hey. don’t cry. crush four cloves of garlic into a pot with a dollop of olive oil and stir until golden then add one can of crushed tomatoes a bit of balsamic vinegar half a tablespoon of brown sugar and stir for a few minutes adding a handful of fresh spinach until wilted and mix in half a cup of grated parmesan cheese and pasta of your choice ok?

I’m so damn tired

I started reading Purple Haze Feedback this afternoon, and I just finished it.

The way PHF delved into exploring the interpersonal relationships within Team Bucciarati (with a heavy emphasis on Fugo's relationships with the others, of course) left me enamored, and it made part 5 feel complete. It was beautiful and all I could have ever hoped for from a JoJo's light novel.

If you haven’t read it yet, please do. You’re going to love it. I’ll even link it right here. (keep in mind it is an unofficial translation, so things aren’t perfect, but it’s pretty damn good.)

(yeah, I sobbed like a baby when I read chapter 6. Handled the bonus chapter alright though.)

Prepare for trouble - Make it double

Pairing : Quaestor Valdemar x (demon) Reader Fandom : The Arcana visual novel Warnings : science (I'm not good with warnings) ; discussion of experiments ; probably inaccurate depiction of said science (like it's probably not how it works, I ain't no scientist, I'm an artist)

Summary : To make sure you live as long as your beloved, you went our of your way to make a deal with the Devil. The downsides? You have the same morbid curiosities and fascinations as your dearest, though you specialize in another field...

It had been a few months since you made your deal. Things had changed, of course, but you felt as if the sacrifices you made were little in comparison to spending eternity by Valdemar's side. And you couldn't have possibly done that without giving up your humanity... But you knew you had done the right thing. Everything had become more tender with the Quaestor, it seemed they'd finally allowed themselves to feel for you, to love you ; They were spending more time by your side, they held you more often, at times you could swear you could see a spark of love and adoration in their eyes when they looked at you... And honestly? It's all you could've asked for. Everything else was a bonus.

Spending more time together undeniably meant you picked up on some quirks from each other's behavior. Even though you had a much more theatrical side to you (which seemed to be easier to indulge into, since you weren't so afraid anymore since your deal ; although you do know how to control it. People often perceive you as rather calm and composed, actually), you had caught yourself standing like them a few times. Once, you two had tilted your heads at the same time during a conversation, drawing a few laughs out of both of you. It seemed like Valdemar had picked up on some of your behaviors as well, which... You hadn't expected. You remember loosing your shit at one of the few jokes they cracked around you from time to time. Sure, they were still very much themselves, but you feel like their time with you warmed them up somewhat. A few days after you came back from your deal, they'd offered to wrap your horns in bandages, just like they did with their own, and you couldn't refuse (it was just so cute). Your horn shape was more vertical, with a slight angle to them, but in the end, you had matching bandaged horns, and it just made you giddy every time you thought about it. You would tease each other at times, even though when other people were around, the Quaestor was much more reserved, a bit contrary to you. But you caught a smile behind their mask once or twice.

And of course, all those soft moments were worth everything you'd given up. Your humanity, and your moral compass. Regarding science, anyway...

You hadn't told them anything. When those strange thoughts came to you, it made you curious. Not only because you'd never thought of this before, but also because it was... Interesting, actually. You knew you probably shouldn't indulge in them. After all, you weren't human anymore, your thoughts weren't the same... And yet, you gave in. You had noticed how when Valdemar was really invested in an experiment, it seemed you could go anywhere you wanted and they wouldn't notice... Or they perhaps didn't mind. Of course you loved watching them work, and they didn't seem to mind your presence... But seeing them so fascinated by the corpses they were fiddling with inevitably awakened those thoughts in you again. So you'd taken advantage of those moments to wander the streets of Vesuvia, looking for a perfect hideout. You had found what looked like an abandoned tavern at the end of a narrow, dark alleyway. It took you a while to manage to pick the lock of the thick wooden door, but once you did, you couldn't help a wicked grin from spreading onto your face. This. Was. Perfect.

You entered what looked like an old cave, finding stacks of dusty wine bottles, a table or two and cobwebs. You couldn't help your heart from picking up in pace as you mentally drew a picture of your soon-to-be laboratory. This was exciting. You dedicated the following weeks to cleaning up the place. You'd deconstructed the wine stacks, gotten rid of the bottles (which you were sure weren't good for consumption anyway, and the idea of risking Valerius' life to make sure of that simply hadn't come to you) and moved the wooden tables. If you wanted this place to be as spotless as you could make it to be, you'd have to do a deep clean... And that's what you did. Back when you were human, you could've never thought of doing that, ever. But now? The excitement at the prospect of upcoming experiments gave you the energy to basically do anything.

Eventually, after two week and a half of deep cleaning (mainly because you couldn't give it a 24/7 attention), the cave looked empty enough for you to start furnishing it. This only took you three days. You would sneak out the Palace at night into various physicians' offices and alchemist's shops to borrow equipment. Vials, petri dishes, syringes, candles, the strongest magnifying glasses you could find, more petri dishes, sample tubes, test tubes, goggles (though you doubted you would need them), gloves, tweezers, spatula, scoopula, glass bottles, erlenmeyer flasks, flasks, tongs, corks, beakers, pipets, petri dishes again YOU NAME IT- ahem.

This was thrilling. The more you brought equipment to your makeshift laboratory, the more excited you become. This would be fantastic. Phenomenal. Breakthrough after breakthrough, things scientists could only dream of achieving...

Then began your experiments. In the following months, your laboratory filled with them, test subjects and wet specimens, files thick as an encyclopedia as you wrote down report after report and protocol after protocol....

However, eventually, you knew you wouldn't be able to keep this to yourself. And you probably shouldn't. It didn't feel right to hide it all from your beloved... And so, after nearly ten months of your secret escapades to your lab, you decided to expose your discoveries and experiments to Valdemar. It was late, somewhere at the end of winter. As if time meant anything anyway. You found the surgeon in their dungeons, as usual. You stood afar for a moment, your heart thumping violently in your ribs out of both nervousness and excitement. You took a deep breath, and walked towards them, gently wrapping your arms around their waist from behind and resting your head on their shoulder. "Good evening" they said sweetly, briefly glancing at you. They could feel your tough heartbeat against their back, and wondered what could be the source of supposed distress. "Is something wrong?" they asked, their hands swiftly stitching up the corpse they had been working on. "...Can I show you something?" you inquired, though with a slight uncertainty. It seemed they sensed it. "Of course." Valdemar replied "I'm always happy to see what you've been up to." they said, putting their instruments aside and wiping their gloves hands on their apron. You couldn't help your grin and a spark of mischievous excitement from lighting up your eyes. The Quaestor knew that spark : they shared the same when they talked about their experiments. This only made them more intrigued. You took their hand and excitedly walked out of the dungeons into the streets of Vesuvia, guiding them to your hideout.

You found the key to the heavy wooden door and opened it, eagerly inviting them inside (even if you tried your best to keep your excitement level-headed). Their eyes widened as they slowly made their way inside : it really looked like a laboratory... only less professional. More made from scratch, though the equipment was there. Shelves lined the walls, on which laid all sorts of things : mainly jars, mostly wet rat and mice specimens, floating ominously in the liquid. but there were also tinier flasks, sealed shut, with a biohazard* symbol onto some. no, onto all of them. You didn't speak just yet, letting them take a look around while fidgeting with your hands. They approached one of the tables you worked on, seemingly analyzing the equipment. "So that's where all my petri dishes went" they teased, making you chuckle. Their gaze went back to the table "...Is this all your doing?" They asked, their eyes landing on the specimens again. You nodded, unable to stop a little proud and (morbidly) excited smile as you mentally prepared to ramble about your experiments. Valdemar's eyes scanned the equipment again, and finally asked "What did you do with all this?"

You grinned from ear to ear as you went to fetch the boxes where you kept all your reports, bringing them to the table while pushing aside some instruments (which thankfully you weren't currently using for an experiment - imagine the catastrophe if anything fell on the floor) "Alright, so-" you started, pulling out a file "I'll start with my simplest experiment : BH-012. It was my first successful one, actually uhm- are you familiar with pathology ?" your words seemed to tumble out of your mouth with uncontrollable enthusiasm, and Valdemar found themselves highly intrigued. "The science and study of diseases, yes, I've heard about it. Though as you know, it isn't my field of practice" you nodded frantically "Yes ! yes. Well... I got interested in that, suddenly, I don't exactly know why -maybe has to do with my deal- and well... I thought it would be a good idea to uhm... to try things out !" You had the Quaestor's absolute and undivided attention. Which was hard to do, let's be honest. You couldn't be more excited "I've played with dangerous things.." you admitted, flipping through the files. "So ! BH-012...."

And so your rambling started. You began with this first bacteria, which you had managed to successfully mutate, altering its initial effects. This is what you had done with all your experiments. You mutated and fiddled with everything : Bacteria. Viruses. Prions. Parasites... These held nearly no secrets to you anymore. You've nearly experimented on all. You had pushed the limits of the ethical and created biohazardous biological weapons, all contained in these tiny sealed-shut flasks and vials lined up on your shelves, which you had frozen* for safety. You explained to them in details some protocols of certain highly successful experiments, like the prion PA-003, or the virus VY-045... You explained how you studied how your diseases spread, contaminated, and destroyed their hosts on populations of rat and mice ; you showed them the second room, in which there was a tank similar to a terrarium full of plants, and another one full of fungi and mushrooms. You explained how you had managed to make a mutation of the BH-012 bacteria, BH-014, thanks to these fungi, allowing the bacteria to develop spores to spread, whereas before it was only transmitted by being consumed. You went on to explain how you used the tank of plants to develop cures for each of your diseases, making copies of the formula and protocols to follow in case one slippery little virus or fungi managed to make its way out of your laboratory.

The Quaestor was smitten. They loved your humanity, they always did (even if they'd denied it for a while), this part of you that had allowed them to be a little more themselves each day... And now this ? This was the cherry on top. This non-human side of you, devoted to science, willing to experiment, going beyond the biologically reasonable and push past what would be ethical until there were no cell to modify left in the world... And the last specimen you presented to them, with that wickedly excited grin and mad glint in your eyes just was the death of them. You proudly held up the wet specimen of an orange worm, with two long thin tendrils that spewed out of its mouth. "Just a lil' guy, huh? This is a type of brain tapeworm" you started "it's called a neuro-parasite. Some already exist in nature, but I've uhm... made it worse" you chuckled "It acts very progressively : they lodge themselves atop of the brain, slowly but surely planting their tendrils further and further until they reach the motor controls, basically... turning the host into a puppet. It's not actually hard to remove, a basic acidic solution does the job and dissolves it, but uhm... the delicate part is not damaging the brain while dissolving the worm." you were about to go on, but something suddenly popped in your mind, and you excitedly went back to your shelf. Valdemar's jaw hung slightly slack at everything. But they'd share their thoughts once you would be done. "Something funny happened to one of my worms, actually-" You retrieved another wet specimen of an orange worm, though this time, it had some sort of exoskeleton, and two little fangs "It mutated" you said, feeling all giddy. The Quaestor couldn't help but share your excitement, even if pathology wasn't their field of specialty "It mutated? This particular worm mutated, creating this unique structure and its small little fangs?" you nodded eagerly. You continued : "Not that it can resist the cure, no no- it's become practically cousins with a millipede. It still had the tendrils to lodge in the brain though. I have to admit, I ran out of inspiration and called it Fortis Vermis… but I secretly call it skitters" Valdemar chuckled "skitters?" you laughed as well and nodded. "yes, skitters... I like him a lot... It's my most beautiful specimen." You said, looking dreamily at your wet specimen before putting it back on the shelf with the others

After this very eventful night, you couldn't help but be a little apprehensive of Valdemar's reaction. What would they think...? They had not uttered a word since you both had left your makeshift laboratory. You suddenly felt very nervous. You looked at them and was about to say something, but you blinked in surprise. There was a new spark in their eyes : amazement and wonder... a certain lightness. You were... Confused. They seemed to notice your stare and looked at you, their red eyes meeting your golden own. They smiled. "Thank you for showing me all this" their tone was... surprisingly affectionate, and you couldn't help your cheeks from reddening slightly "ah- w-well... that's only natural, no?" you chuckled "You have no problem showing me your experiments, and it felt very... It just felt wrong not to show you." The smile didn't leave their face as they continued to walk with you. It seemed your earlier excitement had rubbed off on them, they looked to be in a particularly good mood. They looked ahead again and inhaled before speaking : "You and I will make a fine duo in scientific history" Your eyes widened slightly, your anxiousness suddenly evaporated. You felt warm. "really?" they nodded "absolutely. Say, do you want me to give you... Human specimens from time to time?" you gasped "you- you wouldn't !!" they chuckled at your excited reply "oh yes I would. I'd be delighted to see just what your diseases could do on a human corpse" You had to stifle a screech of excitement. It would help you make significant progress, even if you had one body every few months. You gripped their arm and brought them in an embrace, pampering their face with affectionate kisses. They chuckled and protested that it was nothing, but you thanked them nonetheless. That night, you spent your time discussing all sorts of experiments you could be conducting in the future...

*This may be inaccurate considering the time period The Arcana visual novel seems to take place in

Small Bonus !

It was two days later. You had just come back from dining with the countess and the other courtiers, closing the door of your quarters with a sigh, appreciating the calm. You spotted something on your bed, and raising an eyebrow, you went over it. It looked like a folded piece of clothing. You unwrapped it curiously, and your eyes widened as a lab-coat and apron unfolded before you. It was flawless, though you could tell it was sewn by hand. It matched your size perfectly. A note fluttered to the ground, which you picked up. It read :

"A mad scientist and an unhinged surgeon ; we're going to make quite the pair. I thought you might need this in the future - Val"

This time, you were unable to contain your screech of excitement.

got feedback on a programming assignment that was ostensibly supposed to be a buzzfeed-esque personality quiz saying that the grader got "frustrated" with the input validation mechanic forcing you to pick specific answers before it let you progress.

meanwhile, me, feral writer let loose in a coding class, kicking my feet and twirling my hair like "thank you, that's how I designed it :3"

not even gonna tag this properly bc i don't wanna get Involved but i do have some Thoughts i need to get out into the void so here we go

(aaa quick edit: CW for mention/discussion of Boothill leaks)

So while in the ML mood, wouldn't mind some feedback for this new set up of the Miracle Box, cause this is something I do go back and forth on.

the ‘influencer lifestyle’ really rotted a lot of women’s ( + girls) brains and I’m not necessarily talking about the traveling part but the whole self-imposed prerequisite requirement of having to look like an instagram model before getting to live your life to the fullest as a woman. This internalized monitoring of the ‘self’ that women do when it comes to their own physical appearance, something to show off externally, is really pervasive and you can see it reflected in social media.

( and if you are familiar with the whole concept of having a ‘bikini’ body for the summer, that is a perfect example of this, like the absurd idea of women having to visualize themselves snapping a perfect bikini pic in order to fulfill this image of enjoying summer. Like they can’t just live but have to look and dress a certain way because it’s what a ‘successful’ women is supposed to look like, a status symbol to always emulate- yeah :/ )

earthspark spoilers episode 16

megatron brings up an old photo and

..... KNOCKOUT??????????

What is the most annoying assignment you can give your students and why is it peer reviews

I’m very old and tired so I’m not going to fight or argue with anyone who disagrees but these are some of my Thoughts™️

I’m a very normal amount of obsessed with Hunter Doohan so I listened to that entire podcast episode he was on recently the one where we all lost our minds because he used the words “Wednesday,” “Tyler,” and “sexual compatibility” all in the same sentence

At one point he brought up Wenclair and he was really cute about it! He said that he found it to be the “great irony of his life” that he would play the love interest that “gets in the way of the queer ship” because he’s gay and happily married to another man irl. He even said how the Wenclair shippers are sweet to him, and he loves their enthusiasm for the show and the characters.

He also talked at length about online harassment he gets…he never mentioned any of it being stemmed from shipping wars. All of it was related to his personal life and his sexuality, which is unfortunately very reflective of the recent backlash we’ve been seeing towards the lgbt+ community.

I want more love, hype, and support for Hunter from everyone in the fandom regardless of shipping preferences or opinions of Tyler. He’s really sweet and talented, seems like a down-to-earth guy, and he just deserves it!

Does it get annoying to hear people call Tyler “boring”? Or frustrating to see people dismiss the grooming and manipulation that happened to him? Does being a Wyler stan sometimes feel like you’re on board a sinking ship? Absolutely.

But honestly the best way to be supportive of Hunter (or Tyler or Wyler) isn’t to become defensive against queer interpretations of characters. Whether Wyler remains canon or not, Hunter is not going to lose his job; the writers seem invested enough in his character to keep him in the storyline whether Wednesday is romantically involved with him, someone else, or no one at all.

On a smaller scale, the best way to support Hunter is by being supportive of those queer character interpretations; on a larger scale it’s to be a good human and be supportive of the lgbt+ community. Because that’s what actually affects him on a daily basis. Being so “anti” towards Wenclair (even if you’re in equal amounts against Wavier) isn’t helpful towards that goal. Nor does it do any favors for the actor playing one half of your OTP.

Honestly, it isn’t a betrayal to Wyler by imagining any of the characters as anything other than straight - for whatever reason that may be. Just because on the surface Wyler is a heterosexual ship doesn’t inherently mean that either or both characters have to be heterosexual, nor does it mean that any of us are forbidden from having lgbt+ headcanons.

And it especially does not mean that we tolerate homophobia or biphobia in our community.

// Where's that one ask meme where it asks others how well their muse is written I need a status update and user feedback on if I'm doing a good job or not. What's the satisfaction rate on my boy out here?

// Which face on the chart are we on?

can we please. go one (1) week without the PVP obsessed people going off about how PVP is the only thing that matters in the game. im so very tired. "PVE people are probably about to find out that PVE can't carry the game because PVP is ruined and we're all gonna quit and play better games" please just can they shut up and go already instead of threatening us with a good time they never follow through on??

I saw that stuff as well, I know exactly what you're talking about. It's incredibly disingenuous and deliberately incendiary to cause more people to bitch about the game being doomed or whatever.

They are constantly using "steam numbers" to show that this is the lowest population count that Destiny 2 ever had and how that's proof that the game is being ruined and dying, that pvp bros and content creators are more important than we think they are, that Bungie needs to make Destiny 3 (yes, that is unironically stuff that people are saying) and other really incredibly tiring things.

Not to mention the vitriol towards the devs. Every time they bitch, more and more people show up in the comments saying awful shit about devs and how they are lazy, they don't work, they don't care, they are bad at development and so on. This is what eventually fuels harassment.

These "steam numbers" are disingenuous because they are taken out of context and they strip all other external reasons from the "low player count."

Is there a low player count? Yes! That is correct. Even when we account for console players, it's still low.

This is nothing new. This is a constant trend. Last month of the season ALWAYS has low numbers. People finished their story and their pinnacle grind and their seals and are doing other things.

More under for length:

Is this the lowest it's been so far? It seems to be, though the final month on steam charts isn't over so we can't fully tell yet, but it seems to be one of the lowest. However, there's been similar numbers before during seasonal end. It's quite literally nothing new. We go through this every season, except this season it's slightly lower than usual.

Why is that? Well, the chart Aztecross put to prove there's not many people playing happened on a Monday before the final Tuesday reset of the final week of the season. Yeah bro, very few people have things left to do in the season. They're not bothering. Unlike you, other people have other hobbies and games to play. I haven't played in days, I only got on on Saturday to finish my King's Fall seal and that took 10 minutes. This is what I mean by "disingenuous." It's a cheap bait tactic. Find the lowest number and ship it for cheap outrage engagement.

Others are constantly also posting the cummulative steam chart for every month of Destiny since the game came to steam and they're pointing out that we have lowest numbers now. Which is, again, posted for cheap outrage. They look at the number and see it's low and their conclusion is "game is dying." They don't care about the trend (every season end is "dying"), they don't care about external reasons (other game releases), they don't care about overall how some seasons are just weaker and have less interest (not the first time), they don't care about anything.

They just want people to be mad enough to harass the devs. Because like, what do they think is going to happen when they spend 2 months blogging to hundreds of thousands of people about the game being ruined by evil devs who don't do their job? When they constantly talk about how everything in the game is bad, pvp is bad, pve is boring and easy, story is bad, seasons are bad, events made for fun are bad, small community event is bad. What's going to happen is thousands of people are going to harass the devs. That's what going to happen.

I took the "steam numbers" chart that people are throwing around and I went into it in-depth to explain what the numbers mean and add context to them. You can see it here. It's a big image but you can zoom in and explore. It makes more sense when you see it separated by seasons; you can CLEARLY see the main trend of "low population at season end."

Another thing to consider with these numbers is the scheduling pattern. Shadowkeep released in October, Beyond Light released in November after a delay. October-November are usually months with a lot of other game releases and holidays. In 2019 and 2020, Bungie had an expansion themselves to cover that time. In 2021, there was no expansion in Oct-Nov; and that was the last time the game had the lowest population record ever. WHAT A SURPRISE. In this period, if Destiny doesn't have an expansion, people move on to play other games!!!! WOW! We have the technology to decipher the low numbers!

It's important to also note that back in 2021, that was the first time a game was delayed properly and significantly, so the year was without an expansion and there was a lull in Oct-Nov period. However, at that time, it was the first time this schedule happened and people generally didn't know how will it go. We were also kept in the dark about the seasonal story end (the infamous When Is Exorcism incident) so people had to keep coming back. Now, we're in the same situation; no new expansion in Oct-Nov, seasonal lull, nothing is happening. However, now, we know how this goes. People know how this schedule works AND we're not dealing with an extended season. We know when this season ends and there's nothing to wait for. People are more comfortable taking a break. So there's less people in Oct-Nov 2022 than there were in the previous lowest point, Oct-Nov 2021. It's almost as if there are reasons for this that go beyond "game is obviously dying."

These people also seem to be incapable of understanding that some players just... stop playing. For no specific reason. The game isn't dying, some people just lose interest. Content creators are especially guilty of this, because THEY can't stop playing, because they tied their income to a single live service game. To them, quitting the game is losing a job. Curious, maybe that influences their views about the game and about burnout and taking breaks and the quality of the content?

They simultaneously want Bungie to drop FOMO and reduce burnout, but they ALSO want for there to never be "content droughts." Which one is it? Because these two things cannot both be gone. If you want less FOMO and less burnout, then there will be less content. If you want more content, then you have to get on that burnout grindset.

It's the end of the god damn season. Yeah, nothing is happening. Yeah, fewer people are playing. Players finished their grind in the Destiny mines and are doing other things before the new season drops. Stop catastrophising it for cheap outrage bait. You not being able to take a break and having to keep making new content even when the season is ending and there no new content is your problem. Not Bungie's, not the other players'.

Bungie is not going to force their devs to crunch 80 hours per week so you can have brand new content every Tuesday that no regular player can catch up with. As it currently is, I want MORE downtime. I want seasons to be 4 months and to have less time and more downtime to catch up with stuff. Imagine the outrage though. Genuinely, society if these people would actually deliver on their promise and leave. Someone else will take your place, bro.

Also, as a final note before a dissertation in the tags: these pvp mains are weak. They whine about only having 2 new maps in 2 years. Gambit got -2 new maps. Like, literally we had 6 maps and now we have 4. LMAO. Crucible has a total of 24 maps and 8+ modes, constant updates, Iron Banner rework, multiple Trials reworks, incoming competitive rework, Crucible labs, three different sets of armour, prestige weapon loot, three different seals, entire twabs dedicated just to it. And they whine about not enough attention for the Crucible?

It's getting more attention than any other core playlist. Their problem is that they're not the ones being catered to. An update doesn't count if it doesn't satisfy mister Crucible Main #37. Fuck everyone else I guess! They are the most entitled selfish childish little pricks I've ever seen. They do not deserve Bungie talking the players at all.

it's a pretty good time to catch up with neokosmos the finish line of the first draft of book 2 is on the horizon... it will probably be finished sometime next year. then... book 3. then... editing all three books... and illustrating them (hundreds of illustrations per book)

yeah look out for neokosmos in 2042

i will continuously say that it's fucked up that we encourage children to get into the performing arts and develop great skill and then there's nothing to do w that

HELLO, I AM NOT DEAD, BUT I HAVE MANY FINAL PROJECTS AND WILL BE MILDLY INCOHERENT FOR THE NEXT 2-3 WEEKS