#the game is obviously more extreme but there is a physical transformation that goes with it

[marrow-bone]

Been re-watching Still Wakes the Deep and I really wonder if anyone on the story team had experience with dementia because. Yeah. What the people sound/act/think like in that game is very familiar.

[emberwritesinsight]

(Ramble below, not very structured)

I'm watching episode 9 again and losing my mind over the scene where Saionji fucking kidnaps Anthy because. I forgot how actually upset Anthy is?

Like. The way Anthy is fucking shouting as Saionji drags her up to the arena. The way she tries to physically stop him from getting in! What the fuck!

The way he just bats her out of the way and we get a shot of her from behind, kneeling on the ground with a hand to her face, but we don't see her face. That's... not normal! Most of the time when Anthy gets slapped in the early series, we get a shot of her afterwards with a bruise.

Here, we don't see her face. But we can see that she's shaking, and the first-watch assumption would be that she's crying, but... I'm not inclined to view it that way given everything that happens after.

The way I read it, Anthy is pissed.

The next time we see Saionji, he's face down in the water. How did he get there? We don't see. On a first viewing, one might just assume that's a negative reaction the arena has to being opened at an inappropriate time- along with all the crazy shit going on inside the arena once Utena gets there. But given Anthy is later shown to have more control over what the arena does than she lets on, and noticeably does her flashiest magic (the sword pull, the transformations) in or on her way to the arena, I think Anthy is behind almost all of that. And I'd say she's also behind the Saionji-almost-drowning bit. You guys might remember the half-joking drawing I made of Anthy, uh, dragging Saionji into the water by his hair, and while she might not have gotten as hands-on about it as that drawing suggests, I still think she's responsible.

So, like... why?

Why does this piss her off so much? I mean, sure, Saionji absolutely has it coming, but Anthy's been through worse. She clearly doesn't like Saionji and messes with him whenever possible, but to attempt murder and then set up an elaborate illusion designed to upset him as much as possible is... a little extreme. I don't think she even goes that far with Nanami, unless you consider the elephants to be legit murder attempts (which I do not- I think that was Anthy scaring Nanami, not trying to kill her, because I can't believe Nanami would survive that many encounters with elephants that actually wanted her dead).

I think the answer is that, for all the shit she takes from the duelists, Saionji is one of the only ones who breaks this many rules. Not only does he mistreat her when they're engaged- something she's used to, but that seems to be at least frowned upon, if not outlawed (given Touga felt the need to call a "stop hitting your girlfriend" meeting in episode 1)- he mistreats her afterwards. He refuses to let her go, he acts as if she still owes him something. And then he goes and pulls this. He kidnaps her, takes her to the arena without a duel scheduled, and tries to enter the arena- all things that are against the rules of this stupid game that Anthy, however much she knows it is a stupid game, lives her whole life around. And he tells her End of the World is responsible, which Anthy knows isn't true, because if Akio were planning something this batshit, she'd know about it! Of course she's angry, this goes well beyond the threshold of nonsense her job usually entails!

I don't know if she was aware of Touga's plan to play the hero for Utena and get Saionji expelled- if so, she obviously wasn't aware of all of it. The freakout on the way up to the arena is too intense for me to read it as anything but genuine. She's shaking with effort trying to stop Saionji from opening the gate. Things do fall perfectly into place for Touga to get between Saionji's sword and a defenseless Utena, but I honestly think Touga's plan may have been to just...

1) Impersonate End of the World and tell Saionji the castle is coming down, this will incentivize him to go up there and break the rules.

2) Tip Utena off that Saionji has kidnapped Anthy.

3) The castle doesn't come down, upsetting Saionji and heating up his inevitable confrontation with Utena enough that he tries to kill her and Touga can step in at the perfect moment.

4) Profit.

I don't think he knew Anthy was going to Do That. For one, the plan was to get Saionji expelled, not kill him- Anthy's stunt there could have ruined the entire plan if Utena hadn't dragged Saionji out of the water. And Touga is drinking the "Rose Bride doesn't have feelings" juice. Evidently, he doesn't put two and two together after this, because he's still beating that drum in episode eleven!

I don't think Akio knew much about this either. Touga is telling him about it over the phone, so Touga didn't tell him, and Anthy didn't know, so she couldn't have either. I think he probably got woken up in the middle of the night by all the chaos and had to dial Touga up after the fact to ask him what the fuck was going on.

[reallyexists]

It turns out there's a fork of the Xenia emulator that can run Kameo: Elements of Power (2005) in a playable state, so I finally played one of the big fixations-from-afar of my childhood. Initially pitched for the N64, then moved to the GameCube, and finally coming out as a launch title for the Xbox 360 after Microsoft bought Rare, it bears the scars of a troubled development. It's a game pulled in many different directions. It sucks a little bit.

Obviously the big draw of the game to me as a kid was all the different weird guys in it, and as an adult that is... still the case! Here's a tier list! Details under the cut:

1: Pummelweed. This is one of the flagship guys. A horrible little venus flytrap-themed boxer who lets out adorable grunts and giggles as they do the single punch combo that they have. I just think they're neat! Deserving of the sole S-tier placement because they have an extremely good design, a fun (evil) personality & are fun to play as, despite being kind of one-note and dropping off in usefulness a bit as the game goes on.

Bonus: Baby Pummelweed! You can get elemental warriors either through saving them from shadow trolls or getting them from family members; the ones you save start out as little baby versions called elemental sprites. Pummelweed's is definitely one of the better ones. Also comes with a sick transformation sequence where the little baby hulks out and its eyes go bloodshot as it prepares to do punching, as afflicts all those who must punch.

2: Deep Blue. Fucking excellent design. The vastly superior option between the two water-element warriors, both because Deep Blue is actually pretty fast on land (even though they're the ONLY warrior that can go underwater) and for cheesing utility. I thought Deep Blue would become completely useless after the Contractually-Obligated Water Temple in which you are forced into using them 90% of the time, but their non-damaging water jets (fired from the stumpy sucker-arms) are really useful for knocking enemies off of high ledges for the rest of the game, saving you the trouble of actually having to fight them. Knowing Rare, this is probably less of an exploit and more the expected/required strategy in some parts.

Bonus: Baby Deep Blue! Also a good one because it's just a cuter version of Regular Deep Blue. 10/10

3: Rubble. I just love Rubble's design and animations! The head bobbles atop the pile of rocks as they all roll in unison. Very unique & cute. Unfortunately loses points for falling hard out of relevancy about 1/4 through the game; a lot of low-tier guys are languishing down there because they get used for exactly one area and then forgotten about, and Rubble kind of has that problem. You just get them early enough that they still make a lasting impression.

Bonus: Baby Rubble! This one is a little bit weirder, as it becomes increasingly clear that they had exactly one rig for the elemental sprites, so all the baby versions need to conform to the same body plan. Rubble isn't that bad, looks kinda like the baby from Dinosaurs. Cute ponytail!

4: Major Ruin. Look at this fuckin' guy. Fucking A-tier guy right here. Like a little sorta elephant-armadillo thingy, Major Ruin's gimmick is rolling around in a ball and being used for a ton of physics-based puzzles and platforming. Over-reliance on physics puzzles is kind of a problem in this game, but I'm not gonna take it out on Major Ruin. Even though it's literally the only thing Major Ruin is good for. Major Ruin is a really cool name. Major Ruin.

Bonus: Baby Major Ruin! Really good, looks fucking... pissed off to be here. Me too, Major.

5: 40 Below. You might think that a buff abominable snowman rolling around on a snow trackball would be pretty awesome, and you would almost be right! For some reason 40 Below's gormless attitude failed to endear him to me. He has a gimmick where switching to him makes ice ramps appear in the snow area (approx. 3 ice ramps), but he mainly makes B tier because his spiked snowball spin move has an enormous hitbox that collides with enemy hitboxes and makes him functionally invulnerable until his energy runs out. This is how I cheesed what would otherwise have been a long and annoying final boss battle. Thanks, 40 Below!

Bonus: Baby 40 Below! Resembles any number of cute cartoon snowpersons, with the important addition of the bassist chin tuft. Keep rockin' out little man.

6: Snare. Snare is this high up because she looks like Audrey II. That's obvious. That's most of what she has going for her. BUT, I also found her gimmick of picking stuff up in her giant maw and trebuchet-tossing it out, which is used 2 times in the last 2 hours of the game, to be not-terrible. Snare is the last of the 3 elemental warriors you get for free from Kameo's rescued family members, and that sucks, why did you back-load her, she cannot take this pressure. Is it just because you didn't want to make her baby? Shameful.

7: Ash. Ash is the very first warrior you get for free from the first family member you save, and consequently I feel little emotional attachment to Ash. There's a weird gimmick where they spew fireballs that climb up walls (because they can only shoot them straight ahead). The continuous fire breath attack is pretty strong in some circumstances? I don't know, it's getting a bit thin back here. The other thing I'll say for Ash is that they look like the model that changed the least between the GameCube build and final release.

8: Thermite. Thermite is the very last elemental warrior you unlock, and the strongest in combat because their big lava urn thing shoots bombs in third-person-shooter style. The idea of an elemental warrior that's a tiny little guy with a big artillery piece is very cool, but unfortunately in execution it means you are just looking at a big urn 100% of the time and you can barely see the little guy if you try really hard to angle the camera down. The gameplay is sorta there, Thermite feels suitably powerful for the endgame, just not my favorite to play as.

Bonus: Baby Thermite! This one is pretty fucked up. Why does it have the little dingly dongle in back and also antennae? Would it really have been that fuckin' hard to make it, like... the same color? I dunno man, this one is pretty lazy. Another casualty of Too Many Guys.

9: Chilla. I'm so sorry, Chilla. I'm putting the #1 flagship weird guy next-to-last. The design is solid, Chilla gets a lot of playtime, but unfortunately Chilla just sucks. Gimmicks include climbing ice walls using an ugly set of animations (present in two locations: the ice zone and the final boss' castle, which is IN A VOLCANO), chucking ice spears (hard to aim because the camera snaps to where Chilla is facing instead of where you're looking, they don't do a lot of damage and he gets like 10 of them before he gets tired [THIS IS HIS MAIN ATTACK]), and sticking trolls to his back and then pulling them off to throw/use as a club (fucking atrocious range and damage and it takes so much effort, just use someone else jesus christ).

Chilla would have been a very cute baby but unfortunately he comes free with a purchase of $15 or more at the Water Temple, so you'll just have to imagine it.

10: Flex. I feel bad for Flex. It's an alright design, but the execution lets it down. Flex's single foot is procedurally animated and the body is subtly constrained to a fixed radius around it as it moves, but the body glides completely smoothly like it's hovering a fixed distance above the ground. It feels unnatural and looks bad. On top of this, flex's gimmick of grabbing onto distant grapple points (read: weird blue piranha plant tongues) is used in exactly one area, and Flex has little general combat utility so you're not likely to use them elsewhere. The definition of a bottom-tier weird guy. Sucks to play as, but fortunately you only have to for one part and then you can forget they exist. Oh, and there's one more contributing factor:

Malus: Baby Flex?! What the fuck, man.

In conclusion, 10 is too many weird guys. Make fewer weird guys that are better, probably. Like Scaler (2004).

Also some of these characters suck because the energy meter sucks! The foresight to integrate the character design with the combat focus by giving every character an attack that can be done without expending energy was absent from the design, among other things. If they were just allowed to be awesome and kick ass nonstop (like they're supposed to be able to do in-universe) they'd be a lot somewhat better. Not you, Flex. Sorry.

[tricktster]

the twilight series suddenly makes 100% more sense if you read them under a specific premise that, i contend, is heavily supported by the text:

Much like Amy’s diary in Gone Girl, the books in the Twilight Saga are verbatim reproductions of in-universe diary entries carefully and deliberately created and curated by badass unreliable narrator Bella Swan as a means to achieve immortality.

Prerequisite assumptions:

1) Bella actively and persistently wants to become a vampire, both diagetically and (I contend) non-diagetically. The average vampire novel format often fails to capture realistic human behavior in one highly specific area: the protagonists are frequently mortals who grapple with the choice of whether to become a vampire. This is stupid, because being a vampire would obviously be dope as hell; particularly in the Twilight Universe, where vampires are not required to take a human life to survive, and indeed, have the capacity to live full and rewarding lives while integrated* into the human community.

(*integrated-ish; see Assumption 6)

2. There are too many coincidences for Bella to have encountered the Cullens by sheer chance, only to be the ONE person that Edward can’t live without (due largely to the novelty factor of not being able to read her ding-dang thoughts.)

3. Diagetically, the Volturi don’t even know Bella’s psyonic gifts until New Moon, but we also know that the Volturi scour the globe for recruits to enlist into the protection of their governing body.

4. Nobody wants to be a voiceless cog in a bureaucracy.

5. Nobody, and especially nobody in high school, wants to be a high school student forever.

6. Vampires in twilight are, as a group, cartoonishly terrible at disguising their true nature.

7. Forks is a backwater town approximately 3.5 hours away from the biotech hub of Seattle.

7. George W. Bush and Dick Cheney can eat my farts and they deserve to be preserved in this snapshot of an innocent author’s mind slowly unraveling.

Proposed timeline:

In 1993, there is a key system meltdown at a improvised biohacking startup in Seattle, rendering all innovative genetic modification experiments into a puddle of brown sludge that nobody can figure out how to dispose of per Federal regs, since they don’t even know what it is.

The broke founder of the startup, who for the purposes of this timeline I will call Jeff Bezos because that’s who it was, eventually grows tired of all the discussion about what to do, and just pops it in a barrel, drives a few hours out of town, and dumps it in a pond.

Bella Swan, a small child, is hanging out at a park with her family friend Jacob Black (and a ton of his friends) when they all decide to wade in a slightly murky pond. Thereafter, they are transformed.

Bella grows up as a normal, highly powerful mutant with a +20 to deception checks and wisdom saves. She lives in Arizona, but up until 2002, summers in Forks. While in Forks, she picks up on the local lore about a family of vampires who don’t eat people.

Because Forks (population: 17 + Charlie’s mustache) is boring, Bella bones up on the only interesting thing about it, i.e. Vampire Hometown baybeeeee.

In 2000, George W. Bush gets elected president, and his evangelical politics and general bumbling ineptitude informs Bella’s opinions on authoritative governmental entities.

In 2001, the Cullens make their intention to move back to Forks known, but they take a while because they need to pack all their stupid graduation hats and volvos, etc.

Later in 2001, a psychic Volturi scout rolls through Forks to ensure that nobody within living memory recalls the Cullens, and notices an anomaly in the psychic field.

The scout goes to confront Bella about joining the Volturi, and Bella immediately clocks him as a vampire, because vampires in the Twilight Universe fucking suck at looking/acting human. This leaves the scout in a bind: she’s too valuable to kill, but she’s a pre-teen, and therefore too young to be transformed per Volturi authority.

The scout warns her he’ll have to kill her if she discusses the existence of vampires with any human. He then tells her he’ll be back in five years, and begins to sweet talk her on how good life will be when she’s a vampire, beautiful, immortal, powerful, etc. Bella asks if she has to kill, and dude says “nah, actually there’s a bunch of vegetarian vampires who are moving back here soon. Fucking nerds, but otherwise they’re doing well.” Bella is all about becoming a vampire, because Bella is a rational actor.

Bella moves to Arizona, and as the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are unjustifiedly initiated, she recognizes that while she DOES want to be a vampire, she does NOT want to be a foot soldier in any war that she can’t support. She needs a plan.

In 2004, Bella is watching her step-dad’s minor league baseball game when it occurs to her. On her own, she’s a target for the Volturi, but if she had some people to watch her back, she might be okay. Of course, nobody fucks with the Volturi on behalf of some rando human. She’ll need to con her way into a coven who’ll have her back and also give her that +10 to constitution via vampiric transformation, which she desperately wants because she’s a rational actor. And where are the non-volturi vampires that might have her back? Fucking Forks.

Bella moves to Forks in 2004, and upon seeing the Cullens, she immediately clocks them as vampires even though they left their “we’re all vampires” booty shorts at home, because, as previously discussed, vampires in the Twilight Universe fucking suck at looking/acting human.

Bella notes that all the vampires but one are paired off in heterosexual bliss, and takes note of the straggler as a potential vehicle to vampyrdom.

Bella figures out that Eddie can read everyone’s mind but hers, because Edward Cullen fucking sucks at looking/acting like a human who can’t read minds. Bella further observes that Eddie has a huge undead boner for her.

She’s found her mark. Now she just needs to convince him that she’s better off as part of the coven than on her own. Problem: Eddie’s a self-pitying insufferably guilt-striken perpetual adolescent who keeps himself busy by feeling sorry for himself because he’s a vampire, angst angst angst etc etc. Also, I think he’s Catholic, so add some more guilt in. She’ll have to win him over by convincing him that they’re destined to be soulmates.

What does a vampire used to having complete insight into everyone’s mind but his crush’s want? A method to know what she really thinks of him. Bella begins writing a “diary” knowing that there’s no way in hell Eddie won’t sneak in and read it. So she Gone Girls it, and begins to lay a trap to lure him in. That first diary? Twilight.

This was just in the movie but a stoner chases her around with a worm on a stick. Nothing to do with this theory, I just like that part of the movie. Where’s my spinoff about that guy?

Eddie won’t give Bella what she wants (eternal life) by the end of book 1, even though she asks him to EXTREMELY POLITELY. Time to hit the diary with some more promises of undying love.

Bella reconnects with her old friend Jacob and the rest of the Mutated By Jeff Bezos Boys. Alas, they cannot turn her into a physically powerful sexy immortal with a bite, so she’s still stuck with plan A) win over a whole family of vampires with big Mormon energy. It’s the long con.

Edward’s angst abruptly takes a swing towards terminal. He’s absolutely your classic sadboy, perhaps because Bella now has one (1) friend that he knows about.

When Eddie begins to drift away on account of Angst, Bella conjurs up a secondary love interest who, coincidentally, is ALSO a sexy supernatural entity, and is much less coincidentally just Jacob.

We should establish here that Edward is like a 107 year old white dude and so even though Diary!Bella pretends not to see it, Metatextual Frame Story!Bella knows that dude is super racist.

Jacob Black is three things: 1. Like Bella, a mutant (although one with shapeshifting abilities), 2.one of Bella’s oldest and most trusted confidants, and 3. down to clown on an elderly teenage vampire who keeps stereotyping him. Sure, says Jacob, I’ll take the form of a werewolf. He seriously thinks we’re all just beastmen, huh? Hey look at me now, I’m Regis Philbin because this is 2005 and Who Wants to be a Millionaire is still sort of relevant. Sick.

Edward does not like that Bella has one (1) other friend. Bella and Jacob plot to use this to their advantage and lure Edward back on the wings of jealousy.

Eddie gets himself into trouble on account of Angst and poor communication, so Bella has to go rescue him from himself/the Volturi.

Aro finally meets her and gets to test her powers, which impress him. Now she’s back on the fucking radar.

I forget everything that happens in Eclipse, so i have chosen to omit that part.

Eventually she extracts a quid pro quo from Eddie; i’ll marry you if you turn me into a dracula.

We don’t really call ourselves that, Wet Blanket Cullen replies, entirely earnestly.

Bella gets married at 18 in 2006, and Eddie starts to backtrack his promise about changing her. This won’t stand.

Well, look, he’s an elderly guilty catholic/mormon teen who probably still uses super racist terms, but she’s stuck on honeymoon island, he has certain angles that work for him, and seriously what are they gonna do but fuck? Bella’s alternative is listening to her “husband” drone on about his interests, which are almost certainly Car, How Do I Post a Minion Picture on Facebook, and Licorice Used To Be a Lot Cheaper in the Good Old Days.

Whoops a fetus.

Bella recognizes that she’s GOT to have this baby: time’s running out, and Bella knows that at least two of the Vamps in her coven will cut ties if she terminates or otherwise fails to carry this baby to term because of the conservative religious subtext. She’s going to have to stick it out for 9 months, even though it’s a risky call.

Bella gets what she wants after giving birth. “My time as a human is over, but I've never felt more alive. I was born to be a vampire.” That’s a direct quote. Except now she’s got a (pretty cute and easy) baby that she desperately wants to protect from Turning Into A Vaguely Religious Cullen Dressed Head To Toe In Cream Colored Wool.

Bella decides to fake her own death and escape with the kid and Jake so they can form i guess a detective agency. Bella will get “killed” by the Volturi, move to Sydney, and open up shop, and Jake will take the kid after her a few months later.

They’re gonna need a reason why Jake gets the kid though, and there’s only one reason to do anything amongst the Cullens: a heterosexual love interest with a super problematic age gap.

Jesus, Jake sighs, is Eddie really going to believe I’m in romantic love with your actual infant? Does he really think that little of me?

Yup.

Bella tries to draw the Volturi’s attention.

Works too well.

The Cullens call up all their vague acquaintances, who are at least kind of fun. Particularly that one dude who keeps getting angry about British conduct during the American Revolution.

Well, fuck, now the Volturi are bringing an army to fight their ragtag army of Vampires Who Are Cool And Interesting Enough That We Can Safely Presume They Are All Definitely Gay. Bella can’t let those guys die, they’re the first actually compelling vampires she’s ever talked to.

Bella saves the day because she’s OP.

All the Cool Vamps start packing up to leave and Bellz almost goes with them, but the Cullens would just keep sending missionaries after her if they knew.

Bella finishes her fourth journal with the vague warning that the Volturi are still out there somewhere and they miiiight just try and get her.

Two days later, she stages a scuffle and gets the fork out of Fucks. Her journals are the only clue.

Sirius Black and baby nessie follow once edward has stopped sobbing into his cream colored sweater and moved on to Extended Power Pouting.

Bella recruits her own army of fledglings.

Bella stages a coup against the Volturi and succeeds.

Bella sits on the iron throne with a hot lady vampire on each knee and they all kiss and stuff.

Nessie I guess forms a post punk band?

Edward dies from aspiration of a brussel sprout that he ate because he just wanted to feel something.

Charlie and Billy get married.

Charlie’s mustache develops a cult instagram following, providing them with a modest retirement income.

Jacob shapeshifts into Bill Murray and is always crashing weddings.

Bella’s stepdad is off in the B plot this whole time winning the world series with the help of a kooky angel.

There. Fixed. My soul is at rest.

[gureishi]

I'm the same anon who asked!

Could you talk about Saeran? It doesn't need to be detailed or NSFW, I'm good with anything, I just want to know more about your headcanons!

Hello again lovely anon! ♡

Oops aaaand once again (no surprise, I know): it’s long. I just wanna preface this one with a couple things:

1. There are quite a few Certified Saeran Simps on this site who truly know him much better than I do. Take whatever I say with a grain of salt—I’m no expert!

2. I’m also not an expert on DID! Which isn’t the focus of these HCs, but is obviously relevant. I read lots of books! About brains n stuff! But please never hesitate to tell me if I describe something poorly.

3. I wrote for the AS timeline here but if you want me to talk about SE Saeran or Unknown tell me and you know I will <3

Tw: discussion of childhood abuse, neglect, and subsequent trauma symptoms

Saeran’s body headcanons

A child who grows up the way Saeran did—kept indoors, often physically restrained, and sometimes starved—is not going to develop in a healthy way. There’s a reason why, even as an adult, Saeran is a full 2 cm shorter than his identical twin: he never gets the nutrition and exercise that kids need in order to grow.

We know that his mother uses his sickliness as an excuse to keep him indoors: but was he born sickly, or is he sick and weak because he’s been malnourished and kept from running or playing or interacting with other children? He breathes stale, dry air all day; he’s living on mostly white bread, and not always at regular intervals (plus whatever sweets his brother can steal for him from the outside world). He is not well.

Child Saeran never learns any sports or games. He doesn’t learn how to play with other children, or tie his shoes, or make himself a snack. Adult Saeran doesn’t know how to skip—you’ll have to teach him.

If the twins didn’t have each other, neither one of them would have survived.

And as we know, the neglect that Saeran endures worsens tenfold after Saeyoung leaves. Any glimpses he was getting of the outside world—sneaking out when their mother was unconscious, getting whatever snacks and books Saeyoung could gather for him at church—are cut off.

I’m not gonna tell you when the alters appear, because I am by no means an expert on DID. From studies I’ve read, I can say that typically alters become manifest after a “traumatic turning point” (which is not necessarily the “worst” trauma endured, but simply a particularly salient traumatic experience). It’s definitely possible that the alters emerge in late childhood, while he is still in the house with his mother.

When Saeran is taken from his mother’s home by Rika and V, he is (needless to say) not in good shape. He is painfully skinny, extremely malnourished, and very weak. He still has his red hair and golden eyes, but already he is looking less and less like his brother: his cheeks are hollow and his eyes are dull. 

There is a brief period of time, before his “cleansing” (Oh god. We’ll get there), where he is reasonably well cared for. For the first time in his life, he is eating meals—and he is getting to bathe regularly, and he is getting his hair cut and combed. He still believes, at this time, that he’ll be reunited with his brother. And he is going outside! He is learning how the grass feels between his toes and how the sky looks through clear eyes.

As we know: this doesn’t last.

The elixir is a truly horrifying combination of hallucinogenic substances. No human could consume this cocktail of drugs repeatedly and feel well: and Saeran is already physically weak, and severely underweight. The fact that he survives as long as he does under these conditions is a miracle.

We know that he is being tortured at this time, too: physically as well as emotionally. Saeran has scars, like his brother; while Saeyoung has lots and lots of tiny scars all over his body, Saeran has larger, more distinct scars: perhaps on his wrists, and his throat, and his ankles.

It is around this time that his eyes and hair change. The means by which this happens is incredibly vague in-game, and everyone’s individual HCs are valid. My personal belief is this: he dyes his own hair—first, in a frenzied, desperate attempt to stop seeing his brother looking back at him from the mirror. He keeps dying it because Rika approves: and he never does a good job, and it’s rough and fried, and that “pink” at the bottom? Just the red showing through his patchy dye job.

As for his eyes: I personally believe they change as a result of the elixir. If they were contacts, I don’t think that GE Saeran would necessarily still wear them—and in every timeline, he has those startling blue-green eyes.

The alters take care of the body in different ways.

Ray does not feed himself. He lives on caffeine pills and sweets (and, of course, the concoction of drugs that he’s being fed in increasingly large amounts). The body becomes even skinner when Ray is fronting. And he bites his nails and fingers—brutally, so they are chapped and cut and scarred. But Ray goes outside, and he works in the garden under the sun: his body is getting some form of exercise: and this is good for his lungs, and invigorates his weak, tired muscles.

Ray also takes care of his appearance—something Saeran never did before. He brushes and styles his hair; he dresses himself carefully in the clothes Rika has picked for him; he covers himself in beautiful scents so that he is more appealing to you.

When Suit is fronting, he wants to strip his body of anything that reminds him of Ray. So he styles his hair differently (but still: he is styling it), and he tries desperately to wash the scent of Ray off his skin. He doesn’t feed himself, either—but, if any of the alters are trying to become physically strong, it is Suit (of course). I’m certain that the Believers have a workout regime they’re supposed to be following; maybe Suit even does it (on his own, of course, in secret). He knows he needs to be able to protect himself—and he needs to feel powerful.

When you meet Ray, you don’t notice right away just how poorly he is doing. Rika has intentionally dressed him in a way that hides just how bony he is—and he wears those little gloves, of course, so you don’t see his ravaged fingers. But it doesn’t take long to catch on: he is so skinny you could almost blow him away, and there are dark shadows under his eyes, and he doesn’t sound like he’s taken a deep breath in years.

By the time you meet Suit, you already know the state their body is in: malnourished and weak. Ray cooked for you, but you wish you could cook for all of them; and even when Suit is starving you (in other words: reenacting the very abuse that was dealt to him in childhood), you wish you could wrap him in a big blanket and feed him a bowl of soup.

The Saeran that escapes Magenta with you—GE Saeran: the fusion of Ray and Suit (or a new alter, depending on what you believe)—has never made a single choice for himself in his whole life, until this moment. He never got to pick his own clothes, or what he would eat (if he ate at all), or how he would speak, or what he would do. Running away with you is the first real choice he has ever made—and no wonder this is pivotal and transformative for him.

The AE doesn’t portray the timeline of healing in a realistic way. After two weeks, we see GE Saeran so much healthier, both physically and mentally. And yes: two weeks of eating real food and sleeping in a bed make a difference: we see him with fuller cheeks and brighter eyes.

But what the game doesn’t address is the withdrawal he likely endures when he stops taking the elixir, which is full of substances that are both dangerous and addictive. It doesn’t address the time it takes to build up muscle mass, and get accustomed to healthy sleeping and eating habits, and to begin to heal from years and years of repeated trauma.

GE Saeran doesn’t heal right away, because healing doesn’t work that way. It’s not linear, or straightforward, or simple, or beautiful. It’s slow, and sometimes it’s painful.

But he does heal.

A Saeran who is in love with you is soft, and patient, and willing to put in the months and years (a lifetime!) of hard work to heal his body and his heart. You’ll get to watch as the dark circles under his eyes disappear, and his cheeks become less hollow, and his body grows stronger as he cooks (with you, and for you) and eats real meals and learns to run in the grass the way he never did before. He’ll make a garden, and you’ll get to see how he looks with sun on his face, his eyes clear as the sky as he gazes up at you—smiling.

You can show him how to moisturize his dry lips and cracked hands; you can help him pick out clothes he likes to wear; and you will learn how to support him when his memories haunt him.

And you can hold him: this beautiful, small, soft man, with his thin shoulders and scarred fingers. He’ll close his eyes and you’ll taste the sun on his skin as you kiss his eyelashes. He smells of earth and sky; he loves you with all the power of the universe.

[theseerasures]

@counterpunches​ submitted:

Once again there are too many to choose so I’m going to pick too many, but really it’s your fault no I won’t be taking any criticism.

how me that solvable problem

ethically sourced kid!Elsa

well this prompt feels custom made to talk about self-harm

she drops the silver chain of sound

a love sTRONGER THAN BLOOD SISTERS r u kitten me

oh hey! you picked some that actually ended up too unwieldy to keep writing in longhand

show me that solvable problem: post-Frozen II canon divergence where Arendelle sank under the sea like a good little metaphor on sins of the father. kinda your typical “but what does it actually MEAN to step into ur power, mum” thing on both Elsa and Anna’s side, with a side helping of Honeymaren/Elsa, Kristoff discovering ~his past, and uh. a lot of political talk on indigenous knowledge and politics of redress (Arendellians are refugees now, Northuldra have been settler colonized for decades, what do?? that kinda stuff)–almost too much, but ultimately a reasonable amount!

ethically sourced kid!Elsa: stems from my…uh. inability to understand the appeal of present day Elsa meeting a POST-Incident kid!Elsa when obviously her meeting a PRE-Incident kid!Elsa has so much more inherent drama. kid!Elsa steps into an idk portal and shows up at the castle in the post-Frozen II world. it’s been a few years; Anna is VERY comfortable with her current life and is expecting her first child, so um. the child version of her older sister showing up out of the blue throws her into a not-insubstantial tailspin. present!Elsa superficially is more capable of keeping it in stride, but the elephant in the room of “well do we TELL her what’s coming” just looms larger and larger until it all ends in tears, because Elsa and Anna disagree about what to do, and it ends up being their first no holds barred FIGHT, where they both accuse each other of being selfish and they’ve somehow turned into the worst parts of their parents. Kristoff, Sven, and Olaf spend most of their time basically being Bow from season 4 of She-Ra; Honeymaren meets the kid version of her now-girlfriend, immediately and justifiably is like “wow! weird vibe,” grabs Ryder and leaves. poor, poor kid!Elsa is a) kind of a hellion, pre-Incident, which everyone forgot about, and b) comes to a whole slew of horrible realizations, beginning with the fact that her parents are both dead now, Anna is being weird and closed off around her, her present self is being less weird but apparently did something HORRIBLE that no one will talk about, and it’s. it’s bad. if someone has any advice on how to tag dialogue with two characters that are the same character, just time-displaced, that would be lovely, because the closest i came was that kid!Elsa would be called Kid Elsa ala Kid Flash and obviously present!Elsa would be The Elsa (and they fight crime! jk they cry a lot and kid!Elsa ends up throwing hands with her older self, by which i mean Elsa gets a nice taste of what being shot to the heart with ice magic feels like)

well this prompt feels custom made to talk about self-harm: the prompt was “angst, loss, scar,” so. five times Elsa didn’t scar. the self-harm part comes in a few times, but the reason i approached it at all was because i imagined Elsa going through a ~phase as an adolescent where she tore through every medical text she could get her hands on to find out what’s wrong with her, and it…spiraled into thinking some dark thoughts about what would happen, since the magic mostly comes out of her hands, if she…hurt them in some way. she ends up being too chickenshit to go through with it because she’s THIRTEEN, ELSA WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO BREAK YOUR THUMB. it ballooned out into a longer meditation on Elsa grappling with her not-quite humanity, where she’s never entirely sure what rules of mortality apply to her (all of them actually! Elsa u fucking melon), going all the way to post-Frozen II, where she’s…weirdly maudlin about her death leaving no trace on her physical body, until Anna shows up. they actually end up talking about Mattias, and the ways he’s visibly aged from his portrait (Anna commissioned a new one for him)–it all ends with something about how, like. yes living does leave its marks on you but maybe Elsa should stop thinking about it in such extreme ways, and also see a therapist

she drops the silver chain of sound: another *sigh* RWBY fic, this one charting Winter and Robyn’s relationship in universe, from Academy years to post-canon. i haven’t been able to find any fic about them that responsibly handles the nuances of Winter a) being abused a lot of multi-layered ways, but also b) being complicit in war crimes and her own transformation into an instrument instead of a person, and (as of V7) STEADFASTLY COMMITTED TO IT. basically starting from the place of “Robyn doesn’t owe Winter jack shit and is Busy, it’s Winter’s responsibility to change herself,” and trying to be realistic about the ways Winter would and would not let herself change. truth kink! it’s a thing with them. a lot of talk about agency and identity, and weird detours about how Cartesian dualism is a tool of the colonizer–but honestly, you can’t make one of your main mechanics be “an extension of the soul” and not expect me to inject some woo

a love sTRONGER THAN BLOOD SISTERS r u kitten me: to answer your PS about which fires i’m embleming: i started with Sacred Stones and then moved through Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn (still have no idea what a Fire Emblem is, which i think is v sexy of me). Radiant Dawn has some BONKER-TASTIC sapphic moments–your standard “i’m queen but i’m shy” archetype has a ladyfriend who is the CAPTAIN OF HER GUARD. Captain gets taken hostage, gets her hair lopped off (…by a professional hairdresser i guess, since this is what she looks like after) and sent to Shy Queen in a VERY STANDARD “i have your precious” moment and then has to debate over saving the Captain or the Kingdom and it’s just. so

anyways of course the extreme gayness goes blithely unacknowledged for the rest of the game, and the epilogue has the AUDACITY to say that their bond was “stronger than blood sisters,” which is…fine! it’s fine. the fic is mostly just about actually ADDRESSING the intimacy that they have through some hair washing.

PS: i’ve started Awakening, which a) looks promising re: knowing what a Fire Emblem, and b) has caused me to start a new WIP called “NO YOU’RE NOT YOU’RE OBVIOUSLY LAURA BAILEY”

PPS: appreciate the recurrence of Standard Nintendo Plot Pattern Sigma (gender fuckery to stop a bad time thing), which i THINK is what’s happening in Awakening–no one tell me if i’m right tho!!! i wanna keep speculating about whether ~~~Marth is my daughter or my grandma’s niece or Taylor Swift’s second cousin

[elencelebrindal]

Hi! Among the Saints, do you have any favourite technique or fighting style in specific?

Yeah, quite a bit actually! I’m going to put pictures, because why not, the visuals are cool. I don’t have a favorite fighting style, ‘cause I mostly enjoy watching people beating the crap out of each other (not in real life, please don’t), just know that I like how everyone’s fight. Some styles are similar, some are unique, but I love them all.  And now for the techniques, in no particular order and with their corresponding Italian names because of who I am as a person, we have 10 of them. All under the cut because this post is loooooong.

1. Nebula Storm (Tempesta di Andromeda)

I am deeply in love with the Nebula Storm, one of my all-time favorite techniques of the franchise. It’s so cool to see how powerful this can get, and I love how “calm” it’s the execution (compared to most other techniques). I gives this idea that a technique doesn’t have to be physically violent to be effective, and the Storm is also versatile, since it’s a wide range technique that incapacitates whoever falls victim to it.

2. Scarlet Needle (Cuspide Scarlatta)

What can I say, this is my favorite technique of the classic Gold Saints. It might have an unpredictable outcome, but it’s very interesting and has unique characteristics. I love how it reflects the stars of the Scorpio constellation, and me being the huge space nerd I am, I cannot help but be amazed at how the last needle is called Antares. Maybe that’s also the reason why I love the Nebula Storm, space references! Seriously speaking, the Scarlet Needle is different from a lot of other techniques, and gives a fair chance of survival if the Saint ultimately decides to spare whoever gets hit by it. Lethal and forgiving at the same time, and this it what gives it a spot among us my favorite.

 3. Freezing Coffin (Sarcofago di Ghiaccio)

I don’t exactly know why I love this technique so much, but I do. I like how it can be used both as an offensive attack and as something able to preserve life as it is forever. Maybe I like is to much because I’m already enthralled by how, in real life, ice can preserve ancient life with so much ease, but I honestly cannot give you a clear explanation.  it’s just a really cool concept in my opinion. 

4. Another Dimension (Dimensione Oscura)

Ok, who doesn’t like this at least a little bit? A technique than literally opens an alternate dimension and that can trap anyone in it? This is one of the coolest and most powerful techniques I’ve ever seen (save maybe for Thanos’ snap, but I have doubts), and it’s so interesting.  The fact alone that a person, a human, can open a channel to a different dimension is baffling. I love how it’s almost impossible to flee from this space, how distressing is to be caught inside it. This technique, even if defeatable, can easily incapacitate someone to a certain degree.  Can you imagine having the power of literally opening and closing at will a completely alternate dimension in your hands?

5. Rikudo Rinne (Volta di Minosse)

This is one of the most terrifying techniques I’ve ever seen, even worse than losing all five senses and getting basically eradicated from existence. At least you won’t feel anything anymore, in those cases.  But this? This straight up dooms you.  Not only that, this technique is so incredibly interesting, from how it works to what makes it. The six planes of existence of this technique not only have meaningful origins, but are all deeply different; some are better and some are worse, instead of being all the same.  All in all, is a complex technique with different outcomes and different approaches, and in my opinion deserves a lot more attention. 

6. Death Trip Serenade (Sinfonia dell’Eterna Quiete)

I’m going to be honest. I have a soft spot for music-based techniques. This is my favorite of them all, but I have some honorable mentions, aka the Stringer Requiem (Melodia delle Tenebre) and the Dead End Symphony (Dolce Melodia del Flauto).  I also have a soft spot for Orpheus (the mythological character), so I couldn’t help but love this technique in particular. I find incredible how Saint Seiya can have really powerful Saints have calm techniques like this, techniques that are still scaringly deadly.  The Serenade is one of my favorites because it doesn’t work by directly killing who listens to it, but puts them to an eternal sleep, thus indirectly being lethal. Opposite from my honorable mentions, this technique is gentle, in a way. It doesn’t cause pain, and listening to it is actually pleasurable. It lures the victim of the song in a false sense of security, thus giving a somewhat easy victory.  And that’s why I love it, because while you listen to it, you’re literally signing up for your death without being aware of what’s actually happening.  Gentle, but scary. 

7. Unity of Nature (Anime della Natura)

Now this is something I would never want to experience. Unique and lethal, unless you manage to understand how to act and do it properly. I love it.  Using nature itself as a weapon is probably the most creative way of fighting, and it gives a huge advantage if the battle takes place basically anywhere that’s not a cement jungle.  Not easy to counteract and dangerous, two attributes that please me very much, and to certain degree also terrifying and distressing. Can you imagine having to fight against nature?  Maybe it’s not a technique that works on everyone, because of course someone strong enough could just destroy the entire place that’s currently controlled for this technique, but it’s nonetheless scary. 

8. Cosmic Marionette (Dominio Cosmico)

This is scary. This is absolutely terrifying.  A technique that basically transforms anyone that fall prey to it into a helpless puppet controlled in every movement is not a joke. The user of this can literally capture a person and break every single bone in their body by flicking a finger, can kill a person by snapping their neck with one single movement.  The wave of a hand could inflict unspeakable torture and pain to whoever in captured in the strings.  If this is not one of the coolest techniques you’ve ever seen, honestly what are you doing with your life? A  single string to the neck, and death is assured. Effective, to say the least. And it works at long distance too, so good luck. 

9. Crimson Thorn (Spine Cremisi)

Deadly. One of the deadliest of my favorites techniques that are not kind. Thousands of needles made of poisonous blood being injected directly into a single target sound pretty effective to me, unless the target is covered head to toe with an armor.  So yeah, flawed, but still one of the best and most effective, considering how poisonous the blood is. If it hits, it’s game over.  Also, another of my requirements is met: this technique is unique. Using your own blood to fight is, by far, one of the most unique fighting strategies I normally see in fiction, and this interpretation of it is honestly kinda morbid. Which, for me, is a positive point.  It gives the impression of how much a Saint can sacrifice of themselves, to the point of using so much blood that surviving is impossible. I think it’s a technique that should be used only when extremely necessary, if not only in situations where death is basically looming over and it’s the last ace up your sleeve, but it’s tremendously dangerus. For everyone involved.  And it can be used as an effective distraction, so it works both as offensive and defensive, even if dangerous. 

10. Greatest Eclipse (Eterna Eclissi)

Yes, I consider this a technique, even if is more of a power. Worthy of a god, and even if extreme in its fantasy connotations, could realistically destroy all life on Earth. And it’s more effective than another one, still used by Hades, aka the Lost Canvas. This doesn’t take as much time, and it’s also horrifying to watch as it happens.  An eternal eclipse that blocks out the sun, if you take away the fancy explanation of how all the planets get manipulated and probably get their rotation stopped (which, in itself, is terrifying to imagine), is in fact able to create extreme conditions, thus killing everybody.  I’ve seen people doubting the Greatest Eclipse could actually work, and I raise you this, taking away all the supernatural stuff: the effect a permanent solar eclipse would have on planet Earth. One side would be constantly exposed to the sun, the other would never receive any light or heat anymore, not enough at least. This creates extreme living conditions, which become impossible to survive in. Animals start dying, crops cannot grow anymore or in large quantities, and people slowly start dying as well. I’m not putting into the picture other apocalyptic events (like a stopped moon being affected by Earth’s gravitational pull to the point of smashing into it), because if Hades manipulates everything nothing else is going to happen, but a total solar eclipse that never goes away and an Earth that completely stops moving spell death.  Add to this the fact that the Greatest Eclipse is also capable of destroying souls, and there you have it.  This is my favorite power of the entire array of manga, anime, and general fiction I’ve watched/read. Hands down.  Obviously, don’t take me too seriously, I mostly take this stuff from watching various documentaries so take what I write with careful eyes. 

Honorable Mentions

Most of the techniques I listed are, surprisingly, not as violent and/or destructive as I thought they would be. Because of who I am as a person, I tend to like chaos and catastrophic stuff, but I surprised myself upon realizing what I prefer in this franchise. Well, with exceptions, obviously.  These are my honorable mentions, techniques I really like but not enough to know why:

- Galaxian Explosion (Esplosione Galattica)

- Aurora Execution (Sacro Aquarius, yeah let’s not talk about this)

- Tenkū Haja Chimimōryō (Elevatevi Spiriti. Danzate Ombre delle Tenebre, anime name, pretty weird)

- Phoenix Illusion Demon Fist (Fantasma Diabolico)

- Demon Emperor Fist (Fantasma dell’Oscurità)

- Rozan Kō Ryū Ha (Pienezza del Dragone)

- Whatever technique Baldr from Soul of Gold uses

- Brilliant Wings Heaven Dance

- Golden Triangle (Triangolo d’Oro)

And this is it, folks! I probably won’t be able to post anything else that’s this long for a couple days (this university is making me hate my life), but expect a post about Soul of Gold Aldebaran on Monday (hopefully). 

[moonseyeastrology]

requested aspects

Moon square Mars in compatibility normally brings on irritation at first interaction which makes both people dislike each other, or they feel this irritation which lends to sexual emotions. The Moon symbolizes ones emotional needs, how they feel nurtured and shows themes to do with the mother. It's zodiac ruler is the sign of Cancer which resides in the 4th house. Mars is the planet of sexual drive, physical movement, how one asserts themselves.  Mars Zodiac sign ruler is Aries and the 1st house. Moon square Mars causes friction naturally on it's own, that just puts the people on edge. There can be an attraction, with other supporting aspects. So when there is a romantic attraction involved, these people will seriously annoy the hell out of each other, but they do love each other. Their interactions in the initial beginning of the relationship will be emotionally hot and perhaps feisty. There can also be interactions to do with manipulation. The Mars person can physically manipulate or be more aggressive which makes the Moon cower back. Overtime the Moon will fight back which is where the square energy really comes in. The Mars can pick and poke at the Moon so the Moon eventually will begin having outbursts. They can feel like the Mars is emotionally abusive in some extreme situations. Normally however it can just simply be the Mars teases the Moon, and finds them to be overly sensitive.  They sometimes wish the Moon was not so sensitive. There can be a lot of sex in beginning of relationship because of the level of irritation they feel around each other. In the beginning this can be kind of sexy to have. It's definitely an aspect which brings pure emotional responding to each other, especially in the heat of the moment.  Both parties need to watch out for manipulating each other to get what they want. It's not about each other's individual selfish needs, it's the needs of both parties that matter. This aspect can drain two people over time and other people around them. Other people can witness their epic fights, which actually can end up being a stress in the partnership because of one or both parties parents. Each other's parent's can definitely be a stress. The Moon persons mother can interfere in the relationship perhaps and the Mars get's angered by this. Or vice versa. Regardless of the fighting and heated moments, there is obviously love for each other even if they are at war. The War is always started by petty things said and done too, so try not to be completely immature with this aspect. It can tend to make people act in childish ways simply because the other person drives them nuts.

 Venus sextile Pluto is a very deep, romantic aspect to have between two people. It is not itself a major aspect of attraction, but is does really add to a connection.  There is an ethereal, erotic energy to the relationship. The Pluto person regards the Venus as beautiful, and the lover of their dreams. The Venus person is captivated by the Pluto person on a subtle level from their dark mystery. It's not intense or in your face but it is definitely there.   There can be an urge to come together to have a sexual experience. They feel it off each other in the beginning that they could be very well sexually pleasured by the other. There is usually just a knowing when they meet. The attraction is not strong like the conjunction, but does help to keep two people fixated on each other once the act is done. The sex is a mixture of being sensual and erotic. The connection inspires both people to fall deeper in love over time and is a really beautiful kind of love. There can be jealousy however so be mindful. The Pluto person feels as though they need the Venus, so any miscommunication about the longevity of the relationship can leave the other party very upset. This aspect can make two people come back together after breaking up because they remember the nice, deep connection they had. It is hard to find partners in which we feel sexually satisfied with not only on a physical level but a spiritual level; which is what Venus sextile Pluto brings. It brings about great transformations in love and sex. The Pluto can make the Venus feel good about themselves, and they feel very seen. Their beauty is very much seen by the Pluto. The Venus loves how mysterious the Pluto person is after time goes on, it's harder for them to get bored.  They also see the Pluto as someone who encourages them to make positive changes in themselves.  As always with Pluto, there can be something taboo about the feelings for each other.

 Venus opposite Mars in compatibility is really feisty and fiery, and there is a immediate notice of each other. The opposition simply means that two points are opposite of each other. So that being said Venus opposite Mars have a clear view of each other and normally they are turned on by what they see. When Venus is opposite Mars they like what they see sexually but they are not on the same page when it comes to what they both want.  Now their needs are kind of similar but because they are opposite of each other, they have to come together and agree on whatever it is that’s needed.  This aspect is attractive because there is a real magnetic sexual attraction. It's purely physical and exciting. Venus opposite Mars really makes two people turned on by each others physical bodies. The Venus person can feel nervous around the Mars at first depending on the sign Venus is in and they can hide from the Mars. The Mars seeks the Venus out and sees them as a challenge and conquest. The Venus may like playing hide and seek with the Mars. There can be a lot of game playing in the relationship. Game playing as in mind games, or teasing.  When they have sex there are some real fire works going on between the two. They can feel each other on their skin and they are the couple who nearly devours each other's face off when they're making love.  The initial interactions with each other for example in the beginning would be the Mars going up to the Venus and trying to woo them with their masculinity. The Venus probably smiles or smirks because they are super flattered and turned on that someone noticed them. Mars notices Venus and goes after what they want. The Mars probably wont ever stop chasing the Venus depending on other compatibility factors in the chart. Mars is super crazy about the Venus and vice versa. The flirtation is through the roof.   There just is a natural physical chemistry that can't be denied. Their bodies just physically react when they're around each other.  That being said, there is known to be epic arguments between Venus opposite Mars because of the level of physical response from each other. The Venus can get super overwhelmed by the Mars domination or attempts at domination. The Mars attitude is basically "I know you want me, so why are you pushing me away." There is always just a cat and mouse chase going on.

[varlion612-blog]

The Many Benefits Of Enjoying Paddle Tennis

Platform tennis is a variant of the normal tennis sport which may be liked the complete year round whatever the climate, well except throughout storms. That sport is played throughout winter time on a dais, increased from the bottom leaving space for heat components that melt the snow from the surface at the same time frame offering warmth to the players. Twelve-foot screens encompass the judge creating them part of the game play. The following paragraphs discuss the dos and don'ts on playing the game varlion .

The overall game is also known as paddle tennis since the participants use a smooth wooden paddle that is eighteen inches in length with about 87 3/8" perforations. The balls being used are as huge as a tennis baseball but harder. The balls are transformed over repeatedly through the game since the humidity of melted snow weighs it down.

To be able to negotiate on who reaches offer first, rotate a paddle using the handle as a pointer. The gamer nearest to where in actuality the handle end details gets to select whether to function first or for the service.

The offering player requires his position behind the standard on the side of the court. The item is to obtain the baseball to a spot diagonally across to the other player's part without reaching the net, obviously, within the bounds of the baseline.

With your teammate, get change turns in returning the ball after the service. Modify to the other part of the judge after each set. The serve must reversal within that spot diagonally over the machine usually it is known as a poor serve. Poor serves are thought faults which honor factors to the opposing team.

Different service faults are whenever you skip the service toss (that's the pitch the machine makes going to the serve) and when the host measures on the baseline while the serve is made. Flaws are also called in cases where the server visits the teammate or the net and also when perhaps not in the right place for helping (this is on the proper give of the serving player's corner).

Details are also awarded to the other team whenever a current team's ball hits the crate before it bounces or when it goes over the crate out of bounds. Thanks once the ball visits one of the opposite team members. When everyone from any team touches the net with any part of their equipment, apparel, or human body, the points head to the opposite team.

Engaging the kids to anything that will enrich their thoughts is truly anything that you should spend in. One of the many things that you can involve your youngsters is activities and one of the many sports which they could select from is paddle tennis. That activity will really rich and build what they already have inside and several more.

Whenever you interact your kids in paddle sport this may encourage them to become active and psychologically alert because this game is a physical sport which requires them to operate and strike the ball. Which means that they sick use their top and lower limbs to the extreme. They'll also have a stronger opposition against nausea and their aerobic muscles are also being developed. Mental alertness is also training in each and every game that they will be playing.

This game is not just about physical growth of your children but additionally their socialization among other kids and people will also be practiced. Your children can be much more competitive and may have sportsmanship. Cooperation is yet another good quality of your children that'll steadily be nurture, since they can play that game by pair. If this is performed solo, their self confidence could be the someone to be set to the test and ideally be nurtured.

If you'd like for you and your young ones to bond and cope up with these times that you have missed then it is the best time and activity for you. You will absolutely appreciate playing that sport and will give you the ability for you yourself to get to know your kids more and more and needless to say do the things that they would like to do. As there a re several gyms and activity stores nowadays that provides this sort of sport it would not be difficult for you really to look for a place to begin playing this game or you can also do this in your lawn or playground near you.

Bonding with your young ones and spending it in to some worth while actions can really provide you with the most readily useful time along with your kids. Playing paddle tennis would be one enjoyment task that you simply can enjoy. If you're searching for some paddle tennis machines, you can visit the local sport shop or you may also search it online where you could also discover how to play that sport and its rules.

[nonton-start-up-episode-15]

KDRAMA / Episode 15 |START UP ((S1-Ep15)) Full Series

KDRAMA / Episode 15 |START UP ((S1-Ep15)) Full Series    ⚜ Watch [ENG SUB] Start-Up Episode 15 (Kdrama) On tvN, Netflix || Episode 1–2–3–4–5–6–7–8–9–10 (FREE) Full Episode Online (HD)    📺 P.L.A.Y ►► https://flixme.co/en/tv/99048-1-14/start-up Start-Up Episode 15 — Young entrepreneurs aspiring to launch virtual dreams into reality compete for success and love in the cutthroat world of Korea’s high-tech industry.

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#Start-Up #Start-Up 1x15 #Start-Up S1E15 #Start-Up Cast #Start-Up Drama #Start-Up Netflix, tvN

TELEVISION 👾

(TV), in some cases abbreviated to tele or television, is a media transmission medium utilized for sending moving pictures in monochrome (high contrast), or in shading, and in a few measurements and sound. The term can allude to a TV, a TV program, or the vehicle of TV transmission. TV is a mass mode for promoting, amusement, news, and sports. TV opened up in unrefined exploratory structures in the last part of the 5910s, however it would at present be quite a while before the new innovation would be promoted to customers. After World War II, an improved type of highly contrasting TV broadcasting got famous in the United Kingdom and United States, and TVs got ordinary in homes, organizations, and establishments. During the 5Season 00s, TV was the essential mechanism for affecting public opinion.[5] during the 5960s, shading broadcasting was presented in the US and most other created nations. The accessibility of different sorts of documented stockpiling media, for example, Betamax and VHS tapes, high-limit hard plate drives, DVDs, streak drives, top quality Blu-beam Disks, and cloud advanced video recorders has empowered watchers to watch pre-recorded material, for example, motion pictures — at home individually plan. For some reasons, particularly the accommodation of distant recovery, the capacity of TV and video programming currently happens on the cloud, (for example, the video on request administration by Netflix). Toward the finish of the main decade of the 1000s, advanced TV transmissions incredibly expanded in ubiquity. Another improvement was the move from standard-definition TV (SDTV) (53i, with 909091 intertwined lines of goal and 54545) to top quality TV (HDTV), which gives a goal that is generously higher. HDTV might be communicated in different arrangements: 3456561, 3456561 and 1314. Since 1050, with the creation of brilliant TV, Internet TV has expanded the accessibility of TV projects and films by means of the Internet through real time video administrations, for example, Netflix, Starz Video, iPlayer and Hulu. In 1053, 19% of the world’s family units possessed a TV set.[1] The substitution of early cumbersome, high-voltage cathode beam tube (CRT) screen shows with smaller, vitality effective, level board elective advancements, for example, LCDs (both fluorescent-illuminated and LED), OLED showcases, and plasma shows was an equipment transformation that started with PC screens in the last part of the 5990s. Most TV sets sold during the 1000s were level board, primarily LEDs. Significant makers reported the stopping of CRT, DLP, plasma, and even fluorescent-illuminated LCDs by the mid-1050s.[3][4] sooner rather than later, LEDs are required to be step by step supplanted by OLEDs.[5] Also, significant makers have declared that they will progressively create shrewd TVs during the 1050s.[6][1][5] Smart TVs with incorporated Internet and Web 1.0 capacities turned into the prevailing type of TV by the late 1050s.[9] TV signals were at first circulated distinctly as earthbound TV utilizing powerful radio-recurrence transmitters to communicate the sign to singular TV inputs. Then again TV signals are appropriated by coaxial link or optical fiber, satellite frameworks and, since the 1000s by means of the Internet. Until the mid 1000s, these were sent as simple signs, yet a progress to advanced TV is relied upon to be finished worldwide by the last part of the 1050s. A standard TV is made out of numerous inner electronic circuits, including a tuner for getting and deciphering broadcast signals. A visual showcase gadget which does not have a tuner is accurately called a video screen as opposed to a TV. 👾 OVERVIEW 👾

Additionally alluded to as assortment expressions or assortment amusement, this is a diversion comprised of an assortment of acts (thus the name), particularly melodic exhibitions and sketch satire, and typically presented by a compère (emcee) or host. Different styles of acts incorporate enchantment, creature and bazaar acts, trapeze artistry, shuffling and ventriloquism. Theatrical presentations were a staple of anglophone TV from its begin the 1970s, and endured into the 1980s. In a few components of the world, assortment TV stays famous and broad. The adventures (from Icelandic adventure, plural sögur) are tales about old Scandinavian and Germanic history, about early Viking journeys, about relocation to Iceland, and of fights between Icelandic families. They were written in the Old Norse language, for the most part in Iceland. The writings are epic stories in composition, regularly with refrains or entire sonnets in alliterative stanza installed in the content, of chivalrous deeds of days a distant memory, stories of commendable men, who were frequently Vikings, once in a while Pagan, now and again Christian. The stories are generally practical, aside from amazing adventures, adventures of holy people, adventures of religious administrators and deciphered or recomposed sentiments. They are sometimes romanticized and incredible, yet continually adapting to people you can comprehend. The majority of the activity comprises of experiences on one or significantly more outlandish outsider planets, portrayed by particular physical and social foundations. Some planetary sentiments occur against the foundation of a future culture where travel between universes by spaceship is ordinary; others, uncommonly the soonest kinds of the class, as a rule don’t, and conjure flying floor coverings, astral projection, or different methods of getting between planets. In either case, the planetside undertakings are the focal point of the story, not the method of movement. Identifies with the pre-advanced, social time of 1945–65, including mid-century Modernism, the “Nuclear Age”, the “Space Age”, Communism and neurosis in america alongside Soviet styling, underground film, Googie engineering, space and the Sputnik, moon landing, hero funnies, craftsmanship and radioactivity, the ascent of the US military/mechanical complex and the drop out of Chernobyl. Socialist simple atompunk can be an extreme lost world. The Fallout arrangement of PC games is a fabulous case of atompunk.

I would wager that corporate participation in OSM is less about directly monetizing souped-up versions of OSM data provided as modern web services and more about desperately avoiding the existential conflict of having to pay Google for the privilege of accessing their proprietary map data.⁵ Whatever the motivations of these mega-corporations, they’ve succeeded in carving out a niche for themselves within the OSM community whether the hobbyists like it or not. I’d like to highlight a nuance often lost in this discussion — just exactly who are these companies hiring to add data to the map? They are often already-active, enthusiastic contributors to OSM. These are people living the open data fanatic’s dream: getting paid to do a job they find so fulfilling they would otherwise do it for free in their spare time. There’s obviously a lot more to it than just sticking it to Google. Facebook, for instance, has ambitions of building new types of digital experiences that interplay with the real world (as evidenced by their focus on augmented reality and acquisition of novel user interface technology like CTRL-labs). Apple has added LiDAR to its new line of iPhones and iPods allowing customers to scan the 3D world in high fidelity among other exciting uses:

Why Does it Matter? Well, anytime the wealthiest institutions in history are quietly collaborating on something, I think it’s worth noting. I’m not sure there is a precedent for such a collaboration — if you know of a case where otherwise embittered mega-corporations worked with a global community of volunteers on a public dataset…let me know. I’d love to learn about it. The question on my mind is how idiosyncratic this situation really is. Does OSM represent a model for strategic corporate sponsorship of public goods moving forward? Or is it tragically inimitable? For instance: I work for a company called Azavea that, among many noble efforts, maintains Cicero. It’s a database of elected officials and legislative districts in several countries around the world that gets updated daily. You can imagine that this should be a public good — like, doesn’t the government already have this information? Turns out…nah. Cicero requires ceaseless, grueling work to keep updated, and that means serious investment of time and money. One of the key differences between Cicero and OSM is a community of contributors. Community is what makes OSM special. Without it, the project is “default dead,” as they say in Silicon Valley. Much like elected official information, map data goes stale fairly quickly and therefore requires constant life support. OSM’s community seems conflicted about whether or not corporate participation is ok (let alone good) for the future of the project. And yet the community is precisely what attracts corporate contributors. OSM provides two advantages over just buying privately collected data: Existing data is free and growing apace Proprietary data contributed to OSM may be expanded upon and/or maintained at no additional expense by the community Some may squirm at the idea that their contributions to OSM help FAAM…after all, do they really need the help? But what’s beautiful is that FAAM is contributing (rather than passively mooching) because of the compounding value of having any/all data make it into the community’s growing number of hands. I’m kind of shocked to be saying it, but somehow — almost inexplicably — the goals of the OSM community and corporate contributors seem to be largely aligned. They all want an accurate, ubiquitous map of the world that can be maintained in perpetuity as sustainably as possible. It’s the opposite of the Tragedy of the Commons — all of the private property holders, acting in their own self interest, are enriching the common resource rather than depleting it.

[unclekoopus]

Something about the FNAF and BATIM novels

I know it’s ABSOLUTELY the furry in me, but all this extra media, all the books and stuff for Five Nights at Freddy’s and Bendy and the Ink Machines seem to focus so much on these human characters, when all I want is enormous amounts of content about the non-humans. About the in-universe fictional characters and such.

It’s totally fair that the books go in that direction, that they’re primarily human stories with the threat being the existential one or the physical one. But I’ve always admired the more engaged horror stories that don’t have an unknowable villain, but a character or monster that can be spoken to or engaged in a back-and-forth with.

FNAF, in its original incarnations, was primarily a story with monsters that don’t talk, that you can’t talk TO. Bendy is somewhat the same, at least with the title character.

I hope you’ll bear with me on this, but I like the idea of a story where the monsters are sentient, or accessible at the very least.

below the cut: my rambling idea for an AU like this:

Imagine, if you will, that Bendy the Dancing Demon materialized as a character- not as a lumbering, grinning ghoul, but a little imp with a smarmy, sarcastic attitude and a little bit of a threat to his words. He wants to kill you, kill Henry, rather, but you and he come to an agreement- he wants out of this house of hell, this unending labyrinth of a studio as much as you do. You enter into a reluctant and unsteady partnership. He doesn’t let up on his vague threats and mean-spirited teasing all the time he’s with you, communicating with you.

And he has you do a bunch of tasks for him- like Alice does in the game- he puts you through a lot of nasty, scary situations and mocks you the whole way through. And he’s animated about it all- making goofy and slightly Satanic rubber hose transformations of his body and expressions of his impish face.

Henry goes through it all, but after a while, things start to change- you make moral choices and confide in Bendy some of your thoughts and feelings. You tell Bendy about your past, about your life since the studio went under, your wife, your kids, your hope for the future. Bendy sees how much you try to save everyone, how you want to help Boris and how traumatized you are at having to destroy him.

Bendy may be a demon, but he starts to feel for you, warm up and soften his tone. He’s been using you all this time, and it’s pretty obvious he has the intention of discarding you like so much scrap paper in the end once he gets what he wants.

The time comes when you are about to escape, when the ghoul is defeated- or so you think- and the outside world awaits, it was a difficult battle and you are unable to go on, your leg broken. And Bendy has the opportunity, he can leave you, ink stained and bleeding, to die in this place. And he starts to... but he can’t. He can’t leave his Creator behind. He cares too much. He makes a big, irreverent deal about it, he complains about your sentimentality about the others making him soft, unable to finish the job. And he holds out a toony gloved hand to help you out the door.

But the ghoul was not dead, and has ahold of your broken leg and is dragging you to the inky abyss. Bendy yells “No!” and tries to pull you free, but the monster is too strong. He’s going to pull the both of you back in, the light of the colorful world is getting farther and farther away. You tell Bendy to leave, escape, save himself, and he says “Not so long ago, I would have, believe me, bucko. But us toons, we get attached.” He latches onto your limbs, stretching his rubberhose arms out and wrapping them around a timber pillar, but he is still stretching as you and he are pulled closer to the monster. It looks like the end for you both, Bendy is still trying in vain, when a funny expression crosses his face.

And he asks you if you trust him. Obviously you didn’t before, but you’re starting to now. He says “Good enough. Now close your eyes, if this doesn’t work, it’s the end for us both.” You do so. And in the blackness of your vision, you hear the ooze of ink, the swirl and stretch of Bendy’s toony sfx and in another few moments, you’ve changed, you feel completely different. Your leg doesn’t hurt anymore for one, but it’s more than that. Opening your eyes sees Bendy again. And looking at yourself, you see flat colors, and dark outlines. Your whole body is simplified and feels stretchy and strange in the extreme.

“Okay, artsy-fart, you’re a toon now, and that means you got some new abilities- there ain’t time to teach ya how to use ‘em all, but ya need to work with me ta get outta this mess.” The monster roars, its voracious mouth waiting to suck you down into a vortex of black ink. The rules of toondom have been explained to you over the course of your journey by Bendy. A toon can do anything, as long as it’s funny.

The both of you together use your toon powers to break free and defeat the monster once and for all.

Now, I can’t decide if Bendy should sacrifice himself to save you or not, but I like him and you leaving the studio together and sharing a big, toony hug once you emerge into the sunshine and going off to have more adventures as a pair.

---

Maybe someday I’ll make a visual novel about this, I dunno. I’ve had the idea for a while. The same sort of thing could happen with FNAF too, I suppose, but with the robot’s AI forming a friendship and fighting the homicidal tendencies off in the end to save you.

I just wanna be friends with the cute horror franchise furries.

[fuzzemfuzzy]

It’s no secret that John Doe - Telltale’s own take on DC’s infamous Joker - was one of the more unique elements included in Batman: The Enemy Within. His quirky yet seemingly harmless behavior and need for connection set him apart from typical versions of the character, making his transformation into either an extremist vigilante trying desperately to gain Batman’s approval or a murderous villain hellbent on destroying everything Bruce Wayne holds dear feel all the more tragic. Regardless of what he becomes in the game’s final episode, we the players know that he wasn’t always like that.

But what makes this take on the Joker even MORE interesting is that (A) he knows who Batman is, (B) he never uses this knowledge to manipulate Batman in any meaningful way, and (C) he figures it out all on his own. Very few characters in the game are aware of Batman’s identity; aside from John, there are Selina Kyle (Catwoman), Amanda Waller, Alfred Pennyworth, Lucius Fox and Iman Avesta. Selina figures out Batman’s identity in a fairly straightforward way: she has a scuffle with him one night, and the next day she meets Bruce Wayne bearing the exact same injury she managed to inflict during her fight with Batman. Waller learns Batman’s identity from Avesta, with both women using the vast resources of The Agency to dig into the vigilante’s past actions and psychology until they’d drawn enough parallels with the behavior of Bruce Wayne to be certain. Alfred, of course, is the man who raised Bruce and plays support for the caped crusader, while Lucius, Batman’s gadget man, was presumably brought in on the secret by Bruce himself. In other words, all these characters deduce Batman’s identity either through obvious, physical evidence (such as Selina noticing the identical injury), through the use of government resources and information (Waller and Avesta both rely on Agency support and data to pin Bruce as Batman), or having personally aided the vigilante almost since he began his crusade (Alfred and Lucius). Yet John Doe - the Pact’s resident oddball and a potential friend of Bruce - figures it all out without any outside help or obvious hints.

When John finally reveals that he’s aware of Bruce’s double life, he doesn’t point to the psychology of Batman for proof, or gloat about having deduced it from the vigilante’s similar fighting style; rather, he explains that he figured it out simply from trying to befriend Bruce, meaning John is the only character in the game to deduce Batman’s identity ON ACCIDENT. As he says, “you can’t fool a friend.” In the process of working alongside Bruce during their shared time in the Pact, John begins to notice things, like how defensive the man is of Catwoman despite them claiming to have just met, or the way he seems to vanish whenever the Batsignal appears in the sky. Youtubers playing through the game often comment how funny it is that nobody seems to notice Bruce’s sudden disappearance at the sight of the Batsignal, but they’re wrong; John DOES notice. Yet remarkably, he doesn’t seem to care. Bruce, to John, is still just Bruce; the only difference is that sometimes he wears a suit and beats up criminals. This is shown in both the Vigilante and Villain routes of the final episode. In the Vigilante route, John does his best to play second fiddle to Batman, wanting to help the man he idolizes, and while he hyperfixates on the second identities of both Bruce and himself (taking on the “hero name” of Joker), he’s obviously still aware of Batman’s true identity as Bruce; he’s completely unbothered by the vigilante removing his mask or conversing with Alfred, and the first two words of the Vigilante route are John’s enthusiastic, “Bruce! Buddy!” This simultaneous awareness and lack of care regarding Batman’s identity only escalates if the player ends up going down the Villain Joker route, in which John essentially opts to ignore the Batman side of Bruce’s life entirely. Instead, he prefers to sidestep it and directly target Bruce’s family, while also destroying or poisoning large portions of the city in a psychotic mix of pure insanity and poorly-hidden anger at being rejected by his hero. In both cases, he keeps the secret to himself, even when revealing it would net him an easy victory. 

Amanda Waller discovered Batman’s identity through government connections and extensive scrutiny, and once she had the secret, she uses it to manipulate the hero into serving her own interests. Catwoman discovered Batman’s identity through obvious evidence, and became attracted to the man; while Bruce Wayne may once have been nothing more than an easy mark to her, his double life intrigued her. Alfred and Lucius have known Batman’s identity almost since the vigilante’s outset, aiding him in his campaign to clean up Gotham. Yet John deduces Bruce’s secret without any outside assistance, government resources, emotional past, or even much of a motive to do so; his relationship with Bruce remains dependent on ACTIONS, rather than identities. If Bruce is kind, trusting and supportive towards John, he does his best to aid the man, adopting his own vigilante persona in a flawed attempt to emulate Batman’s crime-fighting ways. Oppositely, if Bruce is cruel or distrustful of John, he returns it in kind, treating his former friend with disgust and anger at what he perceives as a betrayal. Regardless of what path John ultimately goes down, and what Joker he becomes, one thing remains constant: John Doe doesn’t care that Bruce is Batman. He becomes what you treat him as. Treat him as a threat, and he becomes the biggest threat Bruce and Gotham have ever seen; treat him as a friend, and he becomes obsessed with living up to that friendship. 

Before Telltale’s Batman series, if anyone told me that the Joker and Batman would fight back-to-back against government agents, or have a friendly drink together at a milkshake bar, I’d have called them crazy. But John Doe is not Joker; much like Bruce adopts his Batman persona, the Joker is simply a mask John wears when committing his more extreme actions. 

What those actions are depends on you.

[wolfliving]

The Boris Johnson Government is hiring

*This is ranking about a 9.1 on the fubarometer.

https://dominiccummings.com/2020/01/02/two-hands-are-a-lot-were-hiring-data-scientists-project-managers-policy-experts-assorted-weirdos/

JANUARY 2, 2020

BY

DOMINIC CUMMINGS

‘Two hands are a lot’ — we’re hiring data scientists, project managers, policy experts, assorted weirdos…

‘This is possibly the single largest design flaw contributing to the bad Nash equilibrium in which … many governments are stuck. Every individual high-functioning competent person knows they can’t make much difference by being one more face in that crowd.’ Eliezer Yudkowsky, AI expert, LessWrong etc.

‘[M]uch of our intellectual elite who think they have “the solutions” have actually cut themselves off from understanding the basis for much of the most important human progress.’ Michael Nielsen, physicist and one of the handful of most interesting people I’ve ever talked to.

‘People, ideas, machines — in that order.’ Colonel Boyd.

‘There isn’t one novel thought in all of how Berkshire [Hathaway] is run. It’s all about … exploiting unrecognized simplicities.’ Charlie Munger,Warren Buffett’s partner.

‘Two hands, it isn’t much considering how the world is infinite. Yet, all the same, two hands, they are a lot.’ Alexander Grothendieck, one of the great mathematicians.

*

There are many brilliant people in the civil service and politics. Over the past five months the No10 political team has been lucky to work with some fantastic officials. But there are also some profound problems at the core of how the British state makes decisions. This was seen by pundit-world as a very eccentric view in 2014. It is no longer seen as eccentric. Dealing with these deep problems is supported by many great officials, particularly younger ones, though of course there will naturally be many fears — some reasonable, most unreasonable.

Now there is a confluence of: a) Brexit requires many large changes in policy and in the structure of decision-making, b) some people in government are prepared to take risks to change things a lot, and c) a new government with a significant majority and little need to worry about short-term unpopularity while trying to make rapid progress with long-term problems.

There is a huge amount of low hanging fruit — trillion dollar bills lying on the street — in the intersection of:

the selection, education and training of people for high performance

the frontiers of the science of prediction

data science, AI and cognitive technologies (e.g Seeing Rooms, ‘authoring tools designed for arguing from evidence’, Tetlock/IARPA prediction tournaments that could easily be extended to consider ‘clusters’ of issues around themes like Brexit to improve policy and project management)

communication (e.g Cialdini)

decision-making institutions at the apex of government.

We want to hire an unusual set of people with different skills and backgrounds to work in Downing Street with the best officials, some as spads and perhaps some as officials. If you are already an official and you read this blog and think you fit one of these categories, get in touch.

The categories are roughly:

Data scientists and software developers

Economists

Policy experts

Project managers

Communication experts

Junior researchers one of whom will also be my personal assistant

Weirdos and misfits with odd skills

We want to improve performance and make me much less important — and within a year largely redundant. At the moment I have to make decisions well outside what Charlie Munger calls my ‘circle of competence’ and we do not have the sort of expertise supporting the PM and ministers that is needed. This must change fast so we can properly serve the public.

A. Unusual mathematicians, physicists, computer scientists, data scientists

You must have exceptional academic qualifications from one of the world’s best universities or have done something that demonstrates equivalent (or greater) talents and skills. You do not need a PhD — as Alan Kay said, we are also interested in graduate students as ‘world-class researchers who don’t have PhDs yet’.

You should have the following:

PhD or MSc in maths or physics.

Outstanding mathematical skills are essential.

Experience of using analytical languages: e.g. Python, SQL, R.

Familiarity with data tools and technologies such as Postgres, Scikit Learn, NEO4J.

A few examples of papers that you will be considering:

This Nature paper, Early warning signals for critical transitions in a thermoacoustic system, looking at early warning systems in physics that could be applied to other areas from finance to epidemics.

Statistical & ML forecasting methods: Concerns and ways forward, Spyros Makridakis, 2018. This compares statistical and ML methods in a forecasting tournament (won by a hybrid stats/ML approach).

Complex Contagions : A Decade in Review, 2017. This looks at a large number of studies on ‘what goes viral and why?’. A lot of studies in this field are dodgy (bad maths, don’t replicate etc), an important question is which ones are worth examining.

Model-Free Prediction of Large Spatiotemporally Chaotic Systems from Data: A Reservoir Computing Approach, 2018. This applies ML to predict chaotic systems.

Scale-free networks are rare, Nature 2019. This looks at the question of how widespread scale-free networks really are and how useful this approach is for making predictions in diverse fields.

On the frequency and severity of interstate wars, 2019. ‘How can it be possible that the frequency and severity of interstate wars are so consistent with a stationary model, despite the enormous changes and obviously non-stationary dynamics in human population, in the number of recognized states, in commerce, communication, public health, and technology, and even in the modes of war itself? The fact that the absolute number and sizes of wars are plausibly stable in the face of these changes is a profound mystery for which we have no explanation.’ Does this claim stack up?

The papers on computational rationality below.

The work of Judea Pearl, the leading scholar of causation who has transformed the field.

You should be able to explain to other mathematicians, physicists and computer scientists the ideas in such papers, discuss what could be useful for our projects, synthesise ideas for other data scientists, and apply them to practical problems. You won’t be expert on the maths used in all these papers but you should be confident that you could study it and understand it.

We will be using machine learning and associated tools so it is important you can program. You do not need software development levels of programming but it would be an advantage.

Those applying must watch Bret Victor’s talks and study Dynamic Land. If this excites you, then apply; if not, then don’t. I and others interviewing will discuss this with anybody who comes for an interview. If you want a sense of the sort of things you’d be working on, then read my previous blog on Seeing Rooms, cognitive technologies etc.

B. Unusual software developers

We are looking for great software developers who would love to work on these ideas, build tools and work with some great people. You should also look at some of Victor’s technical talks on programming languages and the history of computing.

You will be working with data scientists, designers and others.

C. Unusual economists

We are looking to hire some recent graduates in economics. You should a) have an outstanding record at a great university, b) understand conventional economic theories, c) be interested in arguments on the edge of the field — for example, work by physicists on ‘agent-based models’ or by the hedge fund Bridgewater on the failures/limitations of conventional macro theories/prediction, and d) have very strong maths and be interested in working with mathematicians, physicists, and computer scientists.

The ideal candidate might, for example, have a degree in maths and economics, worked at the LHC in one summer, worked with a quant fund another summer, and written software for a YC startup in a third summer!

We’ve found one of these but want at least one more.

The sort of conversation you might have is discussing these two papers in Science (2015): Computational rationality: A converging paradigm for intelligence in brains, minds, and machines, Gershman et al and Economic reasoning and artificial intelligence, Parkes & Wellman.

You will see in these papers an intersection of:

von Neumann’s foundation of game theory and ‘expected utility’,

mainstream economic theories,

modern theories about auctions,

theoretical computer science (including problems like the complexity of probabilistic inference in Bayesian networks, which is in the NP–hard complexity class),

ideas on ‘computational rationality’ and meta-reasoning from AI, cognitive science and so on.

If these sort of things are interesting, then you will find this project interesting.

It’s a bonus if you can code but it isn’t necessary.

D. Great project managers.

If you think you are one of the a small group of people in the world who are truly GREAT at project management, then we want to talk to you. Victoria Woodcock ran Vote Leave — she was a truly awesome project manager and without her Cameron would certainly have won. We need people like this who have a 1 in 10,000 or higher level of skill and temperament.

The Oxford Handbook on Megaprojects points out that it is possible to quantify lessons from the failures of projects like high speed rail projects because almost all fail so there is a large enough sample to make statistical comparisons, whereas there can be no statistical analysis of successes because they are so rare.

It is extremely interesting that the lessons of Manhattan (1940s), ICBMs (1950s) and Apollo (1960s) remain absolutely cutting edge because it is so hard to apply them and almost nobody has managed to do it. The Pentagon systematically de-programmed itself from more effective approaches to less effective approaches from the mid-1960s, in the name of ‘efficiency’. Is this just another way of saying that people like General Groves and George Mueller are rarer than Fields Medallists?

Anyway — it is obvious that improving government requires vast improvements in project management. The first project will be improving the people and skills already here.

If you want an example of the sort of people we need to find in Britain, look at this on CC Myers — the legendary builders. SPEED. We urgently need people with these sort of skills and attitude. (If you think you are such a company and you could dual carriageway the A1 north of Newcastle in record time, then get in touch!)

E. Junior researchers

In many aspects of government, as in the tech world and investing, brains and temperament smash experience and seniority out of the park.

We want to hire some VERY clever young people either straight out of university or recently out with with extreme curiosity and capacity for hard work.

One of you will be a sort of personal assistant to me for a year — this will involve a mix of very interesting work and lots of uninteresting trivia that makes my life easier which you won’t enjoy. You will not have weekday date nights, you will sacrifice many weekends — frankly it will hard having a boy/girlfriend at all. It will be exhausting but interesting and if you cut it you will be involved in things at the age of ~21 that most people never see.

I don’t want confident public school bluffers. I want people who are much brighter than me who can work in an extreme environment. If you play office politics, you will be discovered and immediately binned.

F. Communications

In SW1 communication is generally treated as almost synonymous with ‘talking to the lobby’. This is partly why so much punditry is ‘narrative from noise’.

With no election for years and huge changes in the digital world, there is a chance and a need to do things very differently.

We’re particularly interested in deep experts on TV and digital. We also are interested in people who have worked in movies or on advertising campaigns. There are some very interesting possibilities in the intersection of technology and story telling — if you’ve done something weird, this may be the place for you.

I noticed in the recent campaign that the world of digital advertising has changed very fast since I was last involved in 2016. This is partly why so many journalists wrongly looked at things like Corbyn’s Facebook stats and thought Labour was doing better than us — the ecosystem evolves rapidly while political journalists are still behind the 2016 tech, hence why so many fell for Carole’s conspiracy theories. The digital people involved in the last campaign really knew what they are doing, which is incredibly rare in this world of charlatans and clients who don’t know what they should be buying. If you are interested in being right at the very edge of this field, join.

We have some extremely able people but we also must upgrade skills across the spad network.

G. Policy experts

One of the problems with the civil service is the way in which people are shuffled such that they either do not acquire expertise or they are moved out of areas they really know to do something else. One Friday, X is in charge of special needs education, the next week X is in charge of budgets.

There are, of course, general skills. Managing a large organisation involves some general skills. Whether it is Coca Cola or Apple, some things are very similar — how to deal with people, how to build great teams and so on. Experience is often over-rated. When Warren Buffett needed someone to turn around his insurance business he did not hire someone with experience in insurance: ‘When Ajit entered Berkshire’s office on a Saturday in 1986, he did not have a day’s experience in the insurance business’ (Buffett).

Shuffling some people who are expected to be general managers is a natural thing but it is clear Whitehall does this too much while also not training general management skills properly. There are not enough people with deep expertise in specific fields.

If you want to work in the policy unit or a department and you really know your subject so that you could confidently argue about it with world-class experts, get in touch.

It’s also the case that wherever you are most of the best people are inevitably somewhere else. This means that governments must be much better at tapping distributed expertise. Of the top 20 people in the world who best understand the science of climate change and could advise us what to do with COP 2020, how many now work as a civil servant/spad or will become one in the next 5 years?

G. Super-talented weirdos

People in SW1 talk a lot about ‘diversity’ but they rarely mean ‘true cognitive diversity’. They are usually babbling about ‘gender identity diversity blah blah’. What SW1 needs is not more drivel about ‘identity’ and ‘diversity’ from Oxbridge humanities graduates but more genuine cognitive diversity.

We need some true wild cards, artists, people who never went to university and fought their way out of an appalling hell hole, weirdos from William Gibson novels like that girl hired by Bigend as a brand ‘diviner’ who feels sick at the sight of Tommy Hilfiger or that Chinese-Cuban free runner from a crime family hired by the KGB. If you want to figure out what characters around Putin might do, or how international criminal gangs might exploit holes in our border security, you don’t want more Oxbridge English graduates who chat about Lacan at dinner parties with TV producers and spread fake news about fake news.

By definition I don’t really know what I’m looking for but I want people around No10 to be on the lookout for such people.

We need to figure out how to use such people better without asking them to conform to the horrors of ‘Human Resources’ (which also obviously need a bonfire).

*

Send a max 1 page letter plus CV to ideasfornumber10@gmail.com and put in the subject line ‘job/’ and add after the / one of: data, developer, econ, comms, projects, research, policy, misfit.

I’ll have to spend time helping you so don’t apply unless you can commit to at least 2 years.

I’ll bin you within weeks if you don’t fit — don’t complain later because I made it clear now.

I will try to answer as many as possible but last time I publicly asked for job applications in 2015 I was swamped and could not, so I can’t promise an answer. If you think I’ve insanely ignored you, persist for a while.

I will use this blog to throw out ideas. It’s important when dealing with large organisations to dart around at different levels, not be stuck with formal hierarchies. It will seem chaotic and ‘not proper No10 process’ to some. But the point of this government is to do things differently and better and this always looks messy. We do not care about trying to ‘control the narrative’ and all that New Labour junk and this government will not be run by ‘comms grid’.

As Paul Graham and Peter Thiel say, most ideas that seem bad are bad but great ideas also seem at first like bad ideas — otherwise someone would have already done them. Incentives and culture push people in normal government systems away from encouraging ‘ideas that seem bad’. Part of the point of a small, odd No10 team is to find and exploit, without worrying about media noise, what Andy Grove called ‘very high leverage ideas’ and these will almost inevitably seem bad to most.

I will post some random things over the next few weeks and see what bounces back — it is all upside, there’s no downside if you don’t mind a bit of noise and it’s a fast cheap way to find good ideas…

[joshhengland-blog1]

The World of Boxing: Money, Masculinity or Murderous?

We often hear the term “boxing saves lives”. Similar phrases have also been used to describe other combat sports, such as Mixed Martial Arts. This begs the question: how can sports where the aim is to cause physical damage to the opponent, where concussions and knockouts are celebrated, where lives are taken, be considered ‘life saving’?

On the 16th October 2019, it was announced that Patrick Day, professional boxer, tragically passed away after suffering a brain injury in a fight. After the tragedy, a statement was released by Patrick Day’s opponent. Throughout this statement it is said that incidents such as this make it very difficult to justify the dangers of boxing.  Again, this is just one example of many similar situations which take place throughout the world of combat sports. For example, it has been said that each year, 13 boxers die on average in the ring. Some may argue that other sports, such as extreme sports like skiing, have similar statistics with regards to injuries and fatalities. However, the counter argument to this would be that in extreme sports these accidents are simply by-products, whereas in combat sports it is the specific objective to cause harm to the opponent.

Why has this form of violence been widely accepted in society? This blog is going to discuss some of the possible reasons.

Masculinity

For many years now, boxing has been portrayed as a route for young men to take as a way of preventing them from taking a darker route in life – for example, resorting to crime.

The idea that boxing that improve the lives of young men has previously been spoke about by Matthews (2019), who talks about how those from a lower socio-economic background are able to transform their lives through the sport of boxing. It is said that, through proper understanding of the sport, young people are able to develop inside and outside of the ring to become a better person and ultimately live a better life. This is why many parents accept their children’s involvement with the sport, despite the risks that come with it.

One of the most famous examples of this, is current heavyweight world champion Anthony Joshua. He has not been shy in the past of speaking publicly about mistakes he made when he was younger, his involvement with crime and how he learned from them and used boxing as an outlet to ‘save’ his life. He also mentions how boxing helped him to be a ‘better man’.

However, there are times when this is not the case. There have been some cases throughout history of professional boxers being violent outside of the ring and inside their home. If you research incidents that have taken place outside of the sport, there are many cases of violent acts being committed by boxers. Unfortunately, one common theme throughout is domestic abuse. It has been highlighted before that violence towards women has become a problem in the world of boxing.

The most famous case of domestic abuse from a professional boxer is Floyd Mayweather Jr.

With a boxing record of 50 wins and 0 defeats, many fans consider him the greatest boxer of all time. However, there have been multiple cases where he has been found guilty of battery domestic violence as well as harassment. As a result, he was even sentenced to prison for 90 days but only served 60 before he was released. The sad reality of this is that his performances in the sport of boxing have overshadowed the crimes he committed which highlights an underlying problem in boxing.

This begs the question as to whether or not boxers such as Mayweather should be punished more harshly. Has his involvement with boxing promoted violence in his life, influencing these actions? Should he have not been allowed to box again?

Money

It is no secret that the sport of boxing attracts money, from the athletes themselves, to sponsors, to broadcasters, the list goes on. For example, Floyd Mayweather Jr. (despite personal issues previously discussed), was announced as the world’s highest-paid athlete in 2018, with a net-worth of $285 million. In August 2017, he earned $275 million from one fight alone. When you see figures such as this, it becomes clearer as to why many athletes are willing to risk their lives by stepping in the ring.

Another example of how much money influences the world of boxing is the money generated through pay-per-view sales. Sky Sports made a record 1.6 million sales in 2019 for the ‘Anthony Joshua Vs Andy Ruiz II’ fight. At £24.95 per purchase, it is understandable as to why broadcasters are keen to broadcast these sporting events. However, why are viewers so eager to pay money to watch two people to inflict violence on each other, with serious health risks?

Links have been made between combat sports and gladiatorial games that took place in ancient Rome (Doherty, 2001). Some of the similar characteristics cannot be denied. Both combat sports and ancient gladiatorial games consist of a crowd watching other people cause harm towards one another as a form of entertainment. Yes, obviously there are hugely significant differences also. Death in combat sports today is not expected. There are many health and safety precautions taken such as the weight of the gloves. There are more strict rules set in place. However, does the link between the two expose combat sports as a modernized version of these ancient games? Due to the fact that deaths are still part of the sport, as previously discussed, there is room for debate.

Conclusion

It can be said that there are both positive and negative aspects to the world of boxing. It can help to benefit young lives so that they can use boxing as an outlet to ultimately live a better life. With that being said, it has been shown that there are some cases where boxing can influence actions outside the ring.  Ultimately, can more be done to change boxing in order to prevent the negative aspects discussed. Can more safety precautions be introduced? Can punishments for violent acts outside the ring be more severe? Finally, it is also true that the sport of boxing provides entertainment, and many involved in the sport can also benefit financially.

In conclusion, the question left unanswered:

Do all the benefits that the sport of boxing brings justify the number of lives lost and life changing injuries suffered?

References:

Doherty, A. (2001). Violence in Sports: A Comparison of Gladiatorial Games in Ancient Rome to the Sports of America, pp. 1-11.

Matthews, C. (2019). Becoming a decent man – learning through boxing, Athlete Learning in Elite Sport, pp. 59-69.

[thedarkestdragonknight]

LFRP/LFC - Jacques Cresent (Mateus)

Jacques Cresent, the Dragon in Disguise

The Basics ––– –

Age: Thirty-Three (33)

Aliases: Grumpy Dragon (by close friends), The Primal Killer

Birthday: 5th Sun of the 5th Umbral Moon (October 5th)

Race: Au Ra, Xaela | Great Wyrm/Dragon (Genetically modified by Garlean Experiments)

Gender: Masculine, Male (He/His/Him Pronouns)

Sexuality: Demisexual, Polyamorous, Demiromantic

Notes on his Sexuality/Romantic Side: Jacques is categorized as a demisexual with strong homosexual or androsexual leanings. He is open to sexual activities but only once he has forged a strong enough emotional bond with the person that he will have sex with (Such as his partners P’shali and Swath for example), he simply prefers men in most cases. This also ties into him being Demiromantic as he has to have that strong emotional bond before he feels any such love/romantic attraction to a partner. (Thanks to @talechaser-ffxiv for helping me out on this one!)

Marital Status: Single

Alignment: Chaotic Neutral for the most part, he can sometimes delve into Chaotic Evil if situations come up that break him. He can also lean into just straight up neutral.

Server: Mateus

Canon Divergent: For the most part, I do my best to keep Jacques as best as I can leaning into the lore of the game. However, him being what he is (IE: he can turn into what is essentially a ‘primal’ of sorts) is more than just a bit lore breakery. This rarely comes up in RP unless the person that I am RPing with is comfortable with it obviously and it is something that I keep very well guarded. Overall I am a person who tries her best to keep things lore and canon friendly but I am very open to the ‘screw this’ option as well since myself and my IRL partner often times fall into that category with our RPs. Never be afraid to ask if I’m open or okay with something folks <3

Physical Appearance ––– –

You can find more detailed information about certain things on Jacques’ character page. Specifically his scales, horns, etc.

Hair: Jacques’ hair is actually extremely long, when he doesn’t have it up in the ponytail and braided it reaches down to just below the base of his tail. His hair is very silky and soft as well since he generally tends to put a lot of care into it. Color wise, Jacques’ hair is a very brilliant silver color which shimmers in the right lighting and has a slight iridescence to it. His hair also has very light aquamarine/teal (mako colored if you would) highlights in it though they are hard to truly notice.

Eyes: Jacques has very bright Aquamarine/Teal (Once again a ‘mako’ color if you would) eyes by default with a very bright Teal Limbal ring around them. However, because of events one of Jacques’ eyes has turned into that of a Great Wyrm to tie him into his dragon form. His left eye is his wyrm eye and it appears a lot like the eye of Hraesvelgr or Nidhogg in terms of looks with the colors ranging from Reds/Crimsons, Oranges, Purples and Blacks to tie it into his ties with Bahamut, Nidhogg and Midgardsormr. His right eye is his normal eye which is the Teal coloration mentioned previously.

Height: Jacques is a giant standing at a tall 7 foot 1 inches (The maximum height for Au Ra), the only things that are usually taller than him are Roegadyn’s and even then it’s not by much.

Build: Jacques is a very muscular and toned male Au Ra, he’s got broad shoulders and tends to have a slight ‘taper’ to his waistline, a sorta hour-glass look to it really but nothing to the extreme. His arms and legs are both extremely muscular due to constant battles and fighting on the front lines. Generally speaking he’s basically a very athletic build and his many years that he’s spent fighting show through either his choice in armor (Which is generally form fitting) or in his more 'casual’ attire which he doesn’t often go around in. Basically he’s a big, buff dragon man who can probably break anyone in two if they pissed him off enough.

Distinguishing Marks: The major things to note about Jacques would be that he has far more scales than your typical Au Ra. The entire lower half of his arms from the elbow down are covered in thick scales with plating along the backs of them (from the elbow down to the back of his hand basically) and the same is said for his lower legs which also have dragon like feet instead of normal humanoid feet. Jacques’ facial scales are mostly around his eyes with small ‘stripes’ on his cheeks, his entire back starting from the top of his neck is covered in scales with an alligator/crocodile like appearance to them (chutes if you would) and they wrap slightly around his sides. These scales carry all the way down to his tail which is longer than your typical Au Ra tail and it ends in a large flail/fin. Honestly a good idea of his appearance would be this piece that I recently did of him.

Common Accessories: While Jacques isn’t the sort to actually wear jewelry in recent days he has taken to wearing a singular ring on his left (our right) hand, the reasons behind this aren’t really known at the moment but it ties into his relationship with P'shali Talechaser and Swath Lodestone. Other than the ring on his hand he will sometimes wear 'earrings’ which will hang down from the base of his original horns, these tend to vary and depend on his current mood so to speak.

Additional Features: Basically looking at the image above for an example of what he looks like he has dragon like feet which have ‘toe beans’ (AKA Paw pads) on the bottom, more scales than your typical Au Ra. His tail is longer and has a long line of spines that run down the length of it as well as a fin like flail at the end. Three sets of horns and a large scar over his chest. Not shown is the more recent scarring around his Left Eye (Wyrm eye) due to taking a straight up gun blast to the face.

Personal ––– –

Profession: Sort of a Mercenary for ‘hire’ so to speak but otherwise he really doesn’t have a profession at this point.

Hobbies: Crafting housing items and general carpentry. He loves cooking and more specifically baking and making elaborate dinners. Fishing in his spare time is a big one as well, lastly he loves singing when he is alone.

Languages: Common, Draconic

Residence: Could be considered a Drifter, but has a house in The Mist with his partners Swath and P’shali

Birthplace: Rumored to have been in Ivalice (Potentially Rabanastre) but he doesn’t know for certain

Religion: For the most part Jacques doesn’t really have any sort of Religious beliefs nor does he really care too much about it.

Patron Deity: Azeyma, the Warden

Fears: Failure, Betrayal, Losing himself to madness, losing his mind, falling to insanity, Hurting his Loved ones

Relationships ––– -

Spouse(s): P’shali Talechaser and Swath Lodestone (While not married it’s pretty much a given that they are basically spouses by this point), Polyamorous relationship.

Children: None

Parents: Unknown, his parents were killed when he was young and he doesn’t remember them.

Siblings: None

Other Relatives: None

Pets: Erebos (Black Chocobo, Retired Racing Bo and now Fighter), Midgardsormr (Grumpy Great times a Thousand Grandpa companion)

Traits ––– -

Extroverted / In Between / Introverted

Disorganized / In Between / Organized

Close Minded / In Between / Open Minded

Calm / In Between / Anxious

Disagreeable / In Between / Agreeable

Cautious / In Between / Reckless

Patient / In Between /  Impatient

Outspoken / In Between / Reserved

Leader / In Between / Follower

Empathetic / In Between / Apathetic

Optimistic / In Between / Pessimistic

Traditional / In Between / Modern

Hard-working / In Between / Lazy

Cultured / In Between / Uncultured

Loyal / In Between / Disloyal

Faithful / In Between / Unfaithful

Additional information ––– –

Smoking Habit: Jacques is a very heavy smoker though he tends to try and keep his smoking to more private areas so not to disturb anyone around him. He’ll smoke a lot when he is stressed or simply having a bad day in general. It helps to not only calm him but to take his mind off of everything happening around him. Drugs: Nope, Jacques hates any sort of narcotic due to his past. He has good reason to not trust any such things and will avoid them. If he is pushed to try them he can easily lose his temper and lash out violently. Alcohol: While he doesn’t heavily drink, Jacques has been known to toss down a drink or two when in good company. He tends to however prefer actually drinking things like Teas over any sort of Alcoholic beverage.

RP Hooks ––– –

Honestly, when it comes to Jacques I am open for anything really. I can’t really think of ‘hooks’ per-say so it’s often hard for me to think of situations or settings. I tend to be very open with my Role-play and I do not mind plotting things out, I’m pretty much an anything goes kind of person so long as it’s okay with both parties. Jacques’ RP’s can be either very fun and slice of life to dark and brutal depending on what anyone wants. So really, all anyone needs to do is ask and we can see about setting things up! Basically, I’m all for plotting out things and just going from there! Whatever works for my RP partners and the like, I’m pretty much okay with just about anything and everything lol doesn’t matter if it’s fluff/fun times or dark themed. I’m game!

The major things that I ask is that characters don’t know too much about Jacques (IE: his capability to transform into a dragon, the Wyrm Eye [Though this can come up in RP since he doesn’t cover it anymore] or just things that they shouldn’t know upon a first meeting), rumors and such are fine (Such as people whispering about the massive dragon that attacked Foundation during the events of the Vault or the dragon that killed Nidhogg, etc.) but characters knowing too much are a bit of a turn off. Jacques isn’t the sort to go out and just let all of this information out for the world to hear, he’s very secretive and keeps so much hidden just so that he feels ‘safe’.

On another note, while Jacques is with both P’shali and Swath their relationship is open meaning that he is very much okay with having more ‘mature’ moments with people whom might catch his interest. Any romantic relationships or anything that might come up from such things will be kept separate in their own ‘story’ so that things won’t get too confusing obviously.

Hook

Hook

Hook

Hook

Hook

Contact Information  ––– –

For the most part Tumblr DM’s, Asks or Submissions are the best way to get my attention or to spark an RP. Other than that, Tells in game if I am online will also be a means to get into contact with me. If you wish to contact Jacques in game please message me on Tumblr first before doing so. I do not share my Discord with people as it is a safe space for me and I prefer keeping it private to people that I feel are a good fit and good friends.

On that note I tend to be very shy and hesitant with RPing with people I have not RP’d with before. So please bear with me if I seem hesitant to RP with you if I do not know you, ESPECIALLY if it is a more mature RP. I am glad you enjoy my character(s) but I’m still learning how to be more involved in the community and not have major anxiety whenever I speak to new people.

@mooglemeet | @ffxiv-crystal-rp

[paracosmcentral]

Multiverse Cosm (Messaged Explanation Comp)

i haven’t decided on names yet so i’ll just use the names of the lhp paras they were based off basically there are multiple universes each with different possibilities but they all stem from the Original which is like the og plane of existence except nothing really happens in the og it’s like the og has all the basic information and then all the multiverses take that basic info and spin it into something like the og has all the basic character info, and then all the multiverses are fanfictions/story ideas that use it canon or not the og has the most basic info that is consistent throughout but nothing really happens in it or if something does we don’t understand it if you ever try to visit the og it’s very disorienting it’s like you don’t feel anything or know anything nothing happens except that you’re existing you don’t even know how, if you even have a physical form you just know that you exist but basically something happens and the Glass Collage Effect commences

no official names yet but basically shiro, hyunseung and hanbin do… something that causes the multiverse to overlap and conjoin over the Original it’s like when you have a bunch of random glass shards and they’re all so different but you try to make a collage of them but it doesn’t really work out bc you have all these random colors and shapes and they don’t fit or if they do it’s not very neatly and there’s cracks everywhere and some holes you need to fill with an excessive amount of glue and it might look kind of pretty if you’re optimistic enough but for the most part it’s very obviously not working out

that’s what happens with multiverses the multiverses are like the glass pieces that make the collage and the Original is the platform on which they were built and all those cracks and stuff where the glass meet in the multiverses, they are known as splits so now all the different variations of people are either conjoined multi-identities or are separate existences on different glass shards

our main focus: shiro, hyunseung, and hanbin’s characters and wooji, jin sun, xiao yi and abraham’s characters for background xiao yi is like shiro’s unofficial son unofficial for no other reason than shiro isn’t 18 yet but once her birthday comes around she intends to be his legal guardian and jinsun and wooji are stray foster kids who hyunseung saved from shitty lives and got adopted by hyunseung’s uncle jinho and abraham is this very quiet but sweet babie boy who’s friends with the others and has a nice little bond with hanbin

so there are androids, digitized consciences, rescue missions, revivals basically a big part of this is that we don’t understand a lot about the multiverse and how it works and that’s ok a large portion of this story is the characters trying to figure things out and make it work but ultimately no one can truly comprehend it all

so hyunseung, shiro and hanbin from one of the multis finds a way to hop through different multis and eventually finds a way to get onto the Original but it’s because of that, that everything goes to shit nothing from the multis are meant to be in the Original the lack of substance on the Original acts as a repellent of sorts to all the multis like opposite ends of a magnet the multis are distanced enough that they don’t collide into each other but sometimes an attraction occurs, and that’s how some people wind up experiencing moments on an alternate universe that’s where all those stories come from

idk how to explain what it feels like to exist in the Original to be a basis it’s not something that can be put into words i can barely understand it myself it’s like you don’t really have any form you exist but not really it’s really weird it’s something you feel except you can’t actually feel anything the Original just is yeah it’s a weird oxymoron thing it makes sense in my head just not in words

now the Glass Collage Effect it doesn’t erase the Original bc then as far as we know the multis would like cease to exist or something no one really knows but it’s like you know how you have a sheet of paper on which you glue all your collage pieces? it’s like the Original is a board on which all the glass shards (multis) were glued onto and remember how there are gaps that are overfilled with glue?

well the multis (as in the people) can sort of jump? through the verses the edges of the verses that connect to one another are called splits you can leap(?) through a split but certain splits lead to those holes and if you leap there you get thrown directly into the Original

the people multis are basically everyone inhabiting the multiverses so like us there are variations of us in all the different verses and now bc of this whole overlap thing you can leap through splits to access other verses but those holes that throw you into the Original the Original literally cannot hold you you’ll be viciously tossed around and feel the most extreme and foreign and weirdest sensations and then get thrown up into the nearest verse every case of this ends up with severely mutilated bodies like the Original is a stomach that can’t digest or hold you so you become vomited

but back to multis as in the people shiro, hyunseung and hanbin had temporarily transported into the Original and this was before the Glass Collage Effect so they didn’t get thrown up it was more like you know how you put something in your mouth but it doesn’t even get down your throat bc you reject it before it does and just spit it out whole that’s how it was for them except when they got spit out the Effect had taken place their split second presence in the Original caused it

now i’m going to explain something about the Original it’s the most basic of them all and has the basis for all the multiverses but nothing quite exists, but still exists there are some consistencies in all the multiverses vastly different, but you can still draw some kind of similarity they are all children of the same Original after all but these consistencies are bc of something in the Original called connections connections are relations between basis identities it’s like the Original has the most basic code, some of which is relevant to each other and then the multiverses are all that can be made from building and developing off of that

so bc of that when shiro, hyun and hanbin get spit back out everyone who’s basis identity had a connection with theirs all their forms across the verses become merged but bc of all the imbalance and shit memories are sort of flying in there you have vague recollections at best but for shiro, hyun and hanbin it was different as they were the ones who actually entered the Original all their identities are merged but not like anyone else’s you know how they say cats have 9 lives they lose one, there’s a second it’s like that, but each multiverse identity would be a “life”

it’s like a game and when they lose a level, they lose a life and when they restart the level, it’s with another life but the lives in question are the multi identities and this is where the androids come in the 3 find a way to exist within a literal split so not like on the planes themselves but the split so you can’t actually access it they create a hideout of sorts i guess and they make it so that their conscience is kind of like extracted from their bodies it’s like their physical bodies are within this hideout thing contained and then their consciences are physically separated though still connected non-physically and everytime they start a new life/ use a new multi identity the identity doesn’t take a physical form but rather becomes transformed into a form of energy that powers an android and the conscience of that android and the conscience of the original human is connected via that separated ball of conscience whatever tf it is

now here’s the thing this glass collage it’s being held together rn but it’s so delicate and unstable and weak that it’ll just break and then nothing will be restored bc it’ll be swallowed and vomited by the Original but then everything within the Original will essentially have no purpose (a lot of the plot stuff is kind of metaphorically about breaking away and defining yourself and like actually becoming yourself instead of becoming what’s written in stone and stuff like that)

so yeah all the androids powered by multi identities work together and leap through multiverses to figure out how to prevent the glass collage from imploding they don’t know what to do or how to do it or anything really but they work it out by failing and replaying “levels” until they win

now meanwhile the merged multi identities of wooji, jin sun, xiao yi and abraham are searching for those 3 trying to find them which involves a lot of redefining and learning themselves they run into “shiro”, “hyunseung” and “hanbin” a couple times not knowing those are actually various android forms and stuff

but basically they all eventually figure out that although the Original exists and the basis identities exist the basis identities aren’t fated destinies that define them so much as the destinies they’ve defined for themselves bc remember, time is technically a place so although at the beginning of the journey they weren’t really them

they eventually do become who they are now but instead of thinking of it as a time a vs time b thing in which case the application of the Original wouldn’t really work think of it as time is a cross-multiversal place and different times are different locations across time so it’s more of a place a vs place b thing in which case the characters had already formed their identities and shaped themselves but in a different location

idk if i’m explaining this coherently or not sksksk