#check out the other things on this website as well!!! really good informative stuff.

[badlydrawnjohn]

have you done your click today? if not, you should!

[crystalflygeo]

Sinful voice pt.2 ft “Morax”/Prof!Zhongli + fem!reader (modern AU)

cw/tags: Voice kink, daddy kink, dirty talk, female masturbation, oral and fingering implied but like it's just fantasizing?? petnames (sweetheart, babygirl, dear) Reader is DOWN BAD LMAO and suffers second hand embarrasment.

notes: EVERYBODY SAY THANK YOU @localplaguenurse!!They gave me a F A N T A S T I C idea that just inspired me to continue this wip and ended up not even being featured here yet but HEY... future p3!! //winkwink. That said I did NOT expect how much this would blow up and how ppl loved it and wanted more, y'all gonna make me giddy and/or cry pls (consider checking some of my other stuff too mayhaps? <3) Anyway I REALLY hope this delivers bc boi am I afraid of not meeting expectations vcgvhjbnjnmklal

Weeks had passed since your ‘big discovery’ and you still weren’t quite sure what to do with this information.

At first you chalked it up to just your imagination because… there was no way, right? Your new professor could just have a… similar voice… yeah… that was it.

Except the more you listened to his long-winded explanations the more you picked up certain words and intonations here and there and you knew you were just fooling yourself.

A lot had happened in these last few weeks, from organizing your new living space, to meeting your roommates, to grocery shopping, classes, and you had even considered the idea of maybe getting a part time job somewhere close by. There were plenty of small shops and places around the college campus neighborhood that not only offered valuable services to poor college students but also the opportunity to make a bit of money to help them out.

It had all been rather exhausting and stressing, exams, essays and projects were already starting too…

Lying back in bed you sigh and roll over, feeling the familiar faint throb of desire pooling between your legs, one you’d never really managed to sate with a person so much as with fantasies. But tonight, as you lay awake in bed aching for your usual touch, you feel conflicted.

Ever since that very first day you just couldn’t bring yourself to open up Morax’s website again. Hell, a new month had rolled over and you’d dutifully paid the subscription along with your other usual bills.

Part of you was itching for it, curious, frustrated.

And very very horny.

Thing is, your fantasies had often featured a faceless man, strong, imposing and dominating, taking you like a blushing maiden and making you beg for the pleasure he’d give, allowing him to do anything he wanted with your heated body. Now that man had a face… your history professor Mr. Zhongli.

You used to get off to imaginings of Morax tying you up and having his way with you, teasing you, fucking you into the mattress and making you cum over and over. Now it was Mr. Zhongli. Polite and courteous Mr. Zhongli with his refined gestures and well-mannered demeanor.

You wanted to cum, to reach that high and come undone and let out all the pent-up stress and frustration until you melted into a puddle and didn’t have to think about classes or money or life anymore, but the second your fingers began to rub at your clit, Mr. Zhongli’s voice would hit you with that even tone he used when scolding someone for gossiping during his lecture.

“Disgraceful behavior…”

A hot flash of shame burned at your face but for whatever reason it just turned you on more. You wanted to get fucked so bad you felt like you were going insane. You wanted that man to pin you up against a wall and thrust inside you until you turned into an incoherent moaning mess. You wanted to get bent over at his desk and filled up with cum until you were left gaping and oozing and told what a good girl you are. You wanted to get fucked on your hands and knees squirming and crying from overstimulation.

Lying in bed, you squeezed a pillow against your face and screamed.

You wanted to fuck your handsome history professor Mr. Zhongli.

-------------------------------------

It’s barely first period and you couldn’t concentrate.

You were sleepy, hungry and overall, in a bad mood. Standing in line at the cafeteria for a much-needed morning coffee and some snack you yawn and browse around your phone. Math. Gods you hated math.

At least you didn’t have history today. That was a whole other can of worms.

You figured you’d eventually have to get over it but it was just… so bizarre. Mr. Zhongli was quite the popular teacher, you’d learned. Extremely knowledgeable in various topics, a strict but kind and just teacher and good looking on top of all.

No wonder the upperclassmen flocked around him, probably half the campus lowkey had a crush on him, male and female students alike. It was genuinely a miracle he was not married or even had a significant other apparently.

And he was also Morax. Sensual dominating Morax who would just not leave your head-

“Good morning, how may I help you?” The cashier called out cheerfully and you pulled out of your thoughts.

“Morn-”

“Good morning.”

You gasp so sharply you almost launch into a coughing fit; your eyes widen and whole body tenses and oh shit-

Somehow you manage to trip and fall in the clumsiest, stupidest way possible.

“Woah-!”

“Miss?!”

Except you don’t actually fall, but someone manages to hold you, a hand grabbing your arm and the other pressed against your back steadying you as your poor brain goes into overdrive.

That voice!

It’s him!

Too close!

What is he doing here?!

Way too close!!

The seconds it takes for you to react feel like ages as you stare up at Mr. Zhongli like a deer caught in the headlights.

His hands are warm…

His cologne smells soooo good.

His eyes are gorgeous!

He’s so hot!!

“Are you alright Miss l/n?”

“I’M FINE! I-I’m fine!” You yelp, way louder than intended (or normal) and quickly scoot back to put some distance between yourself and the handsome professor. He picks up his dropped bag and dusts it a little, as well as his clothes, still pristine as ever. “I… think I got a little dizzy s-sorry I haven’t eaten yet and… yeah…” You chuckle nervously.

You see him frown slightly. “Going without food for long periods of time can be quite dangerous.” He states, obviously concerned. “Maybe you should head to the infirmary see Dr Baizhu, you look quite pale and the dizziness could be a symptom of low blood pressure. Do you have anything sugary to eat or drink?”

“I w-was about to buy something…”

“It might be best for you to sit down for the moment.” He nods, resolute. “Allow me.”

…And that’s how you end up sitting at one of the nearby small tables with a little glazed donut and a bottle of water, courtesy of your dear history professor.

You stare at the little treat in your hands, half eaten already as he insisted, at least your hands stopped shaking and some color returned to your face. Mr. Zhongli seemed content enough, sitting across from you.

“T-Thank you.” You mumble, refusing to meet his gaze. “How much was it? I’ll pay you back I have som-”

He sees you rummaging through you bag and raises a hand. “None of that, you needed it. I’m glad to see you’re looking a little better, please take care of yourself, health is very important.”

“Um, ok.”

Then he smiles, and it’s gentle, soft. “You’re Miss l/n, right? One of the new students from my history class?”

Huh?   

“You didn’t do very well on the essay assignment…”

Ack. You sigh and take another bite of the small donut. “History is just… not my strong suit. Too many dates and names to remember.”

He chuckles and oh God who gave him the right to make that sound? Your skin tingles.

“Fair enough. I know my classes can be a little daunting, I’m very particular about certain topics and tend to ramble sometimes. But I can tell you really put effort into classes and pay attention to my lectures.” He looks pensive for a moment. “Let me propose something. I usually impart some private tutoring sessions to students on more advanced levels, but I could make an exception for you. If you have time available it could help lift your grades.”

You stare up at him in surprise, grateful to not have a mouthful of donut or you would have probably choked again like an idiot. Did you hear that right? A private tutoring session after hours at his office?!

Now that sounded like a title for one of Morax’s audios: Hot professor bangs his stu-NOPE.    

“I-I’ll think about it! Sure.”

He nods and gets up, sparing a glance at his watch. “I have to leave now, please do consider it. And do try to eat at more regular intervals and take better care of yourself, you look quite tired.”

A polite way of saying you had marked eyebags, yep.

“I’ll try.” You mumble. Suddenly a little sad to see him go. “Professor… thank you.”

There’s that smile again, you could melt. “You’re welcome, my dear.”

----------------------------------

And yet that night, you’re once again rolling in bed unable to sleep.

My dear.

You couldn’t stop thinking on the whole incident, you’d certainly made a fool of yourself but the memory of his strong arms holding you, touch firm but gentle. The scent of his cologne that you wish had clung more on your clothes.

You really were down bad, this is ridiculous…

You bite your lip.

You shouldn’t. You shouldn’t.

Oh but you will, just one wouldn’t hurt.

Quite the opposite actually…

Unable to contain yourself (or your horniness) you take no time to pop in your earbuds and start scrolling. Hmm… there had been a couple new additions in these last weeks.

You can’t help but wonder why he does these. When. How. You never really considered or thought on it before, Morax has quite a lot of patrons (not a surprise) and thought you know nothing about sound and video recording or editing technically he’s making money just by using that honeyed velvet voice of his. That had to bring in some cash, right?

But then again, if you knew anything about these types of subscriptions it was that they required constancy and that meant hard work and dedication. Did he enjoy these? He really puts in the effort given the amazing quality…

You can’t help but picture your handsome professor unwinding a little after a long day, casual clothes, a cup of that tea he loves and setting up to record those dirty words and sinful moans.

Did he sometimes get worked up about these too? Did he also touch himself during or after recording a particular scenario? Sitting back slightly sprawled on the chair, brow slightly furrowed, stroking his co-   

Aaahhhh you needed to stop thinking on him.

…

Yeah right.

“Daddy eats you out and prepares you for his big cock.”

Well, this looks promising.   

The audio starts like many others, with some dialogue from him and setting the scene and oh… you had kind of missed the playful teasing tilt of Morax’s voice. You can’t help but chuckle lightly, this scene is so domestic. He calls you “sweetheart”, “babygirl” and there are the kissy noises.

You wish you could kiss him…

“Hmmm… daddy’s gonna get you nice and ready. Spread your legs for me.” Oh, you certainly do. “Daddy’s gonna get down here between them.”

You rub at your tights slowly, sensual, remembering his larger hands.

“Oh your little pussy is already so wet and swollen.” Morax coos, voice soft and airy. “You think it’s already ready I know.” He chuckles. “But you know daddy’s cock is big, yeah, your little pussy’s gonna need to stretch a little bit hm?” A kiss.

You whine.

“Shhh daddy’s gonna make you feel so good sweetheart.”

Lewd wet noises invade your ears and you waste no time starting to stroke yourself, slow and tender. He groans and sighs and you whimper, hips jolting from the bed.

Gods how was he so…

“Yeah… nice and gentle hmm, we’re gonna have so much fun.”

His words were a complete 180 from the long lectures about politics and wars, and yet, his voice…

“D-Daddy…” You sigh. “Please!”

“Oh I love how sensitive your little clit is… you like that babygirl?”

You rub and stroke at the little bundle of nerves and see stars already.

You were so pent up, so needy. Your orgasm was already building too quickly, mewling and whining at his words, his noises, trying to match the pace and follow his instructions.

“That’s a good girl.”

“F-Fuck-”

Your eyebrows furrow, your body trembles and you bit your lip to contain your noises. Morax warns you when he adds a finger, and after a few seconds another, chuckling low at how you clench, praising you, coaxing out your pleasure.

You can only picture him at the end of the bed, licking and sucking obscenely at your juices, pumping those slender fingers in and out, in and out…

That tantalizing voice teasing you, your fingers knotting that dark brown hair tipped amber, golden eyes staring up at you half-lidded but feral and fascinated. Focusing on you. Only you.

“A-Ah! Mhmm…”

“Now I want you to cum babygirl come on, in five… four…”

You stroke and pump faster, frantic, lost in that rapidly approaching high.

“Three… two…”   

You cry out, a spark cursing through your veins.

“One… hmmm that’s it my dear.”

“Z-Zhongli…!”

He ushers you out of your release with soft words before saying something else, but your mind is floating and hazy. Your take off the earbuds and place them away catching your breath for a moment, arm draped over your face, the audio still has a long way to go but you’re drowsy and sleepy so you decide to call it a night.

It is only a little later, once you’re done with a quick cleaning and putting everything away, curled up under the covers and dozing off that you realize…

Shit.

You’d called not for Morax but Zhongli.

[kissmetwicekissmedeadly]

MO'S FANFIC BEAUTYFYING MASTERCLASS!👩‍🏫

So it seems like you guys like how I do my banners and layouts on @xxsycamore ! I wanted to share a few tips about making similar ones, along with some of my observations on their importance! Be warned, some of the screenshots I'll use to illustrate my point will be of my smut fics! This post is intended for the ikemen series community. While the tips could be found useful for other fandoms as well, it's important to note that it's only this fandom that I've taken into account and because of that my observations could be unreliable if you chose to follow my advice outside of the fandom!

The importance

First of all, a good layout is a subjective term. Second, a "good" layout is not guaranteed to boost your fic's popularity. Not all of us are able to put the time and effort into fancy banners and dividers, but the good news is, you don't really need them! You should always strive to do only as much as you can without straining yourself. Here you can see a minimal effort fic layout vs one that took 30~ minutes to put together, both posted around the same time, both having a similar reception when it comes to notes! Keep in mind that a layout is just one of the many factors to take into account for your fic's popularity status, and you shouldn't obsess with it either way.

2. The minimum: Banner + Title

Not everyone checks out every single post on their dash while they scroll! I follow around 1100 people and while not all of them are active, it's easy to miss a post that could as well have been the best thing I'd see that day. Your brain recognizes what a typical fanfiction post looks like - a rectangular picture with a title above/underneath, followed by text. As long as you scroll past a post with a similar construction and you're interested, you might want to scroll back and check it out.

3. Banners

The information that you get from a banner is typically about the character(s) featured in the fic. Using the example above, you'll see that a simple cropped picture of the character gets the job done! (an in-game sprite at that, not a fancy card photo)

If you decide to use a card, you can browse google for a good one of your character(s). I try to select a card that depicts something similar to what's happening in my fic, either the action or the "vibes" (daytime or nighttime, outside or indoors, canon or modern, etc.), but sometimes it's better to choose the one that will look good instead of the one that's more fitting.

Finding cards of good quality is also challenging, and I'd advise you to avoid blurry/low-quality banners even if those would be best fitting.

Stick to the rectangular horizontal format if possible. I like square banners sometimes, but it's better when you can see the whole layout at once!

4. Editing the banners & photo coloring

If you decide you want to go out all, you'll need a photo editing app or a program. I use one called Snow which is mainly for selfies but gets the job done. It has many filters to choose from, but inputting text there could be a hassle sometimes. Another one I use is Pixlr. Yeah, I couldn't let it go ever since the days it was just a website...it's been about 10 years but I still rely on it (now as an app) for some stuff, like cropping down images with very big height to width ratio (like thin strips for dividers). In very rare instances I use my (paid) art program, Clip Studio Paint. I know that many people use Canva for their banners but I can't get used to it, I guess it's not my thing, haha. That's why you should see what works for you. I prefer a certain amount of limitation, like having filters to choose from, simply because I don't want to think too much about it and to be able to spend too much time on it (I'm a perfectionist)...

Maybe you just want to give your picture some nice coloring, nothing too much, just a slight change of tone that it's noticeable but not in a screaming way. There are still some things to avoid, mainly old-looking filters. I'm talking about the ones that were mainstream on Instagram during the last decade, the pinkish sepia one for instance. Ones that have too high exposure value and make the bright parts practically glow are not a good look either, same for the too dark ones. Making the character unrecognizable is also not good, and some filters can do that, especially in the case where they have fair hair and the filter makes it appear as another color. Again, those examples are bad only in my own opinion and could look good in certain circumstances or if it's a desired look!

Here's the collage for the banner used for my fic Nine Nights (MDNI) before the filter (first picture), a variation I did but scrapped (second pic) and the one I went with in the end (third pic). While the bottom pic is in contrast with what I said about making characters unrecognizable, here I rely on the fact that it's enough that it's obvious this will feature all of the Crown members just by looking at the bunch of them. I liked how the colors pop up, almost as if each one gets assigned a theme color (interestingly I didn't pick the cards for that purpose), and it's just a pretty coloring in my opinion as a whole. I achieved this by tweaking the RGB values from the "Curves" tool in Snow.

Another cool thing to do with your banner is adding transparent elements in it, like how I did with this one (see it from the link below, it's not depicted here on the pics). The thing is, this could be very energy-consuming, you'll need an app/program that can do that as not all of them work with transparent images, and in the end, it could be just barely noticeable. But it can be fun from time to time.

5. Titles

A title is the other main element of your fic's layout and it should stand out. If you hate coming up with titles (understandable...) you can just put a "(character) x reader fluff", for instance. If you look at the example in point 1, I simply used the character's name in place of a title! It doesn't have to be a stressful aspect of putting your fic out there. As a side note, you can try centering your title simply by putting some spaces at the front, but leaving it aligned to the right could be a stylistic choice.

6. Colored text

This one is very optional but good if you want to fancy it up. Tumblr already gives you a bunch of colors to pick from and you can make use of them if they fit the style of your fic, but they're very limited. Luckily we can use just any color we want. (This only works on the fonts tumblr supports! The ones you can choose from when you highlight a text) Unfortunately, the way to do this will make you work with the HTML editor which you can access at the top right corner of your post editing screen (from desktop, click the settings, scroll down to Post editor) and things might seem pretty scary if this is your first time looking there. It's not too hard! You need to use a site that takes your desired piece of text, lets you select colors, and then gives you a code that once pasted in the HTML editor will make it colored when switching back to the Rich text editor. Here's the one I use because it also allows me to blend colors. At the bottom right of the page, I put the text in the first box, select the colors, and upon clicking Run it gives me the code in the bottom box. I use colored text for my title, and sometimes for my information tags.

7. Information tags

This is how I refer to the part of your layout dedicated to showing the pairings, genre, content warnings and wordcount of your fic. This is all optional even to add in the first place. I personally don't bother too much with beautifying that part, but a good tip is using some kind of symbol to separate these pieces of information if they're all in the same paragraph (I use big dots), or to place in front of them if they're in different rows (like bullet points). This gives a lot of creative freedom for text art, you should explore it if that's your thing!

8. Fonts & font size

You can experiment with Tumblr's fonts, or you can look for more fonts online - here's a handy site. It's good to find one that is legible enough. 𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐚 𝐟𝐚𝐯𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐞. Again, be warned, those fonts that are outside of tumblr's post editor cannot be colored (as far as I'm aware of)

You can spell your title in all caps if you deem that's a good look for your fic.

Play around with bolds and italics instead of making everything a different font.

The "Biggest" font option here on the editor is not the best one to use as it's simply too big. Big title fonts should be avoided if your title doesn't fit in a single row.

Having different font sizes for different things in your layout can be eye-catching! Besides the obvious upscaling of the title, you can also upscale your information tags. Using small text is also nice and prevents your post from getting too long, but this should only be done for the part of the fic that is not the fic itself. Small text could be harsh on the eyes if it's in big quantities.

9. Dividers

Dividers are another crucial part of a fancy layout! They divide different parts of your layout, like the information tags and the fic's body. There are tons of styles to choose from. Some people like to use dividers that spell out something, like a "minors DNI" warning, a "support your creatives" reminder, the name of the character featured in the fic... You can make your own set of dividers for repeated use. I like to use very thin lines which I color differently according to the fic's theme colors. I also find dividers online, mostly here on tumblr, as there are tons of them if you look them up. It's important to use dividers which are marked free to use, or to otherwise credit their creators.

10. Additional tips

Use gifs. Everything that moves is eye-catching. But don't go overboard with it - one or two moving objects on your layout is plenty. They shouldn't be put too close to the fic's body too, as people might find it distracting. Avoid flashing and glitching gifs, or if you use those and you deem it necessary, tag the post with an epilepsy warning. You can make your banners into gifs by putting a moving filter on them, making it into a video, and turning the video into a gif (the site I use for this is called ezgif and it has plenty of other options for working with gifs and videos), and you can also make or find gif dividers.

Banner themes are nice, but they don't always look good. I'm talking about making a series of banners (like for a bunch of fics made for the same creative challenge) look the same, with the same coloring and filters. I used to make all my banners purple to follow my blog's tumblr theme but I realized not everyone looks good in purple...

Try adding a synopsis for your fic! I know, this is worse than coming up with a title, but we love flipping the book over to look at the synopsis before jumping into it. Keep it very short and try beautifying it with symbols or fancy quotation marks.

Use the "intended" font from the tumblr post editor to make your information tags or synopsis stand out and shrink the overall length of the post!

Put the body of your fic under a "read more" (the last option when you hit a new row in the post editor). This is very important, especially if you're writing smut - you wouldn't want to make people scroll through all of that if they're not in the mood for it. Putting your whole fic on the dash doesn't make it more likely for people to stop and read it, or at least that's just how I see it.

Use emojis! Emojis stand out!

Take inspiration from other people. Get out of your bubble and look at how other fandoms do it, but obviously don't steal.

11. Final thoughts

Making this post felt weird to me! I was motivated by my mutuals complimenting my layouts but also because some of them said "they can't do that" and I wanted to show them it's easy. I also wanted to show them it's not that important and that they shouldn't stress over it at all! At the end of the day it's your fic that matters, not how pretty you can make it work. But instead of simplifying it, I ended up with this massive post of 11 parts, and now it looks scarily big. It's not, okay! I went too much into detail at times, and I want to stress once again that it's all optional anyway. I, personally, don't follow all of this advice. I don't go through the 10 steps of constructing my layout every time I'm about to post a fic. I typically post my fics just before going to bed, and 99% of the time I need it to happen ASAP because it's that late in the night. It's a way to beat my perfectionism, really, and I find it to work for me. I also already have these steps tested and memorized so it all happens quickly and mechanically for me. Making the layout is extremely fun for me and this is my sole driving force for putting in the effort. At the same time, I remind myself not to go overboard because it's stupid to focus on it more than on the fic itself. I love ao3 because everything looks equal on there, but I also love tumblr because I can unleash my creativity in one additional way.

In the process of making this post, I started to wonder if it seems like I'm making this out to be way more important and difficult than it really is, and I want to assure you that this is not my intention at all!

My only hope is that this proves to be helpful for whoever feels like they can use some of the information above. If it leads to just 1 additional note to those criminally underrated fics I see, then I'd be beyond happy!

Have fun posting your fics :)

[subsystems]

hope sending ask is ok rn, i have hard time looking resource. looking for book how to co-exist with independent dissociative parts (have system but not feel safe in saying DID yet). cannot do therapist addressing parts yet but want to cope in daily life. hope can help. or others comment/reblog and give. thank you 🍀

This ask was sent a while ago, I hope you're doing okay now anon. You say you can't talk to a therapist yet but I hope you have someone else in your life who is supportive and you can talk to about these things! You shouldn't have to face this alone.

Even though you don't have therapeutic support, it's still possible to build up communication and cooperation with your parts. I reblog a lot of tips and resources to my coping tag if you want to check that out. Here are some other resources that you might find helpful:

DID/OSDD Self-help Masterlist There are so many resources here, categorized by different topics. You'll find stuff here for both survivors and loved ones, and you don't need to have DID/OSDD to use them!

Beauty After Bruises Blog You'll find so many articles here on coping with daily life as a dissociative survivor. I love how they're written, they feel very approachable and almost calming to read.

Dissociative Living Admittedly, I haven't read many of these articles but the few I've seen have been good. I think their writing is very approachable for people who are new to all of this.

DIS-SOS Lots of advice and informative articles on living with DID here -- in both English and German! I've found some really interesting and unique coping tips here, I definitely recommend it. It's actually because of this blog that I discovered one of my favorite methods of system communication.

CTAD Clinic Youtube Channel A channel run by the director of this clinic which specializes in dissociation and trauma. I've watched probably all of his videos -- they're very good! Lots of the videos provide tools and self-help tips on coping with dissociation & dissociative parts!

Carolyn Spring's Blog You'll find amazing articles here about trauma and dissociation, but do be aware that the author is both a professional and a survivor with DID herself. She isn't afraid to talk about her lived experience, shining a light on the reality of trauma and dissociation which can be confronting but oh-so empowering to read.

System Speak Podcast A podcast run by a DID system. She talks about her own healing journey as well as interviews professionals and dives into the psychology behind trauma and dissociation. Personally, I think the website is a bit hard to navigate but every podcast I've listened to has been extremely informative and relatable!

Self-help books can also be extremely useful if you don't have access to a therapist. You can find a bunch of free downloads here! I would recommend starting with "Got Parts? An Insider's Guide to Managing Life Successfully with Dissociative Identity Disorder" by ATW. Personally, I think this is the best book to start with. It's a bit old and there are some outdated ideas in it, but I think it's a very gentle entry into learning system communication and coping with DID if you have never worked with a therapist.

Some other resources that might be useful:

Strategies for coping with distressing voices

FREE 100 page e-book for trauma survivors

Talk/vent to listeners on this non-crisis support chat line

Apply for a grant to receive financial help or a therapy box -> (Also learn about the Therapy Box Project! If anyone is able to donate, please do!)

- Sunflower

[anim-ttrpgs]

The Eureka Kickstarter Pamphlet

It’s not much of a secret that my career and future financial stability is riding on the upcoming Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy Kickstarter (April 10th-May 10th) being successful and hitting as many stretch goals as possible.

If you would like to help a disabled person have a viable career, and see more work from myself and A.N.I.M. in the future—well, first of all, back the Kickstarter on April 10th, but secondarily, spread the word so that others can at least know about it and may back it themselves.

Besides just telling people about us and reblogging our posts, a really helpful way for you to spread the word would be to go to this link here (it’s the same link as the one for downloading the free demo) and download the EurekaPaphlet3pg-1 PDF. It’s a foldable pamphlet you can print out and give to anyone who has an interest in TTRPGs at school, at work, at a con, etc. You can even print out a bunch of them and leave them at your local card&hobby store. These pamphlets even include QR code that will give anyone scanning them access to the free Eureka demo. Also, since it’s a PDF, you could also just send it to people online without actually having to print it out.

(Make sure when you do print it out, that you print it out double-sided!)

It’s a nice pamphlet with some of our best art on it, and does a good job of getting right to the point of what Eureka is.

If any of y’all could hand this out and/or show it to people, it could mean a world of difference for making Eureka and A.N.I.M. a viable career path for someone who struggles to hold down any “normal” job.

Set a reminder for the Kickstarter launch here.

See a preview of the Kickstarter campaign here.

Join our Patreon for just $5 and get perpetual updates on the in-progress prerelease version of Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy and several adventure modules.

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[thetomorrowshow]

hi i’m the anon who asked to make more of the reverse au

i realised i’m actually pretty terrible at writing and am terrified of posting my work anywhere but i still have so many ideas. i thought i’d just share them here in case you or anyone else is interested (you don’t have to read them i just want to get them out of my head)

-scott and jimmy become pen pals and write to each more and more until it’s a daily occurrence. through the letters jimmy tells scott everything that was said in dissonant air (he can’t control his powers, he never meant to hurt anyone, the depressing thoughts, etc)

-they see each others real faces during a poorly timed letter delivery. scott had come to give jimmy his letter in his civilian get-up at the same time jimmy was leaving his apartment

-scott didn’t return to being a hero between the times he was kidnapped from his injuries and from his fear of seeing xornoth again. he stayed trapped in his house writing letters. his friends were more than happy to help him buy groceries and stuff every once in a while. nobody noticed when he got kidnapped except for jimmy, since the letters stopped coming. at first jimmy thought scott had come to his senses and stopped talking to him but still had a feeling something was wrong

-jimmy tried to tell the other hero’s something was wrong but they didn’t trust him. after days of constantly bothering them and insisting major was in danger they finally complied. jimmy told them about scott’s previous kidnapping and they got on the case

-the hero’s tried to find xornoths lair by themselves (they wouldn’t let jimmy help for obvious reasons) but gave in after months of failure and let poor jimmy help. he used what information he could find from all of the letters he was sent. it wasn’t a lot but it was enough to work with

wow this got long. sorry about that! there’s still other stuff i had in my head with this (like with what was going on with scott during all of this and how they get him out) but idk if you’d want to hear more. sorry if this was bad i’m not the best with writing and grammar

I never thought I would write anything else for this au of an au. But hey, here we are.

For clarity's sake, Jimmy is 'S' and Scott is 'M'.

---

Hey! Hope everything’s good. Sorry about your security camera :/ I think I broke it… But I just wanted to say thank you for not mentioning me to the police. Or the reporters. Yeah. Sorry. But I hope you’re getting to feeling better! Thanks again and sorry again

Thanks

S

~

Thank you for your help.

-M

~

Hey, just wanted to let you know I got your note! Glad I could help, really. I feel like I never do anything right, so it was nice to be able to help someone for once. On a related note, I think your groceries went bad. Sorry :( I should start pre-writing these so that I don’t stand on your doorstep for so long. But how does getting groceries delivered work? I’ve been wanting to try it for a while because supermarkets are a landmine. But I hope you’re well! I hope you’re eating enough. Sorry about the groceries.

Thanks!!

S

~

Please do not stand on my doorstep to write notes.

You visit the store’s website and click the delivery option.

-M

~

Thanks for the advice about the whole shopping thing! I haven’t done it yet because I dropped my phone into an incinerator the other day and I’m still trying to buy a new one but the power goes out every time I walk into an electronics store. I’ll try it out once I have a new one though!! And I’m so so sorry I know I shouldn’t stand on your doorstep because like anyone could pass by, which is why I’ve only been stopping by at night, but I think Pearl almost saw me the other night so I’ll be more careful.

Sorry again!!

S

P.S. Sorry I’m standing on your doorstep but I was just wondering why you haven’t done any interviews?? You’ve been back for while now and people are going to worry… just checking to make sure you’re okay! Getting kidnapped can kind of take it out of you for a while :/

~

Sorry you haven’t said anything I just wanted to let you know that I tried out the delivery thing!! It worked really well actually I didn’t have to sign for it or anything just came right up to my doorstep. A lot of the stuff wasn’t what I ordered and the jam I wanted had shattered but it worked and it was way less stressful than usual so you’re the best for telling me how to do it thanks so much!

S

P.S. sorry sorry sorry but you don’t have to write me back if you don’t want to, I just wanted to check that you’re doing okay! Have a good week :) 

~

If they sent you the wrong items, you should get a refund.

Thank you. I don’t plan on any public appearances until I don’t panic when I go outside for the time being. I am recovering well.

-M

~

Okay you didn’t say to stop writing but it was good to hear from you! I felt really bad that I couldn’t help you more that night so I just worry. I’ve been thinking lately though that you probably don’t want to hear from me though so I can stop.

I do need to say something first, though. I mentioned it when you were at my at that apartment with me, but I don’t know how much you remember from then or anything. But basically I’m so so sorry about everything. Like literally everything. I’ve never forgiven myself for Aeor and I don’t expect you to, either, but I just wanted to let you know that I’m sorry. If I could change everything I would. Believe me I would. I’ve hurt too many people. It would be better if I didn’t exist. I don’t deserve to I’ve hurt I should just start a new note at this point, haha. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I understand if you don’t want me to write any more notes. I’ll stop. I hope you’re doing well and you continue to recover!

S

P.S. last time I got kidnapped I was really scared of going back to my apartment so I moved and I felt better, so maybe you need a bit of time out of the city to help you get tip-top :)

~

Thank you for the apology.

And my therapist thinks that might be an unhealthy way of coping, as much as I might agree with you that getting away sounds nice. I’m working through it.

You don’t have to stop writing.

-M

~

I AM SO SORRY I DIDN’T KNOW YOU WERE AT MY DOOR BEFORE I WALKED OUT LET’S NEVER TALK ABOUT IT AGAIN

Anyways wow you have a therapist that’s good!! My advice isn’t really good haha sorry. I actually did therapy for a little when I was in school but then everything went really bad with my powers and but then things didn’t work out. I don’t know why I crossed that out. Basically I was in therapy to try and learn how to control my powers and well we know how that ended up.

Quick question maybe I haven’t paid enough attention to you on tv but are your eyes naturally that blue? Because it’s really blue.

S

~

This is my natural eye color.

I didn’t know that there was a therapy program for children who struggle to control their powers. You said it didn’t help, though. I’m glad that you were able to figure it out without professional help.

You were kidnapped before. Does it get any easier? I’m sorry to hear that.

-M

~

Oh so about the therapy thing yeah my powers came when I was like 15 and that’s usually a little old for that therapy but they made a special exception. But no it didn’t work. Actually my parents were planning to send me away to a specialist where I could get the help I needed but it never ended up happening. So I just never learned how to control them.

On a related note a giraffe ate my new phone but I tried out the delivery thing again before that! I kind of expect to get the wrong things because of my powers haha so I’m not going to complain about my ten bottles of ketchup. But my jam did shatter again so I have to decide if it’s worth the anxiety of going to the store.

The first time I got kidnapped, I was really scared. I didn’t know what was happening. They wanted information, I think? I was panicking really bad because they kept pointing guns at my head. I got out pretty quick but it was bad for a long time. I didn’t want to leave my apartment. I mean I never do, really, but it was even worse.

I don’t know when I moved on. I think my sink broke and I was forced to leave the house, but moving isn’t the same as moving on, you know? Like you can run anywhere but it’s usually just running away. You have to face it.

S

~

Thanks for the advice. I really liked that last thing you said.

I don’t want to face them, though. I know I have to, but what if they take me again?

I’m sorry. These are my problems, not yours.

-M

~

Oh gosh I didn’t mean you have to face Xornoth!! No that sounds bad! They literally kidnapped and tortured you for like a month dude! Honestly forget what I said about the whole running away thing, you should really try to get away from this situation if you can. You shouldn’t feel responsible for Xornoth when they hurt you like that, let someone else deal with that! There are tons of supers in the city, just tell one of your friends that you don’t want to be involved with Xornoth and they’ll take care of it!

S

~

I’m the Primary Protector, though. It’s my job to face the city’s greatest threats, and Xornoth is one of them. I should be able to handle them.

I don’t want my friends to see me any differently. They already give me weird looks. I honestly wasn’t very badly hurt—I was mostly malnourished. They don’t understand why I’m not back in the game yet. I don’t know how to tell them.

I wish I could leave.

-M

~

:(( it sounds like you’re really struggling. Do you think you might have PTSD? You don’t have to answer that. But you should take your time! If it was anyone else, I think they’d have moved very far away to get away from the danger which is smart. It’s actually really upsetting that you can’t. Maybe you can work out like a code with your friends so that they can come in and handle Xornoth if they show up while you’re working? Honestly just the fact that they were able to kidnap you once means that there should be extra protection for you. Heck maybe I can do something.

If you need anything though I’m here. I don’t get it exactly but I kind of know what it’s like. I mean yeah I’ve been kidnapped before a couple of times but I know what it’s like to not want to go outside in general. To be scared of what could happen. Well you have other friends but I’m here to help if I can. I don't make promises ever because they never work out for me but I'm here.

S

~

Thank you for the offer. I don’t think there’s anything you can do to help.

I have been diagnosed with PTSD, actually. I’m also readjusting to my antidepressants still, so my therapist thinks some of my anxieties come from the meds change and will even out in time.

I think I’ll do a public interview soon. I don’t want them to think that they’ve scared me away.

They’re dangerous. Please don’t endanger yourself. They experimented on me They might try to It isn’t worth the risk.

-M

~

The craziest fight happened downtown!

Okay so I was really just trying to get to the Planet Fitness to take a shower (I’m not homeless haha my shower is broken again) but Mythics was battling Pearl downtown and it was WILD. Like they were not pulling any punches, and I thought they were kind of friendly rivals but this was just crazy! But then the Oracle got involved? So the fight just kind of stopped when he touched them and then he left. I thought the Oracle was a villain but that was vigilante behavior if you ask me. I get it though, if I could’ve done that I would’ve. Like maybe he just needed to take a shower too.

Anyways my powers decided to make everything ten times worse like usual so a giant worm burst out of the ground. Maybe I should have let the Oracle touch me too so that I could join Mythics and Pearl on the ground crying. They’re fine btw some civilians dragged them out of the way of the worm. I was too busy trying to figure out a way to deal with the worm. I think Mythics woke up and magicked it into one of his portal things.

But anyways it was crazy. Well you probably already saw it on the news or something.

I hope the interview goes well!! How does that even work? Like does somebody come to your house or do you go to the news station or what? I'm assuming you've done a couple of interviews before idk.

S

~

I saw about the attack. You should look up ‘tired man throws phone at giant worm video’ if you haven't seen it.

For the interview, I reach out to a news outlet and set up an interview (or, more often, they reach out to me). Then we usually meet in a nice room in their office. I've done tons of interviews, you can find them on my twitter or on youtube.

I'm nervous about the interview. I tried to get a reporter I like but I just know that they'll ask me why I've been away. I don't want them to think I'm weak. It isn't your problem, anyways. I'll talk about it with my therapist.

Really though, you should watch that video.

-M

~

NOOO THAT'S SO BAD THAT SHOULD BE A CRIME

In my defense I was really tired and I just threw whatever was in my hand at the worm, I didn't realize it was my phone.

I've never given an interview before but man that sounds stressful. I hope it goes well! I'd appreciate it if you didn't mention me in it of course but you know that. Good luck and let me know how it goes!

Also if it helps at all taking time off definitely doesn't make you weak. Sometimes it's even stronger to admit you need a break than to keep powering through. Especially after being held captive and tortured for a month.

Good luck again!!

S

P.S. your cat is super cute but maybe she shouldn't be outside? It's really dangerous for cats to live outdoors and I don't want to accidentally hurt her :((

~

Thanks for the kind words.

I can send you the link to the interview if you tell me your phone number. Or I can dm it to you on twitter—is the verified account actually you? The one that mostly shares scam links and random ip addresses?

Also I'm working on leash training Elle, so that we can go on walks and she can be an inside cat.

-M

~

I've tried to write this note like fifty times but the paper keeps tearing so I'll keep it short. My phone number changes a lot and I currently don't have a phone (giraffe again) but I'll just look it up when I get one! And yep that's my twitter, I try to delete the old pictures of me it posts but I gave up on when it posts my location.

Good luck again!

S

~

Why don’t you delete twitter?

-M

~

I did :( 

S

~

Solidarity, your life kind of sucks.

-M

~

You’ve got no room to talk, mister.

S

~

So that’s what it is, isn’t it? We’re just two losers.

-M

P.S. but, for the record, your life is way worse than mine.

~

Okay I’ve got a new phone and I watched the interview! You did incredible, I think I would’ve run away like two seconds in. Like even when they asked that one question about why you weren’t back to work when you’re pretty much physically all right, you really kept it together. I was genuinely so impressed.

Also you’re looking good! I don’t know how to explain it haha, but you look a lot better than you did on my living room floor. How are you doing? Do you think it went well?

S

~

I’d look a lot better in your bed Thanks for watching. It was hard. It was really hard. But I think it helped. I feel kind of better about getting back into it all. Not yet, but maybe soon.

Do you ever wish you’d chosen a different path in life?

-M

~

I never really had a choice to make.

S

P.S. but if I wasn’t powered, I think I’d want to do something with my hands. I used to think subways were the coolest thing ever. I wouldn’t mind learning how to fix a subway car.

~

I studied to be an architect. I loved city architecture. I wanted to design skyscrapers.

I didn’t ever plan to be a hero full-time, but I do like it. I enjoy my job. I’m famous, I live comfortably, I do cool stuff on TV.

But what if I would’ve been happier as an architect?

Sorry, this isn’t your problem. I should talk to my therapist about it.

-M

P.S. Maybe you can take a community college mechanics course?

~

I really can’t, cars tend to break down around me. I don’t even take Ubers anymore (not related to the car breaking-down thing, but because last time the driver held me at gunpoint and stole my phone and wallet).

Honestly mate, if you want to be an architect I'd say go for it. Even if it's only something you can do on the side you know? There's tons of people who never got the chance to do what they love. You deserve a good life.

S

~

Thanks. I'm sorry that you never got to choose. You deserve a good life, too.

I can't let Xornoth win. If I run away, it's defeat. If I don't do anything about it, they might hurt someone else.

I need to take care of this myself.

-M

~

That sounds like a suicide note.

S

~

Wouldn't be the first time.

-M

~

You should ask your friends for help. You don't have to do this alone. You shouldn't face them alone.

S

~

I haven't really talked to anyone since I got back. I know it isn't healthy but I can't. They don't get it. They don't know what Xornoth did to me. I can't let it happen to anyone else. They're a danger to the city and it's my duty to take them down. Alone.

I'm sorry.

-M

~

You aren't alone, okay? If you have no one else, you have me.

S

~

Thank you.

-M

P.S. it means so much to me. I consider you a friend. You have me, too.

~

I saw you on the news fighting the Engineers. You looked good! The fight went really well. How do you feel about it? Is there anything I can do to like support you?

S

P.S. Elle won't stop begging me for belly rubs but each time I try she nips my fingers :(

~

Hey are you doing all right? I mean you took a little bit of a hit in that fight so it's okay if you can't make it to my apartment to drop off a note haha. You can email me if it's easier awsumwingback8@yahoo.com.

S

~

Major please just like let me know that you're okay.

S

~

I may have broken into Blossom’s house (I meant to just knock but the door fell down) and she kicked my butt but she hasn't seen you in a while, she said. Are you okay? I'll break into your house next haha.

S

~

I know you told me not to write notes while I'm on your doorstep but if you don't open the door by tomorrow night I'm breaking in. Elle keeps trying to get me to follow her inside. I'm going to watch your house until tomorrow night, okay? You don't have to write back, just open the door.

I'll come for you.

S

P.S. I didn't mean to sound weird or creepy I mean I have your back. I'll come save you if they got you. 

I promise.

[fishenjoyer1]

I'm just starting to get into marine bio, and I found your blog today and I love it so much!! Do you have any recommendations of where I can learn stuff? (I hunger for fish knowledge)

It's always wonderful when someone else starts getting into marine bio, I'm honored to share resources!

Texts:

I personally learned a lot of what I now know from a series of textbooks I've picked up over the years, here some of my personal favorites!

Biological Oceanography An Introduction by Carol M. Lalli & Timothy R. Parsons: I personally found this textbook wonderful! Written very clearly and easy to understand, and contains summaries at the end of each chapter. Here is my favorite used&new book sellers results for this book. Here is the book on internet archive.

Marine Ecology: Processes, Systems, and Impacts by Michael J. Kaiser, Martin J. Attrill, & Simon Jennings: Covers much of the same things as biological oceanography, but valuable on its own. Here is the link to buy a copy for cheap. Here is the book on internet archive.

Limnology: Lake and River Ecosystems by Robert G. Wetzel: I personally found this the most dull textbook of my life, but, it is written very well. The chapters end with summaries also, which makes it easier to study, and this book is rather well renowned in freshwater studies. Here to buy a copy on my favorite book website. Here to read on internet archive (I'm relatively uncertain that its inaccessible) so Here is a preview on google books. (maybe I'll find the time to scan my copy and put it in a google drive)

The Diversity Of Fishes: Biology, Evolution, and Ecology by Douglas E. Facey, Brian W. Bowen, Bruce B. Collette, & Gene S. Helfman: I adore this textbook, it is easy to read and comprehend, a personal favorite. Not only that, it is wonderful for understanding fish. Here you can buy it (it's a bit pricey, so I recommend just using the internet archive). Here you can find it on internet archive.

Methods for Fish Biology by Stephen Midway, Caleb Hasler, and Prosanta Chakrabarty: A bit dense and hard to read, but it's a wonderful text on understanding how to do research, and how a lot of farming and understanding of fish is done. Here to buy it. Here to read it on internet archive

All the other textbooks I own are about marine mammals, so I'll recommend them if asked, but you seem more interested in fish and aquatic environments.

Audio:

I personally struggle to listen to informational audio and podcasts, so this section is a bit threadbare

The Marine Mammal Science podcoast by The Society for Marine Mammalogy here

Marine Biology in 5 minutes podcast here

Oceanlovers podcast here

The Deep-Sea Podcast here

Video:

I have some great recommendations I'm a personal fan of here!

I personally really enjoy Natural World Facts, he has some wonderful playlists and documentaries on the deep sea, different environments, animals, and ecosystems there.

MBARI (the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute) Has wonderful videos with their discoveries and research,

The Nautilus live, which does frequent live streams as they're exploring the ocean with ROVs and a running commentary from the staff!

The octopus lady does some good work, I haven't watched the most of her but she's relatively fun to put in the background to just generally learn about things marine

I also enjoy the work of AVNJ Fish Biologist, who does a lot less serious scientific videos, but he also has a video series on ichthyology I'm fond of so, check that out here!

Other:

when doing fish of the day, some sources have continually come back again and again, I'll list these off first.

Wikipedia: I personally find the wikipedia is a good resource, but it never gives the full picture when your trying to learn. Do not base your knowledge only on wikipedia, i recommend trying to read through some of the sources that wikipedia has listed on a topic, and if you are new to a subject I suggest trying to find introductory textbook before plunging in head first. I find that wikipedia is wonderful at convincing you that you know what its talking about, as it's very easy to just read without knowing the definition for a small handful of words. But, you will quickly come to realize at some point or another that you understood less than you think. As much as it is a wonderful tool, don't use it exclusive well learning

WoRMS- World Registrar of Marine Species has basic info and distinguishes between species, along with some good research, I'd recommend checking them out!

Fishbase! contains good information on most fish

.gov websites, and websites that align with governments across the world can be trusted for fish purposes mostly, the NOAA is a great resource for learning and searching info on animals, as is the Monterey Bay Aquarium

If you're looking to find a scientific paper, I recommend searching on google scholar, as it will show you which you can access the pdf of without paying.

And, if your looking to come into contact with papers you just cant seem to find the pdf of, I would recommend Scihub other than scihub, you can also look for any number of things locked behind a paywall with this niffty website I found ! A lot of resources there.

That's everything I can think of! Have a good time learning ! :)

[weekendviking]

Researching stuff.

Adding links here to methods for finding out things, because on the modern internet, actually finding out accurate information is now uniformly obfuscated by the relentless enshitification of search functions, proliferation of search engine optimised content mills, nation state level intentional misinformation and propaganda programs, and of course, these days, all the crap sources above are endlessly enriched by the output of generic Large Language Model plagiarism statistical bullshit engines, both image and text (And video and Bot and so forth).

Finding academic and peer reviewed Journal Articles - they haven't quite fucked google scholar yet, so it's better than the enshittified google or bing or <insert enshittified search bar embed here> whatever.

So I generally hit up Google Scholar for whatever subject, author name, paper title or similar that I've gleaned from whatever article or mention or wikpedia page sparked my interest. Often that gets me what I want, as there's often a link to a pdf of what I need within those search results. Yay.

If that doesn't work, then I start escalating, usually via the methodology here described at Logic of Science's blog:

They wrote it down so I don't have to. Excellent. Although some of the links in there have degraded. So the main ones I'll put here:

And then there's the pirate nuclear option, Sci Hub. Because it makes the big publishers and corporates really angry, don't use sci hub from a work or academic 'net access environment. Also it necessarily moves around a lot, so I generally search up where is sci hub now, to avoid going to a link that's expired or may now be a honeypot/trap:

Also, look out for content mill generated fake journals. I usually check here:

The other thing that's getting harder is finding out whether an image is misattributed or just plain fake. So right click and save the image, and then go to images dot google dot com, which is nowhere near as good as it used to be, but still not entirely enshittified, and click on the wee camera icon to the right and upload the image, and look through the results. What you find is _All_ the places that have posted that image, page after page of them. Scroll through - click on the ones that seem to be the oldest, check who's posting them. What you often find with viral outrage images is that they are _not_ what you think, especially if the image is a bit old, a bit bitrotted, or there's something else wrong - the clothing isn't right for the country/culture/time being outraged about, or something like that. Sometimes you find out that it's true, but most of the time you find out that it's wrong, that someone has just done a quick search for an image that roughly matches the outrage or the politics they want to push, added some outragey comments, and shared it, and enjoyed their flamey fire. I've been doing this for decades, ever since I started using a browser capable of image searching, mainly because I was outraged at people posting fake geology memes. But it works just as well on finding anything else.

And of course, if it's to a website, see if the wayback machine still has it cached:

[thezombieprostitute]

Sparks Fly - Part 5

Summary: After working as an engineer for Wilford & Gilliam Trust for several years you find evidence of seedy dealings and burned books. After turning in the evidence you find yourself in danger and seek help. You're taken into the protection of a mob family where you run into your high school best friend, Mace.

Word Count: ~1300

Warnings: Courtroom stress. Implied violence and attempted murder. Please let me know if I missed any.

Part 4 -- Part 6

Series Masterlist

The day of the testimony arrives way too quickly for you. You can barely eat anything that morning and only do so at Mace’s insistence. You’re already scared and don’t want the threat of vomiting making your nerves worse. 

He talks you through everything, emphasizing the security his people are gonna have looking out for you. “Barton’s gonna have an aerial view over the courthouse. GBH is gonna be in the crowds around the place, following any leads Barton gives him. And inside the courthouse is gonna be Nick.” He shows you a photo of Nick so you can search for him if you need to. “On top of that, Huffman’s taken care of the mole in his office and our intel guys have triple checked the rest of his team so the legitimate security force you have is going to protect you as well.”

You fight another wave of fear as you remember your first days in witness protection. The nonstop fear and seemingly never ending line of people wanting to kill you. Mace sees you tense and immediately pulls you in for a hug, gently kissing the top of your head, rubbing your arm.

“And after today,” you whisper, “do we know what’ll happen to me?”

“Teach managed to get you another week of being in this safehouse, pending emergency situations,” Mace tells you. “That way we can see if Wilford & Gilliam even have the resources to retaliate after everything.”

“They seem the type to spend their last penny on taking out someone who cost them so much.”

“Yeah, but at the same time, your testimony is going to do a lot of good for a lot of people hurt by their products, tactics and everything else,” Mace comforts. “I know it might not mean much to you, but you really are doing a lot of good with this. A major civil case, at the very least, is going to be able to use your testimony to give families some kind of retribution.” 

Mace had been talking with Barber, the Family’s lawyer, on a daily basis. He wanted to make sure that when he gave you information, comfort, it was backed up by someone who actually knew their stuff. Barber was quick to give Mace and Teach support for keeping you safe because of the good involved in taking down Wilford & Gilliam. There was a major class action lawsuit only able to go forward because of you. It affected several people in the Family’s territory which helped the push for more protection for you. 

You push yourself up, “I should probably get showered and dressed. Huffman’s gonna be here in an hour or so, right?”

“Right,” Mace confirmed. “And you know I wouldn’t let you leave with someone I didn’t trust to keep you safe.”

“Right,” you nod.

Mace is first to the courthouse. He’s not allowed on the text chain between either of your security teams but he is allowed to text if he sees something or someone questionable. He’s keeping an eye on the courthouse website’s calendar, making sure he knows if any changes happen. He’s nervous about the whole thing and grateful they don’t have good coffee or he’d be even more jittery. 

Once the proceedings begin, though, he calms down a bit. He’s in the back row of the right room at the right time. He takes a look around at the other people in the room, trying to memorize important identifiers in case identification is needed later. He’s practiced at making sure to not immediately look up when someone enters or leaves the room. He knows how to look like just another bored face. I’ve got this, he lets himself think. 

The room is far from empty, the giant conglomerate that is Wilford & Gilliam is on trial. The rows are occupied by victims and press alike. Because of that, he isn’t surprised when someone sits a little too close to him. What does surprise him is that he recognizes the signet ring on the person’s hand. Trying to not be obvious Mace looks as best he can from the corner of his eye but the guy is too tall. He needs a new angle. 

Thankfully that’s when you’re brought in, dressed in the business formal attire Teach had picked up for you. Your entry was the excuse he needed to look up and glance to his side, confirming his suspicions. Franco the Younger, hitman for Wilford & Gilliam. How the hell did he get past Barton and G? Mace wastes no time subtly pulling out his phone and texting a message to the team. 

He makes sure to keep looking forward, in case you need him, but his focus is on Franco, searching for any and all movement. The Franco’s were dedicated to their corporate overlords. All Mace knew was that they had no limits. They’d do whatever was needed to get their prey. They’re the ones that killed Curtis’s brother Edgar, eager to be rid of the competition for the favor of their CEO’s. The fact that Curtis could confirm some of the more heinous rumors about the brothers made Mace’s skin crawl.

His relief comes in the form of Nick taking the seat on the other side of Franco. Nick stretches his arms on the back of the pew, he’s able to pat Mace’s shoulder a little in an attempt to be comforting. 

Franco looks at Nick who whispers, just loud enough that Mace can make it out, “you know, me and my Lady have a party to go to in a few days that has me all kinds of worked up and stressed. I’d love to take that energy out on someone. What do you say, Franco? You wanna help me with that?”

Mace lets himself smile as he sees Franco’s hand clench into a fist. The Franco’s may have the stronger reputation for ruthlessness but Nick’s reputation for efficiency in causing pain is well nigh legendary. Franco wordlessly stands and walks outside of the courtroom. Nick follows a few minutes later, letting Mace focus on you. 

You’ve been doing an amazing job in your testimony. You’re hitting all the important notes, making sure your explanations aren’t overly technical while not being so dumbed down that holes can be poked in your words, allowing doubt to seep in. It took up so much of your brain power you didn’t have the energy to be scared or look around for Mace. You keep your attention on the questions only occasionally needing to fidget with something for your nerves. 

As much as you’d wanted to keep Mace nearby for the pre-trial prep you had to admit, Huffman was likely the better person for it. He talked you through all of the things that were going to happen, gave you some advice for how to handle yourself and speak to the jury at their level. You took all of his advice to heart and, given the looks you’ve seen from the lawyers and the families in the gallery, you’ve been doing well. 

The only thing that you couldn’t really prepare for was how much time was needed. It felt like you’d been answering questions for hours without a break. Maybe that was their tactic? Wear you down to make you less intelligible? Less trustworthy as a source? It was a major relief to you when the judge called for a recess. You’d get some food and some friendly company to help settle your nerves before round two. 

Part 4 -- Part 6

Series Masterlist

Tagging:

@chibijusstuff

@jamneuromain

@jaqui-has-a-conspiracy-theory

@rebekahdawkins

@texmexdarling

Please let me know if you'd like to be tagged.

[sporesgalaxy]

Tumblr keeps crashing each time I send this so I gotta be quick: do have any tips on how to study biology (college is not an option atm)

Oh boy! I will do my best!

I've listed the basic irl resources for biological information first, followed by some online resources.

I've got a strong Animalia bias, so apologies that I don't have any botany-specific sites for you. 😔

I'm sure there's some stuff I'm forgetting. I'll add on to this if I think of anything!

If there's anything specific you need help finding a reliable biological resource for, let me know and I will try my best to help find you something!

•••

Finding primary sources (stuff written by the scientists who did the research [i.e. a journal article]) is always very good, but reliable secondary resources (someone else summarizing other people's research [i.e. Wikipedia page, book]) can be very valuable as well.

•••

Meatspace Resources

-

I would highly recommend checking to see if there is a Nature Park in your area! Nature parks often have volunteer programs and/or free educational opportunities. In my experience, naturalists are always very excited to meet new people interested in learning about local ecology!

-

There's also Zoos and Aquariums of course, although I know they cost money and are typically geared more towards kids. I'm lucky to live near some nice ones. Maybe check if there are any special programs happening at Zoos/Aquariums in your area (by checking their website[s]), where you might learn more than you would on a normal day trip.

-

Plus natural history museums, which usually have rotating exhibits so that you can keep learning new things when you come back! They also have more of an all-ages vibe than Zoos in my experience. Once again dependant on if there's one near you, and not free.

-

Last but not least: the local library, although obviously not every published book is a flawless resource. Still, might be interesting to poke around! There's usually some sort of digital search catalogue to make finding things easier. Libraries are fun :)

•••

Online Resources

-

Jstor is GREAT. Not all jstor articles are open access/free, but some are! And you can set a search filter to show you only things you can access.

One good way to find out what experts have written for other experts about biology: search a species name or biological concept or type of experimental study, etc. etc., in jstor's journal articles. I've linked a search for journal articles "I can access" containing the word "biology" as an example.

The website layout can feel a little obtuse at first but I think if you fiddle around with it a bit, it's not too bad to figure out? Feel free to kick my ass if I'm wrong djgjkeg

-

Wikipedia is actually a very good place to introduce yourself to a lot of biological concepts. I would recommend checking out some of the sources yourself if you can-- usually at least some of them are free, and that can introduce you to new free resources for learning more (today I discovered bugguide.net!). Often they will link you to jstor.

But biology-focused wiki pages have a pretty good track record for Correct Information in my experience. The only issue I've run into is there being too little information sometimes.

-

Pubmed is a really good resource to read biomedical scientific papers for free if that interests you at all! Reading scientific papers is a really important skill and I think you can pick up a lot just by diving in and googling words you don't know.

A well-designed experiment is replicable (that is, you can understand from the paper how they set things up to the point that you could do it yourself, given the resources). It's also important to pay attention to sample size. The more times you replicate any process in an experiment, the more likely you will be able to identify what the most common result really is, and why.

-

Fishbase is a website I was introduced to in my icthyology class to find info about different fish species :) It kind of just dumps all the info on you in a big text wall, but many pages include great details about life cycle and diet that might go unmentioned on wiki pages.

-

I've never used bugguide.net before today, but so far it seems solid and like it has a lot of good info. I assume it is similar to fishbase but for bugs

-

EDIT: FREE ONLINE TEXTBOOKS I FORGOT ABOUT!!!

I used both of these for university classes at some point. I didn't use them much, so there may be issues I don't know about.

In my experience though they were solid resources, if a little confusingly worded at times. Bouncing between the textbooks and wikipedia tended to help me.

[squeakadeeks]

hello, here to pester you with a question >:3!

where do you get the money to make your cosplays?? i'm in the middle of crafting a bunch of stuff for a plant convention and gyatt damn everythings so pricey

:((

along with the storage ive been getting this one a bunch too haha

to tell true, this is no fault on your part so no frets here at all !!! BUT i'm not comfortable discussing my personal finances online. because on a wide scale, anything in regards to money gets incredibly niche to a person's circumstances and will make people get upset/can leave you vulnerable to a lot of bad things. My pay scale and spending habits are not something i'm hip to sharing online since its really private and opens a lot of dangerous doors. (also my spending habits are not exactly healthy or generalizable either.) I'm not saying this to like...dodge being a secret billionaire or anything, but even if i say "i work a STEM job" I've had people get weird about even just that information.

That being said, there are ways i make cosplay more affordable.

usually in-store fabric shopping at say joanns, is just about as expensive as it gets. if you have to shop only at joanns, michaels, etc the bill racks up fast. There are some in-store fabric shops that are cheaper, especially if they are wholesalers or general fabric warehouses, but those are not easy to find outside of cities most often. Joanns does have good coupons, and i can only shop at joanns these days if i have a coupon or there's a sale on that fabric type i'm interested in!

online wholesale fabric shops are a good way to find fabrics that are at lower prices, but then it does incur extra shipping costs. because of that i try to limit the number of orders I make (more orders, more extra shipping). this looks like grouping orders between projects, or even compromising on fabric types based on the stock of one website so i dont have to split an order between two sites.

sometimes you really do have to sacrifice material type. theres been a number of projects this year that i wanted to make out of a nicer type of fabric, even Thistle for example i considered making out of a dupioni, but it was just too dang expensive. dupioni would be around $25 a yard...vs poly suede which is $6. or even a cheaper satin at $3 a yard is a common sub i use as well. I also very frequently have to throw out entire cosplay ideas just based on cost since its just not feasible no matter how many compromises i make.

reduce the burden by extending your timeline. unfortunately theres no way around it, most projects i make are $200-300, and thats....fairly low in the grand scheme of things for crafting-focused cosplayers on mid sized projects. but either way, dropping all of that at once in one place is a huge blow to the wallet. but if you break up that whole $200 cost into say...$20 chunks from one week to the next, its softer. if you cant or dont want to reduce your budget, expanding your timeline is a good solution. now granted, that does cause a problem with the whole "less orders means less shipping costs" but the weighing of those two scenarios has to be done person to person/project to project.

STOCKING UP....when there are sales or other things, building a horde can be a great move. like silverbell didnt actually show up much on my finances this month because all the fabric i used on his suit was storage fabric. so it was ""free"" to me this month, because i already bought it.....3 years ago...and that money isnt real anymore haha.

this is really regional and depends on where you are, but thrift stores can have material sections that have good fabrics as well as sheets/blankets/base garments etc. ive been weirdly lucky with finding great fabrics at thrift stores...like literal joanns fabric for half the cost there, but thats super SUPER hit or miss and not something i rely on, but i do check that section whenever i'm there

[yvanspijk]

Hey there, I was wondering what sources you use for your etymology infographics -- particularly for Germanic languages that aren't English (I'm working on my own unrelated etymology-based art project). I've got a linguistics degree but it was mostly synchronic stuff, so I never really learned the best places to look for these things. I don't know the best sources for etymologies even in major languages like Dutch, to say nothing of languages with less prestige like Low German varieties and such. For English I can get good enough info from etymology online, but I'd love to know better places to search for these things in other Germanic languages than wiktionary.

Hi there! I often start on Wiktionary, because it contains an awful lot of data. But then I always check the etymologies using good dictionaries, because as you know there are a loads of errors on Wiktionary. I daren't rely on it.

For Dutch I use etymologiebank.nl, where high-quality etymological dictionaries are freely available. Most of them also include information about cognates in the other Germanic languages. The downside is that you can only search for Dutch entries.

For Proto-Germanic I use the etymological dictionary by Guus Kroonen, which can be found online.

For Spanish, there's the dictionary by Corominas & Pascual, which often contains information about Portuguese and Catalan as well. I use De Vaan's etymological dictionary of Latin, since Corominas & Pascual don't discuss anything before Latin.

The website of Treccani briefly discusses Italian etymologies, as Duden does for German.

The rest I puzzle together. When I want to know the etymology of a word in a language whose etymological dictionary I don't have, I try to find out what its cognates are and look up these instead.

I hope this helps. Do tell me if you'd like to know more!

[jayessar]

Instead of fully being an annoying boomer loser who isn't happy about the new things, I'll make some sort of a masterpost about cool JSR and JSRF information sources and other neat thingies. Probably will be updated if i find anything else worth including.

So, first of all:

•Official websites for JSR and JSRF. JSRF website has an English version, but it's barely archived and doesn't have much information on it anyway. JSR one is really awesome though, a lot of cool tidbits, character bios(they include one new trivia for some characters ) and game tips!!

•A whole bunch of guidebooks, meaning JSR Perfect Guide, JSRF Perfect Guidebook and the JGR Sybex's Official Strategies & Secrets . Only one of them is in English, but they're still useful for maps and Graffiti Soul collecting. If you can read these then even better lol. Keep in mind, that the JSR Perfect Guide only covers the original Japanese release, which is different from the later one's.

• Sexy as hell manuals for JGR, De La JSR, JSR for GBA and JSRF. Always good to know about these.

•The JSR and JSRF articles on Sega Retro. You probably noticed me linking them for the manuals and whatnot. If you want to find out stuff about these games, this is second best source for it (first one is playing the games lol). But it has some weird statements like saying that Beat is the leader of the GGs, even though it doesn't make any logical sense, and claiming that JSRF is a sequel game, but then also saying that it's not in the actual JSRF article.

It's probably the obvious thing that could've been noted, so now to less obvious one's.

• Jet Set Radio Wiki. Okay, this website had a bad reputation and all and was filled with creepy comments and lies, now it's all good. I swear. New admin didn't just remove all the misinformation, but also regularly writes new articles! Like how we have Ollie King related pages there now(while it's a different game, making a separate wiki for it would be kind of an overkill so it's there). Anyways yeah, it's good now. But still always check the sources! It's good to do no matter where you are.

While these little things suck, they're completely overshadowed by the sheer amount of fucking information included. Scans, art, documentation of which magazine had articles regarding the games and on which page AND EVERYTHING IS WITH SOURCES AND IMAGES. This is really strong and you'll be there for hours just staring in wonder at all this compiled info.

• JSR Archives. This is a community dedicated for archiving and categorising all the stuff JSR related. One of their members was the one who posted the Sybex guide on the internet.(whoahaaa they got a tumblr FOLLOW THEM!!)

• TCRF article on JGR. While this article wasn't updated in quite some time and is missing a whole bunch of stuff (like the leaked prototypes), it's still a very nice read.

• A whole bunch of prototypes. I included only those i consider noteworthy, if you wanna get the other's, they're there as well.

• JSRF Inside. A certified hood classic if we're talking about JSRF modding.

• Best source for JSRF speedrunning information.

• An extremely really detailed playthrough/guide of JSR. Includes cool trivia like regional differences and instructions for character unlocking.

• Less detailed, but still very useful video guide for unlocking all of the secret JSRF characters.

• Playlist of JSR/JSRF music, and anything related to them, like different remixes and stuff. Read the description for more details. It also has a link to a text document containing a lot of cool trivia about the artist featured in the games and other JSR related media.

• Video with all the dialogue and special interactions in JSRF.

• Kind of a joke entry, but also Hideki Naganuma's twitter account is worth checking out. Not his new tweets, but really old one's. In the past he was more involved with the fanbase and shared some neat trivia. Not related to him but one of the Castle Logical ppl confirmed that the lyrics in Mischievous Boy say "chameleon machine" and it fucks me up so much.

• This goofy ass official IGN guide for JSR. Why i didn't put it with the rest of the official guides? Well, the reason is that the writer for this thing, Aki, is a real silly goose and they decided to spice up some of the character descriptions. While these are probably based on some legitimate information, like Beat being from Fukuoka(which was confirmed by a Beat TUBBZ figurine of all things), you can't trust these due to its silliness. Like they gave DJ K a backstory, which just ruins his whole deal AND contradicts the game manual. They also consistently get the names for locations wrong. As a game guide it's pretty good?? You can use it. Just don't go around calling Gum a "brownface girl" after reading it.

That's everything i can remember so far, hope this helps.

[codeandcanvas]

After privating all of my posts here (I am never deleting anything, not completely, that is), I have chanced upon the capital C graphic design Community here on Tumblr, which I have instantly joined to built rapport and connection with other graphic designers and graphic design students here on Tumblr (at least with the ones who are also interested in building together and in public, lol).

You can find the community here: https://www.tumblr.com/communities/graphic-design

And since I have said before that I want to do weekly round‑ups to look at what I was doing the last seven days, this post doubles (or triples?) as that, as a fauxrst post (false first post, I like those), as well as creating something (a)new.

The last week I was building an’ changing a few things on my website, drawing inspiration from all sorts of people, all sorts of places, all sorts of nets.

I have added a couple of new pages to my WordPress‑based website, and moved around navigational links.

There is of course the page with the design links to websites and podcasts you can use in your RSS feed readers of choice, provided you do a little bit of digging (if you need some help with that, you can write me any way you like, and we’ll look into it together)

The new stuff I put in the footer, following inspiration from Scott Boms website.

I have a page for friends now (currently made up of my teachers, tutors, and professors, mostly), a page for what I am doing now, called Now (which is a really cool idea, and it fits neatly between the very thin substance of a status post, and a long form post like this one, both in size, as well as now‑ness; you can find out more about that here: https://nownownow.com/about)

But what I think is the most important addition to my website, is the page about tools, “Werkzeuge” in German.

Here I could finally dump all of my graphic design hacker tools, at least that is how I think of them.

My system consists of two pillars: new information, and how it is being stored. I believe that everyone rolls their own tools after a while. I would just love it if somebody would find some use for mine, if only to build something better from that.

The two RSS feeds linked to from the footer are neat: you have the usual feed for the whole site, but I also provided an RSS feed of my custom status updates, which you can see on Home.

These status updates are my own, most recent solution to my issues with posting, well, status updates on my socials:

you know, issues like

am I posting the same status update to every net I have an account for,

will I automate and schedule the same content everywhere and be a boring, cold machine, and

do I want to burn myself out coming up thesaurus’d variants of the same post for every net?

So now there are two ways to check (three, really) in what mess I’ve gotten myself into recently: you can check my Now page, you can look at my Statuses, or you can check it out using your own, third way.

As for my study schedule, I am glad that summer is over, because I clearly cannot function during summer. I hope with cooler days ahead, I can keep a cooler head while practicing the art of not judging what I do or don’t do. I might have gotten my degree, but I want to learn so much more.

Started reading Creative Code by John Maeda and sort of forensically/archeologically recreating the years during which it was written and printed, because these past twenty years have basically muddied the tracks quite a bit, so to speak. It is a good read.

And I think I have covered the whole week now, broadly enough.

I need to figure out which hashtags should go with this post. I need to look at the top posts for each tag I think could fit, and then consider what being in the top means for each tag I am looking at.

Eh, let’s go through this together:

huge tags first (>1 million followers)

#drawing

6.1M followers

1.3K recent posts

#artwork

3M followers

1.3K recent posts

#illustration

16M followers

962 recent posts

#digital painting

1.6M followers

157 recent posts

#digital art

5.5M followers

3.5K recent posts

#sketch

4.8M followers

662 recent posts

#traditional art

1.2M followers

448 recent posts

#graphic design

5.8M followers

this one doesn’t even show a recent posts count at all? But it feels extremely dead if you look at recent posts under that tag.

We’ll figure this out together. If it is graphic design, then I will tag it as such. If it is something else, then I will not tag it as graphic design. I think that this is a solid foundation towards connecting.

So, what is this post?

It is about my website, it is about studying, about me being a graphic designer, and about software I use. Also, it is about creative coding, generative art, a book, and that I use WordPress.

So I wonder which tags I will use? I prefer low counts when it comes to hashtags. Five sounds reasonable, nice for chunking, too,

So there. I might not be a student anymore, but that means that I have just proven to have the discipline to get my degree, so studyblr fits.

Hi everyone! Hello world.

[abuddyforeveryseason]

So, last time I mentioned a comic that didn't exist, but this time I'm going to mention one that did - but doesn't anymore.

It's called Swim Club, created by Justin Alexander and Britt Prevatte. I don't know who they are. Around 2018 or so, they uploaded is as a webcomic to self-hosted site swimclubcomic.com. I found out about it later, but by then, the site had already gone offline. I can't find information about the creators online (it doesn't help that there are other, more famous people with the same name as Alexander), and anything else related to the comic just leads back to the now-dead website.

On the wayback machine, I manged to find and save a few of the sixty or so pages of the comic - the cover, pages 2, 43, 51 and 59, but nothing else.

So, it seems like the comic is lost for good. Which is weird, cause, people seem to think on the internet, stuff is supposed to be preserved forever. But this webcomic - which admittedly wasn't popular despite the high polish - simply doesn't exist anymore. The creators disappeared, too, and I don't even know if they're alive anymore.

I don't know much of the story - something about teenagers interacting and fighting old gods or something, like Lovecraft meets a sports manga, interdimensional stuff - but the art is really well done and interesting, and I really like the vibe. Some cool hatching and Ben-Day action, too. Check that last page out, isn't it good stuff?

I was going to say something silly - "if I was that talented, I would never give up making comics."

I was talking to a bud a few months ago about Quentin Tarantino's decision to retire after his next movie. My friend was confused by it - why would someone so talented give up on the dream job of directing movies? But, you know, the reason his movies are so good (I know some people don't really like him, but that's not the point) is because he works so hard on making them, and that ends up being exhausting. It seems like the reason there isn't a Vega Brothers movie, or a Kill Bill Volume 3 is because he was too tired to make those.

So, he's made his movies, and he made money off those, I figured he's earned an early retirement. Even if I'm a fan, it's not like creators owe their fans to continue making art even if they're burnt out and out of ideas. Not unless they can't afford to give it up, which is a-whole-nother can of worms.

So, I can't blame the creators of Swim Club for giving up their work, either. It's a pity I won't get to actually read the thing (I've only found out about it post-mortem), but even if I did, it's not like the story reached an ending then and there. It's kind of a melancholy thought, the idea that something so well-made would be lost in the tides of time, though.

I understand it's happened a lot throughout history, even to beloved geniuses like Kafka, Shakespeare and Fritz Lang, but, still. Sad.

[omegaprotocol]

The Truth

A few days later Hailey is in her home at the dining room table on her laptop. She is open to a website with job listings for anything robotics related. She gets a text on her phone, opens up the message and sees that she has been rejected for the job. She lets out an aggravated groan. This was the third rejection today and it wasn’t even noon. She had never been rejected from a job before, but now it seems like it’s the norm. After she puts her phone down it begins ringing. She checks the caller ID to see that it’s Jason. She hangs up the phone but Jason calls again almost immediately. Hailey rolls her eyes and answers the phone.

“Hello?” she says in an annoyed tone.

“Yeah. Hello. What’s the deal, you just drop off your stuff at my apartment and bail?”

“I have a ton of important stuff to do right now and I just need you to watch Omega for a little bit. After I get this all sorted out I’ll get her and be out of your hair.”

“No, you can’t do this to me again. You always say that it’s something important. Well you know what, I’m important too and this ain’t fair, not to me, or your sunshine toy.” Hailey places a hand on her temple.

“Please tell me you aren’t saying these things in front of her.”

“What, that’s what you care about? And no I’m not, right now I’m in my car driving.”

“Ok good, I don’t need to explain to Omega that she isn’t a toy.”

“Why does that matter?”

“I have to curate the information she hears, she is a learning AI meant to save the world. I can’t have her data corrupted because I can’t build another one of her, I only get one shot.”

“One shot for what? Why not just tell me what’s happening?”

“If I tell you, will you stop complaining about her being in your apartment?”

“The reasoning had better be great, but sure I will.”

“Ok I’ll meet you at the fareway for coffee and tell you about it.”

Hailey then arrives at the fareway, a golf themed coffee shop with green walls made to look like terf and little flags at every table. Hailey walks in and looks around and finds Jason with a cup of coffee slouched in a booth toward the back of the shop. Hailey walks over, sits down and pulls out her laptop to continue applying for jobs. Jason looks around the laptop with a tired expression.

“Couldn’t even say hi first before ignoring me?”

“I know you want my world to revolve around you right now but at the moment I have to apply for new jobs.”

“New jobs? What happened to your old one?”

“I lost it.”

“Ok, the world is ending. How did you get fired from a job? You're like the most insane work-a-holic I know.”

“You want to know what’s going on or not?” Jason puts his hands up as if to surrender and sits back in his seat. “Ok, so, it started a few months ago, I had gotten the government to pick me for the grant for their ‘International defense program’ or whatever. After I got picked they gave me a document detailing what they wanted. They needed a defense system from… something. It was really vague and didn’t talk about defense from what. It just kept saying ‘the target’ over and over again.

“The target? Like, as in, an alien that is coming to destroy Earth?”

“Right? It was weird and I couldn’t make sense of it. I made a few prototypes of things that might work but they were not impressed. I got another document saying more about ‘the target’ but as I was reading it became clear that the government had no idea who or what was coming to hit us. So, because I can’t solve a problem I can’t even figure out, I decide to build Omega Zero and a few other systems to help her out in defending us from this thing.”

“What!” Jason gets low and whisper-yells to Hailey. “Omega isn’t a nuke right? You did not put a nuclear bomb in my apartment!” Hailey rolls her eyes.

“No, she isn’t a bomb. The government wishes I just built a bomb, but that doesn’t solve the issue. No matter what I build, the mysterious target could have a potential answer to it, and if they do, the world is doomed. So instead I put my dissertation’s money where its mouth is and built a true AI. An AI that could learn who the target is and defeat them no matter what it is.”

“Woah, that is like, a really big deal.”

“Yes it is. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. Anyway the government was not happy that I wouldn’t build them a weapon of mass destruction, so I grabbed Omega and ran. No doubt the government has me on a watch list, and on top of that I for some reason can’t get hired right now. All the jobs I apply to reject me.”

There is a pause as Jason looks down at his coffee and Hailey continues to type. Jason realizes he may have overreacted now knowing how much stress Hailey is under.

“Hey, I’m sorry about the phone call earlier. I didn’t realize what you were going through. Omega can stay at my apartment for as long as you need.” Hailey looks up from her laptop and makes eye contact for a brief moment.

“No problem, I know it was probably hard to not get any information and just have this dropped on you. Especially in the middle of your music career.”

“Yeah well, I’ve mostly just been working at the movie theater these days.”

“Oh, that’s cool too I guess.” Jason and Hailey finish their coffee in silence before returning to their homes.