#Drones? Get them away! Bugs? Fascinating- Not when flying!

[dark-twist-fairytales]

I just- I have one question for whatever being out there that made stinkbugs:

Why, oh why, pray tell, do they fly?!

[practically-an-x-man]

I won't lie. I got distracted watching a video of a guy who's tent was being torn apart by leaf cutter ants and began researching the logistics of that.

BUT I'M BACK with an ask ONCE AGAIN. And it's bugged themed. For definitely unrelated reasons.

Your characters gain the ability to control one species of bug (specific species, not all of ants or all of wasps), and they have as much time as they need to research what bug they'd like. What qualifies as a bug in this case is subjective. Anything in class insecta is fair game but arachnida is cool too.

First of all, that documentary sounds fascinating and I can totally appreciate going down a research rabbithole like that :D

Second, I love this ask, let's dive right in!!

Rae: Copidosoma floridanum - a type of cosmopolitan wasp. The main reason she'd choose it is for it being cosmopolitan, she can utilize this power regardless of her travels.

Robin: Reticulitermes flavipes - the eastern subterranean termite. She'd pretty much exclusively use this power to keep them away from the operahouse and its wooden sets (same with her parents' house, since it's pretty old)

Madison: Pachydiplax longipennis - the blue dasher dragonfly. Technically any dragonfly would suffice, but blue dashers are common where she lives so she wouldn't have trouble finding them. Either way - semiaquatic, predatory, and edible in a pinch.

Ophelia: Camponotus pennsylvanicus - the black carpenter ant. Am I stealing this from Ant-Man? Maybe. But she'd find a way to use them in her lab, for sure.

Gia: Apis mellifera - the Western honey bee. Having an infinite supply of pollinators is a surefire way to keep her shop, and her clover, as healthy as possible.

Jasper: Melolontha vulgaris - the May beetle. Oil from their larvae is sometimes used as a topical treatment for scratches, abrasions, and rheumatism in traditional medicine - it's not quite Neosporin, but it'll work in a pinch

Kestrel: Eristalis tenax - the common drone fly. Another cosmopolitan species, good for use on their travels, but small and unassuming enough that could be good for some quiet espionage.

Katherine: Anthrenus scrophulariae - the common carpet beetle. They're one of the four common species of beetles that cause damage to textiles and other artifacts in museums, so that's a 25% lower chance that they'll get damaged on her watch

Quinn: Pepsis grossa - a North American tarantula hawk moth. Its sting is said to be incredibly painful and is among the highest ranked on the Schmidt pain index - she'd go with the bullet ant, but she's a lot less likely to find those in the California desert.

Eris: Paraponera clavata - there's the bullet ant. Eris just wants to cause as much pain as possible, when they need to. What kind of bug could double as a weapon to be used in battle? Bullet ant.

Nikoletta: Periplaneta americana - the American cockroach. It's gross, and she honestly hates roaches (and half of this power would just be used keeping them away from her home), but they're so common in big cities like New Orleans that she's always got a few around to control. It's a similar strategy to Cleo and her rats, really.

Jimmy: Drosophilia melanogaster - fruit flies. Look, here's his logic: they were first used in genetics back in 1910, and they were a big deal, and he works with scientists now too... maybe they'd have use for this power of his? (also credit to the one scientific name I did not have to look up beforehand because I had it memorized lol)

Vivienne: Aedes aegypti - the yellow fever mosquito. Disease is... kind of a big deal in her time, there aren't a lot of cures for these horrific ailments, and while Vivienne itself is largely immune by being a siren, she doesn't want Wojchek or his crew stricken ill by some tiny little bug.

Spider: Sigh... I'd been so careful about strictly insects this whole time, but it would be wrong to give him anything but a spider. Hogna carolinensis - the wolf spider, and the largest wolf spider species to be found in America. He just thinks it would be cool to freak people out by having this massive wolf spider crawl out of his mouth or something. He's... an odd one, that for sure.

[mst3kproject]

The Strange World of Planet X

The Strange World of Planet X, also known as Cosmic Monsters, was released on a double bill with The Crawling Eye and stars Forrest Tucker of the same.  It’s got a giant spider and a deep-voiced 50’s narrator droning about the terrors of the atomic age, in a film so dry all my plants shriveled up and my contact lenses adhered to my eyeballs.

Mad Dr. Laird, with the help of his assistants Gil and Michele, is baking things in intense magnetic fields in order to rearrange the molecules and turn metal into putty – the general idea is that someday this will allow them to melt enemy planes right out from under their pilots. Would that melt the pilots, too? Gross.  At the same time and perhaps related, flying saucers are being sighted over Britain and a mysterious man named Mr. Smith is wandering around in the woods and getting worryingly chummy with local children.  After a lot of standing around and talking, Smith reveals that he is from outer space and has come to warn us that Laird’s magnetic fields are tearing apart the Earth’s ionosphere, letting in cosmic rays that will mutate humans into murderers and insects into giants!

Since my last ETNW was fairly well-paced and entertaining, the law of averages tells us that this one’s gonna be a real turd, and sure enough… remember all my griping about how Radar Secret Service was literally unwatchable, as in I could not force myself to keep looking at it?  The Strange World of Planet X is like that but with a British accent.  Most of it is just ugly gray people in ugly gray rooms, droning on about whatever at far greater length than necessary.  Everybody sounds like they’re reading their lines off cue cards, the photography was awful to begin with and the degraded print makes it really hard to tell what the hell is going on. Fuck this movie.

The film’s general insufferability is made all the worse because normally giant bug movies are among my favourite types of crappy old sci fi.  What could possibly be more fun than giant grasshoppers crawling all over postcards of Chicago?  If the bug bits were fun, that would go a long way towards saving this one, but of course, they’re terrible.  It’s mostly too dark to even see the giant insects, and when we do see them, they’re nothing but close-ups of live (and sometimes dead) roaches and grasshoppers.  Only a couple of shots even attempt to composite them in with live actors and those are so dark and blurry that it frankly wasn’t worth the effort.

The other main ‘effect’ in the movie is a couple of flying saucers.  These are unidentifiable white blobs when far away, and ridiculous tinfoil models dangling from strings up close.  The pie pans in Plan 9 from Outer Space are worse… but not by much.

What should be the most exciting part of the film is the battle in the woods between the soldiers and the giant bugs, but it’s mishandled in the same sort of way as the supposedly climactic fight in Invasion of the Neptune Men.  There’s no narrative or any characters we care about – just soldiers running around shooting at things.  Where are they?  How close are they to the town?  Are there civilians in peril?  We don’t know.  To be effective on screen, a battle needs a story.  The battle in Army of Darkness is about the need to protect the Necronomicon.  We can see the Deadites getting closer to the tower, as Ash pulls out more and more ridiculous secret weapons to keep them back.  The Strange World of Planet X is just random people and bugs, not even in the same shot.

There is some half-decent magnetosphere science in the movie, I guess.  The Earth’s magnetic field does protect us from the harsh radiation of outer space, although all the most harmful components of that come from the sun rather than from further afield, and such radiation can damage DNA.  This is why the ozone layer was such a big deal in the 80’s. This space radiation is much more likely to give bugs cancer than to make them grow huge, but in a movie I can handle that.  The really weird thing here is that, because they say it screens out the heaviest of the cosmic rays, they call the ionosphere the ‘heavyside layer’.  I would not have thought it possible that Cats could make less sense and yet here we are.

If you want some proper Crap Movie Science, there’s their explanation of how the monsters grew so big – mutations for size were able to pile up quickly because insects breed fast and therefore evolve fast.  I guess this makes more sense than individuals growing out of control as a result of whatever… but they appear to have applied it to a whole range of creatures regardless of their actual life cycles. Some insects do breed quickly, but quite a few of them have specific seasons and conditions for it.  This feels like a nitpick, though… I mean, by watching a giant bug movie I’ve already accepted that they can become huge so I should probably just shut up.

As an interesting note, Smith mentions that on his home planet there are giant dragonflies.  He doesn’t say how giant, though he implies they’re big enough to ride on. Firstly, man, I wanna ride a giant dragonfly!  Second, this tells us that Smith’s home planet has more oxygen in its atmosphere than Earth, because the reason insects can’t get bigger than they do is because they don’t actively breathe, but have to let oxygen diffuse into their tissues on its own (this is why there were six foot millipedes during the Carboniferous era — more oxygen in the air). The writers, sadly, do not seem to have known or cared about this, since Smith himself shows no signs of having to adjust to our atmosphere.  Missed opportunity there.

Since this is me, of course I’m gonna talk about how the movie treats women. Click the back button now. There are several female characters in The Strange World of Planet X, and while they're pretty bland they do manage to have conversations with each other about things besides men, and the honest impression I get is that the writers are trying really hard not to be assholes.  The first woman we meet is Michele, who has been assigned as Dr. Laird’s new computer operator after the previous one was electrocuted in a lab accident.  When he learns that the replacement is a woman, Laird complains about it loudly, protesting that ‘this is skilled work!’, and Gil gripes that female scientists are dour and unattractive.  Michele, of course, proves them both wrong – she is both brilliant and pretty, the latter mostly so that she can be Gil’s love interest but also at least in part to shatter the stereotype. It's thanks to movies like this setting the precedent that modern films are up to their eyeballs in hot but useless science women… but like I said, they tried.

The script is actually at great pains to emphasize that Michele is intelligent, educated, and the equal of any of the men, at least where science is concerned. Unfortunately, its way of going about it is to have them praise her for every little thing she says and does, to the point where it starts to sound awfully patronizing.  They call her ‘clever girl’ like she’s six years old and it frequently comes across as their complimenting her intelligence in order to deflect when she asks awkward questions.

Naturally there’s a love triangle in this movie.  It appears only to be immediately and peacefully resolved, and Gil’s rival for Michele’s affections is dead shortly thereafter. Why fucking bother?

A tad better-treated is Jane, the little girl fascinated by arthropods (she describes them as ‘bugs’, saying all insects are bugs, but not all bugs are insects.  While entomologically incorrect, this same definition of bug was used by David Attenborough in Micro Monsters, so I’m okay with it).  One of the reasons I think the writers were earnestly trying to be feminist is because they place a girl in this role rather than a boy.  Susan Redway isn’t any better than any of the other actors, but the character was definitely written by somebody who knew what appeals to children.  I love the bit where Jane promises to show her new teacher her favourite type of beetle, delightedly informing her, “they’re horrid-looking!”

The teacher, Miss Forsyth, is another attempt to buck a stereotype. Jane complains that she hated her previous teacher, who was appalled by her interest in crawly things.  Miss Forsythe makes a good first impression by encouraging her instead.  Again, this feels like the writers really were trying.  They want to say that the right thing to do here is to support Jane’s interests and ambitions, and someday perhaps she’ll be a talented entomologist, just as Michele is a computer whiz.

From a twenty-first century point of view, this makes for an odd contrast with one of the other notable features of how women are portrayed in this movie – they don’t come alone.  Adult women in The Strange World of Planet X must have a male partner, and if they don’t start out with one they will be assigned one! Michele pairs up with Gil, and Miss Forsythe accepts a date with the man who saved her from one of the mutants.  This second budding relationship has no effect on the story and indeed is never referenced again, it’s just there.  All the other women we meet are either dating or married… although now that I think of it this may be less sexist than it is a way to make a point of Dr. Laird’s single-minded obsession with his work. Everybody else, even scientists, has time to be a human being – but not him.

I should also discuss one more interesting tidbit offered by Smith. He says his people have been watching humanity and studying us basically since we invented ourselves, and they have never interfered before now.  Why now? Out of ‘enlightened self-interest’, he says – this is the closest humans have yet come to destroying ourselves, but it’s also the closest we’ve come to being a threat to our extraterrestrial observers.  One of Dr. Laird’s experiments, intended to destroy enemy planes, brought down a flying saucer instead!  The fact that Smith is willing to admit this suggests that he is extremely confident about the aliens’ ability to strike back if humanity should decided to start shooting down saucers on purpose.  The finale then bears this out… although it also left me thinking that the film could have ended very differently if only hacking had been a thing in the fifties!

So yet another instance of good ideas, unexplored and badly executed.  Also yet another black and white movie… what is that, six in a row?  Yikes.  See you in ten days, when I promise I will have something for you in colour.  It’ll be like slogging through the beginning of Season Eight and then finally arriving at The Giant Spider Invasion!

[mischiefandspirits]

Iron Legion (29/?)

Never let it be said that Tony Stark ever does things by half. He might have grown up with little family, but he wasn’t about to keep it that way.

Tony Stark was seventeen when his first child was born, and that was just the beginning.

For Masterpost, Casting, Timeline, AO3, and Fanfiction

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

Infinity Child, Part 3

“Uh, what?” Dr. Banner muttered once the shock brought on by the display of strength from the preteen faded enough for him to speak.

“Who’s the tiny super soldier?” Tony asked, turning to Pepper.

“Your granddaughter,” Rhodey said before she could answer. “Courtesy of the Princess of Wakanda.”

Tony shot him a wide-eyed look and Nebula shoved him.

“Peter and Harley created her, alongside Princess Shuri and Helen’s son,” Pepper explained. She nodded at Vivian. “Show him.”

She glanced at Dr. Banner as J.A.R.V.I.S. turned on the privacy function on the glass walls then shifted into her base appearance.

Both Tony and Dr. Banner made astonished noises.

“The kids made her?” Tony asked, sounding strangled.

“Amazing,” Dr. Banner gasped. “How?”

“The boys stole the readings from the cradle that was used to make Vision and Dr. Cho’s notes from her time under V.I.R.G.I.L.’s control,” Nebula said.

“They recreated Vision? Incredible. And they brought in Princess Shuri?”

“They needed vibranium and her experience with it,” Vivian explained.

“How did they even get into contact with her?” Tony asked, rubbing a hand over his face.

“They programmed a mini spider bot to locate her and give her Peter’s number then had me drop it on a car heading into Wakanda. Apparently, it managed to slip through their detections because of its size and the fact it didn’t give off any wireless signals,” J.O.C.A.S.T.A. said. “For the record, I didn’t actually know what the bot was for.”

“Not a good excuse,” Nebula said.

“They could have gotten in so much trouble,��� Tony sighed.

“Shuri thought it was funny. She loved Ana,” Karen said.

Tony frowned. “Is she…”

The amusement from her treatment of Captain America fled.

Rhodey nodded. “Her brother as well. Their mother is ruling for now.”

Tony looked her over and held out the hand Pepper wasn’t holding, with a smile. “Com’ere, kiddo.”

When she got close enough, he weakly pulled her into a one-armed hug. She carefully returned it, mindful of his injuries. “I’m Tony, but you can call me whatever. Nice to meet you, kid. ”

“You too. I’m Karen or Project Vivian,” she whispered into his shoulder.

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

Tony looked around the penthouse as Happy helped him out of the elevator. “Good to be home,” he muttered bleakly before forcing a smile on as Karen came rushing in to hug him. “You my welcome home party? I know Rhodey, Nebula, and Bruce left this morning, but where’s everyone else.”

“Mom’s helping Aunt Pepper,” Val said, shuffling in with U still in drone form perched on her head. “She’s not feeling good.”

“Just a stomach bug,” Happy said before Tony could start to panic. “She’s just been a little bit nauseous the past couple days. She hasn’t thrown up though.”

“She has now,” Val said. “That’s why mom’s helping her. She’s holding her hair.”

Tony went pale. “A doctor. What’s the status on doctors? We need one.”

“Calm down, Stark,” Tori huffed and Tony turned to see her standing in the doorway. “She’s fine.”

“But -”

“Tony.” Pepper walked up behind Tori and the woman stepped aside to let her through.

“Pep, are you okay? What’s wrong? Do we need to -”

“I’m fine,” she said and Karen pulled away so she could hug him.

“Val said you threw up.”

“I did, but Tori and I talked and,” she glanced over her shoulder then met Tony’s eyes, “I think I’m pregnant.”

…

“Tony?”

“I think you broke him,” Val chuckled.

“Wait, are you serious?” Happy asked in a choked voice.

“Tony?” Pepper said, ignoring him.

“You… I was right?”

Pepper frowned. “Right?”

“I said I had a dream that we had a kid!”

Pepper’s eyes widened. “Oh my god.”

“I was right!”

“We don’t know that for sure, right?” Happy said, looking to Tori with pleading eyes.

“I’m late, and it would explain the nausea and I’ve been getting some body pains,” Pepper said.

Tony kissed her.

“I’m going to go grab a test for her,” Tori told Happy as the two continued at it. “Why don’t you girls go play.”

“I’m too old for this,” Happy groaned.

When Tony pulled away, they were alone. “We’re having a baby?”

“Maybe? Probably?” she breathed, setting her forehead against his.

His smile slowly faded as something occurred to him.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, cupping his face between her hands as he tried to look away.

Tony pressed a kiss to her wrist then stepped back. His eyes landed on the crate Pepper had bought that was theoretically decorative, but secretly held a few tubs of legos and a potato gun hidden underneath Nebula’s favorite blanket. “They’ll never get to know him.”

Pepper followed his gaze then took his hand.

He stared for a moment before turning back to her. “Maybe… maybe we should move.”

She gave him a confused frown.

“Its… Peter and F.R.I.D.A.Y. are everywhere. It was the same at the mansion. I just -”

Pepper nodded. “I know. I think the same thing’s been happening to Nebula. She’s been staying with Happy and hasn’t been back to their apartment since. I don’t think I’d be around much either if it wasn’t for Tori, Karen, and Val.”

“Maybe a fresh start is what we need. Get out of the city. You, me, Karen, and little Morgan. Get a place away from everything and everyone. The Keeners, Nebula, Happy, and Rhodey can come too if we can talk them into it.”

“That actually sounds really good,” she sighed. She leaned her head against her shoulder. “We need to talk about the name though.”

“Nope. Morgan. It’s perfect.”

“We don’t even know if it's a boy.”

“Even better!”

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

“Hey U,” Rhodey said when they flew up in their new blue orchard bee-inspired drone.

They gave a few beeps and buzzes, landing on his car door as he carefully maneuvered his legs out.

Once they were clear, he engaged the braces and stood up. “Everyone inside?”

U chirped and did a spin around his head before flying away.

Rhodey closed the door and headed into Tony and Pepper’s cabin.

“Hey Rhodey,” Happy called when he stepped through the door.

“RHODEY!” Karen cheered and suddenly he had a little girl hanging from his front.

He blinked and wrapped his arms around her. “Where did you come from?”

“Karen Vivian Rhodes, what have we said about flying in the house?” Pepper huffed from out of sight.

“Sorry. But Rhodey’s here!” she called back, nuzzling his chest.

“Go put your book in your room and get cleaned up,” Pepper tisked, coming out of the dining room. “Dinner’s almost done.”

The girl gave him one last squeeze then fled the room.

“She’s like a duckling,” Tony chuckled as he peeked out of the kitchen. “She saw you first now she’s attached, Platypus.”

“Shouldn’t you be keeping an eye on the vegetables?”

“Yes, dear.” Tony gave Rhodey a wink then fled from Pepper’s glare. “Soon she’ll be calling you mama,” he called out.

“I don’t think I’m the mama you should be worried about,” Rhodey called back before focusing on Pepper. “How are you doing? You three settled in alright?”

“We’re doing… better. Getting out of the city has helped. Tori’s given me a recipe for a homemade ginger shake that’s really helped with the nausea and it’s relaxing not having work right under my feet. The workshop is finally all unpacked so Tony is only hovering nervously over us eighty percent of the time and Karen has just discovered a fascination with painting so J.A.R.V.I.S. has been helping her research. There are still moments, but it’s getting better.” She gestured out the window. “Even U has calmed down some. Instead of hovering over us every second of the day, they’ve taken to patrolling the grounds. I think Tony’s been considering making them an entire swarm so they can run security.”

“Would U even be able to handle processing that many bodies?” Rhodey asked in a low voice so Tony wouldn’t hear.

“I don’t know and I don’t care. Just as long as it means he’ll stop hovering and grabbing boxes out of my hands every five minutes while I’m trying to unpack because I might hurt the baby! I’m barely two months along, the baby’s fine!” Pepper responded, not bothering to lower her voice. In fact, the last part she practically shouted in the direction of the kitchen.

“Of course, dear,” Tony shot back happily.

“He’s really been getting on your nerves then,” Rhodey chuckled.

Pepper sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose. “I know he doesn’t mean anything by it and he knows I’m not really angry. It’s just everything that happened and my hormones and his PTSD all piling up and spilling over.”

“Hey, if you guys need some you-time, just let me know. I’ll be happy to watch Karen for you.”

“Mama bear,” Tony chimed and stepped into the doorway. “Also, dinner is ready.”

“Did you take the bread out of the oven?”

“I thought you said you did that already.”

“No, I said I got the chicken out of the oven.”

Tony cursed and ducked away.

“No cursing in the house!”

“That’ll never stick,” Happy muttered.

Pepper shot a glare at him then called up the stairs, “Karen, are you almost done?”

“Yes!”

“Speaking of which,” Rhodey said. “Since when can she fly?”

“We found out a few days ago,” Pepper said, leading him and Happy into the dining room. “Tony gave her a check-up.”

“She doesn’t seem to have all of Vision’s abilities, but alongside the flight and strength, she can also shift her density for short periods and create energy pulses. I’m guessing that last one was Shuri’s work because they work similar to King Cat’s suit, just using the arc energy from the reactor in her forehead instead of kinetic energy,” Tony explained, setting a bowl of garlic bread onto the table.

They all sat down, Karen slipping in a moment later to sit next to Rhodey.

“Duckling,” Tony hummed.

She frowned and Rhodey ruffled her hair with an eye roll.

“Speaking of baby birds and nests, what were you guys thinking for school?” he asked as they all started to dig in.

“Does she even need to go to school?” Happy asked. “I mean, can’t she just download anything she needs to know?”

“No, she can’t interact with computers like Vision could. Violet, salad too,” Tony interrupted himself before continuing, “As soon as the cradle disconnected from her brain, she was locked into a closed system. She’s got an eidetic memory, but she’d still have to learn things the hard way first.”

“The others couldn’t figure out how to make any wireless connection devices work with my synthetic brain given the guidelines they were working with from Vision,” Karen added, looking up from where she was cutting her chicken into pieces to grab the salad bowl. “They ended up deciding the Mind Stone was what allowed for the compatibility.”

“So school?” Rhodey asked, amused.

Tony shrugged and turned to Pepper, who shook her head.

“We haven’t talked about it. I suppose we’ll have to see what online schools are still running.” Pepper gave her an apologetic look. “I know you can disguise yourself as a human, but people will begin to notice that you don’t age.”

“She ages.”

Pepper, Rhodey, and Happy turned to Tony, who shrugged again.

“Shuri figured it out,” Karen said. “She didn’t explain it well -- I think she enjoyed teasing the boys on their lack of knowledge about Vibranium -- but it has something to do with it being a living metal.”

“Living metal?” Happy asked, slowly, and she nodded.

“Wherever the asteroid carrying the Vibranium came from must have developed life of a more metallic variety.”

“Explains why it’s so adaptable,” Tony hummed. “Too bad Dad mixed his batch up with other metals to make Cap’s frisbee. What I wouldn’t give to get my hands on some of the raw stuff.”

“The boys felt the same, but Peter kept track of everything that Shuri sent them to be sure that any that wasn’t used on me was sent back untouched out of respect for her culture.”

“Of course he did,” Pepper said proudly before getting back on topic. “Well, I suppose it’s your choice then, Karen. Would you rather go to school or take online courses?”

Karen blinked up at them, surprised. “Me?”

“Yeah, Violet. We’re not going to force you into anything,” Tony said gently.

Karen looked between them then ducked her head. As she started to make little swirls in her sauce, she said, “I don’t know. Peter always seemed to like school and his friends there, but Harley always complained about it and Shuri and Amadeus thought it was useless.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “Harley was a brat and would have complained no matter what, Shuri probably had an army of tutors ready to teach her whatever she wanted at her own pace and probably never set foot in an actual school in her life, and Cho thought everything was beneath him. You’re a lot more like Peter.”

Karen looked up at Rhodey and he squeezed her shoulder with a smile. “It’s your choice, but socialization is important.”

When she still looked uncertain, Pepper offered, “How about this: You try going to school for a semester and if you don’t like it, then we can look into online options for next semester. There’s nothing wrong with keeping your options open.”

Karen glanced up at Rhodey again and nodded. “Okay.”

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

“Hey, you.”

Vivian looked up from her book on the Lascaux cave paintings to see a pair of boys standing in front of her.

“What are you doing out here?”

“Reading,” she said with bemusement, holding up her book. “It’s about -”

“Why’re you outside?” one of the boys asked, with a snort.

“Why not?”

The boys frowned. “Aren’t you going to eat?”

She shrugged. She had been so excited about her new book, she had decided to sit out in the courtyard instead of eating lunch. “I’m not hungry.”

“What’s wrong with your face?” the other boy asked, pointing at her forehead.

“Birthmark.”

“What’s your deal?” the first boy asked, frustrated.

“What do you mean?”

Before either boy could say something, a voice yelled, “Would you two just get lost before you end up looking even more like idiots? She’s not buying your bait.”

The three turned to a girl who was lying on the grass nearby, her head held up to glare at them and a bag of chips on her stomach.

The boys grumbled, giving both girls scowls, but walked off.

“Bait?” Vivian asked as the other girl laid her head back on her folded up jacket.

“They wanted to upset you,” she said like it was obvious.

“Why?”

“Because their boys and you’re a pretty girl,” she scoffed, looking back up at her. “You haven’t spent a lot of time around boys have you?”

“Not exactly.” Vivian frowned down at her book. “Why would they want to upset me if they think I’m pretty?”

“Because they’re idiots who don’t know what emotions are.” She sat up fully, chips falling into her lap. “I don’t remember you from Elementary school.”

“My family just moved here from the city this summer. I’m Karen.”

“America.”

“Pardon?”

“My name,” the other girl chuckled. “It’s America. I know, weird.”

Vivian closed her book. “My aunt’s name was F.R.I.D.A.Y. I’ve heard weirder.”

The girl smiled and held out the bag. “So are you on a diet or did you forget your lunch money?”

Vivian shook her head and pulled out the box of food Pepper prepared for her. “I really was just not hungry.”

America shrugged and grabbed a chip.

[climbing-the-redwood]

Another Year

[Izzy! (☞ﾟヮﾟ)☞] : Psst

[Izzy! (☞ﾟヮﾟ)☞] : Pssssssst

[Izzy! (☞ﾟヮﾟ)☞] : Lulu~ Answer meeee~

[Lulucifer] : What is it? I’m getting yelled at again, make it quick.

[Izzy! (☞ﾟヮﾟ)☞] : Fiiine, I’ll ask later. Just escape to the tree!

[Izzy! (☞ﾟヮﾟ)☞] : I have something for you~

[Lulucifer] : Coming.

The interruption only added time to the lecture Luci was barely listening to. So what if he left someone behind? It wasn’t his fault they wanted to play with their drone and couldn’t handle the consequences. Maybe they should have kept their hand on a flash instead of a remote. Even so, he feigned remorse, if only to get him out of a worse punishment. He was already on thin ice just by his associations; the more he acted out, the more he confirmed himself as a Hunter’s whelp. A few faces already sneered at him. Too many more and he’d find himself in the woods without a roof over his head.

Not that he minded much.

After another ten minutes of false empathy, Lucius snuck past the twins guarding the door and dashed into the trees, a light smile crossing his face. None of them seemed to understand it: the whispers of the wind, the bite of wood under your palms, the adrenaline of a good chase. They never would.

Time seemed to whisk by as he ran, leaving behind his prison for a much more comfortable view. Stars glittered above the dry branches overlooking Dream Therapy’s outer entrance. Grass crunched quietly beneath his feet. The wind fluttered his hair just out of his face. A pleasant night.

Izzy sat in the crook of the dying tree, hair tied into a tight bun and a doodled-on backpack hanging behind her. She’d ditched her usual skirt for some worn jeans and a tank top, and actually had small studs in her ears for once. She hummed a jaunty tune to herself, only stopping when her brother came into view. With a grin, she jumped down from the tree, rolling out from the fall and jumping to her feet in one fluid motion. Luci rolled his eyes.

Show off.

“Is that all you wanted to show me?” He smirked, crossing his arms. Izzy blinked blankly at him.

“Do... you really not know what day it is?”

“Of course I do. It’s Sunday.”

“Nooooo---” Isadora laughed quietly and took his arm cautiously, walking him to the other side of the tree, toward the ledge. “You’re not wrong, but there’s something else!” Her eyes glimmered in the moonlight, leaving her brother even more confused.

Luci squinted into the distance. It wasn’t Michael’s birthday. It wasn’t the Hunt anniversary. It wasn’t her birthday. It wasn’t the cultist’s wedding anniversary. He scanned her over quickly. She was too her to be suppressed. It wasn’t a holiday... He squinted harder.

A concerned, but sympathetic expression melted over Izzy’s face.

“Happy birthday, Lucius.” She let go of his arm and pulled her backpack in front of her, pulling out an unfamiliar candy bar, a box wrapped in old newspaper, and a bag of M&M cookies.

Again, Luci stared down at the gifts, taking a moment to process what was happening. Gifts? For him? Even after the Hunt, he never really got used to actually getting gifts every birthday. Why did he need it every birthday? Wouldn’t he just get overloaded with stuff? What would he even do with all of that? Still, he sighed, a soft smile crossing his face.

“You know I don’t have anywhere to put things now, right?” Izzy sat and patted the ground next to her. Luci followed suit.

“I know!” Isadora giggled. “That’s why I brought mostly food. I think you’ll like the chocolate.” She held out the bar again for Lucius to take. Lindt Chili Dark Chocolate. He raised an eyebrow as he took it.

“Chili?”

“You still like not tasting things ever again, right?” Izzy grinned, earning her another eye roll.

“It’s called capsaicin, and it actually makes food taste.” He held a glare for about two seconds before they both broke out laughing. God, it was nice to just laugh. It’d been a while since he last gave a genuine one.

Once he caught his breath, Luci leaned back on the tree and opened the wrapper. His eyes widened a bit in excitement. He could actually see the pepper pieces in it. Impatience taking hold of him, Lucius took a haphazard bite, not caring about the pre-sectioned pieces at all. It wasn’t the spiciest thing he’d ever tasted --it didn’t even make his eyes water-- but it was enough to make his mouth tingle at least.

“Damn, I hyped myself up too much. Town doesn’t even have decent chocolate!” He thrust the candy into the air, then took another bite anyway, smiling at the stars.

“Hey!” Izzy nudged him. “Don’t get so numb you can’t taste the cookies! I made these.” She picked up the bag and shook them in front of him.

“Don’t tell me what to do--”

“They’re not gonna be warm much longer!~” Luci paused, then begrudgingly wrapped the foil back around the chocolate. Warm cookies were a rarity he was not about to pass up. Izzy smiled knowingly as she opened the bag.

The scent of fresh-baked cookies wafted up from the bag, making both of their mouths water. There were about half a dozen perfectly browned cookies with only a few bits crumbled at the bottom. The birthday boy’s eyes went wide.  Luci darted his hand in first, just as quickly taking a huge bite.

It practically melted in his mouth. The candies were just soft, but just crunchy enough to be satisfying to bite into. The cookie itself was soft, but not so crumbly that it would make a mess. Luci felt a warmth pulse through his body. Was this “normal?” It was definitely boring enough to be. And yet, it was a nice change of pace from the constant scowls and running. Luci scratched at his shoulder and laid down over his sister’s lap.

“And when did you learn how to bake?”

“Mum taught me, I just haven’t done it in a while. It takes a lot of blood you know.” Izzy nodded. “What, are you jealous?”

“No!” Luci glared, “I just can’t rely on you to make everything.”

“Oh,” Izzy’s eyes glimmered mischievously, “So you don’t want the rest of these?”

“That’s not what I said!” His arm darted for the cookie bag, just for it to be pulled out of reach. Luci narrowed his eyes. “I’ll steal them.”

“I know.” Izzy dropped the bag on his chest and took another cookie. “That’s why I left another one in the house. I figured you’d want some crimes.” Lucius chuckled through a mouthful of crumbs.

“Fuck yeah I do.” He shoved the last few cookies in his mouth, preparing to dart up from his position. Izzy sighed. Of course that’d get him moving. She put a hand on his shoulder, earning a flinch and as much of a glare as her brother could muster.

“You’re not very intimidating with a mouth full of cookies, Lulu.” Izzy said with a matter-of-fact tone before releasing his shoulder. “There’s one more thing before you can commit crimes.”

“What?”

“The box!”

“... Oh right.” He’d almost forgotten in his cookie-fueled haze. Luci sat back up, halved cookies falling from his mouth. His eyes went wide as he tried to catch them, making quite a few distressed noises while he was at it. Izzy couldn’t help but giggle. She wondered if he could ever get used to this.

Luci frantically finished his cookies and sat back up, brushing crumbs off the glow of his shirt. He was almost like a kitten, sitting at attention after seeing a bug flying through the air. For a moment, he almost looked... normal. As if none of this had ever happened. As if the scars were fake. Izzy let a wistful smile cross her lips as she put the present back in front of her brother.

As if it would be stolen from in front of him. Luci ripped open the paper ferociously, using his nails to slice open the tape. It pained him a bit to ignore the stories printed on the “wrapping paper,” but if it was so important that he got this... he could make an exception. He opened the flaps and stared inside... It didn’t take him long to realize what it was.

A small stuffed Cerberus stared back up at him with felt eyes and soft fur. It was obviously handmade, as some of the stitches weren’t quite as invisible as they could have been, and it looked as if three separate dog toys were sewn together, but that didn’t take anything away from the finished product. There was even a little felt collar around each neck.

Lucius stared at it for a bit, mesmerized by the softness and the obvious effort that went into the toy. This... was his? She made this? For him? Why? What did she want? What was this supposed to make him do? The thoughts swam behind his eyes. It was too good to not be a bribe, right?

Izzy sighed. “I don’t want anything from you.” She shook her head, putting her hands over his. “I just wanted to make it for you. Hades needs his Cerberus, does he not?”

Waves of scrutiny emanated from Lucius. That... couldn’t be right. There had to be a catch. There was always a catch. There was always a--

He caught himself. This was his sister. This was the one who’d helped him with his knife grips just so they’d be on equal ground. The one who’d pulled him back to his feet after a long sparring match and patched his wounds so they’d heal faster.

The one who watched the stars with him in the open air, nothing but fascination in both their eyes. Competition or not, she always wanted to be on equal ground. Maybe... she wasn’t lying.

Cautiously, the walls came down again, putting a smile on Luci’s face.

“And where am I supposed to hide this?”

“I’m sure you’ll find a way.” Izzy tapped her forehead against his, voice quiet and full of hope. Luci tensed from the sudden contact, but slowly dropped his guard again, closing his eyes and hugging the toy close to his chest. Tears bubbled up in his chest. She really knew just what to do, didn’t she?

... He missed their mom.

The two kids sat in the cool of night for a few minutes, letting the breeze curl around them and the stars blink lazily overhead. A single tear dripped down Luci’s cheek, whisked away into brown fur. Izzy lifted her head and planted a soft kiss on his forehead.

“Happy birthday, Lulu.”

“... Thanks Izzy.”

[datshq]

Fanfic: Cause you get lighter the more it gets dark

Birdmen Week: Stars

Summary: (Post Chapter 19) Eishi's nighttime introspection gets derailed when his new ability dysfunctions. Relationships: Eishi & Mikisada friendship

AO3 link

Eishi was fascinated with the sky, this much was true. However, it was the daytime sky that held his interest more than anything. In the daytime, he could see what resided between the clouds, what passed by, from local birds to distant airplanes.

In the nighttime, Eishi could never be sure what the lights piercing the cover of darkness were. Stationary lights could be stars or satellites, moving lights could be airplanes or helicopters or someone's drone.

Eishi had changed his mind when he'd learned to fly himself, however. Now the night sky was the very sky he flew among, and his mind started to gather possible scenarios he could prepare for.

They could get lost somewhere where the city lights didn't reach to light up landmarks. A Blackout could chase them all the way to the wilderness. The mysterious organization on their tailfeathers might force them to take off, fly as far away as they could and not come back. In all these scenarios it would be beneficial if the night sky was a familiar friend instead of a stranger.

It all made perfect sense except that the last scenario Eishi had thought up had also made the night sky more dangerous than any of the Bird Club would have ever thought. Eishi remembered, and he hated.

He’d been studying the stars for a while now, immersing himself in reference books and waiting for clear nights to climb up on his roof to look at the sky and apply what he’d learned. He made a game of it: “satellite or star?” and hoped that his anxious thoughts would stay at bay.

What if he learned something wrong and the others couldn’t rely on his knowledge when the time came? What if someone spotted him, a neighbour thinking he was some weirdo and telling his mother? Those were the usual worried thoughts, but now the latter one gained a new edge. What if they spotted him?

Eishi didn’t want to think about what had happened in short enough time ago to be counted in hours. 41 hours ago Kamoda had been shot and they’d all been so scared, so confused and there had been no reason. “To keep them quiet”? What even was that nonsense when they never bothered anyone.

Well, Kamoda was a bother but that was something completely different from the matter at hand. Kamoda was happy, he was fun, he loved playing with cats and he thought more highly of Eishi than he deserved.

 Ei-chan, please.

And, to make matters worse, Eishi was still so angry. Kamoda was fine now, good as new, but Eishi could only remember the face, wet from tears and pained sweat, and the cries in his ears while Kamoda looked at him with such fear.

Eishi couldn’t remember ever seeing Kamoda that scared before. Not even when they were kids and Eishi had dug up bugs to see the faces Kamoda would make.

“He’s fine,” Eishi told himself firmly, willing himself to believe. “You’ll see him in the morning, when his sleepy, lazy self finally makes it to school.”

The morning was still hours away, a far too long to time to wait but Eishi would manage. He had to, because it wasn't like he could text Kamoda and expect him to still be awake to see the message, let alone respond to it.

What would Eishi even mail him? "Hey, you still alive?" was what he wanted to say but what he really needed was: "You're still with me, right?"

For anyone living a regular life, the sound of giant wings slicing through the air would have been threatening. For Eishi, it was familiar and comforting, attached to gatherings with friends.

Eishi wondered if he'd been thinking too loudly again, if Takayama had dropped in to check on him. He looked up at his new company and felt something inside himself stop, for the briefest of moments, before picking up again.

Jumping up, Eishi clapped his hands on thick, strong arms, feeling his wings appear and shroud him like a cloak. "Kamoda, what are you doing here?"

Kamoda had the audacity to look surprised at Eishi's reaction, staring at him briefly before replying: "You called me."

"I did?" Eishi's grip slipped, not quite as tight but not entirely releasing. "I don't recall saying anything." It was more a matter of thinking, wasn't it, but even sending thoughts required giving them form, didn't it?

"It was kinda like that look you give me right before you ask me to skip school with you," Kamoda answered. A smile came to his face, fond and glad. "I felt just like when you give me that look that says: 'Come right here.'"

Eishi released Kamoda to press a hand to his chin as he pondered. "Fascinating." Passing along intent instead of just words could be a useful skill if they could optimize it properly. However, it sounded like it required the ability to respond to nonverbal cues to begin with.

The thought of someday being that close to the rest of the Bird Club was equal amounts exciting and daunting. Something like that was one of the signs of deep, meaningful companionship.

"So you did it by accident." Kamoda's voice was teasing now, his smile replaced by a smirk. "Still trying to get a handle on that, huh?"

"Shut up!" Eishi snapped, albeit carefully, having no desire to alert anyone to their presence of a roof. "You shouldn't have left home, especially not by flying! It could still be dangerous!"

Instantly horror images filled Eishi's mind. Someone taking a shot at Kamoda again while he'd been on his way to Eishi. Eishi never knowing, until the morning when there was no sign of Kamoda. Kamoda, dead or taken away.

They were both winged, shrouded in deep and black darkness that was only partially the night but mostly their own power. There wasn't a star in sight in this darkness.

"Ei-chan." Kamoda's hands were now up, cupping Eishi's chin to get him to focus on the here and now. "You're looking scary again."

The darkness in Eishi's thoughts parted just enough for him to spot the single bright star on this rooftop, the one light that he'd protect with all he had, even if all he had amounted to words, manipulations and a new power he still needed to analyze properly.

Eishi shrugged off his friend's grasp, and said: "I'll fly you home."

"Oh." Kamoda grinned, wide and friendly and bright. "You just wanted to fly together then?"

"I need to make sure you don't get in trouble," Eishi defended with an affronted sniff. "It surprises me you made it all the way here with no mishaps." He spread his wings, ready for takeoff. "Next time you feel me calling, just text."

"That's not as much fun." Kamoda pouted, but didn't argue further. In fact, he launched himself in the air first, with Eishi following right after.

It was a couple of blocks later that Eishi realized that he'd ruined his pyjamas by transforming so abruptly.

[ajoraverse]

Home

I’m not really sure where to throw this  ��\_(ツ)_/¯. It’s not in the outline. Oh well. Beta AU, roughly late 1800s. Contains spoilers.

In the years since the old peridot lost her pearl (not mine, never mine) to the Earth Rebellion, her quarters fell into disarray. It wasn't so much that she had expected Mist to pick up after her, but that she had firmly entrenched herself in planning her return to Earth to check the Cluster's progress. Perhaps Kyanite had insisted that her assistant go in her stead, but Peridot had reasons to go back that had nothing to do with the Yellow Diamond's ridiculous pet project and she certainly wasn't going to entrust Peridot 5XG with them. 

The plans laid scattered over a shaggy old couch that Mist once might have occupied to watch Diamonds-approved media on the viewscreen, and they were pulled up and drawn on every time Peridot thought of something new to add to the three great robonoids she designed to help her. In case the Crystal Gems were still on Earth and might have somehow survived the Diamonds' attack, she needed contingency plans. The robonoids just needed a power source and some fine-tuning of the artificial intelligence once she got those gems. While she had sources in mind, she needed to be able to smuggle those sources away, first. Ironically, the idea came to her when she made an excuse to visit that monument to Pink Diamond's love of the exotic, her zoo. (Just doing a routine systems check, she told Holly Blue Agate as she glanced sidelong at the handful of amethysts who survived the war for Earth. Upon recognizing her as the Kindergartener who made them, they flashed her quick grins and murmured assurances the moment the agate's back was turned.)

First she had to test whether her idea was sound. After half a dozen tries, she managed to enclose a spare wrench in an olivine-green bubble, and it took another handful of attempts to get the sending motion right. The bubble disappeared.

It did not appear again. She checked the rarely used rest chamber she only visited to dust off her monument to loss. It wasn't there, either. Perplexed, because all the documentation said that stasis bubbles should return to the gem's home, Peridot returned to the main room to pace and think over her options. A second test produced the same results: the stasis bubble disappeared for parts unknown. A quick call to the peridot currently managing the Kindergarten she was made in revealed that the bubbles hadn't appeared there, either. She sent a drone with a third test bubble, and that was destroyed before it could start transmitting video on its subspace feed.

Peridot 2AA benched that idea; it wouldn't do to lose valuable power sources. She would simply have to pursue another avenue of acquisition.

.*.

"Aw, damn. Another one?"

Twig craned her head over the watchtower's parapet at Scouter's exasperated tone of voice, dropping her cards for the time being. Far down into the canyon that made up the Beta Kindergarten, a lime-green bubble appeared to join the other two. The difference between that and the others was the little ball that moved inside it. Before she could act or tell Scouter to wait, the pale jasper took aim with her flintlock rifle and shot down both the bubble and the rotating ball inside it. 

"Did you have to shoot it?" Her voice was dry and maybe a little arch; of course Scouter would shoot it. She took shots at anything that moved if she was bored enough.

"Your eyes are crap," Scouter stated, unaffected by her tone of voice, as she pulled the rifle's strap over her head and settled the rifle along her back. "You didn't see the camera iris on it. That thing's a spy."

Any amusement Twig might have derived from poking at Scouter's tendency to shoot first disappeared. "Didn't the Crystal Gems say they wanted to be alerted in case we came across Homeworld tech?"

Scouter arched an eyebrow at her tone. "Don't see why we can't tell them now."

"All right." Twig gathered up her cards. It wouldn't do to have naughty cards carried away by the wind. One of the kids might come across them. She straightened and dusted herself off once she pocketed the cards, taking care to ensure that all her clothes were presentable. "I'll go let Jasper know. What was that other thing? The second bubble?"

Scouter peered over the parapet again, where two bubbles hovered three-quarters down into the uneven sandstone walls of the Kindergarten. "A... flower? Metal, looks like a hibiscus. Weird pink tint to it. Might be rose gold. First bubble had a wrench made of some alloy I don't know. Blue tint. Third bubble: camera iris in a green ball. Had a pair of wings like a dragonfly's. That enough for you?"

Twig supposed she shouldn't be surprised that Scouter could see wings and a camera iris when she couldn't; Scouter's eyesight was phenomenal. If it wasn't for Scouter's awkwardness when trying to pick up girls, she might almost be jealous. "Perfect. Thanks." She winked to take the sting out of her words. "Try not to fall all over yourself when reporting to Rose."

Scouter flashed the skinny jasper a rude gesture and left with a huff. Twig grinned after her until she was out of sight, then leapt into the chasm to gather up the bubbles and what remained of the tiny flying camera. It might have been fascinating to play with, especially when human cameras were big, clunky things requiring flash powder and standing in place for an hour, but there was no point in dwelling on what might be.

Jasper was harvesting cochineal bugs that feasted on her cacti when Twig found her, grumbling curses at the tiny insects as she scraped them off and into Weaver's basket. Mother draped herself on the bench outside of Jasper's apartment, looking for all the world like she was snoozing. Twig still wasn't sure whether corrupted gems actually slept. "Next time I'm dragging Weaver out here and making her harvest her own bugs," Jasper growled as Twig approached.

"But Jasper," Twig began in a fair mimicry of the big carnelian's whine, "it's too bright outside! I don't want to do actual work!"

"Heh." Jasper turned as she squished one of the bugs between her fingers. The red mess it left behind was Weaver's pride; it could be rendered into a lovely, steadfast crimson dye when she had enough of them. The smirk on her face faded when her eyes fell on the bubbles. "Where did those come from?"

"Don't know. They just appeared in the Kindergarten. Scouter went to report the machine thingy to Rose." With that, Twig held out the wreckage in her hands. The little gears and springs were so tiny that she was pretty sure humans couldn't hope to reproduce with their current technology, and there was some green goo still clinging to the parts that she couldn't figure out. "She shot it down. Notice the lenses?"

Jasper merely grunted, which in her terms meant that Scouter had made the right call. Her attention turned to the bubbles and lingered on the one with the metal hibiscus. "Who makes green bubbles?"

"None of us Beta gems." Twig didn't know a lot, but she did know that bubble colors tended to correspond to gem colors. The only green gem she knew was Mother, and their attention turned to the corrupted gem at once. Twig was pretty sure they were both giving Mother similar speculative looks. 

The corrupted gem, aware of the attention on her, lifted her head from the bench. It tilted as if she was thinking about something she would never be able to share, and then the eyes fell on the yellow-green bubbles. There was some flash of recognition, and she got off the bench to trot up to them. Twig reached out with her free hand to give her an affectionate pat, but Mother avoided it entirely to peck at the closest bubble. It popped easily, allowing the metal flower to fall into her claws. She shifted on her feet as if unsure of what to do, then turned and fled to her little hiding space in Jasper's quarters. 

"We're never going to figure her out, are we?"

Jasper had her thinking scowl on. At least, that was what Twig thought of it. "Don't tell them about her reaction." Jasper didn't have to explain why. None of them wanted their beloved corrupted gem under the Crystal Gems' scrutiny. Maybe Rose Quartz might one day figure out how to heal corruption, but they loved Mother too much to let her linger in stasis with little chance to experience at least some kind of life outside of it.

[nofomoartworld]

Harvesting the Rare Earth

Jacob Remin, Harvesting the Rare Earth, 2017. Photo: Anders Sune Berg

Jacob Remin, Harvesting the Rare Earth, 2017. Photo: Anders Sune Berg

Rare Earth elements (or RREs) are a group of 17 metallic elements essential to sustaining the unrelenting global demand for new technological products. The materials have specific chemical and physical properties that make them useful in improving the performance of pretty much anything we associate with innovation nowadays: hybrid cars, smartphones, laptops, hi-tech televisions, sunglasses, lasers as well as less mainstream technology used by the military and medical profession.

Rare earths are extracted through opencast mining, they also generate radioactive waste and need be separated and purified at high ecological costs. Add to the picture that China has a near-monopoly (over 97% of the production) on mining REEs and the country is not a champion of environmental standards.

This near domination of a strategic resource means that China can control the exports of rare earth elements, drive the price of REEs up and disrupt manufacturing should any strong diplomatic disagreement with another country arise. That’s why America, Japan and Europe are getting increasingly concerned and are desperately looking for new sources of supply.

Japan, for example, is looking at recycling in order to recover rare earths from hard drives and other discarded electronics.

Jacob Remin, Harvesting the Rare Earth, 2017. Photo: Anders Sune Berg

Jacob Remin, Harvesting the Rare Earth (Still from Jacob Remin’s drone footage of Agbogbloshie e-waste dump), 2017

Jacob Remin‘s latest artwork, Harvesting the Rare Earth, explores the REEs supply issue, while laying bare the consequences of our addiction to technology and reminding us that our cloud based, digital existence is firmly rooted into the ground.

The work presents a speculative near-future scenario, where a fictive biotech company has pioneered a sustainable biomining technology that uses genetically modified caterpillars to harvest rare earth elements in Agbogbloshies, the biggest and most notorious e-waste dump in the world.

The recycling technology bears the poetic name of The Butterfly Solution. The remediation process would rely on 3 elements: a nutrient and chemical solution, an engineered fungi and an engineered butterfly.

Jacob Remin, Harvesting the Rare Earth, 2017. Photo: Anders Sune Berg

Jacob Remin, Harvesting the Rare Earth, 2017. Photo: Anders Sune Berg

First, the nutrient solution is spread over the leftovers of the remains of the broken-down pieces of electronics. The chemicals from the solution then slowly dissolve the REEs present in the waste. Microscopic fungi feed of the nutrients in the solution and accumulate REEs in their tissues. The larvae of the butterfly feed on the fungi and will eventually morph into butterflies saturated with RE elements. The butterflies then take over. Because they are naturally attracted to light on the ultraviolet spectrum, they flock to UV light beacons scattered around the waste fields. The beacons are conveniently located at the center of harvest points. Once collected, the butterflies are put in an enzymatic acid solution that dissolves the organic matter of the insects. Finally, the rare earth elements are mechanically separated into clean mineral fractions ready for industrial applications.

The scenario might sound quite far-fetched but it is anchored in research related to bioremediation and biomining of rare earth elements. The artist also worked with biological engineer Martin Malthe Borch to develop the concept behind the biomining process. If you’re curious about the technological background, check out the draft version of their paper Harvesting the Rare Earth. Art-science research, reflections and discussion, it’s a fascinating read.

The installation of this speculative scenario takes the form of the reception and conference room of a near-future biotech company called Hybrid Ventures. The corporate design of the space contrasts starkly with other elements in the exhibition: the accumulations of dirt-covered electronic waste, the footage from a drone fly of Agbogbloshie, the caterpillars, etc.

Harvesting the Rare Earth presents a dream scenario in which the dirty business of recycling remains in countries located far away from our shores and consciences. The whole process has other, very reassuring, advantages. It has an innocuous and poetical name (The Butterfly Solution), it is undertaken in a seemingly ‘sustainable’ way and even better, the proposed technology never questions nor impedes our addiction to technology.

Jacob Remin, Harvesting the Rare Earth, 2017. Photo: Anders Sune Berg

Jacob Remin, Harvesting the Rare Earth, 2017. Photo: Anders Sune Berg

Harvesting the Rare Earth is currently on view at Overgaden in Copenhagen. I asked Jacob if he could give us more details about his work:

Hi Jacob! Harvesting the Rare Earth presents “a speculative near-future scenario, where mining companies are using genetically modified micro organisms to harvest rare earth elements from e-waste dumps around the world.” This sounds like an alluring scenario where mining is done in an eco-friendly way. It also echoes the importance of rare earth crucial for the development of so-called ‘clean’ tech such as wind turbines and batteries for electric cars. So is Harvesting the Rare Earth a positive vision of the future of mining, recycling and e-waste management?


Rare earth elements are crucial to so much more than clean tech. The electrochemical properties of rare earth elements are driving technology development in the 21st century: From lasers, over fiber optic cable to magnets, harddrives and screens. Our cloud-based, digital existence is closely connected to the earth.

While precision mining with bio engineered worms is certainly a cleaner way of getting rare earth elements than what we are currently doing today, the show also portrays the reality today, documenting the vast e-waste dump of Agbogbloshie, one of the places where the device you are reading this from goes to die. The exhibition tries to balance between a reassuring scenario where technological innovation satisfies our needs, but also exposes our increasing addiction to technology and the ecological implications of this addiction.

Jacob Remin, Harvesting the Rare Earth, 2017. Photo: Anders Sune Berg

Jacob Remin, Harvesting the Rare Earth, 2017. Photo: Anders Sune Berg

Jacob Remin, Harvesting the Rare Earth, 2017. Photo: Anders Sune Berg


Could you take us through the form that this scenario takes in the exhibition space? Photos from the opening show glass tables with all sorts of objects….


The show takes form as a investment pitch for bio-tech company called “Hybrid Ventures”. When you enter, you enter the reception of the company with sofas, plants and an art sculpture in the corner. To your right, you find a conference room with rows of chairs, a speech podium, corporate branding and 3 podiums emanating drones. On the 3 podiums there are the 3 components of the company’s proposed “Butterfly solution”: 1 micro organism, 1 worm, 1 butterfly. In the corner there is another sofa group with headphones placed in front. When you listen to the headphones you learn about the business plan of “Hybrid Ventures”. In the other end of the gallery, through a narrow passage way, you enter the e-waste prototype: Electronics and worms in 5 glass vitrines, a large projection of drone recording from Agbogbloshie, Ghana and 1 giant bug zapper lamp, placed in another vitrine, full of dead butterflies and a green enzymatic acid solution.

Jacob Remin, Harvesting the Rare Earth, 2017. Photo: Anders Sune Berg


Why did you chose to use a fictive biotech company as the anchor of the installation? Do you think that fiction and speculation are more appropriate to communicate the questions that preoccupy you?


Discussing subjects like ecology, the global economy, necropolitics and the cloud is highly complex. Giving the exhibition a fictive near-future scenario makes things concrete, while at the same time supplies me with the freedom to choose whichever vantage point i prefer. Being a startup biotech company 5-10 years from now is the most interesting position i could imagine for discussing these issues.


In an interview with Backlisted, you said: This is an ongoing exploration for me: for instance, part of this show is an older piece called Material Meditation from 2010, which focuses exactly on the blurring borders between technology and nature. To me, all of these things are part of the equation—”nature is part of the problem”. 
Could you expand on this and explain what you meant by this idea that nature is part of the problem?

“Nature is part of the problem” is a quote by Timothy Morton. I am trying to broaden the view a bit from our traditional human-centered perspective.



Jacob Remin, Harvesting the Rare Earth, 2017. Photo: Anders Sune Berg

I read that the installation is accompanied by sounds created by Yann Coppier and Runar Magnusson. What is the role of the soundscape in this work?

I really enjoy working with sound in installations, and collaborating with Yann Coppier and Runar Magnusson has been a pleasure as always. To me, sound offers a possibility to talk in a much more suggestive manner, than say with images or text, and so the compositions in this show offers a suggestive underlining of the points I am trying to make. For instance we have installed the sound of an industrial fan inside a constructed pathway in the gallery leading to the e-waste prototype. The sound is a relative low rumble and white noise, played through transducers, making the pathway wall vibrate slightly. Since this is sound and therefore invisible, many people will probably not notice this, but it still works on a more subconscious level suggesting that this is “big industry”, ie. something fuels this which produces enough heat, that industrial scale cooling is needed.



I think you’ve been to Accra in Ghana, right? What did you learn about the issue at the core of your work while you were there? And how did you translate it in the installation?


Yes, I went to Accra, Ghana last year to film in Agbogbloshie, the worlds largest e-waste dump. I knew that many Danes were unaware that their electronic waste would end up in places like this but I was surprised to find that many local ghanians didn’t know that Agbogbloshie existed, and what went on there, even if it is quite large and very centrally placed. In many ways this was just another underlining of how disconnected we are from our trash and the physical footprint of our superslick lives; out sight, out of mind. We look at the world through technical systems and how this influences the human conditions is important to me. Documenting Agbogbloshie, I chose to film drone always facing north, camera always facing downwards, mimicking a google maps perspective.


And which books, articles, videos or other resources would you recommend to know more about the issues surrounding rare earth, e-waste, etc?


A Prehistory of the Cloud by Tung-Hui Hu and Rare Earth by Boris Ondreicka & Nadim Samman are both excellent books.

VIRTUAL PERCEPTION, with Jonas Lund (S), Morten Modin, Sif Itona Westerberg, Søren Thilo Funder, Jacob Remin, David Stjernholm, Ditte Ejlerskov and Hannah Heilmann. Photo by David Stjernholm


Any upcoming project, field or research or event you could share with us?

I just travelled trough Oslo, and was fortunate enough to see the exhibition Myths of the Marble at Henie Onstad Kunstsenter. Highly recommendable!

Also, I have 2 new pieces in the group show Virtual Perception in Huset for Kunst og Design, Holsterbro which features a list of several interesting Danish (and one Swedish) artist artists.

Thanks Jacob!

The exhibition Harvesting the Rare Earth remains open at Overgaden in Copenhagen 19 March 2017

Previously: Radioactive Ming vases echo our toxic dependency on electronics.

from We Make Money Not Art http://ift.tt/2mQ2tAx via IFTTT