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findingjoynweirdstuff · 3 years ago

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Dream SMP Recap (June 1/2021) - All Roads Lead to Rome

Ponk tears down one of the towers of L’Llamaburg for overshadowing his supreme fridge.

Tubbo creates a new outpost just outside Las Nevadas to overlook the country.

Techno has a birthday party with the Syndicate and Quackity comes over to bring a message.

Quackity speaks with Foolish in Las Nevadas about his future plans for the country and roads.

Niki finds out about Wilbur’s revival.

Bad asks for Techno’s help with destroying his enemies, as he’s upset about L’Llamaburg violating the buffer zone agreement. Puffy confronts Bad about the brewing war.

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VOD LINKS:

Ponk

Foolish

Tubbo

Technoblade

Nihachu

BadBoyHalo

Captain Puffy

---

- Ponk tears down one of the towers of L’Llamaburg

- Ponk sends Foolish through the labyrinth he built

- Afterwards, they visit the turtle sanctuary

- Ponk shows Foolish that he tore down the tower for overshadowing his supreme fridge. Foolish points out that he and Puffy don’t have the best history. Ponk is still bitter over Puffy destroying Sacrifice’s shrine

- Tubbo creates an outpost on a mountain just outside of Las Nevadas to keep an eye on the country

- Quackity comes over and asks what Tubbo is doing. He says he’ll speak with Tubbo later

- If anyone asks, Tubbo will say it’s just a cookie outpost from Snowchester

- Foolish comes over as well and tells Tubbo that he sent Punz on the mission to find the nuke

- Tubbo asks why Foolish has left Snowchester. Foolish says he’s trying something new -- he’s joining Las Nevadas, actually

- Foolish takes Tubbo on a tour through Las Nevadas. He asks if Tubbo would want to join Las Nevadas, but Tubbo declines

- Techno starts off in his house. He walks outside to find Niki, Phil and Ranboo launching fireworks for his birthday! They also set up a table outside the house with some cake

- After they eat some cake, Techno asks what he’s missed. He’s gone off into the wild to train, while Phil thought he was hibernating. Techno asks if they found out Tommy actually died. Phil tells him he did, but Dream brought him back

- Speaking of things brought back...Wilbur is back too. Niki and Techno are both shocked. Phil tells them that he’s actually living in Phil’s house currently. He tells Niki Wilbur’s changed for the better

- Techno brings Steve out

- He notices the new forest, which the others say sprouted up. It just appeared

- The subject returns to the revival book. Niki says, if Wilbur and Tommy have been brought back, there’s one person left that can be brought back that they don’t want back: Schlatt

- Niki asks if there are any new governments. Phil says no, Snowchester is still there but nothing much has happened that they need to step in on

- They solved the government issue with brute force. Techno says it was “mild property damage,” but Phil disagrees, saying it was mass destruction. They agree to just blame everything on Dream

- While he was away, Techno studied the blade. He suggests a training session for Niki and Ranboo

- Techno has something to do. He leaves, noticing Quackity standing on a hill nearby

- Quackity says hello. Techno tells him it’s his birthday (he’s not sure how old he is, though) and Quackity thanks him for helping with the Egg. He asks if Techno has visited Dream (Techno hasn’t)

- Techno went to the Dream SMP equivalent of Italy on vacation

- Quackity tells Techno he’s been visiting Dream, and that while in prison Dream seems to be a completely different person. Techno asks if Dream’s been treated well, and Quackity says he’s fine

- Just a few days ago, Dream told Quackity that he wanted Techno to visit, that he finally wanted to call in a “favor”

- Techno explains that the “favor” is that he has to get Dream his favorite meal at some point, since they were at a restaurant once and Techno forgot his wallet

Quackity: “He’s changed a lot. If you walk in there, he doesn’t seem like the person he’s always been, which is weird, how a person can change just like that.”

Techno: “It’s strange what five months of near total isolation can do to a person...as we know, it’s always a positive effect.”

- Sometime during this weekend, Techno will visit. Techno asks if Quackity has any written message from Dream, and Quackity says he can probably get one. He only has notes right now

- Techno asks if Quackity is telling the truth. He would hate to be lied to on his birthday...Quackity says he’s not lying, and as he said, he’s glad they set aside their differences

Quackity: “At the end of the day, scars fade away, Techno...”

- Quackity says goodbye and leaves. Techno wonders if he can trust him

- He returns to the others and they celebrate some more

- Phil takes them all down to show off the training arena he made in the basement

- They go back up and talk some more

- Meanwhile, Quackity meets Foolish at Las Nevadas. He asks about Tubbo’s outpost, and Foolish says it’s a cookie outpost. Quackity tells Foolish not to trust it, realizing he actually hasn’t talked to Tubbo recently

- Quackity is bothered by how clear the view of Las Nevadas is from the outpost and questions why Foolish didn’t stop Tubbo from building it

- He asks the last thing Foolish did in Las Nevadas as they walk over there, and then whether or not he’s already discussed the possibility of a “contract” of formal citizenship

- Quackity wants to get to know Foolish better. He makes sure that he can trust Foolish, confide in him certain information

- Foolish remarks that Quackity seems like the kind of guy who would make a lot of enemies, and gives him a set of Netherite armor

- Speaking of making enemies, Quackity takes Foolish over to the lake to look out at Wilbur and Tommy’s headquarters. Someone paid them a visit

Quackity: “Have you ever met...Wilbur?”

- Foolish hasn’t. Tommy told him a bit. Quackity points out an empty spot in Las Nevadas where he wants something done. He tells Foolish he just paid a visit to an old friend and he went unprotected, so the Netherite is a good idea

- Only two people have just given Quackity armor, and one of them is Quackity’s “right hand man” at the moment: Sam. Foolish mentions Sam screwed him over with L’Sandburg

- Quackity points out Eret’s cobblestone ocean pyramid. This country needs more citizens, more things built

- He shows Foolish the gambling machine and gives him diamonds to try out. Foolish wins Linda!

- Their objective with Las Nevadas is to build the biggest, most powerful country, and Quackity’s read his fair share of Sun Tzu. He’s actually helped run a country before, which Foolish is surprised to learn (countries are before Foolish’s time)

- Quackity says he’ll talk to Foolish soon and leaves for a couple minutes before returning. He asks for PVP lessons, but Foolish hasn’t done much fighting for a while

Quackity: “I do all my fighting through dialogue, if you haven’t noticed...That’s my biggest weapon, Foolish, it’s the way I say things, everything, all that. But I think, you know, given what could come of all this...”

Foolish: “I was gonna say, I don’t know if that will work forever...unless you’re very, very good with your words, eventually you’ll say the wrong words.”

- Quackity suggests they make their own lookout outpost

- Quackity has some plans to show Foolish, a project he thought of when he was thinking about making Las Nevadas. His first plan was to build a highway system

Quackity: “They say all roads lead to Rome...in this case, all roads lead to Las Nevadas.”

- He shows Foolish some sign ideas and Foolish says it would be no problem to build up some roads

- Quackity shows Foolish an old idea for a path with rail lines on both sides, layouts for advertisements

- The first place Quackity thinks the road should go is the Spawn area, for when someone joins or dies. Quackity is annoyed that Tubbo blocked the route, but they can go around it

- They plan out the path of the road. Foolish asks if Quackity wants the road to go to Kinoko Kingdom. Quackity goes silent before saying he wants to focus on the main attractions right now

- Quackity leaves again to go check some things

Foolish: “When you choose a side, there’s always other sides...which means I can’t be buddy-buddy with everyone forever.”

- Foolish does the boat slime jump. Quackity comes back with food and continues to discuss plans. Besides connecting everyone, they also need to make cash off of this highway, so he wants to make sure there’s plenty of advertisement

- L’manburg is destroyed, but it also has a lot of history. Quackity’s noticed no one’s really claimed that area. Wilbur and Tommy are neighboring them now. Foolish asks if they’re enemies...Quackity says he’ll explain that in a bit

Quackity: “We can make L’manburg a main tourist area.”

- Foolish knows a few people might be against that. Anyone from L’manburg, maybe. Quackity reminds him he was in the cabinet, and proceeds to tell him the story of Wilbur:

---

When Quackity joined the server, L’manburg was the biggest nation. Quackity asked to join, and he was declined because he wasn’t British -- the one requirement. He didn’t like this, he felt left out, he wanted to be a part of something.The election rolled around, it was SWAG vs. POG.

(They walk over to the ruins of L’manburg)

Wilbur was going to run a “democratic” election with only one option available to vote for, which Quackity didn’t think was very democratic.

(Quackity gets interrupted by George calling him)

Each party had a Vice President. Foolish assumes that Wilbur’s was Tommy...and Quackity’s was George. Quackity points out King’s Court to Foolish in the sky, the place they had their debate. After their debate, Quackity and Wilbur had a talk, a conversation that stuck with him for a very long time.

Then it was Election Day. What happened was, each party had sponsors. Who endorsed Tommy and Wilbur?

Vikkstar.

Tommy accidentally posted the Vikkstar endorsement video in the Discord before deleting it seven seconds later, but that was still enough time for George to get the link and send it to Quackity, and Quackity needed the one person who could match that endorsement: KSI.

Unfortunately, KSI never replied, as it was quite last-minute.

That’s when the turning point happened, and Quackity calls it the worst day of his life. George slept through the event. Quackity had no endorsements, no Vice President. The other party was going strong -- but they made a mistake. Their second endorsement was Schlatt. However, Schlatt arrived drunk, and instead of endorsing Wilbur and Tommy, he made his own party on the spot. SCHLATT2020. Not only this, but Niki and Fundy also made their own party too: COCONUT2020.

The votes go out. POG2020 wins. But, Quackity had an idea, to pool votes with Schlatt. They ended up with 1% more votes than POG, and that’s how Quackity ended up as Vice President of the country. However, this was a big mistake. The policies Schlatt enacted were to exile Tommy and Wilbur, took down the walls, changed up things -- and to be fair, Quackity did join him on this. He was down with taking down the walls. Everything started going downhill. Schlatt would constantly undermine Quackity’s Vice Presidency, his policy ideas, and he did the worst thing to Quackity -- took down the White House that Quackity, Wilbur and Tommy built together.

Schlatt didn’t care. He started teaming up with bad folks like Dream, other people, and the rest is history. Imagine everything that had to happen to lead to this...

(he gestures to L’manhole)

Foolish: “Do you regret it all?”

Quackity: “...No.”

Foolish: “So, you would’ve let it all go the exact same way, down to Wilbur blowing it all up?”

Quackity: “I wouldn’t have changed a damn thing, Foolish...And let me tell you why...All these mistakes, all these things, have made me the person I am now, Foolish. All these experiences, all these bad moments in my life, have made me the man I am today.”

“And you never...you never mess with history. Because everything happens for a reason, Foolish. Everything happens for a reason. You don’t ever pander with history, you don’t ever try to turn it around or change it, because the way things happen are the way things happen at the end of the day. And that’s how we build character. I wouldn’t have Las Nevadas if not for all these...for all these...mistakes, maybe.”

After that, something happened with Wilbur. Quackity didn’t know much about it, but he changed. He was so obsessed with his country that if he couldn’t have it, no one could. He blew up the entire thing, and in that process he ended up dying, and that’s when Ghostbur came to be.

So many more things happened (Foolish finds out that this crater isn’t just from Wilbur), but...it is what it is.

“And if you dwell in the past, you’ll live in suffering your entire life. So take it from me, Foolish. Take in all the experiences you’ve ever had, and apply them to something greater than what you used to be. Take one last gander at...the country that never was.”

---

- Quackity shows Foolish his old house under Karl’s. He’s not seen Karl in a while. He sees that it’s been blown up, and there’s an old message to him from Sam. He’s not sure what happened.

- Quackity shows Foolish the message. Just as he’d said, Sam had given him Netherite armor once. Sam has a good heart. It’s in the right place, he just needs some guidance.

- He leads Foolish down the Prime Path, showing him the other buildings. He takes Foolish over to the museum.

- They look at the maps and discuss routes again. Foolish asks about a road to the prison, and Quackity says improving his “commutes” would be nice

- Quackity is glad Foolish is taking the chance on Las Nevadas. Quackity has to leave to address some business, but he’ll get on to help Foolish build the roads later.

- Foolish goes back to Las Nevadas, looking out over at Wilbur and Tommy’s headquarters.

Foolish: “It’s kinda been a while since I’ve really had enemies enemies...but I have the feeling that is gonna change soon enough...Maybe not even enemies, but certainly not friends. Kind of a shame, though, I’ve yet to really meet Wilbur...”

- He gets out his shulker box from an Ender Chest and looks inside. There is a stack of TNT.

“It’s been a while...”

- Niki is at the Arctic. Wilbur is back. She thought she got rid of him and doesn’t know why he’s back now, in the only place she feels safe

Niki: “Who are you going to manipulate next, huh? Because it’s not gonna be me this time! It’s not gonna be me this time.”

- Tommy? Tubbo? Jack? Jack wouldn’t fall for it. Niki is upset that Wilbur didn’t check up on her. Why would he change? He never changes or cares

- Why would Dream revive him? Dream was his enemy, but at the end he was pretty fond of him

- Niki heads back through the Nether to her secret city. Now the world revolves around Wilbur again

- She still hasn’t finished her city and hasn’t been able to sleep. She goes to a chest to find the diamonds Wilbur once gave her

- Niki saw the TNT when she broke the wall, but she didn’t tell anyone, covered it back up. But Wilbur still blew it up anyway

- Niki puts the diamonds in a chest buried deep in the wall and covers it back up

- She goes back to the main area, to L’manburg. When she was in Manberg, Wilbur promised that he would get her out of there, and she waited weeks. And then Wilbur wasn’t the same person anymore

- Niki thought maybe while Wilbur was still alive, he could still be rescued, could still be happy

Niki: “But you will never be happy, because all you want is what you can’t have. And when you have everything...what will you fight for?”

- Niki wants to see him, ask why he never came back to her. She walks back to the Nether portal and the stream ends

- Bad shows up to L’Sandburg and notices L’Llamaburg next door. He’s upset about the new castle and wonders why Foolish would allow this, as it violates the agreement

- He reads the purpose of L’Llamaburg and is enraged. There’s only one option, and that’s war. He sets fire to the walls of L’Llamaburg, builds an extension on top of his tower to make it taller than Puffy’s build, and builds a giant sign saying “LIAR”

- After visiting the main area to get some resources, he meets Antfrost on the Prime Path, who has a new skin for pride month!

- Bad goes to the Arctic to bake a cake for Technoblade’s birthday. After finishing it, he leaves a letter requesting Techno’s assistance:

---

Dear Technoblade,

Greetings on this fine evening. I hope this letter finds you well and I hope your polar bears are doing excellent. It is with my sincerest apoligies that I disturb your peace but I must inquire about possibly obtaining your services.

Important matters aside I have built a delicious giant cake for you in honor of your birthday. I hope this cake finds you well and may you have many excellent birthdays to follow. If you would be interested in possibly destroying my enemies for me and salting the earth they call home so that they never find happiness again that would be most kind. If you would like to discuss this matter further you know where to find me.

Kindest Regards BBH

---

- Later, Captain Puffy hears of this brewing war and comes online. She confronts Bad about the missing tower from her castle. Bad insists it wasn’t him, it was Ponk

- Puffy reminds Bad of Puffy and Ponk’s conflict from a while ago in which they destroyed each others builds, and says it’s only fair that, if Ponk really did destroy the tower, then she should destroy Ponk’s fridge

- Bad tries to reason with Puffy to not retaliate, while Puffy thinks tearing down the fridge would be doing the place a favor

- Bad brings up the buffer zone violation and they start arguing with each other over Foolish’s land, the turtles, Puffy blames Bad for killing her son, one thing leads to another and soon enough Puffy tells Bad that his L’Sandburg llama citizens are all into BDSM

- They go to the turtle enclosure and see Ponk’s ransom note. Bad says Ponk has to die. Puffy points out they could start with the fridge, and Bad says they should take his other arm. Ponk stole Shelly, they have to kill him

- Puffy gets angry at Bad not wanting to take down the fridge and brings up the death of her son again, how she thought Bad was going to turn over a new leaf at the Banquet and then that leaf ended up covered in blood instead

Puffy: “I should have taken your goddamn arm, Bad!”

- After talking more, the two finally work together to take down the supreme fridge

- Once finished, the two write a return note to Ponk. Bad wants to discuss things with Ponk, and there’s a place in Las Nevadas that he thinks would be good to meet

The note reads:

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Dear Ponk,

It has come to our attention that you’ve been responsible for some heinous crimes!

Not only did you completely demolish Puffy’s original mushroom house which she let slide. You now have destroyed a tower of her sand castle. BUT IT DOESN’T STOP THERE!

WHERE IS SHELLY PONK!? You’ve not only commited crimes against Puffy but Bad as well! You’ve kidnapped Bad & Sheldon’s dearest Shelly for ransom!

So me and Bad decided to return the favor and give you a taste of your own disgusting medicine!

YOU’RE FRIDGE NO LONGER SUPREME! YOU’VE MESSED WITH THE WRONG MUFFINS AND TAKEN OUR KINDNESS FOR WEAKNESS TOO MANY TIMES!

We all need to talk immediately before this escalates more then it already has.

Leave a book back giving us a time and a place and we will try to attend.

You’ve been warned!

With love, BBH & PuffDaddy

---

- Bad still wants Puffy to move L’Llamaburg, but Puffy wants to stay and protect her son. Bad suggests an alliance: what if L’Sandburg and L’Llamaburg simply combine their territories? It would be beneficial for both nations

- Puffy is skeptical about Bad’s idea and decides that relocating is probably the smartest idea, as Ponk will probably retaliate against her

---

Upcoming Events:

- The final Egg lore stream

- Technoblade’s visit (this weekend)

- Puffy’s lore

- Tales From the SMP: “Space Race”

- Ponk’s lore stream

- Dream’s lore video

- Sapnap’s possible lore stream

- Awesamdude lore stream

#what a day huh #dream smp recaps #dream smp #long posts #hhhahfdsjajhdfja #sorry if I missed any details with this one it was A Lot

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dana-chan-the-control-brain · 4 years ago

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Happy new year everyone 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉

I know 2020 has been hard for everyone.

And I want everyone to know, suffering isn't a contest and we all suffer in different ways. But I feel I should give my year in Review. Just some things that happened to me personally.

This was an intense, and long and spiritual and emotional journey for me...

I really discovered what it meant to have community, family and what my life means to me.

But I feel I need to get this in writing cause I can remember the year with vivid detail and I will probably forget if I don't get it down.

Do I have to share this publically online to my tumblr account for a bunch of strangers to see? not really.

Do I want to?

Yes. I think so. Just from how so many people on tumblr and real life have touched me.

This is kinda long and no one needs to read this.

(idk how to do a readmore on mobile. But this is where I would add it later. No one needs to read if they don't want to.)

January/February: (and some background on the last five years of my life cause.....well. it's important.)

As people knew, I got way into Invader Zim last summer. I spent most of my waking life working a dead end job at a grocery store. I lived a sad lonely life, going straight home to a single dark studio apartment. With not many material possessions outside of games, my laptop and my tablet to my name. Half of my material loves, such as home furnishings and books were still in boxes from when I moved in. In case I ever had to move again, or get some "big screenshot or copywriter" job in the city.

....

I lived in that city in the same dead end job and apartment for five years.

No friends. No social life. I often refused to make doctor appointments or attempt to establish myself in that city. I didn't even talk to anyone in my workplace.

Work. Go online. Go to sleep.

I lived like that for five years.

I thought it was good.

Even my therapist thought I was doing well.

When I really wasn't. My main character flaw I struggle with is motivation.

I can talk to someone about very detailed plans I have to fix a problem... But I tend to never follow through.

Just because I can describe in detail how to fix my personal problems, it doesn't mean I will do it.

(I have gotten better at this but it's a major struggle)

I might have been a Zombie during the day...

But by night I was pouring my soul into my AU and my analysis.

After being so thoughly ignored or overlooked by the Naruto fandom and the Undertale fandom, I felt like I had finally found my home and was settling into a community there.

I just loved that people loved what I had to say.

Especially my AU.

It's no secret that a lot of themes in my au revolve around found family, grief, and loss.......

Fatherhood, in particular.

What it means to be a father, how much do you need to try when you mess up, how willing should a child forgive their parent, especially those that have wronged you and how much of it is factually accurate and simply a self projection of what children want their parents to be and visa versa... What amount of forgiveness and change is nessasary...is it needed?

....

It's no secret that a lot of my AU is a giant coping mechanism for my Dad's death. Espessially the falling out and growing closer with a lot of my family members throughout the years following his death. (Most of the time I keep it ambiguous to how it relates to my personal life unless I include a readmore that states so outright. I feel my au can be enjoyed by a variety of people in the fandom who don't need to know me as a person or my life story.)

My Dad passed away in 2016 in February and my family still feels the aftershocks to this day.

It's part of the reason I moved to the city, alienated myself from my family and people that loved me and refused to experience life for five years.

My entire world was Zim, and I was okay.

March: When America finally realized and started to feel the effects of the pandemic....

A lot of people got scared.

Me included.

I didn't have any streaming services or access to the news. So I only heard accounts from my mom.

I didn't understand why the store was so dead quiet and empty for a few days, then it went into mass chaos and panic in the span of two days.

It felt like Retail black friday in the worst way. Everyone was packed like sardines. Everyone was yelling. The lines at the registers bled into the clothing department.

I was witness to customers shoving others for toilet paper, being rude to cashier's and just overall unpleasantness.

At the time, I didn't even fully grasp what the pandemic was, and I feel a lot of people at the time didn't either.

I ended up absentmindedly scratching my eyebrow in front of a customer and she screamed and villanised me for it. That they didn't want groceries touched by my "unclean hands"

I ended up breaking down into tears.

The customer behind me gave me a hug and told me I was doing a great job.

But the damage was done. It was the final straw, I couldn't stop crying and I was breaking apart.

Thankfully my Boss (the one who likes me) pulled me aside and asked what's wrong.

It was then that I quit. No notice. Same day. I had to get out of there.

I was planning to move to an apartment with my sister in the summer, but my Mom offered for me to move back in with her temperarily just so I can get out of the city and away from the pandemic.

So I did.

I got scared, broke my lease a month early and quit my job of five years that gave me nothing back.

He told me, "take care of yourself and your family, I won't keep you here, do what you need to do."

So I did.

April-June:

A very eventful few months.

My mom offered for me to live at her place, but for some reason she was acting like I would live there forever. That this wasn't a temporary arrangement, and that I didn't have an apartment set up already.

This was in large part to my sister, who had lived with my mom taking advantage of her for years.

Even though my sister and I were going to move in together, I was just never sure about it cause of how she never packed her stuff or made any effort to find a job.

My mom often acted like I was lazy and not searching and was treating me like... Well, an unruly teenager instead of a woman of 29 years. She acted like I was a failure for returning home when it was her idea in the first place.

I would have just been petrified in the city.

Like usual, I retreated to my au again.... And in the spring, something eventful happened.

In may, 8th 2020:

I was invited by @rissynicole to join an invader zim discord.

Now, I've never really used discord before. I always thought it's interface is too confusing.. and I'm a member of a few other iz discords and I usually don't follow them that closely.

Rissy assured me it was different cause some friends of thiers made it and it was smaller.

Before I knew it, I was sharing memes and getting to know everyone there.

It wasn't long after I invited my partner in IZ crimes, @paketdimensioncomic who was genuinely wary of iz servers due to a bad experience with the last one they were a part of.

But soon they were sharing memes and laughing with everyone else.

My eyes were starting to open and I was able to connect to fans of my work in an interpersonal way. And I was able to discover new artists and aus I never knew about.

I was also able to meet so many others of the community and invite them to the server myself.

The moo-ping 10 server kept me sane while I was living with my judgmental mother.

Not only that, the summer was very productive for my au.

Drawing was all I did, and it was a huge break from the job as a cashier I had.

Not only that, June came, and with it, me and Ceph's first collab fic:

A result of us just going back and forth in our DMs constantly about Professor Membrane and how he changed in ETF for the better and how much we adamantly stan "trying-to-be-a-good-dad-brane" and how much of his ETF development has to be implied off screen in order for the emotional resolution in the movie to matter.

The only reason I never professed my love for Membrane as a character in the fandom before the fic dropped was.... Well....

Membrane can be a decisive character in the fandom and I was so worried people would hate me if I did an analysis on him, simply because he's not the best parent in the world. (As an understatement)

Ceph and I really encouraged each other to scream our love for the science himbo loud and proud more frequently and so often.... I actually start to see less Membrane hate posts and breakdowns then their used to be.... I like to think it's a combination of Me and Ceph's influence, along with ETF and the Quarterly's painting Membrane in a slightly more nuanced light then he was previously.

I never wrote a collab fic before and it's such a rewarding and fun and unique experience that I don't think I'll ever have again. And I love working with Ceph on our fics so much.

So much so we did it again...

July-August:

I never thought I would be one of those people who writes NSFW IZ fic... But here I am.

The Brainbrane au started.... An au of my au where Membrane and the Computer fall in love and Membrane makes him a body.

This ship was based around the idea where we joked that Membrane and Zim's Computer would have funny interactions if they ever met, under the pretense Membrane thinks Computer is Zim's parent.

Our headcanons morphed and shifted until we just full blown started shipping them.

Just because Membrane and Zim's Computer have overall REALLY entertaining chemistry.

It's a character dynamic never seen in the show or comics (yet) and I imagine thier interactions to be nothing but entertaining banter.

The fic was also born from spite... Making fun of the troupes and cliches that we found personally destestible in some questionable zadr fics.

So an angry ace and a demi-bisexual collab on a porn and end up blessing the fandom with

Compapa headcanons,

Computer being recognized as a more common used fanon character,

The ship of Brainbrane.

The fandom having a crisis of "oh God, not only are we xenophiles we're technophiles too!!!" Or "why you gotta give Zim's Computer an ass"

More android Computer designs

It was an eventful summer.

In the midst of all this, I moved into my new place, got a new job, and I was able to see my friend (who is def my platonic straight soul mate) who lives in Indiana.

She came to visit, showed me how to decorate and how to take care of my body better! Things were looking up! It was great.

September-November:

My job was at a boat store. If was approaching the fall and my hours were being severely cut.

I was getting into a rut of depression again.

I thought things were changing but the same routine I was trying to escape from was the same thing coming back.

But instead of letting it take hold, I decided I was going to do something about it... I was gonna visit a museum and go with my sister. Just... variety stimulation.

Well that didn't happen.

I talked about this shortly in my au itself...but..

My sister had a complete mental breakdown.

She stopped taking her meds, went off the deep end and was in the hospital a total of five times throughout November.

A lot of it was acting out and the perfect storm of environmental factors that made her scream and act out so she would keep going back to the hospital.

It was traumatizing for me.

I just can't explain what it's like. For her and for me to be in that position.

I'm not telling the full story and a lot of bullshit things happened I won't share here.

She got diagnosed with bipolar one and my mom expected me to be a caretaker for her.

I threatened to disown my family and move away out of state.

It was just too much for me to handle.

So much I was a nervous wreck.

I tried to pick up a second job... Cause my sister was in the mental ward so frequently and couldn't pay the bills.

But I was fired within a week cause I was so stressed I couldn't retain the basic information they were training me for.

It was an office job.

My dream.

It could have been.

I was fired from something I really wanted.

I was only there for three days.

I could not retain any information.

I was a mess.

My sister was a trigger, my mom wanted me to live with her. I couldn't live like this.... I had to get out.

I had to get out.

December:

Remember my Indiana friend?

Well the first week of December is my birthday.

My 30th to be exact.

While I did pick up a seasonal position at Target (not my first pick)

I took the first week of December off so I could spend time with her. Cause she agreed, I needed a break from this crap.

Surviving 30 years is cause to celebrate and if I had to celebrate with my sister I would have cried.

I know there was a risk traveling out of state during a pandemic...

But I needed out, I needed a friend..

And I kinda wanted to look at the place since I was considering moving there.

My friend's mom was sick so she avoided me and her daughter and got us a hotel room.

It was fun! I got to swim in a salt water pool, we talked about Naruto, I showed her the iz and su art books I brought, also Computer and Membrane tea.

I also got to meet her other friends and get crunk. And her bf who is super nice and funny!

I had a super fun birthday....

Until her mom told my friend that her grandparents had covid and that was what she had. And my friend got sick within that same day.... As did I.

I owe so much to her family.

I was an entire state away...about a ten hour drive from home.... She let me stay at her house. "The covid house" we called it.

Cause everyone (except the father. He avoided everyone and booked a hotel immediately cus he was an ER doctor) had covid within a day.

I called in, the test results were positive and I had to stay with her family for ten days quarantine before I could work again.

Which would have been fine....

If my tumblr didn't log me out perminately of my old account. @dana-chan325 .... Which really sucked cause I had a constant headache and was too sick to engage with tumblr or much of the fandom. I didn't want to make a new account when my head was in a bad fog and I could barely breathe or smell.

It's not like I saw much of my friend either.... We all slept at different hours and she had more symptoms then I did.

It was just netflix, danganronpa v3 and cry.

I was miserable, but at the same time.... Not?

I really feel like God himself was the one who pulled me off from tumblr, and my living situation.

Maybe a whole extra week feeling like a bobblehead was what I needed.

It gave me some much needed clarity on my relationships with my mom and sis and friend.

Running away to Indiana was not the solution here.

Once I was better within ten days and no longer had a leave of absence, I drove home.

I am glad I fully recovered (but from how I understand it, my dear friend is still ill. I'm praying for her)

I might have gone to work a bit too soon, cause I had an asthma attack after trying to unload a single cart in the span of six hours.

My boss lectured that my speed was unacceptable, and even though I explained the covid situation and breathing problems many times, she threatened that I'd be fired if I'm that slow again.

Que the next few days of work where they put me on register.

Instantly I was sent into a panic remembering the last time I was on the register and how that panic attack caused me to quit.

I even asked if I could go back to stocking, since my breathing had improved. My boss assured me that I was put on the register cause they needed help and nothing to do with my covid thing.

Then as December concluded and the new year began, my boss said that this was the last shift for me cause my position was seasonal and they were letting a lot of people go.

I then asked why I was on the schedule for Sunday, and he told me to ignore it and I'm free to reapply for full-time.

I mean.... They can act smart about it...

But putting your general merchandise stocker onto register after she had an asthma attack and missed working the first two weeks of December due to covid.....

Not a good look.

So once again, I'm jobless once more.

Will probably continue to live with my sister for awhile.

But I do not feel as if it's a bad thing....

I met so many good people this year....

My friend's family even gave me 500 usd to cover my rent since I couldn't work for a majority of December.

I've seen evil and good from humanity this year. I've seen acts of god, good friends and what my real family means to me as well as friends I consider family.

This year really made me look back at the person in the mirror and say,

"I deserve better."

And actually worked for it this time.

Oh and after Christmas I got a horrible yeast infection that burns over most of my body currently.

Very accurate doodle to the pain I'm in right now.

(seriously my body is a fungus.)

But hey, good news, I respected myself enough to go to the doctor about it!!

So that's progress.

I really hope 2021 holds good things for me.

Thank you to the mooping 10 server for always being there and keeping me sane,

Thank you tumblr for liking my au and everything.

AND A SUPER SPECIAL THANK YOU TO @evartandadam and her family for housing me and my dumb diseased ass. Everyone, she is an angel and I can't express how much she means to me. Please check out her art and buy her stuff on redbubble.

Anyways... Byebye 2020.

I look forward to what I can accomplish for myself this year.

#danachan's posts #personal stuff #new year post #tw: covid #tw: yeast infection

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naarisz · 3 years ago

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hi! i'm a mod at Mass Effect Forever discord server with around 9500 members - I just wanted to ask if it's OK if we add your adorable stickers to our server's stickers collection? we could credit you in our rules section if you'd like. it's totally OK if you'd rather we don't add them, I understand. thanks so much!

Hello! :)

You can use it, of course. I'm glad you like it! :D

#asks

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moontheoretist · 3 years ago

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"Nobody expected". Well, maybe you. I didn’t believe that the Archons even have the power to grant the Visions since the trailer for 2.1 dropped, because Dragon Age fandom and lore taught me that "whatever the NPC = people of the world believe may and usually is not the truth of the world itself". I didn’t need that confirmation from Raiden to be sure, because the trailer implied that much.

If I paid more attention to the lore I would know that the moment I got Zhongli’s line about Visions, but I didn’t, so I didn’t hear the line in which he basically says that he doesn’t even know what Visions are, so by extension if he doesn’t know how they work and what they are, he cannot grant them, unless we assumed he was giving out the shit he himself didn’t know shit about.

It kinda bugs me that most of Genshin fandom still refers to Visions as being given by some principles which the Archon sets. Like Anemo being given to people who “lost a friend”. I know most of it are jokes, but it grates on my nerves recently, especially after 2.1 trailer dropped and even more now, when we got the confirmation from Raiden that they don't give them. So I vehemently disagree with the conclusion from this video that Archon’s ideals somehow affect the Visions. It is more probable that Visions reflect the character of the person they are granted to than Archon’s wishy-washy ideals.

Since 2.1 I was thinking, and I dig up some stuff, and then I joined a discord server for theorists, and now I am less full of shit than when I was writing this. So, you can disregard most of what I said there.

For the record, this post was written 21-22.09.2021. If any new developments arise, the info here may change or get disproven.

Now, as far as I am concerned:

- Visions are objects given to certain people who fulfill certain requirements. We don’t know all of those requirements, but one of them is having an extremely powerful wish/ambition/passion for something.

- Vision reflects the passion/ambition and holds it even when the person dies.

- Vision can be reawakened if the person resonates with the ambition it holds. (This is how Ningguang got her Vision).

- Vision is called the Eye of God in Chinese, which is suspicious considering that Gods in Teyvat used to be something more than the Archons are now - meaning that there were a lot of Gods and there were Gods of Celestia as a separate set of Gods, and now we have 7 Archons, who have Celestia’s stamp of approval. There is A LOT of eye references being thrown around in Teyvat, so the whole eye thing going on with the names probably has some meaning.

- Delusions are made from the energy of dead gods (like Orobaxi) and possibly other powerful beings (dragon Durin).

- Delusions are human-made and are obtainable in an easier way due to the fact that they do not require as high level of ambition as Visions do and possibly don’t require the person to fulfill other, unnamed requirements.

- Delusions probably used to be rarer than they are in 2.1, because if they were that easy to manufacture, all Fatui would use them and not only a few. 2.1 makes Delusion into literal mass-produced product and gives it to the Resistance, which means Fatui could manufacture that many and give them away, possibly losing them forever if they were confiscated.

- Both Visions and Delusions have a price, but we didn't see Vision’s price yet. We know that Delusion Diluc’s father used killed him, and we know that Delusions given to the Resistance accelerated their aging. Possibly the effect which Delusion will have on the human using it is related to the type of the dead god/creature they used to make them, but it’s not confirmed that the evil energy left behind by the dead gods differs depending on the god. As of now, it was mostly the same thing, oozing like a miasma from the earth (?) with just different area effects (I still hate Mikage Furnace with passion).

Now, I know that in one of my previous posts I said Delusions may be named like that due to people channeling something they were deluded by, but now I am more of a thought that Delusions are named like that simply, because in Vision’s case your ambition is somewhat considered achievable when you get your Vision or even due to the fact that you got that Vision, while Delusion is like a dream you have and want to achieve, but everybody knows is impossible to be achieved. People who want to achieve something but don't have the means to, and have only their own conviction it will happen, are often referred to as deluded. Visions on the other hand are literally a proof that your ambition will be achieved either by your own doing or thanks to the fact that you got that Vision in the first place.

Anyway, I am iffy on the whole “Celestia gives the visions”, but I think Celestia and their Gods (not the 7 Archons) may have something to do with establishing the requirements I talked about above.

They don’t have to directly use them to spy on people as some theorists think, and may only be a general push behind them being established as a part of the fabric of the world of Teyvat.

#genshin impact #genshin impact lore #raiden shogun #zhongli #i am sometimes seriously exasperated at how much people insist #that something is true simply because NPCs believe that to be true #yeah initially I was fooled too with all the believes and sayings that even the Delusions are given by someone #but I always entertained the possibility that those may be given more like trinkets #and less like godly bestoved powers or blessings

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monstersandmaw · 5 years ago

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Patreon Tier Reshuffle in February and General 2020 Developments...

I gave my Patrons first look at this post, since some of the changes will affect their tiers (only to add content though!). Now I’m posting most of it to Tumblr for you to look at and perhaps have a think about...

It’s a long post, and I’m sorry for that...

First of all, I’d like to say a huge thank you to everyone who’s supporting me on Patreon, whether you’re a long-time supporter or you just joined. I know it's a big deal to give your heard-earned cash to someone on the internet and am well aware of the responsibility I have and what an honour it is to be on the receiving end of your generosity and support. So, yes. Thank you more than I can probably ever express.

Secondly, a reminder that all tiers have access to our chilled out Discord server forever. We’ve got a channel for sharing photos of pets, for general chat, for monsters, for sharing artwork of all kinds, a library to share your own stories, an nsfw chat, recipes etc., so hopefully there’s something for everyone, but there’s no pressure to be active if you’d rather not be! There’s also an ongoing DnD game with some of the folks on there too, which is fun!

It might be worth joining the server anyway because I have plans for a new perk which will involve Discord (see below), and I also occasionally run ‘Discord Drabbles’ where I ask for prompts on Discord from folks, which you might have seen posted on Patreon from time to time.

Now, finally, round to the topic of this post!

I’ve been thinking about how to make sure that every tier gets the most that I can give them for their money, so I’m going to do a little reshuffle. It will start in February, and I’ve made sure that I’m pretty much just adding stuff to each tier, so you won’t miss out in the reshuffle.

Here are the new things I’m running only on Patreon from February 2020 in addition to everything else (see below):

Sculpt This!

Patrons can submit artwork or detailed descriptions (a creature/monster, a character, an object) to a designated ‘Sculpt This!’ channel on Discord, and I will pick one to sculpt once a month. I will create a post on Patreon with the artwork and the artist’s name (and a link to their page/site if they have one, and photos of my final sculpture based on their design. That will be available to everyone from the $1 tier upwards.

For those on the $5 tier upwards, a short video will be available, featuring footage of the sculpting process itself.

If the person whose art I use is on the $20 tier or upwards, I will post them the sculpture if they’d like it.

Trope Tuesdays!

A poll will go up prior to Tuesday, with a list of common tropes (notably from the world of fanfic – things like ‘coffee shop’, ‘bed-sharing’, ‘enemies to lovers’, ‘5 times +1’ etc. etc.) and the winning trope from that poll will be the theme for a short story to be posted on a Tuesday.

I’m aiming for these short stories to be a variety of fluffy and steamy, available to everyone from the $1 tier up.

Character Letters

$10 and up patrons can request a letter once a month from their favourite characters from any of my stories (providing I wasn’t using someone else's OC for a commission or the like). This can be sent as a PDF by email and/or posted publicly to Patreon only (not Tumblr), with the option to remove the name if you’d rather remain anonymous.

$20 and up patrons can request a hand-written letter once a month from their favourite character, again with the option to have the text posted to Patreon or not, and with their name, or not.

Commissions

I'm still in two minds about opening these up on here because I got absolutely exhausted – mentally and physically – at the end of 2019 and I’m only just recharging again. I had said I would open them up to patrons only in January 2020, and I may yet do that. If I do, I will create 5 slots, and a maximum of 5k words per story initially, and see how that goes. I realise that’s a small number of slots, but it’s still a lot of work for me on top of the rest of the Patreon commitments. I hope you understand, but I know a number of you responded in a poll to say you’d be interested in commissions from me again.

$10 patrons receive 5% off the first 5000 words of writing commissions, and $20 receive 10% off the first 5000 words of commissions.

Continuing rewards:

Monthly story – the monthly exclusive story will still be available for $5 and up (some of these stories have been known to go up to 10k words and be in multiple parts – think Kieran the satyr’s story from October 2018!)

Early release – I will continue to offer all Tumblr stories (except paid commissions from non-patrons and giveaways/specials) on early release – minimum of 4 days, sometimes longer.

Polls – help me decide what to write next

Character bios and artwork

Future things I hope to bring in later this year:

Gaming with Ghosti

I hope to do some streaming via Twitch of me playing things either on the PS4 (like Assassin’s Creed Odyssey or we could do a special Dragon Age: Inquisition playthrough together), or from PC which could include a number of games, from Witcher III (I still haven’t played much) to Mass Effect, chilled out Minecraft sessions, and a huge number of other games which you could choose to inflict on me and watch me flail around in.

Hopefully Mr. Ghosti could join in too and laugh along with you and just generally have a chilled out time. This would probably happen at the weekend, but I’d have to look into the logistics of it if there’s enough interest.

Discount for Patrons on my Etsy shop

It’s actually live right now, but I haven’t got anything listed yet as I’m unsure of the last few things I need to get in place, but once I’ve got things up on there, I’ll make an announcement and give patrons a special discount code to use in case there’s anything you’d like to buy, from jewellery to polymer clay charms/sculptures.

More Q&A type things and video content

Some of you seemed to enjoy the video I did answering your questions, so I could always do more of this, if there are things you’d like to ask! It could be about anything, not just writing. If there’s interest, I’ll look into it.

More milestone giveaways and mystery ‘lucky dip’ giveaways

I love sharing things with you, so when I hit 200 patrons, I’ll have to think up something special, and in the meantime, maybe I’ll do some more giveaways for you.

If there’s something that you would like to see that you think I could put up on Patreon for you, then please get in touch! I’m always looking for ideas

All tier rewards will be as follows from February 2020:

Brand new items in bold, and slight changes in italics:

(putting in a ‘keep reading’ because it’s getting silly now...)

Shadows:

access to the Patreon-only Discord

access to the ‘Trope Tuesdays’ poll and story

access to the ‘Sculpt This!’ posts

access to some character profiles, aesthetics, polls, and story ideas

small discount on my etsy store (when it opens)

and my undying gratitude!

Pixies and Goblins – all of the above, plus:

one Patreon-exclusive monster story per month

access to the ‘Sculpt This!’ process video

access to the extra, long-running story, released once a month (Werewolf story - coming soon!)

early access for all Tumblr monster stories (excluding paid commissions)

the ‘what’s next?’ poll to help me decide what monster or reader to write

Elves – all of the above, plus:

you can request a letter once a month from your favourite character of mine! This can be sent as a PDF by email and/or posted publicly to Patreon only, with the option to remove the name if you’d rather remain anonymous.

entry into the monthly 3k word story commission – if you are chosen (at random) from the Elves tier (and above) you can have a 3k word story of your choosing written for you

access to ‘Writer’s Corner’, featuring occasional blog posts about writing and workshop goings-on

small work-in-progress previews from both my monster stories and my original fantasy fiction ‘Weaver of Threads’

5% off the first 5000 words of writing commissions, and priority placement in the commissions queue

Orcs – all of the above, plus:

you can also request a letter once a month from your favourite character, but yours can also be hand-written and posted to you if you’d like! You also have the option of it being posted to Patreon or not.

One short story (maximum 1500 words) with a monster and reader of your choice per month (by request only), included within your subscription

A PDF version of any monster story I’ve written and published on Patreon or Tumblr (by request, and sent by email)

10% off the first 5000 words of a writing commission

if your design was selected in the ‘Sculpt This!’ feature, I can post the finished sculpture to you, if you’d like to have it.

Dragons – all of the above, plus:

One 5000 word story of your choosing will be written for you per month (no fanfiction) as a thank you for your patronage (by request only)

Entry into the monthly top tiers free story draw but your story is 4k words instead of 3k

20% off the first 5000 words of a writing commission

A character with a name of your choosing (upon approval!) will be added to a monster story

Priority on jewellery and metalwork commissions and a larger discount on my Etsy store (when that opens)

Kaiju – all of the above, plus:

if you win the random free commission, yours is 5k words instead of 3k!

One 7000 word story of your choosing will be written for you per month (no fanfiction) as a thank you for your patronage (by request only)

One hand written letter of thanks (I have nice handwriting, don’t worry!) sent to you by post, including a little short story

25% off the first 5000 words of a writing commission

30% discount on jewellery and metalwork commissions

Dedication by name in any published work (let me know if you wish to remain anonymous)

Hope you’re excited, and don’t forget that you can always get in touch with me on any of my platforms – Patreon, Tumblr, Discord. If you want to share something but also want to remain anonymous, just send an anon to Tumblr and ask me not to post it.

#patreon #exophilia #new stuff #new content #exophilia stories #monster stories #monster boyfriend #monster girlfriend #long post

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omegastation · 6 years ago

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Oh no are you leaving? Can we find you anywhere else? ; ¤; You're my favorite space opera blog

Ah, I’m thinking about what I’m going to do. I don’t think I’ll leave Tumblr forever but I’m also not certain I want to spend all my ME fandom time here.

I’m really annoyed, it’s not just censoring, it’s everything search-related. Yesterday I was thinking of a poem I knew I reblogged on my sideblog and searching for poetry led me to 3 posts when I know I have at least one page full of poetry there.

I always knew the risk of relying on a platform to host content, but with ME there are so many cool discussions and I tried really hard with the index and linking tags and replying to asks etc to make sure those discussions can be found because they’re valuable.

In those conditions, it’s really hard for me to imagine being okay with hosting more content on Tumblr knowing: 1. none of it might be searchable, 2. tumblr is falling apart and I don’t trust this platform at all

so I’ll try to move all of that to Mass Effect Lore. I’m on holiday starting today 5PM, I’ll be working on it so that next year MEL is a good place to have discussions (which is another big issue to solve because I know how people work, I know how I work, and I don’t think any of us are big on commentating on Wordpress blogs...). But other than that, I think I’ll have to join some discord servers or the BSN forums...

#Anonymous

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akelyokikagu · 6 years ago

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taggy tag

tag rules: answer all questions, add one question of your own, and tag as many people as there are questions (rip my lonely ass)

I was tagged @perkypan

1. coke or pepsi: pepsi

2. Disney or dreamworks: Dreamworks only for Jack Frost D:

3. coffee or tea: tea

4. books or movies: books

5. Windows or Mac: linux windows

6. DC or Marvel: DC

7. Xbox or playstation: computer uwu otherwise, playsation

8. Dragon age or mass effect: DRAGON AGE

9. Night owl or early riser: Night Owl and Early riser (only because of school)

10. cards or chess: chess

11. chocolate or vanilla: vanilla most of the time

12. vans or converse: converse

13. Lavellan, Trevelyan, Cadash or Adaar: achoom

14. fluff or angst: angst

15. beach or forest: my room

16. dogs or cats: DOGGOS

17. clear skies or rain: clear skies

18. cooking or eating out: cooking is cheaper

19. spicy food or mild food: mild foods

20. halloween/samhain or solstice/yule/christmas: chinese new year :B

21. would you rather forever be a little too hot or a little too cold: too cold

22. if you could have any superpower, what would it be: infinite productivity

23. animation or live action: animation

24. paragon or renegade: achoom n°2

25. baths or showers: Showers are cheaper

26. team cap or team iron man: batman>all

27. fantasy or sci-fi: both

28. Do you have three or four favorite quotes? If so, what are they: cry more pee less

29. netflix or youtube: youtube 30. harry potter or percy jackson: harry potter all the way

31. when you feel accomplished: finishing a drawing at 3am

32. star wars or star trek: captain albator

33. paperback or hardback: hardback

34: horror or rom-com: no

35. tv shows or movies: tv shows

36. spotify or pandora: neither

37. zootopia or inside out: zootopia

38. favourite book: Good old Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen

39. favourite flower: Edelweiss

40. what field of study are you in (or aspire to be in): computer science, artificial intelligence

41. song lyric you really love: BANANANABA NANANA BA, Power Up by Red Velvet

42.what’s your mbti type: ISTJ-T

43. fave movie: Shin-chan’s 16th movie. I’m serious

44.favourite Tv show(s): Doctor Who

45. top three authors: Sorachi Hideaki, Terry Pratchett, Helene Hanff

46. favourite season: Autumn

47. favourite high school musical?: no

48: silver or gold: pink gold>silver>gold

49. favourite food: r i c e

50. dream vacation: Japan, China (Historical cities or natural ones)

51. last dream you remember: I was trying to protecc an member of the discord server from internet troll

52. city or country: city

53. slow burn or love at first sight: slow burn

54. What’s your favourite animal: doggo

55. bowling or minigolf: bowling sougo

56 watermelon or honey melon? a gud watermelon

57. (my question) sun or moon

#don't tag anyone #me is lazy

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emotionalwarmth · 2 years ago

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Prompt: Forget September prompt for monthly challenge in the Mass Effect Forever discord server. Kaidan-romancing Shepard, obviously, during the events of Mass Effect 2. Possibly after Horizon. Forgetting is something she knows she should do, and tries to, but can't.

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brokenjardaantech · 2 years ago

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it's good you have a new life (but what about me?)

summary:

They were close, once. They had to be. As twins, as a family, as something. It went wrong, of course. Scott is glad his sister found someone despite bearing the brunt of their parents' complete lack of responsibility, but what about him? What about the boy left behind? What about the boy who lost his sister and was told to pretend that she never existed?

notes:

written for may's prompt fill in the mass effect forever discord server: divide. also a companion piece to i'm not your father (because at least i try), so although this can probably be read as a stand-alone, i recommend reading that first to get some context on the interaction and dialogue. this is also more rambly than my usual writing which is intentional.

#male ryder #female ryder #alec ryder #mass effect #mass effect andromeda #little green

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nxfury · 4 years ago

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THIS MACHINE KILLS FASCISTS, A Discussion On Free Speech

In the early 1940s during World War 2, a world renowned rock-'n-roll guitarist named Woody Guthrie mustered up the courage to paint a slogan on his guitar, that would forever change the way we view the world and influence many people's views on the subject of free speech. After the publishing of one of his wartime songs, Guthrie painted "THIS MACHINE KILLS FASCISTS" onto his guitar. But Why Would He? Guthrie believed that the battle Freedom of Speech and Censorship was more important than the war between Good and Evil itself. Enough history, why is this viewpoint relevant to society today?

This post is different, I recently downloaded a videogame I remembered playing from several years ago, called Return To Castle Wolfenstein. It's considered to be cult classic game, but I learned it was banned to own or sell in Germany and a couple other countries, due to it's use of the Nazi Swastika. This got me thinking on the topic of censorship as it relates to the world we live in, why hackers should care, and how we can tackle this issue.

What Is Censorship?

Censorship comes from the root word censor, which means "to examin in order to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable" (definition courtesy of Merriam-Webster Dictionary). Due to the breadth of this definition, this means that NOT ONLY GOVERNMENTS can censor a society- society can censor themselves. An example of government-forced censorship would be the banning of books (such as how several countries ban the Bible or other books deemed "sacred") or the blocking of websites in a specific region. Society-induced censorship examples could be calling people "haters" for having alternative opinions and the creation of hate speech, intentionally disregarding any alternative opinion.

Why Does Freedom Of Speech Matter?

If one is familiar with Orwellian novels or history from actual oppressive regimes such as Mussolini or Stalin, one common idea is always shared. This is the mindset of group-think, and getting society as a whole to think the same way as a like-minded whole. Hitler managed to brainwash an entire society into the hatred of the Jewish population, and all the others did similar things.

If we wish to prevent this oppressive fate, society must protect and encourage the ability to think for themselves- even if they don't wish to.

How Does This Tie Into Technology?

The Internet was formerly the ARPAnet project, a system to interconnect Universities for the purpose of enabling schools and students to better share ideas and work. It would eventually morph into the Internet which saw a massive increase in size and sharing of information, and still remains the largest source for information available to the human race. When hackers started traversing the wires and breaking into systems, the US Government promised security and began an absurd pattern of arrests and lawsuits.

The DMCA act was introduced, effectively allowing the creator of a copyrighted work to legally compel the removal of information from the internet, which resulted in numerous creative works being either deleted or removed. The NSA, FBI and CIA began an all-out assault against encryption, and are still trying to make encryption illegal, although privacy is a protected human right in the United States. Movie and record companies introduced Digital Rights Management (DRM), making it harder than ever to share derivative, creative works based on famous clips of audio/video. Human and Animal Rights Activists all around the globe started labeling people "haters" if they didn't entirely agree with their ideologies. Code of Conduct terms were introduced in numerous public domain projects to prevent people from speaking their mind. The list of these offenses goes on and on, all of them unexcusable offenses for those who claim to be guardians of free speech.

Why is this bad? IT HINDERS INNOVATION, CREATIVITY, LEARNING AND GROWTH.

On Fascism

According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, the words Fascism and Fascist come from the Italian root word fascio, or group. The term fascista was used to talk about the members of Mussolini's political organization, named Fasci di combattimento (combat groups). These "combat groups" adopted a bundle of rods with an ax as their insignia and wore black shirts, and became a symbol of complete and utter servitude to their government's authority. As this group was a "combat group" by nature, they would always disregard anyone else's opinions but their own, to the point of mass genocide in Italy.

Thus, a fascist is someone who violently opposes the free sharing of information and are completely subservient to some authority figure. One could easily argue that the modern bipartisan political system in the United States has encouraged such behavior on both sides, for both Republicans and Democrats, Right and Left. On the Right, we have pro-gun citizens who believe it's their God-given right to protect their land and often join militia groups to oppose anyone who disagrees. On the Left, we are seeing groups such as Antifa who are taking it upon themselves to destroy anyone or anything that questions the Black Lives Matter movement in the slightest.

This Isn't About Race Or Political Beliefs

If we were to ask the entire US population, around 90-93% of all people would agree that racism, corrupt politicians, and unethical companies are all bad things worth opposing. So why on earth are people becoming more and more divided? There are a few possible answers, neither of which are pleasant to think about:

There's a disagreement on the approach to solving these issues, and no one's willing to come to an agreeable solution.

People are actively looking for a reason to get into fights with one another.

People have let the idea of identity politics go too far, letting their beliefs become who they are- making their opinions rigid and immovable.

Whatever option is picked, the problem is clear as day: It's not about race, spending, political beliefs, global warming deniers, and so on. It's about giving opposing views the light of day in order to refine each other's view of the truth.

How Does This Apply To Tech Enthusiasts?

This arbitrarily imposed limitation on what techies can say and do effectively speaks death to their creativity. For example, the Linux kernel had a significant reputation for it's owner (Linus Torvalds) being very brash and offensive at the sight of poorly written code. He openly admitted several times that he was such, and has a zero tolerance policy for poorly written code in his project. As a political push, the Linux Kernel was forced to adopt a Code of Conduct with the reason being due to Torvald's (and others) behavior. With this code of conduct being extremely overreaching and taking control out of the owner's hands, it's become significantly harder to ensure the quality and openness of Linux. Other Open Source projects have seen this happen to them, and the quality of their code has greatly diminished while the quality of ones that haven't are greatly increased. For example, OpenBSD actively refuses to adopt a Code of Conduct, and they retain this "asshole-ish" behavior towards authors of bad code with the view that incompetence shouldn't be rewarded. Unsurprisingly, OpenBSD is widely seen as one of the most secure and reliable Operating Systems on Planet Earth.

This begs a huge question: If forcing people to speak a certain way results in reduced quality due to lack of involvement, should people be allowed to speak completely freely? For the sake of designing quality software and hardware that's meant to be used and perfected, the last thing that's needed is a set of rules to slow down the smartest people from expressing their ideas. The question ought to be posed as a moral question, asking whether or not it's an acceptable solution to use authority to force people to agree with others, even if they don't. Wouldn't it be much easier to just let someone hurt their own reputation if they wish to behave unprofessionally?

A Potential Solution

After a bit of a test run, it seems as though allowing free and unfettered speech in a ~400 member chat server seems to work extremely well, provided a system is designed to encourage real discussion about even the hardest topics. For example, reminding people that they have their own reputation to uphold is huge (Some communities might opt to make use of a rule where a member can be removed forcibly through popular vote, where no vote counts as a vote against removal) and other things.

It's incredibly sad to see the academic and scientific world decay in this way, so it's a moral duty for hackers and tech enthusiasts to protect and retain the quality of information and projects, no matter the cost.

That's it, rant over. Back to your regularly scheduled program... :)

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