#or at least one meaning that ends up replacing the first one you constructed (you can look up garden path sentences which is a

[beatledumpster]

Paul loves enjambments

Enjambment is the continuation of a sentence or clause across a line break. For example, the poet John Donne uses enjambment in his poem "The Good-Morrow" when he continues the opening sentence across the line break between the first and second lines: "I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I / Did, till we loved? Were we not weaned till then?"

These are the examples that I could think of right now of Paul hopping across lines (well, if you agree with where the cuts are placed, as lines in a song can be written in several ways, and if you agree that the breaks in syntax are unusual enough to be considered poetic/interesting enjambments) :

...

I've just seen a face I can't forget The time or place where we just met

...

I was alone, I took a ride I didn't know what I would find there Another road where maybe I Could see another kind of mind there

... Ooh, you were meant to be near me Ooh, and I want you to hear me Say we'll be together every day

...

And it really doesn't matter if I'm wrong, I'm right Where I belong, I'm right Where I belong

...

There beneath the blue suburban skies I sit and meanwhile back In Penny Lane there is a fireman with an hourglass

...

And when the broken hearted People living in the world agree There will be an answer Let it be

...

Mull of Kintyre Oh, mist rolling in from The sea, my desire Is always to be here Oh, Mull of Kintyre

Feel free to add more if you can recall any!

#the beatles #paul mccartney #i like the instances when these enjambments make the phrasing ambiguous with several meanings #or at least one meaning that ends up replacing the first one you constructed (you can look up garden path sentences which is a #related phenomenon) #like the ambiguity in ive just seen a face or obviously fixing a hole (my mind was blown when i realised this one) #also as a nonnative speaker i never could parse the lyrics to mull of kintyre although I’ve heard it lots #especially the ‘oh mist rolling in from’ line #never knew what he was saying until i looked it up #so i would always interpret based on the way he sang it that ‘the sea; my desire’ was a distinct element. #like; he asserts the sea is his desire #then i guess i did understand the next bit (‘is always to be here’) so idk why it made sense to me. well it just didn’t i suppose but i #never really pondered over it or anything! #oh wait omg. The following sentence IS valid although strange in a poetic way : ‘the sea; my desire; is always to be here.’ #(Excuse the semicolons to replace commas because im in the tags) #-> i.e. the sea (which is my desire) ought to always be here ! #(vs. the basic meaning : i wish to always be here; with ‘the sea’ being part of the previous phrase) #OMG paul was this intended? king of ambiguous/multiple meanings! #(am not actually 100% sure this was correct english but i hope so)

[vaspider]

If you have celiac or otherwise can't eat wheat, btw, and you like bread, I highly recommend investing in a breadmaker. Even the best store-bought gluten-free bread does not hold a candle to the stuff that comes out of our breadmaker, and it's cheaper per slice even when we buy bread mix in single-loaf bags.

This is our breadmaker. Evie got it on sale, but it is an investment. I'm not going to pretend it isn't a chunk of change up front. There are cheaper ones, but the reason I like this one and think it's worth the money:

It has two smaller paddles, where our older bread maker that my mom got us and got destroyed by getting construction dust in it had one big paddle in the middle. This leaves a big hole in the middle of the finished loaf, which makes the bread much less useful for, like, sandwiches.

Zojirushi is not as well-known a brand in the US, but it's a Brand Name in Japan for good reason. Evie's had our Zojirushi rice cooker for over a decade & we had to replace the inner bowl once bc someone used metal utensils in it and scratched the non-stick coating. We expect to use this machine for at least a decade.

You can program your own cycles, which we found really useful. Evie built a custom cycle that removed the punch-down sections (gluten-free bread tends not to rise as much) and that made our perfect loaf.

A lot of bread machines produce very tall, square loaves, which are awkward to slice, store, and make sandwiches with. This produces loaves that make good sandwiches and toast, and the French toast slices don't crowd the pan.

The top heating element on this gives a really amazingly browned top crust that we definitely didn't get on our old machine.

It's so pretty.

So how is it cheaper in the long run if the machine costs $300+? A little like this:

We use Pamela's Bread Mix bc it's really consistent and easy - you need the bread mix, water, yeast, 3 egg whites, and oil. (We use avocado oil and find it best and most consistent, but regular vegetable oil works!) We buy Pamela's in bulk, and without any subscription discounts or whatever, the $48 pack of 3 bags makes about 11.5 loaves. With the cost of yeast and eggs and stuff, it ends up costing about $4.50 a loaf. (If you buy your yeast in larger bags & store it in an airtight container, you can create less waste and it's also cheaper.)

By comparison, a loaf of Franz GF Bread costs $7-8, and Canyon Bakehouse usually runs about the same.

However, that's not an apples to apples comparison because the Franz loaf is an 18 oz. loaf, whereas our breadmaker makes a 2 lb. loaf. Assuming even the lower-end cost for getting a Franz loaf at the store, an equivalent amount of bread would cost $12.42, and it's not nearly as good.

(Yes, gluten-free bread is fucking expensive. That's part of why I'm writing this post in the first place.)

Anyway, assuming you eat 2 lbs. of bread a week in your house - a breadmaker loaf, basically, to make the math simple - you'll end up spending $7.92 less on bread every week. That means that even at the most expensive cost for the Zojirushi, if you buy it at its highest price (don't do that! wait for a sale!) it'll take 50 weeks - about a year - before the breadmaker pays for itself. If you manage to get it on a 25% off sale (which we did), it pays for itself in about 9 months.

Nine months, I must stress, in which you are eating much more delicious bread.

We tend to go through a couple of loaves a week because toast, sandwiches, and melts are great food for people with low spoons.

Evie and I perfected the Pamela's mix recipe for this particular machine - I'll get it typed up when I'm downstairs next, along with the quasi-babka recipe. (Really, it's like a marble cake and babka and bread had a baby, and it's a family favorite.)

Bread good. The end.

#my peasant roots let me show you them #homemaking #queer homemaking #food #food cw #affiliate links #i may make a few pennies from these links #and use them to buy books

[kurain-genealogy]

Investigating Glamrock Bonnie, The Mimic, and Why I Think the Mimic Killed Bonnie

The theory that Mimic killed Glamrock Bonnie is one I’ve seen held by a small handful of people since RUIN’s release, but never fully expanded upon or fleshed out. After seeing Twitter argue, once again, over whether or not Monty killed Bonnie, I was inspired to actually make a serious attempt at supporting my theory.

In this, I’ll be using the Tales from the Pizzaplex (TFTPP) books to support my conclusions – specifically the epilogues, GGY, The Mimic, The Storyteller, and brief mentions of others. You can debate the canonicity – and thus, validity – of the books, but they are set in the game’s universe, and at least some of the stories are directly tied to the games (especially in relation to the Mimic). I mainly use the books to construct a rough timeline of events and as supporting evidence so (hopefully) this theory should still be plausible if you ignore all the book evidence (& btw I read all of the books on archive.org, so apologies if any referenced page numbers are off).

This will contain spoilers for book #8’s epilogue!

First, I’ll go over general information regarding Bonnie and his death. Then, I’ll cover why I don’t think it was the other suspects. I’ll end off with why I think that leaves the Mimic responsible.

This is a long one, a lot longer than I expected – nearly 7.5k words, not including this introduction – so it's also available to read on a pageless Google Doc here! It's best viewed on desktop & has more pictures (I had to combine/squeeze some out to fit the tumblr image limit), as well as clearer sections and an outline. I highly recommend reading it there if you're able.

There's a timeline + TL;DR at the end for your convenience :]

& tysm to my friend @clmntne for beta reading this theory for me <3 go look at his art @clementartz ok?

-☆-

If you’re unfamiliar, stories in TFTPP take place over a large time range, ranging from back in the ‘80s to sometime after the events of SB. A handful of stories (including the connected epilogues) take place during the construction of the Pizzaplex or shortly before/after its opening. None of the stories mention Glamrock Bonnie at all, meaning he gets decommissioned very early in the Pizzaplex’s lifetime, likely within the first year or so of operation. To my knowledge, any stories that might take place during GlamBonnie’s lifetime don’t provide any details as to who’s in the main band.

Starting us off with the infamous missing message:

MISSINGSECURITY REPORT - 12:24AM - Bonnie is seen leaving his green room in Rockstar Row heading East towards the atrium. 2:40AM - Bonnie enters the East Arcade. 4:12AM - Bonnie enters Monty Golf.

Something I find extremely interesting about this are the HUGE chunks of time left unspecified, something I feel a lot of people gloss over. In the middle of the night, Bonnie spends a whopping 2 hours and 16 minutes in the atrium – or wherever he is – before entering the arcade. He has to go up to level 3 to get to the east arcade from Rockstar Row (RR), but I don’t think it’d take him one hour per floor to get there. 1 hour and 32 minutes later, he enters Monty Golf. He could be gaming in the arcade for all I care, but what intrigues me the most is the time spent between RR and the arcade. If he was seen entering other specific areas that would’ve been noted in the log, and I imagine if he was being erratic or unusual during that time it would’ve been mentioned, too. Without much to go off of, we really can’t say what was going on or what his reasoning was. With so few security sightings over four hours, to me personally it feels like Bonnie was somehow avoiding the cameras (or was being led by something that was). Another thing to consider is that unlike in SB, the Pizzaplex had multiple human security guards on staff (it’s not until shortly before SB, after Vanessa’s hired, that they’re replaced with STAFF bots). So not only was Bonnie rarely seen on the cams, but he wasn’t caught by a security guard, either.

(shoutout to the person who made these labeled maps of the Pizzaplex, since I don’t own the game myself it really helped me get an idea of the layout)

Prior to Security Breach, the animatronics weren’t normally active during the night. In The Bobbiedots, Part 1, we get this:

Supposedly deactivated by this time of night, Roxy probably wasn’t any kind of threat. But a couple weeks ago, as Abe had been heading to his hidey-hole, he’d gotten a glimpse of Roxy stalking past one of the doorways to the raceway (p. 135).

In the story, this takes place around midnight. It makes sense, too, that the large, power-consuming robots would be deactivated and/or charging while the Pizzaplex is closed. If a security guard saw Bonnie roaming at night, they probably would’ve led him back to his greenroom.

So, Bonnie is up and about while the animatronics should be powered down. This means that:

He is probably the only one who was awake, or at least the only one who left their designated area during the night.

He either woke up on his own with a specific purpose in mind, OR something woke him up.

Now, the crime scene. There is a lot more here to unpack than I expected.

Majority of reference images in this section come from Banden and FusionZGamer.

At the time of Ruin, the only entrances to the room where Bonnie’s body is found are these: A broken piece of wall behind the bowling lane, and a vent high up on the wall.

At the time of SB, the vent was covered with striped wall panels. It probably only became accessible after the earthquake when they fell, or were stripped off during deconstruction.

This entrance is odd; The bricks look deliberately cut or pulled out from both sides, and the inside between the walls is dug through. It’s hard to know when it was first burrowed through, and from what direction – I personally think it was dug from the inside-out, since inside, the hole is high above the ground and level with the boxes, which feels deliberate.

In the room, there’s a bowling ball rail that leads out, the opening to which is boarded up from the inside.

From Fusion’s video, we can see that the rail would lead down the length of the bowling alley through the dingier hall on the right side, visible in the first image. On the left side is the area behind the bowling lanes, presumably where maintenance is done on the machines (more apparent in the second image), and large garage doors on the right that lead to the dingy hallway. 

As seen in the bottom two images, if you go to the fenced off section with the electrical lockers and turn around – hey! We’re in the area behind the ice cream parlor’s stage where they stashed Bonnie’s stuff. From here, we can see the hallway where the ball rail would be and the large doors that lead to it.If this is confusing, I recommend watching Fusion’s video to get a better idea of the layout.

If you wear the VANNI mask in this section, it looks like a headless STAFF bot caught by the arms with cables, and maybe being dragged through the doorway, or something similar? It’s hard to find a good picture of it from other angles since I can’t find a video of someone going out-of-bounds to get a closer look. We get a lot of interesting environmental storytelling in the AR world, but there’s also many seemingly random changes.Could this symbolize or depict something surrounding Bonnie’s death? Maybe it means something, maybe it doesn’t. I just find it interesting.

So, the only entrance to Bonnie’s tomb is through the hallway behind lane maintenance, accessible only by the garage doors. This hall presumably had a rail that spanned the length of the bowling lanes. I imagine this area was used for storage and the likes. The very end of this hall is where we find Bonnie. The entrance to this section is weird – it’s smaller than Cassie and barely bigger than the Caution Bots – but I digress. As for the front entrance from the lanes being walled off, I feel like that’d render those lanes unusable. In fact, there’s no evidence of there being pinsetters for these lanes, so maybe they were gutted in order to wall off the room. Or maybe they just didn’t feel like modeling all that, I dunno. Not really something that matters. What does matter is how this room is closed off in the first place, having been boarded up from the inside, and the thick ass wall someone excavated through. All of it feels very intentional.

The dirt and debris around Bonnie tells me that this room is in fact the crime scene. This is heavily supported by the impact crack on the wall (third image) and the similar cracks on the floor underneath Bonnie in AR (second image). Bonnie and his attacker could have had encounters elsewhere in the Pizzaplex, but this room is where the final showdown occurred.

I’ll try not to include more images than necessary, so if you want some good looks for yourself, Fusion’s video from before does a good job showing off Bonnie’s state, as well as this FazFriends video analyzing the DLC animatronics, and is where the upcoming screenshots come from.

Most prominently, Bonnie has a massive laceration in his chest and is missing the left side of his faceplate, the latter possibly caused by the bowling ball split in three around his head. The biggest gash in his chest runs from his left shoulder diagonally toward the right side of his waist. With the direction his casing peels and how most of the damage is at the top, I’d say it was a downward strike, most likely done with the left hand. He’s covered in dirt and grime, and wires poke out from his innards. 

There’s some green coloration on his torso, leading many to think this could be paint rubbed off from the attacker. Personally, I think it looks more like patina, a green tarnish resulting from aging metal, similar to the floor and metal shrapnel around him. It could also be his base paint color.

His arms are pulled apart at the joints; the legs are pulled apart at the knees, but I can’t tell if they’re pulled from his hips as well (though, the pelvis is definitely ripped from the torso).

As noted in the fourth image, he lays atop these strange black tubes – I can’t help but think of the AR headless STAFF bot from earlier and the cables it was falling onto. Could it be related?

In addition, there’s several random animatronic pieces scattered around, some of which look significantly older than others. For example, at Bonnie’s feet:

There’s a chunk of relatively clean metal akin to the spine inside Bonnie, but also an older, more corroded, grimier piece next to it. I feel this could’ve come from Bonnie’s attacker, but Bonnie also has one of these yucky pieces sticking out of an arm socket, so who knows.

-☆-

Before I talk about the possible attackers, I first want to take a brief intermission to talk about the books, as they establish an important timeline that will be relevant later. I’ll be talking a bit about The Storyteller and The Mimic, and the animatronics’ behaviors before and after the former.

The Storyteller is a story in the 5th TFTPP book about a creative AI software – called The Storyteller (TS), unsurprisingly – that was implemented across the entire Pizzaplex sometime prior to the game’s events. The purpose of TS was to cut down on costs spent in the creative department by using an AI to formulate new stories based on preexisting ones within Fazbear Entertainment (🙄). TS was connected to virtually everything in the Pizzaplex – including VR, AR, and the Glamrock Animatronics – to create more unique and dynamic interactions with guests. So, instead of programming in new AR/VR experiences or animatronic behaviors manually, TS could continuously change how the games/characters acted. Here’s an excerpt on how TS altered the Glamrocks specifically:

Montgomery Gator also exhibited disturbing changes. The alligator featured in Monty’s Gator Golf was the quintessential rockstar. […] Prone to smashing things as part of his extravagant image, Monty was always dramatic, but he had been harmless... at least until The Storyteller started messing with him. Now the alligator was turning into a sulky shadow of his former self. Monty’s rampages became more violent, and in between tantrums, he withdrew into a depressive silence that was actually driving children to tears. All the Pizzaplex’s other main characters began to undergo similar personality shifts. Whatever trait was normal for them began to skew toward the dark side. The shift wasn’t dramatic. None of the animatronics had turned homicidal or anything, but the altered dynamic was noticeable, at least to Edwin. (pp. 95-96).

Edwin’s story is revealed to us in TFTPP #6 in the story The Mimic. Edwin was the original creator of the endo, The Mimic (TM), 30-40 years prior to the creation of the Pizzaplex. He made it to keep his 4-year-old son, David, occupied while he (a single father) worked. It was a learning robot that imitated what it observed, making it a good playmate for his son; David even made TM a white tiger “doll” out of fabric to match his own white tiger plushie. The program that The Mimic ran on was called Mimic1 (hence, where the endo got its name). One day, David tragically dies in a car accident. Edwin enters a depressive fugue for the next two weeks in which he barely remembers anything. When he comes to his senses and sees the still-active Mimic acting like his dead son, in a moment of intense grief and rage, he beats the everloving shit out of TM. When he snaps out of it, he’s filled with regret and leaves.

By this point, Edwin’s company had been bought out by Fazbear Entertainment, so when he just dips and thereby breaches their contract, they send a team of people to the factory to “clean up a mess.” When the team arrives and sees the crumpled remains of TM, armed only with their vague instructions, they conclude that they’re to finish Edwin’s abandoned projects. TM had only an upper body, so the team fixed him up and gave him legs and a voice box.

Now, remember how I said TM learns and imitates behavior it observes? Well TM just starts fucking killing these guys. And “puts them away” in the fridge and closet, like how he’d learned to put food and clothes away with Edwin and David. Fazbear Entertainment sends another team of guys to do the job when the first team doesn’t return, but they too are killed. This time, TM put on various mascot costumes and pursued them in a more “hide and seek” manner.

Okay, now back to The Storyteller. The AI was allowed to decide its own appearance, since the plan was for TS itself to become a Pizzaplex character – so, its hardware was put inside a white tiger bust.

Edwin, vocally against the project, was purposefully kept in the dark about the workings of TS. He snuck into the Pizzaplex on the night of its installation, and the sight of the white tiger triggered a panic attack. Fearing the worst, he later sneaks into TS’s enclosure to confirm his suspicions.

If you hadn’t guessed already, Edwin discovers that The Storyteller is running on the Mimic1 program.

TS was only in the Pizzaplex for three weeks before it was removed. However, even with all its arms broken and cables pulled apart, the Mimic1 program continued running. I believe it’s implied that it remained within the Pizzaplex’s system, even after TS’s hardware was completely removed.

It’s hard to say exactly when in the Pizzaplex’s lifespan this story takes place. Interestingly, there’s mention of a character associated with Bonnie Bowl experiencing malfunctions (p. 109), yet just a few pages later Montgomery Gator is said to have a room in Rockstar Row (p. 111), meaning he’d already replaced Bonnie as bass player.

Tragedies that occurred at the Pizzaplex early in its lifetime – such as in the stories Cleithrophobia, HAPPS, Pressure, and Under Construction – weren’t because of malfunctions, but more so from human error. In the first two, the robots are behaving exactly as they’re programmed to, but end up causing harm due to the circumstances around the story. Pressure happened because some idiot put a springlock suit in the RolePlay area (combined with the protag having bad friends). You could argue that Under Construction is an exception (that something malicious purposefully altered the AR experience), but to that I argue that the AR attraction wasn’t even finished or intended to have someone use it (nor an employee to keep watch), so of course it wouldn’t be functioning properly and end badly.

All of this to say, it could very well be that nothing in the Pizzaplex’s network, including animatronics, were malfunctioning, acting strange, violent, or purposefully malicious, prior to The Storyteller’s – Mimic1’s – integration.

-☆-

Okay. Just keep that information in mind. With that, let me rule out some suspects.

Suspect 1: Vanny

Whether she controlled Monty, STAFF bots, or did it herself, this follows the idea that Vanny/Vanessa had something to do with Bonnie’s disappearance.

Well, based on the established timeline, she couldn’t have. Bonnie was killed within the first year or so of operation, and Vanessa wasn’t working at the Pizzaplex yet. We can already deduce with SB that Vanessa’s security guard position was somewhat recent, but we also have GGY as further proof.

GGY is the story that all but confirms to us that Client 46 (from the Retro CDs) is Gregory. This story connects the GGY character (Greg/Gregory) to the disappearances of three school counselors/therapists. It takes place about 3 years after the Pizzaplex opens, as the first school counselor was hired before its opening, and had been working at the school for three years before disappearing. (& btw, SB takes place around the 5th year. This is deduced by a Faz Life magazine in SB being labeled #19 in a quarterly release, meaning if it started with the opening of the Pizzaplex, it’d be 4.75 years in). This places the Retro CDs around the same time. In Vanessa’s sessions, she’s clearly at her old job – she sits at a desk on the computer and mentions her coworker Luis, who was also mentioned in Special Delivery’s unused emails from Vanessa’s old job.

Could Vanny still have snuck in to do something? Sure, I just don’t think it’s likely. She’s still working on her costume at the time of these sessions (which remember, is a few years after when Bonnie would’ve been decommissioned), and is clearly still very anxious and reluctant to do as Glitchtrap tells her.

Suspect 2: Monty

Okay, here we go. The most obvious piece of evidence for Monty’s innocence is the fact that he wasn’t given his claw upgrade until after replacing Bonnie. Of course, he still had claws beforehand, he’s a gator, but, the claw upgrade switches the endoskeleton’s hands entirely.

Compare Monty’s sharp fingies to the blunter Glamrock Endo’s. Monty’s original hands could still do major damage, I mean look at what the STAFF bots did to Freddy with their even bigger & rounder fingers. But if you look at the gashes in Bonnie’s torso, they’re much more clean slices accompanied by smaller scratches all over, which had to have been made by something much sharper and pointier.

Also, Monty attacks with his teeth, not his claws. (link leads to gif of his jumpscare)

Further, we have absolutely no reason to think Monty would want to attack Bonnie. There’s no bad blood, and if Monty truly did want the spotlight, he could’ve gone for Freddy.

Monty MischiefERRANT BEHAVIOR REPORT - Monty didn't show up for the main stage performance again. We found him in the same place we always do, the catwalks over Monty Golf. We can't have a repeat of last month. Someone hit the hole in one and the hurricane bucket knocked him down. Both legs were broken and required emergency parts and service work.

This message is very telling: Monty frequently skipped main performances and hid in Gator Golf. This is completely counter to the notion that he craved the spotlight and attention of being in the band. In fact, it sounds like he didn’t even like being in the band. Perhaps his aggression during/before SB – like destroying his green room – was partly fueled by resentment for being taken from his element?

Monty has no personal motives for killing Bonnie, but could he have been controlled? Mmmmmaybe? But I don’t think so. We’ve already established that Vanny couldn’t have been involved. Then there’s Mimic1/TS, which I already established came into play after Bonnie was gone. In fact, the way the book described Monty post-Storyteller is a lot like how he acts around SB: violent, destructive outbursts, and silently sulking (like in the catwalks). It’s even specified that the malfunctioning Glamrocks weren’t homicidal or harming others. Monty – nor any of the other animatronics – have ever been violent towards each other. Monty’s aggression is aimed at his own belongings and like, fences and shit. Never his friends. Plus, Monty disliking Freddy is something only ever depicted in Monty’s arcade game, which TS had access to. I think the arcade game can absolutely give us storytelling via symbolism, but I doubt it’s altered by Monty’s mind and thoughts.

And say Monty did kill Bonnie – why wasn’t he noticed on the cameras either going to Bonnie Bowl or moving Bonnie’s body there from Gator Golf? If an outside force deleted security footage, why leave the incriminating part where Bonnie goes to Gator Golf in the first place? It wouldn’t make sense. Plus, most evidence points towards Bonnie Bowl being where the incident occurred.

Suspect 3: Prototype Freddy

The theory that Freddy killed Bonnie comes from @glammiketrash, and it’s a great theory. Give it a read if you have time, I think it’s definitely one of the more likely theories on this topic and has strong supporting evidence.  

However, there are a few reasons why I personally don’t think a rogue Freddy did it (even ignoring the timeline I established). For starters, the Prototype Freddy in RUIN is heavily implied to be the same Freddy that was left in Fazer Blast in the Princess Quest ending of SB – the ending that’s canon to RUIN (at this point I don’t think I have to explain why PQ is the canon ending, but I’d be happy to explain it in the replies if needed).

The comic for the Disassemble Vanny ending shows us an illustration of how Freddy was damaged by the STAFF bots, and it’s strikingly similar to Prototype Freddy (PF): exposed hands, a chunk taken from the right bicep and thigh. You could even argue that the torso cracking is similar (I’m drawn to how both have the lightning bolt cut off similarly). It feels like PF was designed/modeled after the illustration. He has the sharp claws from the Monty upgrade, and his missing head aligns with the PQ ending where Gregory leaves the Pizzaplex with it. Then of course, there’s the fact that he’s found in Fazer Blast, where Freddy in SB was attacked and left.

Yes, I believe that the Glamrock Freddy in SB was a prototype model the entire time. We still don’t know why Freddy glitched out in the beginning of the game, but it’s entirely possible that Parts & Service simply booted up a new/temporary endo while they dealt with whatever broke Freddy. He’s on reduced power for safety measures because, as an older version, they don’t know how unusual or erratic he’ll be – a justified precaution, since we can see that when he runs out of power, or is under maintenance (you know, when his head’s off), he attacks Gregory. It would also explain why Freddy in SB isn’t connected to the network or infected by the virus – he literally just got switched on.

And holy shit, at the time of writing this, FazFriends just uploaded a video showcasing the animatronics’ endoskeletons, and it happens to support my theory!

Freddy and Bonnie both share an endoskeleton unique to the other Glamrocks. Monty, Chica, and Roxy all share a basic endoskeleton. The Glamrocks would all be kept up-to-date and modified throughout the years. Since Bonnie is one of the original ones, we can assume that’s what their endos looked like when the Pizzaplex first opened. It doesn’t make sense that Freddy, being who he is, wouldn’t be upgraded the same way the others are… unless this is an older Freddy. SB Freddy having a unique endoskeleton that matches Bonnie’s signifies that he was in a Prototype model from the beginning.

Freddy has a lot of personality for sure, but still seems a bit sterile and stilted at times, especially if you compare him to someone like Roxy. In the books Freddy’s personality is changed on a few occasions, such as by The Storyteller (in which he’s adopted a “spoiled brat” personality) and by GGY (in which he’d acted eerie and followed/stared at the protagonist). He’s completely wiped clean of all this though in SB. He still has a distinct personality, memories, and feelings, but it feels kind of like it was reset to default. That could just be me, but it supports the idea of him being PF.

Prototype Freddy looks like that because of the events of SB. Prior to that, he looked just like a normal Freddy. In the timeframe that Bonnie was destroyed, none of the robots were acting violent and there was no AI or virus to control him, which rules out any last possibility of PF being Bonnie’s killer to me.

There are definitely holes in this line of thought; It’s just speculation that makes sense to me. I’m also generally forgiving when it comes to changes made to SB from RUIN; SB seemed to go through a lot of changes in development and was released in a messy state, so I wouldn’t blame them if at this point Steel Wool was establishing things that would retroactively apply to SB.

Suspect 4: THE MIMICCCCCCC

FINALLY, over 4k words in, we are talking about the thing I promised. I’ll start with some more information on the Mimic itself (yup, there’s still more!!!).

Every TFTPP book has an epilogue, all of which connect together into one narrative that tells us the story of how The Mimic ended up in the FNAF6 Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza Place beneath the Pizzaplex.

The Pizza Place was originally intended to be refurbished into a Fazbear museum in conjunction with the Pizzaplex’s construction. There was a small team working there to clean the building, particularly to pick up and disassemble all of the remaining endoskeletons littered throughout the place. One of the guys on the team (Gil) hates his job and goes outside to take a break just in time to see a shipment arrive containing the Glamrock Animatronics – and, for whatever reason, The Mimic. Since TM was clearly older and the odd one out of the bunch, Gil drags TM inside with the intention of uploading a cleanup protocol into the endo. He instructs TM to remove the limbs and heads off of the endoskeletons and pile them up at the door. The Mimic does this quickly, and when it runs out of endoskeletons, begins to dismember the renovation crew. Construction workers from outside rush in when they hear the commotion, which only adds to TM’s victims. The youngest of the renovation crew manages to escape and desperately convinces nearby cement workers to seal the entrances to the pizzeria (Epilogue #1). (This massive pile of animatronic parts and murder victims is theorized to be the origins of Tangle/The Blob, btw.)

Sometime later, a group of 8 teens sneak into the Pizza Place via a vent opening in the roof. Once they discover the gruesome mass murder scene, they realize that they aren’t alone, that their way out was crushed, and that they’re trapped (Epilogue #2).

Over the course of the next few installments, the teens are slowly picked off by TM. It uses mascot costumes to trick and murder the teens (similar to what TM did in Edwin’s factory) in a twisted hide-and-seek type game. When the group finds an old radio, TM intercepts the signal and pretends to be someone else within the Pizza Place calling for help, attempting to lure the kids into a back room. It also could disrupt electronics, as the lights and electricity as a whole often flickered and went out when it was near. A manual found in the office tells us more about TM:

The one we saw is either a Mimic Model 1 or 2. […] They have retractable and expandable limbs and a contracting torso so they can fit into pretty much any mascot costume. […] The tech in the Mimics was pretty clunky. […] If you encounter one of these things, you should immediately disconnect its power source and disassemble it (Epilogue #4, pp. 219-220). [...] When the team created the Mimic line, they didn’t want to have to program in every show routine, step-by-step. That was a lot of coding, so they just programmed the Mimic to basically watch and learn. Not only could a Mimic fit into any costume, it was designed to observe the other routines and then mimic them (Epilogue #6, p. 183). I wish I could read all of this, but it seems like the original Mimic began mimicking not just the other animatronics but also people. And it did it in ways that weren’t intended. I’m not sure what it did. I can just make out the words misconstrue, scared, potential disaster, and deactivate remaining Mimic endos (Epilogue #6, p. 184).

It's kinda unclear, but this is the narrative I’m picking up: Once Fazbear Entertainment was finally able to “clean up [the] mess” left by Edwin and get their hands on The Mimic, they were like “hey this programming is actually genius” and started making their own Mimic models based on Edwin’s, claiming it as their own engineering (classic corner-cutting Fazbear Entertainment). However, due to its primitive programming (Edwin was an engineer, not a coder) and the nature of Mimic1, Fazbear quickly realized how faulty and unreliable the Mimic animatronic line was, so they decommissioned them. The Mimic in the Pizza Place is likely Edwin’s original, considering its costume-wearing, hide-and-seek style murders.

Enough backstory for now. I’ll be addressing more book stuff later (sorry, sorry), but I’d like to bring this back around to Bonnie and how TM qualifies as a suspect before getting into the how and why.

Think back to Bonnie’s corpse and the diagonal swipe to his chest caused by sharp claws.

Get a load of this guy.

Very sharp fingers on the left hand. Returning to the analysis of Bonnie’s corpse – facing Bonnie, a downward right-to-left swipe is likely achieved by the left hand. Supporting this is TM’s jumpscare, in which it grabs with the right hand and attacks with the left.

In its costumed jumpscare, TM attacks with its round-fingered right hand in a fist. Bonnie, along with several scratch marks, is also covered in dents, meaning TM could have used both of its attack methods.

“But TM has 5 fingers, and Bonnie’s slash marks look like they’re from a 4-fingered hand.” I hear ya. Here’s some possible explanations:

With the angle of the motion and the curvature of Bonnie’s torso, the pinky finger didn’t pierce the casing, instead merely scratching it.

TM wears 4-fingered costumes – you can see it is in the jumpscare above. Who’s to say TM didn’t travel in a costume from the Pizza Place, or even found Glamrock casing to put on?

It can just like, shapeshift. I wouldn’t think that extended to details like the fingers, but I wouldn’t be surprised. The left palm does have holes in it, so maybe the fingers were designed to contract to fit various gloves.

Another obvious connection is that TM famously tears off the limbs of its victims – and wouldn’t you know it, Bonnie’s arms and legs are dismembered. TM, noticeably old and described as discolored in the books, could also be the source of all the extraneous, out-of-place metal parts that surround Bonnie.

Out of all the suspects, TM is the only one that’s known to be violent towards animatronics, has the physical capabilities to have done it, and would be awake while the rest of the Glamrocks were deactivated for the night. When it comes to analyzing the crime scene itself and the events surrounding it, The Mimic fits the bill the most out of all the suspects. Isolated, it’s the most likely option, in my opinion. Determining how this happened is a bit trickier; expect a bit more speculation in that regard.

I know what you might be thinking: How did The Mimic get into the Pizzaplex in the first place if it was sealed underground?

It’s not all that unusual if you think about it. For starters, the Pizza Place was not sealed very well (it was done in a panic, after all). The teens were able to enter through a vent in the roof, multiple characters attempted to leave through a vent blocked by a giant (moving) fan, and Lucia (the protagonist) was finally able to escape through a window in the bathroom that had less concrete blocking it than the others. There are various means of escape in which TM can contort its body to fit through.

Briefly, while on the subject of the latest epilogue, it’s worth noting that Lucia was able to deactivate TM by trapping it in a springlock costume and flipping its off switch. To this, I remind you that the Epilogues aren’t over. The book series is still ongoing, as is TM’s story. Plus, by the time of SB/RUIN, TM is clearly awake, so it’s possible that it was reactivated by the time of Bonnie’s death.

Prior to that, Lucia briefly restrained TM with rope. It reminds me of the AR STAFF bot hanging over cables, and the weird tubelike things underneath Bonnie’s body. Could they all be connected? Could TM have learned the rope tactic from Lucia and then gone on to mimic that when attacking Bonnie?

Anyways, another important aspect of all this is TM’s connection to the Pizzaplex. We know that TM and TS share the same program, Mimic1 (it’s unclear if TS’s programming came from the original Mimic or one of Fazbear Entertainment’s copies. My own opinion flip-flops). TM is also connected to the VANNI mask and the AR world – whether you believe the theory that Glitchtrap is Mimic1 or not doesn’t matter, since it doesn’t change that The Physical Mimic Under The Pizzaplex Somehow Connected Itself To The Mask, even after the PQ ending got rid of Glitchtrap and its control over the robots. TM could also interact with the security feed and get in contact with Cassie, who was outside the Pizzaplex. Of course, none of these things are relevant to the time period we’re working with, but it shows how TM can connect itself to electronics, even long-distance, and possibly without the help of shared software. If it can interfere with radio signals, I wouldn’t be surprised if it could at least view security footage, maps, employee messages, and whatever else from the Pizzaplex.

Okay, now think waaaaaayy back to the beginning when I was analyzing Bonnie’s behavior: “He either woke up on his own with a specific purpose in mind, OR something woke him up.”

Returning to these two options with the information we have now, it turns to:  “Bonnie either knew something suspicious was afoot and wanted to investigate, OR The Mimic woke him up (purposefully or not).”

There could be alternatives, but these are the most obvious conclusions.

While what we know about GlamBonnie’s death is limited, we know even less about his personality. We don’t have any hints on why Bonnie in particular would be acutely aware of something unusual, or on the contrary, why he’d be targeted by TM. But we do know that on this occasion he was awake and later murdered, and TM is looking guilty.

Again, think back to Bonnie’s strange behavior caught by security the night he went missing; The long spans of time between very few appearances on camera, almost as if he was avoiding them, either on purpose or as a result of following something. If Bonnie was doing something he shouldn’t’ve, he probably would be sneaky about it. If Bonnie was being lured by TM with the intent to Get Him, it makes sense that it would lead him where he can’t be tracked. If it’s possible TM could access security and maps, of course it would know how to not be seen – and if it plays hide and seek, it would want to stay hidden. 

(I’ve been speculating under the assumption that TM can’t alter the Pizzaplex network, just view it. If it’s possible that it can alter the network, i.e. delete security footage, then that’d save us a lot of assumptions. If that were the case, then TM could just delete any security footage of itself, which is why we’re only left with random sightings of Bonnie on camera. The rest – the missing pieces – would fill in the blanks). 

TM may have an impressive AI, but it’s nothing near the Glamrocks’ level of self-awareness. Its actions are all motivated by the Mimic1 programming and what it’s learned/observed. It doesn’t try to escape because it has the desire to get out, but because it was not designed to be confined to a room. It doesn’t dismember people because it enjoys killing, but because it’s reacting “the way it had learned to handle all endoskeleton-like objects,” (Epilogue #7, p. 169). We don’t have reason to believe TM resents or envies Bonnie. Bonnie became a victim because he entered the crossfire of TM’s programming.

I personally believe Bonnie had suspicions something Strange was happening and began to investigate (either over a period of time, or simply was woken by TM skulking around one night, and was like “what the” and searched for the source). TM caught on and entered “hide-and-seek mode,” in which it was hiding from a pursuing Bonnie. Persistent and stubborn, as all Bonnies tended to be, GlamBonnie pursued TM all night. TM, in its previous killings, would hide, lure, then ambush. I think TM finally cornered Bonnie by luring him to the end of the long hallway behind Bonnie Bowl and finishing him off. Sunrise is approaching by this point, and the Pizzaplex would be opening up soon, so TM retreats back to the Pizza Place to avoid being found.

AC Inspection Thank you for contacting Low Budget Building Contractors. We have done a preliminary inspection and find nothing wrong with your ventilation system. The 'loud clanging', 'banging' and 'scraping' noises which were reported don't appear to be reproducable. Call us if it happens again. Invoice attached. - Keith

This might be nothing, but I want to include it anyway. The AC Inspection message from SB is most likely referring to the wind-up Music Man that chases Gregory in the vents. I think I’ve seen some speculate that this could be The Blob snaking through the vents (I’ve heard a theory somewhere that The Blob is what’s stealing from Rockstar Row). Personally, the language reminds me of the noises described in the Epilogues of TM crawling through the vents. Just skimming through Epilogue #7, the words and phrases “scraped,” “grinding,” “metal-on-metal scratches,” “thrum and thunderous rattle,” “sonorous clang,” and “screeches,” are used to describe the sound made by TM in the ventilation system.

There’s nothing in this message that dates it, so the cause could be anything, in theory. It's possible that TM used the Pizzaplex’s ventilation system to avoid the cameras while traversing, entering, and exiting the premises.

-☆-

OKAY. THIS IS THE LAST SECTION. YOU’RE IN THE HOME STRETCH –

WHY A COVERUP?

Why completely hide GlamBonnie’s existence and opt for a rebrand?

Option 1: They literally couldn’t find him. Hidden in such a hard-to-reach location, Bonnie’s body was simply never found. It doesn’t help that security logs pointed staff to Monty Golf. Left only to speculate, Fazbear Entertainment had to be ready for any possibility. Could he have been stolen? Thrown out? Hacked? Imagine if someone had stolen and hacked Bonnie, and he reappeared acting inappropriately or in any way unregulated by Fazbear Entertainment. If they’d gone ahead and replaced Bonnie, not only would there suddenly be two Bonnies, but one of them would be acting weird, outside of their control, and Fazbear would have to do something about it. No, as long as they’re unsure what happened to him, it’s easier to just have the understudy replace him. Precursory damage control. Bonnie was never a character in the Pizzaplex, so whatever a rogue Bonnie is doing or saying isn’t their fault or responsibility.

Option 2: They deduced what happened and couldn’t let word get out. Perhaps Bonnie saw something he shouldn’t’ve. Perhaps he knew too much. Easier to get rid of All the evidence, pretend it never happened, cover it All up, than to attempt damage control afterwards. Fazbear Entertainment surely knew about TM sealed up in the Pizza Place beneath their mega mall. If it’d gotten out, that’d be bad. If Bonnie lived to tell the tale, that’d be bad. Don’t even move the body, just seal up the room best you can so nobody can find him. Secure all entrances to the Pizzaplex so that Thing can’t get back in and do more damage.

Option 2 seems most likely. Clearly, he’d been found by someone – the Caution Bots found him, after all, and the room was boarded up from the inside. The only thing I can’t explain is the weird tunnel through the wall leading to the room from the bowling lane. Genuinely what is up with that. It could’ve been the escape for whoever was boarding up the main entrance, but if that was an official effort, I feel like it’d be easier to remove the wall panels and leave through the vent rather than create a new, messier entrance.

The hush-hush surrounding his disappearance indicates that some employees had a general idea of what happened (or at least that Fazbear wanted him replaced, refused to elaborate, and didn’t have an explanation).

AR Glam Bonnie Plush Dad wouldn't tell me why they replaced Bonnie.

This inventory description from Cassie tells us all we need to know: Not that her dad didn’t know what happened to Bonnie, but that he wouldn’t tell her. He knew what happened to Bonnie. Being the daughter of a Faz-Technician, Cassie was often exposed to the behind-the-scenes of the Pizzaplex. The fact that her dad refused to tell her the truth could mean any of these three things: 1) He was on very strict legal orders to not say anything; 2) Bonnie being his favorite character, dad couldn’t bring himself to tell Cassie what really happened; or 3) He didn’t want to upset the empathetic Cassie, who would’ve been nearly half the age she was in RUIN, by telling her that Bonnie was literally killed/destroyed and wouldn’t be fixed.  

Combined with the fact that Fazbear Entertainment didn’t have an official response regarding Bonnie’s whereabouts until sometime after the rebrand, I get the impression they Knew Something and had to deal with That first.

Understudy MANAGEMENT REPORT - With Bonnie out of commission, we are making Monty the new bass player. Parts and Service has already done the proper adjustments. This could be a good thing. Monty could be even more popular than Bonnie.

“Monty could be even more popular than Bonnie.”

I don’t think they were wrong with this one. Like I said earlier, we don’t know anything about Bonnie’s personality. I’d harbor a guess, though.

Bonnie, across all games/iterations, is generally characterized as a stereotypical rock musician: active, boastful, and a confident performer. The unused Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza Theme Song from Help Wanted portrays Bonnie similarly, but with a laid-back hippie sorta voice. The Freddy & Friends: On Tour! web series promoting Security Breach characterized Bonnie as deadpan, casual/laid-back, and mute. Steel Wool-era Bonnie leans more into the chill, hippie-type rockstar stereotype, so I don’t think it’d be a stretch to say that Glamrock Bonnie would’ve retained some of these elements.

Monty, as shown in the book excerpts earlier, is a dramatic, guitar-smashing rockstar. Loud, hyper, destructive, eye-catching Monty. I’ve no doubt that Monty was popular due to all these traits that made him unlike Bonnie. Bonnie is “go with the flow,” while Monty is “my way or the highway.” Monty's excitement and energy would also freshen up the main band – none of the other members steal the show the way Monty does.

Their coverup works. Monty’s popularity is soaring. Everyone forgets about Bonnie.

-☆-

ROUGH TIMELINE

Construction

The Mimic is brought to the Pizza Place during the Pizzaplex’s construction.

Pizza Place sealed with concrete, teens later sneak in.

Pizzaplex construction completed.

Pizzaplex Years 1-2

Bonnie is decommissioned.

Monty becomes bass player and GlamBonnie imagery is removed.

Pizzaplex Year (???), but after Monty rebrand

The Storyteller is installed; removed 3 weeks later. Mimic1 continues to alter technology in the Pizzaplex.

Pizzaplex Year 3(ish)

Events of GGY and the Retro CDs.

Pizzaplex Year (???), but pre-SB

Vanessa becomes Chief Security Guard by recommendation.

All remaining staff are replaced by STAFF bots.

Pizzaplex Late Year 4-5

Freddy malfunctions onstage and is temporarily booted up in his prototype in safe mode.

Events of Security Breach.

PQ/Free Vanessa ending.

Post-SB

RUIN

-☆-

TL; DR (EXTREMELY simplified)

Bonnie was decommissioned within the first year or so of the Pizzaplex opening.

Any outside virus/programming couldn’t have influenced another animatronic to attack him, and Vanny wasn’t working at the Pizzaplex yet.

Bonnie was last seen wandering the Pizzaplex for several hours in the middle of the night when he should’ve been deactivated. Only spotted on camera three times, no mentions of a security guard encountering him.

Bonnie’s body is in a small room at the very end of a maintenance/storage hall behind the bowling lanes, which has been boarded up from the inside.

Due to the environment, this room must’ve been the crime scene.

The state of Bonnie’s body aligns most with The Mimic’s killing style.

Sharp claw marks

Dismembered limbs

Old, corroded metal parts around Bonnie that could’ve belonged to the Mimic

Possibly was lured to a secluded location.

The Pizza Place underneath the Pizzaplex wasn’t properly sealed, so The Mimic could have escaped and possibly entered the Pizzaplex.

The Mimic can interfere/interact with technology, so it could’ve had access to information about the Pizzaplex.

Knew how to avoid security.

Bonnie pursuing TM caused it to respond with its “hide-and-seek” style of attack, eventually luring Bonnie to an isolated location and ambushing him.

Fazbear Entertainment knew their murderous basement creature is what killed Bonnie and covered up the incident.

They didn’t want any chance of the incident getting out, which is why they sealed Bonnie’s tomb and replaced him instead of repairing him.

#five nights at freddy's #fnaf #fnaf theory #glamrock bonnie #the mimic #RBs appreciated i worked very hard on this :] #security breach #fnaf ruin #security breach ruin #fnaf sb ruin #fnaf security breach #montgomery gator #prototype freddy #prototype glamrock freddy #mimic sweep #tales from the pizzaplex #fnaf movie

[gaoau]

Mirror Mirage

Dive, sink, drown back in time.

pairing — Lu Guang x gn!reader word count — 1.6k

Sand slipping through the minimal space between the fingers; bricks replacing the marrow of the bones; madness and sanity, coherence and nonsense. People exist chained to numbers going in circles endlessly, round and round and round. Those who obey the passage of time, and those who rebel against its confinements. Citizens and criminals—or rather, regulars and murderers. Time is a fleeting permanence.

Rules are created to keep order, balance, peace, life. To disrupt them, ignore them, forget them means to end harmony and wreck existence. Do not change events in the past, for it shall destroy the present. Simple, incomprehensible; either way, the most important rule of life. Allow things to flow however nature properly dictates it, intervene as little as possible or not at all.

Time is incredibly fragile, yet so unbelievably sturdy. In study halls and waiting rooms, it becomes thick, hefty; it is present, it takes the lead, time keeps everything and everyone grounded in a locked box. Lu Guang witnesses first-hand the way it weighs on [Name]. They're paying close attention to their teacher as she rambles on and on and on. He isn't, he's watching them.

The sands of time seem to blow against their eyes, blinding them with haze and tiredness. The seconds carve themselves onto their skin, filling in the gestures when they struggle to understand. Their gaze flickers briefly towards him; a mere moment, yet so lengthy. Lu Guang sees it all.

He's one to follow the rules presented by the universe—he knows of their existence, he knows of their purpose, he knows not to break them. He reminds Xiaoshi to not disrupt them with stupid impulses in his emotions. He is careful and responsible as he holds delicate life between his fingers.

Unlike him, time is a responsibility [Name] doesn't assume—he figures that's why it hits them a billion times harder.

Rarely, however not impossibly, there exist places where time thins out into nothing but an insignificant strand of hair. Anywhere from empty parking lots to 24-hour convenience stores. [Name] takes advantage of these cracks, these openings, these flickering phenomenons where the past overlaps with the present. They slip right into them to destroy all they know as it is today.

They're one to dance around the rules imposed on them—they know of their existence, they care not about their purpose, they ignore their importance. It's fun, it's thrilling, and it puts food on their plate every time another clock shatters. They choose who to ruin while remaining unharmed as they cut the cord for others.

Lu Guang catches sight of their sparkling gaze and radiant complexion in the night. When there are too many stars to keep track of, time holds the least amount of power. It doesn't hit [Name] at all.

He glares as they leap back and forth between the now and the yesterday. One second they're gone for an entire two weeks and a half, the next hour they return within five days of a minute. Every time, they greet Lu Guang with a childlike grin.

"You shouldn't play with time so carelessly," he advises. It falls on deaf ears, for they're gone to December of a decade ago.

They reappear to his left, behind a pillar in an abandoned construction site. They hand him a souvenir—discontinued in this day and age. He frowns. Before he can reinforce his scolding, [Name] retorts, "Who says I'm playing?" A chuckle sounds as it flutters towards the moon. "Sports are a game, but still a job."

On the news, reports of happy lives turning upside down in an instant, overnight, without sense flood the channels. Lu Guang downs his coffee as he considers calculating the impossible, reaching results of two plus two summing up to a billion and five. Successful men reduced to bankruptcy, powerful women thrown off their throne, people left and right losing a realized existence to an inexplicable car crash. Events that shouldn't happen, but they do.

Disrupting the past means obliterating the present. Most commonly known as the butterfly effect: a mere ant changing its course may bring empires to their doom. He wonders if [Name] knows what they're doing—of course they do, and that is why they continue to do it.

When they meet him for coffee—hours after class but before they can slip into the past through a malfunction in the frame—Lu Guang doesn't want to believe they are the cause of all these misfortunes. Time breaks where it's forcefully torn apart. "So this is your job?" he begins, stare deadpan and inexpressive. [Name] freezes at his sharp words stabbing through their chest and crushing their lungs. Lu Guang continues in a flat sentence, "Messing up the pa—No. Destroying the present is your job?"

They force out a bitter chuckle. They pretend to not be burning up inside and outside. Their reflection in their drink distorts itself with the quivering of their hand. "It's more than that; it's worse than that."

Lu Guang leans into the table to try and find their gaze. They refuse to meet him as they turn their head away from him. "What do you do, [Name]?" he speaks between a sigh and dreadful firmness. He emphasizes his syllables too much for comfort.

With their cup pressed against their lips, [Name] manages an excuse in the shape of a mumble, "I play God." Lu Guang scrutinizes their rotten words through narrowed eyes. "I'm the ant that destroys empires." They finish their coffee before he decides to give up on glaring into their soul. He doesn't understand what they mean and they aren't willing to admit their criminal deeds. The issue is dropped by the time they flee for summer of half a century ago.

Time breaks where it's forcefully torn apart. Time requires constant stimulation in the proper places to continue its cycle of opening up and overlapping wherever chance dictates it. [Name] slips through a gap they find by coincidence or by fate, then they slice the same gap wide open once more to ensure their return to their present. If the space sews itself back up, the stitches shall forever remain closed. Although [Name] can't confirm any of their hypotheses, they aren't willing to test them out. As long as they can set off the events that shall satisfy their clients and later find their place where they rightfully belong, all is fine.

An ant may turn left to allow an empire to thrive. It may also turn right to bring it to its knees. It may as well march forward to let it exist in mediocrity. Whichever path the ant may choose, they can all be overwritten if so it's desired. [Name] plays with the cause and effect of events already set in stone; they carve new engravings on pieces of brick to replace what has already been decided. Dangerous gambles produce disastrous outcomes.

Time is thin in bathrooms in the middle of the night. Lu Guang flicks the light on at something past three in the morning. There's a haze of thick tiredness hanging over his eyes, but he cannot get a wink of sleep no matter how hard he tries. He splashes water over his face to give his mind a chance to find clarity somewhere in a refreshment. When he stares at the mirror above the sink, he's wide awake with energy of alert spiking his every nerve. Eyes closed, breaths even, basking in the sleep that has long escaped his grasp, his reflection slumbers peacefully in [Name]'s arms. He shoots a fleeting glance behind his shoulder to make sure they haven't broken into his place. He turns back to his dormant reflection and can't distinguish whether the droplets trailing down his face are the water from earlier or a nervous sweat.

He glares into their downcast eyes. The smile they wear blurs the line between painful and comforting. Their hands settle on his shoulders and Lu Guang can almost feel their touch through the reversed image the mirror offers back. His reflection is safe in their hold and [Name] is there, but not with him on this side—on the right side.

"If anything," they begin unprompted, "I did it because of you."

Lu Guang frowns on defensive instinct. "I didn't ask you to do anything."

They chuckle. It sounds so distorted, travelling through solid time and space and not through the air like it's supposed to. "I know, but I couldn't help myself. I can't imagine a present without you again." Their choice of words tears him apart.

"Do you think I can imagine one without you?"

"You won't have to put in that effort. You'll just have to get used to it."

Lu Guang falls silent. Sorrow shall morph into indifference overtime. At the same time a scar fades, the body grows closer to death. Time heals all wounds but it also makes it so no more wounds may happen. What a cursed thing the tick-tock of the numbers truly is.

Ever-so-softly, they speak up again with a trembling tone, "You always look so tired." The touch of their thumbs ghosts underneath the closed eyes of his reflection. He thinks he can feel their warmth breaking up through his skin. "Get some rest, yeah?" He closes his own eyes, knowing the most he can do is nod along with their demands.

By the time he dares open them up again, all that's left of [Name] is a whisper of their words in the form of resilience. His reflection blinks back at him. He decides not to find them.

—あごす (agosu) • 2021

#Mirror Mirage #Link Click #Lu Guang #Lu Guang x Reader #Link Click x Reader #Angst #shiguang daili ren #shiguang daili ren x reader #i hate mirrors and the concept of time #i love lu guang

[solradguy]

Also, while I still have Sin Brain™️, another great story you could make is him helping the Valentine Sisters escape the abuse of their mother, The Universal Will.

Ramlethal has been, all the way up until she meets Sin, thought of by everyone, herself included, as a weapon, a tool, an object others use for their own means and towards their own ends. The talk about replacibility she has with Bedman greatly suggests that her mother instilled in her the fear of replacement, and she takes pride in being a useful tool. There's a good chance this is what she thinks this is what love is, or at least how Mother expresses it.

Sin... doesn't... do... that.

People joke about Rammy Borger incessantly, but that scene is critical in the relationship and dynamic between these two at this point, and how it changes. Sin expresses his genuine passion for life, as shown through a nice meal; Ramlethal at first dismisses this as patently ridiculous and utterly unneccesary; However, upon eating the burger, she's overwhelmed by it in a way only good food can do. The scene is played mostly for comedy, but one does not have to think incredibly hard to imagine a scene similar to this focused more on the emotions and the interactions between the two and less on the humour.

My thoughts on Elphelt aren't as plentiful as with Sin and Ram, (due in large part from me not being as Autistic™️ about her as I am with those two), but I have one good, solid idea; Her romantic obsession as a form of escapism. You could read her complete focus on aquiring a Husband (or perhaps a Wife) as her wanting someone who she loves and who loves her to take her somewhere else, somewhere better.

An incredible narrative could be made by having Sin help the sisters leave The Universal Will and join Team Good Guys, discuss the trauma they have from their time with their mother, and eventually growing into happier, more Self-Actualized versions of themselves. Hell, if you're willing to break canon for the sake of a good story, you could have Sin, Ram, and Elphelt in the final bossfight; Have Sin tear her, her worldview, and how she treated the Valentines, to shreds; Let the sisters finish her off for that sweet, sweet emotional catharsis.

In conclusion, Sin is the Bestest Boy in all of Guilty Gear, and Fanon's crimes against him are not soon forgotten.

I wish I could add something constructive to this since you took so much time to write it out... But I agree entirely. Together we can stop Sin Kiske Flanderization

#asks

[oftlunarialmoon]

But I’m WEIRD! (3 Ways to Work on Accepting Yourself)

Ciao lovelies! Have you ever felt “weird”? What about “out-of-place,” or maybe unaccepted for who you are? Do you ever hide your true self or feel the need to be “Someone else”? Do you have lower self-esteem and trouble accepting who you are? If any of these are true for you, I’m writing to you today.

I have lots of issues with self-esteem and self-acceptance. Often, I label my actions as weird or “Not normal.” I feel like an outsider with every group, except my closest friends. In many interactions with others I hide who I really am or I try to “act normal.” Key aspects of my personality get hidden so I can seem more “cool” or “normal.” But this just becomes a vicious cycle. Have an interaction and “act normal,” then I end up over-analyzing and thinking that I’m not “normal” enough, then I criticize myself for what I did, then in the next interaction, I’m trying harder to “act normal”…. And the cycle repeats.

Does this cycle seem familiar to you?

Many people worldwide suffer from low self-esteem, and lack of self-acceptance. Accepting yourself for who you are can be hard. It requires a lot of self-reflection, and even therapy. It’s a bumpy road and it’s not easy to travel.

Today I want to talk about some ways you can start your self-acceptance journey. The ways I’ll be talking about today are affirmations, recognizing and correcting negative ruminations, and, lastly, recognizing the difference between constructive critique and harmful insults.

DISCLAIMER

** DISCLAIMER:  I am not a mental health professional and all things mentioned in this post come from personal experience or things I learned in classes. Please note that I am not the expert on these topics and cannot “Fix” what you are experiencing personally. **

AFFIRMATIONS

First, let’s talk affirmations. How often do you self-affirm? Answer this honestly. How many times per day do you praise yourself, for things you’ve done well, or maybe just think something kind about yourself (that’s NOT reactionary, meaning you think these kind things about yourself without being forced to).

If I’m answering honestly, I do not self-affirm very often. I can’t even say that I do it more than once a day, if that. This is a big issue and contributor to my lack of self-esteem. How can I have self-esteem if I’m not even cheering myself on?

When I say that you should self-affirm, I’m not saying that you have to constantly think that you’re the best thing ever. I’m not saying that you should think that you can “do-no-wrong” sort of thing.

When I refer to “Affirmations,” it’s easiest to start fairly small. A very good way to start is to find at least one thing about your physicality that you like. This can be anything from your eye color, to the way your nose is shaped, to the way your teeth look when you smile. Anything at all, just find one thing that you like about your physical self.

Then, bump it up. You may want to take this one day at a time, if this is uncomfortable for you. Here is the plan I want to accomplish this week, you may like this, or you may want to change it for you.

My Affirmations Plan for this Week:

Monday: Affirm one aspect of my physical appearance.

Tuesday: Affirm one aspect of my physical appearance and one aspect of my personality.

Wednesday: Work on criticizing myself less today. If I catch myself criticizing, replace with a statement reflecting what I did right along with what I can work on.

Thursday: Affirm two aspects of my personality.

Friday: Reflect, at the end of the day, on two or three things I did well that day.

Saturday: Affirm one aspect of my personality, one aspect of my physical appearance and recognize one thing I did right today.

Sunday: Affirm one aspect of my personality, one aspect of my physical appearance and recognize 4 things I did right this week.

These don’t sound too bad to me and I feel that this is a good place to start.

RECOGNIZING AND CORRECTING NEGATIVE RUMINATIONS

Now let’s talk about recognizing and correcting negative ruminations.  Let’s start by defining Ruminations.

What does it mean to “Ruminate?” According to Merriam-Webster, to ruminate is to “go over in the mind repeatedly.” Not all ruminations (things that you constantly run through your head) are negative. But in the case of low self-esteem, negative ruminations attribute to keeping your self-perception negative.

Why is it important to recognize negative ruminations? Let’s say you have an interaction, which should have been a fairly casual one. Say you said hello to a friend, but they didn’t say hello back. A higher self-esteemed person would think “maybe they didn’t see me,” but a lower self-esteemed person would run through the situation in their head over and over, overthinking it, thinking of everything they did wrong, or every reason why the friend might’ve “ignored” them- even if none of those reasons were accurate. 

If you could recognize that you were in the midst of a negative rumination cycle, you could work to stop it.  Something you could try is correcting the negative mindset. Take the example given above. If you were negatively ruminating about that interaction, and thinking “I bet they hate me now,” how could you correct that thought? I would remind myself that “maybe they didn’t see me,” or provide context “they have been busy lately, maybe they weren’t able to stop and chat.” By correcting the negative rumination cycle, I prevent myself from constantly staying in a negative mindset, and hopefully provide a positive baseline for any future interactions like that one.

CONSTRUCTIVE vs HATEFUL

Lastly, let’s talk about how to recognize the difference between constructive critique and purposeful insults. If you’re wondering why this topic is in this post, I think it’s very relevant to how self-esteem works. Those with lower self-esteem seem to be more likely to take even helpful critique as insult, because they feel that nobody likes them. Therefore, I felt it was good to have this reminder in this post.

The ways I separate constructive criticism and insult in general are on 2 baselines: was it intended to hurt me, and does it help me to gain this knowledge? What I mean by this is going to be highlighted in the example below.

Let’s say a friend has noticed me saying something that is inappropriate, but I don’t know that it is inappropriate. That friend then brings me aside and informs me that what I said is inappropriate. They are not intending to hurt my feelings, and it’s helpful for me to learn this. This would be constructive criticism/critique.

Here is another example. Let’s say a troll online comments anonymously that “WOW ur face is soo ugly” or something like that. Was it intended to hurt me? Yes. Does it help me in any way to gain this “knowledge”? No. Therefore, that is an insult.

Knowing how to determine between the two is great because if you know it’s an insult, you can sort of…what’s the phrase I’m looking for…. Let it roll off your back. This can be hard to do if you have low self-esteem, but now you know that insults are intended to hurt you, which means usually they’re untrue and intended only to hurt, and are based in the speaker’s own bias/feelings. Knowing the untrue nature of insults can help them ease off your shoulders.

OVERALL

Overall, the point I want to make in this post is that it’s okay to be who you are, and I know that journey can be really hard. But you’re not alone in making it. 

#agere #age regression #sfw littlespace #sfw agere #sfw age regression #age regressor #agereg #age dreaming #sfw little blog

[so-many-fandoms-here]

(English isn’t my first language so feel free to correct any mistakes you notice.)

• Characters: Shuntarō Chishiya, fem!Reader

• Genre: Angst

• Warnings: death, betrayal, logic mistakes/plot hole (I just kind of messed up I’m sorry :/), (manga spoilers I think?)

Angst Prompts - #20

༺☆༻ ༺☆༻ ༺☆༻ ༺☆༻

-Chishiyas POV-

(Y/n) and I stepped inside the classroom of the elementary school which was the destination of the game we would participate in. Two other people were already inside the room, sitting on the big desk in the middle of the room.

On the table was something like a board game set up, obviously the game we were about to play. „Four people“, I mumbled, looking at the two empty chairs left at the table. „Means this will either be really hard, or really easy“, (Y/n) finished my thoughts.

Hesitantly she walked up to one of the chairs and sat down, being greeted by a belt like thing popping out of the seat and trapping her on the chair. „What a surprise“, she mumbled sarcastically, making me grin slightly. I sat down next to her on the last empty spot and took another glance at the people sitting on the square table. Both of them were men, trembling and sweating with fear.

„Registration closed“, the well known mechanical voice appeared. „Game: Rummikub. Difficulty: Diamond 2.“

I have to say, I was a little disappointed at the difficulty. Of course two days more on my visa were better than nothing, but I hoped anyways to get a higher difficulty so I could have a few days more to rest. But it was too late to think about that.

I looked back to (Y/n) who’s leg trembled nervously, then back at the table. It wasn’t exactly a board game that was set up. On the table laid tiles, lined up in neat rows. In front of the players stood a little rack where one could place said pieces.

„Rules: Every player gets 14 tiles on their rack. The goal is to be the first one to play all the tiles from your rack by forming them into sets. There are two kinds of set. Either a run, a set of at least three consecutive numbers in the same color, or a group, a set of three or four tiles of the same number in different colors. In order to make an initial meld, each player must place tiles on the table in one or more sets that total at least 30 points. These points must come from the tiles on each player’s rack; for their initial meld, players may not use tiles already played on the table. Later players can add tiles to already placed sets. If a player can not place anything, they have to draw a tile which ends their turn. Jokers can be used to replace any number. The last one with tiles on their rack loses.“

I looked over to (Y/n) to see if she understood everything. She reassured me with a nod.

„Game start.“

For this game I definitely needed luck, but maybe if I payed enough attention I could see some patterns in how the others placed their tiles on their racks. Maybe they have a structure behind it like placing them after color or numbers. I focused on one of the men, looking whenever he picked up another tile, the way his groups were organized, hoping I could see trough him.

(Y/n) was the first one to finish, followed directly by me which caused me to relax my shoulders again. We’re safe.

The unlucky man who lost acted like all the others in the games I played before. He screamed, cried, kicked and tried to flee but like all the times before he was unsuccessful and after a few seconds of him having a meltdown a laser shot trough his head. At least he had a quick death.

I looked over to (Y/n) again who seemed calm again too, not further touched by the man’s death or at least didn’t show it.

While we sat there and waited for the Game Clear announcement, the table suddenly started to move down. I leaned forward to get a closer look and saw that the floor where the table stood on was constructed like a small pedestal, now moving down into the floor and swallowing the table. But even after the floor closed again the mechanical voice stayed silent, destroying the light feeling of peace again that I was feeling.

After a few moments the table returned, the tiles set up neatly again. (Y/n) looked at me with the same amount of horror in her eyes as I was feeling deep inside me. It would have been way too easy.

„Round two. Game start.“

My eyes were glued to the man that sat with us and I tried to focus on him but not because I wanted to read him, but because I tried everything to not look at (Y/n). I felt so stupid. I was always prepared for everything, always had a plan and held a good distance to everyone, but besides all my efforts I just couldn’t stay away from her.

I heard (Y/n) mumbling all kinds of curses and stuff, completely consumed by panic which made it even harder for me to stay calm.

„No no no!“ „That’s not right!“ „I don’t want this!“ - her cries shattered my heart.

I didn‘t know if I was glad or not that the man lost. Yes, I would have more time together with (Y/n) but it also made the situation so much harder than it already was.

After the scream of the man died with him together, we were left alone and if the situation wasn’t so unbelievably painful, I would have laughed about the fact that even the table disappeared again.

„What now?“, she asked after a long pause, obviously not needing an answer. My eyes were glued at the tiles in the table, all neatly lined up again. I wanted to touch her and if we both would have reached out our fingers could have linked but none of us moved, knowing that this touch would have made everything harder.

Her (e/c) met mine and in silent agreement we reach out for the tiles to start the last game. I didn’t know what I hoped for. If I wanted to win or if I wanted to lose because both seemed to have the same outcome - I would die. And I couldn’t tell which death was better, the physical or the emotional.

(Y/n)s fingers danced over the table, picking out the tiles carefully and like the times before it seemed like she had luck with every draw. Almost as if she knew where which tile was placed.

„That‘s not right!“

My head shot up and I watched her as she looked at the tiles. With a horrible gut feeling I focused on her eyes and saw it. They didn’t move in a swift motion, they eyed every piece individually. She counted the tiles.

„You seem to win again“, I whispered, nodding to the many rows she already placed. She paused and with her hand still in the air she looked at me, her eyes shimmering with tears. „I don’t think I want to win.“

The words I said hurt worse than every injury I suffered before: „Then why do you play?“ A confused look appeared in her eyes and slowly she let her arm sink. „What do you mean?“

„I heard rumors about the Dealers“, I said. „They make sense, you know. Setting up the games and all that. But why do you set up a game where only one can survive if you know we’re both will participate?“ All the color in her face was gone, but she still acted like she didn’t know what I was talking about. „Did they manipulate your game?“, I asked further but still couldn’t get an answer from her.

I looked around the room, hoping I would find a camera, but if they where some, they were hidden pretty well. It didn’t surprise me though. Nothing surprises you when lasers are shooting through head out of nowhere.

„You can’t talk about it, right?“, I took another guess that was answered with silence too. All the times she went on a walk, was she actually setting games up? She was gone for hours but I never questioned it. Why would I? I couldn’t blame her for wanting a few hours to herself, which I thought was the reason for the long walks.

„I am sorry.“ (Y/n) voice was barely loud enough for me to hear. „I am a dealer.“ She shut her eyes tight, like she waited for something, but what she was waiting for didn’t seem to happen, leading her to open her eyes again. „Guess they don’t care, since one of us is going to die anyway“, she said with a sad sigh, confirming my guess that she wasn’t allowed to talk about it.

„You lied to me“, I stated objectively, trying desperately to keep my composure.

„Of course I lied!“, she suddenly yelled, her voice breaking mid sentence. „Did you think I would actually tell you the truth?!“ Her tears are pouring like waterfalls. „I couldn’t! I mustn’t! They would have killed me on the spot! I tried to make it obvious that I was lying, your so smart Chishiya, I hoped you would see through me!“

Keeping my stoic expression was hard with her screams, invading my ears and running through my body like bolts of lightings. „I prayed that you would get suspicious of my walks! I prayed that you would notice my obviously weird excuses, but you never did! Why did you trust me Chishiya?!“

My skin crawled, not because her voice became so high, but because of the hurtful truth in her words. Of course her reasoning was odd and maybe there was a part of me that was suspicious, but I didn’t want to be. I felt like (Y/n) wouldn’t lie to me, that she wouldn’t betray me. But she did.

But she had no other choice.

„Yes, I set up the game but originally only one was supposed to die!“ Her eyes didn’t seem to have any tears left, but her body didn’t stop to twitch, trying to squeeze out more tears.

„What about the other games you played? Did you all set them up?“, I asked, somehow still keeping myself together. „The less you know the better.“

I wanted to get angry at her but I couldn’t, because I knew that she was right, no matter if I liked it or not.

„I know a lot, Chishiya. More than I want to know, all Dealers do. We get provided with a decent amount of information, but we still don’t even have a quarter of the knowledge of what’s going on“, she continued. „And believe me, I didn’t want anything ever so bad than to tell you everything, but I can’t without causing you to be in danger again.“

I did believe her. Again I was met with the brutality and chaos of this world again. You couldn’t tell good and evil apart and betrayal and lies were sometimes a good thing.

(Y/n) sigh heavy, her breath leaving her lungs intermittently causing her to sound even more miserable than she already did. „How many tiles do you have left?“, she asked, bringing our last conversation to an end. „Two“, I answered and looked at the black and red one on my board.

Without looking away from my face she took a random tile and placed it on her board. „Take the second last from the top row out of your perspective.“ Her eyes were burning themselves into mine and I needed a second before I was ready to look away, to trust her one last time, and reached out for the tile she was about to take a few minutes ago. It was a joker.

Then she drew another random tile, which she didn’t even bothered to place on her rack but instead placed it next to it, the number facing down so neither I nor she saw what her last draw was. „Finish“, she whispered, but my hands were frozen.

There was so much I wanted to say, and I felt she had so much to say too, but both of us stayed silent, knowing these words had to die too, because if we started talking, we maybe wouldn’t stop ever again. Not a hundred years would have been enough for all the things I suddenly wanted to say, so instead I took the few seconds left to look at her, to study her beautiful face so her features would be burned into my brain and I would never forget her.

She smiled while I placed my last row of numbers. She smiled while I knocked over the rack to symbolize that I have won. And she still smiled while the laser shot through her head, causing her head to fall on the table.

„Game clear“, announced the mechanical voice while my chair set me free again but I didn’t stood up right away. I decided that everything that happened in this room would stay in this room, so if I cried in here, it basically never happened, but my eyes didn’t pour any tears besides a single one, which made their way lonely down my cheek.

After I stood up I allowed myself to pet her (h/c) hair one last time before I took the card and left the building, leaving (Y/n) and with her a piece of my heart behind.

#fanfiction #x reader #alice in borderland #aib #alice in borderland x reader #alice in borderland x y/n #aib x reader #aib x y/n #Angst #chishiya shuntaro x reader #chishiya shuntaro #chishiya alice in borderland #alice in borderland chishiya

[shinji-brown]

An Analysis of Imperial Japanese Navy Names as Used in Neon Genesis Evangelion

by @the-many-children-of-the-void

I have autism. I have a special interest in naval history, specifically the period between the launch of HMS Dreadnought in 1906 and the end of the Second World War. I know a lot of stuff, like the orders of battle for a bunch of actions in the Pacific. My favorite navy during this time period is that of Imperial Japan (mostly cause their ship names are the most fun). This basically makes me a member of the prime target demographic for understanding that particular bit of nuance.

As a side note: I'm going to try to refrain from using too much naval terminology in this essay but it's something I'm very close to and it's entirely possible that I end up like that one xkcd.

We're going to start with the Japanese aircraft carriers Akagi and Katsuragi and how their positions in the progression of Japanese carrier development lend themselves to their namesakes. Then we're going to discuss the Fubuki-class destroyer Ayanami and we're going to finish with a comparison of Soryu and Shikinami. I will not be discussing minor characters with ship names because, for the purposes of this discussion, they aren't relevant. Maya and Ibuki are both cruisers, for example, but there isn't really any special significance to those choices that I'm able to detect.

So what in the service histories of these ships leads me to suggest that their names have more specific significance than simply being names that go with their character's first names? That's the million dollar question and, by the time I'm done, I hope you'll at least understand where I'm coming from. So, buckle your seatbelts everyone and get ready for my hyperfixation fueled naval history infodump extravaganza.

We start with Akagi. She was built as the first full-size aircraft carrier in Japan, but she wasn't designed that. Prior to an international agreement to limit the size and number of ships in a number of navies, she was under construction as a battlecruiser (you don't have to know what that means), the second of the Amagi-class (a class is a set of ships that are all designed the same way). After that agreement was signed, though, Japan elected to convert her to an aircraft carrier instead of scrapping her hull. She served as a test bed for various aircraft carrier technologies during the 1930s and was modernized later in the decade. She served in the Kido Butai, Japan's strike force that attacked Pearl Harbor with another ship we'll see in a bit and was sunk at the Battle of Midway in 1942. For this comparison though, we need to meet another ship too.

Katsuragi was Akagi's opposite in a number of ways. She was designed as an aircraft carrier. She was completed in October of 1944. She was the second to last big aircraft carrier built by the Imperial Japanese Navy during the war. She was started to help replace the carriers lost at Midway. She never left port although, if she had, it would almost certainly have been to ferry kamikaze aircraft. Sound familiar?

Misato's role is the same. Bringing the sacrifice to the altar, in the same way an aircraft carrier bringing kamikaze aircraft does. It's reductive, though, to reduce Misato Katsuragi to just her relationship to Shinji, so let's look at her relationship to the character named for the other ship we've talked about: Ritsuko Akagi and, more specifically, how Akagi and Katsuragi apply to their characterizations and their relationship.

Katsuragi was young and fiery. She never saw action but her crew would have been young, mostly former students. She was indicative of an "ends justify the means" mindset in the latter half of the war. In contrast, Akagi was more cautious and experienced, a comparison reflected in any comparison of their namesake characters.

So the operational histories of Akagi and Katsuragi are reflected in their characters, but those are just two. Next, let's take a look at Ayanami, the lead ship of her subclass of Fubuki-class destroyers and why the choice of a destroyer from the middle of a class is relevant to Rei.

As we've established, a class of ships is a group of them that are all built to the same design. Japan built 24 Fubuki-class destroyers. By having so many, destroyers can be easily replaced with other ones. Not many destroyers attain fame equal to that of a bigger ship, such as a battleship or an aircraft carrier and they're not supposed to. They escort merchant ships, hunt submarines and serve as the screen for the bigger ships. Any fleet will have between a few and a bunch of destroyers. They're easy to replace. If one is sunk, another one can take its place.

This is the piss on the poor website, but I hope the point I'm building to is already obvious. For those to whom it isn't, let me make it clearer: Japan built 24 Fubuki-class destroyers. Destroyers are small ships and are easy to replace. Ayanami was the eleventh of those ships. Not the first Fubuki and not the last. The use of a destroyer name reflects that implication.

There's one more advantage to the choice to use Ayanami instead of another Fubuki-class ship that's going to become more relevant in the final part of this essay but I think it's important to mention before that point: Ayanami was the 11th, and the first of her subclass. The first child.

Now we're going to talk about how the meaning of Asuka's name changes depending on Soryu and Shikinami. It's all based on the orders of their construction in relation to the ships around them. We're going to start with Soryu.

Soryu was the third fleet aircraft carrier built in Japan, after Akagi and Kaga. She was the first purpose built fleet aircraft carrier after two prototypes. As Asuka says in Episode 8: Asuka Arrives in Japan:

After all, Units 00 and 01 were created as part of a development process, prototype and test type. The fact that it synchronized with an untrained pilot like you is proof of that. But Unit 02 is different. Created for actual combat conditions, this is the world's first true Evangelion.

Hmm. That sounds like how someone would describe Soryu, in relation to Akagi and Kaga, doesn't it? Soryu represents, in an obscure way, that Asuka is the pilot of Unit 02. But what about Shikinami? It's not an aircraft carrier. In fact, it's a destroyer, like Ayanami. It's a destroyer exactly like Ayanami. Ayanami is the 11th Fubuki-class destroyer and the first of the Ayanami subclass. Shikinami is the 12th Fubuki-class destroyer and the second of the Ayanami subclass. If Ayanami is the first child and the first of the Ayanami subclass, then Shikinami is the second child and the second of the Ayanami subclass.

So, Akagi and Katsuragi are indicative of their characters, based on their histories. Ayanami was a destroyer, something easily replaceable. Soryu and Shikinami are representative of Asuka's position, although the former is more subtle than the latter.

But Allie, I hear you say, how can you assign meaning to this? You've been in this fandom for four total days and you spent the first two of those watching it. How do you ascribe any intention here? The truth is, I can't. I can't say for certain any of this was intentional. The only reason I can think of to suggest it could have been was that it happens a lot. Hyuga doubling as a pilot, for example. Can I claim to know exactly what was going on in Anno's mind in the decade before I was born? Clearly not. Is it interesting and thought provoking to think about? Absolutely.

Thank you for taking the time to read this crap.

#nge #neon genesis evangelion #ritsuko akagi #misato katsuragi #rei ayanami #asuka langley soryu #asuka shikinami #naval history #naval warfare #sb writes

[bohemian-nights]

So true! GRRM even mentioned recently that he would love to write a book about N so no way are they cutting her or replacing her with Rhaena.

I feel like because this show is focused on the Targ family it attracted the worst type of fans who think Targs are really gods and believe in the blood purity BS so I’m not surprised they’re into Daemyra who’re the poster child for that(no offends to those who just ship them and don’t buy into that crap but the amount of people I’ve seen on twitter making those arguments is ugh)but like exploring the relationship between D who’s a literal Targ supremacist and N a low born bastard girl and how things like class and race(I know ASOIAF doesn’t have the same construct of race as we do but N’s treatment as well as the Dornish shows pretty clearly there’s racism in their society even if the author didn’t intend did that to be the case)affect them,etc. I mean we see hints(maybe foreshadowing even?)of that conflict on the show when everyone’s scandalised over D saying he will marry Mysaria and that she’s pregnant. It also pushes her to break things off with D because she knows the consequences it would have on her while pointing out D’s privilege. Btw,I feel sorry for Matt Smith you can tell he wants D to be more dimensional and maybe the writers wanted that as well but they had no idea how to write a character like him(possibly because he doesn’t really start his character arc before he meets Nettles?)so they ended up cutting a bunch of scenes of him being more affectionate/emotional which led to Targ stans believing they have vendetta against him imo. But he was def one of the characters that suffered the most due to these time jumps the last time we see him before the first big one is him killing his wife and intending to reclaim her land but then later on he self exiles himself like why? If they wanted him to have a complicated relationship with his daughters fine we don’t really know what kind of a father he was in F&B but then make the effort of having him interact with them instead of tearing them like extras who just smile and stand around. And don’t get me started with how they treated Laena seriously WTH was that ?! You make her a black woman on the show and then proceed to have her be a second choice for her husband (with one of their daughters being ignored by him)and dying the most awful way possible away from her family while trying to make it look “empowering”.Sorry for the rant but the way the POC have been treated so far makes me very nervous about Nettles like FFS don’t treat her like a plot device and while we’re at it have her be friends with Baela and Rhaena this show needs more well developed female characters and friendships as well!

I would so love to read a book on Nettles. She(and Daemon) is/they are my favorite characters in the ASOIF universe. Her story does not end/begin with the Dance so I’d like to see more about her. Replacing her with Rhaena will not cut it.

Some Targ/Daemyra stans are willing to miss out on a fully fleshed out story in favor of Targ supremacy. There are parallels between our world racism and racism in ASOIF universe as well as classism. Writers can’t really escape their biases. I hope season 2 fleshes things out a bit because the story can be much more than it actually is.

I’m actually a Daemon stan so I think the HOTD writers do have a vendetta against Daemon. Daemon is described as less jerky to those he loves. In the show it seems like Daemon is really only there for Daemon. The only one he actually seems/seemed to love was King Dumb Dumb(Viserys), but now he’s dead so he’s got nothing.

Daemon leaves Rhaenyra alone to fend for herself multiple times. He even abandons her in a sex dungeon in the sketchy part of town. And yet she is supposed to be the love of his life? 🫠 Well I guess so since he literally murders his first wife and bangs his niece at his second wife’s funeral. At least Rhaenyra only got choked out by her man!

If I was Matt I’d be shaking my head cause the writing is just 🫠 Daemon has recieved essentially 0 character development since episode 3. Thank God Matt is charismatic because otherwise Daemon would be the least likable character on the show.

Rhaena and Baela do seem like extras/window dressing. It irked my soul when Rhaena kept calling Rhaenyra “my queen.” I understand she’s the queen, but she’s also her cousin/stepmom. It makes it look like Rhaena is the help. Some of Baela’s lines were cut which is also irritating considering the lack of screen time for both her and her sister.

The Laena situation is just 🙃 I could do a whole essay on that. The fact that you have delusional racist stans arguing that it’s somehow empowering to watch a Blackish woman light herself on fire is just🙃 I have no words. Like please go read a book on misogynoir then come back to me on it(it probably wouldn’t help, but can’t hurt to try).

That was one of the most traumatizing things I have ever watched. I am not joking when I say this. That hurt. Her book death was a 1000x more “empowering” than that crap.

What’s “empowering” for Black women is not the same for other women especially white women. Black women are rarely seen as soft, being taken care of, and loved in media.

Laena is supposed to be mixed(and the actress’s that played her were mixed as well), but the casting seemed deliberate. They picked a brown skinned mixed woman to light on fire(literally) and be someone’s unloved second choice(again not book canon, but people will gloss over this and try to claim that is somehow is). While the white woman is somehow the first choice and Daemon’s one and only love.

Having Daemon literally ignoring his Blackish kids(who by the way should look white/whiter than they do since they are at least 75% white, but the HOTD writers don’t know how genetics work🫠) is also a choice. Someone said that you could start watching HOTD at episode 7 and you wouldn’t know that Rhaena and Baela are Daemon’s daughter’s. Which isn’t far off from the truth.

You can’t make this ish up and yet people will deny it all the damn day long 🫠 They don’t have a problem with it cause if anything, it helps to solidify their wack ship. I’m going to leave it there cause I will literally start ranting all day long.

Bottom line is I hope season 2 is better and the HOTD writers see fans complaints and try to develop a more fleshed out story. I am kinda dreading what they might try with Nettles, but I’m cautiously optimistic(I love to disappoint myself). Limiting her characterization will limit Daemon’s as well since she’s his final arc, but as I stated, the writers seem like they hate him so 🤷🏽‍♀️

A friendship between Rhaena, Baela, and Nettles would be nice, but they are all supposed to be in different places during the war. Who knows what they will do.

#I’m ranting too #this show is a hot ass mess #house of the dragon #hotd #hotd spoilers #daemon targaryen #fandom racism #laena velaryon #nettles x daemon #daemon x nettles #rhaena targaryen #baela targaryen #houseofthedragon #I have exhausted myself #anti daemyra #anti rhaenyra targaryen #daemon x laena #hotd commentary #ask #answered #hotd ask #nettles asoif #nettles #hotd asks #bnasks #bnask

[spiffghosthuntingcorporation]

Okay, where’s Dan?

Hanging out with Kevin, last I saw they were trying to get a soda out of the vending machine. Lucky fucker, I want some free snacks.

We are not leaving to go get some free cheap candy. This is important. Whoever these people are that are emailing us, I think they’re right.

I mean, the only way Daniel would know all this stuff about ghost hunting is if he was a ghost hunter, right?

Yeah. We shouldn’t just assume that he was with Spiff though, there are other ghost hunting companies around. But a flickering flashlight is something any ghost hunter’s familiar with.

And we’re all especially familiar with it, after last night.

It really is a miracle that none of us died to that demon. The little shit ate up both of our crucifixes.

Well, we’d better replace them quick. We’ve got another job in two days.

Christ, Seán, give someone a warning before you sneak up on them-

Another job? Where?

Somewhere in Tanglewood. But that’s besides the point. I need you guys to listen to this! I got an interview with one of the construction workers at the office building, and…

[Playing recording…]

Hello, sir. I’m with the Spiff Ghost Hunters, and I’d like to ask you a couple questions about this building.

You’re one of the hunters that got rid of our electronics ghost, right?

Yeah. Got rid of it. Banished and everything.

[Paused.]

You are such a horrible liar.

Shut up! Just listen.

[Playing…]

Sure, I wouldn’t mind answering a couple’a questions. What do you got?

First, could you tell me anything you know about the building?

Well, they gave us a bit of info before we started working. Just for fun. You already know about the whole fire thing, yeah?

I do.

Well, then you know that nobody knows how it started. But one of the guys told me one day that it was actually set by someone in the building.

Intentionally?

Yep. There’s even rumors that the place’s boss was the one who started it, but I don’t pay attention to that kind’a stuff.

Do you know anything about the company’s boss, or what kind of work they did here?

Not really, no. But we did find pretty weird stuff in the beginning. Made me think it wasn’t just your average Joe desk job, working here.

Weird stuff? Like?

Well, lots of stuff was burnt, obviously. But there was a weird board we found that was totally fine - the one kids play with, that let you talk to ghosts or something?

A Ouija Board?

If that’s what you wanna call it. And there were a ton of flashlights - like, three for every employee or something. Only some of them worked, but the ones that did were all different. Some of them were weak, some of them were strong, and some of them gave off a weird purple light. And then there was a couple of books that were okay, too. They were in some kind of frame, like it was a museum or something.

What was written in the books?

I don’t remember, exactly. But one of ‘em just had scribbles, real violent ones too. Ripped the page in some places. And another one had a weird kind of drawing, looked like it was done by a little kid. Running in the sun, or something.

Anything else?

Don’t think so, no. Sorry.

No worries, you’ve already given me more then enough.

What is this for, again?

Oh! Um… We try to get a file on all the locations we visit, just in case another ghost appears.

Oh, I see. Well, I hope I was of at least of some use.

You were, trust me. Thank you so much, good luck with your work.

[Recording end.]

Holy shit.

That office building must’ve been just like our warehouse! Daniel was a ghost hunter!

I was a… I was a ghost hunter?

Shit- we thought you were hanging out with Kevin.

We got bored and heard you all listening to something, so we came back over here.

Well, it was rude of us to talk about you behind your back, Daniel. Sorry.

…

Dan?

Hey, are you okay?

My head hurts again…

Is it because we’re talking about something you don’t remember, again?

I don’t know…

It’s okay. You’re okay. We won’t talk about it right now, alright?

Can I… Can I go in a device? Please?

Here, take my phone.

Thank you…

So I guess we’re done talking about this.

For now. But we need to keep looking for information about whatever ghost hunting company was in that building. If the rumors are correct, and the company’s boss did actually set the fire, then we need to figure out who that was. Because if he’s still out there, then there’s nothing to stop him from doing it again.

Damn, Seán, we’re not in a crime drama show- OW!

Justice has been served.

You didn’t need to hit me so hard…

#phasmo!lads #irish lads au #terroriser #daithi de nogla #jacksepticeye #callmekevin #rtgame #the LORE is real #I wonder if Daithi abuse is a tag #Well it is now #daithi abuse

[ravynfyre]

So, story time, chilluns.

Helmets will save your life. I don't care what you are doing, if the safety gear includes a helmet, FUCKING WEAR ONE. I mean, things like being a motorcycle cop or a construction worker are pretty simple. It's part of the uniform. You don't use the helmet? You don't get to work.

But let's talk about other things. Like skateboarding. Or bike riding. Or *riding a fucking horse*. Rock climbing. Motorcycling period. Or *riding a fucking horse*.

I do not give one fucking shit if it is "not cool". Wear the fucking helmet.

This past ten days, I was away at a camp in the bowels of hell in the midwest, literally sleeping in a tent and riding equines all day. Rather, I *should* have been riding equines all day... But on day 2 of this 10 day trip, the mule I was riding (not mine, but a reliable mule borrowed from a friend) tripped while trying to climb out of an 18 inch deep creek. She went down to both front knees, then began to scramble to get her feet back under herself, and somewhere in that scramble, around about 3 seconds in, and 30 feet of rodeo bullshit, I came off her back.

I hit the ground *hard*. My entire right side, starting with my bad shoulder, then rolling to my *head*, and then my hip and knee slammed into the earth. Granted, it was only a fall from roughly six feet in the air, but it was at speed with velocity, and I have mass. I am not kidding when I say I hit *hard*. I genuinely was not certain if I had died for a few seconds, and that was fucking scary. And then for another *minute*, I had to try and remember hot to breathe again.

See, I'm not sure if I have ever come right out and explained this here before, but I *used* to be a firefighter. I did the job for 12 years, and was set to do another 12 years before I retired. But while on duty one day, I was injured severely enough that I could no longer safely do the job anymore, and that was all she wrote. Severe nerve damage to my cervical spine, right shoulder, right elbow, and all the way down into my right wrist and hand. (Yes, I am right handed. I used to draw and sketch and paint and carve, and losing the dexterity I lost really. fucking. *sucked*.)

Hitting the ground in the ass end of literally nowhere, I landed on that shoulder *first*. I didn't break anything, but I feel pretty confident in saying that I at least partially dislocated it. I sprained or tore muscles in my hip, and I am honestly not sure what all I did to my knee.

The one part I'm not worried about, however, is my head. Because, yes, I hit my head just as hard as I hit my shoulder. (pretty sure I bounced off a tree or two while I was still in the saddle, too. at least, that's what the bruises and scrapes seem to indicate. I honestly do not remember.) See, I was wearing a helmet. A dorky, english style, ugly, stupid looking riding helmet, instead of my usual baseball cap with my "Queer and Angry" pin on it, or my crushed up cowboy hat with the rainbow ribbons as a hatband. It was honestly the first time I had ever worn a *helmet* while riding, even though I had bought one a couple years ago. They're stupid looking. It's not *cowboy*. I'd look like an idiot... or a coward.

But the person I was riding with wore theirs (although, unfairly, their helmet actually looked like a cowboy hat, so I was feeling all sorts of put out about that) but since they wore theirs, I sucked it up and decided that this wasn't MY mule, and, what the fuck. who would even see me out in the ass end of nowhere wearing a brain bucket anyway? I wore the damn helmet.

The helmet that I now have to replace, because it took that hard of a hit that I would not consider it safe to count on, really, anymore. The helmet that probably saved me from a massive concussion last week. Maybe worse.

All I know is that when that bitch of a mule came trotting back after a couple minutes, I was able to slowly climb back into the saddle and ride my way out of a place where there was literally *nowhere* emergency services could have landed or driven to retrieve me. It took another 30 minutes of riding to even GET to a place that would have been accessible to anyone NOT on horseback. I was able to climb on, hold on, and ride out safely, if in excruciating amounts of pain, because that helmet saved my life. If the mule hadn't returned, if I hadn't decided that fashion wasn't as important as safety for the first fucking time... at the very least, they would have had to send a literal horseback posse into the backwoods of a river valley in a national forest, with no access for even so much as a four wheeler, and *hope* that I hadn't hurt myself enough that I would bleed out in my head during the HOURS LONG ORDEAL retrieving me would have been.

You know, AFTER my friend would have had to leave me there and ride for help, since there was also literally NO phone coverage either.

So, here I am today, everything along the right side of my body is stiff as shit and feels like it's been through a meat grinder. I haven't had more than two consecutive hours of sleep (maximum of four a night) in a week because of pain, but I am here to tell you all:

Wear. The fucking. Helmet.

#stupid firefighter tricks #stupid cowboy tricks #good mule #wear the damn helmet #backwoods emergency #yeeeeehaw!

[topweeklyupdate]

TØP Monthly Update #158: Unplugged (6/17/22)

So... I'm a little late to the party...

As you all (probably) (definitely) know by now, our band was featured on MTV Unplugged last week for a very plugged-in performance. However, it was still a very different performance, with Tyler and Josh using live sampling and looping to construct new versions of their songs in real time. It was pretty cool!

But since you don't really need me to tell you all this, I figure I might as well give my impressions on each of their tracks. While I wasn't head over heels for all of them, I am 100% behind the band continuing to challenge themselves, find new forms of artistic expression, and discover ways to feature Joshua William Dun on the mic. Hearing him singing while also playing multiple instruments/machines was a revelation. Growth is good, we love to see it!

"Stressed Out"- By the nature of the form, all of these tracks took a little bit to come together. This one probably took the longest to "get going", and I honestly didn't love the direction at first... at least until they stripped back everything for the bridge, which featured a duet. I never thought I'd see Tyler and Josh harmonizing, and there was something really wonderful about seeing my two music idols look into each other's eyes while singing over such a dreamy, soothing arrangement.

"Tear In My Heart"- A gentle, synth-infused version of a true underrated classic of their discography. This one just reminded me that we really need to give "Tear" its flowers; folks forget how much it laid the groundwork for "Stressed Out"'s commercial cement. This version's echoey harmonies made it probably my second favorite track from this performance.

"House of Gold/Lane Boy"- Tyler thinks he's such a comedian, but we all know that Josh is the funnier one. Incorporating the audience into the track in some way (even if they are almost completely covered up by the effects) seems like a really promising step for future shows. I love the rendition of "House of Gold", and I like the idea of using "I'll put you on the map" to link it to "Lane Boy", but it still feels like something's missing from this version.

"Shy Away"- I've seen some people compare this more stripped down version to some Self-Titled tracks, and that's a good thing for me. Love the soulful "I love you"s. That said... it really drags in the middle, the peppier repeat ending is much weaker/unnecessary, and the final impov riff on needing to pad for time is... well, kinda bad? I dunno, maybe it played better in the room.

"Ride/Nico and the Niners"- Love the crowd interactions for this. Tyler's counting methods are confusing; who the hell counts to four? Otherwise good but not especially noteworthy.

"Car Radio/Heathens"- 100/10. Holy hell. I've heard fan covers of "Car Radio" that lean into hard rock potential, but hearing Tyler do the riff and blown-out screaming himself was so metal. While I would never want them to replace the normal live version, I'm begging them to release this track.

In other news, our band is back on the road! The last time they were in Europe, Tyler was recording the superior version of "The Hype" and announcing Jenna's first pregnancy; now he has two baby girls. Time isn't real! They should be taking the stage at Pinkpop in the Netherlands literally as I write this, and they'll play at the Hurricane and Southside Festivals in Germany over the weekend before kicking off the London leg of Takeover Tour starting Tuesday.

But before they did all that, their first show after a brief hiatus was a few weeks ago in BottleRock at Napa Valley. Judging by the setlist for that show, we probably shouldn't be expecting too much different for these other summer shows other than a slightly different campfire medley. If you haven't gotten the chance to check that out, it's a good laugh (shout out to Fookie).

Finally, Jenna shared some pictures of Tyler's new studio, now featuring much more natural light and more personal touches. I don't think that means that we're getting a new album anytime soon, but hopefully it proves to helpful for his mental health while he's in work mode. For now, our band is back out on the road, where they're supposed to be, and I couldn't be more excited for what lies ahead.

Power to the local dreamer.

|-/

#twenty one pilots #tyler joseph #josh dun #mtv unplugged #trench #blurryface #scaled and icy #top weekly update

[globular-guardians]

The Leviathan. No, not THE Leviathan, HER Leviathan. Even before the Midnight Coup had taken place, a second Leviathan was already under construction per Calus’ order. Why only have symbol of royal opulence when you can have more? Not only would it mean that there was a possible replacement should the unlikely event occur of anything happening to the first one, but having multiple of these terrifying pleasure barges would strike fear into any potential enemies.

However, that was the thought process during Calus’ reign, once the Midnight Coup was said and done and Calus was exiled, Ghaul saw little use for another “opulent eyesore” but it was too close to completion for his engineers to merely scrap it and recycle it. He decided that after his campaign to capture the light from the traveler he would over the necessary changes to the vessel.

That, though, never came to pass and instead the duty fell to Caiatl, now that she had gone from Cabal Princess to Cabal Empress she had to take on responsibilities from previous rulers that she hadn't even been aware were needed. Having saw how things had seemed to stagnate under her father's rule, Caiatl had decided that she would put the citizens of her empire first, focusing less on luxury and more on safety. However, always hanging over her head, was that damned ship and she never knew what precisely to do with it. Her engineers had already started altering the unfinished portions of the ship to match her personality, even despite her hesitancy to do anything of the sort.

In the end however, it turned out to be a saving grace. When Torobatl fell Caiatl's Leviathan proved to be an incredibly useful in saving countless innocent civilians. The ships abundant food processing abilities proved to be invaluable to keeping them all fed as well. The original purpose of The Leviathan was to DEVOUR whole planets and grind them into dust, where the dust would then be processed with Royal Nectar and turned into Royal Wine. Fortunately the Cabal were able to adjust to process to additionally grind comets and meteors into food for the populace to keep them from going hungry. Once they had escaped safely, Caiatl would even make trips to The Leviathan to keep the morale of her citizens up.

And she loathed practically every second of it.

Everything that surrounded her while there reminded her of her lineage and seemed to compare her to her father. There were countless towering golden statues of herself, there seemed to be one in everyone room of the ship or any courtyard that was large enough to accommodate one. The marble walls and floors trimmed with gold and gems reflected her beautifully and each reflection filled her with disgust. Most of the upper floors were exact replicas of the original Leviathan which meant luxury knew no bounds.

One of the common places of relaxation were the Royal Baths, where in the past Oiled Bathers would calm their bodies before and after intense fights. The waters were infused with Royal Nectar that made the whole area smell sweet and welcoming, helping those that entered relax their tired muscles.

There was the throne were she was often ushered too when she made her visits. Several advisors and even well meaning citizens had insisted that it was wear she belonged as the ruler of them all. Reluctantly she would find herself laid across the golden bowl of a throne that she knew her father had once occupied, or at least one identical to it.

However, there was one spot that Caiatl didn't mind and would frequently spend her time. Despite always being covered in the shadow of one of her own looming statues, the Pleasure Gardens were a place of solitude and peace for Caiatl. It was where the Cabal War Beasts were stored and allowed to roam, and where the Royal Nectar was grown for its use in the creation of the Royal Wine. Caiatl had always had a strong connection to the War Beasts and this seemed to be the one place that she could escape from the universe around her.

Despite her intense hatred of HER Leviathan, she couldn't deny the important place it held in keeping her people safe and well fed. She loathed what it stood for and why it existed but it was something that right now she couldn't imagine not having. Maybe with time, she could come to enjoy this ship in almost a fraction of her father did...

#caiatls tank #lore update #new locations to interact with Caiatl and others with #please read

[dearweirdme]

Ok, soooo. I don’t really care whether taennie is real, bc idols are people and they have a full right to date, it’s fine. But I’m a bit paranoid about all these AI and photoshop things you’re now able to do. Brings a feeling of gaslighting. And what triggers me in a full story is that on the video there are no faces seen clearly (but I must say the way they walk is quite similar) and on the one and only photo of V with his manager which is “clearly showing face” there are weird blurred spots between nose and eyes when you zoom in. An idk what frightens me is that it brings a real gaslight-like feeling, because from the first glance “it’s V”, but the more you look into that the more moments are questionable: the form of nose and lips (they’re basically crooked on the photo), eyes have more narrow distance between e/o than Tae has

So my whole point is it can be unhealthy for the audience to not clear the whole thing up with a statement, especially when u can construct a whole reality with tools on your notebook. (I mean really, you can copy one design of skirt and replace it on the picture, and it’s just frightening)

Hi anon!

Yeah, I understand what you mean I think. I’m not a big fan of ai in general, and fandom using it these days is.. well it has the potential to create a mess. It’s great to play with for fun, but when things like this get used to persuade it gets creepy.

I think in general we will be able to identify real situations from false ones. There will always be more clues aside from what we can see. And also, the company will make sure things don’t get too out of hand. They don’t want to destroy Tae’s career (although some think so, but I personally do not), so they will want to control the narrative in the best way. If they themselves use photoshop it will only be subtle things, if fandom uses photoshop or Ai to create a certain narrative they will intervene and make a statement.

Although Ai is quite new, there’s always been tactics like this. We’ve had the emerging of social media change things, before that there was regular media making things up.. and we got used to that as well.

In this case, it’s their intention to make fandom and general public speculate. It gives them the most attention. Confirming or denying will make an end to speculations (for a part at least) and they won’t be able to use the high surges of attention for promo much.

I thought this article was rather interesting, because I have also considered this change as well. I don’t see it as ‘companies being more respectful’ though… I see it as leaving room for interpretation.

#taennie #media play

[senzacaponecoda]

idle speculation, don't take serious

Egyptian -jn- likened to Amazigh -yan-, the latter a verb meaning "say", and the pathway say -> aux is common, and very common in North Africa, and generally builds something like a consecutive mood or something. Like in analogy to Hebrew's vav-consecutive, which is pretty much and-verb, which got fossilized due to vowel outcomes. Not so much like what Spanish calls a consecutive.

The focus pronouns in many Afroasiatic languages look similar, though. They're generally built on a base like 2an- where 2 is a glottal stop. It was probably not complete when Afroasiatic broke up, though, because many languages build them radically differently - some from the stative pronoun series where the 1S is ~ku, some from the possessive pronoun series where the 1S is ~ni.

There's a hypothesis that maybe that's a relic of an old case system, and the ~ku series is like, the old ergative, while the ~ni series is the old absolute series. But Egyptian at least shows that the old series was like *jnk, *kw(t) *Tj(t), *sw(t) *sj(tt), and only during Middle Egyptian did the *ntk *ntT *ntf *nts replace the 2 and 3 persons. The old Egyptian kw Tj sw etc if anything was more likely the PAA absolute pronouns.

There's also like... I think some contemporary Arabics made new relative clause constructions out of the an base, to the point of creating new focus pronouns through analogy with mismatches with the focus pronoun endings and the developments in the possessives? I think? This was a twitter observation and the ephemerality of that platform means the details are lost to me. I noticed also in Jabalinya's post on Gurran Arabic, Razihit, and Central Sabatic the other day that the perfect suffixes look like Egyptian's statives.

The reason relative pronouns cross linguistically also come from wh- pronouns is due to the latter almost always being in focus. wh-movement is also common, because cross-linguistically we want to put focus near the complementizers, especially in C-first languages. The relative <--> focus gateway seems to be a thing. Tangentially, it's also kind of a thing that VSO languages lack copulas and similar things, making DP-DP a special predicate type instead of one that can be handled like transitive predicates. So, like

I wander if something like *ăn was already a relativizing complementizer in PAA. In Egyptian maybe due to phonetic weakness or something it ended up a second-slot particle like -ne? in Latin or many other such IE particles, and raised the verb: *ăn *săt'amă *pŭ -> *an *sat'aamaf > *sat'maanaf sdm.jn.f. (the j then shows that the vowel was long, the 1v2vv3 -> 1v23vv metathesis being caused by trying to preserve default stress I guess?) Then in just DP-DP sentences you'd have this awkward thing that can't stand on its own, and because the verbs were being reanalyzed as if nominative-ness is possession, maybe Ø-ăn-PRO became a thing that way and you get anaku, an(t?)aku, an(t?)aki, etc that -> jnk, (j)ntk, (j)ntT etc.

I'm not sure on the situation in Semitic at the time, but given how late Egyptian's seemed to have developed, assuming this was an Egyptian-internal thing related to their -jn- perfect, then maybe the an- pronouns are really one of those weird things, where, like, the ground work was done by a proto language but a daughter (Egyptian) ended up projecting it all over the region, like maybe PIE had the ḱ-k thing already and then Scythian or whatever spread satemization.

This also isn't necessarily incompatible with the hypothesis that it's related to Amazigh's -yan- "say" verb either. It could entirely be that say -> some kind of relativizing auxiliary verb and -> the conjugated verb turned into focus pronouns.

[puppyfree]

Robby the robot

In addition, the fitness of a strategy determines where it is along the x-axis, with the least fit strategies on the left, and the fittest strategies on the right.Īnother aspect of diversity is the difference between the strategies. It's lightest when the fitness is low and darkest when it's high. Their color is a shade of red, scaled by their fitness. The diversity in their fitness is visualized by color and position on the x-axis. In the view, you'll see the pool of strategies (represented by "person" icons). Press GO-FOREVER to start the genetic algorithm running, or GO-N-GENERATIONS to run the genetic algorithm for a fixed number of generations (settable by the NUMBER-OF-GENERATIONS slider). Press SETUP to create the initial pool of random strategies. In addition to crossover, the children's strategies are subject to occasional random mutation (settable by the MUTATION-RATE slider), in which an action is replaced by a randomly chosen action. For example, if the crossover point selected is 50, we use the first 50 entries of the first parent's strategy and the last 193 entries of the second parent's strategy. We pick a random crossover point and combine the first part of the first parent's strategy with the second part of the other's parent's strategy. To combine the strategies of two parents, we use "crossover". This process continues as long as the GO button is pressed, or is controlled by the NUMBER-OF-GENERATIONS slider when the GO-N-GENERATIONS button is pressed. We then similarly calculate the fitness of the current generation, choose parents, and create a new generation. This "generation" of new children replaces the previous generation. We keep repeating this process until we have enough new children to fill up the population (settable by the POPULATION-SIZE slider). Each pair of parents creates two new children via crossover and mutation (see below). We repeat this to pick the second parent. We pick the first parent by picking 15 random candidate parents, then choose the one with the highest fitness. Once we have measured the fitness of the current pool of strategies, we construct the next generation of strategies. Robby's average score across all these environments is taken as the "fitness" of that strategy. If he tries to pick up a can, but there isn't one there, he loses 1 point. If he successfully picks up a can, he gains 10 points. We score Robby on how well he does in each environment. We load each strategy into Robby in turn, and then run that strategy in a series of randomly generated arrangements of cans ("environments"). We begin with a pool of randomly generated strategies. Here is the particular variant implemented in this model. There are many possible variations on the basic concept of a genetic algorithm. This is no problem the genetic algorithm essentially ignores the "impossible" situations since Robby never encounters them.) How the genetic algorithm works (Advanced note: If you actually do the math, you'll realize that some of those 243 situations turn out to be "impossible", e.g., Robby will never actually find himself in a situation in which all cardinal directions contain walls. That means his sensors can be in one of 35 = 243 possible combinations.Ī "strategy" for Robby specifies one of his seven possible actions for each of those 243 possible situations he can find himself in. Each square can contain a wall, a can, or neither. He can see the contents of the square he is in and the four neighboring squares. To decide which action to perform, Robby senses his surroundings. His score at the end of a run is the sum of these rewards and penalties. If he tries to pick up a can where none exists, or bumps into a wall, he is penalized. When Robby picks up a can, he gets a reward. At each time tick, Robby can perform one of seven actions: move in one of the four cardinal directions, move in a random direction, pick up a can, or stay put. His goal is to pick up as many as he can. Robby's 10x10 square world contains randomly scattered cans. The GA starts with randomly generated strategies and then uses evolution to improve them.

This model demonstrates the use of a genetic algorithm (GA) to evolve control strategies for Robby.

Robby the Robot is a virtual robot who moves around a room and picks up cans. You can also Try running it in NetLogo Web If you download the NetLogo application, this model is included.

#Robby the robot