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abigail-pent · 2 months ago

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Thoughts on HTN Act Four on my ??th reread:

- Harrow says "You cannot build in the River. It is a dimension of perpetual flux. Defined space is nonsense here. You might as well try to wall off Time with bricks and mortar." Which hits VERY DIFFERENT after Nona when we physically see a Tower rising from the River - this is way more like bricks and mortar than Pal's bubble even! IS THIS A CHEEKY LITTLE FORESHADOW OF WHAT THE TOWER IS???

- I think it's so fucking funny that Harrow tells her lobotomized self to silence Judith, like she knew Judith was going to speak her inconvenient mind no matter what

- There are 24 total letters. One for Harrow, one for Ianthe, one for Ianthe to give to Gideon Nav if met, one for Cam, one in case Harrow met Judith, one in case Harrow met Corona .... so like most of the letters went unopened. What happened to them? They went into the River but did anyone pick them up?

- Teacher says: "When the work was done, when I was finished and so were they, and the new Lyctors found out the price, they bade him kill the saltwater creature before she could do them harm." This still makes no sense.

We know (from Chapter 37) that "the price" is one of a set of John's lies - that the RBs would chase them and destroy them for the indelible sin of Lyctorhood. But that only explains why they thought Alecto would harm them if they knew Alecto was an RB (truth), and they thought RBs hunt Lyctors (lie). Throughout HTN, Augustine and Mercy both appear to know a lot more about John's motives than John tells Harrow, but we don't actually know if they learned this, or the history of the ten billion, from John or from BoE. When they had Alecto locked into the Tomb, they certainly didn't know that Alecto is John's cavalier, or else the big reveal about Alecto's and John's eyes would not have been such a big deal ten thousand years later. What did John tell them at the time? "Oh hey RBs kill Lyctors and we've been hanging out with one this whole time?" I don't think so! Did they just randomly guess there was an RB in their midst? Seems unlikely! So why did they suddenly turn on Alecto?

- When Augustine says Harrow's call sign is H, just H - is that him taking pity on her (knowing what her cavalier's name should be and choosing not to use the initial G), or him condescending to her because she is not a complete Lyctor?

- When Alecto learns that Varun is coming and she's astonished that it's happening... this is very interesting. She shouldn't be surprised if she already knows the RBs are chasing her and trying to get to her, but her astonishment makes it seem like she doesn't actually know this.

- the way Harrow prays that Ianthe isn't the traitor.... hmmmmmmm

- Cytherea tried to bodily go to the surface of an RB and failed, having gone "mad for weeks"

- Cyrus died before Ulysses and Cassiopeia. When he drove the corpus into a black hole, Ulysses drove the brain through the stoma and Cassy dropped the body into the River alongside the brain; which means Cyrus was the first to go. (Though obviously Cassy's death was faked.)

- The way Mercy describes the RBs: #2 sounds like Mercury (quicksilver), #6 sounds like Uranus (sphincters), #4 sounds like Venus (a humanoid creature with a beautiful face) #1 sounds like ... I don't know, maybe Mars (looked to Mercy like a great and incoherent machine, with a great tail and a thousand broken pillars on its back; looked to Cassy like a mechanical monster with swords for wings and great horns, tesselated over with graves; both of these say "war machine" to me), #8 sounds like either Jupiter or Neptune (a giant head, finned like a fish, teeth protruding from its own skull - fish suggests ocean/Neptune; red with a big green eye - eye suggests Jupiter), #7 looks like Neptune because it's blue but I think it's actually Saturn (who is classed as a Varunian god, who ate his children, and of course we know from NTN that #7 is named Varun the Eater), whatever number Alecto is is Earth, and that leaves Pluto and either Jupiter or Neptune unnumbered and undescribed. I'd guess Alecto is #9, which leaves #3 and #5.

- Augustine says Mercy's House "suckles at the stoma like a damned teat." We know the Second House drains thanergy to turn it into thalergy and the Eighth House is the opposite of the Second in that way; so it drains - or sucks - thalergy. Which is hella fucking curious because it suggests that the power on the other side of the stoma may actually be **thalergy**. But when you think about it, that actually starts to make sense. John says that the other side of the stoma is "a genuinely chaotic space," "a portal to the place I cannot touch, somewhere I don't fully comprehend, where my power and my authority are utterly meaningless," and that "no ghosts venture deeper than the bathyrhoic layer." What could be more chaotic than a fount of pure life energy - afterlife energy, even? What could take the wind out of John's sails more, or contradict his power more, than a source of actual, eternal life? We know from GTN that death has to connect to life, and life to death; death can't be linked up to death like that, the opposites call to one another. And we know for certain that the force on the other side of the stoma calls to John, who is a great conduit of thanergy, and the Resurrection Beasts, who are massive, planet sized pools of thanergy. I think the stoma opens for them because they're Big Thanergy and the stoma is the gate to Big Thalergy.

Also: we don't actually know that no ghosts get all the way down to the bottom of the River except if they're like really evil, which is what John posits. We know we do not see ghosts at the bottom of the River. It doesn't follow that ghosts just choose not to go there. This fact could also be explained if the Big Thalergy on the other side of the stoma is pulling all the nearby ghosts through. Classic causal inference fail - John has the direction of the causal relationship backwards.

- John can't project his soul into the River and enter the "senseless state" because then Alecto would come to the fore and take over his body.

- Harrowhark has never had a father figure - or a figure who wanted to be her father - except he tried to kill her.

- Harrow saying she's not a person because she's a chimera or a war crime... ohh... 😭😭😭

- John says he designed the Tomb *with* Anastasia and never wanted it opened from either end, yet at the end of NTN we find Anastasia's body in there with Alecto... so either the Tomb was always openable by Anastasia or John knew she would die in there.

#tlt #the locked tomb #tlt spoilers #harrow the ninth #tlt meta #htn

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comicaurora · 1 year ago

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Hey Red!

I'm back with more of being a new webcomic creator with questions! I'm finally building up my site but there's a couple cool things that your site does that I can't figure out how to do (went to engineering school without ever actually learning how to code haha). Do you recall how you added a custom background to your menu bar and how you made the size of the comic itself scale with the size of the browser window? I try to read code documentation and my mind touches the void

I don't remember how I made it scale on different devices - I think it was a built-in feature - but to make the custom menu bar, if I recall correctly, I went into the CSS of the theme, found the tesselating image file it was referencing, made my own and then changed one line of code in the duplicated customizable theme so it referenced my new image instead of the old one. Nothing too crazy code-wise, just a simple substitution!

#asks #aurora #behind the curtain

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shirecorn · 1 year ago

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Hi! I love your art, especially when I see your Vonder worldbuilding on my feed! I just wanted to ask: what made you start wanting to worldbuild (and/or make Vonder specifically)? And what got you interested in speculative/fantasy biology?

I've been worldbuilding since I could talk! There was never really a start to it. I would make stories with my siblings and populate it with new rules for how magic worked. I have 2187493275893 different variations of "dragons" and what they mean, how they work, how they breed, etc etc. I grew up watching national geographic at every opportunity.

As a kid I was raised homeschool fundamentalist evangelical young-earth creationist and told that evolution was invented by the devil, while celebrating what the world had as wonders created to bring glory to god. Scientists were either misunderstanding creation or evil. I was very spiritual so I felt when I was inventing worlds and creatures in them, that I was communing with God. We were both creators, and I was made in his image.

Then got to college, took my first science class and got blown out of the primordial water by evolution. I thought "there's no way deer became whales lol. thats impossible and there would be in between stages all over the place.

Then I looked up "whale evolution" and guess what? there's in between stages. There's thousands of in between stages. There's a fossil record of the nose hole slowly inching up to the forhead to breathe air when surfacing. there's tessellations of the hips slowly disappearing from one ancestor to the next. So then I had to decide if every photo, specimen, paleontological dig, and diagram was a purposeful lie crafted by evil humans who knew more about god than I did and dedicated their lives to sculpting rocks just to spite him and lead christian astray.

I'm not a conspiracy theorist so I was like damn. Evolution real. What do you know.

Then I exploded

My creative potential was unlocked. Everything became possible. I could create imperfect animals that had quirks and holdovers from previous generations. I could mutate and reform and call back and stretch and bend the possibilities. I could appreciate the true beauty of how every animal is an imperfect attempt at fitting in, just as I am also an imperfect work in progress. I learned that what makes you different can be an advantage in the right environment. I learned about mimicry, about complex symbiotic relationships that evolved alongside each other in a beautiful adaptive dance. I learned about the first ancestors of bilateral animals. I learned to love the forces that turned creatures from one thing to another. I looked at all of the world and I saw it not as a flawless portrait of god, but as an active, breathing, and changing masterpiece created by the paint itself.

I loved it. I love all of it.

I started working immediately. My dragons split and split again. My unicorns developed parasites that evolved to feed on their magic. My mermaids started out as fish and turned their swim bladders into resonate cavities with which to sing their siren songs. Hunters hunted and the prey learned to run.

Life cannot be stopped from changing

I cannot be stopped from loving it

I see religion now as something humans created to be a touchstone of community and ritual. It's beneficial to have something to point to for ethics and routine, and an explanation for things we don't yet understand. One day I may find a place that fits and fulfills me.

for now I am free.

#ramble machine #ask #evolution #religion

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someabsolutenonsense · 1 year ago

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Okay I’m sure someone else has made a similar post but I have thoughts I’m attempting to think about these resurrection beasts

The Houses

As far as I can tell we only really know for sure that the First House is Earth and the Ninth House is Pluto. My proposed lineup for the houses is as above. Fucking up the numbering so that earth can be first is very human, and John would do it. And it makes sense since it is quite literally the first home of humanity. If we go with this lineup then there are few things I can read into…

Venus as The 3rd:

The third house have an association with beauty, like the goddess the planet is named for. The individuals from the third that we know are also kind of…horrible terrible people (affectionate). Venus, much like Ianthe’s personality, is inhospitable.

Mars as The 4nd:

“But wait,” you say, “shouldn’t the second house be Mars since they’re the ones associated with the cohort and all that?” MAYBE. The fourth also works for Mars though, they too are extremely associated with war, we learn from Isaac and Jeanmarrie that 4th kids go to war very young.

Pluto as The 9th:

Death god, skeleton nuns, we all know.

So that’s one interpretation, but honestly I think that

1) Venus is likely to be the 7th, since Cytherea was both a name for the goddess Venus and the name of everyone’s favorite identity stealing lyctor from the 7th house.

2) The 3rd might be Jupiter? King of the gods, and the third is always described in terms of royalty?

3) The 2nd could be Mars, as discussed above.

4) The 6th kind of needs to be Mercury. Mercury/Hermes as a god was associated with doctors and the element used to be used in thermometers.

So really that brings us back to this which is so upsetting but without further analysis that’s what I’ve got for sure.

Resurrection Beasts

Similar to the true nature of the houses, we know very little for sure when it comes to the RBs. Alecto is Earth. Varun seems to be Neptune. That’s what we know. Which is why it’s particularly confusing that in Harrow the Ninth Augustine describes a different creature as being The First.

As described by the lyctors…

Number Two: “…spewed quicksilver and remade itself into hundred foot spikes.”

@dmmeeble pointed out that this was probably mercury since quicksilver is another name for the element mercury

Number Six: “…kept sucking us into enormous sphincters and spraying us with worms.”

I’ve got next to nothing for the sphincter worms beast tbh. My only idea is that this could be Jupiter because that sounds like some Zeus (Jupiter) punishment nonsense on the level of Prometheus and the liver pecking eagle.

Number Four: “…a humanoid creature with a beautiful face who held me under the water, and it spoke in a lovely voice but it only repeated, die, die…”

I imagine that this one has to be Venus since Mercy makes a point to say they were beautiful and Venus was a goddess of beauty. Also, water is mentioned and Venus was born from water and is therefore associated with it.

Number One: “…a great and incoherent machine…when I saw it I thought it had a great tail, and a thousand broken pillars on its back, but Cassiopeia saw it as a mechanical monster with swords for wings, and great horns of myelin, tessellated over with graves.”

This is the weirdest one. We already know Number One was Alecto, so this has to be something different. Right? RIGHT?! Cause the thing is I could see this one being earth. Mechanical monster because of all the mechanical detritus of the human species left after John’s apocalypse, the thousand broken columns also speaking to ancient ruins, swords for wings because of the legacy of violence left by the people of earth, the graves all the many graves dug in the surface of the earth over the years. This is a fairly human centric interpretation but having experienced Nona and Alecto, the soul of the earth is clearly very affected by humanity. In an entirely different direction, this could totally be Pluto. The graves, the swords (especially with our knowledge of the ninth), the lifelessness of the mechanical creature. Parts of the description is even reminiscent of some kind of automaton version of a harpy or a fury, with the wings and the general horrors of appearance. And while the furies are chthonic beings…this still brings us back to Alecto…

Number Eight: “…a giant head.” “Finned like a fish…it’s ribs were bloody bandages, and it’s teeth protruded through its own skull, tangled about its face like a nest. It was red, and it had a single eye of green that moved all about the body…”

There are multiple ways to go here. Red implies Mars of course. All of the images of injuries and bloody bandaging could also speak to Mars as war imagery, but the single eye implies Jupiter. Then of course there is the “finned like a fish” and the one eye implying a Cyclops and Cyclopes being associated with Neptune/Poseidon-but we’ve set aside Neptune for Varun. HOWEVER Cyclopes are also connected to Uranus as Uranus and Gaia had some cyclops children in Hesiod’s Theogony. Have I taken this too far yet?

So as you can see, I’ve connected the dots??????

#the locked tomb #resurrection beast #tlt houses #og lyctors #tlt #john gaius #alecto tlt #varun the eater #gideon the ninth #harrow the ninth #nona the ninth

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shark-myths · 2 years ago

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Sending My Love From the Other Side

Things we should discuss:

Pete’s sexy metal Viking princess unitard, he’s waiting to be rescued by a barbarian, I can only presume he is a bride-prize for the hero who can save him

The Folie-ness of it all, the ship at sea but not doomed, not this time; instead it is a vessel of hope

The mythology-of-the-band frame narrative

How the title references back to Sending Postcards from a Plane Crash

Stardust stardust stardust and Pete’s fear of space objects

What do Field of Dreams and The Princess Bride have in common?

For those expressing concern about Joe’s absence both on Sunday and in this video—he writes in his recent book, None of This Rocks, about emergency back problems during the latter end of this pandemic, compromising his ability to walk for a brief post-surgical time, exacerbated by overworking. He writes about learning boundaries, learning to rest, and asking his band for accommodations for his health. It seems likeliest that he’s recovering from a back-related issue, rather than conscientiously abstaining from participating in this record as he describes doing with MANIA.

General ranting about lyrics:

DISCLAIMER: It’s not me, okay, it’s the text, it’s Pete being incapable of writing anything that doesn’t sound like it’s about forbidden queer love, I could not make this shit up, I truly could not

“Model house meltdown”

Reminds me of walking through the house in your shoes, I’m supposed to love you; reminds me of I’m just playing house, no idea what I’m doing now. It’s a very dark Tim Burton-y sentiment from an outwardly happy man living a domestic fairy tale.

“We were a hammer to the Statue of David, we were a painting you could never frame, and you were the sunshine of my lifetime.”

THE PAST-TENSENESS HERE

Right from the start, this sets us up for something universally perceived as perfect and beloved being destroyed. This could be a reputation, a cultural relic, a profound piece of history, a narrative, a love. We were a hammer that destroyed it, that perceived thing…

We were a painting too profane to be displayed in a museum, hidden and damned? Or we were larger than life, uncontent to be contained by a frame, always in motion, chimeric and twining, together apart, together apart, a tesselated image you can only see if you zoom out and unfocus your eyes.

You have all read my opinions about twenty years of Patrick = sunshine metaphors, which seem to be getting pretty FUCKING literal here at the end of days.

“Nowhere left for us to go but heaven, summer falling through our fingers again”

Among other things, this seems to be a VERY explicit reference to Heaven’s Gate.

I am feeling the hope of MANIA (you know my manic poly dream reading of that beautiful, purple beacon of hope) replaced by what the pandemic / apocalypse did to us all. So much for stardust, indeed.

Summer symbolizing touring, festival circuits, linking to the recent FOB instagram post that showed video from the Hella Mega Tour with the caption “take us back here.” The liminality and fleeting-ness of those spaces, those selves, that unmoored time of doing nothing, being everything. The way they want to be home when they’re on the road and the way they want to be on the road when they’re at home. Summer slipping through our fingers again, like the sand in the bottom half of the hourglass, gone past, gone past.

“What would you trade the pain for? I’m not sure”

Isn’t that a fucking question, my friends!!! The pain of longing, unsatisfied, love, unrequited or unconsummated, forbidden and forsaken? The pain of not-having, or of having-had? The pain it was to be together? Welcome to my glossary of suffering

And what would you trade it for? Is this a question of, what is it worth and I can’t imagine giving it up? Or is it a past-tense question—a way of saying, I traded that exquisite pain to get what I have now, and I’m not sure what it was for, I’m not sure if it was worth it.

“Every lover’s got a little dagger in their hand”

Tbh someone smarter than me will have more to say about this, I am sure. Tarot and betrayal and the way love has thorns and anything worth having always hurts, everyone you trust with love will hurt you and let you down at least a little bit, imperfections and prices paid. But it’s also a very classic, very catchy and poetically deep sounding chorus of the type FOB loves to use and do not always hold a deep reading.

“I saw you in a bright clear field, hurricane heat in my head.”

More field-of-dreams invocation and playfulness! If there is not a stadium show at that field, I am going to light something on fire, it is the only pilgrimage I care about from this day forward.

“Inscribed like stone and faded by the rain: Give up what you love before it does you in”

LITERALLY what can I even SAY about this and the past tense and the DECISION, the question popped by MANIA that was answered only by global cataclysm and forced separation, the way they began work on this album in early 2021 (per Joe’s book). I can only hear this in conversation with the tracks on that record.

“The kind of pain you feel to get good in the end”

I was all prepared to do some read about morality and queerness and what you give up for the people you love, until @carbonbased000 said, “I love the pain line and I want to give it a kinky read so badly but we both know it’s about tennis”, and you know what. She’s right.

To summarize: there’s a lot to say, there’s a lot to feel, I love this song immensely and I hope you do too. I hope to explode more thoughts soon and uhhh maybe write another fairy tale. TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK, EVERYONE!

#tryst theory #peterick institute #so much for stardust #fob8 #fob #peterick #i do not remember my own tags for organizing lyrical analysis so let me get back to you on tht #fob deep lore analysis #sending my love from the other side #fall out boy

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feene17 · 2 years ago

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Take the NEW tessellation class and leave a review!

This class introduces and explains in depth, the fourth symmetry operation, the glide reflection. It was one of M.C. Escher's favourites, having accomplished 25 drawings using this symmetry method.

In the previous five classes we learned the first three symmetry methods used in creating nested shape tessellations and patterns. Mirror, rotation and translation. This class introduces and explains in depth, the fourth symmetry operation, the glide reflection. It was one of M.C. Escher’s favourites, having accomplished 25 drawings using this symmetry method. … use this link to get a month of…

View On WordPress

#skillshare #dessins périodiques #learn KaleidoPaint #learning tessellations #Regular Division of the Plane #Tessellations

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elderwisp · 6 months ago

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On Repeat - an oc tag

rules are pretty simple, pick as many (or as little) oc's as you'd like and find a song that you relate to them the most! feel free to mention why too! o and tag some more ppl too! that would be cool! i tag: @goldenwaves @acidheaddd @dejasenti99 @earthmoonz @moonfromearth @stinkrascal @matchalovertrait @lynzishell @sirianasims @vicciouxs @gvaudoiin-tricou @smulie @living-undead @pralinesims @lucidicer @literalite @nepotisim @mattodore @madebycoffee @daniigh0ul @changingplumbob @yukikocloud @cinamun @moonwoodhollow @youredreamingofroo @acuar-io @raiiny-bay

deep dive below ⇣

Frances Dubois:

Something about the whimsical instrumentals backed up with the haunting vocals almost reminds me of someone stuck in a loop. There's repetition in the chorus that solidifies that feeling. I also like the juxtaposition of the French lyrics, like the second singer is aware and has a desire to change. When I think of Frances, I envision someone in limbo and part of that is the inability to make a decision. She finds herself stuck, in a way, her anxiety makes the decision for her because doing nothing is something. Whilst Icarus has helped nudge her into making decisions such as aiding her in graduating, speaking to Atlas, and supporting her in her audition. there's still this internal desire to make that move on her own. The first time we see her do that is when she decides to kiss Icarus, which in a way, pushed her back into her loop as it didn't end well. As of current events, she's avoided him since.

↬ sometimes - mattyeux and princess chelsea

Daniella Álvarez:

This song to me encapsulates someone who has had to be independent at a very young age. The beginning opens with spoken lyrics, "She asked me who's taking care of me, I said, 'I take care of me'" and whilst incredibly empowering, there's always that question of how did we get here? Dan is the eldest of two younger siblings. In fact, there's quite the age gap between her siblings and if we look at Valeria, she also looks just as youthful. Dan is the product of an unplanned pregnancy as well as a bit of a narcissistic mother. The disorderly environment in which she's been given, learning to be a caretaker of her siblings and the constant pressure of success has lead her to have self-sufficient character. Whenever I think about her dynamic with her friends, I'm reminded of this scene, and she's the glue that is trying to hold the chaos together.

↬ taken care of - suzi wu

Kai Castillo:

Christ this song is so good. The instrumentals backed up by the vocals, feels a bit somber. Throughout Tessellate, Kai hides behind the fact that he has these feelings towards Atlas and they've started to bubble over into jealousy as Atlas's relationship grows with Kai's sister, Taryn. I also love that there are a lot of comparisons here to Lucifer Morningstar and religious elements. Kai's relationship with his religion is somewhat of a paradox as he is a closeted gay man to his parents, his sister and church. In fact, he does a lot of things that would bring quite a bit disapproval. He's unforthcoming, somewhat suspicious because his secrets have given him a reason to be. His story is of one that falls from grace.

↬ i am the antichrist to you - kishi bashi

Atlas Dubois:

While Paul Julian Banks narrates a song about struggling with addiction, I noticed there's a bit of a different beat in comparison to the rest of Interpol's songs. The tempo is much slower, as if exhaustion has set in and we're barely moving along. When we meet Atlas, it's at the beginning of a fresh start, not really knowing what has happened prior. Slowly throughout, we pull back minor details that entail his complex struggles with addiction. What initially started out as a bit of fun, became all consuming, allowing any given opportunity to be a reason why he should use. The bridge of this song also discuss the contrast between himself and his partner discovering his addiction for the first time. There's also a change in his tone during that that I find to be so neat! It does remind me a bit of his relationship with Taryn. I do know that addiction lasts a lifetime, and that love doesn't solve it all, but I also know that right support is the most important.

↬ rest my chemistry - interpol

#u guys remember those ipod commercials where there was a black silhouette and a really colorful background? ah good times #that was the inspo for this but in reverse #also kai looking like a happy lil guy but his song being so SAD LMAOOOO lore accurate #i tried to include as many ppl as possible from the original post or ppl i notice enjoy deep dives with their ocs #AH OK #oc: frances #oc: dan #oc: kai #oc: atlas #tag thingy #tessellate: extras #ts4 #simblr #my sims #show us your sims

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ist-das-kunst-oder-kann-das-weg · 2 months ago

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I had a stupid idea for a phd project that I wanted to look into whether it's a good enough idea over the next couple of days. It was about one of my favourite topics of symmetry groups. I heard, I think from my bachelor's thesis supervisor, that you can find all seventeen wallpaper groups in the Alhambra. And I know that the proof that there exist only these seventeen such groups came wayyy after Alhambra was built. So I was wondering whether the builders of Alhambra knew they had them all and if so, how.

Yeah, I know that they most likely did not have the precise concept of a wallpaper group or perhaps also not proofs as we do them nowadays. But they certainly were not stupid, so I figured it would be worth investigating it. Besides this problem, I already saw a bunch of others like

the question is kinda stupid. How do you want to investigate that.

it might very well have been done before or something very/too similar

I am a mathematician, not a historian or cultural scientist or art historian or whoever would be more suited to dealing with this

perhaps I would be disappointed by the lack of math myself, even if I love tessellations of the Euclidean plane

it is not really something of relevance... (one might learn more generally about the approach to mathematics in the historical islamic world, but I guess that definitely has been done)

So, long list of problems that needs to be figured out. But can you imagine my disappointment when I had to learn that mathematicians do not agree on how many of the wallpaper groups are to be found in Alhambra? It seems like 13 is not an unreasonable number (apparently, one of the people arguing for 17 chose the colours the way it suited him best? I couldn't find his paper.) I did not expect to be defeated by this. Aw man.

#dear diary

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mail-me-a-snail · 10 months ago

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pls i hope you give us your Vance related PL thoughts one day <3 I’m sure he has a normal time of it

oh man. i could gush for hours about phantom liberty. dlcs dont usually engage me--the most "recent" exception having been destiny 2's last dlc with activision, forsaken--but phantom liberty gripped me by the membrane and throttled me within an inch of my life.

i mean, if it did that to me, imagine what it did to vance.

(spoilers follow)

it isn't 't the first time vance has gotten a holo from an unknown number.

that's the biz; most clients want secrecy. the private type don't trust fixers--they don't do middlemen. they cut straight to the point. vance has dealt with these kinds of clients before. they don't know the streets like he does; they don't give a shit to, either.

they give him the gist of what they want done; the finer details don't matter. job's a job--as long as he takes care of the gonk who needs flatlining, or klep whatever needs klepping, the scratch'll come through, no problem.

that's how it's supposed to go.

but songbird opens with this: she knows what's happening to him. she knows about the relic's slow poison; she knows about vance, who he was, is, and pretends to be; and she knows how to help.

the promise of a cure colors her tone, but she knows better than to make it here and now on the holo. so she asks vance to meet her at the gate to dogtown.

vance is fresh off a gig. he's maybe a kilometer from dogtown proper, can see the open, rounded top of the stadium peeking out from behind the buildings in the distance. black smoke rises over the skyline. seems there's always a fire in dogtown.

he had been nursing a cigarette on his bike--jackie's arch--when songbird had called him. he flicks what remains of the cigarette onto the pavement. grinds it out under his heel. he mounts the arch.

private-types always end up asking to meet at a secondary location.

this--this part of the routine that's been ingrained in him for the past year or so--he knows how to follow.

the malfunction tears through his parts with the precision of a ripper's scalpel.

it knows where to curl its long, electric-blue fingers in his internal wires. it knows how hard to tug; it doesn't stop, either. the force of it sours, taut, in the back of vance's throat.

the silver prongs connected to his spine rattle. they shake until they buzz--then that buzz sharpens into ringing. one constant note, ringing into eternity, rising without changing pitch.

it aches from within vance's very teeth. sits heavy on his useless tongue--the same tongue he fears that he'll end up biting during one of these seizures.

there was a time when the relic thought him still human. it's only recently that it's learned the true nature of its host. it's only recently that it's found out how much more it can feed on.

it's only recently that it's started affecting johnny, too.

he doesn't know how it happens--doesn't know if johnny's starting to share his pain, or if they're feeling each other's in a tenuous feedback loop.

either way, the relic is decaying, and it's taking them with it.

vance curls up against the nearest solid mass he can find; remembers he has to breathe; forgets, exactly, how to do that; reaches for johnny, who's seizing right in front of him--

and songbird reaches back.

she touches his shoulder. her hand carries no weight other than that of buzzing static. the sound bleeds into the malfunction's miasma of noise. she speaks, carefully, calmly, but whatever she says, the relic swallows.

her words seem to please it, however--because a few moments later, the malfunction trickles away. it leaves nothing in its wake but a bone-deep soreness and a few blue tessellations crackling across johnny's non-corporeal form.

the large lapels of songbird's jacket curl around her throat. beneath that and a number of colorful pins, she wears a rather nondescript netrunning suit in contrast. vance doesn't miss the cyberdeck attached to her hip.

she looks like any other runner. in fact, vance had traipsed around night city in something similar an eternity ago--only difference being the absence of his team colors of hexagonal red-and-black.

but she's got no symbols of her own. no iconography denoting her allegiance to any one patron. he would've taken her for one of the afterlife's enny-a-dozen netrunners, then--had it not been for the fact that she could see johnny.

she touches him, too. she grasps the ghost's shoulder as easily as if--as if...she were a ghost herself.

data crackles in vance's ear; it's not the relic's tell-tale, almost musical blue purr. he usually welcomes the sound because it means johnny's somewhere around him, some lame-ass quip ready to fall from his lips.

but this data is red and black and angry and alive.

it writhes; spits; it takes johnny with it.

for the first time in the past few months, vance's head falls quiet.

it's so quiet that the absence feels more like a cavity.

it aches like one, too.

she's not like any other runner, if she can do that.

the realization leaves him reeling with more than just the after-effects of a relic malfunction: it's got him dizzy with the idea that she's like him.

songbird doesn't win vance over by taking johnny away from him. he can feel her confusion with that underlying her every instruction, but she's got bigger things to worry about.

ask any of the techies from his arasaka days and they'd tell you this: vance is the last person to give a shit about the president of the NUSA.

he's not an NUSA citizen; he's especially not about to lick her heels just 'cause she used to run militech, either. his parents had fought in the war she had started all those years ago--it's in his corpo blood to hate her, or, at least, what she stands for.

but a job's a job, and song's not gonna give johnny up until vance swallows his pride.

he'll do as she says. he's got too much to lose not to.

that same red data plays with vance's surroundings as songbird talks to him. she props open doors; gets rusted old elevators groaning back to life; all from the relative safety of--wherever she is.

that takes skill. splitting himself in two like that--he could never pull that trick off, not for lack of trying.

granted, arasaka hadn't built him to be stationary. they had made sure he'd always be on the move. they had grafted an entire torso's worth of realskinn onto him so his machine parts could breathe in the cool, polluted air of night city as he ran through its gutter-like streets.

and that living data--it's as bright as copper and just as conducive; it carries with it that same, rotting taste. it's not just any fancy code. it's not even something that could be called a runner's signature; calling it that would imply it's likely to allow someone ownership.

that code isn't just black with ICE--it is ICE. it's several layers of thick, hostile ICE.

vance had only seen such a thing in cyberspace. way out there, lurking on the horizon, ever-present and closely guarded.

(because of the highly personalized nature of cyberspace, perhaps vance had invited it to stay).

even with his pull in arasaka's ranks, neither the techies or netwatch would've ever let him touch the blackwall.

but song's got it eating out of the palm of her hand.

...which means rosalind myer's been keeping what she doesn't understand on a leash for the past decade, and no one's been the wiser.

not even arasaka.

later, when he looks rosalind in the eye as he digs the tracker out of her neck--his touch comes too soft for someone like her, he realizes, though he doesn't do so on purpose--he wonders if she knows who, or what, he is.

if, if she does, then she must know what arasaka had intended him to be--why wouldn't she, after all, when song had been the one to order him after her?

johnny fills their first night in dogtown with doubt.

"this a normal tuesday for ya, v?" he asks vance. the ghost sits backwards on a rusted old folding chair in front of him. "savin' the skin of the fuckin' president of the NUSA?"

"sure," vance answers. he can't sleep. hasn't tried.

they both listen to myers breathing on the next mattress over for few moments.

then, he continues, quieter this time. "way things'll be goin', seems we're punchin' hansen's ticket same time next week."

johnny rests his chin on his crossed arms. his chrome arm gleams in the low, blue light coming from what could generously be called a window.

"think you're gonna be outta here that fast?" johnny shakes his head. "ain't how quick myers and her ilk operate."

"bureaucracy, that it? gotta wait for the paperwork to zero hansen?"

(he's not a stranger to the concept, but he had figured he had left that sort of thing behind.)

the ghost hums as the thought passes through their shared subconscious.

"'s not the NUSA tellin' ya to zero 'im. that's how they do biz: they get an idea in your head, and--'fore ya know it--they're washing their hands of you."

vance sighs; one long, full body sigh, broad shoulders rising and falling with it. this scop again.

he eases backwards into the mattress that he sits on. a spring digs against his back. he runs his hands down his face; the monowire pads pressed into his palms are marble smooth on his cheeks. he sets his hands on his chest.

data purrs--relic blue, this time--as johnny manifests beside him.

the latter turns his head to the former. johnny's eyes remain on the ceiling; his features are hard to discern from the stark shadows falling across his face. his long hair fans out around him. it's easy to forget, sometimes, especially in quiet moments like this, that johnny isn't even really there.

vance takes the illusion as it is, without question, and follows johnny's eyes to the popcorned ceiling.

"don't doubt you know what you're talkin' about," vance offers.

"but you're still gonna help 'er," johnny counters, quickly.

"mmhmm."

he makes a show of sighing. "why am i not surprised?"

"'cause you'd do the same."

"bullshit."

"so, yer sayin'--" vance props himself up on one elbow, dog tags coming to dangle around his neck-- "that even if there's a pretty damn real possibility of gettin' you off the relic--

"--big fuckin' if, don't ya think--"

"--you ain't even gonna stick around to find out if it's true?"

"there it is again--if, v, if."

"but what if it is true?" vance tips his head. "what if song really could help us?"

johnny finally looks at him. his lips are pressed into a thin line; he's not pleased. "what the hell was it that i just said, v? they get an idea in yer head--"

"--then they wash their hands of ya. i know." he lies back down, the motion a concession in and of itself. "heard ya the first time."

"ya got too much hope than what's good for ya, v." johnny turns on his side to face him. "'s how they get their claws in you. promise you one thing, quid-pro-quo, and they'll lead you down a shithole of your own makin'. just can't see how far you've dug yourself 'til you're lookin' up from rock bottom."

"fuck," vance breathes, amused. he meets johnny's eyes with a grin. "run that last line by me one more time, johnny--gotta make sure i got it down for the silverhand doctrine."

"oh--" johnny laughs, dry but warm-- "fuck off, v."

vance meets reed in the following days; he had almost missed the pressure of a gun nestling between his ribs. then, alex, if that really is her name this time.

he sees how the years between them have soured--both the time they had spent on the field together, and the time they had spent apart afterwards.

he learns how song had betrayed reed--on rosalind's orders.

just how far does the shithole go?

can't answer that without stopping to look up.

and they can't stop, not yet; hansen's playing diplomat with night city's brightest and boldest, songbird's in her cage, and the black sapphire's looking like the place to be.

vance doesn't miss johnny's glance over--doesn't miss how quickly johnny looks away when he catches the ghost staring, either.

the shell of johnny's ear and the red piercings clipped into the cartilage face vance. the latter pale in comparison to the blush dusting johnny's scruffy cheek.

vance sidles up to him--away from reed's eyes--and leans into his space. the black mesh stretching across his stomach and chest whispers with the motion. it's soft against his exposed skin. he tucks his hands behind his back.

"like what you see?" vance teases, in a murmur.

johnny finds the sea of other brightly colored guests very interesting all of a sudden. he's so intrigued by them that he doesn't dignify vance's question with a response.

it's at the black sapphire that vance sees so mi for what she really is: little of flesh, all machine. myers had not done for song what arasaka had done for vance; she hadn't deigned to hide the true nature of her prize netrunner.

white, block letters run up song's spine and spell MILITECH. myers hadn't bothered hide the mark of her allegiance, either.

or, perhaps, the mark of her owner.

embossed letters spell ARASAKA on vance's innermost machine parts. when he sees song's back for the first time, he swears he can almost feel those letters start to itch.

even after vance learned what song had done to reed; had learned how far she was willing to go; how much she was willing to give; he would have never turned her in.

it's not because reed and alex had needlessly killed the two netrunners they had stolen the identities of. it's not because reed makes his skin crawl, reminding him too much of white, sterile clinics and martyr-like vows of loyalty and the absence of a worthwhile life outside of bureaucratic routine. it's not because of so mi's promise to help him, either.

he doesn't turn her in because if it had been him in her shoes--and it could've very easily turned out that way for him, had arasaka pushed him a little farther--he would've done anything to be free, too.

she is not like him--that implies they're on equal footing.

no, she is exactly what arasaka had wanted. she is what they had spent ten years trying to (unknowingly) replicate. she is the perfection of red and black and angry and alive data.

she had existed this whole time--and vance had had no idea.

he and johnny have a bond that goes beyond flesh and bone and chrome. if there's ever a day where they're finally separated, vance will think that separation only superficial.

but vance and songbird...

songbird is the netrunner vance would've been had arasaka kept going. if they hadn't resigned to throwing him out when they deemed him "obsolete".

if song hadn't chipped through the blackwall of her own volition--would rosalind myers, former ceo of arasaka's rival company militech, still have kept her around?

if vance had gone against arasaka's wishes and interacted with the blackwall--would they have called him obsolete?

would he have even met johnny? so mi?

how deep would they have been willing to dig themselves if it meant having a chance at survival?

it's like johnny had said--can't answer that without looking up from rock bottom.

but all vance sees is song leaving him behind; all he sees is the promise she had never truly made; all he sees are stars.

#asks #vance #OH MAN THIS GOT SO LONG. IF YOU MADE IT THIS FAR THANK YOU FOR READING #BUT ALSO JESUS CHRIST SORRY I GOT REALLY AUTISTIC.#WHOOOWEEE #my writing #im so fuckign eeped up man #phantom liberty #phantom liberty spoilers

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rabbitcruiser · 5 months ago

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World Tessellation Day

World Tessellation Day is celebrated on June 17 every year. Tessellation is the art of tiling a plane using geometric shapes in the form of tiles that require specific measurements. This holiday is dedicated to appreciating the fascinating art of tessellation and honoring these math-inspired visual artists who don’t often get recognized. Today also allows kids to explore this art form as a hobby. While it’s all about creativity, it also requires analytical skills — a great exercise to boost young children’s left and right brain functions. Learn more about the activities you can do to celebrate World Tessellation Day.

History of World Tessellation Day

The origin of the mathematical art of creating patterns, or tessellation, dates back to 4000 B.C. when ancient Sumerians discovered the use of clay tiles as home and temple decorations. It wasn’t too long until the next civilizations quickly adopted tessellation both in art and architecture. The Arabs, Chinese, Egyptians, Japanese, Romans, Persians, and the Moors practiced the use of repeated patterns and geometric designs in their decorative arts. During the classical antiquity period in the 8th century, tessellation became a staple for mosaic tiling decorations using small square blocks called ‘tesserae.’

In the 4th century, one of the most famous tessellation art was made by the Muslim Moors in Grenada, Spain: the Alhambra, an Islamic tessellation artwork composed of countless tiles in geometric positions that were constructed for the residence and court of Mohammed ibn Yusuf Ben Nasr.

In 1619, Johannes Kepler conducted the first official and documented study of tessellation art. In his book “Harmonice Kundi,” he cited regular and semi-regular geometric designs that heavily influenced modern-day tessellation. He’s also the first person to explore and document the hexagonal features of honeycomb and snowflakes.

In 1891, Russian crystallographer Yevgraf Fyodorov explained in a more advanced study that every periodic tiling in a plane has one of 17 isometries. This study marks the first official recognition of tessellation as a mathematical study. This was further explored by Otto Kienzl and Heinrich Heesch in 1964, and Alexei Shubnikov and Nikolain Belov in 1964.

Today, contemporary artists introduced different modern permutations such as surreal landscapes, hand-print patterns, and paper tessellations.

World Tessellation Day timeline

4000 B.C. The Birth of Tessellation

Sumerians introduce tessellation using clay tiles.

4th Century The Most Famous Tessellation Art

Muslim Moors construct the Alhambra as a residence and court for Mohammed ibn Yusuf Ben Nasr.

1619 The First Study of Tessellation Art

Johannes Kepler studies and explains regular and semi-regular geometric designs of tessellation art.

1891 Tessellation as a Mathematical Study

Russian crystallographer Yevgraf Fyodorov introduces tessellation as a form of math.

World Tessellation Day Activities

Create your own tessellation art

Take tessellation courses

Try digital tessellation art

From tiles to paper designs, you can create your own tessellation art design by just using the simplest materials found in your home. Follow D.I.Y. tutorials on YouTube and let your creative juices flow.

Tessellation art classes are ideal for kids who show artistic and creative potential. Enroll your child in your local art school and let them take weekend classes to boost their creativity and analytical capacity.

Spend the day on your laptop and try out the latest tessellation trend: digital art patterns. There are several apps for tessellation making. Be sure to save your final product and upload it on your social media with the hashtag #TessellationDay

5 Interesting Facts About Tessellation

Only three regular polygons tile a plane

A cube in 3.D.

Tessellation is science

Three ways to construct a tessellation

The father of modern tessellation

Only a square, triangle, and hexagon can completely tile a plane.

A Cube in 3.D. is the only regular polyhedron that can independently tessellate.

Science supports that beehive honeycombs, snowflakes, and dried-up mud are all geometric.

The three categories of tessellation construction are translation, reflection, and rotation.

Dutch artist M.C. Escher is considered the father of modern tessellation.

Why We Love World Tessellation Day

It uses both the left and right brain

Tessellation in fashion is trending

It’s an underappreciated art

Tessellation art is a good exercise to be both creative and mathematical. Unlike other art projects, tessellating requires math while executing your creative vision. It’s perfect for kids’ brain development.

The minimalist era of fashion is on the rise. Tessellation designs of repeated patterns on clothes are hip and trendy. It’s a great excuse to wear these designs on World Tessellation Day.

Not many people know about the cultural, scientific, and mathematical history of tessellation. It’s a great way to introduce this to people to honor the artists and scholars who dedicate their lives to this art form.

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