#these have sat in my drafts for months

[infraredsouls]

The 1975 - Frail State of Mind

[angelmichelangelo]

i love all variations of b-team but this specific b-team just hits different yknow

[dawnbreakerluna]

I really like this theory! Because I was thinking the same during the last few chapters when we finally get a glimpse of Sylus and MCs memories. This is the link - https://x.com/millecreupe/status/1813809147508613476?t=2YsqG032kliHKY18Z4QKZg&s=19

The way I'm so dedicated to this cause that I ended up making a Twitter account just to view this.

Let me preface that I am a bit freaked out right now because everything OP wrote about in this thread is pretty much accurately aligned with every specific detail I've predicted/theorized about Sylus and his purpose of changing fate/breaking cycles/etc. I've delayed making any posts about lore because I genuinely don't want to go back into the story chapters to take screenshots and shit, it's very tedious to me LOL 😭😭😭😭😭 I promise I remember what I can, even if it's not miniscule details, I just take away the important things!

(Side note: I've previously predicted/prophesized things before that have come true & I'm a little spooked by it. I don't like to put things out there unless I'm super passionate about a subject LMFAO)

[Warning: VERY LONG info dump/theory post ahead!]

Often when it comes to unveiling or creating monsters, there is always a price to pay. That's the common formula for any story involving someone who has an alternate form or is on the verge of becoming something non-human. It takes a special kind of trigger - often, it's intense emotional states - to unleash a creature or be granted a uniquely regal power. (ex. Eren from AoT, Nero in DMC5, Ignis in Final Fantasy 15)

I'm going to follow the evidence listed in OP's thread for my references + additional responses to the thread that are relevant, which I will link here for easy clickback! (Thank you so much again anon!)

I want to dive into one of the examples I listed first before I proceed. (Light spoilers ahead, and iffy details since it's been so long since I played the game.) While Ignis doesn't have an alternate form whatsoever, there's a DLC in FF15 where you have the opportunity to play as him during the climatic event of main story. Essentially, this would involve Ignis changing the planned fate of the protagonist where he would end up sacrificing himself in the very end to save his world and his people. Ignis pretty much defies that fate, going against godly forces and sacrificing a part of himself that ends up changing the canon ending. In short: Ignis saves the protagonist, everybody else, and everything's great. Yay!

I'm a broken record at this point by saying Sylus' involvement is going to defy fate and interrupt the timelines. TLDR; He's going to ultimately save MC from her curse and break the cycles, no matter the cost.

First, let's discuss Sylus' Evol (power). Energy manipulation can mean a lot of things, though as far as the story has shown us, this means he can bend anything/anyone at will through energetic binds. Also, he can know someone's deepest desires, which is activated when his right eye glows.

At a certain point in Chapter 9 (or 2.1), Sylus mentions something about the MC's Evol being weaker/not as strong as before. While we know Energy Resonance is the MC's power, there seems to be something more at play when it comes to it. It's a likely possibility that the MC herself is more powerful beyond resonating with others, perhaps to the point of causing re/destruction.

I like what OP says in part 3 of the thread: "I assumed MC didn't kill him but instead resonated with Sylus, making his self healing ability double in power, AND at the same time directly **pouring the energy of her aether core into the core the he would be implanted, forcibly reshaping a "heart" in his body."

[Previous quote was in alignment to: "Sylus turned into a wanderer. And if mc died and didn't kill him there, he might completely turn into a wanderer..."]

It's hard to deter me from the belief that in the flashback we saw towards the end of 9.2 that Sylus was literally in a Wanderer form. The arm that moves and reaches out to MC is a lot bigger than her own and when looked at closer, you can make out a textured hand with claws. You can see his palm held out faced upwards, and a weapon floating(?) just atop the center of it.

[10/25 UPDATE: The last time I touched this post was back in July, LMAO. This has been sitting in my drafts for months, but now with the Sylus Translation Project, I'm happy to add it to this mini dissertation.]

Here are some points from the Reddit post that struck my interest the most:

[Changed Facts] Changes how Sylus's powers work: specifically, there are invisible shackles inside of his body that prevent him from absorbing even more power. There is not a tether that prevents him from "tapping into" more power. This is a fundamental power difference and has created a complete misunderstanding about how his powers truly work amongst English-only speakers in the global community.

[Missing Fact] Sylus's Aether Core works by him invading and taking over consciousness; he does not merely perform basic mind control, it's actually far more insidious and terrifying.

[Power Nerf] Sylus's powers are actually described as "all-powerful and all-encompassing" but this was somehow reduced into merely blocking exits.

I encourage you to read the entire post in full, for it shifts so much about Sylus' character. Though for me personally, it only justifies all my speculations and conclusions about his character even beyond mistranslation. I will repeat myself over and over and OVER again: Sylus is beyond powerful, way more than we even know and I'm honestly just waiting for Infold to do something to show this grand transformation or show of power.

With these fixed translation points, it makes sense why he's so desperate to resonate with MC. A few comments on the Reddit post have the same speculation I did that it's possible him and MC have the same Aether Cores in their bodies. [OP responded to a comment with: "MC hears things like "Devour," "He's yours," "It belongs to you," I almost wonder if it's actually because they share two halves of a single Aether Core…"] [[THIS I AGREE WITH HEAVILY.]] If this is the case, I don't doubt that Sylus knows this, but he would rather MC find this out on her own due to some morale of integrity, building her inner strength, etc.

TLDR; Her resonating with him would unleash those shackles. I also don't think it's amiss that MC also has some kind of shackles, but that's just me thinking of other possible scenarios. Everything is so vague with this story because we've only been fed so much tidbits.

But one thing's for sure... I really, really think these two are the true fated pair, to a certain degree. And why it's difficult for them to resonate is due to the fact that they both wield a power that can shift the world, the universe... everything altogether.

[levbolton]

didn't see any meme worthy posts lately so only 3 this time

Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4 / Part 5 / Part 6 / Part 7 / Part 7.5 / Part 8

[ahalliance]

my roman empire is that one moment smth smth qsmp lore happened and étoiles responded to a chat message by saying smth along the lines of “bah baghera me fait pas confiance” and laughed tersely but i can’t remember when that fucking happened and maybe i hallucinated it . but i need to try and find it again . to satiate my qetoiles qbagz relationship and larger qfrench messy family dynamic illness

[ovenproofowl]

Bottom of the Food Chain

The appetite goes first.

No one ever gets that part right. Easy to write off as a million other things. Sickness, stress, change in the wind. Doesn't matter. Point is, food no longer means anything to you.

Probably for the best. Means you can spend more time doing stuff, right? Skip breakfast every day, no need to sit down for lunch. The evening just flies by.

And then you're back.

No need for water, either. Y'know, that basic human right that everyone squabbles over? Not you. Not anymore. Now there's no need for bathroom breaks. You count that as a win, you can never find anywhere private here, anyway. There's always a cubicle closed for one reason or another.

Sometimes you hear whimpering through the cracks.

You don't sleep anymore. Maybe it's the stress.

Nights are wide open now, so they call you in. Extra dosh, shifts wide open that no one else has the right mind to take. But your mind is just right. Ever since you stopped eating.

There's others like you, that's the thing. No one talks about them, those crazy zombie idiots who take 18 hour shifts just to feel alive. Must be snorting a line on the side to power them through, but it's a big company and if the CEOs can do it, who's stopping the little guy?

You sometimes check the mirror just to make sure your face is still there. Been a while since you've felt it. All the muscles have gone numb. You prod and poke at your sagging skin, practically sloughing off bone.

Someone's crying in the cubicle behind you.

Well, the toilet still needs to be used for something, you suppose.

Time's gone all weird. All craggy around the edges. How long have you been here, really? What decades have slipped by past your notice? You're still the same. Can’t eat, can't sleep, but hey, you look good. Bones so prominent it could be Botox, but you don't have the cash to burn on that, no matter how many hours you work.

You work every hour. Home's a distant memory. Friends and family are long gone, left behind or aged out of their skin. Sounds like a personal problem. You don't discuss those anymore, not since the crying moved behind the walls.

Time's no longer kind to you. It happens to us all, eventually. But you were meant to be different. The perfect machine.

You're malfunctioning. We all do. Don't be so hard on yourself.

They don't want you near the execs. Soon, the smell is too much for even their expensive cologne to disguise. They put you on the phoneline for a while, conveniently out of sight, right until your jawbone snaps off and your tongue lolls out and sputters.

No voice, no worries, they can still make use of you yet. You'll clean the floors till your arms waste away and even then, pieces of you can always be repurposed.

We're all about sustainability, here.

The rich always want to live forever, but that gift isn't for them. They don't put their whole body into the company like you, they don't make the same sacrifices. They're envious of you, you know? They'd kill to be as skinny as you are now.

Maybe their names will be immortal, but you, my friend, you are.

Your blood is in this company. You'll never die.

Hey... why are you crying?

[tmae3114]

So I originally wrote this back in August when this release was fresh and then!!! APPARENTLY!!! just COMPLETELY forgot to post it!! so you get it now, three months late.

-

Some of the dialogue from the Guardian Tower has been living rent free in my head and now I want to yell about it because it’s SO GOOD for background lore

Okay, so, on the first floor, Mindi tells us this:

I really like this because it helps illustrate one of the logistical problems of the Rose. Like, even if you took away everything else that makes them bad (which, admittedly, is most of the organisation and its purpose), the fact that they tend to, by default, present themselves as the only option and drive out competition is bad. On paper, a force of people trained in combat against magical threats, with reasonably easy access to that training, which has garrisons stationed across the land, is actually a pretty good solution to the whole Recurring Evil Magical Threats thing. We know this because the guardians and the paladins and the dragonslayers exist! They do this! The Rose seems to make membership easier to access but, frankly, I suspect that is in part because their training is less thorough.

And when the Rose show up and drive those other groups out (like they’ve done with the Guardians), they don’t actually improve anything. Best case scenario, everything is exactly the way it was before. More likely, things would get worse, because the people with active experience defending a particular area have been driven away and now the Rose members have to play catch-up

(A good example of how on paper a group like the Rose could help an area is Book 3 Amityvale. The local Guardians were long gone, so the Rose were able to help without doing that extra damage and made Amityvale a safer place to live....... but that’s specifically for the human inhabitants. Plus, we know they’re affecting the magic of the area - Amaris’s moon has started having phases - and that’s! probably not good! Also see: Raven having to flee for her own safety after getting bitten by a werewolf. Even where they are ostensibly doing the most good, the Rose are still an active danger to many, even their own in the wrong circumstances)

And, meanwhile, on the ground floor...

......further proof that the Rose actively try to drive competition out of the area. Falconreach has repeatedly made it clear that they want nothing to do with the Rose and they keep picking fights with the patrols.

[blurrypxls]

Recreated Leigh, one of my long lost legacy sims from 2015, and she’s got a new lease of life going for her in the Griffinverse! 

[vashti-lives]

look i have a lot of feelings about murderbot & art’s relationship in network effect-- this is very long good luck.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the conflict between ART and Murderbot in Network Effect. Fandom tends to view it through a very humorous lens which is not criticism-- the whole thing is largely played for laughs in the book, both because the book is at its heart a fairly light space romp and because Murderbot’s only coping mechanism aside from escapist media is dark humor. BUT for all that the absurdity of a fight between two non human artificial beings is highlighted its also taken seriously and its made very clear that Murderbot is sincerely hurt and upset. However for all that we spend a lot of time with hurt Murderbot we never really see any granular reason why because Murderbot is allergic to introspection.

(Given that its spent most of its existence hovering somewhere between an appliance and a slave this is reasonable. Introspection is not a useful skill when you have no freewill.) 

The reasoning outwardly given in the book sits nebulously between anger that ART has put its humans in danger and being upset it thought ART was dead with a brief stopover on what I actually think is the biggest clue-- ART told the targets Murderbot was a weapon. BUT even that isn’t the real problem.

Because ok-- to back up for a moment. Murderbot meets ART at the very beginning of its journey into autonomy, a journey ART actively participates in and supports thus turning ART into Murderbot’s first real friend. Murderbot really clearly has a lot of warm feelings about this. It is extremely distraught when it thinks ART is dead.

And then it turns on a dime-- not when it learns that ART told the targets it was a weapon, but when it learns ART actively used Murderbot as a weapon, once more subverting its free will and autonomy. Because really that’s what happened, by manipulating things to kidnap Murderbot ART was actively using it as a weapon to get rid of the targets controlling it and get its humans back. And then to top it off it doesn’t even apologize, it doubles down. Murderbot IS going to retrieve its humans.

Its very telling to me that the first thing Murderbot accuses ART of after its been repaired is being a liar, like of all ART’s crimes in that book it doesn’t initially seem like lying is one of them? EXCEPT IMO the lie Murderbot is referring to is the lie of friendship, and more specifically the lie that ART was in any way invested in Murderbot’s autonomy. Because that entire interlude goes from being one non-human helping another non-human gain independence to being a thing ART does very casually for amusement without any real feeling. A thing it has no problem completely subverting the MINUTE its more convenient for Murderbot to be a weapon without free will again.

Its also hugely telling that after this exchange Murderbot locks itself in the bathroom and immediately reverts back to behavior it had cultivated while still owned by the company-- completely checking out of the decision making and only filtering for key works. Because hey when the thing controlling you is a giant ship you need to live it doesn’t actually need a governor module to control your behavior! Which ART absolutely knows and isn’t afraid to point out.

(A lot of this post right now probably feels pretty anti-ART which I truly am not-- I really think ART is mostly just overconfident in its understanding of human and construct behavior more on this in a minute-- BUT I will say the moment it threatens to fucking space Murderbot is a serious dick move. Bud you should know better.)

Luckily for ART Murderbot has its humans with it and they really help keep Murderbot from going full “appliance owned by the company” mode. Now, honestly I don’t think any of Murderbot’s people ever truly understand the implications of what ART has actually done because even the humans who were present when Murderbot was still legally owned by the company really take Murderbot’s autonomy for granted. To them it’s a person and I don’t think any of them really get on a real visceral level that Murderbot was not meaningfully a person for most of its existence. They do not think of Murderbot’s personhood as being removable.

When they look at ART’s behavior towards Murderbot they really treat the whole interaction as though Murderbot is a human, not consciously but essentially. And on one level this does mean they don’t take the situation as seriously as might have been warranted, but on another level their absolute faith in Murderbot’s personhood and autonomy pretty clearly helps ground it and keep it stable. I am 100% convinced that if ART had managed to kidnap Murderbot without also accidentally taking a bunch of its humans their friendship would have been irreparable, and if Murderbot’s humans had died during all this uh, then we’re looking at some kind of murder-suicide I think.

Anyway ART was extremely fortunate! Which it absolutely realizes in the end. Because ART eventually does pull its head from its metaphorical ass and start actually utilizing its processing power efficiently at which point it does work out what its done.

This is another scene that’s really interesting to me because we see a lot of it filtered through Amena and in addition to being human with a very human understanding of relationships she’s a very *young* human with a very teenage understanding of even human relationships. So when we get to the suggestion of Murderbot 2.0 she’s looking at this whole scene like ART and Murderbot are having a baby and its fixed their relationship like something out of a very shitty soap opera but really its much less human than that. This is the scene where ART really understands what its done, because Murderbot is casually suggesting using its consciousness to create a piece of killware, and ART immediately understands that Murderbot 2.0 will be a person. Murderbot itself doesn’t really see it that way because for Murderbot it is its body, but ART is not physically the ship.

ART is an AI that runs a ship and uses the ship to interact with the world but it exists outside the ship in away Murderbot does not exist outside its body. So when Murderbot suggests 2.0 its first reaction is the immediate understanding that what Murderbot is really suggesting is that they create a person and then immediately send it into a super dangerous situation where it could and probably will die; that will be its purpose. And it immediately wants to reject this situation as horrific and nightmarish. And then it gets Amena and, I think, as it does so it reevaluates the entire situation and realizes it *can’t* refuse because it has already done to Murderbot what Murderbot is suggesting they do to 2.0 and thus ART has no real grounds to object. For Murderbot 2.0 will be an at most an extension of itself, but ART knows better.

I feel like so far this has probably felt very anti-ART and again I’m really not, because I think when Murderbot realizes ART never understood its quest of autonomy that’s true but not in a malicious way. I think ART, as an AI who lives in a giant spaceship, just doesn’t have the same relationship with freewill that a human or a robot or a human/bot construct does. ART is its function, it cannot separate function from self. And even though there was evidence otherwise I think it still thought Murderbot was the same, after all even after getting free like the very first thing it does is go be a SecUnit on its own terms and help humans.

So I imagine that when ART put its plans to have Murderbot go rescue its humans it really looked at the whole thing like an extension of what happened in Artificial Condition. ART helped Murderbot save Murderbot’s human friends and now Murderbot can help ART! They can be a team again! And then Murderbot wakes it up and Murderbot is so furiously angry and won’t let it go and is acting so weird and now suddenly ART understands that this isn’t at all like what happened before-- that ART has done something pretty awful.

The apology gift of access to the ship’s cameras really highlights this-- ART sees what its done and gives Murderbot the gift of wider autonomy, and I think Murderbot does understand what the apology really represents.

(So then we move on from this and we get Murderbot 2.0 and between the above meta and 2.0′s POV I think there’s a strong argument that on a spectrum of human to pure AI like art Murderbot skews far faaar more human than it would ever want to admit to, but that probably belongs in its own post... )

And then we get to the end, and we get the fun scene where ART is panicking because Dr. Mensah is coming on board and it feels very meet the parents-- on purpose, clearly-- but I actually think this circles back to their conflict because if there’s ONE person who might look at that situation and correctly understand what their fight was really about, its Dr. Mensah. And ART, who values and loves Murderbot, wants Murderbot to stay, but if there’s one human who could prevent that it’s Dr. Mensah, who honestly might do so if she thinks ART isn’t good enough, or might still be a danger. Honestly to me this makes the panic over cleaning the ship EVEN funnier because its so pointless. Art, buddy, clean bedrooms will not make Dr. Mensah forgive your crimes against Murderbot’s personhood if she was going to hold a grudge about that.

And that concludes this novel length piece of meta that has been sitting in my drafts for six months. Good night folks!

[macadam]

I mean no fanbase is perfect but from my experience the TF fandom is pretty nice overall are there bad people in it oh yeah I’m sure but that applies to just about every fandom.

However that’s not to say I’m excusing bad things within it like misogyny and it’s good when it’s called out which thankfully does seem to be called out in this fandom.

Anyways yeah you’re right it’s not your responsibility to constantly bring up anything negative about something you enjoy.

It's not even about responsibility. It's just not necessary for me to do it all the time. Not every post needs a little disclaimer at the bottom abt how my post doesn't apply to x or y or z. I don't know why I've fallen into this need to do it--actually I do know why. It's because since I've started the habit the anon hate has gone down. It's like I'm shielding my back from every possible bad faith interpretation that could be made, and while effective it has made me just not want to post anything.

There are obviously many times when this effort and extra step need to be done but the amount of which I am doing it is exhausting and needless tbh

[bambiraptorx]

The third and final part of my series on yokai medicine. Parts one and two covered standard chemical medications and mystic medicine, leaving one final option: spells cast directly on a person.

Since there is no chemical component interacting with the body when a spell is used, there is much less risk of dependence or addiction. However, they are also extremely complex and usually have to be tailored to the individual for full effectiveness, so they are only used in cases where medication is needed long-term, like in cases of chronic pain/illness. Casting this kind of spell is also usually outside the range of expertise of the average yokai, so they have to go to a trained healer in order to get this kind of spell cast for them. Spells are something of a last resort because of this.

There is one major issue with spells: the complexity needed to effectively tailor treatment to an individual so that the spell does what they need it to do can make it difficult to predict how long a spell will actually last. Sure, you could cast a spell on a patient to reduce their chronic back pain for a month, but you have no idea if the spell will actually last that whole month or not, and when spells stop working, they stop working fast. Many people don't want to go through the process of living relatively pain-free for three or four weeks, then getting hit with the full force of their pain with no warning. Yes, spells can be tweaked to avoid this, but it's a time-consuming process of troubleshooting that can take months or years to get right.

There's also the issue that, if a person does decide to cast the spell themselves, it usually drains their mystic energy reserves substantially. And if they don't know what they're doing, they might not notice until their energy levels become dangerously low. Yes, spells can be cast in a way to shut themselves off before they take too much energy, but increasing the complexity like that means that the spell will need even more energy to maintain itself. The average yokai simply isn't capable of casting a spell that powerful and having it last more than a few days, and for many people that just isn't worth it, especially if they already have chronic health issues.

[foxmulderautism]

wrote out a whole thing about imagining as part of my writing process and how much of my first drafting is actually done internally but it sounded kind of obnoxious accidentally like “ummm guys well everything in my head is so vivid 👍” which i don’t think me experiencing writing in my head vividly is special it’s just what my brain does 👍 but anyway how much of a first draft is a first draft when i will write a passage in word but that passage has lived in my head for weeks sometimes months mostly written out because i will write out scenes in my head and just let them marinate up there and somehow I don’t forget it

[thstarsofsilver]

I wanna write something for Val / ej but don’t know what , help me out with a prompt 🥺🥺

not sure if you want something romantic or platonic, so here's a mix of ideas you could spin:

revisiting shows they were in together (they could do that in any number of ways)

ej moves to california (or wherever val is at college) and she becomes a big part of his life again

getting each other through hard times

new city, old friend

one of them is getting married to someone else (angst central)

bonding over crappy parents

slowburn friends to lovers (maybe spanning the time they've known each other)

au where they meet as co-workers somewhere, maybe café/bookshop/etc

dress by taylor swift "i don't want you like a best friend" (maybe a bit raunchy if that's what you're after)

jealousy/pining (dating someone else)

academic rivals to best friends au

wing(wo)man

[muppet-hell]

Me? Posting another Encore edit? Insane but yeah

[risingsunresistance]

my goal is to have a drawing done before april 16th so that i can have a silly art post for the resistance anniversary

the hardest challenge of my entire life will be restraining myself and refusing to post it early because i have finished art at the ready and I Have To Share It

[kamassa-river]

ozzy :)