#also not sponsored or anything I just really like the project

[damoclestheone]

One of my favorite things I ever worked on is this piece I did for the developers of Peripeteia.

I highly recommend checking out their game. They post updates at https://x.com/90sGraphics

[hexhomos]

Hello fellow Jayce defender.

First off, virtual kisses on both your cheeks for your Arcane analysis. They're refreshing to read, and insightful as well.

Something that's always bothered me about the way fans interact with Jayce is assuming that he's always the one making the mistakes in any of his relationships. It's almost funny in a way how they strip other characters of their autonomy and arcs just so they can point out how Jayce is failing his partners.

With Mel and Viktor especially, there's this narrative that Jayce simultaneously ignores both of their needs while also prioritising one over the other. Either he neglects Viktor to go and swoon over Mel, or he abandons his relationship with Mel to go play science with Viktor, or he neglects both to go do his own things while they suffer through their own plots.

And it's fascinating how incredibly mistaken these people are, and also how they reduce his character to only being important when he's in a relationship.

I'm here like, "hey, do you wanna discuss the reason for how Jayce seemingly knows how to navigate the ways of high class society very easily is probably because he's had to rely on sponsorships and donations for most of his youth to find his research because his house is too poor to be able afford it?"

Or "It's canonical that Jayce only ever had one friend in his youth before Viktor, and that was the daughter of his main sponsor, do you think it's interesting that this indicates he probably had difficulty making or maintaining friendships and that this is possibly a symptom of the Academy mainly housing elite and rich students so they couldn't relate to his struggles and he couldn't relate to theirs?"

But no, people just want to hate on him for not being the picture perfect boytoy in a relationship.

And I mean, it's not like it's just reduced to Jayce either. So many other characters have had similar treatments where they're reduced to either their most basic qualities or mischaracterised entirely. And I'm really not trying to be the fandom police or whatever - everyone interprets differently - I just find it frustrating is all.

Anyways, you're cool.

YES I never have time to talk about this bc people don't give a fuck but in Jayce's journals we even see him stewing with envy and petty rage at this star-rising student on the academy that he sees as the example of a perfect prodigy (in opposition to how much Jayce fucks things up...)

It also strongly suggests he's on a scholarship, which ties into his suicide attempt.

Jayce is keeping his experiments a secret from everyone to avoid the blowback and isolating himself further and further when they don't work. Jayce is flawed! He's proud of his dream pitch to the point of hilarity. Jayce doesn't like socializing, he does it out of obligation! Even when he's being raised to a councilor position in s1 he's PANICKING. He doesn't want the fucking job, he doesn't like the parties nor the people, his truest honest self is that moment in season 2 where he declares the lab was always his home, and so was Viktor.

But even then he subsumes his own wants spends most of s1 trying to attend to the needs of other people. He routinely asks Viktor if he's alright, if he wants to come up to do the presentation, if he's sure those experiments are safe, etc. He tries to make Heimerdinger proud despite his constant rejections of their projects, and only turns on him when he threatens viktor's wellbeing. The reason why he doesn't announce anything on progress day is that he Was listening to Heimers so-called wisdom and it only bit him in the ass. Jayce gets himself in trouble with the council by being too naive and assuming his new post will allow him to crackdown on Piltovan corruption aided by the Hexgates. Majority of the complaints wrt relationships I see people making of him are just wildly exaggerated. "He was neglecting viktor" bro he talks about viktor in nearly every scene he has with mel 😭 viktor is the one who isolates himself and randomly disappears at times bc he's a grown man with his own boundaries.

Jayce's entire life is defined by the transactional nature of his existence, his work, the patronage receives - all depending on how much he can play the showpony role without fucking it up. It's not a comfortable position. Jayce is stressing out the whole damn show because if one person isn't pissed at him, someone else will be, and it always comes down to revokable money, investments, social standing. if he really was as uncaring and well-off as some claim he wouldn't give a shit. He could just coast along life, but that's not what he's doing ever. He only 'frees' himself in season 2 by abandoning his life's dream and the rotten reality that existed around it. Which is kind of bleak, but at least its over.

[vettelsvee]

GOODBYES ARE BITTERSWEET | Sebastian Vettel ✩₊˚.⋆PART 6: LITTLE WHITE LIES [PREVIOUS PART] [NEXT PART]

goodbyes are bittersweet masterlist | a not so secret santa project ‼️ f1 masterlist | ao3 | ask anything or let's talk!

ferrari sebastian vettel x ex gf!female reader (smau)

summary: seb just wants y/n to accept that contract, and he's going to do everything he can to make it happen. also... the sebastian vettel fandom goes wild when her ex girlfriend does her comeback

warnings: curse words, bad language. mentions of cheating. faceclaim: emma stone, hanna prater

taglist: [ @saltycomicsanimalssalad @hc-dutch @mycenterfold @simplyamberj @spitesfvl-blog @jaydaaasworld @lottalove4evelyn @zoeyjadetice2010 @jehun @ferralari @cosmoscoffeee @mcmuppet @myescapefromthislife @sleutherclaw @youre-on-your-ownkid ]

a/n: surprise, i posted again! and first smau! I've been wanting to do one of this for a long time, so i hope you like it (please tell me)! feedback (please let me now what you thought of this!) and reposts are truly appreciated. and also comment me your thoughts and theories on the story pls!

© VETTELSVEE (2024). please, do not steal, copy or translate my works. thanks for reading!

MAY 25TH 2018

JUNE 1ST 2018

ynyln just posted

ynyln moving on from him is impossible when i still see it all in my head in burning red... see you on june 15th x (more news coming soon... in july <3)

user1 omg are we having red mv? this is ALL red coded

user 2 THERE'S NO WAY SHE DID THIS ↳ user3 wait what is this about? ↳ user 2 user3 take a closer look to the pictures 😁 ↳ user4 i'm not getting it... someone explain it?

lewishamilton it's good to see you finally achieving your dreams! ❤️🙏🏿 ↳ ynyln can't wait to see you soon lew! missed you lots x

user6 she's absolutely insane for posting this pictures... i gotta love her ↳ user7 why is it with the pictures she chose to post? aren't they related to what her song says? ↳ user6 take a look at the twitter thread sebsrrari just posted!

user8 EXCUSE ME MISS YLN? WHAT DO YOU MEAN WITH THAT "SEE YOU SOON"? ↳ ynyln maybe redbullracing can give you a hint... ☺️ ↳ redbullracing ynyln, do you really want us to post certain something we have already saved? ↳ ynyln redbullracing you know i do! i don't know what are you waiting for?

user9 wait wasn't she dating sebastian vettel back in the day? it seems like she's recalling her years with him ↳ user10 i'm 110% sure that the quote goes to seb ↳ user11 and the fact that lewis has left a comment... they know i'm sure

user12 if this post has anything to do with seb... the og wag fandom is going to rise from the ashes and go WILD.

redbullracing just posted

redbullracing We are so delighted to announce that from now on we will officially become the main sponsor of our former golden girl, ynyln, who just started her career as a singer. Also... she will be joining us for the 2018 German Grand Prix next July! More details coming soon.

user1 THEY POSTED SEB AND Y/N OH MY GOD ↳ user2 is this some kind of throwback? weren't they dating a while back? 😯

user3 ok but the fact that they posted that picture makes me think maybe seb and y/n never really lost touch... could this be the start of something more than just sponsorship? ↳ user4 exactly thought this! there's definitely something more going on

user5 seb and y/n together again in 2018 does this mean they're dating again or is it just for promo? ↳ user6 probably promo... ↳ user7 or maybe they know something we don't... ↳ user8 really why posting a picture of them together when they broke up a while ago? ↳ user9 user8 WAIT THEY WERE DATING? ↳ user8 user9 yes! twitter is now full of their story, it's quite a romantic one but also bittersweet... it didn't end well according to most of people

user10 of course seb's the reason y/n's getting back in the spotlight ↳ user11 seb and y/n have way too much chemistry for you to say that ↳ user12 exactly! seeing her again after going viral without us knowing, and her being with seb again, is making me think there’s more to this story!

[qqueenofhades]

I love your essays; they are fascinating. Thank you for sharing your perspective! I have a follow up question, if you have the time or energy: in your last, you said, “It's a blueprint for a tiny group of extreme right-wing theocrats and fascists to get their way regardless of what the broader public says about it…”. Who ARE the tiny group of extreme right wing theocrats and fascists? Is it the politicians whom we see all over the news, like Vance and Boebert ands Haley and DeSantis? Or are they puppets whose strings are being pulled by donors behind the scenes, like…I don’t know, the Koch brothers and the Uleins (sp?)? I feel like whoever it is must have mind boggling amounts of money, to overcome the sheer number of people who don’t think like that, even people nominally republican who believe in traditional low taxes and small government, but are not completely bananapants. Or maybe that’s why they tagged trump, bc no one before him was willing to act like enough of an outright gangster to seriously move the needle…? How much more rich than disgustingly rich do they need to be?

Perhaps surprisingly, it's fairly easy to identify the Hall of Shame who are busily trying to end American democracy, not least because they have become increasingly open about it. Their motives are diverse but all terrible. The quick rundown is as follows:

First, the alt-right billionaires club such as Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Harlan Crow, and Leonard Leo (the last two are some of the chief funnelers of dark money to SCOTUS; Crow is Clarence Thomas's sugar daddy). They have reasons ranging from grandiose delusions about "remaking" the world in their preferred image (not at all terrifying) to attaching themselves to fascist politics in order to defeat workers' rights and labor unions, who they view as a threat to their mega-wealth. Thiel is the primary sponsor of JD Vance and the alt-right cryptobros clubs that draw the young right-wing white men who also primarily form the membership of neo-Nazi and white nationalist groups. They want to end democracy in order to punish women, minorities, LGBTQ+ people, and anyone else who Nazis always hate. Crow and Leo have lavishly funded the corrupt SCOTUS in order to influence their preferred right-wing rulings, and there are undoubtedly more who we don't even know about. This is just the tip of the iceberg and I have no doubt that it's far, far worse than anything that has been publicly reported.

Next are the extremist right-wing interest groups that have cohered around and advocated for Project 2025, which is basically just the conservative-extremist wet dream put in one place and written down. They include the Heritage Foundation (the primary Project 2025 author) the Federalist Society and the John Birch Society of right-wing judges and policymakers, and Opus Dei, the secretive Catholic right-wing influence group who are straight out of a Dan Brown novel but are in fact some of the most consequential and powerful players in MAGA World. Their name means "work of God" in Latin, which is very much what they see themselves as doing, and their reach in DC is vast, particularly in the far-right evangelical and fundamentalist Christian groups that have attached themselves to Trump as a vehicle to push through their regressive-reactionary social and cultural politics, especially on abortion, women's rights, LGBTQ+ rights, and other things that they view as "unholy." These are the diehard true believers who really, truly think that it's better for the US to be a fascist theocracy espousing "Right and Moral" religious views than a flawed, pluralist, and secular democracy. Hard Yikes.

Thirdly we have the useful idiots, such as Vance, Ron DeSantis, Boebert, Greene, basically pick-a-Republican-politician-here, who are pursuing fascist politics out of careerism, opportunism, some amount of genuine belief, and exploiting the age-old fissures of American racism, nativism, xenophobia, and other original sins that have dogged the country since its founding. Of course, Trump himself is chief among these useful idiots, because he's completely willing to end American democracy and install himself as Dictator-for-Life if it exempts him from having to face the consequences for all the crimes he did last time (and frankly, his entire life, which is now catching up with him). I don't think Trump has an actual consistent or coherent policy bone in his body; witness how quickly he was willing to flip-flop on the Florida abortion issue depending on what he thought was useful (and then after the backlash he received from his base). He's a malignant narcissistic sociopath who is incapable of complex reasoning and long-term planning. His only and overriding interest is himself, he will do absolutely whatever he has to in order to save himself, and as long as he has his death grip on the GOP, everyone who wants to succeed in the party or even have a future in it has to slavishly kiss Don Corleone Trump's ring. That is why many lifelong Republicans have been breaking ranks to say they will vote for Harris, because "being a Republican's" one and only qualification is now "being utterly loyal to Trump." That's it.

These are all actors based more or less in the US, but we also can't forget the fact that basically the entire Republican Party is in deep, deep hock to Vladimir Putin and other foreign autocrats (but most especially and dangerously Putin). We just had the DOJ indictment of MAGA influencers who were taking Russian black cash by the bucketload in order to spread damaging lies about Biden/Harris and pump for Trump, and this is consistent with Russia's pattern of extensive interference in American elections going back to at least 2016. It is hard to overstate how much Putin hankers to end American democracy for many reasons. He is a former KGB agent trained in the black-and-white us-and-them logic of the Cold War where the US was the USSR's archenemy, his constant mourning for the USSR's collapse has been well documented, and it would be the absolute defining and singular achievement of all of post-imperial Russian history for Putin to effectively end American democracy with a second Trump term.

This is for the simple reason that Trump is utterly in thrall to Putin and will do whatever he asks, whether it's cutting off aid to Ukraine and forcing them to accept annexation by Russia, pulling America out of NATO and letting Putin set his invasion sights on Poland and the Baltic states, and anything else. That is genuinely terrifying but very likely if Trump was re-elected, aside from the end of American democracy and the worldwide ramifications it would have to empower fascist authoritarians everywhere. Putin is trying to achieve this through a combination of good old-fashioned Soviet-style dezinformatsiya, paying off MAGA influencers, putting the entire resources of the Russian state into defaming Harris-Walz, and recruiting useful idiots like his asset Jill Stein, who has extensive Russian ties and only pops up every four years for idiot leftists to spoil their vote and ruin Democratic electoral prospects. So. Again. Hard yikes.

So that's the quick rundown of the people who are vested in Trump and Project 2025's success and why, and as you can see, while they're all different, they're all terrible. But yes: that really is a very, very small group of people, relatively speaking. And a vote for anyone except Kamala Harris and Tim Walz is a vote to empower them and also to ensure that you will never have the chance to vote again, due to living in an authoritarian fascist regime. Choose wisely.

[sunderwight]

Thinking about Alpha Timeline Jayce and Viktor, from the very first iteration of events, the one Mage Viktor is from and thus also the one where no mage went back in time and rescued Jayce and his mom from the blizzard. If such a thing exists and it's not just a big ole paradox, anyway. But I like to think that it does, it makes sense. There had to be a first version of events, right? One that wasn't yet tampered with by magical intervention in the timestream, the one where Viktor did indeed just destroy everyone. Alpha Timeline Jayce included.

A timeline where there was no mage to rescue Jayce and his mom from the blizzard. I imagine this means Ximena dies, but Jayce lives long enough for some other form of help to find him. Maybe that form is also magical, maybe some mage lights a fire for him or does something else that's less flashy but still leaves an impression, a yearning in young Jayce for the power to have potentially saved his mother.

I don't recall what the deal is with Jayce's dad, if he's dead or not or when he died if so, but for the purposes of this timeline let's assume that if he's still around during the blizzard period he nevertheless doesn't survive long after Ximena's death. Jayce inherits the Talis hammer factory, but he's still just a kid. He lives as something of a mascot/figurehead for a while, at least until various shareholders sell the business off to competitors and his inheritance is, more or less, bartered out from underneath him while he's still too young to understand what's going on. By the time he hits his mid teens, Alpha Timeline Jayce has lost the last connection he had to his parents and his more peaceful childhood existence, and has been exposed to the cynical and often two-faced machinery of Piltover's social system. He's still not much of a politician by nature, but this time that knowledge of self comes with a lot of bitterness and self-recrimination attached. Being "careless" (read: a minor) cost him his family legacy (that he wouldn't have particularly wanted in the timeline where he could have kept it, not that he knows that).

With positions in the academy highly coveted and sponsors limited, Jayce's road to becoming a scientist is a lot more difficult the first time around. House Talis isn't even a respectable middle-class family, it's barely even a recognized house anymore, and forget about getting sponsored by Cassandra Kiramman, Jayce basically has to rely on luck and several other mid-class houses to cobble together enough support to attend the academy. This version is a lot more like League Jayce (also a Jayce Giopara by the time he meets Viktor, perhaps?), and a lot more paranoid about letting anyone do anything for him, a lot more aggressive about sticking his name directly onto any project he's even tangentially involved with because otherwise he knows the credit can be swept out of his hands and leave him just holding the bill afterwards.

This causes him to butt heads with Alpha Timeline Viktor, who is also struggling along (even more than Jayce, given he still comes from the undercity of course), with both of them vying for positions as assistants to more established academy members, and access to funding. Viktor thinks Jayce is a blowhard with too much flash and ego, and smarts from a few incidents of Jayce stealing the credit and spotlight from him (Jayce can do this mostly just by not going out of his way to acknowledge Viktor all the time, by virtue of Viktor's even less "respectable" background), and Jayce finds Viktor's prickly attitude and conflicting standards (i.e. Viktor not really wanting to be put in leadership positions on projects but then getting miffed when Jayce does what he's seen every other project leader do) to be frustrating.

On the other hand, Jayce also treats Viktor as a respected peer in terms of intellect regardless of his background, and Viktor still becomes the first person to take any of Jayce's theories about technology and magic seriously. I imagine they meet before the Apartment Explosion Incident in this timeline, by virtue of Jayce actually getting into the academy sooner and having to grind more for it, since he has no parents to either be reluctant to see him depart from the family business or help him find sponsorships. So when the apartment break-in does happen, and Jayce's experiments with magic are uncovered and he's initially disgraced, Viktor still helps talk him off the ledge.

Because this version of Jayce is less idealistic (though still not a bad guy by most standards), this version of Viktor is more cynical also. He has less of a tether to the notion of scientific pursuit as something pure and joyful. When they work together they're often arguing quite a bit. This version of Viktor also ends up being closer to his League counterpart, using proto hextech inventions and combining them with cybernetic implants from an earlier stage to do things like create "safety features" for mine workers that bypass their autonomy in the name of avoiding human error. Jayce, who had his livelihood and his family's business swept out of his hands by being bypassed "for his own good" in his youth, doesn't take well to these incidents. Meanwhile Viktor sees this direction as the only one that might yield the results he needs to possibly cure his illness, trusting even less in some idealized vision of him and Jayce just science-ing their way through the problem. The schism between them over Jayce's increasingly public success and political trajectory is also wider. Viktor keeps even more of his personal struggles to himself and has even less sympathy for Jayce's packed schedule, while Jayce is even more baffled and annoyed by Viktor's mercurial moods and private projects.

Jayce and Mel also have a rather more cynical dynamic, I imagine. This version of Jayce doesn't need any bonus motivations to pursue his own political best interests or secure his personal position, but there's still a mutual attraction, so Mel pulls out a card from her mother's playbook and is like "well that was fun, no need to take it too seriously" after they sleep together, and Jayce is kind of expecting it and doesn't go in for the cuddles. He still definitely wants the cuddles though.

Despite his more contentious and less contentious relationships overall, Jayce still wants deeper connections with the people around him, in fact. And he still gets attached, even if he's worse at expressing it. And he still rushes to commit mad science to save Viktor's life, against Viktor's stated wishes to destroy the hexcore instead. And Viktor still leaves him afterwards. And Jayce is still fucked up about it. But, he's also more invested in The Grind and his council position, so instead of hibernating in his lab he throws himself more into handling the current political crisis. Which means he isn't there when Heimerdinger and Ekko break in. Thus he never leads them to the anomaly, or goes there himself, and that whole plot arc never happens. Ekko and Heimerdinger just workshop some possible treatments for the tree and are still trying to fix it by the time shit hits the fan.

Ambessa does still launch things into martial rule under Caitlyn of course, except this time she gets to "secure" one of the scientists behind hextech (Jayce). Despite being a bigger douche in this timeline, though, Jayce is still not really onboard with making hextech weapons for Noxian soldiers to use against the underprivileged, and since he and Caitlyn aren't as close in this timeline either, he gets to go through his Tour of Pain courtesy of Ambessa's attempts to coerce him. So Jayce goes "missing" by way of being imprisoned, a state of affairs he manages to escape after Singed leads Vander/Warwick to Stillwater and Ambessa gets distracted by hunting down the werewolf with a much more biddable mad scientist in hand.

Jayce makes his own way to Viktor's commune, and Viktor is like, oh hey there you are, good news I'm not mad at you anymore, would you like to become one with me? Whereas Jayce is like, Viktor what the fuck, you left to go start a cult? Why is that hot? Ugh no forget it we can unpack that later, soft maybe on the becoming one thing does it involve sex no wait shelve that, there's a Noxian takeover we have to deal with first. So the fight that badly injures Viktor is actually against Ambessa in the commune, with Singed explaining to Jayce that they can save Viktor but they have to sacrifice Vander to do it.

To his credit, Jayce is like, no I learned my lesson from last time. We're only doing mad science to resurrect Viktor if he signs the consent form first. Which Viktor does, because Ambessa and her forces are still out there and he and/or the hexcore and possibly also Jayce even managed to convince him that all of this is necessary to save everyone, and also because this version of Jayce being less of an idealist has led to a version of Viktor who is less of one as well. Machine Herald Viktor basically steamrolls the Noxians and then was welcomed back to Piltover openly as a hero.

Uh-oh.

So Jayce figures out that Viktor's "glorious evolution" is in fact a huge problem in the eleventh hour and after he's unwittingly led him back to the anomaly he needs to finish his ascendance, but by then there's nowhere close to the resources necessary to put up much of a fight about it. He mostly tries to fight Viktor alone or with whatever allies he can grab last minute (Mel if she hasn't left for Noxus yet, maybe also Vi and/or Jinx who are likely to be on the warpath about Vander, Caitlyn if she's nearby, etc), and he only gets anywhere with that because Viktor still wants him to join with him willingly.

But anyways, it fails, Viktor "wins", and then gets to sit in the ruins of his triumph and lament. I imagine that when he starts tinkering with alternate timelines, there is a part of him that still thinks he's correct on some level. Like clearly something went wrong in the process, because the end results haven't worked out as he'd hoped, but he's not sure what exactly it was yet. But maybe Jayce will know, because Jayce was always good at catching things that Viktor missed (and vice versa)? The version of Jayce which Viktor merged with... it didn't work right. It wasn't supposed to result in Jayce being gone, being silent, like this. Viktor can't hear his voice to ask him questions anymore, so the first thing he goes looking for in another timeline is Jayce.

But he miscalculates a little bit (first time doing anything remotely like this, even a "perfect" hextech god needs some margin of error), and he ends up finding Jayce when Jayce is only a child, stranded in a blizzard with his mother. Viktor rescues them, but he's still trying to win an argument in his head about it, so he's also very "look how cool I am" about it. Like behold, New Jayce, I am going to win so many arguments even though I'm also reeling from being wrong about something that might have actually been the most important argument we ever had. Aren't I nearly perfect? Once you finish baking into a hunk you can tell me what part of the equation wasn't completely right and then I really will finally be completely perfect. I am prepared to wear down your skepticism and -- wait why are you looking at me like that? You're looking at the magic, right? Uh... look see, here's a rune! Magic, that's... that's the thing. To be looking at that way. Okay gotta go bye!

It takes a few iterations before Viktor arrives at the "there is no prize to perfection, only an end to pursuit" conclusion about where he actually did go wrong, and by then he's made rescuing Jayce + Ximena and being flashy as hell about it a standard part of the process. You will pry baby Jayce's awestruck look of wonder from his dead robot hands actually. Also clearly he is doing a better job of this than the original mage who couldn't even rescue Jayce's mom about it. Loser. His ego also needs to consolation prize if he's going to accept that overall Asshole Grownup Jayce was, in fact, more right than he was. At least at first.

He has mixed feelings about all the subsequent Jayces being sweetie pies, too. Like obviously it's a net improvement for both Jayce and the other versions of Viktor that he has better emotional regulation and is less of a gloryhound, but it also makes it all the more obvious that even though he can speak with versions of Jayce, the OG is still gone. Surprisingly few iterations of Jayce turn into dickheads, and even fewer respond to the revelation of Viktor's apocalypse by turning against him, even though Viktor initially assumed that would be the standard. They all definitely have thoughts on the situation, and none of them want their own timelines to be doomed, but most of them do also try to and help Viktor. Most of them are still willing to follow his advice. Even after everything.

It is... humbling.

By the time he gets to Arcane Jayce, he's not even prevaricating or showboating (much) anymore. He shows Jayce his human face, lets things unfold as they will, is simultaneously detached (he doesn't get Jayce out of the pit he's fallen into, Jayce has to do that himself) but also romantic ("only you can show me this") and even lets this version have OG Jayce's hammer to replace the one he had to dismantle for his leg brace. This is Jayce simultaneously at his best, his lowest, his brightest, his most noble, and most different from the first and yet still perhaps most different from Viktor's preconceptions about him rather than the core of his true self. Mage Viktor told himself he was refining his evolutionary process, but in reality what he ended up doing was distilling different versions of Jayce, unlocking the formula for the one that could stop him.

But also wouldn't leave him.

[seawardboundsammy]

after many months of work, I reveal my magnum opus. The Sidestep Battlejacket.

pov: ortega seeing sidestep whole for the last time

Holy shit! It's finished!!!

This was my final for my costume design class and it took. so long. Weighing in around 800 pounds in faux leather and spikes, this is by far the most polished and focused battle jacket I've ever made. also noting that typically i wear big glasses! i just had to show off sidestep's eyebags (my hair is always teal though! ult fave color). The prop gun is a nerf gun covered in so much paint.

This design is based off my sidestep Arbor's suit combined with the dog themes sidestep has (eg: bite the hand). More thoughts and wips under the cut!

So this jacket has actually existed in some form since 2020. I bought this leather jacket with the intention of covering it in studs and spikes and then i petered out half way through. Then, after sitting in my closet for 4 years, i finally started back up on it.

These images were my gospel through the project. The design on the left was made a while before and then you can see in real time how i developed my ideas. I had the idea of the front side being "sidestep" and then the back side with the teeth being "retribution/vsona". like a mullet of trauma. the gun was made to match the organic flowing designs of the jacket, to fit the arboreal theme.

the painting of the teeth was a painstaking process filled with much masking tape and clean up. the arm stripes were free handed in a mad dash to the finish. I used Angelus Leather Paints (which i bought WAY too much of, a little goes miles also its so good not sponsored its just good paint) and every section got two coats of white and two coats of teal. The only exception was the orange which is much more transparent which took more coats and hand cramping with those letters. (which btw! no stencil! just moving my brush around all silly style).

i really wanted a prop to make the jacket into something that actually feel like a cosplay, so i hunted down the most sci-blaster nerf gun i could find on amazon and threw gallons of paint at it. the experienced among you may note that nothing wants to stick to that smooth of plastic, but with a solid sanding and angelus acrylic hardener i made it work. originally there were more stripes but it looked busy. there were also going to be two charms for charge and anathema but i um. forgor.

unsanded vs sanded (and some acetone to remove paint) vs final

the hood! good god that hood. that was ripped off an old hoodie and then i found a shirt at a thrift store that just happened to match the color perfectly. its. attached. if you know anything about sewing, please look away from this evil seam. the purple is just to keep it from fraying btw, the actual connection to the jacket it with a much thinner thread in big stitches as to not weaken the faux leather too much. also you can see where i was testing the paint lol.

if you read to here, thank you!! im so proud of this thing and i cant wait to wear it everywhere (when the weather allows.) have a sleepy steppy as a treat for sticking around

[yaytheboop]

I absolutely support paying artists and supporting creators, and seeing the quality of Watcher's videos especially lately I've understood that it wouldn't be sustainable for a while now. I will never say that I expect anyone to come out with so much high-quality content so regularly without being financially compensated for it.

That being said, I think the way they've gone about this has just not been the smartest. First off by doing this so suddenly with no warning, and also having a big countdown to it when it's actually quite a sad thing to see them go. Like it felt like they were counting down to a party but then it was a funeral that took place instead, and even the mood of the video they put out was quite somber. I think it put the wrong expectations in fans (me included), which just made the shock even bigger than it needed to be (especially for this sort of announcement).

I think they actually were quite respectful of the fact that people wouldn't be able to continue to follow them over to WatcherTV, but the comment about "making it affordable so everyone could subscribe to their plan" and then it being $60 a year was kind of insulting. It would have been better if they'd been realistic about it and said that they understood that it might be a steep price for some, but that they hoped it would be affordable for some of their subscribers while still giving them the chance to produce high-quality content or something along those lines.

What I don't understand however is how this is supposed to be sustainable in the long run? Because if I'm someone who's scrolling Youtube and comes across one of their old videos, I'll watch them all there. If I'm scrolling and come across one of their newer videos, and see that the rest of those videos are behind a paywall, then I'm gonna continue to scroll, I won't pay $60 to watch someone I previously didn't really know.

I don't know businesses, especially businesses in creative fields, and definitely not USAmerican businesses in creative fields, so I'm not sure how this would work financially. However, I think there's one of two things they could have done to make it easier for us as fans to transition, as well as still earn them some of that extra revenue (to start with):

They could add a free subscription with ads on their streaming service. I don't know how easy that is, getting sponsors and incorporating pop-up ads on a service, but that's an option.

They could have started out by putting some of their bigger projects on the service, but still regularly making content on Youtube that was not as produced or financially

I think having their own streaming platform is a good idea because then they won't be bound by Youtube's restrictions and have more creative freedom, as well as the whole economic side of this. The way they're executing it however is just alienating and frankly a bit insulting to the fans who have been with them for so long and supported them through so much and now suddenly can't watch anything new anymore with barely any warning.

Yeah, this became very long but I had some thoughts that I just needed to air.

[lemonhemlock]

What do you think about how Helena doesn’t do anything for the team she’s on in both the book and the show? It seems like the rest of the characters have the responsibility and does something to benefit the side they’re on

yeah, it's not great. they had the chance to do something really interesting with helaena and expand (at least a little) on her book version, but she somehow ended up with even less than in FB. in the books, at the very least, she was present during some political talks and she expressed a desire for restraint in the face of bloodshed that aegon heeded (alongside her mother, true, she wasn't the only voice advocating for that). but what does show!helaena do? she sits in rooms all day and embroiders. they really are so averse to giving her an activity, any activity for that matter.

rhaena, for example, is currently perhaps the least developed of the tb children, but we know how she longs for a dragon to either hatch or to claim. she goes to the vale. she has at least the sliver of an objective: keeping jeyne arryn as an ally. meanwhile helaena is not even recognised as a dragonrider, even though she also claimed dreamfyre when she was nigh a child. dreamfyre is never even referred to as helaena's dragon, let alone visually depicted next to her. thank god we have a scene with dreamfyre and aemond, though! and this was such an easy thing to do, they could have made her a horse girl (dragon girl) and had her at the dragonpit tending to all the stray, riderless dragons.

i have always said that they could have leaned into that little tidbit about her being beloved by the smallfolk and showed her getting involved in charity works or sponsoring events or infrastructure projects, something that would work towards her maintaining a good image in the city. it's not like these are things autistic-coded people are incapable of doing!

it's so frustrating bc they gave her the gift of prophecy only for it to have no bite and no stakes. she utters vague, weird metaphors to her interlocutors and they look spooked or confused for a couple of moments. cassandra motif, yes, but what are they actually doing with this trope other than the most basic, descriptive, straightforward depiction of it? i understand that ewan has hinted that aemond will investigate (?) this gift of hers, but will this end up being just another instance in which helaena's arc is subsumed by someone else's?

when does she do anything for herself? when is she an initiator of anything? they turned her into this passive observer that exists so that alicent could feel bad about her life choices, aegon could act awkwards towards and aemond could covet. what's her opinion about the war? about rhaenyra? about becoming queen? it's so infantilizing. it's like their image of an autistic person is someone who sits alone in a room all day and waits for things to happen to them.

in a way it is weird because it's not like she lacks character traits, she just doesn't do anything with them

not even getting into the b&c debacle and how little impact the most traumatizing concept in asoiaf-verse ended up having on her. but, you know what? even so, with this decision to minimize this torturous event, what exactly is the pay-off here? why are they still writing her in such a static way? her arc is going nowhere, because she never seemed to have one in the first place.

[astroyongie]

Enhypen August Reading 2023

Note: please take it lightly and have fun

Heeseung

Love: For the moment he isn’t dating anyone but he has been very close to someone, and specially he has been flirting and having dates with this person whenever he can. He does want something serious with them, but for now the person haven’t given their green light. Heeseung likes them a lot and he can’t help but turn into a small kid whenever they are around

Career: Things are going extremely well for him, not only does he has secured self projects that he was able to secure, he is also building his own name and his own idol empire the way he wants. His sponsors and company are being very nice and supportive or all the dreams he wants to get 

Self: Heeseung is doing well, he is spending a lot of time alone lately but that solitude has been helping him finding his own self. He is also becoming a lot more independent and not being so much behind his members for things. He is learning to do things by himself 

Jay

Love: currently he is single but he is looking for someone that he could love and have a relationship with. Jay really hates not being in a relationship, but his idol life and his schedule also isn’t very convenient to get into a relationship that can be healthy and last long enough. 

Career: things are a little bit shaky for him in this area as well, because he has more delays than his peers, however he still has faith that everything is going to go well, now that things changed a little. Jay knows this team will keep by his side to support him

Self: He has been having a very hard time lately, because he cannot deal with the bad mouths. Either it’s people pointing on his flaws, people talking aggressively or bad to him or even mean comments on the internet. He is trying is best to stay deaf to all of it, but it’s hard 

Jake

Love: Just like Jay, Jake is also single at the moment, but it was for pure choice. He decided to break up with his last partner (soloist idol) because he didn’t trust them with other people. He believed that his partner would cheat on him if they could so he decided it would be better to end things instead of being potentially humiliated 

Career: he is being very resilient about everything that has been happening. He also put his idol carer in the hands of the ones that work with him (company and sponsor) and he is just accepting everything that comes his way 

Self: he is probably having some dependance issues here, this could be anything and everything, but it seems Jake has been a little addict to something lately that helps him going through his days 

Sunghoon

Love: he is still in a relationship with his non idol partner and everything seem to be going well fo him. He loves them dearly and he as been very kind to them. I believe that Sunghoon has been taking care of them emotionally and financially as well. He wants to be able to provide for them 

Career: he is full of creativity and there’s so many projects he has been signing and working on. He wants his name to be known outside Enhypen and he is working very hard for it 

Self: honestly his aura is positive lately, a rosy pink color, he is very altruist and tries to help those in need by being generous enough. I believe that Sunghoon is also probably doing donations 

Sunoo

Love: he is also single at the moment, and mostly focused on his mental health at the moment rather than on his love life. Sunoo is very close to love lately and he has no patient nor the need to focus on love or on people altogether 

Career: at least when it comes to his career, he is very positive and confident that things are goin to work on his favor. He works enough and he believes in himself and on his idol talents. It’s probably the only area of his life where he is stable and happy 

Self: i see a lot of anxiety around him, being being always worried about everything and trying to do things way too quickly. His aura is red and very racy, he needs to rest and to stop putting everything on his shoulders 

Jungwon

Love: Jungwon is still on his relationship with his idol partner and things are okay as well. They are both stable, in love and working toward a very healthy relationship. Don’t have much to say other than he is okay 

Career: he is also very happy with his career situation at the moment, he is learning to let go of things that don’t matter and focusing more on things that can bring him wealth and success. Jungwon is learning a lot lately and just living his life as he should 

Self: is aura is yellow lately, he has been very faithful to his partner, to himself his members and his responsibilities. He is also happy and just joyful in general and wants everyone to know about it 

Ni-ki

Love: without much surprise he is single and he is also healing because of some disappointment he got lately. There was probably someone he had a crush in that couldn’t give it back in return (and even if they could, he couldn’t) so Niki is frustrated and sad 

Career: He is being very brave and tries to fight everything that comes his way. Niki is very well supported when it comes to his career but he also had to make some choices that demanded a lot of him emotionally 

Self: he is doing well, his aura is rather on purple tons and also he has been liberating a lot of seductive energy and feminine people are usually being very attracted to him lately 

[what-even-is-thiss]

Someday when I have a more consistent schedule I really do wanna have a YouTube channel. And I’ve wondered about sponsorships. I’ve gotten offers on this very blog before to participate in one of those stupid ads for drop shipping crystals that project your birth sign or whatever that I’ve turned down.

I’ve wondered though. Because on one hand sponsors pay good money and money is a thing that is required to live in this day and age. But also I feel like if I ever took a sponsor nobody could ever fully and completely trust my opinion on anything again.

There’s this YouTuber I love whose channel is called Swell Entertainment. And she comes across as being very honest but also she takes sponsorships. And a big part of her channel is review content. So sometimes I wonder if she’s pulling her punches slightly because she still wants to be marketable. But I don’t hold that against her because she’s living in LA for god’s sake and sponsorships provide much more reliable income than other methods.

It’s kinda sad that advertisement is almost required to make a living creating internet content.

I pay for YouTube premium not just because I wanted to get rid of ads on my smart tv, but because creators get more money per view from YouTube premium subscribers. I can’t afford to subscribe to a dozen patreons but I can afford one cheap subscription.

I hope if I ever have a channel big enough to have sponsorships I either take them extremely rarely for stuff I actually care about or don’t take them at all. Because I want to be able to just have opinions about stuff openly. But the sad truth is that money can be an issue. So. Who knows? I certainly don’t hold it against people who take sponsorships. That’s just how the industry works nowadays. They need money to live. And if you have adhd which many creative types do contractual deadlines can really help you get stuff done. And sponsors can get you experiences like vacations and luxury hotel stays and free reviewer copies of books and video games. Who can blame them? There’s so much stuff available to you from sponsors that can improve your quality of life and help you make your business better. Money to hire editors and voice actors and writers and animators, buy better equipment, rent out a sound stage.

But. Idk. A lot of those sponsored products aren’t that good. And a lot of people are susceptible to advertising. It works on a lot of people. Especially when it comes from a face they trust.

The tradeoff to take sponsors or not is a difficult one. Honestly and truly. And it’s very probable that I’ll never be popular enough to actually have to make a decision on these things. But I still think about it every time I see a sponsored segment. What levels of calculation have gone into that? None? A lot? I’ll never be allowed to know because that would be bad for business.

[devildogdemon]

Bracing myself for committing potential Everlark sacrilege here. Still, I’m curious: Does anyone else ever dabble in the What If/headcanon that Peeta made up his original crush on Katniss? That in the beginning, it really was all just part of his and Haymitch's plan to hype Katniss up, and help boost her favor as the super rare chance for a District 12 Victor? But in the course of the first games, and particularly while committing to the star-crossed lovers act in the cave, he ended up actually falling in love with her?

This was actually my original interpretation the first time I read the first book. That all the rest of the backstory is still true: Mr. Mellark pointing Katniss out, Katniss singing the Valley song, etc. But it was just how Peeta remembered her, not the beginning of years-long pining.

Quick disclaimer: I'm not trying to argue for this headcanon's legitimacy. In fact, I now know it's not true. While writing this post, I remembered that Peeta told Katniss during the Victory Tour he was jealous of Gale before he officially met her. So by his own words, Peeta's crush predates the first Hunger Games.

Still, reading the first book on its own, it’s a headcanon I always come back to, and I think works in its own way sometimes.

For one thing, it’s a bit beyond my suspension of disbelief that Peeta was reaped alongside the girl he was silently obsessed with for 11 years. It feels way more like convenience to me than destiny or anything like that. Not to mention, this is supposedly a crush that began and persisted long before Peeta hit puberty.

But it’s not just the realistic aspect that draws me to this hc. It's also because I love how much it contributes to the 'accidental soulmates' aspect on Everlark. The idea that these two were not meant to fall in love. That if their lives went the way they thought or planned, they never would have spoken. They would have rarely crossed paths, if at all. They would have married different people, if anyone when it came to Katniss, but Gale would be the sole candidate if she did. And they would have lived out their days and died as strangers. But through a series of completely unforeseen, bizarre circumstances in this cruel world that brought them together in the most horrific of ways, from it emerged a real bond between them. Even if it started as a charade for sponsors, it morphed into a real bond of love and care that was genuine, and beautiful, and selfless, and real.

My take is essentially that Peeta took his mother's final words to him about Katniss as bitingly true, not that that made them any less hurtful. And from that point forward, he figured if he was going to do something worthwhile before his inescapable death, it would be to help his District. And the way to do that would be to help the girl who could do that better than he ever could.

Sure, there are things like him keeping hold on Katniss' hand during the chariot ride, and teasingly prodding her for a kiss while she's treating him. But...ok, I hesitate to project onto a boy who was and is leagues above me in every way (feel free to flame me for this). But as a former 16-year old boy myself, who was roughly that age when first reading the story, I kinda figured he just wanted to experience a taste of romance before his inevitable death? Like the PG version of "I don't want to die a virgin."

Anywho, gonna whistle past that embarassing hot take lol. But I think this hc gels well too with all his actions Katniss finds questionable: telling her everyone was watching her during the chariot ride, the crush revelation, teaming up with the careers to throw them off her trail, and fighting Cato. He's doing it all for her to win, even at the expense of himself. Not because he has feelings for her (yet), but because he believes in her.

But it's at the point when Katniss finds him in the mud bank, and she does everything in her power from then on to keep him alive, that maybe his feelings for her take a turn for the real. She shouldn't be trying to keep him alive. It’s of no benefit to her whatsoever. But she refuses to let him die. She will not even discuss it. It makes zero sense to him. No one's ever valued his life this much, even his own family. Why is this girl he barely knows, who never noticed him before, suddenly sparing no expense to keep him alive? To the point of risking her own life for him?

This comes to a head when he tries to rebuke her for going to the feast:

"No! Just don't, Katniss! Don't die for me. You won't be doing me any favors. All right? "Maybe I did it for myself, Peeta, did you ever think of that? Maybe you aren't the only one who...who worries about..what it would be like if..." "If what, Katniss?" "That's exactly the kind of topic Haymitch told me to steer clear of." "Then I'll just have to fill in the blanks myself."

On that last line, I took that as Peeta seeing for the first time that Katniss actually does care about him. More than anyone ever has. That she wants him to live, just as much as she wants them to win. And that's when he truly falls for her. Sadly, he makes the mistake of presuming she feels the same way. That's the only blank he filled in incorrectly.

But did he, though? Because what follows that last line is the first kiss between them that makes Katniss feel "stirring in her chest" and "wanting another." This whole conversation made her want to shut the world out, because "whatever I'm feeling, it's no one's business but mine."

So maybe their feelings for each other kinda awoke at the same time? And deep, deep down, the two of them could sense that shift in emotion toward each other. Where performance became reality. For Peeta, much stronger. But for Katniss, she's not quite there yet.

Now yes, I'm aware Katniss gets Peeta to tell the story of his crush AFTER this happens. But as Katniss points out prior to this, he's the silver-tongued one. Not to mention an established good liar. So keeping with the idea this was when he first noticed her, maybe he blends the facts here a little, and decides to make this the point of where his crush began? He probably had it in the vault anyway since the interview.

Finally, I thought this better explained Peeta's anger at the end, when the mask is finally lifted for him. Because logically, why would he think what started as an established act would become real for Katniss? As Katniss says, they were strangers who'd never spoken before all this. Is it because he still thinks she can't lie? Well she proved him wrong there, if only for a moment. I thought the more likely reason he thought Katniss' feelings for him became real, is because that's exactly what happened to him. As I mentioned before, his presumption wasn't entirely off, and Katniss' words that "not all of it" was for the Games are true enough. But it doesn't make the revelation any less crushing for him.

I really do wonder sometimes what kind of story this would have made for if Suzanne took this approach in the sequels. I know now it's an incorrect headcanon, but I'm curious if anyone else ever shared it while reading the first book, and wonders the same.

If you read all my silly ramblings about a now-debunked headcanon, I am both eternally grateful and eternally sorry. Feel free to share, concur, roast, or do whatever in response. Thank you and may this ship be ever on your dashboard :)

[ranidspace]

So, this is a scary headline so we're gonna read it closely.

TechCrunch managed to get an internal company memo that details a few "strategic corrections" for the myriad Mozilla products. Mozilla has a "mozilla.social" Mastodon instance that the memo says originally intended to "effectively shape the future of social media," but the company now says the social group will get a "much smaller team." Mozilla says it will also "reduce our investments" in Mozilla VPN, Firefox Relay, and something the memo calls "Online Footprint Scrubber" (that sounds like Mozilla Monitor?). It's also shutting down "Mozilla Hubs," which was a 3D virtual world it launched in 2018—that's right, there was also a metaverse project! The memo says that "demand has moved away from 3D virtual worlds" and that "this is impacting all industry players." The company is also cutting jobs at "MozProd," its infrastructure team.

This is specifically saying that they're just downsizing teams which are focused on things which are NOT the main firefox browser. quote "It now looks like Mozilla may refocus on Firefox once more". layoffs suck, yeah, but firefox doesnt seem to be affected. Mozilla's a small company and firefox is getting bigger, and it looks like this is just a move to shift focus away from the side projects

As for the AI thing, the AI company they bought about was simply one that used machine learning to detect fake product reviews. (what i would say is a good use of machine learning.). "Generative AI" is said thought, and that concerns me a bit, but there's one thing about Firefox that's makes me think it's gonna be fine:

no matter what it is, you can turn it off.

"Pocket" is the weird mozilla thing about saving news articles for later and it recommends you news. you can just turn that off. The home page has sponsored links. you can turn them off. nearly everything about firefox you can just turn it off and ignore forever. if it is some awful AI bullshit, an annoying feature, something whatever it is, you can turn it off. I think firefox would STILL be the best option even if it's worst case. for a private browser, the only other option really is Brave, which is LOADED with web3 and cryptocurrency features and we're at the same problem here, but you cant turn those off completely, you can only just ignore them.

Also it might not even be part of the browser itself, just rather a single website or an extra service that you'll forget exists and then like 2 months later you hear it shuts down. idk.

Let's wait until firefox makes an actual public statement about this shit before anything becuase we literally know nothing. it's likely they're already getting some awful feedback and this may not even make the light of day.

Mozilla is a non-profit organization. i highly doubt they're firing people to replace them with AI. but again. wait and see what they say publically because it's hard to tell

[nonchalantatall]

PRSK Kamikou Phantom Thief/Detective AU

For any issue that gets brushed off by the state, any personal problem too embarrassing to file a legal report for, or anything too small, simple, or mundane to bother paying actual professionals a different business to handle, there’s a member of the White Rock Detective Agency—or R-A-D-W for short—ready to assist you!

(Don’t ask why the letters are out of order, it’s a touchy subject among the staff.)

Explanation of the AU under the cut

All of the relationships are ambiguous, so you can apply your own connotation headcanons as you wish. There are strong mizuan, mizurui, and mizuena vibes lol

The explanation includes mild fic spoilers, but you can read it before the fic if you want and be fine. Although if you want to figure out the mystery while reading, then I recommend coming back to read the explanation after. The plot in the fic is very vague in the scenes I wrote, and I also don't really feel like writing any more, so you may need to come back to get the full picture afterwards

I know I said it's a kamikou au, and the fic itself technically is, but Mafuyu, Shizuku, and Emu are all kinda important to what little plot actually exists in the fic, but they really aren't mentioned by name except for Mafuyu at the very end (K also gets a name drop at one point). I left all of it kinda vague on purpose to emphasize the kamikou characters since it was based on a kamikou event to begin with.

The full story starts with the disappearance of an Aristocrat’s daughter (Mafuyu). This daughter had a fond friend within the aristocracy (Shizuku) who became seriously worried when she disappeared. Shizuku hired a high-class private investigator (Emu) to find her.

But Emu doesn’t work alone. There’s only so much she can do when there's so many people looking at her in high society. She can get away with more than the usual aristocrat, being the 4th youngest in her moderately prominent family, but she has 3 officers (WxS) running more of the dirty work out in public. Emu took the case of Mafuyu's disappearance seriously because she's also emotionally involved like Shizuku is.

WxS quickly realized Mafuyu covered a lot of her bases when she vanished. It was almost as if she never existed at all. It doesn't help that Mafuyu's parents don't want to talk with WxS despite trying to find their daughter. They're lower class, no-name, prying eyes who are sticking their noses in someone else's business where they don't belong.

Despite being backed by Emu, they needed to get access to a detective agency's credibility to go searching in more places for any clues as to where she could've gone all while without giving themselves away to mafuparents who grew to be strongly against WxS' involvement in their daughter's case.

They heard of R-A-D-W (White Rock Detective Agency), a "new" office trying to get its feet off the ground, and they saw an opening. They're posing as rookie detectives there while still investigating the missing daughter on the side and keeping it a secret from the agency owners (VBS).

It's important to me that you know Emu is WxS' sponsor while living on her family’s estate, and Kohane has a real job that pays for VBS's room and board (me, coping with not including them)

VBS... they're just trying to do their jobs man, they had no business getting wrapped up in this but oh well. "White Rock" is a direct translation of An's last name (Shiraishi, 白石). The White Rock Detective Agency or R-A-D-W (please notice how I stupidly rearranged the letters to make it close to rad weekend) is her family’s agency that fell off a few years ago after a tragic loss, but she is determined to restore the agency name to its former glory with a few other aspiring detectives--particularly two young gentlemen who have been helped by R-A-D-W in the past and are determined to repay that debt.

As you can probably guess, Mafuyu is being hidden by Niigo. More specifically, she's being sheltered by Kanade, while Ena makes their money with her art, and Mizuki steals back things Mafuyu used to own. In the months buliding up to her breaking point and running away from her abusive household, Mafuyu's mother took things from her that she deemed to be a distraction as punishment for not focusing on her studies and family affairs. The other 3 are enraged by what mafumom has done to her and will keep Mafuyu safe and hidden from her old life, no matter the cost.

This AU has been a great source of brainrot for me the past few months so if you have any questions, I'll do my best to answer 🥹

[deke-rivers-1957]

Scott's World of Tomorrow

It was February 1956, a young Scott Heyward had just turned 16 years old. His father, Duster Heyward of Heyward Oil is about to spoil him.

"Well son taday's yer birthday. What do ya wanna do?"

"Can we go to Disneyland Pa? They have a whole section called Tomorrowland and a race car track called Autopia."

Mr. Heyward smiles as he claps Scott's shoulder.

"Tha's mah boy. Disneyland's gonna be a great client ta have. Can't be runnin no rides without oil."

"Yeah and maybe if they have real cars there I can take some notes for the research department."

Mr. Heyward chuckles as he goes to the phone.

"Ah'll just let yer tutor know yer goin on a field trip. That oughta make 'em happy yer doin yer science project."

"Ok, Pa."

Time Skip

"Alright then son. Ah'm gonna be talk with some a Disney's people. They said some fella named Bob Gurr's gonna be walkin ya through Autopia."

"Wow. Thanks Pa!"

Scott sits down on a bench with his camera and notepad. A young man his 20s approaches him.

"Are you Scott Heyward?"

"Yes. Are you Mr. Gurr?"

"That I am. Just call me Bob today. It's really an honor to have you and father come to the park today."

The two shake hands and start to walk to Tomorrowland.

"Now as you can see, the Moonliner was designed by one of my colleagues, John Hench and of course sponsored by Howard Hughes of Trans World Airlines."

Scott takes some pictures as they walk through the attraction. They get to the Monsanto Hall of Chemistry.

"Are you familiar with Monsanto, Scott?"

"Oh yes. I was only 7 when they had that explosion down in Texas City. Pa sent a crew to bring oil down to the site. He managed to get a deal where we can have a couple ships down at the port."

Bob nods. Eventually they make it to Autopia.

"Now this is what I helped design. I used what I learned from working with Ford."

"You worked with Ford? What did you do?"

"Well I helped design the Lincoln Continental. I published a few books on automotive design and that's what brought Mr. Disney's attention over to me. He wanted me to analyze the chassis for these cars. Originally designed by Hartmann Engineering, they were having issues regarding the ability to be mass produced. Too noisy and smokey with a lot of vibration. Eventually the company dropped out so I was brought on permanently to come up with a different design."

Scott's writing all of this down the best he can. Mr. Gurr's slowly turning into an idol.

"So where did you get the design for the cars? They don't look like anything I've ever seen."

"Take a closer look. If you're familiar with Porsche, I took the idea of their 54 550 Spyder and combined it with the recent custom made Italian Ferraris. Of course the Chevrolet Corvette also served as inspiration."

"Wow."

Bob continues telling his story. Scott listens to every word including everything about engineering he has yet to learn.

"What make are these cars now?"

"Currently these are the Mark II's. I had to fix the chassis so they can accommodate a sturdier, smoother-running engine. We've been getting a lot of youngsters so it was necessary to add booster seats and extensions on the peddles. I just finished a prototype for the Mark III and already started work on the Mark IVs"

"Why? What's wrong with these models?"

"Longevity and ease of repair. With how popular this attraction is getting it's only a matter of time before these cars will need repairing. Every month we're learning something new about what people like and don't like about the car. Just goes to show that even when a product is a success, there's still a lot that needs to be done to perfect it."

Scott writes this down as Bob finishes talking.

"Would you like to ride in one of these, Scott?"

"Yes! I'd love to."

Bob chuckles as they wait in line to ride in one of the cars.

Time Skip

"How was yer trip son?"

"I loved it Pa. Mr. Gurr let me take so many pictures and showed me all of Tomorrowland."

Mr. Heyward smiles as they make their way back to Texas. Scott would recite his notes and Bob's story. His father could only nod along as he never really got into the science side of business.

"Well Ah bet yer science project'll turn out real good."

"Oh yeah Pa. Until science finds a better way, everything needs oil. Even the rockets."

"Thatta boy. Yer gonna be takin Heyward Oil inta space."

Scott smiles and sits back in his seat. He starts to fantasize about making his own world of tomorrow.

AN: Shoutout to @xanatenshi for requesting this story.

Tagging: @mercsandmonsters, @georgefairbrother, @imaginationlast, @hooked-on-elvis, @arrolyn1114,

@teamnefarious​, @blighted-star, @ab4eva, @thetaoofzoe, @vintagepresley,

@myradiaz, @jaqueline19997, @kiankiwi, @ahundredlifetime, @mydarlingelvis,

@tupelomiss, @elvispresleywife, @karel-in-wonderland, @tacozebra051, @sillybookmarks,

@dusintv, @velvetelvis, @livelaughelvis, @slayingjd, @anamiad00msday,

@mistyspresley, @i-r-i-n-a-a, @yoooooooh, @southcarolinawoman, @peaceloveelvis,

@squaggleson, and @idk583838.

[just-antithings]

Im sorry its me here to ramble again with theories, im the anon from this post: https://www.tumblr.com/just-antithings/760668728332632064/i-have-a-theory-that-the-rise-of-antis-are-also

The more i think about it, I feel like the rise of products defining people alongside parasocial relationships is also part of the issue with the rise of antis. Specifically antis that sort of have a certain character as their aesthetic / account theme.

Products usually are advertised as a certain way to achieve certain results, for example a cologne for masculine wealthy men and as a result that tends to make some people believe "if i have that product and use then people will be perceived as more masculine and wealthy" and when it's advertised with a celebrity then some people will think "i will be more similar to the celebrity"

Which products make sense but with Internet leaning more and more about "Post stuff, gain followers and Get sponsors" now instead of tv advertiments its also anyone who's sponsored but the difference between online and TV.. you know when the advertiment starts and ends. It never really ends online.

So then people newer to the Internet that's constantly filled with advertisements will start making that association to random things like "If my favourite youtuber likes this then if i like this I'll be more like them".. "if my fav artist has this equipment i can draw like them" but this also means whatever their favourite youtuber hates some viewers will also hate it to be more like their fav youtuber. They can't separate advertisements and a non advertisement, its no longer clear because on TV you had "TV show, AD, Ad, Ad, Ad, Tv show and credits, Ad Ad Ad, New tv show..." where you knew where your entertainment started and the advertising began. Online its all blended together. A product is something that people are encouraged to want, the person using the product is what they wanr you to aspire to be a certain way but entertainment isn't meant to aspire you to be a certain way, its not promoting anything. Its just there to make you feel something.

Then with my previous theory of parasocial relationships and fictional characters well.. very easily some antis will let their interests and those they associate with define them as a person. Its not that far of a reach to assume that when they have a favourite character they also let it define them, How others view the character is important to them, like a form of projection. "This is my favourite character, I like this character and will talk about this character" then have their profile filled with images of that character.. just like how people perceive themselves or others while having or using certain products being 'better'or 'wealthy' the anti will now perceive themselves as "people like this character, I like this character and i have this character on my profile so people must also like me the same way i like this character" but then the issue is that unlike an advertisement where there's very specific push to certain ways to be seen.. characters are not perceived the same by everyone.

So when they see people writing fanfictions they do not see the character being like they perceive the character as... the character is 'different'so they are upset, to them it is personal and that they assume its bad faith because "Everyone i know sees character as this, why dont they see character as this. Why are they writing this character 'wrong'." And if they do let their favourite character define them and they project onto the character.. well then it can quickly turn to "They must see me like this, they must want to do this to me just like my fav character " and so forth.

Which is also why antis cant handle the existence of people who are proship. To them it can feel like so hurtful because they make such a loud point of having that character as their profile 'aesthetic', they put so much effort and thought about it.. now someone else just 'casually'fucks their hardwork up. they believe that anyone who perceives character differently is a danger to the them (at least to their digital existence they created) and to them its ' damaging'. The thing is, its like damaging a brand.. because they made the character their brand their digital self, without realising that their perception is not the only way of seeing the character. So when someone makes a character in a adult/ minor ship and they use their the adult or minor then they feel like their being told 'hey this is how your perceived by this fanfic writer' and with how easily antis call others pedos.. well its not surprising their upset (absolutely NO reason to target people over those emotions and indulge those emotions with harmful actions)

Fuck i ramble a lot I'm sorry I swear this is the last one, theories are something i love. Obviously both theories are about extremes antis and a specific small portion. This is very likely me overthinking and not a correlation = causation but it is interesting just to consider that with both parasocial relationships and how corporate online spaces are that antis may accidentally be making their accounts like brands as a way to make it easier to gain 'friends' (followers) so when they put so much work into promoting their account then they realise its all pointless when someone writes a fanfic so they throw a fit.

Or Maybe im deluded and trying to feel empathy for them, trying to find any sort of explanation as to why so many antis are hostile when it comes to artistic expression when there is no explanation.

Thank you for allowing to me to ramble into your ask box, this is the digital version of me putting a letter in an empty glass bottle and throwing it to sea.

.

[poppy-purpura]

The Tin of Your Sight (TToYS) It was just a city with laboratories and experimental facilities. Tin was not the first of the purpose organisms with the ability to think; technically, he was the sixth. They were not yet called iterators and they did not have large bodies (and obviously they had some specific tasks and established identities). But it was precisely during the time of Tin that everything began to change. He was chosen to grow into something more, to have more opportunities (and jobs). But his construction turned out to be quite a long process and the House (Cult of Drinking Liquid Metals), which sponsored it, decided to first invest in the construction of another iterator - AoS, the construction of which led to easier access to the Void. Therefore, Tin was not the first, but I prefer to generally consider him to be zero. Anyway due to the fact that this city was mostly engaged in development, the whole structure looked more like an anthill. In addition, besides Tin, there were other “non-iterators” in the structure. Later, Tin had to take care of them (many of their processes were under his control). Tin was quite attached to the Ancients, especially to those who directly worked with him, who changed spare parts for his puppet. Although he knew about the religious intentions of the Ancients, he was still not ready to let them go. And he did everything his way, forcing at least some of them to stay.

This is just a sketch for the development of the structure. I usually call this structure an anthill. This is quite rough, because I don’t have a very good idea of the development process of such organisms. Maybe... Someday I'll draw it better.

Here are notes on what the Tin puppet looked like. It even had a slightly different way of interacting with the panels. You can also see here what previous versions of Tin look like. They don't have names, but they probably made them up. Not all of them have puppets, they're more like just AI. They can communicate, their bodies need to be maintained.

The final design of Tin and it is also shown here that it was the Ancient who led the TToYS project who gave him the headband.

It should be made clear that since Tin's superstructure was constantly being expanded and modernized, he had incredibly more freedom than an iterator could have. When he found that he did not want to let Ancients go, he changed their diet by adding certain plants. Yeah, he got them hooked on drugs to control their minds (for obvious reasons he could not perform a lobotomy directly) or something until they were the only ones left. Their religion has undergone a change, so that Tin now enjoys the status of God.

He is not very interested in his local group because he has always been involved in the affairs of the Ancients + he has his "family". He hides his actions from the group and is forced to defend his territory from overseers. Other iterators sometimes try to know about him but he speaks only to the point and simply ignores inconvenient questions. well AoS knows about TToYS's shenanigans with Ancients anyway. But this group has much problems so AoS just pretend he dont know anything

Swits are just... birds who can run and chase creatures. They are not really good at flying, but still they able to do it Overseers are slightly modernized in order to exclude other overseers

He is not very kind to his eldest. They depend on him, but they have their own consciousness and their own small tasks. In essence, they are really just calculators with their own opinions Only two of them has own puppets, other three are just text and some big boxes with em... brain staff (the 4th had puppet but it broken now)

Also he is a spoiled child tehee