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pigeonwhumps · 1 year ago

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Tour

Immortal Cannon Fodder masterlist

Taglist: @painful-pooch @i-eat-worlds @a-funeral-romance @extrabitterbrain @wolfeyedwitch @whumpinggrounds

This is a crossover with Alex & Friends by @i-eat-worlds, who Joseph belongs to!

Aaron takes Phoenix on a tour of Hero Alliance London HQ, and they end up at the cafeteria, where things don't quite go to plan.

4.7k

CWs: immortal whumpee, hero whumpee, abuse, panic attack, ableism, low self-esteem, past starvation, denial of food, fear of punishment, expected punishment, asking to be punished, begging, conditioning, losing control of superpowers, consideration of self-punishment, guilt, flashback, traumatised whumpee, food-related trauma, traumatised caretaker, threats, insults, punch, shove, fear, intimidation

"And this is the cafeteria."

Phoenix stops dead in their tracks in the doorway, looking around.

"It's, um, it's big."

'Big' was an understatement. The place was huge, and always busy, full of noisy heroes, some laughing and joking, some sombre. Some have clearly very recently come off shift.

Unfortunately, Phoenix has been recognised as the hero who got Abbie suspended (even if they're so abused they didn't see anything wrong with her behaviour – but then, so many have swallowed her lies about accessing their medical records to look after them better, why wouldn't Phoenix). The room doesn't quiet, though some of the conversations become more stilted, and there's a few glares. A bit of intimidation tactics from those heroes who can use their powers with any subtlety.

"Come on," mutters Aaron, putting an arm around Phoenix's shoulder in an obvious show of solidarity, "let's fetch some food. You'll love the cinnamon buns."

Phoenix nods, but they're distracted, and for good reason. It's good manners, good practice, good safety, not to use your powers against people in here. It's just one of those things you don't do. If you have a problem with someone, you solve it mundanely. So for that to happen, suddenly... it's a big show of strength against Phoenix and they know it.

"Don't let them win. Don't let the others make you think you don't deserve to be here. You show them something later. If this is going to turn into a contest, you're way more powerful."

"I don't think I am," they murmur, but let Aaron steer them towards the serving counter, grabbing a couple of trays on the way.

"Hey. None of that. You'll be fine. They're fickle, trust me. Ignore them. You've got allies anyway."

Phoenix nods. They still look very small, pressed up against his side. He squeezes them tight.

Aaron's honestly relieved. He'd thought the reactions of the other heroes in disagreement might be worse than that, judging by their behaviour in the medbay lately. It's a shame they recognised them, but hey. Can't have everything.

He tries not to think about how that might be partially his fault.

Phoenix squints at the chalkboard menu. "What, um, sort of chips are they? Fries or chunky ones or... I don't mean to be fussy, sorry. I'll eat them, whatever they're like, please let me still eat." The last sentence is added hurriedly, as if that's a regular problem. And maybe it is.

"Hey. I brought you here to have something you like, it doesn't matter how fussy you are. And if you're worried about the price, don't be, it's free."

That's not completely true. There's some posh things that're just reduced. But Aaron made an agreement yesterday, so if Phoenix wants them he won't have to pay in front of them.

Phoenix nods, visibly trying to absorb that.

"Chunky, like a chip shop."

Phoenix's eyes light up at that. "Can I, can I? Please?"

"Yeah, of course. Do you want to go and order? You can have something with it, if you like."

Phoenix looks very confused, but follows Aaron over to the food counter. Aaron pushes them gently ahead of him. Just in case.

The serving lady smiles at Aaron. "Hello, you. How are you keeping? You've made another friend?"

Aaron scowls at her. She's not supposed to reveal how few friends they have.

"This is Phoenix. Phoenix, Mary. She'll probably try and fatten you up."

Phoenix waves a little, and Mary frowns at them in concern.

"Hey love. You new here? I haven't seen you around before."

Phoenix shakes their head. "No. I just, I, um, haven't been here before. Can I have, um, chips and beans please? It's okay if I can't, I just–"

"Of course you can. We've got some left, haven't we? It's not reserved or anything." She plates it up, then turns to Aaron. "Fish, chips and peas, as usual?"

"Yep." Once it's plated and on his plate, Aaron gives her a winning smile. "So... any chance of the biggest cinnamon bun you have?"

"You can't just use charm to get whatever you want, you know." But she winks and plates a massive cinnamon bun.

Phoenix's eyes are like saucers, and they only widen as the serving lady serves them an extra portion of chips and beans.

"Ketchup and other condiments are over there, love," she points out. Phoenix nods.

"Thank you, sir."

Mary watches them go with a slight frown.

"Polite kid."

"Maybe too much so," murmurs Aaron. "They're getting better though."

"Who's on their team? Bit negligent to not show them this place. And they seem off."

"The Spark, Tempest and Nightkeeper."

"Poor kid. Here, take some onion rings to share, they do need fattening up. You'd better go and help them." She nods to the condiments table, where Phoenix is standing, looking lost.

"Yeah. Cheers."

They manouvres their way over to them.

"Hey kid. What's up?"

"Am I really allowed all this too?"

"Yes, of course. And these two," he points at the onion rings and cinnamon bun, "are to share."

"But... that's, um, that's a main dish, and a side and another side and a dessert. I can't take seasonings as well, that'd be, um, greedy!"

"Is it greedy if I take some?" Phoenix shakes their head. "Then why would it be for you?"

"Abbie says that I don't need so much to eat. I don't. Do I? I'm fine."

"I... Phoenix. You nearly passed out from hunger."

"And?"

Aaron splutters a little. "And? Do you not see how that's a bad thing?"

Phoenix shrugs. "I nearly died from it once. Only one person ever saw a problem then, and he was a villain. So it's not a bad thing if I don't eat much. Why do you– I don't understand."

It takes an enormous amount of effort for Aaron to control himself. Sparks don't literally fly, but it's close.

"Your team. I assume they're the only other people you saw then. What did they say?"

Phoenix shrugs, almost overbalancing their tray. "That I was weak. And Abbie said that it wasn't serious because it, um, wouldn't kill me permanently. And then she punished me for accepting outside help. I don't, um, understand why she let me accept your help, though."

"She has to, I'm your team medic and Kai was on your team. And you did say she'd been getting worse shortly before her suspension."

The lights flicker this time as Phoenix looks so damn confused that Abbie might be hurting them.

"That can't be right. She's my mentor, she must have my best interests at heart."

Maybe at the very centre of her heart, surrounded by unbreakable stone. He doesn't say that though.

"Come on. Let's eat."

Aaron drowns their chips in salt and vinegar, while Phoenix hesitantly picks up the ketchup, looking around. When nobody stops them they squirt out a small pile.

"Thank you."

"'s no problem." Phoenix follows Aaron over to a small square table, Aaron glaring at anyone who so much as dares look at Phoenix wrong. They drag another table over to ensure there's enough space for all the food.

"It's a lot of food. Are you sure it's, um, not too much for someone like me? I don't mean to be ungrateful, I just, um, I'm not worth it, and– I'm sorry."

"Yes." Phoenix frowns. "Yes, you're worth it. Everyone is worth food, Phoenix." Phoenix has a look of confusion on their face, tears welling in their eyes. "What's wrong?"

Phoenix's eyes snap up to theirs for a second before darting away.

"It's, um, it's more than I've eaten since Kai went back to his team. That's all."

Aaron's alarmed by this. Sure, this is a big meal, but not overly. And if they're going on solo missions and healing themself they need bigger meals. They need the energy.

Abbie must worry about him finding out during their weekly check-ups now. Just how little proper food did she feed them before anyone found out?

What did he miss during that first weigh-in in five years? Did they start feeding Phoenix with Kai on the team, to make themselves look like heroes who aren't abusive? Phoenix seemed to know then that they needed to eat more, what's changed? Did they just say what they thought they wanted to hear?

How much of that has there been?

"You know it's not normal to eat so little so regularly, right? If it was by choice we'd call it an eating disorder."

Phoenix frowns. "Abbie's teaching me how to survive. It's, um, part of my training. I have to learn because I, um, I'm a bit pathetic and keep being captured. I'm her apprentice, she, um, she knows what she's doing."

Oh, Aaron bets she does. Keep Phoenix weak, reliant on her, with low self-esteem and terrified of their own shadow some days.

Except they're not weak. Not by a long shot. And sparks do crackle from the end of his fingers this time.

Phoenix shoots back from the table, chair hitting the wall, eyes wide.

"No, what are you– please, don't hurt me, don't punish me, I didn't mean to! I understand that I deserve punishment but please, please, let me eat first before locking me away! Please, sir, I'm, um, I'm begging you!"

Aaron holds up his hands and, with great effort, wills the sparks away. Phoenix's sleeves are rolled up and their forearms are changing colour seemingly at random, parts of their face growing fake scales and illusory feathers and all sorts that keep appearing and disappearing. They're terrified and Aaron needs to deal with this before they end up almost invisible again. That would certainly get back to their team.

"Hey. Easy, Phoenix, where do you think you are?"

"In, um, in the flat, I know that, sir. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I shouldn't show my powers like this, please don't hurt me, please, um, I know I deserve punishment but please."

Aaron glances around quickly. Luckily no-one seems to have noticed or cared. They lower their voice anyway.

"You're not in the flat. You're in the cafeteria. And you're certainly not in any kind of trouble. In fact, I don't even know what you've done that you think warrants whatever 'punishment' you were about to get."

"But you– I– I don't– Aaron?"

"Yeah. It's me. No punishment, and no pain, I promise. Shall we eat?" They're guessing from Phoenix's pleas that Abbie sometimes denied them meals as a punishment, and Aaron's hoping being clearly offered one might help them calm down.

Phoenix nods, arms wrapped around themself. "'m sorry. I fucked it up."

"No, you didn't. Less than five minutes out of a good day? Let me give you a hug."

They nod again, and Aaron crosses to the other side of the table, pulling them in as they lean on him.

"The food won't even be cold."

"Is there, um, someone with powers in the kitchen or something?"

"Yes," says Aaron simply. He knows they're joking but it's true.

"Oh." There's silence for a minute, before they say, tentatively, "I think, um, I would've liked that job. If I had the right sort of powers. I can't save the world that way, but still. It would be fun. And I could, um, make food for people who've been rescued. It'd be a waste of my immortality but I wouldn't be immortal in this scenario. What, um, what other jobs are there here that aren't on the, um, front line?"

Aaron recognises it as a tentative attempt at an olive branch they mistakenly think they need, and leads them gently back to their seat. He takes a bite of his fish.

"Well, there's plenty in medical, for starters. Nursing's a big one. And liaisons. I think you'd be good at that."

"Liaison? What, um, what do they do?"

"Well, first of all, it's not like a medical liaison job on the outside, if you know what that is, so put that thought aside. They're called medical advocates, or patient liaisons. A medical advocate works with patients who are struggling, usually psychologically. Patient advocacy, helping them through trauma, explaining things in their terms, informing us of things we might need to know. Like your sensitivity to general anaesthetic and healing. Long-lasting trauma. A lot of it's in the word liaison, to be honest. And we never have enough of them."

He's trying to think of a way to ask them if they'd like to help with that while Indigo and Segun won't let them in the flat and all they can do is solo missions until Abbie returns, when they hear footsteps behind them. Aaron thinks hopes that they'll just go past, but no such luck.

"Can I sit here?"

Aaron snarls and whirls around, before noticing who it is. "Oh! Hi Joseph."

"Hello there. Still as protective as ever. Phoenix? Mind if I sit here?"

"Yes, sir. I mean, you can, sir," they murmur, going quiet. As Joseph smiles and takes the seat next to Phoenix, carefully blocking their view of one of the heroes whose gaze is boring into them, Aaron notices them curl over their meal, ever so slightly.

One of these days he is going to hack Abbie into a hundred pieces. Without knocking her unconscious first.

"Thanks." He picks up a chip and pops it in his mouth. "So, what were you discussing before I interrupted?"

"Non-frontline jobs here. For example, Phoenix, Joseph works as... what exactly do you do? You're medical, I know that much, but what specifically?"

Joseph shrugs. "Frontline Paramedic. Found out the title recently."

"Okay, maybe not the best example of a non-frontline job, but we're still better than you."

"Not true."

"Oh, come on. Your only decent output is your cinnamon buns and you know it. And we don't even need you to make them anymore, not now we have the recipe."

Phoenix snorts, taking a hurried mouthful of beans to cover it up. "Sorry, sirs."

"'s okay," shrugs Joseph. "How's your injury?"

"It's healed, sir. Completely."

"Good." Aaron can tell he's a little surprised at the speed – it was a large gash, after all, and Aaron's not sure if he knew about Phoenix's healing abilities. It's refreshing to meet someone else who actually cares about their health, especially for non-work purposes. "While I'm here, can I have your phone number? Just for the purpose of sending cat memes, I promise. Nothing nefarious."

"I'll kill him if he does," says Aaron helpfully, when Phoenix hesitates. "And you can always block him if he gets annoying. No-one would blame you."

"O-okay." Phoenix takes Joseph's phone and enters it in. Then he looks between them calculatingly. "If you, um, don't mind my asking, how long have you known each other?"

"Since med school," replies Aaron easily. "We took the same international elective on helping patients with psychological trauma." Like Phoenix. At least... well, at least all this is good practice.

Phoenix nods. Aaron thinks they were right. Phoenix would make a great liaison, especially if they were a little more confident.

"Aand now I'm stuck with you," sighs Joseph theatrically.

Phoenix giggles. Actually giggles, and Aaron wasn't expecting that. "This food is amazing," they say between bites. "It's been a long time since I had chips and, um, beans or onion rings. I don't understand though. My team always complain about my cooking. If it's so bad, why don't they, um, order me to fetch food from here instead?"

"I don't know," lies Aaron sadly. In reality, he can make a pretty good guess. He's just not sure Phoenix is ready to accept it yet. "Go on. Eat up. I want you to try part of this cinnamon bun."

Aaron is the first to finish, and he carefully cuts up the genuinely massive sharing-size dessert.

Phoenix eats slowly, but their eyes pop out of their head as the scent wafts across the table.

"Wow."

"Mary must love you."

Aaron shrugs with one shoulder, feeling a bit awkward. "I saved her son. Physically. You remember after they closed the schools? Some people... didn't do too well. Even six years after the event, when I started, he wasn't doing well."

That's the understatement of the century. Joseph flinches minutely, dropping his fork.

"That's when the medical advocacy role was created. After the abolition. But a token apology and a new role in which there aren't enough employees does not reparations make. It certainly doesn't help enough." They sigh, then turns to Joseph, whose eyes have turned glassy, and taps him on the shoulder. "Hey. Breathe. You've got a cinnamon bun to eat, remember? No blood on your hands."

"There is a lot of blood on my hands," he breathes, but takes a bite of the bun anyway. "These really are delicious. Does Mary save them for you or something?"

Aaron smiles. "Yep."

Phoenix bites their lip, looking up for a second before locking their gaze on their bun like it's the most fascinating thing they've ever seen. "You– you said– well, um, you won't let me go back to living in the cupboard and, um, you won't let me pay you back, I'm sure I could but you won't let me and I still don't understand why, and you've done so much, and... and... and I... I, um, I... never mind. Sorry. Doesn't matter, it's stupid."

"Go on, spit it out," says Aaron gently.

"I– I– I, um, I– yousaidyoudonthaveenoughpeopleandindigowonttakemebackyetandiknowidonthaveanytraumaorexperienceanditsastupidideabutmaybeicouldhelp." They flush bright red after speaking all in a rush, and as Aaron tries to process the words he's heard, Phoenix says quietly, "I told you it was a useless idea. I'm sorry. You can punish me for it if you like."

Aaron shakes his head. He's understood the words now. Did Phoenix just make a suggestion? Not just a punishment one, and not pushed, one of their own accord.

But he needs to respond, or it might be the last suggestion Phoenix ever makes.

"It's not useless. Not in the slightest. I'd love to have you work in the medbay, even if it's only for a few months. And I'd never, never punish you for making a suggestion."

"Oh." Phoenix's eyes flicker upwards, and they must see the sincerity on Aaron's face because they smile. "Really?"

"Absolutely."

"I know it's a lot to ask but, um, will you not tell Indigo or Segun? Please? I don't, um, they might give me something else to do and, um, I'd be better helping you if you, um, think I'd be good at it, even though, um, I'm not sure, and I'm not supposed to– please don't tell them, please, please, sirs."

"I won't, I promise. Joseph?"

"Never."

Phoenix doesn't look much more relaxed, but they glance at Joseph with what appears to be a fraction less fear than before. They finish up their chips and take a bite of the bun, eyes going wide.

"Thank you, sirs."

"It's absolutely no problem. Really. You like the bun then?"

Phoenix nods enthusiastically, almost forgetting about their fear in their excitement. Aaron's heart aches. Over five years without even knowing they exist.

Their left cheek starts to turn the colour of the wall behind them in their enthusiasm. They haven't noticed, and when Joseph opens his mouth to potentially mention it, Aaron catches his eye and shakes their head. That would be a very, very bad idea.

He waits until Phoenix has finished before saying, "Do you want me to fetch you a leaflet on medical advocacy jobs once we've finished here? So that you know exactly what the job entails before you decide for certain whether or not to take it."

"I, um, I'm sure I do. But I'll, um, take a look at it if you, um, think it's best. Are you sure I, um, would be any good?"

"Hey. Stop putting yourself down. I love you, kid, but that has nothing to do with how good I think you'll be. I wouldn't have offered out of pity, would I?"

Phoenix shakes their head. "I'll, um, I'll take the trays up," they say thickly, gathering up the plates and clearly not about to take no for an answer. Joseph looks about to object but Aaron shakes his head.

"Let them gather themself," they murmur, once Phoenix is out of earshot, heading towards the furthest deposit point.

"I am going to murder that team of theirs."

"Just... do it cleanly? I don't want to have to heal them."

"Noted."

They watch as Phoenix deposits the trays, then just stands there for a minute. They raise a hand to their cheek quickly.

"Oh, kid," Aaron murmurs. Then they frown as one of the heroes who was glaring and intimidating the most earlier approaches Phoenix with intent. "I think we might need to intervene."

The other hero – Gorgeous Warrior, Aaron thinks his pseudonym is, and that's a bit much, even for someone of his ego, the name Kevin certainly not enough for him – gets into a conversation with Phoenix, and at first Aaron thinks hopes it might not be too bad, that he might be wrong.

Then Phoenix takes a stumbling step back, and Kevin takes one forward, pressing them against the trolley.

Fortunately, it has wheels, so they're not trapped for long. Unfortunately, all the trays are on the upper levels.

Aaron sees what's about to happen before it does, but he's too late to do anything about it as the trolley topples over with an almighty crash.

The cafeteria falls deathly silent. As Aaron approaches he can hear Phoenix's whispered pleas. White smoke rises around them, and Aaron is forcibly reminded of Morticia Addams, although this isn't relaxed smoke. It's their terrified friend, hiding behind their illusion powers because they can't do anything else.

Aaron doesn't know why their powers are so prevalent today of all days, not when they must've generally been more controlled with Abbie to avoid 'punishment' and permanent damage, but that doesn't really matter. What matters is that they're terrified and the man doing it is supporting Abbie, their abuser, with a smirk on his face.

Even what she's done publicly, accessing Phoenix's encrypted medical files without their permission, is bad enough, and he's smirking.

"Please. I'll do anything, please don't."

Aaron plants himself firmly behind Phoenix, Joseph on their other side. He's a bit unsure about interfering but... right now, Phoenix needs obvious allies, not to deal with this themself. Right?

"Hey. Back off."

Kevin sneers. "What? Can't handle me on your own? Powers too weak to do anything except hide, like a fucking coward?"

Phoenix flinches. "I– I– just leave me, um, leave me alone."

"Coward. You can't expect anyone to take you seriously with that stutter. Abbie's doing her best with you, despite all your issues, and you got her suspended. You should've been grateful for her to take you despite the damage to her reputation. Should've been grateful to all of us for taking in someone so weak and keeping you alive when we didn't need to."

Aaron feels a rush of anger and the lights in the cafeteria burst, sparks flying, the only illumination now except for the setting sun. Before he can do anything direct to Kevin, though, he becomes aware of Joseph moving beside him, shoving at Kevin.

"Don't you dare. Don't you dare put Phoenix down like that. And you are way out of line with those comments. What makes you think they're okay?"

"What the hell?"

Kevin looks genuinely confused, like he doesn't understand why they'd care for Phoenix, and that just makes Aaron angrier. He pulls his arm back and lunges for Kevin's face. Their fist hits the area around his eye with a crack.

"Get the hell out of here," they growl. "Before we make that look like a bloody picnic."

Kevin turns away, walking maybe (hopefully) a little faster than normal. Aaron glares until he's out of sight, then turns to Phoenix, touching them gently on the shoulder. They jump a foot in the air.

"Want to help me clear that up?"

Phoenix nods, bending down with Aaron to clear up plates (Aaron stops them touching the sharp shards). Joseph doesn't help, "keeping watch" instead, and Aaron suspects that he, too, saw the terror in Phoenix's eyes when they looked at him.

"You're not a coward, Phoenix. And you're not weak. I, personally, think your powers are amazing."

"But, but, um, they're not useful. Not like yours. Sorry, I, um, I can't stop that. Stutter. Tried."

"You don't need to stop it. I like you. All of you. Hmm? Don't apologise for yourself. There's someone I need to introduce you to when we get a chance."

Phoenix continues gathering trays, not looking at Aaron. After a minute they whisper, "Abbie used to use him for, um, for medical procedures. Because I, um, couldn't go to medbay."

Aaron's jaw tightens. He knows exactly what Phoenix is hinting at, even if they can't say it. But the fog is slowly dropping, even if their camouflage is nowhere close to it, and he pulls them into a careful hug.

"Shall we get out of here, kid? All the people, and the lights and the noise... it's too much for you, isn't it? I should've seen that, I'm sorry."

"'s okay. But, please, if you, um, don't mind."

"Of course. You okay with Joseph coming?" Phoenix nods, and Aaron helps them to stand on wobbly legs. "We're going somewhere more private. Do you want to come with us?"

Joseph glances at Phoenix quickly before nodding. "Sure. Where are we heading?"

"My room. If you're okay with that, Phoenix?" Phoenix nods, clinging on to Aaron tightly. They're really not hiding their fear of Joseph but Aaron doesn't know what else to do. He can't deal with this alone.

Phoenix walks with them robotically, Aaron's arm the only reason they don't fall, and doesn't seem to even notice as Aaron steers them into their room, sitting them down on their bed.

"Abbie's going to kill me," they whisper. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I didn't, um, I didn't mean to stand up to him, but I did and Abbie's going to, um, she'll be so angry when she finds out. Please don't tell her." They look up at Joseph, back to themself suddenly. "Please don't tell her, sir, please don't, um, don't tell anyone, except you can but please."

"I won't," says Joseph, handing them a mug of hot chocolate and wrapping their hands around it when they don't move, "I promise."

Phoenix sniffles. "I can't control my powers. I need to. I can't, um, I need to but I can't learn, please, help me."

"Phoenix..."

"Please!" they cry. "I can't... it looks, um, it looks terrible and it's useless and what's the point if I, um, I can't even control it?"

"I'm not putting the cuffs on you, and the only reason I'd ever even consider it would be if you were putting someone in imminent danger. Which you're not."

He is, though. His powers are getting seriously out of control when he's angry. And he needs to get them under control, by any means necessary.

Joseph squeezes their shoulder, sort-of threateningly. "I know what you're thinking. Don't you dare."

Phoenix buries their head in their hands. "I don't, um, want to be useless," they say, voice muffled and choked, "I want to be good."

"You are. Stop putting yourself down. I like all of you. All of you is amazing, because you are. If you like, we can start your training soon, as a medical advocate and with more advanced first aid, because I think you'll be fantastic at the former and you desperately need the latter." Phoenix nods. "Great. Just promise me one thing?"

"What? I mean, anything, sir."

"Stop promising you'll do anything for people. You have no idea what they'll ask."

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astralartefact · 1 year ago

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Right, I forgot to post something about Reincarnation ending for real yesterday, so. uhh. what pseudo-deep thing do I have to say about all of this...

Reincarnation is allowed to end and its contents are allowed to be ""inaccessible""* and everyone involved in its production knew it was going to end like this from the start even if they likely thought it wouldn't end quite this abruptly.

Yesterday Matsukawa literally said on Twitter that one of the first things Yoko Taro told him was to keep all the design work they did in consistent structures so they could easily publish them afterwards, they knew, they're not as stupid and helpless to corporate greed as some of you seem to think they are.

*heavy air quotes here because it's not inaccessible, there are at least three seperate fan projects documenting its content and even all of the in-game data has been publicly archived by fans - how much more accessible do you want an online game to be after it ends???

I know we love to complain about live services because that's a buzzword to do with capitalism (which is indeed bad) but like. It being inherently impermanent isn't what makes it bad. Theater plays are inherently impermanent and I have yet to see someone complain that Theaters still perform plays seasonally and then change what they're playing. What if I couldn't see Faust 1 last year and this year they're only playing Faust 2??? i dont think faust is a theatre play

Video Game Archiving is weird because yes, there's basically no downside to keeping something accessible forever aside from cost - and yet to me it has kind of started to become a little bit like hoarding in the fear that you might need it eventually. Like sure, why not store a video game in perpetuity if you could, someone in the future might want to look back on it after all - but like. Do you really need to be able to play a video game to do that, to understand what it tried to do and how it executed on its premise?

If nobody actually liked NieR Reincarnation's gameplay - which a lot of you complaining about it ending seem dedicated to point out any chance you get - then why keep it around as a game and not just as recordings or in writing? And whose responsibility is it to record that stuff? For the most part History wasn't recorded by those that made that history happen either. History can be recorded in writing, in photographs, in paintings,... so why can Video Games only be recorded as that Video Game?

I think these discussions are important to have and it sucks that it's always undercut by "Well but Corporations should do it, especially since they only don't do it because of money" - which is perfectly true and I agree with that, just for the record - and yet even in a better societal structure than Capitalism these problems would remain. If money wasn't an issue should every person ever posting anything on the Internet have to make sure it will always remain there for people that haven't seen it yet just because they could? Taken to the next step, are you allowed to remove something from the Internet if anybody finds it some amount of impactful?

The answer is pretty easy. If you care that much about it you will just have to record it yourself somehow - like a lot of Reincarnation's fans already did. And yes, video games have an interactive component that is now lost - but so what. If that was so important then write down what it meant to you! Make art that expresses what Reincarnation made you feel! All perfectly valid ways to record and experience history!!!

I feel like some of you people haven't had the pleasure of not being able to afford a certain video game console anywhere in the foreseeable future but knowing there's a game on there that you would love and so you decide to experience it through everything but playing the game itself. That game for me was Drakengard 3 on the Playstation 3 - and it was my favorite game of all time before I actually was able to play it 7 years later. And I think that's why I'm not particularly bothered by Reincarnation being taken offline, because I know you can appreciate it and everything it had to offer without actually playing it - because in Reincarnation's case a lot of people did the actual work of making it accessible online and that includes both fans and the devs for structuring their game in a way that makes it easy to do so.

But all I see is this weird insistance that Lore will be lost and that people won't be able to understand NieR 4 because they can't play NieR 3 to catch up on the Lore anymore even though

a) that hasn't been a thing for a single Yoko Taro game. The only time that ever happened is YoRHa:Dark Apocalypse and even there it didn't actually happen, people just fully misunderstood what part of the story was the actual A Plot and blamed them not understanding that on the Lore.

b) Reincarnation has maybe a handful Elements of concrete Lore and each of them can be summarized in 2 Sentences at most - case in point Noelle's RoD crystal is now part of the official timeline.

3) Drakengard's lore has never been explained once, not even in Drakengard itself, and yet a lot of people were able to love it and/or everything following in its wake - so clearly the lore is not that important, is it?

I also can't help but point out that 10H's story is literally about how she has to rewrite stories from her own memory of them because they keep being maliciously changed and that when she loses access to them completely the first thing she does is to recreate them and then she ends up giving them to someone else to experience (which ends up being herself but aah, technically somebody else)

Anyways, something completely different as a reward for reading all of this bs: Do we think Accord is a Player Insert? Is the Player Accord recording what they're experiencing for the "greater sake of Humanity"? We're always watching the Player Characters from a Third Person View - Who's to say that's not actually Accord's First Person View?

Has Accord been here the whole time?

#nier reincarnation #yoko taro #what if i entered my fuck you got mine era #these people and their lore really make me consider it

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joju-but-trek · 10 months ago

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Star Trek: Prodigy Season 2, Episode 7: The Fast and the Curious

Dal's such a nerd, it's great.

This episode and the last work together in a very interesting way. They're both standard Trek plots fitted into the wider story, but they exist in entirely different contexts. Holodeck shenanigans and weird planet competitions can normally happen to the same ship - if this were two episodes of Voyager in a row I wouldn't bat an eye - but they require opposite extremes here. It's a reflection of what Prodigy is and how it's unique among Star Trek shows, and I like what it implies. 9/10.

To elaborate, this episode does a pretty Trek-standard plot, but it does it on the bones of so many other concepts. They get to the weird alien race via an abandoned Borg conduit, and the facility is run by Kazons, and there's a corrupted AI behind it all. It really does feel like something happening in the background of the Star Trek universe and it's better for it. I do think it's interesting that this episode plays the AI concept straight when Lower Decks has three separate "Evil AIs" all going through one form of therapy or another in its latest season, but I don't think that the overlap is intentional. If it is, that would be cool, it just doesn't feel deliberate from what I've seen so far.

There's also some fun Dal moments with him trying to record a captain's log but getting shut down by everyone else. In the moment, it feels like he's being nerdy and doing a log like Boimler would, but with the context of the last season it's a bit of an ego trip. It does feel tamer than it would have been last season, which is good character development.

During the race, we get some good moments of genuine fear from Rok and Jankom. Rok specifically says that the race isn't fun anymore, which is a good reminder that she is still a kid underneath everything amazing she's done so far. Rok also keeps bringing up Starfleet protocol, which feels like a good extension of her arc of trying to fit in, even if it is being eroded by being on another adventure on the Infinity with her friends.

I don't know what I thought was going to happen with the hologram duplicates on the ship. It didn't occur to me yesterday that we'd see them again and that they'd be such an obvious liability, but it's interesting that no one noticed but Maj'el. The Doctor just thinks that he's getting through to them, which is funny and in keeping with how this show's been using him, but does play into him having a massive ego, which I'm less fond of as an interpretation. Janeway not catching on could be a bit of the beat that she doesn't really know the main cast the way her hologram did, or just being distracted by running a starship and the impending plot of the reboot movies and finding Chakotay. I'm not sure if I want to assign meaning to that just yet, but I have theories.

I'm curious what they're going to do with Zero's shell being broken. It'll be cool to see where that goes, but it is a little sad to see them just dump her in a chair at the end. Also, is it just me or does she look like a Personality Core? I half-expect her to give me a portal gun and tell me to dodge the lava.

#star trek prodigy

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petra-creat0r · 2 years ago

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Okay so the polls have determined I'm talking about LPS.

Tbh, I don't have a whole lot to talk about when it comes to my favorite little toys from the 2000s, especially since my collection is at home, but I do have a few things!

First is my favorites! Aka Creme (Angora Rabbit #2480) and Tytus! (Goat #1786). Creme I've had since I was a kid and was one of my first pets (along with the Rat #2481 she came with who I've since lost)

Them

There's also my girl, Sydney Petrovsky. I was gonna replace her before she quickly grew on me

Her neck spring or something is broke so her head sinks down, making her a little short and 9 year old me painted her with black oil paint that smugged her original markings a bit. All in all, she's a little roughed up but I say that adds to her character.

An example of how she should look is Sara, the replacement I forgot I ordered, who, while damaged, is still in a little better condition than Sydney.

Asides from my favs... I guess I gave Garrett, the pet I brought with me to work. Since my apron has a pocket, I've been bringing one of my pets with me every shift.

Gecko.

Edit: since this took me two days, Garrett was who I brought yesterday. Today was Alli

Honestly, LPS was one of my main hyperfixations as a kid. One of my mains before discovering Undertale and I frequented LPStube as much as I could back then. (Though oddly I never got into LPS Popular and still haven't watched it). I remember watching Cookieswirlc a good amount before they started making non LPS content. As well as a lot of skits and music videos. My friends and I would even make up a couple ourselves (though we didn't really have the resources to upload them, we could still record on my mom's camera and stuff.)

Because of this, I have a few old LPS series concepts. They're not all that good because I was like, nine. But I think it'd be interesting to revisit them sometime. The first series I can remember was Peter and Piper. Since I had a double of Monkey #485 (Likely because I somehow got one from my girlfriend considering she has one Squirrel #484 which came in a playset with the monkey).

The "plot" (if you could really call it that) of the series would be that the protagonist, Peter, played by one of the monkeys, had the power to... genderbend. Piper being his girl counterpart (played by the other monkey). Could I have executed this idea with just one monkey, likely. Was it a cringe idea especially considering modern times? Yes.

The other characters was a G4 Wolf (#3806) and a G3 Guinea Pig (#3299) who I don't recall the original names of, but whom I've since dubbed Lisa and Harvey. I also remember Lisa had ice powers, causing Harvey to sing Let It Go to annoy her. There was also something with the school mascot (because of course it was set at a high school) being a hybrid of a bunch of animals including like a tiger and a bear and a dragon I think.

I'm not sure how to adapt it, asides from probably making Peter a magical girl or something? (Also probably trans as I like that better than the gender bending thing)

The second show i had even less for. It was called Twins and stared Creme (my favorite Angora Rabbit from above) and another Angora I had at some point, a pink one with striped ears, #2132. (I've since lost this pet. Might've traded it with a friend)

It was about an evil mirror dimension. As a kid, I used to believe mirrors were actually viewing portals into other dimensions and the inhabitants were opposites of us or something. A pretty common trope but I think nine year old Lorrie actually believed it.

Tbh, the concept of the 2nd one would work better with doubles compared to Peter and Piper, which might be possible with just one pet.

Anyways, that's all I have on LPS for now, anyone has any questions about my thoughts on certain pets or even some series, then shoot me an ask.

#lps series #lps #littlest pet shop #rambles #lpstube

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lecpenni · 2 years ago

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LEC RETROSPECTIVE: VITALITY

So yesterday I said I was gonna start posting about the team individually, starting with last place in LEC Summer Regular Split 2023, and that means I'm gonna write first about probably the most chaotic and insane story this year, a team known for their frequent superteams and subsequent collapses.

This is the 1,2,3,4 5th! failed superteam from the french organisation, and considering their track record they really aughta stop trying. After coming into the league, shitting it up with that godawful Hachani roster, having a mildly successful run to worlds in 2018 with Kikis and early Attila, and then blowing up every last successful aspect of their roster in 2020 with the Saken rosters, they've since decided that they're going full money, no thoughts and built a roster of hopefully, high quality.

Winter began with a roster of Photon, a former T1 Challenger player who was probably the 3rd or 4th most exciting prospetive toplaner in LCKCL, Bo, the maligned prodigy booted from his home region for matchfixing allegations, who spent 2022 absolutely running EUW and making montages of the top level LEC players, Perkz, a western GOAT, one of the most storied players in our fair region and fresh coming back from his NA journey, looking (honestly) worse than ever.

Now, this topside was fairly exciting. Perkz was historically known mostly as a carry player on mechanical assassins, like Leblanc, but in his recent years, he was yet to show any real promise in game. Out of game, he's a renowned leader and able to get along with anyone. Bo was a prodigy jungler, undefeated in 2021 until the matchfixing allegations came out and arguably doomed the FPX roster, while Photon was a bit of an unknown quanitity. As a CL player, Thanatos was MUCH MUCH better, and others like DnDn are in LCK now and doing well for themselves, but Photon was on T1 Challengers, which has produced some of the best new talent in the LCK and LCS, with Berserker going to NA, Trigger doing well in LFL, and others like Mireu doing well on R7 in the LLA. So you can't exactly discount his potential. Now the botlane? They went from Carzzy and Labrov the year before, with Carzzy looking bottom 3 at best and Labrov being a coinflip on his performances, to a power duo of Neon and Kaiser. Now, as a certified Misfits Fan until their departure, I am always hyped to see former bunnies doing well. Kaiser? Less so. I don't enjoy his play and I think he's either been massively overrated in his time in LEC or performing to a basic average level of what an LEC support should be. So I wasn't exactly excited after Kaiser spent 2021 clinging to Carzzy's legs dragging him back to elo hell, and 2022 ensuring UNFORG1VEN couldn't have too good a time. But, you know, it can always get better. And honestly, who better to bring this roster together than the former Misfits coaching staff? A very strong, proven coaching staff that managed to take a team of middle of the pack players and almost propel them to worlds on unique and interesting strategies, and VTO. Well, Winter began and Bo ended up kinda performing to the level expected. Photon did pretty damn well, and Perkz didn't look bad either. And despite a lot of what people now say, Neon actually didn't do too badly on uncomfortable picks, while kaiser utterly SPRINTED some laning phases and oft abandoned the botlane to push their topside ahead. Not the worst, but on picks like Caitlyn? Yeah not advisable. Neon also showed that he still had it in him with some amazing lategame carry performances on Varus and Zeri, but both of those were so broken at the start of this year that it's maybe easy to discount his performances. The topside certainly had a time. Photon was performing pretty damn well most of the time, usually on Gnar, Gwen or an AP Gragas or two. He ended up being recognised as the best or at least one of the best junglers in the league. Bo was mostly resigned to Maokai, Vi and a very early Graves carry game, and usually went down in kills but, overall, not the worst. Perkz? Yeah not too bad either. An overall mixed bag that had some good azir games, some int tristana games, and a questionable leblanc and taliyah at the end. But the overall cohesion of the team was sometimes called into question. Which, considering this was essentially one of the first LPL players to be brought into the LEC, and an unproven LCK player who had to learn english as well, AND deal with (what I presume was the reason for the vitality collapses before) a general manager who does something. I don't know, but to foreshadow, it's absolutely something to do with management that this team ends up THIS bad, and that most people who move on from Vitality end up so much better off.

Vitality ended the regular season with a 7-2 record, placing them in first place, with losses to a surprisingly strong underdog in SK Gaming, with Irrelevant stomping an Ornn Photon in the toplane and successfully transferring that lead throughout the map, and to KOI, the former Rogue, with a dominant Azir from Larssen, and a double ADC botlane stomping the Zeri-Yuumi of Vitality. But, this was ok, since they tied first alongside MAD Lions, holding the head to head, so taking the lead and their first ever 1st place regular season in LEC. Congrats Vitality! Now just carry that through to the all-new Group Stage! ...This is where this overview is gonna take a bit of a depressing turn. Winter Group Stage is where a lot of Vitality's problems begin. They begin by picking Heretics to go up against. And that's completely understandable. Heretics had the disaster lanes of Evi and Ruby, a fairly weak botlane of Jackspectra and Mersa (sadly) and I'd argue The Western GOAT, Jankos, having a hell of a season with 3 training weights. Unfortunatly, Vitality drop a game to Heretics. Now, not the end of the world, but this game hard exposed some things. Target and overwhelm the botlane, Neon and Kaiser can collapse, and Bo will usually try to salvage bot rather than focus topside. Photon can be beat by forcing him onto tanks, and don't give Bo something he can carry on. An embarassing Cait/Lux lane in game 2, a kindred carry in game 3 from Bo, plus a weak series from Photon showed that the "god" can bleed. But ultimately, Vitality did win. Dropping a game does mean nothing, at the end of the day. You don't lose points or anything for that. And then the KOI series happened. KOI vs Vitality's Bo3 was a disasterclass. A clean 2-0 from Malrang's Xin Zhao, an utter failure of a Nidalee/Yone comp, and speaking of Comp, why did people give him Zeri? He's the pentakill guy now he gets pentakills, cmon. KOI cap off the series by annihilating Vitality, and qualifying for the playoffs. Not the end of the world. Vitality have one more chance, vs... SK GAMING The guys who beat them in regular season, the surging rookies looking promising and incredibly exciting going towards the playoffs. They lost a series too right? To... Koi... Well. Shit. Vitality proceed to play a 40 minute game with maybe one of the most useless scalers ever, Elise, and Perkz' Shitty Goddamn Sylas, and then get stomped in under 25 minutes by The Sertussy on Ahri, and picking Karthus with no protection or scaling in jungle, vs Draven Vi. Oh God. So that's Winter dead and gone now. Placing 5th overall, after winning the regular season, ain't exactly great. Fingers started being pointed, and at the end of the season, the team went forward with heads held high. So you dropped to 2 surging teams with high ceilings? What could go wrong next season?

Well... How about dropping your perfectly fine botlaner? Here's a twitter link for an announcement video that Neon is being benched for Upset! ...What??? A lot of people quickly jumped on board saying that Upset is a better botlaner than Neon, and should be a better fit for vitality's playstyle. He's goddamn Upset, right? The best botlaner EU's ever produced that never won his title? That's what people say. They also like to neglect that fuckin EGO that Upset has. Maybe it's unpopular to say, but some of his comments about being the best to not win a title, or claiming He's too Good to Not Win A Title come off as very egotistic to say the least. But other than that, Vitality remained the same going into Spring. G2 won the split, MAD came 2nd overall, and Vitality have a bright future ahead of them! How can they NOT win the regular seaso- 6-3 they went 6-3. Which is still impressive! But the losses were to goddamn ASStralis (who also went 6-3 and looked a whole lot better without dajor but That's for tomorrow), G2 who just came off from winning a split, and BDS, who were really coming into their form in this meta. Not the worst, but some performances were… sketchy to say the least. Bo didn't look as good, Perkz was faltering in some matchups, Kaiser had some real fuckin int plays at times, and Upset did sometimes play for pure KDA. Photon still looked pretty damn good, playing carries more, and a game or two of malphite who just looked useless at times, but whatever. His Gwen looked good, he had a scary Jayce, a couple of Camilles and a Darius, for a bit of variety! There's not as much to say other than the whole team... well... they looked tired. There was less laughing, less jokes, people seemed frustrated, and overall the atmosphere seemed slightly worse. Speaking as someone completely outside of that sphere, that's what I saw. Which could be completely wrong, but eh. Some things you do have to infer. Their losses often looked much worse than in winter, as well. Bo usually got the bad end of the stick in their losses, looking completely exposed as a fairly bad jungler, which wasn't always fair. Sometimes it was just a passive less explosive botlane which led to slower or longer games which no-one in vitality really wanted to kick start. Even in some wins, Perkz or Photon got hard exposed, while Kaiser kinda shit the bed or messed up engages in lane, leading to Upset usually just playing under turrets and begging for help from Bo. But you can whinge all you want, they still came out with a positive record, and a 4th place position, meaning they get to avoid the top 3 of Astralis, BDS and G2. And they made the best use of it! Groups started out with a very clean 2-0 over MAD Lions, owing to some stellar Zeri Gaming from Upset, then Ahri from Perkz dominating MAD's scaling comps that shit the bed colossaly from Carzzy and Hyli playing Lucian/Nami very poorly all game both times. Not much else to say, but they managed to repeat the effort vs a defeated and downtrodded Astralis, where 113 put on a disasterclass of being punished in jungle. That one series showed the Bo We Were Promised, and uhhh.... it never came back. Seriously. That was the last good performance by vitality, for basically the rest of the year (spoiler). They qualify to playoffs and something flicks in their heads, and they look hollow, like absolute shells of humanity.

First series vs BDS has a kill-less game for Vitality, one of the worst Annie performances for a long time, and an absolute schlacking in the jungle for Bo, on a 1/9 sejuani. There's nothing else to say than it was an absolute wipe, and Vitality get dropped to the lower bracket vs a loser's bracket MAD Lions who infamously were 1 nexus strike away from being dropped to 9th and missing groups, let alone playoffs. And Vitality get a win off the back of a good tristana performance from Perkz, and get roundly whipped into shape by Nisqy and Elyoya, who look world class again if only briefly. An absolute disaster in the botlane for games 1, 3 and 4, Chasy proving that he was the better korean top all along, alongside some really damn good carzzy performancse led to Vitality absolutely losing everything. And that's spring split done. Vitality completely figured out, losing to the top 2 teams one after another, and missing out on MSI. But the team not only made it to playoffs convincingly, but put on some good performances before then! Surely nothing will go wrong going forward? Right? Summer. If any Vitality fans do truly exist, they will shun this season with hatred and fear. And going in, it didn't look much different to Spring, if anything people were more hopeful. Upset was apparently signed hastily after playoffs, meaning a general lack of time to sync up as a team and get on the same page, as well as less scrim time. Well this time, there's a whole ass international tournament in between, hosted near Berlin and a large number of huge players are gonna be in the EU, on soloq and ready to scrim. Week 1 starts in an... unfortunate manner. A quick loss to a humbled and utterly whipped MAD Lions after the infamous 1647 incident, with Bo getting utterly demolished and, of note, a very very distinct lack of harmony. Bo would often start objectives and go entirely MIA during the objective, basically just leashing for the enemy while leaving his lanes in a horrid state, and going for objectives basically against the wishes of the laners. Kaiser looked lost, Upset lost almost every lane, Perkz often got pushed in and left to fend solo vs ganks, and Photon got way too over eager and similarly lost lane, and threw games off of it. Week 1 finishes with a middling win over a slumped SK with some truly disastrous jungle and support performances, and another loss to an up and coming Heretics with Vetheo. Week 2 was worse. A 0-3 week, losing to G2 with another jungle disasterclass, losing to Astralis who outscrapped Vitality to death, and Fnatic who utterly shitstomped Bo with a pocket Amumu. You might notice a recurring pattern of Bo being the most focused and often lost person on this roster. Management thought so too, so they brought up their 17 year old LFL jungler Daglas, who was just ok. A carry focused player who often took risky fights against most conventional wisdom. AKA A mini Bo. Oh God. Week 3 started Daglas' LEC journey, in an absolute snoozer vs Koi where Photon was the only human logged on and Daglas got put on Maokai duty, where they lost, and then on Day 2, they needed the win. Desperately. Without this win, they're eliminated from groups, and it's vs a slumping BDS. This game was fought with blood, sweat, tears, and teeth. A constant back and forth between 2 teams fighting for last chances in the season, and it all comes down to one teamfight. I implore you, if you haven't to watch the final few minutes of this game. It is utterly heartbreakingly close. And BDS just sweep one fight and walk in a wave to end the game. That's it. That's Vitality's season, basically. One more game vs Excel looks just as lifeless as ever, and they're gone. Vitality's out, the superteam has failed again. Well, they can qualify for season finals on a technicality but it's so slim that I doubt they will. Not that I, or any other viewer would want to. They look utterly hopeless and depressed, and I cannot wait to see how badly this ends.

Vitality's season was one of tragedy. Few teams shoot for the stars so often, and fall so hard and so short of their expectations. Let's see if they do it again next year, shall we?

#lol esports #lec #vitality #photon #bo #vit perkz #league of legends #esports

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black-arcana · 9 months ago

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EPICA's Next Album Will Be Band's 'Most Epic' Release So Far

In a recent interview with Spain's Mariskal Rock, EPICA singer Simone Simons spoke about the progress of the recording sessions for the follow-up to 2021's "Omega" album. She said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "I think that there should be a single by the end of the summer-ish. That's that's our plan. And the album should be released [in] 2025.

"I just wrote with Mark [Jansen, guitar] and Rob [Van Der Loo, bass] also yesterday that I'm so happy with the songs, I'm so proud how everything turned out and it's gonna be another amazing EPICA album.

"We added a couple of new elements, but also went back to the roots, the old EPICA," she continued. "And yeah, I just can't wait for people to hear this.

"I loved 'Omega' and we toured so much with 'Omega' and had wonderful experiences, but then when you reach the end of a touring cycle, you start to get itchy and feel, 'Okay, now it's time to do the new album. Can we do it as good or maybe even better than the last album?' That's always the thing we strive for, ways to renew ourselves a little bit. And we feel a very strong spiritual connection also that it's our ninth album. So there's gonna be themes around the symbolic meaning of nine, the number nine."

Elaborating on the musical direction of EPICA's next album, Simone said: "The songs are heavy. There's a beautiful ballad, a very cinematic song, very uptempo, very doomy, melancholic and amazing, amazing power riffs. It's the most epic EPICA, I think, so far. Yeah, I think so. I mean, I'm feeling it. I'm very happy with it. I'm proud of it. And they are going to start recording the orchestra now next week. They're flying to Prague; that's where we record the orchestra. And I will be recording my final vocals as well."

In November 2022, EPICA released "The Alchemy Project" through Atomic Fire Records. The EP was co-written and performed with diverse guests ranging from extremists like FLESHGOD APOCALYPSE, Niilo Sevänen (INSOMNIUM) and Björn "Speed" Strid (SOILWORK) along with melodic masters like Tommy Karevik (KAMELOT),keyboard legend Phil Lanzon (URIAH HEEP) and Roel Van Helden (POWERWOLF) to a once-in-a-lifetime song with Simons, Charlotte Wessels and Myrkur.

Just one day after the release of its anniversary reissues "We Still Take You With Us" and "Live At Paradiso", EPICA celebrated 20 years of existence live in September 2022 at 013 in Tilburg, Netherlands, the same place where they played their first show (supporting ANATHEMA) back in 2002.

EPICA was formed by Jansen after leaving AFTER FOREVER in 2002, and the band quickly gained attention outside their home country, taking big steps towards becoming the leading symphonic metal superpower they have long proven to be. After their ambitious debut "The Phantom Agony" (2002) and the surprisingly eclectic sophomore work "Consign To Oblivion" (2005),the road took them to new heights via their first concept masterpiece "The Divine Conspiracy" (2007) and their global breakthrough "Design Your Universe" (2009). 2012's opus "Requiem For The Indifferent", 2014's bedazzling "The Quantum Enigma" and "The Holographic Principle" (2016),cemented their reputation as not only one of the hardest-working metal bands in the business but also as one of the best. With "Omega", the final part of the metaphysical trilogy they began with "The Quantum Enigma", they reclaimed the throne without so much as the blink of an eye, amassing three million-plus streams during the first week of the album's release.

Photo credit: Tim Tronckoe

youtube

#simone simons #epica #interview #Youtube

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halloflegendsrp · 13 days ago

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— “𝐇𝐎𝐖 𝐃𝐎 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐊𝐈𝐋𝐋 𝐀 𝐋𝐄𝐆𝐄𝐍𝐃?”

Simply put; you can't. Not in the same way you would kill a mortal. As long as their stories are being told, they thrive in fantastic realms beyond the world as we know it. Countless stories have inevitably been lost to time, fading into obscurity with the downfall of empires and kingdoms. Some stories have stood the test of time better than others. Nothing lasts forever, right? Well, what if some legends disappeared long before they were meant to? One by one, people have begun to disappear. Books, paintings, mortal memories, all vanishing without a trace, as if they never existed at all - people whose names were still well remembered even yesterday. The only record they ever existed at all is their memory, which is rapidly starting to fade from even the other myths. Something is wrong, and the gods have tied the realms together in hopes they could find the problem and fix it. Or, perhaps, they're too late?

Hi, hi!! We're a text-based semi-literate+ roleplay server! 16+, high fantasy (not modern!) with mystery elements, as well as a liiiittle bit of occasional existential horror.

We do not center around one specific pantheon, so you’re welcome to play whoever you’d like, from a god, to a character you love from classic myths, to your OCs. We have plenty of roleplay channels for you to choose from, and of course, we are always open to suggestions for those and the server as a whole.

We also have some more server info, in case you wanna check it out :)

We can’t wait to see what you come up with!! ⁠♡

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the-firebird69 · 22 days ago

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There's a couple other things this deportation was done and it is Trump and now he's saying that the guy would stay deported and is blocking people allowing him in to set a precedent all this weird stuff comes out of him it's really himself so they are going to hold it and going around and grab him when he looks close to the character it's kind of an idiot and that's what they're doing

--in other news this place smells much better the salt is coming in still and you'll come in until probably it'll be effective until 4:00 p.m. and start to recede and it might rain a little and no it's going to stink again wasn't so bad yesterday but now he can breathe the air he says in his oxygen which is great is slowing down and he's taking time to do things around the house and straightening out things and he got his 770 check the other check as far as we know is on the way it was sent back because of the forwarding mail didn't take place yet and that was a while ago and other stuff like that is going on with him regarding funding so he doesn't just sit in one place people don't like it even the people here are saying rats this sucks even his bicycle that's disabled so we're watching and seeing it happen. So we are going to announce fairly shortly that social security is going to issue some funding and that could be Brad he noticed that our son is not really that upset and says my bones are very tough and the root canal stuff was building up to that it's because the teeth are too close together the diet and the lack of oxygen and my teeth are big and then and I'm not growing and he went research it said all those factors it didn't move the teeth when they got punched and I pretty much said some inflammatory stuff about your Caligula. And everybody was drunk and on drugs and the trumpsters were manipulating it and someone's riding it so he says you got to watch out for it that we do see what you're saying he says he'd rather get in a fight then lose something and he smiles and says okay and it's true so he is thinking about it and says he has to defend himself but doesn't have to hurt us and it's true but he already went through the fire test with the Japanese or Chinese as a Chinese machine hell we could do work around here cash this is so damn annoying and he started smiling to work with me for cash this is he knows about it and doesn't sweat it as the family was doing it and the clams and he says okay and so he's saying I'm going to have to start doing something so he's getting to it he says he might have a corn on your toe on your toe it would be the callus he says it's probably a callus I need money for bigger shoes he's laughing and my toes are really long so he's laughing at that too cuz it happens to them but my feet are wide fairly wide and that doesn't happen they look proportional until you see how tall I am not tall enough so people are laughing about it say his feet are big like he's a Hulk his hands are normal sized and a little bit bigger than theirs and he says Jen has a song a big hands I know you're the one she's laughing it says she does songs too and isn't telling anybody and people are recording her so. And it wouldn't surprise me if she went off for like 15 minutes saying it's like a closet singer anything about golden.

We have a couple things this place is sunny and hot and he's out getting some sun and comments look at the boy getting some sun he's doing it to his tire and then laughing a little and say it stinks he has to get the oil out and they all have to do it and they don't know about it as much as they think it should be pretty good and pretty soon but just wondering if you should run it through the dirt that's another part of it too that's to dry out somehow so he might do that and then do the other side and then walk it through so yeah it's probably a good time to turn it doesn't take that long few hours

--we have other items here to talk about this project out front is mine alteringly slow and they plan on doing all sorts of mistakes they're probably not going to be here hopefully but we say that and then they end up here there are things coming that will change what's happening this is a tough area for a bunch of reasons but we need people to understand it is not an area the fool around him and to threaten and stuff everybody's watching so I put that out there today and it sort of got it a little but they're threatening all morning so we want some changes

--the radiation is going up right now it's at around 5.3 and it will probably increase there have been probably 100,000 deaths since 8:00 a.m. of Mack morlock and 30,000 of pseudo empire which isn't that much for the pseudo empire but the Mac morlock we're at 500,000 now they're at 400,000 trumpsters are at 100,000. This is going to change everything this is going to be horrible we have several other announcements but we're going to print

Olympus

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cavefilllingcorporation · 2 months ago

Text

Vixie's Return Aftermath

This Employee Experience was recorded on 12/16/2024

Carl and the Centurion were chatting in the lobby when Chaplain entered the room. Upon noticing him, Carl greeted him.

"Welcome! Thanks for your assistance yesterday. I wasn't there myself but... is your Commander that... temperamental all the time?"

“A bit, perhaps, but to be fair Vismark did laugh in his face and devoid of any context, it’s easy to interpret that as an insult. Lately he, and I suppose all the ODST been under a lot of stress. Having to restructure the chain of command, multiple people KIA within a short time frame, and an old antagonist has come back around to harass and attack again.”

Stress… from what he understood, that was the entire reason the laughter happened in the first place. Oh well, nothing that can be done about it now.

"Fair enough. To be fair, we've had our own set of issues, but none of that matters now. Vixie is safe and sound, and we're ready to start trading again."

“Yes, I think we're all glad that went off without a hitch. Even better that he was cooperative from the start and didn't try to press questions before handing her over. I was concerned I might have to more actively intervene than I already did.”

"Yeah, that is good. Do you think the explanations he gave the Commander enough to satisfy him for now?"

“I do, yes. I have to admit that "Inferno Project" isn't really a fitting name for giving away furniture and children's toys. A bit ominous. I don't know if someone was trying to be clever when they named it, or if that was just an outright lie. If it is a lie, needs to be a more believable one.”

"I think it was named because the products were part of a 'My Little Inferno Entertainment Fireplace' or something stupid. I've read some of the reports our reviewing team have made on those items, and... it’s kinda disturbing what's in there. That company is crazy. Still, it’s mostly civilian products for the most part."

The Centurion then corrected Carl.

"I do believe there was a product known as a 'Mini Nuke'."

Carl then responded, as he was surprised.

"Oh... I guess not everything in there was civilian?"

"It was part of the children's toys catalog."

"WHAT?!?! That other company was selling nukes to kids?!?"

"Sorry, Recalled children's toys catalog."

"If it’s in a catalog, it doesn't make it any better!"

Chaplain then added his own commentary to the shocking discovery.

“I see. Probably good that they're no longer operating then. Still, neither here nor there. He believes it, and there's no issues. Centurion and I both saw first-hand that the Hell Commander and Vismark were able to smooth things over and have a calm discussion that ended with them shaking hands and parting on good terms, a massive improvement over last time and despite the outburst where he cracked his chest plate earlier in the meeting.”

"Oh, I think they are still in business, just not selling Fireplace systems anymore. I think...” Carl said. He didn’t know what the company had planned, but he knew it wouldn’t be great. Oh well, not his problem.

“Anyways, it is a good thing that's over and things have been settled. So, I presume you are interested in payment and whatnot?"

“Yes, and additionally I would like to meet with a cyberdoc while I have the time.”

"Of course. Let me get your something first."

Carl then handed Chaplain a device that looked a lot like a flip phone, though it was incredibly more advanced.

"This is your CFC communicator. It allows you to get updates, check the database, and overall is your #1 tool inside the CFC. Don't lose it. It also contains several apps, including one for checking your balance. Why don't you check it out?"

“Ah good,” Chaplain said, as he started to familiarize himself with the device.

“Safe to assume that I would also use this to pay for services within CFC Territory?”

"That and see some prices and whatnot. You can also transfer the money into Super Credits as well, though you can't transfer Super Credits into Company credits. You can also check you balance app to see the money that has already been paid into your account."

Chaplain then looked at the device, and while Carl couldn’t see it, he was most assuredly checking his balance app. He then gave a small gesture of being surprised, before asking Carl:

“Paid extra on the first job?”

Of course, he thought that the standard pay was high-balling it. From what he understood, most Contractors, and even most employees, made that mistake the first time they ended up with a paycheck.

"Oh no, that's standard pay for something like this. The Cave Filling Corporation pays well, there's nothing else to say about that."

"’Pays well’ indeed. I'll certainly be up for more work, knowing my efforts are appreciated in this way.”

"Yes. Actually, once we get around to reopening the RD-4 mines, we'll need someone to go ahead and help scout the area, and guard it for a bit until we're sure that the planet is safe again."

“When is that expected to happen?”

"Sometime this week. I'm not sure."

At least that was the plan. Carl had no idea that the mines would remain closed for weeks, though he had no idea that the Crate Catalogue project would overshadow the mines either, nor did he expect that the Illuminate would raid RD-4, cementing the company’s fears of reopening the mines with the Illuminate around.

“Hmm. Well, do let me know when you have more information about that. I'll see if I'm available.” Chaplain said. “Aside from the payment, I do still need to connect with a cyberdoc.”

"Right. Well, we can't have an appointment immediately, but you can find a cyberdoctor in the medical app as well, and register for an appointment tomorrow. If that's alright with you."

“All the easier, then. No need to involve more people than necessary with it. Anything else we need to debrief on from the delivery?”

"Not really."

“Anything you and I need to go over, Centurion?”

The Centurion responded: "For now, all is well. It would be best to inform you of the circumstances as they arrive."

“Agreed. Well, if there's nothing else either of you need from me, I'll see about arranging with a good cyberdoc. Please inform me when more information is known about that other job.”

"We will.” Carl said. “Just check the medical app and you can go ahead and select the cyberdoctor you want to have. Just make sure that you are in the worker selection, and not the Legion selection. Not that the system should allow you to do it anyways, but I have to say that just in case."

“Noted. Well, good speaking to you both. I'll leave you to it, you know how to reach me.”

"We will"

With a curt nod, Chaplain then left in his custom gunship to head back to the ODST base. All was well in the company, and little did the pair know that they had just started the chain that would be a big moment for the company…

{Atlas "Chaplain" RPed by Lore_Chaplain}

#evil fiction corporation #fiction #short story #short fiction #helldivers #chaosdivers #roleplay

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etes-secrecy-post · 5 months ago

Text

Hi, before I explain my post, I want to say something important.

• What you see my blog has become a major overhaul. And despite the changes, I decided that my 2nd account will be now my artwork blog with a secret twist.

⚠️NEW RULE! (W/ BIGGER TEXT!)⚠️

⚠️ SO PLEASE DO NOT SHARE MY 2nd ACCOUNT TO EVERYONE! THIS SECRECY BLOG OF MINE IS FOR CLOSES FRIENDS ONLY!⚠️

• AND FOR MY CLOSES FRIENDS, DON’T REBLOG IT. INSTEAD, JUST COPY MY LINK AND PASTE IT ON YOUR TUMBLR POST! JUST BE SURE THE IMAGE WILL BE REMOVED AND THE ONLY LEFT WAS THE TEXT.

⚠️ SHARING LINKS, LIKE POSTS, REBLOG POSTS, STEALING MY SNAPSHOT PHOTOS/RECORDED VIDEOS/ARTWORKS (a.k.a. ART THIEVES) OR PLAGIARIZING FROM UNKNOWN TUMBLR STRANGERS WILL IMMEDIATELY BE BLOCKED, RIGHT AWAY!⚠️

😡 WHATEVER YOU DO, DO NOT EVER LIKED & REBLOG MY SECRET POST! THIS IS FOR MY SECRET FRIENDS ONLY, NOT YOU! 😡

Okay? Capiche? Make sense? Good, now back to the post…↓

My Wangan Maxi Tune Career Returns 2024 Edition [Quantum Arcade, SM City Grand Central] - Part 9 (Recorded: Jul 28th, 2024)

Hey, hey! It’s me! 😁 And welcome back for another installment of "My Wangan Maxi Tune Career"! I returned in 2022, and now I'm continue it, this 2024. Yes, it's been a while. I haven't shared my WMMT's play progress in this current year, with the last record I posted was on May 31st, 2023 (Pls, go check it out in the "previous" section) before it went into troubles. And by that, I'm talking about my PC desktop problem. *sigh* 😫😔 Nevertheless, I have now SO MANY photos and screenshots that need to be uploaded on my current social media sites right away before I move on to my current update.

Once again, If you haven't seen my "Part 8", then please check out my "previous" down below (w/ highlights).

BTW: Once again, no #OnThisDay throwback post for this date. One of my reason(s)? My country is celebrating 'Bonifacio Day' [CLICK ME!] 🇵🇭🗓️, which I used to draw annually.

So, without further ado, let's continue with my "Part 9":

IMPORTANT NOTE: Hello, I just want you to know that I'm a bit happy. Yeah, you hear me 'I'm a bit happy' from yesterday. Yet, I'm still in slow recovery from my 'Major Depression'. So, that doesn't mean that I'm thrilled mood. <=] As for the so-called ✌' Yesterday'✌, it was on November 29th (,2024), and I'll get to that very soon once I've done my previous Wangan Maxi update from my past month(s). Okay? Now, back to my current part. 👇

So, before tackling my Wangan Maxi journey, I want to say something... I made a mistake when my hated cousin invited me to a special (and important) movie... But, why did I say "hated cousin" to him? Well, that's because I'm depressed... 😟😔 And believe it or not, this is the day that my depression starts. I blamed my cousin for disinterest in my interests/hobbies before I blamed that 'Alex' person from my trusted friends. 😡 He betrayed me and didn't care about my racing arcade game that I tried to share... *Sigh* unbelievable. 😞 Okay, get it together now, dude... And let's get this over with.

1st & 2nd Image(s) 📷📲 ↑:

• So, here's me once again playing Wangan Maxi Tune at the different arcade branch. I'm now surrounded by 'Pro Wangan Maxi Tune' players that were way better than I am, or everyone else. I'm okay with that, to be honest. But before I sit in behind the wheel, a random pick from the "Terminal Scratch-Off" and I've got the 'Fire' marker sending it to my unused IMPREZA GRB Car. 😊🟦🇯🇵🚗 And now, onto driving action with my blue 350Z car! 🟦🇯🇵🚗

ANOTHER IMPORTANT NOTE: Both Spot & Riya 🐰🏎️ were finally home, and they're now resting. 🛌😴

Mixed photo(s) - 1st to 11th Screenshots & 3rd & 4th Image(s) 📷/🖼️📲↑:

• As much as I loved continuing my 'Story Mode' for unlocking Maxi Tune OSTs 📖🚘🔓💿🎶, instead I decided to go to 'Online Ghost Battle' for the 'Bingo Challenge'. You know, choosing a rival car (with the same level) with a random number, and beating out to get a special item parts/titles? Yeah, that's the system for Wangan Maxi Tune's 'Bingo Challenge' 🎰👻🚗.

• So, how did I go? Well, sadly not my best day. 😥 To be honest, I don't blamed on my depression, rather the steering wheel's motor vibration is absent making me difficult. Plus, the position of the steering wheel is incorrect, and it didn't straight; it always kept right at the start of the race. 😕 Overall, I didn't get the three item prize from the 'Bingo Challenge', and its very disappointing. 😣😔 Well, at least I have won when I picked the 'Wangan Line Westbound', which is the easiest thing to pass the 'Bingo Challenge'. As for earning trophies, its decent to say the least. 🏆

5th to 12th Image(s) 📷📲 ↑:

• Another positive side is I've unlocked new items that I'm interest. You know, that reminds me, did you know that I always loved that particular rims from Yokohama? 🙂 For those who don't know, by the way, 'Yokohama' is a Japanese brand who sells their famous Rims and Tires for all source of vehicles around the world, since 1917. 🇯🇵🛞 This is the 'Super ADVAN Racing Ver. 2', my favorite rim in the Wangan Maxi Tune series, so far. 🔧✔️ And in case you wandering, this rim is 100% real. Although, unlike in the arcade game, the price for this particular rim wasn't cheap but expensive. 💵 Meanwhile, other parts that I've unlocked were 'FRP Bonnet C', which was equipped 🔧✔️, another rim wheel this time it was from 'Work Wheels' (Work Wheels Zeast ST3) [another good Japanese wheel brand 🇯🇵🛞], and a 'GT Wing B' spoiler. These two parts, I didn't interest to equip my blue 350Z car... So, I'm okay with my two new ones. 😉

Mixed photo(s) - 12th & 13th Screenshots & 13th Image 📷/🖼️📲 ↑:

• With the last five tokens to spare, I'm about to lose another round of 'Online Ghost Battle'. So, I ditched out from the ghost battle and onto PVP battle against one pro and a casual player, with the pro player chooses 'Nagoya Speed Ring'. Unfortunately, as I said 'Pro Wangan Maxi Players' are far better experienced than I am, and this 'PAVL' on the RX-7 FD is no exception. I've fought and try as I can, and I ended up 2nd place 🥈 with one star I've earned ⭐. At least, I wouldn't be worry about the casual player.

1st & 2nd Phone Screenshots 🖼️📲 ↑:

• Now, that I'm done playing for the day, I proceed to Nav-Scratch Off from my Wangan Navigator app. And here are my item's I've claimed, so far. Not bad, not bad 👍. Although, I'm always stick with my current stamp from years ago. ☺ As for the title, 'Sunbeam', I bet DogDay 🐶☀️ (from the 'Smiling Critters') earned that rad title! lol 😅 (Just saying)

Overall:

• How could I put this? 🤔 Quite disappointing 😒 because similar to the Gateway Cinema branch that I've visited months ago [CLICK ME! #1] [CLICK ME #2], the steering wheel in this particular Arcade Branch [Quantum Arcade] could use a huge repair because some Wangan Maxi players like myself could struggle with our driving progress (whether playing 'Story Mode', 'PVP', 'Time Attack', or 'Online Ghost Battle'). Damn, the Arcade Branch was almost perfect to me to visit... ALMOST, if not that darn steering wheel from this particular cabinet. And I'm not sure about the other three cabinets, with similar problems. 🙄 I EXPECT to see them fixed by the junior technician. 👷🔧⚙️ And if these arcade cabinets from Quantum Arcade DID NOT FIXED, I mind as well going another arcade branch, elsewhere. 🙄😒

Well, that’s all for now. More Wangan Maxi experience, coming up soon.

If you haven’t seen my 2019 Wangan Maxi Tune 6 & Wangan Navigator app (on the alternate blog), then I’ll provide some links down below. ↓😉

My Wangan Maxi Tune 6 Experience:

My WMMT6 Progress (2019): Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 , Part 4 , Part 5, Part 6 , Part 7, Part 7½, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14 [Final] (The Last WMMT6 Update)

My Wangan Navigator app (2019): Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14 [Final]

My WMMT6RR Progress (2022 - present): Part 1 [Nov 19th, 2022], Part 2 [Nov 19th, 2022], Part 3 [Nov 19th, 2022], Part 4 [Final] [Dec 28th, 2022], Part 5 [first half], Part 5 [second half], Part 5 [third/final half], Part 6 [first half], Part 6 [second half], Part 7 [first half], Part 7 [second half], Part 8

Also check out my previous Maxi Tune installments:

• WMMT5DX - [CLICK ME! #1], [CLICK ME! #2], [CLICK ME! #3], [CLICK ME! #4 (The Last 5DX Update)]

• WMMT5DXPlus (All in chronological date) - [CLICK ME! #1], [CLICK ME! #2], [CLICK ME! #3], [CLICK ME! #4], [CLICK ME! #5], [CLICK ME! #6], [CLICK ME! #7], [CLICK ME! #8], [CLICK ME #9], [CLICK ME! #10], [CLICK ME! #11], [CLICK ME! #12], [CLICK ME! #13], [CLICK ME! #14], [CLICK ME! #15], [CLICK ME! #16], [CLICK ME! #17], [CLICK ME! #18], [CLICK ME! #19], [CLICK ME! #20], [CLICK ME! #21], [CLICK ME! #22], [CLICK ME! #23], [CLICK ME! #24], [CLICK ME! #25], [CLICK ME! #26], [CLICK ME! #27], [CLICK ME! #28], [CLICK ME! #29], [CLICK ME! #30], [CLICK ME! #31], [CLICK ME! #32], [CLICK ME #33], [CLICK ME #34], [CLICK ME #35], [CLICK ME #36], [CLICK ME #37], [CLICK ME #38], [CLICK ME #39], [CLICK ME #40], [CLICK ME #41], [CLICK ME! #42], [CLICK ME! #43], [CLICK ME! #44], [CLICK ME! #45], [CLICK ME! #46], [CLICK ME! #47], [CLICK ME! #48], [CLICK ME! #49], [CLICK ME! #50], [CLICK ME! #51 (The Last 5DX+ Update)]

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hospitalterrorizer · 1 year ago

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diary205

4/7-8/2024

sunday -monday

gotta work early tomorrow..

but it's not too bad. today i read something interesting about political ecology and that is in truth a way of managing people/ideas/meaning so as to keep capital/its methods, a redirection of capital, rather than a negation of it. by this nature, or i suppose, by approaching nature as a system, at least bringing tiqqun in here, the cybernetic models of nature as systems, a multiplicity of systems to either manage and enable, to live 'with' and use, rather than to exploit, to maintain a smooth process of accumulation over what could end. the essay at a point brings up that capital can no longer be understood as the dominion of death over life, but a living domination of life. i am quite taken by this, not as a positive but it i suppose makes us point our gaze towards ends, time, slow down and what could end accumulation. in many ways the essay also brought to mind foucault, when it at points brings up the constant evaluation of all, evaluation of us, us in nature, our cooperation/failure, evaluation of technique and so on, this is very much an extension of the disciplinary.

here it is:

i am quite taken with it overall, i like that there is some attack on current trends within the academy that one may notice, and that these perspective are carried out and enabled by institutions in talks and things, reproduced, evaluated as useful and shown around, guiding ideas/methods. methods is maybe the best word here, the author at a point notes that these experts who guide us now appear first in laboratories, or this is where they discover the possibilities.

anyway, i am tired which is why this is so short.

there is an article preceding this one mentioned in the notes section that i want to read tomorrow, as well as some other things.

anyway, today feels sort of big for the music thing, coming down to the wire more, did another listen thru while waiting for my skin to cool so i could wax my face (hair was too short, got nothing, just tweezed a lot instead (lolllll (like usual (like everyday usual)))), and the record's issues aren't very bad, mostly just on a sound basis what has to change is more present snares i'm noticing, and a bit of a shoring up of the sound, standardizing certain things a touch, you know. so yeah, as far as big changes go, or big efforts that are gonna have to be made, about 4 songs need decently sized vocal parts added, one needs to be redone, one needs parts other than choruses written and recorded, one needs half the song recorded and verses written (choruses done), and one short song needs the back half written. there's 2 songs here that need little pieces added and i have the new lyrics for those parts, and there's one that needs me to do one thing. that is where the vocal stuff is at, pretty good, imo.

currently trying to get thru the first page of master related notes, as in crossing stuff off my checklist, tonight i'll be 8 songs in, tomorrow should be as easy, and then i listen again and check where things are/how they sound.

everything is sounding better now w/ these notes in place. siccck!!

so first 8 songs of 33 looking much better, unfortunately in that 8, 3 still need vocal work, so they're kinda distant from being done, but that is okay... i'll get there.

funny thing about yesterday, going into work dressed how i normally do, they didn't really recognize me immediately.

anyway i am sleepy now, and i have to be at work by 11:15, so

byebye!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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casspurrjoybell-33 · 1 year ago

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Wreakless - Photography Exhibition

*Warning Adult Content*

Emmett Locke

We're having a perfectly nice meal on Thursday evening when I mention the exhibit that's being put on tomorrow. It's been on my mind all week but I'm ready.

The canvases are all dropped off and I can finally look forward to it instead of just being nervous.

Strike that, I'm still nervous but there's some excitement along with it instead of just fear.

There are two other people the class that I'm really excited about seeing their work and even if the exhibit tanks... I have learned a ton.

"Tomorrow?" Finnegan gasps, then pulls his cell-phone from his pocket.

"I thought it was Saturday. What time?"

"Three to six, why?"

What is that look for?

"I can't with you sometimes, Emmett. Why?"

This boy really knows how to scoff.

That is a massive eyeroll.

Looks painful.

Oh.

"You don't have to come or anything, darling."

Again, a look.

Oooh, his nose is into it now, he's squelching it up at me and those eyes are not happy.

What?

"Do you not WANT me to come?"

No, no.

"You're welcome, of course Finnegan but I know you're starting production Monday and I remember what happened last time so I don't want you to worry about it."

"I'm worried because you're telling me this now. If you had mentioned it before I could have scheduled around it. I'm gonna tell Megan this is your fault."

Anything but that... I need Megan on my good side so that I can sneak into his office for fun lunches. Yesterday was really, really nice.

"Finnegan, really, you don't have to come."

"Because? No, no, don't answer that. I'm coming."

"It's just photography, Finnegan."

I know how he feels about it and museums so I don't expect him to be interested.

"Just because we're together doesn't mean you have to do shit you don't enjoy."

He reaches out and grabs my hand.

"I don't care if you're smearing shit on the walls and setting it on fire, Emmett Locke... this is your thing and I will support your thing."

Okay, he's scary now.

"You ever watch dance moms? You're scaring me, darling."

"No, I have no time for foolishness. And for the record... I enjoy your photography quite a bit. Is this about the 'art' comment at the Walters? Look, I apologize and even if I don't think it's art, that doesn't mean I can't appreciate it. I don't think golf is a sport but I have no problem with people playing it, Emmett. You can be really good at something that's not... Okay, bad example but whatever. Ugh, you. What is with you tonight?"

Then he mocks me, faking my voice.

"It's only this hugely important exhibition that I've been wanting to do for years. Why would you, my boyfriend, want to come?"

I'm laughing, I can't help it.

He even pushes fake hair out of his face.

I get up and take our dishes to the sink.

"Oh stop."

"No, you stop. I'm coming no matter what you say."

Now it's his turn to blush.

"That sounded SO dirty."

"Yes it did and I may have to teach you a lesson, darling."

When I turn around he's smiling and walking towards me.

"I love lessons and I'm sure you have some pent up energy with tomorrow and all, don't you?"

"I do. We can't have me going into the exhibition all pent up, as you so eloquently put it. We're gonna hammer some of that out right now."

Finnegan Walker

We have a fault on the line and the circuit boards aren't passing.

I wanted to be out of here ten minutes ago to head over to Emmett's exhibition and instead I'm on the floor talking to my engineers.

They seem to have a solid plan, thankfully.

"Look, tweak it and run it again. I'll be back."

I've never been to this campus but the building they're holding the exhibition in is massive and there are a million cars here.

I'm way overdressed so I lose my jacket and take off my tie.

Better.

Still, better to be overdressed than under although it's getting really hard to be under dressed anymore.

Seriously, the things people wear outdoors shocks me.

I wouldn't wear half of that in front of Marten, much less other people.

I sign in and go through the double doors and am taken aback.

It's fancy and really well done and there's a ton of variety.

I pass by six large photographs of faces but they've been edited so all the colors are strange.

It's hard to describe.

A section of small black and white cityscapes ends abruptly and the next student's photos are all of nudes.

Everything is covered, mostly but I'm struck by how angry all of the subjects look.

I see Emmett's now, he has the large corner at the end of the first path.

"Hi, darling."

He gives me a hug and I know he doesn't mind me being here.

It makes rearranging things today more than worth it.

"Thanks for coming," he whispers into my ear.

The first picture I notice is my car.

Well, my old roadster.

The bumper and headlight is smashed in and there's no doubt that he took this right after the accident.

"You photographed this?" I ask, reaching towards it.

"Don't touch the photographs," a guard yells and I yank my hand back.

"Sorry."

Emmett just puts his hand around my waist to reassure me.

"I did. The before and after. That's the theme of my collection," he tells me.

I spend a few minutes looking at all of them and though I recognize two, the rest are all new to me.

"These are really good, Emmett. Not that I'd know but..."

"Thank you. I actually talked to a guy, he wants to buy the rights to the beach one. They supply hotels and doctor's offices, stuff like that."

He's smiling and sounds really proud of himself.

I don't know exactly what that entails but...

"Congratulations, Emmett."

I'll get my lawyers to look over whatever they send him.

"Thanks. He's talking a ridiculous amount of money for a photo. Maybe I can go down to part time at the garage and have more time to take care of you and do some photography."

"More time for photography definitely sounds good to me and I'm not gonna argue with the other part either, Emmett. I'm behind you one hundred percent, do whatever makes you happy."

My cell-phone chirps and I have to check it.

Looks like we're up and running.

"Crap, it's work. I really need to go back soon. I'm sorry."

"Don't be, I didn't expect you at all, really."

I've circled back and I'm staring at the wreck that started it all.

"At the exhibit or in your life, Emmett?"

"Both but I'm really glad you're here. Who knew that you turning on red would be such a good thing for me?"

"It was yellow," I hiss

"But you're right, it was definitely worth it... air bag trauma and all."

Someone important is trying to get his attention and I step back.

"I'm going to go. I'll take you out to dinner to celebrate."

"That sounds good...and darling?"

"Yes?"

I love when he calls me that.

I love that he does it in public.

I love that he loves every single part of me.

I'm a lucky, lucky man.

"Drive safe."

I always do.

**** THE END ****

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