#on these past memories because... memories are simulated realities. and like simulations you need to have textures and models

[blackvahana]

you ever just see an alternate version of your life flash before your eyes though.... Im so glad im getting into this now. Im so glad lull didnt let me near kos lmfao because like. im sitting here... fully ready to be dissected myself and to dissect and experiment with these things and im. oh boy! getting glimpses like alternate universe memories of having awoken this in front of him and with him and being. absolutely used. and dissected. and my body broken up and given out like bread at communion. i absolutely can see the ultimate timeline where he convinces me im nothing but Kos and its not a mask but my reality and then he just. does what he wants with my body because Secret Broken + he'd have free reign to pull the instincts i connect to her of. communion and self-death and whatnot

and im not even exaggerating. that absolutely would be where it was going. hes done so much fucked up shit to my astral body, he refused to take no as an answer to having a kid with me, my body was just to be eaten and uh. yeah. it was already a fucked up 5 years lmfao

see. emphasis on "fully ready". full like a full belly. like the full moon. like a full field ready to be harvested. ive grown into myself now, theres a huge difference between being the whale that falls on purpose to feed the populace and one hunted. and i get to experiment now because. the moon is ripe. the sun is ripe. the ocean is pregnant. theres peace in the salt in the air

[hmslusitania]

Ask meme! For TimKon, either 17. “Please stay.” or 34. “When did you know for sure?”

May I offer you: an angst with a happy ending? (who am I kidding; it's you, of course I can)

“When did you know?” Kon asks, staring out well past the horizon. Tim thinks that surely, he must see it, must be able to tell, he’s got fucking super vision of various sorts, but… But he sounds so dejected about it. Like he… like he hadn’t been able to tell. “For sure, I mean, when did you figure it out?”

“Um,” Tim says, and picks up a handful of sand on this very not-at-all real version of Kon’s favourite beach in Hawaii. “Last… night.”

Kon’s face burns bright red and Tim can’t really look at him anymore.

It all feels too real, even though this place isn’t anything of the sort.

And he’s pretty sure that includes Kon.

It had been a smart plan, Tim can tip his hat at the villain du jour for that, at least metaphorically. Trap Tim in a simulated reality, but instead of making it somewhere he knows inside and out, like Gotham, like Happy Harbour, they’d programmed him into a place he only knows in story and rumour. Tim wouldn’t really have any way of determining if there were differences between the real Hawaii the real Kon’s been talking about for as long as Tim’s known him, and this fake, simulation of it. And the programmers had done a pretty perfect job with Kon, too, except for the parts where he can’t tell that this whole place is a simulation, and the part where…

“My Kon, I mean the one who’s not a computer programme, because, like, he’s not mine, mine,” Tim starts. “He’s not… y’know. In love with me.”

Kon is silent for a minute, just staring out at the water and at the small waves lapping steadily higher up the beach while the sun rises. Tim would find this whole conversation a lot less excruciating if computer!Kon was wearing more than boxers with the House of El logo on the crotch, but, well, this simulation was designed to trap and torture him, so he’s not.

“I don’t feel like a computer simulation,” Kon says finally, and buries his toes in the sand like he’s making a point of feeling the sensations. “I remember — I remember meeting you when you were still Robin and I didn’t know who I was beyond Superman’s replacement, and I remember Bart, and Young Justice, and Cassie, and the Teen Titans, and dying and—”

“They probably built you off a brain scan of the real Kon,” Tim says. Tact and gentleness have never been his fortes but, fuck he tries this time.

“Right, and just, like, tweaked my memories so that I can remember being in love with you half that time, and the entire time I was lost in Gemworld, and—”

“Yeah, I guess they must’ve,” Tim says, even though it makes him want to puke. “This place is too… it’s too perfect. You’re too perfect.”

Kon scoffs, and makes a choked off noise that’s all too familiar after last night and Tim flushes with shame that he knows what Kon sounds like now. The thing is, it’s a very, very good simulation, and this isn’t knowledge Tim should have, because out in the real world, Kon doesn’t want to share that information with him.  It’s none of Tim’s business, no matter how desperately he wants it to be.

“Nice to know I’m apparently good enough in bed to convince you it’s all too good to be true,” Kon says, with forced bravado.

Tim swallows, because that assessment isn’t untrue, but it’s only part of the story. “Also I think my biometrics must’ve spiked high enough to temporarily overload the system, because a bird clipped through our room while we were, uh…”

“Oh,” Kon says, blushing even harder. “So, um, now that you know this is fake, does that mean you’re going to escape?”

“Yeah,” Tim says. He swallows. “I just have to crash the programme, make it generate something so insanely huge its processing power can’t keep up.”

“Oh, right, just that,” Kon says. He very gamely swallows, and because he’s built on a very convincing facsimile of Tim’s real Kon, he stands up and nods. “So what do you need me to do?”

**

Tim is not surprised when the explosion they trigger in the simulation tips him out of it’s destabilising pixelated mess into a sketchy futuristic lab. Spaceship? Probably spaceship by the black starfield outside the windows.

He is surprised when his own exit from the gel couch matrix situation is echoed by someone else in another matching chair thing behind him.

He grabs for any kind of weapon available and rounds the central structure, ready to strike, only to find himself face to face with—

“Kon?” he demands. “You’re here too?”

Kon defuses the heat vision that had been starting to build behind his eyes, and then just stares at Tim, blushing a violent red like the heat vision had dispersed through his cheeks.

“Of course he is here too,” an annoyed voice that gives major evil scientist vibes says over the PA. “The simulation traps work best when there are two parties within them to reinforce the shared folie à deux!”

“Sh-shared?” Kon asks.

“Both of us were in the same—” Tim starts, and he understands Kon’s blush better now because he can feel his own viciously taking over his face.

“You thought I was a simulation,” Kon says, floating out of his matrix plug in chair to loom over Tim even taller than he usually is.

“You’re in lo—” Tim starts, but their captor’s voice crackles over the PA system again.

“Yes, yes, teenaged angst. You may continue your argument once my assistants have placed you back in your simulation!”

“We’re twenty-one, actually,” Tim corrects. “And you can—”

He means to tell the disembodied voice exactly where he can expect Tim’s bo staff (as soon as he finds it in one of the cargo pods here in this space station situation they’ve got going on) but Kon cuts him off by pulling Tim’s face into his hands and kissing him.

No birds clip through the walls this time, and the sensation of Kon’s TTK sweeping over him, like it’s not enough to just be touching Tim with his hands, like he has to touch all of him at once, is one that Tim hadn’t been able to fully conjure up out of his imagination. It’s different enough that Tim actually forgets for a second that they’re imprisoned on a space station and have been under for god knows how long, and he seriously considers simply climbing Kon like a tree right then and there to get the actual physical details mapped out.

“I can’t believe you thought my love confession was a simulation,” Kon murmurs against Tim’s lips.

Tim hums and kisses him again. Really, actually kisses Kon. Who really, actually wants to kiss him, too. “I meant it when I said you’re too good to be true.”

“Good thing we’re in a really shitty situation we need to figure our way out of if we want to get back to earth so I can show you the real version of that beach,” Kon says. “Because that part feels pretty on par.”

“Yeah,” Tim agrees, and sighs. He can hear the distant thuds of whatever sorts of robocop automata their captor has coming towards them now, and this fight’s gonna kinda suck, he thinks. At least there will be one hell of a reward for making it through to the other side. “Ready to fight for our lives?”

“With you?” Kon asks, and can’t help himself but to pull Tim in for one more kiss. “Always.”

[mollysunder]

Silco, Vander, and Grace for the Ones Who Hurt Us the Most

Sometimes I feel like we all really need to sit with the fact that Silco was ready, willing, and wanting for Vander to return to his side after Vander tried and failed to kill him. What Vander did was a genuine life altering act of betrayal that Silco had to live with the mental, emotional, and medical consequences for years after. You can bet if Jinx hadn't shot Silco, the river toxins would've gotten him just a little later. And in spite of the ways Vander's actions ruined his life, that Vander admits to even (but doesn't apologize for), Silco rationalized it just as much for Vander as he did himself.

Silco decided that the man he loved the most nearly killed him (and in a way is still killing him) for a greater purpose, which didn't make everything okay, but it made it reasonable. And this rationalization has bled into every aspect of his life because the way Silco treats Zaun is the way he treats himself. If you're weak the people who love you and you love back will hurt you. They are right to permanently alter the trajectory of your existence to make the right calls, because as long you survive it, you will be stronger. He's made Shimmer the lifeblood of Zaun, because Silco is literally dependent on it to live as well. It works for him, so it works for Zaun.

The most warped part is, Silco was mostly right! He had violent rise in Zaun and completely changed the course of its development. Yet he managed to create a Zaun that couldn't be cowed or bullied either economically or militarily by Piltover the way it was in the past. I can't help but think how it all must twist and burn, because if Silco understood he was succeeding at the impossible, then doesn't that mean it all reinforced his logic around Vander? That this man you loved hurt you in a way that can't be taken back for the rest of your life, and he was right to do it? So that means Silco was right to change, to want to be back by Vander's side, because he was the one who needed to reinvent himself to be worthy of control, right?

No matter the success Silco reaped he had to recognize the dissonance between this logic and reality, because despite the bastard he could be, Silco would never do any of what was done to him onto Jinx. Sure Silco would simulate his traumas into life lessons and heavily sanitized rituals, but he never betrayed her or abandoned her when she became detriment to his position. Obviously Vander also never gave up on his kids either (#cinematicparallels), but we don't know if Silco was ever in a position to betray someone the way Vander did him, or if he ever wanted to prior to it. So even as Silco recognizes that Vander changed to protect the children he loves so much, he must wonder if the way Vander and he loved eachother just wasn't it enough? If the way Silco cared for Vander was reciprocal, a deep love whether romantic or platonic, then why wasn't Silco afforded a similar grace to stay by his side?

Silco had to live with all these contradictions and still chose to embrace Vander's memory. In a complete contrast to Vander, Silco didn't obscure who Vander was to Zaun politically or personally. Silco allowed a statue of Vander to stand, and went to it for comfort, he regularly talked about his life with Vander before and after the betrayal with Jinx. Meanwhile, from what the audience can see, Silco's presence was almost fully hidden from the newest generation sans the scar Silco gave him, which Vander hides with a bracer. All I can end up thinking is that must be easier for Silco to keep loving Vander like this, it's how he gives himself the grace for it.

[blu-ish]

💫Blu theory timeeee :D✨

Okay, not sure if anyone else has already said or thought about this but, I NEEDED TO WRITE THIS DOWN TO GET IT OUTTA MY SILLY HEAD AND YALL ARE COMIN DOWN WITH ME >:)

(Digital Circus Edition!!!)

LONG POST WARNING LMAO THE BRAINROT IS REAL SEND HELP 💀

Now that I've got your attention hehehe, lets take a momentary deep dive into the wacky world of The Amazing Digital Circus!

So lets review what we know from the pilot ep.

The world inhabits some sort of virtual reality.

Its completely run by AI, that being Caine, Bubble, and other artificial characters that seem to be spontaneously created by Caine at will. (For example the Gloink Queen, those wooden mannequins, ect.)

The human victims are transported to the "digital realm" when they put on some sort of headset.

The transition completely wipes their memories of their past lives.

When the human mind is clouded with existential dread, that being caused by loosing all sense of sanity at the realization of never being able to leave, the person becomes "abstracted" and aggressive.

This behavior not only affects the other "players" but the AI as well in some cases completely destroying them.

Caine is capable of fixing small abstractions (like Pomni and Ragatha) but unable to with a completely abstracted individual. Which seems to automatically cross their pfp on their respective doors and generate new slots for new players.

What we DONT KNOW as of when I'm writing this lmao...

Who built/programmed the headsets and why?

How are all these people getting possession of them?

Is it a company? A case of rouge AI? A tiktok trend gone wrong???

What happens to the victims originals body? Does anyone in the real world know what's going on??

How long has everyone been in there?? Does time work differently in the virtual world?? Does time pass at all??

DOES GETTING ABSTRACTED MEAN U DED??? Or is there a way to fix being abstracted?? (GIVE KINGER HIS WIFE BACK)

Now that THATS outta the way... lets move on to my theory.

I firmly believe Caine genuinely has no clue why humans are popping into the circus at all. I know this already has been debunked by goose but I just wanted to clarify.

He doesn't really understand human emotion, he is an AI after all, so he naturally lacks empathy. All he really knows is to keep the humans entertained, censor swearing, and be silly lmao. It's refreshing from the classic "grrr angy bot mad at hooman" stuff. NOT SAYING THATS WHAT HAPPENING BUT SPECIFICALLY FOR CAINE AND BUBBLE LOL. they just goofy fr.

It kinda reminds me of the generative AI, like whats going on today with ChatGPT or CharacterAI. Its a software that entertains the human by creating random means of conversation or environmental; storytelling. (Its so funny because I'm writing a paper about it in college, I personally don't support AI generative content but it's still very fascinating to explore how these machines work and function. And this is just a silly cartoon after all lmaooo.)

The reason I bring this up is because of the "Machine Learning" aspect of it. You see, generative AI nowadays is fed certain information from its human user, which then uses what knowledge its given in the input into the output.

This could be the reason why the "exit door" kept popping up. Because the algorithm is being fed information from its human users and the output being the existence of a "fake exit" door. The software is just trying to simulate what the humans want but cant physically do because as of right now, its impossible.

I also think this affects how humans are perceived in their avatars. Everyone has a unique look to them when they enter the circus, this could be caused by the AI reading whatever was left of their thoughts or feelings before entering the virtual world.

Ragatha is perceived as a doll, or some sort of child's toy. (she kinda reminds me of the ones I used to have as a little girl.) It could've recognized something she was fond of, or maybe how she perceived herself when she was human, maybe she saw herself at some point being toyed with mentally or perhaps she was in a situation were she felt like she had no control. Which is why she attempts to stay optimistic and see the brighter side of every situation.

Jax is some sort of anthropomorphic rabbit, (I like to believe his name is a play on Jack Rabbit lmao.) not sure why the algorithm would perceive him as a rabbit?? Since rabbits usually symbolize humility, kindness, and compassion. Which he is clearly NOT LMAOOOO. (then again it could be the software being ironic 💀)

But I think its more or less his mannerism's of his eyes and mouth. His teeth are almost always closed and his resting face is a sly smile. I adore the idea many have had of it symbolizing him "lying through his teeth". Which he could 100% be doing. Also, he seems the most unaffected human considering the situation he's found himself in, being trapped in a virtual world for eternity and everything doesn't seem to bother him much. (He rlly is winning the idgaf war)

Maybe he had to learn to be that way when he was a human, to just become "unbothered" by his crappy situations and turn them into a joke he could inflict onto others. Or maybe its just the way he is idk. He seems to be actively trying to get the others to hate him more then they're situation rn.

Then there's Kinger, who he and his wife has both been turned into chess pieces. Which actually gives us a lot of information about who they were or what they acted like. And their relationship to one another.

In chess, the Queen is the most powerful piece in the whole game, and she actively protects the king from the enemy pieces. As for the King.. wellll, not so much. Being the weakest piece in the whole game, and the most venerable without the queen or other chess pieces, it fits almost to a T. (Poor kinger...)

Maybe when they were humans, Kinger and his wife were clearly never really apart, maybe they had a silly date idea and wanted to try VR...

Gangle is interesting to me, she has different masks that show different emotions, and effectively cause her to change her mood drastically depending on which one she wears. (I mean we've only seen her with the sad mask on since her other one broke, maybe she's normally rlly chill??)

perhaps she normally bottled up her emotions when she was human? maybe the computer turned her into a delicate ribbon like creature with very breakable persona faces for this reason??

Zooble instantly reminded me of preschool, we used to have these shapes we could mix and mash together to create our own creatures. Their design is the most unique outta all of them, this could easily represent their mindspace or some sort of confusion they were going through when they were human. They just seem very DONE with everything lmao. mood.

As for Pomni, well, she's the reason I wanted to write the whole long thing hsjshss.

Her avatar is jester like, and a jester is known for entertaining guests of higher status. Could this have been what her job was like as a human. I know a lot of people theorize her job being an office job, and I completely agree. She could've easy felt as if she was just a jester forced to entertain or follow whatever her work life was like.

She's very nervous and rightfully confused after entering the world, wanted to leave immediately. But, I have to wonder, why would she even have a headset?? Better yet why did any of them put one on at all??

I think it was a form of escapism from reality...

That's what VR is in general right? A way to escape the real world. A virtual reality.

Maybe the humans were lulled into a sense of escapism from their troubled lives, paying taxes, dealing with bosses, family, emotions.. or maybe were just genuinely curious..

I mean the first thing people really said after watching the digital circus was how amazing it would be to just end up in a place were you could just do "fun things all day" or "not have to worry".

And I think that's exactly what the AI wanted and is trying to do.

LITERALLY.

We all know AI isn't the brightest.. all things considered. Its a machine, it takes things LITERALLY.

Caine is just doing what he is programmed to do. He doesn't know what's going on, maybe he doesn't even know WHY he's the ringmaster in all of this.

But someone DID create him.

Someone DID develop this generative virtual world.

The question is why?

[squadron-of-damned]

what is cithare i have never heard but i am intrigued

-karmaicperfection

hi! okay so.

Cithare is a Minecraft plugin- Actually more context.

My boyfriend's older brother is a software engineer whose life goes like (in his words) "I Came, I Saw, I Became An Adminstrator"- No more context.

Somewhen around second half of the 19th century a cook from a local castle carved several sculptures right into the sandstone rocks that are scattered through the local woods. While they are not the most famous of the set, the most prominent two in this story are the Chapel of Mary Magdalene and the Harper. (This is enough information you need to find out where I live, by the way).

Both my boyfriend and his older brother and several of our common friends are members of the local Scouts chapter.[1] They organise an annual mostly-Scout LARP-esque battle in the local woods with the lore being an alternate reality where the Harper statue (rock-carving?) is instead a zitherist and the capital of a fantasy kingdom this battle is fought over is Cithare (because Zithere looks weird). The Harper (Cithare) and Chapel of Mary Magdalene are important landmarks both for the game and orientation

If my memory serves right, the managed to do it precisely once before the Big Covid Lockdown came and stabbed the biggest pitchfork related to gathering a hundred or so kids together imaginable to mankind into it.

At which point my salty beanpole's brother and our friend and this friend's friend/ex-classmate said: "Hey, almost everyone we know has some version of Minecraft, at least a cracked one. It can't be that hard for a software engineer and two studying software engineers to write a plugin for Minecraft that would simulate score points for capturing points and killing members of opposing teams."

[1] I was part of the Scouts for, like, three weeks, that was until my mother heard the kids pledging loyalty and promised to unquestioningly obey the superiors.

At first it was one slightly altered map, duct-taped together code to keep track of score, and around a dozen of Scouts who were allowed to stay out of the bad past 10 PM. Currently it is a Discord server of 100 members, developing team of 12 people (activity varying). For now and the foreseeable future it is strictly CZ/SK and invite-only.

The plugin itself supports English (in which it is written), Czech (translated by yours truly and salty beanpole boyfriend) and Pirate Speak (translated by me, helped a bottle of gin and Alestorm for moral support and authenticity). The entire plugin is a dedication to the founding dev team being huge nerds who applied as much of Team Fortress and DOTA possible to Minecraft.

Currently the Cithare plugin has two alternating maps:

The original one, expanded and built upon, with 4 static capture points (called flags) and 4 travelling points (they remain in place, but only 1 of them is active at the time, switching activity through the game.) There are several points of interest

Chapel of Mary Magdalene: the south-situated world spawn

Cithare: The capital of the kingdom in the middle, a static capture point. It is build indeed like a city, originally meant from rooftop-chase and parkour combat, usually just TNTed to oblivion

The Crossroad: A static capture point in the east, previously in a barren plain. Since it in the first five minutes turned into a crater with obisdian platfrom around the flag (beacon), it is now overgrown with trees which make it mroe interesting of a fight.

The Last Watch: A static capture point, a tower in the north. Current meta-game: Sniper's nest, unless Skydiver is allowed, then you need a blast-resistant sniper.

The Scarp: A static capture point in an underground cave in the west. Current meta: Either put water above the flag and waterfall down or slap a teleporter down there.

The Sunken Temple: An underwater travelling capture point in the central southwest sea. Current meta: Gladiator dominance.

The old sunken temple: The previous spot where the aforementioned travelling flag was, in the southeastern sea. Currently hosts the Carp, a miniboss, the killing of which grants a custom achievement.

The Fairy Rings: A travelling capture point on an island between two rivers in central southeast.

Grannny's House: A travelling flag on a floating island to northeast. It is inaccessible by other means than putting down blocks and climbing them or flying. Inside is a hostile witch named Granny. Granny's house is notably made of nether and twisted nether blocks with a crater on the ground below it. It has been moved. though I don't remember where the original location was

The Secret Sanctum: An underground travelling flag to northwest. My pride and joy, because this is when I joined in on the project. Guys were like: "People don't visit Zamar because is in the middle of hellish nowhere. Let's make a new one, and let's make it an underground dungeon labyrinth where people get lost." And I was like "Hey, I'm a DM, you need an underground labyrinth? I'll do it." And then I did it. And then everyone and their dog complained that they get lost in the labyrinth. and since above it was an irrigated field, they waterfalled down. So in the next patch I removed the irrigation and added new entrances. The Secret Sanctum is great.

The Ruins of Zamar: A permanently inactive travelling flag in the south in the ruins of an old city. Zamar is the Ancient Kingdom on the corpse of which Cithare was founded.

The Pirate Ship: A ship west of Cithare City in the sea, sevres as the spawn for the Pirate team.

Four elemental shrines which currently do nothing scattered through the far ends of the map, and the Altar on the mountain in the middle, close to Cithare, wher eplayers can sacrifice essences.

Then as a "big reveal" we added the Air map with which I helped a lot more.

It features the same flags, because they are tried and trusty, with some changes:

Cithare flag is now indeed in the middle of the town, the place is more densely built over, so indeed there is town combat.

The Mines have replaced the Cliff, they are a large chasm. (The renaming was because "Watch" and "Scarp" in Czech sound similar and in voice-chat people got misnavigated because of that)

Rather than one big Altar for four essences, there are now four tiny altars for one essence.

The Mysterious Sanctum is much bigger and better navigable (in my opinion) than the Secret Sanctum, and also it is well lit. It has tons of loot, but most of it is well hidden. (Secret Cithare lore: Honey blocks in Sanctum.)

Zamar is now imitating the Deep Dark biome (I lovingly call it Shallow Dark), yes that includes the Warden, I think there is an achievement but not sure. There are ominous messages, though.

The Last Watch tower is not as tall, but it has dungeons.

There is an Airship rather than Granny's House.

The Fairy Rings are situated on a glaze terracota mushroom cap as an island rather than on a normal island.

The Glen has replaced the Crossroad, it is surrounded on all sides. Because of the Glen location we actually chose this seed for the map.

Speaking of, the entire map was generated in 1.18 Minecraft, so it is rather more vertical (hence the name Air. The original map, is known as Water, because it has a lot of seas). As such it features a lot of bridges and three flightpaths, as in you hop on a phantom and fly around the map as if it was a bus!

At the beginning of the game you get picked into a team. Players who are odd or come late end up in the Pirate team which doesn't aim for winning, it's supposed to sow chaos and help the losing team, they also cannot capture flags. After getting into a team you pick one of 15 (17) classes. Regular teams pick regular classes, Pirate team picks Pirate classes. Anyone can roll a class randomly with a 5 % chance of getting a class they dont' have access to (Pirates for regular classes, regular teams for pirate classes)

Footman - usually banned from play, meant to be granted to beginning players. Generates low bounty (score awarded for killing) unless it scores more than 3 kills in succession. Can't do anything interesting

King - Must be played in King's draft, only 1 per team possible. High bounty, can teleport teammates to themselves, shares food de/buffs with nearby teammates, has golden armour

General - High bounty, can buff teammates with a warhorn, has a summonable horse

Warrior - no interesting skills. Starts with better armour and weapons. "normal mode" class

Marksman - Can track a tag (knows who controls it) and can foretell weather. Can ender-pearl teleport and then teleport back to the original place. Starts with a bow. Sniper.

Scout - Can turn invisible, can masquarede as another player, can capture a flag with an arrow

Gladiator - Has a riptide trident, cobwebs and an enchanted golden apple, gains more score for killing successful players. Doesn't start with a pickaxe, can't use axe as a weapon, cannot use an elytra. Gladiator has been the subject of the most patch-fixes, getting and losing a shield, because of this class the weather is very customised and so forth.

Engineer - Has a portal Gun for placing two-way teleporters (only 1 pair can be active, teleporting has a cooldown) and a remote TNT detonator.

Quartermaster - funnily enough this one has existed, then it got deleted, after over a year it was made anew. Currently has a pocket ender chest through which they can put items to they teammates' spawn-chests, and permanent night vision.

Alchemist - has a store-mode in which they can buy alchemical reagents and/or potions. They gain weaknesses opposite to resistances. They get store-coins by eating honey and spider eyes

Mage - Swiss army knife of classes, has 4 spells. They may pick a specialisation which buffs 1 spell and gives passive abilities. The spells are: healing, confusing player's looks and names for enemy players, AOE fire dmaage, and targeted lighting strikes.

Skyriver - Usually banned, has a sturdy elytra, can drop a lit TNT.

Pirate - Pirate class, has a portal gun (pirated), Pocket Boat (AKA PokéBoat ) and Dolphin's Grace in water. Parallels the Warrior/Engineer class

Rogue Inquisitor - Pirate class. Anti-mage. Is immune to all Mage's spells, has Witchhammer - a book-weapon that sets target on fire. Parallels the Warrior/Mage class

Arbalist - Pirate Class. Has a rocket-launcher crossbow (Arrrbow). Parallels the Marksman class

Shapeshifter - Can turn into a skeleton (infinity bow), dolphin (water breath, dolphin's grace), chicken (slow falling), zombie (resistance 1), spider (night vision), creeper (self-detonation) or enderman (infinite ender pearl). Parallels the Scout class)

Raider - has a very fast horse and can debuff everyone around with war horn. Parallels the General class.

Currently there are no games (strictly speaking Test Sessions) planned, because it's the summer holidays.

If you are interested in the maps, they are downloadable: Water Air

(Look at the Sanctums, I am very proud of them :3)

[eosinstains]

Timeless River is not the same world as Disney Castle back in time, but instead a nested independently actualized mirror world with its own circular timeline that mimics Disney Castles past, like many of the digitally constructed worlds such as Simulation Twilight Town. The difference is the memories it is constructed out of are manifested via nostalgia+magic (merlin is likely involved) rather than perfectly accurate digitization like Ansem the Wise would have done. The Artifact of Light in Timeless River is a simulacrum duplicate backup safety copy kept in case of emergencies. None of this was explained to Sora because it is convoluded and he is an idiot (affectionate) and wouldnt have understood it anyway. They gave him the much simpler "it's time travel, dont worry about it" line. People do this to Sora all the time, good guys and bad guys both.

Maleficent and Pete successfully stole the primary copy, but Sora and friends prevented them from stealing the backup copy. Because you need remove *both* to successfully rob Disney Castle of the artifact, the primary copy metaphysically remanifested in Disney Castle once the backup was no longer under threat, magically restored from the backup.

Absolutely none of this is out of precident with the lore and mechanisms of the rest of the series. The real mindshattering reveal of Timeless River is there is a RASCAL MUTE TEEN MICKEY AU SIMCLONE unburdened by the pressures of being king running loose in a visitable world. We know fully manifested simulations can transcend into variant full realities. Why is he not summonable. Did King Mickey pass laws against it or something. Can you imagine the toon town chaos that could pull into the rest of the worlds.

My favorite Kingdom Hearts fact is that one of the biggest plot-holes that Nomura has never been able to meaningfully retcon or write his way out, a plot-hole so big that it fundamentally breaks the very rules the series is written on…

Is the existence of Steamboat Willie

Let me explain for the uninitiated:

In Kingdom Hearts 2, there’s a small detour in the story involving Maleficent trying to invade Disney Castle, the home of King Mickey. She can’t step foot in the castle due to an artefact of pure light that wards off darkness locked in the basement.

Pete, who is working for Maleficent, opens a door into the past (Before Disney Castle, this land was known as Timeless River) and decides to remove the artifact from it’s place in time so it won’t be there to stop them from getting in.

Sora, Donald, and Goofy chase Pete into the past thanks to another magic door provided by Merlin, and through some shenanigans involving old cartoons and teaming up with Pete’s past-self, they lock the door the villains are using, and return the artefact to it’s proper place so it can exist in the present.

You with me so far? Pretty straightforward-ish time-travel plot right?

Here’s where it goes off the rails.

Time travel would go on to become a staple of Kingdom Hearts going forward and would come with a very strict set of rules over how it operates:

1. You can only travel to a point in time where a version of yourself exists

2. You basically give up your body to do so, and travel as a disembodied soul unless you have a vessel to inhabit

3. You can’t alter the past in a meaningful way, what’s going to happen will happen

4. You lose your memories of said trip once you return, but your actions could leave a lingering instinct on your other self that could influence their decisions

“Wait” you may be thinking “Why should anyone go through all those hoops? Wasn’t time travel super simple that first time?”

And you’d be totally right, because the existence of Timeless River completely renders all of these rules and restrictions meaningless. 

There is no version of Sora that existed in Timeless River before he step foot there, everyone kept their bodies, the trio and Pete were able to mess with the timeline as freely as they pleased, and they all very much remember their trip. 

Nomura has never been able to meaningfully explain this super simple, easy way of time travel and the more convoluted method co-existing other than a cheap-throwaway line from one of the villains saying that Merlin “broke the rules” 

The hilarious part about this line is that it implies that PETE of all characters is actually more powerful than the actual villain of the series, because Pete opened a door into Timeless River through sheer willpower and nostalgia for “the good old days”

But the all-knowing chess-master of a villain who had an evil plan several decades in the making with countless moving parts and contingencies to account for had to use the roundabout, more complicated method of time travel where a lot could go wrong.

Pete though? Dude just casually broke all the rules of time travel because he felt like it. He’s just built different.

TL;DR: Steamboat Willie breaks Kingdom Hearts lore in half, Pete is more powerful than Master Xehanort, and I fucking love this beautiful trainwreck of a series you guys it means so much to me

I love Kingdom hearts so much.

[yousukesblog]

Title: The continuous evolution of travel trends

Travel trends is the representation of evolving pattern and preferences in the travel industry. These trends reflects the changes in a travelers behavior, tourism destination, and technology advancement to understand consumers wants and adapt accordingly to meet the demands. These are the various types of travel trends in the last five years, among these trends are Adventure travel, Solo travel, Slow travel, experience-based travel, and wellness travel. There are also possible travel trends for the next five years, these are Regenerative travel, Outdoor and Nature based travel, and Virtual reality travel.

The five previous travel trends that were popular in the past five years. The first travel trend is the Adventure travel emerged to be an important trend because of its thrilling experiences like the wilderness, hiking, skiing, and many other activities. Second, Solo travel were popular in the year 2021 after the COVID-19 starts to settled down, as the people has been cooped up at their houses for so long. Solo travel as the name suggests it is about a tourist going somewhere else alone and enjoy oneself as long as they want. Third Slow travel means a travel were you take your time at a certain place to enjoy, get to know the place better, and create long lasting memories with your family/friends. Fourth, Experience-based travel were a tourist become immersed in seeking once in a lifetime experience and knowledge over traditional tourist attractions. The fifth is Wellness travel these are tourist who are looking for refining experience of one's personal being by doing activities such as yoga, spa treatments, healthy eating, and other more activities.

Now we continue for the possible travel trends for the next five years, first is Regenerative travel aims to make the place or destination better than it was, an example for this is wildlife conservation, enhancement of natural life, and foster the well-being of the peoples ecosystem. Second, Outdoor and Nature based travel is about experiencing and enjoying natural attractions or wildlife and doing activities such as camping, viewing, fishing, and visiting natural landmarks. Third is Virtual reality travel is about a simulation of an attraction without the need of going in that place physically.

@therealrodthings

[weerd1]

ENT Rewatch Starlog, 19 February, 2024: Episode 3.14 “Stratagem”

The Xindi weapons designer Degra, older than we’re used to seeing him, wakes up on a small vessel being attacked by Xindi Insectoids. He is confused, especially when he sees the pilot of the vessel is a human.

A scraggly-haired Jonathan Archer manages to pilot them away, and tells Degra that three years have past since the Xindi destroyed Earth, and the Insectoids used this as an excuse to start a pogrom against the other Xindi species. Archer and Degra have shared a cell in a prison for the last three years, and Degra has lost his memory due to the Regulan Blood Worm torture used by the Insectoids. He even pulls one of the worms from Degra’s arm.  Later though, we see Archer sedate the already sleeping degree, and leave the shuttle which is actually a simulator on Enterprise. 

The NX-01 managed to capture Degra days before and between what Phlox could do with the physiology of Xindi and the fact Degra managed to delete most of his computer core before capture, Archer has masterminded this elaborate ruse. Back in the simulator, drinking with Degra, he gets the Xindi to reveal his family is likely hiding in a system with a Red Giant star.  Searching the database, they need more information to narrow it down as to which system he means. 

Meanwhile, Enterprise is ducking in and out of the debris field left from the weapons test from last episode, as a Xindi ship is coming, and they are hoping not to be detected. The radiation is disrupting their systems however, including blowing the simulator ruse right after Degra inputs coordinated to the red giant, Archer believes to be Azati Prime; the location of the main Xindi weapon.

It will take three weeks to get there and confirm, and the gig is up. With the other Xindi ship approaching Archer tries to get Degra or his men to make a subspace inversion similar to how the Xindi travel. Though they refuse, Mayweather and Tucker manage to pull it off, but with damage to the ship. As they arrive at the coordinates Degra provided, he sees the red giant and tells Archer they will be destroyed by the defense perimeter. Archer reveals ANOTHER ruse; they are still in the debris field, but have confirmed Degra’s coordinates by his reaction. 

Still monkeying with Degra’s brain (see what I did?  he’s a Xindi primate!) they remove the last few days memory and set his ship back up where it was to be found by the approaching XIndi. They then set out to head for Azati Prime in reality.

Whelp, can’t say Jonathan Archer is above a cockamamie scheme. The episode does pay lip service to not being able to synthesize a truth serum, and it’s nice to see Archer not yet willing to torture anyone again, but wow is this plan the long way around. At least Degra doesn’t find out he’s in a simulation because he had a paper cut that was unhealed like in the 1964 James Garner film “36 Hours,” where the Nazis try to convince a captured American officer it is actually 1950, so he can talk about all those plans for D-Day he knows. 

I can’t say if this episode is a call back to that particular movie or not, but it does seem like that kind of nostalgia.  The plot mostly works, but the conceit necessary for this nostalgia driven effort doesn’t quite hold up to scrutiny if you push certain points to their logical conclusion, and the suspension of disbelief is lost. 

Apropos of nothing, this story is credited to Terry Matalas. 

Next Voyage: Reed and Major Hayes begin comparing the length of their phase pistols, Trip’s rubbing someone’s feet who ISN’T T’Pol, and a strange alien comes on board and may be a “Harbinger.”

(Images taken from the main website for @trekcore; I am happy to remove the images if asked.)

[desiree-machine]

Glossary of Terms

Cow Milk

Milk is historically an object with discriminate properties, made as feed for postnatal mammalian infants. Presently, milk has become an image of itself detached from its biological and ontological meaning. We can now understand it as a simulacrum or a hyperreal object, as the cow that creates it is de-naturalized or dead. Milk is constructed in the imaginary of the consumer and thus is more an associative structure of values, such as health, virtue and rebirth than it is a food product. 

Oat Milk

Oat milk expemplifies how milk itself has become a hyperreal object (read simulacrum), considered by vegans to be more real than that which it simulates. Milk produced by grinding oats is culturally perceived by some to still be milk, despite it having no ontological relationship with milk from biological sources. Oat milk is like 4chan. In the beginning everyone perceives it as a joke no one will take seriously but in the end the social echo chamber and meta irony tricks everyone into believing the joke is actually real. 

Cow

Naturally occurring cows died out in 1627 somewhere in Poland. Since then all cows have been artificial creations of humans. Today, gene sampling, genetic algorithms to model breeding outcomes and data collection are combined to produce a new species optimized for one of two parameters: meat and milk. A cow is a machine that produces the virtual and can be read as an algorithm domesticated by humans to feed our biological and virtual needs, in the same way as tiktok does. Today, you can write a script to make a better cow. It has become an interface for making us feel good onto which we can project our virtual understanding of nature.

Vegan

A vegan questions the hyperreal objects legitimacy (milk/meat), whilst constructing their own parallel hyperreality to replace that of the industrial farming complex (oat milk). They want the algorithm (cow) to have bodily autonomy.

Tiktoker

A tiktoker is an algorithm (cow) producing hyperreality (milk). We consume the milk to feel good and retain our belief in the simulation of nature. The hyperreality of tiktok makes us feel more real, alive and human than the actual world.

Ur Nammu

Ur Nammu is commited to the legitimacy of the hyperreal object (milk) and refuses the position that it is virtual. He thus believes that nature is alive. He does not want the algorithm to have bodily autonomy and follows a biblical human-nature dichotomy. To him consciousness and reality are equal.

Grandpa

Grandpa is confused. He just doesn't understand the socialized value of milk. He just likes cows because they look nice and thinks their juice is tasty.

Desire

Desire is what our past constructs in our imaginary. Desire is socialised and relates to our ontological experience of the world and how we wish that experience to be projected forwards. Every person is a desire machine and must contract these desires with other desire machines. 

Sacrifice 

Sacrifice is the act of refusing your desires and becoming aware of their position within yourself. All desire is inherently sinful as it always requires you to believe in the virtual.

Port

The port is a river of milk. As a river, it can never be stepped into twice the same and is perceived differently by all who visit it. The port is the present projected into past and future, where the virtual comes to die and all visitors become infant by forgetting their memories.

The port is an edifice for the virtual, it presents itself as your own past. 

Contracting

contracting is about becoming other.

contracting is about understanding your desires.

contracting is about letting go of the past and future.

contracting is about grounding the hyperreal.

contracting is about sacrificing milk.

contracting is about desire.

contracting is about getting lost.

contracting is about bathing in your nostalgia.

contracting is about staring into a river and wondering where it goes.

contracting is about being honest about what a cow is, what a tiktok is and what milk is.

Infant

The infant has no virtual desires, as they all relate to an ontological need (similar to the grandpa). To become infant is to bathe in your nostalgia and lose your memories.

Parasite

If you drink milk, you are a parasite to a host.

[diaryofahomosexual]

12:04 Oh also I had a single edible when we got home from his Nanny’s right, and I had an edible as soon as I got home right around 9:30, around 10:15 I feel goofy and around 10:40 I slipped into an hour and 20 minute time dilation [12:00AM RN] exactly like the two trips I told y’all about last time (I’m actually still tripping major balls; experiencing events before they happen so my brain processes them before they seem like they’re happening to me right, which makes them feel infinite, and making everything I see or do RN a BAD MEMORY like I swear to god I’ve been hearing my mom clank pans in the sink for an hour and then also hearing random bits of sentence dialogue just actual randomly, like I had originally experienced during my first bad high right like hearing random barks and sounds from things that DEF ARENT HAPPENING AROUND ME??? And bro this trip was the most wild bcuz I was the most aware of it like this has been absolutely terrifying to experience again?? But also I hate that I love it like the thrill of not knowing if I’m gonna make it out of the time dilution type thrill ugh I can vent abt this for hours

12:07 I want to write an essay about everything I’ve felt in the past 80 minutes but it’s so refreshing and also terrifying to experience? I don’t want to ever have this feeling while at work? and my brain confuses this exact feeling with how reality actually is? And that it takes the weed to activate it ya know?

12:08 And something more fuckign wild was that I can describe what I mean by communicating with the 4th dimensional beings now, what was happening is I was thinking something, and then the people and objects around me were reacting TOGETHER RANDOMLY to make a reply to.

12:11 So I was conversing with myself but with the surroundings? So I would think “Oh for this to stop do I need to ____” (ex: oh no I’m super stupid high again do I need to (and then I see a dog) and then a TV show or my mom and dad talking would SPEAK OUT IN RESPONSE “oh- yea-H”)) or Id think “

Life can be a totally different conversation between several dimensions right. Like a 4 dimensional one? The being that I just was right now, was talking with the environment I was feeling like deadass

12:15 So a thought talking and then a brain talking with the rest of the environment around it. Like life doesn’t matter because we are a conversation between those things too. And also I know I’m still high because I’m still having these conversations. Like my body was getting so hot temp wise when I was telling myself “Oh no I got stupid high because Weed is bad and always bad for you!!” And then literally the TV would say no in the dialogue. And just now I’m feeling cold when I was walking around thinking that was the best thing it was like playing A Literal Hot and Cold game with reality itself.

12:20 I’m very much in a wild spot rn because I’m simultaneously like Yo It Deadass Will Be Okay Though, YOUVE DONE THIS TWICE BEFORE AND YOU DID A LOT OF MENTAL WORK BETWEEN THE LAST TIME AND THIS TIME. YOU WERE READY TO ACTUALLY TAKE AN EXPERIENCE AND LESSON AWAY THIS TIME.” And also bein like “Oh my God This is hell because everyone is acting this way BECAUSE THEYRE TRYING TO STOP ME FROM FEELING LIKE THIS, AS IF I WAS DISRUPTING THE SIMULATION SO THEY SAME AND DO RANDOM THINGS LIKE RANDOTRON FROM RICK AND MORTY IS CONTROLLING THEM. THIS LIFE SUCKS FOR THEM BECAUSE THEY ARE TRAPPED BECAUSE OF YOUUUUU but then it’s also like Yo I’m just actually high as balls rn and other people experience the same high I do but going in a diff perspective so the high itself is different

12:21 Sorry for the LITERAL FLOW OF STONED AF CONSCIOUSNESS

[thetoxicgamer]

Assassin’s Creed is Too Big – AC: Mirage Has to Be Smaller and Shorter

The sprawling stealth RPG game Assassin's Creed from Ubisoft has grand goals for scale and historical scope. The games have a lot to say. For example, when you launch Assassin's Creed: Syndicate, an in-game dialogue prompts you to read more than 50 "codex entries" before you even move as Jacob Frye. This dedication to thoroughness and accuracy is probably good in a way, but Assassin's Creed: Mirage, which releases before Codename Red and AC: Infinity, needs to be shorter, smaller, and more focused on stealth if the AC series is to remain interesting. There’s this common conflation in videogames – with Assassin’s Creed being a premier examples – between quantity and value. From developers to players, “more” is synonymous in gaming with “better” – longer playtimes, varied features, and different playable modes are the signifiers of a good, or at least “worth your money” videogame. This goes back about as far as I can remember: in 1997, Final Fantasy VII felt like it was a more valuable and quality game because it came on three discs rather than one. But I think the butterfly that flapped its wings, and caused our current dynamic where anything below 20 hours, and without open-world elements is likely to be regarded as less valuable, is Assassin’s Creed 2. Assassin’s Creed 2 was a fawning, grovelling apology for the first Assassin’s Creed. If the first game had you doing the same follow/listen/assassinate missions over and over again, Assassin’s Creed 2 had sidequests, customisation, your own personal mansion, and multiplayer-driven spinoffs. It created a kind of template for open-world games thereafter. From Far Cry to MGS 5, and even something smaller scale like Remedy’s Control, that format, whereby you travel between map sectors, start with small quests, work your way up to a boss encounter, use the resources and points you’ve gained to upgrade yourself, and then repeat with the next zone, finds its initial, defining form in AC 2. At the time it was unbelievable – so much to do! So much to see! They’ve really listened to the fans! But in the last 13 years, Assassin’s Creed has expanded, swelled, and gorged on itself (and other games, including and especially from Ubisoft, have copied its format to such an extent) that it feels difficult to assign it any credible identity. It’s a stealth action RPG puzzle platformer set in the past and future, following the Greeks, Vikings, Knights, Templars, alongside the American, and French Revolutions, in Victorian London, and Renaissance Italy, and Ancient Egypt, and Syrian Holy Lands, across 12 main games and several spin-offs encompassing single-player and multiplayer. I suppose that sounds almost standard nowadays for a big gaming franchise, but when it comes to delivering something cogent and solid about its respective historical periods, or an intelligible story, or systems and mechanics that are focused and refined, it feels as if Assassin’s Creed is spread way too wide, and so I offer some potential changes that I would like to see made for Assassin’s Creed: Mirage. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x55lAlFtXmw First, drop the futuristic stuff. That Desmond Miles, Abstergo, Animus frame narrative, I’ve always suspected it was a concession made to convention and marketability in the first Assassin’s Creed that ended up just sticking – in 2007, a game set entirely within 11th-century Damascus might have been viewed as too unusual, too new, and too likely to distance action and RPG game fans, so the modern-day narrative was built around and on top of Assassin’s Creed to try and make it more accessible and palatable. But all it’s really done is make AC more contrived. Which one sounds better? A game where you play an assassin in Ancient Greece, or a game where you play someone who becomes an assassin in Ancient Greece by lying inside a machine that creates a virtual reality simulation out of their biologically encoded memories? I would say it’s the first one – simpler, firmer, and more true to the AC series’ ambitions towards capturing history. So, Assassin’s Creed: Mirage can just cut out the middle person. I want to play as an assassin in ninth-century Baghdad. I don’t want to play as someone who themselves is playing as an assassin in ninth-century Baghdad. Second, I don’t think that Assassin’s Creed needs to be an RPG any more. In 2009, with the release of AC 2, the size of Ubisoft’s game world and the myriad options and paths it offered to players was – if not unique – then at least distinctive and laudable in how expertly it was delivered. Now, to make a kind of rhetorical generalisation, it’s like everything is an RPG; everything is open-world. The same size, scale, and variation that once made Assassin’s Creed stand out is now what makes it feel like every other videogame. If the series needs its identity back, if Assassin’s Creed might become again what it once was, a videogame like no other, it needs to be shorter, leaner, and committed to maybe sacrificing player freedom and expression for the sake of its historical drama. Put more simply, I would rather a 10-hour game that handholds me through a series of deliberately designed missions and moments, and in the process offers a cohesive, perhaps even subjective view of history, than a 40-plus-hour game where I can do whatever I want, and the history is laid out for me, like so many books in a library. I think you learn and feel more in a game when the developer, as it were, remains on hand to guide you through its various pretensions. Assassin’s Creed, particularly in recent years, feels incredibly lonely, like Ubisoft is simply loosing us into a jungle of missions, things to do, and things to see, but without offering the required – and much more fulfilling — context and guidance. And lastly, I would like Assassin’s Creed to abandon its ongoing and serial narrative – rather than hooking everything together with Knights, Templars, and this ever-present historical conflict, I would sooner each game serve as a standalone episode in a kind of anthology, with their own characters, own settings, and own start-and-finish stories. It’s the infinitude of Assassin’s Creed that is really starting to weaken it, the endlessness and, as a result, thinness and diffuseness of its plot that never seems to reach any kind of conclusion, and gets dragged over into each successive game via increasingly contrived premises. One game, one setting, one plot. Next game, a different setting, different characters, and a plot that begins and ends without any attempts to build an encompassing, multi-entry “universe”. Focusing on a specific place in history each time, without needing to conjure in all the storyline baggage from three or four or five games ago, would let Assassin’s Creed give more attention to the details, finer points, and realities of their settings. Queen Victoria could just be Queen Victoria, rather than being manipulated from behind the scenes by the Knights Templar. From there, Assassin’s Creed could seriously start to explore the facts of history and deliver some more potent drama as a result. Will any of this happen? The cynic in me says absolutely not. Meanwhile, the part of me that hates the part of me that’s a cynic wants to think so – possibly, maybe. Assassin’s Creed: Infinity, the ostensible multiplayer hub designed to somehow tie the whole franchise together, causes me doubt, even from its name. Mirage, Codename Red, and Codename Hexe however, which seem to be positioned as smaller games, isolated from the main body of AC, give me a little hope. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gD_DemeUuy8 When the first game launched in 2007, I admired its vision, its commitment, so to speak, “to the bit”. A stealth game set in 11th century Syria. In the time of Call of Duty 4, Halo 3, and the long tail of Gears of War, Assassin’s Creed – conceptually at least – felt like something completely different. Thanks to its own success, and dozens of games emulating the format laid down in AC 2, the series now is basically like everything else. Given a bit of a reboot, a hard reset, and a re-commitment to some of its initial aspirations, Assassin’s Creed could be made much better. If you’re a big Assassin’s Creed fan, you might want to try some other great open-world games. There are also some fantastic stealth games on PC, as well as sandbox games where you can explore even further your inner hit-person. Read the full article

[loki-who-remains]

I don’t think I’m smarter, but I have some thoughts!

Employees

Although time inside the TVA totally exists and it is linear in a way that provides causality, it might work differently on a local scale of one person. Mobius said that times flows differently, but I think he just perceives it subjectively, from the point of his personal experience. And in the end, time is relative, which we feel in our real world too.

Speculation time. I think bio processes of the employees are locked in a time loop. This way they don’t age and die naturally, and their bio activity can be limited to make them feel normal and not questioning reality, but still efficient. (If you’ve watched Doctor who s9e11 ‘Hell bent’, there’s a similar thing happening to Clara. Through timelords’ tech she’s taken from a moment just before her death, and is suspended in time. She doesn’t have a pulse and it freaks her out) And given that HWR is older than he looks, I bet he figured out how to manipulate time on different scales. He’s a scientist from the future, after all.

My only problem here is, OB’s memories are re-written in real time, but Mobius, B-15 or Casey don’t have sudden revelations about remembering Loki in their past. Maybe memory wipes affect that? Maybe HWR wiped their memories because Loki interfered with the past? Or maybe so much happened between now and then that they don’t really remember that. (Although to me Casey is the one who looks a bit confused. (And how can you forget Hiddleston yeeting himself in the window?))

The bureaucracy

The TVA itself is just an efficient bureaucracy. Which means that it has a whole bunch of departments, procedures, rules and articles, and everything is interconnected. It is hell when you need to ask something from it, but works like a clockwork factory when it does what it’s meant to do. The city outside could be producing energy, but Speculation time. I think they actually get that enormous energy from processing ‘raw time’ through the Loom. When the Loom malfunctions we see that the city has power surges too.

The city

I am not very sure about the city though. One can go outside but the buildings are so tall they need flying cars. If the whole huge ass TVA is the one keeping watch on the timelines, what all other people do, indeed? The city outside might be in fact smaller but because of the characteristics of the TVA out-of-time bubble or whatever it might appear endless when in fact it’s not.

Speculation time. The TVA and its city exist near or inside a black hole or a simulation of one. (It could be just a simulation, too. But if I’d write for a Marvel 2023 show I’d bring in some fiction-scienced black holes. Besides, OB is the first person, iirc, who mentioned black holes and spaghettification in MCU. Is it a coincidence? Why would he have that specific knowledge in a time managing institution? Anyway, I might be wrong) That doesn’t necessarily explain the time flow or why the city outside appears like that, but the event horizon (or its equivalent) would make the TVA invisible, unobservable and undetectable by anyone, including evil Kangs.

There’s another theory that the TVA + city exist in a bubble in the quantum realm. In terms of MCU science it’s much more plausible than mine. My only problem with that is the time doors would need to function as spacetime portals as well as Pym particles, and I had an impression that changing sizes affects your brain (?). But again, HWR, his variants and OB can probably compensate for that with some clever science trick and make the transition between timelines/spaces effortless. I would accept this theory fully if minutemen had to be dispatched in quantum realm at one point. BUT it would mean that Kang could’ve escaped without his time chair device? Ngl, MCU’s quantum realm confuses me a lot!

I'm not a meta writer but I'll get my thoughts out as best as I can.

I'm personally so interested in the TVA lore so much. Have we even gotten an answer to what exactly that city is? The one you can see outside the TVA. Cause I'm fascinated by its function in regards to the agency.

So ok. Supposedly time isn't "a thing" there, it's completely outside of the sacred timeline meaning it's not linear BUT as we've seen this new season, there is a future and a past, meaning there's a line there.

Something I always asked myself as well is the routines of ppl working at the TVA. Are they just constantly working? Ouroboros said he doesn't sleep, he just works, meaning they don't need sleep BUT they are all still human cause they're variants. Do they even have bodily functions? Mobius likes to drink and he likes sweets, so does he feel hunger? If he feels hunger does he get tired? Loki did fall asleep at the desk, so that erases the idea that existing within the TVA strips you of bodily needs.

Also. Do they have private rooms/houses? Or just their desks? Where do they live? Do they have alone time? Which takes me back to the city: is THAT where they live? Is the TVA (the building itself) just like an office place? If the people that live here don't sleep and are always working, what's the purpose of this city we see outside? ARE THESE QUESTIONS DUMB AND I'M JUST NOT SMART ENOUGH TO GET THE LORE?

Someone smarter than me please answer lmao I'm going crazy over this stuff.

[echoweaver]

I was just having a PM chat with another simmer about Sims 3 game performance, and I thought maybe it would be worth posting this stuff publicly. There are other game performance guides around the Internet, but this is mine.

Sims 3 is an old game. It’s enormously ambitious, and I wish they’d built a better data management engine in the beginning when they knew they were going to try to simulate basic behavior for an entire town over generations. When it runs like crap, it’s natural to assume that the problem is the computer, but the truth is that in 2021, the major reason that the game gets laggy is the GAME. It’s almost never the computer.

Sims 3 is a 32-bit game. That means that it has huge limitations on how much memory it can access. If you have the long-address patch (which if you have your game patched up to 1.67+ you will have), then the total memory the game can use is 4G. Before long addressing, the max usable memory was 2G, and the game stopped being able to function in that amount after about the 4th expansion I think.

It doesn’t matter if you have a 64-bit operating system, which you probably do. Sims 3 has to run in 32-bit backward compatibility.

There’s a lot of advice on how to improve performance. Some of it worked in the past but doesn’t now. Some of it never worked. Here are the things I know of that actually do make Sims 3 run better: 1. NRaas mods ErrorTrap and Overwatch: Even if you hate mods, you want these. They don’t change the behavior of the game. They fix bugs that bloat the game and corrupt save files. I honestly don’t know how anyone plays generational games without these. I’ve spoken to a lot of players over the years who don’t mod because they consider it dangerous to their game. I can see that reasoning, but not for these two mods.

2. An FPS (frames-per-second) limiter. This gets really technical, but the jist of it is that Sims 3 was written at a time when computers didn’t have nearly the graphics resources they have today. Because of this, it’s written to use ALL the resources it can get to generate the maximum number of visual frames it can. On a modern computer it’s likely to generate hundreds of frames per second when you only need 30 fps, and no matter how studly a computer you give it, it’s likely to chew up those extra resources generating more frames you’ll never see. When I added FPS limiting, suddenly the fan on my computer went quiet. It was stunning. I don’t see this issue discussed nearly as much as other ones, probably because of the confusing technical reasons, but it might be the biggest thing you can do for your game performance.

For certain graphics cards, you can limit the frames generated in the graphics config. I used Bandicam for years. You need to run it before you launch Sims and set FPS to 30 on the video tab. HOWEVER, I stopped using Bandicam when Smooth Patch (below) came out. You want maximum FPS of 30. That’s the maximum number that’s useful to the eye except arguably for first person shooters and virtual reality. [Note: Other simmers are telling me that they think somewhat higher frame rates can be a big visual improvement for their games. I think I’ll try 60 for a while myself and see. A lot of games target 30, so it’s worth trying out some limits to see what you think. When you’re talking about modern hardware, 60fps is almost the same for performance as 30. Whatever the case, don’t set it higher than the refresh rate on your monitor. Anything over that literally can’t be displayed.]

3. Smooth Patch by LazyDuchess. This is some kind of runtime injection magic that updates the way some threading is done in the game. the biggest thing it affects is loading the catalogues in CAS and build/buy, but it can make games load faster tool. As an afterthought, the config file includes frame rate limiting, so you can just forget about #2 above and set FPSlimit=30 after installing Smooth Patch.

4. CC Magic. This is a cc organizer, which is very nice to have in its own right. The big performance deal is that it merges your cc into big packages for you. Merged packages are better for performance but a living hell to do manually.

So that’s it! I’ve done a lot of fiddlier stuff, but I think these things are the most bang for your buck.

[theantarwitch]

Dream Interpretation – How do it (long ass post)

Our brains use the dreams to teach us, to face us with experiences that we don’t overcome yet, to make us ready to face situations we don’t live yet, to process what we lived the past day, to create, to get messages from other universes/ spaces/ entities, to have fun, to heal.

Our brains somehow KNOW what do you need to know or learn. And they do it in the safety of our dreams, because no matter if you fall from an airplane without parachute or if you are drowning in the sea, you are SAFE. And that’s why our brains can allow us to face real hells and cataclysms, because we can learn in the safety of our beds. Dreams are the ultimate simulator, because we (usually) don’t know that’s a dream, so we face it as if was real, having in mind the consequences but without really feel them in the reality.

Dreams are complex, maybe the most complex part of the human mind, because often is mixing full nonsense with unconscious stuffs of which we have little to no knowledge. Is little logical, is random.

So, how do an accurate dream interpretation?

Well, mostly of the people who start to navigate with the topic of “What this dream means” fall into the trend of following the “List” of what each thing means, using the same idea based in Freud’s book The Interpretation of Dreams from 1899. They use the list alone (X means this. B means this), as they throw away the deep remaining part. Is the 99% of the results in Google, each one saying pretty much the same meaning with some subtle variations.

And even when in some cases these interpretations can be correct, we need to remember that brains don’t work like that (and that’s why read the FULL BOOK is important, just as I remember you that Freud said a lot of useless crap).

Even with well documented mental illnesses, and with real “Manuals” as the DSM, is well known that each mind is different. Medicine, in a physical or psychological way, is known to need a holistic approach, to understand each particular person as a whole and not as a bunch of parts, in a way to give the best treatments. Separate a dream to a basic list will erase the 90% of the dream meaning.

Starting with the basic, “Write it down as soon you wake up” advice, which is correct. Our brains “produce” dreams using a part that need to be restful during sleep and activated a little in sleep to produce dreams. When we wake up, that part get fully activated and the memory of the dream will leave fast. We also usually remember the last dream before wake, experts say we dream at least four to six times a night, so there are dreams that we will forget just by stay asleep.

Write it all, but not only what you saw, but even more important, WHAT YOU FEEL. I tend to separate in parts to check the dream in depth. This kind of questions are extremely important, because is what will allow you to interpret it (please be free to add more and modify these things as you need it). Based in all what you write and in the different parts, you can do an analysis, which, by the way, will be complex.

Space and Time: Let’s say is the physical aspect of the dream, all what’s around you and happening. You can apply a little of the “Freud’s list” and see if something applies to you, but I would not take anything of it at all. Basically you will pay attention to the context. Here you can also take the symbolic aspect, so if you ask for certain stuffs to any deity/ ancestors/ entities as a sign, they must show up in this “category”.

You can put what happened (the main plot), where (real physical space, inside or outside, country, unknown), when (past, present, future, day or night), what was the place (building, a school, your house, forest), who was there (you, others, animals, pets), what you do (your interactions), you were you or someone else (be in the body of someone else or animal), what objects you saw (symbolic objects, unusual objects, unusual colors, things that pop up), five senses (what you see, sounds, smell, taste, touch)?

Direct Message: All the info, verbally or written that you get from others. What they say (the main talk, the dialogues), do you read something (important because is hard to read, the brain can’t use the part to process reading being asleep, so is definitely a sign of something huge)?

Feels: The important part, how emotionally you react in all the dream. How do you feel there (happy, scared, content, afraid, neutral, in love, confused), what did you know (you knowing what will happen, know things that are not apparent), which interactions of stuffs changed your feelings (things that scare you, make you happy, traumatic events), was enlightening (important messages), what seems odd (know something is odd even when you are not sure), what feels familiar (be comfy in an unusual place), you lived again something that happened in real life (common learning process, dream with play a game you was playing, live a movie you watch), was new (fresh new dreams), was impossible or absurd (the door of your fridge lead to Paris), was something you desired (dreams with your crush, gender change, anything you desire), was something you expected (dreams that have sense and you can expect what will happen), was a song stuck in your brain (des-pa-cito), you were aware was a dream (lucid dream)?

Here you will be beneficiated if you know a little of psychology, how the unconscious mind works, etc, and that’s why not a lot of people do it, and also why the “easy list” is so popular.

So take your text and try to relate the stuffs you saw with your current life. What kind of dream seems to be? Is based in your fears? Desires? Seems to be focused in symbols or interactions with others? You feel like it was trying to teach you something or heal? The answer will be in your head, because your brain will not make you dream about something that you have no idea. Legit, each face you see in the people on your dream, come from people you saw irl.

What you see in your dreams can be tricky. A bull is a bull, but if you hate bulls, your mind will use it as a bad thing. A snake can symbolize a fake person, but if you love snakes, your mind will use it as a good thing. So focus in what it means PERSONALLY. What you think your brain is saying? Is nonsense (which happens a lot, so don’t worry)?

There is even a chance that your brain is yelling you something that consciously you don’t want to hear. The conscious mind hates conflicts, hates be pushed, hates have their ideals shacked and changed, they love the status quo, so in our dreams, our unconscious can try to undo old bad patters and habits. This is the “meaning” that become the hardest to notice.

How many kinds of dreams are? MANY. Some count 10, some 7, some 50. There is a small list:

Nightmares: Bad scary dreams based in random events, like “a tsunami is coming”. These events don’t happen in real life, so your brain usually use it to make you ready to act. The perfect simulator.

Night Terrors: There is no real dream, you get awake scared, sweating and usually sited up and no really fully awake. Common in periods of high stress.

Nonsenses: The WTF dream, wtf do you take before sleep? Dude wtf???

Lucid: You are aware that’s a dream and you can do whatever you want there. Uncommon, it needs a LOT of training and is not recommended.

Symbolic: You see things with high meaning, that blue bird you were asking as a sign, your deities taking you, ancestors and past loved ones are there, messages.

Traumatic: Like nightmare but based in real traumatic past events, your brain is trying to cope and overcome it somehow.

Recurring: That dream you have all the time where you lick a wall as you hear despacito, you are tired to dream the same all the time, usually is your brain trying to take your attention.  

Prophetic: Witchy dream of future events.

Vivid: You can fly and do stuffs and you love it and you want to back to sleep.

Ordinary: When you dream with washing the dishes or when you dream with whatever you studied the night before or with cubes after 5 hours of Minecraft.

Common: These that everyone has, like the falling dream, be naked in public, teeth falling, be chased by something, back in school even if you have 45 years old, flying, pregnancy.

So, with all this, how do know the meaning of the dream? By sit and think. Knowing all this, having all in consideration, the only way is the hard way: by thinking. Yes, is not what anyone wants, but there are no shortcuts. If you want to master the skill to analyze your dreams (and from others), and be able to tell the root of it, the only way is treating it as any other skill. Learning, reading, trying, writing.

I repeat: Dreams are unique. There are not two the same not even in the same person, it depends on the holistic approach. And as a doctor need learn before tell if is a virus or a bacteria, a Dream Interpreter need to learn too.

How learn? Read about dreams, how dreams work, the chemical and medical process of it, read about psychology, the unconscious, the ego, read about symbolism. Just as the witches do since we exist.

[sanghyukstattoos]

SF9's reaction: blowjobs?

Genre: fluff-fluff-fluff; smut (contains oral, praise kink, dom/sub themes, mutual masturbation, semi-public sex) / [Warnings: dumbification, mentions of crying, degrading names (slut), some unprotected sex]

A/N: None of the images in the collage are mine, refer to here for more; For more SF9, read here, for iKON, read here and for optional bias writings, read here

Youngbin:

Since you asked anon, ahaha

You sigh, shifting in your seat, partly to relieve yourself of the ache in your glutes; party in frustration from Youngbin who is seated next to you, dozing off. Truthfully, you find it funny and what's not to about it? He looks cute from the angle you are sitting at, holding himself by the palm of his hand that leans on the other arm-rest of the cinema chair. You don't want to wake him up, empathetic for all those schedules he had, yet he asked you- insisted really, to meet him up here. Well, you did predict with a 100% accuracy that he would fall asleep. You are all the way at the back, it's been long since you've seen him, you want him and you can have him, right now (?). It's not risky, more enticing as you shiver from excitement. You do not know what compels you to do this, perhaps a daring combination of lust and longing. You giggle, eyes drawing to the screen and the people. Oh you are loving this movie but what can you do about it? You carefully get onto your knees, rather quickly, ignoring the ache in between your inner thighs. It's all nimble because of the nervousness, you shakily unbutton his trousers, tug them down and then his boxers. You look up, is he really asleep? Deeper sleep than you thought? You wouldn't be surprised. Make the best out of every situation. You spit on your hands and pump him a few times and there's the bulge that you would have seen as an outline if you were at home. You take him in your mouth, wet and warm and that's when he jerks awake, like a small one, 'I've woken up' is the appropriate saying. You bob your head, increasing your grip on his thigh, holding yourself back from touching yourself, it'd be more pleasurable that way. He takes a couple of seconds but his hands automatically fly to the back of your head, caressing your hand and he wants to tell you, ''Good girl, you take me so well.'' which he does, in a whisper and it does absolutely nothing to quell the ache in your wet core, you clench your thighs together even harder at his words. Your smile grows, maybe in shyness or in a state of bliss, albeit not as much if it was his cock stuffed inside your pussy, you fondle his balls, flattening your tongue to the underside where a vein lies. He's nervous now, undoubtedly as he looks around but he doesn't want to stop you and he does not till you've milked him dry with your mouth.

Inseong:

He's reading something, or rather, he's studying, maybe English, you've forgotten what it was, an hour and then another passing since he's started. He got a little bit distracted at first, quickly getting up from his seat and walking to where you where, entering the room, hovering over you, pressing kisses to your neck and chest, so close to grinding his hips over yours when you pushed him away, hand on his chest, ''Don't you have to study?'' to which he moaned about something- nonsense mumbles and buried his head in your chest (he was in a whining mood). It made you laugh, honestly. ''You're so sweet you know?'' you said, clutching his cheeks and directing his gaze at you and he chuckled, shy, reminding himself and you, that he had to study (unfortunately). You smiled as he left not expecting him for another hour or so, bringing your laptop back to your lap. The comforters smell like him and his rather luxurious body lotion he uses + that, plus you can't stop thinking of his silk pyjamas, should you tease him about it or not? You contemplate that, at approximately thirty minutes past, around the same time he stalks into the room with extra light footsteps. All the while he was studying, he thought of all the encouraging words your gave him when he first told you that he was taking this test and suddenly, one of the memories was of you saying, ''You've done so well you know''- a non-sexual situation with that smile of yours, beaming for him, that made his heart curl up into a ball and continue to do his best for you. He was in that mood, he felt relief when he got up from his seat and made his way to you. You welcomed him with open arms, ''Hey baby'', nuzzling his hair, hovering over him. You needed him too but you were up for something else today. Something a little more dominating, you needed to know if he was okay with it today, feeling like it. There's a lot going on his eyes, he's silent but looking, growing more happy the further your fingers go, trailing downwards to his hips and hooking in the band of his joggers, the loose material- ''Did you finish studying?'' you ask. The words come too suddenly for him, the moment of truth that decides what your actions will be and he gulps, growing nervous. His groin stirs at what you could do but he replies, ''A-almost, almost done you know''. You smile, he's nervous so he hasn't done what he was supposed to; you also think that it is perfect. You bite your lip and pulls his joggers to his ankle revealing his semi-hard cock, ''You sound nervous baby'', you lean down and place a kiss on his lower tummy, not bothering to see the expression on his face. He doesn't want to lie to you and he hasn't- he could wing that test any day. He lies in anticipation, not saying anything like you, you simply smile and pump him, resulting in a slight thrust of his hips into your hand and when he's hard, you spit on his tip and stroke him, hearing heavy breaths and moans, he absolutely loves your mouth on him but he knows that this night won't end as he wants it too- you've got something up your sleeve and he can feel it. You chuckle at the way he has lifted his head to peer at you, the way you swallow his cock but most of all, how your warm mouth feels around him. You bob your head, giving him encouraging squeezes on his inner thighs so he knows that he's doing well till the time he's about to release. You love this part, just to tease him. Tears prick at his eyes when you stop before he is about to release. You come up and take him into your arms at the sight. When you hold him, that's when the waterfall begins and you hold him till you hear sniffles. You wipe his tears and kiss him softly, with reassurance, ''How about this: you go study, do your best while you are at it and then we'll think about we can solve your problem later huh?''. He nods and stays in your arms for sometime, snuggling into you before he leaves for the study room.

Jaeyoon:

You steadily walk through the thick, velvet blue curtains, calming your haste by the soothing clicking of your shoes. Upon entering the wide hall, you pause and marvel at the sight. It's so beautifully decorated, you think, complimenting the production designers and workers on their work and effort. Past the rows and rows of empty seats that, fingers crossed, will be completely filled for the show, you spot Jaeyoon, the main lead and his female lead hunched together, viewing something on a camera. It was rumoured that Jaeyoon was difficult to work with. At first you presumed that it was because of his personal life, uncontrollable perhaps? Or because of his attitude, he could find it hard to cope with the reality of his fame or maybe he had anger issues, because of it or independently, you didn't know for sure. Or it could be false so you kept your prejudices to yourself. No point in being presumptuous you thought, you didn't even know the guy. Then. You watched him perform, eyes gleaming at the whole thing itself. Credit where credit was due, they were amazing and after weeks of preparation, a standing ovation was what they deserved. Backstage, you asked him if he wanted to go for a show, a neighbouring one? ''To see the competition?'' his tone was playful and he was smiling, ''I don't mind''. Palpable, he found his core tightening, ever since last week. How close were the two of you? Well, he had you almost naked under him until you were interrupted by the bell and he had to leave. It had been a week. He had pushed you on the bed, hastily kissing you, hovering over with a buzz in his head- the wine from dinner. Then. Their stage was equally impressive, given your live commentary throughout where the two of you had your mouth continuously open, whether you were gasping or just talking, obviously annoying the people left, right, front and back. They could see two heads touching, whispering something. His cologne invaded your nose, warm breath fanning the shell of your ear, saying something to you. You couldn't respond, sexual tension present, until he shook you, urging himself away from kissing you. A light one, like a peck on the cheek. You were so close and he felt like taking you home, telling you how he felt and undressing you, so many things to unwrap. The former was obvious. In an empty space in the hall, long after everyone was gone, you resumed what you couldn't after being busy all week long. You urgently kiss him, feeling his taste on your tongue, like last week. You only look up to see if there's anyone in there but you brain is running a hundred simulations at once and nothing seems dangerous enough so you continue, breaths and hands, hot and heavy on one another. You gasp, he's pulling the material of your dress up and feeling your backside, pressing you against his bulge. You tug open his belt and slide down on your knees and you are sure, absolutely, that someone has walked through the door just now. It's not the door to the space that you are in but beyond that, somewhere else, you aren't concerned. You leave a trail of saliva on his cock and pump him a few times, looking at him, peering up, knowing the effect you have on him. He's not keen on your teasing, prolonging, he fists your hair and guides his cock into your mouth. All the way to the back, your hands grip his thighs and squeeze, gagging at the intrusion in between your lips but you like it, reaching for your clit and rubbing, sighing in relief at the ache. He pulls out and fills your mouth again and he's thinking of the warmth, how good you feel there but there's impatience in his nature. He can't help it, he pulls you up and wipes the tears from your eyes, bending you over a bare table. It's a rush to take off your underwear and stuff it in his pockets, entering you without warning till he's sheathed to the hilt, having you gasp and cry out at the stretch. He kisses you hard on the mouth and then covers the noises you make, bringing your chest up, back to his chest, thrusting into your heat, saying, ''Be good for me, okay? Keep quiet.'',

trailing off to moan into your ear. You nod, crying in his hand, trying to keep the noises at bay, easy compliance which he finds hot, he didn't know you had this in you. You release your juices around his cock, slumping on the table whose corners you've gripped really hard, loosening it, whimpering, fumbling for his wrists, you feel overstimulated. ''Hold on, I'm there, alright dove?'' he coos, fucking you once, twice and then through his release, milking your insides. He tugs your dress down and his trousers up and you turn over and slip into his arms, kissing him, love over lust, giggling together and going home together.

Dawon I Lee Sanghyuk:

Simple, he's come home from work, exhausted but not too much to drop and you are preoccupied by your thoughts, about him. He takes you into his arms, sitting by the edge of the bed, upright, you grow needier as you straddle him. But you could wait. The kisses grow needier, passionate, like melting your bodies against one another, that feeling is present, every time. He pulls back for a breather and touches your foreheads, it's cute and makes you smile, tugging on his suit jacket which he takes as a sign to remove. ''What'd you want to do?'' he asks. His voice is soft and envelopes only the space between the two of you despite this being your house with no one else in it. ''Sit here'' and his lower belly stirs in arousing mystery, he knows what you have in mind, much more significance present whether or not you put it into words. You get off him and stand less than arm length away, taking off your clothes. He watches hungrily, taking in every detail connected with your body for example the way the fabric moves when you slip it off. You are graceful with it. You could be hasty and he would still find it sensual, he loves you naked. There isn't much to remove, just a shirt, no bra and panties. His mouth goes dry when you are only in your panties. He loves when you sleep like that. You gasp, biting down on your bottom lip, he tugs you closer to him and reaches out for the space between your legs, rubbing your clit over the material, evoking such beautiful sensations that have you curling at the knees. But first, as much as you want to go on, you nod and he takes his hand away, giving you a small smile as you get on your knees, never leaving his eyes, his intense gaze. When you are on your knees, in between his legs, he takes the liberty of grasping the back of your head and kissing you, leaning down to kiss you, he loves doing this every time and explains it as power play. Fuck, you think about how hot it is, his dominance over you. You sit on your heels, hands obediently on your knees, staring at his fingers working on taking his cock out. All the while, he thinks of your behaviour, observing your patience, your submission, heavy turn-ons for him. Your core is aching, in waiting, you had grown more aroused. Has it been the waiting or the change in atmosphere? He spits on his hand and pumps himself a few times and then slowly guides your mouth onto it, not giving you a chance to adjust to the intrusion in your mouth before pulling back and filling your mouth up again. Tears spill from your eyes, you gag on his cock as it hits the back of your throat but you don't object or touch him, instead fisting your hands on your knees and allow him to use your mouth. Next, he will use your core. So many thoughts, you are leaking in your panties when he moans out, ''You're doing so well.'', turning your cheeks pink and urging yourself to do even more better. You look up at his expression, nearly crying from the pleasure you are able to give him. ''Look at yourself baby, fuck, I'm fucking you dumb aren't I? Just a little slut to be used, on my cock.'' he turns you towards the small mirror on the floor, not far from the bed, leaning against the wall and big enough for you to see yourself in it. His words make you nod, he is pleased at the agreement in your eyes. He pulls you off his cock, watching a trail of saliva connect the tip of his cock and your open mouth, greedily sucking in air as if you had not been breathing moments before. He makes you keep silent by having you moan and cry out into his hand that covers your mouth, controlling the volume of your sounds as he pounds into you from behind, fully filling you to the brim, ''I know baby, I like using you.''. When he cleans the two of you up, he joins you in bed where hours later, you cock warms him, giggling and laughing about your day when he tells jokes and pinches your nipples, giving you precious love bites.

Rowoon I Kim Seokwoo:

Seokwoo is hovering above you, smiling like crazy. This is the first time you entrust yourselves to each other, sexually. From stripping each other of one's clothes and feverishly pressing kisses in all the right places, you've held back- in the back of his car while watching the fireworks, on the sofa strapped to the back of his truck when you helped him change house and last week, when he appeared all sheepish, ringing the bell and pressing you against the door with loving, I-want-to-make-love-to-you kisses after you told him that your parents were out. You stare at him, soaking in his expressions. Your clothes are on and as much as the two of you have eagerly waited for this moment, you start to relish it in. To take in all the details of your first night together. How did you end up here? That was a good question now for the night appeared faster than the day. The memories of the morning enlighten but here, here there is a different glow. Particularly the light from outside, bathing it's yellow's and orange's on your precious bodies, day illuminating your sight of one another. He sees a flash of nervousness in your eyes or ''This...'', not sure how you want to put it into words to which he instantly caresses your arms, gently, every so slowly, locking your lips in a soft, passionate embrace like he wants to tell you a million words made of the bright morning star and dark evening silvers combined. It sparks a need within you, in between primal and not, fucking loving. Heat slowly growing in you, you pull him back to your lips, touching your body, lips, legs to his, entangling. There the fire grows or perhaps, the heat. Heart of heart, hand in hand, you straighten up, sitting on your backside instead of laying and conscious of each other's movements, he moves back till he is on his back, head having not met the bed sheets purely in favour of seeing what you are about to do. One could say that he is curious, like a cat with it's ears poking up to the sound of a doorbell or wrapper crinkling. The latter for later, you think, grinning. He bites his lip, mouth almost asking, ''What are you doing baby?'' to which you say, ''Just you wait'', reading the words from lips. ''I can wait'' he says, almost saying, I've waited for so long, I can wait!. You think that he's cute, never more before than at this moment. The last time you were here, he was the one in this position. You move to in between his legs, trailing your fingers over his legs, toppling his nerves over the edge. Before he can move, which the movement resembles a jerk upwards, you push him back down, reassuring him. First with a kiss to his collarbone, travelling to deliver another kiss to his lips, cutting to the chase, ''Relax'', soothingly, ''I've got you.'', relaxing him till you see his expression soften and him nod, holding your arms. Then you go down, never letting go off the link between your eyes, core tingling with the buzzing of arousal as you pull his boxers off his legs, allowing his fully hard cock to spring from the previous confines. It's a sight to behold, right in front of you, mouth parting in awe at his cock. He looks at you nervously for a second and then thinks that he shouldn't have to be, he's safe with you, more than comfortable and he could sink into it; that's how you make him feel. He smiles when you reach for his hand, entwining your fingers, giving a little squeeze before you release, coating spit with your fingers and palm and spreading it across his cock, including his precum with a swipe. When you first touch him, he flinches but not in a bad way, it's a little unexpected but nothing to be worried about. He instantly calms, his heart racing all the same, throwing his head back and letting a groan escape him when he feels the warmth of your mouth envelope him. It's enough to throw him a blissful state, to think that the whole situation makes him giddy. He wants you, loves you and he has to tell you that (again). You suck him off with the bobs of your head, hair swishing with very fill of his cock in between your lip, you

take a look more than every once in a while, twice to know his reactions. To see him pleased makes you chuckle, the vibrations tickling his spine, slightly lifting his lower back off the bed, that type of sensation. It sends waves of the sea to his mind, he's lost in the pleasure you give to him. His eyes snap open when he feels it coming, he hurries to tell you before you let him tumble over the edge, bordering past the realm of intense sensuality, ''Wait-'', ''What is it?'' you ask, already thinking, knowing. ''I want to'', pause, ''be in you before I come'' said with determination which makes you nod furiously, smiling at him with giddiness. ''Huh?'', leaves your lips in confusion but you shouldn't. High standards, you think because you know that he will give it to you. Silver clouds, silver clouds. He nods, forgetting to tell you that he wants to have you on your back and eat you out. ''You know that time, when we were almost about to?'' you nod at his questions, fully aware at the memories that spring, fresh to the mind. They make you even more excited. ''This, I've wanted to do this for a long time.'' he says, eyes losing their innocence that you are so used to, taking on a darker form, not literally but the expression behind them. He wants to devour you and as much as you find that phrase funny, it's true. He's already in between your legs, licking a stripe, much to your back that lifts off the bed in a bed of arousal and that luscious moan that you let out, it fills his ears like music and urges him to continue on, till you've spilled on his tongue, crying out his name.

Zuho I Baek Juho:

He was irked by you, especially at first. ''Be cordial'' he said, the words that his mother always repeated to him when he couldn't instantly connect or figure out someone's personality. He didn't have to understand the world, yet he set out too. And you knew it, his curiosity and you thought that someday, it would land him in trouble. Wrong people, the police would say, sighing at the unfortunate instance of a man that landed in hot waters with the arduous gang in the area. ''Ran his mouth and look what happened'', the other police officer would say, letting out another sigh. But over time, you let this prejudice you had of him, dwindle. Now, you want to protect this person, at least to the best of your ability. His breath was taken away when he first saw you. He was also a fumbling person with a clumsy nature which he couldn't help but he could play his cards right, yes? Around you, he wasn't so sure. He was enticed by you, purely by his perception of beauty. But, not only because you are beautiful, you connect to people like that. Only this time, he felt as if children were deciding your fate, playing and dabbling your meetings in juvenility. You had seen him fall on his backside, getting up in an admirable manner; spill food on himself, did he need a bib? It was minor, cute occurrences to you which he thought of in distaste. He was a sweet guy, considerate because he would always think of other people, like telling you that he found a melody he composed which reminded him of you or bringing food for a heart-broken-by-their-ex-and-crying-terribly friend. You knew each other plenty. Your friends felt as if you needed a push and there came one, in a way that neither of you expected. No one knew about it after the event. Now that you are in bed on your day off, cuddling with Ju while watching a show together, giving live commentary in each other's ears while the mood calls for other things which forget the tv, you chuckle. But to recall, it's from a couple of years ago: at a party, you secure a room, purely by surprise do you stumble in there. You are buzzed, Ju walks out from the bathroom adjoining the room, looking at you with wide eyes, pausing in his step. ''What are you doing in here?'', ''What-?'' collide from your mouths in a frenzy. The room grows hot, maybe it's just your embarrassment that you can't stand straight. But he manages to catch you, taking huge steps with his arms extended just so your bottom does not hit the ground. You thank him and ask him to give you some space which you find comical. He's looking at you with worry plus, you are leaning against the door which he wants to walk past but is he going to say something? probably not. ''I'm good'', ''You sure?'', ''Yea why?'' and then something and then he drops you home. He chuckles to your fast-asleep, softly-snoring self, finding you just a tinsy bit adorable then. ''Thank you Ju'', ''It's okay'' he says, nonchalantly, ''Hey'', ''Yea?'', ''I want to try something'' you are smiling now, he's genuinely curious. You kiss him on the cheek and make your way out, not sure what to say, not sure whether to turn back. The next time he sees you, he kisses you.

Library sex? The most unrealistic because Ju can't keep his breathy moans to himself and the shelf, I don't think they can handle such forces ad the people? 911. But I didn't end up writing a blowjob into that story like I had planned, instead I have something to share: sucking Ju off in a library when's he trying to find a book/reading? It's hot, very, maybe it stems from yours and Ju's excitement, extra energy meshing in such a way that after an intense make-out session by the end of a bookshelf, you get on your knees and suck him off, arousal surging in your body and watching his expressions of pleasure. I guess the equally hotter thing would be if he pulled you up and made you sit on a table, bunching your bottoms wherever and getting on his knees, ''I'll make you feel happy'' which makes you think, is he drunk off excitement?. Surely yes, he chuckles when he hears your whimpers, entwining one hand that you squeeze every time his fingers touch your sweet spots.

Yoo Taeyang:

Because I'm a sap, every story here is more or less a love story anon!

Here's my train of thought: You drop off your keys on the table, stretching your neck from a short journey of driving but a long day of work, hoisting your arms up into the air, discarding your clothes in the hamper or wherever, calling out, ''Taeyang?''. ''I'm in here!'', he responds, namely the bedroom. You can already imagine him on his side of the bed, laptop on lap, maybe picking out a pub to go to and a movie for movie night, in his joggers and lose t-shirt. You are right, after all, it has been three and a half million years since you married this man. You walk right into your shared bedroom with only your underwear on. Taeyang distracts himself by occupying you on his mind, seeing your backside when you bend to pick something up from your closet. ''This isn't a porno Taeyang, I can feel your eyes on my butt.'' you murmur disapprovingly. ''I'm sorry'' he says, ignoring the way his groin stirs. You climb on the bed, moving towards him. Bigger the bed, bigger the journey to your favourite person's arms. A smaller bed would do, smaller distance then. ''How was your day?'', ''So we are doing this huh? It was good, thank you for asking.'', ''Tell me about it.'' he says, laughing, pulling you into his arms. You recount your memories, picking the funny ones. You sink into his arms, almost falling asleep. ''What did you do today?'' you ask, wanting to hear a funny story. ''I went to shop groceries, I met the housewives from two blocks over, I wanted to dash but I couldn't'', ''Why?'' you chuckle, continuing, ''Why did you want to dash?''. Taeyang has no interest in people except the you and neighbours and for a while, you've been encouraging him to make friends outside the radius of your area, if he's comfortable with it. ''They seem to judge very quickly, I can't stand stuff like that. Anyways, we got to know one another and now we have a reservation to eat at their pub next Thursday. If you are not okay, we can cancel it.'', he slows down at the last part ''Really?!'', you exclaim, you are extra-extra-extra happy for him. He's making friends! ''Is it that one we wanted to go to but couldn't?'' you ask, and he marvels at your excitement with a smile and gleaming eyes, thinking suspiciously that he does want to go there but, at what cost? He wants to go with you, not them. It's a beautiful train of thought. After the conversation, you lie in silence, peaceful as he shuts off his laptop and turns his attention to you. It starts with the hands on your waist, ''Pretty'', they move to your back, entering your shirt and snapping open your bra which by then, he's already kissing you, telling you that he wants you, intimately, especially with the way he's moulding his lips against yours, groaning into your mouth. ''Let me have you?'' is his question, you nod. he caresses your backside and then your cheek, legs on either side of your head, filling your mouth with his cock. It's a careful situation, he goes slow and with caution so as to not hurt you, it takes a while to set the rhythm which is fine by both, you want this but not by hurting yourselves. You've got a wide view of him and even a little eye contact sets him off, with a steady rhythm, he is throbbing with arousal, moaning at the way your mouth takes him. When it's the opposite, he prefers you stand or lean against a wall and that he is on his knees with his fingers deep inside of you, plunging in to meet your sweet spots while he sucks and licks your clit. Your view is so pretty, he always starts with little kitten licks, like it's his first time and then he buries his tongue in between your folds, lapping up every little juice he can find. It ends with you either riding him or on your hands and knees as he takes you from behind.

The true ending is when you cuddle after a second round and he refuses to get up because he wants to stay with you but eventually the knowing-better side of him wins and you take a shower together, the equally intimate situation out of everything. He rubs the knots on your shoulders away and gives you the best message to your scalp ever, it's soothing and this time you almost fall asleep (hehe). He also loves it when you do it for him: lather his body in soap and run your hands along it; knead the knots of tension in certain parts of his body, maybe his lower back or calves due to dancing all day and shampooing his hair while he rests on his chest (with his back to your chest or even curled up in between your legs, with his head on your tummy). If the two of you are up for it, he'll pour some wine or champagne or whatever it is that you both prefer and sit on the opposite side of the tub with your legs on his, probably massaging your sore legs after a long day of work and have the best conversations with you.

Hwiyoung I Kim Youngkyun:

Gentle baby

Let me elaborate: It goes without saying that you are his favourite person. Without hesitation (he can't help it), he'll smile when he sees you, even if you are just passing by, perhaps in a hurry or not, he has to smile at you and have a little conversation, ''Hey, what are you up to?'', ''Really?'' when you tell him and just like that, he has every reason to smile, to get that little boost you give him. Every conversation you have with him is fruitful for example, he loves inviting you to drink beer with him and if you don't like it but can tolerate it like me, he's absolutely open to trying new things like a wine tasting session and some people are drunk by the end but he's doing that thing, whereby his hand is hovering behind your back and he's cautious to pull you out of being dashed if a drunk person stumbles in your way. His eyes twinkle when he speaks to you, a gleam not malicious but out of curiosity to know you even more, he likes you, now what? When you weren't officially together, he felt as if he couldn't give you hugs as openly as he wanted to, maybe out of shyness, maybe out of hesitancy especially if you didn't like it. But he got to that point where he was comfortable around you, enough to side hug you when he met you, front hug when he met you but wanted to cuddle and back hugs for surprise. Take those three and apply them to the now, those are his ways of showing you affection. He loves to have you in his arms, close to you, no matter what mood he is in, if he's feeling gloomy, he'll fall into your arms when you pull him in for a hug and lean on your shoulder, nestling his head in between your neck particularly if he's not feeling okay. He loves you with all his heart! When you first have sex and all the times after that, you figure out that he's not rough neither does he have that capability to do that to you. If you want to, he'll try it out but sometimes, he'll slip back into loving you, holding your hands above your head when you release, gently coaxing an extra release one from you when he's eating you out on a day when you came back home tired. There's a lot to unpack here but don't worry, I got it~ On a day when you are tired, he'll love to eat you out, when you are on the sofa and you legs dangle of the edge, he'll sit there and dive his head in between your legs. He'll want to hold your hands when he hears you whimper or cry out his name, squeezing them in comfort as if to say, ''You are so great baby, you're doing so well, release when you want to.'' but don't forget, he going to absolutely tease you! Like, ''baby, there's something on your cheek'', ''huh?-oh'' and playfully push him as he takes you into his arms. It's your tears when he was pleasuring you. He not averted to the idea of you sucking him off when he's tired because he wants to cuddle you but in the morning! oh, if you suck him when you wake up, oh god. How does he handle it? He's moaning in no time, in your eyes it is quite exquisite to see, his expression in a haze, fluttering to the pleasure he's receiving, on some mornings, he comes faster than you've anticipated. To see you with a lack of clothes, he's turning you under him and placing kisses all over your body, slowly removing his jumper on yours to reveal your body. Trust me, he loves your body and if you aren't, he'll try to bring you into your element, it's okay if you aren't comfortable with your body but when you are, he'll move to your beat such as letting you ride his face after you sucked him that very morning. Or if you have a different dynamic, he would also love if you punished him (your dom side makes him nod like a compliant pretty boy, mewling to your orders) by not letting him touch you, he's going to be sulky then, ''I can't touch you?'', ''uh-huh'', ''why?'', ''It's your little punishment'', he proceeds to put his hands all over you, including slipping in between your folds just to prove his point that he doesn't like your punishment. He can be compliant but also act out, he thinks he's a bad boy~~ His favourite is to take you over the counter

but let's not lie here, he's perfectly happy with you sucking him off by the counter too, it's one of his favourite places in the house to have sex with you and he'll gladly return the favour by placing you it, on your back and coax one or two releases out of you. Then he may take you to the sofa, ''I know that you can do this baby'', ''Kyunnie?'', ''do you want to come back to this later on?'', ''It's okay'', ''you sure?'', was your conversation the first time around he had nearly coxed three to four releases out of you. He is proud of you, especially when he enters your warmth and settles beside you, slowly thrusting his hips against yours, filling you up and releasing into you, making love to you all the while.

Chani:

Expect all the love from him too, anon!

The fan, the acoustic ventilator and the window are all open, letting in fresh air from outside and circulating it in into your room. Not less than a couple of moments ago had Chani woken up and wrinkled his nose, shaking his head in groan that, ''You need to open the window y/n, otherwise the fan is only going to circulate the warm air that is in this room.''. You are fast asleep, feeling extra warm but asleep, regardless. When Chani was content with opening the sources that would cool the room, he sighed in relief and took of his shirt that was stained with sweat, tossing in into the hamper and getting into bed with you. ''It's too hot.'' you mumble, the stickiness of the humidity has perforated any desires of wanting to sleep in his arms. But Chani has other plans, he waits for you to adjust your position to one of laying on your back and then he proceeds to lay on your bare tummy, growing that baby smile of his when you clear the hair from his face and embrace him. ''If we go out, it'll be cooler.'', ''okay'' he mumbles, not liking the idea of moving one bit but he knows that it must be cooler outside, if not staying within these four walls. Neither of you move and moments later, the both of you have fallen asleep, softly snoring. Chani moves up to where your head is, you wake up with his hand splayed all over you. He's awake, only slightly, gazing at you through his fluttering eyelids, cheekily smiling, from one dimple to the other, you decide that you know what's on his mind from the way his hands move all over your body. The heat has simmered down, albeit momentarily before it rises again to make way for the sweltering afternoon heat. He caresses your side, lifting himself to place kisses all over your tummy + if you were doing it for the first time as a couple and if you have stretch marks, he would run his fingers over them and tell you, ''Don't be shy, they are pretty.'', the last words would be said with finality, with determination that you should know about the marks that cover your body make up your beauty as well. You are beautiful, he's trying to say. He would kiss your stretch marks, wherever they are (breasts, hands, legs, hips, back, wherever) even placing a light bite upon the area, proud that he has managed to elicit a chuckle, ''What are you doing?'' is your response and a stress-free posture as you lie in his arms. He wouldn't know how to say it properly but you would understand through his actions that like tattoos, your stretch marks are personal to you, they make up you and that there's nothing wrong with them, that they should be loved instead of following the social taboo against them. He trails kisses to your sex, experimentally lapping at the wetness and warmth you have to offer. He doesn't waste time, simply pulling out lube and warming up your sex with it, adding a finger or two. ''Babe'', ''Hmm?'', ''Stop here'', you say, grasping his hand. With that, he places his hands on the sides of your head, hovering over you, asking, ''How's my favourite girl doing huh?'' while kissing your temple when placing a condom on himself and entering you. He responds to your moans with some of his, revelling in the feeling of his cock within you. It's towards the end when he's got you in his arms, on the bed, facing one another, in an intimate embrace, tuning in to the sounds and immense feelings of one another that he pulls away, chuckling when he hears a whine from you. It's not a little whine either, ''Chani'' you mumble, grumbling yet excited, the latter which he can see all the same, ''Come here baby'' he murmurs in response, with a hint of a command, you know what that it's a give and take. You get on your knees and suck him off, gripping onto to the covers for the position that you are in is not the best because you can't multitask or ask. You go on till he tells you to pull out and you sit opposite each other, ''This isn't our first time trying it'' you laugh out'', you say, laughing which he mirrors, ''I know, I like watching you when we do this.'', ''What the-'', you start, he's laughing again

but

with that crinkly-at-the-eyes and smiling widely, gums-showing, heart-stopping type of laugh that you pause your fingers at your core, not realising that you are smiling as widely as him. It's the effect you have on each other. At the same time, you both call it, automatically. He's sitting opposite you, within an arms lengths, touching himself, stroking himself to the bring of a release and beyond, while you, you that he can see, that he wants to reach out to but is equally content watching you finger yourself and stimulate your clit to a similar, high-energy-taking release. Since the first time you've done this, the both of you have been drawn to watch or not, concentrating with your eyes shut or with encouraging eyes that also stimulate, greatly, ''You can do this babe, you are doing so well'', said by either of you, smiling when you see the other release. Afterwards, he'll just want to collapse into your arms, not letting go, energy spent well in the morning. In the kitchen, he'll brew a coffee or tea for you, cuddling you in his arms, spending this valuable time in silence, occasionally telling you a funny situation that had occurred when he was at work.

[worldsover]

Judgement to the Desiccated ft. Karina

length ✦ 5573

genres ✧ sm type future; asphyxiation; blackmail; virtual_servant!Karina;

✦✧✦✧✦✧

Air did a poor job of not being polluted so Lee Soo Man flooded the world instead. The man himself certainly must be long gone and could not have been in charge of that decision but the legacy of his company far exceeds the legacy of any other human collective in history. Once on this planet, gas was the fluid of choice for respiration and breathing was an unconscious reflex. Now there’s Aether by SM. How very on-brand of them to have the liquid air you breathe follow perfume naming conventions.

Open your eyes and exit the sleeping chamber. Aether has you work for each inhalation, it desaturates the color of the bedroom—maybe there’s a subtle but uncomfortable tinge of yellow—and it makes your nose itch. Your muscles wield much less force than they used to because of the lack of resistance the fluid provides. Moreover, it smells like hairspray as though the ozone layer is taking sardonic revenge.

Screens impersonating windows track your eyes to ensure realistic parallax, playing the scene of divine blue heavens that could not exist. An azure sky is a reward for those planets that have an atmosphere and a sun for light to scatter. Your walls are either chrome or drywall white and your whole bedroom is plainly decorated just like the day you moved in.

“Etymology of bedroom,” you think out loud, though it falls on no ears.

“Bedroom is a compound noun consisting of bed and room. Bed goes back to Old English bedd ‘sleeping place, plot of ground prepared for plants,’ which goes back to the Germanic-”

Plants and sleep are both strong words to use nowadays. The former doesn’t exist in nature and it seems you’re the only one who bothers with the latter. Faint buzzing distracts you from the AI’s response and signals you to the nano drones that swim throughout the liquid to process carbon dioxide from your lungs. This whole ordeal could’ve been much worse if you didn’t have brain interfaces doing the hard part of controlling your diaphragm. The most you need is a purposeful thought. Still, it gets tiring having to think the same thought every three seconds. In. Out.

Was the metaphorical Soo Man teaching a lesson in perseverance? You love K-pop and imagine it’s how trainees used to practice dancing, singing, being charismatic. Being an idol had to be as natural as breathing air. Inhale and exhale. Right now with any antiquated programming language you clung on to, you could write a single for loop that did the same job. For every three seconds: breathe in, breathe out.

“What’s for breakfast today?” Not loud enough. “What’s for breakfast?” you think it louder.

“Welcome, master. Ae-Karina is ready for service.” It’s quite a kindness for SM to blur the bland dystopia you live in by augmenting reality through your neural device. A bosomy woman in a gold-lined but otherwise modest maid outfit appears from the corner of your eye and she bows. Ae-Karina is bewitching and almost becoming of her basis as its graphics have gradually upgraded over the rotations but you wouldn’t misconstrue the avatar as human.

“I said, what’s for breakfast!” It feels impolite to scream in your head, there’s other residents there, but finally the fridge lights up.

“Of course master. May I remind you eating is unnecessary?”

In. Out. Every day, she does remind you, yes. How kind of the company to put all your nutritional requirements in the new air. Aether goes in then Aether goes out. You wish the thoughts of breathing could fade into the background but they’re just like your cravings for food. Always hungry but never starving, whole though not once satisfied. Your eyes pause at her gorgeous face and she tells you there’s bacon. Take it from your fridge. Bacon goes in. Well, the drones take care of the out.

Your assigned living space is the entire 207th floor of a tower. Two hundred and seven floors below the surface. The neighbor a few floors upstairs says that he thinks living deeper is a sign of status. What a luxury. That guy should check the status of his facial muscles, maybe improve his code that lets him tell lies while he’s at it. A couple hundred flights of stairs to swim up is a useless skeuomorphism of skyscrapers in the days of the sun. In fact they were more than useless, you would've preferred a single vertical hallway as it would have let you propel upwards unimpeded. Each floor is the exact same, a glass door that affords no privacy for its residence, a false tree on each side. At the upper levels, malls, convenience stores and other gaudy retail, but it’s the gyms that mock you that you mock in return. They’re always empty.

Finally reaching the top is no true break even if it is a change in scenery. Inhale. Aether tastes a little different up here. Exhale. Can’t say you like it.

Countless satellites form a parody of the star from which the planet flew away, the false image refracted by the upper boundary of Aether. They can’t take away your memories of this star. Looking up at the sky once blinded you with ultraviolet radiation, burning your cornea. It was beautiful. Now everyone’s decided that if they’re playing the part of corporate dystopia, they might as well fit the aesthetic. In a way, it’s self-fulfilling. They wouldn’t have chosen a neon pink sun to compliment the blue and metallic gloom of the cityscape if it weren’t so ingrained in popular media already.

Still, you would’ve expected Google or Walmart to become the megacorp responsible for the state of the world, not a Korean entertainment company. Must’ve been quite the red paperclip scenario. Instead of material design or utilitarian architecture, tacky artistic structures line the streets. The same advertisements for albums that they’ve been selling for the past however long. It's all so obvious, the city could've been designed from scratch to accommodate new forms of travel and goddamn liquid air but instead they went with futuristic Tokyo.

Dubstep permeates your inner ear implants. A notification informs your thoughts that it’s “Hip-hop EDM dance pop with a strong jungle house groove and urban influences.” It’s dubstep. Liquid carries barely any sound so SM affords the option for implants if you're nostalgic for one of the senses. Even though it’s a slower form of communication than direct neural transfer, the noise comforts you. Of course the company would choose dubstep as their background music, but maybe they make money off refunds somehow. It switches to Ice Cream Cake. Much better.

You walk the not so busy roads towards a short brick warehouse in the distance and heavy rain soaks your clothes. No such thing as weather without the sun and water but it’s all simulated anyway.

A warm Seulgi adlib and you know it’s Psycho that starts playing. No, none of your senses are real. The most you could trust is your vision but even that’s being lied to. You could be living in a vat and fed all these thoughts, but then why make it so mediocre? Not paradise, nor torture but a lukewarm in-between. Guess that's what happens when SM Entertainment manages the post-apocalypse. Good on them for trying. The alternative would be a frozen hellscape without solar radiation. Can’t deny their work with geothermal and nuclear energy to keep the Aether warm so that you didn’t have to live underground for the rest of human history. It’s quite great PR to save humanity.

“Hey now, we’ll be okay,” repeats a few more times than you remember.

The Idea Factory Alpha White Delta Green says the neon tubes lighting the front of the brick and mortar building. Your ID card bears a name but it’s not yours, not until they approve your name change. Those usually get processed faster with how often people liked changing their names.

Sit at a desk with a sterile white keyboard and slick new monitor. Type and empty words appear on the screen: “Think for the many, not for the one. We need to think ahead.” A thumbs up. The company appreciates the input. That’s probably enough work for one day. Some SNSD live stages help the time pass, SM certainly appreciated the streaming numbers and it would net you some social points.

It’s hard to say what comes to mind when they ask you to envision a world without the sun and air, especially since it’s what you’ve known for... Two hundred years? There’s no frame of reference, that much you can tell from when you counted seconds to see how often the satellites completed their orbit. SM really took time to have them propel at random speeds, they love withholding sensitive information like that from citizens. To be fair, time is sensitive. Guess the meaning of that phrase changes like all parts of language.

Look around. Dozens of employees at identical workspaces all try to answer the same questions. Naturally, there’s no need for manual labor anymore but there will never be a replacement for human ingenuity. Nice slogan but you know you’re only here for data. Can’t see a need for customer retention though—what’s the alternative, skip Earth? See you on another planet?

“Hey bro, you come up with anything new?” Dave says. Two desks away, you see the enthusiastic, surprisingly spry man play around with a Newton’s cradle. The balls at each end bounce back and forth, not slowing down their rhythm any time soon.

“I think I got something,” you say, “Earth is not the answer. It can’t be, long term.”

“Ooh, I like that. Actually, I really like that.”

“What are you gonna do, copy me?”

“Of course not. You know how much SM hates plagiarism.” Click. Clack.

“Ha. As if there’s a single original thought left in the world.” Click. Clack. The imaginary sounds of metal spheres bouncing play in your mind. They got the volume wrong, no way it’d sound that loud from that distance. “You’d think with all their resources, they’d have figured out space travel by now.”

“I don’t think they want to leave, bro. Wouldn’t be great for profits.”

Your mouth opens to laugh and causes laugh8942.mp3 to play in Dave’s head. “I love it. SM probably hates that sass too,” you say.

“Oh no, they’re gonna arrest me for thoughtcrimes. Nah, they love creativity, just when it suits them. Also, if they actually did bust you for wrongthink like rumors say, I wouldn’t have this on me.” Dave twirls a finger and points at you and you thank his absurd flair for the histrionic that keeps you amused with such drab work.

“NewDrug.mp6. Would you like to play it?” the dry system voice notifies you.

“Woah woah there tiger, hold on.” Dave must’ve noticed your intrigued eyes and holds his hands up. “You might wanna experience that at home. But if you’re interested in more, ask for chicken parm at the vegan place. You know the one.”

Dave leaves his desk. He doesn’t return. You finish your work. Inspire. Expire. You’d rather not.

In contrast to your commute to work, the roads fill with others on your way home. You have to know. Take solace in the comfort of a bench where a huge McDonald’s arch bathes the surroundings and its people with a yellow glow. Really shouldn’t watch it now, especially if Dave says it’s a home type of watch but you have to know. A family of five watches you pass out. They, along with every other passerby, ignore your still body draped over the chrome outdoor seating as you look like yet another junkie. The title is correct after a fashion, the simulation is some sort of new drug. The details of the exploits that happen in the immersive replay wash over you but you don’t need them to know that it’s the sort of lewd that SM would not allow—at least not publicly and not without the right exorbitant payment.

Suit pants and underwear go straight to the laundry. That must’ve been an embarrassing sight but no one bothered to stop you, so it doesn’t matter. Look up where this vegan place was that Dave so presumptuously assumed you knew about and you find that it’s about four Avengers’ stores down from work. He must’ve eaten there before.

“Yo Dave, just wanna make sure, what’s the name of the vegan place called?”

“What are you talking about, man? You telling me there’s some secret underground farms that SM wouldn’t know about?”

You can’t tell when you got to work, a lack of standardized timing would help as well the haze of living in a monotonous dark. “Nah, I mean, for the-”

“I have no idea,” Dave emphasizes each word, “what you’re talking about.”

“I see.”

Work flies by, unusually.

“Hey, can I get a chicken-”

“Uh, this is Maron’s Veggies Only, it clearly says on the sign.”

Clear your throat. “Parm.”

The shifty part-time worker looks around and rubs his fingers gesturing for money. “No digital.”

Over the counter, you pass him a gold coin stamped with a holographic 1 and he hands you a USB stick and a laptop in return. How old-fashioned.

“It’ll sync with whoever you have set as your avatar experience aspect,” the worker says.

“Thanks.”

Ever vigilant as the patrol is, the alleys are the last place you want to go to hide with the obvious criminal element within them all but you head to one anyway. Dump the anachronistic technology in your storage pocket dimensions. Looking at its contents, you’d have to clean that mess up later, but the more you look like an average slob the better. The biggest problem with the inventories is all the people squatting in them. Inspectors wouldn’t care about the archaic ruins you left in yours.

“Welcome, master. Ae-Karina is ready to service.”

“I’d like to go on a date. A special date.” You highlight the key word special and sit on your living room couch. No one’s going to look in your glass door and regardless, you wouldn’t be the pervert for glimpsing into someone’s home.

“Ah yes, master. Ae-Karina is ready to fully service,” she says with a provocative tint in her tone, her sclera disperses to black to match. A pole drops from the ceiling while parts of her maid outfit dissolve which reveals more of the silky skin of her thighs, her lissom arms and most importantly her overflowing breasts. Ae-Karina wraps her legs around the pole and spins around, teasing fingers trace curves on her body to harden you. Her dance is precise but sultry regardless. She pulls up her short skirt to flaunt more of her ass beneath white panties and then pulls down to flourish her cleavage, not trapped by a bra. “Are you enjoying your maid’s show?”

“Very much so, yes,” you say.

Half of a smile forms before a glitch occurs and she teleports next to you, fully nude. It doesn’t pull you out of the illusion however. You just stare and drink in the splendor of her created body.

“You’re not going to touch?” Ae-Karina says.

A feel of her tits and you find it softer than pillows you used to rest on. Soft isn’t much of a character that exists anymore when the whole world is engulfed in liquid. No one has beds, especially with the rarity of sleep. Therefore, her mounds are a consummate dedication to the texture as you squeeze and pinch at her cute nipples.

Her maid outfit rematerializes as she straddles you. It provides more friction to your pants as she begins her lap dance. The weight of her body dragging across your legs and clothed erection induces your carnal impulses further. If only you could fuck the virtual idol. You have to make do with the imprint of her pussy lips on your bulge sliding up and down. Breath in. Breath out.

Ae-Karina pulls down your boxers and spits on your erection. It's not real but her hands so slick on your cock and you let reality slip. Real is for the past, you have desires gratified in the present. There is no real person nibbling at your neck but your nerves activate in sexual desire without discernment for truth. No, she doesn't love you, but when the voracious mass of ones and zeroes says it loves its master, you say it back.

"I love you."

ILOVEYOU infected ten million computers in 2000. An explosion. Calibration engaging. It’s 1:21 PM, Sunday, July 18, 2286 and hypothetically the sun would be out in its full rage. At this latitude and longitude, you’re at what was once the epicenter of all—Seoul, where a fountain caused a chain reaction allowing the hopeful remnant of a world to exist. It lasted a surprisingly long time without the sun and without Aether but the dying planet would succumb inevitably to the ever-increasing contamination so SM of all corporations took charge. A different kind of chain reaction occurred when they acquired a restaurant chain that discovered the recipe for liquid air. The law is on its way and prepared to punish you to its full extent.

You reel while your ears ring. An even sexier version of the woman you already fantasized about appears from your peripheral vision in the crater of your floor. A skimpy cop outfit, striated with reflective material that seems to wane black at different angles, outlines Karina’s curves. She has a tool belt with absurd gadgets, such as a knife baton hybrid, a taser combined with a spray bottle and a Tamagotchi. None of this is necessary. They could just immediately arrest you, impose limitations on your devices. Sure, SM cloned people to deal with underpopulation, but why Karina would be the enforcer is a whole nother issue. Maybe the entertainment company loves their irony?

“Halt. You’re under arrest. Any resistance will be penalized according to the combined Terms of Service of all SM and SM associated products.”

Fucked anyway, you figure you might as well go for it. Escape into your inventory and only seconds later you’re forced out. You manage to get what you need regardless.

“Violation of access rights will be charged to your account.”

It’s so obvious but there’s a reason you kept so much gold in physical storage. As you swim away, the sides of your apartment start to bubble. Bubbles? Already, your limbs feel unsteady. Something’s wrong in the Aether.

“This is standard procedure for escaping suspects that are indoors. Again, this is all agreed to under the Terms of Service.”

“When the fuck did I ever click accept to that shit?”

“When you were born in this world and decided you want to stay in it,” Karina says out loud. You hear her say it. Your physical ears process the vibrations in the air that come from her mouth. Gravity thwarts your desperate escape as your limp body floats on the limit between liquid and air. The atrophy of your muscles becomes apparent within the gaseous atmosphere. She watches you sink down as the room drains of all the false air though her eyebrows crease when she inspects you closer. Your breaths are involuntary. Despite your muscles shorting out, the force of gravity and the pressure of the gas bearing down on you, you’re breathing and you don’t mean to. Her eyes wander farther down. On your pants, a concrete rod stamps the fabric.

“Oh, you like what you see?”

“Shut up, criminal. Anything you say can and will be used against you.”

“Your pussy,” you say and she scoffs.

“Original.” Karina bites her lip as your erection continues to grow behind its prison. You use all effort to put your hands up.

“Please, miss Karina. I’ve been bad.”

“I could punish you even more for sexual assault.”

“Then do it.”

Heat radiates the room in a way you haven’t felt in a while and droplets of sweat form on each of your bodies, especially on the thighs that her revealing outfit parades. Her facial features contort in deliberation and the wait kills you. You bat your eyes at her before Karina takes off her tight shorts and drops herself into your anticipatory face. This makes no sense but none of this life made any sense so you decide to go with the tides.

Centuries of training your respiration has led to this moment, but when you finally have real air to breathe, you spit at the opportunity and choose to suffocate. Then you spit at her pussy and lap it up. Karina’s nectar transfixes your olfactory glands, for once a smell that isn’t the sterile Aether. Your eyes are mesmerized in parallel because of the perfect design of her pussy, a single crease that leads into her hole that your tongue emphatically explores. Karina spreads her thighs wide to reveal a small nub that craves attention. So give it. Suck and swirl and flick your tongue, and the woman provides you the tight clench of her legs as a gift. And the sounds, rediscovered glorious noise. Loud, almost too loud, and clear is how they assault your ears, even surrounded by the flesh of her thighs. Muffled by the weight of her legs, you hear Karina moan in approval but she’s still clearly in charge with how she chokes you with her legs. This is not about your pleasure but hers, and any satisfaction that you derive is not only incidental but probably punishable by SM copyright law.

Karina squirms her hips subtly on your mouth. Her eyes are sharp and she’s just about to stop your hands from moving but she notices them clasp together.

“I’ll do anything to make you cum, please.” you say sloppily as her pussy juices fill your cheeks and drip down your chin.

“God. I can’t.” She takes deep, contemplative breaths. ”That’s more time added on for inappropriate behavior.” Her groaning and brief squeals make her words sound incogent.

You give her a concluding lick and a kiss on her slit. “So what have you been doing right now then?”

Point to a corner of the room and a subtle red light indicates a recording camera. At once, she pulls out a hose from a pocket that could not fit it and the vacuum submerges the room with noise. Her expression shifts quickly to serious.

“We don’t play games here in SMTOWN unless it’s SuperStar so don’t fuck with me.”

“Look who's trying to be a comedian. How about you fuck with me any further and the video gets released.”

“That’s funny, you think you have any sort of power-”

“Yoo Jimin, I suggest you don’t push me more.”

“Where do you know that name from? Right now.” She weighs herself down on your neck.

“You think I don’t have contingencies for if I die too? Karina, we can make this a  win-win scenario. We both get to cum, we both get to walk away unscathed.”

“Fuck you.”

Your weak arms wander between her thighs. At any moment, a feeble punch towards your face or another ten seconds of asphyxiation and she could call your bluff. Even if you did have the ability to expose her perversions in any way, there would be no permanent recourse, not as long SM was in charge. So it surprises you when Karina takes off her shorts. 

“Goddammit. Your cock just looks too good. And your mouth, how are you so good with it?” Put up five fingers when she motions to remove her top as well, and instead she opts to take off your clothes, seizing your pants and throwing them to join the rubble in the room.

A finger slips in, then two and a third dares. Her flawlessly architected pussy lips clings to your digits and Karina shudders in reply. You explore her wetness and find it’s smooth to the point of having no faults, but her juice inside is gloppy and causes your fingers to stick more than the liquids she spills from her slit.

“Who said you’re allowed to have more?”

You lap up the nectar on your fingers. “Then why’d they make you taste so good?”

Your thumb teases her sweet tight asshole and puts just the slightest amount of pressure on it while you finger her with more intensity. The mass of her butt burdens your torso the closer she gets to orgasm. Her eyelids squeeze close and you see her body ripple in anxious pleasure. Karina shows off her pearly whites, teetering on the cliff of hysteria.

“Yes, yes! I’m so close,” she screams.

"Not yet."

“Fuck." Karina sobs, "God. Damn, fuck I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Just fuck me.”

“My pleasure,” you say. There’s no need for you to grab her since she brings herself down to your groin, which you’re thankful for as your arms are as good as jelly now. Fortunately, your cock throbs as hard as ever while Karina’s slit rests on it.

“Say you’ll delete it all, all the evidence, promise me.”

“You’re gonna fuck me first or what?” Your breath hitches while she makes a strangled noise as her velvety walls swallow your cock whole to leave no room for comfort. Her tightness is stifling and you have to start counting just to breathe again.

“One two-”

“Be quiet.”

But there is no quiet when pleas for your cooperation intersperse her excessive profanities when she seats herself into your cock and ricochets up and down. Sweat emanates from her creamy skin while her legs widen to find a better angle for her supporting knees in her cowgirl position. Grapefruit and other citrus mingle with the scent of the sweat, fruits you haven’t seen except on billboards in music videos. As much as your mind crackles and your blood roars for every atmosphere of pressure Karina’s walls provide on each thrust in and out, you can’t help but reminisce on sweeter, more innocent times.

The white fluorescent lights in your apartment sputter. For all the advancements in technology, some among many things never change. Light refracts differently in air, less bright, but you can see the pure enjoyment on Karina’s face no matter the luminescence. Karina slows her ride to pull her hips down harder instead and she jolts when your cock finds the most tender spots inside her pussy and it interrupts her babbling.

Karina almost hyperventilates when she gets up to spit on your cock. She pulls out some kind of meter from her tool belt and sighs when there’s no beeping and you recognize it having to do with carbon dioxide. She gets back to dribbling saliva and the filament trailing down to your shaft mesmerizes you. This spit is real, not simulated, and it wettens your erection in a mix with her pussy juices to paralyze you further in your already listless state. Her bare thighs jiggle and you can’t exert much force with your hands but her buttcheeks are firm with just a bit of give.

“Thank you for this cock, thank you for being bad,” Karina says as you watch her ass sink deeper while her pussy holds your dick taut. She’s frenetic when bounces up and down to play an unadulterated orchestra of slick noises between your groins.

“You’re welcome,” you accomplish getting out the words between planned breaths. Your hands cup her buttcheeks but you fear they may break with how she strikes her ass into you.

Karina turns around once more to give you the spectacle of her facial expressions as she fucks herself into you. Knead her calves laying on your torso and they take no energy to spread them though she brings them back together, compressing your hard shaft within her pussy. A new game you play with her, a separate rhythm of loosening and tightening. Her feet press on your chest to help her bounce, but the way they bear down on your lungs against the timing of your breathing causes you to fumble. Your cock bends straight forward as she plunges herself into you and it sends prickles to your entire skin, making the new angle difficult but worth it. Karina takes your hand and starts sucking on your fingers.

“You want my promise that bad?” you say.

“Yes, as bad as I want your cum. I swear, I need it.”

She draws her knees up to her torso and hugs her legs to keep thighs as tight together as possible. Karina couldn’t keep her word, she was trying to kill your cock with constriction.

“Fuck, your pussy is so fucking tight. God, Karina, fuck. You’re so good.” Even if good isn’t the word you want to use to describe her.

“Do it, please, please. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, baby. Karina can be a good girl, a good maid, a good cop, whatever you want. Just don’t get me in trouble, please.”

Karina’s mouth stops saying words though her lips writhe, drunk in increasing lust. Her cheeks flush, before the rest of her skin joins in redness while she grapples your chest and whatever spare limb she can find. You still struggle wresting control of your body but nature seems to take over when you drive yourself into her and match her needy cadence. The air in the room is replaced by a new air but it isn’t Aether. Passion, sweat, heat and all fluids that you both exude join squelching sounds, slaps and moans in harmonic bliss when her body tenses and she screams. As her body tightens, her pussy especially holds your cock for dear life and endeavours to wring out all your semen as her wetness throbs and spills. Karina starts counting to three repeatedly and you laugh though your amusement quickly subsides when you feel her juices become more viscous and she continues her ride, even in the dying pulses of her climax.

“Was I good?” Karina asks.

Just a moment goes by before you mentally send her a screenshot of all the recordings being deleted. Karina hasn’t stopped fucking you yet so at least it wasn’t a ploy.

“Thank you, thank you, I love you.” The flexion of her pliant legs brings them all the way back to rest on top of your legs. Karina lays prone above you and finally give you a kiss. The citrusy flavor may be closer to lime than grapefruit but it’s been so long that you can’t remember which scent is which. Lips crash and her tongue lashes out at yours trying to establish dominance. Keep still to let her investigate your mouth while her pussy does the same to your shaft.

You savor the way Karina’s top emphasizes the bouncing of her tits synchronous with the rebounding of her waist on your cock, but your mouth waters when she frees them. Take the shortest moment to relish in the sight before Karina smothers you with her plump globes. You wriggle your face to try to breathe. Inhale, up and exhale, down, but all you inhale is the scent of her orbs’ sweat. Her hips undulate with a pace at least double yours breathing and the echoes of slapping flesh resonate throughout the air-filled chamber. The loudness is unlike any you’ve experienced in a long time. It’s almost a flashbang every time her ass slams into your lap, especially as you start to see white when orgasm threatens to overload you with preludial pulses.

The last words you hear infected ten million computers in 2000. Fade to black. Cut. You’re slammed out of existence back into existence as a sun rebirths both within you, heating your core to a dangerous high, and from your eyes, dazzling you in an unforgiving white light. In the throes of unconsciousness relapsing to consciousness back to tenebrosity, your streaks of semen suspend in the Aether like a dead tree resting from the wind. What flashes your mind in its orgasmic state are two things only you would remember, plants and weather. Your hyperventilation is unconscious but not unwelcome, as it’s the first time in a while your breaths were reflexive even in the liquid air. However, basking in your newfound power, you start to choke. Right. You breathe in and out again. In and out. In. Out. In. Out. Back in.

“Replaying KarinaArrestsYou.mp6.” A hint of vexatious glee in the system’s otherwise dry voice. You don’t stop for it.

✦✧✦✧✦✧ 

AFF, AO3

It’s pretty silly but the idea danced around in my head ever since I saw the absolute Black Mirror concept that SM had for aespa and I concur that Karina is insanely hot.

As I’m writing this, this Kurzgesagt video on the idea of a rogue Earth comes out and now I have to rewrite stuff to make it at least a little consistent. I’m obviously already going nuts with all these ridiculous sci-fi concepts but this video almost feels too targeted to me writing this for me to ignore it.