#for some reason it doesn't jump up to the list of most recent works

[kimberly-spirits13]

Batboys Dating Cat-like Reader HC (Request)

Warnings: mild language

Note: not really sticking to a request list or anything but I thought this would be a good one- Still on the Damian and Jason trains so expect some more of stuff for them in the future I think. Also, y'all the recent tumblr drama kept me up so late last night, I was fully enthralled by the circus that was last night 💀

Dick Grayson:

He definitely isn't the chill laid back type- Dick is the bubbliest person you could know and it translates onto the field

The two of you have known each other since he was Robin so he's familar with all of your facets

He jokes that you're two different people when it comes to personal life and fighting

You're total opposites in the regards that he likes to go full throttle, brights colors kind of personality, and you're fine laying back and reading a good book for the entire day

Dick appreciates that you teach him to settle for a moment before jumping around to something new

When the two of you first fought together, he was shocked to see you be almost as serious as Bruce

Had to do a double take

You were swift and calculated, not taking a moment to relax and stay in place

You scolded him for paying attention to you rather than the fight at hand and he snapped out of it but couldn't stop thinking about it

When he found out about your ability to transform into a cat, he was thrownnnn

he thought he was confused seeing you fight? now he's just bamboozled

It isn't often that you use these abilities, but it comes in handy for collecting information on people

There's nothing inherently suspicious about a stray cat roaming around shady allywaya or docks in Gotham City so no one is suspicous towards the feline after Nightwing comes crashing in unexpectedly

He's a total tease about it too- has probably pointed a lazer at you to see if you'd react before having his dreams smashed by your intense eye roll and the book that smacked across his forehead

Jason Todd:

Probably the type to seek out a laid back person as a partner

He wants someone to sit around with so that he can read Jane Austen in comfortable silence

Favorite spot is infront of the fireplace in the library of Wayne Manor

always joked that you were drawn to the heat like a cat in the sun

He thought he was kidding until the first time during patrol that you shrank down into a little grey and white cat before jumping off the ledge of whatever you were on to get a better idea of what two goons were talking about

When you came back up and reverted to regular form and told him that Penguin was planning a jewelry heist, was dead still trying to process

"what the fuck Y/N?" his brain is going at 100mph going "huh, how what, why, when, HUH?"

"I was just kidding about you being like a cat..."

You grin at him and he accepts that he's seen weirder and moves on

When it comes to fighting, he likes that you're not playing around about anything

There are times where he's worried that you could hurt yourself in the intensity of the entire affair, but you sooth his worries by promising that you wouldn't do anything stupid if there wasn't a good reason for it

If he's feeling funny one day, he will totally wave a string of yarn in front of you with the most devious look plastered on his face

"Really, Jason?"

"What?? I'm just checking!"

he likes that he often finds you curled up on the couch doing something engulfed in his clothes

like, they're comfortable, what are you gonna do?

Jason loves that you're able to get him to sit back and take a breath when he's worked up instead of letting him think that the world is going to come down on him

Sometimes he just needs a bit of a reality check

Tim Drake:

Loves, LOVES that you're fine just sitting with him while he works on cases

You don't nag him about things and are content keeping him company without pushing him to do things that he either doesn't want to do or can't do

You're often metaphorically talking him off the ledge and making him see things through a more realistic perspective instead of the end all be all that he can wrap his mind into sometimes

Thought that this would all translate into sparring until he's pinned on the mat with no way to escape

Not only is he sore and tired after the first sparring match that he has with you, he's confused

like- what?

consider him more confused when you offer to stalk out a few goons he was tailing by shifting into an inconspicuous cat

"you can do that?"

"yea Tim. This isn't new love"

well then..

He often asks that you do this for the sake of gathering information, but he secretly feels guilty because he's worried that you could get hurt somehow

He'd definitely notice if a cat was stalking around and then all of his plans were foiled everytime

You assure him that it's not hard to mimic an actual cat and that the goons are often too stupid to notice anything

Besides, it's not like you don't blend in with the rest of Gotham's stray cat population

Tim finds peace in the fact that he doesn't have to worry about you getting hurt in the field due to inexperience or lack of effort

He's more worried for the run of the mill underpaid goons who just got swept up in the whirlstorm of your patrol

Damian Wayne:

I feel like it would take him a second to get used to the cat thing

sure he knows Beast Boy, and that's not weird to him anymore, but at first it was a bit torturous considering that he wasn't a massive fan of his demeanor but still really likes animals

the difference here is that Damian vibes super well with your demeanor

He doesn't worry about you running around and acting a fool

Loves that you're basically always in his company, even if it's in silence

He likes to sit and either read or draw/paint while you're doing your own thing

it's a peaceful presense that he knows won't get ripped away by some instability or shift in the world

He didn't realize that this calmness didn't translate into fighting until you're sparring for the first time

he offers to teach you and improve your skill so you play along

"Try to attack me." He said with a tone of confidence

There's not a moment for him to think before you've laid him out of the mat and knocked the air out of his lungs

"How was that?" You asked with a smirk in your voice

"that was... unexpected."

That moment ends the era of him worrying so much about you on the field

He doesn't tense up as much when you suggest that you could collect information by stalking the suspects as a cat

He knows that you can certainly handle yourself without his assistance

Wouldn't mind if you curled up in his lap as a cat, but he would never voice that outloud

at least not for a LONGGG time

you have caught him intensely observing your interactions with Alfred the cat

He wants to know if Alfred will have either some sort of reaction to you, or like you more than the average person

Don't tell him that you know about these "little observations" or he'll sink into himself and die out of embarrassment

[ballad-of-the-lamb]

I've been bingeing your art in this blog for, like, the last hour. Sooo much good stuff!

Can we hear more about notable members of the Cult? Cheese Parm's s/o and such

cult info below cut b/c i'm gonna be typing a lot;

Everyone listed here are basically the main runners/cast when it comes to plot relevance in the story in itself. there are plenty of cast & characters that aren't- but they wont pop up for anything other than background characters perhaps staring on in horror at god antics or one another's antics.

we'll start from the top;

GALLOWS [ girlyed cheese ]

the most recent member of the cult to be saved specifically by the lamb themself from sacrifice within Darkwood.

a lot of cult conflict will begin with the uninitiated, the unknowing. and the influence of the twin gods will be seen on her in real time as the story progresses.

she is generally a very generic playful-but-tricky fox character, but there's a lot she hides; much like the rest of the cult members. her past is not happily talked about, or seldom is.

she was a native to Darkwood. She is chaotic because of it.

she was meant to be burned at the stake.

EKPYROSIS [ asbestos ]

This word derives from a Greek word for a great fire. It represents a belief held by some scholars of Stoicism, that says that the universe has no beginning or end, and instead is destroyed and remade in a great conflagration in a cyclic manner. Just as life & death ever are.

Her name stands out among the rest of the cult because it was the name that the Lamb bestowed upon her upon being given the title of disciple. Just as Narinder took Baal & Aym to learn from him, the Lamb took her.

Her previous name is not known to anyone mind the Lamb themself, Narinder, and cheese parm.

She is more inclined to using and being influenced by the eldritch artifacts & relics the Lamb or Narinder tend to return with.

She leaves an uneasy and terrible 'uncanny valley' feeling tenfold within her vicinity, which makes her hard to be around. It is not just being outright creepy- but it's a lot more akin to literally feeling reality dip and bow around you into something not quite right.

She does not move like a normal person. The way she walks, runs, jumps- it's all too impossible to replicate without someone shattering every bone in their body.

When she speaks, her voice is delayed from her mouth. And it doesn't always line up perfectly.

most notably; cheese parm hates her. for good reason.

OTHERA [ bong water ]

An average cult member on the surface. They are a caretaker, they are matronly, they work as the local therapist. Generally just likes taking care of people.

When the Lamb, Disciples, & Narinder aren't around to listen to confessionals in the booth they are typically who does.

It's an unspoken rule to not make them angry or let them get to '1' when they start counting down from 5.

He is typically known for the reason morale is good. A good shoulder to rely on.

He is the third oldest member of the cult, resurrected multiple times over to serve his purpose, next to cheese parm & his sister. they are also the only one that asbestos seems to actively fear besides cheese parm.

EUNOMIA [ they/theminem ]

Eunomia was a minor goddess of law and legislation, whose name means "Good Laws", and is specifically a goddess of order according to good governance.

The second disciple. Known for learning the use of the Lamb's personally created curses specifically, though does know the ones Narinder passed on. They do not deem themselves worthy enough to use those.

Generally a very angry & spiteful person for a multitude of reasons. It mostly comes down to 'bearer of the curse' and the curse being knowledge.

They are the only one really permitted to 'backtalk' due to how much they actually do know their place.

they are very heavily disciplined under the rule of self-flagellation, and know the tenants and rites better than anyone else in the cult. even the head ritualist.

as said on paper. cheese parm's s/o. the significantly scarier one. they have not had a reason to be scary in a good couple hundred years! don't make them start now.

has 2 adopted kids w/ cheese parm they raise.

PANKRATIAST [ cheese parm ]

The Pankration is a sport of unarmed combat that featured in the ancient Olympic Games in Greece. This specific association fits as he's specifically an unarmed fighter first and foremost.

While not a disciple, is considered one generally in 'importance' to the higher ups of the cult. While he is no more important than Gallows, Othera, Minced Meat, or any other average member- he has the veteran's respect.

Was given a name by the Lamb, and since he does not speak, it's not like he can correct anyone otherwise.

well. doesn't talk. only ever communicates in vague grunts and noises that voice displeasure or a neutral 'ok'

Generally considered stoic, he does not feel strongly about most things.

The village executioner. The head missionary. Bartender. Does all the jobs no one else wants to do, and even others when no one else does it.

Smells of gore & wet dog constantly.

Knows. Remembers. Knows why death is broken, knows how it broke, will not tell Lamb or Narinder. He is a Witness.

Knows all the weaponry the Lamb uses & can use it just as effectively on a physical level.

The first of the flock. Will be there even when there is no more flock to have. As it will ever be, pinkie promised back in the Silk Cradle back where he was first found.

ILONA [ taco bell qsdea ]

a specialist in alchemy, cooking, & plants. Tends to the farms, gardens, & warding stones.

The first of the cult members Narinder warmed up to directly after descension. They brought him food every day, they gave him supplies, and other than the Lamb- they were the first to not be terrified of him.

They are very blind and often need a guide when they are not allowed to use their clicks and noises to find the way.

They are immune to Gallows' tricks and run off of the 'fae logic' of most things.

Their name means 'joy'. A name they decided on after speaking to Narinder for a time.

The first cult members recruited directly after Narinder's descension.

Immune to the horrors Somehow. There is something hiding behind those big ol eyes

Can fly. They have wings attached to their arms, and for it, require special clothes.

will be involved a lot in narinder plots

MINCED MEAT [ childbirth gambino ]

head cook but kind of as a threat. the lamb put them there for a reason. they are pretty mid.

constantly paranoid and in a state of fear or unease. Does not sleep because of it, and instead compulsively cooks almost all day and night.

most random screeches or noises in the cult come from this little guy

absolutely scared shitless of the Lamb.

The first Dissenter since the Lamb's ascension. They were made an example of. Now they will never. They have seen god's wrath, and would rather die.

narinder likes to bully this thing by hissing at him in the night

attached to beansnesed'd bsbisebies hip when in the chapel or out and about.

the prime example of 'the lamb is not a good person.'

ALOPE [ deep dish pizza ]

cheese parm's little sister. and borderline clone. she copies everything he's done up until adulthood when she started to become her own person. though it's been hundreds, if not thousands of years, she's still trying to figure out who she is.

made a pinkie promise to the lamb, just like cheese parm, to always be there. and she has!

ripped as fuck. like, more than cheese parm. huge. absolute beast thing.

the lamb prevented a fated death in her, the first time he ever did so, and for it her title is technically 'Saint Alope' within the cult for being the act of a miracle.

like her brother, never speaks vocally, never shows her face. gets across feelings through vague grunts. uses sign language where cheese parm does not.

the fastest in the cult. rivals narinder in base speed without using necklaces or unnatural abilities.

uses two ritual dirks or daggers at any given point, throwing knives, things of that sort. protects the village next to cheese parm, and you'll never hear her coming. totally, absolutely silent.

[3pirouette]

Fic: Tender Payment for our Sins (19/68-ish)

Tender Payment for Our Sins

By: TriplePirouette/3Pirouette

Spoilers: TLOU season 1.

Disclaimer: They're not mine.

Distribution: AO3 Anyone else please ask first :)

Story Summary: Jackson is less idyllic than it seems, as is everything post-infection. He doesn't want to see you tossed out, and can’t take the way you flinch when the men come sniffing around, so he does the only thing he and Ellie can think of to keep you around.

Dead Dove: Do Not Eat.

Tender Payment For our Sins has significant Trigger and Content Warnings. Please see Chapter 1 for Full list of Trigger Warnings and Tags.

Full Story on AO3

Most recent CHAPTER on AO3

Chapter 19: You Can Rest

Summary: Sometimes, the only rest you find is in Joel’s arms. It comes in lots of forms.

A/N: Did you think I tagged this “slow burn” and was REALLY going to have them kiss at 74k?? A little bit more musing, a little bit more time passing, a little bit more stress and a little bit more getting to know one another. Can’t let things get too easy for them. I only know about air conditioners what google tells me. Also, made a LOT of stuff up about Joel’s backstory here. I hope you enjoy it. Chapter title from “Last Night on Earth” by Green Day.

Trigger Warnings: No new/significant trigger warnings for this chapter.

~*~

Some days, you see Robbie more than you see Joel. He’s in and out of the barn, of the storage shed, always with some perfectly reasonable reason to be there. 

Your hands have mostly stopped shaking when you see him, even if your heart pounds in your chest. 

He surprises you today, though, by slipping into the stall you’re working on when your back is turned. You jump when you see him, frozen in place as he stares at you, wondering just how long he’s been there. He leans back against the wall, looks you up and down as he crosses his arms over his chest, and lets his tongue loose. It’s the first time he’s said anything to you since that night, and you freeze in place.

“Been a few weeks now, hasn’t it?” He says quietly, quiet enough no one else would hear it. “Miller knock you up yet?” The way he licks his lips has you holding your pitch fork tighter. He lets his eyes roam over you again. Just the way he looks at you makes you feel dirty.

He goes to say something else, but you’re saved by Eddie’s voice, calling out to Robbie to come get the horse he just saddled for him. He leaves as quietly as he came, slipping out of the stall. 

You don’t move for what seems like hours, and all afternoon your hands shake. 

~*~

He hates when you hold him like this. 

He hates when you tuck under his arm, press along his side, arms wrapping so tight around his waist it’s like you’re trying to climb out of your skin and into his own, not because he doesn't like the feel of you or doesn’t want you near as he falls asleep. 

He hates it because he can tell something’s wrong. 

You vibrate with anxiety, snuggled so deep against him he can hardly tell where he ends and you start. You don’t lightly rest your hand on his chest, or tuck it under your chin like you so often do, but instead you cinch around him, trying to press into one being. 

And he tries, he really tries to get you to tell him what’s wrong. So many nights he’s held you just like he holds you now, one hand stroking over your hair in what he hopes is a soothing motion, the other sliding along your arm, holding you to him. He asks, over and over, what’s wrong. 

And you always shake your head, burrowing in tighter against him as if it were physically possible to be any closer. 

He used to ask more questions. He used to ask if it was specific people, like Robbie or Maria, or if it was something that happened in the stables, peppering you with inquiries in the dark. You would shake your head, or whisper that there was nothing wrong, all the while holding him as tight as your tired arms could. 

He does the same tonight, threading his fingers through your hair to slide against your scalp. “What’s wrong, darlin’?”

“Nothing,” you whisper, tucking your head tighter into his chest. “Nothing at all.”

He wants to ask more, he wants to unleash the barrage of questions on the tip of his tongue, he wants to make someone pay for how you’re feeling, but he doesn’t. 

He hates when you hold him like this, mostly because there’s almost nothing he can do for you. 

But there’s one thing. He can hold you back, tight and warm and safe in his arms, and hope you find a way to rest knowing he has you, that you’re protected, and he won’t let anything hurt you. 

So, he does, letting you slip to sleep in the moonlight, hoping one day you’ll decide to tell him what’s wrong. 

~*~

You hate when he asks you what’s wrong. Because every single time you tell him the truth: in that moment, in his arms, absolutely nothing is wrong. 

So, so often, it’s the only thing that’s right. 

When you’re away from him, anything can go wrong. A glimpse of Robbie’s smug smile, the judging eyes of Maria, whispers behind hands, the sound of metal on metal, a bright light at just the wrong angle… so many things start your heart racing, so many things trigger fear and anxiety and the urge to run and hide and curl into a small ball. 

You’ve gotten so much better at dealing with these things since you’ve been in Jackson, exponentially better at dealing with them since you’ve been with Joel, but it’s so hard to be strong. It's so hard to do it, day after day after day, smiling at people who don’t care to smile back, working for people who don’t care to work for you. 

You and Joel had talked about it once: what your former selves would think of you now. You’d played it off as a joke, but sometimes…

…sometimes you think she’d be so, so proud of how you’ve survived. 

…and sometimes you think she’d be devastated at the small, scared person you’ve become, still jumping at shadows. 

Some days are just so damn hard, and there seems to be no rhyme or reason for it. There’s no way to predict the good from the bad. 

And when the bad days come? You want him.

You want to drown in his arms. You want to crawl out of your skin and into his. You want to leave behind the fear and the confusion and the anxiety and live only in his embrace, live in the only place that’s been a refuge for as long as you can remember. 

Since that day on the porch when he found you in tears, when he just held you without questions, it’s all you want when things start to spiral out of control. 

Even when you’re hiding in him, Joel somehow makes you feel big. He makes you feel big and important and seen. 

And with him you feel protected. 

You hate when he asks you if everything is okay, because of course it’s fucking not. It hasn’t been okay in well over two decades and it’s not going to get better any time soon. It’s not going to get better in your lifetime. 

But for a few minutes, tucked against his side and breathing in the soft smell of sweat on his skin, you can pretend that nothing’s wrong. 

Because for a few minutes, at least, everything is perfectly right. 

~*~

It rains for three days. Three long, hot, humid, days. Each day gets hotter, and the rain only lets up a few hours at a time.

You’re not dry. You feel like you’re never dry. Joel finds you thick, tall boots that are more than a size too big, but they keep you from sinking in the mud while you’re working. He comes home drenched from each patrol, even with rain gear and hats.

There’s nothing that makes it feel less muggy, less wet and heavy, even when you’re at home at night. The sheets feel damp. Your towel feels damp. Even a cold shower doesn’t bring relief because the water can’t get cold enough to bring your body temperature down all that much.

You dig through the basement and find an old box fan. It clicks and groans sometimes, but it works. You give it Ellie, so she can sleep at night, and you don’t question where he got it when Joel brings home a small fan that oscillates on a stand, setting it up at the foot of your bed. You feel a pang of guilt at the selfishness, but everyone needs to fend for themselves, even in Jackson.

He turns it on that third night, as thunder booms outside the window, and slowly makes his way to the bed, dressed in a tight tank undershirt and basketball shorts. You’ve never seen him in shorts before, never seen his calves or knees, even if they are long and hide most of his legs. You’ve never seen the tops of his shoulders like this, either: bare and strong under his skin with his farmer’s tan line  standing out stark like a tattoo. Your jobs always have you covered up, even in the heat, but it’s become unbearable.

You close your eyes and sigh as the air from the fan hits you. It’s not cold, not even cool, but the feel of it moving across your skin helps. You know you’ll sweat through your pajamas tonight, but there isn’t any less you can wear without pushing that last boundary between you two, and you can’t even imagine going there tonight with how disgusting you feel.

You’re already laying down, waiting for him, the thin top sheet on your side pushed to the bottom of the bed by your feet. He sits on the edge of the bed, shaking his head before sliding the light sheet completely off the bed and laying down. He turns and looks at you, a bead of sweat rolling down his forehead, as he holds his hand out.

You reach over and lock your pinky with his, taking a slow, deep breath as you meet his eyes. “Please don’t be offended,” you start, not really sure why you pick those exact words, “but I think if I touch you and more than this, I might die of heatstroke.”

He blinks at you, just for a second, then deflates with relief and a small laugh. “Oh, darlin’, I’m so glad you said that.” He lifts your hand to his lips and kisses your knuckles before putting it back down between the two of you, so casually that you wonder if he even realizes he did it. “I wouldn’t tell you no, but I don’t think I’d make it through the night.”

You laugh lightly. “I’m already a pile of sweat.”

He nods, stretching his legs so they don’t touch one another. “Damn humidity needs to break. Heat ain’t bad. Lived in Texas- I can take that. It’s the fucking rain with it.”

You twine your fingers with his just a little more, not enough so that you’re sweaty palm to sweaty palm, but enough so that there’s more of a connection. “What?” You tease, “It didn’t rain in Texas?”

He huffs out his nose. “Not like this.” He shakes his head and turns towards you. “Gonna tell Tommy we’ll have to start building an Ark.”

You pull your knees up higher as you chuckle. Your thighs are already sweaty, but you can’t get comfortable without them touching one another. You try to find the right words to make a joke about building an ark, about infected and starting over and you just can’t get there, so you sigh instead and squeeze his fingers. “They still doing okay running the air in the community center?”

He nods. “Tommy said it’s pretty full. Mostly little kids and the elderly. The AC units are still working, but they’re on their last legs. Council’s thinking of trying to see if we can get a party out as soon as the rain breaks.” He closes his eyes and sighs. “Damn air conditioners don’t last long enough, break too easy. See if we can get down to the town at the bottom of the mountain and find any that still work. Or cannibalize them for parts.”

You’re not really ready to sleep yet, usually you’d lay contented in his arms, even quiet, for a while in bed before closing your eyes to sleep, so it feels natural to keep talking. “I’ll never understand why the heaters all still work but none of the air conditioners do.”

It’s a rhetorical question. You don’t expect him to answer, but he does. “Different mechanics, darlin’,” he starts, tucking his elbow under his head so you can see how his bicep bulges out, how the triceps is defined more now in his tank top than ever, before your eyes bounce back to his face. “Air conditioners have filters, coils, they use refrigerant- all things that are really vulnerable to dirt and poor maintenance.” He gets a little sparkle in his eye, so you don’t stop him from talking. “Just like most electronics, it’s a delicate balance. But because it was September and most places were still at least warm when everything went to shit, most people still had their air conditioners in windows, and the central units are all outside. Too much time and dirt and corrosion by now. Compressors and fans are all shot to hell.” He sighs. “Heaters, on the other hand, were all inside, put away for the summer. They’re a little hardier, too- usually just a heating element that ain’t too hard to fix or replace. Fuck if I know where you’d even find refrigerant now.”

“Did you do that?” you ask, genuinely interested. You love the way he lights up when he starts talking about things he enjoys, about the work he used to do.

He shakes his head, the curl at his forehead bouncing. “Not really. Mostly building, a little plumbing, bunch of electrical work. Air and heat usually went to HVAC guys, it can get real specialized.”

Your brain feels like mush with the heat and the humidity in the darkness of your bedroom. You don’t want the conversation to end, but you don’t know enough about what he did to even know where to start asking more questions, and you can’t quite form any kind of comment that seems rational. Finally, you just say what you want. “Tell me more.”

“’Bout what?” he asks, a little half smirk on his face as he shifts the arm under his head.

You shrug. “Anything.” You look down at his hands, hands that you’ve seen build things, make things out of nothing. It’s impressive for nothing more than the fact that it’s something you can’t do. “You…” you take a slow breath, wondering why this feels embarrassing to say, “you seem so passionate about it. I don’t know anything about building. It’s hard to do and you’re good at it. Great at it.” You laugh to yourself as you look back up at him, squeezing his hand. “Nearly took my own fingers off with a bandsaw in woodshop in middle school. I like hearing you talk about something you love.”

He lifts your hand and looks over your fingers with a smirk. “Glad you still got ‘em.” He presses another kiss to your knuckles, and you have to fight to not show how much it affects you, how it makes your stomach flutter. He wiggles his fingers in yours as he puts your hands back down between you. “Can’t say I haven’t had a few near misses myself.” He pauses, eyebrows furrowing just a little. “You really want me to tell you about my old job?”

You nod, smiling and settling your head deeper into your pillow. “I do, if you want to tell me, that is.”

He shrugs, looking up at the ceiling, his thumb running over the back of your hand. “I don’t know what you’d find interesting.”

“Tell me what you liked best about it,” you supply, not really sure what you want to hear about, either. You don’t know anything about the magic he does with wood and tools, you don’t really understand much about what his life was like before, but any chance to hear about it is enough for you.

He hems and haws for a minute, shaking his head as you watch him try to decide what he wants to say. He finally starts talking in soft, low tones.

~*~

He watches your eyes flutter closed as he talks about how the first time he made a table by hand, from start to finish, he felt a sense of peace he didn’t know could exist. How when he had something real, something objective before him to prove that he had talent, that he could make something useful come into the world, that it felt like a real sense of accomplishment. He doesn’t stop, though, because your hand is still making little movements in his, and he can tell by the way you’re breathing that you’re still not asleep.

He reaches over and pushes the sweaty hair off your forehead as he talks about how he thought he’d have his own carpentry business, about how he was half way there and had designs and plans for inventory and was looking in to how much it would be to rent a storefront when he found out about his on again, off again girlfriend being pregnant and how that changed everything. About how he took the first job he could get just to make ends meet.  You still nod here and there, you still make little noises in response to the things he’s saying, so he keeps going.

It's not long after that, somewhere between when he got the idea to start his own company and when he got the loan to buy his first truck, that he notices you’re finally asleep.  

He can’t quite stop staring at you, can’t quite pull his hand away from the sweat drenched hair that he keeps running his fingers through. He lets his fingers slide down your temple and over your cheek bone, freezing when you nuzzle into his touch in your sleep.

He finally pulls his hand away and settles on his side, indulging himself and watching you as you sleep. He was ready to suffer tonight. It had been getting slowly hotter and hotter each day, more stifling with humidity and rain until it felt like he was breathing in water. The last two night’s he’d held you, T-shirt and pajama pants drenched in the morning between the sweat and humidity, and he’d finally made the decision to chance pushing the boundaries if it meant being a little cooler, a little more comfortable, in a tank and shorts.

Back in Texas, when the heat was oppressive in the summer and the air conditioning was old and unreliable, he’d slept in his underwear and nothing else. He wasn’t sure how you’d feel about that, wasn’t sure if you’d be able to separate the utility of it from the potentially triggering reality of him nearly naked and in bed with you.

It’s still something he struggles with: trying to know if there’s any part of you that wants more, if there’s any part of you that would welcome more, or if any overture would be seen as just like them. He’s come so close far too many times to voicing his desires, to leaning down and kissing you. Hell, he kissed your hand tonight. Tame, in the grand scheme of things, but another advance none the less, and you hadn’t batted an eyelash. Was it because you liked it and wouldn’t mind more? Because you didn’t realize what he was trying to say with his actions? Because you didn’t want to encourage him because you didn’t want more?

He doesn’t know. Not yet, at least. No matter what, he isn’t going to push that boundary until he knows, for sure, that it is something you want.  

But he was so thankful when you turned to him and said you couldn’t stand to touch him, if only because he already felt overheated, inhuman, and didn’t know how he’d even begin to get any sleep if he had to be pressed up against you.

But he would have done it. He would have done it for you. He would still do it. You don’t wake as much anymore, but he also usually holds you tight, shushes you back to sleep when he starts to feel you toss and turn. Even still holding his hand tight, he thinks it’s quite possible you’ll wake in the night, and he won’t hesitate for a second. Even sweaty and uncomfortable, he won’t hesitate.

Joel lets his eyes close, focusing on the sounds of the rain against the window and your soft breaths across from him.

Soon enough the heat will break, and he’ll be able to have you in his arms again.

~*~

Sometimes, Ellie forgets how old Joel is. 

Actually, she forgets it a lot of the time. 

He seems so big to her. Larger than life, even. 

Superhuman. 

They spent almost a full year traveling together, and despite how often he reminded her of how old he was, she always, somehow, forgot. 

What always reminded her wasn’t the bitching about his knees or his back, it wasn’t the anecdotes here and there about life before. 

No. It was the sleeping. 

He tried so damn hard to stay awake during watches, to not need to rest as often as he did, to keep up with her questions and her thought processes. 

But he’d fall asleep sometimes. 

Sometimes it was while they were taking a break: she’d look over and he was asleep against a tree or dozing while he was standing, leaning against an abandoned car. She always tried to let him sleep. She’d keep quiet and keep watch and pretend she hadn’t noticed he’d dozed off or tell him it had been a few minutes when it had been hours. 

Back in Jackson, with an icy wall of distrust between them, she hadn’t seen him all that much. They passed like ghosts in the hall or at meals. She didn’t notice or care when he slept. 

So, she forgets. 

But now you’re both on morning rotations. He finishes his short patrols and guard duties before lunch, you’re usually done with the stalls at the same time, and that leaves you and Joel afternoons together. 

Ellie doesn’t know exactly what you two do in the house, but she knows you’re still dancing around one another, literally and figuratively sometimes, still keeping your interactions to stolen glances and reassuring touches even if she can see how much you both yearn for the kindred spirit in the other. 

Ellie can see that you two understand one another. Short sentences carry volumes of information when you both talk, and she likes watching it. It’s like she’s watching something real, something deep and beautiful be born into this dark and bleak world. 

Ellie can count on one hand the number of times she heard Joel laugh when they were crossing the country. Now, she hears it nearly once a day, all because of you. He has a smile on his face, a smile that you return, a smile that she almost never saw. 

The jealousy she felt, the fear of being replaced, is slowly but surely being replaced with a feeling of security. 

Joel is fucking happy with you. Not content. Not managing. Not getting along like an assigned roommate. He’s happy.

And that makes him look young. It erases the worry lines in his forehead and softens his eyes. 

Which means she forgets even more sometimes. 

Until she comes home from school... and there you both are, snuggled on the couch, wrapped up in one another, taking a nap. 

Naps. 

It happens almost every day you’re both home in the afternoon. 

The first time she found the two of you, you were side by side, your head on his shoulder, as if you’d been talking and you’d both run out of steam. Then you were on the opposite end of the couch, your feet in his lap the next day. 

After a while, it seemed you both gave in, and now, she finds you tangled together, arms and legs entwined to keep whoever is on the outside from rolling off the couch, your light snores and his heavy breathing filling the living room almost every day when she comes home from school. 

At first, it scared her. The elderly weren’t treated well in QZs. There were rumors of them just disappearing, turned out or killed, left to fend for themselves and stop straining resources as they needed more care and medicine and could contribute less back to society. She doesn’t like thinking of Joel as Old, and while she doesn’t know your exact age, she knows you’re close enough to Joel’s. She doesn’t want either of you to disappear, to be sent away to be out of sight and out of mind, to rot until you die. 

Jackson’s different enough, though, that she doesn’t worry about that. Now, she feels happy when she sees you entangled on the couch, when she sees the way you can just fall asleep in the afternoon without worrying about watches or finding food or anything. She likes knowing you and Joel can rest, that Jackson is the safest place any of you can be, and that you can afford to take naps.

And she likes the way you both smile in your sleep, calm and relaxed. 

It’s like a reward for all the shit you went through. 

One day, maybe, she likes to think she’ll find someone who makes her smile in her sleep, too

[miwhotep]

7 REASONS WHY MILVERTON CAN STILL BE ALIVE

Reading @diveintovortex 's recent post, I again, got inspired to make an analysis why Milverton can still be alive. I already did one like this before, related to the main antagonist of the James Bond universe, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, but today's post will rely heavily on the manga. Here, I will raise seven points why Milverton might not gone yet and we can suspect to see him again.

1, CHARACTER DESIGN

Milverton is one of the most detailed, most bothersome to draw characters of Yuumori (especially with that hair). If we look more deeply into the manga, we can see that the characters who only appeared for a few chapters - like Whiteley - are always designed in a more simple way. Milverton's character design has too much work in it, it wouldn't worth it if this was all the storytime he got. Milverton's distinct look suggests that he was meant to be much more than just a plot-device overall, he is a character on his own who still has hella lot of potential in him.

2, EYE COLOUR

Yes, I can list it under the point above as well - but I wanna focus on this a little more. Only three characters has unnatural, symbolic eye colours in the series: William, the main character, his brother, Louis - who gets important later on - and Milverton. Considering this tendency, his eye colour - beside it referencing snakes - also implies that Milverton is an important character - again: a character, not a plot-device - but Milverton was mostly just a plot-device yet, whose role was getting Sherlock and William face each other. Maybe, just like Louis, he gets important later on.

3, THE LITTLE TRIVIAS

Milverton has some, for the plot, seemingly irrelevant trivia the manga just casually drops at us - like his branch firm in New York. This New York connection gets interesting since Sherliam also ended up in New York. Was this just a coincidence? Or we will come back to this in Part 2?

4, THE RUSKIN SCENE

Ruskin, unlike Milverton was never meant to be an important character - his character design got re-used from The Adventure of One Student and we didn't even get to know his first name - but the manga still gave him a little focus at the end of Two Criminals, where we can see him searching for Milverton instead of saving himself from the burning house. He most likely survived and I'm sure there was a reason his love for Milverton got some attention in that chapter. I used to speculate that it was to forecast that he will get back to get revenge for his boss later - but again, his character design doesn't suggest he is an important character. On the other hand, that scene could be also to hint that Ruskin will save Milverton. Ruskin is not stupid - he could suspect what happened from the open door where Milverton jumped out - and that door could also provide the fastest way for Ruskin to leave the about-to-crash house. Not much time passed since Milverton got shot who could survive if Ruskin gets him out of the water in time. If he jumped into the water to escape, he might've found Milverton as well.

5, THE WATER PARALLEL

This point was suggested by @shreddedleopard during one of our talks whom I fully credit the idea to. Milverton keeps paralelling William in poses, methods - and even in "death": William "died" by falling into the water, too. If this was meant to be yet another parallel between the two, that also suggests that Milverton as well, might turn out to be alive.

6, SHERLOCK AND THE CONSEQUENCES OF HIS MURDER

Milverton's body was never found what let Sherlock escape from the consequences of the murder. However, this might not be the true reason why his body never got found - Milverton's death was actually too bothersome if it was meant to be only for this. It would've been simplier if he just got shot, dying inmediately and his body getting burned with the house and Sherlock could've get away with the murder in this case, too. Milverton also didn't got shot in the heart, but suffered injuries what he could survive if he gets treated in time. If the writer truly wanted us to fully believe that Milverton is dead, it could've been done easily with a heartshot.

7, YUUMORI IS A SHERLOCK HOLMES ADAPTATION

Despite that Moriarty the Patriot gets inspiration from other places than Sherlock Holmes stories - like the James Bond universe or The Dark Knight movie - it's still a story focusing on Sherlock Holmes characters - and the most iconic Sherlock villain beside Moriarty, Irene Adler or Moran is Charles Augustus Milverton... who still has lot of potential. And beside him, who could be the next antagonist in Part 2? The other Sherlock villains who didn't get used yet aren't as much of a big names. That's another point what can suggest that Milverton's arc is still unfinished.

Milverton not getting enough attention in Part 1 despite he clearly implied to be an important character was due to putting too much focus on him could complicate or even get the attention away from the Moriarty Plan what was the main theme of the series in Part 1. Maybe what we saw about Milverton yet was just an introduction and now, that we already know how dangerous and evil he can be, we can see more of his evil in Part 2. Because I'm sure if he is alive, he is ready to commit even bigger atrocities what we could imagine.

[hardly-an-escape]

starting to think about how I could make Episcopal priest!Tommy work and then I saw this post about a Buckley parent dying...

what if? one of the Buckley parents passes away. Buck and Maddie travel back to Hershey to help plan/attend the funeral and support their remaining parent. the Buckleys are canonically Episcopalians, so obviously that's where the service takes place. their longtime rector at St. Whatever has recently retired, but comes back to preside over the service. (okay I actually looked it up and the church in Hershey is called All Saints which is... kind of the most basic Episcopal church name you could have lmao.)

in the meantime the church has a new interim rector, Fr. Thomas Kinard. he respectfully takes a backseat to his predecessor, but is very present and supportive throughout the process, especially for Buck and Maddie, who don't have as much of a connection to the former priest. (a little background: typically after a priest retires they're encouraged to disconnect from their former church for a time, but for personal services like weddings and funerals, families can often request that a particular beloved pastor perform the service.) maybe the older priest is a little scatterbrained or just kind of checked out, and Tommy does some of the heavy lifting in terms of planning and organization.

I love the idea of Tommy as a professional interim (which is totally a thing). spending a year here and two years there, helping parishes through tricky transitions; unmarried, never settling in one place for long. kind of a pro at being 'all things to all people,' but secretly longing for his place, a home to call his own. maybe he worked in LA for a time and is familiar with the west coast. maybe he came to the priesthood later in life after his own career as a first responder, and he and Buck can bond over that. maybe he started out as an Army chaplain in a more conservative denomination, and found the Episcopal church when he started to accept himself as a gay man.

anyway. the Buckley family are grieving, distracted. death and funerals are always hard, but when it's a parent – a parent with whom you had a very complicated relationship, no less – it's even harder. Tommy gets it. he had a complicated relationship with his parents, too. and even in the midst of this grief, this pain, Buck can feel this weird connection to Tommy. it doesn't even occur to him to correct Tommy when he calls him Evan (because that's how he was listed in the bulletin or the church directory or whatever) (but Tommy notices that everyone else calls him Buck and self-corrects). and he thinks it's just their shared firefighting background, or bonding over grief, or something; but all through that weird, long week in Hershey, his eye just keeps getting drawn back to Tommy.

and then – it's all over. Buck and Maddie head back to their lives in LA. maybe Tommy gives them his card, tells Buck to call if he ever needs to talk. and part of Buck really wants to, but... he just can't find an excuse. he's not particularly religious, so it would feel disingenuous to call Tommy just to ask about the church. he doesn't really need a counselor or a priest. what he needs is a friend, what he wants is something more, but he doesn't realize it.

in the meantime, the church in Hershey calls a new permanent rector, and Tommy decides to look for a new call in Los Angeles for no particular reason at all. he finds himself drawn back into the world of firefighting – maybe he realizes that there's a real need for spiritual guidance among the first responders of LA, and he understands their challenges better than most ministers can. maybe in this universe he and Hen and Chim still worked together at the 118 before he left for seminary, and they reconnect.

I think Buck and Tommy meet again at a scene. maybe Tommy is the one who calls the fire in, or maybe he's the Good Samaritan who just jumps in and starts helping people. their eyes meet and there's this crazy spark. Buck thinks it's just adrenalin, but Tommy knows better.

"you never called me," Tommy says.

"yeah, I – I didn't know how. I mean. you wanted me to?" Buck asks.

"yes. I did," Tommy says, sounding a little surprised at himself. "I, uh. I really did."

"wow. uh. then I can. I mean, I will. I mean, we're talking now," Buck stammers. "uh, Father Thomas, I –"

"you should call me Tommy, Buck," Tommy says gently.

"o-okay. in that case," Buck takes a deep breath. it tastes like soot and hope. "you should call me Evan."

[askagamedev]

Thoughts on the Helldivers PSN situation?

For those who haven't been following this story, Helldivers 2 multiplayer originally required a linked PSN account in order to play. The PSN back end was not ready, so the developers turned off the requirement. Recently it came back on and several players were upset because their games stopped working. There was a review bomb and a lot of angry feedback, especially because PSN accounts are not available without a Playstation console in several geographic areas. [Sony posted yesterday] to say that they would no longer be requiring a linked PSN account for Helldivers 2 Multiplayer.

The situation is strange to me because there doesn't seem to be a lot of reason for any real controversy. Sony is making all PC games that they publish on Steam require PSN accounts. That in itself isn't that big a deal - lots of publishers require similar things. EA requires Origin accounts, Ubisoft has their UPlay ecosystem, Activision has Battle.net, Microsoft has XBox Live, and so on and so forth. Helldivers was always supposed to launch with this requirement but they ran into major technical issues at launch and had to disable the requirement (temporarily). I know that Ghost of Tsushima will also require a PSN account for multiplayer.

The second thing with PSN accounts not being allowed in various countries is an issue within Sony itself and has nothing to do with Helldivers. The Helldivers team did what they were contractually obligated to do - require a PSN account to play. Sony's internal PSN team is responsible for which countries are and aren't on the whitelist for account creation via PC. Most game sales are in North America, Western Europe, and Japan/South Korea. There just aren't quite as many players in Uzbekistan or Ukraine. When your customer count in those countries is in the dozens, it really doesn't rank very high on the priority list.

Early on, I think it should have been communicated to players that they would (eventually) need a PSN account to play multiplayer and possibly some other "here's something for your trouble" bonus in game to help provide some value to the player. Now that it's blown up so large, the decision to step it back is probably the right one. I think that, for Ghost of Tsushima PC, the PSN linking should be a requirement for the game from the jump so that people know exactly what they are getting.

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Got a burning question you want answered?

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Frequent Questions: The FAQ

[thezombieprostitute]

Hi Zombie😌❤️ For your return trip:

I've read about intergalactic fics recently, and there's a particular interesting setting that soldiers could develop their spiritual animal that could fight alongside of them in a physical form.

Suppose you are one of the soldiers on the intergalactic battle field, who do you want to fight alongside with and why?(you could come up with their spiritual animals)

A. Ari, who always comes up with the craziest ideas and encourages you to jump from the fleet to the Bug's nest like he does. Crazy, but his plans always work out. Your superiors order you to pair up with him to train him to care about casualties.

B. Steve, who you can always count on to have your six. But he is even more reckless than Ari. You could only pray that he gets lucky and escape Death in the next battle. Your superiors order you to pair up with him so he doesn't go solo as he always wants to.

C. Curtis, who was born in Project Wilford, one of the deadliest soldiers alive. Rumor is he has gutted hundreds of Bugs in one battle, and made it out alive. He's mysterious and silent, and you can't help but wonder if he is a man or a literal killing machine. Your superiors pair you up with him to keep an eye on him, in case he runs wild.

Bonus Extra: D, Winter Soldier. The real Killing Machine. Losing an arm in a battle before scientists made him a robotic one. The only reason why your superiors ask you to pair up with him is because the winter soldier is highly unstable, and that he had asked to see you (why is that? You don't have the slightest clue)

Most of my contemplation on this has gone into what my own inner beast is/would be. I've settled on "Mutt". While different breeds can specialize in types of training, a mutt has the potential for all types, especially if it's a military service dog. So let's go through your list!

++

Ari - I'm gonna say his inner beast (in this scenario) is a Firehawk. A bird that starts fires in order to flush out its prey with no consideration for the damage it causes.

For this, I'd probably be a mutt with guide dog training. Ari has this huge blindspot in his vision when it comes to casualties so I've been assigned to guide him through the parts he can't see. Additionally, guide dogs can practice selective disobedience so that they don't accidentally walk their human into traffic just because they got the command to walk. This will be very helpful for working with Ari and helping him to navigate casualty costs.

++

Steve - I kinda wanna make Steve's inner beast a honey badger for this one. They are intelligent, fierce and survive a lot of things they shouldn't.

To help Steve's survivability, and to increase the likelihood he'll actually want to keep working with me, I think my inner beast would have to be a mutt trained for medical service. Whether it's getting him medical care or getting him out of danger until rescue can arrive, a medical service mutt would likely be most helpful.

++

Curtis - I'm actually not sure what his inner beast would be. I'm torn between a shark and a large feline (i.e. Jaguar).

Either way, my inner mutt clearly needs PTSD/psychiatric support training. Learning to read his body language since he doesn't talk but also helping him find his voice again. Being a barrier between him and others when he needs it. Protecting him. Reminding him of his humanity and caring.

++

Bucky - I'm sure a lot of people think Bucky's inner beast is a wolf. After all, one of his nicknames is White Wolf. But I don't think so. He's a sniper first. Silent, attacks from a distance, patient, solitary. His inner beast is an owl.

The reason he's asked for me is because, in this scenario, my inner beast is a mutt with military training in bomb detection. He lost his arm because, from his bird's eye view, he missed some traps that were set out. He's not gonna risk that again so he's asked for me to accompany him so we can keep each other safe. I'm his scout, his trap disarmer, bomb defuser, etc.

++

I hope you find these answers satisfactory!

[joocomics]

fantasy writing is so fun sometimes bc you get to make your own rules to the world and have a fun time thinking what could've brought the world to turn out that way and idk, i love it. but it also takes so so SO much energy that i don't have at the moment. the fantasy fic i'm writing rn is an apocalypse fic and i'm already like 6k words into it and JUST found out that the reason people can't be out in the rain is because the bombs used in The Ending War™ (still not sure about that name) contaminated the water most places and since rain comes from evaporated water from the ground it means the rain is contaminated too and causes harm to humans, but the most i have to make up about that world is why it went to shit 💀

side tangent over, as for your question about the other members, i think they'll show up!! but i'm not sure how yet bc seonghwa doesn't get much help and i don't want them to be against him so i have to keep ponder about that some more,, THANKS for getting excited tho!! i love sharing and getting excited with people about my ideas 🥰

literally do not know how you keep yourself focused on completing the event drabbles, i would've jumped on the jooyeon idea SO FAST, i think it's really admirable that you can hold yourself back, even if the bookstore jooyeon is living in my head too and i secretly hope you get less self control.... the list of wips sounds good tho!! it's nice to have it visible like that!! i get the need to relax about it too though. we're not being paid to write this and nothing feels worse than fighting your way through writing something you have NO interest in writing atm.. 🫂

yunho is a wild card fr, you never know if you get weird/silly or him being a slut against the wall or in general in low lighting.. i remember a specific video he did with wooyoung,,, he was SO hot it went EVERYWHERE on atinytwt

I DID SEE YEONJUN DID IT!!! i had to throw my phone away because i can't handle him recently 😵 (he's my bias from txt) HIT BY A TRUCK IS RIGHT

🫂 i love chatting with you too. and if i ever post that post-sex glowing intak idea we talked about i might just reveal myself (scary but you're so sweet i feel it's gonna be okay) - 👾

EXACTLYYYY!! fantasy genre is what ignited my love for reading books yearssss ago (percy jackson i’m looking at you, my first crush fr) it’s fascinating how much you can do with it, and how many interesting stuff you can create by using well known and loved tropes/concepts by putting ur own twist to it. DAMN THE RAIN?? HELLO THAT SOUNDS SICK 😩 (positive) i love your imagination!!

ahh i love discussing these things with you too 🫶🏼 and i really appreciate you sharing about your works and ideas with me!!

OH i don’t think that i’m holding back from the joo idea as much as it seems like i am 😬 because last night i wrote a scene that could possibly be the beginning of the fic and it ended up at like 600 words 😭 i had a shit day yesterday and it felt good to indulge myself in it! i also already have an idea for a possible cliffhanger that could lead to a possible sequel?! so yeah looks like i’m not holding myself back THAT much anymore HOWEVER i’m careful not to overdo it or smth since i’m focused on doing the drabbles; for now, i try to look at the joo idea like a fun project on the side that i relax in my free time with

YEONJUN IS MY BIAS TOO! (and kai… i double bias here too shocking) i think we’ll never be fully capable of handling him 😬

take your time and no pressure!! i already appreciate you coming here regularly to chat with me! of course, i’ll be happy to be able to support your post and blog overall, but it’s not necessary to reveal yourself if you’re not completely sure about it 🫂

[seriously-mike]

Midha and Stoica are not the only ones who view AI regulation as existentially for the industry. Open-source AI has powered the most thriving Silicon Valley startup scene in years. Opponents of SB 1047 say the bill will benefit Big Tech’s closed-off incumbents instead of that thriving, open ecosystem.

From Gizmodo's article on new California bill designed (essentially in practice, let's cut the bullshit here) to give the major players like Microsoft, Google and Midjourney the monopoly on AI.

Because hey, I said it multiple times and I'll say it again: all the attempts at curbing AI development were dictated by either those who want to maintain the monopoly, like Microsoft by way of OpenAI, or those who want to jump on the AI bandwagon, cash out and kick everyone else off the bandwagon, like Manbaby McEmeraldmine.

I pointed out how full of shit the "miraculous" Nightshade is. It doesn't protect your art from the corporations by design - if it did, it would be SLAPPed into oblivion under flimsy pretenses like "unlawfully reverse-engineering proprietary software". Now we have a horde of Butlerian jihadists, egged on by self-proclaimed "AI experts" whose "expertise" ends on listening to sales pitch bullshit and reading decades-old science fiction novels, push an act to punish AI developers "for the potentially catastrophic dangers of their AI systems". I'm sorry, what "potentially catastrophic dangers" are we talking about in regard to tech that nobody trusts to do serious work? Are they expecting an explosion of fad diets involving rocks and Elmer's glue? Do they really think someone's gonna measure an important structure in kilotomatoes and uses a buffalo heart tomato as a reference instead of cherry tomato or the other way around? Are they preparing for airline chatbots stating it's okay to bring gallium, firearms or explosives onto an airplane?

"Potentially catastrophic dangers" is the usual term of "we have no idea how to grab you by the nuts and bring you to your knees, so we're making some new bullshit up". This can be compared to papal bulls against railroads or any homicidal bullshit the Khmer Rouge cooked up when left unattended. This is what the conservatives are making up in response to transgender people existing, and homosexual people existing in earlier decades, and women wearing trousers even earlier. Alarmist bullshit based on some sick fantasies, with no base in reality at all.

And who sponsors this bill? Oh boy.

Demis Hassabis (CEO, Google DeepMind)

Sam Altman (CEO, OpenAI)

Bill Gates (Gates Ventures)

Kevin Scott (CTO, Microsoft)

That's just the beginning of the list. We will be fed a lot of corporate bullshit about how the billions of dollars the corporations have mean that every half-assed algorithm they push is perfectly safe, but basement-dwelling nerds who own nothing but a gaming PC and a box of Kleenex should be essentially forbidden from tinkering with open-source algorithms, because, uh, reasons. Like, cutting into a $250 million a year profits of a corporation.

But, the list doesn't end here. Who also signed the laughably brief and meaningless statement by, hahaha, "Center for AI Safety"?

Ya-Qin Zhang (Professor and Dean, AIR, Tsinghua University)

Yi Zeng (Professor and Director of Brain-inspired Cognitive AI Lab, Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences)

Xianyuan Zhan (Assistant Professor, Tsinghua University)

Albert Efimov (Chief of Research, Russian Association of Artificial Intelligence)

Alvin Wang Graylin (China President, HTC)

Jianyi Zhang (Professor, Beijing Electronic Science and Technology Institute)

Hongyi Zhang (Research Scientist, ByteDance)

Amazing, all of them not just outside of California, but also outside of the US and with a stake in AI research performed by US' direct economic competitors. This reminds me of the recent revelations about "Green" parties and movements in the EU, chiefly Germany, who received covert funding from Gazprom for fucking decades, all in the name of opposing clean nuclear energy and buying more and more Russian gas to be used for generating energy in the EU.

We're still not done, though. More names I'd like to point your attention to:

Vitalik Buterin (Founder and Chief Scientist, Ethereum, Ethereum Foundation)

Thuan Q. Pham (Former CTO, Uber, Board member, Nubank)

Josh Wolfe (Co-Founder & Managing Director, Lux Capital)

Miles Palmer (Founder, 8 Rivers Capital)

Crypto bros, bank board members, vulture capitalists, in one word: frauds. They want a return on their investment in the major corporations and can't afford any more shocking reveals that shitposts from Reddit are served as genuine advice and that corporate data models still contain shittons of copyrighted images from Disney et al. They also can't afford localized open-source models cutting into the corporate profit margins by virtue of barely working and still providing comparable results for less.

Don't get duped, folks. This bill is just another corporate-sponsored hit piece, and basted in alarmist bullshit three feet thick.

[alias-milamber]

Yep. So the way Tumblr (and most social media with any sense) does pages of posts is to make a request for "The next 30 posts starting from now", then it checks the ID of post number 30 of that list, and then the next page is "The 30 posts before the post with this ID number". The search doesn't actually care if that post ID is one you can see, it's just using that as a reference point.

The reason it does this is that if you request the most recent 30 posts, then posts 31-60, 61-90 etc; your listing will get screwed up if something appears on your dash at position 1, so what was 61-90 when you started the search is no longer really the next page. Jumping by ID means it doesn't have to attempt to square that circle.

(It's also one of the reasons why page lists tend to be 1, 2, 3, .... 99, 100, 101; because working out the right ID to jump to is a Hard Problem, and also why jumping around in lists can miss some results, because the system isn't perfect. )

dash is dead im teleporting to the past

https://www.tumblr.com/dashboard?max_post_id=606474489540042752

[the-firebird69]

Watch: BYD’s self-driving electric hypercar jumps in the air over road spikes

People see this and they know it's possible to do and using our son's system it is not a very difficult adjustment to make to get it to work we have several ideas for supercars one of them was to copy which is really hot and he has a new one now it's more realistic looking because it's a two-seater it's not as big either and it's easier to replicate and a lot of these guys have set their sights very very high and almost as if they have huge fleets and unstoppable armies when they when they don't really. They want to knock it off and to make it their way no they want to make it our son's way and say that it's his and blame him and the Chinese guy says you do that with everything and what's the point. So they start yammering and blabbing saying how I'm going to make it cheap and things like that and they start to say things that in space saying it's her son and their space cadets and people don't listen to that too much so now what's going on is they're getting in trouble and the Chinese said not to do it they'll get mad and stop sending things there's a little fight between them and they think they can do anything for some reason their highest kites tell you the truth and they really shouldn't be there's nothing to be high about except their own deaths and that's what they're high on we are getting to the point where sick of them and going to have a fight with them here and all over and it's coming up with the radiation we're going to answer a bunch of their questions yeah this is disgusting.

The numbers of churches being or under siege increased it was pretty high about 30% now it was about 15% yesterday and last night this morning it jumped to 20% of the hospitals were at about 25% and they're up to 30% former religious areas we're at around 5% and they jumped to 15% castles were at zero and they're now at about 40% all of these places are in a firefight all day long other percentages are different the number of churches that are monitored out of the whole of churches there are 90 7%, 97% and 30% are under siege and 67% are under a spy war situation most of the statistics are like that it's almost 100% And they are having a spy war and as a matter of fact all of them are mostly the spy war is affecting them moderate spy war at save the churches out of 67%, it's around 40%, the remainder is a heavy spy war soon to switch into a siege. Hospitals are different they're at 25% under siege and yeah that's closing hospitals it's not helpful for people if they're doing it the reason is a lot of people died and they want at these assholes who are running it they realize what happened yeah and because they got information from the max and they're going after they're pretty good and after the hospital people and they're seeking them all on special warrant yeah they put warrants out on these guys. This is a big war but these numbers are changing fast we expect them to be under siege about 80% of them by the end of the weekend emergency hospitals are being put up all over the world and we absolutely have to be there somehow monitoring it doesn't look like we are but we have to be we know what they're up to and this is an emergency because the the shopping malls will be relocated and as well as the hospitals as well as office buildings and universities huge amounts of people are moving out of their former facilities we don't have time to list at all but it's almost every aspect of life and the financial centers too it is very very huge we are strongly encouraging hours to sign on to our military we have no more time to talk about it or argue about it we need you signed up and we will talk about it but we need you sign up now we are having a huge crisis on Earth and wars and a massive war right now already with the Mac proper I was her instructed the side on and we need your help please do as soon as you can and it will help you and us we understand that you're doing work and that you're helping and you must but people who sign on say you should have done that a lot sooner because they're can practically powerless compared to what they can do when they sign on or some of you it's been a long long time but we are sending out the command and he is our leader and she is and you're too try as best you can to save yourselves and your family and this is an emergency

Thor Freya

Things are heating up a lot this is going to be a large movement of people we need all of ours on board it's going to be very dangerous

Olympus

Please sign up and make yourselves a much less miserable and much more helpful for God's sakes it's an emergency and we need help too and we're stuck

Hera Zues

[iamamyfoster]

MCM; Light Client Mod

Recently, I was playing on a server, and creating a farm, but I just couldn't stop jumping - for some reason, I just got an urge to lay my thumb on the jump key. So, unlike a normal person, who would most likely ignore the urge, I decided to create a mod to solve the issue.

I have previously worked a little bit using Fabric to mod, although I've never fully completed anything. During the process of rediscovering the setup process, I learned that Fabric's site has a page which allows you to generate a template for your mod, which kickstarts development. Therefore, using this tool, I downloaded the template, and opened up the folder as a project using IntelliJ IDEA, which is my chosen java development environment.

Firstly, it is worth noting that Fabric provides two separate entrypoints - one for the client, and one for the server (note that minecraft runs a server in singleplayer, but it is locally executed behind the scenes; I would postulate that this is what makes opening a singleplayer world to the LAN so easy while in-game).

Since this mod is only going to interact with the client's controls/input, and nothing needs to be noticed server-side, none of the server-side java code is necessary. However, deleting the full "main" module of the project isn't going to work for us, because the "fabric.mod.json" file is a part of the resources there, and defines the location of both the client and server entrypoint files. Deleting this, and other files in that region of the file structure, will cause the mod to stop working entirely.

Therefore, the first order of business is to remove the serverside entrypoint, as that just adds bloatware to what really only needs to be a small clientside mod. This, I did by entering the "fabric.mod.json" file, and removing the "entrypoints/main" key-value (the value should be a list/array of entrypoints, and should contain just one to begin with). This leaves a single client entrypoint.

Furthermore, since the template project comes with a default mixin, references to this must also be removed. To do this, I went into the "<modname>.mixins.json" file, which should be adjacent to "fabric.mod.json", and removed all references within the "mixins" list. After this, the "main/java" directory was deleted.

Now that the server/main-side of the mod has been removed, work can begin on the proper body of the mod. The plan is to add a key which allows the player to toggle an option, allowing and disallowing the player to jump on farmland. To do so, we need a keybinding, a variable to toggle, and a way of interfering with the player's motion. The toggleable variable, obviously will be a boolean (true/false) type. To interfere with the player's motion, something called a "mixin" will be used.

Mixins are used to inject our own code into existing methods in the game's code. In this case, we want to inject a little bit of code which checks whether the player is on top of farmland, and, if so, then make sure the player can't jump. Therefore, we need to find which method controls the player's jumping/motion.

Now, if you don't like the odd tangent, feel free to skip ahead to the next paragraph, where all the answers are give. Fair warning. To find which method we should use to stop the player from jumping, we need to see how the code which controls their motion. Thankfully, most of what we need to know can be found in the game's sources, which are viewable as decompiled .class files. To find the relevant files, go to ".gradle/loom-cache/minecraftMaven/net/minecraft/minecraft-clientOnly-<charsHere>/1.20.2-net.fabricmc.yarn.<blablabla>/minecraft-clientOnly-<blabla>.jar/net/minecraft/client/input". Here, there should be a couple files: "CursorMovement", "Input", "KeyboardInput", and "KeyCodes". Obviously, since we're looking to affect jumping, the relevant file will be either "Input", or "KeyboardInput". Viewing the code, while "Input" doesn't contain much of anything, "KeyboardInput" extends from "Input", and accesses which keys are currently being pressed inside the "tick" method.

Given this, our project plan is pretty well laid out: create a variable, create a keybind, create a mixin to "KeyboardInput.tick". Great! Let's start with the variable and keybind:

Assuming you've been anywhere near a java file before, declaring a variable should be pretty easy. This could easily be done in any custom file, but since it's pretty much the only thing we're going to store, I'm just going to define it in the "<modname>Client.java" file (this should be the client entrypoint defined in "fabric.mod.json"). In this case, I've made the variable "public static boolean allowFarmJump = true;".

Since this is a simple little mod, and I'm currently the only person who's going to be using it, I'm not going to bother storing the current value between sessions. The variable is going to be static, just to make things a little easier when accessing it from other files. I've also decided to make its default value "true", but this is mostly a preferential decision on my part.

Next: the keybind. Fabric's documentation is pretty short and sweet on the matter, but it does contain a little bit hidden away that I didn't notice at first: "This tutorial assumes you have the key bindings API, if not add "fabric-key-binding-api-v1": "*" to the "depends" block in your fabric.mod.json file".

After adding the key bindings API, it's time to add the keybinding itself. Using the KeyBindingHelper described in the docs, I created and registered a KeyBinding with the translation key "key.<modname>.toggle", default key of "backslash" (GLFW.GLFW_KEY_BACKSLASH), and category of "key.categories.movement" (this is the category used by vanilla's "Movement" controls category, where I want this to display).

After registering the keybind, I continued to go through the docs and added the "END_CLIENT_TICK" listener + while loop on the keybinding (remember to replace the "keyBinding" in the example code with the name of your own keybinding variable). In the while loop, this is where the "allowFarmJump" variable is being toggled ("allowFarmJump = !allowFarmJump;"). I also added feedback in the form of text appearing above the hotbar: "client.inGameHud.setOverlayMessage(Text.literal("Farm jumping set to: %b".formatted(allowFarmJump)), false);".

At this point, the variable toggling and feedback message are running fine, but we haven't actually implemented anything to prevent the player jumping on farmland. This is where the mixin comes into play:

Under the "client/java/<modpackage>/mixin/client" directory, open the example mixin. Of course, this is currently injecting into the wrong class and method, so change the "@Mixin" decorator argument to "KeyboardInput.class". Then, modify the "@Inject" method decorator to "@Inject(at = @At("TAIL"), method = "tick", locals = LocalCapture.CAPTURE_FAILHARD)". This will take the code inside the decorated method and inject it at the end of the KeyboardInput.tick method. Then, make the mixin class extend from "Input" (this is so that the "jumping" property can be accessed).

Now, inside the mixin method, we need to set the jumping variable to "jumping ∧ (allowFarmJump ∨ playerFlying ∨ ¬onFarmland)" (this notation may be unfamiliar: "∧" represents a logical AND, "∨" represents a logical OR, and "¬" represents a logical NOT). The reason for the added check with regards to whether the player is flying accounts for the possibility that the player might be in creative or spectator mode. If this were the case, and jumping were disabled, flying up would be similarly disabled.

Collecting all the required values, the assignment expression we're left with should look something along these lines: "jumping &= AntiFarmJumpClient.allowFarmJump || MinecraftClient.getInstance().player.getAbilities().flying || !(MinecraftClient.getInstance().world.getBlockState(MinecraftClient.getInstance().player.getBlockPos()).getBlock() instanceof FarmlandBlock);".

Note the assignment operator "&=", which is basically like "+=" or "*=", etc. except instead of adding or multiplying, it performs an AND operation (this is a bitwise operator, but it works on booleans as long as both sides are of the same type).

Having successfully intercepted and modified the jumping controls, when the program runs this time, the keybinding should now allow you to stop the jump key working while on top of farmland, unless the player is flying. Note that to build the mod to a .jar file, you need to run the "build" gradle task (these are found at the top of the right-hand sidebar, for me). This builds the jar file and outputs it to the "build/libs/" directory. The correct file is the one without the "-sources" at the end.

Feel free to give feedback on how this could be improved in future, or ask questions!

Fabric

[washingtonleagueoffurries]

Chapter Update

Chapter 9 of There is  a Crack, A crack in Everything--That’s How the Light Gets In is finally up!

[cheesus-doodles]

So we all know when the three clingy boys seen y/n makes multiple times due to them barging in the bathroom while she showered when they were kids, but do they still do it when high school or college age? Or they get flustered of having to see their best friend naked body?

sorry i've been so quiet folks! thank you for sticking around, i hear a lot of yall are having exams now/soon, will try and put some stuff out for you to read :) don't forget to take breaks as you need them!

Link to: Shower Ask 1 | Most Recent Shower Ask | Shower Asks List

Masterlist

Hmmm I would say its questionable if our three clingy baby boys has ever been successful in their attempts to get past the shower door. But let's just say you had been childhood friends with the Toman founders, and somehow someway Baji, Kazutora and Mikey have cried and pleaded and have managed to score a shower with you when you were all kids (and of course Draken, Mitsuya and Pah were not far behind in convincing you that they were being left out). Though the more level-headed three get flustered and shy about wanting to shower with you once you seven reach roughly high-school age, given they are much more well-adjusted yans, this definitely do not apply to the other half of the Toman founders.

To Baji, Mikey and most of all Kazutora, there's no good, valid reason you can give them for them to change their bath time behaviour even once you all are high school or even college age. You were still you, so why would an older you be any different from the younger you who washed their hair and back for them and blew them bubbles? Baji would definitely be shyer about entering the bathroom as he gets older, given his mother brought this boy up right, but absolutely nothing about you would fluster or embarrass Kazutora or Mikey. Doesn't matter if you were naked, it was their right to be pampered by you at all times of the day whenever they wanted, and come hell or high water, no one was going to deny these baby boys any second of time they could be loved and lavished by you.

In fact, now that you might be attending a different school from them (much to the boys horror), maybe even be capable of finding new friends, or a partner (shivers), even more so they feel the need to barge into the shower. What if you decided to ditch them for this new person who 100% won't be good for you? What if you try to sneak them into the bathroom with you to steal away their pamper time? What if someone was hiding in the bathroom just waiting to perv on you, and when you tried to scream for help there was no one there to beat the living hell out of whoever dared try that?

Sure Draken, Mitsuya and Pah may feel very hesitant to insist on showering with you or even being in the bathroom with you while you showered, given - you know - they actually did grow up and become more mature, but they aren't going away that easily. No doubt you'll find these three boys (and occasionally Baji) standing guard outside the room, putting off the scariest, meanest vibes and jumping anyone that comes even a foot too close. But you won't be able to keep out the absolutely shameless Mikey and Kazutora who have never matured past five when it comes to being around you. Will pout and whine and cry and plead - anything to get you to let them in with you, but if nothing works, they supposed they could always resort to more drastic measures. Maybe beating up all your classmates (especially the guys, they don't like how close they get to be to you) and threatening to beat up even more would work, but they are certain the surefire way would be to hurt themselves.

Certainly you wouldn't say no to helping them with their shower if they broke an arm or a leg right? Not like they couldn't fight perfectly fine with the other.

[asherloki]

Here’s an idea for a fluffy Sherlock fic/ os / blurb!!

Like imagine you get rejected by your crush and you come back to Sherlock’s flat and tell him what happened and he is shocked because he finds a lot of beautiful things in you (maybe even lists them in front of you) and like he can’t comprehend who wouldn’t be infatuated by you aaaaaw! Sorry I am a big fan of friends to lovers trope hehe!

The right one

Bbc Sherlock

Fluff

I came back to 221b after a long tiring, and perhaps a sad day. After entering I saw Sherlock playing his violin, he's been swamped up with work lately. So violin keeps him cool. I put my bag in my room and then stood behind him. He had no clue, I thought. But then after he finished playing his instrument he said without even turning to me, "did you like it?"

Then he turned to me and smiled.

"How did you know I was here?" I enquired I was absolutely sure he didn't see me coming.

"I'm not an idiot" he said politely "I saw you coming from the window."

I mean obviously, this is he the smart one and I the dumb one. He was standing to the window ofcourse he saw me coming.

"Well, that's true" said I and my facial expressions changed to how it was through the day, a little sadder.

"What's wrong?" He enquired, putting his violin back.

"Nothing to be bothered, I'm okay." I replied trying hard to smile for him.

"No no, do tell me" he insisted sitting on his chair. I thought, I should talk to him about it so I sat on John's chair and said, "I had a crush you probably know ".

"Yes from your university I presume."

"And how did you know that?"

"Easy, you check out yourself in the mirror before going to university more than usual, even when you go out with your friends group you don't check yourself out that much, and you always wear the dresses that looks best on you for university. Also when you return you always smile and blush to yourself, even sometimes you daydream and don't even listen to what I say."

Well now that's an elaborate deduction I thought.

"Yes, from there, so I confessed to him, about I may have been liking him". I said.

"And?"

"He used to flirt with me you know, used to say things I needed to hear, used to always be kind and be extremely flirty, I thought he liked me too."

"What did he say?" Sherlock asked impatiently.

"That those were nothing and he doesn't sees me that way, may be it's called rejection."

Sherlock and I sat in silence. A long moment of pause then he sighed and said, "why did he even flirted if he didn't feel anything?"

"I wish I knew."

"Who's this guy?"

To this I looked at him because I knew this is going to be awkward, "my.. um... My professor."

"Your WHAT?" He literally jumped from the chair to hear it.

"But don't worry he's young and ... Not much older."

"I wasn't thinking about age I was thinking about how could a professor flirt with their student and then reject like that."

He has a point though

"right but it's done now. Leave it okay."

"No, I mean how? What's not good in you, what's there in you to not to like?"

His questions made me think too, what could there be good in me?

"Like what?" I asked.

"Look at yourself, you're... I'm a man of cold reasoning and I'm unaware of everything that has something to do with emotions but you, you're beautiful. You're talented, you're writings and paintings. All of that. You're kind, I guess you've given me some of that that kindness too. I've felt more light recently, and most importantly" he paused before saying it, "my days were so dark, there was only night, with few of my friends shining like stars but you, you came as the sun, you turned my dark lifeless nights into day." He said with such passion that my mouth fell open.

"What are you talking about?" I asked.

"Yes, you heard me, and I... I have always been afraid and have been away from Human emotions and now I know why, because when the right person comes, you can do anything, you can be anyone, even I, Sherlock Holmes, couldn't help but feel, feel affection for you."

I was stunned, what? This man felt so much and kept quiet?

"Why didn't you tell me you feel that strongly for me?"

"How could I? You're young and beautiful, you must choose someone of your age."

"You said age doesn't matter "

"Yes, not to me but I thought maybe to you it does." He said. I got up and walked towards him, cupping his face I said, "when it comes to you nothing matters, only you do."

I saw a his Lips curving into a smile and I felt a tear fell from my eye. I knew, at that very moment, that, no one will ever be able to love me, the way he does. Ever!

[fanficfish]

my HSR theory about warp jumps and the timeline

crossposted from my Reddit

So I was doing some thinking recently (read: last night in bed) and...I came up with some interesting ideas. And it has to do with the warp jumps. Also, Spoilers, but that should be obvious.

We know that warp jumps are basically like going through space tunnels of sorts- you go in one end and end up somewhere else at the other. We also know the train can't jump near another planet, and I assume it works kind of like the Dinosaur Train from the show of the same name. Where you travel for a bit, but to get somewhere else you go through a tunnel.

Now for timelines.

Average stops of the Express are 7 days per destination. At the Herta Space Station, the crew arrives presumably the day the Trailblazer wakes up. Within the same day, said Trailblazer manages to make some friends, defeat a giant monster, and then get knocked out for another day. I'm guessing the Express at least sticks around, to at least help clean up a little (there's a quest where you can log photos of the Express for compensation, and since the guy put together a list of several items already I'm guessing that happens towards the end of the stay). So let's asume the 7-day stop is normal. Plus, most medical professionals don't recommend immediately setting off on adventures right after something ike the Stelleron in your chest going haywire and having a guy knock you out for safety. So let's assume they stay at the HSS for a week, at the least.

Later on, March talks about how the Trailblzer is in charge of washing the coffee cups this week. And in Belebog, interacting with the luggage outside the Overworld hotel says "as a member of the Express, you know the importance of keeping luggage safe" or whatever. You have a suspicious amount of loyalty to the Express, and I'm not entirely convinced that's just your overcreative mind (cough cough hotel devil cough cough) being creative. And surely the Express won't warp jump twice in a row, it seems like it takes a bit of prep and timing and stuff. At any rate, time has definitely passed between Belebog and the Loufu.

So here's where my theory comes in.

We know that the tunnels are not like those in the show Dinosaur Train (hey look it's a good example of something simillar alright-). The tunnels in the show have a little bit inside them, like a normal tunnel, and they're not actually instant. We've seen the inside of tunnels and the outside of long tunnels. The warp jumps can't really be like this, because it's short enough that someone sitting on a couch wouldn't have too much reason to get up. And stuff on shelves and stuff like the books in the archives or the chess table seem to only shift slightly, instead of many tremors rocking them slowly off their positions.

So the warp jump is instant. And like a quick bout of turbulence, if March falling is anything to go by. So where does the time come in, because surely they don't go on and adventure, come back, maybe sleep one night in their beds, then instantly go off for another week of adventure. That'd cause burnout. And make having decorated rooms and whatever pointless. And it's also just impractical- no time to log things, clean and sharpen weapens, etc. But it's not too long a period, because you're still considered a newbie to the crew through the Jurilo-VI stuff.

My guess is there's a day or two in between leaving a planet and finding a place to warp jump from. It's probably a huge shift of energy and sending a planet off its gravitational path is never a good idea. So the Express has to travel otu to the literal middle of nowhere to warp jump. When they exit, they're able to get a lot closer to their destination, but there's still at least a couple of hours before they actually are able to dock. It's like with space rockets and space stations iRL- before any propulsion towards Earth can happen, the vehicle has to move away from the space station so that it doesn't send the station off-course or something.

So what's the timeline?

A week at the Herta Space Station, I'd give three days at the least Half a day to a day traveling out to the warp point. They hit the ice planet maybe around a noon hour, disembark (no idea how long that takes or hwo that happens), arrive in Belebog in the afternoon, explore a bit, then go to sleep. The next day, they have the whole thing and spend the next couple of nights in the underworld hotel and defeating the Stellaron.

Within a five-day period (they stay one more night at the Overworld hotel) they're back on the Express. They presumably decide where to go next the day after they return to the Express (because Dan has his nightmare on the Express), but I imagine they have anywhere from a few days to a week before they actually get to the Loufu. (I don't know how March calmed down so fast between talking to Dan and voting though...)

So in short: the Trailblazer has been part of the Nameless for around two weeks, take or give anywhere from that to a solid month. This allows plenty of time to settle in, rest between adventures (not every planet has nice hotels to stay in I reckon), enjoy a nice breakfast with the Astral Express family and get yelled at by Pom-Pom for not eating immediately, etc. Trains also have to travel some distance- surely it's not all warp jumps and long stop periods, trains runnign passanger routes tend to run for at least a bit before stopping at a station.

and wow did not expect this to be this long and I'm sure there's more info I missed and stuff, but that's my theory. I guess what me know what ya'll think. Apologies if it sounds a bit far-winded, it's a very late hour and I am definitely not awake but I had to get it out because it felt like something discussion worthy.