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cyberrose2001 · 3 months

Text

Kinktober: Day 9

Prompt: Spanking

TFA Sentinel x afab gn human!reader

Warnings: Spanking, degradation, fingering, size difference, roleplaying.

Word Count: 1,542

Got a little carried away with this... just a little... i hope y'all enjoy

@sentinelprimeswife because she requested the character and wanted to be tagged :)

"Well, well, well, if it isn't the fleshy that's been snooping around on my ship," Sentinel slams the airlock shut, turning towards you with an authoritative posture, "You didn't think we'd have surveillance cameras, did you?"

You jump at the boom of the airlock, whipping your head around to face Sentinel like a deer in headlights. All you wanted to do was check out the weird spaceship in the dead centre of the city, but naturally, you got curious and slipped past the invisible shield through a hidden opening.

Well, that's what you would say if all this wasn't roleplay.

Everyone thinks that Sentinel is organic-repulsed, that he finds humans so disgusting and pathetic. But it's all a cover-up. His attraction to humans feels shameful and is considered an abomination, in his words. So he plays pretend so as to not make the other bots suspicious. But occasionally, there's an opportunity to play for real, with a little human Jazz made friends with.

It's cute really, how much it turns Sentinel on, to wield his power over you, a tiny human that has no business gettin' flirty with alien robots.

You feign fear, not expecting him to find you so soon. Though that's a bit stupid of you to think when your hiding place was Sentinel's private office. But it wasn't entirely an accident.

"I'm sorry sir," You back yourself up against the large desk, much too large for you, "I-I was just curious-"

"Oh you were curious, were you?" Sentinel scoffs, striding over to you, "You humans have a saying, now what was it- ah yes, curiosity killed the tiger."

"Cat."

"Whatever," Sentinel rolls his optics, "My point is, you've got some nerve sneaking around on my ship, squishy. And that's enough to warrant punishment for a Cybertronian, let alone a human."

You bite your lip, "What kind of punishment are we talking about, sir?"

Sentinel looks down at you, getting an absolute kick out of the difference in size. His derma tugs at the corner, "That's for me to know and for you to find out."

You watch with ardour as he walks around to his chair behind the desk and sits down, though his posture seems more relaxed. He clears his vocalizer, a garbled static with a hidden excitement, "Well? Are ya gonna come out from the front of my desk or what?"

Taking a small gulp, you briskly walk behind his desk where he sits, standing next to his pedes. You don't dare look up at him, half out of embarrassment for what's to come and half from the sheer nausea-inducing height difference from this angle.

"Now, instead of just standing there, why don't you come closer?" Sentinel scowls, returning to his assertive personality after faltering for a moment. He leans down with an outstretched servo, and before you can even blink, he literally scoops you up to his eyeline. God if you weren't having head spins before, you sure are now.

"Hey don't do that I'll-"

"Don't even say it, you freak me out enough." Sentinel lies through his dentae, but he pulls a one-eighty real quick when he flips you on your stomach with a finger, "Arch your back struts, that's an order."

Ohhh. You know exactly where this is going now. He wants to spank you into obedience. You weren't going to lie, Sentinel is definitely the type of mech to have this kind of kink. Though a bit tamer than you were expecting, the thought of getting spanked by Sentinel sends a shiver of arousal to your core.

So you obey, arching your back for him. He, surprisingly, helps you out by bending his middle digit so you can drape your upper body over it. He's got a full view, tight jeans showing off all your humanly curves.

Sentinel's breath hitches, he can't help but bask in the warmth of your soft, pliable body. How you just melt into his servo and bend so fluidly. But he's getting distracted. He'll let himself lose control later, for now, he'll try to maintain at least some of his dignity.

"Look at you, taking orders like a good organic," Sentinel taunts, using his other servo to trace down your back, "I half expected you to put up a fight; a bit disappointing actually."

You don't have the nerve to say anything, afraid that you'll say something you'll regret. Because it's only a matter of seconds before Sentinel notices the small wet patch seeping through your jeans.

"Not talking?" Sentinel teases again, trailing a digit to your ass, "I guess I'll just have to make you scream."

Sentinel wiggles his digit behind the waistband of your jeans, pulling them down to your knees. If he didn't notice how wet you were before, he most certainly does now. He groans at the sight of the foreign sticky fluid soaking through your underwear, his spike involuntarily pulses behind his panel. Oh, what he would give to bend you over his desk right now. But you're far too small for his length.

"If my knowledge of humans is correct, I would say that you like this." Sentinel runs his fingertip across your ass, "How pathetic."

Before you could open your mouth to actually give him a comeback, he strikes the fat of your ass with a flick of his digit. A simple move on his part, but it was enough force to send you forward and make you cry out.

"There's your first one," Sentinel soothes the area, rubbing the reddened area gently, "Let's see how much more you can take, trespasser."

He does it again with just as much force but on your other ass cheek, watching how the soft flesh jiggles. Though he's 'punishing' you, he watches your every move and listens out for your safe word, making sure he's not pushing you to your limit.

A gush of arousal seeps between your legs at the third slap, back arching outwards like a cat with each one in a kneejerk reaction. Tears start to prick at your eyes at the sting, but you don't bother wiping them away. You know Sentinel likes to see the reactions he gets out of you.

Nearly half an hour passes, and your ass is red-raw, jeans ripped off long ago, crumpled on the desk. You're like a trembling leaf in his servo, which now collects a small pool of your fluids in his palm. You never once complained or back-chatted, taking your punishment like a good little organic. Sentinel's spike slipped past his array a while ago, and now resorts to grinding against the desk in replacement for his hands being full.

"One more," Sentinel pants, hips softly grinding against the desk, "Be a good little human and take one more for me..."

"Sentinel, please..." You whimper out, prepping yourself for the next sting. It comes swiftly, causing a shaky cry from you. But you take it, letting the tears run down your face and onto the digit you rest heavily on.

"Good... very good," Sentinel groans, rewarding you with a few pats on your back, "You took that a lot better than expected, I suppose you deserve a little repayment."

You half expected him to slap you again, but he doesn't. Instead, he moves your underwear to the side and rubs the tip of his digit against your soaking slit. The relief of finally getting some stimulation to your numbed nervous system causes a rush of exhilaration, and you can't help but grind against his digit.

"Please... I've been good," You shiver as you feel him press past your folds, "I promise I won't snoop around on your ship again I swear- nghffh!"

"I've heard enough of your yapping," Sentinel pushes his digit the rest of the way inside you, growling at how hot and tight you feel, "All I wanna hear from you now is those little whimpers, you understand?"

"Mhm," You moan as he thrusts and curls inside you, wet squishy sounds accompanying your whimpers, "Yes, sir."

"Good little organic..." Sentinel pants, resuming his grinding against the desk, focusing on how your tight cunt eagerly swallows him up, "Primus, I bet you'd look so tiny on my spike, wouldn't you?"

"Yes sir," You're so fucking desperate to cum at this point, you start bouncing your ass on his finger, imagining it's his thick spike stretching and filling you out, "Fuck... nffnn-"

"Bet you'd be so warm too," He groans, close to finishing on his own, "Frag it-"

Sentinel cries out as he shoots thick ropes of transfuid across his desk, spike throbbing with yearning. Though trembling through his overload, his relentless thrusts of his digit buried inside you only hasten.

And before long, he's watching you cum hard around his finger, impaling yourself as much as you can on him. You cry, scream and jerk as you work yourself through it. Fluid drips from between your shaking thighs, running down your legs as you collapse on his hand.

Sentinel half-laughs half sighs in exhaustion, slipping his finger out and flopping back onto his chair. He lifts you back to his level, petting your limp form with a shaky servo, "Guess you're good for somethin' after all, human."

#tfa #tfa sentinel #tfa sentinel x reader #tfa x reader #transformers animated x reader #transformers x reader #valveplug #cyberrosewrites #kinktober 2023 #cyberroses kinktober 2023

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percheduphere · 6 months

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What's frustrating about being a supporter of a mlm ship is the immediate presumption of the shippers' identity as a "cis heterosexual woman" who fetishsizes homosexuality (not that that problem doesn't exist, but that's not what this post is for).

Our identities also include:

Cis gay man

Gay/bi/pan trans/woman/man/enby

Cis/trans polyamorous gay/bi/pan woman/man/enby

Cis/trans gay/bi/panromantic asexual woman/man/enby

On and on, the intersections within the LGBTAI+ community are infinite.

Yet our mainstream media shies away from canonizing mlm relationships on screen, by whatever arbitrary measure deemed correct by the heteronormative power structure, which means bi or pansexuality and gender fluidity can be masked beneath an optically cis heterosexual relationship that is spoken of as queer only in dialogue.

I am a queer person. The argument I most often see is that being in a relationship with someone of the opposite gender doesn't negate a person's bi or pansexuality. This is ABSOLUTELY TRUE in real life. I'm in such a partnership, and here's the thing ...

When I share my queer identity with others and they see my partner of 15 years, the question I get asked is:

"How can you still be ×-sexual if you're in a heterosexual relationship?"

It is as though, by committing to someone who presents as the opposite gender, my lived experience (all the people I loved deeply in the past; the pain of coming out not once, not twice, but three times; the pain of permanently cutting off people in my life) was completely erased. My partner and I are optically viewed as "straight" despite how we actually define our individual genders and sexuality. Despite continuing to feel queer attraction. Despite continuing to remember previous queer loves with incredible fondness. Despite still celebrating with friends in the community and proudly bearing my flags.

This is why I truly believe there needs to be a greater push for more same-sex representation ON SCREEN in the MAINSTREAM. We cannot have authentic stories of the queer experience without it. It is a stepping stone to representing all the other identities that are swept under the rug. There is a big difference between knowing who you are in real life and interpreting what big money media is doing with your identity for the sake of pleasing the heteronormative masses and offering only subtext for the queer community in order to get the highest amount of views. Subtext, which by the way, is immediately dismissed as reading too deeply into it!

Well, guess what? Being queer inherently means reading deeply into subtext. This has been our language for decades. I should know, I'm OLD. Picking up subtle cues was and is part of queer courtship in real life because you absolutely could not out yourself in public. In more than half of the U.S. that is STILL the case!

I have a very close cis straight friend who thought Korrasami came out of nowhere. I had to sit them down and explain all the little cues, including the infamous hairpin in Asami's lips close-up. They remarked, "Wow, that's a lot of work. Is that how it worked when you tried to meet someone in public?"

YES! And it's 2023 coming on 2024, and we still have to go through this extra bullshit cis heterosexual people take for granted! If there is even a hint of queer mlm romance, you know what happens? They either get separated or killed or BOTH!

They are separating us and killing us on screen because we can only exist in subtext and tragedy. And then, when we dare to hope another ship might make it, that finally, we will have our moment in the sun, we are told:

"You weren't baited. Nothing was confirmed. What did you expect? They're just friends. You looked too deeply into it and did this to yourself. You are gross and keep migrating from one gay ship to another, you homosexual fetishsizing misogynistic pervert."

These people take intersectional social justice language and weaponize it against us. They moralize us on our own identities without even knowing who we are or what we've been through. They think we're desperate and delusional for the audacity of hoping we might see a happy ending that reflects us in the mainstream.

I am so, so tired.

#lgbtqia #lgbtq community #queer community #queer #representation matters #lgbt representation #queer representation #loki #mobius #lokius #loki series #dean winchester #castiel #destiel #house md #gregory house #james wilson #hilson

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weenwrites · 1 year

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Could you write scenarios where tfp Megatron, Optimus, and Predaking meet a kitsune/nine-tailed fox reader who is constantly sleeping but the reason is because they see the future in their dreams

Caught Up In The Future

Pairing - Romantic Category - Headcanons Trigger Warnings - None

Ween says:"Half-way through writing I just realized I misread your request and I wrote something angsty with the reader as an S/O instead. I was considering scraping the entire work and rewriting it, but I couldn't think of anything interesting, so I hope this is fine instead. I'm sorry for the slip-up!"

Predaking let out a low, annoyed growl, bothered by all the commotion outside the ship. The buzzing saws, the screeching of metal, the back and forth lumbering of vehicons who were helping one another haul heavy metal scraps to and fro—all of it was getting on the predacon’s nerves. So with a huffy growl, he shifted positions and covered his head with his massive, scaly claws before curling up tighter, as if that would help him in any way, which it didn’t.

Out of the corner of his bright, flaxen optics, he caught sight of Y/N, sitting just meters away from him with their eyes closed, legs folded, and tails tapping against the floor. At least he wasn’t the only one annoyed by all the commotion outside, he thought.

And while he’d usually be upset that they were being disturbed as well, he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t happy to see them awake. He hardly sees them awake from day to day, and while he was free to wake them whenever he pleased, he felt—he wasn’t sure how to put it into words. It was the idea that he had to wake them up in order to spend time with them and speak with them, rather than them choosing to spend time with him that upset him greatly. Even when they began “dating”, they rarely spent much time together which upset him even more.

As his claws began to curl and his tail began to beat against the metal floor, Y/N opened their eyes and cast him a glance.

“You’re upset.” They said.

He growled, proving their suspicions correct. His plates suddenly hissed and began shifting as he transformed into his rootmode.

“Wanna chat about it, big guy?”

“Why do you choose to rest so long?”

"Ah, so it's not just the noise that's bothering you," they shrugged, “I’m an organism that needs a lot of sleep, I’m not as efficient as—“

“You have misunderstood me.” He interjected.

“Hm?”

“You sleep to see into the future, but of what use is the future if you are not there to experience it yourself?”

“I am experiencing it,” they replied casually, “I’m experiencing it through my dreams.”

“That is not the same as in the flesh.”

“Guess we have differing ideas of what’s ‘experiencing it’ and what isn’t.” They remarked, "and besides, that way I can tell you what happens next before you experience it."

"That is all you talk to me of." He grumbled.

The two paused for a moment.

“I recall that you mentioned the realities you witness through your dreams are ones without you.” He began again, “I do not understand why you would wish to continue viewing such realities. Why waste your time with such menial visions when you could relish in the present with me?”

Y/N turned to fully meet Predaking’s gaze—the once prideful and cocky look in his optics had faded and given way to a confused and hurt look, veiled by an attempt to look indifferent.

“Am I of any importance to you?” He questioned.

“Well of course you are.”

“Then why do I not feel that you are being sincere?” He rumbled.

“I understand that my recent actions aren’t really supporting what I have to say, but I promise that you are important to me,” they urged, “I’m sorry, Predaking, that I’ve been spending too much time sleeping rather than being around you. I promise you that after today I’ll try my best to do better for you and for us.”

He didn’t look completely convinced, but, a small sliver of hope was seen in his optics.

“How about we spend some time together? Right now? We could go out for a walk,” They offered, “if you aren’t busy?”

“That… Would be pleasant.” He replied, scooping them up into his hands before drawing himself to full height.

“Yeah, it beats staying in a noisy ship.” They added on the way out the door—

Well, that's how he hoped it could turn out, but reality was always more disappointing than his hopeful fantasies. He couldn't tell them, not now, not while they still slept away—contrary to his imaginary version of them—left completely undisturbed by all the noise outside unlike he was.

With a low growl, he stood up and sauntered out of the habsuite. A nice change of scenery would relieve him from all the annoying noise, with or without their company.

#tfp imagines #tfp scenarios #tfp x reader #tfp predaking #predaking x reader #x reader #reader insert #self insert #weenwrites

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brandwhoreafterdark · 1 year

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You take requests right?

Could you maybe do something with Cliffcee? With Arcee topping?

(I'm sorry if i sound rude im just extremely thristy)

Anon I just want you to know that I love you. You don't sound rude at all and I, too, am thirsty for this ship. Dom top Arcee is an S-tier fantasy and her eager spike-hungry bottom Cliffjumper just makes it even better

He looks so good bent over like that.

Knees tucked beneath his body on the berth, chassis down and neck craned to the side so his cheek rests against a pillow, optics trained on her. They're hazy and foggy with steam, frame overheating with charge. His thighs are spread, sloppy valve sending thick droplets of lubricant dribbling down his legs, pooling in little glowy puddles around his knees. His spike bobs and quivers with every shuddering ventilation.

"'Cee…" he finally breaks the silence, glossa poking out a little as he pants. "C'mon… 'nuff already-"

"Shut up," she swats his aft. "I'm enjoying the view."

He whines and grumbles but doesn't say anything else, twitching as another bead of lube slid out of him.

Arcee continues to watch. His valve is so beautiful, swollen up from far too much stimulation, wet and wide open and ready just for her. Whenever she decides to claim her prize. Not yet. She takes a silent holocap, saved to her memory files for later.

Her mate gulps. "C- Cee…!" There's a note of urgency in his voice now. "P… please…"

It's whispered, almost shamefully, and she grins. Always so stubborn. Never did like asking for help.

"Alright."

He gives a yelp of victory as her thumb and forefinger slide easily into his valve, disconnecting the magnetized toy that had been nestled to his ceiling node for the past several magacycles. It was a relatively simple little bit–egg shaped, not even the length of her finger, but able to stick to their insides and vibrate endlessly. Cliffjumper shudders with relief.

The berth creaks softly as she climbs up behind him. Rises onto her knees, and though his view is obstructed, he hears her panels retract and he knows exactly what her spike looks like. It's just like her, long and slender, silver with those blue ridges that he loves so much, pink biolights thrumming up and down the length. His valve clenches at the memory, more slick escaping the lips.

One hand finds purchase on his right hip, and the other grabs his left horn. It's rough and pure, molten pleasure blows through his veins. His whole body bucks and writhes, and as his back is arched, her spike slams into him with a fluid, brutal motion.

Cliffjumper crashes into a wailing overload, valve spasming and spiralling tightly around the length impaling him. His optics flicker wildly as his visual feed corrupts, and he swears loudly, "Frag frag frag oh frag YES r- right- right the- ere-!"

It threatens to overwhelm him and he turns his face into the mattress, sobs of pleasure wrenching their way out of his throat no matter how hard he tries to hold them back. Arcee fucks him through the overload, still tugging his horns back like he's a wild mechanimal she's wrangling. He loves it, can't get enough of it–so much so that he can't stop a full system reboot.

Cliffjumper goes limp beneath her but Arcee doesn't stop. She can feel in their bond that he's fine. More than fine, even. If she stopped now, he'd pout.

He comes back around to the filthy, sloppy sounds of his valve and the sharp clang of metal every few seconds. His sensors are glowing happily, and already another overload is building. He looks up at his mate, optics half shuddered a single rivulet of drool sneaking past his lip plates, and all he can think is, 'Primus I hope we go all night.'

#valveplug #cliffjumper #arcee #brandwhore writes #listen you cannot convince me that arcee didn't grab his horns during sex. you cant

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melishade · 1 year

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U know, of all TFP characters that you imagine how they feel if they in AOP story, why dont u try shockwave ? I probably missed it when u did mention him. If u cant define how he would adapted in this story, here's the reference for u. Its from fanfic Professor Shockwave, a RWBY and TFP xover story. Apologize if I do this based on my personal suggestion, cause I kinda liked him. Apologize too for my bad English, since its not my mother language. Thx

It's okay if English isn't your first language. I do get the gist of your question. However, I'm not really a fan of the show RWBY. Sometimes I'll keep tabs on what's going on, but I've never watched the series in full. So I don't think I'd connect with the crossover your talking about.

However, if there are any of you who are fans of RWBY and TFP, Professor Shockwave is a fanfiction recommendation. Give the author some views and love.

But about TFP Shockwave,

He’s a bit of a mystery to me in regards to his emotions. In the aligned continuity, like Transformers Exodus and Exile, he emotes more than what we see in comparison to the show. The times that Shockwave is in the series, he dictates many of his actions and other people’s actions through logic. Are actions and responses logical or illogical? He was clearly hurt for being left behind, but immediately decides that Starscream’s response was logical. The one time I remember really emoting, really being angry, was when he called out Starscream for his treachery for the destruction of Project Predacon and 0.5 seconds away from taking out his optic. Even Megatron has considered Shockwave an anomaly and someone untrustworthy in Exodus, but he considered Shockwave useful.

We also know that Shockwave values his experimentations and his pet projects and will defy Primus on a regular basis to get what he wants. The Decepticons would give him the resources to do that, the Autobots would not. Which begs the overall question:

Would TFP Shockwave care enough about TFP Megatron’s defection and exile from Cybertron? Let’s find out.

So here’s how we start this story: once TFP Shockwave realizes that the Unicron threat is gone, and his creation have defected from him, he decides to leave Cybertron with a predacon bone he managed to salvage. He has no place there, and it would be illogical to remain on a world controlled by the Autobots. He’s off, doing his own thing, finding peace in his experimentation. That is until he stumbles across a few powerful readings on his vessel, followed by another reading that was tainted with energon. Shockwave follows it to the AOT world, but instead of going to Paradis, he goes to Marley, because there are more surges there.

He hides his ship and find himself near a battlefield, with an energon-powered Zeke Jaeger demolishing Middle Eastern forces. Shockwave, decides to use this to his advantage. He wants to know more about Zeke and the power he holds (possibly to replicate it for himself) and decides to aid Zeke in destroying Middle Eastern forces. The Marleyans are startled and grateful for Shockwave’s help, but Zeke is understandably suspicious, especially with the cannon for an arm. And Shockwave may think based on logic, but he can lie. He can use deception. He proclaims he was a former scientist who his government tortured and maimed for questioning the system that killed so many Cybertronians. He managed to escape them, but the damage was already done, and he now looks like this. Marleyans see the reward is worth more than the risk and decide to do an uneasy alliance with him.

Zeke keeps it from Megatron, but Megatron get suspicious at the technological advancements surging from Marley at an unsteady rate. It’s throwing him off. Shockwave is given free reign to experiment on the pure energon titans. Calvi and the other Marleyans are excited at the prospects, but Magath is nervous about Shockwave’s methods. They are unhinged, unethical. Magath brings this up to Calvi, but Calvi is content with the results and lets Shockwave work.

Meanwhile, Shockwave, is gathering every single piece of information about the titans and titan shifters. Their powers, skills, weaknesses, regenerative abilities, all of it. And he’s conducting his own experiments behind the scenes to see if he can apply the regenerative abilities to Cybertronian metal. Make a new creation under his control that will obey his every command. But...his direction is aimless. Why is he even creating it? What is it for? He then hears about the intel of Paradis having Optimus Prime and a Flying Titan, and Shockwave thinks this is illogical. He doesn’t care about a ‘Flying Titan’ half of all of Cybertron can fly. So he doesn’t think twice about it being Megatron. Hell, he’ll probably think it’s Windblade or something. No, what’s illogical is the fact that Optimus is supposedly alive and on the island. He voices his theory that this Optimus is a fraud, since Autobot chatter had reported him deceased, and unless he can crawl out of the core of their planet and grab a ship, the Optimus is a fraud. Shockwave also brings up the fact that the title of ‘Prime’ is the highest honor anyone on Cybertron can receive and compares it to being ordained by God (which it technically is).

However, the ruse doesn’t last, because Megatron does his own digging and discovers the new models that look eerily similar to Shockwave’s designs. Megatron can’t trust Zeke with this information; he’s certain that he’s been keeping secrets, so he decides to tail the Marleyan Military, including the Warriors, and spots them with Shockwave’s even more fucked up titan experiment and screams in his regular voice:

youtube

Because first of all, HOW THE FUCK DO YOU GET TRICKED INTO HELPING SHOCKWAVE?! Second, SHIT, IT’S SHOCKWAVE! Shockwave is stunned because he recognizes Megatron’s voice, and Megatron has no choice but to come flying down in his actual form and ram into Shockwave. And Shockwave is still trying to compute because, he’s the Flying Titan? He’s helping humans? He’s helping Optimus Prime? He’s no longer working with the Decepticons? What happened to Starscream then? All their endeavors? It’s all illogical, and the fact that it’s illogical gets him mad. Shockwave decides to say fuck it and betrays the Marleyans right then and there. He got what he wanted anyway.

Shockwave releases one of his own experiments, and he was successful in creating a Predacon clone with the regenerative properties of a titan shifter. The Predacon kills majority of Marleyan Military save for Magath since Pieck managed to save his life before the Predacon got to him. Zeke and Reiner try to fight the Predacon off but are easily beaten, and Megatron is currently dealing with Shockwave. And Shockwave is demanding an explanation out of him, but Megatron refuses to give him one. It’s not like Shockwave would care about that anyway. All you cared about were your botched experiments and tampering with creation.

“That may be true, but I did not waste the time of other Decepticons with an illogical conquest that resulted in the exile of our planet,” Shockwave declared.

He’s not mad with Megatron in particular; he’s mad at the time wasted. But the Predacon is a problem, and Zeke is out. Megatron can’t do it on his own. So he makes a decision: He cuts Zeke and grabs him and Reiner and transforms before ordering Pieck to climb on, with Magath still in her mouth. But the Predacon manages to grab Porco before Pieck can get him and they have no choice but to flee. Megatron carries all of them back to Paradis which shocks the Survey Corps because what the hell are they doing here. But Megatron is still pissed and grabs Pieck by the throat and slams her into the ground, calling Magath out for his complete and utter foolishness. Optimus has to pry Megatron off of Pieck.

“What the hell is going on?!” Hanji demanded, “Why the fuck are they here?!”

“Shockwave!” Megatron shouts, causing Optimus to freeze and let him go. “Those slagging fools were working with Shockwave! That’s why their technology had gotten so advanced!”

“We were working against you devils! We took the-!”

Megatron slams his fist into the ground. “You think Shockwave cares about what you want! You were a means to an end! It was only a matter of time before he betrayed you! Because of you, he’s managed to create a Predacon with regenerative properties!”

“What?!” Optimus exclaimed.

“He’s going to hold this entire world hostage because of your arrogance and idiocy!” Megatron yells, “Damn it all!”

“W-who is Shockwave?” Armin trembled.

Optimus looked back at Megatron, who was still fuming in anger. “Megatron’s key scientist during the great war. Devoid of emotion and guided by his own definition of logic, Shockwave has been well known for his infamous and unethical experiments. The Cortical Psychic Patch, which allows one to see into the minds of another Cybertronian by force. The creation of the space bridge: a mode of transportation lost to Cybertron for eons. And his most recent experiment.”

Optimus turns to the Marleyans. “Which you all saw-,”

“The Predacon,” Megatron explained, “An ancient beast that fed off of Cybertronians. They went extinct during the Great Cataclysm that befell our world. With mere scraps on our dead planet, he brought Predacons back, with the ability to transform and have sentience like the rest of modern day Cybertronians. Shockwave tampers with creation because he wants to. It’s the one thing that drives him, and you just gave someone who defies Primus’ wishes information about the power of the titans! Your arrogance has doomed Marley and this world!”

“Our family,” Reiner finally managed to muster.

“Consider them dead until further notice,” Megatron declared coldly, “With the entirety of Marleyan military dead, and an enormous supply of titan serums and Eldians in Marley, Shockwave will continue what he started. Mourn your loved ones. They are gone.”

And…the Marleyans are devastated by the response. They turn to Optimus, hoping this is some kind of joke, but even Optimus’ face looks grim. Reiner and Pieck just break down crying, and Magath and Zeke are in stunned horror. Porco, Annie, the Warrior Cadets, their families are doomed, and they were helpless to do anything about it.

The 104th…don’t know how to feel about this. Because Reiner and Zeke have been the cause of their pain. They should be getting what they deserve, but the fact that Optimus and Megatron look concerned, makes them reconsider.

SO WELCOME TO THE DARK TIMELINE FOLKS!!!! Which include:

-Shockwave holding the entire world hostage with his creation, along with him creating new botched experiments. Also, Shockwave is ordering Marleyan scientists to hand over Eldians and the energon serum to experiment on pure titans. Some of whom include Zeke’s grandparents and Pieck’s father. Marley decided to give the weaker Eldians first. However, Shockwave is not stupid, and demands that a Warrior Cadet is given to him for further analysis or the Predacon is unleashed. And guess who got a little impulsive and couldn’t keep her mouth shut: Gabi, you dumb little shit!

-Paradis doesn’t know exactly what to do here because they fucking weren’t expecting this! Because Shockwave is fucking psycho! Optimus and Megatron are literally explaining what the hell Shockwave’s capable of and how he has no moral compass.

“Your moral compass is a fucking spinning pistol!” Hanji shouts at Megatron.

“At least mine slagging exists!” Megatron shot back.

-Meanwhile, the Warriors are a complicated case. They ultimately decide to grant immunity in exchange for their help in defeating Shockwave, but they are being watched like hawks, and Reiner is taking the full brunt of Paradis’ anger for the Shinganshina attack. Pieck is the only one that has the most free reign (if you can call it that) because she technically hasn’t done anything wrong to them. Although Megatron is fucking pissed at Zeke for keeping this shit from him. He doesn’t call Zeke outright or expose him right then and there, but he does tell the Survey Corps about his deception. They still need him, or at the very least they need him out of Shockwave’s hands. Also Megatron still hasn’t discovered Zeke’s intentions and whether or not there’s a plan to betray the island long term.

-Actually that’s another thing, Megatron didn’t save the remaining warriors because he was being kind. He needed them out of Shockwave’s hands because who knows what else Shockwave would accomplish.

-There is some good news to this somehow: Annie, who was kept underground for the duration of this for energon experiments from Marley, manages to get out due to the chaos. She manages to grab her father, the remaining warrior cadets, and a few others from Liberio and are now on the run. Willy ends up finding out about this and aids Annie and the others. A resistance against Shockwave begins to form in Marley.

-Meanwhile, Porco is just being put through the ringer of torture and experimentation with Gabi watching in horror. She begs Shockwave to stop and tries to say that they are good Eldians.

“Illogical. There are no good Eldians or bad Eldians,” Shockwave explains, “All of you are Eldians, all of you will be feared and hated until this world collapses in on itself or is destroyed by an outside force.”

“We just wanted to be free,” Gabi pleads with tears coming down her face.

“You were never going to be free,” Shockwave declares, “After the destruction of Paradis, the world leaders had a secret agreement to execute all remaining Eldians throughout the world.”

“Liar!” Gabi screamed at him.

“It is the only logical solution to peace on your world,” Shockwave reasoned, “Good or evil, which is a quite subjective notion, you can transform into a mindless beast that eats insects. The world would not feel safe unless all Eldians are gone. Your idea of a world where good Eldians can live freely is illogical and impractical.”

Gabi is just screaming liar at this point and Shockwave activated the shock system he has for Gabi’s cage to knock her out and shut her up.

(I might actually continue this timeline. The dark timeline is super fun. Lol.)

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dandydemidoesfandoms · 1 year

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In the need for a lovely meta deep dive.

Lovely Writer, it is. (Its a long one, sorry not sorry)

Gene and Nubsib are great but this show as a whole is an amazing pointed look at the problematic layers in the BL world and how different parties contribute to it.

Addressing the lack of consent, the use of coercion, and overall toxic masculine machismo used as a vehicle to get to NSFW scenes. It is refreshing that we see the managers who are notorious for being predatory in these shows actually be supportive and have dimension to their characters. And big ups to Nubsib for refusing to hook up with a drunk Gene.

As a demisexual, I appreciate the conversations around the egregious and gratuitous use of sex to cover for bad scripts and the trend of ignoring the plot for the sake of sex.

The fans' unhinged entitlement and commodification of an actor, the dehumanization and puppetry in fan service, and the hostile industry's romanticism of SA. Possessive parasocial relationships.

The show also does a great job of addressing the subversive caricature assumptions and stereotypes regarding the LGBT+ community within the script and in the shows IRL. The callouts to the hypocrisy and those disrespectful views towards the gay community while also marketing said gayness to straight women. Also, the pressure to come out or stay in the closet is based on how the news can be again commodified.

Oh the coming out scenes in the second half of the show had me clenching everything. It was very tense and you see the subtle hypocrisy in the parents who never consider the possibility of their children being anything but straight.

Homophobia vs Fear of Retaliation: Even though Gene's dad was in love with a man once, he is still not immediately accepting of his son's sexuality. I was cheering for the gumption and boldness when Gene's brother threw that back at his father and reminded him that he was bisexual. It was nice that the father was more supportive and opened up about the fact that his opposition came from fear of his son going through similar trials and pain. Its a nice change from the usual trope of a shitty and homophobic father and open minded.

The continued digs at optics and performativity. Acting, couples, products, fan service, stereotypes, gender norms, media, etc etc.

At its core we have Gene and Nubsib who are dealing with different aspects of all of these issues and the rapid nature of the media, from opposite sides of the lens. We see this a great deal in the Press Conference episode or as I call it, Ghost Ship v Show Ship.

The unreliable narrative across the board is done in a very tongue and cheek way which I appreciate. Even until the end, it's not even hiding what it's doing. Gene was literally the creator of this show that the fans supposedly loved but they were quick to hate him simply for being the person Nubsib actually want to be with.

Though, Aoey irks me and needs more therapy then there are days in the century. I did appreciate the continued dig at the obsessive nature of the fans and how we see that contribute to Aoey's declining mental state . But I refuse to feel more than the requisite level of sympathy for this bottle of chaos especially after the waterworks show on a Live he did to capitalize on the hate being thrown at Gene. Aoey is what I would describe as a wrecking ball. Not malicious, but destructive all the same. He doesn't spend much time thinking about the consequences of his actions and only focuses on the possibility for attention and love which he craves to the point of obsession. (Like I said, so much therapy). But the show illustrates that flawlessly and shows him alone at the end due to his actions, full of fame but it's hollow. Mhok was right there but some people craft these self-fulfilling prophecies and force the other shoe to drop instead of accepting love. I'm glad that the show allows Mhok to move on.

Especially at the end where we see Gene and Nubsib forced to lie about their relationship which predates their fame or the show because of how strangers on the internet feel, how it affects the show (within the show) actual ship, and the genuine obsession with the "ghost ship". Toxic behavior all around hurts everyone for the sake of coin. Nubsib was ready to just give up his career if it meant he could be with the one he loved but Gene, ever the practical one, wasn't willing to allow him to destroy his job. But they thankfully addressed that the temporary nature of putting out media fires was never ending because of the toxic expectations the industry and the fans had.

In short, Lovely Writer did an amazing job of addressing so many of the overarching issues that plague the industry by being a show within a show, a story within a story, and showing the facets of both. And the last scene was a great tie-in, continuing to hint that none and all of it was real at the same time.

I am all for appreciating and loving the acting in a show but I wish more people understood that the people doing the acting are not the characters. And I am not owed their time outside of that. And this show as well as the War of Y are doing good work by continuing to point out the trappings and pitfalls beneath the glitz, sheet masks, snack placements, and all the pretty people.

#bl drama #lovely writer #gene x nubsib #dandy demi rambles #meta breakdowns

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lifetimeshipper · 2 years

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Cursed Bond

Chapter 12

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

The Vehicon gets back to the ship and heads straight to Med Bay. He goes in and Knock Out and Breakdown look over at him, "What happened to you?" Knock Out asked as he cringed at the sight of his armor being torn and dented.

Groaning as he lay on the berth the Vehicon said only one word, "Wheeljack."

"The Wrecker gave you a beating?"

"Yeah."

Knock Out looked him over, "He gave you a good beating. Let me guess, he was trying to get the location of the ship."

"Yes, but I didn't give it to him," the purple bot winced.

"Good," Knock Out said as he got to work on fixing up his injuries.

The Vehicon spotted Airachnid laying in another berth looking almost dead, "What happened to her?"

"Megatron punished her because she put Arcee in harm's way," Breakdown spoke up.

"Oh... He must have been really pissed."

"That's a bit of an understatement, she nearly went offline," Knock Out replied.

"Oh wow."

"Yeah, so make a mental note, do not put Arcee in any danger."

"I will, all Decepticons better keep that in mind."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Wheeljack managed to move the view of the tracker onto the big monitor so they could keep a lookout. They soon get the location of where the ship is, "We know where the ship is, now to get inside," Bulkhead said as he slammed his fist into his palm, ready to bash some Decepticons.

"Ratchet, open up a Ground Bridge," Optimus ordered. Ratchet nodded and opened a Ground Bridge.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Knock Out was fixing up the Vehicon's armor when he spotted something, "What's this?"

"What's what?" The Vehicon asked as Megatron walked in to check on Airachnid's condition.

Knock Out brought out the thing and examined it. He then looked at Megatron with wide optics, "My lord, it's a tracker! He was fighting the Wrecker and it seems he placed a tracker on him."

"Place every soldier in the main rooms and the hallway," Megatron growled as he glared at the wounded Vehicon. With that, he ran off to find Arcee, if Wheeljack managed to get the bracelet off he didn't want to think about what would happen. Knock Out and Breakdown went to inform the soldiers. Before they knew it the Autobots were on board and they were being attacked.

Arcee looked up when she heard the commotion, "What on Cybertron is going on?" She asked herself as she opened the door. As soon as she opened the door she ran into someone. She looks up to see a white mech standing in front of her, the same one that tried to hug her before. He grabbed her and pushed her into the room then he closed and locked the door. With a startled yelp, she looked at him in confusion and anger, "You!" She growled as she unsheathed her wrist blades and took her battle stance.

"Arcee, I'm not here to hurt you I'm here to save you. Megatron has reset your processor."

"Yeah right, Megatron would never do that. Sorry, but you have me confused for someone else," she narrowed her optics.

"No, I don't. You and I had a thing going, we fell in love a long time ago and even made plans to mate. But then Megatron took you and made you his mate and now he's reset your processor through that bracelet. He's making you think you're in love with him and you belong with him."

"I do belong with him and I love him," the femme insisted.

"No, you don't. Take the bracelet off and I'll prove it."

Arcee narrowed her optics at him, "Fine, and I'll prove to you that no matter what I will always love Megatron," she huffed as she started to take off the bracelet.

Wheeljack felt a ping of pain in his spark after hearing that, he hopes that was not true. I'm right, I know she'll come to see reason once she takes off the bracelet.

Arcee takes off the bracelet and suddenly her helm starts hurting and she starts feeling all dizzy and light-headed. She leans against the berth as she goes down to one knee. She looks up at the mech standing there, "Wheeljack?"

Wheeljack knelt beside her, happy that she said his name, "Yeah, it's me. What do you remember?" He asked as he hesitantly placed a gentle servo on her cheek.

"Everything's coming at me in a blur, I can't really tell. But I remember you and a bit of our time together."

"Come on, let's get you out of here," he smiled as he offered his servo to help her up.

Just when she was getting ready to take his servo she grabbed her helm and hollered in pain. She then grabbed at her chest as she collapsed to the floor.

"Arcee!" Wheeljack quickly caught her and gently placed her on the berth, "Talk to me! What's wrong?"

"I... don't know... My helm and my spark chamber just started hurting."

Wheeljack looked at the bracelet device and thinking it was the cause he stomped on it, crushing it into millions of pieces. Then the door opened and Megatron appeared with his arm cannon at the ready to shoot, "Get away from my mate!"

Wheeljack transformed his servos to his blasters, "She is not your mate, Megatron," he growled as he stood protectively in front of Arcee.

Megatron looks down after seeing a tiny shimmer out of the corner of his optic and sees the bracelet in pieces. He looks back at Wheeljack and growls, "You'll never get her back, I won't let you!" He shouts as he charges Wheeljack. Just as Wheeljack was about to charge a blaster went off from behind him, hitting Megatron square in the chest.

He slid back from the impact but it didn't really do him much harm, he became furious and charged at Wheeljack again. He punched him then grabbed him and threw him into the wall. After he threw Wheeljack into the wall he goes over and hits Arcee, knocking her off the berth.

Hearing Arcee cry out Wheeljack charged at Megatron, shooting at him. He wasn't going to let the warlord hurt his femme again. Megatron raised his arm to block the shots as he ran towards him and he gave him a swift punch. Wheeljack felt his body slam into the wall and landed next to Arcee, there had to be a way to stop Megatron.

While he's looking at Megatron he feels a zap of electricity going through him, he sees Soundwave come up next to Megatron before he blacks out. Megatron turned to Soundwave, "Get rid of him."

Soundwave nodded and picked up the knocked-out Wrecker with his appendages and walked out, "Wheeljack!" Arcee yells out as she tries to go after them, but Megatron stops her as he wraps his servo around her waist and threw her onto the berth. Arcee glared at him as she tried to punch him in the stomach. He caught her servo and placed it above her helm as he laid her down on the berth.

Yelling in pain she glared at him, "No matter how many times you beat him he will always find me," she growled.

Megatron rolled his optics, "I'm not even hurting you."

"Tell that to my chest and processor."

Megatron looks at her confused, "Your chest and processor? I haven't even done anything to your chest and processor."

"From that stupid bracelet you gave me, I should have known better than to put it on."

"It can affect your processor a bit but not your chest."

"Then explain the pain in my spark chamber."

Megatron's confusion increases, he has no idea what she's talking about, "I don't know why you're getting pain in your spark chamber."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Soundwave was dragging Wheeljack through the corridors to go dispose of him when he was knocked in the back of his helm. He fell to the ground then looked up and saw Bulkhead there, he removed Soundwave's appendages off of Wheeljack before picking him up. Optimus and Bumblebee came along and they helped him carry Wheeljack off.

A Ground Bridge opened up and they went through heading back to base, "Arcee," Wheeljack mumbled as they went through the Ground Bridge. They get into the base and they lay him down on a berth and Ratchet takes a look at him.

"How is he, Ratchet?" Bulkhead asked.

"He just got some dents and a shock, he'll be just fine after some rest."

Sometime later Wheeljack wakes up, "Jackie, what happened?" Bulkhead asked.

Wheeljack groaned as he sat up and rubbed the back of his helm, "Soundwave got the jump on me," he sighed as he looked around, "Megatron still has her, doesn't he?"

"Yeah, sorry," Bulkhead replied with his optics downcasted.

"Does she still have the bracelet on?" Optimus asked.

"No, thank Primus for that. I crushed it pretty good, at least Megatron can't use it on her anymore."

"That's good. Now, all we need to do is get her away from Megatron, somehow."

"Yeah, what's the expression? Third time's the charm?" Wheeljack asked.

"You got it," Miko said as she held up two thumbs. Wheeljack smiled before it slowly turned into a frown, he was still worried about Arcee.

"Now what do we do? Megatron no doubt will double the shield and the guards," Bulkhead stated.

"We'll figure something out," Wheeljack spoke with determination.

"Yes, I believe we will," Optimus said.

#fanfic #transformers fanfic #transformers prime #tfp #wheeljack #arcee #megatron #tfp wheeljack #tfp arcee #tfp megatron #wheeljack x arcee #wheelcee #romance #one-sided love #obsession #forceful mating #cursed sparkbond

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best-enemies · 2 years

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Why 'The Doctor Falls' is one of the most important Thoschei episodes

It's been years since I last watched World Enough and Time/The Doctor Falls, because it's still too painful, but I'm gathering up the courage to do it because they're both such important Thoschei episodes. I might even be as bold as to say that they're the most important. So this is me trying to read into the storyline through the ship's optics.

We've reached the bottom line, Missy has to choose wether she'll stand with the Doctor or with herself - represented here by Simm!Master. And I love that Moffat chose to add him there, it made perfect sense.

The Master himself has always been a very proud person but even though most of his incarnations have always shown their soft spot for the Doctor, this Master chose to die instead of travelling with the Doctor. Not because he hated the Doctor more than the other incarnations (what he did in End of Time showed that that was not the case), but because he chose to die instead of giving up his freedom. Something Missy gave up.

So this episode was about Missy confronting herself. She was willing to give up everything for the Doctor, but then the Master shows up basically saying: We don't need this. Don't change yourself for him. He's not worth it. We are the Master of the universe, destroyer of worlds who champions over death.

And under all the layers, he could've added: Don't change yourself for someone who wouldn't change for you. Why does it have to work on his ways? He either stands by yourside and accepts you for who you are, or you'll never be together.

And even though TDF is still incredibly painful (and I've forgiven the Master for many things but NEVER for what he did to Bill), I can't help but love it. I feel like Missy made the right choice, especially for herself.

We know that the Doctor and the Master will never be truly together forever - which is what make their little moments so special and their relationship so exciting -, but still, that was a powerful moment. And I'm talking about my favorite (although bittersweet) Thoschei moment:

THE DOCTOR: Stand with me. It's all I've ever wanted.

MISSY: Me too. But no.

You know I love reading the subtexts in scenes and I love how it says: I want to stand with you too, but I can't, because I'll have to be somebody else. I'll not stand with you by your terms.

I could argue about the Doctor's method for Missy's rehabilitation in the Vault, but that would take me down into a rabbit hole. But I wonder how long it would last. Is 70 years enough to repair the damage of what the Master has done for over a millennia?

But also: if Missy decided to change just to have the Doctor back and not because she actually wanted to change, then it was bound to fail, from the beginning. At the same time, the Master/Missy has had their moments of goodness, even if short-lived, but seen by themselves as moments of weakness, that add layer to their character. But it all comes down to their choice to be different, which in my view they seem as impossible because to the Master, evil is a fundamental part of who they are.

So the Doctor and the Master will always choose themselves over each other. It has to do with so many things: pride, self-respect, hatred for what the other represents, and so on. I think that they respect each other for that, and that's why they see each other as equals, different sides of the same coin.

#twissy #thoschei #doctor who #don't @ me i'm getting this shit out of my system #also i've just finished reading 'i am the master' so i'm on a rant mode about thoschei and the master #the doctor falls

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loquaciousquark · 4 years

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Hi! I think I remember you posting about "making" your own computer? I'm sorry to bother you with something like this, but was it difficult? Would you say you have to know a lot about how computers work to do it? Thanks!

Heck yeah!!! Oh man!! Gosh guys can I talk to you about building computers and how EVERYONE willing to do some basic googling is almost certainly capable of this I promise?

Welcome to:

Okay okay okay so let me spin you a li’l yarn: I was in optometry school in 2010-2011ish and I had been living up to now on prebuilts, mostly laptops, but DA2 was recently out and gosh darn it I wanted something I could play a proper game on. A friend of mine had a 10yo daughter who wanted to build a computer herself, and he told me if I’d buy the parts, he’d walk both of us through how to do it (what really happened was the 10yo built my first computer and I watched and brought drinks, so–no, I wouldn’t say you have to know a lot about how computers work to do it!).

The physical requirements are some basic manual dexterity & arm strength (you gotta be able to manipulate some tiny things and put some pressure on some connections) and you will most likely need to lift up to 15 pounds, although you can limit that if you go for smaller components. The ability to bend forward and twist and reach will also probably be necessary, although some careful planning can also likely mitigate that.

I think I have pictures of the actual build process somewhere, but regardless, it resulted in this bad boy that served me well for about nine years. I was shocked to see how easy it was to put together, honestly; if you can follow a Lego assembly book, you can put a computer together. With tools like PCPartPicker that have built-in compatibility checks to make sure all your pieces fit, it’s a piece of cake to put together a parts list that you can feel really good about. You just pick whether you want your motherboard to come with fancy lights or not (hint: rgb is unironically cool & i’ll fight anyone who says otherwise).

In the end, you’ll need a set of basic components. You’ll need:

A case to put all the pieces in

A motherboard, the circuit board of the computer that connects everything, basically the heart of the computer

A CPU, the brain of the computer that determines processing power, or basically how fast it can do math and direct traffic

a CPU cooling system, which can be either mechanical fans or liquid cooling, gotta keep that baby chill; may or may not come packaged with the CPU depending on what you get

A graphics card (aka GPU), the thing that makes video games look pretty (and what will probably be the single most expensive item in the build depending on how good you go)

RAM, a short-term memory processing component that comes in different amounts (4gb, 8gb, 16gb, 32gb, 64gb if you’re a madman) depending on how fast you need your short-term memory to work. Good RAM allows you to do things like open a bunch of Chrome tabs at once, run Photoshop at the same time you’re listening to youtube videos, or process the demand of loading up a host of enemies in Mass Effect. Most everyone these days can get by just fine with 16gb of RAM, which is what I have.

a hard drive (or the new, faster, more expensive version, a solid state drive) which functions as your long-term storage bins. This is where you save documents, images, and install your programs. These come in tons of sizes–the larger your files are, the more storage space you’ll want. I always put at least a terabyte of storage in my builds.

a power supply unit or PSU, which gives the electrical juice for everything to run

a monitor (the more hertz, the smoother the video will be - you’ll want either 60hz or 144hz depending on how much your number of frames-per-second matter to you)

a keyboard and mouse

speakers or headphones or both!

Optional addons:

RGB lighting for everything :O

an optical drive (aka something to put DVDs, Blurays, or other physical CD disks into)

fancy liquid cooling pipes

additional case fans; most cases come with adequate fans, but if you are using the computer in a room with poor ventilation or you find that certain components are running hot, you can install additional fans

coincidentally you can also get fans with RGB lighting too

cable extenders when you are going for a specific color scheme

So it can definitely all look overwhelming at first, but when you start to look at how everything is laid out, you’ll notice some trends. Look at these motherboards, for example.

These are just four random motherboards I pulled off Newegg, a commonly used computer parts purchasing site. Sure, the colors are a bit different, but the layout between them…is all basically the same! Here, I’ll draw it out.

In just about every modern motherboard you buy, this will be the rough layout. Everything else is window dressing–what kind of GPU you get, what kind of CPU you get, whether your RAM lights up cool colors or not. Your motherboard will ALWAYS include a map that has extensive descriptions of what each connection does.

Much, much, much more under the jump!

Most of these you won’t even need!

There are always some compatibility things to consider–as I mentioned, PCPartPicker can help you figure out a lot of these–but the biggest one to care about is the CPU. There are two major companies that make CPUs, AMD and Intel. They both have pros and cons on the chips they make, but right now, AMD makes a family of CPUs called Ryzen that both outperform and are cheaper than Intel’s current leading brands, the i7 and i9 lines. Intel was king of the hill for a long time, though, and their CPUs are still really good quality, so some people still go with them over the cheaper alternatives for now. (There are some reports of black screens with the new Ryzen lines, but as I’ve never owned one, I can’t personally speak to how common that is.)

Regardless, once you pick which family of CPUs you want to go with, AMD or Intel, you just have to pick an Intel-friendly or AMD-friendly motherboard. This is always specified in the description of the motherboard. I own the Asus z370 motherboard, so here’s what it says in the description for CPU:

Anyway, once you’ve picked all your parts and had everything shipped to you, it’s literally just a plug-n-play, step by step until everything’s plugged in. Your motherboard manual will also include recommended order of installations, too, and often how to install them.

It helps to remember that the manufacturers of all these parts understand that they are expensive, and they really DON’T want to make them hard to install! Broken or difficult pieces during installation means that the customer is upset, and upset customers ask for refunds and lose brand loyalty.

It also helps to understand that a lot of these connections are based on certain standards–I didn’t realize until I was rebuilding my current machine that these holes set for screws really do work with just about everything you get, as long as it’s the same generation, because motherboard manufactures WANT you to have the flexibility to go any attachment brand you like and still be able to use their board to mount them.

So, you pick your case and open it up, and you put the motherboard down on top of all the little screw holes until they match, and then you screw all the screws down firmly.

Old rig, partially disassembled:

New, in approximately same state:

(One of the reasons I went with this larger white case than a smaller, slim case like my old one, is because this nicer case has what’s called “cable management;” that means there’s a built-in back area behind the motherboard where all my cables can be jammed without messing up the “aesthetic” of the glass window. My first build obviously did not have that, as seen in that first picture at the top of this post, so I had to just jam my cables wherever I could fit them so that the sides would close, haha.)

Anyway, you can see that the motherboard is just screwed in where it should be, and my CPU is already installed where it should be. I haven’t mounted the cooler for it yet because I needed to clean off the old thermal paste and install new thermal paste before doing so. My two sticks of RAM are also mounted in the top right in the motherboard’s recommended configuration & locations for two sticks (vs. one, vs. four).

Then, with the cooler in place, it looked like this:

So the cooler I have is liquid cooling in a closed system (the thick black tubes running right to left) which is attached to a fan that mounts in place of the white fan on the left from the previous picture. It was as simple as unscrewing the old fan and putting the new one in its place. I think I even used the same screws. The fan is powered by that thin cable running along the top of the case that plugs into a little socket on the motherboard labeled “CPU Fan.” It was as simple as just finding the right plug; it doesn’t even have directionality, just a three-pin socket, so it doesn’t even matter which way you plug.

Already it’s looking like a proper computer! And because this case has cable management, I took a picture of what it currently looked like from the backside.

This case is cool because it has a neat set of connectors mounted on the back of this little hideaway to connect the case fans. I could have run the white fan cables through to the front of the motherboard for them to get power/marching orders, but it was cleaner aesthetically to attach them here in the back. Nothing wrong with connecting them on the front, though–that’s what I did in my original build!

You also might have noticed I’ve mounted the PSU in that white case by now as well. It’s the large black and red box in the bottom corner, seen best from behind. The white case comes with what’s called a PSU shroud, which just means there’s a fancy white cover over it to keep the ~aesthetic~ when viewed from the front side.

The next step is to mount the graphics card!

There’s instructions in your manual as to exactly how these mount, but it really and truly is just removing the dust cover brackets where you need to, and then a delicate plug & play, pushing that big guy in until you hear the click! (Click good, snap bad. Haha. I’ve changed out these cards several dozen times and never broken one, though!)

You can also see the ugly red-tipped cables plugged into the GPU and the motherboard, both on the right side. These come from the Power Supply Unit (they are all permanently connected in most brands, and look basically like a squid’s tentacles–once you have your items mounted onto the motherboard, you just look for the connector from the PSU with the right number of pins and plug it in!)

This guy is the worst. He is fat and hard to maneuver and always requires SO MUCH FORCE to click into this delicate bendy board and your heart will ALWAYS be in your throat as your fingers shake from how hard you’re having to push to sink it, and it will ALWAYS eventually go in but you’ll hate every second of the doing. I hate you, 24-pin EATX. I hate you so much.)

The next thing I did was mount my optical drive (because yes, I still own one), my hard drive, and my solid state drive.

The hard drive and SSD both serve the same purpose (long-term data storage), but the SSD is much faster and uses newer technology. It’s also more expensive for the amount of storage you get, so I have a 256gb SSD that holds my operating system, my heavily-used programs like Firefox and Photoshop & Premiere, and one or two video games I play the most that I would like to load as fast as possible. This is the drive that can allow me to restart my whole system in less than five seconds.

The hard drive is 1.75 terabytes and holds everything else: fics, pictures, videos, music, other games, etc.They mount onto the racks with pre-drilled screws. The optical drive just slides into the socket snugly until it hits the back of the rack.

All of these use a standard connector called a SATA cable which runs between the back of the drive to a SATA socket on the motherboard. Most motherboards come with at LEAST six or seven of these connector slots, and some come with more. They look like this:

and are pretty universal. Any kind of extra storage or drive you want to add to your computer will probably connect with a SATA cable. I think my motherboard, my SSD & HD, and my case purchases all came with a pack of loose SATA cables of different lengths to be used for whatever I wanted.

The rack each drive is mounted to came installed with the case and pre-drilled with screw holes (and provided screws) for attaching either the HD or SSD in every slot. Because this case is all about aesthetic, it also comes with two vertical SSD mounts on the back of the case if you wanted to remove the right-side rack altogether, but as I mentioned, I have the optical drive, so I couldn’t go with that option.

So now we have all the major pieces mounted! The last set of connections are a collection of small fiddly pieces that all plug in roughly the same area and do things like light up the case’s LED, provide that startup beep, connect the USB sockets on the case’s front to power, etc. This is by far the section that takes me the longest because I guarantee I will ALWAYS plug at least two into the wrong socket and not have a beep, or my audio won’t work or something until I go back and reconnect them.

The next thing was to plug in my monitors and…see what happened when we hit the power button! (Monitor connections just plug directly into your graphics card in the back of the case.) And here’s what happened!

youtube

So it turned out when I was connecting my SSD (which has my OS on it), I was pushing on the little connector while sitting on the back side of the case. I thought I had the thing in the socket, but what I’d actually done was jam the connector just under the lip of the motherboard (that is, not connected to anything at all, just hanging in open space). Once I realized, though, it was an easy fix!

The last thing I wanted to do to complete the clean white look I wanted was to replace those UGHLY red PSU cables with what are called “cable extenders.” I bought some white ones on Amazon; because most PSUs’ cables are permanently attached at the box, you plug your cable extenders into the other end and then feed them through the case, so that’s the only portion visible. The ugly PSU cables are still there at the other end of the white cables, just hidden in the cable management area behind the motherboard.

I spent some time fixing up the cables to curve exactly how I wanted them to, then picked my LED RGB colors and closed up the open side with the glass wall. All that was left was to plug in my mouse/keyboard/speakers/headphones/mic/webcam, etc., and we were done!

Ta-daaaa!

The first build I did, the one in the blue & black case, took us about two days due to some unexpected problems. First, we were trying to salvage an old CPU from my HP prebuilt to save a little money. Unfortunately, they used basically no thermal paste to connect it to its fan, and when we were trying to get the fan off, it actually tore the CPU out of its socket and bent a bunch of its pins. I ended up going to Best Buy or something and getting a replacement off the shelf.

The other issue I had was that I foolishly didn’t back up my files, and lost a bunch of them in the rebuild (including my Hawke’s original run through the DA2 game :( :( :( ) Always back up your files before ever going in and messing with your case!

Over the years I replaced a bunch of components in it, which is why it lasted me so long, but the transfer into the new case only took me about three hours, and that was with a bunch of breaks throughout. I probably could have done it faster if I hadn’t wanted to savor it, haha. The cable management for the backless desk took a lot longer, though! (…and a LOT of zip ties.)

I do set my new build on a small glass stand (again, from Amazon) because Hamlet’s pretty sheddy and I wanted to keep airflow as good as possible. I’m limited on how many case fans I can install since I have the optical drive rack taking up a lot of space on the right, but I could install new fans on top if I wanted. My temperatures are great, though (I monitor with CoreTemp & GPUTemp, as well as my motherboard’s built-in temp monitoring software), so I don’t need to unless I decide I need more RGB.

Anything I might want to add, I run through PCPartPicker to make sure it’ll fit what I already have. For example, my parts list looks like this (full view and complete parts list available at this link):

ANYWAY.

If you are patient, if you can fit small Lego-like pieces in labeled sockets, and you are a decent googler, you can build your own PC. It’s really, really hard to do serious damage to components nowadays, even if you plug something in wrong. There’s a bunch of resources, though, and I’d recommend the following places to start:

newegg.com - parts for sale, getcher parts here

pcpartpicker.com - put your list of components together, and it’ll flag any compatibility issues or known problems

https://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc/ - great starting point for new builders, tons of advice and how-to’s for every step of the process, and a decently responsive community to help troubleshoot any issues you might have

And I obviously love doing this kind of thing, so if there’s anything I can help with, I’m more than happy to try! Just let me know, and I hope this was helpful!

#anonymous #quark replies #quark's pc tag #long post for ts #very long post for ts #lots o videos and pictures for ts #a quest for fps

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caydesgirl-uldrensprincess · 4 years

Text

Forbidden || Chapter Three: Fallen and Ball Gown Talk

"The plan is simple, gate crash their ether extraction party and gets out," Tori explained, pointing to her holographic map.

"Got it," Chloe said, twirling her knife between her fingers.

"That's it?" Isabelle asked, folding her arms as her ghost Hermione materialized by her left shoulder.

"Yes, hopefully," The female Exo Titan muttered.

"That's not reassuring," Hermione commented, floating to the other side of Isabelle, her pink and purple shell glinting in the sunlight.

"Let's play it safe," Came Chloe's ghost, Moondance.

"Says the ghost whose Guardian's a reckless fool," Tori chuckled.

"You get a little reckless after going through three vanguards, one of them being my dad," Chloe stated, sheathing her knife.

"Touche," The Female Exo said.

Isabelle just rolled her eyes and summoned her sparrow, she just wanted to get this done and over with. Her latest book was waiting for her at home and she left off on a cliffhanger. "Come on girls, less bloody chit chat and more action," She said over her shoulder as she mounted her sparrow.

"Knowing us, it's gonna be done in under ten minutes, you would think the Vanguard would give us something more, I don't know, challenging?" Chloe elaborated, summoning her sparrow and climbing onto it.

"Exactly, I for one would love to do a harder raid on Venus," Tori chuckled, she too climbing on her sparrow.

The trio zipped off towards the ether extraction.

The planet this mission was on was Mars. It was mostly run by Cabal, but there were some Fallen here and there, not too much though. That was a good thing. Unlike the Cosmodrome, that place was littered with those scathing pirates.

When the girls arrived at their destination. They jumped off their sparrows and crouched and crawled to the cliff edge just ahead. They laid on their stomachs. Isabelle got her Shepherd's Watch rifle ready, looking down her sights.

"They're just bloody milling about, for now, the Elinski haven't even started extracting yet," She said, watching the targets carefully.

"How many are there?" Chloe asked, loading ammunition into her hand cannon.

"Not many, about twenty or so," The Warlock answered.

"This is gonna be a walk in the park," Tori commented.

Isabelle chuckled and put her rifle over her shoulder. "If you move now the three of you can eliminate them without any problems," Percy, Tori's ghost, said materializing by Tori's shoulder.

"No reckless mishaps," Came Moondance, making Chloe let out a dry chuckle of her own.

"Chloe, I'm serious, I'm getting tired of reviving you every five minutes," He said, appearing in front of his guardian, and the trio of females tried to contain their laughter. "I can't make any promises, buddy, but I'll try," The Huntress stated.

"Hermione, you wanna add something?" Isabelle asked as her little light appeared.

"Yes, the Fallen have started extracting ether, better hurry," She said.

The Warlock nodded and the girls moved silently down the cliffside. Isabelle and Chloe grabbed two Dregs from behind and dragged them behind a rock. The Huntress stabbed them for good measure. Isabelle pointed to Chloe and Tori then pointed right, then she pointed to herself and pointed left. The Huntress and Titan nodded went right. The warlock crept around a giant boulder grabbed and fusion grenade and tossing it to the nearest target, just as one of Chloe's swarm grenade landed in the middle of the extraction and started a commotion amongst the Eliksni. Vandals and Marauders put up their guard and started scouting the area.

"On my signal, we jump into action," Tori said over the comms.

"I'm ready when you are," Came Chloe.

"Same here," Isabelle replied, putting bullets into her rifle, "let's just get this over with so I can go home and read."

She watched as Tori jumped out from behind the boulder across the way and created a shield as she started firing her auto rifle. Isabelle got on top of the boulder she was behind and aimed down her sights, killing Dregs and Vandals left and right. She saw Chloe jump out from the corner of her lense, hand cannon blazing and knives everywhere.

When the Captain appeared, all three girls fired at him all at once. Taking him down easily. Lastly, they destroyed the ether extraction device.

"Ramen on me?" The Huntress offered.

"Sure, why not," Tori obliged.

"But after we report to the Vanguard," Isabelle stated, as the three of them transmitted to the ship.

~~~

Isabelle, Chloe, and Tori walked out of the hanger and to the Hall of Guardians. They had to report back to the Vanguard about the ether extraction the Fallen were trying to do. Isabelle looked at the guardians they passed. Some were talking in small groups, others danced to nothing-in-particular, and some were just getting back from bounties and cashing them in. The trio passed Lord Shaxx, who was manning Crucible matches and looked like he was on his twelfth cup of coffee. Isabelle looked at Eris, who was muttering about Oryx coming back. Finally, the Vanguard was in full view. The Warlock watched as her best friends split off and went to their Vanguards. Chloe to Cayde and Tori to Zavala. Isabelle walked over to Ikora.

"Isabelle, how was the mission?" Ikora asked, looking up from the tablet she held.

"Oh, you know, way too easy, like taking candy from a baby," Isabelle replied.

"Good, I assume you and your fireteam were efficient enough to get the job done?"

"Yes, and yes, Hermione, Moondance, and Percy were the real help," The Awoken female said, mentioning hers and her friends' ghosts.

Ikora smiled, "That's good to hear, there is something I would like to talk to you about if you haven't already heard."

Isabelle furrowed her brows, "What is it? Did I do something. . . wrong?"

"No, no, it's just that Queen Mara Sov has invited the Vanguard and the guardians to a ball," The Warlock Vanguard explained.

"A ball?"

"Yes, but the Prince-- Uldren Sov-- has requested you to accompany him as his plus one."

Isabelle's jaw dropped, her cheeks flooding with warmth. Uldren wanted HER to be HIS plus one? She felt like she was dreaming, like actually dreaming. Hermione must have felt the wave of shock go through Isabelle because she appeared next to her. Isabelle straightened and shook her head.

"Sorry, that's quite shocking, I thought the Awoken didn't like us, guardians, very well, especially Uldren," She said, her fingers find their way to her hair, tugging at the bubble-gum pink strands nervously.

"Queen Mara wishes to make us allies," Ikora stated, "and I see why do you?"

"Yes, because the enemy is growing ever so slowly and we want to be prepared for a possible attack, which, I guess, is why Mara wants this ball," Isabelle responded, "to extend her allies."

"Very well, my young pupil, I've taught you well," The Warlock Vanguard smiled, "You are dismissed."

Isabelle nodded and headed out of the Hall of Guardians, finding Chloe and Tori outside waiting for her. They were both exchanging a few words when the noticed Isabelle approach.

"Hey, Bookworm, did Ikora tell you about the ball?" Tori asked, her pink optics glowing brightly in the dimly lit Tower Plaza.

"Yes, and something quite shocking," The Warlock replied.

Isabelle could have sworn Chloe's human ears perked up at this, or was that just a hunter thing? But her icy, blue eyes were focused on her hand cannon as she started cleaning it.

"What is it?" The Huntress asked.

"Prince Uldren has asked for me to be his plus one to the ball," Isabelle admitted, her cheeks heating up.

The Huntress' head snapped up and the Titan stared in shock. It was clear that they were not expecting this to come out of Isabelle's mouth. She again started playing with her hair.

"Well, looks like your Prince Charming wants you after all," Chloe smirked, mischief flashing in her eyes.

"I doubt that," Isabelle rolled her eyes and folded her arms.

"Chloe, wipe that shit-eatin' grin off your face!" Tori scolded, her southern accent coming out.

Isabelle laughed at this as the Huntress flipped Tori off. The Exo just rolled her optics, shaking her head lightly, "Real mature, Clo, real mature."

"Anyway, who wants to go down to the city tomorrow and shop for dresses, especially Izzy's," Chloe said.

"Me, what's so special about the dress I'll be wearing?" Isabelle asked, playing with her hair.

"Because you are going with a Prince as a date," The blue-haired female replied, putting her hand cannon in its holster and stowing the cleaning cloth in her pocket, "you need to look outstanding, absolutely gorgeous, but not too much, or else people will think you're trying to outdo their queen."

"Okay, and whom might I ask is gonna be your date, Chloe Faith?" The Warlock inquired, "though I have a bloody feeling I know who it is."

The last part was said under her breath.

"Cayde asked me, he said 'it'd be fun and that ya haven't gone out since Nathen cheated on ya and ya deserve to dance with a real man'," The Huntress just blushed lightly.

Everyone knew Cayde was head over heels for Chloe, even when Andal was still here. Isabelle knew Chloe felt the same way, but she backed off and cut herself from any type of romantic relationship because of how Nathen cheated on her and because her father was killed. But Isabelle was glad Chloe accepted the offer of going with the Hunter Vanguard.

"Anyway, who are you going with Tori?" The Huntress asked.

"I was thinking of maybe asking Amanda," The Exo replied, "just as friends though, I'm not looking for a girlfriend or boyfriend right now."

Tori was bisexual, and when she came out Isabelle happily supported her, along with Chloe. After all their best friends, why wouldn't they support her?

"Chloe, didn't you say something about paying for ramen?" The Warlock asked, changing the subject.

"Yes, now let's go before the shop closes and Cayde gets off duty," The blue-haired female exclaimed, ushering Isabelle and Tori over to the Bazaar.

~~~

The next day Isabelle woke to something nudging her shoulder. "Isabelle, it's time to get up, you told Chloe and Tori you would go shopping for ball gowns today," Hermoine said, still nudging the Awoken woman.

She opened her eyes and found her ghost floating in front of her. Isabelle turned her head towards the window, early morning light poured through it. "Did I fall asleep reading again?" She asked, sitting up in bed and letting out a yawn.

"Yes, I put a bookmark in the place where you left off and set the book on your nightstand," The Little Light answered, bobbing up and down whilst twirling in the air.

"Brilliant, what time is it?"

"Just a little past seven."

Isabelle nodded and got out of bed, trudging over to the bathroom where she ditched the white, cotton t-shirt and black shorts she was wearing and jumped into the shower. She let the warm water relax the tense muscles in her body from yesterday. Then she focused and washing her hair, making sure all the knots and tangles came out. Lastly, she washed her body and shaved her legs and underarm.

Getting out of the shower, Isabelle wrapped herself in a fuzzy, pink towel, as well as her hair. She walked over to the sink, brushed her teeth, and did a small amount of makeup. She unwrapped the towel from her hair and proceeded to blow-dry it. After her hair was dry, she ran a brush through it and put it in a side ponytail. Isabelle walked over to her closet and pulled out a light, long sleeve, black, turtle neck crop top, a maroon denim skirt, and a pair of black, knee-high boots. She put on the outfit, along with prescription glasses, and checked her phone.

A text message from Chloe.

Chloe: Meet up at Clara's Cafe before shopping?

Isabelle: What time?

Chloe: 8:30, sound good?

Isabelle: Yes, see you and Tori then.

Isabelle checked the time, 7:58, and put her phone in the pocket of her skirt and left the room. She made her way down the floating steps to the main floor. Chloe gave her enough time to grab a small breakfast consisting of a PopTart and a Honey Crisp Apple. She then grabbed her purse hanging by the apartment door and left, locking it tight, and texting Chloe she was on the way.

Isabelle made her way out of the Tower to the city below. This gave her enough time to get to Clara's Cafe, a popular place among the city's people and the guardians. She entered the small coffee shop and spotted Chloe and Tori at their usual table. Chloe was dressed in a snapback hat that read 'Hunter' across the front, a white crop top that showed off her shoulder to wrist tattoo sleeve, a pair of ripped, faded, skinny jeans, and black converses. Whilst Tori wore a black t-shirt, a red jacket, sweat pants, and a pair of plain sneakers. Isabelle took her seat next to Chloe.

"You look cute, Izzy," The Huntress said, sipping what looked like a green tea macchiato.

"Thanks," Isabelle said, opening her Kindle app on her phone.

A waitress came around and asked for Isabelle's order, which was her norm, a chamomile tea with extra honey. The waitress nodded and went to put the order in. The Warlock continued to read a book on the kindle app as Chloe and Tori talked about raids and what ones they wanted to do for the millionth time over.

"Isabelle Aubrey Brigham, get off the phone and talk to us," Tori scolded.

Isabelle sighed and turned her phone off, putting it in her purse. "Come on, I was just getting to the good stuff!"

"Good stuff as in a vivid sex scene?" Chloe asked.

"No, not all the books I read have sex scenes in them," Isabelle scoffed, "let's change the topic, how's your sleep schedule, Clo, has it got any better?"

The Huntress' smirk immediately faded, and she looked down at her lap. "No, it hasn't, the nightmares are getting worse," She answered, her tone saddening.

"I'm sorry, Chloe, I wish we could help," Tori said, reaching over the table to put a hand on her friend's shoulder.

Isabelle gave rubbed Chloe's back. If anything more could be said about her best friend, it was that she suffered from nightmares often and had the worst sleeping schedule in history. Isabelle could visibly see the exhaustion on the Huntress' face. The dark circles under her blue eye were quite noticeable.

"One chamomile tea with extra honey," came the voice of the waitress.

"Yes, thank you, darling," Isabelle said, taking her drinking and sipping it lightly.

The waitress left to get the bill.

"You know, talking about my sleep schedule isn't important right now, finding our dresses for the ball is," Chloe stated, going back to her usual cocky self.

"Right, the ball," Isabelle muttered.

She still couldn't believe she was Uldren's date. It made her nervous and not many things made her nervous. But Uldren was royalty, a real prince, and Isabelle? She wasn't even royalty. Far from it actually, she was just a guardian. Just a normal, everyday guardian who loved the company of books more than anything else.

A few short minutes later, Tori ended up paying the bill and the girls left the cafe. They walked around the city streets trying to find a good dress shop. "I really hope I have enough bloody glimmer for this," Isabelle said as the trio entered an expensive-looking dress emporium.

"Welcome to L'amour De La Rose Dress Emporium," A silver and blue female Exo with a French accent said, "My name is Aimee-9, what can I help you with?"

Chloe stepped forward and smiled kindly, "My friends and I are looking gowns for a ball next week."

"What kind of gowns are you three looking for?" Aimee asked.

"I'm looking for something simple and elegant, in the color silver," Tori replied.

"I want a dress that's nothing flashy and doesn't draw attention to me, but elegant and enough for a Hunter Vanguard to drool," Chloe stated.

Isabelle looked around. She didn't know what she wanted.

"Miss, what would you like?" The silver and blue Exo asked.

The warlock opened her mouth to speak, but Chloe beat her to it, "She'll have one that's absolutely stunning and will have Prince Uldren begging for more!"

"Chloe, can you bloody shut it!" Isabelle spat, then took a deep breath, "I would like something elegant too, something lacy with a beautiful floral pattern and pink."

"Very well, I'll get some dresses you could choose from, please follow me," Aimee said, leading the girls to the fitting rooms.

#destiny #bungie #destiny 2 #uldren sov #prince uldren #prince uldren sov #destiny uldren #guardian uldren #uldren sov x reader #uldren sov x oc

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cryptid-science · 5 years

Text

Shadow People

They usually come at night. Maybe you're reading or watching TV or just lying in bed. He's most often a man, and may be wearing a hat or a hood. A lot of times you'll only catch a glimpse of him out of the corner of your eye, as he flits across the wall or disappears through a doorway. Sometimes he's just a shadow, a flat projection sliding across the wall or ceiling; but other times, especially in the dark when you least expect it, shadow people appear as a full-bodied black apparition, jet black like a void in the darkness itself, featureless but for their piercing empty eyes.

The foggy Santa Lucia Mountains run along the central coast of California, and for hundreds of years, the Chumash Indians and later residents have told of the Dark Watchers, shadowy hatted, caped figures who appear on ridges at twilight, only to fade away before your very eyes. A visit to the Internet reveals hundreds and hundreds of stories from people who saw shadow people in their homes, on websites such as shadowpeople.org, from-the-shadows.blogspot.com, and ghostweb.com:

I opened my eyes and looked towards the middle of the room. I saw a large shadow in the shape of a person. It had no facial features that I could see and it wasn't moving. It was just standing there looking at me... I blinked and then it was gone.

I felt like someone was watching me so I turned to look toward the hallway and there it was in the doorway... It was a black figure. I could only see from the torso up. I felt it was a male and could feel that it was looking at me... I started to walk towards it and it disappeared back into the room.

There, at the foot of my bed, was a tall dark figure like a shadow. It appeared to be almost 7 feet tall with broad shoulders and was wearing what seemed to be an old fashioned top hat and some sort of cape... I watched as it glided past me and out the door of my room.

Correction: Further research suggests that the Chumash did not necessarily have any legend that reasonably corresponds to the Dark Watchers, and thus this link is probably the invention of 20th century ghost story tellers. - BD

It goes without saying that skeptics have long-standing explanations that, from the comfort of your armchair, adequately rationalize all the stories of shadow people. These explanations run the gamut, all the way from mistaken identification of a real shadow from an actual person or object, to various causes of optical illusions or hallucinations like drugs or hypnogogic sleeping states, even simply lying and making up the story. I think that probably everyone would agree that these have all happened, and therefore they do explain some people's experiences. But here's a fact: Try to offer any of those explanations to someone telling you about a specific sighting, and it will likely be immediately shot down. "I was not asleep." "I know the difference between a regular shadow and what I saw." "What about my friend who saw it with me?"

The truth is that it's probably not possible to explain most sightings. If it was some mysterious supernatural noncorporeal being who flitted through the room, no evidence would remain, and thus there's nothing to test or study. It's so trivial to fake photos or video of something as vague as a shadow person that when these exist, they're interesting but practically worthless as far as empiricism goes. Only in the rare case where an actual physical cause can be found, and you're able to consistently reproduce the effect at the right location and the right time of day and in the right lighting conditions, are you able to provide a convincing explanation. Most of the rest of the time, all you have is conjecture and hypothesis, and the eyewitness is likely to reject these.

When I was a kid we once lived in a house where if you walked up the stairs and one of the upstairs bedroom doors was open a crack, you might see a flash of movement inside the room from the corner of your eye. I saw it a number of times, and other people in my family did too. I thought it looked like someone threw a colored sweatshirt across the room. But: I never saw it whenever I walked carefully up the stairs and kept my eyes on that crack; it only happened if you weren't looking right at it and weren't thinking about it. The more you learn about how the brain fills in data in your peripheral vision and blind spots, the less unexpected and strange this particular experience becomes. I have no useful evidence that anything unusual happened, and I have good information that can adequately explain what was perceived. I personally am not impressed enough to deem it worthy of further investigation, but others might be, and that's a supportable perspective. But unless and until some substantial discovery is made, the determination that it must have been a shadow person or ghost is ridiculous. Nothing supports that conclusion. And yet my story is at least as reliable as 99% of the shadow people stories out there. I was not on drugs, I know the difference between a shadow and what I saw, and other people saw it too.

Enthusiasts of the paranormal offer their own set of additional hypotheses about shadow people. One proposes that shadow people are the embodiments of actual people who are elsewhere but engaged in astral projection. This is not an acceptable hypothesis. Like shadow people themselves, astral projection is an untestable, undetectable, unprovable conjecture. Explaining one unknown with another unknown doesn't explain anything, and the match itself cannot be made, since neither phenomenon has any known properties that you could look at and say "What we know of shadow people is consistent with what we know of astral projection." We know nothing about either, so there's no logical basis for any connection.

The same can be said of another paranormal explanation for shadow people, that they are "interdimensional beings". Let's make an outrageous leap of logic and allow for the possibility that interdimensional beings exist. What characteristics would they have? How would we detect their presence? What level of interaction would they have? How would they affect visible light? Since these questions don't have answers, you can't correlate interdimensional beings to the known properties of shadow people. Neither one has any.

But there are phenomena to which we can correlate these stories. We know the details in the eyewitness accounts, and we know the psychological manifestations of conditions like hypnogogia and sleep paralysis. A hypnogogic hallucination is a vivid, lucid hallucination you experience while you're still falling asleep. You're susceptible again eight hours later when you're waking up, only now it's called hypnopompia. But this seems such a cynical, closed-minded reaction. When you suggest hypnogogia as a possible explanation to a person who has witnessed shadow people, many times their reaction will be understandably negative, if not outright hostile. "You're saying I'm crazy" or "You're saying I imagined it" are common replies. Hypnogogia is neither a mental illness nor imagination, and to dismiss it as either is to underestimate the incredible power of your own healthy brain. Too many people don't give their brains enough credit.

I had a dramatic demonstration of the power of hypnopompia — the waking up version — when I was about 10 years old. Early one morning, the characters from Sesame Street put on a show for me in the tree outside my bedroom window. It had music, theme songs, lighting cues and costume changes: A full elaborate production, and it lasted a good hour. To this day, I have clear memories of some of the acts. I even went and woke my parents to get them to watch, but by then the show had gone away. I knew for a fact that I hadn't been asleep. I'd been sitting up in bed and writing down some of the songs they sang. Those writings were real, on real paper, and even made sense when viewed in the light of day. It had been a completely lucid, physical experience for me. But it only existed inside my own brain in a hypnopompic state. My brain had composed music, performed the music, written lyrics, and sang them in silly voices for some director who must also have come from within me. The skits were good. The actors were rough-sewn muppets, independently moving and climbing about, even swinging through the swashbuckling number, on tree branches representing the lines of a great pirate ship. Yet through it all, I'd been conscious and upright enough to actively transcribe the lyrics. That's the power of a brain.

But many believers reject the idea that their brain has such capabilities, and instead conclude that any such perceptions can only be explained as visitations from supernatural entities. One such believer, Heidi Hollis, has gone on Coast to Coast AM radio a number of times with suggestions to defend yourself from shadow people:

Learn to let go of your fear.Stand your ground and deny them access to your person.Focus on positive thoughts.Use the name of Jesus to repel them.Keep a light on or envision light surrounding you.Bless your room with bottled spring water.

Interestingly enough, such actions may actually work (although it's not the techniques themselves that are responsible — plucking a chicken or beating a drum could work just as well, if you think it will). Sleep disorders in the form of disruptive episodes such as these are called parasomnias, and the primary treatments for parasomnias are relaxation techniques, counseling, proper exercise, and the basic lifestyle changes that contribute to better sleeping habits. True believers who reject any notion suggesting their experience was anything but a genuine visit from a supernatural being, but who apply any such remedies as Hollis suggests, do indeed have a good chance of finding relief, when the process of applying the remedy brings them some peace of mind. Even though these remedies are rarely going to be as effective as professionally guided treatment, the fact that they can sometimes work only reinforces the true believers' notion that the shadow person was in fact an interdimensional demon, and that sprinkling holy water around the room did in fact scare it away.

These experiences are weird, and can be scary. But they're also fascinating, once-in-a-lifetime opportunities to experience the true power of your brain. To conclude that it's a supernatural being is to rob yourself of the real wonder of what's probably happening. Fa

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