#hanging out with humans experience

[faejilly]

This is Finna, btw.

And her continuing adventures!

-

Go climb a tower that's crawling with darkspawn, which is, after all, what darkspawn do, (crawl over everything), but apparently everyone else thinks they shouldn't be there.

(Surfacers are dumb)

almost die, get rescued by Weird Witches (possibly for the second time, really, considering they're the ones that found the treaties the first time?) and have one of them insist you adopt the other one

(you haven't adopted anyone since Leske, this is kind of nice actually)

Find out the Surfacers can't even follow their OWN war plans, almost everyone's dead, the horde's just wandering around doing whatever the fuck it wants, and Alistair is barely more of a Grey Warden than you are and doesn't actually know anything useful about how they do shit and thus needs you to adopt him too because he's a little overwhelmed.

(Honestly, that's kind of fair, if Duncan hadn't been there when you first left Orzammar you would have gotten eaten by a bear or something. At least you and Alistair didn't hit the 'lost everything and everyone and am very confused about the world' at the same time?)

So. Understandable, but it is not ideal, darkspawn suck and archdemons are terrifying and you have no idea how anything works but you're in charge now!

Which is The Ultimate Surfacer Nonsense, but whatever, at least you can ignore most of the stupid and focus on killing darkspawn which is the whole reason Orzammar let the Grey Wardens recruit you, so.

So.

Follow Morrigan and Alistair around because they at least know how to navigate above ground even if they're cranky about navigating together.

GET A PUPPY! Maybe Surface Shit Isn't All Stupid. The Dog Is Cool. You named him Runar.

Get to human town to regroup. Find stupid bandits and run them off. (Who tries to steal from the people who don't have anything? even the Carta doesn't steal from Dusters, that's just DUMB) This is apparently a good move, all the humans are pleased.

Find stupid merchant who is ALSO trying to steal from the people who don't have anything what the hell Surfacers aren't even good criminals, this is so exhausting. He leaves in a huff, you suppose one of these days you should figure out how to talk to people rather than just sighing and rolling your eyes at them because they're stupid, but historically you were just supposed to hit them, so this is not your usual skill set, and you really don't want to talk to people so maybe you'll just go back to stabbing them?

You found a very nice fancy dagger after all, might as well use it.

Meet a giant in a cage who apparently got locked up for murder, but come on now, who among us hasn't done that? And he's been there for ages and is still alive which seems useful when fighting Darkspawn, so you let him out & adopt him too so he can help.

He is pretty insulting about it, but he's still nicer than most of Orzammar was to dusters, so whatever. And it's clearly not personal, he likes insulting everyone even more than Morrigan likes insulting Alistair, so you don't care.

Adopt a weird chantry lady too, because she also seems to be good at the fighting people, even if she let Loghain's idiots run away. (To be fair, you let the stupid bandits run away an hour ago, so it's not like you're one to talk. You can't kill all the stupid people, there'd be no one left.) She is also batshit crazy, but again. That's kind of comfortingly familiar, no one who worked for Beraht was quiet or sane about much of anything.

Help some humans out, (and some dwarves! that was nice) because they are really bad at this being surrounded by darkspawn thing and it's kind of adorable.

Also when they like you they give you shit, and you're not about to turn down anything that might be helpful. (See above and adopting all the crazy surfacers.)

Kill more bandits and giant spiders and wolves and darkspawn again and even more dumb humans who did not learn from seeing all the OTHER people who tried and failed to kill you and thought they'd get a reward out of it, and none of this is changing your mind that Surfacers make things way too complicated and are also (even at their best) kind-of dumb.

But still.

You're not dead! You have some help! You own more shit than you ever did in Dust Town!

You have a dog.

(The dog's still the best part. And the only one with sense.)

Your barbarian mace with an extra stabby bit in the hilt is pretty nice too though.

Be a duster, don't even have a name really, not as dwarves count such things, kill a guy, find a drunk guy, panic, fight some more guys (just trying not to get killed by your boss), boss tries to kill you anyway, leave your sister and best friend behind in the dust because they told you to, (and it's that or die, honestly, and you're not ready for that), get to Ostagar, meet a KING?!?, there's a fucking view with sky and distant trees and this is IMPOSSIBLE, you miss the fucking STONE and then some very very random nobody is all, "Maker watch over you, my lady"

Apparently you're a lady

what the actual fuck, Brosca's life is very weird

[feroluce]

For reasons to be expanded upon at a later date (because I love the little bits about Boothill and possible paranoia/betrayal canon gives us so very dearly HNGH) I think Boothill like... He won't let himself fall into disrepair or anything of course, but he reeeeeeeeeeally does not like letting other people poke around at his body. It's a necessary evil to him. He does whatever maintenance and repairs he can himself. He started out with a massive knowledge deficit, simply because he didn't really have any exposure to that kind of technology until he left Aeragan-Epharshal, but he's taught himself a lot since then, he worked really hard at it!

Anyway, the point being, Boothill generally isn't super trusting of people.

But I think he would come to make an exception for Himeko, since he trusts Dan Heng a lot, and Himeko is one of Dan Heng's once-in-a-lifetime dearly beloved companions.

Himeko is so unflappable, I don't think she would even bat an eye about anything he throws at her, either. Like she enters the Parlor Car one morning (she's always the first one up) and Boothill is already there, waiting for her.

"Mornin', Madam Navigator."

"Good morning, Mr. Boothill."

And despite the fact that he blatantly broke into the Express (Pom-Pom is NOT happy about this JDKSAJDSKL), Boothill tips his hat, greets her politely, and is nothing but respectful when he says he has a favor to ask of her. Except it won't stay a favor long, of course- he has every intention of paying it back.

Himeko never agrees to things blindly, but she does bring up that all the knowledge Boothill contributed during the Charmony Festival was essential to preventing the universe from being pulled into Ena's Dream. And they were able to hold onto the Jade Abacus because Boothill used Tiernan's burial relic to summon the Galaxy Rangers instead. The Astral Express owes him a debt of gratitude, and besides, he's a friend of Dan Heng's. Of course she'll try to help him.

Boothill fidgets a bit, quickly brushes off the thanks, and tells Himeko he's having a problem with error codes. He keeps getting the same one, seemingly at random times, but the darn thing has no obvious cause. Dan Heng mentioned Himeko had been the one to rebuild the Astral Express. He knows it ain't the same, but it's not like he's askin' for any major repairs or nothin'. He was wonderin' if she could just take a look, maybe offer him some insight, since she seems to be somethin' of a mechanical wonder.

So Himeko walks him back to a another car, where she goes to tinker with machines without them crowding her bedroom. It's all neatly laid out and organized, and it only takes a second for Himeko to locate some specific device with a long cord. Instead of plugging it in herself, she holds the end of it out to him, like an offer rather than a demand, and Boothill visibly relaxes a bit. He still eyes it just a little warily for a second, but he accepts and plugs it into the port on his side.

Himeko pulls up the list of all recent errors, and they really are all the same. Boothill has had multiple temperature alarms over the past couple of weeks since the Charmony Festival, and they know it's not the environment, because Penacony is mostly dreamscape and kept mild year-round. The long-forgotten natural deserts are too far away.

Boothill is staring from the corner of his one good eye, so Himeko turns the hologram to let him see what she's doing easier. They don't appear to be false alarms. His internal temperature spikes and then slowly lowers again, high enough that if it lasted it would eventually cause damage.

One option is for her to start rooting through personal data, figuring out what he was doing at the time of each code, and tracing cause and correlation.

Instead, Himeko reads out the timestamps, and asks Boothill if he minds sharing what was happening around him when it occured.

Two weeks ago: He and Dan Heng went to explore Dreamflux Reef and found a bar- nice place, good atmosphere. Woman runnin’ it was a doll. Boothill left fer not even two minutes to get them drinks (Dan Heng knows like nothin’ about liquor, Madam Navigator, can you believe this guy) and when he came back, someone had already stolen his seat and was hittin’ on Dan Heng! Dan Heng didn't even care, just shooed ‘em off. Boothill laughed and said not to let him get in his way if he wanted to meet someone. Dan Heng looked at him like he'd grown a second head. Why would he want to leave with someone else, when he came here to be with Boothill?

Twelve days ago: While laying low- er, just rustlin’ up some grub- in the Moment of Blue, Boothill passed Dan Heng with March and Caelus playin’ on the beach, buildin’ sandcastles and the like. When he passed by again almost two hours later, they were still out there, with Dan Heng pullin’ March through the water on her inner tube and Caelus hangin’ off the back of it. He swam so fast! You'd think he was part water snake or somethin’. He looked happier ‘n a cat in a sunbeam… He has a nice smile, doesn't he?

Eleven days ago: Boothill was killin’ time in Dreamflux Reef when he turned the corner down a shady alley and saw Dan Heng, surrounded by three men demandin’ “protection money.” None of ‘em stood a chance, they were all on the ground before Boothill even blinked! So cool! Boothill wants to see that spear of his closeup- Anyway, Dan Heng stepped on one of ‘em on his way out, hahaha! Boothill stepped on the same guy a second time as he hurried to catch up.

Eight days ago: Here on the Express, actually. Boothill had mentioned bein’ curious about the archives, and Dan Heng personally invited him.

(“I remember that day, I saw you in the hall.” “Was there any problem with the heating that day?” “No, none. I don't think the temperature has anything to do with these error codes. I have a different theory, keep going.” “If ya say so.”)

Boothill was fascinated by an entry on aeons, and from a single question he asked about Lan, the two of ‘em ended up talkin’ fer hours. About aeons and Paths and Emanators, Acheron and Self-Annihilators, the Sea of Nihility, Tiernan, the Nameless and the Galaxy Rangers, their burial relics and their customs. Dan Heng finally just started writin’ and editin’ the entries in real time, with Boothill pointin’ things out and tellin’ him what to add in. They were at it so late that Boothill ended up sleepin' on a couch in one of the cars.

He'd figured there had to be something to make Dan Heng chatty- he'd caught just a glimpse of it that first night they met, sittin’ at the bar in the Reverie together. He'll have to ask about the archives more often, if it gets him all revved up like that.

One week ago: After that night of energetic discussion, Dan Heng was apparently hyped up, because after he'd downed some of Himeko's coffee (“You had some too, right? What did you think of it?” “It was great, even better'n chewin’ bullets!” "Thank you! That was my newest brew, I can't wait for everyone else to try it.") he actually asked Boothill to go hunting with him. Boothill asked who their target was, and was surprised when Dan Heng pulled out photos that looked like they were from March's camera, of all things, instead of a bounty or wanted poster.

And as he sat there, studying these pictures, Dan Heng explained that he wanted to hunt down these specific memory zone memes to record them into the archives. Planets with so much memoria are a rarity, especially with the Stellaron's activity thrown into the mix, which has surely affected the local “wildlife.” He might not get another opportunity like this for a long time. And Boothill had talked last night about his extensive expertise in tracking and hunting, so he should have plenty to offer here, Dan Heng would like to learn from his experience and see how he does things!

And oh, Madam Navigator, by the time Dan Heng was done speakin', his eyes were practically sparklin'! Just lit up like the sun! Boothill could scarcely believe it! The two of them couldn't even wait another day, they set out that very morning. It had been a long, long while since Boothill had tracked someone- er, somethin’- without the intent to capture or kill. It was…actually really nice. Nostalgic, but in a good way. It might even have been his favorite day on Penacony…so…far…

Boothill trails off as a couple of realizations crash into him. All the temperature alarms he's spoken about thus far- they've all happened in the company of Dan Heng. And now that he's thinking about it, he's pretty sure even the ones he hasn't yet talked about were with him, too. Dan Heng has been responsible for all of his error codes, every. single. one.

The screen in front of Himeko suddenly refreshes to the top of the list, displaying a new notification for the current time. Alert! Core temperature above normal range.

Himeko's knowing smile is sly as a snake.

Wwwwwelp, would ya look at the time, Boothill has some errands to meet, people to run, y’know how it is, he should really get goin'-

“Oh, Mr. Boothill? About that favor.” And Boothill jolts to a stop in the doorway because fudge, he can't just leave without hearing her out. He'd given his word. He has no problem running out on someone he thinks deserves it, but Himeko really had been kind to him to try and help him out. Her voice is just as knowing as her smile, Boothill can't turn around to look at her, or else he knows he won't be able to disguise the sound of his cooling fans kicking on.

“Don't make Dan Heng wait too long, ok~?”

“Y-Yes, ma'am.”

[qqchurch]

idle re-imagining of the trash mob goblin we often see:

this goblin variant would be a runaway experiment of someone that wanted self-sufficient worker drones and thus are plant/bug hybrids

the green skin is a side-effect of letting their entire skin be able to photosynthesize to reduce food costs. they have seemingly solid yellow eyes, but these are just lenses that cover up the compound eyes underneath. the noses are closer to horns filled with sensory organs for better detection and tracking of pheromones. the mouth is filled with razor-sharp teeth to help with cutting up meat, though their diet is mostly fruits and berries

behavior-wise, if left alone they form up communities akin to bees and their hives, with a singular "queen" taking up reproductive duties while the workers forage around the vicinity of the nest. they reproduce by growing seedpods inside them which are then implanted via an ovipositor either inside the "queen" or anywhere moist enough such as watered soil

when provoked, they attack with their teeth and claws, often leaping several times their height at great speeds. alone, they're not a threat, but they forage in groups of up to 6. tool or weapon use is rarely observed unless facing a nest that has been active for months, and oftentimes they are observed to only use clubs, rudimentary spears, or slings

there are no known goblin nests that are active for more than 2 years due to extermination quests being enacted on any known long-term nest, but there are persistent rumors of a "goblin queendom" where the original goblins thrive

[solradguy]

come on grandpa its fine. let your inner dadguy out

Maybe I should........

[tetrapodomorpha]

Since transitioning socially and aquiring a 90% male friend group I really gotta wonder what the fuck kind of men are everyone else on this website hanging out with to view them as all assholes or predators

[prolibytherium]

Companies using """"""""AI"""""""" chatbots in place of customer service (usually with a veneer of pretending you are actually speaking to a real person, which might not be so immediately obvious to more tech illiterate people) pisses me off so bad because they are just SO fundamentally useless. The only information it can tell you is information more efficiently communicated with a FAQ page, and information that is Wrong because current chatbot technology is, in fact, not even slightly 'intelligent' and pretty damn bad at giving accurate answers to anything but the simplest questions.

Like there's no point to it besides hoping onto the flashy artificial 'intelligence' gimmick and paying for less customer service work hours, and so many companies will not only have this feature but make their actual customer service prohibitively difficult to find (and usually involving a labyrinth of automated phone menu systems that you have to navigate correctly in order to get to a person). Makes me want to kill.

[jazelock]

8 Books I Read Growing Up: A Poem

"The Intrusion," Banquets of the Black Widowers - Isaac Asimov || The Witches - Roald Dahl || Hickory Dickory Dock - Agatha Christie || The Giving Tree - Shel Silverstein || The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde || The Return of the King - J. R. R. Tolkien || "A Scandal in Bohemia," The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle || The Eyes of the Dragon - Stephen King

[jitteryjive]

also the reason i was thinking about old shifter twins lore is cause i was brainstorming an idea for if the TADC plot was in the tooniverse… i’ll at least be drawing it at some point

[aflockofravens]

I'm sure this has been said before but watching the end credits of the Shibuya arc got me thinking about the trio just bumming around Tokyo, hanging out, being kids.

Like, I was wondering what they could be doing as they're wandering around, taking pictures and goofing off.

And then it hit me. That's all they're doing. They're just being teenagers, hanging out after school, exploring the city and having fun. And this feels important to me for two reasons:

1) both Gojo and Nanami have expressed their goal of not having the kids waste/lose their childhoods because of the jujutsu world

2) it feels very much like the hidden inventory arc credits with the five of them hanging out and being teenagers before everything went wrong

Both of these things make me emotional, of course.

I just love all the little snapshots we get of these kids getting to be kids outside of the storyline every week. Going to the beach in the winter, playing at the arcade, running through the city taking pictures.

[chloecherrysip]

I'm in a new Going To The Movies By Myself And Having The Best Time Ever era over the past couple of months, and I gotta say, it's pretty wonderful. :)

On a related note, here's a spoiler-free review of Across the Spiderverse

[fleurdriviere]

(I'm so sorry if I'm remembering this wrong, if I am feel free to ignore this) I was curious about the robot lady and her daughters relationship.. Like what is it like.

👍

[samwisefamgee]

everyday I join lethal company lobby to Just Vibe and am sent Multiple Friend Request

[acetaminophriends]

Whereas everyone loved Lain nobody really knew her

[travelingtwentysomething]

🎼Trauma Dump🎶

🫖 Settle in, the kettle's on, tea is piping hot, so while we wait for it to come down from scalding, it's story time. ☕

My mom was married at 17 to her high school sweetheart, they tried to have kids for 5 years, didn't happen, he divorced her at 22. She found and met my dad a couple years later and ended up pregnant with him after a few months. My dad proposed and he got a job and my mom had my older brother and she became sahm like she had always planned to, had me a year and a half later, and two and a half years later my lil brother came along. She's got 3 kids in diapers and a tumultuous relationship with my dad but they make it work even though their priorities are more to do drugs, party, and hang at the bar, and raising a family is only "fun" when there's a kids party they can appropriate for the adults, or a vacation they can drive us off to (cheap shit, beaches, camping, friends/family's houses, tagging along on work trips with my dad that get extended by a day or two to site see- dad was blue collar but in the medical field so hard work/good money/traveled too much). My parents were alcoholics who took their kids to the bar to sit at a table behind them and color and eat chips and salsa for hours, partied too hard with the adults at the kids birthday parties, and did coke way too often. Then my mom got addicted to meth. That changed shit up, scared my dad. She was already bipolar, their relationship was already full of crazy highs and lows, he had even forced her to have a hysterectomy at some point when I was about 7 because she "was evil on her periods". So we moved. And not even 3 years later, my mom ran 1000 miles away from her 10, 13, and 15 year old kids, to be with another man in Chicago who promised her he'd take care of her and her (imaginary to him, so that promise meant -if they visit-) 3 kids. Because she couldn't imagine taking care of herself after almost 16 years married to my dad and maybe having a seasonal job at a department store once in a blue moon and a few summers working as concert security with her friends at a small concert venue, she had no money, no prospects, and an addiction to everything you could be addicted to nearly. Sex, pain pills from breaking her back a couple years prior, weed, meth, alcohol, shopping. And the man she ran to ended up being an alcoholic deadbeat who lived off his trust fund waiting to hit the jackpot when his parents died. So she ran to his neighbor's and married that divorced dad of 3 instead who needed a trad-wife to clean and cook for him and occasionally take care of his teenage kids once in a blue weekend. 15 years later she's still stuck with him in an abusive relationship, and he's been threatening divorce for at least 7 years. But she's miserable in comfort at least, and she's been clean off meth (nothing else tho) for at least as long as she's been married to the guy.

She tried to teach me that you always need a man to take care of you. I watched the fruits of that lesson play out for her over my lifetime. You DO NOT NEED A MAN TO TAKE CARE OF YOU, that's nice (unless it's not) while it lasts, but then when it's over you're more than likely going from one abusive (verbally, emotional/mentally, physically, financially, etc.) relationship into another because you have no leverage and no choices and NEED someone to "take care of you (and/or your kids)". NO. What you need is to LEARN TO BE INDEPENDENT AND ALWAYS HAVE A WAY OR A WILL TO STAND ON YOUR OWN AND TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF. Whether you're with someone who "wants to take care of you" or not, shit happens, things change, people who have power over another person tend to take that too far. Control is a heady drug too. And if you have independence, leverage, your own income and identity, no one can exert control over you that you do not let them. But you may just end up in a relationship where things will be more balanced, more equitable because both of you are independent and capable and willing to work together to build a life for yourselves.

Found this on pinterest had to put it here

Tradwives need to realize the seriousness of the shit they are getting themselves into.

The society isn't all that kind to women.

[halfdeadwallfly]

reflecting............... i am rather unwell

[jonnywaistcoat]

I low-key love the fact that sci-fi has so conditioned us to expect to be hanging out with a bunch of cool space aliens, that legitimate, actual scientists keep proposing the most bizarre, three-blunts-into-the-rotation "theories" to explain the fact we're not.

Some of my favourites include:

Zoo Theory: What if there are loads of aliens out there, but they're not talking to us because of the Prime Directive from Star Trek? (Or because they're doing experiments on us???)

Dark Forest Theory: What if there are loads of aliens out there, but they all hate us and each other so they're all just waiting with a shotgun pointed at the door, ready to open fire on anything that moves?

Planetarium Theory: What if there's at least one alien with mastery over light and matter that's just making it seem to us that the universe is empty to us as, like, a joke?

Berserker Theory: What if there were loads of aliens, but one of them made infinite killer robots that murdered everyone and are coming for us next?!!

Like, the universe is at least 13,700,000,000 years old and 46,000,000,000 light years big. We have had the ability to transmit and receive signals for, what, 100 years, and our signals have so far travelled 200 light years?

The fact is biological life almost certainly has, does, or will develop elsewhere in the universe, and it's not impossible that a tiny amount of it has, does, or will develop in a way that we would understand as "intelligent". But, like, we're realistically never going to know because of the scale of the things involved.

So I'm proposing my own hypothesis. I call it the "Fool in a Field" hypothesis. It goes like this:

Humanity is a guy standing in the middle of a field at midnight. It's pitch black, he can't move, and he's been standing there for ages. He's just had the thought to swing his arms. He swings one of his arms, once, and does not hit another person. "Oh no!" He says. "Robots have killed them all!"