#much better ending all around

[chloesimaginationthings]

FNAF Into the pit? More like into the daddy issues

[hinamie]

domain expansion

[trappedinafantasy37]

Sometimes I think about when Minthara first joins camp after you save her from Moonrise. She sits in her tent, alone at night, surrounded by strangers who she believes have every reason to kill her. She sits there paranoid, feeling that they will just kill her at any moment for any reason. You have earned a small sliver of her trust, but not completely. And she goes along with you and everyone because she really doesn't have much of a choice. And it's not like her fears are unfounded, some of the companions do state their reservations about her when she is first recruited (and one of the companions actually does want her dead if a certain datamine ever gets added to the game).

She only comes to completely trust you when you allow her to read your mind. But, it doesn't clear her of any paranoia with the other companions. She only trusts them because you trust them, and she trusts you.

In spite of this paranoia and fear, she is still willing to risk her life to protect them and save them from whatever trouble comes their way. Even if she won't admit it, she does care about all the companions in camp. Yes, even the wizard. But she feels that none of them will ever lift a finger for her and will let her die when she needs help the most.

One of the many reasons why Orin kidnapping her is so heartbreaking. Because ALL of the companions want to go and save her and get her back from Orin. And one of them is extremely outraged and pissed that Orin had the audacity to take her Minthara away from her. The one time the companions show unanimous love and support for Minthara, she isn't even there to hear it. If only she knew how much they wanted her back, she would probably stop being so paranoid of them.

And she attends the reunion party still thinking that nobody likes her and they all hang out without her. When in reality, they all love her. She is surrounded by people who love her, and she thinks they hate her and are still plotting to kill her. And it's all because she wasn't there to hear how much they do care about her.

[benevolenterrancy]

@hereticcryptid I appear to be slowly but surely developing an entire series about how Hensheng and Baxia apparently get fed up with their owners' inability to express their feelings and take matters into their own hands...

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Thank you all for voting in the poll to decide who was going to be the leader of the band! It turned out to be such a close race!

[halorvic]

The danger is clear and present: COVID isn’t merely a respiratory illness; it’s a multi-dimensional threat impacting brain function, attacking almost all of the body’s organs, producing elevated risks of all kinds, and weakening our ability to fight off other diseases. Reinfections are thought to produce cumulative risks, and Long COVID is on the rise. Unfortunately, Long COVID is now being considered a long-term chronic illness — something many people will never fully recover from. Dr. Phillip Alvelda, a former program manager in DARPA’s Biological Technologies Office that pioneered the synthetic biology industry and the development of mRNA vaccine technology, is the founder of Medio Labs, a COVID diagnostic testing company. He has stepped forward as a strong critic of government COVID management, accusing health agencies of inadequacy and even deception. Alvelda is pushing for accountability and immediate action to tackle Long COVID and fend off future pandemics with stronger public health strategies. Contrary to public belief, he warns, COVID is not like the flu. New variants evolve much faster, making annual shots inadequate. He believes that if things continue as they are, with new COVID variants emerging and reinfections happening rapidly, the majority of Americans may eventually grapple with some form of Long COVID. Let’s repeat that: At the current rate of infection, most Americans may get Long COVID.

[...]

LP: A recent JAMA study found that US adults with Long COVID are more prone to depression and anxiety – and they’re struggling to afford treatment. Given the virus’s impact on the brain, I guess the link to mental health issues isn’t surprising. PA: There are all kinds of weird things going on that could be related to COVID’s cognitive effects. I’ll give you an example. We’ve noticed since the start of the pandemic that accidents are increasing. A report published by TRIP, a transportation research nonprofit, found that traffic fatalities in California increased by 22% from 2019 to 2022. They also found the likelihood of being killed in a traffic crash increased by 28% over that period. Other data, like studies from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, came to similar conclusions, reporting that traffic fatalities hit a 16-year high across the country in 2021. The TRIP report also looked at traffic fatalities on a national level and found that traffic fatalities increased by 19%. LP: What role might COVID play? PA: Research points to the various ways COVID attacks the brain. Some people who have been infected have suffered motor control damage, and that could be a factor in car crashes. News is beginning to emerge about other ways COVID impacts driving. For example, in Ireland, a driver’s COVID-related brain fog was linked to a crash that killed an elderly couple. Damage from COVID could be affecting people who are flying our planes, too. We’ve had pilots that had to quit because they couldn’t control the airplanes anymore. We know that medical events among U.S. military pilots were shown to have risen over 1,700% from 2019 to 2022, which the Pentagon attributes to the virus.

[...]

LP: You’ve criticized the track record of the CDC and the WHO – particularly their stubborn denial that COVID is airborne. PA: They knew the dangers of airborne transmission but refused to admit it for too long. They were warned repeatedly by scientists who studied aerosols. They instituted protections for themselves and for their kids against airborne transmission, but they didn’t tell the rest of us to do that.

[...]

LP: How would you grade Biden on how he’s handled the pandemic? PA: I’d give him an F. In some ways, he fails worse than Trump because more people have actually died from COVID on his watch than on Trump’s, though blame has to be shared with Republican governors and legislators who picked ideological fights opposing things like responsible masking, testing, vaccination, and ventilation improvements for partisan reasons. Biden’s administration has continued to promote the false idea that the vaccine is all that is needed, perpetuating the notion that the pandemic is over and you don’t need to do anything about it. Biden stopped the funding for surveillance and he stopped the funding for renewing vaccine advancement research. Trump allowed 400,000 people to die unnecessarily. The Biden administration policies have allowed more than 800,000 to 900,000 and counting.

[...]

LP: The situation with bird flu is certainly getting more concerning with the CDC confirming that a third person in the U.S. has tested positive after being exposed to infected cows. PA: Unfortunately, we’re repeating many of the same mistakes because we now know that the bird flu has made the jump to several species. The most important one now, of course, is the dairy cows. The dairy farmers have been refusing to let the government come in and inspect and test the cows. A team from Ohio State tested milk from a supermarket and found that 50% of the milk they tested was positive for bird flu viral particles.

[...]

PA: There’s a serious risk now in allowing the virus to freely evolve within the cow population. Each cow acts as a breeding ground for countless genetic mutations, potentially leading to strains capable of jumping to other species. If any of those countless genetic experiments within each cow prove successful in developing a strain transmissible to humans, we could face another pandemic – only this one could have a 58% death rate. Did you see the movie “Contagion?” It was remarkably accurate in its apocalyptic nature. And that virus only had a 20% death rate. If the bird flu makes the jump to human-to-human transition with even half of its current lethality, that would be disastrous.

[reds-skull]

PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3 | PART 4 | PART 6

If you're curious, Soap and Ghost's final score is 28-3

Only one part left! (unless it turns out too long again lol). Honestly can't believe this is almost finished...

[pioneer-over-c]

(good timeline version of the thing I posted before, apparently)

[triglycercule]

nightmare viewing the murder time three as little toys but more in like a little spoiled kid kinda way. because it would be funny and if you take into the account that he was like 6 before getting corrupted and do some mental loopholes it would be even funnier. like these are his dolls (killer dust and horror) and this is their barbie dreamhouse (his castle). they all have to stay in one room because nightmare needs to keep his toys in a toy box. the toys only ever come out when he wants to play but oh damn it they keep on breaking out!! silly toys,,, and then he locks them into the room again.

nightmare serves them food with plastic tea cups and plastic plates and there is no food. there is no tea. they have to imagine the food because dolls can't literally eat. there are food containers and stuff in the house but its all just a bunch of empty boxes. horror starts tweaking out after he scavenges the kitchen and finds a cereal box and milk carton that have NOTHING in it (why keep empty boxes?????)

they have to go where he wants them to go. nightmare gets to dress them up in whatever he wants because theyre his dolls they can wear anything he wants. it gets incredibly embarrassing when the trio is forced to wear pink pretty dresses and fight like that. or they have to go around the castle doing stupid fucking roleplays and it gets weird because theyre being forced to reenact a bullying scene and nightmare's giving them the death stare if they don't get it right (is this projection. this must be some form of coping mechanism dust theorizes)

and then you know nightmare's not exactly the best toy owner so he loses a few of his dolls here and there. maybe they get destroyed when he was playing a bit too rough with them! (killer dies in battle for like the 29th time) but its okay because he can just go back on down to the store (something new) and buy. wait no. steal another doll and then put it back in his dreamhouse and BOOM he has a full set again!! so sweet so cute. his dolls don't have consciousness what are you talking about theyre begging to be let go?? that's all just your imagination. what do you mean you're asking about the several slowly dying bodies with removed arms or legs in his dungeon. oh that's just where the broken but not yet destroyed toys go dw theyre fine its humane

[dykedvonte]

Honestly I see Jimmy's refusal to put Curly out of his misery less about his weird feelings of envy or his delusions but the fact Curly is all but stated to be a shield to Jimmy from his actions and people seeing the worst in him.

The only characters that Jimmy really interacts with one on one before the crash are Curly and Anya, two individuals he has wildly different relationships with. It's likely that Curly really did most of the talking between them as the pilots and the rest of the crew as staff. They didn't know of Jimmy's more reprehensible behaviors cause they never really had the chance to and Jimmy is subconsciously aware. If they had disliked him more than Anya would have told Swansea earlier or even Daisuke when things got really bad.

It's why he takes the immediate opportunity to blame Curly; He's the shield. He's saved Jimmy's ass more times than he can count and more times than Jimmy would ever admit. Even when he can't really do it anymore, he mentally shields himself from his own faults by putting Curly between them. Letting Curly die puts too much on him because he doesn't know how to function without a safety net.

In the end Curly only lives because Jimmy needs the idea that Curly will inevitably make things better to stay alive, meaning Curly has to live, no matter how much it pains him to do so.

[hadesknockedupintheunderworld]

Insane again thinking about Sonic and Tails

Everyone always talks about the ways in which Tails is dependent on or revolves around Sonic. We talk about the ways in which he's depended on Sonic to save him, the way he likes tagging along on journeys, the way Sonic has inspired him, the way he always maintains Sonic's plane, leaves his door open for him with place to rest and good food to eat

But we rarely talk about the ways in which Sonic is secretly dependent or reliant on Tails

In a large portion of the games, if Tails isn't straight up on the journey alongside him, Sonic has the security that Tails can communicate with him from afar, and Tails usually appears to help out at some point during one of Sonic’s solo journeys. He doesn't have to be without Tails for long

And we see what happens (especially in Sonic Frontiers and Sonic Prime) when Tails is inaccessible. In Frontiers, he wonders where Tails aloud is unprompted, wanting to find him. Sonic's other friends even convince him to bother with the secrets of the starfall islands because doing so may lead him to Tails. He wants to find Tails so Tails can make sense of what's happening. And in Prime, Sonic ends up scrambling without Tails around. Especially in Prime S1 while things make the least sense, he seeks out Tails first (and then later hopes variants other than Nine can fill Tails' role) because he trusts him. He trusts that if Tails is here, then he can just tell Sonic what to do (come up with a plan for him to execute). With Tails around, Sonic doesn’t have to worry about not understanding the situation because Tails can figure it out. Without Tails, Prime!Sonic often shifts between trying to handle things himself to the best of his knowledge while rolling with the punches, and deferring to someone he can trust as a smarter strategizer to tell him what to do (a role Nine fills most notably, but other characters such as Rebel and Shadow fill on the occasion).

Of course there's also the earlier mentioned way in which Tails takes care of Sonic as well. I'm sure Tails isn't Sonic's only friend that he could crash with, but it's Tails who goes to such lengths to open his arms for him. If Sonic wants to crash in an actual house, if he wants to eat his favorite food, if he just wants to hang out, or if he needs help, Tails's home is open to him, accommodating his every need.

In my eyes, Sonic is the one who is surprisingly codependent here, who flounders a bit when everything goes to shit, Tails is nowhere to be found and can't be contacted, and there's no one else that can help him make sense of things. He takes Tails with him on so many journeys, even in games like Colors, where Tails largely follows behind Sonic while Sonic does a lot of the physical work. Tails doesn't need to be "useful" to tag along. He likes having Tails around, he wants Tails around. When Tails can't go with him or it's something Sonic should go alone for, he can always communicate with him and hear his voice from afar. And I'd argue there are more examples than Sonic Prime that may demonstrate Sonic trying to find someone to fill Tails' role the first chance he can get when Tails isn't around and can't be contacted.

The conclusion here is that a lot of people talk about Tails being dependent on Sonic or revolving around him, but they truly are partners. Sonic wants to be around Tails at this point perhaps as much as Tails always wants to be around Sonic. The two are strong together, they fill each other's gaps in ability. They both feel more secure when the other is around, and they rely on each other's presence. They are each a comforting existence to the other in similar and different ways.

[puppyeared]

i feel like im not making any sense but does anyone else feel like there are stories that let u run with them and ones that spell everything out for you

[42eyeballs]

when people say that sometimes (queer) subtext is better than explicitly naming something really what they mean is that weve all seen amok time and we all know what happened on the sands.

[sky-fire-forever]

Izzy Hands deserved better

[aparticularbandit]

it is important to me that you understand that:

junko has no luck (and when she does, it's bad luck)

nagito has fantastic luck, but it always comes at a cost - for every moment of good luck, there is also a moment of bad luck; the higher the good luck he wants, the greater the sacrifice of bad luck he needs first (see case 5)

izuru has luck with no cost, which makes his luck better than nagito's; he's the inverse of junko, but his luck is downloaded, fake, contrived (like the rest of his talent is)

this must be combined with:

junko can calculate and anticipate anything provided she has access to the right dataset (the better she knows someone/something, the better she can manipulate them/it - this extends to talent as well; the more data she has on how someone's talent functions, the better she can imitate it, which is why she can't imitate ryota's animation as completely in the way that she wants (different talents have different rates in terms of how much she needs to analyze them, though))

nagito can deduce but he cannot mimic; he dabbles in manipulation, but he is much more of a servant to someone else's goals, which means his analysis is always in service to someone else (kyoko is similar but not quite the same; kyoko can get to the point of deducing fast enough to prevent things, which is a lot more similar to junko's analysis, just used in a different way; kyoko's more straight forward than junko is, which is why deduce and not analyze)

izuru's analysis functions the same as junko's does, except that he doesn't need to analyze someone else's talent to mimic it; he has had talent downloaded straight into him like neo in the matrix; if he wants more talents than the ones he already has, he's gonna need them downloaded again, probably

as a result:

junko's weakness is luck and incomplete data sets; an incomplete (or wrong) data set leads to a miscalculation, and when something relies on luck and cannot be precalculated or predicted, then junko falls. she relies hard on her analysis, which gives her a blind spot. (junko, however, is aware of this. that's why she has both nagito and izuru on deck; in the hope calculation that their luck, correctly used, will allow her to predict things that happen by chance as well)

nagito's weakness is his reliance on his luck. he believes in his luck. his luck will take care of him. he can't control how it works, and he can't control how the bad luck will happen or who it will happen to, but he doesn't need to analyze something for his luck to get him out of it (and the smaller the chance that something will happen, the more likely it will happen to him; his luck works on an inverse to everyone else's, basically, so what's the point of predicting things on what is most likely to happen when, for him, it will probably be the other way around)

izuru could cover his incomplete data sets with his luck, but tends to rely so completely on his luck to cover his ass that he stops analyzing and leaves himself open there - he should be the strongest of the two, but really tends to leave him with more weaknesses until he figures out how to use the two in conjunction; something junko has figured out but cannot do because her luck is not her own

[redrobin-detective]

Skull and Co

Ok so the writing hasn't been going so great (upset stomach + laptop acting on the fritz) but it gave me time to bat around with a new l&co au where Skull and Lockwood's situations are reversed.

Lucy runs away to London and joins an eccentric agency run by a teenage boy who only goes by Skull. He was a talented orphan boy apprenticed by a well known if eccentric spirit researcher and agency leader, Edmund Bickerstaff, who died suddenly a few months ago. Skull chose to continue the agency on his own, hiring George and later Lucy. Lucy and Skull have a caustic but playful banter between them. She is intrigued by this mysterious boy who owns this whole agency not mention the master he still looks up to even in death.

While digging through the basement - looking for supplies bc Skull and George together are a messy, disaster duo - Lucy finds a Source jar in the basement containing a chatty, affable Skull who calls himself Lockwood. He's a boy from the Victorian era who could see spirits clearly back in the day. His parents, also researchers, dedicated time to understanding their child's abilities. They died a few years before Lockwood himself did under mysterious circumstances. Lockwood has intermittent memories of his life and none of his death. Skull is annoyed Lucy dug that old thing up, stupid skull was always making pleading faces at him but Skull can't Listen worth a damn.

The series would follow the agency as they grow as people. Lucy learns more about the wickedness that happened under Dr. Bickerstaff and how Skull had often been forced to particpate. Skull will be coming to terms with his mentor's abusive behavior and realize that he genuinely does want to be a better person. They're also trying to solve the mystery of Lockwood's death which ends up spiraling into the mystery of the problem itself.