#I used two sources for images... which explains why there are two links.

[nightmarereverie]

“Mint makeup bunny figures” by EPOCH 🐰ྀི × ₍ᐢ. .ᐢ₎

[8-8it]

Thoughts on some discussion I saw floating around for the Beast-Yeast Ep.10 Trailer. Please excuse any typos or anything like that, I have been up all night oops. Tried to clean things up and make them more sensical in the transcript below.

Links; Youtube Video On How Corsets Affect A Plus Size Figure; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSvy8N61YnI History of Corsets 1780-1912; https://silhouettescostumes.com/the-eras-we-build/history-of-corsets-1780-1912/ Transcript;

Image One

"Hello! Ive seen a lot of people very confused about Hollyberry Cookie's awakened form in light of the trailer drop and I wanted to try and explain things!

Note that I am not very good at explaining things nor a dress historian myself however I do know a lot as a freelance sewist and autistic individual.

This explanation heavily relies on pictures to convey my point, but since this font is unique a transcript will be avaliable in the "read more".

So why does Hollyberry look so much skinnier in her awakened form?"

Image Two

"The difference here lies in fabric weight primarily and how it sits on a body.

Typically, Tighter clothes will make someone look smaller, and looser clothes can make them look bigger. No one person looks the same size in every outfit. The way fabric falls on a body varies heavily on the fabric and the cut of a cloth. One silk dress of one pattern does not look the same as a completely different silk dress.

I have tried to pick women of a similar size to use for these examples.

Armour is constrictive, heavy, and a dress is more light and flowy. (To A Certain Degree, will explain.)"

Image Three

"However, that explanation is not all encompassing. We're going to have to take a look at Victorian* clothing to understand more.

A big part of this lies in her corset and the layering surrounding so.

A corset is not typically constrictive, nor does it function like a chest binder or a waist cincher. They were used as we use bras today.

It appears to me that Hollyberry wears a corset at *all* times, in every outfit of hers.

*The term Victorian here is used for audience familiarity and ease of communication, however it is not entirely accurate. I will also compile some sources and such in the "read more" If you are curious."

Image Four

"Like all other garments, not all corsets are created equally. Different methods are used in different eras, and different corsets are used for different things.

While most european human history leaves a lot to be desired in terms of womens rights, we can imagine that a 'battle corset' would exist in the case needed.

However I cannot even find evidence of athletic corsets beyond cosplay and fantasy.

This type of corset, however, would be similar to a sports bra. Breathable, but hold everything together. This would be especially desirable at war.

! - While looking for references for this post, I found a youtube video going into how different corsets affect the way the same plus sized body appears, which would be great to look at if you're more intimately curious about how exactly these differences are at play and with plus sized individuals."

Image 5

"Which means that the structure of undergarments in both outfits is widely different, and would greatly effect how her body appears.

More "constrictive" undergarments (Like an aformentioned sports bra, or our imagined "battle corset") make the body look much smaller. Less constrictive undergarments will be more true to one's actual form.

A lot of Hollyberry's mass in her design is in her chest, which means alterations to the corset that she is wearing would change a *lot*!

Undergarments can make a huge difference in your measurements and how your body fat is aligned, especially corsets, stays, etc."

Image 6

"While I do not know a lot about how armour works especially intimately, nor could I find any real-life references of plus sized women in such. I do know quite a lot about historical women's dresswear.

Hollyberry's dress is beyond "fluffy". To me, it appears to be a traditional european dress made up of many different pieces.

Since this is Cookie Run, I cannot pinpoint a specific time period, however I can vauge at anypoint between the 1700s-1800s.

Dresses, In a generalized sense, are build out of much more than just a dress that you slip on. Many dresses for royalty are even more extravagant.

Here are some fairly generalized examples of the pieces put together to make a "dress". Different time periods dress much differently, however.

It can be assumed that it is Hollyberry's petticoat sticking out at the base of her dress here."

Image 7

"Breaking down Hollyberry's dress into pieces; Historically speaking, a lot of dresses were built of multiple different pieces, whereas nowadays, all of these pieces would be sewn together for efficiency, if a replica was to be made in the first place.

(A breakdown of each piece of her dress/outfit is written down, outlining each piece in a different color over her sprite.)

"Shirts" are quite long and vary extremely, and are more comparable to a short slip dress than a modern shirt. However I am just guessing, the build of this dress could be a bit (or a lot) different, ex including an underdress etc.

With the sillohute given, I can also assume she is wearing a hoopskirt. Naturally, She would also be wearing undergarments. Chimeses and a corset most likely.

Conclusion: 10 Or More Pieces."

Image 8

"These two things will probably never sit the same on someone's body."

Image 9

"Hollyberry most definitely is still plus-sized especially when compared to other cookies. Though, while her dress may (not definitive) build up her figure a lot, it is *not* just her dress making her appear so large!

Random (Thin) cookies for comparisons sake.

The shapes of these two illustrations are a bit different, however, that doesnt mean that Hollyberry's body is different now. (See previous images)

I definitely want to mention that her bodytype appears more consistient in this leaked arena statue rather than the animated trailer."

Image 10

"And I want to mention that the animated cutscenes are always a bit "off model" of finished sprites. For aura or somthing. It definitely strikes me as odd that Hollyberry looks so different. I do not believe it *entirely* lies in her dress, however her clothing is a contributor."

Image 11

"However, I do not blame you for feeling alarmed when you compare these two images.

From a fashion and arts perspective, it is apparant to me that her body type is consistient between her awakened form and her default, and remains plus sized. Hopefully, it is clearer that it is so in her sprites when the update fully drops."

Image 12

"I hope that this was at least a bit interesting and helps enlighten you a bit on why Hollyberry could look so different!!

Remember that any of us could always be wrong *or* right, and I hope you all have fun when the update comes out!

Cheers!!"

[makereadgrow]

The Why of Sewing 3: Fabric Anatomy (Fiber Content)

This post is in a series I am starting that is going to talk about concepts in sewing and fiber arts and try and explain some of the whys behind the hows.

The beginner sewist is often (correctly) advised at the beginning of their journey to start with cotton fabric, sometimes specifically woven cotton, but not always. Nevermind that cotton fabric can vary from a tshirt to denim and canvas.

We have learned the difference between a knit and a woven fabric in my previous posts (check the tag #the why of sewing which should bring up the whole series). Let's talk fiber content.

Like fabric structure I basically break fiber down into two groups: natural fibers and synthetic fibers. Below I am going to talk about the fibers you are most likely to encounter as you shop as a home sewist. It is NOT a complete list of fibers, nor could I list the entirety of fabric types made with each fiber.

Natural fibers: these are fibers that come from plants and animals and require minimal processing to be made into fabric.

Wool: This comes from sheep, which are sheared 1-2 times a year. The animal is not hurt in the process and even sheep not raised for fiber production must be sheared for their health. Wool is warm, but breathable. It can be easy to work with in some ways, but it does shrink when washed and so many modern sewists avoid wool. Some folks have sensitivities to wool as well. Wool is most commonly used in suitings and knits.

Image: Shorn sheep in a verdant field (Source: By Roger Kidd, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=13035358)

Silk: Silk is made from the cocoons of silkworms, and generally harvested prior to the hatching of silkworm larvae. Silk is expensive to produce and considered a luxury good. Silk is shiny and lightweight, it can be surprisingly warm. Silk can loose its sheen in the wash and because the fiber is so delicate it can be difficult to sew. There is a lot of misinformation on the production of both silk and wool online. Worm Spit has been educating fiber artists about the process of making silk since 2002.

Image: a vintage style poster showing various stages of the silkworm moth (By Bibliographisches Institut, in Leipzig - Meyers Konversations-Lexikon, 4th Auflage, Band 14, Seite 826a (4th ed., Vol. 14, p.826a), Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2317808)

Cotton: Cotton comes from the cotton plant, there are several varieties commonly grown and it is the most common natural fiber used in textile production. The cotton fiber comes from the seed head of the plant. Cotton can be made into light breathable fabrics and warm cosy fabrics. The list of fabrics made from cotton might actually be endless but here are a few you might encounter: jersey knits, denim, quilting cotton, gauze, lawn, voile, sweatshirting, twills, poplin, oxford cloth, canvas...

Image: the cotton boll, or seed pod (source: Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=689304)

Linen: Linen comes from the flax plant. The fiber comes from the long stem of the flax plant and can be difficult to break down into a usable state. It is also difficult for modern spinning equipment to make into threads, which is why linen tends to be quite expensive in comparison to cotton. Linen is cool to the touch and very strong. It also wrinkles very easily. Coarsely woven linen can be uncomfortable for some to wear. Linen tends to be made into simple plain woven fabric, occasionally knit fabrics, and can vary in weight from handkerchief linen (very fine, almost transparent) to canvas. I recently reblogged THIS POST which had some incredible links regarding linen production.

Image: linen cloth recovered from Qumran Cave 1 near the Dead Sea (Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=248420)

Synthetic fabrics: these are fibers that have been manufactured through industrial processes.

Polyester/Acrylic/Nylon: These fabrics are plastic. They are made from different types of plastic, but ultimately a liquid petrolum product is extruded into a long filiment and made into cloth. They can be made into woven or knit fabric. The way they are made can have many different properties. Generally polyester is what you find in the home sewing world. Polyester is not breathable and because it is oil based it tends to hold on to smells. It melts when it is too hot and therefore can only be ironed carefully. Polyester also tends to be very strong and can help make very sturdy fabrics. Because polyester is very inexpensive to produce it is frequently combined with other fibers to reduce production cost.

A diagram of "dry spinning" polyester fibers (source: https://encyclopedia.che.engin.umich.edu/fiber-spinning/)

Spandex/Lycra/Elastine: this is the stretchy stuff! Generally found in combination with other materials this is what makes fabric go beyond the mechanical stretch that is produced by the fabric structure. In small amounts mixed with cotton it makes a fantastic tshirt jersey, 100% spandex is great for swim and dancewear. As we discussed in the knit article I posted previously adding stretch to sewing does make it more complicated to work with, but used wisely spandex is your friend. Best not pressed excessively as the fiber has a protein structure that breaks down when it is hot. Also if you have a garment or fabric with a lot of spandex content you might want to consider avoiding the dryer.

Rayon/Viscose/Bamboo/Lyocell/Cupro/Tencel: There are SO MANY names for cellulose fabrics. These are sometimes categorized as semi-synthetic fibers, or even put in with natural fibers. They are all the same thing deep down. Cellulose (generally sourced from trees and plants) is chemically broken down into its most essential parts and then extruded into a filiment. These fibers were originally developed as a silk substitute. Rayons are fine, breathable, and have a drape that clings to the body. They shrink in the wash and can continue to shrink through several washes. They also can be fragile when wet. Rayons are made into both woven fabrics and knits and they tend to be thin and fine fabrics. Rayon fabrics, especially those labeled as bamboo are frequently greenwashed as environmentally friendly, because they are sourced from a renewable resource, but the process of producing cellulose fibers is highly polluting and uses significant amounts of water.

While there are outliers, most textiles you will encounter while shopping for fabric will be made of the above fibers. A deeper dive into these would be fun, but I find at least 3 potential rabbit holes I could go down every single post I make here.

[shehimin]

Edgaring time!

Tutorial on how to make your own responsive Edgar :D I will try to explain it in really basic terms, like you’ve never touched a puter (which if you’re making this… I’m sure you’ve touched plenty of computers amirite??? EL APLAUSO SEÑOOOREEES).

If you have some experience I tried to highlight the most important things so you won’t have to read everything, this is literally building a website but easier.

I will only show how to make him move like this:

Disclaimer: I’m a yapper.

Choosing an engine First of all you’ll need something that will allow you to display a responsive background, I used LivelyWallpaper since it’s free and open-source (we love open-source).

Choosing an IDE Next is having any IDE to make some silly code! (Unless you can rawdog code… Which would be honestly impressive and you need to slide in my DMs and we will make out) I use Visual Studio!!!

So now that we have those two things we just need to set up the structure we will use.

Project structure

We will now create our project, which I will call “Edgar”, we will include some things inside as follows:

Edgar

img (folder that will contain images) - thumbnail.png (I literally just have a png of his face :]) - [some svgs…]

face.js (script that will make him interactive)

index.html (script that structures his face!)

LivelyInfo,json (script that LivelyWallpaper uses to display your new wallpaper)

style.css (script we will use to paint him!)

All of those scripts are just literally like a “.txt” file but instead of “.txt” we use “.js”, “.html”, etc… You know? We just write stuff and tell the puter it’s in “.{language}”, nothing fancy.

index.html

Basically the way you build his silly little face! Here’s the code:

<!doctype html> <html>     <head>         <meta charset="utf-8">         <title>Face!</title>         <link rel = "stylesheet" type = "text/css" href = "style.css">     </head>     <body>         <div class="area">             <div class="face">                 <div class="eyes">                     <div class="eyeR"></div>                     <div class="eyeL"></div>                 </div>                 <div class="mouth"></div>             </div>         </div>         <script src="face.js"></script>     </body> </html>

Ok so now some of you will be thinking “Why would you use eyeR and eyeL? Just use eye!“ and you’d be right but I’m a dummy who couldn’t handle making two different instances of the same object and altering it… It’s scary but if you can do it, please please please teach me ;0;!!!

Area comes in handy to the caress function we will implement in the next module (script)! It encapsulates face.

Face just contains the elements inside, trust me it made sense but i can’t remember why…

Eyes contains each different eye, probably here because I wanted to reuse code and it did not work out and when I kept going I was too scared to restructure it.

EyeR/EyeL are the eyes! We will paint them in the “.css”.

Mouth, like the eyeR/eyeL, will be used in the “.css”.

face.js

Here I will only show how to make it so he feels you mouse on top of him! Too ashamed of how I coded the kisses… Believe me, it’s not pretty at all and so sooo repetitive…

// ######################### // ##      CONSTANTS      ## // ######################### const area = document.querySelector('.area'); const face = document.querySelector('.face'); const mouth = document.querySelector('.mouth'); const eyeL = document.querySelector('.eyeL'); const eyeR = document.querySelector('.eyeR'); // ######################### // ##     CARESS HIM      ## // ######################### // When the mouse enters the area the face will follow the mouse area.addEventListener('mousemove', (event) => {     const rect = area.getBoundingClientRect();     const x = event.clientX - rect.left;     const y = event.clientY - rect.top;     face.style.left = `${x}px`;     face.style.top = `${y}px`; }); // When the mouse leaves the area the face will return to the original position area.addEventListener('mouseout', () => {     face.style.left = '50%';     face.style.top = '50%'; });

God bless my past self for explaining it so well, but tbf it’s really simple,,

style.css

body {     padding: 0;     margin: 0;     background: #c9c368;     overflow: hidden; } .area {     width: 55vh;     height: 55vh;     position: absolute;     top: 50%;     left: 50%;     transform: translate(-50%,-50%);     background: transparent;     display: flex; } .face {     width: 55vh;     height: 55vh;     position: absolute;     top: 50%;     left: 50%;     transform: translate(-50%,-50%);     background: transparent;     display: flex;     justify-content: center;     align-items: center;     transition: 0.5s ease-out; } .mouth {     width: 75vh;     height: 70vh;     position: absolute;     bottom: 5vh;     background: transparent;     border-radius: 100%;     border: 1vh solid #000;     border-color: transparent transparent black transparent;     pointer-events: none;     animation: mouth-sad 3s 420s  forwards step-end; } .face:hover .mouth {     animation: mouth-happy 0.5s forwards; } .eyes {     position: relative;     bottom: 27%;     display: flex;   } .eyes .eyeR {     position: relative;     width: 13vh;     height: 13vh;     display: block;     background: black;     margin-right: 11vh;     border-radius: 50%;     transition: 1s ease } .face:hover .eyeR {     transform: translateY(10vh);      border-radius: 20px 100% 20px 100%; } .eyes .eyeL {     position: relative;     width: 13vh;     height: 13vh;     display: block;     background: black;     margin-left: 11vh;     border-radius: 50%;     transition: 1s ease; } .face:hover .eyeL {     transform: translateY(10vh);     border-radius: 100% 20px 100% 20px; } @keyframes mouth-happy {     0% {         background-color: transparent;         height: 70vh;         width: 75vh;     }     100% {         border-radius: 0 0 25% 25%;         transform: translateY(-10vh);     } } @keyframes mouth-sad {     12.5%{         height: 35vh;         width: 67vh;     }     25% {         height: 10vh;         width: 60vh;     }     37.5% {         width: 53vh;         border-radius: 0%;         border-bottom-color: black;     }     50% {         width: 60vh;         height: 10vh;         transform: translateY(11vh);         border-radius: 100%;         border-color: black transparent transparent transparent;     }     62.5% {         width: 64vh;         height: 20vh;         transform: translateY(21vh);     }     75% {         width: 69vh;         height: 40vh;         transform: translateY(41vh);     }     87.5% {         width: 75vh;         height: 70vh;         transform: translateY(71vh);     }     100% {         width: 77vh;         height: 90vh;         border-color: black transparent transparent transparent;         transform: translateY(91vh);     } }

I didn’t show it but this also makes it so if you don’t pay attention to him he will get sad (mouth-sad, tried to make it as accurate to the movie as possible, that’s why it’s choppy!)

The .hover is what makes him go like a creature when you hover over him, if you want to change it just… Change it! If you’d rather him always have the same expression, delete it!

Anyway, lots of easy stuff, lots of code that I didn’t reuse and I probably should’ve (the eyes!!! Can someone please tell me a way I can just… Mirror the other or something…? There must be a way!!!) So now this is when we do a thinking exercise in which you think about me as like someone who is kind of dumb and take some pity on me.

LivelyInfo.json

{   "AppVersion": "1.0.0.0",   "Title": "Edgar",   "Thumbnail": "img/thumbnail.png",   "Preview": "thumbnail.png",   "Desc": "It's me!.",   "Author": "Champagne?",   "License": "",   "Type": 1,   "FileName": "index.html" }

Easy stuff!!! 

Conclusion

This could've been a project on git but i'm not ready and we're already finished. I'm curious about how this will be seen on mobile and PC,,, i'm not one to post here.

Sorry if I rambled too much or if i didn't explain something good enough! If you have any doubts please don't hesitate to ask.

And if you add any functionality to my code or see improvements please please please tell me, or make your own post!

[bizarrelittlemew]

Hello - just for the record, I do not know the person you’ve tagged in your post. I’ve not seen their blog. I found the gif on an image search. It’s also incredibly easy to create a gif from a video clip. So I don’t know how you expected me to know that one individual owned this particular gif. It would have been so much more helpful if you’d have just told me about it directly and given me their name instead of creating this passive aggressive, condescending post at my expense. A total stranger whose experiences and motivations you do not know. I only finished the show two days ago, and wanted to share my thoughts about it. That was all.

if it’s so easy, you should’ve made your own 🙃

OR if you absolutely needed a gif to "share your thoughts," you could’ve used tumblr’s Add GIF function. it’s right there.

listen, i was actually trying to be nice because i could see you were new, so i wanted to inform about fandom etiquette. i also gave you a link to a post explaining very gently why and how to credit gifmakers. but if you’re going to be rude and disrespectful in my inbox about it, i won't sugarcoat it anymore.

i did a reverse image source and found the post where the gif was from very quickly. i even linked it to you and you still put “google image” as a source?! (i see now that you've changed it to actually say their username but it was not like that this morning). you need to understand that the fact that you "do not know them" or "haven't seen their posts" (i linked the post to you in my reblog btw) does not change the fact that you posted something they made and the appropriate thing is to give them credit. i literally did the work of finding the source for you. proper credit is a username and/or a link to the original post, not where you "found it." the fact that a gif shows up in a google image search doesn’t erase the actual source or make it less shitty to reupload without credit.

i don’t tell people to credit gifmakers as a judgement of their character, so i don’t give one single fuck about motivations or excuses. i ASSUME people don’t know how much work goes into editing the kind of gif you stole because there is this culture of treating gifs like they just appear out of thin air instead of being created by A PERSON, usually a fellow fan. all i’m looking for is “thanks, i’ve added the credit!” and not this kind of bullshit because your feelings were hurt by being gently called out. i went into this thinking “oh they probably just don’t know how much work goes into it” but when you double down instead of accepting the help, you lose the benefit of the doubt.

you are also talking to a stranger btw, one who has put time and effort (for YEARS) into creating gifs. the type of gifs you see here in gifsets on tumblr are fanworks. there is a difference between plopping a video clip into an online gif converter and spending hours in photoshop making pretty gifsets to share with other fans. shitting on the people who make them is gonna make them stop sharing and creating, and make fandom worse for everyone. no one likes seeing their fanworks stolen, no matter if it’s fanart, fanfic, video edits, or yes, gifs. but if you’d actually read the post i linked you, you’d already know the feelings a lot of tumblr gifmakers share around this and wouldn’t have sent me this ask

i have several reasons for adding the source in a reblog to the post instead of writing privately. first, it attaches the actual source to the post, which is the main point for me. second, private messages can easily be ignored. third, i have had people ask me about fandom etiquette before and thus take this kind of thing as an opportunity to bring attention to the importance of giving proper credit (and i got a very lovely ask thanking me for it too, so this does help). although MOST often, i just let it go because it’s not worth the energy when people react like you do

i’d advice you to open your mind a little and listen when people tell you that you could do a small thing to make fandom less shitty instead of immediately taking it as a personal attack, because i genuinely wrote it assuming you just didn’t know and i wanted to inform you before you stepped on someone’s toes. but now you’ve stomped all over mine so here you go, we’re skipping straight past passive aggression to just aggression ✌️

[infiniteglitterfall]

the worst part about the i/p discourse

it's NOT the posters of Nazis with the swastikas on their flags replaced by stars of david. or the pages and pages of blood libel conspiracy theories in instagram posts about why local pride organizers are such big meanies. or the newfound insistence that jews just exaggerate and make up antisemitic incidents to smear the pro-palestine movement....

it's the fact that every. single. time. i try to post anything about any of these things, i end up in a rabbit hole SO DEEP IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO GET TO THE BOTTOM.

Yesterday, I saw a --

YOU SEE? I went to Reddit for a second to find the link to the post about the Melbourne protest this week that had people carrying the Nazi-star-of-David posters. But first, I saw a post that began, "All I see on social media and the news is more and more attacks. Who beat up a Jewish family here, who stabbed a 1 year old in front of a synagouge. Those are two examples, I've lost track of all of the other ones."

and I was like, SOMEONE STABBED A ONE YEAR OLD IN FRONT OF A SYNAGOGUE?!?!

And I started to look that up. AND THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENS. EVERY SINGLE TIME.

Two days ago, I saw an article about Cincinnati Socialists setting up a table at North Kentucky Pride without asking, it sounds like, to hand out flyers saying the war in Gaza was Netanyahu's "Final Solution" for Palestinians. Cincinnati Pride organizers alerted the NKY Pride organizers, who kicked them out.

I was like, "okay, well, let's see what Cincinnati Socialists say about it." Then I discovered that their instagram not only "names and shames" the two Cincy Pride organizers and one NKY organizer. Which led to the Cincy ones getting so much harassment and violent threats that they resigned....

But also has a related post that goes on for pages and pages of pure blood libel.

So then I sat there fact-checking all their blood libel and finding out that not only was it untrue and impossible, but half the stuff they referenced didn't even exist.

Then I ended up fact-checking things in the "article" that they'd clearly used as their source. Fact-checking things I found while fact-checking those.

Trying to write a Facebook post about how fucked up it all was. Giving up on the Facebook post after several hours because it made more sense to write it on Tumblr, or at least to write it on Tumblr FIRST.

Then I'm also looking at the post they made "naming and shaming" the organizers, which is like... "the Cincy ones are partners! two days after Hamas's incredibly violent and brutal massacre, one of them changed his profile picture to a photo of them honeymooning IN ISRAEL two years ago! they did it through some group that COVERS A LOT OF THE COSTS FOR HONEYMOONS IN ISRAEL!!!!" and "the other one went to a protest of Hamas's massacre!!! with a sign saying to free the hostages!!!"

oh no. the fucking horror. truly how did these genocidal monsters even end up on the pride organizing committee. this is a shanda scandal.

then I'm responding to people's comments, trying to talk them down from horrible positions. telling people things like, "I know it's asking a LOT, but if people could grasp the idea that "going to Israel for your honeymoon" ISN'T "committing genocide," it would be really great. Or that wanting the hostages freed is actually something that both Israeli AND GAZAN protests have called for, and it's only Westerners who are opposed to it. Or that in fact, saying you "Stand with Israel," a few days after an incredibly brutal attack that burned multiple towns to the ground in one day, killed entire families and their pets, an attack which Hamas has promised to repeat "again and again and again" till Israel is violently destroyed... is opposing that attack, NOT calling for genocide."

then i'm like, "oh, i should edit these images to show the correct info, and i can explain that I drew arrows and added the correct info!" so then i'm doing that and working on writing alt text, and holy shit??? how many fucking hours??? did i spend on this?????? just because i read a frigging reddit post that linked to an article about it?????????

and like. i can go through and debunk all that shit in the comments. (and did. i responded to every single comment that believed this shit.) but ultimately, everyone who pulls this shit has way more reach than I do.

just. like. THAT'S ONE ORG IN ONE PLACE. And it was bad enough that I persevered and finished debunking it and commenting on it today and started telling people about it. Do you even know how many more of those I've seen?! How many I would see if I looked for them on purpose?!

The tsunami of deliberate disinformation is SO FUCKING BAD. All of it is SO FUCKING LAYERED. In any single bullshit post, there are SO MANY horrifically bad and wrong assumptions. So many of them are DESIGNED, BY HAMAS, to lead people down the path to "All Zionists should die! Israel should be violently destroyed!"

There were so many comments on a "Free Palestine Melbourne" group's instagram post (Sydney? Could've been Sydney) asking, pointedly, how many Jews are Zionists. What percentage of Jews are Zionists, again?

One (1) had a response telling them it doesn't matter what the percentage is, no percentage would justify collective punishment of Jews.

The rest all said things like, "Too many."

It feels like constantly being lied to. Just constantly being lied to about things I have looked up and verified myself from solid sources, now and in the past, by people I counted as my community.

Then just now I opened Instagram because I hadn't taken screenshots of a couple of the pics I wanted to add. And I'm hit with these:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by jewsinschool (@jewsinschool)

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Jewish on Campus (@jewishoncampus)

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Jewish and Proud (@jewishpridealways)

Then some brighter posts (including one of a baby bat!!) and then a post which sums up a lot of what I'm feeling right now.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Jess Cook (@jessicagcoook)

It's like, yes, that, plus the uncomfortable sense that some people are getting thisclose to going, "Most Jews are Zionists anyway, so YEAH, I DO think most Jews deserve to die."

[salpho]

Current plans (rambles and ideas) for the DCTL redrawn project

First off, I just came up with that title on the spot and it works super well so I'll stick with that probably pffh. Follow the tag if interested in participating !! Anyways, here's my rambles.

I wanna do some more research on Chris Hastings. Fellow Bendy wiki staff have pointed out that he adapts the books rather than illustrate them, which I didn't realise had any difference beforehand. Basically means directing stuff like backgrounds, setting, etc from my knowledge. They sourced this user that seems to know a thing or two about him and his work, along with getting an early copy of the graphic novel. I'll do proper research and make a separate post soon for this.

Moving onto the project itself, I've got some jumbled thoughts I'll try and make sense of-

I'll reread DCTL to understand the book properly, all work going forward from there

Design work will start after this, all characters will have set, universal designs based off of canon, official (such as meatly's word), book descriptions and more, such as race-coding (I'll do justice for Thomas and Norman) and time period. I'll likely be designing them alone, but I may listen to other participant inputs and ideas to make sure they're the best they can be.

This novel will be drawn from scratch !! We won't base or reference anything off of the original graphic novel, we'll only be using the original DCTL book and its word.

Every page will act as a "map part", basically having one artist do an entire page/pages. Some may want to collaborate with others (such as one person doing the backgrounds with the other doing characters) for their pages which is more than welcome.

Newer/less skilled artists are more than welcome to offer to participate, please don't let your skill level or own perception of your art discourage you !! I'd love to give you all a chance.

I may be pinging those who said they'd be happy to participate once I make the call post. Once ready to make that post, I'll be starting a discord server for communication. This will also include a google doc or something similar so we can get full quality pages from everyone rather than compressed images from the app.

The project's novel will begin with foreword. This will include background for why it was started, clearly state it was made as a protest against the original graphic novel, Mike's view of minorities in fiction and will also state it was made because we care and love this series, and want it to do better. It will credit and link to the artist who drew the original and explain why we believe the artist was mistreated and should've had more time and pay. Stuff of that sort.

Every page will have the artist's signatures/@'s in the margins, and the novel will have a glossary of all who participated.

Things may change, we'll see, but these are the rough plans I've got so far. Would love to hear your thoughts and ideas as usual !!

[u-reblogged-a-scam]

Do not donate your money to, or reblog any posts from, @/sublimedestinybird bc they are a scammer. Take down any of your reblogs if you haven’t already done so.

Ok so I'm usually certain of my claims when I accuse people of being scammers, but there are a few times I'm not 100% sure if I'm right

This is one of those times

So, like those other times I was unsure about an OP, I'll share what I found that caused me to doubt their validity, and I'll leave it to you to decide for yourself if you still feel confortable enough to support them. And if I’m wrong about this one, please let me know and I’ll take this down.

It started when I saw this in my inbox:

I received this ask today, which triggered my suspicions for reasons I’m not entirely sure how to pinpoint; after receiving dozens of daily messages from real Palestinians over the past week or so, this ask just didn’t feel… genuine? Ig? Idk how to explain it, but when you get messages from both real people and scammers alike, tend to notice when something isn’t right.

But like many people who tend to share scams without knowing they’re scams, I don’t like the idea of ignoring a cry for help in the event that it turns out to be real, so I did what I usually do when I’m unsure if an ask is real or not: I looked into the OP

In this case, I used reverse image search to see if OP’s pfp could be found anywhere, and lo and behold, the pfp led me to another tumblr post, where that person received an ask very similar to the one I got, from “pleasantcollectionlove”, and they couldn’t tell if they ask was a scam or not. In the notes of said post, someone else confirmed that the person who sent the ask was, indeed, a scammer, and they used the same pfp that OP is currently using

So, that would mean these two scammers are one and the same, right?

Well, normally it would (scammers tend to stick to one pfp; not always, but man, have I gotten familiar with certain selfies over the past few months), but I didn’t wanna rely on that alone, so I kept looking. While looking for exact matches for the pfp through RIS, I also found a Twitter account with the same pfp; this person is also asking for money, though the reasoning for the money is notably different that what OP provides in their own posts:

It should also be noted that the Twitter account has been around since last August, while OP has only been posting on this blog since September

Does this mean that OP stole the pfp from the Twitter account of someone who honestly needs help? Are OP and the Twitter user the same person? I honestly don’t know, which is why I said at the top of this post that I’m uncertain about this one

However, what I am certain about is a common red flag I recognized that hasn’t proved me wrong yet: the link in OP’s linktree (in their pinned post) leads to an empty PayPal account. If you’ve seen/been tagged in any of my previous call out posts, you know that empty PayPal accounts are ALWAYS included in online scams like this. In this case, the PayPal belongs to “Luciamkira”; this could be OP’s name (or at least the name they actually use for their personal PayPal), but then who’s “Aska”?

This might very well be a scam, which I believe is the case, but whether or not you decide to donate or share the post on the chance it might be real is up to you

If you’ve seen any of my previous posts, you know what I’m going to say next: Never trust a donation post linked to an empty PayPal account unless said link has been verified by a trusted source

Here’s an additional resource to help you spot the red flags of scams moving forward:

And here are some posts that go a little more in depth about the scammers that have been repeatedly spotted:

Tagging as many people in the notes of OP’s fundraiser post as I can; if anyone who sees this can reach out to those in the notes I didn’t tag and let them know this is a scam, that’d be really helpful not just for me, but for them as well

@ibontheweirdwitch @not-a-bot735 @sexywafflecuh @issues-oclock @velesej @alittleprincex @katie-wants-donut @alwaysmellowkryptonite @starsalot @shhoup @darklylovely @dontstoptalkingaboutpalestine @sunnysidefries @fangpunk @sunny-satellites @moonmothbroth

[lilyginnyblackv2]

Honoring Michelle Trachtenberg and Some of the OG Cast's Children Audition for New Buffy Series

Here are two articles I came across today with some small insights on the new series and some behind the scenes stuff. I will link to both articles in full in the comments below.

The first article is one I saw on the Buffy Reddit page.

Text: MOVIEWEB (Website Source)

'Buffy' Stars Discuss Honoring Michelle Trachtenberg in Upcoming Reboot

Text:

Which is exactly why Parade asked that very question to original stars Sarah Michelle Gellar and Alyson Hannigan when they had a chance to talk to the duo in support of the Ask2BSure meningitis awareness campaign. Given that Gellar is extremely involved in the series, which is being showrun and executive produced by Nora and Lilla Zuckerman, her authority on the matter is truly second-to-none. And she was frank in her response to the outlet. "Yeah, we'll do something. We'll do what's appropriate," Gellar explained. To which Hannigan added: "I'm sure they'll handle it with utter grace."

----

The second article I found while searching Sarah Michelle Gellar's name over on BlueSky.

Text: The Hollywood Reporter (Website Source)

Text: Sarah Michelle Gellar Says Children of Original 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' Actors Auditioned for Reboot

The actress played Buffy Summers in the original series and is also set to return for the reboot.

By Carly Thomas - May 19, 2025 8:32PM

Image of Sarah Michelle Gellar (above)

Text:

Sarah Michelle Gellar revealed that she saw some familiar names on the audition roster for the Buffy the Vampire Slayer reboot.

The actress who played Buffy Summers in the original series, which ran for seven seasons from 1997 to 2003, recently chatted with Us Weekly with her former Buffy co-star Alyson Hannigan, who portrayed Willow Rosenberg. During the interview, Hannigan confessed, “I know somebody who auditioned for something on the show.”

However, Gellar also knew some people. “I know somebody who was on the show whose child auditioned on the show,” she revealed. “I know a few people from the show whose children came in."

Text:

“It better not have been one of my kids,” Hannigan quipped in response.

Though the Wolf Pack star didn’t reveal the names of those who auditioned, last week it was announced that Star Wars: Skeleton Crew actress Ryan Kiera Armstrong has been cast in a lead role in Hulu’s pilot for the reboot. The new show will also see Gellar reprise her role as Buffy Summers.

---

As mentioned, the full articles will be linked to below in the comments section (because Tumblr is weird and doesn't give the same reach to posts that have links in them).

Anyway, it's quite interesting to hear that they will be acknowledging Michelle Trachtenberg (and therefore Dawn) in the series and that they will "do what's appropriate." This also makes me think that the possibility that Ryan Kiera Armstrong's character is going to be Dawn's daughter is a even higher. But, that's all speculation. What they deem to be appropriate may something else or different entirely and I won't speculate anymore than this. Also, Hannigan's answer of "I'm sure they'll handle it with utter grace," makes me believe that she isn't involved with the new series currently (like, Willow's character may not be returning). But, that answer could also fit if she is just thinking about this from the writing and producing side of things. So, who knows! (I've seen a lot of Buffy fans assuming that Willow will absolutely be making an appearance because of SMG and Alyson Hannigan making recent appearances together - but we'll have to wait and see, of course).

I wonder which character's children auditioned? lol I'm not very savvy when it comes to TV or movie stars or their kids. I have no idea which cast members have kids or not and, of course, SMG statement could be about more minor or secondary/side characters instead of just the major characters.

Also, feel free to share your thoughts on these two bits of news concerning the new show! I'm interested to hear what people think.

[nexxen24]

One Last Job---Chapter Six

A link to Chapter Five: https://www.tumblr.com/nexxen24/783835730808127488/one-last-job-chapter-five?source=share

WARNING: This chapter contains a brief mention of suicide, attempted suicide and suicidal ideation. Reader be warned.

6: Cross

Aachen, Germany, February 2025

3 Days Later

I kept pacing the length of the safe house’s living room as Mel looked over John and the proximity mine since something had to be wrong with it if I could read Mel’s mind fine and not his. It was blank, completely lost on me and it was starting to concern me as to why that could be. Mel was the expert on the mine, as its creator but I had to assume that Anton would’ve edited it when she left, made it worse and John's mind was slowly being destroyed by it. 

“So…”

“Alex…are you gonna ask that every ten minutes?” Mel asked as John chuckled and I glared at the two of them.

“Sorry for being concerned,” I muttered and sat down on the couch with a loud hmph. 

“I’m fine,” John said and I caught his eye.

I nodded in agreement and moved closer, wrapping my hand in his and squeezing it, wishing I could use my powers to assure him or even see what he was really thinking. I wanted to tell him that I cared about him, that he meant the world to me but I also knew that he maybe didn’t want Mel to know that being here like this had caused something to blossom. But people can also surprise you. 

“It’s alright Mel, it’s normal for a partner to worry,” he said and my eyes widened a bit as a blush came over my face. 

“Oh…look at that, I was correct,” she said and I sent her a glare as John cringed since she touched a part of the mine. “Okay…so…this isn’t great.”

“What?”

“It’s different from a regular mine,” Mel explained and grabbed John’s arm, sliding down a bit of his sweater to reveal a black line curling around his wrist. “Got any tattoos lately?” 

“No…what is that?” 

“It’s a connection,” she said and glanced at my arm which was covered in very similar marks from all those years of erasing memories. “He always said he wanted to make an easier way to get powers and I think he found it. This mine is a proximity mine, don’t walk away from her anytime soon but it’s also getting you guys to share powers.”

“Wait…” John began and eyed Mel and I had to assume that he was trying to read her mind, which shouldn't have worked. “You’re thinking about the information you found out about Anton.” 

“What…did you?” 

“Yeah, I think I did,” he said and smiled but it immediately faded and he grabbed his head, curling over in pain as I ran over and placed a hand on his arm. “God…Maybe I shouldn’t.”

“Before you went and were an idiot, I was going to warn you that the more you use it, the bigger the connection will get. You guys are the guinea pigs here, Anton did this to see if it works and if it doesn’t…you’re in trouble.” 

“Is what he saw correct,” I asked and Mel nodded. 

“Anton is in an old Dark Force compound, one of the originals. I don’t know why but I got wind from an old colleague who left when I did that he’s been calling out for help for some reason. He’s been telling them to meet him in Latvia, right outside Riga where the facility is. I can show you guys a satellite image.”

Mel dug in her bag before pulling out a laptop and typing away at it before turning the screen to reveal a large compound up in the mountains and to my surprise, the footage was live and there were guards wandering around outside. I had done a small amount of recon trying to figure out where Anton was in Munich a couple years back and I had to assume that John was brilliant at it thanks to his background. The safe house was also pretty well stocked with weapons thanks to a vault in the basement so we had all that we needed and I had a feeling we could do it. 

“Does that look like something we could break into?” I asked and John nodded, grabbing the laptop from Mel and looking at it closer.

“Yeah, for sure. They have a vulnerable spot on the back side, the spot that really hugs the mountain, that would be the best approach. I’ve done missions like this before, heavy recon.”

“Good, that’s what I was hoping for,” I told him and he grinned at me before handing the laptop back and standing, wobbling a little so I steadied him. “Are you sure you can though, we can wait.”

“No…we need this thing out of my head and Anton might move, this is our best bet and we can be in Latvia in a few days if we hurry.” 

“Good luck you two,” Mel said and I nodded in thanks, wrapping her in a tight hug since we had gotten a bit closer. 

“We’ll let you know when he’s dealt with,” I assured and moved to turn back to John when she grabbed my arm. 

“Promise me one thing,” Mel said and I nodded. “Make it hurt…for a very, very long time.”

“Oh…believe me, I’ll guarantee it.” 

She nodded in thanks before gathering her stuff and saying one last good luck and a goodbye before heading and leaving the two of us to plan our next move and get ready for what would hopefully be the last mission. It felt weird…being so close yet so far and I knew that a part wouldn’t be able to leave him behind afterwards, we were connected and that was never going to change. 

“So…after Latvia…”

“Yeah…this could be the last time.”

“Do you want it to be?” I asked and he looked at me, eyes softening before he stepped forward and wrapped me in a hug, resting his chin on top of my head. 

“No…I don’t.”

“Good, neither do I,” I admitted and John stepped back, a wide grin on his face. “Show me New York, I said I’ve always wanted to go.”

“Oh, I’m going to show you all of it and more!” he said and leaned down, giving me a kiss as I smiled against his lips, knowing this was perfect. 

After this hopefully very easy mission, we’d be fine to head back to the states and I could see New York and John and I could figure out what more we meant to each other and what this really was. Neither of us had defined it, since it really had only been a few months and we didn’t feel the need to. No one had asked and I was fine with just calling him special to me and labels didn’t connote that feeling, nor did it define it, it just gave you more clarity and I had more than enough. John meant the world to me, I was ready to tell anyone who asked and I knew, deep down, that I’d do anything and more for him. 

Riga, Latvia, February 2025

I followed John's lead for most of the recon mission, since he was the guy that had been trained for this, he knew what he was doing. My few experiences had been mainly for information or with Meg and the others, seeking out other mutants to join us, even though they never did. I was out of my depth and didn't all the way trust the silencer on my Glock 17L but John assured me it'd be fine. Besides…we weren't in this to cause a massacre, we just needed to find Anton and my powers could deal with most people. Sure many of them would likely have a block but mind control tended to work anyways, and when you tell someone to sleep, they tend to listen. I was in the midst of doing just that since a guard was standing outside our door, only one, but he had a radio and could easily call for help. 

“Alright, do you got this?” John asked and I nodded, not looking at him or else I'd be fawning over his damn suit. 

He chose to wore the suit Valentina gave him, stupid looking helmet included and I hated to admit the whole ensemble made him look very hot. The suit itself was mildly stupid and very American with the obvious red and white stripes and A on his chest, but the rest worked very well. I was grateful she chose black as the accent and since it was built to protect it was also skin tight and showed off some unseen muscles in his arms and legs. My own suit was similar, a gift from Mel for being a good sport and wasn't as skin tight, more jumpsuit-like with some added protection everywhere. It also had a good amount of straps and belts, all outfitted with various weapons and tricks for the mission. I pulled out a small baton, getting it ready just in case things went south both moving a bit away from John. 

Our connection would suffer the further I got and I could already see him cringing at the pain but the guard wasn't too far. He was just on the edge of that fifteen foot radius and I slipped into the shadows, turning nearly invisible, before slinking my way onto the catwalk he was standing on. Our door was in-between two buildings with a metal grated catwalk between them and John and I were below it. It didn't take that much effort to move to the edge and climb up, positioning myself right behind the guard who had turned to check the door. With his back to me, I jumped up and grabbed him, pulling the baton against his throat until he started choking. 

“What the--”

“No talking,” I hissed and he nodded, clawing at the baton. “Grab your keys then sleep.”

He looked like he wasn't going to comply until I turned him around and locked eyes, making sure my powers were in full swing. I said it again and he dropped like a rock, barely having enough time to place a hand on the key ring at his waist. Sure it didn't go exactly as I wanted it to and I'd have to try close to every key but he was down and that's what I wanted. 

“We got it,” I said and John nodded, climbing up and joining me on the catwalk as I got to work on the key ring. 

“You didn’t ask him first?” he asked as the lock didn’t budge with the third key I tried. 

“Didn’t get a chance,” I muttered and tried close to four more before the door finally popped open and I pocketed the keys before slowly making my way inside. “Okay…I can make you invisible via shadows but only for a few seconds, not forever…so we have to be careful.” 

“Have you ever tried it on other people?” he asked and I sat there a second, not really wanting to lie.

“Sure, it worked fine,” I assured and moved forward, forcing him to follow before he could sit there and ask any more questions. 

It worked and he didn’t but it also made me question if I could actually use my abilities on him and I really didn’t want to have to find out so I kept an ear out as we made our way further in. The facility was massive, bigger than the one I grew up in and we found ourselves above a very large room, on top of a similar catwalk to the one the guard was on. This one was up near the roof and I kept reminding myself to not look down and realise how far up I was since heights had never been my thing. 

“Are you okay?” John asked, likely catching how nervous I looked. 

“Just fine…I just, don’t like heights,” I muttered and ignored my heart pounding as I stepped between a gap in two catwalks. 

“Hmmm…Interesting…I didn’t peg you for someone afraid of them.”

“Yeah, well, I can’t be afraid of the dark,” I muttered and a bit of smoke came off my fingertips for good measure as he rolled his eyes. 

“Very true,” John said and looked down, his eyes narrowing as I followed his gaze. 

Sure enough we weren’t alone and far down below us was a man in a white coat with a clipboard, walking past what looked like cages that upon further inspection held people…or at least mutants, knowing Anton. I had thought that Dark Force was finished with testing but they’d apparently continued on without me and the thought was making my blood boil. John caught the sudden angry look on my face and reached out, placing a hand on my arm in reassurance. I nodded in thanks but the gesture became a bit redundant when a guard walked out with a very familiar person with him. 

“Oh God…that’s…”

“Mel,” I said and finished John’s thought before moving a bit closer so we could hear them better. 

There was a catwalk a bit further down but high enough that they wouldn’t see us and I lowered myself onto it, ignoring how much my arms were shaking as John followed, perching beside me on the far end so we were right above the guy and Mel. He was regarding her with mild curiosity as a second guard entered and my eyes widened when I saw that in his arms was…another Mel. 

“Sir,” he started and the man smiled, taking the second Mel from the guard and directing her into a cage as her form shifted into a small child, not older than 12. 

“The Mel who made us come here…she was fake,” I said and cursed as John did the same.

“Mel, did you see your doppelganger?” the man asked and she struggled against the guard but to avail. “Beautiful isn’t she? Ruby is just 12 and yet…she can be so precise. I’m thinking we’ll do the G7 summit next month or the White House.”

“Why…”

“For Alex and the American of course. Our little friend let them know all about that special mine Anton used back in Berlin, about what it can and is doing to them. In less than a week we should hopefully have an American super soldier with a special blend of mind control, one we can control. We just needed Alex to guarantee it stuck, use her powers…but different.”

“Won’t that kill her?” Mel asked and I thanked her for reading my mind. 

“Hopefully,” he said and smiled as I finally recognized who this guy was. 

“God…I know who that guy is,” I said and John raised a brow. “Dr. Roland Schmidt. He worked with Anton in Siberia and helped to create the process that gave me powers. He was also the one that suggested shooting me to try out healing.”

“Really?” 

“Yeah…I thought I killed him,” I said and remembered his dead and empty eyes, one of the few memories I hadn’t erased from my escape. “I guess he wasn’t all the way dead.”

“Alex isn’t here,” Mel pointed out and I shook my head at how wrong she was and how mad she was going to be that I fell for it. 

“Really? Are you sure?” Roland asked and looked right at me as a spotlight began to shine on John and I, followed by a large group of guards entering the room with rifles, all trained on us. 

I kept my eyes trained on one near the back that wasn’t moving as fast and sure enough when he finally got set up there was a rocket launcher on one shoulder. 

“John! We gotta move!” I called and jumped to the next catwalk as the guy shot the one we were one, John just barely managing to hop to mine before the other one fell. “Are you okay?” 

“Yeah, fine,” he muttered and rolled over, extending the shield as he went as the catwalk groaned. “Uh…is that?” 

“It’s gonna fall,” I said and bolted towards the next as he followed, the supports keeping the back half of the catwalk up, failing and causing me to fall backward. 

I barely had time to catch myself on the support rail but John wasn’t as lucky and missed by a mile since he was still trying to figure out the shield. My eyes widened in horror as he tumbled off the back and began to plummet to the ground, a fall he could survive thanks to the serum but the distance would kill him. We were at least thirty feet off the ground and John would be dead by the time he hit the floor if I didn’t think of something and fast. My one option that was coming to mind was to jump off myself, catch him in midair and teleport the two of us to safety but I could barely teleport myself. Though…he was dead regardless so I breathed out a ‘fuck it’ and ran forward, diving off the catwalk and slamming into him midair, activating my powers and praying they’d kick in. 

To my complete and utter surprise, they did and I blinked to find us sprawled across the floor as I clung to John’s chest like he was some kind of lifeboat, eyes wide that that even worked in the first place. The two of us were a bit bruised thanks to the impact but alive and drenched in smoke so thick it was nearly choking me. I jumped up and got rid of it before grabbing his hand and pulling him up before wrapping him in a hug, just to make sure that he was really alive and my stupid plan hadn’t backfired. 

“I’m okay,” John assured and pulled back, cupping my face in his hands with a smile. 

I was about to assure him that I was also fine when he got tased and went down hard as I teleported a second time about five feet to my right, narrowly missing my own taser and pulling out my gun. I shot the guy nearest me as soon as I materialised and he went down hard as I trained the gun on the next, loading another round and making sure to shoot if he or anyone else moved. 

I had to assume they were told to use non-lethal force but I had missed the memo and nailed a guy in the head when he stepped forward, a long electrified pole at the ready. Another swiped at me and I poofed off to the side, getting him in the leg when I came back as a second managed to slice me with a knife when I had my guard down. I cursed and turned, which was a mistake since another guy was ready and decked me in the face so hard I heard a crack from my nose and I went down hard. He kicked me in the ribs and I dropped the gun before letting out an oof and coughing up some blood in the process, looking at John who was being restrained. I tried to reach out and teleport to him but the same one that kicked me was quick to cuff my hands with not handcuffs per say, but a bracelet that shocked me when I even thought about using my powers. 

I cursed and admitted defeat, letting the guy drag me over to Roland as the guard attending to John did the same but kept us further apart, about ten feet based on the look on his face. Roland looked very happy with the arrangement and stepped forward, smiling at me but he reached out and slapped me across the face, reigniting the pain from my already very broken nose that needed more time to heal. I spat some blood on the floor as John cussed him out, nearly breaking his own arms as he tried, desperately to get out of the hold and the cuffs they had him in. 

“How are you alive?” I choked out and Roland smiled even bigger. 

“You missed,” he said and pulled down the collar of his sweater to reveal a bullet hole scar just above his heart. “I managed to survive…barely but Anton patched me up, moved me to Latvia and I’ve been continuing his work ever since.”

“Experimenting on children,” I guessed and could spot quite a few in the cages around us. 

“And others,” he agreed and I glared at him. “Don’t worry, they’ve been treated with respect and kindness, unlike you.” 

“Is Anton here?”

“No…another lie. He is planning something much bigger than this little facility but I’m sure he’ll be pleased to know you are back in his custody. 

“I was never in anyone’s custody,” I spat and Roland rolled his eyes. 

“Oh…I hate it when experiments assume they’re human, it makes things complicated,” he chided and nodded to a guard who held me tight before stabbing something into my neck and the world went a bit fuzzy. “Don’t worry Alex…we have to keep the American alive and also you. But when the mine is finished, he gets to watch you die, how romantic.”

I tried to struggle against the restraint but it was no use and noticed John had suffered a similar fate since he was now unconscious and being held up by his guards. I knew that we could get out of this, go find Anton and rescue Mel before she got herself killed but as for Roland…I was going to shoot him a second time…and this time I wouldn’t miss. 

***

I woke up in darkness and immediately knew that I was too far away from John…how…well the screaming was a pretty good indicator but our connection was also stronger and being far was making me sick as well. I flipped over on the small cot and grabbed a bucket that was probably put there deliberately before losing my lunch inside it and trying to keep myself from doing it again. It felt like my head was going to melt and a chuckle started from across from me before a light was flicked on and I spotted Roland, smiling at me. 

“Interesting, the American was right.”

“How far are we?” 

“Close to fourteen feet and you have been for a few hours. I’m assuming the headache is bad?” he guessed as I lost my lunch a second time and clutched my head, barely able to keep my eyes open. “I’d say yes.”

“We need to be closer,” I stuttered out, hating John’s screams even more than the pain in my head. “Please…”

“We like studying the distance,” Roland informed me and I glared, reaching out with my powers but I was in turn shocked and felt even worse. 

There was a large black band on my ankle that I had assumed was the source of the shock and grabbed it, trying to prevent it from stinging as he wrote something down on his clipboard. I wanted to kill him so bad it hurt but I also cared more about John and I had to make sure he was okay before I did anything too stupid. 

“Please…you’ll kill us both before your stupid experiment is complete and you know that Anton wouldn’t want that. Besides…I’ve threatened to escape before…and you need me alive.”

“You wouldn’t?” Roland asked, finally getting what I meant by escape.

“Anton will kill you if this fails, are you willing to bet your life on mine?” I asked and he stared at me for a long moment before letting out a loud sigh and leaving the room as I sat there, shaking. 

It was true…I had tried it a few times but those memories were lost with all the others and I didn’t like to think about how far I was willing to go to stop Anton, to get out of being his test subject. What I needed right now was a chance to escape, with John, and never, ever get anywhere close to this stupid facility or any other ever again. I didn’t care about stopping Anton or whatever plan he was concocting, I just wanted to keep John safe and knew that meant escaping to the states and trying to live a normal life. I’d tell John my plan when they brought him in and to my relief they did, dropping him on the floor by the door since the guy was still out of it from the pain. I took one look at him before running over, sliding to a stop next to John and reaching out for Roland, grabbing onto his waist as a way of thanking him. 

“Thank you.”

“Ugh…whatever,” he muttered and tried to knock me off but I held tight. 

“I mean it. That mine has been a blessing, I’ve really fallen in love with him and I want to spend our last bit of time together, while I still can.”

“Yeah…sure…enjoy,” he muttered and shoved me off him as I fell back, moving to sit next to John with a hand on his leg as Roland rolled his eyes before leaving us.

“Did you mean that?” John muttered and I glanced at him as he slowly managed to sit up, bruised and with dark bags under his eyes. 

“What?” 

“That you’ve fallen in love,” he said and I rolled my eyes, helping him to his feet and over to a small cot up against the far wall as John sagged into the mattress, looking terribly tired. 

“Yeah…I might’ve,” I muttered and laid back, feeling him pull me against him. “IT’s hard not to.”

“Really? I thought I was quite hard to get,” he shot back as I rolled over in his arms so I could look at him and run a hand through his dirty and bloodied blonde hair. 

“Who’s fault was that?” I shot back and he chuckled before reaching over and giving me a kiss. “Eh…it’s fine, we’re here now.”

“That we are…are you still just falling?” 

“Are you?” I asked and smiled when his cheeks started to turn red.

“No. I can’t be.”

“Me neither,” I muttered and leaned a bit forward, resting my head on his chest. “I think I love you, John Walker.”

“Right back at you, Alex Cross.” 

I chuckled and moved back despite his protests, looking under the bed to see if my master plan had worked and to my complete and utter shock, it had. I pulled out a small black case and unzipped it to find a pen-like device inside with two small prongs that fit perfectly into the small holes on the cuff on my ankle. I went to town on the cuff and it released on the first try, freeing my ankle that was a bit blistered from the shock but my powers could at least function and I became vaguely aware of the minds outside the door. 

“What is that?” John asked and I smiled, before holding up my foot. 

“It was on Roland but I teleported it.”

“You can do that?” 

“Nope. But it worked,” I said and smiled. “They didn’t block all my powers, teleportation is new, they wouldn’t have known about it so I thought I’d try and concentrate on the key for the cuffs and my powers did the rest.”

“So…we can get out of here?” he asked and I sighed, knowing it wouldn’t be easy and most of the guards outside the cell would have block or at least something like it.

“Sort of…” I muttered and paced, trying to think of a tactic that would work when my eyes focused on John and it was like a light bulb had gone off. 

“Uh oh…I don’t like that look,” he muttered and I grinned before taking a seat next to him on the bed, a wide smile on my face. 

“John…we’ve established I love you right?” I asked and he nodded. “Good…because…I want you to play dead.” 

His eyes widened and I didn’t blame him, it was an odd ask of him and a thought that might not work, the guards could be smarter than I gave them credit for. But John was also the most important thing in the world to them, they needed him alive and if they thought he had died…maybe they’d send a few guards to come in and check and we could…steal their outfits and get Mel out like it was a cake walk. 

Or we could die…but I had more hope for the first…at least I was pretty sure I did.

[zkylearnstherope]

AvGeometry [An Analysis]

Disclaimer: This is a very short Analysis for Animation vs. Geometry by Alan Becker. I am not a geometer, (according to Merriam-Webster, a person who specializes in geometry) this purely for fun.

First of all, I will NOT explain everything in the video. I will just focus on answering a few questions to which I found the answer for. I also have some conclusions at the end.

I will leave the in-depth explanations of everything to those YouTubers. Also, I have linked my sources using hyperlinks.

So, let's get into it- shall we?

Let's start with-

Which version of TSC is the main character for this one?

If you read my AvPhysics Analysis, you would realize that I named the TSC with the cowboy hat TSC_0 of Universe D.

Since the start of the AvGeometry video, I immediately realized that this is NOT the same guy from AvMath, since he didn't show signs of aggressiveness with phi Φ.

He's more curious versus the guy in AvMath who attacked Euler's Identity immediately. This is also the same guy who spawned in AvPhysics, TSC_0.

I think this MC is a TSC from a different Universe. I will call him TSC_0 of the AvG Universe.

Now you might ask yourself, why did I gave him the 0 designation?

Because the video ended with another TSC knocking at the point.

Now, you might argue, that this is not a perfect loop because there is a line below the point. While the start of the video, doesn't have that line.

You are right. Again, if you read my AvPhysics Analysis, I said that the TSCs in there are not stuck in a time loop.

It's just an infinite cycle that happens to different versions of them. Everyone spends only a short amount of time inside the singularity.

So the next TSC to arrive will not be TSC_0 but TSC_1.

How did TSC and phi Φ beat that Boss?

To start, let's define a few things. Click the hyperlinks to view my source.

Polyhedron - is any three-dimensional figure with flat faces that are polygons. They intersect at straight, linear edges. The edges themselves intersect at points called vertices.

Tetrakis Hexahedron - It is a Catalan Solid with 24 isosceles triangle faces and 14 vertices. It is the d24 die. It is also a 3-dimensional polyhedron, not 4D.

Now, first of all, the Boss is not 4D. It is two Tetrakis Hexahedrons overlapping each other and rotates at different speeds.

Platonic Solids - a convex polyhedron that is regular, in the sense of a regular polygon. These are also 3D shapes. There are Five Platonic Solids

Note that this not the original image from the website, but I rearranged the rows to highlight my points. I also added the dice names, incase you're more familiar with DnD.

In fighting the Boss, TSC and phi Φ started with lines that has 2 vertices or points. Then they slowly moved to the Platonic Solids, eventually defeating the Boss using a dodecahedron.

The Boss had 14 vertices vs the dodecahedron that had 20.

Now, I can't really say why more vertices is superior. It could be structural integrity, or the idea that the universe's topology and shape, references the shape of dodecahedron.

Or, that the golden ratio is the length from the vertex to the center of the dodecahedron, and is also the ratio of the diagonal of the pentagonal face as demonstrated in the video.

The Hyperdodecahedron and Singularity

Hyperdodecahedron aka 120-cell is the convex regular 4-polytope (four-dimensional analogue of a Platonic solid.) It is the 4-dimensional analogue of the regular dodecahedron. It has 720 pentagonal faces and 600 vertices.

It's basically 4D dodecahedron.

According to ChatGPT, in higher-dimensional geometry and theoretical physics, singularities often refer to points or regions where certain physical quantities become infinite or undefined.

Here's how I see it. If that yellow dot is indeed a singularity, the only explanation I could come up with, is at some point, the hyperdodecahedron's infinite insides would shrink to a single point in its 4-dimensional space.

Fractals

Now I think these are fractals by I cannot be sure. Also, I couldn't get a definite answer as to how fractals would be relevant to singularities.

What I got from ChatGPT were related to the event horizon instead.

That irregularities of the event horizon might have fractal patterns or exhibit fractal characteristics in its shape when examined at a different (smaller) scale.

The visual and structural complexity of the event horizon evoke fractal-like qualities.

Now, this Analysis is a lot shorter, and also inconclusive. I did try my best. My brain is now mush.

[axreliono]

an island lost at sea

Chris Feistl x Daniel Van Ness

For the @narcosfandomdiscord's monthlong event, ft prompt #16 from Book of Locally Sourced:

Fanwork that mimics a bottle episode, so the entirety of it takes place in a relatively mundane setting

Warnings: Language, mild mortal peril, incredibly light angst, set during S3 (specifically ep2)

Word count: 5.7k

A/N: This feels so silly but I absolutely had to write something for these two. Vanfeistl you will never leave my brain. Posting this at almost 3am so if it's bad... no it's not.

AO3 link:

- fic under the cut -

MINUTE -1

“Hey.”

It was far beyond the point at which Chris found he could still focus on his work. With the announcement earlier that everything was fucked and over before it had even started, it was a miracle he’d not walked out the door right then and there. Instead, he’d sat at his desk, mulling over Peña’s words for hours, trying to find reasoning, some kind of way out, any loophole, until everyone around him had left and taken the last of his hope with them.

“Hey.”

Everyone, that was, apart from Dan. Chris hadn’t told him what had happened. He was sure Dan would be over the moon at the news, which would only leave Chris to suffer alone. That was a worse fate than the one he’d landed himself in already, and so he had decided to say nothing, just silently packing away his things as fast as humanly possible, throwing open files and unlidded pens into his bag like his life depended on it.

“What are you doing?”

“Packing up. Going home.” Maybe in more than one sense. The job was done; what else was there to do? The Cali team was dissolved permanently. The career criminals they claimed to fight had won with nothing more than a handshake. Some deal. He slung his bag over his shoulder and bolted for the elevator, ready to be out of here and away, somewhere he could actually think.

Footsteps followed him across the empty office floor. The space was lit only with the dim glow of computer screensavers and lamps carelessly left on here and there.

“Hey, man, talk to me. You’re acting weird.”

Weird didn’t begin to cover it, but Chris kept his lips sealed shut, pressing the button and watching the numbers go up.

“Seriously.”

Chris whirled around to stare at him. “Seriously, back off.”

The elevator chimed and the doors opened. Chris stepped inside, expecting that to be the end, with Dan watching from the other side hesitantly. The doors started closing, peace almost in reach, only to be interrupted as Dan ducked in, the doors slamming shut behind him.

“What is your problem?” Chris hissed. He was too tired for this bullshit.

Before Dan could explain himself, the elevator juddered, leaving both of them stumbling. Then, it stopped dead. The two of them stood in silence, staring at each other, waiting for it to spring back to life and start moving again. Instead, the red light illuminating the buttons died.

Perfect.

MINUTE 1

Dan reached across and hit the bell button, and a piercingly loud alarm burst to life, filling the tiny metal box with its wailing.

“Why the fuck did you do that?” Chris asked, plugging his fingers into his ears.

“I panicked, okay?” Dan said, hitting it again. The sound didn’t stop. “Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do? To get someone to come and help us?”

“Okay, well, who in the office can save us?” Depending on the answer, they’d either be fine or utterly fucked.

Dan just stared at him, saying nothing. Chris mentally worked through the office, trying to remember who was actually around and only coming up with images of empty desks and logged out computers. Realization dawned on him slowly but surely, and his heart sank. Unless someone was in the toilets, or sitting in a side room with the lights off like some kind of freak, they were alone. Every other fucker had been sensible enough to leave on time, probably lured out by Duffy and Lopez’ promise of goodbye commiseration drinks. Which meant they were trapped in an elevator in an entirely empty office.

“Shit.”

Chris started banging on the doors, to no avail. Dan dug his fingers into the seam of the door, leaning back and straining as he tried to pull them open. They didn’t budge.

“Hey!” Chris yelled as loud as he could, but the sound was lost in the blaring of the alarm.

“I really don’t know if that’s the best solution to get us out of here,” Dan drawled, though the bite wasn’t as powerful as usual. He was hunched over the button pad, wincing as he scanned each one, as if there would be some magic opening code if he just looked closely enough.

“Like you’re doing better.”

Dan whirled around, looking incredulous. “This is your fault.”

“How is this my fault?! You must’ve fucked up the doors jumping in at the last second! Why are you even in here? You’ve never used this elevator in your life. Are you that desperate to piss me off?”

“Hey, fuck you, man.” Dan said, stepping away from the corner. “You’ve been in a bad mood for hours. Did you think I wouldn’t notice you spent three hours staring intensely at a blank document like you were trying to light it on fire with your mind? And tapping your pen like you were trying to bore a hole in the desk?”

“And so you follow me into an elevator?” Chris folded his arms.

Dan ran a hand over his face, sighing deeply. “Can we get the fuck out of here?”

Chris didn’t think so. They’d set off the alarm and nobody had come - not yet anyway. If there was anyone to come. Dan had tried the doors and stared at the instructions. Chris walked over, digging his nails into the gap on either side and pulling as hard as he could.

“I already tried that.”

Chris fell back, surprisingly out of breath. The doors didn’t even have a scratch mark, not a single sign that they’d been pried at, not moved at all from their original position, jammed solidly shut. Okay, so there was no way out of this shitbox metal cage they’d managed to trap themselves in. Fine. Surely there was another way out. Surely these elevators were designed for incidents like this. Maybe that panel on the roof…?

“I’m going to climb on your shoulders,” Chris said, rolling up his shirt sleeves. The hatch would likely have as little give as the doors, but it was better than wasting away in this stupid elevator until someone deigned to return to the office, likely tomorrow morning.

“The fuck you are.” Dan took a step back, looking at Chris like he’d grown an extra head.

“There might be a way out through the roof.”

“What, so we can scale the elevator cables like we’re spies in some action movie? We’ll still have to pry open a different set of jammed doors once we’re on the other side.” Dan looked Chris up and down in a way that suggested he did not believe they were getting up those cables. It would’ve been hurtful if it wasn’t true.

“We’re competent DEA agents. Surely we can work our way out of a trapped elevator.”

“Barely. And clearly not.”

Chris stared at him. His features were contorted into a hard, cold expression, not a single hint of hope mixed in with the despair he was trying so hard to conceal underneath. His hands had definitely started to shake, and despite his even tone, his words were getting harsher and more clipped with every minute that passed.

“You weren’t joking. You’re actually afraid of elevators.”

Dan didn’t meet his eyes this time.

“Oh my fucking god.”

Not only was he trapped in this elevator, he was trapped with someone potentially minutes away from a full-blown breakdown. The day just kept getting better and better.

“Are you fucking stupid? Why the fuck would you follow me in, then?” Chris snapped. He immediately felt guilty for how scathing his words sounded even to him, but everything felt like it was amplified ten times over in here, intensified by the fluorescent lights overhead and echoing off the mirrored walls. “You in love with me or something?”

A heavy silence fell over the two of them, punctuated only by the blaring of the alarm, persistent as ever.

“Actually fuck off,” Dan said, turning back to the keypad.

Chris watched as he pressed all the buttons in order, none of them reacting at all, nothing inside changing, and sunk to the floor. Maybe that was that. Maybe this was just his fate, the perfect cherry on top to an already shitty day. Dan eventually gave up, giving the keypad a final whack before joining him on the floor, curling in on himself in a ball.

“The elevator isn’t going to collapse in,” Chris said, though as soon as the words left his mouth, he wished he hadn’t said them. He had no real confirmation the universe wouldn’t immediately try to prove him wrong.

“And you know this how?”

Chris didn’t have an answer to that.

“You’re convincing yourself as much as you’re convincing me,” Dan said, a hint of smugness crossing his face, briefly extinguishing the fear.

“I am not,” Chris backed up. He wasn’t taking shit from a guy who chose to take stairs instead of the elevator every single day.

Dan just shrugged, shifting back into his corner. So he was perfectly able to cope when it came to jabbing at Chris, it seemed. “If we die in here, at least I’ll be able to say I told you so right before impact.”

Chris buried his head in his hands. This was going to be a long evening.

HOUR 1

The alarm died after an hour of assaulting both their ears, but with the near-deafening tinnitus that followed, it may as well have stayed on. All it meant was they were trapped in silence, and anybody who came into the office from this point forwards would never know they were in here. Chris had tried to think through every option, every possible outcome that could happen depending on what they decided to do from here, and came up with no better answers than to sit and wait. At the very worst, people would be in in the morning. Fucking with the mechanics anymore would only risk sending them to their deaths. So, with no feasible way out and his mind slowly dying off in the now silent, empty elevator, he started walking from end to end of the claustrophobically small box, bored out of his mind and succumbing to stress with every minute that passed. The elevator was exactly three and a half steps by five steps, he’d discovered. The numbers were now seared into his brain, not that they would help him at all.

“Please stop that.” Dan said quietly. He had his head resting against the wall of the elevator and his legs folded underneath him, as far as they’d go into the corner. It didn’t look anywhere approaching comfortable.

“Stop what?”

“Pacing.”

Chris stopped for a minute, and took a deep breath in, wooziness washing over him. He couldn’t be entirely sure he had been breathing properly at any point during the last hour. His reflection watched him from the mirror, already dishevelled and exhausted-looking. It could’ve been the harsh fluorescent lighting overhead, but Chris doubted it. He was wasting away in that office long before he walked in here. If he wanted to file reports and listen back to recordings all day, he may as well have been put on basement duty and locked away with all the evidence.

“Are you going to explain what the hell is up with you?” Dan said, pulling one of his knees up to his chest. “Or are you going to stand there all evening?”

“I’m quite enjoying standing,” Chris said, turning away from the mirror. “Getting my daily exercise in.”

“You could’ve got that easily if you’d taken the stairs,” Dan mumbled, furrowing his brows, but he no longer had the alarm to drown out his words and hide behind.

“Well, I didn’t, and for some reason, neither did you. So you better get used to the idea of sleeping here tonight.”

Dan was looking more and more weary with every second that passed. “You couldn’t pay me to fall asleep in here.”

Chris just sighed and turned back to pacing, unable to stop the nervous energy from rising up in him the second he gave it room to breathe. He didn’t like feeling helpless; his entire job was searching for answers and hunting them down until they came to fruition. In here, he had nowhere to go and nothing to work off. He wasn’t used to hearing his own thoughts. It had been a long time since he’d last let himself sit alone with them, and he was not about to start again now.

“Chris-”

The elevator suddenly let out a long, drawn-out creaking noise, almost a cry of pain. Both of them froze, eyes meeting each others’ in the split second before the elevator dropped suddenly, before jolting to a stop again. Chris let out an admittedly undignified scream, stumbling to grab onto the handrail as his stomach dropped from beneath him. He missed and tripped forwards, barrelling into Dan, both of them crashing into the wall and causing the entire box to shake. Chris looked up at Dan, their faces much closer than was comfortable. He’d gone white as a sheet, one arm grabbing onto the handrail as tightly as possible, the other curled protectively around Chris’ torso. Chris could feel his face heating up with every second that they were in contact, but he couldn’t bring himself to move in case the entire elevator collapsed under him.

“Oh fuck,” He whispered, heart jumping into his throat. Trust them to get themselves into this shit. “Oh shit.”

“I don’t want to die in this shitty evil metal box with you,” Dan said simply, voice quivering. “This is not what I had in mind.”

“Is my company that terrible?” Chris joked, but it fell flat in the silence between them and in the shaking of his own voice. There was only so much bravado could do to salvage a situation like this, after all.

“Can you be serious for one second? Just because you’re being pissy about this stupid Cali decision doesn’t mean we’re free to die in this elevator.” He shook his head, squeezing his eyes shut as if the conversation was physically paining him. “Jesus christ.”

Chris stared at him. So he knew all along and said nothing? Acted like it was all fine and to be expected, and that this wasn’t the blow of a century, the humiliation of the entire department that hot on the heels of such a big success with Escobar, they were giving up on Cali over nothing?

“You might not get it because your biggest ambition in life is paperwork and your own comfort,” he snapped, tearing himself out from Dan’s hold and backing away, “but I don’t know how to stand back and watch as the biggest cartel in the world hands over the keys for nothing more than a slap on the wrist when everything I’ve worked towards for years now, trying to painstakingly take them down, gets burned to cinders in an instant.”

Dan didn’t say anything in response, staring him down with that slightly pained expression of his, which told Chris nothing more than he’d just let his stupid big mouth run away with itself. The elevator creaked in agreement.

“My life isn’t over,” Chris clarified, turning away to look back in the mirror, more so convincing himself than Dan at this point. “I care about more than just this stupid job.”

“Sit down before you bring the entire floor down with you,” Dan said quietly.

Chris had the sinking feeling he’d crossed a line somewhere along the way, but he didn’t know when or how to even begin to fix it, so he just sat down in the far corner in silence, resulting to tapping his hands against his knees instead of pacing, in case he really did bring about their untimely deaths.

“Do you have to do that?” Dan watched Chris’ hands, frowning deeply.

“You get to pick one; the pacing or this.”

Dan sighed, like maybe. “Fine.”

Not sure where he went wrong, and still waiting for the inevitable moment that the elevator came crashing down around them, he kept tapping like their fates depended on it.

HOUR 2

“Can you please stop announcing every hour that passes?” Dan gritted out, burying his head in his knees. “This situation is depressing enough as it is.”

Chris shrugged. “It’s like keeping tally marks in prison. Gotta keep my eyes on the prize.”

“There are no prizes for dragging out every godforsaken minute in this place.”

Chris turned to him. It had been almost a full hour since the elevator last made a noise, and they had yet to fall through the floor and splatter across the reception floor, but they had equally not got any further along in getting out of here. He was really starting to doubt that anyone was ever coming back to the office, and had now got to the stage of truly wondering if the universe was personally conspiring against them specifically.

“You never answered me earlier,” he started. Dan looked up with a quizzical expression. “The piss question.”

The other man’s face went suddenly slack with horror. “Please tell me you’re not about to piss right now.”

Chris tried and failed to stifle a laugh. “I’m not. You just never gave me your answer, and now it’s actually pertinent.”

Dan looked defeated. He shuffled forwards, bringing his knees away from his chest. “There is never a socially acceptable time to piss in a trapped elevator.”

“Even if you got in to go to a bathroom on another level? Even if we’re stuck in here for 6 hours?”

“This is why I don’t take the elevator,” Dan muttered to himself.

“To avoid philosophical conundrums?” Chris pulled a face. Dan tried to reach across the elevator to swat at him, but missed by a few centimeters, instead just throwing his arm across the room. “Look, what else is there to talk about in here?”

“I already tried asking you things,” Dan said simply, withdrawing back into his corner. “Instead, you choose to talk about this.”

Chris sighed. He still hadn’t worked his way up to any kind of apology, but the air between them had cleared a bit in the last hour, probably helped along by the knowledge that they weren’t seconds away from perishing in here.

“You knew why I’d been acting off,” Chris’ tapping got louder and more desperate, echoing off the metal walls. “One minor screw-up, not even close to the shit that went down with Escobar, and it’s over. Why even hang around here? We may as well pack up and go home if we’re going to let them pick their own punishment. I don’t get it. No matter how many times I’ve raked over it, I can’t understand why they’d pick this of all the options.”

Dan was watching him with one of those indecipherable looks of his again, somewhere between concern and pity. Chris wasn’t sure he liked it. It made his skin itch.

“They agreed a surrender deal with the Colombian government. There’s nothing we can do to interfere with that.”

“They’re some of the most powerful figures in Colombia. Don’t act like they don’t have all the connections needed to force their way out of this mess entirely unfairly but entirely unscathed.”

Dan ran a hand through his hair, some of the dark strands coming loose and hanging over his forehead. He looked so different in here, in the dim light, blazer abandoned and tie hanging loosely around his neck. More like the man he’d caught glimpses of in the corners of dark bars and rowdy office parties, more like the man he was always trying to provoke out of that impenetrable shell of his. The atmosphere between them was always shifting; it was hard to pinpoint where it would go next when the ground beneath their feet had never quite been steady. They never talked about it, of course, but “back to normal” felt less like the truth every time it happened. Everything managed to lead to something new with them. The prospect usually excited Chris, but here, trapped in this lift with no way out and no next step in sight, it terrified him.

“I’m not happy either,” Dan said simply. “I do give a shit, you know? This is just as much of a blow to me as it is to you. You know the last thing I want is to be sent home, let alone empty-handed. But what do we do? I’m not going to meddle with an entire government. We don’t have the same power as the CIA.”

Chris snorted. “The DEA always gets their slice of the pie, too, you know.”

“So maybe we will this time, too. But my point stands; that isn’t up to us two. We’re nobodies.”

Chris knew he was right. He wasn’t in any position to make decisions like that; he was barely more than an admin lackey at this point. He might’ve been a respected detective in Arizona, but here, he didn’t even have a partner, let alone enough power to oversee these kinds of decisions.

“They’re not even going to have their businesses confiscated,” Chris said quietly. “I can understand them not wanting a repeat situation of Escobar, but Cali pales in comparison to the shit he got up to. Why give them so much?”

“Quiet doesn’t mean dormant,” Dan warned. “They keep a lot under wraps, I’m sure. Doesn’t mean people don’t suffer, definitely doesn’t mean people wouldn’t suffer if they were provoked.”

Chris shifted around, turning to the wall and trying to picture the pinboard in the office splayed across the room. “Gilberto owns enough legitimate businesses to get into bed with politicians. That’s his entire social circle. One of them has got to be involved.”

“Do we know anyone specific? Anyone connected to higher government?”

Chris shook his head. He couldn’t visualize the whole board. “Not without the files.”

“Well, funnily enough, I don’t have them. So now what?”

Chris opened his bags. He’d just sort of thrown things into it in a huff. There were a few files, a few loose sheets that had slipped out of them, too. Mainly the financial stuff Eddie had faxed over after Cornerstone. But maybe, deep within encoded transactions and offshore accounts, there was something, one name or company or link that’d expose the entire thing. Fuck Peña and his instant dismissal. There was something here, Chris just knew it. He just had to find it. He spread the files across the floor, crawling between them on his hands and knees in case the entire thing came falling down.

“Some office,” Dan joked, watching but not making a move to get involved.

“It genuinely isn’t half bad. Get me some tape and some red string, and we’d be set. It’d be quieter than the main office.”

Dan quirked up a single eyebrow. “Not to mention how tiny it is in here, the lack of computers, the fact that we can’t get out and the ever-looming threat of falling two stories.”

Chris couldn’t say much in response to that. “Okay, fine. Fair point.”

It wasn’t the best setup, that much was true, but it was a distraction from his wandering mind, and a welcome one at that. Another hour in silence would kill him off, and he was already starting to feel the effects. Dan shuffled over to him, turning to try and read the files before sitting himself down next to Chris and reaching across to help him unpack the files. Just like that, the last of the tension in the air was gone, both of them wordlessly sorting through the paperwork he’d abandoned as useless earlier in the afternoon, positioning banks together into stacks, handing each other papers of interest, all with a silent agreement and occasional one-word clarifiers or accidental brushes of their hands, moving in perfect synchronicity. The files slowly emptied, dispersed across the floor, forming a mosaic of evidence, but it still didn’t add up. Without more information, without feet on the ground and eyes in the sky tracking when, where and how they were getting all this through, it was useless. No matter how they pieced this together on the elevator floor, no matter the order or the theories, it wouldn’t change the course of events, and the intel would sink to the bottom of a drawer somewhere to gather dust.

Chris bashed his fist into the side of the elevator. Dan only had time to shoot him a concerned look before the elevator juddered, making an ear-splitting creaking noise.

“Chris…” Dan warned, backing up very slowly.

Chris was immediately back in his own corner, hugging his body against the metal walls as tightly as he could. “…Sorry?”

Dan was clinging to the handrail so hard, his knuckles were turning white. “Please, please just sit back down.”

Chris mushed all the files into one big, messy pile, sheepishly shoving them back in his bag before carefully inching back down into a sitting position again. So much for that. They were no further ahead and only closer to an untimely death. What a waste of time.

“Look, you’re not wrong to be doing this,” Dan said. It was uncanny how much he seemed to be able to read Chris’ mind nowadays. Chris wasn’t sure how to feel about it yet. He wasn’t used to being an open book - most people saw him as a noisy but ultimately empty vessel, and that wasn’t such a bad thing as far as he saw it. “This data is useful. We can keep track of the accounts from the office just fine.”

“But what’s the use of that without people to pin actual crimes on? They’re just a bunch of numbers.” Chris buried his head in his hands. He was tired of this shit now. He just wanted to be home, where he could sleep off the terrible day and try again tomorrow.

“All we need to do is find one case. One example of laundering, drug money going through a legitimate business,” Dan explained. “Catching just one of the four leaders in breach of their deal could send the entire thing up in flames.”

Chris froze. He slowly lifted his head to meet Dan’s unwavering gaze. He didn’t seem at all rocked by this information.

“What?”

“They have to cease all illegal operations, right?” He gestured to the file poking out of Chris’ bag. “Maybe it’ll be harder to catch them doing that on the ground, what with their airtight security and eyes everywhere, but we find one dodgy transaction from the comfort of our computers, and we have all the ammunition we need to start the manhunt again.”

It took all of Chris’ energy not to jump up to his feet right there and then. “Laundering in Panama, undeclared offshores in Gibraltar…”

“Financial crimes are still crimes.”

Chris couldn’t stop himself from grinning. They’d found it. A key out of this clusterfuck. Sure, it relied on a lot of luck and good fortune that never seemed to be on their side, but it was something.

“See?” Dan flashed him a smug kind of half-grin. “Not worth throwing your shit around over, after all.”

“Oh, fuck off.” Chris felt a little breathless at the prospect. “We have to get the hell out of here.”

“Well, yes, hasn’t that been your aim from the start…?” Dan started, but Chris was already rising slowly to his feet and tiptoeing as gently as he could towards the door. “What are you doing?”

“Getting us out of here.”

Dan backed up into his corner again. “Absolutely not. You’ve got us into enough shit in this death box already. Get away from those!”

Chris was trying to pry open the doors again, with just as little success as the first time around. “Get up and help me.”

“And if you send us falling to the ground?”

Chris shrugged. “I’ll buy you a nice headstone.”

Dan looked at him for a second, face crinkled up in distaste, before he eventually pulled himself up using the handrail, looking far beyond disappointed. “You won’t be alive to buy me one, asshole.”

Chris rifled through his bag. Surely there was something in there that could pry these doors open. A particularly thin pen? A stray mouse mat? Anything? His search was cut short, though, as Dan brandished something shiny in front of his face. Chris backed up to take it in. A shoehorn, in all its metal glory.

“Why do you own a shoehorn?” Chris said, excitement causing him to immediately bypass the ‘thank you, I owe you my life’ or the ‘how did you know exactly what I needed?’ . Dan rolled his eyes.

“Do you want it or not?”

Chris took it, slotting it between the doors. “Grab the scissors from my bag. We’ll need some kind of counter action, right? Torsion or some shit?”

“Stop pretending you have any idea about physics.” Dan reached in. “These are going to snap instantly.”

Chris just waved him over. “You get the top of the door.”

Dan sighed, positioning himself on the other side of where Chris was crouched and reaching up to jam the scissor blades into the gap, his arm digging into Chris’. God, this elevator was far too small.

“On three.”

“This won’t work.”

“Two. One. Now.”

Both of them strained against the doors, the elevator rattling as they pulled at them. There was a non-zero chance this sent them both on a quick trip down to the first floor at full speed, but Chris was just about ready to lose it. It was about time they got the fuck out of here. The doors creaked and strained, small dents in the metal appearing but no real gap appearing between them. It looked like it wasn’t going to work. After all that, they might actually be stuck here overnight.

Suddenly, the shoehorn in his hand started bending, and the smallest gap, only a centimeter at maximum width, opened up. Chris reached into his bag with his free hand and jammed it with a fountain pen, then moved around to start prying it open with his fingers.

“It’s going to crush your hand, you fucking idiot,” Dan yelled, grabbing the shoehorn and placing it right under the scissors, pulling the other door away from Chris’ fingers until he was red in the face. The doors kept denting, not moving any further, until they suddenly flew open, throwing both of them into the walls at the side before the entire box shifted down again before jolting to a stop.

Chris stared at Dan, gasping for breath and dizzy. Dan looked no better off, eyes squeezed shut and sweat beading on his forehead. Chris dared to roll over and peer out of the newly opened door, waiting to be met with the dark inside of the elevator shaft, and instead staring out onto the reception. He looked down. They were maybe three inches above the ground at most.

“Dan…”

Dan slowly opened his eyes, then quickly darted forwards to take in the scene. “You’re fucking joking me.”

The day wasn’t done with them yet, though. Before either of them could say another word, none other than Stoddard walked right through the front door, humming to himself, only pausing when he saw them sprawled across the floor of the lift, both staring up at him.

“Hi?” He said, looking them up and down.

“Hello.” Dan said, as if everything was completely normal. Chris could barely bring himself to grunt a greeting.

“Are you guys… okay?”

Chris nodded, letting his head collapse to the floor. “Yeah, yeah man. So fine.”

Stoddard just stood there, still staring at them. Chris just wished he’d fuck off already, but he didn’t have the energy to say that. Instead, he forced himself to his feet, dusted himself off and stepped out onto solid ground. He’d never really valued fresh air quite as much as he did now, inhaling like it was his first breath in 26 years. Dan followed him out, looking about as frazzled as he felt.

“I… gotta go pick up some files.” Stoddard said slowly, still watching the two of them suspiciously.

“Party over?” Chris asked.

He shook his head. “I’m just going home.” He stared at the lift expectantly, then back at Chris and Dan where they stood in front of the doors. Chris could have explained what had happened over the last two or so hours to him, to warn him off the inevitable failure he was about to experience, but in his exhausted, elevator-fevered brain, he just stepped out of the way.

“After you.”

Stoddard shot him a final, poorly-concealed, concerned look before stepping around him and up into the lift, dented doors and all. Chris wasn’t sure whether he was just unobservant or if he truly did not care anymore. He couldn’t bring himself to care, either. He turned to Dan.

“So? Shall we get started?”

Dan was watching some unfixed spot on the horizon, clearly in a world of his own. Chris jabbed him in the ribs, and he jumped, finally making eye contact.

“Yeah, alright. But we are taking the stairs this time.”

Chris took one last look at the lift as the doors inched shut behind Stoddard, wobbling the whole time. “Obviously. I’m never getting in that piece of crap again.”

“I’ve been telling you this all along,” Dan said, lips quirking up at the corner.

“Well, I’m sorry, okay? Stairs stay on top. I’m sorry I ever doubted you. Is that what you want to hear?”

Dan’s mouth quivered as he clearly tried to repress a smile. He nudged Chris in the arm, though not with enough force to be convincing. “Ass. Come on, then.”

They headed towards the stairs, climbing up them like their entire futures depended on it - because maybe they did - as the distant sound of a familiar alarm ringing to life followed them up.

DAY 0

[djgamek1ng]

Magic The Gathering x Final Fantasy - Spoiler Season Part 19 (13/05/2025)

Holy hell. I can finally move on to the 13th of May... and I don't have to split this into multiple parts. I... I have been liberated. Anyway, let's get to talking about cards! :D Also, I'm using the official image gallery as the source of the cards. If a version isn't posted on there, I won't post it on here. If it gets updated, I might come back to these posts if there is room to put them in.

Let's first start with the main set cards, beginning with Ultima, Origin of Oblivion!

Colorless for Ultima makes perfect sense, seeing as his creation magic is the reason why the Blight exists and is draining the land from aether.

5 mana for a 4/4 is below rate, but you'll generally be fine. Flying helps with evasion. His abilities are:

Whenever Ultima attacks, put a blight counter on target land. For as long as that land has a blight counter on it, it loses all land types and abilities and has "tap: add 1 colorless mana." So... land denial? You can use this if you see someone is strapped for a specific pip of mana to turn it into colorless mana. You can also use this on your own lands, which we'll get to in the next ability. Genuinely a pretty good ability, however, it does make Ultima the threat generally when he comes down.

Whenever you tap a land for colorless mana, add an additional colorless mana. So this makes it so any lands of your own you put blight counters on essentially become Sol Rings. Incentive to not mess other people up or at least work on your own board state to be ramping.

So this guy is the reason why we have a Wastes reprint in Standard. Also, yeah, this guy can be pretty rough to deal with. However, it should be noted, for commander, if you run him as your commander, you can only use things with colorless color identity, which is gonna be pretty difficult. You can slot him into any other deck though as some land denial and/or ramp.

For 60 card formats... 5 mana is expensive and he doesn't do anything on the turn he comes down. I'd probably avoid him, though if you are playing in a slower format, he could work.

Now for the art. Credit to Russell Lu. I did not find any accounts they might have. I did find someone called Russell Dongjun Lu, but he has a separate credit on Kain, Traitorous Dragoon, so I cannot confirm whether this is the same person, especially since Russell Dongjun Lu doesn't post as much. This sure looks like Ultima from FF16, which is just a good thing. Good job o/

As for the alternative art:

Credit to Ono Tako. Link to their Twitter. I love this posing. It is so weird. One arm up, two crossed and one arm down makes for such an interesting visual. Aside from that, not much to say, it is just a solid depiction of Ultima in FF16.

Now we move on to The Prima Vista!

5 mana for a 5/3 flyer is below rate, but not too terribly so. 5 power will punch through a lot. Flying too, so it is evasive and a crew of 2, so not too bad to crew... but we can fix this in a different way. Its ability is that whenever you cast a noncreature spell, if at least four mana was spent to cast it, The Prima Vista becomes an artifact creature until end of turn. So you can use this in a spellslinger deck that cares about bigger noncreature spells and casting them at full (or slightly discounted if they are 5 mana or more) rate to pump the Prima Vista into action.

Now to the art. Credit to Leon Tukker (fellow Dutchie, let's gooo). Link to his Facebook (nevermind, I take back my "let's gooo"). Honestly stunning, very nice to look at. Great details, beautiful color choices and the Prima Vista in the middle of it all, being the flying theater airship that it is. Fantastic!

Let's head to take a look at Namazu Trader!

I usually don't talk about where spoilers come from, but I feel like I have to, to explain how insane it is. This spoiler came from a Discord called Fisherman's Horizon. That is a Discord group dedicated to FF14's Fisher job. The freaking FSH mains got an MTG spoiler. Now, I'm not saying that I'm ready to accept our new overlords... but I'm certainly saying that FSH mains are the strongest FFXIV players and it isn't even close.

Anyway, on to the card itself. 4 mana for a 3/4 is a bit below rate, but nothing too terrible. Right on the 3 threshold for power and over it for toughness. Its abilities are:

When this creature enters, you lose 1 life and you create a Treasure token (can be tapped and sacrificed for any 1 colored mana). Solid ETB effect, means that this thing has value outside of being a body turn 1.

Whenever this creature attacks, you may sacrifice another creature or artifact. If you do, surveil 2 (look at the top 2 cards of your library, either keep them on top in any order or put them in the graveyard). Also good, but it does go to show that these things aren't loyal... at all. However, there is benefit in disloyalty, yes yes!

Honestly, a pretty sweet common. Use it for surveil heavy decks that also need ways to sacrifice creatures and you'll be surprised that this thing can pull some weight. It is never gonna be the star of the show, but it can and will be surprisingly able to take some things out and fill your graveyard.

Now for the art. Credit to Andrea Tentori Montalto. Link to his ArtStation. That sure is a Namazu! Honestly, I really love this art. It's very charming and great. Even shows how kind of dead on the inside Namazu look, though still weirdly charming in that aspect. Great! :D

And now we get to Zidane, Tantalus Thief and my current most interested card in the main set!

Yup, Boros makes perfect sense for Zidane. He's heroic, but impulsive. Relatively chaotic, but relatively orderly. Yeah, Boros is great.

For the card itself. 5 mana for a 3/3 is below rate, full stop and he doesn't grow from his own. That's not great. His abilities are:

When Zidane enters, gain control of target creature an opponent controls until end of turn. Untap it. It gains lifelink and haste until end of turn. So a threaten effect, where you temporarily steal a creature of an opponent. Damn, that's pretty cool. Also, them gaining lifelink makes me think this has to be about him kidnapping Garnet in mission of Cid.

Whenever an opponent gains control of a permanent from you, you create a Treasure token. So you get Treasure (money) from giving an opponent a permanent you control (probably kidnapped with his first ability). Cool, so there is incentive for you to not immediately put them into the blender and sacrifice them for a benefit. However, that is still a great option.

Pretty nifty uncommon. Certainly weird to build around, being both threaten and Treasure focused. For commander, maybe you build him around blink, so you can retrigger his effect over and over. He's probably gonna be better in the 99 of a deck, but I think he will be interesting as a commander.

For 60 card formats... if you get to 5 mana, he can swing the game around by stealing an important creature and hitting you on the face with it. I don't think he will be super popular, but as a sideboard piece, potentially.

Now for the art. Credit to EIJI KANEDA. Link to their Twitter. This is so charming. Zidane running away with some stolen treasure, big smile on his face. Absolutely just fantastic, 10/10 no notes.

As for the alternative art:

Credit to CANATA KATANA. Link to their website. That sure is a pretty anime Zidane. Not much to say, it just looks good. He does look a little more grown up than I'm used to, but that's not a bad thing.

Now we're getting to the starter kit exclusive cards that are officially revealed, so I'm gonna be copy pasting my thoughts for the most part on these cards, though adding and taking away things I now think or no longer think. Also excuse that the format was not as refined at that point (I say, as if it has been years, while it's been a month and a bit). Let's get to Beatrix, Loyal General!

As with all the cards that were from the starter kit, I will just copy and paste my thoughts I had in the posts covering them, adding to them where needed.

BEATRIXBEATRIXBEATRIXBEATRIXBEATRIXBEATRIXBEATRIXBEATRIXBEATRIXBEA-

Ahem I mean, hell yeah, Beatrix! I'm so happy to see her represented at all! White also makes perfect sense for her, though I definitely would've had her be multicolored. If she gets a version in the main set, either Red/White or White/Black would work for her. It mainly depends on which part of her character arc they are going for.

As for the card... this is a tough one. 6 mana for a 4/4 is pretty bad, even with Vigilance. However, that effect is huge and sets Beatrix as an equipment voltron commander, though it isn't an unique effect. Ardenn also has it and is way cheaper and gets partner as a mechanic. Now, similar to how I discussed Cloud, Planet's Champion, this has draw backs and unlike Cloud, Beatrix has no way to protect herself innately at all.However, unlike Cloud, she cheats EVERY equip cost on the battlefield at the start of every single combat phase on your turn. I think she will have higher highs and lower lows compared to Cloud. If you can get her out for a turn or are able to somehow give her haste in mono white (probably via an equipment), depending on how much equipment you have on the battlefield, she might just instantly kill someone. On the flipside, she will definitely be a target for counterspells the second you cast her or removal right before you can go equip her and protect her. You will need to run your own protection to make sure she can even swing once. Plus, depending on how scared people are of you, they might just swing for you very early so you would want a cheaper blocker or two. That is where the job select equipment comes in handy with the tokens they make, at least.

With all that said, it may surprise you dear reader, but this is my most hyped card in the starter kit and I will definitely either snag this card separately or get the starter kit at some point, since I want her so bad. The starter kit is also a good way to explain the game to friends, so might do that.

Now for the art. Credit to Bachzim. Link to their ArtStation. This seems to depict Beatrix during the Battle of Alexandria, but her flavor text is from the first time we encounter her (she says this to a Burmecian knight). Very weird, but the art is pretty solid. The twin drills going down is interesting. Also, that isn't Save the Queen. It sure looks like it, but the blade being that big and never denting in towards the second and third crystals in it... yeah, that sure isn't Save the Queen. Pretty good art though, I actually appreciate the more realistic style to show how Beatrix is tough!

Up next we have Rosa, Resolute White Mage!

Rosa from FF4. I'll just immediately thrown in the prediction that I don't think she will get another card in the main set, since there really isn't much to Rosa in FF4 to make multiple versions of. That aside, White makes perfect sense with her being a White Mage and just with her general personality.

As a card, not too bad. 4 mana for a 2/3 with reach isn't great, but seeing as she will keep buffing someone, potentially even herself, at every combat with a +1/+1 counter and temporary lifelink? Actually a solid card. Not sure how well she will do as a commander, but I don't think she will be too bad for a +1/+1 counters deck. Also works great in the 99 in such a deck.

Now for the art. Credit to Christian Angel. Link to their ArtStation. Christian Angel's realistic artstyle returns and I don't hate it for Rosa, it is just a bit unexpected. Definitely quite a muted color scheme, but it looks nice.

Next up: Ultimecia, Temporal Threat!

Definitely figured Ultimecia would be Dimir colors, but she will 100% have another card in the main set, so putting that aside (I was dead on with this one): great flavor win. ETB effect of tapping all creatures your opponents control is a great effect to simulate her power over time itself. The fact that she gives you cards whenever a creature you control deals combat damage to an opponent is also nice, but honestly not sure how it relates to her as a character. It is typical Blue thing though, so no shame in that.

(All new words since I basically didn't cover her in the starter deck leak oh my god) Could be pretty great for an evasive mono Blue deck, since she does generate a whole bunch of value from creatures hitting a player. 6 mana is expensive though, so you don't want her to be removed too much. Also, only a 4/4 body for 6 mana isn't great. Bring protection and be prepared to have her enter once before the game is done and the second time when you are about to win the game if she's your commander. Otherwise, she is a wincon due to her first ability. Probably too slow for 60 card decks, 6 mana is super expensive in much faster formats.

Now for the art. Credit to Bachzim. Link to their ArtStation. That sure is Ultimecia. Looks good, not much to say about the art otherwise.

Let's get to Seymour Flux!

This one I'm not sure about the flavor, since I've not played FFX up until this point, but Black seems pretty good. Anyway, cool card. As your commander, he does give a lot of guaranteed card draw, just have to keep up with the life loss and can become a threat on his own. Only really need to give him some evasion and then he can be scary. 5 mana is also not too bad, though rough when he gets removed for the second time.

(Oh my god, I did Sephiroth's side so dirty. I really only barely did the minimum for this one.)

Now for the art. Credit to K-SUWABE. Link to their pixiv. I gotta say, I love this artstyle for Seymour Flux, looks great. Disgusting, yet weirdly regal when you look at the man in the middle. Great!

Next up, Deadly Embrace!

I... have literally 0 clue about FF16 (slightly more now), but a good removal spell that is at minimum a cantrip effect and can be card positive depending on how much death has happened. Works great for sacrifice and reanimation based decks, since you can sacrifice a bunch of smaller goobers, throw this out to destroy the scary thing on your opponent's board and get a boatload of cards. 5 mana is on the more expensive side and sorcery speed isn't great, but it can still be pretty decent.

Now for the art. Credit to Lius Lasahido. Link to their Instagram. That is Benedikta Harman in her... semi-primed? form coming to give you a very tight (and deadly) hug :) Anyway, looks pretty sweet!

Let's go over Lightning, Security Sergeant next!

The first second version of Lightning we get to see the rules of. We know she has another version in the main set due to it being promoted on the main website of the set, which will be called "Lightning, Army of One." Color wise, Red makes sense, though I suspect the main set Lightning will be Red/Blue. That makes the most sense to me for her personality. She's Red/White and I don't really recall why I thought she would be Red/Blue, so uh... yeah.

As for the card, not too bad. 3 mana for a 2/3 with menace is solid and the fact that she is able to steal cards from your opponents is nice. The only thing she is missing is an effect akin to "You may spend mana as though it were mana of any color to cast those spells," though I suppose this also makes you want to run ways to generate treasure to be able to cast some of the spells you nab, which is also good for ramping. Solid card, just needs a bit of deck support to truly shine. Harder to make work in 60 card formats though.

Now for the art. Credit to Ramza Psyru/Ramza Ardyputra. Link to their ArtStation. That sure is Lightning pointing her gunblade at our general direct. Not much to say, that sure is Lightning.

Next up: Judgement Bolt!

Interesting card. Potential finisher, depending on how many equipment you control. The targeted removal is always nice, though keep in mind that the entire spell fizzles if the target creature somehow doesn't become targetable anymore. 4 mana is a bit steep, but at instant speed it does become a potential threat.

Now for the art. Credit to Billy Christian. Link to his ArtStation. Cidolfus looking to punch someone in an electrifying way. Yup, not much to say other than it looks on point and the effects are nice!

Last of the creatures: Xande, Dark Mage!

No real idea of Xande outside of FFXIV for color identity, but this could be an interesting voltron commander and a good evasive creature for other formats. Menace and the potential to grow with every noncreature and nonland card in your graveyard can make this a huge, potentially game ending, drop towards the later game. 4 mana isn't too shabby and in spellslinging decks, this will be bigger than you'd might expect by the time you drop it to start ending the game.

Now for the art. Credit to Joseph Weston. Link to their ArtStation. Neat, that sure is Xande! Honestly, good angle to make him look more menacing. Nice!

Second to last card, Magitek Scythe!

A TEST OF YOUR REFLEXES! Super dope card that makes perfect sense for the weapon. I do wish it either got first strike or "must be blocked if able" passively all the time, since it is just a +2/+1 equipment aside from the very first turn unless you are able to blink it. It's not too bad, just a bit unfortunate. It will still see play in equipment decks, but certainly not as a must have equipment. If it had flash, could've been a neat combat trick.

Now for the art. Credit to Thanh Tuan. Link to their ArtStation. Zenos at the edge of the universe coming to fight the Warrior of Light. He is looking on point and so is his scythe and the magical effects. Very nice!

Last but not least, Ultima Weapon!

Last, but certainly not least, the most finishing finisher card in the deck (potentially in both decks): Ultima Weapon from FF7. This card's cost is huge if you don't cheat it somehow. 7 to be put on the battlefield and another 7 to be equipped, a total of 14 mana. However, the reward is also huge. +7/+7 to an equipped creature and a destroy effect to target creature when attacking is huge. I don't think card is great honestly, because this is some of the most blatant "please remove me" bait I've ever seen. Definitely a Timmy card and the Timmy in me likes it, but I just don't think it is gonna be great. For example, this would be my target for White Auracite if I played against this.

Now for the art. Credit to Fariba Khamesh. Link to their ArtStation. That sure is Cloud with the Ultima Weapon. Looks nice. Don't know what is happening in the background. Cool!

That's it, that's the cards revealed on the 13th of May! Thanks for reading and have a nice day o/

[nofuneralplease]

Awhile ago on Twitter I saw a peterick manip that I had a lot of fun pulling apart, and part of the fun is that I found out there was some pretty interesting history behind it. In the spirit of trying to use this blog more and being able to write a whole lot more over here I wanted to go into the whole thing in more detail.

Behold! If you're familiar with the Olde Internet and making horribly filtered graphics- things of this nature are very easy to identify. But since I see a lot of people both younger and older than me not spotting it, here's some tips. Different quality of images, different or nonsense light sources, etc. If it seems to good to be true, honey, it probably is- or whatever! But where did these images come from?

This photo is a composite of Patrick Stump (with Albert Maysles) at the CosmoGIRL! Born to Lead Awards on Nov 13, 2007 and Pete Wentz (with Ashlee Simpson) at Clive Davis' Pre-Grammy Party on Feb 9, 2008. Here are both the original images and it overlaid at 40% opacity. I'm not still entirely convinced I found a photo of the right angle of the Pete and Ashlee kiss, but it has to be the same event.

Pete was the easiest to date his look and find. The hair length, the "adventurous" hat, the blazer- it all feels pretty typical of that era and his many photo ops with his now ex-wife. I was able to immediately find it by looking for images of Pete and Ashlee at events from 2008, but I wouldn't have needed that much precision to find it...

(See them peeking out from the bottom of this screenshot of the Google results for "Ashlee Simpson Pete Wentz Kiss")

Finding Patrick Stump however took atleast an hour because I had so much confidence his look was from early 2008. Jokes on me! On top of the event being pretty unknown it was actually from late 2007 and now I've seen so many photos of Patrick from those two years I can date specific haircuts down to the week. I'm deeply unhappy about this development.

Now someone might be asking: why the fuck was Albert Maysles hanging out with Fall Out Boy?

If you aren't familiar with the late Albert Maysles he was an American documentary filmmaker best known for the films he made with his brother David. Famously the Rolling Stones documentary Gimme Shelter (1970) and often referenced and parodied documentary Grey Gardens (1975) which is more than I'm able to explain right now .

It was reported by Rolling Stones, MTV News and Indiewire (which I've pulled the below quotes from) that Albert Maysles had expressed interest and was in the process of making a documentary of Fall Out Boy and potentially Decaydance as a record label? Whatever happened to this project, I don't know! I occasionally look for information about it and find a lot of dead links/ends.

However, it is pretty interesting! And a neat piece of history I wouldn't have learned about if I wasn't trying to figure out how a peterick manip was made.

[ddaome-kr]

🏃‍♂️Suffix -하다

click the read more for a more detailed explanation :) Here's the link to our instagram post!

When you learn Korean, you may come across the word “하다” a lot. However, you may find that sometimes it works as a verb by itself while others seem combined with other words. 

하다 is usually used as a verb, meaning “to do something”. 

나는 매일 운동을 한다. (I exercise every day.)

나는 어제 공부를 열심히 했다. (I studied very hard yesterday)

To translate more literally word-by-word, the sentences above would look a bit more like “I do exercise every day” or “I did study very hard yesterday”. 

However, you can also combine -하다 as a suffix to nouns to make various verbs and adjectives. Basically, -하다 can make nouns into something that has the quality of a verb, which can become a predicate.

Examples for -하다 verbs: 비행하다, 공부하다, 노래하다, 집중하다, 사랑하다

Examples for -하다 adjectives: 건강하다, 순수하다, 중요하다, 유용하다, 가난하다

(check the images above for each meaning and pronunciation!)

So what is the difference between a verb and an adjective in Korean? Well, adjectives, or 형용사, in Korean, aren’t very similar to adjectives in English, which usually refers to words used to describe nouns. In Korean, 형용사, or adjective describes the state or condition of the subject. If you check the meanings for the -하다 adjectives in the images above, you will notice most of them start with “to be”, which is the main difference between the verbs. 

A commonly known adjective would be “예쁘다”, which means “pretty” (to be pretty). While both can be conjugated and act as predicates in a sentence there are some key grammatical differences, which is why in Korean we differentiate these two parts of speech. For example, adjectives cannot combine with the word ending -ㄴ다 (present tense ending). 

Example:

나는 공부한다. (I study) (O)

나는 예쁘다 (I am pretty) (O) / 나는 예쁜다 (X)

-하다 not only combines with nouns but can also be combined with adverbs or onomatopoeic words, and sometimes other words as well. It even combines with certain dependent nouns too!

하다 as a verb also has many more meanings than just doing something, and it is an extremely versatile word. It can mean “to make” or “to dress/wear” in certain contexts, or could even refer to causation. It’s also used as another auxiliary/assistant verb (보조 동사), usually as the form -게 하다, which makes causatives(사동 표현). However, these are more advanced uses and aren’t the focus of this post, but perhaps in the future we can dive deeper into the various uses of the word “하다”.  

Additionally, if you are an advanced learner and know quite a lot about Korean grammar, you may be questioning whether -하다 itself is a suffix or -하- is the suffix while -다 should be seen as a simple ending (종결어미). After all, when you conjugate -하다 words like 공부하다 into 공부하니, 공부하여, you will find that -하- is the suffix adding the new meaning while -다 is just the ending for the base form.

According to 국립국어원(the National Institute of Korean language) -하- is the suffix that makes nouns into verbs while -다 is an ending, but sometimes dictionaries such as the 표준국어대사전 mark it as -하다 (the whole) as a suffix which can be a source of confusion. Since I didn’t want to explain too much about the grammar behind the conjugation of endings, I simply referred to the suffix as -하다 in this post. Of course, this distinction does not have much use for foreigners learning Korean but may be an interesting tidbit for advanced learners or native speakers who are interested in advanced grammar! 

Thank you for reading! Please leave a like and reblog if you enjoyed :)

[anendoandfriendo]

Some New Guidelines on Askbox Accusations/Callouts Since We Have Had This Happen Twice in Our Life Now

...and would like it if it didn't happen again.

[The "Weird It Happened Twice" meme. It's Doofenschmirtz from the TV show Phineas & Ferb stating "If I had a nickel for every time I was doomed by a puppet, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice." while looking very confused or disconcerted over two image frames.]

Okay so like, here's the thing: if you tell us "X user is Y identity and that's bad," and you give us zero other details we will simply call you a cop and tell you to fuck off.

If you can detail to us "hey, I think you may not have known this. X person is part of Y movement. Here are links Z, A, V, and U along with their web archives detailing how X user is acting and here are links T, B, I, and O to add additional context. Here are links to articles C, F, R, P, and K plus their web archives describing how this is a hate movement that X user is a part of," then maybe we will listen to you.

We might vent about anti-endogenics being bigots for example but we aren't going to like, send specific callouts about specific anti-endogenics or whatever and invade peoples' spaces telling them to not talk to that person or reblog without sourcing our claims that the person or system is anti-endogenic because that would be fucking rude at best. The person we are sending the accusation to may not even know about it!

In addition:

If we are going to be entering someone's inbox to tell them X person is part of Y movement then articles/posts C, F, R, P, and K plus their web archives cannot just be random vents directly from us unless the vent contains pertinent information. We are allowed to be mad, but you probably want to know we are serious about what we are claiming. We expect the same of you.

Regarding the above: this does mean we do not want to hear "and if you support Y then I hope you die in a fire," or similar on a serious discussion post. A vent post might be a much better option for that language. Please see the previous point about vent posts.

"A lot of people accept D bigoted thing in Y community therefore it is a hate movement" nope, wrong! By that logic everyone in your rather benign but possibly uninformed community is actually part of a hate movement down to the last person who does not use the "right" language around you. We hope you realize why this is a very bad path to go down and it is one we are personally trying to heal from.

Screenshots do not count if something is supposedly publicly available where a link would suffice. Unless it is either about something horribly and-or urgently dangerous or we have directly asked you about it, we really do not want to see your personal beef with anyone as seen through the screenshots of DMs/PMs.

Please expect us to fact-check your statements if and when we manage to find the time/energy/motivation to do so. We may not get back to you immediately or even ever but that doesn't necessarily mean we have done nothing either lol.

Hopefully this will make it clear what our standards are when it comes to looking into movements, people, organizations, and groups we know zero information about.

If it is not: we are essentially asking you to put together a cohesive argument defending your opinion the way we were taught (mix of formal and informal with a hint of critical-synthetic thinking). We are not asking for your inferences about what the words in the DSM mean or your assumptions about what a particular group of people are like. We want you to use your resources to do your own research and then explain the most basic, most important points to us along with the footnotes to turn those inferences into an opinion with weight behind it.

For example: if the DSM V says "associated with" trauma when it comes to DID, and you take that to mean a causative relationship, we have some very bad news for you when it comes to science. And here's an extra source for good measure for all of the hateful sysmedicalists out there who believe DID is the only way to be plural and/or that endogenic systems cannot have DID.

Therefore, anything that even infers that DID is proven, beyond a doubt, by specifically trauma and only trauma will be seen to us as anti-science. The DSM says "associated" and we can speculate about the reasons why all day. Speculation still isn't the same as scientific inquiry. How about, instead of letting your hatred over some systems not being the same as you get in your way, you go and do some anti-saneism advocacy in your local neighborhood so systems can exist in public spaces without discrimination?

We are not putting a double standard on anyone, this is the same reaction most people would very reasonably have if you screamed the word fire in a movie theater and there was no actual fire.

-----

Now that this is all cleared up, we can confidently state as follows:

The biggest elephant in the room since we see discorse pop up about it once in a blue moon and it is also the reason we had to bring back the "don't be a cop and assume we are pro- or anti- anything just because we reblog from someone we don't even know" post: we do not know what a radqueer transid is and do not fucking give a shit for the most part. Preliminary conclusions tell us we are likely to be staunchly against anything that is transhateful; that we see no difference between transbodic versus aldernic or chronosian and transage as even if people try to assert there is a distinction, we just don't see it we guess; transspecies and transgender when they are opt-in (and the key phrase IS, in fact, opt-in) are fine we think; and that everything else is on thin fucking ice at best. As soon as you hear a word combined with another word and it's anything besides derogatory you start assuming we are pro-whatever-the-fuck-this-is. We can see this debate going on in our periphery and the hostility and vile attitudes all around is making it fundamentally unsafe for us to say we don't know or do not have enough information. We have seen how groomer accusations go down when it comes to LGBT queer people. Stop it. If these people are just trying to exist in peace we don't want a part in the harassment. If they are harmful then we will find the proof of it one way or another but you are not going to be sending unsubstantiated claims and ad-homniem attacks to our askbox. C'est la vie — keep it on your blog and shut the fuck up if you cannot calmly substantiate your claims while bringing it up to us.

The same goes for random fucking statements like "well I guess I should just die then lmao," about anti-psychiatry stuff. Especially if you are pushing yourself into our notifications and making that sort of claim, and especially if there is nothing in the text stating as such. You are the one who is barging into our space and making umprompted accusations and the onus/burden of proof is on you, not us and not anyone else.

This is also the reason that we tend to lean more pro-ship than anti-ship to be honest? Saying "we don't give much of a damn," is not accurate in the slightest but is also the best phrasing we can come up with for this one unfortunately. We simply think that a lot of folks were not taught media analysis skills one way or another. While the curtains may actually just be blue, we also do not think people should get to say "the curtains were just blue," until they can understand how rhetoric works. This is the mystery "second time," we had this happen to us and it was when we were back on our old (probably termed by now tbh) account @/thatoneweirdhumanisback. It was the same as before but with the added annoyance of this particular system having asked to be our "friend" not more than a month ago. That by itself felt incredibly manipulative weather or not it was intended.

Just because we come to a decision or conclusion that you do not agree with does not mean that we did not listen and if you imply that, you are essentially using the same tactics our abusive former-stepmother used to accuse us of "misbehaving" and being an immoral person for the supposed "misbehavior". We sincerely hope you understand why that is not a great look. Please look up the acronym DARVO and the term gaslighting if you do not. If we see even a hint that is the direction any conversation is going you're getting an immediate block. It isn't a moral judgement on you, it's for our own safety (and possibly yours too if that is how you handle your interpersonal relationships generally — we also get like that when we have a sense we have lost control of our life and we hope you get better if that is truly your situation).

If you are going to send us an accusation about another being in our askbox or DMs and your own emotional investment leads to a failure to follow these guidelines, we're also probably going to block you on sight for that as well. That is not something we want to get involved in. That tells us you are clearly incapable of basic decency at the time the message was sent.

We also hope it is obvious why the same result will occur if you do this in reference to us but if it is not clear that also tells us you are clearly incapable of basic decency at the time the message was sent and in addition you're...probably also pulling something out of context. If we are venting we probably won't be giving any nuanced thought to something. If we are not venting, we think scrolling around our blog for five or so minutes will make it a little more clear to most people how we generally act and react. If someone or somesys didn't even bother to do that they probably aren't worth our time anyways.

Basically, this is a very long-winded way to tell you to not ask us about our opinions, interject and try to influence our opinions (particularly if you are using shame and guilt in doing so), or debate us unless we have openly and clearly invited you to do so.

Guidelines and our opinions (the opinions listed here or elsewhere) can and always will be subject to change dependant on new information we find to be credible.

Find a different blog to satisfy your bloodlust writhing need for hatred.