Biggest And Tallest CuttleFish

like, i get that we’re doing a “deconstruct the entire character in like 20 minutes of text”, and “redeem/fix their problems to railroad them into a happy ending” thing but part of the reason why friendsim worked better, i feel, is because they didn’t need to do a ‘why you should find this character likeable’ speed run, because there’s over thirty characters and it’s an introductory game anyway, if you don’t like this ultimately background character from a larger game who cares. you’re not losing anything.

pesterquest can’t do that bc 1. they’re established characters, with established fanbases, and god forbid somebody’s blorbo isn’t presented in the best light 2. some of the routes are genuinely just written by the people for whom these characters are their blorbos who god forbid aren’t presented in the best light.

and so in homestuck proper, we get a group of trolls who, for the most part (the notable exception being largely feferi, even though even she has her moments), are very passively okay with a very oppressive society, while also being very passively okay with breaking the rules of said oppressive society sometimes. and in pesterquest that aspect, that contradiction that is nonetheless very poignant is kind of lost.

terezi, in pesterquest, when pushed says that she knows the system sucks, but it’s just the way things are, and she wants to protect the ones she loves and maybe if she sticks with it long enough she can change the system from the inside or whatever. and i just don’t think she’d fucking say that.

terezi, fundamentally, wants to be a corrupt lawyer, because it’s fun. she has a knack for manipulation, one of her first interactions with the humans is manipulating someone to death, and then she does a very similar thing to dave again. yes, she has complex feelings about it, but she still does it, she’s kind of really good at it, that’s kind of her entire power set: seeing how events pan out, and being able to identify the points that need to be changed for a desired outcome. she wants to become a corrupt lawyer because she’s a 13 year old who was sold on the idea of toying with people as a job.

a big thing with the trolls is that none of them are really fully sold on the ideology of alternia, even the ones most ideologically inclined towards it don’t fully act on it in their personal life. and this is just something that happens a lot in real life: bigots, even staunch ones, often make exceptions when it comes to personal matters, often buy into these systems without uncompromisingly adopting their principles. yes, it is hypocritical. yes, terezi wanting to be a corrupt lawyer while still caring about karkat is hypocritical. no, it’s not a contradiction that needs to be explained away.

Jane is the Maid of Life, meaning someone who upholds and maintains Life. Her obsession and adherence to Betty Crocker makes her uphold their values, which are the status quo of society (Especially once she goes Crockertier). While she's in Trickster Mode and Crockertier, she forces Jake into a heterosexual relationship and desires babies with him, therefore upholding the values of cishet society, against his wishes. And her assisting the Condesce further plays into her upholding the status quo.

Feferi is the Witch of Life, meaning one who controls and manipulates Life. She actively desires to change the status quo to what she wants with dramatic policy reform. Then, after dying, she creates the dream bubbles, making a new form of status quo for the ghosts of the furthest ring.

The Condesce and Meenah are Thieves of Life, meaning one who steals Life for themself. The Condesce steals the status quo of Alternia and Earth by creating her own empire on the post-scratch versions of those planets. Meenah does similar by killing all the pre-scratch trolls, who had fallen to the status quo of a few sweeps in Sgrub. She then opposes the new status quo by going after Lord English

I have switched to using Startpage.com and vastly prefer it. for one thing, instead of displaying an "AI summary" at the top of the search results (unless you turn it off, yes I know), it displays the first paragraph of the Wikipedia article, with link, whenever it finds one that's relevant.

also a waaayyyyy better sense of design than duckduckgo

Search Engines

Infinity Search is an alternative search engine with a special focus on privacy

DuckDuckGo is a popular search engine for those who value their privacy and are put off by the thought of their every query being tracked and logged. Uses bangs, ![site] for in-page search (sells your data to microsoft and draws from fucking bing)

WolframAlpha is a privately owned search engine that allows you to “compute expert-level answers using Wolfram’s breakthrough algorithms, knowledgebase, and AI technology.” A data search engine.

Boardreader is a search engine for forums and message boards. It allows you to search forums and then filter down results by date and language.

Based in France, Qwant is a privacy-based search engine that won’t record your searches or use your personal details for advertising. Uses “&” as a bang search.

Another privacy-based search engine is Search Encrypt, which uses local encryption to ensure that users’ identifiable information cannot be tracked. Metasearch across multiple engines. 

Offering unbiased results from several sources, SearX is a metasearch engine that aims to present a free, decentralized view of the internet. Can be self-hosted. 

Gibiru’s tagline is “Unfiltered private search” and that’s exactly what it offers. Requires AnonymoX Firefox add-on for privacy. 

Disconnect allows you to conduct anonymous searches through a search engine of your choice.

Swisscows provides fully encrypted searches to protect your privacy and security. Built-in violence/porn filter cannot be overridden. 

MetaGer offers “Privacy Protected Search & Find” through its anonymised search. A plugin will allow it to be made a default.

Gigablast is a private search engine that indexes millions of websites and servers real-time information without tracking your data, keeping you hidden from marketers and spammers. Variety of filtration and refinement options for searching. 

Oscobo is a search engine that protects your privacy while you search the web. By not using any third-party tools or scripts, your data is protected from hacking and misuse. Has a Chrome extension to allow use in toolbar. 

https://search.marginalia.nu/ an independent DIY search engine that focuses on non-commercial content, and attempts to show you sites you perhaps weren't aware of in favor of the sort of sites you probably already knew existed. Use old-school searching rather than query-based for the best results. 

https://www.mojeek.com/ 

https://wiby.me/ - It’s goal is to index as many personalized websites as possible, and NOT commercial sites. 

https://4get.ca/ it works a lot like SearX, but honestly better. It doesn’t have its own index, but pulls from many others. I think it’s the best for research, since it allows you to search for answers from different indexes, is easy to configure, add free, and avoids censorship as much as it can.

https://www.searchenginemap.com/ for more on how search engines relate to each other.

https://yep.com/ is a crawler

https://www.etools.ch/ retrieves from Google, Mojeek, Bing, and Yandex, like Searx

https://www.dogpile.com/ 

https://searxng.org/ (next gen Searx)

https://luxxle.com/ - possibly conservative?

https://presearch.com/ - good for academic?

https://kagi.com/smallweb - free/randomised Kagi.

Other Searchers

www.refseek.com - Academic Resource Search. More than a billion sources: encyclopedia, monographies, magazines.

www.worldcat.org - a search for the contents of 20 thousand worldwide libraries. Find out where lies the nearest rare book you need.

https://link.springer.com - access to more than 10 million scientific documents: books, articles, research protocols.

www.bioline.org.br is a library of scientific bioscience journals published in developing countries.

http://repec.org - volunteers from 102 countries have collected almost 4 million publications on economics and related science.

www.science.gov is an American state search engine on 2200+ scientific sites. More than 200 million articles are indexed.

Hydrocarbons

Crude oil: a syrup that comes in light to heavy thickness and taste wise goes from sweet to sour depending on how much sulfur it contains (and that's for human tastebuds too. The famous “Texas Sweet” oil got its name because it literally tastes sweet).

Crude can be distilled into the following from heaviest to lightest

Bitumen/Tar/Asphalt: The solid-ish remnants from crude distillation. Not quite eating rocks and dirt

Bunker fuel: The lowest of the low. The worst fuel possible, its main distinction from the previous is that its melting point is low enough to be useful, mainly in fueling ships. And even then it's usually watered down a bit with better oils. The only positive aspect is that it's likely to be found in huge quantities. It does not have any consistent taste, even from the same glob, other than horrible and being both too chewy and runny. If it must be eaten, either first heat it till it liquefies so you can chug it, or freeze it solid so you can easily crush it into chunks small enough to swallow.

Mazut: The Soviet/Russian blend of bunker fuel, and manages to be even worse quality. The Kuznetsov-class carriers run on Mazut and its smoke plume is so large and thick that it can be seen from space.

(Lubricating oils): see the lubricants section

Diesel: Think beer, specifically the start of civilization beer where it was more like liquid bread than an intoxicant. A good large bowl of diesel will fill you up nicely and power you for the day while giving a mild but nice buzz.

Kerosene:

RP-1: short for Rocket Propellant One. While technically rocket fuel it is just kerosene with very low contaminants. The choice of drink for those sensitive stomachs while still wanting to appear sophisticated.

Naphtha: used to make some paint thinners, aka drone moonshine.

Gasoline: the standard fanon alcoholic drink replacement for drones.

Petroleum Gas: does nothing since worker drones don’t breathe. Unsure if disassembly droned would be affected

Fuels

Nitro:

Ethanol:

Aircraft fuel: mixtures of additives with either gasoline (for non jet aircraft) or kerosene (jet aircraft). Gasoline mixes are also usually dyed a specific color. Copper-9 probably used Jet-B for cold temperature performance which is a gas-kerosene mix.

Zip fuel: a prototype jet fuel from the height of Cold War madness meant for supersonic bombers and fighters. In drones it acts like everclear with a side of meth- while you are black out drunk you will get “so much work done”. Also gives the worst hangovers.

Coolants/Refrigerants

Ammonia:

Transformer oil: Mildly spicy, with a bit of smoky flavor. Following human examples, also used to fry foods.

Freon: that famous banned coolant that nearly destroyed the Ozone layer on Earth, but has seen a resurgence in recent times since who cares about the ozone layer if the exo-planet doesn’t have one! Tangy taste.

Lubricants

I think lubricants would be the main “sauce” of drone cuisine

WD-40: tastes like fruit/mint water but dry (it stands for Water Displacer 40 what did you expect?) and great for getting tastes out of your mouth

Hydraulic fluid:

Mineral oil:

Vegetable oil:

Grease:

Solvents

Sulfuric Acid:

Misc

Wax:

Beeswax:

Tallow wax: allegedly you can taste the hint of the specific animal the tallow was rendered from.

Antifreeze:

Cryogenic liquids: Ideally you shouldn’t taste anything if you do somehow start drinking it because that would mean theres a crack or leak in your taste sensors that it's getting through and shorting them.

1) yar! I be t)(ee great gray w)(ale, do ye t)(ink ye )(ave the spear ta )(andle me?

2) are you a jellyfis)( because you've stung my bloodpumper~ and now I require your bodily fluids to stop t)(e stinging

3) )(oly mackerel! T)(at bass be flowing!

4) is t)(at a sea anemone in your pants? Cus I'm down to clownfis)(~

5)cut t)(e carp and come fis)(ing in my glub)(ole~

6) wanna see )(ow long I can )(old my breat)(?

7) I )(ave a lot in common wit)( dolp)(ins. Wanna come to my respiteblock and see?

8) a)(oy landlubber! All )(ands on me aft

9)wanna get fis)(breat)(?

https://archiveofourown.org/works/82571091 Rose Lalonde has taken a long look into herself, and realized there is something more than herself going on within. Fasciated Rose: a self exploration

rules: answer these questions & tag 9 people you'd like to know better

reading: nothing rn i'm doopit :( but the last book i read was I Who Have Never Known Men and i still think about it a lot!

last series: rewatching arcane >:)

last movie: The Truman Show (there are a lot of really "movieish" movies i haven't seen so i'm trying to catch up)

last song: probably You Lose by Magdalena Bay?? i bought a Mercurial World cd at the cutie music store today and we were listening to it in da car

working on: a diy music benefit show thingy for a local family impacted by ICE, my muscles, i was also working on a lil collage zine that i am hoping to scan and post here Soon

sweet or salty: i am a savory boy through and through

coffee or tea: i need coffee to function but i drink tea just for the love of the game

tagging: i have a lot of new mutuals!! here goes 🌀

Reading: Frankenstein!!

Last Movie: Howl's Moving Castle, I got nostalgic and wanted to see my husband and paramour again!!

Last Song: Thanks For The Memories, by Fallout Boy!! I wanted to hear Abel's voice while I was decorating some photocards

Working On: a redraw of the dance CG with Deiran, at the end of DETC!!

Sweet Or Salty: Sweet all the way!!

Coffee Or Tea: Tea!! Coffee can be nice too, but the way I have mine would make a purist yell at me for at least 3 hours lol

Reading: not currently reading anything, but the last book I did read was The Calvin and Hobbes Lazy Sunday Book!

Last Movie: Gamera 3: Revenge of Iris!

Last Song: Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall by the Ink Spots and Ella Fitzgerald! I listen to this song whenever I'm doing house husband duties for Abby!

Working on: My Abby shrine and my Washington Liberation Front recruit cosplay!

Sweet or Salty: Both! But I think sweet usually wins!

Coffee or Tea: Coffee I suppose, but I really like it sweet! Sometimes too sweet oof. But! I've been liking tea more and more! Especially with lemon!

Reading: a bunch of fanfiction....

Last Movie: I honestly don't remember, its been years since I last saw a movie. Maybe Annihilation?

Last Song: ElectricalInk's Two | Transcendent's CYNgularity

Working on: a Murder Drones / Nature of Predators fanfic about drones getting into shenanigans while trying to live with aliens.

Sweet or Salty: Sweet! I have a massive sweet tooth.

Coffee or Tea: Neither. Never really needed the energy, and growing up in Florida never learned how to drink hot drinks.