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h0undeye · 1 year

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raises hand waves waves waves id like to hear abr ur homestuck au

im making the executive decision to put this under a readmore

first things first this takes place centuries into the future of the alternian empire. ive yet to decide if hic is still the reigning empress but. whatever. thats kind of irrelevant and youll see why

the alternian empire has extended FAR. an expansion so vast that its caused a societal AND governmental shift in priorities. further colonization has taken a backburner as scientific advancement has been prioritized

ysee i have a theory that alternian spacecraft literally does not function using electricity and is solely powered by psionic goldbloods. this is due to little details, like planes not having been invented, the idea of electricity powering things being thought of as laughable, etc. so with how great the empire has become, they need to improve

so, the black mesa research facility is founded, directly funded by the empire itself. it is staffed by adult trolls, as there is no longer a need for adults to immediately be shipped off to war

most of the scientists employed end up being cerulean or indigo due to the bias of the empire. the caste system is still very present. further, most of the security being staffed are olive, and its rare to see anyone below such color in the wings of black mesa

enter stage right gordon freeman. hes a bronzeblood, BARELY making it in via recommendation by isaac kleiner, his former mentor. this is where the story is pretty much as we remember. the resonance cascade occurs, gordon fights the creatures of xen, yknow

and so heres the thing. xen is in an entirely different dimension. alternia and xen are not from the same world. thats why xen was not colonized by the empire at all. this is also how alternia avoided detection by the combine. so, similarly to in half life, the portal fuckery between xen and alternia alerted the combine to the existence of the alternian empire. since the combine is so fucking large they do manage to also gain control of the empires colonies (afterall, what they allotted to earth was NOT the full extent of the combines empire). while alternia CERTAINLY wasnt defeated in 7 hours, they most certainly did fall under combine rule eventually. notably, the combines most influential act was the murder of the reigning empress and all other living fuchsias, recognizing how this would destabilize the alternian government (plus most of the few fuchsias in existence had died in the war itself and werent directly executed)

see why i said the empress wouldnt be too important?

narratively, i think this also provides a more,,, natural(?) reason for wallace breen serving as the ambassador for the combine, as alternians would gravitate towards having the next highest caste to rule, and breen is a violet in this au (all colors will be listed at the. hes violet because black mesa is directly ran by the empire so theyd naturally appoint a seadweller to run it)

anyway! when it comes to how alternians FEEL about the combines rule, well. id say theyre just as revolted, if not MORE than humans. theyre really good at PRETENDING theyre happy under these conditions, but the resistance is definitely bigger, not even just because alternia has a larger population, but even when it comes to percent of the population a part of the resistance

WHICH speaking of this leads me to a really shitty transition to talk about SIGNS because i am writing this in chunks and forgot to include it earlier. the combine have also eliminated the use of signs. they represent a level of personality and individuality that just wont fly w the combine. so no one has a sign anymore. EXCEPT the resistance. who have adopted gordons sign instead. for one, gordon freeman is who the combine are wary of the most, so bearing any memento of him is already a huge fuck you. but his SIGN? the most identifiable part of him which is also the aspect of a troll the combine are MOST against? thas rebellion 101 baby

and something of note is that, while casteism is still an issue, its not a fundamental aspect of society. upholding the caste system is pretty much pointless in the current day, HOWEVER, those ideals were instilled so deeply into society that biases and internalized casteism do still exist. SO people are more willing to dawn the sign of a bronze, but that doesnt mean that theyve achieved perfect equality

i think thats enough lore? character time!

first, colors. i'll use the names i use for character tags on here

burgundy: joshua

bronze: gordon freeman, gordon martinis freeman, gordon freemind

gold: alyx vance, russell, tommy coolatta

olive: barney calhoun, barmey calhoun, forzen

jade: gina cross, judith mossman

teal: colette green

cerulean: isaac kleiner, eli vance, darnold pepper

indigo: arne magnusson, adrian shephard, dr coomer, mindrian shephard, all hecu marines excluding forzen

purple: the black ops assassins

violet: wallace breen, bubby

fuchsia: oops! all dead

notable exceptions: g-man (hlvrai and half life) who is not a troll but presents as a tealblood. benrey who is not a troll and presents as olive but can and does change his blood color at will

so what the fuck is up with alyx joshua and tommy i hear you ask?

alyx was a young troll who eli decided to mentor after her lusus died. eli got her into science as a whole, but specifically engineering and mechanics

the g-man found tommy, also with a dead lusus, and thought "this is neat. im keeping him". whatever species g-man is has a concept of family, which g-man teaches to tommy, so tommy is the only one in the group who knows what the word father means

joshua was taken under gordons wing, similarly to alyx and eli, but joshuas lusus is still alive. however, his lusus is sickly and unable to care for joshua on his own, so gordon helps out and also teaches josh cool science things but is not his sole guardian

and yes, this au includes half life, hlvrai, and the mindverse. i imagine this au not being ONE universe, but a collection of universes that are kinda parallel to each other? its like an umbrella au. i dont know if i'll do any crossuniverse shenanigans or not. id probably have to refresh myself on homestuck timeline n multiverse mechanics

ive written so fucking much. i can explain my choice of blood colors but i'll only do that if asked because HOLY SHIT

#textpost #hlvrai #mindverse #halfstuck au #umbreoncomplex #NOT tagging the characters augh

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nbnezumi · 6 years

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25-30 w ALL ur dnd charas plus Marshall

im gonna limit it to the ones that have been posted on here because 5x3 is 15 and LONG and also some of them just arent that developed. under a cut because, again, long

25. Favorite animal?

azgen- Oh You Know 🐀

cléon- birds in general, but particularly big colorful ones

marshall- cows because he just thinks theyre neat

26. Expansion of civilization or the preservation of nature?

azgen- they just want things to stay balanced overall, like expanding is fine if its not hurting anything

cléon- definitely preservation of nature, she grew up surrounded by nature and values it for both its necessity to her work back home and because it was here first dont be rude

marshall- expansion of civilization kind of by necessity, like its not safe for most people outside of the domes so in order to have everyone live somewhere safe they need to push outwards

27. They’re at a tavern. They bump into a big burly angry drunk with a combative attitude. What happens?

azgen- 💪💪🐀 but only if the other person actually physically starts the fight

cléon- apologizes and offers to buy them a drink/share her snack to settle things down

marshall- since he bumped into the other person he would say sorry and try to continue whatever he was doing, but if they tried to start something he would say lets take this outside and then after walking out the front door he would just keep walking and leave and go home

28. What do they do between quests?

azgen- azgens been running a fairly successful business for about a century and is not gonna let a little jail time and a move get in the way of that. its pretty much just for fun/hobbies at this point though because adventuring makes a lot of $$$ (that we left on that goblin island because i dont know how factories work but they should be compensated for their work! i hope theyre doing ok...)

cléon- shes entirely out of her depth and is doing the adventure equivalent of nodding and saying yeah when you didnt hear the other person, so shes gonna spend a good while meeting everyone and exploring. she likes to draw maps so she probably draws one of the core/surrounding area

marshall- even before switching to office work it was pretty similar, like monster hunting and desk jobs are stressful in their own rights so a lot of it is stuff that relaxes him... read a book, work on a jigsaw puzzle, play with the gerbils... but also because too much of that is boring he definitely took the car outside and did some things of questionable legality

29. Biggest positive and negative influences on their life and development?

azgen- positive, well both kids were troublemakers but they had a very patient mentor who put up with a lot of their shit until they figured out that actually sometimes learning is cool and actually got down to it. another positive i actually would count is getting arrested because otherwise theyd still be in that hermit hut and i think meeting a bunch of new friends and getting a big ol prophecy is a better direction for life. negative, since there were two of them and they basically did all the same stuff they ended up dividing up/prioritizing things differently which after they werent together anymore left azgen not being able to read common/swim/cook well/etc... also the Chicken Incident which scared both of them so much they still cant face a chicken in the flesh. this cant be used as a weakness against each other just based on the fact that one of them would have to get close enough to one to move it/put it in a trap/confirm its a chicken. and of course the whole gun thing is also a big negative.

cléon- positive, she has a very caring and supporting family! especially her older sister who took her on trips when she was younger and helped her get into music, and her mom who raised her to be polite but take no shit. learning to play an instrument also was a positive because it gave her a good creative outlet which shed been needing for a while. negative, she lived kind of in the middle of nowhere as a young kid and didnt really have perspective or exposure to much, and shes had a lot of responsibility re: her younger sisters handed down after her older sister moved to the city which she didnt really have a chance to get away from unless shes working.

marshall-i dont have a lot of his deeper backstory official yet because i know were supposed to do the shared history bits and ive been planning to get those and then work from there + my skeleton to get the big picture? i get stepping on toes anxiety about storywriting too though so this is partially that sorry. i do figure though that monster hunting as a profession would be a general negative just since its pretty dangerous and doing that as a paid job for a company like with a schedule would be more stressful/less flexible than just doing it freelance. positive, since hes got a less fatal job at the moment hes had a good amount of me time and has got himself right, as much as one can when they live in a dome and probably will go back to hunting monsters in the future. he might have to leave the gerbils with his cousin so he calls her twice a month to make sure she remembers how to take care of them, and also to watch movies. that counts as positive because they have a good time and im running out of things to say!

30. Would they smooch a ghost?

azgen- they have to meet the same standards as any other person but the fact that theyre a ghost wouldnt get in the way

cléon- shed have to understand how someone can exist as a ghost and just how dead they actually are but she would be

marshall- it might be a little weirder than bigfoot but yes you know it

#ghostie answers #dnd3d #idnd #mmotw #azgen #cléon #marshall #lesbian-warlock #asks

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caredogstips · 7 years

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How Pandora, Bandcamp, and others plan to change your listening garbs

Streaming services were once decreed a death knell for the music business. But those very fellowships converged upon South by Southwest( SXSW) this month to try to mold the industry in their imageand, in the process, save it.

As these platforms, Web works, and apps jostled for ground in Austin, Texas, they likewise battled with an existential crisis: Forget royalty payouts or the perils of free on-demand listeningit is about to change shoppers are entitled, ever-changing buyers whose needs and challenges alteration like a playlist on shuffle. How do you consistently dish that inconsistent gathering?

For decades the music economy could lean on its superfans. Theyd spread the word with sidekicks, splurge for merch, and buy different publications of the same record. But yesterdays obsessive importation vinyl fetishist is increasingly becoming todays monthly Spotify subscriber.

Yesterdays obsessive import vinyl fetishist is increasingly becoming todays monthly Spotify subscriber .

At a SXSW panel, former Rhapsody exec Jon Maples mourned the decline of these big spender, who used to buy a lot of content. And now they get it for a define cost of 10 bucks a few months.

Increasingly, he spoke, Spotify and its fortune are more about whats next than observing bands and songs to explore and obsess over. The good information, he remarked, is the data shows you have more various forms of listening than ever before.

Marisol Segal, who helped launch Rdio in 2010, blamed streaming music business. You establish technology in this realm and its flow like a technology companionship, she remarked, and thats acquired her check out from the Internets buffet of services.

And thats the audience to observe. The names and the music manufacture are watching very carefully what prototype harvests the most fund, Pandoras Chief Product Officer Christopher Phillips told the Daily Dot. We allwant to pay artists more fund. Its not clear what simulation works best.

If there was a consensus coming out of the SXSW void, that was it.

A crowded sandbox

Pandora isnt sweating the uncertain times. It has a plan.

Ramon Ramirez

Were with them in the morning, at work, in the workout, at nightpeople invest a lot of occasion with the app, Phillips remarked. The median customer, he answered, wastes 22 hours a month streaming Pandora.

With that in its pocket, Pandora can move into stumping for creators and leading head-to-head with Spotify. Phillips said the 16 -year-old streaming monstrous is on the eve of debuting more bells and whistles, too: In the last year, its acquired international opponent Rdio, concert programme Ticketfly, and the predictive algorithms of Next Big Sound.

Phillips supposed Pandora is also haunting direct treats for its own on-demand representation. At SXSW, Pandora booked the Gatsby and livestreamed performances from trending and diverse identifies like Young Thug, Yacht, and Troye Sivan. In terms of curating exciting notions, thats a big tastemaking win.

But their sandbox continues crowded and contentious.

Its not a one-app-wins-all occasion .

Its not a one-app-wins-all happen, Phillips suggested, before memorandum the chasm between Pandora and Spotify: certainly does restrict, and if you want that see, you have to pay.

Not everyone agrees. Spotify consumer are able to access a vast library and torrent anything with the services offered free, ad-supported model. Overwhelmingly, the majority of members of Spotifys usersas numerous as 75 percentare fine with this version.

( Its been, well, messy. On Monday Spotify announced it contacted 30 million paid subscribersjust as it set a $30 million lawsuit with the National Music Publishers Association for unpaid royalties during SXSW .)

If other services are successful over the long run to keep the ability of free on-demand, well have to address that, Phillips pronounced. But we repute the creator got to go require more.

A most perfect confederation

Music is a consumers tournament. If youre a clique or creator, that entails constructing an audience is trickier than ever. Ten years ago youd upload four tracks to Purevolume or Myspace and badger your Facebook friends to hear a prove.

Now you need a niche.

Bandcamps community-driven bazaar is where you probably want to start. Like SoundCloudwhich is reportedly in financial tribulation, planning a subscription streaming service, and unlike its past did not invest in a high-profile pop-up concert venue at SXSWBandcamp is vast acres of mp3s.

At Bandcamp we consider a somewhat different point of view, Bandcamp Chief Curator Andrew Jervis said during the Ephemeral Now board. We feel that the master should be a little bit more in control, and as a love you pay them directly.

Jervis said that over at Bandcamp, CD sales were up 10 percent, vinyl auctions up 40 percentage, and cassette sales 50 percent last year. Were clearly identifying people want to buy something tangible, Jervis said.( Indeed, vinyl marketings outpaced streaming service income in 2015, according to recent data released by the Recording Industry Association of America .)

Ramon Ramirez

Bandcamp has a social networking angle, too, where one can follow friend love and revel in niche recommendations. Jervis said this model accountings for 20 percentage of Bandcamps total sales. And such matters, Jervis maintained, because theres a disparity between the number of seasons something gets streamed and when it actually goes purchased.

Maybe pulpits need to do a better undertaking of tying things together, Jervis said. If you put your music on a streaming service where there is no option to buy youve missed your 500,000 opportunities.

He persisted: These companies that want to offer everything to everyone at the same duration cant have everything at the same age because they havent constructed that community.

Beyond the album

For followers online, BitTorrent incites heated, homely memories of using its haul protocol to plagiarize books from the Pirate Bay. But the company was at SXSW remixing the future of distribution.

At BitTorrent that symbolizes repurposing albums as downloadable Bundles. The fellowship worked with masters like Thom Yorke, Moby, and Raekwon to deliver licensed artwork via peer-to-peer filesharing. Attack an Internet underground of BitTorrents 170 million useds, chairman of content programme at BitTorrent Straith Schreder told the Daily Dot, and youll find an gathering as a musician.

What is an album after the Internet? What is a label after names ?

BitTorrent calls its pay-gated Bundle a direct-to-fan publishing programme. Here, parties and creators retain 90 percentage of incomes, plus the digital metrics like email addresses needed to organize a base.

Think about a wrap or a flow as something thats much more akin to vinyl: It can hold anything. It can be music, it can be art, it can be liner greenbacks, Schreder announced, drawn attention to another business quandary: What is an book after the Internet? What is a label after names?

Among the big hounds, Pandora can also make a strong case for being the most artist-friendly. Its new AMP( artist marketing programme) assistance for party gives analytics and helps indie creators upload music to its servers. Phillips said that with Pandoras recent expansion, its become one large-hearted A& R patronize. And he used to say necessitates it can organically feed the ecosystem through its various dispensaries, in addition to solving problems like getting beings out to shows.

We use humen for excellence, machines for proportion, Phillips said. We repute the combination is what matters.

Remixing the future

SXSW 2016 brought with it a reenergized focus on live music and reaching passive listeners go out on a Tuesday. Video-production apps like Baeable exist to document and stash live footage, then present it virtually the channel an ESPN app presents scores. Music startups like Festivus, Jamwar, Mixd, Tipcow, and Tunesmap too work to augment the live route( and indicated up to schmooze at SXSW ).

Spotify, YouTube, Pandora, and Mazdas Hype Hotel invested in orchestrating must-see times, then saving that footage to package and stream subsequently.( Samsung, MTV, and even McDonalds, of the all-day breakfast sandwiches, did so as well .)

Ramon Ramirez

At the Spotify House, videos touted upcoming original webseries, including information from Snapchat king DJ Khaled. At YouTubes pop-up warehouse down at the Coppertank, its nascent YouTube Music app was on display for a three-day private concert succession. The busines tracks your streaming wonts and beams in tailor-made playlists, and its tremendous digital library is something of a trump card.

Its not streaming; you have to go and do it .

The YouTube concert by Future was downright crucial: expertly curated as a pivotal showcase for one of raps most dominant krakens. I left wanting to immediately stream his live act of subversively political chant March Madness, which represents I fell hook, pipeline, and sinker.

But of all the ideas trying to convert streaming followers into an IRL economy, Jukelys was the most amusing: Netflix, but for concerts.

With a monthly subscription one gets access to a bank of tickets. You can theoretically go out every night of the month, and use it for any of the 17 cities the service operates in. You can upgrade to a plus-one alternative, and sometimes there are private members-only testifies.

Its not streaming; you have to go and do it, Jukely Head of Business Development Sarah Weiss told the Daily Dot.

Thats the rob, determining new music by having to go and see it: We are trying to encourage people on the discovery area, Weiss replied. In that practice, the industrys virtually come full-circle in the interrelationship with streamingalmost.

But big music streaming is an inevitable example, BitTorrents Schreder imagines. The real question for everyone in townfrom the exec at YouTube, Spotify, and Pandora flexing their muscle with private concerts and open rails, to new minors accompanying meetings like Your Music Startup Sucks that may or may not be here next yearwas how do you change its own experience of listening?

How do we move that meaningful? Schreder alleged. How does that become part of the idiom of streaming?

For now, at the least, the jurys still out.

Illustration by Max Fleishman

The post How Pandora, Bandcamp, and others plan to change your listening garbs appeared first on caredogstips.com.

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