#Lagoon Engine

[engshoujosei]

Lagoon Engine

7 volumes (canceled in Japan)

Licensed by Tokyopop, then Viz Media digitally.

Yen and Jin are brothers in elementary school and successors in the Ragun family craft of defeating evil spirits. In this world, the battle with spirits comes down to a game of guessing your opponent's "name." Once you know the name you gain control over the fight. Both Yen and Jin have secret names only they know ... and must keep them secret or risk death!

Related Series 

Lagoon Engine Einsatz (Side Story, licensed but OOP)

Status in Country of Origin 

7 Volumes (Canceled)

Tags:

BL Subtext

Crush/es

Elementary School Student/s

Familiar/s

Family

In Love with Family Member

Magical Battles

Middle School Student/s

Rushed Ending / Axed

Spirit/s

[fauvester]

tcgfau henry clay three ways

[dnangelic]

if i translate anything next it might be the decade drama cds.... just because i want to see more dai n dark^2 shenanigans

[requinoesis]

A glimpse of Roberto's old family home, where he was born and lived until he was 8 years old, before it was destroyed by the mysterious 'Great Storm' that devastated the downtown of Reef City.

The house was a large "Sobrado" designed by Fernando, one of Roberto's two dads and who is an environmental engineer. Fernando was inspired by the ancient architecture of the sharkfolk, called 'atoll style', a ring structure with several rooms surrounding a central lagoon. The family who lived in this type of house usually met to consecrate meals at a gazebo in the center. These houses were always built by the sea.

I was inspired to try to make a 3D model to imagine what the complete house would look like hehe

As the house was built in a rural region of the island, Alejandro, Roberto's second dad, established a seaweed plantation around the house to make 'seaweed wine', which was aged submerged under the sea.

Unfortunately, everything was lost in the great storm. Fernando holds a lot of resentment about this, as the house he designed was literally a dream come true. He had wished on a falling star to have the chance to build this house and honored the star with an ornament on the house's tower.

Roberto's family currently lives in a resort called 'Seven Waves', which has been converted into a residential building to house refugees who lost their homes in the great storm.

The style of the house looked like something from Studio Ghibli hehe

---

I thought about preserving the model of the house on Sketchfab if anyone wants to see it!✨

I added some more details that I was missing in the construction hehe

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Conspiratorialism as a material phenomenon

I'll be in TUCSON, AZ from November 8-10: I'm the GUEST OF HONOR at the TUSCON SCIENCE FICTION CONVENTION.

I think it behooves us to be a little skeptical of stories about AI driving people to believe wrong things and commit ugly actions. Not that I like the AI slop that is filling up our social media, but when we look at the ways that AI is harming us, slop is pretty low on the list.

The real AI harms come from the actual things that AI companies sell AI to do. There's the AI gun-detector gadgets that the credulous Mayor Eric Adams put in NYC subways, which led to 2,749 invasive searches and turned up zero guns:

https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/nycs-subway-weapons-detector-pilot-program-ends/

Any time AI is used to predict crime – predictive policing, bail determinations, Child Protective Services red flags – they magnify the biases already present in these systems, and, even worse, they give this bias the veneer of scientific neutrality. This process is called "empiricism-washing," and you know you're experiencing it when you hear some variation on "it's just math, math can't be racist":

https://pluralistic.net/2020/06/23/cryptocidal-maniacs/#phrenology

When AI is used to replace customer service representatives, it systematically defrauds customers, while providing an "accountability sink" that allows the company to disclaim responsibility for the thefts:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/23/maximal-plausibility/#reverse-centaurs

When AI is used to perform high-velocity "decision support" that is supposed to inform a "human in the loop," it quickly overwhelms its human overseer, who takes on the role of "moral crumple zone," pressing the "OK" button as fast as they can. This is bad enough when the sacrificial victim is a human overseeing, say, proctoring software that accuses remote students of cheating on their tests:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/16/unauthorized-paper/#cheating-anticheat

But it's potentially lethal when the AI is a transcription engine that doctors have to use to feed notes to a data-hungry electronic health record system that is optimized to commit health insurance fraud by seeking out pretenses to "upcode" a patient's treatment. Those AIs are prone to inventing things the doctor never said, inserting them into the record that the doctor is supposed to review, but remember, the only reason the AI is there at all is that the doctor is being asked to do so much paperwork that they don't have time to treat their patients:

https://apnews.com/article/ai-artificial-intelligence-health-business-90020cdf5fa16c79ca2e5b6c4c9bbb14

My point is that "worrying about AI" is a zero-sum game. When we train our fire on the stuff that isn't important to the AI stock swindlers' business-plans (like creating AI slop), we should remember that the AI companies could halt all of that activity and not lose a dime in revenue. By contrast, when we focus on AI applications that do the most direct harm – policing, health, security, customer service – we also focus on the AI applications that make the most money and drive the most investment.

AI hasn't attracted hundreds of billions in investment capital because investors love AI slop. All the money pouring into the system – from investors, from customers, from easily gulled big-city mayors – is chasing things that AI is objectively very bad at and those things also cause much more harm than AI slop. If you want to be a good AI critic, you should devote the majority of your focus to these applications. Sure, they're not as visually arresting, but discrediting them is financially arresting, and that's what really matters.

All that said: AI slop is real, there is a lot of it, and just because it doesn't warrant priority over the stuff AI companies actually sell, it still has cultural significance and is worth considering.

AI slop has turned Facebook into an anaerobic lagoon of botshit, just the laziest, grossest engagement bait, much of it the product of rise-and-grind spammers who avidly consume get rich quick "courses" and then churn out a torrent of "shrimp Jesus" and fake chainsaw sculptures:

https://www.404media.co/email/1cdf7620-2e2f-4450-9cd9-e041f4f0c27f/

For poor engagement farmers in the global south chasing the fractional pennies that Facebook shells out for successful clickbait, the actual content of the slop is beside the point. These spammers aren't necessarily tuned into the psyche of the wealthy-world Facebook users who represent Meta's top monetization subjects. They're just trying everything and doubling down on anything that moves the needle, A/B splitting their way into weird, hyper-optimized, grotesque crap:

https://www.404media.co/facebook-is-being-overrun-with-stolen-ai-generated-images-that-people-think-are-real/

In other words, Facebook's AI spammers are laying out a banquet of arbitrary possibilities, like the letters on a Ouija board, and the Facebook users' clicks and engagement are a collective ideomotor response, moving the algorithm's planchette to the options that tug hardest at our collective delights (or, more often, disgusts).

So, rather than thinking of AI spammers as creating the ideological and aesthetic trends that drive millions of confused Facebook users into condemning, praising, and arguing about surreal botshit, it's more true to say that spammers are discovering these trends within their subjects' collective yearnings and terrors, and then refining them by exploring endlessly ramified variations in search of unsuspected niches.

(If you know anything about AI, this may remind you of something: a Generative Adversarial Network, in which one bot creates variations on a theme, and another bot ranks how closely the variations approach some ideal. In this case, the spammers are the generators and the Facebook users they evince reactions from are the discriminators)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generative_adversarial_network

I got to thinking about this today while reading User Mag, Taylor Lorenz's superb newsletter, and her reporting on a new AI slop trend, "My neighbor’s ridiculous reason for egging my car":

https://www.usermag.co/p/my-neighbors-ridiculous-reason-for

The "egging my car" slop consists of endless variations on a story in which the poster (generally a figure of sympathy, canonically a single mother of newborn twins) complains that her awful neighbor threw dozens of eggs at her car to punish her for parking in a way that blocked his elaborate Hallowe'en display. The text is accompanied by an AI-generated image showing a modest family car that has been absolutely plastered with broken eggs, dozens upon dozens of them.

According to Lorenz, variations on this slop are topping very large Facebook discussion forums totalling millions of users, like "Movie Character…,USA Story, Volleyball Women, Top Trends, Love Style, and God Bless." These posts link to SEO sites laden with programmatic advertising.

The funnel goes:

i. Create outrage and hence broad reach;

ii, A small percentage of those who see the post will click through to the SEO site;

iii. A small fraction of those users will click a low-quality ad;

iv. The ad will pay homeopathic sub-pennies to the spammer.

The revenue per user on this kind of scam is next to nothing, so it only works if it can get very broad reach, which is why the spam is so designed for engagement maximization. The more discussion a post generates, the more users Facebook recommends it to.

These are very effective engagement bait. Almost all AI slop gets some free engagement in the form of arguments between users who don't know they're commenting an AI scam and people hectoring them for falling for the scam. This is like the free square in the middle of a bingo card.

Beyond that, there's multivalent outrage: some users are furious about food wastage; others about the poor, victimized "mother" (some users are furious about both). Not only do users get to voice their fury at both of these imaginary sins, they can also argue with one another about whether, say, food wastage even matters when compared to the petty-minded aggression of the "perpetrator." These discussions also offer lots of opportunity for violent fantasies about the bad guy getting a comeuppance, offers to travel to the imaginary AI-generated suburb to dole out a beating, etc. All in all, the spammers behind this tedious fiction have really figured out how to rope in all kinds of users' attention.

Of course, the spammers don't get much from this. There isn't such a thing as an "attention economy." You can't use attention as a unit of account, a medium of exchange or a store of value. Attention – like everything else that you can't build an economy upon, such as cryptocurrency – must be converted to money before it has economic significance. Hence that tooth-achingly trite high-tech neologism, "monetization."

The monetization of attention is very poor, but AI is heavily subsidized or even free (for now), so the largest venture capital and private equity funds in the world are spending billions in public pension money and rich peoples' savings into CO2 plumes, GPUs, and botshit so that a bunch of hustle-culture weirdos in the Pacific Rim can make a few dollars by tricking people into clicking through engagement bait slop – twice.

The slop isn't the point of this, but the slop does have the useful function of making the collective ideomotor response visible and thus providing a peek into our hopes and fears. What does the "egging my car" slop say about the things that we're thinking about?

Lorenz cites Jamie Cohen, a media scholar at CUNY Queens, who points out that subtext of this slop is "fear and distrust in people about their neighbors." Cohen predicts that "the next trend, is going to be stranger and more violent.”

This feels right to me. The corollary of mistrusting your neighbors, of course, is trusting only yourself and your family. Or, as Margaret Thatcher liked to say, "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families."

We are living in the tail end of a 40 year experiment in structuring our world as though "there is no such thing as society." We've gutted our welfare net, shut down or privatized public services, all but abolished solidaristic institutions like unions.

This isn't mere aesthetics: an atomized society is far more hospitable to extreme wealth inequality than one in which we are all in it together. When your power comes from being a "wise consumer" who "votes with your wallet," then all you can do about the climate emergency is buy a different kind of car – you can't build the public transit system that will make cars obsolete.

When you "vote with your wallet" all you can do about animal cruelty and habitat loss is eat less meat. When you "vote with your wallet" all you can do about high drug prices is "shop around for a bargain." When you vote with your wallet, all you can do when your bank forecloses on your home is "choose your next lender more carefully."

Most importantly, when you vote with your wallet, you cast a ballot in an election that the people with the thickest wallets always win. No wonder those people have spent so long teaching us that we can't trust our neighbors, that there is no such thing as society, that we can't have nice things. That there is no alternative.

The commercial surveillance industry really wants you to believe that they're good at convincing people of things, because that's a good way to sell advertising. But claims of mind-control are pretty goddamned improbable – everyone who ever claimed to have managed the trick was lying, from Rasputin to MK-ULTRA:

https://pluralistic.net/HowToDestroySurveillanceCapitalism

Rather than seeing these platforms as convincing people of things, we should understand them as discovering and reinforcing the ideology that people have been driven to by material conditions. Platforms like Facebook show us to one another, let us form groups that can imperfectly fill in for the solidarity we're desperate for after 40 years of "no such thing as society."

The most interesting thing about "egging my car" slop is that it reveals that so many of us are convinced of two contradictory things: first, that everyone else is a monster who will turn on you for the pettiest of reasons; and second, that we're all the kind of people who would stick up for the victims of those monsters.

Tor Books as just published two new, free LITTLE BROTHER stories: VIGILANT, about creepy surveillance in distance education; and SPILL, about oil pipelines and indigenous landback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/29/hobbesian-slop/#cui-bono

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

[theemporium]

Blues lagoon with Quinn please 🥰

Promt 6 🩵

thank you for requesting!🫶🏽

6. "Don't touch me."

.

The silence had been deafening. 

Quinn had pulled into the parking spot over ten minutes ago, cutting the engine and letting you both just sit in silence, neither one ready to break the silence just yet. Neither of you had shared a word during the whole car ride ride and it had made him prickle, the hairs on the back of his neck rising with the growing tension. 

He could only take so much. 

“Baby—” He started as he reached over the console to take your hand in his, to soften the suffocating tension in the car but your response was blunt and biting. 

“Don’t touch me.” 

His hand quickly fell back onto his lap, a lump in the back of his throat that he tried to swallow away but failed to do so. Instead, the two of you were left in the lingering silence again before you eventually spoke.

“I think we should take a break,” you eventually said, your voice mostly devoid of any emotion as you stared blankly ahead. 

Quinn’s head snapped around. “What? You want to break up?” 

Your jaw twitched. “I think it’s for the best.” 

“Baby,” he said in a helpless voice, trying to bite back the shake in his words. “Let’s talk about this—”

“Now you want to talk?” You snapped back, finally turning to look at him. Letting him finally see the hurt and frustration written across your face that you had been holding back all night. 

The joke of the matter was that Quinn had practically begged you to come tonight. It was a simple hangout with the team and their families, casual and laid back at one of the bigger houses. He said he wanted to introduce you to his team, said he wanted to start meeting the important people in each other’s lives. 

And yet, he barely gave you a second glance all night. You sat there watching all the other girlfriends and wives snuggled into the sides of their partners, laughing and smiling and joking around. You watched them reach for each other, whisper to each other. You watched them all look so happy and relaxed. 

Meanwhile, Quinn didn’t even hold your hand. He didn’t wrap his arm around the back of your chair. He didn’t even talk to you, most of the conversations you had through the night coming from a few of his teammates who took pity on how you awkwardly sat there amongst a large group of people who already knew each other well. 

If you hadn’t wanted to cause a scene, you would have saved yourself the hours of humiliation and let thirty minutes in. But you kept your mouth shut and didn’t complain until you left, until Quinn drove you home and you had finally had enough. 

“Look,” you started, trying to swallow back the urge to yell. “You’re the captain. You’re busy. I get that. I understand. But I don’t think you do.” 

Quinn instantly felt defensive. “What do you mean?” 

“You’re not ready for us or a relationship, Quinn,” you said, feeling like you were explaining yourself to a toddler. “I don’t know what the fuck is holding you back but I don’t have time to work that out for you. And I have too much self respect for myself to go through something like tonight again.” 

“Babe,” Quinn choked out, his voice heavy and shaky but you were already reaching for the door handle.

“Call me when you’ve figured out what the fuck you want, Quinn.”

.

[fuckyeahfluiddynamics]

Engineering the City of Venice

In 452, Roman refugees established what became the city of Venice across a series of low-lying marshy islands in a lagoon. With no solid ground available, Venice has needed clever engineering for its infrastructure, as discussed in this Primal Space video. (Video and image credit: Primal Space) Read the full article

[seat-safety-switch]

Going for a walk in the woods today, if you're up to join me. Oh? No, nothing special, just figured it was time to get some fresh air. Why don't you come with me? We'll do this great hike down by Deadman's Lagoons, yeah, plural, don't go to the singular, that's on the wrong side of the province. Meet you there, I bet we'll get to see a heron or some shit.

Ah, great, you came. Here, have some trail mix. Yeah, I know it looks a lot like gas station Hawkins Cheezies®, but rest assured that it is homemade and very natural. Organic, even. Most healthy thing you'll eat today. That staining on your fingers? Toxins leaving the body. C'mon, let's go.

Man. Just look at the absolute, sublime beauty of nature. We've barely been ten feet from the parking lot and already we've seen a glorious, heart-stirring example of the infinite pleasures of our fragile earth, this weird-looking frog sitting in a stinky puddle right here, next to the porta-potties. Let's all reflect on that for a bit. Now that we've had this experience, I'm going back to the car.

What do you mean, where's my car? Do you think this was just an elaborate plan to get a ride home after my Viscount puked its guts out on the side of the highway after trying to drive it to the next town without second or third gear working? That's a preposterous accusation, and I look forward to spending a lot of time on the ride home disproving it point by point. Don't worry, I'll drive. Hey, this thing has a lot of room in the back. I bet I could grab a spare engine from Pick N Pull on the way home, won't take even a minute. Why don't you have some more trail mix?

[yurimother]

Lesbian Sci-Fi Bounty Hunters Fight For Their Freedom in GL Space Western Apollonia

Sponsored by War Bunny

Apollonia is a no-punches-pulled cowgirls in space adventure! Part Cowboy Bebop and part Black Lagoon, but with a heavy dose of exceptionally jacked queer ladies in cowboy hats, this thrilling webtoon follows the crew of the space trail Apollonia, a group of vicious exiles determined to lay waste to their quarry, collect bounties, and earn their freedom.

The story kicks off when inmate no. 7012, Molly Holliday, is imprisoned on Purgatoire, a perilous frontier planet styled after the wild west, with only one hope, “complete the necessary steps required to reform and join the rest of civilized society...”

Molly soon catches the eye of Tess “Tombstone” Seguín, a steely-eyed gunslinger doing “accidental good” working as a bounty hunter for Reach. Between all the imprisoned criminals running amok, the settlers looking to carve out their own tiny chuck of hellscape and live in peace on Purgatoire don’t have it easy. So, Reach marks those who misbehave and promises that those who join Reach and hunt down enough evildoers will receive the ultimate prize, a one-way ticket to freedom.

After successfully proving her quickdraw skills, demonstrating the sharpness of her cutting tongue, and instilling more than a little lesbian panic, Molly proves herself to Tess, who invites her to join her gang, The Red Horns, aboard their space train, The Apollonia. Together they’ll stop at nothing to earn their freedom as they annihilate scum and battle against the six wicked gangs that carved up the planet’s territory and rule it with an iron fist. And if the Red Horns should accidentally do some good as they ride off into the sunset, so be it. These aren’t heroes by any means, just selfish monsters who happened to end up on the right side of the law after breaking it.

The series boasts dramatic visuals that electrify action as plasma bolts and explosive punches fly in dynamic, stylized sequences. And from incredibly sculpted abs to genetically engineered heart eyes, each of the character designs helps communicate its subject’s personality and power. The world-building is excellent, showcasing a dangerous world inspired by Borderlands and technology that justifiably mixes high-tech sci-fi with the aesthetics of classic Western stories. However, my favorite element is the dialogue, laden with a plethora of old-west slang, witty exchanges, and plenty of flirtatious banter between the two female leads.

You can read Apollonia for free today on Webtoon.

Post sponsored by War Bunny

[elbiotipo]

"Llevo mi sombra alerta sobre la escama del agua abierta, Y en el reposo vertiginoso del espinel,"

2002. A Luna-Soyuz spacecraft, launched by the Space Shuttle Atlantis, approaches the International Lunar Base, the 43th Interkosmos mission.

Darío asks to excuse himself to the living module to take a breath, at least as anyone can take a breath inside a pressurized spacecraft. Baikonur and Houston bounce the suggestion between themselves and they finally agree, he's just there to mind the payload after all, so might as well take it easy. He leaves his fellow astronaut and cosmonaut behind, and they resume bantering about the engineering of the Shuttle and the Buran, as they have done through all the trip.

"Sueño que alzo la proa y subo a la luna en la canoa, Y allí descanso, hecha un remanso mi propia piel."

On his mind, Darío knows the rotation of the craft. He knows where the spherical module of the Soyuz is heading. Looking through the viewport, like a sailor looking at a stormy sea, something he never experienced, he sees Earth rising over the horizon of the Moon.

"Calma de mis dolores, ay, Cristo de los pescadores, Dile a mi amada que está apenada esperándome,"

The craters of the Moon fly below him, endlessly repeating in a fractal landscape untouched by erosion. Darío remembers the countless lagoons of Corrientes like little dots, the first time he saw them when flying a Pucará over the green marshes.

His attention turns to the Earth. He can't see those lagoons from here. He can't even tell where Corrientes is. The picture is big, bigger than he ever imagined. The Atlantic glistens as its hit with the noon Sun, and the American continent spreads from pole to pole in its glory. He has to look up, as there is no South or North in space, to see the emerald Amazon, the spine of the Andes, and the endless Pampas. He can't tell where each land starts and ends, as clouds swirl over them.

The barren Moon is right below him, calling with her presence. It's real, close to him. That fishing village he thinks about, the living Earth above him, might as well be a fantasy.

"...Que ando pensando en ella mientras voy vadeando las estrellas, Que el río está bravo y estoy cansado para volver."

Darío narrows his eyes, trying to find the glint of a golden river.

[bruhstation]

hey out of curiosity! what inspired you to create casa tidemouth? any inspirations/concepts that motivated you? :0

way too much buddy. first it was ttte. that's the source material! next, houseki no kuni (been a fan for 5 years atp) is what helped me in writing lady's character in casa tidmouth -- a nonhuman character becoming more and more human, realizing the weight of their careless actions and how they have messed up the lives of many people, learning more complicated emotions (humans hurt the people they love, hate their own family, cry when happy, etc) and morality and juggling between their selfish desires and others' needs... it's so on the nail. that's lady! I applaud myself whenever I think too hard about her in casa tidmouth

another major one is chainsaw man. I took out bits of makima and stitched them to lady. again, same reasoning. though it's the wacky, fast paced setting of csm that inspired me to do the same to cstm. "what if these engine drivers do fuck all and get into the craziest shit which got them into accidents. and this is considered a normal occurrence on sodor because of gold dust shenanigans"

I also like various tv shows too. black lagoon inspired how I write the gritty, harsh environment of fortezza bigg city where criminals are around the corners. the finale of moral orel season 2 became the basis of duck's backstory. many of the mountain goats' songs remind me of cstm. there's more I could mention but those two shows are what I remember the most

ALSO I got really into limbus company around last year when this blog is less than a year old and then I checked out lobcorp and library of ruina too. I wouldn't say casa tidmouth is heavily inspired by them but the themes of the games do influence my writing and helped me in some parts of the story and character writing. the themes about risking your life for your loved ones, perpetuating the cycle of tragedy or breaking free from it, accepting your role as a cog in the machine either with hope or despondency ETC ETC I LOVE YOU PROJMOON.

I have many more medias I could mention here but we'll be here all day <3

[saphirafoxgirlspost1]

(Open Rp) Lego Monkie Kid Universe in "The Sakutopian Princess and The Great Sage"

On the Dark Night of the City called "Megapolis", The Mysterious Woman Who wore a Beautiful White Cloak With Gold Fleece with a hood on…While Riding a beautiful White Kirin to the Flower Fruit Mountain, Then She made it to the Dragon Speed Boat at the docks.. She Told the captain to Take her the Flower Fruit mountain For her "Safe area" To Start a New life, The Captain Looked at her birthmark and nodded and began Start the engine and began to sail to the Flower fruit mountain there the Fire mountain has surrounded the beautiful Island..so they went through it ..when her birthmark shield the boat and when She made it there, She mount Her Kirin and began to ride off into a jungle and saw her Spacious But a Lovely Royal Home near the water fall lagoon.. It was beautiful and majestic but Little Did Saphira Know That She's been Watched By The Monkey king Disguised as a Butterfly. When She got inside of her Home after dismount her Kirin, She felt So safe and sound. The reason why She was here is because Her "Ex-fiancé" Name, Prince "Daniel Jamerson Rooster" Made a Huge Treason in Between Two Kingdoms, The Sakutopia Kingdom and Shintari Kingdom By Publicly Making Love In Front of the Ceremony When Saphira's Father the Emperor Opens the Curtain To Open the welcoming gates where Daniel and His Mistress Name Princess "Barbra Minx" of Sunchon Kingdom. They were appalled and Horrid as Barbra's Father The Emperor of Sunchon Kingdom was Livid along with Saphira's Father and Daniels as well..The Emperors of 3 Kingdoms Scolding Those two so much as Saphira's heart is broken and Humiliated By Daniel's Betrayals and Public Humiliations..So, Her Father Began to Sent her to the Mortal World To Start Fresh in her Life and He Believed that She'll Find Someone Who Loves Her For her.. Now Saphira Is Now at the Flower fruit mountain safe from the Public eye, Then One day At the Balcony Saphira Began to Look at the View Wondering if Someone Will Love her For her unlike Daniel Rooster who Broke her heart and Humiliated her Horribly.. But She Knew that Daniel Did this To himself and cause Treason Towards Her Home Kingdom and His By Sleeping with other Woman.. She Sighs Softly Until One day, She began to Change into a Human Form and head to the City, She Decided to Use her Disguised Name as "Usagi Luna Fox" and began to explore the city but now she needs a great career, However she sees the empty Building right Next to Pigsy's Noodle Shop. Saphira thought something about it And she had an idea,,She looked left and right and use her Powers To turn Old Building into a lovely Club Called "The Blue Bunny Club". She Smiles and Knowing that this will be a new Life as a Lovely Singer For the Club, So she called her subjects and all to come and helping to serve drinks and food, making sure they're in the human form So nobody Knows who or what they are, After the club is all set up including the stage and lights as well The Club is Opened and everyone was dressed up in Cute Bunny themed uniform while Saphira was Readying Up For a Lovely Performance..The Sakutopian guards disguised themselves as the Bouncers and the Sign Says "Pigsy's noodles Food allowed" Because well Saphira loves their noodle shops which is a kind thing to do to make it a big hit and a Talk of the City. That Night, Saphira Performing beautifully by her angelic Singing Voice and Everyone adores her, even men was throwing themselves beneath her feet and After the Performance, Saphira aka Usagi gives a nice Shoutout For "Pigsy's Noodle shop" as a good credit and also made it a great benifits Like 50/50 but During the Night, Pigsys got suspicious about Usagi's Generosity So he sent his Young Employee name "MK" to Investigate and never forget to deliver some noodles.. When he went to investigated inside of the club and Saw Usagi Singing beautiful with her angelic voice.. After Her Performance as she headed to the Dressing room Changing back to her true form and Mk Began to follows her and eavesdropped as she said,

Saphira: " Sighs Boy.. This Performance is Booming already heh, No one will Know about my true name or My Name is Princess Saphira Lorraina Fox Of Sakutopia and it is too.. And Hopefully No one Will Know about the Humiliation that I've been going through.. Now This is my New life..and No one knows abo-"

But then Her fox ears Perks up..and She said,

Saph: "Shit, Someone is eavesdropping.. GUARDS!! Get the Spy Now! Don't let him tell anyone!"

The Guards began to go after him as Mk Made an escape and began to head to the direction to deliver the noodles, Meanwhile.. Saphira Pace back and forth as she went anxious until the guards return and she said,

Saph: "Did you catch the Spy?"

Guard: "No, He's gone and he was pretty fast."

Saphira was in rage knowing that This Spy Knew about her Secrets and she told the guards that after Her Performance, She has to go Home and "Lay Low" for a while..The Next Day, Saphira was back in the Flower Fruit Mountain in her Lovely Mansion home..Until She heard Someone and She turns around and Pulls out of her Katana and She said," Who's There!? State your Buisness SPY!" Then It was MK and He raise his hands and told her that he didn't mean No harm.. But he told her that He is seeking the Monkey king for an aid.. Then Saphira said that She knew the monkey kings stories before.. And when She turns and sees the Waterfall and she knew something is up and So, She takes him to the waterfall.. She use her Birthmark to Open the waterfall curtain and saw the beautiful reveal on the bridge and her eyes is widen.. when they went in, She saw the Picture relic of Sun wukong and other allies.. Then it gives her and Mk a Gold vision to show the stories of it..as she turn and sees Sun wukong himself, She called him out and followed him and when she try to grabbed him, it faded away and the gold vision was gone.. She sees the Monkey kings Home as she looked around and sighs softly..until She saw a beautiful Butterfly with a golden eyes and then The butterfly began to say "Sup", Saphira and Mk Began to Scream Bloody Murder and the butterfly continues," Yes yes It is I the monkey ki-" He was interrupted by Saphira stepping on him while Mk was in horror as she screaming and her tail floofing in fear, after she lift her foot up and She said," Is it dead?" Then the butterfly said no as he reveal himself as the great Sage Equal to heaven..as he said…

[justlittlelandonorris]

“Right here, darlin’…”

Summary: You try to look after Leonard McCoy after he gets hurt on a mission.

Main Character(s): Leonard “Bones” McCoy and Montgomery “Scotty” Scott

Notes: I’ve never actually seen any original Star Trek shows or movies, but I did finally watch the reboots a few days ago and honestly, I absolutely adore Leonard McCoy. Anyway, this little idea was stuck in my head so hopefully you guys like it… live long and prosper 🖖🏼

Warning: Mentions of wounds and stitches?

“Beam him up, Scotty!” You shout, turning towards the Scotsman.

“But-“

“I don’t care what Captain Kirk ordered you to do… beam him up, now.” You command, your voice dropping to a low and threatening tone.

“Aye, lassie.”

The moment the man in question materialises, you mutter a quiet thank you to the engineer before running towards him. “Doctor McCoy…” Your eyes glide over his body, taking in the wounds and bruises. “Are you okay?”

“What do you think?” He asks, wincing in pain as he steps off the platform.

“There’s no need to take that tone with me, Doctor.” He turns to you with a glare as you try to support his weight. “Send a message to Kirk,” you turn towards Scotty, “let him know I’m taking Bones to MedBay.”

“Will do, lassie.”

-

With your arm firmly grasped around his torso, you ease the CMO onto a bed as you make your way into MedBay.

“Watch it,” he grumbles in pain as he pushes your arm away. Mirroring his glare, you scoff at his unpleasantness before noticing the wound carved into his side.

“I need to get this stitched up before it gets infected…” You mention, grabbing some supplies from the cabinet. You tug on the fabric of his uniform as he closes his eyes, a deep groan of pain rumbling in his throat. “Sorry,” you sigh. “Is there any part of you that doesn’t hurt?” There’s a subtle hint of humour in your voice as you finally throw the torn shirt onto the floor.

“Here.” He says, voice heavy with sarcasm as he points to his shoulder.

Watching him readjust himself on the bed, eyes still closed tight from the pain, your expression softens as you begin to sympathise with your superior. All of a sudden, a thought pops into your head as you allow it to ruminate.

A playful smile plays on your lips before you slowly lean closer towards the man and place a soft kiss on his bare shoulder. Opening his eyes, he turns towards you with a raised eyebrow as he watches you thread the stitches through the wound.

After a moment of contemplation, he allows a charming smirk to grace his handsome features before pointing to his cheek. “Here.”

With a quiet laugh, you indulge him by placing another soft kiss on his cheek, lingering for a moment longer than before. As you pull away, you realise how intimately close you are to the doctor before meeting his gaze, those dark mahogany eyes melting into golden lagoons of honey.

“Right here, darlin’…” He drawls in that southern accent, beckoning you towards him and tapping his lips with his finger. Placing the desired kiss on his lips, you feel his tongue glide over the soft flesh of your lips, begging for more. Allowing his tongue to slip into your mouth, his hands delicately brush against the exposed skin of your body, his wounds and sullen temperament long forgotten.

[paganimagevault]

Statue of The Republic by Daniel Chester French 1893. Going to make this my '4th of July post', happy 4th all! Sources and more images on my blog, link at bottom.

The Republic statue was created for the Chicago World Fair of 1893 and was known by a variety of names: The Golden Lady, The Republic, Goddess of the Republic, and Statue of Liberty. The fair lasted from May 1st-October 30th. About 50 different countries participated in the fair and 18 erected their own buildings at the site. The site was known as the "White City" for its predominant white Greco-Roman style buildings. It also featured the first ferris wheel, created by George Washington Gale Ferris Jr. for the event.

After the fair closed the small city was destroyed in 3 fires, but the Goddess statue survived all of them:

"On January 8, 1894, the first great post-Fair fire consumed much of the east end of the Court of Honor. French’s Statue of the Republic stood “in the midst of it all like a gigantic silhouette, with uplifted arms as if appealing for help,” wrote the Chicago Tribune (Jan. 9, 1894). She held her liberty cap defiantly among clouds of black smoke as fierce flames danced around her for more than an hour. While the heat from this “Peristyle Fire” was intense enough to melt the ice on the Grand Basin, it barely tarnished the golden statue. By morning, the conflagration had completely destroyed the Peristyle, Casino, and Music Hall and damaged parts of the Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building. Had the firemen not saved it from the flames, the Republic likely would have burned down that night, too. The next morning, the majestic golden goddess of the Fair looked as brilliant as ever, “except for a blistered right arm and a black spot over her heart,” noted the Chicago Herald." (from worldsfairchicago1893 website)

"When arsonists set a fire on February 14, 1894, the Republic watched the blaze destroy much of the South Colonnade between Agricultural Hall and Machinery Hall. She faced yet another and much bigger scene of horrific destruction on July 5, 1894, as the western end of the Court of Honor burned in another arsonous fire. Seven buildings—Terminal Station, the Administration Building, Mines and Mining Building, Electrical Building, Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building, Agricultural Building, and Machinery Hall—succumbed to the inferno. The next morning, a single serene statue towered above a field of blackened ruins of twisted iron framework." (from worldsfairchicago1893)

"...the Chicago Inter Ocean also recognized that, with the surrounding buildings of the White City gone, the Republic now stood to better advantage: “Particularly was this so when last winter the golden figure towered above an unbroken field of snow. On the night of the last fire the flames seemed to separate and pass by on either side, and when the sun rose the next morning there seemed nothing left untouched but the golden woman of the lagoon.” (from worldsfairchicago1893)

“With only the sky for a background,” observed the Washington (DC) Evening Star, the statue “shows it proportions and lines to better effect now than before.” (from worldsfairchicago1893)

Redesign plans for the area to be turned into a park by Olmsted, Olmsted & Eliot initially included the statue at its current location but later omitted it from the plans. Minimal efforts were made to repair the parts of the statue that had been damaged and the city decided, in secret, to destroy it:

"While the South Park board had spent around $250,000 making improvements to Jackson Park, focused mostly on the northern end near the museum, they had devoted a mere $400 for repairing staff and repainting the Republic. This despite a claim by J. F. Foster, General Superintendent and Engineer for the South Park Commission, that “every effort had been made to preserve the statue.” On Thursday, August 27, Captain Kelly of the South Park Police placed the orders to burn the Republic the next morning, and Capt. Shippy of the Woodlawn police notified the fire companies in the district that a blaze would be set in Jackson Park at dawn. When taking this decisive action at their meeting on August 12, the South Park board chose to keep the execution a secret. They delegated the task of destroying the statue to mechanical engineer and Assistant Park Superintendent A. H. Wilder, who chose fire as his tool. The Commission deemed burning the statue at night too hazardous because it would attract too many people, and a proposal for a public ceremony and celebration also was dismissed. They thought it best to raze the Republic—in secret—at daybreak. Her executioners slipped away quietly as crowds arrived on the scene, curious about the smoke rising over the park." (from worldsfairchicago1893)

[theemporium]

I’m so stupid I sent the blues lagoon with prompt 36 and I forgot to say with Max Verstappen 😐

there is no 36 so i assumed you meant 26! thank you for requesting!🫶🏽

26. “I don’t know how much longer I can do this.”

.

Max took pride in the fact he never let the outside voices get to him. 

He had always been thick-skinned, always able to block out the countless comments and opinions of the media and the public. When he was younger, it was a tragic reality that none of them could say anything that hurt more than what his father said. As he got older, the truth of the matter was that he didn’t care about the opinions of anyone except those who were helping him race. 

The team behind him—the engineers and strategists and analysts—were the people he would listen to. They were the people who would give their opinions because they knew the car, they knew him, they knew the world of motorsports. 

And he knew how the media liked to paint him. He knew they needed a villain and he fit the role well despite never auditioning for such. He knew that nothing he would do or say would change it, so he doesn't bother with it.

But everyone has a breaking point, even villains. 

“I don’t know how much longer I can do this.”

You blinked, lifting your head from the book you were currently reading to look at your boyfriend instead. 

He was sitting on the edge of the bed, his back facing you and his head looking down. He had been there since he got out of the shower ten minutes earlier, his hair still wet and the collar of his shirt damp from the dripping water. 

“What?”

“Just…all of this shit,” Max muttered, letting out a heavy sigh with his shoulders tense and his body stiff. 

You frowned, placing your book to the side and pushing the duvet off your body so you could shuffle towards him. “What do you mean?”

“Every little fucking thing I do, they need to comment on. And I know they are biased but, fucking hell, they could at least try to hide it better,” Max grumbled, his words bitter and annoyed, but his exhaustion was also loud and clear. “I know I shouldn’t care. And I don’t. Not really but…you’d think they would have a day off every once in a while.”

Your frown deepened as you settled in the spot behind him. You wrapped your arms around him, your chin hooked on his shoulder and his body sagging back against yours with comfortable ease.

“I say something, they complain. I stay silent, they complain,” he continued, his hands moving to cover yours and squeezing softly. “I just don’t know how much more of it I can stand. I’m a person too. I have fucking feelings. I’m not a robot like they assume.”

“They are intimidated,” you murmured, pressing a soft and reassuring kiss on the base of his neck. “As much as they try, they know they can’t always target your driving because you’re talented so they need something else, some other way to get under your skin.” You paused before continuing. “They are a bunch of spineless dickheads.”

Max snorted, his lips twitching upwards. “Yeah, they are.”

“Want me to fight them?” You offered, playful and teasing and your smile widened a little when he laughed.

“No,” he murmured and squeezed your hands again. “I prefer you here, with me.”

“Always,” you promised and hugged him tighter.

.

[musicforants]

Happy new year! Here’s my favorite albums & songs in of 2023. Click here to listen to my full Best Songs playlist* (100+ tracks) via Spotify or Apple Music.

FAVORITE ALBUMS OF 2023

Sufjan Stevens - Javelin

The National - First Two Pages of Frankenstein / Laugh Track

Lana Del Rey - Did you know that there's a tunnel under Ocean Blvd

boygenius - The Record

Yo La Tengo - This Stupid World

JPEGMAFIA & Danny Brown - Scaring the Hoes

Caroline Rose - The Art of Forgetting

Blur - The Ballad of Darren

Ratboys - The Window

Blondshell - s/t

Youth Lagoon - Heaven is a Junkyard

Caroline Polachek - Desire, I Want To Turn Into You

The Mountain Goats - Jenny From Thebes

Jeff Rosenstock - Hellmode

Wilco - Cousin

Jessie Ware - That! Feels Good!

Slowdive - everything is alive

Indigo De Souza - All of this will end

Wednesday - Rat Saw God

Romy - Mid Air

DJ Sabrina the Teenage DJ - Destiny

Billy Woods & Kenny Sagan - Maps

The Japanese House - In the end it always does

Yves Tumor - Praise a Lord who chews but which does not consume

The Clientele - I Am Not There Anymore

Roison Murphy - Hit Parade

Bully - Lucky For You

M83 - Fantasy

Jess Williamson - Time Ain’t Hospitable

Sofia Kourtesis - Madres

FAVORITE SONGS OF 2023

Sufjan Stevens - Shit Talk

Lana Del Rey - A&W

The National - Tropic Morning News

Feist - Borrow Trouble

Blondshell - Joiner

Blur - The Narcissist

boygenius - Not Strong Enough

MGMT - Mother Nature

Wednesday - Chosen To Deserve

Yo La Tengo - Aselestine

Caroline Rose - Miami

Ratboys - The Window

Roison Murphy - The Universe

Oneohtrix Point Never - A Barely Lit Path

Indigo De Souza - Younger & Dumber

Jeff Rosenstock - 3 Summers

Caroline Polachek - Blood & Butter

Sun June - Get Enough

Yard Act - The Trench Coat Museum

DJ Sabrina The Teenage DJ – Honey

Girl Scout - Weirdo

JPEGMAFIA & Danny Brown - Lean Beef Patty

Sofia Kourtesis - Madres

Overmono - Good Lies

Bully - Days Move Slow

Youth Lagoon - Idaho Alien

Katy Kirby - Cubic Zirconia

Andy Shauf - Halloween Store

Romy - She's On My Mind

M83 - Oceans Niagara

Yves Tumor - Echolalia

Big Thief - Vampire Empire

Olivia Rodrigo - get him back!

Fever Ray - Kandy

Jessie Ware - Begin Again

The Japanese House - Boyhood

Kelela - Contact

Jess Williamson - Hunter

Mitski - My Love Mine All Mine

billy woods & Kenny Segal - Soft Landing

Tennis - Let's Make a Mistake Tonight

Slowdive - shanty

Beirut - Hadsel

NewJeans - Super Shy

The Clientele - Blue Over Blue

Nation of Language - Sole Obsession

ANOHNI - This Must Change

The Last Dinner Party - Nothing Matters

Slaughter Beach, Dog - Engine

The Beatles - Now and Then

Link to full 100+ track playlist on Spotify / Apple Music

*playlist subject to change