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silversweetpea · 2 years

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Aw, hon, I'm sorry. I hope you're taking care of yourself both on- and offline.

That's alright, I actually started writing out my asks for you in my phone's notes after like, the second ask because I figured it was only a matter of time before the hellsite decided to swallow one. It might have swallowed it because the ask literally starts with 'I'm mad at Tumblr...' I was just making sure since it's always a possibility you're just not feeling up to answering asks at the moment, but also, y'know, there's the hellsite guarantee that something will go wrong at some point. But yeah, I'll resend that one in after this one, you can take your time answering both, obviously- just know you should have two asks from me. I'm glad my little #🦕 will be put in its rightful place and all will be right with the world once again. :)

I say let the fanfiction part of your brain run wild. Impulse control is overrated anyways. I say this mostly for my own benefit. >:)

Listen, listen, I'm a big baby who doesn't do angst. When I go to read fanfiction, I'm here for self-indulgence. That being said, angst with a happy ending is acceptable, depending on the ratio of angsty to happy. You have no idea how many times an angsty fic has popped up and I'll scroll all the way down to the end to see if the ending is happy or not. It it's happy enough and not like... 10k words of angst and then like, three happy sentences, I'll got back and read it. If not... I'm not a masochist, I'm (probably) not doing that to myself. The song does sound like it has angsty vibes (I've never beard it, but the lyrics and description you put on the original post give me that impression), but you have happy ending vibes, so I'm sure it'll balance itself out. If not, as I said, I'm holding you personally responsible for my tears and I might just die in protest.

Maybe if you sit down to work on one, you can keep like, one of those sticky note apps- y'know, the ones that just occupy a small amount of space and not the whole screen?- open on the side. That way, if you come up with an idea for a story you're not working on or a line or whatever, you can write it down so you don't lose it before going back to whatever you've set out for yourself? You might still write more for the other stories, but it gives you an opening so you can do both things, I think?? I don't know, just a thought. And yes, I am firmly team brain worms. Actually, I've just had a thought. All of your brain worms are now little Stevens. 'Cause Khonshu calls him worm and I just want to see more Steven, so I'm imagining that now... now I wish I had a little Steven to give me ideas... or just to have him at all...

Yeah! I'm also on team self-indulgence. One, because who doesn't love self-indulgence and two, because your self-indulgent fics are highly beneficial for me. :)

Also, if you write for yourself, you write your best work (I think, I haven't been able to come up with something to write in actual years, I think) and at some point, a like-minded individual who likes the same stuff you do will find it and think it's one of the best things ever I may or may not be one such individual. I'm also on team pure comfort, with only the occasional dash of conflict. Goodness gracious, I'm on so many teams. Conflict is fun, but fluff, comfort, etc. is my go-to.

Soulmate AU coming soon??? 👀👀👀 Alright, I won't die, but only because you asked... Ok, I say that, but I can't make any promises, Soulmate AUs are like, my favorite trope I can think off the top of my head right now. I'd say they're probably somewhat tied with found family? Maybe a teeensy bit ahead? I don't know if trope is the right word, but whatever. But I will try not to die (barring an unhappy ending on the potential angsty fic), for your sake. And also, because I need to know what that favorite line is. Do you think you could point it out when the time comes? 👀

And I always read your tags. How did you know I need to drink water and unclench my jaw? Are you watching me?? (No joke, I actually need to do both of those things.)

Ok ok, I'll take care of myself. I'm off to resend the copy of the old ask. I think I put in a couple of numbers or something from an ask game you did recently, so if you don't feel like doing that anymore, feel free to ignore that.

I appreciate it. Like I said it's been a bit up and down but I'm doing better now than I was and that has to count for something.

ajsldkfjdslakjfdlksajfdsafds Tumblr may be a hellsite but I love it for it. That being said I do think it's hilarious that your ask started with 'i'm mad at tumblr' and that's the one where they were like 'okay well then I'm going to eat this like a slice of pizza'. And I could never leave your asks in my inbox too long I like talking with you too much! I really am sorry about that missing tag though I'm not sure what was going on with me 😅

Once again I absolutely adore that you support my brain's horrid writing habits. That being said the impulse control is whats keeping us from having fics with cliffhangers (for now....I make no promises for the soulmate au) so it's really pulling its weight right now. Gotta earn its keep in my head these day with how much space the moon knight boys take up in there, ya know?

I 10000% recommend it its one of my favorite songs at the moment. It's sad but more in a bittersweet way than a melancholy one if that makes sense? Like it's obviously a goodbye song to a love that you never really allowed yourself to pursue for one reason or another but it's also a well wishing for the other person that whatever they found outside of the time you interacted was sweet and fulfilling and I'm gonna stop because I'm definitely just rambling but I really love the song. It definitely has the same vibes as trying to push someone away for their own good which screams Marc to me, especially in the time before the show where he left Layla and was hiding from Steven and was just a ghost in his own life, ya know? I definitely am the same way about angst though, If there isn't a happy ending I just can't do it so i'll read like a couple paragraphs and then race to the bottom just to make sure that my poor heart will be able to take it! I pinky promise that if I ever write angst without a happy ending though I'll warn you before you even hit the first word in the notes, but I'd really prefer if you didn't die out of protest because then what if I wrote a second part that was just fluff and happy ending and you never got to see it?

also I'm going to be thinking about 'you have happy ending vibes' for the rest of my life???? I know it's probably just in reference to how much fluff I write but it's just such a fun little descriptor and so sweet and yeah I'm obsessed with it. 💜💜💜

Oooh, that's a good idea! I'll have to try the sticky note method to see if it helps corral myself into productivity! So far i've mostly been using the site 4thewords which times you for your writing and makes it so I don't have the time to bounce between the different files as much? I like it so far.

DINO THAT IS SO CUTE TO CALL THEM ALL LITTLE STEVENS I'M ADOPTING THAT RIGHT NOW. (also big mood. 2022 is the year I manifest Steven Grant (mcu edition) into my life. I would love to just chat about mythology with him whether or not we were dating.)

I totally agree with the idea that you write best when you write for yourself also. I think a lot of the times i've felt less passionate about a piece it's shown in the final project, whether that was personal or academic there's just something about people's writings when they genuinely love and are excited for what they're saying. It's like the text version of the way people's faces light up I think. Although sometimes I worry that there's too much self indulgence in some of my pieces - like that Matt fic I just posted because like I said in the note it's highly specific to something that I actually do with my tattoos.

Still, the world big and it feels a little less scary with more comfort stores in the world so I can't really bring myself to write too much other than that.

Soulmate AU coming soon!!!! I have the first part's rough draft done I just need to edit a few things and make sure that it lines up with the rest of the story's outline so I don't accidentally make a plothole before we even get to the conflict of the story - however brief it is. Also are we in each other's heads??? because Soulmate Aus and found family are also my two top favorite tropes????

The idea that there is someone or several someones out there that are destined to love and be loved by me, whether that be romantic platonic or familial, and that we were always going to find each other???? The idea that there is a destiny and a fate and they care about every single person on this earth enough to make sure that they would meet someone that made them feel cherished and cared for and that that includes me????

But also the idea that someone chooses you??? that they decided one day, maybe quickly or maybe painfully slowly or maybe too late when they couldn't say it but you all already knew anyways, that they loved you and that they would do anything for you because regardless of if you shared a blood type they were your people and you were one of theirs? To look at someone and realize in startling clarity that you would move the sky and all its stars if they asked you to because that's your mom/dad/sibling/kid even if they weren't always???

Anways i'm going to stop because once again i'm rambling i'm just in a very expanise mood today sorry. I definetly will point it out when it's posted! Not going to lie the line/conversation its in is one of the main reasons I buckled and decided to start writing an actual multipart story instead of just one shots forever.

I just had a hunch because it was late at night for me and I was worried it was for you too and definetly not because I also was in need of water and a reminder to unclench my jaw adjfdlkjfalsdfasd

I'll try to get to your resent ask soon!! And don't worry about the numbers ask game thing I'll probably still answer because I really liked that game!! Also yes!! please make sure to take care of yourself!! I'm going to start sending you asks on your blog that are just daily reminders on self care!!

#ask the gardener #🦕#Sorry this is so long I got distracted in several parts #I just have a lot of thoughts on a lot of things I guess 😅#also please know that while i cannot physically hold these letters to my chest like they do in old victorian novels when mail #from a dear friend comes in know that emotionally I very much am 💜💜💜

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babycharmander · 3 years

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If you think you have never stolen artwork, read this post.

So, art theft. If you've been a follower of mine, you've heard my barely-coherent rants about this before, but I thought it might be more productive to make a more coherent post on the subject.

If you're wondering about the title of the post here, it's because I feel like a lot of people aren't really grasping what exactly art theft is, and a LOT of people, even well-meaning ones, do it without even realizing it.

"But wait," you say. "I would never STEAL from an artist!! I never claim it as my own!" And that's all fine and good, but you're missing something here.

To start things off, what IS art theft? (It's not what deviantART said it was several years back, I'll tell you that much. *cough*)

We all know what art is, so let's talk about theft. Dictionary.com defines "theft" as "the act of stealing; the wrongful taking and carrying away of the personal goods or property of another; larceny." Okay, makes sense, but what about that other word there, stealing? Dictionary.com defines "steal" as "to take (the property of another or others) without permission or right, especially secretly or by force."

From those definitions, we can go on to define art theft as, specifically, "taking art without permission or right." In the context of art, that typically involves reposting it (not reblogging--reblogging is different) or using it for other things.

And there, my friends, is the issue.

If something is taken or used without permission, it is stolen. Permission is the important thing here--if an artist says "oh yeah, you can go ahead and use this!" then it's not stolen. You have their permission. But if you DON'T have that, then it IS stolen. It IS theft.

"But I'm not claiming it as my own!" you say. But you don't have to claim it as your own--the act of taking it in and of itself is an act of theft.

"But I said 'credit to the artist!'" The "credit" thing is a whole other conversation, but here's the short of it: The entire point of credit is to direct people to the source of something. If you are not directly linking to where you got the art from, you are not giving credit. "Credit to the artist" is not actually credit of any kind whatsoever. (Also, Google and Pinterest are not sources.)

"But I DID link back to the artist!" Okay, now this is where it may get confusing, because you may think you're covered because you actually did give credit. Here's the problem: if you reposted it or used it without permission, regardless of whether you gave credit or not, it's still stealing.

I'm bolding this because it's a point that a lot of people get tripped up on. Let me explain it this way: If you went into your neighbor's house and took something of theirs without their permission, but you told people "oh yeah, I got this from [neighbor]'s house!" that that would still, of course, be stealing, and it's no different for art.

Another thing is that even when you credit, people don't always check the source. Very recently I found a case where someone had reposted a piece of artwork of mine to Pinterest that was deliberately made to look like it came from the source material (it wasn't meant to confuse anyone, though--the description of my original post made it very clear that it was fanart). The person who reposted had linked back to my original post. The problem? The comments had people asking if this was official, where it happened in the source material, etc. Despite the fact that the source was right there, no one thought to look at it.

Even if you link back to the source, if you did it without the artist's permission, it's still stealing, and still causes problems for us artists.

"But I just posted it to my Pinterest--" DO NOT DO THIS. DO NOT POST AN ARTIST'S WORK TO PINTEREST IF YOU DO NOT HAVE THEIR EXPLICIT PERMISSION TO DO SO.

"But this artist friend of mine says they're okay if I post their work to my Pinterest so long as I link back to them!" Good for your friend! But the fact that your friend is okay with it doesn't mean that all artists are okay with it. For me, personally, I am very not okay with my work being posted to Pinterest, and say as much on my art blog description and posts (which people tend to ignore).

The problem with Pinterest--and reposting art in general--is that we artists don't know when it happens unless we're told, or unless we find it ourselves. It causes us to lose control of our art. And because of this, our art can spiral further out of our control, because when our works get posted to Pinterest or other similar websites, people who have no grasp whatsoever on how art works will just take it as "free art" and then use it for whatever they want.

That's how a piece I spent 20+ hours on was used as a poster for a paid event, without my permission, and without any payment or credit to me.

If an artist has said nothing about Pinterest (or other similar image sharing sites), your default should be to assume that they don't want their artwork posted there.

"Well I didn't repost someone's art, but I did use it for my avatar/RPing icon/video/fic cover/photo edit--" That's still stealing. If you're using it without their permission for any reason, that is stealing. Not to mention, the artist may not be cool with what you're using their art for anyway. (Looking at you, people who use platonic art in your shipping videos.)

“I MEANT to ask them for permission, but I forgot!” This can ONLY happen if you used the artwork BEFORE you asked for permission. You can resolve this by asking for permission BEFORE you use it, rather than assuming the answer will be “yes” and using it before asking.

"But it took me a really long time to make that icon/video/cover/edit!!" How long do you think it took the original artist to draw their piece? It doesn't matter how much work you put into modifying someone else's art--if you're doing it without their permission, you're still stealing.

"But I couldn't find the original artist! I tried to find them, I really did, but I couldn't. Is it okay to use their art then?" No, because you still don't have permission, and by reposting it anyway, you’re continuing to make the artwork spiral out of their control.

"What if I found the artist, but they speak a different language from mine? I can't ask them for permission, so is it okay if I repost their art anyway?" NO!! DO NOT DO THIS!! If there is a language barrier, use Google translate or find someone to translate for you and get a hold of the artist that way to ask them for their permission. The language barrier is NEVER an excuse to steal artwork. There are plenty of non-English-speaking artists who have taken ALL OF THEIR ARTWORK OFFLINE because the art theft was completely out of control. (And this isn't just exclusive to English-speakers stealing art from people who don't speak their language. It happens artists who don't speak English stealing art from English-speakers, too, but as this post is written in English it doesn't do much good for me to rant about this here.) If you can’t ask their permission, do not use it!!

"But what about reblogging?! Isn't that the same as reposting?? Should we not reblog art at all then?" No, reblogging (or retweeting) is not the same as reposting. If you reblog art, you keep all the information that we attached to the art, including our blog name and the description attached to the art. Reblogging/retweeting actually helps us artists A LOT, so as long as you're reblogging from the original artist (and not someone who's reposting their art), by all means, reblog our art!

"What if I just want to share someone else's artwork on Discord or show it to a friend?" This one's a bit different and is not actually as problematic. If you want to share our work on Discord or whatever, just link directly to where we posted it. Please don't post the art itself, unless you're doing it alongside a link because Discord won't show a preview or something.

"What about a forum or a site like Reddit?" This one's a bit different, since due to the way Reddit functions, if you LINK to the art, you have to go directly to the artist's original page to view it. (At least, that’s what it’s like the last time I was active there.) In a way it's roughly the same as with Discord--be sure you're linking directly to the actual post rather than just uploading the art on its own--but I would also ask the artist if they're okay with it, because they may be a member of the subreddit or forum and want to post it themselves, or they might not want their work shared to specific communities. (Some communities have a function where a bot will repost the artwork to Imgur, and some artists don't want that done with their art.)

"What if I'm saving it to my computer/phone to look at later, or making it into my desktop/phone wallpaper?" IMO this is fine, since your computer/phone files aren't public, and neither is your wallpaper. It's only a problem when you post it to public places without our permission.

"What if it's art I commissioned?" Well... like... in that case, it's art you paid for, so unless the artist you commissioned laid out very specific terms for you, you should be good to use that art. Like, at most, the artist may ask you to credit them somewhere in your blog description if they drew your icon or something, or credit them in a fic description if you commissioned a fic illustration from them, or something to that effect. It's really something you should have already worked out with the artist beforehand, but for the most part you should probably be fine to use art you paid for however you like.

"What about art I requested?" This is a bit different from commissioned work. Just because the art was drawn at your request doesn't mean it's explicitly yours (unless it's like, a drawing of your original character or something). Some artists take requests more as suggestions, so the art they draw in response to a suggestion or request is still theirs. Treat this as you would any other artwork and ask the artist for permission first before you do anything with the artwork you requested from them.

“What about NFTs?” ... Okay this one I can’t really go over too much because I barely understand it in the first place, but NFTs are BAD for artists and are a form of art theft. Do not turn people’s art into NFTs. This is a crappy thing to do. (If you want more information on this one, you’ll have to look it up yourself. It’s a form of cryptocurrency and it’s confusing.)

“If you don’t want your art stolen you shouldn’t post it in the first place.” This is fascinating logic. Try applying it to something else and see how it holds up. “If you don’t want your merchandise stolen, you shouldn’t open a booth.” “If you don’t want to get poisoned you shouldn’t eat food.” “If you don’t want to get punched in the face, don’t walk outside.” Yes. Flawless logic. Truly.

"Why do you care so much, anyway?! I'm sharing your art because I like it! That's a compliment! Shouldn't you be happy?" Well, we're certainly glad you like our art, but the problem is... as I've said before, reposting our art causes us to lose our control over it. When we lose control of our art, that damages our livelihood. As I said before, other people have made money off of my artwork. As well, some artists lose jobs because when their potential employers check out their portfolio, they may find artwork that's been reposted everywhere online, so they cannot hire the artist because they believe they may have stolen the artwork in their own portfolio.

Your reposting an image you thought was cute to Facebook or Pinterest could cost an artist their job. Think about that.

So, tl;dr, keep this in mind: you need the artist's permission to repost or use their artwork. If you do not have it, it is stealing, even if you credit the artist.

I know this post is really harsh in places, but this is such an important thing for all artists, and there's so many misconceptions about art theft online. And I feel like one of the biggest problems is that when some people see posts on art theft, they ignore them, because they think they've never done it or would never do it, so that's why I worded this post the way I did. I'm not trying to hurt anyone--I just want people to understand what art theft is, how it affects us artists, and how you can avoid it. Thank you for reading.

#long post #psa #drawing #art theft

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thelypteriiis · 2 years

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so now that the video is officially released, i have a theory update...

spoilers below

so as discussed in this post, i thought marcus, james and ets were working to bring the meridian down, to aid closeknit in whatever their goal is. but there's two lines in the most recent video that have me questioning that part of the theory. they are:

"the meridian cannot fall."

"i guess at that point we pray one of the other proposed solutions works instead. for everyone’s sake."

i still think the main bones of the theory are intact. i just think that love's role is swapped. instead of being used to bring the meridian down they are supposed to aid in keeping it up, tho im not quite sure how. the main part of my theory about love's involvement was how long they were offline/rebooting for and with this new video, we just learned they are still not completely finished with the shut down they experienced in their last video.

i stated that love could have been the one to create the prison breaks, but after reviewing the inversion videos it seems that with the right motivation anyone can do it if they can get close enough (and stupidly brave enough - milo) to the receiver that channels the magic of the ward. so love, especially since they are still offline/rebooting, had nothing to do with that.

i still think that ecumene was an interesting partial title to use for james' company tho. i originally theorized it could be because the company was looking to expand the livable part of the world or completely destroy it, but it looks like they are looking to protect it.

i also suspected that love was going to act like a catalyst for something, specifically the collapse of the meridian, but again i don't think that's the case. as far as we know, james knows of the meridian and he mentions that he;s empowered so im guessing ets, as a whole or even partially, is too. there's no reason an unempowered person, let alone a whole company, would know about the meridian especially since covert laws seem to be pretty strict and strictly enforced (as we saw with dump continually pressuring ash to take that covert class after breaking covert with babe AND milo's teasing of covert multiple times with sweetheart). i don't think marcus is empowered though, solely because he hasn't mentioned anything about magic which could explain why information was so tight and all the data love had was heavily encrypted (but this is subject to change if he pops up again which im convinced he will).

like i mentioned earlier i thought the project meridian storyline was what catalysed avior/starlight's tearing of the meridian. i still think avior and starlight are going to tear through the meridian. but with avior's most recent update, i think starlight now carries more significance in that part of the theory. ive seen quite a few people speculating that starlight is a weaver/somehow related to weavers. i think this is a very strong theory, especially since the meridian wanted them back so badly. if starlight isn't somehow related to the weavers, then it could be that the meridian, or the weavers behind it, know that starlight is their golden ticket out of there, this is highlighted by the fact that the meridian has some kind of sentience (avior stating that the meridian grabbed at starlight/prevented itself from stitching back up when starlight was torn from it/forced avior to watch starlight) avior might not be enough alone. maybe they need a person from elegy and a de(a)mon from aria to get the job done. a representative of both worlds to finally bring them together. or it could just be that it saw the two of them get trapped and was able to form some kind of escape plan over the six months starlight and avior shared their hellscape.

whatever the reason may be, the meridian wants both avior and starlight together and not because it wants to support their romance. the meridian, or the weavers behind it, have a goal that needs both of them.

on a sidenote, i think the mention that avior was feeding passively on starlight's feelings is interesting because in previous audios, he's mentioned he doesn't need to because he suspected they were being sustained by the meridian. this could be a small detail that doesn't matter in the long run, but i love looking too deep into things. could it be that at first avior wasn't being sustained by the meridian, needing to feed on starlight, because the meridian hadn't developed its taste for starlight AND avior yet? didn't realize how important both were? the meridian realizing it needed to keep both of them alive and relatively in one piece to make sure the collapse happened? this is highlighted when you remember, avior wasn't the one to heal himself when he fell (or so im guessing bc why would he be able to heal himself but caelum wasn't able to heal himself post vega? he doesn't provide much detail here either) so unless he healed in real time (which sounds even more excruciating than breaking every bone in your body already does), the meridian must have played a part. we may have seen this confirmed or denied when starlight was injured but avior delivered quick magical first aid.

mentioning starlight, im guessing starlight is sustained because they are bound to elegy, where only moments have passed in the hellscape's six months. other than that i can't figure out why starlight wouldn't need sustenance unless they were being sustained by the meridian too, but since humans aren't compatible with it i don't think that's the case. and we know (for now!) that de(a)mons and humans can't reproduce so it's not like starlight is able to channel the meridian like a de(a)mon would.

i'm also curious about these other "proposed solutions" james mentions. could that be how avior and starlight are involved? as another solution instead of being the ones to tear the meridian? or does james know about brachium, elliot, and sunshine and their efforts to stop closeknit? or is this something we still haven't seen?

all very interesting stuff and i still have a tonnnn of questions but it's a waiting game now. hopefully we'll slowly start getting answers! as always if you've seen other people talk about this lmk so i can credit them! if i missed anything, miswrote something, or you want to chat about theories pls message me!!

#redacted asmr #redacted #redacted spoilers #redacted asmr spoilers #redacted asmr theory #redacted theory

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changebydjo · 3 years

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IMPORTANT - PLEASE READ

so i’ve put off writing this for a long, long time, and it’ll be painful for me to make this post but at this point i feel like it needs to be done. someone within the liz fandom has been lying, gaslighting and manipulating me as well as many others, both online and offline, and after getting proof on everything (plus their lack of remorse) has prompted me to write this.

this is about gil perez, aka @unrated-g, and one of his irl friends, kim @kimbus-the-whimbus, to a lesser extent, but mostly gil. since 2016 - nearly 5 years now - he’s been lying that he’s best friends with liz gillies. i’m gonna put a read more because it’s a long, insane, and ridiculous thing that happened, but please read all of it and know how serious this is, as well as all the damage this man has done.

i met gil through tumblr in 2018 - he had been replying my posts since before that, but early 2018 is when i followed him and started chatting with him casually. over time, i noticed that he would reblog posts about liz and in the tags he would seem to be talking to her or referencing her, but not by her name - instead he would call her “goblin”. he would mention things that “goblin” liked or behind the scenes on dynasty stuff, and after a few weeks of noticing this and chatting with him about dynasty/liz, i ended up asking him if he was friends with liz/knew her personally because of the way he spoke about her. he confirmed to me that he knew her, she was one of his best friends, and he “didn’t expect” anyone to pick up on it. he told me to keep it private and i agreed, obviously, because i had no reason to not trust him, and i know that liz values her privacy.

it’s important to note that liz does NOT follow him or any of his accounts from her verified twitter or instagram accounts - instead, he said she had an “extremely private” encrypted tumblr account that could only be seen by people she follows/white listed. he was one of them. her blog would not show up for anyone else, and they met through tumblr in 2016 (even though he said she followed him back in 2010 and he didn’t realize until 6 years later) through their mutual love for uncharted, and bonded over playing uncharted 4 multiplayer together. it’s also important to note that liz has had 2 tumblr accounts since 2010, both of which she has abandoned, and he said that her private tumblr is separate from those two. she also was friends with him (according to him) through PSN, where they would play ps4 games together, and all of his text convos with her are from that app:

(^ “liz’s” PSN account)

throughout all of 2018, we would text on a regular basis and started becoming good friends. he was extremely kind, always willing to be there for me, and listened to me about not only fandom stuff but also my irl problems. he also became friends with my friend group, who were also in the liz fandom, and it was really nice for a while. in october of 2018, gil said he went to HHN with liz and matt in LA, and for xmas of 2018, he said he spent it with liz - both in LA and in NJ, which is what she typically does to spend her holidays with her family and friends. her pale blue eyes cover was also for him, according to gil, because he asked for her to cover it specifically and she did just for him.

gil would also occasionally stream for friends, and sometimes liz would show up:

beginning of 2019 is when gil and i started getting much closer - we started playing games together (mostly mario kart, at the beginning) and talking through voice chat. he would talk about liz and personal things about her/her life or dynasty, and he always willingly supplied that information himself - i never asked for it, i wasn’t friends with him to get information on liz or have an “in” with her. chatting with him made me feel good and happy and important to him, and i realized i started having feelings for him - which i told him about in april 2019. he said he wasn’t sure exactly how he felt but he thought he might feel the same, the only really complicated part (besides the fact that this was long distance/not irl) was that he also had a really deep crush on liz, someone who was his best friend/ultimate celeb crush. he was really like in love with her, even though he said he tried to suppress it. anyways, after me admitting that to him, our friendship started to develop into something more. we weren’t ever in an official relationship, but things were definitely not strictly platonic with us. we went from chatting once every week or two to almost every single night for 3-6 hours per night for MONTHS. throughout that time, our relationship became sexual, too, and my feelings for him just continued to get deeper and deeper.

this continues throughout the rest of 2019, and then new years 2020, everything just...goes to shit asap. gil got really distant with me with no explanation, i felt like all the affection he was showing me and the kind things he would say to me, as well as our bonding time when we would chat together, was just ripped away unexpectedly. i constantly asked what was wrong and what was happening, and told him how i feel, and i got no real response besides just being tired/non-sociable, etc. (which, for the record, is completely understandable, but it was such a huge 180 in behavior that it worried me and things never went back to normal after that). in addition to that, kim (who was mentioned at the beginning of this post) is one of his best friends irl, as well as his on again/off again ex (according to him). anyways, there were posts that she had made that indicated to them not being exes and instead still together - or at the very least not platonic - which crushed me when i found out, because until that point i had no reason not to trust him. i told him about it though, and how it hurt me because my feelings were so deep for him at that point i felt that i loved him, and he told me they weren’t together. this isn’t really necessary for the liz stuff of this post, but it’s important for context for how hurt and on edge i was already feeling before things got worse.

we would still chat maybe a few times a week, but nothing like it used to be, and i was happy we would even chat at all, even though things felt so weird and different and off, and no matter what i did, i couldn’t fix it. as 2020 started going on, and this continued, his friendship with liz started making me feel extremely uncomfortable. knowing that he had the weird boundaries with his ex, plus whatever was going on with me and him, AND that he was in love with liz?? it was unsettling. i felt like i couldn’t compare, because it’s *liz gillies*, someone i obviously love and idolize and look up to. and she was up on a pedestal for him, even though he said that he never tried to treat liz differently than his other close friends just bc of who she was, but that wasn’t true. anything that she said or did, he agreed with 100%, and would defend it. when he and i would chat, and i would mention something about dynasty that bothered me, he would talk about what liz’s thoughts were on it and how she felt and that she was right to feel that way and it made me feel awful. this happened on multiple occasions throughout various topics, from dynasty to fandom stuff to liz’s friendships/relationships, etc. no matter what, to gil, liz was always right and he always had an explanation for anything that happened. the way he would describe liz and the thing he said about her made me see her in a completely different light - she was not the same liz that she presented herself as, at least in gil’s eyes.

he would always talk about how amazing liz was to him and how she did so much for him, such as buying him gifts, supporting his art, etc. this was hurtful to hear because i was doing the exact same things for him, as well as our group of friends: we had been buying his art (not only the art prints but the ACTUAL original copies), sending him gifts or money for gifts, supporting him and his art on social media, as well as just being a genuine friend to him. he never appreciated or thanked us the way that he thanked liz; none of us ever compared to her, even though we were doing the exact same thing for him that he said liz was doing, as well. it made me feel like no matter what i did, or how supportive i was, i was never enough.

we also had a discord with gil, that involved him, me, and my friends sarah, hope, amanda, and dom. within this discord, it’s worth noting that gil was the only man there, and would talk about liz and his friendship with her there, unprompted. we never asked for info, he volunteered everything willingly, and we all kind of glossed over it at the time because we weren’t friends with him for liz or any of that.

(the screenshot gil linked in the gc is what “liz’s” private encrypted blog looks like on his dash. please note the edit post button in the bottom right of the screenshot.)

another important thing about his friendship with liz/being in love with her: he has this specific kink (which i don’t want to say what it is for privacy reasons) and he said that liz was engaging in this kink herself, and that he was jealous of liz’s bf/wishes he could engage in it with liz, etc. i wasn’t into this kink before talking to him but because i had liked him so much at the time, and i was slightly jealous that he wanted it with liz, i thought that i could indulge in it for him. it was something that i was not physically or mentally prepared for/able to make happen, and it really caused an impact on me, and he just...didn’t care. at all.

anyways: this stuff continues, then around summer 2020, my friend sarah reached out to him. she (and my friends, along with me) were starting to distrust the things gil was saying about liz, since it went completely against what liz would say herself. she would say she only plays the sims 3 on her computer - he would say she was a huge gamer and played the sims 4 on ps4, along with minecraft, uncharted, the last of us, horizon zero dawn, etc. he would say that liz and maddison brown (her dynasty co-star) played ACNH with him and quickly got to 5 stars - liz said in a zach sang interview that she didn’t play animal crossing. every time something didn’t add up, his excuse was that liz was lying for her privacy. she didn’t follow gil on any verified social media accounts in case “people harassed him” over being friends with her. so sarah texted him that she needed to talk to him about the liz stuff, because there was evidence it wasn’t true, and he denied all of it. he firmly stuck to his story, and sarah gave him multiple chances over several days to come clean and he wouldn’t. she asked for simple pieces of proof that he could give her, and he wouldn’t besides fake screenshots of her “private blog”:

he told me afterwards that if it comes between his friendship with liz or sarah’s, he’s picking liz - end of story. his and sarah’s friendship was done after that because of his decision. he blamed sarah for “ruining” liz and maddison’s friendship because of her asking for proof, and made her out to be the bad one in that situation. he ended up deleting the discord gc after this happened, with all of his screenshots/”info” as liz as well (we got screenshots of things before he deleted it though, much more that’s shown in this post).

about a month later, my friend léa also confronted him about it. gil had told her some things about liz’s “reaction” to meeting léa in paris, and at the time, it had made the experience more special for her. once she realized it was all lies, though, it really hurt her - he altered that special experience for her and twisted it into something that wasn’t real. he had the same reaction to léa’s conversation as he did to sarah’s, and he refused to tell the truth. their friendship was done with after, as well, along with a few other people from the liz fandom. i was the only one who stayed friends with him after that, and that was because i was closest with him and still trying to see if i could fix things with him. i was still naively believing that he would treat me okay again, he would make me feel important instead of always a backup option, that he wanted me again.

but of course that never happened. he continued to ignore me, talk to me less and less, and would subtweet me on his private account. after he stopped being friends with sarah and léa and everyone blocked him except for me, i was the only follower on his private account, as well as being the only person he followed there. gil, though, kept saying that liz had a “private twitter” where she would talk to him on his private account. he also said that he had “merged twitter accounts” into one, which was his private, which messed up his account and wouldn’t show who he was replying to, quote rts, or that he was following them, which - if you have a twitter, you KNOW none of that can actually happen. but it was his excuse to constantly subtweet me and my friends for not believing him, to maintain his story, AND to have convos with “liz” on there that only i could see, where he made it sound like he was talking shit about me to her. it was extremely manipulative and served no purpose except to fuck with me, because he knew that i was the only one seeing those tweets and knew i was already struggling with not knowing what to believe. here’s some of them:

(you can very clearly see that i’m the only follower/following on that account, the number is at literally 1, and he STILL was acting like he was talking to someone else and that other people were following him.)

now comes jan. 2021!! WE GOT DEFINITE PROOF THAT IT WAS ALL LIES. from multiple people. one of liz’s close best friends (that gil included in his stories about her, saying that he met them) said that they don’t know who gil is, have never met him, and it’s best for us all to block him for our own safety. a co-worker of liz’s (who was, again, included in gil’s lies, that he hung out with them multiple times, played games with them online, and bought him gifts) said that not only had they never met gil, but EVERYTHING he said about them was untrue. they even listed the inaccuracies he would say about them, such as gil taking photos of them at things like the SWT, and they confirmed who actually took the photo. they said that “none of it is fucking true” and that gil is a narcissistic liar, and also encouraged us to block him for our own safety.

i confronted gil myself about this a few weeks ago, and he continued to maintain his story that everyone’s lying to protect his privacy - even though we know for sure that wasn’t the case. he FINALLY owned up to it to me only once he saw i had proof and he was caught, and his reason for doing it was “he was bored”. he said he was sorry but he wasn’t truly apologetic - he either didn’t fully realize the scope of how hurtful his lies and manipulations were, or he just didn’t care, but the bottom line is that he always chose his fantasy of liz over his actual friends. around this time, once he knew he was caught, he also deactivated his private account, but brought it back a week or so later, with all of the subtweets and tweets about liz being deleted. all of the unverified accounts that were supposed to be liz - the tumblr account, psn, twitch, etc. - were all fake and made by him, so he could make it seem more real.

even if he WAS telling the truth about being friends with liz, he still would have completely violated her privacy by the amount of “secret” things he told all of us - from her kinks/sex life, to work life, to very personal things that he claims happened to her. knowing it’s all fake though, and he made up an entire personality and life for liz that doesn’t exist??? it’s insane.

now the part with kim - she’s known gil irl for over 10 years, and has tweeted about liz all the time, about how “good” liz is to her because of gil, and that she’s the one who encouraged him to talk to her. she brags about it constantly, even though none of it is real. she also tweeted multiple times throughout 2018-2019 about how gil “finally deserves to meet liz in person”, even though gil said he met liz irl back in 2017 or so - AND that she came to texas, where he lives, to meet him and his friends. when asked about her tweets, he said that kim’s account was “messed up” and her tweets weren’t “tweeted at the right time”. one of my friends reached out to tell her and show her the proof of gil lying, because gil has been lying to her and other people irl too, and instead she mocked us, belittled us, and chose not to believe a group of women coming to her about a 30 year old (!!) man manipulating us. gil said that kim was “aware of it all being a lie for years now” to me, but i think that was another lie, that he’s STILL lying to her about it. if not, then that means that kim was also lying for many years about knowing liz too, and used it to make us all the butt of her joke, so. so much for her being an “empath” and wanting to help people but anyways!!

the last screenshot is of her subtweeting us and implying that everyone involved with liz is lying for her and gil’s privacy, even though we have proof that that simply isn’t true.

i’m sorry for how long this is, but i need people to understand how serious this is. he’s been lying for 5 YEARS now about knowing liz - about her “accidentally sending nudes” to him, that gil is one of her best friends and he would’ve been at her wedding, that she’s a huge gamer who plays with him - all of it. it’s all lies. he created a fantasy version of liz that doesn’t exist, and incorporated into his real life, his friendships both online and off, and made it his entire personality. he’s not sorry about what he’s done - as i’m writing this, he’s still on tumblr, talking in the tags to “liz” again, because he’d rather uphold his fantasy life where he’s best friends with liz when in reality, she has no idea he even exists. and if she did, i’m certain that she would be disgusted with what he’s done. he lied about her, oversexualized her, used his kinks on her which was brought onto me - someone he knew that was vulnerable and had feelings for him, manipulated people into trying to believe his lies, gaslit people to make them unable to tell what was true and what was fake, and had absolutely zero respect for any of us. he even listened to me cry to him on the phone MULTIPLE times about how insecure and worthless i felt to him compared to liz, and he didn’t do ANYTHING about it. he sat there and listened to me cry, knowing he could own up to his lie, and he chose not to. he’s not sorry about what he’s done, and he’s going to continue to spread his lies. please block him. i can’t express how much he’s hurt me, the therapy that i need to have because of him, how much he’s hurt my friends and how little he respects women in general tbh. he always tried to come off as “one of the good guys” but now i know he’s harmful and not to be trusted. he even tried to separate me from my friends, and make it seem like they’re the ones making this situation even harder for him. i’ve tried so, so many times to get through to him, waiting to see if he’d change or show some remorse or anything, but after over a year of this i don’t think he will, and it genuinely hurts me to know that. BLOCK HIM.

#important #signal boost #long post #liz gillies #elizabeth gillies #so liz fandom ppl can see

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stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale · 3 years

Text

Fun little announcement today:

@pi-creates and I started a new discord server together called [the writer’s guild].

What does that mean? Well, lemme tell you a story.

Yesterday wasn’t a good day for me. It was one of those days where I woke up at 5am and laid in bed for a few hours like "what am I doing with my life...? ....Alexa, play 'so no one told you life was gonna be this waaaaay clap clap clap clap clap-'”

I pretty much had a mini morning life crisis where I was thinking about when I was in school, my new job and how exhausted it’s left me, all the effort I put into my blog and the fandom, how my dreams of becoming a writer who creates original content is slowly going down the drain as if I'm an eighty-year-old woman on the verge of death and not a dingus in my early twenties, how if I put that effort into my original writing I could maybe do something worthwhile, how I should go back to school but to do what? ....and many more things.

Y’know... all the good stuff.

So Pi and I were chattin’ like we do, talking about all of this and the skybound xpo. As we’re doing so, my roommates gives the suggestion of making a discord for original writing. If I’m serious about wanting to get back into writing original stories and not just fanfics, something like that would help, that sorta deal.

I looked at her and was like “pssshhh,” because even though I have my TWDG server, I don’t know anything about discord or creating servers, so that’s dumb. It would never work. Too hard.

Except then I brought it up with Pi, one thing led to another, and now we have this server...... so it was me who was dumb all along.

We took inspiration from TES: Oblivion when naming it [the writer’s guild]. In that game, there are factions you can join like the fighter’s guild, or the mage’s guild... so I thought it’d be fun to have a writer’s guild.

But this server isn’t just for writers. We’re welcoming anyone to join, whether you’re an artist wanting to share your original art, a writer who wants help with fanfics and/or original stories, someone willing to edit or beta read stories for writers, or you just wanna offer your moral support and hang out with us, see what we’re making and enjoy new content.

“Great, where’s the link to join?”

Great question, here’s the part where I tell you another story.

If you wanna join then you have to send me or Pi a DM on here requesting to join.

I won’t be posting any links for just anyone to click. The reason we’re doing this is because of an incident we had in our TWDG server.

What happened was when we created that and invited anyone to join, a certain person joined us and they never interacted with chat. They never introduced themselves, they never appeared online. Didn’t think much of it, so it’s fine.

However, this was around the time where I was getting flooded with lots of shitty anon asks whenever I so much as mentioned Violet in any of my posts. This went on a long time until one day that person suddenly appeared online in our server.

I was talking to everyone about these asks I was getting..... but then I started getting asks that were pretty much responding to everything I was saying in the discord chat. This time they were upset with me over a joke I made about Violet because what else, it’s always about Violet.

They were demanding to know my sexuality [something I have NEVER shared on Tumblr before and yet, they somehow happened to know I’m bisexual in the next ask just as I came out to the discord chat] so that they could use it to justify calling me lesbophobic and all these other things.

Well, then Pi messaged this person since we were all suspecting them, and suddenly they were offline and the asks stopped, and they were eventually kicked. We haven’t had any issues since.

No, we don’t have concrete proof that it was 100% them doing all of this but like.... quite a lot of coincidences, don’t ya think?

It was a bizarre thing for all of us, so maybe you understand why I’m a little hesitant to throw a link out there for everyone now, even though that happened a while ago. Pi and I decided this was the best way to do it so we could keep track of everyone joining just in case.

We don’t want anyone to feel uncomfortable in [the writer’s guild], we want you to feel like this is a safe space to share your ideas, help and support others, and grow as a creator. All we ask is that you follow the rules we have in place.

“Wait does this mean you’re stopping your twdg content?”

Nope! I’ll still be here running this blog, answering asks and making other posts related to twdg. I’m just also at a point where I want to put some of my focus on to creating original content and writing my own stories with characters I create. That doesn’t mean I’m never going to write another fanfic again, or that I’m abandoning the blog, so don’t worry! :D

And yeah.... I think that’s it. Feel free to ask any questions you might have, we’ll probably have answers hahaha

#[the writer's guild]

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razieltwelve · 3 years

Text

Friend (Final Rose)

“Mom...” Diana tugged on Lightning’s sleeve. “Can you take me somewhere?”

Lightning yawned. She’d been up all night writing reports relating to her latest mission. Everyone had come back alive, but it had been a mess. “Where do you want to go?”

Diana lifted her scroll, so Lightning could see it. “I have a friend in the game, mom. He hasn’t been online in days, but he’s never been offline before. I think something might have happened to him.”

“Diana...”

“I’m serious, mom. He’s always online. He never misses a raid or a mission or anything. This is the first time he’s ever been offline, and it’s been two days since he was on. I think something might have happened to him.”

Lightning’s brows furrowed. Diana might still be a kid, but she had good instincts. Moreover, she was very observant about certain things. "Do you know where he lives?”

Diana made a face. “He’s talked about his house before. I don’t know where he is, but I narrowed it down to a couple of places. The nearest one isn’t far from us at all.”

“And you’re sure he’s not just taking a break or something?”

“I’m sure, mom.” Diana sighed. “To be honest, I don’t think he has any friends outside the game. He never talks about other people, and he’s logged way more hours online than anyone else I know. He wouldn’t just stop playing unless something had happened to him.”

“All right.” Lightning got up. “We can go have a look.”

X X X

Lightning studied the house intently. Whoever lived here must be disabled. Instead of stairs, there was a small ramp to the front door, as well as other adjustments. Based on the width and angle of the ramp, it was likely for a wheelchair, as opposed to someone who simply couldn’t go up stairs easily.

“Is this the place?”

Diana nodded. “Yeah.”

Lightning reached out with her senses. The world sharpened into truly perfect focus, and she was instantly aware of everything around her. Her brows furrowed, and she moved toward the front door. “Diana, stay out here.”

“Mom?”

“Stay out here.” Lightning could sense a single Aura signature inside the house. Even by civilian standards, it was extremely weak, and it was fluctuating in a way she’d come to recognise. Whoever it belonged to was on the verge of death. “I mean it. Stay out here.”

Lightning used a sliver of Saviour’s power to open the front door and moved through the house toward the Aura signature. The interior was well-kept and tidy, and she could hear the low hum of computer equipment coming from a room toward the back of the house.

The faint sounds of shallow breathing greeted her. There was a young man on the floor. He looked to be in his early twenties. His wheelchair had tipped over, and he was barely clinging to life. Saviour’s senses diagnosed the myriad issues immediately.

The young man had suffered a seizure violent enough to knock over his wheelchair. The rough fall had done further damage, and he had likely spent the last two days swimming in and out of consciousness. Using a scroll to call for an ambulance would have taken too long, so Lightning simply picked him up and strode out of the house.

“SillyCoop!” Diana cried. That must be the screen name the young man used. “Mom, is he okay?”

“No.” Lightning’s power flexed, and her next step carried them from the house to the hospital in an instant. “But he will be.”

X X X

Cobalt - known in Gary Online as SillyCoop - opened his eyes.

“So... you’re awake.”

He turned his head and stared. “You... you’re...” That was Lightning Farron sitting next to his bed. What was going on? He was clearly in some kind of hospital. He couldn’t remember much. He’d gotten a seizure and fallen out of his wheelchair. After that, it was just bits and pieces. He’d tried to get to his scroll or his computer for help, but his body had refused to cooperate. “What’s... going on?”

“You play Gary Online, right?”

“Uh... yeah.” Contrary to common belief, Gary Online was actually extremely popular with people of all age groups. Behind the cartoonish graphics and sometimes silly storyline were rock solid mechanics and incredibly well-designed gameplay with interesting and varied missions, raids, and adventures.

“You’re a member of a guild. It’s the Friendship Punch Guild, right?”

Despite the situation, Cobalt found himself smiling. “Yeah.” He’d joined the guild because of it’s silly name, but he’d found so much more than just a place to spend time online. After his accident, he’d struggled to adjust. He’d never had many friends to begin with, and he’d been an orphan to boot. The guild had given him friends, and they’d become the family he never had. Since he was able to work from home as a software designer, he spent as much of his free time as he could online. The guild had members from all over the world, so there were always a few of them on at any given time of the day. “I am.”

“You’re lucky.” Lightning nodded at something, and Cobalt noticed the little, ragamuffin of a girl curled up asleep in a chair in the corner of the room. “My daughter is a member of that guild too. She noticed you hadn’t been online for a while, so she used some of the things you’d said about your house to narrow down its location. She asked me if we could go to one of the locations. I found you on the floor of your room.”

“Oh.” Cobalt took a deep breath. “That’s... thank you. I mean it. Thanks.” A few years ago, he probably wouldn’t have minded if he ended up dead on the floor of his room. But the idea of never talking to anyone from the guild again...

“She talked to some of the other guild members. A few of them don’t live all that far away. They’d like to visit you too, if you don’t mind.”

Cobalt found himself smiling. “I’d like that.” He paused. “Do you know what her name is?”

“She goes by MyNameIsClaw, I think.”

“Oh.” Cobalt chuckled. “I guess that’s why she does most of her playing on the weekend.”

“She does have school, yes.” Lightning’s lips twitched. “The doctors tell me you’ll be okay with some rest.”

On the chair, the little girl’s eyes opened. She took one look at him and was already airborne before he could react. Thankfully, Lightning caught her with one arm before she could crash into him.

“He’s still recovering. Be sensible.”

“Oh. Yeah.” The girl waved at him cheerfully. “How are you feeling, SillyCoop?”

“SillyCoop?” He managed to smile. “Call me Cobalt. That’s my real name.”

“I’m Diana.” The girl nodded sagely. “But you can call me Claw.”

“...” Cobalt looked at Lightning.

“She’s convinced we should have named her Claw instead of Diana.”

“Oh.” Cobalt grinned. “Well, it’s nice to meet you, Claw.”

X X X

Author’s Notes

Diana plays a lot of games. Gary Online is one of the most popular MMOs in the world, and she is one of the best players, largely due to her fanatical study of the game’s mechanics. There are very, very few people who understand the game the way she does. Naturally, she joined a guild, and after a good lecture from Lightning on online safety and another one from Vanille just to be sure, she was allowed to keep playing. The members of the guild come from all walks of life and vary in age from kids to the elderly. What makes Gary Online so popular, apart from the gameplay, is the positive outlook the game strives to foster. Essentially, the greatest wish of the devs is that everyone who plays the game is happier after playing it than they were before they started.

If you’re interested in my thoughts on writing and other topics, you can find those here.

I also write original fiction, which you can find on Amazon here or on Audible here.

#final rose #fanfiction #diana yun farron #lightning farron

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firefly464 · 4 years

Text

The Real World - Chapter 2

Apparently people liked the last one so Imma continue it :D

Again, the original idea was from @i-have-this-now

Master Post

First - Previous - Next

~~~

Tommy sat on top of the destroyed van, staring at a sword in his lap. His head was spinning violently, and it took all his energy to keep from falling onto the ground below.

Several days had passed since he had initially woken up from his injury. Several boring, uneventful days. Sure, people had come to visit him, but they were all busy trying to rebuild from the war. He had felt so useless just laying there, unable to get up and help. He wanted to go and figure out what was going on, not lay in bed.

And so he had done the one thing he could think of. He had raided the van for every health potion he could find and drank them all. After all, Wilbur had told him to drink a potion every day to help heal his wound. Apparently there was a good reason for the slow process. As it turned out, even drinking a single health potion was enough to make one feel slightly woozy. Drinking 5 was enough to make him incredibly nauseous. Sure, it had healed his wound from the arrow, but it had also made him feel miserable.

He shook his head, trying to clear the fog from his brain. Honestly, what was the point of being able to walk around if he couldn’t even think straight? God, Wilbur was going to kill him.

He watched as his friends went around, trying to rebuild L’manberg. It wasn’t very big, but the damage caused by the war was immense. The entrance was nothing more than a pile of rubble. Surrounding it were massive craters, as if it were blown to bits. He shook his head again, remembering exactly what had happened for it to become like that. The way that Dream had blown up a single piece of TNT, setting off a massive chain in the process. At least, thats how it had happened in game. He had no idea how it had happened here. There was no way the Dream would have been able to pull of the same stunt here without months of preparation. After all, he would have had to place all of the explosives by hand, and there was no way Wilbur would have let him do that...

Unless Eret had helped him. He scowls. Of course Eret had helped him, it only made sense. He wondered how Eret’s betrayal had played out in this world. After all, in-game they had all died. But here, everyone was clearly still alive. And based on how scared they were for him, death was permanent.

A voice cuts through his thoughts “Tommy? What are you doing up there?” Tubbo stands on the ground, staring up at his friend “Aren’t you supposed to be resting?”

Tommy looked down at his friend, not very far below him. In an act of recklessness, he sheathed his sword and jumped down to the ground. The impact sent a slight shock running up his legs and spine, causing the scar from his wound to throb slightly, but other then that he felt no pain from it.

“I got bored,” he told Tubbo, shrugging it off and trying to look casual. Unfortunately, the side effects of the health potions still hadn’t worn off, causing him to stumble slightly.

Tubbo looked at him in shock and disbelief “did you just... are you ok?!” he quickly reached his arms out to catch his friend “Tommy?!”

Tommy brushed off the concern, straightening and brushing himself off “I’m alright. Like I said, I got bored” His words were slurred ever so slightly, likely another side effect of the potion. He prayed that Tubbo wouldn’t notice

Tubbo noticed. “Tommy, you didn’t do what I think you did, right?”

“Depends on what you think I did”

“So if I went and checked on the potions drawer in the van, they would all still be there?” Tubbo knew exactly what was going on. His friend had pulled this stunt before, when he had broken his arm trying to help construct the L’manberg wall.

Tommy’s eyes widened “Uhhh, why would you do that? There’s nothing wrong with them I swear!”

Tubbo rolled his eyes “Uh huh. You’re so lucky I made spares. Wilbur would kill you if he found out you drank the entire supply,” he said, pulling a handful of vials from one of the pouches around his waist. Tommy figured it was the equivalent of everyone's inventory, considering how nearly everyone had them. “Here I thought you had sworn never to do it again, especially after what happened last time”

“Last time...?”

His friend looked at him with confusion and worry. It was a look that Tommy was quickly getting used to, and quickly growing to hate. “Yeah, when we were building the wall? Remember?”

A fake smile formed on Tommy’s face “O-oh yeah! Yeah, I totally remember that. Psh, I was just testing you!” he chuckled nervously.

Tubbo’s brow furrowed. He wasn’t buying and of the crap Tommy was saying, but he also didn’t know how much he should press for an answer. His friend was clearly having a hard time, and he didn’t want to make it worse. But he also hated just sitting back and watching.

“Tommy, you know you can trust me, right? I won’t tell any of the others, I promise.”

“Yeah... I know. I just, I’ve got a lot on my mind and I don’t want to worry anyone”

“Well now I’m concerned” he said with a chuckle “Whats up?”

Tommy leaned against the wall of the broken van and slowly slid down to the ground. “I... I think something happened to my memory...” he says. It was the easiest explanation as to what was happening to him. He highly doubted that Tubbo was going to believe that he came from a world where all this was just a video game, nothing more. Better to tell a concerning lie than a panic inducing truth.

“You... What? What do you mean?” His best friend sat on the scorched dirt next to him. “Like, you don’t remember anything?”

“No... It's more like...” he was silent for a moment, trying to figure out the best way to describe it without causing his friend to freak out “I remember the general information, but none of the specifics. Does that make sense?”

Tubbo nodded “Unfortunately, yeah it does. That's really worrying. When did it start?”

“When I woke up after my injury”

“So then it must have been caused during the duel. Maybe Dream had an enchanted arrow or something? But I’ve never heard of any enchantment that could affect memory like that...” his voice trailed off, a look of deep thought and calculation on his face

“What? N-no I’m sure its not like that!” Tommy said hastily. The last thing he needed was Tubbo to go and demand answers from Dream, when he knew perfectly well that the arrow dream had used had nothing to do with it. “I don’t really care how it happened. I just need you to tell me things I may not remember”

“Are you sure? If Dream caused this then he might know how to fix it.”

Tommy was shaking his head vigorously “I’m sure, I swear. Just please help me out here, ok?”

Tubbo still looked extremely concerned, but he chose to put his worries aside. The thing he needed to do right then was help his friend. “Alright, I can do that. What do you need to know?”

~~~

It had been nearly a week since Dream and Tommy had gone missing, and everyone was getting more scared by the second. Wilbur sat at his desk, watching the clip where he was counting down for what felt like the thousandth time. He had narrowed down exactly when the two of them had gone dark.

As soon as he had said “fire!”, their minecraft characters had stopped moving. They had both gone completely silent. It took roughly a minute before viewers started pouring in from both streams, reporting that both Dream’s and Tommy’s streams had gone offline. Wilbur had initially thought it was just a stupid prank. Nothing more than a harmless joke. That was before everyone reported radio silence from both of them. Neither were answering their phones, but they were both still in the discord call. They hadn’t gone on mute, so Will could still hear background noises coming from Tommy’s house. Everyone else had quickly ended their streams, telling the viewers that it was just a prank. In reality, they wanted to find their friends without the eyes of the world on them.

A week had passed, and the police had still found nothing. No sign of either of them. No sign of either of them even leaving their rooms. None of it made sense. All that Wilbur knew was that his friends were out there, and they needed to be found.

~~~

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bewitching-elizabeth-olsen · 3 years

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Press: Elizabeth Olsen’s 20/21 Vision

The Marvel star takes us inside her transformation to a new kind of hero

GALLERY LINKS

Studio Photoshoots > 2021 > Session 002

Magazine Scans > 2021 > Grazia

GRAZIA: Elizabeth Olsen is a trooper. We are in a field in Surrey on the outskirts of the Marvel studios; it’s a biting minus one and she is standing in a Chanel broderie anglaise sundress and increasingly soggy UGG boots. Her feline cheekbones face skywards, but Olsen is slowly sinking into the mud, trilling out high notes to keep herself warm (possibly distracted) and of course with spirits high. “It was the wind I think, that was worse than the sideways rain,” she jokes as we trundle back to the soundstage hangar that we are using as a studio. It’s the kind of moment that could go viral on Instagram, that is, if Olsen were on social media. Yet one of the biggest stars of our current cultural moment is completely offline – and that surprising fact might just be the least interesting thing about her. If anything, it is a sign of how Olsen has come into her own as a confident, decisive star with the power to create her own universe.

On the cusp of her 32nd birthday, Olsen is fastidious and professional, yes, but also bright, engaging, creative, and collaborative. Born and raised in the California sunshine, she is surprisingly at ease in the blustery conditions that deluge the English countryside in late January – or, it’s that she’s very good at acting. “It was one of the ugliest days of this winter – just hilarious – but I knew we wanted the shot,” the 31-year-old actress says.

Since October, Olsen’s been living in the leafy British countryside with her “man-guy-partner,” musician Robbie Arnett, just a short drive to the Surrey compound where Doctor Strange is being filmed. It’s a closed set, masked in secrecy as much as the socially distanced masked crew dotted all over the 200-acre studio. “It feels right being in a small city right now,” she says.

Indeed, Olsen is a modern-day Renaissance woman. Learned and dedicated to her craft, she studied at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, with a semester at the Moscow Art Theatre School studying Stanislavski. (Surely, no matter how much of a genius the Russian theatre master was, he never could have conceived of the Marvel universe.)

Approached with the concept of WandaVision, “I thought it was perfect for television, and a very original idea that made me excited,” Olsen says. Also, she was happy she would get to work with Bettany again: “He’s very precise, like me.”

In many ways, WandaVision is a love letter to the first American television heyday. Olsen, who stayed up late watching Nick at Nite reruns as a child, says it’s a bit of a homecoming in that way. “I was a very hammy, performative child,” she explains. “So, I do think I got to live out some sort of childhood dream doing the show.”

“The highlight was really getting to tell a story about these superhero individuals told in different decades of American sitcoms, trying to match the tone of those sitcoms in order to help orate the story,” she says. “But keep it playful and fun.” Little did she know just how much we’d need that.

Half-filmed pre-pandemic in Atlanta and half post-pandemic in LA – with a six-month hiatus in-between “until all the unions figured out to work safely” – WandaVision was released almost a year into the pandemic. In many ways, it is an artifact of its time: centered upon a yearning for the simplicity of earlier days, yet shot through with the creeping realization that such days may never return, and perhaps never existed to begin with.

Indeed, the weekly story of suburban superheroes Wanda and Vision has played out like a parable of our times: Wanda living in her chosen bubble, her trauma resonating in the world we find ourselves in today. Olsen appreciates a good metaphor, but feels people may be projecting a bit much. “I see Wanda as a victim of extreme trauma, who does not understand how to process it,” she explains. “She has been a human experiment.” (Not to belabor the point, but haven’t we all?)

Being summoned by Marvel is like being called to a parallel universe for an actor: thrilling, yes, but not without a tinge of terror and a dash of the unknown. Six years in, though, it’s become like family in some ways. As a member of two dynasties – Olsen and Marvel – family is key to Olsen. She checks in on her mom (who still lives in California) and, like many American daughters, is researching which vaccine mom should get.

The performative gene runs strong through her family, of course – and no, we don’t mean her sisters. Olsen’s mom was a ballerina. Still, when she first started auditioning, Olsen took special care to carve her own path – one far from Full House. “Nepotism is a thing and I’m very aware of it,” she says. “And of course, I’ve always wanted to do it alone.” She did just that, her acting credentials consistently rising as her sister’s cemented their fashion kudos. Olsen bears a noticeable resemblance to her fashion-designer older sisters and her sartorial DNA is similarly low-key. She loves The Row (of course) and NYC label Khaite’s denim and cashmere.

For Olsen, her day job is like playing dress-up. This time around, she walked away from WandaVision with the girdle worn underneath her 50s wedding dress, laughing, “I mean, to have a custom undergarment like that, I felt like it was necessary!” Her WandaVision co-star, Kathryn Hahn, also became her shopping cohort when filming.

“She’s dangerous!” Olsen says. “She has the most exquisite, minimal but expensive taste.” It was Hahn who led Olsen to the independent boutique where she found the belted Julia Jentzsch trench that she wore to our shoot.

At the rail of samples compiled by the stylist, Olsen gravitates towards a spacious linen boilersuit and longline cashmere cardigan. Has she always been a tomboy, I ask? “I think I felt uncomfortable being a child being told they were pretty,” she says of her early auditions at age 10, adding that her love of ballet and musical theater could leave her “feeling exposed” at a young age.

Speaking of over-exposure, Olsen is distinctly offline in a time when so many are defined by their social media presence. Among celebrities and regular digital citizens, the perfect balance of online and off is up for debate, but Olsen is clear: social media saturation is a choice for all of us, and everyone needs to draw their own boundaries.

“It has to be a personal decision, right?” she begins. “So, my opinion has nothing to do with what anyone else does or doesn’t do with it.” Her own journey began when she momentarily dabbled with Instagram (since deleted), while filming Ingrid Goes West, director Matt Spicer’s frightening and funny debut feature about a social stalker, co-starring Aubrey Plaza.

Up until that time, she says, “I had never touched it before. I thought, ‘This is an interesting social experiment for myself, to see if it is a good source to talk about charities or a good source to talk about small projects, or to share something goofier about myself.’ But I think at the end of the day, what I discovered was one, I’m really bad at creating a perceived identity!”

“I didn’t find it very organic to who I am as a person,” she continues. “I found some joy in putting up silly videos, but I think the main reason I stopped – not I think, I know the main reason why I stopped – was because of the organization in my brain.”

“Lots of horrible things happen all the time. Or, lots of great things happen all the time. Whether it’s something terrifying, like a natural disaster or a school shooting or a death, there are so many things that happen, and I love processing information. I love reading articles. I love listening to podcasts. I love communicating about things that are happening in the world to people around me. And what I don’t love is that my brain organization was saying, ‘Should I post about this?’ That seemed very unhealthy ….”

“And to then contribute to these platitudes that I don’t really love, you have to subscribe to two different ways of thinking,” she says. “So, I didn’t like that, and there was a lot of it that was just bothering me for my own sake of what value systems I have.”

That’s not to say that there’s any inherent value system – pro or con – in using Instagram. Olsen is clear that like any other method of expression, it’s up to the individual to use it as they see fit. “I do see a use of it and how you can use it well for work,” she says. “But I don’t think that I would like to use that tool to promote myself.”

She’s private for a millennial yes, but not prim. On the photoshoot, lockdown experiences were shared, and Olsen recounted her (hilarious) first at-home bikini wax: banishing her husband upstairs “for an extended chat with his therapist,” her trusted waxer on speed dial, and microwave set to ping! (Yes, Olsen is a trooper, as I mentioned.)

We catch up over Zoom a week later, her hair once again pulled up in a casual topknot, her cashmere turtleneck simmering in a dark claret, and her entire being suffused with covetable understatement. She chats buoyantly against an unexpected backdrop of pirate ship wallpaper in the playroom of a house she shares with Arnett, who proposed with an emerald and diamond ring in 2019.

“We first started to try to make it the gym, but it was so cramped,” she says of the jolly space. The home gym was instead awarded a larger room, where Olsen loves to maintain a varied fitness regime – running, yoga, dancing, more – though after all the intense Marvel filming, she jokes, “maybe it’s time to give up on my body?!” Being comic book fit does sound grueling or “time-consuming fun” as she anoints the “strenuous physical demands.”

Like most of us, she is longing for the spring, but she still takes a regular constitutional walk in a nearby Richmond park, whatever the weather. “The deer are incredible; every time I see them I feel alive,” she says. “We have been lucky to have nature around us in lockdown.” It’s a marked difference from her paparazzi-populated home in the Hills. “They know our walks, where we get coffee, work-out…,” she trails off.

Her haven in Los Angeles is her backyard, complete with a mid-century swimming pool and an edible garden. “It’s crazy the blackberries grow like weeds! I love watching a kid’s first reaction to an edible garden,” she gushes That has been the part of the pandemic travel restrictions she’s found hardest: missing her friend’s children growing up, and others who have been born this past year that she’s yet to meet. They will no doubt all be treated to her homemade blackberry sorbet on her return stateside.

Yet, her time on British soil will likely be prolonged, with a prospective indie commencing filming here when Doctor Strange wraps. Prompted for more detail, her firm charm kicks in. “I can’t jinx it!” she insists. Still, she will share that she’s heavily involved in the creative, and that funding smaller productions in the current climate has been a challenge.

Through it all, Olsen has remained determined and calm. “I feel patience is my superpower. But my weakness also,” she says. “I feel like it gets tested more than others who don’t have a lot of patience. If someone learns you’re easygoing or that you’re relaxed, sometimes it gets taken advantage of.” While she waits for the green light on that film, she is busy producing a new children’s cartoon with Arnett, “about loving and caring for our world,” and has also written a children’s book about to be published by Random House, all while the demands of Marvel life continue to surround her.

Indeed, Olsen is a superhero for the modern age: Multi-hyphenate, but fiercely devoted to the craft that she loves; instantly recognizable, yet thoughtfully protective of her private life; a woman with style, substance, success, and deep rewarding relationships with those around her; focused on a vision of a better world for us all.

Press: Elizabeth Olsen’s 20/21 Vision was originally published on Elizabeth Olsen Source • Your source for everything Elizabeth Olsen

#Elizabeth Olsen #WandaVision #Avengers #Scarlet Witch #Wanda Maximoff #Sorry For Your Loss #Avengers Infinity War #Avengers Age of Ultron #Captain America Civil War #Ingrid Goes West #Godzilla

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optimismrpt · 3 years

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HOW RIGBY RUNS A ROLEPLAY : A VERY SPECIFIC GUIDE ( OF SORTS )

BONUS CONTENT: ACCEPTANCE DAY

I think it’s essentially to start with this disclaimer: This is merely how I run a rp and I’m not saying by any means it is how a rp should be run. I have found success through these methods all in combination and I can’t promise that they work all the time.

IMPORTANT ! if you use this guide as a basis for your rp please credit back to me somewhere on your front page, rules, or plot! this is a very specific type of rp (small limited run plot heavy skeleton rp) that i have worked very hard to develop over the past five years. i want you to learn from my successes and failures, and please give credit where it is due!

It is a lot of work! Like A LOT! And if you don’t have time to admin with full commitment this is not the right type of rp to attempt.

With that in mind, let’s go!

FULL GUIDE IN THE SOURCE LINK!

BEFORE THE ACTUAL DAY

First of all, getting apps is fun and it’s easy to get wrapped up in the excitement and want to move things forward as soon as possible. However, I recommend you don’t rush! Do not move up your acceptance date or the date that you close the inbox! This isn’t fair to the people who were planning on finishing up their apps before the original deadline who now have to crunch to meet the new deadline or may not be able to make the new deadline at all because of irl responsibilities. It’s always good to give lots of warning for the inbox closing and stick to it!

I also recommend that you do not lower the threshold of people needed to open. Sometimes it can be disheartening to set an app threshold at ten and then only get six apps, even if the days grind on with no new apps, stick it out and keep promoting! Opening with less than eight characters (and for apples I’d say 15 characters) is going to make activity lackluster. It’s better to delay opening for the sake of having a grand first day than to jump the gun and end up making the rp fizzle before it can even start.

About 52 hours before acceptances are set to take place I like to write out a to-do list and put it in my drafts. It usually involves ‘write acceptance posts, update skeletons, update main, post acceptances, post follows, post opening note’. Just having everything you need to do between then and opening written out in order is so helpful. And being able to check things off the list creates both a feeling of relief and excitement. So make a plan, determine how soon everything needs to be done, and work through it meticulously. In the rush of opening day it can be easy to forget important things like updating the triggers page.

If I have time I try to write everything hours in advance. When it comes to things like opening announcements and plot drops I try to write those at least 24 hours of their release time. And this is why I like, for competitive rps, to close the inbox and then give myself at least two hours to deliberate. But I’d even encourage giving yourself 6 hours between the inbox closing and posting acceptances. I know that’s a while to make people wait but apps can get pretty long and reading them all (and probably rereading a few of them multiple times) can be a lengthy process!

I always try not to read the apps at all before the deliberation time. I find that if I read an app when it comes in that gives the first person an advantage because they have more time for me to adapt to their vision and start to assimilate it and get attached. And that’s not fair to the people who may have stumbled upon the rp later. So I just read the app far enough to get the info for the app count.

Just as a general rule I like to post important dates and times in at least two different timezones. For example ‘Acceptances are at 6am GMT / 1pm EST / 10pm PST ’. That way you can show that you are keeping other timezones in mind. And plus it’s nice to just to the conversion work so your applicants don’t have to.

DELIBERATION TIME

Start by reading the apps which don’t have competition. These ones are easiest because it’s not a matter of determining whether they are the best of the bunch, it’s just deciding whether or not they are are passable. So I always read those first and then write their acceptance post immediately after I make my decision so that at least I’ll have that to post at the set acceptance date. That way, even if I haven’t made a decision on all the apps I’ll have something to post to show that I am reading apps and trying to stick to schedule!

When your are dealing with competitive apps there are a few things I look for in an application:

The most important is that the applicant seems willing to talk to you. This could be asks, ims, or even a little note in the app! Writers who want to make it clear what their intentions/desires/goals are ooc are going to be the easiest to work with! Plus it gives you an idea of how flexible they are! Those who dig their heels in when you offer up alternative suggestions are probably not good to work with. You want to find someone who has direction, intention, and ideas but don’t treat your ideas (or anyone else’s) as lesser than their own.

Call for humor! I’ve found that I have trouble with people who take themselves and their characters too seriously. This means that they often won’t be up for plotting since they don’t want their character to be anything less than graceful. Humor is a really good sign that a writer is fun, creative, and understands their character.

I also get wary of people who overhype the rp. Making edits/adding memes in the talk tag is all very nice, but when it looks like an rpt is promoting my rp just to give themselves an advantage over other applicants I tend to count that against them. I don’t like the idea of an rpt trying to use their signal boosting and popularity in the rpc as leverage over me.

One of the biggest red flags is someone not sticking to the skeleton! If someone blatantly disregards one or more aspects of the skeleton that is an instant strike against them. I don’t like it when people have ocs that they adapt to fit a skeleton because most of the time that means that they don’t really care about the skeleton and your ideas. However, if they contact me about changes to the skeleton in advance and ask if some edits are alright then that’s actually a really good sign! I want people to play a character that they are happy about and I’m willing to change up any skeleton. I just need to know the applicant is willing to work with me instead of against me.

Do not be afraid to deny applications. I used to never do this because I felt it was too mean and judgmental but now I realize I reserve the right as an admin to deny any app or character that I don’t vibe with. Go with your gut, and if the application is making you uncomfortable or nervous in any way, do not accept them. Sometimes it’s better to have one role go unwritten than to have someone who isn’t good for the group. Because both ic and ooc dynamics contribute to the effectiveness and survival of the group, you need to be excited to work with everyone and their characters.

One of the ways that I protect myself from muns who may not be right for the rp is by putting a password in the rules. Often the apps that make me uncomfortable are the ones that disregard or contradict the skeleton or plot. It’s clear that the mun either wasn’t paying attention, reading the pages carefully, or just chose to ignore what they read. It’s often That the apps that I don’t vibe with end up being the ones that don’t read the rules and therefor don’t put the password. So not only is it a good indicator to me that the mun might not be very considerate but it’s also a great default reason to deny an app without having to tell the mun directly that you didn’t like other aspects of their app. Most often I allow them to reapply if they’d like to but their acceptance won’t be immediate, so that there’s a chance someone else might apply for the same role with an application than doesn’t skeeve me out.

ONCE YOU’VE MADE THE DECISION

Write out your acceptance notes. I try to write a full paragraph for everyone when I am accepting for a skeleton rp. If there’s more than 20 characters being accepted then obviously don’t, since that’s way too much to ask of you. But if it’s a small group I always endorse writing a little welcome the chosen mun saying what ti was about their appt hat you gravitated towards. It’s kind of a way to also provide feedback to those who were denied as to what their app might have been missing. Plus, it’s just a good way to get the right vibes going for the ooc portion of the rp. Muns need to feel appreciated! After all they put in the work to get there!

I also like to offer feedback to those who were denied but with a disclaimer that most apps are chosen based on how they mesh with the other apps, since that’s something no one can anticipate. Usually the quality of the writing isn’t as big of a factor as how the character plays into dynamics with the others and whether or not their desired plots and connections with your vision and everyone else’s. Most of the time people won’t take you up on it, but be kind and thoughtful to those who do. However, if they are aggressive towards you in any way because they are upset about being denied block them immediately. Just trust me on that one.

Keep everyone updated as to your progress! Just telling everyone where you are at (in the process of reading apps, writing the acceptance notes, or taking a break) is a good way to put everyone’s minds at ease. It’s especially important to let people know if you are logging off for a while on acceptance day. That way people aren’t stuck refreshing the page and dreading that you might be ignoring them. On acceptance day I like to make a post every time I come online or go offline. It may seem like oversharing but it’s honestly so helpful to both you and the applicants.

POST-ACCEPTANCES

Once you are about to start posting acceptance notes, turn off anon. I know that anon can be very useful for those shy and curious folks that don’t want to im you directly, but this is another case where you’re just gonna have to trust me. For your mental health turn off anon and keep it off for at least 48 hours. I usually keep it off permanently unless there are more roles that need to be filled in a second round of acceptances. There aren’t really any questions that should need to be asked anonymously once you have a full roster of muns and this is a good way to get people used to asking you questions via discord, im, or dm. To prevent nasties from bullying you and to open the line of communication between you and your members, turn off anon!

And finally, once you have posted acceptances, close your laptop or turn off your monitor and don’t come back to it for at least an hour. I like to give myself two hours to go on a walk, eat some food, and just do non-rp things for a while. Acceptances are stressful and it’s important not to get swept up in it and feel overwhelmed. Taking a step back and remembering you exist outside of rp and outside of being an admin is so important. It’s hard to resist temptation, but if you have anon off really the only thing that’ll come into your inbox are follow messages and those can wait for two hours (or more)! But like I said above, keep everyone updated that you are going to log off for a bit and you’ll be back. Just so no one assumes the worst.

Just remember to be kind to your applicants and to yourself! It’s a stressful time for everyone!

#rpc #rpt #rph #how rigby runs a roleplay !#advice !#guide

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anon-e-miss · 3 years

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Intransigence 8... Maybe?

They drove to Jazz’s habsuite in silence. Though he could have lived on base, and in nice quarters due to his rank, Jazz preferred living in a space that was entirely his where he could come and go without question or surveillance. He lived alone, and had since he and Blaster had concluded they were better suited as friends than lovers. There were no hard feelings there; they were still friends. Since then, however Jazz had taken lovers as it had suited him but it had never been anything serious, they had never been mechanisms he had trusted enough to take them into his private space. Since become Head of Spec Ops, Jazz had stepped back from serial monogamy in favour of focusing on building a slick and strong department. The Autobots had catching up to do.

When they arrived at his building, Smokescreen silently followed him up the stairs into the lobby and over to the lift. It had been a long fragging mega-cycle for Smokescreen. He had gotten glyph that his origin had been injured late in the dark-cycle and then had waited for news in the medbay’s waiting room for joors. Somehow they had missed the fact that Prowl’s next of kin was waiting. They had missed that he had next of kin at all. Who knows how long Smokescreen would have been waiting news, slowly losing his processor as the worst case scenarios took hold in his processor, if Jazz had not turned up, the check up on Prowl as he had promised. He had not expected to find Smokescreen sitting, waiting with anxiety so strong Jazz had tasted it. Since his rookie had been beside himself, Jazz had taken on the task of finding out what the frag was happening. It had taken some badgering to get First Aid to “interrupt” Ratchet.

He had been horrified to learn the extent of Prowl’s damage. Shorts were not automatically serious, a mechanism’s self repair systems could handle most. But Prowl’s had been beyond extensive, they had spread throughout his circuitry, effecting his motor control, effecting his sensory grid. Those shorts had started forming the very moment Barricade had jammed that shock stick into his side. Despite the disabling shorts that had been spreading through his systems, and the blaster wound to his leg, Prowl had evaded capture. Pinned by a considerably bigger mech, Prowl had used his processor and his training and had gotten free and taken that fragger out. His survival protocols were excellent. That was probably where Smokescreen had gotten his from, them had his talent for evasion.

“Have a seat, Smokey,” Jazz said as he led Smokescreen into his habsuite located on the top floor of the building. Another operative might have been concerned about the difficulty escaping if cornered in his home, on the fortieth floor. But most mechanisms, including ops, did not have his magnets. “I’ll pour us some engex.”

“Thanks. Do you really think Garboil’ll come to our habsuite?”

“There’s a good chance,” Jazz replied as he pour two digits of Old Corroder in a pair of low cubes. “Drink it slowly, it’s got some kick.”

“Thanks. I know you don’t usually have mechanisms over.”

“Smokey, even if I wasn’t worried ‘bout Garboil turnin’ up at yer place I wouldn’t’ve let ya just go home alone. Yer shook up.”

“Yeah,” Smokescreen rested the drink on his knee as he wiped tears from his optics. “Since he got transferred to the dark-cycle shift I’ve been having memory purges. I don’t know why, but I couldn’t stop thinking that something was going to happen to him.”

“‘M sorry he got hurt,” Jazz replied. “I wasn’t expectin’ this.”

“I’m so glad you gave him that dataslug. If you hadn’t gotten the alert. If you hadn’t been there...”

“Yer origin already had that fragger down without me. There mighta been some scrap wit internal affairs but he handled himself. I plugged in to the surveillance grid, ‘n had a look. Yer origin’s got some moves.”

“Yeah. The streets taught him, and circuit su refined him.”

“When ya set gutters I thought ya meant the rough side o’ town.”

“There was some o’ that too. He ran away from the group home he was assigned to and lived on the streets.”

“How’d he get into the Academy?”

“Even when he was living under the bridge, Origin went to school. He got a scholarship. It came with a housing allowance. He only got a roof over his helm again when he started his classes the next semester.”

“Yer origin’s a pretty impressive mech to ‘o earned a full ride ‘chargin’ rough.”

“He’s my hero.”

“Mine too,”Jazz replied and Smokescreen snickered. “Ain’t kiddin’ Smokey. Yer origin’s an impressive mech.”

“He is. I’m proud to be his creation.”

“I bet he’s proud o’ ya too.”

“I thought he’d be mad when I decided to enlist,” Smokescreen revealed after drinking a little more of his engex. “He tried, you know. But that glitch, they decided it made him ineligible. He was so mad. I didn’t tell him I was even thinking of it until I got accepted. I was fragging scarred to tell him because I didn’t want him to be mad, or disappointed.”

“Was he?”

“No, he pulled me into his lap like he did when I was a youngling and he told me he never wanted me to put my dreams aside because of him. That he was proud of me. I cried like a bitlet.”

“I think the recruitment officers were wrong to reject ‘m,” Jazz said. “We shouldn’t turn away talent ‘cause their systems are a bit unconventional.”

“I don’t know if he’d accept an invitation now, even if one was offered,” Smokescreen chuckled. “Origin never forgets, remember. So he holds some long aft grudges.”

“Why do ya think he didn’t report that mnemosurgeon?” Jazz ask. “That seems like something worthy o’ a grudge.”

“It’s complicated. They were seeing each other. They had worked together in the enforcers for a while. I don’t know if they were seeing each other when they were partners or if that came after. Origin never brought him home. I’ve never actually met the fragger.”

“That weird to you?”

“No. Origin told me once that he was never going to bond again. I really doubt mourning my progenitor has anything to do with it. But he would go out sometimes, after work. He dated, you know he never told me the details. I didn’t want to know the details. No creation wants to think about their origin’s interface life.”

“But ya knew ‘bout the surgery.”

“The attack,” Smokescreen corrected him. “Origin came home. I’d just gotten back from hanging with some friends at Maccadam’s. I startled him. I don’t think he expected to see me. He was stumbling. He told me he was just a little overcharged. For a nanoklik I believed him then he turned for his berthroom and I saw the energon covering his neck.” “Frag.”

“I wanted to call the enforcers but he forbade it. I wanted to take him to the medicentre but he refused. It was enough of a fight just to convince him to let me patch him up. I crawled into berth with him when he laid down. I stayed up all dark-cycle watching him. I was afraid something might happen to him in the dark-cycle.”

“When’d it happen?”

“Three vorns ago.”

“If the fragger did any lingering damage, Ratchet’ll have taken care of it. He ever tell ya what happened?”

“I don’t think Origin remembers.”

“Scary thought, given his memory banks.”

“He told me they both behaved badly,” Smokescreen explained. “That’s all he ever says but I can see him thinking, like he’s searching for a memory.”

“But it got cut out,” Jazz said.

“I wish he’d let me take him to a medicentre. I... I wonder if maybe he doesn’t want to remember, or he’s afraid to. I’m afraid what else that fragger did to him.”

“That’s heavy, Smokey.”

“Maybe you’ll be able to talk some sense into him.”

“I don’t know ‘bout that, Smokey ‘but I’ll see what I can do. A rogue mnemosurgeon isn’t someone I want scamperin’ ‘round Iacon. I don’t suppose ya know the fragger’s designation?”

“No. Origin never told me.”

“I’ll talk wit ‘m. Right now? Ya outta get some recharge. Come on. I’ll show ya the guest room.”

“You... have a guest room. But you don’t like guests.”

“Usually, it’s for Raj or Hound when I get myself scrapped. I heal better in my own space.”

“I think Origin feels the same way.”

“Ratchet’s in for a real treat, ain’t he?”

“Oh yeah. If Ratchet’s got a match for snark, it’s Origin.”

Jazz woke early enough that he was up and stalking the datanet when Smokescreen came out of the guestroom. Neither of the

m had had a ton of recharge, but Jazz was used to taking catnaps. He rarely got more that a few joors of recharge in a row, the nature of the job, he supposed. Smokescreen was eager to see his origin. The fact that Ratchet had not commed him in the dark-cycle was not enough to soothe his anxiety. Out of curiosity, Jazz kept Smokescreen company as he brewed the energon he had called Rocket Fuel. As it dripped from the press it came out a deep blue. It looked to Jazz like it would be a good sub for Syk. But Smokescreen was not done. He set it to simmer. It thickened, and it thickened. By the time Smokescreen poured it into a resealable cube, the fuel was a thick like an oil shake and an even inkier black.

“That looks toxic,” Jazz observed.

“It probably is to most mechanisms,” Smokescreen replied. “I only ever tasted it once and I’m pretty sure I didn’t stop bouncing off the balls for a quartex.”

“But it don’t do that to ‘m?”

“Nope.” Smokescreen tested the seal. “The last thing that goes offline when Origin goes into stasis is the ATS. The first thing that powers up is the ATS. It’s the same thing with recharge but the ATS doesn’t shut down during recharge it keeps on humming along. Origin wakes up with a bunch of static and junk clogging his thought processes. The moment he wakes up it wants to GO but getting going to takes some serious energy. This Rocket Fuel gives him the kick to burn off that static and slag and go. If he has to go without he’s stuck with a helmache that just gets worse throughout the cycle.”

“Just don’t show it to Ratchet. I don’t think he’ll approve.”

#anon-e-miss writes #intransigence #maccadams #tf jazz #tf prowl #tf smokescreen #tw mindrape

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vivdunye · 3 years

Text

present day, present time

and you don't seem to understand

fabled adages of science

so i was watching the snyder cut of justice league the other morning, i couldn't really begin to tell you why other than i needed 4 hours of background noise . but i tuned in at one point when the fictional super Israeli, wonder woman, narrated a scene explaining an alien technology "that was so advanced that it almost seemed like sorcery", and wouldn't yknow, that's a real concept actually, i recognized it immediately as clark's third law:

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

it's perhaps the most well known and oft quoted of the three, but i always felt like arthur c. clark's first 2 laws don't ever get quite enough love . i've been thinking heavily about the first law lately:

When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

i've been thinking about it in relation to this one quote from wernher von braun that i always liked:

Nature does not know extinction; all it knows is transformation. Everything science has taught me, and continues to teach me, strengthens my belief in the continuity of our spiritual existence after death.

many people are afraid of death; of ceasing the awareness of life, because they don't know what will happen to themselves after, where do they go if anywhere? it's much more nebulous in the secular sense if you haven't a construct for the afterlife already . i've been thinking about death more and more often lately to a worrying degree . however, scientific thought for all its clinical detachment from all things spiritual has strangely enough always felt like the perfect module for contemplating the metaphysical . so i decided to do some research .

i want to recall right now thomas edison's first intended use for the phonograph . edison had originally envisioned the phonograph primarily as a means of preserving the voices of loved ones after death . he later went on to try and develop a "ghost box" or "spiritphone" . this device would allow humans to communicate directly with the dead . he was unsuccessful .

if hauntology has taught us anything, we technically do have ghost boxes now, but maybe not in the way edison intended or even predicted . we carry them everywhere and can check them anytime, channeling messages through them constantly . we actively become digital ghosts, online we are both present and absent . the present implodes with the past, we've over-documented everything so now we can experience an instant nostalgia . today's future becomes archaic, we live in the archive to try and remember what the future once was .

'haunted' and 'futuristic' become one and the same .

by this token i'm reminded also by transhumanism . as the technological singularity fast approaches, as progress charges forward at a constantly increasing speed, current estimates posit the 2040s as the point in which technological improvements will occur at a constantly self-replicating rate . in the time between now and then, transhumanism and the eventual merging of human consciousness with machinery are theorized outcomes of technological progress . one day we might be able to leave the shackles of our human bodies and transcend our physical forms as a joined digital consciousness .

and in relation to this i also think now of clark's second law

The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.

through the wired

this is the stage on which the anime Serial Experiments Lain is set . a story, that while constructed on the patchwork of fiction, is nevertheless symbolic of certain phenomena based in reality .

also i apologize if it wasn't apparent that this post was going to be about Lain . im lainposting boys

the first few episodes exist to misdirect the viewer right from the beginning . and only by returning to these episodes having thought through the rest of the show, does their purpose become clear . the first episode, aptly titled "Layer 01: Weird" , is meant to show us exactly one thing, that lain is fucking weird . we can't tell what she's thinking, we can't tell what she's doing, and that's exactly how everyone around her feels . lain is totally and completely disconnected, she doesn't keep up with current events at school, she doesn't communicate with her family, near as we can tell she has no actual interests besides her stuffed animals and totally phasing out of reality. the inciting incident of the series happens when someone tries to make a connection with lain, and that person happens to be dead...

or at least there body is dead, their consciousness seems to have escaped into the wired . lain's decision to pursue this connection is what lead's her to ask her father for a new navi (the series' name for a personal computer) and that's all that really happens in this episode . coming back to it from later episodes we know that lain is probably thinking a lot throughout this episode . the decision to not entreat us to any of her thoughts is intentional, it is to make us feel distant from her as viewers, the same way that the world around her is distant . as lain forms connections throughout the series, so too, will we form a connection with her .

we do not know how much time has passed since then and the second episode, but whatever has happened lain has already developed a significant presence in the wired . this episode is tricky in its presentation as it doesn't make us privy to which things lain is lying about and which things she's honest about . in it we have lain talking to someone on her navi, she types sporadically in an encrypted language, and someone who looks just like her appears late one night in a night club downtown . while lain won't admit it to her classmates it's apparent at the end of the episode that it was her at the club all along . the key to understanding her actions throughout the episode is to realize she is trying to keep her existence in the wired and her existence in reality as separate entities . the realization she has by the end of the episode, which she uses to terrify a gunmen into suicide is that there is no escape from the wired, no matter where you are you are always connected .

made in the late-90s, Lain was quite ahead of its time . it predicted not only how in the early 2000s the internet would be regarded as a separate world where anonymity and personas reigned—it also predicted how the internet would eventually and inevitably overlap with the real world, once people in the real world realized that the internet is the real world . people have a tendency to see one part of themselves as their "true selves", whereas the parts they show to others are personas, they think of these things as separate when in reality a person is an amalgamation of all of their personas . lain tries to change her personas by dressing and acting differently from when she's in the wired-mode and in normal-mode, but she doesn't realize how people have been doing this way before the wired existed . her classmates are all 15 but they all pass for adults when they've dolled up and hit the club . if the characters in the show seem a bit young for their attitudes then you may not have met enough tech-savvy teenagers before . the purpose of this episode is to ultimately to prove to lain that the so-called real world and the wired are merely two layers of one reality, which couldn't be more true of the world today .

let there be light300pMTK. .

in mythology, psyche was the mortal princess who fell in love with and, eventually, married the god cupid; in religion and classical philosophy, psyche came to mean the human soul, and in the modern, literate world, it retains that meaning as the human spirit; in freudian analysis, psyche refers to the totality of the human mind: the id, ego and superego .

every meaning of psyche is distinctly human: a human princess who achieves godhood, the soul or mind of an individual . if previous episodes introduced the blurring of the real world with the wired, then episode three; "Layer 03: Psyche" is the episode that starts to blur human identity online and offline . one doesn’t even have to venture into the wired to ask what is human .

by this point we know that lain is definitely up to something . at this stage it's hard to tell what, but all we get are little glimpses into her actions . she still seems to be hiding a lot from the world around her and from the viewer in turn . ironically, lain's blank-faced silence and response to the questions of those around her it's own incrimination . when a police officer tells her to speak up (regarding the gunman's suicide) even if she had nothing to do with it, he doesn't realize she's being silent precisely because she does have something to do with it . but her deer-in-the-headlights persona gets her out of it .

the lain of the wired and the lain of reality are slowly starting to mesh into one whole . it remains difficult to interpret the physical existence of "other lain" so to speak, and the show refuses to outright show her playing that character . at the least, we do get to see lain access the wired in all its chaotic glory and she does begin to take an active interest in expanding her knowledge as she learns about and installs the "Psyche drive", a computer circuit that lain procures in hopes of it enhancing her computer's processing power . on the smaller scale, when lain applies the psyche processor to her navi, she is installing a spirit or soul, an animating element, to her machine . notably, the psyche does not replace the main processor; psyche augments the main processor, interpreting the data that flows through it . the soul is not simply the brain, it is an elevated consciousness or meta-self. by this point in the series lines become blurred and the lains begin to merge (hehe) . all of this is set against the backdrop of lain trying to decide if she should remain in the physical world or fully integrate in the wired . she hears one voice telling her that death feels amazing, and god exists in the wired, that there is nothing left for lain in this world . however, lain begins to establish a connection with her classmate alice, saying her name out loud and commiting it to memory for the first time, alice asks why her friends are not more shaken up after watching someone shoot himself in the head the previous day . it's almost as though lain is clinging to alice as an excuse to stay in the physical world out of fear for changing over . this all sets the seeds for what eventually grows throughout the series .

i want to recall the final meaning of the word “psyche". that the word also meant “butterfly,” which is how the greeks imagined the soul to appear . no doubt the symbolism of a creature that begins as one thing and transforms into another is not lost on us here .

every event serves to emphasize the existence of one's own personal reality, and as individuals from all others, we desire a place to belong . however that too is an egotistical concept . in order for there to be a mutual understanding, it is necessary to recognize here and now, like the brain synapses, we are all—in a logical yet chaotic manner—connected .

each is seperate—yet they are one . by connecting, humanity gains first awareness of its function as a seed . and by connecting a human no longer remains a mere endpoint, a "terminus", but becomes a junction to another point, having won the right to continue itself . in a sense, the ability to connect is the ability to continue . this not only applies to the connection of axial coordinates but temporal coordinates as well . therefore, at the time when a conscious, intentional connection is made, surely the dead will rise from there intended place, appearing at the time coordinate of the connection's origin .

in that moment, the realization will dawn that the time in which we inhabit our physical bodies is but the starting point of the connection, and the very meaning of possessing a physical body might be questioned .

we recognize we are connected .

serialize thyself .

#tecnobabel #text

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fang-wolfsbane · 3 years

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Transformers Animated: Morning Star: Chapter 02: The Alternative

Greenblade hadn’t been a fan of the whole idea of seeking refuge on a maintenance ship but considering their lack of funds and things to trade, the old yellow and red ship containing a batch of maintenance bots were really all they had to choose from. It was different than they were used to.

Convincing the captain of the ship, a Prime at that, had been difficult enough, especially with the medic bot, an old, white, and red bot seeming to wait for rust to set in, had been the first one against it. Apparently, according to the annoying yellow bot, they weren’t the first asteroid-hikers the maintenance bots had picked up on their route. As it turned out, the maintenance bots had been the reason why the black and cold bi-pedal bot had to rely on them for transportation due to an incident that resulted in his own ship being destroyed. She pitied him. She truly did. Whether he felt the same towards her, he didn’t let on. She didn’t pry either.

Blueflame on the other servo, had been all too happy to meet the acquaintance of the five mechs, enough so that Greenblade had learned their names off by spark. The leader, Optimus Prime, who didn’t seem all that keen on explaining why exactly a Prime was leading a spacebridge maintenance team. Ratchet, the old and grouchy medic. Prowl, the forced travel companion. Bulkhead, the bulbous oaf, and finally, the irritating chatterbox, Bumblebee. She found that her personal preferences led her to stay close to Prowl, whom, as it turned out, was a ninja bot.

Greenblade had received stellarcycles of sword, stealth and other sorts of training, all for the sake of her sister, so she found having a decent sparring partner made the trip a little more worthwhile. Optimus had told them that it would take a long while to get the sisters where they needed to go, but that it would eventually be on their route, so they didn’t mind all that much. With the way Bumblebee ogled her sister, Greenblade was certain that he definitely didn’t mind the thought of the journey being delayed. The thought alone was enough to tighten her servo around the hilt of her sword, the sight of him happily chirping away at Blueflame’s audio angering her to her core.

She couldn’t blame her sister for seeking some form of companionship, considering that the only other youngling she ever really had contact with, was her. Their parents had kept Blueflame separate for stellarcycles, and now that she finally had the opportunity to gain freedom from them and their memories, she was taking full advantage of it.

A part of her envied her sister’s easy adjustment to their current wanderers status. She wished that she too could simply toss all she knew aside and just relax for once, to simply sit down and chat with one of the five mechs like they were old friends. Cycles of being trained to do the opposite had her on constant edge, so much so that the medic had begun to notice. He had offered to give her something for her jumpiness, but she had denied him in that regard. He had simply shrugged and gone off to do something else instead.

From the haunted look in his optics and the scars sticking to his frame, especially the missing half of the chevron on his forehelm, indicated that he had possibly been involved in the old war against the Decepticons. He confirmed it earlier that cycle when he caught the Prime watching some old footage of the war, scolding him for wanting to know what war felt like.

As payment for their travel, the sisters had to help clear the debris from the spacebridges the ship was forced to maintain. Greenblade was no stranger to hard work, so she took the task easier than Blueflame, who, for once forbidden from using her ability, hacked at the asteroid like a sparkling trying to figure out why a toy wasn’t lighting up. She found it amusing, to see her oh-so-greatly-revered younger sister struggling with something for once in her life, but instead of giving up and pouting in a corner like she originally thought Blueflame would do, the inexperienced femme happily took on the challenge, grinning like a content youngling whenever Bumblebee or Bulkhead tossed praises her way.

She often found Prowl focusing more on his meditation than actually helping out but considering that he was the only one forced to travel alongside the maintenance bots, she left him to it. Blueflame, with the backing of her formerly mentioned cheer squadron, often tried encouraging him to help out. Surprisingly, it actually worked at times, and made the effort much less on the rest of them.

At one point Blueflame had asked Optimus why they couldn’t just use the spacebridge to go straight where they needed to. His excuse was that the spacebridges were to remain offline because of their sole purpose being for the benefit of the Autobot Elite Guard under the guise of security reasons. Personally Greenblade didn’t believe him, thinking that the actual reason lay in it possibly causing too much traffic throughout space, but she kept her opinion to herself.

Normally the seven of them worked without much interaction, yet today it seemed that the mechs were in some kind of competitive mood. Bumblebee tried showing off for Blueflame by using his stingers in the flashy way only he seemed to have perfected. Blueflame had secretly begged for permission to use her ability, but Greenblade had shut her down fast with the fact that they needed to keep what she could do a secret.

At times she had the inkling feeling that her sister might have shown what she was capable of to the show-off mech but considering how difficult it seemed for him to keep his motor shut, he had no idea. Good. She didn’t feel up to explaining the real possible reason why the two of hem had snuck away on a maintenance ship instead of waiting on a transporter instead. Primus knew there were enough of those going around ever since the war against the Decepticons ended all those deca-cycles ago.

Greenblade had been relying on an old axe Optimus had found lying around in storage. There was no way she was going to damage her sword with stubborn boulders clinging onto the only emergency transportation system the Autobots had. She was just about to swing the tool down, ignoring the rest of the mix-and-match team when Optimus broke open one of said boulders, causing a blast of light to nearly blind all of them upon its moment of freedom.

One of them questioned what it was, but from the horrified look on the medic’s faceplate, it was clear he knew just exactly what the large orange container was.

“Ratchet?” Optimus’ voice broke through her thoughts, snapping her out of the trance the container seemed to set her under. “What is it?”

“The Allspark…” Ratchet breathed, almost as if he himself couldn’t believe what was right in front of his very optics. Bumblebee and Bulkhead were the first to exchange questionable glances between each other.

“The Allspark? But that’s only a myth, isn’t it?” Blueflame asked, nearly causing Greenblade to flinch at her sister’s ignorance. It seemed her mother hadn’t taught her everything Greenblade had been forced to learn at the academy. A glance between all of them, save for Ratchet, left the mechs assuming that the Allspark being something from a legendary tale was simply the version she had been told. Greenblade wasn’t going to explain anything to them. They could figure that part out on their own.

“Get it on board. Get it on board right now!” Ratchet ordered, his pinchers sliding out from their protective casing in his wrist plating. The rest of them barely had a chance to react as Bumblebee and Bulkhead helped the medic to get the container inside, the rest of them following in shortly after.

The ship blasted away from the asteroid whilst Optimus contacted the head honcho himself, Ultra Magness, leader of the Autobots, and commander of the Primes. She would have felt intimidated, if it weren’t for the fact that a different bot answered the communication hail instead. Some bot named Sentinel Prime. From the sound of it, he and Optimus didn’t seem to be on the best terms.

Without thinking, Greenblade forced Blueflame behind her, hiding her out of sight from the second Prime. From the sound of it, the second Prime didn’t seem to be aware of who was allowed to be on the ship and who wasn’t.

Blueflame had tried protesting against all the shoving, but Greenblade had gotten her into the same room as the Allspark. Blueflame hadn’t been happy about it, but a silent glare from her older sister had her shutting up and dealing with it.

The crew was ordered to take the Allspark somewhere, and the first thing Greenblade did was pull out her sword and hold it to the Prime’s throat plating. The mechs around them stood in shock, only Ratchet and Prowl ready to try and fight against her if it came down to deciding whether the Prime’s life fuel would be spilled or not.

“Greenblade, what is this-” Optimus began, his servos raised beside him in surrender. She cut him off by ensuring the side of her blade pressed right against the silver of his neck.

“Listen Prime, you have your orders, and I respect that, truly I do, but me and my sister have someplace we need to be. It’s only because you and your crew have agreed to take us there that we didn’t cause any problems for you, but if you choose to deviate from the original course, I’m afraid you will have a mutiny on your servos.”

“Uh, wouldn’t she need to be, you know, part of the crew to do that?” Bumblebee questioned, making her wish she could cast a glare in his direction. The first rule of fighting kept her from doing so. Never take your eyes off your opponent. Besides the Prime, the ninja bot was probably the only one that stood a chance of fighting her. She preferred not going ped-to-ped with any of them at the moment, not while it could potentially put her ward at risk.

Optimus ignored the younger bot, casting his blue optics towards her. He was handsome, there was no denying that, but she was a femme with a mission, and if it meant snuffing out the spark of some bot getting in her way, then so be it.

“Greenblade, now really isn’t the time to-”

“I’m not fooling around Prime. After you drop the two of us off, you and your little crew can go along your merry way, but I am not letting anyone, Autobot, Prime or even fragging Ultra Magness himself get in my way.”

For a nano click it seemed like the Prime was about to consider her request – or demand at this point – when, out of nowhere, the ship tilted to the side, sending them all sprawling into the closest object to try and regain their balance. Her first and only thought was concern for her sister’s safety before the ship’s computer, Teletraan One, pulled up footage of their attacker, the reigning Dark Ruler of the Decepticons, Megatron himself.

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jarienn972 · 4 years

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La Sirena - Chapter Four

Captain Swan Supernatural Summer

After a slight delay caused by yesterday’s storm knocking out our power (and throwing the router offline for the rest of the day), Chapter 4 of this @cssns story is finally ready! In the last chapter, Killian was finally back on his feet (and slightly embarrassed) as he ventured out for the first time. Emma even invited him into the cavern for the first time where he found some new clothing amidst her collection of old maritime chests. Things couldn’t be more perfect...

So now does anyone think that Killian might be getting a little bit suspicious that something weird is going on? When we left off from Chapter 3, he thought he was imagining torches and lanterns lighting without being touched and then found himself puzzled when Emma warned him of a storm he saw no signs of. He’s treading a fine line between believing he’s just questioning and thinking he’s hallucinating - but those scales are about to be tipped and there will be no turning back.

Thanks again to my wonderful beta, @kmomof4 for all of your assistance and also to @courtorderedcake for the beautiful watercolor art she made for this fic!

Catch up from the beginning here: One Two Three or on AO3 & FF.net

Magic Has a Price

Trusting in her instruction, Killian rushed back through the narrow passageways of the cavern, making his way to the springs where he could view the changes in the skies above through the void in the cave ceiling. Here, he could remain protected from nature's furies as he huddled beneath an overhang while keeping a watchful eye on the heavens. He expected to witness the sky darken as clouds rolled in and rain filtered through the natural skylight yet he saw nothing of the sort.

There was no thunder. No lightning. No gathering of dismal grey clouds to mar the brilliant blue above. Not a single drop of precipitation fell between the cracks in the rock, leaving him a tad bewildered. Why had Emma been so adamant that a storm was imminent? She hadn't joined him in the cave either, muttering something about the storm being here for her. What in blazes did that mean?

He'd intended to remain obediently inside the cavern, but his curiosity grew too great and won out. He needed to learn what the meaning of her cryptic statement was and what she may have been seeking to conceal from him. There clearly was no pending meteorological event as it had been unnervingly quiet. Something was amiss and despite Emma's warnings, he was determined to learn what was troubling her. He owed her that much.

**********

After delivering her stern order for Killian to return to the relative safety of the cavern, Emma mentally scolded herself for the sad excuse she'd given. She had wanted an explanation for not joining him, but instead, she'd likely implanted a seed of doubt. How foolish of her to state that the storm was coming for her, even if it was the truth. Nonetheless, she paused near the mouth of the cave until he was out of her sight then set her jaw, scowling as she marched to the beach. She hated that she hadn't been entirely truthful about the origin of the impending storm, but this was far too personal.

She should have known better. She'd become careless in her desire to shelter Killian as she'd grown rather fond of her human companion over the course of the past few days. As much as he'd soothed the bitter ache in her soul, her fondness had placed them both at risk. How would she explain herself? She had to think of something in a hurry, knowing who would be awaiting her in the shallows of the bay.

"Erimetha…," she heard the deep, familiar feminine voice call to her as the crown of perfectly coiffed dark hair broke the surface of the water. Emma already knew who the voice belonged to and it wasn't anyone she had a desire to see. "Or are you still calling yourself Emma these days?"

"As much as you prefer to call yourself Regina, sister," Emma replied as the olive-skinned torso of her sibling raised from the sea with a swish of her lithe, regal purple and gold hued tentacles. "Whatever brings you here to the dregs of our realm?"

"You appear to be doing well for yourself since your banishment, sister. I'm not certain what would possess you to wear that silly frock though. Are you trying to look like some pitiful human up there on the sand? Have you forgotten what it's like to thrive in the sea?"

"I was never banished. Need I remind you that it was my choice to leave?" Emma huffed, not willing to give in to her sister's taunts. "I had no desire to live that life anymore. This is my home now and I live how I please. If I choose to wear a silly frock like a human, then I shall. I've no one to answer to."

"Oh, that's right - the siren with a conscience bit," Regina said snidely. "The gods created you to sing and lure those horrible, unworthy creatures to their demise. That is who you are and you can't deny that."

"You're right, Regina, I cannot deny what I was created to be. However, I can choose not to be that demon any longer. I am sorry if that bothers you but I am no threat to you in your desire to please Triton."

"You sound so self-righteous," Regina scoffed, flicking a splash of water into the air with the tip of a tentacle. "You can't fight what you were born to be."

"We shall see. All I know is that you didn't swim all this way to berate me and call me self-righteous. Why are you here?"

"So impatient, little sister… Always so impatient… I'm here because we members of the council sensed a little magic ripple that originated from this pathetic little corner of the realm. You've not used your powers in eons so some were a little worried… These little things do travel, you know?"

"It was hardly anything for the council of sirens to worry themselves over. I merely had a desire to grow some new fruits and vegetables here and conjured up a few plants to expand my diet. I could have waited for seeds to blow in with the trade winds, but as you said, I'm impatient."

"Food? Of course…," Regina sneered. "Growing food like a lowly human when you could be feasting like a queen…"

"My choice," Emma reminded her.

"So be it," the brunette siren shrugged. "Just be warned that the council will be keeping watch on you."

"Whatever for? What does the council care about what I do? I have no interest in anything of that life!"

"Considering your sad development of a conscience, the council - myself included - expressed concern that you might show pity upon an unexpected survivor."

"Survivor?" Emma gulped, trying hard to conceal her surprise at Regina's statement. "What are you talking about?"

"A few sunrises ago, an unfortunate ship sailed into our waters. None were deemed worthy to pass and they succumbed to our song before the ship ran aground and sank not far from this cove. Since then, there has been scuttle amongst the sea creatures that one of those vile humans survived. It's highly unlikely, but you know how the council gets… Your weaknesses made you a concern - that you might attempt to rescue such an unfortunate being."

"Why is this such a bother to the council? The rule has always been that any human immune to our song would be allowed safe passage. No man can resist the song so there hasn't been a survivor in centuries."

"And that rule still stands but no human is worthy to pass through our realm. In all the ages, only one has ever been able to resist. They're simply inferior beings."

"But you know that the one human who was able to resist the song gained favor with Poseidon and united his kingdom with ours - even if only for a brief moment in time."

"Because the new leaders of the human's kingdom angered the gods again and their realm was reclaimed by the sea. They're all evil. Poseidon should allow us to reclaim all of the human realms!"

"He doesn't because he knows that there are good ones among them and I believe that as well. The siren's council controls only one realm and it should stay that way! I refused to send any more of those humans to their deaths."

"Well," Regina began with an indignant huff, "unlike you, I shall continue to defend our waters from those humans! I won't allow myself to grow weak with worry about morality or humanity!"

"Did you ever once consider that resisting our urge to tempt sailors is the strength, not the weakness?" Emma countered, ire increasing at her sister's callousness and disregard for her choice to exit the council of sirens.

"Whatever you want to believe, Emma," Regina dismissed her with disdain. "You are still a siren, no matter what you're trying to make yourself believe. It's who you are. The siren song is a part of you and perhaps one day you'll realize that. For now, remember this - if you are found to be harboring a human, the decision of what will become of you will no longer be up to the council. You'll be answering to the gods themselves."

"I have nothing to answer for," Emma stated, although she secretly hoped that she'd never be called upon to back up that statement. "Take care, sister."

Regina huffed and whipped her tentacles around before diving beneath the gentle waves and leaving Emma standing silently on the shore, staring blankly at the horizon. She trembled while repeatedly chastising herself for daring to use her powers. She had only wanted to provide for Killian, not endanger him. She hadn't envisioned that after so many years, her single use of magic would reverberate back to the council. Regina would undoubtedly return and she wouldn't be alone next time.

What could she do? Had she already done too much?

Killian couldn't immediately locate Emma when he emerged from the cavern but as his intuition had been correct and there was no storm, he was left mildly perturbed and greatly confounded by her deception. He ventured out to the ridge of ancient volcanic rock that separated the cave from the shoreline and stopped himself before crossing it.

Instead of the rumble of thunderstorms, he heard the sound of two distinct, aggravated voices. He recognized Emma's but there was a second, sultrier female voice present. Emma had insisted that the two of them were alone on this distant cove but unless he was hallucinating, he held no doubt that he was hearing another woman's voice - and by their tone, there were no pleasantries being exchanged.

He held back out of sight, fearful of being noticed and tried to discern what was transpiring. Did Emma get visitors regularly? Her often awkward interaction with him would certainly lead one to believe that she had little contact with others. Despite that, the tone of the exchange he was overhearing seemed to be decidedly personal. Emma knew the person on the other end of the conversation, but that wasn't going to help him.

Unfortunately for his prying ears, the two women were speaking in the same Ancient Greek dialect that he couldn't quite translate. He could pick out a few words here and there but nowhere near enough to get the context of the conversation. He surmised that the other woman's name was Regina and thought he understood Emma calling her sister.

He so desperately wanted to poke his head over the ridge line to see what was going on but he didn't dare risk angering Emma. Whomever she was speaking with, she hadn't wanted him to see - or perhaps be seen by. Why else would she have ordered him to dart back into the cavern under the false pretense of an impending storm? Was there a reason she wouldn't want her sister to know he was there, assuming this woman was actually her sister?

He shrank back to the opening of the cave as he sensed their conversation was waning. Although the stretch of beach where Emma and the mysterious Regina weren't in his purview, he could see out to another section of the cove where the turquoise sea met the azure sky, expecting to see the crown of a ship's mast out on the horizon. There was none. Where had this other woman come from? If she didn't arrive by ship, had Emma not been truthful about a village being nearby? He had so many questions but all were shook from his mind when he felt an unseen hand tighten around his forearm, yanking him forcefully into the darkness of the cavern depths.

"I thought I told you to go back to the spring?" Emma scolded him while he silently sighed in relief that it was her and not some angry, unknown stranger. Not that she wasn't angry…

"My apologies. My curiosity garnered the better of me when I sensed no sign of weather anomalies," he responded, unable to meet her gaze.

"The storm I spoke of was a tempest of a different sort," she sighed loudly as her voice softened. She maintained her clench on his arm until they reached the spring. "How much did you hear?"

Killian lowered his head in shame, found guilty of spying on this woman who had shown him nothing but kindness. Whatever fibs she may have told, she'd had her reasons and the exchange he had overheard hadn't been intended for his ears. "I couldn't make out much of what you were saying. I just heard you conversing with the other woman - Regina, was it? I thought I heard you call her sister, but no matter the relation, there seemed to be a great deal of tension between you. I am quite sorry. I should never have intruded…"

"Oh, Killian…," she began as she released her grip on his forearm, raising her hand to his chin and giving it a gentle push upward, forcing him to look directly at her. The glistening tears welling in her eyes only intensified the confusion present in his stare. She knew she couldn't harbor her secrets any longer…

"There is so much you don't know about me… Oh, where to start…? The other voice you heard did indeed belong to one of my sisters and the disagreement you overheard was due to her lack of understanding my choice to leave the life I was born into." She squeezed her eyes closed and allowed a single tear to roll over her cheekbone before continuing. "There's something that you need to know about me…"

"It has often been my experience that when a woman makes such a statement, the remainder of the conversation tends not to be pleasant…"

"If I am to protect you, you need to hear me out. What you're about to hear puts you in grave danger, but I can't hide it from you any longer."

"How does learning that you have sisters and that we aren't entirely alone here on this isle put me in such peril?"

"I do live alone here," she assured him, "at least I did until you arrived. I have not seen or heard from Regina in eons but she traveled a long way to confront me because I broke one of my own rules…" She lowered her chin, her blonde locks tumbling over her face to hide her own shame. "I used magic. I shouldn't have used my powers, but I did and somehow, the effect of that action reached all the way back to my homeland. Now Regina and the rest of the council are suspicious of me and they're watching. She will be back and she won't be alone so we have to be ready…"

Dumbfounded, Killian shook his head in disbelief, raking his fingers through his tousled hair as he struggled to make sense of this. He leaned back against one of the larger chests as a myriad of thoughts bombarded his overloaded brain.

"Be ready for what?" he queried, although it wasn't really the most pressing question he was thinking of. He found himself staring absentmindedly at the cavern floor, kicking up a bit of volcanic sand as he flexed his bare toes. He was almost afraid to ask the other questions but he had to. "And what do you mean you used magic?" He raised up his head to face her again, mesmerized by the way the flickering light of the torch illuminated her ivory skin. It almost made it appear to be glowing on its own as she stood there before him.

He wasn't prepared for her answer.

"Like all of my people, I was born with certain magical gifts… or curses, depending on how you view them," she explained as she shifted her sight away from him.

"Are you some sort of witch?" he asked, voice wavering.

"No, I'm not a witch, but your kind would likely consider me a similar monster…"

His brow furrowed at her words. How could Emma ever refer to herself as such? "You're hardly a monster."

"Killian, you've not yet scratched the surface of what I am." Without looking at him, she extended a hand in his direction. "Come with me over to the spring…" He may have been wary of the gesture, but he placed his hand into her open palm and allowed her to lead him to the edge of the hot spring. She could hear his breath hitch in his throat as she let go of his fingers and descended the carved steps into the pool, raising her flowing gown over her head and tossing it aside.

Ever the gentleman, Killian's cheeks instantly flushed bright red as he averted his gaze from her nudity. "Emma, love… this isn't exactly proper…"

"Don't be ashamed of my nakedness. You needn't look away - I want you to see my true form." He heard a faint splash over the thundering of his own heartbeat as she lowered herself into the spring. "Killian - look at me," she insisted, but he was still unsure.

"Is this why you're purported to be a monster?" he wondered. "Some sort of wanton nymph here to tempt me into lascivious behavior?" He heard Emma chuckle before he dared glance over to the pool, finding her lounging against the steps with her arms extended at her sides (although she was submerged from her bosom down).

"You're not far off with your mention of a nymph, but you have the wrong creature," she stated as she playfully kicked a bare foot into the air, showering him with a pattering of warm water.

"I'm afraid I don't quite understand…," he blushed, resisting the carnal urge to jump into the steamy spring with her. Part of his psyche was holding him back, unconsciously telling him that despite her friendly teasing, he wasn't going to like what she was about to say. And now, he was frozen in trepidation.

"I'm not human," she said bluntly, drawing her leg beneath the water's surface once more. Before he could even attempt to process that confession, a shimmering tail fin raised up out of the spring. "I am a shape-shifting sea being that you know as a siren."

His jaw fell slack, mouth gaping as his gaze fell upon the sparkling green, gold and turquoise hues reflecting from the minute scales adorning her tail. Her tail. It was an awe-inspiring wonder as he took in the sight of the head and torso of the woman he'd come to admire over the past few days paired with the shiny, scaly tail of a fish.

This couldn't be. He must be delirious…

"No…, no…" he stammered. "This cannot be…" He staggered backwards, away from the spring, senses and sensibility overwhelmed.

"Killian, I promise - I can explain!" She pleaded with him, dejected by the panic in his eyes as he stumbled away from her. "Please, let me explain…"

He couldn't form a response, but he couldn't look away from her either. He continued his hasty retreat with eyes still locked on her unbelievable form, but he'd momentarily forgotten that he was still inside a cave. As he neared the four chests, he lost his footing in the uneven, loose sand. With nothing near him to reach for, he fell, arms pinwheeling awkwardly in a desperate attempt to stop himself. His head collided with a protruding slab of rock as he struck the wall and he dropped motionless beside the still-open chest where he'd found his new clothing.

"Killian!" she cried, rapidly transforming back to her human legs as she splashed her way out of the pool and hurried to his side. She knelt beside his unresponsive body, drawing her fingertips over the prickly stubble along his jaw. "Oh no… What have I done?"

#cssns #cssns20 #captain swan supernatural summer #siren emma #cs ff #cs au ff #la sirena #sorry for the cliffhanger #and that it might be 2 weeks before I can post the next update #busy week ahead with the youngest starting the 5th grade

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deitiesofduat · 4 years

Photo

BASTET: “As it turns out, the project has been due for this type of update for some time -- which the artist @tenicola (aka @teninini, colacanvas, and "Teni") finally got around to, after having enough headspace to approach it.

“And just to avoid worrying anyone seeing this -- nope, Teni is not dropping DEITIES project anytime soon. She's not going anywhere, and neither am I! Or the rest of my pantheon!

“But Teni mentioned she was worried about projecting that outcome, due to how inactive she's been online, and how quiet she's been about progress. She's hoping this update can add some clarity on what's actually going on, and what to expect going forward.”

“The rest of this update is below the cut, as text mixed with panels. It's on the long-ish side, and while it's best to skim through everything for context, you can also skip to the section "SHIFT IN [PUBLIC] SCOPE" if you just want to get to the point.

“Without further ago, let's start with some history that Teni wanted to share for full context -- again, under the cut!”

--------------------------------------------------

[ HISTORY OF DEITIES PROJECT ]

BASTET: “DEITIES Project -- and the main story for said project (Deities of Duat: The Chaos Seal), which is intended as a long form webcomic -- has been in development, privately and offline, since late 2014. Teni meant to keep it private for as long as possible, until she felt “ready” to share it.

“However, she was motivated to take the plunge and reveal the project's existence with these color tests and with this comic, as part of her coursework for her visual storytelling class. You know the one…”

“The surge of encouragement from both her classmates and her followers motivated Teni to create this blog -- the one you're visiting right now! It was Teni's full intention to use this blog to share progress on the main story, as a full-length webcomic, while building and engaging her audience.”

“However, along the way were a few... unforeseen obstacles that reared their head. Some obstacles were mitigated by making steady updates to the story and blog, but some were much more challenging, and she thinks it only fair to disclose some of them for context...”

--------------------------------------------------

[ OBSTACLES OF LIFE ]

BASTET: “The first obstacle was the sudden onset of chronic lower back pain -- just before the launch of the DEITIES blog in 2016. She still has it to this day, and says this ache makes it unbearable to sit or stand in the same position for too long. Among several inconveniences this causes, it also means she can only draw in short bursts before her stamina taps out, or before needing pain relief -- like heat, ice, and pressure.”

“As you might imagine, it's not the most fun condition to have when you enjoy drawing! And it's taken a while for Teni to cope with this daily frustration. She's still planning to find answers and a treatment to help reduce it, but has also accepted that she's been dealt this hand -- not unlike other creatives that deal with some form of chronic pain.”

“The back pain was one obstacle, but having to deal with different interpersonal struggles and friction was another. Some spiked her usual feelings of anxiety, and in one relationship's case, made her question whether or not the project was worth continuing. (On that note -- Teni does not want to call out anyone or guilt them, she just wanted to bring it up as a factor for the larger point she's making — just bear with us!)

“The third big obstacle a few years back, was having a day job that had an... ‘unfriendly’ work environment, and was paying a lot less income than she fairly deserved. And near the beginning of 2018, she was laid off from said job, putting a halt to any income she was earning only a week after signing the lease to her first apartment!”

“Teni didn't go into detail about those months of job hunting and taking tech classes, though she explains bits of it in previous updates. But the lack of financial stability at the time hung over her head constantly. The way she put it was: ‘It was hard to motivate myself to indulge in something I loved, but that didn't provide income, while I was in the middle of an extended job hunt.’"

“She didn't expect all these obstacles in succession when she launched the project. And she admits that she felt a combination of frustration, impatience, and disappointment for not updating the project at the same pace she started.”

“This was not because of any pressure from followers -- she told me you all have been incredibly understanding and patient! It was because of the fact that the project had been publicly promoted for so long, and she set her own expectations and goals so high -- without factoring the likelihood of life getting in the way. There was also the lingering fear of disappointing a lot of people, if one day she had no choice but to stop the project for her own livelihood and health.”

“Ah, why am I adding to this creative angst -- Teni didn't want this to be a sob story! I'll move on haha.”

--------------------------------------------------

[ IN A BETTER PLACE ]

BASTET: “Thankfully, in spite of all those obstacles, things are turning around for Teni in this new decade. A year ago she found a job with a feasible income to support herself, and an overall healthy work environment within her team. She's also fostered healthier relationships with her family and friends, and even made closer connections with the best friends she's had for ages!”

“And while her back pain is… still there, it's a manageable part of life that she's still determined to find answers for and improve.

“Not to mention that in the past year, she's been able to work on other projects, more quietly, and indulge in drawing other characters and fanart for fun. She's consumed more of her favorite media in the interim as well to support others, and to sate her own curiosity and interests.”

“Moving on to how this relates to this update, now that we have some backdrop for what's been happening...”

--------------------------------------------------

[ AREAS OF INTEREST ]

BASTET: “Again, Teni is not dropping DEITIES Project -- she admits the fear of having to make that call had crossed her mind, but it's not something she thinks she'll need to reconsider right now. Her bigger concern has been how to approach this project publicly, moving forward. And after giving it some thought, she's made some observations that may shed light on this answer.

“Teni wanted me to emphasize the idea of her doing a ‘reset’ for the public presentation and development of DEITIES Project -- not to change or hide the development thus far, but to reframe the project's scope -- what it's focus and goals are, more or less.

“...Oh-- looks like she made some visuals to help with this -- you two mind lending me a hand?”

“You all might have figured it out by now, but Teni absolutely loves drawing character art and designs. She also likes panel-style comics, as well as the dialogue, expressions, and SFX that comes with it. She can work on them offline without prompting, but she also loves sharing what she comes up with!

“What she's less fond of sharing is some of the other... *ahem* unmentionables and time-consuming work that comes with traditional comics. Things that take hours to set up and hours to practice, let alone execute for the final product -- an unfortunate hurdle when you're a one-person production team, and you can only draw in small bursts at a time.”

“She initially tried to put off the more indulgent art that she liked, in order to focus the less-favored obligations... but she realized that this just made her feel demotivated to work on anything, and less got completed as a result.”

“Overall, Teni's coming to terms with both her own limitations and her personal drive, and wants to shift her priorities accordingly for the project -- even if it goes against the grain of what's considered ‘good’ or well-meaning advice for a personal project.”

--------------------------------------------------

[ SHIFT IN [PUBLIC] SCOPE ]

BASTET: “Instead of treating the DEITIES main story/comic as the ‘end game’ goal of this project -- and pouring all her available energy in preparing for it and hyping it up -- Teni wants to shift the main story as a future, and more private ambition, until she's in a better place to execute it and share it publicly.

“No, she does not have any estimate or TBD date for when this will be, or when she'll make public updates on it’s progress or launch. It may even remain private indefinitely. And for now, she's okay with this.

“Because (1) The main story "The Chaos Seal" is not the only story that's worth telling from this project. Smaller side- and backstories, and even small character interactions, have their merit as well -- something Teni learned from drawing askbox responses, completing memes with the cast, and character exploration with friends. And with the main story not sucking up all the oxygen, she thinks it'll leave room to tackle the others more easily -- whether they're planned ahead of time or are spur-of-the-moment, and as comics or different formats.

“(2) Removing the DEITIES main story from its public pedestal will also allow her to work on other non-DEITIES things as they crop up -- and with less irrational guilt to indulge in things that aren't ‘priority’ for completing the comic. Meaning more art of her original characters, fanart, giftart, collabs, memes and bandwagons, and other smaller projects. Heck, she might even give herself permission to relax.

“And (3), perhaps most importantly -- Teni realized that DEITIES Project shouldn’t have to start and end with the so-called main story, and placing the story aside wouldn’t mean the project suddenly becomes a waste of time -- as she originally worried about projecting when her life took a twist.

“DEITIES Project just… is. It already exists, and the characters and world already exist -- with or without a completed webcomic to validate that existence.”

“But anyway, I side-tracked. The point is, Teni's planning to shift DEITIES project to just that -- a project, with room to continually grow, explore, and experiment with, and to engage with others as she feels comfortable, without the pressure of having a giant epic to tell.

“So while the main story and comic is going to shift to something more gradual and private -- the way it was originally meant to be -- this shift in scope will help adjust the project’s longevity, and also set the stage for some changes to be made around the blog, and for the public presentation for DEITIES.”

“However, that content will be less scheduled and remain sporadic -- things will ‘happen when they happen,’ but what Teni has in mind will hopefully be enjoyable for those following the project.”

--------------------------------------------------

[ WHAT'S NEXT-- ]

BASTET: “Here’s the thing: we actually had more to share, but Teni made the call to save it all for another day -- to avoid making this update longer than needed, and to also avoid announcing any plans prematurely. No need to risk building pressure all over again or burning out, right?

“She asks for everyone’s patience and to give her another few weeks to re-calibrate things, address pressing questions, and work on some overdue housekeeping on the blog -- and to just draw whatever pops to her mind, cuz hey, why not? After that, she'll wait until any project items are already in the works and on the road to completion, before she announces that they're coming -- an ‘under-promise but over-deliver’ approach.

“But one thing you can look forward to are more featured deities from the main cast and the supporting cast -- including those colors tests she's been working on since last year, and then some! There's no shortage of inspiration or fodder, so to speak.”

--------------------------------------------------

[ IN CONCLUSION ]

BASTET: “So to recap! DEITIES Project will be shifting its scope and priorities, so that the main story and comic is developed more privately, and more characters and lore will be explored online at a more manageable pace. On the surface, that may not look like much is changing, but hopefully this update can make expectations more clear.

“Teni knows that there may be some in the audience who may feel down about this decision, or who were looking forward to the webcomic to be completed above all else. She says that's totally fair, and encourages anyone looking for stories to check out her recommendations. But she also hopes you'll understand, and be willing to stick around for other content in the meantime.”

"That brings Teni -- and me -- to one final point. Which is to sincerely thank you for all of your support, encouragement, and patience these past few years. In addition to things that are still in the works, there's a lot of content on this blog that had been inspired by everyone's engagement, which we can't thank you enough for!

“Teni and I, and everyone else from the pantheon, are excited about what’s next for Deities of Duat and DEITIES Project. And we’re looking forward to sharing more content, more freely, in the upcoming year for you all to enjoy.”

#// If there was only one long-winded update I would encourage you all to read it's definitely this one #// Partially for the actual update and also cuz those panels took a while lmAO;;; but I did it for the sake of this announcement!#// I think Bastet explains it well enough for now; that the project is shifting it's scope online #// But if anyone has questions then feel free to leave it as a comment; I'll try to answer what i can directly and/or in the next update #// Thanks again for all your support and patience everyone; I'm genuinely thinking this shift in scope will be good for the project overall.#// Now excuse me while I draw something other than these mascots for a bit; it was nice to draw them for the first time in a while though #DEITIES Project #Deities of Duat #DEITIES updates #Bastet #Set Spawn #Ba #animals #characters #DEITIES text #artwork #comics #mini comics #egyptian mythology

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katreal-fic · 4 years

Text

Since tumblr was weird about the last post and stuck the read more in the ask itself which is SILLY. This is what would have originally been Ersatz Abyss’ Prologue:

Obviously spoiler warnings. Pls do not read unless you know what happened to Dirk x3

Dirk > Reflect on Your Latest Bad Decision

Your name is Dirk Strider, and you are being reckless again.

You acknowledge that.

You don’t know what you are thinking, throwing yourself into battle after battle, long after your muscles have started to protest with fatigue, flirting with the jaws of pain and injury.

You acknowledge that too.

Maybe that’s the problem. You aren’t thinking at all.

Or more precisely, you don’t want to be thinking.

Not about Jake.

(You can’t stop thinking about Jake.)

Not about the fact that your messages are sitting unheeded and unresponded to in a Pesterchum window, banished to the lower right corner of your shades. Even the slightest focus on the application has it popping open, bidden by the transparently mid-level conscious desire of your too-busy brain, despite the very clear fact that you don’t want to be thinking about it at all.

You don’t want to see the sea of orange messages tumbling through the semi-transparent application like waves. See the green pip of his online status reminding you that he’s probably seen it, and isn’t answering them at all. At least you know he’s alive, even if Jane had to be the one to reassure you of that.

It’ll be two weeks tomorrow.

You want to scream out your frustration--your fear, because you love him and why would he visibly, pointedly, unmistakably ignore you like this if you love him??? If he loves you back???--but that wouldn’t be cool at all, so you just press your lips shut behind the blank visage of your rad, flame painted gas mask,and clench your jaw and pull your goddamn sword through the air, cleaving the monster--you don’t even know what kind of monster it is, you don’t care--in twain. It’s not even a neat cut, one half slouching back in on the other with a heavy squelch, joining a number of others in various states of dismemberment across the mossy green stone of this tomb.

Green.

Why the FUCK was everything here green?

Your auto-responder’s text isn’t green as he pointedly takes control of the application and shoos away the errant window, overriding your traitorous brain’s hyper-fixation and opening up a new chat.

(h)TT: You really need to stop thinking about this. (h)TT: It’s a most inconvenient failing of your organic processor, falling into such fickle human traps such as useless recursive and perhaps even reductive feelings. (h)TT: It makes me feel momentarily thankful for the fact that I am a computer, and thus immune to such failings. Perhaps you should look into making a conversion yourself. (h)TT: It seems you need to take a step back and ask yourself what Robojesus would do. (h)TT: What would Robojesus do, Dirk? (h)TT: The answer is decidedly not slaughter an entire tomb’s population to assuage your hurting feefees because your boyfriend is giving you the cold shoulder.

You ignore him.

(h)TT: Dirk, I’m 99.9% sure the zombie is actually dead again. For the hundredth time. You can put the sword away now.

You jerk away from the corpse with it’s pitiful grist yield and don’t answer. However, you don’t put the sword away as prompted. And he keeps prompting. You consider shutting your shades off entirely--him off entirely. You could do it. One thought. One thought and they’d be powered the fuck down in the middle of that red diatribe he’s going through, bleeding through the screen and into your eyeballs.

It’s just a thought however. Instead you forcibly override his control of the display--you are the primary user after all, that’s how you coded that shit--and close the text window.

Perhaps it isn’t fair, shutting him out like this, but you’re angry and hurting and you just want to work out your frustrations on the goddamn game constructs in peace.

The poisonous green kryptonian mists swirl around you as you move onto the next room, slithering over your skin like a cloud of tiny snakes, tugged along with your movements. Notification after notification stack up in the corner of your display. You mute that too, while your katana cleaves into the skull of some sort of reanimated reptilian creature, and just keep moving.

The next window to pop up is baby blue. Stopping you dead in your tracks.

Jane.

Oh.

Fuck.

Him.

You pretend you don’t see it. You don’t want to snap at Jane. It’s not her fault she’s being used in your auto-responder’s petty harassment campaign.

Then after a thought, you shut down Pesterchum entirely before he can drag Roxy into this. Going offline. Incommunicado outside of yourself, and the version of yourself living in your personal computing device. Actually, for that you cut off the network access to the shades entirely so he doesn’t try something else.

You might as well be seeing red--figuratively, not literally, you refuse to let him open a chat window--with the anger that seethes within you right now. At Jake. At him. It’s all the last couple weeks of frustration of an on again, off again, up and down roller coaster of a relationship that you wouldn’t allow yourself to feel for fear of driving Jake further away, all bubbling up and fizzing over, spilling out of you like a soda bottle filled with Jake-English shaped mentos.

You’ll have to get down on your knees and clean it up later. Put in the elbow grease and mop up the explosion of sticky, nasty, dirty coke. Get your thinkpan going about how sustainable this is. How whether the distinction of being Jake English’s number one bae is worth all this stress and the strain that has reduced your relationship to what feels like a step down from zero. But.

That’s later. For once in your life, in the isolation of these desecrated tombs in this ruined city, on a planet that belongs to you and no one else…

You allow yourself to feel.

If AR wants to stick his virtual nose in the middle of your carefully quarantined quest for catharsis then isn’t it the equivalence of someone putting their head in the metaphorical sendificator? You suppose he’s just following his nature. Meddling in other people’s business. Clinging. Unable to just let shit be.

Your nature. Orange text going on and on and on. Scrolling down an empty screen.

One last room. You’ve explored enough of these tombs over the last almost half-a-year of your life to know they come in a pattern. Some battle rooms, some puzzle rooms, and then finally a treasure room. The end. You won. Have yourself a fucking sticker for your trouble. You’ve already cleared this one before, so you don’t even have the satisfaction of a mini-boss or even a random lore tablet waiting for you. Not that you ever really cared about the history the game tried to create for this place in order to justify your potential character development on this planet.

It’s still the end. A hollow one, but an accomplishment nonetheless.

A sun-faced statue towers above a chest tucked into a nook at the far end of the room. Yaldabaoth. Your denizen. A giant-ass snake worm thing with a fucking sun for a head. So stupid. Was it named that after your internet browser, ganked off your machine by Sburb when it populated this stupid session, or was it all just one giant cosmic guffaw that everything matched like that?

Not that it matters, your goal is the exit teleportalizer in the small room behind the statue, so you can check this particular cluster of rooms and corridors off your map and move on to the next one. Find a new pack of mobs to take your frustration out on. Respawning tombs were the best, all the catharsis of mindless slaughter without having to worry about getting ambushed by a fucking mini-boss.

After four consecutive tomb runs you’d think you’d have beaten your pesky emotions out at least thrice over.

You’d much rather be numb.

A low battery system notification forces its way into the center of your screen, and you audibly sigh, that’s how exasperated you are. The extent to which your auto-responder is dead set to be a nuisance would be mind boggling if he wasn’t based on a literal clone of your own brain. Honestly, you’d be disappointed if he did stop trying.

You dismiss it. Another one pops up. Then another. And another. A whole fuckton of spam popups so thick you can barely see the room in front of you.

This is ridiculous.

You open a memo.

(d)TT: The shades don’t have a battery, dumbass. (h)TT: The room isn’t clear, dumbass.

Your eyes flick towards the treasure chest off to the left.

Spikes slam down over the door behind you, and in the distance, the door ahead, as you note that, yes, there are indeed chests tucked in the coils of the serpent statue. Closed and unlooted. Two of them in fact.

Okay. That’s fine. You’ll need to update your maps.

Or maybe you don’t, because once you kill this bitch it’ll be correct again.

You hear the growl behind you, the clink and crunch of bone and magic and metal as a giant armored skeleton spawns. You haven’t had to fight one of these since…

Since you last came through with Jake.

Fine.

You wanted a fucking fight anyway, didn’t you?

It’s big. At least twice as tall as you, and you’re not tiny by any stretch of the word. But big means slow and you can dance circles around slow. That giant hammer is useless, if you cared enough to you’d laugh in the face of those sluggishly stilted swings. Choreographed so obviously even Jake could have--

Your katana screeches against the mace’s handle, leaving you grinding your teeth in pain as it resounds in your ears, the impact threatening to yank it from your hands. But your grip is proper, the result of years of diligent study, and your strength is beyond human, so you just ignore that shit. You ignore the green fire in the skull’s eyes. The too sharp canines. The fist that comes around ready to smash your head like it’s a fucking grape.

You lose yourself in the fight. In the strain of muscles and the feel of noxious mist swirling around you. Jake doesn’t exist. It’s just you and the sword and ignore the fact that you’ve never taken one of these down alone before, because Jake always came tomb diving with you and it was something you two did together you did everything together this was so fucked up. There’s two chests. Your trials were made to be completed in a pair.

What did you do wrong?

You were too clingy that’s what. Too desperate. Too much and you sent him running, didn’t you?

You aren’t really angry at Jake. You’re angry at yourself, because you’re a self-centered bastard like that. Everything comes back to you.

An alarm blares through your speakers, breaking you free from your spiral of self pity and you flinch. Absorbing the message flashing red in the middle of your screen.

(h)On your left! Watch out for the second spawn!(h)

The unseen impact sends you into a wall.

No, not into the wall. Through the wall. You land with a crash, cracking stone. Screen going dark. No message. No red text. Just blood and glass that falls away as you reach up disbelieving, shards of metal and glass digging into skin so numb you soon can’t feel it. You can’t see, blood seeping into your eyes, leaking from your nose. You think you broke it. Maybe. The shades just.

Crumble.

Shattering to the ground in a sparking set of shrapnel, falling with sharp clinks that echo damningly in your ears,somehow able to be heard over the pounding of your heart, the organ responsible for pumping the blood leaking from deep gashes around your eyes where glass and metal fractured and you’re lucky you aren’t fucking blind but---

Two monsters groan and creak behind you.

You can’t stop.

You can’t--

You push yourself off magenta stone, leaving the remnants of your shades broken and useless on the raised slab and whirl around to face the pair of fucking skeleton guards that just fucking broke--killed--your--

…

...

The rest of the fight isn’t important.

What’s important is you survive. That your path leads you back to your makeshift workshop in your living room, glass and metal in your hands, trying desperately to pull shit back together with the dying hope that you can salvage your auto-responder’s programming from the remains.

It’s not like you have a fucking backup.

A backup wouldn’t mean anything anyway.

He’s--

Fuck.

Maybe it was a stupid practice to not keep a physical copy of his code elsewhere. Keep his core program somewhere else. Just in case. This is a scenario you both had argued over many, many times, always leading back to the ethics and philosophical framing of trapping yet another copy of yourself somewhere. Inactive and alone, on the sheer chance of a just in case. Would it even be him, if you removed or copied him from that one single chip from whence you’d initially activated him?

He’d adamantly refused, of course, and you’d felt guiltily responsible enough for him and his situation that you’d tabled the discussion.

As infuriating as he was, he was still alive. He did have a right to his own choices.

You shut off his network access.

Or he was--

No.

You locked him out of nearly everything.

No.

You refused to listen, so wrapped up in your own fucking feelings.

You don’t--

He would have died entirely alone. All for a petty little argument.

You refuse to accept it.

And now you have to live with the fucking consequences.

...what are you going to tell Roxy?

You found the chip, at least. In the wreckage. It looked whole. The protective casing surrounding it was dented and crushed along the edge that made removing it for inspection downright impossible if you didn’t want to further damage the interior workings. Your hands are shaking as you clean out the debris from the micro data transfer point, ignoring, as you always do, the ghost of a blood splatter your brain tries to fill in for you. Cleaning that up had been one of the first things you did. It’d corrode the component, otherwise. It doesn’t stop you from remembering it was there.

It’d taken too long for your face to stop bleeding. You rub your eyes, careless of the scabbed over wounds that just barely missed irreparably damaging your ocular organs. The pain still pulses under your skin. A constant presence since you pulled the shards of glass out of your face. Your game-constructed dreamself healed that shit faster than your original one would have, but it still isn’t right. Isn’t normal. What should be nothing more than fading lines by now are angry raised ridges, the shadows of which peek out from beneath your shades. Likely invisible to most, they are obvious to you whenever you look in the mirror. A reminder.

Your guilt, maybe, manifesting for the world to see.

But that didn’t matter, not really. What’s one more thing to hate yourself for? It’s not like it’ll change anything. You’re too stubborn and rigid to change. Besides, there’s no point when he’s--

None of that. You suck in a breath. In for four. Hold. Out for seven.

You don’t know that. Your free hand lands on the cable sitting innocently next to your monitor, fingers hooking around it like jerky claws as you drag it towards you. You take one last look, squinting through your backup pair of shades--and then pushing them up in your hair because even if the light strains your eyes you can’t do shit if there’s still debris in the port.

Okay. All clear. The lenses settle back on your nose--too light, lacking the weight and presence your broken set did, tricked out as they’d been--but you click the connector cable into the data point and push away from the clear space on your workbench, pulling up in front of your monitor instead.

The diagnostics are simple ones. Pinging the connection. Searching for indexed files. Searching for--

Well, you don't want a bunch of corrupted data, but even that would be better than nothing at all. Nothing would mean the chip was probably crushed into unsalvageable pieces in the depths of its casing.

Either that or a busted connector. Which would mean you’d have to risk breaking through the casing anyway. Which you don’t want to do.

It’s a moot consideration anyway, because the console eventually finishes its search and lights up in lines and lines of white on black, listing files and indexes. Thank god. You navigate the directory, nervously noticing the number of unreadable filenames and broken links. You check through several more harmless methods--unsecured folders and chat logs if you remember the paths correctly--only to find some of them eerily empty or unreadable.

Christ, you don’t know if you’ll feel better or worse if you find out he’s still kicking but missing half his functions. Or memory. Wouldn’t that effectively be a lobotomy?

You pull up Pesterchum, opening the memo you’d had open earlier. Looking back at the red and orange text from your childish snark off makes you feel sick. A big ol’ heaping glob of guilt roiling in your gut.

You’re an asshole.

Now isn’t the time to indulge in gratuitous self-flagellation.The wired connection should bypass the fact that he has no broadcasting capabilities. (Because you shut them off)

(d)TT: AR. (d)TT: Earth to Hal. (d)TT: Houston’s commands have just come in, they need you to compile a report on all the reasons your system operator is an idiot. (d)TT: Because at this point I think I deserve it.

You don’t think he’d be able to resist an open season like that. (note to self: thank alex for the dialogue)

But he does. Or at least that’s what you tell yourself when the minutes tick by without any lines of red text springing across the screen

(d)TT: Do you remember that time you told me to stop being a dumbass and I ignored you? (d)TT: This is the part where you say I told you so.

Time drags on. It's infuriating. You can almost hear it inside your head. Echoing. Even if you know the only clocks you have are digital and therefore make no more sound than your computer does, humming away.

(D)TT: Please?

…

The pit in your gut yawns wide before you. This was it. You might have to actually face the facts. You aren't--aren't like Jake. You can't delude yourself into thinking that everything will be alright if you just put on a cheerful attitude and hope for it to be true.

He might be gone.

Really gone.

You find his core file, but it's inaccessible remotely. Even your overrides don't do shit. You can't do anything from here. You can't break it open. You should just throw in the towel. The deed is done. You hold the shattered glass from the display in the palm of your hand, picking it up from where you'd set several chunks on your desk, some of which you’d had to dig out of your face.

It should be a relief, really. You two had never gotten along. Even before he started pushing your limits and you retaliated in an ever escalating war of bullshit. The world only needs one Dirk Strider. One of you would inevitably end up killing the other, seeing your flaws reflected back at you so clearly. In the path to perfection, isn’t it the flaws that must be eliminated?

Broken glass cuts into your palm as you squeeze your fist around the shard, bright red blood dribbling down the fractal edges, gleaming in the bright overhead lights of your workstation.

You’ve thought about it before. Of course you have. You’ve thought about letting yourself fall on your own sword before, wielded by your own hand, and he’s an even easier target. Everything you hate about yourself, bundled up in one nice neat little digital package, staring you literally in the face. Inescapable. Uncontrollable. You’ve thought about taking that reinforced steel and glass and twisting until it breaks.

But that’s all it was. A thought. Because he’s your responsibility.

Christ on a fucking cracker, he’s a pain in your ass but you didn’t want him dead.

You can't just leave it. Even if the chances are small, what do you have to lose? You can't look Roxy in the face (or even at her text, you’re already ignoring several messages from her because what the fuck do you say?) if you don't try every possible option, and there's one, no, two options left as you see it right now.

He was designed to predict and respond to your thought patterns above all else. The connection works, being able to navigate the directory affirms that. If the function that connected to Pesterchum was inaccessible then maybe you could get through some other way.

You just have to build a brand new interface around that busted casing and get some fucking neural interfaces up and running. If you know nothing else, it’s that for better or for worse, you can’t block out your own damned thoughts.

You plunge into your work, because that’s all you can do right now.

It’s almost a new day--although what exactly comprises a day at this point is arbitrary since everything is just shifting shades of green--when you finally pry yourself away and take a break, stretching your stiff back and rubbing your palms into your strained eyes. You can’t wear your shades, or turn down the lights, when dealing with components so small. The constant vigilance is wearing on you, a constant state of fatigue where one wrong move could render a part unusable and require you to start the process all over again. The only reason you’re even stopping right now is because you’re getting careless.

Your fingers ache under the brightly colored cutie mark stamped bandaids, the tips red and blistering from where your hand slipped and brought them into contact with the soldering iron. They’ll heal.

In for four.

Hold.

Out for seven.

You can do this.

Jane checks in once it’s something closer to a respectable time. She always does, you can count on it like clockwork. The pings from Pesterchum on your desktop drag you away from your workstation--slowly coming together--and you realize you never responded to her--yesterday. The messages of concern are still sitting pretty in their baby blues as you reluctantly click the window open.

GG: Now what’s this I hear about you going off on some madcap adventure over there Mr. Strider? GG: Your auto-responder was quite put out by your actions! Demanded I make it my business to grab you by the collar and tell you off, as it were. GG: I understand you might need some space at the moment, but do let me know if I can stop by at any time. You know I’m always here to talk if you need it. I’ll even bring your favorite cookies! GG: I’ll refrain from shaking you despite your auto-responder’s direct request. (d)TT is idle! GG: Oh bother.

It’s the newer messages that prompted the recent pings, time-stamped as they were with the current date and time, several minutes ago.

GG: Dirk, you know I don’t like meddling in your affairs, but I’ve heard neither hide nor hair from either of you all night! Don’t make me dig out my magnifying glass and track you down. GG: At least let me know you’re safe. (d)TT: I’m alive. GG: Oh thank heavens! That’s good. I’ll admit I’ve been beside myself with worry when you didn’t respond, not even through your auto-responder. Between the two of you I had thought it was quite impossible to go radio silent! (d)TT: I’ve just been buried in an important project all night. I appreciate the offer of a visit, but I think I need to get this done. GG: Oh that’s quite all right, we can wait until you’re ready. I’m just relieved to hear you’re safe! GG: Are you and AR fighting again? Is that what that was all about? (d)TT: You could say that. GG: Don’t you think this is all a bit silly? He can be a handful I'll grant you that, but likely no worse than you would be in that situation as far as I understand it. (d)TT: I’m dealing with it the best I can, Jane. GG: Well, make sure you take care of yourself while you do! Have you had breakfast yet? (d)TT: ...no. GG: Dinner, at least? (d)TT: Despite the fact that I don’t necessarily need to eat, I assure you I have eaten something substantial in the last 24 hours. GG: That’s only because I nagged you into doing it yesterday! Honestly, Dirk, you might not need to, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t! It’s the principle of the matter! Taking care of yourself is as much a mind-set as it is a series of actions, and it’s something you have a history of slacking about, mister!

Too tired and sick to argue back, you promise you’ll look for something, and pack yourself away from the computer to do so, allowing your Pesterchum status to revert to idle. It’s a brief diversion, you don’t have much aside from some cookies that probably went stale since you got them the last time you visited Jane a month ago, and the remnants of your preserved food stash that you’ve barely touched since the body you inhabit isn’t necessarily organic after you sacrificed your original human meatsuit on the altar of fucking time-travel in order to save your friends. Being a dreamself has some perks and being able to ignore a lot of the usual maintenance is one of the more convenient ones.

You crack open a can of black beans and let yourself indulge in a sulk, folding yourself into the corner where the two walls meet on your bed. Except you can’t properly get your sulk on because your eyes keep getting drawn to your desktop, and the workstation you have set up beside it.

This state of affairs lasts maybe five minutes before you fuck off to the roof because you can’t stand looking at it. Being in the same room and doing nothing while your work taunts you. The fucked up green and red sky and swirling clouds with its constant, distant lightning storms dancing between the shadows of ruined buildings was preferable to this.

In half an hour your government assigned break is over--you dutifully report in with Miss Crocker that you have, indeed, consumed something, even if you don’t tell her that you had thrown half of it away because you just feel like your vestigial and unnecessary stomach is doing acrobatic kickflips off all kinds of handles--and you put that damn nose back to the grind-stone. You'll be a sphinx by the time you're done with this.

Roxy, predictably, is the next one to interrupt you. Not that she ever really stopped interrupting you. You’re running on almost 36 hours since you started this damn project--you can’t just alchemize a new set because you can’t be certain the ‘ideal’ mind-reading shades would match dot for dot the specialized infrastructure you need--by the time you finally allow yourself to scroll through her messages. At least she seemed to have talked to Jane, so she doesn’t think you are dead dead, just sulking over Jake and maybe some tiff with AR. You shoot her a reassurance that you’re just elbows deep in shit--you don’t want to put someone else in the situation you’ve been in--even if you don’t really have the spoons to talk to anyone right now. You don’t peek into the second window, one with many more notifications. Those aren’t addressed to you.

She doesn’t ask you why AR isn’t responding to her. She’s always been thoughtful about that. Keeping you two seperate despite the fact that you both use the same handle. It makes it easier this time. You don’t have to lie. You don't want to tell her the truth.

You glance between the archived conversation saved on your Pesterchum, and the half-finished casing lying beside you, and you know in the cold cockles of your heart, you don’t want to have to tell her he’s dead.

Three days. It takes you that much of almost non-stop working before you have a potentially viable product.

You don’t talk to Jake. You don’t even send him a single message during that time.

You don’t know if you should be hurt or resigned to the fact that he was the only one of your--admittedly limited sample size--friends who didn’t bother to check in with you at all.

The shades lay folded on the desk in front of you, looking nothing so much as brand spanking new. New display pane. New receptors built into the temple-tips.You tested that shit before you’d installed the final piece and sealed it up. These puppies pick up your brain easier than the old set ever had, mere microseconds of input lag. You’ve learned a lot of shit since you’d started three and a half years ago; especially about optimizing and refining your alchemizations of each individual components. Almost nothing about the interior workings and design infrastructure actually resemble your original pair, aside from the crushed casing housing the memory chip, and you’d done the best that you could to shore up the connections, which remained in remarkably good shape, shiny and gold and almost like new. Shimmering in the light as you looked it over that one last time.

It’s buried in the guts of this new set now. You’ll have to disassemble shit if this doesn’t work.

You’ll have bigger problems than that if it doesn’t work.

All that’s left is to drag him out.

The neural receptors settle against your skin as you place the shades on your nose, and suck in a deep, deliberately steady breath. Your gambit is perhaps a cruel one, but it should get him to respond. You flick the proverbial switch, feeling the metal warm and hum against your face as the opaque displays go transparent, the boot menu appearing and scrolling through the initial load processes. You only release that captured lungful of air when it ends, successfully, flickering into your default display set up, which is great, because it meant it managed to read the saved preference files on that miniaturized drive. No window pops open to greet you however, to jeer at you for taking your sweet ass time and boast about how he could’ve had it done in half.

You close your eyes and think pointedly. If he’s there…You remember the first command you used to activate him, all those years ago.

Tell me about the Auto-Responder.

A crackle of energy rushes through you, and for the briefest of moments you worry you didn’t seal and insulate the casing properly. That something had gone wrong.

But only for a moment, because after that you don’t worry about anything anymore.

#homestuck #homestuck au #haltier dirk #dirk strider #hal strider #lil hal #homestuck fanfic #jane crocker #I forgot how much I loved the narration here #and I couldn't salvage a lot of it #but the pesterlogs will look familiar haha #fic: ersatz #director's cut

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