#of all portals we see this seems the most stable?

[danzinora-switch]

FAM!!!!!

I was rewatching 'Bug Busters' and TELL ME WHY THE GATEWAY TO THE BATTLE NEXUS LOOKS LIKE THIS!

This was like, THREE YEARS before we knewwwwwww!!

[internetskiff]

The most powerful ability exclusive to humanity in the Half Life/Portal shared universe is our ability to just throw bullshit at the wall and see what sticks. Aperture "OSHA are the devil" Science have managed to create completely safe interconnected points in space. The same company that turns people's blood into gasoline and shoves lions and humans into the same enclosed space for the vague concept of "Science". Meanwhile Black Mesa still has to use Xen as a crossing and their teleportation device requires an entire reactor with a village's worth of staff constantly maintaining it, just to end up having most of said staff abducted by onion-headed aliens. Even the resistance hasn't managed to create completely stable teleporters with a compressed Xen relay, meanwhile Aperture just went "oh dude let's shove a black hole into a non-waterproof gun" and have just created a teleportation method that just removes Xen from the equation entirely. Doesn't change the fact they bullshat so bad they basically got themselves gassed to death, but still.

The Resistance are a good example of this too. The Combine seem to have a complete set-in-stone thought process and understanding of science which meant they didn't even begin to explore local teleportation via Xen, meanwhile a group of random human mechanics and scientists have managed to cobble together at least two semi-functional local teleporters out of scrap metal and stolen Combine tech, to the point the All-Consuming Interdimensional Empire had to straight up copy their homework. And that isn't even the only time they seem to be taking human shit to just copy the blueprints.

They 100% just yoinked the entire damn car out of that garage just to take a crack at reverse-engineering the Tau Cannon attached to it. Even Resistance weaponry somehow manages to rival or at least stand equal to Combine tech - and we're talking improvised crossbows that shoot superheated rods of rebar at the target compared to high-tech rifles that can discharge orbs of pure dark energy. The collapse of the entire Citadel is basically set into motion as a result of a cobbled together Rebel device placed into extremely capable hands.

The events of the Portal games are a case of extremely elaborate machinelike planning versus pure human improvisation, with Chell's entire escape in the first game involving her simply weaseling her way through small cracks that GLaDOS missed while setting up her ambushes, eventually turning her own rocket turret against her to destroy her.

I suppose you could argue this falls flat in Portal 2 with Wheatley, but it's important to remember he's designed to be an utter idiot, so it's safe to say he wouldn't obsess over the larger picture like GLaDOS to the point where he fails to see the cracks. Yes, he's the one that breaks Chell out of the test chambers again, and yes, he's the one that came up with the sabotage plot - but it's important to note while he knows what to target in the sabotage, when we actually get there he doesn't quite know how to sabotage it, leaving Chell to figure it out on her own. She botches the Turret Quality Control Line with some minor guidance, but it's basically completely up to her to figure out how to cut off the Neurotoxin Supply. It's through her improvisation that Wheatley even manages to get into GLaDOS' chamber, tumbling through her neurotoxin vent and shattering the glass cage she trapped Chell inside of. It's through Chell's improvisation that the Core Transfer even occurs in the first place.

The script is flipped specifically when Wheatley takes charge, because oops - turns out a mind capable of focusing on the bigger picture might be pretty important when it comes to running an entire facility powered by it's own Reactor. Wheatley just completely zeroes in on his own personal pleasure, hacking up test chambers and the objects within them to try and figure out the easiest way to get his solution euphoria as quick as possible.

Still, something that's pretty interesting is that only Wheatley has ever managed to create a trap that's impossible to foresee and avoid, something GLaDOS has repeatedly failed to do to the point she ends up commending him. I believe this is because his way of thinking is a lot closer to Chell's compared to GLaDOS'. He puts up way more of a fight as the two run through the facility trying to get to him, seemingly improvising on the spot just like Chell has been over the course of the two games. Even his lair would be impossible to survive if it weren't for a single Conversion Gel pipe he somehow failed to notice and remove.

Whether in a laboratory deep beneath the soil or an alien tower tall enough to split the clouds, the ingenuity of even a single person is enough to topple a tower or destroy a supercomputer 3 times over.

Marc Laidlaw put what I'm trying to say into a single sentence when writing for the BreenGrub twitter account:

"The superstructure is riddled with cracks."

[links-in-time]

Wild Visions - Chapter 4

The Chain tries to figure out what has affected their Wild brother. Meanwhile, Hyrule tries to do some investigating while playing along as Princess Zelda.

🐴🐴🐴🐴🐴🐴🐴🐴🐴🐴🐴🐴🐴🐴🐴🐴

“Woah, Sailor, slow down, what do you mean Hyrule is Zelda?” Time asked, trying to understand Wind's wild and mostly incoherent babbling. 

He, Legend and Sky had returned to camp late in the afternoon, closely followed by Twilight and Warriors. Wind had instantly fallen into telling them of their meeting with Wild on the road near the Rito village. 

“He tied us up and left us there. But he took Hyrule with him, he kept calling him ‘your highness’. He didn't attack him at all.” Legend explained, while he allowed Wars to tend to his dislocated arm. 

“Wild also took the Master Sword, he didn't seem at all happy that I had it,” Sky added, scratching the back of his neck nervously.

The young knight had retrieved the Master Sword when the first portal had opened in his time. He had briefly heard Fi call out to him and urge him to take her on his journey. That had been months ago now, and her familiar weight on his back had become a comfort. Now he felt almost too light without her there. He knew well enough that each of the heroes of Hyrule had their own relationships with the sword. Some were better than others. But he wasn't the only one that mattered. Whatever mad state Wild was in, he clearly remembered his connection to the Master Sword. 

“He didn't seem like he was going to hurt Rulie?” Four tried to clarify. 

“Not at all. For whatever reason, Wild seems convinced that the traveler is his Zelda. And if we can be sure of one thing about Wild, he will defend Zelda with his life. I don't think we have to worry about Hyrule,” Sky insisted. 

“So what do we do?” Asked the Captain. 

At that moment he popped Legend's shoulder back into position. Most of the boys winced at the scream which tore its way up Legend's throat. Wind, who had been sipping on a potion, spat out a mouthful and quickly wiped his face on the back of his sleeve. 

“Sorry Lege, you were pretty nicely distracted,” Wars patted him on the back and offered the Vet a potion. 

Legend snatched it from the Captain’s hand, glaring at him as he took a violent swig. 

“Wild clearly doesn't recognise the rest of us. He never said a word when he attacked Four and myself,” said Time. 

“He only spoke to Hyrule when we saw him,” Wind added. 

“Sounds like how he was before,” Twilight uttered, deep in thought while he'd listened to the others. 

“Before?” Asked Four, “before when?”

“Before the Calamity.” 

***

Link felt greatly relieved to have Zelda back under his watchful gaze. He still couldn't remember how they had been separated in the first place. But he decided that in light of rescuing her from the Yiga soldiers, it was of little consequence. 

They walked in relative silence around the perimeter of Lake Totori, the light of the slowly fading sun reflecting off its deep waters. On their left, the imposing pillar of rock the Rito called home stood silhouetted against the sky. High above, Link could see the tiny forms of Rito flying among the clouds. He wondered where Revali might be. Whether he might be at home with his people, or spending time at Hyrule Castle with the king and the other champions. 

The sooner he and Zelda reached home, the sooner Link would find out. 

Night began to fall as they reached the stable. Link approached the front desk and asked for two horses for himself and his traveling companion. They had always agreed he wouldn't refer to the Princess by any royal titles while in common company, just in case they were ambushed by Yiga. 

“Link, it’s getting late,” Hyrule pointed out, stepping forwards and offering Wild a sleepy smile. “Perhaps we should stay here for the night and push on in the morning. We're not in any rush and it would be safer to travel by day.”

Link considered the proposal for a moment. Zelda was right that the roads were safer during the day. At least they wouldn't have to worry about stalfos. Also Zelda would be able to get a good night's sleep in a bed before a long day of riding. As much as Link felt a nagging in the back of his mind to get going, he didn't want Zelda to suffer on his account. 

“Alright, we can stay the night. I'll stand guard outside,” Link decided. 

Hyrule almost panicked, but he managed to keep his cool and kept talking. 

“But surely you need rest too, Link? How will you protect me if you're tired?” 

“I've traveled for days without sleep before, I can manage,” Link replied, offering Hyrule a placating smile before turning away from the desk. 

Hyrule wanted Wild to go to sleep so that he could search through his stuff. He hoped he might find something to tell him what had happened to his friend, but he couldn't do that if Wild insisted on staying awake. Then Hyrule had a thought. He wasn't Hyrule at the moment, at least not to Wild anyway. He was Zelda and Wild had sworn to protect and obey the Princess of Hyrule. 

“Link, I order you to sleep.” 

Wild halted in his tracks. Hyrule gulped, nervous that he'd overstepped. A moment later, Wild's shoulders sagged and he turned his head to look back at Hyrule 

“Alright, fine. I suppose we're safe enough here. And there's always someone at the front desk.” Wild sighed and walked back to the front of the kiosk. “Will you swear to wake me if there is trouble?”

The man behind the counter appeared a little startled by this request, but quickly overcame it. 

“I swear to wake you sir, but rest assured these lands have been much safer in recent times.”

Link thought that was an odd thing to say. Perhaps the Rito had been running extra patrols. Revali’s last report had told of more monster sightings in the hills and around the Hebra mountains. Still, he nodded and thanked the stable-keep. 

He and Zelda found a pair of beds together on the far side of the room. Link carefully lent the Master Sword against the wall by the head of his bed, before taking off his boots and his belts. Zelda was quick to get herself comfortable and snuggled up under the blankets. Link almost chuckled at how only her eyes and nose were visible above the top of the blankets. 

Zelda had such beautiful eyes, filled with light and wonder, like the light of - a fairy. Wild and untamed -  

Link shook his head. For a brief moment he thought he was looking at someone else. But there was Zelda, her eyelids softly drifting shut as her head sank into the pillow. 

Everything was alright. Zelda was safe and Link would take her to the castle. He would fulfill his latest command and everything would be alright. 

***

“You all know Wild remembers very little about his life before Calamity Ganon,” Twilight sighed. 

The others nodded as they gathered around their newly rebuilt campfire to listen. 

“When Wild remembers something, he often slips into a catatonic state and he won't respond to anything for a while. Then when he comes back to himself, sometimes the things he remembers affect how he behaves. For example, he told me once that he remembered a time when Zelda was one of the few people he would speak with. With anyone else he would sign or simply not speak at all. The memory was so strong that he struggled to talk to us for a few days afterwards.”

“Do you think he's stuck in a memory?” Wars suggested. “He's reliving some trauma where Zelda was in danger so he's doing everything he can to protect her.”

“That could be one explanation,” Twilight nodded. 

“There's something else too,” Time spoke up. “I found muddle bud spores on Four’s tunic after Wild attacked us.”

“So he's confused,” Sky remarked. “That's why he didn't recognise any of us. The muddle bud made him think we were enemies.”

“We could have looked like anything to him if he got hit by that stuff,” Legend huffed, rubbing at his newly healed shoulder. 

“But why does he think Hyrule is Zelda? That's what I don't get,” said Twilight, rubbing his hands over his face. 

“I don't think we're going to find the answers tonight,” Time sighed. “At least we know where he's going, and we know he can't teleport with more than one person, so he and Rulie will have to walk or ride to the castle. If Wild let's Zelda stop to rest on the way, which I can almost guarantee he will do, we should be able to catch up to them easily enough.” 

“Then I suggest we leave at first light and cut across country to make up for lost time,” Wars stated, slapping his hands on his thighs. 

“I agree, everyone get some sleep. I'll take first watch,” Time decided “We'll break camp in the morning.”

***

Hyrule itched to get up out of bed. But just because Wild had agreed to go to sleep, didn't necessarily mean he was going to do it. As dutiful as Wild seemed towards his Zelda, Hyrule knew him a lot better than even Wild thought. He suspected that Wild would try and stay awake as long as possible to keep a subtle eye on Zelda as she slept. So Hyrule waited as long as he could to make sure Wild had in fact fallen asleep. 

Even then Hyrule forced himself to stay put. Wild was one of their lightest sleepers, the slightest sound could wake him even from a deep sleep. Leaving Hyrule to fight off his own fatigue and wait for the tell tale sound of Wild's breathing to change. 

Somewhere after midnight, Hyrule took his chance. He soundlessly slipped out of his bed and crept across to Wild's. His slate lay on the pillow beside his head. With feather light fingers, Hyrule pilfered the device and turned it away so the light wouldn't fall onto Wild's face. 

Hyrule quickly but clumsily flicked through Wild's inventory. He didn't know what he was searching for, but he had spent enough time looking over Wild's shoulder while he'd consulted his slate, that he hoped he would notice something obvious if he saw it. Nothing jumped out at Hyrule however. There were no new plants in his ingredient list. No cursed items in his inventory. Also nothing of note seemed to be missing either. 

Defeated by his first search, Hyrule carefully replaced the slate where he'd found it. He knew Wild kept almost everything he had in his slate, but he also carried an adventurer's pouch just like the rest of them did. Since Wild had slept on top of the blankets, it made it easier for Hyrule to pick Wild's pockets. There wasn't much to be found in the first pouch Hyrule tried. Some dirt and a few bits of broken twig, along with a few golden seeds and his climbing gloves. His second pouch almost felt empty too, until Hyrule's finger tip brushed something hard and cold. 

He hesitated before gingerly removing the object from Wild's pouch. Hyrule turned with the thing gripped in his fist and held it beneath a nearby lamp. It glinted in the warm light, and Hyrule saw at once that it was a small glass vial. Similar in shape and size to the ones Wild used to keep his elixirs in. Only this one was a colour Hyrule had never seen before. 

The liquid inside was a warm honey yellow with a very runny consistency. As he tilted it one way it appeared almost clear, but if he shook it, the contents would become completely opaque. Knowing better by now than to drink strange potions, Hyrule popped off the cork and took a sniff. 

Though it looked like honey it almost certainly wasn't. There was nothing sweet or familiar about whatever was inside that vial. It was certainly magical however, which is why Hyrule slapped the cork back in almost immediately. The magic inside felt like corruption, like the miasma that choked his era. It was so foul it almost made him retch. 

Had Wild drunk some of this stuff? Was that why he was acting so strangely? But surely, even with his low ability for magical perception, Wild would have sensed the dark aura over such an item. Then another idea dawned on Hyrule. What if he'd been forced to drink it? What if someone with vicious intent was behind Wild's actions? 

Hyrule didn't have to reach far to think of a certain someone he knew might be capable of something like this. Had their persistent enemy finally found a way to corrupt one of their own? Had Dink got to Wild while the rest of them were sound asleep? If he had, Hyrule merely added this latest crime to Dark Link's long list of offenses against his brothers. 

< Part 3 : Part 5 >

[smolthealmighty]

Spinaraki Week 4 Day 6: Save

A Crack in the Wall

When Kurogiri is woken from his slumber and makes a surprise appearance on the battlefield, everyone rightfully begins to panic. But he isn't the one to change the outcome of this fight, the person he drags along with him is... and he isn't even conscious!

There were many plans that had to be changed, backups to backups that were implemented, but Kurogiri’s portal appearing in the Sky Coffin and dropping a braindead Spinner onto the ground before going haywire around the area was not a “planned for” scenario.

“Yes!” gloated All For One as he watched the heroes expressions turn from determination to horror, many panicking as they got caught and relocated around the death trap by the erratic portals.

“It’s just as I’ve told you pathetic heroes, the deck is stacked in my favor!” He turned and used his ward’s power to throw yet another amorphous mass of fingers and hands at his opponents, Spinner’s unresponsive body now in his sights, “It’s always been stacked in my favor!”

And that was all the villain could say before his body suddenly burst apart.

The visual could only be likened to that of a butterfly ripping its cocoon apart, desperate to break free. And from the ruptured cocoon of All For One rose Tomura Shigaraki, liberated of his master’s possession and using his first unrestricted action to dash towards Spinner.

Still in shock from the rapid changes in fight’s pace, it took Deku a moment to spring back into action and he quickly used blackwhip as an attempt to restrain Tomura. Unfortunately, Deku seemed to have underestimated Tomura’s determination to reach his destination as he didn’t stop running and Deku was swiftly yanked off his feet and dragged along the ground, only given respite when Tomura dropped to the ground himself to pull his ally into his arms.

“Spinner what the fuck happened to you?! Say something!”

Deku unburied his face from the dirt just in time to see Tomura place his hands on his ally and… stay still and wait for something to happen?

“What are you trying to do?” Deku demanded incredulously.

“Apparently your job,” the villain snarked back as he scanned the battlefield, pausing long enough in Eraserhead’s direction for Deku to realize that his teacher had regained control and was preventing Tomura from using his quirk. Tomura snarled in frustration before whipping his head towards his former caretaker and screaming, “Kurogiri help! Block Eraserhead’s view, get him out of here! I can’t cast healing on Spinner while he’s using his quirk!”

“Healing? What healing?” Deku asked, genuinely baffled at the concept of the most destructive villain he knew having new healing abilities, “Since when could you heal?”

“Since I decided to take the overload of quirk mods out of my player 2 and switch it out with my master’s regeneration quirk until he’s freaking stable!” Tomura shrieked, his red eyes flashing with an intensity that made Deku realize this really wasn’t some weird All For One clone anymore, this was the real Tomura Shigaraki, the one he wanted to save but still had legitimate apprehensions for.

“My team doesn’t have healers, and I’ll be damned if I don’t get some kind of use out of my master’s garbage ‘quirk and vestige’ package deal. I don’t care how badly you wanna drag me backwards into the fray, you’ll either help me save my friend quickly so we can continue our fight or you’ll sit down and patiently wait for your turn to die!”

“Okay fine,” Deku agreed, “Mr. Aizawa, let Shigaraki do his thing!”

“WHAT?!” cried the dual voices of his enemy and ally.

“You want help with saving an ally, fine! But try anything else and I’ll enact every vengeful thought I’ve had about you since I saw my best friend’s body lying on the ground!”

“… Fair enough,” Tomura growled, deciding to keep a retort about how said “best friend” was literally undergoing surgery anyway to himself. He waited, and within a few moments that felt like hours, he heard the telltale sound of a warpgate whisking Eraserhead off somewhere else in tandem with the rush of his master’s quirk working to clean up the mess that was made of his closest friend.

The visual below him could only be likened to that of a reptile shedding their skin, ridding itself of dead weight and ready to start anew. And from the pile of hardened scales that had fallen off awoke Spinner, his blank eyes returning to their original rosy color as he blinked back into awareness… and then overflowing with tears as he began to sob uncontrollably.

“Sorry, ‘m sorry,” Spinner blubbered.

“Hey don’t do that, you’re fine,” Tomura soothed, carefully wiping Spinner’s tears with his usually deadly hands, “What’re you even apologizing for?”

“I tried to follow All For One’s guidance, fill in the role he gave me so I could make your dream a reality. But I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t lead the team I was given. All I could do was throw myself at Kurogiri and beg him to keep you safe before it all went to black. Even with all the extra mods, I still couldn’t follow through on my end. Should’ve known that potato head was lying when he said ‘everyone can be somebody’s hero’, because I sure can’t!”

While Deku recoiled in shock at the subject of heroes being brought up now of all times, Tomura merely sighed, then leaned back just enough to take off the red cloth wrapped around his neck before closing the distance once more to bundle Spinner within it. Noticing someone shift from behind, Deku chanced a glance and saw Mirio looking shaky yet restrained. He hoped he’d be able to ask what shook him up later.

“Well, you’re right about All For One being full of shit. Still, haven’t I told you before? You don’t need to have every skill maxed out, and you don’t need to apply half a dozen strength mods. You don’t need to do anything grandiose or push yourself into a role that you can’t handle. Your loyalty and friendship are enough. It’s helped me through every fight we’ve been in, and didn’t you just admit that you powered through a quirk overload to free Kurogiri for my sake by sheer willpower? You’ve already saved me, you’re already my hero.”

Spinner let a few more tears drip down his face as he listened to the praise, then he let his body relax fully into Tomura’s embrace, using his snout to nuzzle his friend’s face with Tomura gladly returning the gesture.

In the background, Deku watched as Kurogiri settled down with the help of his old friends, pro heroes began to band together to treat each other’s wounds, and his fellow students milled around providing aid where needed. As the silence stretched on and the full weight of what everyone had witnessed was processed, that the villains who were labeled as most monstrous were capable of extraordinary compassion and tenderness, all who had considered themselves heroes turned inward to reflect, unsure of where they could or should go from here.

For Deku however, he saw what he needed to see, the missing piece that took his wavering resolve and solidified it. With his nerves steeled, he crawled over to the pair, and with a hand reached out towards them, opened his mouth to speak.

[frippschamber]

🔮 ⤷ The Sun & Moon Sisters

The Sun and Moon representatives in the Sisterhood are definitely fascinating - their clear polar opposites in name seem to also be what also draws them the closest together. Looking at the relationships between the Sun and Moon Sisters from other generations of Soul Riders, not just from the current Sisterhood, is also interesting because we can look at the parallels as well as the differences and why these exist.

This is sort of a follow-up to this really cool post from @that-sso-raven about Anne and Linda's relationship and why it thrives the way it does. I found a screenshot I took of it and wanted to add my own stuff because it got me all excited >:)

I have tagged and linked all artwork used in this post, but please PLEASE let me know if you would like it removed! I will take it down immediately :)

Warning: Spoilers for Helena Dahlgren's novel The Legend Awakens, as well as general background information found in the Catherine's Memories quests in SSO.

Anne & Linda:

Let us begin with a statement that validates the strength of the Sun Sister and Moon Sister's relationship:

Anne shook her head. "They were in school when I took off. I have no idea where they are now. Or, well, I did talk to Linda. I think. She didn't say anything specific, but I'm afraid that she's in danger. It's hard to explain. We have a bond, she and I. I noticed that when I was there, in Pandoria. She was able to reach me somehow." “The sun and the moon are strongly allied,” Elizabeth nodded seriously. The Legend Awakens, Helena Dahlgren (Chpt. 26)

During The Legend Awakens, Anne explains that she was able to have a conversation with Linda during her search for Concorde in Pandoria. During this time, Linda had passed out in Pine Hill Mansion and sought refuge on the dark side of the moon to hide from Sabine. Somehow, through her unconsciousness, she was able to find and communicate with Anne, despite her being in another reality entirely. Though Anne wasn't able to see her, Linda was able to provide support to her Sun Sister at a time when she most needed it, leading her to use her reassurance and successfully bring Concorde back to the Secret Stone Circle.

The fact that Anne and Linda were able to communicate clearly, not only when one of them was barely keeping herself alive, but also in completely different dimensions, is such a fascinating ability that the two of them share. Whilst it isn't confirmed whether or not this would be possible between Linda and any of the other Soul Riders, presuming that this has something to do with her Soul Sight abilities, the fact that it not only happened but also their circumstances drastically improved because of it only shows just how powerful the Sun and Moon bond is when tested.

It could also be valuable to note how only the Sun and Moon Sisters have magically enabled communication abilities. The Lightning and Star Sisters appear to have seemingly offensive and defensive skills, whereas the Sun's portal-making and the Moon's Soul Sight are often used as a mix of the two, perhaps also enhancing their communication skills with each other.

Concorde & Meteor:

I won't say that this is a strong point, but I think that it's cool to point out. Both Meteor and Concorde are both true to a metaphor of flying. Meteor, obviously, after a meteor, and Concorde after the airliner. Star Stable Wiki also notes:

Concorde's name is a variation of the French name, Concordia, meaning "harmony" in Latin. This was the name of the Roman goddess of harmony and peace. Star Stable Wiki, Concorde

Furthermore, their relationship seems particularly important, especially when Concorde is reincarnated as a foal. Meteor is often described as an older and wiser horse, often like a brother or "old uncle" (as stated by Linda in The Legend Awakens). The pair's relationship really is a sacred one and appears much more closely bonded than any of the other partnerships between the horses. Throughout recent quests, Concorde has been referred to as "little sister" by Meteor, which only adds to their harmonious relationship that their relationship is just so representative of the close Sun and Moon Circle alliance.

Elizabeth & Caroline:

Unfortunately, not a lot is known about Caroline as a character, though there are a few hints about her position as the Moon Sister of the previous generation of Soul Riders that Elizabeth Sunbeam was a part of in Catherine's Diary.

Because we read about her from either Catherine's perspective in her diary or Eva's perspective in Shadows Over Jorvik, it's hard to form a clear picture of what her relationship was like with Elizabeth, though of course, it was short-lasting following the demise of that particular Sisterhood and the suspected death of Caroline after her disappearance.

In all fairness, there isn't much to point out. It seems they had a stable relationship but there isn't anything particularly special to point out in regards to their magic or relationship. Presumably, they held the same ability to contact each other in various places in a similar way to how Anne and Linda did in the second book, but whether this was used or not cannot be known.

Honestly, I really hope that we get to know more about that Sisterhood as a whole, but especially about Caroline and Sigry.

References and Image Credit:

Soul Riders: The Legend Awakens by Helena Dahlgren

Star Stable Wiki, Concorde

Star Stable Wiki, Soul Rider

Catherine's Diary, various parts

Anne & Linda Artwork by the incredibly talented @toruq!

Various in-game images were taken by me.

———————⋆˚｡🔮｡˚⋆———————

If anyone has anything to add to this, please let me know! :) I wish this post had a lot more to talk about, but as of right now, these are the only things I could find to say. I just love the Sun/Moon relationship and I think it's super cool >:)

Thank you for all of the welcome reblogs on my intro post, too! It was really kind :))

As stated above, I have tagged and linked all artwork used in this post, but please PLEASE let me know if you would like it removed! I will take it down immediately :)

🔮 ⤷ Maya (they/he)

[watermelonhedgie]

A Rusted Heart and A Fox Kit

this is a fic i wrote becuz i am a firm believer in baby nine and cg rusty!!! i dont write all that much tho so sorry if its not up to par w most agere fics ;w; i had fun writing this tho

characters: regressed!nine, caregiver!rusty rose

word count: 1.1k

warnings: none!

summary: after helping dread's crew and returning to new yoke, rusty finds nine running to his base crying. out of curiosity, she follows him only to find him breaking down and going baby mode.

finally making it through the portal, rusty was launched through the void and back into new yoke. but she wasn't going to see the chaos council. now that they had left her like scrap metal, she was going to help destroy the reinforcements in new yoke. see how the council likes that, eh? a taste of their own medicine.

she fell through the portal to new yoke, and roughly landed on her feet. she began to run to the heart of the city, trying to see what rebels were vulnerable and needed assistance. but as she ran, she spotted a certain yellow fox running with the shards. he tripped and fell on his knees, but quickly got back up and skidded around a corner.

rusty had never seen such behavior from nine, even at that distance. he was usually a very stable and calculated individual, but he seemed to be shaky and discombobulated. she changed her direction, following nine.

into the scareport they went, and to what appeared to be some sort of storage closet from the outside. the metal hedgehog kept her distance, watching nine punch in numbers to a keypad. as the door shut behind him, rusty went up to the door and repeated the pattern of the clicking keys. before the door could even open, she heard a crash followed by sobs.

the door opened, and she slowly walked inside. there she found nine on the floor, sobbing. the shards were scattered around him, and he was hugging his body. unsure of how to approach the two-natural-seven-mechanical tailed fox, rusty walked around to be in front of him. "nine, what are you doing here?"

nine quickly looked up and crawled backwards, away from rusty. tears flowed down his cheeks, and his knees were bleeding. "why are you here?!" he said through gritted teeth as he sighed. he tried to wipe away his tears, but they just kept running.

"you're acting strange. you seem to be much more calm and collected on average, and that's clearly not how you are now," the robotic hedgehog responded. instead of waiting for a response, rusty picked up the shards, and put them on nine's desk. they really shouldn't be on the floor like that. 

"wh— how am i supposed to react?! after all that's happened?! how am i supposed to feel okay?!" nine hugged his own body again, stifling cries. rusty contemplated what to do. being with black and batten had taught her about some emotions, but she was unsure of how to handle someone with this strong of emotion, someone who seemed to be in despair. nine stared at her as she thought.

she decided on the first thing she thought of. she helped nine up, and pulled him close to her body. sure, her body was cold and hard, but it was better to do something than to just stand there. she rubbed nine's back, the fox's body stiffening in surprise. 

instead of fighting and writhing out of the hug, he loosely hugged back, crying into rusty's shoulder. "there, there, nine. would you like to talk about it?" she tried her best to sound softer than her usual monotonal voice. 

"i just... i thought we were friends. i did everything for him. i got captured and manipulated the council from the inside, i helped him destroy chaos sonic, i even offered to start a new world with him in the grim. but he just..." nine trailed off.

"he left," rusty completed for him. she felt a twinge of some emotion in her metal body. she felt sad for nine, having felt the same betrayal from the chaos council. she felt empathetic, hugging the fox slightly tighter. in return, he hugged back with more force. 

the two stayed like this for a while, until nine began to make a whining noise. "are you okay, nine?" rusty asked. he pulled away from the hug, biting one of his fingers.

"i feel... weird," he stated. "i feel like i'm younger... what's going on...?" he seemed to be startled by his own feelings. rusty carefully took his hand in hers. "you feel... younger? how young?" she inquired. instead of responding, nine held up four fingers. his face was dusted with embarrassed blush, but his tears had stopped.

rusty tried to think... what would she do if she were taking care of a four year old? she wasn't one to take care of anyone in the first place, but out of pure care and understanding for nine, she would try her best. nine was fidgeting with his shirt, and biting his hand.

she remembered something she had found a while back. she opened her chest plate, and inside was a pacifier. back when she was with batten and black, she found this on the angel's voyage. holding it out as she closed her chest plate, she offered it to nine. 

"do you want this?" she simply asked. nine stared for a moment before hesitantly taking the pacifier. placing it in his mouth, he began to relax as he sucked on it and bit it. it was a very strangely calm feeling for the fox kit, as he doesnt remember ever being treated softly and kindly like this. 

he held rusty's hand, movingly slowly as he locked eyes with her to see her reaction. she let the fox hold her hand, and patted his head. he seemed strangely more trusting when in this state. rusty picked up nine in her arms, and he giggled in return. rusty noticed that he liked to be carried.

the fox kit rubbed his eyes, and rested against rusty's chest. rusty rocked him back and forth, and walked over to his bed. she placed him down, but nine began to whine again. he clung onto rusty's hand, desperately trying to pull her down on the bed with him. 

rusty knew she should be getting back out into the city to help the rebels, but sighed and laid down next to nine. she would just wait until he fell asleep, then she would leave him in peace.

"rus...ty...?" nine spoke, his voice softer and higher pitched than normal. "yes?" the pink hedgehog responded.

"thank you..." nine smiled, snuggling up next to rusty. rusty slightly smiled in return, satisfied in her ability to help the once scared and upset fox. "of course," rusty ruffled his fur. 

soon enough, nine had fallen asleep, pacifier still in his mouth. rusty carefully got out of the bed, and tucked the blanket around him. she took one last look around nine's base, and headed for the door. she made a mental note that if she finds any more baby supplies, she would bring them to nine as a gift.

she closed the door to his base and dashed out of the scareport. time to go kick ass and teach the chaos council not to mess with anyone anymore.

[flamingphoenixfox]

Hello again, Tenno! Let's talk Easter Eggs! Specifically, Warframe DE Logo Easter Eggs! I just recently found the DE logo hidden in Duviri (quite by accident as I've done with all but the one hidden in the Zariman), and wanted to share screenshots of my findings!

But then it occurred to me, "gosh wouldn't it be cool and helpful if I compiled images to help people find all of the hidden DE logos?"

AND SO BELOW THE CUT ARE DIRECTIONS AND SCREENSHOTS TO DO JUST THAT!

Just to warn you: this is a long post since it's essentially a step-by-step for finding all the logos in all five areas!

Enjoy!

Welcome to Cetus! You're Landing Craft has just dropped you off onto the platform by the shore! See that cliff face off to your right? If you want to find the DE logo you need to go climb on top of that!

Yeah, in fact you need to go this far inland (to the rock I'm standing on)!

It's right here on the edge of this rock!

Next area!

Welcome to Fortuna (my favorite hub ♥)! Bask in the wonderful bisexual lighting!

When you are done basking jump on up here to this little balcony! It's the second balcony up (the third floor if you count the ground floor as the first one)!

The DE logo is hidden on side facing inward!

And onward we go!

Welcome to the Necralisk! It's a bit pustule-y and gooey but there is still some old Orokin architecture sticking out of the infested flesh-scape here and there! Like this pillar! Here - I'll throw my Xoris for you so you can see what I'm looking at!

Climb on up and - TADA! There it is! A nice and simple find! That can't really be said about the next one though.

Oh boy here we are...

The DE logo hidden in the Zariman - the one I struggled the most to find, I thought I had rubbed by face against every wall and structure, but apparently I had missed a spot. This is the only one I needed to look up to find. This is the elevator that leads out to the rest of the Zariman - where we do the Zariman missions.

I thought I had checked this area thoroughly enough but I think that disconnected wall panel always caused my angle coming out from the elevator to just miss it. See where I'm standing? Notice how it seems a little darker there? I certainly didn't.

There's an opening to - what would you call this - a maintenance port? Regardless, let's head in past the overgrown vines.

It leads into an elbow passage and into a little room.

Looks like another area one or more of the Zariman children used to hide. Of course, no area in the Zariman is complete without the ominous graffiti!

And right on the side of the box here is the logo! Even though I couldn't find this one without help I really enjoy the concept of them being a bit more hidden.

Like the last one!

I stumbled across this one by accident when I was in Captura gathering references of the mirror and portal frames for a Duviri-inspired piece I'm working on.

I happened to notice what looks like a window in the Kaithe's stable and totally expected the overgrowth to be a solid object when I jumped at it.

It wasn't. Queue shock and confusion. At first, I thought it was just a hole leading over to the plant area - a silly short cut. I walked in a little further.

No, this is an enclosed cave. A secret! A nice little den to hide in!

Wait that's-! WOAH I DIDN'T EVEN KNOW THEY WOULD HAVE A HIDDEN LOGO FOR THIS AREA! That's so cool and fun! I love this hiding spot for it! The perfect amount of context clues to make you suspicious and intrigued by the area if you are looking! This one was by far my favorite to find!

Anyways,

That's all of the DE logos (that I'm aware of)! I'm looking forward to the interesting places they will think to hide the next ones! Hope you enjoyed my guide (and the silly retelling of how I found the one in Teshin's Cave)!

Thanks for reading!

[mdhwrites]

First off I want to say that your TOH criticals are a good read. It puts my grievances with the show in words I can only ever feel and brings a bit of closure in the "whys" of those grievances. That being said I haven't gone through all of them, so feel free to direct me if you've already made comments about my upcoming ask elsewhere.

Regarding Elsewhere and Elsewhen, what do you think of the show using time-travel as a plot device only once and not returning to it? The way they used it, Luz might-or-might-not be a catalyst for what wounded up happening and we might-or-might-not be watching a show that's been on an alternate timeline. I would think that's a pretty big deal but the show just moves on from it; Luz might as well have given Belos that glyph in the present since time-travel is never dwelled on again.

I think it would have helped make a more solid finale if they used time-travel again because of the possibilities, where ALL the characters could benefit from it, instead of whatever the intention of 3 characters babysitting The Collector was.

So first, thank you for the kind words! Secondly... No. Just no. Time travel is REALLY tricky to use in a narratively fulfilling way. This is because you run the risk of creating a paradox or having it not matter OR BOTH like TOH since the literal only real change from Luz entering feels to be the saving of the journal. The Collector otherwise was about to teach him other magic, we never get an instance where him learning the light glyph is important and he literally already killed one person doing this scheme of his: He would have found another. Literally the only thing that really changes is the EXACT when of the Collector and Belos meeting, which hardly matters with how much time Belos had, and the journal which... only brought about Luz and changes literally nothing else if lost so... Yeah, even if it's a stable timeloop, it's a really dumb one that still has the paradox of Luz needing to show up to save the journal.

And if this feels overly critical... Blame the trope. Time Travel plots usually are ALL about the consequences. Going back in time inherently begs that question for the audience. There's a reason why a lot of time travel stories end with the lesson of DON'T FUCK WITH THE TIMELINE and restore all to status quote with the main character having not changed anything. Or it introduces multiple timelines like Dragonball Z to allow a series to eat its cake and have it too.

So what is my advice for time travel plots?... Lean into the fun of it. See, a lot of my issues with the specifics of the time travel element of Elsewhere Elsewhen are nitpicks. The larger issue for the episode is that it's just the WORST version of Lilith, Lilith and Luz are at their absolute dumbest, arguably at least as dumb for Luz as she was in the SECOND EPISODE. And this is the second episode of the second half of the second season. I think it's reasonable to ask for a little better from Luz at this point.

But the time travel itself is mostly just... There. They don't do ANYTHING with it in the episode, between like two good jokes that are mostly just portal jokes frankly more than time travel episodes except for a little tweak in flavor. The Isles we're shown is incredibly boring. What they do there is boring. Philip is EXCESSIVELY boring... So what am I supposed to focus on?

So I focus on the mechanics of the plot. And how stupid they are. And how literally they seem to reclassify how the portals work 3+ times because they could stick their heads in and out but that doesn't constitute it moving because now it would inherently be in the same place twice, they found the portals because they were in the sand but now if that sand gets moved by the tide, it'll make the portal disappear? Couldn't they just wait until morning? Or is there a timer on them? How do they know when the portals first showed up? For that matter, why the fuck does a device that is likely most tracking magical anomalies need Titan's Blood to detect an anomaly as strong as TIME MAGIC which doesn't seem to have been developed yet in the Isles?

And yeah, if that sounds like nitpicks... You're right. But you nitpick when Suspension of Disbelief is broken and the most common way it breaks? Boredom. Sheer fucking boredom. If what is happening on screen that you're supposed to just mentally tank as "Yeah, that sounds fine" even when it might be a bit dumb logically is just boring... Why tank it? Why not question it when in the questioning, you might enjoy yourself more than simply accepting what the show is doing.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi is the MASTERCLASS at how to fuck up Suspension of Disbelief seven ways to Sunday because everything sucks and nothing you do matters, but at least that was part of the movie's point. With TOH... You don't get anything for watching it. Satisfying reunions of friends? Nah. Amity and Willow never have a satisfying friendship. A grand tale about a human rising up with her found family and her hard won magical powers? Frankly, how much do King and Eda actually do in the finale? Like they're there but swap them with literally anyone else (like how Raine is just randomly right by Luz's side effectively too for this finale) and nothing really changes because their involvement isn't important. Luz's magic isn't earned nor even HERS. Want a satisfying conclusion to Palisman? Nope because Stringbean makes no sense. Want satisfying character arcs? Look elsewhere because we're not going to look into the hardships that come about with those changes, despite both Hunter and Amity having VERY clear reasons why this change would be potentially DANGEROUS for them.

Elsewhere Elsewhen is just of a kind that way. Outside of its first five minutes, and the two minutes with Dell... What are you getting out of this episode? Comic relief Eda which is always the worst comedy in the show and this is the worst of it as Eda is bonked with the stupid stick like Lilith and Luz? Lilith and Luz interacting with a SINGLE person in the past who doesn't even reflect the culture of the Isles back then so he could have been just a homeless person in the present if not for the twist it's Belos? For the lack of puzzle? For the strict anti-climax of the threat because Luz was lucky enough to poke her head into the right portal to give her the solution at the end?

And that episode is one of the most important plot points of the SERIES. It is one of the only plot points that is actually brought back and kept consistent and one of the only, ONLY times something happens and it actually affects Luz, even if it's delayed. This is the episode that revealed that Belos and Philip were the same person. It is critical to the series overall.

And most of it is just a BORING waste of time. While doing TIME TRAVEL. Instead, their priorities in this episode were really lazy 'subtle' storytelling to say the covens are bad and to allude to the twist at the end of its own episode and... Not fucking much else.

And why should that be surprising? We never get a proper idea of what the Isles and its people are like because we don't spend real time with them (besides them just being humans), it's contradicted all the time, etc. like that and that is their MAIN setting and time period. Is it really that surprising that the Isles of the past is just a utopia to these writers? Or that they literally have to ignore the conversations they themselves wrote for fish out of water jokes when the witches go to the human realm?

But these aren't concepts in a professional work you can half ass. You have to actually give a damn about a trip to a new universe or time period for the episode to not reel rote or boring or the like.

And, well, I'd love to see the timeline where the writers really cared about a lot more of TOH than they seemed to have.

[gekle-the-gremlin]

Reunited with Family - Chapter 1 -  A Trip into the Lost Woods

But, as he made his way closer and closer, the tree opened his eyes and, in a deep yet quiet voice, he spoke. “Link, it has been a long time. How have you been, my child?”

Years after his adventures has supposedly ended, and he had passed the time where he never thought he would return to them. Millions or Billions of years after he would have died, the lost woods called out to him. Begging him to come home. To return to his family and friends.

As they stepped out of the portal, the chain saw that there was almost nothing around them. Per standard protocol, Wild took out his Sheikah Slate to see if his usual map would show up on the slate. Thankfully, it did.

“We’re in my time,” he called out to the rest of the group, a smile creeping onto his face. 

Some groaned, others stayed silent, but all of them were thankful that at least one of them knew where they were. 

They were standing just to the side of a path, there was a river next to them. Looking around, the group were able to see a wooden bridge, and, in the distance, stood Hyrule Castle in ruin.

The calamity had gone, being beaten by Wild shortly before his current adventure. 

“We’re by a stable,” Wild continued. “Since it’s late, we should probably head there to sleep. It’s 20 Rupees for a normal bed or 40 for a soft bed.” He stayed looking at his Sheikah Slate. “Or, we could set up camp, but we risk getting attacked by some Yiga that are still out for my blood or stal-monsters, out for everyone’s blood.” 

“I think it would be nice to sleep in a bed for once,” Sky yawned. 

“I agree,” Legend answered. “20 Rupees is pretty cheap for all of us to spend the night sleeping on a bed, also, my back is starting to hurt from sleeping on the floor.” 

“Then that settles it,” Time said. “Wild, how far away is this stable?” 

Wild stood there for a moment, looking at his Sheikah Slate before pointing away from the wooden bridge and along the river. “It should only take us an hour to walk there at most. The next time we come here, I should teach everyone to ride horses.” 

“Pup, some of us already know how to ride horses,” Twilight said, putting a hand on Wild’s shoulder.

“I know,” Wild complained. “But others don’t, and they should learn.” 

Time subtly nodded in agreement with Wild, thinking about the next time that he could return home to Malon. Maybe there, he could teach them all. 

Despite it being dark, the chain set off on their way towards the stable. As they made their way towards death mountain, Wild followed a split in the path that led the group towards a tower that glowed blue in the distance. 

“The stable is just before the tower, you should be able to see it when we get to the top of the hill.” Wild continued directing them, making sure to stop to make sure that the others were following him the whole time.

It was about an hour before they all arrived at the stable. It was a miracle that they all had a bed each. Some even chose to pay more for the soft beds. 

Once the group had settled down, Wild started cooking, as usual. In the pot, he threw in a large handful of mushrooms and a few herbs before throwing in some rock salt and finally finishing the dish off by pouring in 9 bottles of fresh, Lonlon milk. 

Within what felt like seconds, Wild was handing out bowls of a creamy mushroom soup. It was a miracle how much food he was able to keep in his Shieka slate, it seemed like it was able to hold almost anything. 

There was a moment of silence as the group sat around the fire and ate their dinner. It had been a long time since they were able to have proper food cooked in a pot, rather than just food that was cooked straight over the fire, or even, in some cases, eaten raw.

It didn’t take long for the first few in the group to head off to bed. Sky was the first, starting to fall asleep while he was eating his food. Then it was Wind, being forced to bed by Wolfie, after denying that he was tired. Something that he had been almost complaining about for the past few days. 

Next, surprising both everyone and no one at the same time, was Legend. He had been up, watching the chain for the past few nights, refusing to take watch duty in shifts. 

This continued until it was just Time and Wild left. 

“It’s lovely, isn’t it?” Time looked up into the sky. 

“What are you looking at?” Wild walked forward to stand next to him. 

“The sky, but, more specifically, the moon,” He said, sounding melancholic in his words. 

“I thought you hated the moon?” Wild sat on the floor before laying down to continue looking at the sky.

Time joined him on the ground and chuckled a little. “I never said that.” He smiled

“But you said that you went to war with the moon.” 

“I fought the moon, but I never said that I hated it.” He put his hands behind his head, as he got into a more comfortable position on the ground. “In fact,” he continued. “I find it quite… beautiful.”

“Oh,” Wild replied, with a hint of embarrassment in his voice. “I don’t think anyone believes that you've fought the moon.”

Time stays there in silence for a moment before laughing. “Not even Malon believed that I fought the moon when I first told her. I didn’t expect anyone to believe me.” He smiled at the champion. “You can choose to believe me, or you can choose to not believe me. Only I know the full truth about that story. Oh, and so does a skull kid, two fairies and a creepy mask salesman.” He continued smiling at Wild. “As well as Malon, of course.” 

“Skull kids are those wood-like creatures that we saw in your lost woods, right?” 

“Correct! They aren’t much harm, but most of them tend to not like adults. I can’t blame them. If you were a child and you ran into the lost woods, you would probably have a dislike for adults, too.”

Wild hummed in agreement, as Time got up and started walking to the entrance of Minish woods. He stood there for what felt like hours, just touching the rough bark of the almost ancient trees. 

Time took a deep breath with his hand still on the tree. It was as though something was calling out to him further on in the woods.  

The wind blew stronger as Time was standing there. It was as though it was trying to pull him deeper in. Much like it did years before. 

Wild, holding his Shikha Slate to his chest, followed Time to the edge of the woods. “Where are you going? I don’t think that it’s a very good idea to travel through here alone, especially not so late at night.” 

“Champion, I think that I know where those woods lead to.” He took a deep breath as he removed his hand from the trunk of the tree. “Do not worry about me getting lost in there, alright?”

Wild just stood there in silence. “I should go back to the others, I’ll see you in the morning, old man.” 

Time chuckled, “Night, kiddo.” 

With that, Wild walked back towards the stable, while Time stayed looking deep into the woods. 

He started thinking. 

Thinking about everything that could happen, if he were to make his way into the lost woods. The worst thing that he could think about, was somehow, finding his way back to Termina, but he quickly shook that thought away, before it consumed him, and the masks, too much. 

He knew that, if he left the group, they would be safe, at least for a few hours, but he also knew that the rest of the group would worry about him if they found that he had disappeared during the night. 

It took him another few moments to finally make a decision. He took one step, then another, and then a third. They were slow and silent, but he made them. Wanting nothing more than answers, he continued on with a fourth step. 

Before long, Time had walked so far into Minish woods, that he found that the air around him had started to feel off, and the wind started blowing in a number of different directions. But there was something inside of him telling him to go deeper in. 

The air around him started to feel familiar, as what appeared to be cliffs slowly appeared from the ground, acting as some sort of wall between these mystical woods and the outer world.

As Time continued forward still, he saw a stone wall with an archway. Within this strange and abandoned structure, there was a singular lit torch, showing the direction that the wind was blowing. North. 

Time followed the wind, as though he was being pulled in the wind’s direction. As he did so, he came across yet another torch, blowing in the very same direction. He decided to continue following the torches. 

North, West, West, South and then west. 

Eventually, he found two lit torches, blowing south, with an unlit torch next to the first lit torch, just resting.

He stood there, looking around at the trees. Many of them had been mostly hollowed out and had evil faces carved into the bark. “Likely a deterrent for anyone that wishes to venture into these woods. ” He thought to himself and the wind continued to push him South.

He continued in that direction until he felt the wind change directions quite suddenly, pushing him west. 

The change in the wind’s direction happened twice more, blowing North, and then West again, until he reached a clearing, with lots of odd looking creatures surrounding him. 

There was something familiar about the clearing that he was in. Though he wasn't sure what it was, exactly. It could have been the sounds of the forest, or the fact that he had to walk through what felt like a maze to get there, he didn’t know. But he did know that he was supposed to be there. 

He looked around at all of the strange creatures that had started to gather in front of him, all standing at his feet, looking up at him with their leafy masks covering their faces, being held up by what he could only describe as a long branch where their noses would be. 

Bending down, Time picked up one of the strange creatures and held it out at arms length. “Well, aren’t you a strange one.” He said, almost to himself. 

The odd creature looked on at Time in disbelief. “You can see us?” It asked, almost in confusion. 

Time, quite simply, just nodded. 

“You can see us!” Another one of the creatures exclaimed. “The only other person that can see us is Link.” it said, seeming happy enough that another person could see it.

As he finally looked up from the place where he stood, Time saw a large tree sitting right in front of him. Memories came flooding back to him. Memories of his childhood filled his mind with fear, sadness and loss, but also a sense of longing for his family. 

He decided to put the creature down and, as slowly and as silently as he could, he made his way towards the tree. It appeared to be asleep when he entered. That made sense, it was around 3:57 in the morning by the time he took his first steps towards the tree. 

But, as he made his way closer and closer, the tree opened his eyes and, in a deep yet quiet voice, he spoke. “Link, it has been a long time. How have you been, my child?”

[slightly-nerdy-rambles]

Kim Possible, the Tempus Simia, and fun with timey-wimey stuff

So, those of you who follow my blog will know that I recently finished Spoiler Alert, a Kim Possible fanfic following Kim and Ron's kid Max as he accidentally follows a vengeful Monkey Fist into the past and not-so-accidentally teams up with the past versions of his parents to stop the latter's shenanigans. Anyone who's read the fic will also know that I wanted to talk a little about how exactly I envision the Tempus Simia affecting the timestream and how that relates to its canon appearance in A Sitch in Time. For those of you who want to read the fic and haven't reached the point where I bring that up in the author's notes, you might want to turn back now: what follows is going to be rather, well, spoilery. It's also going to be rather long, so I hope some of you like detailed headcanons, lol

So, to refresh, A Sitch in Time follows a villain team-up using the Tempus Simia, aka time monkey, for time travel shenanigans as well as a team-up between the "present" day Team Possible and a future resistance using something called chrono-manipulators to chase after them. All good and well, but the time travel rules seem to... change over the course of the special. Rufus 3000 refers to the time stream as "polluted" and "in flux" and we see a ripple effect of the past changing in Ron's scrapbook, yet it's later revealed that Shego's meddling in the past caused Ron to move and thus disrupted Team Possible enough for the time monkey to get stolen in the first place, suggesting a stable time loop. Likewise, Kim, Ron and Rufus going to the future apparently removes them from the normal flow of time until they pop out of their destination time portal, yet somehow Rufus was able to have thousands of "descendants" (I'm assuming clones of some sort, but either way) at some point presumably after Shego took over. This isn't really all that unusual for a time travel story, considering the mind-bendy and paradox-happy nature of messing with chronology, but that doesn't mean that we as fans can't try to come up with a creative explanation. So what gives?

Well, okay, those of you who read the author's note already know what (in my interpretation) gives: the two time machines we see in that special use different forms of time travel. Namely, the Tempus Simia creates stable time loops (hence that being what we see in Spoiler Alert) while the chrono-manipulators can actually change the past to influence the future. And when these two forms of time travel come into conflict, things can get... weird.

So in my mind, there are roughly three different timelines that give us A Sitch in Time, with the latter ones overwriting the former. We'll call them timelines A, B, and C, with most of the special taking place in timeline B.

Timeline A is a fully stable time loop, with only the Tempus Simia in play, so it would chronologically start with the villains meddling in the past -- but we'll get to that later. Our starting point would be pretty much what we see in the "present" part of the special: Ron moves away due to Shego's later scheme, and with him either not present or "out of synch" with her, Kim isn't able to stop the villain quartet from putting the Tempus Simia together and escaping into the time stream. Drakken puts into motion his plan of crushing a younger Kim's spirit, and he, Monkey Fist and Duff Killigan turn themselves into toddlers to infiltrate Kim's preschool. This almost fails immediately, because the people in the preschool office aren't going to just let some unregistered and unsupervised kids waltz into a classroom (more on that later), but they later manage to sneak into the playground during recess. They torment toddler Kim a little bit, toddler Ron intervenes, they switch targets to him which awakens her kick-butt instinct -- basically at this point, it's the same thing we saw except for the absence of a time-travelling teen Kim.

After seeing that mundane bullying didn't work, the villain team skips ahead to the day of Kim's first mission to try again. Without the added pressure of time-travelling heroes, Monkey Fist and Killigan are just barely willing to let Drakken try his spirit-crushing plan again. But his overly-complicated plan of approaching Kim as preteens, distracting her from the laser grid mission, and planting seeds of doubt that will cause her to muck it up if she does ever get there fails at pretty much every turn.

It's at about this point that future Shego approaches her "present" self and tells her to grab the time monkey and go, which she does. It doesn't take much experimenting for her to figure out why the guys have so utterly failed with it: the Tempus Simia can't change the past, and the villains' meddling might even be part of the reason Kim was encouraged to go into crime-fighting. From here, Shego starts to get creative: using foreknowledge to make enough money to fund her schemes, putting evil think tanks together in times when nobody knows to go after her, and even figuring out that she was the one who got Ron's family to move away and proceeding to do just that.

With new resources in hand and Team Possible effectively broken up, Shego gets down to business. Being much more practically minded than her death trap-loving ex-employer, she returns to the present, catches Kim and later Ron by surprise when they're alone, and actually manages to kill them. Rufus escapes, but Shego figures that she won't have to worry about him or Wade so long as Kim and Ron are gone. So she gathers her legion of henchmen, attack drones, and obedience collars, starts storming the world one city at a time... and wins.

Of course, pockets of resistance form over the next twenty years, with the most prominent being led by the friends and family of our fallen heroes. Rufus and Wade use the former's DNA to "breed" a small army of hyper-intelligent semi-clones to boost the resistance's numbers, and between that, their location near the Supreme One's headquarters, and the resistance members' various skills and gadgets, they actually stand a fighting chance... Except that every attack on Shego's fortress is thwarted after a seemingly unnatural degree of anticipation on her end. As it happens, Shego has gotten into the habit of going back in time to warn herself before every attack against her, letting her retroactively prepare.

The resistance eventually figures out that time travel is involved in the Supreme One's wild successes (not that she's doing much to keep it a secret), and Wade gets to work on devising a counter. The result is the chrono-manipulators, though nobody realizes they work differently (some might say better) than the Tempus Simia. Since the resistance isn't clear on exactly how Shego used the Tempus Simia to take over, they decide to start by going back twenty years to rescue Kim and Ron and recruiting them to stop the original villain team's mucking around in the past. So starts timeline B, and again, most of what we see in the special.

The thing is, a key aspect of the Tempus Simia is stability. It "wants" the timestream to stay the same, even as the chrono-manipulators "want" to change it. So the timestream starts shifting around a little, but keeps the same broad strokes. New time portal gives everyone around the preschool a wave of disorienting deja-vu? The preschool attendants are distracted just long enough for the toddler-ified villains to slip in before class starts, but their extra bullying time doesn't change what happens at recess (though it does change the class picture). Killigan and Monkey Fist get antsy and shoot down Drakken's plan B? The Tempus Simia slaps together a new time loop in which Monkey Fist steals a guardian statue that would have been shortly destroyed anyway, so the only "change" is that it disappears into the timestream to be lasered later rather than getting swept away by a flood or something (and meanwhile, preteen Kim and Ron succeed in their mission and survive the statue's attack). Kim and Ron start time-travelling and eventually head into the future? They would have died around that time anyway, so now they just disappear into the timestream to the same basic result. Rufus also disappears into the timestream? The resistance somehow manages to get ahold of DNA he left behind and start making clones anyway.

Then things really get weird when the Tempus Simia breaks. Its whole stability thing means that the universe is safe from implosion... but that kind of damage also has the effect of erasing the Tempus Simia from history entirely. Ironically, it's the only way for it to change the past -- time is rewritten so that the creation of the Tempus Simia was abandoned at the last moment, and any loops caused by its use are erased as well. The time stream manages to keep itself in shape by once again smoothing over the time-loop changes so that the broad outcome is still the same: that guardian statue goes back to getting destroyed in a flood, someone who had helped Shego found her bank does the founding personally, Kim befriends Ron and finds her inner fire after dealing with a different bully in preschool, and so on. This "smoothing over" gets weaker as the timeline approaches the point where the Tempus Simia was grabbed by the baddies, though, and by the time it reaches Ron moving away, the bank his mom works at just doesn't have any reason to send her and her family to Norway. And so the future is saved, and we finally reach timeline C.

But the Tempus Simia has one last trick up its metaphorical sleeve: just as it "wants" to keep the timeline stable, so too does it "want" to exist. This may not have even been the first time it was destroyed and rebuilt, not that anyone would know with the overwritten timelines. And so, a paltry few years after the end of the Supreme One's reign and the last point in time in which its previous iteration existed, a Monkey Fist who is feeling very displaced in time gets the idea that "time" may just be the answer to his woes...

[justanechoflower]

Considering a certain offer Kris tried to give me involving you (I declined it), well, it’s even more confusing. The only common message I could get is “I like killing”. Not a good message there. Past you thought it was kill OR be killed, this Kris seems to be going by “kill AND be killed”. 

Anyway, sixth grade? Alright, when we get to the void I’ll see what I can do, take a look at how it’s running, and see if I can make that look normal in my world. Transfer students are a common thing in Japan, just not from lower grades… but again, we’ve never had the issue of transfer students in the game. So that should be as simple as modifying an environmental factor.

Oh, right! Well, I think I might? I’ll try going in myself to see, wouldn’t want anything to happen to you if it went wrong. At least if it was me, Sayori could restore me! It’ll also be to see whether the void is currently stable or a complete static mess, I wouldn’t want to put you through the static mess!

Hmm… So the steps I got here, but in reverse, and changing the orientation.. And I’m doing this with GML instead of Ren’Py, since this game runs on GML… Though it all goes down to assembly anyway. It was easier getting here, since I had the console with me then. Now I don’t… so I might need to do an exploit or two...

So first, I’m going out of- huh, we’re in a void already, aren’t we? We’re already out of bounds! 

Next, uh.. ”;

5A27D1F 0B217F

44 44 4C 43 2E 65 78 65

str = “And… it’s there, the connection. It was mostly remained there the whole time, I’ve spent a while setting it up from the other side, those were the steps to activate it… I basically had it open my game and read stuff from there, that portal is actually the program transferring files between the two game programs. So I’ll just be going in there, and…

——————-

(DDLC:Club Room)

Sayori:Everyone! It’s t- …Wait, uh… I think I might have…

Natsuki:Sayori, did you forget your poem again? *snickers*

Sayori:Y-Yes, I did! Wait, hey! That’s mean, Natsuki! Everyone forgets things sometimes! But I know where I left it, I’ll just need to go get it! You can… keep hanging out in the meantime while I get my poem!

—————-

(DDLC:Void)

Sayori:Monika!! You’re back! I really missed you! Are you going to-

Monika:Oh, hey Sayori. I was seeing if things were stable here. They are, I’ll be right back! *Monika goes back to Undertale’s world*

Sayori:…Meanie.

————-

(Undertale)

Well, it worked! Now we can both go through!

————-

(Look, if someone who’s been gone for months came back, and then just left again, they’d look like a meanie. Monika is coming back though, and Flowey’ll probably be a surprise to Sayori! And in case it wasn’t clear, Sayori didn’t really forget her poem… Well, not this time, at least. She does actually forget stuff from time to time.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Flowey: I can’t say I don’t understand him a little… Whatever. Kris isn’t worth any attention anymore. As long as they don’t do anything, we can ignore that dweeb.

*Flowey peeks through the portal, amazed by this ability and determining if it’s safe to go through.*

Flowey: I know it’s already enough with the whole code thing in your world, but I’m from a different universe. Monika was gonna let me visit your world since she came to mine, and I’m curious to see everything. I hope that’s okay! I even heard about your club, and I enjoy literature myself so I thought I could attend at least once.

(We weren’t in a void in the undertale universe it’s just that most of the time I don’t like teasing backgrounds so I just pretend it’s there and only draw props and characters. Also my handwriting is small and squished in that second picture so the last sentence Flowey says there is “Boy, you outta be confused.”)

[ensburg]

Progression: Taking the Leap

And we're back at it again with more progress shots!

The Sketch Layer(s) - Another set of two layers. This stage is sort of like my thumbnail, establishing the idea of where I want to take the actual piece.

The Lineart Layer - Unlike in Ag's Shop, everything ended up on the same lineart layer here. To make the lake reflection look less 'stable', I cut down on the size of the brush and intentionally let myself draw more loosely.

The Base Coloring - One of these days, I'll actually look into color theory and how to form a color palette. Until then, you're getting the same consistent base colors for everybody.

The Pond - Obviously, the reflection of the underside of the gazebo couldn't look exactly the same as the actual gazebo! This water was just a shade of blue set to illuminate the layer underneath. Maybe that's not how water works, but this is magic water!

The Shading - One of the most useful coloring tips I learned when starting out was to never use black as the basis for shading. Always use different colors. For this piece, it's actually a shade of purple!

The Lighting - The same goes for highlights! Rather than white, the shading for this piece was a shade of (very) light blue.

The Telescope - A big part of this 'scene' was our collective focusing on the observatory that we were traveling to. I tried to make it seem like the telescope could be submerged under the water and we're looking down on it.

The Finishing Touches - I knew that I wanted to add in some splashes of brighter colors to the pond for the sort of 'portal' effect. But initially the plan was to make them a lot more subtle until I realized I sort of enjoyed the slapdash brushstrokes. Honestly, that's how a lot of my art process works; get an idea, fuck around, and stumble accidentally on something I like.

That's all for now! We'll see if I can come up with any new ideas on how to make progressions interesting or if I'll just end up churning out the same information again.

Taking the Leap

[callipraxia]

The Unexpected Memoirs of Fiddleford H. McGucket: Chapter Four

Previous Installments: Chapter One (in which we meet Our Hero and learn about his Early Life), Chapter Two (in which Our Hero is Very Confused in the present and deals with Matters Domestic in the past), and Chapter Three (in which Our Hero arrives in a new town and is reunited with an old Friend).

Current Installment: Chapter Four, in which Our Hero develops many Concerns. Content Notes: brief mention of drugs (the character to whom they are mentioned categorically denies using them and they are not depicted), some nightmarish imagery near the end, a burst of ableism and ableist language with regards in particular to mental health occurs courtesy of Bill Cipher, and Bill Cipher is...also just Bill Cipher, and thus a creeping sick creep who creeps and makes my skin crawl as fast as possible in the opposite direction.

Chapter Four

I’ll give credit where it’s due: Stanford did a fair job of sitting still and listening to the tale of my misadventures of the past few years, though I suspect strongly that these things were of minimal, if any, to him whatsoever. He was sunk into a grand vision, an obsession, and everything else faded into obscurity around it for him – but he tried, I think, to focus on what I was saying as long as I was saying it. But then I tried to get some idea of his shenanigans, and, well, it was obvious almost at once that I might as well go ahead and look at the portal.

I had known before I came up, of course, that he was having one of his odd moods about this project – as witness all the oaths about secrecy – but even so: I had to raise an eyebrow when he led me to what at first seemed to be an ordinary wall, only for him to reveal that there was a door hidden behind the panel. Then the door opened, not into a secret room, but into an elevator.

A secret elevator. In a private residence. An honest-to-gosh elevator. I was relieved to see he still had just enough of a sense of humor, I reckon, to grin at my astonishment instead of doing whatever else he might have done.

“Who else have you been workin’ with, to get you an elevator?” I asked finally, and Stanford laughed.

“I built this myself, actually. I’m not completely technically incompetent, you know.”

“I suppose not,” I muttered, following him into the elevator. There were three buttons, rather than the two I expected, and sure enough, it dinged past one door without stopping on the way down. “What’s that for?” I asked.

“Just my study. Nothing too interesting for now – at least not compared to what’s - “ he paused for effect, at which point the elevator stopped – “down here.”

I recall that as the doors opened, he sort of bowed and gestured expansively for me to go ahead with an, “after you,” and a grin that made him briefly look almost like a boy again, but I wonder if I didn’t borrow that from the Other Stanford, the real one. Either way, though, I preceded him down some narrow stairs, and when I saw what was at the bottom of them – incomplete though it was – I stopped dead in my tracks, my mouth hanging open for a few seconds before I even noticed it.

“Stanford,” I said, stunned.

I could practically feel the satisfaction radiation off him. “Impressed?” he asked smugly.

“Uh-huh,” said I, and I approached it slowly, with something akin to reverence.

Even in the awe of that moment, though, I...wondered, I think, at some of the design elements. The triangular focal structure, for instance: a triangle, as Stanford noted in his earliest notes, was one of the most stable shapes – but why was it inverted, here? At first glance, I couldn’t figure out how the thing managed to stay standing at all, rather than falling down at the first hint of a vibration, never mind a good storm or even a mild earthquake….

Still, though – this thought was distant and vague as I looked it over, taking in the scale of the thing. “You sure you need my help?” I asked finally, turning back to him.

He was leaning against the stair rail with his arms folded, clearly making as good of an attempt at nonchalance as anyone as wired up as he was could make, but his self-satisfied smirk transformed again at once into a genuinely delighted-seeming smile at this remark.

“Absolutely,” he assured me. “I was able to figure out – I hope – most of what to do – but as for how to do it - “ he shook his head. “That’s what I get for dropping fifth-dimensional calculus so soon...but doesn’t this work out well, anyway? In large-scale mechanics, you’re the best I’ve ever met – probably the best there is - “

“Shucks, Stanford,” I said. “you don’t got to engage in no hyperbole here.”

“I’m not,” he said, and then, blunt as ever, added, “on my own, I’d achieve something extraordinary, sooner or later – but the two of us working together – extraordinary’s not even the word for it. Together, Fiddleford, I doubt there’s anything we couldn’t do.”

* * * * * * * *

My head was still spinning when we left the lab and took the elevator back up to the second level. Keys jingled in surprising profusion as Ford unlocked the door and ushered me into what he’d called his study.

It was a peculiar room – that much, dazed as I was, I realized at once. For one thing, the walls looked like they had all been loosely covered in blank canvas – as though Ford had thought to put up tapestries but had only partially gotten the idea down right. That, however, was not enough to stir up any unease in me – not when I was, after all, talking to Ford, and was, after all, also still myself. Maybe Emma-May had imposed a semblance of order on my life, allowed me to act like I was a little more normal than I was, but my default state was not that of a functioning adult, either, as I have so well demonstrated to the whole community these past thirty years. I did, however, notice all the triangle and pyramid shapes scattered around the place – paperweights and prisms, of course, nothing ominous, but I got the feeling, which made my hands want to drift up to my head, that it was as if some of them were looking at me….

Shaking off that thought, I picked my way carefully between some stacks of books and looked up to find Stanford looking embarrassed again.

“I know, I know,” he said ruefully. “I’m impossible to live with.”

“You sure will be if one of these ever falls on your head,” I said. “I’ll put up with a lot in the name of friendship, but living with a cadaver ain’t among ‘em….”

I had meant this as a joke, but if anything, it just seemed to make Stanford all that much more uncomfortable-looking. “Friendship,” he muttered, fiddling with one of his paperweights. “Right. You’d – I suppose I should - “ He paused for a moment, clearly collecting himself, and said, “I should have mentioned it before, Fiddleford, but – it’s...all right, you know, if you’d prefer for this to be a strictly professional relationship. Going forward, I mean. You don’t have to – put on any...shows, or anything like that, I quite understand if - “

“If what?” I demanded. “Put on shows? Shows of what, for t’Lord’s sake?”

“I got...carried away, before, acting as if – well – it were old times, when of course it isn’t,” he said stiffly. “Despite that, I don’t want you to think you have to – pretend we’re friends again if you don’t want to.”

“You….” I stared at him in bewilderment and a little hurt. “Are you sayin’ you don’t want to be?”

“No! No, that’s not what I meant! I would like it if we were, I just...well. I’m sure you’re very busy, with the wife and the son and all…”

I thought about this for a moment and then I decided to ask a question. Normally I would not have ever said such a thing to him, and I didn’t believe it was so really even then, but – “are you smoking crack?” I inquired.

“...No?”

“Well, you coulda fooled me, talking a fool like that,” I said. “What do you think I’m doing here, anyway?”

“Assisting me with a project in exchange for money.”

“I – well, all right, yes, I’m doin’ that, too,” I conceded, as it was true. “But I reckon I’d have come up here to see about you even if I hadn’t been going to do that! Every time I run into anybody from the old days for going on three years, they’ve asked about you and I had about half-reckoned you were dead! If I just wanted to work on a project for some money, I coulda stayed home and done that! I might aim to stay longer than I would’ve, but I came up here because I was that glad to hear from y’again after forever and a day….”

“Really?” For a moment, the look on his face was both touching and somewhat concerning. Then it clouded over again and just became concerning. “But – you said other people have asked about me, too? What other people? What did they want?”

This sudden shift was as dramatic and unexpected as I imagined my question about his use of hard drugs had been. He did not sound at all pleased about the prospect of others of the old crowd also wanting to know what was going on with him – more, in fact, like he was alarmed by the very idea. Suspicious. One might even say, paranoid….”

“Nobody in particular – not lately. Just when I run across others that was with us at Backupsmore - “

Stanford’s eyebrows were nearly touching, and he looked as though he might run or throw a punch at any given moment. “You didn’t tell anyone anything?” he asked. “Where I am? Or what we’re doing?”

“No! Who am I supposed to have seen in the past week? I’m talking about the whole past few years, since you know, we all figured you’d have the Nobel in the bag by now or something like that - “ I fell silent again, though, as Ford’s shoulders sort of – jerked, and his hand closed on a sheet of paper, crumpling it up. “Stanford?”

“I will soon enough,” he said, in a voice I barely even recognized as his. “If I keep going...and if I can keep it safe.” He looked up at me again, flushed, now, but more as if he had a fever than like he was embarrassed. There was something feverish, too, about the glitter in his dark eyes as he continued. “I’ve had to be – very careful – about my work – keep them from stealing it, or breaking it – I trust you, though. You’re the only one I can - “

“Hey, hey,” I said. “Who’s talkin’ about stealing your work?”

“Nobody in particular,” he quoted me. “But if people knew what we were doing – you’re too good a person, Fiddleford. You, you’re – different – but most people...if most people see someone else standing on the edge of greatness...I doubt they can even help themselves. They have to sabotage him. Friends – brothers – almost anyone, it doesn’t matter anymore then.” He sounded strangely as though he was declaiming – somewhere between an awkward fellow in a freshman speech class and a game master trying to sound impressive. “And considering how many fields we stand to disrupt here – physics, cosmology, mechanics, chemistry, higher mathematics...Anyone would stab me in the back now, if he could. Trust no-one. Except you, of course.”

The thought fluttered through my mind that I wasn’t sure who he was talking to – if he was talking to me or to himself in the second person. Somehow, curiously, neither notion felt quite right….

“Buddy,” I said, shaking my head, “I think you been shut up here too long by yourself.” I laughed nervously, but the laugh and the sentence both died hard and fast as Stanford’s expression darkened. I’d seen him look like that, once or twice, in the old days – but not at me.

“I am not crazy,” he snapped. “I know what I’m doing here. I am not some kind of nut.”

“I never said you was!” I protested. “I’m just sayin’ – like I said already, Stanford – most folks half-think you’re dead, not that you fell off the face of the blame Earth to build some machine for poking holes in the thing!Ain’t nobody coming after your work.”

His shoulders seemed to relax a little, but his eyebrows were still dangerously low. “And you told no-one where you were coming? No-one at all?”

“No. Just like I promised you that I wouldn’t,” I said, a bit offended and therefore letting a little of my feelings on that come through in the way I said it. “And let me tell you, that made for one heck of a conversation with my wife, explainin’ about why I was telling her to write to a P.O. box….”

Stanford studied me for a moment longer – and then, to my surprise, started to laugh. I couldn’t see what was so funny, but I bit my tongue, a bit perplexed-like, until he controlled himself.

“Sorry,” he said, still grinning. “I get...carried away, but I didn’t really doubt you – you know that. I trust you.” He said the last phrase almost...shyly, as though testing out an unfamiliar language. “I trust you,” he repeated, a little more firmly.

I smiled weakly, still more than a little rattled by this whole bizarre conversation. “Well, that’s good to know,” I said. “Especially considering I trust you, too, Stanford.”

I was probably lying, and I probably knew it. It must have been the right lie to tell, then and there, though, because abruptly, it was as if the whole awkward, tense past few minutes had never happened. “Good,” he said. “So – now that we’ve gotten that all out of the way – ready to change the world with me?”

He looked and sounded like his old self, then – enough that I was almost disarmed. Not completely disarmed, but my guard surely went down. It couldn’t be as bad as all that, I told myself. Oh, he had been to himself up here too long, that much was obvious, and genius always came with its share of crazy, as witness my poor follicles on occasion – but probably, the biggest problem here was just that I had gotten too used to Emma-May and other normal folk, people who didn’t have personalities as outsized as our kind of folk usually did. I just had to recalibrate my expectations a little, and then me and Stanford, we’d be back on the same page, just like we’d always been before.

“I thought you’d never ask,” I joked and went to look at the papers he was now gesturing me toward.

* * * * * * * *

Perhaps it was meant as a peace offering of sorts, a proof that he really did trust me despite his occasionally bizarre behavior in the hour immediately after my arrival, but Ford ended up leaving me alone with his blueprints. He did not, however, leave me alone with his office. When he stood and announced that he had an errand, he proceeded to hover awkwardly by the door until I – distracted in raptures over the documents I was studying – turned a page and, as I did, spotted him standing there with his keys in his hand.

“Wh – oh! Right,” I said, embarrassed, and I stood and hurried to the door. “Sorry ‘bout that.”

“Don’t worry about it – and bring those with you,” he instructed me. “No, it’s nothing to worry about – there’s just a few things in here that, well, aren’t very good prototypes, or that might disagree with you if you ran into them unexpectedly….”

I raised my eyebrows, hoping he would elaborate on this concerning statement, but all he did was lock the door, repeatedly. “I’ve just got to run an errand in town,” he said, surprising me, after his remark about not speaking to anyone for ten months; for a moment, I allowed myself to hope he’d meant in terms of having a real conversation, and not just...that he hadn’t interacted in any way with another human soul for most of a year. “But I’ll show you around first - “

We took the elevator back to the main floor (“this is just the storage room. Storage room, Fiddleford – Fiddleford, Storage Room -”) and I quickly learned to orient the storage room with the disaster area that was the lounge with the surprisingly coherent, if dusty and obviously under-used, kitchen, where I made him laugh, just about normal-like, by making something of a ceremony out of installing the coffee mug I’d brought for myself, which Em had bought me the first Father’s Day after Tater was born in one of the barren dish-cabinets There were other rooms downstairs, it seemed, but apparently, I could see those later. On the second level, there was evidently nothing I needed to see besides a bathroom, but the third opened up into a sort of triangular attic, where, for my inspection and apparent use, there was a camp bed-looking thing with a lot of blankets on it, a scarred and splintered old chest-of-drawers, a wood table and chair I assumed were meant for a desk, and, strangely, a painting – big old thing in a fancy frame, the kind of thing you saw in old people’s houses, showing a boat in the ocean. The attic had a window – another of those big triangular ones, and one with a pane pattern that gave me the uneasy feeling it was watching me – and that was all; as far as I could tell, nobody had ever even been in it before.

“Will this do?” Stanford asked anxiously, watching me closely for a reaction. “I haven’t been living very – domestically, these past few years – did I forget anything you’d need up here? Any other furniture? I’m sure I can find something while I’m out, if there is - “

“Naw,” said I. “All looks fine to me, thank you.” It actually looked about as comfortable as the grave, but I reckoned I could work on that. Probably, too, I had gotten used to soft living, having a woman around me for so long and all; the last time he’d seen me, for all I knew, I could have lived all right like this.

“Fantastic,” he said, audibly relieved, with a warm smile. “I’ll let you settle in, then - “

I hadn’t brought all that much to settle in with, though, so it did not take me too long to get my clothes put away in the dresser, pictures of the boy and Emma May perched on top of it, and then to get myself back to the plans at the purposed desk.

I had been impressed, I thought, by the sight of the partially completed portal in the basement – but that was nothing to how I felt as I examined the page after page of blueprints in Stanford’s hand in front of me. They were incredibly complex – impressive even when I considered the brilliance of the source. He’d never, after all, had the best knack for machinery; he was better at meddling with something alive than with something properly inert, especially on a big scale like this. Neurons were the wires Stanford worked with, not actual wires like a sensible person, but here….

Oh, there were problems. I saw that straightaway. Sometimes, I couldn’t quite put my finger on what they were – but I knew they were there. Like a sixth sense, I suppose you might say – I knew that if we did things the way Stanford had it written out to do them here and there, we’d be dropping ourselves in the kettle sure enough, even if the overall theory was clearly sound. Very sound. By the time I got to the end, I was almost an optimist again – could just about form the image in my head of the two of us accepting that Nobel -

I started to work on a bit of math that bothered me even though I couldn’t understand why, though, and I suppose – between the long drive and all the emotionally draining experiences, of finding myself in a new place and seeing the portal and its blueprints, and finding my friend, and briefly becoming concerned enough about my friend’s behavior to ask if he was on crack, and so forth – it’s not altogether surprising that I started to nod all too soon at that. It was just a moment, it seemed to me, that I closed my eyes to give them a rest, but while I was sitting up when I rubbed them, I found myself face-down on the desk when I opened them again. More concerning, however, was how I also found myself in much, much too close of a proximity to someone else’s face.

“Stanford?” I exclaimed, sitting up and nearly knocking my chair over pushing it back further away from him. “What the hell - ?”

“Not quite right either time, McFiddlesticks,” he said, and his voice was – not his. That was the only way to describe it. It was high and nasal and grating, and I’d never heard it before in my life. He was smiling in a way I’d never seen Stanford do before, too – far too wide and far too – unmoving, like, to be at all natural. Humans did not keep their faces locked into one expression like that, ever, for more than a few seconds, and I wasn’t sure they were supposed to adopt this grotesque, distorted grin even for that long Then, with an insolent casualness I couldn’t imagine coming from my sometimes rather uptight friend, he winked at me and added, “though ask me again in a few months about that second one, huh, pal?”before, with unnatural speed and strength, he seized my chin between abnormally cold fingers and looked over my face with the detached air of a hunter examining the rack on a buck he’d just shot.

“What do we have here…?” he murmured, turning my head this way and that. He was wearing different clothes than before; why that stuck out to me….“Oh, really?” He frowned slightly, not really at me, as if he’d gotten some answer to his question. “You? Huh. Well, not like you aren’t a freak like the rest of us here, is it – you’re just more normal-looking than some of the others. Yeah, sure, a headcase in the circle, that’s fair. Jeez, I can see why Sixer likes you so much – you probably make him feel good about himself just by existing! You’re even more pathetic than he is, or that slack-jawed suicidal mush heap he calls a brother, and I thought they were both losers...but you, you came with your buttons pre-installed, huh? One of the manias, gotta love those….”

Without releasing my chin – I seem to recall trying to pull away, or to lift my arm to try to push him aside, but nothing I did seemed to matter - he seemed to raise his other hand – it was just as similar to metal that had been in a deep-freezer as the other – and ran it through my hair before moving again to straighten my glasses on my nose where they had been pushed ajar when I’d fallen asleep. “Can’t go shedding your attributes, Specs,” he scolded me. “Plus, it’s not like it would do you any good now that I know you’re one of the big frilly jerk’s Chosen, right? I know you guys when I see you...and I think I'm glad you've come after all. You’ve got no idea how boring Sixer gets to deal with – and who knows? You and me together, I'm pretty sure there's nothing we couldn't do to him...but even if we don't do that...oh-ho-ho, I'm definitely gonna have a lot of fun with you, Specs.”

The thing – because it was a thing; it wasn’t Stanford, nothing like him, not like anything God ever smiled upon – lifted the hand it had used to adjust my glasses again, this time to touch my face almost fondly, the end of its frozen thumb tracing its way around my cheekbone before, suddenly, it finally let go of my chin and clapped me on the shoulder in a twisted facsimile of friendliness before it sauntered over to the attic door.

As I gasped in pain – the places where it had touched me felt as though they had been frostbit – and for air, clutching at my face myself, now, it winked at me again.“For now, though – sweet dreams, Specs. And remember: nothing is what it seems to be.”

I don’t know what I meant to do as it left – to follow it? Fight it? Hide under the bed from it? - but whatever it was, I didn’t get a chance. When I lowered my hands, I found what looked like inchworms clinging to my fingers; more were falling onto my forehead, and I realized, with a rush of nausea and panic, that every bit of hair on my scalp was now inchworms. Desperately, I squeezed my eyes shut as I clawed at my scalp, trying to get them off, to make it stop -

And then I opened my eyes again, and I was face-down on the desk again, the sheet of paper I’d been doing math on now thoroughly drooled on. My hair was in my head, and it was hair; my hands were not a mess of skin and blood and half-dead bugs. My face didn’t feel as though it had been burned by the cold. Everything was as it had been before. As if nothing had happened.

A nightmare. Just a nightmare. That was all. Not real. Not real at all.

Still, it was minutes more, I reckon, before my heart stopped racing, and by the time I finally felt like my legs had the strength to hold me up again, I could tell my face was a mess of snot and tears. Struggling for my composure, I staggered down to the second floor bathroom, threw up, washed my face, and crept, shaking in every limb, back down to the main floor, thinking, I think, of finding a weapon -

But instead, I found Stanford who appeared to be trying to tidy the lounge. He smiled brightly and completely normally at my entrance.

“Oh, hello again! All settled?”

“Uh – uh – yeah, s, sure,” I stammered, my heart hammering painfully under my ribs again just at the sight of him, even though he was just standing there, completely normal, not looking or sounding demonic at all. “You – uh – you get your errands done?”

“Not entirely,” he admitted, and presented me with...a bag from a shop. Confused and cautious, I opened it and stared at the contents, too bewildered to recognize them in context for a moment. When I did figure out what they were supposed to be, though, I looked up again, apparently with a question on my face. “Took forever to find banjo strings, though I really did look for microchips, too,” he said earnestly. “If they have those anywhere in Gravity Falls, though, I’m afraid I don’t know where it is...though that doesn’t necessarily mean it doesn’t exist. It just – isn’t any of the places I happened to go looking today - “

“It – it probably don’t exist,” I managed. “But, uh – that was nice of you – but – Stanford, do you even know what a microchip is?”

And so, dear reader, we reach the end of the contents of that lavender legal pad I found in my writing desk. Apparently, I wrote most of this in an August, probably August of last year, based on some date scribbles in its margins; I say 'most' because the original document ends abruptly with Ford locking the secret office back up. The remaining couple of scenes were written for this presentation since I recalled what they were supposed to be and the company's software went down for a few hours.

Will I finish this? Eh, odds are about fifty-fifty, depends on how things go after my current work project wraps up. Certainly there won't be anything else this week, though, so hope you...enjoyed feels like the wrong word in context, but you get what I mean...what there is now!

[silver-fire-wolf-pokemon-lover]

Sooo rambling here cause while it is tmnt related it doesnt exactly fit on my au blog. Its mostly musings and questions.

Firstly thinking about the turtles love languages and what they might be...partly inspired by seeing someone post about their aus version of donnies love language(s) and it got me thinking about it.

Moat versions of donnie seem to have gift giving/an act of service as their love language. I think we see this most, of the animated turtles specifically, with 2003 and Rise Donnie, correct me if im wrong, but the other Donnies still do this very often.

The mikeys seem to have physical touch as theit love language which is why they often are initating contact with their brothers. Its also why usually if the mikeys are huggers their usually the first to hug their brothers.

Unfortuantly I cant exactly pin point the leos and raphs , at least not well,because well admidedly I have a harder time getting into their heads. I have a little bit of what the leos might be but im not

I think some of the leos also have an act of sevice as their love language but not all of them? But I feel they have another love langauage as well.

If I have to take a shot in the dark for the raphs uhh I think it depends but a couple of raphs seem like words of afformation? Please note this is not a stable guess and what yall think about this all!

.....

The next bits kinda pertain to rise specifically namely the ninpo. So it was floating around that apparently the writers intended for the ninpo/mystics the boys have to get stronger/more varried as time went on/they got older and im curious what people think those abilities might be. I have my own ideas and ill share what they are and why but they might be...underwhelming.

Please note this would be the good time line where no one lost their ninpo to the krang and they can all develop it as they get older.

Imma start with leo cause hes the one i was able to think of easily

Mass teleport with no portals. In the fight against shredder leos show to be able to telepodt without making portals first and even swapping with people and its been show he can still use his portals for long distance or group teleporting, or even delayed teleporting so instanious group teleportation doesnt seem too much a stretch.

Healing ngl I am a fan of medic leo, how ever I belive medic leo is more likely to happen after the events of the movie as before hand they seemed to heal fairly fast and may have not had majorly needed a medic nessisarly.

Water manipulation this is a bit...indulgent, my sister who I roll play with a lot and I have always associated the leos with the element of water soo....

Next imma gonna do Donnie

Tecnomancy- obviously donnies ninpo/mystics connect more with his liking of science and technology and his creativity. Being able to simply mentally connecr with and control technology would certainly be a step in the right direction I think. This would actually be the broad term to use and some other abilities I thought of certainnly fall under it.

Data collection- more or less he touches something technology based and any information it has kinda gets for lack of a better word "downloaded" into his brain.

Manipulation of tech- kinda taking already exsiting tech and uaing his ninpo to turn it into something else.

Electricity manipulation- zappy zapps...*cough* ok but in all seriousness being able to manipulate the electricity that powers his tech would help with the powers/flow of the tech.

Mikey

Err ngl a lot of mikeys abilities would probably be inspired by the movie because well yeah

Flight- was show to have at least levitation if not outght right flight in the movie.

Teleportation-seen in the movie as a mystic master

Fire manipulation- already shows shades od this by summoning fires with his nunchucks

Super speed-mikey is extreamly energetic and that could easily translate into this

Just magic just just magic what ever draxum could teach this kid

Raph...I dont got much

Barriers cause hes a protective older brother

Clones cause he was shown to be able to do that in the shredder fight even if we didnt see it in the movie

Maybe an elemental manipulation since his brothers also have those in their power listings

I look at raphs powers and ask myself how to work with this

....

Finally this is an in general thing uhh how does one write a fight scene im working on a fic for my tmnt aus and Im...just how do fight scene?

[artfella]

Every now and then I enjoy data diving and this graph is amazing!

I'm not saying it's right or wrong only that it is astounding to see such variations and it peaked my curiosity. I wanted to see if I could find more information on the subject.

I went to the original creators page, however; I couldn't find any resources or links other then "Source: Housing and Urban Development".

I went to the Housing and Urban Development government user's portal (HUDUser.gov) to see if I could find more info. The closest I could find (via a search) relating to this was this article:

https://www.huduser.gov/portal/publications/trends_hsg_costs_85-2005.pdf

Which provides a lot of information on trends for home owners and renters. I was able to find, within the article, this:

Which compared household incomes to rental costs. According to the chart "Monthly housing costs" (which appears to combine all costs in the chart) was between ~24% (1985) and ~26% (2005) of an individuals total income.

I struggled finding any further information on the site and thought I'd see if I could find a site that performed a similar research comparison.

Real Estate Witch

The closest I could find was data taken from an article by realestatewitch.com whom did an in-depth dive on this. They are a website that emphasizes transparency in rental/real estate. Richr backs them and I could find no major glaringly negative reviews about them.

Percentage Change of Income, Rent and Inflation

They have a similar graph and populate it by the percentage change (from 1985) for "Median Rent Price", "Income" and "Inflation".

Per witch, on their data:

For a measure of historical nationwide income, we use the St. Louis FRED’s Real Median Income measure. For historical nationwide rent prices, we use the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey Median Household Income measure, which dates back to 2009. For median rent values dating before 2009, we use the St. Louis FRED’s CPI Rent Index to approximate rent values back to 1985.

---

NOTE: It looks like rent values were not readily available pre 2009 so approximation data was used prior to this date (based on rent index's at the time)

This isn't exactly a comparison (to the original video) though as this merely states, for each of these three, what has their percentage increase been since 1985. It shows that the three have steadily increased since this time at a comparative rate. It does clearly show a more linear rise for rent and inflation though compared to income.

Percentage Change of Rent Vs Income

Their article also compares rent versus income to determine the percentage change between each of them during this time frame. They do come to the conclusion that rent prices, compared to income is far more stable (and has been outpacing inflation by 40% since 1985.) Income instability comes from a fluctuating economy and seems more prone to those swings:

According to this graph it looks like , for at least the last two years, rent has easily outpaced income (in percentage point changes at least).

Reliability?

Please note that while they mention their sources they too did not readily list links in their research articles (similar to the video above).

They go more into depth and also supply areas around the country for price examples. have a look:

Final note

Do keep in mind that data can always be laid out to fit a narrative.

I'm not saying either is correct; I merely wanted to see what data I could uncover. Both do point towards the whole "everything feels so G** D*** expensive." narrative as being relatively accurate.

I was really hoping to find a peer reviewed research paper on it but was not easily able to.

If you want to know why people have lost faith in capitalism, this might help

[yeetmetotheforbiddenwildwest]

Alright yall buckle up and grab your snacks and have a drink on standby because this is a long one (not really though)

Today, today the quest that was released on Star Stable Online, the story quest, was AMAZING

(SPOILERS BELOW FOR STORY LINE)

I don't know how to make a cut so if you haven't played the quests yet and dont want spoilers please just speed scroll past this post and feel free to comment and reblog.

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1. The vault in Fort Maria was very pretty and the puzzles that went into opening it were really fun, and the squirrel was a cute surprise.

2.Jon Jarl is a bit of a Jerk. But I do think he loves Jorvik. The joke he made was a bit annoying, like you want me to complete a trial but then you start with a stupid joke?

But it was very fun and that Primeval seed?

Beautiful. And Cool.

3. Little Bee (Beatrix) is an amazing character, her swag? Through the roof, I too love books and stories. And she and Concorde racing together was so cute! Racing them was fun too, and oh lord is Concorde fast.

4. The Dark Riders. It was such a sweet, sweet reveal. I was expecting a battle but then again this does happen to be a kids game and what we got was very fun.

What did we get?

Perfection.

We ran into Dark Core. Ged. And the Dark Riders.

Concorde comes to a sudden stop and Beatrix almost went flying. We look up and see the Dark Riders. All of them. (Excluding Chiyo) And their horses, who were pretty cool.

Katja was mean, very mean, she seemed like she wanted to kill us the whole time. The animation when she used her powers looked so cool.

Jessica was rude. Rude and cruel. Like she should be.

Sabine was everything she's supposed to be, strong, determined, and their downright snide remarks really did prove just how much history they had with the soul riders.

I really like how the soul riders reacted to running into them.

Sabine wanted to take Concorde and Anne refused.

Anne refused. She refused. She would not let them take her.

Concorde is Anne's horse, and this quest proved that Anne does love her.

This triggered Anne's powers and she accidentally opened a portal.

The interactions between Sabine, Jessica, Katja, Alex, Anne, and Lisa were great. The dialouge was very expressive. For MC too.

That's right. Our character actually did get to interact with the Dark Riders and not just follow orders like we usually do.

Mrs. Holdsworth is very nice and she's fripping epic. (Though I wish they would give her an updated look)

So is the Vala Witch.

The mission's where we had to help the Dark Riders were fun and engaging too.

Anne wanted to protect Concorde and ended up opening a portal and this almost caused the drakonium to explode.

The Vala Witch showing up was unexpected. She introduced herself as Sive (See-vay right? Does anyone know how it's actually pronounced?) and then invited to follow her through her portal. The other soul riders including Mrs. H and Beatrix managed to follow Sive through the portal just before it closed and you were left alone with your horse (and maybe you brought your pet with you, i did) to face the Dark Riders.

For me I was left alone with my Dun pinto Curly horse Bulletwish (Bandit) and my arctic fox badger.

There were 3 missions to do with the dark riders. I helped Katja get with of the giant pink balls first and then helped Jessica send the panda rays back to pandoria.

Jessica actually wanted to kill the panda rays which personally, I was not going to let her do. Panda rays are harmless creatures.

Last but not least I helped Sabine save the people of New Hillcrest from the Shadow Seekers and the pandoric rifts.

And then after that I went to talk to Linda which most likely went exactly as it did for everyone else.

All in all, I really enjoyed the story quests today and can't wait to pick back up tomorrow as there is a day blocker in place.

I might make another post tomorrow if the second part of the quests are interesting at all, so stay tuned.