#now I'm curious to see whether this feels as if it feeds into a more nuanced approach to hyrule --or if we're supposed to think it's normal

[rawliverandgoronspice]

ok but for some reason I was convinced that this whole "the Yiga Clan was born out of persecution against the Sheikah by Hyrule, who felt threatened by their power" was an obscure fact written in Creating a Champion, but, replaying Breath of the Wild... it's not?? like it's really, really not??? there's at least 5 different conversations where it's plainly mentioned and expanded upon??? I had completely forgotten this was an in-game thing, especially not to this extent

[vasyandii]

Hello! I just wanted to say that I absolutely adore your IHNMAIMS oc. I'm a OC x canon enthusiast and seeing a character so well written and adapted to the story as Vernon is makes me so excited!! Plus your art is literally amazing. I've been curious since you mentioned how Vernon cuts potions of her meal to give them to AM and how the food improved since AM got his body, what food/meals do Vernon and AM like/dislike/have as favourite? -for AM, at least from what he has tasted- Whether if it's because of the taste, flavour, etc.

Howdy Anon! Thank you so much for the kind words, I've been giddy since I got it a few days ago! I'm glad my OC x Canon content gets your stamp of Approval >:D!! 💞💞

VernonAM 🏺🖥️ Food Preferences

I think Vernon is careful in choosing the food she shares with AM because he will eat literally ANYTHING. She would try to eat things to torture herself with, extremely spicy foods, live insects, raw organs, etc. but then remember that she has to "Feed AM". So she opts out for something normal so his taste buds don't get fucked.

Or as normal as it can get, the food kind of has the uncanny valley effect as well. It looks normal and tastes normal, but she feels there's something a bit off about it (kind of like airplane food). So she often leaves criticism to the Chef™ (AM) or asks to cook instead.

Vernon isn't particularly picky when it comes to food, she'll eat it and clean her plate. She likes her food balanced, vegetables/meat with sauce and all that. If it tastes good, she'll eat it, y'know?

AM is more... difficult. Sure, he'll eat anything, but if it tastes really bad, it'll traumatize him and he'll refuse to eat it for a while.

His food has to not be touching, if it's mixed in all together beforehand he'll eat it. If there's sauce it shouldn't be close enough to where it can contaminate the food AM's eating because he WILL taste it, no matter how small the amount is. His utensils need to be a specific size, and the food HAS to be hot/warm. He needs to be able to see or know every ingredient in it.

It's observed that AM likes fried foods/anything crunchy because of how consistent they are in taste, texture, and flavour. So what ends up happening is Vernon will just include those foods into her meal, just to not eat it and have it on a little plate for him.

Vernon asks him why he can't just make food for himself, his response is "I don't need to eat, I eat when when you eat."

But honestly it's a pretty dumb question now that she's looking back on it. AM has all the knowledge in the world about food, everything ever made, everything he's never tasted. So he's basically asking Her, indirectly, "I don't know where to start or what's good. But you do. I trust you. Feed me."

Now here's some of the meals They've had together (+ AM's comments):

Chicken soup ("Too wet", just ate the broth)

Caesar Salad ("Damp, Crunchy water")

Vanilla ice cream (experienced a brain freeze for the first time, thought his body was malfunctioning)

Spaghetti Bolognese ("No I will not be mixing it, you mix it for me")

Western beef stew (He picked out the potatoes and only ate those. Thought the meat was irritating to eat.)

Baby carrots. ("You know they bleach these, right?")

Asparagus (he likes them. Needs to be warm)

Broccoli (same thing)

Cheese Pizza (Ate it, ate too much. Tummy hurted.)

Tempura (Ate too much, tummy hurted)

Fish and chips (Ate too much, tummy hurted)

Coffee, black (spat it out)

Macaroni and cheese (Ate too much, tummy hurted)

Grilled chicken hearts skewers (He liked it, but kept poking the roof of his mouth with the skewer.)

Half a Hamburger (picked out the vegetables because he didn't like them, still tasted it and gave the rest to Vernon)

Half a cheeseburger (ate it with no fuss.)

Aaand that'll be all for now :) if you made it this far, thank you for reading! If you need any clarifications, feel free to tell me!

[bird-inacage]

The Heart Killers: Character Interviews (Kant/Bison Focus)

So this proved to be super interesting. Let us see what can be gleaned from these brief little interview segments with Kant and Bison.

Immediately, I'm struck by how serious and stoic Kant comes across. He has a very mature aura, and is quite hard to read (which I guess is a plus considering what he gets up to). I didn't expect this, based on how flirty and forward he appeared to be in the trailer, and that makes me wonder if it's all part of a persona he's playing. Or whether the real Kant is in fact more measured and introspective, and Bison just brings out his playful side?

A notable trait that gets signposted repeatedly is Kant's care for his brother Babe. I believe Khao has made a similar comment about him being family-oriented. It makes a tonne of sense to me as to why Bison would be drawn to a 'family man'; someone who has strong family values, when Bison's essentially been rejected by his own.

"My goal in life is to make sure my brother grows up into a good man. I want to make sure he doesn't feel like he's lacking anything. We're all we've got right now." "I just live day by day, just keeping with my goal which is making sure my brother grows up well." This is so telling of Kant's mentality. Not only does it suggest that Kant is a stand-in parent of sorts, but that he doesn't live for himself. (Which could be something of a parallel to Bison - who is unable to live by his own rules). His goals centre entirely on his loved ones' needs being met and supporting them. This definitely gives provider with self-sacrificing tendencies.

"I feel like my goal is just to make sure my loved ones get to live their dreams. For now, I just want my brother to have a good life. But one day, if someone comes into my life and I love them, my goal would be to make sure they get to achieve their dreams." And yet another selfless, touching sentiment. The desire to aid your loved ones to actualise their dreams, possibly before or over your own. I expect Kant will be a very doting, nurturing soul. (Lucky Bison).

I wonder if Kant and Fadel will empathise with one another over their respective little brothers, and the sense of responsibility that comes with it. Bonding opportunity perhaps?

The most mysterious thing Kant says is "One more thing I'm not a big fan of is the beach." (The reason is personal). Curious. First has specifically talked about filming on the beach, where they were able to do a lot more improv. Any speculations on the above are wide open.

Now let's move onto our resident Murder Kitten. I've always said that Bison reads as a real sweetie-pie based on everything we've seen thus far. He's very animated and expressive. Khao very deliberately uses a softer, lighter vocal register as Bison, which just accentuates this cute, darling image. A real child at heart who wants to make up for a life he didn't get to lead. "I go out, I'm just trying to live outside the burger shop." His childhood dream about seeing the northern lights is just another example of a boy who has daydreamed of escape, and welcomes any excuse to be as far away from his actual life as possible. He also mentions being fond of a stray cat who resides near their burger bar, who he enjoys feeding and playing with. This precious boy, I cant. (Note: I need to have scenes of this in the show PURR-LEASE).

Everything about Bison as a person feels at odds with his violent lifestyle, which seems to be a central conflict in Bison's character arc. It does beg the question of what if Bison had never been adopted, what kind of life would he be living instead? And I think this drives Kant's desire to fight for Bison's chance at a new start. A boy with big dreams meets a man who wants to realise them. What a match.

Another comment we've heard before in the pilot is "I also don't like liars", no doubt foreshadowing the fallout when he finds out Kant did exactly that. I do think it's likely that whatever drives Kant to take the detective job has reasons to do with his own brother. He may wish to clear his record of anything untoward for his brother's sake. Based on this premise, when Bison does find out why Kant did what he did, I think that will help soothe any hard feelings.

On a side note - I've seen a comment mention that Kant apparently calls Bison 'kitten' in the novel. ERM HULLO?!! I will allow one spoiler, and that is whether this is true or not. And if so, I DEMAND that it is a featured pet name in the show, because why on earth would you miss an opportunity like that?!

You can keep tabs on bird-inacage’s BL meta directory for other long-form posts around The Heart Killers, which I'll be updating as the show airs.

[wip]

Will the new Communities feature include a live chat? And will it be possible to pin a post at the top with a welcome, rules and info? I'm curious as to how this will shape up!

Answer: Hey there, @vaguelygenius!

In short: right now, no live chat. However, we are interested in it, whether it’ll feel needed or not, per se. And we are also looking into some kind of Discord integration instead of building a live chat (again) ourselves.

As for pinning a post: yes! We are playing around with the ideas of an About page, a Community Guidelines page, a Pinned Posts tab/feed, and whether just pinning posts to the main feed makes the most sense.

We will want to play around with these ideas once we’ve got more people using Communities for their own usage. Pinning posts may make a lot of sense for big communities with lots of passers-by, but makes no sense for small communities that really want to use pinned posts as a “highlights” feed.

Thanks for your interest in it! We’re glad to see it and will reach out when it’s time to open it up to more people.

[copperbadge]

Hey Sam, this came across my feed on twit and I wondered if you’d heard about it at all? :(

https://www.reddit.com/r/duolingo/comments/18sx06i/big_layoff_at_duolingo/

Direct link for the curious. Short version, a post on Reddit reported that Duolingo laid off a "large percentage" of its staff, replacing them with AI. I hadn't heard about it, but I knew there were reports about Duolingo trimming its offerings and losing a lot of goodwill after revamping itself a year ago; they've been public about their use of GPT-4 AI starting last March, and it was a tentpole of this year's annual convention, so I was aware of that as well.

The Reddit post is by a former Duolingo contractor, who also shares their severance letter, which is terse to say the least. They state that of their four-person team, two people were let go, with the others left to "babysit the AI". They say that they're a translator and that the people who remained were recast as "curators" for AI translation.

But the post is also not otherwise sourced. So here is everyone's periodic reminder that if the only source is Reddit and Reddit isn't citing other sources, you need to dig a little.

All journalistic sources I've seen (that aren't paywalled, like the Bloomberg article most of them cite) are visibly using the Reddit post as their entre, but also state that the percentage of contractors who were let go is about 10%. That's 10% of contract workers, not 10% of all staff, although admittedly I don't know how many people Duolingo employs, contract or otherwise. 10% is a meaningful chunk, but Duolingo has said that the contractors were let go because their projects had wrapped. While company reps state that this all could be related to the use of AI, they've also said that it's not a 1:1 replacement.

Mind you, the company isn't offering much in the way of backing that up, either.

So there are a couple of issues. Some workers probably were let go simply because their work was finished; the Reddit user doesn't seem to be one of those. We are still seeing that at least some of these jobs were replaced by AI, which is undoubtedly a harbinger of things to come. We don't know what impact this will have on the app. We don't know what kind of work the majority of those people were doing. There's a thread in the Reddit post about whether the voices are now "AI voices" but there's no citation to back up the idea either. They definitely aren't doing AI voice generation for the Latin, where one of the voice actors has a nice voice and also a very loud pet bird.

There is a bigger issue of contract work in the digital and translation industries in the first place; a lot of these people should have been full employees and would have had more protection from this if they had been. Translators have also been brutally devastated by machine/AI translation, which is its own issue. But these are separate and much larger problems that are in no way unique to Duolingo.

I don't like taking this stance because I feel like I'm defending both Duolingo and AI, which isn't my goal. My goal is to remind people that if you see a single source offering a vague statement, you should fact-check. 10% is likely a lot of people but it's not "a huge percentage". We have no real numbers on who was fired, just this person on Reddit saying they're a translator and they were let go. Do I believe them? Absolutely, I have no reason not to and the basic gist is backed up by statements from Duolingo. Do I trust this person's intel? Not especially, after the loud axe-grinding noises they made while posting. Do I trust Duolingo, whose goal is to make money and not look bad while doing it? Not especially either, simply from the standpoint of "the bigger the company the more they're likely to screw you".

But the point is we don't have good data, and this is a complicated and nuanced issue involving a lot of different factors. So either you have to let it go on past, or you have to be prepared to dig a little deeper than a person posting to Reddit about getting laid off.

In any case, Duolingo is one of the few activities that brings me joy right now (I know, I'm working on the issue) and is the only language learning structure that has ever actually worked for me, so despite the new intel and despite the fact that I know a lot of people think of Duolingo's revamp the way I think of Tumblr's new dash, I'm going to keep on with it.

(Plus I paid up for a year, so I might as well at least use it until the year runs out and then reassess.)

[strawberrybunnystuff]

𝘖𝘶𝘵𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘵 𝘛𝘳𝘪𝘢𝘭𝘴 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘴' 𝘳��𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘰 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘣𝘦𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢 𝘷𝘢𝘮𝘱𝘪𝘳𝘦 𝘸𝘩𝘰 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘥𝘴 𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘺 𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘣𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘥🩸

Leland Coyle

Leland would be surprised and curious initially but would soon become excited about the situation. He would see this idea as funny but also exciting.

As soon as you told him that you refused to drink other people's blood and would only drink his blood, he would accept without hesitation.

Leland would take this as something intimate, which would boost his internal ego.

Leland would turn the act of his "eating" into something casual. As soon as you felt hungry, this man would have his neck out for you.

"Just promise not to drain me whole, okay? If I pass out....you owe me a...or two."

"You know, that's kind of sexy, in a weird but sexy way."

Franco Barbi

Franco would hesitate at first out of fear and even become a little withdrawn.

It would take a little time but once Franco gets used to it he would allow you to drink his blood but he would require that everything be done very carefully and would set certain limits.

Franco would be practiced. He would treat his "feeding" time as a common, everyday meal. He would establish that you only eat when you are hungry. And I wouldn't romanticize it.

When he gets used to it, he ends up seeing it as a unique form of her loyalty and trust in him.

"If this is what you need to live, then fine. I trust you...but please be gentle."

Mother Gooseberry

Mother Gooseberry would be completely enchanted by your vampiric act, seeing the idea of ​​you drinking her blood as something beautiful, beautiful and poetic.

Gooseberry would accept immediately, in order to seal this sign between you as deep and maternal. (Like a mother feeding her precious baby with her breast milk).

Gooseberry would see to it that their "feeding" was comfortable and comforting for both of them. Gooseberry would create an environment that was cozy and intimate.

Gooseberry felt a lot of pride and a maternal connection, always wanting to take care of you.

"I love the way you need me like this. That just makes us inseparable."

Dr. Esterman

Esterman would be fascinated (in his scientific way) and curious. He would question you about your vampiric nature until he understands if it is something biological, supernatural or psychological.

The question of you only wanting to feed on his blood would leave him intrigued but also on alert.

Esterman would accept but with a highly methodical approach. Esterman would also establish conditions and rules so that the action takes place in a safe and controlled way for both.

Esterman's feelings about this would be very divided between his "loving" side where he would see this as a unique connection and the other "rational" side where he would not let his real feelings about this be shown explicitly.

"So, you need my blood....fascinating. Either way that makes us unique."

"Let's work together so you have enough without it compromising me."

The Night Hunter

The Night Hunter would react driven by his instinctive way. He would be suspicious, evaluating whether his vampiric form would be a threat or help to him.

Her revelation about feeding only on his blood awakens her driven side of progressiveness and primal fascination.

He will accept it almost instantly, seeing it as something that would bind them both into a single valuable bond.

Whenever you felt hungry, the night hunter would offer you your blood without hesitation but would make a point of making it clear in the comments that you are the only one who can do this and that it is a privilege.

The Night Hunter will feel unique and necessary for your survival and will be even more protective of anyone who approaches you.

"Do you need my blood? Hah, of course you do. Don't hold back. I'm not weak so if you need me, take it."

"Now you belong to me in a literal way."

Eddie Gluskin

Eddie would be completely fascinated by his vampirism. I would see this as a symbol of perfection and superiority.

Eddie would be obsessed when you said you would only drink his blood. He would be proud of himself for being his only source of food.

Eddie would transform his "feeding" time into a true ritual, full of symbolism and emotional intensity. He wouldn't see it as just something simple but as something almost marital.

He would do anything to make sure his "food" was always special.

"My love, my bride...take as much as you need. Every drop of my blood belongs to you."

"I'm everything you need, my perfect bride. Promise you will never, ever drink from anyone else. Only from me."

Richard Tranger

Richard would be very surprised and fascinated at the same time. He would treat this as an interesting new experiment. He would be quite excited knowing that something so special is connected with him.

Richard would be a huge narcissist with this too. He would start to see it as something essential to his survival, which would elevate his ego.

Richard would always prepare his meal in his laboratory. At specific times and under very specific conditions. He could suggest that you choose to bite his arm or his neck and he would make sarcastic comments to himself but deep down Richard will really like that...

"Ah, so you need me, huh? It seems I'm more important than you thought. Fascinating!"

Frank Manera

Frank wouldn't see this as something strange or scary but rather fascinating. He would be aroused just by imagining the idea of ​​sharing such a primal, feral relationship.

Frank would come to consider you his equal and his soulmate. However, Frank would become much more possessive and paranoid in fear that you would drink someone else's blood.

Her feeding time with Frank would be limitless. Frank doesn't impose any limits he encourages you to be more wild and aggressive while sucking from him.

Frank would offer his limbs shamelessly and make sarcastic and provocative comments about it.

"Go ahead, sweetie. Show me how much you need me. I can take a lot more than that."

· · ─ · 🩸 · ─ · ·

I did this just so I wouldn't spend so long without posting....it probably has uncorrected writing, forgive me.

I was thinking about opening my box for new ideas.... ☺

[saphirered]

hello saph! first off, i'm wishing you good luck on your masters! i'm doing mine next year and i'm super looking forward to it, so i hope everything goes well for you too!! 💖💖💖

now, WELCOME TO THE HOT VAMPIRE ELF CLUB!! may i request Astarion/Reader(Tav) where Tav is a good aligned Life Cleric (or anything similar) that focuses on healing and supporting allies during combat, someone's that's a ray of sunshine because they choose the difficult path of being kind. i'm curious of your take on Astarion receiving genuine kindness, being disgusted at first, the progression of his attempted manipulation, eventually realizing his feelings, and how he would react to Tav being extremely injured in a fight and trying to save them (with good ending hopefully).

oh and maybe some blood drinking. you know. for reasons :-)

you're such a creative writer, i'm always looking forward to anything you post, so thank you! have a lovely day!

Hello dearie and thank you! Uni is tough but worth it so good luck with yours! I hope this little piece of distraction is to your tastes. 😘

Oh how easy it is to wrap you around his finger. Your sickening sweet and sheer willingness to bend over backwards at the smallest inconvenience you have the ability to fix, it’s nauseating. You’d already naturally gravitated towards him. It must be this incessant need to fix the broken. You seem to be attracted to broken things, thinking you can mend them with love and affection and a gentle touch like a stray pulled from the streets. He is no such thing. He is certainly no stray.  A handsome wanderer without a home port, now that’s more like him. But you didn’t need to see that. You didn’t need to know him or his past. As long as Astarion kept on the front he could be your next project, just like these strays you’ve pulled along, well that might just work to his advantage. 

To say you were an absolutely horrible influence on him would be an understatement. Whether it be his thieving and charming tendencies that often lead to heartbreak of the recipient or when his silver tongue is perhaps a little too sharp at times, your disapproval sparked something in the coils of his stomach he has not felt in nigh two-hundred years. Is this what remorse and guilt felt like? Did he want your approval? Your praise? He’s being utterly ridiculous. He has nothing to prove and you are just a tool. But here he is feeling just the slightest bit of guilt at the thought of you finding out the truth about him and how you might look at him then. He considers he might just not be able to look you in the eye. What has he become? 

Admittedly Astarion got a little peckish and without much opportunities to feed himself proper he’d taken to your neck. An attempt was made but you caught him. Your eyes opened and stared right at him in surprise. He was equally surprised, his stealth having failed him. In that moment you managed to flip him onto his back and held your palm to his chest as you crouched over him. You’re much stronger than he gave you credit for. Maybe you just got lucky.

“What the hell Astarion?!” You whisper trying not to wake the others. He can all but heart the beat of your heart, how quickly your blood rushes through your veins. When he doesn’t move you give him a little more space. You don’t move for a weapon or attack him as he might have expected given what it must have looked like. You simply sit down next to him and he watches the tension disappear from your shoulders, the adrenaline rush coming down with. He goes over the excuses, the ways to explain to you but you simply hold up your hand to silence him. He finds it in his best interest to do so. 

“You know you could have just asked.” He freezes like a deer in the torch light. You knew? How? How long had you known? Why hadn’t you said anything, done anything. He’s not blind to the prejudices against the creatures of his sort. Especially the ones that feed on the innocent.  yet here you are in front of him absentmindedly brushing your fingers along the side of your delicious neck. 

“Yes. Yes of course. ‘Hello my dear, I’m a blood sucking vampire spawn would you mind lending me your lovely neck for a few gulps? I’m incredibly peckish and could use a snack.’ Exactly how long do you think it would take for me to end with a stake in my chest or my handsome head removed from my ravishing body?” He ridicules and for a brief moment that pang in his chest, that tightening string reappears when you cast your eyes down and frown. It only lasts for a second before you go back to your neutral welcoming expression of understanding and compassion. 

“I just hoped you’d be able to trust us, trust me. If you’d asked I’d have said yes. Would still say yes. All you need is ask, Astarion.” He tries to decipher any means of deceit or strings attached but finds none which leads him exactly to wonder…

“Why?” You catch on to the hint of suspiciousness and guardedness but you’ve not seen anything else from the elf. You’ve witnessed him for a little bit now and you know he must have his reasons to be mistrusting and always assuming everyone’s selfishness to be the root of any actions. You made him question that entire way of thinking. Whether he deemed you an exception to his usual views, allowed you to prove him differently or he’s simply chalked you up as a very good liar, you don’t know and perhaps neither does he. 

He needed you to trust him. You do trust him. You’ve proven as much yet here he is still questioning your motives. You have your answer ready for him and by the looks of it it would be a genuine one but he doesn’t think he has the heart to actually hear it. He shakes his head. Something within him once again sparks that guilt. He feels bad for his motives of befriending you, of pursuing the path to something more, of charming you perhaps even into his bed if he kept playing his cards right but with every step he takes in that direction he can’t help but feel that guilt, and having to force himself to push down his own feelings. 

“Nevermind.” Once again Astarion flashes you a charming smile. “Now since we have this little secret out of the way, I will ask. Not a drop more than I need?” It feels so incredibly strange to blatantly ask. He knows about certain individuals who have a thing for the sharp teethed and sanguine hungers but that is not you. What you offer is not for you. It’s for him. You want to help him, truly help him and that is why you offer. He’s been feeling so weak. The animals aren’t enough. The humanoid is so much more sustaining. He’ll be strong. He has to be strong if he wants to see this all through, to finally become master of his own fate. An intrusive thought pops through his head; maybe there’s a place for you in that plan as well. 

“Only as much as you need. I’d like to keep my wits about.” The first part is a true statement. The second a half-joke. As much as he needs his strength, so do you. 

“Well then, let’s make ourselves comfortable then, shall we?” He gestures to your bedroll. You simply scoot over.

Astarion, ever so gently as if you might fade into the dawn itself, lays you down. Never once does he break eye contact. You can see the brief hesitation, then reassurance of himself, and then something akin to pain. It crosses his features in but an instant but you catch on to it either way. It seems he’s noticed you catch on but he does not read into you further. Instead he softens, brushes aside your hair as he supports your neck and back. You place one of your hands on his bicep and give a reassuring squeeze and nod. He closes his eyes and sucks in a breath before making for your neck. 

It starts as a sharp and quick pain but is overtaken by a the awareness of the sheer rush of your own blood flowing through your veins. He drinks and drinks. You gasp his name, once more squeezing his arm but no response. He’s caught up in whatever runs through him, whatever keeps him latched onto your neck. You start to feel cold, then warm and lightheaded. You can feel your heartbeat speed up as well as your breathing calms and slows. 

He doesn’t know what overcame him. This isn’t anything he’s experienced before. This is pure euphoria. You are pure euphoria. Your heart, your mind, your very soul. He doesn’t know if it’s because of the tadpole. It has to be. He feels it all. He feels it as if those feelings are his own. He feels the warmth you radiate as it warms him from within like the rays of the sun he thought he’d never be able to feel again, not without them being his end. Your compassion and affections for him, the way you allow him to cradle you, how you fit so perfectly within his embrace. You hold him dearly and think highly of him even if sometimes you disapprove of his choices, words and actions there’s not but understanding to him. Whatever this is, it is unconditional. No one has ever held an unconditional affection for him. He won’t go as far to call it love, but in a way it is. You truly do care about him. Even the whisper of his name upon your breath is like charm bells to his ears. The way you hold on to him, it means everything. And in turn it makes him regret every step he’s taken, every step he knows will lead to your heartbreak and destruction. But all this he feels through you, all this that opens within himself it is addicting and he can’t pull himself away.

By the time he stops you’re not responding. Your body is unmoving. Shit. He can fix this. Of course he can fix this. The matter now comes down to testing the limits of your forgiveness.

[dippitydoppitydingdong]

Imagine if prolonged captivity glisten found the notes Rodger wrote when he first got there, just talking about how concerned he is for him and his fear about whether or not he’ll recover. Like, can you imagine what the notes would be like? Got the angst

just gonna throw out some ideas of a timeline hehe

AHEM

Day 1

"Brought R-002 to my home after being assigned to keep watch of it. Mistook the creature for dead when I first saw it, but it is somehow clinging to life. Seeing it lay there lifelessly... it has caused an ache to form in my chest, and I do not know why I feel this way."

Day 2

"R-002 is still unresponsive. I've begun feeding it whey smoothies, but merely because I do not want the thing to die. It is a living being, after all, so as it's current... caretaker, I must tend to its needs, no matter how tedious it is to pour the slurry down its throat and force it to swallow. I dislike seeing it in this state. I wish for it to get better."

Day 3

"Awoke this morning to see R-002 not just moving, but alert as well. Upon noticing my approach, it immediately cowered behind its bare-feathered wings in a poor attempt to shield itself from my view. It's strange, I've never seen a monster act this way, to not attack when frightened. At least it is no longer so despondent, that much makes me happy is satisfying enough."

Day 6

"Had my sleep interrupted by the onset of an eerie tune that carried through my house. Further investigation led me to discover that R-002 was making this flute-like whistling sound, almost like it is singing. Hearing it makes me feel odd– as if my chest is filled with water– due to its solemn yet... beautiful quality, I must admit. Some reading has brought me to realize that singing is a behavior it would only display if it felt comfortable. I'm glad."

Day 8

"There's certainly been progress made in tending to R-002's miserable state. It seems to have bonded with my young daughter, Toodles. To allow her so near the monster would be by all means irresponsible of me, but R-002 poses no threat to her. It is far too weak to harm her in any capacity. Seeing them interact is rather interesting, because she displays a level of innate empathy for the creature that I seem to lack. But it does warm my heart to see R-002 happy for once. It seems to enjoy her company."

Day 14

"It has been two weeks since I acquired R-002, and his demeanor is almost unrecognizable to when I first came into possession of him. He is significantly more active and curious of his surroundings, and that perpetual terror I observed in him has just about completely vanished. He finds me interesting now, rather than fear-inducing. My desire to show him aff

I've found that it is more difficult to maintain a professional distance from him as of late due to his newfound willingness to be around me."

Glisten finds a crumpled up note tossed carelessly to the side. The text is all scribbled out.

"I can't treat him like a creature anymore. This is inhumane. He's so much more than just a monster to me. Ever since I first saw him, there were these feelings inside me that I'd never felt in regard to a monster. He's turned my beliefs inside out and my world upside down and I could not be more grateful for that. Seeing him recovering and blossoming into health from the miserable state I saw him in at the facility has changed me for the better."

that's all i could come up with so far :3

[gellavonhamster]

Yellowjackets season 3 finale/overall season 3 thoughts:

I agree with those saying that it was not as good as the previous two seasons. Someone in the tag mentioned that the writing for the adult timeline felt like different mini plots were picked up and then discarded too quickly, without developing each of them much, and this is precisely the feeling I had. Some things happened too fast and some took way too long without anything really happening. For example, I get that the scenes of Jeff and Callie were necessary to explain how and why Jeff goes from being ride or die for his crazy wife to wishing to get away from her, but a lot of those scenes were just so dragged-out.

The teen timeline was better, in my opinion. All the moments of the season I found most powerful belong to it. The horrifying force-feeding of Ben and him being mercy-killed by Nat, Travis watching Lottie walk over the pit of stakes, Nat sobbing as the first snow starts to fall. Those were very good.

My main problem with this season remains how they handled Lottie's death, and I think it would've been a problem for me even if she wasn't my favourite character. And even putting the behind-the-scenes stuff aside (I don't wanna play the game of telephone but wasn't Simone Kessell extremely dissatisfied with how her character was handled this season?). It was one of those plots that was quickly discarded in favour of other plots (Melissa being alive, Van's illness getting worse), and that after not even giving adult Lottie enough stuff to do this season. After s2, I expected her being put into a mental institution again to be a bigger deal (it wasn't, she was just... let out?) and her dynamic with Callie to take up more screen time (as someone who was screaming "Callie is the real Wilderness Baby" since s2 finale, I was somewhat vindicated in the last episode, but it still didn't feel like it was enough). And if the writers are trying to construct some consistent afterlife/other world/whatever for the adult Yellowjackets who die, then not giving Lottie the plane scene that Nat and Van had seems to disrupt the idea.

In comparison, Van's death seemed to me to be better written. It felt more impactful, and where Nat's plane scene was pure despair, Van's felt more like a passage to some other plane (ha) of reality. Which brings me to...

...multiple realities being alluded to several times this season. Travis asking Shauna if she ever wonders whose reality they live in, Mari telling Ben she sometimes thinks there are two versions of reality, possibly Lottie telling Mari she's been there before, possibly young Van telling adult Van that's not how their story goes. I'm very curious to learn where they're going with it and whether they can pull it off successfully. Considering how the quality varied in this season, I wouldn't be too optimistic, though.

All the awards to Sophie Thatcher as Nat. She was always good, but this season she was great. Also, young Nat and adult Nat have seemed to me the most unlike each other compared to other YJs that we see both as teens and adults, but now I finally see they're one. The same mannerisms, the same facial expressions, the same manner of speech. What made teen Nat into adult Nat has finally occurred.

Mari was the star of this season (which immediately made it clear that she's not surviving it). More depth than in the first two seasons combined, banger lines, the surname. Her death was really disturbing, especially as it came just when rescue became possible. Plus Shauna... outright revelling in in it. I used to think that the strands of hair on the Antler Queen's dress were of different girls, especially as we had Shauna toying with a lock of Hannah's hair earlier this season, but the fact that she just. Basically used Mari the way they use pelts of the killed animals? Especially considering the racist undertones of it. Rubbed me the wrong way.

I don't think Shauna becoming the most brutal this season and other girls teaming up against her suddenly erases everything other girls have done. No one there is innocent; that is the point. But I do have trouble buying the "everyone repressed their trauma and this is why they all hung out civilly with Shauna afterwards" explanation unless anything game-changing happens in the next two seasons (if they get made).

Speaking of. The rescue won't arrive immediately, of course, but I don't think it should take, like, months. How are so many characters going to die in such a short timeframe? Definitely Hannah, likely all or most of the younger/background YJs, probably Akilah. How?

My current prediction for the ending of the show is that all the surviving adult Yellowjackets are gonna end up dead (Melissa included - I don't believe she'd be able to go back to her cozy little li(f)e now) and Callie will be the final girl, with the implications that if It is real, then It lives in her now. Jeff will probably get killed as well, possibly by accident, possibly by his own wife or daughter (of protecting them).

[clownakai]

lowkey curious as to how you think rei's gonna go about the revelation that conan and shinichi are the same person and reveal to conan/shinichi that he Knows now

Hi anon! Apologies for the delay fjdkf I've been trying to lock in for my exams

I feel like there are a few options tbh, but it kind of depends on how (and if) Gosho intends to enforce factors like Rum's impatience. Rei has clearly been stalling on investigating Kudou Shinichi for a while, so I doubt Rum would be okay with even more radio silence from Bourbon after the nth warning about wasting time. If Rum really is someone to be taken seriously, then we should see Rei get a move on and either try to lie to the guy (who may or may not bust him) or finally give him something about Shinichi.

We might also need to consider that this last flashback prompted both of them to remember each other, so we could end up seeing Conan agonize over what Rei is going to do about it since I don't think lying to him the way he does with Ran would be of much help (also Rei has all the resources of the NPA on his side. He could bust Shinichi no problem). I don't know whether he'd rather go up to Rei and come clean himself tbh, since that's never really been Conan's M.O. re: his secret. It feels unlikely.

I guess Rei could choose not to say anything to Conan while juggling the lovely task of feeding enough information about Kudou Shinichi to Rum and Edogawa Conan to the other guy to keep them relatively appeased and buy some more time, but at that point what would that achieve? Yeah he bought himself maybe a few weeks if we really stretch it, and then... what? What does he do with that time if he can't try to plan around the issue along with the interested party? I don't think this option would work very well, especially since it basically makes the entire reveal completely useless (I'm aware that this kind of thing has happened before, but even then it usually sparked something else, some new subplot we could latch on. As it is I don't really see any way to justify Rei avoiding a confrontation with Conan since the plot itself is right there). I might also be completely off about this lmao

If we went with a more ruthless Rei approach, he could really just say nothing to Conan and give both his "employers" what he's found about the target. But that would literally mean taking the lid off the whole thing, immediately putting Conan and every other character (both major and secondary) in danger, which very much reads like an endgame situation to me. Given the current state of things, with so many unrelated loose ends that still need to be addressed, it's a bit too harsh of a tonal shift for Gosho imo. He's never given off the impression that he'd upset the status quo so suddenly and irreversibly.

Personally though, I think it would be really funny if Rei did the math and proceeded not to confront Conan directly, but to show up at the Kudous' again and be like "Hey what the hell is up with your 17yo why does he look like a first grader now" (heavily paraphrased), and then go from there, because I'm sick and tired of Gosho gatekeeping what happened during the first tea party and making a second one happen is a nice excuse for us to get a flashback to the first one (where we might see to what degree the Kudous may be willing to cooperate with Rei and vice versa if they ended up being included in whatever negotiations took place back then). Conan can later be called to join in, and then we would get the exchange that sparked this dumbass idea in the first place: Rei going "does the FBI know about this :/", Conan answering that of course they don't (he's only lying a little bit about Akai-san, okay. Can you blame him), and Rei being like "I fucking knew it. Once again I am the superior guy"

And with that out of the way they can all brainstorm how to deal with the double threat (as much as it pains me to say, Yusaku being there would indeed be really helpful) <3

Tbh I'm sure there are a lot of much more accurate guesses out there about how this is going to go fkdkffks I rarely focus much on speculation and theory crafting myself as I prefer to analyze what's already been written, but thinking about this was a nice change of pace :3 my apologies for turning things into silly shenanigans once again btw I simply cannot help myself

[broodingheroine]

tmagp thoughts (this will be pure nonsense I just need to write it down)

alice is so tim coded

obviously there's a connection anyone can make to the multiple statements abt urban exploration/spelunking in tma and the redcanary forum thread.... it invites the horrors (connection to danny?)

gwen is a ✨️bouchard✨️ (implication that while its a parallel universe the same ppl still exist? supports possibility of spelunking forum thread connecting to danny somehow (not actually super sold on that but seen a lot of ppl mention it so))

colin is definitely going to succumb to the horrors :/ (either first to die OR..... this universes version of an avatar?)

CHESTER AND NORRIS!!!

I'm of the firm opinion that they're jmart BUT! but but but! I do believe they're echoes of who they were, this just so happens to be Somewhere Else.

also! yes I understand that we most likely will Not get any tma characters in any meaningful way in tmagp, however I also believe that alex and jonny couldve very easily.... not...... voiced the text to speeches....... like yeah I dont think we're getting jmart as we knew them but..... come on

also also. the text to speeches got less robot sounding the longer they were reading and it really reminded me of how ppl reading statements would slowly get invested as they were reading and emote as if it were happening to them.

sam is on the archivist (or tmagp equivalent) pipeline already yikes

the turpentine line was raw as fuck. so was the canary one obviously. don't want to beat a dead horse by talking abt that bc so many others have already said it. but! the institute is deadly stay away!!

the sound engineering is god tier I love all the bleeps and bloops

colin knows smth is Watching. inadvertently feeding the eye by being paranoid? does the eye even exist the same way it did in tma?

theres definitely smth to be said abt whether or not robert smirke did his thing the way he did in tma and if anyone in the know uses the same classification or if the oiar is the only group categorizing. the fears always kind of blurred together at certain points so maybe without the human interpretation of it being 14 distinct entities it's more of an..... amalgam?

magnus institute is in a different place which is interesting. if it was built for the same reasons (outside of just research) is there another panopticon esque structure underneath? (brings us back to if smirke was doing his thing)

very curious to see if theres gonna be a leitner books equivalent.

I deeply deeply deeply desire a michaela salesa cameo at some point. he's one of my fav side characters.

sam and gwen using classic horror characters to help him try and memorize the classification categories was very cute

another thing I'm sure everyone has talked abt already but the whole world wide WEB thing and possible jmart in the computers and omg they're in the web and the oiar is part of the web and blah blah blah u get the image.

lena is intriguing to me. my guess is she's going to be a gertrude esque character who knows at least the basics of what's really happening and is trying to put a stop to it.

I havent seen anyone talk abt like...... what IS the magnus protocol. like tma was the archives in the magnus institute. the magnus archives. self explanatory from like ep 1. what the hell is the magnus protocol. is it smth fr3-d1 will run? or the text to speeches? is it tmagp's version of a ritual? using protocol to reference the updated tech from tma? is it smth the actual organization has to run in the event of Something Happening? WHAT THE PROTOCOL WHATS IT FORRRRR

I know nothing abt the ARG shit, just to note that

okay I think that's it for now..... feel free to discuss in the notes lol

[intermundia]

Sorry to bother you but I'm curious to know your thoughts on this.

I know it's not technically canon but the novelization does at point depict anakin wanting to leave the order to raise his kids and padme encouraging him to stay. I know he's his own person and all but having his wife pushing him to keep up the lies and secrets is kind a factor in his decisions I would say. Having someone you care for so deeply tell you to keep living a lie is definitely something that would mess with your brain and influence your perspective on things.

Idk. Just something that I feel is overlooked sometimes in the discussion of Anakin’s decision in not leaving. I would really love to know your thoughts on this.

“Anakin, not here. It’s too risky.” “No, here! Exactly here.” He drew her against him again, effortlessly overpowering her halfhearted resistance. “I’m tired of the deception. Of the sneaking and the lying. We have nothing to be ashamed of! We love each other, and we are married. Just like trillions of beings across the galaxy. This is something we should shout, not whisper—” “No, Anakin. Not like all those others. They are not Jedi. We can’t let our love force you out of the Order—” “Force me out of the Order?” He smiled down at her fondly. “Was that a pun?” “Anakin—” He could still make her angry without even trying. “Listen to me. We have a duty to the Republic. Both of us—but yours is now so much more important. You are the face of the Jedi, Anakin. Even after these years of war, many people still love the Jedi, and it’s mostly because they love you, do you understand that? They love the story of you. You’re like something out of a bedtime tale, the secret prince, hidden among the peasants, growing up without ever a clue of his special destiny—except for you it’s all true. Sometimes I think that the only reason the people of the Republic still believe we can win the war is because you’re fighting it for them—” “And it always comes back to politics for you,” Anakin said. His smile had gone now. “I’m barely even home, and you’re already trying to talk me into going back to the war—”

yeah so i think that padmé's encouragement to live the lie is deeply unhelpful. if i recall correctly, there are two key times anakin thinks about leaving the order, both of which are in her presence, and yet she is the one who offers pressure back toward staying. the above passage is taken from right after they are reunited, and it is so telling to me. padmé loves him as her husband, yes, but she also sees him as larger than life, and says things that absolutely feed his ego. she encourages him to think the rules don't apply to him, because he is so important and special.

she doesn't take his commitment to the order seriously with respect to what it means to be a jedi, but she wants him to stay there anyway. i think that this kind of encouragement is rather similar to palpatine's manipulations, though she definitely has less sinister motives, the result is the same. her permission to break rules exacerbates the potential weaknesses in his character that lead to his fall. it compounds with sidious's maneuvering. her pressure makes him feel like not only a tool of the jedi but also the democratic opposition, unable to have what he wants because of politics and duty that he doesn't personally care about. all he cares about is getting what he wants.

i honestly don't know if he was ever genuinely serious about leaving the order. he clearly does not take his commitment seriously, but he also craves the power that having high status in the order brings, both in terms of access to force training and the glory of being the youngest council member. he thinks of leaving only when he's directly looking at padmé, not otherwise. so basically it's unclear to me whether or not he actually meant to leave, but what is not unclear is that padmé absolutely pressured him and flattered him, manipulating him and trying to use him (not with bad intentions! with the best of intentions!), and it encourages him to the edge of darkness. his perspective is absolutely shaped by her words.

i just believe that they make each other worse. that is the tragedy of their relationship imho. they love each other, and it harms them both.

[thelongestway]

Annd we're back - and into the last third of this story, so I needed a bit more time to get some structural stuff straight again. Renaming chapter 16,5 to 17, for one, because structurally better, and also getting the final bits straight.

Plus, there was the whole anniversary yesterday. But the war isn't going away any time soon, and neither are we, whether in fighting or writing. So, without further ado...

Chapter 18: Preparation

"So I guess that's why you straight up refused my invitation to the hacker's game?" Iceblink asked as we walked back to the docks. (Her eyes hurt after just a few hours in the feed, so she had to take her glasses off. One more downside of being human.) "Hacking was never a fun puzzle to you. It was something you did to survive."

"Also you had zero chance of winning against me, so it was pretty pointless."

"On your turf--for sure! But on mine? I'd still like to see you try. There's a reason anyone above introductory level plays the hacker's game on their actual systems."

"Yeah, so they can go down for real if you fuck up."

Iceblink made a flickering gesture with her fingers at my drone that was hanging level with her head.

"I mean, that, too," she admitted. "Teaches everyone on the ship to keep their actual important stuff local and disconnected really quickly. But that's not the main point. The main point is… SecUnit, you know I actually won against the Friend?"

"You got the Friend to play your game?"

"Not exactly," she said, weaving her fingers together behind her back and shifting uncomfortably. "It decided Dandelion would out the Friends to everyone, so she had to die. So we give it a room with a terminal about an hour after it wakes up, because it asked for one to get its bearings, and I'm just hanging around in the feed doing regular maintenance tasks and watching its logs just for fun… And then I see it looking at maps, analyzing our structure, and it's obviously lingering on feed-blind areas. I mean, shocking and curious to someone as connected as you all are, ok, sure. But I also kind of have your analysis in the back of my mind, and I'm going: why exactly do you want to know where Dandelion can't see you?"

I sent some of my drones ahead to see if anyone was around the turn we were approaching. The corridors leading to the docks were mostly empty right now, because most of the Courageous' residents were celebrating, but I had a feeling that this was becoming a need-to-know conversation. (Aspen probably didn't count, and Iceblink knew they could hear us anyway. She was definitely not thinking about any humans, though.) The next corridor was empty, too, so I let her continue.

"Then it goes for our navigation logs. Not news feed access, not general puttering around, not anything. Straight for the logs. I'm thinking: why the fuck does it want to know where we came from in detail? Also, those logs are under lock, so is it going to try to hack them? I slowly start figuring out how I'd stop it if I need to. It's really fast, and it's really agile, for every input I can send, it's got ten. I've got Dandelion, so it's going to be fine, I say to myself. But I still start thinking, okay, so what if I didn't have Dandelion? How would I do it if it were the hacker's game? If I don't have Dandelion, then I still have my terminals, and I know which ones I can hijack for processing to bury the Friend in code bundles and have only a few people come scream at me at the end of the day. Okay."

Iceblink took a deep breath. Her voice was steadily increasing in speed, her eyes glazing over a little as she recounted the events.

"But then the Friend doesn't hack the logs. It asks Dandelion for access, and she just gives it up, because she wants the Friend to leave with us anyway and sees no point in hiding. It looks at the logs, then they start talking. And that conversation turns into a fight really quickly."

"If it got into a fight with Dandelion, the Friend would've lost."

"You'd think that, right?" Iceblink threw her hands up in the air, almost hitting my drone. "She outmatches it about as much as you outmatch me, so you'd think that! But fucking no! Because it doesn't go for a straight up hack, it goes for a social engineering attack. They talk, and I can see her getting really agitated, the kind of agitated where all you need to figure out where most of her systems are centered is one look at a rudimentary network activity map, and the moment she reaches that threshold, the Friend disconnects! I ask Dandelion what the fuck just happened, and she just goes 'it's okay, Iceblink, the Friend just told me what it thinks about the entire situation and it is absolutely right, it's just a very bitter pill to swallow.'

"And it's really far from fucking okay, because my ship is completely rains-scoured, the Friend just dc'd and I can see on the cameras that it's about to head out in meatspace--and I fucking know where it's going, because it hasn't been anything but the straightforward, no-nonsense, find-out-then-fuck-around kind of hacker that a couple of my friends are, and because I've done the exact same thing so many times in Maize's Maze: if people are in your way and you have to actively get them to move, there's only so much distraction you can get away with before someone notices what you're doing, so if you go that route, you have to be quick, and it's being exactly the right kind of quick!

"I feel it in my fucking bones: it's going for Dandelion's heart. So I outright concuss it with a mild EMP and tell it to stop moving. It tries to trace me, so I DDOS the fuck out of it and then I arm the combat-grade EMPs and make them increase intensity any time it tries to do so much as twitch. I have to pull rank on Dandelion, because she is absolutely furious with me, I have to keep the Friend under lock while she looks through its augments and says, 'oh, it really was trying to kill me, I see' like it's the most normal thing in the world--and then I have to report to the captain, who's already had the worst fucking day of kes life and was just planning to finally get some rest."

(I really hoped Aspen was still here, listening to this and realising how fucking wrong they were about me saving Dandelion's life. And--oh yeah, there they were. Hanging around quietly and listening in that almost-transparent mode I'd seen them do when I let them into my analytics. I tapped their feed.

I told you I didn't have anything to do with that incident.

You said that, yes, they replied. And from Iceblink's narrative I see what you meant. Your report might have made sure she was monitoring the Friend specifically, but the solution was entirely hers.

They didn't sound particularly annoyed, so I added:

You were wrong.

(Okay, I was wrong, too, even though I wasn't going to admit that. Iceblink was pretty good for a human feed technician, but I ran my assessments as she spoke, and there was no way she should have won that fight. And Dandelion shouldn't have lost. What the fuck, this was such a weird scenario.)

Sure, Aspen said. But I'm pretty happy Tal wasn't. That's far more important.

Fucking station. Who the fuck likes their analytics to be wrong?)

Iceblink paused, breathing heavily, then shook her head, staring down at the floor. I stopped together with her.

"Sorry," she said in a raspy voice. "I didn't mean to dump all of that on you. I swear I had a point. Just let me find it."

"You were talking about playing the hacker's game on your actual system," Aspen prompted.

"Right, thanks, Aspen," she did a little salute towards the nearest speaker, smiling. "So I was saying, SecUnit, that I'd like to try the hacker's game against you for real someday. Because after this whole thing, me and my team ran a lot of trial scenarios against the Friend in walled gardens. Most days, it absolutely kicked our asses! But somehow, back when it was a real threat… I got it. I actually got it."

She said the last phrase like she still couldn't completely believe it. And neither did I, honestly. (Humans did not become magically better under real threats when compared to training scenarios, what the fuck?)

But we had to stop the conversation there, because Aspen suddenly sent me an alert. I switched to the drone they indicated, and let them direct it a little bit away from the human it was following.

There it was. The area they indicated was outside of the initial scope of my drone, but Hostile Leader was wandering around the station in an obvious search pattern, and she was way too close to my human. It didn't necessarily mean that she was actually looking for my human, but Aspen didn't usually tap me for monitoring theirs.

I still asked, just in case:

Query: hostile search target?

Response: Thiago, 95% chance.

Yeah. I knew letting the hostiles talk to my humans had been a bad idea.

[pleiades-cabin-talk]

Greetings, fellow Acolyte!

I hope you are doing well!!

For some time now, I have suspected that the Mother of Fall is also involved with the sea in some way, as well as the Mother of Solitude. You appear to be favored by both, which proves my thesis correct!!

I find myself drawn to the sea as well...I assume it is my Mother of Ground. How much do you know about the Buried aspects of your domain? About what lies underneath the surface of the water? How easy it is to drown? How, the deeper in you go, the harder it is to swim back up?

...Come to think of it, I am unsure whether you know of the Divine Mothers in the first place, even though you yourself are a Child of one.

Eagerly awaiting your response!

- the prophet Soren Baltimore ( @soren-gravestone-baltimore )

Oh Hello!!

Goodness, sorry for taking so long to get to you. Yes, I am doing well! Or, as best as I can at the moment, things have been a bit rocky on the Andromeda.

I hope you're doing well too, dear!

As for your questions, let's see...

Well, I suppose I've always considered the Buried and the Vast to have a fairly close connection in many ways, which is what I am assuming you're talking about? I've never heard the Fears referred to as Mothers, but I can see that fitting. (Though, the Vast has always felt rather masculine to me, I suppose that's besides the point.) as for the Lonely...I suppose the wide, rather empty expanse lends itself to a connection. I'm unsure if it favors me, truly, but it is...curious, maybe. I've not yet decided if that scares me or not.

Either way, I think it's actually not only because of the sea! While I do believe, with the growing pressure the deeper you go, the Deep simply has to be involved with the crushing strength and efficiency of the Buried. Not to mention the bottom of the sea reminds eerily of a graveyard. Which it is! Thinking of Whalefalls, for example. You'll find their decomposing bodies, their skeletons, down at the sea floor. Far, far beyond most people's reach. A thriving ecosystem in of itself as it feeds the critters of the Deep. But then, with how far down you have to go for the pressure to set in, for it to weight on your body like the dirt above, you are far past where light can reach you, giving way for the consideration of the deepest parts of the ocean also, in part, belonging to the Dark.

I think everything is interconnected to begin with though, to be honest. Like the water itself, it is...fluid, to an extend.

You can be crushed to death, you can loose sight of where up and down is, either because you don't see it or becomes the world around you has suddenly become so large. There are many reasons the Buried may claim victims that die far beyond the waves.

When it comes to what's below the waters...well. I'd say I've seen more than the average person of it, at least. There are beasts not officially known yet, colossal and fierce, hiding out of reach. But I definitely don't know everything yet, I don't think I ever will.

Gosh I think I lost my point somewhere along the way, maybe I never had one. But I suppose I am...rather intimately familiar with the aspects of the Buried involving the sea, given I've been down there. It leaves me wondering if I've at the very least been marked? But I'm not sure about that. Not yet, anyway.

I sincerely hope at least part of this answers your questions! If there is more you'd like to discuss, always feel free to reach back out, I'd love to talk more. I cannot deny that I am admitably...curious about you, Prophet.

For now, there is a Feast that needs preparing, so I wish you farewell until we meet again.

[al-the-remix]

I’m sorry what?? You’ve had fic written about you?? Are you famous? How did I not know this?

lol no and that's the part that's actually embarrassing, not the actual fic... It's really not that interesting but if you're curious i'll explain btc

I don't know if you remember 2010-2016 ish tumblr pre porn ban fandom, but it was a slightly different flavour than it was now. Maybe it was just the circles I spent time in, but I feel like that was before tumblr as a whole had learn its lesson BNF wise. This was post the big move of fan artists over from Deviant Art and there was also still a large number of "famous" cosplayers that were most notable for being hot and posting suggestive photos of themselves on the internet. (Which don't get me wrong I'm all for, I was a big fan of having random dicks and tits pop up on my feed without instantly getting community labeled) but this was also the hight of the "tumblr girl/boy aesthetic" which was basically just repackaging heroin chic to insecure, impressionable teenagers, which for reasons beyond me people love to romanticize now. "Oh remember 2011 tumblr, it was so great", what I remember is like 2/3rds of the platform mainlining glamorized anorexia and self harm content non stop, so like agree to disagree... But that's beyond the point, which is: people were super primed to bestow ""celebrity"" on people who didn't deserve it at all, and being in a group of like seven relatively attractive queer people who posted way too much of their personal lives on the internet and were overly familiar with each-other on main was enough to end up with fan fiction written about you.

I'm still good friends with most of these people, and we all agree that in retrospect this was a cringy period in our lives that was a result of our own behaviour not any one else, because like what I wouldn't give to be able to nuke all reposted aesthetic pictures of myself on pinterest, lmao.

But literally the only reason I ever invoke this cursed knowledge is when I think it could be used as like a moral tale to help prop up an opinion I feel very strongly about now, which first and foremost will always be:

there is no such thing as tumblr famous, especially within fandom, the way the site functions works directly against it and that's a good thing. Anyone who tries to gain clout within a fandom and either consciously or subconsciously turns their entire goal of participating in fandom into "making an impact" or becoming a "prominent figure in the fandom" should be avoided at all costs. If they're unsuccessful in garnering attention they'll become bitter, unbearable, and often cruel, if they do end up getting that attention they'll turn into the most annoying person you'll ever have the misfortune of interacting with and will most likely end up trying to dictate how everyone in the fandom should interact with the cannon material. (i've seen both examples play out more than once much to my own and everyone around them's suffering).

RPF... you don't have to like it, you can personal qualms with the ethics of it, it can very simply make you uncomfortable and you don't want to participate in it, all of those reasons are valid and there are interesting conversations to be had there, but I would say about 95% of the time when I come across people arguing about it has less to do with personal issues, and more to do with this sort of overcorrecting when it comes to sex, attraction, and intimacy we see now a days where especially younger people think that if you so much as find someone attractive you're violating...or god forbid...fetishizing them in some way. And there's a ton I could say on that topic, but I'll try and keep this to the point. Obviously what I experienced is like a speck of sand compared to beaches that are some RPF fandoms, and it likely affected me less because I am queer and I was actually sleeping with a number of those people that I was being "shipped" with etc.--though I'd still argue that whether you're queer or sleeping with that person, being written about by strangers on the internet is an odd experience-- But that's really all it is: odd. The same time all of this was going down I had someone who I hadn't seen in a very long time beginning to stalk me. And like the RPF half of this story, I'm using that word in the lightest of terms. This wasn't a man I was physically intimidated by (I was taller and stronger than him), I was lucky enough to be in the process of moving to a different province so unless I went back to my family home he didn't have physical access to me, and I never had to get the authorities involved. But despite all that I was much more affected by him hanging around outside my house, following me, leaving me weird handwriten letters and presents, insisting that we had some sort of connection even though this is someone I hadn't seen or spoken to in 6+ years, then I ever did being perceived by people on the internet. It made me feel paranoid, physically revolted, and worst of all no one around me took it seriously so I didn't have anyone to literally have my back. So after like four years of microdosing having fanfiction written about me and also having someone physically in my space that I didn't wish to be there, I can confidently say the latter is far worse. You're not breaching anyone's (agency?? idk i'm blanking on the word I want) by thinking or writing or drawing them, it's when you begin to try and physically breach that person's personal space, or because we live in the age of social media, their online bubble and directly engage them, for fandom reasons or because you wrongly believe that you and them have some sort of connection, that things begin to get out of hand. To me the whole issue really comes down to the breaking of the 4th wall, which I'll admit is a super delicate balance and becomes harder to maintain the larger the fandom grows. I think you can see some of the most negative consequences of this when it comes to some of the worst behaviour exhibited by Kpop fandoms, just because they're so large, and the management companies play into it feeding the fire, but at the same time we have talk show hosts getting a kick out of showing off character fan art and fanfiction to actors on air... so wether you're engaging with the "actor" or the "character" in your art and fic there are still ways for that forth wall to be breached, and trying to moralize it is a looser's game. You might as well not engage in fan fic at all, which some people will argue, but I obviously don't agree with.

TL;DR life is short, stalking people is bad, and if you want to write fanfiction about your favourite singer no one should be able to stop you, but I highly discourage emailing it to them.

This is why I still don't use my main blog, because even though I nuked all that content in like 2017 and rebranded as a anime/manga/comics blog, it keeps ratcheting up non-porn bot followers and I've discovered I have much more fun on the internet with fewer eyes on me (another good reason to use the block button liberally, lol)

[saiyanandproud]

[Give us your opinion on Cooler...and the Armored Squadron. And I mean ALL of the Armored Squadron.]

Drop your Muse’s name in my inbox and I’ll reveal my Muse’s opinion of them

"... I'm not paid enough for this..."

"... Fine, here we go."

Cooler

Most admirable quality: "His respect for his soldiers, it definitely sets him apart from his family." Most attractive physical feature: "... I guess his shoulders." Most annoying habit: "How he keeps feeding me to stupid gossips and doesn't move a finger to qwell them. I am starting to suspect he is more vain than he appears to be." Something they would like to do with them: "Honestly? I'd be curious to know about his life in a face-to-face conversation with him. Too bad he's more armored than his squadron..."

Salza

Most admirable quality: "He's a good strategist, and keeps everything under control." Most attractive physical feature: "Meh. Probably his hair. And his french nose." Most annoying habit: "He can be painfully paternalising. And a snob." Something they would like to do with them: "Maybe learning more about his arts of subterfuges. He keeps all his tricks for Isa."

Neiz

Most admirable quality: "He is a grateful person, and he likes to show his appreciation to those who deserve it." Most attractive physical feature: "... His long legs...?" Most annoying habit: "How he glares at me whenever he thinks I got too close to the kitchen. I just happen to want some juice now and then, sheesh!" Something they would like to do with them: "Since he won't let me cook anything without his supervision... Or anything at all since Cooler forbade me to... I mean, he could at least let me see how he does it."

Dore

Most admirable quality: "His confidence. He's cool and he knows it." Most attractive physical feature: "Honestly, his hair is pretty nice." Most annoying habit: "Sometimes he can be so loud..." Something they would like to do with them: "Maybe hang out at a tavern or something. I bet he is great company with a drink and hearty food."

Isa

Most admirable quality: "She's super cunning." Most attractive physical feature: "Probably her eyes, they're very pretty. As Ketch likes to remind us all way too often..." Most annoying habit: "She can be a stick in the mud. I know it's because of her upbringing, but she should allow herself to enjoy life more." Something they would like to do with them: "... Cheesy as it sounds, I'd like to have some... Girl talk with her. It's been a while since I hung out with another girl around my age -- at least, kinda around my age -- and it'd be nice to have a carefree chat with her, forgetting about our roles in the Squadron and all."

Ketch

Most admirable quality: "His honesty. Not only he wears his heart up his sleeve, but he isn't afraid to take responsibility for his actions, even the dumbest ones." Most attractive physical feature: "He does have a charming, rogueish smile. Kais, if he finds out I said it he'll be such a pain..." Most annoying habit: "... Unlike Isa, he does tend to act like an idiot at times. He does need to mature a bit, under certain aspects." Something they would like to do with them: "He asked me on a date once, right? Whether it was to impress Isa or not, he owes me a dinner."

Plum

Most admirable quality: "His modesty. Plum is more powerful than he admits, and anyone else with his strength would brag about it non-stop." Most attractive physical feature: "He looks very sweet wenever he gets timid." Most annoying habit: "I wouldn't call it annoying... But he should stick up for himself more often." Something they would like to do with them: "I suspect he feels very responsible for his family. Maybe something about them worries him. I wish he'd open up more about it."