#so many complex components and all

[dbhstruggleposting]

I find it super funny that a lot of people write Connors skin as being soft/warm when actually it's very thin. Not only is it completely simulated, but when he fiddles with his coin, the SFX used is that of two coins rubbing together, aka metal against metal. Like listen to this

This man is metal and plastic

[icewindandboringhorror]

It always seems a bit unbalanced on The Great Food Truck Race when there will be multiple teams who are cooking a wide variety of complex dishes with 10 different components and a bunch of prep work, and then there's that one team who like... exclusively serves plain crepes with some premade nutella on them, or plain waffles with just some whipped cream and cut up strawberries lol...

[catboybiologist]

"hey y'all HRT actually does change many of the characteristics we associate with the sweeping concept of 'biological sex' from the cellular level up and it's important to your health, self image, and understanding of your own body. Your body won't completely overlap with a cis body but your overall physiology will be way more similar to cis people with your dominant hormone than it will be to any previous sex of your body"

CHOOSE YOUR RESPONSE

[transphobia] fucking delusional tranny, this has gone way too fucking far. We need to ban all of this fucking chemical mutilation. Ban this gender healthcare crap.

[reasonable centrist] but gender and sex are different? You can't change your sex? *Throws hands up* I just don't get it anymore!!!! We just need to ban this gender medication stuff until we figure this all out.

[average person] okay but I wouldn't fuck a tran. In fact they're lying by existing. We just need to ban those hormone things so they stop lying about themselves.

["ally"] we need SO much acceptance in our society, so that these poor, misguided souls don't turn to HRT. I know that HRT is the absolute LAST resort before killing yourself, so it breaks my heart to say this, but you need to accept reality, sweety: you'll always be a biological male. If this is making you think this way, maybe we just need extra precautions on giving these nasty hormones out, like banning it until we can sort this whole thing out.

["trans affirming"] okay but this is kind of bio essentialist, are you saying that people only become their gender when they take HRT? You're just trying to affirm yourself using bioessentialist constructs, we all know that the REALITY is that gender and sex are different and you can NEVER change your sex! You'll always be an AMAB and nothing you can do can change that. In fact, it's kind of problematic to be suggesting experimental and dangerous medication to people. We really just need to ban HRT because it's stealing all of our men AMAB women with diverse expressions!

[actually understands my fucking point] yeah, you don't need HRT or medical intervention to be trans, but it's worrying how much the queer community has internalized essentialist rhetoric It's really a shame that medical literature leaves trans people behind in so many ways. Sex and gender are two separate things, each made of thousands of components that are often malleable. Essentialism has taken its root deeply in the queer community and it's a damn shame. It also poisons so much of the rhetoric, because maintaining a sense of "biological sex" that is binary and not malleable allows people to disguise anti-trans laws using AGAB language and/or "biological male". It's also worrying that people excuse this as a petty issue or a source of "validation", because this is the actual language being used by lawmakers across the world to justify transphobic laws, destroying both intersex and trans people's futures. This applies beyond HRT, acknowledging that people not on HRT may choose to change individual components of their sex or may have attributes generally associated with one sex or the other. It's a complex problem, but the first step is acknowledging that "biological sex" is way more complicated and dynamic than anyone wants to admit

[Cis man you matched with on a dating app] okay that's cool but can I have a picture of your dick. Also ban those hormone things but only after I see your tits

[foone]

why are printers so hated? it's simple:

computers are good at computering. they are not good at the real world.

the biggest problems in computers, the ones that have had to change the most over the time they've existed, are the parts that deal with the real world. The keyboard, the mouse, the screen. every computer needs these, but they involve interacting with the real world. that's a problem. that's why they get replaced so much.

now, printers: printers have some of the most complex real-world interaction. they need to deposit ink on paper in 2 dimensions, and that results in at least three ways it can go on right from the start. (this is why 3D printers are just 2D printers that can go wrong in another whole dimension)

scanners fall into many of the same problems printers have, but fewer people have scanners, and they're not as cost-optimized. But they are nearly as annoying.

This is also why you can make a printer better by cutting down on the number of moving elements: laser printers are better than inkjets, because they only need to move in one dimension, and their ink is a powder, not a liquid. and the best-behaved printers of all are thermal printers: no ink and the head doesn't move. That's why every receipt printer is a thermal printer, because they need that shit to work all the time so they can sell shit. And thermal is the most reliable way to do that.

But yeah, cost-optimization is also a big part of why printers are such finicky unreliable bastards: you don't want to pay much for them. Who is excited for all the printing they're gonna be doing? basically nobody. But people get forced to have a printer because they gotta print something, for school or work or the government or whatever. So they want the cheapest thing that'll work. They're not shopping on features and functionality and design, they want something that costs barely anything, and can fucking PRINT. anything else is an optional bonus.

And here's the thing: there's a fundamental limit of how much you can optimize an inkjet printer, and we got near to it in like the late 90s. Every printer since then has just been a tad smaller, a tad faster, and added some gimmicks like printing from WIFI or bluetooth instead of needing to plug in a cable.

And that's the worst place to be in, for a computer component. The "I don't care how fancy it is, just give me one that works" zone. This is why you can buy a keyboard for 20$ and a mouse for 10$ and they both work plenty fine for 90% of users. They're objectively shit compared to the ones in the 60-150$ range, but do they work? yep. So that's what people get.

Printers fell into that zone long, long ago, when people stopped getting excited about "desktop publishing". So with printers shoved into the "make them as cheap as possible" zone, they have gotten exponentially shittier. Can you cut costs by 5$ a printer by making them jam more often? good. make them only last a couple years to save a buck or two per unit? absolutely. Can you make the printer cost 10$ less and make that back on the proprietary ink cartridges? oh, they've been doing that since Billy Clinton was in office.

It's the same place floppy disks were in in about 2000. CD-burners were not yet cheap enough, USB flash drives didn't exist yet (but were coming), modems weren't fast enough yet to copy stuff over the internet, superfloppies hadn't taken over like some hoped, and memory cards were too expensive and not everyone had a drive for them. So we still needed floppy disks, but at the same time this was a technology that hadn't changed in nearly 20 years. So people were tired of paying out the nose for them... the only solution? cut corners. I have floppy disks from 1984 that read perfectly, but a shrinkwrapped box of disks from 1999 will have over half the disks failed. They cut corners on the material quality, the QA process, the cleaning cloth inside the disk, everything they could. And the disks were shit as a result.

So, printers are in that particular note of the death-spiral where they've reached the point of "no one likes or cares about this technology, but it's still required so it's gone to shit". That's why they are so annoying, so unreliable, so fucking crap.

So, here's the good news:

You can still buy a better printer, and it will work far better. Laser printers still exist, and LED printers work the same way but even cheaper. They're still more expensive than inkjets (especially if you need color), but if you have to print stuff, they're a godsend. Way more reliable.

This is not a stable equilibrium. Printers cannot limp along in this terrible state forever. You know why I brought up floppy disk there? (besides the fact I'm a giant floppy disk nerd) because floppy disks GOT REPLACED. Have you used one this decade? CD-Rs and USB drives and internet sharing came along and ate the lunch of floppy disks, so much so that it's been over a decade since any more have been made. The same will happen to (inkjet) printers, eventually. This kind of clearly-broken situation cannot hold. It'll push people to go paperless, for companies to build cheaper alternatives to take over from the inkjets, or someone will come up with a new, more reliable printer based on some new technology that's now cheap enough to use in printers. Yeah, it sucks right now, but it can't last.

So, in conclusion: Printers suck, but this is both an innate problem caused by them having to deal with so much fucking Real World, and a local minimum of reliability that we're currently stuck in. Eventually we'll get out of this valley on the graph and printers will bother people a lot less.

Random fun facts about printing of the past and their local minimums:

in the hot metal type era, not only would the whole printing process expose you to lead, the most common method of printing text was the linotype, which could go wrong in a very fun way: if the next for a line wasn't properly justified (filling out the whole row), it could "squirt", and lead would escape through gaps in the type matrix. This would result in molten lead squirting out of the machine, possibly onto the operator. Anecdotally, linotype operators would sometimes recognize each other on the street because of the telltale spots on their forearms where they had white splotches where no hair grew, because they got bad lead burns. This type of printing remained in use until the 80s.

Another fun type of now-retired printers are drum printers, a type of line printer. These work something like a typewriter or dot-matrix printer, except the elements extend across the entire width of the paper. So instead of printing a character at time by smacking it into the paper, the whole line got smacked nearly at once. The problem is that if the paper jammed and the printer continued to try to print, that line of the paper would be repeatedly struck at high speed, creating a lot of heat. This worry created the now-infamous Linux error: "lp0 on fire". This was displayed when the error signals from a parallel printer didn't make sense... and it was a real worry. A high speed printer could definitely set the paper on fire, though this was rare.

So... one thing to be grateful about current shitty inkjet printers: they are very unlikely to burn anything, especially you.

(because before they could do that they'd have to work, at least a little, first, and that's very unlikely)

[human-cyborg-relations]

You know... if you think about it, removing a robots outer plating/coverings to expose their intricate networks of wires, framework, delicate joints, and cybernetic components that lay just underneath is akin to like, one of the most delicate and trustworthy acts of human intimacy.

It's practically like undressing them. Taking of their clothes and their undergarments, to expose something that no average person was meant to see.

Maybe it's even their armour that protects their most sensitive inner workings giving way to the vulnerability and complexity beneath, revealing the inner workings that define them.

Each panel and piece carefully lifted unveils a side of them not often seen, perhaps closer to never seen, like gently undressing to reveal layers of a person's identity and history.

You see wires that have been replaced or need replacing. You see burnt connecters, chipped framework, cables bent in unusual ways, water damage, grit damage in so many places, each small detail tells a story that was hidden away.

You were never meant to notice, to see, only ever meant to perceive them as the machine they are. But now you see them as another being so closely.

Like looking at a nude human. We all know how a nude human looks. You know how a "nude" robot looks as well. But this is them. This is their body. It's different. It's more than that.

They react to you seeing them this way in such human way, they warm up, their fans kick on, they can't speak to you, so flustered.

You're exposing them, caressing them, touching them and being so delicate as not to damage them. They love you. You love them. They understand.

The interplay between their external shell/casing and internal mechanisms mirrors the layers of human emotion and privacy that come with stripping ones clothes before engaging in some of the most erotic and intimate acts, evoking a sense of reverence and curiosity for what lies even further beneath.

You're so much closer to their body this way. Like being closer to their heart. You can practically see through them, you can see and hear their systems reacting to all of you, as if their heart is racing for you.

And they trust you, they trust you to see them like this, so exposed and so vulnerable. They wouldn't trust just anybody like this. But you, you're so special to them, you care so much for them, and they want you to see them this way.

[bearflinn]

Writing Advice: Worldbuilding as Tension

One of the most common pieces of advice/points of critique I see for writers of all skill levels, is avoiding exposition dumps, often accompanied by the age old 'show don't tell'.

When writing fiction in general, but especially sci-fi and fantasy, it's important that the reader understands how your world differs from our own. And worldbuilding is one of the few places where you're less likely to get hit by the proverbial SHOW hammer, since some things, like the rules of your magic system, are difficult to show. So telling becomes more permissible.

However, it can be incredibly tempting to just infodump at every opportunity. Especially for those of us who have a wiki with more words than the finished project will have. But as I'm sure you've heard before, doing this can break immersion and destroy the pacing of your narrative.

While there are multiple ways to make exposition engaging, I'm going to focus on the approach I use most commonly: The Drip Feed.

Filling an Ocean One Droplet at a Time

Before we get into the actual methodology, I want to take a moment to dissect how and why exposition dumps can be problematic.

The Problem: Context, Relevancy, and Retention

Context is both the thing we're trying to communicate, and the source of excessive exposition. It starts simple, like maybe the reader needs to know that the main character is poor. And I guess I should explain why they're poor. Next thing you know you've spent 4 pages describing the socioeconomics of your world.

That's what I call 'context chaining'. Since everything in fleshed out worlds is interconnected, it can be very easy to just keep on filling in the gaps. Preemptively answering any questions the reader might have. The problem?

Relevancy. When you introduce a ton of worldbuilding in one fell swoop, the vast majority of it won't be relevant to the current place in the narrative, even if it will eventually be relevant for the story overall. Which, you guessed it, hurts:

Retention. Without immediate relevant context for the worldbuilding you introduce. Readers won't have anything to anchor the information too. Calling back to the example I used earlier, readers will remember that the character is poor, and they will likely remember why. Anything beyond that is unlikely to be retained.

The solution?

Restraint and Trust

For many of us, the world we've built is a large draw of the narrative we're crafting. However, one of the best ways to draw people into your world is to talk about it as little as possible. But how will they know about x?? They won't, until it matters.

Now I'm not talking about soft worldbuilding. This will work for both hard and soft worldbuilding (honestly it's even better for hard worldbuilding).

Instead of straight up telling the reader about the world and all of its intricacies. Introduce the most complex aspects as questions that you answer bit by bit throughout the narrative. As an example, maybe our poor character is struggling to buy food because they went into debt casting spells.

Suddenly, the reader is wondering: Why do spells cost money? Who controls the supply of magic and/or components? Is spellcasting something everyone can do? What kinds of magic are more valuable than eating? and so many more.

But here's the key: don't answer them. At least, not until absolutely necessary or there's an organic place to do so. Wait until the perspective character is directly interacting with one of those questions. Maybe they walk past a trickling fountain, revealing that the mana wells are running dry. And later debt collectors come for the main character, revealing who controls the mana.

Unanswered questions are a huge source of tension, and worldbuilding can provide a subtle sustained undercurrent that you can leverage to propel the narrative in slow points and/or make your payoffs hit even harder. All you have to do is answer the right question at the right time.

The best part of this method is that by waiting until your perspective character is engaging with a part of your world. It allows you to convey exposition and character at the same time. But what about worldbuilding that the characters don't interact with directly? It doesn't matter.

Well it does, to you as the author. But in general, if something doesn't matter to at least one of your characters, it won't matter to your readers. If your character isn't a politician, they aren't going to care about the intricacies of your political system. So why would the reader?

In short, keep any worldbuilding closely tied to your characters' experience, and let the reader wonder. The end result is a smoother and more engaging learning curve that pulls the reader in. Giving them the satisfaction of putting the pieces together themselves.

If you have any questions or additional thoughts let me know!

[ayeforscotland]

What is Dataflow?

This post is inspired by another post about the Crowd Strike IT disaster and a bunch of people being interested in what I mean by Dataflow. Dataflow is my absolute jam and I'm happy to answer as many questions as you like on it. I even put referential pictures in like I'm writing an article, what fun!

I'll probably split this into multiple parts because it'll be a huge post otherwise but here we go!

A Brief History

Our world is dependent on the flow of data. It exists in almost every aspect of our lives and has done so arguably for hundreds if not thousands of years.

At the end of the day, the flow of data is the flow of knowledge and information. Normally most of us refer to data in the context of computing technology (our phones, PCs, tablets etc) but, if we want to get historical about it, the invention of writing and the invention of the Printing Press were great leaps forward in how we increased the flow of information.

Modern Day IT exists for one reason - To support the flow of data.

Whether it's buying something at a shop, sitting staring at an excel sheet at work, or watching Netflix - All of the technology you interact with is to support the flow of data.

Understanding and managing the flow of data is as important to getting us to where we are right now as when we first learned to control and manage water to provide irrigation for early farming and settlement.

Engineering Rigor

When the majority of us turn on the tap to have a drink or take a shower, we expect water to come out. We trust that the water is clean, and we trust that our homes can receive a steady supply of water.

Most of us trust our central heating (insert boiler joke here) and the plugs/sockets in our homes to provide gas and electricity. The reason we trust all of these flows is because there's been rigorous engineering standards built up over decades and centuries.

For example, Scottish Water will understand every component part that makes up their water pipelines. Those pipes, valves, fitting etc will comply with a national, or in some cases international, standard. These companies have diagrams that clearly map all of this out, mostly because they have to legally but also because it also vital for disaster recovery and other compliance issues.

Modern IT

And this is where modern day IT has problems. I'm not saying that modern day tech is a pile of shit. We all have great phones, our PCs can play good games, but it's one thing to craft well-designed products and another thing entirely to think about they all work together.

Because that is what's happened over the past few decades of IT. Organisations have piled on the latest plug-and-play technology (Software or Hardware) and they've built up complex legacy systems that no one really knows how they all work together. They've lost track of how data flows across their organisation which makes the work of cybersecurity, disaster recovery, compliance and general business transformation teams a nightmare.

Some of these systems are entirely dependent on other systems to operate. But that dependency isn't documented. The vast majority of digital transformation projects fail because they get halfway through and realise they hadn't factored in a system that they thought was nothing but was vital to the organisation running.

And this isn't just for-profit organisations, this is the health services, this is national infrastructure, it's everyone.

There's not yet a single standard that says "This is how organisations should control, manage and govern their flows of data."

Why is that relevant to the companies that were affected by Crowd Strike? Would it have stopped it?

Maybe, maybe not. But considering the global impact, it doesn't look like many organisations were prepared for the possibility of a huge chunk of their IT infrastructure going down.

Understanding dataflows help with the preparation for events like this, so organisations can move to mitigate them, and also the recovery side when they do happen. Organisations need to understand which systems are a priority to get back operational and which can be left.

The problem I'm seeing from a lot of organisations at the moment is that they don't know which systems to recover first, and are losing money and reputation while they fight to get things back online. A lot of them are just winging it.

Conclusion of Part 1

Next time I can totally go into diagramming if any of you are interested in that.

How can any organisation actually map their dataflow and what things need to be considered to do so. It'll come across like common sense, but that's why an actual standard is so desperately needed!

[sunmoon-starfactory]

Potions A Plenty - Potion Brewing Set

Pulling from most every other set of Sun&Moon for potion ingredients, this set gives the sims the ability to brew various potions that affect moods, skills, life states, aging, pregnancy, health, and a variety of other mostly harmless effects.

The Quick Feature Review/Set Breakdown below the cut.

Download - SFS

View Use/Instruction Manual

The Potion Crafting Bench - The heart of the set itself, the potion bench is where components are stored, prepared, and combined into batches of potions. At this station, sims can do the following.

Practice potion making and brew a total of 56 potions that have varying effects when drank by sims

Earn Logic Skill and Science Enthusiasm

Stock materials

Order Supply Bundles to facilitate quicker potion making

Obtain a Writ of Mastery in potion crafting

Keep a tidy workstation by keeping things clean

A set of “basic” potions, and their ingredients will be considered REQUIRED for function. Do not remove those files. Let the manual guide you.

This set is MAC-compatible and requires Smarter EP Check, Easy Inventory Check, Easy Lot Check and Money Globals. These are HARD requirements. The set will NOT FUNCTION without these files.

Access to these is dictated by logic skill level as well as a writ of mastery/Creature Life State/Traits.

This station has 28 decorative slots, as well as a decorative mode to enable/disable effects and an "in use" look at will.

Story Mode Enabled - Skip all the ingredients and steps, just enjoy the end products, or just run the animations on a station for the ease of taking pictures.

*New Feature* - Station Cleanliness. As the station is used, it will obtain dirty points. This dirty level affects the outcomes of potion crafting and increases failure chances. Make sure to keep the cauldron clean to ensure quality products!

*New Feature* - Supply Ordering. For a flat rate, sims can buy a bulk order of various materials needed for any potion. They will be added directly to the station's crafting counts.

All potions can be found in Hobbies/Logic. Complete Dutch and Portuguese translations. If you'd like to translate into your native language, please share your strings with us and we'll update the set proper!

Inventory Tools & New Items

Botanical Book - Pretty and useful. Inventory Tool.

Writ of Mastery - Apothecary Version. Inventory Tool.

Crate of Jars - 6 glass jars needed for potion making.

Cauldron Dregs - Waste produced from cleaning the station or failing in potion making.

Bonus Items

Reference Tome - In game recipe book for all potions

Counter Split OMSP - Give maxis counters a chance to hold more things!

Display Shelves - 9 decorative slots, two versions.

Apothecary Todd Cart and Pavilion - Previously released sets bundled into this set; they have been optimized and renamed, please remove the old versions.

Potion Specifics

Potions come in 5 types: Basic, Folk Remedy Potions, Arcane Potions, Creature/Lifestate Potions, and Poison Potions. The more fantastical the potion, the more complex it is to make.

Please be aware that depending on your playstyle you will have to add more files from other sources or you can delete certain files from this set without worry; For example, if you do not play your game with creature life states or custom creature life states, you may delete anything related to those potions, provided it is not used in another “basic” potion.

Potions are NOT recolorable and will not be made so in the future. If you wish to alter the bottle/potion colors yourself, this may be done in the properties/categorized properties tab of each subset txmt in SimPe, using the stdMatDiffCoef line.

Potions Vs. Teas: You will notice that many potions have the same effects as previously released teas from the Quali-Tea set. So what’s the difference? 

Teas are based on cooking and logic skills only. Potions function more on Logic skill level and a Writ of Mastery, OR Witch/Warlock state, and other traits.

Teas are single cup per crafting interactions (except basic hunger teas). Potions will always produce in a batch of 6.

In some cases, Teas require MORE ingredients to make, whereas Potions require LESS ingredients but higher Logic skill and rarer/less natural ingredients.

While potions can have the same effect as a similar tea, more risk is involved with taking them and sims can experience adverse/opposite of intended effects.

[eugenedebs1920]

As Americans, all we have, all we enjoy , all we take for granted, from something as simple as groceries, to something as complex as civil liberties, from the shoes on our feet, access to clean water, our education, our freedom, can be accredited upon two components.

It is the Constitution of the United States that provides us with, what we consider, our basic rights. We can say what we please without fear of incarceration or death. We can peacefully assemble in opposition to our government and not dread violence against us or imprisonment. We are endowed with a free and unrestricted press to provide us with the knowledge of events in our nation. We are free to worship who and how we choose, or not to whatsoever.

We are given our day in court if we are accused of wrongdoing. Our property is free from unwarranted searches or seizure. We are granted counsel if charged with a crime. If convicted, no cruel or unusual punishment can be imposed.

That sacred document was gifted to us by men, with unconscionable foresight, who came centuries before us, yet wished upon us, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. They wished for us to live free, and to thrive in a nation built on just that. Freedom

This document, this freedom, the rights and privileges are only made possible if they can be secured. For that security of the Constitution and in turn our rights, we owe to all who served this country.

For it is the men and women in uniform, the veterans and service members who have laid their lives on the line, millions making the ultimate sacrifice, for us to have liberty. They have shed their own blood, endured hellish conditions, abandoned their personal priorities, and fought for us. The trials this nation’s veterans suffered was for those they had never met. Yet every single one of us has them to thank for all we enjoy, every day.

What does it say about us if we fail them. If we ignore the Constitution. If we neglect OUR DUTY as citizens of this nation to stand up against tyranny, to fight back against fascism, if we let what was given to us, without question, in that sacred document, to be nullified and perversed?

Some of us fought for this nation overseas. Some of us must fight for this nation at home as well.

We cannot let that which so much blood was spilled, that which so much thought was given, that which so much was sacrificed for, to simply wither and fade into history.

No!

We must resist. We must fight back. We can’t let our nation down.

For all its faults, we are incredibly fortunate that we live in a land where so many, gave so much, for you and I.

[elbiotipo]

I always repeat myself with this, but if you are making a "wizard" character (here anyone who has supernatural *powers*) you should forget the D&D "I cast Fireball for 8d6 damage" and start thinking of magic as a spiritual practice.

Because you will be suprised that people who believe in magic, that is, the supernatural having a real effect on the material world, exist. And these beliefs don't appear in a vacuum but are part of a worldview and cosmovision about the world. Think about alchemists, esoteric schools, monastic orders, folk healers and diviners. They don't exist, they NEVER existed in a vacuum, they all belong to different, complex traditions with a developed cosmovision.

And more than that, their engagement with the supernatural has a spiritual component to it; enlightenment, salvation, worship, cultivation, or more. Yes, there is often a desired effect on the material world, for example, Taoist sages often sought fortifying the body, alchemists the transmutation of matter. But you will realize that these are not just ideas in a vacuum, they weren't just 'casting spells', they were doing a spiritual practice within their vision of the world.

So instead of making a wizard character who is a DPS or whatever, ask yourself what does he believe in and the answers might be more interesting that how many fireballs a minute can he throw.

[hmmarble]

HMMARBLEDESİGN - DRAGON+ (2)

Marble Bathroom Sink

When it comes to home design, few materials evoke a sense of luxury and timeless beauty quite like marble. A marble bathroom sink not only serves as a functional wash basin but also elevates the overall aesthetic of your space. The elegance of marble exudes sophistication, turning an ordinary bathroom into a serene oasis.

Marble Bathroom Sink

A marble bathroom sink is not just a functional component of your bathroom; it is a statement piece that adds elegance and luxury. Marble, known for its unique veining and rich texture, brings a timeless charm to any space. When choosing a marble bathroom sink, there are several factors to consider to ensure it complements your bathroom design.

First, consider the style of your bathroom. Whether you are going for a modern, classic, or rustic look, a marble sink can fit seamlessly into any theme. The color palette of the marble also matters; white and cream marbles can lend a fresh and airy feel, while darker hues can create a dramatic effect.

Maintenance is another important aspect to consider. While marble sinks are stunning, they do require some care to maintain their beauty. Regular sealing and careful cleaning will help prevent stains and etching, keeping your sink looking pristine over the years.

Installation is another key consideration. Marble is heavier than other materials, so ensure that your cabinet and plumbing can support your chosen marble bathroom sink. Consultation with a professional can help you navigate this aspect of your renovation.

Ultimately, a marble bathroom sink is an investment in both aesthetics and functionality. By choosing the right type, color, and maintenance plan, you can enjoy the beauty of marble in your bathroom for years to come.

Wash Basin Sink

A wash basin sink is an essential fixture in any bathroom, offering both functionality and style. When selecting a wash basin sink, it is important to consider various factors such as size, design, and material.

One popular choice among homeowners is the marble bathroom sink. Known for its elegance and durability, marble sinks can elevate the aesthetic of your bathroom. Their unique veining patterns ensure that no two sinks are alike, providing a one-of-a-kind centerpiece for your space.

When choosing a wash basin sink, you will encounter various types including undermount, vessel, and pedestal sinks. Each design has its own benefits and can enhance the overall look of your bathroom. For instance, vessel sinks are often mounted on top of the countertop, making them a stylish option that complements modern decor.

Aside from aesthetics, the wash basin sink should also offer practical features. Consider looking for a model with easy-to-clean surfaces and a design that accommodates your bathing and grooming needs. The right choice will not only enhance your bathroom’s style but also improve daily usage.

In terms of installation, make sure to consult with a professional if you are unsure. Proper installation of your wash basin sink will ensure that it functions efficiently and lasts for many years to come.

Lastly, don't forget to incorporate additional features such as stylish faucets and accessories that complement your wash basin sink and add to the overall design of your bathroom.

Ancient Roman Baths

The Ancient Roman Baths were an essential aspect of Roman culture, reflecting the importance of hygiene, social interaction, and relaxation in ancient society. These baths, also known as thermae, were large public bathing complexes that served as a social hub for citizens of all classes.

Typically, the layout of a Roman bath included a series of rooms with varying temperatures and functions. The caldarium (hot bath) heated the water through a sophisticated system of hypocaust, allowing steam to rise and warm the space. Next to it was the tepidarium (warm bath), which served as a transitional room, and the frigidarium (cold bath), where bathers would plunge into cooler waters to invigorate their bodies.

In addition to hygiene, these baths featured amenities such as libraries, gymnasiums, and gardens, encouraging a sense of community and leisure. Romans often visited to socialize, conduct business, or simply enjoy the art and architecture that adorned these luxurious facilities. The decorative mosaics and grand columns were not only functional but also represented the wealth and sophistication of the society.

The significance of the Ancient Roman Baths can also be seen in their architectural innovation. The Romans mastered the use of concrete and arches, allowing for grand open spaces and intricate designs. These structures have inspired modern spa designs, embodying the idea of relaxation and wellness.

Despite their popularity, the fall of the Roman Empire led to the decline of these spectacular sites. Many were repurposed, and their intricate plumbing systems fell into disrepair. However, remnants of these ancient baths still surface in archaeological sites, offering a glimpse into a fascinating aspect of Roman life.

Today, while we may not indulge in the same communal bathing practices, the legacy of the Ancient Roman Baths endures. Their emphasis on hygiene and social engagement continues to influence how we design our own spaces for relaxation and community interaction.

[cy-cyborg]

Tips for wring amputees: its ok if your amputee can't repair their own prosthetics

There's a trope in fiction for amputees to always be these mechanical geniuses who can make and repair their own prosthetics, endlessly tinkering away and improving them. This isn't a particularly trope, and i dont think its harmful or anything, but in reality, prosthetics are REALLY, REALLY complicated, and a lot of amputees cant do their own repairs. And thats ok. Like, prosthetic creation and repair is way, way harder than I think people expect. Well outside the skillset of your standard mechanic, handy man or craftsperson.

People who make and repair prosthetics are called prosthetists. To become a prosthetist, most countries around the world today require you to have completed a bachelor's degree in specifically in prosthetics and orthotics, which covers not only how to make a prosthetics (and orthodics) but a great deal of medical knowledge, physics, how different forces impact "non-standard" bodies, the additional biological wear-and-tear that comes with being an amputee and so much more. This will qualify you to do the job of fitting/making the prosthetic socket (the part that attaches to your body) and putting premade components together to make a functioning device. On top of this, many prosthetists are also expected to have artistic skills, sewing skills, good physical strength and dexterity, IT skills, and more recently, knowledge of 3D modelling and printing.

You want to make all the high-tech components the prosthetists put together to make the full prosthetic? The requirements for that vary country to country, but most will require at least some level study in the field of engineering and/or medicine, on top of what was already required for the prosthetics course.

The reason for all this is because even "basic" prosthetics are extremely finicky, and messing up one thing will have a domino effect on the rest of the body, especially in more complicated prosthetics. It can also result in people getting severally injured if anything is even slightly off. many leg amputees for example end up with spinal issues due to extremely minor issues with their prosthetic that weren't caught until years later, and by then the damage had been done.

Some amputees do learn to do basic repairs. This is most common in places like the US, where a visit to the prosthetist can cost hundred to thousands of dollars (depending on your insurance), but it's also quite common in rural parts of countries like Australia, where cost isn't an issue but access is due to vast distances between major cities. I was personally in this category; as a kid, my nearest prosthetist was 6 hours away. My prosthetist was able to teach my dad, who later taught me, how to do some of the simple repairs, but we still needed to go in every few weeks for the more complex stuff (Kids prosthetic need more adjusting than adults because they're still growing. Also I was rough on my prosthetics and broke them a lot lol).

But even after being taught how to do repairs and having my prosthetics for 20+ years, I only ever did these sorts of repairs to my below-knee prosthetic. I will not do any repairs of any kind to my above knee leg, which is much more technologically complex. Every time I tried, I made it worse to the point where the leg was unusable. I just leave those repairs to the guy who went to university to learn how to do it, and sometimes even he needs to send it off to someone with even more specialist knowledge when it's really badly messed up lol. Last time that happened Australia post lost the package. Not really relevant to this post, I just find the idea of it being sent to the wrong place by accident hilarious, it was one of my more realistic legs too so someone probably had a heart attack when they opened that package lmao.

Anyway, back on track lol.

This isn't even touching on the fact that on some more advanced prosthetics, many features are actually locked behind a security barrier only prosthetists can access. My prosthetic knee has an app on my phone I can pair it to, that allows me to change certain settings and swap between certain modes for different activities that tell the leg to change its behaviour depending on what I'm doing (e.g. a mode for running, a mode for cycling etc). but most of the more in-depth settings I can't access, only my prosthetist can, and he can only gain access to those settings with a security key given to him by the manufacturing company that requires him to provide proof of his credentials to receive it. I don't really agree with this btw, something about being locked out of my own leg's settings makes me feel a bit of an ick, but it's set up like this because people used to be able to access these settings and they would mess with things to the point their leg was virtually unusable. Because altering one setting had a domino effect on all the others, and a lot of folks weren't really paying attention to what they were messing with, all their prosthetists could do was factory reset the whole leg, which causes some issues too. Prosthetic arms are often similarly complex, as I understand it and have similar security barriers in place for more advanced arms. I don't know for sure though, so take that with a grain of salt.

All this to say these are incredibly delicate, finicky and complex pieces of equipment. There's nothing wrong with having a techy amputee character who can do their own repairs, but in reality, that is pretty rare, and its ok to have your character need to see a prosthetist or someone more knowledgeable than them. It's a part of the amputee experience I don't see reflected very often in media. In fact, the only examples I can think of in fiction (meaning not stories based on real people) where this is reflected are Full metal alchemist.

technically I think Subnautica Below Zero also mentions prosthetists are a thing in that world, but its a very "blink and you'll miss it" kind of thing...in fact I did miss it until my last playthrough lol.

[dayoldbaguette]

I am admittedly a very 'oh shit two cakes!!' person when it comes to these 'Stardew-Valley-likes' but i will defend fields of mistria, sun haven and even roots of pacha because they are totally different experiences to me.

Sun haven has so much customization and the ability to choose a type of fantasy being to be really heightens the roleplay aspect of it. I have a whole backstory and arc in my head for my sun haven character that just doesn't happen on the same level as every other game, even stardew. Even Fields of Mistria, where magic is a bigger part of the narrative, doesn't really offer this type of customization, best you can do is add a horn accessory but it's not the same as being a demon in sun haven.

FoM is cool because a) the writing of the characters is very good, way better than other games I've seen in this genre, b) it doesn't just rip everything from stardew, there are many quality of life changes that I really appreciate (like cooking and crafting being available from the get go, but just having to upgrade the crafting stations for more complex recipes) c) so many random or scheduled interactions between townspeople.

Roots of Pacha has so many unique features to it, the setting, the way you unlock new improvements for the town and yourself, the animal taming mechanic, etc. It doesn't exactly 'feel' like a Stardew-like.

Also about Coral Island, which I generally really like, admittedly feels like Stardew Valley + Setting Change + Mermaids and Diving. It definitely has the same feeling as Stardew, but because of it's size it can be. a little overwhelming at times. The story is not as concentrated, there are like three different types of spirit you're helping out at any given time, contrast with Stardew Valley's Junimos. I still like it fwiw, but it still can't quite shake the comparison to stardew.

Honorable mention to Wylde Flowers, I don't think this one is in this genre of Stardew-Valley-likes at all and should not be evaluated as such. It's very good, and just because it has farming as a big component does not make it a Stardew-Valley-like. Just play it and you'll see.

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

"Pandora, Worrying About What She Is Doing, Finds a Way into the Valley through the Scrub Oak," from Always Coming Home by Ursula K. Le Guin

Look how messy this wilderness is. Look at this scrub oak, chaparro, the chaparral was named for it and consists of it mixed up with a lot of other things, but look at this shrub of it right here now. The tallest limb or stem is about four feet tall, but most of the stems are only a foot or two. One of them looks as if it had been cut off with a tool, a clean slice across, but who? what for? This shrub isn’t good for anything and this ridge isn’t on the way to anywhere. A lot of smaller branch-ends look broken or bitten off. Maybe deer browse the leafbuds. The little grey branches and twigs grow every which way, many dead and lichened, crossing each other, choking each other out. Digger-pine needles, spiders’ threads, dead bay leaves are stuck in the branches. It’s a mess. It’s littered. It has no overall shape. Most of the stems come up from one area, but not all; there’s no center and no symmetry. A lot of sticks sticking up out of the ground a little ways with leaves on some of them—that describes it fairly well. The leaves themselves show some order, they seem to obey some laws, poorly. They are all different sizes from about a quarter of an inch to an inch long, but each is enough like the others that one could generalise an ideal scrub-oak leaf: a dusty, medium dark-green color, with a slight convex curve to the leaf, which pillows up a bit between the veins that run slanting outward from the central vein; and the edge is irregularly serrated, with a little spine at each apex. These leaves grow irregularly spaced on alternate sides of their twig up to the top, where they crowd into a bunch, a sloppy rosette. Under the litter of dead leaves, its own and others’, and moss and rocks and mold and junk, the shrub must have a more or less shrub-shaped complex of roots, going fairly deep, probably deeper than it stands aboveground, because wet as it is here now in February, it will be bone dry on this ridge in summer.

There are no acorns left from last fall, if this shrub is old enough to have borne them. It probably is. It could be two years old or twenty or who knows? It is an oak, but a scrub oak, a low oak, a no-account oak, and there are at least a hundred very much like it in sight from this rock I am sitting on, and there are hundreds and thousands and hundreds of thousands more on this ridge and the next ridge, but numbers are wrong. They are in error. You don’t count scrub oaks. When you can count them, something has gone wrong. You can count how many in a hundred square yards and multiply, if you’re a botanist, and so make a good estimate, a fair guess, but you cannot count the scrub oaks on this ridge, let alone the ceanothus, buckbrush, or wild lilac, which I have not mentioned, and the other variously messy and humble components of the chaparral. The chaparral is like atoms and the components of atoms: it evades. It is innumerable. It is not accidentally but essentially messy. This shrub is not beautiful, nor even if I were ten feet high on hashish would it be mystical, nor is it nauseating; if a philosopher found it so, that would be his problem, but nothing to do with the scrub oak. This thing is nothing to do with us. This thing is wilderness. The civilized human mind’s relation to it is imprecise, fortuitous, and full of risk. There are no shortcuts. All the analogies run one direction, our direction. There is a hideous little tumor in one branch. The new leaves, this year’s growth, are so large and symmetrical compared with the older leaves that I took them at first for part of another plant, a toyon growing in with the dwarf oak, but a summer’s dry heat no doubt will shrink them down and warp them. Analogies are easy; the live oak, the humble evergreen, can certainly be made into a sermon, just as it can be made into firewood. Read or burnt. Sermo, I read; I read scrub oak. But I don’t, and it isn’t here to be read, or burnt. It is casting a shadow across the page of this notebook in the weak sunshine of three-thirty of a February afternoon in Northern California. When I close the book and go, the shadow will not be on the page, though I have drawn a line around it; only the pencil line will be on the page. The shadow will be then on the dead-leaf-thick messy ground or on the mossy rock my ass is on now, and the shadow will move lawfully and with great majesty as the earth turns.

The mind can imagine that shadow of a few leaves falling in the wilderness; the mind is a wonderful thing. But what about all the shadows of all the other leaves on all the other branches on all the other scrub oaks on all the other ridges of all the wilderness? If you could imagine those for even a moment, what good would it do? Infinite good.

-- Ursula K. Le Guin, Always Coming Home (273-5)

[the-crooked-library]

The Violence of Conformity: on Queerness, Shame, and Vampirism

As we all know, and as I feel I must express again - the metaphorical layers of Nosferatu (2024) consist of several complex, frequently intersecting social themes. Some of them, admittedly, exist a story or two below the surface-level discussions; but that makes them no less influential in regards to the primary plot, and they demand the viewer's exploration just the same.

This is especially true in regards to Eggers' approach to homoeroticism. Its presence within the film itself is unsurprising - implicit, or even explicit, expressions of queerness are a hallmark of gothic (and especially vampire) media. In the case of Nosferatu, this narrative vein provides an undercurrent to almost every aspect of the story; and, because I can't stop thinking about it, I'm making it everyone else's problem.

The Hutters are queer, biting is a metaphor, details under the cut.

To begin with, I must clarify that a queer reading of Nosferatu is not an external introduction. While that lens may be applied to any narrative, given a thorough enough discussion of gender roles, sexuality, and cultural context, it has always been a natural - if sometimes unspoken - component of gothic horror. Elements of it are observable in classics like Frankenstein (Shelley), The Picture of Dorian Gray (Wilde), and even detective fiction offshoots like The Hound of Baskervilles (Doyle), etc; and within the vampire subgenre, it is practically a requirement.

That, like many other things, may be ascribed to Lord Byron and his ever-enduring cultural legacy. In the year 1819, at the Villa Diodati in Switzerland, he challenged his illustrious group of friends to each write a ghost story; and while only two achieved any sort of prominence, that much was sufficient to alter the history of the horror genre. One of these was Mary Shelley's Frankenstein; the other was The Vampyre by Dr. Polidori.* As the title suggests, it was the first Western work of fiction that featured such a monster - and, in doing so, it set the blueprint for countless others to follow. Since then, the genre has been defined by the shape of the dark, hedonistic, and dangerous Lord Ruthven, who was unmistakably modelled after Byron himself.

As a character, Ruthven is confident, dominant, manipulative - and brooding, on occasion. His interpersonal approach is defined by a sort of hypnotizing, seductive, possessive, most certainly ill-advised allure. The overall impression is devilish; and that is indeed the point. Within the thematic framework of The Vampyre, Ruthven represents temptation of all kinds. He never hesitates to indulge himself; and so, once he is bored with cards and brothels, he has no qualms about fixating his appetites on Polidori's main character, Aubrey.

Their relationship is notably homoerotic. Despite - or, perhaps, even complemented by - Polidori's amateurish style, the text demonstrates a genuine, striking sensuality between them. In 1819, this easily fell in line with the rest of Lord Ruthven's characterization; and, following The Vampyre's a rapid rise to popularity, vampirism became a shorthand for any "sinful" - or, socially forbidden - sexual expression.

Given the numerous restrictions of the time, most of which persist today to a degree, this includes not merely abusive or incestuous, but also queer, interracial, and extramarital relations - as well as anything involving kink dynamics. From Ruthven, we get Carmilla (LeFanu), Dracula (Stoker + adaptations), and even relatively recent installments like Lestat (Rice).**

The premise of Nosferatu is no exception. One of the most famous cases of copyright infringement, and a triumphant testament to the historical/preservationist value of media piracy, Murnau's 1922 silent film survives - against explicit orders of the Stoker estate; and, being the literary bastard child of Dracula himself, Orlok maintains many of the same characteristics as his predecessor.

Among these is his implicit and classically vampiric queerness. Like the rest of the film, it is amplified in 2024 - and especially prominent in the first act, in which Thomas Hutter arrives to Orlok's castle.

It is evident from his earlier characterization that Thomas is a repressive type. More so than Aubrey or Jonathan Harker, he keeps his head down, obstinately ignoring the web of fears that shape his daily existence; and it is a monster's narrative duty to expose and realize every single one.

Granted, social circumstances do play a role in this situation. Aubrey has wealth and status; Jonathan Harker has friends and a stable, loving marriage; and Thomas Hutter has neither of those things. Without the benefit of money or community, he lives within a world that is almost as restrictive as Ellen's. His personality is defined by his similarly desperate desire for respect; and his behaviour throughout the film is informed by that underlying pattern. It manifests, most prominently, as a near-compulsive, yet formulaic, adherence to social expectations. He chases after a promotion, marries, gives his wife flowers she didn't want - and, in the same breath, dismisses her "childish fantasies", not out of any malicious intent, but simply because it is supposed to be his duty as a man and husband. It is a destructive cycle of indignity and overcompensation - and I believe it is essential to acknowledge that it's motivated, in great part, by his financial insecurity. As a self-described "pauper," Thomas is anxious to prove himself to his ruthless, unforgiving society - because if he does not, he runs a very real risk of losing even the few comforts he has managed to scrape together.

This threat of destitution is an act of violence. Implicitly, constantly, in consequence of daring to exist, Thomas is being held hostage - unless he conforms.

His sojourn at Orlok's castle is, therefore, peppered with evidence of his superstitions, his social class, and his weakness. Orlok - whom he eventually finds slumbering in the dungeon, the symbolic core of the building itself - is its culmination. What Thomas sees after opening the casket is a nude man, always and never dead, who is trying to take away his wife and imprison him, like a damsel, in a castle. He is horrified; and the implication is blatant. In context with everything else, the deeply sensual, lingering brutality of Orlok's attack is symbolic of the one last thing that Thomas is repressing - and has been for so long that facing it is unthinkable. Still, he can do nothing to resist Orlok - who pushes him to annul his heterosexual marriage, subdues him, bites him; and drinks from him, night after night.

Even during daylight, Thomas fails to destroy his tormentor. In the story sense, he cannot do it because Orlok is a vampire; on the symbolic level, we understand that he cannot kill his own nature.

It goes without saying that this experience is violent; it is both grotesque and shockingly, blatantly lewd. It is traumatic. It is euphoric. It is a form of sexual assault, as far as the biting - a naturally penetrative act - is concerned; and, crucially, it is also Thomas' own repressed desire forcing him to know it. His fear and self-disgust are made flesh in Orlok. Unwanted Desire versus Unwanted Advances; it is a classic gothic paradox - and, in the end, he is unable to accept it. He flees, back to Ellen and the familiar comfort of repression.

Curiously, Ellen herself - who is also distinctly queercoded - presents a depiction of an alternate path.

Like Thomas, she begins the film rigidly repressed and doing her utmost to conform to the established heterosexual social standards. The most prominent factors behind Ellen's oppression are ableism and misogyny - both rooted in things she cannot possibly hide. Her seizures are extremely noticeable to say the least, her neurodivergence affects every conversation she has with the people around her, and all of them perceive her as a woman first and a person never. As the film goes on, it becomes increasingly clear that this emulation of a happy marriage requires constant and agonizing effort to sustain; but while she is also blatantly queercoded, and this queerness definitely contributes to the way she is treated (e.g. by Harding, who views her as a threat to his own marriage), her struggle in maintaining her union with Thomas is not necessarily rooted in a lack of sexual attraction.

The issue is, rather, its "inappropriate" manifestation. Ellen is sexually dominant. Her desires are carnal (and, as the original script implies, mildly sadistic). In a society that expects women to be both innocent and submissive, limits their financial opportunities, and threatens the nonconforming with institutionalization or abandonment, she is caged.

Unlike Thomas, she is aware of that and resents it accordingly - which is not to say that she doesn't feel overwhelming guilt in regards to her sexual inclinations. She absolutely does; and it is interesting to note here that her own pain, in this case, manifests as attacks on her husband and Anna.

This is the part of the story that actively deals with Ellen's queerness. It is evident that she has lived her entire life with the idea that such feelings themselves are sinful; her desires are already unacceptable, even within the sanctity of a heterosexual marriage - thus, actively pursuing another woman would be monstrous. In this interaction, however subtle or unspoken (and, on Anna's part, likely unrecognized), Ellen perceives herself as an aggressor. This is the reason her friend is attacked directly after they share a private, tender moment together - true to the classic gothic vampire tradition, Orlok is, consistently, the direct manifestation of Ellen's shame. He drinks from Anna's breast (the characteristic bite notably favoured by Carmilla - the original lesbian vampire); he destroys the Hardings' perfect nuclear family; and Friedrich Harding blames Ellen and her "fairy ways." Symbolically, their suffering is her punishment - both for feeling a brief moment of queer affection (guilt, fear - direct, setting-driven), and for refusing to indulge it (self-acceptance, rebellion - metaphorical, represented by Orlok).

Still, despite her fear and guilt, Ellen knows that she has done nothing wrong by following her "nature." Her queerness is inherent to her - much like her disability, or her psychic gift; and it is no accident that, among the human characters, the latter is only truly identified by the remarkably eccentric, disgraced, flamboyant, cat-loving, unmarried, bohemian Von Franz. Even though he might be better-adjusted to their surrounding society than her, he still decidedly exists on its outskirts. There is a familiarity of recognition between them, as well as the particular dynamic of a fresh and uncertain fear vs a resigned bitterness that alludes to an interaction between two different queer generations. Even as he is unable to promise her a happy ending, he confirms that she was meant for greater things than the world around them would allow; and that, in my opinion, marks a turning point.

Prior to her conversation with Von Franz, the only validation Ellen has ever received was from Orlok - which posed a moral complication. He was and is a monster, and as such, she believed him to be, fundamentally, a "deceiver." Because of this, she could not bring herself to entirely accept what he was saying; but, conveniently, Von Franz provides an alternate opinion. He stresses that her gift is not only powerful, natural, and inevitable, but also inherently beautiful and sacred.

This is a drastic shift from the way Ellen is normally perceived by humanity. The story consistently demonstrates that the other characters dismiss, infantilize, or condemn her out of turn; however, in this new philosophical context, her night of passion with Orlok - or, the city's only hope for salvation - becomes a supremely important, adult, and holy act. In a spiritual sense, it is equivalent to a marriage; and the film frames it as such.

Like a father, Von Franz gives her away. Despite his well-established monstrosity, Orlok is tender with her to the point of reverence; and she pulls him close - as unnecessary or selfish as that may be. It is, after all, a metaphor. By embracing the Vampire, Ellen embraces the physical representation of everything she had once considered ugly in herself. In regards to her queerness (as well as her psychic power/neurodivergence/disability/personhood), it is a triumphant moment of self-acceptance.

Ellen's arc therefore ends in sublimation. Meanwhile, Thomas is left behind; over the course of the film, he has been unable to let go of the structures that have directed his thinking and behaviour throughout his life - and yet, at the same time, he has also seen them fail, over and over. Knock betrays him, Sievers is out of his depth; Thomas himself cannot be a hero, and Harding - his glittering ideal - crumbles, consumed by grief and madness. The finale, therefore, leaves him on a precipice.

It is a classic moment of deliberation - epitomized, perhaps, by The Matrix (Wachowski Sisters, 1999), in its iconic "red pill/blue pill" scene. As much as the interpretation of it has been twisted over the years, the fundamental, intentional meaning of it is inherently queer; it is about weighing the danger and value of awareness against the meaningless bliss of ignorance. These narrative points are most frequently framed as a beginning - but for Thomas, that is how the movie ends.

He could return to the prison of his daily existence, repress everything he truly feels once more, and suffocate himself in a stranger's life. Before him, Ellen and Orlok depart into a "sea of fog" - an unknown, terrifying, beautiful alternative. It is a promise of freedom and a guarantee of struggle. He sees an example of what he could become, in them and in Von Franz. Their society - and ours, to a degree - is unforgiving of deviation, yes, but the story has also forced him to recognize that acquiescence is not the only option; nor is it actually enough to protect him or his loved ones. Within an oppressive society, safety is always subject to an implicit transaction; and as the finale of Nosferatu makes painfully clear - Orlok may have been in covenant with the Devil, but Harding is the one who sold his soul. The question, now, is whether or not Thomas can bring himself to ignore that.

I know what I would personally wish for him - a full and vibrant life, somewhere on the edges of polite society, that allows him to delve into the eccentricities he never knew he had. He could get into the occult himself; maybe even meet a dashing vampire hunter who would sweep him off his feet and shock his lingering sensibilities every morning (and if the man's a cowboy, even better). However, the point is that we do not know what he will do or what will happen. A life is always in flux. Regardless of our circumstances, there are still a few things we get to choose for ourselves, and a precipice is also sometimes an opportunity for a leap of faith.

I hope, most affectionately, that Thomas Hutter jumps off a cliff.

*POLIDORI - Dr. John William Polidori, who may indeed be considered the creator of the modern vampire genre, graduated from Ampleforth College in 1815 with a thesis on sleepwalking. It's not exactly relevant; but, in the context of Nosferatu, rather apt. I would've really liked to see his thoughts on it, seeing as it's such a perfect intersection.

**LESTAT - being blond, Lestat does stand out from the primary archetype in the visual sense; but the current discussion is more in the realm of personality.

[novantinuum]

jen's "Hard-Light Hybrid Steven" headcanon dump

Okay so I'm just making this its own post, because frankly at this point... the original post is so hard to get all the pulp out of due to the headcanons being spread over multiple reblogs and half of it being in the tags.

So here we go. Self indulgent headcanon time. This is how I'm now personally interpreting things within the realm of my own fic work and the post-canon storylines that live in my mind. This is NOT, however, a work of meta- I am by no means suggesting this to be what I see as "canon," only having some fun playing around with ideas I think are cool on a speculative fantasy anatomy level. Take it as you will basically, lol. This is ultimately just for me.

With that stated:

"jen what the fuck do you mean when you say hard-light hybrid Steven, what are you even suggesting"

Essentially I am proposing that Steven becomes progressively more hard-light based in form as he ages. When he was born he was two almost entirely separate halves mashed together- organic and gem- and those two halves slowly but surely merge over the years (hard light replacing organic matter) until one day they are literally inseparable, and Steven is one permanently cohesive being... entirely hewn from hard-light, but with a level of anatomical complexity that still makes him a complete anomaly amongst Gems and humans alike. Instead of the innards of his body being solid light, he is still formed of cells- only now, those cells are entirely hard-light.

His gem is somehow mimicking the form of organic matter with a level of detail that's absolutely unobtainable by shapeshifting or tailored reformation alone. Steven has become the single most complex hard-light system to have ever existed.

Some more specifics on how I imagine this merge working:

Much of the "merging" is natural over time, basically his gem branching out new bits of hard-light circuitry within his body as it integrates within his system.

However, this process is sped up significantly by all the spills and injuries Steven deals with throughout his childhood... because his body's instinctive response to injury is simply to replace damaged cells with hard-light analogues. An almost instantaneous patch job.

Steven's component halves being so distinct early on is a large reason why he takes so long to harness many of his powers.

This is also why Steven's (mostly) organic half is so weakened during the split in Change Your Mind- at that point there's a lot about his anatomy that's been converted to hard-light, so it's basically as if White Diamond yanked the power source out.

(Same idea for why he's so weakened during the movie when his gem's on the fritz... his gem's connection with the rest of his body got partially severed for a time, which. Is not Good for someone who at this point is more hard-light than not hard light.)

At a certain point post-canon, it becomes impossible for Steven's organic and gem halves to be separated. They are so tightly integrated that attempting to remove the gem would only poof him.

Now, here's the thing though...

Steven does not realize that Any of this is taking place until the blunt reality of his strange new anatomical nature is put on display for all to see... when he actually DOES poof.

Here is how (in my own post-canon musings, which I have simplified here because y'all don't live inside all the intensive lore that jangles about my brain) I envision that taking place:

So, Steven would be in his mid to late twenties at this point. He's married to Connie, and they have an infant son.

Recently, there was a fairly severe Gem incident that left Beach City and Little Homeworld pretty damaged. Things are still being mopped up from that.

Steven, Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl head out on a quick mission one day to intercept one of the last few supporters of the Gem who attacked the Crystal Gem's hub of operation, and at first it seems like it's gonna be a straightforward trip.

Then, Steven sees the Gem in question pull a destabilizer wand on Garnet, and- unwilling to watch her to get ripped apart like that again- throws himself in between. He can take it, he thinks. These things never hurt him one bit as a kid

He cannot take it.

He poofs.

His gem unceremoniously falls to the ground, along with the clothes he was wearing and whatever he had in his pockets.

Cue the others going "what the actual FUCK" because based on everything they've ever witnessed and known about him no one had "Steven poofs" on their bingo card.

The insurgent Gem is captured and dealt with, but now... oh, boy. There's literally no playbook for this. Nobody knows what to expect.

Steven's gem is quiet for WEEKS. During that time, the Gems end up consulting the Diamonds on Homeworld to ask for intel on diamond reformation, but none of them are much help- Rose and Steven are the only ones who have actually poofed. Beyond them, this is completely unprecedented.

In a very vague sense, Steven is aware of what must have happened during this time... (even if a part of him wants to deny it, because How???)

He can pick up vague snippets of what's happening just beyond his reach... catching voices and what must be faint sensations of familiar people handling his gem, but beyond that he has no awareness of the passage of time, and he has no means by which to reach out to them mentally.

It takes almost two months for him to finally reform. When he does, his gem quickly shifts through its previous three forms and then just... outright h a n g s for a while on the new one... as if what's trying to "load" up is so complex it's goddamn buffering.

(my brain can only think of This image uyhjfsdbyuhjfg)

No one really knows what to expect but when he finally reforms, he... looks mostly the same? Still rather human in appearance, externally? The only notable difference is that his irises are pink now. (But with no diamond pupil- not unless he's going Full Power Mode.)

Steven also reforms WITH an outfit much like a Gem would.

The second he's back, he runs to embrace Connie (who is sobbing in relief) and asks how long he was out.

And he did NOT anticipate that answer to be two months.

As it turns out, he missed quite a few baby milestones while he was gone, and he feels horrible about it- it's not his fault of course, but he feels so bad that Connie had to go that long without his support, and that there's all those special "firsts" with his son he'll never get to experience.

This whole incident marks Steven's final "retirement" from participating in real combat- he outright tells the Gems to not involve him in any other combat situations unless the whole ass planet is under threat, basically. The potential risks are just not worth it now that he knows how long he'd be out of commission, should he poof once more. He can't put his family through that again.

Now, with all that outlined...

Ways that Steven is Weird now:

He looks rather human- his hair looks like hair and his skin looks like skin- but after he reforms, literally every "cell" of his body is fashioned out of hard-light.

However, if one were to theoretically slice him in half (which I PROMISE I am not going to do, this is only a thought experiment ahahah-), his internal anatomy would glow much like the Gems' do. (See below image for what I mean.) The "human-like" appearance of his skin and hair and other externally visible features does not extend very deep.

He "bleeds" pink now- but it's only surface, and is all just excess hard-light. No real blood.

His body would no longer show up on a radiograph- just the gem.

Many of his anatomical features (not all of them, though) are now vestigial in certain ways-? Like, various functions have overtly been taken over by his gem... he doesn't need to breathe or have any lifeblood beyond light pumping through his system, so his heart and lungs serve no necessary purpose anymore... but all of these organs still "exist" as like an echo of what once was, perfect mimics of their organic form but hewn from hard-light.

That being said, Connie enjoys the reassurance of his heartbeat, so he retains that function while conscious.

(Not to mention, "breathing" is literally just a habit for him by this point.)

HOWEVER, when he sleeps (another thing he technically doesn't Need to do but does anyways) his breathing and heartbeat stops entirely and it kinda spooks Connie out. The literal only evidence she has that he's still kicking during these times is the soft hum of his gemstone.

He does not have a biological NEED for food or water anymore and can fully operate on exposure to light alone, but he still really enjoys eating and drinking anyways. In fact, he's still able to absorb energy from food... so it's basically like he's over-charging his battery or whatever. He also still experiences taste (so still posesses some form of taste receptors) and instinctively feels "hungry" at meal times, so like... the running theory is that he must have hard-light analogues for all these receptors and neurotransmitters and hormones that communicate sensations like hunger in his system even though their function is entirely redundant with his gem powering everything.

Furthermore, his memories and sense of self and everything one might refer to as "the soul" is stored exclusively in his gem now. Which means, if one could manage to analyze his brain like one could with a human brain, there would be entire sections that simply... don't light up the way that others (such as the parts of the brain that govern motor control, as an example) do. This is because all the "data" once stored there has migrated.

He can fully shapeshift now, if he wanted to.

He can also still visually "age"- it's all based on his mental state, same as before.

But despite being hard-light in nature now, he can still interface with organics in fusion because his form is still so organic in shape and function. He's still the bridge between humanity and gemkind. I like to think that... theoretically... a Gem might be able to fuse with an organic too, but the sheer burden of trying to shapeshift and maintain such cellular complexity is what stops this from happening.

Steven, though? His very existence as a hybrid acted as a template by which hard-light could learn to understand organic life. He is still an intensely unique being, even IF he no longer consists of any actual organic matter.

_

I am sure I will probably add something to this later, but for now, those are all my musings.

Anyways, thank you for taking a brief visit to the deepest recesses of my brain, where I am chewing at the drywall and bouncing around the room like a cat who has just devoured the goddamn motherlode of catnip. Good night! !! :DDD