#thanks for coming to my stupid post

[arliganzey]

Today I learned Wrecker's height is 2.1 m which is

6 ft 10 in

And I knew he was tall, so in my Arligan Zey-centric Clone Wars thoughts, I was thinking about him meeting the Batch for the first time. They're already sitting down for the briefing when Zey comes in. Once it's over, they all stand up to leave, and Zey does that slow head tilt up when he realizes Wrecker is taller than his 6 ft 4 ass. Like, a LOT taller than him.

So Zey suddenly looks like this

POV: You're Wrecker meeting General Zey, Director of the Special Operations Brigade, for the first time

[aliciavance4228]

"Medusa x Perseus" Why don't you guys ship Bellerophon with Chimera? Or Heracles with the Hydra?

[aleki-lives-here]

The second part of tech's pov is actually here, this time including Murderbot being lovingly disassembled while conscious! (an experience that was definitely nothing but pleasant, don't worry about it)

It's officially a series now, I think there'll be five parts total? But don't trust my word, the process is mysterious and unpredictable.

A feed alarm marking the end of ter shift blinked to the center of ter vision just as Ginson pried open the chest panel. Ter tool slipped, jamming into exposed synthetic muscle held to the side by the SecUnit’s one functional hand. Ginson turned off the reminder, rubbed ter eyes with the back of ter hand that hadn’t yet been covered in blood and fluids, and sighed. 

“Everything alright?” Minoa chimed in. Ginson could feel him working in the shared feed workspace, but he was keeping an eye on what te was doing. Which was, of course, not awkward and distracting at all.

“Yes, yes,” te sighed again, and brought the clock to the foreground of ter attention – it was an hour into ter usual rest period – and set a new timer, counting seconds to the morning. Te had a little less than eight hours to finish every diagnostic te could think of and compile the report, and even fewer if te actually wanted to get any sleep.

Which was why te picked up the tool, nudged the Unit’s hand into a more convenient position and pushed the chassis open manually instead of hooking up the specialized machinery and starting the full maintenance cycle that would require at least another half an hour and take the SecUnit offline. 

Blood dripped down from where the organics tore. The SecUnit helped ter maneuver its parts to provide access. Minoa whistled, feed activity slowing down, and peeked over ter shoulder. “That’s… fuck, they actually have, like, organs?”

“Language,” te warned distractedly (Minoa groaned), then answered, “Yes,” and leaned forward to get a better view. The diagnostics couldn’t tell where the damage was, and te hoped looking at it would make things obvious, but there were no visibly leaking parts, and the inorganic tissue was still in the way, even if this one was partially transparent, so te reached to move it aside – thankfully, it was made to resist impacts, not being cut through (if the most inner parts of a SecUnit are being cut, there’s likely nothing more to be done) – moved the tool carefully around the tubing, pulling the tissues away with the other hand, and–

“What’s this?” Minoa exclaimed. 

Ginson stilled ter fingers before te could accidentally cut something that should not be cut. “Nothing you need to look at,” te snapped and immediately regretted it. Judging by Minoa’s silence, it was entirely too harsh. That’s why Ginson hated working with people – te wasn’t good at it, especially when te was busy! Te put the tools aside and faced him.  “Sorry. I don’t mean to yell, it’s just… sorry.”

“No, no, sorry I interrupted,” Minoa laughed, and te shifted awkwardly. “It's late, and you have to work. Ugh,” he made an entirely exaggerated face of disgust. “Eleven pm at work is the exact time and place to be cranky.” 

That just reminded Ginson that te wasn't the only one staying after hours, and Minoa wasn't even paid for this. “If you want to call it a day–”

“Nuh-uh!” Minoa exclaimed and emphatically tapped his lips. “Nope, never, you're not getting rid of me so easily. You think I all but begged to be in your wonderful company just to give up like that?” 

Ginson sighed, but this time it came out exasperated. “Offering help isn't begging.”

“That's besides the point.” Minoa waved dismissively. “Also, where else do I get to poke around in one of these?”

And, to prove his point, he poked. His finger landed at the side of the mostly exposed lung, and he immediately flinched away, making a face. It startled a laugh out of Ginson. “Don't do that,” te had to warn. “These things are delicate on the inside, and cost a fortune. I need to prove it hasn't been damaged, not get it damaged.”

“Sorry, sorry,” Minoa grinned back. Ginson found some part of terself relaxing. “I'll limit my poking to data, then. Your magical fingers are definitely much better suited for this task.” 

Te waved him off, but couldn’t hold back a smile.

At seven hours thirty-eight minutes before the solicitor was due back at the office, Ginson had to accept that a purely visual inspection would lead ter nowhere, and ushered the SecUnit towards the table. It hesitated slightly, still holding its chest open with one hand, and Ginson put its severed arm aside, clearing the space.

At seven sixteen Ginson had gone through most of the circulatory system piece by piece, still finding no explanation for the lowered performance. It wasn’t surprising – the numbers weren’t significant enough to warrant so much effort in any other circumstances, but the manager had been clear: te was to investigate and list every smallest issue, and prove that (ignoring the mangled arm that happened during the assignment and could not be blamed on the company) no, there was no malfunction, so no, the company wouldn’t be paying for the mess. 

Ginson really hoped there wasn’t any malfunction, because if there was… best not to think of that.

At seven ten, Ginson was waiting for the liquid pump to pause the flow on one third of its pipes, so they could be rerouted to an external pump, when Minoa made a surprised sound. Te made sure the errors from the temporarily reduced blood flow cleared out, then asked, “Something interesting?”

“Uh, I guess?” Minoa’s attention was on the feed. “Dunno. I’m gonna– yeah, that, I’m gonna run it against the archives, but maybe?.. Give me a couple of minutes.”

At six forty-seven Ginson fiddled with the disconnected pump, still warm and dripping liquids. It looked perfectly good in ter fingers, but the diagnostics did return an improvement now that it was out of the picture, so, here. A meaningless problem solved. Te wiped the pump and ter hands and focused on the report and the list of other things that returned less than perfect status. Could the left knee joint being 1.7% too tight cause a SecUnit to misinterpret the order? No. Did anyone care about ter opinion or basic logic? Also no.

Stars, te was tired.

“So,” Minoa said and then paused for a good half a minute. Ginson looked at whatever he was working on in the feed – graphs and automatic reports by programs te wasn’t familiar with, structured in ways that didn’t feel intuitive. Minoa sent some of it to the display surface. “Got a minute?”

“I’m listening,” Ginson sighed. 

“Okay,” Minoa smiled and rubbed his hands together. “So, first of all, I wasn’t actually sure what I was looking for?” He looked apologetic. “I ran the code you sent, and the results were all very clear, and then I thought: surely I can do better than this! And you know I don’t really know how to interpret the logs, but it’s the exact kind of data I work with, so I ran some of my code just to see what’s up with that. And you know its performance is generally abnormal, right? Turns out, that’s not the only weird thing!”

That was interesting, Ginson told terself, and it was. Just, at any other hour, you know? Once te'd had a good long nap, then it would be interesting.

“I don’t have all the data from all the SecUnits,” Minoa continued, “but what I did have on hand has yielded fun discrepancies. This,” a graph appeared on the display surface, “is feed activity. This is what you’d see in new SecUnits, and some of the old ones here. This one would fit more with the first bunch, which is weird–”

“Individual differences,” Ginson interrupted. 

“Huh?”

“They are all different. I don’t suppose it shows up for you, but it’s critical in my work. Every Unit is a bit different. They perform differently. They approach things differently and in different ways.” Te shrugged. “Neural tissue. You really can’t get them acting the same, no matter how much structure and how many constraints you implement around their decision-making process.”

“...Right,” Minoa said. 

Ginson thought he looked disappointed, and felt another pang of guilt. Te fidgeted with the pump again, bits and pieces moving inside of it with every twist of ter fingers. “And other differences?” Te tried to sound enthusiastic or at least like te wasn’t dying for a soft pillow and some quiet.

“Right! Okay, there's quite a few to look at, but the most interesting one from those I could check is, I think, the cleaned up data for research on the governors and their effects. The primary focus was the cumulative damage to neural tissue and whether it was worth doing something about, but we tracked many metrics, and one of the things we tracked was hormonal response. The stress levels are higher in older SecUnits as a rule, but they fluctuate a lot, and, looking at the governor module’s influence, there’s always this spike right before it activates, and a long period of recovery afterwards, no matter which level the punishment was at.”

Ginson snorted. “So basically you’ve discovered that they have stress reactions to pain?”

Minoa blinked and looked at the SecUnit. Ginson did, too. It was still lying on the table, unmoving, tubes going out of the hole in its chest and to the external pump. It was still online. Suddenly, it made ter uncomfortable. 

“Well, yes. The thing is: this one doesn’t. Or, if it does, then less than other SecUnits. There’s little to no correlation between its governor module and stress responses. By that I don’t mean it doesn’t have stress responses, because it does, and they’re– there’s a lot of those. And I mean, a lot. If I were a MedSystem looking at a human, I’d give them anxiety meds.” He paused and blinked some more. “...Can constructs have anxiety?”

“The hormonal responses are calibrated for optimal performance,” Ginson dismissed. Te squinted at the graph, then closed ter eyes and accessed it in the feed instead. That, somehow, didn’t make it make more sense. “Individual differences,” te muttered. 

“I suppose,” Minoa sounded sceptical. “Do you know how long it’s been like this?”

“No idea. Logs aren’t kept in full for long.”

“So no logs pre-RaviHyral incident?”

That made Ginson pause. The SecUnit was a mess when te’d gotten ter hands on it first. Being infected with code that took control of its systems and forced it to kill indiscriminately – that was something out of a horror show, and none of them got out of it unaffected. Some were decommissioned as their performance reliability never returned to acceptable figures. Every other one had their memory thoroughly purged. 

Half of those showed repeated problems afterwards, which was how they ended up in ter basically personalized care. Ginson knew them, pulled them apart and put them back together with ter own hands, and hated seeing three more of them gone, never returning from other contracts. Te compiled reports of their state afterwards, and all looked like unfortunate accidents, and were unfortunate accidents. It still felt a bit like ter failure. Maybe they were still underperforming, some error stuck in the organic parts of their systems that Ginson couldn’t access, and the mistakes were the consequence of ter lack of ingenuity. 

But out of the ten Ganaka Pit SecUnits, there was one outlier. It hadn't been an outlier early on – In fact, it was one of the units struggling to return to baseline functionality – but then something happened and it shot beyond the baseline, enough to get Minoa's attention. It was great at its job, and Ginson never found out how it got there.

Te stared at the graph now, and wondered. It made ter feel deeply uncomfortable.

“Neural tissue can be unpredictable,” te repeated. “Especially after extreme adversarial circumstances. And it largely controls its own hormone release so it can self-regulate, and that’s what it did.”

Minoa didn’t look any less sceptical. “You made this sound like a very natural response that every Unit has,” he pointed out. “But then shouldn’t they have the same stress response to their governor module being activated? All the others do.” He gestured at the graphs.

“Well, what other explanation is there?” Ginson asked and immediately regretted it. The discomfort turned into painful pulsing between ter ears. This day couldn’t be over soon enough. “Whatever,” te waved ter hand. “It doesn’t give us much. I’m going to run the proper diagnostics on the endocrine system, but it’s not like it could have forced it to jump into the blast radius against an order.” 

Except hormones affected decision making (that’s why they were there to begin with), and so, yes. This could in fact make it jump into the blast radius without paying attention to an order. If it didn’t have the appropriate fear of the governor module’s punishment protocol, it was the exact kind of thing that’d make it disobey. 

Ginson winced. The only worse result te could deliver was finding out it was a rogue that got caught in an explosion in an attempt to commit mass murder. Oh, ter supervisor would love that conclusion. 

The good thing about hormones was: they were in the blood, and that blood was already conveniently running through a machine capable of taking every test needed. By which Ginson didn’t just mean the SecUnit, though of course it could track its own levels, but the external pump could double as a diagnostic tool. That was just great, and a wonderful way to appear like a good diligent worker that took time to run double tests instead of enjoying ter rest – if a single supervisor would think to realize how much effort hooking it all up would have taken if Ginson hadn't already done that. 

Half of the Unit’s hormone levels were of course elevated. Te’d already talked about individual differences – this was exactly about that. This SecUnit didn’t like going through any tests or repairs. It’d found those stressful since Ganaka Pit, and usually Ginson tried to keep it offline for everything that didn’t require its participation. Te felt a bit bad for keeping it awake like that. Poor thing must have spent the whole time in fear, but, well – it’s not like te had much of a choice here. Te’d take ter time if te had any. 

The test was simple and automated, but took time. The hormones flushed away from its system, then flooded it again. The SecUnit twitched minutely when they plateaued at the highest concentration, and Ginson patted its hand briefly. “Sorry, it’s not going to be a pleasant test,” te muttered. 

Minoa gave ter a startled look that made ter cheeks warm up, but didn’t comment. 

The hormones slowly flushed again and as its results returned almost clear, Ginson dropped a modified governor module diagnostic in its feed. There was an immediate spike in adrenaline that the machines quantified, which was also great because here, proof that Minoa’s findings were a fluke and all of it worked beautifully. The systems connected to the governor, exchanged messages, orders (limited to those the Unit could perform without moving physically), received responses, all in a timely manner and with elevated stress. 

Then came the test of punishment procedures. The shocks were administered at regular intervals, with growing magnitude, the governor module registered every one as completed with not a single problem, except…

“There are no pain-related spikes,” Minoa pointed out. 

Ginson could see that. 

The test finished, and returned all clear. “The endocrine system is being tested, that must interfere with the regular hormone production,” te lied. Because it didn’t, and the first spike was a proof that te’d not messed something up in the settings. The SecUnit had a fully functional hormone production system that could deliver as much adrenaline as needed, and somehow, magically, it didn’t have the natural, innate-to-all-constructs (and humans and, te was sure, animals too) responses to pain. 

“Should we test for it separately?” Minoa offered and clapped his hands. “If that’s the reason it’s been performing better, we should look into it!”

Ginson cleared ter throat. “Minoa…” 

“Come on, call me Tom.”

“Uh,” Ginson blinked and for a whole second looked away from the SecUnit. “Right. Sorry, – could you get me some coffee?”

Minoa stared for a few seconds before smiling. “Sure! How much sugar?”

“Three.”

“On it, boss!” 

He left and closed the door behind himself, and Ginson lowered terself on a chair and slowly, articulately, allowed terself a singular thought: holy fucking shit. 

Okay, te could still be wrong. Te wasn’t dismissing the idea that it was all a fluke, and a natural difference, and there wasn’t a singular test that came out anything but clear, and, most importantly, the SecUnit hadn’t actually killed anyone it wasn’t supposed to. It did ignore an order. And it did show the complete lack of natural responses to pain–

Wait, was it pain generally or pain from the governor? Te had full access to the logs, and te knew the exact timestamp te needed – ter alarm had gone off at exactly eleven, – and, yes, there was the spike in response to the tool slipping and hurting it, and then it lowered its pain sensors even further. So it felt pain alright, and had all the natural and universal reactions associated with it. Except when it came to the pain delivered by its governor. 

So, returning to that thought: holy. fucking. shit. 

At six hours and two minutes, Ginson spent an entire minute staring at what had to be a rogue SecUnit, lying on ter table, chestplate to the side, hooked up to an external pump and currently riding another hormonal high. That made no sense. There was not a single universe in which it made sense for a fucking rogue SecUnit to allow Ginson to do any of this to it! To continue allowing this, for months! 

…Was this why it hated being tested so much? Was it scared of being found out?

At five fifty te was carefully connecting the tubing back to the SecUnit’s liquid pump as the door opened again. “The sugariest coffee I could find!” Minoa announced. He placed it on the table without being told to do so, and peeked at what Ginson was doing again, and drew out a disappointed, “Is this a no for additional testing then?” 

“Not tonight,”” Ginson replied. “There’s already a lot to do–”

“Awwww.”

“–and hunting for mysterious possible problems – that likely don’t even exist because all the diagnostics are clear – would not just be a waste of time, it would be- it would be utterly unproductive, is what it would!”

“Okay, okay, I get it. I was just curious–”

“Well, I’m not! If it works, don’t fix it! My job here is to make sure that it was working within normal operating parameters during the contract. And it was! There’s a whole fucking lawsuit–”

“Hey, language,” Minoa tried for a joke.

“–and who do you think would be blamed if it were to have malfunctioned? Do you think it’d be whoever demanded it stopped in the middle of saving the workers? There was no malfunctioning involved, just some stupid contradictory orders, and that’s it. That is it!”

Minoa was silent for a while after te’d finished. “Sorry. I was just curious, is all. We don’t have to do any of that if you don’t want to, tonight or ever.”

“There’s no need to check that, because it’s nothing but bullshit,” Ginson said and made sure ter voice sounded confident. 

Minoa was silent again. Ginson stared at the SecUnit in front of ter and felt sick. It stared at the ceiling, never once meeting ter gaze. A regular, normal, obedient SecUnit that helped with its own disassembly because a tech had asked it to, who just happened to receive conflicting orders that one time. Te’d checked the logs, there were conflicting orders. It was just that simple.

“Okay,” Minoa said finally. “I’m sorry. Is there something else I can help you with?”

Ginson felt awful. He’d done nothing but try to help and cheer ter up, but it was just… not a good night for that. “No. It’s fine, I’ll finish here myself. There’s just a lot of tedious checks, you’ve already helped enough,” that sounded wrong. Te winced. “Sorry, I’m really grateful, just…”

“No-no, I get it,” Minoa assured. His voice sounded odd. “Well, I suppose it’s time to spare you from the fun of my company.” He laughed. “Hang out at some point later?”

“Sure,” Ginson agreed and turned toward him. “Good night.”

“Good night,” he echoed and left.

At five forty two Ginson suddenly had no distraction from wondering whether a rogue SecUnit would jump up and kill ter the moment its blood was safely running all inside its body. It hadn’t yet. But it really wasn’t convenient to murder someone while they were conducting your own repairs. 

Ginson spent a few minutes sipping ter coffee and mulling over that possibility, and every other possibility that bloomed in ter imagination, and then got to work. 

At one hour thirteen minutes te submitted a final report that said that yes, there were minor problems with the SecUnit’s systems. Its pump was performing 2.3% worse than standard. Its left knee joint was too tight. A patch of skin on its back had been regrown at some point with slight defects. But there was nothing more than that, and nothing that would have made it malfunction and do what it shouldn’t have, and definitely not a single tiniest thing that would make the company liable for the damages, and even less that would point to ter, good Tech Ginson, as not having conducted a thorough enough check of the SecUnit’s functionality. 

It was a great report, all in all, with the result of every diagnostic attached. And te didn’t even get murdered while writing it, so maybe it really was the truth.

[im-out-of-it]

part 34 of season 3, episode 6 continued “a window into an empty room”

246. I wouldn’t want to be on the bad side of Maia, that’s for fucking sure

247. WE DESERVED SOME MAGNUS AND MARYSE BONDING DID WE NOT????? it’s kinda insane to tease this new friendship to do absolutely nothing with it. how many times did the writers tease a storyline, or a relationship just to say ah, never mind let’s not do that. Maryse is there when she finds out Alec and Magnus broke up but what about the stuff in between? I know when Magnus is having a hard time, they have a small talk but we could’ve had more before all of that occurred

248. BABES YOU DO THIS ALL THE TIME AND THATS OKAY YOU ARE OUR SECONDARY RESIDENT ALCOHOLIC

249. Alec looking at the pool table and thinking of Magnus the whole time 🥹

250. boyfriends who use drinking as a distraction at times parallel

251. he’s just existing but being the most adorable perfect person 🥰

252. I messed up this part so adding these clary ones and why is it when she uses a weapon it’s cringe??????? must be the character for me

253. Maia: babe I’m trying to make some tips and earn some cash so don’t ruin it please

254. Maryse embarrassing Izzy 😭

resuming 255 for the next one and I believe it’s the last part for the restaurant scene and then I’ll resume the Magnus stuff, and then clary finding out jace is the owl

[dashi-inu]

kanaya maryam from homestuck 🌹sister piece to eridan's full-body. i headcanon them as best friends in my universe and she designs and tailors his outfits; he doesn't trust anyone but her fashionista skills ♡ anyway, a level-headed character amongst idiots is an instant yes for me. i see her as a macabre beauty in my head so I'm not apologizing for how crazy her body ratio is 💅

rewrote the info on kanaya's reference sheet under the cut 💄 this design features nsfw content! 🔞

KANAYA MARYAM (JADE BLOOD, VAMPIRE)

5'11 ft (180.34 cm)

VAMPIRE GLOW. Some jade blood trolls can ascend to rainbow drinkers. Characteristics include glowing skin and eyes.

MAQUILLAGE. Manicure on nails, lipstick.

ATTIRE. Goes for eye-catching colors. Loves her reds. Designs all of her outfits. Walks a fine line of intricacy and elegance. The green in her outfit is lacey and vine-like. The red in her outfit is the main attraction and takes the form of intricate designs like roses. Displays her star sign in subtle ways as part of her ensemble.

--

HAIR. Gorgeous curls, lovingly cared for and stylized.

EYES. Slender and feminine. Framed with long eyelashes.

BODY. Slender hourglass. Unrealistic proportions like a beautiful body horror.

[farther-north]

So I finished The Magnus Archives today... safe to say that I'm not doing great

[cern1cal0]

for the cancelled riddlebat zine

[corviiids]

THANKS @kimdokjafan you are so kind and generous. ok im cashing in the first of three blank checks to talk about faith trust and pixie dust (most recent chatfic) because the last two directors commentaries were too serious so let's do a silly one.

some p5r spoilers, and this is mostly about sumire, and it's long again. do i need to keep disclaiming that these are long? you should know me by now.

i had this written for a while before i started formatting it because i wasn't really sure if i should post it? i feel like silly chatfic is something people go to for predominantly lighthearted nonsense so i was like, maybe there's too much plot and dramatic misunderstanding and i should just keep this one for myself. but then i was like well nothing matters and maybe someone will have fun with it. it's kind of terrible how much fully or mostly completed fic there is my docs that just doesn't see the light of day lol. write for yourself etc but i like sharing! too bad it comes with the mortifying ordeal etc. anyway that was a tangent

potato counter is a neopets game. there's no deep lore i just like neopets. i guess in this universe ryuji doesn't play neopets? or maybe he's just never played potato counter specifically. i also have a different fic where ryuji DOES play neopets. it's about neopets and ryuji and goro talking on neopets.

i think this might literally be the first time ive written sumi in a fic because i haven't actually written that much fic for royal, like, now that im looking, literally almost none? and none that had a group dynamic. so it was kind of fun to find her voice for the first time in a silly groupchat like this. i was worried people would find her exclamation marks annoying but i personally thought it was endearing so i added it in there.

every time i do a gag where a character corrects their own typo i have to code more stupid little bubbles to make it happen but i think it's worth it. all the effort that goes into making tgis look as much like a real chat as possible

this obviously doesnt take place in the canon p5/r universe, but im imagining sort of a postcanon sumi personality where she's more comfortable being herself and isn't borrowing kasumi's brand of confidence, but she's visibly a really anxious person without that kasumi veneer. i also think in this universe sumire is a fairly recent addition to the friend group, and while everyone likes her a lot and she really likes them, i kind of wanted to emphasise that feeling of being in a friend group where everyone's established and you're sort of a plus-one? you don't really fit yet. part of that is her being new, part of it is her anxiety, part of it is just the kind of person sumi is where she's so polite and self-conscious she ends up taking herself out of things with her own good intentions. stuff like her interrupting the flow of an existing conversation by greeting everyone instead of jumping straight in because she doesn't feel comfortable inserting herself, which means everyone else stops to greet her even though that doesn't normally happen in a friend group, or making a point of thanking everyone for being invited to events while the others take it as a given.

idk i love that she feels a bit out of place with the phantom thieves in p5r. and part of that is a natural consequence of being a new addition in royal who can't be naturally integrated with an existing dynamic but i honestly feel like the writing team realised that and acknowledged it, and really leaned into it, and that made it work incredibly well for me. like, it's part of her character that she's sort of an outsider. it's not like p4g's incredibly clumsy integration of marie and subsequent attempt to shove her down everyone's throat as the canon love interest in p4ga (knife). sumi has that outsider vibe on purpose and it makes me really like her dynamic with the thieves as an individual

goro also feels slightly out of place in these chats, but his conversational style blends more naturally with the other thieves at this point and he even uses their codenames sometimes. i keep saying my chatfic series isn't a real Series because the lore keeps changing, but if we accept that they're all kind of following a General Continuity, assume this takes place some time after the last fic in which ren added goro to the groupchat and they made an effort to integrate him into their friend group. he's kind of there now and has settled into being the weird boyfriend. that's his role.

every time goro says something like "ren and i" assume it's the text equivalent of him talking to the group with his arm around ren's waist.

ok i got really fond of this silly running joke where sumi brings up the weather when she's feeling uncomfortable. she's so polite. i like this thread because setting it up meant i got to tie it off like this:

this just made me happy lol i liked writing this. i tried to use it to demonstrate that despite goro's abrasiveness he obviously knows sumire pretty well, he's attuned to her quirks and knows how to tell when she's having a bad time with her anxiety, so he uses her little weather habit to ground her.

i honestly dont think goro and sumire could be considered close in p5r and as much as i like the "royal trio" in canon they're not really... like... friends? with each other? they're both attached to ren, so it' more a V shape than anything else. but that said, i really LIKE goro and sumi's canon dynamic. he takes a really grouchy but politely attentive supervisory role to her during their few forays into the palace as a trio where he doesn't really know her well but clearly identifies her as a harmless little tryhard who needs some guidance and steps into that role grudgingly, and she immediately looks up to him despite being very wrong footed by his ruthlessness, which i find incredibly charming. i think given time they could be good friends, they just didn't get much chance to know each other very well in canon. so i tried to kinda do that here.

once goro stops being evil and joins the group they all kind of tiredly accept that his role is to occasionally push a cup off a bench while smirking and refuse to clean it up. emotionally, i mean.

wait i need to backtrack chronologically to talk about akeshu.

in this scene they're in the same room lol talking and snickering while typing. im trying to get at that vibe of the annoying couple who is flirting with each other, via you. you know? like ostensibly they're talking to you (sumire) but everything they say to you is part of their stupid game. sumi is incidental to goro and ren teasing each other about flirting with someone else, goro is reporting everything ren says because his boyfriend is so eye-rollingly foolish in a cute way. they're very tickled by how amusing and charming they are. gross. disgusting. sumire im so sorry for putting you through this

anyway here are too many of my favourite jokes from the fic

[weezeranitsweezy]

my personal weezer collection

[batlesbianism]

and now it’s time for the million dollar question! now that I’ve finally accepted being transmasc do I actually like having fem s/is or do I just feel like nobody will love me unless I’m fem!

[im-out-of-it]

part 21 of season 3, episode 6 continued “a window into an empty room”

111. more broken down of we stand by you. I love Lightwood family bonding time

112. Alec and Izzy look offended. how dare our mother feel this way????? we love her 🥹

113. I don’t know why but this scene will never not be funny

114. the classic my brothers are trying my patience and my mother is now embarrassing me around my crush type vibes

115. this is what we needed more of. Alec teasing Izzy, Maryse being an embarrassing mother to her children’s partners. I live for these vibes

116. I WILL FUCKING CRY

117. now the tables are turned

118. SHE IS SO FUCKING GORGEOUS

119. she seems so much happier

120. there’s a new couple in town and we ship them so hard

121. Alec’s new way of dismissing his own concerns

BABES IT IS SOMETHING

resuming 122 for the next one ✨

[anxeious]

is cropping dogs' ears basically always animal cruelty? only because humans think it looks better?

simple answer: no, not necessarily! let’s talk about it!

also i know i might ruffle some feathers here but please look at this w an open mind (adding a read more i know most people prob don’t care) this is long sorry lol <3

i used to be super against cropping (ears) and docking (tails) (will abbreviate as c/d) too until i learned more about it. i also used to be super against the breeding of dogs in general and was very adopt don't shop, i have since educated myself a lot more on the topic (i support ethical preservation breeders of purebred dogs ONLY i do NAWT support backyard breeders or puppy mills who breed mixed breeds, designer dogs or poodle mixes/doodles for profit, people who mass produce dogs, or breeding outside of the standard) now that we have that clarified let's get into it

in the case of livestock guardian dogs (lgd), farm dogs, or working dogs, it actually prevents injury! in the case of a lgd who protects livestock from predators (think coyote, wolf, bear, etc) something like an ear or a tail would be a great spot for a predator to grab onto in the case of an altercation. the ears have a lot of blood vessels and would bleed a lot, having an ear ripped off in a fight with a wolf wouldn’t be very good. with farm dogs similarly, as well as docking tails so something as heavy as a cow doesn’t step on it. working dogs used for personal protection same thing, nobody could grab onto their ears/tail during a fight. also, for the work that they do the ears would hit their face and can split or a hematoma can form, when this happens once it is likely to keep happening/be a reoccurring issue. this is very very painful. as well as cropping ears it’s meant to give them a look of alertness instead of approachability, that’s the part people confuse with “just to look scarier”. while it did help them to “look scarier” it also helped deter potential attackers which in turn keeps the dog & person safer. the dog in the pic that i rb'd that ur referring to is a lgd

so ear cropping non working dogs of cropped breeds for aesthetics is a thing yes and is obviously highly controversial. i’m not gonna sit here and say it isn’t for aesthetics. some people argue it prevents ear infections which might be true but that doesn’t negate that it’s primarily for aesthetic purposes. plus basset hounds and spaniels get a lot of ear infections and are not cropped. but as long as it is done by a licensed vet under anesthesia with multiple ways to control pain (nsaid, nerve block, injectables, etc) in a sterile environment by someone experienced who knows how to do it properly while being closely monitored by professionals before, during, and after the procedure, followed up with proper aftercare, pain management, ointment, antibiotics, cleaned regularly and taped/posted (this is so the ears sit up straight, cropping is done when the puppy is weeks old so the cartilage hasn’t hardened yet) it is perfectly okay, the dogs do not notice, play like normal, it heals nicely and the dogs have little to no pain (this can be clearly observed w people who have c/d puppies) the puppies are back playing with littermates nearly as soon as they wake up. also, dogs CAN communicate when c/d. dogs like huskies have upright ears and communicate just fine, regardless, the ears/tail aren’t only way dogs communicate with one another. the issue is when people diy this procedure with no anesthesia or pain management in an unsterile environment, with no experience or knowledge on how to do it properly, and end up with a botched crop that gets infected and causes the dog a lot of pain. THIS is the issue and what so many people (myself included) should be against. when it’s done properly it is perfectly safe. dog ears heal very very quickly, and when done properly it takes around two weeks to fully heal, after that is just posting so the ears stand up. crops not done by vets are the horrific crops u might see pics of online, super botched inflamed, infected, red and swollen, very painful. that’s why it’s not ideal that a lot of countries ban the procedure in hopes of stopping it. people are going to do it regardless. banning it just prevents professionals from being able to do it safely and encourages people to do it at home with scissors thus causing puppies a lot of pain.

why crop? well, in a lot of cases it IS done to look more intimidating (i mean if u get a big scary dog for protection purposes, that’s kinda the idea, no?). also show dogs of c/d breeds are obviously c/d as showing dogs is about preserving the breed’s original purpose & breed standard. in the case of ethical breeders of cropped breeds (like a doberman) the puppies are almost always c/d BEFORE they go to their homes. breeders have a specific vet they trust (often traveling quite far) and would never make their buyers have to seek out a good vet on their own. the average person doesn’t know what to look for when it comes to finding a good vet for such a procedure nor would they pick up on an red flags, so the breeders get it done at their preferred vet before the puppies go home and kickstart the healing/taping process before pups go home. these breeds are cropped because ethical, reputable, and responsible breeders breed towards the breed standard, which for dobermans includes c/d. the breed standard is there to serve the breeds original purpose and is what ethical breeders breed towards. even in personal protection breeds who are not doing protection work, the ears are cropped in an effort of preservation. dobermans specifically were c/d because they were the first breed bred for personal protection. they were originally created to protect tax collectors many years ago as this was a dangerous job at the time. and being c/d makes it harder for people to grab onto them in the event of an altercation. so in an effort of preservation they are still cropped.

there are cases where it’s medically necessary as well, like a dog keeps getting happy tail but i figured you were talking about cropping for non medical reasons so i didn't include that here

[desire-mona]

me when im forced to remember that the autism isnt just a fun secret way to like my fav band more than everyone else and that ill actually never be able to navigate social situations normally

[osteochondraldefect]

this post was sponsored by @forestlovesyou

[akascow]

was wondering why i just started seeing shadow ppl in my peripheral and i totally forgot i didnt go to bed last night so i havent actually slept in 36+hours JKLFKSL OOPS

[clay-pidgeon]

its honestly fucked up that "bimbo" holds such insanely strong derogatory connotations (Because Of Misogyny) but "himbo" is just a sort of silly, usually explicitly positive little epithet to use to Praise men for being stupid. to remedy this we either have to start genuinely supporting stupid women with our hearts and souls or slutshame men more