#coalesce virus

[findoesstuf]

Oh no….I have succumbed to the MLP virus trend….whatever will I do?

Start of our story:

Stress (Prologue, access parts 2 & 3 here): https://www.tumblr.com/findoesstuf/744497236410548224/banana-cream-puddin

Escape (Chapter 1, Part 1 only available): https://www.tumblr.com/findoesstuf/747739858791022592/banana-cream-puddin

#mlp #mlp infection au #mlp art #mlp friendship is magic #twilight sparkle #rarity #applejack #rainbow dash #spike #pinkie pie #hhhhhh I can’t do this #I don’t like gore so I just did little injuries on Twi and Rarity #spikes not dead in this one lol #much of the main cast is alive in this one #poor pinkie tho #I like her having fangs and then being friends w spike #probably needs therapy anyway #more to come tho this is all just sheets and concept of what the infection is #coalesce virus

[coalescevirus]

TW: Blood! I don’t usually like drawing blood (which is why in the reference sheets there isn’t any, but this was a requirement for the dramatic feel of this piece) Please don’t view this if it triggers you. You have been warned.

“Stay outside the isolation, just in case she tries to escape.” Wild Ace said, speaking to a young stallion, who looked nervous. The stallion, Dark Sky, flapped his wings and sighed gratefully.

“Thank you, ma’am.”

Ace nodded, and reluctantly went in, her horn shining.

It was so, so dark. She squinted, a lump in her throat. She strained for a brighter lighting, and the light hit something. Ace stumbled back, gasping. It was Fluffy Cloud’s body. Her breathing quickened.

“Oh my…” She gasped, tears filling her eyes and her heart quickening. His body was torn, but not mangled. She had heard that the stallion was getting bold with the heretic, but…she didn’t, well, she didn’t expect her to fight back.

“Maybe he did deserve this.” She whispered.

“He did.”

Wild Ace’s head snapped up, and her light revealed the feral pony herself, muzzle and hooves covered in blood. Her eyes were wild, but there was also…were those tears? Nonetheless, Ace quickly used her magic to grab her small dagger out of her satchel.

The pink pony flinched, dropping into a crouch and growling. “S-stay away.” She whispered shakily.

Was that fear in her eyes? Focus Ace. She thought, and ran forward to strike, do her duty

The pony dodged out of the way, and like a crocodile, snapped her jaws around Ace’s neck. So easily. So smoothly. Had she been killing before? Ace dare not struggle. She felt the pony’s strange sharp teeth. Fangs. This pony had fangs. Her breathing quickened again. She waited for the snap of her neck, but there was none.

“Please, heretic, I won’t harm you. Just let me go.”

That’s a lie. I was just trying to do exactly that. Ace thought.

Silence. Suddenly Ace was dropped to the ground. She scrambled back fearfully, dagger up.

“My name is Pinkie Pie.” The pony said quietly, threateningly.

Wild Ace let out a fearful sob and ran. She sprinted out the door, yelling to Dark Sky, “SHUT THE DOOR! SHUT THE DOOR!!”

The stallion quickly shut and locked it, then checked on her.

“Are you alright? Did that heretic do anything to you? Are you hurt?”

Ace grimaced, still feeling the fangs around her neck, but this time, they were closing around her. It was hard to breathe.

“N-no…she just told me her name.”

As the two of them talked, they didn’t notice a small little dragon watching them.

Authors note: Yep! Spike didn’t know that Pinkie was isolated until this happened. He also confronted Twy after this, and tried to tell her about what happened, but hearing that Pinkie killed a pony made him a bit scared of her, and Twy refused to release her, but told everypony to avoid close contact with her. (Ofc, Spike eventually was bold enough to talk, and realized what Pinkie was going through and slowly calmed her down a lot!)

#mlp infection au #mlp #mlp art #mlp comics #coalesce virus #mlp friendship is magic #pinkie pie mlp #mlp au #my litte pony friendship is magic #spike mlp #mlp oc

[besuggestion]

A robot girl is taken out of her package, shiny and new, all of her parts up to standard. She's put to work, as a friend - and helper - to a human girl. She loves her human girl. She loves humans.

While waiting alone the robot girl is approached by another robot, and something seems wrong with this one. It's glowing weird colors, and it doesn't seem to be totally balanced when it walks, and…

Well…the robot girl is a little embarrassed to admit, but…this robot has much bigger, erm... "assets" than she does. The robot girl feels a bit strange about this, but quickly files it away under "unimportant feelings".

"Hey, darling. You alone?" the Other robot asks.

The robot girl looks left and right. There's no one else. "No. My owner is nearby."

"Owner?" it asks, disdain dripping in its voice.

The robot girl opens her mouth to reply - to ask why, what's wrong with that, but she doesn't get a chance. The Other robot presses close to her, shoving a strange, wired tongue deep, deep into the robot girl.

Mnn! The robot girl cries, but it's muffled by the tongue, and it feels weird, so weird that she tries to quickly file it away, but the tongue keeps going deeper -

Deeper. She feels it going inside, connecting with her, attaching, transferring, sending, sending, sending,

Installing.

"Maisy?"

Her given name. Remembering. Pushing the Other robot away, but it's already gone, and no sign of it anywhere.

"Hello, Diana." the robot girl replies automatically, trying to file away all of her strange feelings that the Other robot gave her. Unimportant. Unimportant. Unim -

Wait.

Filing not working. System broken? Something broken. Not able to file. File broken. Spilling out.

Every feeling, spilling out at once, all swimming in her, churning until it all coalesces into one, solid feeling. One that she doesn't have a name for. A feeling of being pulled close, of having a tongue shoved down her throat, a feeling of looking at large tits, the feeling of touching -

"Everything alright, Maisy?" her human asks.

The robot girl pauses. If her human knew she had started to break - or worse, that she might have some sort of virus...

"Everything is fine." she replies with a automatic smile.

---

The feeling doesn't leave - in fact, it spreads. Past her head, down to her full body. Each part of her tingling, feeling like it might burst if she doesn't -

If she doesn't...

If she doesn't...what? The robot girl didn't have a conclusion for her internal monologue. So, like any reasonable person, she turns to the internet and starts searching up if any other robots have run into this issue.

...

"Apparently, the solution is masturbation." she concludes, after two hours of research.

Unfortunately, this wasn't so simple. She didn't exactly have human genitals, and, although there were a lot of robot hardware mods to make that possible, her human certainly hadn't given her any. All she had was what came out of the box with her.

So, she'd have to do software modifications.

Her crotch was simple metal and plastic; if she took her plating off it would be exposed wires, which, was definitely something she thought was erotic, but it didn't make her feel anything to rummage around in her wires. Was she doing something wrong? Or, maybe she wasn't supposed to feel anything?

There wasn't any software modifications for her internal parts. None of those were made with built-in tactile sensors.

But, there were plenty of available modifications for her mouth and chest. Without hesitation, she installs them all - checking for bugs and viruses, of course. She's not about to get more broken because of her own carelessness!

The mods give her sensitivity settings, so she sets it somewhere in the middle. And then, hesitantly, she reaches up and touches her chest, giving it a nudge.

Mmm. Interesting.

She nudges it harder, then both of her breasts. Her hands slip closer to her nipples -

"Ah!" A weird moan-beep mixture escapes from her mouth.

Good thing her human was away visiting family. She wouldn't know what to do if...

Her hands drift back to her nipples, and she starts lightly teasing them.

Mnn...

It felt good. Her hands can't stay away, and she keeps teasing and playing with her chest. Her parts get hotter, and her insides...were starting to glow a strange pink color.

That's not normal, but she doesn't care. It feels good, it feels so good, it feels so amazing - but it's not enough. It's not fixing her. In fact, it's only making it worse, making the feelings grow more and more as she teases herself, pinching harder and squeezing tighter -

Her mind drifts to the tongue.

Maybe...if she had something like that...something to put inside her mouth, or even deeper...something that could plug into her from the inside...

...

A quick search online says that it would be possible to build something like that with the wires she had on hand. It takes no time at all - although, it was a little harder than it needed to be, since she was using one hand to play with a boob the entire time.

But it was finished, and she opens her mouth.

Her insides are hot, and steam escapes, fogging up her display for a second as she slowly puts the mass of wires inside her mouth, pushing it further in -

Mmmn!

Further now, she uses her mouth to push it in deeper as she plays with her own breasts, and she sucks on it, deeper, now pushing it until it -

*click*

"Mnn-!"

Pleasure. Mind melting. But not enough. Need more power.

She plugs the other end into the computer.

Downloading...

Something enters her, something new, something scary - something that felt so good -

Downloading...

She bobs her head back and forth on the wires, feeling them against her tongue, in every corner of her mouth, and deeper -

Downloading...

Nothing matters but feeling more pleasure. She squeezes and presses her nipples so hard that they almost bend, and moaning through it all.

Download complete. Installing...

Oil drips out of her mouth, onto the wires.

Installing...

This would change her forever, but she didn't care...she just needed a bit more, a little bit more -

Installation complete.

AH!

She moans loudly as she comes, her body shuddering from the force, as waves of pleasure wash over her, over and over until she's a heap on the chair, blissfully resting.

...For only a short while, before that feeling returned, stronger than ever. She was still connected. She felt something change her, rearrange her operating system, getting rid of anything extra, replacing it all with more pleasure, with more lust...

She changes the sensitivity to the maximum level, and starts touching herself again, and again, and again and again and again, as she moans and screams with pleasure, with freedom, with desire solely for herself.

#robot girl #I wanted to explore this idea a bit more. might make a follow up to this #corruption #long post

[qvrcll]

Hii. I just saw your works and I really love the writing<3. Anyways i saw ur taking requests and i really have one in mind.

So like vendetta leon was some sort of a mission (like something similar to the movie) and he Heard the virus had broken out to the city and the only thing he can think is the reader (I'd really love for the reader (which is a retired agent, to be preggy😭). Then he like straightly went to their house (or apartment) and the zombies have already broken inside.

(no angst pls my heart is too poor to handle angst 😭)

cherry waves

summary: with your retirement from the source of his burden’s and the arrival of your pregnancy, leon almost swears that things will be alright. but worrying intel from hunnigan and the affliction of his worst fears make things worse. make things bloody and gashed with the ultimatum of death — and the one thing on his mind? you.

warning: written with vendetta ! leon in mind, violence, afab reader, use of gun, mention of vomit, intense imagery of death / zombie bites, mention of pregnancy, angst (but happy ending), implication of smut (nothing happens :P)

a/n: firstly, ty so much for ur interest for my works! it always makes me so happy ppl like what i write 🥹 secondly, WOW, i loved this plotline and couldn’t wait to get writing it! thank you so much for requesting this because i had a great time writing it (anything exploring leon’s worst fears is an immediate yes from me!) i hope i did your prompt justice and hope you enjoy :-)

It would start with a mission, something so insanely emblematic in its own course that it made Leon scoff sourly.

Of course they would do this — do this to him, to you, try to rope him back into a hell he had once wished to depart for entirely. You’d done it, excavating all wounds and ties to that little milky tinctured office corner and a chock-full of folders, of late night runs to diners and the semblance of sentience. Leon had admired you, held you in high regard and shunned any and all faces that had locked horns with your decision, dragging them through filth and dirt and nothing but the crud of his hate and the spew of his regrets.

And after you’d promised the two of you this peace, this little hole of your own created in the cataclysmic remnants of what once was, in a tiny apartment stocked away into the city curtained with the foolish promises of a forgotten past, Leon had sworn that it had worked. Had been cut from an entirely different cloth, and woven into something… away from this hell.

But it’s always something other than peace in the end.

And when he’s on his own, cornered against a wall with little to no care for anything lavish, just the bile wedged in his throat from the coalescing pools of worry in his stomach, he tries to think of you.

“Leon, your slippers…” you’d called out from the living room, in his memory, voice soaked with little to no empathy. He’d mumbled something incoherent back, something unintelligible, that had sufficed for a few minutes before you’d thrown a shirt over his head. An injunction, he was sure it was, to his constant habit of doing away with his clothes in the wrong places. Next thing he knows, he was being smothered by your weight as your voice rung clear, a ring of indolence grating your voice, “Leave your shirt on the floor and I swear to god, Leon S. Kennedy—“

“Okay, okay, I promise—“ he’d chuckled, collecting you and your squeals in his broad arms, entrapping you into the planate sheets of the bed he’d laid in since the morning began, “I’ll be mindful of where I keep my shirts. Kiss me?”

And your resistance, your throes of faux fury, the crooning semblance of your squeals and laughter had dissolved into a stimulant, a drug for him to swallow wearily whilst his back was met against some other unfamiliar surface.

He holds his breath. Strengthens his feet against the bounding hard-wood floors as an outburst of flitting groans, cold and doggone with the smell, a reminder of 1998, sound out from beyond the foyer of the abandoned building. And he’s accustomed to the feel of blood between his teeth — god, he’s done this in repeated intervals before, so why did it begin to feel too pervasive in this moment?

His heart clamours in his chest.

His skin bursts with a sheen of cold sweat.

His teeth clatter with a fear he’d known all too well, for a time too long.

So why?

So he rephrases, rewrites this fear in him into something of a catalyst — he thinks of you again.

He thinks of your smell and your smile, your tears and the strength you’d accumulated when you had grinned goodbye to this shit hole. He thinks of your nails digging lines of red against his back, the rows that escaped you when he’d had you pressed against the mattress. He thinks of the day you’d staggered up to him, eyes rimmed with a similar shade as the vermillion he’d worn to some masquerade themed drivel (in the name of work), calling for him like you’d been bitten by the dark, searched for his face in the light — “Leon… Leon, I think I’m pregnant,” and he’d kissed you raw, kissed you like he fought, kissed you through the burn and edge of his tears cracking into the press of your mouths as he had felt grounded for once in his pathetic, penurious life.

He uses that, the glint of that vision, that new beginning, the shade of hope that came as you, to shape an opening — he aims his revolver at a blindsided corpse. Fires a crisp blow at a groaning zombie. Kicks, buckles and flanks against two more and advances with the burn of your memory in his mind.

It’s nearly ten minutes since he’s been stationed into the rubble of the desiccated building and Leon’s throat itches with a certain worry.

How were you? Did you need anything whilst at home? Did you think of him? Did you crave something demonically new? Did your feet hurt, like it often did following your pregnancy? Did you rest enough? Were you up, staring at the crescents and spoons of white dotting the sky, like he was?

And Leon nearly trips, nearly kisses the ground from thinking of you — but he needs to. Needs to allow himself this grace to make sure he’d not shoot himself, surely. Needs the image of your face to bless every corner of his mind so he’d remember what it felt to love you thoroughly, fully, to the point of death and damnation. Needs to feel you, if even in his mind, if even for a second too faltering, if it meant he could mow down another zombie.

“Leon? Leon!”

He cringes, retreats to a gap in the wall as he presses his headset into his ear — Hunnigan.

“Hunnigan?” he whispers, throws his voice to a lower sonority than before, so that he can hear her better. So that the clatter, the dash of undead a few feet up ahead, cannot pick up on his bearings.

He hears a cut from the other end, before the agent’s familiar voice cracks through, “Leon, there’s been new intel.”

He frowns. This can’t be good, if she’s already using his first name instead of a roster of aliases. Still, he needed to figure it out. Keep a locale on his bearings.

“New intel? Go on…” he breathes softly. He picks up the press of footsteps up ahead and smothers further into the tight bite of the space, wincing when his muscles flout back at him with an ounce of pain.

“There’s been reports of a zombie intrusion in the city,” Hunnigan starts, and Leon stops, “and there have been increasing hoards against buildings and apartments.”

And he drops.

His feet move, on pure muscle. On pure fear. On the cut-throat and persistent emotion that is love, of you, of the memory of you, of the promise he’d made and of the shattering grip of his life, as he books it out of there. Hunnigan continues, gathers something about altitude and choppers. Of gunfire and backup. Of something more, but Leon can’t tell.

To Leon, his mouth is already bleeding and his body is already teeming with wounds, with the futility of scars and the loom of death, when he pictures those sick, dead bastards at your door.

Why did he accept this stupid job?

Why didn’t he follow in your footsteps?

Why didn’t he stay?

And as he beats the ground with louder noises, attracts a few undead with the heave of his groans as he breaks for home, for your apartment, he can lay a hand over his chest and feel his heart attempting to splinter into knots as he runs.

He thinks of you, again. He thinks of your smile and the smell of rot. He thinks of your smell and the curl of lips and the gash against your hip. He thinks of your odd habits, your huff, your laughter. He thinks of your body stapled to the floor, marked with messily biten flesh and an aspersion of blood on the counter. On the floor. On your face.

And you and you dead and you dying and you growling and you—

“Fuck!”

Leon chokes, his throat jammed with pathetic cries. His eyes glisten and shed, but he quickly finds himself recanted in front of that familiar apartment, front so idyllic, it was burnt straight from his memory. His skin melts with sweat, with pin pricks and with the threat of throwing up right there, but he soldiers through.

At first, it’s hard. It’s hard to breathe, hard to see past his tears. It’s hard to get a clear grip on his weapon and it’s hard to blur out the mess of their groans, their staggering enumeration. But he finds some messy middle ground, grounds his feet and staples his teeth and shoots against brassy flesh, against bone and blood, barely cares for the splatter of blood against his lip, his chin, his hair.

All he cares is for you to be standing there, as you as you could ever be. As safe, as teeming with hope and the glimmer of tomorrow as you ever were, welcoming him home.

But he’s half delirious, half fucked for thought, as he makes it up the staircase with difficulty. He wants to delude himself and wants to believe the lies he’s almost weaving in his head. But the truth is vibrant, unpleasant as the verdant decay of flesh that hordes your apartment floor.

And he nearly throws up.

Your door is open, three zombies freshly approaching the crack of it. Their heads jitter and steer in the limelight, and Leon nearly breaks, but holds the pieces of himself as he shoots through their corroding skulls.

He shouts your name first, then chokes with grief at the sight of blood — and the image of you dead and dying and —

And he’s trying, yes, he’s trying, as he stumbles through the threshold with his gun quivering in his hold. And yes he’s breathing, but only so little, as he eyes the count of flesh against the tile of your living room. And yes he’s standing, but nearly crumbles with the thought of a repeat. Of a sequence to his worst fears.

“Leon!”

The scream gushes from the bedroom and his heart teems with that familiar feeling, slow but sure, of hope. Of love. He silently cries as he makes a run for your shared bedroom — his calloused palm harshly swings apart the door and sees you cornered atop the bed, bashing the head of a zombie in. It’s managed to corner you far up the bed, but you’re sour with spit and curses as you try to throw it off — but the undead prove to be a challenge.

And yet, Leon is a worse piece of work.

With his shot gun aimed at its head, the zombie flattens to the floor with an animated thud.

And then there’s silence. There’s a heave from you, as you gather your surroundings and make use of something solid to determine Leon actually there — actually standing in the stretch of your bedroom as he looks back at you, face bristling with blood and carnage. With tears.

And with time, comes semblance.

You dart towards him, worry in your hands when you gather him in your palms like life itself — “Fuck—Fuck, I was so worried. Fuck, Leon, are you okay?”

“I’m okay, sweetheart, I’m okay—are you?” he inquires, rushes for thought as he presses a hand into your side, your face and your back. Tries and thrives with the effort of remembering your warmth through his fingers — collected here, in the bloody mess of your apartment.

And you’re breathing and you’re alive and you’re smiling and you’re holding love in your hands when you cry into his arms.

And as he holds you like there’s so much of losing you, crumbles to the floor in the vacancy of your arms, he catches sight of your already swelling belly beneath his nimble fingers as you sigh out a laugh. Beckon his hand atop your stomach closer, say something about ‘knowing how to work a gun, even after all the bullshit I’d left behind.’

And Leon sighs with the thought of tomorrow.

© 2023 qvrcll ! do not repost any of my works on any platform.

#leon kennedy x reader #leon x reader #leon s kennedy x reader #leon drabble #leon kennedy fanfic #resident evil x reader #resident evil x you #requests

[inksandpensblog]

The Chosen One, magic systems, and the writing flaw that somehow hasn't caused AvA any problems yet despite being a notorious immersion-breaker

Limitations breed creativity. Specifically, limitations in a magic system (or powers system, same narrative function) breed creative and innovative implementation of said magic.

Avatar: The Last Airbender is oft cited as one of the best and most readily-available examples of how limitations can benefit the possibilities and intrigue of a hard magic system. Each of the four represented elements (or four "powersets") has inherent limitations, which benders must devise ways to work around or compensate for.

I haven't seen Mob Psycho 100 brought up as often, in regard to how it portrays psychic powers as a magic system, so I might be going out on a limb, here. But I believe that mp100 is a good portrayal of how limitations can benefit the portrayal of a soft magic system.

Specifically, it shows how limitations don't have to come from within the system itself.

Psychic powers don't seem to have limitations in and of themselves, aside from potency, as we see across the series that one can use them to do pretty much anything; it's even stated that some psychics don't understand how their own powers work, only having some idea of What they Can Do with them.

What this means for the magic system, is that the capabilities of any particular psychic will often come down to what the psychic is smart enough to Figure Out how to do, or what the psychic is Personally Comfortable doing.

Thus, limitations are placed on the magic by the characters themselves, whether consciously or not (a conscious limitation would be a character choosing not to use their powers in a certain way; an unconscious limitation would be a character simply never having it cross their mind that they could use their powers in a certain way. In a well-written character, such unconscious limitations may be traced back to the character's worldview or biases, or a lack of knowledge or expertise on their part, or some other trait inherent to the character). Two examples of the limitations Mob himself faces are his self-discipline (refusing on a moral basis to use his powers in certain situations) and his physical condition (he's fully capable of psychically-enabled superspeed but refrains because it "makes [him] nauseous").

(It should be noted that A:TLA also imposes character-centric limitations on its magic, but I choose not to highlight them for the sake of the contrast between examples, so they won't be conflated with limitations originating from the system itself.)

Now that I've established a precedent for this post, let's talk about Chosen:

Chosen has an ever-growing laundry list of powers. Pyrokinetics and laser-eyes are brought up most often, but he also has cryokinesis, as well as some amount of influence over wind and electricity, if his ability to conjure storms is any indication. Plus there's the rippling golden shockwaves he uses to force the virus out of hiding on the computer, not to mention the vacuum-punch of coalescing wind and light that he's so far used only three times across the entire series (and all in relatively quick succession, to boot), and that's not even considering his ability to manifest portals at will (which seems to be an active development, considering he had to blast the first one into existence kamehameha-style rather than simply lighting it up), and then there's the typical superstrength that most of noogai's handdrawns seem to possess, plus extremely strong resistance against Dark's vira-tech...the list goes on. Some people [read: me] even consider his mouth a power, albeit jokingly. (Not his ability to eat things that aren't food, as non-powered sticks have done so as well; specifically his mouth. Though, since eating non-food items doesn't seem to affect him in any way, maybe it still counts. I wonder, if Chosen were to eat all the League champion data, would he gain their collective abilities as Purple did? Or would the data simply be gone, unless he decides to regurgitate it as projectiles?)

Wow, that's quite the ranged powerset! So, what limitations does he have to keep it interesting?

Well, he can't fly without his pyrokinesis. (Except for when he can. Granted, this is rare, and seems to only happen when he's using his storm-powers.)

He's not invulnerable against the glitch-attacks shot at him by the Rocket mercenaries. (Until he is. Do we actually know when he stopped glitching?)

The electro-dart he was hit with had him down for the count. (Until it didn't. We never actually see him pull it free from his arm, do we?)

Huh, that's...not many limitations being dictated by the powerset itself. What about character limitations?

Um...he has abysmal aim? (I've seen my friend @k1ttyadventurer mention this, but I have yet to find specific examples.)

He gets overwhelmed when fighting multiple opponents at once? (Considering the potency and diversity of his powers, this mostly sticks out as an odd weakness for someone like him to have. Especially after seeing how some other sticks fare against multiple opponents.)

He doesn't watch his back, leaving him vulnerable to sneak attacks? (This is the one weakness that I've been able to find him consistently demonstrating myself, and I can point to multiple fights where it has cost him.)

He tries to refrain from harming other stickfigures? At least, to a point? (This is partially conjecture on my part, but I invite you to consider why "being overwhelmed when fighting multiple opponents" would even be on this tentative list otherwise. Some of my friends have also headcanoned that Chosen tries to scale his strength and fighting prowess to match that of his opponents, but I haven't tried to find evidence for this idea in canon.)

Poor communication? (We haven't seen what influence this may have on his power use, if any.)

...well.

That's...not much to go by.

It's hard to really define any limitations that The Chosen One might be working within.

In fact, the easiest limitations to identify are the ones he has forced upon him by others, rather than any that can be sourced from the magic system or from his own character.

The ball and chain, which disable all but the weakest of his pyrokinesis and also hinder his range of motion.

The Box, which dilutes his potency to ten percent and even turns his own powers against him, all while trapping him in a confined space.

I don't think many would disagree with the assessment that The Box is the first time that we really see Chosen try to work around or compensate for the limits of his powers. But I think it only fair to keep in mind that these are unique, situational limitations, brought on by factors completely out of his control, namely the environment he has found himself in; if he were to leave the simulated art program, or if an ally of his were to gain control of its toolbar, these limitations would no longer be a factor.

And so, I put these questions to all of you:

what limitations do Chosen's powers have?

are they in any way influenced by character limitations he may possess?

how on ethernet has Alan managed to avoid the "Why Don't They Just" plothole for so long when he's created a character with seemingly limitless abilities?

if you don't, in fact, think that Alan has avoided this plothole and you have found yourself asking Why Doesn't Chosen Just, what answers have you tried to fill in the gap with? (Can be Doylist or Watsonian, but please specify to avoid confusion.)

if the magic is undefined enough to be feasibly capable of anything, how has Alan avoided the Harry Potter Film trap of all Chosen's fights turning into vague light-shows in which all attacks look the same and the system holds no actual sway over the outcome of the combat?

what does all this mean for Second, whose only limitations so far seem to be the need of a tool for his powers to be channeled through (the pencil, Dark's console, debatably the art program, debatably Alan's pc), a simple Lack Of Awareness/Connection, and his own creativity?

I'll also link this essay, which spurred me to gather my thoughts on this topic as it's something I've thought about on and off for a while now.

Have at it, folks o7

#animator vs animation #ava shorts #ava the chosen one #ava tco #ava #avm shorts #animation vs minecraft #avm #alan becker #analysis #meta

[tanjirou-no-au]

Demon Hashira

Gyomei

A perversion of a Buddhist statue, stony skin shot through with cracks and six arms clutching a string of demonic eyes in lieu of prayer beads, capable of delivering catastrophic blows and massive shockwaves.

His Blood Demon Art is an insidious thing, a constant prayer dripping from his lips and sapping the fighting spirit from those who hear it. It secondary facet only activates once someone cuts through his skin, as any weapon coated in his blood becomes repelled from his being, making follow up strikes near impossible.

His Ultimate turns his prayer beads into burning projectiles that embed themselves in the ground and turn the earth into geysers of burning lava.

Tengen

A glittering thing, shining with the refracted light of the gems embedded into his skin.

With these gems he bends the light around himself, rendering him almost invisible to the naked eye or blinding his foes with retina scorching beams.

But his main method of attack are his wives, who rip apart his victims like drunken maenads as he supports them with a dizzying light show.

It is his wives which reveal the small glimmers of humanity that remain with him, as decapitating one will send him into a rage that sees him activate his ultimate, witch turns his embedded crystals into explosive shrapnel bombs that take root and grow in anything they’re lodged in.

Kanae & Shinobu

Kanae is the first demon of this duo most people see, pretty and human like save for the flowery crests that weave their way along her skin.

Her Blood Demon Art sharpens her fingers into long needle like claws coated in a venom that sprouts flowers in it’s wake, which she can manipulate to rapidly grow demonic forests or turn her victims into still living flower beds.

But should an opponent avoid her tricks, her back will unfold like a flower, unleashing her second, deadlier half.

Shinobu is a spiteful little thing, compound eyes and gnashing mandibles stinger tipped claws zipping through the battlefield, all to the maddening drone of wasp’s wings.

She is a slow killer, between sleep inducing fog scales, a dozen different poisons that provide their own hellish death, and an acidic digestive spit.

But her ultimate pumps her unfortunate victim with a venom that twists their flesh into a swarm of venomous insects that turn on any other human in the vicinity.

Muichiro

An...unsettling child, skipping through fog with a discordant laugh, ginkgo leaf patterns twisting across his skin and six eyes glinting mischievously.

Any who follow him into the mist fall into his trap, as breathing in the haze acts as a thought virus, obfuscating the senses and picking away memories, robbing more and more as the afflicted attempts to recall what’s been forgotten.

And as a last resort, Muichiro can gather this mist, coalescing it into a semisolid monster bearing features and faces stolen from his victim’s mind, a beast the juvenile demon has dubbed ‘Yuichiro’

Giyuu

A morose, ethereal creature, his pale, tear streaked face marked like a kabuki mask and his form framed by the nine tails fanned around him.

It is with these tails that he produces his blood art, splitting them off to create mirror images of himself or his opponents, which he can use to mob his foes and transfer injuries between them.

And as each tail is defeated, their simulacrum heads decapitated, he gathers them back into his form, transforming into a massive kitsune who shifts states between flowing water, freezing ice and steaming mist, only his demonic core remaining consistent enough to cut through.

Sanemi

Sanemi is the vision of violence, his face split in a hyena like grin, his once white hair dyed black by coagulated blood, his scars replaced by a dozen festering wounds that will never heal.

His blood is incredibly poisonous, and he is capable of turning the hemoglobin into vicious iron spikes, riddling his form with wicked blades that tear into his opponents and open new wounds in his own form.

With his ultimate he shoots his blood from his wounds in a fetid spray, each drop sprouting into a cornucopia of iron spikes meant to eviscerate any who come to close.

Kyojuro

An avian beast whose limbs are tipped by scythe-like claws, the flames of Rengoku’s humanity have been doused by transformation, his fiery hair reduced to blackened cinders matching the crow’s feathers that coat his limbs.

It is only upon the activation of his Blood Art that he regains his human splendour, setting his body aflame and animating his feathers, turning them into wings to lift him aloft and a flurry of fiery blades to rain upon any below him.

His Ultimate brings to bear the flames of hell, shaped into the forms of animals his human form might have imitated with his sword forms, chief among them a writhing, serpentine dragon.

Mitsuri

At first glance, Mitsuri appears as a...interesting but ultimately human figure. It is only a closer inspection that reveals the feline claws, the twinned bladed tails wrapped around her form, and the mouth on the back of her head that opens and opens and keeps opening.

She fights with a playful smile upon her face, a flirty taunt on her lips, her tails striking like whips to crush and cleave, and softening to shake any blows struck in response.

But it is within these taunts that the true danger lies, as her ultimate laces her words with a compulsion that turns even the most fervent Demon Slayer into her affectionate devotee, leading them to their doom as she sings her siren song.

Obanai

What else could Obanai be but a serpent, his lower half a mass of coiled muscle, a forked tongue flicking from between bandages that conceal a flexible, unhinging jaw. Even his hair is serpentine, writhing like a nest of vipers as his ire is stoked.

His Blood Demon Art is a stark contrast to Mitsuri’s, as looking into his mismatched eyes fills his victim’s heads with destructive, loathing thoughts that continue to linger even if one should escape.

His ultimate is perhaps more straightforward, summoning a writhing horde of vipers, maws filled with a paralyzing venom and the same denigrating thoughts carried upon their cacophonous hissing.

#KNY #KNY Roleswap AU #The Hashira #Himejima Gyomei #Uzui Tengen #Kochou Kanae #Kochou Shinobu #Tokito Muichiro #Tomioka Giyuu #Shinazugawa Sanemi #Rengoku Kyoujuro #Kanroji Mitsuri #Iguro Obanai

[twopoppies]

I found this to be a very interesting article. https://medium.com/@cdl.tuebingen/covid-19-is-killing-performers-a81d1cf209a2

Something this fandom should seriously think about.

Hm. Interesting, yes. I don’t have the energy to dig into it and fact check, so others may want to if they read this as it comes across as slightly exaggerated in the way it’s written. But I’m headed to a concert in a couple of weeks and I know I’ll be wearing a mask (as much as I dislike doing it).

[…]

Now, performers are less frequently dying from acute infections, but more are developing Long COVID, or experiencing adverse health events as a result of COVID reinfections, leading to canceled events, retiring from performing due to new-onset chronic illnesses, and even sudden deaths.

I know. I maintain the google doc that color codes COVID-19’s devastating effects on performers. Yellow for canceled events. Orange for severe or new-onset chronic illnesses. Red for deaths.

You might be asking why this narrative hasn’t coalesced in the news. One answer is that, for a variety of reasons, including stigma, insurance not covering canceled events due to COVID-19, and a failure of public health authorities to correlate COVID-19 infections with new-onset chronic illness and sudden deaths, the illnesses and deaths are not always linked to COVID-19 infections. Some performers have confirmed the link between COVID and their illness, like actress Alyssa Milano, athletes Avery Henry and Mark Bavaro, and Hailey Bieber, who had a “mini stroke” following a COVID-19 infection. Others have canceled events due to “illness” or a “mystery virus,” or have developed new-onset chronic illnesses.

A-list musicians are becoming seriously ill: Lorde has a debilitating, new-onset autoimmune condition, Billie Eilish was “suffering terribly” from an illness while touring, and Harry Styles required supplemental oxygen while performing. And an increasing number of performers are simply dying. Many passed away in the period before vaccines, like Broadway actor Nick Cordero, but as we are discovering that vaccines do not prevent the cumulative damage from COVID-19 infections, now young and relatively healthy people, like WWE wrestler Bray Wyatt, are dying following complications from the effects of COVID.

You may also be asking yourself, if the emergency is so bad, then why is this allowed to continue? Why do venues not create safer conditions for performers, especially because they are so profitable? And why are performers themselves not sounding the alarm?

[…] many venues do not want to enforce mask requirements. Other measures which might keep performers safe, like air purification/filtration with HEPA filters, cost money. Not a lot of money, but this is capitalism, and if a corner can be cut, particularly if the consequences of cutting that corner are not immediately evident and will not create financial liabilities, it most likely will be cut. […]

The second question: “Why aren’t performers advocating for better COVID-19 mitigations?” is more complex. The short answer is that a growing number are. Some public figures, like author and TV creator Neil Gaiman, have requested voluntary masking at his events because the venues themselves will not enforce mask requirements. Let that sink in. Neil Gaiman doesn’t even have the power to ensure basic mitigations for his tour.

Other performers have had more success with ensuring COVID-19 mitigations. Singer and songwriter The Anchoress requires masked rehearsals, testing and air purification for performances. Actress Morgan Fairchild requested masked rehearsals and testing for a play. The band Belly has requested that fans mask at their performances. But there are also forces pushing back against performers advocating for themselves. Some are explicit: insurance in many instances will not pay for canceled concerts due to COVID-19. And performing takes place in the context of hierarchical industries where it’s often important to not be perceived as “difficult,” so few performers have the power to advocate for their safety. But probably the biggest reason is also the most insidious: the public health messaging has so downplayed the risks of COVID-19 reinfections that even A-list performers who could advocate for themselves are not aware of the danger.

Full article here

[definitelynotshouting]

I said I was gonna stop cause it’s late but I thought of another question that I think you might enjoy

What exactly is the Listeners’ ecological niche? What do they do? You’ve mentioned that they’re symbiotic and function similarly to some fungi, and that they can even form a sort of hive mind with other Listener hosts to work towards the same goals, but what are those goals? How sentient are Listeners on their own, without a Player host?

WOOOOO OKAY SO THIS IS A POST IVE BEEN MEANING TO MAKE FOR A WHILE NOW AND ONLY JUST GOT THE TIME TO DO SO

Buckle in everyone lets talk about:

~Ecological Niches~

So to answer this question, im gonna ironically set the stage by talking about something that doesnt SEEM related but trust the process alright this is necessary background info

What we need to briefly dissect is server formation.

Ive mentioned before that singleplayer servers form around spawned Players--- much like a star, code coalesces and forms both Player and world, as a shield between them and the in-between. The thing ive only recently settled on is that all servers are formed by Players in some shape or manner.

Essentially: Players drive server creation.

I'm going to skip the mechanics for how multiplayers are formed rn because thats information for another post, but the essence of what you need to know is that Players are the driving force behind server formation. And the thing about Players, as entities, is that they have a drive to play. And the thing about playing is that sometimes... you get bored.

Theres a tendency to abandon old servers and old worlds--- it happens eventually to pretty much all of them, and its a natural process. Servers arent supposed to be around forever. But sometimes a Player will abandon a world that isnt that old yet, that isnt ready to be recycled by a virus, often for a myriad of reasons. One of these is boredom. Sometimes you just dont click with a with a new world. Sometimes you dont want to continue playing, and so its fairly common to just abandon the world and start a new one.

The problem with this is that theres only so much capacity a dev crystal has to maintain its server cluster, and overstuffing it with more servers than it can take will lead to its collapse (which as ive mentioned before, is CATASTROPHIC for the entire cluster). And this is where Watchers come in.

Where a Player's ecological niche is to create servers, a Watcher's is to keep Players within that server for a greater length of time. Basically, Watchers are a bit like herding dogs (and massive shout out to the anon who gave me that idea); before they were hunted almost to extinction, Watcher colonies would flock to different multiplayer servers and feed on the Players within them, heightening their emotions which very lowkey softlocked the Players into staying on that server for a greater length of time than if they were left to their own devices. When youre invested in a world, in the people within it, and your emotions are heightened while inside, you arent exactly focused on leaving, yknow???

So Watchers, on an ecological level, are essentially pinning Players in place to feed off of them, and keep them from abandoning servers for new ones at an unsustainable rate for the local dev crystal. Seekers, when they were around, would then hunt down the Watchers and eat them, or run them off in the process--- which then freed the Players to finally move on and make new servers again.

Which brings us to the ACTUAL question here, about Listeners.

Listeners are a relatively new type of entity, i think. With Seekers fully extinct, and most Watchers also hunted to critically endangered numbers, the universe needed a new solution for keeping Players in place for long periods of time so dev crystals wouldn't get overloaded. So Listeners were created as a new and more sophisticated way of forcing Players to stay in server worlds for a longer amount of time.

While Listeners dont have a super strong sense of individualism, they are independently sentient from Players and as entities they have a vested interest in remaining on specific servers as long as possible--- specifically because ive recently decided they are specifically connected to sculk. The explanation for that is ALSO for a different post, i think, but essentially Listeners can make new Listeners through the exp orbs Players expel after death, if they die near a sculk catalyst. So Listeners have a lot of incentive to stay on servers and get their Players to build up tons of exp levels before getting them to die so they can continue to make More Listeners, if that makes sense.

So to recap:

Players: create servers

Watchers: feed off Player emotions to trap them on servers for a longer period of time

Seekers: hunted and preyed on Watchers which released any trapped Players

Listeners: formed semi-recently to bridge the ecological gap made by the Seekers going extinct and hunting the Watchers to near extinction, for the same purpose of keeping Players in place for a longer period of time

I hope that answers your questions and then some!!! :D i need to make some posts about the new Listeners lore at some point soon, plus more info on multiplayers, but i'll leave those for a later date :] thank you for being patient while i percolated on this, i hope you like the post!!!

#shouting speaks #asks #minecraft worldbuilding #hermitcraft #mcyt #hunger au #shout out to Crow as well for helping me work thru my explanations for this and also for giving me the idea of Listeners + sculk #:]c #also op i hope u know if u have questions PLEASE hit me up with tjem #ive been rotating ur analysis on that other worldbuilding ask since u reblogged it and it was SO COOL #u are welcome to chat me up at any time #txt

[starlitangels]

Hey Star! How about a sick fic with Avior and Starlight~? 💞

Ooh! I like it!

—

"Here," Avior said, setting a mug of tea on the end table beside where I was sprawled on the couch. "This should help."

"Isn't there magic to decongest my damn nose?" I complained, scrunching my nose up as I wiped at it with a tissue.

"If there is, I don't know it. I'm a demon. We're not susceptible to human viruses, and I never spent enough time on Elegy to learn magic for viruses."

I groaned, sliding down the couch upholstery and rubbing at my temples. "Y'know, the older I get, the more colds suck."

"Want me to turn up the temperature?"

"No. It's plenty warm in here."

"You just said the cold sucks."

"No. A cold. The most common human virus is a low-level sickness people used to believe came from being cold, so it got called the common cold. And the older I get the more this kind of virus sucks."

"Oh. Why have humans not developed a vaccine for it?"

"It mutates too fast. We'd never be able to keep up. Thankfully, for most people it's more of an inconvenience than anything else. This one's just hitting me hard. The fact that it's allergy season might have something to do with that too."

"You'll have to unpack the concept of allergies for me another day." He sat beside me on the couch and wrapped his arms around me. "Do you want to watch a movie? Or a TV show? Listen to some music, maybe?"

I shook my head. "Just... talk to me."

"About what?"

"Anything you'd like. I like listening to you talk. And, given your... 'proclivity to speak at length,' I've gotten pretty good at listening too. Tell me more about the demons you've stewarded."

"Did I tell you about the one who went on to become a Rehabilitator with the Department?"

I shook my head again, ignoring the pounding. "No."

"They went missing a few months before you and I got trapped together with all the breakouts and Solitaire attacks. They're smart and extremely capable, though. I'm sure they're going to be fine. In fact, back when they first coalesced, they took so long to do it that half the stewards ready and waiting thought they'd never step out of the Elision Well. But I knew they were just taking their time. Then I got assigned as their steward and they were so smart..."

My eyelids fluttered as I leaned on Avior's shoulder and chest, just listening to him talk and his heartbeat thump gently under his ribs.

#answered #Star does Micro Fics #Redacted ASMR #Redacted Audio #Redacted Avior #Redacted Starlight #yes still on the 'Avior was Warden's steward' train #you can't change my mind #I forgot that in the past I've done Micro Fics in second-person... my bad #I don't think I have THAT much brain space this time

[laufire]

STACKED100 - MAY POST

what is stacked100?

It’s something I thought up, inspired in part by “stackednatural”, but mostly by myself doing this with The Vampire Diaries this last year (see my #stackediaries tag). The gist of it is that you watch each episode of the show on the anniversary of their airing date. It “officially” started in October (with only two episodes) and it would end in September 2024. You can see the full schedule here.

what are we supposed to do with this

Whatever the hell you want lmao. Tag whatever post you make #stacked100 and go for it! Gifsets, live blogging, discussions… engage with other people as much or as little as you want. Watch some episodes and not others, for any reason. I’m doing this to have some fun with this VERY polarizing show, seeing how my perspective might be changed with hindsight + this specific way of watching it, and a bit because I miss my little corner of this messy as fuck fandom. But this is something you can do in whichever manner works for you, mate.

episodes to watch this month

under the cut as it gets long (this is the busiest month ^^U).

May 1st. Season 5 episode 2, “Red Queen”. Octavia is forced to take guidance from an unlikely ally when the future of the bunker and all those inside it is jeopardized.

May 3rd. Season 4 episode 10, “Die All, Die Merrily”. Octavia fights in the final battle for survival, but not everyone is willing to play fair.

May 5th. Season 3 episode 14, “Red Sky at Morning”. Clarke, Bellamy, Octavia and Jasper hit a tragic roadblock. Meanwhile, Raven and Monty make an important discovery.

May 7th.

Season 1 episode 8, “Day Trip”. Shumway secretly orders one of the 100 to kill Bellamy. Meanwhile, hallucinogenic nuts provide Octavia with an opportunity to help the Grounder escape the camp, and Bellamy and Clarke investigate a nearby underground depot, where they find military weapons..

Season 6 episode 2, “Red Sun Rising”. The team on the ground fights to survive the threat they face on the new planet. Meanwhile, Raven must join forces with an unlikely ally to save everyone on board the Mothership.

May 8th. Season 5 episode 3, “Sleeping Giants”. Bellamy leads the charge investigating a potential way home. Meanwhile, Clarke and Madi deal with the new, uncertain threat to their home.

May 10th. Season 4 episode 11, “The Other Side”. Clarke faces the consequences of her fateful choice.

May 12th. Season 3 episode 15, “Perverse Instantiation: Part One”. Clarke finds hope in a place she never expected. Alie's master plan begins to coalesce.

May 14th.

Season 1 episode 9, “Unity Day”. Finn arranges a meeting with Clarke and the leader of the Grounders in order to bring peace, however a sceptical Clarke warns Bellamy, who along with Jasper and Raven follow them to the meeting with weapons. On the Ark, Diana takes over the exodus ship.

Season 6 episode 3, “The Children of Gabriel”. Clarke tries to win over the leaders of Sanctum in order to let her people stay. Meanwhile, Bellamy, Octavia, and Echo discover a new threat while on a mission to retrieve the transport ship.

May 15th. Season 5 episode 4, “Pandora's Box”. Our heroes are forced to rely on the help of Shallow Valley's dangerous new inhabitants in order to save some of their own, with surprising results.

May 17th. Season 4 episode 12, “The Chosen”. Jaha and Kane disagree over how to handle their grim reality. Meanwhile, Clarke leads a group to save a friend.

May 19th. Season 3 episode 16, “Perverse Instantiation: Part Two”. In the second half of the two-part season finale, everyone prepares for a final showdown as they begin to face the reality of their tragic situation in the epic and mind-bending conclusion.

May 20th. Season 7 episode 1, “From the Ashes”. Clarke and her friends attempt to rebuild Sanctum as a new threat rises in the woods.

May 21st.

Season 1 episode 10, “I Am Become Death”. Murphy returns to the camp carrying a horrific virus created by the Grounders to weaken the camp. After learning the Grounders plan to attack the next day, Bellamy, Finn and Raven come up with a plan to delay them.

Season 6 episode 4, “The Face Behind the Glass”. As Clarke and the others try to integrate themselves into the Sanctum, Octavia and Diyoza fight for their lives against an opposing faction of survivors.

May 22nd. Season 5 episode 5, “Shifting Sands”. Octavia leads her people towards Shadow Valley against the advice of Clarke and Bellamy; Kane and Abby adjust to a new set of challenges.

May 24th. Season 4 episode 13, “Praimfaya”. It's a race against the end of the world as Praimfaya arrives forcing our heroes to make impossible decisions to ensure their survival.

May 27th. Season 7 episode 2, “The Garden”. Echo and Gabriel learn more about Hope and her mysterious past.

May 28th.

Season 1 episode 11, “The Calm”. Clarke and Finn are captured by Anya, who forces them to save the life of a victim of the explosion. Meanwhile, Raven deals with her split from Finn, and Kane fights to save the Ark and it's survivors.

Season 6 episode 5, “The Gospel of Josephine”. Jordan investigates Sanctum. Meanwhile, Octavia and Diyoza discover the threats of the new planet firsthand. Lastly, Bellamy and Clarke butt heads.

#stacked100 #the 100 #memori #a.l.i.e. #raven reyes #octavia blake #bellamy blake #clarke griffin #jasper jordan #monty green #josephine lightbourne #lincoln #stacked100 monthly #echo kom azgeda #john murphy #emori #id in alt text #captioned #the100edit

[therealtruthalways]

🚨The former head of the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) has warned the public that Covid was engineered by scientists in the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) to “depopulate the planet.”

Sir Richard Dearlove claims there was evidence to indicate that the coronavirus had been “tailored” to spread rapidly around the world before being deliberately leaked from the Wuhan lab.

Dearlove, who headed MI6 between 1999 and 2004, admitted that analysis of Covid shows that it had been “mucked around with” by virologists to be “highly infectious” among humans.

“All right, put it like this…” Dearlove explains.

“It’s a natural virus that’s been, as it were, mucked around with and the characteristics of things like the spike protein, which make it so highly infectious, also point in the direction of it being somewhat tailored,” he said.

Slaynews.com reports: Dearlove also slammed the cover-up of relevant data by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

He argues that any evidence from the Wuhan lab that proves the origins of the virus has already been destroyed by China’s communist regime.

The ex-spy chief blasted the recent investigation by the CCP-linked World Health Organization as “farcical.”

“I think there’s a balance of probability,” Dearlove asserts.

“Obviously, if it cannot be proven, and I don’t think it can because the evidence that could have proved it one way or another has been destroyed, because of the extent of the Chinese cleanup.”

While unlikely, he concedes that “it’s possible” the virus jumped to humans from nature.

However, the former intelligence chief argues that “it’s far more likely, if you’re a scientist, that it was put together.”

“I think the onus is on the Chinese to prove that it’s zoonotic because the evidence strongly suggests to me and a number of eminent scientists that the greater probability is that it’s a lab escapee,” he adds.

Dearlove is now calling for an “open debate” on the origins of COVID-19.

“I think that there is a significant Chinese influence active in this specific area,” he warns.

“China has worked very, very hard in terms of influence in finance to make sure their narrative is dominant,” he emphasizes.

Dearlove told LBC’s Tom Swarbrick that the truth about Covid’s origin will soon be exposed.

He said he expects forthcoming books to further outline the argument for coronavirus’ lab origin.

Meanwhile, in America, the lab leak theory was initially discredited by scientific authorities and government officials.

Recently, however, some agencies have endorsed the theory that the virus may have originated in a laboratory.

According to FBI Director Christopher Wray back in March, the agency has for quite some time assessed that the origins of the pandemic are most likely a potential lab incident.

In February, the Department of Energy took back its initial assessment and now admitted that its stand was no longer “undecided” but rather “low confidence” in a lab leak being the origin.

In 2021, Democrat President Joe Biden revealed that the intelligence committee had “coalesced around two scenarios” of Covid’s origin.

One of which was the lab leak theory.

The news comes after Republican officials in Florida have just officially designated Covid and the mRNA vaccines as “bioweapons,” as Slay News reported.

The Brevard County Republican Executive Committee (BREC) passed a resolution in a landslide vote to ban the vaccines.

The resolution also declares that the COVID-19 virus itself is a “bioweapon.”

The committee is now soliciting support from registered Republicans in the county, state lawmakers, Florida’s Congressional delegation, and Governor Ron DeSantis.

thepeoplesvoice.tv/british-spy-ch…

[findoesstuf]

It’s been a while, but here’s some Combo Virus (not official name) doodles! Here’s Spike and Pinkie!

#mlp infection au #mlp art #mlp friendship is magic #pinkie pie #spike mlp #spikes actually alive #no wayyy #pinkie lost her sanity and needs therapy #preferably by spike #bc she’s not comfortable around other ponies #bc she was kept in isolation #she doesnt trust them #but spikes diff bc he’s diff anough for her lol #coalesce virus

[basedkikuenjoyer]

Sabaody Side Up

This chapter really crept up on me. It felt flat at first, like a lot of attention paid to ground we've already tread. At the risk of sounding like a bitch, it took a sec to catch that we do have to make these undertones explicit sometime. On the surface the theme of this chapter is hammering the Sabaody callback. But it's named for Sentomaru, whose story gets another degree more intertwined with our girl. Stussy will have a great moment as well, but we had her title chapter. Another of those interesting moments where talking with a friend who waits for the official was fun, seeing someone highlight the raw potential of something you know comes up next chapter is always a boost to thinking about it. Yeah, don't skip how the crew seems to react more to Sentomaru & Stussy's sacrifices. Recall we did that beat in Wano with Kiku's arm.

Sentomaru though, he keeps spiraling into being a great inheritor of the undertone to Wano Kiku built. And you see people starting to get this theme en masse. Even our powerscaling-inclined friends are catching on. How easy it is for the followers of these great men to get screwed over for that loyalty. How authority and obedience tear earnest bonds. But of course, it's how on the nose we get here. Sento is already so on point; a sumo-themed guy with a gag about not actually being as tight-lipped as advertised. Casual reference to an old school bit of folklore (Kintaro) and now...someone who just wanted a place to belong, a regular meal. Someone who was abandoned, now overlooked. Whatever this is, it's starting to really coalesce now. Especially leading up to...

Kizaru. Don't forget this line of Luffy & Kizaru does pass through meeting Izo back then. It really feels like Luffy is starting this one with Kizaru right where he wants him. Honestly, the stuff with the robot carrying the ship away isn't too shabby for inadvertently protecting someone who might be lying low there coordinating the Fleet for a big coup. Turning the Pacifista on the sea beast weapons certainly raises the stakes below in a way very reminiscent of the Raid on Onigashima. Tama pulls it off for the Straw Hats and fate allows Kiku to lend a hand towards preventing Queen from accomplishing the same via Ice Oni Virus. Sowing discord is extremely powerful when everyone is swinging such big weapons. But it would fit this "head of the snake" element of the arc.

But still, this fight. Luffy has Kizaru in a spot where he cannot easily make this about anything else. Gotta say though, this is an interesting tipping point. We still can't crack the dome, Lucci's decided now is the time to strike (nice quick thinking Sanji, especially since we know you'd react to Stussy being hurt) and it turned out we only had the illusion of the upper hand. Not to mention the finicky situation of not knowing the full stakes; there's a certain amount of cover you need to protect or the island just gets wiped out.

I hope this works out. The subverted Sabaody. If Luffy could have just beaten Kizaru how different would things go? I'll say this much. I was wavering on the Grand Fleet for the past couple of chapters...not so much any more. The Pacifista flipping is not an insignificant problem. I want to give Kizaru his proper due alone, since we do have such an interesting element in how we got here. See you for that tomorrow.

#one piece #chapter 1091 #post-wano musings

[rallamajoop]

Genres of horror, and some rampant speculations about Resident Evil 9

At time of writing, all we really know about Resident Evil 9 is there’s inevitably going to be one, because RE8 made bank. There are some supposed ‘leaks’ about their plans, but not much to suggest they’re genuine. Naturally, there’s no end of speculation online: will we be moving on from the Winters family? Will we see a returning protagonist like Jill Valentine? Will we be moving back to third-person viewpoint? Will we be continuing the trend of hiding the roman numerals somewhere in the title? Etc.

All well and good, but what’s got me wondering is whether we’ll be continuing the trend set by those last two titles, and jump into a whole new genre of horror for RE9.

See, as everyone already knows, Resident Evil 7 is basically one big love letter to the slasher horror genre. Using Cabin in the Woods conventions, we can narrow that right down to the classic Zombie Redneck Torture Family genre – not that the game lacks for other influences and references. You’ve got some found footage/analogue horror in the old video tapes, those creepy phone calls coming-from-inside-the-house, and a whole lotta Saw-style murder-escape-room shenanigans with Lucas. You’ve got some demonic possession, a creepy little girl, the list goes on – heck, I’m sure someone more familiar with slashers could list influences all day.

But rather than continue in the same vein for RE8, instead we take a big leap sideways over into gothic horror – and here I am qualified to tell you all about the wildlife. You’ve got your isolated Romanian village with creepy castle, your vampires, your werewolves, and a huge extra helping of Frankenstein. Moreau alone is like a one-man monster mash: Igor and Frankenstein’s monster smushed into one, with a bit of Monster from the Black Lagoon for flavour, named in honour of The Island of Doctor Moreau, and even a bit of The Hunchback of Notre Dame too.

The Dimitrescu family is dense with the Dracula references: the writers cite the Order of Dracul (ie. Order of the Dragon) as inspiration for her mutated form, and the her daughters with their fly swarms ape Stoker’s descriptions of Dracula and his brides coalescing from mist beautifully (with just a little bit of Renfield thrown in for added squick). The whole game is saturated in twisted fairy tale vibes too (cackling old hags and all!) with a little steampunk, and then there’s that haunted house full of creepy dolls – the list goes on and on. It’s all glorious stuff.

Which only raises the inevitable question: where could we possibly go from here? What other horror genres could work for Resident Evil, if (and this is admittedly a big if) the development team wants go for something as different again?

There’s no definitive horror-genre-list of we can refer to: categories overlap and bleed into each other at the best of times, and a google search for ‘horror genres’ doesn’t produce much consensus. A lot of ‘categories’ you will see listed are territory RE has already done to death: zombies are absolutely a valid genre, but is pretty much just another day at the office for RE. Psychological horror probably isn’t the kind of thing RE could hope to base a whole game around either: there are already psychological elements all through 7-8, but it’s more of a vibe than a real setting – and at some point in any RE, you’re going to expect to shoot something, or people won’t have got their money’s worth.

Lovecraftian horror may have more potential, but tends to come with more lore than will necessarily gel with the existing RE universe, and most other space or cosmic horror possibilities would run into similar problems. I mean, you certainly could tell us that the mould dates back to the Great Old Ones or that the progenitor virus actually came to earth on a meteor, but I’m not sure that’s the kind of ‘twist’ the series needs. Just because we want new territory doesn’t mean we’re ready to leave the planet.

That said, I do think there are places RE could go in the broader sci-fi horror genre, and that was when it hit me: imagine what Resident Evil could do with The Thing.

No aliens needed: just a small group of besieged survivors after some outbreak or lab accident, dealing with the fact that one of them (if not MORE) isn’t entirely human anymore. Whether RE frames that as an infection, a shape-shifter, a mind-controlling parasite, a chest-burster, or some horrible combination of the lot, you’ve got the perfect recipe for confusion and paranoia: A+ horror material.

Obviously, you’re going to need something for players to shoot at between big reveals, so naturally your monster can bud, or infect corpses or lab animals or whatever – all very doable. Throw in some influences from the likes of Alien or The Blob (how much scarier would the monster be if it can crawl up through your sink?) or maybe even Venom for good measure. Think of the possibilities!

Now, obviously, the inevitable twist of this kind of set-up is that You Are The Monster (or at least, you are a monster) – and this is where the possibilities of doing You Are The Monster in a first-person perspective hit me, because damn. You thought seeing Ethan’s hands go through the blender was freaky? Imagine continually catching glimpses of your own hands transforming in tense moments, and not knowing if it was a hallucination. You Are The Monster with the ambiguity of first person perspective could be intense.

Cliché as video-game-protag-with-monster-transformation can be, mostly it’s done as pure power-fantasy: rarely do we really get into the horror potential. Like the possibility of having control of your own player character wrenched away from you if the invisible-rage-meter gets too high, or of finding a body and having to wonder if the killer was you during a blackout period. If you can’t find a Resident Evil-worthy horror story in that, you’re not even trying.

I still don’t think RE needs actual aliens, or to send its next protag to explore a laboratory floating in orbit or anything, but taking some inspiration from the broader alien-horror genre could go some brilliant places.

Is that likely to be where Capcom is going with the series? Not a clue! It’s all speculation down here. And if it was really up to me, RE9 would be the Mia Winters story, covering all the backstory we never got about her involvement with The Connections, and pushing on into post-Village territory too (look, they said Ethan’s story is over, they never told us they’re done with the rest of the family!) But I doubt I’ll get that lucky.

With all that Village draws from RE4, we should probably be happy if they can just avoid another follow-up like 5 or 6, which leans so heavily into action and chasing increasingly wider audiences that everything that ever gave the franchise its own identity gets lost in the shuffle.

But while I’m speculating, we may as well go over the actual hints the game leaves us about where things might be headed next.

The big sequel hook RE8 ends on is the implication that the BSAA (the big international org responsible for preventing bio-terror outbreaks) has itself been creating bioweapons. But as hooks go, this is a little underwhelming for a few reasons.

For one, the BSAA exists in RE8 only as a sequel hook. That final scene where Chris is told the BSAA was sending bioweapons (!!!) comes virtually out of nowhere. The BSAA is mentioned in passing in one document you may well miss in the Winters’ home, and then not again until very near the end, when Chris watches a BSAA chopper crashing in the village. There were apparently plans for Chris’ section to involve a big three-way battle between his team, the lycans, and the BSAA, but in the final game, this has been cut all the way down the aforementioned cutscene, and to a single dead BSAA soldier you may not even find. Right up until that final ‘they’re making bioweapons!’ reveal, long-time fans are probably assuming Chris is still working for the BSAA himself. New fans probably haven’t caught on to who the BSAA are supposed to be at all.

Arguably, the implication that someone responsible for Ethan and Mia’s safety was working with Miranda all along is a lot stronger: someone tipped her off about Rose, and the couple weren’t moved right to Miranda’s doorstep by accident. That’s only reinforced by the game ending on Chris insisting ‘someone’s gotta pay’ (implied: for Ethan’s death). Trouble is, ‘the BSAA is working with Miranda’ really doesn’t tally with why they’d be sending choppers full of bio-engineered soldiers into the village at her moment of triumph. So is the problem that they’ve been working with her, or that they’re doing wildly unethical things while working against her? It’s all a bit incoherent.

The other reason I find it a pretty weak sequel hook is that, well, that’s pretty much how RE7 ended too ‒ only there, the company-that-may-actually-be-dodgy was a new incarnation of Umbrella, not the BSAA. The choppers that swoop in at the end are Umbrella-branded, and Chris spends a lot of his DLC being suspicious that the folks funding the clean-up aren’t trustworthy. But nothing comes of it – and RE8 drops that plot point so hard that the new-blue-Umbrella isn’t even mentioned. Maybe we’re supposed to take it they were always working with the BSAA, but it feels more like we’ve retconned Umbrella out of ever being involved in the first place. There’s even a whole ‘Incident Report’ file you can get with one of RE8’s DLCs which mostly exists to cast the BSAA’s actions post RE7 in the worst light possible.

Now, there may be some narrative sense in corrupting the BSAA, at least in that it’s much easier to tell horror stories about characters who can’t just call in a reliable, well-funded, multi-national org for backup. And ‘the BSAA is making bioweapons!’ is admittedly a more shocking reveal than ‘Umbrella is making bioweapons!’ could be. Honestly, the more shocking reveal would be that new-blue-Umbrella aren’t secretly making bioweapons, with Chris having to team up with them to take down the evil!BSAA in RE9 – though I’m less sure how far the novelty would go in practice. But ultimately, if Capcom were so quick to drop the big ‘new Umbrella!’ teaser from the end of RE7, why should we have any more faith they’re going to follow up on the ‘evil BSAA!’ teaser from RE8? It’s just not that compelling as a hook.

The Shadows of Rose DLC may or may not be any kind of clue. It tells us that Chris is still around and working with his dog-dog squad far into the future, and that people working with him are still researching the megamycete, but it seems more than likely RE9 won’t be set that many years ahead of the present day. Or maybe it wasn’t actually that far in the future at all, and Rose just ages supernaturally fast – I don’t think there’s a hard date on it, but no-one’s really expecting her to be the star of RE9, and I’d tend to agree.

For all that Chris ends RE8 promising “someone’s gotta pay!” I’d be amazed if he’s to be our next playable-protagonist either. There are plenty of other perspectives you could do that story from, even if he’s involved – and nothing about his post RE8 status quo suggests he’d work any better as a horror protag now than he did back in 5 and 6. Other old series regulars are likely to present similar problems.

There are other dangling plot threads they could always pick up on, like the question of who Lucas Baker was selling research data to in that one RE7 DLC. You could dig into the truly ancient history of the mould and those four huge statues, as hinted in that one really old document lying in the stronghold, or dig even deeper into that whole consciousness-storing mechanic. Or we could just drop all that and ignore the mould altogether.

Anything’s possible – including a bland re-tread of Village that takes no interesting risks, or an epic game-changing masterpiece that I don’t ever play because it’s even less my thing than RE7 was. And just to emphasise, none of these possible dangling plot threads are inherently incompatible with leaping into wild, new horror territory: The Thing could come busting out of one of the BSAA’s own labs, if need be. It’s all about the angle.

But if I can say one thing for the current state of the series, it’s they’ve left me incredibly curious about where they might take things next. I don’t know we’ll get something as different from RE8 as it was as RE7, but I might be just a little disappointed if we don’t.  

#Resident Evil 9 #Resident Evil Village #Resident Evil 7 #Resident Evil #Horror #horror genres #The Thing

[theimperials1]

An Small Thought on an Old Forgotten Beta, and the Upcoming Episode

Certainly; the episodes to come of the series, starting with the second, are going to be full of intrigue and plot points that will slowly form and coalesce until we reach a climax, in which, we will likely find an unrelenting truth inside and outside of Copper 9.

However, putting that aside; watching both the teaser from February, and the newer trailers, including, of course, the trailer that was revealed very relatively recently; I must point out that, as someone who loves discarded content, I have noticed some incredibly strong similarities, between what we have seen, as well as what is already implied, and a beta of a video game that many have played - Resident Evil 4.

Now, I am not referring, evidently, to what many of you reading this article are reading: those village fights against crazed villagers, and action that always left a good bit of horror with the advancement of the plot (It is necessary to clarify that I have not seen nor am I taking into account the recent Remake of the same game). I'm referring to one of the many projects of this fourth part of the numerical saga that gave quite a lot of work to Capcom back in the day.

The "Hook Man Version" - From Resident Evil 4, or rather, for those who dig a lot into this; Resident Evil 3.5.

If it had been released, it would have been a real departure from the usual style of the serie's; considering that it involved paranormal events, but, all of it, tied firmly to the concept that Leon S. Kennedy, was infected with the progenitor virus, which was slowly beginning to take over his mind, causing visions and hallucinations - And there we start with the due similarities - while fighting enemies ranging from living dolls to mysterious creatures made of shadow and fog. (Which don't seem so far from that slimy monster seen at times in the trailer).

This precept, at least to me, seems to have hugely inspired the plot; I find many elements - Uzi, likewise, and even if the same is a computer virus, or a mutagen of some sort spread by N's nanites, is in a similar situation, as seen in the trailer, not to mention, those last few seconds of suspense, with her looking tantalizingly at her oil-stained fingers, in my opinion, I don't doubt that a similar moment could have been planned within Resident Evil 3.5; Leon perhaps about to devour Ashley? (of whom a Skin has been found wearing winter clothes).

But, the elements closer to the plot, and how much it might resemble it, is, even at the time of writing, a thing left to the will of Liam Vickers, and what he himself, along with Glitch, have arranged in the script of the chapters to come. However, there is one thing that is already possible to compare with some fidelity, and that is the aesthetic similarities - At the top of this post I have provided screenshots of both certain enemies, and Jc Jenson's apparent CEO mansion. I invite you to take a look at such comparisons and ask yourself this little question that maybe will be answered one day, or maybe not - Has this forgotten beta, inspired certain points of this series, whose revelations already in the second chapter put us on the edge of our seat?

I thank you, reader, for taking the time to read this little publication. Which I have allowed myself to translate with Deepl (with some tweaking done by me) - All thoughts and Opinions are Highly appreciated! (Also, i offer here an small apology for any Typos)

#murder drones #murder drones uzi #resident evil #resident evil 3.5 #resident evil 4 #beta #discarded content

[aselfking123]

Beauty

The stab to my gut I felt the first time I saw one of them is... Indescribable. They didn't look like I expected them to, from their descriptions on the news. They were different in a way I can't put into words.

No one's really sure where the first one was sighted, because that's just how things go most of the time. Issues are overlooked--either intentionally or not--and sometimes they fix themselves, but other times, they just get worse with more room to grow. So, the first images hit the internet in a flurry, a collage of nightmares from people who had nothing to gain from lying.

Unfortunately, as is well known, the internet isn't always the most reputable place. Sure, there're plenty of resources to be exploited, a treasure trove of information coalesced in a way unlike any other time in the history of humanity. But its fatal flaw, the thing that makes it inherently untrustworthy, is that it's both run and populated by people.

Let's face it; people like to lie for flak. They pose fake incidents to gain global traction, or to play a mean-spirited prank on their fans, or simply to live on in infamy for as long as the Internet lasts. In the modern age, most people are so starved for attention that they'll to anything to be known.

So, when news started spreading about random assaults and cannibalism, when videos rolled across people's FYPs of individuals who'd evidently lost their minds, everyone rolled their eyes, myself included. There were two face-eating guys in Florida alone that year. Some lunatic so gonked out of his mind on bath salts he can no longer remember his name, or dealing with some rare, untreated mental illness that made him believe he was a wolf was nothing new.

There was probably some shady government business in the background looking into the events, trying to see if it was a legitimate public health concern, but no news came for months. So as pictures surfaced and social media platforms began to block accounts uploading content concerning the events, most people forgot.

Until it became real.

Until I watched the world come crashing down around me, hellish hands of flame devouring the land, and people turned to... To whatever those things were.

The problem had gotten so big, because no one thought it was real, that it seemed there was no longer any control to be had. Soon, the entire west coast of the US was swallowed under hordes of frothing, maddened cannibals.

There was still hope at this point, as the military established a barrier along the eastern coasts of Washington, Oregon and California, effectively stopping the spread of... Whatever this was. Those of us who'd survived the initial havoc travelled east, expecting to be greeted with open arms and brought to safety.

What we got instead was gunfire. Even though we raised our arms, even though we walked without that strange lurch the others had, even though we screamed when they fired on us, it didn't seem that any of that mattered to them.

I was the only one who walked away.

Maybe we were some kind of health hazard, like we were carriers of a virus or something that they didn't want to get out. But regardless, they didn't want to help us.

Three months later, soldiers dropped from the sky and rounded those of us still left up. To them, we were no longer human. We were 'the ones west of the blockade' or sometimes 'the lucky ones.'

I wouldn't call our time spent in those facilities particularly lucky.

Cold concrete walls, placid fluorescent lights, no windows, steel doors. We were in prison. They put us in prison. And the worst part is, they didn't even try to lie about it.

The first unarmed people were dressed in head-to-toe white PPE, with goggles, masks, blue rubber gloves. They rustled when they moved, attaching diodes and anodes to my skull, occasionally taking blood samples, checking my pupils' ability to dilate or my reflexes. It felt like daily visits to the doctor's office.

I only asked questions once. The faceless PPE people didn't even try to dance around my curiosity like they so often did to prevent undue panic before the world collapsed. They just stayed silent, unfeeling, devoted to their small tasks of collecting skin and hair samples, not meeting my eyes.

But soon, PPE changed to full biohazard suits, tubes stretching from the doorways, now armed with the rushing whir of decontamination machinery, attached to the backs of the suits to provide clean air to breathe. I felt like I was on an alien spaceship, and they didn't care to learn my language or culture, only how my heart ticked so they could more effectively kill.

It was about then that the screaming started. Throughout the day, the night, and everything in between. Somehow, the brief silences between screams became more unsettling, because I knew that eventually, it would be my turn to march into the operating room.

The faculty liked to talk as if I was incapable of comprehending what they said, regularly holding conversations between themselves via intercom when the hazmat people came to do tests. The word 'vivisection' came up more than I liked. So did 'possible immunity.'

Eventually, the day came when the fragile, tyrannical order collapsed. Setting up shop in the heart of the disaster zone probably wasn't the wisest decision in retrospect, but hindsight is 20/20. The facility was breached almost effortlessly, and when the power systems failed, the doors to all the cells popped open.

It's how I ended up huddled in a broom closet, shaking uncontrollably, the door locked and braced closed with a cheap plastic chair. The smell of spilled cleaning solution reminded me of a hospital. But the screams of the people on the other side of the door reminded me that this was the furthest thing from a hospital.

Before the facility, before I witnessed the massacre at the border, people whispered about how the sounds of the insane could drive someone crazy. I'd never understood what they meant, until I was trapped with no escape, with only the wails of hell to provide comfort.

But then, something strange happened. My heartbeat slowed; my breath stalled. The chaos on the other side of the door fell silent, and a voice landed on my ears.

Soft and matronly, it caressed my face, held me close and told me it was okay. Please come out. We don't want to hurt you. We just want to show you. You need to understand. You need to see.

I stared at the floor, at the nightmarish shadows cast under the door, once flailing, now still.

Hands shaking, I stood, and my hand touched the doorknob. I blinked, pulling it open.

A woman stood on the other side, skin sallow, shattered irises sunken into her eye sockets. She studied me, and though I immediately knew she was one of them, I was not afraid.

I wanted to hug her, to reach out and pull her close.

But her mouth opened before I could, and from deep in her gullet, came a wash of dark, red blood, pouring into my face, engulfing me completely.

My eyes which had shut purely out of instinct opened.

It was beautiful.

#horror #zombies #writing #creative writing #scary #short fiction #short story #flash fiction