#i am devastated once again

[gwynbleiddyn]

i feel like the dream in grimbold's camp at the beginning of book 6 should come with a warning that it will remove ur heart from ur body with the surgical accuracy of a drunk rhino

[crustyfloor]

A new pop-up store dropped for ALIEN STAGE's 2nd anniversary and wow. It's so sick.

It's Interesting what exactly these experiments are focusing on and monitoring.

Instrument practice

I found it interesting earlier that Till was so tame, more so than he usually is when he's going through experiments, but music, and making music is what he loves doing, So he was fully in his element here. This was probably the only thing he was made to do by the aliens that he at least tolerated.

(Additionally, judging by his collar (orange), he was at least calm. maybe he just isn't fazed anymore.)

//Side note, that head contraption looks familiar BUT this most likely isn't related at least i hope

(It puts me at ease, at least..)

Dance practice

This surprised me, but I suppose Mizi needed more skills.

She looks very startled here, and nervous(?) +It looks like she's doing this while singing. And with that face covering I assume this was a test monitoring her dance balance, precision, etc. At first, I did think it was odd, "Why would Shine put her through that" But alas I was reminded that even though Mizi is the flower of the group she was never untouchable, to Shine, this was the equivalent of teaching your dog to sit and stay.

(seeing this it reminded me of those scenes in movies where the people are dancing, and the music gets faster and faster until they fall. I wonder if she was doing through something similar to that)

Singing practice (?)

Similar to Till she also looks quite calm outwardly, if the machine around her neck is an iteration of the collars they have, then this process wasn't something she liked, or given how intense this experiment looks, this was a test of high-pressure to ensure she always stayed calm during performances (?). Then again this could also be a posture practice given all the structure focused on maintaining her position.

(What I believe was another form of this test was shown before so I think so)

(With her hands in a praying stance I wonder if she was praying to herself or singing a religious song (sweet dream?) It's also interesting that the machinery around her looks like a halo, and she looks so...angelic? holy?)

Image making practice

By image making, I think they made Ivan replicate expressions with his face. Whether this process was painful for him or not...I'm not sure. But it looked visibly uncomfortable, maybe that was the point. (His expression, even in this circumstance is so dubious..)

Ivan, among other things, needed to have a spotless appearance to be successful, his image was a priority given his skills were certainly guaranteed.

I assume the aliens eventually took note of his lack of expression, in the real world this can be a detriment to one's career, so the Aliens had to ensure quality was perfect. (To a more...dedicated level)

Superiority test

'Superiority test' Is very vague.

HyunA is very calm here too, likely sedated in that water with all the tablets on her. I guess this was a test to get an idea of a pet human's strengths and weaknesses, endurance, and temperament to compare and contrast them with others, testing who is more viable for Alien stage?

Another interesting, and sad part about this is that HyunWoo was there, watching his sister through her experiments.

(Also, it looks like both of her legs are normal, no alien leg yet.)

Heart rate variability

And finally, the most visceral of them all. The wording 'variability' makes this all the more sickening, the Aliens were testing his heart hours, testing it at different rates, speeds, and states. And he was in agony the entire time. Even the way he's clutching his chest, it gives me chills. This would've been a completely harmless test in a normal setting, as something quite similar to this can be performed efficiently in real life. But he's being tortured in the process.

This is one of the first times we've ever seen Luka's face so truly clear and unprotected, (understandably so.) He's even crying.

[autisticestlittlemaomao]

fucking hell. I knew this was coming but his and jinshi's faces are fucking identical. jesus fucking christ I am SICK

oh after putting the images together I am even MORE sick. I feel genuinely ill. carbon copy.

[bellesdiaries]

BLOSSOM 九重紫 (2024) • episode 1

[krismatic]

When the Moon moves through Gemini, its motion can easily be observed in a single night as it appears first west of Castor and Pollux, then aligns, and finally appears east of them.

[the-gay-prometheus]

I've been thinking a lot about how the point of the portal was the rift - not the portal itself. Bill and his pals could easily go from dimension to dimension. That was already established by them being multiversal fugitives and whatnot. They didn't need a portal to go dimension hop then, and I doubt they needed it for Earth. If all they wanted was to escape the decay of the Nightmare Realm and take their chaos elsewhere, they could've done that. The hassle of getting a portal built would just be a pointless delay in the time and options available for vacating the decaying realm they were living in.

I don't currently have J3 in front of me so I could be misremembering, but if I recall correctly: In one of the alternate Earths that Ford visits, the reason the Institute for Oddology (or whatever it was called) exists is because Ford and Fiddleford made an adjustment to the portal's design. They added something to essentially stabilize it and make it work as an actual portal to other dimensions. Obviously to original portal design was meant to lead directly to the Nightmare Realm for a reason, but it's the fact that they required a stabilizer of some sort in order to make it work as a portal that really sticks out to me the most.

That means the portal was intended to be unstable by design. It was meant to be more than just a gateway from one world to another, it was fully intended to create a tear in the very fabric of the dimension itself in order to let the Nightmare Realm itself leak into it.

Hence - the point of the portal was never to just be a portal. The point was to be unstable, to have enough power combined with that instability to create a rift that could not only open a door but literally force two dimensions to combine into one.

Which then leads to the question that has been screaming inside my head for the past over half a year now: why not just leave the Nightmare Realm behind? Why not just pack your shit and go mold some new dimension into your personal playground where you won't be under threat of erasure by the Edge of Reality? If the Nightmare Realm is being merged with Earth, that doesn't stop the Edge of Reality from closing in. There's a chance that it might slow down the decay, but it won't stop the decay.

More importantly.... Why does Bill care so much that he would be willing to risk his own erasure just to keep this place around?

Those who know me already know my theories about that but. Beyond my own theories, it's just something I feel like I don't see folks thinking about as often as I might expect.

[yichens]

not at them revealing to us in rapid continuation that a) wen xiao has had frequent nightmares ever since her master died and b) zhuo yichen haven't been able to dream ever since his brother got him one of ran yi's scales when he was under fourteen.

aka thinking about the times they've spent together healing each other's wounds and handling their grief and: zhuo yichen has had to watch wen xiao suffer from her nightmares while being unable to dream himself, probably hoping he could help wen xiao by taking away her dreams, too. meanwhile, wen xiao has seen zhuo yichen lose himself into the fact that he considers the waking world an endless nightmare he's stuck in while wen xiao either prefers being awake or is at least sometimes able to escape into nicer, happier dreams while asleep.

[mistbornthief]

xue yang looking at the candy and smiling as he died broke something deep within me i haven’t been right since

[stargazingbitch]

Ricky when I catch u ricky Ricky when I catch u

[clownery-and-fuckery]

"I love you" "it'll pass" tech and crosshair respectively. no one even look at me.

[vulpesintuos]

[kainebell]

I’m replaying Rising Tides and, like, I get that the main goal of this book was to be educational since it was part of a green mobile gaming event. So I understand why the writers played it safe by centering the book around activism, the power of journalism, and the ways that big companies are more responsible for climate change than the average individual. But at the same time, i can’t stop imagining a reality where this book is a fast-paced eco-thriller and not the snoozefest it actually is (mostly because i watched How to Blow Up a Pipeline the other day) 😭 The story suggests journalism is the true driving force of social change when neither Charlie nor MC are journalists, just the subjects of journalism. This puts them in super passive positions, making it a pretty boring game to play bc you don’t actually get to do much, just read about what other characters are doing. Buuuut if it were about guerrilla activism, Charlie and MC could’ve been in far more active positions within the story, which could have been actually entertaining and supported by the leftist ideas that are at the heart of the story the writers were trying, and kind of failing, to tell

[edelyra]

I wish more people would understand that you can be sad / devastated by a character's death without it automatically meaning that their death was pointless or that it was due to bad writing.

A character's death can be sad and fulfill the plot (often they even go hand in hand), these statements aren't mutually exclusive.

[hopeinthebox]

tagged by the tastemaker @cordiallyfuturedwight for the january receipts and would you believe it i'm actually on time

tagging a few favs: @aprylynn @jiminsproof @thvinyl @jimin-gaon @visionsofgideontheninth @btscontentenjoyer @kimchokejin @jihopesjoint @eoieopda @monismochi <333 and you too if you fancy it

[lovethistoomuch]

!!!!warning: disco elysium spoilers ahead!!!!

I just played through the tribunal and i cannot fucking believe it! i failed every single check except saving the "gardener not gardener lawyer lady" and kim in the end, thank fuck! but everyone else died. they're all dead....fuck

[captocie]

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