comp sci kids) that would change the background based on the time. In any case, the final product looks pretty good, at least in my opinion. The code is set in stone so the sunset and sunrise in the background pictures won’t perfectly line up wherever you happen to be in the world but it follows roughly the pattern of the sunrise and sunset. I based the sunrise and sunset times on Gifu time around September 2013 as that seems to be around when the film is set, based on the dates shown on their phones. Although it's weird because one of them is in Tokyo 2016 while the other one is back in time by three years.

In any case, to use this wallpaper, you will need to download Rainmeter, which you can do so through this link below. It’s only available on Windows, so very sorry my Mac friends. You will also have to download this file below with the images and the code. The file is 1 GB in size which is the largest file that I’ve had so far so sorry about that but there are like 360 images and each is 1920 by 1080 so yeah. Once you have the file downloaded, you’ll want to unzip it, then move it to the Skins folder in your Rainmeter folder. Once you have that done, you can open the application and then click on the .ini file, and then load the skin. The images change every 4 minutes so you can check if it works by a) checking if the file loads properly, and then b) if the image changes. Once you have that setup it should be good to go!

I hope you enjoy the Your Name changing background!

信じて

[liyazaki]

Hi Mor,

I hope you don’t mind me asking this and apologies if you’ve answered this already, but for Thailand travel advice: could you suggest a rough estimate of how much cash I would need for a two week trip?

I’m not planning to drink/go clubbing. I’ll be mostly eating, visiting attractions and maybe the odd tour/boat trip. I’ll be in Bangkok and Phuket.

Even a rough rough estimate will help :).

I don’t mind at all- ask away. you’re going to have an amazing time!

we paid for all our hotels ahead of time, so the cash we brought was for pretty much exactly what you’re talking about.

I started with around 17,500 baht ($500 USD) & ended up getting out another $300-$400 USD equivalent later on. that might sound like a lot, but that covered all my food, transportation, multiple spa trips, new luggage, extra baggage fees while flying in country, a couple gifts for people back home, shopping for myself and experiences for 2 weeks. I didn’t really deny myself anything, so for me, it was a bargain. we did pay for the KP boat tour & Promthep Cape sunset yacht tour ahead of time. I had about $100ish USD left over at the end, so I spent about $700-$800 (can’t recall) in cash total.

if you can afford to take out extra, do it early to avoid ATM fees down the line. you can easily exchange whatever you don’t spend at the airport. if you want to get real nerdy about it like I did, make a spreadsheet of all your projected expenses & try to bring 15% or more than you expect you’ll need.

pick pocketing doesn’t seem to be much of an issue in Thailand, but I highly recommend not carrying it all on you once you get to where you’re going, just to be safe. cash still seems to be the preferred (sometimes only) method of payment in most places, so don’t count on being able to fall back on debit cards, credit cards, etc.

if you don’t have them already, some airline-approved luggage locks should give you some peace of mind if you leave cash in your room. I snagged a pair on Amazon that open with keycards you can keep in your wallet so you never have to remember a code.

that was more advice than you asked for, but I hope it helps!

p.s. I can’t remember the name of the spa right now, but if you’re interested in getting a Thai massage or just hitting up a spa, the best one we went to by far was in Phuket (it was incredible & very reasonable)! just comment or send me a message & I’ll track down the name for you.

[justin-peudeau]

With the terrible fucked up royal bloodline come the terribly fucked up servant bloodline !!!

So it's still the hc of Theta and Longhi being sisters and Mark being their cousin.

Honestly, I LOVE brainriotting about how they cause natural disaters by trying to solve things in their own weird intellectual. OF COURSE nothing happens like it was suppose to. So they will rarely concert each other secretely with special code messages just to have the other point of view on the matter. (But they will never entirely listen to their advices. They are siblings. Who fully listen their siblings anyway 🙄.)

Sometimes, the message will be literally an urgent summon request and the chosen person knows they have -like- 3 min to:

- makes an excuse to leave whatever extremely important duty they were doing

- prepares back up materials

- sprints like crazy toward the indicate spot (without being notice by anyone)

- saves the summoner's ass from whatever collosal shit they put themselve in

- heal and clean themselves

- get ride of the corpses (yes there would always have one corpse, the alive body wasn't cooperative anyway)

- come back to their duty like if they just take the most innocent piss on the nearby toilet

I think the one who gets the most requests is Mark. He have the most free time, work alone often and have the best communication skill. So he can make the best excuses pretty easily if none at all. He is a perfect bait and a professional manipulator. However, he is not a good fighter.

The one who is excellent for mass murder without making a mess is Longhi (Furikov said that only a super trained assassin can restrained their aura like she did). With her, bloody bussiness are erased as efficiently as an unfortunate messed up line you made in Clip Studio Paint. However she have a REALLY thight shedule and none of her colleagues knows about her double identity, so she can't make excuses often or be off duty for too long.

The best strategist is of course my beloved Theta. She can kick asses pretty easily and have a surrounding who can always back her up if she is absent for too long since she is the head of her body-guards team. It helps A LOT for excuses. Plus Tser-ride-some-dick often treat her like a queen in a chessboard. So she does many solo missions, sometimes along side Sarkov. So she doesn't have a superior eyes on her often. However, she IS the one who put herself in shitty situations the most 😂. (Sarkov doesn't help that much)

In order of shit-making you have :

Number 1 : (by far) Theta

Number 2 : (mess around but doesn't ask for help often) Mark

Number 3 : (is incredibly model compared to the other 2, but she is unpredictible in exceptional situations) Longhi

Finally, they are still smart as fuck, so the shitty situations they put themselves are often 13-dimensional-25x25-rubik's-cube-'s type of problems. Only 400 IQ crazy people like them can resolve it without to much casualities.

[luckiusdev]

Making an RTS Game - Part 3

Hello !

Here I am once again to talk about my game. This time, less things done overall however some interesting topics I will talk about. This part will be dedicated to the movement of the units on the map.

1. "Optimizations" on procedural generation

But first, updates about terrain generation!

This is not really an optimization, but in order to generate the whole map, I had to cut the mesh in several small pieces, more commonly called chunks. Indeed, I learned the hard way (by smashing my head for 1 hour before getting the answer) that the number of vertices for each mesh in Unity is limited to 65535 (vertices). Let's do a quick calculation: If I generate a 100x100 tile map, then there will be 10.000 total tiles on the map. With 4 vertices per tile, this gives us 4 * 10.000 = 40.000, so far so good. However, if I generate a map of 150x150 tiles, we have 4 * (150 * 150) = 4 * 22.500 = 90.000 vertices! And so, here is the problem. Once identified, I could start working on the "chunking system" a.k.a. creating several small meshes of a certain size (for example, a chunk of 10 tiles each) and placing them in the right place. So each chunk is only 10*10*4 = 400 vertices.

Everything worked the first time as you can see…

But I finally got everything working after a few (long) hours of work. Here is the initial result:

And the updated version with much nicer colors (and addition of sand tiles, a pain in the ass, also) :

The next thing to do to further optimize it is to do m u l t i t h r e a d i n g, but that will be for later.

2. A* Pathfinding Algorithm

As I can't use Unity's native NavMesh system since I generate the world procedurally (or I would have to do more research about it), I needed a way to move my units on the map while avoiding obstacles. The solution is simple: the A* Pathfinding algorithm. I'm not going to talk about it in detail, because people much smarter than me are already doing it: watch the Code Monkey video.

It's a bit complicated to see but you can see the green line that corresponds to the path the entity will take.

And here, a small clip to see everything in action.

3. Path smoothing with Chaikin's Algorithm

At this point, the unit can move on a path to the chosen destination but the path is rather… linear. I wanted to find a way to round out the path. So I inadvertently (or by a divine message) discovered a site that showed me the Chaikin algorithm. A little more research and I was able to find another site that detailed how the algorithm works. With that, I was able to implement it and round the sharp turns along the way.

As you can see, the path is much smoother, as the algorithm adds extra points to round everything out.

4. Unit Formation

And finally, I started implementing what we call unit formations. This is simply placing the units in a certain way, more generally in a grid. For this, I was once again able to rely on an amazing tutorial from Tarodev that explains how to implement this concept.

I slightly modified the code to allow the addition of an offset, which allows me to move the center of the formation to the mouse position. As you can see below, the units move to a selected point in the formation.

Thinking about it, I don't really like this system and it doesn't look very organic, and I'm thinking of changing to a simpler system where the units move to a random point within a radius of the chosen point, which will allow me to take advantage of the implementation of the Poisson Disk Sampling algorithm I coded (copied) earlier for an old project (damn, it takes a lot of algorithms to make a game…).

I'm also thinking of trying to implement the concept of boids to make the movement of units even more unique, as well as avoiding unintended collisions between them. But I'm going to focus on the essentials first, and the next step will be to implement the first bit of gameplay: harvesting resources.

If you want some info between these posts, I recommend you to follow me on Mastodon or Twitter (as long as the latter exists) where I post from time to time what I'm doing. Again, since I don't have access to my computer during the week, progress will be slow but I'll do my best to propose things as time goes by.

On that note, see you next time!

~ Luckius 🌼💀

[imagesbyele]

the theme I don’t know how to describe because it has too many things featured in it and it will take a year or 

aro-ace theme!

note that you are allowed to use the theme for whatever you want, change all colors, images (you want to make it a marvel thing? go for it! It’s personal and you want to use other flag colors? go pick those rainbow colors!), but my inspiration was, well, not having seen aro-ace themes before and wanting to make one. I didn’t upload background images but you have the option. Feel free to edit as you please, just don’t remove the credit or claim it’s yours!

as always in the source you’ll find the link to the post with static preview, code and instructions/extra credits.

theme is contained, responsive, super customizable. It’s free! But as always consider donating to my ko-fi as this was a lot <3  like or reblog if you use! (or just if you like it, if you want to!)

 this post will have: what you can edit from custom page, the widgets/scripts used with credits and some explanations. Asterisks * next to something will indicate that more about it will be said in the linked post. I’d apologize for the length but it’s due to how many things I added to the theme and that you should know about. 

now, what can you edit from your customization page:

-nearly every font and its color and size, so that if a font is by default bigger than others you can easily reduce the size. There is a select menu for the body font with all the fonts present in this blog, so you know what they are and can type the one you want for other eleents. I think I only left a couple to be edited from the editor, like your quotes posts if you reblog them a lot. This includes h2 as it’s what you use as ‘big font’ in your posts and h3 in case you want to personalize it and use it for something on purpose, as it has to be added to the html of the post.

-one of the new things:I used a gradient for the backgrounds of the big container, the sidebar and the posts container, but also of tumblr’s default music player (latter done initially following @octomoosey​‘s tutorial then messed with by me hence no album art).  See static preview posts. You can type the colors straight from the costomization page like this:

if you want one solid color you can just write, for example: black, black as it needs at least two. To bottom/To left/to top/to right change the direction. The only thing you need to edit from the html is if you want to go from linear-gradient (like you see in the sidebar) to radial-gradient (like in the big container which has green in the center and purple on the outside) and vice versa, if you want. 

-you can also upload background images of the sidebar, container and bigcontainer and select the optional blending with the colors, which can be none and you only see the images or something like screen or hard-color and check the results (bigcontainer as an overlay gif on Screen now)  -more typing: you can paste the symbol or the symbol code for the list items and the decorations around the post title, right now both being spades. *

-you can upload up to five background images if you enable the ‘changing background’ function otherwise only the first one counts. They will change when you refresh the page, thanks to @lmthemes​

-you can turn on and off the music box (player3 by @glenthemes​​ ), and if it’s enabled you can add two songs from the customization page (or go to the html editor and up it to four before it can get messy as it shows on hover), typing url, author, url of the album art, and song title. You already have We Are Golden by Mika as an example (takes a second to start due to the recording, watch out not to get scared if there is silence and then the first note)*

-optional searchbar in the sidebar with optional suggestions when you click on it (if you want them though you’ll need to go to the editor to type links and names, but you can turn it off and just keep the searchbar, like I said) also by glenthemes’ tutorials. 

-the separator between text posts image is also optional and if turned on, you can also turn on and off whether the image is the avatair/portrait of the person who made the post, with a link to the original if it’s a reblog, or if you want the image to be one you upload yourself, 50x50px and it should resize to fit in (also with a link, in this case to the post itself so you can open it from the top of the page). One is the toggle button ifshowtinyimage, and the other is ‘tinyimageisthesource’, if you turn that off you upload the image yourself. If you add a source to your posts, it will appear among the permalinks regardless.

more under read more!

-besides all normal colors and borders you can pick the color of the border/glow/shadow (call it as you want) of three different categories, or turn it off: the mainglow for big elements like containers and sidebar and sidebar images, the audios glow for players like spotify, regular one or soundcloud. Finally the images shadow when inside your posts. The latter is set on inherit because it means that if an image is also a link like your tiny-image it will be of the same color of your links and change on hover. That is something you can only change on the editor by searching for color:inherit and change it to what you want, if you don’t want to turn it off. 

-askbox colors have been changed with @eggdesign​‘s tricks! look for ask_form in the editor and try changing the number of filter there to see more effects. Also the askbox never shrink, a fix by @whateverhtml​ -pinned post has a little banner, styled like permalinks. 

-you can pick a color for top-info which are the date and notes. I left it empty because it automatically gets the default links color but you can pick it yourself. 

-turn on and off unnested captions looks for textposts and for all other posts (as people who use xkit to edit previous posts will get blockquotes anyway and may not like the final result) thanks to @annasthms​ code. -blockquotes are of alternating colors, by @bychloethemes​. You can obviously choose the same color if you want them to just have the one. You can also select the type of blockquote, if a solid line or dots or dashes.  -you can choose if your smaller sidebar image, sidebarimg2, is an image you’ll upload or if it’s your avatar/portrait by toggling it on and off. If you don’t want sidebar images and you don’t upload any, there are instructions on top of the html to delete the border so you only see the sidebar bg. (basically just delete their box-shadow) -speaking of which, your title will wrap around the second image like in the preview. If that doesn’t work for you you can try changing sizes and font or by going to the editor and changing the margin-top so it’s out of the sidebar image’s reach and can be a “straight line” again (in case it doesn’t fit and the long title is cut in the wrong place)

-you can turn on and off a copy link of the post button on the far left of your permalinks bar, so people can copy the permalink from dash - also by glenthemes.

-navigation links have two alternating colors, odd links right now are black, even links are white, and their hovers are the opposite of that. You can make them all of the same color, in which case you’ll need to look for .navilink a:hover and change the hover color for both. If you have custom pages and enable the link to show it will be automatically added. To change the cat icons just search for ‘cat’ and replace as pleased. To change the ask icon because maybe you don’t have them enabled look for ‘envelope’ with your ctrl + f. You can type urls and titles of navi links from the custom page, the first two are automatically home and ask, there are three more under the description. All icons from font-awesome have a black border so the white ones don’t disappear on light backgrounds, you can change that looking for .fas 

-you can select post-sizes: 400, 450, 500, 540. Whether the sidebar is next to the container or on top will depend on your post size and the screen width as at some point they may not fit. They always do fit on desktop though, and on screens that are smaller than 800px the sidebar is assumed to be on top and will have a max height of 300px (but you can scroll down). I couldn’t make the bigcontainer get bigger for giant screens as I can’t calculate the right size in which all post-sizes + sidebar will look good.

-lightboxes show images with a glow too. Speaking of which you get lightboxes as always, pxu photoset fix and video resizing fix all by @shythemes​ and with the bychloethemes fix. npf photosets fix by glenthemes. No href.li addition from tumblr when you add a link to a post by @magnusthemes​.

-soundcloud player is minimal and its play button is the same color of your permalinks icons thanks to shythemes tutorial. spotify is also minimal, instructions to change it are there. 

-tumblr controls are small and semi-transparent until you hover, also dark regardless, followed painthemes tutorial.

-chats are styled like imessages by ncrthlanes now deactivated, submit posts have at least the submitter’s url recognizable, reblogged asks also get a background for the answer as well as borders, link posts are styled as much as a link-post can be styled. 

-there are already links and similar things written to be an example in your customization page but in any case you get instructions in the editor and everything is divided in sections as much as possible. Also I’m here for any questions. 

[jibrillenyan]

Eldarya Come-Back

[Disponibile in Italiano qui]

Eldarya EU servers are back up. For people out of the loop, a fire destroyed both the servers and the backups of Eldarya. It's not beemoov's fault.

BR and US servers, stored somewhere else, are perfectly ok.

The FR server accounts were lost, but the story retrieved.

All the others (IT HU PL DE ES RU) have both the accounts and the story wiped out. ANE has been re-translated/Recovered, but origins is currently only playable in english.

Only the first 2 episodes of ANE have been translated so far. Errata corrige: PL, RU, ES haven't released any ANE episodes yet. DE IT and HU have the first 2 available in english. DE and HU appear to be broken.

Level 7 and episode 6 of origins (completed) are needed to access the market.

BUG REPORT: Currently there is a bug where if you change the name of your companion for the first time after evolving it you lose 100gc. please take care.

BUG REPORT: If you already have a companion and you play episode 3 of Origins you won't be able to hatch the companion Kero gives you and you might get stuck right after "Objective: Go to Kero’s room to complete the Companion Questionnaire" 

Accounts must be recreated. You have to create a new account and, if you ever bought maana or gold coins, follow the instructions below.

I REPEAT, ACCOUNTS ARE LOST ON THE EU SERVERS. YOU MUST MAKE A NEW ACCOUNT. (sorry, I get this one a lot)

FAQ of sort under the cut, original here. Italian translation will be here starting tomorrow. warning: it’s long XD

♦ WHAT DO I GET?

Everyone gets 1000 maanas, 100 gold coins and 350.000 ancient coins upon creating an account. You will also get 5 big exp potions, 10 small, 5 big energy potions, 10 small, 1 evolution potion and 3 incubators. You will also get the companion Sogiluv... it's not very good. You can retrieve some (most?) of the currency you bought by contacting the support (see below), you will be credited maana/ancient coins depending on your purchases; once you get the money back the 3 spin-offs will automatically unlock, along with the bank outfits.

The first companion to hatch will require no incubation time.

BR and US Server got 10.000 AC for their troubles too, but no maana or GC or items.

♦ I ENDED UP IN THE WRONG GUARD.

Please check this page. Re-doing the 3rd episode of Origins WON'T help.

♦ DECORATING GUARDIENNE'S ROOM, EP 5-6.

If you want to know how to get the guy you like AND have the room decorated by him, or other questions along these lines check this link

♦ WHAT'S THE BEST COMPANION TO USE?

Since you can now get any companion you like if you want to get the "best" one in terms of energy/luck ratio you should consider these:

PLESE NOTE: Hatching an adult companion (Chiromagnus, Blobbiathan) has the advantage of giving you an adult companion AND saving the evolution potion. This could be nice to have, for example, during a map event, you can use all the energy of your companion after midnight, then hatch another egg, use all the energy of the baby, evolve with the potion, use all the energy of the adult. If well played , with a baby companion, it means potentially 400-500 energy to use on the map

"Best" Companion, bought food (36 maana): Blobbiathan Energy 170 (already an adult when hatched) Luck 360 - 400

"Best" Companion, bought food (30 maana or less):

1. Chiromagnus Energy 160 (already an adult when hatched) Luck 340-390

2. Zarali Energy 90-160 Luck 350-380

3. Ocemas Energy 100-150 Luck 310-360

4. Ciralak Energy 110-160 Luck 300-350

4. Rawist Energy 110-160 Luck 300-350

"Best" Companion, farmed food (in exploration):

1. Alfeli: Energy 80-150 Fortuna 320 -370

2. Gallytrot: Energy 110-150 Fortuna 320-370

I consider the Alfeli "better" because its food, elven grapes, comes from a 20energy/30 min area, Mont sizhe, compared to the food for the gallytrot, gallyflore, from the Cave (35 energy/60 min).

♦ WHAT CAN I USE ANCIENT COINS FOR?

There is a special ancient coins shop (Until May 9th) with ALL the items ever released in the game. I do not advise using them for Origins illustrations but I suggest you grab some of the rarest items at least. It's among the boutiques.

BANK ITEMS WILL ONLY APPEAR AFTER RETRIEVING THE PURCHASED CURRENCY (? Im not sure about this, some are there from the beginning and I'm still waiting on the email I sent for the currency)

♦ HOW LONG DOES THE SHOP LAST?

May 9th

♦ HOW DO I GET MY BOUGHT MAANA/GOLD COINS BACK?

Go to "your account" by clicking on your name (top right). There is a button to retrieve the credit, for many payment options there is a simple form to fill.

However, if you paid by credit card or paypal you have to send an email to the support (you can get the adress by clicking on "other"). In the mail you should include:

Credit card:

- Old/New Username (if they aren't the same) - The email address associated to the accounts - The date and the amount in €/$ of a recent transaction (max 12 months old, the most recent, the better). - Last 4 digits of the credit card you used. - I'm not sure what happens if you you used more than a credit card, I'd suggest sending one transaction per credit card and telling them about this issue.

Paypal:

- Old/New Username (if they aren't the same) - The email address associated to the accounts - If it's not the same email address, the email address/username of the paypal account. - The date and the transaction ID* of a recent transaction (max 12 months old, the most recent, the better).

* Transaction ID's can be found in the confirmation email you get when you make a payment or on the paypal website, in the payment history section.

One ID should suffice, they can retrieve them all from there.

♦ WHAT DO YOU ADVISE WE BUY?

On a general note, do not buy things that can be found at all times, like explorations items, other than that, anything you like, but I'd at least consider to buy/play the following:

*** PLEASE NOTE: I've heard rumors that during each event, you will be able to find things in explorations from the previous events of that kind, so easter should have the other easter events' outfits on the map. I'd wait a bit to spend the coins to see if we get any confirmation, the store will be open until May 9th.

HOW CAN I KNOW WHERE (SOMETHING) IS FROM?

Wiki. Or This wonderful site. Or the wikinyan (c'est moi!), I don't mind answering specific messages, I'll update this post with any question I get. If you don't know the french name you can find it out in the French shop.

1. COMPANIONS:

Other than the event companions that you like you should probably consider...

GET:

Minaloo and Draflayel. These only comes from the purro'swap. Once the store closes, if you're unlucky, you'll never see them again.

Calunko and Bunraku. They're 2 of the japan expo rewards and with the merchandise boutique closed, they're incredibly hard to obtain, you need a physical code.

Chiromagnus, while you can get this from explorations, the scroll for it is extremely rare, and 2000 AC is stealing it.

ON THE FENCE:

The Seryphon , Poulpatata (both of them) and the chestok. These can be found on AH but require Gold coins to get in exploration. Personally I won't get them, but it's personal preference.

SKIP:

All the normal explorations companions, no matter how rare. They'll start popping up at the market soon enough

2. CLOTHES:

This is clearly completely at your own discretion, Events and ranking rewards should be considered. However there are some times never released before, like the fireflies so...

GET:

Fireflies. A beta-tester reward item, they were never made available to purchase before.

Steam girl set (Total: 1594 AC). It's the japan expo 2017 reward, 9 pieces

Maana demon and its other 3 colorations is a skin never seen in the game, previously reserved for admins. It could however be added to explorations, like other items of this kind.

Frency French was once an inside joke for ChiNoMiko, has not been made available to the public before, you can buy the skin, the hairstyle (it's a special jackson), Frency French Top, etc it's just a joke, but it's still something you won't see again, if you like it.

ON THE FENCE:

Depending how much you hate alchemy, you can consider some alchemy stuff.

Some rare Skins like Nan'vi, that could be hard to find in explorations

Rainbow and Pearly hair colours, if you like them, they can be rare/offered only in rare circumstances.

Crylasm set (526 AC), top, socks, hat. It was a special Christmas outfit released one piece at a time during Christmas events of 2016, 2017, 2018

Healer support Set (400 AC), made of 7 pieces, it was a special gift given at the beginning of the 2020 pandemic)

Rainbow Spirit (1594 AC), released for the 2020 Pride month (sorta)

Guard ranking rewards, the total il 11.980 AC (thanks Desdhi ♥)

SKIP:

Anything normally on the shop, or from (normal) map explorations.

3.ILLUSTRATIONS:

GET:

Possibly the event ones you like the best, there should be 42 event illustrations for a total of 105.000 ac

SKIP:

If you have the time to farm, the episodes' ones. They're way cheaper with replay, with a few exceptions (see below).

ON THE FENCE:

There are a few episodes where it's cheaper to buy the other illustrations than replay, I'll make a list below.

♦HOW MUCH IS... 

EGGS

As "one time" I mean it's either now or never, so exclusive items or event items, unless they come back with their event.

No Explorations is events + rare +the stuff  that you would pay gc to get the bait for

All the eggs: 222.400,

One-time + rare ones: Chiromagnus, Minaloo Draflayel: 164.500

one-time: 158.000

No explorations (+GC/rare ones): 180.700

BACKGROUNDS:

All: why do you hate yourself? don't. it should be around 5660

Events only: 2460

EPISODES:

Event Illustrations are 2500 each, Episodes' 2000

It's generally cheaper to play the episode to unlock illustrations. Coins won't disappear, so if you can slowly make your way up you will end up saving A LOT of Ancient Coins. During episodes, each dialogue is 2 AC

(cost is rounded up) (!) = Replaying is not worth it, money wise (*) = more expensive than 1 illustration, but still worth it in the grand scheme of things

(how much it costs playing Origins VS how much it costs at the shop)

Episode 1 - Free - 1 Illustration, play once (FREE vs 2000) Episode 2 - Free - 3 Illustrations, play twice (FREE vs 6000) Episode 3 - Free - 1 Illustrations, play once (FREE vs 2000) Episode 4 - Free - 2 Illustrations, play once (FREE vs 4000) Episode 5 - Around 1200 maana - 3 illustrations, play 3 times (3600 vs 6000) Episode 6 - Around 1500 maana - 2 illustrations, play once (1500 vs 4000) Episode 7 - 1200maana ca - 4 Illustrations, play 4 times (4800 vs 8000) Episode 8 - 1700maaana ca - 4 Illustrations, play 3 times (5100 vs 8000) Episode 9 - 2000 maana ca - 1 Illustration, play once (2000 vs 2000) Episode 10 - 1500 maana ca - 3 Illustrations, play 3 times (4500 vs 6000) Episode 11 - 1900 maana ca - 2 illustrations, play once (1900 vs 4000) Episode 12 - 1500 maana ca - 3 illustrations, play 3 times (4500 vs 6000) Episode 13 - 1500 maana ca - 3 illustrations, play 3 times (4500 vs 6000) Episode 14 - 1500 maana ca - 2 illustrations, play once (1500 vs 4000) (!) Episode 15 - 2500 maana ca - 3 illustrations, play 3 times (7500 vs 6000, it's better to buy the other 2!) (!) Episode 16 - 2150 maana ca - 1 illustration, play once (2150 vs 2000 it's still worth to play the episode) (*) Episode 17 - 2450 maana ca - 3 illustrations, play ONCE (2450 vs 6000) Episode 18 - 1900 maana ca - 6 illustrations, play 3 times (5700 vs 12000) Episode 19 - 1700 maana ca - 4 illustrations, play 4 times (6800 vs 8000) Episode 20 - 1800 maana ca - 5 illustrations, play 4 times (7200 vs 10000) Episode 21 - 1800 maana ca - 3 illustrations, play once (1800 vs 6000) Episode 22 - 1700 maana ca - 4 illustrations, play 3 times (6800 vs 8000) (!) Episode 23 - 2100 maana ca - 4 illustrations, play 4 times (8400 vs 8000, it's better to buy the other 3!) Episode 24 - 2000 maana ca - 2 Illustrations, play once (2000 vs 4000) (!) Episode 25 - 2500 maana ca - 3 illustrations, play once (2500 vs 6000) (!) Episode 26 - 2200 maana ca - 4 Illustrations, play three times (6600 vs 8000, it's better to play once for 2 illustrations then buy the other 2!) Episode 27 - 1800 maana ca - 4 Illustrations, play 3 times (5400 vs 8000) Episode 28 - 1700 maana ca - 5 illustrations, play 3 times (5100 vs 10000) (!) Episode 29 - 3250 maana ca - 4 illustrations, play 4 times (13000 vs 8000 it's a huge ac loss to replay) (!) Episode 30 - 2400 maana ca - 4 illustrations, play 4 times. (9600 vs 8000 it's better to play once and buy the other 3)

Grand total so far: 93 Illustrations, 71 playthroughs, 58 suggested.  Extimated maana/Ancient coins: 129.000 replay eveything vs  186.000 buying everything. Optimal:  122.750

IF you play everything once then buy the rest you should spend around 146000

* Optimal means buying the illustrations where needed before May 9th, then play all the episodes at your leisure.  The episodes where you'd have to buy illustrations are: 15, 23, 26, 29, 30.

Please remember that if you buy the illustrations then you decide to play the game you will ended up paying not only 186.000 ac for the illustrations, but also roughly 60.000 to play all the episodes. The only case where my racommendation is to buy the illustrations is if you really don't care about origins or you only want a few illustrations

[eddie-redmayne-italian-blog]

I never read before, interesting article !

How nurse caught nation’s deadliest serial killer, her co-worker

By Post Staff Report

April 14, 2013 | 4:00am

The Good Nurse: A True Story of Medicine, Madness, and Murder [Hardcover] Charles Graeber For Sunday Postscript

He was supposed to be an angel of mercy — but he was an angel of death, and likely the most prolific serial killer America has ever seen.

Charles Cullen had most recently been a nurse at Somerset Medical Center in New Jersey when he was arrested for killing patients with drug cocktails he secretly administered. He confessed to 40 murders in New Jersey and Pennsylvania — though investigators believe he may have killed as many as 400. He is currently serving 17 life sentences.

It was never revealed how detectives were able to stop him — until now. In a new book, “The Good Nurse,” author Charles Graeber unveils the identity of a confidential informant, Amy Loughren, who cracked the case.

Loughren was another nurse at Somerset, a co-worker and confidant of Cullen. Contacted by detectives, Loughren agreed to provide them files from the hospital, wear a wire to try to get him to confess, even talk to him in the interrogation room.

It was Loughren who first realized the scope of Cullen’s madness. This exclusive excerpt reveals the chilling moment, in November 2003, that Amy Loughren discovered how Cullen was picking — and killing — his victims.

Amy found curious combinations of drugs that Charlie had consistently ordered. The list was long, sometimes half a dozen in a night. Amy knew these drugs to be more commonly used in a cardiac unit. Charlie was working in intensive care. His orders emptied the supply drawers.

Then, time and time again, Charlie ordered a restock from the pharmacy. His position meant he’d be the first to take the delivery. At the time, he was seen as being helpful. Now Amy wasn’t so sure.

The two Somerset detectives who had contacted her, Tim Braun and Danny Baldwin, were investigating the deaths of a handful of patients who had suspicious levels of a heart drug called digoxin in their systems.

HOW HERO NURSE GOT CHARLES CULLEN TO CONFESS

Detectives were trying to trace a single gun; Amy thought this was pointing to an entire arsenal.

Charlie had been bartending, titrating a pharmacopoeial mélange, from both drugs he’d pulled from the cabinet and drugs he hadn’t.

Each drug in the cocktail had a specific biochemical effect. Together, they were a biochemical symphony. In combination, it didn’t require nearly so much of any one drug to push a vulnerable patient over the edge. One drug pushed while the other pulled.

Only the patient’s reaction mattered. The gap of time between the serving of the cocktail and the patient’s reaction was suspenseful. There might be a crash or a code or a Lazarus-like recovery. The cocktail was the riddle and the lab reports were the answer.

Amy had imagination enough to make sense of the patterns, but she couldn’t begin to imagine the monster that amused itself with them. All she was certain of was that it wasn’t the same gentle soul who was her friend Charlie. The emotional disconnect bothered her as much as the murders themselves.

Amy considered herself to be a perceptive person — a spiritual traveler, a listener with well-tuned antennae for the frequency of vibes. Growing up as she did, she had always assumed that if she was near a monster, she would feel it. And yet, standing next to Charlie, she had never felt anything like evil.

Maybe she’d gotten him wrong, or maybe her antennae were broken. Or maybe, Amy thought, she was half blind and could see only the good in people.

Somerset used a computer system for keeping track of patients called Cerner. Charlie’s Cerner pages told her she had assumed wrong. Charlie was not, actually, the world’s greatest nurse, the world’s greatest chart keeper Amy had ever seen. He had hardly typed a line.

It was, in fact, the worst charting Amy had ever seen. There were blotches of words here and there, blurts, spasms of hurried and misspelled observations. It couldn’t have taken him more than a minute to do that work. Whatever he was doing on the computer, it wasn’t input. That meant Charlie had been outputting something.

Amy had to wait until her next shift to print out the rest of the records. This time, she couldn’t wait until she got home. That morning she called ahead, then brought her paperwork to the second floor of the prosecutor’s office to share her discovery with the detectives.

The Cerner automatically kept track of everything a nurse did within the system and provided a time and date stamp of every page a nurse had browsed. Charlie was browsing all night. That was what he was doing. Browsing.

Cullen’s computer records were the most incriminating piece of evidence the Somerset County Prosecutor’s Office had against him thus far. But in order for the detectives to understand it, Amy needed to provide a quick primer.

Cerner had been introduced to the medical profession only a few years before as a compact and efficient way to input notes on patients, to look up their allergies, code status, lab values, etc.

But nurses were only supposed to do that for the patients they were caring for on shift.

What nurses never did, at least not any nurses Amy had ever known, was use Cerner to look up the status of other nurses’ patients. But that, it seemed, was exactly what Charlie Cullen had been doing.

Amy started with Charlie’s June forays into the chart of one patient, the Rev. Florian Gall. The hospital records showed that Gall had gone into cardiac arrest at 9:32 a.m. on the morning of June 28 and died approximately 45 minutes later.

Gall was not Cullen’s assigned patient on the night he died. Yet the Cerner records showed Charles Cullen snooping into Gall’s medical chart at 6:28 a.m., then again at 6:29 a.m. on June 28. He was checking in, only minutes apart, looking for something only a half-hour after a digoxin spike had registered in Gall’s lab work and three hours before the digoxin levels in Gall’s system would stop his heart.

“And that’s just Gall,” Amy said. The Cerner records contained lines and lines of Charlie Cullen’s log-ins at the computer, thousands of them, sometimes hundreds a night.

“He was studying them,” Danny said. “Why the f— was he studying them?”

Amy thought she knew. The nurses had IV bags lined up for them. But what if Charlie had made a drug cocktail, and injected it into one or more of the IV bags sitting by where he worked?

He wouldn’t need to bring them to the patient’s rooms, he wouldn’t need to be present at all. The other nurses — even Amy — would do that work for him. Charlie could simply retreat to his corner and use the Cerner to scan the lab reports and the patient’s progress.

Cerner would tell him where his loaded IVs landed. He wouldn’t need to be present for the death to feel the impact; you could just scan back on the Cerner anytime and follow the action.

It could be that same night or the next day, it didn’t matter; the event was always available on the screen to be relived again and again.

Was that what he was doing? Amy felt her heart beginning to sicken. She had delivered his drug cocktails.

And her friend Charlie had been following the action across the ward, like the box scores on a sports page.

Excerpted from “The Good Nurse: A True Story of Medicine, Madness, and Murder” (Twelve), by Charles Graeber, out tomorrow.

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Ian's idea of giving up smoking on doctor's orders was to cut down from sixty a day to thirty … and on instruction he reduced his intake of Vodka Martini from three lethal doses to one. He was very shaky, his normally brick-red complexion the dry mauve of a paper flower.

- AIan Ross, Coastwise Lights

Fleming was 56 and indifferent about living longer. He once revealingly described his own character thus: "I've always had one foot not wanting to leave the cradle and the other in a hurry to get to the grave." This strange mixture of the infantile and the world-weary seems very typical of the man. A few months earlier he had been visited by Evelyn Waugh. Waugh was a friend of Fleming's glamorously waspish wife Ann and didn't like Fleming much. The feeling was mutual. Waugh wrote to Nancy Mitford: "[Ian] looks and speaks as though he may drop dead any minute. His medical advisors confirm the apprehension."

Where did this implicit death wish come from? In some ways it's a very English slow suicide – one that Waugh, incidentally, was also participating in – obesity, cigars, alcohol and assorted drugs hastening him to an early grave two years after Fleming. Yet, on paper, Fleming had everything to live for. Born into a rich and well-connected Scottish banking family, he went to Eton, briefly to Sandhurst and then became a remittance man, notionally working in the City – "the world's worst stockbroker", in his own estimation – enjoying pretty girlfriends, fast cars and foreign holidays. After the war, during a spell at the Sunday Times, he began to write the James Bond novels, one a year from 1953 to his death. To new global fame could be added even more riches. Why was he so unhappy?

It's hard to explain this taedium vitae when it seems that most of life's injustices, hassles and difficulties – large and small – have been erased by wealth. A few biographers and friends have said Fleming couldn't get over the second world war. I think this rings about true.

For many of his generation the war was both a gigantic upheaval and an astonishing adventure in his life, an unparalleled episode in which he had found himself and felt his work had been both meaningful and useful. In other words, during the war, paradoxically, he had been happy. When it was over the meaninglessness of his feather-bedded existence slowly re-established itself.

Fleming's good fortune was to be recruited in 1939 into the Naval Intelligence Division as personal assistant to NID's head, Admiral John Godfrey. He had a rank in the RNVR – commander – wore a uniform and went to work in the Admiralty. Everything about his life had changed. As a result of this key role and position he not only was connected to the very centre of the secret world of spies and spying but he could also actively participate in it – travelling to France and Spain, the US and Canada – suggesting ideas and schemes as they came to him, some of which were taken up and provided notable covert successes.

The most remarkable and lasting of these was his suggestion that a special commando be set up – a small group of intelligence-gathering raiders – who would attack and plunder targeted German establishments – radar stations, Kriegsmarine offices, naval installations and the like – and "pinch" anything that that might be useful – code books, movement orders, bits of Enigma machines and so forth.

The force that was established as a result of Fleming's brainwave was called the 30 Assault Unit, a commando that saw its first operation during the disastrous 1942 raid on Dieppe. Fleming was on board a destroyer not far from the beaches during the raid and it was not an auspicious start, as even he had to admit, but 30AU was to prove itself invaluable in north Africa, Sicily, Italy, Rhodes, Yugoslavia, the invasion of France – and, most effectively, in Germany during the final days of the Third Reich when, among the wholesale larceny of German technology that was taking place as the war ended, its most audacious "pinch" of all was achieved, namely, the entire archive of the German Navy – the Tambach Archives, a vast document haul that weighed more than 400 tons.

As well as being intrepid fighters it seemed as much a requisite of joining 30AU that the soldiers possessed strong, not to say eccentric, personalities. These included such extraordinary men as Bon Royle, Lofty Whyman, Patrick Dalzel-Job, "Sancho" Glanville and Peter Huntington-Whitely among others. Together they went on audacious exploits from 1942 onwards.

Many of 30AU's pinches facilitated the code-breakers of Bletchley Park. Captured Enigma machines, cipher books and coded messages were sent back for analysis and, as the code-breakers grew ever more efficient at their work, it is clear that Fleming's commandos actively aided the general war effort and possibly shortened the conflict.

The commandos were unaware of the actual contribution and long-term effects of their looting – as, probably, was Fleming. He remains something of a background figure to the group itself. Fleming occasionally visited the men on the front line (and complaining about the quality of the brandy he was served) and not much loved, it has to be said. This again is probably a result of a particular trait of the privileged English classes. Fleming found it hard to mix with others outside his own society and to express emotion, like many of his peers, and cultivated instead the very English phenomenon of putting on a façade of nonchalance.

If the war made Fleming feel fulfilled as a man it also provided him with a vast store of memories that consciously or unconsciously fed into the plots, characters and situations of the novels themselves. "M" in the novels is a portrait of Fleming's old NID boss Admiral Godfrey. The "Lektor" machine in From Russia with Love is clearly modelled on the Enigma encryptors.

An old 30AU member, Tony Hugill, became a minor character under his own name in The Man with the Golden Gun, and so on.

Most telling of all is the late story Octopussy that can be interpreted as a deliberate self-portrait of the author as embittered, self-loathing drunk, living off the capital of his war.

For Fleming, one feels, nothing ever matched the intensity and excitement of his life between 1939-45 and all his worldly success after it could not drive away his demons. His wife, Ann, described him in his last days as living in a state of "total misery".

Alan Ross, however, an old friend and together they would watch Sussex cricket at the Hove would write his own memoirs of his dear friend. Ross just saw another multifaceted and complex man and also a naval officer in the war: "Not many of [Fleming's] wife's friends cared for him, a feeling that was reciprocated, but to me he was a good and entertaining friend and I missed him greatly."

[foamimi]

Teldryn Sero Dialogue Expansion (TSDE) - an open ended W.I.P. project for others to expand upon, finish, etc.

Hello! Since September '18, I've been slowly working on a large dialogue expansion mod for the DLC2 hireling, Teldryn Sero. I've created mods in the past for other games, but this was my first ambition involving Skyrim/Skyrim Special Edition. After many months of trial and error, I've decided to step away from modding to work on smaller projects outside of gaming. 

I figured that since I've dedicated way too many hours into this already just for it to die away, why not see if the community would be interested in what I already have?

Quick Overview;

Now I love the Dragonborn DLC, and think that one of the best additions was introducing Teldryn Sero as a potential follower. The vast amount of his location based commentary separates him from other vanilla followers, making him feel more unique and original. After traveling with him for an extended period of time however, everything started to be pretty repetitious.

My goal was to give him around 350 additional lines of dialogue by taking existing lines from other NPCs sharing his voice type, then reapplying them to different situations.

Some of these new situations include;

Player is sneaking (lines are quieter, softer, etc.)

Player is performing a task (enchanting, mining, etc.)

Player either fails or succeeds while lockpicking

Player is a Werewolf, Vampire, or a Vampire Lord (when transforming, feeding, etc.)

Player is healing Teldryn, and/or they themselves have low health

visiting certain guild HQs, towns, etc.

additional Hellos, Goodbyes, Trading, Waiting, generic idles

variation depending on relationship rank to the player (lovers in comparison to allies/friends)

new conversational branches

+ many more

Project's Current State;

So far I've finished editing, compiling, and organizing a total of 338 .wav files.

Most have only been slightly modified, however a bunch are entirely new! I spent many, many hours splicing and merging various lines together, so even though the actual file amount is 338, the content in those files consist of assets used from nearly 400 different vanilla files.

There are 250 files connected to an .esp in the Creation Kit, all with proper .fuz files.

A couple lines will need their .lip/.fuz files regenerated since they played slightly out of sync while I was testing in-game.

Over 200 lines already have their conditions setup.

Be aware, the Idles portion is the most incomplete! Some of the Idles need tweaking when it comes to frequency rate, some need to be moved to other categories/be deleted, while others don't have anything in place yet (outside of the basic core such as Teldryn's refid, follower status, etc.).

Nothing is properly scripted/connected to the dialogue branches in-game.

Coding for when the player is lockpicking, healing Teldryn, and even for just the generic dialogue branches like "Follow me" and "Trading" still needs to be entered.

Some .wav files may need tweaking depending on your personal preference.

A handful of lines have been used multiple times. For example, there's a line used for when Teldryn becomes impatient while waiting to do a task for the player, while also acting as a potential goodbye ONLY when Teldryn is waiting for the player. If you run into a line you want to delete, edit, move, etc., go right ahead! It really comes down to you and where you want to take this.

You can find more information along with the download link over on Nexus! 

[ LE | SE ]

[springfieldblues]

my long ass review for S32E03 Now Museum, Now You Don’t

warning: LONG because i rambled about history more than i thought i would

id been looking forward to this one because i like art history, especially after seeing how they tried their best to stick to historical accuracy in the previous episode I, Carumbus. this time however….they didnt try that hard. i dont know why i thought theyd go through that sort of trouble again LMAO

but its okay, i dont really expect the simpsons to be the paragon of historical accuracy or anything. especially in anthology episodes told through a particular character's lens (in this case, lisa, whos already feverish so whatever)

first i just wanna say that this is, i guess, less of a review and more of an accidental list of history fun facts. so im just gonna get my general thoughts out of the way first.

the episode was fun! to me at least haha. i mean it got me to think and do a lot of research on my own so that must count for something. besides a couple of really weird ones, the jokes were good. anthology episodes tend to be….not that good but i thought this one was one of the better ones so far. idk.

anyway on to lisanardo da vinky its the renaissance! jesus christ the italian accents in the beginning of this segment were annoying as hell but i also feel like that was the joke lmao. ill be real i kind of tuned out for a second there when grampa started rambling so idk what he said.

i told myself i wouldnt get nitpicky with historical accuracy if the jokes were funny (final edit: so that was a lie) but this meh bit with the pizza guys and mascots was really not worth ignoring the fact that its impossible for italy to have any tomato-based food in the 15th century (tomatoes were brought to europe from the americas in the 16th century, and pizza as we know it today—flatbread, cheese, tomato—originated in the late 18th century)

oh this next part was kind of legit tho. lisanardo, like the real leonardo, became andrea del verrochio's apprentice at his workshop. i loved this next bit:

"Whoever paints the sweetest cherub will have the honor of having MY name signed on their work. That's what great artists do!"

SO YEAH as it turns out, lisanardo painted the sweetest cherubs. the painting here is called The Baptism of Christ, and the real leonardo assisted verrochio in finishing it. specifically, he painted the cherubs in the corner.

this causes verrochio to quit and go someplace with less talented people: a music school (yes, verrochio did quit painting after getting owned by young leo and his mad angel painting skills. he never did anything with music tho, he was more of a sculptor)

alongside lisanardo, in mr largo-verrochio's workshop we have barticelli (botticelli bart), dolphatello (donatello dolph), ralphael (raphael...ralph) and mediocrito (no one that i know of. sorry milhouse) (and kearney i guess but they dont refer to him by name). botticelli and donatello are said to have also been apprentices at verrochio's workshop, but raphael came a couple of decades later so he couldnt have been there. and donatello was too old so that claim is a bit questionable. but anyway

it IS true that leonardo's peers envied him, to the point where he was anonymously and purposefully accused of being gay (a major crime punishable by death in 15th century florence) while he was still working at verrochio's workshop

we are then treated by what im pretty sure is the fourth time the show has used 'at seventeen' by janis ian, this time sung by a dejected lisanardo (man they really do keep making yeardley sing these days huh) who only wishes to be appreciated and not envied.

"I'll show them all! I'll show them all in a secret diary that no one will decipher for 400 years!"

some of lisanardo's future inventions. who wouldve known

so after barticelli, for some reason (revenge??? or something?? what was his plan here idgi) steals lisanardo's diaries full of blueprints of her inventions and takes them to mr burns who i have to assume is pope alexander VI here, they decide to use her inventions for war.

"With these, we can kill the most evil people in the world!! ....Slightly different Christians."

leo actually did this of his own accord. im surprised this is what they decided to do with lisanardo instead of talking about leo's love of nature and vegetarianism (not a single mention of that in this episode? come on...) then again, trying to do good only to end up indirectly making things worse is a very standard lisa storyline. i guess they didnt want to miss the chance to have evil pope burns (very fitting, especially for that era since they were all about money and controlling the people)

so lisanardo decides to leave for france, unlike the real leonardo who was more or less persuaded by his ultimate fanboy king francis I to move to france.

"Lisanardo, I have many questions. Why are you hitting yourself? A nerd says 'what'? And how is it possible that I am rubber and you are glue? Et cetera, et cetera."

that line may seem a little random, like hes just nelson saying nelson things (and i mean, obviously he is) but the real francis also "had an unquenchable thirst for learning, and Leonardo was the world’s best source of experimental knowledge. He could teach the king about almost any subject there was to know, from how the eye works to why the moon shines." so yeah, he did have many questions and lisanardo, finally being appreciated for her intellect, was happy to answer them all. its very interesting how lisa assigned this role to nelson in her retelling of da vinci’s life :^)

and so she lived the rest of her days in france, nat king cole's 'mona lisa' plays because duh, and they make a da vinci code reference because duh. and the segment ends. and not a single time did they show the actual mona lisa painting. the fuck?

(ngl i was fully expecting bart to say 'leonardo da vinky' for a second here)

so this next segment is about french impressionist painters, most likely the batignolles group, a name adopted by the early representatives of impressionism. its much more vague than the lisanardo segment since no one here is referred to by name (except moe, more on him in a sec) but i dont feel like it really matters in this case. bart is prrrrooobably claude monet but its hard to say, this segment is kind of a mish-mash of a lot of things. also i gotta say i really liked how lisa introduced the story to bart with an 'if you hate the formal study of art' and not 'if you hate art' because thats exactly my headcanon. i LOVE the concept of artist bart and whenever its referenced it just makes perfect sense to me.

anyway the segment opens in 1863 at the école des beaux-arts (back then it was actually known as the académie des beaux-arts), preserver of traditional french art styles. skinner reviews his students’ paintings one by one. praises the plain, unimaginative paintings depicting your typical european countryside landscapes. very run-of-the-mill (haha get it...cuz theres….a windmill) (although the real académie didnt approve of such basic stuff, they wanted artists to draw epic historical and mythological scenes) then he gets to barts painting and he gives him an F- because the painting made him think.

(the paintings in this scene arent real famous paintings as far as i know but they are inspired by real paintings enough to get the point across)

in comes barney dressed as bacchus as a model for the students to sketch, which i just loved:

barney: “You prefer robe open or robe off?” skinner: “Just cover your privates with this walnut shell.” barney: “Whoa!!! So roomy!”

skinner gasps in horror at bart’s sketch, which “looks nothing like him” and bart explains that “it shouldn’t; we’re making the art that we feel because we can’t compete with a camera.” damn, you go bart. take that, realism. draw what you feel!!

(also no, you didnt need to hold still for 17 hours for a daguerreotype. 30 min tops.)

nelson haw-haw of the week: FOIE-gras!

so here they are at the moulin rouge (“enjoy it before baz luhrmann ruins it” hey shut up. i love that movie), which wouldnt be built for another 26 years, but it is the most widely known gathering place for bohemians in the public consciousness so i can understand why they went with the moulin. nelson delivers this anachronistic line:

“This époque keeps getting beller and beller!”

which alludes to la belle époque, the golden age of france usually dated from 1880 to 1914. made me snort so ill let that slide

and heres moe! as henri de toulouse-lautrec, who was actually born a year after the year this segment is set in. yo moe szyslak he was just 1

toulouse-moetrec introduces himself as the chronicler of the demimonde (not an actual job). an iconic figure associated with the moulin rouge (largely due to his affinity for alcohol and prostitutes), toulouse-lautrec was also a painter, having illustrated a series of posters for the moulin himself. he simply had to be in this segment, anachronisms be damned, just because they decided to include the moulin. cant have one without the other.

and yes he did have a walking cane where he kept his liquor.

i love how everyone drinks absinthe in this place. theyre bohemians what else would they drink

toulouse-moetrec points out that barts paintings are the greatest thing hes ever seen (and hes seen like five things!) and that hes a genius. milhouse realizes that they should stop doing what the teacher says and use their own minds to instead...start doing what bart says lmao. to the easels!

next we have skinner hyping up chalmers about the art his students made for the salon de paris, an art exhibition that the emperor of france will attend. he assures him that none of these paintings will encourage debate, provoke thought or be out of place at a dentist’s office. when they unveil the art, theyre both SHOCKED at how scandalous the paintings actually are.

this reaction was kind of accurate. impressionism was severely rejected at the salon de paris, due to paintings not looking finished enough to them, they thought they were ugly and vulgar for depicting nudity in a contemporary setting (historical and mythological nudity was fine). these impressionist paintings were sent to the salon de refusés, which is. yeah. the place where they sent the rejects. the salon de refusés does not make an appearance but this scene makes a reference to it when the artists get expelled from the royal salon. also:

“What about our student loans?” “Oh they’ll be refunded. We are not barbarians, I mean, come on.”

(god if only)

so the painters are down because they want the emperor to actually see their paintings. toulouse-moetrec pipes in once again with an idea.

“There is one thing the emperor loves more than anything.” “France?” “No, he hates France.”

apparently the emperor really loves cheese, which makes sense since its napoleon III (who loved cheese) and homer (who loves cheese.) so the painters roll into the salon inside a giant wheel of cheese (obviously.) as lenny said, “Eh, you know French cheese. Very runny.” napoleon III chases after the wheel into a room, where the wheel falls apart after getting chomped on by the emperor. now that they got his attention, the painters proudly show the emperor their impressionist art, which he couldnt be more indifferent about because he just wants to eat his cheese dammit, and he awards them with the royal medallion just to kind of get them out of his way. skinner immediately starts kissing ass (as he does) until marge’s like ‘hey wait a minute. you expelled these students from the royal salon’ and an executioner immediately starts ominously measuring skinners neck.

“Uh, sir...is your tongue sticking out because you’re dead or because you’re mad at me?”

and thats the end of that lmao (gore in this episode, gore in the last episode, and next week we’re getting gore too cuz its THOH, what the hell is goin on)

we get a short intermission with maggie, who wants a story for her too! lisa tells her that renaissance artists loved to put babies in their paintings, especially baby angels.

here she is showing her The Triumph Of Galatea by raphael:

King David Playing The Harp by peter paul reubens:

and a very simplified version of pretty much any depiction of hell by hyeronimus bosch lmao:

not much else to say about this one, really. but i really liked that sky!

the last segment is about frida kahlo and diego rivera. or as bart puts it ‘the one about a fat guy whos wife is too good for him.’ i was REALLY looking forward to this one because i love frida and i thought itd be a cool opportunity for animators to go bonkers and do really cool shit with her art as inspiration…..but the segment is not about frida, its about diego and his selling out to capitalism. and its also yet another story with homer and marge drama. no funky cool animation here. sigh i guess i’ll take it

the story begins in 1929 at la casa azul, frida’s home (now museum dedicated to her life and work.) frida and diego are getting married. this courtyard definitely did not look this way yet back in 1929. also theres something very cringy yet funny about lovejoy saying spanish words the way he does, i honestly cant decide how i feel about that one

the writers know theyre being cringy with their gringoness so they go along with it.

moe: “Spanish for ‘best wishes’!” mel: “Spanish for ‘congratulations’!” bumblebee man: “Spanish for ‘muy bueno’!”

OH YEAH BUMBLEBEE MAN this is his new voice actor, eric lopez! hes not mexican but its still great to finally have a latino actor voicing a latino character and hes very excited to be part of the show so i hope to hear more of him!! im rooting for him

el barto/zorro makes an appearance which i am very confused about. he has jack shit to do with frida and diego and mexico in the 20s-30s. el zorro was set in the spanish california of the early 19th century. their use of the original theme song makes me think they just wanted to flex their disney privileges tbh

lets not talk about that that whole scene was bad

anyway diego announces he and frida are going to new york, without even asking her first. frida is obviously pissed.

“Don’t worry, as a woman, you’ll be treated with much more respect in America.”

so in new york, diego is having a bit of a business meeting with mr burns as one of the members of the rockefellers, who is commissioning him to draw a mural for the rockefeller center. its kinda funny how he refers to him and frida as socialists even though they were very much communists lmao its okay you can say it. ok so far, but then frida says ‘yes, we hate the capitalists! right now, a young socialist is being born who will take them down! mr. bernie sanders. i hope hes quick about it’ and that was a simple enough joke and couldve been left at that but then its immediately followed by this weird as fuck family guy-esque cutaway gag to bernie as a baby:

“Getting a cootie shot should not cost your lunch money. And if you don’t listen to me, listen to the Bernie Babies! What? Everybody’s got goons.” *larger babies start beating up this other baby* “I disavow that, and welcome it.”

this confused me so much that i had to ask one of my american friends to help me understand, but even she was like ‘uhhh yeah thats a weird joke,’ especially now that hes been out of the race for months (then again these episodes take almost a year to produce. i guess they couldnt be bothered to replace it with something more relevant.) whatever that was weird and confusing and unfunny moving on

frida is pretty irked that diego is going through with this deal. after all, it goes against everything they believe in. im not sure how the real frida felt about diego doing the mural, but she did feel a bit of rage during her visit to the united states, especially the obvious disparity between rich and poor. she hated having to interact with capitalists and found americans very boring. in this segment, frida seems to be acting more like the american communist party, which diego got kicked out of for accepting commissions from wealthy patrons. in any case, frida is pretty upset about this whole thing.

and finally we get the first and only kind of surreal frida moment. kinda. maybe. its more cartoonish than anything but im desperate ok

interesting how they felt like they had to add a “don’t smoke” in big letters after showing patty and selma flying away on their giant cigarettes. i wonder if this is something theyre making them do now? i remember hearing something about them toning down patty and selma’s smoking

diego comes home to frida, drunk as hell, followed by the marx brothers. i cant believe they didnt make a marxism joke come on it was RIGHT THERE. THE MARX BROTHERS. KARL MARX. COME ON

frida paints her feelings.

this makes diego realize that frida is a genius and he is not half the artist she is. he proclaims he will now show his awe of her by sleeping with other women, starting “an hour ago.” to which frida replies, “and i will start sleeping with other women, starting two hours ago.” yes this was pretty much their relationship. though im just wondering how the hell did diego not know frida was this kind of artist until now? i know homers an idiot but jeez. art was how frida and diego met, diego knew from the get-go that frida was an incredible artist. i guess the fame got to his head or something. again, homer just being stupid.

“well enough already, while the art is still deco, okay?”

its time for the mural diego painted, Man At The Crossroads, to be unveiled:

rockefeller examines it. good and great so far, and then...uh oh

“Who’s that fellow…? With the beard, and the bolshevik smile…” “That’s the founder of Soviet Russia, Lenin!”

“B-b-but he’s a communist!” “Oh he just attended a couple of meetings.”

rockefeller will not have this communist in the temple to capitalism that is the rockefeller center, so he orders diego to paint over it. diego stands his ground and refuses. despite rockefeller’s threats, diego says that theres only one person he wants to be proud of him no matter what and in true homer & marge fashion, frida is touched by this. they happily leave the rockefeller center.

now, the real story of Man At The Crossroads and the rockefeller center was actually not that different. as soon as the rockefellers found out diego had snuck in a portrait of lenin into the mural, they ordered him to paint over it, to which he refused. diego even offered to include abraham lincoln and even american abolitionists in the mural as a compromise, but the rockefellers simply did not want any references to communism whatsoever. they did not complain about the hammer and sickle, though. yes, they did know diego was a communist and hired him anyway. what did they expect? lmao. diego said:

"Rather than mutilate the conception [of the mural], I shall prefer the physical destruction of the conception in its entirety, but preserving, at least, its integrity."

so they decided to destroy the mural before it was even finished and they never talked to each other again.

diego then repainted the mural at the palacio de bellas artes back in mexico, this time known as Man, Controller of the Universe. this new version included even more communist leaders and a depiction of john d. rockefeller jr. drinking at a nightclub, right underneath a depiction of syphilis bacteria. cue nelson haw-haw:

this was the version they used in the episode also, since the original was, well, never finished and also destroyed. only a black and white photograph of it exists, taken by diego before it was destroyed so he could remake it.

right so, homer!diego then pulls a Barthood and finishes the episode with a large mural summarizing the entire episode. he says some rick and morty thing i didnt get because i dont watch the show idk idc

the end

ALRIGHT NOW ITS TIME FOR THE STORY OF VINCENT VAN MOE

[ocegion]

For the character meme, obviously: Nicky & Joe 😘

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!! thanks so much for the ask I immensely appreciate it!!!! <3<3<3<3<3<3

(also I went FAR OVERBOARD with this, I speak far too much when given the chance. Sorryyyyyyyyyy)

Joe:

First impression: Well, if it isn’t hot-but-dull Jafar. I know he’s gay in this one so that’s a plus point, but I’m not holding out much hope. He looks extra cute and fuzzy here though, that’s neat. (I want to clarify that I formally apologize to Mr Marwan Kenzari for having ever thought he couldn’t act, shame on me).

Impression now: *sobbing* He’s so GOOD and he’s so SOFT. He’s so full of love and passion and he can barely keep it inside and I’m honestly overwhelmed by how much I love this guy. Like, he’s so full of emotion and it’s so clear in his face at any given moment and that’s no weakness, that’s his strength and I just. Ugh. It’s so refreshing and great. Love is stored in the Joe. I wish real life had people like him.

Favorite moment: okay so it’s hard to decide because all his moments are great, but I’m going to go with the moment in which he waits for Nicky to wake up after Keane shoots him. You can see how he can barely keep inside the fear and panic he has when Nicky isn’t waking up, and then, when he does, Joe takes a moment to look aside and exhale before grasping him. Like he physically needed to let it out. I’m not sure if I’m explaining myself properly, but those couple seconds of body language fascinate me.

Unpopular opinion: It is entirely possible that it shows up in some secondary material that I just haven’t seen, in which case I’m dumb and I’m sorry for this, but I don’t think Joe is necessarily a poet? Like don’t get me wrong, I LOVE the idea of poet Joe and I do think he probably has an easier time around words than the rest of the Guard, but I’m not too sure where the idea came from? I think his speech in the ban comes out of the pure, raw love he has for Nicky more than any formal education he might have had about any of it. He’s just that passionate. I mean, not that I think it’s wrong of anything. I just think canon doesn’t give any indication at all about it. (plus comic Joe said something along the lines of ‘brewing the stew of love’ which is the most hilariously unpoetical thing ever lmao).

Favorite relationship: uuuuuhhhhhhhhhhh is it cheating to say Nicky? I’m gonna go with Nicky. I could go on for quite a while about his relationship with Nicky and I’m gonna spare us all having to go through that but I will say that as long as Joe and Nicky are alive the concept of romance just simply cannot die. They singlehandedly keep it alive and flourishing. 100000/10 best love story ever, I accept no criticism.

Favorite headcanon: Joe is a man who is, at any given moment, 110% in control of his own emotions. Like, he’s a emotionally driven man, no doubt about that, but he’s not impulsive in the least. When he was shouting at Booker, it wasn’t impulsive, he was angry as hell and decided to let him know. Then during the escape he shut it off and didn’t let it get in the way of cooperation, then let it out again. It’s like he has a valve on his own emotions that he willingly manipitales when he deems it right. He is very aware of his own emotions and just refuses to repress it for things like, pretending that what Booker did wasn’t that big of a deal, dude knows he’s entitled to be upset about it. Most emotionally mature and stable man on Earth.

Nicky:

First impression: I thought he looked soft and also sort of awkward-looking, but in a good way if that makes sense? tbh I expected him to be a nice character that didn’t get that much depth because he’d stay in the sidelines and only have a handful surface traits.

Impression now: I LOVE how hard it is to pin Nicky down as just this or that part of his personality, the way fandom usually does with characters. He’s soft and kind, but he will stay his ground and not let anyone walk over him. He believes in doing good as the purpose of his life, but he won’t hesitate to commit murder (Gotta wonder how exactly his moral code works). He’s warm and welcoming, but also sort of reserved and not saying much about himself. If you try to shove Nicky into any of the usual fandom archetypes, you’re missing at least half of his character.

Favorite moment: As with Joe, I have a hard time picking up just one single moment, bit I’ll go with the moment he brings up Malta. His whole demeanor while in the lab is fascinating, but I think it’s that particular moment that probably defines Nicky best. They’re in a very though and uncertain situation, and he brings up a fond memory to raise spirits, his own but mostly Joe’s. Idk, I feel like it shows that a) he’s very aware of how other people are feeling/thinking and wants to make it better, and b) he has, at his core, hope (in this specific situation, hope that they’ll make it out, but it relates to his belief that they have a purpose).

Unpopular opinion: I tbh don’t think that time in Malta was a sex thing at all. I in general don’t read them as a particularly sexual couple, but even if they were, I doubt a sex vacation, of any kind, would be something that stands out that much in a relationship this long. Whatever Malta was, it’s a secret between them and I honestly like that.

Favorite relationship: See, this is why I felt like saying Joe’s favorite relationship was Nicky felt like cheating. Because I’m going to answer the exact same thing. I mean, is there any other option, really. Really. The answer is no and we all know it. Anyway. Joe and Nicky lucked out in Immortal roulette and tbh who can blame Booker for being a little bit bitter about it. Anyone would be jealous of such PERFECTION.

Favorite headcanon: Nicky is the most spiritual member of the Guard (Nile is probably on par with him or even more, but she probably has a few years of faith crisis ahead of her). He has a solid belief in purpose and goodness which is much more firm than his original sense of faith, after centuries of questioning it. I also think that while he probably still maintains a somewhat christian view on faith, the years have eroded away specific religions from it. He’s sort of agnostic, but not in a ‘I don’t know if there’s a higher power’ way, but in a ‘I know there’s a higher power, but I don’t care what name it has’ way.

Both

Idea for a story: Okay I’m doing this one like this because it’s literally the same answer for both lmao. Excluding pieces of character exploration and missing scenes and stuff, I’ve got a fic (on semi-hiatus until I finish my exams) about ‘what if instead of speedrun enemy to lovers, they were DUMB and spent like 400 years pining for each other and not seeing the other is in love too’. I’m also lowkey thinking up a Dragon Age AU, which is more of an entire-cast thing that just these two, but of course their storylines in it go inherently together. It’s probably too big a project for me actually carry out lmao. But it’s there in my mind, I have backstories and character classes and everything in the works. Maybe someday.

[hopelesshawks]

congrats on 400 bby❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥 i’m so happy for you pls never stop writing it’s so good :)

i was wondering who you’d pair me with from bnha 👉👈 i’m 6ft ://///, i wear glasses, and i’ve got my tongue pierced. i’m pretty don’t speak unless spoken too, unless you say something about a friend or family then i’ll go off on you, kinda like i won’t ever really start a fight but i’ll end it yk what i mean? 😭 i’m a night owl and don’t sleep much bc insomnia gang 😤☝️, INFP personality type 😌, i’d very much rather stay at home then go out any day of the week, i’m a cat person more so than dogs but i love dogs too, writing this makes me realize idk how to describe myself LMAO

Omg thank you so much you’re so sweet ❤️😭❤️ Also we’re INFP buddies! None of that “6ft :///” we STAN a tall Queen and your fave would love you regardless of whether you’re taller than them or not.

I match you with Hitoshi Shinso! And frankly the world is not ready. Shinso takes no shit but isn’t necessarily going out of his way to start shit either. People have learned not to mess with you two pretty quickly. Don’t feel like going out? Perfect, neither does he. You can’t look at the bags under his eyes and tell me he isn’t in Insomnia Gang and the two of you 100% have rituals together to try and fix it. Even if it doesn’t work it’s still a nice time together.

When I wore glasses I was nearsighted and I realize now after writing this that if you’re far sighted or your vision isn’t garbage like mine was you may be able to still read shit without your glasses but oh well 💀

You stare at the glaring 3am blinking back at you from the clock on your bedside table. Sleep continues to elude you even after hours of laying in bed. You groan, knowing full well that at this rate you’ll be dragging all day. After a moment of debating you reach over to check your phone, only to smile when you see there’s a notification from Hitoshi already waiting for you. You swipe to open it and find the words “I hope you don’t see this ‘til morning” waiting for you in your messages, sent only a few minutes ago. It had become the two of you’s code phrase for nights where your insomnia’s acting up. It’s both a wish that your partner isn’t suffering the same fate and a signal that, if they are, they don’t have to bear it alone.

You press the call button, pressing your phone to your ear as it rings. Within moments you hear the distinct click of your call being answered and then your boyfriend’s voice, rough and raspy from exhaustion, flows down the line. It’s not quite the same as feeling his deep voice rumble through his chest when the two of you get to lie together, but it’s still soothing all the same. “Couldn’t sleep, huh?” he asks. You shake your head even though he can’t see you as you reply “Nope. I’m guessing you couldn’t either.” “Not at all.” “Can you sleep in tomorrow or do you have an early patrol?” “I can sleep in.” “Tea protocol then?” “Tea protocol.”

On opposite sides of town you both slip out of bed and head to your respective kitchens, putting on a kettle as you grab down a mug and pull out a tea bag. You squint your eyes at the print, moving it around to try to bring it into focus as you realize you’d left your glasses back in the room before giving up and grumbling as you head back to retrieve them. The entire time you keep your phone pressed to your ear and Shinso chuckles at your tired complaining. By the time you return to the kitchen and select your teabag now that you can read it properly, the kettle starts to whistle to signify the water is ready. You can hear Hitoshi’s going off as well and although neither of you exchanges a word as you each pour your tea and then head back to your rooms, the gentle sounds of each other breathing and the companionable silence you always share, still comforts you both through the phone.

Only once you’re comfortable back in bed, tea in hand, do either of you break the silence. “Tell me how your day went?” Hitoshi asks simply. He knows the answer already, the two of you always keep in touch throughout the day even when one of you is busy, but that’s kind of the point. You two swap stories you’ve heard from each other earlier that day or a thousand times before until the sweet rumble of each other’s voices and the warmth flooding through you from the tea finally starts to make your eyelids droop. It takes a couple hours, the clock blinking 5am and sunset starting to creep up, but that’s ok as your eyes finally grow heavy.

“Think ‘m fin’ly falling asleep,” you mumble.

“Good me too,” his equally drowsy voice replies down the line.

“‘Kay, g’night baby.”

“Goodnight. Love you.”

“Love you too.”

And with those words you finally drift off to sleep.

[leverage-ot3]

notable moments from The Homecoming Job

leverage 1.02

Dr. LeRoque: Pardon me, Mr. uh?

Nate: Oh, uh, Nathan Ford. You’re Dr. LeRoque?

Dr. LeRoque: Can I talk to you outside?

Perry: Doc, he’s cool, I found him on the internet.

Dr. LeRoque: Yes, that never goes badly. (to Nate) With me.

Nate: Uh… I’ll be in touch.

(Perry hands him the flash drive and Nate follows the doctor out of the room)

okay but big mood “I found him on the Internet” “that never goes badly”

but also,,, bruh we NEED to know how their clients found them,,, like ??? H O W

- - - - -

Dr. LeRoque: You can’t just come in here and get his hopes up!

Nate: I’m just here to provide options.

Dr. LeRoque: There are no options.

Nate: The Veteran’s hospital …

Dr. LeRoque: Is 400 miles away and has a five month waiting list. Everybody in that rehab room is a reservist. When reservists get out they get sent home no matter where home is or how far it is from the treatment they need. Nobody thought this through. We’re not a rich hospital, I cashed in every favor I had to take care of these kids for as long as I could but I have to go back in there and tell Perry we can’t treat him anymore. I have to do that. Run your scam on somebody with money.

Nate: It’s not a scam. I’m here to help.

Dr. LeRoque: People don’t just show up to help. That’s not the way the world works.

leverage really called out the us government’s negligence and neglect for veterans in episode TWO and we stan them so hard for it

leverage said “go big or go home” from the VERY beginning

- - - - -

[Audition Room]

Sophie: Why? Why? I can’t live like this anymore. With the lies and the filth. No. Help me. I want to be clean. I want to be clean.

(two directors watching are overwhelmed by just how awful Sophie is)

Rogers: Yeah, you understand this is a soap commercial, right?

Sophie: Uh huh. When I thought about Peggy I came up with this idea that the dirt was really this giant metaphor, for sin.

(Sophie’s cell rings, she glances at her purse)

Rogers: You should take that. No, no you should take that.

Sophie: Oh. (answers phone) Hello? When? (hangs up) Peggy killed her first husband.

Rogers: Thank you

I literally scream every time I LOVE SOPHIE S O MUCH WHAT THE FUCK

- - - - -

[Parking Lot]

(one man is laying on the hood of a car and another falls on top of him. Eliot turns away from the car as the last man pulls a gun on him. They stare at each other for a moment, then a phone rings)

Eliot: That you or me?

(man seems unsure as the phone continues to ring)

Eliot: Could be important. Does your mama have your number?

(man looks down and Eliot grabs the gun, punching the man in the neck. The man goes down, choking. Eliot unloads the gun and tosses it away before pulling out his phone and answering it)

Eliot: Yeah? Nothing, why?

“nothing”? I’m-

- - - - -

(guard walks by a painting hanging in a museum gallery. He looks away for a moment, and when he looks back a rope is dangling where the painting had been. A cell phone rings)

Parker: Parker. Shh. No, I wasn’t shushing you.

I love her, your honor

- - - - -

(Parker, Eliot and Sophie come around the corner and head down the hall)

Parker: From the first job?

Eliot: Yeah.

Parker: I put all that money in a Swiss bank account.

Eliot: Millions of dollars and you didn’t buy anything?

Parker: I don’t like stuff, I like money.

Sophie: I bought a little retirement home, an island.

Eliot: Nice.

Sophie: In Dubai. And Tokyo.

Parker: What about you?

(they reach the door which has a small envelope with Sophie’s name written on it. Sophie takes it off the door and opens it)

Eliot: Yeah, I’m not about to tell two known thieves what I did with a multi-million dollar payout.

Sophie: Don’t you trust us?

(Eliot doesn’t answer.)

- - - - -

Hardison: This is our new cover story. Welcome to Leverage Consulting and Associates, founded in 1913 by the great Harland Leverage the Third.

(Hardison points to a painting on the wall of an older man that greatly resembles Nate)

Sophie: I’m sorry. Nate is going to kill you.

Eliot: Did you paint that?

Hardison: I’m gifted.

Eliot: That’s weird

HARLAND LEVERAGE THE THIRD

- - - - -

Hardison: Now Leverage Consulting Inc. is squeaky clean, all corporate taxes on record as being paid for the last ninety years. (He gives them each a cell and a folder) All your identities as partners, your payroll taxes are paid, you guys have pension plans and dental, those are employment records, case files and company newsletters.

(the group walks the halls of the Leverage offices as they discuss the files)

Parker: In 1998 I won the sack race at the 4th of July picnic. Cool.

Hardison: Now these, these are your offices. Now you can bring something like a photo, you know what, a plant! I’m a big supporter of dandelions.

hardison goes hardcore when coming up with backstories

- - - - -

(Hardison opens doors to a conference room that holds a long table with many chairs around it. One wall is dedicated to large TV screens)

Sophie: Nice.

Eliot: My man.

Hardison: Long version or the short version?

Sophie: Short.

Eliot: Short version.

Parker: Shortest.

(Hardison hits a remote the TV screens illustrate his explanation)

Hardison: Photo and video forensics programs, back doors into every electronic banking system in the world, running heuristic data crawls all over the news sites to find our clients, oh also!

Parker: This is the short version?

Hardison: Facial recognition database tied into CIA, NSA and the FBI. But, the real pièce de résistance (changes screens to sports games) DirectTV HD Total Sports Package. NFL, NBA and I threw in a little bit of hockey ‘cause I know you people like that.

Eliot: Hockey.

hardison nests SO HARD

like, bring in all the highest tech into your cozy new office you designed for you and your fellow adopted criminals? heck yeah

- - - - -

Nate: Our client is the cameraman. Corporal Robert Perry. He says that the Castleman contractors spooked and started firing.

Eliot: 5.56 NATO rounds mixed in with some 9 mils from the sub-machine guns. Insurgents would have used AK-47s with 7.62 ammo. It has more of a... (hits the back of his hand to his palm) crack. Contractors shot 'em up all right.

Parker: You ID’d the weapon from the gunshot sound?

Eliot: It has a very distinctive sound

D I S T I N C T I V E

- - - - -

Nate: Yes, and lobbyists in every office in Washington, DC. The problem with a cover-up is all the paperwork it takes to keep the lies straight.

Hardison: Internal emails, memos.

Nate: Exactly.

- - - - -

[Roof]

[Hardison and Parker are wearing black and connected to repelling gear)

Hardison: I gotta go back to the office I just remembered something.

Parker (adjusting Hardison’s harness): What?

Hardison: I just remembered gravity and the squishiness of all my manly bits.

Parker: I designed this rig myself. The line is carbon fiber. Five point harness. Weight support here, here, and here. Auto-breaking resistance on the main pulley back here.

Hardison: Okay cool, so it’s tested?

Parker: Not yet.

Hardison: Not yet? When the hell was you gonna test it?

(Parker pushes Hardison off the roof. She smiles, he screams)

Parker: Big baby.

(she jumps after him. Hardison screams until he stops upside down. Parker lowers herself to his side)

Hardison: Seriously? Seriously

hardison’s first time rappelling decidedly Did Not Go Well

- - - - -

Sophie: My company’s focused on meeting senators, but I’m thinking congressmen.

DuFort: You know the great thing about congressmen? Fifty, a hundred grand well spent will get one elected, but then once they’re in the incumbency rate is over 95 percent so you can get an average 18, 20 years’ use out of one of them. In these uncertain times buying a United States congressman is one of the best investments a corporation can make.

[DuFort’s Office]

Hardison: Oh I just threw up in my mouth a little bit. I’m a professional criminal and I find that disturbing

they’re going at america’s THROAT in this one and I love it. thank you john rogers

- - - - -

(while DuFort is distracted Sophie pulls out his wallet and removes the RFID card with her teeth. DuFort takes off his coat to look at the stain)

I am but a simple gay and this was Hot™

- - - - -

the phones hardison gave the team have six main buttons: internet, text, files, to-do, id scan, and mail

- - - - -

Nate: Parker, what’s the status of the voicelock?

[DuFort’s Office]

Parker: Uh, I’ve been sampling DuFort’s speech but I still need a few more sounds.

[Private Party]

Nate: How many?

[DuFort’s Office]

Parker: Well I only need the sounds puh, tuh, oo, ah, eh, oh, ah, ke, a, ef.

[Private Party]

Nate: Ah, only those. Eliot.

(Eliot walks by carrying two trays of appetizers)

Eliot: I’m on it. Pardon. (approaches Sophie and DuFort) Hello.

Sophie: Ooh. Mmm.

Eliot: (to DuFort) Appetizer, sir?

DuFort: Sure, what do you got?

Eliot: I’ve got the pâté d’escargot avec bière d'Argentine and (looks at second tray and grimaces) what looks like old duck, kind of greasy.

DuFort: I guess I’ll have the first one.

Eliot: Of course.

(Eliot offers him the second tray and Dufort looks at him expectantly)

DuFort: Well? May I have some?

Eliot: The greasy duck?

Sophie: Oh, no, no, no, I wouldn’t have the greasy duck.

Eliot: No I wouldn’t suggest it.

DuFort: No, the other one.

(Eliot pretends confusion)

DuFort: The the pâté d’escargot with the bière d'Argentine!

Eliot: Excellent choice sir (gives DuFort the first tray).

DuFort: (takes food) Who is this clown?

[DuFort’s Office]

Parker: Pretty good. Got most of them. Okay, now all I need is ef, uh and kuh.

[Private Party]

(DuFort spits out the appetizer he has taken)

DuFort: This is shrimp!

Eliot: Very good then. (walks away)

DuFort: It’s shrimp you stupid F----!

[DuFort’s Office]

Parker: Oh, there they are. Really loud too

parker being so competent and knowledgeable about voice activation codes? amazing. iconic.

and the whole scene with eliot and the food? hilarious.

also there already another meta post about this but this scene shows just how SMART eliot is,,, like coming up with that on spot??? don’t get me wrong, hardison is “the smartest man [any of them know]” but damn

- - - - -

continuing list of non-weapon objects eliot uses as weapons:

an IV stand

+ bonus

nate: the defibrillator/AED

- - - - -

Perry: Mr. Ford!

(Perry pushes a defibrillator towards Nate, who grabs the paddles. The first man runs toward Eliot with a knife, but Eliot grabs his arm and pushes him toward Nate)

Nate: Hello.

(Nate hits the man in the chest with the defibrillator paddles and he flies backward, unconscious)

eliot looking Impressed™ at nate for that

- - - - -

Eliot: Play time’s over Nate, it’s only a matter of time before they come after us. The tall one, the way he used a knife, ex-Marine, probably Force Recon.

Hardison: You ID’d a guy off his knife-fighting style?

Eliot: It’s a very distinctive style.

two distinctives in one episode

- - - - -

Hardison: I didn’t sign up for any of this. What I did before, nobody got hurt.

Sophie: I stole paintings for a living.

Parker: I never hurt anybody.

Eliot: I actually hurt people, so…

LMFAO eliot but also- notice that sophie never said that she never hurt people, she just said she stole paintings for a living

- - - - -

Sophie: Nate, if anything had happened to this kid--

Nate: You know you guys called on me. You remember? You begged me to run the crew, agreed to play by my rules. Now walk out if you have a problem with that. Walk out any day if you have a problem with that. It’s simple.

(everyone looks hesitant)

Eliot: We finish this one.

Parker: Just one

PSH like any of y’all believe that

- - - - -

Hardison: How do we hit ‘em?

Sophie: Congressman Jenkins, he’s our in. Looked me straight in the eye and told me he’d never even heard of the shooting.

Parker: So?

Sophie: Looked me in the eye? When men are telling me the truth they’re not looking me in the eye. A man only ever looks a woman in the eye when he’s making the effort to lie to her.

Eliot: ...Well you can’t argue with that.

Hardison: Noted and filed

LMFAO

- - - - -

Nate: All right, Jenkins is DuFort’s pet congressman, let’s see if we can get him to bite. The best way to get two people to reveal a secret, get ‘em to turn on each other.

- - - - -

Sophie: You should look out for the signs congressman. Missed phone calls, no more little favors.

Jenkins: Those are the same signs that your wife is cheating on you.

Sophie: That’s right.

Jenkins: What am I supposed to do when that happens?

Sophie (hands him her card): Play the field

- - - - -

Hardison: Congressman Jenkins is very careful. No direct bribes but he’s renovating his house and so far he’s received over $600,000 worth of work for a little over fifty grand.

(Hardison brings up pictures of Jenkins’ house on the screens)

Eliot: Castleman owns the contracting company, huh?

Hardison: I mean, he’s going through like three shell companies but yeah. And this man loves his house. Just check out his web browsing habits.

(Hardison changes the image to a website for wood panels)

Hardison: Look here, see the man spent three weeks picking out the perfect mahogany wood panels. This site is like wood porn.

Eliot: Is his house finished?

Hardison: Not even close.

Eliot: Can I borrow your phone?

Hardison takes out his phone, dials for Eliot and hands it to him.

Eliot (on phone): Hello? Yes, I’d like to cancel delivery on some mahogany wood paneling. Please.

(Hardison tries to help, Eliot walks away)

Eliot: The Jenkins house. Yeah, you know what, do me a favor man, just go ahead and cancel the whole order. Yes sir.

(Eliot leaves the room as Nate enters with a bowl of popcorn and two beers)

Nate: What’s he doing?

Hardison: Yanking the congressman’s chain

I love chaotic (pre)boyfriends

plus at one point it high hey looked like they were holding hands

and eliot’s SMILE at hardison ,,, you soft man, you never stood a chance

- - - - -

Hardison: A woo--whoa, whoa! A wood-- a wooden box?

Nate: A wooden box.

Hardison: Wood? Well, we can put a man on the moon but all our laws go into a wooden box.

- - - - -

Hardison: I mean, break a law, everybody’s done that, my mama’s done that but steal a law. Oh, she’s gonna be a legend baby.

(on screen, C-SPAN news shows the Senate floor where Parker is walking to “The Hopper”. She waves at the camera and puts the fake bill into box.

Parker: The eagle has landed.

Nate: It’s in!

Hardison: Uhn! Go ahead girl! Sexyness! Unh. Rrrnnn.

Nate: Might want to ease up on that a little bit.

Hardison: Just saying.

Nate: Yeah.

Hardison: Between me and you. Between me and you.

Nate: Never leaves the room.

adorable “the eagle has landed” parker + already-gone-for-her hardison ,,, I love it here

- - - - -

(also, again I am reminded that there is a 250 text block limit so imma have to make a part two and apparently this is my life now)

[botanyshitposts]

If the way lichens are named is based on outdated information, do you know what ways of renaming them have been proposed to bring them more in line with current knowledge? I imagine naming them by just listing the component species would get unwieldy VERY fast.

yeaaahhh exactly, that’s the main problem. the only major other thing ive seen proposed is the theory that the ‘real’ name of any given lichen is it’s common colloquial name, because the way it exists to us just like, walking in the woods or whatever can be encompassed under said name, but as you can imagine that’s a more philosophical take on it. 

here’s my take, aka ‘what i would do if i suddenly got spontaneous control over all of lichenology’. basically i feel like there’s a few major things that need to happen before we can even start reliably identifying what’s in the lichens themselves. 

to start out, the distress, as i see it, is coming from this idea that we should have to know all the given components of a lichen just from the name. the philosophical idea above tells us why this is impractical: if everyone knows the lichens by a certain name, and all the keys are meant to provide identification down to a certain name, then it really, really seems like we should keep the names on a general level, because the names themselves are doing their jobs; you go to an herbarium and you can find a group of lichens that look the same, but may not have the exact same morphological features and may not test ‘correctly’ on certain chemical tests, indicating different yeasts or something similar. 

meanwhile, the yeasts themselves are…weird. the researchers in the paper found out about the presence of yeasts essentially by accident while trying to figure out why two otherwise identical lichen species (Bryoria fremontii and Bryoria tortuosa) had radically different levels of vulpinic acid; there were papers before that did genetic testing, with no explanation as to why they were so radically different. these researches hypothesized that it was because of different genes being expressed, and did more genetic testing (specifically a transcriptome-wide SNP analysis for those interested) to find that yes, both lichen species are indeed genetically identical– but they were telling the computer running the analysis to search only for known lichenized algae and fungi species. once they expanded the analysis to produce results for any fungi species detected in the samples, they found out about the yeasts, and realized that more yeast seemed to equal more vulpinic acid. 

i tell this extended story because it raises crucial questions about how we identify lichens. these researchers did an extended battery of genetic testing to determine the yeast species in the samples, but in functional lichen identification that happens everyday this is like….so far out of reach it’s laughable. when we identify lichens in the herbarium we plop em down on the lichen bench and follow through a dichotomous key, and the tests include things like ‘drop bleach on the thallus and if it turns a certain color it’s X species and if not it’s Y species’ and ‘look at the lichen under UV light and if it glows a certain color it’s X species and if it doesn’t it’s Y species’. the color lichen thalli turn under these conditions indicate different levels of certain chemicals, or the presence or absence of certain chemicals, and often the key will tell you what chemical is being indicated, and will direct you around depending on the results.

the problem with this is that not all lichens test positive on all chemical tests all the time. it’s a regular thing to have a lichen that like, 400% looks like a certain species but fails a chemical test and is labelled as another, slightly different species instead, and likewise it’s common to have lichens labelled as a certain species that have different chemical test results. 

if we’re working off the assumption that the basis for these minute differences is the species of yeast in the lichen, then we would have to decide– ‘we’ meaning all lichenologists as an academic field, i suppose– whether or not the yeast actually matters, or if it’s entirely conditional. for example, take the infamous Bryoria fremontii and Bryoria tortuosa riddle above. in this case the yeast was like, the answer, and the crucial question then would be, ‘are these the same species but in different forms, or are these two different species differentiated by the species of yeast?’. if it’s the former, then hell, identifying the yeast doesn’t matter, and we can just lump them all in and say that the darker color is the yeastier form or w/e. if it’s the latter, suddenly we have the question of what the chemical tests that have been standard for years actually mean: are they yeast tests??? which yeasts make which colors??? does it change depending on the lichen?? does it matter, if the keys can stay functionally the same??? are we splitting all lichens up based on their yeasts?? what’s happening???

my solution, theoretically, would be this: 

1. we keep the names. just keep them. everybody knows them by the names, all the herbariums have them put in place with the names, etc. yeah lichen names get changed all the time bc of taxonomy discoveries, but it’s sure as hell not practical to just like, do away with all the current names, no matter how weird the archaic fungus-first model is to begin with. 

2. we figure out how to identify the yeasts, whenever and wherever they are present. preferably this can be done with a low-cost dropper test or something similar to what’s already normal for lichen ID. best case scenario, this means just finding out which chemical test results can be associated with certain yeasts reliably, i.e. ‘x species of yeast produces vulpinic acid, and when exposed to bleach on the thallus of this lichen the vulpinic acid turns a certain color, and if it is that color then i can know it’s not just the chemical itself that is present but that x species of yeast in the lichen is the cause of that chemical’. 

3. we get in the habit of writing down on the labels of samples which yeasts are found through said methods. what this would turn out, i have no idea; if we start finding like, 80 kinds of yeast per set of herbarium samples, we’d be in deep shit, but if it’s a simple matter of finding out that half the species in the herbarium have different yeasts from the sample next to them in the box, that would be a little easier to handle.

4. as for fixing the fungi-centric naming issue as a whole: i propose, again, that we keep the names, and instead find some way of indicating easily which combination is present. this, as i have it in my head, would be pretty cumbersome and would probably need a lot of revising to actually be practical, but if lichens are as diverse on a microbiological level as we’re finding out they are, then a flexible coding system would be best. like a dewy decimal system of lichens. we write out all known symbiotes into a chart or put it in an excel program or something, associate a number with each symbiote, and then just put them together, we could come out with a specific number for describing a lichen based on it’s components, in addition to the name, like so: 

[FUNGUS #] - [ALGAE #] - [YEAST #] - [BACTERIA #]

001 - 020 - 2384 - 2

if the lichen doesn’t have a yeast or a bacterial symbiote, it just gets omitted: 

001 - 020

if there’s a second fungus, then the two fungus numbers get put together:

001/004 - 020 - 2384 - 2

if a species in unknown, it gets the code 000:

001 - 020 - 000 - 2

a lichen that can be keyed to a genus but not a species has an asterisk next to the unknown numbers: 

001 - 020* - 000 * - 0* 

is this an incredibly convoluted system? yes. does it solve the combination problem, hypothetically? maybe. possibly. who knows. it would be useful in finding lichens with a very specific combination easy to find en masse in a database or something, though.