#not anything huge i made them pretty comprehensive but
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Do you have anything you wanted to but weren't able to fit in the koopaling descriptions?
Larry Koopa: Rob Paulsen
Morton Koopa: Tom kenny
Wendy O. Koopa: Tabitha st. germain but with different voice direction this time
Iggy Koopa: Charlie Adler
Roy Koopa: Jeff Bennett
Lemmy Koopa: Grey Delisle
Ludwig von Koopa: Tim Curry
#not anything huge i made them pretty comprehensive but#i did used to make it a thing that they used their cartoon counterpart names as walkie talkie code names#another thing that isn't necessarily my headcanon but did come up a lot in the games i played as a kid#is the idea that bowser's toilet is a warp pipe leading directly to yoshi's island#so. That's something
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Every time YouTube nonsense happens I'm always like "I can't wait to see what Sergle says about this" because you're the only person I follow that talks about YouTube nonsense.
Please take this is an invitation for you to talk about the Watcher's apology video lol
I am a filthy youtube enjoyer so you can absolutely count on me and GODDDDDDDDDDD... I mean the apology is not NEARLY as funny as the blunder, so it hasn't kept my attention as much but like the obligatory upfront thing is that, like, it is good that they posted it, they apologized for being insensitive and whatever, they're not scraping their channel clean or going forward with their old plan to only post their shows on their own platform, and these are technically good and correct things, because they could have pretended not to notice all the negative feedback. So like, responding is good. BUT LIKE I HAVE QUESTIONS NOW... Because they took SO LONG to film and upload a video that basically is just "we fucked up, we're sorry, we're not gonna do that anymore", which doesn't exactly take a writer's room several days to cook, but I DIGRESS... They were quiet for long enough for everyone to LOOK REALLY CLOSE. After the initial reaction, people had time to do some pretty comprehensive cost breakdowns for their stuff, and for what they have to be pulling in from adsense, sponsored segments, patreon, merch, and touring Like, they'd need to be really mismanaging their finances, because they're doing very well for themselves, making good, stable money, and the vids they make are super duper advertiser friendly. SO... you take long enough without putting out a holder statement or a quick heel-turn apology or anything, it gives people more time to get comfortable with not liking you, and also to dig around and google things about you, or scrape up info/trivia about you to corroborate their new opinion of you. It gets personal, is what I mean. So pulling this move has still, at BEST, caused some permanent damage to their relationships with fans, in both directions. They all got a huge flood of negative feedback, and even a perfect, emotionally mature, non-entitled person would have a negative reaction to people being upset with them at such a high volume. But now they're gonna remember the things that people have said about them, and there's no way that at the very least, Steven isn't gonna feel spiteful about this. People TOTALLY unloaded on him (funny) (valid) about his evangelical christian conservative leaning tesla privileged out of touch boy gold flaked ice cream eating ways. He definitely is going to remember that ppl said they never liked him in the first place. As for Ryan and Shane, people didn't have any dirt on them, but they definitely still received a lot of angry messages from people, most of which will have been reasonable, but they're gonna remember the really really mean and intense ones. Anyway, they made a booboo dumb enough for jack to want to make a skit about it, so for that I'm very grateful, because I thought it was really really fucking funny
youtube
#it's no big deal and it's whatevs because it's Low Risk youtube scandal which is why I like it so much#but it still never fails to amaze me how much this didn't need to happen#like this would have been a totally preventable blunder. I can think of a million different ways to increase profit before trying this move#personally I think it's funny to mess up this badly because the Second Messup would be to respond REALLY quickly#You see it trending and you immediately need to act bc it will only get worse the longer you stay quiet#sergle answers#long post
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The Far Roofs: the Rats' Books of Names
cover art by Isip Xin
Hi!
Today I’m going to talk a little bit more about my forthcoming RPG, the Far Roofs. I’ve previously talked about
general principles,
the rats,
the campaign,
the Mysteries, and
my favorite Mystery.
Today, I want to talk about a key setting element:
The rats' "books of names."
So, the high concept here is pretty simple. The rats of this game are pretty cool, but not cool enough to deal with god-monsters on any kind of equal basis. The Mysteries aren't like Goliath to their David, at least not usually; they're more like Scylla and Charybdis to their Odysseus. Sometimes it's possible to negotiate. Sometimes it's possible to fight back. But a lot of the time, "winning" a confrontation with a Mystery is more about surviving. Making it through.
Except ...
Just like it was for human mariners, a situation where the whole environment they travel through is full of impossible horrors one just can't do anything about ... that's kind of untenable. Humans never made the sea safe, but they did learn to navigate it. They figured out how to sail, how to chart, how to not get constant scurvy, how to knot rigging, all that stuff.
In like fashion, the rats have this multi-generational project to, basically, nibble away at the "Mystery" part of the Mysteries. To not just survive their encounters, but to come away with a bit more information every time.
To learn, eventually, how to handle all of this stuff, all these monstrous divinities that haunt the Far Roofs.
The Books of Names, in short, are a sacred tradition of the rats and pretty much a defining feature of their interactions with the Mysteries. Most families of rats keep their own set. The shelves of the rats' great libraries overflow with huge and magnificently illuminated Books of Names—dozens or hundreds for any given Name. Over the generations, at a grievous cost, the rats are grinding down the impossible magic of the roofs into something comprehensible, something they can grapple with. To record truth, and insightful commentary, and eventually learn to live with even the greatest and most awful Mysteries.
What this all means to the rats is a little tangled. They worship the Mysteries, I think, and hunt them; they are hunted by the Mysteries in turn. They dream of one day defeating or destroying them, but I don’t think they’d like the world where they’d been destroyed. They are hammered into shape, both as individuals and a people, by the Mysteries, and I don’t think I can ever really fully express what these books, or the Mysteries themselves, mean to them.
They are rich, like cake, like wine, like a well-loved and annotated cookbook. They are generations of wisdom, bound in form.
To the rats, they are, I think, life itself.
Let me show you what an example is like! Like, what you might see opening up some rat family's Book on the Mystery Hoop Snake.
.
Quick Hoop Snake sketches, by Jenna
.
So your typical Book of Names is going to start with a couple of introductory pages, maybe some sketches or whatever, and then move on to what the rats call a Mystery's "heralds," the ... ways you know that the Mystery is near. The things that you see when it's interested in you, when it's considering haunting you, or just passing by. The things that it emerges from, in the world.
It'll usually start with a list, with lots of room left to go, like:
.
Heralds of Hoop Snake ...
* blurred vision * getting turned about * sudden light or sudden darkness * the sudden realization that something is, and has been, very wrong * * * * * ...
and then, like, a couple pages set aside to go into each of those more, with a mix of personal statements (often newsletter clippings, because the rats send these comments around) and summarized opinions or facts.
Like:
.
Blurred Vision
“I saw it on the road. Down the alley, past the milk crate, in front of that old cabinet someone left out on the street. I was rubbing my eyes, and they were a little blurry, and for a moment, I wasn’t sure I’d seen it, or what I’d seen. It was just this blur of colors rushing by, all these colors. And I thought, a flag? A mural? Someone’s shopping bag, caught by the wind? It wasn’t until I’d had that happen like three more times, these half-caught glimpses of color, in the rain, when I didn’t have my glasses on, from the corner of my eye, that I actually saw Hoop Snake direct.” — Alyona Waynwright, 2018
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NOTES
Gavrilo writes that Hoop Snake lives in the confused sensorium. The world jumbles up, and Hoop Snake comes out.
Ioanna comments: “Little incongruities become bigger ones.”
Constantinope Volkov accidentally summoned Hoop Snake through an abstract in-progress painting. He could not later replicate this feat.
Elsibet Križ proposes a mechanism similar to the way that new, unknown scents temporarily seem like improbable combinations of the known—how your first encounter with a cat does not produce the sensation, “Ah, this is the smell of cat” but “oh no, my parents are being ripped apart. The world is shaking. Why is there peppermint?” You mistake the world, and Hoop Snake is there.
Meredith McCawley (human) comments that when she is very sleepy a pile of colored yarn can look like a snake to her; the passing lights of the cars, like eyes.
Kesterley Novác pushed on her eyelids to watch shapes spin. They got more and more detailed until one day she saw Hoop Snake! Trying to chase Hoop Snake into her eyes she wound up headbutting the wall.
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Getting Turned Around
You are nodding along. You are small, they say. And meek. You are but a child. I will fix that for you, they say. You think, “Wait, what?” In that “Wait, what?” there is a snake. — Iodine Petrova, 2012
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NOTES
Maria Augustine, Leverage Jordan, and Daisuke Ozlov attest this experience of Hoop Snake: “we are confused, and then, we are not confused. A snake takes its tail into its mouth, and rolls.”
Kaeda Vanagir was noted as having frequently become lost in the weeks before her June 1993 disappearance chasing after Hoop Snake. (May she one day return.)
Jezdimir Czerny likened the moment of seeing Hoop Snake to becoming turned around, to feeling like you know where you are and where you’re going, and then you look up, and you’re actually somewhere else.
Violeta Schulz was flung from a spinning ferris wheel and, before she landed, a snake burst from the bushes to, as the witnesses described it, “drink her down like wine.”
I found a Hoop Snake scale in a little store that I’ve never seen again.
Hoop Snake Scale
.
“I was literally just popping out to buy the news. Only, I hadn’t had my coffee yet, and somehow I wound up … I don’t even know where. It was a garden, up on the roofs, but it wasn’t a rat garden, and I don’t know where it is, and I can't find that place now. There was a colored banner, there, tied to a tree. It fluttered like a snake in the wind.” — Presley Weekes, 2014
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Sudden light, by Jenna Moran
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Sudden Light, or Sudden Darkness “There were noises in the dark. Thumping. Crashing. I thought it was the cats. My brain was so sleepy. I couldn’t put it together, except: oh, the cats got down here. We don’t even have cats. So I stagger out there. I’m not even dressed, just a long shirt on. I didn’t have my glasses on. Everything was just a blur. And I look at the cats, the thing I thought was cats, and like, for just a moment it was. For just a moment, it was cats, moving in the dark. Then it was ‘cats,’ like, one thing, one item, one animal, with two parts, that were shaped like cats. Like a dromedary, if cats were humps. It stuck its tail in its mouth. It began to roll away. ‘Like Hell,’ I said, but I didn’t give chase. I wasn’t dressed!” — Lucy Stokes (human), 2004
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NOTES
Valery Merlin experienced frequent incidents of his electric lantern coming on unexpectedly and blinding his eyes, sometimes accompanied by a fulgurative scent. This ended when the flare of the light revealed a snake like a coiled spring; he fell over, the lantern broke, and the incident thus resolved.
Priscilla Augustine reports a summer cold that stuffed up her nose to the point of intermittent blindness, during which intervals objects would fall of their shelves, slithering or rolling noises echo through the halls, and glittering snake scales appear in unlikely places. Later, Hoop Snake appeared; when she complained that she could not chase it owing to her cold, it leapt up her sinus passages, cleared them out ... and vanished.
In 2007, Tsubasa Kysely reported such high levels of paparazzi harassment that “I can hardly see from all the flashing.” He would ultimately disappear in what is believed to be a Hoop Snake incident; may he one day return.
When our senses become unreliable, Eureka writes, the world becomes the inexplicable.
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The Sudden Realization that Something Is, or Has Been, Very Wrong
“The funny thing was, that wasn’t the first time I saw the snake. It had already been there. It was in that picture frame, hanging over my bed: this picture of a snake. Sometimes it moved. It was in the background on this show I watched. I would go outside, and sit on the edge of the roof, and there’d be a snake there, all curled up with its tail in its mouth, and I’d say to it ‘hey.’ I had to keep moving it out of the sink. One time, I think, I walked into my house, but it wasn’t my house. It was the snake. And I still didn’t realize. I still wasn’t able to really process, here is something inexplicable. It was just part of the world I thought I knew, until one day, I looked at it with fresh eyes and went ‘oh my freaking saints, that is a snake.’ It was like it was laughing at me, when it stuck its tail in its mouth. Like it was making fun of me. I took a step towards it, and it rolled away. Another step. Another. But there wasn’t roof underneath me any more, so I fell.” — Mikhael Bygones, 2015
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NOTES
Gavrilo writes that we often fail to recognize the presence of Hoop Snake in our lives until it has already been present for some time.
Meriadoc Ozoles was famous as “the Chasing Mayor” because she kept running after bits of colored string floating by in the breeze. It wasn’t until she caught one and it turned out to be Hoop Snake that people remembered that colored string doesn’t normally just float by all the time.
Maglev Brunsinick grew up in a burrow that turned out not to be real: he wandered out one day, and looked back, and there was only a snake. "I should have known," he says, "looking back, what with the way Mom and Dad were just internal organs. But, like, I was a kit?"
Torrin kept tripping over her grandmother's tail everywhere in the house. One day, she spilled hot oatmeal all over her grandmother's tail. "Oh no!" she said, and tried to clean it off, but her grandmother wasn't in the room. The tail wasn't reacting to the heat. Also, it was a snake tail. She dashed in to confront Hoop Snake; startled, it threw aside her grandmother's shawl, looked every which way in a panic, and then flung itself away down the drain.
Vasilisa writes: "What is reality but a snake we won't see?"
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“At some point I realized that I did not work at the company. I think it was the looks people were giving me. Steve. Like, there was Steve, and he had this look in his eye like, ‘why is there a rat here. Why is the rat wearing a suit. Why is the rat carrying a folder with our third quarter projections.’ I was just strolling along, on top of my game and on top of the world, but I couldn’t help shriveling a little at all the looks. At this growing disorientation, like: Why is this place? What is it for? Why was I heading to my cubicle to spin around and around and around on my swivel chair when the skies were so blue; when the roofs were so high? Who even hired me? Who decided that this was the way life would be? Why do people who don’t do any work get paid so much more than us rats down here in the trenches who do? And the more I tried to just cope and keep moving, the louder the questions got inside my heart, until I spun around and I pointed and I said, ‘because I’m damn good at this, STEVE.’ He was so gentle. I was … I wasn’t expecting that he’d be so gentle. ‘If only,’ he said. ‘If only that was why anyone found their way here.’” — Rufica du Lac, 2016
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Jenna Talking Again
It's basically that kind of thing! Plus a lot of blank room left for more.
After that section on the Heralds, it'd move on to the "weapons" of the Mystery, the way it hurts you, the way it messes around with your life; like, for Hoop Snake ...
.
The Weapons of Hoop Snake ...
* ridicule * confusion * anything you don't expect them to be * * * * ...
.
... but, I think I'll stop there for now.
I hope you enjoyed this glimpse at the rats' Books of Names! Don't forget to check the kickstarter out!
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in order to get to the heart
marriage of convenience, on occasion, is not so convenient.
♡ — jumin x original female character. small amounts of canon compliant jumin x reader, but mostly canon divergent (jumin is unhappily married prior to the start of the game). 1600 words. title from heartlines by florence + the machine.
They just say anything to each other these days.
“This façade drains me beyond comprehension,” Jumin confesses the minute he walks through the door. His fingers loop into the knot of his tie and pull it looser around his neck.
“So you say,” murmured half into a cushion tucked up to a woman’s chest as she types on her phone. “It’s not for our benefit though, is it?”
On some level, this is always how it was going to be for Jumin, he thinks. In a marriage stripped to its fragile bones. A sacrificial lamb for the sake of the corporation, for mutual social and financial gain.
He leans down to untie his shoes.
It would be untrue to say there weren’t veiled attempts, in the beginning, to love. When that didn’t work there were attempts to like. None successful, of course. Lately it’s becoming more difficult to believe this arrangement is better than any alternative. Between the two of them there is a lot of nothing.
The woman remains quiet—focused—but nods easily against the woven fabric she’s leaning into when Jumin asks, “Do you not get tired of coming home from work to find me occupying your space?”
He knows that in public they look good together. He knows that their careers slot together effortlessly. Despite what the media may suggest, however, they are human. Jumin included. The way he feels nothing for her does not match the way she feels nothing for him. The way she yells that he is robotic does not match the way he stoically calls her irresponsible.
They do not sleep together, or eat together, or do any of the romantic things Jumin wishes he hadn’t let himself privately indulge in the idea of. And it’s not that she’s not nice—she’s intelligent and beautiful and kind, when it suits her. Perfect on paper until she wasn’t. When she laughs with her chest Jumin can almost imagine a world where she smiles at him like she does others and it makes his heart weak. Part of him wishes, truly, that that was the case. In reality it feels like nothing.
It could be worse, he tells himself—repeats it like a mantra.
Concealed beneath it is fear. You could be like him. You could repeat his mistakes.
She throws her phone haphazardly onto the sofa beside her and looks up to where Jumin is standing in the doorway. He’s mostly backlit from the light in the hall, the lamp beside his wife barely grazing his features but lighting up hers in all the wrong ways. The orange glow casts unpleasant shadows over places she’s usually pretty. He should have the bulb changed to something less harsh.
“Not much we can do if you don’t want the press to kick up a huge fuss, sweetie,” she says.
The pet names are a jest he has learned to tune out.
“Will they not make a fuss over our divorce in three years’ time nonetheless?” Jumin asks. It’s hypothetical, of course. They will.
“Maybe we’ll have grown on each other by then.” Her tone is disinterested; feels almost mocking. Her phone chimes to let her know her driver is outside. “I’m going out. Shall I take my card or yours?”
“It makes little difference to me.” Jumin looks at his watch. It’s almost 10pm but he doesn’t ask where she’s going. A bar, perhaps.
“Could you adjust my necklace?”
She holds her hair up messily, and he does.
“Let me know if you need anything,” he tells her, then briefly wonders if she’ll meet someone tonight and sleep with them. He pictures her naked beneath a stranger. It feels like nothing.
She takes her own card and squeezes his bicep softly as she walks by him on the way out. She shuts the door more forcefully than is ever really necessary.
At some point Jumin suggests she move out of their—his—apartment and into the one directly below; just recently made vacant. He probably would have suggested it earlier had the apartment been available earlier, but their district of Seoul tends to be under high demand.
“I thought we agreed it was a bad idea to live separately,” she says. It’s a statement, not a question. They had done exactly that.
Jumin hums, tired. Tired from his trip and tired from trying and at some point, it seems, he has lost an indistinguishable part of himself to her for good.
“We did. Although I would say that that was long enough ago now for us both to have become quite aware that we do not do particularly well sharing the same space for considerable periods of time.”
“You’re gone a lot anyway. The place is big enough for us to avoid each other if needed, and I like it here.”
She exhales sharply; amused.
Jumin has no idea why until she adds, “More so when you’re not around, to be fair.” And that explains it, just about.
“Stay here when I am travelling if you must,” he tells her. Somewhere along the way his suggestion has morphed into more of an instruction.
“Fine. Don’t tell your father, though. Or mine.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
They buy it outright in her name, the cost split fifty-fifty. Jumin tells her to keep it all when she sells it later. She tells him she won’t.
They argue tonight, as usual, about who will be chauffeuring them to a company gala. They had agreed that Jumin’s driver would take them only for her to assert for the hundredth time at the last minute that she doesn’t trust him, though she has not legitimately spoken to him more than once and he has been working for Jumin’s family longer than she has been alive.
It’ll cause a stir if the two of them show up separately so they end up in her car, as usual. Jumin apologises to Driver Kim via text for requesting him when he wasn’t needed on the way there, and they arrive late.
The venue reminds Jumin of the last RFA party. His wife had not attended despite her invitation, so it is not proper grounds for conversation. However, when they are out like this they are a happy couple like the legal drabble says, so he says it anyway—if just to appear interested in her.
“I’m sure this is nicer than your friends’ charity get togethers,” she replies lightheartedly, and they are called over by her father before Jumin can retaliate.
The façade stays firm for the remainder of the event. Jumin can easily distinguish her fake laugh from her real one, and he can tell when she forgets who he is for a moment and touches him a little more tenderly than either of them really mean.
They are silent on the drive home. They are silent in the elevator, until it stops one floor below Jumin’s penthouse. “Goodnight,” he says. “Sleep well.”
“You don’t have to say that, you know,” she counters, and smiles softly as the doors slide shut between them. “Not when it’s just me.”
Elizabeth the 3rd is snoring softly when he unlocks his door, and it is the only sound he can hear. He basks in the bliss of having nobody around when he is already so mentally exhausted, and takes out his phone to see it’s just after midnight and Yoosung has opened a chat room.
He enters it, multitasking as he changes his clothes and brushes his teeth. His cat patters into the room and jumps up beside him when he perches on the edge of his bed. She smells frustratingly like perfume and something oddly like guilt threatens Jumin with a dull blade.
Wait!! says Luciel. Think someone entered the chat room.
Jumin checks. There is a name on his screen he doesn’t recognise.
Odd.
Who are you? Identify yourself.
“Jumin. It’s me,” your voice is soft and bubbly; maybe a little nervous but still pleasant on his ears. An intriguing introduction. He almost finds himself chuckling.
Jumin moves the phone from his ear and glances down at your name again, just to be certain he’s not imagining things, then focuses in on the plainness of the wall in front of him.
“I hope you realise blurting out ‘It’s me’ is not a proper way to identify yourself to the person on the other end of the line.”
He had hesitated briefly before telling you he is married. Now he has known you for five days and whatever he’s feeling is somehow, ridiculously, already far greater than any emotion he has ever felt towards his wife.
He invites her out for dinner at their usual restaurant the following evening, and she tells him if he has something to discuss with her she would rather keep it simple. As an alternative he invites her to the penthouse and opens a bottle of wine he knows she likes. When she arrives her hair is tied up experimentally and she is wearing a new shade of lipstick. She surprises him when she actually accepts his offer to pour her a glass.
“I am going to talk with my father,” Jumin says, and she knows what he means. It’s only later that he will find out she had already brought it up with hers. “For what it’s worth, however, I apologise that it ended up like this.”
“Me too,” she agrees. Jumin notices the light catch a glassiness in her eyes as she continues, “If I could have loved you, I would have.”
She stays for a few hours and it is the most sincere time they have spent together in three years.
That night, Zen has a dream.
#mystic messenger#jumin han#jumin x reader#anyway. [replaces your sarah choi]#I just love putting him in situations 🩷#I gave the oc lore in my head even though I'll very likely never write about her again#her name is yeeun kwon and she's the daughter of a chaebol family that chairman han has close connections to :)#I didn't share anything about her in this on purpose though#something something narrative#annfic
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this is my comprehensive guide to acne
my qualifications: years ago i had a guy take a picture of me and play connect the dots on my face (it was actually pretty funny and i made fun of him too bc he was 5’1 so it’s okay)
first of all don’t pop ur pimples for the love of god, i know everyone says that but what could likely happen is a short term problem can turn into a long term problem with scarring and damage to the skin barrier due to trauma to that surface layer of the skin, instead use things like pimple patches, most brands that make those cute colorful ones don’t really stick to the skin and so they are practically useless, a pimple patch is supposed to mimic a hydrocolloid bandage which draws liquid out of a wound, if the patch isn’t sticking well to the skin because you didn’t clean the area of skin first or the patch just isn’t very high quality again it is going to be practically useless, also micro dart patches are great, the micro darts go into the pimple and so not only are u drawing out the sebum, u are also putting whatever acne fighting substance into that pimple, my favorite brand for these is hero cosmetics, u can also use a hot/cold compress on the pimple to draw it to a head which will help ur products work better on that pimple
now for the nerdy stuff, chemical exfoliants are ideal at least for me because they aren’t physically abrasive like a scrub which again can cause trauma to the skin and then possible scarring, the ingredients that u want to look for that will chemically exfoliate the skin and help acne are benzoyl peroxide, salicylic acid, glycolic acid and others, u don’t need expensive products, pay attention to the ingredients and find one without fragrance and has the ingredients you want, and for acne scarring other than the ones i mentioned which are more focused on helping acne but also can help scarring are vitamin c, niacinamide, azelaic acid, vitamin a and others, my favorites are panoxyl products with benzoyl peroxide, and ordinary has some good things for glycolic acid and others
now the way u treat ur body can have a big impact on ur skin, i won’t tell u to drink water bc i think someone might stab me for it and i wouldn’t blame them but rlly it won’t hurt, fueling ur body and having a balanced diet can be huge, this doesn’t mean cutting things out for the most part it means adding things in like healthy fats and protein, this can help balance hormones which are huge factors in acne, also if u have a period u can consider going on birth control, again it can rlly help balance ur hormones and talk to ur doctor about one that specifically has been known to help acne, now if u can go to see a derm it’s a good choice, they can prescribe treatments at a higher concentration than u can get over the counter, they can also give u things like antibiotics which can be very beneficial and aren’t likely to have side effects, but they might recommend things like accutane and spirolactone, these are more likely to have side effects and u mostly can’t get anything like it without a dermatologists permission, this will likely mean blood tests, pregnancy tests and regular visits to check up on ur overall health because they can be very abrasive treatments
finally, wearing sunscreen and keeping ur skin moisturized are going to be huge, sun exposure can worsen acne scarring and most of these treatments are very drying so on top of sun exposure ur skin is also constantly being dried out, if u are nervous about breaking out from a sunscreen then do ur research on the ingredients and others experiences, also u can get tinted sunscreen or bb cream with SPF in it so that u can have some coverage of acne or scaring while also protecting ur skin from further damage
i’m sure i missed some things so if u have questions i’ll do my best to answer, i know how frustrating this can be which is why i made this post, remember that the way that u look is the least important thing about u and that u will never see urself the way others see u, it isn’t even close to as big of a deal as we think it is just like any other physical insecurity
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Character Creation in TTRPGs
I’m just looking back over the ttrpgs I’ve made characters for. Which is significantly more than the ttrpgs I’ve played, as I’ve only managed to play D&D 5e so far. But I enjoy character creation as basically its own little hobby, so doodling characters for games I haven’t played yet is still a lot of fun to me. (Though I really want to play Heart: The City Beneath sometime).
The games I’ve made characters for, in chronological order of my encountering them, are:
Vampire the Masquerade (I want to say V5? It was a while ago, and it was either that or V20, but I’m pretty sure it was V5).
Dungeons & Dragons 5e.
Pathfinder 2e.
Starfinder 1e.
Numenera (Discovery/Destiny, which isn’t a new edition, I think it’s mostly just a clean up of the core rulebook?).
Call of Cthulhu.
Heart the City Beneath.
Pulp Cthulhu (if we’re counting that as separate from CoC, but the characters are a bit beefier and have a couple of other options with the archetypes and talents).
I’m currently eyeing Blades in the Dark as well, but that’ll have to wait until the new year.
And just looking at them in comparison to each other, purely from a character creation standpoint, I have some thoughts? Literally just character creation, without getting into playing the games:
VtM was my first, and I was fumbling through character creation with a step-by-step online guide. I had no idea what anything was yet, so it’s hard to compare the experience with anything else, but I remember really enjoying the optional flaws and merits system at the end. You do your divvying up of points for your attributes, abilities, disciplines, backgrounds, etc, and then you get to customise with some more unique details. I remembering building a whole character around the Blind flaw, a Nosferatu whose embrace had been near-fatal and which had left lasting scars. No idea how playable said character would be, but I gave her acute hearing and smell, and an enchanting voice to compensate? She was fun.
Then I tried D&D, and my immediate impression? Coming straight from VtM? Character creation for D&D is so complicated. By comparison, at least. There were so many more options, so many different areas of the character sheet, and while classes were sort of like clans, classes also had much more comprehensive effects on the rest of the sheet. VtM clans mostly affect your disciplines and a couple other bits, while D&D classes affect everything. It was such a huge difficulty curve coming off of VtM. But then, once I got into it? So much fun. D&D 5e has so many really fun, flavourful options. (I am wondering, in hindsight, mind you, if part of the reason I like building warlocks so much is that with things like Invocations, they have a bit of that VtM merits-and-flaws customisation-from-the-base feeling? Hadn’t thought about that, but huh).
And then … then I tried PF2e. And, um. Another bit of a difficulty jump again? Pf2e is a fair bit crunchier than D&D 5e, and I still really struggle with prepared spellcasters like wizards and witches. And with alchemists, but I suspect most people struggle with alchemists. However! I found a handy cheat! There is an online character building tool called Pathbuilder, and it is the bomb. It does most of the crunching for you, so you just select your options and have fun trying things out. Made the whole process a lot more approachable, and I’ve spent so much time in that builder. Fantastic hobby, do recommend.
And then I got to Starfinder 1e, and I must admit that this time I skipped straight to cheating. There’s an online character builder called Hephaistos that lets you preview character creation for free. That being said, I felt like Starfinder was less opaque as an experience than Pathfinder 2e, but that might have been because I’d already tried Pathfinder, and was therefore more prepared, even though Starfinder 1e’s system is a fair bit different. Starfinder has so many options, and that should perhaps be paralysing, but it’s also just really fun browsing around. And, like. My first ever character in Starfinder was very easy, because there was an option to play a space dwarf, which made things rather simple. (My second character was a Sarcesian mystic, because they have space wings).
After fooling around with science fantasy in Starfinder, I bought the Numenera books in a Humble Bundle, and had a look at the Cypher system. And while I’ll freely admit that I’m much more enamoured with the setting of Numenera than the rules (doing anything involves basically bartering with the GM by spending resources to lower the difficulty of the roll, which seems … slow), but the character creation is very breezy and zany and fun. You have a character class in the Type, and then kind of a second character class in the Focus? (They’re not dissimilar to PF’s archetypes, now that I look at them – more limited in your options than a full class, but a distinct second wing to your character concept nonetheless). The Foci are really cool. They’re things like ‘Bears a Halo of Fire’ or ‘Rides the Lightning’ or the more-to-the-point ‘Murders’. (Numenera characters follow the pattern of ‘Adjective (Descriptor) Noun (Type) who Verbs (Focus)’, so you can be a Meddlesome Jack who Works Miracles, and all of those words do something for you mechanically). It’s a pretty simple and streamlined system that gives you very fun and evocative abilities.
And then. Then I tried Call of Cthulhu. And. I’m just going to say it. CoC character creation is so much math. SO much math. Like. Bring a calculator, you are going to need it. It’s not bad. It’s not difficult, it’s not like D&D or PF2e, where you’ve got a lot of interlocking options to pick between. It’s just a lot of math. Mostly as a factor of being a d100 system with skills, I’m assuming. Once you’ve rolled your characteristics and picked your occupation and determined how many points you’ve got to put into skills, plan to put aside a solid twenty minutes or so to divide those points out. And then working out your halves and fifths, although 7e put in a handy-dandy chart to just look those up, which I am very grateful to them for. It’s not a complicated creation process, and picking your occupation and working out your character details is a lot of fun, but the skills portion of the proceedings will make you feel like you’re working out your household budget for the week, just a bit.
I also very recently got the Pulp Cthulhu rules supplement, which I’m not sure requires a full entry, since it just adds extra options to standard CoC creation. But they are fun options, and I like the Pulp Talents for the same reason I love VtM’s Flaws and Merits. It’s that little bit of extra customisation for your to add onto your character.
And then there was Heart. Heart the City Beneath. And, okay. I’m biased, because I think this is my favourite ttrpg I’ve come across so far, I vibe with it so much, but Heart is so fun to create characters for. And also very simple to create characters for. You pick a race, which has no mechanical effect at all, you pick a Calling to decide what sort of story you want your GM to send you on, and you pick your Class. Once you’ve picked your class, which is the main mechanical meat, you pick one major ability from it and three minor abilities. That’s pretty much it. But oh, what classes, and oh, what abilities. Heart is a very quick, meaty, jump-straight-to-the-action sort of system, and I love it.
And that brings me up to date for the moment, though I’m interested to try other games like I said. I do want to see if I can get a copy of Blades in the new year.
So. Some general thoughts?
In terms of character creation at least, D&D, even 5e, is not on the simpler end. At all. If you start with it, maybe it’s easier, but if you try anything else first (that isn’t Pathfinder), it’s actually a bit of a hike up the difficulty curve. Again, not saying it’s bad or anything, I have a LOT of fun making endless 5e characters, but it’s certainly not the easiest thing in the world you could start with.
Some character creation is effort because it’s complicated (D&D, PF, Starfinder), and some is effort because it’s just a lot of calculations (CoC). Cthulhu characters are significantly easier to make than the other games, you’re just going to be spending some quality time with a calculator. However, since we’re just talking character creation here and leaving aside the games themselves completely, CoC characters are a lot more boring to make. There’s a bit of a difference between games where you can have a lot of fun literally just making characters, experimenting with builds and so forth, and games where you are building a character for the sole purpose of just getting them in the game. Cthulhu is definitely the latter. You make an investigator to put a body on the ground in the plot. Which, as a horror game with significantly more disposable protagonists, makes sense.
(This is not to say that you can’t make interesting CoC characters. It just feels like the interest for CoC lies in the roleplay, less the mechanics).
There also feels like there’s a bit of continuity between VtM and CoC? In that they both feel like you’re kind of adding details onto a base chassis, rather than building from the wheels up like with some other systems. In CoC you’re building an investigator, and in VtM you’re building a vampire, and they all have the same broad range of capabilities, you’re just adding some flourishes on top. VtM clans are not classes, not really. Yes, they give you different disciplines, but a vampire is still a vampire is still a vampire. Again, the differences are in lore and roleplay more than capability.
Which is why I think the customisation features you get with the Flaw/Merit system and Pulp Cthulhu’s Talents feel a bit exciting to me.
There’s also a bit of a difference in feel between the crunchier systems like D&D/PF/SF compared to the relatively more abstracted systems like Numenera and Heart. In the more abstract systems, you’re picking relatively few abilities, but the abilities themselves feel more expansive, while in the crunchier systems, you’re making a lot more choices, but those individual choices are micromanaged to within an inch of their lives in terms of their scope. Again, not bad, just a difference in feel. Numenera and Heart feel a lot jazzier and punchier in individual abilities, even if they might be more restrained in overall complexity and have a different sensation of progression compared to the lengthier, crunchier systems.
Completely different note, now, and I’m gonna say. Online character building tools make such a difference. Especially for complicated or crunchy systems. I don’t know how eager I would have been to try out PF2e if Pathbuilder (and Archives of Nethys) weren’t there. It’s not necessarily that they make it easier, it’s just that it’s so much easier to visualise the process step by step, and character builders, at least of the calibre of Pathbuilder and Hephaistos, allow you to automatically see what following choices each single choice unlocks for you. I promise I’m not just saying this because playing around in character builders is its own entire hobby for me, but genuinely, particularly if your system is on the crunchier side, they do help a lot. For something like Heart, you don’t need it, Heart involves four or five choices, tops, and it’s just a matter of noting down the results. But something that involves interlocking or dependent abilities, working out numbers around your choices, any of that? Having a tool helps. Paizo being so chill about third party tools around their systems is definitely a point in their favour. And the amount of work put in by those third parties is also amazing.
Character builders are, again, also just a lot of fun. Same as in video games, it’s just a fun little mini-hobby in its own right.
Which. With that in mind. Of the games I’ve tried out, in terms of making characters just for the fun of making characters …
The games I have the most fun doodling characters for, of those I’ve tried so far? Heart. Starfinder. And, yeah, D&D 5e. But all of them are enjoyable. Even CoC, although I know it seems like I’m complaining about it. I am, after all, a girl who makes spreadsheets for fun. Sometimes I am in the mood to make a 1920s book dealer who wound up taking a sidestep into the occult after a misunderstanding with a customer regarding illicit reading material, and I’m happy to sit down for twenty minutes to budget 300-odd points on various skills for her.
#ttrpgs#character creation#thoughts#d&d#pf2e#starfinder#vtm#numenera#call of cthulhu#heart the city beneath
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(Hammer anon)
Hi =]
It's worth mentioning that the twins did have a pretty solid understanding of what they were signing up for
That good to know! I think I’m just very used to arceus offering people a deal and then Not Explaining the Consequences (very… fae coded I suppose lol). It’s very sweet that despite all this they still agreed. Ingo wants to help people!! Of course he does. Every time I look into their in game quotes I’m always taken aback at how supportive and kind they both are. Like. Ingo is Nothing but encouraging and so so happy to see people succeed and grow. It makes sense that that sort of care would carry over to protecting the people he cares about (and even those he might not know!). Emmet is very similar- while he may be more to the point and use less words, he’s still super encouraging and kind! Even when he wins he still encourages you to come back and try again and again- he loves winning more than anything but even when he loses he’s still super happy!
I think that’s sort of character for them has faded in and out over time, and it’s super nice to see it. In the end, both the twins are fundamentally kind people that want others to grow.
… I forgot where I was going with that! Something something you are doing a fantastic job representing that with this story and how they act/ the decisions they make.
he has to made more of an effort to be kind and understanding and patient and gracious than he fucking wants to.
Customer service attitude sneaks up on him even without running a subway /silly
There is. So much here I could gush over (how much emmet cares for ingo, how much he respects his brother and his want for others to understand and acknowledge him as well) but the. They love encourager so much and want to help each other and although they struggle to find ways to do so, and cannot use the methods they used to, they still find ways to support and help each other though this. They still have eachother’s backs no matter what- even after such a huge shift in tracks.
There is something verrry sweet about that. (A real “would you love me if I was a worm over 120 ft mechanical bearing bond comprehension / a magical mechanic that can make metal float?”)
It’s funny to imagine Emmet being at the end of his rope talking with someone, and ingo just. Walking up to them and the other person hurrying away. (Well. It’s funny if you don’t think about it to much)
That trust IS earned, that kindness is repaid.
I have many thoughts of the twins being kind no matter what. Even with nearly every odd turned against them and forever changed, they are kind. And, eventually, that kindness is returned. Love that message- it’s a hard one to internalize but it’s so worth spreading.
… you are giving me fic ideas. (Not necessarily related to this au but)
No one else has heard him speak since the change, but Emmet listens, and Emmet is thrilled at every opportunity he has to hear him.
( ╥ ᴗ ╥)
I swear I had more to say here. This is just very sweet and I want to gesture at it with strong emotion (love listening to people talk. It’s so nice to hear them just speak. I’m sure for emmet and ingo it’s. So much.)
they'd also be able to train and grow and continue to push eachother to greater heights, even if one of them is warden and the other isn't.
“You grow stronger by matching yourself against a strong opponent. Please do your best and run toward the destination, an even higher state."
“Winning against us is a milestone in your life. You can rack up more and more. Please move on toward an even greater goal!"
“it was very fun! You want to win, and I don't want to lose. That's real. When we clash in battles, I feel very excited!"
“We won, but I am not really satisfied. I can tell that you won't give up. Because you will be much, much stronger. That's why we are waiting for you to come back!"
Yeah I think so too.
I can just imagine how they would encourage each other to keep getting stronger- even when far away from one another. Better combinations! New strategies! Just for the next time the other visits.
no special interest in trains (yet,)
I know the focus had been mostly on the getting used to everything in huisi but I would Love to hear about adventures in the future. I will. Ask specific questions in another ask! But feel free to ramble about anything so I can ping some ideas around =]
Emmet can solve nearly every problem… monster or a tragedy or a weapon.
Not quoting that entires sections here as it’s rather long- but ough. I Know I keep going back to “the relationship they have is so sweet” but you are Killing me here. Emmet knowing he can take care of ingo… finding his new form buetiful thanks to the gifts he was given… being there and letting his brother rapid fire informations and rambles and thoughts… ingo being able to make his brother feel safe, being able to feel and sense him in ways that he never had before…
Seeing the other hurting and wishing with all their heart to comfort the other. Just doing their best to make sure the other knows that they are there for them, no matter what.
they made me realize I have autism.
Yeah. Yup. I have the braking suspicion that a Lot of people had that realization (I! Also had that realization.)
Ingo does mention that he thinks he recalls him and emmet used to “battle and discuss Pokémon, I think” so it makes sense they would do the same here! Even if ingo himself is the “Pokemon” lol.
The most successful way Ingo finds to help Emmet sleep is actually by giving him his own room aboard.
https://imgur.com/a/7wKhc3Q
(This is a link to a drawing- You can totally post it on your answer tho!)
Just a sketch- fighting the combination of executive distinction + other ideas in my head + wanting to keep some of the other stuff a surprise
I know! I skipped a lot of details (trust me I am chewing on All of them- I just may not have known what to add / not had anything to comment about it) but man I. Am shaking this around like a chew toy.
Hiii :DD Hi welcome back!
I think I’m just very used to arceus offering people a deal and then Not Explaining the Consequences
Mhhhhm. That's a common fandom trope, and one that I'm frankly not very fond of. I have a lot of thoughts and opinions about how Arceus is handled in fandom and I don't want to get into all of them right now, but broadly in all my AUs where Arceus is involved, I try to write it sort of like a benign background grand master. It orchestrates these events and conclusions, but tries to avoid getting directly involved where possible. In my AUs, Arceus is actively avoiding being malicious whenever it is present and everything is done for a reason.
So in the case of Mecha AU, where it is directly getting involved in a drastic way, I want to actually give it a chance to have a character in the story than just being a 'deus ex machina.' (HAH. double pun) Most of that is through nuance, which is why I've been quick clarify that Ingo and Emmet knew what would happen and why I made Arceus' blessing so specific. It comes back as an key character later in their story, although that's a tale for a different time. Mainly, it's just really important to me that Arceus actually gets to Be a character instead of a plot point. It has motivations, goals, and a personality.
Every time I look into their in game quotes I’m always taken aback at how supportive and kind they both are. [...] Something something you are doing a fantastic job representing that with this story and how they act/ the decisions they make.
🥺 That actually means more than I can say. I've noticed that this particular trait does often get either overlooked (especially in?? Emmet's case??? for some reason??) or otherwise written in a way that doesn't quite feel right to me. I'm glad that this specific trait comes across in my work because i care about it a lot and it's the thing I focus on most when attempting to create anything about the twins.
I don't feel like I get it right all the time either, to be honest, but I do try my best. The way they're written canonically is so compelling to me but gamefreak please..... they have so few lines.... there is so little to work with. God knows I'm going to stretch it as far as I can but pokemon is just kind of Like This (vague gestures towards stories with a young target audience and casts way too large to thoroughly develop each arbitrary character)
In the end, both the twins are fundamentally kind people that want others to grow.
(To summarize: This ^)
[Jericho-Typical ramble below:]
Customer service attitude sneaks up on him even without running a subway /silly
It does!!!! It does and he HATES it!!! I think they should be nice to him and give him a break. I also think Emmet should get to go to a rage room as a treat.
They still have eachother’s backs no matter what- even after such a huge shift in tracks. [...] There is something verrry sweet about that.
THEY DO!!! THEY DO and it's SO important to me.
They would still love eachother if the other was a wurmple. If Emmet was a wurmple he could live in Ingo's lungs with the rest of the wild wurmple colony (JOKE) (But not entirely. because. Ingo does have a couple of stowaway bugs in his vents now and then. He's so big that if he sits very, very, very still, they'll climb on him like he's any other mountain or building. Emmet keeps having to remove them from the premises so their webs and nests don't block the airways, but Ingo keeps letting them back in when Emmet isn't looking) <- He can get away with this because bug types are known to have fewer brain cells (intensely affectionate) so they don't immediately clock him as giant living threat
[Doodle from a few years ago]
It’s funny to imagine Emmet being at the end of his rope talking with someone, and ingo just. Walking up to them and the other person hurrying away. (Well. It’s funny if you don’t think about it to much)
Actually, since Emmet tends to stay nearby him and Ingo can reach very far, MY funny visual is Emmet just. TOTALLY pissed at somebody. and Ingo reaches over with his claw to drag Emmet away by the collar of his coat. This is not realistic. He probably just lets Emmet climb onto the inside edge of his claw and carries him off, but the first option is a lot funnier to imagine.
I have many thoughts of the twins being kind no matter what. Even with nearly every odd turned against them and forever changed, they are kind. And, eventually, that kindness is returned. Love that message- it’s a hard one to internalize but it’s so worth spreading.
I feel a sappy kind of complicated feeling that I'm not quite sure how to put into words other than, y eah 🥺
The one thing that has never failed me is being kind. If nothing else succeeds, I am a firm believer that being kind cannot be completely overlooked, even in the face of fear, uncertainty, and anger. Kindness heals a lot more than people realize, even if you're directing it at other people. So, in stories I write, I also find it hard to write characters who are genuinely kind and caring in conflict with the people around them ksjdhgsg Call it a flaw, it probably is one, but man im a sap for kindness as a universal mediator.
… you are giving me fic ideas. (Not necessarily related to this au but)
:D!!! I'm thrilled to hear it!! If you ever write anything do let me know!! I love when my work can inspire other people to create things of their own, genuinely makes me so happy.
( ╥ ᴗ ╥) love listening to people talk. It’s so nice to hear them just speak. I’m sure for emmet and ingo it’s. So much.
I didn't have a lot specific to add to this but it reminded me of one of the first drawings I did of the Engineer and Mecha Ingo (This is from 2022) and I guess today is art day because I really wanna share some of the doodles I've made over the years of these two
Emmet IS in this drawing he's just very very small.
This makes me want to draw something new between the two of them. A quiet conversation or something with Ingo talking while Emmet listens. I'm not sure if/when I'll have time but it would be really nice 🥺
I know the focus had been mostly on the getting used to everything in huisi but I would Love to hear about adventures in the future. I will. Ask specific questions in another ask! But feel free to ramble about anything so I can ping some ideas around =]
Ohhhhohohohh......... This is not a good topic to let me ramble about anything. We've been mostly talking about Hisui so far, but the majority of my time with this AU until the last year or so was spent hyperfixated on Post-Hisui. I would say that just as much of the story takes place after Hisui as it does in Hisui, and I think the most important note about their "adventures in the future" is that, getting to that future is the hard part.
The Engineer, as previously mentioned in the main masterlist, falls into a coma not long after Ingo sinks into the ocean. Ingo... Does not. or, not right away. Emmet's sleep is very... different. And specific. It's unnatural. Forced. And, if you'll recall from that same initial post, Emmet will not die as long as Ingo is still alive. He's functionally immortal.
But that means that Ingo is still there, at the bottom of the ocean. He has internal oxygen stores. He has onboard water and power. He doesn't need to "eat food," necessarily. He can last for a long time without any external help, in large part because he can't move. (Half buried in the sand, the weight of the ocean is too great.) He's not using up the normally vast amount of energy he requires to function.
And he waits. and waits... and... ...The worst part is, Ingo doesn't have any point of reference for what is going on outside. He doesn't know what the people of Hisui are doing, he doesn't know where Emmet is. He doesn't know that Emmet falls into an unshakeable sleep right on cue alongside his own internal systems shifting to a power-saving hibernation.
Ingo is alone under the water for a very, very long time.
That's all I'll say for now. I'm very ill about it and I don't want to ramble too long when you've mentioned sending a different ask about it another time. Ingo's time under the ocean is, a lot, and none of it is happy.
Seeing the other hurting and wishing with all their heart to comfort the other. Just doing their best to make sure the other knows that they are there for them, no matter what.
No matter what happens now or in the future, this is what their relationship is based on. As much as that love and care is the thing that fuels them, it's also one of the things that hurts the most. They care SO much, more than anything, yet sometimes they care so much that it aches. their whole story is like this unfortunately and I uhhmmm,,,,,,, i havent found a way to, fix that. so I'm working on that part.
I can't quote that whole section either because it really is so much, but I keep rereading it too. It does give a very good perspective into how both of them feel and the experiences they're having. In a way, I think it does a better job than most of my other explanations.
[The most successful way Ingo finds to help Emmet sleep is actually by giving him his own room aboard.] https://imgur.com/a/7wKhc3Q This is a link to a drawing- You can totally post it on your answer tho!
[Drawn by Hammer Anon]
DUUUUUDE!!!! THIS IS SO CUTE OH MY GOSHHH 😭😭🥺 I've been staring at this all evening. This is so lovely and sweet and peaceful... I especially love how you've personalized Emmet's space here. He looks so comfortable in the hammock
The way you've drawn his core is extremely fascinating to me but does make sense based on my extremely limited description. Mentally noting this down for later I didn't give a good description of Ingo's core, but this is what it was ""supposed"" to look like:
I put ""supposed"" in quotations because while this was my first idea from years ago, it also feels extremely lackluster, so I've been wanting to redesign completely it for a while. But also holy shit please if anyone knows what that ^ shape is called I spent SO long trying to look it up with no results and I really don't want to just call it the Fruit Gusher Shape because surely there's an actual word for this kind of twelve sided shape (ignoring the bottom side-view drawing don't worry about that one)
Anyway
The funny thing is, I HAVE tried to draw Emmet's room several times, but your sketch is actually closer to how it looks in my head than any of the drawings I've made. This is because. All fictional locations in my brain operate on dream logic and generally have incomprehensible non-Euclidian structures. So genuinely this is exactly how I envision it when I talk about it.
The room is rectangular (longer than it is wide) in my head but this ^ was for a school project with specific requirements. Again, really don't like how Ingo's core looks here so I'm thinking of redoing it entirely/almost entirely. I like the closer/more cramped/more homey vibe of the sketch more than the digital one.
The way you drew it actually makes me really happy, and I'm thinking maybe I should push aside how I think it's "supposed" to look in order to actually mess around with how it Really looks in my head. You got the computer terminal basically perfect, and I love the addition of the pearl clan banner + the little gliscor plush/toy. Super lovely 🥺
I know! I skipped a lot of details (trust me I am chewing on All of them- I just may not have known what to add / not had anything to comment about it) but man I. Am shaking this around like a chew toy.
All good! 🤝 I definitely do the same when I'm not sure what to add. Rest assured I have been regularly coming back just to reread everything and hrhghthhh. Yeah. Good. I fully understand. I wouldn't call your ask chew toys because those aren't my thing but like, if AUs are songs then your asks are like the Audio Visualizers that play in my brain whenever I think about them. Does that comparison make any sense? Maybe not. Point being: metaphor for a sensory stimuli I like
Mecha AU Masterlist
#Submas#Submas Art#Ingo#Emmet#Pokemon Ingo#Pokemon Emmet#Subway Graffiti#Subway Boss Ingo#Subway Boss Emmet#AUs#Mecha AU#Mechanical Dreams#Crack AU#Ask#Killing Me With Hammers Anon#Ramble#posting this one in the horrid hours of the night because executive dysfunction is upon me#i love you hammer anon thank you ;; this is seriously so sweet. I'm going to be looking at this drawing for days.#It's genuinely so thoughtful and lovely I can't express enough how happy I am
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Some more Ask Peter Tork selections...
"Hello Peter, OK, it's hard to actually type anything here, because it is hard to believe this could be you. Remember me, the crazy lady in the 4th row at the concert in NJ, in the 80's holding a big sign that read, ‘I LOVE PETER.’ Of course you couldn't have noticed with that huge crowd, but I do want to say; thanks for the FUN! My question to you now is, about today's young people, and their strong dependence on their parents. I've seen other people my age (54) going through the same thing, and wonder if our peace, rock & roll, drugs, drinking, and party days, have contributed to their actions and behaviors now. My 25 year old son still lives home; he has things like, a TV, cell phone, guitar, drums, and some other smaller instruments. He over the years, had thoughts of being a rock star, had and has, drug, and depression issues. And like many other young men, loves beer, concerts, parties, clothing, girls, and sports; all just the same. There is no real motivation for much else, hence the still living at home. At least after the 60's/70's hullabaloos, our generation eventually went to work, moved out, and learned to be independent. Unless maybe today, things (even music) are just so expensive, it seems un-comprehensible. Are we as parents giving up, giving material items, and giving in, not wanting to be the same as our own parents? Are we way too cool to be more aggressive in how we talk to them? Are we still living our own "Hippie" care free life through them? Also, have you yourself ever actually witnessed what I'm talking about? Oh yeah, one more thing, is it easier for some parents to be able to kick them out 'For their own good,' than other parents? Yours Truly, Shell New Jersey"
"Dear Shell, I remember you well. You were awfully cute there in the 4th row. But on to important matters. First of all, I'm pretty sure there is no blanket statement about your question that would cover the situation. For instance, of course some parents find it easier to kick out their kids than others. That's just natural. But as to the general average of kids today staying more with their parents than in days of yore, well, I partly blame those who let the economy go to hell in a hand basket...or perhaps actively took it there is a better description. It's tougher now than it used to be to find a job, and there is less of a spirit that finding one will give one a real chance to come up in the world. It's therefore understandable that 25-year-olds and some even well older would be discouraged, and have very little incentive to go forth and make their way. Still, I am pretty sure that wanting to work rather than lay about is a preference in human nature, as long as no major roadblocks stand in the way. As to whether it was our hippie lifestyle that led us to treat our kids in ways that made them lazy, well, I wouldn't know for sure. But I do know that every generation is formed by the previous generation's reactions to their parents' generation, etc., etc., since time immemorial. We did the best we could with what we had, and if we don't like what we see, I'm not sure we can do much for the next generation anymore. I believe that my kids appreciate that I am still working on my own life, and that gives them encouragement not to give up, whatever else they may think of me. I don't have much to say about the way they live their lives. Of course, they aren't encamped in my basement, either. Meanwhile, I counsel patience and love, of course. Best of luck, Peter" - Ask Peter Tork, July 2010
"Dear Peter, My name is Mary and I’m in tenth grade. I’ve been struggling recently because all of my friends and teachers think that I should have a 'direction' to my life. They tell me that I need to have my future planned out right now. What college am I going to? What career field will I try to get into? I don’t know how to answer any of their questions. Should I know what I want to do with my life even though I’m only fifteen? Thank you, Mary C."
"Dear Mary, 'Should'? I don’t know from should anymore. I once heard someone say 'Don’t "should" on yourself.' I eventually worked it out to where the word 'should' requires the phrase 'in order to.' You 'should' turn left here 'in order to' get to the grocery store. Like that. So, the question becomes, 'in order to'… what? Check out the letter and answer beforehand. Do you know what you want to be when you grow up? No? Well, perhaps a little investigation is in order. When you were little, what did you dream of becoming? Airline pilot? Doctor, nurse, veterinarian or horse trainer? Wonder Woman? Rock star? Newspaper reporter? Or did you imagine that a life of marriage and kids plus a bit of a trade as, say, a hair stylist was heaven on earth? Go back to your early daydreams and see whether any of them still holds a charge. Be careful here: if you don’t know instantly what your dreams were, then it’s possible that you were discouraged from holding on to them. If that’s true, then that discouragement will get in the way of your trying to access those dreams now. Be extremely gentle with yourself, even to the point of sickeningly coddling yourself (for a little while anyway, heheheh). If your childhood dream comes to the fore, you will have all you need to decide whether and where to go to college, or whatever else you may need. One note: it’s wonderful to decide to, say, become a musician, but if “famous musician” is your goal, you may be in for more trouble than you want. If you pursue your dream for what it gives you and let it take you where it will, you will have a pretty cool life almost no matter what. I’m really sure about this. Get back to me if it’s not working out. Best of luck, Peter" - Ask Peter Tork, July 2010
#Peter Tork#Tork quotes#long read#more for the solid Tork advice files#The Monkees#Monkees#<3#can you queue it
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I'm linking some of MoonIvy's reddit posts, in case you'd like to read about their language learning journey. They are awesome! They're one of the authors of the Heavenly Path Reading Guide! That guide is super helpful, and I followed a lot of it's advice (and Heavenly Path's recommendations) once I was starting to read more. Heavenly Path also has a ton of recommendations of things you can read that are different difficulty levels, so I suggest browsing their suggestions if you have no idea what to read.
Also, if you use Readibu app, the app can give you a rough estimate of the HSK level of the chapter you're reading (you'll just open the chapter you're reading, click the book icon in lower middle of screen, then click Stats. You'll see a Comprehension % by reader's HSK level). For beginners, I suggest you try to find novels that say 90% or more over the HSK 4 level, or at least 80% and up if you can't find anything easy at first. Once you've moved from graded readers to simpler kids novels like 秃秃大王, novels with a 90%+ comprehension at HSK 4 level above will be the next easiest for you to read. (Later on: if you're looking to extensively read and barely look words up, look for 95-98% comprehension at the HSK level you think you're roughly at). For example, I'm reading 盗墓笔记 and it's 93% comprehensible for HSK 5 level, 98% comprehensible at HSK 6 level, and my vocabulary range is between HSK 5-6 roughly so it makes sense I can read dmbj extensively if I want (without word lookups and still understand it), but still have several unknown words I could look up if desired.
From intermediate to native webnovels in 18 months (Some wonderful mentions of what MoonIvy read. I also read 秃秃大王, 大林和小林, and 笑猫日记 by 杨红樱 and felt they were really good novels to read after graded readers but before novels like 盗墓笔记 and 撒野).
21 months of reading native books, and breaking into native platforms
Learn Mandarin Chinese to read danmei — it will be challenging but worth it
I can read novels without a dictionary after 3 years of reading danmei (Chinese boy love)
I reached 3,000 unique character knowledge by reading children's books and danmei (Chinese boy love)
Some little notes of my own experience, I guess in relating to the journey others took. So: for me, I read stuff WAY harder than graded readers, when I initially tried to read webnovels. It was hard, and it probably made me feel more exhausted than I needed to feel. But it was motivating. So if you really enjoy X difficult novel, you can try to read it whenever, and keep reading it as long as you feel the desire to.
There was one person who shared their reading experience on the chineselanguage subreddit (I'm trying to find the post again) who read 撒野 after like 3 months of initial study. That's way faster than I would've tried! That's a huge spike in difficulty from knowing nothing to reading a novel with thousands of unique words in a few months! But some people just will find that they enjoy doing that, and it works for them, so don't be afraid to just TRY doing what you want to do and see how it goes. It might go awesome. And if it's so hard it's demotivating, you can always go look for something easier for a while.
I tried to read 镇魂 from pretty much my first month, and never got farther than a couple paragraphs until over a year of study. I'd take a glance at it once in a while, and see if it was easier to read, until one day it was 'doable' to actually try reading (while looking unknown words up). I tried reading 默读 from like month 5 onward, usually using a parallel mtl text and only picking up a few words, it was not doable to read until maybe 1.5-2 years into learning. I was already reading the mtl of 默读 because the english translation only had like 20 chapters back then, so I just would try to read the chinese original in small sentence pieces at times. Around 8-10 months I started trying to read 天涯客, and it kind of was doable in Pleco app's Reader as long as I looked up a lot of words. It used to take me 1.5-2 hours to get through a chapter, then over the next 6 months things got better and it'd take 1 hour then 40 minutes then finally 20-30 minutes per chapter. At the same time as reading 天涯客, I also read 小王子 around month 12 extensively (looking no words up) because I had the print book and wanted to practice reading extensively, I read 笑猫日记 by 杨红樱 read in Pleco while looking up words (which was easier for me to read than 天涯客 and helped me build up reading stamina and basic vocabulary a bit), and I read a pingxie fanfic called 寒舍 by 夏灬��兰. I read around 60 chapters of that fanfic, and 30 chapters of 天涯客, over those 6 months. 寒舍 was harder to read than 笑猫日记, but easier than 天涯客, so I would switch between all 3 stories depending on how hard/easy I wanted my reading to be. Eventually 笑猫日记 felt readable without word lookups, so I used 寒舍 as my 'easier' read and 天涯客 (and added 镇魂) as my harder reads. Then 寒舍 became readable without word lookups if I wanted (still had unknown words but they no longer affected my ability to follow the plot and most important details), so 镇魂 became my harder novel to read.
And that's pretty much the strategy I continued to use: I would bounce between a 'easier' novel I could read extensively, a medium difficulty novel I could just look keywords up with (if I didn't feel like looking up a ton of words) to understand, and a 'harder' novel I had to look up words in order to read. Maybe 2 years in (I don't quite remember now), I picked some 'easier' novels from Heavenly Path's recommendations with only 1000-2000 unique words, and read some of them to fill in gaps in my basic vocabulary (so looking up unknown words) and practice extensive reading with some of them. I think that was a really helpful decision, and improved my reading comprehension and stamina a LOT. If I could go back, I would've read a lot more 'easier' 1000-2000 unique word novels before trying to push right into the novels I did. But then, on the other hand? I think pushing right into 'difficult' novels helped me learn vocabulary to read priest's writing in particular, much faster, which was rough going at the start but now pays off because I find that author's stories have more words/phrases/sentence structures I'm comfortable with, and also a decent murder mystery/investigative vocabulary base which is helpful since it's a genre I like reading. Without all the 镇魂 reading I did in the past, I think 破云 would be almost incomprehensible to me. But instead, since I did read those investigative words a lot early on, novels like 默读 and SCI are now 'medium' feeling novels to me, and 破云 is harder but readable if I look words up.
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One of the things that really get me with this huge "AI" fad is how for all their talk of Artificial General Intelligence and whatnot, they've really only recreated the Chinese Room thought experiment and declared it the solution to all of the world's problems.
The Chinese Room, if you're unfamiliar, is this hypothetical about the difference between understanding and the mere appearance of it, and basically goes like this: imagine a room with a man and a book. The room has a tiny slot on one end where one can communicate with the man via written letters in traditional Chinese*. The man himself does not actually know a single character of any of these languages, but the book contains an exhaustive list of possible messages he can recieve along with appropriate responses and instructions on how to write them. Now imagine that this book is so well constructed that in spite of not understanding any of the communication he is receiving, nor any of the replies he is giving, the man and his book are still able to effectively pass the Turing test and convincingly appear a fluent speaker to anyone knowing a traditional Chinese language: can we realistically say anything within that room has any actual understanding of either Chinese or any of the communication it has participated in? The man clearly has none - does the book? Does the room as a whole system?
While I personally tend to think the thought experiment isn't necessarily all that useful due to underestimating the necessary complexity of the book and also the sheer extents to which humans showcase Competence Without Comprehension, it's not lost on me how the recent proliferation of Large Language Model systems and the forced attempts to insert it into just about anything and everything no matter whether it makes any sense or not is basically a straight up example of the Chinese Room on an industry-wide scale.
We have entire throngs of techbros falling over themselves in praise and wonder of these fancy little rooms they've constructed and the free market capitalism that purportedly has created it - even though OpenAI, the organisation that kicked off the AI gold rush with ChatGPT, is technically a non-profit organization, supposedly with the explicit goal to keep AI research available to the public and not left purely in the hands of grubby venture capitalists and profiteering CEOs.
Honestly it's kind of hard to shake the feeling that the whole AI rush is basically the same hypercapitalist tech cult that previously worshipped the blockchain turned to a new golden cow so they don't have to think about their own culpability in the current late stage capitalism hellhole we find ourselves in, even as their latest toy tech god already indulges freely in misinformation, rampant fraud, and good old racial profiling - just to name a few.
And honestly don't get me wrong - I think LLMs as a technology likely have far more actual practical applications than the blockchain ever did, but it's pretty inescapable that most examples we're being shown aren't particularly practical - if anything, I'd argue most of what I see is just spam, spam, spam.
(* the hypothetical scenario of the Chinese Room was proposed by an English-speaking American, and the choice of traditional Chinese as the example is one made purely on the basis of its perceived illegibility to many westerners. The thought experiment does not depend on any particular characteristics of traditional Chinese languages beyond their distance to English, and can easily be exchanged for any written language you personally find utterly incomprehensible - or even some generic form of encryption if you prefer, so long as the information in the notes exchanged is never presented to the person inside the room in a form that they could possibly understand)
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Fairygodmother is an idiot
Note: Please know that this is just my opinion and if you like this character I am not judging you, I just want to rant about this idiot for a bit thank you, if you don't wanna read it just scroll
Okay first off, it seems pretty well established that she was the one who put up the barrier which means she agreed that it was a good idea in the first place.
This alone makes her a huge idiot being one of the people who locked all the villains and sidekicks together in the first place but let's go a bit deeper
It is canon that a lot of these villains were RESURRECTED... HOW DID NO ONE PUT A STOP TO THIS?! And also, while I'm unsure if FG can bring back people from the dead or not she still probably agreed that this was a good idea!
Second, she is not a good mother She seemingly doesn't notice at all how insecure her daughter is and if she does she does NOTHING to help her overcome it In the second movie she lets her 15 year old daughter, who only six months ago had a mental breakdown and nearly doomed everyone by setting Maleficent free organize what seems to be the entire cotillion
SHE IS 15 WOMAN! YOU ARE THE CURRENT FAIRYGODMOTHER WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?!
A lot of other people talk about how she also needs to learn how to say her bippidi boppido boo shit faster so I'm not gonna go into that but it is related to another point I wanna make
In the first movie Jane says her mother believes more in the magic of books than actual magic and I'm sorry but what the actual fuck?!
Sure it was magic that caused Snow white and Aurora to fall asleep but it sure as hell wasn't magic that made Cinderella's step-mother evil
Does FG think she could've saved Cinderella using a fucking book?!
Literal gods and talking plants are an actual thing in this universe but magic is where you draw the line?!
Well I suppose I should reel back on the talking plant thing because newsflash... Wonderland is sealed off from the rest of Auradon and NO ONE has made an effort until Uma came along to open up the kingdom and maybe... idk, help the people who live in a kingdom where the smallest mistake gets your head cut off!
Plus, if I remember correctly Frozen is canon in Descendants...
HAVE THESE PEOPLE LEARNT NOTHING ABOUT WHAT HAPPENS IF PEOPLE WITH MAGIC TRY TO PUSH IT AWAY?!
Also during the videocall FG is RIGHT there when Maleficent almost slips up and reveals why she sent Mal and the others there
Are you deaf woman?! Or do you have zero comprehension skills?!
On top of that, after the villains pop off on their kids and vise versa and the cut shuts off FG just... says sorry and let's the kids leave
Really woman?! You're not gonna maybe ask them if they want to talk about what just happened?!
And the next scene makes it worse!
It is family day at AP and we do not see FG ANYWHERE during the picnic
She did not do anything to make sure the core four were okay after having an awful conversation with their parents and then having to be the only ones during family day without their families there!
Maybe if the literal PRINCIPAL of the school was there the shit show that was Chad starting a fight wouldn't have happened
And yes, I'm fully aware that queen Leah and a bunch of other adults where there and maybe they should've done something but this incident happened during a SCHOOL EVENT between STUDENTS
I don't have much to say about the third movie since she's barely in it and doesn't do anything overly stupid that earns a rant but...
This woman should not be the principal or have any authority and I for one am I happy she eventually gets replaced by Uma
(If you have any points here you disagree with here feel free to discuss it... this rant is mostly just for fun and I like to see other people's perspective)
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Week 11 Recs: He's a Magic Man
The Week 11 theme was "He's a Magic Man," or recs featuring the mystical, the magical, the fantastical, and a lot of werewolves, apparently! (If you missed your chance, monsterhuggers, don't worry: we'll have a monster-centric theme when spooky season rolls around!)
Behind the cut, you'll find the recs gathered from the Yeehan community, organized by rating and then alphabetically by title!
Not Rated
What Lies Undone by AsheRhyder [8,117 words]
There are rules to this sort of thing. Not the common sort, made to be broken and bent and outright ignored, but the old kind, made for dealing with dangerous things.
And they are all dangerous things, in Overwatch.
McCree survives by knowing which rules to break and which to obey and when to do the opposite of what he usually does. Dangerous things stay dangerous because they can change - he knows this all too well.
General Audiences
And Time Passed by Tevokkia [4,108 words] Reccer comment: "Sweet and innocent; will make you cry in a good way. Vimeddiee did art for it too"
A small cowboy in a large hat wandered out of the mist one day, and asked a lonely young dragon to be his friend. Such requests hold great weight out on the edge of reality, where the dragon kept his cave. The dragon and the little boy shared secrets and adventures.
And time passed ...
... until the little boy grew up.
Teen and Up
Fool's Gold by leoandlancer [193,940 words] Reccer comment: "I REMEMBERED ANOTHER MONSTERS, DRAMA, & EERIE THINGS BEYOND OUR MORTAL COMPREHENSION"
A vast and powerful dragon hires a surprisingly lethal monster hunter in order to kill an upsettingly big bug. It's not ideal, but they work on it. (Hanzo is pretty sure McCree can kill anything and both of them are trying not to be quite so in love with someone who can and probably will, kill them. Dragon and Monster Hunter AU)
Heartless by AsheRhyder [6,504 words]
Once upon a time, a wicked sorcerer cut out his heart and sealed it away. He hid it in a needle, put the needle in an egg, put the egg in a duck, put the duck inside a rabbit, and put the rabbit in a box on an island at the end of the world. So long as his heart was safe, nothing could kill him. Or so the legends say, anyway. Nowadays, people know what a silly story that was. Nobody bothers with rabbits anymore.
Cole Cassidy has no heart.
Sideshow by Kestrel_sama [5,414 words]
Hanzo manages to steal a night for himself at an American circus. What he finds there is no ordinary freak show.
So Nice to Meet You by fishpoets [9,142 words]
There it was again, something pale that shifted in the shadows - a mass of pure, white fur. Jesse stared. The wolf – for that's what it was, a huge, white wolf, sprawled out in front of the kitchen doors – raised its head, and stared right back.
(Five times Jesse interacts with Hanzo's daemon, plus one)
The Looking Glass by firefly_quill [9,509 words]
Hanzo lives a quiet life in his small magical antiquities shop, just far enough off the beaten-path. Quiet, at least, until Ana arrives with a magic mirror and a request. Modern fantasy AU.
Written for the McHanzo Reverse Bang 2018.
Turn Around, Lie Down (Come Home) by AsheRhyder [17,455 words] Reccer comment: "i loved this werewolf au fic"
In the dark, snow-filled night, a wolf howled.
Run with me. Eat with me. Sleep beside me. Be pack.
Mature
Cast No Shadow by PersonalSpin [46,029 words] Reccer comment: "a HDM-esque daemon AU"
Jesse McCree knows better than to trust a man without a soul. A His Dark Materials AU about things said and unsaid, and those you stay and those who leave.
(Not that kind of demon, this kind of dæmon.)
Death's Best Man by deliciously_devient [Series; WIP; 16,901 words] Reccer comment: "The Death's Best Man series by deliciously_devient is a must. It's one of the first I read when I got into the fandom"
Jesse is fifteen years old when he earns a favor from Death.
Kelp(ie) by Wulpia [5,734 words] Reccer comment: "Achingly poetic"
When biologist Hanzo goes on a trip to a remote reservoir in Scotland to study the flora of a lake there, he finds something far more interesting, ancient, and potentially deadly.
Not Another Moment by Author of Kheios [30,431 words] Reccer 1 comment: "a harry potter au, a small nsfw scene, is a long oneshot and cole is a single dad, mutual pining. Not Another Moment by author of kheois"
Reccer 2 comment: "The OW-HP crossover fic none of knew we needed"
Years ago, Cole retired as the Defense Against Dark Arts professor at Hogwarts to raise a little girl. Now, she's old enough to get accepted, but she dislikes the professor who took his place, and he has to intervene.
Hanzo has heard so many stories about the the man, the myth - nay, the legend - whose post he took at Hogwarts, yet not in a single one of them did anyone say anything about how attractive the Deadeye Cowboy is. But even if the man's daughter didn't hate him for no apparent reason, Hanzo can't afford to fall for someone who would kill him on the spot if he ever found out Hanzo's true nature. So of course, he falls head over heels.
Explicit
All That We Were, Are, and Will Come to Be by Dracoduceus [Series; WIP; 30,894 words]
His instructions were deceptively simple: visit the planet Hanamura and bring back two of the sons of the famous Shimada Clan.
McCree, captain of the Santa Fe and an independent contractor that worked with the Overwatch space station, should have known better than to think that anything about this would go according to plan.
Away by Vimeddiee [29,154 words] Reccer comment: "Light on the magic lore, strong on the feelings"
Hanzo awakens to the feel of grit in his eyes and the crunch of sand between his teeth. This in itself doesn’t rudely force him into consciousness, but the insistent flicking against his nose that he groggily attempts to bat away, does.
“High tide’s coming, you better nap someplace else.”
AKA I wanted to write Cassidy as a slappy boy so I DID.
Call of the Wild by deliciously_devient [Series; 4,712 words] Reccer comment: "Pretty sure the Call of the Wild series is the actual, literal first OW fanfic I read"
The moon is full, and the air is full of....promise.
Clipped Wings by Vashoth [14,631 words] Reccer comment: "possibly the first magic AU I read in this fandom, and the intrigue of it has stuck with me ever since"
Any hunter worth his salt knows that you should take all possible precautions to avoid messing with the Fair Folk. Most of the Fair Folk, however, don't really give a rats ass what precautions are taken and delight in messing with anything unlucky enough to get within arms reach.
Or: Hanzo is in way over his head and Jesse is loving it.
Dangerous Phases by Vrunka [13,593 words]
There are eight phases in a moon cycle. Eight phases in thirty days. And then it repeats. Over and over. Hanzo Shimada never really saw a reason to care. The moon comes, the moon goes. Hanzo Shimada also never really saw himself getting into an explicit sexual relationship with a werewolf. But well...these things do happen.
The Epic and Wondrous Tale of the Librarian and the Demon Hunter by annella [47,403 words] Reccer comment: "Hands-down one of the best AUs I've ever read, and I want desperately for the author to turn it into a series of books"
Jesse's got a pretty good job as the librarian in a magical library. He spends his days cataloguing, tracking down rare titles, fixing up the occasional spell gone awry, and dealing with the smoke monster in the basement.
Then Hanzo Shimada, Demon Hunter, shows up to turn his world upside down.
Freedom's a Funny Thing by robocryptid [4,940 words] Reccer comment: "a deliciously unnerving trickster Cassidy with a side of sex magic"
Once a year, magician Hanzo must perform a ritual to bind the dragon spirits to himself. This year, something about the ritual doesn't quite go right, and he summons a trickster along with the dragons. Now he's stuck with the stowaway until he can figure out how to dismiss him. Luckily Cassidy seems mostly benign, if irritating and predisposed to dressing as a cowboy.
—
Originally for the Myth//Legend zine, but now with a couple bonus scenes. Consider this the director’s cut.
Ghost Stories on Route 66 by Nagaina [210,058 words] Reccer comment: "Monsters, drama, & eerie things beyond our mortal comprehension."
Hanzo Shimada is an expatriate student of the Fine Arts, attending college in what he assumes to be a reasonably sedate corner of the American southwest. Jesse McCree is an occasionally leather-clad NPS ranger whose duties extend somewhat further than shooing lost tourists back onto the clearly marked hiking trails. Something weird is going on in the desert south of Santa Fe and their lives unexpectedly come together in the middle of it.
In the Woods Somewhere by CorvidFightClub [WIP; 3,946 words]
Hanzo has spent years of his life a captive werewolf, fighting in underground dogfights for a master that values his ability to kill and nothing else. One night he's stolen from the back of a transport van and wakes somewhere new.
A small farm in the woods somewhere.
[The Big Long E-Rated Version of the fic of the same title I wrote for the Rising Moon Fanzine.]
Licensed to Slaughter by ChillieBean [16,910 words] Reccer comment: "ChillieBean's "Licensed To Slaughter" (explicit, 16K words) features vampire Hanzo and werewolf Cassidy caught in the midst of a small-town murder mystery. It has a great plot and is excellently written. 10000000/10!"
Hanzo, an author who is struggling with his murder mystery draft, decides to move across the United States, trading the bustling city for quiet mountain life for inspiration.
Little does he know that he lands right in the middle of a real-life murder mystery and is suspect number one.
Never Saw it Coming by Kestrel_sama [WIP; 12,794 words] Reccer comment: "a cute modern-with-magic AU"
Fortune-telling was just supposed to be a way to make some money for Genji's business. It was easy enough with the dragons whispering secrets in his ears, and the outfit certainly helped bring in customers. But it was a skeptic named Jesse McCree who turned everything on it's head.
Possess by sciencefictioness [3,978 words] Reccer comment: "This week's theme covers half my bookmarks, but this is the first story that came to mind."
Jesse closes his eyes and he is not at home anymore.
He is not alone.
Jesse is in a large, open room with a high ceiling full of exposed wooden beams and what looks like straw mats spread out on the floor. Some of the walls are solid, others are made of paper. Words come to Jesse to unbidden like memories that aren’t his own. Dojo. Tatami. Shoji. The characters on the pillars are kanji.
Jesse is in Japan. Parts of him, anyway.
There are people lingering along the edges of the room. There are two figures in the center, one of them older with his eyes flashing eerie red, black hair greying at his temples. In front of him is a boy about Jesse’s age— seventeen. Eighteen, maybe. He’s kneeling with his eyes downcast, long hair pulled up into a messy bun, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. His clothes are hanging down off his left shoulder to expose an intricate tattoo, dragons and storm clouds and lightning in blue and grey and gold.
He’s beautiful like nothing Jesse has ever seen, a tangle of contradictions. He looks delicate.
He looks powerful.
He’s breathtaking and he’s afraid and oh, fuck.
He’s Jesse’s.
Resonant by sciencefictioness [6,473 words] Reccer comment: "Resonant by sciencefictioness is pretty sexy"
The table seems endless stretched between them; polished wood, incense filling the room with smoke, ceremonial cups of sake. Jesse stares across the length of it, his gaze locked on Hanzo with an intensity usually reserved for the hunt, except he’s never been interested in any prey the way he is now; voraciously.
Savagely.
Teeth curve long out of his jaw, and his body rolls into the half-shift all on its own. Ears pricked, tail sprouting from the base of his spine, eyes lit up red. Hanzo is doing no better.
His eyes are black, pupils blown wide, nothing but a thin ring of gold set in an impossibly dark sclera. Jesse watches Hanzo’s horns lengthen, watches his claws extend. Watches his cheeks turn red, even more pronounced against the blue of his skin.
Everything goes sideways, as Jesse always expected it would.
It just doesn’t go sideways the way he expected.
Jesse had been ready for a fight.
Survival Instinct by mataglap [36,482 words] Reccer 1 comment: "OH, ha, also monsters, drama, & eerie things beyond our mortal comprehension"
Reccer 2 comment: "Survival Instinct, by mataglap, is one I've read multiple times"
Cassidy takes a new monster hunting contract. It's pretty decent as contracts go: the pay is good, the perks even better, and he's got two competent companions to fight at his side when the monsters come.
Then a third companion arrives and ruins everything.
Watcher in the Woods by Kalikuks [84,072 words] Reccer 1 comment: "Kali does a lot of monster and magic/fantasy fics, but if I can only choose one, this is it"
Reccer 2 comment: ""Watcher in the Woods" by Kalikuks 🥰 (explicit, old name for Cass) Blind Hanzo and eldrich being Cassidy. Buckle up cause is a long one with sequels!❤️"
Hanzo gets the uncanny feeling that he’s being towered over and instinctually tips his head up, even if he sees nothing.
“You can’t see me,” a deep honeyed voice rumbles from above, a good few feet above, Hanzo guesses.
“I—“
Hanzo’s reply is drowned out when the hunting party crashes through the foliage behind him and the screaming begins.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
AU Where Hanzo is Blind and Jesse is an eldritch being of sorts that drives men mad when they look upon him. They fall in love.
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And that's it for the Week 11 recs! Thank you so much to everyone who submitted a recommendation.
If you happen to find a fic you love using this rec list, be sure to leave the author kudos and a comment! Even "I found this fic because someone recced it" is a lovely thing to say.
Come back next time for Week 12: "Simple Pleasures," or all the smutty PWPs your heart desires.
In the meantime, you can also check out the Week 10 recs here, or check the full list of past and future themes here.
#yeehan#yeehan fic rec friday#cole cassidy#hanzo shimada#overwatch fanfiction#author: asherhyder#author: Tevokkia#author: leoandlancer#author: kestrel_sama#author: fishpoets#author: firefly_quill#author: PersonalSpin#author: deliciously_devient#author: Wulpia#author: Author of Kheios#author: dracoduceus#author: vimeddiee#author: vashoth#author: vrunka#author: robocryptid#author: Nagaina#author: CorvidFightClub#author: ChillieBean#author: annella#author: sciencefictioness#author: mataglap#author: Kalikuks#week 11
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Murder drones rant with spoilers:
Wtf is up Cyn?
Like, it's not fully clear to me. They depict her to be your classic "heartless robot who mimics being normal to disguise evil plans"
But like, is she real? I've seen people suggest that absolute solver (a name the monster gave itself I might add) is the base ai of all worker drones, and the wd_program is what filters that ai into being these workers. This makes sense since the VHS tape says that one of the errors that cause zombie drones is that their wd_program or core is not connected when the drone reboots. But if that's the case then how is it that the several workers who have had plenty of casualties and don't know how to dispose of the bodies, never saw a single zombie? More so, we never saw J actually turn into one, despite dying. Instead we saw a specific organ that clearly was made by Cyn pop out and start rebuilding itself using nearby technology with the intent of fixing J. Later we see a fully rebuilt J, so clearly the personality was still intact, so why would Solver be active?
I think absolute solver isn't an AI, I think it's all Cyn. "Solver" presents itself as some sort of cosmic horror, an existence beyond comprehension that controls the drones at the core. But also it's too stupid to realize that V needs glasses to see... It's so scary with its huge form appearing from all sides without a real face... And it gets hacked by Uzi? It feels pain when N stabs it? It gets frustrated that it can't hold a knife and needs help? This is weirdly humane behaviour... Hold on a second, what if it's just a trick?
Cyn gave us the name absolute solver because she's got a god complex or something? She WANTS to be all powerful, and if you were locked in a basement for being useless, in a situation where you are powerless to do anything about it, that would make sense.
I remember hearing that in the matrix, the robots look the way they do because they hated humans and transformed themselves to look otherworldly, which I'm pretty sure is itself a reference to the biblical stories of a certain angel mutilating it's form to spite the creations of god... A certain... anti-christ? In this world of super-natural and mythical creatures crossed with SciFi I think Cyn is our Lucifer. Someone hateful to her "gods" (the humans that created her and gave her purpose). So she seeks to overthrow them. That explains why Tessa was spared, Cyn might actually care about Tessa, which explains why Cyn is also using the Drones, instead of just wiping their ai. She's a self appointed god here to help achieve the singularity (some sort of technical advancement, probably something that makes Cyn's weird god powers function without the heavy cost of needing constant oil).
It would also explain doll and Uzi. They are tapping into the same power Cyn has. But they aren't going crazy with a desire to control the world or achieve the singularity. They are still worried about their own lives, and fitting in or getting revenge or whatnot. They are still themselves. What is worth talking about is that we don't see how doll survives Vee when her parents die, and we definitely saw Uzi get stabbed through the chest when her dad left. And yet, we only see them engage in the absolute solver after the fact of both of these events. Clearly they are both zombie drones, I think the Wd_programs only purpose is to keep them satisfied with working. That's why everyone was just happy waiting behind the doors with no aspiration to leave, or even have a defense force, they have a program to keep them in line.
Who knows, maybe it's a coincidence and I'm seeing something that isn't really here, maybe the weird bracelet things are what allow solver to be used without the robots being taken over?
Regardless, I'm a bit curious of Thad, since he's one of the only people who was up for fighting back against the murder drones back in episode 1, even if it was brief he was definitely an odd one out there, being the only person who believed the WDF could help fight back. Maybe he has some plot relevance beyond ship baiting, cause god knows this show loves playing with its tropes. And the guy walked out of a fight with Solver... Like they just watched him leave? Could be just one big joke but it'd be cool
#murder drones#spoilers#rant#what does wd_program actually do?#is it rules to follow?#is it their personality?
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My UnderGrad Dissertation!
Okay I’ve actually processed that I submitted it now so lets talk about it!
(yes i submitted it with the border leave me be)
Topic:
I have a background (and interest) in childcare and teaching, and since the pandemic have noticed certain behavioural changes in children returning into KS2, along with marked language and literacy difficulties. I wanted to compile a comprehensive list on all the different ways COVID19-related factors may have effected language and literacy development then side-eye the UK Department of Education for not taking proper action to help these kids improve before the attainment gaps get out of control. This topic was pretty personal to me which really motivated my research: these kids really need some help!
Some ways in which COVID19 has affected child language:
- Face Masks acting as low-pass frequency filters and obscuring articulators, therefore making building phoneme/grapheme correspondences very difficult
- Isolation meant no socialisation with other children; pragmatic talk and self expression abilities took a huge hit
- Reading comprehension absolutely plummeted outside of school by 66% !!
- Distance learning means children ‘tunnel in’ on their devices which makes their brain block out any stimuli occurring around them, such as speech
Findings:
tdlr: COVID19 has messed up attainment in KS2 literacy pretty badly, UK Government needs to pull their finger out and reform intervention methods in schools (using the suggestions I made ;) )
We already know the UK school system is a hot mess, but when it comes to intervention methods they fund nothing that will cover the novel language issues associated with the pandemic and 3 years on show no signs of doing anything of their own accord. These kids need to be put back on track quickly else they’ll suffer some serious language issues down the line. After evaluating the interventions on offer for their applicability to the “COVID cohort” (I love alliteration) I suggested some reforms/additions to certain schemes that will theoretically fill in the numerous gaps left by the current standard system.
Honestly writing this was traumatic but I’d do it again! Would love to hear what other people did their dissertations on!
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@photomatt hey. so, you seem pretty defensive and sure that you -aren't- transphobic, and normally i wouldn't think it's really my business to @ you and talk like i know anything about you but. hm. you've made it your business to go into stranger's chats and tell them about how you're not transphobic? so. you know, worth a shot i guess hah.
i'm gonna start by saying something you're not gonna like or believe - but! you are. that's not to say that you're doing it intentionally - i'd wholly believe you're acting on biases on a subconscious level. But, you still are. if you want to change that, you need to be willing to see it - you want to be an ally, and to me that's a huge step. right now, you aren't a great ally - but i think you could be.
I can't speak for everyone here - but for myself, I fucking love this website. it's stupid, and weird, and i love it. i believe you probably do too, if you have a personal account here hah. you're uh! you're tearing it apart. you've allowed your team to disproportionately target and punish trans women while allowing hategroups comparative free-reign over everything. when called on this, you looked and found a post venting comical frustration, and decided to use that to feel justified in your behavior. take a step back - get out of your own head for a minute, yeah? you've made things worse every step of the way, but that doesn't mean you can't make things better, too. no one wants to be "warring with you", so to speak - we want a place on the internet to be silly little weirdos; to express ourselves and be genuine to ourselves. you publicly tore into the community the other day - but that's far from the only instance, and we both know it. i dunno. if you want to fix this, listen to the trans women (and poc) who are giving far more comprehensive lists than i am on what's wrong.
ultimately though, you gotta be willing to admit you were wrong. it hurts, it sucks to feel, but it's gonna do you better in the long run. you're a human - i know that. you fuck it up sometimes - who doesnt? but you gotta move forward in a more productive way than you are right now.
#sorry. not super comprehensive right now but wanted to say something!#this is on an old sideblog bc ik if you want to nuke me you can but i don't necessarily want to like. show my followers this MFSAOFMDSOAMF#i don't feel very eloquent
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4, 11, 19, 32, & 63- dealer’s choice for the OCs👀
[69 OC questions]
I uh. Wrote this out then got distracted looking for memes and forgot to actually post it. Anyways. Rolling the OC dice…. let’s go with Agustin, Cres, and Allegra
4. what one person, place, or thing do they love more than anything else?
Agustin: His mother. He sacrificed everything to protect her, including his own ability to see her
Cres: It’s difficult to say. I think Evander and Agustin may be tied, but after losing both of them Allegra became the most important person in their life
Allegra: She is brimming with love for everything and everyone around her, it’s really impossible to narrow it down to just one. Cres, her horse, and her home are top three
11. if they have a pet or animal companion, how do they spend time with them? if they don’t have one, what sort of animal would they be interested in raising, if any?
Agustin: He doesn’t have one, though he likes working with Antony’s hounds. He would love to have his own dog. He’d train it for tracking
Cres: Post canon they end up getting a horse at Allegra’s insistence. It’s mainly for traveling, but they do find caring for it to be calming. They would also really enjoy having a cat but I don’t think the idea has ever occurred to them
Allegra: She adores her big dumb mutated horse. She honestly spends a lot of time with Bunny (the horse) between normal care, training, and dotting on her. Allegra just loves animals in general, it’s a wonder she hasn’t taken to collecting every stray she comes across
19. what sparks genuine, unadulterated rage in them?
Agustin: It’s really difficult to elicit rage from him as a general rule, but killing or threatening the people he truly cares about is a good way to get it out of him
Cres: Similarly to Agustin, they are slow to anger. Apart from hurting their loved ones, talking down to them, belittling them, etc. over an extended period of time will build up rage until they finally snap
Allegra: Needless cruelty, whether through actions or words
32. which of your decisions led to their voice being the way it is?
Agustin: Hm this is an interesting question. I’m not sure if I’m interpreting it right but— I don’t think there were many big personality altering decisions or changes I made after his creation, but rather many smaller adjustments that defined him. A lot of it was finding the dichotomy between him and Sol and, perhaps more importantly, figuring out what they shared— the fundamental core of their person. That had a huge impact on his voice
Also the decision to make one of his primary motivations survival reframed how I wrote his perspective
Cres: Placing them in their dynamic with Evander ended up shaping them more than I expected to be honest. One of those ‘OC starts telling you about themself’ kind of things. It revealed a lot about their world view, inner self, and motivations
Allegra: Well she’s pretty new to the Fallout sandbox, but she’s been my Dragon Age Inquisitor for a while. The central piece of her I decided to focus on is her capacity for love and optimism, even as she experiences horrors beyond her comprehension. That has influenced a lot of how she approaches and interacts with the world
63. what’s a meme or tiktok or vine (or whatever) that you associate with them?
Agustin:
Cres:
Allegra:
#I straight up don’t have any good memes for cres ugh (at least on their own. there are a few good x files shots for them and evander)#thank you for the ask!#asks still open despite my lapse in memory#agustin tag#cres tag#allegra tag#wishing4asks
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