#so far 0/10 not worth it

[unicornclutter]

do you think they'd let me put my lower body in the guillatine to be chopped off? Fuck a hysterectomy I need that whole mess just removing legs and all

#in all seriousness this IUD is so fucking painful its been 9 days so far and I'm cramping so hard my legs hurt and my back hurts #and the pressure keeps tricking my body into thinking i need to throw up #so far 0/10 not worth it #if this fucking thing doesn't start helping me instead of hurting me soon I'm going to go nuts

[dduane]

It’s not over yet! May 11/12 aurora watch continues

It was a good night for aurora watchers all over Europe on the evening of May 10th/11th, 2024. Here's a great brief timelapse video sequence from Berkshire in the UK (via @Rainmaker1973 over at the Bye Bye Birdie place).

Among numerous other displays, this particular broad, pink "banner" structure was widely observed across the UK and Ireland around midnight local time / 2300 UT. It persisted, twisting and morphing into a variety of new shapes, for something like half an hour. The night's display as a whole was definitely one for the record books.

The early projections at the NOAA site suggest that the power of the incoming geomagnetic storm will be significantly less on Sunday, May 12th. But the night of May 11th still holds possibilities, as for the time being the storm seems to be holding at the relatively high Kp 8 level (on a scale of 0-9).

NOAA space weather forecasters have observed at least seven coronal mass ejections (CMEs) from the sun, with impacts expected to arrive on Earth as early as midday Friday, May 10, and persist through Sunday, May 12, 2024. 

Here are the early graphic projections for the zone of visibility on the evening of May 11 2024. Please note that (a) these are approximations and estimates, not hard and fast indicators of where the solar wind makes planetfall; and (b) as they did last night, they may well improve over the course of the day as newer and better data reaches the predicting devices and personnel.

The European animated projection comes via ITV (UK) weatherman Chris Page.

North American prediction images come via the Space Weather Prediction Center at the NOAA website. Right now (9:30 PM IDT / 2139 UT on May 11th) the NOAA's evening prediction animation for Europe and North America hasn't been generated yet. This still image (updated 1900 IDT) shows where the auroral viewing zone stands right now. The "likelihood of viewing" for Europe seems to have dropped pretty much into the 30-40% range.

That said, though, it's worth noting that the NOAA earlier issued yet another geomagnetic storm watch warning for 12 May, as the Sun apparently popped off both X-class and M-class flares early today; the effects of those are now in transit toward Earth. So we'll see in a day or so what comes of that. Sunspot region 3664, which has been responsible for all this excitement, is plainly not done spitting out flares just yet.

As regards tonight's predictions, it also remains to be seen whether what we get will be better... considering that last night's displays far outpaced everybody's expectations. I for one am quite willing to be surprised. 🙏

It's also worth noting here that so far today, the Kp index illustrated at the Space Weather Prediction Center's experimental aurora dashboard page—an indicator of the current strength of the geomagnetic storm—hasn't dropped off very much from last night's highs. It'll be interesting to see how this behaves as the day goes on. (ETA 2: image updated 11/05/2024, 2140 IDT)

Other useful resources for those interested in space weather generally, and solar weather:

NASA's SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory) satellite's "The Sun Now" page

ESA Space Weather Service Network

NOAA (US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) Space Weather and Prediction Page

OVATION auroral prediction model from the DSCOVR spacecraft, via SpaceWeatherLive

AuroraWatch UK

#aurora #northern lights #May 11 2024 #solar weather #aurora borealis #Young Wizards meta

[paper-mario-wiki]

Do you do farm stuff Scout? Or would you like to? Like owning chickens or tending an outdoor garden, that sort of thing?

From ages 7 to 19 I lived on farms, and was made to be an active participant in maintenance and usages of the facilities I don't know why the fuck I'm typing it like this, but I grew up on a farm. I was kinda in charge of everything, but slacked a lot and my brother had to cover for me. That said, I still spent a LOT of time doing chores.

At one point or another I've been responsible for most every farm chore you can really think of. All the basics like raking leaves, milking goats, collecting eggs, feeding chickens- but also the big stuff like moving tons of hay, herding flocks, caring for large animals such as llamas, alpacas, horses, and cows, as well as delivering babies, gutting and plucking fowl (only chickens and turkeys, though I've also cared for ducks and geese), dehoring, hoof cleaning, corpse transportation, crop maintenance, winter ice removal by breaking up frozen water troughs in 10 below weather (thought this was usually circumvented by anticipating the cold and setting up water heaters beforehand), constructing enclosures, slaughtering pigs, and etc etc etc etc etc all that shit. Bunnies snakes mini horses donkeys. All that shit. Farm stuff. Ya know.

Moved away when I went to college and immediately plunged into a mixed-zoning district in the Fushimi district in Kyoto. This was a really good transition from rural living to city living, because mixed zoning districts have blocks dedicated to apartment complexes and family homes right next to blocks of rice fields and ponds, which was behind the 7-Eleven I bought most of my food from.

Now I live in a SHITTY mixed zoning area in SHITTY America where we never stop hearing cars because there's a massive parking lot nearby and constant police sirens, not because the area is particularly dangerous, but because there's like 2 police stations nearby.

My ideal housing goal, which also happens to be my current goal in life, is to reach a slightly more rural version of the Kyoto living situation. The goals are very distinct:

0. I'm editing this one in after the fact to note that while I've used Kyoto as an example a few times in this post, I'm just looking for an area that feels right and would happily live in any prefecture that fits my needs.

I want to not be tied directly to a visa which would draw me away from doing whatever work I really want to do, like my student visa did later on when school started getting worse as professors were struggling to learn digital classroom mechanics. The visa I'm shooting for is dependent on a few ideas I have for businesses, but that's still kind of a long shot.

I want to be in a position of relative financial freedom so that I can spend enough time genuinely living there instead of just being tied to a computer all day, limiting me to the world I already know. This one's the big one, so I'm still workin on that. That said, recently I've been taking some pretty massive steps towards making this a more tangible circumstance. Fingers crossed.

I want to have a home that I own instead of renting, and I'd like to work with a Japanese architect to actually construct it. Again, these are big big plans, but I think a life goal is a thing worth thinking big about. And it's not like I'm trying to build a mansion, or even a family-sized house, I think I'd be content with three bedrooms, a kitchen, and common room. Of course, in keeping with the "dream big" spirit, in a world where I've got enough money to have a nicer, slightly bigger home, I can imagine as many as 5 bedrooms. It's nice to imagine in this "perfect" outcome that I've got a reason to have enough space for guests to sleep over. A local community, or an otherwise tangible, real-world web of relationships would be nice. Like, Real Adult Socializing Shit.

I want to have a significant emphasis on self-reliance on this home. As far solarpunk as I can reasonably go, without biting off more than I can chew as someone who's kinda limp-wristed. In a gay way and a feeble way. I figure this will come down to solar panels, water filtration, a well, and a garden (or at least the space to have gardening stuff like pots and soil). Some chickens would be nice too, but I don't know that I'd ever take on livestock proper.

I want to be properly submerged in trees without being more than a 5 minute bike ride from a train station. Somwhere like Yase-Hieizanguchi Station in north Kyoto is a good example of station that's on the edge of a metropolitan area and the forest. There was an apartment there I almost got, but backed out when covid hit cuz I decided moving across town would be a whack decision.

This is a BONUS goal, but I think it'd also be nice to not compromise on a single location, and instead have a home out in the inaka, while also having a small apartment rented in the city I can go between whenever I need to. In a world where I can afford a plot of land out in the country, but would still need to travel into town for business, that would be nice. Though in that scenario I'd likely need to also take on the arduous task of getting a Japanese drivers license. If I know far enough in advance that I want to take this specific route then I could bypass that last one by getting an international license before moving to Japan, but after moving to Japan you're barred from getting an international license.

I couldn't tell you in honesty that I'm a Salt of the Earth, Red Blooded American Farmer in my heart, and in fact I could not WAIT to move away from the farm. I hated that I didn't have a say in living on a farm, and was made to take care of animals. But what I DID enjoy about that life was the stillness. The opportunities of perfect silence. The stars unobstructed by light pollution. The ability to explore. Those things I was incredibly grateful for. And as such, in my perfect world, I would like to live on something like a farm again one day, just on my own terms.

#anon

[comicaurora]

Out of curiosity, how far ahead are you on the comic? I mean, you must have it all planned and written out, but I imagine that you are drawing the future of Aurora even while we're reading it.

So is Arc 2 already illustrated and ready for upload while you're on like Arc 5 or something? I'm by no means undermining your need for a break; I'm shocked that you've been uploading continuously for over 4 years at this point. I'm just interested to know how long it takes a person to make something this great. And also if you change any details in the final edit?

Basically: what's the workflow like?

Also I think you low-key inspired me to pick up painting as a hobby. I'm ready to pour so much money into creating things that I know I'll hate. :)

God, arc 5? That's a very generous assessment of how fast I can draw!

Typically, when the comic is updating regularly, I keep a buffer of 10 to 20 completed pages. Right now, in the interest of taking a break, the buffer is 0 completed pages.

Chapter 1 of Arc 2 is completely storyboarded, meaning it's sketched out, the dialog is all mostly finalized barring last-minute rephrasements, etc. It can be read in its current form, it just looks unpretty. In fact, just for fun, here's a sneak peek!

In the next month I'll go through and finalize as many pages from this chapter as possible - which means locking down the panel borders, fleshing out the backgrounds, lining, shading, coloring, polish, etc. - which will be the process of building up a new buffer for when the comic starts back up again in January. During that time, I'll also be storyboarding Chapter 2 and as much of the following parts as I can manage.

I have the next several chapters and sub-arcs planned out in loose timelines - event A happens at location B leading to consequences C and D, stuff like that. Chapter 2, being the closest, is a little more fleshed-out, with a more detailed bullet-pointed timeline and various character ideas I've had that might or might not make it into the final version.

What exactly the chapter breakdown is going to look like is a little more complicated. Initially I'd planned for Chapter 1 to be low-stakes downtime and Chapter 2 to quickly kick off the high-octane adventure again, but when I started bullet-pointing out the stuff I wanted to do in Chapter 2, I ended up with a big pile of slower-paced character moments I thought were well worth exploring, so the runtimes might stretch a little.

Translating those brainstormed notes into storyboards and dialog is what I would classify as the "writing" part of this process. It happens at an erratic pace largely determined by the whims of whatever muse decides to get me in a headlock that day; sometimes I go weeks with no storyboarding progress, sometimes I hammer out fifteen pages in one day.

It's kinda like weaving, to me. The soon-to-be-arriving parts of the story are the most finalized, the most densely woven. A little ways beyond that, things get looser - some patterns may be locked down, but the actual work that'll hold it together hasn't been done yet. And in the far-flung future arcs, it's just the basic bones of the story and a pile of the threads I've planned to use. I know the shape of it, but in order for it to be fun and engaging for me to make it, I need to give myself room to be creative when I'm putting the whole thing together.

I actually have a file called the "Toolbox" that contains every random character or subplot idea I've had, and sometimes when I'm debating where to go with a chunk of story, I'll crack it open and scan through to see if anything jumps out begging to be used. Lotta fun stuff in there that may or may not ever see the light of day. Dropping stuff in the Toolbox is one of the most fun and freeing parts of the process for me!

#asks #behind the curtain #writing stuff

[sergeifyodorov]

POLL RESULTS JUST DROPPED!!

My hockeyblr experiences are largely catered to my own personal tastes -- mostly Leafs, a little Penguins and Stars, one or two who post about Stevie Y and Sergei Fedorov. These are obviously not the only teams out there.

This study was designed to survey as much of hockeyblr as it possibly could, gathering data on which teams people like and to what degrees. There were five questions and a free space -- my attempt to ask people to rank the teams they enjoyed in three levels, from religiously followed to casually affectionate, and an additional couple of questions on love for players versus team. I received over 500 responses. Here are the results.

Yeah, yeah, you all want to know: The most popular team is the Penguins, by a long shot, then the Leafs.

Because my sample size (n = 523) is actually fairly small compared to the number of NHL teams there are, I find definitive rankings tend to be difficult. It’s also worth noting that, as a mainly Leafs blog, my numbers are definitely going to be skewed a little in favour of the Leafs.

Your Guys

These are the teams closest to your heart: the ship you go down with, metaphorically or, depending on how married your old men are, literally. For me, I picked just the Leafs.

The average respondent had 1.9 teams in this category. The most popular, by far, was the Pittsburgh Penguins. Below is a table of teams, arranged roughly into tiers by the number of respondents. Each team has the number of respondents in brackets next to their three-letter code.

I allowed people to pick as many teams as they would like; the average person picked 1.9 teams, but here’s a distribution of how many teams they picked:

4 people picked 0 “your guys” teams, and 2 people picked seven, nine, or ten each teams. Just about half of people had one main team.

I then wondered: what teams were people most likely to only follow? That is, if you hold [x] team in the closest part of your heart, are you more or less likely to also hold any other teams? Almost exactly 25% of picks were solo; I wondered if there was any correlation at all.

Only a little bit! Of the samples large enough to actually consider (so: nothing in that cluster at the bottom left, who all received fewer than 10 picks total, and a few of whom -- CGY, CHI, NSH -- received zero solo pickers), the most devoted fans chose the Sharks, the Bruins, and the Leafs. The fans who liked the most other teams chose the Avs, the Kraken, the Canucks, Panthers, Sens, and Ducks.

Probably a next step would be to look for correlations: if people are a fan of one team, are they more likely to be fans of another? THAT BEING SAID that’s a lot of regressions. Maybe keep an eye on that for the future, but I don’t know!!

Objects of Enjoyment, and Generally Nice

These two were successive tiers meant to distinguish teams that people like from the ones in the category above. I admit I probably could have phrased the questions better; I received several comments saying that they’d watch any hockey when they wanted to put a game on. The dynamics between Your Guys versus Objects of Enjoyment versus Generally Nice would best be described as devoted fan of versus casual fan of versus favourable opinion towards. 

As I said a few paragraphs back, people picked 1.9 “devoted fan” teams on average. Again on average, they picked 4.7 “casual fan” teams and 6.5 “favourable opinion” teams. Not all ratios are equal, though! Some teams had significantly more casual than devoted fans, and others still were much more liked generally than average.

I gave each team’s “devoted” count an index number of 1 and measured their casual and favourable count as a ratio against the index number. The teams assembled themselves into a few groups.

No Commitment

Arizona and Anaheim have decided to be soulbonded (Excel refuses to let them have different-coloured dots) and it took me three hundred million years to attempt to (and unsuccessfully) fix, so let’s ignore that. These teams all have a fairly high slope of interest -- a range of casual interest at about five times the pace of fervent interest, and good opinion at about ten times fervent interest. The Calgary Flames are an outlier on the entire graph, not just here. 

Casual Interest

I gave up on trying to colour teams according to their real colours shortly after the Anaheim/Arizona debacle. Please employ the legend. Nashville is included on all five graphs for reference. These teams all have a casual interest factor of about 3, and a favourable opinion factor of around 5; the same ratio as the casual fans of the teams in the first category to their fervent fans.

Saturated Market

These teams have a much lower ratio of hardcore:casual:favourable fans, at about 1:2:3. 

We Get It, Those Are Your Guys

Pittsburgh and Toronto; these teams have an almost equal ratio of all three categories.

...Whatever This Is

Every other category is defined by its ratios; this category is defined by its shape. While all teams have their rate of hardcore fandom set as 1, the other two tend to increase in a roughly linear form, without too much significant difference between the first interval and the second interval.

These teams, though (again, Nashville is for scale) don’t do that: they have a set increase between hardcore and casual, and a significantly smaller increase (or, in a couple cases, a decrease) between casual and favourable. This suggests perhaps some kind of divisiveness; if you’re not already in there, do you really want to get in further? Either that, or it’s something closer to what the Leafs and Penguins have: that is, a devotion. Like you’re in or you’re out.

Taking these values together

Because the casual:hardcore ratios are measured as indexes and not absolute values, they say nothing about the actual popularity of the team in question -- Calgary is one of the least popular, which is why I assume it’s so weirdly high up; small sample sizes lead to higher error values!

But we do have the absolute values, so we can measure them against each other.

If we consider the “In or Out” to be a category of its own while the other four are along more of a continuum, then we can absolutely see a correlation here -- larger fandoms tend to have more involved fanbases.

Players or Teams?

I also asked participants if their guys tended to be players or teams -- and if those they liked at a more casual level tended to be players or teams.

The results are… not particularly surprising.

On a hardcore level, people tended to prefer teams, although the variability was pretty slight. On a casual level, individual players were much more popular.

I also wondered if people who chose more teams in the hardcore fan question tended to do that because they prefer players.

On average, people who picked players on their hardcore level chose 2.1 teams. People who picked teams chose 1.7 teams. That’s definitely a difference!

Fun Shtuff

I got way more write-in responses on the hardcore player/team question than on the casual question, including this:

Three separate people answered “Minnesota Wild” for their guys and chose no other teams on any level. Hell yes. (One person also did this for the Kings.)

It took about 300 responses before the first Flames fan (at the hardcore level.)

On all three levels, the Seattle Kraken are really popular -- they’re in the top five in each.

What's Next?

If I were to update this survey, I would probably include a question about where all of you are from -- some people (like me) follow their hometown team, while some people most certainly don't (shoutout to the one person from Edmonton who dislikes the Oilers) and others still don't have a hometown team (shoutout to my brasilian + european + etc mutuals and everyone else!!)

Feel free to shoot me an ask if you want me to do anything else with this data -- examine a specific team, give actual casual fan/etc counts and total aggregate rankings, anything else!

#mwah #also im going camping this weekend :thumbsup: THE DOCTOR IS OUT OF OFFICE

[cosmerelists]

A Very Important Tier List of How Good Cosmere Names Would Be in Scrabble

If you were allowed to use fictional proper names in Scrabble, then how good would it be to use various Cosmere names? This is obviously an important question, which I shall answer today using a tier list, from worst to best.

[If you're not familiar with Scrabble, it's a game where you get 7 letters and try to make words on the gameboard. Each letter has an assigned score from 0 to 10. You get all the points of all the letters in your word, plus you get to double count any letters used in multiple words.]

So let's get to the tier-list!

F-Tier: Names That Are (Virtually) Too Long for Scrabble

Some Cosmere names do not work well at all by virtue of being, well, basically impossible to use in Scrabble. "Jadendwyl" (Sazed's friend) is 9 letters, for example, so unless you got very lucky with someone else playing "end" in exactly the right spot, you're pretty much out of luck. You only have 7 letters to work with, after all. Other names in this same category include:  "Hamaradin," "Peaceyearning," "Harkaylain." Just too long!

E-Tier: Short, Low-Scoring Names

The second worst would be names that are short and use letters that are just one point each. "Lirin"? Only 5 points. "Siri"? Only 4 points. Moash's grandma "Ana"? Only 3 points. 

You're only playing these if you're desperate, or if you've trying to, like, play off of someone else's Z or something.

D-Tier: Longer but Still Low-Scoring Names

"Adolin" may look like a nice, long word--but it's only 6 letters, and only the "D" is worth more than one. You're plunking down that bad boy and getting like 7 points for your trouble. Same issue with other 6-letter names like "Oroden." They're just not very good.

C-Tier: At Least One Letter Is Pretty Good

Playing "Shallan" would be pretty good, 'cause that "H" is four points AND pretty easy to get double-counted. Same goes for "Hoid" or "Hav" or "Hrathen." "Y" is also worth 4 and easy to double, so "Yalb" or "Ym" are your friends too. "Wayne" has two four-point letters, W and Y, so that's pretty good--"Leshwi" too. "Kelsier" has the 5-point K, but there aren't any two-letter words with K, so oddly he's probably slightly worse "Hoid" would be.

...I hope I haven't started something here. 

B-Tier: Contains one of the GREAT Letters

If you can get a "Q" or a "Z" in your word, then that's a cool 10 points right there--at least 20 if you can get them going both ways. So "Zane" or "Szeth" or "Azure" or "Breeze" or "Lezian" are great options. "X" and "J" are 8 points and easy to play both ways, so "Wax" and "Jasnah" and "Demoux" are great too.

A-Tier: Seven-Letter Words

If you play a 7-letter word in Scrabble, then you get a bonus 50 points on top of whatever you score with the word! There are a lot of 7-letter names too. "Kaladin," of course, reaching the top as always. Also good are "Dalinar," "Renarin," "Pattern," "Elhokar," "OreSeur," "Aesudan"... There are actually tons of these! 

S-Tier: Seven-Letter Words Containing one of the GREAT Letters

But you know what would be the best Scrabble word? We'd need a 7-letter name that also contains a Q or a Z. And there is one--one name that is by far the best Cosmere Scrabble play ever. 

Zellion.

Is there anything he can't do?

#cosmere #cosmerelists #zellionsweep

[mikasa-imadebiscults]

could u do midoriya and Bakugo with a childhood friend who got rejected from UA while they got in and she started distancing herself from them?

(Hello Anon, thank you for the request and I hope you enjoy! Also I hope you don’t mind that I made the reader gender neutral)

Fading Childhood

Midoriya and Bakugou x GN! Reader

(Warning: This is platonic, reader has a quirk but it’s not specified)

You, Midoriya, and Bakugou are childhood friends. You lived close by Midoriya’s house and he introduced you to his friend Bakugou and ever since the first day you met you guys did everything together, whenever Bakugou would say mean things to Deku or hurt him in any way you would be there to be the voice of reasoning to calm down the situation.

Bakugou was always stubborn, in Junior High he would absolutely refuse to hang out with Midoriya sense he was Quirkless and didn’t want to be seen with him but with you there you somehow managed to convince Bakugou to hang out with you guys.

You often found yourself comforting Midoriya from all the bullying he receives each and every day. You would go to a nearby store, grab majority of his favorite snacks, and then go to his house to hang out to keep his mind occupied.

Today was one of those days where you were over at Midoriya’s house, you were talking about how you both applied to UA and hoped that you both will be accepted there. You had high expectations that you’ll be accepted because you had a pretty good quirk and it can be very handy for saving people.

10 months later it was time for UA’s entrance exam. You started to prepare right before the exam, stretching your muscles and breathing in and out to calm your nerves. You haven’t seen Midoriya or Bakugou anywhere yet but you knew they were gonna be there it’s just a lot of people there so it’s hard to spot them, but you silently wished the both of them luck.

After a few long minutes of listening to Present Mic explain the rules for the exam, everyone went to their proper locations and waited for the buzzer to go off to start.

The buzzer went off and the exam began, minutes passed and you took out a few robots and saved a few people, it was safe to say that you’ll most likely be accepted into the famous hero course.

All the sudden a loud boom snapped you out of your thoughts but it sounded nothing like Bakugou’s explosions so out of curiosity you checked out the noise. There you saw one of those large robots that are worth 0 points come down and a person was falling down. You were too far away to see the person but by the sounds of their screams you could tell that it was Midoriya.

You were running as fast as you can to try and save him in time before he fell to his demise but you were too late. Luckily a girl with short brown hair saved him with her Quirk and he started floating. You sighed in relief as he gently got put down and Recovery Girl was walking over there. The exam ended and you wanted to talk to Midoriya and ask him questions about his Quirk because you always thought he was Quirkless, but you decide to leave him alone since currently he was getting treatment for his broken bones.

A week has passed and you still haven’t received the acceptance letter from UA, it worried you but you tried to look at the bright side and still have hope. Then you got a text from Bakugou.

“Bakugou: No surprise but I got into UA, how about you?”

He was right, there was no surprise but what about you? Where was your letter? There was still some time left so you didn’t panic too much, you decided to not answer the message from him and go take a small nap to kill time.

You were woken up by a text and checked to see who it was, it was Midoriya.

“Midoriya: Hey sorry I’m texting you so late but I got into UA I’m so happy, did you get the acceptance letter?”

At this point it was 10 PM and you didn’t get the letter. You lost all the hope you originally had and felt like your dreams of becoming a hero were torn into shreds.

Days later it was the first day of school in UA and both Midoriya and Bakugou didn’t see you anywhere. They knew something was wrong when you didn’t reply to there texts so they suspected that you didn’t get accepted and with you nowhere to be found in UA that confirmed that they were correct.

Later in the day, after their first day of school was over you heard a loud knock on your bedroom door. You said come in expecting that it was gonna be your guardian but it caught you by surprise when you saw your spiky haired friend walk in and shut the door with a note in his hand.

“What are you doing her-”

“You think you can just distance yourself from us like that just because you didn’t get into some stupid hero course? There’s other hero courses out there so don’t you dare give up.” Bakugou says as he gently but firmly punched your arm, you softly smile at the gesture knowing that it was Bakugou’s way of telling you that he cares.

“Thank you Bakugou.”

“Yeah yeah whatever, here nerd wanted you to see this.” He says handing you the note before walking to the door.

“Hey wait again thank yo-”

“BYE” He slams the door.

Chuckling a bit, you open the letter and read it to yourself-

“Dear Y/N, I’m sorry I couldn’t come over to tell you this in person but I had some things to do and I wanted to tell you this as soon as possible so I wrote this note. I’m sorry you didn’t get accepted into UA, you have such a amazing Quirk and you’ll be a amazing hero. That being said, don’t give up there’s other schools that have a hero course and sure it won’t be UA but don’t let that bring you down. - Sincerely, Midoriya.”

Reading that note made you tear up, how could you distance yourself from your friends, childhood friends to be specific. You made a promise to yourself that once you see them again you’ll apologize and never do that to them ever again.

Masterlist

#mha scenarios #mha fluff #mha x reader #mha x y/n #mha bakugou #bakugou katsuki #bakugou fluff #bakugou x reader #bakugou x y/n #mha deku #izuku midoriya #deku fluff #midoriya x reader #midoriya x y/n #deku x reader #deku x y/n

[nogacheloveka-blog]

The Bad Sanses somehow ended up in the Backrooms. №10

next 11

prev 9

This is the translation of the another post from Russian to English. I understand English, but it is very difficult for me to write in English, so I asked chat GPT to help me. I have corrected some parts, but there still may be mistakes.

I think I'm getting lazy: they're so small on such a big space, Nightmare and Error are hidden. But I'm happy with the picture I made.

And haha, a little celebration. 10 pictures!

I really hope my English skills are enough to properly convey what's happening here=)

After some time, the group had to leave the hospitality of Temmy (Nightmare could finally breathe out with relief. The positive energy that was so overwhelming for him was finally bearable). The level 4 was safe enough, just like the level 0, with the exception of natural light sources like windows. The weather on the other side of the glass would sometimes change. No monsters or people were met on their way. No people or monsters were met for most of the time.

As always, Error sent his strings ahead of the group to know what was waiting for them. Nightmare's sensitivity to auras of negative emotions was decreasing, which was unpleasant. But this could be explained by the distortion of space in this place and, what was even more worrying, the absence of refreshment. Thanks to the group and occasional negative coming through the pipes, Nightmare didn't have to worry about his survival. But this was nothing compared to the refreshment of the whole multiverse. He was already feeling less aggressive and egoistic. At first, this was part of the survival strategy, and now it was starting to sink in deeper.

All these small external changes. All these internal changes. He was a little concerned that he didn't notice anything similar in the others.

During the time they were idle, Error started knitting himself a new scarf. He was deeply wounded by how foolishly he had lost his previous scarf, unable to stay focused for long and appearing even more agitated after his attempts. The tangled yarn was thrown away in a long drawer of one of the computer tables.

Killer was hiding. His absence looked very strange, but Error was keeping an eye on him (thanks to the blue thread in his zip-up jacket, Error knew that Killer was actively crafting something ).

Dust Horror and Cross were systematically organizing the records. From time to time, Error joined them (observing how Destroyer could do creative teamwork was quite fascinating). Nightmare checked the work done. While doing this, he even managed to recognize some unsigned maps from the notebook he had bought from Temmy.

At last, the paperwork was finished. Nightmare tried to map the route, but was disappointed by some contradictions in the information he had received. Some levels were reached through a mysterious "noclip". (Even after the explanation from Error, this way of moving seemed unreliable). Sometimes the exits and entrances on some levels didn't match what was indicated on other levels. He concluded that it would be much easier to find ways to freely move to levels-crossroads than to move one level after another.

However, it was clear that in this place, there were familiar things to all the Sanses "shortcuts": people who couldn't control this phenomenon, described it as touching objects that would take them to some levels or places. This was useful. It seemed that this dimension had taken some pieces of AU or a couple of original timelines. (It seemed artificial.)

Also, it was worth reconsidering one's attitude towards supplies. Previously, all the Almond Water was collected for Horror, Cross, and Killer, who needed food the most. Even though Dust didn't feel hungry (which worried everyone), he sometimes took water from Cross. According to new data, they all should drink it from time to time. This became a problem. But so far, there were no issues with finding Almond Water.

They lingered long enough in one place, it was time to continue their journey. Their goal now was

to find the old staircase and reach level 5.

Just simple wandering as before. The bad guys bid farewell to the Temmy store location.

Along the way, they encountered worn rooms with flickering lights, spacious coworking spaces with the constant hum of computers and the ghostly sound of keys clacking, empty rooms flooded with light from panoramic windows. On one of the local nights, they even saw a full moon. The journey seemed safe.

Until Error's strings stumbled upon what they all didn't want to find.

A warm, tall body containing a human soul. Reflexively, Error pulled on the strings towards himself, as he had done before, but almost immediately stopped, alerting the group to his discovery. Almost immediately, the strings touched several more people, apparently drawn by the cries for help from their captured comrade.

Error rarely encountered adult people (children were enough of a hassle), so he didn't overreact to Nightmer's suggestion to observe their opponents for the first time and then disappear.

The room where they were looked empty at first glance, but Nightmare and Error found a hidden place behind decorative panels on the ceiling. The rest of the group hid in the shadows of columns and the room wrapped in blue strings.

For a while, no one showed up. Then, cautiously emerging from around the corner, heavily armed men appeared. They carefully scanned the area, gradually moving along the room. The group of people maintained silence and communicated through gestures, unseen by the skeletons. Only the faint creaking and metallic clinking of their gear gave away their presence.

During this time, Nightmare studied the emotions of the people. They fed him fear with a bitter taste of hope. They were scared of the new and unknown, yet somehow it also made them hopeful for something. Digging deeper, Nightmare sensed their very light and delicate madness, similar to Error's madness when he first emerged from the Antivoid. However, people seemed to handle it much better or had grown accustomed to this state. Nightmare realized that their group could potentially exploit this in the future.

Fortunately, there was no trace of magic in these people. Their DETERMINATION was no greater than usual for humans. Yet there was still something inexplicable about them... In the multiverse, there were AU's consisting entirely of humans. This dimension-killer was made up of AU's in part. But these people. There was something absolutely off about them. They seemed denser. It reminded him of Horror, whose bones were mostly made of real bone tissue, not magic like the others.

Error observed the movements of the people, not to pay attention to thoughtful Nightmer. He really wanted the fight to begin. T0 h3 W1N aga1n.

T0 r1s3.

Th3y w3r3 ju5t a p1l3 0f r3j3cts.

Th31r s0ul5 W3r3 n0t r3d. H3 c0uld g1v3 th3m a nICE blu3 m0m3nt. M4K3 th3m u53ful. 1f th3 ab0m1nabl3 an0mal13s ar3 1nd33d R̶̛͇̖̊rcccce̷͔̝̭͛eǟ̴̢͙l̸̡̰͒ḯ̵̤̊̚еtttt̵͖͈͝͠yyyy̴͔͑,~-----

Error went into reboot. Nightmer removed his hand from the face of the Destroyer. It seemed like the only right decision. Quite rough, but effective. He failed to notice the escalation of Error's mental problems and should have left this place as quickly as possible while they all still had time. Now definitely was not the time to provoke a fight.

The piercingly loud screech from Error caused a flash of fear in the frozen group of people. And Nightmare fanned this flash into a flame of panic. Someone among human group screamed, dropping something. Someone ran with a loud sound. Someone pressed against the glass, from where the "sun" light poured, wildly surveying the room. Bustle began, in which Nightmare's subordinates slipped forward, and he, taking Error with him, teleported.

Fragments of blue threads swayed behind them, causing another flash of horror at their backs.

Nightmare belongs to Jokublog Killer belongs to RahafWabas Dust belongs to Ask-DustTale Horror belongs to Sour-Apple-Studios Error belongs to CrayonQueen Cross belongs to JakeiArtwork

#bad sanses #cross sans #dust sans #error sans #horror sans #killer sans #nightmare sans #the backrooms #au #undertale au #bad guys in backrooms #bad sans gang #art #underverse #undertale #level 4 #utmv

[devilry-revelry]

Untitled - Male Orc x Female Human (Part 1)

TW: Creeps in vans following women at night (?)

It's literally just fluff, 0 spice.

-

“You’re bleeding,” Riley replied dumbly. “You just… You just tackled a van.”

The corner of the orc’s mouth quirked.

-

The meeting invitation appeared in Riley’s inbox at precisely 4:40PM. 20 minutes before she was due to clock out. It appeared with a cheery chime, as if it wasn’t delivering an urgent 4:50 meeting invite. 

The subject was listed in all caps, with a big red exclamation point:

TOMORROW’S AUDIT

Various department heads were also listed on the meeting invite, but their presence was notably listed as optional, while hers was listed as a required attendance. None of the other recipients showed up to the meeting. It was just her, and her manager that met in the conference room. Riley hoped that the minimal attendance would mean that the meeting would be short and she would get out of the office and to the bus stop on time. The meeting was brief, and ended in less than the noted 10 minutes. 

Her manager tacked on a cheery, “I’ll give you these three minutes back.” sort of comment as if she wasn’t off-handing a to-do list of hours worth of work that was due by the start of business the next day. While the work wasn’t difficult, it was endlessly frustrating. It was last-second busy work that wouldn’t have been necessary if the un-required-attendance team followed standard practice and procedures while going about their daily tasks. They didn’t, though. So Riley got to review the previous year’s files, and make necessary corrections and additions. 

A couple of extra bodies would have made the job fast but Riley was flying solo, and it took her hours to finish. By the time she locked up the office and got outside it was nearing midnight. The buses had most definitely stopped running for the day. While she had been considering ordering a ride, she ultimately decided that she didn’t live too far away. Her apartment was only a couple miles away, and it wouldn’t kill her to get her steps in. The evening was pleasant, warm and clear with a bit of a breeze. If it wasn’t for the too-tall buildings of the business district, she would have been able to see the moon and the stars. 

As pleasant as the evening air was, it was almost eerie. Riley had only ever been to the business district during business hours, where there was an almost constant bustle of people and cars milling about the street. After hours (before hours, in this case) it was a ghost town. The only thing that disrupted the quiet was the delicate clicking of her kitten heels–

And the sound of an engine, as a windowless white van cruised by her and up the road. 

Riley made a quiet, grim, joke about the van. It touched on kidnappers and free candy, and ended with her convincing herself that the driver was probably some blue collar worker that had a late night just like she did. 

A block later and she spotted the van again, this time doubling back the way it came. She wondered if the driver was lost, or if she was just walking so slow that the driver went and picked up some fast food and was doubling back to go home. 

The third time Riley saw the windowless van she cursed her manager so hard that she hoped that everyone in her bloodline felt it.

It was easier to believe that she had an overactive imagination than to believe that someone would be following her in an actual creeper-mobile in the middle of the night. She felt guilty when she attempted to snap a picture of the license plate as it cruised up the road and out of sight, still partially convinced that she was overreacting. She considered calling the police, and then talked herself out of it. What would she say, anyway? That someone was driving by a lot? And what would the police say? Could they even really do anything if nothing had been done?

On the van’s fourth pass, Riley realized that getting her steps in just might actually kill her. 

The idea of taking an alleyway shortcut surfaced, and she quickly stomped it down. A little more bad luck and going down the alleyway could result in her own missing person ad. Getting home as fast as she could seemed optimal, but then she couldn’t help but think about potentially leading the van straight to her apartment building and living with the knowledge that they would know where she lived. So she took a detour. It would tack a good 15 minutes on to her journey, but the new route would take her through the entertainment district. It would be well lit, and more populated. She would bypass a couple of bars. Maybe they stayed open late on weeknights. She could duck inside, call a cab, call the police, call her mom and tell her that she regretted ever moving to the city.

On the fifth pass, Riley was turning onto the main thoroughfare of the entertainment district. Unfortunately, the street wasn’t the thriving place she knew it to be on the weekend. It was just as dead as her primary route, and while it was better lit it wasn’t the beacon of light and music she had wanted it to be. 

The road she veered down was one-way, and while the van didn’t turn after her, it slowed in the intersection considerably before driving off. As soon as the vehicle was out of view, Riley pulled off her heels and started to run. She made it a single block before her heart was pounding so hard she could hear it pulse in her ears, and despite the favorable weather she started to shiver. Regardless of it all, there was still some part of her insisting that she was overreacting, that this sort of fear-response was insanely dramatic. Time crawled. Seconds felt like hours. Feet felt like miles. 

By the time an open bar came into view she felt like crying. 

Just outside of the streetlight, the exterior was aglow with wicked crimson neon, and there was a row of motorcycles lining the sidewalk. There were a total of two people lingering outside and they were very visibly non-human. One of the figures was distinctly draconic or reptilian in nature. A figure with sharp teeth, dark scales, and glowing eyes. The other could have been mistaken for a very big human if it wasn’t for the large tusks jutting up from his bottom row of teeth. They stood side-by-side, leaning against the building, each nursing a pint. 

There was a fresh wave of paranoia that surfaced (what if the driver had been herding her in this direction?). She mentally prepared for the worst, and desperately hoped for the best as she made a mad dash towards the bar. She got a couple feet into the street then came to an abrupt stop.

The van was in the intersection right next to the bar. The tinted windows were like black mirrors, reflecting the green glow from the street light, and the red neon from the bar. 

Riley backpedaled back to the sidewalk. Her entire body was quaking now in big fitful shudders. She wasn’t getting enough air. 

The streetlight flicked over to a flashing yellow. And then red. 

There was a whistle, loud and so shrill it made Riley flinch. Her eyes tore away from the van and landed on the two magick that loomed outside of the bar, just beyond the line of motorcycles. The orc had discarded his beer and had stepped away from the building. Even from across the street, Riley noted him to be huge – and he looked downright monstrous with the blood-red neon lining his figure. 

“You good, babe?”

The orc’s draconic companion set his drink aside, attention glued to the loitering vehicle. Riley followed his glowing gaze. 

The light had changed back to green, and the van was beginning to ease forward into the intersection at an intimidating crawl. Breathless, and feeling weak, Riley pointed at the van. 

And that was all it took. 

Riley barely even lifted her hand to gesture at the van, and it caused the orc to take a running charge at it. His long dark hair splayed behind him with the burst of speed. His face contorted in a vicious snarl. Tires squealed. The van lurched forward but it wasn’t fast enough. The orc had already closed the distance. 

He slammed into the driver’s side door. The window shattered. The collision was delivered with so much force that the driver’s side of the vehicle lifted off of the ground and for a moment it teetered on the passenger side wheels. There was a terrified scream, the van righted itself – and then it sped off into the night.

The orc stalked after it for a few paces, swearing in a language that was harsh and guttural. 

Riley watched, awestruck. 

Breathing was suddenly easier. 

When the orc turned towards her, his whole demeanor changed. He was no longer some rage-fueled beast charging into battle. He was no longer a snarling mass of anger and muscle. His movements were more gentle, his demeanor softening as he made a tentative approach. He treated her like a frightened deer who was ready to run. 

“Hey,” he said. His voice was low and gentle, the edges curling with something husky and rough. “Hey, honey, are you alright?”

Riley took him in as he approached. The massive, looming height. The tattooed sleeves of black on his arms that started at his biceps then faded as it stretched down towards his wrists. The tusks that reached up past his sharp nose, the stern brow that loomed over dark eyes. The blood. There was blood on his face, blood on the neck of his white t-shirt.

“You’re bleeding,” Riley replied dumbly. “You just… You just tackled a van.”

The corner of the orc’s mouth quirked, “Yeah, well. I think I had some alright reasoning. Looks like you might be bleeding too.”

“What?” Riley practically squawked. Her hand reached up to her forehead, feeling around the same area where he had sustained his own injury. 

The orc chuckled softly, “Your foot.”

Riley looked down to her nylon covered feet, and saw stamps of blood on the pavement. Awareness tore through the already dwindling adrenaline. Stinging pain blossomed in the pad of her foot. 

“Oh.” She lifted her foot, cursing as she saw another stamp of blood on the sidewalk. Tears began to prickle at the corners of her eyes. “Oh. Ouch.”

A big hand touched her elbow, warm and grounding. She looked up, up, up at the orc who now stood beside her. Jesus, he was massive. And quiet on his feet. 

“Why don’t we get you inside. We can get you cleaned up then get you home.”

Riley fumbled with her thoughts. She managed to stammer out a feeble, “You’ve already done enough, sir. Thank you, but–”

“Arzok,” he said. He stepped in a bit closer, his voice gentling even further. “I’m going to pick you up now. We don’t want you getting anything in whatever is already bleeding.”

“No, really,” Riley insisted. “I’m fine. I’m–”

“What’s your name, sweetheart?”

“I– Riley–”

“It’s nice to meet you, Riley.  I want you to take a deep breath. Nice and slow. Good girl.” He smiled, and Riley’s nerves began to settle. “I’m going to pick you up. We are going to cross the street and go inside, and we’re going to get you cleaned up. Okay?”

Swallowing, Riley nodded. She took another deep breath. “‘Kay.”

Arzok dipped down and scooped her up into his arms like she weighed nothing. He strode across the street, calm and casual. Like he didn’t just nearly overturn a van by himself. Riley stared up into his face, barely even processing that the dragon that had been with him, told them that he called the police and reported the incident, and the plate number. Arzok replied in that language Riley didn’t understand, and then they entered the bar. 

Music blared into her ears as soon as the door opened. The smell of fried food and liquor assaulted her senses. If she hadn’t been on the brink of having a good old fashioned come-apart, it might have been a fun place to hang out but in the moment it was far too much. Riley turned her face into Arzok’s chest and took another calming breath. When she turned her attention outward, she was being carried behind the bar, and through the walkway near the kitchen. The smell of fry oil became especially pungent. He took a turn into what appeared to be an office space, and then on into the adjoining bathroom. It was a clean space, and well lit; likely reserved for staff. It smelled clean. Like air freshener with a touch of bleach. 

Arzok set Riley on the bathroom counter then knelt to dig through the cabinetry beneath her. Not a moment later and a first aid kit was being set beside him. He popped it open and dug through the contents for a moment. 

“So. Why are you out so late, Riley?”

“I–” The nylon on her wounded foot was torn away, shredding with a wisp of sound. Riley grimaced and recoiled, suddenly reminded that her feet were probably disgusting and dirty. “I can do this. You can go ahead and go.”

Still kneeling on the bathroom floor, his fingers circled her ankle and held her still. “Let me,” he said. “You can do me next.” 

Something about him managed to calm her worries, and she settled onto the counter. She was rewarded with a wink, then he was all business.

He opened a tiny-packaged towelette and started rubbing the asphalt and dirt from her foot. He tossed the soiled wipe into the trash, then unpackaged a fresh one to clean the cut itself. “Talk to me. Why are you out so late? And alone, no less…”

“I was given some last minute overtime,” Riley grumbled. “The buses stopped running a couple of hours ago. So…” her shoulders hiked up to her ears. 

“Shit, sweetheart. You don’t have a boyfriend who could have come to pick you up?”

Riley snorted inelegantly, “No.”

Arzok’s dark eyes met hers. He paused in his work, his hand still clasped around her ankle. He smiled slowly as he drawled, “Would you like one?”

The surprise was short lived, cut off by sharp acrid pain as he pressed an alcohol doused swab against the cut on her foot. Tears instantly gathered in Riley’s eyes and she tried to yank her herself from his grasp, but Arzok held firm. He crooned quiet words of encouragement until the pain receded. When he was finished cleaning the laceration, he wrapped her foot with a bit of gauze and medical tape. 

“Your turn.”

Arzok rose from the ground placing the first aid kit beside Riley. Before she had the chance to hop down from the counter, he placed his big hands on either side of her legs, then leaned in. He tilted his head just so, giving her clear and easy access to the cut on his forehead. 

It was daunting, being so close to someone so big – and yet she wasn’t afraid. There wasn’t a single alarm bell telling her body that it needed to fight or flee. It was strange, albeit quiet contentment. Riley rationalized it by summing it up to the fact that Arzok had tackled a van because she had pointed at it. And he potentially (probably) saved her life. 

Riley fretted after the cut first. She was concerned with the amount of blood. It was on the side of his face, his neck, his shirt. Despite the amount of blood, it was a small little cut. He’d been drinking, and it was a head wound. It was treated with an alcohol swab, which Arzok took without even flinching, and then Riley tasked herself with scrubbing away the blood. 

“So?” Arzok asked as she worked. 

“So what?” 

He smiled, turning his head to pin her with his dark gaze, but Riley took his chin in her hand and turned him away. He laughed, “So can I get your number, Riley?”

She pulled her hands away, physically recoiling with her surprise. “What? Why?”

“Because I think you’re fucking cute, and I’d like to take you on a date. Maybe I can be the one you call when you get saddled with more overtime.”

“You don’t mean that,” came the fast reply. It wasn’t that Riley didn’t think herself worthy of a man’s attention. When she picked the right clothes, and put a bit of effort into her appearance, Riley could pick up a man no problem. But her most recent visit to the dating pool didn’t end well, and beyond that she was wearing her work clothes, looking deliberately mousey and – after running for her life – messy. She looked disheveled, and on the verge of falling apart. 

“Yes I do.” He grabbed her wrists, gently guiding them away from his face. He stayed stooped over so he was eye-level. “Let me take you home. Let me give you my number and you can use it if you want to.”

Once again, Riley was quietly amazed that no alarm bells sounded. She didn’t wrestle with the idea of a stranger taking her home. It was one of those things that felt natural to do. This was the closest that Riley had ever been to an orc and she was only somewhat perplexed by her level of comfort. The amount of forwardness he showed should have been a bit more off putting, but Riley found it endearing. 

What were the symptoms of shock? What was the reverse of Stockholm syndrome?

“Fine,” she eventually said, obeying the curious gut instinct to allow the orc to take care of her. “But only because you tackled a van for me.”

Arzok smiled big, triumphant and charming, “Good fucking deal.”

[Part 2] [Part 3]

#monster boyfriend #orc boyfriend #paranormal #fantasy #fantasy romance #paranormal romance #orc x human #male orc #female human #male orc x female human #monster husband #orc husband #i had some pretty cute snippets of these two back in the day #before I deleted everything #no spice #all fluff #too much exposition #but i get concerned when I present stuff without context #the writing is bad #magick #emergence day universe #emergence #arzok #riley #nox

[felassan]

just some thoughts on these (source: this article) original sketches of the Dragon Age world through time / concept sketches of the Thedas map at different points in its history:

(the linked article is worth a read for extra info and context on the maps). like the article says, whenever a name of a place or people is typed as opposed to handwritten, it means that the place or people originally had a different name which was changed by EA's "sensitivity team" due to it clashing with something from the real world. Names of things change when worldbuilding anything all the time ofc, but it��s just interesting to me to look at what's been typed over and list places / peoples which at one point in the creation of the world were called something else before being renamed for that reason:

Arlathan, Frostback Mountains, Alamarri tribes, Anderfels, Par Vollen, Antiva (used to be called "Calabria"), Orlais / Orlesian Empire, Seheron, Orzammar

I wonder what the ones (besides Antiva) used to be called? ^^ there are other names on the map that appear to have been renamed at some point in the process (see below), but they weren't typed over like this.

On the time periods given in some of the bottom-right hand corners: “F.A.” refers to the Founding of Arlathan (elven calendar), where 1 FA is the year in which Arlathan was founded. “T.E.” refers to the founding of the Tevinter Empire (Imperial Calendar), where 0 TE is the year in which the Imperium was founded. Does “F.C.” refer to the Founding of the Chantry, making this an alternative way of notating the Chantry calendar? (the Chantry was founded in 1:1 Divine and World of Thedas tells us that the founding initial event honored in this calendar is that in its first year the original head of the Chantry, Divine Justinia I, was appointed). Was this the original name/way of writing of the chantry calendar before they decided (either in-world or devs doing the worldbuilding) that instead of notating it like FC they would have ages like “-150 Ancient”, the Divine Age/1:10 Divine etc? Is “600 F.C.” the Steel Age? In that map it shows the Qunari Empire borders really quite far south into what became Antiva and Rivain, and we know that in the Steel Age the Qunari pushed deeply into Antiva and Rivain, so it could track. Ferelden would also have been founded as a kingdom at that time, explaining why Ferelden now appears.

These maps are also interesting as instead of purely geographical they are also political in places. (I think DG said at one point on the old forum that the lack of exact borders on the Thedas map we see is intentional, with the rough area controlled by each nation being pretty clear, and “when it comes to areas where they border on each other the exact ownership is probably in question”.) ((there are some cool fan-made maps out there where different people had a go at headcanoning or approximating borders to make political versions of the main map btw)). On some of them we can see dotted lines presumably representing borders or approximate borders of nations/states and the territories claimed or controlled by at that time of different groups of people, past and present, including in many cases the naval territory/their waters. It’s really interesting to see where some of these borders approximately are and to see how they changed through time in the world timeline. There are no border lines on the final sketch/most recent [in-world time-wise] version of the map, I guess as it’s the present time in which DA:O is set, or close to that time.

For example, it’s really interesting to me to see in 1100 TE the borders of the Dales, the borders of the Kingdom of the Ciriane and the borders of the Kingdom of the Planasene. (the Ciriane were the loosely-defined tribe from ancient times that lived in what’s now central Orlais, and the ancestors of modern Orlesians. The Planasene meanwhile were a farming tribe that became the ancestors of most humans in Nevarra and the Free Marches.)

And to see in -100 TE/6300 FA those of the kingdoms of Neromenian and Qarinus before the formation of the Imperium and before they became absorbed by the Imperium.

And it’s interesting to see Tevinter’s borders expand and contract over time, and stuff like how when the Kingdom of Rivain was founded, it was originally a much smaller nation in the northern part of that peninsula only, whereas in the modern day the peninsula looks to all be part of the kingdom of Rivain.

(in general it’s really interesting to compare these sketches with the map of Thedas as we know it hh).

The first map set in -100 TE/6300 FA clearly places the city of Arlathan, capital of Elvhenan, in the forest now known as Arlathan Forest. Codex Entry Enasalin says:

"An example of such a place is Sundermount in the Vimmark Mountains near Kirkwall. According to Dalish legend, this was a burial site for elders and the location of a great battle between Imperial and elven forces—nowhere near Arlathan (if one believes the city was near the forest of the same name in northeastern Thedas).)"

^ The dot there is the settlement of Arlathan.

Some other things I noticed/was wondering about:

It seems like the Venefication Sea during development used to be called the "Venefician Sea".

The ancient elves are noted as “the Elvhenan race”, rather than the elvhen race

A name is given for the tribes that presumably were the ancestors of modern Rivaini humans/the human tribes that inhabited the area around what became modern Rivain: the "Riverian Tribes". This is notable to me as I don’t remember hearing this before, and they aren’t listed in the list of known human tribes.

We can see the “Yothand tribes” noted in the area that became the Anderfels. Before seeing these sketches, the Prima strategy guide for DA:O mentioned that the main population of the Anderfels in ancient times in 500 TE, were called the Yothandi (note the "i" at the end isn't on the sketch map). parts of the info in that guide seem to be of debatable canonicity so that’s interesting too (maybe those segments of the guide were written earlier on during DA:O’s development before some changes were made in the worldbuilding?). In the Anderfels there are also the Orth people who live in the Wandering Hills today, but originally this was an old name for people[s] of the Anderfels (Orthland) in general. “Orth” doesn’t appear on these sketches. So what do we think? ^^ Were the Orth people called the Yothand[i] people earlier on in the worldbuilding process then the devs changed it? Did the Yothand people come first in the in-world timeline, and that was the name of those peoples in ancient-ancient times, before they grew into, came to be known as, or were otherwise absorbed by the Orth, in still-ancient but not super-ancient times? The map with Yothand is set in -100 TE, so in this scenario they were still called Yothand for another ~600 years going by the Prima guide. Are Yothand and Orth synonyms, like the Ciriane/the Cirean? Maybe one of the two terms is/was an umbrella term that includes the other, like Alamarri includes/included multiple tribes (Clayne, Chasind, Avvar)? Maybe there were simply multiple tribes like in Ferelden (Clayne, Chasind, Avvar) in the Anderfels (Yothand and Orth both). Maybe it’s just a case of loosely-defined groupings, like the Ciriane, with different parts or groupings within that having their own names? I'll note that interestingly "Yothand" seems like a combination of Anderfels and Orth.

Maybe "Yothandi" is a variant form of "Yothand" or plural or something?

Whatever the situation with the Yothand[i] and the Orth, given that e.g. the Ciriane for example are a loosely-defined group, given that the Alamarri are/were made up of multiple tribes (Avvar, Chasind, Clayne), given that the sketch gives these groups as “tribe[s]” plural (Ciriane, Planasene, Inghirsh, Yothand) just like it says “Alamarri tribes”, and given human history irl, since there are multiple named groupings underneath the Alamarri umbrella (Avvar, Chasind, Clayne), I’m choosing to headcanon that Ciriane, Planasene, Inghirsh etc are similarly umbrella terms with multiple other named groupings within them, just that they're names that we don’t know, unlike with the Alamarri tribes. makes sense, Ferelden is the most fleshed-out human nation in the setting.

Who are/were the “Shaelan” [sp?] race and the “Olvenene” [sp?] race?? (if you can make out those words better please let me know!!) I don’t think these words crop up elsewhere in known lore. On the sketch that they appear on, human tribes are called “[Something] tribes” and the elves (a people that is not human) are notated as the “Elvhenan race”. Were there a few other races that weren't human on Thedas this far back in the world’s time? Or at this point in the creation of the world in the dev process, were there a few more races who are not humans in the lore and they were then removed? I wonder what these groups were like/what these people were concepted to be like at that point. The “Shaelan race” are given as living in the now-Free Marches area south of the Minanter River. If the way Arlathan is drawn is anything to go by, the “Olvenene race” are given as living in what looks like a forest, north of the Tirashan and near the Hunterhorn Mountains, near where Kal-Sharok is. They have a capital city/settlement in that forest called “FaeFran” [sp?], which to me sounds kinda fantasy-elfy or fey. Maybe the patch of the forest north of the Tirashan on the map sketch became the green bit around the Blasted Hills on the map we know? I wonder if they were a different type of elf or a significant elven subculture within the greater culture Elvhenan, given the way the name sounds and the forest location. (also, like the Elvhenan and their capital in Arlathan Forest, in the next time period, they have also vanished...).

I'm also excited to see the Orkney Mountains appear (below the Tirashan, west of the Frostbacks)! Context on this from the DA wiki:

"The Orkney Mountains are not marked on any of the official maps. Traveler's Guide section of the Dragon Age: Origins: Prima Official Game Guide, Ultimate Edition provides the following description: "The Orkney Mountains, a rugged chain of mountains that stretches from the icy wastelands of the southeast deep into the continent's center, dominate the southern lands of Thedas." They are distinguished from the southern range of the Frostback Mountains, which are described in the following way "A smaller mountain chain called the Frostback Mountains juts between Ferelden and Orlais and holds the dwarven city of Orzammar (thought to be the last until the rediscovery of Kal-Sharok)." The status of the Orkney Mountains (including their supposed existence and location) remains unclear, as they were not mentioned in any other Dragon Age media."

Things I noticed on the later time-period maps:

From the map at 300 FC, it looks like there is a settlement called “Orlay” in Orlais. (again if you can make this out better than me, let me know!) On this map the only other settlement marked is Minrathous, the capital of Tevinter, and they’re marked with the same symbol (dot inside a circle), so I wonder if at one point in the worldbuilding process, the capital of Orlais was called Orlay? In later sketches, I can’t see Val Royeaux and Orlay is the only settlement in Orlais marked with the ‘capital’ symbol. Maybe Val Royeaux used to be called "Orlay" and then the devs renamed it?

On the map at 600 FC, it notes the Qunari as the “Qunari Empire”. I don’t remember hearing this phrase in published lore, unlike e.g. “Orlesian Empire” or “Tevinter Imperium”. Similarly, while Tevinter is called an empire in the lore, you don’t really hear “Tevinter Empire” like the map notes so much as "Tevinter", the "Imperium" and "the Tevinter Imperium".

On the last, most modern-day map sketch, specific locations for Qundalon and Sundarin are given in the form of dots marking them, as opposed to the map we’re familiar with which doesn’t mark them specifically and just has the text nearby in the general area. Sundarin might at one point have been “Sundurin” but it’s hard for me to make it out.

It’s on this last sketch that more settlement detail and more specific settlements that we’re familiar with start to appear, like Vyrantium, Marnas Pell, Neromenian, Redcliffe etc.

Interestingly, the capital of Seheron on the last sketch is given as Alam (marked by the capital symbol of a dot in a circle), with the settlement of Seheron marked with just a dot. It seems that at some point in the worldbuilding it was decided that the capital of Seheron the nation would be Seheron the settlement as opposed to Alam, as the lore we’re given states the capital is Seheron.

Treviso could have been “Trevis”, but the “o” could also just be obscured by the line of coastline. also it's odd to me that Calabria had to be renamed because it was the name of a region irl but Treviso, which is a city irl, just stayed Treviso?

Ansburg used to be on the coast of the Free Marches in the east, south of Rialto. As we know it, it’s to the west inland, north of Markham.

Lothering’s location also changed, quite a bit. In this map it’s on the northern coast of Ferelden, east of where we know Highever is and west of where we know Amaranthine is. (It is there, the first bit of the word is just obscured somewhat by the line of the coastline). In the map that shipped of course, it’s in Ferelden, south of the Bannorn and north of Ostagar.

I’m reading this settlement in the east of Ferelden on the map sketch as Highever. Anyone else also think so? Maybe this is where it used to be in the worldbuilding process until at some point like Lothering it changed? (or the changes also could have been a result of when the artists drew the map-proper, based on what the article says).

I’m reading the red box settlement here as Val Chevin. I wonder what the letters (looks like the end of a word that was partially cut off after “Orlesian Empire” in typeface was added by the sensitivity department) marked in blue said? maybe “-way”, as in the Imperial Highway? And I can’t make out the name of the settlement in brown is or match it with anywhere on the map we know. “Fourehatie”? [sp?] Maybe this place became “Val Foret”?

Lastly, in the Anderfels, I’m guessing that these settlements (“Laro-velanie”? [sp?], “Melo-orthanic”? [sp?]) are Nordbotten (left) and Hossberg (right) respectively. I guess they got renamed at some point in the world-building process. (Note the presence of “orth” in the name of what we know as Hossburg, like the Orth people/Orthland).

Is there anything else you noticed? any other places that changed name or locations, or people/group names that we can only guess at what they were? or maybe I missed something or you can make out any of the words better than me, or you compared the sketch maps to a different Thedas map like the DA:I war table map and noticed something? If you have any thoughts or corrections, let me know. ^^

Image credits: David Gaider [source link]

#dragon age #bioware #video games #long post #longpost #mj meta

[homocrafting]

turns out whatever instinct in me makes me want to make tma aus is unstoppable and all consuming. so here's qsmp tma au focused on the brazillians:

cellbit- he HAS to be the archivist ok this man is so eye aligned it's not even funny. HOWEVER because qcellbit and fcell are the same person, Events happened to him before he became the Archivist, ala from the archives grian. local paranormal enthusiast finds dead half eaten bodies, gets arrested for it (he SWEARS he didn't eat those people), goes to prison for 10 years, goes nuts (becomes F!Cell), kills himself in the island, wakes up in his room and Felps tells him "bro you disappeared for 10 days are you ok" and he's just like. What.

Worth mentioning that he fucking speedruns the archives. also known as the qsmp. Cucurucho, who is kind of like elias but a bit less (I inagine the Host would be elias, wjoever they are), thinks "wooo new archivist I wonder how long it'll take them to find out abt the horrors" and then cellbit shows up 3 days later running on 2 hours of sleep and 20 mugs of coffee with a consipracy board connecting a bunch of statements and theorizing about entities

ALSO the web is around him like all the time. if you pay attention there's at least 2 spiders near him at all times, usually hidden because he squishes them when he sees them. he's tangled in the web of lies that is the plot I'm making for this au and his ass is NOT beating it

Felps- Stranger type of guy who doesn't even know and takes like. a year to realise something's up with him. don't worry abt it ok I don't know why he's stranger-y to me either. it's the vibes just trust me

Mike- ok so. I am Very unsure for pac and mike, PLUS I've not seen herobrine a lenda, which means I don't know all their backstory, BUT I'm thinking Lonely for Mike, so far? he kind of distances himself from everyone after richas dies with him, so far is the only person I've not seen much gay happenings happen to, tends to disappear to fuckall nowhere apparently, as one does. also the fact that, back in prison, he seemed to have the most difficulty connecting with others.

also, the Desolation hates him personally. he doesn't know why. his house has burnt down thrice. he gets burnt by the littlest things for no reason. he's banned from the kitchen. an avatar of the desolation tried to kill him once. he watched his own son die in front of him. this is based on nothing from qsmp or anything I've seen Mike do I just think it's funny

Pac- I can only think of Vast and Spiral for him tee bee eich. Leaning heavily towards the Vast because, you know. gestures to the giant hide and seek maps, and also O RAIO, even though I have 0 context for that. he just... he explores the world and made giant hole (yeah yeah holes are the buried but consider: it's big.). it's his "I can show you the world" vibes. again dude just trust me

note abt tazercraft: both of them are very, very touched by the Spiral. reason? Chume Labs

Forever- I'm thinking either the Buried (mostly the digging aspect- he's destroyed a whole mountain and dug up and entire desert), or the Hunt (his intense hunt for Phil's love, the insane grinding that could be seen as hunting for resources, the werewolf hc my beloved). Leaning more towards the Hunt bc dogboyyyyy

The plot I have in mind is very different from the tma plot, but I'm not sure of everything yet, so for now you get this little bpnus :)

[CLICK]

[Cellbit]

We've been back from the Adoption Center for about a day now. Not a timely update, but things happened, and, well.

We found... we found a weird... creature. It- he? Acts human, although he can't talk. He communicates with us through a little notebook, and overall acts incredibly childish. He sure looks like a child. One with- with some material akin to... to egg shells as skin. He has hair, despite apparently being all... eggy. It's black and curly, covers his face. He doesn't like it when we try to move it away from there, but we're working on a safe way to see what's under there.

He seems not to know where he came from, but I know he's lying. It's- there's no way he doesn't, not with what he said, I don't care if Pac and Mike or, hell, Felps believes him, He called us fucking- he called us dads! That's the first fucking thing he said! It has to be some kind of trap, some kind of spy, I don't know yet but when I find out I'm going to fucking-

Shit. That wasn't too professional. Alright, where were we.

We brought him to the Institute. Forever and I weren't thrilled about the idea, but it was 3 against 2. I can't believe Felps would- I get Pac and Mike, there's something wrong with them I'm sure of it, but Felps? I underestimated his braincells. What am I talking about, he doesn't have any.

(Soft chuckle)

We, we named him Richarlyson, he seemed to like it. We asked his name first, but all he did was draw a- (Snort) a stick figure shrugging.

The only clothes he has are a singular oversized Brazil shirt. The moços and Felps want to go buy him clothes.

I don't know how they'll justify the kid having, I don't know, pure white hard skin, but they said not to worry about it, so I guess I won't! I won't. I fucking won't.

... I'm gonna follow them tomorrow. Just to be safe.

That's all for today, I'm gonna go- I'm going to check some statements, see if there's anything even remotely related to this.

This is Cellbit, Head Archivist of the QSMP, which I still don't known what stands for by the way, signing off.

[CLICK]

#cellbit #forever player #forever #richarlyson #felps #tazercraft #pactw #mikethelink #brazil world domination #qsmp #hmmm I need a tag for this au #the quesadilla archives #<- idk if that's gonna be permanent but that's it for now #favela five

[bg-brainrot]

Day 10 of the BG3 Holiday Challenge \0/

Prompt: Winter Markets

Featuring: Astarion x Rogue!Tav

Series: Fits into Love at First Knife, AO3 link here

Premise: Winter is quickly coming to a close, and you’ve yet to experience the full winter experience with Astarion. Determined to get the most of your season, you drag Astarion to a winter market when one appears not far from where you live.

Tags: POV Second Person, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Fluff, Holidays, post-canon, comfort

Word count: ~1k

“Hurry up, Astarion,” you say, holding your lover’s hand and pulling. You’re both on your way to a nearby winter market, one of the last few before the season ends, and likely the only one you and Astarion can attend this year. You couldn’t travel in the daylight and most of the markets closed before too late, so your options have been limited. “We won’t have nearly enough time at the market if you don’t walk faster.”

“I don’t even need anything from this–this market,” Astarion grumbles, continuing to hold your hand in his as you walk despite his protests. “I doubt there’s even anything worth stealing.”

“Are you kidding?” you ask, blinking at him in shock as you continue to walk. “It’s not about buying or stealing anything– it’s about the experience!”

The vampire rolls his eyes dramatically before responding. “And what, pray tell, will I be experiencing? The bitter cold?”

“Well, I haven’t been to this market yet, so I can’t say,” you begin, ignoring his signature barbs. “Most typically have things like seasonal drinks, which I suppose you don’t care about.”

“Not particularly, no.”

“They also have delicious sweet treats,” you say, a pleasant smile coming over your face as you recall a particularly delicious gingerbread you had at a market a few years back. 

Astarion laughs at that and squeezes your hand affectionately. “I would say that you’re the only sweet treat I need, but I suspect you can’t hear me while you’re drooling over whatever conjured confectionery is in your head.” 

You scowl at him and pay no mind to the rumble of your stomach. “Fine, those are more for me. But there is also entertainment, vendors, and lights.”

After hearing your enthusiasm for the night market, Astarion reluctantly speeds up. He hooks your elbow with his and you head toward the winter market arm-in-arm.

–

It’s a small market, nothing like the ones you’ve been to before. It has no more than a dozen stalls, maybe just as many attendees, and the single source of live entertainment, a bard, looks to be quite done for the day. One glance, and you’re certain it won’t impress Astarion– perhaps his misgivings had been warranted.

“Actually,” you drawl, tugging him back by the elbow. “I think you were right. Doubt we’ll experience much here.”

Astarion stops in his tracks, confused by your hesitation. “Darling?” he asks, tugging gently back. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” you say, shaking your head. “It just doesn’t seem like the most… bustling of markets. Perhaps we can go for a nice stroll instead?”

“Nonsense, my dear,” he says, smiling at you softly. “I want to see all of the charming things you mentioned, and I don’t think we can do that on a stroll.”

You’re uncertain about the amount of charm that you’ll find here, and relay the concern to your love, “I described a very different type of market.” You take a quick look around and continue in a low voice, “This place is rather small.”

“Oh darling,” Astarion says, with a chuckle. “As a sad, poorly-endowed man once said, size hardly matters– it’s what you do with it that counts.” He gives you a wink and steers you toward the first stall, where they seem to sell warm ciders.

At your love’s insistence, you purchase a cider from the kind woman running the stall, and despite all of your hesitation, it’s everything you wanted. It’s a sweet, cinnamony cider, and, even after burning your tongue on that first, searing hot sip, you know that amazing flavor could tide you over for the rest of the winter.

Before you can doubt the market again, Astarion is already dragging you to the next stall where an elderly man sells seasonal textiles. You peruse, speak to the vendor, and buy a little scarf to drape around your lover. He grins at you before grabbing your hand and moving to your next stop.

You continue through the stalls in this way, stopping each time to inspect what the vendor sells before Astarion drags you to the next one. You find kitschy winter decorations, handmade sculptures of seasonal gods, soaps of all winter-varieties, and a man claiming to create five-minute portraits– you, of course, get one of Astarion, which manages to be both awful and the best silver you’ve ever spent.

It’s only after purchasing a delicious holiday pudding that you finally get the vampire to stop, with the excuse that you’d like to sit down to appreciate it. So you both find your way to a bench, nestled in a corner of the marketplace.

As you take your first bite, you can’t help the groan of pleasure that escapes you. “Oh my dear,” Astarion says, looking at you with a naughty smirk. “If I knew you made noises like that for any old pudding, I wouldn’t be nearly as satisfied with the noises I draw from you.”

“Gods,” you breathe out, gulping down the first bite. “This isn’t just any old pudding. This might be one of the best desserts I’ve ever had.”

Your lover grins like a satisfied cat and places a single kiss on your cheek as he says, “Good. Aren’t you glad we came?”

You pause halfway through your next bite to stare at him. “I am, but shouldn’t that be my line?”

He laughs, drinking in your expression. “It might have been, but I’m afraid I’ve stolen it. One of us had to be excited for the market, you see.”

“I was excited,” you defend half-heartedly as you savor another bite of pudding. 

“Of course you were, darling,” he says, reaching up to wipe a crumb off the corner of your lip. “And when you lost your excitement, I was all too glad to pick it back up.”

You look at him again, the small scarf still draped around his neck, the silly portrait tucked into his coat pocket, his lips flushed from helping you with your cider. The man who hated the season was the very epitome of the season tonight, and all for you. After putting your holiday pudding down on the bench, you turn to him and cup his face between your hands. You place a single soft kiss on his still-warm lips and pull back to say, “Thank you, love. Truly.”

“It was my pleasure,” he says, eyes crinkling with joy. And you know he means it.

#astarion #astarion x tav #fanfic #rogue + rogue #astarion x reader #bg3holidayfluffle23

[nights-at-crystarium]

1 year of Fragments, but what about other numbers?

- 28 episodes, 443 panels, 3 spread pages

(^ screenshot of my tumblr archive, not all pages, I just wanted a quick and flashy presentation)

- The entire ARR arc is 11 episodes, while it takes another 14 episodes for Vivi to acclimate to Norvrandt and get back to his job

- Vivi's sported 9 outfits so far (he's about to step up his game)

- Aedric's snuck in 6 panels as a cameo

- 3 in-universe years have passed between the ARR and ShB arcs

- About 10 seconds for Ardbert to feel normal before Feo Ul reminds him of reality

- 1 pair of wetted pants and 1 stained shirt

- 1 tree in Lakeland broken by Vivi's flawless landing

- Night finally brought back to 1 (ONE!) region

- 1 kiss. Next kiss is still around a year away, but I hope it'd have been worth it

- 250+ patrons, each of which I thank for believing in me and enabling this insanity

- 115 downloads of the free chapter 1 pdf on kofi, 26 downloads of the free chapter 2 pdf (I published it without as much fanfare since it’s still ongoing, but yeah it exists and it’s been updated btw!)

- 14 days for me to finish an episode, with rare breaks. I still have to exist and live an adult life (no, the unfun kind), so out of those 14 days I spend 9~12 actually working on the comic

- 0 art-related physical injuries. Even if my output looks rather concerning, I take great care and make sure to stay healthy! There’s only one me, and he has a mission to fulfill- *kicked*

And lastly, The Reviews (tm). I come out as a sappy and miserable fuck that constantly needs encouragement, so I tend to save some of your messages and reread them when I run out of happy brain juice. Here’s just a fraction.

#fragments talk #text post #my number of panels might be slightly off but i tried my best okay #my sleep deprived single braincell runs on sheer determination these days

[mysteriousquantumphysics]

How to Use Quantum Computing as a Tool for Philosophy of Science

Recently, I attended the MCQST 2023 Conference on which Lídia del Rio presented the research with her collaborators about quantum thought experiments in a quantum computer. They wrote a whole package to do this and describe the ideas in detail in [1]. It's definitely worth checking out the paper and the package - to make you curious let us look at an illustrative example [1, p.4-10].

Example Setting

Let us consider the following setting (as depicted in the image above): Alice has some two-level quantum system R (e.g. a qubit) in the state written in blue. Thus, the probability of obtaining a=0 in a measurement is 1/3 while the result a=1 will be obtained with a probability 2/3. Depending on the outcome, Bob receives the a system in state |0> (if Alice's result was a=0) or in state |+> ~ |0>+|1> (if Alice's result was a=1). In turn, Bob measures his system in the computational basis and can receive the outcome b=0 or b=1. What conclusions can Bob draw about Alice's measurement outcomes based on his? It is assumed that Bob knows the rules upon which Alice sends him the different systems. Thus, if his outcome is b=0 he cannot make any retrodiction since the outcome b=0 could stem from both possible states |0> and |+>. However, if he measures b=1 he knows that his state must have been in |+> and thus he can retrodict that Alice's outcome must have been a=1. Therefore, in one of both cases Bob can draw a deterministic conclusion about Alice's outcome.

So far so good, at this point I'd like to mention that even though this setup seems to be motivated by the Frauchiger-Renner Thought Experiment, we will not talk about apparent paradoxes or fundamental questions in foundations of quantum mechanics themselves. Instead the setting is supposed to be easy to grasp and can therefore neatly serve the purpose to illustrate how a thought experiment can be formalized in terms of quantum circuits. Hence, we will discuss a tool which can be used for quantum thought experiments in general by using a simple example.

Alice's and Bob's Brains in a Quantum Circuit

Next, we will translate this specific setting as a quantum circuit - by going through the above illustration of the resulting circuit. The first qubit is initialized in the state of Alice's system R. Even though this seems to be the only true quantum system at hand, we will act as if there was an external observer who looks at both Alice and Bob and their respective systems. Imagine you are in the position of this external observer and set the Heisenberg cut at this point: You are classical while both Alice and Bob are quantum (as it is done in Neo-Copenhagen interpretations). Then, one also has to model the "brains"/"memory" of both Alice and Bob. We start with Alice first: we assign a wire of the circuit to Alice's reasoning which basically means that somehow the possible measurement results are stored in this respective qubit. The wire representing her memory is initialized in state |0> and is connected to her system R via a CNOT gate. This means that if the system R was in state |0>, the qubit representing Alices would stay in |0>. However, if R was in |1>, Alice's state of memory would be in |1> as well. This way, one can model different measurement outcomes and also Alice's memory in a unitary manner without explicitly including measurements in the circuits yet. This is necessary since from our external perspective everything about Bob and Alice is considered to be quantum, i.e. must be modelled unitarily. Now, we can look at the third wire: It is again initialized in state |0> and remains in this state if Alice's memory is in state |0>. However, the controlled Hadamard will act on the third wire if Alice's memory is in state |1>, hence it would be turned into state |+>. Thus the controlled Hadamard models the system S which Bob receives - conditioned on Alice's measurement outcome of R. Finally, the last wire is again initialized in |0> and is supposed to model Bob's memory. Exactly as Alice's memory, also the relation between Bob's memory and his system S is modeled via a CNOT gate.

As a result we now have a quantum circuit which represents the setup from above from an external perspective. I think already at this point one can see the beauty of this approach - while one needs quite a lot of sentences to explain the simple setup, it can very easily be grasped by the neat quantum circuit. What is left to do now is to model Bob's reasoning regarding his retrodiction on Alice's outcome. We found that Bob can draw a deterministic conclusion about Alice's measurement outcome if his outcome is b=1, in the other case he cannot draw such a conclusion. How can this be mapped into a quantum circuit?

Modelling Bob's reasoning

In the above circuit we added a couple of additional wires. One set represents the four possible logical inferences in this case, and the last two wires will show what Bob's prediction will be based on the initialized inferences. Let's go through this step by step: There are four possible inferences on the measurement outcomes a and b, but only one of them is assumed to hold, namely (b = 1 -> a=1), which is why only the wire corresponding to this inference is initialized in state |1>. The other three inferences, which are assumed not to hold, are initialized in |0> and since there are control nodes from the nonlocal Toffoli-type on those wires, they will not really contribute as long as one does not change the initialization. Those Toffoli-type gates have two control nodes each as well as a NOT at the lower end. One control node is placed on Bob's memory qubit, acting dependently on the outcome b and represents the antecedent of each possible inference. If the inference of a wire assumes b=1 the corresponding Toffoli node on Bob's memory will be black, while it will be white for b=0. The second control node of each Toffoli gate is black in order to be activated according to which inference is initialized with state |1>. The consequent of those inferences is modeled by the lowest two wires. The NOT of each Toffoli is placed on the corresponding wires representing the consequent. Looking at the Toffoli for the inference b=1 -> a=1, one can see that if Bob's memory is in |1> and simultaneously the wire of the corresponding inference is initialized as |1> as well, the NOT on the lowest wire will turn the respective state to |1> (the prediction wires are initialized in |0>). Thus, Bob's prediction can be read off by the states of the prediction wires. Finally, one can also run this circuit and check its consistency - how?

Consistency Checks

In the above image we have put together all we got so far: Alice's actions from before, as well as bob's actions and his reasoning as discussed right above. The consistency of such a model can be checked by measuring the prediction wires as well as Alice's memory qubit. In this case, the only deterministic inference will show itself if Bob's prediction wire for a=1 will be |1> and this will coincide with Alice's memory being in |1>. For the other case, no inference can be done. This way one can check the consistency of the model and if the results show paradoxical outcomes one knows that something went wrong, that something in the logical reasoning / adopted interpretation of quantum theory is getting problematic. Having everything formalized as a quantum circuit will make the analysis of the issues easier.

Final Remarks

It appears to me that Quantum Circuits are not used here because one expects some computational advantage by running them on a Quantum Computer - instead they are used to neatly formalize subsystems and possible inferences of thought experiments. This way, thought experiments can be made more clear and transparent as well as it is easier to see the problem if the outcomes are not consistent. Therefore, their work shows that quantum circuits have a much broader field of application - it is not only about striving for some kind of quantum advantage for specific decision problems, instead they can also be used to formalize concepts in foundations of quantum mechanics; and this is something I have never thought about before, which is why I am so fascinated by the idea.

---

References: [1] Nurgalieva, Mathis, del Rio, Renner - Thought experiments in a quantum computer. arXiv:2209.06236

#physics #mysteriousquantumphysics #quantum physics #studyblr #physicsblr #science #education #quantum #philosophy of science #philosophy #quantum computing

[anthropwashere]

Finally got around to watching Puss in Boots: The Last Wish

and

100% honesty here?

I smiled-to-grinned-helplessly at every second of it! It is SO charming and SO expertly animated! The comparisons to the Spiderverse movies I've seen so far are 100% warranted and I genuinely hope loads of CGI animated movies follow these patterns/designs in the future because they're just SO refreshing to watch in a... maybe "engaging" is the word to use? You feel like you're IN the animation, reacting eagerly TO it, rather than sitting tiredly as you watch a rough draft with a few key splash pages go by.

I dunno. YouTube keeps recommending me people bleh-dunking on Disney's Wish and from what clips of that movie I've seen it looks SO dull in comparison to Puss. Like, I have 0 clue what Wish is about! I've seen maybe 4 5-10 second clips of it at most. There's a goat? The protag's bestie (besties??) are based on the 7 Dwarves? There's like 50 references to older Disney movies because it's supposed to be a celebration of Disney's 100th?

But strictly speaking from a visual perspective/demonstration/execution/exultation of animation prowess? Puss is INCREDIBLE. On a strictly visual/style comparison there is NO comparison. I'm speaking honestly here; I couldn't HELP but grin watching every second of Puss. It's a delight just to watch. I'd say that even if the story bored me and that is NOT the case. The story is SO GOOD. The story makes it an EASY 10 times better than what the brilliant visuals promised. It is SO worth the dollars I dropped on a rental watch of it, and it's definitely a movie I (a person who is NOT interested in movies until years later at BEST) would be keen to watch again.

#A VISUAL FEAST THIS IS #also a minor character's voice actor has the EXACT same name as both an uncle AND a cousin #because my extended family loves reusing names to DEATH #i'm saying this as a goddamn Lorelei. NOBODY has my name. #i'm in my 30s and i have NEVER met another Lorelei IRL #if i'm allowing wonky spellings/same pronunciations I met a... Loreleigh? i think? at the San Antonio zoo in 2015 #and i've got a distant COUSIN named Lorelei who's. idk. in grade school now probably? maybe middle school? #extended family is weird #point is. Movie Good. Couldn't Help But Grin Throughout. #also john mulaney is in it and that was a delightful surprise nobody spoiled me on #ANYWAY i paused like 50 times just to marvel at how GOOD this movie LOOKS #never mind the VERY GOOD story #it LOOKS SO GODDAMN GOOD TO WATCH #also the Wolf's design was 100% influenced by Diablo 3 TELL ME I'M WRONG #also also the side character FAMILY dynamic??? i'm dying. i love them. #i saw the first Puss movie in theaters back in what. 2011? i should've expected i genuinely good goddamn story from the start

[lylylylyy]

As a Touya stan I'm frustrated with the new chapter because Enji still mainly saw Touya as some kind of responsibility, not his kid wanting his attention from the very beginning.

When Enji faces Touya, the first thing we know about him is that he notices phosphor, which leads to the question of asking about Shouto's well-being.

Enji's question is rather reasonable since Touya made it clear that killing Shouto is his goal, and it's natural for Enji to be concerned about Shouto, the kid he showed to care the most in the series who could be dead. However, what annoys me is that he showed no concern about Touya's health-I mean, looking at Touya. The whole fandom and the characters in the manga are all wondering how he could be alive. He is basically on his last legs yet Enji here showed zero concern about this fact.

Contrary to Enji's concern for Touya in the previous chapter, he chose to ask the rather triggering question related to Touya's whole trauma of being thrown away by his parents for his younger brother, which is not beneficial for Touya's overall health state at all. Seeing this, I couldn't help but feel that some people in the fandom are way too optimistic about Enji's parenting skills. He is trying, yet his attempt is far from a good try, so I don't think the worries and frustrations are unsupported in the text.

Also, I noticed the final words, "父に課されたのは…" after the last panel. It's not Enji pov but still represents the author's attitude towards Enji's emotions.

父 means father, and 課された is not a very good word here. It means be imposed on, usually used to describe a burden or loan. Thus it gives me the feeling that the next chapter will not be the heart-to-heart conversation about Enji's love for Touya when he was young, just a talk about the responsibilities Enji had to take. No potential affection or caring parents vibes, only some obliged resignation.

I understand that Enji's reactions would absolutely make sense, since Enji was never a kind person in the past and he's not used to the thought of caring for Touya as a parent for 10 years. But as a person whose supposed redemption arc of becoming a decent father is receiving so many praises, Enji in this chapter feels pretty lame and upsets me because he failed to reach that bar again.

Horikoshi's been pretty busy, and I hope he could get the rest that he deserves. I understand that this chapter is short due to his alarming health condition and we will get the next chapter where meaningful things would probably happen between Touya and Enji. However, judging from the text, their upcoming interactions seem rather dim and uncertain to me.

We know that Enji thinks his mission(my translation of 使命, the word he used in the chapter) is to keep eyes on Touya, but keeping eyes on Touya now won't just magically remove the pain of being rejected for over a decade. I pessimistically think it would be just another battle shounen fighting scene, where Enji takes damages from Touya and fails to say anything that would be impactful enough to stop Touya from his self-destructive mental state. It might make a difference as Shouto and his Phosphor did, but it won't be strong enough to totally chill Touya. I just hope the next chapter will prove that I was wrong.

Considering the cultural background, the typical harsh East-Asian father Enji would not suddenly become a person that has no shame in acknowledging his affection and worries towards his son. Like the scene with Natsuo getting kidnapped, I strongly doubt that he would give the interactions western society considered the right things to do.

As for the Todoroki endgame, I can't help but think about Shouto, who genuinely desired to know his brother despite the sad fact they probably shared 0 good memories in the past. Touya 100% knows that his crimes would be a burden for his father, but as a person with very low self-worth, he won’t anticipate his family to want him back as a beloved member. I feel it pretty unrealistic if Enji turns out to be a loving A+ parent and solves Touya's issues all by himself, so I believe the narratives won't just go that far.

Therefore, I assume the father-son fighting scene would end with Shouto interfering. However, another scene of stopping Touya with ice again would be pretty unnecessary. My guess is AFO would do something stupid and Toga would be convinced by Ochako to stop the parade and help her friends, and Shouto might come to help Touya take AFO.

PS: I am not a native English speaker so I might end up writing weird or offensive sentences while not knowing about them. Please tell me if I was wrong or being rude _(:з」∠)_

#mha 376 #bnha 376 #mha spoilers #endeavor #todoroki enji #dabi #todoroki touya #ly thoughts #mha manga spoilers #mha manga leaks #shoto todoroki #touya todoroki #enji todoroki