#and suspension systems.

[asknjjhd]

1. Introduction to Bikes

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[lorenzonuti]

Floating Stasis.

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[i-dare-say]

You know what I love about Binghe's character? His role in the story and the way it changes our perception of him through the narrative.

We first meet him as this poor boy and we, just like Shen Qingqiu, get swept by the image of the white lotus. He's a teenager, and we're told that at this age he didn't have any of the darkness that would reign over his life after the Abyss. We're only shown an obedient and sweet Luo Binghe. He is the "young and innocent protagonist".

But we know about his future. Shen Qingqiu tells us so many times that the Abyss will corrupt him irreversebly, that he will come back and take his revenge on the scum villain. The problem is that we see the story through Shen Qingqiu's point of view, he is our protagonist, making Binghe our villain. So we read about the disciple days with the constant thought that this boy will one day become the antagonist.

And see, there's a slight difference between villain and antagonist. A villain is perceived as someone with bad intentions, while an antagonist is just someone who opposes the protagonist.

When Luo Binghe comes back from the Abyss, he is both villain and antagonist. He goes against Shen Qingqiu (antagonist), and the story tells us he wants to kill him like the original PIDW (villain).

Then it's revealed that it may not be exactly like that. First, we're shown that Binghe has romantic feelings for Shen Qingqiu (which, yeah, it's obvious to everyone but him, but still), giving Binghe a new possible role in the story: love interest. This immediately reduces the perceived danger of his actions. It brings him closer, it makes him a safer character.

Yes, there are stories with villainous love interests that do horrible shit, but we're dealing with the most common way narratives treat this type of character: generally, the love interest is good. And so, the moment this role is put upon Luo Binghe by the narrative itself, it also influences the reader.

But Shen Qingqiu, and consequently we, don't lower our guard. Despite being the love interest now, we also know that Luo Binghe has conspired to take down his master and organized the sower plague. He's attacked Huan Hua Palace, killed Gongyi Xiao and many others, putting the blame on Shen Qingqiu. By the end of book 2 he's villain, antagonist and love interest.

But it all gets proven wrong. That almost everything that happened to Shen Qingqiu was not because of Luo Binghe. We discover that there are other villains in the shadows.

The sower plague and the the attack at Huan Hua Palace was caused by Tianlang-Jun and Zhuzhi-Lang. Qiu Haitang's involvement and Shen Qingqiu's imprisonment was one of the Old Palace Master's schemes. All of this destroys Binghe's role as villain and antagonist.

This is the moment Shen Qingqiu decides to trust Binghe, pushing the reader to do the same. Because he's just "love interest" now and by the standard conventions, he's good. We trust him to be. Shen Qingqiu himself starts to project onto him that same image of white lotus. Since our image of Luo Binghe was so bad previously, this makes it jump way higher. It lulls us into this much better perception of his character.

The Old Palace Master was a villain and he died, as villains are often destined to. The only obstacle remains Tianlang-Jun, who doesn't harm Shen Qingqiu because of Zhuzhi-Lang's wishes (not an antagonist), but also wants to merge the realms (villain).

So our protagonist and love interest move toward the action, the big battle against the final boss. The villains get defeated easily and after the truth of what happened to Su Xiyan, Tianlang-Jun gives up his plan. His role as villain ends there. But the story has more antagonists to reveal.

Luo Binghe has never stopped being one. The narrative only hid his real motivations and let him cover himself with the role of love interest. And at this moment, he drops the mask and lets all of his feelings out, everything he didn't tell Shen Qingqiu nor the readers. He becomes the final antagonist, the one we've had since the very beginning.

The thing that saves him is his status as love interest, because no, he's not the only one to blame for what is happening. There's Xin Mo, who has fed on his insecurities and negative feelings, and Shen Qingqiu himself. He is the one who has constantly pushed Binghe to the side, believing himself to do the right thing, first by giving Binghe his death and then by trying to keep him "protected" from his father.

In the end, Luo Binghe wasn't a villain. Shen Qingqiu was, and he dies. But since he's not a real villain, he's allowed to come back.

When everything is over, their story comes to an end. The narrative itself leaves them free, to be whoever they want to be.

[nomsfaultau]

I recognize exactly zero people follow me for this type of content, but this is the kind of nerd I am. The following post is an exploration of Tommy’s anomalous ability (Red) on bacteria, specifically on gut microbiota systems, as well as the implications. Link to the research paper that finally convinced me to write this post, though I’d deffo been toying with thoughts for a while. 

The main question is this:

Some important details that have been established: 

Red causes individuals to attack indiscriminately (excluding Tommy)

Red effects germs

Red does not cause the cells in multicellular organisms to attack one another (else the effects would include some symptom of that, such as white blood cells attacking the body. Allergy attacks, the like, I haven’t researched this vein as it isn’t what occurs)

The main idea that I started with was that Tommy’s gut bacteria would be fascinating as a result of the fact he often consumes Red due to not having a fork. Tommy’s main concern is that it makes his meals slimier and taste Red-er, but theoretically there’d be massive disruptions to the stability of his bacteria system. Specifically in the fact he’d be constantly sending it into overdrive competition, likely decimating colonies of helpful bacteria. Instability builds resilience and all that but the constant waves of self destruction would leave decimated diversity and have severely reduced redundancy. He’d almost constantly be in an undesirable stable state and likely unhealthy. Go far enough and you get the question of if he can properly produce all the enzymes needed for digestion. Unless he was getting probiotics pretty constantly, his microbiota would be incredibly unstable and fluctuating wildly. Major health problems would arise. 

This is not seen to occur, so it leads me to the question of how Red interacts on the microbiology level. I can see two directions that this can be taken in: Possibility 1. Stomach acid denatures Red—and other processes to render Red useless. 

Red is classified as a biohazard by the SCP Foundation, though it is not entirely clear what that entails. If it’s treated as something biological, its effects could be disrupted by the acidity. Ergo wouldn’t effect digestion. Hurray, Tommy can still eat stuff. (Could possibly still be used for toothpaste? I would have to research mouth bacteria.)

For someone who isn’t Tommy: Good news! All the bacteria in body isn’t now single mindedly trying to kill them. Also wouldn’t be permanently affected by Red should it become integrated into their body via digestion. 

This further rises the question of what can be done to eliminate Red’s affects. It is noted to not cause reactions after it has dried. I am assuming there is some type of denaturing from temperature. Furthermore it does not appear to retain effect merely for staying wet. The evidence for this is two fold: 

There have not been uncontrolled outbreaks of zombie-like mindless violence from contaminated water.

Presumably Tommy has showered at least once in the last x years. He is canonically mentioned to have showered inside the SCP Foundation, who could be decontaminating all water he uses. However, there is a period of a few months between the appearance of Red and his capture and Mother Innit would NOT allow him to get that stanky.

Ergo Red can be made into a safe state that can come into contact with people both externally and internally without problems. Especially given British/American water sanitation procedures tend to involve bacteria. Because Tommy did not cause a water safety crisis of disastrous proportions, I’m going to assume temperature/UV (possibly) at minimum effect it. Could be internal body heat destroys it. Other possibilities: Acidity naturally, dilution of the substance (minimum dose necessary?), or time since disconnected from Tommy.

Possibility 2. Red only affects super organisms. 

Now it’s a strenuous definition, but I think it makes a lot of things easier. The gut bacteria would be considered part of the person. Because frankly if we went all the way and individual cells started fighting each other inside a multicellular being…it would drastically conflict with what’s depicted. So Tommy wouldn’t be destroying his digestive system and probably a lot of other things.

A question would then be ‘what constitutes a super organism?’. Possible solution: 

Souls. They are an integral aspect of the Fault magic system. However, based off my components of a soul (memory, emotion, true name/agency, bonds) it rises the question of if the bacteria in question have souls. Which I kinda don’t think they do. Then again they are single cell organisms so that wouldn’t be a concern on their own save when they’re contributing to the whole. A body integrates their gut microbiota into their soul, likely through the bonds aspect Red recognizes via the individual soul. Bacteria then count as individuals unless they’re contributing to a multicellular organism, in which case they’d not fall into infighting. This is viable because Red is shown to affect bodiless souls such as voidlings. Therefore it has some recognition of the soul for the purpose of constructing super organisms. 

Now, if it’s effecting exclusively souls that’s a problem, because I’m still unconvinced germs have a soul by Fault’s definition of one. I think Red transcends both soul and being, which ever is necessary in order to cause conflict. I’d go into that but this is already lengthy and it would involved insanely massive spoilers. 

One problem: Tubbo is a super organism by classic definition. However, Tommy’s Red does not affect the whole of Tubbos’ hive mind, instead individual bees. Though the personality known as Tubbo is an amalgamation of many souls, so I think that can function as explanation since it is shown the bees technically have their own thoughts/emotions even if they’re very small bee feelings. Bees have their own definition as super organisms due to their own digestive bacteria. Turtles all the way down. But notably, not all the way up, or we could involve macro cohesive units such as, say, entire countries going to war. 

Plants though. Very different forms of sentience. And if we take into account mycorrhizal networks and consider them as creating super organisms (not of the same species, but as earlier established between humans and gut bacteria this isn’t a pre-requisite of classification according to Red) what happens once contaminated by Red? Is an entire community of plants going to attack? What would that even look like?

So the biggest question of all: What happens when Tommy touches grass?

[onlythegoodpretzels]

The bounty hunter knew: The Galra's headprice was far beyond anything they'd ever seen from the miserly imperium. Their prize shook off the stun blast faster than a creature his size should have. He wanted to struggle but chose against it quickly, so hanging by his arms, prosthetic inactive, must hurt effectively.

He watched. Even though the struts immobilized his head. They said he was vicious, and that he could wait so calm was unnerving. He must know where he was headed. Where had all that fight gone?

The bounty hunter didn't know: Shiro didn't need to move, or speak, or even breathe to speak to Black. So they were already hotly pursued by four furious Voltron lions. Soon they'd see for themselves.

__________________________________________________________

I've been so inspired by Linecrosser's whump art recently, the greyscale stuff they do looks SOOOO GOOOD. I wanted to try some of that kind of color work too.

For @amonthofwhump's trope-a-thon day 5: Kidnapped

[irenetherogue]

I unlocked a new creative interest last weekend... Never thought I'd be able to dance again, but apparently FUCK GRAVITY I'll tie myself into the damn rig and dance upside down bc I now understand that is totally an option, now everybody get ready to cry onto your erection I've got some serious things to dance in the air at you about, my first two routines shall be to While My Guitar Gently Weeps (acoustic Beatles) and To Love You More (Celine, but the original full album version, not this radio edit)

[falsenote]

watching for a few dollars more

[sunshineandlyrics]

The dramatic intro to Out of My System ❤️💥🎸

FITFWT Cuyahoga Falls, 1 June 2023

[freeonlineworkouts]

10 Suspension Training Exercises

[damnation-if]

At least D&D no longer has "five-foot step" because of course everyone teleports five feet when they minorly shift position

yeah... i think it's a natural kind of downfall of any system assigning specific numbers to things to be honest. like i get the feeling that the big focus on sizes and weights of things is due to them wanting to keep the encumbrance system where you can't carry too much stuff without it affecting your ability to do combat? which is fair enough and in my opinion a decent place to draw a line in regards to a limitation.

but unfortunately it opens the door to a lot of nitpicking, because people like me exist XD i definitely think if they'd approached it differently from a rules perspective and gone with like. common sense rules instead of a measurement system (not that that's necessarily Always a better option for gameplay systems of course) they could have saved themselves a lot of maths headaches lmfao

[techtuv]

Active Suspension System - Mercedes S-Class W220

The 1998 W220 S-Class was far ahead of its time.

[caiusmarciuscoriolanus]

Idk if I was blinded a little bit by mads mikkelsen or this is just an unpopular opinion. Hear me out: Tonny in pusher 2 isn’t a complete pile of garbage 🤷🏻‍♂️. Like I get that he spent most of the movie doing progressively bad shit but I don’t think some people are actually taking into account the gravity of his situation or how the circumstances of his environment has affected his life. Like im of the full understanding that most people have full control over their actions and should be held accountable. Like I said, Tonny made bad choices and did bad things. But there’s such an important topic in this film that I don’t see a ton of people talk about. He mentions to the mother of his child in one scene that the events of the first movie with frank left him with a traumatic brain injury and that it affects his memory. But (through mads’s acting choices) we see time and time again as he tries to prove himself to others, he has a difficult time thinking critically about his actions before he does them. This shows itself every time he tries to prove himself to his father. It shows everytime “the cunt” takes advantage of him and manipulates him into helping him. And even towards the end when he takes his son and runs. It even shows in tiny moments, like when he’s having a convo with the mother of his child and she tries to hand him off the baby to smoke a cigarette. He looks at her confused and she says “ take his legs”. For the most part, people know not to grab a baby by the legs. But he does it because he’s so focused on his own awkward nature that his brain tells him to grab the babies legs almost on autopilot. It’s only after she calls him stupid (as almost everyone else in the film has repeatedly called him as well) that he realizes he wasn’t actually suppose to grab the babies legs. There’s more instances where it’s made apparent that the general physical brain trauma and the trauma that has been built up by his father (which we can assume has been a long time thing) has caused issues for him in the long run. You could argue that his father was done with his sons antics,but based on the fact that his father owns what is basically a car theft business and also later asks that tonny be the one to kill his ex wife, it’s made evident that his father isn’t necessarily a good person either. Not to mention the fact that his father had no intention to feel even the slightest bit of compassion after tonny finds out about his own mother and repeatedly expresses how she was crazy and in turn, lumping her in as another reason for him to hate his own son. I see all the time people say “well I was raised in a similar fashion and I know better than to fuck up like that and do bad stuff like that”. And that’s fine. But your story and how you handle it doesn’t dictate how others do. Everyone is dealt a certain hand and has to use whatever skills are given to them to decide how they go about it. If your decision making skills are off and you have no support system, and you think everyone is a against you, how can you possibly heal or make things better for yourself. You can argue “but it’s fiction, it’s not a realistic scenario” and you’d be wrong. I know personally a couple of people in similar boats. Sometimes, the system isn’t set up for people. And sometimes they struggle their whole lives to figure it out. And sometimes they don’t. Most of all it’s genuinely depressing and sad. But that doesn’t mean that tonny didn’t have the ability to be a good person. Or that he was inherently a bad person. He was just a human in a state of making bad decisions and doing bad things. I think you see that in the way he treats the baby despite the hand the of his raising. He could easily decide to be a bad father, to neglect the baby at times. But really it’s the only time we see him genuinely gentle and at ease. He knows how it feels to be small and to have bigger beings in your face. They decide if you’re worthy of their time and affection. So he tries to make it a point to take on being a dad even if he’s not sure how.

[ace-and-ranty]

BTW, I'm STILL waiting for the nature of magic ink to come back and bite us in the ass.

[premise29]

I'm going to go crazy if this situation doesn't result in cuddles.

I'm aware that I'm touched starved but it doesn't usually bother me. But knowing that there is someone who could help with that... it's an actual craving I feel. Especially because obstacles keep preventing that! I feel like I'm going crazy.

[thesporkidentity]

started reading wheel of time again from the beginning (i swear i'll finish this time, i'm gonna do it!) and oh, it's so good to see mat again after what they did to his characterization in the show. like. it's my boyyyyyy! i missed you!!!! i am kissing your sweet little trouble maker cheeks my darling <3

[fluffypotatey]

This is going to sound crazy, especially since we’re all sure SunBurst’s fight is a parallel to ShadowPeach. But I find the blue chains far too strange. When Wukong used them, they were gold. When Tripitaka used them, they were blue. If they don’t reflect the magic of the user, otherwise Trip’s should be gold too, then could they respond to the magic of the restrained? MK does also have gold colored magic like Wukong. Macaque’s should be purple then. They ARE slightly purple when LBD restrains him, but barely. Only the other ends that *don’t* make contact with him. Since they are mostly snapped off in the flashback, they’re pretty blue. I would almost say “Macaque’s” vision of his death was actually LBD being restrained before they moved her to that underground tomb to be sealed. They obviously wouldn’t have fought and finished the job there, right? The only thing that makes me hesitate is Nine’s being orange, but we can disregard that as the same rules don’t apply. It reflects the user bc it’s purely his magic and not a spell. We don’t see that circle design the others had. Who knows, maybe Macaque already had some LBD in him when he fought Wukong. She has a tendency to possess people instead of transforming in LMK to reflect the “disguised as three innocent civilians” in JTTW. It’s easier to revive a dead monkey whose corpse a part of your essence already inhabits than to reach him after you’re sealed away.

no yeah the who deal with seals and chains and shit is not explained very well in lmk. mostly just a “yeah and X got sealed by Z….how? don’t worry about it, it just happened in the distant past.”

like do i mind overall? not really because it isn’t harming the plot that badly (bc the plot is focusing elsewhere)

is it becoming a problem? yeah. it is actually because nothing in lmk’s magic system has really been explained or fleshed out fully. it made sense as a throw away for LBD, it made sense as a tease for Macky’s possible death, but they make it a big deal in 5x09 and no one really explains HOW is is fine or WHY the colors of it are different from when LBD and Macky had theirs

we are diving deeper into the past in order to foreshadow the future which means those chains will need to be elaborated on. not ignored or brushed off like they have been