#panopticon tasks

[tempestaslokni]

Pantask 01

From the start, Lokni didn't appreciate the material of the strap and how it caught on his skin. With just how humid it was on the island, he found his irritation levels soaring with the inconvenience of the bracelet. He would have kept it in his pocket until he came to his final solution: Lokni's family had a weaving pattern that was significant to their family within their Miwok tribe. It had been passed down for many generations; a constant reminder of his bloodline and people. He would make long braids of this pattern out of palm bark strips and then weave it around the strap until the synthetic material was no longer visible. He would choose darker, yet flexible bark to do this. The gem affixed to the center is a cracked, deep indigo tiger's eye. It shifts in deep shades of indigo and violet, but when catching the light, for a split-second the web of cracks can be seen encircling the surface like lightning.

[crustaceousfaggot]

On one hand my phone is my bestest friend who protects me and shows me so many beautiful wonders. On the other hand I wanna throw this fucking lump of metal into the sun before it can erode my brain any more than it already has. Do you understand.

[ohmerricat]

this place is kinda just my personal diary tbh

[ddarker-dreams]

Do Puppets Dream of Electric Sheep?

Yan Scaramouche x F Reader.

Warnings: Yandere themes, unhealthy relationships, mild not SFW implications. Word count: 2.1k.

“What am I to you?” 

He stills. Your voice is as gentle as a mother crooning a lullaby to her newborn. Sweet, mild. Not intending to startle the sensitive creature who is unaccustomed to this world. It regurgitates memories of his progenitor. He can never clearly recall her countenance or the exact pitch of her voice, there are only formless blurs and warbled words that sounded far away. 

It is a small mercy that he never made out the specifics of her face. For it allows him to envision her in whatever manner suits him best. She can be the scheming Niwa Hisahide who sought to manipulate him, the sickly child who left him behind, or the mendacious kitsune whose promises for aid went unkept. His mother is the locus of his rage that branches out and bears rotten fruit.

You cease your previous task of combing his hair from behind. Artificial heat burns his cheeks when your chest presses against his back, your arms coiling around his slender shoulders like tendrils. The hold is tight enough to almost hurt. 

“Say, are you listening?” Your lips brush against his ear. He shivers. “Well, puppet?” 

Furniture clatters in a cacophony of noise. 

He stares at you, incredulous, his lips parting only to close again. He cycles through emotions and is unable to settle on one. 

How do…? You shouldn’t know that!

You pay him no mind. You fix the victims of his outburst, setting the stool upright and straightening the vanity’s various implements. Then you sit where he sat, smoothing the wrinkles in your skirt as you do so. You face him instead of the mirror, which has cracked into three disjointed fragments. 

The scene before him arouses confusion, then suspicion. His eyes eventually find their way to the mirror behind you. He barks a laugh at what he sees. The sound reverberates in the tiny room. Electro concentrates in his hands, crackling and ready to stain his surroundings crimson. He gives a malicious grin. 

It reflects in the cracked mirror, whereas your form does not. 

“A cheap parlor trick,” he muses. “I should’ve figured.” 

You aren’t her, he thinks. And how grateful he is to realize it. 

“I’m not?” You challenge, raising an eyebrow. What is this being capable of hearing his thoughts? The curve of your smile epitomizes everything you’ve never been: cruel and provocative. This ignis fatuus who dares to assume your form makes no attempt to flee from the attack writhing in his palms. “Well, I suppose there’s some truth to that. What you’re looking at now is what I am to become, not my present, corporeal self.” 

He studies “you” carefully. The pigmentation of your eyes, your intonation, and your body language; it lines up uncannily well, but your word choice is peculiar. There’s a callousness begotten to those burdened by esoteric knowledge, an experience he’s intimately familiar with. This can’t be a poorly executed emulation devised by that medical charlatan excommunicated by his peers, or an experience that aligns with the continuity of Teyvat’s laws. 

Is his conscious being tampered with by the gods? 

“I’m afraid not. We both know that panopticon has no interest in you. No, discarded prototype, think back to your creation. When was it determined you’d be of no use to Beelzebul?” 

He grits his teeth. That intrusive introspection is coming into play again. It’s as if his innermost sentiments have been printed out in large lettering for you to scrutinize. 

“So you’ve finally realized, although you’re hesitant to think it. I can’t blame you, nothing good ever comes from your dreams. Since you don’t require sleep, you were able to avoid this for some time… in trying to play human with me in reality, you’ll be judged by me in the one state where you are utterly powerless.” 

The energy gathering in his hand dissipates without him willing it. He tries in vain to summon it again, but the element no longer heeds his command. Clicking his tongue, he sits on the edge of the bed, then crosses his arms over his chest. He chastises himself for not noticing sooner. This room may appear to be an exact replica of the one you share, but the slightest details in its geometry betray the realm of possibility. Certain angles bend in inconceivable ways, the ceiling itself is drooping down like a viscous gel, the descent so slow, it’s near imperceptible. 

Dreams, pesky as they may be, are always destined to end. He need only wait for this torment to run its course. 

“If that’s the stance you’ve decided to take, why not answer my question?” 

He feigns ignorance for a beat, despite knowing full well the inquiry you’re referring to. You allow him his temporary repose. 

“What you are to me is a nuisance. A meaningless manifestation that I’ll forget about as soon as I wake,” he replies. How strange it is, taking this baleful tone toward an image of you. You are the sole individual he doesn’t regard with pure loathing, and as such, he treats you with a tenderness he thought himself previously incapable of. He can’t recall a time when contempt felt unnatural, like the first time he mimicked human breathing. 

This veneer of nonchalance is forced and he knows it. The mirage taking on your comely likeness is seeping under his synthetic skin, spreading malaise and decay. 

“Oh? That’s an awfully bold statement, but, nevertheless, let’s entertain it a while longer.” 

You clap twice and the surroundings shift. 

His limbs are dragged upward by an unrelenting force — red strings as formidable as piano wire. He struggles out of instinct. This futile act only serves to tighten the binds. Upon realizing this, he goes limp, noting that your presence is no longer visible. 

He has an unobstructed view of the cracked mirror, its jagged edges displaying three different images. 

To the left, he sees himself wearing the outfit he first awoke with, the golden feather dangling from his neck. The middlemost portion is accurate in its portrayal, unlike the others. It shows the glint of the mitsudomoe symbol upon his chest which he considers his birthright. The right fragment is nearly indiscernible, aside from hues of teal that swirl as if spurred on by the wind. 

The mirror shatters.

Light footsteps circle around him. He wrenches his head in the direction of the ambient sounds, identifying no clear source. 

“Even if you forget about me now, according to your designs, we’ll meet again. This “me” that’s been tainted and corrupted by your selfish intent. In trying to preserve me, you’ll be my ruin. You already know that though, don’t you? That your desperate clinging will drag us both down to unfathomable depths. It’s true, that by never letting me die, you’ll have an eternity with me…” 

You materialize in front of him, standing with your hands behind your back. The casual stance is at odds with the venom you spew forth. Just as before, everything about your physical appearance is correct, save for a single, damning detail. Your eyes glow a luminescent violet — that of Inazuma’s reclusive deity, whose gnosis he intends to commandeer, even if he must tear it from her himself. 

“But is that the eternity you truly wish for?” 

It isn’t. Of course it isn’t. 

What else was he to do? 

Watch helplessly as your biological clock ticks on while the hands on his remain frozen in place? Witness your final until you breathe your last breath, then allow your husk to be buried in the cold, unfeeling ground? His is a life of apprehension. That by some cruel twist of fate, you’ll fall victim to the many pitfalls mortals are vulnerable to. Illness, injury, violence, the list goes on and on. His overactive imagination serves as a personal purgatory that churns out images of your downfall every moment he is not by your side. 

Upon returning to your quaint little cottage on the outskirts of civilization, trepidation eats at him like maggots upon a corpse. If he can’t find you tending to your garden, baking in your kitchen, or lounging on the swing hanging from the old oak tree in your front yard, madness slithers at his heels, ready to pierce him with its fangs. 

You may never forgive him, but he couldn’t forgive himself if he let the one thing he cherishes in this joke of a world leave him behind. 

“I won't look at you the way I once did. The me who speaks your true name, spends days wondering when you’ll return from your traveling ‘job’, gladly welcomes you into her bed, granting you access to her most sacred body and soul; you will never see her again. She will exist in your memory alone.”  

Your pointer finger hovers over his trembling lower lip, then descends, over his Adam’s apple and in between his collarbones. 

“Having savored these pleasures once freely given, you’ll have no choice but to take them by force. You’ll defile me and insist it’s worship. Bitterness might whet your palate, but you’ll never have your fill. Can you call that love, poor puppet? Or will you rightfully refer to it as ownership?” 

All verbal exchanges cease. 

In this nightmare blurring the lines of what if, where he is but a spectator rather than an active participant, he laughs. It echoes in his hollow chest cavity where no fleshly heart beats. Your physiognomy goes blank in the face of such blatant malignity. He hangs here, a tossed-aside marionette, consumed by a paroxysm of emotion he once swore to wipe clean from his chest. 

“If this is an attempt to appeal to my conscience, it won’t work,” his grin nearly splits his face in two. “Harass me every night, for all I care. I’ll accept it. I’ll accept anything. Every form of you… every possible iteration, no matter how unsightly, beautiful, indifferent, or anything in between, I want it. There isn’t a version of you that can deter me. The real you offered herself to me for a lifetime — who am I to turn down such an alluring offer?” 

You pull away from him. 

The absence of your touch is worse than any physical torture you could inflict. He’ll take your loving caresses, your hand ripping into his chest, so long as he can familiarize himself with your genuine warmth. Such is the resolve of a puppet who has endured the biting blizzard of loneliness. Destroy him and he’d rebuild. Ignore him and he’ll pry the words from your mouth. Attempt to leave him and he’ll ensnare you in a trap that neither of you can escape from. 

This advocate for your future is washed away in a sea of ink, black as night, untouchable and ever-present as a shadow. The cascading wave swallows you whole. 

You depart with a final threnody.

“Until we meet again, then.” 

…

…

…

Something brushes over his cheek. 

“... Kuni? Kunikuzushi? Ah, what do I do, you aren’t waking up…! Insults? Do I try insults? Uh, you’re of less than average height—”

“Quiet down, woman, you’re loud,” Scaramouche complains with a groan.

You’re hovering above him. It’s a heavenly sight — if he were a believer in such things — the upturning of your eyebrows, the flow of your hair tousled by interrupted sleep, and the temptation of your soft, parted lips. Warmth emanates from your body. He delights in it. Swears a silent oath to himself that he’ll never be without it. 

“The insult worked,” you whisper, content with your quick thinking. Then, remembering the situation, you’re back to fussing over him. “Are you okay? You must’ve been having an awful nightmare.” 

His lips form a thin line. “... Something like that.” 

“What was it about?” 

“You,” he forces an unperturbed tone. Although he’s still hazy from sleep, he’s used to bending the truth. Or in this case, covering the parts he doesn’t want you to see. “I have to deal with you in the realm of conscious and unconscious now. Terrifying, right?” 

The sarcasm successfully draws your attention elsewhere. 

“Absolutely. So terrifying, in fact, I better sleep elsewhere so as not to frighten my— oof!” 

“Oh no you don’t,” he pulls you against his chest, preemptively ending your getaway, “You’re not going anywhere.” 

You willingly collapse into his hold, laughing softly. Though you’re no longer trying to wriggle away, his grip is ironclad, his arms trembling. He interweaves himself into you with a tangle of limbs. Once he’s content, he presses his face against the thrumming pulse in your neck. This stream that maintains your life is temporary — a subpar placeholder until you’re imbued with immortality. Still, he cherishes it, this special rhythm that has sustained you long enough for your paths to interconnect. 

He gives your pulse a chaste, reverent kiss. 

Your paths are bound to never diverge, even if damnation is where they'll lead.

[jadedgenasi]

So you're telling me the Aeorians died not knowing the robots they created had true sentience and wills of their own. That's actually really damn funny.

Like. Who do you think the aeormatons with the chain link lips were for? Because I'm willing to bet it wasn't for other aeormatons. Robots serve functions and serve the mages that made them - for as many tasks, chores, and daily comveniences as you can imagine.

The nature of totalitarian rule is that no matter how minute and specific their rules or how brutally they are enforced, the more they seek and convince themselves they have total control the easier it is to hide where they don't.

Devexian's awakening of FCG seemed at first more of a mental thing. That D freed them and the other bots he found from whatever protocol was running them and that was the point at which they gained sentience. And to an extent maybe freeing his kin from some kind of programming was part of unlocking the true freedom to leave and have their own lives. But through Downfall, we got to see that the aeormatons had entire secret societies and life partners (with mortals! Who also found ways to live on the fringes!) and concepts of pleasure that existed very far outside their purpose within the panopticon that was their city - a city which went so far as to record essences and memories of its inhabitants on a scale even its creators couldn't have foreseen... Not really known for their foresight, those totalitarians.

It's the same mistake the gods made, except that when the gods were forced to reckon with the damage they were causing their world, regardless of the intent and the good they also brought, they removed themselves from the equation so as to prevent more damage. Even though they didn't want to leave. Even though they made this place.

Take a good look at Aeor, the kids beat up for the graffiti and the people hanged for making it all the way to a godless place only to get caught with their faith. If they realized their creations had more to them than they had intended - if they had realized they were capable of following those gods - do you think they would have made the same choice?

Me either.

And that right there is the difference between the gods and the mortals running Aeor. Ludinus sees all of these parallels that prove his point about how the gods had no right to their dominion except through power they abused when it became clear that mortals could challenge them. He's going to draw those comparisons and he is absolutely going to omit or miss entirely the part where the gods heard their people - not just the ones worshipping them, maybe for the first time - and stopped hurting them.

[graysontailor]

PANOPTICON -- CHAPTER 1 RELEASE

36,878 Words (+32,825) | 285 (+243) Passages | Chapter One

Chapter One has been added to PANOPTICON'S public demo. Find it HERE!

Begin to reach deeper into the world of PANOPTICON. Meet new people, discover new secrets, and begin to make the choices that will determine your ultimate fate. Do your dishes, or just leave them in the sink.

It's hard to believe that most of the work on this update happened in the last 2.5 months, despite starting the writing in August! It's a relief to finally have it out. Many thanks to my beta testers, Katie and Levi.

FEATURES:

Delve deeper into the world of the terminals

Meet new characters on the other side of the screen-- develop a rapport with them, and give helpful (or not-so-helpful) guidance

Discover new secrets within the world of PANOPTICON… and within yourself

Make choices with future consequences

FIND IT ON ITCH.IO

ALL CHANGES:

Added chapter one to the demo (Accessible after the prologue)

Engage with your daily tasks around the space you inhabit

Check the terminals for new updates

Meet Carter, a new individual on the other side of terminal 0678

Chat with the Recycler about their progress

Explore the other daily terminals for a glimpse into the wider world

Poke around the back end of terminal 0000

Re-worked the journal to be more functional

Certain terminal descriptions should now change as you progress throughout the game

Re-worked how links within the journal work to prevent a player from getting stuck in an infinite loop on the journal page

Added a typing visual effect to all terminal passages, including in the prologue

This effect can be skipped with the "shift" key

NOTE: This effect cannot be disabled at this time, but I hope to see if there's a way I can make it optional for readers in the future.

Updated intro screens

Updated content warnings

NOTE: I tried to be thorough with my content warnings. If there's anything you feel I have missed, feel free to let me know.

Introduced an important variable

Don't neglect your chores…

Version 2.0

[myconetted]

i know it doesn't mean anything coming from me cause i work in ai (llms specifically) lmao. but god i really do get sad about the politics and marketing around ai being so bad that it turns people off from using a genuinely amazing and useful set of tools.

hype based marketing has really fucked things up by making people's expectations way too high.

there are moments where you feel a brief glimpse of The Future, where the llm makes unexpectedly complex tasks feel so easy that you may be tempted to anthropomorphize it as a "virtual coworker," but it's emphatically not there (...yet). and advertising it as such is not only misleading, but imho also irresponsible--treating it like a human and not a piece of software that's running on someone else's computer is a really good way to create single points of failure, introduce exciting new systemic failures, and make bad security decisions. (i am looking directly at every vendor who's rolling out ai features as opt-out rather than opt-in and especially the vendors whose opt-out is/was broken during rollout 💢.) and that's not even addressing broader societal harms from marketing it as a way to replace (rather than enhance) your meat-based workforce.

like dude this thing is helping me finally learn electronics. could i have just used google and textbook materials? yes, obviously. do i need to cross-reference what it's saying because it's good at hallucinating extremely plausible but subtly incorrect answers? duh. but if you're even asking these questions, that implies you're thinking the value-add is that llms replace these things. they don't!

i'm not replacing the textbook. i'm loading it into the model context and talking to the textbook. i'm adding info from other sources and augmenting my talking textbook. i can ask the textbook if my mental model is correct and it can give me an answer with citations. the textbook can draw pictures and diagrams and even make simple animations, just for me, just for the specific questions i'm asking. i can even ask it to teach me in uwu-speak to make the content less intimidating.

is that not objectively fucking incredible? but that's not what people think about when they hear someone say "ai can help with this," and i have to write several hundred words to convince (rightfully!) skeptical people that it's worth even considering.

after which i'll immediately have to write another few hundred thousand words about how ip law is not your friend and how the energy impact is concerning but nowhere near the atrocities of shitcoin mining and the geopolitical implications and the job loss (which happens even with the best case of augmenting rather than replacing workers) and the panopticon problems and the whole ai apocalypse thing and probably five other things people are activated about... in order to convince (again, rightfully) cynical people that using (certain) llms isn't a moral or ethical felony.

but man

i just wanna talk about how cool this shit is without getting tomatoes thrown at me but we live in a freakin society

[panopticonrpg]

WANTED CONNECTIONS!

Yes, Panopticon RPG has reached our mun limit, HOWEVER. We've decided to accept NEW MUNS applying for a wanted connection!!

That means current muns can now submit a WANTED CONNECTION FORM to the main!

Other upcoming plans:

Our game's first TASK after August 10th! Participation is never mandatory, but hopefully always inspiring!

Plans for a MEME CHANNEL in the discord, with some guidelines on how to participate! We're excited, we love memes.

SECOND CHARACTERS for most muns will be available around August 21st! All secondary characters will be OCs. As no new skeletons are planned at this time, 2nd characters will use an OC app (tba).

Woohoo! ~ Mod Gigi 🧿 & Mod Luna 🌙

[total-drama-brainrot]

okay. panopticon talk made me think about a milgram total drama au with warden noah. i will elaborate on what that is later.

Total Drama Milgram Experiment? Anon is it that obvious that I'm a Psychology student? Are you using these buzzwords to intentionally get my mind racing with Ideas??

Listen to me. I'm grabbing you by your shoulders and shaking you, please listen to me. In a TD Milgram experiment, Chef would be the warden/experimenter. Or maybe Chris, at a stretch. The whole point of the warden/experimenter is to be an authority figure, and Chef the closest thing to authoritive we have.

But Noah could always be the learner. He's Chris' assistant, after all, so having him as the confederate in this experiment make sense.

And now I'm thinking of a whole AU where the TD cast are forced to experience a whole circuit of morally charged psychology experiments.

Let's say that this whole experiment is a late-game challenge, post merge, and the competitors are tasked with 'teaching' a 'learner' (Noah), the same set up as the actual experiment itself. But the real goal of the challenge is actually to disobey Chef and show an inkling of compassion for the student.

Maybe this is part of the hypothetical Total Drama Dirtbags instead, and the challenges are geared towards teaching 'bad' people things like Ethics and Morality. But instead of the fake cast introduced during the Celebrity Manhunt episode, it's an All-Stars adjacent collection of the 'antagonists' and 'villain-adjacent' competitors across the first two generations. (I'd add gen three, but I haven't watched PI yet.)

So you'd have the obvious villain characters like Heather, Alejandro and Scott, alongside morally grey characters like Courtney, Duncan and Jo, paired with characters who aren't traditional antagonists but have the potential to be so like Eva and B (he's not villainous, but that boy carries around ice carving tools and knows how to hotwire explosions- he's nonconventional, and probably anti-authoritarian, and would make such an interesting antagonist due to his hypercompetence). Chuck in some polarising characters like Gwen and Lightning for flavour, and you've got yourself a cast chock full of potential.

So the challenge begins with the final four; since the experiment itself is a one-person deal, having it be an individual challenge close to the finale makes the most thematic sense- plus, learning when to defy authority as a moral objector is a pretty advanced Morality and Ethics lesson, so it would make more sense to present this moral dilemma later on in the season. I won't make any concrete statements here, but Courtney's definitely one of the final four here.

So she gets to go first.

-

Courtney is ushered into a sterile room, housing two desks and a doorway. At one of the desks, the one closest to the entrance, Chef is sat almost boredly. He's dressed smartly, like a scholar, with moon-rimmed glasses sitting on the bridge of his nose and a clipboard clutched between his hands.

The other desk, which is vacant, is situated against the wall next to the other doorway. On the wall itself is a switch box, displaying countless switches labelled "15" to "450"; there's a warning sticker peeling off of the box next to the "450" label, reading "WARNING: FATAL". Above the switch box is an empty screen.

Courtney stands awkwardly at the centre of the room, waiting for Chris to enter and explain what her challenge is, or for Chef to do the honours. After a few uncomfortable moments (during which she can feel Chef's judgemental stare boring into her back) the door opens, revealing the grinning face of Chris McLean, tailed by a reluctant looking Noah.

"Noah? What are you doing here?" She asks. He wasn't part of this seasons' cast, after all.

"This guy," The cynic points towards Chris, who's arms are crossed over his chest in a self-satisfied manner, "decided that my 'contractual obligations' included helping out with this challenge. I think it's a load of bull-"

"Thank you, Noah-it-all! What he means to say is, as my personal assistant, Noah was just jumping at the chance to help me out with this next challenge!"

The pessimist rolls his eyes, but doesn't offer any rebuttal.

"Speaking of, this one's gonna be a little different than your usual challenge; I call it 'The Mind Electric'."

Chef stands from his seat at the door-most desk and gingerly removes the bowler hat from his head. As he approaches the trio, he displays the hat before Courtney and Noah.

"You two'll pick out a role from the hat. One of you will be the Teacher, and the other will be the Learner."

"'Teacher'? 'Learner'? What's that supposed to mean?"

"I lost my teaching certificate in the mail, so can I just go or...?"

Chris narrows his eyes at Noah for the snark, then turns to face Courtney.

"A good question! You'll find out soon enough. Now, take your pick from the hat."

-

I'm losing steam, so I'll just summarise the rest of the 'challenge' here.

There's two folded papers in the hat, both of them have 'Teacher' written on them but since Noah's in on the act he claims to have picked 'Learner' instead. Chris leads Courtney and Noah through the doorway by the second desk, revealing a smaller room; it's mostly empty, save for the electric chair at its' centre.

Chris straps a reluctant Noah into the chair, explaining that it's a "variable of the challenge" and "nothing to be worried about", then leads Courtney back through to the first room. Chef's already sat back down at his desk, and Courtney is instructed to sit at hers (the one with the switchboard).

Once she's sat, Chris leaves the challenge site entirely, claiming something about the dangers of electricity as he does so. Chef then takes over as the main authority over the challenge, handing his clipboard to Courtney and telling her to recite what's written on it into the microphone at her desk.

On the clipboard is a series of passages, followed by a list of multiple choice questions about the passages (each question has four answers, labelled 1-4). Courtney reads out the first passage and it's questions, and Noah's answers appear on the screen above her (the screen displays a glowing number, 1-4, depending on his answer). Unsurprisingly, he gets them all right.

Until the last question. Which he gets wrong.

Chef instructs Courtney to flip the first switch- a "controlled electric shock" to work as punishment for getting the answer wrong. She does so, and a muffled yelp resounds from the doorway beside her- the door was left ajar, so she can just barely hear it.

The challenge continues, and Noah gets more answers wrong. Each time, Chef instructs Courtney to flip the next switch. She quickly realises that the intensity of the shock Noah receives increases with every switch, as his surprised yelps soon devolve into genuine cries of pain.

Courtney starts to question the validity of this 'experiment', but Chef emphasises the fact that, if she stops, she'll lose the challenge. She has to go on.

Courtney, being the competitive person she is (and not at all because she, as a teacher's pet, always questionlessly adheres to authority), continues.

From the other room, she can hear Noah's begging and crying. "Please, I don't want to do this anymore! It hurts! Please! Stop! It hurts!" She feels guilt crawl it's way into her gut, sharp nails dragging against the lining of her stomach and threatening to make her puke, but Chef insists that she has to carry on or she'll lose. So she continues.

Eventually, she finishes all of the questions on the clipboard (there's a few page's worth, so it takes about ~10 minutes). She's flipped the majority of the switches on the switch box, and Noah's pitiful sobbing has gone eerily silent in the other room.

Chris re-enters the room, a sombre look on his face.

"Huh. Didn't think you'd actually go through with the whole thing. Looks like someone's failed the challenge."

Courtney's understandably outraged at the prospect, because she did exactly as she was instructed to. But that's just the issue; she was supposed to question the immorality of the situation, not just blindly follow instructions.

Chris asks if she wants to see the state she's left Noah in, heavily implying that she's either killed him outright or severely hurt him. Courtney's hesitant, but eventually concedes that she should at least see the consequences of her actions.

So she's even more outraged when they enter the smaller room to see Noah playing Candy Crush on his phone, entirely unharmed. Not a single indication that he'd been shocked at all, despite the heart wrenching cries and sobs she'd been tortured with.

Maybe Noah gives a demonstration of his acting skills here? OR Maybe Chris decides not to let Courtney see Noah, leaving her in the dark to stew in the guilt of what she might've done. 🤷‍♀️

-

Uh. Got kind of carried away there. Oops?

[reflections-in-a-critical-eye]

I would love to know your thoughts about the German poem being seemingly corded around his body. Also has your interpretation of the panopticon usage changed at all given that the same set was used for the entire music video and he never left it?

First, I'd like to put side by side the poem and this text that from the very beginning hints at the message(s) in the album.

The first four lines in the Face text are mirroring Rilke's first stanza, like this:

I live my life in widening circles

That reach out across the world

Wave spreads beautifully,

Finding its own flow.

I think it shows being open and willing to experience whatever life brings on. The speaker, and in this particular case Jimin, is at the center of it. His existence is the one that creates the waves, the widening circles that can encompass a myriad of people, experiences. But, it comes with an important observation:

I may not complete this last one

But I will give myself to it.

Despite wounds and distortions

From a smallest scratch.

There a show of resilience here, of accepting that despite how much it can hurt, it's the only way to actually live. It's not an easy task. And that last circle doesn't need to be completed. Perhaps only in death, but until then, it's about the trajectory, of keep trying. Yes, he might get hurt along along the way but let's not forget the hint of optimism of the way in which the wave spreads beautifully. It's not a contradiction, but just the way life works.

I've been circling for thousands of years

And I still don't know: am I a falcon, a storm, or a great song?

The face of unwavering effort

Despite repeated falls and pain.

One ends with a question, while the other one hints at choosing an answer. In Rilke's poem, it is left to the reader's choice to take away from it what one might be after questioning's life purpose. Or perhaps one key of interpretation is that we can be all of those three at different times in our lives, depending on the experiences we have when we let things in.

Jimin might be a beautiful song, but also the falcon. God here can be interpreted as a metaphor. The primordial tower. That can take a meaning depending on what the one thing or more in someone's life that stands at the center of their existence. We each have our own answer to that. For Jimin, it might be himself, "the face on unwavering effort". That's his answer.

The panopticon is not a physical place. That struggle and the reveal of inner demons happens inside, and the metaphorical liberation from the imprisonment takes place at the end. I think Jimin showed throughout the video that he's a falcon, a storm and a beautiful song and lastly, he chose himself.

I found a beautiful interpretation of the poem. I suggest reading it because it can actually help in understanding a lot more the concept of Set Me Free Pt. 2 and why it makes such good sense to have it connected to Jimin.

[oldestenemy]

“Initiate!” Velma Von Venkman’s voice is always a bright note in this place—at least compared to Ione and Fitzhume, who the wizard hears more often. “I know you’re preparing for Mirage—but since you’re waiting on Quismah to locate the spiral door—can I have a word?”

That’s the other thing they like about Velma.

She asks for their time.

She doesn’t demand it like Ione or Baba Yaga—or like Ambrose used to.

“Of course,” She was right anyways—they couldn’t do much until Quismah sent word that she had found where in the sprawling deserts the spiral door for Mirage had been lost. “what do you need?”

Velma smiles, and maybe they imagine it but there might be a hint of sadness in it. “Look at you, always ready to throw yourself at a task—but it wasn’t really something I needed, it’s more—come with me, I don’t think this is really Panopticon chatter.”

So they follow her into the Hall of Shadow.

“Alright, so I know I didn’t ask in the beginning—I usually try not to pry into people’s pasts—most of the scholars are very private people—okay maybe not most—doesn’t matter, would you mind taking your hood down for me?” Maybe it’s the way she talks, maybe it’s the fact that she doesn’t appear to be more than a decade older than they are at most, but out of the people they’ve met here—Velma is the one who puts them on guard the least.

It doesn’t stop them from jolting a little at the question.

Because it means she’s recognized the scarring. In some form or another.

They suppose there was never going to be any hiding it from a scholar of Shadow. The wizard lowers their hood, and the thin veil of darkness that conceals all but their eyes vanishes with it. Sometimes they wonder if getting used to it was a mistake. They feel almost exposed without the cover.

They do not have a lot of time to dwell on the feeling—thankfully—because Velma is fiddling with the high collar of her shirt, eventually undoing enough of it to reveal scarring in a similar coloration—though not welled so deep—in the shape of a jester’s collar. Or an echo of one. Not quite so well defined, jagged on the edges but still clearly there. “I thought I recognized those—I just haven’t been able to quite pin down how you ended up with them,” She says, “I came back with this after the first time I brought the Trickster into existence, and when I spoke to Sofia Darkside—you know her don’t you?—she theorized it was because I was the first person to pull that type of Shadow creature under magical control. But the tears—”

“—it’s overuse.” The wizard answers before her ramble goes any further. There’s no point in keeping it secret, unlike everyone else here Velma is unafraid of Shadow. She is dedicated to poking and prodding and learning its secrets. “The first time was after I killed Morganthe—I absorbed so much of the power pouring from her that it was trying to escape my body any way it could. It came out like the night sky made liquid, like—” why bother describing it.

The wizard takes a breath.

Reaches inward for the coil of emotions they keep a tight handle on. Rage, grief, guilt, pride, desperation and fear. Loosens the locks. Just enough that their eyes burn. Cold and dark and starry.

They run two fingers under an eye, holding their hand out to Velma. “I can call it up, I couldn’t on Khrysalis, but later—I was trapped, I was angry and desperate—it’s pure Shadow magic, I can use it to bend reality around me like you would with any of its spells. I’ve made battle placements, door sigils, altered spell cards—” Embedded Shadow creatures into duel circles, burnt themself into a husk…

Velma pulls open to a blank page of her spellbook, and holds it out to them, “Would you mind?”

They run the ink-dark fingertips down the page, tracing the sigil for Shadow because it seems appropriate. When Velma sets the book down on her desk and comes back she’s peering at their eyes in curiosity—not even bothering to hide the way she is buzzing with it.

“It comes with a price.”

“All Shadow does,” Velma replies, still inspecting the drying starlight.

“This is different,” the wizard insists “you can use it and use it and use it without backlash until you either engage and finish a duel, or use a proper spell that induces backlash itself.” They tell her in more detail than they’ve told anyone—even Cyrus—about Nidavellir and Darkmoor and the ways this usage of magic ended when pushed too far.

To her credit, Velma listens with wide eyed interest. Only stopping them here and there to clarify how something felt, or how it looked. When they’re done, she rests back against the edge of her desk, the thin arm of her monocle tucked between her teeth like it’s helping her think. Eventually, she does ask the question they’ve been expecting. “And these are your only scars from Shadow?”

Nobody knows about the one hooked under their sternum.

Jagged and puckered, knotted tissue poorly healed.

The wizard nods. And lies. “They’re the only ones. I think they get deeper whenever I try to dip into that well.” That part is true, they think whenever they let the tears come fully, run down their face again like all the times before—it paints an ever deeper well into the soft plane of their face. Another reason for trying not to take things too far anymore, though certainly not the primary one.

The idea of what happened in Nidavellir being repeatable haunts them.

They do not want to chance a creature like what they became released on a wider scale.

They’ve got too much to lose.

[popsicle-stick]

when i was younger i used to stream my art a bit and i think when* i get a new computer i would love to actually......do it again......... panopticon of shame 100% proven Best way to consistently concentrate on doing a task and Get It Done imo

*when, or, more likely 'if',

[cyanocoraxx]

flesh panopticon thoughts....

the warning prior to entering the final arena "DO NOT LET IT LOOK AT YOU" is not necessarily a warning for your safety. it's telling you FOR THE LOVE OF GOD to Not Distract The Prison. the panopticon was already struggling to contain sisyphus and as soon as V1 enters the room it focuses solely on V1 because it's such a massive threat by just being there. the panopticon was doomed to fail the moment anything walked into that room as if it became distracted from holding sisyphus' soul for even one second, the soul would awaken and break out.

this may also be why the panopticon isn't positioned where it technically SHOULD be - the arena BEFORE the ending, where it would be surrounded by sentries at every corner. but anything unexpected happening in this room could easily take the panopticon's attention away from its task, hence why it was never stationed there. it needed full focus and quiet to maintain its role.

[wormsin]

everytime i talk to my prison phd friend i learn the most fascinating and horrifying things about prison and criminalization.

i absolutely cannot share the gossip i heard last night, but she was in town recently and i got the low down on philly's Eastern State Penitentiary, an important historic prison. the long and short of it is that it was the most expensive, utopian architecture panopticon prison whose ideals were reformist and noble and whose execution was extremely deadly and horrible.

first of all, they do haunted houses here which you should never go on because it is morally bankrupt to participate in prison site entertainment, and there's also an insane amount of lead paint and other hazards. like the regular tour guides are not working in safe conditions. don't touch anything. don't get your halloween spooky hard on at a site of mass torture and murder.

with that out of the way, look at this blueprint. the guard post is in the center, which allows them to look down any block and see everything. panopticon shit. you can also see that every cell has an individual courtyard.

this was the ideal design. in the ideal system, a prisoner would be brought in through the entry hall, meet the warden, have a bag placed over their head and be brought to their cell, after which point the only people they would see during their sentence was a daily visit from the warden and weekly visit by a doctor and a priest. they were also expected to never speak.

so you have your cell, an attached courtyard you can use anytime to go outside (and garden in or keep pets if you wanted), a manual labor task, and a lot of social isolation. the idea was to create an environment where the prisoner could contemplate their crimes and be penitent. (hence, penitentiary.) the prevalent idea at the time was that crime was a social contagion, so prisoners who socialized together might spread it amongst themselves. but here, there's just ample opportunity for self reflection. you weren't allowed to speak as to not disturb the other prisoners' reform.

(prisoners shoemaking 1897)

they put hoods on the prisoners during transfers *and* anonymised their names in records so that no one on the outside would know they had been to prison and attach stigma to them.

so the idea was honestly very dope, especially compared to the Alburn/New York system.

however, the masterminds behind this system did not know that social isolation is deadly to humans. which led to some other prisons adapting *part* of the system to extremely lethal results.

but that wasn't totally the problem with this prison. while the ideal system had goodish intentions, its actual implementation was very different. prisoners were not socially isolated to that degree (good!) and were punished and tortured by guards and counselors (very very bad!). you can see the degradation of the original plan through the architecture over the years.

theres honestly so much that is fascinating here, even just in the architecture. they built the halls to feel like churches! the cells were supposed to have one skylight because "god was always watching"! they used mirrors to surveil the various angles and corridors! the cell doors might have been so small because they wanted prisoners to bow before entering and exiting! fascinating stuff.

there's a ton of history here and if you have the chance you should take the tour. just don't touch anything. because of the lead.

"In its intention I am well convinced that it is kind, humane, and meant for reformation; but I am persuaded that those who designed this system of Prison Discipline, and those benevolent gentleman who carry it into execution, do not know what it is that they are doing….I hold this slow and daily tampering with the mysteries of the brain to be immeasurably worse than any torture of the body; and because its ghastly signs and tokens are not so palpable to the eye,… and it extorts few cries that human ears can hear; therefore I the more denounce it, as a secret punishment in which slumbering humanity is not roused up to stay." — Charles Dickens, 1841

[toburnup]

hii can you tell more about the title of chp 10?

ahh panopticon!

a panopticon prison is when there's a single guard tower overlooking a large number of cells. if the windows are blacked out, there's no way to tell if you're being watched or not.

The authority changes from being a limited physical entity to being an internalized omniscience - the prisoners discipline themselves simply because someone might be watching, eliminating the need for more physical power to accomplish the same task. (x)

and then foucault, brilliant/annoying as he was, was like. HMMMM how can i intellectualize this! and he connected it to the idea that all citizens self-police our behaviour even when no one is watching. that we have strict ideas of socially expected (and acceptable) behaviour. and i'm a queer theory bitch and i wrote a paper on the panopticon in school, so ofc i have to bring it into my fics lmaoo.

panopticon theory has informed how i've written steve, who is overly aware of his behaviour and how it's perceived by people around him. and beyond that, he self-polices his behaviour (and his thoughts!) as if he's being constantly watched. his idea of acceptable behaviour is also closely linked to heteronormative standards — like what would a straight guy do or think in this situation? even though no one is really watching him that closely.

it comes up in a lot of ways in ch 10 especially. he sits on the bus and looks around him, trying to figure out if he can see gay men from sight alone. for steve, a big part of being in the closet is adhering to specific social standards that he holds himself to, and not necessarily ones that other people would be holding him to. it's coming from the Self 💙 which is painful to untangle, but he's getting there.

[gr1an]

Okay I think it's time we all start manifesting the gemtho team up in the next life series. Etho is the brain and Gem is the muscle. It'll happen I promise. not even a question in my mind they're gonna be unstoppable and we will get fanfictions from it for months just you wait. honestly you're crazy if you don't think it's gonna happen because them not teaming up is literally impossible (manifest with me)

Or we get a team of Etho and his fanclub (Joel, Bdubs and Gem)

PLS gem was so good in secret life i’d love for her to be in the next series and YES i’d love for her next group to have etho in it especially if the next season’s gimmick is related to how the last winner (scar) won. or the lesson he learned from it. bc i really like the theory that the winners of the previous series influence the next one.

(warning: hyperfixation infodump that is barely tangentially connected)

grian won third life, and saw that the lives you have or lose aren’t your choice. some are born lucky, some are lucky to be born. then last life had randomly assigned lives.

then scott won last life. he won it in the series where he had someone he could trust with his life the entire time. then double life had soulmates.

pearl won double life. she absolutely won it by her own means, but the final death was her soulmate sacrificing himself. then last life has a system that gives +30 min no matter how much time the person you kill is on. teammate sacrifices rule supreme.

martyn wins last life. he does it by suddenly being overwhelmed by the watcher’s attention and losing his mind to turn on his teammates. then secret life includes a statue of a watcher giving out secret tasks that have everyone acting out of character.

then scar wins secret life. 1) he didn’t even know he’d won at first. 2) he was forced into doing something time after time that almost never actually ended up working in his favor. 3) he was alone the whole time.

those three things could lead to some INTERESTING gimmicks

not knowing really messed him up. as well as all the other stuff ppl kept hidden this series. nobody has any more secrets to hide. panopticon you are not able to hide ANYTHING. meaning that the teams are absolutely going to be less. adventurous than they previously have been. if they can’t trust you with everything they will trust you with nothing.

roles like in the game mafia are a thing. you don’t get to choose whether you’re the healer or the sheriff or the mafia. but you have to act your part to win.

something about the gimmick makes long term alliances actually result in worse outcomes. those that team together become that much more obvious.

sorry this was supposed to be about gemtho but i had thoughts that i couldn’t stop lol