#like a little science experiment!

[bistaxx]

I like Forever's idea of having everyone break the rules together to try to summon Cucurucho, but I don't think asking questions is gonna get them anywhere,,,

I think they should try to straight up kill the bear just to see what happens after

[fennekuuu]

i always end up sending characters i like to the backrooms

[mildmayfoxe]

the thing about trinkets is i always want them to have an interesting provenance. like if i find a cool little object at work that’s cheating. it should come from a mysterious box at a garage sale that i have to dig through for approx twenty minutes before i unearth a little treasure and pay twenty five cents for it. if i find a stone jaguar statuette prominently displayed at the antiques store that’s too easy. i should have to work for it. it should be hidden in a secret compartment in a drawer of a six thousand dollar secretary and the proprietor should look at me knowingly and say “ah, you found it” and then give me a really good deal for being such a little genius

[ikiprian]

Barbara Gordon's Coding & Computer Cram School is a popular YouTube series. Tucker Foley is a star student.

Barbara Gordon's Cram School posts free online courses for both coding and computer engineering. Think Crash Course in terms of entertainment, but college lecture in terms of depth. Hundreds of thousands of viewers flock to it— students who missed a class, people looking to add new skills to a resume, even simple hobbyists. It’s a project Barbara’s proud of.

Sometimes, when she wants to relax, she’ll even hop in the comments and spend an afternoon troubleshooting a viewer’s project with them.

User “Fryer-Tuck” has especially interesting ones. Barbara finds herself seeking out his comments, checking in on whatever this crazy kid is making next. An app for collecting GPS pings and assembling them on a map in real-time, an algorithm that connects geographic points to predict something’s movement taking a hundred other variables into account, simplified versions of incredibly complex homemade programs so they can run on incredibly limited CPU’s.

(Barbara wants to buy the kid a PC. It seems he’s got natural talent, but he keeps making reference to a PDA. Talk about 90’s! This guy’s hardware probably predates his birth.)

She chats with him more and more, switching to less public PM threads, and eventually, he opens up. His latest project, though, is not something Barbara has personal experience with.

FT: so if you found, hypothetically, a mysterious glowing substance that affects tech in weird and wacky ways that could totally have potential but might be vaguely sentient/otherworldly…. what would you do and how would you experiment with it. safely, of course. and hypothetically

BG: I’d make sure all my tests were in disposable devices and quarantined programs to keep it from infecting my important stuff. Dare I ask… how weird and wacky is it?

FT: uhhh. theoretically, a person composed of this substance once used it to enter a video game. like physical body, into the computer, onto the screen? moving around and talking and fighting enemies within the game?

FT: its been experimented with before, but not on any tech with a brain. just basic shields and blasters and stuff, its an energy source. also was put in a car once

FT: i wanna see how it affects software, yk? bc i already know it can. mess around and see how far i can push it

BG: […]

FT: … barbara?

BG: Sorry, thinking. Would you mind sharing more details? You said “blasters?”

Honestly. Kid genius with access to some truly wacky materials and even wackier weapons, she needs to start a file on him before he full sends to either hero or villain.

[OR: Tucker is a self-taught hacker, but if he were to credit a teacher, he'd name Barbara Gordon's Coding & Computer Cram School! He's even caught the attention of Dr. Gordon herself. She's full of sage advice, and with how she preaches the value of a good VPN, he's sure she's not pro-government. Maybe she'll help him as he studies the many applications of ecto-tech!]

[suntails]

adrift

[crustyfloor]

Till's piece from the event is a very honest depiction, but I want to examine it in more detail since it looks so interesting.

For one, I find the headpiece confusing, I was hesitant on this point in the last post I made covering this I assumed the headpiece Till is wearing (separate from the headphones) was this device.

There isn't even a name for that device, but it's been theorized that it serves a similar function have the collars pet humans have, but affects the pet humans in some way.

I believe it's a behavioral management device since there is an emphasis on the brain when it's shown. And just based on the design itself. I think the purpose of it is similar to a shock collar.

Till in this environment looks familiar, he has that focused expression that he always has when he's writing music, like he's in a daze. Since this is a practice in a controlled environment I think he might actually be handling an instrument this time around (hence the headphones). Till has a natural passion for music, the environment of Anakt Garden also appears more calm than what he goes through with Urak so he looks very much in his element.

But despite how calm, and focused he looks outwardly, his collar shows orange.

Till is giving with his expressions even around the aliens, so if he was feeling bad (I would suspect as much seeing the fresh experiment patches..) I believe it would look more obvious, but the difference threw me off a bit. I could be reaching (definitely) But given how unruly his behavior can be, and how much effort the aliens are putting into finding ways to subdue him I think they used that device to mellow him out so that they could properly monitor him.

The collar being orange gives me the impression that he's not as calm as he looks but the headpiece is keeping him in a 'sedated' state(?)

Red - Condition in the negatives, energy depleted, feeling bad. overall horrible state.

Orange, yellow - to a lesser extent, more like if you're feeling skittish, nervous, (think of this mode as feeling under the weather)

Green - Good, calm, happy, normal and a healthy mode.

(Translation by kh47uo on Twitter)

This behavior could also show desensitization, as he had likely been conditioned to not be phased nor show weakness in front of the aliens even if he feels bad, a way of tolerating. But this is just me trying to make sense of whatever that head gear was... he could've also been sedated beforehand (banging my head against the concrete)

Also interesting to me that we weren't shown Till doing other things, like dancing, or singing. I think it's a testament to Anakt's (And Urak's) priorities as they have Till build on his music skills, his strongest skill. It's probably because that's all he has to offer is his music (His grades in every other subject are a mess.). So building that to its greatest potential before anything is important. But it's a reminder of the situation, he's not so intense about his craft because of his inclination to it. He doesn't make music simply because he likes it, he does it because it's what he has to do to survive. Despite doing what he is naturally driven to do, he looks like he has had his life drained out of him.

Urak (the bastard) knows that for sure. Appearances, and 'decent' skills can get you far but overwhelming passion and skill can put you farther above all the rest, it's exactly why Luka is the best in his league, and why Urak pushes Till to his limits to surpass that even with such destructive means.

[gay-mike-wheeler]

okay wait bc i’m curious (this poll is specifically for bylers sorry)

[unnonexistence]

one of my friends is a biologist & i was really amused hearing some of her stories yesterday because they put into context just how believable newt's kaiju drift is as Shit A Biologist Would Do. like my friend has personally met both a guy who got infected with a botfly larva and didn't do anything to remove it (because he just didn't mind), and another guy who identified a tapeworm species by intentionally exposing himself to it (he had it narrowed down to 2 species and needed to know if it was the one that would infect humans) (it was)

[s-ccaam-era-crepe]

hashtag my boyfriend drinks out of a science beaker everyone bully them about this

[andr0nap]

would you happen to have any other doodles or little lore tidbits for the orcawood au? no worries if not, the designs GORGEOUS i keep going back to look

i only got some unfinished sketches too messy to share :(

umm as for lore tidbits... tbh i forgot most of it and the stuff that i do remember is just general worldbuilding rather than character-centric things

for orcawood specifically its biological and behavioral stuff... pretty sure i got most of his general story written down in those 3 bullet points on his little ref sheet 😭

as for vash and the gang... theyre marine biologists working for the same institute but none of them have any experience with merfolk, so taking care of wolfy is a team effort. their job with him mostly consists of studying him under a microscope, trying to convince him to take his medication and stop him from dragging everything within his reach into his enclosure (objects and people alike) (all with various levels of success)

[sirensongster]

I'm thinking of starting a Substack for posting my silly little hobby essays on food and disability advocacy. Would anyone be interested at all?

[definitelynotshouting]

Can I ask, since you mentioned agreeing 'even if under duress' - how did the Watchers convince Player Grian to join them in hunger au?

So take this with the specific grain of salt that ive never watched Evo directly (but have friends who have ((thank you wren)), so i know tidbits via osmosis from them), but my thought has always been that the riddles the Watchers gave the Evo Players were all tests used to measure cleverness and intelligence-- the whole point of them attempting to copy the mind of a Player into a Watcher larva in the first place was to try and avoid the insanely high infant mortality rate their typical juveniles go through, bc they dont understand their own limits enough to even know they have them yet. So they needed a Player they knew they could instruct and who would listen to them, and, well. Grian, for all he was rebellious and outright defiant of the Watchers, still solved their puzzles and only had to be punished once before he stopped trying to mess with them

What ive always pictured is after the dragon fight the two main elders of the Watcher colony finally revealed themselves to Grian properly-- i have this crystal clear image of the two of them hovering above and next to the central end island, looming over Grian, and like, these guys are big. HUGE. A good 5x bigger than the ender dragon itself, at LEAST. It would be hard not to feel insanely intimidated by that, honestly, especially when there are two of them side by side, blocking your entire view of the End from that direction.

Anyway picture that with the context of these two giant floating winged worms youve never seen before, who have demonstrated their powerful ability to manipulate code in a way you cant.... telling you that they have chosen you to become one of them. Thats an immense amount of pressure, both from flattery and fear, especially considering theyve punished you before for defying them. I like to think even then, Grian balked a bit, and while i dont have exact dialogue beats here, i know the Watchers continued putting that pressure on him (likely while leveraging his friendships too-- like ive always said, if Grian hadnt been chosen, BigB wouldve been, and i can absolutely see the Watchers offering to take him in Grian's stead) until he finally caved and accepted their "offer" of joining them.

Unfortunately, he didnt find out exactly what that entailed until it was far too late.

[cjgladback]

[ID: Three photos of a purple to pink to orange gradient yarn sitting on weathered wood planks in direct sunlight. In the first, the yarn is a single, unplied twist wrapped into a ball around a disc shaped core (the cardboard of an empty masking tape roll).

In the second, it is a loosely tied hank of three-ply yarn; it has been chain-plied, so neighboring segments of yarn are wrapped together, preserving the color change with minimal variegation.

The third photo features the hank laid with the opposite side up next to a shallow dark-orange mug with a spindle resting in it at a 40 degree angle. The spindle was 3D printed horizontally with a rainbow colored filament, from a spot of orange on one side through red, purple, blue, and to green on the other side. It is about nine and a half inches or twenty-four and a half centimeters long. The spindle is a supported Russian style, its base an inverted teardrop shape before a waist and the shaft of the spindle that's widest just above the waist and tapers down to as thin a spike at the top as possible. End ID]

I spun yarn! And plied it! This spindle and spinnable fluff were an incredibly generous gift from @dangerphd amid excess from 3D printing experiments! I'd previously spun one skein on a drop spindle in high school -- and I loved it for the process and made a chunky shawl of the Stephen West Spectra scarf design with it, but boy was it an uncontrolled thick and thin mess. Whether due to actually carrying over that learning more than a decade later, or the lighter (supported) spindle, or marginally more patience with age, this went way better!

I was definitely struggling with repeated breaks at the start and compromised my intention to go as thin as possible, but by the end I felt like I got decent control and consistency in my single's weight. And seeing how much less fragile those once-broken sock-weight singles are once plied should help me keep up the confidence with future fiber to really push for the thinner threads that I want to use. I had just learned about chain plying and wanted to try it when Danger sent the gradient fluff, so it wasn't a problem when there were several spots that I was sure would need plying for strength--and overall it's still less chunky than the thicker parts of the single I had made before! And much more even than I expected.

I haven't been brave and tried fulling it yet, just barely dampened and hung with a minor weight (a thick flannel shirt on its hanger) while drying. (It smells like wool once wet, though less strongly than some and I don't actually know its fiber contents.) But it's already pretty well behaved. It's a bit less than 20 feet of yarn, and I have to get into and through a different project right now, but I'll find something that lets me use it soon enough.

[bumblingbabooshka]

T'Rahni'hk gets the pants zapped off her by an alien and she's wearing those fucking red heart cartoon boxers underneath (unbothered).

[macbethz]

[blood-mocha-latte]

LITTLE TALKS | SEGMENT I | PART I

George sips at his beer, leans forward, propping his elbows on the wood of their table. They’ve set up shop against the wall, the table so small that George is hardly two feet from Joe, one of his knees slotted between both of Joe’s, just to make them both fit. George wonders what would happen if he leaned forward further, and raises his glass back up to his lips to cover for it.

“How long’ve you been doing tricks?” Joe asks him, voice raised over the chatter all around them. Someone bumps into George’s back, it nearly makes him cough around the beer. Joe’s still watching him, eyes almost black, maybe without blinking. George doesn’t much mind. He likes being watched. He just shrugs.

“What, you’re still on that?” He asks, light, and Joe shrugs, doesn’t say anything else. “And I don’t do tricks. You just fell for an old classic.” George finally puts the beer down, and Joe snorts.

When he looks up, the others' eyes are almost sparkling, and he gestures at his own face. “You’ve got, uh. Beer foam.” George blinks, but doesn’t move to wipe off his pseudo-mustache, just tilts his head.

“I know.” He says, even though he didn’t, and sits up straighter. “I think it helps make me look good.”

He runs his tongue over his top lip, and Joe seems to mimic the action almost subconsciously. “Trust me, Luz,” He says, voice rasping, “you don’t need any help with that.”

((the prequel to the post-war luztoye roadtrip au)) interact with this post in any way, shape, or form to be tagged when it's posted :).