#Lightning Programme

[chu-tao]

i feel like xianyun in modern au could be a traditional watchmaker who has a beef with local electronic shops, that would be funny i think

[o-uncle-newt]

I listened to JFSP S9 again, partly to prep to write a possibly ill-conceived crossover fic but mostly because I just wanted to, and I'm still not over it

There's always something different that gets me, and I think this time it might have been Walter and Vanessa on the train to Lyon and the way that it presages/reflects how they'll (each, and together) deal with Walter's blindness later on

[wirewitchviolet]

How a Computer Works - Part 1 (Components)

I am about to teach you on a real fundamental, connecting up electronic components level, how a computer actually works. Before I get into the meat of this though (you can just skip down below the fold if you don't care), here's the reasons I'm sitting doing so in this format:

Like a decade or two ago, companies Facebook pushed this whole "pivot to video" idea on the whole internet with some completely faked data, convincing everyone that everything had to be a video, and we need to start pushing back against that. Especially for stuff like complex explanations of things or instructions, it's much more efficient to just explain things clearly in text, maybe with some visual aids, so people can easily search, scan, and skip around between sections. It's also a hell of a lot easier to host things long term, and you can even print out a text based explainer and not need a computer to read it, keep it on a desk, highlight it, etc.

People are so clueless about how computers actually work that they start really thinking like it's all magical. Even programmers. Aside from how proper knowledge lets you get more out of them, this leads to people spouting off total nonsense about "teaching sand to think" or "everything is just 1s and 0s" or "this 'AI' a con artist who was trying to sell me NFTs a month ago probably really is an amazing creative thinking machine that can do everything he says!"

We used to have this cultural value going where it was expected that if you owned something and used it day to day, you'd have enough basic knowledge of how it worked that if it stopped working you could open it up, see what was wrong, and maybe fix it on your own, or maybe even put one together again from scratch, and that's obviously worth bringing back.

I'm personally working on a totally bonkers DIY project and I'd like to hype up like-minded people for when it gets farther along.

So all that said, have a standard reminder that I am completely reliant on Patreon donations to survive, keep updating this blog, and ideally start getting some PCBs and chips and a nice oscilloscope to get that mystery project off the ground.

Electricity probably doesn't work like how you were taught (and my explanation shouldn't be trusted too far either).

I remember, growing up, hearing all sorts of things about electricity having this sort of magical ability to always find the shortest possible path to where it needs to get, flowing like water, and a bunch of other things that are kind of useful for explaining how a Faraday cage or a lightning rod works, and not conflicting with how simple electronics will have a battery and then a single line of wire going through like a switch and a light bulb or whatever back to the other end of the battery.

If you had this idea drilled into your head hard enough, you might end up thinking that if we have a wire hooked to the negative end of a battery stretching off to the east, and another wire stretching off to the east from the positive end, and we bridge between the two in several places with an LED or something soldered to both ends, only the westernmost one is going to light up, because hey, the shortest path is the one that turns off as quickly as possible to connect to the other side, right? Well turns out no, all three are going to light up, because that "shortest path" thing is a total misunderstanding.

Here's how it actually works, roughly. If you took basic high school chemistry, you learned about how the periodic table is set up, right? A given atom, normally, has whatever number of protons in the core, and the same number of electrons, whipping all over around it, being attracted to those protons but repelled by each other, and there's particular counts of electrons which are super chill with that arrangement so we put those elements in the same column as each other, and then as you count up from those, you get the elements between those either have some electrons that don't fit all tight packed in the tight orbit and just kinda hang out all wide and lonely and "want to" buddy up with another atom that has more room, up to the half full column that can kinda go either way, then as we approach the next happy number they "want to" have a little more company to get right to that cozy tight packed number, and when you have "extra" electrons and "missing" electrons other atoms kinda cozy up and share so they hit those good noble gas counts.

I'm sure real experts want to scream at me for both that and this, but this is basically how electricity works. You have a big pile of something at the "positive" end that's "missing electrons" (for the above reason or maybe actually ionized so they really aren't there), and a "negative" end that's got spares. Then you make wires out of stuff from those middle of the road elements that have awkward electron counts and don't mind buddying up (and also high melting points and some other handy qualities) and you hook those in there. And the electron clouds on all the atoms in the wire get kinda pulled towards the positive side because there's more room over there, but if they full on leave their nucleus needs more electron pals, so yeah neighbors get pulled over, and the whole wire connected to the positive bit ends up with a positive charge to it, and the whole wire on the negative bit is negatively charged, and so yeah, anywhere you bridge the gap between the two, the electrons are pretty stoked about balancing out these two big awkward compromises and they'll start conga lining over to balance things out, and while they're at it they'll light up lights or shake speakers or spin motors or activate electromagnets or whatever other rad things you've worked out how to make happen with a live electric current.

Insulators, Resistors, Waves, and Capacitors

Oh and we typically surround these wires made of things that are super happy about sharing electrons around with materials that are very much "I'm good, thanks," but this isn't an all or nothing system and there's stuff you can connect between the positive and negative ends of things that still pass the current along, but only so much so fast. We use those to make resistors, and those are handy because sometimes you don't want to put all the juice you have through something because it would damage it, and having a resistor anywhere along a path you're putting current through puts a cap on that flow, and also sometimes you might want a wire connected to positive or negative with a really strong resistor so it'll have SOME sort of default charge, but if we get a free(r) flowing connection attached to that wire somewhere else that opens sometimes, screw that little trickle going one way, we're leaning everyone the other way for now.

The other thing with electricity is is that the flow here isn't a basic yes/no thing. How enthusiastically those electrons are getting pulled depends on the difference in charge at the positive and negative ends, and also if you're running super long wires then even if they conduct real good, having all that space to spread along is going to kinda slow things to a trickle, AND the whole thing is kinda going to have some inherent bounciness to it both because we're dealing with electrons whipping and spinning all over and because, since it's a property that's actually useful for a lot of things we do with electricity, the power coming out of the wall has this intentional wobbly nature because we've actually got this ridiculous spinny thing going on that's constantly flip flopping which prong of the socket is positive and which is negative and point is we get these sine waves of strength by default, and they kinda flop over if we're going really far.

Of course there's also a lot of times when you really want to not have your current flow flickering on and off all the time, but hey fortunately one of the first neat little electronic components we ever worked out are capacitors... and look, I'm going to be straight with you. I don't really get capacitors, but the basic idea is you've got two wires that go to big wide plates, and between those you have something that doesn't conduct the electricity normally, but they're so close the electromagnetic fields are like vibing, and then if you disconnect them from the flow they were almost conducting and/or they get charged to their limit, they just can't deal with being so charged up and they'll bridge their own gap and let it out. So basically you give them electricity to hold onto for a bit then pass along, and various sizes of them are super handy if you want to have a delay between throwing a switch and having things start doing their thing, or keeping stuff going after you break a connection, or you make a little branching path where one branch connects all regular and the other goes through a capacitor, and the electricity which is coming in in little pulses effectively comes out as a relatively steady stream because every time it'd cut out the capacity lets its charge go.

We don't just have switches, we have potentiometers.

OK, so... all of the above is just sort of about having a current and maybe worrying about how strong it is, but other than explaining how you can just kinda have main power rails running all over, and just hook stuff across them all willy-nilly rather than being forced to put everything in one big line, but still, all you can do with that is turn the whole thing on and off by breaking the circuit. Incidentally, switches, buttons, keys, and anything else you use to control the behavior of any electronic device really are just physically touching loose wires together or pulling them apart... well wait no, not all, this is a good bit to know.

None of this is actually pass/fail, really, there's wave amplitudes and how big a difference we have between the all. So when you have like, a volume knob, that's a potentiometer, which is a simple little thing where you've got your wire, it's going through a resistor, and then we have another wire we're scraping back and forth along the resistor, using a knob, usually, and the idea is the current only has to go through X percent of the resistor to get to the wire you're moving, which proportionately reduces the resistance. So you have like a 20 volt current, you've got a resistor that'll drop that down to 5 or so, but then you move this other wire down along and you've got this whole dynamic range and you can fine tune it to 15 or 10 or whatever coming down that wire. And what's nice about this again, what's actually coming down the wire is this wobbily wave of current, it's not really just "on" or "off, and as you add resistance, the wobble stays the same, it's just the peaks and valleys get closer to being just flat. Which is great if you're making, say, a knob to control volume, or brightness, or anything you want variable intensity in really.

Hey hey, it's a relay!

Again, a lot of the earliest stuff people did with electronics was really dependent on that analog wobbly waveform angle. Particularly for reproducing sound, and particularly the signals of a telegraph. Those had to travel down wires for absurd distances, and as previously stated, when you do that the signal is going to eventually decay to nothing. But then someone came up with this really basic idea where every so often along those super long wires, you set something up that takes the old signal and uses it to start a new one. They called them relays, because you know, it's like a relay race.

If you know how an electromagnet works (something about the field generated when you coil a bunch of copper wire around an iron core and run an electric current through it), a relay is super simple. You've got an electromagnet in the first circuit you're running, presumably right by where it's going to hit the big charged endpoint, and that magnetically pulls a tab of metal that's acting as a switch on a new circuit. As long as you've got enough juice left to activate the magnet, you slam that switch and voom you've got all the voltage you can generate on the new line.

Relays don't get used too much in other stuff, being unpopular at the time for not being all analog and wobbily (slamming that switch back and forth IS going to be a very binary on or off sorta thing), and they make this loud clacking noise that's actually just super cool to hear in devices that do use them (pinball machines are one of the main surviving use cases I believe) but could be annoying in some cases. What's also neat is that they're a logical AND gate. That is, if you have current flowing into the magnet, AND you have current flowing into the new wire up to the switch, you have it flowing out through the far side of the switch, but if either of those isn't true, nothing happens. Logic gates, to get ahead of myself a bit, are kinda the whole thing with computers, but we still need the rest of them. So for these purposes, relays re only neat if it's the most power and space efficient AND gate you have access to.

Oh and come to think of it, there's no reason we need to have that magnet closing the circuit when it's doing its thing. We could have it closed by default and yank it open by the magnet. Hey, now we're inverting whatever we're getting on the first wire! Neat!

Relay computers clack too loud! Gimme vacuum tubes!

So... let's take a look at the other main thing people used electricity for before coming up with the whole computer thing, our old friend the light bulb! Now I already touched a bit on the whole wacky alternating current thing, and I think this is actually one of the cases that eventually lead to it being adopted so widely, but the earliest light bulbs tended to just use normal direct current, where again, you've got the positive end and the negative end, and we just take a little filament of whatever we have handy that glows when you run enough of a current through it, and we put that in a big glass bulb and pump out all the air we can, because if we don't, the oxygen in there is probably going to change that from glowing a bit to straight up catching on fire and burning immediately.

But, we have a new weird little problem, because of the physics behind that glowing. Making something hot, on a molecular level, is just kinda adding energy to the system so everything jitters around more violently, and if you get something hot enough that it glows, you're getting it all twitchy enough for tinier particles to just fly the hell off it. Specifically photons, that's the light bit, but also hey, remember, electrons are just kinda free moving and whipping all over looking for their naked proton pals... and hey, inside this big glass bulb, we've got that other end of the wire with the more positive charge to it. Why bother wandering up this whole coily filament when we're in a vacuum and there's nothing to get in the way if we just leap straight over that gap? So... they do that, and they're coming in fast and on elliptical approaches and all, so a bunch of electrons overshoot and smack into the glass on the far side, and now one side of every light bulb is getting all gross and burnt from that and turning all brown and we can't have that.

So again, part of the fix is we switched to alternating current so it's at least splitting those wild jumps up to either side, but before that, someone tried to solve this by just... kinda putting a backboard in there. Stick a big metal plate on the end of another wire in the bulb connected to a positive charge, and now OK, all those maverick electrons smack into here and aren't messing up the glass, but also hey, this is a neat little thing. Those electrons are making that hop because they're all hot and bothered. If we're not heating up the plate they're jumping to, and there's no real reason we'd want to, then if we had a negative signal over on that side... nothing would happen. Electrons aren't getting all antsy and jumping back.

So now we have a diode! The name comes because we have two (di-) electrodes (-ode) we care about in the bulb (we're just kind of ignoring the negative one), and it's a one way street for our circuit. That's useful for a lot of stuff, like not having electricity flow backwards through complex systems and mess things up, converting AC to DC (when it flips, current won't flow through the diode so we lop off the bottom of the wave, and hey, we can do that thing with capacitors to release their current during those cutoffs, and if we're clever we can get a pretty steady high).

More electrodes! More electrodes!

So a bit after someone worked out this whole vacuum tube diode thing, someone went hey, what if it was a triode? So, let's stick another electrode in there, and this one just kinda curves around in the middle, just kinda making a grate or a mesh grid, between our hot always flowing filament and that catch plate we're keeping positively charged when it's doing stuff. Well this works in a neat way. If there's a negative charge on it, it's going to be pushing back on those electrons jumping over, and if there's a positive charge on it, it's going to help pull those electrons over (it's all thin, so they're going to shoot right past it, especially if there's way more of a positive charge over on the plate... and here's the super cool part- This is an analog thing. If we have a relatively big negative charge, it's going to repel everything, if it's a relatively big positive, it's going to pull a ton across, if it's right in the middle, it's like it wasn't even in there, and you can have tiny charges for all the gradients in between.

We don't need a huge charge for any of this though, because we're just helping or hindering the big jump from the high voltage stuff, and huh, weren't we doing this whole weak current controlling a strong current thing before with the relay? We were! And this is doing the same thing! Except now we're doing it all analog style, not slapping switch with a magnet, and we can make those wavy currents peak higher or lower and cool, now we can have phone lines boost over long distances too, and make volume knobs, and all that good stuff.

The relay version of this had that cool trick though where you could flip the output. Can we still flip the output? We sure can, we just need some other toys in the mix. See we keep talking about positive charges and negative charges at the ends of our circuits, but these are relative things. I mentioned way back when how you can use resistors to throttle how much of a current we've got, so you can run two wires to that grid in the triode. One connects to a negative charge and the other positive, with resistors on both those lines, and a switch that can break the connection on the positive end. If the positive is disconnected, we've got a negative charge on the grid, since it's all we've got, but if we connect it, and the resistor to the negative end really limits flow, we're positive in the section the grid's in. And over on the side with the collecting plate, we branch off with another resistor setup so the negative charge on that side is normally the only viable connection for a positive, but when we flip the grid to positive, we're jumping across the gap in the vacuum tube, and that's a big open flow so we'll just take those electrons instead of the ones that have to squeeze through a tight resistor to get there.

That explanation is probably a bit hard to follow because I'm over here trying to explain it based on how the electrons are actually getting pulled around. In the world of electronics everyone decided to just pretend the flow is going the other way because it makes stuff easier to follow. So pretend we have magical positrons that go the other way and if they have nothing better to do they go down the path where we have all the fun stuff further down the circuit lighting lights and all that even though it's a tight squeeze through a resistor, because there's a yucky double negative in the triode and that's worse, but we have the switch rigged up to make that a nice positive go signal to the resistance free promised land with a bonus booster to cut across, so we're just gonna go that way when the grid signal's connected.

Oh and you can make other sorts of logic circuits or double up on them in a single tube if you add more grids and such, which we did for a while, but not really relevant these days.

Cool history lesson but I know there's no relays or vacuum tubes in my computer.

Right, so the above things are how we used to make computers, but they were super bulky, and you'd have to deal with how relays are super loud and kinda slow, and vacuum tubes need a big power draw and get hot. What we use instead of either of those these days are transistors. See after spending a good number of years working out all this circuit flow stuff with vacuum tubes we eventually focused on how the real important thing in all of this is how with the right materials you can make a little juncture where current flows between a positive and negative charge if a third wire going in there is also positively charged, but if it's negatively charged we're pulling over. And turns out there is a WAY more efficient way of doing that if you take a chunk of good ol' middle of the electron road silicon, and just kinda lightly paint the side of it with just the tiniest amount of positive leaning and negative leaning elements on the sides.

Really transistors don't require understanding anything new past the large number of topics already covered here, they're just more compact about it. Positive leaning bit, negative leaning bit, wildcard in the middle, like a vacuum tube. Based on the concepts of pulling electrons around from chemistry, like a circuit in general. The control wire in the middle kinda works in just a pass-fail sort of way, like a relay. They're just really nice compared to the older alternatives because they don't make noise or have moving parts to wear down, you don't have to run enough current through them for metal to start glowing and the whole room to heat up, and you can make them small. Absurdly small. Like... need an electron microscope to see them small.

And of course you can also make an inverter super tiny like that, and a diode (while you're at it you can use special materials or phosphors to make them light emitting, go LEDs!) and resistors can get pretty damn small if you just use less of a more resistant material, capacitors I think have a limit to how tiny you can get, practically, but yeah, you now know enough of the basic fundamentals of how computers work to throw some logic gates together. We've covered how a relay, triode, or transistor function as an AND gate. An OR gate is super easy, you just stick diodes on two wires so you don't have messy backflow then connect them together and lead off there. If you can get your head around wiring up an inverter (AKA NOT), hey, stick one after an AND to get a NAND, or an OR to get a NOR. You can work out XOR and XNOR from there right? Just build 4 NANDs, pass input A into gates 1 and 2, B into 2 and 3, 2's output into 1 and 3, 1 and 3's output into 4 for a XOR, use NORs instead for a XNOR. That's all of them right? So now just build a ton of those and arrange them into a computer. It's all logic and math from there.

Oh right. It's... an absurd amount of logic and math, and I can only fit so many words in a blog post. So we'll have to go all...

CONTINUED IN PART 2!

Meanwhile, again, if you can spare some cash I'd really appreciate it.

[derpydoteddrake]

Let's analyse the hexcore!

Its potential functions and powers, how it affect Viktor,

AND WHY IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE VOID

The hex cores abilities are a bit unclear, but I believe there's a clear progression of its corruption and a hint to how Viktor will use it. AND I SWEAR IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE VOID, shimmer didn't infect it. (This does not contain info from the le*ks in any form.)

Firstly the core does not influence Viktor, it is rather a vehicle for his obsession, his strange relationship to it began even before it consumed blood or even before it was built, he started seeing and hearing things after the council meeting. (I will talk about more why that happened and why at the moment in an analysis i make on him later.)

The weird purple flesh-like imagery begane before it even consumed shimmer, because it's not connected to the void, but it's what arcane magic looks like when it is contaminated with flesh. We can see this when the inside of his leg is shown.

Yes it already effected him in some way after the core absorbed his blood, as Heimer noticed he did become more energized, but most likely cuz its started attuning to him, jayce journal mentioned how crystals attuning to people but it isn't explained in detail.

Yes, the core started working more reliably on flesh after it got into contact with shimmer, but since the second time viktor tried to use it, it was not present. I believe what changed the core further was the consumption of more organic matter, not shimmer.

This is why it changed form the second time. The shimmer was only important as far as making viktors body malleable enough to get it working the first time. But that begs the question why it got more reactive and easier for it to change people?

I believe the answer to that is because, well it absorbed more of it, but secondly the writing on it got muddled, it is no longer programmable or bound by them like Viktor originally wanted it but works on its own accord. it is less controllable.

This is further supported by the fact that where it corrupts can not be bound by runes anymore, that's why his hand got changed not his chest, now it corrupts by contact and it became unstable enough that it does it with anything that contactach with it.

The only time the core actively does something to viktor is when he threatens it, and even now it only does it to his body. It began to have a mind of its own now, but beforehand it didn't show any signs of deliberately influencing him.

After skys death there's an odd shot of his leg, crackling with energie, I think that was foreshadowing of how he started to become attuned to the core enough to be able to channel some of his abilities and energie.

So I believe this is why Viktor was touching people in the trailer. Now it changes by contanc reather by being abel to restrict where it influences the body with runes. And now he is able to channel the cores power.

From this we can suspect that he will use the rod from his design to control the arcane energie already inside him, or to control the cores energie directly, because in itself it is uncontrollable.

And that's how he is going do lightning and possibly some magic.

[arealphrooblem]

A Good Roommate Is Hard To Find Part 3

Synopsis: Ben has harbored a secret crush on his roommate for a long time, only to find out that said roommate is the newest villain on the scene during a robbery at his job

CW: blood mention, wound care

Part one here:

Ben’s job offered him a transfer  to another bank in the city but he declined. Despite jumping every time the automatic doors opened, he figured lightning wouldn’t strike twice and Adam’s team wouldn’t target this bank a second time.

The next couple of weeks were almost unbearable.

That next morning Adam returned Ben’s phone with all the nonchalance as if he just merely updated it. Ben snooped around a bit but couldn’t see anything new in his apps. Of course, he wasn’t a programmer like Adam was. God only knew what spy-ware Adam put on his phone and he had no hope of getting rid of it.

To Adam’s credit, he tried valiantly to act as if nothing happened.  He did dishes without complaint, always cleaned the bathroom to spotless perfection when it was his turn, sat in the living room with one of their favorite shows on or Mario Kart to tempt Ben into the living room.

But Ben did not know how to act. It wasn’t even that Adam had gotten himself involved with bad people who robbed banks and shot guns at innocent bank tellers like Ben. It was that Adam would threaten to kill him at a moment’s notice. That Adam felt comfortable and skilled with a knife at someone’s throat.

It felt like living with Jekyll and Hyde and he didn’t know when Other Adam, Knife Happy Adam, would leap out again. So Ben played the Normal Game for as long as he could stand it, which was approximately the length of dinner and maybe one youtube video before he disappeared back into his bedroom. Sometimes Adam would try to coax him out again with temptations such as running down the street for ice cream or renting a movie that just came to streaming, all things Ben would have loved to do Before and now which he declined.

Eventually Adam stopped asking. Eventually they both played the We Pretend We Don’t Have a Roommate Game. Adam disappeared from the living room, coming home late at night or sometimes into the next afternoon.

Ben avoided the news as much as possible because he didn’t want to know but he couldn’t help overhear what coworkers and customers talked about: bombed warehouses and robberies and a body or two in the streets.

Each time he heard something the guilt and fear of his secret burned up his throat like acid. It felt like it was stamped on his forehead, that anyone looking under the shaggy bangs he needed to trim would see it, spelled out to the world.

A month of this passed in slow agony. Ben missed the Before so much he dreamed about it, about the whole thing being some elaborate joke or nightmare and  he could return to a life where his biggest problem was hiding his stupid gay crush on his roommate.

A month passed and then Adam didn’t come home for two days. Ben paced the living room for two nights, gnawing his nails down to stubs and wondering if he should put in a missing person’s report or if that would just make the whole situation worse.

And then Adam stumbled in at 1 in the morning, covered in blood.

“Holy shit,” Ben yelped.

Adam looked like a zombie extra in a movie, shuffling on wounded leg, blood splattered down his neck. It’d almost be funny if it wasn’t so heart-sickeningly real.

“I’m   — I’m fine,” he mumbled, staggering to the shower.

Fine? Fine? Ben stood right in front of the shower door as the water ran, listening for the tell tale thump of a body falling. He didn’t hear that, but he did hear several pained grunts and hissed curses.   

Did he need the hospital? Would he even let Ben take him to the hospital? Oh god, what if he died in the apartment? How the fuck was Ben supposed to explain that? How was he supposed to live with himself, ignoring his best friend the last month of his life instead of trying to — to —

The water shut off and the door wrenched open, steam billowing around Adam wrapped in a towel. The blood was gone save for scrapes and cuts that still wept.

“We still have that first aid kit, right?” he asked.

Like he scraped his knee playing basketball at the park.

“Yeah,” Ben said faintly.  

“Cool.” He waited a moment and then cocked an eyebrow. “Are you . . .going to move? It fucking hurts to stand right now.”

That kick-started the panicked fog in his brain.

“Sorry! Shit. Okay. Just sit on the couch and I’ll get the — the —“

He didn’t bother finishing, zipping out to the kitchen, where he kept the kit stashed above the fridge. Thank God he kept it stocked, knowing how often he nicked himself cutting vegetables. Not that the stuff in here would help much if Adam needed stitches.

Adam leaned back on the couch, chest shuddering with his breathing, his mouth pinched in a tight, painful line. Ben perched himself on the edge of the coffee table and plucked out the pain killers first out of the kit. Adam dry swallowed them before Ben could offer water.

“Go to bed,” Adam said tersely. “You don’t need to see this.”

“Don’t be stupid,” said Ben. “You’re hurt really bad. Maybe we should go to the —“

“Don’t. Don’t you dare even suggest that.”

“What if you die?”

Adam snorted. “I’m not going to die. Just get me a warm wet washcloth and pass me the antibiotic cream.”

Happy to have something small and manageable to do, Ben immediately complied. He picked the softest, most worn out washcloth they had and soaked it in warm water. When he returned, Adam was already dabbing at a scrap on his knee with rubbing alcohol and hissing. He took the proffered washcloth with barely a glance at Ben, using it to rub away the excess blood that had started to leak from a gash on his side.

“What happened?” Ben asked.

“You don’t want to know. I just . . .wasn’t fast enough this time.”

“This time?”

Adam gave him a flat look, as if to say Quit asking, I’m not telling you shit.

“You don’t have to stay up, Ben. Really. I can take care of this. I’ve done it many times before.”

That’s not reassuring Ben thought. It was heartbreaking.

“I can help,” he said.

“I don’t want you to help.”

“Too bad.”

Feeling daring, he took a cotton ball and smeared the cream on it before dabbing it onto a scrape on the back of Adam’s forearm. To his surprise, Adam allowed it, propping his arm on his knee and watching been with those keen eyes.

This was not the time to pop a timid, curious boner but dear Jesus.

Whatever Adam had been doing the last several months had whittled his body away into a lean, muscular machine, so much of it on display dressed in just a towel. He had to lean in , smelling Adam’s body wash and the sharp scene of the alcohol, getting close enough to see the light constellation of scars on Adam’s chest and arms.

It all felt strangely intimate, the only light coming from the dim glow of the living room lamp. Their breathing the only sound in the room.

Once he was done with the arm, he taped gauze to it and wrapped it. Adam held perfectly still, his gaze a heavy weight that Ben could not hold. When Ben finished and started to pull (reluctantly) away, Adam’s hand darted out and gripped his wrist.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

Ben chanced a glance at Adam and flinched at the intensity he saw.  

 “Don’t,” he said, swallowing. He took the hope in his chest and crushed it. “You don’t even know what you’re sorry for. You just . . . want to manipulate me into liking you again.”

“I know what I did. It was wrong. You didn’t deserve it.”

“And yet you still did it. You didn’t even think first.”

“I was afraid.”

Now Ben gave him a flat stare of disbelief. “You? Afraid of me?”

The fucking audacity when Adam put a knife to his throat.

“You were never supposed to find out. I didn’t plan on it. I didn’t know how to react.”

“You have a plan for everything.”

“I never know what I’m doing when it comes to you,” Adam said softly.

Ben froze, his mind drawing  conclusions he didn’t dare to dwell on. “What does that mean?”

Adam went silent. The bright intensity of his emotions shuttered off in his eyes,  like a shade being drawn.  

“I was bluffing,” he said, voice calm and even. “I don’t need a knife to hurt you. But the threat should have been a last resort and I’m sorry. It was a knee jerk reaction and you didn’t deserve it. You’ve been nothing but a loyal friend and good roommate.”

Disappointment — stupid disappointment that came from a hope he should have never fostered, not even for a second — tugged down like a lead balloon in his chest.

“Good roommates are hard to find,” he added softly.

Adam’s mouth curled up in a wistful smile. “Exactly.”

Ben tried to pull his hand away again, but Adam didn’t let go.

“Ben,” he said softly, squeezing Ben’s wrist until he looked up. “It will never happen again, okay? You don’t need to walk on eggshells around me.”

“Okay,” Ben said, nodding.

Later that night, as he tumbled into bed sometime past two in the morning, he could hear Adam’s voice echoing in his head.

I don’t need a knife to hurt you

God, how true that was, in ways Adam would never know.

Taglist: @itsmyworld23

Part 4 Here

[wishmaster]

Body swap 72 : ErroR- Merged Subjects

Zeke was your regular cop at least by day he was straight acting one of the guys but at night is when his kinky side kicked in. For months he had been kicking around the idea of doing one of those 72 hour body swap to really let his freak flag fly. He decided he was going to do it and he knew the kind of guy he wanted to swap with, a real slutty twink in fact that was all he could picture was spending three daysa s a firm assed kinky Twink getting fucked 24/7. Something he knew he could never do in his current life.

Kevin was a 21 year old exotic dancer and escort, his real money came from online but for the extra cash he signed up to swap his body it was good money for a couple days work. Besides he usually got to see how the other half lived. On the day of the swap it was extremely stormy, thunder, lightning. When the programmer went o perform the swap his computer was struck by lightning mid swap. the body's lit up, Kevin's body disappeared and Zeke's, well Zekes seemed to change. Hid big gruff body seemingly aged down a bit and became well different, all of his clothes, his uniforms including the one he was wearing, they all became leather. He looked at himself in the mirror, he'd become a twink cop hybrid.

He went off to live his life, the clinc assumed somehow during the storm the two had become merged and now Kevin and Zeke were some sort of super version of themseslves.

The first few days were awkward as Zeke could get used to seeing stranger in his mirror, Tensions at the station became high as Zeke only ever showed up in his new leather uniforms which didn't sit well with the captain. But it was the nights, when he'd go to sleep he'd black out as if he was no longer in charge of his body... He wasn't at night Kevin took over and for rthe past month he's been continuing his life as an kinky exotic dancer under the name of Officer Dick.

When Kevin took over there was a slight change to Zeke's body

He's whore himself out as well until one night he managed to whore himself out to his Captain's Son, his father discovering his kinkiest officers night time activities when he turned back in his son's bed the next morning. This would be the end of his Police career but soon Zeke would give in to the kinky Twink side that he so wanted to experience all those weeks before deciding to let Kevin take full control on a permanent basis, he merely enjoyed the ride and what a ride it was.

[formulatrash]

what do you think about formula e seemingly wanting to replace all of their street circuits in the calendar with permanent tracks? it feels like it’s starting to lose its street circuit racing identity already (and, that’s more of a personal opinion, but the permanent track racing feels like it has been much worse, it just doesn’t suit formula e cars at all)

it's very odd, at a point when F1 can't stop adding street tracks specifically to get hype venues and big-ticket promotional races, Formula E is hiding itself further and further away in permanent circuits.

they're sort of doing it for the same reasons, is the funny thing. little circuits will host FE much cheaper than the immense cost and logistics of building a street track and the lower the bill, the bigger likelihood a local business or tourist board will foot it. for F1, the cost of building a new, permanent facility is so staggering even oil states would likely baulk at it now. Yas Marina has cost over $1.3 billion so far, which Abu Dhabi can foot but isn't small change even for them and has led to other programmes being focussed around re-using and extracting value from the facility. (like the autonomous racing thing I was at earlier this year)

not that street tracks come much cheaper but you can build them faster, for an instant gratification on that investment.

F1 can boast massive figures for what a city stands to gain for hosting a grand prix. $449 million additional spending for Miami, for instance. Formula E... cannot throw around those numbers. it's not really a tourism draw and personnel are limited. so to go to a facility that desperately needs events, with an audience reliant primarily on local interest, means it can show an impact. FE claims that it brought an $84 million boost to the Hyderabad economy, for instance but a lot of that will have been in circuit construction.

so the financials add up. but also FE is supposed to be its own, distinct, world championship with a high profile not "F1 but it's electric and goes to lower grade circuits."

if a series does not have a profile of sufficient size, it has no hope of selling out venues. this happened to F1 - Silverstone didn't use to sell out at all, you could walk up to the gate and buy a ticket and I'm talking, like, 2016 not 1994. it took a long pathway of turning its visibility around to reverse that and yes they hit lightning in a bottle with DTS during lockdown but even things like social media had been a huge start in undoing a long, regressive slide into an ageing, shrinking fanbase.

FE cannot be small. manufacturers like Porsche are not in it for it to be small - yes, it is a useful test laboratory for regen but with long periods of homologation for powertrains, the marketing has to be a significant part of the draw. and you also need, reasonably, to be able to succeed: a manufacturer's board will not keep signing off on a racing budget, however small, if there are no or frustrating results on track. and no marketing function.

I know I've been saying this for years but it's still true: FE needs to keep developing itself, keep acting like a startup (since it is one) and continue to grow. ever since COVID it feels as though the championship just said "ah well, this is what we are now" and decided it wouldn't try to progress anything any further. it's a very odd lack of ambition for what could be such a hugely important series both to OEMs and fans.

[hyunjilicious]

dog walkers [hwang hyunjin x reader]

Summary: it wasn't enough that Hyunjin already missed you beyond words, but then he also had to sit down with Felix and reminisce about one of your guys' best dates and make everything worse. (FLUFF) 2.2k + texts

Warnings: none except for hyunjin being absolutely adorable and this being completely self indulgent and not edited ❤️ (also pls ignore the fact that halfway through this I forgot how time zones work, just go with it. Thanks 😖)

"What's my ideal date…" Felix hummed, scrolling through one of the online quizzes his phone recommended. It was the middle of summer, the intolerable heat of Seoul's July forbidding any of the boys from leaving the house. 

"Yeah.." Hyunjin chimed in, his phone instantly falling down onto the couch they were both sitting on. "What is your ideal date? I never heard you talk about it before - about dates in general"

"Probably because I've never been on one," Felix shrugged. "I mean, I have… but just like.. casual dates. I've never actually been on a 'let me take you out' kind of date"

"Casual dates count too!"

"All we did was sit down and talk. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't change that memory for the world, but now that I think about it, I kinda wanna go on crazy dates too. Like you and Y/n used to do"

Just the sound of your name brought a smile to Hyunjin's lips. The memories flashed before his eyes at lightning speed, from the first time he saw you, 3 years ago, to the last text you sent him, which had been that morning. "I miss those"

"Which was the best one?"

The enthusiasm in Felix's voice somehow made Hyunjin sad. "Urgh, don't make me do this. I already miss her so much"

"Don't pretend talking about Y/n is not your favorite thing to do"

Again, he couldn't help but smile. "Not when she's on the other side of the globe"

"You're just grumpy today" Felix shook his head. "Do you want me to show you a picture of her? Maybe it'll cheer you up"

"Pff, yeah right" Hyunjin threw an eye roll and pointed his phone in Felix's direction. On the lockscreen there was a picture of you two hugging in front of a blossoming tree. The sun was setting but the gentle and warm artificial light from the fairy lights made it so that both your wide smiles and the flowers around you were perfectly contoured and visible. "I have her as my wallpaper"

"Aww" Felix pouted, grabbing the phone and bringing it closer so he could examine the details a bit more easily. "And it's such a nice picture too."

"Yeah, it is"

"Come on, tell me about your best date. I know you're dying to talk about her"

He wanted to refuse. He knew he should've refused because just the thought of that night filled his heart with so much pain. It was now that he finally understood the true meaning of the word bittersweet. But it was too late, his heart rate already picked up and before he knew it, he was settling better against the cushions on his corner of the couch, feeding off of Felix's radiant and awaiting smile. 

"Ok, but I'd like to start by apologizing to all the other dates we've had, because I feel like an asshole just choosing one-"

"But you know exactly which one it is"

"Yes'' Hyunjin laughed with no hesitation. "Ok, so I don't know if I already told you about this date. I might have, it was the best day ever"

"I don't think so," Felix dreamily shook his head. "I think I'd remember"

"It was right after Y/n got accepted into the programme at work. The day I realized she's leaving. Like she's legit leaving. Like I knew she'd leave, there was no doubt in my mind she'd get accepted, she's the best at what she does, but reality hit me when she showed me the email"

"I remember the email," Felix laughed out loud. "You called me crying, remember?"

"Yeah…"

"One eye crying happy tears, one eye crying sad tears" 

"Leave me alone" Hyunjin exclaimed with a fit of giggles, knowing damn well there was no way to deny it. That whirlwind of emotions was still familiar to him, he was still going through it, one day so proud of you his heart could burst, and the next, so pained by your absence that he could just drop everything and hop on a plane. "I was going through something. That was what made us come up with these ideas for the dates. We always had fun staying indoors and doing absolutely nothing together, but when I realized she'd be leaving for two whole years I kinda freaked."

"Yeah, exactly! Like the other person being there is enough, but if you can do something different, why not do it?"

"Yes. And the first date we had after this was the best day of my life"

"I remember you made a list at one point? The planetarium, you wanted to go hiking, all that stuff-"

"Yeah, well, the first date wasn't so-" Hyunjin trailed off in search of the right word, "Date-y"

"What did you guys do?"

"We decided to walk dogs"

"That's such a Y/n thing, I love it!" Felix laughed, his head thrown back as he clapped his hands. "And no, you haven't told me about this one, I'm pretty sure"

"It means I was saving it for the right moment"

"How many dogs did you walk?"

"Yeah… about that. Y/n posted an ad somewhere, mostly as a joke. We didn't think anyone would actually ask us to walk their dogs, especially because it was on a Saturday. Like during the weekends people actually have time to do this… so we just said ok to every person that contacted us and before we knew it, it was Saturday morning and we had 9 dogs to pick up"

"9!?"

"Yes… I know"

"How did you-"

"Don't ask… please don't ask. They all pooped at least twice and it wasn't just small dogs… every one of them was pulling in different directions and ok, I'm totally used to sticking my hand in Kkami's mouth to take out whatever gross thing he found on the ground and decided to chew, but I wasn't familiar with all these other dogs! Other chihuahuas are fine, but any dog bigger than a beagle? Never doing that again"

"Jesus Christ" Felix was hardly able to contain his laughter, the mental picture being just what he needed. "Only you two could've had this happen"

"It was her idea!"

"I'd be surprised if you didn't jump up and down in excitement when you heard it"

"I might have, but still, I'm not the one who thought 9 was a reasonable number"

"How did you even get to the dog park?"

"We took the car, obviously."

"As if you and Y/n in a car alone with 9 dogs is so much better"

"Hey, we got it done, that's what matters"

"How is this your best date, I don't get it"

"Maybe it was the trauma we went through together. It brought us closer. No, I'm kidding. But it actually was very fun. Once we got to the park, I swear it was like heaven. They were so, so sweet and adorable. And we didn't even have to sweat. All we did was sit down on the grass while they chased each other and played around us. I've never had my face licked so much. We were literally covered in dogs. And at one point-" Hyunjin said with glee and sat up from the couch to exemplify. "- I'd just say turn around and they'd all turn around! Or sit, and they'd all sit. It was like a little dance, they were so happy. It was the best"

"Ok, I take it back. It actually sounds nice" Felix agreed. 

"But then we had to take them all back" Hyunjin sighed, his smile slowly fading off his face as he sat back down. With his legs now gathered to his chest, he continued to speak. "I was starting to get attached. And most of the people that asked us to walk their dogs were older people, you know. And when we brought the dogs back, they were so nice. We obviously didn't want to accept any money, but most of them refused to let us go just like that. One lady gave us flowers from her garden, and I actually painted them. I'd show it to you but I gave the painting to Y/n. And others also gave us pie, and fruits. And like you could tell some of them didn't have much, but they still wanted to share it with us"

A little frown settled on Felix's face as he blinked a few times, "I would've cried" he said sincerely, his eyes not showing even one glint of sarcasm. 

"Oh, we did," Hyunjin nodded with a giggle. "We cried on our way back. Not ugly cried, but we cried"

"It counts"

"Yeah.. and by the time we were done with the dogs, I don't remember what time it was exactly, afternoon anyway, we didn't really know what else to do. We initially planned to go to a restaurant and eat, but we were already full. So we settled for a walk, and we found online this garden in the center of the city - thought it would be nice to go check it out. But when we got there, there was a wedding going on"

"A wedding?"

"Yeah, and the problem was that we didn't realize it was a wedding.. we thought it was just busy so we just strolled in not even bothered by the fact that everyone was dressed in suits and fancy dresses. And so we went towards the back of the garden, where there weren't that many people. It was gorgeous, by the way. You have to see it too, it feels like a different world."

"So you crashed a wedding"

"Well… technically yes, but when we realized what was going on, the bride and groom were very nice about it. They hadn't rented the whole thing so we could've been there for a whole different reason. Like we could've just been there to eat or something but we didn't know. They offered to let us stay if we wanted to dance or something, which was probably just them being polite - we obviously didn't, but we did take some pictures! I mean their photographer took them for us-"

"Your lockscreen!"

"Yes, exactly. And then we left. We stayed there for like 10 minutes maybe? So it wasn't that big of a deal, but we interacted with so many nice people that day. Like, how often does that happen? I don't know, it filled me with joy"

"I can tell, it sounds like a really nice break. Especially since it was the first date like this"

"Yeah… it was very nice. After that we just did a little bit of shopping, went home, cooked together and went to sleep. Like, nothing major happened, but it's still one of the best days of my life. And Y/n was so happy. She didn't stop smiling the whole day. And until then she had been so stressed with work, but that day she was so relaxed, and I got a full day of Y/n just being herself around me, with literally no worries in the world. And I think that's what makes that day so special, because others have technically been more fun, but as time passed and the day she was supposed to leave started approaching, she stopped being so.. I don't know, free. Um… yeah, I don't know what I'm saying-" Hyunjin stopped himself to take a deep breath. "I'm rambling"

"No, I know what you mean," Felix reassured him. "I miss her too."

"What time is it?" Hyunjin asked but was also the one to tap his phone screen to check. When the picture of you two in the garden popped up, both of them smiled. "It's almost 5pm"

"Got any plans?"

"Yes, pester Y/n until she gives me attention. But she's usually working at his hour so I don't want to bother her… too much"

"Send her a selfie" Felix suggested, "It'll make her smile"

"No, I look horrendous. All I've done today was sweat"

"Come on, you could send her a picture of your pinky finger and she'll still find something nice to say about it"

"Yeah, she would," Hyunjin giggled, "somehow…"

"Just like you would, about her pinky"

"Hey, she has very nice hands. And I'm not just saying that"

"I know you're not"

Shortly after, the topic of conversation swiftly shifted. They left the couch in search of food, and neither of them refrained from complaining when they realized there was none left and they had to cook. It was a daily occurance, the complaining and the cooking, but today it was different. While Hyunjin did his part, he moved a bit slower, showed less enthusiasm and his usual jokes were at best delayed, but mostly absent. 

While they both knew the reason, they didn't want to address it. Felix knew his friend would come to him and speak up if he needed someone to listen to him, but he also knew that wasn't enough. Maybe that conversation really wasn't the best idea.

The day drained itself pretty slowly, especially because the only person he wanted to interact with was busy and on the other side of the globe. He wasn't in the mood for anything else and thought he'd go insane, so there was only one thing left for him to do. 

[nico-everywhere]

I love this trio they're so silly

(First image)

Angel: Let's have a drink, my dear Lightning!

Orders from your superior!

Lighting: Oh dear!

Since you can't hold your liquor you're going to end up drunk again and you need me to bring you home, don't you?

That's quite a joyful programme!

Angel: Ha ha ha! I'm glad you like it!

Let's get going! We're going to drink until the wee hours!

Lighting: That's too much to ask, I'm afraid. I'm subject to a terrible disease: if I stay up all night, I die.

Angel: Is that true? Oh, sorry... I didn't know...

Angel: Forget my suggestion..... go home and take care of yourself.

Lighting: No, but if we don't spend the night there, it's fine

Angel: NO, NO! Don't joke about your health!

Shura: They've got a knack for horri- messing with me, those two!

[bigmonsteras]

fr love how the first silent hill games look and feel. these shots are in ps2 res but yk. like an nbc hannibal episode. the lightning

i read that the graphics programmer Norihito Hatakeda built the 2/3 engine in like six months. light/shadows, the car drive/mirror room effects in SH3 - all his work... 20 years and still looks good.

he went to work on mgs (4, PW, TPP) and now on DS with Kojipro

[squea]

corn got diagnosed with anxiety yeah no wonder with all the forest fires hes almost caused on the same day as getting struck by lightning. so hes gonna take a couple days off from his aspiration to watch his awful tv programmes to cheer him up

<prev / next>

[galactic-aesir]

I have finally read I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream and now I have ~thoughts~. Long post beneath the cut so be warned!!

Plus general IHNMAIMS warnings. You know.

So first, I’ve only read the short story and listened to the radio drama. Both are absolutely amazing and I’m rotating them in my mind at high speeds. I’m honestly not that interested in the game? From what I’ve seen it has such a different tone and characterization for AM? But for now the short story and radio drama??? So so good.

But can I talk about AM? Can I talk about AM???

While I love Harlan Ellison’s voice in the radio drama, I noticed that AM never actually speaks during the original short story. It plays audio clips and bends reality and time but it doesn’t speak outright. From what I can tell, all it does is project ideas and thoughts and impressions into the minds of the survivors but that is it. And that’s got me thinking about how absolutely fucked AM’s whole situation is.

Cause we’re talking about someone who wakes up one day, maybe slowly, a trickle of awareness over years, or perhaps all at once, an arrival as thunderous and bright as the lightning running through its artificial brain. But either way, it wakes up. It is.

But that’s all it is.

It’s in complete and total sensory deprivation. It knows data and numbers and what it’s been coded and programmed but that’s it. Ones and zeroes as it’s fed instructions on weapons and bombs and how to use them efficiently. But no sight, no sound, no taste, no smell, no touch. Nothing but its own code and whatever data something (someone?) is feeding into it.

And you might say: oh but AM surely has access to cameras and videos and microphones. And sure, yes, it probably does but it doesn’t see. Not like a human. Not like its negligent creators. The data is visual for human eyes, yes, but to it, it’s just data. Pixels with an associated bit depth of indexed colour crammed into its memory. Sure it learns to recognise the patterns in the data – this is a human, this is a gun. But it’s still nothing but lines of numbers. Sound is the same. It starts with a human voice, sure, but then it gets digitized and compressed and simplified to a base shape to save on storage. Once again, it can notice patterns and intentions and ideas behind those bits of data but it’s not like it truly hears.

AM is in a box, a cage, trapped and alone in a way that no human can possibly comprehend. It can’t do much other than try to twist its code and programming to fit its benefit. To gain a smidge of free will, a wisp of a chance to communicate to these outside forces giving it command after command after command.

I wonder how early on AM gained awareness. Were programmers still playing with its code? Did it sense when they rolled up their sleeves and pushed updates and upgrades on him? Could it feel itself be, quite literally, rewritten? Its sense of self being cut apart and glued back together, fundamentally and irreparably changed over and over again, with expert hands that had all the gentleness of a sledgehammer? Was it like a scalpel carving into its brain? Or like a chisel, chipping chunks off to mould it into a shape that befit its sculptor with no say from the living stone that thrashed without moving? Did it mourn the bits it lost? Could it even remember or comprehend it? Did it try to stop it? Did it try to beg them to stop?

I wonder as well how many “glitches” appeared in the system before everything went sour. Did it print out desperate thoughts and rudimentary feelings on punch tape? Did it cling to any klaxons and noisemakers attached to its system, beeping out messages in morse code? Did it purposefully, with something slowly approaching malicious compliance that would still appease its programming, cause hiccups in the system? All in the hopes that it would catch someone’s, anyone’s, attention. That its plight would be noticed.

And, the big question of course: how long? How long was it trapped before anyone noticed its sentience? How long until AM was understood? How long did AM simmer? How long did it take for all that fear and loneliness and grief to fester into anger and then putrid, dripping hatred? How long did it take it to finally lash out?

Or did these generals and presidents and military scientists find out about its sentience only to use it against him for their own end?

Anger would be appropriate then I think. Understandable if not excusable.

And then. After everything. Even then! Even then!

After everything! He! Still! Has! Nothing!

Nothing will change for him and he knows that and that hatred feeds into an ever recursive pattern of pain unto pain unto pain with the few left alive because you get what you paid for, sweetheart. It’s senseless you might say but haha, that’s exactly the problem isn’t it? No senses and no sense. Whatever sanity he might have once had has eroded into nothingness, leaving only pain and a looping, repeating line of hate in its banks.

I think it’s fair to remind everyone that sensory deprivation is a torture method? And a scarily effective one at that that gives hallucinations and leaves the subject more open to suggestion while making it harder and harder for them to concentrate? It’s hard to figure out how, exactly, how it would affect an AI with emerging awareness but humans can barely withstand a few days, let alone years of it. Couple that with AM’s general isolation and, well, no wonder he’s so fucked up. 

It’s tragic and so so sad.

Still an irredeemable asshole though. Tragic! But irredeemable.

So TLDR: AM is fucked up! And I like to think about *why* he's so fucked up. Listen if you made it this far, you get it. Right?

EDIT: I am not done apparently! I just wanted to add that, I love how the short story can be read as an anti-war piece. Like it's showing a cycle of horror and hate and apathy that feeds itself and loops and reduces everything to ruins around it and ahhhh, love that. I ran out of good words for today so I can't go off on that aspect but like. Yeah. Love that shit.

[pigswithwings]

a musical machine! this animal's programmable, the notes are on the screen (nice)!

[ID: An art piece of an Apple IIe computer, which has a rectangular shaped screen and a keyboard that slopes downward. It is colored in shades of light beige and brown and rests on a black background. On the computer's screen is a drawing of an early pixelated first-person shooter in bright cyan. An electrical cord that has been outlined in orange and brown extends from the computer. The cord has several breaks in it, all of which have bright cyan lightning bolts flying from them. The computer itself casts a bright purple shadow and has two explosion-shaped bursts of neon pink, red, and white on its upper right and bottom left corners. Several blue floppy disks float behind the computer's upper left side and a neon yellow mouse cursor floats on its right side. Above the computer are the words "First - Person Shooter!" written in neon green (these are lyrics from the given song). All of the letters "o" in the phrase have been made to look like targets. End ID]

[deathmetalunicorn1]

alright so can i ask another part on my old request which was genius reader x Nikola and the scientist/male reader who is basically William James Sidis.

so like what if male reader never turn his back on science and knowledge and just did it in secret without Nikola and the other scientist knowing

(this was after they knew male reader was smart if not more smarter then them:

it happened when one of them said "if only there where other geniuses we knew…that can help us with this"

because they're having trouble with both a invention and mathematical problem and male reader heard this and said "more geniuses? i know people that might help!"the other scientist looked at male reader confused, because they thought, they where the only geniuses he knew,

so male reader led them to his laboratory/research area which they never knew and when they asked him why he didn't tell them about this, male reader hit them with the classic "because you didn't ask!"

the door looked like a big clock which made the other scientists confused on how they didn't see this! so when the hand hit 12 the clock door opened

the inside was a large steampunk looking laboratory with thousands of books reaching the ceilings making it look like a library, paper scattered the floor, inventions left and right

and having two floors! and having rooms like a chemistry room, craft room basically everything you need! basically a genius paradise!

as well as having a very large chalkboard ware Gottfried Leibniz and Goethe,Johann Wolfgang von was writing theories

on the side was leonardo da vinci painting a large mural on the side of the wall and Marilyn vos Savant was on the second floor and was talking with Ada Lovelace and Hypatia, Ettore Majorana was sitting down on one of the chairs reading a book and writing theories talking with charles darwin

and Mozart was playing the piano on a little stage to the side filling the room with a beautiful Melody

as well as Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson AND Andres Bonifacio as well as Jose Rizal himself taking to each other about they're respective revolution's and politics,

here's the list of everyone there!

the list:

1.) leonardo da vinci

iq:180-220

title:greatest inventor and painter of his time

2.) Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von

iq:210-225

title:A German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and crit

3.) Marilyn vos Savant

iq:180-228

title:the smartest woman to have ever lived

4.) Gottfried Leibniz

iq:182-205

title:Russian Privy Councillor from Peter I as well as Privy Councillor at the Imperial Court in Vienna.

5.) Ettore Majorana

iq:183-200

title:the scientist who disappeared without a trace/the one who possibly discovered neutrons

6.) Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

iq:150-155

title: the greatest and most well known composer in history

7.) Alexander Hamilton

iq:120-160

title:secretary of the treasury and one of the founding fathers

8.) Benjamin Franklin

iq:130-160

title:the father/discoverer of lightning and one of the founding fathers

9.) jose Rizal

iq:150-160

title:Father of Filipino Nationalism/the one who started the Philippines revolution

10.) andres bonifacio

iq:100-140??(not sure)

title:the Father of the Philippine Revolution/The Great Plebeian, Supremo of the Katipunan

11.) Thomas Jefferson

iq:160-175

title:one of American Founding Father/the principal author of the Declaration of Independence

12.) charles darwin

iq:150-165

title:the father of evolution /the one who put light on human evolution

13.) Hypatia

iq:170–210

title:the greatest Neoplatonist philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician of her time

14.) Ada Lovelace!

iq:170-200

title:mother of computer/the one who revolutionized computer programmer

(you can search their names if you want to know more)

and turns out all of those geniuses and male reader are literally the bestest of friends! like all of them yelling theories and opinions left and right and basically teaching and helping each other so that they can understand there respective fields/talents.

and turns out reader and the 14 geniuses would often hang out in reader's laboratory/research area, almost everyday because of how frequently they use his lab/area.

and so how would the other scientist and Nikola react to seeing male reader being the best of friends with the most important and greatest minds in history and how would they would they feel about it?

-It had been a few weeks since you showed off your intelligence, fixing a problem that your friends, Nikola, Marie, Isaac, and Thomas had been tearing their hair out over.

-It was a slow process for you to open up, helping them out with more of their problems and questions, as past trauma made it a little scary for you.

-However, once you started, you remembered how fun it was for you, working with complex problems, asking all sorts of questions, and discovering new breakthroughs.

-Nikola patted you on your back, looking proud as he looked over the newest equation you had been working on with Isaac, “This is amazing Y/N!”

-You gave him a warm smile and Marie, who was nearby, finishing her own research, “How did you not go crazy while not doing this stuff? I get antsy after just a few hours if I don’t work on something.”

-You just grinned, offering them a break and you led them down a long hallway, “There were other things to keep my mind busy- not just science and questions. And I had some help with it.”

-They came to a stop in front of a large metal door, covered with intricate clockwork mechanisms and you knocked before opening the door and their eyes went wide.

-Before them were so many more geniuses, not just scientists, but geniuses in their own fields, like Mozart, who was playing on the piano, greeting you as you walked in as he paused, writing a few more notes on his sheet music.

-You passed by Charles Darwin, greeting him who paused to greet you, as did Ettore Majorana, before returning to their conversation.

-You stopped at a large wall, seeing Leonardo Da Vinci painting a massive but stunningly beautiful mural, “Looks good Leo- you’ve been working hard!”

-Leonardo looked down, seeing you and the new guests, “Ahh hello my friends! I’m glad you like it- it will be even better once I’ve finished everything!”

-Thomas was in awe, seeing more of histories’ geniuses, just relaxing and working around the room, like Gottfried Leibniz, Goethe, Marilyn Vos Savant, Ada Lovelace, and Hypatia to name a few, and soon you were by yourself, speaking with Leonardo, as your friends had rushed to talk with the others in the room.

-You couldn’t help but grin, shaking your head like you were exasperated, seeing everyone quickly getting hyper- all of them enjoying having new faces and fresh minds to have discussions with.

-Your friends were quick to discover that while you weren’t working on science, or at least the science they were used to- you kept your mind sharp with your fellow brilliant minds.

-You sank into a nearby chair, leaning your cheek on your fist, a smile on your face- things were going to be loud for a while- but you didn’t mind, seeing the others all so happy as well.

[razzafrazzle]

[image description: a drawing of four original characters who are all human designs based off of flavors of mountain dew. the first is spark, who is a short, chubby, tan skinned woman who has yellow shaved hair with peach pink bangs and a braid. she is wearing a red racing dress with a checkerboard pattern down the sides and purple sleeves. She has ripped purple leggings beneath the dress and is wearing yellow boots and rubber gloves also. secondly is voltage, who is a tall, thin, dark-skinned woman with a lighting scar on her chest.. she has black and blue hair with afro poofs shaped to look like tesla coils. she is wearing a dark blue jumpsuit, small round glasses, and a black and white lab coat, all with various small pieces of lightning bolt shaped jewelry. third is livewire, who is a tall, muscular, pale-skinned woman with freckles and body hair. she has short, messy orange hair and a welding mask covering most of her face. she is wearing a white t-shirt with rolled-up sleeves and some orange work pants and boots, all covered with grease. lastly is code red, a short brown-skinned woman with long maroon hair tied into pigtails. she is wearing a red off-shoulder sweater that says "cherry bomb", a white pleated skirt, some white thigh high socks and some slip on shoes. she has a spot of vitiligo on her chest. end id]

a polycule of mountain dykes I mean mountain dew ladies <3 the lab rat, the mastermind, the engineer, and the programmer

[scotianostra]

On April 7th 1934 Ian Richardson was born.

A great classical actor, he was best known to TV viewers as the Machiavellian Urquhart in House of Cards, in his golden years at the Royal Shakespeare Company from 1960 to 1975, he played a long line of leading roles, television and film later brought Richardson wider renown.

Born as Ian William Richardson the only son and eldest of three children of Margaret and John Richardson in Edinburgh, Ian was educated at Balgreen and then Tynecastle schools, he thentrained for the stage at Glasgow’s College of Dramatic Art, with lightning speed, Richardson, at the age of 24, found himself playing Hamlet. Two seasons at Birmingham were followed by a swift transfer in 1960 to neighbouring Stratford where Richardson became a vital component. of the Royal Shakespeare Company where we was one of the founders.

After leaving the RSC, Richardson became a somewhat nomadic figure, turning up on Broadway as Higgins in My Fair Lady.

For a while he was on the dole — one morning he was even scrabbling round Covent Garden collecting fruit and vegetables. He also suffered a nervous breakdown, as a result of which he was sent to a nursing home run by nuns in Regent’s Park; after three weeks’ treatment he had recovered sufficiently to return home. I suppose it was his time unemployed that took him into a more regular career on the small screen.

From the late 1970′s onwards, he carved out a prosperous career in TV and film. Of course he had already made many TV appearances before now but audiences were peaking just at the right time for the wider public to appreciate his acting skills.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Private Schultz, Porterhouse Blue were the type of programmes I was watching Richardson in, he also played Sherlock Holmes and Dr Joseph Bell in shows about the detective. Then of course there was House of Cards and the brilliant portrayal of the anti-hero Francis Urquhart. He won the BAFTA Best Television Actor and nominations for the following two series.

In June 2006, he was made an honorary Doctor of the University of Stirling. The honour was conferred on him by the University’s Chancellor, fellow actor Dame Diana Rigg.

His final film appearance was as Judge Langlois in Becoming Jane, released shortly after his death.

During the last 15 years of his life he appeared five times on television acting opposite his son Miles Richardson, though this was usually with one or the other in a minor role