#SPHERE INC.

[retrocgads]

USA 1993

[hidden-in-heaven]

Hidden in heaven - AU concept

Exploring more of Heaven and the 7 Archangels in Hazbin Hotel 

This AU explores our concept and interpretation of heaven while still being connected to the canon story of Hazbin Hotel.

It roughly takes place currently time, roughly takes at the same time as season 1

HEAVEN

Our interpretation still follows what we've seen in the show, it's basically still the colorful paradise it's made out to be, with it's denizens still bliss fully un-aware of what's going on behind the scenes and down below,

however, now with the additions of our own ideas, with how it deals with its denizens and its main authorities, which is the 7 archangels and the elders, and how they run heaven.

we also added the idea of heavens history, from even before creation.

Eternal Serenity inc.

The Objective of this company the management of souls and the insurance of a paradise environment that Heaven promised. However for each ascended [soul] has their own slight idea of what ‘’paradise’’ is like, each department cater to that ideal accordingly.

the 7 archangels are responsible for running these departments

Elder Council

the elders are comprised of each species of angel in the first sphere and have existed since before existence itself. They were the direct caretakers of the 3 eldest children, however, despite technically being a rank lower than them in the hierarchy the council has a higher rulement over the siblings since they were the main authority and mentors to the siblings. 

[note: there are angels that work directly under them]

Seraphim - Sera [founders of the seraphim sisters]

cherebium - metatron [founders of the Cherebium court]

Throne - Callan [founder of the celestial bodies]

====

main cast

7 archangels

Elders

Adam and exorcist

====

Lore

====

main tags

===

Bounderies

• we have no fucking clue, just dont be weird

• Fanarts and Fanfics: We’re absolutely okay with them! Please tag us so we can see them

• Ship/: We’re also completely okay with them

• Inspo:If you take any inspiration from our designs we’ll gladly appreciate if you credit us

• Again, just don’t be weird

[fangedxnight1836]

Characters of the day:

The Booster-Beetle family (aka the people associated with Blue Beetle and Booster Gold).

If the names are bolded and italicised then the person is also kind of apart of the family as well!

We included Rani Carter in a different post, be sure to check that out!!

Booster Gold - Micheal John Carter the (bestBoi)

Information about him :

He is from the 25th Century, which is the same as the Reverse Flash. He lived in Gotham city at that time with his mother and twin sister.

His father, Jon Carter had a gambling problem which caused him to leave his family before his kids turned 4. Later on he joined the time stealers and became the villain, Supernova.

Worked alongside Dirk Davis and Trixie Collins during his Goldstar INC days.

Was/Is in the JLI (through Maxwell Lords help) and the JLA. Also joined the Conglomerate which was run by Max Lords ex wife.

In the JLI, Booster met his best friend, Ted Kord aka Blue Beetle, and they became the infamous "Blue and Gold" duo.

A glory seeker and when he was younger, he sought after money from his role as a superhero, often doing sponsorships and cereal ads.

He stole his suit from the Museum he worked at, his flight ring was from the legion of superheroes.

The time sphere he stole from the museum to go back in time was made by Rip Hunter.

He has an indestructible forcefield around himself which managed to survive a punch against Doomsday. He also managed to throw some punches against Doomsday, before Superman stepped in.

He faked his own death, along with the help of Rip Hunter and reappeared as Supernova.

Once went evil and became black beetle.

He tried to save Teds life many times by going back in time. In the injustice universe, he was sent to a time prison for the amount of times he tried to save his life. He was always quite unsuccessful.

He loved superman when he was younger, and was inspired by him to become a superhero, however when he started to work in Metropolis Superman was often annoyed by his mannerisms.

Despite how he acts Booster Gold wishes to do more with the abilities he has (Genuinely a person with a heart) but due to his role and status he has to degrade himself for the sake of the universe.

He speaks/thinks in Esperanto - told by Ted Kord.

Married and divorced a woman named Gladys.

When he heard the news that Ted had died, he became overwhelmed by grief and shot an energy blast at Batman, who was luckily saved by Superman.

When he was drunk he managed to run over Barry Allen and Wally West in the timesphere.

He doesn't know that he is the father of Rip Hunter.

He managed to gain Batman's respect.

He tried to save Barbara Gordon from getting paralysed by Joker.

Ted redesigns and fixes his suit.

Has a 21st Century ancestor named Daniel Carter who Rip passed the Supernova mantle onto.

Head canons:

He acts like an NPC during his TikTok live streams “thank you for the flowers" while backflipping.

He has merchandise that he always plugs and adds to his video descriptions.

He acts like a male wife for Ted.

He uses a lot of anime references when talking to the JLI “Believe it”.

He ALWAYS gets called out for looking like Reigen Arataka or Johnny Bravo.

He visits Ted Kords grave stone almost every time.

Skeets :

He is basically a robot Alfred.

He was a robot from the future that was stolen from a museum by Booster Gold.

His main powers include Time travel, hacking, flight, healing, live streaming, energy projection etc.

He is very loyal to his companion Booter Gold.

He was a security Robot in metropolis.

During the JLI days, he was kept in a closet.

Once interested in the robot that Ted made.

Rip Hunter - UNKNOWN FIRST NAME Carter:

Information about him:

Guardian of the time stream and a well known Time traveller. Also the leader of the Time Masters. Main job is to protect the continuity of the timestream.

His favourite colour is green.

Works with his girlfriend and fellow time traveller Bonnie Baxter, her younger brother Corky and Jeff Smith.

The son of Booster Gold, though current Booster is unaware of this.

Rani’s nickname for him is Boppy.

He gives Booster missions to carry out.

He aided Animal man in his own time travelling adventures.

He is very serious, you wouldn’t tell that him and Booster are related.

Invented many different time travelling technologies.

Some Head canons :

He watches Dance mums a lot so when he shouts at Booster or anyone else he makes sure to quote a lot he hears.

He once got put into time out from Booster.

No one told him that wearing skinny jeans is not in the new trends.

He dyes his hair to not keep to the allegations.

He loves his chalk board more than himself.

Michelle Carter - Goldstar

Information about her:

The younger twin sister of Micheal Carter.

Followed Michael along when he went to the past with her own suit and technology which is nearly identical to Boosters.

Calls Booster "Mikey".

Rani adores her.

She was supposed to have died when she first came to the past, but Rip Hunter managed to stop that from happening. She spent some time unaware of the deeper implications of her return until it is forcefully revealed to her by Rex Hunter. This left her traumatised and obsessing over her death which caused her to escape into the timestream. Booster managed to coerce her into coming back to the present.

Some head canons :

She loves Sabrina Carpenter.

Rani and her to get ready for the day videos.

She basically lives in her outfit .

She is the carbon copy of Booster /female Booster.

Despite her and Booster being alike she is more bearable.

Daniel Garrett - Blue Beetle I

Information about him:

He was the first Blue Beetle as well as: an Archaeologist and the Professor of Ted Kord.

He found the Scarab in Egypt, which was alien technology used by the Reach to take over planets.

He joined the Mystery Men during 1930s-1940s. After the Vietnam War, he teamed up with Christopher Smith.

Was killed by Jarvis Kord, Teds uncle, on his island.

Was apart of Charltons Comics along with Judomaster, Ted Kord, Tiger and the Question before getting merged into DC's continuity. Now considered to be a Silver age character.

Has a granddaughter named Danielle.

Left his mantle and his scarab to Ted.

Headcanons:

Acted as a father figure to Ted.

Tried to make Ted babysit Sparky when he had to go on long missions with the Mystery men.

Would be a fan of Night in the museum.

Would get along with Alan Scott if they properly met.

Sparkington J Northrup - Sparky / Spunk

Information about him:

The sidekick of Dan.

He is British, and was adopted by Lord Wellington Northrup who fled to America during WW2.

Fox Comics created him to save their company and (copy other successful sidekick characters like Robin and Bucky Barns) to appeal to a younger demographic.

Mostly seen with Blue Beetle, helping out and battling villains during WW2.

Appeared again in the recent comic, Stargirl: The lost children, where he was stuck on an island with other forgotten sidekicks of popular heroes and was rescued by Red Arrow and Stargirl.

Headcanons:

A big fanboy of Robin and the Teen titans, but definitely Robin in particular.

Tried to come up with his own catchphrase, similar to that of the "holy ___, Batman!". Dan did not find this amusing in the slightest.

Carries around a joke book to read to Ted or Dan. Made occasional bug jokes.

Tries to disguise his British accent.

Would hate Tracy Beaker.

Theodore Steven Kord - Blue Beetle II

Information about him:

The second Blue Beetle after Dan, and picked up the mantle because he felt guilty that his uncle had killed Dan, and because Dan had asked him to carry on his legacy.

Despite the Scarab not working for him, Ted managed to train himself (he has good acrobatic skills), and with his intelligence and excellent engineering skills he built himself lots of gadgets and even a ship named Bug!

He had no real direction for himself.

His father had left him Kord Omniversal when he had passed, and he did manage to revitalise the company so that its R&D managed to rival STAR Labs, but with all the work in the JLA as Blue Beetle, he did occasionally get the company bankrupt.

Was apart of JLI where he met Booster, and the two managed to get each other in a lot of trouble, but still remained close friends.

Known for his odd sense of humour and his mouth getting himself into trouble with other members.

Retired from super-heroics and helped out the Birds of Prey and Barbara Gordon, with the two of them becoming close online friends.

He has a new (kind of) sister named Victoria Kord, who is the enemy of Jaime Reyes, and she is jealous of Ted inheriting the company instead of her.

Was killed by his old friend and manager Max Lord.

He does suffer from a heart condition, which caused him to retire.

Headcanons:

Tries to make Booster stay over at his place as much as possible, so that he would stop disappearing to the Time Lab, without telling him.

Tried to build a prank-popcorn machine for the JLI to make multi-coloured popcorn that would pop everywhere, but Batman was the first to use it.

Orders Chocos to Martian Manhunter when he is bored.

Always references Booster.

Tries to hack the Batcomputer, did it but no one believes him.

Always references the "ONE PUNCH, JUST ONE PUNCH" but the younger generation of heroes thinks he is talking about Saitama.

Jaime Reyes - Blue Beetle III

Information about him:

The third and current Blue Beetle.

Mexican-american, where he lives in El Paso, Texas.

Wanted to become a dentist, as told by Eclipso.

Has a younger sister called Milagro Reyes who is aware of his brothers status as a hero. She is a boostle shipper.

He got the scarab during Infinite crisis, when Ted lost the scarab during a visit to the Rock of Eternity. The Rock was destroyed during a battle between Shazam and the Spectre. The scarab landed in Texas where Jaime discovered it alongside his friends Paco and Brenda.

His scarab was called Khaji-da and was able to communicate with Jaime unlike really with Dan, when it connected to his spine.

Booster sought him out and fought with him, distraught that there was a new Blue Beetle. However, they reconciled and he acted as a mentor figure to him.

Guy Gardner also confronts him and talks to him about Ted and his legacy.

Jaime met with Danielle to discuss more about the Scarab.

He encounters the Reach and had to fight them.

Is in a romantic relationship with Traci Thirteen.

In young justice, he and Impulse were seen to be close friends.

He was apart of the JLA and currently is apart of the Teen Titans.

Headcanons:

Sometimes speaks in spanish when he gets nervous, angry or by accident.

Would argue with Khaji-da in public or speak to him in public, to the confusion of everyone else.

Comes up with rebuttals to arguments way after they happen.

Lilly - Gold beetle

Information about her:

Is a time traveller and works alongside Wally West and Impulse.

Her ship, called the Gold Bug, is powered by a Worlogog which allows it to travel through time and become smaller.

Operates on planet flash.

Has a good sense of humour.

Knowledgeable about time travelling.

Comes from a long line of Booster-Beetle time travellers.

Is in a relationship with Jai west, Wally's son.

Seen to use future slang.

Her past is unknown.

Head canons:

Sings future songs and references future events or media in order to get on people's nerves.

Goes to visit Rani Carter, they would be friends.

Goes back in time to stop herself from doing embarrassing things.

[lionofchaeronea]

Gold tremissis struck by Theodoric "the Great", Ostrogothic ruler of the Kingdom of Italy from 493 to 526 CE, on behalf of Anastasius I, ruler of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire from 491 to 518. Minted at Mediolanum (Milan), the coin emphasizes the solidity of Anastasius' rule, as well as his nominal sovereignty over Theodoric. On the obverse, the bust of Anastasius, wearing diadem and cuirass, is shown. On the reverse is the figure of Victory, holding a wreath in her right hand and a cross at her left, with a star beside her. Beneath her is the legend CONO(B); commonly found on Byzantine gold currency, it refers both to the city of Constantinople and to the weight of the coin.

In reality, Theodoric was the political and military equal of Anastasius, but the two men got along well and avoided collision between their spheres of influence. The situation would deteriorate after Anastasius' death: his successor Justin connived with the Roman Senate, hoping to reconquer Italy, and Theodoric executed some of his counselors, including the great writer and theologian Boethius, on charges of treason.

Photo credit: Classical Numismatic Group, Inc. http://www.cngcoins.com

[tinsil]

another amigurumi from last summer, a big (comparatively) moogle! i used bulky yarn for once. trying to get the head the shape took a while but i'm v happy with the result!

partial pattern (didn't keep track for wings/antenna, sorry) below the cut

head & body - note, as i said i had trouble getting the shape right so feel free to adjust it if it looks weird to you-- you might have to fudge the shape a bit with stuffing/tension. anyway! rounds 1-8: starting with 6 sc in a magic ring, increase evenly with 6 stitches each round until you have 48 stitches (rnd 8). rounds 9-15: 48 sc round 16: (3 sc, dec, 3 sc) x6 (42 stitches) round 17: 42 sc round 18: (5 sc, dec) x6 (36 stitches) round 19: 9 sc, (sc, inc) x3, 6 inc, (sc, inc) x3, 9 sc (48 stitches) round 20: 48 sc round 21: (sc, dec) x16 (32 stitches) round 22: 8 sc, 8 dec, 8 sc (24 stitches) round 23: (sc, dec, sc) x6 (18 stitches) round 24: 3 sc, 6 dec, 3 sc (12 stitches) stuff the head & embroider the face round 25: 12 inc (24 stitches) round 26: (3 sc, inc) x6 (30 stitches) round 27-28: 30 sc round 29: (2 sc, inc, 2 sc) x6 (36 stitches) round 30-34: 36 sc round 35: (7 sc, dec) x4 (32 stitches) round 36: (sc, dec, sc) x8 (24 stitches) round 37: (sc, dec) x8 (16 stitches) round 38: 8 dec stuff the body, cut yarn & sew shut arms (make 2) round 1: 6 sc in mr round 2: 6 inc (12 stitches) round 3: (3 sc, inc) x3 (15 stitches) round 4-5: 15 sc round 6: (3 sc, dec) x3 (12 stitches) round 7: 12 sc round 8: (sc, dec, sc) x3 (9 stitches) round 9: 9 sc stuff, cut yarn with long tail & sew shut. use tail to sew to body.

legs (make 2) rounds 1-6: same as arms round 7: (sc, dec) x4 (8 stitches) stuff, cut yarn with long tail & sew shut. use tail to sew to body.

ears (make 2) round 1: 6 sc in mr round 2: 6 inc (12 stitches) round 3: (sc, inc, sc) x4 (16 stitches) round 4: (3 sc, inc) x4 (20 stitches) cut yarn with long tail. flatten into a triangle & use tail to sew to head, curving the sides forward.

for the wings, i didn't write down what i did but there are probably various wing tutorials out there ;; for the antenna, i think i make a very tight tube? like maybe a magic ring with 4 sc, repeated until tall enough? & the pom pom is just a small sphere

[stevebattle]

The Grivet Arm (1978) by Gallaher Research Inc., Western-Salem, North Carolina.

"Purchasing some form of "experimenter's arm" kit? There has been one attempt at a commercial kit product for the robot arm experimenter, a product which was advertised in this magazine starting last spring. I refer to the Gallaher Research "Grivet" arm, which is shown in photo 1. The photograph was taken using the kit I bought for $400 and put together one Sunday morning in September. … Mr Gallaher's robot arm was a crude start at best, for all we got is a rather shaky mechanism with six DC motors. The purchaser's inventiveness must supply the details of electronic interface and control. A suggestion, in the marketing literature supplied with the kit, is that relays be used to provide control of the 6V DC which will run the motors. This kit provided what you see in the photograph: a limited mechanical start on a complete arm which must include a mounting of some sort, power supplies, bidirectional motor drive electronics, and sensory feedback. There is not even a suggestion of how to mount and use sensors to provide feedback control of the arm in a practical object manipulation environment such as a chessboard with chess pieces as the objects.

The designer of this arm did his homework with respect to balance, for it will sit upright on its counterweight with no particular urge to topple over. The photograph was taken with the arm in this position. But if mounted in a horizontal position as suggested by the sales literature (assembly drawings, but no instruction manual, come with this device) several of the parts are under enough stress to be visibly bent. The only way I can see to practically mount this arm is by having it hang down from the shaft furthest from the hand mechanism (flipping it 180 degrees around the vertical axis of photo 1).

The Gallaher arm kit's parts are apparently handcrafted. When you think of the time and energy that went into its creation, it is obviously a bargain at $400, even if incomplete. Some of the first microcomputer kits such as the Mark-8, Altair and Sphere were similarly incomplete, and a whole industry was formed filling in the gaps to provide a complete computer system in assembled form. Therefore, we can expect more complete robotic systems as further products are offered to the experimenter. Just as "hardheaded realists" (ie: unimaginative people) scoffed only four years ago at the idea of a personal computer, I can almost hear the equivalent comments about domestic robots being uttered as I pen these words at the keyboard of my personal computer." – Byte Magazine February 1979, Volume 04 Number 02 (p6).

[katiekatdragon27]

More Flatland stuffff~~~

[Cursive transcript: I'm so sorry this is so sudden, but I had to keep my Chosen safe!]

So, uh, the 4th dimension, am I right?????

So, on my last post, people were more interested in A. Tesseract than I thought. I did not expect her to stir so much interest, but here you go lol.

More under the cut lol / lots of notes:

Some basic information on 4th dimensional beings:

They refer to themselves as "hypersolids" and "polytopes". Only Tesseracts prefer a different name than just "hyper(insert shape here)". When talking to other dimensional beings, they call themselves "Spacelanders".

They usually keep their eyes closed, and they do not emote much.

Their bodies naturally morph as they talk. They are also partially transparent, so you can see their inside movements. Not organs or anything, but the next emotions or actions they are going to express. Sort of like key frames or a fade in effect.

They call "Spacelanders" "Heightlanders".

Their civilization is located in space. They are able to breathe through little pockets of air on their rings that recharge when they enter the atmosphere of other plants. (This is why they are spotted relatively frequently)

Buildings are constantly moving spirals. They also fly everywhere, so they require a lot of energy to maintain their health. Luckily, any stars nearby tend to charge them up just fine.

Also, everyone goes by they/them along with another pronoun if they choose. Gender constructs be damned (or certain groups are fighting for that).

There will be more once I think of it, but that's what I have in the world-building department right now.

Some basic information on Angelica "A." Tesseract (she/they):

She tends to say "I'm sorry" after anything they might think could have been of inconvenience or offensive.

They are relatively soft-spoken, but they are incredibly smart compared to her peers.

Her quiet nature causes others to disrespect and step all over her.

She overthinks LITERALLY EVERYTHING. You could tell her something that is even the slightest bit vague and they have the chance of spiraling.

She KNOWS there are more than four dimensions, but they are struggling to prove it with science.

They are much more emotional compared to other hypersolids. They tend to cry easily.

She chose A. Sphere because of his confidence and drive to get his points across. They admire him for that.

Some basic information on A. Sphere in this:

He's much less snarky. His whole vision of the world was destroyed in the blink of an eye, and he's stuck in another world completely unknown to him. He's going though it currently.

He's still blunt about everything. If you suck, he'll tell you. If you are cool, it'll take a little longer, but he'll tell you.

He got his eye busted after the attack on Messiah Inc. When getting removed from "Heightland", his eye got caught in the blow last minute and it got damaged. He can still open it slightly, but he can't see out of it.

He was relatively indifferent to seeing his body transparent. He was more worried about his eye injury over anything else.

At first, he did not like A. Tesseract (cuz kidnapping), but he learns to appreciate the gesture and does his best to help her out.

[Cursive transcript: For now, I'm afraid so... sorry. / I'm so sorry. If I was just a but faster, I could have saved your eye.]

Yeah, their friendship starts out really rough.

A. Sphere adjusted to the environment very poorly at first. He was very standoffish and snappy, but it then soured to just sorta feeling sad all the time. He gets better eventually the more he learns about the world, but it takes a lot of effort out of A. Tesseract to get him there.

I mean, he expected to die, lost his eye, everyone in "Heightland" hates him now, he lost his business and research, and he fails to take the blame for anything for a while. I would also be super pissed and sad.

A. Tesseract was not any better. She feels an incredible amount of guilt for not stepping in in time to prevent A. Sphere's eye damage, and she constantly apologies to him for everything. This sucks for A. Sphere since he finds it super annoying.

[Cursive transcript: N. H.Sphere: You weren't supposed to bring them HERE! / A. Tesseract: I'm sorry, I had to save him- / N. H.Sphere: I should fire you-!]

N. H.Sphere is a mega grouch. He is A. Tesseract's boss who treats her terribly. Discrediting her work, ignoring their research, and just not valuing her opinion cuz women, he is not fun to talk to or just be around in general. No one knows how HR lets him stay in charge, but some theorize that he pays them off or something.

Despite all of the traumatic crap A. Sphere has gone though in this story, he still does not stand for disrespect from anyone. When he learns that A. Tesseract is constantly being pushed around by her bitchy boss, he decides to defend her.

This solidifies their friendship and later science partnership when the story ends. This also makes N. H.Sphere more resentful towards both A. Tesseract an A. Sphere. This leads to A. Tesseract actually getting fired from her job. Thanks A. Sphere.

[Cursive transcript: N. H.Sphere: Why are you so scared? He's fine! / A. Tesseract: It's my un-medicated anxiety!!]

One of the downsides of being in the 4th dimension and living in space is that the gravitational pull is super sporadic with no real patterns. Some areas have super powerful gravity while others have zero. 4th dimension beings have learned to adjust perfectly fine.

The pressure changes and general lack of oxygen negatively impact A. Sphere's body, however, so to help him be okay, he sits in those vacuum boxes that allow for added pressure to be put on him to help even his breathing. He usually isn't put in unless he is fading in and out of consciousness, since he hates the confined space. It freaks out A. Tesseract every time it happens.

Her boss thinks she's stupid for worrying so much and using company tech. A. Tesseract worries more for A. Sphere than keeping her job, so she ignores N. H. Sphere.

[Cursive transcript: Care to see him again?]

Outside of the partial angst and stuff, this dimension is the reason why A. Sphere shows up in A. Square's hallucination.

During A. Square's trauma-induced hallucination, he shows up in the 4th dimension briefly with the Monarch of Pointland. A. Sphere and A. Tesseract take notice, and she offers him the ability to talk to A. Square one last time for closure reasons.

In this version, this scene would be longer, with A. Sphere possibly apologizing for denying the existence of the 4th dimension and not being able to assist A. Square in the way he wanted to. It's more wholesome and conclusive than transactional like in the movie. The other stuff is there too, but having more sentimental moments would be so cool.

----------

I am very sorry how messy these particular doodles are, I was drawing all these super late at night during my shift, so I was not paying much attention to the flow of the images. When the inspo hits, you don't really realize how incohesive they are until you start photographing the images to post lol

Thank you once again for reading this whole thing, and have a wonderful day :)

[abwwia]

Ruth Asawa, Untitled (S.535, Hanging Five-Lobed Continuous Form within a Form with Spheres in the First and Fourth Lobes and a Teardrop Form in the Third Lobe), 1951. © 2024 Ruth Asawa Lanier, Inc. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Courtesy of David Zwirner.

[hotsugarbyglassanimals]

changing the environment of a smaller social sphere and addressing the root systemic issue are not mutually exclusive concepts from each other, I don't know why y'all are acting like it is. For example, addressing antiblackness in the smaller context of fandom spaces to make black people more welcome in these areas? Obviously it won't end systemic antiblackess, but does that mean this is a pointless and fruitless goal? Absolutely not! Black people deserve a space to express ourselves through art and community, even if fandom stuff ultimately seems trivial in the grand scheme of things. A group of people are being denied something that privileged groups ultimately take for granted

Arguing for rhetoric that essentially boils down to "this doesn't address the systemic root of the issue, therefore it's completely useless" invalidates the above case that I just mentioned by proxy. Just straight up. You cannot argue that it's meaningless to address the romanticization of sexual abuse in media but turn around and say it's worthwhile to address the normalization of racism in media. Either media can shape our perspectives, or it can't.

Ultimately what message are we supposed to take through posts like these? It's not a call to action that suggests we adopt politics that address the root cause of the issue in tandem with addressing the smaller cultural aspects, it's suggesting that we are wasting our time trying to cultivate a space that allows vulnerable demographics to like. actually have a voice for once. Not to mention subtly implying that people criticizing fucking inc-st and p-dophilia are fascists by the use of "degenerate" is incredibly disingenuous, especially when these forms of abuse are cultivated and used as tools BY fascists.

Would "erotica on sensitive subject matters" exclude topics such as racepl-ay? chattel slavery? the torture of black bodies? How would the mechanisms around the normalization of these subjects differ enough from others to the point that these are these exceptions worth addressing, but the others aren't?

We very much do know the role that media plays in how black people are perceived, and by extension, how black people are treated in fandom spaces as a result. How would this not extend towards the perception around sexual abuse? Because I've seen people who've adopted the rhetoric around this shit not mattering extend it towards racism. "Pro-sh-p" people have very much called black people "antis" and attacked them for calling out their fucking racism. Pretending this all is fruitless is enabling this behavior. sorry!

Ultimately, attempting to change the attitudes of surrounding media perception is likely the closest reach a lot of people have to addressing these issues and may be why this is a focus for them. It's a piece of a larger puzzle if you ask me. It may not completely negate the existence of the systemic issue at hand, but I don't think getting people to understand "hey, this is a part of r-ape culture" is a waste of time. if you don't know that something is a problem, how can you expect to fix it?

It goes to show how little black ppl are listened to on this site if you can't see how these attitudes contribute to ignoring black ppl attempting to address how attitudes of on us create a cascade effect starting from the system and bleeding into culture. There's a reason people have been saying "fiction doesn't affect reality" is racist

[undergroundoracle]

Introducing Our Current Setting Focus: Wyld Space!

Wyld Space is a science fiction setting designed on the bones of the Cypher System, so many of the common features, mechanics, and tropes that you would expect from that combination will be present while you’re playing in this setting. However, Wyld Space is its own fully realized world (or system filled with worlds, as it may be) with all of its own original tweaks that make it what it is.

The important quirks of the Wyld Space setting are presented below, as a helpful primer to get you in the right headspace while you’re getting started. Most of these highlights will be explored in greater detail in their appropriate sections later in this book.

You Go Hard, The Sci-Fi Doesn’t

Wyld Space is not a hard science fiction setting. The capability of technology that is available strays far outside the realm of current possibility and dances on the outskirts of the fantastic. Starships powered by cores that make traveling through star systems and back as easy as taking a trip to the town over, nanotechnology that can mend metals designed to withstand the wildest space anomalies, machines that can create food and water out of thin air. The difference in access between those living in collective space and those braving the unknown of flux space may make the availability of certain advancements difficult to come by, but even the most backwater station floating past the bounds of the helix sphere will have use of some piece of tech that would look like magic to those out of the know.

Who You Are

In this setting, humans don’t exist. And beyond that, only the dustiest xenobiologist believes that those ancient aliens ever really existed in the first place. You instead play as wylds, the dominant sapient genus that has claimed the known galaxy and carried the torch of civilization into space. Wyldkind is varied and beautiful, composed of highly evolved anthropomorphic versions of the myriad mammals, birds, and reptiles that you can currently see around you on Earth.

Additionally, you play as an outlier—someone who has been designated as irregular and nonconformist by the Intergalactic Network of Collectives (the governing body of collective space) and the sinister megacorps that truly call the shots behind the scenes. Being designated as an outlier could mean a lot of things in Wyld Space. It could mean that you take direct action against the systems that you see as corrupt. It could simply mean that you want to live as freely and purely as possible on your own terms. It could also mean that you’re an active criminal running various contraband back and forth through flux space. At the end of the day, being an outlier means that you refuse to cow down to the accepted status quo.

Who They Are

The primary antagonists of Wyld Space are the government and the corporations that secretly control it. The Intergalactic Network of Collectives (INC), although founded with lofty goals and good intentions, was quickly corrupted by the influence and money of the three megacorps that were allowed to bloat out of control. Mercenary groups, bounty hunters, and purchased police are just a fraction of the corpo agents that you’ll have to maneuver as you traverse the setting.

Void Titans

Colossal beasts with their own biological equivalents of ship-to-ship weaponry, void titans (or simply titans) are creatures that stalk flux space and hunt the starships that brave the sector. Trapped behind the fury of the helix sphere, those who stay within the safety of collective space never have to worry about these alien terrors—which is knowledge that the megacorps are more than happy to propagate.

Element 427: Foxfire

Element 427, called foxfire by everyone but corpo scientists, was the miracle discovery that changed the course of wyldkind forever. Not truly understood, but coveted nonetheless, foxfire is a quantum material highly valued for its matter-enhancing and physics-defying characteristics. Any of the truly fantastic properties exhibited by ships, weapons, cyphers, or artifacts can be tied to foxfire, and its presence in flux space is what drives the megacorps to push into the sector.

Kinetics

Whether the result of genetic tampering, the presence of foxfire, or a little of both, there are wylds who can manipulate the world around them using only the powers of their mind. Called kinetics, these incredible people can create fire, generate electricity, or turn their bodies into living weapons with only a thought.

And that’s only a portion of what you’ll be able to unlock and explore in Wyld Space!

Ready To Get Wyld?

Join our Patreon at the $3 monthly tier and receive all early access updates for Wyld Space as well as exclusive feedback and playtest surveys that allow you to impact the setting!

[atthebell]

hii i was wondering if you have any tips or suggestions for crocheting chunsik? i have an egg pattern, i just need the accessories and they came out so CLEAN from the pictures you posted. maybe a silly question, but i figured id ask! i have a gift im making and wanna make sure it looks good :3

of course!! let me gather the pictures so i can remember more accurately what i did (chunsik is. buried in a basket so i can't dig him out right now)

okay so for the gat i did around 6-7 rows in the round, then BLO a row to make it bend 90° and do a few more rows in the round without increases. you can do FLO inc around to make it bend again, this time forward, and then do a few increasing rows and that'll be the brim. for the tie bit i just did a long chain stitch and tied it in a bow, wrapping it around the inside of his hat and i think i sewed it through each side to make it a little more secure.

for the beads, those are just tiny spheres in the round-- i think i did 6sc in MR, then 3 dec, fasten off and sew shut, then string those onto another long piece of yarn.

for neatness, my best suggestion is watch your gauge!! i have a very neat gauge from years of doing crochet, so practice is key, but also make sure your yarn is at the right tautness as you work it and don't make any stitches too loose or too tight in comparison to the overall gauge. for me it also helps to do fairly tight stitches with amigurumi-- this makes them look neat, firstly, but it also prevents stuffing from being visible between stitches.

i also have to note that i use a fairly decent camera for my photos (my mom's family picture camera lol) so that makes everything look super crisp and clean-- if you look at any photos i've clearly posted from my phone, you can tell that they're phone photos and they're less put-together because i wasn't doing a whole little photo shoot, versus when i do the pictures for my more complete projects and try to make everything look nice. this doesn't mean the pieces look bad in person-- i think they look amazing! it just means that taking nice photos helps make everything look super neat as well.

[retrocgads]

USA 1993

[chernabogs]

Hi, there 🌼

I saw the event and I wanted to take advantage and do my own:

GN Reader x Silver

Promt: if you tell me yours, i’ll tell you mine

Take your time and no pressure, your blog seems so beautiful to me, thank you 🌠✨💐

Thank you!

RESOLUTION

Inc: Silver, GN!Reader, Lilia (mentioned), Sebek (mentioned) Warnings: None save for a bit of post-overblot struggles WC: 2.4k Summary: It reminded him of the cottage he lived in with Lilia, and perhaps that’s why he never tore his gaze away from it once. He wanted that halcyon paradise to be the very thing he saw each time he closed his eyes.

There once was a gallery in the Valley, tucked away in a small village that lay nestled a few miles out from Black Scale Palace. The village itself is of a slow-living sort—people move at their own pace, most stores close by sunset, and the most excitement it draws is a yearly festival that he attends religiously for a peaceful break. The gallery reflected this sentiment. It was only one floor with paintings done by artists within the Valley adorning its walls. Lilia sent Sebek and him, when they were both still young, to this place with the instruction of sitting still and staring at a painting for an hour without breaking focus.

It was meant to be a lesson in resilience. Sebek lasted only a few minutes before he became fidgety and annoyed. But Silver remembers it as one of the few rare instances where he didn’t feel tired doing a task. He had sat before a painting of a landscape; florentis it was, with a blue, blue sky and the greenest grass he’d ever seen. There was an old brown barn at a slight angle on a hill with a bucket of flowers outside of its door, which had a window shaped like a crescent moon with a warm glow coming from within. A part of him wondered what the rest of the landscape looked like beyond just the snapshot he was granted. 

It reminded him of the cottage he lived in with Lilia, and perhaps that’s why he never tore his gaze away from it once. He wanted that halcyon paradise to be the very thing he saw each time he closed his eyes.

The gallery is gone now. It shut down a year after that assignment due to a lack of funding to keep it operational. He wasn’t too surprised to hear this is the case—a lot of things end with shuttered windows and padlocked doors in Briar Valley. Although the nation itself can hold steady in the international sphere, intranationally it’s a decaying cadaver of outdated beliefs and bygone days. He figures Malleus will be the one to fix it. He hopes Malleus will be the one to fix it. 

Someone needs to. 

With the death of the gallery, so too came the death of that painting within. A part of him mourned it for the sole reason that he wished to see it once more. That tends to be the case with things once they’re gone—you don’t grieve for the loss, but rather for the opportunities you missed leading up to the moment. 

Still, days continued in the end, and he soon grew from the enraptured boy to the individual he is now. The painting became a blur of colours and misinterpretations in his memory until it finally reached the point where he struggled to recall the original piece to begin with. What was the barn like, again? And the flowers? Were there clouds, or was the sky clear? 

He hardly knew. It hardly mattered. In a realm of over-blots and grief, the angle in which an old barn leaned was the last thing on his mind. 

___________________________

It was the summer of his third year that it did come back to him. Many things had happened in the past few months that sat heavy in his mind—the revelation of his bloodline, the consequences of his prince’s despair, and the pending departure of the man who he actually considered his father. It had been overwhelming to the point that he felt like he could hardly breathe. He had support, of course—those who had gone through similar circumstances with over-blots were quick to be by his side. The reassurances were effective in nullifying most of his anxiety, but a small part still held residence in his chest, gnawing away at his mind in the night as sleep, for once in his life, evaded him. 

He’s standing in the cottage with a cardboard box at his feet and a faint frown on his lips. From the kitchen he can hear something rattling about before a familiar face pokes around the corner. 

“How many mugs does he have, seriously?” 

You look despondent as you hold up three ceramic mugs in each hand, causing his lips to twitch into a faint smile. 

“Father is a bit of a collector, you know,” he hums softly as he looks back at the pictures in the box by his feet. It feels cathartic to be able to call him father in front of you; after the events of the over-blot, you knew the reality of their relationship now, and so keeping a ruse of mere friendship was pointless. “Which is why he assigned you and me to clean up this mess. If he was here with us, he’d be trying to stop us from throwing anything out at all.” 

Indeed, with Lilia preoccupied at Black Scale Palace dealing with the last few Senate meetings about the incident, now is the only time you had to clean up the cottage to a degree. 

“I’m not too sure. He seemed onboard with the clean up idea.” You come shuffling out of the kitchen with your own cardboard box which, by the clanking inside, tells him that you’ve stashed away most of the ceramics. “I think he’s looking for a clean slate as well.” 

Silver falls silent at that comment as he sets aside a few more old books and documents. It wasn’t just him who found some change in the aftermath—Lilia and Sebek had experienced flips in perspectives as well. His brow furrows slightly as sunlight streams through the window with flecks of dust dancing in the rays. Each time he sets a document into the box, more of that dust rises to greet the light. “I suppose so.”

He hasn’t felt tired since everything that happened despite the issues at night. In fact, he feels painfully alert as he glances towards you. You’re shuffling the boxes around by the front door with your own focused expression, trying hard not to bump too many of the valuables. 

“I think we should take out what we have so far. If we keep adding more, we’ll end up walling ourselves in, and then we’ll need to escape through the window or something.” You point out in humour as you gesture at the many boxes by your feet. He assesses the situation and then nods in agreement before closing the box of documents. 

But he doesn’t move quite yet. He can hear you opening the front door with a huff as you carry one of the boxes out to the cart beyond. His attention goes towards the sunlight, and he watches it embrace the hardwood floors he kneels on. His fingers go out to touch the spot warmed by this. He remembers many moments on this floor—from childhood to now. He remembers the voices of people he once knew, the scents that the passing seasons brought, and the anticipation of his fathers return whenever he went on his trips. 

Silver withdraws his hand and picks up the cardboard box with a sigh. This too, shall pass. 

_______________________________

He’s greeted by the sound of cicadas screaming in the nearby trees as he emerges from the cottage. You’re already gone, having set off for the cart ahead while he was lost in rumination on the floor. A small sigh escapes him as he follows your footsteps in the dirt. Your ability to keep moving ahead is something that he admires—and he’s come to rely on you to tether him in place, so he doesn’t keep sinking into the river of memories pulling him back. Gratitude is hard to express at times, and he wishes he could express it to you more for all that you’ve done for the entirety of his family. 

“Did you get lost?” Your voice is teasing as he emerges from the treeline. You’re leaning against the cart with your arms crossed, your lips pulled in a small grin as you watch him approach. He smiles slightly once more before setting the box inside. 

“Somewhat,” he replies, half in humour and half not. He pushes back the strands of his silver hair as he turns to look down the road beyond. It’s a dirt path leading towards the nearest village—and the second-hand store that these items are inevitably going to. The horse that’s meant to attach to the cart grazes mindlessly on the nearby plain. This, combined with the warm air and the faint scent of flowers, creates a peaceful moment in the swirling chaos of the past few months. 

“Somewhat?” You muse as you brush past him, nudging his side with your elbow before tossing a wry smile his way. “Try not to wander off—we need you to be able to get the horse moving.” 

Silver huffs a small laugh as he watches you walk back towards the cottage. His hands come to rest on his hips as he turns back to survey the valley beyond. The rolling green hills are familiar to him, as is the tree line, and he can feel himself relaxing further—

Before his gaze catches on a structure in the distance. 

For a moment he doesn’t focus on it too much, until it catches his gaze again, and he begins to pay attention to it a bit more. It’s a large structure that looks to be dark brown in colour and leaning on an angle. His eyes narrow, then widen in surprise, and before he knows it, he’s already setting off in the direction of the abnormality. 

Perhaps he should have waited for your return. Most certainly, he should have not left all those valuables unattended in the cart, even though only Lilia and him live out this far. But the lure of what he sees up ahead is far too great to ignore. It’s a barn. 

It’s the barn. 

He can tell as he gets closer to it. The bucket outside of the front door, which has a window shaped like a crescent moon on it. The flowers in the bucket are gone and there is no light coming from within anymore. The grass around the front porch is overgrown and there are vines now climbing up the sides. The structure itself is far more decayed as well; it leans heavily to the left, and he can see gaps between the planks of wood that comprise its body. It’s an old, worn being, which has withstood the test of time for far too long. But it still is the very structure that he saw.

He draws to a stop a few feet away as he stares at it in disbelief. Despite the changes, florentis it still is, with a blue, blue sky and the greenest grass he’s ever seen.

“Oh…” he whispers to himself. Suddenly he’s a child again, sitting on a wooden bench with his friend fidgeting to his side. His father’s words of resilience echo in his mind and a part of him feels compelled to just stand here and stare for an hour or so, drinking in that halcyon paradise until it’s all that he’ll see when he closes his eyes. 

He once wondered what the rest of the landscape looked like beyond just the snapshot he was granted, and as he turns, he finds that lingering question finally has a response. 

He can see the treeline and the edge of his family’s cottage just beyond. He can see the cart, and the horse, and you—trekking through the green, green grass towards him. You wave one hand, and he waves back, still partially in a daze as he does so. 

“Please don’t go wandering off like that!” You call out as you approach. “I still remember you telling me about how there are bears in these woods—you really had me thinking you finally lost a battle with one.” 

“Sorry,” he murmurs as he looks back to the barn once more. The sun makes it cast a long shadow down the hillside, exactly like the painting still. It’s so surreal that his mind is still running to grasp it. 

“Are you okay?” Your voice changes from teasing to slightly worried as you stop before him. It’s a tone he’s become accustomed to hearing from you—worried, caring. Your eyes betray that very concern as you give him a once over. He feels that familiar need to reassure you as he nods. 

“I am, I am.” He soothes you as his hand comes to touch your arm briefly before dropping back to his side. He doesn’t wish to overstep. “I just… wished to come see this building for a moment.”

He doesn’t elaborate, and he can see the calculating thoughts this withholding generates in your mind. “If you tell me yours, I’ll tell you mine.” 

Thoughts, he realizes. You’re talking about what he’s thinking right now. Another smile plays on his lips as he shakes his head. 

“I just figured something out, that’s all.” 

This comment is a gentle shut down towards you, and he appreciates it when you look at him for a moment longer before nodding your head. “Alright. Well, if you’re done figuring out the world's secrets, can you come help with the horse?” Another smile appears on your lips, and he feels a sense of warmth as he sees it. “I’m not ready to accept a hoof to my face just yet.” 

“I should really teach you how to handle horses.” He sighs softly as he gestures for you to go ahead. He hears you laugh as you turn and set off back towards the beast you seem to be struggling to tame. When he goes to follow, he pauses for a moment to look back at that barn.

A thought occurs to him then. Lilia isn’t much of a painter—Silver knows this from his childhood when he would recruit his father to colour with him, and Lilia had a habit of constantly finding himself drawing outside of the lines. So, he knows for a fact that Lilia wasn’t the one to paint the scene. 

Then who painted the picture? It’s just him and his father who live out this far. He doesn’t recall ever seeing an artist's name on the painting when he was young, but perhaps the memory was too far gone to recall. 

A faint frown plays on his lips before he turns away and begins walking once more. He supposes that, with one question resolved, there are still many more left unsolved. 

[wizchief]

Prism Entertainment, Inc. - NEW Riddle

“The poets have left hell. The dancers are all gone. Even the philosophers couldn’t resist taking a peek outside. Why are you still here?”

One day, God disappears from the universe.

The demons of Hell find this out when they discover that they’re now able to leave Hell with no restrictions. Also, humans have stopped dying. The existing dead souls in Hell can also leave now, and most of them do.

Now invulnerable and suddenly needing more space, humans spread outwards to explore the cosmos.

The demons, for lack of anything else, just do whatever they want:

Some continue torturing humans, since that's fun for them. That’s how they discover that the ones currently alive can be killed, but their consciousness doesn’t go anywhere afterwards like it used to; just keeps existing like the souls formerly trapped in Hell—now free to go anywhere in the universe.

Others explore as well, carve out their own planets or star systems or nebulas just for themselves. Others still choose to live among the humans. Only a single sentinel demon remains in Hell.

Meanwhile, the angels are at a loss.

Some of them do similar things as the demons: settle a part of the cosmos, live among humans, live among demons even. Of course, there are those who have been familiar this whole time—and they get their day in the sun.

However, the dominant faction among angels chooses to pretend as if God were sure to return any moment, having just been testing them all, and thus they must keep at their rightful jobs. A select group made up of some of the most powerful angels concoct a secret plan to create a new god out of the original’s Attributes, and so set upon a quest to gather and combine them.

The Attributes are—as the name suggests—characteristics of God, whose names can be found in scriptures plus elsewhere and whose manifestations exist all over the cosmos.

Foremost of these attributes are:

Thought (Ide)

Form (Forme)

Light (Prisme)

Matter (Mada)

Ide was considered first among equals due to seniority, but everyone knew Prisme was God's favorite.

For this, she was envied by the most powerful Attribute—Mada.

Prisme has been, since very close to the beginning, trapped in the supermassive black hole at the center of the universe, the largest of its kind. Mada had trapped her there, devising black holes as we know them for this very purpose. That is why they were made to have gravity so strong even light should not be able to escape them.

As it is, only Mada himself can choose to free Prisme.

However, not not long after her imprisonment, he divided himself into multiple Attributes as well (the first Attribute ever to do so):

Mass (Keh)

Gravity (Fortia)

Void (Vuit)

Good luck getting those three to agree on anything, though, much less work together!

The creative and chaotic Keh is constantly having his fun dampened by his austere and serious sister Fortia. Keh hates regularity and predictability, while Fortia loves conducting everything in the universe according to one harmonious dance. Where Keh loves breaking things apart into new and interesting shapes, Fortia collapses anything sufficiently massive enough into a sphere of some sort or other.

As for Vuit, they’re impossible to find. They’re constantly flitting to and fro the cosmos wherever there is emptiness as an infinitesimal presence—too fast for anyone to catch. For this reason, no one really knows much about them. The one thing Keh and Fortia have ever been able to agree on is that they must make sure the cosmos is populated by something everywhere and always, to keep Vuit away.

However, upon one unnameable, indeterminable moment, the un-possible happens: Vuit glimpses Prisme’s silhouette within the gaps between the stars. And through the trio of Keh, Fortia, and Vuit suddenly reverberates the will and dread of Mada—who realizes all at once that his prisons would soon fail, yet he could never know when or how or why.

Fortia is seized with a frenzied obsession for uniformity, a contradiction she cannot contain.

Keh is overwhelmed by the fractal urges to fragment and fashion all the shapes which are impossible even for him to imagine.

Thus, Vuit fragmentalizes into the Abyss (Asa) and the Revealing (Lipsis).

Fragmentation repeats every time an Attribute feels trapped within the contradictions that created them, and thus offloads the wrongness of being into their component parts. What is the complete name and current location of God?

[fin.]

GUIDE TO ANSWERING &&||!!?.... ITERATION:

There is one correct answer, which you must be able to give with full faith and certainty in its correctness. Otherwise, you got it wrong.

There are two types of wrong answers: too much and not enough. a) Too much refers to believing there are too many good options with their own compelling or sensible narratives/supporting evidence, and there is no way to pick just one or even rank the answers based on which is most or least likely to be correct. b) Not enough refers to the demand for more information to solve the riddle or an insistence that it’s incomplete, too contradictory, not worth even bothering to try, or that it’s simply impossible to come up with an answer based solely on the given text.

There is enough total information just within the riddle itself to sufficiently guide towards the correct answer. However, all time and all of the cosmos is open for consultation or reference.

If you can’t crack it right now, you will eventually. I know—because I had to find the answer by myself, too. The answer will not become obvious until you are ready to hear it.

FOOTNOTES:

Suggested older shorter form of this riddle: Einstein’s Riddle

Suggested younger shorter form of this riddle: mythmaking by akahomie @ AO3

Forthcoming riddles currently in development for specific people: “What They Call Us” (for RM), “inside lit” (for yjh), “Nunnery for the Prudish Butch” (for Medea), “ca-rat-oke!?” (for yoko)

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: PRISME ESCAPED HELL IN ~168 HOURS, SPEEDRUN, ANY%, WR(?)

TIP: DO BETTER THAN HER.

[cuprohastes]

Travel thorts

OK this is in the class of Hot Takes.

Sometimes I travel. Not as much as I used to but I do manage it. I see people litigating laptop sizes and all sorts of crap, and I have THORTS

1: iPad Mini & Bluetooth Keyboard. Honestly, there's a very small amount of stuff you can't do on an iPad mini with a keyboard case or bluetooth keyboard. Also most travel is holiday stuff. You don't need a work laptop on holiday. That's what holiday means. Take the mini and a flash drive full of movies and music and audio books if the 128gibblebips isn't enough for you to entertain yourself.

2: Kindle/e-ink reader Because sometimes you want to read for three days without having to plug a device in to recharge. Smol, light, holds many books inc audio books, depending on model. Can read int eh dark or in very bright light, which is not 100% the case for an iPad. If you're not planning on watching movies... take the e-Reader and leave the ipad.

3: battery bank. Well yeah.

4: Clothes and comfy shoes Apart from your favourite brand of soap, and your toothbrush/deoderant, at this point you really don't need more than some good clothing. The horrible secret shameful truth is that you can get underwear that can be washed in a sink and dried, so in a pinch you only need like 2 pairs. Same with shirts. You can be presentable and clean and be walking around with your entire wardrobe in one tiny corner of a carry on bag. There are shirts which are full of anti-biotics and anti-bacterials. They kill off the bacteria that make clothign (and you) small bad. If you had to you could wear one shirt and just wash it every night. Ditto for the underwear. You're screwed if it doesn't dry though.

5: Passport & document wallet Weirdly this is incredibly useful. Unless you have a sling bag that you can use as a packing cube, water bottle holder, tablet carrier etc. that can also be a document holder... get a passport folder.

6: Orb For pondering. Also an oLight sphere can be set to very dim red and that means you can get up to go pee or look for something without waking everyone up. It can also be set to white and VERY FUCCEN BRIGHT if you need it, and also be thrown into a bag so youc an root around with decent illumination. Or just a cheap flashlight.

7: Cans of beans In case foreign places don't have food you like. This is a joke. Don't do it.

[agentducky]

CLASSIFIED EXPEDITION REPORT W3: TUMBLR, THE PUBLIC SPHERE & THE WHALE THAT NEVER SLEEPS

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

CODE ID: TCSR 022345 HARDNESS LEVEL: D URBAN FOLKLORE: The Blue Whale Challenge emerged as a sinister internet meme that encourages participants to harm themselves. Over a span of 50 days, an anonymous administrator allegedly assigns players increasingly dangerous dares, culminating in suicide (Khatta et al., 2022). Individuals seeking this challenge often find administrators through hashtags and images on social media, posing a potential threat to public safety (ibid). Although the Blue Whale Challenge has been labeled a hoax or myth, there is evidence of genuine suicidal or self-harming incidents associated with the BWC (Kumar et al., 2017).   Mayday Inc. was tasked with neutralizing the challenge, trudging in particular on platforms like Tumblr.

KEY INSIGHT ---------------------------------------------------- 🔹When considering Tumblr as a platform, it exhibits many characteristics of a public sphere. The public sphere is defined by Oxford Bibliographies (2018) as a social space where diverse opinions are shared, issues of collective concern are discussed, and solutions are collaboratively developed.   🔹However, two critical elements are lacking, unlimited access to information and the absence of institutional influence (Milne 2022). Currently, not everyone has internet access, which means that Tumblr, being an online platform, cannot guarantee unlimited access to information. Tumblr is subject to institutional influence, being restricted access to "mature" personal blogs on the iOS app (Silberling 2021). 🔹Some scholars argue that the traditional model of the public sphere has been supplanted by micro-publics on social media (Bruns et al., 2016, pp. 56–73). Although Tumblr is not qualifying as a true public sphere, it excels in fostering micro-publics, where smaller communities could thrive in focused discussions. However, this could result in an insular and echo chamber where propagators could influence members who often share similar views, limiting exposure to diverse perspectives that could counter harmful behaviors. 

EXPEDITION REPORT: ---------------------------------------------------- Five operators were constructed to foray into a concerned online group suspected of engaging with the Blue Whale Challenge (BWC).  Task: to trace its evolution, uncover its mechanics, and determine whether it was still active. What they found was not an open-and-shut case. Social media was designed to be a tool for self-expression and community (Boyd, 2014). Platforms like Tumblr, known for their anonymity (Bianchi et al., 2022), allow users to craft identities, seek validation and share intimate struggles. But in the wrong hands, these same spaces become hunting grounds. On Tumblr, users could stay anonymous (Bianchi et al., 2022); allowing the “curators” to target micro-publics without risk of revealing their identity. According to (Khasawneh, 2017), BWC targets individuals who exhibit signs of distress, users who post about loneliness, self-harm or a desire to escape reality. These individuals are subtly nudged towards the challenge, with curators first posing as sympathetic figures before shifting the narrative to control. "After sharing my contact information, a curator sent me a 50-day task. There was no turning back." — Operator ████ On Tumblr, users develop their own language, symbols, and aesthetic codes to navigate the platform, what Gibbs et al. (2015) call platform vernacular. This shared online culture makes it easier for dangerous content to blend in. For years, Tumblr has been a space where mental illness is aestheticized. The platform’s long history with “sad girl” culture, depression-core and self-harm blogging (Thelandersson, 2023) has created an environment where romanticized suffering (poetry, moody photography, cryptic quotes) blurs the line between self-expression and self-destruction. Within this ecosystem, BWC does not need to explicitly advertise itself; it spreads organically, camouflaged within the existing aesthetics of despair.

Additionally, Tumblr’s culture of storytelling and digital horror accelerates this spread (ibid). The site thrives on creepypasta formats, alternate reality games (ARGs), and interactive fear-myths. Challenges like BWC exist in the liminal space between urban legend and reality, where even attempts to debunk them inadvertently amplify their reach.

Algorithms do not differentiate between engagement and concern. Tumblr has attempted to moderate self-harm content by banning explicit tags (e.g., #selfharm, #depression), but this has led users to create new coded language (e.g., #shtwt, #gonewhale) (Cavazos-Rehg et al., 2017).

Tumblr’s moderation system is both overaggressive and deeply flawed, creating a paradox where genuine mental health resources are censored while harmful subcultures continue to thrive. Posts offering harm-reduction support are frequently flagged as “sensitive content,” limiting their reach and leaving vulnerable users without access to critical help (Cobbe, 2021). Yet, the very users seeking support are often pushed toward less moderated, more dangerous spaces, closed blogs, encrypted chats and reblog networks that evade detection (ibid). Harmful content does not vanish; including BWC adjacent challenges, resurface under the guise of “art projects” or cryptic journaling, slipping past moderation. 

“I tried reporting a blog,” Operator ████ noted, “but by the time it was taken down, the content had already spread. It wasn’t deleted, it was just reposted somewhere else.”

The operators withdrew.  Their investigation ended. 

REFERENCES

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bianchi, M., Fabbricatore, R., & Caso, D. (2022). Tumblr Facts: Antecedents of Self-Disclosure across Different Social Networking Sites. European Journal of Investigation in Health, Psychology and Education, 12(9), 1257-1271. https://doi.org/10.3390/ejihpe12090087

Bruns, A, Enli, G, Skogerbø, E, Larsson, A & Christensen, C 2016, The Routledge companion to social media and politics, Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, New York, pp. 56–73.Challenge. arXiv.org. https://arxiv.org/abs/1801.05588 

Cavazos-Rehg PA, Krauss MJ, Sowles SJ, et al. An Analysis of Depression, Self-Harm, and Suicidal Ideation Content on Tumblr. Crisis. 2017 Jan;38(1):44-52. DOI: 10.1027/0227-5910/a000409. PMID: 27445014; PMCID: PMC5253332.

Cobbe, J. (2021) Algorithmic Censorship by Social Platforms: Power and Resistance. Philos. Technol. 34, 739–766 . https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-020-00429-0

Khasawneh, A., Madathil, K. C., Dixon, E., Wiśniewski, P., Zinzow, H., Roth, R., Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care, & Khasawneh, C. A. (2017). Examining the self-harm and suicide contagion effects of the Blue Whale Challenge: Qualitative study. JMIR Mental Health. https://mental.jmir.org/2020/6/e15973 

Khattar, A., Dabas, K., Gupta, K., Chopra, S., & Kumaraguru, P. (2018, January 17). White or blue, the whale gets its vengeance: A social media analysis of the Blue Whale 

Kumar, A., Pandey, S. N., Pareek, V., Faiq, M. A., Khan, N. I., & Sharma, V. (2017). Psychobiological determinants of ‘Blue Whale Suicide Challenge’victimization: A proposition for the agency mediated mental health risk in new media age. Etiologically Elusive Disorders Research Network (EEDRN).

Milne, E 2022, ‘Week 3 Tumblr Case Study Lecture’, MDA20009 Digital Communities, Canvas.

Oxford Bibliographies 2018, Public Sphere, Oxford Bibliographies. https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199756841/obo-9780199756841-0030.xml

Silberling, A 2021, Tumblr is at war with Apple over ‘mature’ content on its app again, Tech Crunch. https://techcrunch.com/2021/12/29/tumblr-ios-tags-ban-apple

Thelandersson, F. (2023). Social Media Sadness: Sad Girl Culture and Radical Ways of Feeling Bad. In: 21st Century Media and Female Mental Health. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-16756-0_5