#like it wasnt well written at all

[roseworth]

im saying this on anon so i dont get slaughtered but real tim fans cheered when td:r got cancelled lol

REAL. im not a tim fan but like we all have to agree that that book was not good. i actually blocked someone a few weeks ago for being really sad that tdr was ending fhdkjfhajskfd like i follow plenty of tim fans but that book was not good for tim or anyone else in it and there are 0 losses now that its ending

[robotsafari]

i had a dream where something was off with riku’s shadow…

(this art is so sucks i made this when i was tired and less experienced which ended up making riku look so much skinnier than how i normally draw him post-kh2 can you stop engaging it with pretty pweeease)

[egelskop]

i am so interested in ur hlvrai au can we get a rundown

oh boy, this is going under a readmore.

fair warning, this is a LONG read because (1.) i am not a competent writer and (2.) i can't for the life of me keep things brief. sorry and or good luck.

ACT I

The Black Mesa incident: Gordon Freeman is provided an opportunity to do an informal beta test for a combat training simulation program that's in development in the Research & Development department of the Black Mesa Research Facility. (Read: He knows a guy in R&D and said guy knows Gordon likes video games and VR stuff, so he was like "hey you should come check this out when you're on break.")

The combat sim would be a revolutionary training simulation using artificial intelligence to enhance and realize the experience for the ‘player character’.

The test goes wrong, and Gordon can’t seem to disengage from the simulation and odd, unscripted things start happening; he has to ‘play the game’ to its full completion before he is able to exit the simulation safely. He has suffered a brain injury throughout the process, eye damage due to prolonged exposure to the headset and is generally traumatized by the simulation experience he at some point could no longer physically and emotionally distinguish from the real world. The project as a whole is shut down and Gordon is put into a rehabilitation program. Black Mesa covers up the incident as best it can, but whispers of it still echo around the facility.

Below is a page for a two-page comic i never finished detailing said events.

ACT II

The rumors reach the ears of a particularly tech-savvy researcher named Clark, who steals the project documentation and anything else he can get his hands on from a storage. At home, he looks into the project, reads about it, and gets curious about the simulation’s files themselves. They’re on a drive he plugs into his computer, and suddenly his system’s performance lags, windows open and close until a txt. file opens up. He comes into contact with one of the simulation’s AI that has somehow entered his operating system. He tries to keep it busy by having it poke around as he reads up on the simulation and its ultimate shutdown. When the AI reveals it can see him through the webcam, he panics and rips the drive out of the port. The invasive AI and the other project files seems like they’re gone from his system, he does a checkup but sees nothing odd running or otherwise. The next day after work he does another checkup. Finding nothing, he surmises he’s in the clear and starts up an online game. The slumbering, corrupted data of the AI sees its out, and disappears into the game.

ACT III

The transition/journey to the game is a rocky one, and the already corrupted data of the AI known as Benrey splits and gets even more fragmented. The largest fragment embeds itself into the game’s files to keep itself running. Without the foundation of the game to support it, it’d be lost to a dead void and slowly die out. Somewhat stable, it learns about the world around it; the game seems to be an exploration sandbox game. For now (and clarity), I’ve chosen to call this bigger, embedded fragment ‘Data’. (so this is the big benny with the right eye/one big eye in my art)

Data splits off a smaller fragment of itself, intending it to be an avatar or ‘player character’ but this grows into its own awareness and becomes who we’ll call ‘Beastrey’ (the smaller benny with the left eye and tail in my art).

The fragment ‘Beastrey’ wakes to a dead void, so Data uses its knowledge to create a private server for Beastrey, an empty world. Beastrey’s existence is an extension of the bigger part, with more freedom of movement to parse through the game and move freely within it, with the caveat that it can’t go ‘too far’ away from the host. Beastrey can visit other servers and relay information. Data learns and slowly starts building up the world/private server, at some point settling for an aquatic world because it reminds it of itself (something something sea of data). It's important to note that Beastrey retains little to no memories of the events of canon VRAI.

Data makes it easier for Beastrey to move around, and they grow to have more reach with time. At some point Data can alter the basic structural elements of the game, so it plays around with making things that are reminiscent of the memories it has of Black Mesa and Xen. At one point, it gains access to parse through the player base of the game, and takes note of an email address: ‘g.m.freeman@gmail.com’, attached to a player account. The name is somewhat familiar to it.

It sends an invite to join the server to the player account.

ACT IV

Gordon tries going back to work at Black Mesa after rehabilitating, but he has trouble separating his experiences with the simulation from reality, to a breaking point where an altercation with a security guard drives him to quit. He seeks professional help for his PTSD and anxiety, but still experiences dissociative episodes, migraines and somatic flashbacks localised mostly in his right forearm. Despite this, he is determined to continue living his life as normally as possible. He applies for a part-time job teaching physics at a local high school, the one where his son Joshua goes to, and remains relatively stable from there.

Joshua is 15 years old. Regular teen. After an impressive amount of pleading he got a VR-headset for his 14th birthday from Gordon (much to the disapproval of Gordon’s ex), and he’s been captivated by an exploration sandbox game since it came out a few months ago.

He gets an invite to an unnamed private server, and he accepts.

He is struck with awe as the world he enters seems completely different from the ones he’s seen so far in the game. Different flora, different fauna. Most of it uninteractible, though, or otherwise just retextured from its base game variant. Even the new enemy types, after a scare, can’t actually hurt him, it seems. He stumbles upon Beastrey, who is just as surprised to see him and wants him out until Joshua says he was invited.

Joshua commends Beastrey (who introduces himself as 'Ben-') on ‘modding’ everything in, but admits that he was disappointed to find that everything was just surface-level stuff. Beastrey inquires about what he’d like to see. Data is always watching, unseen, and decides to alter the world in the way Joshua described when Joshua leaves.

Joshua starts appearing more often, if only for a few hours at a time. He marvels at the ways the world shifts and grows with each time he plays, and takes to exploring it with Beastrey at his side, for whom strangely enough a lot of things are also new. Joshua teaches both Beastrey and Data about the outside world, thinking Beastrey is just a somewhat reclusive but likeable weirdo.

Joshua tells Gordon about the new friend he made, ‘Ben’, and the adventures he’s been having with the other. Gordon is happy to hear Joshua is having a good time, but is otherwise none the wiser. Joshua starts losing track of time in the game, but chalks it up to being invested.

During one play session, Beastrey confesses he isn’t the one who did all the ‘modding’, and invites Joshua to meet Data. Data, or at least its ‘physical’ in-game manifestation is deep within the world, past the aquatic twilight zone and strange, drowned ruins of an unknown facility. Data, for the first time, really sees Joshua, and the resemblance sparks something within it. Joshua is drawn closer to it, and just before he reaches it-

Joshua wakes up lying on the floor with Gordon hunched over him in his room, pleading with him to wake up. Joshua unknowingly got drawn into the game much like Gordon had been, and Gordon urges Joshua to never touch the headset again, taking it away. Gordon opens up about his experiences with the simulation a bit more. They both agree to not touch the game or the headset again.

ACT V

Gordon comes into contact with an old coworker from Black Mesa, and he inquires about the combat simulation project, if anything happened to it after it was canned. This is where he learns that an employee had taken the project files from storage and was consequently fired. He comes into contact with Clark, and Clark explains he had no idea he accidentally unleashed the AI unto the game. Gordon asks if anything can be done to prevent what happened to Joshua and himself from happening to other people. Clark confesses he doesn’t know, and that it’s up to the developers of the game to find anything out of place and make sure it gets fixed. Gordon decides to leave the matter where it lies, not wanting anything to do with AI and simulations anymore and to safeguard his son.

Some time passes.

Joshua starts getting repeated invites and messages, at one point he gets into a conversation with ‘Ben’ via a platform’s messaging system. Ben says he can explain everything, that he’s sorry. Joshua decides he would like one final goodbye. He finds the headset stashed away somewhere in the house, and, while Gordon’s gone, he turns on the game and enters the server.

Beastrey (Ben) is surprised to see him, urging him to log out and turn off the game, but it’s already too late and Joshua can no longer leave. Beastrey helps Joshua attempting to ‘exit’ the game by going as far away from Data’s reach, but Data stops Beastrey and traps Joshua, determined to wait to the point that he assimilates into the game completely.

Gordon eventually finds Joshua comatose with the headset on, and he panics. He considers calling the emergency services, but he’s afraid they’ll take the headset off or that removing Joshua too far from the game will hurt his son like what happened to him. He calls Clark, urging him to help in any way he can. This results in Gordon and Clark going back to Black Mesa to retrieve the project files and the other gear they can get their hands on to get Gordon into the game to free his son.

Gordon enters the private server with Clark’s player character, and thwarts any attempt from Data to impede his progress and trap him as well. Beastrey’s awareness is overridden by Data as a last ditch effort to deter Gordon and Gordon is forced to destroy Beastrey before he can reach Data. As Beastrey is taken over, Data gains Beastrey’s awareness, and finds his other, littler half never wanted to trap Joshua in the first place, and the way it hurt him to hurt both Joshua and Gordon to this extent.

At this point, Data wavers in its intention to keep Joshua trapped, even more so with Beastrey now gone, and recognises whatever it is that is driving Gordon forward in the game is outside of his control to manipulate, so he lets Gordon destroy it as well. In a way, it also feels as a fulfillment of its intended role as the ‘villain’. The server crashes, the world breaks apart. The ‘game’ is completed.

The final boss is defeated and both Gordon and Joshua wake up. Joshua luckily wasn’t exposed long enough to have suffered any lasting damage, except for what seems to be a minor headache and some light sensitivity (and a vow from Gordon to get him checked out by a doctor as soon as the clinics open).

--

The whole ordeal results in Clark, Gordon and Joshua sitting in a Denny’s at four in the morning, eating pancakes somewhat solemnly, completely exhausted but also still reeling from the virtual battle. Joshua learns that ‘Ben’ essentially died, and he can’t help but cry for his friend.

“Honestly, I don’t think he’s gone,” Gordon admits, picking at the last bites of his pancakes. "I think he- or whatever that was, has a hard time staying dead. Like a cockroach, you know? At this point I’m just wondering when he’ll turn up again.”

Clark hums in agreement. Joshua seems somewhat reassured by his words, wiping at his eyes with the scratchy napkin as he settles into the squeaking diner seat.

“But,” he starts with a sigh, pointing his syrup-covered fork upwards to the ceiling in a decree, “One thing’s for certain…”

He thinks back to a time rife with virtual gunfire, caging walls and hysterical laughter echoing through the halls of the Black Mesa research facility. Five sets of footsteps and a whisper of his name.

“…No more VR. No more headsets. Ever.”

--

TL;DR: Gordon got trapped in VR and then Joshua also got trapped in VR. Benrey is there but also not.

thank you for reading. here. ( x ‿ o ) 🫴

[hauntingblue]

Stampede aka another episode of luffy turning haters into dick riders just with his kind and big heart

[agirlinthegalaxy]

It's been rolling around in my brain the last few days for some reason, but I still hate the family backstory reveals for Sophie and Eliot. I've seen some of the meta for it, but quite frankly, it still makes no sense. If it had been something actually thought of and intentional in the original, I think it could have been so fascinating. I mean, Sophie's willing abandonment of Astrid to contrast with Nate's loss of Sam or Eliot's adoption in contrast with Hardison's and Parker's? Could have been excellent! But they came out of nowhere in Redemption and don't work with these characters.

Sophie was still actively using the fucking alias that she met Astrid under! She met with someone from her past on the show! Like. Quite frankly, that one is unequivocally bullshit that they made up and threw in and pretended could fit with the established canon. (And I'm sorry, but the idea of Sophie abandoning Astrid and never telling Nate about her just... So much of Nate's trauma was rooted in the loss of Sam, and I think that introducing this element after he's gone and unable to respond to it taints Sophie and Nate's relationship in a way bc I'm not exactly sure how Nate would've responded to learning about this but I think that it's something he'd have needed to know. I don't know how to fully express my thoughts on that but yeah.)

As for Eliot, I don't like the adoption aspect literally at all. The way that he would interact with his family and the memory of his family would be different, and I think that it's flat out ridiculous to think that he'd have never mentioned it to the team in the original show, especially when dealing with the kid cases. (I also dislike the biracial adoption as its own element because if Eliot was actually raised by Black parents in the... idk what 80s/90s? That just. doesn't feel congruent with how they write Eliot interacting with PoC, not necessarily in a bad way, but babe, he's written like a white southern man raised in a specific kind of culture that does not jell with that. It also makes Eliot look... really bad that he was apparently raised with the knowledge of how fucked up the military was and his parents' history and made the choices that he did.) Like the show may not have explicitly stated it but the implication of that relationship was vastly fucking different throughout the original show.

Just. These were not backstories that were congruent with their depiction and characters in the original show, and they're also just moves that I don't particularly like or find interesting directions for those characters. There's also something to be said about how it was apparently unacceptable for a woman to not have kids or someone not reconciling with their biological family when that was something that the original show handled a lot better. Out of all the directions to take Sophie and Eliot's stories, that's just not really one that I think was a good idea.

[bedforddanes75]

i just think you deserve eternal happiness actually. funny and actually nice. u are jesus. anyway No pls i AM AFRAID u are simply too cool and i cant deal

[cashmere-caveman]

My Country: The New Age, first and last episodes & Hanif Abdurraqib, For The Dogs Who Barked At Me On The Sidewalks in Connecticut (text/audio) image descriptions in alt

[cat-soap-opera]

tbh i think that tigerstar wouldnt be even that mad abt scourge killing him in the end bc the way he did it was so brutal that he has to respect it. like it was pretty cunty.

[hirokiyuu]

look at my alternate yuu concept boy

[blighted-lights]

I feel like your approach to criticizing a certain fandom was the wrong way of doing it. Don't get me wrong, you are a hundred percent right about the lack of representation for certain characters. But you had to have known that you would've gotten backlash for insinuating that the only reason that content is being made is because people are... misogynistic? The characters are well-written; that's why they get attention. The women are also well-written, you're right! But instead of getting mad at the people who enjoy specific characters, you could contribute to what you want to see in the fandom. Make fanfiction, make art, talk about your favorite ships, talk about your favorite characters, talk about the head-canons you have for them, connect with other fans of those characters, make AUs with them, make the fandom you want to see! But I don't know what you were expecting when you come out and say in the tags "you must be misogynists for liking these characters and you must be awful people for playing around with AUs" even though every fandom on this website does that. That was hostile and was only going to get a hostile response in return especially when you specifically put it in the tags for fans of those characters to see. Because it reads as you insinuating that fans of these characters existing is why you don't get any representation of your favorite characters. Or, alternatively, that everyone only likes certain characters because they're misogynists who hate women characters. People make content of them because they like them and because they want to make content of them.

Want more content of the things you want to see? Pay or support the artists and writers who make that content or start making it yourself. Its not helpful to complain that some characters get more attention than others but then make no attempt to contribute to it in any meaningful way. You cannot just get mad at people for liking characters and expect the fandom to magically decide its going to give you the content you want.

This is a long-winded way of saying you are correct in that the fandom seems to hyper-focus on some characters over others. But the way you approached that discussion was combative, hostile, and unhelpful, and you're not going to motivate a community into making content by being passive-aggressive to the people making the content they want to make. Be the change you want to see in the fandom, or support the artists and writers who make the content you want to see.

Its like... You can't complain your garden isn't growing if you're not watering it and not adding seeds, and instead are blaming everyone else for having plants in their gardens that you don't like.

anon i dont know how to tell you this but if you felt the need to write a five-paragraph essay talking about how i need to be nicer to other people when i am pointing out misogyny in a fandom space then, well... actually, i dont know what to tell you other than the fact that i was trying to be aggressive and im not going to be civil about misogyny. my post wasn't made in the hopes of getting people to make more content of the women in borderlands because that would never in ten fucking million years work. it was not a constructive post. you are assuming i have some sort of goodwill about this and i don't. i wanted to be an asshole because, surprise, i am an asshole. funny how that works.

you are also pulling so much of this out of nowhere and putting so many words in my mouth that i dont even know where to begin with it?? i mean this in the kindest way possible nonnie but. this is a wild response to make when all i said was essentially "wow it sure is weird that the majority of content made for bl is focused on only three men when there's a full cast of amazing women to look at" and then "its also weird that people are making aus to erase the canon abuse and exploitation of a CHILD in order to make jack a good father". but thanks for the essay, nonnie. i guess.

[yellowocaballero]

I loved NewWave and it's nominated for my top reads 2023, BUT THE JASON FICLET??? I thought it was going to be a light read but it hit me full force in the face because I didn't expect to identify so much with Jason! When I read your Jason it was like I was reading myself and I want you to know that I started reading it early at night and finished it at dawn because I constantly had to stop and cry because of how much my heart resonated with his! loved it

HI THANK YOU <3

I'm glad you identified with him! Jason is very much a character who's a little like me too. He's a born writer, and his way of using fiction to put the world in a framework that he can understand is very relatable. It leaves him a little out of touch with the reality of situations, but that's a feature and not a bug.

I can't relate as much to the racial undercurrent in the story, but I don't want to understate it. It has to suck for Jason to feel constantly compared to the blonde haired blue eyed 'perfect sidekick'. She provides something seen as valuable and ideal that Jason never could. Coming from Steph's viewpoint (and considering canon) the idea of her being unattainable perfection is deeply funny, but it's very real to Jason. Adding in Tim - who's identical to Bruce and comes from the same social strata - makes Jason feel like it's every man for himself.

That's what makes his connection with Bruce even more important, though. He's the polar opposite of Bruce in every way, but although Tim and Bruce are similar in a lot of ways, Jason and Bruce have a deep connection and understanding that Tim and Steph don't. They're both dreamers who make the world a stage, their need for justice comes from a place of great pain, and they love in quiet ways.

Jason's a special kid. Like Steph, he has so much value that he doesn't see. Unlike her, he wants more - he's hungry for it, that life with meaning and kindness. He's finally attained something good, and he's scared of losing it. He has so much to offer that he can't see, and the happiness of the story is when he's seen.

New Wave was my way of giving a character who's been routinely fucked over by canon and sidelined by fandom the spotlight. She's special and perfect and loved and recognized and important because...she's none of those things 'in real life'. I wanted to give that to her. Steph's a character I related to when I was her age, and I wanted to give that to myself too.

Jason came from a similar place. I do think canon & fanon are like...overly obsessed with him lmfao. There's a billion 'Jason joins the manor' stories and it's why I almost didn't write the story lol. But he's rarely given the chance to be a kid, one who exists in his own right - to join the Batfam out of his own choice, which is something bizarrely rare in fic. And kids like Jason are the forgotten ones, and it will always be Jason's dream to show the forgotten children that they're as much Robin as he is.

I'm glad it meant something to you ;-;. This story meant a lot to me too, which is why I can go onnnn about it lol. Thanks for reading and enjoying! <3

[grymmdark]

meryl is the best character in stampede and if i ever see anyone talking shit on her i will kill them with my bare hands she is literally so important to me.

[quaranmine]

Honestly I'd love to know what kind of comments you'd be adding to the fic for your mother. Very curious :0 (also I'm terrible at knowing what information an outsider would and wouldn't have and/or would need)

Sure, I'll add a few. (Redacted since my google account is my full name.) Also remember that y'all also got the benefit of my author's notes, but I'm not giving my mom the AO3 copy because over my dead body does she look at that account. I'm giving her a document copy. So a lot of the comments will likely be details you guys already got in either a post or author's note.

^^^ This one is written specifically because my mom, like me, has been going to Big Bend National Park since she was young. A member of my family has gone there nearly every single year since....1965? lol. So it's a fun tidbit for her to know I was thinking of it while writing this. (There will be a similar note when the Pinnacles trail comes up, because I named Pinnacles after a trail in Big Bend.)

me trying to explain Scar's general dramatic flair (i also have a comment somewhere explaining that Scar is dyslexic and that is why he occasionally mispronounces stuff in the fic, and why he says the scientific documents the rangers let him borrow were difficult to get through)

nicknames

My mother and I are both Gary the cat stans. Trust me she knows Exactly what I am picturing here.

^^ a few other comments on the story, ranging from "background character details" to "research details" to "totally unecessary personal opinions"

it's also fun for little self-aware asides:

She already knows a significant amount of the plot, including the ending, because I talked to her about it. That is also why she gets to read it, because the moment I opened my mouth about writing it I basically had to. I don't always talk about my writing with her but I really wanted to talk about this one. So! By talking about it I just made the decision for myself that I'd allow her to read it. She is....very excited haha. And I am too? I mean I think I am going to send it to her and then just immediately go back to my apartment so I don't have to be in the same house as her while she's reading it LOL. The embarassment of people who know you too closely reading your things etc etc. But I'm very proud of this story and I don't think she realizes how good of a writer I can be. She knows I'm good at it (like, she's read my essays and newspaper stories) but not how I handle fiction.

[lemonadehtwooh]

Me before Wanderer's Archon/naming quest: I mean, I do relate to his backstory and way of thinking, but he's not really on the list of fictional characters I relate to atm

Wanderer: *fails to kill himself*

Me: *pulling out pen and paper*

So anyway, atm his name is Aakesh because I kinda like the name. I might try finding a different name later but I kinda like how Aakesh reads tbh

[lucyskywalker]

Raiden Ei stans on Genshin Impact are literally insufferable.

Taking the fetishist people on ZhongChi and Wriothesley x Neuvilette and another LGBTQ couples as well.

These famboys/girls of Ei are easily top 1 most insufferable people in the community.

[dragons-and-yellow-roses]

Sat down to write (it's 1:40am, I should be asleep) for the first time in almost a year because I very suddenly got the motivation, I sat down in front of a blank document and just thought, "Huh. How do you write?" (I used to think I was going to do this as a career)