#and based on the subject matter

[cellarspider]

8/?? Seek and Destroy

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We return to the movie that I wish to spin in a centrifuge until it separates into layers of its constituent parts, Prometheus.

Content warning for desecration of a dead body, continuing bumblefuck destruction of alien artifacts, and David being the adversarial two year old that he literally is.

Before we begin: Have you turned off Tumblr’s latest “feature”, which opens your account up to AI data harvesting? If not: do it! Log in from a web browser (the app doesn’t have this checkbox yet), go to “Blog Settings”, scroll down to “Visibility”, and turn on “Prevent third-party sharing for [BLOG NAME]”. Do this for each blog you have. Do it. Do it now. Tell your friends, it’s the hot new thing. Run free into the wilderness. This message will repeat whenever I feel like it.

Anyway, on with the show.

David is the most prepared crew member. While nobody else seems to have a single clue between their ears and most of the crew wasn’t even briefed prior to setting out, David has been studying for the past two years, treating language as a puzzle. He’s going to take what he learned and apply it to anything he finds in the alien complex.

And he will apply it whenever the mood takes him, because he is, again, two years old. That was the sense I got in the theater–he finds things he can mess with, and does so without hesitation or consultation with the humans. And while my instincts were still screaming that they shouldn’t even have landed yet, his behavior was the only one that made sense. He has been taught that he is only wanted when he’s useful. He has not been taught to keep his hands to himself. He figures the place out faster than the humans, and he seems pleased with himself for doing so. Therefore, he’s going to do so as much as possible.

As a result, we watch the cast act like screeching gibbons over a hologram. David had begun prodding at marks on the wall that look suspiciously like cuneiform (I’ll rant about it later), and he turned on a hologram projector. Simian crew noises ensue.

Those in the audience who are in the know are also expected to begin screeching excitedly at this point. The hallways they’re in are already taking on H. R. Giger’s signature biomechanical style. These holograms are showing us eight foot tall beings similar to his Space Jockey design.

The Space Jockey, named as such by the Alien production team, was one of those mysterious things about the original movie. Fused to what might have been the helm of the ship, seemingly alone with a hold full of carefully-arranged xenomorph eggs, and long-dead from a chestburster that had infected it. It set a warning signal before its death, misinterpreted by the crew of the Nostromo.

The movie never explained what the Space Jockey had been doing. Was this a cargo ship? A weapon? Was xenomorph reproduction somehow linked to the Space Jockey lifestyle? Their religion? Absolutely no information was given, and thus depictions of the Space Jockeys in subsequent media were split on whether they were benevolent, malevolent, entirely indifferent toward others, or simply too alien to be understood.

Physically, it was a complicated design for Alien’s crew to pull off, even as a corpse. The studio didn’t want to budget for it, and Giger ended up putting in a lot of extra work to help finish the statue. To make it seem even bigger than it was, the children of Ridley Scott and cinematographer Derek Vanlint were put into miniature space suits to give a sense of titanic scale to the creature, three times their height.

Scott made the logistical decision in Prometheus to scale these beings down significantly, purely for the difficulty in setting up shots and creating more sets scaled to this thing. It’s understandable, but I know some people are disappointed by it. As are others by the obvious implication you first get in this scene: the Space Jockey’s truly bizarre appearance is simply some sort of suit, worn by the far more humanoid aliens already seen in Prometheus’ opening.

Normally, I might be among those disappointed by that. I love monsters dearly, if my blog doesn’t give that away already. But there is a minimum threshold for inhuman features that the Engineers still meet for me. Something about the eyes and the uncanny look of their skin, both of which were deliberate choices by Ridley Scott and Neal Scanlan, the film’s creature designer who started with the Henson Company on movies like The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth, and has worked on the new Star Warses, including the absolutely fantastic Andor. Even in behind-the-scenes shots, they manage to look just odd enough to be pleasing to me.

(https://www.deviantart.com/pretty--kittie/art/Prometheus-Engineer-407324586)

I respect the design work that went into it and I like the final result, though I am very sympathetic to those who felt that this was an unnecessary explanation for a creature that was a more powerful symbol when it had no explanation.

Talking about such things is my happy place, and unfortunately we have to go back to The Bad Place now. The characters.

They find an alien corpse decapitated by a door (the great goddess O’Sha is most displeased), and within two minutes they’re sticking a meat thermometer in it.

Fifield the geologist has a panic attack, which is pretty relatable.

“Look, I'm just a geologist. I like rocks. I love! rocks!

Now it's clear you two don't give a shit about rocks.”

He’s right and he should say it. They should still be orbiting the planet looking for artificial structures, and Fifield should be having fun doing an aeromagnetic survey or something.

But no. Meat thermometer. Sorry, “carbon reader”. Says the body’s been dead about two thousand years. They have just punched a hole in the first alien body they’ve ever found, to get precisely one data point. This is what is called a “destructive analysis.”

Destructive analysis is a technical term, so let me define it: You know how a team just read the text inside of a charcoalized lump that used to be a Roman scroll? How they didn’t destroy anything in the scroll to do that? How we might be on a path to getting so many ancient texts it could radically reshape our understanding of the period, and all it will take is some fancy x-ray scans and computers? The opposite of that. Think the opposite of that.

I’m going to go on a tangent out of pure spite and desire to educate. Carbon dating is complicated. There’s two isotopes (types) of carbon: Carbon 14 and carbon 12. C-14 is very, veeeery slightly radioactive, which means it will eventually burp out a little subatomic particle and turn into the non-radioactive Nitrogen 14. C-14 is mostly created in our atmosphere, so once something’s dead and in the ground, it’s not gaining any more C-14, it’s slowly turning into N-14.

We know how long C-14 takes to turn into N-14, it’s about 50,000 years to lose all but 0.2% of the original C-14. If you know how much C-14 something should start with, then you can take a look at how much C-14 your sample actually has, and you can calculate how long it’s been dead. Here’s a quick explainer from Scientific American to visually summarize this.

Now, the more complicated part. You have to know the starting conditions if you want to be accurate. You have to calibrate everything, because the amount of C-14 available in an environment can change over time. We have ways of doing this, but it usually means carefully studying the environment and other clues.

So if you were to actually find carbon-based alien corpses on an alien planet, you’d need to identify the atmospheric carbon isotope ratio, and then you’d be able to make a sketchy, poorly-calibrated estimation, that could be wildly off by a large margin. A critter that did a lot of traveling in its life would be especially hard to date, as you couldn’t be sure if it’d lived where you found it for long enough to take up the local C-14 levels.

In this case, their fancy meat thermometer might be plugged directly into the script, because the number they give is only about 60 years off the actual death date. How do I know this? Because of a thing I’m not saying yet.

That’s enough for this post right now. But I’m not done with this moment. I don’t like this moment, and I need to properly explain why. Next time.

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Citations for alt-text rambles:

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemiluminescence 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piezoluminescence 3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triboluminescence 4. https://dedalvs.com/ 5. https://www.reddit.com/r/conlangs/

#prometheus 2012 #prometheus (2012) #The definition for destructive analysis is squishy #and based on the subject matter #but BREATHING on this stuff is destructive so #hooboy #Youtube

[fromtheseventhhell]

Another round of asoiaf "prettycourse", another round of people ignoring Arya's self-esteem issues and how it relates to her arc because their enjoyment of the series hinges on an 11-year-old being considered ugly.

#arya stark #asoiaf #fandom nonsense #/looks don't matter/ but they're the ones firing up this discourse every few weeks cause they can't handle what's written in the books #grown ass people logging on every day to talk about how Arya HAS to be ugly or her story is ruined/makes her less interesting #at what point do you get tired of being so invested in how a character (one you obviously don't like at that) is perceived? #we aren't the ones shipping her with every grown mad in the series and using a predator's words to fawn over her beauty #never any discourse around a 13 year old being the most shipped character in the series nope! the real issue is that we don't #consider Arya's bullies to be the ultimate authority on her looks! #where are the essays on how Arya shouldn't have been made to feel lesser based on her looks? how she should be able to have worth outside #of her misogynistic society's standards? why is it literally ALWAYS just /Arya is ugly...that's enough analysis for today/???? #if her looks don't matter then you can simply stop creating discourse around the subject and let people have whatever opinions they want

[captain-lovelace]

#my poetry #Horuspoetry #This one’s never gonna get professionally published so here it is #I usually hate writing lowercase poetry but I thought the unfinished look it gives #poems worked with the subject matter #I also wanted to work in a space detailing the experience of growing up neurodivergent #where you are functionally gendered as a failure #A lot of the details (the burying or the hands-to-eyes) are based on my own life. As is like. The general feeling. Which was basically my #standard from ages 3-9. the description of things outside is based on the memories I have of my old backyard when I was really little #And of the park I used to go to #I have a lot of memories of thinking of myself as basically already dead but also not really *understanding* the difference between being #dead and alive? #Idk. I think the perspective I am writing from is that of the child #but also in some ways I’ve noticed the way I behave towards my memories of my past self resembles the ableist way adults treated me when I #was a kid #As if somehow #There was something just… wrong with me and me only and so I deserved it #So this was also an attempt to show compassion to that child and break from that belief. To say ‘this was fucked up’ #And that I don’t believe that there was something wrong with me after all and even if there HAD been I wouldn’t have deserved that treatmen #No one does

[liquidstar]

very controversial opinion that may stir some serious drama: people always call megamind goth but hes not- he listens to classic rock. its literally one of his defining character traits throughout the movie!!! the entire soundtrack is based on it (which is epic btw). like, that blue man listens almost exclusively to bands like led zepplin and ac/dc, so i think he would find goth music not heavy enough for his tastes. i still think he has mad respect for it for sure but its not his brand. his brand is back in black, not brand new death

#this is lighthearted btw. i also call vaguely alt characters goth sometimes just to generalize #but since magamind has a very specific sound associated w him i feel like its a bit different. its not vauge #with most characters they usually dont explicitly state their music taste letalone make it a big part of their character #but so much of the movie's sound is BASED on his music taste (and the movie's sound is also based) #so i feel like in this case there IS a distinction. very pressing subject matter i know #to be clear i dont actually think it matters if ppl call him goth idc LOL #but i thought it could be fun to talk abt

[mishapen-dear]

Before she could ask he was unwinding her scarf and pressing that into the wound instead, and he could almost convince himself that the rapidly darkeing patch is just the scarf being unevenly dyed and not the blood already soaking through. He was so distracted he almost didn’t hear Tallulah’s voice; it was already growing weak. “Chayanne. Please. You have to get away from here.”

spoilers for how you're gonna get your heart violently torn out of your chest when you read to aim true! fantastic qsmp hunger games au written by @saline-solution for this year's au fest!

Go check out all the other awesome stories and art pieces by scrolling the tag or the blog, @mcytblraufest everyone is so skilled it's been an incredible event to participate in.

this is the second artwork I've done for to aim true- the first one can be found here

#mishapen draws #qsmp #tw child death #mcytblraufest23 #chayanne #tallulah #tw blood #not me casually forgetting about posting yesterday o7 #gotta remember to make those scheduled posts #anyway as dark as the subject matter is for this piece it was really fun to make #i based chayanne's expression off of The Fallen Angel by Alexandre Cabanel and that was really fun to try to emulate #there's several things i would have done differently but im probably the most proud of the post #did that without reference B) only vibes #my power grows #one last note that if the subject matter here upsets you there's an option in settings to block content and tags so it won't even appear on #your dash #stay safe and curate your own experience and so on #i may make another post with both art pieces + some sketches so I can ramble about the process/things i experimented with because im a nerd #and if i do it will have the same trigger tags

[molsno]

essentially, any urge that I have ever had to have sex with someone as an ace person, even before I knew I was ace, has been an urge to fulfill a sexual role.

we live in an allonormative society. our society is built on the premise that two people will form exclusive sexual pairs. sex is incentivized under an allonormative society because it produces material benefits for those who abide by its rules. a man benefits from allonormativity in that sexuality is an act of conquest, and further, a means to produce children which serve as stores of wealth. a woman benefits less from allonormativity, but her value as a sex object for men grants her conditional, limited access to a man's resources by occupying the role of mother to his children.

a tranny, on the other hand does not have access to this role. a tranny's worth is derived solely from her ability to act as a sex object. she can be discarded at a moment's notice when she ceases to be useful.

because we live in an allonormative society, this holds true in queer culture as well, even in the absence of cisheteropatriarchal dynamics.

so what is a tranny that doesn't want to have sex, then?

worthless. why would you even waste your time thinking about it? it doesn't deserve the time of day. love? you think a tranny that you can't fuck deserves love? are you an idiot?

I fantasize about having sex with people from time to time because at least then I can imagine that I'm worth something in this allonormative society. any attempt I have ever made to seek out sex has been met with immediate disinterest because I make no attempt to hide the fact that I'm ace. I don't mean rejection; I mean my very existence is outright ignored.

worst of all, it feels impossible to discuss this. the idea of asexual people suffering from compulsory sexuality upsets allosexuals' sensibilities. clearly, they insist, my urge to have sex just proves that I'm faking it, that I'm not asexual, that I just want to feel special, that I'm just pretending to be oppressed.

what they don't understand is that my urge to have sex is essentially a form of self-harm. I could not even begin to explain the toll it has taken on my psyche and the damage it has done to my self-esteem. I would compare it to the urge to detransition; I know that if I detransitioned, I would gain access to privileges that are unavailable to me as a tranny. however, forcing myself to be something I'm not, something which is a massive contradiction to my very existence, is a march toward suicide. the urge to force myself to be allosexual is much the same.

there is no freedom to be found for me in indulging this urge. the greatest freedom I have found is in embracing my asexuality, in seeking out relationships with other asexuals, where there is no pressure to have sex, and where I can truly be myself.

#please do not take this as formal theory I have done no reading on the subject of asexuality (although I want to) #this is entirely a personal post based on my present knowledge and reflections on the matter #personal

[themidnightcircusshow]

Every new thing I learn about James Somerton's process just drives home how he almost (but really doesn't) knows what he's doing. Yes, of course you use the sources you read as a jumping off point. Of course you copy and paste the important sections into your outline document so you can reread them. That's why you put them in quotation marks.

#James Somerton #honesty time: I totally believe he did this by accident #his entire problem is that he writes like a fandom account with bad takes #his anecdotal evidence that Todd in the Shadows spent a two hour video trying to find sources for? #they're all fandom drama taken out of their cultural context #(yes fandom counts as a subculture and therefore has specific context) #and all of it gets attributed to straight white women coz everyone knows shippers are all straight and cis women /s #he simultaneously treats his videos like bad fandom meta and Documentaries of Great Importance and those just do not mesh #it's part of why his videos were so unbearable if you actually knew what he was talking about #he learned how to make a youtube video essay. He did not learn how to write or study any of his chosen subject matter #I think that's also why he was not expecting to be called out the way he has because I suspect he probably thought everyone wrote this way #a lot of old video essayists especially the Chez Apocalypse bunch were very good at not broadcasting just how much went into their videos #so their style that has now become the norm feels incredibly off the cuff but is heavily researched #but also they are using that research to support their own hypotheses and ideas as you are supposed to #so I wonder if when he got called out he just brushed it off because surely he just writes the same way everyone writes #(and hey fandom posts are rarely cited because they assume everyone knows what they are talking about) #it almost makes me feel sorry for him but all I can think about is how catstrophically bad he is at this job #oh and for everyone wondering: I've found the best way to research is to put quotes in quotation marks #paraphrasing in either different punctuating or a different colour #and your own personal thoughts based on the source in something different again #all with the correct citations for your preferred style #this makes sure you have everything cited so when you put it all together you can do it easily without having to go back through it all #and prevents this from happening #(tbh I'm kinda sad I'm not still teaching. This would have been a perfect meme for how to do your damn citations week)

[fandesinae]

i just came across a fan playlist with a description like "this one is actually accurate he wouldn't listen to XYZ bands" and i was so confused?? are y'all making playlists for characters with the intention of it reflecting the character's music taste? for me it's like. songs i associate with them. their vibes. a song you could see playing in an AMV of them. rotating them in my mind to this music. never have i considered what the character would listen to, my selections are usually lyrically based anyways

#i would make a poll but i don't think it would have any reach #i could submit a suggestion to one of those big blogs? #like #when making a playlist for a fictional character do you select songs based on: #a) what you think the character would listen to #b) songs that you associate with them based on lyrics/vibes/subject matter #idk

[acrossfromladystardust]

i thought this was generally agreed on by now but apparently not:

sirius was more naturally smart, remus was more passionate about learning

#and i have thoughts about this #because sirius doing very well on all his exams in school while not seeming to be in the library much definitely suggests he was #naturally very intelligent #but the fact of the matter is even just based on canon #remus was a teacher #and i know there’s the argument that maybe he just wasn’t accepted for other jobs #which…maybe? #but if not and remus actually wanted to be one #which considering how good he was at it most likely is the case!!!! #teacher don’t have to be the best at the subject they teach. they have to be good at explaining and most good ones have to genuinely like it #like…to talk about the same things year after year definitely shows some sort of passion #so yes i believe remus genuinely liked the subjects he learned in school (specifically defense) and that’s what makes him for me #‘the studious marauder’ #if the roles were reversed and sirius wouldn’t have got everything that fasy #i don’t see him going above and beyond to get the highest grades in that specific area in the way remus had to and did #and that’s that rant over #sirius black #remus lupin

[heartofstanding]

tagged by @nebylitsa - Nine of my favourite books (well, 13 really since I included two trilogies in omnibus form), in no particular order.

tagging: @skeleton-richard, @oldshrewsburyian, @shredsandpatches @themalhambird @ardenrosegarden @themidnightcircusshow No pressure if you don't want to though!

#i decided not to include non-fiction to make it easier #alexis wright is like scary genius level of author. i don't always understand what's happening but plains of promise's endings got me hard. #lotr is like hugely formative so of course its there #regeneration trilogy made me insane. it's so. so. so. good. i feel if you liked the terror you'd like it #the folding star also made me insane though i don't rec it unreservedly because of the subject matter (it's been called a gay lolita) #the natural way of things... absolutely shattering. very sensitive subject matter & some things that could have been handled better #runemarks is a hilariously funny sort of... dystopic fantasy novel that draws on norse mythology (it's said to be YA but eh) #(i liked this better that harris's gospel/testament of loki novels) #the daylight gate is fantastically written horror novel based on the pendle hill witch trial. not for the faint hearted #sir! gawain! and! the! green! knight! i picked this cover because i loved the design best and it was the first translation i read. #i love sarah moss's writing so damn much - i think this is my favourite of hers but i also love 'cold earth' #there would be so many runner ups #text posts

[geoledgy]

Would anyone be interested in cartoon screenshot illustration commissions in the same style as my art fight pieces? (Not planning on opening comms anytime soon but maybe in the next...5 months - 1 year?)

If so...how much would YOU pay for one? (This is not me asking what to price them but more just to get a better gauge of what people interested can afford)

#rock talks #ideally am planning a base price rather than flat rate and it would depend on complexity setting and subject matter

[halluciniwaynia]

i find it crazy that the last popular/“mainstream” podcast was the magnus archives which ended over three years ago. if anything i think it’s about time that another podcast ends up breaking that mold and im curious as to what it will be if it does

#the magnus archives #personal post #taz balance ended in like 2017 and tma picked up stream mid 2019. based on that cycle we’re due for another one at some point #and btw I define “popular podcast” as being something that gets recommended to people who aren’t into podcasts already #tma and taz both got recommended to people based on the subject matter and not the fact they were podcasts. which have a niche audience the #same way stuff like manga and anime do

[anghraine]

It's very weird when people talk about fandom as if fix-fic were the totality of fannish practice and also a job.

I've written some, for sure, and much of my stuff has some element of at least commenting in some way on things I find annoying or objectionable in the canon or in the discourse around it. I have no issue with fix-fic in itself. But the idea that all fandom activity is or should be about elevating flawed canons through hard work and moral rectitude is—damn, I'm not paid enough for that.

"This is a hobby" is not an excuse for bigotry, to be clear, but I swear, some people talk about fandom like its entire purpose is to be a second and particularly joyless job in which you receive nothing but the righteous glow of producing morally improving works.

#i just hear the echo of ye olde moralizing about novels being insufficiently improving and leading the unwashed masses astray #it was silly then and it's silly now #no this does not mean i'm endorsing a total lack of critical thought about your casual reading/watching habits #or what you do in fandom #but no not everything in fandom needs to be about improving someone or something #or creating moral and uplifting material #transformative does not mean 'making something better'; it just means 'changing it in a fundamental way' #the transformation can be in medium or genre as much as subject matter or quality #i'm honestly pretty tired of both celebration and scolding of fandom based on the idea that we're all just writing fix-its of some kind #like... no my lesbian darcy/bi elizabeth fic isn't fixing jane austen's pride and prejudice. it's just fun for me personally. #anghraine rants #general fanwank

[umbrellacam]

sure would be nice. if people could debunk a dumb exaggerated/incorrect fanon without people immediately turning it 180° and happily hauling ass right into another dumb exaggerated/incorrect fanon. while gleefully crowing about how canon and correct this opposite take is.

sure would be nice 🙃

#tw salt #tw negativity #venting #I'm crying the reactionary takes are just as bad 😭😭😭 #to be clear people can do whatever they want in fandom #we are here ultimately to play with Barbie dolls in whatever way makes our brain go brrrrrrrr #and that is not going to look the same for everyone and we just gotta deal with that #what drives me BONKERS is when people confidently assert their sometimes Extremely Fanon takes as Canon #when every word they type is blaring through a megaphone “I don't know what I'm talking about! :D” #“No I haven't read the relevant comics! :D” #“Everything I think I know I learned from sad woobie fanfic and batfam tiktok and out of context panels from different continuities! :D" #“I am 200% confident in this info and will spread it around as a Subject Matter Expert! :D” #I'll happily run across some funny post with more canon-based characterizations and relationships #and browse through the reblogs only to be slugged in the face by “funny! but AK-SHULLY canon would be that [COMPLETELY INCORRECT FANON] 🤓” #let me have PEACE #going back and deleting a bunch of tag snark about specific examples before hitting post #actually I'll leave just one because it's what set me off #“Dick was a hostile resentful asshole to Jason as Robin and they had a terrible relationship before Jason died!” #versus #“Dick and Robin!Jay were sooooo brothers! just the brothers of all time & the model all later batsibling relationships were based on! <333” #*me taking 4d10 psychic damage from both attacks* #Cam posts

[pocketsonny]

been using renshuu to learn japanese and it's fun cause i can get stupidly excited at the small things like hey, i can sorta read the title of this song now!! (if it's in katanaka or hiragana cause kanji's is another world to me rn LOLOL that's going slow)

#text #someday i want to take classes but learning on my own has been entertaining #all these years of watching anime or consuming jp media are helping me a lot too #and it's always fun to compare grammar structures across languages #i appreciate that in jp you can omit the subject like in spanish and unlike english (not including informal exceptions) #tho in spanish if you omit it you usually know who the subject is cause the verb form changes accordingly for 1st/2nd/3rd person #and in jp it doesn't seem to matter who the subject is and it's entirely context based #which is also interesting!!! #excited to keep learning

[aquietanarchy]

I love you random.org, I love you oblique strategies, I love you websites like seventhsanctum and springhole, I love you procedural generation, I love you fractal art, I love you dice, I love you tarot, I love collaborating with the random chaos of the universe to create meaning!!

#creativity #oblique strategies #random generators #im bad at decisions! but im good at building algorithms and refining + editing the outputs #like. ive been using random.org to help me choose outfits since i was a teen! i have an algorithm for clothes based on season and weather #and ive been editing it as i need to #i have a doc thats basically an art randomizer. i make rolls for subject matter size and media. it's weighted based on my interests #and im never beholden to the results of the random rolls it just gets my brain started #(like if i *know* i want to push something specifically i wont roll for it. ive been focusing on digital art lately because i really want to #nail down my workflow for that) #coming clean! i used to use colormind.io to give me random limited color palettes for digital art #and i learned so much about what colors i like to use so over the past few months ive been developing my Own color palette #i have 10 colors now that i love and i make random rolls to narrow it down to 5 for any given piece #maybe you neurotypicals out there can just Make A Decision but thats not me #anyways. this post generated because the aipocalypse has brought up a ton of ableist rhetoric in the art community 🙃 #and for a moment there i was bogged down by the imposter syndrome. but then i had a Think #and decided i would rather Celebrate the way my mind works instead of hiding in shame because i dont work the way people think it Should #this is all so tied up in the autism for me #anyways. i love you diffusion models #tag rant #if you actually read all that um. i want to give you a prize or somethin lol #yarrow speaks into the void