#its the most common box art from what i can see | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

Visit Blog

Explore Tumblr blogs with no restrictions, modern design and the best experience.

Fun Fact

25% of US internet users with an annual income of $80-100K use Tumblr.

#its the most common box art from what i can see

dragonpropaganda · 5 months

Note

you should talk about your thoughts on rw fanon (looking with huge eyes)

Oh god, there's a lot of major misconceptions have concreted into fanon, mostly around ancient society and ascension.

First things first! Ascension is not death! They are entirely separate things treated entirely separately by the text of the game. I can see where the interpretation is coming from, but it doesn't really align with how the text treats either subject. Five Pebbles may want to remove the self destruction taboo, but from his reaction to the rot it's clear that he doesn't want to die. Conflation of ascension and death only comes up as an offhand possibility that pebbs makes on iterator 4chan, when he's going into the possibilities of scenarios that even the other sliverists are doubtful of! (let me make clear that I am not a sliverist by any means)

Ascension is more of talked about as a form of transcendence, yeah? A Bell, Eighteen Amber Beads talks about their sitution as being "To have grasped at the boundless infinites of the cosmic void…", not as them seeking an end to life.

The beta dialogue goes into more detail, mentioning the "infinities of time and space" and the "boundless fractal planes of spirit and reality...", though this dialogue was cut and it's hard to tell how much it reflects the concept as in the released game.

As for the cultural misconceptions... there's A Lot to talk about, but the first that comes to mind is the common conflation of the five natural urges and the christian concept of sin.

It is true that the negation of urges is mentioned by moon as an alternative method of ascension, but much of what we know about the culture of the people who the fandom calls the ancients (which makes discussion of the depths a mess but that's something for another post entirely) points towards the urges not being seen as shameful.

Even the first urge does not seem to be particularly scorned! Being a warrior is presented as a cause for bragging in the Shaded Citadel pearl, being comparable with being an artist and a fashion legend. The second urge, also does not seem to be suppressed. Multiple sources attribute some level of honour to parenthood! The aforementioned pearl also mentions Seventeen Axes, Fifteen Spoked Wheel as being a "Mother, Father and Spouse" without any hint of shamefulness. Nineteen Spades, Endless Reflections expresses pride about having progeny, mentioning it alongside their owned land and esteem among their peers.

After some peer review, an esteemed friend has told me to add a section on purposed organisms as well! This is not so much my area, so I might be a bit off on some things.

As moon says, the majority of purposed organisms were tubes in boxes, and that the primal fauna of the world are almost entirely extinct. A lot of the fandom seems to ignore the first part, and i can't say I blame them, but the evolution of the creatures is so much weirder than people think.

Concept art for the creatures has this interesting quality to it, where the organic parts of the creatures have an almost... melty quality to them.

In the concept art, the flesh appears as if it's almost defying the machinery to form an animal shape. It's as if it's conquering its own artificiality the way the foliage grows over the (stone, brick and concrete, not mostly metal as some think!) ruins.

Of course, it's hard to really tell how much of this reflects the finalised concept, most of the integration is much smoother in the game, in line with a seamless kind of biomechanical design. There was always an intention of biomechanical strangeness, as shown in this screenshot of the devlog before the term "slugcat" even existed!

That said, the melty nature of the concept art shows a level of wild change inherent the biomechanical nature of the creatures, as if they truly are the result of these "tubes in boxes" almost revolting against their own boxes.

and considering centipedes... some tubes may not have had boxes in the first place!

#rain world #rain world lore #rainworld #rw spoilers #please note! my role in downpour development does not make me an authority on what is canon or not!#my domain is entirely within challenge mode and arena which aren't canon anyway #my lore analysis is just lore analysis with no looks behind the scenes of anything vanilla #downpour was made as a fan expansion and the rewrites were just done directly by james #we didn't get any disambiguation on the lore (and thank fuck for that honestly. analysis is the best part)#though the hills ARE made of bricks #this is canon not because i say so but because it is visibly true in some areas of the game. part of the text and thus canon. weep.#i could go into more detail on most of this! purposed organisms aren't my area of expertise tho so i might be a bit shaky on some of that #anyway if anyone has any fact checking to do. please do so #media analysis is a dialogue!

331 notes · View notes

buwheal · 4 months

Text

[You've Got Mail!]

You can now send your favorite salesman emails!! YAY!!

Here's some rules and information about the askbox.

First and foremost;

I try to answer as many asks as I can, but I will not answer every single one. Sometimes I just cant do anything with it that will work realistically with the perimeters of the world, and I apologize!! Its nothing against you guys!!

(Unless you break the rules ofc.)

So if you dont see yours after a long while, it’s probably something that wont work, sorry! You can always send more than one ask whenever and see if that one works instead!

Besides that, here’s the rest of what you need to know!

[RULES] :

Spamton physically PRINTS OUT each "email", so dont send asks that have a physical interaction. Sorry! Thats just how i decided to set up the world/situation, and is not really anything against you guys :-)

(more of a request than a rule tbh) Preferably try to send real questions or statements. most joke asks are funny, but are surprisingly hard to create an in character response for. You can still send joke asks if you really want to, just dont expect an answer X-P

I know he may be a personification of spam emails... BUT DONT SPAM!!! I mean it! It clogs the askbox and is a real pain. You can send him more than one ask, though, as long as you arent repetitively sending a ton in a short burst!!

Dont be sexual or romantic, please! Even "As a joke". I dont like Spamton like that and it makes me uncomfortable, plus I can't really answer that in character in a way that wouldnt provoke more of that. Thank you!!

Be respectful and patient!! I am just one person doing everything, lol, and this got far more popular than anticipated, so i will take a long time. I try my best to get at least one out every other day but i'll need breaks eventually!!!

I cannot spawn or give/spawn/materialize things for/to Spamton if you ask because of the way it’s set up. You are really just lines of text from a computer to Spamton, BUT... You can still do a lot if you think outside the box. or,, errr,, outside the computer. Kind of. Your words and your actions affect him and his reactions to you, so word it correctly and you can get him to do something or say something. Hes not stupid though, and he CAN usually tell when your intentions are... less.. than good.

[INFORMATION] :

[YGM!] is technically an AU!!! not only do the events of the game not occur, but this is also set before then!

Asks are put out one a day, regardless if i have more than one, UNLESS i need to connect two(or more) to complete one event.

I am one person doing every ask and every unique frame of art, so expect 1 ask (If youre lucky, two) maybe every other day Monday-Friday depending on my workload per day. I have weekends off so more asks, around 2-3, CAN (but usually arent) be done for future use.

This is just for fun!! I am using the askbox to exercise my drawing consistency, Spamton's personality, and the way he speaks and responds to different situations! This is a way I am using to improve my understanding of him as a character, so it wont be always consistent as I am growing and learning!

Just a little disclaimer, he WILL be mean. He is a sour, nasty, grumpy, bastard and I am absolutely not opposed to him responding as such. Just keep that in mind when sending an ask if you dont want that!

If you want a common outcome, talk to other people about it! go crazy! I dont mind long threads on my posts if you want to create a plan. Infact, I can even help and tell you things occasionally!!

What you say to him DOES and WILL affect the way he responds. Trust is lost far easier than it is gained, so keep this in mind. It is possible to regain his trust, but still hard. He is not a trusting person to begin with and being mean certainly doesnt help. BUT.. I am not opposed to being mean. Infact, they are quite fun to do. Either way is entertaining for me, so do as you will. YOU can choose to hurt or help him.

Using tone tags, while not required, are really helpful and assist me in understanding the intention in your ask if you think it may be interpreted another way! (i.e. sarcasm) :-)!!

I pick and choose asks depending on his situation, or if i have a good idea for a response, so you may need to wait a bit before i can get to yours!! Ones that i have an idea for take priority, especially when its to progress a scene. Or, alternatively, i am saving your ask for something i have planned.

I WILL reuse frames and poses to get these out faster and for my convienence :-) especially for the frames where there is no need to change his pose! So like.. dont think too hard about it lol.

Also, i prefer if you specify if the ask is for me /or/ Spamton. I do still do normal asks, lol. If its for me, just let me know!! I can usually tell, but most asks will be interpreted as for Spamton. I appreciate ones that start with his name before said thing is asked/stated specifically!! (i.e. "Spamton, __ __ __")

I wont be consistent with the way its answered. Sometimes it's one panel, sometimes its a couple panels, or sometimes they're animated gifs!! It varies depending on what i feel, so if youre lucky you can get a gif, lol. Those take longer usually though. Ive mostly switched to a gif formatting rather than multiple panels in a comic style, for the formatting! The animation quality can vary :-)

Thats about it!! Have fun!! ^_^

#spamton #spamton g spamton #deltarune #[you've got mail!]#<- this is the askbox tag!#deltarune spamton #spamton deltarune #spamton askbox #[YGM!]#[YGM!] questions

151 notes · View notes

k-martins · 3 months

Text

I'm late, but what matters is posting the results, so hello!

Let's move on to placing them:

BIGGEST ITFS SUPPORTERS ON CANON!!!!!

RYOMEN "You finally got a role" SUKUNA

Also known as the one who is intimately aware of our couple's desires, desires and fears (after all, he shared a body with both of them), Sukuna is the main plot device when it comes to bringing Itafushi even closer together. It's thanks to your existence that ITFS started, isn't it? LOL.

He's a threat, he's a calamity, he's a bored old man, but most importantly, he's responsible for the line "congratulations, you've won a role" where he not only recognizes Yuji's new power, but also that our pookie pink haired girl is ready to save her sea urchin. After all, it's quite propitious for Yuji to save his soulmate in the domain called "pure and mutual love" LMAO!!!!

Fortunately, Sukuna comes in last place because he gave several traumas to ITFS, including murder, body snatching, mental and emotional manipulation, violence and a lot of anguish. He's a bad bitch we love to hate!

((I couldn't get any art from them that wasn't a ship T-T ))

3TH PLACE:

NOBARA "Boys are disgusting" KUGISAKI

It was a close battle with second place, but I confess that not even Nobara could compete against him T-T. Our beautiful queen full of thorns is the most common third wheel in the canon, being present in moments that helped in the growth of ITFS, such as their conversation after the exchange event (where we see Yuji blush and smile after Megumi praised him hihi) and when our boys take each other's hands as a sign of trust after the fight with Kechizu and Eso. She's also the queen who helps these two idiots notice their feelings in fanfics, so what better than third place for her!!!!

It's a shame we can't see her reaction when she hears the phrase "so start saving me, Itadori", but I bet she would scream something like "get a room, you two, gay idiots!".

Anyway, Nobara, know that you will always be famous and our boys will make you proud as they finish off Sukuna and ride off into the sunset T-T

2TH PLACE

YUTA "THIS IS PURE LOVE" OKKOTSU

Who but the main advocate of love to come second? Yuta has shown himself to be a huge supporter of itfs since his return to the post-Shibuya manga, from helping Yuji deal with his inner demons to agreeing to save him because he was someone important to Megumi (shoot me in the head if Megumi didn't ask Yuta save Yuji when he learned that his senpai would be the executioner).

He also had to watch from a box seat the dramatic ITFS meeting after the horrors in Shibuya, so he knows how serious Megumi and Yuji are about protecting each other. Yuta is also doing everything he can to make these two stay together, not taking long to jump against Sukuna to save Megumi and opening his beautiful domain of PURE AND MUTUAL LOVE!!!! Yes girls, Yuta is the last romantic on earth and he will be the key to our ITAFUSHI coming back to us T-T.

This boy is just not in first place, because first place belongs to him alone.

1st PLACE

SATORU "Personal feelings?" GOJO

THE HONORABLE!!!! MEGUMI'S FATHER!!! THE MOST ROMANTIC EVER!!!! SATORU GOJO TAKES FIRST PLACE!!!! He was the first to notice ITFS in the SECOND EPISODE and makes a point of always bringing these two boys even closer with his discreet (and some extravagant) plans. An example of this is his readiness to accept saving Yuji because it was a request from his dear son, going against the ENTIRE JUJUTSU WORLD just because he knows what it's like to love someone who is condemned to death (stsg tears run down my eyes).

He also placed the boys next to each other, supported their relationship, blessed them, and was willing to save his son so that none of them would suffer (someone shoot me).

YOUR FIRST PLACE IS DESERVED!!!! I'M SURE ITFS WILL BE THE HAPPY VERSION OF STSG AND WILL BE ABLE TO MAKE ITS SENSEI PROUD!!!!

Official results!

This is the end, but we'll give some honorable mentions.

- Toji Fushiguro (his VA said that Toji would find Yuji a bit annoying at first, but would soon like him too, which is understandable, since Yuji is fantastic)

- Choso (Anyone who loves Yuji will be loved by Choso)

- Nanami Kento (no explanation, I just feel it)

- Tsumiki Fushiguro (I don't need to see this to know your opinions)

- Grandpa Wasuke Itadori (HE WOULD LOVE MEGUMI, FIGHT ME IF YOU DON'T AGREE)

- Aoi Todo (He would always support Yuji, no matter how annoying his crush is)

- Gege Akutami (come on kitty, we all know you secretly love itfs and stsg and are cooking a beautiful and wonderful wedding for them, no need to be shy about it ;) )

83 notes · View notes

danadaria · 6 months

Text

ARE YOU EXPERIENCED? COMING SOON: November 18th!

For the @steddiebang 2023 we've been working really hard to share with you this amazing S3 AU with music lover Steve, who may discover having more than something in common with Eddie Munson.

Writer: @madaboutmunson, Beta: @house-of-chant, Art: @danadaria (dat me!)

You can read a preview here:

Steve shoves his hands into his jacket pockets and feels the crinkle of the fifty from his mom against his fingertips, and his eyes move to the record store. They were probably gonna be open for an hour or so longer. He turns to the store's glass front, has a final check over his appearance and ensures his uniform is buried deep in the depths of his backpack before taking a deep breath and walking over there. It's not like he hated this place or anything. It just felt like a betrayal to the town store that was slowly but surely crumbling into non-existence. The other factor was that all the people who worked here were school kids, apart from the manager. Cheap labour, he guesses, but it means he can never fully relax here. Can never fully let the music ring through his ears so it can guide him to his next pocket-sized plastic box of hidden treasure. Most of them were younger than him, though, so intimidating them was easy enough, though with the weather warming up, they were slowly catching on to how far King Steve had fallen, working just across the way. He tells them it's character-building, an experiment. He only told Robin that it was, in fact, a punishment. He stands outside for a moment. This place is so bright and garish. Neon lights ran all over it like some fake plastic poison spreading between what he loved most. He can already hear something blaring out of there and voices chattering loudly, contending with it. He puts on his headphones, carefully placing the band so it doesn't crease up his hair, and pushes play on his Walkman. His ears fill with Nina Simone, and he takes a much easier deep breath as he walks inside. I wish I knew how it would feel to be free. As the voice smoothly fills his ears like it had just broken through the dam of the day and swirls its way around his brain into what feels like every crease, he finally feels that special feeling. The tingle from under his cheekbone to his temples, and he can finally settle into himself a little more. Swaps tension for ease as his fingers dance over the music sections, flipping cassette cases or the large vinyl album artwork as he moves around the store. That is until he starts to hear the repetition of something unfortunate, and it pulls him out of his oasis of calm back into his old, reliable, tensed body and mask. His name. "Harrington!" The voice rings out, and as if to make a show of how annoying this all is, he slowly takes off his headphones and forcibly pushes stop on his walkman. "Yes?" He says through almost gritted teeth as he turns to the origin of the sound and finds himself met with a set of hopeful brown eyes, a mass of waves and curls, and an awkward smile. Eddie "The Freak" Munson. Steve's Eddie assessment: Loud Grating Obnoxious Non-conformist to the mainstream Conformist to the Heavy Metal scene "Good to see ya, man. How're things?" Eddie forces his smile wider, but it is strained. Steve rolls his eyes with a sigh, "Let's get this over with, Munson. How can I help you?" His hands land on his hips, pushing back his jacket a little to emphasise the inconvenience, but Eddie seems unperturbed, curiously; his smile grows toothy and genuine. "Well, that's quite an offer, but I was actually thinking about the other way around." Steve's eyes follow Eddie's ringed hand that comes into view and taps the name tag on his chest, "How can I help you, Harrington?" He drops his head to the side a little.

#steddiebang23 #We can't wait to share the rest with you!!!#:D #Am I obsessed with the fact Eddie looks like a dating sim character?#You can bet!#steddie #eddie munson #my art

68 notes · View notes

perpetual-stories · 2 years

Text

How to Write an Action Scene

Happy Thursday everyone! I decided to work on a different post today and take a break from posting literally essential devices.

Today this post will be all about action scenes and how to write them.

Let's get to it!

4 Types of Fight Scenes

First we need to learn that there are various types of fighting styles or rather common fighting scenes that we see in the media and in writing.

Fight scenes can take on many iterations, but most fall into one of four categories:

Hand-to-hand combat: These fight scenes focus on the abilities and limitations of the human body. Boxing matches, martial arts battles, and straight up brawls between the good guy and the bad guy all fit this category. While there’s more to these films than mere fist fights, they’re nonetheless remembered for the fighting styles they showcase.

Fights with weapons: Weapon-based fights date all the way back to classical theater. For instance, Shakespeare concludes Hamlet with a fatal sword fight between Prince Hamlet and the aggrieved Laertes. Contemporary fights often involve guns, and indeed nearly every action movie of the past several decades seems to involve a shootout of some sort.

Fights on the run: Many of the best fight scenes pass through multiple locations before reaching a climax. Think of Indiana Jones battling villains on a train or James Bond dispatching villains using all manners of cars, boats, and helicopters.

Fights involving superpowers: Many a great fight scene has functioned as a showcase for characters’ superpowers—from the superhuman strength of a main character to the shapeshifting menace of a supervillain. These fights can thrill audiences as they push the boundaries of possibility, but writers should take care to sculpt these scenes carefully and not let them devolve into a checklist of cool stunts.

The Challenges of Writing Action Sequences

The art of writing fight scenes involves two main challenges.

Technical writing style. Whether you’re writing descriptive paragraphs in a novel or stage directions in a script or screenplay, you must be able to articulate the fight you envision in your head without wearing down your reader with technical drivel. Balancing specific details of your action sequences with a propulsive story isn’t easy to do. Sometimes a great fight sequence doesn’t come together in a first draft, so focus your revisions on clarifying each action and providing vivid detail without besieging your reader with dull technical terms.

Storytelling during fight scenes. Your fight scene has to be part of your overall narrative, not a diversion from it. The key elements of a good story—character development, rising conflict, and detailed worldbuilding—must not be abandoned just because a fight is happening. A great fight scene will flow seamlessly from the story that comes before it into the story that comes after it.

Remember the actual actions of fighting are quick and sudden movements and it is often best to portray that in your writing with quick, short sentences. Unless you feel the need to write lengthy sentences that is!

Tips on How to Write a Fight Scene

Plan fight scenes to logically fit with your overall story. Some amateur writers use fight scenes as irrelevant set pieces—fixed moments in a book or script that other plot elements center around. In the best writing, however, fight scenes serve the overall narrative, not the other way around. When evaluating a brawl or a battle showdown in your narrative, ask yourself: Does it move my story forward? Does its inclusion align with my main character’s motivations? Does the story naturally flow into and out of this brawl?

Include some technical details, but not too many. When you’re putting a fight scene into a script, you’ll likely want to indicate some degree of choreography so that directors and actors can envision what you have in mind. Likewise, in a novel or short story, you’ll want your fight scenes to have specific detail so they stand out from the pack. At the same time, recognize that the way to a reader’s heart isn’t through minutia. It’s through long arcs in character and story. Bogging down a fight scene in technical details will distract from those arcs and disengage a reader.

Write in first person to try something different. Most fight scenes are told in the third person by an omniscient narrator who can describe every detail from every character’s perspective. Omniscient narrators can be great for worldbuilding, but they’re standard issue when it comes to action scenes. By contrast, a first person narrator provides a visceral perspective on a fight. Which is more unique: a narrator telling you that a boxer gained the upper hand in a fight, or the boxer himself describing the sudden shift from imminent to defeat to looming victory? First person narration connects your story to real life and can promote a deeper level of investment from your reader.

Things to Consider When Writing Action Scenes

hand to hand combat are often quick sudden movements and can cause the characters to tire out faster, unless they have good training such as boxers, who know how to use their space, distance and energy wisely.

things can get messy! There will be blood and sweat. Remember these can get in the eyes and cause irritation ad prohibit the fighter from being at their best.

Contrary to beliefs, adrenaline will not always give you the boost you need. Sometimes it will inhibit you from moving or causing damage to your opponent. It can make the fighter shake, throw inaccurate punches, jabs, weapons, sorcery, etc. Sometimes the nerves get the best and prohibit the character from expelling spells from their hands/fingertips, wants or magic object.

Weapons can and will break. What will the characters do then?

If the character isn't the best at fighting, will they use objects around them to protect themselves? Will they fight or run (flight).

There you have it! Something different from what I have been posting.

Like, reblog and follow if you find these helpful!

#writing #writing advice #writing tips #original writing #writers on tumblr #writersconnection #writerscommunity #short story #storytelling #writersupportingwriters

1K notes · View notes

shimmerloid-ai · 2 months

Text

Introduction - What is VOCALOID?

Hello everyone, Shimmer here! This is my first post in this guide blog thingy. I thought it would be a good idea to explain what VOCALOID actually is before I jump into how to use the software. Otherwise, it would be like baking a cake without knowing what cakes are.

So, let’s start by addressing what VOCALOID is not.

VOCALOID is NOT an anime series. Although Hatsune Miku made cameos in "Dropkick on My Devil!", she never originated from an anime series because she is NOT an anime character.

Second, VOCALOIDs are not those crappy AI voice models. You know, those weird “voicebanks” where you can make Spongebob Squarepants sing "7 Rings" or have Cartman from South Park rap "INDUSTRY BABY"? Yeah, those are actually illegal renditions of celebrity voices without the knowledge of the voice actors/influencers/singers whose voices were used to make the models. You just put the models over an audio track, and boom. Lazy, illegal shit.

youtube

Finally, this is just common sense, but VOCALOID did not originate from Project Sekai! Colorful Stage! The Cryptonloids (Miku, Rin, Len, Luka, Kaito, and Meiko) have existed long before the game was released; VOCALOID 1 was released in 2004, while the money making machine was launched in Japan in 2020. That is a gap of sixteen years, and if you compare the time between Hatsune Miku V2's release and Project Sekai, we have another thirteen year difference there.

With that being said, what *is* VOCALOID?

The best definition I can give you is that it is a digital singing synthesizer. Basically, it is an instrument, but instead of piano notes, you get vocals.

youtube

And no, *this* AKITO is not associated with the Akito Shinonome from Project Sekai.

To advertise this voicebanks and increase their appeal, Crypton, VSINGER, AH-Software Co., Internet Co. Ltd, and many other companies that make voicebanks for this software have cute or hot anime-style avatars designed for their box art. This was a great marketing scheme in my opinion, because wouldn't you be more inclined to purchasing something if it looks aesthetic, kawaii, or epic? Just look at GUMI's design!

Alright, I have a feeling I may have bored most users who are reading this weird info-dump, so I am going to add one final, important point. Remember our wood analogy? Well, we have the workbench (VOCALOID), and the wood (the voicebank(s) of your choice). Making a desk for instance would be like making a cover of a song. But people can make the same kind of desk with an entirely different appearance or texture. Similarly, a lot of producers can make covers of the same song, but they can sound entirely different in regards to their pitch, tone, or melody. This aspect is known as "tuning".

Tuning is basically the process of editing the properties of a voicebank and the notes/lyrics they are singing to create a specific sound. People can tune the same song in different ways. For instance, listen to the original "Rolling Girl" by wowaka, and then these covers. They are all the same song, but tuned in entirely different ways.

Below is the original song:

youtube

And these are all covers:

youtube

Also yeah, that last cover is mine, it's my blog, I can promote my content if I want to)

I hope that just by listening to these you can see how tuning can vary from individual to individual. Its all a matter of how you control the parameters of the singer.

So yeah, I yapped enough so I'm gonna end this infodump right here. I'm not surprised if you guys are still confused, so I'm going to leave some helpful resources down below as these people are better at explaining shit than I am.

youtube

My next post will involve some common terminology used in the VOCALOID community, such as “VSQx”, or “pitchbending”.

Goodbye for now!

#vocaloidproducer #vocaloid #vocal synth #vocaloid4 #Vocaloid tutorial #Youtube

22 notes · View notes

pencil-peach · 7 months

Text

G Witch Onscreen Text: Episode 6

GRAAAHH!! This is part SEVEN in my attempt to transcribe and discuss all the onscreen text in G Witch!! Because I CAN!!! GRAHH!! We're on episode 6, halfway through season 1!! Grah Graaaahh!!!

Click here to go back to Episode FIVE!! Grahhh!!!

Let us begin.

Not text, but during Bel and Prospera's initial confrontation, the building they're in has art pieces on display. Maybe it's some kind of museum?

Not text again, but we don't get very many looks into the common areas of the 3 branches, so here's Jeturk House's. It's really flashy and gold, huh? It also matches the aesthetic of Vim's office.

During the scene with Bel and El4n, Bel consults the data on this monitor when she tells him that he'll be fine piloting the Pharact for the duel against Suletta. We get a couple of shots of this monitor, so I'll do my best to glean what information I can from it.

On the left side of the monitor is a mockup of the Pharact. TEXT: (Top Left) REGISTERED NAME: PHARACT MS: FP/A-77 PMET CODE: P017-0046

(Bottom Left) MANUFACTURER: PEIL TECHNOLOGIES STATUS: IN TEST OPERATION

We see the Pharact's Permet Code here, that being PO17-0046. The 'P' probably stands for 'Peil.' Also, have you noticed the the MS IDs for all of Peil's mobile suits have a '/' in them? The 3 branches all have their own unique naming conventions when it comes to their MS codes. It's obvious, sure, but it's something you might not have noticed unless you were looking at it.

This info here, on the right side of the monitor, is much more interesting. TEXT (Header) No. 4 ENHANCED PERSON >PILOTING DEPARTMENT >ID. NO: KP002 NAME: ELAN CERES

This screen is how we learn that El4n is indeed the 4th Enhanced Person in the show proper.

Underneath the header is this info box and a graph. The box on the left says DECISION CRITERIA D2 ***EXAMINATION

What this box means is mostly speculation on my part, but I believe this is a grading system that evaluates the remaining health/usefulness of an enhanced person. There's a red arrow pointing down, implying that this grade, D2, is worse than the grade from the previous evaluation.

The graph to its right is a bit harder to analyze.

It's exceedingly similar to the graph shown during the Shin Sei Inquiry by Shaddiq, that measured Aerial's Permet Influx, but they probably aren't measuring the same thing.

I think it's probably closer to the little bit of this graph we see in the prologue, that I speculated was a measurement of a pilot's exposure to a data storm.

The graph has no title, it only says PHASE on the header, followed by Sys REC Ver. 2.0, which means this data was either recorded from the Pharact of El4n's body. The highlighted point is labelled CHH.

My BEST guess is it's measuring the amount of Permet radiation his body is suffering from.

This is an evaluation of El4n's body, and from this we get a really good look into the true danger of piloting a Gundam.

To start, CNS stands for Central Nervous System, and PNS stands for Peripheral Nervous System. The first box is analyzing the status of the artificial nervous system implanted into El4n's body.

PMET-CNS INTEGRATION can thus be assumed to be analyzing its integration with the rest of El4n's body. MOTOR FUNCTION TEST is self evident, an analysis of El4n's motor skills. HEMANALYSIS is an analysis on the chemical composition of one's blood. CARDIOPULMONARY FUNCTION TEST is a test evaluating the strength and health of your heart and lungs.

NERVE DAMAGE TEST and CELL SURVIVAL TEST are self evident, but what's most important about them is that, unlike the rest of his results, they're labeled CONDITIONALLY ACCEPTABLE. If he hadn't been disposed of by Peil, we can see that this is probably what would have killed him. A combination of Cellular Necrosis and Nerve Damage.

We can glean from this chart that over exposure to Permet primarily affects the Nervous, Cardiovascular, and Pulmonary systems, as well as cause cellular necrosis.

Finally, though we unfortunately never get a closer look at it than this, there's this final box here, labeled EEG[???], and contains what i think is a CT scan of El4n's brain.

TEXT: PROPULSION CONTROL SYSTEM HIGH MANEUVER MODE

When Suletta is piloting the Aerial to test out the thrusters, we can see the system and mode being tested.

When talking to Miorine and Nika in their shuttle, we can see SS/O.M is added to the com screen on Suletta's phone. Not sure what it means !

Not text but I love Mio's face here after she finishes giving Suletta the pep talk, but before she responds to Nika. She's like, hm! Helping Suletta felt really good. I hope this doesn't awaken anything in me.

El4n doesn't have anything in his room whatsoever.

When Suletta asks to talk to El4n, they can't get a hold of him directly, so they just do a HOUSE WIDE BROADCAST instead.

TEXT: MECHANICAL DEPARTMENT ID No: KM079 NAME: EARLTON WELLS.

Not important, but one of the two students Suletta speaks to is named Earlton Wells.

During the duel, Bell can tell that El4n isn't doing well because his flight path is jagged, he can't fly straight anymore.

We can't read this error message, but we can read PMET SCORE 4, so its most likely an error related to that.

We can see the alert message on El4n's screen when he's about to run into the meteor. It just says ALERT.

When Suletta is trapped and Aerial increases its Permet Score, we can see little whispy things on the main monitor. Oooohhh..pretty...

So, bit of a mixup here, before, when Suletta defeated Guel in the rematch, it said she had 2 wins, which made it seem like her previous win had been reinstated. That wasn't true! It was just a mistake, because when she defeats El4n here, she still only has 2 wins. Can't win em all !

Here, we can see that time and temperature in Asticassia's simulated environment. It says 26 degrees and is sunny, which means that Asticassia uses Celsius and not Farenheit.

When Bel begs the Peil Witches to reconsider, if you look at the monitor, you can see Elan hanging up in front of the laser. They're watching him die here, and Bel saw it too.

AND THATS IT!!! HUAAAAHHH!!! THANK YOU FOR READING! I NEED TO GO! YOUR FINAL GIFT:

You ever notice how since the beginning the Enhanced Persons were alluded to be like Eri because only 4 and 5 were ever able to see and hear her when they're overloaded with Permet?

Click here to go to Episode 7!

Click here to go to the Masterpost!

#g witch #gundam the witch from mercury

41 notes · View notes

tempestgnostic · 7 months

Text

On Therianthropy

or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Label

As with all identity groups, the therian community has dealt with its fair share of misinformation, ignorance, and exclusivity throughout its storied history. For quite some time, I felt connected to the label—in that profound way when something just fits—yet, I wasn’t certain if I fit the bill. I had seen the common misconception that therians were limited to only “Earth animals.” There are many issues with this definition, and plenty of folks have gone over this already. This discussion between irritatedandroid and spiritus-sonne was one of the first posts I saw that gave me some background on this misconception, and it struck a chord with me.

As I began to look into it more, I kept finding challenges to what I thought I knew about therianthropy. Below is a snippet of the forum post that ultimately led me to identify with ‘therian’ as a werewolf rather than ‘otherkin.’

You can find the page right here if you’d like to check it out for yourself! The author is Lynna Landstreet/Lynx Canadensis at time of posting. (9/18/1999 on alt.horror.werewolves)

This might get a little lengthy, so here’s your courtesy readmore.

This word, ‘liminality,’ is everything that I am. Liminality, balance, breaking down false dichotomies—this is what it means for me to be a werewolf. As a quick disclaimer, there are almost certainly werewolves out there whose self-perception is similar to mine, but they use ‘otherkin’ instead. That’s completely fine! As who-is-page points out in this post, “While it’s important to understand the definitions of various labels for a variety of reasons, these labels are not the end-all be-all to what you can or cannot call yourself or identify yourself by.”

I’ve written previously about how my werewolf identity is deeply intertwined and ultimately inseparable from my queer identity and my experiences as an autistic person. I don’t just toe the line between person and animal—I practically live in the split tongue of therianthropy. I’ve made a home at the crossroads as an autistic, nonbinary butch who’s had top surgery and is on HRT, who rejects boxes and binaries like the plague.

I embrace the ways in which I challenge norms, call out injustice, ask “Why?” and “Why not?” of my society. It’s the reason I named myself Taliesin, after the influential Brittonic poet and bard. He lives on as a creative genius and master satirist, and—according to legend—a figure who can be invoked and channeled by poets who continue his legacy. I carry on the name of a trickster figure who connected with the universal creative spirit—the Awen—and aim to do the same myself whenever I create art of all kinds.

I see my own ‘purpose’ in life as self-defined, not fated, and I find strength in the fact that I can be part of an ever-shifting process of change. Above all, it is transformation—the divine lesson of The Werewolf—that lies at the heart of my therianthropy, and that’s pretty damn therian, isn’t it? The word resonates with me almost as much as my own name, and that’s enough for me.

I encourage all of us to consider how our language can help us understand each other, and how the hard-and-fast rules and restrictions proposed by even the most well-meaning folks can be counterintuitive. It’s not that any label can “just mean anything” — rather, labels can offer a general framework to describe and relate our experiences to others. A label should be the start of a sentence, not the period at the end.

I’ll close on my favorite part of Page’s post, linked above: “Identity is unique, it’s not something that can be charred well-done and then flipped into a tupperware container for tomorrow’s lunch.”

#alterhuman essays #nonhuman essays #therianthropy #therian #otherkin #alterhuman #alterhuman community #alt/non essays #alt/non community #LMAO SORRY FOR ALL THE TAGS #i try to keep this blog somewhat organized and this is a consequence of that

52 notes · View notes

markrosewater · 2 years

Text

Maro’s Mega-Teaser for Unfinity

Before previews for Unfinity officially begin, I thought it would be fun to do another of my Duelist-style teasers where I give tiny hints of things to come. Note that I’m only giving you partial information. Because Unfinity is filled with more strangeness than the average set, I’m doing a mega-teaser where I tease even more than normal.

First up, here are some things you can expect:

• a card that can become almost two-hundred and fifty different cards for the turn

• a card that enchants your graveyard

• a card which requires you to use pantomime

• an enchantment subtype appears on an artifact for the first time

• a new subgame card in a color that’s never had one

• a card that can make one of five different artifact tokens that each don’t do anything

• an outside assistance card where the person assisting doesn’t even know

• a common command

• over ten new named abilities including best in show, gear up, and parade!

• a card that can make multiple Storm Crow tokens

• a cycle of “fill in the blank” cards

• multiple cards that let you win a prize

• a creature ability gets converted to a land ability

• a planeswalker that doesn’t do what you say

• a card that makes flying Cat tokens

• a cycle of cards that care about certain objects you can see from your seat

• another spell that lets you open a booster pack

• a card that gives you a resource to pay costs that no card has ever granted before

• a card that asks an outside person to rate something on a scale from 1 to 5

• between cards and stickers, over twenty-five nonevergreen/nondeciduous mechanics are returning

Next, here are some rules text that will be showing up on cards:

• “An opponent tells you a statement about themselves and secretly notes whether it’s true or false.”

• “Each player in an Un-game who can hear you may bid life.”

• “where X is the greatest number of stored results on it of the same value.”

• “except by creatures with flavor text”

• “for each item in its art that’s not touching CARDNAME, another item, or the card frame.”

• “As long as CARDNAME remains tapped, that effect doesn’t end.”

• “As CARDNAME enters the battlefield, choose a word with five or more letters.”

• “target non-Brushwagg creature”

• “Ask a person outside the game to choose which of them is most like a rock band.”

• “using the first letters of the names of permanents you control,”

• “As long as three or more hands are touching CARDNAME,”

• “first strike and a sword, vigilance and a shield, menace and mean eyes”

• “with the same artist and different names”

• “with #GuessThatMagicCard and no other text.”

• “any number of printed Clown Robot tokens that aren’t touching each other, that you hid on the battlefield”

• “choose A through M or N through Z.”

• “If the cracks in CARDNAME’s art are completely covered,”

• “An opponent chooses ‘the fastest’, ‘the scariest’ or ‘the weakest.’”

• “As CARDNAME enters the battlefield, choose a named Magic character.”

• “When you draw yourself, you win the game.”

Here is some reminder text that appears in the set:

• “Anything with two or more capitalized words in its name that begin with the same letter is alliterative.”

• “A top is an outerwear garment worn on the upper body.”

• “the card, not your head”

• “They can’t be blocked except by creatures with horsemanship.”

• “Align the tops of both cards to check.”

• “Don’t explain anything else. You choose targets.”

• “This creature has first strike as long as it’s blocking or being blocked by a creature that comes after it alphabetically.”

• “The vowels are A, E, I, O, U, and Y.”

• “This spell costs 1 less to cast for each Clown you control.”

• “It has their total power, total toughness, combined mana costs, all text boxes, names, art, and so on.”

• “Something is hot if it has hot things in its art, like fire or explosions.”

• “CARDNAME divides the battlefield into alpha, beta, and gamma sectors.”

• “Each time you gobble, take a bit of food or sacrifice a Food token.”

• “You can have two commanders if both have partner.”

• “It becomes 2/2, then 1/1, ½ / ½ , and so on.”

• “about 0.3 meters”

• “Creatures in a log together can’t be blocked unless they’re all blocked.”

• “Don’t touch other people’s phones without permission and be careful if you do.”

• “Places everyone! The first creature in line gets +0/+0.”

• “They continue to exist after they leave the battlefield.”

Finally, here are some creature type lines in the set:

• Creature - Rat Rogue

• Creature - Alien Insect

• Artifact Creature - Clown Robot Mime

• Creature - Dog Employee

• Creature – Beeble

• Creature - Frog Guest

• Creature - Human Hatificer Assassin

• Creature - Alien Squirrel

• Creature - Minotaur Child Guest

• Creature - Porcupine Performer

• Creature - Dinosaur Employee

• Creature - Zombie Coward Guest

• Artifact Creature - Plant Mutant Food

• Legendary Creature - Devil Performer

• Legendary Creature - Human Gamer

• Legendary Creature - Alien Ooze

• Legendary Creature - Human Pilot Employee

• Legendary Creature - Elephant Mouse Performer

• Legendary Creature - Human Clown Artificer

• Legendary Artifact Creature – Robot

Tune in tomorrow (Tuesday, September 20) on the official Magic YouTube channel or twitch.tv/Magic at 9AM to watch WeeklyMTG where we'll kickoff the week-long Unfinity preview. Blake Rasmussen and I will talk through the set including showing off Attractions and a number of exciting preview cards. Hope you can join us!

#Magic The Gathering #MTG #Unfinity #WotCStaff

242 notes · View notes

kiyfra · 1 year

Text

The third and final chapter of Katatsumuri is finished! It can be read here or on A03. Pokerus AU belongs to @monsoon-of-art.

"A creature given to melancholy. I suspect its metallic shell developed as a result of the mucus on its skin reacting with the iron in Hisui's water."

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

Gaeric’s tent was still coated in ice, a thick sheet of it forming a few days ago. The warden’s remaining hand had fallen off just as his arm and leg had, this time during the clan’s communal dinner. A loud crack was heard through the dining hall and the hand shattered like glass upon hitting the ground, drawing everyone’s attention. Gaeric had solemnly gotten up and announced he was going to bed, managing his crutch as best he could and ignoring his concerned clan mates offering to help. He kept his head down and headed to his tent with a thousand yard stare.

A heavy snow storm raged that night and come morning the tent was cocooned in a dense layer of ice, separating it from the outside world. Neither fire nor steel could put a dent in it; a complete black box where Gaeric was presumably undergoing the final stages of his metamorphosis.

Shouts asking if he was alright hadn’t produced a response, indeed nothing could be heard from within the ice chrysalis. Even if Gaeric was attempting to ride it out as stoically as possible, he would have wanted to reassure his worried clan members. Either he couldn’t hear them or he couldn’t answer, neither was comforting. There was an eerie stillness in the air as the clan waited.

Lian almost envied the solitude. He spent most of his time in his tent, withdrawn into his shell, hoping to blot out the world around him. He didn’t want anyone to see him like this, slimy, immobile, unable to fulfill his duties as a warden and completely dependent on others.

He had been transformed completely into a sliggoo, the painful process finally at an end after so many weeks. It had felt like a Fox resided in him and took delight in tormenting him. Lian could imagine sharp claws slowly dragging organs into place, muscles being stretched and molded. His entire body being rearranged as it saw fit, heedless of his cries begging it to stop. A metallic shell grew out of his skin, spiraling around his lower half as his legs atrophied.

With his transformation complete the thing had gone dormant, evidently satisfied with the new arrangement. Enzymes had finished dissolving his skeleton, his flesh was gluey to the touch and muscular tissue affixed to the absurdly heavy shell.

Lian just didn’t want to think or feel anything. Not the vicious cycle of his body excreting acidic mucus when he was stressed, then the awful disgusting feeling stressing him out more. Not about how he couldn’t keep being Lord Kleavor’s warden and how he’d be stuck like this forever. If he kept trying to retreat further back and concentrate on the smooth curved interior of his shell, he could pretend he didn’t even have a body.

People still came to bring him meals and check on him before Lian quickly dismissed them. He knew if he didn’t he’d have to endure awkward attempts at conversation and answer unwanted questions.

“How are you doing? You really shouldn’t spend all your time moping. Why don’t you join everyone else for dinner?”

What was he even supposed to say to that?

The clan respected his need for space and Lian knew he wasn’t the only one suffering. Very few across Hisui had escaped the bizarre infliction turning people into pokémon; PokéRus, as the Galaxy professor called it. Those that worked closely with pokémon turned first, meaning the wardens and clan leaders, but it soon spread to everyone. Snovers, bunearys, piloswines, sneasles and an assortment of others at differing stages of transformation became a common sight at the settlement.

It wasn’t much fun turning into a quadruped, losing opposable thumbs or gaining bizarre new dietary needs. Many had been trying to ignore their newfound desires to eat grass or raw meat. Lian himself found that anything with salt made him violently ill, so that meant he couldn’t eat any of the clan’s cured meat they had stored. He had mostly been eating soup, the liquid diet being the easiest on him since his teeth fell out.

A bowl of mushroom stew sat uneaten by his bedside, having gone cold an hour ago. Lian couldn’t stand the goopy squelching noises that came from him when eating. Eating sounds had always bothered and disgusted him, but were now unbearable. He was repulsed by the urge to let his own acid dissolve the food before eating or needing to use a chitinous tongue to eat anything solid. He could barely bring himself to eat the meals brought to him, only doing so at his partner’s insistence.

Goomy hadn’t left his side since he was brought to the settlement, frequently leaning against him in an attempt to comfort him and kicking up a fuss if he thought Lian was letting himself waste away.

He knew it was wrong to worry his partner like that, especially after the stunt he pulled in the mire lands. It had given him and Calaba quite a fright when Lord Kleavor started bellowing outside Calaba’s tent, carrying him by the scruff of his tunic, half-conscious.

His partner abruptly perked up, noticing someone approaching the camp briefly before Lian did. A small dewott treaded through the Pearl Clan settlement carrying a heavy satchel. They were beating a path directly to Lian’s tent, the physical details filled in long before they approached the door. Black nub ears poked out from a head-kerchief and a long scarf was wound snuggly around their neck. The locks of hair adorning both sides of their face like mock lop ears couldn’t have belonged to anyone else but Dawn.

She had clearly been swimming recently; water droplets still clung to her fur and her scarf was frozen stiff. Snow stuck to her fluffed up coat and ice crystals formed at the end of her whiskers. She was still pretty, even as a dewott.

A small paw rapped on the door to his tent. “Lian, can I come in?”

He really didn’t want Dawn to see him. He spent several seconds trying to think of a response, some way to send her away that wasn’t rude before she asked, “Are you okay?”

He didn’t dignify that with an answer. She seemed to realize her mistake and followed up with, “Right, that was a dumb question.”

There was an awkward pause as Dawn deliberated on what she should say or do next. No one in the Pearl Clan would take kindly to someone entering their home, their sacred space, without permission. If Lian told her to leave, there was nothing she could do.

After some deliberation, she decided to just go for it and state the reason for her visit.

“I brought you something,” Dawn announced, lifting her waterlogged satchel up. She clearly went out of her way to see him and there was no polite way to tell her to leave. Besides, Lian would be lying if he said he wasn’t intrigued by the gift and what she went swimming in the ice lands for.

His curiosity won out. “Come in.”

The dewott opened the door, shaking herself to clear the water and snow off before entering.

It was completely dark inside his tent save for the afternoon sun pouring through the now open door, giving his living space a depressing atmosphere. He was resting on the floor next to his bed, peering out over the edge of his shell self-consciously, with his partner Goomy beside him. He still wore his hat, without it he’d feel completely naked.

Lian’s tent had fallen into a state of disarray with his Pearl Clan uniform tossed carelessly onto the bed that could no longer support his weight, blankets strewn about on the floor and neatly arranged shelves of stones and minerals gathering dust. A lantern that hadn’t been used in some time sat upon a table next to his uneaten lunch.

Dawn closed the door behind her to avoid letting the heat escape, once again plunging the tent into darkness. She strode towards him before stumbling, her foot caught on one of the many blankets he had left lying around for his makeshift nest.

“May I put on a light?” the girl asked, clearly not wanting to impose.

Lian had no need for a light source in his current state and his partner was unbothered by the dim living space so it failed to occur to him that his guest would need one.

“My apologies, the lantern is on the table,” Lian said, mentally kicking himself for his lack of consideration.

Dawn stood on tip toes as she lit the lantern, the orange glow illuminating the cluttered abode.

“Please do forgive the mess. I wasn’t expecting company.”

She brushed it off as not a big deal as she sat down cross legged beside him, setting the satchel down on her lap. Goomy was happy to see her, sidling up and clamouring for attention. Dawn laughed as she pat his head. “Sorry, I didn’t bring anything for you.”

She returned her attention to the gift and opened her satchel.

“I went diving for rocks for your collection.”

He hadn’t expected that. Nobody really payed much attention to his lectures on minerals or the importance of stones. He was used to being politely tolerated when he tried to share his knowledge about ores and later admonished for boring people with long winded speeches.

“I thought there might be some interesting ones underwater you couldn’t find on land,” she explained, looking for a stone she deemed a good one.

Under normal circumstances Lian would have been stoked. He’d always wanted to investigate underwater rock formations and having a friend to spend the afternoon with, speculating about their composition and formation would have been the cherry on top.

It almost seemed cruel the opportunity would come now when he couldn’t fully appreciate such a gift with the loss of his eyesight. Never again would he be able to see the subtle flecks of mica in a sun stone or the deep blue of a water stone. Lian hoped his despondency wasn’t too apparent; it was a very thoughtful gesture and he didn’t want to come across as ungrateful.

“This one came from Heart’s Crag. I found it on the way over here,” Dawn said, passing one of the rocks over to him.

He accepted the gift and turned it over in his hands. It was a flat disk shaped stone, one that had been smoothed out by erosion at the bottom of a riverbed. A pleasing streak of quartz ran through it with a small pocket of crystals that hadn’t been worn down in the center.

Was it a pale grey, a dark black or perhaps a ruddy red? Would he forget what those looked like with time?

“So, what do you think?” Dawn asked, looking up at him hopefully.

He considered his response for a long minute.

“Thank you for the gift and for taking the time to visit me. I truly do appreciate your concern.“ Lian said finally, sounding too careful, too rehearsed.

He didn’t seem inclined to say much more, but Dawn wasn’t giving up that easily. Ignoring the implicit rejection, she searched her bag for another rock, one she brought specifically for this purpose.

Time to bring out the conversation starter.

“You know, I think I actually found gold!”

Dawn removed an ore from her bag and Lian’s senses informed him of the rigid cubes composing its shape, immediately guessing the girl’s mix up. She handed it to him for appraisal, confirming what he’d already suspected.

“This is pyrite, fool’s gold. The most obvious giveaway is the cubic structure, but if you look closely you can see striations on its surface,” he lectured his impromptu student, pointing to the parallel lines covering the exterior.

“Wow, you can tell all that just from touching it?” She sounded genuinely surprised.

“Sure I can, that’s child’s play! But this...“ he picked up the river stone to gesture with it. “I can’t tell you much besides that it’s probably igneous. The weight and density means it’s unlikely to be sedimentary and a cavity like this wouldn’t remain if it was metamorphic.”

Lian brought the stone in front of his face and squinted as if straining his eyes would cause them to miraculously start working again.

“I’d wager that a gas bubble was trapped in the quartz vein while it was still magma and a slow cooling process allowed larger crystals to form.”

It was clear from his tone that he didn’t consider the observation impressive. The girl looking up at him with wide eyes evidently disagreed.

“If you call that not knowing much then you must be a genius! It’s no wonder Lord Kleavor made you his warden!”

If the praise were coming from anyone else he would have agreed without hesitation. But praise from the girl turned dewott sitting cross legged in front of him caused his face to grow warm and he mumbled about how it wasn’t that impressive with uncharacteristic modesty.

Dawn rooted through her satchel again and brought out a handful of rocks. “What can you tell me about these?”

The two of them spent a solid hour going over the various stones collected from around Hisui, Dawn listening attentively as he lectured her about composition, formation and any other noteworthy facts.

Lian had a considerable base of knowledge to draw upon, but it was an interesting test of his abilities to identify minerals without visual information. He’d explain what he could discern about the rocks he had never seen before and account for how years underwater changed the ones he was familiar with, adding a new layer of complexity. He was surprised that he found himself enjoying the challenge.

Crystalline, gritty, porous; the shapes and textures told him a lot about their makeup and the environments they were formed in. He would speculate out loud and Dawn would interject with questions he was all too happy to answer.

A thought occurred to him. Did she deliberately choose stones that would be interesting from a tactile perspective? She’s so kind and intelligent...

Dawn finally brought out the last rock, a hunk of limestone embedded with many tiny shells. “They kind of look like helix fossils, but way smaller.”

“I wonder if they might have been juveniles of the species,” Lian pondered.

“No, baby omanytes are nowhere near that small,” Dawn said, recalling when Lucas bred one of his omastars and Professor Rowan’s lab was overrun by a swarm of the cute little buggers.

Lian looked at her incredulously. “How would you know?”

“Back home there were researchers that studied fossils. They could tell a lot about the pokémon they used to be and I was helping a professor with a research project.”

Dawn was careful not to mention she had live specimens to study. Explaining she was from a place where people had figured out how to revive species from fossils would sound far too suspicious, never mind telling anyone she was from the future.

Lian wasn’t wary or distrustful of her like some people were. There was already an amnesiac skyfaller that had been part of his clan for years, but Kleavor’s warden could still be rather prickly. A lot of people in Hisui were highly superstitious and Kamando had made it clear her place in Jubilife was conditional. No, the fewer people that knew, the better.

“I used to spend a lot of time in the Underground and I’d find a lot of fossils to bring back. I think you’d really like it there!”

Lian listened, enraptured as Dawn talked at length about the massive tunnel system that ran under her home region and how plenty of people built secret bases and went treasure hunting there. She spoke of rare evolution stones, rocks with mysterious effects on the weather, ores valued by collectors and fossils she sought after for her research.

“I’ve never found a skull fossil! My friends find them all the time, but I’ve never found one!” Dawn ranted, throwing her hands up in frustration.

Lian swung his head towards her, his eyes narrowing gave the impression he was staring straight at her.

“Didn’t you say you lost your memories?” he blurted out, his tone probably sounding more accusatory than he meant it to.

“Well, er-“

In her excitement, Dawn had forgotten she was supposed to be playing the role of a poor amnesiac girl.

“I- I started remembering some things recently!” she hastily explained.

A flash of inspiration struck her. “After my first battle with Ingo I started recalling some things about my home. Battles have been jogging my memory lately.”

Lian’s expression didn’t change. Dawn wasn’t sure if he believed the lie or not; either way he didn’t challenge her on it. It’s not like he could prove she was lying.

Itching to change the subject, she asked, “Actually, I’ve got a question. Obsidian is formed by volcanoes right? But I’ve seen scythers and gravelers carrying pieces of Black Augurite. So how does it get all the way to the Fieldlands?”

“There are large deposits in the Obsidian Fieldlands.” Lian accepted the change in topic, eager to discuss anything relating to his passions with such an inquisitive student. “That’s actually where it gets it’s name! My current theory is that they were picked up and moved by glaciers during the ice age.”

Goomy had started to doze off, content to leave the two of them to their geology lesson. A thick bubble of snot formed, expanding and deflating with his snores.

“But not all obsidian is Black Augurite. Every warden to a Noble Kleavor has to learn how to distinguish the evolution stone from regular obsidian.”

Lian had extended pretty far out of his shell, drawn up and excitedly gesturing for emphasis.

“Of course, I learned long before anyone ever considered me for the position. It was only natural Lord Kleavor recognized my aptitude and chose me to be his warden.”

He already had several pieces stored away for when the Lord of the Woods chose his heir. Lian was quite familiar with the largest and most powerful of his children, an alpha scyther that he allowed to share his territory.

They were quite an impressive specimen with a sturdy carapace and serrated scythes who the Lord wouldn’t even considered for the position, for the usual reasons alphas were passed over. Far too aggressive and preoccupied with their own standing, they held little appreciation for the duties and expectations the Noble title conferred. Lord Kleavor and his warden would just have to keep an eye on his offspring to determine which of his children was a worthy successor.

Would he ever ever get to present his Black Augurite to an heir? Lian tried to imagine tending to his Noble as a sliggoo and nothing seemed right. How could he possibly gather the plump beans for Lord Kleavor and his children, let alone present offerings covered in cold snot? A sliggoo couldn’t socialize baby scythers and get them used to humans.

Lian retreated back into his shell, his eyes barely visible from under the brim of his hat. “I might have to give mine away...” he said, his voice tiny.

“What? Why?” she exclaimed, her eyes wide with surprise and worry.

He took a deep breath, hoping his words would convey his conundrum and testiness wouldn’t creep into his voice. “I don’t believe I can continue being a warden in my current state. Lord Kleavor deserves to have a warden that can properly tend to him.”

Dawn stared at him quizzically. “Because you turned into a pokémon? I don’t know who you think would replace you then. Everyone has been infected.”

“Someone who wouldn’t offend Lord Kleavor with offerings covered in mucus!” Lian would have grit his teeth if he still had any, feeling a surge of irritation at her failure to comprehend his predicament.

She blinked. “Then wear gloves!”

Dawn had stood up to shout, startling Goomy awake, his sleep bubble bursting with a loud pop.

Lian was running out of patience. “I have to fill and bring a basket to Grandtree Arena at least twice daily, often more. How do you expect me to carry it?”

“You can work something out!” She let out an exasperated sigh. “Lian, what exactly is your plan here? Are you just going to spend the rest of your life sulking in your room?”

By now Lian was fuming at her, gripping the edge of his shell and wishing she could feel the rage that must be coming off of him in waves, lest he say something he would later regret.

Dawn continued. “Look, I don’t know what’s going to happen, maybe you can’t be a warden anymore. But there are problems of yours that you can solve.”

He had half a mind to yell at her to get out. This sort of discussion was exactly what he didn’t want and why he had turned everyone else away. Had she planned this from the start? Lian felt a sting of betrayal at her entering his home to talk under such false pretenses.

“All of this is easy for you to say when you’re still walking around, on two legs I might add, with all your senses working just fine and your skeleton intact.” Lian started, venom dripping from his words.

Goomy shrunk in on himself, trying to look as small as possible knowing this was going to turn ugly.

“But some of us have to face the indignities of not even being able to get out of our beds or homes without assistance. Do you know that when I have to relieve myself I need to have Paulina carry me away and bring me back? So don’t lecture me on what I should be doing when you had it easy!”

Dawn stared at him in stunned silence. He wasn’t sure if his rebuke had sounded as poignant as he intended or if he had sounded petulant to her.

“I had it easy? My mom and my friends don’t know where I am and probably think I’m dead and I’ll never get to see them again!”

Lian knew he screwed up. His anger quickly fizzled away and was replaced by an uneasy regret, but Dawn wasn’t finished yet.

“The Galaxy Team decided that I had to risk my life to save your Nobles and people still think that I’m to blame for all this! Do you think I can just mope around in my room? No, I have to work my butt off every single day if I don’t want to be left to fend for myself in the wilderness! And I've got to do all of this while knowing I’m never going to go home and I don’t even get to be a human!”

Dawn stood there with her hands balled into fists and shaking, looking like she was about to cry.

If Lian thought his ire was palpable, her rage could have incinerated him on the spot. He wanted nothing more than retreat into his shell to hide in shame.

“I’m not going to stand here and argue with you over which of us has it worse. But don’t you dare tell me I had it easy!” Her voice cracked as she finished her tirade.

Lian struggled to find the words that could properly express the guilt prickling at him. How could he have said something so blatantly disrespectful to the girl that had calmed his Lord and scoured Hisui for gifts to cheer him up? It was several agonizingly long minutes before he found the ability to speak again.

“I’ve allowed my frustrations to get the better of me and I spoke out of turn. You have my sincerest apologies for such unwarranted hostility.”

The mechanical sounding apology seemed horribly inadequate and Dawn remained impassive. He made a point of turning his face towards her to create the illusion he was looking her in the eye.

“I lost my mother too, several years ago. I understand what it’s like knowing you’ll never see someone again.” He pulled down the brim of his hat. “I’m sorry.”

Dawn sniffed and wiped at her eyes with the back of her paw as she sat back down. “Neither of us wants things to be this way, but they are and there’s nothing we can do about that. Why don’t we focus on what we can change?”

She opted not to mention her studies with Volo into the myths of Hisui’s legendary hero or both of their search for the plates. The merchant believed something similar happened long ago and the plates held the solution to Hisui’s current predicament. While Volo was convinced and Dawn was inclined to trust his judgment, she remained cautiously optimistic without much else to go off of. She didn’t want to get Lian’s hopes up in case that didn’t pan out.

“What would you have me do?” Lian asked.

Goomy squeaked for his trainer’s attention and drew itself up as tall as possible, swaying slightly before tucking his head down and performing the slowest somersault one could imagine.

Lian understood what he was suggesting. He had seen sliggoos rolling on the sides of their shells like a wheel as their primary means of traversal. It was such a bizarre form of locomotion and seemed so disorientating. How were you supposed to stop or steer?

“That’s a great idea Goomy!” Dawn agreed with his partner. “Lian, why don’t we spend the rest of the day figuring out how you can roll around? It would probably help you feel better about yourself.”

Previously, he would immediately shut down at the idea whenever he considered his mobility needs, a sheer gut punch refusal to entertain the notion. But he needed some way to get around. What other choice did he have? Besides, wardens don’t sulk.

He let out a beleaguered sigh. “Sure, might as well roll down to Avalugg’s Legacy. That seems like a productive way to spend the afternoon.”

“I’m just trying to help...” Dawn looked away, hurt in her voice.

“I-I wasn’t being sarcastic!” he clarified. “I appreciate your help and I truly am sorry for acting like such an ingrate.”

She cheered up immediately. “That’s okay!”

The dewott girl marched over to the door and swung it open, a gust of cold air sweeping through the room.

Wait, right now?

“Don’t worry, you’ve got this!” Dawn grinned as she gave the thumbs up with both hands.

Now wasn’t the time to get cold feet. Taking a deep breath to calm his nerves, he gripped the edge of his shell and hoisted himself upright in one motion, balancing precariously on his side.

Lian had no idea what to do next and remained there, paralyzed by indecision until he felt himself starting to tip over. He gave an alarmed shout and flailed uselessly before Dawn and Goomy rushed over to catch his fall, Dawn straining under the weight as she tried to push him over with her back and shoulder.

It was clear he couldn’t balance on his side and he needed momentum, so he withdrew into his shell and took a guess, throwing himself against the inside of the shell to roll forward. He moved forward slightly, and feeling encouraged, tried again.

He started to pick up momentum as he rolled towards the door, the weight lifted off of Dawn and Goomy. He felt like he was starting to get the hang of it as he tried to time his forward pitches, his friends cheering as he gained speed. With an air of confidence, Lian rolled straight out the door and into the frigid afternoon air of the camp. As the winding path through the settlement and tents dotting the hill stood before him, he realized his mistake.

The boy panicked as he slowly rolled over the crest of the hill with no way to stop or slow down. Everything seemed to happen in slow motion at the precipice and gave him plenty of time to understand what was going to happen next. One moment he was barely moving, then all at once his heart plunged as he rapidly gained speed and was sent barreling through the camp.

Lian shouted as hard as he could to warn anyone that might be in his path, his voice echoing inside his shell deafeningly. Pearl Clan members in various stages of metamorphosis looked up from what they were doing, eyes widening in alarm and diving out of the way of the steel juggernaut heading their way.

More voices joined in the panicked shouting as he smashed through a water barrel and a clothes line, scattering clean laundry to the wind. It barely even slowed him down as he whirled past clans folk exiting their tents to see what the commotion was.

His brain was swiftly processing every bump and dip in the terrain, but he had no idea what to do with it. There was no way he’d be able to follow the footpath that wound back and forth, instead his route to the camp’s exit would take him over several harsh drops and dangerously close to many people’s tents.

Experimentally, he tried to lean to the side to turn. When that threatened to tip him over, he over corrected and added a dangerous wobble to his trajectory, swerving wildly back and forth.

The pandemonium went unnoticed by a snorunt boy only a few years older than him who was preoccupied with chopping firewood. A bolt of panic went through him and he screamed at the top of his lungs for him to get out of the way, terrified his warning wouldn’t be heeded in time.

The kid looked up and dropped his axe before throwing himself against his tent, just barely clipped by the five hundred pound armoured wheel barreling past him. The kid screamed as they narrowly avoided being flattened.

The spike in adrenaline from the close call caused something to shift in Lian’s brain, some pathway that was previously closed was now open. Lian gasped as claws raked through his mind like those of a Fox, or something equally as angry and spiteful. They gripped and dug into him to tear him away from his body, to leave something else at the helm.

The world faded away as those claws dragged him down, made him small and rendered him a passenger in his own mind. Lian tried to scream but no sound came out, his voice and psyche swallowed up by the darkness.

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

It all made sense now. He knew exactly how far to lean in order to turn, how to compensate for every irregularity in the terrain. How to work with the momentum and how he could stop on a dime. His shell wasn’t a ball and chain restraining him, it was freedom, it was movement itself. Just as his legs had been before, his shell was a natural extension of himself; a self-contained world, a shelter, a shield and a weapon.

With his mastery, he’d see prey driven before him. Unable to escape in time before he chased them down, painful squeals as their bones cracked, bursting open and steam rising from the entrails as they were crushed. Delicious meat would spill out onto the ground then he and his odd pack would feast.

His kind were not avid hunters, typically feeding on plant matter and carcasses left behind by other predators. But he was no ordinary sliggoo, he was part of a pack of alphas, larger and more voracious than other members of their species.

He’d learn to hunt and hone his skills as a predator to prove he deserved his place amongst them. Dragging back the large kills dripping with viscera would show everyone that he wasn’t a runt that constantly needed to be looked after. Tearing and battering, he’d bloody himself fending off their rivals as many times as he needed to until they never looked down on him again.

And he’d do it because he loved them.

Because he wanted to provide for his kin, to be able to protect them when needed. His body flushed with warmth at the thought of his pack feeding from his kills, growing stronger from the meat together.

And he’d do it to the impress her.

The mighty huntress whose prowess in combat dwarfed that of even the Nobles. A warrior that presided over an enormous pack that brought so many alphas to heel and a roaming territory that spanned all of Hisui.

As he matured into a proper alpha, he would approach her looking to be accepted as her mate. Already she had brought gifts for him to decorate his nest; she was considering him as a potential suitor, he was sure of it.

They were both juveniles, but had already proven so much to their respective packs. Fearless, they defied expectations and met challenges their contemporaries shied away from, ascending the ranks.

What had he done again? It didn’t matter; he would kill and kill again until everyone had their fill, then he would start his courtship.

He would need to bring an appropriate gift to demonstrate his caliber as a mate; fresh meat from a hunt would display his aptitude as a predator and show he was worthy of being consort.

He could start with the dewott that had wandered into their territory...

“WATCH OUT!”

The shout from the Survey Corps girl snapped Lian back to reality, with such alien, animalistic thoughts already fading from memory and leaving a cold uneasy dread in their place.

He had no time to ponder what happened as he was still steamrolling through the camp, now on a collision course with Gaeric’s tent.

The frozen obelisk was fast approaching, the boy rattling inside his shell with the ground becoming more uneven. Lian remained petrified as he rocketed over a large bump and he was suddenly launched airborne. He helplessly sailed through the air like a shot put, spinning head over tail as he braced for impact.

He ricocheted off the pillar of ice with a loud clang and landed hard some distance away on the packed snow, the crash knocking the wind out of him.

Dawn trotted down the slope towards the crowd that had gathered, carrying Goomy in front of her with two paws.

“-ian! Lian, are you alright?”

He was still too dazed to process what she was saying and was busy trying to understand the strange gap in his memory. There was an odd jump where one moment he was on the foot path towards the camp’s entrance, then the next he was careening towards the ice chrysalis.

“Lian?”

Right, he needed to answer her.

“I’m okay. It just stunned me.”

“No kidding! You got quite a bit of hang time!” she exclaimed, setting Goomy down beside her.

All things considered, Lian supposed that could have gone much worse. Already he was thinking of what he could have done better. The boy turned sliggoo now had some understanding of what proper direction and movement would entail, more than his practice session alone could have taught him.

Deep down, Lian knew that if he looked inside himself he’d find all the information he needed. His body would no longer feel like a stranger to him and he would be free to use any move he had at his disposal. Everything about being a sliggoo would become second nature.

Such a deal would come at a terrible cost, one he’d never willingly accept, but Lian was beginning to suspect that he frankly didn’t have a choice in the matter.

There was a loud crack that rang through the camp that sounded like an ice sheet breaking. Lian and the rest of the Pearl Clan immediately went on the alert, always vigilant for such a sound as it signalled the possibility of an avalanche.

The mountains surrounding the camp and their slopes were shaped in such a way that they usually directed avalanches away from the settlement, having been sculpted by a Noble Avalugg long ago. The camp was not at risk of being buried, but even the small ones that came down the settlement’s side could be dangerous.

The gathered clan members were trying to locate the source as they rounded up children and elders, prepared to evacuate them to safety until a girl with buneary ears shouted “Look!” pointing to a large fracture in the ice encasing Gaeric’s tent.

D-did... did I do that?

As the minutes crawled by, more tiny cracks spread out and bits of ice chipped and broke off. Though a slow process, the shards that fell off melted supernaturally fast, gone in a matter of seconds.

Any thought of spending the afternoon on practice was long gone as the Pearl Clan gathered, barely daring to breathe as they waited to see what emerged.

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

“It has trouble drawing a line between friends and food. It will calmly try to melt and eat even those it gets along well with.”

#pokemon #pokerus au #body horror #writting #pla #pokemon legends arceus #warden lian #pla lian

52 notes · View notes

anhed-nia · 2 months

Text

I finally finished reading The Phantom of the Opera, which is a total mess and often mind-numbing, but one of its main crimes involves this device I often see in pulp fiction that's sort of curious. Gaston Leroux has a lot of trouble figuring out what you can just summarize versus what you need to describe in detail, and when you should do those things. For instance:

The Phantom's main demand is that the opera's resident diva should make way for Christine. He also wants a dedicated box, and an allowance of $20,000. The managers are skeptical of the widely-believed rumor that the Phantom is a real ghost (because why would a ghost need money?), and assume someone is scamming them. They ignore the Phantom's demands, which incurs an act of violence--and that's the whole narrative purpose of these guys, to provoke the Phantom one time so we can tell he means business. And the main thing is Christine, who is the center of the entire plot; the money part is so inconsequential that it doesn't even make it into most adaptations. It's not as if the Phantom specifically needs money For Something, and also the managers aren't in danger of bankruptcy or whatever. When you take the money out of the story, it continues to function in exactly the same way, this is really not a load-bearing issue.

However, what happens is that in the third act when Christine is mysteriously kidnapped out of the middle of a performance and you feel like FINALLY something exciting is going to happen, suddenly we're forced to rewind an hour or two so we can spend time with the managers who are having a complicated conversation about the Phantom's allowance and also still debating whether the Phantom is real. At this point I know the Phantom is real, Christine knows, her stupid not-boyfriend Raoul knows, and the only thing that really matters is saving Christine and hopefully having some kind of thrilling final showdown (which doesn't happen btw)...but we're stuck with these two pointless characters who spend literally around 20 pages arguing about how it is that the Phantom's allowance is conveyed to him. Like what's the method of administration there. It's incredibly uninteresting and doesn't serve the plot really at all. And at the very end of the book the Phantom gives back all the money, so it turns out that we didn't even need to spend time on this idea in the first place.

BUT we are not done with this topic. During the epilogue the narrator, who has been aggregating all this testimony about the Phantom debacle, goes back to one of the survivors and asks him how the money moves around, and there's this extremely dull description of exactly how the Phantom was able to creep around everywhere--something we already take for granted about him by now--and then there is even further discussion of how the Phantom gave all the money back, which affects nothing. Also in the epilogue is a brief summary of the Phantom's actually-interesting backstory of being a carnival freak and an ingenious polymath who learned the art of villainy from a sadistic sultan's daughter--like oh my god, why is this not in the main story where the 20 pages of money talk is just taking up space and slowing everything down?? But that's the kind of thing that Gaston Leroux thinks is not that cool and he can just casually shove it up the ass end of the story to check a box.

What this made me think about, besides how bad the book is despite the story's enduring popularity, is that there's kind of a thing in pulp writing where MONEY just becomes involved for its own sake. And let me be more specific, because I realize that money is a common motivator of many kinds of genre plots: Heists are a whole subgenre, terrorists in action movies usually want money, money is essential to any mob-related story, and actually there was a whole rash of "recession horror" movies in the last 10-15 years (think KNIVES OUT). But often when you're reading a horror novel, or something like that where the main plot is not finance-related, it happens that the hero experiences a huge windfall or discovers a major stash, and it can be a convenience to explain how they get from Point A to Point B, but it often feels like it's just there for the thrill of it. When we think about the exploitation elements of genre storytelling, we usually think about scenes of "gratuitous" sex and violence that mainly exist to provide titillation and catharsis, but I think there is a kind of pornography of money that sometimes enters the picture for the same reasons. In the (awful) Girl With the Dragon Tattoo series, Lisbeth's ability to steal is indulged with great interest, but it isn't just about the thrill of the caper or its effects on the bad guys; there are quite long (and strangely sort of good) stretches that just involve Lisbeth alone administrating her hoard, shopping, looking at apartments, taking little trips, etc. They're just languorous descriptions of what it would be like to have money, designed to inspire a sense of desire and pleasure in the reader that isn't much related to the story. Knowing that author Stieg Larsson had been a broke journalist who ate nothing but McDonald's all the time seems to explain this to some degree. I'm sure there are also examples of this in the work of Stephen King, who grew up without indoor plumbing for a time. Not that you need to have been dirt poor to understand the pornography of money, but I'm sure it helps. I wish I could think of more concrete examples, I just know it's very familiar. If you read any amount of genre fiction, you've probably thought of some yourself.

10 notes · View notes

t0adst00l · 4 months

Text

Here’s some world building I’ve been working on recently!

The Red Queen and the motif of chess and playing cards in AiW got me thinking about the other rulers of Wonderland! I like to think they each rule an equal sect of Wonderland and cooperate peacefully but in their own unorthodox ways. The top left is of course our Red Queen, the top right is the Sovereign of Spades (Any pronouns), the bottom left is the Duchess of Diamonds (she/they), and the bottom right is the King of Clubs (he/him)

The Red Queen/Queen of Hearts ♥️

We know the most about the Red Queen’s court from the show/other media. The people in her court are team players, excel in social skills, and love being there for others. The main focus in the Red Queen’s court is the arts and healing; creativity flourishes in things like parties, plays, and concerts. Nothing is too ambitious of an endeavor when done in the pursuit of artistic expression. However, sometimes residents of this court can be a little touchy at times, and spontaneity can lead to poor execution in the end.

The Sovereign of Spades ♠️

The Court of Spades is a very militant and valor-centric state full of people with warrior hearts. Think of them as Wonderland’s Mandalorians, they prove their worth in friendly sparring matches, and uphold a very strict code of honor. The height of achievement is winning in battle, or losing with the scars to prove you fought. Being injured in sparring/battle earns you the highest honors. Even though the citizens of this court come off as a little brooding and intimidating at first, they enjoy a good deal of celebration (when it’s earned of course) and party hard when they do. Events like fencing, jousting, boxing, wrestling, and martial arts are common in the court of Spades. The downside to this court is the physical demand it puts on its people; training for hours a day, getting hurt during sparring, and even paralyzation or death.

The Duchess of Diamonds ♦️

The Court of Diamonds focuses heavily on intellect, appearances, and devotion. Residents in this court love learning new things no matter what it is, and pride themselves in their range of know-how. Academia is the height of civilization here, and there are schools everywhere dedicated to all types of trades. Spelling bees, scholarly debates/discussions, and quests to recover historical objects are often held by the court of Diamonds. Open-mindedness and the willingness to see new perspectives is greatly appreciated by the people here. The downside to the Court of Diamonds is that if one struggles with things like attention span or performance anxiety during tests, they will fall further and further down the social hierarchy. People who struggle to perform well academically experience greater pressure and sometimes ostracism by their peers in fear they won’t be caught up with their ability.

The King of Clubs ♣️

The court of Clubs is ruled with hard work, dedication, and follow-through. Agriculture is the main occupation for most of those who inhabit this court. Your keep is earned by an honest day’s work, and leisure is meant to be a private, almost shameful activity. Like the Court of Spades, athleticism is also enjoyed recreationally by its people. The quality and quantity of one’s work is their source of pride and worth. This is the court Clover is originally from; she found the demand by her peers to do her absolute best at all times to be paralyzing. Her unorthodox methods mixed with her eclectic way of thinking made her feel out of place amongst her fellows. She still struggles with setting her standards higher than she’s able to reach, but being in the Red Queen’s court helps her take a step back and breathe. The downside to this court is of course the crushing expectations, especially at the expense of personal injury. If you aren’t working as hard as you can, then you’re wasting your time with whatever else you may be doing instead.

If anyone wants to make their own AiW OC based on the courts I’ve designed I would absolutely love to see them! Please tag me so I can see it :)

#adventures in wonderland #alice in wonderland #oc art #diamonds #queen of hearts #clubs #spades #aiw1992 #AiW #worldbuilding #ocs

10 notes · View notes

travissimblr · 2 years

Text

Sunset Valley - Fixed and Renovated. World Download

Sunset Valley Renewal

What is this?

-Sunset Valley map edited in CAW to group all of the new community lots from all the expansion into their own neighborhood. Original road layout is still in place just a few extra lots added. -Relocated Most of the expansion community Lots that EA took absolutely no effort to place within the world. Almost all of the EA Expansion lots were facing the wrong direction, incorrect lot sizes etc. Now they are all in one location with the exception of the Equestrian lot as its requires a large lot so that lot has been left in its original location. ( I might update this in the future by adding a new lot within CAW) -Multiple Residential lots have been relocated in order to accommodate the new Community lots but all of the original EA lots/families are still within the world. -Fixed many of the ugly roof lines of the original EA builds. -Every House has been "toned down" with more neutral colors inside. No more mustard and olive green bathrooms and kitchens! -Multiple houses have been redesigned to a more functional floor plan. For Example: Plus Plus no longer has that ugly tree house looking addition to the back of the house. It now resembles a colonial style two story home. -Most homes have had their exterior colors either changed or toned down from their Crayola box colors.

I have to say this is to my tastes. I admit I am a fan of blues and grays so there might be a bit of a common theme with some lots. I did go out of my comfort zone quite a bit however and used some color. Overall this is a drastic improvement over the vanilla game while trying to keep the same feel of the original Sunset Valley.

** I have all of the expansion packs and some stuff packs installed. I also own some store content but I don't think any of it was used. This isn’t necessary to use this world. If you start the game and see some missing windows etc that just means you don't have that expansion/pack. You can just replace whats missing. The game world will still work fine. **

**Scroll for File and Pics **

The Pics...

This is an Example of how EA added Expansion pack lots into the game. The building is facing the wrong direction and placed in an odd location on the map.

New Commercial District with most of the Expansion pack lots. Fire Station, Clubs, Laundromat, Consignment Store etc.

Before....

After...

Interior Before..... So much Mustard and Olive green... Yuck!

After. Neutral colors and doesn’t make your eyeballs hurt.

Before... I don’t even know what this is lol

After... Removed that weird diagonal bit, rotated the lot cleaned up the roof lines.

Before....

After. Because everyone loves a grungy trailer.

FILE:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/4bj3icoveb1l756/Sunset%20Valley%20Renewal.zip?dl=0

Installation:

Please read through these instructions carefully. Most people should understand how to do this but I prefer not having to answer questions on what should be very simple instructions.

1. Unzip the file to a separate folder. You should see a file called Sunset Valley Renewal.Sims3Pack (World File) and a folder called Sunset Valley Renewal.sims3 (Game Save)

2. Copy the Sunset Valley Renewal.Sims3Pack to you Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\Downloads. In Windows 10/11 you can just open up File Explorer and in the left bar you will see "Documents" otherwise it will be copied to X:\Users\(Your Windows Login Name)\Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\Downloads. Keep the Sims 3 Folder open as you will need this again in a few steps.

3. Open The sims 3 launcher (S3Launcher.exe). Click on Downloads. If you copied the world file to the correct location you should see Sunset Valley Renewal there. Click on the check box to the left of the name and click install. A box will pop up. Wait for it to finish installing. Close the box and then close the launcher.

4. Next you will need to install my save game in order to have the world be populated. Otherwise if you start a new game the world will be empty. All of the lots will be there but there will be no sims in any of the houses.

5. Copy the folder Sunset Valley Renewal.sims3 to Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\Saves. Be sure to copy the entire folder over not just the files inside of the folder.

6. Now you're done! If you copied the save game correctly when you start the game you should see a new save called Sunset Valley Renewal. Load this up and you're good to go. Do not start a New Game with the world or the world will be unpopulated! Of course you can always play with the world unpopulated and populate it with your own sims but if you want it populated use the save.

7. Another note... If you want to be able to start a new game in this world in the future after loading into the world Save As and rename it to whatever you want that way in the future you will be able to use my save to start fresh in Sunset Valley again.

Thanks and Enjoy!

**Please feel free to share this, all I ask is that you link back to this post for the file.**

#ts3 #ts3world #sims3 #sims 3 worlds #sims 3 #ts3 download

116 notes · View notes

2d-dreams · 10 months

Note

Hi, happy WBW! (As usual, I am @writeblr-of-my-own, this is my main and apparently I can't switch them).

I am hungry and it's almost lunchtime for me, so for today's question let's talk food! If someone were to come in your world, what would be the best places to eat food there? What does a typical dish look like? Are there differences between cities?

I wanted to follow this with art and lots of details, but my body isn't allowing that, so I'll just answer with what I got.

Flatlanders' diets are mostly made up by vegetables and legumes. They might add fruit and insects – insects are any living being that can fit in their mouth entirely.

Any typical Flatlander dish, from their view, doesn't really look like anything, even to the most intellectual and well-practiced sighted Circles. From above, many different dishes may look near identical.

Flatlanders mostly tell them apart by texture, telling apart different vegetables by the angles or number of bumps in their perimeters. [cooking is too low for any self-respecting Polygon to do, only Isosceles and Women do it, so Feeling the ingredients is fine.] There is also the more delicate recognition by smell [and by extension and quite obviously, taste]

Leafy vegetables, their flowers and their seeds are a staple of Flatlander cuisine because they don't make much of a mess. Some fruit and all animals become a mess when killed, as instead of flesh they only have juices inside, which spill and are a hassle to deal with. Small animals make less of a/no mess or can be eaten in one bite. Big animals aren't worth the time and effort, and are dangerous to keep, so beyond beasts of burden they don't see much use.

The favorite animals for Flatland consumption are bees! They're small enough, and soft enough thanks to their nearly circular bodies. They also keep a unique taste related to the plants they fed on, usually being sweet. They also produce other foods like eggs, honey, larvae, and pollinize crops. They're awesome.

[Fun fact, some of the queens of the species of bees that are commonly kept by 2D beekeepers feed off of the body juices of other animals instead of nectar/etc like their workers. Many Irregulars are fed to the bees...]

They likely have a domesticated cow-like animal exclusively for milk and related products. [And food for the b e e s. and bones. Maybe scrap off the little amount of skin on their perimeters for food.]

Seasoning is usually done through sauces/salsas - you mix whatever specific stuff you want, and add in a special ingredient. You can either wrap the food inside of a string of solidified sesson-sauce like a weird taco or drop it in liquid form into the dish, coating it with the sauce that will quickly semi-solidify on the food. Yes they can be sweet too!

Some of the most common dishes include..

A mix of several different vegetables, flower petals, seeds and legumes. Usually the seeds/etc will be wrapped in a leaf of the vegetable. A dry version is just this, but a juicy version may add dead bees or small fruit. Like a salad. The name translated might be "flowerbed". Like tacos, eggs or toast, a basic nice meal.

Two different types of bread. Flat bread [known as dimbread] and fluffy bread [brightbread].

Flat bread is simple, easy, straightforward. It does not rise like our bread, but its relatively soft.

Fluffy bread is more like ours, filled with little pockets of air that give it the fluff. To make it this way, they put the liquid batter in a closed box at high heat, where it will turn to gas, expanding to all the space inside. When it is gas it must be cooled down extremely quickly.

Theres prob more but its 432 am

#flatland #asks

12 notes · View notes

iviarellereads · 7 months

Text

Rogue Protocol, Chapter 2

(Curious what I'm doing here? Read this post! For the link index and a primer on The Murderbot Diaries, read this one!)

In which Murderbot tries to figure out why this feels different.

(As an aside, my apologies if I use she/her pronouns for Miki at any point during its presence. For some reason, I have no problem tracking Murderbot as it, and I only rarely get the impulse to gender Art with he/him, but my brain will not stop trying to she/her Miki because it's so soft and sweet and a perfect cinnamon roll, even though that's not necessarily gendered at all. Incredible how we internalize our perceptions of gender, even after a good ten years of trying to deprogram myself, and spending most of those out as nonbinary myself!)

MB takes a shortcut off the transport, so it doesn't have to spend more time with the doomed humans it can't save. It's becoming old hat to hack SecSystems to allow it through weapons scans. It stops to buy some data clips, noticing that its hard currency card still has lots left on it, and thinks that Tapan and crew must have paid it generously.(1)

MB finds the transport headed for Milu, and confirms its details. It's on a 47-cycle schedule, and expects to be cleared within two cycles. MB normally likes to negotiate passage, but this one is so limited in scope, it just hacks its memory to board. MB scouts the ship and its capabilities, and settles on a bunk, not realizing the bedding in one of the lockers is there for a reason.

Twenty-ish hours later, the life support cycles on. MB queries the transport, and gets word that two passengers are boarding, and the transport is now filing a departure time. MB hustles to a less-accessible locker, and stuffs itself into the back, hiding itself behind supplies. With the transport's drones, it has a decent idea of what's going on outside, even without security cameras.

Sixteen minutes later, the lock cycled and two passengers came aboard. Two augmented humans, carrying traveling packs and a couple of cases I recognized immediately. Combat gear, including armor and weapons.

MB is a little surprised, as its understanding is that bots are much more commonly used for combat than humans, even with the corporate and political entities that have treaties against combat bot use. Or, at least, those sorts of entities finding a way around the restrictions is a common plot on serials from outside the Corporation Rim.(2)

The humans don't talk much, but it was too much to hope, really, that they would say why they're going to Milu. MB sets the drones up to record, and settles in with its shows until it has enough to run analysis.

It took twenty cycles by Ship’s local time to get to Milu.

MB thought it would be fine, as it can remember being shipped in transport boxes and cubicles for longer trips. But, it's gotten accustomed to traveling as a human, not cargo. In the end, it's used to having freedom of movement.

It's rather relieved when the ship reports it's on approach to Milu. Only, the station feed is completely lifeless, and it creeps MB out, even knowing the station is approaching final shutdown for the same reason it's here to investigate.

MB checks the analysis of the drone recordings, and finds that the two humans, Wilken and Gerth, are security consultants, subcontracted for GoodNightLander Independent, or GI. They filed abandonment on GrayCris's deserted facility, trying to take possession and prevent its disintegration. The research group these two are hired to work for were sent by GI to report on the station's status. It's exactly the job MB and its model are designed for, but there's no bond and no SecUnits involved.(3)

As the ship docks, MB puts all the memory chips into a space under the skin next to its right arm's energy weapon, since it's going to leave the knapsack in the locker. It disembarks a safe time after the humans leave, poking around to see if they left anything behind first, but no luck. It leaves the ship in a maintenance status, and makes it think it needs MB's permission to leave, so it won't be stranded.

It disembarks, and follows Gerth and Wilken on the working security cameras, using its code to delete itself from those same cameras. The humans head to what a schematic says is the Port Authority/Cargo Control office. A motion-sensitive ad goes off in front of MB as it makes its way, and it barely doesn't scream. It's never seen emergency marker paint used that way before and hates it very much.

MB finds a maintenance/weapon scanner drone, and repurposes it for spying. The humans have found two other humans, and a human-form bot. MB has complex feelings about all-construct bots like this one. They aren't popular, because their capabilities are unremarkable, and they're often used to portray the evil SecUnits in the media, which MB isn't annoyed at one bit.

The new humans are introduced as Don Abene and Hirune, and the bot as Miki. Introducing a bot is highly unusual, and the consultants mostly ignore it. Abene hopes they won't need security, but there's no way to be sure before they go in.

They go over some possible scenarios, and MB feels a little smug about two things: one, that it knows more about terraforming than these clown security humans, and two, that even humans sometimes find it hard to hide their facial expressions.

As the humans head inside and keep talking, though, Miki looks up, directly at the drone MB is watching through. It focuses directly on the camera.(4) MB looses the drone, wiping its memory, and letting it go back to its normal patrol route. Miki doesn't move, but does send a ping into the aether, as it were, to see if anything will reply. MB, for its part, makes sure it's not leaking any signals and tightens up its walls. It assumes Miki picked up the ad MB set off, or a whisper in the feed, and tries not to think about it.

Eventually, MB finds a place where it can get a connection to the yes, just two cameras inside the Port Authority offices. It catches enough to gather that their first trip will be short, just twelve hours, then back for a rest period. This should give MB plenty of time to find what it needs, but there's one problem: getting onto the ship they're taking.

I was going to have to make friends with the stupid pet robot.

While the humans take a rest period, MB has about three hours to seduce Miki into helping it onto the transport. Miki, for its part, is extremely friendly and completely guileless. When MB asks Miki not to tell anyone that it's here, Miki says it tells Don Abene everything, because she's its friend. MB realizes it's going to be even more annoyed than it expected.

MB explains to Miki that its existence must be secret to keep the humans safe. Miki asks it to promise, and after a moment of hesitant flabbergast-ery, it does. When Miki asks for a name, MB offers Security Consultant Rin, and Miki immediately calls that it's not MB's real name. MB says that's what it wants to be called, and Miki accepts this, and says it will be Rin's friend and help the team.

When MB asks for access to the shuttle's system, Miki hands it over, no further questions asked. It finds that there's no bot pilot, and no SecSystem. This tracks with what it's heard about the regions outside the Rim, that they focus on external threats, not internal ones, but that's not what MB is used to deal with. It does think about what Preservation might be like to live in, but squishes that idea as fast as it can.(5)

MB figures there's no problem to find a place to hide out in the shuttle, but it will have no monitoring capability whatsoever when it does. So, it debases itself again, and asks Miki if it will agree to be Rin's eyes and ears, warning that sometimes Rin might have to speak through Miki to warn Miki's… friends. Miki, again, agrees eagerly.

This felt way too easy. I almost suspected a trap. Or … Miki, have you been directed to reply to every query with a yes? No, Consultant Rin, Miki said, and added, amusement sigil 376 = smile. Or Miki was a bot who had never been abused or lied to or treated with anything but indulgent kindness. It really thought its humans were its friends, because that’s how they treated it. I signaled Miki I would be withdrawing for one minute. I needed to have an emotion in private.(6)

=====

(1) I dare say they were all grateful for its help and them all coming out the other side alive. (2) I think this is actually a really important and telltale spot. Wells, through MB, is telling us that MB doesn't know everything about the society in which it lives, only that for which it has context. Which, nobody knows the full context for their society, not really, not even political leaders. But we're so inclined to take MB at its word, to take its statements as fact. I think this is a really important reminder that that's not always the case. (3) How odd. Why might they not want a SecUnit involved in this one? (4) Even our old pal Murderbot might be underestimating this one. (5) The thought process makes out like it thinks Preservation would just be boring, but I can't help but think there's some longing behind the comment. (6) What do you think Murderbot is feeling here? Jealousy? Embarrassment? Guilt? Anger? I don't think just one emotion can really capture it all, myself, but "an emotion" is punchier than "emotions".

#the murderbot diaries #murderbot diaries #rogue protocol #murderbot #secunit #don abene #miki (murderbot)#gerth (murderbot)#wilken (murderbot)

7 notes · View notes

Last Seen Blogs

layesenia7u7

LA YESENIA 7U7

layesenia7u7

LA YESENIA 7U7

korruptbrekker

Brekker

idnull

.C.O.S.M.I.C.

aliina94

moments of joy