#Because I prefer when zombie media is about how humans find hope and community even in a world

[techno-rat]

Crocheted all day today!

[ruvviks]

okay. first all that's left ost question. pls explain the song in what we leave behind 👀

another one thought/question is that i was thinking abt it while making breakfast and i think all that's left would be v interesting as a video game that's divided into episodes. like whatever remedy's doing with alan wake.

anyway i am soooooooo in love with all that's left btw. i'm not even into zombie stuff but this one is soooooo cool. :]

HEHE THANK YOU SM <3 i love zombie media entirely too much i was obsessed with it when i was younger to the point i had entirely too many dreams about the zombie apocalypse. which is where half my zombie story ideas originated from including parts of the story for all that's left LMAO

so in "what we leave behind" the song playing is everyone dies by parsonsfield which is a song that i've always heavily associated with the story for some reason?? specifically because in an alternative ending i came up with, all the main characters did end up dying in very like. regular human ways to die in a zombie apocalypse in a way to show to the readers that, well, everyone does still die in the end despite how beautiful a journey or story can be etc etc and so on, and to show that there IS an end to all this but the main characters' good deeds end when they die, not when the story is over if that makes sense. they keep on being good even after the story is done. but i ended up kind of scrapping that because i preferred a more open ending that leaves room for own interpretation of what happens between like, the end of the story + when the main characters die. but the song has always stayed in my heart

which is why i added it to that chapter specifically! in "what we leave behind" the different players in the story (it's season two so that's three separate parties whose story you've been following the whole time) have all found themselves in predicaments scattered across los angeles; one group has been separated after a devastating breach in one of the districts, another group has been hunted down in the wasteland around the city, and the third group has been chased out of the city for their smuggling crimes (helping people out of los angeles into the wasteland to find a safe community to live in)

it's a chapter in which all hope seems lost which i think fits with the song in a way. there is very much the threat here that people are going to die, but it's part of how life goes, and i think the upbeat sound of the song contrasts the heaviness of the chapter very well which is something that i keep doing with this story because it creates an almost nostalgic feeling (for me personally, idk if it comes across well)?? as if you as the reader are very much aware that the story has already been told and there's nothing that can be changed about it anymore, and the soundtrack is reminiscing on what happened back then :]

and ooohh i never really thought about that tbh!! i think it could work as a video game but it would be a VERY cinematic game and i personally am not a big fan of that because i do like having things to do and especially with all the different perspectives and whatnot it would be very hard to keep track of the story while also trying to put down an interesting game if that makes sense SHGFDJGHDFGKD i did games & interaction in art school so this is like. the game designer in me talking LMAO

i do think some chapters would work VERY well as video game though, especially ones where a lot of stealth is needed or the more combat focused scenes. for example there's one scene in which they're trying to manage a huge horde of ghouls and like, lead them away from a settlement to then gun them down somewhere, i feel like that would be super cool to see in a video game >:^) but there's also a lot of scenes in which there's just a lot of talking and connecting to other characters going on which would be very boring to sit through i think :(

i've always visualized all that's left as a tv show and it would probably work best as that i think, because there's just so many characters and so many stories to tell that weave into one another very intricately. the visuals of the story would also just work best as a tv show because the way i'm imagining it is like a very vibrant tv show, bright colors and almost like, retro-y vibes?? basically the kind of vibes i put in those playlist edits, it contrasts the heaviness of the story very well + goes well together with the soundtrack!!

on top of all that (sorry i'm Going now) a tv show would give the story enough time to build up correctly, a movie would be entirely too short for that. with actual episodes and actual filler episodes focused more on exposition of the world and character conversations and a bit less action to give everyone including the viewer some breathing space, the story can actually be set up correctly and get people interested in the bigger picture of the universe i think :] it would have about 4 seasons of roughly 20 episodes per season, maybe the first season (book 1) would be a bit shorter on account of just following one group, but especially the next seasons (book 2-4 and Maybe 5 depending on how well i execute book 4) would just need more episodes because you're following around three groups in all those seasons. or at Least three. i can't remember my own lore. there's a lot going on just trust me

[quidfree]

prompt: tdbk in a post-apocalyptic setting (HEHEH)

self-servicing AND a helping hand to a friend in need, we love a good strat

this got incredibly out of hand but i hope you enjoy!!

--

it’s been two months and five days since he last saw someone that katsuki lays eyes on him. two months and five days, and yes, he is fucking keeping score, why wouldn’t he be?

two months and five days is long. two months and five days is long enough that he’s taken up the habit of muttering to himself to fill the air, because dead silence makes him paranoid, always expecting sudden interruption, and he chooses to ignore the fact that muttering to himself is a quirk he might have picked up elsewhere. jesus. if deku, scrawny and asthmatic and perennially, psychotically self-sacrificing, is somehow still alive, he thinks he might be glad to see him again, just out of sheer disbelief.

there’s other people he’d be glad to see. perfect timing, for the zombie apocalypse to erupt right when he’d been on a summer internship in tokyo. to think the old crone had been bitching about it before he’d left- don’t get mugged on the underground, all that shit. like he was some hare-brained tourist. like people didn’t expect him to mug them. whatever. he thinks his parents are safer, out in a smaller city, than anyone has been in tokyo, tells himself it’s not blind hope that makes him explain the radio silence away. it’s statistics, and the geography of the outbreak, and the memory of his mother beating a would-be pickpocket over the head with her shoe until he passed out.

six months ago he’d first walked into his cramped rental flat in tokyo, barely the space to unroll his mat. six days later the pandemic had begun. slowly, first, confusingly, two weeks of shadowing jeanist to court and back while the news got increasingly weirder, and then by the third things took a turn for the fucked, and his parents were calling frantically telling him to come home stat, but by then it was too late. tokyo’s the new york of japan- in sci-fi movies it’s always struck first. the city was on lockdown before he could so much as book a flight out.

that was five months ago. by four and a half his phone carrier service had gone dead.

he doesn’t like to linger on anything, but he especially doesn’t like to linger on what happened between the start and the middle of it, the slow descent from incomprehending disbelief into hell on earth. he doesn’t throw the term around- not one for flowery prose. for the first while there’d been something almost rewarding to it, the whole survival strategy, him and the interns and lawyers at jeanist’s office taking scope of their resources and planning their ways out. now it’s been two months and five days since he’s run into anyone alive, he fails to see the bright side.

the media called them the infected, or the walkers, or some other dumb shit, but everyone knows they’re zombies. it’s some kind of chemical weapon- americans, if you ask him- that’s mutated them, but they’re zombies by anyone’s definition. lumbering, decaying, dead, very keen on extending the invitation. the first time he’d seen one up close- whatever. he’d killed it. he’s killed so many by now he’s lost count, and that’s not an exaggeration. these days he’s not so big on those.

the office had been overrun, in the end. some of the other interns, panicking. bitten. dead. jeanist had held them off while katsuki dragged hysterical staffers out of the window, and the last he’s seen of the man he was catching his unflappable gaze as the doors burst open and jeanist slammed the window shut.

they’d scattered. maybe he would have stayed on, tried the group thing out of a sense of responsibility alone, but there were too many subgroups for him to rotate around. he’d split off, eventually, cut his losses. sometimes he catches someone he recognises walking the streets, wonders when and how and what. he’s still never seen jeanist. he thinks probably he offed himself.

if it ever comes to it that’s what he’s doing. he has a gun ready for it. one bullet. in the apartment he’d stayed in for a while, some forensic doctor’s place, he’d studied the angle that worked best. straight through the temples, angled down.

then there had been that thing with the league. he doesn’t want to think about that, but he does, constantly, because that’s how he knows. two months and five days. the last person he spoke to was that fucking girl.

like zombies weren’t enough- criminals who fancy themselves cultists roam the streets in packs. it’s like every shitty blockbuster movie he’s never bothered to see packed into one.

two months. five days. there’s no way of communicating with the outside world. after he’d shaken off the league he’d had jack shit on him- lost his bag in the initial fight, and his apartment was a lost cause. in the end he’d made his way back to the firm, but that had been a literal dead end too. he’d managed to retrieve, of all things, his phone, skirting the streets around the firm, probably dropped in their original escape. it’s functionally useless but he’s managed to charge it once or twice, stare at old photos and texts that fail to send. he has nothing else of his own except the clothes he’d worn that last day with jeanist.

he’s remade his belongings, obviously. he’s competent, as it turns out, in apocalypses. somehow it doesn’t surprise him. he works out a routine. when he’d first found a hole to burrow himself in post-league he’d spent days just picking up patterns- when, who, from where, how. once he was entirely sure he’d gotten it down to a science he’d risked it back out, mapping the area out incrementally, one rotation at a time. two months and five days in he has it down to an art instead.

he moved regularly for the first month post-league, avoiding anywhere that seemed inhabited by zombies and people alike. can’t trust anyone, and besides it’s way too much of a liability having other people around to get themselves bitten. he can look after himself, but he’s not signing up for charity work. by the second month he’d found his current address, the top floor of a mid-rise apartment complex in meguro city. apartment complexes are risky, but this one’s door locks are still functional, and once he’d cleared out the ground floor and made the rounds to check for stragglers he’d wagered it about as secure as it could get. the stairs are a bitch, but the zombies don’t like them either, preferring to straggle in lobbies, and for another thing the height is convenient. the roof’s close by for a way out, and it gives him a good view of the surroundings.

the apartment itself is nothing special. residential. he picked the cleanest one, which also meant the one half-moved out in a hurry. he pretends like he thinks the owners got out but he spotted a suitcase with their name abandoned in the elevator. the guy was a teacher at the university. the woman was in sales. it’s decent for a tokyo flat, two bedrooms, a bathroom, good kitchen, nice living area. the fridge had been full of expired goods, but the shelves had some cans in them- soup, rice, beans. pots and pans. he’s been working through the floors of the place one room at a time taking inventory, lugging the useful shit back up. nothing beyond the strictly practical- he takes food, medecine, clothes, someone’s watch once, binoculars. he’s not making a home for himself, just stocking up. he sleeps with his bag on his back, the essentials locked and loaded. the gun was an apartment find too.

his biggest problem is transport. he recognised this early on, because so could anyone with half a brain. tokyo’s teeming with public transports overrun by the undead, cars abandoned on the streets, but the actual streets are packed day in and day out. whatever movie said zombies hate the sun was full of shit, because as far as he can tell the only time they actually react to the weather is when it rains. all night and day they’re shuffling in tireless motions around the city, gaining numbers. there’s a rhythm to it, sure- they’re more sluggish at night- but it’s an incessant flow. he can’t drive a car, has found no convenient manual stored nearby, and google went and croaked on him when the electricity did, so there’s no way he can just take advantage of a lull and jump in. by the time he’s figured out how to get any given vehicle to start he’ll be surrounded. even if he could find a way in, there’s no way out- driving through streets packed with zombies is a doomed exercise, especially given that half of the cars in the city are busted or low on fuel.

his current plan involves boats. he’s not sure if zombies can swim yet, but they don’t like the rain so he’s betting no, and even if they do they’d fare no better than a human at climbing a boat from the waters below it. if he can make it to tokyo bay somehow- at least off the coast there’ll be room to manoeuvre. but he needs to figure out the basics of ship-operating first, and also to relocate his supplies nearer to the bay somehow. if he ends up on the open seas he’ll need the food to last him the journey.

so he’s been doing this. rounds, collecting shit. taking inventory. scoping the streets out. he spends the nights planning, the early mornings reading. there’s no power in the building. it’s freezing. six months since his internship, winter rolling in. if he gets to tokyo bay the waters will be frigid, but the sea doesn’t freeze over.

his biggest concern at the moment is hypothermia, if he’s being honest. he’s collected every fucking duvet in the building, it feels like, but there’s only so much he can bury himself under. he’d be warmer if he didn’t insist on bathing in melted snow, but he went so long without washing in autumn that he fucking refuses to waste the opportunity. he smells like some ridiculous apple berry blast bullshit because he’s cycling through shampoos, but sometimes he thinks he’s only sane when he’s brushing his teeth in the mornings so he’s not about to let up on the hygiene.

three and a half months ago he was meant to be back at school. he has no idea what’s happened to his classmates. most of them were home for the summer. he thinks yaoyorozu was abroad. lucky her. kirishima was the last he heard from, all suppressed terror, and even now it makes him feel sick to think about it, because he knows full well the asshole was scared for him. sometimes he thinks about what it would have been like facing this shit as a group, but he never dwells on it. he’s better off alone.

he’s cold. he’s tired. he needs to get to the nearest library, because no one in the building has shit about boats. he doesn’t want to leave the building yet, but he needs a book. can’t go into this shit blind, not without knowing what he’ll need once he gets there. and besides he needs to stay sharp on the streets- get back into the swing of it, literally. one month since he moved in and he’s barely seen a zombie in the rotting flesh. the doors have been holding up, and he’s far up enough that none of the regulars outside can smell him, decide to unionize and break the door down.

he’s had an assortment of weapons, since the start of this. most effective was the gun, also a heavy chair once. his trusty hockey stick had snapped on his way into the building, a month ago, leaving him to fend the last three tenants off with goldfish bowls and doors to the neck. he’s found a sturdy baseball bat since that he’s claimed as new weapon of choice, though never used. he takes this, when he goes. the bat, the backpack that never leaves his back, the longest coat he can find in his collection. not the heaviest, despite the biting cold, because that restrains movement, but the longest, to minimize contact. hat and gloves for the same reason. balaklava just for the cold.

the apartment is empty as he winds his way down, footsteps loud, and it’s dusk- just late enough that the zombies are slower, though not late enough that it really makes a difference. it’s be too dark if it were; he’s trying to save flashlights for real emergencies.

the setagaya library is the only actual library near him, as the maps inform him, but too far to risk. in the address book he finds a local bookshop three blocks away, and it’s there that he heads, already cold to the bone as he grits his teeth and locks the complex door assiduously behind him. there are zombies just across the street beginning to moan in his direction. he ignores them, breaking into a jog.

maybe because their blood doesn’t flow to their brains, maybe because their muscles are deteriorating: zombies aren’t incredibly fast or incredibly intelligent. what they are is resilient, and single-minded. but outrun them and outsmart them he can, and so he does- runs the paths he’s memorized, sticks to corners and shadows and scales ladders and crosses rooftops and just about manages to get to the street in question without even having to swing his bat.

once he gets there, though, he gets swinging. the bookshop is in an unfortunate position, and there’s an entire group parked in front of it. he lets them spot him first, so they break off in his direction, then climbs onto the overturned truck they’ve shifted to and springs back down into the doorframe of the bookshop, kicking the door in before they can register his itinerary. he slams it shut just before a greying hand scratches at it in outrage, heart pounding a steady tattoo, then glances around rapidly. no sign of life, but that means nothing.

there is, then, an unmistakable jingling sound from the very back corner of the room, behind rows and rows of antique-looking books. keys, or metal on metal. movement.

company, katsuki thinks, between anticipation and trepidation. his bat sits comfortably in his hands as he raises it.

jingling, closer, and he moves in on instinct, breathing feeling loud as he brushes past the anthropology section. he can just about see around the corner when a sudden sixth sense makes him whip around, bat swinging down heavily, and just in the nick of time- wood connects with metal, hard, knocking him back a pace as his teeth snap together from the impact, but he’s swinging again in self-defense just as there’s a sharp intake of breath and his brain catches up- red, white, painfully familiar. the bat makes an aborted spasm.

“bakugou,” shouto todoroki says, in disbelieving tones, crowbar lowered but not dropped. katsuki gapes.

“am i fucking hallucinating?”

the crowbar lowers further.

it is him, unmistakably. maybe with someone else he would have hesitated longer, but todoroki's hard not to single out. his red-white hair is tousled, long behind his ears like he's absently tucked it and forgotten about it, and he's grimy, smells sour and dusty, but it's him. katsuki's own hands stay gripped around the bat, their gazes playing some odd symmetrical game as they catalogue each other for the same exact thing- looking for bite-marks. todoroki's less covered than katsuki is, but there's blood on him, old, dried. too old for recent bites, anyways. inconclusive.

"what are you doing in-" todoroki starts, maybe having concluded that there's no way to assess his status with the layers he has on, but then his frown twists. "oh. your internship?"

which answers katsuki's own question, sort of, because now that he thinks of it enji was on that high-profile murder case in the high court. still- still, his brain is stuck on the incongruity of it, shouto todoroki in the apparently living flesh, and it's been two months and five days. he just keeps staring.

"i came for a book," is what leaves his lips, eventually, rough, and his voice sounds hoarse with disuse. it jars him into action, moving past todoroki on auto-pilot, because somehow he can't quite register his presence, doesn't know where to begin. he wasn't factoring this into his day.

it's dark inside, books hard to discern, so he gets his flashlight out, hits it against a shelf so it alights. there's a section on travel near the back. nautical travels of the eastern seas. useless. a map book of the japanese seas- maybe. he mechanically slides it into his bag. his fingers feel rigid. he's still cold. what the fuck is shouto todoroki doing holed up in a bookstore? where is his father? how long has he been here? what is he doing, alive, talking, walking, in the apocalypse, ambling into katsuki's routine with a crowbar in hand?

he can't see or hear him at all. now he's back here he can tell the ringing was rigged up- tiny trap-wires set around the store, what looks like fishing wire with bells attached. smart. of course it is. he's losing his mind. where has the bastard gone? is he even here? it's fucking freezing in the bookstore. where does he sleep? he hadn't looked starving. actually he hadn't looked anything- just blank as usual, barring the surprise. fuck! he's been staring at the same book for a good thirty seconds without registering the title.

beginner's guide to boating. miraculous. he nearly breaks todoroki's kneecaps when he sees his legs appear silently next to him.

"fuck! don't sneak up on me, you asshole!"

"boats," todoroki says. "that's your plan?"

it makes him flare hot with something like rage, because he doesn't fucking want input on it, doesn't want to be told odds, and it has him on his feet, slamming todoroki back into the opposite bookshelf within seconds.

"mind your own damn business!"

todoroki seems mildly startled at best, shifting a little so a book isn't digging into his neck, and for a moment katsuki is distracted by the scalding warmth of him under his arm. he doesn't know when he last came into contact with a living body. it's disorienting. he thinks probably it was the senior partner who fell down the stairs, minutes before the zombies swarmed the lobby, pulse skittering frantically with fear.

he drops todoroki, steps back. two months five days. maybe he's gone a little crazy.

whatever! whatever. he's fully functioning, he has his book, he's leaving. he's going to be off-schedule at this rate, times gone muddy with distraction. even without touching him he feels like there's residue warmth on his palm, making the rest of him shiver by contrast. if the zombies could have just gotten properly active in summer...

he's halfway to the door when he remembers- again- todoroki is actually there, watching him inscrutably from the bookshelf, swaying a little on his feet. despite himself he turns to stare back. he doesn't know what to- this wasn't in the plan, he doesn't know. he's going anyways.

it's because he's staring-cum-glaring at todoroki that he sees his eyes widen, and then he's leaping forwards on instinct as the window in the door shatters, decaying arm bursting through as loud moaning suddenly fills the dead silence.

"shit!"

"it's because there's two of us," todoroki reasons, in a tone like he's annoyed with himself for not realising this, which would make katsuki feel marginally better about his own stupid lack of thought if he wasn't so pissed. he'd counted on the zombies losing interest on his presence once he was out of sight, but the smell of two live humans in close proximity would obviously keep some of them near.

"is there another way out of this place?"

"back entrance, but it leads into a dead-end alley," todoroki retorts, suddenly functioning, eyeing the creaking door as thumping intensifies from the other side. "there's a way to scale onto the drain-pipe above but it wasn't made to take two people's weight."

"shit," katsuki curses, feelingly. "where's the drain-pipe lead?"

"roof. i don't know if either of us could scale it fast enough for the other to follow before they get there."

katsuki looks at him, crouched calmly stacking something or other into a loose duffel bag, rusty crowbar by his feet, then looks back to the groaning door. his gut tightens with a sort of pissed off fatalism.

"how long 'd it take you to get to the roof? five minutes?"

"i could do it in three, maybe less," todoroki estimates. "it's slower with the frost."

three minutes. katsuki hoists the bat higher, takes a step then two back from the door.

"fine. go. i'll follow."

"bakugou-"

"it's the most logical fucking plan of action," katsuki snaps, eyes still on the door, adrenaline spiking. "if you get up there before i get outside i can make it to the drainpipe before anyone nabs me. i can hold them off for three fucking minutes. and you're the one who knows the way up. you go."

"i know," todoroki says, which makes katsuki glance back at him, finds his face set with nothing but fixed determination. "i was going to say to give me your bag. it'll make it easier to climb."

there's something about this that makes katsuki's head briefly thud with something like a pounding headache, lungs gone tight, but he refocuses, blinks away the dizzy spell. the last fucking thing he wants is to give the bag away, but unless the plan goes as hoped he's dead anyways, so there's no point in arguing.

he shrugs his backpack off, slides the gun out, shoves it into his back pocket. todoroki fastens the straps around his shoulders without comment, then turns and runs, not wasting any time. it makes something in him-

the door breaks in.

there's five of them at least, the ones from before. the first one goes down with a direct hit to the head, skull caving in with a crunching sound, but he has to retreat immediately, make them spread out of their pack formation as he zig-zags back through the rows of books. they're slower than humans but not slow, breaking into a fast paced shuffle after him; he turns a sharp corner, doubles back as fast as he can to catch a second one from behind. crack, snap. the one in front lunges back before he can swing again, sending him running back; he jumps onto the seller's counter, dodging an arm, then brings the bat down full-force onto the zombie's neck. three. there's another one nearing the broken door, the other two circling back to the front at the commotion. he jumps over the counter, ducking under an arm, knocks into the nearest bookshelf with all of his weight, sending it sprawling towards the door, books flying and frame landing awkwardly across the doorframe. it doesn't block entry, but it befuddles the would-be incomers.

there's an arm grabbing his shoulder; he dodges a gaping mouth, bat spinning to hit at the rotting jaw, once, twice, bones splintering decisively on the second hit, but the last straggler is on him and the others are crawling in through the door. he runs, down to the back of the store, nearly trips over todoroki's traps himself as he goes, miraculously jumps clean of them as his pursuers stumble. it gives him the seconds to jump up to the back portion of the shop, grab a nearby chair and throw it at the advancing huddle, knocking them back a step, then turn sharply into a row, sprinting down to the back of the room where the emergency exit sign hangs half-broken. it's closed, likely behind todoroki, but he slams through it before any of the zombies near, staggers at the sharp gust of cold air that hits once he's out. the sun is nearly set, casting a red haze over the alley, and there's a pack of six zombies right beneath the glinting drainpipe, still trailing after todoroki's scent, moaning around the corner signalling backup. fuck.

there's a loud scraping from above, then todoroki's head appears over the edge of the roof, something grey and unwieldy in his hands; a satellite dish comes falling down, catching speed as it goes. it hits the pack dead-centre, crushing two of the zombies into pieces on impact, others reeling backwards in confusion, and he doesn't have the time to question his odds four-on-one. he runs in while they're still dazed, beats one into the wall, head splattering, turns and swings into the second as it zeroes in on him, head collapsing inward and drenching him in blood. the other two are too close to hit; he twists, jumps back, curses, eyes the alley entry where others have scented blood. fucking- no, two on one, god, he's not dying two on one, not after the bullshit he's been through. he kicks heavily into the one's chest, just missing the hand trying to nab his ankle, which sends it knocking into the other, and like that they're just aligned enough that he yells and slams the bat through the first one's head, in three rapid blows, hitting the one behind it on the third as bits of skull go flying. it's not enough to take it out; he hits again, manic, and it gets him on the second go. then he's scrambling to the drain pipe, mindful of the others closing in, shoves his bat down the back of his shirt and under his waistband before he throws himself at the drainpipe.

"brace against the wall," todoroki calls, almost in the moment he does so, hands slip-sliding on the damp pipe as his boots hit concrete; there are arms nearing, outstretched, but he bunches his stomach and drags himself up, feet first then arms, side of his arm scraping heavily against the wall as he moves almost horizontally upwards, fingers clenched around metal. the fucking gloves are no help; he pauses, braced and shaking with tension, to rip his gloves off with his teeth, one hand then the next, dropping to the floor below as his bare palms hit the freezing metal.

he's so cold it hurts, but he's halfway up the wall. methodically he moves. one foot. other foot. one hand. other hand. stomach muscles, straining, arms pulling. up a fraction. then another. then another.

"wait," todoroki says, closer than he feels, and he glances up for the first time, finds him an arm and a half's length away. "you'll slide at the top."

"then what the fuck do you suggest i do?" katsuki bites, half a yell, too strained to scream. todoroki leans, heavy, arms outstretched.

"do one more. then take my hand."

katsuki wishes he could spit on him. todoroki's expression has gone tight like he knows what he's thinking, like he's not sure katsuki won't let himself fall all the way down rather than put himself into the uncalloused hands of shouto todoroki.

the pipe creaks. katsuki moves up, ignores the way his blood boils, eyes the outstretched hands. he can hear todoroki breathing, hot against the cold air.

"drop me and i'll turn you."

he braces. one hand leaves the pipe, and for a godawful moment he's grasping at nothing. their hands connect, rearrange themselves; todoroki has a death-like grip on his wrist. his foot slides. the second hand is thrown rather than extended, and todoroki's eyes flash alarmingly as their fingers brush and miss, but he doesn't fall, hangs there by an arm for a heartbeat, jolt like he's dislocated his shoulder before his boot catches something and he shoves upwards, todoroki grabbing hold of his hand and yanking full-body at him.

katsuki falls over the top of the roof in disjointed movements, the both of them half-hitting each other as momentum carries them down, lands with an elbow in todoroki's stomach and a hit of tile to the jaw.

his head spins; he shoves up immediately, falls back down when his arms protest, adrenaline pounding hysterically. his limbs are shaking with belated exertion. todoroki is still holding his wrists, punishingly tight, his breaths heavy nearby. his body is still hot beneath him.

he scrabbles backwards, onto his knees, todoroki dropping his hands and dragging himself up to his elbows. for a moment they stare at each other, panting loudly.

he wants to yell at him but the words don't come. two months, five days. it's not even todoroki's fault, really. he was living there unperturbed. there's a flush of exertion over his cheeks now, and maybe he's just gone crazy what with the constant thinking about unbeating hearts but he feels a little obsessively interested in the visible flow of blood beneath his skin, wants him pink all over if that'll prove him living a minute longer.

he shakes himself, exhales in a burst.

"are you all right?" todoroki asks, and up close katsuki realises his voice is hoarser too. in the shop he'd been too dumbstruck to register it, but it's there beneath his normal cadence, a scratchy undertone. he hasn't spoken in a while either. something about it-

all right, he'd asked. unbitten, he means. katsuki shakes his head.

"we need to get going."

he hadn't meant the 'we', but he thinks at some point when todoroki's fingers dug into his arm hard enough to pierce flesh the message had gotten under his skin too. they're not fucking splitting up now. of course they're not. this isn't model un or a baseball match; it doesn't matter that the guy drives him insane. and this is todoroki, too- excruciatingly hyper-competent at every challenge life throws at him. if there's anyone less likely to rely on katsuki for the next however-long until one of them is forced to shoot the other, he hasn't met them.

"where?"

"my place. 's not far. how d'you get down from here?"

"the next building over has a fire-escape."

"fine. let's go then."

todoroki hands him back his backpack. he hits his bat against the wall to shake some bits of bone and flesh off, eyes unfocused on the task. he thinks desensitisation is the word. it's maybe the third or fourth time he's fought them off without registering anything about them once. usually he gets stuck on some detail or other, schoolgirl shirt or smile wrinkles. freckles. proof of life. there's that movie he watched once with kirishima and the rest of them, some kind of sci-fic thing, and at the end when the monsters come the dad shoots his whole family dead to spare them. turns out it's the military instead, come to rescue them. kirishima had cried.

questions pile up in his throat. he forces them down.

they jump from the rooftop to the next with relative ease, the gap narrow, his foot just catching on the edge before he rights himself. the fire escape is solid where the drain pipe wasn't. he wonders how in the fuck todoroki ended up here, in some old bookstore.

he's gotten good at scaling shit. he thinks in another life he'd have made a top-grade gymnast, or a superhero. when he'd broken out of the league's hold he'd made a spiderman worthy leap onto a clothes-line.

they make it back to the apartment as the sun vanishes, late, and because they're late his perfect scheduling is off, leaves them facing a pack of easily a dozen zombies swarming around the doors. there's another way in through the side, but it requires forcing a door open that he doesn't have keys for, and that means an entry-risk.

"i'll clear a way to the door," he says, hoisting his bat higher. "you keep them off my back."

todoroki follows his gaze, nods.

they advance in the dark, close together, and it's bizarre having someone breathing down his neck after so long, makes him on edge, expecting a bite that never comes. when the first zombie starts turning their way he breaks into a run, brings the bat down fast and heavy so it connects with a sick thud, flashlight clicking to life where he holds it between his teeth. it blinds one zombie long enough that he gets it too, and then it's chaos, flashlight swinging drunkenly as he batters this way and that, fighting off the clawing arms with irate kicks and loud swearing. if there's one thing he fucking loathes about the apocalypse it's how touchy-feely everyone is, all endlessly grasping hands and drooling maws straining for a piece of him. it makes his skin crawl, which makes him see red, which makes him go through fights like this, all furious movement, too keyed up to feel afraid. he never goes into a fight expecting to lose.

behind him, around him, wet crunching and moans track todoroki closing the pack; in off-beat synchronisation they move their way through the group, dropping bodies as they go. he's by the door before he knows it, light catching the heavy glass, switches the bat to one hand as he drags out the keys. the first time he'd gotten in the door had been open; his luckiest find since was the functioning key, sealing him out of harm's way. he's efficient with it, no fumbling, has it in and open in the time todoroki exhales sort of shortly as their backs connect. bakugou yanks the key out in the same movement he grabs blindly at todoroki's collar with his bat-holding hand, hooking a finger to swing him through the door and diving after him to slam the door shut on a wrist, bone snapping and the hand falling limply to the floor as they put their weight on the door for as long as it takes him to lock it again.

todoroki's crowbar is sopping red, guts in his hair; he casts a look around, doesn't even ask if katsuki thinks the door will hold, if katsuki has thought of their scent luring zombies in. most people would have.

he has, obviously. thought of it. that's why he lives on the top floor. the scent doesn't linger. doesn't matter if there's two of them up there. the door holds for as long as the stragglers press up against it, but as soon as they're out of sight the zombies will drift again.

they make their way up the stairs. he's warmer now, purely from the exercise. heat rises. another reason he lives at the top. doesn't feel like it when he's freezing his ass off at night, but he knows his science.

they make it to the top floor in silence, and he pushes his door open (unlocked, this one, because by the point anyone reaches him up here he'll be long gone), goes for the camping lamp on the floor, trudges along with it in hand. remembers his houseguest.

"kitchen's there. there's a bathroom. two rooms. living room. no power or running water but i have some water in the bathtub if you want to wash."

"it's nice," todoroki says, and the worst thing is he sounds like he means it, almost politely. it makes katsuki stop dead to look at him, struck again by how unreal it all feels, but it almost feels reassuringly normal, staring at todoroki in disbelief. in the bad lighting he looks otherworldly, even despite the filth and zombie gunk he's covered in, all half-lit and angelic like something out of a hazy dream.

"i can't fucking believe it's actually you, half 'n half."

it escapes him unthinkingly, but it's true, and besides that it has the unforeseen consequence of making todoroki's composure fracture, shoulders rising and falling on a mute laugh, exhausted wryness in the tilt of his head. for a split second his gaze is dizzyingly and uncharacteristically frank, almost intimate.

"the feeling is mutual."

if the moment stretches he might do something wholly deranged; he rolls his aching shoulder, gestures to the bathroom.

"you go first. you reek."

todoroki says his thanks to his back as he retreats.

he returns to routine. strips, despite how fucking cold he is, wraps his shoulder tight enough that it hurts, rubs alcohol onto the more worrying cuts and scrapes. drags some bedding to the second room, then drags himself to the kitchen, shivering, mentally redoing his maths, then pulling out his notebook to jot down the edited stock. pauses, hesitates. in the margin under the date he writes: found half 'n half. it's not a diary, but he feels like he should make note.

todoroki appears silently in the doorframe, wrapped in a towel and scrubbed red, and there's something reassuring about how clean he looks, balanced out by how disturbing it is to see him so casually bare. he's barely glanced up at him that he drops the towel.

"the fuck-"

todoroki just turns in a neat 360, then wraps himself back up. katsuki snaps his jaw shut, ears burning but head clear. no bites. right. the previous times- whatever. reluctantly he stands and turns. when todoroki eyes his boxers he glares.

"you don't think you would have noticed if i got bitten on the dick today?"

he's not entirely sure todoroki won't fight him on it, but he concedes after a moment's assessing stare, shifts from foot to foot.

"you can have some of my shit to wear," katsuki says, pointing to the wardrobe he's requisitioned. "some of it's too big. should fit."

todoroki just nods, follows suit.

he wonders, as he scrubs himself down with a bucketful of water, teeth chattering and bath-tub still half full, if todoroki was always so goddamn quiet or if he's traumatised or some shit. the guy was always the annoying silent type, but he doesn't remember him this monosyllabic. habit, probably. what does he know.

he dresses, layers up, shoves his dirty clothes with todoroki's in the basket. when it fills he'll dunk the whole lot into a tub of his used water, but until there's that many dirty clothes he leaves them out.

todoroki is sat on the couch wrapped in blankets and wearing someone's dad's heavy knitwear, illuminated by (of all things) a gas lamp that katsuki had found but never managed to light. so the asshole has matches.

"you hungry?" katsuki asks, really only to make him speak. todoroki nods, counter-productively, but he's talking next.

"don't waste your food on me."

"shut up, asshole," katsuki mutters, on instinct, fatigue setting into him. jesus. the martyrs he's surrounded with. "you can make the next grocery run."

todoroki only looks at him longly, but he follows him into the kitchen, eats the cold soup without complaint. he likes cold food, katsuki thinks, then stops at the thought. he has no idea how he knows it. it feels like a memory from a different life. he likes cold food. like that matters.

it's not very late, though it's pitch black out. he goes to bed early these days to make the most of the sunlight. he's not sure what to do with todoroki, though rationally that's not his concern.

he can't find it in himself to ask the obvious questions. it's partly because he doesn't want to hear the answers and partly because he doesn't want to have to give his own. it's not like they were fucking bosom buddies before this all went down- he's past hating the guy, despite how unbearable he finds him, would call them something adjacent to friends under duress, but it's not like they make a point of hanging out outside of class. and todoroki's a terrible conversationalist, always.

even so. two months, five days. he wants to talk, if only for the pleasure of getting to call him a superior bastard, if only to know that he's still the same confounding weirdo whose face he wears. it's not even the words, really- he wants to hear a pulse beat near him, to catch alert eyes on his, to watch his chest rise and fall. alive.

he can't believe the asshole stripped naked like that. pale flesh all over, but not that diseased grey tint, just regular winter cold, like the inside of a peach. bruises and scratches littering his limbs. nasty half-healed scar like someone had tried to gut him with a knife.

his lips are peeling when he licks them. he found vaseline in someone's drawer but he uses it sparingly. whenever he goes outside his lips crack to the point of blood. against the glow of the stove he can see only half of his new flatmate where he sits surveying his newly clean crowbar.

"what's in the duffel?"

he'd have bristled more at the invasion, pragmatic though it is, but todoroki only shifts obligingly to raise it to his lap.

"medical kit- bandages, aspirin, tweezers, needle and thread. three water bottles. instant noodles. biscuits. matchbox. a city map. a change of shoes. a space blanket. my wallet. wire. rope. an alarm clock. a mechanic's manual." he pauses, feels around, drags out a glass bottle. "this."

it's vodka, of all the things. katsuki half wants to laugh.

"you drink now?"

"kept me warm," todoroki shrugs. which is, maybe, all there is to it. maybe not.

"i'll run you through inventory in the morning," katsuki says, if reluctantly. best todoroki knows what they have on hand, despite how little he feels like letting him into his notebook. it's not like he's deku, writing down his little feelings all over it, but it feels revealing anyways, for todoroki to know what he's been tracking.

there's nothing else for them to talk about without heading into dangerous territory. todoroki packs his things back into the bag, careful, and katsuki is sick of his own weird emotional breakdown, doesn't know where this sudden needy cloying bullshit is even coming from.

two months five days, his brain says, chipper, and then offers to rewind the days preceding that. he hisses through his teeth before he remembers he has company.

"i'm going to bed. 's fuck all to do without wasting light. stay high up if you want to go exploring."

todoroki has gone back to muteness, because he only nods as katsuki glowers at nothing in particular and makes his way back to his room, unhappy at the sight of his diminished bedding. it's not like he's actually able to use the whole apartment's bedding anyways- too unwieldy, too heavy, whatever- but the three duvets and two quilts had been working well enough to insulate him against the chill, and with two sacrificed he's resigned to a night of tossing and turning.

fuck his life. he thinks maybe the reason he's been having these fits of weirdness across the days is just fatigue. between the nightmares and the cold and the actual zombie break-ins over the past six months he doesn't think he's managed a single night's good sleep beyond the times he's blacked out. he feels untethered, at times both more and less emotional than he's used to being.

no surprise that having a real life human being around- and one that he knows at that- is making him almost ill with conflicting urges. part of him wants to lock todoroki out in a cold sweat and never lay eyes on him again. part of him wants to cut him open and grab at his beating heart just to confirm he's not alone. the rest of him lies there wondering what the fuck is wrong with his brain.

he lies there for maybe an hour trying to get to sleep, but his mind has kicked into overdrive in the way that it does every goddamn night nowadays, replaying scenes he didn't even notice in the moment. one of the zombies by the bookstore had barely reached his shoulder. when he'd washed his bat there had been bits of an eye clinging to the base.

he's too busy being cold and annoyed and possibly hysterical to notice the soft footfall until it's close, jerking up on instinct to brandish his bat, but he can tell by the moonlight filtering in slivers through his blinds that it's todoroki, if the lack of shuffling hadn't given it away.

"what the hell is wrong with you?"

"i didn't mean to startle you," todoroki says. monotone, but in an off way, almost dreamy, like he's asleep. it makes katsuki's skin prickle with foreboding; he stares at the little he can see of his face, alert now.

"then what do you want?"

"you sound cold," todoroki says. still in the doorframe, unmoving. he wishes there was more light.

"it's the middle of winter, jackass, of course i'm cold. can you fuck off?"

"my father is dead," todoroki says, completely unprompted, voice not changing in timbre in the slightest, and it makes katsuki's heart jump before he sits fully upright, trying harder to make his face out.

enji todoroki, gone. he guesses he'd known that on some level, for todoroki to be roaming around like a ghost, but it doesn't compute. jesus. maybe todoroki's actually fucking lost it since. he imagines two months and five days tracking back to losing his father, feels that gut-punch of paralysis in his stomach.

he's so caught on processing it that he doesn't even register todoroki is climbing into the bed before he's halfway under the sheets.

"what the fuck are you doing?" his voice half-breaks on it, rising in sheer disbelief as he jerks violently back, because seriously- there's insane and there's insane, and he's starting to suspect todoroki is so out of it he'd snap his neck in his sleep.

todoroki has the audacity to shush him, distracted, and it takes katsuki actually grabbing him hard by the shoulder, braced to hit at the slightest flicker of intent, to stop him in his tracks.

"hey, asshole, i'm talking to you! are you out of your goddamn mind?"

where he's stopped now todoroki's one eye catches the moonlight, big and dark and eerie. he blinks slowly like he's coming out of a trance.

"oh, i-" he pauses. his pulse is sluggish under katsuki's hands, skin fire-hot. feverish, maybe. shit. feverish, very possibly. he'd had no layers in that shitty bookshop. "sorry."

he says it like he's not sure he means it. katsuki doesn't let up with his grip.

"how long you been sick, icyhot?"

"sick," todoroki repeats, processing it. his gaze sharpens. "days. i think maybe- what day is it?"

"wednesday. thirteenth."

"six days, then," todoroki says, quiet. their gazes catch, more consciously now. "i'm fine. the adrenaline helped."

"sit still," katsuki warns, and then pulls up quickly, shrugs his backpack off, digs out the medical kit. he has a decent stock of medicine in the apartment, enough that he only hesitates a beat before pulling out the advil bottle, unscrewing the cap to fill it. he knows the dosage by heart. "drink."

he nearly drops the whole bottle when todoroki just obediently sticks his mouth to the rim of the cap instead of taking it himself, hot breath fanning over his fingers as he drinks. it makes his own pulse go skittering with discomfort when he fills it a second time, brandishes it back. the cap is sticky and wet when he screws it back on; todoroki is still half-sitting where he told him to when he's done his bag up and slid it back onto his back.

"why'd you tell me about your dad just then?" katsuki asks, despite himself, if only to fill the silence.

"did i?" todoroki asks, on an exhale, visible eye swivelling to him. "i don't know. i was thinking about the cold, i think. he wasn't cold in the end."

he resists the urge to check his temperature. probably it got worse once he tried to go to sleep, all the residue adrenaline gone. it can't have been peaking all day, or they'd have never made it out in the first place. and it's not from a bite. just a fever. he's medicated. he'll sleep it off.

"i'm not crazy," todoroki informs him, suddenly cool, not so hazy. "just sick. i could hear you tossing and turning. that's why i came."

"why're you in my bed?" katsuki shoots back, on the edge of combative, not really. maybe he's a little relieved. he's a lot pissed off, even though he knows todoroki probably genuinely didn't realise what a state he was in the last week, might have actually been trying to make sense of his fluctuating mood himself. no shit he'd been so weird when they first ran into each other.

"i'm not sure," todoroki admits. "it seemed important at the time."

this makes him want to laugh, though he doesn't. the cracked-open raw part of him that still smarts loudly whenever he thinks of jeanist thinks he missed him somehow.

"glad we solved that mystery. get out now."

todoroki makes to move, stops when they're facing each other, blue eye white-pale on his. "actually i remember now, i think."

"i swear to god, half 'n half..."

"you're cold," todoroki repeats, factual, then back to floaty. "and i couldn't hear..."

he doesn't expect him to do what he does, which is why he doesn't stop him when he puts a too-hot palm directly over his heart, doesn't even pull back when he pushes, knocking him onto the bed.

"todoroki-"

"it's fine," todoroki says, scratchy, sweat-warm. he slides onto his own side in a heavy, graceless motion. face to face, half an arm between them, palm stuck to his chest. "it's fine."

it's the scratchiness that wins him over, or maybe the fever flush of him. todoroki may be fucked in the head but he's not, which is why he knows full well he's being insane by not shoving him out. it's just that on some extremely uncomfortable and deranged level he gets it, because he's been tracking his pulse like a shark since they first ran into each other. there's something less insane beneath it too, pragmatic acknowledgment that it is actually a great deal warmer when there's body heat to share, but he knows full well he'd have toughed it out, six months ago, sent him back to bed and spent the night half-awake in spiteful resignation.

it's six months later, though, and somewhere along the line he's been rewired wrong. he thinks it's not unlikely that he's just this desperate for a full night's sleep.

it doesn't really matter why, though. he lets him stay. in the morning if todoroki is back to himself he'll see right through whatever he says, and on balance he doesn't fucking care.

he's so fucking tired. two months and five days, six months and three. the last time someone touched him for more than a second without trying to kill him it was a crying intern, this bespectacled guy whose name he'd never bothered to learn choking on his own blood as he clutched katsuki's wrist for comfort. before that he thinks it was his mother, exchanging their usual routine of brusque ruffling before he got on the train. he hasn't cried since the start of this, but he feels like crying now, hot throbbing behind his eyes. he sucks in a breath, forces it down. time and place. he's said it like a mantra since the start, like there's ever going to be one.

todoroki is fast asleep, but his hand's still there. his fingers have curled into the wool.

two months and five days, he thinks again, remembering other hands, clutching his face, pinning his arms. that's changed now, he realises. still marks the date, but not the last time he's spoken to someone.

ten minutes, thirty seconds. he reaches to pull the covers higher over todoroki's shoulders, feels his stomach constrict when his hand brushes medicine-sticky lips in passing.

maybe todoroki can sail. that's a rich kid thing to do. he'll have to ask in the morning.

he falls asleep within fifteen minutes, forty seconds of todoroki, and doesn't wake until the sun rises.

[metamodel]

Lamb of God Returns From Pet Sematary as Zombie Content

This email is powered by the trouble between metalworkers, AI, scratched CDs and the cloud. Doing strategic design, I’m always navigating tensions around narratives of change, often ostensibly involving “technology” or some desired or feared “disruption”. What do such narratives mean? Is change always good? Is there anything interesting in the detritus left behind? I’m always drawn to ambivalence.

So it’s no surprise that in the wake of Easter, my thoughts hover above the border between death and rebirth, collapse and resurgence, obsolescence and renewal. And as Passover season led into May Day, I was reminded that in order to find new life, we sometimes need to do more than just hustle like good neoliberal subjects, and actually mess up the one around us, like the plagues visited upon Egypt, or industrial action. 

I keep thinking of that awesome first-season finale of American Gods: wily old Odin tells Ostara, the ancient pagan goddess of Easter, that she’s sustained only by the meagre echo of Spring festivities that survive in our contemporary chocolate egg rituals. It’s time to demonstrate her true power to the New Gods, he says. So in the devastating penultimate scene, Ostara decides to withdraw Spring from the world, leaving the land withered and gnarled.

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Easter (the ever-delightful Kristin Chenoweth) withdraws her labour.[/caption]

Says Odin:

Tell the believers and the non-believers. Tell them we’ve taken the Spring. They can have it back when they pray for it.

Such chutzpah: it's the Earth, going on fucking strike against the World. So if a Norse god union organiser calls on you next Passover/Easter/May, on which monstrous powers will you draw? How will you Show Them Who You Really Are?

Happy May.

• • •

STATION IDENT: After returning to design after a year away, I find that Everything Now Looks Very Strange Indeed™. This is another one of my updates on restarting a creative practice, with added cultural and design commentary.

(If someone’s forwarded this thing to you in the hope you’ll find it interesting, you can subscribe here to secure my everlasting love. And please, pass it on if you think it might be of interest to anyone.)

🔂🌏 The eternal return of post-human-centred design

Giles Lane from Proboscis took some time to wrestle with my recent ambivalence about human-centred design. Recapping: back in Issue #2 I asked, “Isn’t putting humans at the centre of things what got us into this climate disaster?”, to which Giles replied:

I have a very different understanding of Human Centred Design based on needs rather than desires, including the need to co-exist within a healthy environment/ecosystem. It draws on its 1970s roots, based in radical response to exploitation of people & communities by privileged elites.

Those of us whose work has always embraced a dialogue about ethics, values and been infused by a genuine concern for human centred, participatory design will always be on the periphery of the mainstream.

The thing is, Giles and I don’t have a very different understanding of human-centred design — I completely understand where he’s coming from. When onboarding new designers at Digital Eskimo, I was always at pains to emphasise how the heritage we were inspired by — the Scandinavian participatory design tradition, amongst others — was a truly radical seam of practice that had been papered over by the rather less exciting idea that “listening to customers is common sense for business.” 🤮

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"From Fra Burmeister og Wain's Iron Foundry" by Peder Severin Krøyer, 1885.[/caption]

I would argue that contemporary design methods, whether they acknowledge it or not, owe a massive debt to organisations like the Norwegian Union of Iron and Metalworkers, who in the 1970s were disruptively intervening in debates about automation and computerisation. Rather than simply being “for” or “against” the machines that were threatening to replace them, workers became high-level designers of workplace technology systems. Now that debates about automation have again recurred in this age of AI, we would do well to pay attention to these traditions. 

But I’d still argue that in spite of the traditions Giles and I both still cherish, the balloon of “human-centredness” has nonetheless semantically burst, and was never completely tenable in the first place. An analogy: “Third World nationalism” presided over some heroic moments in the struggle against colonial domination, but I nonetheless think that nationalism was never exactly a good thing in the first place, and also tends to yield ever-decreasing returns as a corrective to very real global inequalities. 

I think we simply need new beacons for navigating our more-than-human design landscape. These landmarks might include the work of people like Anab Jain from Superflux (see this talk at the IxDA’s Interactions 18 for a good overview of her work), Anne Galloway from the More-Than-Human Lab and others. Let’s all watch that space, and please let me know if you find anything interesting — I’ll feature it here in a future issue.

🐕🤖 Old dogs, new

I was at the City of Sydney’s latest CityTalk, “Our Future With AI and Its Rise In China”: a keynote from Robert Hsiung, chief of the online tech education platform Udacity in China. I found the evening singularly unimpressive. Rather than indulge in wide-eyed liberal panic about Chinese authoritarianism by mining a seam of yellow peril rhetoric, the subsequent conversation went in the other direction entirely, studiously avoiding any discussion about machine learning’s use by the Chinese surveillance state. 

Hsiung emphasised the importance of “mastering the machine” to staying relevant as humans in an AI world, citing case studies in which “even” blue collar Chinese workers with a mere secondary education were successfully retrained by Udacity as AI programmers. Sure, they want to democratise tech skills, and I agree that adaption is preferable to sticking one’s head in the sand, but when Hsiung characterises people on society’s periphery as “people who didn’t study enough in school” (actual words used), I’m not seeing Norwegian metalworkers taking power into their own hands. I can’t help but wonder there’s an implicit element of patronising, tut-tutting disciplinary action in this imperative to retrain before the Singularity overwhelms the uninitiated. 

Hsiung’s keynote ultimately devolved into a stiff, extended advertisement for Udacity, reminding me of nothing so much as a dystopian propaganda spot for a corporation like Omni Consumer Products in Paul Verhoeven’s RoboCop. If this deeply uninteresting event is the best the city’s public sphere can do on the AI front, Lord Mayor Clover Moore ought to be embarrassed. 

💿☠️ Obsoletely nothing

I’m alive / I’m dead 

— The Cure, “Killing an Arab”

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Image by Rishi Deep at Unsplash[/caption]

When I realised not long ago that some of my primary school art students were habitually getting stuck in their creative endeavours, I got them to look for stimulus in unlikely places. “Look at what’s been thrown away at your feet,” I told the class. The next day, my own advice returned to me as a gift.

Local government rubbish cleanups are the rhythmic heavings of the suburbs. A few times a year, we find the unwanted and the outmoded disgorged onto the street (and more often than not, you can find me rummaging through the junk). As I got off the bus that afternoon, an object on the pavement suddenly came into focus as having joined the the ranks of the obsolete: a CD tower. A tall, narrow shelf, made solely to hold a large collection of compact discs. 

A few years before, it had been cathode ray tube TVs and VHS tapes on the nature strip. Today, a piece of furniture had lost its one purpose. Next to it, victims of the streaming moment, were endless shiny platters: redundant CDs and DVDs. I felt a pang of melancholy at this diorama of churn, but couldn't muster up any actual nostalgia for CDs. I suspect that I’m not alone in this. 

In 1998 I wrote a short science fiction story that touched on the possibility of being nostalgic for media formats that were then only just beginning to be challenged by new forms of media like the Internet. Mirroring what I was then seeing with the fetishisation of vinyl records, my 21st Century protagonist, Sebastian Tan, was a CD fetishist. While I gave Seb the ability to hack into streaming media services to get lasting access to the discrete music files themselves, this streaming pirate still preferred physical media. 

And the act of opening the digipak and sliding the antique CD in place was a ritual. Trainspotting. When he first found Silver Rocket, it was a revelation. It was a place. He’d just stood there, soaking it in – the lost garage punk compilations, the late ��90s Skint family, the Anokha artists. All the music physically in the same room. Old silver platters and everything. 

Since this was 20 years ago, I don’t remember how much I actually believed how likely “CD fetishism” would actually be in the 21st Century, but the idea certainly seems ridiculous to me now. Naked optical discs like the CD and the DVD seem to be missing the qualities that would guarantee their fetishisation. There’s something fragile, bare and unromantic about them. It strikes me that this is perfectly illustrated by two Kanye West album covers:

[caption align="alignnone" width="980"]

[/caption]

On the left is his 2013 masterpiece Yeezus, which unfortunately affects the style of a blank CD. To the right is its recent sequel, the not-so-great Yahndi, which makes up for its mediocrity by aping a magnificent Sony MiniDisc, a fabulous storage format that was largely outmoded by the turn of the millennium. 

Don’t be fooled by the similarities, because these two things are chalk and cheese. MiniDiscs were cool. CDs are not. In addition to enclosing a rewritable magneto-optical disc inside a permanent case, giving them a more tactile quality, MiniDiscs were also smaller in the hand. And in the cinema of the mid- to late-’90s, they were a shorthand for “vaguely futuristic storage media”. 

MiniDiscs played a significant role as storage for VR contraband in Kathryn Bigelow’s Strange Days (1995). Ralph Fiennes furtively stashes old VR recordings of happier times with Juliette Lewis in a shoebox of MiniDiscs, but one particular disc that comes into his possession becomes the MacGuffin in the film’s thriller plot.

[caption align="alignnone" width="980"]

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Gotcha: VR proof of racist police brutality… captured on disc! (See how actually compact it is in the hand?) And in the Wachowski’s The Matrix (1999), MiniDiscs return as contraband, this time stashed heavy-handedly inside Neo’s copy of Jean Baudrillard’s Simulation and Simulacra. By this time they’d become almost retro-futuristic, somehow at home with the acoustic coupler modems and Bakelite handsets.

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There’s something reassuringly tangible about the MiniDiscs in these movies. Their secret hiding places are enticing. And the sight of these contraband objects being exchanged for physical cash is just too delicious.

In short, I wish I could be nostalgic for CDs like I am for MiniDiscs (which, truth be told, I never used that much). It’s as if MiniDiscs occupy in my imagination a subjunctive road-not-taken that would have made disposable optical media less crass. I almost feel like mad old King Denethor in Lord of the Rings, wishing that it was his less favourite son who died in battle.

🧟‍♀️💾 Zombie content

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There are folders on my laptop that owe their structure purely to having originated on random old floppy disks that I found in the cupboard. Some of these files are unreadable, despite being Microsoft Word documents. Microsoft are amongst the most slavish followers of backwards-compatibility in the technology industry, even to the extent that they replicate the behaviour of ancient bugs in newer versions of Windows in order for apps to run smoother, but it seems that documents created in versions that predate Word 98 are lost to me. (I’ve learned my lesson: these days, everything’s in plain text Markdown.)

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I’m intrigued by the file titled “WHOREBOY.doc”. From what I recall, it contained notes for a graphic novel I was planning about an undead sex-worker-of-colour in the antebellum South. A black 19th Century superhero, Whoreboy kicked arse. At least, that’s what I remember. 

Update: turns out that plain text editors can glean most of the content from old binary Word files. My memory proved largely correct. Whoreboy was a runaway slave rent-boy who could sprout tentacles from his back and rise from the dead. In moments of crisis, the old slaver’s brand on his shoulder would glow, perversely triggering latent superpowers. (I’d flagged the branding of African American slaves for further research. These days I’d be in Wikipedia rabbit-hole instead.)

A snippet:

Whoreboy’s mentor, an old “witchdoctor”, mentions Jimbo in the Mirror, the terrifying folk spirit that you can only see at midnight. 

“Really?” asks Whoreboy. 

“No, I made it up,” he says. “Them white folk love that shit. Brown Eye for the White Guy, I call it.”

Okay, perhaps it needs more work. But think of the possibilities! 

What’s the funniest skeleton in your digital closet?

🎼🔁 Refrain, with key change

It��s apparent that I often think inordinately about the past while navigating change, even if it involves a kind of “meta-nostalgia” (as above: when nostalgia doesn't seem possible, I feel “nostalgic” about “feeling nostalgic”). As I’ve said earlier,

I often look to the past when I think about the very idea of the future, not just so we can avoid repeating “the mistakes of history” (as important as that might be), but because as designers trying to make the world a better place, we really should honour the creative friction that happens when the weird fragments of the past we continue to live with rub against the potentials of the present moment. (For a future-oriented person, I do an amusing amount of hoarding! In my view, forgetting to deal with legacy systems, even if “dealing with them” involves actively destroying them, is tantamount to vapourware dreaming.)

But I’m also realising that to hover in the futurepast in the way I do means more than just coming to grips with the past, with all its traumas and potentials. I suspect that my own retrofuturistic tendencies are an instinctive way to express the bind we find ourselves in as makers of newness (designers, strategists, “change-makers”) under late capitalism: so much of our work these days seems to involve making organisations more adaptable, resilient, nimble and innovative, but how this might also be a friendly form of neoliberal shock therapy? How much is the agility of the contemporary design-led organisation a way to produce subjects who compliantly flex with the ever-shifting sands of the market?

I love to tell people about my work facilitating cultures of design possibility in organisations. After a productive co-design session, a client team-member will express joy about the concepts they’re helping to flesh out. 

“You realise, don’t you,” I say, “that you’ve nominated yourself as a key part of the leadership for this project, right?” 

The resulting look of terror on their face — the one that says, “B-BUT THAT’S NOT IN MY 12-MONTH WORK PLAN!” — is one that I always relished. And so I drag them kicking and screaming into the future. While I’m not about to defend calcified organisational cultures of bureaucratic planning, I’m now a bit more equivocal; I can see some continuity between my own gleefulness and the forces that are casualising workforces around the planet. 

Perhaps my hovering, with my face turned to the past as I explore futurity (and like Lot’s wife as she looks back at Sodom even as she flees), is an admission that security and belonging are worth something in these times. So as we experience the churn of obsolescence and innovation, let’s keep our wits, sympathies and sense of revolt about us. 

A sustainable portion of all my love,

Ben

[mimmerr]

How we can use social media for good.

So here we have yet another article about social media, posted and promoted on said social media. Currently, we are caught in a cycle of complaining about social media’s negative impacts whilst using it to promote our views and ‘infinite scroll’ through dog pics. But spare me the points of hypocrisy and hear the lovely, lovely things I have to say instead of those usual complaints.

But firstly, there’s no denying that people are entitled to their anxieties. We currently spent an average of 2 and a half hours online resulting in envy, harassment and wasted time. 

Being abused online is an issue that I’m not addressing here because it’s simply not acceptable and I’m not going to argue in any instant that it is. Or can be handled positively. Yes, blocking and reporting is good, but it shouldn’t be happening in the first place. Basically, I can’t write about it at length because there’s not much I can say on it. It needs to stop. That is the post. What I am going to focus on is the elements of time going down the toilet and those feelings of negativity.

If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you’ll know that my style is sweet, tasty pragmatism baby! We’ve got a problem, so what can we possibly do about it? 

Well first, we’ve got to look at some data. Yum. I surveyed 38 people, ranging from 18 to 66 plus, to see what they thought of social media. The biggest surprise? No one said they believed social media was impacting them negatively. The most negative response to their time online: ‘neither positively or negatively’. What a cheery bunch I managed to sample. Maybe it’s because people were using their media channels ‘positively’. This means reaching out and connecting with friends and family, or following inspirational people and posts.

However, with such a small survey group, we have to consider limits. A larger survey by The Independent found that 41% of people thought social media had a negative impact on their mental health, enough to make them take a break.

Perhaps, ‘passive’ media consumption has its role to play. Only 5% of my survey group said they were ‘passive’, i.e. preferring to scroll and watch rather than create and post. Social media use like this can result in opening and viewing content to the point where we lose track and focus; we click one video and end up in a ‘rabbit hole’ for hours on end. Hence those feelings of wasted time.

Back to pragmatism, is there a way we can use a tool, that causes so many problems, for good? Yes, it means being active. But I don’t think this means to the point where our phones are buzzing so much that we can’t get away from them. That would defeat the point. What I believe is that we can use apps and websites to create more IRL moments away from our screens and have meaningful time when we are online. 

So here’s what I think we should do, using the data from the group I interviewed, as well as my own experience and research online.

Find events.

Being in the ‘flow’, or ‘zone’, enables people to forget their surroundings and problems and be completely emerged in an activity. Therefore, doing challenging and engaging things leads to us feeling motivated and content. Very much the opposite of that anxiety the online world can cause.

Social media can enable us to find events and hobbies that get us into this headspace. Apps like Meetup and Eventbrite can be harnessed to find book clubs, exercise groups as well as free lectures and workshops. Effectively, this means you are using your phone to schedule time away from your phone. And in this time, you’ll be doing something that stimulates you in a mood boosting way.

Find a community.

Loneliness has been found to be detrimental to all aspects of your health; 9 million of us say we are often or always lonely.  A horrific fact. But social media, if we use it more actively, can make it easier to contact one another and meet new people.

As much as face to face interaction is brilliant, who is to say that a friendship found online isn’t of value? Many of those I surveyed said they used social media to forge and maintain friendships. I have seen people tweet online about their struggles to have many flock to their support, a beautiful demonstration of our kindness and empathy in the #edutwitter world.

Sadly, I cannot give you an individual hashtag to find your people (unless you’re a teacher, please see #edutwitter, #tinyvoicetuesday, #womened) because you are an individual with your own interests. Damn you for being so interesting and cool. What I will say though, is that someone out there has the same interests and values as you. Take the time to find those hashtags and top accounts on Twitter, find them. Retweet and follow others, build a rapport with those kindred spirits. Who knows what could grow from it? I’ll see you at your wedding hun.

Manage your feed 

53% of those in my poll said following/unfollowing the right people would make their experiences better. Even seeing others’ stress and negativity makes us stressed and negative so of course, every upsetting post you see is going to have an impact on your day.

I think the solution for this is simple but it does take work. It means following through on your feelings, rather than scrolling on. Unfollow or mute people that aggravate you and then adjust your feed preferences on apps. For example, clicking ‘See less often’ or asking Twitter to show you ‘Latest Tweets’ instead of ‘Top Tweets’.

Use physical and mental health apps. 

There are plentiful apps out there that can be used for your own benefit. For example, Headspace and Calm are subscription based apps that provide guided meditation exercises and sleep stories. MapMyRun and Zombies, Run! track your running progress, the latter turning it into a game. The OurParks website provides a range of local, free exercise classes to you and the ThisGirlCan website gives information on fitness provision specifically for women.

Kindness costs nothing.

Neither does a like. Neither does a comment. Rather than scrolling past someone’s post, give it some attention if its appropriate. Tell someone they look amazing or that you’ll try out that book they’ve posted about. Retweet your friend’s blog (hint hint) and show them that you care. It’s free and will make you feel better for being a good human being.

It goes without saying that with this advice, you should also be monitoring your time spent online, something that 45% of my volunteers said they needed to do more. And yes, social media companies have a responsibility to us to keep the online world safe. I truly, truly hope that things change for the best and that businesses are held to account. What I think we can do as individuals is play the game. Use the tools to get off our phones, to not spread hate but instead, positivity and engagement with others.

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Tomorrow is Day One

"A guy got shot right across the street from me this week. I was with a group of people - indoors - and when we heard the seven shots, a woman who grew up on The Big City's [redacted] side immediately said, "That was way too close." Then some other people spoke up and said, "No, I bet it was just fireworks." I know the sound of a small caliber handgun, but I didn't say anything. Inside though, I started to feel kind of sad. I didn't know at the time that it happened only a block away. I found that out eight hours later when the Big City Gazette published their daily shooting log. I guess the shots sounded a bit further than that because we were indoors? If I had known the victim was just across the street, I would have immediately stood up, walked out there, and done what I've been trained to do since I first got into emergency medicine in 2008. Instead, what I did was start my stopwatch. I wanted to see how long it would take for the sirens to arrive. It took six minutes and ten seconds. I kind of feel a bit sick for timing it knowing what happened to him. Right now I sit in my apartment, having just decided I'm going to delete my Facebook account for good at the end of this week. I'm also just thinking about how unbelievable it is that some wars seem to go on forever. It's like a cycle of actions that elicit other actions and the pain and suffering just goes on and on and on, in infinite iteration. You could apply it to Afghanistan, or The Big City. I can apply it to my life. A month ago I called the police on someone, and they started a campaign of harassment towards me because of it. More recently, in a related situation, I provided testimony in a court case when requested to. More harassment, with added stalking, now across all of my devices including my work, academic, and personal numbers and email addresses. I read an article online titled "I'm a Victim of Carpet Bombing Online Harassment." Apparently some people have it much worse than me. The author's conclusion was that, despite the security risk of social media and the potential for other people's online actions to demoralize you, we shouldn't withdraw completely from social media - we can't ever give in and allow them to hurt us more. I see things a bit differently though, and just prefer to do what I need to do in life, without making anything more public than it already is. A month ago I started trimming my Facebook friends list. Gradually I deleted about 300 or so people - people whose names I didn't even recognize, others who I realized I actually don't trust at all. I left only the people who had left a super positive impression on me. Only people who are important to me, regardless of whether I share genetics with them, or lived with them, or loved them, or just met them once. I guess I wanted to say goodbye to just them. To just you. Of course feel free to send me a message and ask for my number if you want to stay in touch though ;) Love, Marshall" I wrote that and planned to post it on Facebook prior to deleting my account. Then, I changed my mind, and deleted my account without warning Redacted The full story of my first week at Mog Hospital is a bit different. In that unposted Facebook post, I didn't even mention that I was at the hospital when the shots rang out. That's right - someone was shot right across the street from the hospital. And the hospital didn't go on lockdown. Nope. People barely even mentioned it. It was barely even worth notice. Redacted Being at Mog Hospital resembles being in Africa in so many ways, I decided to name it after one of Africa's most perilous cities - Mogadishu. My first day in orientation at Mog Hospital, I was supposed to get my ID badge. But we were all told that the "ribbon" in the badge printing machine had broken, and we would have to wait until the next day to get it fixed. I was the first one in the room to get my badge picture taken three days later when they actually got it fixed. But the lady couldn't find me in the computer to link my ID to the badge. Then started another three days of excuses and delays. At the end of the week, I was finally told, "You'll just have to start work without a badge. For sure you will eventually start showing up in the computer. We just don't know what to do." The fact that they really had no course of action to fix a problem and were just going to, um, wait? for the problem to fix itself... is so fucking Mogadishu At the end of the week I went in for an orientation in Mog ER. I had looked forward to meeting back up with the Director of the ER, but at the beginning of the week I learned she had just quit. Actually, it sounded like one of the last things she had done before leaving was hire a Murder Technician who had interviewed there six months earlier and sent in an email asking to work there "after all" when the position he had taken instead turned out to be boring. Actually walking into the ER was surreal. In a stark contrast to the ER I had just come from, it wasn't lively and energized. It felt....somber. The ER nurse trainer took me around and introduced me to the other murder techs. The first one I met, well, she just struck me as having some kind of intellectual disability the moment I started talking to her. She had kind of a blank expression and a dull affect. I was thinking to myself, "Um...do they have a mentally disabled girl working as a tech here??" Then she took me to meet another murder tech. He was just sitting in a chair in the corner, staring at a desk. When she introduced me to him, he turned to look at me. He didn't extend his hand to shake mine, so I didn't either. When she said, "This is Marshall, and he'll be a new tech here," he just nodded, and then looked back at the desk. He struck me as someone who had severe PTSD. He expressionlessness was haunting. The third tech I was taken to meet was to be my trainer the following week. He was a lot like the last guy, but much creepier. He had a full beard and reminded me of dueling banjos. He was the kind of guy you would expect to be standing outside your tent staring at you with bow and arrow in hand when you peek out..............in a horror movie. He had a weird sinister look in his eyes. Reflecting on it all later, I decided that all three of them probably just have severe PTSD. If they were schizophrenic they wouldn't be able to work there. They might also have depression, but not major. Finally I was introduced to a third tech. As soon as I met her, I rejoiced inside. She was chipper, pretty, and had a light in her eyes that was captivating. She also interacted like a human being. "Yay! There are people who work here and not just zombies!" As we walked away from her, I was told that she only worked in the minor care area, and I wouldn't be working in there. She wasn't a murder tech - she was a MA. The way things were set up, the murder techs work in the back with all the serious patients, while the MA's take all the minor patients. Thus, all I will be seeing is death. And murder. At one point the nurse attempted to pry a bit and find out exactly how long I had worked at Community Bore ER before I came to the Mog. When I told her six months, I also added, "I loved the nurses, and they loved me. But I really wanted to work in a level I trauma center." Her immediate response was, "Oh, you really should have worked at Big Bore ER" (the sister Hospital of community Bore and a level i trauma center). I thought to myself, "Oh shit. Did she really just tell me I made a mistake in taking this job?" I hope that my training and experience has prepared me to better cope with children being shot in the face than these other Murder Techs. But the truth is, I haven't been doing well psychologically over the past couple months.... Fuck it, over the whole year since I moved to The Big City. Moving my business out to the suburbs was a huge mistake. Reshuffling and moving back to the City has been hugely expensive. I have no idea how I'm going to pay all my bills this month. I have barely survived this year. Every day has been a struggle. I don't know what to say. Things just don't look good. Or feel good. I'm driving Lyft and Uber to make extra money, putting tons of miles on a leased car that has restrictive mileage limits. I'm left without the time and energy to study, even though the Big Test is bearing down on me. I hover between wishing things would suddenly get better, and wishing God would just let me leave. I guess I find it harder and harder to believe things can get better. I have been poor and struggling to do good things for a decade now. In a way, I've been failing, and failing, and failing, for ten fucking years. And now I have people who hate me and are going online to leave negative reviews for my business even though they have absolutely nothing against my business and just hate the guy who depends on it to put food on his plate and prepare himself to go to Africa and give the rest of his life to the people there So I'm not eating well. And the likelihood of me making it back grows dimmer. As usual, I think about killing myself. And getting a dog And getting a motorcycle But mostly just killing myself