#i'm supposed to be working on my NaNo!!

[headphones-ct-09978]

Sopapillas. 

Miguel O’Hara X Reader one-shot

Summary: You and Miguel share a small moment.

A/N: I haven’t seen the movie yet, so this is based on what I could scavenge from various Marvel websites and some spoilers. This in and of itself holds no spoilers, but I’ll tag it under “Spoilers”. 

Warnings: None. Maybe some really bad spanglish (I’m Mexican but my spanish is fucking AWFUL)

(If any of my spanish is cringe or bad, please please please, correct me and suggest phrases to me. I'm totally open to criticism here!)

. “Miguel? Eyo, ¿dónde está, man? I got you some sopapillas! I think some sugar could do you some good.” 

You wandered around the large room where most of the tech was located. Various holographic screens were up, displaying what appeared to be some kind of surveillance system. Miguel was the one working tirelessly to find a way to…well you honestly had no idea. All you knew was that you were here, in this corner of the multiverse, with others like you. Apparently you were supposed to be a spider person, but something in your timeline went wrong, and you ended up there. You had no powers, but also no motivation to return to your former life. To be fair, going back to that absolute shit show of a life was the last thing on your to-do list. Instead, you settled for being a sort of assistant for Miguel. He usually had you run small errands, maybe keep tabs on certain things, or help with technical issues. You often wondered why, since Miguel seemed more than capable of doing everything himself. But, he did seem very overworked and just downright stressed out 24/7, so perhaps he did need the extra help.

You looked around, holding the styrofoam box in your hands. You were about to call out to him again, when a screen to your left suddenly flickered off, revealing the towering man behind it, causing you to jump. “GAH!!” you exclaimed, startled by his sudden appearance. 

There were slight bags under his dark eyes and he looked as if he hadn’t slept in days (which was actually the case).

“Geez dude, you keep giving me heart attacks.” you said as you handed him the small box. “Got you a little something to help with the night shift.”

His brown eyes flicked down to what you were handing him and he blinked, his nose twitching in what could only be confusion or exhaustion. After a moment he sighed and took the box. “Thanks.” he mumbled before opening the box, grabbing a sopapilla and biting it. You caught a glimpse of his fangs, which made you shiver. ‘Dioses, those things look freaky.’ you thought. 

“Did you double check that timeline I told you to investigate?” Miguel cocked an eyebrow at you, his eyes regarding inquisitively. You nodded. “Sí,todo bien. I triple checked too.” 

You waited for a snarky remark about something or other, or for him to suddenly get annoyed by something, but nothing happened. Instead, he just stared at the screen to your right. You turned and saw…another version of yourself. You, the you in the video, were at a party it seemed. You were dancing and laughing, looking happier than you’ve ever felt. 

“When is that?” you asked, pointing to the holographic display, the orange glow of the screen reflecting off the gold wrist cuff you wore. 

“It’s apparently you in earth-3499, pre-serum you.” he said before taking another bite of his snack.

“Pre-serum? I don’t get bitten?” 

“Nope,” he wiped some sugar granules off his bottom lip with his thumb, and licked the rest off. He put the box down on the consol beside him and brushed his hands off. “You, in this canon universe, were injected with this serum that combined the original super-soldier serum paired with an experimental serum that had both spider DNA and some other experimental tech.”

I cringed. “Oh no, not the nano robot thingies from earth-7569.” 

“Nah, it’s something else.” He turned the screen off and leaned against the consol. He nodded to you, beckoning for you to join him up on the consol platform. You hurried up the steps and joined him. Beside him, you could clearly notice the size difference, realizing how tall he was. You glanced at him and leaned against the black console as well. 

“¿Qué pasa, hombre? No eres tú mismo. Dime, ¿qué te molesta?” 

Unlike most of the spider people around, he seemed more relaxed around you. He shared things with you, usually about his family. You couldn’t fathom why, but you consider yourself lucky to at least be in this man’s good graces. 

He looked at you, curiously, brows furrowed as if he was trying to solve a puzzle. 

“¿Por qué no quieres volver? Tenías una vida, una familia, cosas que la mayoría de nosotros luchamos por recuperar…”

You started to fidget with the sleeve of your jacket. “No sé... Supongo que mi vida canónica no fue tan... genial como la mayoría supondría.” 

Miguel placed a hand on your shoulder, in a consoling manner. You continued, “No significa que no los ayudaré a todos, simplemente no me siento obligado a volver a mi antigua vida.”

He nodded. He was about to say something else when another screen popped up with a new developing timeline. He swiveled his head, and watched as the events unfolded. He groaned in annoyance. “Oh great, what now, another canon fuck up?” 

As you both watched the timeline thingy, you unflinchingly watched as the spider-person on the screen got hit by a train. 

“Canon?”

“Yep.”

“Anything I can do?”

He pointed to the box you had given. “You get yourself something to eat. I don’t want you hangry tonight.”

You scoffed playfully. “You’re one to talk.”

 He shot you a miffed glare and threw the box at you, which you caught with ease. You chuckled, both out of unease and nervousness. “¡Que era una broma! ¡Solo una broma!”

“Uh huh, yeah, sure.” he said, sounding unimpressed.

You chuckled to yourself as you left the room. Had you turned around, you would’ve seen him shake his head and allow a small smile to grace his lips. “You’re a pain in the ass.” he mumbled. 

-end-

[ollieofthebeholder]

Hi! I know you do NaNo every year and are quite involved with it; have you seen their new AI policy? And what are your thoughts on it?

https://nanowrimo.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/29933455931412-What-is-NaNoWriMo-s-position-on-Artificial-Intelligence-AI

Hi!

So first off, nonnie: My involvement with NaNoWriMo has, uh, declined significantly in the last year. I was an ML through last November, and there were...a lot of problems that all culminated in me (and my co-ML ) not only making the decision to step down as MLs, but disaffiliate our region from NaNo altogether. We're not stopping people from participating, just taking the groups we manage independent and starting our own, localized version. Global communities are great, but when you get to as big as NaNo got and start having to implement rules and make them apply to wildly diverse regions - and then have absolutely no policies in place for people in those specific regions to adapt those policies - it stops being fun, frankly. For organizers and participants.

All of which is to say, no, I hadn't seen this until now.

My thoughts are that, like so many other things NaNo has tried to do since November, it's well-intentioned (probably) but poorly thought out and even more poorly executed. It's also too broad and overencompassing. And it violates the spirit of the program they've been belaboring us with for the last 25 years.

AI - Artificial Intelligence - covers a lot of ground. Spellcheckers are technically AI. Speech to text programs could be construed as AI. Predictive text is AI. ChatGP and its ilk is essentially an advanced form of predictive text, at least at this point. And if you had suggested five years ago that someone might write a novel entirely based on predictive text, the official NaNoWriMo stance would have been "I mean, sure, you CAN do that, we can't really stop you, if that's what you're happy with." If your goal is just to have 50,000 words, do whatever you want. I guess from their wording, they're saying that this is in general, not specifically for NaNoWriMo, but this is still a pretty bizarre stance for an organization that pushed for years for everyone to start on November 1 with a blank document and not a single word written ahead of time.

Arguing that "opposition to AI is classist and ableist" is the kind of reductive bullshit I expect from Tumblr, not a major organization that is supposed to promote literacy. I especially don't get the "not everyone has access to all resources" bit. Yeah...that's true...but if you have access to AI, you have access to everything you need to participate in NaNoWriMo, i.e. a computer with a keyboard and an internet connection. If you just want the fifty thousand words to get the prize and don't care if they're good, just fucking write "banana" over and over again until you hit it. Boom, you're a winner, and you've done just as much work as someone prompting ChatGPT, and it'll probably make about as much sense.

Also, most AI programs in existence use up a ridiculous amount of energy and resources, and encouraging their use is kind of an iffy stance for any company to take, let alone one that's been making this much of an effort to be sustainable.

Frankly, I think this policy is just one more sign that NaNo has gotten a) too big to be sustainable and b) too far from what it was originally meant to be, and I'm honestly debating if I'm even going to participate in the global one this year.

[storiesbyjes2g]

3.117 The other shoe

We started the night at a bar in a fancy rooftop hotel in San Myshuno. Sophia and I didn't bother dressing up because our only goal was to meet the man that had my sister all googly-eyed, and that didn't involve nice clothes. Jace Laurent was his name. He was from Tartosa and frequented the bar where we had the party. His fancy job title didn't fool me once he explained the role. He said he was a nano-simfluencer for a company called Trend Team. Apparently, he was heavily into fashion and was seeking the attention of brands on social media so he could score an endorsement deal. Basically, he was unemployed. True, I was technically unemployed too, but at least I left home and come back with money like normal working sims.

But after a while, I had to admit he wasn't as much of a schmuck as I thought he'd be. He was definitely weird, but seemed like he'd be kinda fun to hang out with once we got to know each other better.

"Would you stop grilling him??" Alessia shouted.

"I'm not grilling! I'm just trying to get to know him. Isn't that what you want?"

"Yeah, but stop with the 20 Questions!"

"How else am I supposed to get to know him, Less??"

Like, seriously! What was up with her? First she yelled at Sophia on Winterfest for trying to stay in the conversation and get to know her, and now this? I hoped ol' dude was up to handle her moods because if I couldn't win with her, no one could.

"Don't mind her," Jace said. "She's just a little pregnant."

"I'm sorry...WHAT?!"

His proud, smug face melted into discomfort and mortification.

"Oh no...she didn't tell you."

"We're in love, Luca," Alessia shouted. "I asked him to move in."

So many questions buzzed around my brain like a swarm of bees, but the frustration flowing through my veins was stronger than the urge to get answers. I was so done with this seemingly endless stream of accidental pregnancies around me! The mere thought of another person turning up pregnant ignited a fiery anger within me so intense I could almost taste it. Okay…I wouldn't actually resort to violence, but the urge to lash out, to release my pent-up frustration, was as real as all these unborn babies in my life.

"We have to go," I said, getting up from the table.

Alessia yelled after us, questioning our abrupt departure, but I didn't care. My only goal was to seek shelter in the safety of my home because the fortress I built around my emotions had finally been breached. Falling apart was imminent now. As soon as I crossed the threshold, the pressure that had been building up all week erupted from my mouth as I hollered. I never felt so out of control before. I paced, tugged on my hair, and screamed some more. Sophia stood off to the side for a moment, watching, allowing me to get it out, but then she marched up to me and embraced me tightly as if she were trying to squeeze hope back into me. We collapsed onto the couch and cried together. I probably should have waited to tell her about my hospital visit, but how much more could it hurt? We were already at the bottom.

"Sophia," I said through my tears, "I gotta tell you something."

She sat up to hear my story and wiped my face.

"I went to the doctor. That's where I was earlier... I have low fertility too. I'm so sorry!"

To my surprise, she didn't sink deeper into despair, like I thought she would. She held my hand and showed me the most incredible display of bravery I had ever seen.

"Awwwww, Luca! Are you okay? This isn't your fault. It's no one's fault. It just...is."

I knew she was right, but life really sucked at the moment, and I didn't know how to withstand against all those blows anymore. I thought I was strong enough, but now my wife had to hold me up.

"It's just not fair," I yelled. "Alessia, Yasmine...and even Dub! None of them were trying to get pregnant! Why won't it happen for us? I feel like we're being punished for something, but I don't know what it is! I just want to start a family with you. What's so bad about that?? I've done everything to stay positive and hopeful, but I can't do it anymore! I can't do it, Sophia!"

She wiped my tears and tried to soothe me, telling me it was going to be okay, just like I did for her at the beginning of all this.

"Hey...listen...we can't give up yet, babe. We've got one more trick up our sleeve! How about tomorrow I do the IVF? Forget those treatments!"

"Are you sure? That's surgery."

"It's outpatient. This is my last chance to carry my own child. I have to take it."

"Okay. But only if you want to. I'm fine with adoption if you change your mind, but...I really hope it works."

"Me too."

[duskyashe]

CAMP NANO DAY 8/9

(please see tags for trigger warnings)

[first three chapters] [AO3]

============<×^-^×>============

It had been a long time since Bruce had been this unbalanced by the thought of a conversation. He was unafraid to admit, if only to himself, that he was terrified about the kinds of things he'd hear from the young woman now sitting across from him. On the way to his office, he'd asked her if she felt safe and comfortable talking to him by herself, or if she'd prefer having his youngest adopted son sit in with them, and while she was understandably hesitant to let an unknown fifteen year old sit in on their discussion, he'd also seen the way she'd unconsciously relaxed when she saw Tim walk in.

"Before we start, my name is Timothy Drake-Wayne, please call me Tim, and you have permission to hug me, cling to me, cry on me, or even squeeze my hand tight enough to break it. Whatever you need to do to get through this discussion. I'll even leave for snacks if you need to say something intensely personal or that you feel I shouldn't hear," his son said with a small, supportive smile. Bruce was so proud of Tim, he'd come so very far since first coming to them. "I'm very well used to standing in as an emotional support person when a foster kid gets comfortable enough with Bruce to want to tell him exactly what happened wherever they'd been before coming here, and I'm perfectly content to keep doing so for as long as I live here."

Bruce watched as Jazz processed everything Tim said and caught the question in her gaze before she'd even opened her mouth to speak it. "Tim has decided he wants to work with CPS when he gets older, take his own experiences with the system and use them to help improve it. I do whatever I can to help him, to help any of the children who find themselves in my care, achieve his dreams," he explained softly, pride warming his heart and voice. "I'm not sure how well you remember him, but my first adopted son, Dick, recently decided to open his own gymnastics studio here in Gotham. His experience with you and Danny when you lived with us really left an impression."

Jazz nodded in understanding before glancing at Tim, reached for his hand, and took a fortifying breath. "My—the Fentons are… scientists, inventors, innovators, they—they discovered, independently, an entire species of interdimensional beings with incredible powers and such a rich mixture of cultures, and… and they decided those beings were unnatural, that they were evil and needed to be experimented on and exterminated. They created a portal to these beings' home dimension in our basement without following any sort of safety regulations or protocols." Jazz took another breath, swallowing as she looked down at hold on Tim's hand. "Th-the green on me and Danny when we first got here, it's called ectoplasm. It's basically the lifeblood of these beings, it makes up almost their entire bodies. Their dimension is full of it, as any excess they produce gets shed off into the environment around them.

"When the Fentons created their portal into the Infinite Realms, they didn't realize they'd installed a secondary switch that also needed to be flicked for the thing to work. A switch that was on the inside of the portal shaft and could only be reached by physically going inside it." She shuddered as she tried to bite back tears. "I wasn't home at the time. I was tutoring a fellow student in English at the local fast food joint. Danny was at home with his two best friends. Mom and dad had left the day before to track down the supposed "ghost" that had caused their magnum opus to fail to work. He should have been safe.

"I got a frantic phone call from Danny's friend, Tucker, telling me I needed to get home ASAP, that Danny'd had an accident and wasn't waking up. The student I was tutoring asked me what I was waiting for, to get going, and so I did. I—by the time I got back to the house, Sam and Tucker had managed to drag Danny away from the portal, but i-it was pretty obvious what the accident was, I mean… the portal hadn't been on before I left…"

Bruce had a bad feeling about where this story was going. He'd seen the product of lab accidents too often to be able to con himself into thinking it could be going in any other direction. He almost stopped her from continuing, but while she was very obviously distressed, the process of telling him, of telling them, seemed to actually be doing her some good, so he kept his silence and watched as she clenched Tim's hand even harder for a brief second before relaxing her grip almost entirely.

"Sam was fussing over Danny's prone form, trying to make him more comfortable on the steel flooring without moving him too much, while Tucker was pacing between the two of them and the swirling mass of green that was the portal when I got there. As soon as they saw me, Tucker was on me with tears in his eyes. "We thought he'd died," he said. "The screaming—we thought he was dead. We're so sorry, he could have died—we're so unbelievably sorry,"" Jazz quoted with a strained voice. "Sam's makeup was running from how much she was crying. Sam never cries, and there she was, kneeling over my barely breathing baby brother, nearly sobbing in terror and guilt. They—Sam had apparently dared Danny to go inside so they could get a picture, and while in there, Danny tripped, and he hit the secondary switch. The Fentons had apparently not turned the other switch off after the thing didn't work the first time, and Danny ended up paying the price of their stupidity. He was alive, he'd survived, but now he's rightfully terrified of anything to do with electricity above what comes out of your stranded wall outlet. Only, come to find out, Danny hadn't survived. Not entirely… not unchanged."

Knew it, Bruce thought wearily as he leaned back in his chair. He resisted the urge to rub his hand across his face or run it through his hair and instead just continued to listen to Jazz's tale.

"The combination of all that electricity running through him, killing him, as a portal made pretty much entirely of ectoplasm opened up literally right on top of him changed Danny on a molecular level. He's no longer fully human. He's now something called a halfa, half human and half… half ghost."

============<×^-^×>============

FINALLY got that finished! I sincerely apologize for not getting this out yesterday, I had to take a general health day due to both my lactose intolerance realizing, three days after the fact, that I'd eaten dairy and decided it didn't like that at all, and my sleep schedule being crap the past two days (⁠-⁠_⁠-⁠;⁠) that's why today's post says "day 8/9", I'm counting it for both days since I *did* start writing it yesterday (⁠^⁠～⁠^⁠;⁠)⁠ゞ

For anyone reading this directly after day 6 but hasn't read any of the reblogs of day 6, this is actually chapter 4 of this fic, not chapter 2. I have two amazing co-writers who have each written an amazing chapter for this fic, which can be more easily read on AO3 by hitting the link up at the top!

Also, due to this fic having two co-writers for it, from now on, when I post a new chapter for it here on Tumblr, I won't be linking back to my previous chapter, since there will be two chapters between each of my own. Instead, I'll be linking back to the first post back on day 6 and to the AO3 version, where the entire fic will be readily available for reading.

Also also, because this is being co-written, any and all updates for this fic will be highly sporadic at best. Please don't harass me or my co-writers for quicker updates, we're all very busy people working together to write this purely for fun.

Have a wonderful morning/day/night everyone!

[bluberimufim]

WIP Intro

Title: Devourer of Souls

Genre + tropes: Fantasy, found family, fairytale retelling (Snow White and Rose Red)

Tag: devourer of souls wip

Themes (may be subject to change with the 1st draft): destruction vs creation, inherent contradictions of femininity, anti-war, choosing your own family, freedom from expectation, religious trauma

Status: outlining + first draft

Additional notes: I'm gonna (try to) do this for NaNo!! Wish me luck!!

edit: this is now a duology!

Plot

Seth was supposed to be a healer. That's what everyone said she would be. She would become a healer and fight in the war for the Goddess of Time. But her healing doesn't work like it's supposed to. Instead of giving life, she takes it away. People say she eats souls.

She tries to live a quiet life in the countryside, away from the war, but is rudely interrupted when Theo, a lost demigoddess, wanders into her life. Together, they try to find a place for themselves and their strange magic in this world. But war is never kind, and the Goddess of Time wants her daughter's power on her side - and she won't let some pesky healer get in her way.

Characters

Seth: a girl with terrifying powers who just wants a quiet life in a small town, alone, but learns to be happy after finding Theo. She was expelled from the hospital she was apprenticing for a failed healing that killed the patient and permanently damaged her leg in the process.

Theo: a powerful demigoddess whose magic is making her soul slowly wither away. Her adoptive family sent the Order after her after discovering her unusual powers and ends up finding Seth on her journey. Through her Goddess-Mother's influence, she becomes consumed by the war.

Flick: a teenager touched by the Goddess of Love, whose body houses two conflicting souls. They are cursed to have anyone they meet fall in love with them, and Seth takes them under her wing while on their journey to find themself.

Jane: a sort of puppet created by the Goddess of Time to replace Theo after her death, delivered to Seth when the Goddess couldn't stand her anymore. She's in the mortal world for the first time and trying to figure out who she wants to be.

The Goddess of Time: Theo and Jane's mother. By far the most ruthless - and broken - among her sisters. She lives in her Garden in the plane of the gods, where she takes her daughters to shape them into her champions.

Notes on the setting

everything in this world has a soul, or life force, which can be transferred by those with the right magical inclination

usually, healers can only direct the "souls" from themselves to other in order to heal them, and when their soul runs out, they die - it is the ultimate sacrifice and a healer's greatest honour, to surrender their very souls to their Goddess

there are three Sister Goddesses, each representing a core aspect of humanity, waging war against each other to see who is more powerful (I expand upon it here)

certain types of powerful magic can cause your soul to start eating itself if not kept in check, as is Theo's case

Edit: you can follow the development of Seth and Theo's relationship in the tag #the great Seth and Theo relationship liveblog

If you've read this far - thank you! I hope my WIP has interested you!

[possibly-j]

My Linux Journey

This was originally supposed to be a post on learning Linux but I got to rambling so enjoy my story about my journey with Linux. Expect a post on that topic at a later date.

~The early days~

I think my introduction to Linux was honestly quite smooth. See I'm poor and am not inclined to sail the seven seas when I can get by on a free option. And as I looked for free software I started to pick up that the safe ones were always "open source" and seemed to always support, sometimes primarily, Linux. Eventually my curiosity was piqued and I decided to look into it. I was confused by a lot of things, but I was setting up a Minecraft server for my friends and saw people recommend Linux, specifically Debian, for the job. So after unsuccessfully installing it once (I don't know how I think I got scared about formatting the drive) and not understanding how formatting works and deleting the operating system by writing it over with 0's (I keep adding comments but seriously where did I get the impression I had to do that?) and reinstalling I got it set up, downloaded everything I needed, and got it working in a few days. This taught me a lot. The command line, which I wasn't unfamiliar with but rarely used, was my new best friend, or rather only friend. I learned how to do updates, navigate the file structure, download software, and use Nano because, well, I had to. But most importantly, I like how clean everything was compared to Windows (subtle foreshadowing), and I wanted more.

~Adoption~

I was building my computer and really wanted to make the jump to Linux, so I researched and landed on Kubuntu. I installed it, smoothly this time, got some software, got confused by Snaps, opened Blender and- green bar. I had a new AMD graphics card, so driver issues weren't unexpected, but it deterred me enough to just install Windows instead. I did decide though to try on my laptop since it was older and mostly used for web-surfing. I installed Pop! OS because I thought the tiling was cool (more subtle foreshadowing) and... It worked great! I quickly got used to the nice GUI elements it provided and my prior knowledge of the terminal made it easy enough to fix odd issues that came up. However, and I'm sure everyone who knows anything about Linux sees this one coming

~Distro Hopping~

I'll save you most of the details but I think it went like this

Pop! OS, got mad at Gnome, switched to Manjaro with KDE (Which will be my DE of choice for the rest of this), wanted Arch but wasn't comfortable enough with the command line yet.

Broke something, switched to Debian, liked it on server thought I might like it on my laptop.

Wanted newer software, switched to OpenSuse Tumbleweed.

I used OpenSuse Tumbleweed for I think a year straight. It's just that good, but I can't leave good enough alone so

Alpine Linux, because I thought it was cool. Actually planning on moving back to it once I'm done needing my laptop to always be working because it meets that "clean" criteria like no other in my brain (See I told you it was foreshadowing).

And right now Endeavour OS, because I wanted something with good documentation and didn't feel like setting up Arch.

Oh and I use i3 now, to finish off the foreshadowing.

There were a bunch of short lived ones throughout that, but those are the memorable ones. Also I installed Fedora on the computer I built a few months back and now use it over Windows whenever I can.

~Where I am Now~

If it isn't obvious, I'm sucked in. I've almost built Linux From Scratch, three times, installed Gentoo a few times, and even tried expanding my horizons further with FreeBSD, which I love but the software support isn't great for my needs. Linux is natural to me and I even have my own bits of obscure knowledge on fixes for odd issues with my hardware. I have weird opinions about init systems (Weird because I don't actually care much, I just like OpenRC more than SystemD because it's simple). Windows feels slow to use, and not for hardware reasons it just takes me twice as long to do anything. I really love tiling window managers like I don't understand how I lived without them. I primarily use open source software when I can but flatpaks and web applications fill in the gaps nicely.

~Closing Notes~

I love Linux, probably a bit too much, but it's just a fun time. It works well for me and I've spent enough time in the ecosystem that it's what I'm used to. I see a lot of new Linux users on here so if you're new, welcome! Don't let the often toxic community (at least on Reddit, I don't know about here) get to you. My absolute favorite part of Linux is that you get to have choices. Make use of that, find what you like, and don't be afraid to reinstall Arch for the 10 millionth time. There's a lot to learn, and maybe my story will be of some help. To those more experienced than me, how the fuck do you understand chmod

:q!

[brammariek]

WAIT WHAT she actually animates beyond the door even tho we can’t see her after we talk to her? I wonder if the devs had originally had her accessible for a time

SHE DOES! it's just a few seconds looking at each paintings, and you can see her through the focus if you stand close to the vault door, so she's very much there, and she's very much walking around.

now since she doesn't have anywhere else to go (that we know of) I'm assuming she stays in the vault until Aloy brings Sylens "to heel" as she says. Thing is, you're not supposed to stay in an art vault for very long periods of time, because the air quality and humidity needs to be very exact for art to be preserved, the gasses in the air are not ideal for human lungs. When i visited a museum with my university, we were allowed entry to one of the storage vaults, to see how conservation works, and how art pieces are stored when not on display, and IIRC you're not supposed to stay there for more than... an hour, maybe 2 at a time? so that makes me curious as to how much of Tilda's body has been altered with the nano-tech the Zeniths have. (I haven't played burning shores yet, so i have no idea if more lore is revealed there, but my guess is that we learn a bit more about them)

Like the paintings were already really old when Tilda got her hands on them, the oldest piece being Lidded ewer, by Adam van Vianen, 1614, and the Aloy being born in 3021, that makes the piece at least 1427 years old by the time Aloy sees it, compared to it's 410 years today in our timeline. that is impressive conservation considering no-one was there to monitor the vault and it's content at all. like in comparison, art that is 1427 years old to us, is from 597 ad, that's when England adopted the Julian calendar, so wer're talking Byzantine art period, like the Hagia Sophia was built between 532-37 AD. and as a visual reference to what a lot of western art looked like around that time, here is a mosaic panel of Empress Theodora, from around the 540s, in the church of San Vitale in Ravenna.

like this is the span of time we're talking about, this is so fucking old, and i just fhjdshafjkds have a lot of thoughts around that.

ofc we can assume that conservation tech was pretty evolved from what it is today, but i still believe human hands would have a large part in conservation... as an art-history student, i just have a lot of thoughts around Tilda and her vault FJKDSJLKF

[mariyekos]

On the one hand the inconsistency/retcons in the DMC timeline frustrates me because I usually like having canon ages. On the other hand it allows me to play around with ages in fics more than I usually do, so it's kind of convenient.

...Although to be fair, I've done that in other fics. In my uh. 50k word, basically abandoned but not abandoned in my heart Estimeric longfic, I aged Heustienne up several years both for the convenience of the fic and also because I feel like she should be older in canon. She'd be like 15 at the start of the fic which wouldn't work, so I just made her 23 or something. I don't quite remember. It's been uhhh. 3 and a half years since I started that fic or something. I don't want confirmation right now because it still bums me out. It was supposed to be this epic fic and I didn't even get a quarter of the way through before I lost steam because I got worried about whether people would read a fic with an OC as a main character and tried to write him out of it before deciding no, I like him, and *I* read fics with OCs as main characters so why not.

But anyway back to DMC- Decided to go with the older side of the Deadly Fortune novel even though I normally prefer the old canon of Nero being Dante/Vergil's age in DMC4 (19) plus my HC of Nero being born within days of the Temen-no-gru. Unless I'm mixing things up, Deadly Fortune puts Verigl as having been 16-17 when he visited Fortuna, and Nero being the same age during DMC4. So for longfic wip #3, I'm going for Vergil having been 17 when he visited Fortuna and Nero being born when he's 18. DMC4 would then happen when he's 17...if I even get there. I have plans for it, but that might be sequel material. We'll see. I have 2 other longfics with higher priority, but for the sake of NaNo I want to try to get to 50k on this one if I can. I'll supplement with other fics if necessary but if I could get 50k in a single story that'd be pretty cool.

[songweretson]

In 2015, I really wanted to do NaNoWriMo, but I had no computer, no phone, no tech at all, because I was broke. At the time I was also breaking down so often I could barely breathe.

So I wrote 50,000 words by hand, in old notebooks. I worked out a system to track my word count in the margins. I figured out my average wordcount per page, so I knew how many pages I had to do every day.

So, please, NaNo. Tell me again how disliking AI is "classist".

And yes, I know that I'm very lucky that I was physically able to do that. But where there's a will, there's a way. If you want to write a book, you're going to write a book. (A few years later, my first book was mostly written on my phone, because I was writing every spare minute I had between work, while I was on the bus, etc.)

Nevermind that a large part of their statement focused on using AI tools to edit, saying not everyone has access to other people to help them edit and improve. But like... Wasn't that the whole point of having a community around NaNo? You have forums where people can connect, build friendships, share resources, and even help each other.

But, oh... Wait. You couldn't be bothered to make sure your forums were safe. You let someone run around grooming your underage members, saying there was nothing you could do about it, because he took it to different sites.

And when you're called out for working with questionable people, you give some nonsense about how gatekeeping, and how it's supposed to be about the art.

Whatever. The lack of understanding is just what I would expect from people who support AI.

So, thanks for the memories. But I'm glad I outgrew you a long time ago.

[nanostudies]

Hi op! Just saw that you're doing nanotech in your PhD! I'm trying to go into the field too (tbh generally material science but I've researched nanotech so hopefully I'll get into that), so I was wondering if you could tell us what you work on! Feel free to ignore this if you're not comfortable sharing it, and please go full on geek mode if you need to! I'd love to hear all about your field!

- @studyblr-perhaps (using anon mode cause tumblr still doesn't allow asks through side blogs)

Hi! Thanks for the ask, I'm so happy you're interested in this field! I may not be the right person to ask tho as many professors don't actually see my research fitting the nanotech field 😬 Since my bachelor studies (in the field of toxicology) I've been working on computational modeling. First in granular material, then as I moved to do master's in nanotech I switched to smaller particles such as exosomes. So my reasearch is supposed to be "transport of nano-/micro-particles in microfluidic devices for biomedical application" with focus on simulations which are supported by experiments.

To give a better idea what I work on:

effect of particle size on mixing of monodisperse granular material (0.5 mm - 4 mm)

exosome separation from polydisperse suspension in a microfluidic device (100 - 1000 nm)

hygroscopic growth of aerosols in respiratory system, in cooperation with Phillip Morris, (400 - 800 nm)

stem cell cultivation in a stirred bioreactor (250 um)

If you'd like to hear more I'll be happy to expand any topic! If this is nothing you're personally not interested in, I have colleagues who work with nanofibers or surface modification so I can talk about that as well :)

Have a great day! 🤍

[hushed-chorus]

WIP Wednesday

Hi folks! Thank you for the tag today @alexalexinii and everyone for all the ongoing tags, even as I dip in and out on WIP posts. It’s nice to know they’re waiting for me when I have the energy to engage.

Life continues to be a bit busy, but I’m sneaking in some writing where I can. Most energy is going into my long Watford fic (currently, likely placeholder, name is Those Glowing, Magickal Years), and I’m trying to approach it NaNo-style, i.e. getting the words down and worrying about revisions later. 

It’s still a bit rough and I don’t know when the first chapter is going up, but here’s a (long) peek.

Other students are moving now, each following an invisible thread that binds them to someone else. Daphne told me that’s what the feeling's like – like it’s a fishing hook and you’re being reeled in.  But I don’t feel anything. Nausea rolls around inside me. What if the magic won’t work? I’m not alive. Not really. I’m not even sure if I have a soul.  Does the Crucible only work if you have a soul? Does it know what I am? Will it expose me?  I glance towards the Mage. He’s not looking at me, not yet. Maybe I should leave now. Slip away before he sees that something is wrong, before he can finish the job of purging the vampires from Britain.  These thoughts leave me so breathless that I first mistake the tug in my gut for fear. I stumble forward a couple of steps, gritting my teeth against the sob of relief. It’s happening. The Crucible hasn’t exposed me. It’s taking me to my roommate.  I'm supposed to be here. This is still my place.

Hellos and tags below the cut! 

@artsyunderstudy @facewithoutheart @captain-aralias @raenestee @aroace-genderfluid-sheep @yeonjunenby @cutestkilla @ivelovedhimthroughworse @larkral @stitchyqueer @you-remind-me-of-the-babe @ileadacharmedlife @confused-bi-queer @aristocratic-otter @whogaveyoupermission @nightimedreamersworld @fatalfangirl @thewholelemon @onepintobean @shrekgogurt @theearlgreymage @martsonmars @blackberrysummerblog @orange-peony @palimpsessed @valeffelees @j-nipper-95 @rimeswithpurple @wellbelesbian @imagineacoolusername @youarenevertooold @iamamythologicalcreature @supercutedinosaurs @bookish-bogwitch @cosmicalart @bazzybelle 

[little-peril-stories]

nano 2023 let's gooo

Well, friends, it's that time of year again. Why I have once again decided to leap straight from Whumptober to Nanowrimo, no one knows, but here we go.

The difference from 2022 to 2023: last year, for both Whumptober and Nano, I was "playing to win" (so to speak —playing against myself, of course), while this year I wasn't/will not be. Like, if I end up writing 50,000 words this November, great!

But. I have an issue with being competitive (again, only against myself; I hate competing against others in most contexts) and I know I will get obsessive about 1667 words every day and getting every single badge, etc., etc.

So I'm just...not.

I don't have a word count goal. The goal is simply to finish the first draft of angsty heist wip. If I can, great. If not, great. I started it in April, got distracted by TQOL and life, and the poor story's been languishing around the midpoint since I put it aside. I think if I can push beyond the midpoint, I'll be all right. But even if that turns out not to be true—oh well!

I'm still going to work on TQOL, and since I've fallen into editing TPOT and have been looooooving that process, I'm going to keep doing that, too. So this Nano is really just going to be about doing the writing things I want to do and that make me happy, and if angsty heist wip gets finished as part of that journey, well, bonus.

Is this more a #CalmWriMo as coined by @winterandwords? Why, I suppose it is. Thanks for putting forth the idea and the hashtag. 😊

Anyway. Happy November, happy Nanowrimo, happy Calmwrimo, happy another day of being alive, and happy writing!

Bonus lines for anyone who made it to the bottom of this ramble lolololol.

From The Queen of Lies chapter whatever-the-hell-it-is-now-this-one-used-to-be-chapter-7:

In the faintest reaches of her heart, she allowed herself to grieve ever so little, and to wonder if she would ever see him again.

I made it to Chapter 30 in editing The Prince of Thieves, oh god oh god:

“I don’t know anything else,” she says, her voice shaking. She’s half off the floor, frozen now, breath coming in little bursts. I know, whether I live beyond today or not, I will never be able to forget this moment—her terrified gasping, her wide eyes, the way her chest rises and falls so fast it’s hard to follow. My hand tingles, fuzzy and warm in memory of how it clung to hers all night, and I am struck with how much the idea of Hatchett ending Bree Cooper’s life threatens to rip me apart from the inside.

nothing for angsty heist wip lol I'm sure those will be forthcoming throughout the month

[silver-scripts]

Lockyle: Only One Bed Preview

When confronted with the ~only two rooms~ debacle at Albury Castle in The Creeping Shadow, I'm sure I'm not the only one who immediately imagined a "only one bed" fic.

It's one of the projects I'm working on for nano and probably won't be edited until December, so here's a sneak peek :)

This isn't edited so sorry about any typos

The group of them stared at the two sets of keys in front of them.

Two.

“Well, personally I’m too tall to fit in a twin bed or on the couch, so I’ll be taking the room with the big bed,” Kipps said. He reached out to snag the key, and Lockwood lunged forwards as well. Evidently their old rivalry still went deep enough that neither of them was willing to concede to the other.

But there were two keys, and they each pulled away with one. The game changed.

Holly eyed George and then Kipps, calculating the odds. “Well I’m not sharing a bed, so I will be taking the cot,” she said quickly, taking a step towards Kipps. She slung her bag over her shoulder and tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear, smiling tightly. Kipps grabbed his kit bag and the two of them headed upstairs. A moment later, a door closed.

And then there were three.

George, Lockwood, and Lucy stood staring at each other. A breath passed, and George took his glasses off to clean them on the bottom of his shirt. Carefully, he replaced his glasses and stuffed his hands in his pockets. He teetered on his heals as if he was waiting for someone to say something.

“Well,” Lucy started. She wished, suddenly, that she hadn’t bitten her tongue and had asked Holly to split the twin. It would have made the most sense. And yet here she was now, resigned to taking the couch. She could already imagine how much her back was going to hurt in the morning. “I suppose it makes the most sense for me to-”

“I’m more than happy to take the couch,” George said simply. “Personally, I like my personal space. And I can’t imagine either of you would be rather fond of spending the night with me.” He smiled at them delightedly and grabbed his bags, heading off to plop down on the couch by the fire. “Have a good night!”

“Wait,” Lucy called. “You-”

But George had already disappeared, and she was alone with Lockwood.

If he was phased by the idea of having to spend the night with Lucy, he didn’t show it. Instead, his eyes sparkled the way they always did, and he sent her one of his signature grins. He grabbed both of their kit bags.

“Onwards,” he said, swinging the key merrily around his fingers. He headed for the stairs.

Lucy felt jittery in her skin, but she took a heavy breath and forced herself to follow him. Might as well get this over with.

Upstairs, Lockwood meticulously put the key in the lock. He turned it, and the door popped open with a resounding click. He nudged it open with his foot and dropped their kit bags just inside the door.

“Charming,” he said.

Lucy followed him inside. The room was smaller than she’d imagined — even smaller than her tiny room in the attic. There was just barely enough room to walk around the twin bed, which was fitted with a faded, brown, hand-made quilt. Matching nightstands adorned either side of the bed, and each was outfitted with a reading lamp and small bowls of lavender.

A fireplace stood at the foot of the bed, and its dusty mantle was lined with old, black and white photos of the town. An ancient, tarnished mirror hung above it, and Lucy stared at herself in the reflection.

Lockwood walked to the window and gave a curious peek outside. The night glittered back at him, and his eyes shone as he looked out at the town.

“Well Danny’s right about one thing,” he said simply. “There are quite a few ghosts out tonight. No sign of the so-called ‘Creeping Shadow’ though.”

“That’s not altogether surprising,” Lucy said.

Lockwood shrugged. “Maybe. But you never know. We can do all kinds of research tomorrow — I suspect the townsfolk will have quite a bit to say. In the meantime, we should probably get some sleep.” He stepped back from the window and ruffled through his bag on the floor, withdrawing a toothbrush and a set of pajamas. “Shall we?”

Lucy’s heart fluttered in her chest. “Of course,” she said quickly.

Lockwood stepped past her and into the hall, where he disappeared into the bathroom. She closed the door to their room behind him and locked it, that nervous feeling in her chest growing stronger. She pulled the over-sized t-shirt she always slept in out of her bag, suddenly aware of how ratty it was and how badly it probably needed a wash. Her pajama pants weren’t in much better shape. She changed quickly, feeling overly self-conscious about her choice of sleepwear.

Why should she care, anyways? She never cared when Lockwood saw her in the mornings — hair disheveled, teeth unbrushed, imprints from her pillow still on her cheek as she stumbled into the kitchen for tea and toast. This shouldn’t be any different.

There was a knock at the door, and Lucy opened the door to be greeted, unsurprisingly, by Lockwood. He held his suit folded neatly in his arms and had changed into a pair of neat white pajamas. “Bathroom is free,” he said, heading into the room. “You might want to get in there before George does. Or Kipps, god knows how long his nightly routine probably is. I imagine it takes a good amount of upkeep to prevent him from looking like a ghost himself every day.”

Lucy snorted. She gladly followed his advice and headed to brush her teeth — partially to get away from him, but also because she’d made the mistake of using the bathroom after George once, and it was safe to say it was not a mistake she was ever going to make again. Even the skull had wrinkled his nose at the odor, and he didn’t even have a sense of smell.

Teeth brushed, she pulled her hair up into a ponytail and headed back into the bedroom. Lockwood had started a small fire while she was gone, and had turned off the main lights in the room. His reading lamp was on, and he was tucked beneath the bed covers already and had his nose buried in a local newspaper. When he had acquired it, Lucy had no idea.

“Erm,” she started awkwardly. “Would you prefer it if I took the floor?”

Lockwood looked up at her from the newspaper and blinked. “What?”

“Would you prefer it if I took the floor?” she repeated, motioning to it stupidly. “I’m sure I could drag down a pillow and blanket or something.”

“What are you talking about?” Lockwood asked. “Why on earth would you sleep on the floor?”

“Well…” she trailed off, suddenly feeling incredibly stupid. “I just… wanted to make sure you’re comfortable, is all.”

“Why should I ever feel uncomfortable in your presence?” Lockwood asked. “Anyways, I hope you don’t mind, but I started a fire. It was feeling a bit brisk in here.” He folded the newspaper over and tossed it onto the nightstand. “No offense to Aldbury Castle, but its news is incredibly dull. They haven’t even reported on any of the hauntings. Their front page news story is about how some farmer’s sheep went missing.” He huffed. “What’s the point of even having a newspaper if you’re not going to talk about anything important?”

Lucy snorted, thankful for his change of topic. “So getting into it isn’t one of your goals, then?”

He grinned. “I never said that.”

Shaking her head, Lucy closed the bedroom door behind her and stiffly slipped into bed. She pulled the covers high up over herself and turned to face away from Lockwood. It was a twin, so there wasn’t exactly much room to spare, but all the same she put as much space between the two of them as possible.

She felt Lockwood move, and a moment later his light switched off. “Good night, Lucy,” he said softly.

“Good night, Lockwood.”

[goodluckclove]

I have a project that I started for Nanorimo. I won Nano but after it was over I lost the motivation to write the last of the first draft. I think it’s a combination of not knowing exactly how to end it, not a lot of people to share it with, and being worried that I’m gonna re-read what I have and just find it bad.

Hello, Friend! Please, sit down. Take a deep breath. I'm going to say a variation of a form of writing advice that I'm sure you've heard a lot, but I'll hopefully elaborate it to the point where it clicks. I actually started writing through NaNoWriMo, it was a really great way to build up the muscle of consistent practice. Did my first six or so novels like that. Fun!

But I have good news and bad new about your first draft. The bad news is that it probably isn't perfect. The good news is that that's a great place to be in.

For one thing, NaNo specifically is not a traditional way to write a very stable first draft. People will spend years on what you've done in 30 days. To compare them is comparing your blanket fort with someone else's McMansion and thinking "dang what if my blanket fort never has faux-Roman arches".

Some people say their first drafts are perfect. This confuses me but I accept it and believe them when they say it. I do think that these people are not talking about drafts they carved out of word-flesh in a month or less. That's an entirely different game to play. When you hear people talk about how you're supposed to have a shitty first draft it could be hard to swallow. We don't want to feel like we put in all this hard work to make something shitty. So maybe I can say it a different way:

Your first draft is the skeletal structure of the story as a whole. It is the frame to what you're trying to achieve.

And I can say from experience that not liking your first draft doesn't feel the way you might think it will if you go at it the right way. I've written twelve books and there's only maybe two that I read fragments from and genuinely cringe. And even then there's still stuff I like about it.

Maybe you went into some kind of fugue state for a month and wrote a bunch of stuff that you hate every part of. You're a big high fantasy fan and you wrote a gritty detective novel. You love Dark Academia romance and when you read your NaNo you find it is just a list of every slur you could think of and new ones that could be added to the lexicon. If this happens to you then yes, your first draft is objectively terrible and you should probably take yourself to the hospital.

More likely your thoughts will look like this:

Maybe I should cut this. It's not really needed.

Oh I forgot the protagonist has this specific trait, I should remember that and incorporate more in the rest of the book

Hah yeah I see where I was going with this.

I should add more details about this concept, considering I now know about this other concept.

Hah man that's a lot of typos. (Assuming you're like me)

These are the types of things I have thought when I looked over literally every first draft I've ever edited since the dawn of my time as a writer. You are not likely to rend your clothes in shame and burrow underground. Even if you find some weird shift that happens in NaNo novels, like the genre or tone changing midway through the document - professional writers do that too. It can be a more efficient way to explore the space you're working it.

It can be a really interesting challenge! It helps too that you took some time off - I try and take at least a week between draft edits, even though it can be painful. You'll be able to see it with fresher eyes.

My usual strategy for editing my own drafts is to read from the top with curiosity and excitement and treat it like a puzzle. Is this what I want? Can it be better? Was there something I missed? Incidentally, when I'm stuck at a point in the novel I use the same trick and it helps every time. It's how Chuck Palahinuik did Fight Club!

So yeah you already did a huge thing by finishing a NaNo. Why not take a look back, if not just to enjoy the crazy and chaotic fruits of your effort?

Also - in regards to people not reading your work. Out of 12 novels I've probably had 3 read all the way through. It can suck, but it's okay and it doesn't mean they aren't good. Validate yourself and enjoy your own writing and start putting shit online/self-publishing/querying to take a chance!

[roseverdict]

Normally this would be the part where I put the title of the fic, but for Pacing Reasons I'm not gonna yet. Yeehaw.

In the year 2012, in a universe where adult mutant ninja turtles have an impressive world-saving resume dating back to when they were just teenagers, Mikey has a scheduled patrol as his part-time hero persona, the Turtle Titan.

In the year 2018, in a universe where magic is always plucking at the edges of the world and where a supernatural library serves as both a pillar of reality and a safe place for powerful magical artifacts, the staff of that very library all look forward to what will hopefully be an uneventful day with no danger of any kind.

It sure would be a shame if an old enemy from someplace adjacent to the turtles turned up alive, well, and ready to cause multidimensional trouble.

The Turtle Titan is an official member of the Justice Force! Of course, I'm only on duty every third Wednesday of every fourth month. And February 29th... when there is one.

- Michelangelo Splinterson, TMNT 2003 S5E6 "Membership Drive"

(You can also read on AO3 if that's your thing! I do a little fiddling with work skins in that one too so it'll look a smidge different at one specific part :D)

〜

"Where is it you are going in such a hurry, my son?"

Mikey paused in the middle of his mad dash for the lair's entrance, his superhero gear halfway between "in his arms" and "in place on his body." "It's February 29th, Sensei, so the Turtle Titan is on patrol tonight."

Splinter's eyebrows rose, and his ears fell back down from an alert position. "Ah, I see. Well, don't let this old rat keep you."

Mikey quickly wrangled his gear the rest of the way on, and the Turtle Titan gave his father a quick, tight hug. "I'll kick plenty of shell, don't worry."

"That, at least, has never been a fear of mine," chuckled Splinter, patting the Turtle Titan's shell before releasing him.

There came a distant yelp of frustration from Raph, and the Turtle Titan snickered and darted off. "Be back in the morning!"

"MIKEY, WHEN I GET MY HANDS ON YOU-!"

"Love you too, Raphy!" called the Turtle Titan over his shoulder as he sprinted away, Raph's sais stuck in his belt right where he'd stashed them next to his nunchaku.

He left Raph's annoyance behind with a spring in his step, and he took the first opportunity he could get to hop topside and take to the rooftops. The Turtle Titan didn't need to hide in the shadows, not like Michelangelo Splinterson still did; the Turtle Titan was a known member of the Justice Force and someone people would be happy to see!

After the whole Time Travel Mess Of 2005-And-Or-2105, Mikey'd had an idea, though; if the Turtle Titan could be accepted so quickly, and if he and his brothers were supposed to wind up accepted by society by the turn of the century, then maybe the Turtle Titan was at least one reason why the Splintersons were able to walk around under the sun a hundred years into the future.

Man, his life was weird.

The Turtle Titan gave himself a little shake and started his run to Meeting Point Delta-Omega- or rather, the roof of the pizza place on Laird Avenue that had opened up a few years back.

His patrol partner was already there by the time he showed up, and the Turtle Titan broke into a grin. "Nano! How's it hanging, Squirt?"

Nano turned to greet him, a grin of his own on his metallic face. "I am still seven inches taller than you, Turtle Titan."

"Six-point-nine inches, and I'm still gonna catch up to you one of these days!" The Turtle Titan wagged his finger at Nano with a smirk. "It's my prerogative as your cool older brother-ish to butt heads with you on this, remember?"

"Don't you mean 'butt your head against my armored shoulder?'" asked Nano too-innocently.

The Turtle Titan cackled and gave Nano's back a hearty smack. "You've learned well, my padawan!"

Nano chuckled with him, then gestured out towards the rest of the city with his head. "Shall we commence patrol?"

"Sure thing, Tiny!" The Turtle Titan charged over the edge of the roof with a whoop, his grappling hook whirring as it yanked him up to the neighboring rooftop.

Nano lifted off and flew after him, and the two of them spent the first ten, maybe fifteen minutes of their shift in amicable silence, save for occasionally dropping in to stop a mugging or a bank heist they happened across.

Then Nano turned to the Turtle Titan on an empty rooftop and asked, "Wasn't the Foot Clan HQ abandoned in 2010?"

The Turtle Titan blinked, and Mikey turned a grim look to Nano. "Yeah, as far as we know. After that whole thing with too many Shredders and the multiverse almost collapsing back in '09, Karai said she was gonna have the Foot 'go back to their roots' or something. Why do you ask?"

"Because there seems to be a massive influx of energy at the top of the building," said Nano, pointing over Mikey's shoulder.

Mikey whirled around, his Turtle Titan cape swishing behind him, and he immediately caught sight of the ball of sickly energy crackling right where Nano said it would be.

"Oooooh, Mikey no likey," said he with a grimace.

The two of them shot off for the allegedly-abandoned skyscraper without another word.

There was no motion at the base- at least, not outside the usual late-night NYC traffic- and there were no lights on inside or silhouettes in the windows.

The only light came from the crackling ball of energy on what had once been the helipad.

And right as he and Nano landed on the outermost part of the roof, even the crackling ball of energy fell dim.

And

Mikey

froze.

The person standing in the middle of the array of machinery that decidedly did not belong there wasn't human, turtle, AI, or even space alien.

The person standing in the middle of the array of machinery that decidedly did not belong there was a rat that he'd last seen either less than an hour prior or the better part of a decade ago, depending on one's point of view.

The Sliver looked somehow more unkempt than the last time Mikey had seen him, with his warlord getup hanging on by a thread and his overachieving mane of fur matted in places that Splinter had never allowed to go unwashed on his own body, even in Mikey's earliest memories. Mikey would even dare to say he looked mangy.

The Sliver hadn't seemed to have noticed Mikey or Nano yet, preoccupied with taking stock of himself as he was.

At the edges of his vision, using the prototype messaging system Donny had put together as a favor for the Justice Force that Mikey kept in his Turtle Titan hood, Nano asked, You know him?

Mikey nodded grimly and subtly reached for his left glove, typing back a response: the whole Thing back in 09 wasnt my first or only brush with the multiverse. meet an evil version of my dad from a universe where my bros and me fill the role of the justice force- the Sliver. last i saw him, he was supposed to be dead, and good riddance tbqfh.

Nano's jaw hardened.

The Sliver brought a hand to his head with a groan as he pushed himself to his feet, lit brightly enough by the machinery around him that it was child's play for Mikey (in his dark Turtle Titan gear) and Nano (quickly camouflaging to the dim hues of the city below) to sneak around and get a good look at the main screen of the hodgepodge of metal the Sliver had brought with him.

At its center, there sat an oldsy-timesy compass-looking thing with a generic plane shape in place of a needle, and as the duo watched, the outer rim slowed from a wild whirling to something more easily legible, showing…a completely normal compass rim thingy.

Mikey really wished Donny was there to help identify whatever the thingy was. Heck, Leo knew enough about solo navigation that he might have had an idea.

Honestly, any of his brothers would have been a blessing right then.

He'd needed his brothers' alternates and his own to even pull the wool over the Sliver's eyes last time, and while he was several years wiser nowadays, so was the Sliver.

"Yes…yes! I am close!" the Sliver chuckled darkly as he interpreted the display. "I am finally in the correct great dimensional tree!"

What is he talking about?

well, given how he was trying to bring his sons to the dark side or kill them for refusing when we presumedly ended up killing him last time, id bet he's trying to get back for revenge reasons or something

*Presumably.

Mikey let his lips twitch into a little grin at Nano's correction before flattening them out again.

he had a machine that would eradicate all life except those lives within a specific area when i first fought him, it was a last-ditch effort to force me and my bros' counterparts to join him. we reversed it to keep the rest of the dimension from being killed, but if he was able to build it once, he could proabbly build it again

*Probably.

And if he gets back to his home dimension, he most likely will.

exactamundo. quick rundown: the alt turtles each had specific powers, but the sliver has all of them- electricity, super strength/size-changing, the ability to turn to goop/shapeshift, and grav manip. ntm he's like. THE Expert on the things. it took all five turtles including me to beat him- we're GONNA want backup.

Mikey and Nano shared a nod, and as Nano sounded the alarm back with the rest of the Force, Mikey let himself fall back into the Turtle Titan and streak forward, actually landing a hit on the Sliver's jaw.

"GAH-!" The Sliver stumbled back, but swatted the Turtle Titan away before he could attack a second time. Only once he seemingly realized what he'd done did he whirl on the Turtle Titan with a snarl. "It cannot be!"

"Can be and is!" The Turtle Titan ground out, matching the Sliver's snarl with a mirthless smirk. "Didja miss me, Slivvy? Admit it, you missed me."

"So this is your homeworld, puny ninja," mused the Sliver. "Perhaps I might stay long enough to teach you a lesson that evaded my own sons!"

He lunged, and the Turtle Titan brought his shield up to bear, catching most of the Sliver's assault against its surface and deflecting the rest to one side. As the Sliver stumbled, the Turtle Titan rushed him, intent on trying to knock him out or something-

-and a goopy green arm slammed squarely into the Turtle Titan's chest, even seeping slightly through his supersuit and reaching the plates of his plastron with a deathly chill.

The Turtle Titan squawked as he was knocked away, barely managing to remember to grab the edge of the rooftop before he flew clean over.

"TURTLE TITAN!"

Nano's panicked shout preceded a heavy thwack and a pained snarl from the Sliver, and the Turtle Titan hauled himself back onto the roof with minimal leg-kicking just in time to watch the Sliver smirk viciously at Nano. "Ah, so the weak little ninja brought a friend to play, did he?"

"If you want to call us apprehending you 'playing,' then yes!" Nano feinted as if to go for a quick kick to the Sliver's side, then hurled himself the opposite direction and slapped his hand against the side of the control panel.

Nothing visibly happened, but the Turtle Titan bit back a knowing smirk as he charged the Sliver again. He couldn't very well let the supervillain have enough time to figure out what Nano was doing, after all. "Usually we're supposed to schedule a playdate, Slivvy, and you're supposed to get my dad's permission!"

His shield-slam went wide as the Sliver leapt up into the air, hovering there for a moment before shooting back down, foot-first.

If asked later, Mikey would truthfully say that he wasn't entirely sure how he'd gotten from a worm's-eye view of the Sliver's heel to caught up in some sort of goopy cocoon. However, he'd be willing to wager a guess that the Sliver had kicked him in the head hard enough to knock him out for a few crucial seconds.

He'd just call it a hunch.

The Sliver was in the middle of saying something by the time Mikey- no, no, he was still on the job- by the time the Turtle Titan realized he was trapped. "-not allow you to interfere!"

Some of the metal behind the Sliver started to move, and the Turtle Titan cracked a vicious grin. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure you're a bit late for that."

A haphazard metal fist with fingers twice as long as the Turtle Titan was tall came slamming down onto the platform, only missing the Sliver by the teensiest fraction of a second as he dodged.

"I would like to offer you a word of advice," called Nano from his place next to the control panel, a shimmer of silvery-yellow nanobots flowing from where his hand touched the panel and into the Sliver's machine. "Do not build weapons of mass destruction out of the same kind of thing your enemies are made of."

The metal fist lifted and came down again, this time splattering the goopy arm holding the Turtle Titan in place. The Turtle Titan quickly began flinging the goo off of himself while the Sliver recoiled and reconstituted his fur-covered arm out of what goop he had left.

(Something in the back of the Turtle Titan's mind snapped to attention: the Sliver hadn't had any issues with separated goop when last they'd met.)

"ENOUGH!" thundered the Sliver, lightning crackling from his opposite hand as he slapped it to the floor-

"NANO, PULL BACK-!" The Turtle Titan screamed, already running for his patrol partner-

-and Nano shrieked as the electricity overloaded his systems, the metal fist creaking to a halt halfway above the ground and Nano's main body convulsing by the control panel, sparks flying from every seam, joint, and outward-facing component-thingy.

The Turtle Titan bodily tackled Nano off the Sliver's platform, the two of them tumbling a short ways to the edge of the roof before coming to a stop, Nano still twitching but blessedly not shrieking in bloodcurdling agony.

"I have more important business to attend than dealing with a ninja playing dress-up!" growled the Sliver, rushing to the control panel and flipping switches along its sides.

There came the whine of power building up at the edges of the Turtle Titan's hearing, and he felt his heart stop.

"Nano, Nano, Nano, c'mon, wake up, dude-!"

"I-I am aw-wake," mumbled Nano with a shake of his head, his voice skipping and starting ever-so-slightly as he sat up. After a second or so, though, his eyes widened and he scrambled to his feet. "The Sliver-! He's-!"

"Yeah," said the Turtle Titan grimly, getting to his own feet. "Somebody needs to take him down, but we can't just disappear without any explanation."

"Turtle Titan, you stay," Nano decided. "I have a backup at HQ-"

"And it won't change the fact that you'll be lost to the multiverse if you can't get back!" The Turtle Titan tugged him back and started trudging for the Sliver's machine. "My family and me at least have the whole chi-meditation thing going for us-!"

"But what if it does not function as interdimensional communication, Turtle Titan?!" demanded Nano, yanking him away and leaping back onto the platform.

The Turtle Titan scowled and jumped after him, grabbing his arm and spinning to chuck him to safety. "Don't make me exercise my rights as the older brother-ish-!"

-and Nano screamed as the nanobots of his arm were forcefully disconnected from the main mass of his systems, which went tumbling to the corner of the helipad before finally coming to a stop.

The dimensional travel machine, the Sliver, and the Turtle Titan were nowhere to be found.

Nano felt dread pool in his processors. "This is not going to end well, is it?"

〜

In a place that was everywhere and nowhere at once, the Turtle Titan screamed as a wall of light severed Nano's arm and sent both him and the arm tumbling back into the "safe zone" of the machine.

"NO! You'll throw off the calculations, you FOOL!" the Sliver howled, already going to swipe at the Turtle Titan with an elongated, goopy arm.

The Turtle Titan dodged away from the attack, and as Nano's arm started reassembling into- what was that, a gauntlet?- around his non-shield hand, he flung the shield into one of the important-looking bits of tech, sending sparks flying. "All according to plan, you walking offense to dads everywhere!"

The Sliver roared and charged him again, and he nearly bowled the Turtle Titan over entirely. It was all the Turtle Titan could do to grab onto a piece of metal sticking out at an odd angle and hang on for dear life as-

-"Now the eye's back! Now the hand! THE EEEYYYEEE!"-

-all he could see was an ever-growing mass of turtles-

-"I thought he said 'squirrel' formation!"-

-they extended out to infinity in every direction in blues and reds and purples and oranges-

-"Doctor Delicate Touch feels nothing."-

-they extended out forever-!

-and a metal something-or-other slammed into the back of the Turtle Titan's throat, making him flinch and lurch back to relatively solid ground, coughing and hacking to get the whatever-it-was out of him.

The onslaught of voices went slightly quieter around him, with one of the voices yelling about somebody being "super fly" before fading into the masses.

"You…" hissed the Sliver. "You are lucky you do not send us careening out of the great terrapin dimensional tree!"

The Turtle Titan finally managed to hork up the thingy- some kind of jewelry, for reasons beyond him- and stowed it in his utility belt for the time being. "Me? Lucky? Perish the thought!"

"Indeed! Look around you, foolish ninja!" The Sliver broke into a downright dastardly smirk, holding his hands out to gesture grandly at their surroundings.

Surroundings which, as the Turtle Titan watched, were slowly becoming more and more solid and more and more like the Shell of Justice that he'd visited all those years prior.

"Oh, shell!" he breathed.

"Shell, indeed! Shell of Justice, indeed!" The Sliver began cackling louder and louder.

An alarm sounded in the Shell of Justice, but the Turtle Titan just turned to the Sliver and lunged.

The Sliver's head met the control panel of his device at the same moment that the superturtles came running into view, and the Turtle Titan could only manage a brief wave of greeting before the world around them erupted back into a whirlwind of color and light.

He shoved the Sliver along the control panel, setting off buttons and bells and whistles he hadn't even known were there, and the blues and reds and purples and oranges all flared into minty green with a deafening shriek before being replaced by an unfamiliar star-like pale yellow.

The Sliver shrieked in rage, and he probably said something as he did, but the Turtle Titan couldn't make it out over the worrying creaking of the dimension-jumping machine, the two arches crossed over their heads beginning to visibly warp.

The Turtle Titan's footing slipped, and he had to grab onto a metal outcropping one more time or risk being lost to the-

-"Welcome to endless wonder."-

-there weren't any turtles-

-"Let's go steal a-"

-why weren't there any turtles-

"-the Serpent Brotherhood from-"

-he'd thought the multiverse would collapse without any turtles-

-and the whirlwind vanished from all around him, leaving him with only the natural laws of physics spinning him, the machine, and the Sliver in circles as they plummeted from a clear blue sky.

"YOU IMBECILE!" the Sliver shrieked as they fell. "We are further now than I have ever been!"

The Turtle Titan hauled himself back onto the platform, pulling against the spinny force threatening to chuck him clear across the sky if he slipped. "Sucks to be you then, huh?"

The Sliver snapped his teeth furiously at the Turtle Titan, but then his eyes widened and he leapt from the platform entirely.

The Turtle Titan only managed to see the approaching sea, process that it was getting scary close, scary fast, and take the deepest breath he'd ever taken in his life before he and the Sliver's machine crash-landed into the ocean in a splash big enough that it would probably make for breaking news in a few minutes.

If this dimension even had the concept of breaking news, anyway.

As the Turtle Titan made sure what little he had of Nano hadn't shorted out in the water, and as he pushed away from the machine and started swimming for a promising-looking sewer-like tunnel in the distance, he wondered idly in the back of his mind-

-where exactly might the news of their crash-landing break first?

〜

In the annex of a library accessible from a bridge in Portland, Oregon, a book began to glow an almost panicked pale yellow, and the caretaker of the annex couldn't quite shove down the grimace that rose to his face.

"And here I thought we might, just possibly, have a quiet day."

[thessalian]

Thess vs NaNoWriMo

So that time of year is fast approaching, and I think a lot of people I associate with on this platform are going, "But Veilguard's coming out on HALLOWEEN!", which is entirely fine - NaNoWriMo is optional. And honestly, all things considered, I am probably never doing it as an organised situation again.

It took some digging to find the original text, and I'll probably post the screenshot I saw on Bluesky too, but summary: not only is NaNoWriMo pretty much supporting AI (they say "absolutely not condemning", but the rest of the text isn't nearly so mealy-mouthed about it) but also calling people who are against AI "ableist and classist".

No, seriously. I mean, seriously.

Look, how people get their ideas is probably up to them. And stolen valour aside, plugging an idea into ChatGPT and getting some word salad in return is ... I guess someone's prerogative. The same as someone just typing, like, "rutabaga" 50k times technically counts as writing 50k words. But ... first of all, NaNoWriMo was supposed to support people who write. Second of all, the idea that not having someone immediately at your side to serve as beta reader is "classist" is ... no. Like, if you're online enough to understand NaNoWriMo, you can find a damn beta reader. Third, "Some people's brains don't work well enough to see the problems in their writing--" SEE ABOVE RE PROOF-READING, FOR ONE THING, and for another, that's just shit like spelling and grammar check, which has been standard on word processing programmes basically ever since the concept existed! Fourth, I'm not sure how AI assists in shit like "Can't find a publisher because publishers are only really interested in what will sell ALL THE BOOKS", but that's one of their arguments too.

But the last thing - the worst thing - is what that means. NaNoWriMo is not cool with plagiarism as far as I know, but that's what trains AI. More to the point, you have to verify your word count with their website by actually copy-pasting everything you wrote into the site for it to show you as a winner. The fact that they support AI, and that one of their sponsors offers a whole bunch of AI features? I don't trust them not to be selling every single thing people submit for word count total to feed someone else's writer-bot.

I mean, the NaNoWriMo bods have made some spectacularly shitty decisions the last few years. There was that partnership with those scammers at Inkkit, which also revealed the whole thing where one of their moderators - who operated the youth programme, by the way - turned out to be a paedophile and groomer. But this one is just ... disrespectful of the very thing they were supposed to be supporting.

Please don't use the official NaNoWriMo resources. I am concerned for what it will do with not only what you submit for word count, but what you put in their forums too. If you want to do 50k words in 30 days, I am with you all the way, and others will be too. Find a support group that isn't these jackasses and do that.

Plus the "not using AI is ableist" thing is bullshit, by the way. I am not participating this year (I don't think, anyway; not unless I get a great idea) because I'm damn sure I don't have the spoons for that ... because disabled. Because fibromyalgia. The thing is, I don't want to just say "I produced 50k words and won NaNo", I want to write. I want to use my voice, not something cooked up by a machine learning algorithm based on a single sentence. I think way too many people have forgotten what "in your own voice" means to art.

Like, on the r/criticalrole subreddit, we were talking about how Lance Reddick actually did record all his lines as Thordak in TLOVM before he passed, and I mentioned how different that was going to hit, with the example of having heard Robin Sachs as Zaeed in the ME3 Citadel DLC after he passed. And someone went, "Oh, shit, I didn't know he passed! Hey, do you think they'll one day be able to use the voices of dead voice actors so we can keep hearing them? Because I know it's possible because Snoop Doggy Dogg is reading me my homework now and it's awesome!"

I ... may have kind of exploded. I may also have mentioned that some bunch of assholes tried to make a George Carlin special after Carlin's death and his daughter (understandably) hit the roof. It's bad enough to disrespect thousands of people by training an AI to spit out whatever of their works will fit a prompt sentence, but imagine hearing the voice of someone you love, mangled by AI's inability to get real emotional nuance, possibly saying shit they would never say? Using their voices doesn't change that the emotion and power behind those voices is gone forever; it just parades a decaying copy of them around like some vocal equivalent of Weekend at Bernie's.