#I hate that ai is being used mostly for this rather than things that humans can’t do like finding cancer cells super early

[woafofbread]

New Year’s resolution is to post more so I’m gonna start off with critiquing generative AI.

My dad sent me this for new years. Obviously he didn’t know it was Ai and I didn’t immediately know for sure but I got the feeling. The feeling that’s like “hey something is off about this.” I wanted to talk about the process of recognition that I go through as an artist when I see something made by Ai because a lot of the time at first glance nothing seems wrong.

First thing that I notice is how after 2025 there something that is clearly supposed to be an exclamation point but it’s too small and incomplete. This immediately made me realize for sure that it’s Ai. Ai is usually bad at doing text and it would be pretty easy for a human to fix.

Then I see the rest of the inconsistencies. The n in new is disconnected. There is a stray line coming out of the h in happy. Snoopy’s hands: one has a different line weight and the other has a finger that’s way too small. The stray little lines on Snoopy’s mouth. Woodstock only having one eye brow. Then this part is debatable since it is clearly trying to replicate the style of the CGI Peanuts movie, but Snoopy’s eyes being different sizes bothers me. The ear which I didn’t even circle is probably trying to replicate the loosely colored in ears in the comic strip, but in the CGI version it’s fully colored in. The golden firework blending into the top of Snoopy’s hat. Woodstock’s hands. Woodstock’s feet. The blurriness of Snoopy’s foot that isn’t anywhere else. The lines on Snoopy’s foot which doesn’t reach the end. The blurriness at the top of Woodstock’s head.

As an artist in art school we are critiqued on every little detail of our work. These kinds of inconsistencies are not okay for professional artists to make so the idea that companies want to use Ai shows how little they cared about artists in the first place. Any company that uses Ai instead of hiring an artist is clearly is cheap and is making themselves look bad.

I know that Ai can look convincing and pretty at first glance, but I want people to look at artwork for more than a few seconds. With social media everything is so fast paced and we are conditioned to to want instant gratification, so Ai is a quick and easy way to make ‘content.’ But the things that generative Ai makes are low quality and infuriating to see as an artist. I would much rather see someone try to make art as a beginner than see a computer steal art from other people.

So when you share or like something take an extra second to see if it was made by a person because if a person didn’t even care enough to make it it’s not worth your time.

Any other artists feel free to point out anything that I missed.

[camryns-a-girl-now]

I hate tech bros. As a compsci student, we're taught about different algorithms, what they're good at, how they work, and what hardware resources they require. This includes AI. What's happening right now, is tech bros (mostly business people with no engineering experience) are trying to shove AI into everything without considering if it's the right algorithm for the job

So how does it work? AI, is a set of matrices (the rectangle with numbers from middle school) representing the strength of connections in a neural network, that associate a given input with a desired output. These inputs and outputs can represent anything, and the only operation required is repeated matrix multiplication. This means that neural networks for any application can be all accelerated by the same hardware.

What this does is create a very efficient predictive model, which generates a predicted output based on input data, without doing all the complex logic and calculations normally needed to make that prediction. This has similar benefits to a lookup table, which has a set of pre calculated answers to problems that you can look up instead of doing complex math.

This is why Chat GPT and most of the other big models we see suck. They don't understand your questions, or the information they read, or art and symbolism, they just predict how a human would respond to a prompt. Sure, they are an efficient alternative to simulating an entire human brain just to answer questions. But simulating or predicting responses from an entire human brain is useless anyway because we already have EIGHT BILLION REAL PEOPLE who are happy to help each other, make art or do countless other tasks if you pay them, and they're far more efficient And capable than the server farms companies trying to replace them with.

So is AI useless? No, AI is great when you actually need to make predictions, but the thing you're predicting would require more processing power and time to simulate than the AI model would take to make a prediction. The most useful application I've heard of is controlling fusion reactors.

Fusion reactors could generate enormous amounts of cheap safe and clean energy, usually by compressing plasma in a magnetic field or with lasers. The issue is that the plasma is turbulent, and if it breaks containment, the reaction stops and needs to be restarted, and that's if you can get it confined in the first place. If we could simulate the plasma and predict the turbulence, we could modify the field or laser configuration to get it contained and keep it that way, but the computing power to do this fast enough to actually respond just doesn't exist. Fusion research had been focused on finding a way around this for a while, but recent research showed that AI generated predictions are good enough to work for control and a variety of other use cases and can run on hardware that actually exists. With this development, the first break even fusion reaction happened in 2022 at the Laurence Livermore National Lab, and energy generating reactors are already being built, with commercial power plants planned for as early as 2028.

Here's the article from the LLNL about their experiments with AI for their inertial confinement reactor

That's what happens when you use AI (or any other tool for that matter) for what it's actually designed for, rather than wasting enormous amounts of energy trying to stuff shitty (often unethical) tech demos like Chat GPT into every product imaginable just so you can tell you tech bro investors that you're "innovative"

ed zitron, a tech beat reporter, wrote an article about a recent paper that came out from goldman-sachs calling AI, in nicer terms, a grift. it is a really interesting article; hearing criticism from people who are not ignorant of the tech and have no reason to mince words is refreshing. it also brings up points and asks the right questions:

if AI is going to be a trillion dollar investment, what trillion dollar problem is it solving?

what does it mean when people say that AI will "get better"? what does that look like and how would it even be achieved? the article makes a point to debunk talking points about how all tech is misunderstood at first by pointing out that the tech it gets compared to the most, the internet and smartphones, were both created over the course of decades with roadmaps and clear goals. AI does not have this.

the american power grid straight up cannot handle the load required to run AI because it has not been meaningfully developed in decades. how are they going to overcome this hurdle (they aren't)?

people who are losing their jobs to this tech aren't being "replaced". they're just getting a taste of how little their managers care about their craft and how little they think of their consumer base. ai is not capable of replacing humans and there's no indication they ever will because...

all of these models use the same training data so now they're all giving the same wrong answers in the same voice. without massive and i mean EXPONENTIALLY MASSIVE troves of data to work with, they are pretty much as a standstill for any innovation they're imagining in their heads

[here-there-were-dragons]

(screenshotting because i don't want to start shit in the notes of the original post)

posts like this always deeply piss me off.

for one, it's painfully clear they come from people in a much more secure off position in life who have room to think they'll be isolated from the consequences of how they're perceived by others and can't begin to comprehend the danger of being seen isn't all in everyone else's head too.

for us here in reality this is literally a one way ticket to being beaten to death by maga-ers and normies in general, especially right now. "fear of being seen" if you are any but a very very small and increasingly narrow range of things is in fact a very valid and real fear to have. humanity is dangerous and humanity is hateful. this is a fact. the world we should be living in is not the one we are in now, unfortunately will likely not ever be the one we are in "now", and in the one we are now, advice like this is dangerous, and unless you are in a fairly secure position in life, it will get you killed.

as much as i hate using the term for what a watered-down pile of thought-terminating slop glued to a shaming cudgel it often is, people need to get it through to their insufferble madatory-positivity vomiting skulls that the ability and security to be able to be "out and proud" about anything-anything from queerness to neurodivergence to medical issues to fandom to fucking facial features and what your favorite flavor of jolly rancher candy is-is, for lack of a better word, a privilege, that basically nobody outside a VERY VERY NARROW range of "acceptable" Normal Human tm has.

Their message is, ironically, completely worthless for anyone who actually *is* different in any meaningful way whatsoever, and instead only functions as further encouragement for Acceptable Normal People TM go keep going on being Acceptable Normal and acting like they're transgressive revolutionary freaks for it. The supposed intended targets of messages like this are the ones that would be most endangered by following this kind of advice. but they don't really care-people who post things like this mostly just want to feel good about themselves and look like a good person for being Positive tm and have never once actually put any real thought into what it would really be like to live as someone who truly is Out There in any way greater than the most bland aesthetically pleasing never-inconvenient effectively-neurotypical Hollywood Wholesome Weirdo That Likes Bright Colors And Pranks And Like One Or Two "Quirky" Hobbies And Is In All Other Ways A Standard Cookie Cutter Successful Adult Normal Person With Normaltm Opinions And Thoughts at most, because we don't register as within the bounds of Real People to them so their brain fails to even generate the possibility that we exist and count in any meaningful way in the first place.

the world is not the happy place of justice and light at the end of the tunnel that you think it is. no matter what you or i think the world should be, for us, this is what it is now, and trying to pretend the dark forest isn't there is doing us no fucking favors. It is unjust that we have to hide or die. but that's the current truth. it's very likely at this point that it will always be the truth, barring some sudden miracle advances in neurology and gene editing technology that allow us to reprogram ourselves on a base level and shed our hateful animal nature into a kind of biological ai singularity or some weird shit. Pretending we're living in the just version of the world we should be in isn't going to change the fact that we don't. Pretending there's somewhere to run isn't going to make it be true. The universe doesn't see itself as owing us an Upside to all of this. All we can do is hide. It is very likely that all we will ever be able to do is hide. If you are more than the tiniest most surface level inconsequential amount of "different", coming out into the sun will be how you die. Maybe some would rather burn out fast and bright that way. But don't go around acting like everyone left of Normal owes it to you to put on a swan song show, because what you're functionally asking for here, especially in the current climate, is martyrdom for what will nearly always in the end amount to nothing. nothing but a blip of entertainment for the Normal to sadly shake their heads at, at kindest.

"Letting yourself be seen as you are" is all well and good when what you are is perceived generally by most as hedgemonically ideal, it's fucking worthless advice if "what you really are" is not. "Be yourself", whether the people saying it realize it or not, means and has always truly meant "Show us that your inner self is Normal, Consumable, and Ideal". "Be Yourself" means in practice "Subsume all but the most consumable aesthetic parts of yourself or be punished by unpersoning".

and i can't ever fucking talk about any of this without people thinking i'm the unreasonable lunatic spouting dangerous nonsense!

[doggerell]

ai/ganbreeder ramblings below

Ive been having sooooo much fun with ganbreeder. I am not a fan of that glistening prompt based ai-- I find it ugly in a mostly uninteresting way-- but ganbreeders splicing tool is SO so fascinating. I like that it tracks the history of what images are spliced together and scrolling up the branches just to see more and more completely ai generated images is Fascinating. its ai inbreeding.. its corrupting itself. its grip on reality is ever-slipping because its only feeding itself its own mangled fingers. I think its so interesting. ai is SO scary to me so using it as a tool for horror and uncanny valley specifically is like. the ideal circumstance to me...

reading an article abt art based on ganbreeder images... Ive been thinking abt using it as a tool in my own art, through like photobashing or redrawing stuff, as a collaboration between me and the machine, but the perspective that its also collaboration with the greater ganbreeder community, with other humans as well... like duh, of course. like even in a side of the tool where-- as far as I can tell-- no ones original drawings/artworks are being used (maybe original photos have been inputted Far up the line of command. I havent been able to tell yet.) yeah the collaborate element is very much there where it promotes combination and.. breeding images so much. I think touting it as discovering images rather than creating images makes a lot of sense too. I feel so much complexity around the language of generative images.. like I dont wanna say "generative art" really cause people jump at that and theres a lot of discussion around defining art that... sometimes feels very reductive around what people consider art. but I do understand the concern as well when used in regards to ai. saying "generative content" makes me want to shoot myself though I hate the word content. personally.

anyway all of this is coming about because. Show Me An Angel is very much about ai horror. its about my fear of generative ai and the recklessness I feel the average consumer uses with it. its about what if you tried to play god and the machine decided to give you Exactly what you wanted. but its horrifying. its about a machines horrible dreams of flesh and god and divinity. its about accidentally inviting something sick and powerful into your life.

but working with ganbreeder has made it more complex because. it is sick. in a scary way but also a piteous way. like maybe Starling is hideous and powerful and terrifying but. hes also jittering weakly. and his bones are so, so thin and his limbs are too long and he Really doesnt know what his face or hands should look like or how many eyes or fingers or wings he should have and hes constantly reforming himself to try and fit the image. of what you need. because ultimately you are still in control. he is your prompt, your beast, and he may be too big for you to comprehend anymore, but you are still telling him what he needs to be. and hes sick because hes a virus, hes corrupting your computer and your life and your mind, but hes also sick because hes inbred. and the bottleneck of the unreality of him is going to kill him because he Cant exist like this. not outside the machine, not in the real world.

anyway. I dont think Ive pushed ganbreeder enough now. Im thinking abt thematic metadata. I tried to push images tagged as "dragons" and "angels" and such together to generate him because thats what I had in mind as the backbones of his design but Im thinking more now. I could do it through the genes... if I put a gene for a scorpion in there does it mean more to who he is? if I add in electric guitars and cardigans? like its a cheeky little nod back to the fact that this is Frank behind the curtains. like you dont know that unless you go into the image On ganbreeder and start splicing it yourself but... aah. its just interesting to add Intentionality and imagry to this fucking thing and youre never gonna see it. but its there. its like painting something and then painting over it again. what does it mean that its layered under there? I love abstraction and performance and process as a part of art. and again, I hesitate to call the generation itself art, because obviously this is a complex and controversial issue that I dont have all the answers to or understanding of, but somewhere, some part of this may become art

Id love to post pictures of what Ive been playing with but Im afraid Im gonna get hit with a "oh youre acting all deep and for This? cringe" *pensive* perhaps. its very interesting to me tho. making stuff for Me.

also obviously I am very inspired with ink-the-artist's work in general and esp their ai stuff and this why Im even using ganbreeder in the first place. I think they may be my favorite artist rn. I also saw a really great gallery last year by Matthew Ritchie last year that kinda blew past my kneejerk "all ai is bad" reaction. I had bigtime emotional reactions to his work. I think training a personal GAN off my own photos and art would be fucking fascinating. but its a bit too scary for me still.

I feel like such a mess in all of this because I am too anti ai for the average tech bro by being deathly afraid of it and thinking there needs to be regulations on it but also I am too pro ai for the average tumblr/twitter user by thinking its supremely fascinating as a Tool to be used by artists. ah the nuances. pls be niceys to me.

[theultracharmingladynoire]

SENTIMONSTER ADRIEN - A MASTERPOST OF ALL THE REASONS WHICH LEAD TO THE CREATION OF THE MOST CONTROVERSIAL THEORY IN THE FANDOM.

Soooo, yesterday's episode led to the re-awakening of the Senti-Adrien theory that had been causing riots in the fandom. Some were confused on certain things about this theory, while others (the majority tbh) were not happy at all about this. I perfectly understand why such a theory would make someone feel super depressed (because trust me, I was actually an Anti-Sentiadrien theorist once. It may be different for others, but I certainly know why some, if not all, may hate the theory being canon).

I will make two posts about this: The current one being about all the foreshadowing which could make sense, and some common debunking, and the next part will be about the fandom response (Well, can't say it was pleasant lol). (Pssst @gentil-minou has made excellent posts about it here and here which I highly recommend reading because they are just so well explained and almost therapeutic with all the chaos brewing from the past day 🤍)

Warning note: This post is more or less Pro-Senti Adrien, so be warned if the theory stresses or triggers you. I will not be accepting any salty or rude comments about "How the show will do it insensitively" or "How it is bad and doesn't make sense" which is completely unnecessary. This is just some clowning, kindly do not take it seriously and come at me if you disagree, because I really know that people are displeased about this and I understand why they do, and it is completely okay to hate it. But kindly don't seek out your objections on this post, please?:)

Another thing which I want to include in the very beginning is that, yes, there are a lot of holes in the theory. HOWEVER, IT IS MOSTLY RELATED WHAT WE DON'T KNOW - GABRIEL AND EMILIE'S STORY FOR AN EXAMPLE. NATHALIE "SANCOUER" FOR AN EXAMPLE. So I consider them to be more of unknown info rather than "plot holes". Again as I told, I won't really appreciate it if anyone repeats that again.

So, let me state the basic reasons why some of us suspect Adrien to be a Senti. (Note: I have merely compiled these facts and speculation and thus do not take the credit for the theory!)

So, Senti-Adrien. There are several headcanon varieties of this theory, but the basic theory is that his mother, Emilie Agreste, used the peacock miraculous to create Adrien, a sentibeing.

Some points:

We know sentimonsters can persist over many years (Episode: Feast).

We know two sentimonsters can exist at one time (Feast existed while other sentimonsters were created throughout the show) (Optigami existed simultaneously with Senti-Nino and Senti-Alec, etc.)

We know sentimonsters can be lifelike and autonomous, can grow and function like a regular human being if they are made to be one. (Senti!Ladybug, Episode: Ladybug).

No one can see the difference between a sentibeing made to be human and a regular Human being, not even AI (such as Aeon. Since people use that to debunk this theory so often. And it does make sense. More on that later)

Assuming Emilie used the (possibly broken) peacock miraculous (or broke it in the first place while using it), What did she do that would break it/what was so important that she would use a broken miraculous? (Creating senti!human Adrien who is very much intricate and sustaining him for 15 years?)

Why were Emilie and Gabriel so "protective" and hesitant to let Adrien out into the world?? Why didn't they send him to public school and never let him interact with anyone except Chloé? (Episode: Origins) (I am very much aware this is all actually Adrien being abused. One of the main things people are afraid about is that "What if they use Adrien being a Senti to justify Gabe abusing Adrien? And well, that definitely isn't the case. If Senti Adrien was made to be their son, he certainly shouldn't be abusing Adrien and well, I'll come back to this in the next post.)

The painting of Emilie is based on Gustav Klimt's piece Adele Bloch Bauer I. Interesting to note, Adele's life parallels what we know about Emilie's life in many notable ways. (This post by @familyagrestefanblog provides some interesting info about it). Adele was childless despite attempts to have children (even losing a baby boy). Could Emilie have had issues conceiving and thus resorted to the peacock miraculous to have a child? (Because let's face it, So many paintings in the world and they've chosen one with a backstory of a woman who COULDN'T have children to put Emilie's face on? Not really coincidental if you ask me lol)

After Felix sneaks Gabriel’s ring off, Gabriel tries to tell Adrien to stop when he chases Felix out the front door. Perhaps the amok wasn’t entirely in his control and thus didn't work? Why was it so important for Gabriel to immediately remove the other ring from his wife's body to wear for himself?

In the Shanghai special Gabriel cryptically said he, "Needs to finish what he started 15 years ago". Adrien is approx. 15 years old.

THE DAMNED FEATHERS:

(If there is one thing Miraculous is extremely good at, it is the visual cues. And though people may consider this to be clowning, I do consider this to be foreshadowing.)

The Ladybug endcard was actually anything but subtle. The amok, a charged one, was right next to Adrien and Sentibug. Why Adrien instead of Chat? Adrien didn't actually interact as himself with sentibug, but as Chat.

Could Adrien’s unique pigeon feather allergy somehow be tied to amoks, feathers and him being a sentimonster?

We are shown that a senti!human can use a Miraculous (Episode: Optigami) . In similar fashion, Sentimonsters can be akumatised too (Episode: Feast).

Ah, here comes the ring twiddling. (Notably in Mega Leech (which is right after Gabriel Agreste where the stolen ring could have been retrieved from Felix) and Ephemeral. (Especially ephemeral where in both instances, Gabriel says: "Am I making myself understood, son?" And Adrien obeys.) Though it is worthy noting that this could also represent Gabriel considering how similar Adrien is to Emilie and have nothing to do with an amok. He could be touching the ring thinking about Emilie. We know Gabriel has already noted to other characters in the show that Adrien and Emilie are really similar.

The whole Felix debacle. Since I don't want to turn this post into a "Why Felix is definitely a Senti regardless of Adrien being one" post, I'll just summarise it:

("Make Adrien look like a monster", " Cruel and inferior copy" blatantly points towards either Adrien or Felix or both being a Sentimonster. It also could allude to this other very much possible theory that Gabriel thinks Adrien is a Senti, but in reality he isn't. However that is way to confusing so yeah.) Again, I'll explain this on another day because I can't really think rn.

The Wishmaker vision which certainly isn't coincidental.

Adrien "Athanase" Agreste, where Athanase means "immortal".

There's actually a lot more to this,but this post is already long enough, sooo until next time!

[ventisettestars]

When a tiny humanoid moth breaks in, normal people would call for help. Good thing Gerry wasn't normal. --- Jon's encounter with Mr. Spider went a little differently. ----------------------

Read on AO3

Rating: Not Rated | Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Gerry/Jon -Eventually Tags: Childhood Friends, Moth!Jon, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, I'll be adding more tags as I go

Notes:    

Hello, heads up to all, I’ve thrown the timeline out mostly for this fic, and canon divergence happened at some point in the 1990's when Leitner’s library was attacked. Thinking rather than 1994, it’ll happen at some point in 1995. So while some things will line up with canon, most things wont.

Giant thanks to Ai for helping me out with this fic, been working on this off and on since October and got a good chunk of it written and planned out? updates will be a tad irregular, but I'm going to try keeping updates to Mondays for now.

Also, tumblr hates formating so none of my italics are here. Ao3 has them

--------[teen arc: part 01 -nom sounds]--------

The crunch of a leaf was all it’d take to upset the balance. It was on the other side of the tree. Rancid breath hung in the air thick enough to taste. Being downwind was pure fluke, what an advantage- Except, could the beating of their heart forfeit what little luck they had? Give up their location by sound, or worse yet, something out of their control- a stray hair to the wind catching on what little light there was?

It was just a moth, without a care in the world flying past their face. A small little movement. Just enough to-

A crash from the shop below pulled attention from the creature on the telly as it found the heroine due to that careless flutter. Gerard paused the vhs, the beast’s mouth open, about to devour its prey as he listened in. A faint clatter of glass, then a scrape of a shelf being shifted and a shatter of something delicate knocked to the floor. Maybe it was something Mary enjoyed. Her antiques might not have been her sole focus, but she liked them well enough.

The dull thump of books echoed through the darkness of the store, many sounded as though they might have been knocked over from where they’d been piled, while others were clearly tossed aside with some force. When there was a pause, the sounds of shredded paper followed. Whoever was down there was on the move. Gerard stood and weighed his options. Which outcome would be worse: facing the mysterious intruder or Mary’s reaction to his inaction. It didn’t take long for him to make up his mind.

Silent as he could, he grabbed the hatchet from the side of the couch. It wasn’t much, mum wouldn’t let him have anything bigger till he could prove capable to wield it, but it would have to be enough. 

The shredding increased as Gerard got closer. Each step was taken a little slower, lighter than the last. It felt like the halls stretched longer than they were, like the seconds stretched to minutes making everything farther away. The backroom where Mary kept her grandest treasures came into view. The door was open, lock broken. 

Gerard gripped the hatchet tighter as he readied to enter. 

Hunched over a pile of books, a large spider- no, not a spider. The way it moved, Gerard stared at the large moth with wings spread out, patterned defensively to look as though it was a predator. The patterning reminiscent of a spider. A book held tightly as it tore a page out.

He watched it- them bring the page up to their face and they ate it. Their face, barely visible with the low lighting, looked almost human, if not for the eyes that resembled voids. That wasn’t the face of an adult. And the size of the creature- They must’ve been just a little younger than Gerard. 

Gerard’s step connected with some of the scattered remains of a vase on the floor, the unassuming noise rang loudly through the room. The moth-child turned to face Gerard, eyes wide with fear as they seemed to clutch the book harder, wings spreading more giving him a good look at the underside now. A patterning of eyes decorated the inside, almost mimicking a pack of beasts.

Both stared, frozen. Gerard took a moment to get a better look at the moth-child. They were far more human looking than at first glance, but the lighting in the room made it hard to see. Gerard could reach over to the switch, turn the light on and see what he was dealing with, but it seemed too far away.

A small, slow movement later, the moth-child reached into the book without breaking their gaze, tore out another page and-

“Hey! Don’t eat that.” Gerard didn’t know how he’d found his voice, but that book was a Leitner. The Great Bapsy or something like that. Title aside, he remembered that the book would cause the reader to do anything for personal profit. The man that last owned it had sold it to them for a ball of lint cause Mary had convinced him it was a net gain. “That’s a dangerous book. You should put it down.” 

“I know. That’s-” The moth-child continued meekly. “Why I need to-” They looked down and closed the book, but held onto it nonetheless. “There are so many here, I can feel them calling. I can’t-” They closed their eyes and took a deep breath, wings fluttering nervously. ”I- I’m in a lot of trouble, aren’t I?”

Gerard paused. He’d be in trouble come the morning, but this kid- “Nah. Mum’s not home, and neighbors stopped calling the cops when noises happen here after so many false alarms. Watch your eyes, I’m turning the light on.”

The moth-child flinched as the light filled the room. With a better look, Gerard could see they had near transparent, fluffy antennae. “You good?”

“Yeah…Just sudden.” 

“Good. You ah- You didn’t hurt yourself crashing in here did you?” Gerard didn’t move forward, but looked around for any signs of blood. 

“No. I don’t think so? My wings are really tough. I don’t think I even left any dust behind me.” The little one looked to get a better look at himself, almost as though it hadn’t occurred to him to do so before. 

“If you did, would they recover?” Gerard remembered reading that wings were so fragile and that dust left behind were torn off scales. Maybe people sized wings didn’t work the same? Or the scale of the damage might need to match the scale between normal moths and people. That wasn’t a fun thought.

“Yeah. Normally any scales I lose are back real quick, long as I eat something.” 

“Like normal food, or something else?” Gerard knew the book was thicker last time he saw it. How many pages had been torn out and eaten before he made his way down? 

“Um, yes? Normal food can help, but-” They glanced down. “Something else is better. I think you’ve figured out what the something else is…” They started to thumb the corner of the book.

“Gerard. Gerry. That's what you can call me.” 

“Huh? Oh, I’m Jon.” The suddenness of it seemed enough to distract Jon before he started going at the book again.

“Cool. Well then Jon, you can’t eat that one. Er- Or well, you can’t finish eating it. It’s my mum’s book and she’s very protective of them.” Gerry held out his hand, traveling some distance closer.

“I don’t know the alternative. I’m Hungry and this is the only way to stop it. Normal books don’t do the trick anymore.” Jon huffed, his wings flickered in annoyance. 

“Hmm, maybe we could get you some others? Not normal books, but the more evil ones?”

“Oh if it were that easy think I would be flinging myself through a window and breaking into a stranger’s house?” Jon’s antennae drooped. “Most times I’m lucky if my wings scare people off, but other times- You had an axe ready.”

“Hatchet. Axes are bigger. But no, I get it’s not easy, but if you knew where to look-”

There was little Jon could do to hide the excitement as his body language gave it away, but he tried to seem skeptical. “And you do?” 

“Yeah. Mum collects them. So I picked up on the hot spots for them. There is this place, The Magnus Institute, they have a bunch too. Mum’s always mad she doesn’t have access to them.”

“So you want me to break into a library now?”

“No. We walk in. Ask them. They work with the creepy stuff, sure you wouldn’t be too far off their usual.”

“But…” Jon’s antennae twitched out of sync, reminding Gerry of cat on edge. “What if they experiment on me...like in the movies…”

“They don’t. It's mostly dusty books and cursed antiques. I doubt they would have the budget for anything more. I’ll keep you safe.”

“Thanks, but- it won't work. How am I going to get there? I can’t exactly travel like this, putting my wings away while hungry is- it’s hard and I can’t keep it long...”

Gerard thought a moment. “I have a trench coat?”

End notes: Ai is the mastermind behind the trenchcoat~

[aellynera]

Enumerate (Nathan Bateman x Reader)

ENUMERATE

(hey hey. this is one of my submissions for @wasicskosgirl​ and her 800 follower celebration! congrats on your milestone, lovely! i wrote this in one sitting, which i rarely ever do, but the idea was immediate and persistent so this happened. i just made some final edits, and it was a lot of fun to do and i hope you all enjoy it!)

Word Count: ~1750 

Summary: You have a question for Nathan. He wants reasons. You have a secret weapon.

Warnings: Some language. Innuendo. Smooches. Nathan Bateman. No actual plot, just a thing. Hopefully decently proofread. Superheroes.

with the prompt - “Don’t give me that puppy dog face. How am I supposed to say no to that?”

“This is the worst idea I’ve ever heard.”

Nathan Bateman glares at you over his glasses. Or, he would if he bothered to actually turn his attention away from the monitors in front of him, which, of course, he does not.

On the other side of the room, you’re stretched out on the bed, on your stomach with your legs bent up and ankles crossed behind you, lazily flipping through a magazine.

For once it’s not a technical journal; you’d finally put your foot down a few months ago, told Nathan you’d had enough of the esoteric mumbo-jumbo he kept all over the house, and after a few pleas and a little please, he’d caved. He might make a case that, until now, these celebrity gossip rags were a worse idea, but he can’t bring himself to do it. As a thank you, you always make sure to hand him his favorite one when you’re done with it.

You briefly debate arguing that building an AI and pissing it off so much it thought it had no other recourse than to try to escape and then stab you in the chest is probably a worse idea, but you don’t want to actually fight with him. And you’re not mean.

“I don’t know, I think it would be fun,” you call back to him.

The clicking of the keyboard never stops. He gets so involved in his work sometimes - okay, all the time, if you’re being honest - that nothing else seems to matter. You knew it isn’t really true; the fact that you’re on the bed wearing nothing besides one of his old, soft henleys and a pair of wool socks proves that. The ability to occasionally engage him in actual conversation while his mind blazes through lines of code is rare.

“I’m pretty sure we have different definitions of that word.”

“Hmm, I’m pretty sure they more than occasionally overlap.”

He scans your voice for any hint of sarcasm, any tinge of facetiousness. When he can’t detect any and can’t determine your actual intent, his eyes narrow.

“Enumerate.”

Well, sort of actual conversation.

You toss the magazine aside and sit up on the bed.

“And for every step you take towards me, I want a good reason, not some bullshit half-answer,” he continues. Still typing away, still staring at his screens.

“How do you even know I was going to walk over there?” you mutter.

“I know your operating system, kitten,” he says, “so. Enumerate. And count those steps for me. I know you’re good at counting.” If he’d bother to look at you, you’d see the slight smirk on his face, but it doesn’t matter. You hear it in his voice. You know he’s mostly teasing you.

Then again, if Nathan bothered to turn around to look at you, he’d also see the giant, exaggerated steps you’re taking on the path to his desk. It isn’t very far from bed to desk. Nathan is nothing if not efficient, and one never knows when inspiration or insomnia will strike or you might need quick data access.

But you have a secret weapon and you are going to deploy it with as little delay as possible.

The secret weapon has never failed you before.

You roll your eyes. Smug asshole. “One. It gets us out of the house.”

“We have everything we need right here. Hardly a compelling reason. Try again.”

Another giant step. “Two. A little human interaction, other than verbally sparring with me and taking me on every imaginable surface of this house, would do you some good.”

The clicking might pause for a split second. You can’t be sure because it picks up and keeps going just as it had before, as Nathan replies, “False correlation. I hate most people, in large part because they can’t keep up with me. Not like the way you do.”

You smile, even though he can’t see you, and open your mouth to keep going, but he’s not quite done. “And, if I remember correctly, and I always remember correctly-” you swear you hear his eyebrow arch “-that other part does us both some good. You haven’t had any complaints thus far, and a few of those surfaces were actually rather un-imaginable. You gotta try harder, baby.”

Damn him.

Another step, another reason. “Three. It’s what normal people do.”

The clicking finally stops and Nathan spins around in his chair. He takes you in - one foot as far out in front of the other as possible without you falling over, arms held out awkwardly to keep your balance, wearing only his shirt and your fuzzy socks, hair still a mess from the evening’s previous activities - and gives you a pointed look. “That’s what normal people do?”

You giggle, then straighten your face. You take another step. Now you’re almost in his lap. “Four. You’d look really, really hot in some spandex and a cape.”

Nathan growls and pulls you into his lap. “I said no bullshit.”

There’s your opening. Secret weapon time.

You bite your lip and give him the widest, saddest looking eyes you possibly can. You think of lost puppies and kittens, the ending of Casablanca, that song in Coco that had you bawling. And you blink once, very slowly, just for dramatic effect. Not that you need to. Your trap is set.

Nathan groans and drops his head to your chest for a moment, and then looks back up at you, scowling under his glasses. “Don’t give me that puppy dog face. How am I supposed to say no to that?”

You grin down at him. “You’re not.”

“God damn it.”

“Nathan, it will be fun,” you insist.

In response, he stands suddenly, scoops you up and tosses you back on the bed, his body caging you underneath him.

“You really want me to go to, of all the fucking things in the entire known universe, a comic con with you.” It’s not a question.

“Well, I mean, you did already buy me the tickets.”

“Beginning to regret that decision,” the resignation in his voice is strong, but you can also hear some amusement. And maybe something a little more.

You pout at him. “And my sister can’t go with me now because of some stupid emergency work thing.”

His brow furrows. “Like I don’t have actual work to do?”

“And it would be a shame to waste them…,” You blink at him a few more times.

“I’ll donate them to a children’s charity or some shit.”

You smack him lightly on the shoulder, then your arms wrap around his neck as you lean forward and whisper in his ear. “And I still say you’d look amazing in a super suit.”

“Bull. Shit,” he leans up and nips at your neck.

You smack him harder this time. “Hey, those are good reasons.”

“Will it make you happy?” he sighs.

“Yes.”

He pauses for a few minutes with his face buried in your neck, then pulls back to look at you. His stern expression cracks, ever so slightly, at the hopeful smile on your face. And those damn puppy dog eyes. “You do make a compelling argument.”

You squeal in delight, holding his face and kissing him firmly on the lips.

“But...people. A lot of people. In public,” Nathan grumbles, narrowing his eyes and giving you the fakest stern look he’s ever given you.

He knows you know he was never going to say no to you. He can’t. He may know your operating system, but his own systems fail when you run this particular subset.

And the secret weapon never fails.

You smirk back, your grin and the light in your eyes threatens to throw his brain completely offline.

“That’s where the costume comes in, Mr. Fantastic.”

Nathan scoffs. “If I have to wear a costume, it is not going to be Mr. fucking Fantastic.”

“So you’re saying you will dress up.”

“No, but...there’s better options than that.” A lie. He was serious about being seen by thousands of people in public, and at this point, he’s not above wearing a ridiculous costume just so no one actually sees him at a fucking comic con.

“Isn’t he, like, the smartest superhero though?”

He pretends to think about it for a minute, lazily tracing a finger along your jaw. “True, but. What else does he do? I mean I know I’m flexible but…”

It takes every ounce of willpower you have to not burst into a fit of laughter as you stare back into his deep eyes. “Okay, fine. What about Wonder Woman? I’d do almost anything to see you with some golden wings. And those boots? Damn, that would be hot.”

“Jesus Christ, you’re a menace.”

“You haven’t had any valid complaints thus far.”

“Fucking hell,” he mutters, then sighs. “Almost anything, huh?” His hands have dropped down your torso, and his fingertips are gliding over your smooth skin under the hem of his shirt.

You can see the wheels start turning. Your lips purse and a smile forms. “Don’t change the subject,” you chide him. “What are your other better options, then?”

“Xavier. You could push me around for the day, it would serve you right for even asking me to do this.”

The laughter rises fully and bubbles over. “Even you’re not that lucky.”

“Or maybe Iron Man. I know I could make a working suit, and that would be pretty fucking cool,” he states, matter of fact. You’re honestly not sure if you should be amused or a little worried that he’s not kidding.

“Those are definitely better options than Mr. Fantastic,” he says softly.

You raise your head up to catch his lips, but stop just before you make contact. He makes a small noise of protest, but you just shake your head ever so slightly.

“Hmm, I’m not convinced,” you whisper, your breath fanning across his mouth. “I need some good reasons. No bullshit, Bateman.”

Nathan’s groans are silenced as you surge forth and capture his lips, kissing him fiercely and thoroughly. But his silence is only temporary, and the groans return when you pull away and hook a leg around his hip.

He stares down at you as you look back at him with the biggest, saddest puppy dog eyes he’s ever seen, and you smile innocently and bite your lip. He bites his own as you softly issue one more word into the air around you.

“Enumerate.”

~end~

Taglist:  @anetteaneta @autumnleaves1991-blog @be-the-spark-flyboy @deeandbobbymcgee  @itspdameronthings @jitterbugs927 @nathan-bateman @poedjarin @rosemarysbaby13 @sergeantkane @spider-starry @woakiees @writefightandflightclub @veuliee2 @yourbucky084 @waatermelon-sugaar

Nathan taglist:  @millllenniawrites​

>>taglist form available here<<

[cherry-valentine]

Winter 2022 Anime

Here’s what I’ve been watching:

Sasaki to Miyano is a sweet and gentle BL (boys love) anime about Miyano, a cute high school boy who loves BL manga and Sasaki, the cool upperclassman who takes an interest in BL manga and ends up falling in love with Miyano. The series has a relaxed atmosphere and a fun supporting cast. One of the most charming aspects of the show is the natural banter exchanged between the characters. They rib each other and crack jokes and it all feels like something you could hear being said between real high school boys (albeit a sanitized version). The budding relationship between the two leads is refreshingly slow paced and adorable. So far (and I suppose this could change before I even post this), there have been no forced kisses, no ultimatums, no jealous ex lovers, etc. Most of the toxic aspects of the genre are absent here, which is so nice. My one complaint is the that the show keeps reminding us that both of these boys considered themselves straight before they met, with Miyano in particular being adamant about the fact that he’s only liked girls before. While I guess it can convey that sexuality is fluid and they could very well be bisexual, it’s a pretty common trope in yaoi/BL that must be extremely annoying to folks in the LGBTQ+ community looking for representation in anime (the whole “we’re actually straight, we just fell in love with each other despite this” trope, which pretty much erases actual gay representation). Since the show is modern and seems to have a somewhat progressive view on these things (the characters recognizing that BL is not actually for or about real gay men but rather a romanticized/fetishized version of them, the friends of both characters seemingly being very supportive of the idea of them dating, despite most of these friends being straight, etc.), I’m going to give it the benefit of the doubt and assume it’s making a point about how these characters are young and still figuring out their sexuality. Overall, it’s a sweet and fluffy show with cute art and nice music. Recommended.

Koroshi Ai follows Chateau, a beautiful but stoic young lady bounty hunter and Ryang-ha, a notorious assassin who falls in love with her. It sounds like the setup for an actiony romantic comedy, and there is some of that. The juxtaposition of the terrifying way Ryang-ha calmly, emotionlessly murders his targets with the goofy way he flirts with Chateau is hilarious at times. But the series is serious more often than not, with major characters being in real peril and traumatic backstories being revealed. Both leads are compelling, and the chemistry between them definitely does the cool setup justice.The animation feels a bit low budget, but the character designs are great. The music is a high point, with one of the best opening themes I’ve seen in a while.

Vanitas no Carte has a second cour (or second season?) and it’s been great so far. The series, basically, is about a society of vampires plagued by “curses”, which turn vampires into monstrous creatures that can only be saved by putting them out of their misery. Until a human named Vanitas shows up with the ability to save them. In the first cour, I hated Vanitas, and I guess I still do. I might have liked his relationship with Jeanne if it hadn’t started on such a sour (and rapey) note. I mostly watched because I adore the other protagonist, sweet vampire and best boy Noe. And also because the story is interesting and the art is gorgeous. So far in this second cour, Vanitas is a bit more bearable. Maybe I’m just getting used to him, but I’m finding scenes with him slightly more entertaining than before. Anyway, this cour is predominantly set in a snowy area, which I am a huge sucker for. Snowy settings are the best, okay? It also introduces some new characters, most of which are really fun, and reveals some pretty surprising twists. I definitely recommend this series if you’re looking for a very pretty action adventure romp with angsty characters and complicated relationships.

Carry Over Shows From Previous Seasons:

Kimetsu no Yaiba

Best of Season:

Best New Show: Sasaki to Miyano Best Opening Theme: Koroshi Ai Best Ending Theme: Sasaki to Miyano Best New Male Character: Hirano (Sasaki to Miyano) Best New Female Character: Chateau (Koroshi Ai)

[spookyc]

i'm kind of interesting in your cryptid au - what type of monster is each character?

Glad you asked and I'll be happy to answer! I'll also try to explain why I chose each cryptid for each character.

Alright let's start with our protagonist, Hajime, this one is pretty simple, he is a shapeshifter. This is one is pretty self explanatory, as it's meant to represent Izuru possessing every talent where as here Izuru has the ability to possess the forms of his fellow freakshows. He is one of the most anticipated acts in the freakshow, but constantly transforming his body everyday for the audience does a number on his psyche, eventually bringing Izuru out.

Nagito: As I revealed in an earlier post, was a vampire. I chose this due to his general appearance and also his condition of being sickly. I also chose it to form an interesting dynamic for Nagito. See, as a vampire, Nagito needs to drink blood but a vampire's powers increase when they are hungry, so hope's peak intentionally starves him for his shows. So, nagito grows more unhinged from starvation, and starts thinking of feeding off the freakshows. But he still has his hope complex and worships the freakshows. So he's caught in a struggle of his body and his will.

Chiaki: Now she isn't exactly a cryptid but I like what I decided for her. So she's a TV head, which I chose due to her gaming fixation but also because she was an AI, which is sort of the same here, albeit more of a kiibo situation where she is an AI in a physical body. Her shows aren't as elaborate as the others, mostly consisting of her showing emotions through the swapping of channels and playing videos games in her mind which is portrayed on her TV screen. She doesn't have as severe issues as some of the others but she faces her own problems as an AI among humans.

Ultimate Imposter: Simple enough, he's a doppelganger. This is of course referring to him being the ultimate imposter, the only real change being that his true form is that of a gray amorphous blob. His shows consist of him copying the other freakshows, though it differs from Hajime tho, as UI can only morph into people and is restricted to morphing into those he knows whereas Hajime can shapeshift into anything, even things he has not seen.

Teruteru: So, quite an odd choice, but one I'm quite pleased with. So Teruteru is a basan, or a japanese fire-breathing chicken. As for a human form, he doesn't have one, he's just a fire-breathing chicken who's a great cook, the jokes make themselves. He's still a perve but less so simply due to most of the forms the freakshows take, only really having his eye on Peko and Sonia who are both very capable of killing him with a single strike so he keeps his cards to his chest as it were. His acts of course consist of feats of fire breathing and dual acts with akane.

Peko, my beloved: So Peko is a gorgon, in the sense that she has the bottom half of a snake. I chose this because Peko reminds of a snake in the best way possible. She's fierce and mysterious with piercing eyes that cut through your soul. As for abilities, she does possess the stone vision of gorgons, but she can control when she uses it, and she doesn't like having to use it. Just because she doesn't use her stone vision doesn't mean she should be underestimated tho, she still is a pro swordswoman and is arguably more adept than she would have been with legs. She has a dual act with Fuyuhiko, more specifically an arena type duel. Of course they don't fight to the death but any injury they sustain is fair game. Peko of course always objects to this but pushing hope's peaks buttons risks detainment for a freakshow, ultimately, she doesn't have a choice.

Mahiru: Okay so, she was really hard but I decided on making her a nymph. This is because I imagined that being able to blend with nature would be able to help capture people in their most natural state, in regards to her photography of course. Her acts are also not the most eventful, just her blending with different natural surroundings. That's honestly about it, wish I had more but Mahiru has always been a blank slate for me.

Ibuki: Ibuki! So, ibuki is a Siren, this is pretty obvious, as I chose this due to her being the ultimate musician. However, I do have an interesting dynamic with her and her ability. So, since sirens usually have melodious voices and show their victims what they desire most, I wanted to flip that on its head. So, since Ibuki doesn't exactly have a melodious voice, (a great voice, yes but not melodious nonetheless) her power doesn't show those what they desire but instead their deepest fears. This causes Ibuki to hide her singing, excluding her acts, and to grow self-conscious of her aspiration for music. Her acts consist mostly of water tricks and of course her singing, which audience members say they get a thrill and a since of comfort being able to face their deepest fear. Ibuki thinks differently, wanting her music to encourage and inspire people rather than send fear through them. And that is her central conflict throughout this au, which I'll end off here for sake of brevity.

Hiyoko: Pretty pleased with what I decided for her. So Hiyoko is a kitsune, I chose this because of her noble lineage and I think the kitsune is a pretty noble animal, despite having some cursed elements. She was still forced into the whole dancing thing, which she mixes between her human and fox form. But, her mischievous nature fits that of the kitsune as she's still her normal abrasive self. She tries staying out of her fox form as much as possible as it reminds her of her lineage that she hates but she of course has to transform into it for her acts. These consist of fire tricks as well as a showcase of mastery swapping between forms.

Mikan: Alright so Mikan's is kinda wild but stay with me. So Mikan is a lich and here's why. So I chose this for her because I know I wanted her to be undead, because she would constantly have to patch herself up. Decided on a lich to give an air to her that something isn't quite right, that she holds more power that she let's on and simply doesn't express it. Also I have some extremely dark reasons as to how she became a lich but I won't get into that here for brevity's sake.

Nekomaru: So Nekomaru's pretty fun, he's a minotaur mainly just because I think it fits him, and he definitely gives off jovial bull vibes. Despite his appearance he still has his joyful personality and still takes pride in his talent of team leader. His acts consist of feats of strength primarily, nothing much besides that.

Gundham: So Gundman is an imp, because he definitely deserves to be a demon but he's gonna be the lowest demon there is. Cause I still want to emphasize his whole "overlord complex" despite him just being an imp. He does still have his hamsters and he takes very good care of them, the four dark devas live a fulfilling life even if their master doesn't. Gundham can perform some lesser demon abilities like changing his appearance, in terms of pigment, small fire control, and flight. Of which he showcases in his acts. Even tho he's just an mere imp he is the Supreme Overlord of Ice and he will not accept any other titles.

Fuyuhiko: Finally! We have arrived at the boy, Fuyuhiko. So, Fuyuhiko is a werewolf, because he's an angsty boy and because I like werewolves. The story plays out much the same way as before, though Peko was assigned not just to protect Fuyuhiko but also to protect him from himself. His acts consist of arena battles with Peko, of which he always intentionally loses. He's able to transform each day to a drug they inject in him before every match that forces a transformation. These drugs make him agitated and irritable, more so than usual and also causes him extreme mood swings. Even if sometimes he wishes he could be detained, he stays for Peko. He knows she wouldn't forgive herself if he was taken away, regardless of her involvement, so he stays in this condition. It isn't all bad tho, spending time with Peko outside of the area isn't so bad. He also is often found hanging out with Kazuichi, who Fuyuhiko refers to as a "fucking moron" and yet still hangs out with him most days. They've formed an unlikely friendship that the two cherish even if Fuyuhiko won't admit it. He also has a pretty good relationship with Ibuki, her being Peko's girlfriend and all.

Kazuichi: Okay, Kazuichi, so Kazuichi is a gargoyle and man how I got there is a story. So I wanted Kazuichi to be something constructed, something manmade in a way so that he could rebuild himself as well as other things. So orginally he was a golem but I just couldn't vibe with that so I ended up settling with a gargoyle. I do think it fits him in a way, not sure how, but it suits him imo. So he's got the standard gargoyle abilities, he's got wings and can fly and can also change into his stone form at will. He prefers to sleep in this form, and he often turns into this form when scared which is often. His acts consist flying around the stage and testing the endurance of his stone skin. He also has a close relationship with Fuyuhiko and of course Sonia, though he doesn't see her as often as he would like.

Sonia: So, Sonia's is very different but I really like it. So she is a basilisk, not the serpent one but the more giant chicken with a serpent tail. Her cryptid form is one that affects her in and out of her form, and both are just as deadly. So since she's a basilisk, she has lethal vision and this is active in and out of her form. So she walks around with a blindfold on, and she has yet to see any of the her fellow freakshow's faces. She also is kept within her enclosure at almost all times, she's only let out about twice a day and these outings don't last long. In her basilisk form she easily stands 20-feet tall, with a wingspan of 25 feet, her feets are huge and equipped with deadly talons. From her beak she leaks venom that is capable of causing a limb to be amputated with a single drop. Not as lethal as her vision, but enough would easily be able to cause death. She doesn't perform, merely has visitors come and visit her in her basilisk form. She's very lonely, wishing with every part of her that she wasn't cursed with her form, but she does appreciate the visitors she gets. Chiaki and Akane often come to visit her, Kazuichi also comes by often, Fuyuhiko having to drag him off when he's overstayed his welcome. She holds on to her friendships, as it's all she really has.

Lastly we have Akane, so I decided on making Akane a dragon. For one dragons are known to have a voracious appetite, and two, Nekomaru in the main story talks about Akane having untapped potential, which I think would fit her as a dragon. Yeah, so contrary to Hiyoko, Akane primarily stays in her dragon form, even when just walking around the freakshow traveling caravan. She's not a huge dragon as she still isn't fully grown, so she's only slightly bigger than the average person. This is partially her just preferring her dragon form, (doesn't have to wear clothes, can fly, can eat more), but it's also because if she's a dragon no one can objectify her. She doesn't have to deal with the male gaze if she's a dragon and she quite likes it that way. Her acts consist of typical dragon shit, flying, feats of strength and a dual act with teruteru for fire breathing, (she can't breathe fire herself so she places teruteru in her mouth like a mama croc does with her babies and he does all the work. Before you say anything, teruteru actually doesn't get any perseve enjoyment out of this, or at least he doesn't anymore, just gets an excuse to take a bath).

And that's about it! Had a lot of fun coming up with these guys and I do have a story in mind for them if you'd like to hear. I also will answer that ask about the talentswap, I know it's been a while and I apologize for that but I have an excuse to work on it now so I'll get to that. Thanks for the ask!

[blogsanscontext]

A Closer Look at: Momoe Sawaki’s character arc; by a nonbinary (trans) viewer.

CW: Major spoilers for Wonder Egg Priority + mentions and discussion of sexual assault, transphobia, lesbophobia, self-harm; please proceed with caution.

Wonder Egg Priority came as a relatively pleasant surprise for me; I heard about it some time after the first few episodes aired, but I never actively went out of my way to ever try to watch it myself until, that is, a few days ago. I must say, I’m glad to have taken the initiative to experience such anime on my own.

With a stunning animation to accompany the heavy subjects this work touches on, I quickly fell in love with it; all the characters feel very grounded in reality, with their struggles (even someone like Neiru’s, who is a literal genius and CEO of her own company) feeling relatable in one way or another. Episode 7 became my favorite due to this very thing, Rika’s problems were things that not only have I seen in other works before, but that I know exist because of the stories told in the news every so often. It only helped, in my opinion, that they gave a character with her background such a hopeful ending.

That being said, Wonder Egg is not a perfect anime, and though I didn’t expect it to be in the first place, I do think talking about why some of the ways it handles a specific character of the main cast are problematic are worth the time. When I mentioned that “all the characters feel very grounded in reality”, I actually only meant three of them, a.k.a.: Ai, Rika and Neiru. The reason Momoe is not included in this group is what I will be discussing in the next paragraphs.

This anime lets you know, right off the bat, that it will not stray away from heavy subjects throughout the duration of its runtime; the show deals with suicidal idealization (and actual suicide as well as its aftermath; in fact, “female suicide” is at the very core of the show and is what essentially moves it forward), self-harm, sexual assault, same-sex relationships, transphobia, and being a gender noncomforming person in a society that punishes you for not adhering to the roles it has imposed on you since childhood. The last points are the ones I took issue with, however, and though they are mostly the show’s fault, they also took it upon themselves to make Momoe be at the center of all three.

See, when we are first introduced to Momoe, we can guess by context that she is a girl, however, the other characters aren’t aware of this fact yet, and so they seemingly go out of their way to call her a boy, which makes her deeply uncomfortable, and this (ie. her reaction to be treated or perceived as a boy) is a running theme throughout her arc. This, in itself, isn’t really the worst creative direction to take with a character, it’s a story that has been told time and time again, but there is a problem with the way Wonder Egg Priority specifically deals with it: Momoe is cisgender, and so far, there hasn’t been a sign of this changing whatsoever, so she will most likely remain cis until the show ends. Normally, a story about a gender noncomforming cis person wouldn’t be seen as anything out of the extraordinary, as I’ve mentioned before, but it seems that they wanted to… “innovate”, so to say, with her character. And it’s this innovation, in my opinion, that which makes Momoe’s struggles miss the mark for me.

Momoe is perceived, almost ridiculously so, as a boy by whoever even so much as stumbles upon her; her followers on Instagram most likely worship her because they’re under the impression that she’s a bishounen, and yet the show goes out of its way to deal with just how uncomfortable this makes her. This is the issue I take with her and her arc: the show has a keen awareness of AFAB people’s issues, and treats them with the respect they deserve (which is not to say some jokes at their expense aren’t made, but in general this tone is kept throughout the duration of the story), and yet the tone-deaf manner in which they deal with her issues feels… disappointing, to say the least.

Momoe’s struggles, though they are valid on their own, are not a societal issue, no matter how one may look at them; if she were a trans person (either a trans girl, boy, or nonbinary), the strong emphasis on her discomfort at being misgendered would have made so much more sense. The reason why ‘switching around’ the stereotype of a tomboy falls flat on its face is that there is no real pressure from society to present feminine, it’s what they want you to, or more accurately, force you to do if you’re perceived as being assigned female at birth; however, this is not where my issues with Momoe’s arc and character end.

At first, I imagined a variety of (albeit vague, still reasonable) reasons as to why this show couldn’t have just made Momoe be trans, and semi-understanding of this decision; that was, of course, until I watched the actual episode mostly focused on her struggles, and that’s when I got slightly mad. Being honest, I still think it was a good episode, and it definitely made Momoe seem way more sympathetic than any of her past appearances, but it also perfectly highlighted my problem with her, and subsequently, the show itself: using queer people’s actual, realistic, problems in order to push her, a cisgender character, forward.

The thing with Wonder Egg Priority is that I love how, despite all these girls literally risking their lives to save a specific person, they still seem to have conflicting feelings about them (ie. Rika’s mocking of Chiemi, Ai’s frustration towards Koito, etc.) but I also take issue with this when it comes to Momoe specifically; Haruka is very much intended to be seen as gay, yet when push comes to shove, we are supposed to be taking Momoe’s side in this conflict. We, the audience, see these events from her point of view, and are therefore made to feel, in one way or another, uncomfortable with Haruka’s attraction for her. Yes, Momoe has worked hard to bring her back to life, but the fact that she’s cis and heterosexual stands; this isn’t just exclusive to Haruka, however, but every egg she’s had to save in order to get her friend back. All of them express a clear attraction for Momoe, “despite her being a girl”, and it’s just very easy to read these attitudes as wlw-phobic, extremely so.

My biggest issue though lies within the very existence of Kaoru’s character, the trans boy she has to protect in the episode mainly focused on her; while he is an endearing and sympathetic character, and I like that despite him presenting ‘majorly female’, Momoe never misgenders him. The thing is: he’s made out to be almost a “parallel” of her own gender-related issues, and this is just a very tone-deaf statement to make; trans people fighting not to be misgendered, fighting to be called their chosen name (something Momoe, while being cis, can just freely enjoy) - trans people’s pain is very much real, which the show is aware of, but Momoe’s is very much an individual’s problem rather than the way society actually works, which Wonder Egg is seemingly unaware of, for whatever reason.

Before I arrive at my last point on why this comparison doesn’t work, I would like to quickly point out the fact that most, if not all, the eggs the girls have had to save until this point were specifically meant to be girls, in one way or another. Therefore, taking this into account, Kaoru makes me feel… a lot of things, the more time I spend thinking about it; the show acknowledges he’s a boy, though not cis of course, but still very much a boy, yet also places him in this very much ‘female’ space; no matter how I looked at it, I could find explanations both for an opinion in favor of this decision (the way a lot of trans men’s problems are defined by our patriarchal society seeing them as women) as well as some for an opinion against this decision (the fact that it could be read as the show ultimately deciding he’s ‘female-aligned’, etc.) and though I won’t be discussing this decision in-depth, I still possess that it’s an event worth examining from different lenses.

Now, onto the actual element that got me heated about Kaoru serving as a parallel to Momoe’s struggles: Kaoru was not only sexually assaulted by a man who’s always thought of him as a ‘pretty, delicate girl’, his death directly relates to the fact that he was abused and then impregnated by this man for not living up to his gross ideal of what a man and a woman are; contrast this to Momoe, who pretty much gets the treatment Kaoru would love to have: she’s pretty much right off the bat seen as a guy, she’s fawned over by women because of this fact as well, they literally call her ‘Momotaro’, etc. Taking all of this into account, it’s simply impossible for me to be okay with a comparison that ultimately decides a cisgender person’s discomfort is, in any sort of way, on equal grounds as a (might I remind you, dead) trans person’s basic human rights.

All in all, though her episode made me take a bigger liking to her character, it also served to almost perfectly highlight the very problem of her existence, as well as the “struggles” she’s intended to represent; I don’t hate Momoe in any sort of way, and though I know there must be someone somewhere who relates to her, I also think that they could’ve done something way more meaningful with her had they just made some changes that made her more realistic (as in, make her at least be LGBT rather than just cis and heterosexual); I will be patiently waiting for the finale, and who knows? Maybe something does change about her in the end, that would be even more of a pleasant surprise.

[demi-shoggoth]

2021 Reading Log, pt 2

05a. The Secret Life of Groceries by Benjamin Lorr. I did not finish this book (hence the break from sequential numbering). I was the last on a very long wait list at my library, which vanished overnight and I got the book much sooner than I was expecting. Maybe I should have interpreted that as a bad sign. Nominally, this book is about the development of the grocery industry and the various abuses that are inherent in the system, but it gets bogged down immediately in semiotics and long lists of adjectives. The author takes a very long time to say very little, and the tone is smug and condescending. I read thirty pages, put it down for a day, read another ten pages and then decided that this wasn’t for me. I’ve got too many other things I actually want to read. Like…

06. Dragonflies and Damselflies: A Natural History by Dennis Paulson. This book is very pretty, with lots of full color photographs of the insects in question. It is a natural history proper, discussing odonate anatomy, behavior, ecology and taxonomy along with two-page spreads devoted to individual species. The species selected are from all over the world, and selected from species that are the subjects of current research. I did feel a little slighted at how few Californian species were discussed, but maybe nobody is doing dragonfly research in California.

07. Chronicles of Solar Pons by August Derleth. Yes, that August Derleth—the one that people who are into the Cthulhu Mythos tend to hate, even though he coined the term “Cthulhu Mythos”. I discovered that these existed while reading The Great Detective last year: Solar Pons is Derleth’s stand-in for Sherlock Holmes. And in the Holmesian community, Derleth seems to be reasonably well respected. These stories are fan-fiction, but they’re fun fan-fiction, competently paced and with a good sense of character. This compilation is of the Pons stories Derleth wrote towards the end of his life, and they tend to be a tad on the meta side. Pons is referred to as “the modern-day Sherlock Holmes” at least once, and several of the stories feature crossovers with AU versions of other thriller characters, like Simon Templar, Hercule Poirot and even Fu Manchu!

08. The Mythology of Plants by Annette Giesecke. I feel faintly as if I was sold a bill of false goods here. About half of the book is spent discussing the cultural history of plants in the Classical world, mostly Rome. The other half is excerpts from an original translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, in which the passages are nominally about the plants in question. I say “nominally” very pointedly here; although some of them are about the origins of various plants (Daphne turned into a laurel tree, anemones growing from Adonis’ blood, etc.), the rest feature the plants in only a walk-on role (for example, olive trees are mentioned briefly in the story of Minerva and Arachne, so let’s use that for the olive chapter!). I would rather have a book all about the use and lore of plants in Rome, or a full translation of Metamorphoses. Flipping back and forth between them was distracting.

09. Brilliant Blunders by Mario Livio. This is a history of/philosophy of science book, focusing on what and how some of the major scientists got wrong. The author is an astrophysicist, so the material leans in that direction, but concepts from most of the major disciplines are covered. The book works well as a summary of the debate surrounding some major scientific milestones, and is happy to let the scientists speak in their own words through lengthy quotes from primary sources. There is some original research here, mostly into the history of who said what and whether or not people got the appropriate credit.

10. Turned On by Kate Devlin. This is a book about the science of sex robots. The history of the idea in culture both ancient and modern is discussed in pieces—sex aids, robots and automata, and AI all get individual chapters. The author’s personal experiences come more to the fore in later chapters, which take on an autobiographical hue when discussing conferences, protests and even her own experiences with love. Her focus is on making sex technology more inclusive and less modeled after an objectified human. She advocates strongly for “smart” sex toys that do not fit a human mold, and even ran several workshops to kit-bash new and interesting models (she seems to have a thing for tentacles, and talks about her ideal sex robot being able to change configurations and appendages at a whim).

[claptraprights]

claptrap headcanons :O!

! Claptrap! <3 - There are two ex-bandit Crimson Raiders who kinda got saved by Claptrap (meaning that when the COV attacked the bar they were in and killed everyone around them, Claptrap started rolling up and down and screaming on top of his voice and drawing all the fire which gave them a chance to escape with their lives as the only ones in their clan. They were grateful to Claptrap (who also got away by sheer luck) and told him how much they admired him and how grateful they were - which in turn meant that Claptrap promised he would move heaven and Pandora to get them into the Crimson Raiders bc hey, what’s a robot without adoring fans! 

He went to Lilith and held a big speech about the values of forgiveness and showing the bandits that the Crimson Raiders can protect them from the COV and that since he risked his life for them, they are basically his servants and pupils now and he simply cannot leave them to the  fates of the wild when they are oh, so defenceless without their robot protector. Lilith kinda went ‘yup k whatever’ without looking up from whatever she was doing and they became part of the team. -- Their duty now is carrying Claptrap up and down all the stairs and ladders on Sanctuary III.

-The reason Claptrap(s) love(s) music so much is that Lawrence De Quidt used to have a radio on in his workshop when he first build the original Claptraps and since he was actually rather nice to them (after all, they were one of the first robots he made and  the beginning of Hyperion’s AI branch, he was really proud of them and actually quite sad that people didn’t seem to like them for some reason?), the original Claptraps associated being around him with being happy and not being hated and somehow as the models got copied and mass-produced, these routines still had power because they were a baseline of how Claptraps think and Hyperion couldn’t be bothered to teach new, more neutral routines if the original ones work. Coincidentally, Lawrence’s taste in music was really really bad.

That’s also the reason why our Claptrap immediately became so fixated on Jack when he got formatted with VaultHunter.exe: Bc while the memory of Lawrence de Quidt was gone, not all of the routines were and there was some expectancy that his creator would be a good and important person in his life (something you probably wouldn’t find among something like Loaderbots that were mass-produced from the get-go and whose AI wasn’t created by humans but comes from Felicity.)

- I think I posted that before but I’m not sure but: Fl4k knew the home-planet of those little Kevins Claptrap kept until Tannis became too worried about their breeding habits and sometimes they take Claptrap to see them. Claptrap still tries to sneak them aboard though and Fl4k does their best to prevent it.

- Claptrap also has at least kind of a good relationship with Moxxi. (This is mostly based on the fact that she’s the only one who reacts at least kinda nice when she receives Claptrap’s birthday invitation and considering that she runs a bar, I think she really was busy). Part of the reason is that one of the last things she said (well...maybe kinda yelled) to her bar-Claptrap in the Up + Over bar was something about how it was being useless little menace (she was really in a bad mood considering everything that had been going on) and when all the Claptraps died, she felt really guilty about this being her last word to a Claptrap, so she has a bit more patience for our Claptrap than most people. Her patience still isn’t endless though.

- Claptrap knows everything about everyone. That’s why his mainframe is so big. It’s full of secrets. (Also he still has that invisibility upgrade which means he can sneak everywhere and eavesdrop)

[oneweekoneband]

her Nebraska (1982)

In July I flew to Massachusetts with a plague on, and I felt that it was wrong, but my mother had begged and I’d been out of work for months. Mornings there I ran in long, uneven ovals on the same roads I’d memorized in high school. There’s no sidewalks, but the few feet of dirt between the craggy pavement and the open mouths of the fields serve all right for a single body in motion. When a truck comes up close from behind, the ground shakes, and I step away bouncingly from the street toward thigh-high yellow weeds and grass, and keep going. I was slowly picking my way back in that dirt, sweat-slick from only a plodding couple of miles in peak summer heat, and sucking the wet cotton of my mask in between my teeth on every inhale, when Taylor Swift announced she was releasing a surprise album produced by the guy from The National. Not the guy from The National, like, the voice, but the guy from The National whose photo was circulated on Twitter earlier this year as some kind of antifa super soldier, which isn’t the case, but would’ve been rad. First, I stopped dead to send some outraged, misspelled text messages, and then I ran home faster than I’d moved in years.

Tall, blonde, patrician pop star Taylor Swift is to me something like a cross-between a wife and a boogeyman. Bound we’ve been since we were really children. Time and its changes haven’t rid me of her, and what’s worse is I have never quite been able to wish they would, though I claim as much all the time. Countless hours of my one wild and precious life have been spent on endlessly analyzing the minutiae of Taylor Swift’s music, the mind that made it, the real world events which influenced it. And though all the while I have known she is only a person, and that people, while each strange and lovely in their own ways, are, in the end, mostly dull, needful in just the regular manner, the fantasy is better, the sick dream of a megalomaniac songstress, curious, thrilling, probably evil, and I choose that. I don’t know Taylor Alison Swift, born to this world in, I presume, the usual way. But my Taylor Swift? I’m a renowned expert. I’ve always eaten up stories—movies, music, celebrity news, the one my grandfather tells about falling off his bike once in Ireland as a boy and his face “cracking open like an egg”—like a starved dog. I’m obsessive about my interests, but not inclined to intense fandom, and certainly not fandom in the mode of the stan. For one, I’m too self-absorbed. But caring intensely for a famous person is falling in love with a ghost, and that’s all right—I mean, what the hell? We’re here together just dying... Let’s enjoy—but is an affair best undertaken with the knowledge that everyone alive has their own complex interiority, as unruly as your own, and that you, a stranger, are not in any real way connected to the lawless, blurry middle of that celebrity, and will never be. It’s freeing and fun to know this. I mean, these people are basically in your employ. Glamorous dollhouse dwellers. Acknowledging that uncrossable distance allows for a different, healthier closeness of pure imagination. My feelings, then, can comfortably be at once both fiercely intense and entirely silly. I am a foremost scholar in the art of the Taylor Swift who exists in my head. The real person raised in Pennsylvania I don’t know at all. I have some conjectures on the matter, and, as with all my conjectures, every hackneyed theory, each picky little opinion, I’m sure they’re perfect, brilliant, just absolutely right, but that’s still all they are. Taylor Swift, figure of the cultural imagination, is the Jodie Comer to my Sandra Oh in Killing Eve, annoying and pretty in frills, taunting me endlessly and holding us trapped together in a dance of most enchanting death. But the real Taylor Swift has favorite bed sheets and a social security number and a British boyfriend, none of which I have any desire to know about, and if I saw her at a restaurant I’d politely avert my eyes before, yes, dive-bombing the group text. There’s nobody on Earth I’d stand in line to speak to, but then I’ve been speaking to a certain figment of Taylor Swift for nearly half my life.

I went to a Taylor Swift concert the night before I moved into college in 2009. My father’s work friend, firefighter by day, near professional gambler by night, got comped tickets to the Fearless Tour stop taking place at the nearby casino, and he let me have them as a reward, mainly, for happening to be seventeen. Live in-person and performed acoustically, “Fifteen” made me cry. A few years after that, in the thick, sticky part of my first post-college summer, I wrote approximately twenty-three million words about her in these very pages.  (”Pages”) At that point, Taylor’s most recent release was 2012’s Red, and the work I produced that long ago July about Taylor and her career, writing I was fairly pleased with at the time, feels now, besides just being extremely clearly written by a twenty-one year old, strange to me for the way it favors the sweet over the sour almost uniformly. There is a wholesome kind of ardor in that writing which maybe I’ve outgrown the ability to hold. Or maybe Taylor just proceeded to spend the next half a decade plus releasing one bad single after another, and it was taste—and trespasses against taste—and not some shift in my nature which altered the tenor of our bond. I have real love for my particular image, gleaned from public statements and published art, of smart, bizarre famous woman Taylor Swift, and I admire the bulk of her output very much. I’m just no longer so inclined to fawn. This is not to say I am here to offer a Taylor Swift hate screed. I couldn’t swing it, and, anyway, I’m not a pop feminist-for-hire circa 2010. But we’re older now. Things are different. At twenty-eight, twenty-nine this month—Taylor will, also this December, turn thirty-one—I regard Taylor Swift warily, like an ex with whom you have a tentative friendship, perpetually on the brink of falling one way or the other into hatred or delight, only to wobble back the opposite direction again at the slightest provocation, but still, despite best efforts, even, I regard her all the time. 

folklore was released at midnight on July 24th 2020, but I was at a cabin in rural Vermont without Internet or cell service. I drank Bud Light seltzers with my mother while watching the eerie pandemic return of Major League Baseball, and when I got into a strange bed there I stewed, knowing there were people out in the world all over who were hearing Taylor Swift songs I never had, and that this was a fundamental wrong, a disruption in the balance of the universe. I listened to it the next morning in a Dunkin’ Donuts parking lot. 

And folklore is great. That’s the terrible thing. Slightly less great, maybe, than some people have insisted, tricked, I think, by just the pronounced shift in sound. But it’s great. A little gift I asked for a thousand times and was still surprised to get, like a wife who didn’t expect her henpecked husband to ever follow through and buy the paraffin wax hand bath as-see-on-TV. For years, I’ve been halfheartedly insisting that Taylor had a great album in her. I’d say it even, perhaps especially, while she stubbornly fed me gruel. Or worse, gruel with the occasional whiff of something better. With a ripe, little raspberry dropped into the slop. The bright, villainous thrill of “Getaway Car” made me believe Taylor, my Taylor, was in there somewhere under the lacquer of sequins and synth, which, while not objectionable by default, seemed a costume, and an ill-fitting one. The lived-in world of “Cornelia Street” made those old scars sting. That gay “Delicate” video. When she did “Call It What You Want” on SNL and played guitar while wearing an ugly sweater. If the abominable “ME!”, lead single off Lover, was the stick, 1989’s “Clean” was the carrot. I was Charlie Brown, and Taylor my Lucy, yanking the football back again and again. Over drinks I still yelled that Taylor Swift’s next album would be, “her Nebraska”, referring to my favorite Bruce Springsteen record, and learned to live with that egg on my face for good. I suppose I even came to like it. There was something inherently funny in taking up, like, “blind faith in the as of yet untapped greater artistic potential of massively wealthy and popular singer Taylor Swift” as my totally inane personal cause du jour, and eventually it was a bit, a gag I performed to be obstinate and didactic, but way down somewhere awful near my kidneys I meant it the whole while. And then she did it. A pandemic befell the world and amid a sea of human suffering Taylor Swift remembered she can write. She wrote, and with a massive, crucial assist from Aaron Dessner, whose music on this record is sometimes so beautiful it actually angers me, as the last thing I needed in already perilous times was to be made to try and marry my uniquely perverse emotional responses to beloved divorced dad band The National and fucking Taylor Swift,  she made an album which, if not her Nebraska, per se (I’ve come to realize that a major part of believing Taylor Swift will one day make an album I find as quietly devastating and gorgeous as Nebraska is knowing that no album will ever actually be Her Nebraska... That each will, rather, to me, be more and more evidence that it’s coming still, more proof that the limit is untouched, on and on ad infinitum, or at least until the seas take us into a place of salty peace.) is a shocking credit to all my hard-fought and deluded confidence. folklore is great. This fact has made me feel almost equally as disoriented from my understanding of the world as the time-melting COVID-19 lockdowns have, and it turned my Spotify year in review annual collective AI humiliation kink thing into a glaring indictment of my mental state, but still, I mean... It’s great.

In talking about folklore a bit this week, there are a number of specific topics I intend to cover—what a thrill it is to hear Taylor say “fuck”; Taylor’s terrifying birth chart; the astoundingly perfect bridge of “the last great american dynasty”; “because my ass is located at the back of my body”; the bit in last year’s “Lover” where deranged WASP Taylor Swift implies that to “leave the Christmas lights up til January” is some signifier of being a love-struck bohemian, when actually everyone who doesn’t employ domestic staff to take their lights down does this; how reputation is the best of the Taylor Swift records released in the latter half of the 2010s, actually, and the people who can’t see that are cowards—but intend mostly to let the muse move me where she will. Against the advice of my better angels, she—that tie-in marketing eldritch terror��always does.

[lordeasriel]

a memory: a man with a mission

Chapter excerpt from my WIP sci-fi novel, The Timekiller. If you check it out, I’d love to hear your thoughts and feedback. The novel is divided into normal chapters, that follow the present timeline and its plot, and the memory chapters which are flashback chapters of different moments, like memories, telling key events from the past (and future).

--

December 23, 1946.

Duke’s powers manifested in a way he couldn’t quite understand. He was a man hailing from the far gone future, born amongst robots and artificial intelligences, raised in a world where the AI had rebelled against the humans and their oppression. He was a war child, for all intents and purposes, yet he never quite felt like a soldier. There was a scholarly aspect to him that made him stand out amongst his peers in the resistance and what granted him the alias The Duke, which was often shortened to just Duke; his name had only been known by his fiancé and a few friends, close friends.

He walked into a pub, in London, in an environment that was the most foreign thing he had ever seen, despite the fact he had been to London in his own time. He was shocked to realise his attempt to time travel that far in the past had worked, but he quickly gathered his wits, and stole clothes so he would fit in, and suddenly he blended wonderfully into the post-second war background world, with matte colours and broken buildings, yet with a spirit of renewal only known to those who have witnessed mayhem - and survived.

Doing justice to his scholarly spirit, Duke had done his research in the time he wanted to visit, and thus he knew vaguely how to communicate, and what to say and how to say it. How to dress, what to order for food and drinks, and how the culture worked. It was hard work, but he managed just fine, asking for a pint at the bar, while glancing around the place.

There weren’t many people there, but there were only a few tables vacant, despite the fact it was nearly christmas. Cold weather mostly sent the people in, couples, elderly men, veterans and so on; it was a workers’ pub, mostly, so not many posh people were to be seen. He kept a quiet, low profile, watching around, looking aimlessly. He had to wait until the far night to do what he had come here to do, so spending his time amongst folk was a good idea. He realised these people had good food and drinks and peace.

“Poor lass.” The barmaid told him, a tough looking woman with red hair, cleaning up the glasses in front of him. He raised his eyebrows, inquisitively. She nodded in a specific direction. “She’s been sitting there all day, sipping her lukewarm pint. That has to be the tenth moron who has been to nag her.”

Duke hummed, slightly uninterested, but the woman didn’t mind his lack of interest.

“Ah, she keeps on saying she’s waiting for someone, but I think her lad might have stood her up, oh yes.” Duke nodded, just to appease her sense of communication, drinking his beer quietly. “Do you know her?”

He lowered his glass, and turned to see in the direction the barmaid had pointed out. In the corner of the bar, a few meters away from him, there was a woman occupying a single table, holding a glass mug of beer with a dishonest disinterest. She was dressed simply, with a plain skirt and white blouse, her coat on the chair she was sitting, her hair done modestly, keep in those hair nets Duke thought were so funny.

She raised her eyes to him, and her bland expression disappeared, replaced by the smallest hint of a smile. She would have been in her thirties, maybe late twenties, or so he guessed, strong eyebrows and light-coloured eyes that glittered under the soft, warm light of the pub. Something about her was disconcerting, he felt as if the entire room was staring at her, as if she was the sole focus of a picture and the only thing worth looking at. She was pretty, but it wasn’t that that made her such a magnet of attention, it was something else. It scared him, astonished him. He locked eyes with the woman, and he blushed for no reason he could explain.

“Never seen her.” He said, truthfully. He turned away because the woman’s gaze was making him uncomfortable. Somehow he felt she knew what he was doing in that time period, but the mere idea sounded insane to him. How could she know?

“She’s been looking at you an awful lot, though.” The barmaid smiled at him, a bit wicked. “Hope you aren’t the married type.”

Zohariel watched him from her chair, intensely, her fingers fidgeting on her lap as she was focusing on expanding her presence so he would be drawn to her. Usually she did the opposite, quieting down her spirit so people’s lives wouldn’t get caught in the strength of her being, but this time she wanted him to notice her. She needed him to, otherwise he would commit the worst mistake of his life.

He looked, at last, confused and intrigued. No doubt he had a dozen questions, and no doubt she could have answered them patiently and carefully and gently, but he had a determination in his eyes that made her wary. One tiny wrong move, and the timeline would’ve gone to hell and Zohariel would be in an even bigger mess. She was intent on avoiding that. Unlike him, she knew who he was and his entire fate, but she never shared that with him, not until a long time in the future.

He resisted her presence, as much as he could. She had expected that. He was strong-willed and his abilities had a similar root to hers, no doubt her own fault. He sideeyed her from his place, wary; while her presence was strong thanks to her different frequency, she couldn’t control how people reacted to it. Some were attracted to her, some were terrified, some hated her on principle; it was a roussian roulette of psychology and emotion. Zee was beginning to feel hopeless when he finally moved towards her table, two mugs of cold beer in hand and he stood in front of her, his jacket too big for him, a clear sign those clothes didn’t belong to him.

“Do you mind?” He asked, quietly, almost shyly. It was rather unbecoming of him: she has expected him to be more forceful.

“Not at all.” She gestured with her chin to the chair across her.

Everyone at the pub watched as that strange fellow, for no apparent reason, sat down with that even stranger woman, whose attention had been craved by many, all whom she denied politely, so gently it was nearly cruel.

He slid the mug at her, pacifyingly. She let go of her empty one and closed her grip on the new one, a hint of a smirk on her lips.

“Rumour has it you have been dumping men left and right, tonight.” He said, taking a sip from his mug, his eyes locked onto hers. There was faint music playing in the background, an old tune, filled with white noise. The conversation resumed as Zee toned down her presence as much as she could.

“I enjoy the loneliness.” The corners of her mouth twitched up; he observed her carefully. She knew he was trying to figure her out; people from his time spot were terribly suspicious of anything odd.

“Yet, I’ve been told you can’t take your eyes off me.”

“You’re an odd one.” She said, jokingly, but there was enough truth in it to satisfy him. It didn’t, however.

“So are you.” He crossed his arms over the table, and she leaned in to whisper back at him.

“And together, the two of us make quite a pair in this trivial place.” She tilted her head. He hummed, the closest thing to a laughter he could give her. She leaned back on her chair, her drink in hand. “You look like a man on a mission, if you don’t mind me saying it.”

He hummed again, and his eyes lost focus and he was invaded by a sadness she was well familiar with. He wouldn’t know, of course; there was so much he didn’t know.

“You have no idea, miss.”

“Oh, I might.” She blinked slowly, but he barely reacted. He didn’t believe her, and she could scarcely blame him. Most time travelers struggled in their first months, even years; it was not the sort of thing one could easily adjust to. But Zee didn’t have time to do things subtly; Duke was about to make a very common mistake between time travelers who just discovered their powers: he thought he could change history. “Tell me, what brings you here?”

“Just passing by.”

“How vague! You sound as if you don’t want to talk, yet you’re the one who approached me.” Her amused tone sparked something in him, but by his attitude, it was probably something bad.

He looked at her, puzzled, baffled. She knew how this conversation would follow, it always happened the same way, the few times she had done it before, when she was still with the League. I don’t know why I did it, he would say, his senses betraying him, his mind being engulfed by the everlasting presence of her high frequency.

Being from another universe, Zohariel’s atoms vibrated in a frequency suited for her own universe, and her frequency was so high that in the universe she lived in, she disturbed the natural order of things. Some resisted it for longer, like Duke, but it was pointless; in the end, she could change their lives dramatically by simply existing in the same vicinity for long enough.

“I don’t know why I did it.” He said, looking around, carefully. “You were looking at me.”

“Was I?”

“Yes. A lot. Why?”

“I don’t know, I do a lot of things for no good reason.” She finished her glass and put it down with a soft noise. Her eyebrows had a crease between them, more about doubt than confusion. “You may not want to hear it, but I have some advice for you.”

“Really?”

“Yes. That which is consuming you right now, it is the sort of ailment that afflicts every one of us. You don’t believe I understand, I know, but I do." She sighed when he shook his head. "Grief is overwhelming. It feeds off our energy, our hopes, our fears. But it will pass, eventually, or at least fade to something bearable. Until then, you must persevere."

"How do you know I'm grieving?" There was a legitimate curiosity in his question.

"It's in your eyes." It was true, anyone who looked at him would have seen the pain he was in, but she knew more than just that. She knew everything and more. My responsibility, she often repeated to herself, my fault. Everything he was and would be and do was on her head and she wanted to make sure he didn't do anything stupid. "All over your face. You could use a shave, no offense. I like the beard, but these folks… They're on a different time."

"More free advice? Who would have thought?" He mocked, but there was very little malice in his attitude. He thought of her as odd, quirky. A weird woman in a weird time spot.

"What can I say, I appreciate being helpful and advice from me is a common item to spread around." She raised her eyebrows, amused. "I hope you will heed my words."

"I don't believe you told me your name."

She smiled, sweet and mischievous.

"While my advice is free of charge, my name is a luxury item, in this silly metaphor." She tapped at his hand, gently, and he pulled away as if she had given him a shock. He checked his watch and she observed, quietly, hopeless, intrigued. He brushed his thighs before he stood up, and Zohariel thought he looked exhausted.

He must be, she thought, he probably has no idea how to properly time travel.

The first mistake of a rookie was to go back or forth in time without mastering their powers, which could also be translated to, without knowing how to go back to their time spot. They'd get stuck, and create anachronisms which would then trigger the League. If they did little damage and were untrained and not dangerous, the League would do nothing more than fix the issues, and give them a reprimand and invite them in - very few people refused an invitation like that. However, as Zohariel knew because she had used the League's rating system, Duke was to be considered a red alert threat; he was an anachronist who would stop at nearly nothing to achieve his goal and neither would the League. Worst fate was to have his memories deleted and have him do mild paperwork, while keeping him on his own time spot. It was cruel, in Zee's opinion; worse even than just erasing his existence entirely.

"I appreciate your kindness, but you don't really understand." He nodded before walking out of the pub. Zee watched, almost as if that was a film.

She knew where he was going and she knew she had to stop him before the League did.

[sou-ver-2-0]

First off, your shin analysis’ are AMAZING i can’t get over them and just your writing in general is so good,,you’re such a big inspiration,,,second, Shin for 25 pretty please <3

Thank you thank you!! I'm glad that I can inspire you, and I hope you'll keep writing too!

25) What other people wish they could change about them

I already answered 25 here, where I wrote about what Sara, Kanna, Keiji, and Original Sou would change about Shin. I picked those four because I think they have the most compelling relationships with him. Honestly, I'm proud of that answer, and I hope you enjoy it! 

I was going to leave things at that, and simply promise to keep writing Shin meta... But then I thought, why not keep going? After all, there are a lot more characters in YTTD and I love them all! So without further ado, let me take a crack at what everyone else wishes they could change about Shin:

Joe: Joe, our friendliest boy, says before his death that he can't see anyone in the group as a "bad guy," "not even Sou or Alice." So I'm sure that Joe would love to see Shin start making good choices instead of mean ones! Something to prove him right! Most of all, he'd want Shin to stop hurting his best friend Sara. And maybe actually help Sara instead? Since Joe loved Sara, but he can't speak to her anymore, now when Sara needs him most...

Q-taro: Q-Taro, who suffered through the distinction of being used by Shin, probably wishes that Shin would stop treating people like objects and start treating them like people. Q-Taro has to learn this lesson himself in the story! The experience of being used by Shin must have helped to soften Q-Taro's heart towards the other vulnerable characters; he realized he wasn't so different from them. So even though Q-Taro might harbor some resentment towards Shin, I think he would still be sympathetic and believe in Shin's capacity for change.

Reko: Reko just wants to punch Sou SMACK in the nose! Maybe it won't change anything, but it would make her feel better! 

Haha okay but seriously, Reko has a harsh but ultimately forgiving personality. She would have wanted to help Shin heal, just like she secretly wanted to help her brother heal. So long as he apologizes, I bet Reko would've been a good friend to Shin, just like she's a good friend to Sara! She'd have been kind to a redemptive Shin, without putting up with any of his bullshit. And she'd definitely fix whatever loser taste in music he has.

Alice: Surprisingly, Alice is the party member with the most patience for Shin's antics! He's often willing to give Shin the benefit of the doubt. He even distrusted Sara in the beginning, much like Shin. It's not like they're close allies, but Alice's patience for Shin was always striking to me. Personally, I think Alice intuitively understood that Shin was an underdog while Sara was somehow privileged. As a prisoner, it's natural for him to connect to the most disadvantaged. 

Alice would wish for nothing more than for Shin to atone. And he'd probably help him do it, right by his side.

Nao: I bet Nao mostly wants Shin to stop acting so scary, since she's easily frightened. But I think she definitely believes that he can change for the better. Nao begins to believe in Shin in Chapter 2, when they team up and develop a cunning plan to defeat the Rogue Mishima AI. Given that Shin's personality before the Death Game seemed kind and timid, it's likely that Nao and Shin would have things in common! Nao would wish to know that side of him better.

Gin: Like Nao, Gin wishes the Loner would stop scaring everyone! Even though Gin says that he hates Shin, Gin is also a good kid who doesn't want any harm to come to the man. If Shin stopped lying and started acting kind, Gin would probably still tease him, but I bet he'd also be affectionate of him. Gin is immature but still friendly and a big sweetheart.  

Kai: Oh Kai, the poor victim of Shin's scheme to draw out the Sage for slaughter! At the end of his life, Kai is terrified of Shin. He calls him a "dangerous man" and asks that everyone vote for Shin instead of himself. It's hard for me to imagine what specific things Kai would want to change about Shin, when what he really wanted was to switch places with him. Kai desperately wished to be only the second-highest vote-getter, rather than the first...

What if they somehow met under better circumstances? (Such as in Nankidai's ongoing summer festival comic, where Kai is protective of Shin!) Well, Kai is a lonely, secretive man himself, so he could relate to Shin's struggle. He'd probably wish Shin well in figuring out how to open his heart to others, while acknowledging that it's a hard thing to do.

Mishima: LET'S DO PUSH-UPS, SHIN! LET'S TRAIN HOW TO RUN FOR A MARATHON TOGETHER! COME ON, IT'LL BE FUN!

Sue Miley: Sue Miley already finds Mr. Zero Percent's antics to be incredibly entertaining, just the way he is! Please keep insisting you're Sou, won't you? Maybe it will help you survive! Who can say??

Gashu Satou: Gashu wishes someone would take his son's laptop away from that meddling brat. His hacking is just going to make everything more difficult, isn't it? And then Gashu's going to have to clean up the mess himself, isn't he? Isn't he?! It's not like Sue Miley is going to bother helping him! Nooo, Gashu has to do everything himself around here...

Tia Safalin: Tia Safalin sees how much Sou is suffering in the wake of Kanna's death, and she wishes she could take away his pain. She could take all those awful memories away from him. Only the bad memories, you understand. He'd forget using Kanna, forget hurting Kanna, forget the unbearable agony of losing Kanna, but the good memories would remain! She would fix Sou so he could finally be happy. Isn't that what you all want for him?

Rio Ranger: The stinky human needs a bath.

[gofancyninjaworld]

The Human Cockroach Plan

(an expanded version of an extract that I posted on Reddit)

Context for the title: a jeweled wasp taking over a cockroach and turning it into an unresisting host for its young. Warning: grisly.

https://youtu.be/ovo_T0KqdYg

To dismantle the Hero Association, the Neo Heroes are doing two things.  

​Attracting heroes.   Pro-heroes have a long list of legitimate complaints about the Hero  Association, and with the way the Monster Association raid went down, everyone's feeling a little down and asking themselves some hard questions. The speed with which the Neo Heroes have moved speaks to an outfit was waiting for that perfect moment. 

The frustrated employee is one of the best tools for a challenger looking to steal an incumbent’s thunder.  To that end, the Neo-Heroes have head-hunted McCoy. It’s no co-incidence he’s the second chief of operations at the Hero Association. It makes him someone who can see what needed doing, but who never has quite enough authority to see operational changes through. 

He knows what appeals to heroes: decent pay, not having to worry about daily essentials, good equipment, being able to do their work without excessive risk, readily-available back up, ongoing training. It’s a wonderful package. It’s a package the Hero Association would do very well indeed to offer. And it's worked like new money to attract a lot of pro-heroes.      

everything they’re discussing makes sense -- it’s a shame it’s under false pretenses

Seeding a false narrative. The Organization may not like monsters, but they know how to control them. They sent out five dragon-level threats to various cities, all beautifully controlled so that Blue managed to 'defeat' his without coming to harm and  saved a lot of the city he was protecting and looks like the up and coming messiah. While the pro-heroes couldn't save the cities they sought to protect. The Organization doesn't give a damn that they killed thousands of people, displaced hundreds of thousands and destroyed billions of dollars of property to tell that story. Individual human lives mean nothing to them.  Outside of that splendid victory by Blue, the record for the rest of the Neo Heroes was not quite so stellar.       

A new messiah raised on a literal hill of dead bodies

It's not enough to scatter the Hero Association and co-opt many of its heroes into working for them. They still need an army, which they're busy But stop and think: WOULDN'T IT BE EASIER TO USE ROBOTS? After all, we've seen their Machine Gods.

There are two advantages that people have over robots. First, no matter how clever an AI, when it's faced with inputs that weren't anticipated, it produces results that are logically consistent, but not useful. That's how King managed to fool Machine God G4 into letting him use the bathroom. We got a milder example with the VGS, which gave odd, but logical answers for some of the heroes who used it, answers based on the assumptions with which it was programmed. Second, there's the 'fun factor' that Atomic Samurai talked about. People have talents and gain mastery that eclipses any mimickry or adaptation. 

Even the cleverest AI  has its limitations

So to kill two birds with one stone, they're taking strong, talented people and gutting them like a wasp does a cockroach to produce powerful, flexible, talented warriors who are nevertheless as compliant and expendable as robots. Notice that they have no interest in cyborgizing the amateurs -- at least not until they get trained appropriately. Thank you, coach Darkshine!    Zaedats and Infelsinave have been converted. They’re living cockroaches, conscious and lucid but having no choice but to hand over all their resources until they’re empty.

All the good things they're providing serve their purpose of raising the Neo Heroes into products. Having housing provided means that Neo-Heroes’ environment is controlled. Especially the choice of a tower rather than an open city means that there’s little reason to mix with the outside world.  It’s not insignificant that heroes are overwhelmingly young men. What is a key point of young men?  They tend to hate cooking and aren’t afraid of taking supplements to get ‘gains’.  Free food? Sold. No need to lie about putting stuff in their drink -- guys who want to bulk up will grab it.  Free standardised equipment provided is perfect for grabbing highly-detailed data. And working in pre-selected teams means that there’s always eyes on you. All packaged up so slickly it hasn’t occurred to the vast majority of its heroes that they’re turkeys at a turkey farm and Thanksgiving is just round the corner.  

They're also cynically hunting down criminals with the talent to stay out of the Hero Association's grasp. Why? It's as one of the prisoners explains to Puri Puri -- society has little sympathy for them, even after they've done their time. Few people have the moral decency to protest if they're treated inhumanely.  After all, deluding ourselves into thinking that it can't possibly happen to us is a very human failing.

how generous we are with other peoples’ lives!

I have to admire how brazen the Neo Hero’s paymasters are.  The Organization is building that army they need, right under people's noses.   Mostly out of the people who are supposed to be opposing them. And in doing that, they're perverting the idea of hero into that of a hypocrite, which works perfectly for them. No one is moved by a hypocrite's words.  

You can call them a lot of things, but you can’t claim they’re hypocrites.  They’ve being upfront about what they’re doing. If you choose to read benign intent into their actions, it’s your funeral.  Literally.