#listen do I have to do everything around here??? posting all the new images etc?

[f1nns1deblog]

"my eyes are up here..."

[katieaki]

So, you’re interested in jumping into Pony Express but aren’t sure where to start/feel daunted by the undertaking/are freaked out about missing lore & context? Pony Express is intended to be a completely standalone work with no knowledge of my prior work necessary for enjoyment, but it has been rolling for quite a while now! Here’s some info to help you orient yourself! 💫 I recommend looking at this guide on desktop as the mobile version collapses the bullet points in a strange way.

✨ Here’s the absolute most basic summary:

Lou Primrose (30 years old, 5'0", illiterate, hardworking, 3x rodeo champion) is a rider for the Pony Express, the Wasteland's mail service. Lou has agreed to transport an unusual package from the middle of the Wasteland to the nearly uninhabited coast: a glamorous redhead named Holliday Bell. A case of mistaken identity sees Lou brutalized and disabled by religious assassin from the church of Johnny Knives (god of death) Reckoning "Artie" Tehachapi, who attempts to atone for her wrongdoing by serving Lou until she's healed. Together (for better or worse) the three of them head toward the ocean through unknown and dangerous territory.

This work is erotic in nature 🔞 with some violence and survival-type gore.

✨ If you’re totally new here, you might have some questions. Here’s a super quick primer under the cut!

What’s up with The Wasteland?

The Wasteland is a post-apocalyptic, non-dystopian society in the former American southwest. It has been several generations since the civilization Before (that’s us, or maybe like... our grandparents) was decimated. Nobody is particularly interested in the whys or hows of the collapse, though it seems that environmental disaster & earthquakes were the main factor.

It’s a series of towns, shrines, convents, and monasteries. Quite a lot of it is in repurposed buildings from Before (imagine Route 66-style gas stations, diners, and motels, all heavily repaired) and some of it is kind of ramshackle old-west-y new builds.

God of Death, religious assassins, churches– what’s up with all that? I’m afraid, sounds lore-y.

Wasteland society is heavily structured around the two churches of the gods of life & sorrow (The Listening Lady) and death & justice (Johnny Knives), who are married, immortal, and absolutely real. They live apart from the mortals, but they do live in the Wasteland with them. The Listening Lady’s church is responsible for basically every aspect of Wasteland life. Listening Church shrines and convents are also the Wasteland’s official or de facto orphanages, pantries, farms, hospitals, therapists, inns, textile mills, wedding venues, and basically everything else you need to keep a society functioning. Listening Church acolytes may have a huge variety of occupations, from the extremely down-to-earth (midwifery and laundry etc) to the real Weird and Churchy (doing rituals and divination etc). Many of them take a vow of silence in honor of The Listening Lady. The church of Johnny Knives is much smaller and much more specialized. Knife Church disciples are assassins whose sacred duty is to kill those who need killing, as judged by god. 

You don’t really need to get INTO this, though. What you need to know is: Listening Church acolytes are generally warm and kind and in caregiver- or artisan-type roles. Knife Church disciples are peacekeepers & generally a little scary, but are also working toward the public good– kind, but not necessarily nice.

I know the concept of gods and disciples invokes the image of like, robes and shit, but that is NOT how it is! Listening Church acolytes tend toward chiffon and midcentury-lingerie-as-outwear looks and/or country western workwear, depending. Knife Church disciples nearly invariably have sort of a greaser/biker/leather daddy thing going on. They all talk about the gods like they’re their parents and their bosses, which they are. I think it’s kind of more normal than you might be expecting. 

So there’s like, magic?

According to the Wastelanders, yes. You don’t need to worry too much about any of that. Just let them do their things.

And everyone is in a church?

Almost everyone interacts with Listening Church in some way, very few interact with Knife Church in any way, but most people in the Wasteland are ‘civilians’ (that is to say, not working for either church).

And they’re all lesbians? How do they have babies??

They’re not ALL lesbians, but basically all our POV characters are & it’s a very lesbian-heavy society. There are many ways that two women may have children, including biological. You got this, I know you do. 

And everyone is blue?

Yeah, but it doesn’t really come up.

Why?

Because I liked drawing them with the sky blue posca paint marker when I began this body of work.

Ok. What’s up with Lou?

Louetta “Lou” Primrose is a rider for the Pony Express– she’s a Wasteland mailman. Her job is basically her whole life. She’s been working since she was ten years old, working for the Pony Express since she was 14. After receiving a romantic rejection from Venus, the dance hall girl she’s in love with, Lou agrees to take a strange red-headed woman, Holliday Bell, to the (allegedly) uninhabited coast, where Holliday’s wife is (allegedly) waiting for her.

Lou is dedicated, practical, and hard-working, but also hot-headed, frequently mean, a little self-conscious, and ‘a rambling man,’ never in one place for long. She’s markedly not religious among other Wastelanders (so is a great pov character for you if you’re new to al this!). Her greatest achievement has been winning the main event at the Wasteland’s biggest horse games three years in a row, unseating the previous champion. Nobody else really cares that much.

What’s up with Holliday?

Holliday Bell is an elegant and mysterious woman who showed up to Lou’s post office with stamps pinned to her blouse, claiming she’d mailed herself there from a town hundreds of miles away. She is asking Lou, who works at the most westerly post office in Wasteland, to finish the delivery by bringing her way out to the coast where she claims her wife, a pearl diver, is waiting for her. 

Holliday is strange. From the beginning, Lou feels put off by her personality, which is both abrasive and seemingly rehearsed. She can be unspeakably cutting and is obviously hiding a big secret. 

What’s up with Artie?

Reckoning “RT” “Artie” Tehachapi is the Knife Church disciple who, after a series of lies and miscommunications spanning several parties across the Wasteland, is sent to apprehend Lou, who she thinks has kidnapped Holliday. She breaks Lou’s wrist and dislocates her shoulder in their first altercation before she learns that Lou is an innocent party in all of this. Deeply ashamed of her actions, she vows to serve Lou until they make it back to civilization.

Artie is upbeat and optimistic, especially for Knife Church, but her guilt at her transgressions against Lou & eagerness to make up for them have left her in a kind of anxiety spiral.  She’s the only one who has any real survival skills and continually works herself to the last drop, and then works herself a few drops more. When her big, horrible, deep, dark secret is revealed, her mental state continues to deteriorate.

What’s up with Venus? We haven’t seen her in a while?/Who’s the one-armed smokeshow?

Venus is Lou’s love interest, the girl she left behind in Hereafter. We haven’t seen her in a while because she, wisely, stayed there while Lou went off on her extremely inadvisable mission.

Venus of the Wastes is a dime-a-dance girl/saloon girl/sex worker who lives in Hereafter. She is Lou’s friend and Lou is both in love with her and her best client. Just before Lou left to deliver Holliday, she admitted to Venus that she was in love with her. Venus is, at least, very fond of Lou.

✨ Ok, but this is a lot! Where do I start??

If you’re looking to hop in on the story in progress, I’ve made summaries of part 1 , part 2 , and part 3 as we have gone on. I’ll update this with part 4 when we finish it. 

If you’re a completionist, the links above have epub & pdf files of the full text of each part. Here’s where part 4 begins, until we finish that part and I post it all together. You can find the rest of part 4 by scrolling backwards through the collection. I will also attach pdfs & epubs of all the full text to this post on my patreon!

If you’re a completionist completionist & you want it ALL, here’s everything and the chronological order in which they occur in-universe. Again, Pony Express is meant to be able to stand on its own two feet without any of the rest of this, but it might be fun for you to read the rest. The first three here are kind of a series, but Tears Can’t Put Out This Flame and Bloodied on Arrival could both be read independently. Care and Keeping probably needs those two to support it, unless you’re happy just jumping in and figuring stuff out via context. It’s Artie’s backstory, but it’s not necessary for you to read to make Pony Express make sense. It’ll just give you a little more dramatic irony etc. 

Tears Can’t Put Out This Flame  - a novella about Hero Sasaki, a novice acolyte at the Church of the Listening Lady (god of life & sorrow) who has been tasked with delivering a package to an anchorite from her church. Frances is a disgraced assassin from The Church of Johnny Knives (god of justice & death) who has been tasked with escorting her. Through trials of the road, emergency first aid, prayer, ritual (blood and otherwise), a little sex, and a lot of tears, they find love exactly where they should've expected it in the first place.

Bloodied on Arrival - a novel about Nuisance (and Hero), a road-weary assassin from The Church of Johnny Knives (god of justice & death) who finds herself and her new cat taking refuge at a companionship shrine run by a beautiful older widow, Hero, of the Church of the Listening Lady (god of life and sorrow). The two can't deny their immediate connection and aim for a rewarding one-night stand, but things don't go as planned.

Care and Keeping - a work in progress novel(?) about Hero and Nuisance and their new adopted feral child, Artie, a little girl who has known nothing but abuse, pain, and starvation who believes it’s her sacred mission to join Knife Church. Nuisance agrees to train her to join the church in a bid to keep her from it for as long as possible. This is a kind of coming-of-age story for Artie and a becoming parents story for Hero & Nuisance.

Pony Express - A work in progress novel about Lou (also featuring Artie) - see synopsis at beginning of post.

The novel/las are available for purchase on my Patreon for $5 or for pay-what-you-want $5+ on Gumroad. If you find you can’t afford that, but want to read it, please let me know! DM me wherever or email me at missluckycatknives (at) gmail (dot) com I’m happy to make my work accessible to you. All Pony Express and Care and Keeping are free as I work on them. 

[jollyhunter]

⚝ "Well, what we have here is a failure to communicate. 'Cause we're not trapped out here with you. You're trapped out here with us." ⚝ 𝕎𝕖𝕝𝕔𝕠𝕞𝕖 𝕥𝕠 𝕞𝕪 𝕙𝕦𝕟𝕥𝕖𝕣'𝕤 𝕓𝕦𝕣𝕣𝕠𝕨 ♡ Jolly │ she/her │ 29 │ Taurus │ INFJ │ friendly, joyful, helpful, curious, anxious and silly yapping lass

Currently I write mostly for Jensen Ackles characters │ Dean, Beau, Soldier Boy │ (fluff, smut, fun, angst) I post 18+ content │MDNI !

Requests are currently: Closed (You can still hit me with an idea though! I just don't have the time to write them atm as I'm fully invested in finishing the advent calendar challenge and planning two series)

Inbox is: Open! Talk or yap or just drop in, I don't bite and love to make new friends! 🦊 Need a moment? Take a nap in the backseat of Baby while Dean and Sam are in the front seats; talking, listening to music and singing ♡ (The music will start to play later, around 8mins... little... interactive surprise there for ya...👀)

✩ 𝔽𝕒𝕟𝕗𝕚𝕔𝕤 MASTERLIST ✩

Dean Winchester (x fem!reader │established relationship) Morning Petting ��� │( Smut, fluff │ One shot │Words 1,700 ) Thanksgiving Part 1 - Part 2 ⚝ │Dean Winchester at your family Thanksgiving ( Fluff, tiny bit smut│Imagines ) CURRENTLY ONGOING Kinky Advent Calendar Masterlist ⚝ │Dean and you are in a longterm relationship and try spicing up your sex life throughout December ( Smut, fluff, fun │ Series │ 16 / 24 parts )

Dean's Birthday Prompt-Game (No Deadline, Open for anyone!) ⚝ │Imagine, it. It's Dean's birthday and it's just you, Dean and Sam. On the road. You sleeping in the backseats, the rain's soothing pitter-patter, Dean's music playing in the background, Baby purring under your feet. ( Prompt / Imagine│Audio Intro! )

The Bad Wolf & The Sweet Vixen ⚝ │BadWolf!Dean x SweetVixen!Reader ( Vixen!Reader Intro / Drabble, smut │Words 1,200)

Beau Arlen / Dean Winchester The Broken Circle ⚝ │ ( Beau!Dean x Hunter!Reader │ AU "Supernatural" x "Big Sky" crossover, set after S15 of SPN │ Angst, Tissue material │Words ~4k │ One Shot Thanks so much for all the positive feedback! A sequel is planned ♡ )

Soldier Boy - The Boys

Project Ground Zero (INTRO) ⚝ │You’re an A-class supe. A Russian high value asset. And you’re anything but a hero ( Soldier Boy x Antihero!Reader │ Canon (as good as possible), set around season 3 │ Action, Plot, Enemies to lovers? │Planned as Series )

✩ ℂ.𝕒𝕚 MASTERLIST ✩

Dean Winchester Your PTSD therapy partner [ClosedOff!Dean] ⚝ │ Dean's forced to go to therapy for his PTSD and nightmares about his time in Hell. And he hates it. But then you're introduced as his therapy partner. Can you gain his trust? Your first night at the bunker [Comfort!Dean and Civillian!User] ⚝ │ The boys take you in after a demon possessed your father and killed your entire family trying to get to you. You have nothing left, the demon's still after you and nightmares plague your sleep. For now, the bunker is your new home. The images of your dead family keep you sleepless tonight, so you sneak out to the bunker's kitchen - where you bump into Dean. (He'll make you hot cocao ♡) Family Christmas dinner [Bf!Dean] ⚝ │Dean picks you up for your family Christmas dinner to join you as your partner! (fluff, flirty and sweet - roughly inspired by this imagine)

🥧 NEW! 🥧 BIRTHDAY SPECIAL 🍰 │ Be his birthday fling..? 💝 [Pre season 1 Dean!] 🍰 │ A rainy birthday on the road ⛈️ [Season 4 Dean!] Tangerine - Bullet Train Rivalry Team [Hitman!User - Mission / Flirty] ⚝ │ You're riding shotgun while Tan's driving through the traffic of Tokyo, looking for your target. So far everything's gone sideways, which led to you two getting teamed up to get the bloody job done, even though you are rivals.

Open for requests! ⚝ │ I love to create detailed bots lol, just hit me with an idea!

Do not steal, use, copy or repost any of my content, whether bots or fanfics or artwork etc. done by me, please. My hellhound will find you and hunt you down.

✩ Tidbits about me ✩

⚝ My Jolly vixen core 🦊 ⚝ I’m relatively new to writing fanfiction, and English is not my native language, so I’m still learning! I’m always open for writing buddies or just sharing and discussing ideas or ya know, yapping about SPN or The Boys etc. !!

⚝ Likes: foxes (my spirit animal ♡), rain, oldtimers, 70s/80s rock, cozy lights (candles and fairy lights ufff), pine trees, lore and monsters ⚝ Fav Themes: fluff, smut, funfiction, angst, action and found family, comfort (is that a theme?)

⚝ Main Fandoms: Supernatural, MCU, The Boys, maybe a little Top Gun / Maverick and Bullet Train 'cuz I won't ever let go of those movies / characters

⚝ Fav Movies / Series: SPN, MCU, The Boys, TLoU, Doctor Who, Good Omens, Umbrella Academy, Godzilla, Mononoke Hime, Top Gun / Maverick, Bullet Train, Gladiator (I+II) - and basically anything with Jensen Ackles and Pedro Pascal ♡

⚝ No Go's: No wincest, no proshipping, no rape or glorifying abuse etc.!

Please, please, always stay respectful and be kind! If you don’t feel comfortable or don’t like what you see, you may always close the tab ♡ Spread love not hate ♡

[hopeswriting]

Hi I saw your post on Skull and tv series about famous people and I raise you: The public have that sort of relationship to Skull's career as with many of the "acclaimed geniuses" usually the artsy ones aka. everyone knows him but nobody thinks they "understand his true depth", "he was very bright and loud but in private really he was actually sooo mysterious and it was impossible to tell what actually went on in his head when he spoke so much but rarely anything of substance about himself", "he was everyone's friend, but I always wondered if he returned the feeling, he always acted that way around everyone after all" etc. Someone is quoted talking about how he'd always laugh things off to hide what he really meant. It goes on.

BUT here is the KICKER: Skull isn't. He has his own depth of course, but all of this post-mortem rose tinted "mystery" is that he was young and fearless and cheerful and genuinely a bit dumb and hypocritical and very bad at elaborating on the things he said. And best part: now he will never live it down around the arcobaleno and this time it's not even him who was talking himself up in ridiculous ways. (Actually it'd be kinda funny too if it made some canon character actually believe it and look at him differently)

hi nonny, thank you for the ask! [post referenced]

nooo not the unseen depth zerfghfgc!!!! not the MYSTERIOUSNESS!!!! 😭🤣😭🤣😭🤣 and yeah you bet he ISNT nor was he EVER any of that lmfao, nonny i'm losing it over this.

but okay, now let ME raise you this: 1) i know it in my bones tsuna is the one to buy into all of that bullshit, no questions asked. yes, hyper intuition tsuna, the last one who should buy into it and know better, i know, but no, listen. i KNOW he watches that documentary or whatever and goes "omg, i can't believe i misunderstood skull this whole time. i need to apologize to him right now and do better, and also i should stand up for him from now on and help the others realize they've got it all wrong about him too".

and then no one can stop him or make him change his mind. least of all reborn, who's the one trying the hardest to stop him and change his mind. for a yet undetermined reason, but i just know he canNOT stand that new development, it just makes him soo mad.

wait, no, i just figured out why he'd hate everything about this. it's because he knows skull, thank you very much. he's among the few who got through the obnoxious ordeal of bearing his bullshit long enough to know him, and to even become begrudgingly glad he did and fond of him but we're not going to talk about that, but now? he's just supposed to stand there and be told he's only ever seen the surface of skull? that he--he, of all people--couldn't tell he was just seeing the surface of him? over decades of knowing each other? he's just supposed to let people not recognize and acknowledge the arduous and praiseworthy achievement that is him having gotten past skull's terrible first impressions until they became close for what it is?

he's just about foaming at the mouth, and tsuna does not give a single shit about it because, as everyone knows, reborn is skull's number one hater. and then tsuna's undeterred work to, like, rehabilitate skull's image or something, actually WORKS because if hyper intuition tsuna says so then??? surely there's some truth to it at the very least???? and it works even more because skull does NOTHING to clear up the misunderstanding.

which brings us to point 2) shameless little gremlin that he is to his core, skull absolutely finds this the funniest thing and takes FULL advantage of it. like suddenly tsuna & co (the 10th gen/varia/shimon/etc) start to actually pay attention to him whenever he's around, trying to see """through him""", and skull makes sure to always be all like "oooh look at me not talking much à la hibari, i'm sooo mysterious and definitely thinking some deep thoughts and not trying really hard to not burst out laughing". or like, the arco are their usual rough but playful selves with him, and instead of snapping at them with no heat behind it either in a well-rehearsed routine the way he'd usually do, instead he's all like "oooh look at me and my fake laugh à la yamamoto. am i really laughing this off because i don't mind or am i just doing it to hide how it actually hurt me? there's sooo much unseen depth inside me".

and they buy it. go all like "oh shit??? maybe--????". and the arco are losing their shit because 3) okay look. consider this: the arco are the ones miserable over this, and skull is the one not letting them live down the new-found appreciation everyone else but them suddenly has of him. because like, the arco's reaction to this can only go one of two ways: either they find it just as funny as skull and help him pull off the whole "yeah this is actually the real me, you just didn't care to notice it before" act, OR. they just absolutely canNOT stand it. they're so mad about it. they're sooo mad about it. they did NOT unexpectedly survive through a curse alongside skull, only to hear they somehow missed everything about him that would have made him more bearable lmao. especially from people among whom most of them have never spent more than an hour with him. have never even TALKED to him even once. their blood pressure is through the roof while skull is living his best life and does not give a single shit about it. also becomes best friends with tsuna in the process of this whole thing because i say so.

anyway. i couldn't stop laughing while answering this nonny, i love it so much. and idk if you remember this @cloudspark @ravensilversea @juudaimes-true-form, but here's the hilarious sequel of the netflix's skull series au ezrsfgvhfd

[suratan-zir]

long rant, very personal

nothing new honestly, I know y'all are sick of hearing the same lame story over and over again

sorry

You know how sometimes certain sounds, images or even smells can evoke some nostalgic memories from the past? It happens to everyone, right? To me, it doesn't matter if these flashbacks good or bad, it means I'm screwed either way. It's even worse when the memories are happy, because so many things are gone forever and there is no going back.

Recently I've been playing sims, and they were listening to the radio. I forgot that a long time ago I put some of my favorite songs in one of the folders, so the "Pop" station in the game has some real songs along with Simlish ones. I haven't listened to some of those songs in years.

Then that one song started playing, and an entire part of my life flashed before my eyes. I listened to that song a lot while on the road, during my weekly travels from my hometown in Donetsk oblast (where I was born and lived 'till I was 16) to Donetsk city, where my grandmother and other relatives lived, and where I attended some courses before the uni. I also listened to it on the road to another town, where my other grandma and my best girl friend lived, so I visited her every long holiday.

Why all these boring details are significant in any way?

Both intercity bus stations in Donetsk, which used to be my destination, no longer exist. "Zapadnyi" and "Pulitovskyi" they were called. "Zapadnyi" was located near the airport, so it was completely destroyed in battles for Donetsk airport back when russia first invaded us, in 2014. It wasn't even fully finished before being destroyed.

No buses or passengers there anymore.

"Pulitovskyi" station was not that far too, russian militants even blew up the bridge connecting the station with the city. To be honest, even when I lived in Donetsk, I no longer visited that part of the city, it was just too sad.

I know that it's not important on a surface level, all these places are just decorations, it's not the end of the world. But our memories, our lives consist of such decorations, random places on the map. When everything around falls apart and changes so suddenly, it feels weird and disorienting, most of the time I try to avoid direct contact with these changes, but I can't control my memory.

Fast forward to today, I will probably never be able to return to the city that I used to love so much. And my grandma no longer lives in Donetsk, she's "russian" now, along with brainwashing that often comes with such status. You already know it if you for some reason read my posts. She thinks that russia and putin are saving and liberating us here in Ukraine. I no longer call her "grandma" or call her at all, I have her blocked on my phone, our chat deleted. Funny enough, my ex friend also lives in russia now. Or so she was the last time I checked.

My other grandma from the town in Donetsk oblast left the country and is a refugee now. I have so many great memories of that town, if the russians will advance further in the Donbas (which they are trying to do) the town will become another Bakhmut, Vuhledar, etc. This is Mar'inka now, very close to the aforementioned town:

(and yes, this is a russian tank firing at a house, or what's left of it)

There was a town, now it's a lifeless desert.

I don't have that many memories, because I never had too much going on in my life. I know, it's embarrassing. Not only have I never been to other countries, I haven't even traveled much in Ukraine. My whole life until 2021 was in the Donbas region. Even my vacations were there, we didn't have money to travel. Every summer we would go to the Azov sea, which is now completely under the control of russia. What I wouldn't give to be once again on the shore of that godforsaken sea, even though I can now afford something better. I remember its smell and miss it so much. I was 18 when russia first came to my home to tear it apart. I couldn't live normally, I couldn't plan anything, I couldn't even buy furniture for my apartment because I only dreamt about leaving, and it was impossible to bring anything big with us through all the military posts from Donetsk. Years later, when we thought we are about to finally start living, traveling, enjoying everything that was taken from us for so long… yeah, you know the story.

Now life suddenly seems so short, it's passing by and I'm helpless to change anything. I'm so sick of living through this shit. Sick of the russians stealing my youth, my life, our lives, poisoning our memories, ruining everything around us.

I swear, I held it together before that fucking song started playing. I probably shouldn't post this, I have to at least disable reblogging, it's too embarrassing.

[kinetic-elaboration]

March 30: Mist Pt. 3

Mist: The stunning conclusion. I might mess around with the ending some more, and probably make some other edits etc. before I combined all three parts and post to AO3, but basically, this is it. Is this a conceit that needed 3k words to tell? Probably not, but here we are.

Linctavia fic, Canon-divergence, ~1380 words

For parts 1-2, see the tag "mist" on my blog

*

The fog becomes thicker, impenetrable. There is no more talk of scouting missions, nor of venturing beyond the safety of the camp wall.

Even navigating between the tents, or back and forth from the Dropship, becomes nearly impossible, when every step is shrouded by heavy, thick, slow-shifting whirls of white and gray. Only the vaguest hints of familiar landmarks loom out of the mist, and only sometimes, and in the new quiet that has overtaken the camp, it is now possible to stand at the center of it, very still, and forget for a moment that any last remnants of civilization, or any slow-struggling outgrowths of new life, could yet exist.

Some delinquents have taken to lighting their way with torches, even at noon. At a middle-distance, these grotesque smudges of orange light resemble demonic fire or the outtakes of dragon's breath. Apparitions from bedtime stories and ancient fairy tales.

The fog seeps in around the soft edges of the tents and makes everything damp, brings on a cloying feeling in the lungs. Small groups set up camp in the Dropship, huddle in their sleeping bags and blankets on the top floor, try to wait out the siege.

Octavia feels, as they do, the unease awash all along her skin, the sticky taste of it on her mouth, but she does not abandon home. She will not shut herself up in yet a smaller space. Sometimes, she stands in the stillness, listening for sounds to ground her in the dirt again, feels only the breathless thick, soft mist, and she wonders if this is what it is like at sea. She was, for a time, obsessed with the sea—this was right after Bellamy told her that they too lived on a ship—but even now she's never seen water any wider or deeper than a lake that she can stand in. Imagining an ocean vast beyond limits is like trying to truly fathom the end point of the stars. But she imagines great fog must roll in off such waters, and that the solitude in the middle of the ocean, past the last sight of land, must give a person a similar sense of vertigo as this.

The sense of being unmoored, drifting without anchor. Reaching out blind, trying to discern the shapes of things.

She wonders if this world is perhaps but a dream.

Only Lincoln does not complain about the weather, or express unease, or ask when it will end. He says little at all. Octavia follows his habits, tries to discern habits, but sees only that he is adrift, too. Searching without seeing. Some days he eats not at all, and others he is ravenous, and she gives him her rations and faces hardly any argument in return. He stays up late, tossing and turning and restless, throwing his weight against the cot with creaks and whines; the next day he sleeps, deeper than the dead sleep. Wakes from dreams clutching at his chest, as if his heart were pounding. Holds his hands up to the campfire at night, so close his palms should burn, watches them with flickers of firelight reflecting in his eyes. His mouth parted and awed. Stalks the perimeter, impossibly quiet, nearly invisible amid thick clouds of fog. Flickers of an outline of his solid, familiar body appear for a moment and then disappear again, as insubstantial now as puffs of smoke.

One day, he sits hunched over on the cot in their tent and flips through the pages of his sketchbook, eyes narrowed with fascination, as if he were viewing his own work for the first time. He runs his fingers over the lines of graphite, across the rough-cut paper-edges, traces the curves and angles of the Dropship, reproduced, or the image of Octavia's face.

She suggests, after a while, that he might want to sketch something again, but he throws the suggestion roughly away.

"What's gotten into you?" she snaps. But he looks up at her and through her and says nothing.

She exhales a sharp breath, feeling her nostrils flare. She could ask him just who he is, and what he did with her Lincoln, the man that she knows—she could ask him what happened to him out there, which is what she really means—but there's no point in wasting breath on such things. He'd never say. He never does.

Instead, she breaks his stare, and instead climbs up and slots herself behind him, in the narrow space between his back and the wall of the tent. There is no morning or noon or evening now, only cycles of darkness and gray, and now it is gray, and they are sitting without light in the persistent dampness and the shadow. She rests her hands gently on his shoulders first.

"Why don't you tell me a story?" And, when he does not push her away, "Like you used to. Stories about your clan or about the woods or about growing up—"

"Stories."

He says the word like a curse, and she pauses in her movements, her hands working to unknot the kinks along his shoulders, her fingers just about to gently graze against his neck. She cranes her own neck forward to try to look at him. He throws the sketchbook across the tent so that it hits the opposite wall and then falls to the ground, and she almost jerks herself forward to try to save it—but if damage was done, it's been done. She doesn't want to take her hands from him.

"You don't," he tries again, through gritted teeth, "understand—"

"Because you won't explain it to me!"

An ugly instinct tells her to push him away, but instead, she wraps her arms around his neck and clings to him, her chin digging into his shoulder, tries to wrap her whole self around him like this could secure him, not just to her, but to himself, to the earth, to life—give him tether and make him feel real. She's breathing hard as if from exertion. Harsh outtakes of breath hit against the shell of Lincoln's ear.

Slowly, he raises his hands and grabs at her arms, clinging to her, too.

She sinks into him, eyelids fluttering closed, and she does not so much kiss the side of his face as press her open mouth against his skin, cold and clammy skin to skin, and now that she is here, she takes to pressing kisses next to his ear, against his cheek, down along his jaw. She slides around him, and he pulls at her, until she settles on his lap. His arms circle around her tightly. They are scrambling for each other. She kisses him breathlessly. Something is rising, rising, and she is sinking beneath it. When she pulls back to look at his face, she sees a near-familiar spark across it, as if he has found something still-familiar to him too.

Slowly, still locking eyes with him, she pushes off his jacket, and then, despite the shiver in the air, she grabs the hem of his shirt and pulls it off him, too. Still he only looks at her. She passes her palms down his chest.

Stops, and frowns, at an unfamiliar rise, like a small ridge, across the skin.

When she glances down, she sees that her fingers have found an ugly, flared red gash just over his heart, like an unhealed scar, or a wound that has only barely stopped its bleeding. She reels back. "What—did—did you tell Clarke—"

His gaze still hasn't left her face, his eyes wide and unblinking. But in his answer, she feels a rush as if of held-breath released, of relief. "Why would I?" he asks. "There's nothing she can do.”

Her own lungs hitch. She pulls her hand away, only half an inch, and then on the exhales, presses her palm flat against the blazing red gash again. She feels nothing underneath it. No heartbeat, and only a mechanical, rote working of lungs.

Nothing she can do.

Nothing—because it's already over. It's done. Something has been taken, and, from out there beyond the fog, on the other side of the river, beneath the Mountain, something has been returned. Like Lincoln himself, she is powerless to understand what.

[rray-gunn]

Friends at the Table: PALISADE NOTES Ep 3: Conflict Turn session 1

EDIT: tumblr’s bullet point formatting is absolute ass, so here’s a link to my cohost where you can view the exact same post but, uh, prettier to read. If anyone has tips for formatting bullet points in tumblr lmk.

SPOILERS UNDER THE READMORE!

*Note: I take these notes as I listen, so they’re kind of a chronological reading guide to help me as I re-listen. I hope I got everything correct, but there will inevitably be mistakes with my spelling and comprehension of events that happen in these episodes. PLEASE feel free to let me know if I missed or misinterpreted anything. These notes are to help me and others make sense of the really dense and lore-heavy conflict turn episodes, so it’s important to me that I’m as accurate as I can be. I’m posting these notes on my tumblr and cohost. If you can think of anything that would be helpful for future notes posts, such as timestamps, links, fanart images, etc, please let me know. -Ray*

Jack’s faction:

Division:

The Curtain (Stel Kesh) as Bilateral Intelligence Services. Formerly called the Curtain, the BIS is a Kesh-operated organization which specializes in espionage, subterfuge, and surveillance. Though it is as secretive as ever, it is no longer the true source of power in Kesh territory. Instead, Cynosure Whitestar-Kesh has modernized its structure and operation, and has ensured that it remains well integrated into the Bilateral Intercession’s greater workings—as to better keep one eye on them.

Major division

Type: Subterfuge (deploying spies or agents to deal with things covertly)

3 pillars:

1) Diadem Grav Train

Kesh has reactivated this railway via an operation center in Carmathen.

It can circumnavigate the planet

Very scary and fast

2) Stargrave Elcessor

Ensures Kesh’s primacy.

Woman from Kesh, collects vintage cameras, went to military school

3) The Paint Shop

Elaborate castle on the tallest peak, taken over & added on to

Anor Londo but if it was a bohemian artist’s commune full of spies

This is the most Cold War-esque shit ever JDQ I love you so much

Imagine Warhol-esque parties where people do performance art by splashing paint on an object and several floors below there’s a guy sitting in a room wearing headphones listening to everyone

After Palisade:

Peaceful Princept reconfigured the curtain into this current form

A modern organization for a new time. It’s the CIA.

Have deployed on Palisade

Seek to control/control the following:

Carleon-Upon-Whisk, Carmathen, Steeple Cateric (headquarters), Tintagel (military base),

Stargrave: a senior kesh military executive such as an admiral

They have the “authority” to destroy the nearest star, akin to US nuclear launch codes.

Leader is the Princept

Stargrave reports up to them

Kesh:

The oldest established power in the galaxy, built around a stuffy (and secretive) aristocracy. They are tied to the Past. History, knowledge, stubbornness.

Art’s faction:

Division:

Stel Nideo as the Divine Crusade. Leads Stel Nideo’s occupation on Palisade along with their Elect, Gentian. Crusade is an enormous, bipedal machine covered (or perhaps made with) beautiful stained glass.

Minor division

Type: Curator (stealing that which doesn’t belong to them whoops all British)

3 pillars:

1) New Asterism

Settler colonial project intent on taking over and replacing the populace culture of Palisade

Fake Gur Sevraq: “cultivate saplings” it’s a very manifest destiny vibe, a very “tame the wild west” vibe, very “these people weren’t doing this right and we are going to cultivate this land

2) Bontive Valley

Blessed by the Divine Bounty, a heartland that provides highly nutritional grain, etc

This is where you’ll find Crusade walking around trying to make people associate them with providing food rather than knives

Also its close to Carleon-Upon-Whisk and therefore close to Kesh and the Fab Duchy

Also very near one of the big conflict fronts

3) The Divine Resonance

Watchful guardian and caregiver/supporter of the Nidean colonial project on Palisade

It’s everywhere. It’s a surveillance system. Everyone knows it’s there and is touted as a parental, protective Alexa

The state protects and attends to its settlers.

It also is monitoring for “terrorists” and Millennium Break.

The Divine Crusade

Giant stained glass figure

Beautiful, terrible, made with Independence tech from TM (Twilight Mirage)

Nideo:

Created the largest faith in the empire, and used that influence to shape (and surveil) mass culture. They are tied to the Present. Faith, coercion, stability.

Control the following:

Temple of the threshold (home of new asterism and its false prophet),

Aram’s Gate

City City

A fever dream. City is a verb. City is a noun. City is an adjective. We are city. We city.

A joint project btwn Nideo and the Frontier Syndicate. The output of something in Baseline (the data town)

Austin’s faction

Division:

The Frontier Syndicate as the March Institute

Minor division

Type: research (developing new Enchantments ™ and Rituals ™ )

3 pillars:

1) Lone Marble Group

Builds BiLat war machinery

Based around one artifact recovered from an advent facility, in southeast Greenfield

AKA THE FUCKING MARBLE FROM TM

2) Divine Arbitrage

The amoral machine turned de facto treasurer

Operates out of Braunton

Runs commerce, everyone’s favorite capitalism algorithm

Currency: Glint

3) Composure’s Colosseum

 Operated by a revived Divine that instrumentalizes data from fucked up sports aka gladiator fights babyeeee

How can fucked up bloodthirsty sports give us #bigdata???

Frontier Syndicate:

A powerful conglomerate with a broad purview, including technology, heavy industry, entertainment, telecommunications, and transportation. Led by Exenceaster March (he/him), the Syndicate betrayed the Pact of Free States and joined the Bilats in order to be part of their colonization efforts on Palisade.

Founded/led by Exenceaster March

He’s an entrepreneur that left the Pact of Necessary Venture (aka now the Pact of Free States) to join the Bilateral Intercession

 (see Downstairs episodes in Road to Palisade)

Made up of many subsidiaries such as:

The March Institute (the leading subsidiary)

It’s a bunch of different companies that make up one super-company

Think same structure as ancient OriCon from Counter/WEIGHT

It’s a bit of Columnar, a little bit of Orion,

Pioneering new styles of technological military and social exploitation

Kinda concerned with the future. Think AI shit, chatgpt, etc and the kinds of problems from big tech companies. Elon Musk loooooves the Frontier Syndicate.

Comprises: Most of shale belt mineral highlands by Braunton, Baseline (the fucked up data town, like an atomic doom town, where people get to live there for free so long as they sign away their rights to informed consent and they get experimented on for #bigdata)

Misc Divisions (parts of the Cause, AKA MB)

Jade Kill

A military camp.

Based in Joyous Guard, former Fab Duchy city (see Wagon Wheel game)

Leader: August Righteousness, revolutionary chef who executed a crusader king’s plot

captured the ex-leader of the Fab Duchy, who is upset at how the Stargrave runs things now

Military arm of the cause

Operated by Kalar’s Giant Killer unit

and a wing of Swordbreakers

Violet Cove

A strange type of faction dealing with weird and unexplained

A bunch of weirdos and oddballs.

The Dim Liturgy (cult) and the Divine Devotion (cult)

Dim Liturgy: a cult whos sacred text is the battered and corrupted backup of Crystal Palace’s final predictions for the future.

They predicted that they would sign up with Devotion. And so they signed up with Devotion.

Just two bestie cults working together against the BiLats!

Grey Pond

With members of the Oxblood Clan, the Company of the Spade, and the Shale Belt's Concrete Front, these blue collar revolutionaries are experts at getting the Cause the equipment it needs (and maintaining what it has when that's the only available option).

Supplier type

New equipment and supplies

Based in Sinder Karst (like the Sierra Madres- sometimes insurgents go into the hills because hills are good for hiding insurgents.)

They’ve taken the top bit of the Frontier Syndicate’s territory in the Shale Belt.

Carmine Bight

From ramshackle additions to the rocky shores of Rifle Island, Captain Skelton Knaggs (he/him) and his fearsome flotilla launch rusted pirate vessels beneath the waves, guided by a coalition of Hyphan navigators.

Submarine pirates!

Type: adventurers. Bold action and unpredictable actions.

Long descendants of the Lineage Brighton, etc.

Rose River

Though they are undoubtedly committed to the Cause, this unique research unit (combining Veronique (she/her), her Divine Fealty (any pronouns), and their followers with an out-of-time NEH Sleep Detachment squad) hope for a day when they can be something other than soldiers.

(see first ep of Road to Palisade: On their way to the gates of the TM, Fealty and Veronique found an old NEH sleep detachment ship that needed help, and whoops ANOTHER CULT FORMED

Based in New Oath

Oh cool, another Divine kneeling over a town……

Melancholy war story vibe. Touchstone is “thin red line,” a WWII film that, dreamlike, builds and overwhelms into an outbreak of violence.

When we last saw Veronique, her cockpit was filling with the colors of the TM, and all of the sleep detachment people have awoken from a long, long sleep- remember how Morning’s Observation felt? It’s very dreamlike.

The people who were in there were actually in the episode descriptions for some TM episodes: Lani and Tee (frank ocean and tyler the creator as college kids) that were going to school- there’s lecture notes- and got in a pod and got shot through space and woke up thousands of years later and woke up and the war that they didn’t have any strong feelings about- it was just a job, easy money- the war was over, and replaced by a different war that they are immediately caught up in. So yeah that’s the vibe

Wayward factions:

The Crown of Glass

The domain of the Witch in Glass

 largest non-BiLat city on the planet

has assets from the principality and palisade itself

type: bandits. Robbery and sabotage.

The Afflictions

Type: despoilers

Ravel

A massive brain neuron traveling the hills and valleys

Refrain

An abandoned theater which appears as if from nowhere, with the projection of a person on the stage

Cleave

The dragon made of knives is this one’s minion

Scary beast

Dust

“what if a mummy could be a mech?”

Oversight

Slowly moving statue whose faces are always fluctuating under a shroud

The Pact of Free States

***********

NOW THE CONFLICT STARTS BAYBEEEE

Note: Grip = HP

Recapping which factions are controlled by which players-

JDQ: Bilateral Intelligence Service, Rose River, Carmine Bight

AMT: Stel Nideo, Violet Cove, Crown of Glass

AW: Frontier Syndicate, Jade Kill, Grey Pond, the Afflictions

 Bilateral Intelligence Service’s turn

Passive ability: Every turn, place 1 grip on a faction or pillar of your choice

Divisions want to gain authority on factions/pillars

Places 1 grip on the Violet Cove.

A spy is sent:

Marlon Styx, big eyebrows, pious stern bald man pulls up on a rowboat.

A champagne bottle opens. An artist is painting something gaudy. We travel down the floors of The Paint Shop, past an art party, past a security guard, past an office with people sketching on a wall, deeper into the bowels of the castle where someone’s working on art in a production room, painting stripes on horse armor, further down until we get to a 70’s British conference room with an overhead projector. The presenter is sent to replace the director of this operation.

Interference: Violet Cove interferes (namely the Dim Liturgy, the ones that follow the predictive engine of Crystal Palace)

Someone reads in a book about the spy being sent. They see how the events unfold.

Fool Factotum, a junior agent in the BIS, in a simple grey skirt and jacket, a little hat, pale and short wavy brown hair, cold grey eyes, thin gaunt features, either 27 or 47, you cannot tell. She/her. She’s among a group of 14-15 people.

It’s year 1429 of the Perfect Millennium. The lights go down, and a man stands from the front row. He’s totally unremarkable looking- you wouldn’t be able to describe his features an hour later, totally generic. He looks like George Smiley. He thanks the previous director for their work in setting up this operation in this building. He gestures to the screen and it shows “adagio in G.”

Summary: “My name is Ryar Conidine. I’ve spent most of my career in the BIS. I specialized in psychological operations and folklore. Did service, became a teacher, and now the Princept has ordered me to join the service again. A brief history lesson: For basically ever, Kesh has been a principality of spies. Understatement. 5000 years ago, our predecessors started a psychological operation. Using the future-seeing power of an oracle engine, they generated 100,000s of near perfect predictions. They were made in a loop, and over 2000 years, actors played out these predictions and made sure they would happen. I have been sent to Palisade to bring the planet on the cycle. The machine has been lost, but Kesh understands that we must adapt. Workshops are being constructed. Prop makers are assembling quite the paint shop. We are distributing predictions. A star will fall, and our ships are in position to shoot down the satellite. Our alliance with the Fab Duchy. They pass down their predecessors in liquid inside glass bodies. We are infiltrating them and making one of them into a puppet, so their entire people think it’s all normal. We are making the planet go into a dance. Any questions?”

People are confused and awestruck. One says “sir, what does this have to do with intelligence?” “Control of all kinds is intensely useful.”

Fool Factotum: “we don’t have eyes in a number of places. How will we get those people in costume?” aka pointing out blind spots. Answer: “we know this won’t be easy. I’ve been assured of mutual cooperation with March.”

In the texts back at Violet Cove: The outcome is predicted- It’s arrogance. Being in the war college is not the same as being in the war.

NEVERMIND REROLL IT, SAYS AUSTIN!

Somewhere on the island of the broken key, a devotion cultist, says “the game’s on!” and they turn on their TV, helping Composure’s Coliseum collect data.  Welcome to GPT style generated content.

2 major sports on Palisade: basketball and basically bloodbowl but with mechs

This does not reflect in the Dim Liturgy’s book. This is one of the ways that the book is broken. The book itself is weird Nostradamus junk: vague and weird.

So basically they’re going to do this psyop with sports.

There begins to be leaks. “Did you hear that this was predicted?” “no it wasn’t, you buffoon”

There’s a spy both ways: one in steeple cateric, one in Violet Cove. The monks saw there was an opportunity to put someone in. They’ve swapped spies lol

Marlon is the spy working for Violet Cove (doing both sides)

Outcome:

Do they do the plan? Yes.

Who benefits the most? BIS.

Recap as explained by Austin in Ep4: It’s festival season! There’s been a lot of community outreach from…. Somewhere??? (this represents a new plan deployed by Stel Kesh via the Paint Shop: they are putting the planet on cycle. The BIS’s new plan, called Adagio in G. (From TM, the principality of Kesh used to be “on cycle”. Their entire lives were scripted. If you deviated, you were inducted into the rapid evening and shipped off to the edge of the principality where you could defend everybody on the interior remaining on cycle.) Here, on Palisade, Kesh thinks it would be cool to do that again. Except they don’t have the predictive engine Crystal Palace (aka Divine Past) anymore so it’ll be more difficult. But they’re doing this by making people participate in local harvest plays, getting more involved in sports, etc. Dressing up and putting on plays. One such thing: They decided that a woman on a white horse would show up. This is easy to do. They have infiltrated the Fabreal Duchy and got a horse of the right color, and a new long-lost duchess of folklore showed up. Like people claiming to be descendants of the long lost Russian royalty, like the fake Anastasia. This prediction was made by either/both the remains of Crystal Palace, or people in the Paint Shop.

   Stel Nideo’s turn

Passive ability: start or advance a 4-part clock titled “take something that’s not yours”

Scene: Discourse.

Gentian (the elect of Crusade) is holding a reception at the foot of Crusade. She is impossibly old. She has four attendants. She is wearing an embroidered robe. The reception has little sandwiches.

Two swordbearers (for a Soul Edge-esque sword that can be split in two: Ramondra sh/sh and Ignadiah h/h)

One who holds a ceremonial big cup cut from one giant emerald (Pereval th/th)

One who holds a big book of crusades. (Clawed, 6’5”, muscular, the book is super heavy for him. h/h)

If Gentian dies, one of these four will be the next elect of Crusade.

In Dark Souls, you would fight them separately except the swordbearers would be one boss fight. They are rivals.

Pereval opens the ceremony, holding the cup in both hands. “welcome to the Bontive Valley. Eat our food and bask in the warm light of crusade.” There are people sitting on blankets, there are columnar, Fab Duchy, etc. Ramondra makes a subtly snide remark at Pereval. Clawed talks flippantly about their duties. “Isn’t there more important work to be doing right now?” Gentian, who is supernatural in her speed, leaves another conversation and interrupts Clawed, who persists and doubles down that this reception is not as important as, say, fighting the Concrete Front. She explains how the project of Crusade is about fighting, sure, but this is equally important: there’s a lot of diplomats and important inventors/sympathists here and this is one of the ways we win the war.

Kenneth Marion Culver, the viceroy of Kesh on Palisade who works underneath the Stargrave (famously quoted: “you can’t colonize your own home!”) comes over to try to pull Gentian away. This is the person who gets sent out to talk to people. “Your excellency, we need to talk about these bread rates.” He is an unctuous person demanding cheaper bread prices. “It’s so important, I agree,” says Gentian, “but I am busy.” Culver remarks that “the Stargrave will take notice” and Gentian, annoyed, makes Pereval discuss the bread. No one at all from Crusade gives two shits about bread taxes. They’re from the place where the bread is free. But this is also about how Culver wants *Bontive* bread. It’s almost a holy thing. Otherwise they would be going to Arbitrage.

A Baroque chamber ensemble plays. Ramondra and Ignadiah flirt: they’re both trying to be the most interesting person at the function. One was invited to hunt quail with the duke. The other was invited to hunt boar. How boar-ish, one remarks. They keep this up.

A new duke arrives on a horse. This was predicted. Perpetual Luster, the Duke of Glass, was kidnapped and is being held at Joyous Guard. But now a new duke arrives. A Fab Duchy duke: Constantina Malady. (So they have a new Duke now??? They replaced the old one?? Oooooo) They arrive with a gift for Gentian, with a train of delegates in tow. She makes a show of announcing that she has returned from travel and welcomes her people “from the stars.” She’s ornate, made of glass, with a cool toga thing. The gift is in a large trunk, and Gentian grins as she sees what’s inside.

Frontier Syndicate’s turn

Passive ability: The director may force a re-roll every scene.

Scene: a chase.

We go back to the events of the previous episode. The Blue Channel crew is getting on the ship with their new comrades, the two Twill and Partial Palisade, in the Fundament Node. We see it from afar, as if from a digital pair of binoculars, zoomed in, with a living watercolor effect on the zoomed in version.

Members of the authority attack on this place from the table siege tower mech that shot out people- those people got out in the weirdly lit green valley in the bottom of the diadem.

This person is trying to get away and they go to their pickup line but it’s the grav train and it isn’t working right now! Thanks blue channel.

There’s a group that is a subsidiary of the Frontier Syndicate called Locke & Cross security services, who are two divorced columnar women too committed to the cause to actually separate the business, and this is Margate Locke, retreating. Her crew didn’t make it, but she has the information, she saw it with her painting goggles. She’s trying to get away to any major BiLat location for a pickup. Who is chasing her?

There’s a fully stocked library from 5000 years ago, deep underground in the Diadem, this fully ready city that no one ever moved into.

Someone is lying on their back in a pile of papers. They pick up the papers and read them over their head, shining a flashlight held in their mouth on the papers. This is Candle’s Penumbra. She has long blond hair that’s getting filled with dust. Her walkie talkie blips up on a shelf and it falls and hits an old tape projector. A video about the Diadem clicks on, volume off, but the clicking and whirring of the tape persists. Gucci Garunteen’s voice comes through. “Rose River agent, this is Watershed. Come in.”

Candle’s puts her hand between the projector and the wall, watching the dust motes catch in the light. “Yes?” There’s a loose end she needs to tie up. Coordinates are given. “Huh. Okay.”

Candle’s leads Locke into a trap. There are parks and homes and shops around. This was a supermall that was supposed to be a place to live in. There was supposed to be a bridal shop here, and it shows three mannequins with decaying dresses. In the back, sheets of white silk and velvet and chiffon hang from the ceiling, in endless rows. Locke is led into this maze of white fabric. Margate Locke is white, like a porcelain figure. Her individual plates are either unpainted or pristine. There, among the white sheets, she is led into a trap. An ancient AI projection of a ghost tailor and a ghost bride turn on, perfect and heteronormative, going from fitting for the dress to kissing the groom at the wedding, and sanding in the background of the wall of the dress fitting is Candle’s Penumbra, projection flitting across her, and as the scene changes to the happy couples faces turning in to profile to kiss, her face is between them staring forward, jarring. She draws a weapon. It’s a flail.

Sparks bounce off Locke’s porcelain body as this blond woman with dusty hair lays into her. One of Locke’s plates on her plated arm shatters like glass. She lifts her other arm and smashes the inner glass as a way to launch the shrapnel into Candle’s face. She makes a run for it.

The camera goes into super slow motion. The frame rate is bad. The projector is still going, catching the shattered glass. Candle’s tackles Locke. They fall from the balcony on back of the bridal shop into the back of another shop, a floor below.

Margate Locke is not unprepared. Candle’s stands up, and they see Locke, 8 times, as 8 Margates begin clone jutsu. Candle’s goes for one of them immediately, caught in the dusty mania of the chase. They go over a bridge.

The bridge breaks. It shatters. Candle’s falls and grabs Locke’s belt. Somehow Locke wins this thing.

You thought you won but you didn’t- Locke’s body breaks the fall and the panels shatter, exposing the standard columnar body. Last minute, Locke gets one bar of signal and sends back the data she has about the little Twill village, in the fundament node, the person/figure that left, the members of the blue channel. In doing that, Locke has her back turned to Candle’s. We see the flail.

A clock is started: Harvest the Fundament Nodes.

Fundament Nodes are tied to something ancient in Palisade (meaning the corpse of the Divine Palisade)

(definition: things deep in the belly of the planet that lets you control huge parts of what the planet is/does)

*****

If you read this far, thanks! Again, please feel free to let me know if I need to correct any mistakes. The Adagio in G plan was particularly dense for me. I had to listen to it a few times to figure out what was happening exactly. These notes are mostly for me, so they’re formatted in my preferred style (bullet points), which I know can be a bit much for some people so bear with me. I’m also going to post the maps with some small annotations I did but I’ll do that in a different post as this one is long enough. Bye! -Ray

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Year-end personal goals and culture roundup for 2024:

Goals

There were a few goals I actively tried to work toward and some that I forgot about almost as soon as the year began.

Culture stuff:

Read more books (preferably: at least 1 book that I have owned for > 1 year; at least 1 book translated into English): partly done (12 books, including 1 translated into English). The idea was to spend less time mindlessly scrolling social media, which didn't really work. Separate post here.

Watch 2 seasons of a television show (preferably fiction, not reality TV): partly done (1/2). Watched the first season of 3 Body Problem but did not get around to watching Supergirl. Technically I did watch The Great British Baking Show but not counting that as I was trying to watch something reasonably new.

Take a few notes on everything I see live and post it here: mostly done (15/20). There are still five shows from November and December without posts which I will hopefully get to soon.

Health etc.:

Work less: technically done, but could have been better. The end of the year was particularly rough.

Spend 10 minutes, 3 days/week doing any type of exercise: not done. Honestly I made no effort at all on this goal so I need to figure out a different approach.

Political/civic engagement goals

Read more local news: probably not done. Slightly trickly to evaluate since I ended up unsubscribing from the LA Times because of their recent editorial debacle. Now putting my money toward LAist, but I will miss the local theater coverage.

Learning

Listen to/watch media in Swedish at least twice a week: not done. Dropped all of the language goals 1) for time and 2) because it felt like a lot more effort to track than I intended. Another one where I should find a different approach.

Listen to/watch media in Spanish at least twice a month: not done.

Read my language vocabulary list once a week, because I lose non-English vocab very quickly: not done.

Learn how to cook four things I have never made before: done (4/4). Made madeleines, cinnamon rolls, hot dog buns, and a Hungarian-style goulash. All turned out pretty well and I'd probably make them again.

Theater

Separate post here.

Music

Basically Lempicka, and everything else. Most-played tracks other than that:

"God of Nowhere" from The Lonely Few, written by Zoe Sarnak, performed by the off-Broadway cast.

"I Won't Shake (La La Gunilla)" by Gunilla Persson. I don't generally believe in guilty pleasures but I feel a little bit guilty about this.

"Rock the Machine" by Lisa O'Neill

Television

Discussed above under Goals.

Movies

Both old and new, and all ones where I read the book a long time ago:

Wicked – The only movie I saw in a theater this year. It was pretty good, looking forward to the next one. Sort of fun to hear the conversations about book vs. musical happening more broadly. I was worried about the long runtime but it felt pretty reasonably paced to me, especially compared to the stage version (which I like a lot but really rushes through the plot).

Nimona – Vaguely remember reading the graphic novel. Took a while to get used to the protagonist in animation rather than as a still image but it was a fun watch.

Ender's Game – Another one where I read the book a long time ago and liked it (before the author's political views were well known, fwiw). The movie not so much, but can't recall specifics of why. I want to say that aging up the characters and compressing the timeline makes some of the themes less effective.

I feel like I should try to watch more movies.

Books

Separate post here

[jcmarchi]

Alex Fink, Tech Executive, Founder & CEO of the Otherweb – Interview Series

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/alex-fink-tech-executive-founder-ceo-of-the-otherweb-interview-series/

Alex Fink, Tech Executive, Founder & CEO of the Otherweb – Interview Series

Alex Fink is a Tech Executive and the Founder and CEO of the Otherweb, a Public Benefit Corporation that uses AI to help people read news and commentary, listen to podcasts and search the web without paywalls, clickbait, ads, autoplaying videos, affiliate links, or any other ‘junk’ content. Otherweb is available as an app (iOS and Android), a website, a newsletter, or a standalone browser extension. Prior to Otherweb, Alex was Founder and CEO of Panopteo and Co-founder and Chairman of Swarmer.

Can you provide an overview of Otherweb and its mission to create a junk-free news space?

Otherweb is a public benefit corporation, created to help improve the quality of information people consume.

Our main product is a news app that uses AI to filter junk out, and to allow users unlimited customizations – controlling every quality-threshold and every sorting mechanism the app uses.

In other words, while the rest of the world creates black-box algorithms to maximize user engagement, we want to give users as much value in as little time as possible, and we make everything customizable. We even made our AI models and datasets source-available so people can see exactly what we’re doing and how we evaluate content.

What inspired you to focus on combating misinformation and fake news using AI?

I was born in the Soviet Union and saw what happens to a society when everyone consumes propaganda, and no one has any idea what’s going on in the world. I have vivid memories of my parents waking up at 4am, locking themselves in the closet, and turning on the radio to listen to Voice of America. It was illegal of course, which is why they did it at night and made sure the neighbors couldn’t hear – but it gave us access to real information. As a result, we left 3 months before it all came tumbling down and war broke out in my hometown.

I actually remember seeing photos of tanks on the street I grew up on and thinking “so this is what real information is worth”.

I want more people to have access to real, high-quality information.

How significant is the threat of deepfakes, particularly in the context of  influencing elections? Can you share specific examples of how deepfakes have been used to spread misinformation and the impact they had?

In the short term, it’s a very serious threat.

Voters don’t realize that video and audio recordings can no longer be trusted. They think video is evidence that something happened, and 2 years ago this was still true, but now it’s obviously no longer the case.

This year, in Pakistan, Imran Khan voters got calls from Imran Khan himself, personally, asking them to boycott the election. It was fake, of course, but many people believed it.

Voters in Italy saw one of their female politicians appear in a pornographic video. It was fake, of course, but by the time the fakery was uncovered – the damage was done.

Even here in Arizona, we saw a newsletter advertise itself by showing an endorsement video starring Kari Lake. She never endorsed it, of course, but the newsletter still got thousands of subscribers.

So come November, I think it’s almost inevitable that we’ll see at least one fake bombshell. And it’s very likely to drop right before the election and turn out to be fake right after the election – when the damage has already been done.

How effective are current AI tools in identifying deepfakes, and what improvements do you foresee in the future?

In the past, the best way to identify fake images was to zoom in and look for the characteristic mistakes (aka “artifacts”) image creators tended to make. Incorrect lighting, missing shadows, uneven edges on certain objects, over-compression around the objects, etc.

The problem with GAN-based editing (aka “deepfake”) is that none of these common artifacts are present. The way the process works is that one AI model edits the image, and another AI model looks for artifacts and points them out – and the cycle is repeated over and over again until there are no artifacts left.

As a result, there is generally no way to identify a well-made deepfake video by looking at the content itself.

We have to change our mindset, and to start assuming that the content is only real if we can trace its chain of custody back to the source. Think of it like fingerprints. Seeing fingerprints on the murder weapon is not enough. You need to know who found the murder weapon, who brought it back to the storage room, etc – you have to be able to trace every single time it changed hands and make sure it wasn’t tampered with.

What measures can governments and tech companies take to prevent the spread of misinformation during critical times such as elections?

The best antidote to misinformation is time. If you see something that changes things, don’t rush to publish – take a day or two to verify that it’s actually true.

Unfortunately, this approach collides with the media’s business model, which rewards clicks even if the material turns out to be false.

How does Otherweb leverage AI to ensure the authenticity and accuracy of the news it aggregates?

We’ve found that there’s a strong correlation between correctness and form. People who want to tell the truth tend to use certain language that emphasizes restraint and humility, whereas people who disregard the truth try to get as much attention as possible.

Otherweb’s biggest focus is not fact-checking. It’s form-checking. We select articles that avoid attention-grabbing language, provide external references for every claim, state things as they are, and don’t use persuasion techniques.

This method is not perfect, of course, and in theory a bad actor could write a falsehood in the exact style that our models reward. But in practice, it just doesn’t happen. People who want to tell lies also want a lot of attention – this is the thing we’ve taught our models to detect and filter out.

With the increasing difficulty in discerning real from fake images, how can platforms like Otherweb help restore user trust in digital content?

The best way to help people consume better content is to sample from all sides, pick the best of each, and exercise a lot of restraint. Most media are rushing to publish unverified information these days. Our ability to cross-reference information from hundreds of sources and focus on the best items allows us to protect our users from most forms of misinformation.

What role does metadata, like C2PA standards, play in verifying the authenticity of images and videos?

It’s the only viable solution. C2PA may or may not be the right standard, but it’s clear that the only way to validate whether the video you’re watching reflects something that actually happened in reality, is to a) ensure the camera used to capture the video was only capturing, and not editing, and b) ensure that no one edited the video after it left the camera. The best way to do that is to focus on metadata.

What future developments do you anticipate in the fight against misinformation and deepfakes?

I think that, within 2-3 years, people will adapt to the new reality and change their mindset. Before the 19th century, the best form of proof was testimony from eyewitnesses. Deepfakes are likely to cause us to return to these tried-and-true standards.

With misinformation more broadly, I believe it’s necessary to take a more nuanced view and separate disinformation (i.e. false information that is intentionally created to mislead) from junk (i.e. information that is created to be monetized, regardless of its truthfulness).

The antidote to junk is a filtering mechanism that makes junk less likely to proliferate. It would change the incentive structure that makes junk spread like wildfire. Disinformation will still exist, just as it has always existed. We’ve been able to cope with it throughout the 20th century, and we’ll be able to cope with it in the 21st.

It’s the deluge of junk we have to worry about, because that’s the part we are ill-equipped to handle right now. That’s the main problem humanity needs to address.

Once we change the incentives, the signal-to-noise ratio of the internet will improve for everyone.

Thank you for the great interview, readers who wish to learn more should visit the Otherweb website, or follow them on X or LinkedIn.

[itswavelengths]

How to Use Mastodon

I've been getting extremely into Mastodon, a social media platform that cleanly replicates (and in some cases improves upon) Twitter's take on microblogging. I've read, watched, and listened to a lot of explainers about the service, and for some reason most begin by claiming how difficult the platform is to use. The truth is that the hardest part of using Mastodon is creating your account — and even that is about as difficult as deciding where to set up an email address. In the end, using Mastodon is wildly similar to using Twitter.

With that in mind, here's everything you need to know about getting started!

If you feel comfortable poking around and figuring things out for yourself and just want the quickest quick-start guide of all time, feel free to skip the rest of this post and just follow these steps: 1. Head over to https://mas.to and sign up for an account 2. Have fun exploring a new social platform 3. Start posting, baybee!

For those who want a bit more, I got you.

What is Mastodon?

Mastodon is a social network for posting short bits of text or images, just like Twitter. Unlike Twitter, which is an entity that relies on investors and revenue to keep the lights on, Mastodon is an open source project. It has no algorithm and no ads.

It's pretty good!

Why is that better?

It means an Elon Musk style figure can never swoop in, buy the entire platform, fire most of its staff, remove content moderation policies and user safety precautions, ban journalists who disagree with him, etc. While you can only go to twitter.com to access and use Twitter, Mastodon can and does reside on many websites around the internet. Existing through multiple communities — sometimes called "instances" or "servers" — prevents it from being owned and operated by one individual or corporate entity. Anyone can create their own Mastodon server. Some servers have only one user, some have hundreds of thousands.

If there are so many servers, how do I know which to join? What if I pick the wrong one?

That's the beautiful thing, dear reader. Every server speaks to every other server. No matter which you join you'll be able to follow, be followed by, and interact with users on every other server. Because of this, you only need to make one account on one server to join Mastodon¹.

Even better: If you don't like the server you've joined for whatever reason, you can easily move your account to another.

You still didn't tell me which one to join, my guy.

True! To make things as easy as possible, the community I'd recommend right now is mas.to. I had an account there for a few months, and I initially picked it because I liked the name a lot! It's short and it's cute!

If you want to peruse some other options, you can head over to Join Mastodon and check out servers that are based around regions, professions, ideologies, or fandoms. Whichever server you end up picking, that url will be the one you visit whenever you want to use Mastodon. Just like going to twitter.com or facebook.com, that server url will be how you log in and post and do everything your heart desires. So if you do end up choosing mas.to as your server, using Mastodon will mean going to https://mas.to!

How do I make an account?

Head over to your server of choice and click the "Create Account" button (usually on right side of the screen). If you've signed up for any website ever, you'll know what to do here. You'll also notice that your username is presented like an email address — username@server.name — and exactly like an email address this is what you'll send to your friends when you want to follow each other.

For example: My server is located at theaether.space and my username on that server is bb, so my username for the wider world of Mastodon is bb@theaether.space!

Once you've gone through the steps required to join (hey congrats, btw), go edit your profile! Add a profile picture and a header! Add a bio! The works! All of that stuff can be found on the Preferences page.

Note: If you want to send people a link to your profile, just rearrange the order of those elements to server.name/@username. So in my case, it would be theaether.space/@bb. Hey, give me a follow while you're at it!

How do I find people to follow?

Luckily there are some great services for this already, with more popping up constantly. To get started, you can use a tool like Movetodon or Debirdify to search for your Twitter friends and find their Mastodon usernames. To follow them, just copy their whole username (which, again, looks like an email address) and paste it into the search box. Once you've followed some people, you can use a tool like Followgraph to see who those people are following and add a few more people to your home feed.

Speaking from experience, one of the more exciting things about joining Mastodon is getting a clean slate. You don't realize how many people you didn't need to be following until you're building the list from zero again. So go out there and follow people who seem interesting. It's 2008 all over again!

Okay, I've followed a bunch of people. Now what?

Sounds like all that's left is to mess around with the site and start posting! As with most social networks, there are some nuances to learn but absolutely nothing is overwhelming. Posts can be up to 500 characters instead of 240, you can use privacy buttons to decide who can see and reply to your post, etc. You'll learn best by poking around and by doing, because what makes Mastodon different is what makes it interesting. For example, there are no "quote-tweets" on here. That means the best ways to interact with others are to reply to or boost (retweet) their posts. It takes some getting used to², but it's worth it!

Brendon, I don't always want to use Mastodon on my personal computer. Tell me about apps!

Luckily there are a bunch of apps to choose from, and it seems like more pop up on a weekly basis. First and foremost, there is an official Mastodon app you can grab for iOS and Android, and I think it's pretty good!

That said — and in the spirit of Mastodon — there are some great apps by independent developers putting their own spin on it. Just like the early days of Twitter apps, these developers are at the forefront of what Mastodon may one day become. If you're using an iPhone, the two I'd recommend at the moment are Ivory or Ice Cubes. If you're on Android, definitely check out Tusky.

All you'll need to do is provide your server url, then log in as you normally would.

A fun recent swerve: Developers are also starting to create alternate web interfaces for Mastodon that replicate the look and feel of things like Tweetdeck. Check out Elk or Mastodeck for a different flavor.

This is all well and good but if Twitter and other bigger social media platforms exist, why would I use Mastodon instead?

I think that point about Mastodon not truly having any overarching owner is the most important point of all. Servers individually have owners, but Mastodon being run on an open protocol instead of by one explicit company or person means there’s no way anyone could step in and destroy it. As long as there are people out there hosting Mastodon servers, Mastodon will continue to exist.

On a personal level, saying “I choose to invest my time in this space instead of those driven by profit” is a step towards a public good. It helps lay the foundation to make the internet a better place for yourself and for future generations, to take some control back. We've spent too much time building our online presence around and for companies who sell our information to advertisers and use algorithms to manipulate our lives and emotions.

Even if Mastodon has some quirks that make it a tiny bit harder to use than some of the larger alternatives, if there's even the slightest chance using it can help make a statement and build something better than what currently exists, isn't that at least worth trying?

¹ For the people who use and know a lot about Mastodon: Hello! I know I'm simplifying some concepts here, and I know not everyone will agree with my approach. At the end of the day, I think some of the more interesting things about Mastodon are lying just underneath the surface, and users who want to discover them absolutely will eventually. I feel getting people started and understanding why they should get started is more important in the long run.

² Hashtags are big on Mastodon, which I kind of can't believe. It feels weird to be using them again!

---

Originally published 12/29/22 Updated 1/25/23:

Added a new section with some app recommendations. There are so many out there and I've probably used at least ten over the past month or so. Ivory is great and my favorite of the bunch, but I know the subscription fee can be a bit much for people which is why I threw Ice Cubes on the list as well. On the Android end, Tusky is so clearly the best. I'd recommend it over the official app any day of the week.

⏆

[foyil420-blog]

WordPress Plug-Ins / What Are They?

Hello GmaKelly here to talk about WordPress Plug-ins. There are a gazillion Plug-ins that do all kinds of things automating this and that.  These are the Plug-ins I'm currently using on this site.  I'm this will need to be updated, possibly Monthly.  So....... WordPress Plug-Ins - What are They? A WordPress plugin is a piece of software that adds new features or functionality to a WordPress website. Plug-Ins can do amazing things to and for your Website.  There are plug-ins to do and automate pretty much everything you need to keep your Website functioning and accessible.  All you have to do is Install and Activate. You use WordPress Plug-ins for: - SEO - Security - Social media integration - Forms - Ecommerce - Analytics - And much more! Plug-Ins I Currently Use: Keep in mind this site is still fairly new, so there may be more to add or maybe take away.  We'll see what pans out and I'll keep you updated. Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) -  Google AMP Project.  Makes your Website faster for Mobile visitors. AIO SEO - All in One SEO Original to WordPress since 2007, Over 3 Million users.  Helps your website rank higher in Search Engines. Aweber for WordPress - Email Marketing, Landing Pages, Forms, Lists, Funnels.  Automate and increase Traffic. Bing Webmaster URL Submission- Allows submission to Bing Webmaster Tools (Bing and Yahoo) Blog2Social -Manually or Auto post to Social Media Platforms (see my Review) Canva - Use full features of Canva in Edit Screen. Elementor - Block Editor, Drag & Drop Past or Post Create or Edit Google Analytics - Monster Insights - 3 Million Users, Most popular Google Analytics Plug-In for WordPress.  How People find & use your Website. Google Sitemap XML - Create a Sitemap for Search Engines to Crawl IndexNow - Shares all posts & pages (create, update, delete) to Search Engines without need to register or verify site. Kraken Image Optimizer - World's Most Advanced Image Optimization Solution.  Optimize WordPress images. Lara's Google Analytics (GA4) - GA4 Dashboard pTypeConverter - Convert Pages to Posts and visa versa Site Kit by Google - Everything Google. This is a complete list of what I'm using today on this site.  Nothing shady happening here, lol.  I recommend these few Plug-Ins at the very least to get your site up and running with ease.  My site is not a E-Commerce site so I don't have any monitization Plug-Ins. Other Plug-Ins Obviously, there are 1,000's more that I could sift thru and probably add or replace one here or there.  There are other Plug-Ins that I would definitely use if the circumstance called for it. WooCommerce - Monetized sites.  Comes with a whole suite of Plug-in for Social Media Platforms and all the necessary forms and pages you need for monitization.   Facebook, Packing Slips, Storefronts, Carts, Paypal, etc. WordPress  has many conveniences built into it including Landing Pages, WPForms, WPCodes, etc. As you know, I'm still learning, On the Job Training, and I'm still listening to every bit of advice and information I can get from Articles and Videos.  If your part of a Program, it more than likely has a list of Plug-Ins they recommend, if not, they should have a Chat room where you can ask questions and get advice. Keep in Mind that not all Plug-Ins are Good Plug-Ins for Your Site A few months ago I installed a particular Plug-In, I honestly don't remember the name,  but it lockced up my site.  Thank God for the Best Site Support in history, it was fixed quickly.  But still causes us to pause, and reminds us to review everything  you do. Your Theme can cause a Plug-In to flip out. or the other way around.   I installed a Plug-In that my Theme was not compatible with.  Of course I didn't know that till I did it. So on the soft side:  Mine was fixed within 30 minutes or less.  So if you have good Site Support no Problem. Final Thoughts As with everything Online or in the world, research the plug-ins and/or consult an expert.  Even with the best advice and research things can still go wrong, be sure to back up your site before  making any major changes. I hoped you found this Post helpful, and educational in a few of the WordPress Plug-Ins.  As I said these are the Plug-Ins that I currently use.  Each change to your Site creates a new piece of the Vision  you have of your success.  Plug-Ins are big part of that. If you have questions or comments or maybe your own Plug-In suggestion, please leave it below.  I'm looking forward to having a conversation with you. Thank you for sharing your time with me. GmaKelly Read the full article

[financialsecrets]

WordPress Plug-Ins / What Are They?

Hello GmaKelly here to talk about WordPress Plug-ins. There are a gazillion Plug-ins that do all kinds of things automating this and that.  These are the Plug-ins I'm currently using on this site.  I'm this will need to be updated, possibly Monthly.  So....... WordPress Plug-Ins - What are They? A WordPress plugin is a piece of software that adds new features or functionality to a WordPress website. Plug-Ins can do amazing things to and for your Website.  There are plug-ins to do and automate pretty much everything you need to keep your Website functioning and accessible.  All you have to do is Install and Activate. You use WordPress Plug-ins for: - SEO - Security - Social media integration - Forms - Ecommerce - Analytics - And much more! Plug-Ins I Currently Use: Keep in mind this site is still fairly new, so there may be more to add or maybe take away.  We'll see what pans out and I'll keep you updated. Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) -  Google AMP Project.  Makes your Website faster for Mobile visitors. AIO SEO - All in One SEO Original to WordPress since 2007, Over 3 Million users.  Helps your website rank higher in Search Engines. Aweber for WordPress - Email Marketing, Landing Pages, Forms, Lists, Funnels.  Automate and increase Traffic. Bing Webmaster URL Submission- Allows submission to Bing Webmaster Tools (Bing and Yahoo) Blog2Social -Manually or Auto post to Social Media Platforms (see my Review) Canva - Use full features of Canva in Edit Screen. Elementor - Block Editor, Drag & Drop Past or Post Create or Edit Google Analytics - Monster Insights - 3 Million Users, Most popular Google Analytics Plug-In for WordPress.  How People find & use your Website. Google Sitemap XML - Create a Sitemap for Search Engines to Crawl IndexNow - Shares all posts & pages (create, update, delete) to Search Engines without need to register or verify site. Kraken Image Optimizer - World's Most Advanced Image Optimization Solution.  Optimize WordPress images. Lara's Google Analytics (GA4) - GA4 Dashboard pTypeConverter - Convert Pages to Posts and visa versa Site Kit by Google - Everything Google. This is a complete list of what I'm using today on this site.  Nothing shady happening here, lol.  I recommend these few Plug-Ins at the very least to get your site up and running with ease.  My site is not a E-Commerce site so I don't have any monitization Plug-Ins. Other Plug-Ins Obviously, there are 1,000's more that I could sift thru and probably add or replace one here or there.  There are other Plug-Ins that I would definitely use if the circumstance called for it. WooCommerce - Monetized sites.  Comes with a whole suite of Plug-in for Social Media Platforms and all the necessary forms and pages you need for monitization.   Facebook, Packing Slips, Storefronts, Carts, Paypal, etc. WordPress  has many conveniences built into it including Landing Pages, WPForms, WPCodes, etc. As you know, I'm still learning, On the Job Training, and I'm still listening to every bit of advice and information I can get from Articles and Videos.  If your part of a Program, it more than likely has a list of Plug-Ins they recommend, if not, they should have a Chat room where you can ask questions and get advice. Keep in Mind that not all Plug-Ins are Good Plug-Ins for Your Site A few months ago I installed a particular Plug-In, I honestly don't remember the name,  but it lockced up my site.  Thank God for the Best Site Support in history, it was fixed quickly.  But still causes us to pause, and reminds us to review everything  you do. Your Theme can cause a Plug-In to flip out. or the other way around.   I installed a Plug-In that my Theme was not compatible with.  Of course I didn't know that till I did it. So on the soft side:  Mine was fixed within 30 minutes or less.  So if you have good Site Support no Problem. Final Thoughts As with everything Online or in the world, research the plug-ins and/or consult an expert.  Even with the best advice and research things can still go wrong, be sure to back up your site before  making any major changes. I hoped you found this Post helpful, and educational in a few of the WordPress Plug-Ins.  As I said these are the Plug-Ins that I currently use.  Each change to your Site creates a new piece of the Vision  you have of your success.  Plug-Ins are big part of that. If you have questions or comments or maybe your own Plug-In suggestion, please leave it below.  I'm looking forward to having a conversation with you. Thank you for sharing your time with me. GmaKelly Read the full article

[sheep-from-rad]

Obey Me x Filipino! Reader part 1 (Lucifer, Mammon, Asmodeus) Note: Tell me why I haven’t thought of this earlier? Tell me. Tears of themis is taking too long to load so I’m here typing the night away Warnings: long post ahead, food mentions, religion mentions (not much but yeah) Masterlist <Part 2: Leviathan, Satan, Beelzebub, Belphegor>

Lucifer

When he first read your file, he expected a scared religious person to come out of the portal. 

He has seen countless screaming religious people thrown in the pits asking why they are being punished even though they are clean and he expected you to be one of those. 

Instead you came out of the portal and stood there just waiting for an explanation as to why you were suddenly in a different place. 

For a while he is a bit unnerved with your behavior, freely mingling and befriending demons in your path even though you know the consequences of it. 

A part of him thinks that you might be on your way to destroying whatever hierarchy Devildom has and the other part of him mentally scolds you for being careless. 

The last straw was seeing you having lunch and giving a few lesser demons head pats when they complain about the day. He asked you about why you are not scared of demons and your answer made sense. 

“You know Lucifer, some people just come and go to church for their image. You should come to the human world and meet the demons there.” 

He knows hypocrites and faced hypocrites but he did not expect hypocrites inside churches. 

I have a headcanon that demons feed through sin and this boy is always full because of the Filipino pride. So if he skips dinner, chances are he already ate using sins and will just go for tea instead. 

[ps. As a Filipino, the pride thing is cute but it is very annoying. They legit take pride in everything even if it is bad. Philippines get mentioned on a thing online like a react video? Oh Pride to be Pinoy! Did Filipinos get noticed in online news? Oh Proud to be Pinoy. Bleh] 

Mammon 

Mammon said he is not happy when he was assigned to be your guide but he is screaming internally

Be careful with your wallet because this guy would love to learn about the betting games and might try to run an underground betting game with you

Chicken fighting? Let’s do that next week because Lucifer is not around. 

Beetle fighting? Sure, sure let’s schedule it at the back of the RAD because there are tons of students who want to participate. 

Spider wrestling? Sure as long as no students will get bit 

He might even try to go to human world because he heard that the lottery prize has reached P900m ($16m) and no one won it yet 

He’ll find it weird that people gambles at funeral wakes but will not make a comment for it 

One time the two of you actually went to the human world and he was torn between confusion and amazement because he learnt that you can bet on different types of lottery. (You and Lucifer had to pull him home at the end because he got so excited) 

Asmodeus

This guy thinks he knows romance until he meets you and learn about the hopeless romanticism that runs in Filipino blood

Like Satan, Asmodeus will read about culture and history, mostly for aesthetics at first until he came across the traditional courtships and it all goes down from there 

Before he knew about it he had fallen down the rabbit hole. He went from reading about traditional courtship to the fictional Bonifacio’s letter to Oryang to poets like Jose Corazon de Jesus

Oh it’s not finished yet, from literature he went to jump on music. Asmodeus listening to Eraserheads and making a cover of ‘Ang Huling El Bimbo’? Hell, yes. 

He might go on his job singing at the Fall with all the songs he learnt like Mundo by IV of Spades, Magbalik by Callalily, and on top of that he might even ask for the other brothers to play with him 

Asmodeus will also jump on television drama and this guy is addicted. He’ll prolly love those mistress thingy shows like ‘The Legal wife’, etc. 

This guy might go to human world just to binge watch those shows including korean ones 

This guy will probably see two demons in love and will just caught the famous line in Florante and Laura and everyone in the vicinity will look at him like, 'wut did the avatar said?'

And that line being 'O pag-ibig 'pag pumasok sa puso nino man, hahamakin ang lahat masunod ka lamang' which roughly translates to 'love when it enters anyone's heart, will go against all odds just to be fulfilled'

Don’t get me started on cliche wattpad stories, this guy has a collection starting from the classics like Diary ng Panget to the whole Jonaxx collection

Going back to the traditional courtship thing, he will not admit it out loud but he wishes that someone will do that to him. Wait..what do you mean harana has a whole ass structure and not just done by singing? TELL HIM MORE.

part 2 soon because I'm a bit too excited to write this.

[poisonhemloc]

ignore me im putting outer wilds headcanons together rather than write

this is a couple paragraphs of text cause its thoughts and not. edited well for comprehension sorry also spoilers

Hearthians first

It seems like the trend is a handful of kids born at about the same time then no new kids for a while? Oldest are Spinel, Gneiss and Tektite, then the middle agedish group which is Rutile and Esker are oldest, Hornfels, Slate, Gossan and Feldspar all seem about the same age, I’d put Porphy and Gabbro next, then maybe Moraine and Chert, Riebeck and Marl, Hal and the Hatchling, then Galena, Arkose, Tephra and Mica. It is just how I ordered it but. Now I’m wondering if one of the older Hearthians recently passed away so (it’s august i posted this in march) I forgot Tuff. None of y’all noticed and neither did I, but they’re probably either Porphy&Gabbro’s or Gossan&Hornfels’ age. That does ruin the nice neat ‘pairs are born around the same time’ but eh, it was too good to be true or someone from that age range died recently too

The pilot order is Feldspar then Gabbro then Chert then Riebeck. We know Feldspar was first (Gossan stopped traveling they don’t count here), and I feel like Gabbro is the logical second choice because 1) low energy, you know where they are, they aren’t pinballing around the solar system and if you get them to listen they’ll actually go check on equipment if you need someone to vs Feldspar is Exploring, 2) Spacesuits. Gabbro looks like they have a full body suit like Feldspar and Gossan; it’s harder to tell with Riebeck, but I think Chert does have a full body suit but it’s two different materials, top and bottom, and that’s when Outer Wilds Ventures started moving towards keeping the torso/head pressurized and hope your pants are okay. unrelated checking the images again Chert has constellations on their bandana it’s cute. Which leads into Chert probably being third, since similar suit design but also Hornfels and Gossan realizing the overcorrected for Feldspar being Feldspar with Gabbro being Gabbro and luckily the next Hearthian who wanted to go wanted to do actual work, too, with the stars. Then Riebeck, when the Hatchling first gets to them they say something along the lines of “Oh you launched, I guess that means I’ve been out here a while!” And that (...and their suit, their pants look separate from the top bit) makes me think they were the last ones out. With all that, Feldspar is the oldest (Probably a bit past middle aged honestly), then Gabbro is like, equivalent of late thirties early forties, Chert’s early thirties, Riebeck’s late twenties, and our Hatchling is like. Late teens early twenties.

Hal is writing fluent with the Nomai language, since they translated it? Despite some of the Nomai’s stuff saying it’s a recording I think everything is written down as well including on their recorders, but none of the Hearthians are fluent with spoken Nomai. Riebeck is writing fluent too, they were on Timber Hearth when Hal and I think Hornfels and whoever else was free started combing through everything Feldspar brought back and pictures and started figuring the language out.

Nomai stuff-

So there’s a big emphasis on the written word for the Nomai? To the point where they leave writing from the crash near writing from building the ATP. I get the vibe it’s all preserved, somewhere- like, everything is scaled down to make the game manageable (time, planets, writing, etc) and if you tried to make it “realistic” there’d be shelves and shelves full of writing they’ve preserved.

So the point I’m leaning towards, I don’t think deafness is a huge cultural disability for the Nomai? Because everything is written down, and with Solanum we see one of the tools they carry can just project writing wherever. Vs vision issues might be a bigger problem especially until they can get facilities up to make some kind of glasses.

Owl people stuff-

Since it was the entire moon’s worth of Owl people who went to the Eye, I feel like there were several different groups? And that’s represented by the three main areas- the River Lowlands tribe lived more in a swampy type area, the Cinder Isles tribe were islanders, the Hidden Gorge tribe were cliff dwellers.

They were cooperative on the trip, finding out and blocking the Eye, and then making the simulation. Once they went into the simulation, I feel like they rarely travel to the other group’s areas? Everyone reverted back to “my tribe my place I might come check on you but not really” and that’s partially because the simulation is of where each group prefers to live and partially because of the Prisoner from the Cinder Isles group releasing the signal and partially because I think the Owl person who found the signal in the first place and led the charge to build the Stranger was from River Lowlands? And most of the Owls who built the Simulation were from the Hidden Gorge. A couple of them go to check, once the simulation is in daylight, after the night the dam breaks but no one’s really torn up that the other tribes are gone. The Hidden Gorge tower was built explicitly to stay safe in case of dam issues.

The Lowlands tribe tends to have more greenish coloration, the Isles tribe are more blue, and the Gorge tribe is more grey and tend to have more streamlined horns. Lowlands and Isles Owl people generally know how to swim but the Gorge tribe doesn’t- part of why jumping into water was coded put out the artifact because c’mon they did not have to code that in.

[laundryandtaxes]

You must not watch mainstream news much then, because there was footage and discussion of neo-nazi/racist flags and signs being displayed. A group of protestors also stole food from homeless people. I think most leftists would say they want to punch the people responsible for those actions. I'm not sure why you didn't do more research before making a tumblr post about it. Also, don't expect mainstream news to be leftist lol. It's centrist at best.

1. You are absolutely correct that I don't watch news because I can't stomach television news at all. Local network television? Entirely tolerable if full of fearmongering. Major television news networks? Basically all either lib or conservative propaganda, absolutely indigestible.

2. My point isn't about the goodness or badness of the protestors, it's about leftists picking up "these protestors are bad because they are disruptive and their politics aren't my politics" and running with it. Given that the state of "the American left" (gag) is such that it's filled with people who, like myself, listen to a lot of NPR, but who, unlike myself, are wholly unable to contextualize NPR as coming out of a fairly specific worldview and presenting a very specific ideological picture, I think that is a very real concern. Part of this is timing. US liberals were already primed post January 6th for this kind of thinking. In the aftermath of the 6th I had to see people who had spent all of the summer of 2020 (was that 2020???) posting cutesy ACAB images suddenly talking about how lack of respect for law enforcement is somehow an actual real problem in and of itself. This is a real problem. The same people who previously had been fine with literal riots in 2020, riots that did in fact leave innocent people injured and killed, suddenly opposed not just to this riot because of why it happened but riots in general, until the next one on "their" side came up. Now at the core of this a lot of /that/ problem is that a lot of these people think in aphorisms ("riots are the language of the unheard") rather than thinking about policy, the usefulness of actions, the meanings of the things they allegedly support. Frankly, if it hadn't been for that single MLK quote and the prominent concept that you can't question anything related to race or racism or you're a bigot, many of these people would have been more broadly anti riot anyway. But this thinking does leak out of liberal circles because most leftists have a lot of liberal friends and talk to them regularly and most also consume mostly liberal media. We are not immune to propaganda, etc.

3. My point is also not that they've not done bad things, though I would add that during the summer of 2020 lots of people did and said very bad things, or at least things many liberals would consider very bad in any other context at all than a very racialized one. It is well known that actions organized around one specific issue will often bring along extremists of various viewpoints who agree on one thing. This doesn't mean that those protests are bad in and of themselves, it's a function of an event or action being open to the public. My point is that, when someone asks a reporter what these people did that was bad and that reporter says they blocked traffic and it's left there, that's bad journalism and it lets a dangerous political position slide and we've just spent the last 2 years finding out what happens when you allow fear to rule everything and set your own ability to reason to the side. I'm not willing to cut off my own protest nose to spite my face here. I've personally participated in many a peaceful but publically very disruptive action myself, most leftists and at this point many many many liberals have. The point that disruption is bad is a bad one. That's the whole thing of it, not that these are good guys in a good fight.

[jenxwp]

Bethell’s Beach

So today I want to talk about sand. Yep. Sand. I know, I know- “how is sand interesting?” you ask. “How is it related to Xena?”... Well. I will cover all of this.

I know I have hyped up the sand-talk and we will get to it, but I really want to start this at the beginning. Back in 2006 when I was a teen, I visited New Zealand with my family. It really was an incredible trip. We flew into Auckland, hired a car and toured through both the North and South islands before flying home to Australia. Of course, living in Australia means that flying anywhere ‘overseas’ is a big thing- even if it’s only the 3hr flight to New Zealand. Unfortunately, this is the only time I have visited New Zealand, but it is a place I desperately want to visit again when post-covid travel resumes.

After being told about this family holiday, as an avid Xena fan, I spent a lot of time on my old-school brick computer (you know the one – big white monitor with a tower and corded keyboard and mouse) scouring the internet for anything ‘Xena’ I could visit or do. My family saw it as a holiday to go see the Maori culture- I saw it as going to Xena-land. My family was very supportive and told me that if there were some filming sites we could go to that were close to places we stayed at we could of course visit them. I ended up finding two places I was desperate to visit just outside of Auckland – Hunua Falls and Bethell’s Beach.

Bethell’s Beach is the location I want to talk about today. It was a staple set location that was used many, many times throughout the series. Almost any beach scene was filmed at Bethell’s Beach. From the incredible chariot race in Return of Callisto, to the  beginning of the beauty pageant in Here She Comes… Miss Amphipolis. It was also used when Xena was crucified in Destiny, when Gabrielle and Joxer arrive at the island in Ten Little Warlords, when Xena first faced off with the gods in Motherhood, and  when the Vikings are gathering in Return of the Valkyrie. Not to mention, when Xena and Gabrielle lay down in the ocean at the end of The Bitter Suite. I could go on and rattle off many more scenes but you get the idea.

…cue pictures of course 😄

So of course, this was a place I was desperate to visit. The beach was amazing. It was a trek to get to (we got lost), but once we got there, it was complete with ‘Poseidon’s Rock’ and ‘Callisto’s Cave’. I also remember there being a sheep and a donkey in a paddock adjacent to the carpark for some reason. Memories huh? Strange things.

I was in heaven. While I was there, I collected a jar of sand. Yes, my family thought I was strange- but it was very special to me. And this little jar of black sand has stayed with me ever since. Any time I have had a Xena table or display anywhere, the jar of sand has lived front and centre.

When it first came back with me, I brought it back in those small plastic hotel shampoo bottles that I had painstakingly rinsed and dried to carry my most precious souvenir. It then went through many iterations in the form of glass moccona coffee jars before finding a home in its current jar.

As an adult now with a science degree- this sand itself is fascinating. Unlike sand elsewhere, it is a finely coarse sand known for being ‘black’. The black colouring comes from the high titanomagetite (iron and titanium compound) content that is formed from the volcanic activity around the New Zealand islands and carried to this beach by the Tasman currents. Because of this, the sand is very heavy, and very hot when the sun hits it.

Funny story- when leaving New Zealand I carried the sand in my hand luggage. My mother was stopped because from the x-ray machine, the 5 tube bottles of black powder resembled TNT. So of course we had to explain ourselves to New Zealand airport staff. After that, I wasn’t quite sure if I had to declare it to customs when I brought it back to Australia, so I distinctly remember telling the customs officer that it was sand from the Xena beach. He had never had an instance of someone bringing sand back, but because living organisms didn’t generally live in sand, he couldn’t see why there was an issue so he let me through.

I am sad that I didn’t visit the adjoining sand dunes and river where many scenes were filmed (like in Mortal Beloved etc), but it really is a reason to go back and visit as soon as I am able.

I don’t have any digital images of my holiday, but here is a photo of the obligatory 00’s scrap-book page that I made for that day. Not too sure what the ‘quicksand’ sign is, but I must have taken a photo of it and cut it out for my scrap-book. Very much Callisto in Return of Callisto vibes. PS- loving the picture I took of a random dude- then proceeded to cut out and stick at the bottom of the page. Because why not? 00′s. Was a crazy time. 😂

“You have to enjoy the peaceful moments in life. You know, everything can’t be an adventure all the time. Like right now. I want you to close your eyes and just listen.”

“To what?”

“To nature speaking to us. It’ll give you a wonderful sense of peace. Close your eyes.”

-Gabrielle and Xena in ‘Ulysses’