#bc they don't use tech in the first place

[thousand-winters]

Morality problems with necromancy aside, Ty was extremely funny for his whole stunt of "oh, it's not a problem that we had to give back the book with the intensely illegal spells because I took pictures (:"

My boy was truly doing necromancy piracy on his smartphone.

[iceskatingmobsters]

I have learned a lot of. weird shit. in the process of researching for this fic. for instance, before normal saline, the fucking fluid of choice to rehydrate someone who lost a dickload of blood was milk, fuck you if you were lactose intolerant. also sockeye salmon have eight different blood types and cows have at least fucking ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY

[the-music-maniac]

Why is the daddy dom characterization so common with pre-nibelheim Sephiroth in fanfics. Does that look like a man who knows how to fuck, to you?

If someone does anything sexy in front of him, he would give them the Seph equivalent of a frog blink. That man is tired.

Lol jokes aside, I suspect for someone who has had his bodily autonomy dictated by lab techs and Hojo for the entirety of his life, he wouldn't be raring to have one night stands with complete strangers in his free time. Sure you could argue that sexual intercourse would be a way to regain a little control of autonomy, but I don't think it's likely when it would be with strangers that - not only never sees Sephiroth as anything but the famed legend (an image he doesn't like btw) which is likely accompanied by unwanted expectations of what he's like in bed, but complete strangers that could've also been sent to like. Assassinate the most important asset that Shinra has?

My point being that I don't think Sephiroth really had any safe space to explore what he likes for something like sex - and since it isn't necessary for his duty as a soldier, and may even count as unwanted distraction and vulnerability - Sephiroth likely discarded any interest in it entirely. That is, if he had any interest at all in the first place. You could also assume he could explore it with people he IS close with (ex. Angeal, Genesis etc.) but in those scenarios he wouldn't exactly know off the bat what he likes, or be self assured in any sense.

Trigger Warning (implication of SA/dubious consent): Of course you could also explore the darker side of this, which is that Sephiroth has experience because he didn't have a say in it, bc the company used him/trained him as an asset in this aspect as well. Which is an entirely different discussion to be had, so I won't go into it any further here.

And I think despite the suggestive shit that post-nibelheim Seph says to Cloud, his mind is not on anything sexual in actuality. He's likely aware of the effect flirtation and innuendo can have on people - disgust or interest or whatever would distract an opponent. Or he's just entirely unaware of - or does not care how else his words can be taken. He's a drama queen, but his goals have been pretty clear post insanity, and they have nothing to do with something as mundane as sex. So his demeanour after Jenova isn't that applicable (also we know that square Enix was like heehee we figured you would like this dialogue, so there is also that).

Basically, while I understand Sephiroth is a cool character for exploring fantasies (valid, go ham) - in terms of if you're trying to be accurate to canon characterizations, fics where he's written as a suave dom/top gets a bit of a question mark from me??

I feel like what makes more sense for ships involving pre-nibelheim Seph (including those sefikura time travel fixits that I'm mildly obsessed with) would be uncertainty. Here is finally someone who he actually feels safe to explore this aspect with, and it's natural for exploration to involve stumbles. And I don't think Seph would rule out submission or bottoming as an option in regards to himself either. Or switching/versatility. As someone trained to be objective or logical when tackling anything really - he would probably go about it methodically. So why not try it all to gather data?

What his and his partners' eventual preferences are gonna be is author's choice of course lmao

Also a disclaimer before I end it here - this post is purely because I find discussion on this interesting. If you disagree, or just wanna write what you wanna see, definitely do that and disregard what I've said. Fanfic is supposed to be self indulgent, so who gives a shit what other people think.

[just-jordie-things]

perhaps... #17 with megumi? 😳

threw in another bc someone requested them both and honestly they're perfect together <3

17: Needing To Kiss To Hide From The Bad Guys 38: Awkward Teenage Crush Kiss ___

there had been many times where megumi found himself wondering what it was like to kiss you.

were your lips as soft as they looked? did they taste like the strawberry chapstick you always picked up at the convenience store? do you lean completely into someone when you kiss them? would your hands hold onto him? would they touch his hair? if he were to kiss you, would he find a blush on your cheeks after?

yeah, he'd thought about it more than he should have, seeing as you were his friend, and nothing more.

but somehow he found himself in this situation.

the closet you find yourselves trapped in is a very small space, and he briefly wonders what the hell is supposed to be stored in here, and thinks you're lucky there's only a few coats on the rack because there's no way you could both hide in this space if there was anything more substantial in size.

it wasn't until you were closing the door behind you, bringing you chest to chest with him in the confined space that megumi is made properly aware of the situation.

"we'll die if they catch us, right?"

your words are panicked, but your voice is smoothly calm as you whisper to him.

being sent on a little espionage mission to the zen'in estate had seemed like an honor at first. gojo satoru trusted you two more than anyone else to try and sniff out the mole that had been consorting with curse users- the same curse users who's launched an attack at jujutsu tech during the exchange event.

now, you're cursing your teacher for sending you on this death mission.

you and megumi had arrived under the guise of meeting his cousin, mai. something about feigning interest in transferring, and then something about taking a walk around the gardens.

well you certainly hadn't found yourself in the gardens when you both ransacked every room you could for any kind of clue about this mole. you had been certain one of the staff had seen you in an office you certainly weren't permitted to be in, and long story short this closet was the first place you could find to hide you both.

and you hadn't even found a scrap of evidence that the zen'in clan had any ties to a mole or the curse users. they seemed just as in the dark as you were.

"we're not going to die" megumi mumbled back, but it was hard to speak with the lump in his throat.

you were so close he could smell your perfume, and he swore it was some sort of poisoned concoction, because every time he'd catch a whiff his mind went foggy along with all of his senses. including common sense. he once almost toppled into a koi pond after walking too close to you and breathing in that heavenly mix of roses and vanilla.

"we will if we don't have some kind of story," you whisper back, your worried eyes meeting his. "and quick. we'll have to think of some way to explain ourselves. we can't hide in here forever"

because that would just be.... awful... megumi's eyes are flying around the small space, desperate to look anywhere but at how close you are to him.

"we got lost" he suggests.

you roll your eyes.

"we were outside," you hiss. "do better"

but he can't. he's going to blow this whole silly operative because he can't focus. he's lucky he's even breathing.

speaking of breathing, yours noticeably quickens suddenly, your head turning to watch the crack of light under the door.

"footsteps," you mumble, before turning back to look at him with wild eyes.

megumi doesn't think he's seen you look afraid before, and it makes him panic, as well.

"they'll find us fast," you're whispering so quietly that he's reading your lips more than listening to you, and his focus is drifting out once again. "we have to-"

before you can finish speaking, another thought comes to mind, and to his surprise you're raising your hands and grabbing the few coats around you, sliding them along the rack until they're covering you. megumi's brow furrows at your poor attempt at concealing yourself.

"(y/n) that's never going to-"

"kiss me"

your eyes are wide as megumi's flicker between them in shock. at first he was certain he'd heard you wrong, but seeing the serious look on your face, he assumes you've just lost it.

when he doesn't respond right away, your hands reach up to the collar of his jacket, gripping onto it in fists, but you don't move an inch closer to him.

the footsteps are growing closer, and you can faintly hear voices. concerned voices. investigating voices.

"we'll act like we snuck off to find somewhere private," your voice grows shaky as the reality of your half assed plan plays out in your mind. "so just- just kiss me"

megumi blinks, his eyes as wide as yours with uncertainty. he glances down to your lips curiously, and he thinks about all the times he'd fantasized kissing them before.

sure, you could be the one to seal the deal and kiss him yourself, but admittedly you were too shy. even in the face of being caught and severely reprimanded for what you've done, even when presented a pretty decent excuse to kiss the boy you'd been crushing on for months, you're too anxious to bring yourself to move.

"they have no business traipsing around this home as if it were their own!" a voice booms from the hallway, loud and clear.

it's now or never.

just as your brows pinch together and you're certain you're going to get caught with no excuse, megumi surprises you.

his hands are on your waist, pulling you closer against him, and his lips are on yours before you can take in a breath of anticipation.

his lips are soft as he kisses you tenderly at first, as though testing the waters. but then his grip on your waist tightens in the slightest and his nose is prodding against yours as he quickly deepens the kiss.

he's putting his all into it. he supposes if this is his only chance to kiss you, he may as well kiss you good.

and good it is, you almost forget what you're doing until there's a jostle of the doorknob behind you.

you let out a panicked gasp, but megumi silences it with his mouth, one of his hands raising to the nape of your neck, keeping you firmly in place. you can tell he's trying to tell you to relax, and go with it.

this was your last ditch effort of a plan after all.

when the door finally opens the light that pours in has you both squinting when you pull away from one another. there's a brief second where you look at each other, both trying to take in each other's reaction before you're inevitably shamed by the zen'in clan.

and shamed you are. you're invited to never return, and promptly escorted off the property. it's embarrassing, especially when you hear mai cackling as you make haste in walking down the street. you don't even bother calling for a manager to pick you up. figuring out another way back to campus would give you the time to clear your heads, and hopefully move on from the embarrassment of the entire ordeal.

"well that was... regrettable" you shake your head and let out a huff. megumi looks over at you as you shove your hands deep into your pockets.

"it was?" he asks dejectedly, feeling another layer of embarrassment being added to his shoulders.

you stop walking as you turn to him with wide eyes, and you're shaking your head again, but this time with fervor.

"not the kiss!" the words fall out of your mouth before you can find the right way to say them. "the kiss was fine- good! it was great, the kiss was great. perfect even, actually, you're- you're good. you're good at kissing. you're a good kisser"

you're rambling so fast megumi nearly misses the way your cheeks bloom with a rosy blush, but luckily he's able to enjoy every second of your awkward display. his embarrassment is effectively washed away, and he finds himself smiling with pride.

"you're a good kisser too. great. perfect even"

in the moment he earns himself a smack to the arm for his teasing, but later he earns answers to his many questions about kissing you. you're eager to have the answers to his questions, of course.

___

a/n: ik the plot kinda doesn't make sense but i wanted it to be as different from the gojo drabble with this prompt as i could so i hope it was still good.

xoxo ~ jordie

[brwnbnny]

Sugar daddy older Chris who at first just wants some type of friendship with young reader. But as they keep meeting, Chris asks if you’ll be ok with having sex…

I think he’d a little nervous bc it’s been a while but he uses your moans as a signal to keep going

I def think he’d make you come at least 2 times…

Oh I just wanna fuck older Chris (imagine sucking on his hairy chest like a baby…)

💐

now i present- older!tech!ceo!chris... listennnnn

Older!Chris literally saw you at like a library event where they have a gaming/tech thing every friday and watched you from afar while you and your friends sat around and played dumb shit on your switches or something

Older!Chris starts asking you about certain things with the games because he too plays them and then you guys become bffs and lowkey yr friends r like hm. weird.

Older!Chris who invites you to his place but then realizes how weird that might be and states he just wants company and you end up going over

Older!Chris who loves your company and loves to show you different things- will blab about his tech stuff and then one day he asks if he can buy you something... wnd it's.. expensive- something you'd been saving up for that Chris had spoted you checking the price of it practically daily due to you being over every day now

Older!Chris who gets in the habit of just paying for everything- you guys getting closer.. maybe you growing a horrible crush and one day stopping coming over as much and this alarms Chris which.. leads to-

"I'm so sorry- if i did anything wrong to drive you away i had a feeling you'd find the situation weird and i absolutely get it."

"No.. no.. it's not that, Chris."

"Oh? What's wrong? Did something happen to you? are you okay?"

"Chris-Yes. I'm fine. i just...i started crushing on you.. and i didn't want it to be weird.."

" Ah, lucky for you. I sort of also started to, have further feelings "

Now your in bed with him. And he's letting you ride him first- knowing his size is... ah- a bit.. larger than anticipated?

Youre riding him slowly and Chris's hands don't know where to go as he breathes heavy and moans under his breath. you notice and grab his hands and place them onto your bare chest- manually squeezing your boobs with your hands over his.

"Touch me- please.. need more of you, Chris.."

"Fu-fuck.. yes goddamn it. whatever you want baby."

He's got you cumming on his cock like 3 times by now- your legs are tired and you can't keep yourself up but you want more, he grabs your hips and flips you backwards onto the bed, his heaving chest leaning down close to press into yours- the soft blonde hairs brushing against your nipples as he leans down to kiss into yours neck.

With him being older his body is much larger and stronger than your own, his body covering yours like a blanket while he thrusts himself slowly in and out of your soaked, sore cunt.

"Yes-yes baby... mhm.. takin' me so well..."

[starfleetshrimps]

i love star trek bc it's actually a high school theater production most of the time. We focus a lot on the over-acting, theatricality of the actors and the directors, and that's all well and amazing, but /I/ want to focus on the /TECH/ bc ASHAijnjsdnbhgaARREghghhuuagjkshdmhbAHJBSSHJHIEJBnkjsdjhbsdhjBmahbsjshsbHkjnswkjshsn yea.

FIRST THE SETS?!? they're so silly and stupid? i know they get a lot of shit but the amount of work (not to mention styrofoam) that went into building individual sets for each planet they went to? like sure about 50% of the away missions take place in the california desert (the arena, *cough cough*, etc) but the rest of them have individually made sets that look PRETTY GOOD MAN. they get the point across, they're FUN, and innovative, and they really don't reuse planet sets all that often as well.

PLUS they used traditionally /theatrical/ cycloramas with painted backgrounds and classical cyc lighting (reminiscent of mariano fortuny's domed cyc! i WILL talk more about lighting) which look really cool and once again get shit for being unrealistic.

it's not supposed to look realistic it's supposed to look cool as shit. and it does. shut up. <3

if you view the sets as being modern TV sets then yeah, they're weird, and they look sorta bad, but THEYRE NOT modern TV sets: they're THEATRICAL SETS FROM THE 60-70S. AND I LOVE THEM.

SECONDLY, THE

lighting

while it's true that some shows in the 60s were developing new lighting styles specifically for TV, remember that in the year 1950 less that 10 percent of US homes had a television. this shit was new. COLOR tv was ESPECIALLY new. nobody knew how to light these things! and actually why would you need a new lighting style, we already KNEW how to light dramatic productions, why would we ever need to reinvent the wheel Stanley Mccandles, Mariano Fortuny, and Gene Rosenthall already invented says Gene Roddenberry and Jerry Finnerman (the head lighting designer). and oh my god i am so ridiculously glad. because the lighting. is so good.

i HAVE seen others talking about how good it is in the super early episodes (Charlie X and the conscious of the King, etc.) and i do agree! but i disagree that the quality goes down. i think it just got a tad bit more subtle as the show went on and it gets less in your face, harder to notice. but i noticed. because I'M the WORST (and also a lighting tech)

the impossibility of listing every example of amazing theater lighting choice they made is absolutely horrific and nasty so i'll just lost some my my favorites:

the cyc! i mentioned before but the cyc they used on away missions was only painted when they needed a specific scene in the background, otherwise? that bitch was LIT. and i LOVE IT.

any of the scenes where they light spock's face have green and half pink? or even just washing the walls behind him? i eat that shit UP. the METAPHOR. the CONFLICT. i will acquiesce that green and pink are (and were) pretty goddamn industry standard gels (color-films) to add to lights, for subtle contrast, but this is not subtle. it is LOUD. was it purposefully done from a storytelling perspective? no idea. is it cool as shit and interpret-able as hell? absolutely. also sometimes they do it with just green when they want to emphasize his vulcan-ness and other him a bit. like they do it a lot when he's in his room in amok time. anyway.

whenever they shutter a light so they can emphasize a character's (kirk, we're talking abt kirk here. and *sometimes* spock, and also Charlie in Charlie X but yeah mostly kirk) eyes when they say something #Deep, or just pre-commercial break closure worthy line. it's so SHJSDJBFEJNKN. to add onto this, they'll do a striking half-wash over half of their face sometimes in conjunction and it looks So Good

The GOBOS. sometimes, they'll just throw light through a gobo, or wall screen, or something, for /visual interest/ and it looks so silly i love it sm. does it make sense from a realism pov? nO. but star trek is a theater production actually and they lit everything using mainly naturalistic techniques! amazing!

honorable mentions: the glowing time donut, and the entirely random colors in the hallway.

there are so many other examples but this post is long enough lmao. notice the lights next time you watch tos!!,! please!!! <3

[orcelito]

Being in a data governance class makes it so weird to watch the shit that tech giants are continuously pulling. I see them mass data scraping for AI training and I'm like. But Wait. What about GDPR??? Hello??? User privacy and right to access/correct/delete??? I know that's an EU thing but other places have their own data protection acts too!!! And they're pulling these moves that communicate such flagrant disrespect and irresponsibility for the handling of user data.

In the IT courses I've taken, they've taught us something that's really stuck with me: "Just because we can doesn't mean we should."

My data governance professor keeps emphasizing that as IT personnel, we will need to have a much higher sense of integrity than most other fields bc we have access to SO MUCH SHIT. IT and tech industries are so under-regulated bc of how relatively new it all is and how slow the law moves. But people in charge of handling user data should keep in mind that this is data about Real People, and capitalizing off of it is a violation of privacy.

But tech giants don't care. They'll keep poking and prodding, trying to capitalize off of users' data in order to earn as much money as they can. Data regulations like GDPR exist, but they don't cover everyone, and tech giants are more of "Do First, ask forgiveness later". Or in this case, pay the fines later. Bc if they violate GDPR, they Will be paying fines. And maybe they'll even change the way they handle the data... for EU citizens.

The rest of us are fucked tho. Tech giants really don't care. They just view us as assets to profit off of.

[wooahaes]

ok svt pokemon au [version 2] for funsies. this is still league stuff bc i don't feel like figuring out their normal everyday teams/jobs rn <3

starting off with the gym leaders. in order: vernon -> jun -> joshua -> minghao -> wonwoo -> jeonghan -> mingyu -> seungkwan

vernon is a bug type gym leader. i put him as the first gym leader because he's kind of the least competitive of the group, and chose bug type for him because i think he'd see the potential that bugs have. yeah, some kid can come in and wipe his gym with a fire or flying type, but he's here to try and teach 'em something along the way. i could see him having a joltik and a paras on his team as two little guys, with beedrill serving as his ace pokemon. while not on his competitive team, i could also see him having a snom/frosmoth as well as a pokemon that he's buddies with. i think his gym would probably be relatively straight-forward, no huge gimmicks, just battle his trainers and face him and he'll congratulate you on a job well done.

jun has a water type gym and is probably the friendliest gym leader to new trainers. he tends to be a bit laid-back and more of the educational guy, especially when he battles kids. i think his ace would likely be a quagsire (friend-shaped lil guy) and the rest of his team would be composed of a psyduck and a lotad. i 100% also see jun being the kind of gym leader who gets very involved with his own community and gets well known because of this. tending to gardens, hosting cook-outs, etc. i honestly could see his gym being a restaurant, if i'm honest? you have to take out his trainers/staff and that's when he'll come out of the kitchen to 'cool off' with his water types. man who tells you its important to take breaks, probably.

joshua comes next as a flying type gym leader who loves his silly little birds so much. the kind of leader who spouts off poetry and really plays up this airy, gentlemanly character when he's on the clock. outside of it, he's just a mostly chill dude who goes off to get drinks with the other gym leaders and teases them. his team has a swellow and a swablu on it, while his ace is a vespiquen that he'll openly admit was achieved with the help of vernon (to find a female combee). he trusts her with his life btw and they're a terrifying duo. i think he'd have an open-air gym, maybe with some flowers to really sell home the cozy, casual vibe he's aiming for. the kind of place that you can bike through on an average day (and he does).

minghao is an ice type gym leader who also plays up a certain image when he's doing his job. while plenty of people have seen his warmer side, when he's in gym leader mode, he's colder and much more calculated--a very intelligent gym leader to go up against. his gym either involves some sort of skating puzzle or for trainers to cross ice flows, balancing to get across to him. his team has a froslass, lapras, and weavile, all leading up to his ace: alolan ninetails. like joshua and his vespiquen, minghao and his ninetails are a terrifying duo because of their close bond. i think he's the kind of trainer who 100% makes sure to train a lot with his team so that they're all highly coordinated. unfortunately is very aware that his gym has been a tough spot for some trainers to the point where they've quit, but a very vocal advocate for trainers to step back, examine their teams and strategies, and use their own frustration as a motivator to kick his ass.

for wonwoo, i ended up going the kind-of predictable route this time of giving him psychic (because ghost is going to someone else). unfortunately, i'm also not original, because i still think his gym being a library is so fitting for him. it'd be more of a modern library with nice big windows and a tech center, and probably doubles as such with a arena in the center for battles to be contained to. his ace is a gallade he's lovingly raised from an egg. he also has a meowstic, xatu, and a hattrem who would likely have been his ace if his gym was a little later in the league (giving him a hatterene). all of them are nicknamed after literary characters btw. highly intelligent, very good with strategy in terms of battling. absolutely records the battles he loses (and wins, but the loses are more important for this) and goes back over them with his team later to see how they can better prepare for future battles. not the kind of guy to be competitive in the 'i hate losing' sense, but in the 'i want to be the best at what i do' sense.

jeonghan comes shortly after with his team of ghosts that do help him pull pranks on his friends. very friendly and very jovial for a guy who's gym fully leans into a more gothic aesthetic. maybe even placed within an old castle to really ham it up. i could easily see jeonghan playing into a vampire-y role as well, just to have fun with his job. his team has a sableye, banette, and mimikyu, with gengar serving as his ace. they're his little pals and he loves them dearly. there's a lot of stories floating around out there, typically from cheol, about jeonghan's little team of pranksters that he has pulled together. they, with joshua and his team, are the worst to deal with because they can easily get the drop on you either by not being visible or by swooping in via flying types.

mingyu is very high up in the league because he's one of the more competitive people, so he likes a solid challenge. he's a steel type gym leader who i could see having some sort of factory as his gym, complete with some sort of conveyor belt puzzle for trainers to solve. his team has a mawile, a bisharp, and a togedemaru. people constantly question the presence of his bisharp, but they're just bros and probably one of the first pokemon mingyu ever trained up. his ace is a tinkaton because of course it is. a reckless, impulsive pokemon that likes doing whatever it wants? he enables her and lets her pick out whatever scrap metal she wants after battles--win or lose--as a reward for doing her best. his tinkaton is basically his child.

and while mingyu is highly competitive, i think seungkwan is the one person out of this group that can and does beat him on a regular basis enough to have earned that eighth gym leader slot. man who 100% monologues about how he's tougher than he seems and is proud of his place. his fighting type team are his babies and he is 100% also the kind of trainer who's ace, bewear, has been with him since the beginning of his own journey. he loves the rest of his team dearly, though: pawmot, lucario, medicham, and breloom. all are pretty formidable in their own ways, but watch out for the synergy he has with that bewear.

as for the league... the elite four can be challenged in any order.

seokmin is the fairy type elite four member, who's chamber leans more into a fairy tale aesthetic, complete with him being kind of a knight or princely figure. he is absolutely the person who congratulates you on making it this far first, and says he hopes your journey to become champion doesn't end here, because he's 100% not going to let you win without a good fight. he has a dedenne, gardevoir, florges, and a galarian rapidash on his team, with a togekiss being his ace. like a lot of the others on this list, seokmin raised his togekiss from an egg and is very close with the little guy as a result. he's outright admitted that it makes him sad when his togekiss faints, so he's usually the first party member he recovers before congratulating the trainer on defeating his team. he feeds his team snacks after a battle while taking care of them. he 100% has a poffin recipe that he swears by, too.

jihoon is the ground type member who is pretty widely known for being extremely reliable and someone who's own dedication often motivates others to do better. his chamber is surprisingly more laid-back and cozy, as it's more of a place for him to let go and enjoy battles than it is for him to do his job. he takes it seriously, don't get him wrong: but battling for him is something he cares deeply about, he won't be a pushover, but it's freeing when he and his team are on the same wavelength. his garchomp, his ace, is his longtime teammate and actually the parent to the garchomp that seungcheol has on his own team. he also has a gastrodon, excadrill, flygon, and nidoqueen to round out the rest of his team. they're protective of him in the same way he respects and cares for them: he wouldn't be here without them, and he's proud to be their trainer.

soonyoung is the electric type trainer who's chamber is over the top with fireworks and a sick ass light show that he easily turns off for trainers who need that change. it'll still have fancy lighting, but nothing that can harm anyone. he's the guy who hypes you up and says he's gonna give this battle everything he's got, but also congratulates you if you've already faced jihoon (or warns you that jihoon's one of the strongest trainers he knows if you haven't). soonyoung's ace is a luxray, the closest thing i can get to a tiger being an electric lion. he also has a zebstrika, emolga, boltund, and ampharos to round out the rest of his electric type team. guy who is so, so intense in battle but if you see him outside of his job he's usually one of the most chill people. probably plays fetch with his boltund a lot.

seungcheol is probably one of the scariest dragon type trainers in the business. he's carefully raised his entire team from eggs ever since he was a kid, and that effort shows. to help balance the e4 out a bit, he tends to play a more serious role like jihoon does. if he's the last trainer you face, he'll congratulate you highly on performing so well this far and that he's hopefully looking forward to seeing you go on to face the champion. if he's the first, he definitely admires your courage to face him ahead of the others, since he knows about his reputation. his ace is his tyrantrum, restored from a fossil forever ago and his closest pal. but he trusts the rest of his team just as intensely: duraludon, dragonite, garchomp, and kingdra. yes, his garchomp exists to match jihoon's. if he could have matched a pokemon to soonyoung's and seokmin's teams, he would have. also another guy who goes back over battle footage with his team in order to better prepare for future battles.

and then finally, there's the champion: the future of kpop himself, lee chan. the room you enter is going to be the most elaborate stage set-up in the fucking world. he has fought long and hard to get to this place, he is going to ham it up and have his own fucking overhyped monologue that seungkwan calls overdramatic every single time he has to hear it. he doesn't stick to a single type, instead having a variety of pokemon. his ace is his tyranitar, and the rest of his team is as follows: metagross, blaziken, rosesrade, milotic, and blissey. like cheol, he's trained his entire team for an incredibly long time to have earned the title of pledis champion. i can see him with sharp looking sunglasses and a jacket thrown over his shoulders that you're left wondering how it stays on. if you beat him, literally everyone shows up to clown on him /j. nah but fr, he straight up tells you not to get too comfortable: he'll rise up to challenge you for the title again soon, but he congratulates you on a battle well fought.

and then everyone clowns on him once you're out of the room to be added to the record because they saw that speech. loser lmao!!!!! big dork!!!! what a dramatic NERD!!!! and he probably laughs it off because where else is he going to just be able to ham it up and be a big dramatic goofball

[forabeatofadrum]

Hello everyone! I'm starting it off today, cause I have a lot to say!

It is December, what the FUCK! This means it is also the start of the annual @klaineadvent, my favourite fic challenge of all time. Unfortunately for me, time is not an illusion and I didn't realise it was December 1st this soon and I haven't really outlined my fic idea, but I have started on it and I have ideas turning in my head. You can read the first chapter on this blog, on my AO3 or on S&C. Yes, I post on S&C. More Klainers should do that.

The 2023 fic is still unfinished. I think what matters to me is that I start on time, not if I finish in time. It also helps that I have the slight advantage of knowing all the 21 prompts in advance, cause together with @mynonah I made the graphics with the prompts, which was exciting!

But that's enough of Klaine for now. I am still writing my extensive Class fic and have six sentences of that:

“We use a shimmer to hide our true looks,” Quill tells him, “We have another one, but we didn’t know how to activate it. Tanya’s found someone who might help." “There’s a girl our age from Ealing who can fix alien tech,” Tanya explains, “I, uh, hacked UNIT again and found a file about her.” Tanya hacking a United Nations department, again, isn’t even the weirdest thing that’s happened in a while.

Yes, the girl from Ealing is Sky, but she won't be a part of this story apart from two references. But hey, she can manipulate alien tech, so she can probably create a shimmer for April.

[Tenth Doctor voice] Sssssshimmer!!

I have passed 12K words, which is insane and very unexpected, but I think there is an end in sight. I just have to write it. And also, in order to reach that end, I have to kill a big darling of mine, and I hate it. More on that under the cut underneath the weather, since I don't want to clog up people's dashes.

And now, the weather: @quizasvivamos @coffeegleek @caramelcoffeeaddict @raenestee @tectonicduck 

@nightimedreamersworld @urban-sith @you-remind-me-of-the-babe @bookish-bogwitch @confused-bi-queer

@that-disabled-princess @special-bc-ur-part-of-it @larkral @cutestkilla​ @wellbelesbian​

@artsyunderstudy​ @facewithoutheart​ @shrekgogurt @rockitmans @bitbybitwrites 

@whatevertheweather @shame-is-a-wasted-emotion @esilher @kurtsascot @blackberrysummerblog 

@nightimedreamersghost @ivelovedhimthroughworse @thnxforknowingme @martsonmars

Okay, so, there is a Class fic called Dear Matti by @bazwillendinflames and in that fic Matteusz has a younger sister named Marcelina. Ellie has more fics with Marcelina as well. I adore her. Matteusz having a younger sister adds so, so much to his character. She's basically canon to me. And because of that, I asked Ellie years ago if I could add her to my Doctor Who clusterfuck (A rip in time) and Ellie said yes, and that happened! So when I decided to write a fic with Matteusz as the main character, I wanted to add Marcelina again and I was going to ask Ellie if that was okay (hi Ellie if you're reading this!). I just needed to figure out how to add her to this insane story before asking, instead of asking it and failing to deliver (oops).

The thing is... I have come to the conclusion that she fits nowhere in my fic, and in order to get to the ending I want to achieve, I will have to cut her out.

Like, I have a very, very specific scene with Matti and Cela in mind, but I cannot find a place for it, and it deviates from the storyline that I have. In fact, it would add a completely new conflict that either won't get resolved at all (which is bad), or will be resolved in a very rushed and unsatisfying way (also bad). The idea is that Marcelina shows up at Charlie, Quill and Matteusz's house with the news that her parents want to move back to Poland with her, but without Matteusz. (She waited at Coall Hill, recognised Ram from an earlier scene, and asked him to take her to the house). The parents' reasoning is that the UK has made Matteusz gay or something and therefore they do not want to expose Marcelina to that and think it's in her best interest to take her back to Poland. Conflict, drama, la homophobia! In the end, Matteusz and Marcelina win and Marcelina gets to stay with him in the UK. How? Dunno yet. But obviously, this is a big thing and cannot be resolved in a few in-universe days, but I am also currently planning on ending the fic in order for it to not drag on.

I tried placing this scene earlier in the story to give them more time to resolve it, but that would throw off the rest of the story. I tried coming up with an alternative scene between the two of them, but that might lead to some plot holes. I tried changing Marcelina's role in the fic, but it all comes down to the parents' homophobia and that cannot get resolved in a few days. I genuinely think it is in the fic's best interest to cut out Marcelina's existence. I mean, it wouldn't destroy anything else, that's how insignificant Marcelina is right now to this fic (which I wanted to change with the Matteusz and Marcelina scene, but alas). After all, this fic follows canon and yes, Marcelina might basically be canon to me, but she isn't, which is why she has no impact on the story. She already exists entirely off-page.

So I've decided to indeed cut her out, and I am already noticing how much easier it is to advance on the story without having to keep her in mind, but I am also upsetti spaghetti about it. MARCELINA I LOVE YOU.

[broodingheroine]

tmagp thoughts (this will be pure nonsense I just need to write it down)

alice is so tim coded

obviously there's a connection anyone can make to the multiple statements abt urban exploration/spelunking in tma and the redcanary forum thread.... it invites the horrors (connection to danny?)

gwen is a ✨️bouchard✨️ (implication that while its a parallel universe the same ppl still exist? supports possibility of spelunking forum thread connecting to danny somehow (not actually super sold on that but seen a lot of ppl mention it so))

colin is definitely going to succumb to the horrors :/ (either first to die OR..... this universes version of an avatar?)

CHESTER AND NORRIS!!!

I'm of the firm opinion that they're jmart BUT! but but but! I do believe they're echoes of who they were, this just so happens to be Somewhere Else.

also! yes I understand that we most likely will Not get any tma characters in any meaningful way in tmagp, however I also believe that alex and jonny couldve very easily.... not...... voiced the text to speeches....... like yeah I dont think we're getting jmart as we knew them but..... come on

also also. the text to speeches got less robot sounding the longer they were reading and it really reminded me of how ppl reading statements would slowly get invested as they were reading and emote as if it were happening to them.

sam is on the archivist (or tmagp equivalent) pipeline already yikes

the turpentine line was raw as fuck. so was the canary one obviously. don't want to beat a dead horse by talking abt that bc so many others have already said it. but! the institute is deadly stay away!!

the sound engineering is god tier I love all the bleeps and bloops

colin knows smth is Watching. inadvertently feeding the eye by being paranoid? does the eye even exist the same way it did in tma?

theres definitely smth to be said abt whether or not robert smirke did his thing the way he did in tma and if anyone in the know uses the same classification or if the oiar is the only group categorizing. the fears always kind of blurred together at certain points so maybe without the human interpretation of it being 14 distinct entities it's more of an..... amalgam?

magnus institute is in a different place which is interesting. if it was built for the same reasons (outside of just research) is there another panopticon esque structure underneath? (brings us back to if smirke was doing his thing)

very curious to see if theres gonna be a leitner books equivalent.

I deeply deeply deeply desire a michaela salesa cameo at some point. he's one of my fav side characters.

sam and gwen using classic horror characters to help him try and memorize the classification categories was very cute

another thing I'm sure everyone has talked abt already but the whole world wide WEB thing and possible jmart in the computers and omg they're in the web and the oiar is part of the web and blah blah blah u get the image.

lena is intriguing to me. my guess is she's going to be a gertrude esque character who knows at least the basics of what's really happening and is trying to put a stop to it.

I havent seen anyone talk abt like...... what IS the magnus protocol. like tma was the archives in the magnus institute. the magnus archives. self explanatory from like ep 1. what the hell is the magnus protocol. is it smth fr3-d1 will run? or the text to speeches? is it tmagp's version of a ritual? using protocol to reference the updated tech from tma? is it smth the actual organization has to run in the event of Something Happening? WHAT THE PROTOCOL WHATS IT FORRRRR

I know nothing abt the ARG shit, just to note that

okay I think that's it for now..... feel free to discuss in the notes lol

[imaginespazzi]

Ok bestie, anon who followed up on Amoore reporting back as requested ha. I should say we are on a similar page, her & Kitley are very tough to get a read on. And a lot of the online chatter agrees its hard to judge and goes back and forth on whether theres something more going on. For those interested, I suggest watching their youtube ch series for a general sense of them interacting. Entertaining and light vids, not overly long. Really just little things between them here & there that add up. And of course a person can review their socials..

Now onto the tea I came across online. Imperfectly summarized the best I can below. (Allow me to stipulate that I have no way of verifying any of this, so please understand Im not at all sharing any of this to be presented as true or false. Take it as simply passing along the posting of others for conversations sake here in a safe space. Comments/feedback/corrections welcome)

:

Its described as on/off thing, first beginning summer 2020. A VT insider says people are aware that Amoore hasnt been committed, to put it delicately/nicely. Leading most recently to a break of sorts last Dec-mid Jan. (Added pretty sure they are together rn though. And another person did point out if Liz was getting cheated on why would Georgia seem to maintain a good relationship with the Kitley family, which is a fair Q to pose). But notably, a strangely long break in their podcast took place over that period and for the first time in 3 years they didn’t spend XMas together or hang around each other over the holiday and when podcast recording returned they just said “we had Xmas” and didn’t talk about it. It was also pointed out that sometime in winter, Liz had tickets to see an NHL game and went w Cayla King despite her and Georgia talking about how they wanted to go together before. Only sus bc it happened to coincide w the time where Georgia was speculated to have gotten close to Kate Martin. Then suddenly they K & G werent interacting anymore and L & G seem back to being “besties”.

Sidenotes:

Liz’s "2020 love playlist"… apparently someone has screenshots that it used to be titled Georgia. Includes some fav bands/songs of Amoores. And a tune called Australia Street lol. Lots of love songs predictably, but some breakup songs were added to it at one point (the comment seems to insinuate during the time they were going through issues)

They're friends with a married lesbian couple (Youtubers/influencers? The Bellaires) who they once visited alone.

Also, fyi, Kate Martin is apparently recently back w her last ex, whoever that is - per talk re social media activity

You're my new favorite person omg because this is my kinda tea fr! Can y'all tell I love some good gossip?

I'm ngl, I was never the most invested in V-Tech or the girls on the team, so I don't really follow them. And I was pretty convinced Liz was straight so I just assumed her and Georgia really were just really close besties.

But this checks out with what I've heard/read too, that they were in that "undefined" kinda place, mainly because of Georgia and eventually Liz got tired of it. I definitely didn't know about the Christmas or the NHL stuff but that makes sense. Also from what I heard, they were probably done for good now with Liz going to the draft? But still being together also makes sense. I'm so invested in this now omg.

[chevvy-ryder]

WIP Wednesday Whenever

Got tagged by @elvenbeard! ich danke mal wieder! <3

—

GENERAL:

Thought a lot this week and I set myself a goal for 2024: to be more structured with content for CP77 so I do not loose my passion for it. First I made a decision to only boot my laptop when:

I have an actual idea in mind I desperately want to vp. This used to be the case at the start of the year but along the way it seems I've lost it and instead only piled up my ideas …

in order of finishing a chapter for the 2078 story as some vp is to be added to support the written text (my friend and I share the vp work here too).

if I get asked directly by a modder to take shots for mods.

I just want to play the game ffs (which is rare in itself).

Don't want to force myself anymore to boot up the game each weekend, so that I have some content to post and keep up with this fast living fandom, as it produces vp and mods it feels like close to mass production.

I want to share quality in my content and not end up in just doing quantity. Which means I have to learn to stay more focused on what I want to create in the first place and one after another. This includes get less distracted which includs less browsing my dash and also be less on discord (servers).

So if you really want me to see your content:

a. tag me directly in your post (I do not mind being tagged!) b. send me a link via dm/discord c. use the tag: #chevvy-yates as I will follow this tag from now on.

Hope you understand my own problem and respect my decision, but I have to change something. The least I want is having you think I do not like your content anymore or I do ignore you. If you feel like I do, feel free to tell me about it! Sometimes I do not notice it myself.

Enough of that — now back to a bit content:

— VP/GRAPHICS:

I'll post this boy again tomorrow 🤍

and once I am able to push the button he will be back with lightning:

I reworked these two spotify covers for my two hc radio stations:

they look like this now:

Decided to place Ry's face into them bc they are made for him anyways. At first my intention was to stay more casual but didn't like the simplicity of pic + station icon/logo. Even tho I liked the concept with the chain boots a lot I've felt it doesn't have a reference to 'hell' and 'tech' as soon as I went to make the cover for my chrome chamber Rave playlist. Which lets me come to the next thing I sat down for a few days. I made a cover and moodboards for Hell Bunker/Chrome Chamber Rave:

SNIPPET:

a part of the Ryder oneshot I'm also still on:

His thumb keeps browsing his phone like it has its own life and a long moment later Ry catches himself now browsing his contact list. He didn’t want to call anyone specifically, also not around this time. He just keeps randomly scrolling the alphabet until he arrives at ‘T’. A smile steals onto his lips as he reads the same name, he spoke aloud prior, on his screen and pictures rush through his slightly tipsy mind. Long gone memories of his first clubbing experiences in Berlin. Back then he always had to be home around midnight. Both his legs still have some post-response to the last song he was raving to in the underground, making it impossible for him to sit quiet at all so he jumps up into a standing position and yells “I rave as fucking long as I want to—” There’s a long pause until he continues low “—like you always wished for me, Tommy …” Saying his first love’s name aloud for a second time now makes his smile on his dark contoured lips fade quickly. It’s the moment where Ryder senses that, after nearly 10 years, he still misses him. His thumb has already pressed the contact number and his hand moves up to hold the phone onto his ear. Ryder doesn’t think about his movements at all, his mind just froze in the moment as he moves mechanically. Only when hears the ‘Connection unavailable,’ it pulls him back from wherever he has been to. His right arm falls back into a hanging position, leaving him just standing there in the street. Deine Nummer ist seit jeher noch gleich, doch unter dieser scheiß Nummer werd’ ich dich nie wieder erreichen, wanders through Ry’s mind. Denn da wo du bist, geht keiner ran. Da ist kein Empfang. Ry’s phone is not the phone he used to have back then but he never cared about deleting any numbers at all and so they moved to the next phone and the next one after that and so on.

I tag all that recently reblogged me and those who come to my mind rn: @wraithsoutlaws, @therealnightcity, @dreamskug, @caer-oswin, @ @alphanight-vp, @kdval, @kittenchrissy, @gloryride, @rosapexa, @wanderingaldecaldo, @aggravateddurian, @streetkid-named-desire @imaginarycyberpunk2023, @pinkyjulien, @medtech-mara, @heywoodvirgin, @genocidalfetus, @ouroboros-hideout, @aggravateddurian, @ne0n-rust, @a-pirate, @breezypunk @peaches-n-screem, @jaymber, @lokiina, @shivsghost, @miss--river, @t0tentanz, @cyberpunkaddict, @cinnamon-mey, @spicyraeman, @fereldanwench @86maylin and @morganlefaye79 – also everyone who likes to do a WIP Wesdnesday/Whenever and as always and no pressure! I tagged more this time just to make sure u got notice of my decision in 'general' and that I intend to use my name as a tag now

[zoeykallus]

Hiiii!!!! I love ur work sm <<<<33333

If you get the chance could you do reader with an anxiety/panic disorder + platonic bad batch

Maybe with some snuggles from wrecker bc I love him SO MUCH <<<<<33333

Aloha! Thanks a lot! Love to read that! 😊 Okay, I'm not really sure if you want this as HCs or a One-shot. But it sounds like a One-shot, with all of them but focus on Wrecker? Let me give it a try. I'm not really a proffesionell, so I can only draw from my own experience regarding anxiety and panic. I hope that works for you. If not, I would need a little more details.

The Bad Batch x Platonic Reader One-Shot - We Have Your Back

Warnings: anxiety/panic disorder/Hurt/Comfort/Fluff

____________________

You let yourself be persuaded to go to the market with the boys. Actually, it's not a good idea, today is not a good day, you feel it in your bones, but you don't want to be a killjoy. Against your better judgment, you go along anyway.

While you stroll through the market, you concentrate on the boys as your fixed points, your safety buffers. But there's really a lot going on at the market today. So many people, so many smells, sounds, voices. It's actually not that warm, but you start to sweat a little.

Your eyes twitch back and forth, you don't know what to focus on first, you feel harried and lost at the same time. You constantly have the feeling that you are being watched, subliminally you expect to be grabbed by some stranger at any time. It's not a full on panic attack yet, but you know it's about to happen.

You feel helpless, trying to fight that upcoming feeling of paralyzing fear, but it only seems to get worse.

Suddenly, Hunter stops and turns to you.

"Hey, is everything okay?"

You force yourself to smile and say, "Sure."

His gaze is critical, but he doesn't contradict you.

"Okay, if you say so"

It's only a small gesture, and if you weren't so observant you might have missed it, but you see Hunter barely noticeably giving hand signals to his brothers. Like a ring of protection, the boys form around you almost unobtrusively, enclosing you in their midst like a shield.

You look up and Echo smiles gently at you. Tech shows you something on his holopad and distracts you with a few facts about the planet. Crosshair lets you nibble on some dried fruit he bought.

The guys already know that you suffer from these attacks from time to time, by now they know how to deal with it quite well. Wrecker takes your hand very gently. When you look up at him, he smirks at you.

"We've got you, dear."

Your heart beats faster with joy and relief. You take a deep breath and return his smirk. You are incredibly grateful.

Carefully, Wrecker puts his arm around your shoulders and gently presses you against his side.

"You're perfectly safe here," he says softly.

Touched, you say, "I know Wrecker, thank you."

Tech suggests buying stuff for a picnic or barbecue and going to a quieter place. You're not the only one who likes the idea.

That evening you sit together in the middle of nowhere around a campfire, the Marauder hidden not far from you between some trees. Over the fire is a rack that Tech has put together, on which vegetables and pieces of meat are roasting.

You are leaning against Wrecker's strong chest, he holds you gently in his arms. It feels wonderful, safe, warm, secure. The food over the fire smells so good, the night sky is starry. It seems like a perfect evening, it feels like the world is in order again. There is no fear lurking somewhere in the back of your mind, not now.

You sit back in relief as you hear Echo say, "It's okay if you say no, by the way, you don't have to go along with everything if you don't feel like it, dear."

You blink and look at him in surprise.

Tech adds, "We want you to feel comfortable, but to assure that, you have to be honest with us."

Hunter nods in agreement and says, "None of us are judging you."

Crosshair growls, "Stop saying only what you think we want to hear."

Wrecker squeezes you gently with a soft laugh and says, "What Crosshair is saying is that we want you to be comfortable, so you need to tell us honestly what you want and how you feel"

You smile cautiously and say softly, "Sounds reasonable. Thanks guys"

Hunter assures you, "We'll always have your back, never hesitate to let us know when you need something"

Ko-Fi (If you feel like giving me some coffee)

@rintheemolion

@andyoufollowyourheart @clone-whore-99

@brynhildrmimi @kaliel2310

@misogirl828 @tech-deck

@meshla-madalene

@chxpsi

@thebahdbitch

@nahoney22 @ladykatakuri

@darkangel4121

@ttzamara

@arctrooper69

@padawancat97

@agenteliix

@allsystemsblue

@palliateclaws

@either-madness-or-brilliance

@ortizshinkaroff

@andy-solo1

@hunterssecretrecipe

@heyitsaloy

@greaser-wolf

@extrahotpixels

@hated-by-me

@hunterxcrosshair

@malicemercy

@bebopsworld

@echos-girlfriend

@taskfork-archive

@cpnt616

@starwarsnerd111

[bloodgulchblog]

Alright fuck it, s2e1 liveblog.

I'm watching this with people later so the goal is just to get through it enough to sate my impatience, so I'm back to ye olde standby of watching it at high speed with subtitles on. (...Only I guess I'm gonna be slowed down by making comments, huh?)

Spoilers and uncharitable opinions and unfunny jokes will follow.

Not going to talk about stuff in the episode opener until it comes back bc there's not enough to say anything about.

5 minutes in and we're already doing whatever this is huh?

6:30 - Alright okay, fuck, Vannak took his spine pellet out and gets to have one (1) personality trait and it's animal facts and I kind of don't hate that. TV Chief is very unlikable but characters like Kai and Vannak playing the angle of having very youthful quirks bc having emotions is new is cute.

~10:00 - I have nothing to say yet about spooky shapes in the fog but I think this shot of Chief back to back with a marine is fun. Also I wonder if Corporal Perez (this character) will still matter 5 minutes from now.

Also looks like the foggy sword fight from the trailer is here, too difficult to get any kind of cap that doesn't suck out loud. I'm thinking about how I heard someone making a big deal about how Season 2 feels "less like a video game" (whatever that means), meanwhile "fog full of stealth sword guys trying to kill you" feels very very video game level.

~13:00 - Man, and I really thought that sword fighting stuff in the trailer was a solid indicator they were dragging Thel 'Vadamee into this mess. Hey guys look, Arbiter's in this season. 4,000 of him!

Additionally, if a bunch of people decide this is a ship the fandom owes me twenty dollars.

~15:00 - Congrats to Perez for surviving five minutes. Also, we're still doing whatever this is:

16 minutes in we finally get the show's opener. (It has the Halo in it now, I don't think it was there before but let's be perfectly honest it's not like I cared a lot.)

~17:30 or something, reminded once again that a lot of people are attracted to this actor

Also guess what, Keyes is an Admiral now I guess????

Do we think he still gets to get eaten by the Flood eventually? Do we think the Flood will even be in here? Place ur bets at the counter.

Anyway, they're basically diving into a big timeskip here where a bunch of planets have been glassed since last season (including Madrigal). This whole AU is weird to the bone in terms of how its timeline is shaking out.

Anyway anyway, aww here we go

"I'm not here to replace Dr Halsey, I'm here because I believe in you!"

Ohhhhh he knows all the Spartans' names already, ohhhhh they want the audience to like this mf so bad, they want it to be such a tweest that he sucks shit-

Moving right along, at 22:30 we have the Rubble having a crowd decide whether various refugees should be spaced or taken into indentured servitude, because of course we do.

tl;dw the nebbish redhead knows where Catherine Halsey is and there's a big bounty out for her and he's trying to use it as a bargaining chip to not die and everyone thinks that's very funny, also Soren is here. I guarantee he decides to go after her, but first we have to have a scene cut back to whatever TV Chief is doing.

Man I'm really noticing they haven't shown the weird ridged rubber tech suit yet this episode, I wonder if they decided to replace it.

Anyway here's Perez, I still think they want people to start shipping:

Then Jimmy Rings has a meeting with tv show's new guy they want you to like so bad.

Also he says "The O-N-I" like a complete tool. (This is how you know he sucks.)

And while I'm talking trash about him: Ackerson stop flirting, didn't they tell you nobody's allowed to be gay in Halo? Get your shit together.

Thus ends the dream of the funniest possible universe where we just had Cortana: The Show forever. Someone get the penny whistle. My heart will not go on. 😢

Fuck, I was doing timestamps, right? I'm like half an hour in.

THEY STILL WANT YOU TO THINK ACKERSON CARES, BY THE WAY, IN CASE YOU DID NOT NOTICE

They're laying this on so thick so fast there's no way he's not a shitweasel in this AU, but also that would be the funniest possible thing to me.

(If anyone ships this, the fandom owes me forty dollars and therapy.)

ANYWAY... Action figure time. (Remember to boycott Jazwares!)

Soren's kid is playing with a MASTER CHIEF ACTION FIGURE and being weird, meanwhile Soren's wife is calling him out on shit and reminding him that refugees being turned away is, you know, bad.

Congrats to Soren's wife for continuing to be the most unexpectedly sympathetic supporting character I guess, but they made Soren so unlikable off the 1st season it's hard for me to feel investment of any kind here.

35 minutes in: the Spartans are watching a space TV broadcast. They have Ca-ADMIRAL. Admiral. Admiral Keyes presenting the Colonial Cross to Corporal Perez for blah blah blah you saw the start of the episode. The shape of the ceremony and the hovering tv drone thing are obvious H2 references.

(Does this mean Perez is our Sergeant Johnson now? Vote with your phones.)

Get your face out of here, Ackerson, I know what you are.

Oh god there's another team of Spartans (Cobalt) and having adult Spartan-IIs call each other names like children is fucking weird.

Aaaaand tumblr is capping the number of images I can post here and I'm still only about half way done. Fuck. I am not doing this this way for Episode 2 I can promise you that.

(Also hey look the tech suit is back, I guess Silver Team doesn't use it so much anymore to show you they're more human now or whatever?)

[rollercoasterwords]

like. i still wouldn't want someone to copy and paste my fics into a large language model like chatgpt but it's not so much bc i'm worried abt my work being stolen (seems unlikely that an LLM would spit back out my exact words considering how it works, and even if it did, i doubt any individual would be able to like. publish and profit from those words, based on the nebulous status of copyright law when it comes to LLMs like chatgpt. and having my words fed into the LLM really isn't going to make much of a difference when it comes to corporations profiting off the tool in the first place; plus in instances of corporate exploitation i think there are more effective ways to organize than like...arguing for strengthened ip laws or trying to like make ip laws for fanfiction spaces). it's more because i'm wary of what that says about how a person is like...approaching my fic specifically + fanfiction more broadly. in two main ways:

1. i think it is just. basic respect to check with a writer before u take their work off ao3(or whatever fanfic-specific place it's been shared) and put it somewhere else. and like, this applies to lots of things outside chatgpt--reposting fics to other sites, posting them on goodreads/storygraph, printing + binding fics, etc. if u are treating fanfic writers as people who u are in community with, who are generously sharing a gift with u, then it seems like basic kindness to check in and see if they're alright with u taking that fic outside the space it was posted to do something else with it.

with chatgpt and similar LLMs specifically, a lot of people are wary because there's still so much unsettled in regards to how copyright laws might shake out, and most people (myself included) are unsure of how/whether our writing/data might be stored and used by these corporations that own the LLMs. i don't think ai itself is something that should be mythologized as like ontologically evil technology, but anytime a corporation is introducing us to new tech like this we need to be wary of where it's coming from and how it could be used--people have already pointed out a lot of very serious issues with the way this technology is being developed and how it could/likely will be/already is being used exploitatively--which, again, is more a matter of organizing against corporations than railing against ai tech itself, but is still a valid reason for writers (again, myself included) to be wary of having their work fed to LLMs without permission.

and like. sure, u don't have to care abt writers' feelings + boundaries and can just take their stories and do whatever u want with them. but to me that says u aren't treating fanfic as a community space, but rather a content farm in which fics are products that u are entitled to do whatever u want with. and i just think that's shitty! and if that's how ur treating fanfic then i'd rather not have u reading my fic at all

2. i honestly think it's a strange way to engage w storytelling by treating endings this way. like. story endings are usually v important + intentional, and can completely change the entire tone, themes, messages, etc of a story. i understand going to the writer and asking them abt what they had in mind for the story ending if ur looking for closure, and i understand imagining ur own story ending or even writing ur own ending to an unfinished story. what i don't understand is plugging a story into chatgpt and having it spit an ending out for u.

and like. maybe this is bc we've all been calling these LLMs ai, which evokes an impression of like. a sentient robot creating something. but that's not what these programs do! the first article i linked explains how they actually work really well, but essentially--chatgpt and similar LLMs cannot create new ideas. they can't take a story and synthesize its themes or pick apart its tone to then come up with an original idea for an ending. at the same time, they aren't just plagiarism machines that are ripping text directly from other writers and spitting it back out.

instead (to my understanding), what they're doing is compressing vast amounts of information by running statisical analyses to just save the most common trends, patterns, recurring info, etc, and then plugging that in to fill the gaps. it looks like it's writing something new, but it's essentially just paraphrasing already-existing information pulled from the internet. so i'd imagine that if u fed an ai a fic and said "write an ending," the ai would basically compare the fic to whatever similar stories it has saved and then spit out an ending that is most commonly found on the internet for that type of story. [not an expert here tho--this is just my best guess based on the bit of research i've done].

my point is--you won't be getting a new ending inspired directly by the story u put in. you'll be getting a paraphrased version of the most commonly recurring type of ending for similar stories on the web. and i just....don't see how that would be satisfying in any way. it seems, again, like a way in which someone would be approaching fic like a product, something that needs to be finished + complete bc ur entitled to it, rather than viewing fic as a piece of art with its own unique themes, message, and story that can't just be plugged into a one-size-fits-most ending generator. and like, i'm trying to avoid mysticizing writing as some sort of ethereal art form that would be blasphemously degraded by having someone plug in a shitty ending paraphrased from a conglomeration of various similar stories--i don't think someone creating a shitty ending for a story is like. a horrible evil thing. but i can understand where the satisfaction is coming from if you're writing your own shitty ending, where you get to come up with where u think the story would go + where u get to synthesize the themes u picked up on etc. but ai isn't even doing that--so again, i don't understand where the satisfaction is coming from aside from just going "well every story i read needs to be finished," which. makes me wary bc it just feels like a completely different way to approach stories and storytelling than i would hope to find in fanfic spaces, one that treats fic less as a creative place to explore and more as a transactional space where u are entitled to products.

anyway. feel like my thoughts + feelings abt ai keep changing the more i learn abt it + i'm sure they could change again, but rn my impression of this whole situation is like. i find the fact that some people are plugging fics into LLMs less concerning re: ip + ownership rights, and i don't think it's useful to exaggerate or mythologize abt what ai actually does (i think even calling it ai has kind of misled a lot of people, myself included). what concerns me more is that plugging fics into LLMs to write endings feels symptomatic of a broader culture in which people treat fanfic as an informal profit economy in which fics are product or content that a consumer-audience is entitled to, and i think that sort of approach leads to a whole plethora of other issues + makes fandom a more hostile space.

[leohtttbriar]

just curious, have you read binti by nnedi okorafor? i’m a bit reminded of her worldbuilding style when i read your star trek fics, if that makes sense

when i saw this i had not read binti by nnedi okorafor but now i have!! and it was beautiful and i really found the world-building fascinating as well as the rest of the story. and i have to thank you so much for bringing these stories to my attention!

i'm not going to claim that my star trek fics are like this bc that is so deeply flattering that i can only shy away from it (how is someone supposed to react to a part of their writing being compared to a quality of an award winning novella--i can't accept that fully but oh wow thank you so much), but i will say that there are details in okorafor's story that appeal to me and drag my interest and inspire me to want to write more. and i think if wanted to try to boil down what these details are it'd come out to something like: physical reality is more creative than the general narrative of physics supposes.

(apologies for how long this got--i am incapable of stopping once i start)

obviously the word "creative" invokes something like a designer, someone who put it all together. and i definitely don't believe in god but i also think that "god" serves as a interpretive interlocutor between how people expect physical reality to be and how it's beyond us--at least to people who aren't consistently enmeshed in theoretical physics or any other field/area of science that engages more with abstraction than materiality. and i love how okorafor takes the aesthetics of spirituality and extends that to tech. how she collapses the space between tech and art:

[...]

okorafor even invokes "god" multiple times, all in relation to the himba people that binti is a part of. and the way she reworks the theme of "innovation" is the expression of "god" in tech--creativity in material realities:

even just the suggestion that innovation and technology can be "small, private" and for "traveling inward" to explore the universe is fascinating enough--then she adds on this idea of "treeing"--of meditating so deeply on mathematics that physical parts of the world can "harmonize" with other parts through that power of mind and noticing and "inward" travel. it's wonderful.

she then has mathematics and harmonizing language with this conceit of "information" being found in certain material and how that material can be the medium of communication:

[...]

and that's not even getting to the way the red clay functions in the story and as a part of the world. the clay has information, data, and healing purpose, but the first time binti is asked to explain it to one of the meduse she says:

so all of this adds up to binti being in the right place and the right time in order to return what was stolen and save lives--when she says she's a master harmonizer, it's a layered claim in the story: she can create astrolabes, she can communicate with her edan--very old tech, she can physically communicate from her people to the meduse with the otjize she kept with her as she traveled outward in the universe, and she can use language.

[...]

i tend to be more interested in language as a physical gesture. as a thing that is wholly reliant on the body. i've always been more drawn to phonetics than semantics, and all the potentially significant ways a body can express itself. i just like meter and sound and gesture etc. obviously that's a part of how okorafor engages with "language" in this story but largely "language" arrives through mathematics--through something as abstract and rational and creative as mathematics--through a practice with "getting closer to 'god.'" and that's so beautiful in terms of the idea of "harmonizing," implying a peace and understanding between conscious beings that always exists so long as someone can tap into it.

binti's role in the story reminded me a little of the narrative/cultural role of the "peaceweaver" in early medieval poetry/culture. the sort of diplomatic conceit behind marriages of daughters to neighboring kings, but instilled in the actual person of the daughter/new wife, the woman who is now "weaving" peace through her ties to both kingdoms. binti of course isn't acting as diplomat through this cultural custom (the politics of medieval power structures are not really there to cause this role to exist to begin with) but the word "peaceweaver" is a word that suggests a creative engagement in material reality. she is weaving material together, she is weaving people together; the word poetically collapses the space between her abilities in a feminine craft and her abilities in her political role. and there's something like that happening with binti's "harmonizing"--her role as "harmonizer."

[...]

so despite the fact that the conceit of "language" is depicted as something that is an abstract truth that can be accessed, okorafor is still arguing that "communication" is a product of the person. so long as the person is not barrier-ed or diminished. so long as that person has always been able to communicate their self to the world around them, in such a way that the person does not keep that self apart from the world. "treeing"--engaging with fractals, self-similar mathematical patterns in perpetuity--being both the accessing of material truth and "god"--allowing for treating with other people. between people. with a result of cultural harmony.

with binti's edan i was reminded also of the golden compass in his dark materials. pullman depicts the compass as a piece of tech more than a piece of magic, even if magic definitely exists in-universe. and the way lyra has a special relationship to this tech, then looses it, then decided to figure the relationship out the hard way: binti's relationship with the edan is very like this but also okorafor writes it so that binti has already done the hard work of figuring out the tech, with her studies and meditation throughout her life (practices of her people), and by the end of the story she just needs to understand her understanding. and there's something about the fact that she is using "god" instead of fully rejecting it, as the story demands lyra does, because the relationship one can have to an object, a piece of tech, can be personal--and the personal is necessarily spiritual (the emergent property of self-consciousness, implementing an abstract meaning on that which might not inherently contain it--the "to be" rather than "not to be").

and the way binti's body is warped at the end of the story, changing her relationship to everything around her, mirrors the way she has carried her people's clay with her as communicative tool and personal expression and cultural honoring of her land and family and loved ones. she is still looking inward for the universe, it's just now the universe has become a part of her body.

anyway i was deeply interested in this story because i the speculative/sci-fi question that has most attracted me is the question of how biology and culture interact and how that interaction can produce something like technology or progress. it's an eco-critical question at the core because it's a question of how to be in the world and of the world while still not limiting the creativity that is as natural to our mind as any other part of the human body. it's how i read something like this novella as well as something like sir gawain and the green knight. it's like: when you're studying any aspect of biology, there's a tendency to see the description of, say, cellular respiration, and think, even unspoken, "who the hell came up with this. this is so impossibly complex. how does it even work??"

and the answer is "it works because that's how matter works. it works because that is how matter is. it works because it was inevitable for matter to behave this way in the conditions created because matter behaves this way and that is what is and that is it."

and so the "creativity" in that reality is not so much authored as it is the ongoing process of everything. trying to interpret and apply a culture that respects that is like...the project of climate activism, i guess. but maybe i'm getting to far into the umbrella Issue here. i just wanted to say that i loved this novella and i'm so so flattered by what you said and i find world-building details like the one's okorafor wrote to be fascinating and inspirational! <3333