#apocalypse proof technology

[thewertsearch]

Familial Determinism

Or: let's make wild, uninformed guesses about the troll Ancestors, based solely on the lives of their descendants!

As a bearer of the lowest blood on the hemospectrum, Aradia’s ancestor was probably as poor as she is. She may have been an archeologist like her descendant, assuming the field existed in her era, but I'm much more interested in her potential necromancy.

On the instruction of your ANCESTORS, you have recovered MYSTERIOUS TECHNOLOGY from the ruins, and convinced a friend to adapt it into a GAME THAT WILL BRING ABOUT THE DESTRUCTION OF YOUR CIVILIZATION.

See, due to her bloodline, Granny Megido is the most likely ancestor to be behind the Voices. She's the only one who can claim a direct relationship to Aradia, and I think she was probably still around in the modern era - as a ghost, of course - guiding her young protege, as she worked to trigger the apocalypse.

What's your story, Granny Meg? How did a lowblood medium discover the secrets of Sgrub, centuries before it arrived? How much did you know back then - and how much influence do you still have, even now?

If Alternia's past is anything like its present - and it certainly seems to be - then I can't see Tavros's ancestor surviving there for long. If he survived to adulthood, then it was probably as a peaceful nomad, or perhaps some sort of ranger.

Either way, I don't think he'd involve himself with other trolls, instead preferring to spend time with his planet's wildlife. Basically, I'm picturing Snow White with a mohawk.

Sollux’s ancestor is undoubtedly still a techhead. I know it's centuries in the past, but this is proto-Sollux we're talking about. He'd invent technology if he had to.

Actually, that might have been his role. He could have been one of Alternia's first engineers, leveraging his Sgrub foreknowledge to contribute to Alternia's technological advancement.

Congratulations, Sollux Senior - you helped turn a nation of pirates into a space empire.

Karkat's an interesting one. In a more primitive society - ie, one without Imperial Drones - it might have been easier for him to hide his blood color.

...actually, he might not even have Karkat's blood color. It's possible that Karkat's candy red mutation is unique to him, and the other Vantas has yellow-green blood, like his Trollian position implies he should. That would result in an ancestor with a very different social position to Karkat, and the two could be substantially different as a result.

Nepeta’s current lifestyle would translate perfectly to a primitive Alternia. Her ancestor could easily still live in a cave – and since shipping is probably her calling, too, I'm picturing her as an accomplished matchmaker.

Kanaya’s situation is rather unique. Jadebloods are rare, and inextricably linked to the Mother Grub, so her ancestor has some of the strongest ties to her counterpart.

We're actually aware of an ancient Mother Grub, who may have been alive in the time of the ancestors - which hints at a relationship between Kanaya's ancestor and the next troll on our list.

That would be Terezi's ancestor, whose symbol adorns the Doomsday Scale. This device was probably a collaboration between the Pyrope and Maryam ancestors. Its purpose is unknown, but the Gate symbol is proof that someone had Sgrub foreknowledge. Curious.

Anyway, aside from this side hustle, Pyrope was probably a legislacerator. I wonder if the Alternian legal system was as broken then as it is now?

Equius... well, I don't really know, actually. He certainly feels like the kind of guy who’d model himself off his ancestor, so he was probably a pro-hemospectrum horse enthusiast.

Gamzee’s ancestor could have gone one of two ways. If Sopor Slime existed back in early Alternia, he might have been as docile as his descendant used to be. If it didn’t, he was probably the exact kind of bloodthirsty monster that Gamzee is currently regressing into.

I know which option I'm putting my money on, and it's the one that would make Gamzee proud of his 'Subjugglator' ancestors. Can you guess which?

Eridan’s ancestor is the Orphaner, which makes me think he has a similar role as a slayer of lusi. My best guess is that he killed the custodians of adult trolls.

Feferi is an odd case, because her ancestor would probably be an extremely famous historical empress. Fuchsia blood is so rare that Feferi is literally the only modern troll who has it, so I wouldn't be surprised if her ancestor was revered in her time.

What did you do to Alternia, Pexies? Did you help make it what it is, or - like your descendant - did you try to make it better?

[homestuckreplay]

check out my 13-monitor gaming setup

(page 872-876)

Bad news. Everyone’s IP address and physical location are being tracked by an all powerful/evil gaming corporation who are using it to send meteors down to our houses for the crime of gaming. There’s a lot to be said about the capacity for surveillance that all the Skaian technology has, and the ways these kids have been monitored without even knowing it. There are SO MANY meteors on this screen, meaning a LOT of people are playing this game. But there are more meteors than games, suggesting that Sburb was built around the pre-existing meteors – presumably so some people could be saved from this apocalypse, I don’t think it is so kind as wanting everyone to have a great final day on Earth.

The physical setup of the lab terminal is similar to those in WV’s bunker – industrial pipes feeding soulless gray screens where every pixel is visible – but Rose’s has a lot more screens, some just displaying spirographs. Comparing page 874 with 733, both stations feature coordinates, both have the same transparent projection of the world map on the left, and both have similar diagrams on the right of small orbs radiating from a central orb. I theorized this as the Skaian cosmology as WV’s screen features four surrounding orbs, like the four planets they drew on the walls – in the lab, there are eight surrounding orbs. It’s interesting that there’s a discrepancy between the terminals – is there some information, some secret planets, hidden from WV that are available to the lab operators?

This lab is monitoring sessions, but its own meteor is already close to impact, so the lab isn’t necessary for the sessions to continue. Some setup work was done here and now Skaia is tidying up after itself with a meteor unrelated to Rose’s house/Sburb session. Speaking of which, not all meteors have sessions, but do they all have potential sessions? The tiny meteorites in the forest probably aren’t, unless the bugs are playing Sburb. So is this conclusive proof that Rose will play Sburb, because she has a session meteor, and this will definitely happen no matter what? Or is it just prophesized that she will play (by at least Nanna and Jade) but that prophecy could still be undercut? Rose understandably isn’t trying to change this prophecy, but it is an important distinction in terms of free will.

I’m gonna take a wild guess and say that the two biggest meteors correspond to Dave and Jade’s locations. We know from previous coordinates that Jade lives in the southwest Pacific, and the meteor there has a while before touchdown – it may even be the last to fall. The presumably first Skaian meteor also fell there, and led to construction of the frog statue (p.757) and established Skaia’s power on Earth, so it’d make sense that the final meteor would be cleaning up its own mess. The second biggest meteor has no coordinates, but looks like west Texas geographically, a place Dave could reasonably live. There’s always room for a fakeout, but so far every story beat (except within media, like the Midnight Crew) has taken place in one of the four kids’ locations, so it’s a fair bet.

Hey, what’s up with the pink teapot and teacups in this lab? This inclusion is such bait for the adventure game/user command format of Homestuck. Such an anomalous item is just begging for someone to click on it and try to interact. Like so.

> Rose: See if the tea in the pot is still hot.

[puc-puggy]

s4 sucked, but Five wasn't out of character aside from the lila romance.[1] what he is is a broken old man finally showing the cracks. everybody wants to treat 5 like a snarky 14 year old brat, but he is NOT. that man is OLD. he has lived through over 60 hard years. he's a brat because he is an old, incredibly intelligent theoretical physicist stuck in the body of a 14 year old, and the body of the 14 year old encourages everyone to forget he is a nearly 70 year old theoretical physicist.

this Five spent 45 years in the aftermath of viktor's moon apocalypse, 28 days straight between the moon and nuclear war apocalypse, days to weeks in the kugelblitz apocalypse and then days in oblivion. 6 years to rest and then it's time for another apocalypse caused by alien elements that reshape reality. this five personally saved and ended the world at least 5 times, going the farthest out of all of the Fives in number of apocalypses and by attempting to create the Commission. [2] this five says over and over and over throughout s3 that it's not about you/us, it's about the world. five is not just tired, he's tried harder and for longer than anyone else. he tried for so long that he forgot his own name. he has lost delores, he lost his sense of a clear enemy, he lost his understanding of the universe and his place in it, and he is old now.

when he is told by his future self not to save the world and he decided not to go into oblivion, that was a turning point in his entire character directly caused by a world-changing crisis of faith. the reason all of the other fives in the subway station gave up solving the problem is because every last one of them loved their family too much to consider the idea that the world has to come at the cost of the family. but this five had been through a full lifetime of apocalypse. he survived for 45 years in an apocalypse and turned saving the world and his family into his sole purpose. he lost that purpose when his future self told him it was all for nothing. that it can't be saved.

and this is where i think that people forget that the hargreeves are not just about childhood trauma; they are also about wealth and power. reginald and the hargreeves are immensely wealthy and immensely physically powerful. think about what else he said in season 3: "this is what it means to be powerful. sometimes you step on ants. we will never be able to save enough lives to make up for those we take."

what we see in s4 is an old man that has been forced to ask for the first time if such power has as much of a right to exist as the ants do. and to his surprise as much as everyone else's, it turns out that the answer is no. they were made from the hubris and selfishness of an abusive egomaniac who released a dangerous, technologically advanced, and highly reactive alien element upon a captive population in an attempt to resurrect his wife from the dead. five and his siblings are that abusive egomaniac's tools. they carry a power manufactured by an abusive egomaniac, and while it was unfairly forced upon them, it is still by nature a power that comes at the expense of others and they find themselves unable to be separated from it.

because that power is too alluring, too much a temptation. ben literally drugs everyone against their will, and to five, an old man asking himself questions about power, the fact that all members of the family voted against it is not proof that they can create a better future absent of this power. the fact that they were drugged anyway despite their protests is proof that they can't, that they will always fall into this power's destructive gravity well.

and an old man that has just had his entire concept of the world and life's purpose ripped away from him is the guy that accepts the end.

[1] the issue with five and lila's romance in character is not five's youth. it's lila's youth. he's almost 70 fucking years old, and his accidental and unwanted sip from the fountain of youth did not and does not change the fact that this is a nearly 70 year old man. he treated lila as if she was childish and immature because that is literally how he sees her and the rest of the siblings. because he is almost 70 years old. he gets annoyed with her for dragging him into stupid risks because he's 70 fucking years old and actually does know better. he is nearly 40 years her senior. their dynamic is funny because he looks 14. not because he IS 14. LOOKS young, not IS young.

regarding "why were they having him flirt when he was underage" for the same reason he's a boozehound and knocks back any alchohol in a 30 foot radius. the character has been over 60+ years old the entire time. & as people age, they can safely participate in more activities. a 14 year old cannot safely roleplay everything a 60+ year old character would do. before age 18, the actor could safely speak flirty lines to other actors during their roleplay job playing a 60+ year old. when the actor turned 18, the actor could safely kiss other adult actors during their job roleplaying as a 60+ year old. the child actor portraying a significantly older character getting hints of romance but not kissing anyone on a set until they're 20 is a sign that things were handled ethically. not the other way around. actors age and stop being 14 years old and limited to the safety constraints of a 14 year old. an adult kissed another adult during their job roleplaying as other people. it was just a bad plotline.

[2] I don't care about timeline hijinks in context of whether that was really physically the exact same 5 from the same timeline that started the commission. he thought it was the physical same him & reacted to it like it was & the impact does not change and in fact might become more acute upon realizing that it wasn't physically him, that it was a whole other five, that there are potentially hundreds of years of attempts to stop the apocalypses, and that the collective mass of their apocalypse ending efforts across all timelines should have accomplished something and never ever did it do so. that's hopeless

[glitchotic]

heard ya have some lego movie headcanons (interested)

Ooughhhh i have soo manyyy.... for example this one's technically not a hc but does anyone else ride or die for fat/chubby emmet??? i mean i already always hc'd as being a bit overweight but adding on the fact that rex says hes "chiseled features were hidden under "baby fat"" just totally solidifies chubby emmet for me. additionally, people who are afraid to draw wyldstyle/lucy as buff make me sooo irritated especially in her apocalypse form like omfg theyre parodying mad max rn and you dont think shed be built like a brick house (no pun intended) rn? but okay sure. i guess you could make the argument of "well she needs to be sneaky and well hidden" as if her ex boyfriend isnt literally batman who is ripped and does that shit but i digress. i've discussed this in my benny/metalbeard post but metalbeard being a tech freak is mad underrated of a headcanon to me, i think him geeking out over new tech just makes so much sense to me bc i firmly believe metalbeard wants to have the most swashbuckling, most advanced pirate ship of the sea. especially considering when queen whatevra offered an entire planet sized ship for him and he added on things like a keyboard to his build and he just seems like hes always open to new technology and ideas. SPEAKING OF QUEEN WHATEVRA. technically more abt mayhem, i sooo hc her as being like a raver/kandi kid/scene girl type idk something abt her design to me screams "i listen to dj s3rl" I ALSO THINK SHE MIGHT HAVE SOMETHING TO DO WITH LUCYS ORIGIN BECAUSE HOW DID SHE KNOW HOW TO REMOVE THE SHARPIE FROM HER HAIR HRMMM?? PLUS THE FACT THE SYSTARIANS KNOW THAT POP MUSIC CAN AFFECT THE WAY PEOPLE THINK..... ADDITIONALLY THE DUPLONS SANG THE EVERYTHING IS AWESOME SONG........... MUCH TO THINK ABOUT HERE IS ALL IM SAYINNGGG... also i in general feel like no one talks abt mayhem/lucys relationship...... sorry but like tlm3 real needs to happen bc i want so desperately to see more of mayhem getting to know lucys story and being so invested and helping her heal and recover and full go back to her true self and ohgfggmmffg imaging how adorable the specialstyle interactions would be after emmet just being like "woagghh youre so beautiful" and shes like "this outfit is smaller than i remember..... kinda hurts"......... oh THIS ONEEE I NEVER SHUT UP ABT but UNIKITTYS CAT HALF IS A TIGER SHE IS HALF TIGER AND ULTRAKITTG IS PROOF!!! i think puppycorns dog half is a shiba cos of the curly little tail and his tendency to be air headed and goofy. i also think puppycorn and unikitty would b the type to use gen alpha slang to piss off master frown but thats me getting into my unikitty! headcanons lol.... ummmm .... i also really like audhd emmet and autistic benny but GUYSSS HEAR ME OUTTT SWEET MAYHEM GIRL AUTISM. think about it.... ermmm thats all i can think of rn i have more but its so hard to talk abt my hcs w out a specific prompt 💔😔

[425599167]

The decisions in Fallout: New Vegas contain a lot of nuance, but I'm always able to find a resolution I can be happy with, except when it comes to the Brotherhood of Steel. They have me at a bit of an impasse. This is one situation where my default solution of "sneak attack critical headshots" won't help. The Brotherhood's individual members are among the least hateable of the factions, but they are collectively horrible and I don't know how to avoid fighting them.

Veronica is my favorite companion and the Brotherhood becomes a constant threat to her, she is rightfully terrified they are monitoring her to preserve their secrecy, but she wouldn't want me to destroy them. Also, I'm against mass murder as a general rule. That rule is negotiable if the entire faction is trying to kill me, (e.g. Legion, Fiends, Ghost People) which the Brotherhood isn't... yet. Only a few of them tried to kill me. They destroyed a Followers of the Apocalypse outpost, of which I am a respected member. Since I go the Wild Card route with an army of robots, plus all the advanced tech I brought from the DLC locations, the Brotherhood is going to attack New Vegas at some point. House and Yes Man both predict this, and they're proven correct in endings where the Brotherhood basically become high-tech raiders. Yes Man says they'll want to blow him up, and I will not let that happen, Yes Man is my favorite right below Veronica.

I repaired Helios One and deactivated its weapon system (after fighting through robotic defenses left behind by the Brotherhood, thanks for that), gave ED-E's data to the Followers instead of the Brotherhood, and took control of Hoover Dam. If you don't have Veronica in tow, your first interaction with the Brotherhood will be them strapping a bomb collar to your neck, and for all their talk about how crazy Elijah was, that's his standard approach. The Brotherhood aren't as relentlessly cruel as the Legion, but every interaction builds them up as dangerous to everyone, and an inevitable threat to a Wild Card Courier specifically. Their main protection is that I don't want to make my bestie sad. Not only do I like Veronica, I share her goals and her success is an indicator of the Mojave's future. If Veronica is sad, that means I am failing.

Even if I don't involve myself, the Brotherhood will only grow more desperate and dangerous. I didn't complete the mission to replace McNamara with Hardin because that would be stupid of me, but if the situation continued, Hardin would probably attempt a coup anyway, then more Brotherhood members will die from infighting. Then Hardin would pick fights with local factions, probably beginning with the Van Graffs. It won't accomplish anything since the Van Graffs in Freeside are only one outpost and their company doesn't just salvage energy weapons, they understand the technology and can manufacture their own. Now the Brotherhood has yet another enemy, one that can match their weapons. Sure would be unfortunate if someone sold the Van Graffs a prototype pulse gun Veronica feared could destroy the Brotherhood. Actually, that's probably a bad idea unless I can make the securitrons EMP-proof.

Eventually, the bunker's air filtration systems will break down on their own. Parts can be found in the vaults, the Brotherhood can handle Vault 11, but Vaults 3 & 22 would definitely cost them a few people. I could also get the parts, then never return them to the Brotherhood, making it even harder for them to locate replacements. Eventually the bunker would become uninhabitable and they'd evacuate. That's better than killing them all, but not by very much. Yeah, I won't kill them, I'll just make their home unlivable, force them to leave, then repair the bunker later and claim it for myself. I don't feel like the good guy.

My knack for underhanded strategies really shined when I retrieved the holotapes of dead paladins to demoralize McNamara, then took the mission to deliver the scouts' reports, killed the scouts (one died in a crossfire with Legion assassins), then never continued the quest so the lockdown remains. I feel kinda bad about that, but who's gonna tell McNamara? Obviously not those scouts.

One option I thought about was using pulse weaponry to wreck so much of their power armor and energy weapons that they can no longer maintain their armed forces. That might be wishful thinking, and I don't have any plan for what to do afterwards. I don't want their destruction or surrender, I want them to leave New Vegas alone. A written apology to Veronica, signed by every member of the Mojave chapter, would also be appreciated. I'd fix their air filters in exchange for that.

In theory, I could try and befriend the Brotherhood, but the whole point of Veronica's quest is they will not course-correct under any circumstances short of imminent destruction by the regional superpowers. Even the truce with the NCR is conditional on returning salvaged power armor. It doesn't matter how nice I am or what I do to help, they will not let me share advanced tech with the wasteland, and that's been my ultimate goal through all this. I'm not giving up on that to appease these guys.

This is one of the plot threads where post-ending theories can get interesting and gutwrenching, because the best option is "hope their society collapses on its own before I'm forced to kill or be killed".

[whumping-valentine]

🦌 Fawn and Hunter - Part 14 🦌

"The Apocalypse"

Content: ??? Idk this is kinda tame. Nothing whumpy happens. I suppose Stockholm syndrome and captivity, mayhaps. Oh also people die but that's whatever lolll.

3,200 words

Hey y'all, it's time for part 14! I meant to get this out like over a week ago now but I got distracted by drawing because I'm trying a new art style and am absolutely obsessed with it.

Since I've gotten lots of followers since the last part's release, here's the Masterlist if you wanna read it!

As always, I apologize for my writing quality 😓

Enjoy! 🛸

     Severin's adaptation to werewolf life in a cult was difficult and surreal, to say the least. Not to mention scary. No one had yet realized he wasn't actually a part of the pack, though some have commented on his unfamiliar smell. The trio assured them he'd been here for a while now. Agnes and Anthony's rank was enough to keep them from prying any further.

     The good news was none of this speculation had gotten back to Ethel. If she heard of the suspicions and wanted to check it out for herself, Severin would be a goner. Surely she'd also figure out her two top dogs were behind it, too. That wouldn't be good for anyone.

     They've made it by for a week now, and news was starting to circulate around Severin's spacecraft…

-----

     “I'm here at the sight of the crash in the small town of Woodmar. An apparent UFO has wrecked in the middle of the woods. Authentic, or hoax? Let's find out.” A news reporter spoke. She and the cameraman inspected the wreckage while commentating.

     By now, it had run out of power, so none of the technology worked. While the craft might have been able to be explained away as an art project, the destruction it left in its wake didn't have the same level of excusability. As soon as this story got out, it was sure to gain traction all over the internet. It was the most definitive proof of extraterrestrial life the world had ever seen, and it was right here, up close and personal.

    Both the reporter and cameraman got noticeably more excited and scared as they inspected. It got harder and harder to pass off as anything other than the truth of what it was: a UFO. The two of them talked about how they wished it was a live broadcast instead of a pre-recording, they wanted the world to see this immediately!

     In the middle of the reporter's sentence, the microphone's signal was unexpectedly cut off, and the camera stopped working completely. The two inspected their devices, unaware of the creatures who stalked them from behind the trees.

     In an instant, both the reporter and the cameraman were shot dead.

     A pair of aliens emerged from behind the bushes, guns in hand as they approached the human corpses. They looked down on them in scorn before inspecting the ship.

     “Oh, of course." One of the aliens groaned, "You know who's ship this is? It's Severin's!”

     “I always knew he wasn't cut out for this." The other shook their head, "Should we tell The Council?”

     “No, of course not. We cannot let them know someone has already fumbled the mission, they will think poorly of us all. It's not good that the humans are already suspicious of our plans. We need them to be oblivious, at least for a little while longer.”

     “What do you suggest we do?”

     “There is not anything that we need to do. It wasn't a live broadcast. All we need to do is destroy the camera, and the evidence is gone. By the time the news station realizes the reporters they sent are missing, it'll be too late. We won't need to hide anymore.”

     “We’re already here, aren’t we? We’re already infiltrating. It’ll only take a few days now before we have control over this pathetic planet. By the time The Council arrives to survey, the human race will already be enslaved and ready to serve the Empire.”

     “I sure hope so.” they said, "So long as the fuck up doesn't fuck it up anymore than they already have..."

----

     Hunter let out a sigh as they awoke, groaning as they stretched their arms, bones cracking.

     “You sure slept in.” Fawn mumbled, already wide awake, sitting with their hands cupping their head, “Though maybe it’s 8 am and I’m the one up early. Who knows.”

     “Mm. You sound depressed.” Hunter mumbled, “It's day 40, you know? Hooray, give it up for day 40!” They cheered sarcastically.

     Fawn sighed and rubbed their face, “Oh, human life is so short. I can't believe I'm wasting away my precious days trapped here doing nothing! My precious, sweet young days! Why couldn't it have been when I'm older, at least then my glory days would've been behind me!”

     Hunter chuckled, though it was more sad, “Glory days are a myth. Don't worry about your youth. Some people peak early, others late, and some not at all. Some people die before their good days. Some never had a chance in the first place.”

     “Yeah, because people like you took it away from them.”

     “I know.” Hunter said, though it wasn't remorseful nor regretful. It was simply an admission, or acknowledgement. “I won't pretend to be a good person. I'm not. Though… I do wish I could've done things differently.”

     “What, you expect me to feel sympathy for you, or something?”

      “No, of course not. I'm not looking for pity, I don't want pity. I'm just stating how I feel. How you feel about that in return is up to you, I don't fucking care.”

     “Really? Because it sure sounds like you do.”

     Hunter sighed, “Look… this isn't easy for me to say, but I'll finally tell the truth for once. I like you, Fawn. Well, not romantically or anything like that, but I… I enjoy your company.”

     Fawn wasn't sure how to respond to that.

     “Jesus, I say something sentimental for once in my life and you look at me like I'm insane.”

     “Well…”

     “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’m already insane.”

     “You’re a murderer.”

     “I know.”

     Neither spoke another word. 

     One of the members walked into view with two plates of food.

     “Oh, day 41, even better!” Hunter said. The member placed the plates on the floor, before introducing themself sheepishly.

     “Um… hi. My name is Severin. I'm… from space?” He said, awkwardly pointing upwards.

     “You're an alien?” Fawn questioned.

     “Shh, not so loud! I'm… not supposed to be here. I'm planning on leaving soon... with… two of my friends. They told me they wanted you to come with us.”

      “What, the two people who took us here in the first place? And now they’re making you do the risky job of getting us out? Yeah, friends that I’d definitely trust.”

     “You don’t understand- ugh- look, do you want out or not?”

     “Of course I do! Are you kidding me?”

     Severin unlocked the door, “Then follow me and stay quiet.”

     Fawn's eyes widened. Oh, this was happening fast. They quickly, yet cautiously with suspicion, stepped out of the cell. Hunter hopped to their feet to follow.

     “Can we leave this one here?” Fawn whispered. Hunter folded their arms, and Severin shook his head before hurriedly rushing both of them out.

     He snuck them up the stairs where Anthony and Agnes were waiting to help keep cover. The three acted like a shield, even though there wasn't anyone else around. Agnes and Anthony had managed to get them to leave the area due to their height on the hierarchy. They'd said Ethel wanted them for something. Once that was figured out a lie, it'd be over for them.

     Ethel will surely find out about all of this and won't be pleased in the slightest, but the twins made their decision to leave no matter the cost. Once a nice distance away, Agnes and Anthony took off their masks, heaving a sigh of relief.

     Agnes had long dark brown hair that looked choppy and uneven. Freckles lined her face, her eyes were tired and grey.

     Anthony had short light brown hair, that was a slight bit lengthy and very, very messy. Just like Agnes he too had freckles.

     “Oh, wow. You guys look… normal.” Fawn said.

     “Huh? Why?” Agnes questioned, “What did you think we looked like?”

     “I dunno, like werewolves, I guess.”

     “What do you mean ‘like werewolves’?”

     “I don’t know, like all hairy, or something.”

     “Is that racist?” Anthony asked.

     “I don’t know, you’re the werewolf, you tell me!”

     “Listen,” Agnes said, changing the subject, “We may be out, but we aren't safe, and we never will be. Anthony and I were Ethel's top members, when she realizes we're gone, she's gonna come and find us. Especially once she and the rest of the pack also notice the humans are missing, and we gave them false directions, and then the rest of the whole Apocalypse stuff…”

     “So… what do we do now?” Fawn asked.

     Anthony shrugged, “I dunno. Try to survive, I guess.”

     “We need some kind of plan.” Agnes said, “Ethel will find us, and she'll be angry.”

     “And the other invaders have to know I've messed up badly by now…” said Severin.

     Fawn clasped their hands together, “Welp, it sure sucks to be you guys. See ya!”

     Agnes scoffed and folded her arms, “Do you really think you're safe? You and your friend here are more screwed than we are.”

     “W- okay, first of all, they're not my friend, and secondly… I'm still leaving.” they said, and turned to leave, walking away.

     I didn't call it the Great Human Extinction for nothing.” Anthony yelled out to them.

     Fawn stopped and turned, “And why did you call it that?”

     "Why do you think?”

     “Well… considering I’ve seen werewolves, vampires, and now aliens, I’m gonna guess an overthrow of Earth?”

     “Pretty much, yeah.” Agnes confirmed, “Worst case scenario is you die. Best case scenario is you’ll no longer be human by the end of this. Or both. Both is highly likely.”

     “Well that’s great to hear.”

     “If you don’t end up dead or a non-human, you’ll be enslaved by my people.” Severin said.

     “You guys are the best at delivering good news.”

     “See? You're screwed, too. We're in this together.” Agnes said.

     “I didn't ask to be in this in the first place!”

     “Do you think anyone asked to be in this? No, we didn't. Our chances are stronger together, so you can either go and fend this off alone, or bare the storm with us.”

     “Ugh.” Fawn groaned, “Fine.” They said, folding their arms. Everyone looked to Hunter.

     “What about you?” Agnes asked.

     Hunter responded, “Bold of you to assume I have anything better going on in my life.”

     “Well then, we have a group at least.” Anthony said, “that's a start, right?”

      “Barely.” Agnes said, “Let's get out of these woods, first and foremost. We'll go from there.”

     And so, the group of five made their way through the forest. Anthony was anxiously trying to rip apart his mask, Agnes distracted herself by gazing up at the trees, and Severin jumped at every cracking branch. Hunter looked unbothered, and Fawn felt like they were running a marathon from how fast their heart was beating.

     As they walked, they could see a building up ahead through the trees. They could feel their heart flutter as they picked up their speed. Once their feet hit the concrete and they knew where they were, they took off without a second thought.

     They ran down the street as fast as their legs could carry them, running all the way up to an average, inconspicuous house. It was small and feeble, but by God, it was home.

     Fawn nearly burst the door down as they unlocked it with a hidden key. The first thing they did was collapse onto their couch, and began sobbing. They weren’t sure if it was out of relief, fear, sadness, or all of the above. Probably all of the above.

     Agnes, Anthony, and Severin followed them inside, while Hunter stood in the doorway. They rubbed their arm awkwardly as Fawn cried, feeling… strange. Guilty? Did they feel guilty? They felt intrusive just being in the doorway, so they turned around and sat in their front yard.

     After a minute, Fawn’s cries slowly dwindled until they were left sniffling. They felt like they could fall asleep right there as they were. They were exhausted in every sense of the word, and now for the first time in months, they felt they could truly, finally relax. They were home. On their couch. It felt like everything could be okay again…

     If it weren’t for the whole apocalypse thing.

     Fawn took in a deep breath, exhaling it in a mix of a sigh and a groan. They pushed themself up, sitting criss-crossed on the couch. They rubbed their eyes under their glasses, then just sat. Sat and stared at the dirty carpet of their living room floor.

     Nothing would ever be the same again, nor would it ever be how they’d hoped. All of their plans, their dreams, their entire life, it was gone. It didn’t matter if they were still trapped with Hunter at the cabin, or by the werewolves, or even if they were right here back home on their couch. It would all end up the same. Nothing mattered anymore. They wondered if it ever did.

     They stood up from the couch after what felt like hours, and walked up the creaky wooden stairs to their bedroom. Their heart skipped a beat as they turned the old knob. Everything was just as they left it before going out on their walk.

     They grabbed a spare pair of glasses they had, and they weren't prepared for how amazing it was to see without cracks. They sat on their bed and stared down at the old pair, running their thumb over the cracks. Their hands began to shake, and they tossed them away to the floor, landing in a pile of clothes. They reached for their medication on the bedside table and stared down at it.

     It would be so nice to not feel like they're dying all the time, but… They’ve already been forced to stop taking them all at once, and considering the whole apocalypse thing, they doubted they’d be able to refill their prescription. This bottle was all they had left, and it would be for the best to just deal with the anxiety- as awful as it may be. At least they weren’t someone who needed drugs in order to live…

     Their favorite old jacket was thrown over a wooden chair. They put it on, and it felt like the most comforting thing to exist. So warm and secure. They picked up a handheld mirror that laid on their desk and took a look at their reflection. They knew their hair had grown over the last few months, but seeing their actual face really put it in perspective. Their hair was down past their shoulders. They couldn’t recall the last time it was that long.

     Before going back downstairs, they grabbed a wooden baseball bat they had lying underneath their bed. Agnes and Anthony were being nosy as they innocently looked through Fawn’s things, but Fawn didn’t care. Severin looked fascinated by the alien-to-him objects, typing stuff down on his half-working tablet.

     Fawn left their house where they saw Hunter sitting criss-crossed in the grass, picking at the clovers and dandelions. They cautiously approached them, sitting down next to them with a bit of distance. Hunter glazed over to them with a side eye, keeping their attention on the ground.

     Fawn twiddled with their thumbs, and fidgeted with the loose threads of their jacket, unable to think of something to say. It was strange, what they had. They were a captive and a captor, a victim and a murderer, a fawn and a hunter. Yet now, they could almost feel like… friends. Fawn scrunched their face at the thought.

     Hunter was the one to break the silence, “Why are you still here?”

     “What do you mean? This is my yard.”

     “Oh. Yeah. That is true… I guess the better question is, why am I here, huh?”

     “Yeah, Hunter, why are you here?” Fawn said, “That’s not even your real name, either, is it?”

     “No, it’s not. Does it matter?”

     “If you wanna sit in my yard and rip up my grass then yes, it does. Tell me your real name or get out.”

     Hunter shrugged and got up.

     "Wait, you’re actually leaving?”

     “Hey, you gave me an either or and I took it. Have fun with your group of four, I'll finally fuck off.” They said, and began walking away down the street.

     “Ugh- wait.” Fawn said, getting up to follow them. Hunter didn't stop walking.

     “What, grow attached to me now?”

     “Fuck you.”

     “uh huh. I see."

     "Fuck you." Fawn said again, "The woods were my only escape, and now it’s the fucking apocalypse. No one has anywhere to go. This is it… why… why did you even take me in the first place?"

     "I... I was sadistic."

     "What would you know? You're not me."

      "That's not the reason. At least not the main one."

     “Earlier today, you told me you liked me. You… kept me because you were lonely.”

     “You say that with a lot of confidence.”

     “Well I’m right, ain’t I? You decided you liked me, so instead of killing me, you kept me. That’s what you did.”

     “Is it?”

     “Yes! You literally told me!”

     “Did I?”

     “Yes! Today!”

     “I don’t think I said that.”

     “UAGH!” Fawn groaned, “You’re fucking impossible! You’re infuriating!” They plopped down onto a curb, putting their head in their hands. Hunter leaned against a street sign.

     Fawn sighed, "... Back... when I was sick and you were taking- taking care of me. That was- it was the first time I've ever been cared for like that. Not even my own mother showed me that kind of kindness. I- I just can't deal with it.”

     For a moment Hunter’s face softened. Just a moment. “What, so I remind you of your shitty mom?”

     "No, you're like my shitty mother if my shitty mother was also a fucking creep who gave even just a single fuck about me."

     The two sat on the curb in silence as they stared out at the sunset over the skyline. The air was warm with a gentle cool breeze.

     "Ooohhh, I see. So I'm not like your mother, I'm like your mommy." Hunter teased, and Fawn turned an embarrassed shade of red, making Hunter chuckle. They sat down next to them.

     Fawn finally spoke, "Fuck. I think I have Stockholm syndrome."

     "Hey, at least you're self-aware. Spending 41 days trapped with me as an equal fucked ya up, didn't it?” They teased, nudging Fawn with their elbow.

     “You're not funny, or cute, or quirky.”

     “I ain't sayin’ I am. I'm an asshole who likes to torment people. I think you need to care a little less."

     "Does it even fucking matter anymore? It's the end of the world, Hunter!"

     “Yeah, so what better time is there to stop caring?”

     “We’re all going to die. You heard what Severin said. The aliens want to enslave us, the werewolves want to use us as some kind of godly sacrifice, and the vampires… what do they want? Our blood, and- oh, god, is Anaira okay?!”

     “Okay, look. Sure, maybe the world as we know it is ending. Sure, maybe we're all doomed by the narrative. But that doesn't mean we can't fight to the end, does it? I mean, you said it yourself, nothing matters anymore. So let's forget about trivial problems and fuck shit up. There are no more consequences.”

     “If there are no more consequences, then I should be able to strangle you right here, right now. Beat you with this bat."

     “I mean… yeah. You could try. You think once this whole thing really gets going that the police are gonna care? Or rather that they'll still exist at all. It's a time for anarchy, it's time to actually eat the rich. It's time to fuck around and find out. What's there left to lose? So, yeah, you can try to strangle me. The only person who'd be stopping you is me.”

Fawn stood up, and began walking away.

     “Where are you going?”

     “Well, it's the Apocalypse, ain't it? So let's get prepared.”

Taglist: @parasitebunny @whumpy-wyrms @fruitypinapple00 @otterfrost

Lmk in the comments if you want added or removed !

Thanks for reading !! 💕🦌

[e3khatena]

so whats the deal with overkills the walking dead?

I'm glad you asked! (approx. 2,300 words)

So our story starts during Payday 2's first anniversary, the Fall of 2014. Players had to attain certain community goals to get new things to play with during their first annual Crimefest event, and the last two prizes were secret. They wound up being John Wick as a playable character, and the trailer for a new game Overkill was working on, based in the world of The Walking Dead comics. The premise was simple: it was set in the same part of the world as Payday 2, Washington DC, and would involve players trying to keep themselves and their camp alive during the zombie apocalypse made popular in Robert Kirkman's graphic novels and the AMC TV show. Given the fact that Payday 2 had proven to be a tremendous cultural hit around this time, getting the likes of Giancarlo Esposito and making cameos in the Wick movies at the height of their popularity, and given how at the moment it is very possible to argue that Payday 2 might have sold more copies than Super Mario Brothers 3, it would seem that OTWD was in good hands.

The problem, though, was their CEO. Bo Andersson used pressure he conjured up in Varvtre AB, a holdings company he was on the board of directors for, to become the CEO of Starbreeze when they acquired Overkill Software, the makers of Payday: The Heist and Payday 2. This also moved Bo from a role within the games industry alongside his brother to being his brother's superior and putting him in a firmly business role. This was good for Bo, because it would allow him to scrape capital from Overkill on their pursuit into superstardom to fund his own dream project: Storm.

Storm was a concept that Bo had been working on since 2008, the idea of bringing virtual reality back from being a curious novelty we played with in the 1990s into a mainstream competitive eSport. Players would wear tactical vests with computers built into them and a 5K resolution HMD that Acer would develop with the aid of Starbreeze in a massive bespoke arena, and using a combination of LIDAR scanning, realtime texture mapping, and the Valhalla game engine Starbreeze paid $8 million for, their physical arena would turn into a sci-fi deathmatch where players would cooperate to eliminate the enemy team and seek victory.

Bo Andersson was paying tens of millions of dollars to invent Laser Tag.

But how does this tie into The Walking Dead? Well, as a proof of concept, the work that Overkill had done in their in-house game engine, Diesel 2.0, would be ported into Valhalla to bring Overkill's The Walking Dead to life. Overkill's employees had long complained that Diesel could not compete visually, and even incorporating proper normal maps and bumping up the texture quality could not shake the appearance of a Source Engine or early Unreal 3 title. Despite releasing in 2013 and with the game now moving into 2016, onto the 8th generation of consoles, Payday 2 was not a looker and Overkill's The Walking Dead faced the same fate.

The problem, though, is that Bo Andersson bought the Valhalla Engine, which was being designed for VR first and foremost, much too early. The engine was literally incomplete, and the programmers had to write tools for the engine before they could write any code for the game itself. After nearly a year of work, they did bring Valhalla into a usable state, and used its VR prowess to power Payday 2's VR version. Bo also proposed a VR demo of Overkill's The Walking Dead to be hosted in Dubai, at VR Park (now titled PlayDXB), to demonstrate the game, the headset, and the VR technology to Middle Eastern investors who could free Bo from the shackles of Scandinavian game development and make him the worldwide name in VR. This delayed their actual non-VR Walking Dead game, which had serious funding from Skybound Entertainment and Robert Kirkman, past its intended 2016 street date. The game was nowhere near finished as Overkill staff were pulled back and forth to so many different projects within the studio. They received an extension to their deadline, Fall 2017, and work continued on the Valhalla Engine and the VR demo.

Fast forward another year. Starbreeze puts out Raid: World War II, a Diesel 2.0 title in which four players steal from the Nazis in almost exactly same manner as in Payday 2, starring John Cleese as the handler for the crew, and some trailers commissioned for their Walking Dead game using virtually zero actual in-game assets, and Skybound makes them an ultimatum: if the game is not out by November 2018, then they lose the rights to the license. They have wasted the rights holder's time and money for too long, and the project is dragging its heels with a CEO seeing it as a low priority to get their contractually-obligated co-op FPS for PCs and consoles out versus his ambitions of filling an entire space in Dubai with his name, his brand. Overkill developers, who had been clamoring for years to use an actual engine that makes sense for FPSes, finally get their wish, and Bo Andersson invests in commercial licenses for Unreal Engine 4. The problem now, though, is that the staff have a year to make the game in Unreal, with the caveat that they have zero experience in the engine. If they had made this move two years ago, they'd have the time to commit to learning the ins and outs, but they don't.

Overkill goes into crunch, with staff sleeping in the offices and working 100-hour weeks to learn Unreal and take what the documentation and tutorials offer them and implement it into their Walking Dead title, reverse-engineering the concepts they had implemented into the Diesel and Valhalla versions of the game and dropping them into Unreal. Bo Andersson, all the while, is going on vacations and not coming in on the regular, spending his time playing zombie games for inspiration and coming to the staff with his own ideas for the game based on them. Glory Kills, Special Infected, robust base maintenance mechanics and the ability to command teams of non-player survivors on missions all wound up in the game with little actual regard for how these pieces fit together. By the time that he realized he should be more actively hands-on, he only had a scant few months to spend with the staff at the final mad dash to make a playable product. The game was playable at E3, with two demo levels, and one of them playtested so poorly that the staff had to pull it from the rotation, but when Bo heard this feedback he would not tell his staff. He told them the game was testing great at E3, that people loved it.

Overkill's The Walking Dead released on the 7th of November, 2018, a week after Payday 2 ended support by letting players kill fallen angels and solve a giant puzzle wheel about the in-game lore in order to turn Bain, the player's main contact, into the US President via a body-swapping artifact used by the ancient kings of Kataru, who were gifted immortality at the same time common man was gifted the knowledge of good and evil at the Garden of Eden. While the clown-themed robbery game ended on a confusing note, Overkill's The Walking Dead was getting started to a whole heap of roughness. The game's combat was frustrating, with hordes of walkers that had to be put down one clumsy charged melee swing at a time and human enemies who fired off AKMs and MP5s with reckless abandon. Their noise would draw hordes, which would need to be contended with via your own noise, as dealing with a few dozen enemies with melee combat was awkward and difficult.

Being grappled by a zombie cost a health bar and a half in a game where your starting character had on average four healthbars to their name, and the underlying gameplay, despite being completely linear missions in level and objective design, were just Payday heists at the end of the day. Hell or High Water involved you raiding a camp owned by The Family, an antagonistic gang your camp is at war with, and stealing their supplies. In turn, they arrive at your camp and you kill five waves of them in Worse Than Walkers, in a move no different than Payday 2's Safe House Raid mission, with no zombies in sight. The camp-building mechanics, which were tied to player level and their ability to tend to the needs of their workers, were a confusing mess of UI elements that did not mesh together, and all weapons were earned in a gachapon-style case system and would degrade over time, requiring the player unjam them, fix them with the supplies they need to keep camp morale up, or watch them fall into disrepair. There was also no tutorial mission, with the game opening with The First Shot, the E3 demo mission that tested so poorly they stopped running it.

Overkill's The Walking Dead performed poorly, both critically and commercially, and Starbreeze went right into damage control. The game's high price tag to low gameplay ratio was combatted with a $30 version that required paying for the missions $60 players got for free. Season 2 went into production very quickly, with fixes to the base game, new weapons, and new survivors being promised within the coming months. Unfortunately, this was too little, too late, as Skybound issued a cease and desist to their business partner after just three months of sale, and by February 2019, Overkill's The Walking Dead was just as much a corpse as the undead shamblers present in the video games.

Perhaps what sealed the fate of the game wasn't its overall quality, as The Walking Dead is home to a large number of subpar games, but its tone and gameplay. Overkill's The Walking Dead is a very staunchly libertarian take on the franchise, pitting the player with the idea that they are to be a colonizing force, destroying an antagonistic camp and treating the other people just trying to survive as cannon fodder not unlike if they were just walkers with guns. This is no surprise given another face at Overkill, executive producer Almir Listo, having a robust fascination with libertarianism and the cult of personality that surrounded fringe Right-wing groups. Almir himself is not a conservative, but he has proven time and time again that he thinks the way Donald Trump talks is funny and has an interest in American conservative viewpoints and conspiracies as an outsider looking in, likely not helped by an unnamed comics writer taking over Payday 2 in its final year to turn the game about robbing banks into one with an ancient conspiracy and Nephilim to mow down with your MG42 or M16.

The Walking Dead is a story about its people and how they're shaped by the conflict, by the apocalypse that surrounds them, and while Kirkman expressed early interest in the sound-based horde gameplay encouraging quiet takedowns and swift, accurate gunplay, it is very possible that the idea of not just a bad Walking Dead game, but a bad Walking Dead game from a popular studio that fundamentally misunderstands the world of The Walking Dead and needs to fall back on generic bandits and raiders to fill its spaces a la Bethesda's open world titles was a bad look. We'll never know for certain, though, as the game has been pulled from sale for ages.

But this brings us to sometime last week. September 21st marked the launch of Starbreeze Studios' (formerly Overkill Software's) Payday 3. The game features a lot of the stuff they had worked on for The Walking Dead (weapon models, a rework to the Shield enemy, armor working exactly like health in OTWD) but also a ton of its own ideas, and in general the gameplay is very solid. The issue, though, is the progression and a number of bugs that hamper the experience, alongside requiring a Starbreeze Nebula account and online connection to play, with no offline mode to speak of, which caused problems when the servers for the game were down for its first three days after launch. Starbreeze promised a patch was coming shortly thereafter, but on October 21st, a month after the game released, someone with ties to Starbreeze, fed up with the Starbreeze Nebula account requirement and persistent Internet connection to play a game with obvious issues and no Patch 1 release date in sight, released the final build of Overkill's The Walking Dead. This featured a proper tutorial, made the original The First Shot into an optional random encounter a player could take on for additional resources, a slew of new weapons, a wandering trader who could sell you blueprints to the DLC's guns, and the rest of Season 2's missions. The leaked build is not playable online but is DRM-free, running just fine completely offline and preserving the game for future generations to point and laugh at, albeit without any help to ease the difficulty for a game that expected four human players at a time.

Perhaps the weirdest part of the leak is that it brought out a handful of fans from the woodwork who view Overkill's The Walking Dead as an underrated gem buried before it could truly shine, individuals who feel the game could be one of the studio's best with enough polish, and as a result Robert Kirkman has been once again inundated with people asking about the now five year-old game, hoping to give it another chance. I, personally, feel that the clumsy pacing, questionable storyline bearing little similarities to the graphic novels it's based on, and the over-reliance on generic bandits voiced by Payday regulars Josh Lenn and Joseph Balderrama prevent the game from being anything but a really weird footnote in a company's confusing, convoluted history.

[catholic-character-tournament]

Round 2 - Resurrect Bracket (Losers Bracket) Side A

ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to [make it to the finals]

John Gaius art cred @exmakina

Propaganda below ⬇️

Flayn Propaganda

she’s honestly so much more interesting than people give her credit for. like she often gets written off as “funny little girl who likes fish” but like,,, she is so strong?? after you save her in chapter 6 and seteths first instinct is to hide themselves away from the world again and shes like fuck that shit! she has so much more of a connection to humanity than the others of her kind and that shows in her solo ending vs her paired ending w seteth, wherein she emerges from hiding as soon as she can when on her own but she and seteth emerge to a fódlan thats changed a lot technologically, so far far later. and i love her supports with everyone and shes so genuine and sweet and kind. flayns great i love her.

Patron Saint of Fish 🐟

John

book quote from the chapters where he's relating how he got necromantic powers and people freaked out!! this is pre-apocalypse and resurrection so it's implied he took a lot of inspiration from this incident . He said, Then we took off. Thread after thread on message board after message board. People wanting proof. People asking what the fuck it meant. People talking about the LUCIFER telescope and saying we were aliens. People calling me the Antichrist, which was a trip. People writing up these long posts on how the trick was done, how I got the meat into the pie. Was I fake? Was I real? If I was real, what did it mean? Suddenly there were hundreds of people, all there at our front door. They came in caravans, they were sleeping in their cars or putting up tents. A hell of a lot of them had flown out internationally. He said, Some of them wanted to see the miracle. Some of them wanted my help, like, Oh, you’re the magical death man, can you do something about my body? Can you fix my fibromyalgia? Thing was, I could. That surprised me. I could take out their tumours. I could fix their macular degeneration. Big damage was easy, unless they’d actually lost the limb or whatever. Couldn’t grow those back. But I spent hours and hours a day playing Jesus. That was nice, those were some of the nicest hours I got to spend. He said, But when you’re doing the whole Go, my child, your knee cartilage is fixed, you’re going to get a lot of visitors. I had to turn people away because I had to eat, I had to sleep, even though I didn’t want to. M— had brought in her best friend, the nun, and I was worried I was going to get the Antichrist bit from her too, but she was just like: stop doing this! Read your Bible! This was Christ’s whole problem! I was like, What are you talking about, Jesus cured the lepers and everyone was all, Hooray, thanks man. M—’s nun was all, Are you kidding, Christ never said no and never asked anyone to pay and got way too much attention and brought the heat down on everybody. Christ didn’t keep to office hours, she said. Don’t do that. He said, So we limited Jesus stuff to one hour a day, and I always had to eat breakfast. But by then the whole world was on our doorstep.

look this is kind of weird but he is the only survivor after nuclear bombs destroy the earth and he has weird necromancy powers so he revives his friends and a few other people to be his subjects and basically makes himself a god to them. there's a lot of layers since he's literally the only character in the entire series who remembers the world before and has a concept of the religion he's copying for his own. he treats the other characters like toys he can push around for his own amusement and everything is a joke but he does this world-weary act that somehow gets the reader to kind of feel for him even when he's being atrocious. and he's the only one who remembers memes. which is a torture all of its own.

I said "yes" but to be more clear: he was canonically Catholic when he was still mortal, but that was 10,000 years ago and he kind of killed everybody on the planet. Just slightly. Some of them got better. Now he's the Emperor Undying and his empire is very Catholic-coded.

OP note: I got some replies saying he's not actually canonically catholic and this is "as Catholic" as he gets

[owlbearwrites]

Rowan worldbuilding? I'm not sure what question to ask, but I love me some worldbuilding. In one of your other asks answered you mentioned different societies plus different factions, so maybe do you have specifics in mind there?

Thank you for the ask!

When I think of the different factions in the Rowanverse, I think of an alignment grid not unlike D&D, with the axes being Level of Organization and Attitude to Technology. (Note that it's not a like-for-like substitution, and being pro-tech or tech-skeptical has no correlation with the goodness or evilness of any group; there are good guys and assholes in both.)

The Agency is a collective that had grown out of the remnants of pre-apocalypse NASA and denizens of the moon colony who got stranded there when life on Earth went sideways. Considering that advanced science and technology was absolutely instrumental in their survival when they were cut off, it is now paramount to the small society that had formed from the original engineers, astronauts and moon colonists. They’ve done very well for themselves in the past two hundred years, especially after making great strides in robotics, creating increasingly advanced machines to fill in for humans in more hazardous jobs. Some say they may have even created true AI, and can make androids virtually indistinguishable from humans. The Agency’s biggest problem, however, is that they are still stuck on the freaking moon, and the various risks that come with that isolation. Their greatest, yet unfulfilled ambition, is to re-establish a two-way link between the moon and the earth. The network of space elevators went out of commission during the first few decades post-apocalypse, and every attempt to land a spacecraft has failed. (The android survivors of those failed missions have been stranded on earth.)

The Technocrats is a catch-all term for a loose faction of groups united by an ethos of respect, awe and fear of technology. They are acutely aware of the power of advanced technology, and wish to both preserve it and stop it from falling into the wrong hands… which, as far as they’re concerned, are the hands of anyone but them. They believe that unrestrained proliferation of advanced technology was one of the reasons for the apocalypse, and see their mission as preventing it from happening again. As in any doctrine, there are moderates and radicals. Moderates are invested in salvaging, preserving and studying as much of pre-apocalypse technology as possible, and then carefully and discriminately using some of its less destructive elements for the betterment of life on Earth. Meanwhile, radicals strive for maximum isolation (*coughhoardingcough*) of advanced tech until such times as the rest of the human species is mature enough to use any of it (citing the apocalypse as proof that the last time, they clearly weren’t). Most Technocrats harbor a deep hatred for sentient androids, viewing them as an aberration and the result of humans trying to play God. Some of the most radical members of the Technocrats are calling for the destruction of the Agency, being the creator of the aforementioned aberrations, but the whole ‘having to get to the moon first’ problem keeps getting in the way.

The Neighborhood Watch are just trying to keep people alive, really. Theirs is a faction that had grown out of various volunteers and first responders in the immediate aftermath of the apocalypse, and carried on with an ethos of mutual aid, or as much of it as was possible during the continued unprecedented times. There are multiple settlements up and down the former US East Coast that are loosely aligned with the Neighborhood Watch principles of ‘try to help out, don’t be a dick’, and rely on each other for trade and support (sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t). They don’t shun technology as such, but they’ve learned over the years that salvaging and repurposing anything high-tech will invariably draw the Technocrats’ attention and result in said technology getting seized, with violence if necessary. It’s not unusual for Neighborhood Watch aligned settlements to have an informal agreement with local Technocrat groups to hand over any advanced tech in exchange for protection from marauding gangs.

There are obviously people and settlements that fall outside the grid, with their own ideas and their own problems. But these three are the main factions and creeds I've got so far.

(P.S. The Fallout crowd out there can easily spot the inspirations behind each of these.)

[monterraverde]

Some time has passed since your adventure across time and space. 

Today, a letter finds you. This letter isn’t delivered by the postal carrier that you usually expect: you would be met at the front door of your dwelling by a young man dressed in white, a hat on top of his head, and a professional, kind smile on his face. Having to sign for a simple letter seems odd, but the courier assures that ‘this is standard protocol for us.’

A white envelope stamped with the familiar golden trident of the Aether Foundation is in your hands. Inside of it is a letter written with extraordinarily neat penmanship. 

Ms. Navarro,

I hope this letter finds you well, and that you are recovering from our expedition from the comfort of your own home. 

In the coming days, myself and the Aether Foundation will likely be in the international news regarding our ‘strangely timed’ decision to sever certain partnerships with fellow giants in our shared industry. Do not be alarmed by this. It is a direct response to harrowing usage of my intellectual property in another time, and another place. I, and the entirety of my team, will not allow Aether technology to cause harm to people, or Pokemon, neither by our hands, or the hands of our competitors. You may sleep soundly knowing that our collective actions will prevent an apocalypse of that magnitude happening in our home.

From my mind to yours: I wish to personally thank you for your involvement, and the tireless effort that you put into destroying Archeus. It has left a lasting impression on me, as I am sure it has with the rest of our team.

Several of the partners that we relocated from Area Zero are currently being rehabilitated in the Aether Conservation Area. We are currently zoning an area strictly for our iron partners, so that they may receive enrichment and resources whenever they need.

The Aether Foundation is dedicated to improving the relationship between people, Pokémon, and technology. Consider myself, and my foundation, as a permanent ally, and useful resource for anything that you may need. I highly encourage you to take advantage of these resources whenever necessary.

Lastly, you are cordially invited to the Aether Paradise on a later date, to be honored for your duty, for defending life as we know it, and for instilling a bright new belief in humanity– for me.

Thank you.

Do not hesitate to contact me. Attached to this letter is my business contact, and personal contact. I request that you keep it to yourself.

-President Lusamine Delacroix

At the bottom corner of the letter is a large, strange blotch of ink. A thumb print, maybe? Upon further investigation, it seems to have been left by the tip of the tail of a serpentine creature, who also wanted to sign the note.

"Living proof that you're never too old to grow and change as a person..."

Lusamine had always been such a fascinating person. Even before this excursion, she always found herself popping over to Aether when she had some free time while visiting Alola. It's clear that she not only ran a tight ship, but one with an incredibly clear and altruistic goal.

Even if she herself wasn't skilled at communicating it with words, Lusamines actions always spoke louder.

Silvally was an anomaly she never expected to see in all this, either. The idea of synthetic pokemon strictly meant for killing was abhorrent to her, but after seeing it in action and spending time syncing with it- It was clear that it had a soul, and was treated well... When she wasn't deliberately throwing it into the line of fire- But it seemed more then capable of handling itself. She saw it when they faced the ARCHEUS, how it's eyes lit up when locking engaging with the systems main body.

Plus, its behavior reminded her of an overly curious and intelligent Mabosstiff, it was adorable in its own right.

It's funny to her, she thinks, watching someone go through a whole character arc in three days and come out of it a completely different person. Funny, and inspiring, and it's part of what inspired her to let go of her past, finally... The future they saw was only for that universe, and a result of that timelines actions- and inactions, but it made her realize that the future waits for no one, and staying stuck in the past would just leave her in its wake...

Forgotten...

And you only truly die when you're forgotten...

...Her thoughts are meandering...

She has to hurry up and make plans to travel to Alola again as soon as possible. She needs to see this- the fruit of their labors to ferry those creatures to paradise. Not the paradise they were promised, but paradise all the same.

Besides, maybe hanging around them would help spark a personality in Bully.

"Didn't think I did anything worth being rewarded for, but... I'm not about to slap a proffered hand."

She snorts at seeing Bobas signature, cute... She takes Lusamines numbers and puts them directly into her phones contacts, and folds the letter up neatly before sticking it to her fridge with an Alola magnet she'd bought in one of the gift shops the last time she was there.

Time to start packing... But first, she needs to catch up on work.

[problemswithbooks]

Nah kill Endeavor midway and introduce new hero to take his role as the hero with new relevant story as No 1 like happened with Hawks and last minute additions like Star Stripe. Because Endeavor remains the only morally bad hero who is an example of what hero should not do in personal life using his job as a cover as Stain warned. His treatment of Inasa, taking on petty cases to increase numbers and being dumber than Iida who cracked the pattern faster magnified his behaviour as a shoddy hero driven by envy and prejudice and personal desires and not enough to call it justice as the subjective praisevsays about his heroics by people who have a personal reason to believe he was good as a hero and not disbelive it even in face of proof. His atonement didn't actually have narrative significance in the end either. If he was pulled out of their story, already Deku then Shoto then self-effort from hidden strength from hope due to Shoto alone was enough. He couldn't give them any actual closure or help. Endeavor in short had little to no big role other than being the cause of this apocalypse from a single video because he took the No 1 spot by default despite being wrong for it. The effect of the video was more positive in the long run by freeing them and making their stories valid by Endeavor's televised confession than how bad Toga or Gentle's families had it from being associated while Shoto seem happier having shared with all. They are also valid for unconditionally loving their son instead of being conflicted by his crimes which is Endeavor's fault to them as Shoto's thoughts went. Overall Endeavor's role is simply as the abuser who prevents his victims from taking heat and criticism from his fans by confessing because they all push him including Hawks and it is possible because the hero association are dead and won't issue a cover up to protect their overall image. But this confession could still be exposed in other ways using new characters or existing information technology known with Garaki Kyuudai had Hori wanted while keeping Endeavor bad which would have resulted in a better catharsis than leaving him sticking on to his victims.

Ok so another long break down.

Nah kill Endeavor midway and introduce new hero to take his role as the hero with new relevant story as No 1 like happened with Hawks and last minute additions like Star Stripe. Because Endeavor remains the only morally bad hero who is an example of what hero should not do in personal life using his job as a cover as Stain warned.

Killing Enji this way only works if the story becomes fully about Hero corruption, which it just isn't. All of the Heroes which had questionable attitudes toward Heroics changed their ways, or besides Enji just weren't that bad to begin with. Even if we leave Enji as a truly bad guy, he's one out dozens we see who are all good, so it doesn't even help prove the corruption angle much. Could this work--sure, but it'd change the story and it's themes drastically from what Hori's intentions seem to be--at that point it's not even his story.

On top of that we get no evidence Enji is using his job as a Hero as cover. Nor did Stain ever say anything about Heroes using their job to hide actual crimes. I love the guy, but all he cared about was people being Heroes that weren't 100% selfless. On top of that he just didn't even seem to check the Heroes he hunted out first, since we have no evidence Tensei was anything other then a great Hero who cared a lot about saving people. Stain didn't know about Enji's abuse and just hated him because he wasn't All Might.

His treatment of Inasa, taking on petty cases to increase numbers and being dumber than Iida who cracked the pattern faster magnified his behaviour as a shoddy hero driven by envy and prejudice and personal desires and not enough to call it justice as the subjective praisevsays about his heroics by people who have a personal reason to believe he was good as a hero and not disbelive it even in face of proof.

But Enji did crack Stain's pattern--that's why he and Shoto we in the city at all that night. He tells Shoto about it when they leave for Hosu. Shoto even says he only picks Enji's agency because he's a great at his job and despite his hate for him at that point, it'd be stupid to turn down learning from one of the best in the industry.

Enji never shows prejudice in the manga. The spin off made him OOC so he could function as a side antagonist for the later arc in the story, but in the main story he never acts that way. No, he was never great to fans because having fans was never his reason for being a Hero and he didn't understand how important it was to inspire people until he became #1.

I assume what you mean by disbelieving proof, you're talking about Touya's video during the first War. Honestly, people not believing Touya makes perfect sense in context. Enji was never super popular, but when a villain who has killed multiple people and is currently responsible for a major terrorist attack effecting dozens cities suddenly releases a video saying "Hey, this guy trying to stop me from killing everyone is actually bad, trust me, and therefore you should hate everyone who has the same job." it is hard to believe. Plus, people did did believe it, they just were more concerned about Enji failing to stop a massive terrorist attack that probably resulted in hundreds of casualties and displaced thousands of people, then the fact he abused his family--something that in the moment is nothing compared to all the lives lost.

Endeavor in short had little to no big role other than being the cause of this apocalypse from a single video because he took the No 1 spot by default despite being wrong for it.

Enji didn't cause the apocalypse, Shigaraki and the LoV did. Sure, Touya's video didn't help, but because it came out after most of the major damage was done it didn't have as much effect as it could have had if it had been released right after Enji got the #1 spot. People would have been angry at the Heroes and Enji anyway because so many people died and the LoV wasn't captured.

The effect of the video was more positive in the long run by freeing them and making their stories valid by Endeavor's televised confession than how bad Toga or Gentle's families had it from being associated while Shoto seem happier having shared with all.

We don't actually see the family show any positive emotions toward the video. In fact we see them having to hide from the public because they're now blamed for Touya's murders. Shoto can't even go and be with his friends when Izuku walks into U.A, and instead has to hang back with Enji who, I assume had to go in a back way due to all of the hate they were getting because of Touya's video. Shoto might not be upset with his friends knowing, but he was never super quite about his abuse either, given he spilled the beans to Izuku as quick as possible during the sports festival. We don't see if the rest of the family feels similarly at all.

They are also valid for unconditionally loving their son instead of being conflicted by his crimes which is Endeavor's fault to them as Shoto's thoughts went.

But they don't see Touya's crimes as Dabi as 100% Enji's fault. Shoto tells him it was wrong of him to involve other people. Natsuo tells him to stop and that he's being an idiot big brother. Fuyumi just doesn't want him to kill their mom and dad. Even when Shoto thinks "he is me" that implies he does consider Touya's actions his own, since Shoto always held himself responsible for his own poor choices, like being rude to Inasa. Just because they still love Touya doesn't mean they don't hold him responsible for his actions. Enji is at fault, yes, but at the end of the day Touya still decided to murder random people to fulfill his own plans of revenge.

Overall Endeavor's role is simply as the abuser who prevents his victims from taking heat and criticism from his fans by confessing because they all push him including Hawks and it is possible because the hero association are dead and won't issue a cover up to protect their overall image.

The family isn't getting shit on by Enji's fans though, nor does Enji admitting the video is true suddenly make people 100% fine with the other Todoroki's. People didn't hate on the family because they saw them as lying about the abuse because they love Enji to much--they were mad because they view them as extensions of Touya, who killed their loved ones and destroyed their homes. They also don't have to push Enji to do the press conference or admit his abuse. They push him to stay a Hero and help them stop/save Touya. That's why even after he admits to the abuse, Shoto is still shunned.

We also have zero evidence to suggest the Hero Commission ever covered up the abuse. Especially since Shoto has no problem telling Izuku about it.

But this confession could still be exposed in other ways using new characters or existing information technology known with Garaki Kyuudai had Hori wanted while keeping Endeavor bad which would have resulted in a better catharsis than leaving him sticking on to his victims.

Again, this only works if you fundamentally change the story Hori is trying to tell. He wants Enji to change and be a better person. You can not agree with that choice, but if we're taking about stuff an author could have done better you have to try and stick to what they want the story to be. We still don't know 100% what Hori is trying to say because the ending hasn't come out yet, but so far Enji atoning seems to be a big part of the overall message of the story. If that is the case you have to try and find fixes that stick with that vision, otherwise you're just writing your own story, not just making editing suggestions to make the current work better.

[sangennaro]

So I just now read the Yudkowsky thing in Time magazine, and it really got me excited.

What if there is going to be an "AI apocalypse”, but it's not an apocalypse for The World, and just an apocalypse for The Internet? What if widespread employment of AI to optimize and simulate and auto-generate and increase and etc etc, what if that results in an internet that is many times more unpleasant than the one we have now? What if all kinds of competing businesses and governments and NGOs and NEETs, all without any kind of clear comprehensive idea of how their own activities fit within the complex and emerging whole, what if they end up stinking up the room, tangling up the cords, and creating an environment so confusing, hostile, deceptive, aggressive, greedy, shallow, etc, that people would prefer to disconnect and take their chances with a more local and physical experience of life?

In a way, it seems just inevitable that this will happen-- look at our most successful contemporaries, particularly the millionaire politicians and billionaire business leaders and their most senior functionaries: Overflowing with confidence, overflowing with strong statements and ambitious goals, always ready with hard statistics and cutting edge theory (from the most qualified experts at the most respected institutions) to support their ironclad certainty and bold optimism and unwavering self-regard, held up by television and newspaper journalists as exemplary citizens and worthy role models, the newest and youngest of their ranks deserving of a respect and reverence granted to only the greatest writers, artists, actors and athletes.

Conventional wisdom declares politics and business as our noblest and most realistic paths to a Better World and Better Future, but aspirational politicians and journalists and tycoons are the only people to be found who would even attempt to argue that prosperity is spreading. Further, the extent and acceleration of prosperity's retraction is clearly in proportion to the intensity of prideful rhetoric about our current crop of elites' achievements. It is obvious to everyone that our tangled political and economic situation rewards sociopathic manipulation of strangers on the grandest scale. It is obvious that contemporary technology (the complexity and ingenuity of which is held up as proof that we are the smartest human beings who have ever lived) is making people miserable and having foreboding effects on children.

All of this is to say, our culture's driving idea of Success-- and by extension the mechanistic models of Universe and Human Mind that provide the foundations for our particular version of Success-- is manifestly twisted. And the people whose use of AI will have the widest and most penetrating effects on our lives are all as deeply invested as anyone can be in this particular conception of Success.

I guess it might not be as easy to extrapolate where we're headed for people that haven't been watching the internet mutate from the second-landline-for-your-modem days into the obligatory-smartphone-on-your-person-and-online-24/7 present. But those of us who have surfed down this surreal seam know what is coming: all the commercial, impersonal, invasive, artificial, inhumane aspects of going online will be stepped up. Our screens will exhibit a new magnitude of aggression. It's hard to imagine personalities more fake than the tryhards currently mining for online Success, but when fully machine-generated content (produced by algorithms that simulate the work of a superhumanly fast hack writer: analyzing large amounts of material with a rigidly predetermined consideration of its quality, then assembling a passable simulacra of intelligence out of the most commonplace patterns--ie, clichés--found therein) becomes industry standard, the ig influencer and Youtube entrepreneur of today will seem like Shakespeare characters compared to the Johnny Cab content that will soon be multiplying like maggots on the corpse of a titan far too huge to bury.

The titan is rotting before our eyes, and it will stink worse and worse, and the same politicians and salarymen that presently pretend there's no level of odor strong enough to drive off a meaningful mass of their dipshit customers will keep pretending that's the case until it's too late, until the web and social media are not only places only a bot could love, but places only bots ever visit, a Potemkin Neom waiting to be wiped off the books by the EMP offensives unveiled in WWIII. An increasing number of people will go looking offline for leisure, community, discovery, and identity, and they will find surprises there, and opportunities for humane interactions that contrast intensely with interactions online, and the internet will be for paying your utility bill and looking up driving directions and ordering cat litter. Yeah, there will be news on it--- there's news on AM radio, too. And CNN, too-- which is maybe leading the pack, but not exactly an outlier, in the involuntary degrowth of our infotainment corporations already underway. Go back to the 1990s and tell a teenager that their town's malls are all abandoned or razed now because people stopped going to them. Or that nobody is buying CDs or even downloading mp3s because it's more convenient to send all that money to a Swedish CEO. The idea that this sort of mass abdication will, going forward, only ever occur in the internet tycoon's favor-- that requires (and is required by) a fanatical faith in technology, in the triumph of the inhumane.

Ultimately, though, the inhumane sucks. It will never not suck to be talked down to by a person who wants something from you and couldn’t give less of a shit about any part of your existence besides your handing over that thing. It will suck to a heretofore unimaginable degree when we encounter these people via cost-cutting automated puppets. And the more the internet sucks-- and the ecstasy over how AI will optimize the ease with which acquisitive organizations manipulate strangers from a distance makes it pretty obvious it's about to suck even more-- the lower the bar gets for a consciously offline life to need to clear in order to be worth the risk of retreating back into meatspace...

[lizardsfromspace]

Btw does everyone know that in the Left Behind books the set-up for the apocalypse is that an Israeli scientist discovers a technology that turns desert into farmland, and Israel uses this to become the richest country on Earth. Through licensing it? No. Through AGRICULTURE. Somewhere smaller than 47 out of 50 United States becomes rich off being able to grow produce, which is justified bc they can grow it fast, bc being able to flood the market with a lot of one thing fast means it's worth more

It's mentioned in one sentence that this brought about peace in the Middle East and then what happened to everyone else in the Middle East is just never mentioned, apparently. The only countries mad at Israel for hoarding miracle technology are Russia and Ethiopia, who nuke Israel over it. Ethiopia, famous nuclear weapons state. God literally reaches down from the heavens and destroys the nukes and the world doesn't really care bc it's noted that a literal Deus Ex Machina proving the existence of God wasn't front page news that day, since everyone has to be blasé about it for their plot to work

I don't know why everyone would know that, or anyone. I only learned it from reading reviews back in the day but it haunts me still. It's just proof you should write books around characters and themes and not as propaganda for secret codes you think exist in the Bible, which is something everyone reading this does already know, probably

Pointing out that the Rapture as a concept is a little less than two hundred years old - it's originally from the 1833 - that really buries the lede on how recent it is. Bc the modern evangelical take on the Rapture is from a book published in 1970. That predicted the Rapture would happen no later than 1988.

[akinformation]

Page 494

only matrix. I did it, however. I proved the existence of God. And this is very logical. Before you become God you can’t prove it.

But what do you call it? For now I am a demi-god of sorts. In the future. Work in progress. God on Earth. Spirit is God in a person. He wouldn’t be present if I would not reach this formula. This is the whole amount of the souls collected together in all past lives embodiments. All people who searched, explored, created, lived and died throughout this entire era of humanity are collectively collected in me. Throughout all these times God who is up above was raising me to become his successor in order to replace him and keep raising the rest.

I also understand that it is the same single object and it must be everted. And you don’t have to fly to all these planets, as I said. This is all here. As if you go somewhere, into a black hole and you get into a different timeline of this planet. You can go to all these timelines of this planet. Well, if you have access. This is how it is. So all of this is unpacked into different timelines. This is how I prove that there is a time machine. This is my proof and my formula of who the aliens are and what God is. Basically everything that exists.

And it appears that all people who passed through human existence, same as people who live now, they all had this significant event, like an apocalypse in the Bible. They lived through it with a new God and all new knowledge was revealed to them. They replaced those who were raising them and continued to raise those who will come after them.

But also what I see is very unusual, that the Earth is.. How does it work? Last time the Earth actually was destroyed completely. It turned into a Venus or Mars or some other planet, figuratively speaking. The Earth transformed into it in the future or in the past. And those people who survived with the Son of God, those people who will call aliens, they live in the transformed Earth, in the same place where they lived before. They didn’t go anywhere. They still live here. They have new technologies, new laws. But knowing the laws they can go back to the past and therefore another dimension, where this planet Earth exists. They go from their planet to Earth and interfere a little bit, guiding humankind all this time.

[hometoursandotherstuff]

As if the ultra rich aren’t aggravating enough, a Swiss company called Oppidum Bunkers, creates luxury underground bunkers for the elite. 

The 1,000 sq. m. (10,764 sq. ft.) structures are designed to go underneath mansions and are optimized for a super-luxury everyday lifestyle, while prepared for all surface threats.

Bunkers will be accessed through a luxury car garage. The airlock is guarded by 2 blast doors, with the outer door controlled by a multi-biometric reader that simultaneously scans face, iris, palm and fingerprints.

15 meters (49ft.) below ground you have the luxuries of home. It has an airlock that has been fully equipped as a decontamination chamber, plus an indoor garden, a fitness space, medical room, comfortable living and sleeping areas.

You get storerooms with long-lasting & nutritious foods. Oh, and you can use the unit in ordinary peace time, too, b/c it has 2 different air filtration systems (one’s military grade and lets in no fresh air).

No need to stop business- you have a board room. 

Oppidum takes an ‘optimistic view’ of the world, but believes it’s ‘wise’ to be prepared for unforeseeable and unpreventable events, so you can protect what matters most.

You get a freshwater, as well as, a saltwater pool.

In the ‘inner garden,’ flowers and plants are sustained by sophisticated automatic irrigation. Through full-light spectrum simulation, the sun rises and sets and the seasons change in the skylight overhead.

This is a secure gallery to protect art. The secret gallery is extremely secure, meeting the strictest insurance company criteria.

The home cinema. 

Diesel generator in case of a power outage. (But what if you run out of diesel fuel?)

It’s all designed for living in extreme conditions.

This is NASA level technology, according to the company.  Oppidum’s bunkers are available in the EU, UK, USA and UAE.

https://metro.co.uk/2022/09/17/swiss-firm-to-build-apocalypse-proof-fortified-bunkers-for-the-elite-17394338/

[whirlybirbs]

THEY'RE BEING NERDS TOGETHER.... OH POOR MOBIUS..

FROM THE VOID, WITH LOVE  |  control variable

summary: both of these men have a soft spot for you.

pairing: loki / f!reader

a/n: i like to think mobius genuinely respects doc but has now formed a mild attachment to her in the form of a older sibling sort of way. or maybe an endearing co-worker. anyways, time to diverge from canon slightly! this lovely gif is by @vought from this set right here!

[   MASTERPOST   ]

"Where have you been? I just finished telling him about the apocalypses—"

Mobius was just trying to eat his damn lunch.

As you saunter up to the table, files in hand, Mobius takes the now soaked salad that had been used as an impromptu visual aid to Loki's thesis and drops it beside his empty can of cola. He looks up at you, despairingly exhausted, as you place a hand on his shoulder and offer an apologetic smile at the current state of his drowned lettuce.

"What happened here?"

Loki is particularly giddy — whether or not that's thanks to the ruined salad, you're not sure.

Mobius waves the question and off and gestures to the seat between them.

"I take it you heard about his little theory?" Mobius asks, gesturing to Loki as he leans back in his lime colored chair, "I still think it's a horrible idea—"

"I think I might have a worse one."

Both of their eyes snap to you.

Your gaze flits between the two of them. You wet your lips, then you lean forward.

"I have a theory."

Mobius, almost protectively, snatches up his jet-ski magazine. Then, slowly, he urges you on. "Okay...?"

You scooch forward in your chair and place your elbows on the table.

For a moment, Mobius catches Loki's eyes softening at the sudden excitement in your expression — but it's gone in a flash and replaced by a more neutral look of shared confusion.

Hm.

"Every time Loki's Variant makes an appearance, mine follows, right?" you begin, gesturing between you and Loki, "Which got me thinking — there's a record of a Variant of mine using 'Time Technology'. You said yourself I help develop that—"

"Right."

"—So," you wave your hands along as you speak, "What if that's the point of variation. What if this Variant of mine is using Time Travel again?"

"It's completely possible."

"Right — but! You called Loki and I Reoccurring Variants Anomalies, which could also mean that regardless of circumstance, we're both bound to have some sort of synchronicity when it comes to variation."

Loki's watching you with an open expression.

"What are you trying to say, doc?" asks Mobius, rubbing his temple.

"We don't know if these anomalies are contingent upon one another, or happen because of one another."

Loki can see Mobius' confusion. "What she's saying is that her Variant could be trying to find mine, or vice versa."

"Or! No matter what, we're both tied to one another because of our bond on the Sacred Timeline."

Mobius inhales slowly. Your smile is bright — and Loki can't help but feel a little bit of pride seep into him at the sight. Which is laughable, of course. He'd helped you reach this hypothesis anyways.

"Every theory has an experiment that follows," Mobius says almost like he knows exactly where you're going with this, "What are you proposing?"

"Asgard."

Loki's brows knot up as his attention snaps from Mobius, back to you. "What?"

"Absolutely not."

You raise a hand to shut them both up. You then tap a finger to the cover of the dossier the librarian had grabbed.

"In the training we were given, it was covered that standard practice until the Gorsbach Incident was to blend into one's surroundings to insure a slower branch stability deterioration—"

"We would be corrupting the Timeline, creating our own branch—"

"That could be reset! It could work!"

Mobius' mouth snaps shut.

You sit there, hands out like you've just said, "Tada! Here, Mobius! A gift!"

But it's not a gift. No, he's just greying faster.

He's beginning to understand how you and Loki make sense. Turns out you've got a little bit of chaos in you, too.

The Agent sighs and slumps back in his chair. Loki blinks between you both, waiting for someone to budge. Mobius speaks first. His face is down, but he's watching your carefully.

"What's your control?"

"Me."

"And your dependent variable?"

"The Prince of Asgard."

"—Well, hold on a minute—"

You, without looking, crawl your hand over to shush Loki. You place your hand over his mouth for a moment, other hand on his arm. He rolls his eyes. His smothered protest falls on deaf ears. You pull your hand from his mouth but keep hold of his sleeve.

It's... endearing.

"If this Loki finds a way to interact with me? I mean, that's proof."

Mobius rolls his jaw. He looks at Loki.

You pull away after a moment too long and stare at the God as well.

The God of Mischief wets his lips.

"What're you thinking over there, Loki?"

"That I think it's ridiculous," he says, "And that Heimdall will know there's an intruder in the palace almost immediately."

"The palace?" you ask quietly.

"Of course," Loki continues on without a single pause, "If you were going to imbed yourself into a scenario with which we all stand a chance not being rounded up and executed, it would need to be during a function within the palace. Those, typically, garner enough of a crowd that we'd be able to stay under the guards' noses."

Mobius looks at you. You look at him.

Then, plainly, you just blurt out:

"I've never been in a palace."

Mobius, suddenly, can sense a little bit of longing in your voice.

"How plausible is this, really?" he asks Loki.

"If our dear Doctor here thinks it's worth it," he says, "We'll make it work — only if we try my experiment first."

Mobius just lets out a long sigh.

He just wanted to eat lunch.