#maybe though like... a little more accurately

[cutekittenlady]

Darn you all. I'm just trying to finish the next chapter of Reviving a Wreck and then not only do you guys drop this killer update to a killer fanart but when I check the replies its filled with people begging for fic.

So whatever guess ol' Cutekittenlady's gotta do the lords work and, at bare minimum, give us a start.

Remember you guys asked for this.

------------------------------------------------

Ratchet had seen a lot of things over the course of the war. A lot too much in fact. Even now that the war was over, the decepticons were (supposedly) disbanded, and the reconstruction of cybertron was well underway there were nights when his systems would struggle to shift into recharge.

It was being medic.

All the bots he'd treated who'd never come back online. All the berthsides he would stand at that would be emptied and just as quickly filled again. The number of difficult conversations he'd had to have with spark siblings, sworn brothers, Amica, and even conjunx over all that time had given Ratchet a crusty surface.

His time on Earth had, well, maybe not softened him, but certainly given him a long needed refresher into the softer things in the universe. Arcee had once half-jokingly said that the earthlings had only scrapped off the thing layer of rust that hid the soft spark underneath. Ratchet had bristled at that, but not exactly outright refuted it.

Even so his reputation as a medic, his relations with the humans on earth, and his long hard won experience of being the bearer of rough news resulted in him even now getting some... interesting calls.

Though the most interesting yet had to be this call from Earth's government to come and "check out" something they'd found in their arctic ice.

Ratchet had braced himself for another relic. Or a decayed weapon from the war. Some ancient alien asteroid. Or, primus forbid, another stint involving Unicron.

What he wasn't expecting was for a familiar face to be staring out from him from the ice.

-------------------------------------------------

Skyfire was big.

Really big.

Frighteningly big to the small humans who had come across him.

Ratchet had scolded one or two of them before he reminded himself that it was only from personal experience that he knew what a gentle giant the ancient seeker actually was. That was why it had taken him forever to get the humans to agree to thaw him out once Ratchet had detected the traces of a spark signature in his system.

It was a long and grueling process.

Thawing him out too fast would risk causing fissures and other complications in his system, but once started they couldn't stop or else what little warmth they had start would fade away.

The only blessing in regards to all of this was that it gave Ratchet a bit of time to decide what he was going to say to the big guy once he actually woke up.

It would be too much to say the two had been friends. Colleagues was more accurate. Despite being a flight frame Skyfire had a keen mind and an almost endless thirst for knowledge. He'd fought hard to get what position he could as a scientist and remained diligent to keep said position.

He and Ratchet had rubbed elbows on the occassions when Skyfires research had required a medical mind or when a particularly difficult medical situation required a potentially innovative solution.

Ratchet eventually developed a healthy respect for Skyfire, and he had returned that respect in kind.

If Skyfires desires had been kept in checked it likely would have stayed that way.

Unfortunately they weren't.

Skyfire's desire to know more about the universe eventually proved his hubris.

Ratchet had heard, after not having seen the mech for years, that after being approved for a space expedition, Skyfire had left Cybertron only to never return. The remaining expedition had apparently returned without him. Reporting he had been lost on some far unnamed planet.

Apparently the "far unnamed planet" had been Earth and Skyfire had gotten himself frozen in one of their glaciers.

Now Skyfire was laying, mostly thawed, on a slab in front of Ratchet who was watching as his life vitals slowly came online. Even as his optics began to flicker to life, Ratchet was still having a hard time trying to come up with a comprehensive way to sum up the last, oh, four million years of Civil War.

-------------------------------------------

Skyfire handled the news rather well, Ratchet thought.

At least better than most in his position would have.

After all Skyfire was only sitting with his face buried in his hands and inaudibly weeping.

Ratchet had been at least partially prepared for a bigger mental breakdown involving a greater deal of violence. Even so he remained vigilant. A delayed reaction was always possible, One never knew.

Eventually after a few moments Skyfire raised his head.

"Wait, wait." He raised a hand gently hoping for attention.

"Yes?" Ratchet asked as gently as he could.

"Please, my conjunx..."

Ratchet sucked in air and braced himself. He could already get the general outline of where this was going.

"He was with me in the crash. Is he okay?"

Over the years of Civil War Ratchet had experienced many methods of addressing such question.

False hope. Gentle redirection. Immediate and abrupt departure.

In his experience there was really only one way for a proper disciplined medic to behave.

"I-I'm sorry." He spoke softly and as comfortingly as he could. "I-I'm sorry there was no one with you in the ice."

After all perhaps there was still some hope. Many of the unaffiliated bots had fled Cybertron at the incitement the war and subsequent death of their homeworld. It was still... possible for Skyfires conjunx to be amongst them. Even if they weren't exactly here there was still some hope.

"Oh, Primus... He's just a little seeker. He doesn't cope with the cold as well as me..."

Well so much for hope. The Seekers were pretty much gone. Even if this one had landed with Skyfire on Earth chances were high they hadn't survived.

"But he's alive! He has to be! He's the smartest bravest most brilliant mech I know. I have to contact him. He must be so worried."

Ratchet let the other finish. Allowed the silence to eek in between them. It was, in his experience, best to allow the patient or family member a moment to absorb their own feelings and collect their thoughts before properly giving the inevitable bad news.

Primus how many times had he had to deliver this bad news?

Too many to count.

A conjunx was a lifelong partner. A connection not easily formed or replaced. To lose someone so important to you on top of losing four million years of your life was not something he envied Skyfire of anyone.

Finally he could put it off no more.

"I hate to be the one to tell you this Skyfire." Ratchet closed his eyes with the weight of inevitability, not able to look at the others broken face, "But a lot has changed since you left Cybertron. The seekers are all but extinct."

"No..." The anguished cry and he once more buried his face in his hands broke Ratchet a little.

This was no hardened warrior losing someone on the battlefield or as a casuality on a mission. Skyfire was still, well, more or less a civilian. This suffering was unearned and undeserved.

Evidently whoever it was who had won Skyfires spark was clearly dear to him. Ratchet hoped they had gone quietly early on in the war and not been made into a casualty of brutal conquest, or forced into being one of Shockwaves brutal experiments, or forced to serve under under that wannabe dictator Star-

"No. Starscream." Skyfire called pitifully.

Ratchet snapped the datapad in his hand in half.

"Starscream... My little bird... My sweetspark."

Ratchet nearly hurled. The idea that anyone could call Starscream, Starscream, 'little bird' and not get mauled to death was insane. Even so he collected himself sucked in air through his nose and then said, trying to keep a straight face, "Okay."

He leaned down and looked Skyfire in the face.

"Do you want the good news? Or the bad news?

tfp autobutts gain a new recruit...

[honey-pages]

Study Date - Viktor x Reader

Description -

Viktor waits for you in the library for an unexpected study date.

F/M. 18+. smut.

Your project was due soon - next Wednesday, and with all the work that went into the subject you were working on, you desperately needed some focused library time. Maybe borrowing some books, writing down your initial thoughts, and annotating your materials would clear your brain. You were assigned an important research topic not long ago, by your supervisor and it was imperative that it was done quickly and accurately. The library was not far from your room and warm at this time of night. They liked to give out blankets on loan at the door, it wasn’t unusual for researchers to work overnight or with the aid of supplements to allow them to focus for longer periods of time, usually spanning until morning.

As you approach the main entrance, you pick up a blue blanket and scan your identification card. The staff at the desk smile at you as you walk through, you are familiar with them, and they are accustomed to your presence there. You climb the first set of stairs, undecided on where to go. The library seemed empty tonight. You climb another set of stairs. At the top was a sharp corner leading to your favourite seating area. In an alcove surrounded by bookshelves is a small desk with four chairs, and seated there, almost like he was waiting for your appearance, was Viktor.

You were not surprised to find him here; he was a busy man. You were however a little confused as to why he wasn’t in his lab and was instead in your favourite study spot. The library was a silence only zone on the floor you had reached and as you looked over at Viktor, he raised his gaze and held eye contact with you, a smile slowly seeping across his face. He pats the chair directly next to him, summoning you forward.

You had always felt a certain appreciation for him. The way he worked, his personality, his cause. You cared deeply for him, not only as a friendship, but intimately. You hadn’t figured he was interested in that kind of relationship. He was always so invested in his work; it didn’t appear he had much time for more. But sometimes at night, your mind wandered, and you pondered a reality in which he did. What would he do? Who was he interested in? You had hoped, in that reality, that it would be you - but you could never be sure. Quick glances were untrustworthy, and kind words can always be misinterpreted, though sometimes you were sure you noticed something in your interactions that was different: intimate.

You watched him closely as you approached the seat, admiring him. You perhaps hadn’t realised the extent of thoughts you had about him. You felt fluttery and a little weak but that was nothing more than you felt towards him on the regular. Settling down into the seat, you slung your bag against the leg of the table and pulled out your books, setting the blanket down over your lap.

In a hushed whisper from your left came, “Hello (Y/N), it’s nice to see you here, I was wondering when you would show.”

He faced the paper he was working on. On the table splayed out were multiple thick tomes and sheets of paper littered with equations and lines of handwritten notes.

“I should say the same”, you replied, flattered that he had been waiting for you, “it’s so rare to see you out of the lab. What are you working on?”

He swipes his hand, referencing the mass of papers in front of him, “oh nothing. A mechanised power fist for a robot that needs some tinkering with.”

He looks up at you with the last of these words, smiling at your interest in his work, even if he does downplay its importance. In his time away from his main work, he is focusing on improving and fixing his personal projects. You had heard whispers previously about a robot he had been working on. It was not common knowledge around those who studied in your department. You returned the smile.

There was an alert over the announcement system, “Please be aware that this floor is a dedicated silent area. Thanks for your cooperation”

Viktor made a mock grimace before shrugging and smirking, “I feel someone would like us to be quieter.”

You smirk back at him, settling back to face forwards in your chair. You hadn’t realised that your body had turned to face him, hips angling at his knees. Your body language was betraying your attraction. In some ways, in acknowledgement to his intelligence, you figured he must know. He is simply too smart to not realise that you felt the way you did.

You tried to immerse yourself in your work, however his presence did become somewhat of a distraction. Just his proximity to you made you feel seen and watched. You spent what felt like an hour within your own thoughts, sometimes drifting in between fantasies about him, and unfocused thoughts of your deadline.

Viktor placed his hand on your thigh.

A burning surge ran through your body to your stomach, your leg felt hot where his hand lay. You were in disbelief, as though all the ambiguous questions you had were instantaneously answered and you were given an impossible positive answer. You felt your internal organs drop and raise, replaced with butterflies. There was silence. You stole a glance to your left, to his face. He was completely stone faced and confident in his focus on his work. Is this why he saved you a seat?

You shifted slightly, Viktor flinched his hand away, startled. “Oh sorry, have I misread, do you not- “

Without thinking you reach and grab Viktor’s hand and replace it where it had just been. A silent gesture of reassurance that he is exactly where you want him to be. He smirks once again, removing his hand once more. He reaches down for the corner of your blanket, pulling it over the laps of you both, before slipping his hand underneath, allowing it to rest where it just was but now out of sight. The library was not even half full, and no one was looking at you both closely, but the secrecy of his touch and its closeness to your inner thigh made you feel fuzzy.

If previously you couldn’t focus, you had no hope now. He holds your attention firmly, all you can think of is him, his hand, his fingers, his-

His hand slides further to your inner thigh. You freeze. You steal another glance at his face but this time he catches you; your eyes meet.

“Viktor, I- “you manage to murmur.

“Miss (Y/N), this is a quiet space, please, focus.”

As he holds your gaze, the corners of his mouth raised, he slides his hand further forward, holding it firmly at the seat of your trousers, pressing and nudging at the sensitivity there. Your mouth drops open slightly and he notices, chuckling lightly and turning back to his work. He props his head up on his other hand, rubbing his chin in faux concentration. He shuffles closer to you, changing his angle as he rubs and grinds his fingers into you.

You watch others pass by the entrance of the alcove, some smiling in recognition at you, some your friends from previous research projects. Thankfully no one stops to talk. Maybe it is Viktor’s presence that makes you unapproachable, he could be quite intimidating. You shuddered at the thought of how you looked together, sharing a blanket with his arm dangerously close to you, it appeared innocent but was so indecent.

Viktor's hand moved from you and snaked up your hip to push its way down into your trousers. He flattens and slides under the hem of your underwear, lying flat against the front of you. You try to remain calm and hide your squirming, but inevitably, your hips begin to grind on their own. They slowly lower, pushing up against the middles of his fingers, before raising up, pushing your clit desperately against the tips. This repeats for a few long slow grinds, however on the last, as your hips raise, his fingertips flick forward against you, making you jolt in your chair and elicit a sharp though quiet moan.

“Careful now, you don’t want people to see what I’m doing to you, do you?” He purred.

He moves his other hand from his chin to the desk, laying it flat before lifting it again to raise a paper closer to his face, reading intently. His middle finger slides between your folds, dipping itself into the wetness. You stifle yourself. He pushes his middle finger inside gently, making you take the full length of it slowly.

You stammer, “Viktor- “.

At the sound of his name, he inserts another finger.

“Viktor!”

You both look up. Jayce stands by the entrance of the library floor holding up a folder.  Viktor's fingers do not cease, slipping in and out of you deliberately. Jayce quickly approaches your table, throwing down his things on the table in front of you.

“I finally found the blueprints you were looking for this morning, I thought I’d bring them by you.”

Jayce smiles at you warmly, you are both acquainted after being on a work trip together, he quickly makes small talk and relates that it is nice to see you and Viktor together.

“I thought I would have to introduce you to each other, you seem so well suited!” Jayce beams.

Viktor slides in a third finger, looking toward Jayce to give thanks for the folder.

“Ah! Very helpful, thank you. Miss (Y/N) here is helping me look through the documents. It’s somewhat of a study date.” Viktor chimes.

Your core is as tightened as you can make it, focusing completely on not showing anything more than the light blush which is already painting your cheeks. You knew Viktor was collected but how is he so calm right now? Jayce makes a further comment about the two of you together before turning and exiting by the stairs. The speed increases, Viktor’s fingers getting messier and sliding more easily between the folds, holding you open and hungry. He slides his fingers up to your clit, circling and flicking at the heat there.

“The way you are handling this is incredible (Y/N). So composed, so beautiful when I’m inside of you.”

Your grinding is less controlled now and Viktor’s hand is fully wet, your underwear clinging damply to the back of his hand.

“Do you think that if I did this? - “Viktor adds pressure to your clit, you feel the rising feeling of your orgasm building. “-again and again, I could ruin you in the library?”

His growled words were sending you over the edge.

“Viktor, I’m going to- “. Your hips were rapidly meeting his hands. Viktor increases his rhythm on the downward motion, he begins to curl his fingers up, sliding against the hot tight core inside you. As he repeatedly met it with his fingers, you felt your wetness drip and pool in the base of his palm.

“You sound so sweet like this, coming over my fingers in the library where anyone could see. I had no idea you were so dirty Miss (Y/N)’”

His fingers are hitting all the right places, and the building pressure is rising to a blinding white light. Your hips seem to freeze in motion, and he takes full advantage, pushing and grinding you over the edge. Your hands grip around his forearm and he revels in your stifled moans as you come over his fingers. He lightly chuckles, burying his face into your neck to whisper in your ear.

“I have work to attend to in the lab if you could be of assistance?”

[sturnina]

🕷 — "fuck the feds"

Spiderman!Chris x Delinquent!reader AU Part two to Spray Cans and Web Shooters

— summary;; Chris regrets overreacting (that's legit it, I'd planned a lot more but it just doesn't work, and I need to post this now since I'm referencing it in the next oneshot lol)

— wc;; 744

— trigger warning;; none! (yet)

— author‘s note;; IMPORTANT!! I'm making this a blurb / oneshot collection. Most of the parts can be read individually, except when a specific part one is linked at the top :)

Chris knows the web fluid will dissolve in not even an hour, and get weak enough to be removed in about half an hour. But what he did was stupid, so stupid. What if the police decide to go check the building just that minute? Or what if literally anyone else arrives while she’s there stuck to the wall?

Guilt is nagging at him from the insides, making his stomach twist while he lands on a transmission tower. God, he can‘t do anything right today, can he? Especially after his brothers were especially rude and annoying all day, he was so excited for some alone time.

But before he can decide to turn around or run away, a motorbike nears the railway station. He drops a little lower on the tower, hiding between the cables, and watching the biker stop a bit further away than the girl’s bike is, hiding the motorbike from anyone travelling the road.

From here, Chris can barely see the biker‘s silhouette as they walk over to the fence, a small bag slung over their shoulder, and dive through the hole in the fence, entering the area of the station. It isn‘t recognisable whether it‘s a guy or a girl, but Chris follows them anyway, swinging back to the roof of the station.

The second the other person enters, he hears talking, which calms him down. Well — to be quite honest, he maybe wished he could save the girl inside. Just a bit. To make up for sticking her arm to the wall. He hates the thought that she might dislike him now.

Knowing that she‘s safe, there‘s nothing left to do for him, except for driving himself mad by overthinking everything and everyone. What is wrong with him?

Chris returns to the railway station the next evening—this time, after finishing his patrol, in the middle of the night. His first thoughts when he looks inside are, Well. At least the girl wasn’t too traumatised after yesterday.

How does he know?

There is a huge new graffiti on the wall, painted in red, black and white. His Spiderman mask, with a sentence in fat lettering across it. “fuck the feds,” it says, and, despite the meaning, Chris has to admit, it doesn’t look all that bad. Pretty good, actually. The web pattern on the mask is accurate, and the letters are woven into it, but the elements don’t blur, even though it’s all just red, black and white. It looks trippy, almost.

He admires it for a while before remembering that he should be offended. But on the other hand, he deserves it.

“Turned out pretty accurate, didn’t it?” a voice behind him asks. Chris turns around, still hanging on the thread. He isn’t startled, his spider sense having warned him way before he heard the girl.

“It’s pretty fire,” he admits.

She’s wearing the piece of fabric again, just about covering her lower face. The rest of her clothes are casual. Unrecognisable.

“What’s up with the mask?” he asks, elegantly dropping to the ground. Her eyebrow quirks up, and she crosses her arms in front of the black hoodie.

“You cover up your face too,” she points out the obvious, “am I not allowed to?”

“Fair enough.” Not wanting to stand around awkwardly, he uses his webs to swing over to the wall, until he’s walking on it as if it were the floor. “You did this?”

“With help,” the girl admits, “but yeah. Was my idea.”

“I wonder where you got it from,” he hums, crouching down on the wall and running a finger over the dry paint.

“I don’t know, totally not because I spent an hour taped to the wall because of the city’s hero.” The way you say it sounds like you’re putting it in quotes. Chris sighs at that.

“Yep. Sorry ‘bout that. I had a bad day.”

“That’s the explanation? You know, fun fact, chaining people to a wall and forcing them to stand up for days was a torture method in the Middle Ages.”

He raises his upper body, leaning against the wall. “Okay, I get it. But I’m not a Federal, so the text is wrong.”

“Oh yeah, I‘m sorry,” the girl says sourly, brows furrowing. “The independent hero who always does what he thinks is right. A bit stereotypical, dont’cha think?”

Chris sighs. He’s getting nowhere like this, the girl is too stubborn. Why does he even care about making things right with her?

— tags;; @fallininlust @bluestriips @wh0remikasas @ilusa @izzylovesthetriplets (tell me if you want to be tagged <3)

[gaogaogaogaogaogaogao]

ok heres a better post about it since the one from last night was a bit scattered LOL

i was banned entirely off goatlings (discord + website) with Zero communication from staff for making a fanpet of a goatlings ad on another petsite!

On 4dopt i made my own goat species, Caprines, for fun about a week ago and released them. About a few days in I did think it was cute to use the built-in site customization and markings i uploaded before to make the indiegoatling as a little homage goat id keep as a little nostalgia reference, as shown here. Obviously it's not entirely accurate as its just layers of markings that already existed before I had that idea

With the original attached for visibility ^

About a few days later i received a DM from 4dopt staff about getting an anonymous report involving that goat being a "copy" and to maybe change it just in case so zero issues happen. About a few minutes later i checked goatlings to see i have Zero access to the site.

I did forward my goatlings ban to 4dopt staff and they were very much surprised that I got an entire uncommunicative nuclear bombing over this goat.

After that though, they did share that the anonymous report included 2 other goats of mine for being "copies" of goatlings ads. They told me the 2 goats involved did Not need to be changed (likely why they only shared it after). behold.

yeah. i do Not know what delusion is into play here other than the crime of having Similar Colors of incredibly common aesthetics, because if you spend more than 1 second looking at either of the goats, theyre still Vastly different designs? I guarantee this would not be compared if they were wolves. Krisgoat obviously doesn't own goats or coloring them to popular choices...?

Anyways I have no idea why goatlings staff (...not gonna fault their team entirely though! i know from talking about this with others that its definitely One Infamous Persons choice) thought I was some evil Malicious ripoff bootleg god but i have made zero dollars or sold any customs to anyone in relation to caprines. They're little fun pets I made because I like goat! I never interacted on goatlings site or offsite discussions about goatlings other than posting my art and ad concepts, so I didn't think I'd get banned alike others.

4dopt staff has been incredibly kind throughout all of this thankfully! None of this is in their error at all, and I appreciate the communication from them and what they shared. Nobody really saw this coming...!

Anyways, the indiecaprine is now Hatsune Miku. Enjoy!

[bee-in-a-box]

anywaysies I got my monkees paperbacks in themailand I really wasn'tsure what to expect and it's GOT COMICS!! I love thisart style its so cute

[lokh]

what do you think toshiro's version of laios would've been like if he was still with the group during the shapeshifter shenanigans

there have been a few speculations in the tag and among the fans and they are all very good SO i am going to take this opportunity to insert a bit of my shipping bias as i like in my interpretation LMAO agdsfgdfgv

i noted that in actuality shuro seems to have a very good grasp on laios' character??? this is most obvious in the manga later on but even seeing how he criticises laios in their fight... iirc nothing he says is actually untrue or wildly exaggerated, and while he does express frustration over something he feels like laios Should have control over (noticing his cues), he is also aware that laios isnt being malicious and that hes Just Like That. what i mean to say is that while i think his version of laios may seem more pushy and in-your-face, i dont think it will be overwhelmingly so. if its post-fight, i think the idea of laios (and marcille) being willing to do anything to get falin back made a big impression on him, as well as the idea that they need to eat and rest in order to succeed in their goals, so those aspects would be prominent in his version. he seems pretty observant, so i think for the most part the physical traits would line up, but i think there would be specific things that stand out to him that would appear strangely striking on his version of laios (like. idk something about his eye colour or the subtle contrast of his armour and chainmail. he seems to have a weird sense of aesthetics if extras are anything to go by lmao). if hed actually been paying attention all those times laios had gone on about what the hell ever, then it might be even MORE hard to tell apart his version since he would also have a good grasp on what laios should know. so either his version of laios is pretty difficult to pick out, OR despite the character being accurate his appearance is too. stylised lmao (exaggerated features or something) OR!! they just get him to pull out his monster gourmet guide thing and are able to tell from there. iirc everyone was surprised at its appearance so its possible toshiro had also never seen it before

IN MY IMAGINARY SHIPPING SCENARIO............ lets say that his laios isnt able to be picked out immediately and that the monster guide thing also doesnt immediately occur to anyone. what the real laios Specifically notices is how close this other laios keeps getting to shuro. and hes like. ??? why is he getting so close to him, theres no way i get that close to him??? but no one else seems to be picking up on it as weird, so hes having a small crisis like do i REALLY get that close to him???? and now that hes on the outside he notices shuro subtly leaning away and he feels both a wave of shame and..... protectiveness??? (JEALOUSY??????) and he immediately steps in and grabs him like Hey!!! cant you see hes uncomfortable???? weve been through this already!!! and like. ok i cant believe im doing this again but i need to separate this into different endings

a) the whump route: i dont think shuro ever envisioned Actually Telling laios about his frustrations outside of being basically cornered into it. has he ever spoken up against what was expected of him?? has he ever been confrontational???? i think part of what held him back from expressing his frustrations, along with the cultural norms, could be fear of what the reaction would be. if he had done the same in any other aspect of his life (his family, his inheritance), i think he would expect disappointment, disapproval, more proof that he doesnt add up to expectation. to be honest i dont think he Truly believes that laios is the type of person to react like this. but it was strong enough to prevent him from acting and i think would be projected onto his image of laios. maybe fake!laios says something dismissive like Well if it really bothered him hed say something right? what, he cant even stand up for himself? cmon, shuro, prove that you cant handle it just like everything else. and thats pretty much the fastest giveaway that it isnt really laios. of course this would be a HUGE tonal departure from what the actual episode/chapter was, so:

b) the dumbass route: both laioses break into fisticuffs, and, yes.... barking. and so they speedrun the entire encounter as the shapeshifters true form appears and, after laios points out that thinking too hard about others versions of you can tear apart groups and peace of mind, they pointedly do not speak of it again. they think about it though. a LOT

c) the normal route: both laioses argue normal like and the group ends up being able to tell them apart because the fake laios goes on a little too long about how theyre all here for falin and everyones like ok its not like he DOESNT love his sister but.......... the rest of the scenario probably goes like canon, though then i would want to see what everyone Else thought of shuro

[serpentface]

Do you conlang? I was wondering if you had naming languages (or possibly even more developed ones) for pulling the words you use. I tried to search your blog but didn't find anything, wouldn't be surprised if the feature is just busted tho. Your worldbuilding is wonderful and I particularly enjoy the anthropological and linguistic elements.

Ok the thing is I had kind of decided I was not going to do any conlanging because I don't feel like I'm equipped to do a good job of it, like was fully like "I'm just going to do JUST enough that it doesn't fail an immediate sniff test and is more thoughtful than just keysmashing and putting in vowels". And then have kinda been conlanging anyway (though not to a very deep and serious extent. I maybe have like....an above average comprehension of how language construction works via willingness to research, but that's not saying much, also I can never remember the meanings of most linguistic terms like 'frictives' or etc off the top of my head. I'm just kinda raw dogging it with a vague conceptualization of what these things mean)

I do at least have a naming language for Wardi (and more basic rules for other established languages) but the rudimentary forms of it were devised with methods much shakier and less linguistically viable than even the most basic naming language schemes, and I only went back over it LONG after I had already made a bunch of words so there's some inconsistencies with consonant presence and usage. (This can at least be justified because it IS a language that would have a lot of loanwords and would be heavily influenced by other language groups- Burri being by far the most significant, Highland-Finnic and Yuroma-Lowlands also being large contributors)

The 'method' I used was:

-Skip basic construction elements and fully move into devising necessary name words, with at least a Vibe of what consonants are going to be common and how pronunciation works -Identify some roots out of the established words and their meanings. Establish an ongoing glossary of known roots/words. -Construct new words based in root words, or as obvious extensions/variants of established words. -Get really involved in how the literal meanings of some words might not translate properly to english, mostly use this to produce a glossary of in-universe slang. -Realize that I probably should have at least some very basic internal consistency at this point. -Google search tutorials on writing a naming language. -Reverse engineer a naming language out of established words, and ascribe all remaining inconsistencies to being loanwords or just the mysteries of life or whatever.

I do at least have some strongly established pronunciation rules and a sense of broad regional dialect/accents.

-'ai' words are almost always pronounced with a long 'aye' sound.

-There is no 'Z' or 'X' sound, a Wardi speaker pronouncing 'zebra' would go for 'tsee-brah', and would attempt 'xylophone' as 'ssye-lohp-hon'

-'V' sounds are nearly absent and occur only in loanwords, and tend to be pronounced with a 'W' sound. 'Virsum' is a Highland word (pronounced 'veer-soom') denoting ancestry, a Wardi speaker would go 'weer-sum'.

-'Ch' spellings almost always imply a soft 'chuh' sound when appearing after an E, I, or O (pelatoche= pel-ah-toh-chey), but a hard 'kh' sound after an A or U (odomache= oh-doh-mah-khe). When at the start of a word, it's usually a soft 'ch' unless followed by an 'i' sound (chin (dog) is pronounced with a hard K 'khiin', cholem (salt) is pronounced with a soft Ch 'cho-lehm')

-Western Wardin has strong Burri cultural and linguistic influence, and a distinct accent- one of the most pronounced differences is use of the ñ sound in 'nn' words. The western city of Ephennos is pronounced 'ey-fey-nyos' by most residents, the southeastern city of Erubinnos is pronounced 'eh-roo-been-nos' by most residents. Palo's surname 'Apolynnon' is pronounced 'A-puh-lee-nyon' in the Burri and western Wardi dialects (which is the 'proper' pronunciation, given that it's a Kos name), but will generally be spoken as 'Ah-poh-leen-non' in the south and east.

-R's are rolled in Highland-Finnic words. Rolling R's is common in far northern rural Wardi dialects but no others. Most urban Wardi speakers consider rolling R's sort of a hick thing, and often think it sounds stupid or at least uneducated. (Brakul's name should be pronounced with a brief rolled 'r', short 'ah' and long 'uul', but is generally being pronounced by his south-southeastern compatriots with a long unrolled 'Brah' sound).

Anyway not really a sturdy construction that will hold up to the scrutiny of someone well equipped for linguistics but not pure bullshit either.

[invinciblerodent]

and another very small, very minor entry on the list of Things I'm Getting Just a Tiny Little Bit Miffy About Seeing Repeated (Not Angry Just Ever So Slightly Annoyed)TM:

dnd elves do, in fact, mature at the same rate humans do. they're not "like children" or "not considered full adults" until they hit 100- not to anyone other than other, older elves.

like I get where the thought comes from, I fully understand it, I've read many of the source materials myself, I've read Mordenkainen's and see where the misunderstanding comes from, but... to a human, or a tiefling, or anyone else shorter-lived than an elf, a 50-, 60-, 90-year-old elf is just like a 50-, 60-, 90-year-old of their own race would be. they just look much younger than their age, and act in accordance with their personality, which is.... much less tied to someone's age than many may think. (I mean, have you never met a 50-year-old who seems just staggeringly immature? a 20-year-old who is wiser than their years would allow? have you never been to a retail establishment???????)

it's only the other elves who view a younger one as emotionally immature, and that's mainly because they have yet to bury their first generation of friends and loved ones: something a shorter-lived person only has to do once, while elves may very well go through several cycles of that in one lifetime. They have also not yet had their Drawing of the Veil, when they stop being able to access primal memories, memories of their soul's previous lives, but it's mainly the "all my once-powerful and vibrant friends are now frail and dying from old age, and yet here I remain, as young, strong, and beautiful as the day they met me, untouched by the inexorable crawl of time, what is mortality, what is death" thing.

if the people of Faerun in general thought of a 40-year-old elf as immature, as if they were a child, Astarion would have just patently not been an appointed civil administrator and judicial officer (which is what a magistrate is) 200 years ago. like he could have of course been lying when he said that that's what he was, but taking it as the once-truth, nobody would have let someone they see as a child fill such a position of responsibility. It was, however, a perfectly mundane thing for a learned adult man, such as he was, to do. (what he may or may not have done with the power he allegedly had, the kind of person he was, and whether letting him have power was the right move overall, is pretty much completely irrelevant at this juncture. corrupt officials exist regardless of age, just look at the judicial system of any country today.)

an older elf like Halsin, their maturity is not just on a different level, it's measured by a different metric than that of a shorter-lived character.

it's hard to accurately roleplay or grasp something like this with our human minds, none of us have ever spoken to a 300-year-old after all, but.... a 100-year-old elf is not a "young adult", unless you're an elf yourself. If you're a human, they're just... an adult.

[icewindandboringhorror]

There's always a slight yearning in the back of my mind wishing I had been born in the right place, time, family situation, income level, etc. to have just lived in one single house for my entire life. Imagine being born in a place that still suits you, even through all of your personal evolutions and etc. The idea of deep familiarity with an area because you've lived and explored it for 40+ years, being encased in a web of memories and connections. Being able to clean out your old childhood bedroom and find personal artifacts, to dig in the yard and remember. I know those lives can still be plenty imperfect, but there's just something so seemingly solid and stable and Grounding about it that I sometimes wish I could have.. (At least from my outside perspective as someone who's moved around a bit geographically and even within the same area, never lives in the same house/ apartment /etc. for more than a few years usually.) Like... having a place that is printed upon, fully your own, rather than chronically a visitor, every thought of a space always tempered with the notion that one day soon you'll have to pack it all up again, etc. There's something peaceful about the permanence.

[medicinemane]

.

[palebloodpresence]

what if i said my genuine opinion of "rom the vacuous spider" is that she's actually not like, peaceful because she's stupid, she's just extremely fucking chill bc she's so enlightened. like she WILL defend herself but really she just wants to hide in her cool lake world and hide dark rituals

[kiealer]

i’m going to bed bc work tomorrow but i’d like to mention that now that jay has referred to ninazu’s dance style as ‘freestyle kpop’, i can’t unsee it 

[needlebeetles]

hey guys im not going to get into the copyright issues or what constitutes art (personally i think art is when something is presented with the intention of being appreciated aesthetically or prompting emotion or thought) because that's a lot more based on personal ideology and stuff, but I will let y'all know that item b is a little more nuanced?

ai training and the like do use quite a bit of energy, and studies show that a single ChatGPT query uses around 3 watt-houts, ten times more than the average google search. however, the average one person (usamerican) household uses 20.11 kilo-watt hours per day, so if we say, asked ChatGPT to write our history essay for us (don't do this, ChatGPT is more often than not a source of misinformation), that would be about 0.015% of our average daily energy usage. this post and this article here put the numbers more in perspective.

data centers (not specifically ones that host ai models) use 1.5% of global energy at most so if ai is going to destroy the planet it's certainly not going to be the only thing destroying the planet.

AI people: we're just as much artists as you are, you gotta be so observant and go through so many correcting phases for the picture to look good uwu also AI people:

[strayslost]

i think i'm gonna age rimbaud up from his anime age, but only by about four years (so he'd be 31 and not 27 during the 15 light novel.) he'd still have met verlaine and worked as a spy when he was pretty young (around 20 i think??), but he still would have been an adult at the time, albeit a very young one/just out of his teens.

assuming verlaine is around the same age (at the very least they're the same height in the 15 manga flashbacks, so it seems likely), that'd make verlaine around 31-32 in stormbringer, and 38-39 in the main canon of bsd?? which feels a liiiiitle older than he comes across as to me, but not too egregiously. of course, technically verlaine might be more like sigma and not have an actual traditional "age" so to speak... i guess i could mess around with that a bit too if i wanted. like maybe he was created as an adult, and he physically ages a bit slower than other humans do??? or not. lol idk where i'm going with this.

the tl;dr is that i'm imagining that rimbaud and verlaine met when rimbaud was around 20, and they worked together for four years, so he was betrayed by him when he was 24. as for how i'll handwave the guidebook age for rimbaud being 27 - i'm just gonna imagine that that's how old he either thinks he is, or how more likely how old he presents himself as to the port mafia/the world as a whole. he DID have amnesia after all, and his true identity wasn't known, so there wasn't any way for them to be sure of his own age, either!

[strikersin]

Dreams. Dreams. DREAMS!

The one where I'm watching a movie at Luther's house and she is dressed in almost Russian attire - Fancy, cold, and so beautiful. And we're in bed and I'm explaining my excitement over the Pathologic movie and later we have to deal with zombies but whatever.

And I'm playing with children's toys there. Everyone is so young.

Real life when we were read The Last Unicorn or something, something, at the cafeteria table. The book where the protagonist is taught how to keep her thoughts locked up tight like a box.

Ugh.

[a-book-of-creatures]

I think I stumbled upon some kind of ichthyological forbidden knowledge. Opened up a book of names that were never meant to be read.

You've probably heard of "can-opener smoothdream", right? It's practically a meme by now.

But the thing is, it's a deep-sea fish. And deep-sea fish have historically not had English names because nobody drops them into the conversation over a hot cuppa. Sure, there's generic stuff like hatchetfish and barreleye, but when you want to refer to the actual fish you're probably saying such euphonious phrases as Diretmus argenteus, Sternoptyx diaphana, or maybe even Opisthoproctus soleatus.

So whence "can-opener smoothdream"? Certainly no non-ichthyologist has ever used that name. It's not even a direct translation of the scientific name Chaenophryne longiceps - that would be "long-headed gape-toad". Which to me is even cooler than "can-opener smoothdream".

But I digress. The "dream" bit comes from the anglerfish family Oneirodidae, from oneiros, "dream", because those marvelous fishes look like they came out of a dream (Pietsch, 2009).

Note that Pietsch (2009), more or less the anglerfish bible, uses English names at the genus level only. So Chaenophryne is the smoothhead dreamers genus but no mention is made of "can-opener smoothdreams". So no luck there.

Wikipedia, root cause of a lot of misinformation, has this to say.

"Longhead dreamer" is a far more accurate name. And in fact, despite Wikipedia prioritizing "can-opener smoothdream" (because it's funny?), the links listed use "longhead dreamer" and "smoothhead dreamer" as the name and "can-opener smoothdream" as an alternative.

So. Again. Where did "can-opener smoothdream" come from?

The answer, as it turns out, lies with McAllister (1990).

In the book A List of the Fishes of Canada, ichthyologist D. E. McAllister sought out to list every single fish known to Canadian waters, providing both an English and a French name.

And when there wasn't an English name, like for most deep-sea fishes, he arbitrarily gave them a name. And his names "differ in many instances from the widely accepted names" (Holm, 1998)

This had varying results. This is his name for one of the netdevil anglerfishes.

The humpback anglerfish or blackdevil anglerfish becomes a werewolf (????).

This one is just confusing.

The white-spotted lanternfish or Rafinesque's lanternfish instead becomes...

And most embarrassingly, the Mediterranean spiderfish gets saddled with something that "violates the tenet of good taste" (Holm, 1998).

This then is the original source of "can-opener smoothdream". It was invented by an ichthyologist in 1990, and has seen little to no use outside of how bizarre the name is.

Maybe McAllister's goofier names will catch on. Who knows? They certainly aren't very popular in the scientific community though.

References

Holm, E. (1998) Encyclopedia of Canadian Fishes (review). The Canadian Field-Naturalist, 112, p. 174-175.

McAllister, D. E. (1990) A List of the Fishes of Canada. National Museum of Natural Sciences, Ottawa.

Pietsch, T. W. (2009) Oceanic Anglerfishes: Extraordinary Diversity in the Deep Sea. University of California Press, Berkeley.