(crosspost from AO3 comments)

itsbenedict:

kakunya on Chapter 26

I really want to read Light Marathon. Do you have any plans to write it? If not, could you possibly share a summary of the ideas behind it?

Benedict_SC on Chapter 26

I don’t have any plans to write it- it’s mainly window dressing- but I did think a little bit about it so I could keep Arc and Gavin’s nerding-out about it consistent.

The basic idea is that there’s an interstellar civilization that hasn’t quite managed to completely bypass the lightspeed barrier- human settlements are pretty self-contained, since all interstellar communication is asynchronous. To keep everything synced up, there’s these huge AI-run computers- collectively, the Lightspeed Archive or the Perfect Mind- which form a benevolent godlike superorganism that keeps what are supposed to be perfect records of everything it observes. It functions as a sort of oracle, handing out information that it’s confident of with 100% certainty in order to advise local governments on policy and coordinate interstellar travel and communication. (Yes, that’s not realistic- it’s a conceit of the setting that the computers are Just That Good, and I’m sure Archive05, datacrawlers_georg, and the rest of LMOF have had lots of loud arguments about whether this makes sense and whether the author of the series knows anything about computers at all.)

This state of affairs is objected to by a number of groups with different aims, who’ve formed an uneasy marriage of convenience- the Plausibilists, people who seek to corrupt the Perfect Mind’s data and force it to start reasoning in probabilities and guesswork. Some of them think that the PM should be more powerful, and that making it deal with messy reality would empower it, and others think that it should be LESS powerful, and that making it deal with messy reality would disempower it. They’ve got the same short-term goals, but completely different beliefs about what those goals will accomplish, which leads to internal tension and infighting.

The series as a whole is mainly a cyberpunk spy thriller- hackers and smugglers and various ne’er-do-wells trying to alternatively coordinate with and backstab each other across lightyears of distance, while dealing with double agents and plots upon plots. Everyone has to deal with both bizarre, incontrovertible prophecies from the machine, and the uncertainty inherent in being mutually displaced in time from their cohorts.

(And at one point the Plausibilists win out on the fourth and newest colony, somehow corrupting Archive04, and someone named Zack Mainframe decides to blow it up and force people to rebuild it rather than let it propagate its corrupted data to the rest of the Perfect Mind- hence, Riley’s username.)

Note that apart from the part about the no-FTL interstellar civilization, all of this was made up on the fly while writing chapter O/22 as a post-hoc explanation for the username. Not sure whether I want to write out some excerpts and put them in earlier chapters as foreshadowing, or avoid getting too in-depth because it’d be a distracting red herring…

If anyone wants to pick up this setting and write their own thing with it, be my guest- or, since it’s conveniently Worldbuilding Wednesday, send some asks about it?

You know, I didn’t notice at the time, but reading this it occurs to me: doesn’t the analogy make at least as much sense if you use it to argue the opposite way?

What is St. Shelhart’s goal, after all, if not to destroy part of Arc to save the rest? And what is Arc doing, if not allowing their corrupted systems to propagate and take down everything?


Tags:

#reply via reblog #cordyceps tcftog #cordyceps spoilers #fridge logic #metaphors are tricky things

{{previous post in sequence}}


*switches blockquote to italics*

*presses “preview on blog” button*

*preview shows the original ask as anonymous (I sent it non-anonymously) with raw-code apostrophes and quotation marks, shows the original answer as my own contribution, and does not show anything after the original answer*

…you know what, I’m just going to leave it. Remind me never to use blockquotes again.

(On the other hand, when I press the “edit” button, make no changes, and press “preview on blog”, it does the same thing, so it might not reflect what would actually happen. Still not sure I want to risk it.)


Tags:

#oh look an original post #oh look an update #Tumblr: a User’s Guide #sexuality and lack thereof #(I didn’t originally tag it that) #(but I want anyone looking through that tag to see these two posts before the messed-up one) #(so they know what to expect)

{{previous post in sequence}}


Okay, so apparently while my previous post looks fine on the dash, if you look at my blog my use of a blockquote fucks up the order of the thread (the answer to the original ask doesn’t appear until just before my blockquote). I’ll try editing it to italics.


{{The WordPress import was likewise fucked up, but this time I was able to fix it.}}


Tags:

#oh look an original post #oh look an update #Tumblr: a User’s Guide #sexuality and lack thereof #(I didn’t originally tag it that) #(but I want anyone looking through that tag to see these two posts before the messed-up one) #(so they know what to expect)


{{next post in sequence}}

brin-bellway asked: Huh, you found out hypnosis was real *before* finding out it was a fetish? I did it the other way ’round. I wonder what differences that causes. (Like how, while *intellectually* I believe there are people whose kinks actually can’t be satisfied in real life, my experiences have left me with a visceral skepticism towards the idea. My first thought when someone says their fetish can’t be acted upon is always “When *I* said that, I was wrong: maybe you’re wrong too.”)

tennfan2:

My answer to this is a qualified “kind of.”

When I was a kid, hypnosis was totally compelling to me – any time I saw it, heard about it, anything, I could not at all pull myself away from it.

I was also obsessed with the Atlanta Braves, but the mere mention of Paul Assenmacher did not leave me hanging on every word, you know? (Dale Murphy is another question.)

So on some level, I knew my interest in hypnosis was something other than a hobby. It was literally always in the back of my mind. It still is, actually.

I was a young, young child when this started. I had no idea that I was a fetishist. At the same time, though, it always did feel “dirty” to me for reasons that I get now, but had no way of knowing at the time.

Anyway: hobby before I *knew* it was a fetish, but not by much.

Here’s a question for the crowd: is your hypnosis fetish something you were born with?

 

gigglisgallery:

Hypnosis in movies and stories was always compelling to me. But I “knew” that was just fantasy.

I saw hypnosis as a real thing, but something used for therapy, and stage magic, and stuff like that, and that was intriguing, but not in any kind of fetish sense.

When I found the mcstories site, I saw it had lots of hypnosis stories, but I after trying a few, I found them boring and tended to skip them. Stories involving fantasy elements and scifi gizmos were more interesting, and hot, because they were more believable (giggle).

(Though to be fair, hypnosis stories often have things like, “And now your boobs grow three cup sizes” and they do, instantly, due to the power of hypnosis. Things like that just destroyed my ability to take the stories seriously. )

Then – much later – I stumbled across hypnofetish sites, and had that lightbulb moment: “Whaaaaat? Hypnosis really can be used in this way? OMG give me it NOW!”

And the hypnosis subgenre of mind control simultaneously got a lot hotter for me (but there’s still so much terrible stuff in there, sigh).

 

scifiscribbler:

Yeah, I think there’s a much broader gulf between the MC fetish and the direct hypno, and that expanding from MC to hypno (as GG and I both have) leads to a very different approach to hypnotic suggestion.

 

tennfan2:

I’m the polar opposite. Hypnosis as a subgenre of mind control? Obviously the other way around! (Kidding, kidding)

Mind control was pretty much never that appealing to me except when it looked and behaved like “classical” hypnosis.

That said, I also have rarely if ever gotten off on anything that feels “fictional.” Even when I got off on hypnosis in fiction, it was hypnosis that felt in some way accurate.

 

scifiscribbler:

See, this is the thing. I don’t think MC and Hypno are kink and subkink.

I think fantasy MC and real hypno are whole kink categories in and of themselves, with sufficient thematic overlap that a lot of people miss this.

And I think there’s a specific point where that needs watching, and it’s where inexperienced hypnotists and naive subjects cross from MC to real hypno without really grokking issues like consent, post-scene sub- and dom- drop, and the potential repercussions of deep conditioning work, because the MC fantasy stuff doesn’t have the ties to established kinks that teach this.

Mostly, though, I think that realising they’re disparate kinks can go a long way to helping people sort out what appeals and what doesn’t and feeling more able to specify the stuff they like.

Elsewhere on here the discussion that @ellaenchanting has been part of with retro/pop culture hypno is right there on stuff that walks the line.

I like both. But my life in kink got a lot easier when I realised there was this bg divide along the lines of which people liked or didn’t like aspects.

(yes, there are also subkinks for both that not everyone digs, but not usually in so polarising or definitive a fashion.)

Okay, going to try to respond to multiple things here.

tennfan2: I was a young, young child when this started. I had no idea that I was a fetishist. At the same time, though, it always did feel “dirty” to me for reasons that I get now, but had no way of knowing at the time.

Same, and if I implied otherwise, I didn’t mean to.

It feels weird to come up with a completely new phrasing for this when I can just quote my past self, so I suppose I’ll do that. Take it away, me of one year ago. (Note: the question I was answering was “If you had kinks, sexual fantasies, or sexual interests before puberty, how did you interpret them?“)

I thought it was just a fascinating topic, like the things I later learned to call perseverations* but much more stable. Sure, I had a sense of privacy about it, but I also (though to a lesser extent) tended to keep perseverations private. And sure, perseverations didn’t cause that twinging feeling in my chest and abdomen, but I figured that was probably some minor quirk that I would never have an explanation for. (I now think the twinging is my brain misinterpreting the “heat” of sexual arousal.)

For the record, the thing that made me re-evaluate this was not puberty, but rather learning from TV Tropes (at about age sixteen) that hypno-fetishism was a thing. (And dear *god* did my life make so much more sense after that. I wish somebody had thought to tell me sooner.) I didn’t really “bloom”: I mean, obviously my libido didn’t vary with menstrual phase back when I didn’t *have* a menstrual cycle, and for some reason I didn’t start having erotic dreams until I was fifteen, but in essence my sexuality is pretty much unchanged since the time of my earliest memories.

*Note from the present day: these days (and even at the time, really), “special interest” seems to be a more common term for this autistic trait than “perseveration”, and you might be more familiar with it.

scifiscribbler: Mostly, though, I think that realising they’re disparate kinks can go a long way to helping people sort out what appeals and what doesn’t and feeling more able to specify the stuff they like.

The definition of “mind-control fetishist” in my internal dictionary is something like “person who genuinely prefers the stuff I subsisted off of as a child because I didn’t even have the concept of anything better”. Like, I do know there are honest-to-god MC fetishists out there, and I want to emphasise again the unendorsedness of this reaction, but when I encounter MC fetishists talking shop I am frequently struck with the urge to tell them “You don’t have to settle for this! There’s other stuff out there, and a lot of it is so much better!” *I* was settling, and I find it hard to tolerate erotic horror these days knowing there’s fluffier stuff I could be reading instead.

tennfan2: Here’s a question for the crowd: is your hypnosis fetish something you were born with?

Depends on your definition. It doesn’t really make sense to me to claim anyone was born with a hypnosis fetish per se, because you’re not born knowing what hypnosis is.

You are, on the other hand, born knowing what sleep is. While a version of me raised in the late 1700′s would probably not have had a hypno-fetish (the conception of hypnosis at the time was not restful at all), I think any version of me would enjoy dozing…I was going to say “a little too much”, but that makes it sound like it’s wrong. Enjoy dozing to an extent that normal people would not. The ways in which this desire manifests depend on what’s available in the surrounding culture, but the core remains the same.


Tags:

#reply via reblog #nsfw #sexuality and lack thereof #people who can distinguish between their drive for sleep and drive for sex fascinate me #I feel like this post is not as coherent as I would like it to be #if you need something clarified let me know


{{next post in sequence, branch 1}}

{{next post in sequence, branch 2}}

arbitrarilychosen:

chroniclesofrettek:

ozymandias271:

nostalgebraist:

veronicastraszh:

Evidently there is some “math versus the rationalists” conflict brewing up, and I for one could not be more pleased. This promises one metric fuckton of grade A Tumblr drama.

Bring it nerds!

this conflict makes me anxious because what if, after another day of working on my applied math ph.d dissertation for 10+ hours, i open up tumblr and it turns out i agree with The Rationalists and therefore am Not A Math

this conflict is annoying because I hate having to scroll past y’all’s long incomprehensible mathposts

me: “ah, yes, the numbers are numbering very hard right now. I see that the letters are also involved. jolly good.”

You can just hit “j”

That’s good to know!  I’m somewhat surprised I hadn’t known about it before.  I did a quick search and found this list of twenty-one Tumblr keyboard shortcuts; hopefully others will find it useful!

Fair warning: occasionally I try to hit “K” for moving up a post and accidentally hit “L” for like. I don’t think I’ve ever had a *particularly* awkward accidental liking (often it’s posts that I’d already liked anyway), but that’s just good luck.


Tags:

#Tumblr: a User’s Guide

lullabyknell:

svlvzvr:

slyth-princess:

dramione-loving-ravenclaw:

impishtubist:

lullabyknell:

Wait, so, after being chosen as the fourth TriWizard Champion, Harry was immediately asked if he had an older student put his name in for him. So, like, was it actually that easy? Because if it was, you can’t tell me that some broke-ass Slytherin seventh-year didn’t immediately realize this and start raking in the cash. Like damn, they don’t want to be a part of this Insane Danger Stunt Show themselves, but they’ll put basically any scrap of paper you want into that stupid cup for a sickle.

You’re a first-year who can’t cast Wingardium Leviosa yet? Whatever, sure, just pay up. There’s no way you’re going to be chosen against Angelina “Can Probably Crush You With Her Thighs” Johnson, but at least you can tell all your eleven-year-old buddies that you Did A Cool Thing.

You wanna forcibly enter your friend without their consent? Hell no, get that shit out of here. I’m a Slytherin, not a complete bastard. If I’ve hear about you trying this shit again, I’mma curse your butt into the Lake and report you to Flitwick. You might think that’s funny because he’s short, but you will learn, young padawan. You will fear the Flitwick.

You’re a third-year who thinks that becoming the Hogwarts Champion will impress your crush? Okay, into the fiery cup. But also lmfao, have you even seen Cedric “Hottie McDreamy the Hufflepuff” Diggory? Like, hot damn. 

You wanna enter your owl? Your cat? Your toad? Go for it, man, that’d be effing hilarious. I would actually pay to see that Tournament.

You’re a fifth-year who genuinely wants to enter the Tournament? Well, okay, but man, I am roomies with Cassius “Wake Up Before Noon At Your Own Risk” Warrington and he’d be grinding you into the floor under the heel of his handmade, Italian, dragon-hide shoes before you even knew what hit you.

You wanna enter… McGonagall? No, no, nonononono. That’s how people effing die, man. Like, she would destroy the competition and it would be glorious to behold and I would cry tears of awe at the sheer beauty of her wrath… but also, I am too young and beautiful to die. She would find us and we would die. Best scenario is she keeps us as pet mice forever.

So after the Weasley twins get their Age Potion issues fixed, a tiny Slytherin first-year girl sidles up to them in the halls and whispers, “You wanna enter the Tournament? Phil can hook you up. But you didn’t hear it from me!” And so the Weasley twins go find Phil, and Phil tells them straight up, “One slip for a sickle, three for two, five for three, and ten for four.”

Fred’s like, “Does entering your name more than once actually do anything?”

Phil, “Don’t know, don’t care.” (It doesn’t, Phil’s checked. He’d charge more if it did.)

And how does Phil get away with entering all these names? He tells all the supervising professors that he’s entering his own name – again and again and again – for a better chance at being selected. Professor Sprout informs him gently that this won’t make a difference and Phil tells her with the wide-eyed innocence of someone running a major scam operation that “Might as well try, Professor! Maybe diligence with pay off in the long run!”

Sprout’s heart melts, and everyone in the know facepalms. Everyone not in the know looks at him with “cheating Slytherin!” expressions and Phil dgaf because he’s got a giant pile of money now, suckers. [Snape noticed something was up, but didn’t care enough to stop it. Moody also noticed, but didn’t do anything. (Barty approves.)]

Entering more names doesn’t help because it’s not a lottery, the Goblet actually chooses, so a person can only really be entered once. It’s probably actually a good thing that Cedric “Tried to have a won Quidditch match made invalid out of fairness” Diggory and Harry “I am confused and I don’t want to be here” Potter were chosen. Because if fourth-year Ravenclaw Travis Collins had been chosen, the Goblet would have spat out all one-hundred and eighty-three scraps of paper with his name on it.

“Kids these days have too much pocket-money,” Phil comments as he comforts his boyfriend, Cassius Warrington, for being passed over in favor of Cedric “Made of Sugar, Spice, and Everything Nice” Diggory, and counts the massive pile of money he’s collected. “Kinda wish the fiery cup had picked that kid’s Kneazle, though. That would’ve been awesome.”

[-Inspired by this post by @accio-shitpost-]

I wanna read more about Phil and his boyfriend Cassius Warrington.

OK, but I read the part about entering your pets and all I can think about is the name ‘Trevor Longbottom’ coming out of the cup and the teachers are all confused because “did we somehow miss or forget that Neville has an older brother? Did Frank and Alice have a secret hidden love child during their Hogwarts years?” Meanwhile, half the Gryffindors are groaning and face palming because who doesn’t know about Trevor ‘constantly lost but probably actually trying to escape this insane asylum of a school’ Longbottom? and poor little nervous Neville, who certainly had nothing to do with Trevor’s name being entered, slowly makes his way too the front of the room and Dumbledore just looks at him curiously and Neville gulps and extends his hands, which Trevor is sitting in and as realisation dawns on the various professor’s faces, everyone collectively looses their shit.

I’m laughing so hard. Also also just imagine Errol’s name coming out. Oh man. Just… Oh man…

This is my favorite hc ever and I need a fic on this desperately

(OP here) Oh man, you are all my favorite people. But that animal thing is totally technically possible, because Barty Confunded the Goblet of Fire, right? It would take an exceptionally powerful and talented witch or wizard to enchant such an ancient magical artifact, right? But seriously, what if Barty had fucked up? That thing is ancient, there’s no way anyone in modern day really knows how the fuck it works.

Frankly, I am completely convinced that the Goblet of Fire is a horrible hodgepodge of experimental magic as some random witch tries to create some way to choose Champions. I have henceforth named her Gonilda and she is the magical computer programmer of 1294, and the creation process of the Goblet was a fucking disaster.

Like, “Shit, I’ve got this super ugly pot that my kid made me in his pottery class the other day, will that do?” “Okay, okay, how do I make the Goblet have only three schools?” “Fuck, Fredreich, made a note to make sure that it won’t explode if more than 13 students are entered because apparently this stubborn piece of ceramics can’t count for shit.” “HOW THE FUCK IS THIS JUDGING PROCESS SUPPOSED TO WORK? IF THIS SON OF A PITCH DOESN’T COOPERATE, I’M MAKING THIS SHIT RANDOM.” (’Gonilda, no.” “GONILDA, YES, DAMN IT!”) “Okay, okay, I think it works now. But also, I have no idea how to reset it. Can we only hold this shitty tournament once?” (”Gonilda, no.” “Fuck you, Fredreich.”) “OKAY, NOW IT WORKS! Just one more tiny detail an- Shit, it’s on fire now. …Can I just leave it on fire? I’m leaving it on fire.” (”Gonilda, no.” “I’m done, I’m out. It’s on fire and I’m not going to do shit about it.”)

Person in charge of running the Triwizard Tournament: “Ah, Fredreich, wonderful! And you met our deadline! Please give ours thanks to Mistress Gonilda for her exceptional wo- … Why is it on fire?”

Gonilda (in the distance): “BECAUSE FUCK YOU, THAT’S WHY.”

So basically, the Goblet of Fire works because nobody fucking touch it. It’s on fire, we don’t need to make it explode, folks. Just nobody do anything weird to it and we all collectively pray it keeps working.

And then along comes Barty Crouch Junior and he’s like, “I’mma Confund this cup for this Evil Plot by the Dark Lord Voldemort so it chooses Harry Potter.” Except the Goblet of Fire is a disaster and Barty’s Confundus works for maybe five minutes before something in it breaks, and it’s magical programming is basically just flipping through magical error messages.

Error 400: Bad Request – What the Fuck Are You Doing, Dipshit?!?

Error 403: Forbidden – Dear Fredreich, Stop Doing Shit, You Don’t Know Crap. With Much Love, Mistress Gonilda.

Error 405: Method Not Allowed – Seriously, Dipshit, What the Fuck?

Error 409: Conflict – With Literally Everything. Great Going, Assface.

Barty, why? Why would you try and poke an ancient disaster like this? You were so preoccupied with whether you could do it that you didn’t stop to think if you should. You did it, you crazy son of a bitch, you did it. See, here I am now by myself, talking to myself. That’s Chaos Theory.

Anyway…

Cue small, adorable, innocent first-year voice rising out of the crowd at the Champion Selection Ceremony: “Headmaster Dumbledore? Why is there black smoke coming out of it?”

Cue second small, adorable, innocent first-year voice: “Is it supposed to be making that tea-kettle sound? Why is it screaming?”

Then the Goblet just starts spitting out Champions like it’s freakin’ Oprah or something. Set fire to the fucking rain. YOU GET TO BE A TRIWIZARD CHAMPION! YOU GET TO BE A TRIWIZARD CHAMPION! EVERYBODY GETS TO BE A TRIWIZARD CHAMPION!

(Errol Weasley, Trevor Longbottom, every female Durmstrang student, Professor Trelawny, the Weasley twins twice, a Hogwarts seventh-year from every house, Fleur Delacour and a group of Beauxbatons boys that looks like a boy-band in disguise, Harry Potter five times over, that one kid’s Kneazle, etc. The list goes on.)

Cassius Warrington looks beside him to his boyfriend, who is currently trying to slide underneath a table and maybe phase himself out of existence by sheer willpower, muttering about how he’s now going to die at the hands of Minerva McGonagall and running away to Barbados.

“Phil,” Cassius says seriously, “What the fuck did you do.”


Tags:

#Harry Potter #anything that makes me laugh this much deserves a reblog

TIL that the LibreOffice Canadian English dictionary doesn’t include “poutine”

how is this even a Canadian dictionary


Tags:

#my spellcheck has been broken for over a year #finally got around to figuring out how to fix it today #(turns out it actually wasn’t that difficult) #so now I’m going through my text documents and teaching the custom dictionary my idiosyncrasies #didn’t think I’d have to teach it ”poutine” #(the Firefox dictionary also doesn’t include ”poutine”) #(but that’s less surprising) #language #oh look an original post #our home and cherished land

itsbenedict:

lizawithazed:

itsbenedict:

@terminallyuninspired has brought to my attention the fact that i accidentally dodged a rickroll 28 minutes ago

#the scenario is a close real-world analogue to cordyceps actually#a desire for knowledge leading inescapably into terrible consequences#i can’t believe i wrote a novel about people getting rickrolled 

have you MET you because I absolutely believe that

that’s. that’s a fair cop


Tags:

#anything that makes me laugh this much deserves a reblog #cordyceps tcftog #rickrolling

staxilicious:

artkat:

despairnaegami:

personasanta:

does anybody else think tired and sleepy mean two totally different things

sleepy is cute and dozing off and happy but tired is 10 cups of coffee and murder

Sleepy vs Tired

reblogging because the last graphic comment is FLAWLESS

@sinesalvatorem pinged me on this, but Tumblr refused to display the parts of the thread above hers (not only on the dash, but on her blog and on the reblogging screen as well).

I debated for a bit whether to reblog directly from her or go back one link in the reblog chain and use that. On the one hand, I think the humour was enhanced by not knowing what the post was right away (so that I wondered “what did she ping me on?” and going back a link and seeing the original thread acted as a punchline). On the other hand, a deactivation here and a name-change there and people who come across this later on might not be able to find that punchline. In the end, preservation concerns won out.

Anyway, thank you, Alison! I’m glad you thought of me.

(Also, they do seem to be grasping at the same distinction we were, don’t they.)


Tags:

#real life continuity nods #anything that makes me laugh this much deserves a reblog #language #reply via reblog #(and I’ll add this one in since it’s why the topic came up in the first place:) #sexuality and lack thereof