#can only have 1 video per post so this one is in three parts

[mousemannation]

@/alexdeminaur | Work work work 🥵🥵🥵 | [1/3]

[spacegyaru]

DON'T LOOK AT IT! PT.2

your phone got lost for some reasons. the following day, the sex tape you made with your boyfriend (reo, hiyori, nagi, otoya, yukimiya) was all around the internet. how would they react?

cw: r18+, mdni! mentions of sex tape and implied sex. humiliation. somewhat angst and comfort. a little bit toxic, hyori is a s*dist! reo's parents don't like you!

a/n: this is the second part!! third part will be rin, isagi, chigiri, barou, oliver, and karasu 😌 i placed them last bc i think they're less likely to film one tbh

masterlist | part 1 (shidou, kaiser, bachira, & sae)

reo mikage:

to be honest, this guy is too decent to have a sex tape. but you guys ended up making two or three videos for two reasons— the first reason is because he had a one month business trip and he was out of the country, so you decided to give him something he'd love to see from time to time. second, it's because he wanted to get back to his parents for trying to set him up for another woman while he had a girlfriend, you. that time, he let all his frustrations out, bending you over while kissing your neck, jackhammering you from behind.

when your phone got lost, you didn't think that much of it. reo got you a new one. until one day, your name made it to the headlines. the video you taped with reo, him taking you roughly from behind, was all around the internet. the slicking sounds, the purple hair… it's all there.

you already felt humiliated by the public. reo was comforting you with kisses and even bought you a luxury bag in an attempt to comfort you. he also booked a private plane for the both of you to get away with problems for a while. his pr staff also tried to fix damage control by deleting all copies of it around the internet and tracking whoever posted it. he was caught just within the day. 

that didn't stop reo's mother from getting mad tho. while you guys were away, she called you to tell that you should stay away from her son. when reo heard this, he immediately grabbed the phone from you and tossed it on the bed, giving you a kiss on the cheek. 

“just stop using that phone right now and pay attention to me. also, don't mind whatever my mom tells you. you're the only one for me… and now, the whole world knows that.” 

hiori yo: 

this guy looks innocent. but don't get fooled. he's a fucking sadist. he'll beat that pussy up and he just knows the right way to do it. you'll have two to three sex tapes per month, and all of them shows how rough he could be on you. when you try to shy away from the camera, he'll hold your jaw so people could see how you look while he hits it from behind.

when your phone got lost, hiyori was the one who brought up those tapes. and he was so calm when he mentioned it, as if he doesn't have a reputation to protect as a part of a huge football team. the next few days, your name made it to the news and the video of you with your legs up to his shoulders while you were moaning his name loudly was everywhere on the internet. 

when you started being humiliated by the public, hiyori tried to comfort you. he bought you some ice cream and cuddled with you. you apologized for not taking care of your belongings but he accepted it. he even made a public apology to those who have seen it. suddenly, while you were cuddling, something hard poked between your thighs.

“oi, y/n. ya think that would go unpunished? a lot of people have seen how much of a dirty girl ya are, and i thought ya were for my eyes only.” 

nagi seishiro

i'll be pretty honest. this guy only did the sex tape because he was going to be away for a while to train overseas. and he only had one.

it wasn't even you all over his cock. it was you suckin him sloppily while he's all laid back playing with his ps5. your skirt was riding up your ass and only your face can be seen on the camera. while nagi's voice can be heard in the background telling how good you take his cock. his low voice is recognizable, and his moans were heard too. but what made him recognized the most is that you called him ‘sei’ and ‘seishiro’ in the video.

his management immediately told him to deny being part of that vid. but nagi refused to. instead, he issued an apology to the public. he'd rather take the blow rather than publicly admitting that you're a cheater. he even said that it was all his idea but did not emphasize how it happened.

nagi was pretty nonchalant about things. what's the fuss all about if the public already knew you were together? but when he saw how pretty affected you are, boi threw his hands to comfort you. he immediately bought some flowers and decided on a romantic dinner night— which ends up with the both of you playing mario kart or tekken. 

“i might look just cool on the outside but i'm kinda worried about you, babe. you need to get out of our room. let's spend some time together, okay? also, you weren't just fucking anyone. you were fucking me, babe. and i’m not just anyone.” 

otoya eita

this guy is another menace. of course he's going to have a damn sex tape cuz he's the type to parade all the girls he's rizzed on. so you guys end up recording your sex most of the time, unless it's a spontaneous one. 

when you lost your phone, you didn't think that much of it. until you saw eita looking at his phone for too long and staring at the screen. you thought he was about to follow another girl again so you grabbed it, but you saw his twitter timeline containing the one video you took with him a few months ago. you dropped his phone with a shocked face. 

you guys ended up arguing because otoya didn't take it as much of a big deal. you were literally telling him, yelling at his face, to make an apology but he didn't want to. he literally said, “why would i be sorry for fucking my own girlfriend?” you almost threw a chair at him. deep inside, he's just proud of himself. 

in the end, you ended up giving him the silent treatment, which for him, is worse than an argument with you. so he apologized with flowers, decorated your room, ordered a champagne, prepared a nice dinner— all that with rose petals on the bed and a fine massage from him. 

“fine babe. you know i hate it when you ignore me like that. i'll make it up to you okay? let me all do the work tonight and just lay on the bed.” 

yukimiya kenyu (i took so much pleasure in this) 

this guy is a closeted freak. he looks like a good boy but on the bed… he really does well. you wondered where he learned those things from when he looked so prim and proper. he loves to explore and recording a sex tape is one of the things that he wanted to try. you also agreed because you wonder if your boyfriend would still look good on the camera, even when in a pussy-drunken state. and you know the answer to that? of course he did. he looked very hot. 

when you lost your phone, the first one to actually worry is him. he immediately thought of the videos that may come out, especially your sex tapes with him. yukimiya immediately reminded you of that, but you were so complacent and didn't think of that possibility. well, he was right. and your names were written all over the social media. 

being respectful and having a good public image, yukimiya immediately apologized and let out a statement, telling people in detail what happened— how your phone got stolen and how it's suddenly uploaded by an anonymous. he even said that his management will take proper measures to track the person behind it and stuff. 

at the end of the day, what happened between you is a comfort-fest on the bed. you both snuggled together, while you cried in yukimiya's arms, telling him how much you feel humiliated. he just kept kissing your forehead while continuing to cuddle with you. 

“i know, y/n. it's an embarrassing thing, okay? but we're all just humans who make mistakes. we just have to be careful next time, okay? i love you.” 

[weather-cluddy]

THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO WATCHING MILGRAM (as of the end of the 2nd trial)

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

INTRO

What's Milgram? Milgram is a multimedia project whose central concept revolves around the audience judging the character's crimes. All of them stand accused of murder after being brought to the mysterious prison of Milgram, but were their actions truly wrong? Only the audience, through the medium of the amnesiac guard Es, can decide that. Vote them GUILTY or INNOCENT according to your ethics or your whims over the course of three trials , and watch how their lives change in response.

You can read a list of trigger warnings here. Who's working on it? The musical and visual components are led by the vocaloid producer Deco*27 and his employees at OTOIRO, with him working on the lyrics and composing half the songs, while the other half is handled by Rockwell. Teddyloid often works in the songs' arrangement as well. Yamanaka Takuya is in charge of all writing in the MILGRAM project, except for the novels and their manga adaptation which were done by Nami Tsumi. His works tend to revolve around trauma and people's inner darkness, and are often music-related multimedia franchises such as the Caligula Effect series, Utagoe wa Mille-Feuille and Boisterous Six. (Fun fact: the last one was prompted by the thought that if he made a collab with the Takuya Yamanaka who's part of The Oral Cigarettes, maybe people would stop confusing them. It did not work.)

For more details, check the wiki's Staff page.

How do I vote? You'll need an account for either Twitter or LINE (Japanese texting app). Then go to the JUDGE page in the official website and click on the icon of a character that's not grayed out. (If they all are, then you need to wait until the new trial starts). You'll be asked to give the site permission to use your Twitter/LINE account. The website should remember your credentials afterwards. You can vote once a day every day for as long as the poll is open. The general rhythm of the project is that a song releases, then another releases next month and the next one takes two months to come out. Since each poll lasts for three months, this means that there should always be two characters available for voting, unless there are delays or you're at the very end or start of a trial.

How does this guide work? / Usage notes Due to Tumblr's restriction on the amount of links per post, this guide will have three parts. They're organized content according to platform/format, but I also paid mind to original release date and overall importance to the plot.

I recommend watching all the first trial content before starting with the second trial. So, begin with the 1st set of voicelines, then the videos and timelines, then double back onto the second set. Everything from the Illustrations and Previews section onwards isn't part of the main game and can be ignored if desired.

I've added some supplementary notes and explanations when I thought it was relevant. Sometimes the information is part of a larger theory post, but please don't take the link as endorsement of any particular theory.

There will be links to the MILGRAM wiki, which is not spoiler-free. If you navigate to the character's main pages, you will immediately see images that spoil developments in the latest trial. This also applies to the official website's character pages. There will also be Youtube links. Since the suggestions can also contain spoilers, you can copypaste the link into Polsy to avoid them. You'll still get videos thumbnails when you pause or when the video ends, but from what I can see they're limited to the videos found on the uploader's channel.

TRANSLATIONS

Official Website

Character Profiles milgrammer (Click "profile" for each prisoner)

Voicelines First trial: milgrammer (Same as above) Second trial: Rochisama (Section: Voice lines)

A different set of translations can be found in the Milgram wiki. It is also the easiest way to access the audio, as old lines get retired from the official website and Wayback Machine is inconsistent in saving them. The quotes can be found in their own subpage, such as https://milgram.fandom.com/wiki/Momose_Amane/Quotes . Substitute character names accordingly, and keep in mind that Muu and Fuuta's names are spelled with two u's.

According to the writer's tweets, the prompts for the first trial's voicelines are: 1) Introduce yourself. 2) You're a murderer, aren't you? 3) Is there something you'd like to tell the guard (me)? 4) and 5) What do you think about Milgram?

And for the second trial: 1) To the awakened guard 2) Regarding the first trial's results 3) Regarding changes in the second trial 4) Comments on the first trial 5) What do you think about Milgram?

Loading Screen During the first trial, the loading icon for the website displayed the message "Sing your sins." When the second trial started, the icon was changed. Now it looks the same as the first one for a second, then morphs into "Doubt your punishment." You can see a gif of it here.

Youtube Channel

Teasers These are brief videos which feature the characters speaking sentences out of context. So far we've seen some, but not all of them pop up in the series itself. Some seem to take place in the past, so it's likely not all of them will show up. Note that these videos contain flashing lights, chaotic visuals and screaming. Translations can be found in comments. - First season teaser - Second season teaser

Voice Trailers These trailers have normal and glitchy lines. The normal parts are taken from the website voice lines, while the glitchy lines aren't featured anywhere else. Translations for the static-filled lines can be found in the comment section, and Rochisama also translated the second-trial lines in their website. - First season voice trailer - Second season voice trailer

PV Technically our first real intro to the series, but given the unstranslated onscreen text and the dodgy subtitles, it can be skipped. There's some concept art not shown elsewhere; A cleaned up version can be viewed here and here. The website features a lower shot of the same art shown in the last link.

Song trailers These feature short snippets of upcoming content: songs and one sentence per prisoner. You can skip this if you've already watched the songs and voice dramas in question; the only difference is that sometimes the translation is slightly different. - First trial - Second trial

Main Songs, Jackalope Videos and Voice Dramas In-universe, the voice dramas take place before the songs. However, up until midway through the second trial the songs were uploaded first and the albums (containing the dramas) would be released 1-2 weeks later, so it seems the intended viewing order is the other way around. The tracklist order also supports this, so I'll be using the song->voice drama order. ES and Undercover are special cases. Undercover doesn't seem to exist in-universe, with the timeline for this one being A Milgram Anybody Can Understand->ES->Website voicelines. For the sake of consistency, I still used the song->VD ordering, with A Milgram being placed afterwards due to being released later.

Lastly, some of the official English titles are different from the Japanese ones. I wrote down both the official translation, marked (EN), and a translation from Japanese marked (JP)

First trial Official song playlist

Undercover (Instrumental) Notes: Milgram's theme song and its first release. The official subtitles were changed during the second trial to reference the song titles, at the cost of being less accurate to the original Japanese: you can see the original lyrics here. The lamp that shows up at 2:11 says 御霊燈, "spirit lantern." This kind of lantern is placed at the house of the deceased for 49 days after death. It serves to both announce that the family is in mourning and a guide for the spirit of the deceased; fire being a way for ghosts to find their way from and to the afterlife is a common motif in Japanese folklore. The kanji above the scratched-out text reads "deceased." Text on the sticky notes on Mikoto's screen. ES (Text)

A Milgram Anybody Can Understand

Weakness (EN) / The Weak are Meat, Eat your Fellows (JP) (Instrumental) Notes: A theory post analysing the title and word choices used. Writhing of the Weak (Text)

Umbilical (Instrumental) Relative Zero (Text)

Bring It On (Instrumental) Notes: Onscreen text translation. Cultural context on lyrics. Braze you!! (Text)

After Pain (Instrumental) Notes: Onscreen text translation. Crying B (Text)

Throw Down (Instrumental) Notes: Onscreen text translation Moloch (Text)

This Is How to Be in Love With You (EN) / It's Love! (JP) (Instrumental) Notes: Onscreen text translation Love is Mine (Text)

half (Instrumental) Gouging In The Night (EN) / Night of Exposure (JP) (Text)

magic (Instrumental) Notes: Onscreen text translation. (Some corrections: "Happily supporting" is more like "Happiness-supporting" and "Weird Monk" would be "Mysterious Monk.") Apostle and Death (EN) / Apostle and Death and (JP) (Text) Notes: The odd extra "and" in the Japanese title is to make the title sound more repetitive. It's pronounced Shito to Shi to.

MeMe (Instrumental) Notes: The yellow sign at 1:28 reads "WARNING. This is private property! It's not a public dumpster! Don't just throw your trash wherever you like. Anyone caught fly-tipping will be reported immediately. WARNING." The tarot cards (probably) say "MIKOTO TAROT CARD" at the bottom. John Doe (Text) Notes: "Remember your murder" should be "I'll remember that, you murderer!"

Harrow (Instrumental) Notes: Summarized onscreen text translation (highlighted comment). Alternate full translation. TASK (Text) Notes: "Heh, I should be the one thanking you" / "Heh, you’ve gotten the order of expressing gratitude wrong." should be "That's not the kind of face you should be making when thanking somebody"

First trial closing video

[silalcarin]

Final Fantasy VIII has two option scenes that are actually canon

In Disc 2, it's not required for the player to put Rinoa in Squall's team to Balamb Garden. Instead, you can choose to send her with Selphie's team to the Galbadia Missile Base (which I've already discussed in my previous post).

If you choose to put Rinoa in Squall's team — which, as I stated before, a lot of walkthroughs on YouTube tend to do — there's an FMV of her being mesmerized by the view outside after Garden becomes mobile and she turns around to smile at Squall:

This FMV still appears during Squall's hallucinations in the ending FMV, even if you chose to put Rinoa in Selphie's team:

During the ending FMV, it doesn't make sense for Squall to try to recall this memory of Rinoa smiling at him when Garden became mobile, unless you chose to put her in his party to Balamb Garden.

Thus, choosing to put Rinoa in Squall's party, and, as such, viewing the FMV of her admiring the view, is the canon choice, because it matches up with the ending FMV.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Later on in Disc 2, you can choose for Squall and Rinoa to have a good date or a bad date at the Garden Festival in Fishermans Horizon.

The good date happens when the party plays Irish Jig/Let's Dance.

The bad date happens when the party 1) plays Eyes on Me/Maybe Yes, Maybe No, 2) mixes up the scores with two instruments each, or 3) mixes up the scores with three instruments from one piece and one instrument from the other piece.

During the bad date, Squall and Rinoa don't have a conversation about the future. Instead, she gets angry with him because she can tell he's not being sincere in his "effort" to trust the party more often, and she leaves in a huff (#1):

Or, he walks away and rejects her, and she leaves in disappointment (#2 and #3):

However, during the good date, Squall and Rinoa do have a conversation about how there are no guarantees in the future, and they find that they have something in common — they would prefer to not talk nor think about the future:

Fast-forward to the romance scene in the Ragnarok in Disc 3. Squall tells Rinoa that no one can predict the future and there are no guarantees, and reminds her that those were her words.

Squall's dialogue still happens during the Ragnarok scene, even if you chose for him and Rinoa to have the bad date:

During the Ragnarok scene, it doesn't make sense for Squall to directly reference Rinoa's words about the future not being guaranteed, unless you chose for them to have the good date.

Thus, choosing for Squall and Rinoa to have the good date at the Garden Festival is the canon choice, because it matches up with his dialogue in the Ragnarok.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

TL;DR: Whether you like the couple or not (I'm aware that Squinoa is still considered divisive in some parts of the fandom, mainly the Western fandom), it's better to let their relationship progress in a positive way — by choosing to put Rinoa in Squall's party to Balamb Garden and choosing for them to have the good date at the Garden Festival in Fishermans Horizon — because both options correlate with canon events and dialogue later on in the game.

P.S. — Shout-out to @ethernalium for your amazing GIF!

NOTE 1: View the screenshots from left -> right.

NOTE 2: I originally had more screenshots, but Tumblr only allows up to 30 pictures per post, so I had to cut down on the number of screenshots (and the one GIF) to exactly 30. Unfortunately, that means I had to cut out a lot of dialogue. Here are the two videos from which I got the screenshots.

[dapg-otmebytheballs]

Call for Submissions for Phanatic Phanzine

Opening up submissions for the Phanatic Phanzine! 🥳Calling upon phandom members, new and old, to share their love for Dan and Phil!

We survived the Dan and Phil hiatus, and all we're making is this zine 🌈

The Phanatic Phanzine is a fanzine project created by myself and @aaaaaaaaa-no to celebrate the Dan and Phil content and fandom revival we are seeing. This will be a digital zine including artwork, fanvid tributes, poetry, and personal stories of the space DnP hold in our lives!

The plan is to compile these fan efforts into a digital zine by Christmas '23 and present it to DnP as a gift. 🎀

Since we intend to share it with dnp we will not be taking fanfic or NSFW submissions but we intend to do another zine in the future for the fans celebrating the fandom itself so look out for that one!

Submit at phanaticphanzine@gmail.com

Deadline: 24th December 2023 GMT

Guidelines under the cut

General guidelines

The submissions will be screened for anything NSFW, and no fanfiction is being accepted. Likewise, please be mindful of the language used in written pieces. All submissions will be entertained in good faith.

📌We are also accepting written submissions and links through asks and DMs

We are accepting submissions in the form of artworks, fanvids, written personal accounts, and poetry. You may submit any of the media above but please keep in mind that we will only be accepting five artworks, two fanvids, one written personal account and three poems per person.

Submissions are to be sent to the email id provided above. Please add the name you wish to be credited with + any social media links to add, or specify if you would like your submission to be anonymous

Al generated content will not be a part of this zine

Any doubts or questions can be cleared via asks or messages on Tumblr, to either me or @aaaaaaaaa-no feel free to ask!

Specific guidelines:

For artwork:

Artwork can be digital, traditional, or mixed media

Submissions must be in the email attachment in jpg or png format

Old fanworks that have already been posted are allowed. For new works, please try to not post the full piece (wips okay) till the zine is released!

No more than 5 works per person

For poetry and personal accounts:

Word limit of 1000 words at most. Short notes with lower word count are more than welcome

All written submissions must be in a word or Google document, or written in the body of an email.

Anything posted elsewhere is allowed

No more than 1 personal account and 3 poems per person

For fanvids:

The video must be uploaded as an unlisted video on YouTube or similar video-sharing platforms. Videos that are already posted are allowed as well

Video links and a thumbnail in png or jpg format are to be submitted. The links will be converted to QR codes to present on the digital zine alongside the thumbnail You will be notified via email a few days before the zine is released so the videos can be made public in case they are currently unlisted

Shipping videos are not allowed for this zine, please be mindful of the same

No more than 2 fanvids per person

Adherence to the guidelines will make sorting much easier for the compilers so please try to do so!

To reiterate: even if you send in content that we cannot use we will engage with you in good faith 🌸

Please don’t be disheartened if your piece doesn’t make it! We plan to start work on a fanzine exclusively for the fandom (by and for the fans) soon which will allow content disallowed for this zine, so look out for that!😁

Help us spread this to others who may be interested!

We look forward to all your submissions💫

[krisp-xyz]

Found your work. You inspired me to take another shot at technical art and graphics programming. Do you recommend any specific resources for getting started and beyond?

Thanks so much! Really glad I could inspire you to do that bc graphics and tech art things are so much fun :D

(Also sorry for the late response. I've been a bit busy and was also thinking about how I wanted to format this)

I'm mostly self taught with a lot of stuff and have done lots of research on a per-project basis, but Acerola and Freya Holmer are two of my favorite channels for learning graphics or technical art things. Shadertoy is also an amazing resource to not only create and view other's shaders, but learn about algorithms and see how people do things!

While I don't have many general resources. I'll steal these resources for graphics programming that Acerola shared in his discord server:

For getting started with graphics engine development: DX11: https://www.rastertek.com/tutdx11s3.html OpenGL: https://learnopengl.com/ DX12: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/direct3d12/directx-12-programming-guide Vulkan: https://vulkan-tutorial.com/

For getting started with shaders: catlikecoding: https://catlikecoding.com/unity/tutorials/rendering/ the book of shaders: https://thebookofshaders.com/ daniel ilett's image effects series: https://danielilett.com/2019-04-24-tut1-intro-smo/

For getting started with compute shaders: Kyle Halladay: http://kylehalladay.com/blog/tutorial/2014/06/27/Compute-Shaders-Are-Nifty.html Ronja: https://www.ronja-tutorials.com/post/050-compute-shader/ Three Eyed Games (this one teaches ray tracing AND compute shaders, what a bargain!): http://three-eyed-games.com/2018/05/03/gpu-ray-tracing-in-unity-part-1/

I also wanted to talk a little bit about I do research for projects!

A lot of my proficiency in shaders just comes from practice and slowly building a better understanding of how to best utilize the tools at my disposal, almost like each project is solving a puzzle and I want to find the most optimal solution I can come up with.

This is definitely easier said than done and while a lot of my proficiency comes from just doodling around with projects and practicing, I understand that "just practice more lol" is a boring and kinda unhelpful answer. When it comes to projects like my lighting engine, I came up with a lot of the algorithm stuff myself, but there were certainly lots of details that I learned about from past projects and research like ray marching (calculating the ray intersection of a distance function) and I learned about the jump flood algorithm from a tech artist friend (calculating distance functions from textures)

Each new algorithm you learn in various projects ends up being another tool in your toolbox, and each project becomes a combination of researching new tools and applying the tools you've learned in the past.

One last example. I made a Chladni plate simulation in blender (that thing where you put sand on a metal plate and play noises and it makes patterns) and it started with me researching and looking up chladni plates, I watched youtube videos related to why the sand forms the patterns it does, which ended up being due to how the sound waves displaced the plane. I googled some more and found the actual equation that represents it, and used it to simulate particle motion.

Figure out some projects you want to do and just do some googling or ask for help in game dev discord servers or whatever. Lot's of research on a per-project basis is honestly how you'll learn the most imo :3

[thistooisphanyuri]

Call for Submissions for the Phanatic Phanzine!

Opening up submissions for the Phanatic Phanzine! 🥳 Calling upon phandom members, new and old, to share their love for Dan and Phil!

We survived the Dan and Phil hiatus, and all we're making is this zine 🌈

The Phanatic Phanzine is a fanzine project created by myself and @dapg-otmebytheballs to celebrate the Dan and Phil content and fandom revival we are seeing. This will be a digital zine including artwork, fanvid tributes, poetry, and personal stories of the space DnP hold in our lives!

The plan is to compile these fan efforts into a digital zine by Christmas '23 and present it to DnP as a gift. 🎀

Since we intend to share it with dnp we will not be taking fanfic or NSFW submissions for this zine but we intend to do another zine in the future for the fans celebrating the fandom itself so look out for that one!

Submit at: phanaticphanzine@gmail.com

Deadline: 24th December 2023 GMT

Guidelines under the cut

General guidelines:

We are accepting submissions in the form of artworks, fanvids, written personal accounts, and poetry. You may submit any of the media above but please keep in mind that we will only be accepting five artworks, two fanvids, one written personal account and three poems per person.

📌We are also accepting written submissions and links through

asks and DMs

The submissions will be screened for anything NSFW, and no fanfiction is being accepted. Likewise, please be mindful of the language used in written pieces. All submissions will be entertained in good faith.

Submissions are to be sent to the email id provided above. Please add the name you wish to be credited with + any social media links to add, or specify if you would like your submission to be anonymous

Al generated content will not be a part of this zine

Any doubts or questions can be cleared via asks or messages on Tumblr, to either me or @dapg-otmebytheballs feel free to ask!

Specific guidelines:

For artwork:

Artwork can be digital, traditional, or mixed media

Submissions must be in the email attachment in jpg or png format

Old fanworks that have already been posted are allowed. For new works, please try to not post the full piece (wips okay) till the zine is released!

No more than 5 works per person

For poetry and personal accounts:

Word limit of 1000 words at most. Short notes with lower word count are more than welcome

All written submissions must be in a word or Google document, or written in the body of an email.

Anything posted elsewhere is allowed

No more than 1 personal account and 3 poems per person

For fanvids:

The video must be uploaded as an unlisted video on YouTube or similar video-sharing platforms. Videos that are already posted are allowed as well

Video links and a thumbnail in png or jpg format are to be submitted. The links will be converted to QR codes to present on the digital zine alongside the thumbnail You will be notified via email a few days before the zine is released so the videos can be made public in case they are currently unlisted

Shipping videos are not allowed for this zine, please be mindful of the same

No more than 2 fanvids per person

Adherence to the guidelines will make sorting much easier for the compilers so please try to do so!

To reiterate: even if you send in content that we cannot use we will engage with you in good faith 🌸

Please don’t be disheartened if your piece doesn’t make it! We plan to start work on a fanzine exclusively for the fandom (by and for the fans) soon which will allow content disallowed for this zine, so look out for that!😁

Help us spread this to others who may be interested!

We look forward to all your submissions💫

[freyalise]

i play more gacha games than most people, by that i mean i play about three regularly full time and then occasionally i play genshin impact. i do think that if you want to play a gacha game, doing dailies is pretty crucial if you want to get all of the characters you want, which has its own problems. that being said, all of the gacha games worth playing are set up so that you don't need all of the top tier characters to experience the story, and if you do dailies (and by extension, the regular events) you should get enough currency to pull for all the characters you want within reason. here's the breakdown of my usual rotation

doing dailies in all three gacha games i play usually takes about thirty minutes per day collectively, because for the most part all of the dailies can be done automatically. like you need to set up what you are doing but the game plays itself after that. at that point i can just watch a video or browse tumblr which feels like more of a waste of time than my gacha games.

of the gacha games i play regularly i want to say that i've spent about $40 of real person money throughout their entire lifetime. i have never spent money on granblue fantasy. i've bought one battle pass and one monthly pass in honkai star rail ($15 total). i buy the monthly passes in arknights pretty regularly but i use google play rewards money for that so i'm usually only out $0-2 per month, with $0 being more common. that is to say, the amount of money i've spent on gacha is less than the cost of shipping arknights merch from china, and far less than the amount of money i spent on final fantasy xiv subscriptions in the four-ish years i played that game

i have most of the key characters in granblue fantasy and about 80% of the top rarity characters in both star rail and arknights, again primarily through just playing the game, and i was seasonal until i joined a crew a couple months ago

as far as actual time investment beyond dailies go, it's still probably less than playing an mmo. reading an arknights event takes about 5-6 hours because those are novel length, reading a granblue event takes about 1-2 hours because those are more short story length, and star rail story updates are somewhere in between. even so this happens like once a month tops with some misc gameplay events happening in between. like star rail just came out with their monthly event and it took me like two hours tops to finish it and even then i was doing it while watching youtube and eating lunch

i don't know why i felt the need to type all of this up because the people who post about how gacha games are dragging unsuspecting children into gambling addictions will never care or perhaps accuse me of being in the pocket of Big Gacha. it does feel good to get good pulls and all of them do let you buy more pulls, yes. but all of these games have some way of guaranteeing a character so it's not even really gambling at that point, just working towards a goal you've set for yourself. but saying that if you've ever had fun playing a gacha game you're setting yourself up for a gambling addiction just makes you sound like a weirdo puritan talking about dopamine being bad for you

[spicy--meatball]

ranking 550+ music genres: PART 1

i lied, this is happening before thursday. i plan on having this be three posts a week (tentatively wednesday, friday, and sunday) so i have time to listen to each genre and give my thoughts on them. i originally planned for this to be 10 genres in one post once a week, but considering how much ive written for this post im going to reduce it to 2-3 genres per post because im only allowed to post ten audios per post lmao.

one more thing before we begin, obviously im not a music expert. i make mistakes and am sometimes uninformed. if you feel like theres a correction to be made about something i said, i'll hear you out, just dont be a dick about it.

anyway, LETS BEGIN!

(1) 16-Bit

i used to listen to a lot of 8-bit and 16-bit music when i was in middle and early high school while i was writing or drawing. i understand how this music sparked some creativity in me back then, its generally whimsical but highly variable in mood.

theres also a lot of charm in the creativity that comes out of the limits akin to those that music-makers back in the 80s or 90s had when making video game soundtracks. there are sometimes other instruments, like electric guitars, more modern synths, piano, etc, but they mix well with the square, sine, and triangle waves used in this type of music.

that being said, while 16-bit is charming, it is not a genre i would listen to regularly, so it is going in the "i would not listen to this regularly but i respect it" tier. (be prepared, theres several weirdly specific tiers like this).

16-Bit song recs

(2) 2 Tone

based on the genre's name, i expected this genre to be similar to 16-bit. i was very wrong! this is not even remotely close to 16-bit. this is music i would expect to hear while watching a sped-up, comedic clip from the 80s of some guy who stole something silly from someone and is now running away from the cops. the audio would hypothetically be sped up too. think that one scene in A Christmas Story where ralph's bullies are chasing him down the street and his younger brother is struggling to catch up.

apparently "Our House" by Madness is 2 Tone? i hear this song regularly at work. that was a surprise to click on. though this song differs a lot in vibe from the songs i described while listening to previously.

i have yet to figure out why this genre is called 2 tone. i could look it up but that kind of ruins the fun of trying to form a critical thought. at the very least, i can say this genre sounds similar to ska. i still cant believe Our House is mixed in with all these songs.

anyway, "pretty good" tier genre.

2 Tone song recs

(3) Acapella

i cant be the only one whose only exposure to acapella so far has been during december when pentatonix pops up everywhere. its impressive what people can do with nothing but vocals.

i dont have much else to add unfortunately. "i would not listen to this regularly but i respect it" tier.

Acapella song recs

i love lady gaga and i appreciate the acapella rendition these guys did.

the tiers themselves as well as my rankings of each genre are subject to change as i see fit, but this is how it stands as of now. stay tuned for the next post!

[hotasfahrenheit]

So you wanna get into NCT, eh?

Part 3 - NCT 127 - More MVs and Social Media Links

Oh hey I'm finally back. It's been more than a day but life happens and it's only been like two days... or so? (it's been three) but let's get back into this!

So last time we covered a little bit about the members of the group and then I linked some MVs. I realised something I could have done there was link some social media accounts so let's do that!

There are general accounts for NCT on most of the big social media services such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. There are also accounts for all of the subgroups, so NCT 127 does have their own accounts on all of those as well. I feel like the Youtube content deserves its own post so I'll get to that but 127 does have a Youtube channel as well.

The individual members share things like the Twitter and Instagram accounts on and off, taking turns sometimes to post on there, tho most posts are from the company. Facebook gets posts from the company and not from individuals very often. The boys do all have their own Instagram accounts tho, and they also all use Bubble to varying degrees, which is an app which a lot of kpop groups use where fans can pay to access special posts from idols that include text posts, pictures, voice recordings, etc. I have never been a Bubble user, but I follow everyone on Instagram so here's all of those:

Taeil | Taeyong | Johnny | Yuta | Doyoung | Jaehyun | Winwin | Jungwoo | Mark | Haechan

You can use those to become more familiar with the members and see some of the nonsense they get up to. Some of them post often and some post almost never so your mileage may vary with them as a tool, but I'm a sucker for personal social media accounts so I'm clearly following those all.

It's also worth throwing out there since I skipped talking about positions last time that Taeyong is the leader of both NCT 127 and also of NCT in general. He's also a main rapper, main dancer, visual, center, helps write and produce music and has since The 7th Sense was released, etc etc, you name it, he's probably done the thing. He's ridiculously talented, basically. (They all are.) I could list everyone's positions but there's tons of wiki pages and etc with those kinds of lists and I find them to be less helpful when you have a group like NCT where everyone kinda does everything a lot of the time and has multiple talents and jobs since the rappers might be singing or the vocalists might be rapping depending on the song and literally everyone is a visual etc. But that's part of why you might be noticing that Taeyong is front and center like... a lot. Very often. He's recognisable and has a distinctive voice and being the leader is a good extra excuse to focus on him.

Anyway, let's get back to the music! I somehow managed to come up with ten more videos to link to hit the max per post so you're getting another full variety tasting of 127's style and range with a special treat at the end.

Favorite (Oct 25, 2021) was the lead single from the repackage of Sticker and was not quite as divisive as Sticker but still a bit weird. Released right before Halloween, there's a whole vampire concept going on (GREAT) and the MV and live stage performances all have a weird electronic dance break 2 1/2 minutes in (BAD) that I am PLEASED TO TELL YOU is not part of the song on the actual album. The first time I watched the MV it threw me for such a hard loop that I almost hated disliked the song but when I listened to the album later on spotify I was like "wait it's gone!!!! it was all just a bad dream!!!" and I try to forget it until I do something like watch the MV to make a post like this.

We're gonna mix in some of 127's Japanese releases today starting with their first one, Chain (May 8, 2018) off their first Japanese mini album. Despite NCT's initial plan to have groups based in different countries and markets, they are still now in early 2024 only ABOUT to have their first Japan-centric subunit debut, which means that they've just been having 127 (and Dream) release some stuff in Japanese in the meantime. It helps that they have a Japanese member. Anyway Chain is just a great song so here it is.

gimme gimme (Feb 15, 2021) suffers a little from the eternal problem of kpop songs even in primarily Japanese having some.... wild? English lyrics (spicy disease? dead clowns? who wrote these lyrics? why did their native English speakers go along with this?) but despite the nonsense it's a catchy, mesmerizing earworm of a song with a tight MV with a lot of neat cuts and transitions and I have watched it VERY MANY times. I love it. Spicy disease and all.

In the first main NCT intro post I included WayV's version of Regular (October 8, 2018) and linked both this and the Korean version. I was going to include the Korean version and just link the English here since the Korean one is the one that I personally listen to the most, but then I noticed that the English version has like 66 million more views so I decided to reverse that and you get the English one. Anyway. All versions of Regular are great and the English version has some great weird lyrics too ("I be walking with the cheese that's the queso" is like... ultimate. Incredible. A+. How did Jaehyun record that without laughing? Legendary.). It's also, with Simon Says, one of the only MVs that has all ten members of NCT 127. It also has a CGI tiger, shiny cars, rockets going off, Winwin jumping off a building, there's just a lot going on.

Sliding back to Japan for a minute, I feel like I should include Wakey Wakey (March 18, 2019). I almost forget this song exists sometimes and I think it's because I just want to block out having seen the absolutely terrible wig they put on Johnny for this MV. Seriously why? The song itself is solidly in the weird but also very catchy lane that 127 does so well but I just keep thinking about the wig. Johnny had some long extensions for NCT 2020 that looked great on him, but this wig was just not it. My eyes are drawn to it every time he's on screen. I need to put this into my regular listening-only playlists and let my brain block that wig out the way I forget the dance break in Favorite exists.

127 started 2023 off with Ay-Yo (Jan 30, 2023) which was the (somewhat delayed) repackage of 2 Baddies, which we'll get to in a moment. I wasn't sure what to think of Ay-Yo at first but it has definitely grown on me despite having veered back into some questionable hair territory mainly for Taeyong (and I say that as a grown up late 90s punk kid who thought giant hair spikes were cool). The MV has some absolutely wild visuals mixed in, and the song is definitely outside of the realm of standard kpop releases even if it's not as weird as some others like Sticker. It's solid.

Okay so. Like. I honestly didn't really pay enough attention to the general reactions to 2 Baddies (Sep 15, 2022) to tell you how divisive this song was to most people, but it split one of my group chats VERY strongly and one of my friends has refused to listen to any 127 releases since then because she hates this song so much. I tried to get her with Fact Check at the very least and she's so anti this song that she still refused and I may have lost her on 127 altogether 🤣 It's mainly the chorus that she dislikes, and I'm a little back and forth on it myself sometimes honestly but also I have absolutely BLASTED this song while driving down the highway so it feels kinda like a guilty pleasure song sometimes. If you ignore the chorus the other parts of the song are so goooooooood and no one can deny that the last part of the bridge slaps. Plus there's a whole lot of shirtless Johnny and Yuta which you can never go wrong with.

Touch (Mar 13, 2018) is a little off from the style of kpop that I listen to regularly since it's a bit more in the bubbly poppy side of things that I don't always go for but the vibes are immaculate and everyone looks so happy in the MV and there's fuzzy sweaters and everyone smiles so much? It's hard to not love it. It's fluff and cheery and delightful.

I don't know if SM actually started the "track video" trend (short MVs that have an edited, cut down version of a song so they cost less to produce than a full MV- Lemonade is 3:10 on the Sticker/Favorite album, but this track video is 2:01 for instance) but they love doing them with NCT, and despite Lemonade (Sep 9, 2021) definitely deserving a full MV, since it wasn't the lead single it didn't get one but it did at least get a track video and was performed a lot on the music shows when they were promoting Sticker. It's catchy and has some clever work in the full version lyrics that involve titles of other NCT 127 songs and I've listened to it as much as or possibly more than Sticker.

I've covered all of the lead singles and there ARE some other track videos or special release songs like the recent Be There For Me that I could be using the last slot for but you know what? We're gonna go fully off the expected path and include Let's Shut Up & Dance (Feb 21, 2019) instead because it's wild and fun. 127 doesn't do much besides sing part of the chorus and do a bunch of dancing in this (on the ceiling? on the walls? in an alley?) but like. Lay is here too and the song is SO fun and an absolute bop so that's what we're closing this post out with.

So that wraps the NCT 127 music videos! I'm thinking the next post and the last of the 127 centric ones will be a guide to some of their Youtube content, since there's a whole lot, and that'll kinda set up expectations for the posts about Dream and WayV as well when we get to them. I think after I get through the main posts of MVs and content for all of the sub-units that I might do some special posts of performance videos for songs that don't have MVs just to get some of those out there, or I might just post a bunch of links to them. We'll see how I'm feeling and if my audience of like two or three people has any kind of preference (that's you, hey, yeah you, lemme know what you want from me).

This post is the third in a series of posts introducing new fans to NCT in a way that makes sense, by getting familiar with one subgroup at a time before moving on to the next. Linked down at the bottom is the intro post, and the rest will be linked as they're added.

Dedicated as ever to @catatonicrainbow and @poetry-protest-pornography 💖

[So you wanna get into NCT eh? 1 | 2 | 3]

[yaboisorzoi]

Square Enix Should Apologize To Deck Nine - And By Extension, Us - For How Terribly They Squeezed On the Life is Strange Remaster

Okay so I know it's old hat to say that the Life is Strange Remasters are… not good.

Everyone and their dog knows that at this point.

But I want to talk a bit about WHY they're so bad. And how it isn't Deck Nine's fault they are as bad as they are.

I've just finished my playthrough of Before the Storm on the Remaster, and while it is definitely a downgrade from the original release, it wasn't terrible. The new character textures are fantastic, the new meshes are impressive, the lighting changes are… fine. I only ever had one or two audio lines drop per episode, and the subtitles would commonly lag behind a full sentence but it was never too bad and was always worth a laugh.

But then I got to the Farewell DLC, and oh my god. It is just unplayable. Like, I straight-up gave up and just bought the Farewell DLC for the base game.

At the top of this post is a video excerpt of the straw that broke the camel's back.

I regret throwing Deck Nine under the bus in the video's editing. I was so frustrated at the time, though!

So let's talk about how we got here.

The development of these remasters was done while True Colors was still in development. They released 4 months after True Colors' release, and I have heard that the original goal was to have them all release at the same time.

Which is an absolutely absurd mandate for Square Enix to push. Like, just think about it for a minute.

Life is Strange 1 is about double the length of True Colors. Before the Storm is about the same length as True Colors. And while Deck Nine didn't have to write and build the games from scratch, the remasters still involved engine upgrades (Life is Strange is a heavily-modified UE3 game; Life is Strange Remastered is on UE4.23; Before the Storm was similarly upgraded to what was at the time the latest version of Unity for the remaster).

Beyond that, Deck Nine also upgraded character face textures and character outfit meshes (and for some reason remodeled the characters' noses; I don't know why…). None of which is to mention how, in order to apply the mocap facial animation upgrade to the base Life is Strange, they had to effectively rerecord all of the dialogue for the game - and then throw out the audio, to keep only the facial animation data.

Top is Life is Strange Remastered, bottom is original. Note how much higher-poly the outfit is, and how things like Chloe's tear or her bra are actually fully modeled now.

All of which is to say, they had to do a lot of work for these remasters. And Square Enix expected them to do all this work while working on True Colors? For games that equate to 1.5x the length of True Colors? Effectively working on 2.5 games within 1 dev cycle?

When playing through the remasters, you can clearly see what Square Enix's priorities were. Life is Strange is the star child, the one that launched this whole franchise (read: money machine for Square Enix) and is the fan-beloved. It very clearly got top priority from Square Enix, and Deck Nine very clearly spent the most time and money on it.

Next up was Before the Storm, and by the time you get to Farewell, it is clear that we're scraping the bottom of the barrel. Farewell was Square Enix's last concern, and Deck Nine had to work with the dregs of what was left of their time and budget to remaster it. And it very clearly shows.

The absolute worst part of this all to me, though, is that of these three games (I am counting Farewell as its own game, given how it is a DLC expansion that was made in a separate development cycle from the rest of Before the Storm), two of them are Deck Nine's own babies. And of these three games, only one of them was given priority by Square Enix.

I can't even imagine how terrible it must've felt for Deck Nine, being forced by Square Enix to release their own games in Before the Storm and especially Farewell in such a broken state. To have to effectively cripple their own children, while fawning over their step-daughter brought into the marriage that is Life is Strange (developed by dontnod).

Obviously we're not going to actually get Square Enix to ever apologize to Deck Nine, and I doubt Deck Nine will ever be given the resources to properly fix Before the Storm and Farewell.

But dammit, the injustice on display is so apparent and so egregious, I just have to scream about it.

I hope I'm not alone in feeling this way. That the terrible state of the remasters is Square Enix's fault, not Deck Nine's. That Deck Nine deserved better than how Square Enix treated them on these remasters. And that, through extension of the sorry, broken state these remasters were released in, we the players and fans of these games deserve better than what Square Enix forced out the door on us.

Fresh out of giving up on the Farewell Remaster, I was upset. But now, thinking about it, about all the things that had to go wrong to get us to this point?

I'm just disgusted.

Shame on you, Square Enix. And I'm sorry, Deck Nine.

[bakingneoriche]

Kaz I gotta go, snacks are ready // Onigiri

While on a phone call in episode 2 Kaz is cutoff by Mr. Saint Tessoro due to 'snacks being ready', which immediately cuts to a clear frame of what is obviously onigiri. Wonderfully for me, I already know how to make these. The fillings are not shown or said so I have to guess. These rice balls can be filled with anything anything, but with this being a townhouse in the sea beneath 14th St., they're probably posh, but not indubitably elegant. I'm thinking roe, not caviar. But I think fish roe with nothing else is gonna be pretty boring to make, so I've chosen three fillings (for the three onigiri shown in the shot) that I really like. These were Sardine mayo, peanut sesame, and marinated eggs with bonito.

The base of any rice ball is the rice. For this use a short grain rice. I rinsed it once in the pot giving it a good massage, then drained it and added water according to my rice cooker. Once it was done I left it in the cooker until I was done making my fillings. you need the rice to be warm to form these, so I only take it out and season it when I'm about to start making them. When it was time, I spread it on a baking sheet. Then to half of it I added rice seasoning according the the recipe above. I only did this on half because I'll only be using the seasoned rice for the peanut ones. For the other two fillings I want the rice to be plain. The rice does not have to be seasoned to make rice balls, it just has to be warm.

Here's my recipe for the sardine mayo filling

To take the spine out of canned sardines I split the fish in half on the bottom by gently pressing on it. It breaks in half very easily. Then I lift the spine out. I don't worry about any other bones. none of them are big enough to matter. You could also leave the spine in if its soft enough.

The mayo is heavy on the egg yolk and light on the oil. A normal mayo would have 1-2 cups of oil per egg yolk. I wanted my sardines to have a richer feel and taste, so I used barely any oil. Since it's so little oil, it isn't necessary to use a typical mayo method, you can just combine all ingredients and whisk the shit out of it until its homogenized.

The peanut filling doesn't have much to it. The only tricky part is not over-mixing the peanuts or sesame. If you do, it turns into peanut butter and sesame paste. Stick to 2 or 3 seconds of blending. It also really helps if you shake your spice grinder while mixing to get a much more even blend.

This recipe is really just a ratio. The marinade is half soy sauce and half black tea. You can make your eggs however you want. As for the size of egg, you can do any, but if you use large eggs then your rice ball might be massive. Small chicken eggs are the ideal size, but if you can't get them then quail eggs are a good enough substitute. If you can't find raw quail eggs, you can use canned, they just won't be soft boiled. The benefit to them though is that you don't have to peel them.

Since my marinate it so plain I also roll the finished eggs in bonito flakes,

I think anyone else could do a better job explaining how to form onigiri than me, so I highly recommend looking for a different video or blog post. but here is my rudimentary explanation.

get hands wet with salt water

make rice with hollow

put the fillings . i used plain rice for fish and egg. seasoned for peanut

put more rice over filling

do claw hands and squish until shape is shape

put some nori

done

Here's me eating the egg one.

[twpbingo]

Rules

1. This event follows Wheaton’s Law here: Don’t be a dick.

Being a dick includes, but is not limited to:

 - Ship hate. I get it, shipping is a mess at times. We all have ships we aren’t fond of. But I will not allow those arguments here since it’s open to all relationships. (Yes, this means I accept ALL ships)

 - Being hateful towards any sexuality, gender, religion, kink, etc.

 - Cutting down other creators.

 - Purposely antagonizing another member.

 - If you are asked to spoiler graphic content, please do. (Ships you don’t like are not considered graphic content, ever.)

 - Purposefully engaging with content that triggers/squicks you. 

2. For posted fills, you must tag your submissions appropriately. Any triggers MUST be tagged clearly. If you are unsure if something is a trigger, please feel free to ask. Or, you can always tag it just in case as a precaution. 

3. No AI please.

4. This is an 18+ event. If I find out you lied about being an adult, I will remove you. 

5. I know that people are busy. We all have lives, right? Because of that, this is a low-pressure event. If you can only fill one square, that is totally fine! If you make a Bingo, THEN HAVE ANOTHER CARD! This event is for us to have fun, no matter how much you are able to commit to.

6. Each fill must be completed and not posted behind a pay-wall. You can use one square per chapter of a multi-chapter fic if you would like, but each chapter must be a completed fill. If you are creating using other mediums, then we ask each fill be its own post, but they can, of course, be linked together 

 - 250 is the word count minimum.

 - Art is any completed piece. Complete is defined as having all the necessary or appropriate parts. Art can be physical or digital and must be your own work. Art can include but is not limited to: sketch, line art, full render images, comic strips, 3D animation, 2D animation, fanvids (including music videos and trailers), photomanips, cell drawings, painting in all forms, sculptures, crafts, full cosplay photography, refracted light “painting”, wood carvings, ice sculptures, etc.

 - Mood boards/gif sets are a minimum of 6 images. 

 - Playlists need a minimum of ten songs.

 - Podfics MUST have the owner’s consent and have the original linked on AO3. Additionally, the fic being read must have a minimum of 250 words.

 - Other creations, ask us and I will let you know what’s considered a fill! 

- Collaborations are allowed, and we don’t have any additional requirements for such.

- Cross-posting for other events is fine, and I don’t have any additional requirements for such.

7. Bingo definitions for this event

Bingos are any of the following: Rows, diagonals, columns, and/or four corners and the center. If you complete all the squares on your card, you have a blackout! Once you complete a bingo, you may request another card if you would like. You can do this as many times as you would like. 

8. A unique Bingo Card will be issued within one week of sign-up. (I will post a notice if things come up and there is a delay.)

 - You may request up to 4 squares changed, and the request must be within a week.

9. Cheating does not count as poly for this event. For this, the minimum is three people actively and knowingly in a relationship with each other. That said, creations involving cheating are allowed. The cheating just needs to be outside the relationship. 

Examples: 

 - A&B together with C seeing B behind A’s back- NOT poly. 

- A&B together, C&B together with A’s knowledge- poly.

- A&B&C all together - poly

- A&B&C getting together for the first time in any permutation - poly.

10. Don’t repost past work - all work must be new, and created specifically for the event. New chapters and parts of a ‘verse are fine

11. Aro and Ace are allowed. QPR it up if you want.

12. If ao3 allowed it, so do I. Tags, themes, AUs, etc.

[emeritus-fuckers]

how do you do, fellow queers, look how fucking professional i'm being this time, sending an ask like commonfolk/j

for the match-up re-run bc i wanna see nyx struggle with repugnant <3

1. Your identity! i'm sorry for the research nyx

i can very proudly call myself a faggot. my pronouns are they/she/he/xey/per/ghoul, but i'm slowly moving away from the "standard" ones. multigender, but they're all xenogender (ghoulgender, ghoulettegender, gooregender, chaosgender). multisexual (pansexual, asexual, lesbian, aegosexual, orchidsexual, berrisexual). aroallo (aegoromantic, desinoromantic, grayromantic, demiromantic). autistic. theistic satanist.

2. Who do you like?

repugnant. death metal racoons my beloved.

3. What do you look like?

there's a picture. i just dress more like a metalhead now. still wearing too much jewelry. i'm still short (it is a tragedy).

4. What's your personality?

i hate whoever came up with these questions (ekhem, myself).

ISTP-T, according to a quiz i did just before writing this. i'm relatively apathetic, only ever getting truly emotional when i'm overwhelmed. touch-repulsed, but touch-starved when it comes to people close to me. i'm quiet and distant around strangers, but get talkative and open with friends. i struggle with serious self-esteem issues (diagnosed depression, cheers) and i get very anxious about my friends just not liking me anymore and usually need to be yelled at to get my shit together. and then cuddled because i got yelled at. my relationship with emotions is complicated, as i only feel a very faint outline of an emotion most of the time, but i've learned to adapt to it over time and i'm pretty good at adapting my behavior so it looks like i feel a complete emotion.

when it comes to affection, i'm like a cat. i love it, but only when i want it. otherwise i will run away. i also show it in inconvenient ways, i suppose, like randomly grabbing my friends with a weird noise or sometimes (if we're really close) biting them. i feel very uncomfortable around most children, so i despise them.

5. Tell us about your interests!

i'd say repugnant, ghost and in this moment would be my top three bands to listen to, but i also like vocaloid and dolly parton. i always have to have something playing in the background or it's too quiet for me and i lose my shit. i like to read, but i much prefer to overanalyze everything and come up with ridiculous theories and headcanons to write about (i think emeritus-fuckers is proof of that). I like writing, but only stuff i actually enjoy writing, not whatever bullshit they're coming up with for uni. I can't write porn, yet people seem to think that i can, which is honestly hilarious to me.

i like making bracelets and other arts and crafts things, though i suck at it and usually it looks like trash.

i like video games, mostly sims 4 (finally figured out how to furnish it hallelujah) right now, but i like classic assassin's creed games (which means everything that came out before Origins/Odyssey bc fuck i hate these), the saints row series and skyrim too. and uncharted, too. and i guess tekken, but i'm just there for the hotties tbh.

i don't really watch movies, but if i had to pick a favorite, it would either be scream, pearl or shrek.

6. Trivia time!

i know way too much about butterflies and moths.

i have a framed attacus atlas.

my favorite food is instant cupped carbonara.

i have a dog (everyone has seen her at this point tbh).

i have a figurine of the batman who laughs and his three robins.

i love juice. especially apple-cherry juice.

i'm a terrible cook, i can make like three dishes and that's it.

i hate working under pressure and/or with deadlines.

i have a rather controversial sense of humor.

i love wearing too much jewelry.

i adore matching things, from jewelry to tattoos.

and here's a few pics of my cuddle monster.

This post is part of the 1000 followers match up event. Entries for the event are now closed.

Your match is…Mary Goore... and DD Sars... and kinda the rest of the band...

Hear me out on this haha, I have spent way too much time thinking about this and well you'll see XD - Nyx

So you met Mary first. They thought you looked cool so they went over to you.

You got chatting and you just kinda clicked with each other. Especially since you both have a controversial sense of humour. Mary enjoys throwing a few playful insults at you and getting all of that back and some.

You met up a few more times, enough so that you became comortable around Mary and them you. Although there was a discussion about your boundaries when you had to explain that you are like a cat, you only want affection when you are in the mood. Which of course Mary respected.

Mary after really getting to know you declared you one of their favourite ever people by lightly biting your shoulder. (This was okay as you way of telling them the same was to display your affection with a bite.)

Mary then proudly introduced you to the rest of the band. You quickly became close with all of them as to be with Mary is to be with the band. When Mary mentioned you had a dog E. wanted to see lots of pictures. He just kinda quietly sat there as you scrolled through them.

You made them all bracelets, G. got very excited by this. You said they look like trash and DD just kinda rounded on you. He firmly told you about how they weren't trash and how could you be so stupid to think so low of yourself. You just kinda nodded and then spend the rest of the day being cuddled by G.

DD does however get you. He never says it to you but its shown through his actions. He will just quitly sit and listen if you want to talk about it. He might say that you are a fucking weirdo but his expression tells the real story. He understands you and he knows what its like to have a complicated realtionship with emotions. There is a really nice companionship you two have because of this.

Mary noticed how you look at DD like you want him to sit on your face. So one night they say to you while pointing at DD "all you have to do is ask, you know, DD would be more than happy to" and then they gave you a little wink. Mary left it with you, it's totally up to you if you want to follow through on that or not...

~

Written by Nyx

[lgcmanager]

TYPE ZERO MISSION 012

SCHEDULE TYPE: TRIMESTER ( PART 1 OUT OF 1 ) SCHEDULE RESTRICTIONS: cannot be paired with another trimester schedule, unless stated otherwise. for reference as to whether your muse is eligible for this event, please click over HERE.

with another loss of a member and addition of new ones recently, KIM BOMIN gathers all of the TYPE ZERO members inside the van to tell them their schedules while letting one of the assistant managers drive.

GROUP POSITIONS

TYPE ZERO’s new group positions are:

CHA HYOSEOP: main rapper

CHOI KAI: main dancer, lead rapper

KWON BAEKHYUN: lead vocalist

SU PARKER: main vocalist, lead dancer

YOO DAEHO: leader, main dancer, main rapper, vocalist

OPEN EVENTS

HYOSEOP, KAI, and BAEKHYUN will be eligible to do open events 006 & 7 ( fansites & birthday ) starting NOVEMBER. starting OCTOBER they will be able to post in the TYPE ZERO instagram account for the monthly sns.

NOVEMBER COMEBACK & PRE-RELEASE SONG

“to formally introduce the new members, HYOSEOP, KAI, and BAEKHYUN will be working on a song that will serve as the introduction of their album. since we don’t have much time, you three will start learning the new song later today. as for all of you, your comeback will be in NOVEMBER so we will be spending a lot of time practicing and making sure that you are ready for it.” BOMIN states as he looks at each of the members.

the album list are as follows:

WORMHOLE: THE NEW TRACK ( PRE-RELEASE SONG / HYOSEOP, KAI, BAEKHYUN )

GOOD BOY GONE BAD ( TITLE TRACK )

ALL THE WAY HERE

LIKE A MOVIE

COLLISION

SOS

lyrics distributions for this can be found over HERE. the pre-release song will be released on OCTOBER 29, while their comeback date is NOVEMBER 12.

MUSIC CHART RESULTS

( note: this information is mostly for ooc purposes in case the music charts isn’t updated on time during type zero’s comeback period. )

during the first week of promotions ( which starts from NOVEMBER 14-19 ), TYPE ZERO will receive their first two 1st place wins for this comeback period ( with ‘good boy gone bad’ ) from THE SHOW and SHOW CHAMPION. in the latter end of the first week, ‘good boy gone bad’ will remain in second place while ‘SOS’ will stay in 11th place. for the second week, ‘good boy gone bad’ will drop to third place and then later on in the week, fifth place. then for the final week, their title track will change between fifth and sixth places while ‘SOS’ will go down to 15th place.

overall, congratulations to TYPE ZERO for their wins! BOMIN will be treating the TYPE ZERO members out to dinner for the first week as a reward for their hard work.

PROMOTIONS PERIOD

in terms of schedules, the TYPE ZERO members will be going to KNOWING BROTHERS for the NOVEMBER 18th episode, film a dance relay to their title track ( so something similar to THIS ), and the upcoming season of TYPE V-LOGS.

for the new members, TYPE V-LOGS is a vlog series where the type zero members will film videos about their lives. in this case, these videos will be for during this comeback era/month of november so they will be asked to film behind the scenes about some of the gigs they may be doing, their training activities, and their dorm life. since this is only for TYPE ZERO, no one else outside of the group can be included in the videos. this season’s series will have 10 episodes and be released on TYPE ZERO’s youtube channel starting JANUARY 16 to FEBRUARY 15 ( 2 episodes per week, TUESDAYS & THURSDAYS ).

LGC WEBTOON

BOMIN then announces another small project, “it’s going to be announced soon that LGC’S WEBTOON — which originated as PROJECT ORIGIN, will now be an animation series. since all of your alter egos are a part of this universe, LGC has asked TYPE ZERO to record two songs that will be part of their OST.” 

more details about the webtoon will be coming sometime around Q1 2024, but TYPE ZERO will be recording the songs listed:

NEW WORLD

HIGHER GROUND

because of their busy schedules and training, this will be done whenever the boys have any free time and will be done in several separate recording sessions.

YEAR END CEREMONIES & PROJECT ???

year end ceremonies will be in a separate post and be revealed at a later time. near the end of the meeting, BOMIN will inform the boys that during the week of DECEMBER 4, they will be having a special schedule, but not much is discussed about it except that for one of the days, they are expected to wake up at 3AM in the morning.

WRITING REQUIREMENTS

TYPE V-LOGS: write a 300+ word solo or a 4 posts ( minimum 8 lines ) thread with another TYPE ZERO member about anything that they will be doing during the month of NOVEMBER. as a reminder, what goes on in the threads will be what is shown in the actual videos. completing this will earn you +6 POINTS TO DISTRIBUTE ANYWHERE and +6 NOTORIETY !

BONUS: continue a previous Q3 thread with 4 additional posts ( 2 per mun ) to receive +8 POINTS TO DISTRIBUTE ANYWHERE and +4 NOTORIETY ! the new posts have to be posted sometime between now and JANUARY 6, 2024, 11:59PM EST.

make sure to use the hashtag lgc:typezeromission for the task. you have until JANUARY 6, 2024 at 11:59PM EST to complete the requirements and validate your points. please submit the following form ONCE on the points blog.

MUSE NAME ∙ TYPE ZERO MISSION 012 - TYPE V-LOGS: +6 ( skill points distribution ), +6 notoriety [ LINK ] - BONUS: +8 ( skill points distribution ), +4 notoriety [ LINK ]

[wanderersrest]

Diabolos Est Machina Part 2: The Devil Is In the Details

Special thanks to my sister, who helped inspire me to do this series.

Welcome back to Diabolos Est Machina, Last time, we did some defining of terms when it comes to artificial intelligence. I don't remember if I had addressed it in the last post, but I will say it here just in case:

Artificial intelligence is considered to be a part of automation.

Something I also forgot to mention was that video games also employ some form of AI. It's mostly an aside though, as the systems that games use tend to be very rudimentary compared to what is more generally known as AI.

So today, before we actually tackle the big Devil itself (yes I know, I said I'd talk about the Devil Gundam; we'll get there by Halloween), we are going to look at the history of automation in fiction. We're also going to take a look at three different examples of AI-adjacent characters in fiction.

A (Very) Abbreviated History of Robotics in Fiction

Fictional robots and artificial humans are some of the oldest stories in the collective canon of humanity. From what I could tell, the earliest cases of the Kourai Khryseai that were made by Hephaestus as his assistants. Per the Wikipedia link above, robots and artificial humanoids have also existed in all sorts of cultures, including but not limited to Greek, Egyptian, Chinese, and Indian cultures.

As we head into the 1800's and the 1900's, we would see a lot of pivotal stories come about that are associated with robots and automation such as Frankenstein (the first science fiction story, which is all about creating artificial life no less), Rossum's Universal Robots (which is where we get the word Robot from), Metropolis (which is the first portrayal of a robot on film), and I, Robot (which is where we get the Three Laws of Robotics from).

But we're talking about Artificial Intelligence though and those are just robots. Which is true, but these stories would help to pave the way for a certain film releasing in the 60's. And with that new film, the world would be introduced to a new character (and our first case study).

Case 1: HAL-9000

"I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do." -HAL

Full disclosure: It's been a while since I last watched 2001: A Space Odyssey, so my recollection of what happens in the movie outside of the broad strokes will be a bit

I believe it is impossible to really talk about AI characters without mentioning 2001: A Space Odyssey's HAL-9000. HAL is known for his cold and impersonal appearance and mannerisms, with the only major feature that defines the character is a single modem with a red LED for a face. HAL is also slavishly devoted to the mission of the Discovery One.

One of the most important concepts introduced with HAL is the idea of the AI as a killer entity. Note that this is not the first example of this type of character, but I feel confident that most people tend to think of HAL as the go-to example of the killer AI character alongside Terminator's Skynet.

When it comes time for him to betray Dave and Frank, HAL justifies this by saying the mission is more important than the safety of the crew. When Dave confronts HAL and tries to shut the AI down, HAL pleads with Dave not to do it. It is unknown to the audience whether or not HAL actually feels scared or is using it as a defense mechanism to prevent David from shutting him down.

As I said earlier, HAL's purpose is to complete the mission and will stop at nothing to see that it is done. This is important to remember, as HAL otherwise largely functions like a highly advanced computer program. A computer program that can feel emotions or, depending on who you ask, mimic the idea of feeling emotions.

Case 2: Fuyo 0 AKA Tama

"When she's surround by smiles, that's when she's at her best." -Gintoki Sakata

Could I have talked about a different character like Astro Boy? Yes.

Have I read or watched Astro Boy? No, so we're talking about Tama instead.

Gintama gives us a great foil to 2001's HAL in the form of the robot maid Tama. Originally designated Fuyo 0 as a part of a line of robot maids (robot maids that largely fetish machines, I might add), Tama is unique in that she can experience emotions. This is referred to in-universe as The Seed, which is an easy way to handwave how Tama is capable of experiencing emotions.

What is interesting to me is that Tama is the exact opposite of HAL. Whereas HAL's primary purpose is to complete his mission at all costs, Tama does not have a purpose for existing outside of being a replacement daughter for her creator (hence why she can experience emotions like sadness or happiness). Tama eventually extrapolates that her purpose is to help others in any way she can. This makes for another contrast between her and HAL in that Tama accepts her fate as being ultimately disposable, unlike HAL who views his continued existence as being of critical importance to his mission.

And I get that Tama is a character in a gag series, so a lot of her characteristics are largely played for laughs. But I do think it's worth highlighting that the two contrast each other pretty well. It showcases just how differently an AI/AI-adjacent character can be portrayed throughout fiction. There are all sorts of examples of these kinds of characters. Shodan, Cortana. But there is one last case study I'd like to look at. And for this one, I want to look at a character similar to the Devil Gundam itself.

Case 3: Mobile Armor Hashmal

Before I close out on this section, it would be foolish of me not to mention a character like Iron-Blooded Orphans' Mobile Armor Hashmal.

I only mentioned them briefly, but the Three Laws of Robotics is, despite being created for a work of fiction, something that is treated very seriously in the world of robotics and automation. Granted, it is something that is impossible to actually implement them into code due to the ambiguities of language, but the Three Laws serve as a useful backbone for a lot of AI and robotics ethics.

For reference, these are the Three Laws:

The First Law: A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

The Second Law: A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

The Third Law: A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

These laws are nice, but they are not fixed. The Three Laws are guidelines that should be adhered to, and it becomes a problem when a machine is made with the express purpose of killing.

And Hashmal's entire purpose is to kill.

Whereas with both HAL and Tama we can communicate with both of them, Hashmal cannot talk. It is, first and foremost, a killing machine. Hashmal, unlike even HAL, can come off as downright alien, especially since we witness Hashmal's awakening well after the time it was created. There's no parlaying with a being that looks at you like how a hawk looks at a mouse. When it comes to Hashmal, there is only death.

Conclusion

And those are three very specific examples of AI-related characters in fiction. As I had said at the beginning, AI and robotics tend to go hand in hand. Next time, and gods willing I can get this done on Halloween, we will finally cover the Devil Gundam!