#analysis of errors in English

[susanhorak]

#spoken_english #تعلم #learn_english #تعلم_الانجليزية تدريب اللغة الانجليزية - أخطاء النطق - تحليل الاخطاء في اللغه الانجليزيه اللغة الانجليزية هى اللغة العالمية الأولى ويستخدمها العديد من الناس سواء إذا كانت لغتهم الأم أو كلغة إضافية, لذلك سنوضح لكم فى هذا الفيديو تحليل الاخطاء في اللغه الانجليزيه.حيث أنها واحدة من أصعب الأمور التي يمكن تواجه الطالب أثناء تعلّمه اللغة الإنجليزية هي أخطاء النطق ومعرفة طريقة استخدام الكلمات خاصةً تلك الكلمات التي يتم لفظها بالطريقة نفسها.حيث انه من الضرورى ان تكون ملما بتفاصيل تحليل الاخطاء في اللغه الانجليزيه قبل البدء فى التعمق فى دراستها

لو عجبك الفيديو اعمل مشاركة من اللينك ده تدريب اللغة الانجليزية - أخطاء النطق - تحليل الاخطاء في اللغه الانجليزيه https://youtu.be/skWK65mAsXg

ليصلك كل جديد اشترك بالقناه http://bit.ly/2HQGd4q

يمكنك الاستفادة من الدروس التالية تدريب اللغة الانجليزية - أخطاء النطق - تحليل الاخطاء في اللغه الانجليزيه https://youtu.be/skWK65mAsXg

دورات اللغة الانجليزية - تعلم نطق اللغة الانجليزية - تعليم نطق الانجليزية https://youtu.be/gwmilH3o7Ts

دورات اللغة الانجليزية - ماكينه الصرف الالي بالانجليزى - اسم الصراف بالانجليزي https://youtu.be/kTYoGXfEvqY

تعليم انجليزي - Common American Idioms كيف افهم فيلم بالانجليزي https://youtu.be/e7lfyw7FvEk

تعليم انجليزي - المنهج الامريكي لتعليم اللغة الانجليزية - لهجة الامريكان السود https://youtu.be/5WI_e-h8X0M

كيف اتعلم انجليزي - تحدث عن نفسك باختصار - tell us about yourself https://youtu.be/Ug7edpF7Tv0

كيف اتعلم انجليزي - مراجعة انجليزية شاملة - مراجعة جرامر الانجليزى https://youtu.be/kXCHfoNnEoA #مواقع_تعليم_انجليزي #برامج_تعليم_انجليزي #تعلم_اللغة_الانجليزية #تعلم #spoken_english #english_speaking_course_online #spoken_english_in_telugu #نهي_طلبة , Noha Tolba

[bombchan]

not art again but i make small sonilver thing, to be more precise, my perception of sonilver, is not that it is the only correct one, it's just that I've been studying their relationship for 2 years based on all sorts of media where they could appear(and based on what I remember)

who knows, maybe I'll write something bigger about them someday

[cisthoughtcrime]

.

[daz4i]

the new op is making me insane so i’m gonna try to overanalyze its visuals, what i think the symbolism means, how it connects to this season and the manga arcs coming after it. all of it is my interpretation ofc, feel free to disagree and i encourage you to add your own takes!

i’m not gonna go over every single detail, either because i have nothing to say about it or i’m not sure what it could mean, which is another reason i encourage you to add your own analysis in a reblog if you want to :3

warning for major spoilers for the manga under the cut, as well as unholy amounts of reaching lol

first thing i wanna look at is uh. that one fyodor shot, and specifically the second before it

the number of hands is a little odd to me. at first i noticed 4 sets of hand so my immediate thought was “oh, one set for every doa member, minus bram since he doesn’t have any” but noticing that 9th one coming alongside his face threw a wrench in that. so, assuming this number is purposeful, i have a few ideas:

1. it’s not just the doa involved, but the rats as well. both organizations have 5 members we know of. fyodor is in both organizations, meaning that combined, we have 9 people, and a hand for each one

2. it IS just the doa, and 2 hands for each member (bram included), except for fyodor who is both a hand and a head. he is the strategist and planner, thus he is the head, while the others are more like the ones who execute his plans, so they merely get to be hands (not sure how much i love this theory considering at the end of the day he is not their leader, but if you stretch it you could say that in this season we have no reason to assume he isn’t the doa leader so there’s no reason to imply otherwise? or a future implication that he’s letting fukuchi think he’s the leader but is actually manipulating him? yeah i dunno)

3. another one i don’t particularly love, but: it’s less about the number of hands, and rather about the finger highlighting the number 5, since this is going to be a key thing this season

okay, on to a more obvious one:

tachihara has his back to us, as to not reveal his identity yet

he is looking upon a purple background, a color we see in some mafia members’ abilities, hinting at him belonging in the mafia

once again, tachihara has his back to us. aside from him, all of the hunting dogs are revealed to the audience and looking forward (even if not 100%), except for fukuchi who is looking to the side, and is behind the pillar, making him visually separated from the rest of the group, since he belongs in the doa rather than the hunting dogs

couple of things you might be able to get from this:

1. sigma looking to the side, his back to nikolai and bram. he is not willingly in the doa or supports their goals, more dragged along for the ride. he is a part of the group, but has his eyes shut and his back turned to them, some sort of buffer to imply his separation from them

2. the main thing we see of nikolai is his overcoat. ngl i’m not sure what the symbolism in this could mean but it feels important so i wanna point it out for maybe other people to connect the dots i can’t. possibly, this shot is to highlight the tools at the doa’s disposal, aka sigma and bram as themselves, but nikolai mainly used for his ability...?

so. first of all. they’re and red and blue, opposites of each other in color and in direction as well

but the interesting thing to me is that they’re each others’ colors - with the ada usually presented in blue and the mafia in red, here we have it backwards. possibly to imply their (partial) role reversal in the eyes of the public, the ada now being demonized and hunted by the law while the mafia gets to lay low and offer assistance

possibly, you could stretch it to say their role reversal is in part about how fukuzawa would have to sacrifice a member for his organization in order to get what he needs, a thing that’s mori-like to do

speaking of blue to symbolize the ada, ango is clad in a blue light, implying his upcoming alliance with the ada

we see fukuchi using shintō amenogozen in his battle with atsushi and akutagawa

i’ve seen people say this part of the op implies their battle will be in this season and i’m ngl, i don’t think there’s any chance of that. it’s way too much story to cram into this season. i think this part is, for now, just to imply the ada and pm working together against the hunting dogs, and him using this sword and fighting them at the same time is just a nod to sharp eyed manga readers (same with the bram cameos)

that being said. i want you to pay attention to the color of his ability in this frame (it’s a surprise tool that’ll help us later!)

yosano and the butterfly, and we specifically see her from the side, with her butterfly hairpin shining, putting emphasis on her upcoming backstory

okay, now we’re getting into the character face closeups, and here i’m gonna use these handy posts from @/dazaistabletop for reference, bless your soul for getting all of them fr 🙏

the main thing i want to get from it is the colors. tldr: the ada is a teal-ish blue, the mafia is red and purple (depending on their abilities), the guild is yellow, the hunting dogs is white, the special division is brownish-orange, the doa are the same dark blue from fukuchi’s ability earlier. this does match the general color of the members’ abilities through every group as well.

when it comes to the order of the frames, i think it’s mostly random (tho, with key characters coming early, and more minor characters we barely even really see this season if at all showing up near the end) except for a few pairs:

dazai and fyodor are the first 2 frames, the key foils of this season

fukuchi and fukuzawa are one after the other because they are divorcing each other

akutagawa and atsushi are the ones to close this section and the opening as a whole, as they often do as the key foils of the entire series

a few frames i want to highlight in particular:

tachihara’s purple is lighter than the other mafia members’ purple (added gin for comparison), implying his belonging to the hunting dogs

mushi is brown too?? not sure what that implies ngl. mostly pointing it out as a request for anyone to chip in with their own take on that

despite not working for the guild anymore (and given that he’s without his glasses we have to assume this is him working for fyodor), nathaniel is still in yellow. like with mushi, i’m not sure what that could mean. maybe they just didn’t want to figure out a color for the rats for 2 frames i dunno. again if you have your own take, hit me

poe is fully colored the same color as the ada 🥺 he’s fully part of the team by now (ok now do lucy next.)

the text appears for just two frames, nikolai and akutagawa. for akutagawa, it blends with his red background, but for nikolai it actively stands out and covers his already covered eye. unfortunately i can’t read japanese, so i would love that if someone who does sees this could tell me what the text says to see if that means something as well 🙏

edit: according to my friend @/almightyrozenidiot apparently it says rashomon! and i’d guess it’s in red because this is the color of this ability, after all. i still think its placement on nikolai’s covered eye is interesting, esp given how much it stands out (the other ability names flashing on screen in that sequence are written in white, i barely even noticed they were there), and i wonder if this might imply some future thing asagiri’s planning between them.

okay, so you were probably wondering why i skipped the fyodor flowers moment, and this is why

so. i tried figuring out what at least some of the flowers are to maybe see if there’s meaning there and either couldn’t, or the ones i did recognize did not align with anything meaning wise, so i figured the colors stand more for the colors of abilities we’ve seen so far, and mainly the ada and port mafia

the faces frames in the end of the op establish the special division’s color as orange, hence the two small orange flowers (and their yellow center could be for the guild). they definitely stand out less, as for now they are a smaller pawn in the plan. the ada - marked with the blue flowers and green leaves - are the biggest target of the current phase of the plan, and that’s why they’re closest to his face and make the most of the flowers, size wise

the only purely white ability we’ve seen so far is natsume’s. as the mediator between the three main organizations in yokohama, it makes sense for him to be in the middle of all these colors. the same white flowers are also on the outside (as seen below), since he is mainly watching things unfold from the side.

will also add that at times, no longer human appears as white or grey as well (tho usually - but not always - with a slight blue tint). this also makes sense given that dazai was in both the mafia and ada, and serves as a mediator or communicator between them at times, hence put in the middle as well.

unfortunately, i can’t tell what the pink flowers are meant to be. the only ability i can think of that’s pink is lucy’s (i don’t recall ever seeing the colored circles when she activates it, but given what anne’s room looks like it seems like a fair assumption), but it’s weird she’d get such a big part of this frame just for herself. maybe it’s because of how big her role is in helping the ada this season? again, if you have your own take please go ahead and share it!!

the flowers then stop growing and start withering as the white flowers take over

could not for the life of me find what these flowers are unfortunately, but, white flowers in general usually mean some form of purity and innocence. this does align with fyodor’s ultimate plan - to purify the world of abilities. white flowers often symbolize holiness as well, since his plan is, to him, the will of god

notice that the flowers have 5 petals as well, a repeating number of this arc and in many of the doa’s plans

edit 2: @/larathia pointed out in the comments that these flowers are japanese snake gourds! and apparently, in hanakotoba they mean “hatred of men”. yeah that checks out with fyodor lol

and... i think that’s all i have for you today! i hope you liked it! once again encouraging you to reblog with your own additions on things i might’ve missed or your own take on things, and i hope you all have a lovely day 🙏🖤

[feelingtheaster99]

You know another thing that makes THIS the horror season? The absolutely SPEED at which things are happening with no breaks.

Like Sibohan/Rosamund pointed out they haven’t slept/rested since the spider fight. That was 3-4 episodes ago! Action in this season happens fast and it doesn’t stop. This episode in itself also happened so fast—they went from one story to another in a series of desperate and frantic escapes, only to end up in an another unfamiliar land, but finally having the time to take a breath.

I’ve only watched a few other dimension 20 seasons, but in most of those (Escape from the Bloodkeep excluded, that season was WILD from start to finish) there are a lot more lulls in the action. The characters make the choice to stop and rest, or Brennan stops and begins to narrate the passage of time.

In this season, the characters literally all DIE and they still don’t get time to rest. They are constantly in danger and need to make life or death decisions and that adds an extra intensity to the eldritch, philosophical horror we already got going on

[dimeadozencows]

There are a lot of great tags on this post, and a lot of different and unique takes on gaster which i always love to read :DD but i dont think i managed to evoke what i wanted to with this drawing

We know that gasters aware hes in a video game, but so many characters in undertale are aware of that already. One of the things that make gasters situation different is his ability to look at our world directly. He's aware that we've been looking for him and trying to understand what and who he is, he knows these last few years were dogshit for everyone on earth and mentions it in his pre chapter 2 tweets, he knows our life outside of our tempering with these worlds

And unlike other self aware characters in undertale, he doesn't experience time and the resets. He "lives" outside of what we can control. He truly remembers all that we've done while being unaffected by any of it. So while other self aware characters (im mainly thinking of sans and flowey) know that theres a person behind frisk whos controlling time, they're affected by our choices and (for the most part) can't judge it from an outside perspective

Sans is mostly unaffected by our inputs, and he does manage to judge us in a very impactful way, but he can't be a completely uninvolved judge. He will (understandably) react to us killing his brother and on certain neutral endings, as much as hes trying to hold his unfazed facade together, he's struggling with the thought of how much of his happiness you took away, even if he knows a reset will likely happen and everything will go back to the way it was. Understandably! This game is his world. Even if he knows its just a game that gets reset its still his home and the people he loves are its residents. He can't be unfazed by everything. he is nice to us when we're nice to him, and he hates our guts when we give him reason to. And he will always forget us after a reset and react to our actions only on the current run, not being able to know who we were to him before.

And flowey acts as the embodiment of this games message, he is our mirror and, in his words, he is who we will become if we exhaust this game of all it has. He exists to judge us, but he can do so only from his own point of view. He's judging our actions, our choices in this world as if we we're stuck inside it the way he is, which we aren't. That's not to say his judgement isn't impactful, that would just be. incorrect to say lol. But he can't interpret what he sees us do in a fully unbiased way because he's in a very similar, but not identical, situation to us. While we can enter his world and play the kind way, we do get bored and try new things, like picking the other, more rude dialogue option, or killing a character to see what a person who loves them says. even if we don't fully want to. Just like he said! But while we both went through the same process, there's a difference between us. We can leave. We don't have to grow apathetic and detached from these characters. We don't have to start seeing them less as people and more as repetitive lines of dialogue. If we're bored, we can leave. Play a new game. Come back when we miss them and see those familiar lines of dialogue and feel nostalgia, not dread. And he knows that we're a person that has a life outside of this game. At the end of pacifist he desperately tries to make us stay. But he doesn't see what our life is like, he cant see what we do with our days outside of his world, so he can only see us leave and return and leave and return, and judge us through his (flawed) world view and based on our actions within a world we enter for fun.

Thats not to say they're not written well? They're the fucking coolest flowey and sans rule.(i think the info dump proves my stance on them) I'm just saying that even if they know about us they cant fully judge the situation from a neutral point of view because they have a limited world view and they're affected by our choices, which gaster (as of now) isn't

And we don't know a lot about him. But we do know that he knows hes in a video game, that he knows we control his world and its linear time, that he lives outside of that linear time and is unaffected by our inputs, that he used to experience time linearly before shattering, that he had people he cared about in undertale, that he saw everything all of us did when playing undertale, that he is kind to us in the current deltarune chapters, that he knows of our lives and what we go through, and most importantly in my opinion, he knows that we (fans of utdr) use fiction as escapism

We've had characters judge us and berate us for our misdeeds, who are fully justified in doing so since we did hurt them directly. But they also cannot see the situation from an outside perspective. No character in undertale sees us separated from their world, as a person who lives a life outside of tempering with undertale, to them we are just a god who takes control of their reality, all they see is a cruel person who entered a world just to destroy it, or give everyone freedom and then just take it away in a second, they don't see how small their world is in comparison to ours, they'll never be able to understand that our actions in their world are (for the most part) inconsequential to us. they cant see us beyond the red soul.

so imagine with me for a second, a character within the game who is not only aware of the fact that he's in a game and that there's a player who controls time, but who also has the ability to SEE the players' lives through the internet. A character who has the ability to see the horrors of everyday real life and how much people struggle with it, and see that some deal with those struggles using fiction. And not just any fiction, the fiction that the character itself lives in. A character who knows that these great beings, much bigger than him, use the thought of him and his world to get through the trials and tribulations of their lives, hardships that are horrific in completely different ways than his world ever had. A character who knows that they find comfort indulging in his world and finding everything it has to offer, because whatever his world has is much more pleasant than theirs.

He knows that to us his world is just a video game, one that remembers and we're not above consequences in, but still a video game. One of the most common complaints i hear about UT is that it is preachy in its message, and players shouldn't be berated by it for playing certain routes or making certain choices (but one of the points of the game was that there is an alternative way to complete it so why choose violence BUT that is a whole conversation in it of itself and this is long enough already)

So what if the game understood? What if the character who created this game, this world, knew that it is just a game and didn't judge the player? What if the character accepted that he is only fiction and saw the beauty and purpose within it, and how he can use his position in this situation to connect with us and allow us to escape our hurt for just a little while? What if he saw the hardships we've endured and empathised with us? What if he understood that we don't view his world as real like he does and we just use it for our fun, to escape, the way a child happily plays with a toy? What if he felt for us, and encouraged it?

Deltarune (initially) not having a way to really hurt and kill people makes me think that while gaster wanted us in this world for whatever his larger goal is, and wanted us to indulge in it, he didn't want us to hurt anyone. But he saw what we did with the previous world and knows that warnings, consequences and the visible and audible hurt of the characters won't stop us (in fact, it will encourage us), which is something he accepts and understands. it's said that his own curiosity brought him far in his endeavours so perhaps he even understands our curiosity and why we just have to see what would happen, as morbid as it is in universe

But i love that we (without the help of noelle, a game breaking pro) cannot kill anyone. He didn't even give us that option. He isn't completely detached from these worlds since he used to live within them. He still views the fictional characters in the game as real while also knowing us, our lives, and the way we interact with the characters. And he loves and cares for both.

Letting us escape into a nicer world while keeping the residents of it safe from us.

And that is of course assuming he isn't tricking us into a false sense of security to teach us a lesson, and isn't lying to our faces every time he talks to us kindly and thanks us. but i think that after an entire game and a whole cast of characters who taught us lessons and took control away from us and showed us what an asshole we are for playing the game in an unkind way.. i think it'll be a really nice thing and a breath of fresh air to have a character who knows what they and their world are to us on a realistic scale, see why we sometimes act so detached from its ways, and understand that yeah, it is just a game. And we do the things we do as a means to escape. And that it isn't necessarily a bad thing to interact with games in this way (to me that sounds like the most self aware character ever written). But also see the characters within it as real (since he used to be amongst them) and protect them from our worst.

Truly and wholeheartedly loving and caring for both his family and the person who barely hesitates to strip them of all their joy before murdering them too.

Kissing the hands of the man who killed his son

I have endured what no one on earth has ever done before

I put my lips to the hands of the man who killed my son

[danny-doodles]

Steve’s Hobby

This is a short 2k blurb about one of my Steve hcs, I am only really good at critical analysis writing so I’m sorry if this is bad!! Creative writing isn’t my strong suit but I felt like I couldn’t really explain this hc in a drawing as well as writing it could.

Growing up Steve was often taught the importance of words from his father, thinking it would be useful for his son’s future in the business. Steve was never the best reader, letters jumping around the page made it too difficult, so instead he listened to everyone around him. Teachers, his parent’s coworkers, older kids, all of them taught him the importance of the meaning of words.

How certain words would make someone a town pariah yet others a god among men. Steve was a more quiet kid but as he grew up he also grew confident in his words. He could tear someone down with one sentence, ensuring they knew he was not to be messed with. That’s why he was so confused when he struggled in his english class, he knew the power of words and the many meanings, but his teacher never understood. Sure he made grammar errors, how no one else struggled with the dancing letters he didn’t get, but how could the teachers not understand his connections? Steve shouldn’t have to explain why the red of the handmaid’s cloaks represented the ripping of humanity from the women, it was so clear to him. Obviously the boar head could be comparable to the church, how could his teachers not make the connection?

Even Nancy didn’t understand, someone he considered smarter than him. He knew she was trying to be nice when she critiqued his college paper but it still left him in the fog. Basketball was war to him, a fight that was pointless with one but possible with many. A challenge that called for leadership and a strict order. Everyone had the roles, knew where and when to shoot, needed the ability to think quickly on their feet and not struggle under the pressure. Uniforms to not only separate from the enemy but to show they are a unit reaching for a common goal. It was so clear leaving no need to explain, especially to Nancy.

But she didn’t get it, no one got it.

Maybe he wasn’t as good with words as he thought.

Steve from then on fumbled his words when he got nervous, scared he would say something that made him sound dumb and point out his weakness with words. The concussions didn’t help either, making him take longer to grasp concepts. Reading felt nearly impossible, the headaches were unbearable. Not to mention the kids' comments, judgmental and brutal as if Steve didn’t have a reason to struggle in the first place.

Everyone around him loved to put him in a sudden spotlight and when he didn’t say the right line he was booed off stage and dealt with the looks of disappointment from his co stars for messing up. So Steve stuck to what he knew, his quick remarks. Were they bitchy? Yes, but not coated in malice like they used to be. Piggybacking off others points with sarcastic comments so the other person kept talking, anything to get the attention off him.

But Steve had a secret hobby that he shared with no one, not even with his platonic soulmate with a capital P Robin.

Steve wrote poetry.

Years of horrors that by law he couldn’t share that caused vicious nightmares and a clammy grasp on reality at times tended to keep Steve up. Another gift bestowed by his father though was a feeling of shame when sharing his emotions. Didn’t help that those emotions were typically down played or outright ignored by others. Therefore a bottle filled with his emotions rested in Steve’s chest, which after Vecna he really realized probably wasn’t the smartest thing to do. So Steve took to writing them down, but he did it for himself.

No need to explain everything, he knew what he meant, he knew every context of every word. He wrote on his experiences, his emotions. He wrote when he was happy, he wrote when he was sad. Steve wrote and wrote and found his love for words again. And god did it feel good, it felt like taking back his voice from a world that underappreciated it. In a weird way it felt like revisiting a relative he had last seen as a child, that sense of freedom and the loss of expectation because in their eyes he was still that little kid. All they wanted was to see someone they loved and to Steve the words welcomed him back with a hug that rivaled his Nonna Maria’s.

Steve would ponder over lines at random intervals of the day, biting his pencil between his teeth during the quiet hours at work or simply jotting down a line right before picking the kids up. Steve wrote so often he kept his small little notebook on him at all times, usually accompanied by a pencil bound to it with a rubber band. (Turns out having hearing aids and glasses made it really difficult to put pencils behind one's ears). At this point everyone had seen his notebook, pale blue with some star stickers because he never had a shortage of them. Everyone assumed it was for something different. Some thought it was grocery lists, to-do lists, something productive. Others thought it was like a pocket calendar with all his plans listed so he didn’t forget. Dustin insisted it was meant to hold the definitions of anything D&D related so Steve never forgot, meanwhile Robin argued it was to hold all the wonderfully obscure movie recommendations she loved to give. All of them were wrong though and Steve kind of adored it that way. He didn’t have to explain himself that way, he could continue to hide under the blankets. Steve no longer held his tongue out of fear of others but because he had an outlet he much rather prefer.

Listening now felt less like a pop quiz, waiting for him to mess up his response, it felt like an actual conversation. Steve may not speak up as much as he would have before the Upside Down but he fell back in love with his own voice and maybe one day he would feel confident enough to share it with the Party, but for now it was all his.

No matter how much they wanted to prove who was right, the kids and older teenagers never touched the book when it was rarely separated from Steve. Well...after someone tried to grab it and they learned they really shouldn’t touch it.

While at the Harrington house the Party were preparing for a campaign session when the argument about the pale binded pages was brought up again. Steve had left it on the kitchen counter while he went to the bathroom, and Mike decided he was done with the bickering. He shot up and went to retrieve and open the book but before he could grab it the book flew through the air.

All the heads turned and landed on El holding it in her hand, “We are not Steve, this is his. It is rude to invade his privacy, would you like me to watch you without telling you,” everyone quietly shook their heads, “Then we do not watch Steve without him knowing.”

That’s exactly when Steve walked back in, it takes one look across the room at all the embarrassed faces and El holding his book with frustration painting her eyes to know what had occurred while he was gone. He walks up, kisses El on her head and softly thanks her while taking back his little literature.

After that incident no one dared touch the book or face the wrath of their favorite mage. They would find out when Steve was ready for them to.

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

That damn little book haunted Eddie’s thoughts. He knew Steve was not what he assumed him to be so anything was on the table, he had been wrong about the guy before who's to say he won’t be this time?

Of course Eddie wanted to respect Steve’s privacy because Eddie personally would be mortified if Steve had seen any of his notebooks, mainly because of the pages of lyrics that not so subtly hinted at an itsy bitsy affection for the badass babysitter. If that didn’t give Eddie away the random ‘Eddie Harrington’ and ‘Steve Munson’ with hearts all over would finish the job. So yeah, Eddie was not crazy to offer up any of his notebooks to venture into Steve’s book. He just had no idea the universe would present him with a much more favorable offer.

Steve and Eddie started hanging out a lot more after Vecna, no shocker considering they shared a hospital room, and soon the bat buddies would spend their time together outside of the hospital. That’s why it wasn’t surprising for Steve to let Eddie venture into Steve’s room while he went to pick up their lunch.

Eddie was somewhat of a curious cat, so when he spotted the notebook and some papers scattered on Steve’s desk he was like a moth to a flame. He softly glided his fingers over the blue cover and exhaled some breath in a soft laugh over the star stickers Steve oh so loved. It was the paper though that caught his eye when he finished observing the book. It looked like lyrics at first but then he realized some of the lines were too short to be lines, if anything they looked more like stanzas from a poem. Steve had poetry on his desk, did Steve read poetry? Thee Steve Harrington likes poetry? God his whole doctrine was garbage huh. Eddie moved the paper towards him and started to read.

Watchful gaze

Setules on the glass.

Wishful gaze

Silent pleas of escaping rolling in the mouth

Fingertips slipping through the veil,

Grasping for warm hands,

Receiving lukewarm.

Hesitant to grab.

Dependency clasping the palms

Such a feverish feeling

Poking at the appendages,

A coldness that numbs.

Gently gripping for the heat,

The balmy yields.

Smoke and simmers,

Arms rushing to sides

Frozen.

Yearning for ardor,

Turn not yet given,

Waiting for the impossible,

Waiting for the unobtainable,

So understanding.

So relieving.

So desperate.

So alone.

Standing for the calling.

So patient.

So pathetic.

Empty Hands by Steve H.

Eddie was staring at the very last line on the paper, utterly flabbergasted. Steve wrote this? Steve writes poetry?! Is that what resides in the little book? Before Eddie could even find the power to turn to the book to look, Steve walked into his room. Again a quick look is all Steve needed to take before he knew what happened in his absence.

“Oh! Uh..I’m guessing you read it.”

Eddie slowly looked back up while caressing the paper, “Yeah, you..um..you really wrote this? Is that…uh..what’s in your notebook? Cause I will admit I never would have guessed that.”

Steve started scratching his neck, “I don’t blame you,” he huffs, “But yeah I write poetry, helps to let some of the thoughts out considering our lives y'know?”

“I totally get it dude! Lord knows my lyrics are infected with the whole spring break bullhonkey. So..totally cool if you don’t want to tell me but, why is this one out of the book? Were you gonna write it into the book?” Eddie picked up the paper to place it next to the notebook and turned to face Steve.

“Actually I copied it from the notebook, I’m gonna, okay wait, you can’t tell anyone this-”

“Even Robin?” Eddie exaggerated his smile to look wild.

“Even Robin.” Steve nodded with his eyes shut.

Eddie put his hands together and swayed while standing, “Wowww look at me, lil old Eddie Munson getting to learn the secrets of the mysterious writer Steve Harrington.”

“Eddie, you want to know or not?” Steve sighed as he put his hands on his hips.

“Yes. Yes please,” Eddie eagerly replied, barely letting Steve finish his sentence.

“The last time I went to Indy with Robin to go shopping at their mall we went to a cafe. The bulletin board had a flier for a poetry night and I got curious I guess.”

“You gonna perform the poem there?”

“That’s the plan.”

Eddie could understand wanting a fresh slate when it came to having a reputation. “Craving anonymity? Must be tough considering you are Hawkin’s golden boy.”

Steve smiles brightly and Eddie sees his shoulders lose tension, tension Eddie didn’t even notice because he was so distracted by the fact that holy shit Steve is a poet. “Exactly.”

Honestly Eddie would give anything to hear more of Steve's hidden works, he grabs some of his hair and brings it to cover his mouth, “I know you don’t intend to tell the rest of the bunch, but uh..would you allow a humble bard to observe your lyrical performance?”

Eddie looks at Steve’s face for any hint of annoyance and finds none, instead he finds a look that he could hope to be correct in his guess is excitement.

“Really? You’d want to hear more, it's not confusing or stupid to you?” Steve softly smiled at Eddie, making him swoon inside.

“It's art! It doesn’t need to make sense, it just needs to make you feel good, who cares if others are confused. And for what its worth even if I’m not right on the money that poem made me feel Steve, I mean as the expert in self-expression it felt real and vulnerable, y’know.” Eddie had to shut himself up before he himself waxed poetry about just how much he is dying to hear more from Steve to learn more about him.

“Thanks Eddie.” Steve gazed at Eddie as if no one had ever told him that before. Which now that hes thinking about it that’s probably the truth. Guess Eddie needed to constantly remind him then.

Eddie smiled, mirroring Steves while bending at his waist, “Oh but of course my liege.”

“Oh my god okay Eddie cmon the food’s gonna get cold.”

Steve started to leave his room and Eddie rushed to follow him, “Now that I know what the book is filled with may I pretty please read it?” Rapidly blinking his eyelashes in an attempt to look innocent and pure but instead looking like a piece of dust got in his eyes.

“Nope.”

“Ugghhh c'mon Steve! Just imagine the look on the little hellions when they see me opening the book! God the jealousy! The feeling of betrayal when they see me reading Steve Harringtons’s treasure trove of text and they are none the wiser to what is inside. And the best part, I have permission! The power I would hold Steve! The possibility, I could use them like little puppets to do my bidding while they crave information I alone hold!”

“Eddie that sounds like a headache for me waiting to happen, they’re just gonna badger me to tell them because they would claim it’s unfair you know and they don’t.”

“Eh, their egos could take a little hit don’t you think?” Eddie was now resting his head on Steve’s shoulder as the younger started to bring the food out of the carry out bag.

“Can I read your lyric notebook?”

Eddie’s eyes went wide as his brain proceeded to remind him of every lyric he had written around his devotion to Steve. Red in the face Eddie responded quickly, “Nope! Mmm you smell that Stevie I’m so hungry, aren’t you?”

“Subtle Munson.”

“Tis my middle name.”

Steve fondly rolled his eyes, “Sure.”

As they settled down on the couch Eddie tracked Steve grabbing the remote, “So I can really watch you?”

Steve turned and looked at Eddie with a calmness on his face. “Yeah Eddie.”

Eddie grabbed his hair as Steve stared at him, “Cool, cool, it’s a date.” Eddie froze about to panic silently as he tried to fix his slip up.

“Yeah, it's a date.” The two looked at each other, neither wanting to look away. After a minute or so Steve turned on the TV and if the two fell asleep together it was their business.

[mitfloya]

𝐋𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐃𝐞𝐞𝐩 𝐒𝐩𝐚𝐜𝐞 𝐘𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐨𝐧𝐬: 𝐙𝐚𝐲𝐧𝐞

pairings. Zayne x gn!reader

wc. 7K (yes, I like to torture myself)

synopsis. He was believed to be devoid of emotions, until you unveils his chilling secret. His hidden obsession with you has ensnared you in his icy sanctuary. You were blind to his fixation until it was too late, and now you find yourself trapped in his clutches, unable to escape.

warnings. The following content contains elements of obsessive behavior, yandere thoughts, stalking, possessive behavior, and may include poorly written narratives. Reader is referred to as 'you'. Proceed with caution, as this writing may be unsettling or uncomfortable for some individuals.

a/n. Hello people of the internet! I’m pretty new on this writing community so I hope I bring you guys some good crumbs to munch on! and excuse my horrible grammatical errors, English is not my first language. I may or may not have spend my time throwing up this whole ass detailed (press x to doubt) HC out of my mind, I tend to go overboard with my analysis and writing. Get some snacks and I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoy making this HC.

p.s. this is a reupload ver. the original of the post is accidently deleted

♡ Please reblog and comment on this post are much, much appreciated ♡

Ah…the ice king himself, known for his emotional detachment and seemingly heartless demeanor. His motives and intentions remain shrouded in mystery, as he builds impenetrable walls around himself. Yet, somehow, you managed to slip through those barriers, like a delicate flower pushing through the cracks in concrete, planting the seed of love without his knowledge.

Does he act upon it? Certainly not at first. He ignores it. Pretend that is was merely a sign you were someone he tolerated.

His acts of kindness are always subtle and unexpected. He treats you in a way that evokes certain reactions.

At first, he might seem out of reach. But you never know that he is always there for you. Always observing and studying your responses.

As you both transition into adulthood, he becomes your primary physician, a role that only intensifies his growing obsession with you. He never considered himself capable of falling in love at first sight, but his feelings for you gradually took root. He is always there with you, from childhood and in adulthood. Fate must have bestowed him with great luck to be your guardian, the one who monitors your health and controls your existence.

The time when you both went on your separate ways before you met again, he feels a void, a sense that something is missing. Maybe you meant more than he thought. The loss of you kills him. But does this heavy feeling affect his daily activities? no.

The thought of not knowing about your health and safety gnaws at him, like a splinter lodged in his mind. Have you eaten yet? Did you eat enough? Did you get enough sleep? Did you stumble upon an accident? Just a single scratch of wound on your skin would infuriate him.

You, on the other hand, dismiss it as the instinctual concern of a physician, and your own health condition made it even more difficult for him to let you go. You were far too precious to be released or, worse, left alone and broken.

Even when you’re away on your mission, he always ask about your being and whereabouts. He just wanted to know how you’re doing and it shows how much he cares for you, not monitoring you! That’s ridiculous, right?

However, whenever you were around him, you never felt like you were in control of your own bodily autonomy. Maybe you’re seeing things but have you realize how much you’re changing your lifestyle?

Zayne intelligence is no joke. You were far too naive to look back over your shoulder to notice he is manipulating you. He wants you to be completely dependent on him. But is it really that bad? After all, he was providing you with a healthier lifestyle, not to mention preserving your beauty. Or so it seemed.

Oh, but when you became his, everything changed. He became more open, more loving and caring, the kind that makes you melt to the ground and swallow you whole. Always attentive to your needs and wants, he has no problem with you buying expensive items, the money isn’t his concern. Your happiness is.

His actions become more evident, sometimes you notice it in the way he always makes sure you’re fully geared up and energized for the day, or the way he tries his best to brighten up your day in rainy days.

And when the time came for you to move in together, almost imperceptibly, it felt natural, that’s when he brings the real authenticity of himself, the carnal desire to claim over you starts to show.

He adorned you with the finest fabrics, adorned you with the most exquisite gems and jewelry that accentuated your beauty without overshadowing it. He always gives you the best and never less.

No one would question how many pictures he has of you around the house, as they simply depicted a man deeply in love with his partner…wait, you don’t remember taking this picture..how did he get this picture? 

Caleb gives it to him. As always he has answers to everything, it makes you think he is expecting that kind of question, which is an odd behavior.

Even the windowsill display those seals and trinkets he has given you over the years, customized to your liking.

You saw it as a preservation of memories and the time he had spent with you, when it’s clearly a growing sign of obsession with the abundance of things of your own possessions, or things that reminded him of you were around the house, to the dark corners of his secret room you were unaware of. 

You don’t realize you were brainwashed, did you? Or maybe because he is telling the truth from the start, he loves you very much and his actions serve as undeniable proof!

Until you try to resist or argue with him. It would be best for you to stay obedient and let him lead, he is the man in the relationship, you are his good girl, right? He never wants to hurt you, he is doing it for the better sake of you.

You learned your lesson when you got your first punishment. Each mistake or letdown adds a droplet, gradually increasing the intensity. When the glass finally overflows, it serves as a stark warning to never hurt or disappoint him.

Your life revolves around him. You want to buy groceries? Wait until he finish work. You want to go to the park? Let’s go together and don’t forget your coat, he doesn’t want you to get cold. You want to have some time alone outside? Sure.

Ah, the innocence of those early stages of dating, when the idea of tracking your partner's whereabouts seemed endearing. Little did you know that innocent app you stumbled upon on a social media platform would become the chains that bind you. In the beginning, it seemed like a cute way to track the distance between you and your partner.

That app, like a digital spider's web, silently weaves its threads around your every move. From the moment you installed it, it became his watchful eye, tracking your every step, monitoring your every move.

How naive and compliant you are, unknowingly making it easier for him to watch over you. 

He doesn’t react much when a guy approaches you, no one will be brave enough, because you will always stay glued to his side. He often uses his sharp tongue to highlight their flaws and insecurities. Give them a judgmental stare at the guy as if he was nothing and brings nothing good in life like a mosquito.

Resorting to violence or criminal acts were never his first choice to get rid of those pesky nuisances, his jealousy always remains hidden and possibly close to nonexistent.

Because he knows, you will always comes running back to him. Even if you manage to slip from his grasp, he holds the power to reclaim you, by any means necessary. In dire circumstances, he does not hesitate to resort to violence, to eliminate anyone who dares to steal you away. He doesn't care if he has to hurt you or isolate you, nobody could ever love you like he did. 

Once you are married and start a family together, your life will be forever intertwined with his. That's the end of you or maybe a better version of you that you never envisioned or hoped for, nevertheless it was all because of your love for Zayne that you willingly let him take control, it’s the best life you could ever live in, right?

You will never leave out of his sight forever.

© 2024 mitfloya — all rights reserved. kindly refrain from altering, translating, or repost my works on any platform without my consent, do not claim my content as yours.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

AI “art” and uncanniness

TOMORROW (May 14), I'm on a livecast about AI AND ENSHITTIFICATION with TIM O'REILLY; on TOMORROW (May 15), I'm in NORTH HOLLYWOOD for a screening of STEPHANIE KELTON'S FINDING THE MONEY; FRIDAY (May 17), I'm at the INTERNET ARCHIVE in SAN FRANCISCO to keynote the 10th anniversary of the AUTHORS ALLIANCE.

When it comes to AI art (or "art"), it's hard to find a nuanced position that respects creative workers' labor rights, free expression, copyright law's vital exceptions and limitations, and aesthetics.

I am, on balance, opposed to AI art, but there are some important caveats to that position. For starters, I think it's unequivocally wrong – as a matter of law – to say that scraping works and training a model with them infringes copyright. This isn't a moral position (I'll get to that in a second), but rather a technical one.

Break down the steps of training a model and it quickly becomes apparent why it's technically wrong to call this a copyright infringement. First, the act of making transient copies of works – even billions of works – is unequivocally fair use. Unless you think search engines and the Internet Archive shouldn't exist, then you should support scraping at scale:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/17/how-to-think-about-scraping/

And unless you think that Facebook should be allowed to use the law to block projects like Ad Observer, which gathers samples of paid political disinformation, then you should support scraping at scale, even when the site being scraped objects (at least sometimes):

https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/06/get-you-coming-and-going/#potemkin-research-program

After making transient copies of lots of works, the next step in AI training is to subject them to mathematical analysis. Again, this isn't a copyright violation.

Making quantitative observations about works is a longstanding, respected and important tool for criticism, analysis, archiving and new acts of creation. Measuring the steady contraction of the vocabulary in successive Agatha Christie novels turns out to offer a fascinating window into her dementia:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/apr/03/agatha-christie-alzheimers-research

Programmatic analysis of scraped online speech is also critical to the burgeoning formal analyses of the language spoken by minorities, producing a vibrant account of the rigorous grammar of dialects that have long been dismissed as "slang":

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/373950278_Lexicogrammatical_Analysis_on_African-American_Vernacular_English_Spoken_by_African-Amecian_You-Tubers

Since 1988, UCL Survey of English Language has maintained its "International Corpus of English," and scholars have plumbed its depth to draw important conclusions about the wide variety of Englishes spoken around the world, especially in postcolonial English-speaking countries:

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/english-usage/projects/ice.htm

The final step in training a model is publishing the conclusions of the quantitative analysis of the temporarily copied documents as software code. Code itself is a form of expressive speech – and that expressivity is key to the fight for privacy, because the fact that code is speech limits how governments can censor software:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/04/remembering-case-established-code-speech/

Are models infringing? Well, they certainly can be. In some cases, it's clear that models "memorized" some of the data in their training set, making the fair use, transient copy into an infringing, permanent one. That's generally considered to be the result of a programming error, and it could certainly be prevented (say, by comparing the model to the training data and removing any memorizations that appear).

Not every seeming act of memorization is a memorization, though. While specific models vary widely, the amount of data from each training item retained by the model is very small. For example, Midjourney retains about one byte of information from each image in its training data. If we're talking about a typical low-resolution web image of say, 300kb, that would be one three-hundred-thousandth (0.0000033%) of the original image.

Typically in copyright discussions, when one work contains 0.0000033% of another work, we don't even raise the question of fair use. Rather, we dismiss the use as de minimis (short for de minimis non curat lex or "The law does not concern itself with trifles"):

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

Busting someone who takes 0.0000033% of your work for copyright infringement is like swearing out a trespassing complaint against someone because the edge of their shoe touched one blade of grass on your lawn.

But some works or elements of work appear many times online. For example, the Getty Images watermark appears on millions of similar images of people standing on red carpets and runways, so a model that takes even in infinitesimal sample of each one of those works might still end up being able to produce a whole, recognizable Getty Images watermark.

The same is true for wire-service articles or other widely syndicated texts: there might be dozens or even hundreds of copies of these works in training data, resulting in the memorization of long passages from them.

This might be infringing (we're getting into some gnarly, unprecedented territory here), but again, even if it is, it wouldn't be a big hardship for model makers to post-process their models by comparing them to the training set, deleting any inadvertent memorizations. Even if the resulting model had zero memorizations, this would do nothing to alleviate the (legitimate) concerns of creative workers about the creation and use of these models.

So here's the first nuance in the AI art debate: as a technical matter, training a model isn't a copyright infringement. Creative workers who hope that they can use copyright law to prevent AI from changing the creative labor market are likely to be very disappointed in court:

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/sarah-silverman-lawsuit-ai-meta-1235669403/

But copyright law isn't a fixed, eternal entity. We write new copyright laws all the time. If current copyright law doesn't prevent the creation of models, what about a future copyright law?

Well, sure, that's a possibility. The first thing to consider is the possible collateral damage of such a law. The legal space for scraping enables a wide range of scholarly, archival, organizational and critical purposes. We'd have to be very careful not to inadvertently ban, say, the scraping of a politician's campaign website, lest we enable liars to run for office and renege on their promises, while they insist that they never made those promises in the first place. We wouldn't want to abolish search engines, or stop creators from scraping their own work off sites that are going away or changing their terms of service.

Now, onto quantitative analysis: counting words and measuring pixels are not activities that you should need permission to perform, with or without a computer, even if the person whose words or pixels you're counting doesn't want you to. You should be able to look as hard as you want at the pixels in Kate Middleton's family photos, or track the rise and fall of the Oxford comma, and you shouldn't need anyone's permission to do so.

Finally, there's publishing the model. There are plenty of published mathematical analyses of large corpuses that are useful and unobjectionable. I love me a good Google n-gram:

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=fantods%2C+heebie-jeebies&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=en-2019&smoothing=3

And large language models fill all kinds of important niches, like the Human Rights Data Analysis Group's LLM-based work helping the Innocence Project New Orleans' extract data from wrongful conviction case files:

https://hrdag.org/tech-notes/large-language-models-IPNO.html

So that's nuance number two: if we decide to make a new copyright law, we'll need to be very sure that we don't accidentally crush these beneficial activities that don't undermine artistic labor markets.

This brings me to the most important point: passing a new copyright law that requires permission to train an AI won't help creative workers get paid or protect our jobs.

Getty Images pays photographers the least it can get away with. Publishers contracts have transformed by inches into miles-long, ghastly rights grabs that take everything from writers, but still shifts legal risks onto them:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/19/reasonable-agreement/

Publishers like the New York Times bitterly oppose their writers' unions:

https://actionnetwork.org/letters/new-york-times-stop-union-busting

These large corporations already control the copyrights to gigantic amounts of training data, and they have means, motive and opportunity to license these works for training a model in order to pay us less, and they are engaged in this activity right now:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/22/technology/apple-ai-news-publishers.html

Big games studios are already acting as though there was a copyright in training data, and requiring their voice actors to begin every recording session with words to the effect of, "I hereby grant permission to train an AI with my voice" and if you don't like it, you can hit the bricks:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/5d37za/voice-actors-sign-away-rights-to-artificial-intelligence

If you're a creative worker hoping to pay your bills, it doesn't matter whether your wages are eroded by a model produced without paying your employer for the right to do so, or whether your employer got to double dip by selling your work to an AI company to train a model, and then used that model to fire you or erode your wages:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/09/ai-monkeys-paw/#bullied-schoolkids

Individual creative workers rarely have any bargaining leverage over the corporations that license our copyrights. That's why copyright's 40-year expansion (in duration, scope, statutory damages) has resulted in larger, more profitable entertainment companies, and lower payments – in real terms and as a share of the income generated by their work – for creative workers.

As Rebecca Giblin and I write in our book Chokepoint Capitalism, giving creative workers more rights to bargain with against giant corporations that control access to our audiences is like giving your bullied schoolkid extra lunch money – it's just a roundabout way of transferring that money to the bullies:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/21/what-is-chokepoint-capitalism/

There's an historical precedent for this struggle – the fight over music sampling. 40 years ago, it wasn't clear whether sampling required a copyright license, and early hip-hop artists took samples without permission, the way a horn player might drop a couple bars of a well-known song into a solo.

Many artists were rightfully furious over this. The "heritage acts" (the music industry's euphemism for "Black people") who were most sampled had been given very bad deals and had seen very little of the fortunes generated by their creative labor. Many of them were desperately poor, despite having made millions for their labels. When other musicians started making money off that work, they got mad.

In the decades that followed, the system for sampling changed, partly through court cases and partly through the commercial terms set by the Big Three labels: Sony, Warner and Universal, who control 70% of all music recordings. Today, you generally can't sample without signing up to one of the Big Three (they are reluctant to deal with indies), and that means taking their standard deal, which is very bad, and also signs away your right to control your samples.

So a musician who wants to sample has to sign the bad terms offered by a Big Three label, and then hand $500 out of their advance to one of those Big Three labels for the sample license. That $500 typically doesn't go to another artist – it goes to the label, who share it around their executives and investors. This is a system that makes every artist poorer.

But it gets worse. Putting a price on samples changes the kind of music that can be economically viable. If you wanted to clear all the samples on an album like Public Enemy's "It Takes a Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back," or the Beastie Boys' "Paul's Boutique," you'd have to sell every CD for $150, just to break even:

https://memex.craphound.com/2011/07/08/creative-license-how-the-hell-did-sampling-get-so-screwed-up-and-what-the-hell-do-we-do-about-it/

Sampling licenses don't just make every artist financially worse off, they also prevent the creation of music of the sort that millions of people enjoy. But it gets even worse. Some older, sample-heavy music can't be cleared. Most of De La Soul's catalog wasn't available for 15 years, and even though some of their seminal music came back in March 2022, the band's frontman Trugoy the Dove didn't live to see it – he died in February 2022:

https://www.vulture.com/2023/02/de-la-soul-trugoy-the-dove-dead-at-54.html

This is the third nuance: even if we can craft a model-banning copyright system that doesn't catch a lot of dolphins in its tuna net, it could still make artists poorer off.

Back when sampling started, it wasn't clear whether it would ever be considered artistically important. Early sampling was crude and experimental. Musicians who trained for years to master an instrument were dismissive of the idea that clicking a mouse was "making music." Today, most of us don't question the idea that sampling can produce meaningful art – even musicians who believe in licensing samples.

Having lived through that era, I'm prepared to believe that maybe I'll look back on AI "art" and say, "damn, I can't believe I never thought that could be real art."

But I wouldn't give odds on it.

I don't like AI art. I find it anodyne, boring. As Henry Farrell writes, it's uncanny, and not in a good way:

https://www.programmablemutter.com/p/large-language-models-are-uncanny

Farrell likens the work produced by AIs to the movement of a Ouija board's planchette, something that "seems to have a life of its own, even though its motion is a collective side-effect of the motions of the people whose fingers lightly rest on top of it." This is "spooky-action-at-a-close-up," transforming "collective inputs … into apparently quite specific outputs that are not the intended creation of any conscious mind."

Look, art is irrational in the sense that it speaks to us at some non-rational, or sub-rational level. Caring about the tribulations of imaginary people or being fascinated by pictures of things that don't exist (or that aren't even recognizable) doesn't make any sense. There's a way in which all art is like an optical illusion for our cognition, an imaginary thing that captures us the way a real thing might.

But art is amazing. Making art and experiencing art makes us feel big, numinous, irreducible emotions. Making art keeps me sane. Experiencing art is a precondition for all the joy in my life. Having spent most of my life as a working artist, I've come to the conclusion that the reason for this is that art transmits an approximation of some big, numinous irreducible emotion from an artist's mind to our own. That's it: that's why art is amazing.

AI doesn't have a mind. It doesn't have an intention. The aesthetic choices made by AI aren't choices, they're averages. As Farrell writes, "LLM art sometimes seems to communicate a message, as art does, but it is unclear where that message comes from, or what it means. If it has any meaning at all, it is a meaning that does not stem from organizing intention" (emphasis mine).

Farrell cites Mark Fisher's The Weird and the Eerie, which defines "weird" in easy to understand terms ("that which does not belong") but really grapples with "eerie."

For Fisher, eeriness is "when there is something present where there should be nothing, or is there is nothing present when there should be something." AI art produces the seeming of intention without intending anything. It appears to be an agent, but it has no agency. It's eerie.

Fisher talks about capitalism as eerie. Capital is "conjured out of nothing" but "exerts more influence than any allegedly substantial entity." The "invisible hand" shapes our lives more than any person. The invisible hand is fucking eerie. Capitalism is a system in which insubstantial non-things – corporations – appear to act with intention, often at odds with the intentions of the human beings carrying out those actions.

So will AI art ever be art? I don't know. There's a long tradition of using random or irrational or impersonal inputs as the starting point for human acts of artistic creativity. Think of divination:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/07/31/divination/

Or Brian Eno's Oblique Strategies:

http://stoney.sb.org/eno/oblique.html

I love making my little collages for this blog, though I wouldn't call them important art. Nevertheless, piecing together bits of other peoples' work can make fantastic, important work of historical note:

https://www.johnheartfield.com/John-Heartfield-Exhibition/john-heartfield-art/famous-anti-fascist-art/heartfield-posters-aiz

Even though painstakingly cutting out tiny elements from others' images can be a meditative and educational experience, I don't think that using tiny scissors or the lasso tool is what defines the "art" in collage. If you can automate some of this process, it could still be art.

Here's what I do know. Creating an individual bargainable copyright over training will not improve the material conditions of artists' lives – all it will do is change the relative shares of the value we create, shifting some of that value from tech companies that hate us and want us to starve to entertainment companies that hate us and want us to starve.

As an artist, I'm foursquare against anything that stands in the way of making art. As an artistic worker, I'm entirely committed to things that help workers get a fair share of the money their work creates, feed their families and pay their rent.

I think today's AI art is bad, and I think tomorrow's AI art will probably be bad, but even if you disagree (with either proposition), I hope you'll agree that we should be focused on making sure art is legal to make and that artists get paid for it.

Just because copyright won't fix the creative labor market, it doesn't follow that nothing will. If we're worried about labor issues, we can look to labor law to improve our conditions. That's what the Hollywood writers did, in their groundbreaking 2023 strike:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/01/how-the-writers-guild-sunk-ais-ship/

Now, the writers had an advantage: they are able to engage in "sectoral bargaining," where a union bargains with all the major employers at once. That's illegal in nearly every other kind of labor market. But if we're willing to entertain the possibility of getting a new copyright law passed (that won't make artists better off), why not the possibility of passing a new labor law (that will)? Sure, our bosses won't lobby alongside of us for more labor protection, the way they would for more copyright (think for a moment about what that says about who benefits from copyright versus labor law expansion).

But all workers benefit from expanded labor protection. Rather than going to Congress alongside our bosses from the studios and labels and publishers to demand more copyright, we could go to Congress alongside every kind of worker, from fast-food cashiers to publishing assistants to truck drivers to demand the right to sectoral bargaining. That's a hell of a coalition.

And if we do want to tinker with copyright to change the way training works, let's look at collective licensing, which can't be bargained away, rather than individual rights that can be confiscated at the entrance to our publisher, label or studio's offices. These collective licenses have been a huge success in protecting creative workers:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/26/united-we-stand/

Then there's copyright's wildest wild card: The US Copyright Office has repeatedly stated that works made by AIs aren't eligible for copyright, which is the exclusive purview of works of human authorship. This has been affirmed by courts:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/20/everything-made-by-an-ai-is-in-the-public-domain/

Neither AI companies nor entertainment companies will pay creative workers if they don't have to. But for any company contemplating selling an AI-generated work, the fact that it is born in the public domain presents a substantial hurdle, because anyone else is free to take that work and sell it or give it away.

Whether or not AI "art" will ever be good art isn't what our bosses are thinking about when they pay for AI licenses: rather, they are calculating that they have so much market power that they can sell whatever slop the AI makes, and pay less for the AI license than they would make for a human artist's work. As is the case in every industry, AI can't do an artist's job, but an AI salesman can convince an artist's boss to fire the creative worker and replace them with AI:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/29/pay-no-attention/#to-the-little-man-behind-the-curtain

They don't care if it's slop – they just care about their bottom line. A studio executive who cancels a widely anticipated film prior to its release to get a tax-credit isn't thinking about artistic integrity. They care about one thing: money. The fact that AI works can be freely copied, sold or given away may not mean much to a creative worker who actually makes their own art, but I assure you, it's the only thing that matters to our bosses.

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/2024/05/13/spooky-action-at-a-close-up/#invisible-hand

[m-artemisa-c]

Lucky night

Pairing: Lando Norris x f!reader

This is an (18+) story which means if you are a minor, you are not allowed to interact.

......................................................................................................................

So this is the first time Im posting something, I was little bored and decided to write one of my many sex fantasies haha english is not my first language so sorry in advance for the grammar errors etc....i don't know if anyone would read this but if you do I hope you enjoy it <3

“Can you please send me the quotations we received today? I already asked you this twice, please focus more on your duties!”  –  I heard Derek, my manager from the other side of the corridor... what an ass... 

The truth is that I’ve been out of my mind for a while, unable to focus on any task. It’s been overwhelming, I must say, a new job, new apartment, new people, and a new city to discover or that’s what I thought. It looks like Monaco is as small as my little hometown, it took me only a week to “discover” my new home. Impressive?  Yes, I would never imagine being here, but I’m not sure I’m going to fit in with all these petulant and fancy people. Everyone seems like some kind of famous shitty person. 

“Do I have to send you a reminder? Or are you going to do the job you are being paid to do? “ – It looks like being a needy asshole is a required skill if you want to be a manager – “I just sent them to you, I also attached the price analysis I made for these suppliers”

For the last 8 years, I worked for an automotive company, it was my first job when I graduated from business school. I started as a trainee for the quality staff and after a year the logistics supervisor asked me if I was interested in joining his team, after some years I got promoted to the sales area. 

I was happy and grateful for the job I had; I'd make enough money to pay my rent and to provide my cat Murphy with all the toys and food he needed to be happy. My life was good or that’s what I thought. 

“There is nothing attached to the mail you sent…” – Derek screamed from his office - “Fuck! You need to stop now “- I screamed to myself. 

“Is everything ok with you? I know you just moved here two weeks ago” – I turned my face and saw my coworker Mike approaching me from his desk – “Ohhh... I’m..Yes, I’m ok thanks. I’m still getting used to my new life haha “ - I responded awkwardly, I turned my face again to my computer screen making sure to attach the files this time and send the email... again. I’ve only been working here for one week and Derek already thinks I’m retarded. 

“Do you have plans for later? We can go for a drink or two” – I turned my face to Mike – “Ammm .. I...mm sure, why not? Having some drinks sounds like a plan to me “ – I reply with a smile on my face – “Nice! So, you tell me when you are done with work, and we will leave. I know a nice restaurant with a stunning view. I’m sure you will love It” – he said as he headed back to his desk. 

One of the main reasons I accepted this job was because I felt something was missing in my life. And when I say “something” I mean sex...sweaty, passionate, and unholy sex.  It’s been 5 years since the last time I had slept with somebody... a guy I met on Tinder... a total disaster.  And after that, I decided I had enough shitty sex and  I spoiled myself... I bought my first sex toy. I named him Timmy because I have a crush on Timothée Chalamet, so since Timmy arrived, I’ve been a happy woman with plenty of orgasms. 

I love Timmy? Yes! no doubt about that, I would never imagine I was able cum so many times in one night, but I cannot deny I want to feel the heat of a dicks men while he is drilling my pussy, I want to feel how his tongue travel all over my body and praise me for being a good girl because  I ride him all night. 

It might sound kind of pathetic that a “grown woman” like me wants to be called a “good girl” but let’s be honest, being 30 is a nice age... That’s what I say to myself when I feel like I’m too old to try to flirt with men or go out. What a disaster! When I was 23, I was way bolder than now, I remember how I used to enter the clubs, knowing exactly which guy I wanted. The flirting game was so fun. Guys trying to get closer to me and dance while they ground their bodies with my ass, grabbing me by the waist and caressing my skin, saying sweet lies to my ear ... good days ...

“So, are we ready?” – Mike’s voice snapped my thoughts. I looked at my clock and realized I  spent 2 hours thinking about my younger years... a nice way to show Derek I’m not retarded – “Uhhh...I just need to send some emails. I will see you in the lobby if that’s ok with you “- Mike nods his head with a smile while he heads to the elevators. 

Maybe tonight is my lucky night, maybe instead of daydreaming about my younger years I need to lose control and show Mike the whore inside of me... – “We need to schedule a meeting with the coil supplier for next Monday and I need to know the amount we have been paying to our broker for these operations. That’s all for today, I expect you to be ready for the meeting “ – my manager said with an annoyed look before leaving my desk. God I need Timmy right now, maybe I can bring him with me and lock myself in the bathroom when I feel angry. I set up the meetings and headed to the elevators to meet Mike. 

While waiting for the elevators I couldn’t stop thinking about Mike and my lucky night. I know I said I was a flirty master when I was younger but now? Hahaha I am a complete loser, I don’t know how to talk with men. How am I going to seduce Mike? He is way more attractive than me, a good-looking man. If I had to guess I would say he is 35, has a nice body, and a charming smile... “Over here!” -  Mike raised his hand and I greeted him with a smile – “Sorry, I hope you don’t mind waiting for me “– I said - “It was only 15 minutes don’t worry. My car is over here “– he put his hand on my back – “Do you seriously drive to the office?” – I looked at him with a surprised face – “Well yes, don’t you?” – he replied – “No haha it's only a 20 min walk from my apartment to the office. I like to walk. It's a nice way to start the day” – it's true, walking is nice, and it feels stupid to drive such a short distance...this is what I mean when I say I’m not sure I’m going to fit here.

We arrived at a nice luxurious restaurant. This is not what I had in mind when Mike said we would go out for drinks, but the view was amazing, just like he promised. Don’t ramble! Remember your lucky night, Mike wouldn’t suggest drinks if he wasn’t attracted to me in some way, right? There is only one reason a man would suggest drinks... Maybe I need some alcohol so I can let myself lose and have fun ... – “Bonjour, je voudrais commander quelque chose à boire? “– the waitress asked and all I could do was look at Mike with a confused look- “He asked if you wanted something to drink “– Mike said with a childish smile – “Oh! Tequila for me please “ – I said as I looked at the waitress- “How come you moved to a city and don’t speak the language?” – Mike asked with an intriguing look – “Ummm well, I didn’t know I was moving until I had to move here haha It was kind of messy, at first the job offer was to be the intermediary between the company and the suppliers. No need for relocation, just weekly meetings but then I got a better offer due to my experience so here I am, completely lost. I’m going to learn how to speak French, people here are kinda pissed if you speak in English all the time ...Maybe you can teach me “– I suggested with a flirty look... or at least that was what I thought I was doing – “Sure! I moved here 3 years ago so I can teach you some basic sentences haha”

Drinks finally arrived and after 1 hour I could feel how tequila was making me forget about my insecurities, now was the time to suggest Mike take me home and maybe invite him another drink. Wait, I need to change my underwear into a nice set of lingerie... Do I even have lingerie? The last time I remember I bought sexy underwear was when I was dating my ex-boyfriend from university, well maybe I can improvise with some thong and a nice bra. 

Alcohol and overthinking don’t get along, take note! While I was deep in my thoughts, I ignored what my new friend Mike said – “Ready to go?” – Mike asked –” Go where?” – I said intrigued – “To my place “- he gave me a confused look -” I asked if you wanted to have some drinks at my apartment. Did you change your mind? “– oh shit... it is happening. Finally, my lucky night is happening – “Sorry, I just feel a little tipsy from the alcohol haha let’s go!”

The drive to Mike’s apartment was fun, he was talking about his favorite spots in Monaco and I was completely lost daydreaming about all the sex I was going to get, while adjusting to my seat I felt how wet my pussy was. My god, I'm so nervous, do I have to make the first move? or should I just let him take control of the situation?

“Babe! I’m so glad you are finally here! “– a beautiful woman said as she came close to Mike and kissed him – “I'm sorry to be late sweetie, we had a couple of drinks before work. I want to introduce you to my new coworker; she moved here two weeks ago, and I thought it would be nice to invite her to our open house so she can meet new people. This is Florence, my girlfriend, she’s from Monaco, she can help you with anything you need. Right, babe? “– I was in shock; all I could do was smile stupidly - “Bienvenue à Monaco ma chère! It's a pleasure to meet you. Mike told me you were having a tough time adjusting here. I'm so glad he suggested this, and as he said I’m here to help you if you need something “– Florence said as she smiled at me. 

What was I thinking? Of course, he is not attracted to me at all, he was only trying to be nice with the new coworker - “Can I offer you a drink? What would you like? We have wine, gin , tequila” - Florence asked me - “Mmm I'm already a little drunk so a glass of water would be nice. I mmm where is the bathroom? “- 

As I head to the bathroom I regret every choice I made for the last month. This was a mistake, everything was a mistake, what was I thinking? I don't belong here, I can quit my job and go back home. My boss hates me and I just embarrassed myself with the only “friend” I made. As I wash my face I decide that it would be better if I just go home. 

“Hey … mmm …I …  am sorry but I don't feel well, I guess I'm not used to drinking alcohol anymore haha I should leave now before I make something I regret” - I said -” Wait what ? When I told you about the party you said you would love to come, what happened?” - Mike asked - “Yeah yeah , I was excited about it but you know I forgot to feed my cat in the morning, he must be starving now. I need to go. Sorry” - I said as I grabbed my purse - “Do you want me to drive you home? It's more than a 20 min walk to the office from here “- Mike said jokingly - “No no , don't worry you have guests coming soon, you must be here. I will order an uber. I will see you on Monday and it was a pleasure to meet you Florence. You have a wonderful apartment, maybe I can visit both again when I'm not drunk”- I said awkwardly as I opened the door. 

Once I was alone in the corridor I realized how pathetic I was. I've always found a peculiar way to expose myself to awkward situations but haha this one is definitely in the top three. Maybe Derek is right and I'm kind of retarded. Fuck! the things I do to get laid, thinking about my sex fantasies is making me lose all my concentration. Maybe I can ask Florence to introduce me to some friends I can - “For fucks sake, get out the way” - I heard someone screaming at me - “Excuse me.. what did you say?” - I asked as I turned my body to face the rude voice  - “Wow, are you deaf? I've been here asking you to move so I can get to the elevator “- another spoiled rich guy, what a surprise. This is it, I'm going back home - “I'm sorry but that's not the way you should talk to people, you never know what is going on with others. Maybe you can be more polite “- I said as I rolled my eyes - “I was polite the first three times I asked you to move so don't try to turn it to me, you are the one who should be apologizing” - Oh god, I want to punch his face so badly - “Yeah, whatever you said Junior, why don't you go back to your daddy's apartment and cry with him “- I said as I begged for the doors to open- “Watch out! A little bitch over here! “-  the guy jokes as the doors open and we both enter …why me...- “You know, there is no valid reason for you to act like this. What is your problem? Your boyfriend doesn't fuck you enough?” - He said with a smirk on his face. Why are attractive guys such jerks? I look down as I wait to get to the lobby - “Yeah, that's what I thought, you are frigid don't you? I bet men don´t even enjoy your company, you look like a boring woman, now I understand why you are such a bitch”

It was all too much, the alcohol, the disappointment, and this spoiled guy. I tried to ignore him but his last words were like a stab in my heart… he was right, men don't enjoy my company, I turned into a boring woman with no sexual appeal, and then I exploded  - “You know what? You are right! I'm a boring woman, I'm all dried up, there’s no joy in my life anymore. Men don't enjoy my company even if I try to seduce him” - I was crying and yelling at him - “I haven't been fucked in almost a decade ” - the guy was completely in shock, you could tell by the way he opened his eyes.He was regretting saying those things - “you can say all you want about me being a bitch but it's not my fault. If men knew how to give a proper fuck I wouldn't be here…trying my best to be flirty - silence filled the elevator as I realized what I was doing -”…sharing personal information with a stranger and embarrasing myself …fuck”- oh god, this day is getting worse I think I'm going to lose my mind. Yes this guy is a jerk but I'm being mental over here. I need to calm down  - “look I'm sorry” - I said as I wiped my tears- “it's not a good day “

I buried my face in my hands pretending I was back home when I felt the elevator stop. I looked at the guy and he was pressing the red stop button - “What the hell are you do…” - was all I could say. In a matter of seconds, I felt a warm tongue deep inside my mouth while a strong pair of hands grabbed my face, cornering my body between the wall. The kiss was so passionate I could barely breathe, his tongue was exploring my mouth like crazy, suddenly this rich spoiled guy sucked my lower lip making me moan from the pleasure. When I opened my eyes all I could see was a pair of eyes looking into my soul, wonderful blue eyes that made me feel so vulnerable yet excited and horny.  His fresh breath was on my face and we stayed like this for what it feels like an eternity. I was completely mesmerized by this guy. 

He ran his thumb over my lower lip, just where he sucked it and I saw how he smirked. His other hand moved to grab one of my boobs- “You are a wonderful woman” - he said as he caressed my breast over my blouse. I let out a soft moan  - “And most important, you are not dried up “- he said as he kissed my neck - “I bet I can make your delicious pussy soak all over me” - I felt his thigh between my legs, just where my clit was. The friction was pure pleasure to my soul and I let a loud moan escape my mouth as I grabbed his strong bicep - “Come on, let yourself enjoy this' ' - he said as he kept kissing my neck. I was in heaven, he was kissing me just where I wanted. It was like he knew my body and how to touch me, I let myself lose and grind harder on his tight  - “Oh my g.... mmmm…yesss” -  I moaned as my head fell back giving him more access to kiss my neck. I could feel his smile on my throat as I kept moaning from the pleasure  - “Fuck!” - he muttered in my ear - “I can already feel your wetness” -  he said as both of his hands grabbed my waist guiding my movements - “Open your eyes, look at me. I want to see how much you are enjoying this” - he commanded as I was on the edge of pleasure, unable to react to his instructions.I kept grinding harder on his thigh with my eyes closed enjoying the pleasure and chasing my orgasm. I could feel it coming, my legs were shaking and I was babbling nonsense words and moans, and suddenly it stopped. I opened my eyes with an angry look - “Why …mm. noo … I was so clos..”- I felt how he turned my body to face my reflection on the mirror wall. One of his hands grabbed my throat while the other slid down to my pussy.  - “Open your eyes, sweetie. I want you to see how pretty you look when you moan” - his hand was teasing my pussy over my jeans - “Mmmmm yeesss” - I moaned as I leaned my head back to his chest - “No no “- he said as he guided my head back so I could see myself again - “I told you I want you to see yourself “ - he said as he gently rubbed my pussy - “Do you like what you see? Fuck you look so sexy, I can see how bad you want it” - I nodded frenetically - “ Yess please, I want it, please please don't stop this time” - I saw how he smirked proudly - “Mmmm such a good girl for me. Do you want me to touch you? Feel the heat of your soaking pretty pussy?” - What a jerk, he is making me beg for it … it's worth it…be a whore for him -” Yess! Touch me and make me cum”. 

I felt how his hand unbuttoned my jeans and slid into my underwear just where I needed him. Fuck ! I could hear how wet I was, sticky noises filled the elevator as  he opened my folds, his long fingers were traveling all over my dripping pussy  to my clit and teasing my hole. I watched the obscene scene from the mirror wall, this cute guy was driving me crazy. I felt a wave of confidence and I started to grind my body against him, I felt his hard cock against my ass, his big, hard, and delicious cock. Our bodies were like matching pieces from a puzzle, perfectly moving while we enjoyed the friction. 

I grabbed his neck to increase the pressure and in a violent move, he ripped the buttons of my blouse. With no hesitation, he moved my bra exposing my bare chest to him - “Mhmmmm…you have a pair of delicious nipples over here”  - He said as he cupped one of my boobs, my nipples were hard and aching for more - “Come on, cum for me pretty girl” - he commanded - “Ahh..yes.. please..mmm.. keep… keep going... I just …mmm… kiss me “ I felt his warm tongue in my mouth once again. I was moaning against his mouth as he violently abused my clit making my legs shake from pleasure. He kept rubbing my soaking pussy and without a warning I felt an amazing jolt all over my body -” Fuuck yes! Yess cum all over my fingers!” - I heard as I felt my soul leave my body, I was shaking like crazy. 

It took me a while to recover from the amazing orgasm, I was unable to stand by myself, luckily a pair of strong arms were helping me. Once my brain was ready I opened my eyes, I saw how this spoiled rich guy was licking his fingers covered with my cum. Fuck, he is so hot! I look at my reflection in the mirror and smile to myself. Sweat was coming down my forehead, my face was red, my nipples were hard and you could easily see how I still had goosebumps - “You taste like heaven”  - I heard from behind. I gave him a shy smile as I tried to fix myself but he stopped me. I faced him and he grabbed my face between his hands - “I'm sorry for being a jerk” he kissed me once again, a soft and gentle kiss - “And as i said…You are not dried up sweetie” - he said as he put one lock of hair behind my ear -”If that thought crosses your mind again I will gladly remind you how wet i can make you” - I instantly blush as I bite my lower lip, I tried to cover my chest with my ripped blouse - “Fuck, I'm sorry for this too”- he gave me a childish smile - “Why don't you come over my place? I will give you a shirt …” 

Maybe being here can be an exciting adventure after all, maybe Monaco isn't as bad as I thought. “Im Lando by the way, please accept my offer…You can apologize for being a bitch…”

[ozzgin]

for the comments, im not out here trying to send hate, sorry if i sounded like that 😓 (you don't have to reply to this tho ozz, hope you dont feel pressured)

anyways, its about ur dialogue tags. i noticed that you do the comma outside the quotations.

noticed it like this - "gyatt", she purred.

"gyatt," she purred. - would be the corret way

this is really minor but its a bit distracting :-( i totally understand if its ur style tho

Anon, I was genuinely prepared to be handed some hundred-page essay about my lexical constipation and deplorable expressiveness. I had even practiced my response to your cold analysis, "I am but a charlatan of the streets and no proper author, cease your logical demands at once!"😭

Anyways, I know exactly what you're talking about. At some point I tried to make an active effort to fix the issue you mentioned, but here's the trouble: I was taught British English in school, and in British English, the location of the comma depends on context. Additionally, when writing dialogue in Romanian (my native language), we use a dash to signal it. No quotes.

"That's all," he told me.

-That's all, he told me.

In the latter case, that comma signals the end of direct speech, and so, to me, it only makes sense that I keep it out of the "official dialogue". It's a bad habit I've formed from combining both languages, I suppose. Microsoft Word doesn't consider it an error, either, hence it often goes unnoticed.

So yeah, you can consider it my sinful indulgence. I know it's there, I know it's often wrong, but it just tickles me differently. Will I ever engage in professional writing, I shall fix my delinquency.

[alien-girl-21]

The Käärijä Research Paper (tm)

aka: Error Analysis of the Use of English Articles in Jere Pöyhönen Interviews in 2023

(Before we start, a couple of clarifications: firstly, I am a linguistics student and this research was my final project for my psycholinguistics course, secondly, this was a group research and I have gotten permission from my friends to share these results with y'all so tysm to them, and lastly, the og work is LONG, 50 pages long, so I'm condensing it into the important bits)

Findings and explanations under the cut <3

Before sharing the actual research, i'm going to share some important terms for you guys to understand the overall layout of this work.

Error analysis: kind of self explanatory, it's the process of analyzing errors, specifically in one's speech, more on how we did this later.

Omission: The alienation of a linguistic form in speech (i.e. I go to (the) supermarket.).

Addition: The opposite of omission, putting an unnecessary linguistic form in a sentence (i.e. It's the maybe half and half.).

Substitution: Exchanging a linguistic form for another one (i.e. He admitted to have stolen a wallet. Instead of: He admitted to having stolen a wallet.).

Overgeneralization: Looking at a grammatical rule and thinking it applies to every case with no exceptions (i.e. finding out verbs conjugated in the past end in -ed and creating conjugations like writted instead of written). Also known as intralingual transfer.

Negative transfer: When your mother tongue (L1) seeps into your second/foreign language (L2) (in this case it's foreign language, but I'll still call it an L2 for simplicity's sake), if we're talking about Spanish negative transfer it can look like: the car red (Spanish adjectives go after the noun, unlike in English). Also known as interlingual transfer.

Local error: An error that does not affect the overall meaning of the sentence, making it still understandable.

Global error: An error that affects the overall meaning of the sentence, making it difficult to understand without clarifications.

Okay, with that out of the way, let me explain what we did:

We decided to make an error analysis on how Jere utilized articles (the, a/an) throughout 2023, for this we considered 2 interviews and 1 Instagram live, the interviews were: KÄÄRIJÄ TRIES LITHUANIAN FOOD (uploaded on 12/04/23) and Episode 3: Käärijä and friends (uploaded on 26/12/23), the ig live was the one he did to promote the release of Huhhahhei on 19/10/23, the dates are important for later.

Now, to do the error analysis in itself we followed Rod Ellis’ proposal for error analysis which follows four main steps:

Identifying errors: Self-explanatory, you see what errors one has committed.

Describing errors: Once you see the errors, you describe what exactly the error is, it can be with grammatical categories, or with omission, misinformation, addition, misordering, and substitution.

Explaining errors: After describing the error you need to explain why this error was committed, the two main ways are through overgeneralization and negative transfer.

Error evaluation: After all this, you identify how the error affected the overall message of the sentence being spoken, was it local or global?

We put these steps into a chart and listened to the interviews and identified the errors we found, it’s a really long chart, so if you want to see it fully you can find it here (hopefully). After identifying all the errors and doing our own error analysis we… well, analyzed the data, duh, according to the objectives we set up for the research.

Our first objective was to identify errors Jere has committed regarding articles in the three videos I mentioned. What we analyzed was more grammatical, so what grammatical structure he used the most. He usually omits an article before a noun and with adjectives, like in: “We go to bar with my producer…”, or “Käärijä goes to boat.”, or “I am fine, uh… little bit tired.”. Obviously, this is kind of expected because Finnish does not have articles, but he also adds articles when it is not necessary, like in: “I have the one festival.” Here are the charts of the grammatical trends:

Then we focused on the describing errors part of our analysis. In this part, we found out that he usually finds himself committing omission errors, with 67 in total across the three videos, like I said before, expected, however, the second most common error is addition, this means he adds an unnecessary article in a sentence, and what’s interesting is that he usually does it with the article “the”. Since this is not an actual academic article I will speculate with a full chest: I think he does this because people are usually taught that “the” is the only article in English (only definite one, but not the only one), and that nouns usually have an article accompanying them, so I think that he adds the when he is unsure if an article needs to go there or not. Finally, there was only one case of substitution: “This is the lovely story.”, not really sure why he did this, but it’s interesting that it only happened once. Have the charts and graphs:

We moved to the next step: explaining errors. When we started this research, we thought that we would only have negative transfers since, ya know, Finnish grammar and all, and we were kind of right? He has committed negative transfer errors the most, with 66 in total, but he also had 23 overgeneralization errors, which I didn’t really expect to happen with articles that much. Not much else to say here, have charts:

Lastly, error evaluation. He made mostly local errors, which is what mainly characterizes his speech, we know what he’s saying, he just usually lacks some grammatical form that doesn’t affect his overall meaning. He did have 15 global errors that unless you have the context, it can be a little confusing to understand what he’s trying to say (like in the ig live he said “here tour” when he wanted to say “here in the tour”). Charts!

Our final objective was to see the evolution of these errors, has he made more or less as time went on? Well, since we all can see and hear, he has made a great improvement! You already have the charts above to understand that, but I just have to explain it. In the first interview, in April, he made 50 mistakes in total, by the ig live he had cut those in half, and by the latest interview he gave in English he had cut the mistakes in half again! Have the graphs to accurately see this:

He has improved so much in such a short amount of time! Even more impressive when he hasn’t really taken any formal English classes, just by talking to Bojan and Alessandra. There’s a difference between language learning and language acquisition that was proposed by Stephen Krashen (cool dude, if you’re interested in language learning, go check him out). He says that people usually learn more by acquiring (unconscious) rather than learning (conscious), and you can see that Jere has learnt so much by acquiring English through his friends and his own experiences! And this is just looking at how he uses articles, there is also a distinctive change in how he uses other grammatical forms (but that was too much work for just 2 weeks, maybe I’ll do it later, no promises on anything, though). Even if we’re not talking about his grammatical and syntactical forms, his pronunciation has improved as well! My friends were fascinated by how his accent seemed to develop from video to video, which was very sweet because his accent is one of my favorite things about his speech, but that’s off topic.

The general takeaway from this research is: Jere still has a lot of Finnish tendencies in his English, he has developed his own grammatical structures to communicate in English, and how much he improved in an 8-month period is kind of insane, especially for an adult (who are the age group who have the most trouble learning languages). He’s the it-girl of blowing off a linguist’s mind (me, I’m the linguist)

That would be all!! If you have any other questions, feel free to ask! I'm more than glad to answer them

[hvnnibalecter]

ICECREAM AND SPRINKLES. | A.H

CHARACTERS : Dad!Aaron Hotchner, Stella Hotchner [OC].

RATING : FLUFF.

A/N : English isn't my first language, so it is possible that there is some grammatical errors along the way. divider is from @cafekitsune, icon is from @catsadams No use of Y/N.

summary : having a daughter waiting for you, is always a good reason to come home and Aaron Hotchner won't disagree with it.

Aaron Hotchner was not someone who smiled easily, the agents of the Behavioral Analysis Unit rarely saw a smile on the lips of the Unit Chief who wore his Armani suits like a second skin. But yet, when he passed through the doors of his house, he seemed to become different, removing his suit - his second skin - and he seemed to become another man.

The strict unit chief became a father again, a loving and caring father. He saw so many horrors during his work, he remained calm while his eyes observed mutilated bodies and each time he worked on a child kidnapping case, he could not stop thinking about his daughter, the love of his life.

Coming home from work, Aaron took off his suit to put on a gray sweatshirt, jeans and a pair of comfortable sneakers, he glanced at his garden where his daughter had taken care to place strange little colored elves in it, arguing that they were protecting their house.

Looking around, Aaron walked to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator where he found a sandwich he had prepared the day before, he also noticed that his daughter must have eaten the rest of the cheese. Aaron had hired a nanny, a perfectly adorable young woman who juggled babysitting with law studies, Aaron had found that the young woman was decent and she always took care that everything was tidy and cleaned. Busy removing the aluminum around his sandwich, he did not realize the presence of his daughter when she let out a joyful cry and threw herself into his arms. Aaron barely had time to put his sandwich down.

He lifted the little girl in his arms, black hair, chocolate eyes, Stella Hotchner looked almost like two peas in a pod to her father. Aaron placed a kiss in her hair, took his sandwich again and went to the coffee table, he settled on the sofa and put Stella next to him, the little girl dropped dramatically onto his knees. Aaron shook his head smiling, she definitely spent too much time with Dave. Aaron bit into his sandwich as he turned on the television, he would finish his report tonight when Stella will be in bed.

"Daddy?" his daughter asked, suddenly raising her head.

"Yes, sweetheart?" Aaron replied, sliding a hand into her hair.

"You're going to stay home, right daddy?"Stella asked, staring at her father.

Aaron blinked, he felt a lump in his throat. Of course, Aaron always took the time to call his daughter -Dave, being his normal-spoiling self, had gotten her a phone in case of emergencies-, but it was always different especially when he saw Stella's sad look who seemed never to want to hang up. Every day, whether he was at the office or in another city investigating a sordid case, Stella sent him pictures - flowers, animals, drawings - and it made the unit chief smile, remembering that he had a reason to go home.

"Of course," he smiled, putting down his sandwich wrapper and lifting her up to settle her against him.

"Can we go get some ice cream?" Stella asked, frowning. "With confetti!"

Aaron rolled his eyes, Stella only seemed to agree to eat ice cream if it was abundantly sprinkled with colorful confetti. He hugged her and closed his eyes.

"With confetti," he murmured against her hair. "anything for you darling."

[nkhrdstyvskrrtskrrt]

📎 YOSANO AKIKO ANALYSIS

UNDERSTANDING & ANALYZING BUNGOU STRAY DOGS YOSANO THROUGH THE LENSES OF THE REAL YOSANO AKIKO'S LIFE

WC. 4,000

DISCLAIMER: I am no historian or literary expert I am just obsessed and mentally unwell, if u cannot tell, teehee <333 If this will ignite any hate or hostility (not this post’s intention), please set your sights elsewhere and just scroll. I made this because I love her character and BSD in general to a bone-shattering degree. I hope you have as much fun as I did while researching and writing this, enjoy!! (also English is not my first language forgive me for any grammatical errors ty)

There might be a part two for this, but for now, this is all my tiny brain could offer >:))

IMPORTANT NOTE: There will be a lot of omitted, summarized information that has been subjectively extracted or abridged. This is not a complete, rich historical account but research done to make connections and parallels to better understand and theorize about BSD Yosano’s character. I did not finish reading the entire biography, which is why this is only the first section of a bigger whole.

However, if you desire to dig deeper about her in an unabridged manner please kindly refer to the source I will list below. One last thing, please don’t hesitate to add your own thoughts, I am encouraging you to do so, I will appreciate it so much actually!

My primary source;; Janine Beichman - Embracing the Firebird_ Yosano Akiko and the Birth of the Female Voice in Modern Japanese Poetry-University of Hawaii Press (2002). [pdf can be downloaded for free @/libgen]

Allow me to initiate this observation with a passage directly extracted from her biography (the one named above): 

“Yosano’s father Òtori Sòshichi (1847–1903), was the second-generation owner of the Surugaya, a well-known confectioner that specialized in yòkan (sweet bean paste) and sweet dumplings.”

With this passage in mind, I’d like to remind you of this scene in the manga that hinted at BSD Yosano’s circumstances and background prior to being selected as Mori’s assistant at the fortress. In this panel, she mentioned that she was tending to a candy store before getting drafted. 

Now, drawing from the passage we read regarding the real Yosano Akiko and applying this to BSD Yosano—it’s not far-fetched to assume that the candy shop she was tending to was run and owned by her family. Normally, we could say that familial separation, especially at such an early stage of childhood would be quite hard on the child. However, if we consider the following facts from the real Yosano Akiko’s childhood and parallel it to BSD Yosano again, we could conclude that the separation wasn’t as difficult nor emotional for her when Mori selected her, because she was called in this book an ‘infant exile.’

Starting from the very birth of the real Yosano, her father was severely appalled by her because she was a girl. Moreover, he deserted their home for a week without even looking at his daughter’s face. Her mother became distressed because of the week-long absence of her father, (fainted, even) and couldn’t breastfeed her properly, resulting in the infant Yosano being sent to a maternal aunt accompanied by a wet nurse.

Two years later, due to convenience rather than the will to come back, Yosano returned to her familial house because her aunt had a new baby of her own to look after and raise. Though at this time, a new baby was born, too, at the Otoris. And this baby grew up to be the brother to whom the adult Yosano dedicated her poem ‘Thou Shalt Not Die.’ 

Since the arrival of this baby boy, Yosano’s existence has become easier to tolerate—see this actual snapshot from the passage I am referencing:

‘ while at the Òtori home a baby boy had finally arrived, making it easier to tolerate the unwelcome girl.’

As if to rub in the author’s title for the real Yosano Akiko (infant exile) even their servants and relatives had a distaste for her and her personality, viewing her as the ‘difficult’ child in the family. Here’s another direct quote from the biography book:

‘The relatives chimed in disapprovingly: “‘The younger brother is better behaved; his older sister is a little much.’ From the apprentices to the little uncle on my mother’s side all predicted better things for my younger brother than for me. Having to listen to all that didn’t feel very good.” Even the servants rubbed it in.’

Additionally, Yosano Akiko herself wrote that she never knew the warmth of a mother or father’s lap and that her parents had an inherent antipathy towards her that was not inflicted on her siblings. She wrote, that other women are troubled concerning their in-laws, and how to operate as human beings alongside them but this same worry is her very reality in her own family’s household—blood and flesh—she served her parents as if they were her in-laws and endured hardships by their hand and in their name. Here’s a snippet from the biography:

‘“Other women become brides and struggle to manage a household, but for me it was the reverse: from the time I was a young girl I served my parents as if they were my in-laws, and endured emotional and physical hardships.”’

Another possible factor that enriched an equal sentiment of apathy within Yosano was despite the extremely young age of three she was coerced into attending school—which, as made clear in the biography, was something she disliked. What gave her parents this idea? Well, her father was quite the ardent enthusiast of the science of producing superior human beings. With this belief in mind, it’s no surprise that when he mistook the large forehead of the young Yosano as a sign of intelligence, he sent her to study immediately. 

But Yosano was too young, too passionate, and excited still to engage in play with other children, to have fun with her friends because she was hardly above infancy, only three years old. Despite the awareness of the adults around her that she’s not of school age yet, she was shamed for her disagreement—as said to her by one of her maids: “See what a good girl Miss Takenaka is. Aren’t you ashamed of skipping school?” 

Are you seeing a parallel? BSD Yosano, although just 11 years old, was chosen by Mori to be the core of his immortal regiment plan, because similar to the real Yosano’s situation somebody (her father) saw something urgent and, perhaps special or advantageous in her which is why she was pushed into studying—in BSD Yosano’s case Mori saw this potential within her and incorporated her into his plans, and drafted her from what seems to be her family’s candy shop.

One thing I’d like to emphasize again is that in this drafting of BSD Yosano, the fact that she agreed or at the very least went along with Mori even if it meant being separated from her family, is because she (if we parallel it once again to the poet Yosano) was never really seen as important or someone capable in her family, they did not have faith in what she can do or her future, they did not have confidence in her character. Regarding this sentiment here are two excerpts from the biography: 

‘The restrictions themselves (which were not uncommon then, at least in Sakai) did not hurt as much as the misjudgment of her character and what she might do were she free: “It goes without saying that in a house with many employees, and particularly in a morally lax city like Sakai, a daughter had to be strictly supervised. But there was no need to go that far with a woman who took as many pains to protect herself as I did. I thought the lack of understanding of my feelings that my parents’ attitude showed was outrageous and when alone I often wept over it.”’

And: 

‘Like her parents, the teacher hurt her pride by assuming that she was less intellectually and morally advanced than she actually was, but politeness kept her from objecting. 

And as stated by the creature in Frankenstein (see how I always find a way to mention it haha): “And tell me why I should pity man more than he pities me?” 

Why should she nurture deep affection for her family—relatives and servants too, even her teacher—when they will not reciprocate even a pittance of the same love and care? Or even respect. Take a look at this paragraph from the document:

‘But the results of this parental coldness were not entirely negative. Just as 

ignorance of her ancestry liberated Akiko from the weight of family tradition, 

so multiple caretakers and the lack of parental affection weakened her sense of 

filial obligation. 

‘What gave her the strength to defy her family’s expectations 

and flee to Tokyo in her early twenties? Surely, the intensity of her love for 

Yosano Tekkan and her own literary ambition were most important; but would 

a more cherished daughter have been able to make the break so decisively? The 

seeds of the later revolt were planted in the infant exile.’

For this very reason, I conclude that if anything, being drafted by Mori was, in the 11-year-old Yosano’s eyes, an opportunity to prove her competence and worth and realize her goal—saving people’s lives (although in this, she has been failed). As a matter of fact there is a compelling possibility that this conviction to save lives was another element of the real Yosano’s personality and beliefs. It has been written in the biography that Yosano Akiko’s father was a fan of stories of heroism, stories that involved the act of protecting and saving, and what makes this relevant is that he also loved sharing these stories with his children.

From a young age, her mind was fed with these noble stories, and children are impressionable. That said, the young Yosano Akiko inherently possessed a special empathy and protectiveness over life, in support of this let us read through another snippet from a passage;

‘One summer when Akiko was around eight she was sitting up there in the evening cool with her siblings and some cousins, when one of the older children remarked, “A night when the moon and the stars are close means fire.” When the others had left, Akiko gazed up at the vastness of the sky. Feeling sorry for the children in any house that might burn and worried that the fire might reach her own house, “I tried to think of some way to increase the distance between the little star and the moon.”’

As additional support, kindly read this excerpt as well:

‘In the morning, Akiko’s parents returned from her sister’s house. As their own manager politely expressed his relief that the Takemura home was unharmed, Akiko thought sadly to herself, “I wouldn’t mind having the Take-muras’ storehouse burn down if only the Gusei girl had not turned into a charred corpse.”’

And the last addition to further highlight this:

‘So much in this story of the great Sakai fire is typical of Akiko’s view of the society in which she grew up. She shows us all the negatives of the situation: People turned out in force either because they wanted to keep the fire from spreading to their own houses or because they enjoyed a good disaster as long as it was someone else’s. Even her own family thought it natural to rejoice that their daughter’s storehouse had been spared rather than grieve for the dead Gusei girl.’

The young poet Yosano Akiko, even compared to the adults in her environment bore within her a deeper reverence for life, the actions of the adults and their selfish concerns did not amuse her, she thought very negatively of them. The grief and pity she felt for the single casualty, the girl, meant that the loss of life be it a loss of what people consider an insignificant person, mattered to her. For her, every death is worth grieving. And should never be a source of entertainment or material for gossip (the villagers made festivals and dances inspired by the incident). Taking all this into account, it’s not much of a shock that BSD Yosano was so driven to save lives, why it mattered to her so strongly, why, she was also so severely devastated about what her ability has been used for. 

A brief interlude before further digging into the real poet’s early history, I’d like to draw more emphasis on the previous points made—specifically how she’d rather have the storehouse burn (despite having a mother who’s from a lineage of merchants, and Yosano running the candy shop business as well) if it meant seeing a girl she didn’t know too deeply, live—leaping to the future, the poet’s adulthood, for a moment, to affirm further BSD Yosano’s principles regarding the preciousness of life above all else.

In her most, as called in one article, ‘inflammatory’ poem which is ‘Thou Shalt Not Die’ I want us to focus on this particular line in the poem:

For you, what does it matter if Port Arthur Fortress falls or not?

The poet Yosano Akiko was so adamant in stopping her brother, Port Arthur be damned, because it was common knowledge at that time, false or not, that serving the military was volunteering for your own death—there were rumors of the Japanese soldiers being sent to suicide missions—and for what cause, even? Well, that’s not the right question to ask, let’s correct it to what 11-year-old BSD Yosano expressed in her refusal against Mori’s command to continue healing: Should any cause matter over human life? 

Remember, she disagreed when he (Tachihara’s brother) told her that her ability could change the world. She hoped only to save those she could reach. She was aware, of her limits, of the consequences, and that she could not and should not aim for such causes.

Alright, now that we can clearly see how the real Yosano Akiko’s qualities reflect onto BSD Yosano. Back to the early past.

As young as eight, Yosano Akiko tended and shouldered a huge portion of their business’s management, because, as said in the biography her mother was “sickly” while her father was “irresponsible” so she felt that she had to shoulder their responsibilities, here’s a direct quote: ‘ So Akiko felt that she “absolutely had to” stay home and help her parents, managing both the store and the household.’

But because of this, she earned a position of authority in the household, (additionally, by the age of eighteen, she has salvaged the losses from her father’s stock investments.) analogous to—as she stated herself—how a servant acting on behalf of the master can carve out his or her own sphere of autonomy. 

Our Yosano, if we again, try to see her in the real author’s light, must have been reminded of the corner she was driven into in her younger years. Reminded, of how the adults around her could so easily burden her with duties disproportionate to her age and how powerless she was after all amidst all of it.

This time though, she had hope; hope that she could start anew and could finally leave behind a life riddled with mistrust, and belittling, that she could choose for herself what she would labor for and dedicate her efforts to.

That—in the absence of her hometown and the people she grew with, the absence too, of admiration and belonging would change. 

For a brief moment, it did. 

The soldiers adored her, praised her as an angel, and treated her as someone capable—one made her good coffee, drew her a portrait, and Tachihara’s brother even created a present for her with his ability. She was needed not as some fallback for responsibilities nobody wanted. She was necessary, in a way she approved of. She was not a better-than-nothing exile anymore.

Furthermore, quiet acceptance didn't shackle her speech and response to the adults surrounding her in the fortress. The author, Yosano Akiko during her time running the business, often had to put on a polite face and way of speaking to the customers and called out herself when she seemed childish; moreover, she had to endure the incredulity of the prominent figures in her life, and deal with its damages internally. Take this excerpt, for example:

‘Like her parents, the teacher hurt her pride by assuming that she was less intellectually and morally advanced than she actually was, but politeness kept her from objecting. Among her friends, Akiko could be open about her ambition and her pride, but with adults, she apparently felt she had to choose between a pained silence and outward disrespect, and the latter was impossible for her.’

Meanwhile, in the fortress, she could allow herself to be less restrictive with how she interacts with them. 

Even with Mori, her superior, she let go of the hesitation to speak her mind. It’s no surprise then, that by the end of it, her spirit was broken.

This opportunity for change—to make a change, meant the entire world to her. At last, she was able to help in the way that matters to her and appeals to her heart, she did not choose to be there because there were no other options. She was there for a purpose she believed in. Her service was met with gratitude, they accepted her presence, not simply tolerated it.

Until things went south. 

And it did in ways that reignited the severity of an existing fear within our Yosano. How, and why is this the case? 

The poet, until about fifteen years old, nurtured within her as she wrote, an ‘irrational anxiety about death,’ which ‘shaped her inner life.’ As if to fuel her unease, rumors circulated in Sakai (her hometown) about a certain family’s daughter who died bathed in blood after suffering for three days straight. This rumor made the young Yosano Akiko weep, imagining such a kind of suffering. And with these thoughts haunting her, she came up with a specific way in which she would accept death:

‘“If I am to die, let it be at night, so no one will see. I don’t want my suffering exposed to the light of day. I want to breathe my last alone at night in a dark room, letting death’s cruel hands claim me with lips firmly sealed, not a hair of my 

head out of place.”’

She even contemplated suicide, since it is the only way for her to die on her own terms.

Oftentimes, though, she’d take what she could to stay distracted from her mortality, which is mostly done by reading:

‘So here, in addition to the intellectual curiosity, the pleasure, and the inner

rebellion that motivated Akiko’s early reading, is another motive: escape from 

anxiety about her own mortality.’

She attempted to pacify her thoughts and emotions about death, through religion. However, despite her consideration, she ended up rejecting it. From the age of three or four, she hated the scent of incense being burned, going as far as to rush past the many temples that burned them. She disliked, too, sitting beside her parents with her hands clasped in prayer. Affirming and elaborating more on this, allow me to show you this passage:

‘The Buddhist teachings and legends they told her seemed no more than “fairytales for grownups” that could be of  no help to her in “preparing for death.”

Once she “asked if Gautama Buddha had really existed and, if so, what country he had been a citizen of ” and was told that she “would receive divine retribution” for her impertinence.

Every month her mother and her friends heard a lecture by a priest, but as soon as 

the lecture was over, the priest would join them in “ordinary gossip, speaking ill of people behind their backs.”

Akiko “realized that these believers were not even one-tenth as serious as I was about... life and death and that even after twenty or thirty years of visiting temples and praying they were still not saved.” If they had no hope, she reasoned, how much less had she. And so she 

concluded that it was “useless” for her “to expect to be helped by Jòdo Shin-

shû.”’

What did encapture her, and attract her (as said in the biography) then?

Alongside the stories of heroic virgins in Japanese myths, she too was moved by Sokkyò Shijin which was the Japanese translation of The Improviser, translated by—guess who? Ougai Mori. Yes, him. Now I want you to witness this excerpt from the biography:

‘“I envied the pure, noble life of virgin empresses like the goddess Amaterasu. The imperial virgins of Ise and Kamo also filled me with longing. When I look back now on how I felt then, I think that, while squarely facing reality, I flew off and thought of my future in beautiful, idealistic terms, and wanted to stay a pure, undefiled virgin, like an angel, all my life.”’

Considering the new information, we can once again connect it to our Yosano and conclude that BSD Yosano also shared the poet’s fear of death and mortality. Besides her disconnect with her family, she wanted to prevent others from experiencing the fear of dying in a gruesome and undignified manner, which is why she allowed herself to be drafted for war. If you’ll allow me to speculate further, I’d say dying for her (at least she believed) should be a choice, or at the very least should be aligned with the personal preferences and ideals of the person dying—and this principle of hers, augmented the horror she has felt and has bestowed upon the soldiers because what exactly did the weaponizing of her ability bereave the soldiers of, exactly? The control they have over their own death. 

She wanted to save them from death, and she did. Until they didn't want to—until, she didn't want to, anymore. But she, a child, never stood a chance against what she was actually there for. She was there as a tool to convey a new age of weaponry which were abilities.

The scene with Kaji must have allowed these memories to resurface, he called the train bombing incident an experiment, and in a sense she too was an experiment—like the soldiers, she was there to further the idea and be the evidence that abilities were the weapons of the future that will completely change the battlefield, without any guarantee that she or the soldiers would achieve success, or leave intact.

And they didn’t—not them, not her.

For now, this is all I have for our Yosano.

Or is it? Before we end this I’d like to speculate even more about the significance of Mori as a figure in our Yosano’s life—the poet was moved, her heart attached to the real Mori’s use of language in his translation, in how he wrote the nun—perhaps, BSD Yosano put an equal amount of trust and faith in Mori, his intentions, his treatment of her. Given the real Yosano’s experiences and applying the same to our Yosano, she has every reason to be distrustful and skeptical of suddenly being drafted out of all the older, more experienced people by another adult. So there must be something about BSD Mori’s language, too, that persuaded her and moved her the same way the real Yosano was affected by it. For the first time she believed—relied on him, despite experiencing so many disheartening memories dealt to her by older figures in her life.

Okay, I’m serious now, this is the end. I hope you enjoyed and most of all I hope you appreciate her more as a character, that would be the greatest achievement this post could make.

my main is @ice-devourer jic u wanna talk more abt this, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING OMG!

[mariaxxxxx]

Boy, I want your attention. (Bucky BarnesxReader!)

Summary: A meeting with the blue-eyed brunette takes you into an obsessive state where your only goal is to have his attention.

Warnings: 18+female masturbation, stalking, toxic, obsessive relationship, mention of psychological transport.

A/N:I've always read fanfics where Bucky was obsessed with the reader. Driven by curiosity, I wrote a version where the reader is obsessed with Bucky.

A/N: English is not my mother tongue. I apologize for any errors.

You know exactly when you fell in love with him; it was at one of the countless Avengers meetings, where Steve appeared accompanied by his grumpy friend Bucky Barnes. You were a little thing in the back of the room, just a viewer, a scientist who worked alongside Tony and Bruce in the laboratories developing technology. You weren't deadly and sexy like Natasha, Adorable and beautiful like Wanda, powerful and independent like Pepper. You were just You; a tiny thing with basic beauty hiding behind a big white coat.

In the beginning, you often bumped into him in the corridors with your good manners. You always said a loud good morning, but it was answered with a strange sound that came out of his mouth. It was stupid, you knew, but having that slight attention from him awakened a feeling in your heart that you had never experienced before. Every day you said good morning and were answered with grunts. Until, one winter morning, Bucky answered you in every syllable.

It was silly, but her heart leapt out of her chest at finally being noticed. From that day on, you established a strict routine to always have a good day. You woke up at four o'clock in the morning to get ready; she carried out a thorough skin cleansing, fixed her hair, shaved her arms and legs, put on makeup and chose beautiful clothes. You arrived at six on the dot, the time you would find him leaving the gym.

"Good morning." You said when you saw him walking down the hallway that morning. He was beautiful, perfect, in his natural element.

"Good morning." He replied.

You worked bouncing that morning having received his attention. The next morning you carried out the same process; waking up at four in the morning, a moment of beauty, going to work, receiving the much-loved good morning. The routine was slowly killing you, waking up so early wasn't doing you so much good and it was necessary to create an excuse for Bruce for you going to work so early.

“Your shift doesn’t start until 9am” Bruce said. “You don’t need to arrive 3 hours early.”

“It’s okay” You said. “I like to arrive early so I have time to be alone and get some things done.”

Bruce didn't seem to believe his excuses, but decided not to argue. You lived close to the tower so arriving so early sounded strange to the others, so to throw them off you created a version of yourself who was addicted to work. The first to arrive and the last to leave. Tony even congratulated you on your professional performance, your colleagues patted you on the back and Bruce exclaimed how useful you were. The routine was taking its toll on your health, but it was worth doing all this to get his attention.

Time passed and his recent compulsion only increased. You watched him and wished he was yours at the same time. You said “good morning” every morning when you really wanted to say how much you were in love with him, You wanted to be his, You wanted to be his girl. You committed yourself to discovering his routine in the hope of having more dates with Bruce's help, it wasn't difficult.

“So…” You started to speak while leaning on an analysis counter. “...Is the Winter Soldier really adapting?”

Bruce typed on the computer and stared at the screen.

“It's been difficult for him, but everyone is helping. He knows how to adapt back to society.”

It was a gift that Bruce was a man so out of touch with real life. It was almost a sin how easy it was to get little bits of information out of him.

“It must be scary to be used as a toy.”

"And yes." Bruce muttered. “He is doing well with therapy.”

“Does he go to therapy?” The question came out too abruptly to the point of interrupting Bruce in his activities.

"Why the interest?" He questioned, looking at you intently.

“I'm madly obsessed with him and I want to know everything.” You said in a sarcastic tone.

"It is clear." Bruce said equally sarcastic. “Please don’t go around selling information to journalists.”

"No." You mumbled. “I just think it's kind of scary to have a deadly, unstable killer living under the same roof. I mean, I would be very scared.”

“We all deserve a second chance.” With that the conversation ended.

You felt happy knowing that Bucky was moving forward with his problems. The atrocity committed by HYDRA against Sergeant Barnes was no secret; for the public, the Winter Soldier was going through a healing process before facing criminal charges for his crimes. There was a strict description of what processes were being taken. Now, you knew two things about him: his morning trips to the gym and his therapy.

(…)

Through Jackie, a nice front desk girl with a big tongue, you found out about Bucky's therapist. To his delight, he consulted in the tower with a therapist with a funny name whose name You didn't bother to remember. The room's corridor was to the north, far from his usual laboratory, which made it difficult to create an excuse to walk through those corridors. The good morning still happened, but you were getting greedy. No alternatives You decided to tell Tony and Bruce how excessive work was giving you anxiety attacks, afraid of losing your best scientist, the duo decided to refer you to the building's therapist. You were happy, indeed. Now he would have something in common to talk about with Bucky and the chances of bumping into each other in the hallway were greater.

The first appointment would take place on Monday after office hours. You got ready in the bathroom, sharing the intention of looking as beautiful as possible for him. Her luck didn't accompany her that day, as she didn't find Bucky in the corridors in the morning and faithfully hoped that he was in therapy. Did not happen. Her disappointed face became apparent when she didn't see him in the waiting room.

"Hello." The therapist said the moment you sat down in front of her. What brings you here today?”

"Anxiety."

The conversation with the therapist was pleasant, but disappointing. After an hour and a half of talking about how anxiety can be neutralized with exercise and regular appointments, you were released. On the way home You reflected on your love, on Bucky. How cruel and painful it must have been to have your autonomy taken away and restored in an unfamiliar world. He must be devastated, You thought. That's why he needed you. You could take care of him, give him a good life and be the perfect companion. You decided to keep going to therapy sessions in the hope of one day meeting him and kept waking up at dawn to look pretty for him.

(…)

“We can go to the cinema tomorrow” Wanda said excitedly. “I'm sure Jennifer Aniston's new movie will be funny.”

"It is clear." You mumbled.

After your fruitless attempts to find Bucky in therapy failed and the hallway encounters ceased to exist You hatched another plan to get closer to him; be friends with an avenger. Sure, there was Bruce and Tony, but it was all very professional and it would be difficult to explain the friendship between a young girl and two middle-aged men. Steve was busy, Pepper traveled too much, Natasha was inaccessible, Vision was a machine and Wanda... It was Wanda, the little girl with no family and no country. It was easy to become friends with her. All it took was one meticulously planned meeting by You in the elevator and BOOM! BEST FRIENDS FOREVER.

Wanda was his free pass to the Avengers floor. It wasn't unusual, or strange, to see You wandering the halls with your newest friend or alone. You saw Bucky more often; sometimes on the sofa with his sulky face, sometimes in the kitchen devouring a sandwich and sometimes in the minibar with a glass of whiskey. You learned new things about him. He didn’t sleep well at night so he went to the gym so early, the therapy was helping, but he hated going to therapy, referring to therapy as ‘’a shitty obligation’’. He was a sentimental man too, with his sullen and closed-off manner he had mixed feelings for his now teammate; he loved Steve and supported Sam, he liked Bruce but hated Tony with his arrogance, he feared Wanda, was nice to Vision and kept his distance from Natasha.

The new discovery kept you immensely happy; Bucky refused to go on dates or even meet other people. You once caught Steve complaining to Sam how Bucky was closed off to the world and avoided the company of the opposite gender. You were happy that your man was so faithful to you.

Meeting Bucky was always a balm for your heart; however he never spoke directly to You. On a good day You could get a good day or good night out of him, but these moments were rare and happened very quickly. You even tried to improve his appearance a little more to please him; He kept his hair always tidy, his clothes were discreet with refined touches, his nails were always done, his lips were always painted. Nothing worked. The man never looked directly into your eyes no matter how hard You tried.

“We should go to the park too.” Exclaimed Wanda, breaking You out of your thoughts. “I’ve never been to Central Parque.”

You held back the urge to roll your eyes at such a silly quote. It was girls' night at the roast, in her room. You were praying for Wanda to sleep and for You to be free to put your plan into action.

“There’s nothing much at Central Parque. Just beggars and rats.” You said to correct yourself immediately. “I promise I will go on a sightseeing tour by your side. Let's get to know all the good parts of New York. Away from rats, squirrels and drug addicts.”

“Are there places like this in New York?” She questioned as she wrapped herself in a blanket.

"Oh yes. There are truly good places in New York. I’ll make sure to take you to all the cool places.”

Around four in the morning, Wanda fell into a deep sleep giving You the opportunity to escape. You walked through the hallways carefree since if you were caught, which could easily happen, you would say you were going to the terrace to get some fresh air. Your feet headed towards Bucky's room, a familiar path but never before explored. According to his information, at this time he would be at the gym using all his energy to combat insomnia. That gave you a few hours to explore his room.

The door wasn't locked and when you opened the door, his woodsy smell reached your nostrils, as if he had pressed his body against your face. You enter the room, closing the door behind you. You sniffed the air, overwhelmed by the multitude of smells that circulated the environment. Bucky was perfect to the point of making his scent addictive.

“Bucky?” You call his name softly, slowly crossing the room and looking at the perfectly made bed.

You knew he wouldn't be there, but you created the fantasy in your head that you were a secret girlfriend and were going to see him in the early hours of the morning. Tonight, You would be his girl; I would put on his blouse, lie in his bed, put her head on his pillow and imagine being fucked until her brain melted.

Her eyes thoroughly analyze the environment around her; it was tidy, perfectly tidy. The room was spacious with large glass windows covered with a long navy blue curtain. The bed was large with white sheets. The closet, his favorite part, had several clothes that ranged from the most casual to combat clothes. You play with some pieces of clothing in the closet; smelling, pressing against his body, running his hands, imagining it to be his transformed chest.

"Beautiful." You mutter when you come across a cabin boy wearing black blouses. Your man liked black and so did you, he looked great in dark colors.

You remove your clothes piece by piece; first the shirt, the pajama pants, the bra. Stripping down to just black lace panties. You take one of the black blouses off the hanger and put it on. A comforting feeling fills your body with the fabric brushing against your skin; it was as if his hands were on your body; passing her hands over her shoulders, down to her breasts, going a little further down, passing over her belly and stopping at her pussy. You turn off the lights in the closet and head towards the bed, where you lay down on his scarves, where your head rests on his pillow.

Your panties dampened at the thought of having Bucky on top of you, on top of you, fucking your pussy with his dick until you reduced your spirit to dust. Resolving to deal with your throbbing clit and neglected pussy, You sat with your back to the headboard, took off your panties, spread your legs and started playing with yourself. You slid your middle finger over her slit, then brought it back and started circling her clit, slowly, very slowly, like he did in his dream. It was torturous, almost painful, to deny himself climax.

You closed your eyes and focused on the sensation, your hips began to move involuntarily in search of more contact, you decided not to torture yourself any longer and began to move your fingers faster. It was close. Her pussy was wet like it had never been before and clenched in anticipation of release. You removed your finger from your clit and moaned at the lack of contact, tears forming in your eyes as your climax was interrupted. You closed your eyes, and started brushstroking again, a movement that provoked yourself. But you didn't do that for long. After a few movements, you started to pick up speed. You moaned softly, moving your finger faster and faster over the swollen organ. His other hand grabbed her soft breast, pinching the hardened nipple hard. It was so close. You squeezed the nipple harder, lifted your hips and came. You moved your hand away from your now sensitive pussy and relaxed onto the mattress. Her body softened with the intensity of her climax. It was the first time you had reached a peak as strong as this.

“Don’t stop because of me.” A deep voice echoes through the room. “Come on girl, keep going. I’m enjoying the view.”

You open your eyes, scared and panting, to find Bucky standing at the foot of the bed with his arms behind his back staring at you. Your stomach tightens in nervousness from being caught and your heart pounds from being so close to him. It was him. Bucky. Your Bucky. The man of your life.

“I...” You try to speak, try to explain yourself, but only disjointed noises come out of your mouth. You didn't want him to see you like this. Bucky was an old-fashioned man, coming from the 40s. You believed he preferred a sweeter, more demure version of a girl willing to be a housewife who would do anything for her man. For him, You would play this role. You'd throw a hundred years of women's rights out the window to be that man's.

Bucky moved to the opposite side of the bed, giving you a sullen look before taking off his shirt and exposing his chest. His eyes fell to the scars on the border between his arm and his shoulder, it was horrible and beautiful.

“You know, I didn’t expect You to have the courage to one day approach me.” He said as he started to push his pants down his legs. Suddenly, he's there, wearing nothing but black boxers. His mouth is almost watering, but his brain is on alert. This wasn’t the Bucky You knew, this wasn’t the low-key, moody Bucky.

"I need to go." You say in disbelief at his action. You push your body off the bed only to be thrown back between the pillows.

“What’s wrong, kitten?” Bucky murmurs imitating a cute voice. “You always wanted this. Do you really think I didn't notice your attempts to get my attention? Even therapy You found a way to go just to be by my side.”

"How do you know that?" You ask in disbelief.

“I'm a fucking trained assassin, girl. I know when I'm being watched.” Bucky puts his knees on the bed hovering over You. “At first I thought she was a Hydra agent, then I realized she was just a crazy little girl desperate for attention.”

Those words really hurt you. Is that what he thought about you? Just a crazy girl clamoring for a man's attention? His heart broke when he realized how Bucky seemed to despise You, hate You. It wasn't supposed to be like this. His eyes started to water.

"Not talk like that." You asked in a sad whisper. Bucky let out a sarcastic chuckle through his mouth.

“Do you really think I didn’t notice your attempts to please me? I noticed his changing appearance and his ridiculous attempts to get closer. At first, I was going to let it go, but I wanted to know how far You would go. I just had to give you the rope to hang yourself.”

"All this time..."

"Yes." Bucky stops you. “I liked the attempts to get my attention. Cum! Waking up at 4am to get ready pretending to have anxiety attacks just to go to my therapist and creating a friendship with an Avenger just to be closer to me. Woman, you are crazy!”

His words really, really irritated you. You tried to push him off the bed and walk away, only to be pushed hard onto the soft mattress with Bucky on top of you, his hands on the side of your head.

"Skirt!" You demand as you push, or rather try to push the man was as heavy as a statue made of marble.

"No." He says with clear amusement in his voice. “I like crazy women. I felt special having someone go out of their way to please me.”

"Did you like it?" You ask in disbelief.

"Yes. You are so dedicated and persistent, I like that. A little obsessive-compulsive, but nothing I can't handle.” Bucky praises, as he looks straight into your eyes. “Now open your legs.”

[betweensnores]

Dissonance

A/N: My first post! I wanted to create an MC-centric drabble about her emotions after the incident and also the what ifs of her being able to remember bits of her past life, like how would it affect her now? Also this is my first fic for a while, and English is not my first language so expect errors lol TW: None that I know of, MC is grieving. Mentions of death. Unedited and posted via mobile. Might be ooc in some parts but most are canon compliant hehe

Grief embraced me coldly. It stuck with me like moth to a flame. 

The sterile scent of Akso Hospital did not help in calming my nerves. I sunk further into my seat, trying to make myself smaller as I held my patient file close to me. The only comfort that the regular Hunter checkups brought me was not about getting normal results – it was the gentle demeanor and the still, inscrutable nature of Zayne. 

I know of his fondness for me. This Zayne. And the previous one. And the one before him. And eventually, the Zayne that will come after him. 

The memories of my soul came to me in dreams after meeting the crimson-eyed man who ruled the N109 Zone. 

In a deep slumber a day after coming back to Linkon City, I saw a man donning a blue robe with intricate details. He was holding a staff. In the dream, I see his mouth was moving, but I did not understand what he was saying. I could only understand the tugging of my heartstrings as soon as I realized the face that this man has was Zayne’s. 

That was the first, and it did not stop there. Night after night, my soul showed me memories I did not make myself — rather, it was the previous me, in varying timelines. With the same men. With the same fates. The moment I understood what the dreams were was the moment my grief was solidified. 

It felt like the sky fell on me, with the clouds purposely suffocating my senses and the stars scraping the skin of my back. 

Before I could drown in my despair any longer, my name was called.

Zayne’s office did not change, save for the multiple files that never seemed to dwindle on his desk. 

“Looks like someone is keen on following the regular check-in schedule this time.” He says without looking at me, typing away at his keyboard. The results were all normal, I was told. I looked at his hands, distracted — at the old and the new scars that decorated his skin. Hands that saved countless lives and will save many more.

“I had to, it was the only sense of normalcy I have in my life at the moment.” I meant to say it to lighten up the mood, but Zayne brought his attention to me with a soft look on his face. He knew of the baggage I carried, of Grandma and Caleb, of the incident back at home and of the files Grandma left about the Aether Core. 

“I have a free hour after this, let’s have something to eat together.” He begins placing the files back into the folder. Thank you, I wanted to say. Instead, I smiled at him. It reached my eyes for the first time today. 

The air conditioning at the Association’s office beat down harshly on my skin. I wrapped the fleece blanket I brought with me to work this morning, thankful that I had not forgotten to bring it. “So,” I started, glancing sideways at my mission partner, Xavier, who sat next to me. He leaned back on the office chair, arms crossed. Any minute now I know he would fall asleep. 

“That Wanderer, can you describe it to me again?” I can finish the mission report on my own. Usually, after missions, I let him dose off while I typed away our analysis. But somehow, today, I cannot seem to gather my thoughts, the words failing to leave from the back of my mind and form coherent and decent sentences to properly convey what happened to our mission. 

I felt his eyes on me. Guilt gnawed on my chest, eating away at my nerves. My skin felt colder than before. I also know of him, of the blonde man who wanted to save those he held dear. Eyes bluest of blue. 

He took one of the takeout coffee cups, choosing to remove the lid and brought it to his lips. The air smelled of it, my senses welcoming the scent. I once again jammed the ‘backspace’ key repeatedly. I did not notice I was typing gibberish. 

I hear him re-tell his observations to me, ever so calm and collected, in a voice that belonged to a prince. My soul’s memories showed me of a star tassel, of a distant planet, his home, and a queen who awaited for his return.

I see him reach to me in my peripheral vision, and my body involuntary jolts just before his fingers touched my shoulder. “Your blanket fell off. I was going to fix it for you. Sorry.” He huffed out a small laugh, amused at my reaction. It was a pleasant sound. 

His newest art stood tall against the light of the sunset. His studio gave the best views at this time of the day. 

Rafayel, who was sifting through his brushes, looked up to see me come through the door. He shot me a relaxed smile, a few streaks of paint graced his skin beautifully. 

“Hi,” I say, placing my bag down as I approached him. “Just checking in on you, don’t want Thomas to blow up my phone if I don’t give him an update today.” I managed to chuckle. “He wants me to take a photo of you as proof of life.” 

He grinned at that statement, standing up to his full height. “Well, let’s not keep him waiting then.”

My smile did not leave my face, shaking my head as I pulled out my phone to take a quick photo. I see him pose through my phone’s camera. He is captivating. I sent it to Thomas, feeling Rafayel look over my shoulder to see. 

“Done.” I looked up to see him already gazing at me, my breath caught in my throat at the closeness. I felt my ears getting hot. I hope he doesn’t notice, I think. But nothing gets past him — He let out a small, silent laugh. His massive studio suddenly feels cramped.

“I ordered some donuts for a change, that famous bakery launched new flavors today.” Thankful for the diversion, I followed him to the kitchen. 

“Help me eat them, Miss Bodyguard.” Two boxes lay on the pristine countertop. I hear him talk more as I help prepare our refreshments. 

His was a story of a being stripped of his divinity. I knew of the complex emotions he felt towards me. The memories in my dreams showed me, albeit doing nothing but hurt and remind me of my mortality. If I was him, I would feel that way too. Maybe even think of leaving it all behind and start anew with somebody else.

I feel the same guilt from earlier today while I listen to him. Every lilt of his voice, every syllable he spoke — He’s happy I came by today, I thought to myself. I sat down. We talked about our day, his new collaboration with a famous brand, my discoveries during my mission, the upcoming Linkon City events, and more. 

During the lull in our conversation, I absentmindedly fiddle with Caleb’s necklace. I began carrying it with me shortly after the incident, wanting to keep a part of them with me at all times. The material was cold on my fingertips. 

I can feel Rafayel’s watchful gaze. “You know you’re always welcome to my studio, right?” You don’t need to keep it all to yourself.

“I know.” 

The uncrowned king of N109 Zone is full of surprises. At exactly 10 PM, he appeared on my doorstep. 

I had exchanged messages with him earlier today that I would not be able to visit him. My day was long and my thoughts are plaguing me more than I care to admit. They are like flies and I, the corpse.

He made himself welcome in my home. I watched him lazily as I lounged on the couch, a half eaten biscuit lay forgotten on the coffee table after my shower. 

“You smell nice.” He jests, eyeing my damp hair and the pajamas. My eyes stared at the takeout box he was holding. I pointed at it. 

“Our dinner.” He casually says. I made space so he can sit comfortably. Our thighs are  pressed against each other. You feel warm, I wanted to tell him. It’s nice to stay like this. 

I thanked him, and indulged myself with the food that he brought. We ate in comfortable silence. I steal glances at him. He was wearing his gray sweatshirt today. He looks bewitching, his presence a hypnotizing sensation that I allow myself to get pulled into. 

“Mephisto says you cried today,” He muttered. It was out of character for him. He always spoke so surely. The head of Onychinus is a force to be reckoned with, but the man next to me is just a man with melancholic feelings. 

“Ah, the bird snitches on me.” I reply, laughing a little. He seems to choose his next words carefully. “No one can tell you how you should feel, not even me. I’m just here to remind you that you are free to come and go from the N109 Zone, you will not be hurt. I’ll make sure of it.” 

I don’t know what to make of his expression. All I know is that wherever I go — if Sylus is with me, I am safe. 

The dreams about him hasn’t come yet. I dread the moment that my soul will reveal what I was to him. What I did to him. The vision I saw when we first met was a snippet of what could have possibly happened. But the blood that has tainted my skin, is blood that my soul will carry. 

I look at him with silent gratitude. I lean over and let my forehead touch his shoulder. I fear for the worst.