#scaffolding projects

[scopescaffolding]

Tower and Chimney Scaffolding Projects | Commercial & Residential

Tower and Chimney Scaffolding Projects is a company that provides scaffolding services for commercial and residential clients. They specialize in providing customized solutions for tower and chimney scaffolding projects, ensuring safe and efficient access to elevated areas for construction, maintenance, and repair purposes. With a team of skilled and experienced professionals, they ensure that all scaffolding is erected, maintained, and dismantled according to the latest industry standards and regulations. Whether it’s for a small residential project or a large-scale commercial undertaking, Tower and Chimney Scaffolding Projects offers reliable and cost-effective solutions tailored to their clients’ specific needs.

[mystery-moose]

GAMES I PLAYED IN 2024: A LIST

Went looking through my Steam Replay thingy, and decided to type up some thoughts on my favorite games I played this year! Here they are in roughly chronological order:

Helldivers 2 rules. It nails the tone and atmosphere of its inspiration (the Paul Verhoeven masterwork Starship Troopers) so well that it renders me almost totally uninterested in the officially licensed and apparently quite good Starship Troopers games that came out recently! It's a perfectly absurdist, hilarious satire that's played so straight it almost becomes cool! Right up until you get into the game. Because yeah, when things go well, you can feel really cool and badass and like you're in an intense sci-fi war movie... but the real strength of Helldivers is its comedy, and I don't mean the writing. I mean the ragdolling, the constant, impossibly big explosions, the deaths that come fast and furious and reduce you to giblet gravy, and the respawn being a whole new, fresh Helldiver that airdrops in to replace the dead one. It either feels incredibly tense and tactical, or it feels like cartoon slapstick comedy, and there's almost no middle ground. It threads both needles simultaneously like no other game before.

Now, some folks might be mad when, say, the Democracy Space Station the entire community contributed to building does nothing but shell the shit out of whatever planet its orbiting, to the point that most missions on said planet become suicide runs that result in dozens of dead Helldivers. They might also be mad when the devs add mines with blast zones so large they kill Helldivers as much as enemies, or rocket launchers that airburst almost immediately and teamkill constantly, or a car with a manual transmission that handles like a drunk walrus when its tires get popped. But I think these things rule, because these things contribute to Helldivers greatest strengths: comedy and chaos.

I did fall off it for a few months, when it got a bit stale. There was a period where they nerfed a bunch of guns, and frankly I understand why they did, and equally understand why they rolled it back. The game has had controversies, live service problems, Sony-driven publisher nonsense and recently some microtransactions I thought were poorly priced, but on the whole? The galactic warfront has kept me in their discord just to know how things are going even when I'm not playing, and that's not something I do for basically any other game!

If you want a good time in co-op, and you like third-person shooting and some crackerjack production values, and you like to laugh (sometimes at yourself), you will love Helldivers 2!

Dragon's Dogma 2 is not a perfect game. It's not even close. It has a ton of issues with a lack of variety in its content, a story that struggles with pacing issues and maintaining interest, and some awkward AI that renders a number of skills less useful than they should be.

That being said, there is no other game like Dragon's Dogma. It is tactile and mechanically deep, with class customization built around a combat system that feels exceptionally satisfying to use. It has a genuine sense of multiplayer shenanigans and camaraderie in a single-player game, through its customizable NPCs that you summon from other players. It creates stories about being dragged away by wolves or carried away on the back of a griffon and ending up in another part of the world, encountering monsters fighting each other or attacking caravans... and there's truly nothing like emerging into a canyon, seeing a troll fighting a dragon, running down and climbing all over the beastie and stabbing it until it dies. The vibes are immaculate, and that carried me through most of the game on its own.

I still need to get through the ending (that's not an ending) and the new game plus (that's not a new game plus) but even without completing it, I have a lot of fondness for this weird, weird game. I wish parts of it were better -- like a LOT better -- and I still think it has content issues that could have been solved by another year or two in the oven... but god (and Capcom) willing, some DLC or an expansion will get us there. I'd purchase it in a heartbeat!

Halls of Torment and Death Must Die are two "bullet heaven" games I played this year! Halls of Torment is aping the aesthetic of Diablo 1 and 2, while Death Must Die (pictured above) is doing more of a pixelart, Hades-like kind of thing with its buffs and boons. They both have a heavy loot focus, and a lot of progression, but they're both satisfying in different ways. They're both in early access, but content-rich, and I'd recommend them both -- that is, if you've already played Vampire Survivors and exhausted it and wanted more. Vampire Survivors is, of course, still king of its genre.

Homeworld 3 is the most disappointed I've been by a game in years. Blackbird Interactive have done good work in the past, helped put together the excellent Homeworld Remastered Collection, made Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak which for my money still has immaculate vibes and an excellent aesthetic, and also put out Hardspace: Shipbreaker! They've made great games in the past! So how this game turned out the way it did... I can only blame Gearbox and their meddling, because holy god.

There are mechanical issues like ships not following orders correctly, the pathfinding being kind of nightmarish, and the gimmick of superstructures and cover almost never mattering outside of a handful of campaign moments. The season pass (because of course it had one) had a bizarre focus on a very odd co-op multiplayer run-based mode, for some reason, rather than skirmish multiplayer -- which also had a dearth of maps and modes at launch.

But all of that doesn't matter so much to me, because what matters to me when it comes to Homeworld is the vibes. The aesthetic. The ice-cool, clinical, sweeping sci-fi space opera. Less a focus on named characters and more a focus on grander civilizations, politics, or enemies. Even Deserts of Kharak, set on a single planet, captured these vibes. And instead we got... some of the most awkwardly animated, ham-handedly written, and cartoonish cutscenes I've seen in a game in a good while. When the villain shows up in a main character's dream sequence and vamps around like a Dreamworks villain about to break into song, that's when I put the game down. I still haven't gone back.

I preordered the goddamn collector's edition of this. I never do that! I should know better! But I made the mistake of thinking a pedigree and proven track record are enough to bet on. Frankly, I think they should be -- maybe Gearbox and their story consultants and brand managers are just poisonous. Regardless, this was a real king-size bummer for me this year. Homeworld is dead now -- I can't imagine it getting another swing after this. But believe me when I say it deserved better.

The Dead Space remake is, against all expectations, absolutely fantastic. There are some quibbles I have here and there; I think the new performances from the supporting cast are a little flat. I think Kyne in particular loses a lot of ambiguity. The story and characterization elsewhere has been made less cartoonish or obvious, but given that Dead Space is a pretty corny horror yarn, it loses some charm as a result. But other characters like Isaac and especially Nicole benefit tremendously from a rewrite, giving them agency and likability they did not have before, and the wrinkles they add in their relationship are fantastic.

And mechanically? Wow. The game has never played better, moved better, been structured better. Some areas feel different, more a sidegrade than an upgrade, but others, especially in the new dark sections? Awesomely spooky. I happily started a new game plus of this and I fully intend to go back to it every October like I do Dead Space 2. It's SO good. That we were denied a new sequel is proof positive that EA sucks eggs.

Space Marine 2 is a 7/10 action game from the Xbox 360 era, shined up and given some quality multiplayer features. I mean that as the highest compliment; we don't get many of those these days! It is one of the best representations of Warhammer as an aesthetic and a vibe, and mechanically it is incredibly satisfying. I don't think a parry and riposte has felt this good since Sifu or Sekiro, at least in terms of sound design and impact. And the multiplayer! Simple, effective, an satisfying, with fun separate progressions for co-op and PvP. Every part of this package is far better than it has any right to be, at every level. You don't need to be a Warhammer nerd to like this game, in fact it's a pretty neat introduction, but for super nerds or just sometimes fans like me? Certain setpieces are absolute cinema. Can't wait for that horde mode to hit next year!

If Homeworld 3 is the most I've been disappointed by a game, the Silent Hill 2 remake might be the most I've been surprised by one. I had zero expectations for this thing, given the developer's previous output, and Silent Hill 2 itself is one of those games that is genuinely Important Art. Not just on its own merits, but in how it influenced creatives in basically every other form of art there is. There's an argument to be made that Silent Hill 2 has quietly influenced more horror media than damn near anything else since 2002. And it earned that.

So when this remake turned out to be... like, actually great? And not just great, but restrained? Thoughtful, even? That's amazing. The core story remains the same, whole cutscenes lifted almost word for word, but the changes they do make are not made solely to be different or justify its existence; they're done purposefully, because time has passed, because the game now flows from its scenes and environments more fluidly. Because they wanted to add (or emphasize) certain aspects of characterization. And the scenes they do add are so in keeping with the rest that it's hard to tell where the new stuff begins and ends. Heck, even the new endings they added are kind of amazing!

This is the remake that Silent Hill 2 deserved. The original is still exceptional, and should be preserved, but if this is the only way someone can experience this story? That's okay. This has single-handedly made me interested in whatever Bloober Team makes next, and I hope that whatever it is, they can channel the talent that made this, rather than their previous output.

I have not yet completed Dragon Age: The Veilguard, but I can tell you now that it is good. Maybe not great! But good. Solid. It has mechanically dense and interesting combat, an exceptionally cool skill tree and class customization system, accessibility options out the wazoo, and some really great production values. It has fun characters (some more than others) and a really fun protagonist. Some of the writing can be... heavy-handed, I'll say. And some of it is obvious, or hammy, or kind of pat. It feels very different than past Dragon Age games, for better AND for worse. I'm gonna have a bunch of thoughts on it when I'm done, I can tell!

But as a showing for BioWare, to prove that they're still capable of putting out RPGs that matter? That their formula, as old as it is, still works? That they still belong in the conversation after Larian's Baldur's Gate 3? I think this is a tremendous success.

Maybe the ending will fumble the bag really badly. That's been known to happen in BioWare games! But even then, I'd still have had a lot of fun playing this thing.

And if nothing else? Man, the next Mass Effect is gonna be AWESOME. (If they're allowed to make it...)

I Am Your Beast is the latest game from Strange Scaffold, the folks what made El Paso, Elsewhere, Clickolding, Space Warlord Organ Trading Simulator, and An Airport For Aliens Currently Run By Dogs. If nothing else, their title game is on point. My only experience with them was El Paso, a game written and performed by one of the main leads, Xalavier Nelson Jr. And let me tell you, that game put them on my radar.

And while El Paso, Elsewhere was a Max Payne pastiche, a game about relationships and a breakup and addiction and emotional catharsis filtered through slow-mo dives through windows shooting shotguns at werewolves, I Am Your Beast is a smaller, leaner production. It is about a guy who killed for the government, who doesn't wanna kill for the government anymore, and when they send men to make him do that, he kills them all. That's it, basically -- and yet the narrative, told entirely through voice acting and typography without a single animated cutscene or face in the entire game, is one of the most quietly confident and cathartic I've seen in a while. It's a revenge thriller, of the John Wick sort, but the simple humanity and humor that Xalavier and his fellow voice actors imbue into the characters in such a series of short scenes is really incredible. It's the sort of game I've kind of always wanted; a stylish riff on a popular subgenre of film that makes you feel like you're in it. Because for as much as video games ape movies, there's surprisingly few games that really do what this game does, or feel like how this game feels!

And mechanically? The game is a just a bit stiff, such that you can tell it didn't have as much money or time as maybe it could have used. But even with that, it is still fast and smooth and extremely satisfying. The game loads as fast as it moves, so when you fuck up, you can reset in less than a second and start right over, Super Meat Boy style. This is necessary, as it is a fast, score-based shooter that can demand a lot of you if you want to complete all the optional objectives, let alone S-rank everything. But really, the action IS the juice, the raw lizardbrain satisfaction of nailing headshot after headshot, running a route through a map that you've planned after numerous attempts and getting it just right, just perfect, with a little room for improvisation along the way. And your reward? Another great little bit of voice acting, some characterization, and another killer tune to vibe to as you shoot your way through another army of goons.

I Am Your Beast is very close to being the best possible version of itself, but even falling just short of that, it's still one of the absolute best games I've played this year, or any year. It's short, it's sweet, it's cathartic as hell, and it has one of the best final levels of any game I've played. I'm a sucker for when a song drops into gameplay, especially with lyrics, and boy they save that for a final level that's more a celebration than a challenge. This game kicks ass, and if you get anything from this list? I'd say get this one, for real.

Karate Survivor is another in the burgeoning subgenre of "bullet heaven," aka Vampire Survivors-clones. But this one is different, because it requires actual gameplay!

I jest, but this game does feel more active and more involving in terms of positioning than most games in this genre. Instead of building a suite of weapons that autofire, you're building a combo string that auto fires, and each attack goes in a specific direction with a specific arc of damage, and they're each part of different styles and different sequences that boost damage and add bonus effects when linked together and... you can see how there's some juice here!

But more importantly, Karate Survivor does something I did not expect: it made me feel like Jackie Chan. There are games that let you do a fight scene -- Sifu is one of my all-time favorite games, and that has some environmental stuff you can do, ottomans you can kick and bottles you can throw and tables to dive over, but it's all just a bit self-serious, a bit too cool. And that's good! I like those vibes! But a Jackie Chan movie, a good one? That has something different. There's an element of danger, of threat, of physicality and pain for sure, but there's also a distinct element throughout the choreography of slapstick comedy, of using the environment in creative ways.

And that's what this game does -- you have environmental interactions. You direct your karate man over to some bottles, and he'll automatically chuck them at the nearest enemy. He'll kick chairs and buckets, he'll pick up brooms and shovels and ladders, he'll kick out a support and send a shack tumbling down on his attackers. You can run up walls, you can throw open doors to smack dudes in the face (a move lifted directly from Rumble in the Bronx) and you can pole vault into locked rooms or across rooftops. The act of moving, of positioning yourself to funnel attackers and utilize the environment and grab whatever is laying around? That's Jackie Chan, baby. And no other game has really captured that feeling like this one has!

Karate Survivor fully justifies itself not as a clone of Vampire Survivors, but as its own game. It is unique, it has some excellent pixel art, it kicks ass, and best of all, it is very cheap. Absolutely check it out if you can!

Balatro is my game of the year. It kind of has to be. Yeah, I'm sure Astro Bot is incredible, I'll play it someday and love it death I'm sure. I hear that Indiana Jones game is shockingly excellent too! And Shadow of the Erdtree? I mean come on!

But you don't understand. You don't get it. I didn't either -- I thought I was over deckbuilding roguelikes, and the poker aesthetic? Who could care! I mean I like poker and all, but as a video game? Meh.

Then I watched someone play it for just a few minutes, and I knew I had to try it. Then I got it on mobile, and it was all over.

Balatro is a dopamine factory. Not in the same way that Vampire Survivors is, where it's all in the presentation and after a certain point the game sort of falls away and it's just flashing lights making brain chemicals happen. Balatro is a thinker. You gotta plan, you gotta react. You gotta play the right hands, get your cards in the proper order to maximize score. You gotta build your run on the fly, depending on the jokers you find. There is not a moment in Balatro that you are not making some meaningful decision, no matter how small or short. It has one of the best UI designs in games, with some really smart flourishes that make my pleasure centers light up like a Christmas tree. It is a game that you can break such that your high score is in scientific notation, but luck is also a factor, and you'll rarely see this unless you dig into seed science. It has a bunch of different decks that all radically change how you play, and a bunch of challenge modes that demand you play a certain way, and you're always unlocking one of the 150 jokers in the game that each completely change how you build your strategy.

Balatro is available on PC and mobile. Get it on both. You pay like fifteen bucks, and you get everything. No DLC, no microtransactions, no actual gambling, ever. The whole game. I've put at least fifty hours into this thing, probably more, and I'll put more into it in 2025. If I get the PC version, I might investigate the mod scene! People are adding new jokers that break the game even more! One-man developer LocalThunk is a baller, and I can't wait to see what he makes next, but if all he ever does is this? He's earned a spot in the history of this medium.

Balatro is the closest to a perfect game I've seen since Vampire Survivors. That two games this monumental by solo devs have come out so close together is proof enough to me that, for all its many MANY problems, we are in a golden age of video games. I sincerely hope it inspires tons of folks to make their own! So I can lose hundreds of hours to those, too.

[duskydrawings]

GIRL HELP I have CREATED A CHARACTER before fleshing out the storyline and now I've become TOO ATTACHED to change certain aspects of them, or god forbid — SCRAP THEM, for the sake of IMPROVED STORYTELLING

[orcelito]

Worst thing about having taken business classes is that I see people complain about bullshit companies are pulling and a part of my brain goes "Oh, that's an effective tactic for cost reduction" or something around those lines. And then the part of my brain that is Not a wannabe businessman is just like "Bro."

[w-corp-clerk-anon]

Now that we have Aisle Q back, we now have to prepare for "that time of the year" it comes with upsides and downsides Upsides: -We can purge out those 'phobic bastards from the company -Use our customized uniforms without being judged by the passangers (they told me that the purples in mine really matches my hair) -Some of our seniors will bring us matching stuff depending on our orientation -The food, you should see the food, while is a shame that is only for the month, the food in the other districts cafes is wort it, wont say more but with any luck you can get a good cup with your flag Downsides: -We don't get to vote this year's logo, this is due to a past incident where they sabotaged the votes and choose one that went against the company policies. -Too many posters to change in the station, this is why we are being told beforehand to start preparing everything, the station is too big and sometimes we aren't enought people. -Despise having custom uniforms we still have to use our basic vests due to the materials used on them being hard to dye, annd the part that they're expensive too. -Nest-dwellers aren't fun to deal with, specially if they are on the extremist side of that ancient ideology.

I could list more on the downsides but that can take the entire day, but you know the drill, there is never enougth time.

[s2z]

Coode Island, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. 2023-01-29 16:26:49 by stuart murdoch

[amirsons]

Top Shuttering Materials On Rent in Delhi

If you’re looking for the top shuttering materials on rent in Delhi, choosing reliable and durable options is essential for successful construction projects. Commonly rented shuttering materials include steel plates, wooden planks, and adjustable props, each offering unique benefits based on project requirements. Steel shuttering is preferred for its strength and reusability, while wooden options are cost-effective and easy to handle. For those seeking quality shuttering material on hire, Amirsons is a trusted name, offering a wide range of materials to meet diverse construction needs. Their focus on quality and affordability makes them a go-to solution for contractors in Delhi.

[explode-this]

Having a minor existential crisis this morning about being a decent writer but also having severe adhd which means I have all of these little bits of actually good writing and a miraculous ability to critique and assist in editing yet I couldn’t finish the degree that would give me the piece of paper that assures any prospective employer or contractor that I’m smart and good at what I do (primarily: following instructions and putting words together) and also I have no body of work to demonstrate said skills so basically

[erstwhilesparrow]

[voice of someone considering a deeply inadvisable project] i mean, i could actually be more directed about learning how to write smut, i have works i consider good examples, i've successfully achieved verisimilitude about kink stuff in the past just by doing a lot of googling, i could take notes about it,

[raogbl]

A scaffold provides masons with a safe platform to work on as the building's height rises. Scaffolding is a temporary structure for supporting several platforms that workers can use as required.

When walls, columns, or other structural members of a building exceed 1.5 m in height, temporary structures must be built to support a platform when the workmen can sit and continue working.

Scaffolding is a temporary structure, usually made of steel or timber, built very close to the surface of a wall. All components of the scaffold should be checked thoroughly before use to ensure safety and integrity.

The use of aluminum scaffolding in construction, remodeling, and repair projects has increased dramatically in recent years. As a result of its plethora of benefits, you are also seeing its use in related industries and projects, such as railways, ports, fire protection, aviation, and telecommunications.

Aluminum Scaffolding Types

Narrow Scaffolding

Historically, scaffold towers had to be built in tight spaces, such as small, constrained spaces. Construction work at height can be done with these narrow scaffolding single width towers, which have one platform per level, regardless of space constraints. Because they are easy to erect and dismantle, they save time and money, as well as boost productivity.

Bridge Scaffolding

Scaffolds are very useful when you need to perform maintenance or repairs over a large area. The aluminum scaffold platform will enable you to work over a spread area without having to take it down and re-erect it several times.

Z Type Stairway Scaffolding

Using a Z type scaffolding system makes your construction work faster, more efficient and labor saving. You can also work at different elevations with the help of guardrails and a functioning stair system. 280mm and 560mm rung spacing’s are available depending on load and budget requirements.

Extra Reach Scaffolding

Due to the higher height of these scaffold towers, laborers are able to reach higher areas. All sides have handrails to provide safety, and frame rungs provide easy climbing. For convenience and ease of storage in warehouses, scaffold towers also come with wheels.

Without Stairway Scaffolding

Because this type of scaffold does not require stairs, it is easy to set up and move around. These aluminum products are very durable and sturdy due to their non-corrosive and non-ferrous aluminum characteristics.

Read more

[wuggen]

Blech. Things are so much simpler when you don't care about efficiency. But caring about efficiency is so much fun! Until it isn't.

The programmer has engineered herself into a corner once again!

[nshtn]

// Cardiolipin

Albert Wesker has better uses for you than scientist-turned-secretary, and a secretary has much better uses than counting all the port caps he's used.

5.2k, tags: gloves, medical - dubious science;labcoat, nsft - handjob;leather & hand kink;mildly dubious consent;role switch;accidental voyeurism;bottom wesker, PW(much)P/gn reader, themes of obsession, TRICELL - office setting

2nd fic of Cytochrome C. AO3

It was late at night at TRICELL. You'd just completed the last of the documents that Albert Wesker had assigned for you: today had been a day of nothing but record-keeping, pouring over entry after entry to inventory the things you'd both used in the pursuits of your knowledge. 

It was a rough pile of paperwork, but someone had to do it – and Wesker told you he had deadlines to meet. He could stave your own off for this, but he couldn't push back his own. 

Typical. You’d come to expect it, really.

While you appreciated the subtle cover, his arrogance peeked through the paper-thin veil. At least he tried to make it sound better than it was: that he simply didn't feel that it was his place to do inventory, even if it was under his job title, and, technically, not your own. Not anymore, at least.

Sometimes you felt a little like his secretary.

Well, a lot of times, actually – the way you two had... gotten along, how closely you worked and the strange, unearthly bond that had blossomed between you. At times, you handled some of the tasks he couldn’t busy himself with – sorting e-mails, tech support, confirming the formidable math that went into organic chemistry formulas (he really hated those).

But perhaps it was in the way he’d lean over you a little more than was necessary, cologne creeping up and onto you as he read over the paper you held about results towards your own research. A glove at your back. An impressed sound, gruff, escaping the confines of his lips…

...the methods he used to congratulate you, like he was perpetually locked in some kind of social chess, obvious in the way his voice would lilt upwards into an unnaturally high register – and the rewards he’d present as if he were trying to condition you towards success. Admittedly, you let him get away with it most of the time – to glitter with free dopamine wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, was it?

Did he think you were dumb enough to come when called, like some kind of pet?

Though, admittedly, you’re sure you would if he rewarded you well enough. As long as he made it worth it, you didn’t pay his transactional nurture heed; it wasn’t malice, it was business, and you’d learned that well enough against his lips in your last close encounter.

You’d outpaced the average quite significantly, then. You still lasted now. Something in you beamed a little dangerously at that, spine prickling with the rattlings of your subconscious. It was a warning – you sidled yourself too close to someone who didn’t share the same base human values. 

You disregard that as your pencil glides.

You were curious if it’d lead anywhere some day. Physically, it had done so once before: your breakthrough in the selective application of tardigrade-specific proteins to a biological scaffold of human cells without interfering with neurons was a major leap forward for his own research. He’d asked you to use rudimentivirus progenitorensis as a vector, and that had been a very odd, very difficult request, but... given the sample, you got to work on an ‘exuprogenivec’ – it was hard, but the tendency for it to run away with what you gave it and produce virulent offspring was annoying. When you finally managed to produce something you thought viable, even in a forever flawed state, he’d taken the entire project off your hands in exchange for something you could hardly believe you’d taken him up on.

You could still hardly believe he’d allowed it. Him, of all people – Wesker! You thought he’d scoff, then. But had he read into the way you tolerated him and found that tolerance bled into something more? Had his own bled in recognition, or in turn?

Given how you no longer had the steam to work on the project, and seeing that it was in a state someone of his qualifications was better suited to, you did acquiesce. And, more importantly, you didn’t regret it. That hung between you, now, and Wesker took advantage of your attraction whenever he thought you needed a boost. 

Or, perhaps, when his ego needed one – sometimes he slid up on you or called you over with the express purpose of something you’d initially found most uncharacteristic until you’d finally gotten used to it: completely unsubtle flirtation, your response to his efforts something you could tell he locked himself in on even through the privacy of his shades. 

You’d learned. He’d learned your tells, too, though.

So, that left you here, now, neatening up the stack of papers with tired hands as you meant to deliver them and play the act of the paper boy. He was up in his office, a little farther from your unit, free from biohazard bags and agar plates. 

You sigh with a trained sort of anticipation that makes you double-take as you stand from your desk. Without further adieu, you pass through the door that separates your well-lit unit and into the dimly-lit bowels of midnight TRICELL.

At night, the lights would dim to stimulate the natural circadian rhythm and help avoid accidental time-blindness in employees. Sometimes, though, you wished they were a little brighter – they imparted a sort of creeping, heaving otherness when they were this dark. The gaps between yellow-green fluorescence cast harsh, deep slices of darkness like prison bars as you pass each glittering light. 

Was that intentional? Did it mean to paint the theme it did, so drab and macabre? Sometimes you felt like you weren’t in the know on something larger than yourself. Something eluded the tips of your mind. Maybe it was just the many mysteries of Wesker that made you feel this way – he scantly shared the level of social detail that was appropriate for a situation, preferring to remain a miserable little pile of secrets to your wandering mind.

But maybe it was something else. Maybe it was something deeper than what bobbed cleanly on the surface. Your gut demands it, but your mind is empty of factual conclusion.

You just can’t place it.

Eventually you find your mark and let your overthinking slide away, even if it’s a thick, gooey, embittered thing. It’s a little odd how quiet it is, save for the echoing scuffs of your shoes, but you’re here – now’s not the time to be lost in thought when approaching a man who would surely question you if he saw it drawn across your face; you weren’t interested in the debate, it wouldn’t be a fruitful discussion.

Should you knock? Surely he knows you mean to come in…

Ignoring your own silly protests, you pass your papers to your other hand securely and rap at the door twice before you’ll politely invade. 

No answer…

That’s odd – certainly a first. Could he have fallen asleep at his desk or left work without you to resume it tomorrow? No, no – he was married to his work, and it’d recently gotten interesting... one of those pill hotel resting zones in the nap room, then?

But that was unlike Albert Wesker. He was a man who stuck to his schedule, and there had been no indication that he’d recently been pulling any seventy two hour benders that ended in you finding him curled up in his unfinished paperwork, rare as that was. 

With a different curiosity occupying your head, you turn the handle and nearly throw your papers, hand coming up to cover your mouth as your eyes lay upon the scene before you. Oh, no, Wesker hadn’t left. He was right there at his desk, head in one gloved hand, the other tugging a fistful of himself just as preoccupied as your mind had been mere moments ago. You feel warmth sprint across the surface of your cheeks. You should turn around. He lets out a breath, the edge of his lips letting gritted air out from the clench of his canines. You should turn around and leave. As he completes several languid strokes from the tip to the base of himself, you are privy to the lewd sound of the way his skin slides across pre-stained leather. Is this the same pair he wears around you? God, you should really turn around and leave. But your body isn’t responding to the heed of your mind. It’s too busy heeling to the sound and sight, which you are certain now has become a degree of purposefully theatric, of Wesker willingly letting his arousal bubble out thick and growling from the bare column of his throat. His head tilts back a little, adams apple bobbing as he swallows a mouthful of saliva. You turn, and your clothing ruffles. Your fate is sealed like the potting of a slow-boiling frog. “Well, I didn't take you for the type to voyeur, but I suppose I could have been wrong in my calculations,” Wesker breathes, suddenly, voice oozing with intention and perfectly unmarred as he continues to stroke himself, pace slowing to offer him an even greater degree of composure. You were certain he was looking directly at you. He shifts his position to something a little more upright than hunched, as if professionalism still clung to him.

You clear your throat. “I-I can lea–”

“Nonsense. Come here,” he beckons, letting his propped elbow shift as he wags a finger at you, grunting with the weight of sexual frustration as he pauses. His hand lays over himself but never tucks his length away as the wheels of his chair slide back a little. “I’ve better use for you than fretting over every syringe.” 

You want to open your mouth and say something – you want to curse him out, maybe, for making it out like your work was so menial and pointless, but the offer he presents has your mouth firmly shut as if taped as you nearly drop your papers. You stride over to him promptly, diverting your eyes with equal parts respect and shyness as you approach the side of his desk, pushing the papers onto a part of it that has yet to find itself swamped. You want to offer him privacy even if he– even if…

“That’s better. Now,” he begins, and you think he’s going to admonish you for something, but instead his free hand comes up to his shades to push them down a little as he gives a single stroke from the top to bottom of himself. His eyes, slit and predatory, bore into you with no less a degree of control than he’d normally have, but they swim with the weight of endorphins in the degree of their visible dilation. 

And they look you up and down, slow and searching, before they stop at your own pair. You’re certain you’re red, now. “...are your hands only good at pencil-pushing, or do they hold some other useful talent for the occasion?”

Your brain stutters. “I-I was just going to leave the paperwork o-o-on your desk, as I believed that you’d– that you’d gone home, but then I saw you a–”

“You don’t need to pile on excuses.” He hums a little, lets his eyes divert to the paperwork you’ve delivered as he pauses once more in thought. Then, with a small, perceptible smirk, viperous and serpentine as they roam back to you, he leans back in his chair and lets his hand – the only barrier between your eyes and his intimacy – slide away.

He’s hard and leaking, and he thrums to attention as your vision seems to tunnel in on him automatically. Why did you do that? You can’t help yourself. You’re supposed to be better than this, and you crawl with a heady mixture of shame and desire that makes Wesker huff again. “Perhaps you’d like to get a grip on the situation, hm?” Clearly he sees past your aching repression, even as you deny yourself.

And it’s never been more clear to you that your brain is prioritizing, because it’s certainly processing that.

You move forward before he’s even finished taunting you, drawing in a breath as you let your hand draw forward. You’re slow, offering him the space of rejection if he chooses, but he just lays back and watches you as you wrap your hand around him. He’s not quite relaxed, no, but something close to it, hips still taut and growing a little tauter, wriggling forward as your hand breaches him. But he’s thick, and warm, and wet, and, fuck, he’s beautiful. 

His lips curl into a devilish, self-satisfied smirk.

There’s something to be said about how he obviously trapped you in this situation with this intention, but in the heat of the moment you cannot find it in yourself to make that comment. In fact, your glazed-over mind cannot find it in itself to care, much too busy with the outline of pumping veins that crawl along his shaft and natural wrinkles, committing them to memory like you’ve taken a private, filthy Polaroid.

You let a pathetic, guileless whimper slide from your throat. He chuckles, ego undeniably preening at your uncoerced truth. You feel nice, he qualifies to himself. “Mmm, you’re so warm...” he says – breathes, huffing as he lets his glove almost but not quite wrap around you, wrapped around him. But he stops before it makes contact with its’ intended destination. “...but something’s missing.”

Wesker bares his wrist to you in a move that feels more intimate than it should, one hand moving towards the latch of his glove. 

He does it with an air of reverence that has you mimicking, mirroring. “Yes,” you dryly, quietly concur, nodding your head as if entranced – and perhaps you were – as you let go of him, leaning in and undoing the latch gingerly, further soiling it as if it weren’t already coated in a helping of his own lubricant. Your eyes are so occupied with your task, fingers curling around the underside of his wrist and the muscles at the base of his thumb, that you do not notice the scalding degree with which his gaze follows you. 

He is breathing shallow and stuttered and perhaps a little more stuttered as you begin to pull off the glove. Wesker is thrumming, basking in your mimicry and care as if a starved man in a way that you are entirely blind to. Your attention holds more weight than others, don’t you know that?

You must. You must! But you don’t seem to acknowledge it, not truly, and that frustrates him. And it shouldn’t.

It should relieve him. You shouldn't be privy, but his own selfish want for your attention outweighs the danger of such an honesty.

God, how can he help it when you’re this fucking adorable? Such a good little thing, so good at following unspoken direction. You naturally flow the way he diverts your stream. Reducing you is fun – dangerously so, drawing him in a feverish light he doesn’t quite like. This is some kind of knife’s edge, and he’s not sure if letting it dig deep into him is the right choice when it comes to the importance of his research. 

You add an unknown variable to something very fragile…

...and yet he cannot find it in himself to stop at once, instead seeking his own destruction in the way his digits beckon the glove from your fingertips, taking the clean edges of it. “Hold your hand out.”

You obey unquestioningly.

He slides the leather – something you find smells faintly of leather oil and something else, something a little different, ruined at the palm and latch – over your splayed hand, pulling until it’s a second skin over your waiting, wanting fingers.

“Thank you…” you breathe, moving to latch it.

“Not necessary,” he hisses, impatience creeping up him like a vine. There’s another reason he doesn’t want you to latch his own glove on your hand that he doesn’t voice – it’s his, and he doesn’t want to mentally associate you with that, too, lest he drown in seeing you in everything more than he already does.

Wesker’s free hand slides up your wrist, tracing a path to your face which starts off gentle, tilting your head towards his length beckoningly. There’s a sharp demand inlaid, and you follow the natural lead, letting your vision admire him a little more as you fall into an obedient crouch, and then again, more comfortably, on your knees.

Where he thinks you belong. He wants to say it with his mouth, but he knows better than to voice something so brash, instead letting out an almost imperceptible groan if not for the proximity you found yourself. You don’t bother to bite back your pleased hum as you let your gloved hand rest at the base of him, thumb tracing a vein with deep-seated curiosity that makes him bite his lip.

The way you lack his secretiveness, how openly and wantonly you allow your admiration to stick out, is something that he finds himself both unreasonably attracted to and grievingly envious.

And while he’d like to continue to bathe in the sickening reverence he’s molded out of you in this heated moment, he must first attend to something of great importance: you really shouldn’t see what he’s been busying himself with. He doesn’t want to risk your wandering eyes landing on any one of those screens. He’d rather you see the result of it – the direct result of you. 

Letting your mind wonder about what was on them is a much kinder fate than true, free knowledge. If you knew how deep this all ran, you’d...

He tightens his grip subconsciously, pinning your vision on him as he leans up a little with a creak, deftly flicking the monitors off before he returns fully to you, shifting in the chair so that you can better make out the shape of him, which flexes with the movement of his hips.

“There. That’s better.” Wesker sighs a little, and you find that the sound echoes nerves as much as it does the first pricklings of arousal. You lean into his grip instead of away, as if the near-painful pinch is comfortable, and in response he regards you, head tilting down.

You lock eyes. You feel so small.

You’re sure he’s about to say something teasing to chafe the seams of you, but instead he says something surprising in its sudden painted depth, distracting. “Does it not bother you to dedicate your mind to this?” He doesn’t add the ‘to me’, but he sees it’s how you take it in the turn of your expression. It’s so silly to him, how you ascribe meaning to words unsaid – it is bared in the furrow of your brows, so deeply caring. His glove lets go of your chin as it cards through your hair as if you aren’t on your knees, in his office, labcoat pooling at the wheels of his chair. 

You are his the way his car or glasses are, and whether known or not, he does not hold doubt of that. Albert Wesker’s confidence is not nearly as much of a false pretense as other things. 

You’ve caught onto a few of those, haven’t you? 

“So intelligent,” he croons, something that sounds less mocking than he intends it to be, “and yet here you are…” ...on your knees for me, at my beck and call - but it trails off before he finishes the thought . Doesn’t it bother you to feel like a tiny, rotating gear in his grand machine? Do you not find it insulting to feel so utterly human, at the mercy of what surrounds you? But if you stopped, he’d find you so much less appealing. It wars with him, this.  

Yet the expected punctuation of a chuckle eludes you. It is not present to cushion the blow. The statement belies that he views your mind with a certain degree of respect. It makes clear that to do what he does now is, to him, the reduction of your mind to something simpler, more base instinct and gnashing teeth than a white-coat and fluorescent strip lighting.

It’s domination.

“Should it?” you reply, shrugging a little, hand tightening its’ grip around him, which he allows. Wesker is a man whose analytical mind leads him down paths not just less traveled, but untraveled entirely – you don’t ascribe the level of transactional thought to pleasing him that he does. You are doing this because you want to, not because it plays some higher role.

“I like…” you trail off, searching for the words, something that isn’t so hard for him to swallow as your gentle fist slides up and up his shaft. ‘To serve’ - No, that’s not it, you have a spine. ‘To make you happy’ - that feels too raw. “...to make you feel,” you settle, though you find it doesn’t capture your own feelings.

It is vague enough to pass, though the natural, sweet look you give him certainly helps, devoid of any hint of betrayal. That is such a foolish look to offer him… but right here, right now? It makes his hips jerk a little. He lets a small and thoughtful ‘hm,’ pass with it. 

Wesker is a man who feels like a raw, open wound beneath a nearly-impenetrable shell. His own defenses dig into scar tissue that cannot close. When you see him for what he is, at his most penetrable, you want to make him feel what he won’t allow himself. 

To say this in its’ truth will only alienate him. You must wait for an opening to let even a little of your intention encapsulate him. No matter what you do, you must do it gently.

Some part of him must know it, because he releases a breathy sigh as your gloved hand glides up and down faster, the leather a sinfully pleasing texture, the image of you in his own a far more sinful picture. “Is that it?” he quips, but he gentles as he sweeps your hair back in your slow rhythm, his turn to mimic, “A mutual debasing?” 

No, a mutual debriding.

His own brows find themselves drawing together as you milk the tip of him, thumb at the edge, the motion far too much and too quick, thin lips tight and wide with shut eyes to accompany them. An uncharacteristic, dark flush scrawls over the apex of his cheekbones as you continue without pause. “Mmmhmm,” you reply, a noncommittal, accepting hum that is more focused on his pleasure than the topic at large. You see it: the tension in the twitch of his leg, the way his hand tightens in your hair, his other hand gripping the arm of his office chair. 

But he doesn’t stop you. No, he quite likes this ‘mutual debasing’ more than he lets on, you figure. You hum a little as you let your fist tighten and drop down further, finally, letting up on the relentless rhythm you’d previously established. 

The moan he lets out in return is more than worth it, and he doesn’t even hide it. It is the reward for your foolishness, so bold. The walls are well-insulated – this isn’t just any office, after all. What is decided in the room you incriminate with your shockingly gentle sin can change the endless upwards race of humanity. And perhaps, though you see it as phonetic, metaphorical change, Wesker knows it as genetic change. 

Wesker rocks his hips alongside you as you pick up your pace, hissing through his teeth. Each stroke is matched one to one. The sound fits him, but he forces his mouth open near the end of it and he heaves the ends of a hot breath out that he repeats in puffs as you draw him closer to the crest of this distraction. “F-fffuck you’re good,” he states, a truthful thing, finally beginning to see the end of the rope of his composure.

His hand has long stopped traveling through your locks. Instead, he’s gripping your head in place, eyes cracked open and baring down a brilliant fire into your own. They are ruby red, filigree of a golden yellow surrounding wide black slits that are losing themselves in your earthly pleasures. To think he felt himself beyond this… he did not want to be. He wasn’t.

“Hnnh…”

Not… not if it felt like this. Not if it was you. Not if it was you. He will contend with the meaning of that later. His jaw is slack as you let your pent-up admiration cascade directly through how tight and fast you grip his cock.

“Does that feel good?” you ask, tone indecently polite. Though you’re well aware it does, the sight before you more than obvious, you want to hear it made known. It is a confirmation you know you can edge out of him if he won’t give up the goal.

Wesker responds with a growl more like a chuff that rises readily from him as he pulls at the edges of your hair in warning, letting his nose crinkle. 

Your pace, then, tortures him in how it slows at his lack of a lingual reply. Just who do you think you are? But he can’t force it out of himself, so caught up in the need for you to continue that his anger holds no teeth, thick rim no match for the true whole of desperation that clamors up his spine and pools as a tight, demanding heat. If he chides you, you might stop, and then…  

“Yes it feels g-good,” he snaps, not quite as envenomated as he envisioned as his brows furrow more meaningfully, chasing the pops of pleasure with every completed stroke, “don’t… don’t stop now.” You are so much better than his hand, and so much of this hinges on it being you that it's sickening. 

He is beautiful like this in his own way, open to you and repressing the urge to writhe. His eyes shut tight as the sensation mounts. 

Wesker loses sight of his grander goal in the scent of your proximity, a sweet temptation. You smell like something he cannot admit to himself. Attempting to place the true depth of it fails – he cannot discern what about you feels so known, fog of pleasure pushing away proper analysis. Instead, he forces himself to bear down on the pheromones of your shared arousal as he bucks slightly to meet your hand.

And the statement he’s made, too, passes, even though you could very well cease entirely and steal away this pleasure. You could flip your roles. You are unbalanced equals right now, teetering into something more, and though it should make him feel uncomfortable, instead it makes him feel like he’s going to burst. He is unsure if the unbalance lies in the lack of defined submissive and dominant, or if it lies elsewhere, and he doesn’t care – not now, at least.

Not as you speed up again, and his short, trimmed, perfect nails dig past the leather and into the side of your head, scrunching in your messied locks as your frantic pacing pushes him up and over.

Wesker’s other hand grabs the other side of your head, holding it in place like a support brace as his hips stutter. At the last moment, your free hand cups itself around his red hot tip to catch his glory. You’re so thoughtful, even now. Had he the mind, he’d soften the blow, but in the crescendo of feeling his mind demands he take, take, take.

He hisses and whimpers and writhes as release bares down on him, and it’d be beside you not to notice how intentionally he forces his mouth to remain open and venting out the sound on you, intent clear in the rejection of the trained response to be entirely silent as his hot breath fans you through teeth that beg to clench. As staged as this is – as controlled as the interaction’s beginning was, the appearance of letting himself go entirely is just that: it is something he does willfully, shaking over his own cup until it pours out for you. His hips roll as the glove steadies and slows and stops on him. 

In a way, he’s giving, and this is its’ own breed of equivalent exchange. It’s payback for your timeless adorations, pointed in the direction of a dangerous, deceitful receiver; it is also the inevitable continuation of the reward you get when you steer progress forward. 

And, oh, you steer progress so well it’s sin. Wesker feels himself go slack, feels you pull away and closes his jaw as he draws himself back to the shore of an unbreakable – lest it’s you – composure. He smells more now of himself than the vetiver and ambergris clinging to his neck, the lingering remains of your bared affection.

The timing of this dawns on you. There is nobody here to interrupt you, nobody to pass rumors at this time of night. It is perfectly private.

You look up at him with wonder at his appearance, the sides of his sideburns slick with sweat. Your hungry mind, so adorably human, imagines how much of his scent is hidden in the suit he’s wearing, how much of it you could extract and roll your hips into if— 

There is no time for the opportunity. Wesker cleans himself off and pushes the glove off him, tucking himself neatly away. There’s a moment of silence as he cleans your hands off, too, before he begins to undo the latch of his glove to retrieve it again. Once retrieved, they’re both set aside. Wesker looks so different without his gloves – less unapproachable, almost, even if his appearance had never quite deterred you.

He is the first to break the quiet, of course, a sigh snaking out from his maw as he lets his fingertips splay through your hair, languidly attempting to sweep it out of your face. “I was right. Your hands are very precise.” He tucks a lock behind your ear, the tips of them flushed. You look up at him, but his eyes don’t meet yours - there’s a distance placed in them. 

“Thank you.” You’re a perceptive one. Had you taken things too far? Surely he hadn’t meant for you to take control of the situation the way you did. But, then, he didn’t stop you - he’d seemed to enjoy himself… the dull, remaining glow of his eyes is undeniable evidence that you’d definitely made him feel. 

Wesker bats his lashes, the weight of your gaze not entirely comfortable when he’s submerged in the dangerous tranquility of afterglow hormones. Perhaps he’d felt, indeed - felt far too much. 

It’s the awkward moment between, and the sigh through his nose before you rise to your full height - something he does in turn as if you’ve done so to spite him - is what sets your gears in motion. You can’t help the way you quirk a brow at how he fixes his tie, grabbing the edge of his shades to hide himself as he prepares to leave his office. Had he really stayed just for this? “You could’ve asked, y’know.”

Wesker turns his head to you with a mild tilt, as if the notion of genuine, clear communication escapes him. His reply is filtered through the tight sieve of carefully placed intention. “Ah, yes,” he begins, and then he tuts in rebuttal, “but where’s the fun in that?” 

You return him the sassy arch of your brow.

He’s decided he’ll let you live.

[doughguts-art]

What is your stance on the "Elsen is one guy who cloned himself a bajillion times" comment from the 15th anniversary livestream

My stance is that I respectfully disagree (for lack of a better term). Since “all elsens are clones of one person” wasn’t ever stated/explored in-game, I find it more fun to explore other Elsen origins for my projects instead. Mortis Ghost has also said in the past that people are welcome to play fast and loose with lore, and that’s what I was doing before I was ever introduced to the clone discussion. It’s easier for me to ignore that newer addition than to overhaul my original ideas, so that’s what I’m doing. I have no issue with people who decide to use that lore for their own works, but it doesn’t apply to mine.

With that being said, what’s MY lore for Elsen? For me, Elsens as we see them in-game are the result of 3 things:

Human’s evolution after the “apocalypse”. Elsens are what Humans are in the far future, as the lingering effects of the apocalypse (cough cough radiation) changed the very essence of what Humans are from the past.

Hugo’s influence as a “god” of this world. What we see is what Hugo specifically makes, so Elsens are the cartoony square-headed humanoids because that’s what we are made to perceive by Hugo.

The Batter’s/Protagonist’s perception. They all look the same because it is just easier for them to look the same. It is unnecessary for them to look any different than each other to the Batter, so we barely see any differences.

In my games, “Tiny Terror” and “Project GoldFinch”, the Elsen are more visually different than the original OFF’s because they are not filtered through the Batter’s practical lens. Non-important NPC Elsen are intended to have more variety, because they are supposed to be more individualized than what the Batter saw. Now I can’t say “everyone’s different” because I think I’d die if I had to make every NPC unique, but I’m trying to change up certain details so you’re not just talking to the same Elsen in a dress-shirt and tie.

“So, that’s how they look, but how are they made, if not cloning?” Glad you asked, I have a few explanations that usually (but not definitively) depend on which Zone they reside in!

The Zone’s Minimum Quota: Each Zone has an undefined number of Elsens that have to exist within it. There can always be more than the set number, and there usually is in any given Zone, but if a death of an Elsen would mean going under, then a fully adult Elsen will appear in another area once that death occurs. This new Elsen will have a basic knowledge of living, but will have to be taught to do specialized tasks. This is more common in Zone 3 than the other Zones, and it's the reason Enoch’s sugar industry has been sustained for so long.

Cloning (via the Big Elsen in the Room): YES OK I have a cloning piece of my lore too, but it’s not exactly what Mortis Ghost described, so I don’t count it as the same. This version of cloning is heavily inspired by tzalmavet’s idea of the Big Elsen. Sometimes normal-looking Elsens will grow and slough off of the Giant One (that I have dubbed Biggs for my story). Some of these Elsen are kept in the Room, but most are sent to the larger Zones. Unfortunately the ones that are sent away don’t survive for long outside of the Room because of genetic instability caused by leaving and the rapid mutations that results from it. All of the Elsen that come from Biggs are genetically the same despite any differing mutations, and consider themselves siblings. They can identify each other as such even if they are meeting for the first time.

Creations of the Guardians: Guardians can create Elsens if they choose to excerpt the massive amount of energy needed to make one. This was done mostly in the beginning of the Zones, before the Quota was established. It is very impractical to perform now that there are other easier ways Elsen can exist. The creation ritual requires “scaffolding” (usually made of plastic, metal, or meat), and a Guardian to infuse energy into it. The scaffolding + energy will create an Elsen with whatever features and knowledge the Guardian wishes to give them. Japhet was the Guardian who created Elsens using this method the most, which is why he considers the Elsen of Zone 2 his children (even if not all of the Elsen within the Zone are made by him anymore).

The Traditional Way: Elsens can just make other Elsens the same way Humans can make other Humans, though infertility rates are VERY high in most of the Zones. Zone 3 is pretty much completely infertile, it is very rare to see a child in Zone 1, and Zone 2 has the most children with enough to have a small school. Elsen babies grow and mature at the same rate as Humans do.

There are also miscellaneous "Special Cases". Some of my Elsens have unique origins separate from the ones I listed above, but I’d like to save the spoilers for my game to when it comes out, haha!

That's all for now, I hope you found my statement and lore explanation entertaining! I am excited to share more in the future.

[dontmixpaintinyourcoffee]

Things I Can't Stop Thinking About Since the Gravity Falls Renaissance; An Overly Long Compilation

• It's mostly a joke-y cartoon thing but holy shit Dipper wakes up screaming kind of a lot??? How long has he been doing that for?? How long will he *be* doing it for??

• Stan had to basically teach himself advanced physics and complex multidimensional theories. He had the advantage of the portal mostly being built and having a bunch of the notes post-Bill, but still!! He had to learn how to operate the damn thing! I highly doubt Ford wrote about the portal in the same accessible manner he wrote about cryptids, especially as he spiraled into paranoia. The machinations of the portal weren't meant to be shared with the layperson, it just wouldn't be practical information for most people to have.

(also notable that he went through the whole process of learning how to operate the portal not only through pages and pages of dense code, but with the background of a 1970s highschool education and literally nothing else that would be relevant. Ford works really hard, but this is also stuff that comes to him very naturally. Designing a functioning portal wasn't the hard part. The hard part was getting the idea for the portal in the first place and knowing what to do with it. This shit is so ridiculously advanced and Stan is not an academic mind by any means. No wonder it took 30 years, he had to keep up a fake life and fund his project while grinding away at advanced quantum physics interdimensional whatever science wizard nonsense. I think about those 30 years a lot.)

• It doesn't really get addressed, but I think about Wendy being "super stressed out, like, all the time!" A lot. God, can you imagine living in the same house as Manly Dan? Let alone being the only girl there? Especially depending on when their mom left/died, she probably felt incredibly alone for a lot of her teen years. And given the Apocalypse Training it doesn't seem like Manly Dan is the most stable parent either.

• Stan, Ford, and Wendy could probably bond over having shitty holidays (and subsequently being forced into having awesome holidays when Mabel found out.) Filbrick took Stan and Ford to get free cinder block samples for Hanukkah, and the Corduroys did apocalypse training every year instead of Christmas.

• Pacifica still hears the voice of the Lumberjack ghost in her nightmares, but it's implied on the website that the Lumberfolk spirits have actually declared her under their protection since the events of Northwest Mansion Mystery. That means one of two things: that the ghost in her dreams is just her own guilt-ridden brain, or that the ghost has been appearing in her dreams to try and help her. I think about both options frequently.

• Stan struggles a lot of the time with physical activity, but that's mostly to do with age. He's actually really goddamn strong (beating down the zombies, punching a pterodactyl in the face, grabbing Ford and hoisting him up off the ground no problem, scaling scaffolding and holding the twins up by a rope one-handed). This makes the fact that Wendy beat him in an arm wrestling contest three times in a row way funnier.

• The way the Stans were almost definitely completely willing to beat a random guys ass so that Waddles could get on that bus. Stanford "Your math is no match for my gun you idiot!" Pines implicitly threatened to shoot a stranger with a Weird Sci-Fi Firearm for his great-niece. Stanley is even more direct. There is no confusing what brass knuckles will to to you. I also absolutely believe that they were not bluffing. One of them would've stolen the bus if the guy had mysteriously fallen unconscious due to unforseen circumstances.

• According to Soos, Tad Strange is crushing hard on Woodpecker Guy. Is this general town knowledge? Does everybody know that the Woodpecker marriage is on the rocks? How does one divorce a woodpecker? Alternatively, how does one get divorced *by* a woodpecker? Does Tad have a chance? Is this a small town scandal? Mr. Hirsch inquiring minds want to know. Has Toby Determined written a gossip column on this drama yet. Get your head in the game, Toby

[team-frightfur]

Thanks to the colour palette choice it also looks like she's facing down Yuri (and I guess her 'guilt in her 'responsibility' in her own mind). It's nicely symbolic and full of double meanings! Nice A+ work. Also forgot to mention but I love the addition of heartlands insane streets. I can see them lurking in the bg. No safety rails. Death city.

Birds and Stones.

[qqueenofhades]

Hoping you can explain this because you’re smart but why in the world are the same people who scream about a labor shortage worried about the border and immigration? Isn’t more people coming to our country a good thing if we train them properly to fill vacant positions (a lot of which are service jobs anyway)?

Alas, you are forgetting what is quite possibly the chief shibboleth of Western white supremacy/far-right nationalism: that all people from other countries, especially *gasp* the brown ones, are invaders, murderers, job-stealers, polluters of the (white) body politic, etc, and that under no circumstances should they be invited or allowed to stay. This isn't just an American thing; witness the Tories in the UK salivating over the idea of torturing migrants, trying to shut down any legal migration routes even with the employment black hole caused by Brexit, steadfastly denying that their workforce problems have anything to do with Brexit, steadfastly denying that they need to loosen immigration rules, etc. This is also the case with the European right/far right, the Australian far right, and anywhere else in the world that has historically been built on systems of white colonization, white supremacy, and other racial and legal scaffolds of privilege and exclusion. The white people who come to a country and settle it are bringing "civilization" and therefore should be welcomed and encouraged, but the non-white people who already lived there are "savages" and need to be exterminated for the good of the "master race." If they try to come back to the (white) nation state after their homelands were colonized, moreover, they are "invaders" who just want to "soak up the money of hard-working citizens" and etc etc.

The core fascist hatred of immigrants is also why Trump is directly echoing Hitler's anti-immigrant rhetoric with his "poisoning the blood of America" screeds, his promise to round up and deport migrants en masse, and otherwise be as massive of a dick as possible. The fact that there's no economic benefit and indeed a lot of economic pain is entirely beside the point. Trump and his deranged followers like the cruelty and the idea of torturing brown people for daring to come to "their" (white) America, and think that if they can be outrageously monstrous enough, this will finally deter all the other ones from coming. It won't, and no globalized economy will run without immigrants, but again, this isn't the point. Reality or pragmatic calculations have nothing to do with it. It's only about what can cause the maximum amount of cruelty and chaos to everyone who doesn't wholeheartedly worship and fit the (white) fascist model. That's why the Republicans yelled about wanting a border bill before they'd fund Ukraine; the Democrats obligingly gave them one with some of the toughest restrictions in years, and the Republicans yelled and threw it away because Dear Leader Trump told them to trash it. In some sense this is a good thing, because it meant that Ukraine got funded without being beholden to performative partisan cruelty at the border, but it also shows that they don't actually care about any of this. They have bluntly stated in so many words that they want a manufactured crisis at the border so Trump will have it as a campaign issue. Then he can take office and implement all his terrible concentration camps and all the other genocidal fascist bullshit of Project 2025 (bUt bIdEn iZ thE wOrsE oPtiOn!!!!!)

So: yeah. There's no point looking for any actual consistency or logic in the modern far right, because that is so far from the actual aim. No matter if migrants are essential, no matter if Americans literally won't take many of the jobs they do, etc. I live in a big city that has had a ton of migrants coming here and have read many, many news articles about how all they want to do is get a work permit, make their own money, learn English, and integrate into American culture; they are often far more positive about the prospects of America than actual Americans. But because the entire project of a (white) fascist ethnostate as advocated by Trump and co. in America, the Tories/Reform in the UK, and the far-right European parties, Russia, and other places (this is all connected worldwide -- again, it's not limited to one country or region), rests on demonizing (brown) immigrants as subhuman scroungers who come to rape, murder, steal jobs, and otherwise threaten (white) law-abiding citizens, that will always win out above every single other consideration.