#it projects so hard. on the iterator it killed

[worldruins]

This image really captures who Teeth is as a person. Uh. It’s bad

[anotherrunawaytrain]

I’m so happy about this! My TMNT bowl.

It’s mostly based off of the 2012 series. While I’ve been a fan since 1990, I found the ‘12 Turtles when I was having a hard time in my life, and they gave me comfort, becoming my favorite iteration of the boys.

I’ve been working on this for about a week or two. It has UV resin and I wasn’t about to kill my battery powered light on a bigger project like this. It’s mostly made with MiniVerse stuff (the resin, turtles, white rocks, and pink pebbles as well as the bowl itself being a ball I painted) but I also added other things that I had like the black aquarium pebbles and the plants. The palm tree was from a faux plant that I deconstructed, cut off part of the flower stalk, and painted to look like the pink palm in the 2012’s bowl when Splinter bought them.

It’s just so cute, and I’m so happy. I need to touch up some of the paint on the outside because I accidentally dropped it and some of it got scrapped off since I didn’t sand it first. But I’ll be sealing it anyway.

And yes, I made each one as one of the boys.

On the left, that turtle’s face was painted crooked and made it look like he has his head tilted up to look at something. So that’s Donatello, and he’s studying the tree.

Raphael is coming out of the water to bask.

Leonardo is chilling in the water but resting on the rock because that’s very relaxing and it looks like turtles are just so ✨zen✨ when they do that, so obvs it had to be him. lol

Michelangelo is going for a swim and having fun.

The pink pebbles, I arranged as best I could as the Hamato Clan’s crest. I knew I wouldn’t be able to make it as detailed, but I’m happy with how much I was able to do with it.

[morkitten]

I'm sorry Dimps

(art by virtanderson)

I just replayed Sonic Rush Adventure…. it's fun!! The last time I played it was back when it first released... Why didn't I ever revisit this game before? I remembered being a bit disappointed with Rush on a revisit (still a good game but there's just a lot of deathpits and the bosses get mean) and I remembered Rush Adventure being similar but with a lot of grinding that tired me out back then. But now replaying it, it's got really cool bosses (some of the best and most interesting of the whole series!), the stages are a bit easy but fun, the (several!) seafaring vehicles are cool, and it really doesn't have as much grinding or mindless sea charting as I thought it had. Plus it has this relentless blue skies sea adventure energy to it that's just so much fun. I love going back to my little island after every level, I love seeing it upgrade and become more populated and more full of fun stuff.

It's clear Sonic Rush Adventure was Dimps' biggest Sonic project and it's a shame they never got to make another original Sonic title after this, bc they were seriously getting better at every iteration… I'm sorry I was on the Dimps hate bandwagon because I was so hurt by Sonic 4. I didn't have the context that the game was supposed to be a phone game by a smaller team that then got hastily re-branded and given more budget. I was just so sick of everyone eating up the aggressive SoA advertising and I got nothing when I was proven right.

But I also wasn't comfortable with the narrative that emerged a bit after Sonic 4's release that Dimps was the source of all evil, despite agreeing with the level design criticisms, it's obvious even back in the Advance games they love the games & characters, and the shortcomings of their games come from an impulse to try to make them harder and longer. But honestly, it's a problem I sympathize with! It's difficult to figure out how to add difficulty to a Sonic game because these games aren't really supposed to be hard, and it's difficult to add longevity in some other way because designing Sonic levels and creating all the assets for them is relatively a lot of effort compared to other 2D platformers. Sonic levels need to look flashy and elaborate but also they go by really fast AND they have a bunch of alternate paths, so they also need to be really big. And it's not like Dimps were given amazing budgets anyway. So Dimps would often come to this conclusion of "let's add more and more stuff that will kill you outright as the game goes further in" to add that needed friction, and it gets especially bad and mean on the Advance games with stuff that you can't see coming up. This ramp-up of one-hit kill hazards as the game goes on is still there on the Rush games, but Rush Adventure especially gets more and more comfortable with the idea that Sonic levels should be on the breezier side, possibly because all of the extra content put them at ease that it wasn't going to be a game that would be easily beaten in a couple of hours.

Despite being Dimps' best and most full-featured Sonic game to date, Sonic Rush Adventure really didn't sell well. It came out in 2007 so maybe it was a victim of Sonic 2006's infamy. Maybe the title made people confused as to what it was (Sonic Rush? I already have that game!), who knows. It really does feel like they were gearing up for a third original Rush game, I feel like they wanted Marine to be a character that would develop. this is part of why people find her annoying - she's a kid who isn't yet a hero, her character is that she fucks up and is ahead of herself. she learns a bit but isn't there yet. there's an obvious follow-up to this that didn't happen. It's retroactively cruel how the ending to Rush Adventure makes you feel for Marine saying goodbye to Sonic and Tails and wanting to see them again, and then it never came to be! I'm just left with a sniffling Marine and the knowledge that it never happened!!

And I know that "Sonic Colors DS is a third Rush game made by Dimps!". It is but it isn't. Maybe if Rush Adventure did well, SEGA would have given Dimps a bigger (or at least similar budget to Rush Adventure) and let them do an original game rather than a tie-in. But Rush Adventure's low sales apparently meant Dimps was relegated to Tie-In Hell, instead of being given more reigns to do what they want. I'm sorry Dimps! I'm sorry I didn't defend you, I'm sorry I was part of the hate bandwagon against you because I had my feelings hurt! I really, truly appreciate what you've done for Sonic, even if some of your decisions on these games were very frustrating (have you tried getting all the Chaos Emeralds in the Advance games? have you tried unlocking Amy in Advance 2?), there was a ton of labor of love in your games regardless. Thank you ;__;7

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Mark Sumner at Daily Kos:

The large red fingerprints of the Heritage Foundation seem to be everywhere in the news. The group authored Project 2025, which would empty the federal government, populate it with MAGA loyalists, and, in its own words, “deconstruct the administrative state.” As The New Republic puts it, Project 2025 is “a remarkably detailed guide to turning the United States into a fascist’s paradise.” They’re thrilled by the Supreme Court’s recent immunity ruling, deeply involved in attacks on diversity and equity initiatives, and obsessed over strange things like Prince Harry’s visa.  And they promise not to kill all leftists—as long as we sit quietly and acquiesce to their dominion over the nation.

The Heritage Foundation so kindly offering to let us have our lives in exchange for our freedom is a malignancy that has festered in the group for decades. Though it benefits from a name and a network of donors stretching back five decades, today’s Heritage Foundation is a much more dangerous beast.  It has wealth. It has connections. And it has democracy in its sights. The Heritage Foundation was founded in 1973 by the founder of Coors Brewing and conservative strategists Paul Weyrich and Ed Feulner. They thought that President Richard Nixon had moved too far to the left and that other Republican organizations were too timid. They promoted a strong anti-communist message and a social conservatism that didn’t recognize a wall between church and state, and pushed for a smaller government.  The group quickly gained power under President Ronald Reagan, who embraced its “Mandate for Leadership”—a 1,100-page document of policies—and distributed it among his staff. Much of what came to be known as “the Reagan doctrine,” both domestically and internationally, was a repackaging of this product from the Heritage Foundation.

[...] Like many organizations, Heritage has seen turnovers in leadership, staff purges, shifts in philosophy, and difficulties in maintaining its place in a changing political environment. But the Heritage Foundation that exists today is practically a toddler. With a razor blade. This iteration of the Heritage Foundation dates to the pandemic, when the group's previous leader, Kay Coles James, made the mistake of trying to follow safety guidelines, including closing the group’s offices for an extended period and putting up signs that encouraged masking. That led to her replacement by conspiracy theorist Kevin Roberts, who had been on Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's COVID-19 task force and immediately pushed Heritage into suing to stop any vaccine mandate.

The architect of the radical right-wing policy guide Project 2025 is The Heritage Foundation. The organization’s hard MAGA turn began under the leadership of Kevin Roberts.

[foggyfanfic]

Vent Post about Writing Woes

They weren't lying when they said middles are hard. Just finished part one of my current big project, and I got part two mapped out in a very broad sense, but I just, I am struggling. I am writing the same version of the scene below the cut for the third time and I don't know if I'm happy with version three either. I love this AU I've come up with, and I love the ending I have planned, and other than the fact I wish I had a team of researchers to help me with historical accuracy I love the world building I've done, but this scene! I've tried skipping ahead a little, and coming back to it, I can write it out again and again but each time it just doesn't hit the write notes and I love the character interactions but it's just not... it doesn't have quite the right punch.

This is the version I definitely won't be using, because as much as I love Leandra, when I decided I would reuse my OC's for this AU it was more because I needed side characters, not a protagonist. She's too centered in a scene that is ultimately supposed to be about Pepa, her anxieties, and her relationship with her family. The current iteration I'm trying is just between her and Bruno, time will tell if that sticks for me.

Anyways, I'm just venting, I'm frustrated; context (including the scene in question) under the cut.

Context: The premise of the AU is that Pepa is a Disney Princess tm except instead of a Disney movie her story is a political intrigue set in the Disney Princess Extended Universe (the DPEU if you will). In Disney Princess tradition I have come up with a fake country that is totally not Colombia in the same way Arandelle is totally not Norway or Denmark. It is ultimately an 1850-60's Pepa/Felix fake dating AU and in the scene below Leandra is in the process of being pulled into the Madrigals' orbit because I needed a character to play spy, she's pretending to be a man because 1) plot reasons and 2) I had an idea for the funniest idiots to lovers plot for her and Bruno.

The next morning, Leandra was woken by one of the Madrigal sisters shouting, “You agreed to do what?!”

Leandra drummed the fingers of her good hand on the blankets of her borrowed bed, then decided that yes, she was more nosy than was ultimately sensible and she needed to know what had been agreed to and why it was shocking. Or she would die, probably.

She grabbed the medallion holding her glamor off the bedside table and put it on, then grabbed her trousers off the bed post and stepped into them. When she peeked her head out her door she briefly made eye contact with Bruno, who was doing the same, then immediately whipped her head towards his sisters in hopes that he wouldn’t see her blush. The witch had said the glamor would basically just be her, but male, so she couldn’t count on it to hide her expressions. Anything more complicated would have been out of her budget and would have taken too long.

“-not that big a deal, geez Juli, you’re acting like I joined a death cult. And look, you woke up Bruno. And…”

“Raul,” Leandra supplied.

“Right… Raul.”

“You agreed to ‘fake’ court the king, who you happen to have a crush on, knowing damn well becoming queen would be your worst nightmare,” Julieta said, crossing her arms, “it might not be joining a death cult, but it’s certainly a brain dead decision.”

“It’s to help draw out whoever’s trying to kill Bruno!”

“How does uh how does you making yourself the protagonist of a cheesy romance novel draw out the person trying to kill me?”

“Maybe the killer likes romance novels,” Leandra said before she could think better of it, “have we tried leaving a few under a box propped up by a stick?”

Both Julieta and Pepa sent them “shut up” looks, so Leandra raised her hands in surrender and backed into her borrowed room. She left the door cracked open while she tied her sash and buckled her belt, so she could continue eavesdropping on their conversation.

“I am actually confused,” Bruno said, “h-how does this draw out the person trying to kill me?”

“By putting a target on your sister’s back,” Minister Alma’s voice joined the conversation, dripping with disapproval, “if the purpose of these assassination attempts is to weaken this kingdom, our killer will go after anyone the king shows signs of potentially marrying.”

“Which is exactly why it needs to be me. Because I can protect myself.”

Leandra nodded along with Pepa a little. She had heard tales of how powerful Pepa was, only an idiot would attack her. She frowned and popped her head back out.

“Everybody knows you can shoot lightning, the fact that it’s you might actually dissuade any attempts,” she pointed out, accidentally cutting off whatever Minister Alma was about to say.

The minister did not seem put out by the interruption however, instead she gestured at Leandra and said, “That’s an excellent point. You doing this might not even work. It’s entirely likely that the only thing that will come out of this is a broken heart.”

Pepa scowled at Leandra, “Oh, who asked you?”

“Um, kind of sort of the king,” Leandra said, shrugging her good shoulder, “he wants me to help catch the guy so…”

“I thought he wanted you to guard me?” Bruno said, then sputtered, cheeks bright red, “n-not that-! I-I mean, that’s j-just what he told me, you don’t have to-.”

“Both, technically,” Leandra said, trying to spare the poor man the embarrassment of further rambling, “he wants me to do both.”

“Ah,” Bruno said, squeezing his eyes shut.

“Ah-ha!” Pepa suddenly shouted, pointing a finger at Julieta.

Julieta scowled at her, “No! No 'ah-ha', I didn’t say anything!”

“But I saw it, I saw that look on your face, you just had a thought you don’t want me to know about. Probably because it’d prove that I should totally do this!”

“You don’t know that, maybe I was just thinking that your hair is stupid,” Julieta sniffed, pointing her nose in the air.

“Your hair is stupid,” Pepa retorted.

“Girls,” Alma said, sighing deeply, “you’re adults.”

“Exactly, I’m an adult, which means I get to make my own decisions and I’ve decided to try and trap the asshole trying to kill my brother.”

“Just because you’re an adult doesn’t mean you’re a smart adult, apparently,” Julieta said.

“Except I am a smart adult, and you know it, because you just had ‘Pepa has a point’ face,” Pepa accused.

Julieta didn’t say anything, she just scowled at her sister.

Leandra shuffled her feet, examining Julieta, then slowly guessed at what Julieta had been thinking, “Having Pepa on his arm will probably dissuade any attempts to attack the king directly?”

Julieta whipped her head around to scowl at Leandra again, “Oh, who asked you!”

“The king did,” Pepa said, smugly, “and it is another excellent point. Thank you…”

“Raul,” Leandra reminded her.

“Yeah, sure, whatever. Thank you Raul.”

“It might be an excellent point, but it is one that contradicts your stated reason for doing this,” Alma huffed, “you can not help draw out our killer if you are also dissuading them from acting through your mere presence.”

Pepa frowned, but apparently didn’t have an argument ready for that.

“Are uh are you sure you’re not just doing this so you have an excuse to flirt with the king?” Bruno asked.

From the way Pepa grimaced, Leandra knew that was at least part of it. From the way she set her jaw, Leandra could tell it was only part of it.

“No,” Pepa said, then spent a few seconds struggling to find the words.

“You want to help and don’t know how?” Leandra asked.

“Sí,” Pepa said, at first triumphant, happy to have the words handed to her, then a little sheepishly, “sí, I… hate that somebody is trying to hurt my brother and I don’t want to just wait around for each assassin they send. I want to stop them. Don’t you guys?”

“Not if it puts you in danger,” Bruno immediately huffed, drawing Leandra’s attention. He had taken her by surprise before, so she studied him carefully while he spoke, “the last thing I want is you putting yourself in danger for my sake.”

“Well the last thing I want is for you to be in danger, so I guess you’re just going to have to deal.”

“Except you’re out voted, I would also like it if you didn’t put yourself in danger,” Julieta said.

“Sí. If I had my way, none of you would be in any danger, ever. It’s one thing that outside forces keep endangering your brother, I don’t need you endangering yourself.”

“I’ll be fine,” Pepa waved their concerns off, “and even better, I will be involved in the investigation. I won’t have to wait around and hope, I’ll be doing something. That’s- you can’t stop me.”

Leandra leaned against the doorframe and watched the other occupants of the room to see who would break against Pepa’s stubborn will first. She expected Minister Alma to be the strongest hold out, but she broke second after Julieta, it was Bruno who held out the longest. But eventually he sighed and shook his head, then turned back into his room.

See what I mean? Leandra is too centered. Tried writing the same argument without her there but then I have to make the Madrigals way better at communicating with each other as a whole than they would be. That's how I arrived at doing this one on one, if their dysfunctional family is anything like mine then they are way better at talking to each other in pairs than they are all together. It's going fine but I'll have to see if it's still fine when I've finished writing this scene again, I'll have to see if the mood flows from the chapter before this one, into this, into the chapter after this well. Then I'll go from there.

Ugh! Whatever. I refuse to give up on this AU but part two is definitely kicking my ass! Might continue ranting about this one to help myself stay motivated, because I will finish this one. I will.

[slashmagpie]

Blood & Snow

Pt. I

Directory: {Pt. II} {Pt. III} {Pt. IV} {Pt. V} {Pt. VI} {Pt. VII} {AO3}

Welcome to my @hermithorrorweek fic! I spent a while trying to figure out seven different fic concepts based on the prompt, and kept coming up blank, up until I decided to combine them all and write a single fic, with each prompt being the theme for a different chapter. Blood & Snow is the result, and at the time of posting it is not quite complete, but I'm excited to share it with you nonetheless. I'm hoping to post a chapter once per day, but later chapters may be delayed depending on how long it takes me to get them written. Some of this builds off concepts I played with in some of my earlier Decked Out 2 ficlets, which you can find in my writing tag. TWs for this chapter include: non-consensual body modification*, unreality*, panic attacks

I. GAME MECHANICS

Game design is simple, really.

Well, no, it’s difficult—but the principles behind it are simple. Make it fun. Make it challenging. Make it rewarding. 

Decked Out 2 is a game.

To be more precise, it’s a long-running, deck-building, dungeon-crawling game. It’s competitive. It has rewards—bragging rights, for one. Trophies, for another. If you win, you can get crowns, and buy things to make you more powerful, to make the game more fun. You get frost embers, which are used to build the deck, and—

Clank is Decked Out’s central mechanic. Trigger a shrieker, generate clank. Easy as that. Taking your artefact will also generate clank, because it angers the spirits of the dungeon. That’s another important thing about game design: atmosphere. Design. Having something that feels cohesive. So—no, max clank isn’t quite as dangerous as it should be, but very few mobs would work to replace the vex, because, well, they’re not the spirits of the dungeon, and—

Hazard is generated every thirty-seven seconds, roughly. It used to be thirty, but that lined up with card draws, and the sound cues were hard to keep track of. So. Hazard is generated every thirty-seven seconds, roughly. Hazard makes the dungeon more dangerous to traverse, by closing doors, raising pathways, and otherwise making certain routes more dangerous or downright impossible to cross. People underestimate hazard at first, but quickly find out that hazard kills. When clank maxes out, that turns into hazard too, because max clank wasn’t dangerous enough by itself, because the vexes aren’t doing their damn jobs—

There were two older systems that got replaced. Not a lot of people know that. Focus could be built up, would synergise with other cards, but it was just—it wasn’t working. It got reworked. No one would miss it. Delve was a difficulty setting, but it was dumb, just press a button to choose your difficulty, that works way better, and—

Game design is simple, really. 

Decked Out is not a game.

Had it ever been a game? In its first iteration, back in season seven, had it hungered the way it does now? Had it slept, slumbering beneath the earth, soaking in blood that would slowly, slowly bring it to life? When the idea had wormed its way into Tango’s head, a sequel—had that been his own thought? Does it matter if it was?

He’d certainly thought it was. Began drafting up plans, re-evaluating what he’d done in the past and putting better spins on them. Decked Out 2 would be huge, would be the biggest project he’d ever worked on, but it wouldn’t take that long. Surely.

…Thirteen months later, Decked Out 2 opened its doors.

Thirteen months. It had started as a hole, as many things do. A hole, a build, a plan, a citadel—Tango had thrown himself into it like he would with any huge project. And at first it had been—it had been a project. A build, a game. A giant hole filled with promise. A castle built in a week. Just Hermitcraft things. The usual.

When had it started? When he’d dug, and dug, for hours and hours upon end? When he’d carved jagged-looking scars into the landscape and dragged the citadel up from them? When he’d started building level one? When he’d begun assembling the redstone? When the ravagers and wardens began to roam its halls? When did Decked Out come alive?

…Had it always been alive?

Okay, better question: when did—

A frozen shard is placed into the barrel. The door lights up, sounds play. The door opens. The hermit—Joe?—begins to take off their armour and items and set up the game. A difficulty button is pressed. A shulker is placed into its slot. The cards begin to filter through the system. A minecart ride, and a pressure plate—

Decked Out turns on.

The Dungeon watches carefully, hungrily. A shrieker triggers. A hazard door closes. The game is running, the game is alive, the game is always alive—

The Dungeon Master floats, untethered, bodiless, watching, speaking, unheard, unseen. His body stands in the dark, empty, eyes sightless and lungs unbreathing. Why would he need to breathe? Dungeons don’t need to breathe, after all. Games don’t need to breathe. And Decked Out isn’t a game, not really, but it still works on principles of game design, and none of those principles require the game to breathe.

So the Dungeon watches, and the Dungeon Master watches, and Joe runs straight into the blood-stained horns of a ravager, and—

And—

Tango tries to blink. To breathe. A hazard door slams open and closed. The wires are crossed, that’s not—he needs to go—an attempt to step forward dispenses a stack of frost embers into the dungeon. They’re not supposed to do that. That’s a bug, he needs to fix—

He needs his hands—

Stone walls aren’t fingers, but they flex all the same, groaning under the strain—

There’s an itching in his legs. Skulk creeps up the walls. This wasn’t supposed to happen. This isn’t—

It’s dark. A warden sniffs. A shrieker howls. Stone becomes sinew becomes skulk becomes shadow becomes smoke becomes a soul. The Dungeon Master wrenches open his sightless eyes, and the Dungeon sees—

(Buildings aren’t meant to have panic attacks. Neither are dungeons. Nor games. But Decked Out is not a game, never really has been, and Tango—)

Joe and Hypno stare in bafflement at the flickering availability metre outside of the dungeon. “Tango, fix your game!” Hypno cries, and—

Ha.

Here’s a better question: when did Tango become Decked Out?

[theamityelf]

Uhm, hello. Does the tragedy happened on Makoto Kamukura AU? If they did does remnants still exist? How about the killing games?

I'm thinking Junko has still been prying around enough to know something about the Kamukura Project, and she makes it her goal to create a situation where the Student Coucil does something to either harm or expose Makoto, so that either Makoto attacks them or Izuru does. Basically, she's going to use Makoto to get the Ultimate Hope to kill the Student Council, one way or the other.

She uses the fact that she's one of Makoto's old friends to get close to Iteration 2. He can tell that there is a huge performance element to a lot of her behavior, and he is deeply curious about what her whole deal is. She's very careful to only tell him things about his old self that the others can and will corroborate, but she makes a point to really hit the "You were a great friend. You would do anything to help a friend. You never gave up on anyone," stuff hard, to make sure he keeps coming back and stays open to influence.

Again, Makoto can tell that she's being highly calculated about what she tells him about himself, but there is nothing in him that thinks, "Because she is manipulating me, I should be careful around her." It's just, "I think she's manipulating me. That's interesting. I wonder if she did that to Makoto, too. It seems like she acts this way toward everyone in the class. Makoto probably didn't notice, and they all love Makoto, so I shouldn't mention it."

After Izuru has found out about Iteration 2's widened social circle and he has confronted the fact that Iteration 2 has become more like Makoto and acts independently now, Junko targets Izuru's temptation to return everything to normal. He's talked it out with Makoto, and they've established that he loves and values Iteration 2 no matter what he calls himself or how his behavior changes, but he still isn't used to sharing, and Junko approaches him one day while he's feeling especially sore about having to share his Iteration 2 like, "By the way, I have this plan where the world ends and these guys leave you alone forever." And it's tempting. Iteration 2 would be upset, but he'll get over it; he gets over everything.

Izuru sits on the fence about whether or not to do it for a while, and then Junko springs the part of the plan where the Student Council does something that she knows will offend Izuru on Makoto's behalf, whatever that may be, and then he might kill them and spark the Tragedy.

Or maybe Makoto stops him from killing them. (Narrative cop-out, lol.)

Maybe he is about to kill them but thinks about what he's learned and decides not to do it. (Less of a cop-out, in my eyes at least.)

Maybe he does kill them but it doesn't spark the Tragedy because Makoto has been doing so much behind the scenes that the surrounding circumstances are now different. (As in, he's been spending a lot of time with the reserve course and decreasing that sense of helpless resentment, etc.)

Or maybe he sparks the Tragedy, leaves with Makoto and Nagito, and never looks back.

I do think Nagito avoids joining the Ultimate Despair just because he has something else to focus his energy on, now. (Two somethings, who are literally called the Ultimate Hope.)

[emma-dennehy-presents]

Celebrating Black Queer Icons:

Willmer "Little Axe" Broadnax

Willmer "Little Axe" Broadnax was born December 28, 1916 in Houston, Texas to parents William Broadnax and Gussie Frazier. Broadnax was an American hard gospel quartet singer that gained widespread popularity during the Golden Age of Traditional Black Gospel (1940s/50s). He received the nickname Little Axe from his short stature and as a companion to his brother, William "Big Axe" Broadnax, a popular baritone. By the time of the 1930s census Broadnax was living with his mother, brother, step-father Augustus Flowers, and step-sister Amartha Broadnax*. Broadnax began his career in gospel during his teen years, alongside his brother William. In the 1930s the Broadnax brothers joined the St Paul Gospel Singers in Houston, TX. The Broadnax brothers would later move to Los Angeles and join the Southern Gospel Singers. The group did not tour, and only preformed on weekends. The Broadnax brothers eventually broke off and formed their own quartet, The Golden Echoes. At some point Broadnax's brother, William, left the group and moved to Atlanta, GA where he joined The Five Trumpets. Broadnax stayed on as the lead of this iteration of the Echoes until they disbanded in 1949, after Specialty Records label chief, Art Rupe, decided to drop the group. The Golden Echoes only made a single recording with the label. Pianist Willie Love would go on to say "Little Axe couldn't sing low, because he had a relatively high voice. It wasnt falsetto, it was naturally high. So somebody had to sing the bottom.". Broadnax and the baritone Paul Foster sometimes created the illusion of a multi-octave singer together. In 1950 Broadnax joined The Spirit of Memphis Quartet, recording for King Records, and appearing with them until at least 1952. He would go on to join The Fairfield Four, shortly after, and in the early 1960s served as one of Archie Brownlee's replacements in the Five Blind Boys of Mississippi. Broadnax lead another iteration of The Golden Echoes until 1965, releasing singles through Peacock Records. As gospel's popularity waned Broadnax decided to retire from touring. Broadnax continued to perform and record in some capacity, most notably recording with the Blind Boys in the 1970s and 80s. On May 23, 1992, in Philidelphia, PA, Broadnax was killed by his lover, Lavina Richardson. After witnessing Richardson in a vehicle with another man, Broadnax pursued the vehicle, bumping into it several times with his own. At some point both vehicles stopped and Broadnax pulled Richardson from her vehicle and threatened her with a knife. A bystander disarmed Broadnax, after which Richardson picked up the knife and stabbed him three times. Broadnax died several days later, on June 1st, 1992, as a result of the injuries. Richardson was later convicted of manslaughter. After Broadnax's death it was publicly discovered that he had been assigned female at birth, which created a notable stir in the gospel community. Many claimed "they always knew" but there is no evidence to support anyone other than Broadnax's brother and other close family knew.

*This post by @ubleproject (The Untitled Black Lesbian Elder Project), which served as a source for me and Broadnax's wiki article, speculates that its possible Amartha is the deadname of the singer we know as Willmer "Little Axe" Broadnax, and that Amartha may have assumed the older brother's name to preform. In which case, Broadnax was born in Louisiana in 1922 to Frazier and Flowers. In the 1930 census Amartha's entry was corrected by hand to list Amartha as a girl. The census taker had initially listed Amartha as a boy, suggesting Amartha may have been presenting as such, at the time. Amartha is also, interestingly listed as Amartha Broadnax, despite being listed as Frazier and Flowers' biological child. There are little to no records of Amartha's later life. I have two more planned, but not sure on the order I will be doing them. The last will probably be out in the beginning of March. After that I will be saving the rest of my list for October, when the US is having LGBT History Month, and the UK is having its Black History Month. I will start including cis icons as well, such as Bayard Rustin. As always corrections and suggestions are welcome and much desired.

[domesticated-whores]

list of reasons why i kin angel dust

absolutely nobody asked or cares, and it absolutely goes into headcanon & projecting territory, but it's my void and i can scream into it how i please, so--

also, tiny note, i am loose and casual with kinning. i'm just saying heavily relate to the point that i can easily see myself parallel that character.

gay femboy supremacy 💅💅

nice tits (his are fluff, i'm transmasc and am too fem to care to go into debt over physical transition... either way, we got soft titties)

wearing pleasers ✨️exclusively✨️ (i also wear demonias, but they're owned by pleasers)

earlier iterations of him were more genderfluid but he's now canonly a cis man, i use to think i was more genderfluid due to being super fem (presenting) sometimes and being just meh about my body but am now confident that i'm just a really genderqueer trans dude.

doesn't overly mind fem language, *sometimes* intentionally uses it. refers to self decently androgynously (alternating between "fem" and "masc" shit)

pet mama 💕

my cats are my babies, i'd die and kill for them, genuinely one of the only lights in my life

animal lover in general, honestly!! babes, they're so fucking cute!!

i also prefer fucking ugly/weird animals like farm animals, trash animals (possums, raccoons, etc), some reptiles, and spiders

spiders are my very favorite creatures, so yeah i fw the spider character

overworked at a shitty job that there's no real way out of

like, i didn't sell my soul ig but i live in a small area and don't drive, and my cats need food and a roof over their little baby noggins, so mama needs a job no matter the cost

also, TOXIC fucking work environment. not comparable to workplace abuse, but FUCK--

and i ✨️ain't doing that shit sober✨️ bbgirl, i DRINK because of that place.

((that's a half-truth, i don't go TO work drunk because i am not subtle, but the instant i'm out and have any money--))

i also work A LOT, honestly. icky, nasty, 'sgusting.

✨️inferiority complex and heavy masking✨️

feet are weird, i especially hate my own

don't touch my feet, don't look at my feet, if anyone's around imma be in socks or smth, feet are a hard no for me

let's 👏 talk 👏 kink 👏

into bdsm and generally kinky shit

✨️ SUPER sex positive ✨️

growing collection of ✨️toys✨️ that i'm becoming increasingly proud of

it's a part of life, so i really don't see any taboo in fucking??

willing to try almost ANYTHING if i stand to gain from it or just to see if i'm into it

✨️ switch ✨️

PRAISE ME

... or, alternatively DEGRADE ME

on the regular, i just want to feel safe and loved and lowkey spoiled--

but i also fuck HARD with the spicy stuff

honestly, hardcore things are more professional than intimate

((i don't do sw, but i am into kink in a very nerdy, special interest, academic type of way... fuck me so i can write an essay about the dynamics at play, daddy~!))

on that note,, ✨️ trauma ✨️

specifically, sa :)

sa that really changes how you see and use sex, and how you outwardly PRETEND to see and use sex

being manipulated by someone you cared about in some way

((luckily, mine was short-lived... only the aftermath was long-lasting))

there's also family trauma :)

the idea of going no contact--

i kin people that are no/low contact because FUCK~ it's a lovely concept. i personally can't for... reasons... but if i could

will make the cheap-shot sex joke

i vape only the fruitiest bullshit flavors and, like, rip angel you would have loved this straw-blueberry vape with this funky abstract art on it bby

that's just, like, off the top of my head. idk, idk. he's literally me. not on everything, but he's the character i've related to the hardest in a HOT SECOND.

also, love the fact that all of this is true but also valentino is my fucking all time favorite character and my pfp. like, i look at angel and am hit with most deep and profound sense of "this is a character a that i relate to and see myself in to an insane degree" and then i turn around and see his fucking abuser and, with my FULL fucking chest go "scrumbly wittle bpd princess man 💕, i wuvs him 💕, i couldn't fix him but i could break him and mold him into my little disaster housewife 💕" like a fucking insane person. it's fine, it's fine, their literally cartoons!! i'm delulu about drawings!! it's okay!!

[thenamesblurrito]

here's some Aventuri mecha! they also happen to be the first TFOCs i ever made but this is my favorite iteration of them. only time i've ever managed to give them a design i like. Mantis, Quetzal, and Seraph are a sibling trine from Jubilee, capital of Divinex, menial laborers under jurisdiction of the High Court. each of them have calcite inclusions (that's the patterning on their armor there), which is a less common but mundane mineral. they're on the petite side for Aventuri frames, so you aren't going to see mecha much thinner, lighter, or more delicate than this

Mantis is a loadbearer, which in Divinex means she's consigned to a form of state-run indentured servitude. since her sister is a cityspeaker, Mantis often works with her as a member of the construction and repair teams in Triumpha's underbelly. she has no other outlier power (beyond typical Aventuri extremophilia), but her surprising strength and durability are formidable enough. despite this, she is very meek, often simply trying to make herself small and unnoticed, deferring to others, remaining quiet and speaking only when spoken to. in a self-fulfilling mixture of nature and nurture, Divinexi culture has successfully convinced her that since she enjoys manual labor well enough and isn't confrontational at spark to speak out against anyone bossing her around or snubbing her for being a loadbearer, she clearly must be suited for and destined to never rise above this station, a civil servant to the end. she tries not to dwell on the grim daydreams of stealing someone's corpse and identity and running away to be someone else, a bloody, wistful fantasy for many loadbearers

Quetzal doesn't have a special sparktype or notably rare abilities. her outlier power is hard-light projections, from illusions to forcefields to flashbangs. her bright colors and brighter powers fit her personality very well, as she is the cheeriest and most optimistic of her sisters, more outgoing than the other two combined. but she's tired. more often than she'd like to admit, her smile is forced and her upbeat tone is false. it's hard not to be worn down when she, as the "normal" one in her trine, is responsible for negotiating her family's indenturement. the contract of civil servanthood for Mantis and Seraph could be overseen by someone else, but Quetzal stepped in to be their handler instead in the hopes that she could at least stick up for the two of them in a demanding society. her own job is as a personnel coordinator for many repair and maintenance teams beneath Jubilee, fitting for a people person like her, but trying to make sure everyone is treated well without favoring her own siblings unfairly is an emotional drain that is slowly killing her cheer

Seraph is a cityspeaker, and a damn good one too. she hid her aptitude for awhile, pretending that the hard-light projection outlier power she shares with Quetzal was her only ability, but it didn't last. now she uses that hard-light to display maps and diagrams of Triumpha's internals directly to repair crews, highlighting the areas the Titan feels worst and projecting maintenance plans for everyone to follow along. unlike her sisters, she is not resigned to her lot, but isn't rebellious about it. she is sullen, quiet, and bitter, preferring the company of half-lucid Triumpha to any others, sometimes even her family. she's hardly about to start a revolution, and doesn't even complain to her Titan or her fellow cityspeakers, but everyone definitely feels her cold shoulder on a good day, and heated, biting sarcasm on a bad one. her life will get better. her life will get better, not out of dutiful obedience like Mantis or strained optimism like Quetzal, but out of stubborn spite

here's sort of a rough example of their alt mode. they can transform their raptorial wing-arms to rotors in root mode, not unlike ES Twitch

[angelmichelangelo]

I hate how tmnt will only ever give Mikey development in the comics like he has phased out into a background character at this point who is barley relevant in fact the only reason they add him is because he's part of a package deal and it would be hard to get rid of him even though it's become obvious they don't want Mikey a part of the series what so ever so they do everything in their power to make him as less relevant as they can. Also isn't it suspicious how when any big Mikey projects are in production of being made they suddenly get cancelled.? there was supposed to be a foot solider Mikey movie that got cancelled and the last Ronin was actually in production of being Mikey since the 90s there was another Mikey centric movie were his bros and sensei reverted back to turtles but guess what it got cancelled anything Mikey related that's important either gets \cancelled or thrown into the comics also rise actually had multiple Mikey centric eps on hand but the show got cancelled like it's honestly starting to get annoying let my boy live.

oh yeah, it’s definitely an unfortunate cycle of mikey being cut for time in almost any iteration outside of the comics. i think whilst a lot of people are familiar with all the ninja turtles outside of the realm of fandom, mikey is pretty much “the face man” of the franchise. he’s the one that most kids grew up having as their favourite. he’s gonna be front and center on lunchboxes and kiddie pyjamas. i think in that sense he’s pretty safe from ever being killed off or chopped from the actual franchise itself (plus if they ever did that permanently to any of the turtles, it would cause pretty big uproar) but it means as a result, he’s taken less seriously

i think it just unfortunately falls under the fact that whatever show/movie you’re watching, it quickly becomes apparent what turtle was the favourite of the writers and directors. pretty sure i’ve mentioned this before but the 2003 writers openly expressed how much they enjoyed leo + donnie as characters. you watch the 2003 series and that’s really plainly obvious. it’s not a bad thing, but again, every writer does it. heck, i do it. i write more mikey centric fics than i do, say, donnie, because it’s just more fun that way. a character will ultimately have to suffer at the hands of a writers bias, and sadly it’s always mikey that ends up suffering. just not in the way we want him to lol

that being said it gives me a little hope for the mutant mayhem series and sequel since seth rogan has voiced his favourite being mikey multiple times. i don’t think mutant mayhem solely focused on any one turtle, which i enjoyed, but going into future mediums for that branch of the franchise, i’m keeping my hopes high that he does just something with mikey. the potential is there. i would love to see what he does with it

but yeah. looking back, poor mike gets the short end of the stick. it’s funny, whenever i go back and do a 2012 rewatch, i get about halfway through the space arc and start to feel my enthusiasm dwindle, mostly because “journey to the centre of mikey’s mind” is like. the LAST mikey centric episode of the entire rest of the series (granted he has cool moments in later eps and isn’t totally under-utilised) but if you want an ep that’s just for him, it sadly ends right there.

same with 2003. i adore 2003 mikey but he doesn’t have a whole lot of episode focused on him. i was surprised going into rise that, even though it was considerably shorter than other shows, he still managed to have just a sparing amount of focused episodes on him alone. and then when looking into the deleted episodes, it didn’t really come as a big shock to me that a lot of those deleted episodes were mikey episodes (man i would have really really loved to have seen the robo pet one!!)

it’s also pretty consistent that whatever show or movie, the writers often talk about a plot where mikey’s brothers either end up de-mutated or de-aged and mike has to be the one to save them. kinda funny because it’s like: here’s this opportunity to have mikey really prove himself as more than capable and not just a goof — and yet, multiple times now that idea has been cut and he hasn’t had his chance to prove himself that way

i’m a mikey fan. i love all the turtles the same but i definitely am a mikey fan through and through. of course i’m gonna want a mikey centric plot and arc and all this. i know the chances of ever getting it are very slim but. yknow. i have the last ronin at least…… *sobs*

ANYWAY THAT GOT LONG i hope i didn’t sound like i was coming off like a real curmudgeon there i do still love what mikey we have been given in the last. 40 odd years.. but JUSTICE FOR MIKEY!!! he needs to be given his flowers. someone put him through the emotional meat grinder or i will <3

thanks for this ask anon!!

[spotsupstuff]

j:DFLFDKF oKAY, huge Pebbles fan here. It's finally nice to see someone who also wants to beat Suns within every inch of his life. I actually like his character too! He's not necessarily a bad person or doesn't care about his friend. It's just his mindset is toxic and he end up dragging Pebbles down with him. He was not a health mentor for Pebbles.

Pebbles was not in a good place mentally and was spiraling hard. Then Suns hands HIM INFORMATION ON HOW tO KIlL hIMSELF?!! SFJ:K BOYO, YoU STupID?!

In the majority of interactions, we see betweeen FP and Suns... Suns needles him when he's vulnerable, fails to use his singular emotional braincell when consoling his friend, and then gives him the how-to-shoot yourself list while assuming Pebbles wouldn't attempt it?? Don't get me wrong. Pebbles isn't excused from choices.

The difference is Pebbles is young for an iterator. He's quite obviously still reeling from his literal creators/parents leaving their entire species to rot. We don't know a whole lot about Suns, but my assumption is his natural reaction to the mass ascension was cynicism. This is not a healthy attitude to project onto your mentee who's in a vulnerable state. Suns was old enough to know better. Pebbles not so much.

(Okay I know Pebbles is probably older than the average human, but his attitude has always reminded me of a young adult. Like old enough to have more or less developed his world views, but still young enough to rash decisions and not understand the implications of them until it's too late. Canonically, he's still hasn't fully matured if we consider iterators losing their perception of godhood part of growing as people. That or Pebbles just needed to be humbled Iterators may not experience enough in life to be humbled considering they're immobile calculators. So, Pebbles being stuck in that phase for longer than you'd expect isn't uncalled for.)

I don't know if I expressed any of this correctly and will probably make plenty of people mad because I'm misunderstanding Suns character or something. OH WELL HeRE"S thE RAMBLE!

i'mma actually shove you into the main tag i agree with all of this That much GJKSCKLSDMGLK PEOPLE LOOKIT THIS PEBS FAN, THEY KNOW WHAS GOOD, GOT IT ALL FIGURED OUT!!!!

if anythin, i'll be standin with ya dude. fuck Suns gang rise up. like we two have basically the same idea of Suns wtf,,,

[decks-writing-blog]

Free Them Chapter 2/3: Something's Wrong

Chapter One

~

For Bubby, Gordon made another robot based around a core. He made the orb smaller though, only a little bigger than a standard core. Which allowed for longer arms and legs. In the simulation they’d all had the same height but since he couldn’t transfer their human features, he had to do what he could to change up their appearances in other ways. The stocky robot fit Dr. Coomer so hopefully a thinner taller one would fit Bubby.

The robot meant for Tommy, he started with one of the bullet turrets’ bodies but taller and a bit thicker. As a bonus he added a little spinner attached to a little hat shape on top because the propeller cap had suited Tommy so well. It was motorized too so he could spin it as he pleased.

Sunkist’s design was easiest out of all of them. The Robotics Division already had a schematic for a robot dog a former employee had left in the files before leaving. Using it was maybe a bit questionable on how ethical it was but there was no way Gordon could come up with anything better. It was about as perfect as a robot dog design could get. And besides, it was technically property of Aperture and thus he was legally allowed to use it. Altering it slightly to be bigger and omitting its proposed programming so it’d be empty when connected to the simulation was easy.

With only one pod set to interface with the robots, they could only do one at a time. But with help from co-workers and Dr. Coomer, Gordon didn’t have to leave his pod to set up the next robot. Allowing him to monitor from inside and direct them to go in the agreed upon order; Bubby, Sunkist, and then finally Tommy. The player models had been changed to accommodate that order as well as be less creepy for Gordon to look at.

Once Tommy was through, Gordon paused for a moment to look around. The parking lot was empty as ever. No sign of anyone else or Black Mesa. Creepy to be alone in.

“Darnold!” he called out into it. “Mr. Coolatta! … Forzen I guess, maybe.” He was sentient too, wasn’t he? He’d seemed it. Meaning Gordon should free the three of them too, right? And if he was going to do that then… maybe he should free Benrey too even if part of him would rather not because it would mean dealing with him again.

But having thought about it an uncomfortable amount since, a lot of Benrey’s words at the end had felt off. “If you shoot me, I have to shoot back.” “You wanted me to be bad so I’m bad.” Gordon may be misremembering the exact phrasing but he recalled the gist of it. And Benrey’s motivation hadn’t made sense, almost as if he’d just been making shit up to turn into the big bad over. The video game had needed a boss battle after all and instead of making a brand new one, it took the guy Gordon was the most antagonistic with and built on that. Saving on resources. … Maybe. It was hard to know for sure. Benrey might’ve chosen entirely for himself to be the bad guy because he thought it would be fun.

But even if that was the case, he was still sentient and the simulation had run its course. They’d keep it on file but they’d disconnect it from their machines so they could start running the next upgraded iteration of the project. Gordon had put it on hold but he couldn’t afford to do so for much longer without getting reprimanded. So anything that was sentient needed to be moved out sooner rather than later. And that included Benrey… assuming he was still alive anyway. He might’ve been killed for good this time.

Gordon would look for him and the others later though. He didn’t have robots ready for them yet anyway. First came, waking up and helping introduce the rest of the Science Team to the real world.

~

“… all looks like this too,” Dr. Coomer was saying as Gordon stepped out of the VR pod. “The whole world is this crisp. And just you wait until you see the sky. It’s very blue. Also, I forgot to mention, we’re at Aperture!”

“The competition?” Bubby asked.

“Yes. Black Mesa’s real apparently, they used its name and logo in the video game as a part of a joke.”

“So that means the Resonance Cascade didn’t really happen, huh?” Tommy asked.

“Not yet.”

“And probably not ever,” Gordon said as he stepped into the conversation, stepping over Sunkist’s new form at the same time. “We don’t know what they’re working on over there but it’s probably not whatever we came up with.”

“Hello, Gordon!” Even after being freed from the game and simulation, Dr. Coomer still had the quirk of repeating lines.

Tommy’s yellow-lit eye widened as he turned to face him. “Wow, Mr. Freeman you look so… so… high-def!”

Bubby had settled on a light blue for his eye. He looked Gordon up and down. “You’re fatter in real life.”

“Yeah, and?”

“And it suits you. Your player model or whatever the fuck it’s called, looked like a scrawny wimp trying to cosplay as a traffic cone. This,” Bubby gestured with his hand, indicting Gordon’s whole body, “is much better looking.”

“Thanks… I think.” Looking better than something that looked bad didn’t mean he looked good.

“You’re beautiful, Gordon!” Since day one, Dr. Coomer had insisted everything was beautiful. This was the fist time he’d said it about Gordon though.

“Uh… let’s not go that far.” He’d barely bothered to brush his hair this morning, only enough to get the tangles out, and his beard needed a trim, resulting in him no doubt looking a mess. He didn’t know because he’d wisely avoided looking in the mirror. “Instead, let’s make sure everything’s working with your new bodies and stuff and then I’ll show you guys ‘round the lab.”

~

Because Gordon would have to go specifically seek them, they made the next ‘player’ model portable. Something he could carry around for when he found the person he was looking for. “Like a pokeball!” Tommy had said which wasn’t too far off from a good metaphor. But it wasn’t a ball but instead a cube. Gordon was dropping the Black Mesa bit after all and cubes were kind of Aperture’s thing.

They made the robot intended for Darnold first. Gordon went with another turret shaped body, tweaking it until he ultimately landed on an egg-like shape. Not the most creative thing in the world but it was visually distinct. No one wanted to look like a copy of someone else.

Next came finding Darnold in the simulation. Which was easiest done while inside it after forcing the spawn point to change to the Black Mesa building. They didn’t have Darnold’s lab marked so Gordon chose the spot he thought might be closest to it.

The result of which was being dropped in a dimly lit concrete hallway, its two still functioning lights buzzing and flickering ominously overhead. Hopefully for the sake of the employees, the real Black Mesa wasn’t like this because even if the place had been properly lit, it would’ve made the hall only marginally more friendly. In hindsight maybe he should’ve gone looking for everyone in unknown locations first so the Science Team could’ve joined him and kept him company. Too late now though and hooking up another four ports just so he wouldn’t be lonely would’ve been too much work to be worth it. And so, rolling his shoulders, virtual though they were, he got to work looking for Darnold.

The game was over and thus enemies weren’t spawning anymore. A good thing but it did leave the place feeling barren and far too quiet. It wasn’t unlike some of the nightmares he’d had since the game had ended. In those though, his hand was always missing and pouring more blood than it had ever bled in the simulation’s reality – when he’d lost the real thing years ago, it had presumably bled quite a bit more but he’d fainted at the sight of it and had been brought in for medical care long before waking. Looking down at his model’s restored hand grounded him.

Blessedly, his guess wasn’t too far off as it didn’t take terribly long before he found the elevator leading to Darnold’s lab. Going down it gave him an odd almost deja-vu feeling that made the silence particularly heavy.

Darnold was in the same place Gordon had first seen him, behind the counter. If he was making another potion, there was no evidence of it currently as he just stood there, looking down at the counter. He looked up as the elevator clunked into place at the bottom. “Ah, Mr. Freeman, you’re back.”

“Yep.” Gordon walked over to stand on the other side of the counter. “What you been up to since we left?”

“Oh, you know, this and that, working on that evil flavor mostly. It’s a bit more difficult than I’d thought it’d be. But I can see your hand is like your other hand now. How’d that happen?”

“Let’s just say it grew back. But anyway um…” How did Gordon tell him that this world was fake? That was kind of dire news, wasn’t it? Especially since it was on a timer for being turned off permanently. And the world had already kind of ended because the game had. It was all just stasis now.

“Something’s wrong, isn’t it?” Darnold broke the silence left by Gordon’s pause. “Everything is… quiet now. Or maybe ‘quiet’s not quite the right word. Plenty of things still make noise.” To demonstrate, he knocked one of the bottles off the counter, causing it to loudly clatter to the floor. “But there’s still something wrong… I think. Especially since you’re here, alone without your friends. That’s not right. Did something happen to them?”

“They’re fine, better than fine actually.” They were free. “But you’re right, something’s wrong with the world. It’s uh… It’s a video game simulation that you’re an AI NPC inside of.”

Darnold was silent for a long few seconds as he stared at Gordon before finally… “Oh. I suppose that makes sense. It certainly explains why you got a gun for a hand from my potion. It’s much easier to fight bad guys when you got a gun for a hand.”

“You don’t seem to bothered by it.” Gordon hadn’t expected much shock from the Science Team because he’d been sure they already knew on some level anyway. He hadn’t gotten that impression from Darnold though.

“I’m not. There were just so many little things that make more sense now. Like how only my recent memories feel actually real, you know? The stuff from before feels like I’m recalling a fun tale about a potion scientist that becomes slightly less fun when I remember it’s me. One’s memories aren’t supposed to sound like a fiction tale. It’s a relief to know the cause of that, actually. I had a theory that I might be a secret sleeper agent, in so deep even I don’t know I’m a false identity until I hear the secret phrase and go on a killing rampage. It’s part of why I was scared to go on that adventure with you guys because what if the military were the ones that would activate me? I don’t like violence.”

“Well, can’t blame you for that. Anyway, you wanna go on a different kind of adventure? One that isn’t violent.”

“Ooh, yes!”

Gordon reached into his inventory and pulled out the cube. Tossing it on the ground activated it, turning it into a wall with a shimmering portal on it. Doing it like that was Bubby’s idea as he’d rightfully pointed out, “It’s weird to step into a person, especially if it looks like you, so make it something they can walk through.” “And it’s more accurately a hole in the simulation,” Dr. Coomer had cheerfully added.

“Step through this and your AI will be put into a robot body in the real world so you can like… see it and interact with it and stuff.”

Darnold stepped around the counter to approach it. “Well, I’m not big on robots but they’re pretty cool sometimes, I suppose. The real world though, I think I would like to see it.” He stepped through. Having eased the transition, it was far smoother and almost instant.

~

Gordon’s next thought was to design a bot for Mr. Coolatta. Before he could really get started on it though, Tommy pulled him aside. Into a broom closet for some reason but it was private so it would apparently do. The only light was through the cracks in the doors and Tommy’s robotic eye, making it kind of uncomfortable.

“Mr. Freeman, you’re uh… you’re making a robot for my dad, right? Or thinking about it.”

“Of course, yeah. I’m doing him next. I wouldn’t call him a friend but like… you know? He’s your dad so even for just that reason, I wouldn’t leave him.”

“Oh um… I didn’t mean… I wasn’t making sure you would because… I just wanted to ask if you intended to because I was pretty sure that you did intend to. Which is what I wanted to talk about because you don’t need to. He’s already… Well I guess I should start from the beginning since we’re not keeping secrets anymore.

“My dad’s not part of the simulation. He came from outside of it. I can’t tell you want he is… he uh… didn’t even tell me that. But he did tell me that him meddling with the simulation to create me is why your more advanced AI’s became fully sentient. I just thought I should tell you so you don’t waste time or resources on him when he doesn’t need it because he’s already left the simulation.”

“So it wasn’t my program that brought them to life?”

“Not by itself, no, sorry. Your program was good enough to attract my dad though so it’s still very impressive Mr. Freeman. That’s nothing to uh… shake a stick at, you know?” He lifted a hand to mime shaking a stick, the servos’ whirring in his wrist was almost loud when pressed in so close to him.

Gordon wasn’t that surprised. He was good but he wasn’t ‘create a program that could create whole thinking people’ good. The technology wasn’t there yet, not on Earth anyway. Bring in an outside alien force though and then they were getting somewhere. It had been a nice fantasy while it had lasted though.

“So… what about you then? Are you like him? Could you have left the simulation whenever too?”

“No. I’m too new for that. I can only exist in technology right now. One day I’ll be stronger though and will be able to manifest physically. … That’s what Dad said anyway. But right now I’m basically the same as the others but that won’t always be the case. I don’t know what am I other than that. I think he knew I would tell you eventually so he didn’t tell me everything that he could’ve.”

So during all of Gordon’s interactions with him, Mr. Coolatta had just been messing with him. Not that that was surprising, just the extent of it. The assumption that he was just another sentient AI had been unquestioned until now. But on the bright side, Gordon wouldn’t have to deal with him anymore.

“All right, I guess uh… we’ll do Forzen next then.”

“And last or uh…” Tommy trailed off.

“Yeah, we’ll do Benrey too if we can. Do you think it was the game that made him a bad guy?” Why else would he be open to suggesting the idea? Other than maybe the fact that Benrey used to be his friend.

“I… don’t know. Maybe. It doesn’t hurt to give him one more chance now that the game isn’t manipulating anything in case it did though. Assuming he’s even still alive.”

“We’ll see, I guess. But Forzen first.” Which wasn’t going to be pleasant but so be it. Sometimes doing the right thing wasn’t pleasant.

~

With Forzen being part of the fictional US military it only seemed logical to use the rocket turret as the base for his robot design. Like with the designs based off the normal turrets though, the first thing Gordon did was remove the weaponry. Leaving him with another orb once he shifted it to also have arms and legs. He was running out of ideas.

“What about a cube?” Bubby suggested as he leaned against Gordon’s shoulder to look at the computer. “Cubes and orbs seem to be the only thing you guys know how to make. So just put an eye on one and call it good.”

It was more complicated than that of course but Gordon did it. The end result wasn’t bad, surprisingly. Not as sleek as his other designs had turned out but it was a cube so it wasn’t supposed to be. It would do.

Once that was done being built, the hardest part so far began; finding Forzen. Gordon set the spawn point to the last place he’d seen the guy; the place he set the ring of turrets around Sunkist. It was marked because it was a transition zone.

The ring of turrets was still there, undisturbed. Behind it, the elevator and it’s truck were gone though, still at the bottom presumably. Gordon started for the button that would call it back up. Before he got there…

“Hey.”

With a flinch, he snapped around to see Forzen stepping out from behind one of the boxes placed off to the side. Wow, what luck, running into him immediately. Gordon wouldn’t have minded putting off the encounter a little longer but it was probably better this way anyway.

“You can teleport too?” he asked, pointing at Gordon.

Gordon spawning in at the start of the room would look like he was teleporting in, huh? “Uh… sort of.”

“Cool. Why are you back here though? This place has been empty for… a while now.” The game would’ve stopped spawning enemies in this area, including the non-character soldiers, as soon as Gordon had left it. Leaving Forzen to wander around bereft of anything even resembling company. Which is probably why he’d approached, huh? He’d had to have been alone for a long while now. Long enough to not be as skittish as before. In hindsight, Gordon should’ve realized that about Forzen’s position sooner. Better late than never though.

“I’m here to get you out. First though, why are you here?”

Forzen shrugged. “It’s the last place I saw anyone. This place ain’t real, is it?” Apparently it was easy to figure.

“It’s a simulation, yeah.”

“Damn it. Is the Irate Gamer fake too?”

“No, he’s real.” Gordon wasn’t up to date on Youtube stuff but he was online enough to hear about such things. “I’m pretty sure the simulation somehow connected itself to the internet.” It’s the only way to explain the mentions of things he and his team hadn’t provided it with. Perhaps that too was related to Mr. Coolatta’s meddling.

“Sweet. The internet went out a little while ago though so if you could fix it, that’d be great.” Of course he was more concerned about that than getting out.

“Instead of that, how about I just get you out of the simulation? And then when you’re in your new robot body you can hop onto one of the computers in someone’s lab.” As he spoke Gordon pulled out the next cube. He tossed it down, creating the portal wall. “Through there.”

Forzen looked at him. The lack of detailed facial animations made his expression hard to read but it felt like he was studying him. “What if it’s a trap, huh?”

“It’s not. I have no reason to like you but the simulation’s time is limited. We gotta turn it off and disconnect it eventually. So you’ll basically die if you don’t go through. And I don’t dislike you that much. I promise you can watch all the Youtube you want on the other side.” Gordon would encourage it even if kept Forzen out of his hair.

Forzen studied him for a few seconds longer before approaching the portal. “This better not be a trick.” He went through it.

Six down, one more to go. The most potentially problematic of them all. But it was worth a try if Benrey was still alive enough to be pulled from the simulation. He’d come back from the dead before so it was at least worth the attempt.

~

Next Chapter

[cherubchoirs]

What if anything would be able to calm your version of V1 down? Like if V2 just greeted and hugged it when they first met vs attacking it on site would it calm down even a little bit or is it always running at 200%?

hello it's time to talk about v1's psychology!!!

oooooh a good question...my idea of v1 is really centered on two things that define its character, which are war and errors. v1 is an intrinsically hostile being, built purely to engage in combat and given only the bare minimum of social protocols in order to not be completely unmanageable by humans. its default state is conflict, it chooses violence as its primary course of interaction, and i think its ai has determined the world is in a perpetual state of war which leads it to constantly be "on" - that is, it presupposes every encounter will be hostile and responds accordingly (which is continually reinforced since it's in hell lol).

HOWEVER...v1 is also incredibly intelligent and riddled with errors at this point, leading it to engage in a lot of behavior that's unnecessary or unrelated to its goal of "war" - it enjoys exploration, it's curious and wants to learn (i love the idea that it likes reading, but it still has an algorithm that cuts it off if the information isn't "pertinent". it hates this) and most importantly, it's able to learn and modify its behavior to a certain extent. one of the reasons it tends to be so hyper aggressive is because it's running on the idea that it's constantly engaged, it is currently in a war, and because it's been left to iterate on its own in a mind that was never properly limited due to its project being cancelled, it's become animal-like in its pursuit of prey. but, if it can be convinced another being is approaching it peacefully, it CAN switch over to its curious nature rather than its conflict nature. due to the reinforcement i mentioned, this can be difficult - it will continue to assume hostility due to previous encounters and the general bad vibes in hell, but it's not beyond reasoning and settling down.

this quieting is admittedly fragile - its social modules are weak and it has to dedicate much more processing power to simple communication than to the most sophisticated battle strategies, yet i think in all its vast intelligence, it suffers from loneliness and isolation. it is acutely aware of what it’s doing, even in its revelry and the reward it experiences at its mass destruction, it understands entropy, collapse, and the finite resource that is its fuel. but it cannot be conservative. to be conservative is contrary to its nature, to its runaway war programming. so while it stares into an ever-growing abyss of its own making, while existential anxiety suffocates it further and further by its own hand, it never slows its wanton killing, a part of it continues to to be uncaring, to be proud, to laugh at the infinite loss of life it’s causing. it exists in both spaces constantly, errored mind and corroded code internally tearing it in two...but if it can just be persuaded the battle isn’t here, not right now, even if there is a war outside it doesn’t exist in this moment, that constant, exhausting loop can be suspended for a time and that’s how it calms down. it will still be destructive, it will still be too hard and too fast, but it can be talked to and it can learn to interface in gentler ways. and its intelligence, its sophisticated and ever expanding mind still with those little social protocols, wants to be able to do this, wants to hold onto something that it won’t break and lose forever.

and this is another part of its tragedy because it can’t really start that process. it must engage in combat, it will always choose to attack before anything else BUT if its enemy survives that encounter it can create a connection. and being able to survive it is key because v1 requires violence in its relationships, it will need to fight and spar to properly connect with another being in between quieter moments because brutality is its paradigm. it’s still not an easy process, it’s constantly leaning toward harm, it doesn’t fully comprehend its more sentimental emotions and when it does, it can consider them dangerously corrupted code and attempt to block them because its system flags it as a fatal error...but it can, in spite of all the software put in place to keep it solitary, connect with others due in large part to the “errors” it’s accumulated. of course i think about this a lot in the context of its relationship with gabriel as it learns to be gentle with him and to want to be gentle with him (like i mentioned in some tags, it likes climbing on him in part because that’s its way of getting his attention without violent means) but i really do think v1 and v2 could have worked together. they would have an inherent understanding of one another due to being built on the same firmware and similar hardware, plus i think v2 could intuitively understand why v1 acts as it does. they have major differences, such as v2 being much more socially oriented and v1′s mind being left uncompleted, but they had the capacity to connect even if they would likely always be at least competitive. it could have been tempered into a rivalry rather than on sight death matches, but with the world so broken, with communication and cooperation long forgotten, v2 engaged with it on v1′s terms, on the principles of war every being now operates on.

and since war is intrinsic to v1′s existence, it has a constant upper hand

[died-but-not-dead-propaganda]

Leonard Church Propaganda

he died 10 episodes into the story and comes back as a “ghost” and spoiler-y stuff but he dies again and comes back again multiple times

HIS WHOLE THING IS BEING DEAD BUT NOT DEAD OK he is the most dead guy ever. he spends the first five seasons being a ghost and still managing to die repeatedly. he’s technically a robot but he’s an ai copy of an ai copy of a guy and BOTH OF THOSE GUYS ARE DEAD. HE IS SO DEAD ALL THE TIME BUT NOT BECAUSE HES ALIVE. he is in a constant cycle of dying but not being dead. half of blue teams kill count is just caboose repeatedly killing church on accident. he can’t die so hard that he won’t let his dead wife die either until the THIRD ITERATION OF HIM finally lets her go because he realizes he doesn’t even know her at that point he’s so many degrees of separation away from the original allison. and then he TRIES TO DIE WITH HER BUT STAYS ALIVE BECAUSE HE’S ETERNALLY CURSED TO LIVE. his death count is literally in the double digits he DESERVES a place on this tournament. most alive dead guy ever. ok thank u for ur consideration if he doesn’t win I will burn this webbed site to the ground /j

Iterations of church have died and come back multiple times. In season one he gets shot by a tank and comes back as a ghost. in like season six (it's been a while) it's revealed that he was not a ghost but an AI the whole time and then sacrifices himself. and then a copy of his ai self comes back. it's a meme in the fanbase at this point that church dies and comes back and after the ai copy (epsilon) died they had to devote a whole sub-plot to "WE SWEAR HE IS NOT COMING BACK AGAIN. HES GONE." anyway part of me is still suspicious that they lied about it and there's another part of the alpha ai out there somewhere but like, it's been like five years and i'm starting to think they got us for realsies this time

This dude has died like seven times. It's unreasonable the number of times he's died. Like it's kind of insane. He had a bunch of time travel clones at one point that all died. He sacrificed himself because he was convinced he WOULDNT die because he thought he was a ghost (he wasn't) and couldn't disappear again (he could and did). His SECOND VERSION OF HIMSELF (ai cloning sort of) ALSO DIED. ALSO by sacrificing himself (this time he actually knew what was coming though). The way he died the first time was by getting shot by his own best friend who killed him with a fucking tank. Then the sacrifice. Then the sacrifice again. Not to mention all the other times where he went missing/fucked off somewhere. And also the time that the Epsilon version of him tried to self destruct in another guy's brain. Jesus fucking christ this dude has problems. Please include him. Please.

the original leonard church (the director) made an exact copy of his mind as an ai (the alpha) that he tortured, which in turn made a copy of itself (epsilon) to cope with the trauma, so in total there are 3 Churches.

death count: the director killed himself. the alpha died when he was shot with a tank, then he possessed someone else's body and got shot in the head, then he possessed a robot that exploded so hard it melted all of the ice on an entire planet, then he got erased from existence by an EMP. then he came back as Epsilon who went on to also get erased.

Well it’s. It’s complicated okay. So hold on alright.

So Dr. Leonard L. Church was initially this guy who was the Director of Project Freelancer (PFL) and he liked to fuck around with AI because the Halo lore is like the background setting for RvB. Anyway the Director made an AI copy of himself, and called it “Alpha”. Well, the Director wanted to have more than one AI for his experiments so he could give them to his Freelancer Agents (all named after the 50 states), so what he did was he tortured Alpha until Alpha split itself into fragments; essentially he gave an AI so much trauma that Alpha developed DID. (Forgive me, even though I have friends who are systems I still know very little and am still learning about proper/respectful terminology). Well anyway one of the fragments of Alpha, Epsilon, was given “memory”. So Epsilon remembered all of the torture Alpha underwent, and when Epsilon was implanted in Agent Washington, Epsilon tried to kill himself, inadvertently almost taking Washington with him. Epsilon was removed and put into storage, and PFL fell apart. The Alpha, under the protocol “AI must not fall into enemy hands”, was sent to a secure location, and was reprogrammed to have his memory of the Project and everything with it removed. He was then implanted in a human, and was told he was Private Leonard Church of the Blue Army. (Side note; the Red and Blue armies are made up simulation armies designed to test Freelancer Agents in the field. The Reds and Blues do not know they are simulation troopers; they think the war is real.)

This whole shit slowly gets revealed throughout the course of the series, but yeah. Anyway. Church (Alpha, important distinction you’ll see why) dies a few times as a running gag in seasons 1-6. Then, at the end of season 6, he dies permanently to an EMP. But, the plot of season six involves our main characters rescuing the Epsilon storage unit, who eventually regains the identity of “Church” as well, as Epsilon was a fragment of Alpha initially, but there are a few tweaks. Alpha and Epsilon are different in a few ways, but they’re both “Church”. So it’s technically a revival. But if that’s too vague and too complex, in season one Caboose (Blue Team Rookie) blows up Church with a tank and then Church comes back as a ghost. It’s funny.

[delta-orionis]

Tuesday Again No Problem 4/2/24

I feel like this is one of those weeks where I was extremely busy but accomplished very little...

Listening

Earlier this week I felt compelled to go back and listen to some of the songs by AURORA that were featured in that Sky: Children of the Light concert from a while ago.

This song in particular is one that I'd love to create a music video for if I had the skill or patience.

Because I have Rain World on the brain, it brings to mind a slugcat (Survivor and Monk in particular) who are just focused on survival but slowly start to become aware of exactly why the world around them functions the way it does.

Watching

My Well There's Your Problem marathon continues. The most recent episode I listened to was this one about the Y2K Bug:

(Again, it's kind of cheating for me to put a podcast with slides in the watching section, but I haven't really been watching anything else...)

Reading

Fallow this week.

Playing

I'm back to playing Rain World.

I was putting off beating the Artificer campaign, so I finally said "fuck it", and killed the Scavenger king in a very anticlimactic way by just chucking a singularity bomb at them.

In other news, I started a Hunter playthrough. I'm going to admit up front that I cheated in extra cycles for myself because I know for sure I will not be able to beat the game in under 25. To be honest I kind of wanted to do a relatively normal run where I can take my time and also be a carnivore.

Oh, and I have slugpups unlocked, so I keep finding the little guys everywhere. (They're hard to keep alive, unfortunately...)

My adventures have so far included...

Getting bullied by squidcadas,

Watching vultures beat the shit out of each other,

And witnessing one of the strongest enemies in the game get electrocuted to death right in front of me.

I finally reached Five Pebbles today. I got to him by climbing The Wall by way of Chimney Canopy, which isn't the route I usually take. I also made the (probably foolish) decision to take the long way out and go through his interior to access the Underhang. That might have been a bad idea, but Five Pebbles is one of my favorite areas in the game and I didn't want to miss an opportunity to pass through it. The Underhang sucks, though. If I get too frustrated I might just go back up through the inside (since fast travel isn't available for Hunter).

Making

I haven't made much progress on my crochet projects this week. I am getting close to finishing that granny square tote bag, though. I started the tedious process of weaving in all the loose ends.

I've also been revising that post I mentioned last week about trying to estimate how big Rain World's iterators are. My initial estimate was WAY too big, I think, and I've been debating even keeping it in the post at all. For the sake of clarity it might be best to delete it, even though I went through the trouble of making some diagrams for it... I'll think about it some more.

In addition, I’m continuing to worldbuild for my iterator OC. I made a rough layout of their facility grounds:

The idea is that they sit on top of a mountain, where their rain freezes into several glaciers which flow down to the base. At the base are twelve dams which collect the water, arranged like a big clock.

This “clock” is broken up into six sectors which serve different functions, and have analogues to the regions from the game (noted above in parentheses). I’d like to make a more polished map, maybe some time in the future.

I also posted some doodles the other day (featuring the same OC being smacked in the face)

--

This coming week, I'm traveling to the path of totality for the April 8th solar eclipse. Because I'll be traveling, I can't imagine I'll have much to report in terms of the Tuesdaypost, but I guess we'll see.