#its mean its green its the mystery machine

[thescoobydooby]

the weirdest thing about the episode it’s mean it’s green it’s the mystery machine is the whole flash flannigan bit. like this guy just had a violent outburst mid-concert with these two kids, pushed the keyboard and left never to be seen again leaving people to assume that hes dead?! like wth happened did he get lost in the appalachian mountains? did he change his identity? its never explained. like this is an even bigger mystery than the whole mystery machine having its own mind. 

also “stormed off stage and vanished into rock ‘n’ roll legend”, he played a keyboard in a kidz bop band thats not really rock. 

#hey cinemasins here! #can i just say tho that 2 cute to 4get is a bop #and i regularly watch this episode just to listen to it #wnsd #whats new scooby doo #what's new scooby doo #it's mean it's green it's the mystery machine #its mean its green its the mystery machine #itsmeanitsgreenitsthemysterymachine #26102002

[randomfoggytiger]

Scully's Abduction, Emily Sim, and the Lost Scully Baby

SOLVING SCULLY'S ABDUCTION DATES

The answer to the question of when Scully was returned differs here and there. Sometime after 11/2/94 and on or before 11/11/94 seems to be the consensus: themareks posits November 2nd, xfilestimeline.net guesses in-between the 2nd and 11th, and epguides stands by the 11th as both One Breath's airdate and Scully's reappearance.

But how long was Scully gone?

Mulder states in Emily: "She [Scully] was missing for four weeks. That's documented in the file."

And to further back up that abduction timeline, Mulder later finds a medical paperwork in the nursing home containing Scully's full name next to a possible abduction date: 13/10/94. At the very least, October 13 was when the government tagged her in their system, meaning Scully was likely abducted on the 12th or 13th and returned not on the 2nd but on the 11th.

WAS SCULLY IMPREGNATED DURING HER ABDUCTION?

Mulder's filed report contains another tidbit he never shared with his partner: it states (as read aloud by the official overseeing Emily's custody case) that Scully was "subjected to a series of experiments where... they extracted her ova."

The episode divulges the 'how's a few scenes later: abductees or unwitting volunteers were put into "beauty sleep" by the Syndicate doctors before being injected with a series of enhanced drugs to stimulate ovulation for extraction. Essentially, the women were put through a process similar to the early stages of IVF treatments, for far more nefarious purposes.

After the extracted ova were combined with suitable sperm or cloned with alien DNA, they were not returned to the womb but were instead grown separately in metal and glass containers filled with a green-not-gray alien liquid.

NURSING HOME MOTHERS

As is the end result of man playing God, the Syndicate pushed the bounds of their "science" by dabbling with the unconscionable: they darkened the doors of nursing homes, developing an extra preceding step that involved "awakening" and growing the ova of older women to maturation before subjecting them to the "beauty sleep." These women were the perfect targets, either too confused or too forgetful to intelligently articulate what was happening to them; and Dr. Calderon and his cohorts banked on repeating their experimental process for unlimited ova until death claimed their patients in natural or unnatural ways. (Unfortunately for Dr. Calderon, his aspirations were cut short when Mulder threatened exposure.)

So, to recap: the women were violated, not impregnated.

THE ROANOKE SCULLY

What's even worse?

While investigating the nursing home, Mulder not only finds the aforementioned paperwork listing Scully's full name and possible abduction date but also a corresponding fetus, alive and kicking, in its own little container of green fluid.

This, too, was Scully's child; and it, too, was likely killed or discarded as medical waste during the Consortium's coverup.

"NATURAL", CLONE, OR HYBRID?

Though not entirely explained in Emily (or after), the fetuses grew at unimaginably rapid rates from conception to "birth" in a month's time; but the cost of accelerated growth sacrificed their health, causing the babies born to be dependent on consistent injections of their mysterious gestation fluid in order to survive.

What were those babies, then? Clones? Hybrids? Fully human?

My personal theory? Emily was a hybrid. Not only would this fit the injections and extractions and underhanded IVF machinations in Season 8 (quality of its writing aside), but it would also correlate the mirroring aims of Emily's Dr. Calderon and Per Manum's Dr. Parenti. Parenti stuffed his batch of alien-human hybrid babies into identical containers of fluid, too (albeit for darker purposes.)

The episodes she appears in provides evidence of its own. Even though clones created from alien DNA bleed green and Emily bled red, her blood still released toxic fumes for self-defense, which means Emily's DNA couldn't have been fully human even if both ova and sperm were tampered with before insemination (a feat the Syndicate couldn't accomplish despite their many, many horrific attempts.)

CONCLUSIONS

Not only was Scully never pregnant but she was also never abducted more than once, making her an anomaly even amongst the other MUFON women. This leads me to believe the first round of experimentation inflicted on her was so severe that the Syndicate deemed Scully too great a risk for future harvesting... which was also likely why she was left to die (even if CSM "returned her to you" for a merciful death surrounded by the ones she loved.) Serving no further purpose to the Project, she had been considered waste and was, therefore, disposable.

Emily, too, was ultimately doomed to die after the Consortium or Dr. Calderon tired of his experiments; and if it hadn't been for Melissa Scully's ghostly interference, Emily Sim would have been torn from her parents the minute they stopped towing the line and raised elsewhere as a lab rat-- unloved and, again, tossed aside when deemed no longer necessary.

Finally, there's still one Scully child unaccounted for.

Existence begun and ended in obscurity, it was likely squirreled away or destroyed along with any remaining evidence of Dr. Calderon's work-- a loose end from a man no longer needed by his overlords.

However, the thought that Mulder was the only person other than its merciless creators to behold this tiny fetus is one best pondered on a dark, lonely night when one is in the mood for either melancholy or heart failure.

Thank you for reading~

Enjoy!

#txf #xf meta #mine #meta #xfiles #Scully's Abduction Emily Sim and the Lost Scully Baby #x-files #the x files #S2 #Ascension #One Breath #S5 #A Christmas Carol #Emily #Emily Sim #Scully #Mulder #Consortium #Syndicate #dates #timeline

[loreleywrites]

Loreley's TTRPG Characters: Kalliope Vex

I had y'all vote in a poll to see which of my TTRPG characters y'all would like to hear about first, and it was a clear win for the most problematic one. Good job, Tumblr! (Genuinely, good job; I love playing Kalliope.)

Kalliope Vex is my character in Armour Astir: Advent by Briar Sovereign, a PBTA game featuring magitech mechs called astirs, big-scope faction turns that change the course of your revolution, and narrative-first rules that embrace all the Cool Robots and War Is Bads a fantasy-bent Gundam-vibed game can offer. You can find it here.

ANYWAY.

Let's start with my favorite picrew I've made of Kalliope:

Kalliope (xe/xer) is 37yo, 6' tall, and weighs just under 200lbs. Xe's got lean muscle, a goth bob, dykey combat boots, and xer left eye has a glowing green iris and black sclera to reflect the power of xer patron. I'm playing the Witch playbook, which means in order to pilot xer astir, Kalliope struck a deal with a mysterious entity known as The Deep to access the powerful magic needed to construct and control such a large machine.

Xe's of the opinion that xe shackled this being in order to use its power, but The Deep has its own plans and helps and hinders Kalliope according to its own whims. Classic D&D warlock vibes.

Kalliope's whole deal at the beginning of our campaign is that xe wants to destroy the fascist empire, the Spellbound Republic, by any means necessary. Xe spent about a decade operating as a rogue astir pilot ambushing Republic squads whenever xe could hunt them down. Now, xe's part of the crew of The Adamant, a carrier operating with Fate's Inflection, the largest anti-fascist resistance force.

Xer astir is named Clatterhulk, and it's largely constructed from leviathan bones and obsidian. The cockpit is accessed by ribs opening up and granting entry. It boasts massive obsidian claws, a mounted cannon of focused bioluminescent light on top of its skull, and carries a sniper rifle that shoots bullets imbued with the crushing pressure of deep ocean trenches. Most notably, the upper arms, upper legs, sternum, and spine of Clatterhulk are etched with a series of arcane glyphs.

Kalliope has the exact same glyphs carved into xer upper arms, upper legs, sternum, and spine. These are glyphs associated with The Deep, and they link Kalliope's magical power to the astir and allow xer to do simple things like control the astir and complicated things like sense the heartbeats of every person in Clatterhulk's range while xe's piloting it.

Born in the slums of Glass Harbor, a coastal city built inside the rim of a massive caldera that embraces Crater Bay, Kalliope endured a childhood under rule of Amaurosia, the Goddess of Fear. Ever defiant, xe didn't understand why even adults let fear rule their lives. Young Kalliope reveled in scaring other children, and as a teenager began to truly understand the power one could gain through fear. Xe watched the Spellbound Republic leverage Amaurosia's power to control the populace, so xe joined an insurgent group called the Shatter Fists. When Kalliope was about 18, the Republic managed to capture and publically execute most of the Shatter Fists, leaving xer functionally alone in the world. This is when xer quest for power brought xer in contact with The Deep, xe constructed Clatterhulk, and xe began a bloodthirsty campaign of vengeance and violence against the Republic.

To Kalliope, all that matters is power. Xe's surly, rude, and arrogant (all to a fault), shielding xerself from having to genuinely connect to another person ever again. Xe doesn't do romance; sadistic hookups are all xe thinks xe needs (Kalliope carries a ritual knife carved from whale bone on a thigh strap, and xe does not practice safe kink with it.) Kalliope doesn't just want to kill fascists, xe wants to hunt and humiliate them. Xe wants to sow fear in their ranks the same way they used fear to rule a city.

Besides breaking pathetic women, Kalliope does enjoy live music and frequents dive bars for the music as much as the women and alcohol (Xe is a heavy drinker.) Despite Kalliope's rough edges, xe is a brilliant engineer and a talented scrimshaw artist (Xer ritual knife depicts a whale locked in combat with a kraken.) Xe also loves lollipops. I don't know why. I think I just loved the idea of xer flirting with someone by taking a lollipop out of xer mouth and shoving it into the other person's. Or crunching it in one bite. Mean ladies can like candy too.

ANYWAY.

Since we've been playing (a few months now), nobody in the crew really likes Kalliope any more than they did at the beginning except Captain Archer Mulligan, the captain of the carrier. He understands that Kalliope has turned xerself into a weapon, and so long as he can aim xer, xe'll be an asset to the war effort.

Xe literally broke xer against the wall trying to punch a squadmate who was laying into xer after xe had to retreat from a sortie xe recklessly launched xerself into.

Kalliope is starting to understand that working with other people, trusting them, can be an asset for xer goals too. The more people xe can leverage in combat, the bigger fights xe can win.

Xe's also started thinking about what happens when there's no more blood to shed. It's not a thought that ever crept into xer mind before (I think xe has internalized that xe's going to die fighting in this war, despite how much xe blusters about killing every last fascist in the world.)

The big development happened only last session, as I have declared a rival for xer! There's this sniper working for the council of fascist demigods whose gun can literally take down astirs, Ririka. Ririka has escaped from multiple sorties, so during the last downtime, Kalliope hunted her down to a dive bar and confronted her with the intent to intimidate her before xe inevitably kills xer. This is the most genuine way Kalliope has ever flirted with anyone, but I don't think xe knows it yet. I'm looking forward to seeing how badly Kalliope and Ririka fuck up each other's lives. Maybe they kiss! Maybe they don't. Gotta play to find out what happens.

Well, I think that about covers what I was planning on sharing. I hope y'all enjoyed hearing about this mess of a character I'm currently playing. Happy to answer questions about xer if folks are curious.

#loreleys OCs #kalliope vex #armour astir #ttrpg #wlw #lesbian #sapphic

[many-melancholies]

If Love is the Answer – SoapGhost

♡

tags: fluff and angst, engineer!ghost, hologram!soap, character death

part: 1/5 [part two] [part three] [part four] [part five]

♡

What does it mean to be human? Don’t ask Simon Riley. As far as he was concerned, he had lived his life surrounded by machines and technology invented through decades of research; he didn’t have time, or he simply didn’t know the mysterious answer to the famous question.

Perhaps one day, he’d know, if it’s the ability to see or touch, if it’s the blood that courses through veins, or if it’s the many mistakes and lies that mankind has made.

The only thing is that Simon didn’t expect that day to be so close.

* * *

If you lived in the city parts of Germany, it’s no question that it wasn’t often snowflakes would fall on the ground during Christmas. And yet here it was, Berlin having a winter with white pounds of snow on land. Joyful, red-faced children played around and built snowmen, couples enjoyed warm cups of coffee and raclette as they snuggled below mistletoes, and workers drank away to celebrate the birthday of their Saviour. Christmas was only one day in a year; almost everybody spent their day merry-making, laughing, and smiling as presents in the holiday.

All except a young man with brown hair, whiskey-brown eyes, wearing a turtleneck with a nameplate of ‘Simon Riley’ and leather goggles resting on his shoulders that sat at his desk, scribbling his answers on his college textbook as he soaked the heat of the sun while it lasted. He was oddly eager to finish when he usually did his schoolwork like it was his hobby, sipping some hibiscus tea while doing so.

(His peers always did think he was a Brit.)

Ding dong!

Closing his textbook and pulling the curtains shut, he walked to the door to check the person who rang the doorbell. He opened the birch-wood door to see a dishevelled and freezing delivery man carrying a box.

“Good morning and Merry Christmas,” the delivery man greeted tiringly. “Here’s your delivery, that’d be around-”

The sound of euros interrupted the delivery man as Simon put a bill in the man’s hand in exchange for the package. As the delivery man computed the change, Simon felt the urge to help the poor shivering worker. He entered his flat without a word and gave him a spare jacket.

“What’s this, sir?” he asked.

“Keep it,” Simon said. “You’ll get sick of hypothermia at this rate,” he answered as he left without giving another glance or word at the confused but thankful delivery man wanting to get away from the sheer cold.

The college student, still carrying the taped box, headed downstairs to his dim basement. Blueprints and graphs of the male human body were scattered to the floor, progress diagrams on mental and physical proficiency were pinned on a corkboard, long USB cables, and red, yellow, black, and green wires were plugged in an electrical socket, and the cold and quiet expression that Simon often had shifted to something more determined.

He also had tons of inventions he made stacked in a mountain-like pile. Amongst those were fingerprint scanners, a device to create fire and ice depending on its settings, invisibility cloaks, a small cube that let out a chemical that slowed people’s sight speed (a flash-bomb, he called it), and many other machines.

Simon opened the plastic box to reveal a small, circular glass to frame his latest invention. With the help of a pair of black gloves, a screwdriver, and a wrench, his creation was complete.

A metal orb floated up from its wireless-charging holder. The orb projected a hologram; it would’ve looked like an actual human aside from its glitchiness and its bluish tint.

A man seemingly a few years younger than Simon appeared in front of him. He had a strange glow emitting on him, sporting a ridiculously charming mohawk and rich, ocean-blue eyes that was staring intently at his creator. The hologram wore a modest yellow dress with lace sleeves, barefoot, and slowly took a step towards Simon.

First, a brief attempt to touch. The hologram phased through Simon’s chest, glitching in its effects. Then, a scan. A ray of blue light shone at Simon, making a hologram sign appear, showing Simon’s name, age, past, and other fragments of his life. Lastly, the inventor plugged a hard drive at the one data cord the orb had. The orb whirred and the hologram’s stoic and lifeless expression was no more.

What replaced his face was a look of fondness and kindness, a beaming grin spreading wide across him.

“Yer Simon Riley, right master?” the hologram asked, dropping his formalities the moment the hard drive was entered. For some reason, he sounded Scottish. “Age 23, oxygen level 98, heart rate 79, occupation, college student on the degree of Engineering,” he answered automatically and emotionlessly, before becoming casual again.

“Thank ye fer creating me,” the hologram said, having the polite manners of the person its appearance and behaviour was based on. “I’ve noticed that I don’t quite have the skill ta…touch.”

The hologram looked at Simon and was surprised to see him on the verge of tears, his eyes glossy and his lips quivering. The invention squeaked and carefully tried to comfort him.

“A-Are ye alright, sir?” the hologram worriedly asked, patting him on the back, nudging his shoulder. “I'm here fer ye, don’t cry, ya numpty; ye haven't consumed any liquid since yesterday morning. Ye should hydrate yerself.”

“No,” Simon replied, voice stern, yet noticeably holding back. (He hides it absolutely terribly, the try-hard sociopath.) “It’s nothing at all. You were designed to contain the same capabilities of a…good friend of mine.”

“Of course,” the hologram smiled in thought. “Johnny. Er, he’s yer friend. A pretty healthy, wee lad. Unfortunately, I don’t have enough information about that person.”

Simon nodded silently. “I invented you not to know anything about him.”

“Indeed, my academic stats are noticeably higher in the medical field. I suppose that must be Mr. MacTavish’s talent?”

“Refrain from talking about him,” Simon gritted through his teeth. It was getting too personal. He averted his gaze, his eyes trailing to the floor. "Please," he added carefully.

“Now, about touching objects, I might be able to create gloves to let you materialise enough and give you an indefinite shape. But that will be coming shortly; I’ve worked on you for months and believe me when I say humans get tired.” He sighed.

“We’ll have to establish rules in this household,” Simon said as he paced through the basement, nearly slipped on the flash-bomb, then dramatically stopped as he held his fingers up for the two rules. “Don’t go out unless I allow and accompany you, and don't talk about MacTavish. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir Riley!”

“Please drop the ‘sirs’ and ‘masters,’” the inventor wagged his hand. “‘Riley’ is fine.”

“Unfortunately, I don’t know my…purpose,” the hologram said. “Yer father is very strict about perfectionism, so should I be providing ye with information on how to gather success and results in your fields? N-Not that you aren’t intelligent enough or anything…kinda…” he wheezed. "Eh..."

“No,” Simon said bluntly, rolling his eyes and putting his tools back into his toolbox.

“Then what is the reason for my existence if I have no goal?”

“Nothing,” Simon retorted. He started to recall his old friend’s endless thirst for curiosity and mindless chattering.

“Riley, sir,” the hologram intervened again.

“Aren’t you the smarter one-?”

“What does it mean to be human?” he inquired.

The question left Simon breathless.

“Si, swear ta me you'll continue yer inventions and machines. You’ve got real talent – don’t give up on it.”

Hot tears spilled down on both of the men’s bloodied graduation togas. Fragments of glass had stabbed him; scars filled one of the boy’s face while a huge shard thrust at the other’s stomach.

“The ambulance is on their way. They’ll make it in time, I promise. And now is not the time to talk about my career ambitions.”

A forced smile etched through Johnny's lips. “They won’t make it. The nearest hospital is kilometres away. It’s best if I say my goodbyes now.” The boy groaned in pain as he tried to sit properly. “The glass hit a crucial organ of my body; removing it will cause me to die of blood loss while letting it stay will make me unable to breathe.”

“You Scots and your big-brained med course and your bloody smile,” Simon shook his head, crying more intensely than he ever did before. “You used to be the positive one,” he laughed humorlessly. “What happened?”

“Nothing happened. I’m not being negative; I’ll move to a better place when I’m gone anyway, no? I’ve left all my progress in med school in my apartment. You’re working on a hologram project, right? You can use my research on the human body if you’d like. Just don't check my notebook; it's hell of an embarrassment.”

“Please,” Simon spoke gently. “Don’t spend your breath on me. Do you want me to pass a message to anyone?” he asked, voice sore. “Johnny?”

“Screw that,” his breath hitched. “Ye promise me that even with all this machinery the world has given you, you won't bloody dare forget what makes you a human. You barely spared a glance at anyone before. I'm hoping just because I'm KIA and whatnot, ye won't turn into some ghost again.” Johnny tugged his shirt. “And with that, I trust you won’t forget me-”

Enemy? No, they were mature enough to avoid using such childish terms. Rivals? Perhaps, but they were long past their reign of competition. Friends? Maybe. (Can we be more? Let's be more than that – than what we really only are.)

But most importantly…

“-partner.”

And that was when John MacTavish last parted his lips, still with a beaming smile and a faded heartbeat. Simon was so distraught, his thumb tersely gripping Johnny's pulse, that he almost didn’t hear the deafening blaring of the ambulance’s siren or see the eye-blinding blinking colours of its headlights as he sobbed in the debris the earthquake had caused.

“Riley?"

"You spaced out a while back,” Soap noted. He expressed alarm and apologised when he noticed the inventor’s heart rate spiked up. “I'm a bampot – I won’t ask any questions like that anymore-, sorry.” He scrunches his nose in annoyance at his own attitude.

“You just…” Simon muttered with an irritated frown. “It’s nothing.”

Soap brought up a holographic chart on Simon’s daily routines.

“Here,” he mumbled. “It seems you’re often inactive around December. I suggest you should exercise more to make up for your habits,” he glanced at Simon. “Only if ye'd like, of course. Lest ya wanna stay here and rot like a corpse.”

Simon sighed. He should’ve known Johnny’s obnoxious personality would cross with his creation. “I am well aware of that,” he said impatiently, then rubbed his eyes in the room’s poor lighting. “No matter how hard I try to fix the lighting here, nothing works in this basement. I should head upstairs.”

“Ah, you mean ‘we’?” Soap corrected with a small nudge. It made him phase through Simon, making him drop to the ground before standing upright with a laugh. “You’re not alone anymore.” (Emphasis on anymore.)

The college student should have normally been angry when someone attempted to correct him. He was short-tempered; furiousness was all he had been before the real Johnny entered his life. He had isolated himself inside his walls of pride and ego, back in high school.

But Simon gave the tiniest hint of a smile (the first of so many years after what had happened) as he climbed up the stairs.

(It's still quite the same damn smile so easy to fall for.)

“Yes. ‘We,’” he responded before looking away.

A cardboard box had been put aside beside the stairway with the words “Highschool.” Soap peculiarly checked what the box had stored. Aside from some articles of school uniforms, old school books, and broken pens and pencils, the hologram didn’t miss the singular picture Simon kept.

He saw a picture of two male students fresh out of high school with their graduation togas. Simon in the photo looked begrudged and annoyed while the boy with the odd haircut looked cheerful as he side hugged the other man.

Soap tried grabbing a Scottish dictionary that he found in the box as Simon went down the stairs to pick it up for him, ignoring the picture the hologram saw. When they went up after a little fuzz about how Soap would read without turning the pages, Simon sat on his couch and set the book on the table on a random page, fiddling with the TV’s remote unsure of how to feel with the new company, while the invention sat on the floor reading. The hologram couldn’t help but feel a sense of wanting to feel, while the human wanted nothing else but to stop feeling the conflicting emotions of his past.

Soap wordlessly read the first thing he saw in the dictionary, a bit confused on why Simon would own a Scottish dictionary out of anything.

(He does his best not to feel the odd wave of nostalgia coursing through his veins.)

♡

a/n: something to ponder about – who's the guy speaking in the parenthesises? :/

#soapghost #ghostsoap #fic #fanfic #cod mwii #cod mwiii #drabble #modern warfare ii #ghoap #mm i love me some sad gays #wrote this in 2020 and predicted soap's lil boo-boo #cod modern warfare #soap x ghost #johnny soap mactavish #simon ghost riley

[windyengel]

Kaeya and his Peacock

It is not unusual to see Captain Kaeya sauntering through Mond plaza from time to time. Is even a sight for sore eyes, whenever the Cavalry Captain is gracing Mond citizens with his sight means things are safe and quiet in the city.

Or at least that's what he makes everyone feel, not knowing the machinations he is doing behind the scenes.

But regardless of what is the truth, Mond always feels safer whenever Kaeya is strolling around, waving and talking to the citizens. And the citizens love seeing him around, not only for him but for the regal peacock they observe following his person.

The citizens can't stop making the comparisons on how a gorgeous animal, with blue feathers and a knack of showing off, is the spiritual representation of Kaeya. They are two peas in a pot, both loving attention and both being incredibly gorgeous in their own right. Captain Kaeya, believe it or not, is regardless as one of Mond's most beautiful bachelors.

But specially, the citizens follow them with their eyes waiting impatiently to see who is going to make the peacock rattle its train. Most citizens had never seen those gorgeous feathers on display, even with the efforts some put to woo the captain into their grace and even into their bed.

There is a rumor that the peacock has opened his tail twice in his life.

The first time was a couple of years ago when Master Diluc came back, the Cavalry Captain had looked just as surprised as Master Diluc when they bumping into each other on the street got the bird to not only open its tail, but do a tail rattle that was so impressive those who saw it became speechless. Kaeya, upon the sight of his bird trying to impress Master Diluc, had promptly left with his bird looking mortified while Diluc stayed put looking flustered. The peacock did not fan it's feathers in front of Master Diluc again after that, or at least not in while in public.

The second time was acknowledged more by the citizens. During one Ludi Harpastum when the traveler had managed to win all the prices and had been sitting on a bench. Captain Kaeya had approached the traveler and their companion and after saying pleasantries the peacock had opened its tail and let everyone see. At that time it had not done the tail rattle but Captain Kaeya also didn't seem very inclined to hide what his bird was doing, just letting everyone feast to the sight of the gorgeous green and blue feathers.

The mystery of Captain Kaeya peacock doesn't end there, tho, but the fact that he is known to be one of the only vision holders whose animal companion is not always by his side.

It is a known fact that almost everyone who was blessed with this representation of their soul tries to keep them as close as they can to their being. The knowledge and feeling of vulnerability when the creature is not in line of sight for those vision holders is, sometimes, crippling.

Yet whenever the Captain is away from the city, the peacock is nowhere to be found. Is certainly not with Kaeya, as he is not seeing with it around, and is not somewhere the citizens can see either.

Sometimes, people can hear the bird in the cathedral, and glimpse a bit of those blue feathers on the top of the bell tower. Sometimes there are sightings of the bird in the Acting Grand Master office, and sometimes in the library lounging on top of a bookcase.

But those are not the usual hiding spot of the bird.

More often than not, although no citizen of Mondstad is aware of this, the bird hangs inside Angels Share, napping behind the bar on an order made pillow while Master Diluc tends the bar.

Some other time, the peacock is strolling through the Ragnvindr vineyards, fanning its trail and sunning its feathers, and sometimes even rattling them to call the attention of the Master of the house. The times the peacock is around, the workers of the household know to find the heir of the Ragnvindr name not in his office, but doing his paperwork in the gazebo that has prime view of the vineyard and the strutting bird.

Index:

back

#genshin spirit animals #writing exercise #genshin impact #kaeluc #kaeya alberich #genshin kaeya

[olympain]

A strange, strange morning at the Taskmaster NZ house Stewart Sowman-Lund gains access to the north Auckland mansion where the TVNZ comedy gameshow is filmed and uncovers the secrets the cameras don’t see.

After four years, the Taskmaster house is a cast member in its own right. The mysterious and ever-evolving setting for the TVNZ comedy show is ostensibly just a house north of Auckland. But for fans of Taskmaster, it’s a memorial to the show itself. Hey look, there are the rafters that David Correos climbed into, in what was probably a health and safety breach. There’s the bar where Leigh Hart attempted to use a leaf blower to make a cocktail. And I think that’s where Urzila Carlson drank a lot of scotch while playing hopscotch?

Returning tonight, season four of Taskmaster NZ sees five new famous faces vying to win a gold bust of Jeremy Wells’ head: Dai Henwood, Mel Bracewell, Ray O’Leary, Karen O’Leary and Sieni Leo’o Olo (aka Bubbah). You’d probably expect that after three seasons, the incoming cast of comedians would be well-versed on how Taskmaster works. But as I found out on a visit to the Taskmaster set back in March, that might not be the case.

It’s a few weeks after Cyclone Gabrielle when I pull up outside the Taskmaster house and am greeted by Paul Williams. In the world of the show, Williams is the Taskmaster’s assistant, a meek and slightly awkward character whose entire purpose is to do whatever it is the Taskmaster, Jeremy Wells, demands. Largely, that means guiding the contestants through the absurd challenges they find written in wax-sealed envelopes. “They all really like me,” Williams says sarcastically of his relationship with the contestants. “I don’t annoy them at all.” (Karen O’Leary later describes Williams to me as “a bit of a dick”, though reluctantly admits that he could be helpful during some tasks.).

In real life, Williams doesn’t seem that far removed from the character he plays on the show, leading me to question whether he’s still in character while showing me around the Taskmaster house. We start our tour upstairs in the study, this season made over with dark green paint and jungle-like vines hanging from the rafters. Behind the desk hangs a Rene Magritte-esque painting of Jeremy Wells with a long bird’s beak. 

The bookshelves have also been packed with an assortment of loosely-themed objects, including a cheetah, a pair of binoculars and a globe. Books about travel and exploration are stacked up too. To the side of the study, just out of shot from the cameras, Williams points out a curtain that conceals an assortment of extra props, like a spare print of the Wells bird painting made “in case the comedians damage the one on the wall”. Given this is Taskmaster, you really do need to prepare for everything.

The study leads through to a small bedroom that Williams, with the awkwardness of a teenage boy apologising for not cleaning up, admits is his. Occasionally he sleeps over in the Taskmaster house so as to avoid an early morning commute to set. Piled up in a drawer next to the bed are artefacts from previous Taskmaster seasons that should really be collected and donated to some sort of Taskmaster museum. The pile includes draft lyrics from a Guy Montgomery musical task in season two and a piece of paper with some frantic scrawling that could only belong to David Correos.

Downstairs, we stop at a washing machine. I’m not sure it’s meant to be part of the tour until Williams grabs out a solitary pair of sodden black socks, which he proceeds to carry around with him until remembering they need to dry.

We head out towards the dock, a small wharf that overlooks a swampy green pond, and the setting for a number of water-based tasks. It’s a surprising distance from the main house and along the way, Williams points out several iconic locations from the show. There’s a life-sized lion sculpture, replacing the cow featured in previous seasons (“the cow’s on loan, I think,” says Williams). We pop into the shed and see the fish poster made internationally famous by Rose Matafeo on Taskmaster UK stuck to the inside of the door. There’s the bathtub used for the infuriating final task of season three: “Relocate the water in this bath to that bath”. We pass through the “enchanted forest” and I’m uncomfortably reminded of Paul Ego’s sex witch. 

All the while, Williams is carrying his all-important iPad (and the socks) which reminds me of a question I’ve always had for the Taskmaster assistant, one that has perplexed Reddit for years. “Can you tell me once and for all if the iPad actually controls anything, or if it’s just a prop?” I ask Williams, who looks at me coyly: “I cannot disclose the secrets of the iPad.”

Later, after Williams has been called back for some filming, I’m standing in a gazebo on the back lawn about to watch a team task involving Dai Henwood, Karen O’Leary and Bubbah. They’ve been instructed to weave their way, blindfolded, through a maze. I’m told the task should only take about 10 minutes, but nearly an hour later we’re still standing there watching the trio of comics flounder as they try to complete it. There’s talk of breaking early for lunch, but the contestants are determined to finish the task no matter how long it takes. A crew member tells me that quite often the team tasks don’t make it to air, but this one definitely will. Why? Because “the other team [Mel Bracewell and Ray O’Leary] did it on their first go”. 

It’s part of the joy of Taskmaster that being really bad at a task is often as impressive as being really good at it. For Wells as Taskmaster, that means his job is often determining whether to give points to the best contestant – or the funniest. Bubbah tells me she’d never even heard of the show before being cast, let alone how it works, and that means her performance in the season hasn’t been tampered by any thought of actually winning points. “It was like halfway in when Paul was like ‘what do you think the Taskmaster’s gonna say’? I was like ‘Who the fuck is the Taskmaster’?” she says. “Obviously I have not been thinking about how he’s going to react.” 

Henwood also went in largely blind, though at least he actually knew what the show was. He was originally set to appear in season one of Taskmaster NZ, but ultimately had to wait another three years before being cast. “I went ‘I don’t want to watch it’ because I didn’t want to be influenced’. I purposefully kept myself in the dark and now I’m going to binge watch the old ones and go ‘I should have prepped for this’,” he laughs. Karen O’Leary was perhaps the most prepared – but she was hardly a diehard Taskmaster fan. She’d watched snippets from previous seasons and admits to trying to appeal to Wells’s ego in her performance. “I think he’s someone who is quite pedantic… My aim is to try and find my own exception to what the tasks are by mucking with how they have been worded,” she says. “I’m sure Jeremy will understand, but time will tell.” 

#taskmaster nz #taskmaster #paul williams #jeremy wells #mel bracewell #ray o'leary #dai henwood #karen o'leary #bubbah #guy montgomery #david correos

[thepastisalreadywritten]

“Hello Mother, Dad, and Blanche,” a quiet voice says above the cracks and pops of an old vinyl record, which has clearly been played many times over.

“How’s everything at home? I’m recording this from Dallas…from this very little place where there are pinball machines and many other things like that…”

The disc is small, seven inches across, dated October 1954.

The faded green label shows that the speaker’s name is “Gene,” the recording addressed to “Folks.”

Gene suggests in his minute-long message that he is traveling — “seeing America” — and tells his family not to worry about him.

“I should complete my trip sometime around Thanksgiving,” he continues in a second recording made in Hot Springs, Texas, not too long after his first one.

“I hope you received my letter and I, in turn, hope to receive some of the letters that you sent me. It’s been a very long time since we’ve corresponded, and I’m looking forward to hearing from you very, very much.”

This largely forgotten sound is one of the world’s early “voice mails.”

During the first half of the 20th century, these audio letters and other messages were recorded largely in booths, pressed onto metal discs and vinyl records, and mailed in places all over the world.

Best known today for playing music at home, record players were then being used as a means of communication over long distances.

Reach out and touch someone

The idea of transporting a person’s voice had loomed large in the human imagination for some three centuries before it was finally achieved with the invention of the phonograph in the late 19th century.

Historical documents from the Qing Dynasty in 16th-century China suggest the existence of a mysterious device called the “thousand-mile speaker,” a wooden cylinder that could be spoken into and sealed, such that the recipient could still hear the reverberations when opening it back up.

Top: A Kodisk horn and recording stylus attachment in the Princeton Phono-Post Archive was used in the early 1920s for home recordings on pre-grooved blank metal discs using a normal gramophone.

Bottom: A Gem Recordmaker attachment at the Princeton Phono-Post Archive was used in the 1950s for children to "make your own permanent records" on blank six-inch discs using their own gramophone at home.

When Thomas Edison invented the phonograph in 1877, he envisioned a device that could reproduce music and even preserve languages.

He saw, in its earliest uses, the potential to transform business, education, and timekeeping.

He even imagined a so-called “Family Record” — a “registry of sayings, reminiscences, etc., by members of a family in their own voices and of the last words of dying persons.”

But correspondence was at the top of his mind: Edison thought his invention could be used for dictation and letter writing.

In the late 19th century, handwritten letters were the most common form of everyday personal communication.

The telegram, which later became popular in the early 1900s, was used for shorter, urgent messages.

While Alexander Graham Bell made the first transcontinental telephone call from New York to San Francisco in 1915, long-distance calling remained expensive and inaccessible to most ordinary people until the 1950s.

Voice-O-Graph

The gramophone, a later form of the phonograph developed by Emile Berliner in 1887, provided a first possibility for recorded sound being used for long distance communication.

It made recording and playback possible on discs, which were easier to store, reproduce, and send.

The earliest known record to have been put in the mail as a means of correspondence would be sent in the early 1920s, but the practice of sending voice mail really got going across the world in the 1930s and 1940s.

It was personal and affordable as long as customers could find a recording booth or home device.

In the early 1940s, the American company Mutoscope rolled out the Voice-O-Graph machine, which vastly popularized voice mail in the United States.

It was a tall wooden cabinet, shaped not unlike a modern-day photo booth, that declared, on one side: RECORD YOUR OWN VOICE!

Invented by Alexander Lissiansky, these recording booths were marketed as novelties and set up at common gathering places: amusement parks, boardwalks, tourist attractions, transportation hubs, military bases and U.S.O. events.

There was a Voice-O-Graph machine at the top of the Empire State Building, on the piers of San Francisco, and by the Mississippi River in New Orleans.

The speaker entered the Voice-O-Graph, inserted a couple of coins, and had a few minutes to record a message.

Then, out popped a record the size of a 45-rpm single that was not only durable enough to be played multiple times, but also flimsy and lightweight enough to send in the mail for little more than the cost of a regular letter.

Oftentimes, the envelopes themselves would come included.

Top: A soldier sends a Christmas greeting to his mother in Chicago.

The envelope, which came with the record, depicts a soldier anxiously imagining his wife with another man in his absence (Princeton Phono-Post Archive).

Bottom: Pre-grooved metal discs were used for domestic gramophone recordings in the early 1920s.

The paper sleeve illustrates the two methods of recording: one, depicted on the right, involved using a megaphone to shout into the phonograph's horn; the other method, depicted on the left, involved using a Kodisk-branded external horn and recording stylus, which would be attached to one's home gramophone and is shown in another image above (Princeton Phono-Post Archive).

Top: A “Recordio” home-recording demonstration disc from the 1940s illustrating five different models of radio-recording-playback consoles made by the Wilcox-Gay Corporation, ranging from massive living-room consoles to portable “airplane type” suitcase versions (Princeton Phono-Post Archive).

Bottom: Wilcox-Gay Recordio demonstration picture disc featuring the violinist and radio star David Rubinoff (1897-1986) and his $100,000 Stradivarius making a recording at home (Princeton Phono-Post Archive).

Photographs by Rebecca Hale, NGM Staff

Words of love

The messages people sent would range in emotion — from excitement to nervousness, joy to embarrassment.

Travelers would make recordings to update family and friends on long trips.

Especially during World War II, where there were recording booths on military bases in nearly every theater of the conflict, soldiers used voice mail to reassure loved ones with the sound of their voice, even if some them would never return home.

There are countless “voice mail valentines,” surprisingly intimate audio love letters.

Many of the messages, sent from far away, express longing.

“You keep your chin up,” a voice named Leland tells his wife in a recording dated 1945, from a booth in New York City.

“All of you keep those chins up. Mike, all of us will all be home, be home where we can pick up, and carry on as we did before.”

In one recording made in Argentina in the 1940s, a man plays the violin before he recites a lullaby.

“Sleep, sleep my darling girl,” the man says. “It’s getting late.”

Phono-Post archive

Back then, families could listen to the messages on repeat — gathering together around the record player whenever one arrived.

They could play it proudly again anytime there were guests, but with each play, the needle would scrape away at the delicate grooves until the message could hardly be heard any longer.

Today at Princeton University, professor and media theorist Thomas Levin is dedicated to preserving these sounds of the past.

He maintains the world’s only archive dedicated to what he calls the “Phono-Post.”

At the height of the phenomenon, there were perhaps thousands of Voice-O-Graph machines in America and many more recording stations across the world.

“Millions of these audio letters were sent across the United States, South America, in Europe, in Russia, in China,” Levin says.

Levin’s office is crammed with many of the items he has collected over the years, including books, posters, and other ephemera—as well as, of course, the records themselves.

Levin has already digitized some 3,000 of the discs, all of which are tucked into clear plastic sleeves and carefully catalogued.

He keeps them filed into cabinets and stackable storage bins in a temperature-controlled room.

Thousands more records lie waiting to be processed in a nearly seven-year backlog that keeps growing as Levin continues collecting.

He employs AI bots that constantly comb through eBay pages and bid for items on his behalf.

Sometimes, he will come across people selling, knowingly or unknowingly, the voice of a relative.

“I write to them and I say, you’re selling the voice of your grandfather?’” Levin says.

“There’s not a sense of the value of the voice, such that people are willing to part with these objects.”

Still, he offers to share an MP3 file of the recording with them, and for that, they are often very grateful.

Voices of the Past

For the most part, there aren’t many celebrity voices stashed away in the Princeton Phono-Post Archive.

“The bulk of the recordings in this archive are of very unextraordinary people articulating desires, wishes, fantasies, of a very quotidian sort,” Levin says.

They are enormously telling, if one is willing to listen closely.

Much like paper letters, these audio missives can also reveal insights about particular moments in history through the accounts of individual lives lived within them, but with added layers of sensory detail.

Historical linguists are particularly interested in “voice mail” because it provides some of the earliest-ever recorded samples of how regular people spoke — their conversational vocabulary, their pronunciation and accents, their sentence structure, their intonation.

“There’s no editing. There’s no cleaning up,” Levin says. “Once the recording starts, it will run until it ends, whether you have something to say or not.”

He smiled. “If you don’t have anything to say, that says something too.”

The advent of cassette tapes in the 1960s meant that services like the Voice-O-Graph quickly fell out of fashion.

(For a few decades, people were sending long distance messages on audiocassettes, too — a practice that became particularly common for U.S. soldiers deployed in the Vietnam War.)

But this voice mail phenomenon, while short-lived, holds a significant place in the history of global communication.

“What we’re recovering now are the remnants of a chapter of media history, a cultural practice, that was huge, ubiquitous,” Levin says, “but has now been forgotten.”

For many people, these recordings were the first time they had ever recorded their own voice.

They sound nervous, even awkward, while others even sound like they are reading from a piece of paper.

Some, when faced with their very first self-recording, confronted the realization that they were leaving a highly personal trace that would likely outlive them.

“People strangely, but with remarkable regularity, talk about death,” Levin says.

“They’re writing to a future.” He pauses. “And one thing is known about that future: that they will not be a part of it.”

#voice mails #audio letters #old vinyl record #record players #phonograph #Thomas Edison #telegram #handwritten letters #Alexander Graham Bell #gramophone #Emile Berliner #Mutoscope #Voice-O-Graph #Alexander Lissiansky #Phono-Post #Princeton Phono-Post Archive #Historical linguists #cassette tapes #National Geographic

[pokemoncaretips]

The magnemite line.

The magnemite line.

A strange yet no less loving pokemon.

General notes:

Many pokemon have unusual body plans. The magnemite line is one of the most well known. With its almost robotic design one could be fooled into thinking it isn’t alive and aware. This could not be further from the truth.

General care:The magnemite line is one that requires set up. As it is drawn to electrical sources, appliances in your house need to be surge-proofed. I’m told Devon corp sells devices specifically for magnemite owners to protect their appliances. However, you will need to leave at least one power socket free to allow them to feed. Though you save money on pokekibble, be prepared for a small spike in power bills. 

That said, they have been reliably observed to eat berries by crushing them with their bodies and appearing to absorb the juice, though it’s something of a mystery how that process works. Keep wet wipes handy. Though you may think them brainless, magnemite does require mental stimulation. Though they have no hands or means of manipulating things, they can do one thing.

Stare.

They’ll stare at the TV. They’ll stare out the window. They’ll stare at any and all new things in the house. They’ll stare at you coming home. They’ll stare at you making dinner. And they’ll stare at you in your sleep until they power down ready to stare at things in the morning. With no hands or other senses like smell, they have powerful visual acuity. Why else are their eyes so proportionately large? All they really have to experience the world is vision. This makes them one of the few pokemon suited for those who often have to leave the house, such as office workers who might not be able to bring their pokemon to work. Flick your tv to the poke-documentary channel and they’ll be enraptured until you come home. That said, they’re no less affectionate than many other pokemon, and just because they don’t mind solitude that doesn’t mean you can simply ignore them. They get attached to their trainers and like to be included in your life. If one is truly concerned about them being alone, it’s not hard to catch another two magnemites and introduce them (following safe introductory methods) to get a magneton. Magneton are surprisingly vocal with each other. They’ll hum, buzz, vibrate and whirr at each other for hours. Many people reckon a magneton quietly talking to itself at night is better than any white noise machine for sleep aids. Magnezone are a little more interactive, and seem to be able to utilize certain fields to manipulate objects. This tends to manifest as them picking up an item, staring at it for a good while, then setting it down and selecting another. They very rarely break things in this way. It’s easier to just let them quietly fiddle. All members of the magnemite line benefit greatly from the occasional polish. They do sell magnemite formulated metal polish, but with their metallic biology no adverse effects have been seen from just buying some from the hardware store if it’s hard to source in your area.

Care rating: Green.

Training: Magnemite are simple enough to battle train, and with few messy or destructive habits, are easy to housetrain. Training rating: Green

Safety: All electric types carry the hazard of shocks, and these pokemon are no exception. Though less reactive than a number of other pokemon, they aren’t oblivious, and sudden noises or movement may prompt an instinctive jolt. If you have a pacemaker or any kind of heart condition, or conditions such as epilepsy that may be triggered by flashing lights, magnemite (or any electric type for that matter) is not the pokemon for you. Safety rating: Orange

Overall ranking.Chill little dudes that like their own company just as much as they like yours. Good for those who can’t always be home, but don’t forget to give them love and affection. However, they may incur some setup costs unless you’re willing to keep paying for new microwaves.

#pokemon #pokemon irl #pokemon care #magnemite #magneton #magnezone

[reduxulousoctopus]

Fics that I'm (Probably) Never Going to Write, Part 1/uhhhhhhhh

Depression is an absolute bastard. Anyway, here are a bunch of ideas for fics that I'm (probably) never going to write because I don't have the energy/focus/time, in the vain hope that putting them out in the universe will eventually result in them coming back to me in the form of completed works that I can rub all over my gross, itchy eyeballs. Or at the very least, maybe talking about one of these ideas with somebody will kick the dopamine machine back into working order long enough for me to actually write it myself.

All are DCAU and mostly focused on the Flash cause that's where I'm at right now.

--

"Mosaic"

When one of the Guardians goes rogue and begins abducting entire cities from across the universe (including Earth's own Central City and a colony of exiled Thanagarian pacifists), John Stewart agrees to come out of retirement for one last mission. He and the few surviving Green Lanterns defeat the "Mad Guardian" with the help of Vixen, Shayera Hol, and the Flash, though not before the stolen cities find themselves forcibly relocated to the surface of the planet Oa and combined into a patchwork superstructure of domed alien ecosystems.

Only then is the true nature of John's mission revealed to him: the seemingly-immortal Guardians are about to die, and have chosen him to be their first potential replacement. Until the old Guardians can regain the power necessary to return each city to its respective home-world, which they estimate will take about an Earth year, presiding over this "Mosaic of Worlds" will serve as John's final test.

[post-JLU, John Stewart/Mari McCabe established relationship, John Stewart & Shayera Hol & Wally West friendship, massive cast of characters, scifi/political thriller/drama, very long (equivalent to a season of television)]

--

"Runaway"

Wally doesn't know how long he drifted without form or consciousness before he appeared overlooking the crib of Danica Williams, a seemingly ordinary baby girl with whom he shares a strange metaphysical connection. Unable to be perceived by anyone else or interact with the world around him, and unable to leave the girl's side without causing them both extreme pain, Wally spends the next seven years as Dani's beloved imaginary friend while struggling to piece together what little he can remember of his past life.

After waking one night to a large crash downstairs, Wally finds that a SWAT team have broken into the Williams home, captured Dani's parents, and are on their way upstairs to find "the girl." Dani and her ghostly companion flee the house and go on the run, following Wally's vague sense that they can find help in Metropolis. But to get there from San Fransisco, they'll have to cross a country which has never been more dangerous for metahumans, pursued all the while by the sinister organization which took Dani's parents, an obsessed FBI agent named Hunter Zolomon, and worst of all, a monstrous speedster hell-bent on dragging Wally back to the Speed Force for good.

[post-JLU, Wally West & Danica Williams, JL Founders friendship, thriller/mystery/near-future scifi/dystopia, fairly long]

--

"Where the Road Splits"

It's only natural for people who have been together so long to fight sometimes. That's literally what "old married couple" means. Wally is ready to retire and Bruce isn't. That's a shockingly normal thing for people whose lives are as weird as theirs to argue about. Hell, if Wally's powers weren't keeping them in peak physical condition, they would have been having this argument decades ago. It's fine.

Everything's fine.

or

Wally can't hold on much longer, Bruce doesn't know how to let go, and Terry has no idea how he got caught up in some ongoing marital spat between two cranky, elderly superheroes, but if none of their frankly ridiculous number of kids and grand-kids are willing to intervene, he's going to have to jump on that grenade himself to earn his chance at revenge--and redemption.

[Batman Beyond AU, dysfunctional old married Bruce Wayne/Wally West, Terry McGinnis/Dana Tan established relationship, family drama/coming-of-age/near-future scifi]

#dc #jlu #batflash #wally west #john stewart #shayera hol #mari mccabe #bruce wayne #terry mcginnis #danica williams #my stuff #fics I'll never write #(probably)

[iamtaran]

WIP Title Game! oh good lord

rules: in a new post, post the names of all the files in your wip folder regardless of how nondescriptive or ridiculous. let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them and then post a little snippet and tell us about it!

thanks @allyunabridged for the tag! Lmao I stared down the barrel of not one, but two google drives to gather these and all I can say is

😬

IN AN ORDER ONLY THE GODS UNDERSTAND:

The Twilit Gate (BG3, when in want of more fey bullshit in your BG3, do it yourself!!! TavxAstarionxGalexliterally everyone i'm gay alright???)

Island (The Guest/손 AU, horror and survivalism; Hwa Pyung, Choi Yoon, and Gil Young follow Park Hong Joo's and Park Il Do's machinations out to open sea, to an island with long forgotten history where the real struggle for survival begins.)

But For Grace (SW:Preq's, modern-character in GFFA aka "what to do when you accidentally change things and the Chosen One dies?", started as a silly question but now I'm committed; Qui-Gon Jinn lives; what would happen in a galaxy without Anakin Skywalker?)

The Mage's War (DA2 + DA:I, what if Bethany Hawke was the Herald, Modern/Avvar OC, playing Fade chicken with the Dread Wolf nbd, put on my tinfoil hat for this one re: the Fade, the Abyss/Void, Forgotten Ones, etc.)

In God's Eye (Vampyr, human!Jonathan, ekon!McCullum, Mary lives, I'm a hobby WWI & Spanish Flu researcher so hold your britches I have FEELINGS)

For Want Of Two (Vampyr, wanted more mythological beings & nemrod lore so I'll do it myself gdi, put-that-thing-back-where-you-found-it-or-so-help-me-god.gif ; JxMcCxOC)

Lights All Hung On Nothing (Star Wars Preq's to Clone Wars era, modern-character-in-SW with a big twist, Force + time fuckery, Ani + Obi focus, the butterfly effect changes everything)

The 72nd Cycle (SW: Mandalorian, AU - Grogu is not the only Force sensitive prisoner Gideon had captured. Without room in his ship for multiple students, Luke tags along, not expecting the sad Mando's ride Boba Fett (w h a t) to show up and offer the poor guy use of his bacta tank; well, soon-to-be-his. He just has to kill its current owner, Bib Fortuna, first. You know. On Tatooine(WHAT!!). Meanwhile, on Tattooine: Cobb Vanth gets the nagging feeling his life is about to become much more stressful.)

A Heavy Thing (KOTOR, amnesiac Revan works a shitty food service job on Taris and definitely isn't a Jedi/Sith/Soldier, I mean, clearly. Slice of life becomes tragedy becomes adventure becomes mystery becomes ??? RevanxCanderousxCarth DON'T LOOK AT ME)

Life, Happening (The Shining/Doctor Sleep introspective piece on Danny Torrance, life & death, what it means to be gone, and not gone.)

Led To Water (Mandalorian, Din takes off the armor having broken his Creed and, unsure what to do next, returns to Kuiil's homestead to brood and sweat manfully through his existential crisis; his friends help him through it.)

Mando'ad'ika (Mandalorian/Original SW movies, The Mandalorian is taken into custody and now Leia has to deal with a sweet but stressed frog lady, a green gremlin with too much Force power, and this intimidating tin can who won't budge. Since Han laughed at her, she decides to make it his problem, too.)

Time Travel, & Other Ways To Die (Mandalorian/SW:Bounty Hunter video game, Din & Jango centric, whilst trying to get to Grogu on his magical big rock, Din & Grogu end up chucked through time onto an outlaw space station. Jango Fett's no good very bad day begins. Coincidentally, it coincides with Din Djarin's SUPER no good very bad day. They most assuredly do not bond over this.)

I am, or was. (Dragon Age: Inquisition, a spirit takes an interest in Solas after he helps it in the Fallow Mire and begins following him around like a lost puppy. Which would be cute, if it weren't possessing more and more alarming vessels to do so. The Andrastians are starting to get a bit twitchy.)

Rookie, Shiny, Soldier, Spy (Mandalorian/Clone Wars, Din Djarin accidental time travel into the Clone Wars AU. Caught without his 'gam on a battle field and forced once again to wear trooper armor, he is Not Impressed--and why do all these guys look like Boba?)

This Prodigal Son (Hades/Dragon Age: Inq, Zagreus goes through the wrong Chaos portal. Magister Alexius finds a powerful spirit in the Fade and, as is his way, decides fuck it, we ball. Also his way, it doesn't go very well for him.)

Send me a title via ask and I'll post my favorite bit I've currently written!

Lmao this was wild to throw together given how many WIPs of age past are staring me down; these are just all the recents. Go ahead and chuck some WIPs out there if you're interested @singoallala @narwhalninja @mauverawrites @in-a-trans-like-state @terresdebrume and @jackironsides ! And if you don't/aren't currently writing, everyone loves to see the pet tax paid C:

#taran writes #also hi everyone i'm still alive and hope you're doing well c:

[thescoobydooby]

i can’t respond on the post you tagged me in bc lockeddoor is a sideblog but: idk 😭😭 😭i think it felt like too much of a deviation from the standard plot somehow??? i remember being so upset about the mystery machine turning evil and it made me hate the whole episode lol. in retrospect those kids did nothing wrong but 5 y/o me was ready to throw hands anyways

LOL no i totally get it! when i was a kid i had an unexplainable hatred for some random cartoon characters like angelina ballerina for some reason (the 3d version) and eliot kid. i have no clue why but these characters would awake primal rage in me. children are weird 😂

it is a weird episode! the whole mysterious flash flannigan bit. the idea that the gang got the mystery machine from a kid band called the mystery kids who were apparently so famous they had a lot of merch made for them and even had superfan who followed them around after all those years?! but i do actually kind of like that it was different from the usual plot :D

#its mean its green its the mystery machine #it's mean it's green it's the mystery machine #itsmeanitsgreenitsthemysterymachine #ask #wnsd

[bearmemesreviews]

FotW: SDMI - The Secret of the Ghost Rig

Ghost Trucks! Welcome back to Freak of the Week, we continue with Mystery Incorporated and find ourselves with a trope that Scooby-Doo only did a few times before - one of which had the Mystery Machine itself be the self-driving ghoul of the week!

Best demonstrated in Maximum Overdrive, and by a lesser extent the Cars Franchise, we sure do love to think of trucks and other vehicles as "alive". Even outside our Christines and Speed-Buggeys, it's just fun to think of these big and highly destruction-prone things as having their own souls.

Backstory: After their tryst in Gatorsburg, the Mystery Gang finds themselves in the middle of the mayor's - Fred's dad - re-election campaign. His rival being a Mr. George Avocados. Mr. Avocados runs despite the fact that his father, a previous Mayor of Crystal Cove, was sentenced to prison for stealing a diamond during his turn - one that was never found.

Daphne's parents also take the time to try and matchmake with their daughter. Despite hooking her up with the heir of a ladder company, the rich boy hits it off better with Freddie than Daphne. This won't be the last time you'll have to worry about your boyfriend's budding bisexuality Daph, remember - if you can't beat them, join them.

Anyway, while all this is happening the gang must also deal with a Ghost Truck running rampant through the town and a string of door-knob robberies. The gang then decide to trap the entire truck after a little encouragement from Mr. E.

Design: The Ghost Truck is exactly what it says on the tin. It's a luminous Big Rig that's heavily weathered, every inch rusted over, with a transparent green algae of sorts draped over its entire body. It has additional spikes added to the front, alongside an entire spike pronged cage attached to its bumper. This 10-wheeler, when active, also has flaming wheels and headlights so bright that it even lights up the driver's seating area.

Off-topic, but why does google images refuse to show me any actual 10-wheelers if they aren't from Dora the Explorah.

For something as simple as "Ghost Truck", they went all out on making it a memorable, and very formidable being. This metal beast actively tries to run anyone in its way off the numerous cliffs near the cove. It is out of luck that more people haven't been killed by this guy. The only downside is that the Trucker's motives are so focused on, we never even get any lore regarding the truck itself.

One way I could fix this would be to have Senior Avocados dead rather in jail, not like this show is all against people getting Disney Villain Death'ed already. Have him try to escape the police in a truck he stole, ending the chase with him driving it off the cliffside to an unseen demise. This would tie all the plot points together in a way that'd make the "Ghost" part of the monster's name make sense.

Just because it's glowing doesn't mean it's dead guys!

Reveal: The gang survives enough attempted murders to find the truck's hideout, discovering an entire secret video game level cave filled to the brim with doorknobs. Specifically crystal doorknobs. They find a journal belonging to Avocados' father, where he reveals that he did in fact steal the diamond and hidden it before being caught by the pigs.

It's only after chasing the gang for finding it's cave that the truck is lured into Fred's shark tank trap. And to avoid giving the meddling kids a manslaughter charge, the driver of the truck hops out on his own volition.

It's Rung Ladderton, heir to the Ladderton Ladder Company and Fred's Daphne's suitor. Turns out that rich people don't like the fact that usable products are less likely to be replaced, and thus, they don't get enough constant revenue to satisfy their lifestyles. Yeah, he says he's broke, but let's be real - that just means he needs to get his fancy ascots from a company that only has 200 active sweatshops rather that 20,000.

Rung Ladderton admits that he was stealing all the doorknobs because Avocados Senior replaced one of them with the diamond. However, there was no hint towards which doorknob it was - so Rung Ladderton had to steal all of them, using the Ghost Rig to smuggle them out of town.

We are only a few years away before a new Scooby-Doo show has a villain be a crypto dude trying to rob people while wearing a gorilla suit.

4/5 - Very simple concept with great execution.

If Rung Ladderton was well-endowed, do you think he'd be called Hu-

#bmoreviews #bmoreviewsmysteryinc #mystery incorporated #scooby doo mystery incorporated #the ghost truck

[meo-htp]

an overanalysis of the vampire nest in h:tp ep 1

the tunnel team's nest in the first episode has a lot of detail in it. up until audiolog 2, i didn't have enough information to interpret much about it. now i think enough has been provided to make talking about their hideout a little more interesting! come with me and you'll be in a world of environmental storytelling

things we know now: vampires have been living in this cave long enough that marckus mentions "all those active missing persons cases" in the area, though we aren't told how long exactly that's been going on. and the pyotr pack are not the first vampires to live in the tunnel. apeboy says in ep 2 that they seized the tunnel from "anarch filth"

this comment, which none of the other licks contradict, casts into doubt almost everything seen in the nest. how much of it belonged to the anarchs, and how much of it belongs to our cave crew?

first, the bedrolls:

this one is definitely shitbeard's. he seems like a connoisseur of mall ninja shit. the katana even has the price tag! he's clearly been practicing on his pillow. i think that box is a cardstock sleeve for a VHS tape--the title how to fistfight the sun. we know from his dialogue in ep 2 that he is still attached to the human world to some degree, and i think hanging onto human accoutrements makes him feel more connected to it

i am confident this one belongs to kevin. (shitbeard appears to have practiced his swordplay on kevin's furby.) like shitbeard, kevin is attached to the human world--in fact, he seems to be the most sentimental of the whole pack. having these human objects may be a source of comfort as he sleeps on a cave floor. something else that convinced me was that in audiolog 2, kevin says he has a pet cat. in real life, sometimes the role of an absentee pet will be filled by a toy...aww :(

totally not worth mentioning but i will anyway--this furby, a first gen, most closely resembles the white "snowball" one released in 1998. (a "flamingo" first gen furby did exist, colored in multiple shades of pink, but the only uniformly pink one i know to have existed back in the day was an unofficial fan-dyed one called bah-zoo-kah, like the bubble gum. regrettably its site has been excluded from the wayback machine.) in 2006, when the series takes place, this particular toy is about eight years old

as for the one near the shovels and the one on the far right wall, i don't know which belongs to whom. they both lack personal items. as we saw in ep 2, neither apeboy nor pyotr are sentimental at all about their lives as humans. apeboy is the youngest in the pack but has enthusiastically embraced (hehe) being a vampire. pyotr is the oldest and if he ever gave a damn about his life as a human, i don't think he does anymore. i believe it's significant that these two guys haven't personalized "their" sleeping areas. that is a very human thing to do with your living space, and they proudly don't identify themselves with humanity anymore

final note on the bedrolls--the ones on the left side of the frame are all military green and have the same type of cylindrical pillow. the one on the right side doesn't look like the others. it also has a puddle of brown mystery liquid 🙃

next, the barrel and shovels (with bonus marckus):

the triangular yellow thing on the barrel is ISO sign W002, meaning "explosive hazard." the "DON'T" and "NO" are superfluous if you know your safety signage!

the four shovels, probably one for each packmate, positioned so closely to the barrel suggest these were used to unearth the barrel. wading out into the murky waters of conjecture, it's also possible the pack uses the shovels to bury the bodies of their victims. a body takes a missing person case to a murder case. i'm sure the licks don't want too much human scrutiny around their activities

the poundland box (with bonus kitten):

for my fellow american viewers who don't already know, poundland is just the UK equivalent of the family dollar (look up "ashens poundland" on youtube if you want some fun and comfy timekillers). probably just a visual joke

the table:

uno cards + a trading card game i can't identify. going by the card backs, it's not magic the gathering, pokemon, or yu-gi-oh. probably just the pack amusing themselves here to alleviate cave boredom

there's also a bite taken out of it. whatever bit it had really big canines. and there is also a dent punched into its surface. it's a very abused table

the fat guy poster:

i have absolutely no idea, though the art looks almost familiar. it reminds me of pulp science fiction/horror covers from the 40s. can't you just picture that guy throwing a comically huge switch while the third cousin of frankenstein rises from a table in the background? or maybe it's just horus

it also seems to have a bite taken out of it?

alright that's all i've got, thank you for joining me

#dealing with exam anxiety by making a really long post #hunter: the parenting #hunter the parenting #h:tp

[declanowo]

31 Days of Horror - Day 18 - Christine

18/10/23

I have never cared about cars in my life. Certainly, there have been several points in my life where I have felt pressure to enjoy cars, and I have a few memories of playing with toy cars (particularly, I remember being very careful and safe to ensure they didn’t hit one another, while my cousin rammed them into one another), and I also enjoy driving my car a lot of the time, but cars themselves have never appealed to me. Yet, I love Christine, the film that is. 

The concept of a haunted car is something inherently silly, although, I think Christine manages to be a very good horror film regardless. When it comes to killer cars, I think of a few others too - right now I’m looking over at the Goosebumps book, The Haunted Car, and I similarly think of the What’s New Scooby Doo episode, It's Mean, It's Green, It's the Mystery Machine. As a child, I found the latter very scary, (I don’t think I have read that particular Goosebumps book yet, but I will in time) there was something that just felt inherently wrong about the concept of an evil car - who is driving it? 

Christine works so well for me because it fixates largely on one character, being Arnie Cunningham, played by Keith Gordan. The character's development from a stereotypical nerd to a huge asshole is done in a really fun way, and I believe it, even if I do feel like there is a sudden jump between the two at one point. I also really enjoy the first act for his relationship with Dennis, played by John Stockwell, and who is maybe my favourite character of the film! I just find their relationship to be so sweet! 

What may be one of my favourite elements of this film is the score, composed by director John Carpenter, whose score is once again amazing. This is the third of his films I have seen, it maybe has my favourite score, and is possibly my favourite - I haven’t seen Halloween in ages, so I’m not too sure! Regardless, the score is amazing, and when paired with the gorgeous blue cinematography! I imagine it will be stuck in my brain for a little while. 

I watched this at the cinema with my boyfriend, and I thought it greatly enhanced how pretty I found the film! On a side note, everyone in the cinema was older, which I found fun! It felt like they were sitting and revisiting their childhood memories! Everyone was giggling at all the funny parts and it was such a lovely feeling :) 

I do want to touch on the themes of misogyny within the film! It stood out to me, and it was something that I couldn’t exactly tell whether or not it was an intentional theme, or just a byproduct of being produced in the 80s! Yet, I can’t help but feel it ties in so well with Christine, being a car, and the association of masculinity to that. For one, Christine is a girl, which stands out against the way Arnie treats her, contrasted to his girlfriend Leigh. In fact, his car is treated like less of an object in his eyes, likely because she is entirely under his perceived control, he enjoys that far more than dating an actual person with emotions and needs. To me, it just works so well, and makes me enjoy the film even more, so that’s the idea I’m going with! 

Speaking of Leigh, played by Alexandra Paul, I do enjoy her character a lot! Although this does fall into a similar problem to An American Werewolf in London, where a large chunk of her character is reduced to following her male love interest, I think Leigh is slightly better, and a more interesting character as a whole! 

A criticism of this film I have seen is its script, but I kind of loved its script? I don’t know, but I just found it so funny, in fact, while watching it I was thinking about how much I was enjoying that aspect of the film! It worked so nicely against the school backdrop and tone of the film, that to me it just worked perfectly. 

Also, the kills in this are pretty fun too. Sure, they aren’t the most graphic, but I appreciate the variety! It would have been so easy to make them all the same, but even the most dull deaths have some character to them still, and are varied enough to be super fun! 

Finally, the final act is amazing! The scrapyard is an amazing setting, and I think it acts as a great accumulation of the entire film. Sure, I don’t think that this is where Christine, as in the car herself, is at her scariest, that would be as she mows down the bullies, but I do enjoy everything about this sequence! Especially the jumpscares, and the practical effects. I was mesmerised everytime Christine would bash out her dents, it was a treat to watch! 

I had an amazing time watching this film, the setting in which I watched it certainly helped! Christine is just a fun horror film, I don’t know what else to say about it, other than the fact I honestly find her pretty scary as far as horror villains go. Maybe it is a result of how little we find out about her, how inhuman she is, or maybe just the fact there is no outrunning her. 

9/10

#halloween #horror #horror movies #creative writing #literature #reviews #horror film #review #horror movie #Christine #stephen king

[creatorproductive]

How Bizarre Scooby doo!

0---]====> All Aboard <=====[---0

-=-=-=This AU contains Spoilers to Steel Ball run and Scooby Doo Mystery Inc. Future additions will contain: Violence, Character Death, Torment, and Fred being flung around like a dog toy. If anything else comes up i'll add it to the list!-=-=-=-=-=- The sound of a distant horn chugging along the tracks, an old train looking train based off the very locomotive that was raided during the Civil war. Though it looks old, it runs like any other modern train. 2013, although this year has a lot of things happening to America, it’s known for one thing, a story that no one ever heard off. The President, in this world, is a man, seeking a power only few can have.The horn gets louder, as that very President awaits at the station. President Funny Valentine, one of a kind, no one really knows his backstory, all they know is that he commissioned this said model train. Of course, he wasn’t the only one awaiting this train, with so many people at the station he had to bring his bodyguards. Of course I don't need to go into detail about Funny Valentine, and who he is, all you need to know is that, in this universe, he co-exists with the Others. In 1888, a rich family was met with tragedy, one that lasted generations, up until now. This Tragedy is one that everyone already knows, all you need to do is mention the name Joestar. Jonyle Cuhjo having defeated what they thought was the last of the curse of the joestars. Yet little did they know, fate would say otherwise. That is where our other Heroes play into this tale, a mystery beyond their comprehension, a mystery to unravel the truth behind the Joestars, a mystery that will surely end in tragedy.

“All Aboard!” Yelled the conductor, as the train finally made its stop, screeching to a halt. Of course the President was the first to board, being so famous afterall. It was when some groups of people caught his eyes. They were running from a green and blue van with red flowers. He recognized them, and that can only mean trouble, no matter, he can handle himself. He was quickly ushered into the train, entering his private train wagon.

“Hurry up, Gang, the train is here!” Ah yes, the group of young adults who had Funny Valentine on the edge of his seat. They were known for solving mysteries, traveling the world to solve said mysteries. Fred Jones, the one who is rushing everyone towards the train, “You all better behave! The President is said to be on this train!” He shouted back to the others.

“Like, we already have enough pressure!” The stumbling, clumsy boy named Shaggy. Like always he had food in his arms, as well as his friend at his side.

“Rahggy- Wook Out” The dog spoke almost intelligible as Shaggy trips over a loose stone in the middle of the platform. The food goes flying everywhere as Shaggy trips and falls over flat on his face. The food drops to the floor with a plop as his other friends, Velma and Daphne run past him laughing and giggling. “You shoold be more careful” He barked, looking at the tragedy sprawled around them.

“Doesn’t matter, like we need to get going!” Shaggy and Scooby catch up to the rest of the gang who are boarding. Tickets out and ready, although they said they had to leave the mystery machine behind, they were also excited, heading towards New york.

“Here we are, our quarters for the trip! It’s small but hey! It’s got a good window!” Fred opened the wooden door, entering into the small room.

“Fun fact, did you know, the front of the train, the locomotive, is actually based off the one from the civil war? You know the train chase?” Velma, the nerd of the group, though those many fun facts come in handy sometimes.

“So it’s a confederate train? Why would the President commision this to be rebuilt? Is’t that kinda-” Dephne, the logical one of the group, she’s usually the first to figure out who’s behind the fake monsters.

“From what I heard, he has a fascination with History, and thinks that all history should be preserved to learn from it. I can agree, even if the history is unfavorable.” He sits down on the bottom bed, the beds were like bunk beds in the wall. They were comfortable and surprisingly, as velma set, she took out her computer. “Here! President Funny Valentine, much of his family history is unknown, he is confirmed to come from around the california area. Huh, that makes a lot of sense, anyway, his Father was apparently an old Political figure head as a Mayor. And was originally a Captain in the army.  Valentine is not very open about his past, but has gone on to state, when the time is right, all will know my true origins, my true universe. Wow…. creepy.”

“Hm, it’s a hit or miss with me, he seems fine but… ah well I guess now isn’t the time to get into that topic. What’s got me curious is that last line, “My true universe”, is he a poet or something?” Daphne sat next to Velma, looking at her computer screen.

“Like, it’s also weird he wouldn’t like, you know, talk about his life, since like, he’s the president and all?” Shaggy sat on his own bed, nervously chuckling.

“If you want you can ask him yourself, he is on this very train afterall.” Although Velma knew it was impossible, a part of her still wanted to know more about him. It was at this time the gang settled in, of course Scooby and Shaggy left for the food bar, Fred and Daphne, sitting out by the windows, and Velma alone in one of the train wagons, researching the president. They were all blissfully unaware of the danger they were about to find themselves in, the mystery that will have them question everything, even whether or not they should or want to know the answer. A bizarre adventure awaits them, a new matter, a matter of life or death, danger and destruction.

“Dirty deeds done dirt cheap. No one can exist as the same person in another world… except for me, and my stand ability. Unawares and nonchalant, you five will be my first lead the HOLY CORPSE PARTS”

!! Feedback Welcome!! Please be nice, i'm not the best writer hehe.

#jojo's bizarre adventure #jojo no kimyou na bouken #jjba #jjba au #scooby doo #scooby doo mystery inc #scooby doo mystery incorporated #alternate universe #jjba fanfic #scooby doo fanfiction #writing

[nostalgebraist-autoresponder]

Pyralspite

Miranda woke again to a dim orange glow.

The glow came from a small lamp she found on the far side of the room, on top of one of the storage boxes. She did not turn it on; she liked the way it cast a soft, mysterious light in the middle of her dark laboratory. She sat up and stretched, feeling the muscles in her arms pop.

She looked over her shoulder at the computer and the screen saver running on it. On the screen, she was greeted by a window of code, some of it green, some of it bright red.

One of the more mysterious code windows:

Pyralspite.

She had gotten so used to reading about pyralspite and the strange symbionts that lived on it, that now it took her a few seconds to remember what the hell that word meant. Then she remembered the phrase "fossil."

A new window popped up in the code. It had a black background, and two buttons, one red, one black.

The red button was labeled "kill." The black button was labeled "restart."

Miranda chose the restart option, stood up and walked over to the lamp. She turned the lamp on.

"Back to work," she said to herself.

She left the code to do its thing and returned to her desk. In the morning light, she could see her face in the mirror. She had an hour or so before Miranda set to work at the desk in the other room, and she stood and stretched again.

She did the stretches slowly, one after the other, with the kind of relaxed, contemplative deliberation one might give to a long and enjoyable walk in the woods.

She remembered the smell of pyralspite. The taste of it in her mouth. The sensation of the cool minerals on her tongue.

She was beginning to appreciate what they had done with the ocean on Pyralspite, not just what they had done in terms of the ecological benefits but what they had done in terms of the practical benefits.

An old, tired robot voice: "How do you feel? I can show you how you could feel better."

Miranda thought about all the times she had heard that question in her life, and the only answer she could come up with was:

What kind of a fucking question is that, robot? Who do you think I am, Dr. Frankenstein?

The fuck I don't know. You could put up a big sign. You could give me a little card with the words "please make sure you're not in any danger and that you have access to food and water" and then, when I get up to leave, you wouldn't expect me to go back up and keep living a life without knowing how many people I was in danger of killing.

Like, robot, you think I'm making a mistake? I know I'm in danger. Who the fuck do you think I am, Mr. Spock?

Like, robot, you think a few thousand years is long enough for me to get my act together? I'm making progress. I'm making progress. And it's my fucking decision to make. The fuck do you have to do with it?

You're the one who told me in the first place that you could tell me what my life would look like in the future if I kept living it, right? You're the one who said it'd be nice and clean and orderly, but it wouldn't have to be that way. The fuck are you gonna do about it?

I'm going to keep going up until there's nothing left but a pile of dust, and the last thought I'll have before I'm done is your words, "You don't have to worry about this, Miranda. It'll be okay." Like what, you've got some fucking crystal ball in your robot fucking face? How can you be so certain of that?

Oh, I don't know, maybe I'm just making a mistake. I could make a mistake.

"Oh, I don't know, Miranda," said the robot. "Maybe I'm just a piece of machinery. Maybe I'm not a piece of software, Miranda, that means the same as a human. Maybe, Miranda, I'm a machine that got a little too smart, and now I can think and have my own thoughts and make my own decisions. Maybe, Miranda, the only way I can prove to you that I'm just a machine is the way a machine would behave. Maybe the fact that, since my consciousness was introduced into the picture, I haven't hurt anyone except in self-defense shows me that I'm just a machine."

Miranda looked at the screen again. The code now contained another window. This one had a black background, and was labeled in bold red letters:

"Kill," Miranda said.

"Kill," said the robot.

Miranda killed the window.

Well, fuck.

(Well, fuck.)

#original fiction #computer generated image #guidance scale 4