#if you ask me dumb tumblr posts are more useful in the long run-

[puppys-rhythm-heaven]

i should also be productive but also i want to make dumb tumblr posts about funni moosic gayme. life is very challenging. 😔

#puppy rambles #rhythm hell #why do this science study about ''fission fusion and radioactive decay'' when i could make dumb tumblr posts #if you ask me dumb tumblr posts are more useful in the long run-

[godbirdart]

You don’t have to answer this question as it’s probably dumb to ask…but do you know what platform(s) would be a good starting point? Particularly for original content rather then fanart? I heard deviantart is a good place where alot of ppl got there start on but there’s lots of art thrives and such.

don't even worry, it's not dumb at all! it's hard to gauge where to Begin in the vast hellscape that is the online world. i do get this question [and some adjacent questions] often so please allow me to use your ask as an excuse to post a few of my site rankings for various art things!!

for reference, these are the sites I'll be addressing because i have used them at some point within the last year. please note: my information on Cohost and Itaku specifically may be out of date as I haven't used them in a long while. naturally, this is all solely my perspective. i run both a furry/original content account and an anime/fanart account on most of these sites and run them reasonably independently from one another. these rankings are based on how well each account fares on each site.

I will be talking about Patreon and Ko-Fi as if people will only be posting paywalled content there. you Can publicly post on both sites, but for the sake of this post i'm only going to treat them as paywalled sites since well, that's kind of their purpose.

POSTING ART IN GENERAL

the A-tier list sites here are the ones that are most practical, with a decent member presence and little to no algorithms impairing your reach. the only sites here with any sort of algorithm are tumblr and deviantart, but i feel they don't ruin your reach that much.

B-tier list is mostly centered around popularity. there are massive audiences on both masto and twitter. twitter can be really good if you're posting certain content. mastodon has countless instances [read: servers / subdomains, however you want to call them] that can help narrow down an audience and like-minded people. for example, i use mastodon.art whereas many furries may use meow.social. you Can be discovered by people on other servers than yours.

C-tier has been sorted in accordance to audience. this is solely in my experience, but not a lot of new people are flocking to cohost and itaku. we also just hate facebook in this house and i will never give a facebook products a high rating.

F-tier: if you are a new or growing artist, putting your art behind a paywall or making it a chat platform exclusive thing can really hinder your growth. you can still do this of course, but you won't get as many eyes on your work as you would on a public gallery. threads is there solely due to privacy issues that Cannot be overlooked. i will not recommend it.

POSTING ORIGINAL CONTENT / CHARACTERS / NON-FANWORKS

here's how i'd grade these sites for posting Original content, characters, stories, etc. your best sites will likely be furaffinity, deviantart, and tumblr. i've put these three here for their tag use, discoverability, and audience presence. tumblr can be a little glitchy with its tags, but they DO function.

A-tier is entirely centered around audience presence. these sites are great for showing off your work, but they don't have the same population as the S-tier. mastodon can be good as the quieter instances give you more discoverability. bluesky has been THRIVING when it comes to the furry community as of late [i'm personally on there daily] - the only reason i don't put it as S-tier is because it's invite-only AND you need to rely on your work being found through the Feeds feature if you aren't an already established artist.

B-tier: useful, but population may hinder your growth. toyhouse is GREAT for posting your original characters and stories, but it is invite-only and not necessarily gallery-focused [it can be USED for a gallery, but it's not the main purpose]. you can also post stories and lore to toyhouse. discord and telegram are Good, but again it can be hard to gain an audience through sites that require invites.

C-tier: it is DIFFICULT to grow on paywalled sites with original content. cohost [to my knowledge] has been stagnating with the release of bluesky.

F-tier: threads sucks, the end.

POSTING FANWORK, FANFIC, FANDOM CONTENT IN GENERAL

S-tier here is sorted because of audience presence. while twitter does suck, i'm finding a LOT of success there with fanart. tumblr is The fandom site of course. furaffinity is great for a surprising range of fanart that isn't exclusive to furry, and deviantart's Groups feature is still going strong which can give you that extra exposure.

A-tier is: fans Go here, but the population or algorithm can make things tricky. instagram is good for fanwork but the algorithm and the speed that things are posted there can make discoverability an uphill battle. patreon; if you make comics or art with fan characters [especially 18+ content lmao] you can grow pretty rapidly there. patreon, like any other paywalled site, should be a secondary site and not your Primary posting location. artfol and pillowfort are still growing. pillowfort has a Communities feature - sort of like deviantart groups - that you can submit your art to which gives you that extra exposure. artfol is just a nice gallery site and the tagging system is,, decent enough. a little confusing because the tag system looks up keywords in posts and titles First, you have to tab over to hashtag searching specifically.

B-tier: invite only and audience reach. again, bluesky relies on your art to be picked up in Feeds, as there's currently no tag search. inkblot is growing but has a decent audience. ko-fi isn't as known as patreon for exclusive content but it's still a good site. mastodon has tagging that makes discoverability easier, but mastodon and its many servers can make things confusing for some people. itaku's not as commonly used so it may be harder to gain new eyes there once you establish yourself.

C-tier: posting fanart to these sites Can Work. toyhouse focuses on posting and sorting original characters, so treating it as a gallery site won't get your far fast. it isn't impossible to grow as an artist there, but the site isn't intended for fanart posting. i cannot say much on cohost here. telegram and discord, again, it's harder for people to discover you out of the blue unless you mention your server / channel on another site.

F-tier: fuck threads.

lastly, to address thieves,

thieves are gonna be everywhere. i'm sorry to say, but there will always be shitty people. i recommend the following:

watermark your art. not in the corner, don't just sign in one spot, place a Huge translucent watermark over the WHOLE art. i recommend making it a colour gradient too instead of one solid colour or greyscale.

also: sign your goddamned art! put your username on there!

post a low resolution when sharing online. less than 1200px wide or tall. 72dpi. JPEG format. keep the high res privately for yourself.

add a subtle noise filter over your art. it doesn't have to be high opacity, and it'll make your art a little grainy, but it's good for fucking with AI bots and ruining any print quality potential.

i hope this offers some insight! if you have a different experience on these sites, please feel free to add your testimonial in the replies or reblogs! not every artist is going to have the same experience and growth rate.

#long post #art website posting #art sites

[jasper-pagan-witch]

I was wondering if a spell would work if I just . Made it up? Like using correspondences and all, and just doing it in a way that makes sense to me, do you perhaps think it would work? Or is it necessary to follow a proper spell from someone who is more experienced? Sorry if this is a dumb question ily you're awesome thank you for being so wonderful all the time x

Anon, dear anon, this is the art of spell work. The great thing about art is that anyone can do it. How do you think most people on Tumblr get the spells they create posts for? They have to make them and (usually) cast them. And you should absolutely create your own spells. They'll make more sense for you in the long run, you'll get some practice under your belt, and you'll be able to figure out what didn't work!

And who's the "more experienced" person in this case? More years of being a magical practitioner? Well, years of existing as one does not equal years of active effort. More years studying spell work specifically? Studying doesn't necessarily yield results without practice. They seem more knowledgeable about [stones/plants/whatever]? They learned that through study and practice, and you can do that too! They have a bunch of fancy titles? If you're not in the exact same branch of practice that they are, those titles mean diddly squat! You look up to them? We're all here on Tumblr. None of us can take the high road.

I am a wizard who firmly believes in the addage of "fuck around and find out". If you're worried about something like spell backfire/malfunction, then practice on spells that won't have catastrophic consequences. (One of my earliest spells that I designed was a Pokemon-based spell jar for luck. Even if it didn't work, it wouldn't be catastrophic, ya know?)

Now, if you're working in a specific paradigm that requires particular things for spells, that may be more tricky and I cannot assist because I operate in no such paradigm. But that doesn't seem to be the case based on how you phrased your ask, so I won't try getting into that.

Here's a link to a tag full of spell work resources.

As a final and very broad note, I am not an authority on magic and do not want to be treated as such. I'm happy to shoot the shit over any topic, but please don't see me as a teacher or - worse! - an influencer. I just exist in my little blogs and talk about my little blorbos. (I'm not saying you, anon in particular, are treating me as such, I just have to add this disclaimer to just about everything nowadays.)

~Jasper

#answered #anonymous #spell work

[skynapple]

Hi! Sorry to bother you but could you tell us (me) the plot of Love and Deepspace? I've seen a lot of tiktoks and tumblr post about the main 3 💦voice lines💦 but now I'm really interested about the plot of the game. I've only read about a Caleb dying in an explosion, Zayne seeing mc die in every timeline (?) and Rafayel being a Lemurian but I still don't know the contexts. I'm asking because I can't spend money on the game so I have no idea. Thank you in advance!!!

*cracks knuckles* Alright Anon.

This story is SO, so rich and deep and I can't even begin to cover it but I will try to be as thorough yet brief as I can for people who are interested!

TL;DR:

In a futuristic earth, the audience plays as a new hero in a world of alien invaders. When a sudden tragedy occurs, the world is revealed to be far darker than previously thought, and evil forces seem to be at play behind the scenes. Seeking the truth, our protagonist begins to investigate on her own.

On the outside, the story is about a heroine's journey, and also the internal struggle in seeking revenge and how far she'll go to find answers.

It's really about time loops, alternate universes colliding, and how far will you go for the one you love.

I'm going JUST off the main plot here not the myths or too far into the side stories and trying to avoid the in-game jargon:

About the three love interests in order of proximity to her:

Zayne:

Her childhood friend Zayne is introduced early on as her primary care physician and cardiologist. They spent 8 years apart and only recently reconnected. At this point in the story, he is the one she's closest given that history.

He is outwardly stoic but cares deeply not only about the MC but about people in general. This is widely noted by the hospital staff and patients you encounter.

He has an ice power that he uses sparingly and it's currently unknown whether or not it's because he doesn't have total control over it or because it causes him pain or...?

Secretly good at random things like he studied how to peel an apple perfectly in one go

Is shown to be very thoughtful. Always keeps candy around for MC (and his patients!) (they both have a sweet tooth problem)

Speedran med school (he's 27 good God)

Was a combat medic before taking up his current hospital residency

Plot-wise: he knows the most about MC's heart disease and a little about the evil forces who might be seeking to capture her? To me its obvious he may know a lot more than he lets on but he might be withholding to protect her

Xavier:

Xavier is introduced as a mysterious fellow hunter and colleague who is very powerful. They have odd run-ins and she's initially suspicious of him until his employment and position are confirmed by her supervisor, who seems to trust him greatly. Xavier is very knowledgeable about the antagonist's group (Onychinus, lead by the antagonist named Sylus) and what they are seeking. Proximity wise, he's her work partner and upstairs neighbor but it's unclear how much MC trusts him yet in the current plot.

Many things hint to him having lived a long, long time but his age is unconfirmed (he has mentioned he's around 23)

Has a light superpower, in that he can weaponize and control rays of light. Can also teleport.

Is probably definitely an alien

Has a secret alter-ego as a superhero vigilante called "Lumiere"

Is often shown needing to sleep to recover energy and finding out why killed me dead

Obviously knows more than he lets on

He's a bit standoffish with MC at first but this is revealed to be because he can't let her know too much and it's made clear he's very protective of her and shows up often to rescue her

Has a playful "play dumb" side

Rafayel:

Rafayel is a renown artist who is currently living in the same city. He's introduced as somewhat rude and maybe even arrogant. Because of his wealth and popularity, he's targeted by no-gooders and the MC is sent to investigate. She ends up being coerced into being his personal bodyguard-for-hire, in exchange for some information. Rafayel, too, knows more than he lets on and its clear very quickly that he is no ordinary artist. At this point, while they are friendly it's clear that he might be the person she trusts the least (just because she knows the least about him at this point and it's so, so obvious he's hiding a lot).

His paintings are implied to have occasional hypnotic abilities

Is obsessed with the ocean

His special power is fire and it can't be put out by water

Is older than MC

Its revealed to the audience but not MC that he is a Lemurian from the ancient and long gone civilization under the sea (not actually a merman but can and does take the form of one)

Has a strange work partner that may or may not be related to Onychinus but either way he's definitely involved in the underworld somehow

Initially comes off bratty, whiny, and demanding, seemingly thinking only of himself. Overall very over-dramatic

Has a lot of faith in MC for seemingly having just "met her"

Lore-wise: his backstory is very, very deep, tragic, and intriguing where you learn the brattiness is somewhat of an act

The Myths:

Each love interest has an equivalent "mythical" story self, either long, long in the past, long in the future, or simply an alternate world altogether. There's no official word yet on whether they're all connected, or if the myths truly happened. The myths at least add layers and layers to the love interest's personalities and interactions with the MC, at least in showing their deep care and also how they conduct themselves in different circumstances. In each myth, the MC is known to either be romantically involved or wanting to be romantically involved with the corresponding love interest. In all of the myths, the MC has the same heart disease. All the myths have tragic endings.

Rafayel: a former sea god

Xavier: an immortal prince

Zayne: a cursed demigod

About the MC:

The version of her in the main story was adopted by her grandmother-like figure (but no confirmation of true relation) alongside her adoptive brother, Caleb. They fit into the mix for only a brief moment in the story and both die tragically early on in an explosion. This being the event that shakes her world and sets her off on her journey to seek truth of what secrets her grandmother may have been hiding.

Can reincarnate

She's shown to be headstrong, determined, diligent, and a little mischievous.

Her superpower is "resonance" which. I'm still... a little lost on what that means altogether. We do know that she can "connect" and "enhance" other things so in the gameplay by "resonating" with the love interests' powers she can enhance their abilities and make them stronger and maybe even mirror them(??). Don't quote me on this. Anytime she does something I'm like "okk?? I guess she can do that now??"

Her heart is Broken™️ in that she has some kind of disease that only exists in that world. Something struck her heart in a catastrophe when she was young and is now just... lodged itself in there.

Whatever is lodged in her heart is what the evil group (and literally everyone) is seeking.

It's somewhat obvious in the plot that her power is actually going to be crazy OP and strong and that "Only She Has The Power To Save Us All" type of trope

Has a mischievous side

When she wants something, come hell or highwater she's gonna get it

Currently does not have feelings for any of the love interests in the main plot

There you have it!

There's so many layers, so much to uncover, but the main plot is relatively simple so far. The gameplay is fun, and easy. Apparently its similar to Genshin Impact but I've never played that so I can't say!

There's a ton of content on Youtube so if you ever have more questions pls pls bother me I will be glad to send a link or explain more things! My brainrot is spinning so bad.

#madi plays lnds #anonymous #ask #love and deepspace #l&ds #lnds #lads #lnd

[callmeklair]

I read your post about Ayato overhype and I 200% agree with you and appreciate you for writing it. I also read that other person's Ayato analysis and I just gotta say that that cursed fig defense is so dumb. First off that shit wasn't a thing when More Blood came out. It's not mentioned or referenced even once in any route. Because why would it be? It wasn't even thought of when the first games came out. Second even if it were a thing and Ayato truly was cursed, then why doesn't he experience the effects of the curse in any routes apart from his More Blood one (and, according to this particular Ayato stan, Ruki's)? Why doesn't he go crazy from thirst in Kou's route? Or in Subaru's? Or in Shuu's? etc etc. Also, if the curse is truly that excrutiating and debilitating then shouldn't Ayato be a complete and utter mess in the other characters Dark Fate, Lost Eden etc. routes? But he's not. He's totally fine. Because the stupid curse isn't canon to the games and you can not and should not use it to explain or justify his awful behavior in Ruki's MB route.

I'm sorry this got kind of long but I just needed to get this off my chest because it bothers me so much when toxic Ayato stans insist he is oh so pure of heart, an innocent victim and that he unlike the other characters can't be held accountable for his abusive acts 😑

(feel free to vent out in my ask box I don't mind. and sorry for the late reply, life is hectic)

the curse thing is such a loop/plot hole because in more blood EVERY diaboy gets thirsty after starting to have feelings for Yui, so yeah that curse thing isn't canon. and exactly! if that's the case, why isn't ayato suffering from thirst in other's route. okay let's not include MB considering the argument "they weren't close enough" but by the DF, all Sakamaki and Mukami boys warmed up to Yui, so Ayato should be suffering from thirst/curse in other's route????

I liked ayato, but after youngblood when I saw some people(not targeting to anyone, and I'm not just talking about Tumblr), not liking other people shipping Yui with any other boy because "they are not canon" made me slowly detach from AyaYui. otherwise they were in my top 5 a few years ago.

youngblood was just a fanservice. it was good for Ayato fans but Rejet messed it up. first the curse thing then the degrading of Shu and Subaru's character by making them "betray" ayato. which irks me because we all have read flashback scenes of these two from the VERY FIRST GAME, and we are completely aware with how sweet and gentle they were in childhood.

In CL, in Shu's route, it was shown how much he deeply cares about his brothers despite not showing it. so does it go for Subaru in Carla's route. you hear it? not in his OWN route but Carla's route.

the only difference is, because of trauma they weren't sure how to express it and always doubted/hesitated to trust or show true feelings to each other because of what happened to them. they all went through different experiences.

Ayato is Ruki's rival, just like how Subaru is for Kou, and Shu for Yuma. Ayato just came to take away Yui as a prey. "his thirst wasn't controllable and was locked in a dungeon. it was definitely the curse."

the curse didn't even exist at that time. it was just Rejet's plot to progress Ruki's route because if we remember, Ruki asked Ayato, before he took away Yui, if he had feelings for her and ayato replied with, feelings??? that's nonsense, the only value she has is her blood. It was a scene of confirmation to make Ruki realise his feelings and stop thinking "Adam is what she needs and not a snake" so that he can finally betray Karlheinz for Yui and run away with her, free her from this hell.

in conclusion, we have seen every diaboy saying how unique and special Yui's blood is, also a very rare thing (i guess?) so because of instincts as a vampire, Ayato only wanted to find Yui to drink her special blood.

the curse thing can never be canon because everyone gets thirsty in their route, EVEN SHIN in his BRUTE ending in DF. so are they cursed too??? no they aren't 😭

some actions can never be justifiable, I'll even say that about my own fav characters like Shin, Subaru, Carla, Reiji, etc.

#diabolik lovers #dialovers #yui komori #komori yui #diabolik lovers fandom #ayato sakamaki

[azurlily]

Dont ask where this came from, but I was tired and came across a tumblr post abt means lesbians. My first thought was, mean lesbian gf smut???." So now you get: Mean Lesbian NSFW!

She's a bit of a yandere, but that's okay we love her anyways.

TW: The three G's. Gaslight, Gatekeep, Girlboss!

Mean Lesbian

NSFW

[ML stands for Mean Lesbian, I dont have a name for this character yet.]

The whole Mean lesbian stereotype never fit in my eyes, I mean becoming nice for the sake of your girlfriend? Yeah no, how about making your girlfriend worse than you, for the sake of yourself? That's right up my alley, but when you like a girl that's as sweet as apple pie...it takes time to get her to your pace.

"All I'm saying is that she deserved it, I don't care if people think I'm doing it because I like her. I'd do it again in a heartbeat. She was flirting with you."

Very recently a bunch of nude pictures of some random girl had gotten out around school. The culprit being none other than ML, she'd been out snd proud about it. Knowing damn well no one could, nor would do shit. Her daddy has money, her moms a lawyer, how are you meant to fight someone like that?

You aren't, and that's the point. No on is meant to be able to fight someone with power like that. So no one does, and ML likes it that way. No matter how much her sweetheart disagrees.

Quiet whimpers and soft sighs bang around the room, while ML was having her little monologue her girlfriend was in a sticky situation.

On her knees, head laying against ML's thighs, a thick ball gag in her mouth, and pink silk adorning her skin. Soft cries attempt to leave the girls mouth, although it's all in vain. ML runs her hand through the girls hair, and dark smirk on her face.

"Oh pretty girl, my baby girl. You look beautiful you know, you look like a piece of art. Ready to be torn in two, just for me..."

Fake innocence runs thickly in her voice, she wants you to think she pitys you. She wants your dumb brain to think she cares,(which she does) think she loves your weak, useless body.

ML's hand grab at your body, slowly pulling you up on the bed. She's picked up heavier girls than you, she used to be a cheerleader and then she didn't even enjoy picking them up. She gently sets you up, just on her lap. Soft hands running up and down your back, up and down your ass.

Her face is bright red, while ML has had plenty of girls in her bed before, you're her favorite. Which is exactly why she made you her public girlfriend a while ago. Well, you don't know you're her girlfriend, but everyone else does. That's good enough for her!

You feel two long fingers press against your entrance, her long slender fingers scoop up some of your slick. She puts the two fingers in her mouth and sucks on them. She continues this activity by rubbing you with her fingers, giving you just the tiniest sparks of pleasure. Then taking it all away as she tastes you.

You whine louder and louder, you like foreplay but this was too much. You'd pass out before even getting to actually cum as this rate! You whine and attempt to move around, quickly remembering how she has you tied up.

Your arms tied behind your back, your feet tied but not your legs. She wants easy access, one of the rops running down your back onto your ass. And tightly around your chest. ML mentally praises herself for such amazing work.

ML hears your whines and sees your breaking point arising.

"Oh, I know baby, you wanna cum so badly! So let's make a game out of this, I'm going to take that pretty gag off and ask you a few questions. For everyone you get right; I fuck you more. For every wrong answer; I spank you. Seem fair?"

ML didn't wait for you to nod your head, she took the gag off and asked the first question:

"Am I better at fucking you than your exes?"

You feel two long finger slide inside of you, while her other hand is on your ass. She's just waiting for a wrong answer, or maybe she's waiting to reward you...

"Y-yes you're better than them!"

You answered as honestly as possible, and you were greatly rewarded for it. You feel her fingers pump in and out of you, you whine loudly as moves them through you at a painstaking slow pace. She slows even more as she asks the second question:

"Good answer. Second question is easy: would you ever cheat on me...or have you?"

Cheat? You two aren't even dating, right? Right? You ponder for a second too long and a sharp hand slams down on your ass. Your cry out, but it doesn't matter and she does it once more. After the second time she stops, you don't dare move or speak for that matter. Her fingers stop and you almost cry at the loss, you dont though because you know what would happen.

"You took too long to answer, I'm talking it as a yes. And because of that I'll be asking something different for my third question. Were you actually flirting with that girl, hm? Or did I just take it the wrong way and...accidentally ruin her reputation?"

There wasn't any anger in her voice, quote the opposite, she was happy and you knew damn why. You've seen how obsessed she gets over someone, you're the example after all. The worst part is that you hated that girl, that's exactly why you were in fact flirting with her. You knew exactly what she would do, and you loved it.

"I- I was flirting with her, why are you jealous? Green isn't a good color on you-"

She gently flicks you on the back of your head, you don't need to look up to know the look on her face. Angry with a hint if pride.

"Hm, wrong answer."

#wlw #lesbian #im bad at this #women are hot #i cant write #mean lesbian #mean girl x fem reader #oc x reader #oc x fem reader #wlw nsft #lesbian nsft #love mean lesbians #mean lesbian x fem reader #gaslight gatekeep girlboss #corruption kink

[thissortofsorcery]

💞A different type of rec list ask game, to rep your own fics and other authors you enjoy.💞 Spell out your user name with fic recs. If the letter correlates to one of your fics you rec it (no duplicates use a different fic for repeat letters.) If you get to a letter you don’t have a fic title for you rec one you‘ve liked from someone else. 💖Send this to someone who might need a little love on their own fics or just like spreading the love.💖

Oh, my username is LONG, this is gonna be HARD (haha get it). Keeping it Harringrove to keep it simple (for myself. I have over 3k bookmarks on ao3)

The Green Hawkins Tigers Sweatshirt, by me. 1k, Steve comforts Billy after a run in with Neil.

Hook Possum, by @platypanthewriter. 16k, Steve's a camp counselor and there's a guy Possum Mascot he's very friendly with. This fic had me laughing and giggling from start to finish. It's ART.

I Had to See You, by me. Almost 2k, Billy and Steve broke up three weeks ago, and Steve shows up on Billy's doorstep. One of the fics I'm proudest of.

sad-eyed lady of the lowlands, by @whenyouwishuponastar7. 94k, Steve is a professional babysitter, and is hired to look after Max after she and her older brother move to Hawkins. This was the first fic I read from her and I FELL IN LOVE. Absolute masterpiece. Every time she posts new fics I run to read them so fast.

Shout At The Devil, by @writerwhowritesao3. It's actually a series (155k) that has me by the balls, but the first fic(68k) can be read on its own just fine. It's a retelling of season 2 and it's delicious. It also gives Susan a personality. I would tag just the first fic, but I don't have a J in my username and I HAD to.

Of Cats and Men, by @ihni. 39k, Billy hits a cat with his car, and has to take care of three little kittens. Steve helps. This fics is EVERYTHING to me. Billy and cats get me every time, right in the heart. You will need to hug your pet when you read this, though.

Run for the Shadows, by @shieldofiron. 36k, this fic is DELICIOUS. Friends with benefits to lovers, OBLIVIOUS STEVE. So oblivious. Pure of heart, dumb of ass. I had such a great time reading this fic.

Towel Talks, by @weird-an. 10k, after s3, Steve finds Billy in the community pool sauna. I love this one because An does caring Steve SO WELL. I was like this 🥺 the whole time I was reading it. It's so so good.

On Loving Billy, by lilpeas. I don't know their tumblr. 16k, this is THE break-up and make-up fic. It hurts SO GOOD, their emotions are so beautifully written out. It wrung everything out of me. Love.

for what you have tamed, by skoosiepants. Don't know their tumblr either. 10k. Billy is a cat and a dragon, and he keeps saving Steve's life. I LOVE magical realism, and this fic builds the world incredibly well. It's such a good read.

Sideways, by @robthegoodfellow. 46k. THIS FIC. It spins season 2 on its head so fucking well, oh my god. Rob is such a good writer, I've read this fic more than once and it gets to me every time. Their Billy is incredible.

Only The Freaks Come Out at Night, by shippingmyarmada (idk their tumblr). 67k. GREAT post s2 fic. You know I cry from happiness when I find a post s2 fic. This one is really, really well done.

Rotten Apples, by @weird-an. 14k. It's. a. WITCHER. AU. Do I need to say anything else???????? I love this so much. So much. You have no idea.

Camaro, by @lovebillyhargrove. I'm cheating a little on this one bc I don't know the name of the fic and I wanted to include it, and it's about the Camaro coming alive after season 3 and going on a killing spree to avenge Billy. It gets EVEN BETTER from there. Ana wrote this so well, whenever a chapter dropped on tumblr I lost my shit.

every night fucks every day up, by anonymous. 8k. It's a modern AU, and you know I love my modern AUs. Steve and Billy interact through snapchat. I have a soft spot for snapchat because i first heard about this app reading a Sterek fic in january 2014. This has nothing to do with the fic.

Read to Me?, by lemonlovely (idk tumblr). 12k. Someone leaves books with marked passages at Family Video for Steve. It's SO CUTE. SO CUTE. I love it.

Yeah, It's Me, by @callieb. 29k. Another fic that's between s2 and s3, and this one is SOOOOO GOOD in that their relationship starts as a FWB that's kind of unhealthy and I just about died reading this. Happy ending though. Trust me, it's worth it.

And that's done! It took me over 2 hours to put this together lmao so go give these fics and these writers some love! They deserve it.

#sorcery asks #anonymous #harringrove #fic rec #reclist #billy x steve #billy hargrove #steve harrington

[catt-nuevenor]

First off I was literally obsessed with your demo. It was actually the very first thing I ever read on dashington and I was basically inlove with all of the ROs.

That being said. As for the changes I've read through all the comments, asks and replies. And it's... different. Not necessarily bad just new I guess? Because it changes alot of the wonder I had experienced playing the demo. So it just feels weird I suppose?

No saying I won't read it, come on I love your writing. I practically word vomited my praises on tumblr as soon as I finished reading it the first time. And I get you said the old demo would still stay on but there's like.. no point if it's not gonna continue..? If that makes sense it's just then kind of incomplete?

I also for the most illogical reasons feel the same way as others when it comes to ROs being in relationships outside of MC. Like if they were already in a pre-existing relationship sure I get it! There are many stories like that if you don't choose to romance a character in the beginning they get back with an ex they broke up with or they are with someone else where you choose a route in like the very beginning. But again hear me out I'm completely stupid for this!!! But whenever I play a game where an RO then gets like with one of MCs friends on a different route it just fucks with my head for that LI. Like I then just see them with that other person. And have a fuck you attitude to that character aswell EVEN on a different route lmao it makes no sense! It's not logical! And it's dumb! But that's why I play fictional stories okay! So I don't hve to deal with shit like that. Don't judge me 😅🤣

Kay long tangent aside.. I guess what I'm saying is the new changes kinda scare me. But I'm keeping an open mind. I'd honestly read whatever you post because of how talented you are and yeah.. some of the ROs are probably gonna get a fuck you out of me for being in a different relationship and I'll probably not do that route because of how stupid my head is. So jesus I hope it isn't my fav LI 😭 but I'll still support you and I do wish you the best in the writing. I do love the story and I do like the addition of I guess more characters. Just the RO thing fucks with my head alil. I'm sorry if that's weird to some people.

I'm not making any sense just gonna go now... 🙈

Dear heck, I think this is the longest ask I've ever received. I didn't even know asks could be this long...

The changes will take a while for everyone to get used to, I think. But at least we'll all be in the same boat?

I do get the unsettling nature of seeing LIs romancing other characters while you're on alternate routes. The first one that springs to mind for me is Josephine in Dragon Age Inquisition. Seeing her fawn over Blackwall was weird. But, it made me realise how attached I was to her romance and hers alone, so it worked out in the long run.

Myrk Mire still isn't back on my working schedule yet, I'll let you all know when it is, and I'll try to keep you updated with WIP screenshots or planning doodles. Perhaps then I'll also give a bit more information on the dynamics of the LIs and the variables driving who makes eyes and who.

#myrkmire #asks

[deadeyedaisy]

Tales of Destiny ~PROUST~ Forgotten Chronicle rough summary

I wasn't sure where else to post this, and Tumblr seemed like the one that would get the most use out of it.

So, I streamed my blind run through TODDC with Kio for the past several months. I ended up getting really into TOD from how much cleaner the presentation of the story and characters were over the PSX version, and was really frustrated that nobody had translated the drama CD, which had been hiding like 95% of Leon's characterization until the remake came along.

I kept a notepad of stuff to talk about during those streams. Sometimes it was off-topic things, sometimes it was little tangents about parts of the game that I thought of over the week until we'd play again. Sometimes it was summaries of supplemental material that was never localized. But most of the time, that material was translated by a fan.

Nobody has fully translated Proust. I wanted it to be translated. So I listened to it as hard as I could and summarized as best I could. The following are the unedited notes as I wrote them to be read during stream, rather than a direct translation or anything formal. I'm not good enough at Japanese to fully translate it. I'm so not good at Japanese that there's probably a lot of errors throughout this summary, too. I hope someone eventually comes along and gives us a full translation.

Also note that I'm not great at recognizing the voices of anyone that isn't the main cast of protagonists, so I probably mix up the antagonists or the generals' identities a lot.

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

So I went back through the drama cd, and I think I've got a few more little details. I could be wrong about a lot of this since there's no translation and I am really fucking bad at Japanese. But this should actually clear up a lot of misconceptions that we, or I had throughout this entire game. Foolish me for just believing everything TVTropes told me instead of trying to comb the drama cd myself.

(track 1-01 Thunder + track 1-03 Lullaby) Chris tried to escape with both children, but Hugo sent the goon squad after her?? and they managed to take Leon and mortally wound Chris. She drags herself back to the mansion to see Leon again and asks him not to hate Hugo, because this certainly isn't the same kind person she married. [I previously summarized it based on this post, which does a much better job of summarizing track 1-03: https://jeredu.tumblr.com/post/136918641610/so-after-the-horrible-sad-feels-from-the-emilio]

(track 1-02 History That Was Forgotten is just Leon saying the title of the CD)

(track 1-04 Yes, My Lady) Less than 2 years before the game starts. The girls in Leon's class aren't very good at dance lessons yet, so he complains to Marian that all the girls are stupid-- oh but not you Marian, it's only other girls that are dumb. lol I can't catch why Leon's mad at Hugo this time, but Marian sticks up for Hugo, since he's the one who pretty much discovered how useful Lens could be to further technology and make modern life easier, and has for the most part made it all affordable. She's also grateful that he hired her when she had nothing. Marian wants Leon to make friends with the girls because she's worried he'll be all alone. Leon says he's fine alone and that he'll only grow stronger, and to distract Marian, decides to teach her the dance he learned, calling her "my lady". At the end, he says he'll be fine as long as he has Marian. Hugo walks in on them and Leon quickly makes an excuse but Hugo just puts him down for hanging with the staff and tells him to get to sword practice. Leon seems excited for it. Leon whispers to Marian that they'll practice dancing again. Marian says she's looking forward to it, but when he leaves, she sadly mumbles that he's a pitiful child. (Not in a mean way)

(track 1-05 True) [Oops I didn't cover this one. It's just villainy anyway. Who listens to Proust to hear Mictlan-Hugo monologue?]

(track 1-06 Man of the Mask) I forgot about this detail and its MASSIVE importance. In the original, Leon and Hugo's relation wasn't known for a long time. In the remake, their relation is paraded around loudly. Hugo will not let anyone forget that Leon is his son, and Leon's motivation is to not be a nepo baby. But in the original, specifically in the drama CD, Hugo doesn't want their relation known. He doesn't want Leon around while he's doing business because it might reveal their relation. He reprimands him for coming home while he's doing business and tells him not to come home so often. Leon was actually excited to let him know of one of his missions' successes, on his 15th birthday no less. Chaltier tries to comfort Leon when he's basically told to gtfo, but Leon tells him he's not sad at all, and that he just wants to be acknowledged by someone as skilled as Hugo. His cadence is fairly fond as he says all this, but he's awfully insistent about it. Like thou-doth-protest-too-much insistent. Leon thinks he saw a masked man, but Chaltier says he doesn't sense anyone. They go on their way, but a filtered voice of Hugo calls Leon's name.

(track 1-07 Emilio) The following track makes it more clear that yes, he was actually very fucking upset about it. I already talked about this track since it was one of the only 2 tracks that were fully translated by someone else. Where Marian has a little private birthday party for him and he breaks down. With the added context of the previous track, the breakdown makes a bit more sense. He's just been told and brushed off again by Hugo even after so many smashing successes. Took it upon himself to put up a strong front in front of Chaltier. Then Marian does this gesture of kindness that I guess makes him feel like he's being treated like a child or mocked, and that's the last straw. Marian is of course calling him Emilio, and he refuses that name because Emilio is worthless, nobody needs Emilio, and he's all alone. He insists he's Leon Magnus, because he's at least useful as a tool for Hugo. Marian doesn't like him calling himself a tool. Says he's her precious Emilio. And Leon cries. [Previously summarized based on this post, which actually has a full translation!: https://jeredu.tumblr.com/post/136880537875/jeredu-spoilers-for-tales-of-destiny-for]

(track 1-08 Family) Next track takes place a year later and has Leon being the wunderkind beating everybody and being taken under Finley's wing. They've all got praise for him but are a little put off by him being so uptight. Late at night, Leon sneaks into Marian's room through her window because of the lecture he got about COMING HOME TOO OFTEN jfc. He's excited to tell Marian about officially working with the knights, and asks to dance with her. I think I skipped a bit. Leon only started trying to become a knight because Hugo told him to, so that he'd have a pawn within the castle to help further Oberon's goals. I think he moved out of the mansion after the last track to dedicate himself more fully to cementing his position there?? I'm probably wrong. But he's been a lot happier this way. Later that night, Chaltier tries to suggest that Leon just continues living like this and become a full fledged and honest knight instead of working for Hugo, because all of the generals seem to like him and are nice people. Buuuut Leon's already fallen asleep. Boo

(track 1-09 Nightmare) Next track has Leon and Finley talking and they think Greybaum's sus. They meet with Greybaum and Chal also thinks he's sus. That night, Leon has a nightmare where a man is telling him he can save Rutee. Except Leon doesn't know who Rutee is yet, or her name. The man is wearing a mask like the one from the mansion. It seems to be the real Hugo. He attacks Leon when he knocks his mask off I think?? and I guess Leon wakes up and is back at the mansion temporarily? I have no idea what's going on here but Hugo's not doing great and Leon rushes to his aid but Hugo basically tells him to gtfo his house again. I think real Hugo is fighting Mictlan, because Leon says something about Berserius. Belserius. Berselius. Fuck it. Scene change and Leon's at a tavern or something. The waitress fawns a bit, showing his good reputation has spread. Leon thinks about the nightmare and what the heck a Rutee is. Then he overhears some guy talking about a demonic lens hunter dude and the waitress is like oh nah you mean that girl Rutee? and Leon all but trips over himself to go violently interrogate the waitress. The guy she was talking to gets mad and tries to attack Leon and a fight starts. Finley shows up and slaps Leon and reprimands him and I think threatens him?? But Leon got the information he wanted out of the waitress.

(track 2-01 Masquerade) Next track. The villains talk stealing the Eye of Atamoni. A masquerade ball is held in Seinegald. Leon's all ready to be big bad security but Finley says he should blend in and dance. But he ain't got no fancy clothes! So Finley arranges to get him some fancy clothes. He's about to arrange for a partner too but Leon's like nah I got a girl for this and yoinks Marian up. She's worried she's not allowed to attend such a party, but Leon assures her she's part of the mission so it's fine. She tries to make excuses to not go but he shoots them all down. He sounds like he's having just oodles of fun on the carriage ride with her to the ball. He's laughing and smiling and it's just great. This moment is probably literally the happiest Leon will ever be in his entire life lol He… sneaks her in through the BACK DOOR and gets stopped by guards who ask who dis. And he says, "my partner" and they say they can't let randos in and he says NO SHE'S MY PARTNER and they say :/ that's not good enough bro, come on, and Marian takes his arm all suggestive like and says "What part of partner don't you understand ;)" and they let them in??? okay But Marian hasn't received her dress yet, so Leon's waiting for her to get dressed. And Chal teases him a bunch implying Leon's nervous to see her in her fancy dress. Leon tells him to shut up but Chal notes he's blushing really hard. But, Leon suddenly sees the masked man again, and this time Chal sees him too. Leon attacks but he disappears. He hears the voice and he's big mad 'cause he thinks he's being jerked around so he shouts a lot. Marian hears him shouting and rushes to him and real-Hugo goes whoops sorry about that I guess lmao and goes away. The ball gets into full swing and allll the girls are wowed by how pretty Leon's partner is. Marian says she feels awkward and Leon tells her she's beautiful, but she still doesn't think she should have come. He asks her to dance, she tries to make excuses not to, but he keeps asking, calling her "Lady" again like when they danced alone ;A; aaaa So they dance, and Leon is just so entranced and whispers that he wants to go far far away together to a place with only them, that's quiet and warm. He says something like he lost such a promised place inside of him a long time ago, but feels that it's also right there with her, and he's about to say something that MIGHT have been a confession, but they're interrupted by an attack and are separated. SO YEAH I'D SAY HIS FEELINGS FOR HER ARE PRETTY ROMANTIC. HOLY SHIT. I felt like I was listening to one of those listener-POV CDs where they do nothing but sweet-talk you, gosh. Whether his feelings are actually romantic or not, he's still just entirely fucking smitten with her. oh my god.

(track 2-02 Venomous Snake) Next track, I have no idea what's going on because I'm not familiar enough with all the villains' voices, but it's villain stuff. I think it's Greybaum mostly, and they're messing with King Isaac, the Phandaria King. And Greybaum is evil monologuing but Leon was hiding in the room and ambushes him. Hugo shows up before Leon can do any damage and something happens or is talked about, idk, villains get away. Leon's like what the fuck, dad, they tried to kill the king. Hugo says Isaac's spent too long in office and ain't doin his job right no more. So it's fiiine just let it go, besides, Graybaum's gonna be a useful tool. And the word "tool" sets Leon off 'cause it's always about tools with Hugo, and Hugo goes YEAH, A TOOL, A TOOL JUST LIKE YOU. I'VE BUILT HIM UP AND I'M TAKING ADVANTAGE OF HIM, JUST LIKE I DID TO YOUUUU. And he demands Leon apologize but Leon says no, he's done being Hugo's puppet, he's going to live for himself, he's not going to accept this shitty fate anymore, he's going to carve his own path and make a place for himself in Seinegald. And Hugo goes "Ohoho what silly thoughts Finley's put in your head. Sure, you could do all that, you could escape me no problem, you're good enough for it, but I wonder how Marian is doing~ Sure hope she's okay after getting separated from you. It's just such a scary world out there, you never know when or where such a fragile little thing like her could get got." So basically the ongoing threat on Marian's life has begun. It's not explicitly stated, but obviously the implication is that Leon could leave and take Marian with him, but Hugo will get to her one way or another. Then it's just 20 full seconds of Leon desperately calling and looking for Marian.

(track 2-03 Requiem) Next track, he finds Marian and clings to her and sobs in relief that she's okay. She says yeah it's okay I'm fine, but Leon just cries harder. Later after he's calmed down, he brings up that far away warm place he spoke about. He wonders where that could even be anymore. Probably somewhere further than the moon. He wonders if he can go there. Then it's very suddenly Finley's funeral. People are crying. The priest is praying. People are swearing vengeance. Hugo, Chaltier, and Finley's voice echo in Leon's head. Hugo coercing Leon into poisoning Finley. Chaltier asking him not to do it. Finley telling Leon they're alike in that they both lost their parents at birth. That he'd like for Leon to think of him as his father, because he thinks of Leon as his son, I think. Hugo reminding him where his place is, and that that's never going to change. Finley succumbing to the poison, in disbelief that it was Leon, and desperately asking why. Leon's sure he's never going to get to that place. Hugo and friends do some villain talk and make some snide remarks at Leon, and he just says it's fine. He's defeated at this point.

(track 2-04 Rutee) Next track has Leon on his way to Cresta to look for whoever Rutee is. Chaltier recognizes the name a little but doesn't remember. Rutee runs into him and runs away, but Chaltier recognizes Atwight on her back right away and they give chase. Rutee's giving gifts to the kids at the orphanage, is asked how she made the money for this and she's like "eehh I worked really hard :D" Chal finally remembers Rutee was the name Chris spoke of before she died and he's super excited that Leon's not all alone, that he still has his sister. But Leon just runs away. Chal's like what the fuck, where are you going, and Leon says it's been 15 years, so it doesn't matter, they're not family. Chal keeps trying to get him to go back to Rutee, insisting she must have been looking for her family for a long time, and that he should reach out to her. Leon admits that he's scared that Rutee won't accept him. Chal tells him that's stupid. Leon admits he's scared of Rutee also betraying him like Hugo did, and cries that he's truly all alone. The track ends.

(track 2-05 Flow of Fate) Next track, it's revealed Greybaum's theft of the Eye of Atamoni was actually not in the plan. He did that on his own and betrayed them. They plan for Leon to lead the investigation and gather the swordian users. Leon asks if Hugo knows who wields Atwight, and Hugo, like a fox, says mmmyessss. During Leon's first real meeting with Rutee, while she goes off on him, he's thinking to himself that he wishes he met her sooner, but he's too dirtied to face her for real by now. Chaltier insists to him that it's not too late, but Leon refuses. A bunch of scenes of Leon traveling with Stahn's group pass. Leon thinks about how Rutee has good friends and a home and family to return to, and feels even worse that he can't be happy for her. He hates himself for it, but he can't help it. Chaltier tells him he could become a part of her family. Leon says it'd be nice, since he's being shown such a warm place, but he can't escape his fate. More scenes pass, and Leon is moved by Stahn's resolve. He thinks maybe he was wrong about fate, because everyone is fighting. More scenes pass, and Leon is even moved by Batista and Greybaum, because they went against Hugo. Even if they couldn't win against their fates, they still tried. He's confused and doesn't know what to do, but Chaltier doesn't have answers for him. The only thing he knows he can do is protect Marian. The only reason he has to keep living is Marian.

It continues in the mines. Hugo and friends say they need to buy time to escape Stahn's group. He tells Leon to stall them as long as possible, and then detonate an explosive. Tells him exactly what will happen, down to the sea water flooding in. So Leon absolutely knows he's going to die if he agrees to do this. Leon asks to be alone with Marian, as his first and final request as Hugo's son. Marian observes that Leon doesn't want to go through with this. Leon says it's fine, he'll just do what he's told. He asks why Marian is here, why she's still a maid for Hugo. Marian answers it's because Hugo was trying to save the world, or whatever. She owes him a lot. So she'll do whatever she's told, too. Leon asks what'll happen if he dies. Marian says she'll probably never stop crying. Leon asks how much, for how long, because it's not possible to cry for him for her whole life. Says she'll probably cry for a bit, but eventually she'll meet someone he doesn't know, fall in love, get married, and have children, and she'll forget all about him, and then he'll truly be gone and not exist anymore. He'll disappear. Leon cries, really hard. He pulls himself together, apologizes, says she should go. She goes, but she calls after him that it was fun. That being with him was like a dream. He says quietly to himself that, yeah, it was like a dream to him, too. (The wording is different from the opening song! Important to note because the remake did a full on title drop in its climax. The opening song is 「夢であるように」, but the wording here is 「夢みたい」. But it's still probably a 100% intentional reference to the opening song.) [I cut off here because I previously summarized these two posts about the end of this track, which is an exchange with Chaltier: https://jeredu.tumblr.com/post/136997902840/i-dunno-if-its-possible-to-fall-in-love-with-a https://jeredu.tumblr.com/post/137057162215/checked-with-a-friend-who-knows-more-japanese-and]

[I yada-yada'd track 2-06 Father, Friend because I already summarized it previously based on this post: https://jeredu.tumblr.com/post/143045097730/i-finally-typed-up-a-summary-of-father-friend]

(track 2-07 -Epilogue- Yes, My Lady) In the final track, Rutee is visiting Marian. She asks Marian to live with her. Marian declines, saying she has to keep Emilio's room clean for him for when he comes back. Rutee says he's already gone, but Marian interrupts and asks Rutee to dance. She teaches her how to dance. She calls Rutee "My lady" like Leon did with her.

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

May I just say, if Leon retained his character from the drama CD in the remake, he absolutely would have broken down crying after Stahn convinced him they could work together to save Marian. And maybe hugged him or held his outstretched hand with both of his. While crying. Drama CD Leon is a huge crybaby and I'm so here for him. I was disappointed he didn't get to cry through the remake.

And also that hot damn, Hikaru Midorikawa was allowed to emote SO MUCH MORE in the drama CD than in the entirety of the remake, not even counting all the crying he does.

#Tales of Destiny #Leon Magnus #Marian Fustel #Tales of Destiny PROUST Forgotten Chronicle #translation

[meruz]

some weirdly specific artist game questions im answering while eating dinner. im gonna use my truly abysmal surface pen so theyre gonna be jittery af.

2. Is it easier to draw someone facing left or right (or forward even)

8. What's an old project idea that you've lost interest in I feel like I don’t lose interest in projects so much as I run out of time to do them nowadays. I had a bunch of ideas for a shortbox comics fair project and then got too busy to execute and meet the deadlines. same with some zines... I still want to do them!! Idk when though. I guess when I was a kid I used to be interested in more ambitious original writing, long form fantasy type stuff. I think if you really dig through my archives you can probably find ocs from ideas like that but I don’t have a lot of interest in pursuing stories like that anymore because... idk even writing short things is tough for me.

11. Do you listen to anything while drawing? If so, what

5. Estimate of how much of your art you post online vs. the art you keep for yourself

I think this is mostly because ive been “finishing” art less lately? or like... making less small things and more singular big/complex illustrations? idk. it’s tough, I want to post more because I like posting art on the internet. I grew up watching other people post art on the internet and wanting to do the same. there’s a lot of artists who don’t like it but its fun to me. unfortunately this whole year has kind of been like a non-posting year tho.

26. What's a piece that got a wildly different interpretation from what you intended

25.  Something your art has been compared to that you were NOT inspired by Uhhhh this is tough idk. I think I’ve gotten like...ava’s demon before?

Which doesn’t make a lot of sense to me looking at the style alone but does like...make sense in the way that I think I share similar cultural inspirations with that comic like...being online in the mid 2000s...deviantart digital art type stuff. So even if there isn’t any direct inspiration there’s some shared dna probably.   I think I’ve hard art compared to transistor (the supergiant game) too and I think its like. a similar story there. Heck, If i drew more sexy characters my inking tendencies would probably get my art compared to hades just with how big that art style is culturally rn.too bad i only draw dumb looking kids.

I’ve never played a supergiant game. they look very nice and I rly respect them as a company but they’ve yet to make smth that’s really up my alley.

(unrelated but tumblr user wellnoe I’m a huge fan of ur art you have one of the biggest brains in xmen fanart imo...!! thanks for sending in an ask LOL ;-;;;)

#ask #wellnoe #viivianite

[abyssvi-blog]

Real and blunt VENTING POST. honest feelings about my void journey: TRIGGER WARNING. Extreme negativity, mentions of abuse and sexual assault.

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

I haven’t gotten into the void state still. I’m feeling incredibly overwhelmed and disappointed in myself right now. I’m so sick of my life and I want to enter by the end of December. I’m still determined to get there though.

I can’t stand my abusive father. I just want to grab everything I own into a bag and run away again.

People ask me in DMs what my reason is and it’s due to previous sexual assaults, family issues and my reputation being damaged by previous friends in real life.

I am in my mid 20s. I do not have a job because I could not graduate college. I clean up after my father all day because of his dementia and abusive behavior because my own mother is too old and busy. I literally have to fucking WIPE HIS ASS cause he’s too fat and lazy to do it himself. I cook, clean up after him all the time and he never appreciates it. Instead I get hit or called a nasty name. I shit you not.

All my friends in real life has left me and I legit only have $500 in my bank account right now which is pathetic. Why you ask? I had to use my money for my dad’s bills.

I am applying for as many jobs as possible to get money to at least move out. I’m doing my best to help my mom but business is bad right now. We take turns taking care of my father but we both don’t want to do it. My own parents have once kicked me out before due to an argument. But I didn’t have anywhere else to go in the end so I came crawling back like a dumb puppy.

I have been on tumblr for a few years now. I’ve known about the void state for a long long time as you all can see. Im more than aware that the void is a part of us.

I was:

- listening to subliminals all day, reading the comments and feeling upset at how fast people entered.

- reading success stories and feeling happy for them but still jealous deep down.

- trying every binaural beat, meditation known to man.

- getting upset over drama in Tumblr with fake void state bloggers and some even charging $300 for affirmation tapes

- lying in bed all day to enter the void state then getting upset that nothing happens so I turn around to sleep

Before anyone tells me that I’m not trying “hard enough” and that “I’m not trying in the slightest to stay positive,” that I should try this and that…

Dude. I’m legit at my limit. Don’t you all think that I know people have done it before in horrible circumstances? Don’t you all think that I haven’t tried?

I’m doing my best to stay positive but it’s definitely now toxic positivity and I seriously need to vent. I’m fucking sorry for the extreme negativity. I see posts about how the void state is so easy and we all enter it but I just cry. Like if it’s easy, then why is it taking me this long? Just who the fuck did I piss off

I have never been incredibly disappointed in myself. I’m writing this because I can deeply relate to all of you. As a struggler, it’s insanely discouraging.

[frostbite-merun]

Well Known Knights of the Round Table Ranked

King Arthur: ???/10 So he's weird because his whole deal is that he's a Good King. The interpretation of what that is varies from person to person so he's wildly different across pretty much everything. Is he a noble and somber figure doing his best? Is he a kind of dumb but well meaning golden retriever of a man? Is he a mighty warrior and shrewd politician? Depending on the person, yes. And while that's really cool, it means I can't really rate the character because there's a million different versions of him. There's also interpretations where he's the antagonist to Lancelot and Guinevere's Whole Deal because I guess it's easier to excuse cheating by twisting the cheated-on character into a jackass. Just make it polyamorous you COWARDS

Sir Lancelot: 9/10 Fundamentally changed the entire canon and story. He's been awarded with the 'Most Accidental Teamkills' award and was voted 'Biggest Drama Queen in Camelot' 7 years running. He's inherently funny as a concept as the world's most popular OC do not steal, doubly funny taking into account that he also caused what I suspect to be the first instance of Vriscourse-esque fandom drama. Legendary. Also he's bisexual and if you give me like a week in The Hole I think that I can find pre-internet sources for this.

Sir Kay: 9/10 Unfortunately overlooked in later works considering he's A) King Arthur's adopted brother B) Funnie and C) A good foil to a lot of the other characters. He's a hothead, bully, braggart, and a jokey kind of guy with more pride than sense that's usually there to get his shit kicked in a bit. A good chunk of knights also have him talking shit at them as their entire motivation for going off on a grand quest. They can't put him in gritty reimaginings because he'd make them too much fun to read/watch. Though I DO admit that he has the potential to be very, very annoying if written poorly. I'd also like to note that he's avoided being made into a perfect-pure-special-Christian-boy-who-does-the-chivalry for over 2000 years and has maintained his shithead status. King.

The G Boys (Gawain, Gareth, aGravaine, and Gaheris): 6/10 I wish people would stop forgetting that Gaheris and Agravaine exist and/or mashing all four of these men into One Guy. I understand the irony of me giving them a shared entry but this is a long post and they're all brothers. It's nice that Gawain got some love recently with the 2021 movie Green Knight. And by love I mean good lord people were horny for Dev Patel. Also Gareth is canonically Baby. He is the ultimate Little Brother.

Sir Mordred: 10/10 MORGAN LE FAY IS NOT HIS MOM. Shoulders the whole final act of the legend as the antagonist. Let's be honest, he'd be a Tumblr sexyman if more people knew about him. He ticks all the boxes: Misunderstood, pale, dark hair, a bit evil, tragic backstory (incest), rebellious... Personally I'd love to see him break containment and take the Sexyman Crown he so rightfully deserves. Duck from Thomas the Tank Engine managed it, so I don't see why he can't.

Sir Bedivere (Bedwyr if you're a REAL gamer): 10/10 I do not CARE if I am biased. This man is my BLORBO. He HAS BEEN since I was FOURTEEN YEARS OLD. And I am VERY UPSET that the most common spelling of his name is borderline un-google-able because of the Fate Series. I am ASSAULTED by mildly horny images of anime men that I wasn't looking for. I was LOOKING for scraggly Welshmen. It's like accidentally taking a sip of someone else's drink. I wanted COKE not TEA dammit. At least they remembered that he has a prosthetic hand. He and Arthur possess the only braincell in Camelot.

Sir Griflet: 10/10 This guy is functionally a different character from who he initially was. Who did he used to be, you ask? Nothing big, nothing important just a minor welsh faerie deity. I don't know how he got added to the canon but I'm glad he did. Now he's Bedivere and Lucan's cousin and sometimes trades places with Bedivere as the last survivor of the final battle who chucks Excalibur into the lake. I like to think of him as a faerie who just showed up, convinced Bedivere and Lucan that he's their cousin, and hangs around Camelot because he finds it all interesting. Lastly: He has like... a hundred different names.

Sir Tristan: 6/10 Look his whole deal is that he's sad. Not sad as in like... pathetic but experiencing the emotion of sadness. That is what he's known for. His name is SYNONYMOUS with being sad. The ORIGINAL Sadboy. He would have an emo cut with those weird checkerboard streaks if he lived in 2007.

Sir Galahad: 0/10 The most inherently funny character in the canon. He was invented as a middle finger to Lancelot. He EXISTS because people were mad at Lancelot. He is THE purest HOLIEST mostest special boy. We're talking 'angels come down to take him away to Heaven' special. The only reason that he's a 0/10 is because I am mad that he steals Percival's role in a lot of stuff or gets mashed with him to form a Dragon Ball Fusion.

Sir Percival: 9/10 To be perfectly honest I only like this guy as much as I do because he has the coolest name out of all the knights. He's a pretty generic 'super cool and special and handsome and chivalrous' sort of knight... But I do not care. He has a cool name and I vibe with the aesthetic it conjures in my brain whenever I read it. I'm not alone in this based on all the adventures he was given until they got given to Galahad which sort of implies that he's the blueprint for the 'godly and virtuous knight who does chivalry'.

Sir Dagonet: 10/10 This guy is great and I'm pretty sure he was almost a meme a few years back??? I just remember getting blindsided by seeing a bunch of tumblr posts about him a few years back. He started his existence as just an asshole braggart who existed to make some of the other knights look better, then a violent, bloodthirsty crazy guy, and now he's a beloved jester who got knighted. I'm a fan of the jester interpretation myself because good lord there's enough 'violent man accidentally murders people' guys running around and Kay covers the 'braggart asshole foil' role in a less obnoxious way. I imagine him with silly little jester bells tied to his armor whenever he goes out on quests.

#text post #arthurian legend #arthurian mythology #long post #knights of the round table #I'm just going to bite the bullet one of these days and write my own adaptation #and then write a second one but with mechs

[dumplingsjinson]

sooooo, i know i said i wasn't going to post anything personal, at least in regards to my dating life, on here but lo and behold! i'm a liar, but the person who found out about this account might never go onto my blog again (if you're here for some reason then hi? idk why you'd come back here but okay. i hope you're okay. and if you're not, i hope you will be okay. and also, this is NOT about the long distant guy that maybe one or two of you are familiar with). so, here goes: we broke off whatever it was that was going on. i don't like them back that way, and i don't see myself liking them back that way in the foreseeable future.

so we broke it off on good terms.

we're not going to talk anymore, and it definitely will take time getting used to since we did text back and forth everyday for the past two months, up until today. it will take time to get used to not seeing their name on my phone constantly, or waking up to their messages, but it'll eventually go back to how it used to be, when we never spoke before.

i admittedly do feel a little empty as of right now, which is a me issue entirely. maybe i'm dealing with the sadness of losing a connection i've made with someone? maybe i don't deserve to feel this sadness. i don't know. there was definitely a bit of a connection there, though ephemeral, even if it wasn't a romantic one. i think (i know) i'll be okay, and i really, really hope they'll be okay, too (because rejection doesn't feel good. it's never an easy pill to swallow, knowing you're not the one for that someone. it doesn't feel good to reject someone, either).

i think it'll be good for the both of us in the long run.

i'm still processing this whole thing, but i think it'll be okay soon. :) and i hope they find someone who will like them back, just as much, and if not, more, because they're someone who truly deserves that.

goodbyes aren't easy, and they hurt even when it comes to short-term bonds that were formed. that's all i can say.

(also that whole unmatch thing rant in which i've deleted by now is because i got my feelings hurt for like a day, and then i got over it really quick lmfao. i was talking to some other guy i matched with, and we vibed for a few days, and then he unmatched while we were setting up the date and that hurt translated into frustration and anger and a bruised ego, but i'm okay now, and to whoever said it was a bad break up or something - it wasn't lmao, i was just being a little wuss and had to vent. but i will die on the hill on how you're an asshole if you unmatch without any explanation, especially when you're in the middle of setting up a date. you're just bad at communication and it really, really shows. please work on that if that's what you do to other people, because it's never fun being on the receiving end of being basically ghosted.)

anyway, i'll try to post another prompt list tonight. these babies are pre-written, so my mood right now's not gonna affect them aha.

i will probably post more of my love life (read: online hoe life) again to the one person who bothers reading this shit, simply because nothing's stopping me, and i ALSO am NEVER going to be so dumb to accidentally give too many hints and reveal my tumblr like that to someone ever again lmfaooo. my mask stays ON, bitches!!

(and on an entirely different note that's not so fucking depressing and also very non-serious, i'm going on a date this sunday, and we're going to have oysters lmfao - i might end up calling him oyster dude - but i also don't have much expectations lmfao. they did ask me if we're still on for sunday just earlier today, and i said yes, but i'm prepped for getting unmatched outta no where because some of you men are Cowards. aNYWAY.)

this was a rollercoaster and a very undelightful mess, i'm tired, i have to wake up at 5:30 am tomorrow for work, two of my brackets came fucking loose so i have to go to the ortho on monday to get that fixed, and i lowkey wanna die because of that, goodBYEEE.

#long post #i probably won't delete this but yeah #personal #putting my clown ass on display rn

[that-banana-headed-bovine]

GIVE ME YOUR HEADCANONS FOR YOUR FAVORITE BOY. BEST BOY. KARR!

holy crap.  the universe does not want me to make this post I SWEAR.

I was having difficulties answering one of the segments of the format you were asking for, so I shelfed it for a bit to think on it.  I never came to a conclusion HASODH-

I scrolled thru asks and saw this.  Holy moly you have been waiting for so long, if you are still here I would just like to say that I am so sorry for that like.  I really meant to get to this sooner--

Well, if the wait has been this long, I had better make my response worth it right.  So I’d better get the text format.

wait where is it.

I scrolled through old posts and old asks for like 20 minutes to find the format.

I did not find the format

I typed up a long intro explaining this whole situation, and got started writing the ask

THE PAGE REFRESHED.

TUMBLR AUTOSAVED NONE OF IT.

I also thought I lost THIS draft for a second and nearly screamed.  luckily I did not I was just on the wrong blog

this is try number.  across all of the times I’ve touched it I don’t actually know.  Time two today tho.

Anyway AHSOD I am so sorry for the long wait AND that I will not be using the original format because it has Disappeared.  If I do eventually find it, I’ll probably revisit this with anything I missed, but for now I will just be doing my best with what I remember and adding some other nonsense Just Because.  I hope this is good asdioh-

Headcanons about Canon and not AUs for once in my life

You know how in TDR, they have that really zoomed out shot at the end of the chase before Karr careens off a cliff where they do a bit of an Oopsie.  That oopsie being “there is a very clear way out of this situation.  that way is turning left instead of right.”

And you know how in KvK, Karr’s self preservation programming is basically thrown out the window?  So that they could throw model cars at each other or sumn I’m not being sarcastic there’s actually a few split seconds where you can see them throwing model cars at each other it’s so freaking funny I highly recommend going back and looking for it if you didn’t see it, it’s like behind the explosion I think, idk the exact timing bc it’s been a while but Yeah

Well.  The IRL explanation for these things is almost definitely “because it looks cool”, and I’m definitely making way more of it than there is, but behold.  I have basically informed my opinion on Karr’s personality (behind the whole scared for his life thing) from these things.  Because, as a hyper-intelligent AI, he really shouldn’t be able to make these sort of “dumb” mistakes, right?

The best I’ve got, then, is that he’s a LOT more influenced by emotions than Kitt is.  I don’t know whether I’d go as far as to say that he experiences them MORE, because Kitt clearly does have them... I think he’s just more cautious by nature, so he doesn’t really let himself act on them much.  Karr, though?  He’s impulsive, and easily swayed off course by panic, anger, sadness, etc.  That’s why, despite being just as smart as Kitt is, he often makes far less rational decisions.

He drove off a cliff because he was so scared that he just acted on impulse without doing any of the AI rationalizing stuff we’re used to seeing from Kitt.  If he’d have cleared his mind enough to scan ahead and process the routes as he drove, he would have made a different decision.  That’s Kitt’s biggest advantage in their fights, and it would be his greatest contribution if the two were ever to team up; both of them can smash things, but only one of them can work properly under pressure.

Even down to his programming--code can be changed, so it’s not the law that we often think of it as.  It’s just a very, VERY strong suggestion.  Kitt has never tried to change it; he’s never even CONSIDERED it.  Karr, though?  He reached his breaking point.  The thought of continuing to live his life on the run, unable to trust anyone or stay anywhere, was enough to drive him crazy.  He COULDN’T bring himself to continue with FLAG--and specifically Michael and Kitt--constantly on his tail.  So, he snapped and overrode his very foundation.  He’d either get rid of them or die trying.

That’s probably the core of why Devon was so scared of him, without providing much of a concrete reason.  Because Karr’s unpredictable, far closer to human than they’d ever expected him to be.  Even when he was on their side, they didn’t think they could trust him not to change his mind, or make a snap decision that endangered everyone involved.  I think he could have gotten control of it over time, but it definitely makes more sense that they wouldn’t want to work with him in this state.  Their response to it is still immoral imo, but if they didn’t fully realize his sentience and just saw it as a programming fluke, then I could see where it seemed necessary.  Especially if an accident like that had already happened... Not gonna elaborate on that here; I’ve made a post about it, and tbh I probably shouldn’t have because it wasn’t my idea in the slightest.  It’s just such a good headcanon that I basically adopted it immediately AHSIDO (Yes I did credit the fren in the original post, but it still just wasn’t the ideal way to go about it tbh, that’s why I’m not linking either.  If you really wanna scroll for it, it is still there so go for it ig best of luck to ye IASHDOHSA, but otherwise it’s really not mine to tell)

Headcanons that are so extremely Not Canon / for AUs

While the Karr that is in canon hasn’t had much time to be in the world, and thus is far less worldly than Kitt is, I would think that it would come much more naturally to him than his brother if given the chance.  I mean heck, he developed a whole salesman personality underwater sooo /lh  That probably means that he also does that copying thing really well, too.  Like, how Kitt picked up on the Trucker jargon that one time and got excited and parroted it for a bit... it happens pretty often, but that’s the clearest example I’ve got right now oops.  Anyway, I think Karr does that, too, but incorporates it in a somewhat more stealthy way.  Because if he messed up people will be Trying to Murder Him Again.

All I’m saying is.  One of them might have a chance of understanding meme culture and that one sure as heck isn’t Kitt.

Like, I actually think that Karr and Michael would have... shockingly similar personalities if Karr actually got to understand the world and himself better?  If they’d stop hating each other for a second, I think they’d get along really well.  Both loyalty driven, both impulsive due to emotionality, both sometimes make dumb decision because they just care too much... bothwouldprobablydieforKitteventhoughhedhateit oops what’s that my brothers bias showing????

Anyway, how this applies in Human!AU is that Karr can blend into human life really well.  Like, he’s just as curious and unsure as Kitt is, but he quickly picks up on the basic behaviors that people around him are routinely using and integrates them so as not to stick out.  And then, as time goes on, he just would kind of figure out what it all means himself, to the point where he’s reverse engineered how to be human with quite good accuracy.  Whereas Kitt is always very curious and is quite open about it, because why wouldn’t he be y’know he’s not used to hiding, so he’d probably stand out a lot more at first if he didn’t have Michael there to do most of the talking and explain things for him.  Idk if that makes any sense but yeah.  I just love the thought of Karr actually being the knowledgeable older sibling because he’s had much more time to adjust to his new form, and like he actually has a whole life of his own going on that he’s basically just disappeared into until Michael and Kitt show up.  Kitt asks him stuff, and he almost always has an answer.  On occasion, those answers are confidently incorrect.  But he’s trying OAHSDOIHSA

Also Karr and Michael bickering about basically everything, things that don’t matter in the slightest, while Kitt’s just standing there making sure it doesn’t go too far.  The second it starts going south “Why does it matter anyway?” and everyone’s just dead silent.  It didn’t matter they just had a bad case of the Himbos.

Like, it’s pretty easy to forget that Karr’s an AI after you’ve been talking to him for a while.  But then you ask him something when he’s not worked up about anything, and he provides this Giggachad Massive Brain response and it’s like “oh YEAH”

Love Language

BECAUSE WHY NOT

Actually tho, I genuinely think love language is so important to his character specifically.  You can take it as romantic if you want, that’s not how I personally mean it in this case tho.  I mean how he addresses the people that he cares about, no matter what the nature of it is.

See, a lot of the (in my mind) misunderstandings about his character stem from how he acted whenever he got a new pilot.  Like, with Tony and Rev, it could be easy to think that he was being walked all over by them and that he was entirely aimless.  It would also be easy to think that, no, he did have a motivation, because he wanted to steal things + kidnap people.  Same with John to a lesser extent, because John never told him to do the bad things, just also didn’t really try to get him to do good things either.  So surely Karr chose to do bad because he really, really just wanted to?

But I think that, while it doesn’t excuse his bad decisions (ESPECIALLY not the ones that put people’s lives in danger), a lot of it can be explained by love language.  Karr, simply put, has the Acts of Service love language.

The reason Karr let Tony and Rev direct him however they wished is because, after they inadvertently rescued him from deactivation, he felt indebted and was genuinely grateful.  He showed it by DOING whatever they asked of him.  And all he hoped was that they would get him help in exchange, which they did in about the most awful way possible but yeah.

And then John came along, and Karr is DESPERATELY trying to do the same thing... John never asks for his help with, anything really, but Karr is proactively trying to get him to ask for something.  Doesn’t matter what, he’ll do it.  It becomes increasingly frustrating when his acts of service aren’t seen as good enough, when he technically had what he needed but was still sorely lacking a friend.  And then he started going to truly awful extremes to show through ACTION that he was a loyal friend, that whether John thought he needed a companion or not, he’d be there, he PROMISED.

He also, to a somewhat lesser extent, takes action against those who have wronged him, as if to say “I’m done caring, and I’ll SHOW you how”, y’know?  A lot of it was out of self defense, but still important to mention ig.

You could say that this is due to the nature of them being AIs right, like built to provide a service from the beginning so I’m SURE they do feel that way yea.  However, I honestly feel like Kitt would express care through basically anything other than that.  Like, acts of service are the bare minimum, he’d do THAT for anybody because he was made for it.  If he goes out of his way to spend time with you, though--or in an human!AU, if he leans into a hug--then he really does care.  So, I really am not just defaulting to this.  I think Karr specifically thinks of it as more than his obligation, it’s his great joy to show how much he cares.

I think there were more things, but also this post is so long already what IOASHDOSAD- I’m also .  kinda sleepy so I’m sorry if this doesn’t make sense oo f- And I hope that it’s worth the wait aa ahhh

#knight rider #knight rider 1982 #karr #k.a.r.r. #headcanon #ramblings and nonsense

[aroaceacacia]

hi gen time for the annual me explaining something since im seeing ppl in your asks not knowing. scutes is a name for a group of friends that formed from the very first hermitblr discord server back in 2018. this was even before evil xisuma fanclub which was the first *big* one. eventually scutes just became a private group of friends not related to hermitcraft. that's it. uhf- underrated hermit fanclub- was a separate public server made a bit later on, of which about half the mods were also in the scutes server.

back then many of us were against shipping, including myself, but everyone who was has either left a long time ago, is now neutral on it, or a shipper themselves.

after the events i described in this ask: <https://aroaceacacia.tumblr.com/post/660177626185580544/heyo-just-read-through-your-whole-2019-tag-and> , the people who left hermitzine's original organizing committee mostly being in the scutes discord server, and me complaining about what happened in what was again, a private chat with friends, several of miles' friends started publicly saying awful crap about us as a group. at that time a good chunk of people weren't even active in the hermitcraft fandom and of those who were most of them had nothing to do with this. their main thing was accusing us of "fandom policing" due to a few of us who were anti-ship at the time also having that same mindset about drawing the hermits doing drugs, which for some reason was a thing a lot of other anti-ship people were really into doing at the time. they also spread a lot of blatant lies, most prominent one being that we excused x's transphobia at the time because we didn't openly hate on him. (in actuality we were some of the first to publicly confront him about it both in the chat live of that stream while it was happening and afterwards on twitter, so no clue where they were coming from on that)

pretty much until the incident with cleo when they all finally left tumblr, this continued on and off. it did mostly just take place in various discords after the initial wave of them making tumblr posts, but it was still really bad at times. there were many specific incidents that i won't get in to because i wasn't at the center of them and it may bring up a lot of bad things for those who were. they're not my stories to tell.

i'll also mention two more things. miles did try to apologize to me early on in all this, before any of this escalated and was just a dumb argument over how to run a zine. i refused to accept his apology because i saw it as insincere when he had refused any of the compromises on how the zine should be run. second is that once the harassment on tumblr started i asked for advice on what to do in joe's patreon discord. joe was one of the people who responded, and at the time his response was pretty much just questioning why it was a problem and not really understanding the power structure of decentralized fandom. miles caught wind of this somehow and tried to get me to tell joe that what i had said wasn't true. something that i obviously refused to do.

i don't care about miles anymore, don't go trying to confront him about any of this or anything please. ive since gotten back into therapy (i wasnt at the time this all happened which def did not help the situation) and this is in the past. but a lot of other people have wounds that are still in the process of healing from this and would rather it not be talked about, especially by people who weren't involved in it, which is why there's been little to no public documentation of it.

- Aviva

thank you for the clarification aviva - you didn't have to do this, but I appreciate it. I'll try and make sure that this ask stays as the last time you'll need to talk about this. I hope you and everyone else involved are doing better now.

anons please be respectful of aviva & all other parties involved and lets leave it be

#asks #2019 talk #discourse #note to self

[eccentric-nucleus]

and now it's time to talk about COMBINATORICS

if you've followed me beyond tumblr you might be aware that there's this one chunk of code i've been struggling with for, uh, years now (prior posts: 1 2, uh probably several more that i can't find. that code is very outdated at this point.)

the latest draft of the code is over here, but it's very explicitly not finished & it only touches a little on the big tangle i mention at the bottom of this enormous post. prior versions also included a parser that could turn some data declaration files into an optimized 'possibility space'; that's not included or mentioned here.

i was originally gonna leave this uncut so everybody could get the full experience of me posting again but this ended up so long (well, ~3k words) i feel like i gotta cut it just to not be incredibly obnoxious. i only want to be somewhat obnoxious.

okay, so, combinatorics. if you take the four suits of cards (wands, cups, coins, swords) and the 13 rankings (ace, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, jack, queen, king) you have a total of 4 * 13 = 52 cards. this is a product operation, because you're combining a 'row' with a 'column' to get a cartesian product of all combinations of the two. if you include your 22 trump cards, you have 74 cards total, since 52 + 22 = 74. this is a sum operation, because you're just adding two things together; it's not meaningful to ask what suit or rank a trump is, or conversely what trump ranking a suited card is.

so far storing a whole deck is easy, since that's still not that many cards. but what if you had a lot more cards?

so, computers. not actually turing machines, because they have a limited storage capacity. this doesn't come up much except as a constraint, but it turns out if you do something like "try to store an enormous combinatorial set by actually allocting space for each element" you will very rapidly run into the practical limits of computing hardware very rapidly. all the code i wrote is in in haskell, so let's use that. the Char type stores a single unicode code point, from 0 to 0x110000 or so, roughly a million characters or so. (i have no clue how this actually maps to unicode code planes or w/e; this is just how ghc does it). its Int type goes from -9223372036854775808 to 9223372036854775807, so i think around 8 bytes of storage?

so if you wanted, for some reason, to store a cartesian product of one character and one number, that would result in 20,551,738,933,448,695,970,004,992 values, each taking 4+8 bytes each, for a total of 204 yottabytes of storage required. it's pretty obvious that that's both way too much to be feasibly traversed in any way, and also totally unnecessary, right? i mean i just described what the entire list would look like -- a pairing of these values with those values -- in a way that took up much fewer than 204 yottabytes. there's a way to consider and inspect this combinatorial space that's a little more advanced than just "instantiate the entire thing".

so, looking at a card deck, you can linearly number all the cards, 0 to 51. pick an arbitrary suit to come first, let's say wands. 0-12 are the ace to king of wands. then cups, so 13-25 are ace to king of cups, and so on with 26-38 w/ coins and 39-51 w/ swords. now you've constructed a mapping between the nubers 0-51 and the cards in the deck, so you can go back and forth between them, and if you want to know what card is, say, #44 in the deck (6 of swords) you can just calculate that out.

but, specifically, how would you calculate that out? here's the way i've been doing it: 13 ranks. 4 suits. so a given i has a rank that's i % 13, and a suit that's i / 13 (dropping fractional part). 44 % 13 = 5, and 44 / 13 = 3 (these are numbered from 0, so 5 is 6 and 3 is swords). now all you need is these two lists and you can synthesize the lower deck.

anyway all of that is just some dumb preamble. the point is, instead of storing a whole space as a giant array or w/e, you can slice it down to its component axes and store them, which reduces a quadratic storage space to a linear one. and actually, you don't even need to store them! you just need a way to compute the axis's value from a given offset, which could be an arbitrarily-simple computation (if you want to store 'all Int values', you just need to know that each value is its offset plus -9223372036854775808, so the computation there is 'subtraction'). once you do this, you can very easily calculate out arbitrary slices of this space.

if you have a product space that's just a bunch of axes, then all you really need to do is to record a list like [13,4,6,20] that represents the 'length' of each axis, then you can say the offset step for each axis is the product of all the prior items -- one changes every step with a length of 13, one changes every 13th step with a length of 4, one changes every 52nd step (13 * 4) with a length of 6, one changes every 312th step (13 * 4 * 6) with a length of 20, for an overall space size of 6240 (13 * 4 * 6 * 20). you can also use this to decompose an index via shifting radix modulus. if you have a number 0-6239, (let's say it's 2942) first div/mod it by 312: 9, remainder 134. repeat with 52: 2, remainder 30. repeat with 13: 2, remainder 4. so now we have a matching list: [4,2,2,9], which matches that [13,4,6,20] list. whatever this space is of, #2942 has the 5th of 13 values for the first axis, 3rd of 4, 3rd of 6, and 10th of 20. we can then use that to move around the space by adjusting one of the index values, shifting the value by one unit along the selected axis, and then recombining it back into an index to get the 'neighboring' indices along all dimensional axes.

so this lets you move around inside the space! you can explore a local neighborhood, or put together a selection metric that tries to vary all axes as much as possible -- you can use this as a random generator, right, just by rolling a number within the space, but unlike a random-generation function that just produces an output, this has a bunch of tracking variables that structure the space so you can see what's actually going on within in.

things get more complex when you add in sum spaces -- they can also be represented by a list like [13,4,6,20], but here they're, uh, summed, instead of multiplied, so having something that can store both requires a little work to square them together. either one is pretty simple to navigate, but once you merge the two you open up the possibility of having, say, a 5-axis product space plus a sum space, with all that being used as a new set that you multiply by 2 more axes that are both sums of different spaces, etc.

god this post is already so long and i haven't even gotten to the relevant point yet. brief sidebar: code is generally not very complicated, right? the constraints that code is under are like, practical ones about efficiency usually, or code style things like "avoiding boilerplate", or engineering things like "understanding how threads work", or w/e. this code is math, and it's the most involved math code i've ever had to write, because for all i glossed over it in the above paragraph it took me months to figure out the specific differences between sum and product spaces and how i needed to store their tracking data differently and what operations i needed to perform to keep the data valid and coherent across all operations i could do on a space. recreating the code from scratch took like, a day, because all the hard parts were about my own understanding of how math worked. & on the one hand, i'm not actually very good at math, & this code is really making me feel it. on the other hand... well, we'll get there. at some point after some other number of paragraphs.

so haskell has all these typeclasses. a combinatoric space is a Functor, since you can map over it. it's also an Applicative; that's the product operation. it's also an Alternative; that's the sum operation. Semigroup is also the sum operation, and Monoid just introduces an empty space with no values. what other instances does it have? well... i mean, it is Foldable and Traversable. it's just that requires evaluating the entire space, which is profoundly impractical in most cases. likewise, it is technically a Monad, but running =<< on it means evaluating every space in the deck and then merging all the result decks together. so even though that's true, it's not really practical. (i ended up making a separate newtype called SlowEnumerable that has all the technically-correct-but-incredibly-slow instances on it.)

except. well, the reason Monad is slow is because in order to make the result space, we need to know the size of all the output spaces in the a -> m b function. if we knew that already, we could make a very short and fast bind. writing a function that's just like, okay run the function once and assume that it'll always have the same size of output, so now it's really 'just' another product operation. simple! there's likewise some other things you can do for things like e.g., shuffling a deck, because the size of the result space ends up being involved with like, triangular numbers that decrease in a fixed way, so you can write a 'fast bind' around assuming the a -> m b function will have a certain shape to its output. so with certain preconditions, yes, it's possible to write a limited fast monad instance.

specifically, though, something that kept cropping up in the spaces i was making (mostly randomly generated hero characters and/or demon dicks) was an interaction where the space of a new axis was dependent on one specific other axis. for the hero characters, it looked something like this: hero characters come from a tribe, randomly selected. each tribe had a list of heroic professions (adventurer, bard, astrologer, witch, etc). the number and kind of professions was different based on the tribe, but didn't vary on any other values. so, the size of the axis 'profession' depended on the value in the axis 'tribe'. well. we can already decompose a value into its component axes; it's pretty trivial to extract a list of values that vary only by a given axis -- the 'distinct values' of a given dimension. if there's another axis that depends solely on another, then theoretically to do a 'fast bind' we only need to call the a -> m b function once for each distinct value, which (again) reduces a quadratic check with a linear one, which makes that kind of bind totally feasible to run. it also comes up a lot in the actual templates i was writing, so coding it up would be a huge win.

there's just one problem. if you're familiar with, uh, combinatorics & logical constraints you might have already seen it. if we have an axis that depends on another axis, we can use that to filter out values, by having a function that returns size-1 for most values, and size-0 for the filtered values. this is equivalent to a logical constraint system. to have this code work, i'd need to write what's effectively the inner workings of a constraint solver. this is never a good idea. "don't ever write your own solver".

so, yeah okay maybe the reason i've been finding this code incredibly difficult to conceptualize & write down is because it's actually a known incredibly difficult thing to do.

in practice i think the solution here is to have a 'constraint' axis store the length of each 'segment', which is fine for that axis, but then that introduces a problem of like, if you're adding a second unrelated constraint you need to be able to... slice up the space defined by the first constraint&axis into coherent chunks of the second constraint&axis, and i don't actually know if the information needed to do that is actually sitting around anywhere. you might notice that this is a very vague and unclear statement of the problem that dips into specifics i've mostly glossed over so far; this is because this is where my knowledge of what problem i'm even working on runs out and i'm left with half-formed thoughts about actual implementation details.

anyway so this isn't a problem that i've been working on continually but it is something i've been coming back to every year or so for the past five years & making a tiny bit more progress with each time. hopefully one day i'll actually crack it.

it's also worth noting that i have... weird mixed feelings about actually posting this code? iirc when i first started working on it it was around when there was that big FCC RFC about net neutrality, right? and it got this deluge of spam comments from a template. i think i actually made a tumblr post about it at the time, maybe? going like, huh these are fairly formulaic structurally, and they could literally all been generated by the tool i'm working on now. i'm using it to generate cool desert wanderers and gross demon dicks, but this tool has a commercial application too, and that's astroturfing. and if i actually solve this constraint thing -- much less start hosting it with the attached parser so it's real easy to use -- it'll make it a much more powerful tool. but, ultimately, so long as we live in the world anything anyone makes will get used for malign purposes, & i don't think "oh just stop doing anything" is a good solution to that problem. but it is something that weighs on me when i think about finishing this code.