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starr-fall-knight-rise · 4 years ago

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Humans are Space Orcs, “I Have Seen.”

Wrote something easy and more similar to my original stories today. I hope you like it.

I have been thinking about taking a couple days off from writing these stories, since I have been working non stop on this and the book for over a year now, so I am considering taking a break for about a week so I don’t burn out. I haven’t decided yet, so we shall see, but I hope you all have a great day.

I have a job no one knows about.

I don’t think anyone would be surprised if they heard about my job. I don’t even think they would care all that much.

None of this explains why my work station is in the basement of a nondescript government bunker on a death planet…. A!36. I can’t explain why I need three codes to get into my office, or why I go through five locked doors, or why I am not allowed to tell anyone what I do on pain of termination and imprisonment.

You would assume, perhaps that I am a spy, and involved in some covert cloak and dagger espionage against other species and nations: you would be wrong.

You might assume I am a weapons developer, but you would also be wrong.

Perhaps you think I spend my time wire-tapping on important calls between species and recording important information.

None of this is really the case.

In fact, what I do is quite safe and relatively simple, plenty of other non-humans are doing it of their own accord and plenty more humans do it on a regular basis. What I do is not illegal, it is not espionage, it wouldn’t even phase you.

If that is the case.

Why do so many of my coworkers go missing?

Why are there absent desks every few months?

Why can I not make any lasting friends?

Management always give excuses to those of us who are left.

They left for mental health reasons.

THey moved on to a different job.

They are moving up in the company.

They had to be let go.

All things generic and all things that wouldn’t generally raise suspicion… unless they happen so frequently as us.

You may be wondering at this point, what it is I do for a job.

Perhaps, you think, it is very boring and unfulfilling that I would go insane from sheer boredom.

No, I actually find my job quite interesting.

Perhaps you think my job forces me to watch very disturbing and violent things…. And I suppose that could be close to the truth, though no one forces us to watch the videos if we don’t want, and no one makes us read the material if we cannot handle it. In fact, there are those of us who specialize in that sort of thing.

I do.

I am a specialist in historical xenopsychology.

I study human history.

When I say that I study human history, I do not mean as in a passing fancy. I do not simply read their school children’s textbooks and accept everything I see as truth, no, every day , I come into work and it is my job, to learn about everything that has ever happened in human history, to the best of my ability.

It is my job to know the good, the bad, the ugly, and the monstrous.

I work from day to night, cataloguing and filling my brain with all the information I can before recording it as a lecture on aura drives, which are then stored away for future use in a deep backup system under the surface of this planet.

I have followed human history since the beginning of time.

And I have marveled at it.

Much of my research is flawed, I know. Human history has always been biased, history being shaped and molded by the winners of conflict. Much of what else I know stems primarily from scholarly work humans have done on their own species, looking back the centuries and making assumptions about what they were doing.

While this is a good insite -- humans trying to explain the behavior of other humans-- it isn’t necessarily correct.

For this reason, it is my job to study every piece of information that comes across my desk.

Due to a government agreement between the galactic assembly and the United Nations of Earth, I was given access to the rebuilt library of Alexandria and all of its electronic files which include photos and information on the original documents that they keep in sealed vaults below the library.

I have read every account of human history, and every second hand interpretation of human history that I could possibly find in my time working here.

I have read Darwin and his early theory regarding evolution. I have examined his evidence, which include images and diagrams of the human body spanning centuries. My determinations were made just the same as the rest of them. Humanity was a tree-living species that found its evolutionary niche through walking and the use of opposable thumbs.

This ability to walk, in tandem with the use of hands eventually gave rise to the slow swelling of the brain in comparison to other animals. Human evolved primitive tools, and even more primitive religions, societies and rules.

They developed art early on, painting on the walls of their caves, in the darkness of night surrounded by their fires.

I have read about their befriending of animals in that same darkness. Man’s slow molding of the wolf into the dog - a species designed specifically for the needs of man.

I have attempted to read every account of every atrocity ever inflicted on humanity.

I have read of wars, and battles, Marathon, Thermopylae, Kadesh, D-day, Vietnam, Korea, Russo-Japanese, World wars I, II, III, and IV and the Panasian War.

I have witnessed in images and first hand accounts the chilling discoveries of natural disasters gone back thousands of years. Pompeii, Mt. St Helens, Katrina, Tsunamis, earthquakes, the fire of london, 1887 yellow river flood, the 3130 California earthquake, and Haiti earthquakes.

And I have studied and witnessed every atrocity man has ever committed on its own people. The Mongol hordes, the crusades, Mayan and Aztec sacrifices, The Armenian genocide, the Holocaust, mustard gas, 9/11, slavery in the America, the Trail of Tears, The Bataan Death March, the Berlin wall, Civil war, the French revolution, Nanjing, Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

I tore a hole in humanity and looked inside to see your rot.

I study the maggots that crawl under your skin.

Don’t confuse me with someone who fears you, or is even disgusted by you. You have committed thousands of horrors, yes this is true. But humanity is not a polished gem, it is an uncut stone marred by dirt and debris, but beautiful in a way that can hardly be explained.

You scrub away the rot only to find more underneath, yet you continue to scrub, in a futile attempt to better yourselves.

It is a beautiful thing if not in vain.

I do not judge you for your crimes because I have also seen your achievements. I watched you survive the dark ages, I learned your philosophy from the greek world which brought the beauty of democracy and equity in later forms. I watched the enlightenment of the Renaissance, and have seen your beautiful artwork from each period of time.

I have witnessed your great nations and empires rise and fall, Assyria, Byzantine, Rome, Britain, Egypt, Mongole, Aztek, Soviet Union, The chinese Dynasties and the Communist parties. The United States, and the Asian Co-Prosperity Collective

I have seen your bravery and your loss.

I have learned about the good that walks your earth.

Humans who stood up to tyrants.

I have even examined your stories of creation, of deities who molded humans from clay or dust, watched your world come into form in seven days, or ride on the backs of giant animals. I have seen the gods gift you with fire and learned the teaching of your martyrs over the centuries. Men and women slain and stoned or pulled away by spirits. I have learned of crucifixion, death and rebirth as well as reincarnation and a return to the very fabric of the universe itself.

I see everything.

I see everything. I see it all in my dreams laid out before me like a tapestry following each woven thread through the ages. I thought if I looked back, I could know as much as I possibly could. If I dug deep enough, I would be able to see your secrets.

And I have discovered you.

I see you hiding in there.

I know what you are.

Come out, come out.

And I won’t stop until it is all over and your cities crumbled into dust and bone.

…

I am being called into my manager’s office. Perhaps I too am ready to go up in the company.

...

I will be back soon…

Deus

#humans are insane #humans are space orcs #humans are space australians #HUMANS ARE WERID #humans are space oddities #earth is a deathworld #Earth is space Ausralia

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acertainsomeone · 4 years ago

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Finding us- EdSer one shot

If he had any doubts before, this incident cleared them altogether. Eda Yildiz had not only taken over his holding and life but his dog as well. He couldn't come to terms with the fact that his best friend, his dog, whom he had brought up since he was a baby, had turned his back on him. Ever since he proposed to Selin, Eda had asked Seyfi bey to get Sirius back to Bolat place. Not that she didn't love him anymore, she found it appropriate that the dog was returned to his rightful owner. She didn't wish anymore for Serkan to treat her worse, if fate planned, his memories will come back otherwise she was not going to desperately beg him to choose her over Selin. It wasn't about pride. Her love was much more than self-respect. She realized that Serkan was scared of her because she managed to strike chords of his heart that were nonexistent for him. If she pushed him further, if she hovered over his head, he would be irked and god forbid if something serious happened to his health, she won't be able to forgive herself.

Sirius wasn't home, this was twice in the last three days that he had managed to escape. Serkan's pride was too much to call Eda and ask her to pay a visit to Sirius. Usually, he came back wagging his tail, it wasn't hard to spot him around but this time Serkan panicked. He checked the entire neighborhood and every possible place where Sirius could've gone. He had lost his memories; he couldn't afford to lose him.

"Where are you oğlum ?" He drove across the seats of Istanbul in apprehension. His heart skipped a beat thinking of a much worse possibility. Sirius wasn't among those dogs who get along with people, forget strangers.

What if somebody tried to harm him?

It wasn't hard to come across such crackheads, who would hurt animals for their pleasure.

"Alo" Serkan answered his phone in panic upon seeing Eda's name on the screen. She was going to chide him enough for being so careless.

As if he wasn't to be blamed in her eyes already

"No need to wander around the streets, Sirius is with me. I'm sending you the location. Hadi gel." Her voice was devoid of any emotions, she didn't let him speak and hung up asap.

Did he make a mistake?

What was this place? And why would Sirius come here? He wondered while climbing the steps of the apartment. He entered and found a wounded Sirius lying in Eda's lap. He was asleep, and Eda was caressing his head.

"SIRIUS!" He cried in panic, and Eda glared at him for being so loud.

"Shhhh you're gonna wake him."

'What happened?" He asked incredulously. Sitting beside Eda, caressing his only best friend with affection.

"I think he ran from your place - to find me. He would've expected me to be at the park. Few children hit him there. Thankfully, I was there for a walk and spotted him immediately."

"What park? I checked all places where he could be."

"There are places that became Sirius's preference, if not yours." She rolled her eyes

"Anyways Serkan, tell me in all honesty, can you take care of him or not? I can't risk his life like this."

He was about to fight back with a 'he's my dog' but he knew that would've turned into a nasty conversation. He owed a thank you to Eda.

"Teşekkürler Eda."

Eda looked at him plainly. It was hurting him to see her eyes without that love he was used to seeing ever since he came back. Why was it bothering him? He pushed her away, that's what he wanted.

"You stay with him tonight. He needs to rest."

"What is this place?" Serkan asked

"Home." She sighed in reverence. "I mean your home, you shifted here."

"Neden."

"I'll leave that story for your fiancé to tell after all she had been telling you everything, and you only believe her."

Eda picked her bag and stood up. "There's food in the fridge. Sirius's food is by the coffee table. And- your room is upstairs." She seemed in a hurry. He felt she was only telling him this to fulfill an obligation. He could feel her restless. But why? He had no idea

Serkan examined his room carefully. He was amazed Selin hadn't told him about moving out. The bedroom screamed that he was in a relationship with her Eda Yildiz.

Yok, the bed was made and broken lamps were fixed.

It had their memories. Her memories and belongings. Belongings that he would've never allowed in his premises.

Her clothes and undergarments were piled up along his. Her toothbrush and other toiletries were neatly placed in the bathroom. It didn't seem that they were placed there recently.

A weird sensation was pulling him towards those things. He ran his fingers through her belongings, having flashbacks. They were vivid.

For the first time, he heard her cackling voice too. It was blurry but even his bones could tell that they were in bed, and – he was doing things to make her laugh.

It can't be me

He shook his head in denial.

Serkan opened a drawer and found a USB. It wasn't the USB that grabbed his attention but the flower and note attached to it. That was his handwriting

"For us to remember all the good times- just in case."

***

"Serkannn!! Would you stop? Look at my state." A sleepy yet annoyed Eda shrieked at Serkan, who was prolly filming a video. He chuckled at her words, not paying attention to whatever she said.

"Eda I know how you look like without clothes." She threw a pillow at his head, and the video disrupted. "Watch out!"

"Are you filming us naked in bed?"

"Hayır, I'm filming this for us to remember that you can't stay mad at me for long." He replied in amusement. This was one of those nights when she had been mad at him but they made out in less than a moment.

"You think too highly of yourself Serkan bolat."

"I've got the brightest star for myself. Shouldn't I?"

"Can you stop this? I have to get up Serkan!"

"How about first you record a message for an 80-year-old Eda, who might've forgotten me?"

"How are you sure that it can't be you."

"I love you way too much to forget you. More than you could. We can bet on that." He winked at her shamelessly

"Tamam." She wasn't going to fight him on this. Eda moved forward cautiously wrapping her naked self with the duvet and kissed Serkan on the tip of his nose.

"This message is for old, yet madly in love Mr. and Mrs. Bolat! No matter how hard the times are, no matter how grave misunderstandings can be, no matter how bleak the road of hope is, we will find our way back, together."

"Always." He said with a smile and pulled her into a kiss. The video was for them so it didn't matter if it was all being recorded in that state.

***

We don't choose our parents, we don't choose our family, and at times life doesn't allow us to choose our partner as well. He would've never in his right mind made an illogical choice of falling for Eda Yildiz.

Yet he did

Did he make a mistake?

Because all that he had given her in this relationship was pain, so far.

The video brought back a bunch of memories. Their first kiss, first fight, first night, and the last goodbye.

Serkan was mercilessly driving on the empty roads of Istanbul. It was raining heavily and he was drenched. This rain could've made him sick, terribly

But did he even care anymore?

He had hurt the most important person in his life. He ruined everything

How could he forget her of all people? Serkan always claimed to love Eda more than she could. His love was fragile

He sobbed mercilessly, wishing to hit the car somewhere and end this pain. Events of the past few weeks circulated in front of his eyes. The way he was indifferent towards her. The way he resisted her touch and broke her heart all over again.

I never deserved her

He smacked his head against the steering wheel. His tears blocked his vision and he had no idea that he was driving beyond the speed limit with an absolutely insane state of mind.

Suddenly it grew all dark. He couldn't see anything. It felt that the steering wheel was moving in its own direction

All he could hear was noise. Eda's cries and his broken promises.

He was sitting in the police station absentmindedly. Eda was completing the formalities. They hadn't had any eye contact so far else he would've started crying right there. She took him by his arm as if he was lifeless.

"Serkan noldu? You were absolutely fine when I left." She asked him apprehensively, careful not to touch him. "Do you want me to call someone? Selin-"

She stopped immediately. He looked at her for the first time.

The gaze

Eda caught her breath. It was him.

It was really him

She knew that man

Those eyes, they weren't of a stranger. Those eyes recognized her, and she had seen love for her in them. But why was she seeing something stronger than love right now? Anguish

"Serkan!" She gasped unbelievingly. Her hands wrapped around his face possessively as if he'd leave this time if she didn't hold him tight

"I-" he was struggling with words. Should he tell her how scared he was when the pilot told them that the plane was going to crash? How he cursed himself for leaving her behind? Or how much he loves her? Where do I begin

Eda sobbed with happiness. She did not know what to say anymore. He was there, right in front of her. Her Serkan. Her robot bolat

The man who loved her

They were sitting at the shore. Looking blankly at the sea. The waves were calm but their hearts weren't. He had held her hand, and the grip was so strong that it was hurting her a bit but she didn't complain۔

"Eda" he broke the silence

"I don't even have words to ask for your forgiveness. I made another mistake, I broke your heart once again, didn't fulfill my promise, and became the reason for your tears." He was stuttering۔ words weren't leaving his mouth easily whereas Eda kept on looking at him with tears in her eyes

"What I did in the last few weeks can't be forgiven. I've hurt you. I won't beg you to return back to me. I can't make mistakes repeatedly and expect you to stand by the road waiting for me. I-" He stopped and his voice broke further

"Eda you might not want me back in your life but can you please forgive me? One last time? I won't be able to live with the fact that you hate me. Just don't hate me please"

He was begging her, his hands joined together in front of her pleading for forgiveness. His eyes were screaming in pain. He won't be able to bear that hate in this heart. If she stopped caring for him, he won't even bat an eye, but accepting the fact that she despises him? Serkan Bolat would die.

He knew he was being selfish. Yet again, he was thinking of himself. But he was selfish, he never deserved someone as selfless as Eda Yildiz. He disgraced their love, he ruined their relationship, and now if she wished to discontinue this fragile relationship, he won't subject.

"I failed our love Eda. I failed you." She could tell that he was not able to breathe properly. Eda's heart sunk the moment he adjoined his hands in front of her. With each pleading, it felt as if someone was squeezing her heart mercilessly.

"Fate failed us Serkan." She sniffed between her sobs. Her hands cupped his face immediately. She wanted to protect him, she wanted to curl his masculine self among her soft frame. She wished to provide him that comfort and safety his heart seek for the last few months.

He was asking her to forgive him. He feared that she hated him now. How could she?

Serkan had become more than a partner for her, he was a part of her. We don't detach ourselves from what lies within us.

He looked at her disbelievingly. Eda wiped his face with her palms. No more crying. They had enough, more than enough. The pain they had endured was enough for a lifetime.

"We'll leave. Somewhere far away, nobody could find us. Away from this mess, this hate, this chaos. Serkan we have each other. We are not going to let them ruin our happiness."

Was she for real?

"Tamam?" Eda pestered. He nodded in return, unable to say something.

"Seni cok seviyorum." Serkan mumbled only for her to hear as she adorned his face with delicate kisses.

"I have so much to tell you." She sighed in between.

"Where are you taking us?" He did not know why he was asking this. It didn't matter, the question came out of his mouth involuntarily.

"We are going to look for phoenixes." He did not know what that meant but he need not ask. As long as she was there, he didn't have to worry about anything. Eda embraced him protectively like a child. He was in his safe haven.

He was finally saved from the crash.

#eda yildiz #edser #serkan bolat #sen çal kapimi #sen cal kapimi #sen çal kapımı #sen cal kapımı #turkishdizi #hande erçel #kerem bürsin #edser fic

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fyeah-bangtan7 · 4 years ago

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The Boundless Optimism of BTS

IT IS THE MORNING OF CHUSEOK, A KOREAN HARVEST FESTIVAL akin to Thanksgiving, and the members of BTS would normally be spending it with their families, eating tteokguk, a traditional rice-cake soup. Instead, Jin, 28; Suga, 27; J-Hope, 26; RM, 26; Jimin, 25; V, 24; and Jung Kook, 23, are working. Practicing. Honing their choreography. In a few days, the biggest musical act in the world will perform in the live-stream concert that, for now, will have to stand in for the massive tour they spent the first part of this year rehearsing. At this moment, they’re seated inside Big Hit Entertainment headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, the house they built, dressed mostly in black and white, ready to answer my questions. They’re gracious about it. And groggy.

Before I’m done speaking with them for this story, BTS will have the number-one and number-two songs on the BillboardHot 100, a feat that’s been achieved only a handful of times in the sixty-odd years the chart has existed. Their next album, Be, is weeks away from being released, and speculation about the record, the tracklist, the statement, is rampant across the Internet. BTS are, to put it mildly, huge.

There is something about complete world domination that can really cement a friendship. What jumps out at me as I connect with the members of BTS is their level of comfort with one another. Tension has a way of making itself evident—even over Zoom, even through a translator. There’s none to be found here. They are relaxed in the manner of family. Lounging with their arms around each other’s shoulders, tugging on each other’s sleeves, fixing each other’s collars. When they speak about one another, it is with kindness.

“Jimin has a particular passion for the stage and really thinks about performance, and in that sense, there are many things to learn from him,” J-Hope says. “Despite all the things he has accomplished, he still tries his best and brings something new to the table, and I really want to applaud him for that.”

“Thank you for saying all these things about me,” Jimin responds.

Jimin turns his attention to V, explaining that he is “loved by so many” and describing him as one of his best friends. Suga jumps in, sharing that Jimin and V fight the most among the group. V replies, “We haven’t fought in three years!” They tell me this distinction now belongs to Jin and Jung Kook, the oldest and youngest members. “It all starts as a joke, but then it gets serious,” Jimin says.

Jin agrees and recounts what their arguments sound like. “Why did you hit me so hard?” he says, before mimicking Jung Kook’s response: “I didn’t hit you that hard.” And then they start hitting each other. But not that hard.

Since the start of their careers, BTS have shown a certain confidence in their aesthetic, their performances, and their music videos. It’s right there in the name: BTS stands for “Bangtan Sonyeondan,” which translates to “Bulletproof Boy Scouts,” but as their popularity grew in English-speaking markets, the acronym was retrofitted to mean “Beyond the Scene,” which Big Hit has described as “symbolizing youth who don’t settle for their current reality and instead open the door and go forward to achieve growth.” And their affection with one another, their vulnerability and emotional openness in their lives and in their lyrics, strikes me as more grown-up and masculine than all the frantic and perpetual box-checking and tone-policing that American boys force themselves and their peers to do. It looks like the future.

“There is this culture where masculinity is defined by certain emotions, characteristics. I’m not fond of these expressions,” Suga tells me. “What does being masculine mean? People’s conditions vary day by day. Sometimes you’re in a good condition; sometimes you aren’t. Based on that, you get an idea of your physical health. And that same thing applies mentally. Some days you’re in a good state; sometimes you’re not. Many pretend to be okay, saying that they’re not ‘weak,’ as if that would make you a weak person. I don’t think that’s right. People won’t say you’re a weak person if your physical condition is not that good. It should be the same for the mental condition as well. Society should be more understanding.”

When I hear these words in October 2020, from my house in a country whose leader is actively trying to make the case that only the weak die of COVID-19, well, it sounds like the future, too.

IF YOU ARE JUST NOW CONSIDERING GETTING INTO BTS, IT IS natural to feel overwhelmed by the sheer amount of stuff. It’s a bit like saying, right this second, “Let’s see what Marvel Comics is all about.” In the streaming age, BTS have sold more than twenty million physical units across fourteen albums. Their multi-album concept cycles, The Most Beautiful Moment in Life, Love Yourself, and Map of the Soul, have unfolded over multiple records and EPs. There are collaborations with brands, including a BTS smartphone with Samsung. There is a series of short films and music videos, called BU, or BTS Universe, and an animated universe called BT21, in which they’re all represented by gender-neutral avatars. Their fan base, known as ARMY, is a global cultural movement unto itself.

“Dynamite,” their first English-language single and their first American number one, is pure, ecstatic pop. Shiny and joyful. What sets them apart from many of their peers, and many of the pop acts who achieved worldwide fame before them, is what came earlier. Beneath the sheen and the beats has always been an unflinching examination of human emotion. Their lyrics seek to challenge the conventions of society—to question and even denounce them. BTS’s first single, “No More Dream,” unveiled at their debut showcase in June 2013, concerns the intense pressure South Korean schoolchildren face to conform and to succeed. According to Suga, lyrics about the mental health of young people were mostly absent in Korean pop music. “The reason I started making music is because I grew up listening for lyrics that speak about dreams, hopes, and social issues,” he tells me. “It just came naturally to me when making music.”

Suga’s early ambition of making music didn’t involve him being in a group at all. About a decade ago, in his hometown of Daegu, the fourth-largest city in South Korea, he started recording underground rap tracks under the name Gloss, listening to and learning from the early works of songwriter and producer Bang Si-hyuk, known as Hitman Bang. Bang is the founder and CEO of Big Hit Entertainment. In 2010, Suga, a junior in high school, moved to Seoul to join Big Hit as a producer and rapper. Then Bang asked him to become part of a group, envisioning a hip-hop act with fellow new Big Hit recruits RM and J-Hope. The guys call this “season one” of their development.

“At that time, I don’t think our label exactly knew what to do with us,” RM says. “They just basically let us be and we had some lessons, but we also just chilled and made music sometimes.”

It got more intense. The family grew, occasionally by accident.

V accompanied a friend to a Big Hit casting call in Daegu for moral support and ended up being the person chosen from those sessions.

Jung Kook was signed in a feeding frenzy after being dropped from the talent show Superstar K, fielding offers from numerous entertainment companies before settling on Big Hit because he was impressed by RM’s rapping.

Jimin was a dance student and class president for nine years running at his school in Busan; he auditioned at the behest of his teacher.

And then, to hear him tell it, Jin got picked up off the street. “I was just going to school,” he says. “Someone from the company approached me, like, ‘Oh, this is my first time seeing anyone that looked like this.’ He suggested having a meeting with me.”

“Season two is when we officially underwent hard training,” J-Hope says. “We started dancing, and that’s how I would say our team building started.”

School in the daytime, training at night. “We slept during classes,” V says.

“I slept in the practice studio,” J-Hope counters.

Hitman Bang kept the pressure comparatively low. And he encouraged the guys to write and produce their own music, to be honest about their emotions in their lyrics. Suga is on record saying that no BTS album would be complete without a track that scrutinizes society.

And yet for their new album, Be, they’re putting that aside. Even this has a greater purpose that relates to mental wellness: RM, the group’s main rapper, says, “I don’t think this album will have any songs that criticize social issues. Everybody is going through very trying times right now. So I don’t think there will be any songs that will be that aggressive.”

Though the new rules of COVID-19 mean they can’t come here and promote Be, its first single might not have happened in the first place but for the pandemic. “ ‘Dynamite’ wouldn’t be here if there was no COVID-19,” says RM. “For this song, we wanted to go easy and simple and positive. Not some, like, deep vibes or shadows. We just wanted to go easy.”

Jin agrees. “We were trying to convey the message of healing and comfort to our fans.” He pauses. “World domination wasn’t actually our plan when we were releasing ‘Dynamite.’ ” World domination just happens sometimes. You get it.

MAP OF THE SOUL ONE AIRED VIA THEIR ONLINE FAN PLATFORM and attracted almost a million viewers across 191 countries. The guys say they tried not to think about the enormousness. J-Hope adds, “I felt a little bit more nervous knowing that this was being broadcast live. I actually feel less nervous performing live at a stadium.” Jin replies with a smile, “J-Hope, born to perform at a stadium.”

The graphic layout of the title throws a colon between the final N and E, which makes it look like Map of the Soul On: E, and as I watch it live, as I do in my office at 3:00 a.m. with noise-canceling headphones and a steaming pot of coffee, it feels a lot like I’m watching Map of the Soul on E. It is an explosion of color and fashion and passion, over four gigantic stages, from the boozy swagger of “Dionysus” to the emo-trap introspection of “Black Swan.” Not a step, not a gesture, not a hair is out of place. If there were nerves, they didn’t come through.

There is also, at the end of Map of the Soul One, an intimate version of their 2017 track “Spring Day,” which encapsulates what’s really made BTS stand out. On the surface, it’s about nonspecific love and loss, about yearning for the past. “I think that song really represents me,” says Jin. “I like to look to the past and be lost in it.”

Fair enough, but there is an undeniable allusion, in both the song’s video and its cover concept, to a specific incident in recent South Korean history. “Spring Day” was released just a few years after the sinking of the Sewol ferry, one of the country’s biggest maritime disasters, in which a poorly inspected, overloaded ferry toppled in a sharp right turn. Hundreds of high school students drowned, having obeyed orders to stay in their cabins as the boat was going down. According to some reports, the South Korean government actively tried to silence entertainers who spoke out against it, with the Korean Ministry of Education fully banning the tragedy’s commemorative yellow ribbons in schools. I ask whether it was about a specific sad event, and Jin tells me, “It is about a sad event, as you said, but it is also about longing.” The song kept the disaster front of mind for young Koreans and for the media, indirectly leading to the impeachment and removal of then president Park Geun-hye.

If an overburdened, undermaintained, slow-moving vessel capsizing because of a reckless rightward turn strikes you as somehow symbolic of the country in which BTS are about to explode even further, you won’t hear it from them. “We’re outsiders—we can’t really express what we feel about the United States,” says V. But their actions speak volumes; in the wake of the George Floyd murder and subsequent protests in America, the group made a $1 million donation with Big Hit Entertainment to Black Lives Matter, one that was matched by BTS ARMY.

The fans offer a fascinating inversion of stan culture: Rather than bullying rivals like many other ardent online fan bases do, ARMY have put the positive message of the music into action. Their activism goes deep. Through micro-donations, they’ve regrown rain forests, adopted whales, funded hundreds of hours of dance classes for Rwandan youth, and raised money to feed LGBTQ refugees around the world. Where pop fans a generation ago might have sent teddy bears or cards to their idols for their birthdays, where five years ago they might have promoted a hashtag to get a video’s YouTube viewer count up, for RM’s twenty-sixth birthday in September, international fan collective One in an Army raised more than $20,000 for digital night schools to improve rural children’s access to education during the COVID-19 crisis. ARMY may have even entered the conversation around the 2020 presidential election when hundreds of thousands of Tulsa Trump rally tickets got snapped up online in June. The event’s actual attendance was pathetically low. No particular person or entity claimed credit for this top-notch trolling, but a video urging BTS fans to RSVP to that rally did get hundreds of thousands of views. We have no choice but to stan this fan base.

The relationship is intense. “We and our ARMY are always charging each other’s batteries,” RM says. “When we feel exhausted, when we hear the news all over the world, the tutoring programs, and donations, and every good thing, we feel responsible for all of this.” The music may have inspired the good works, but the good works inspire the music. “We’ve got to be greater; we’ve got to be better,” RM continues. “All those behaviors always influence us to be better people, before all this music and artist stuff.”

Yet for every devoted member of BTS ARMY, there is someone who’s looked right past BTS. Jimmy Fallon, whose Tonight Show hosted the group for a full week this past fall, was one of those people. “Usually if an artist is on the rise, I hear about them ahead of time. With BTS, I knew they had crazy momentum, and I’d never heard of them.”

Here’s a thought that used to be funny to me: There were members of the live audience of The Ed Sullivan Showon February 9, 1964, who weren’t there to see the Beatles. Elvis was in the Army, Buddy Holly was gone, and the three number-one albums in the months before Meet the Beatles! were an Allan Sherman comedy record, the West Side Story original cast recording, and Soeur Sourire: The Singing Nun. America had left rock ’n’ roll behind for the moment, and with the culture aimless and fragmented, it wasn’t quite sure what to pick up in its place. It is possible to imagine that a youngish, reasonably hip, and culturally aware human being might cop a ticket to that week’s show, settle into his seat, and say, “Bring on a medley of numbers from the Broadway musical Oliver! and banjo sensation Tessie O’Shea.”

The instinct is to laugh at that guy, and it’s a good instinct, because what a dope.

And then you become that guy.

Sometimes there is a whole universe alongside your own, bursting with color you’re too stubborn to see, bouncing with joy you think is for someone else, with a beat you thought you were finished dancing to. BTS are the biggest thing on the planet right now, yet the job of introducing them to someone new, particularly in America, seems like it’s never done. Maybe it’s because they are adored by screaming teenagers and we live in a society patriarchal enough to forget that screaming teenagers are nearly always right. Maybe it’s the cultural divide, in a moment when our country is unashamed enough of its own xenophobia to get openly bent out of shape when it has to press 1 for English. Maybe it’s the language barrier, as though we understood a single word Michael Stipe sang before 1989.

Whatever the reason, the result is that you might be missing out on a paradigm shift and a historic moment of pop greatness.

IF BTS SEEM A BIT CAUTIOUS WITH THEIR WORDS PUBLICLY, IT’S because—perhaps more than any other massive pop act in history—they have to be. Shortly after our second meeting, BTS were given the General James A. Van Fleet Award by the U. S.–based Korea Society for their outstanding contributions to advancing relations between the United States and Korea. In his acceptance speech, RM said, “We will always remember the history of pain that our two nations shared together, and the sacrifices of countless men and women,” as seemingly diplomatic and innocuous a statement as he could have made. But because he didn’t mention the Chinese soldiers who died in the Korean War, it didn’t go over well. The Samsung BTS smartphone disappeared from Chinese e-commerce platforms, Fila and Hyundai pulled ads in China that featured the group, the nationalistic newspaper Global Times accused them of hurting Chinese citizens’ feelings and negating history, and the hashtags “BTS humiliated China” and “there are no idols that come before my country” began trending on the social-media site Weibo. The pressure is not small.

Even as the number-one pop group in the world, even with their hard work day in and day out, even with tens of millions of adoring fans redefining the concept of “adoring fans” by literally healing the planet in their name, these guys still suffer from impostor syndrome. RM explains, “I’ve heard that there’s this mask complex. Seventy percent of so-called successful people have this, mentally. It’s basically this: There’s this mask on my face. And these people are afraid that someone is going to take off this mask. We have those fears as well. But I said 70 percent, so I think it’s very natural. Sometimes it’s a condition to be successful. Humans are imperfect, and we have these flaws and defects. And one way to deal with all this pressure and weight is to admit the shadows.”

The music helps. “When we write the songs and lyrics, we study these emotions, we are aware of that situation, and we relate to that emotionally,” J-Hope says. “And that’s why when the song is released, we listen to it and get consolation from those songs as well. I think our fans also feel those emotions, maybe even more than us. And I think we are a positive influence on each other.”

If there’s one thing they’re sacrificing, besides free time and the ability to speak freely without the Chinese foreign ministry releasing an official statement, it’s a love life. I ask about dating, broad questions like “Are you?” and “Is there time?” and “Can you?” and the answer to all of them is pretty clear: “No.” “The most important thing for us now is to sleep,” Jung Kook insists. Suga follows right up with “Can you see my dark circles?” I cannot, because there are none, because flawless skin translates even over Zoom when there’s an ocean between us.

So they’re not, at least publicly, having romantic relationships with anyone. If there is a strong relationship that’s guided their journey into adulthood, it’s with Big Hit. “Our company started with twenty to thirty people, but now we have a company with so many employees,” RM says. “We have our fans, and we have our music. So we have a lot of things that we have to be responsible for, to safeguard.” He considers it for a moment. “I think that’s what an adult is.”

“Our love life—twenty-four hours, seven days a week—is with all the ARMYs all over the world,” RM adds.

In a world that is determined to sand down anything that isn’t immediately recognizable to the average pop-music fan, when it comes to acquainting you with Korean culture, BTS very much do not wanna hold your hand. While the first song on night one of their Tonight Show week was a joyous but expected take on “Dynamite” with Fallon and the Roots, they took some chances during their second performance.

As a friend of mine, a thirty-three-year-old BTS fan in Los Angeles, told me, “The second song they performed was ‘IDOL,’ ” from 2018’s Love Yourself: Answer, “and it celebrated their Korean identity. They performed it in Gyeongbokgung Palace in Seoul. They wore clothes inspired by traditional dresses called hanboks;it was almost entirely in Korean, so it felt super subversive. As a fan, I read it as: ‘Dynamite’ was an invitation, and this is who we are and this is our home.”

“I was a little concerned that people might not understand,” Fallon says. “I was like, ‘There’s nothing in English here.’ But what you see is just pure star power. Pure talent. Immediately, I thought, Oh, this is everything. If you’re that powerful, it transcends language.”

American popular music in the twenty-first century is more fragmented than it has been since . . . well, since Allan Sherman, Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim, and the Singing Nun battled for that number-one spot. The monoculture that the Beatles helped bring on has breathed its last breath. Each of us is the program director for our own private radio station, letting our own past habits and streaming-service algorithms serve up something close to what we want. Which is great, except that huge moments can whiz right past our ears. Each of us, even if we’re more clued in than our parents were when they were our age, can miss some era-defining, excellent shit. Particularly if the radio is our Spotify Discover Weekly, or the Pandora channel based on the band whose T-shirts we wore in college. We can let a moment pass us by if prime time is a Netflix binge, and the Tonight Show hour is spent on one more episode before bed. But we shouldn’t. “Honestly, I think it’s history that we’re living through with BTS,” Fallon says. “It’s the biggest band I’ve seen since I’ve started late night, definitely.”

THERE IS ALSO THE SMALL DETAIL THAT, UNLIKE THE BEATLES AND literally every other worldwide sensation to break in America, BTS don’t particularly need to go to the trouble. They are massive all over the world. Thanks to the recent IPO of Big Hit Entertainment, of which each member is a partner, they are all now incredibly wealthy. (Hitman Bang is the first South Korean entertainment mogul to become a billionaire.) What good is a culture in decline to a pop act this much on the ascent? “When I dreamed of becoming an artist, I listened to pop and watched all the awards shows in the United States. Being successful and being a hit in the U. S. is, of course, such an honor as an artist,” says Suga. “I feel very proud of that.”

They’re breaking out in a country that either worships them or fails to notice them. So do they feel like they’re getting enough respect in America? “How can we win everyone’s respect?” Jin asks. “I think it’s enough to get respect from people who support us. It’s similar everywhere else in the world. You can’t like everyone, and I think it’s enough to be respected by people who really love you.”

Suga agrees. “You can’t always be comfortable, and I think it’s all part of life. Honestly, we are not used to getting a ton of respect from when we first started out. But I think that gradually changes, whether it be in the States or other parts of the world, as we do more and more.”

There is, without a doubt, one colossal, unmistakable sign of respect for a musician: a Grammy. They’ve been nominated only once, and even then it was for best recording package. But their sights are set on a big one next year. RM puts it out there: “We would like to be nominated and possibly get an award.” Dragging the hoary, backward-looking, and Western-focused Grammys into the gorgeous, global world of the present through sheer force of will, talent, and hard work? Stranger things have happened. “I think the Grammys are the last part, like the final part of the whole American journey,” he says with a smile. “So yeah, we’ll see.”

The Recording Academy’s seal of approval is one thing. But BTS have already conquered the world, clowned tyrants, inspired individual fans to perform the small and achievable acts of activism that have collectively begun to save the planet, challenged toxic masculinity by leading with vulnerability, and, along the way, become bajillionaires and international idols. Whether the Grammys are paying attention matters about as much as what an Ed Sullivan audience member expected to see that night in 1964. BTS have already won.

#bangtan #jungkook #jimin #v #suga #jhope #jin #rm #o:esquire #o:interview #201123

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koreaunderground · 4 years ago

Text

(2020/09/06) New data leak from the Pentagon biolaboratory in Georgia

[armswatch.com][1]

[1]: <https://armswatch.com/new-data-leak-from-the-pentagon-biolaboratory-in-georgia/>

# New data leak from the Pentagon biolaboratory in Georgia - Arms Watch

Dilyana Gaytandzhieva

14-17 minutes

* * *

[![][2]][3]The Lugar Center is a $161 million Pentagon-funded biolaboratory in Georgia’s capital Tbilisi (photo: Dilyana Gaytandzhieva)

[2]: https://armswatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Lugar-Center-696x392.jpg (Lugar Center) [3]: <https://armswatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Lugar-Center.jpg>

Leaked e-mails between the Lugar Center, the Pentagon biolaboratory in Tbilisi, the US Embassy to Georgia and the Georgian Ministry of Health reveal new information about the [$161 million][4] secretive US Government biological research program in this former Soviet country.

[4]: <https://govtribe.com/award/federal-contract-award/delivery-order-hdtra108d0008-0002>

The data allegedly originating from the Ministry of Health of Georgia has been published anonymously on Twitter and on a forum for database leaks – Raidforums. Among the documents there are internal memos, official letters and detailed information about US government projects at the Lugar Center, funding and foreign business trips.

Arms Watch volunteers have analyzed the leaked data and discovered very interesting facts about the Center’s recent activities.

The Pentagon has planned to turn Georgia into its largest biological research center overseas, combining its military resources with the resources of the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Georgia.

Furthermore, the number of US projects and grants have increased as well as the number of US scientists deployed to the Lugar Center. The Pentagon-funded facility is planned to temporarily accommodate 16 CDC specialists from Atlanta, for whom Georgia will build a separate BSL-2 laboratory, administrative building and a campus near the Lugar Center. In addition, Georgia will become a regional CDC hub for Eastern Europe and Central Asia, internal documents reveal.

The Lugar Center already sparked controversy about possible dual-use research in 2018 when [leaked documents][5] revealed that US diplomats in Georgia were involved in the trafficking of frozen human blood and pathogens for a secret military program.

[5]: <http://dilyana.bg/us-diplomats-involved-in-trafficking-of-human-blood-and-pathogens-for-secret-military-program/>

The Lugar Center is just one of the many [Pentagon biolaboratories in 25 countries][6] across the world. They are funded by the US Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) under a [$ 2.1 billion military program – Cooperative Biological Engagement Program (CBEP)][7], and are located in former Soviet Union countries such as Georgia (the motherland of former Soviet leader Joseph Stalin) and Ukraine, the Middle East, South East Asia and Africa.

[6]: <http://dilyana.bg/the-pentagon-bio-weapons/> [7]: <https://fas.org/sgp/crs/nuke/R43143.pdf>

**Pentagon research on bioterrorism agents at the Lugar Center**

US military scientists have been deployed to Georgia for research on bioterrorism agents at the Lugar Center, according to the new data leak. [These bio-agents][8] have the potential to be aerosolized and used as bioweapons. Among them anthrax, tularemia, Brucella, Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever, Hantavirus, Y. pestis (causing the disease plague).

[8]: <https://emergency.cdc.gov/agent/agentlist-category.asp>

The US military biological research projects in Georgia have been funded by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA). According to internal data, American and Georgian scientists are currently working on the following DTRA projects in the Lugar Center:

**Project 1059:** **Zoonotic Infections with Fever and Skin Injuries in Georgia**

The project includes isolation of new orthopoxviruses in humans, rodents, domestic and wild animals in Georgia, and collection of rodents (as a natural reservoir for this virus) for their further study.

Duration: 01/11/2015-31/10/2018 (extended to 2020)

Funding: $702,343

**Project 1060:** **Characterization of the Georgian National Center for Disease Control (NCDC) Strain Repository by New Generation Sequencing**

Description: characterization and genome research on 100 strains from four endemic species: Y. pestis (causing the disease plague), B. anthracis (anthrax), Brucella, and F. tularensis (causing the disease tularemia).

Duration: 01/11/2015-31/10/2018

Funding: $ 518,409

**Project 1439:** **Molecular Virological Research in Georgia**

Description and objectives:

* Identify and characterize Hantavirus and Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus (CCHFV) strains by molecular methods; * Characterize and study genetic diversity of Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus and hantavirus strains isolated from rodents and ectoparasites; * Serological examination of febrile patients with Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever and hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome; * Collection of rodents and ectoparasites (ticks, fleas);

Duration: 16/08/2017-15/08/2021

Funding: $612,614

**Project 1497:** **Molecular Epidemiology and Ecology of Yersinia Species in Georgia and Azerbaijan**

Description: 1) Ecological research on rodents in Kerb on the Georgian-Azerbaijani border 2) Isolation of different strains of Yersinia; 3) Molecular screening of collected rodent and flea samples. 4) A comparative analysis of the genomes of Yersinia strains obtained during the fieldwork; 5) Spatial analysis of the distribution of Yersinia strains.

Duration: 01/09/2017-31/08/2018 (extended to 2022)

Funding: $134,090.00

**Project 1742:** **Risks of bat-borne zoonotic diseases in Western Asia**

Duration: 24/10/2018-23 /10/2019

Funding: $71,500[![][9]][10]

[9]: https://armswatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/EcoHealth-Alliance-Project-1024x820.jpg [10]: <https://armswatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/EcoHealth-Alliance-Project.jpg>

In 2017 the US Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) launched a [$6.5 million project on bats and coronaviruses][11] in Western Asia (Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkey and Jordan) with the Lugar Center being the local laboratory for this genetic research. The duration of the program is 5 years and has been implemented by the non-profit [US organisation Eco Health Alliance.][12]

[11]: <https://www.usaspending.gov/#/award/ASST_NON_HDTRA11710064_9761> [12]: <https://www.wabnet.org/research/coronavirus-project/>

The project’s objectives are: 1. Capture and non-lethally sample 5,000 bats in 5-year period (2017-2022) 2. Collect 20,000 samples (i.e. oral, rectal swabs and/or feces, and blood) and screen for coronaviruses using consensus PCR at regional labs in Georgia and Jordan. According to [the project presentation][13], Eco Health Alliance already sampled 270 bats of 9 species in three Western Asian countries: 90 individual bats in Turkey (Aug 2018), Georgia (Sept 2018), and Jordan (Oct 2018).

[13]: <https://www.researchgate.net/publication/328676300_Bats_and_Viruses_in_Western_Asia_A_Model_for_One_Health_Surveillance_using_Research_Networks>

_EcoHealth Alliance and Georgian scientists[sampling a bat][14] for coronavirus research in 2018 (Facebook, Keti Sidamonidze)_

[14]: <https://www.facebook.com/847064690/videos/pcb.10158498937989691/10158498942329691>

Coincidentally, the same Pentagon contractor tasked with the US DoD bat-research program – Eco Health Alliance, USA, also collected bats and isolated coronaviruses along with Chinese scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. EcoHealth Alliance received a [$3.7 million grant][15] from the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) to collect and study coronaviruses in bats in China from 2014 to 2019.

[15]: <https://taggs.hhs.gov/Detail/AwardDetail?arg_AwardNum=R01AI110964&arg_ProgOfficeCode=104>

**Project 1911:** **Ricketsia and Coxelia infection surveillance in Georgia and Azerbaijan** (US federal grant [HDTRA1-19-1-0042][16] awarded to NCDC-Georgia)

[16]: <https://govtribe.com/award/federal-grant-award/project-grant-hdtra11910042>

Duration: 23/09/2019 – 22/09/2022

Funding: $945,000

Despite the official claims of Georgia and USA that the Lugar Center is under the full control of the government of this Caucasus country internal documents show otherwise. Not only has the Pentagon funded biological research projects but it has also paid all the expenses for security and maintenance including utility bills – water, gas, electricity, and cleaning. Tasked with the operational and scientific support to the Lugar Center is USAMRU-Georgia, a special unit deployed to Georgia by the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR). WRAIR has paid: $524,625 (2016-2018), $650,000 (2017-2019) and $1,062,400 (2017-2021) for utility bills, and a further $158,050 (2016-2017) and $322,000 (2018-2021) for security guards.

The Pentagon has also awarded a private US contractor, Technology Management Company (TMC) an [$8 million contract][17] for science services to support USAMRU-Georgia in the Lugar Center (2016-2021).

[17]: <https://govtribe.com/award/federal-idv-award/indefinite-delivery-contract-w81xwh16d0022>

WRAIR projects at the Lugar Center

**Tularemia research on soldiers**

The Pentagon unit USAMRU-Georgia has conducted extensive research on tularemia involving Georgian soldiers, [scientific papers][18] reveal.

[18]: <https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6453017/>

Tularemia is a rare infectious disease that typically attacks the skin, eyes, lymph nodes and lungs. Tularemia, also called rabbit fever or deer fly fever, is caused by the bacterium Francisella tularensis. It _is categorized as_[a category A bioterrorism agent][19]. Tularemia was weaponized for mass aerosol dissemination by the US Army in the past, according to a recently declassified military report.

[19]: <https://emergency.cdc.gov/agent/agentlist-category.asp>

[![][20]][21]

[20]: https://armswatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Tularemia1.png [21]: <https://armswatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Tularemia1.png>

[![][22]][23]

[22]: https://armswatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Tularemia2.png [23]: <https://armswatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Tularemia2.png>

_Tularemia is one of the bio-weapons that the US Army developed in the past. Source:[1981 ][24][US Army Report][24]_

[24]: <http://www.thesmokinggun.com/file/entomological-weapons>

900 volunteers (soldiers and civilians) were recruited for the [DTRA project GG-19][25] “Epidemiology and Ecology of Tularemia in Georgia” from 2014 to 2017. Blood samples were collected from those volunteers and tested for tularemia.

[25]: <https://ncdc.ge/Handlers/GetFile.ashx?ID=af53c8f1-7461-41b2-b5ff-89140c6e2188>

According to the study, 10 soldiers (2%) of the 500 solders tested had antibodies for F. tularensis. The seropositive soldiers were men, the majority of whom were between 30 and 39 years of age. Seven cases had current residences in known endemic areas (i.e. Kakheti, Samtskhe-Javakheti, Kvemo Kartli, Shida Kartli, and Tbilisi). Three were from areas without previously known F. tularensis transmission (i.e. Imereti).

Of the 783 residents approached to participate in this study, 35 (5.0%) volunteers had antibodies to _F. tularensis_.

While the civilian volunteers were all residents of two areas with naturally occurring foci of tularemia in Georgia, the military personnel were soldiers visiting Georgia’s military hospital. The study does not provide any explanation as to why soldiers were enrolled in this project nor how exactly they contracted the disease in the army.

Project GG-19: Tularemia in Georgia

Furthermore, Georgia has asked the US Embassy for assistance for the construction of a second military hospital in the country, according to leaked correspondence between local health officials and the US Embassy to Tbilisi.

[![][26]][27]

[26]: https://armswatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/New-Military-Hospital-page-001-scaled.jpg [27]: <https://armswatch.com/new-data-leak-from-the-pentagon-biolaboratory-in-georgia/new-military-hospital-page-001/>

[![][28]][29]

[28]: https://armswatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/New-Military-Hospital-page-002-scaled.jpg [29]: <https://armswatch.com/new-data-leak-from-the-pentagon-biolaboratory-in-georgia/new-military-hospital-page-002/>

Below is Google translation in English of this correspondence:

[![][30]][31]

[30]: https://armswatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Translation.jpg [31]: <https://armswatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Translation.jpg>

[![][32]][33]

[32]: https://armswatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Translation-page1.jpg [33]: <https://armswatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Translation-page1.jpg>

[![][34]][35]

[34]: https://armswatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Translation-page2.jpg [35]: <https://armswatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Translation-page2.jpg>

**CDC regional hub**

The US Government has launched a parallel civil program in Georgia implemented by the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Leaked e-mails between the US Embassy to Tbilisi and Georgian health officials reveal that CDC has planned to set up a regional office for Eastern Europe and Central Asia in Georgia. The US Embassy and CDC have requested additional office space for 16 employees. Currently the CDC staff are working inside the Lugar Center.

CDC regional hub for Eastern Europe and Central Asia in Georgia

Interestingly, the Georgian health officials do not ask about any further information or clarification as to what this new foreign hub is going to do in their own country. Instead, Georgia’s Ministry of Health has planned the construction of a new BSL-2 laboratory, conference hall and campus near the Lugar Center with a loan from the European Investment Bank, according to a letter to the finance minister of Georgia leaked on Raidforums.

[![][36]][37] [![][38]][39]

[36]: https://armswatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Capture1.jpg [37]: <https://armswatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Capture1.jpg> [38]: https://armswatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Capture2.jpg [39]: <https://armswatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Capture2.jpg>

Arms Watch could not independently verify the authenticity of this letter as we did not find it in the leaked files. We have further analyzed the ministry’s internal data and discovered the following CDC projects in Georgia:

**Project 1320: Antimicrobial Resistance Project**

Duration: 01/09/2016 -29/09/2020

Funding: $153,492.40

**Project 1440:** **Introducing or Expanding the Use of Influenza Vaccine Outside the United States**

Duration: 30/09/2016 – 29/09/2019

Funding: $750,000

**Project 1441:** **Influenza Surveillance Outside the United States**

Duration: 30/09 / 16-29 / 09/21

Funding: $250,000

**Project 1446: Strengthening New Generation Sequencing Capacities for Hepatitis C Surveillance in Georgia**

Duration: 01/07/2017-30 /06/2018

Funding: $22,000

**Project 1447:** **Samples collection under the Hepatitis C Elimination Program in Georgia – Bio-Bank**

Objective: The aim of the project is to store samples collected under the Hepatitis C program for future scientific work

* 20,000 plasma/serum samples * 6,000 serum samples from the 2015 National Seroprevalence Survey of Hepatitis C and B * 1,000 blood samples from blood banks * 500 blood samples from patients with terminal liver disease

Duration: 01/07/2017-30/06/2018

**Project 1456:** **Strengthening the micronutrient deficit monitoring system in Georgia**

Duration: 01/09/2017 – 31/08/2018

Funding: $92,875

**Project 1457:** **Genetic peculiarities of hepatitis C virus in Georgia and its role in the Georgian Hepatitis C elimination program**

Objective: Evaluate morbidity and mortality associated with Hepatitis C virus

Duration: 01/09/2017-31/08/2018

Funding: $127,125

**Project 1532:** **Strengthening, detection, response and prevention of diarrhea outbreaks in Georgia**

Duration: 30/09/2017 -29/09/2020

Funding: $40,000

**Project 1533:** **Strengthening Immunization and Vaccination Control System**

Duration: 30/09/2017 – 29/09/2020

Funding: $67,220.00

**Project 1534: Respiratory Disease Surveillance**

Duration: 30/09/2017 – 29/09/2020

Funding: $80,000.00

**Project 1535:** **Enterovirus surveillance Georgia**

Duration: 30/09/2017 -29/ 09/2020

Funding: $45,000

**Project 1536:** **National Laboratory Quality Control Program in Georgia**

Duration: 30/09/2017 -29 /09/2020

Funding: $56,140

**Project 1537:** **South Caucasus Field Epidemiology and Laboratory Training Program**

Duration: 30/09/2017 -29 /09/2020

Funding: $150,000

**Project 1538: Fever of unknown etiology caused by arboviruses in the Black Sea region** – clinical specimens will be shipped to the CDC Laboratory for analyses

Duration: 30/09/2017 – 29/09/2020

Funding: $100,360

In conclusion, the United States has been consistently developing its laboratory facilities in the Caucasus. Why has the US Government spent billions of dollars on such biolaboratories and projects abroad instead on the health of its own citizens?

Scientists with diplomatic immunity

Furthermore, why have [US scientists working at the Lugar Center been given diplomatic status and immunity][40] to research deadly pathogens and insects in Georgia? Diplomatic immunity is a principle of international law by which foreign government officials are not subject to the jurisdiction of local courts and other authorities for their activities. Hence, US scientists could even perform illegal experiments in Georgia without being prosecuted as they have diplomatic immunity.

[40]: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8hQi2Zv1L0&t=12s>

_P.S. Arms Watch is currently analyzing all leaked data. Due to the large volume of information, we will publish more documents in another article soon. If you want to support Arms Watch, please go to the_[ _Donation_][41] _page or_[ _Become Volunteer_][42] _. Thank you!_

[41]: <https://armswatch.com/donate/> [42]: <https://armswatch.com/become-volunteer/>

#USA #GOF #USAMRIID #bioweapons #JUPITR

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artificialqueens · 5 years ago

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(Your Body Is) Out of this World (Shalaska) - Citrus

A/N: thank u to Mistress for beta-ing and subsequently bullying me into posting this

Summary: Dr. Sharon Needles is assigned to examine the newest alien arrival on their interstellar compound. Things do not go as she planned. Smut, 3.9k words.

Sharon had never seen a specimen like this before, and she’d been working at this facility for six years. Sure, the infinite expanse of space was filled with any number of cosmic horrors, and she’d seen quite a few of its offerings, but she’d never encountered anything like this.

Looking through the shielded glass of the MRI room for the first time, she’d been astounded. Inside was a humanoid that resembled Sharon’s own race in all of the fundamental ways, but was decidedly different in others. This alien looked like, well, what an alien in a video game would look like; a feminine figure with impossible proportions, yet still enough to appear human to an extent. She was long-legged and a little gangly, but not skin-and-bones; clearly there was strong muscle and soft fat beneath her shimmering blue-green skin. Her eyes were almost completely black, and when the alien had turned to make eye contact with Sharon, she’d looked away.

A Glamtr0nian. Their planet was shrouded in mystery, its people renowned for their incredible beauty, but not much was known about their physiology. Their concept of gender was beyond the realm of human imagination, but this particular one had disclosed an identification somewhere close to the human concept of womanhood, and had expressed consent toward being referred to as a “she.”

Now it was exam day. Sharon would be conducting a physical examination of the facility’s first Glamtr0nian specimen. She adjusted her glasses nervously as she stepped in front of the exam room door, pressing her palm against the scanner and waiting for her entrance permissions to clear. The doors slid open to reveal a second set of doors, a security measure in the event that specimens attempted to make an escape. It didn’t happen often, but it was a nice precaution to have. The outer doors would be secured by armed guards as well, if Sharon needed backup or found herself in a volatile situation.

The doors opened, and Sharon stepped inside. The alien was waiting for her, sitting on the exam table and showing no signs of distress and looking, for all intents and purposes, fairly comfortable. Her long, silvery-blonde hair was no longer piled into two buns on the top of her head like it had been when she’d arrived, but was now brushed back into a sleek, shiny ponytail. Her eyes were still black as night, but her makeup was definitely toned down, as if she was barely wearing any at all. A little hesitantly, Sharon stepped forward to conduct her first test: ensuring that the alien’s translation chip had been upgraded when she arrived at their facility.

“Can you understand me?”

Turning her head at the sound of Sharon’s voice, the Glamtr0nian looked at her and nodded.

“I was getting bored in here. It’s kind of unnerving to have all of these medical instruments around me, you know.”

“I understand, sorry about that,” Sharon smiled. “My name is Dr. Needles, I’ll be performing your examination today. Do you use a name?”

“Princess Alaska Joanne Elizabeth Thunderfuck 5000 of the planet Glamtr0n. Alaska is fine, or Your Highness if you’re kinky. So what’ll you be doing to me today, Doc Needles? That’s a fitting name, by the way.”

Sharon flushed, but tried not to let it affect her. “It’s just a routine physical exam. Making sure you’re healthy and figuring out what you need in order to design an ideal habitat.”

“You make me sound like a zoo animal,” Alaska grumped. “You’re not gonna put me on display, are you?”

Sharon shook her head, taken aback. “Not at all. This is just protocol while our engineering team works on repairing your spacecraft. It would be rude to stick you in a hotel room that was badly-suited for your particular needs.”

“Oh, that’s fine then,” Alaska said, sounding relieved. “I got kinda worried when they made me do all those MRIs and x-rays and stuff. The translation chip upgrade was cool though, I needed the newest language expansion. Thanks for that.”

“I’ll let Dr. West know you appreciate it,” Sharon smiled. “Are you ready to begin?”

“Do your worst.”

They went through a few of the simpler tests, like necessary air components and temperature preference, before moving on to diet and physical activity requirements. It turned out that Glamtr0nians were incredibly adaptable, to an extent that Sharon had never seen before, and their ability to shapeshift made it much easier to assimilate to any environment that they needed to.

“Are you comfortable if we move on to a more… private portion of the exam?”

“How private are we talking, Doc?” Alaska asked with a smirk. “You gonna probe me?”

Sharon blushed. “Not quite. If you’re comfortable doing so, I’d like to ask you to disrobe and allow me to record your body’s reactions to some simple tests.” Alaska’s robe was gone before she’d even finished her sentence, and she blushed even deeper at the sight of what was essentially a naked blue-green woman in front of her, covered only by a flashy silver thong.

“I thought you’d never ask. That thing was driving me insane.”

“Really? Was the fabric uncomfortable to you?“ That would be an interesting thing to make note of, for the sake of future patients.

“The fabric was fine, it was just so loose. I prefer to wear things with a much tighter fit, or nothing at all. Personal preference. Now you can test away.” She crossed her legs and leaned back on her palms, those dark eyes looking right at Sharon with such intensity that she thought she might melt. But she had a job to do, and dammit, she was going to do it.

Sharon took a reflex hammer from the table and checked Alaska’s reflexes, which were a little faster than a normal human’s but generally pretty normal. Taking her stethoscope from around her neck, she placed it on Alaska’s bare chest and waited, trying not to be a perv by looking at her perky breasts, though they were difficult to ignore.

“Very weak heartbeat…” she mumbled to herself, and Alaska giggled.

“It’s on the other side. Here,” she said, placing her hand over Sharon’s and guiding it to the right side of her chest. Sharon tried her hardest not to blush.

“Right. Is this a normal resting heart rate for you?"

"It’s a little higher,” Alaska answered, and Sharon looked at her, curious.

“Is this exam making you nervous?"

"Sure,” the alien replied, “Let’s go with that.”

Seemingly oblivious, Sharon continued. “I hate to ask this, but how’s your sexual health?”

“I’d say it’s just fine,” Alaska purred. “I assume this is all protocol?”

“Yeah, I have to go through this part just to make sure there’s no risk of any kind of outbreak in the compound. Who you choose to engage with isn’t our business, we just don’t want anything to spread– Not that I’m implying that you have anything,” she added, blushing. “It’s just precautionary.”

“I didn’t think you were,” Alaska said. “As far as I’m aware, I’m not carrying anything. I get tested regularly.”

Sharon copied that down in her notes. “That makes my job a lot easier. Are you sexually compatible with members of species outside your own?”

“Very.” Alaska smirked. “I’d say almost universally.”

“Really?” Sharon found herself blushing again. “You have that in common with humans, then.”

“Oh, I know,” Alaska answered, giving her gorgeous doctor a once-over. Were humans exceptionally dense, or was this one just not catching onto her advances? She was beginning to get frustrated with Sharon’s apparent lack of interest. Then again, she was doing that thing where her cheeks turned all pink and she radiated warmth, which was kind of adorable. “I’ve been told that humans are the most compatible species with my own. Sexually, at least. Especially the brunettes.”

“Why is that?”

Alaska bit her lip, gazing into the doctor’s eyes. “You know, for a doctor, you’re really kind of dumb.”

“Why would you think th– oh. Oh.” Sharon took a few steps back, blushing even harder than before. “Have you been-”

"Hitting on you this whole time? Yes. Kinda wish we’d met under different circumstances, not as a doctor and patient, because you’re very attractive and I’d like to have wildly kinky interspecies sex with you.”

This was, surprisingly, not the first time an alien had hit on Sharon during an exam. However, she’d be a liar if she said she wasn’t attracted to this particular alien, and it had taken her much longer than usual to catch on to Alaska’s flirting. Come to think of it, she’d been feeling rather warm since she first entered the room… Had she just been repressing her desire this entire time? It definitely sounded like something she would do.

“You know, I think I’ve written down everything you need to be comfortable in your section of the compound,” she said slowly, looking into Alaska’s inky-black eyes. “We could always save the regular checkup for another time.”

Alaska’s eyes widened as she realized what Sharon was doing, and her cheeks turned a delicate shade of turquoise. “You’re right. After all, they’ll probably be repairing my ship for a while…"

"I’d say a few weeks at least,” Sharon agreed.

"Right. Complex craft, that one is.”

“We have plenty of time for a follow-up exam.”

“Plenty.”

“I’m sure both of us have other things we could be doing with our time.”

“Oh, I can think of a few.”

“Yeah?”

“Mm-hmm. And if you don’t put your mouth on my mouth in the next ten seconds, I think I’ll explode.”

They had been inching closer to one another throughout this exchange, but when Alaska begged to be kissed, Sharon’s composure was finally broken. She leaned against the exam table, capturing Alaska’s lips with her own and letting out a surprised whine when Alaska’s tongue was much longer than she’d expected. Fuck, she’d give anything for that tongue between her legs…

“You’re so sexy,” Sharon mumbled against the alien’s plush lips, her hands moving from the exam table to rest on Alaska’s thighs. They were slightly cooler than Sharon’s own body temperature, and impossibly soft and smooth; her skin was almost comparable to silicone in its texture, but wondrously alive. “God, I want you so bad.” As her right hand moved to Alaska’s inner thigh, her fingertips brushed against the thin strap of her thong. “Can I touch you?”

“Fuck yes,” Alaska breathed, her dark eyes half-lidded with lust. When Sharon cupped her and then froze, she looked up at the doctor with confusion. “What’s wrong?”

“Sorry, I-” Sharon blushed and withdrew her hand. “I didn’t think to ask what… what you had going on down there. I guess I just assumed it was as humanoid as the rest of you.” She bit her lip, trying not to turn an even deeper shade of red as she looked up at Alaska. When she’d touched her, she’d felt a distinct bulge, and she was both curious and turned on by whatever was hidden by Alaska’s silvery underwear.

The alien smiled coyly. “Do you want to see?” Wordlessly, Sharon nodded and took a step back to allow her patient-turned-paramour to stand. Alaska hooked her fingers under the straps of her flimsy undergarment and pulled them over her hips, sliding her panties off completely and setting them on the exam table. She hopped up onto the table once more and spread her legs, giving Sharon full view of just what she was working with.

It was like nothing Sharon had ever seen. Confirming her suspicions that Alaska was completely hairless from the neck down, the alien was bare and wet, her dewy folds all but dripping with a bright blue fluid that seemed to give off a light of its own. It looked remarkably like what Sharon expected from an alien pussy, but the star of the show made itself obvious in the place where Alaska’s clit would be, had she been human. Though blue-green like the rest of her skin and shaped somewhat oddly with a tapering tip, it was unmistakably a penis, and it was leaking the same luminous fluid as her pussy– or perhaps it had dripped down, Sharon wasn’t sure.

“Fuck. Wow."

Alaska’s external member twitched and she bit her lip, flustered. "Is that a good ‘fuck, wow’ or a bad one?"

"Definitely good,” Sharon breathed, “Holy shit.”

“Do you still want to-"

”Yes,“ Sharon interrupted her, stepping between her legs again. "I want you. Fuck.”

Alaska smiled, clearly relieved. “Y'know, Dr. Needles, you’re wearing an awful lot of clothing right now…” She tugged at the lapels of Sharon’s labcoat, teasing. “C'mon, I showed you mine…”

Sharon grinned at her and began to undress, taking her time as she stripped down to her bra and panties. With every article of clothing she removed, she watched Alaska’s member grow a little stiffer; by the time she unclipped her bra, Alaska had grown several times her original size and was dripping all over her thighs and the exam table.

“You’re so hot, come here,” she whined, reaching out for the doctor and letting out a soft moan when Sharon moved closer, one hand skimming the alien’s slender waist. “Fuck, I didn’t think a strip tease could make me so wet.”

“That’s what that is, huh?” Sharon smirked, gesturing to the little luminescent mess Alaska had made.

“Whaaat, you’ve never seen Glamtr0nian precum?” Alaska whined, clearly desperate for some kind of action. “You wanna touch me, or are you gonna make me suffer forever?"

Sharon eyed Alaska’s pulsing member, a little apprehensive. "It’s not corrosive, is it?"

"Not to humans. I’ve been told it tastes like candy, too.”

“Well now you’re just lying to me so I’ll go down on you,” Sharon laughed. “What do you call it, anyway? Your… external part, I mean.”

“Same as you,” the alien shrugged. “On Glamtr0n we all have a pussy and a cock. It’s super easy for us to fuck,” she added with a giggle. “We’re kinda stretchy and can take a lot more than it looks like. But that’s not really relevant here.”

“And why’s that?” Sharon challenged.

Alaska gave her a look, and she withered almost immediately. “Because it’s so obvious that you want me inside you,” she answered as if Sharon had already known. And, to be fair, she had a point. Sharon definitely wanted Alaska’s alien cock to rearrange her gastrointestinal structures, but she wasn’t going to admit that out loud. Yet.

“You think so?” Sharon teased, stealing a kiss. “You’ve already made a mess of yourself, and you expect me to believe that you won’t blow your load the second you’re inside me?”

Alaska chased the doctor’s lips, running her hands down Sharon’s chest and squeezing her breasts. Fuck, she was so warm and soft and human. “I guess that’s up to you… Are you gonna let me fuck you so you can find out?” She trailed a palm down Sharon’s body to cup her over her panties, and smirked when she felt that they were wet. “You’re a bold talker for someone who’s dripping just as much as I am, Dr. Needles.”

“I think you owe me a favor for making a mess of my exam table,” Sharon breathed, her eyes dark and wide as Alaska’s long fingers pressed against her. “Don’t you?”

“Oh, you’re right, I’m terribly sorry for that,” the alien princess smirked. Just like that, her fingertips had grown talon-like nails, and she used them to slice away the straps of Sharon’s panties; as soon as the wet fabric hit the floor, Alaska’s hands were back to normal, pressing between the doctor’s folds and feeling how wet she truly was.

“Could’ve warned me before you did that,” Sharon said, but it was clear from her tone that she wasn’t upset at all, and rather more turned on because of it. “Oh, fuck.” Alaska’s fingers had found her entrance and a long, slender digit curled inside her, deeper than she’d ever been touched before. Alaska smirked, cupping Sharon’s cheek with her other hand and drawing her in for a kiss.

“You’re so warm… and Goddess, so fucking tight…” Her voice was low and sultry, even more so than before, and Sharon felt weak in her embrace. “I’ll have to be nice and slow with you… Make sure you can take me…”

“You’re evil,” Sharon whined as a second finger joined the first inside her, “You shouldn’t be able to make me feel this fucking good.”

Alaska laughed. “No? Would you like me to stop, then?”

“Don’t you fucking dare,” Sharon growled, clenching down on Alaska’s fingers and enjoying the alien’s soft gasp of surprise. “God, fuck, you’re so good.”

“You swear a lot,” Alaska grinned, feeling blindly with her thumb for the little bud that she knew resided in the place where her own cock would be. When she found it, Sharon all but whimpered, falling forward to lean against her lover’s chest for support as she worked her magic.

“Holy shit.”

“Should we change positions? I don’t want you hurting yourself,” Alaska asked, a wicked glimmer in her eye. Sharon nodded, and allowed the alien to gently maneuver her body so that she was leaning against the exam table, her legs spread just enough for Alaska to kneel between them.

“Fuck.” Sharon had wanted Alaska between her legs, and now it was happening.

The alien kissed Sharon’s thighs, remembering that humans liked it when their skin was marked up, and sucked a hickey or two into the soft flesh. Her long tongue flicked upwards, tasting the wetness that had gathered on Sharon’s folds and stifling a moan at the taste of her. “Fuck, I’ll never get tired of human pussy,” she mumbled into Sharon’s thigh, causing the doctor to giggle and blush. “You’re so fucking wet.” Her tongue slid between Sharon’s lips again, lapping at her pussy eagerly as she listened to her soft moans of pleasure. Daringly, she teased at Sharon’s entrance before darting inside and tasting her deeply, and the human woman let out a cry.

“Oh my fucking god!” Alaska was every lesbian’s wet dream, and Sharon could hardly believe she had such a gorgeous and talented woman between her thighs. “Shit, you’re so good,” she whined as that impossibly long tongue fluttered over her clit and curled against her aching pussy. If she didn’t slow down soon, Sharon was going to make an embarrassing mess of herself.

“You taste so good, baby,” Alaska moaned, taking a moment to breathe. Sharon looked down at her, brushing a silver-blonde lock of hair away from her face where it had escaped her ponytail. Alaska’s cheeks were flushed and her eyes were half-lidded, and she looked absolutely debauched, like there was nowhere in the universe she’d rather be than on her knees between Sharon’s legs.

Sharon bit her lower lip, feeling her own face heat up. “You look so good like this.”

“Hardly royal behavior, is it?” Alaska breathed with a little chuckle. “On my knees pleasuring a commoner while I’m soaked and unfulfilled.” It was clear that she was being playful, but once glance at her dick made it obvious just how badly she needed to be touched.

“Come here,” Sharon said, pulling the alien princess to her feet and immediately wrapping her fingers around her weeping cock. Alaska gasped sharply, her hips thrusting against Sharon’s touch of their own accord as the doctor stroked her carefully. “Is this good?”

“So good,” Alaska whined, and Sharon tightened her grip, moving a little faster. She learned quickly that unlike humans, Alaska had more than one deeply sensitive spot; her base was just as sensitive as her tip, and when Sharon slipped two fingers into her pussy, she keened and squirmed. “You are fucking incredible,” the princess praised her, doing her best to fuck herself on Sharon’s fingers while also thrusting up into her hand. “You’ll kill me before I can cum.”

“Who says I’m going to let you cum?” Sharon teased her, laughing when Alaska let out a pathetic whimper. “I’m kidding, I promise. Although this angle is kind of awkward, so…” She pulled her fingers out of Alaska despite soft protesting from the alien, and settled for kissing her deeply instead.

Alaska’s fingers found Sharon’s clit, and their lips met once more as they pleasured one another. Sharon came first, whining and shaking against Alaska’s delicate touch, and the princess slipped out of her grasp to kneel between her legs again and clean her up. Sharon was almost painfully sensitive, so Alaska took care to be gentle with her, and kissed her hip sweetly before coming back up to kiss her on the mouth.

“You don’t have to do anything for me,” she breathed, batting Sharon’s hand away. “I’ll take care of myself.”

Sharon frowned, her mind still a little foggy from her orgasm. “You sure? I want you to feel good…”

Alaska smiled. “It’s okay. I’m kind of messy when I cum…”

“I think we’ve made a mess already,” Sharon laughed, looking around the exam room at the disarrayed tables, piles of clothing, and little puddles of fluid (mostly Alaska’s). “I’ve never seen a girl get as wet as you do.”

The alien blushed. “It’s just how our bodies work… We’re really sexual beings, we like to be ready for anything.”

“I don’t mind the mess,” Sharon smiled, stealing another kiss. “You sure you don’t wanna finish inside me?” she asked, trying to tempt her lover into another round.

Alaska bit her lip, clearly considering the offer. “I don’t think you wanna risk an interspecies pregnancy this early in our relationship,” she grinned. “I’ll try not to make too much of a mess, I promise.”

“God, just let me touch you,” Sharon pleaded, and Alaska laughed aloud. She turned her back on Sharon, leaning against her chest as her hand moved down to begin pumping herself. “How’s this?” The question came out breathier than she’d meant it to, but she could hardly be blamed for being so fucking close already; Dr. Sharon Needles was magic.

Sharon’s hands roamed over her waist and hips before moving up to knead her breasts, peppering kisses over her shoulders and neck. One hand slid between her legs, fingers pressing up inside her and moving in time with her sloppy hand movements. “This is perfect. Cum for me, baby.”

Alaska let out a low cry, cumming into her fist and around Sharon’s fingers in an explosive release of that luminous fluid, now thicker and glowing even brighter than before. Sharon’s hand, Alaska’s thighs, and the floor of the exam room were a mess, but Sharon really couldn’t bring herself to care when she had a panting, writhing alien princess pressed against her, letting out silent sobs of pleasure as she came down.

“T-told you I was messy,” Alaska managed to say, all but collapsing against Sharon’s chest. The doctor smiled, pressing a warm, liquid kiss against Alaska’s neck.

“Yeah. You’re so pretty when you cum.”

Alaska blushed cerulean. “You think so?”

“Well, you’re pretty no matter what you’re doing. But even prettier when you’re like this.” Sharon pulled her fingers out of the alien princess and turned her so that they were facing one another. “We should probably clean up, huh?”

Alaska smiled, leaning forward to kiss Sharon deeply.

“Yeah. We probably should.”

#rpdr fanfiction #sharon needles #alaska thunderfuck #shalaska #smut #pwp #alien au #citrus #thank goodness it’s set in the future because there’d be hipaa violations left and right otherwise

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scmower-blog · 4 years ago

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The Evidence for Videogames Having a Positive Impact on Mental Health

With the whole conceot and idea of Survival being based around mental health and trauma, I figure now would be a good time to share the evidence for video games helping people overcome/live with mental health issues and PTSD.

The most recent example that I could find comes from an Oxford University study published in November of 2020. The study led by Professor Andrew Przybylski, Director of Research at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, focussed on players of Animal Crossing: New Horizons and Plants vs Zombies: Battle for Neighborville. The study explored the association between objective game time and well-being, examining the link between directly measured behaviour and subjective mental health. Previous studies used self reporting from participants to calculate game time, which can vary wildly in its accuracy. In possibly one of the only defences for the always online connectivity of certain games, the study was able to use accurate data of play times from EA and Nintendo North America.

Results showed that gaming does have a positive affect on mental wellbeing. Play time itself was not as much of a factor for wellbeing as the user/participants subjective experience while playing the game. Those who recieved positive enjoyment from playing the game experienced a more positive wellbeing.

Professor Przybylski also noted that “Our findings show video games aren’t necessarily bad for your health; there are other psychological factors which have a significant effect on a persons’ well-being.”

This study shows that videogames can have a positive impact on wellbeing, but they can also be usedhelp those who are already suffering from low wellbeing, specifically PTSD and anxiety. In an article for Wired on October 20th 2020, US Navy Veteran Alex Miller described how playing Mass Effect 2 stopped him from comitting suicide while struggling with Covid 19 and depression.

“Fortunately for me, I’m feeling well enough today to play Mass Effect 2. All I need is a controller and a pillow. I can’t lift my head, but at least I can play. This is how I’ve prevented my own suicide. Otherwise, PTSD and the nearly unbearable effects of the virus would have ended me. For many vets, gaming is much more than just a waste of time—it’s a godsend.“

Around 18.5% of US veterans returning from operations meet the criteria for depression or PTSD according to the RAND organisation. Gaming has been used as therapy to help treat among veterans who suffer from PTSD.

Michelle Colder Carras is a researcher at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health who specializes in treating veterans, and a gamer. In her 2018 study on how gaming can help veterans recover from mental health challenges she discovered that Veterans use games in a variety of ways including connecting with others, coping with symptoms of PTSD, suicidality, or substance cravings, or creating meaningful leadership roles or even jobs through games.Prolonged Exposure, or PE, has also been proven to be effective in helping veterans, with Carras adding that PE “involves people practicing thinking about the traumatic events they’ve been through—at a time everything is fine—to help them realize that those memories are not harmful.”

These will no doubt make their way into my project proposal for evidence of video games having a positive affect on mental health and healing from traumatic experiences.

Links to the studies and articles are as follows:

Oxford Study

Videogames helping Veterans recover from mental health challenges

Alex Miller WIRED Article

#interact21 #Interactive Media #mental health #videogames #studies #oxford #ea #nintendo #veterans #ptsd

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aion-rsa · 4 years ago

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The Best Games of 2020

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

Despite how almost every other aspect of the year went, 2020 was a landmark year for video games. Not only did it see the release of highly-anticipated titles like The Last of Us Part II, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Ghost of Tsushima, and Cyberpunk 2077, but 2020 also marked the beginning of a new generation of console and PC gaming with the release of the Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and new GPUs from NVIDIA and AMD. We even got a new Half-Life game this year!

What would’ve made the gaming year ever better? Big-name video game companies could have done more to eliminate development crunch and be more transparent about their business practices with customers and the press. And we definitely could have all been nicer to each other.

But video games also helped keep us connected when we couldn’t see our friends and loved ones in person. They helped us travel to new and interesting places when we couldn’t leave our homes. Most importantly, all 20 games on our best-of-the-year list made us feel excited about this medium at a time when it was so difficult to enjoy anything else.

To that affect, Den of Geek is celebrating 20 video games our contributors and critics, as well as our community of readers, voted as the very best of 2020.

20. Star Wars: Squadrons

For the last decade or so, most Star Wars games have focused on the power fantasy of being a lightsaber-swinging, Force-wielding Jedi. That’s all well and good, but for a long time it seemed like everyone forgot that some of the most beloved Star Wars games of all time were actually space shooters like X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter and Rogue Squadron. In many ways, Star Wars: Squadrons is a throwback to those games, both in terms of gameplay and design. Controls are a pitch perfect mix of arcade simplicity and strategy, requiring quick thinking about whether to focus your ship’s power on attacking or defending.

Squadrons is also much more tightly focused than other recent games from large publishers, with a breezy yet enjoyable single-player campaign, and a multiplayer mode that, while light on modes, eschews the more annoying modern conventions of the online PvP like invasive microtransactions. But Squadrons is not stuck in its old school ways.

If you have the hardware for it on PC or PS4, you can jump into the cockpit of any of the playable ships for one one of the most immersive VR modes around. Similar to how The Mandalorian has rejuvenated the live-action side of the Star Wars media empire, Squadrons is a perfect mix of all of the best things we’ve always loved about Star Wars video games, and everything we want them to be going forward. – CF

19. Journey to the Savage Planet

Science fiction writers have long held on to this idea that, if and when humankind eventually colonizes the universe, it will do so as some sort of united, utopian entity, like Starfleet. But that future seems less and less likely every day. If and when humanity spreads across the stars, it will likely be messy, absurd, and profit-motivated. Journey to the Savage Planet wallows in that type of future. As an unnamed human (or dog, if you choose), you’re dropped onto the planet AR-Y26 by Kindred, the fourth biggest intergalactic exploration company with the simple goal of collecting as many resources as possible and leaving.

The Metroidvania gameplay loop of crafting equipment to access new areas is compelling, a rarity for 3D games in the genre. And it offers plenty of surprises too. You’ll start off with the typical blaster and scanner before eventually unlocking a grappling hook that lets you swing around levels like Spider-Man. But it’s style that ultimately lifts Journey to the Savage Planet above so many other games released in 2020. For one thing, the world and the fauna you’ll encounter are incredibly unique, and well, alien. And the regular live-action updates from Kindred beamed directly to your ship are among some of the funniest and most bizarre cinematics out this year in any game, providing plenty of motivation to see this journey through to its end. – CF

18. Half-Life: Alyx

As VR gaming continues to evolve, it’s becoming clear that the technology is more than just one truly great game away from widespread adoption. If that were all it took, then Half-Life: Alyx would have put a VR set under a lot of Christmas trees.

It’s truly wild to think that we got a new Half-Life game this year and that it sometimes feels like the game’s release was barely a blip on the cultural radar. While its somewhat muted debut can be attributed to its VR exclusivity (and the fact it launched at the onset of a global health crisis), Half-Life: Alyx surpassed all possible hype by offering a truly incredibly narrative-driven adventure bolstered by some of the cleverest uses of VR technology that we’ve ever seen.

Half-Life: Alyx isn’t the first great VR game, but Valve’s glorious return to form does shows how VR can advance fundamental elements of gameplay and storytelling rather than just show familiar games from a new perspective. – MB

17. Carrion

The indie game space is where you typically see the most experimentation, and this year proved no different when the gruesome and morbid Carrion released back in July. Highly inspired by the likes of John Carpenter’s The Thing, Alien, and other cult classic horror films known for their excellent use of practical SFX, this platformer cleverly flips the script, putting you in the role of the monster to dispatch helpless scientists in the claustrophobic depths of an underground lab as an ever-growing amorphous blob creature. What follows is a brief but effective 2D platformer that is fast paced and delectably gory.

The controls could have made controlling the creature a real pain, but Phobia Game Studio recognized that the key here was letting you move swiftly through the levels. As such, gliding through vents to take down scientists from above or underneath quickly becomes second nature. Encounters still pose a good degree of challenge, however, thanks to the heavily armed soldiers that show up later in the game, but this never stops Carrion from fulfilling every horror aficionado’s devilish fantasy of being the bloodthirsty monster. – AP

16. Kentucky Route Zero

Calling Kentucky Route Zero an homage to classic point-and-click adventure games is technically correct, but it doesn’t come close to doing the experience justice. Kentucky Route Zero is more like a poem or fable in video game form. It’s a feeling, a distillation of what it’s like to come of age in the Great Recession and its fallout over the last decade. Kentucky Route Zero is an epithet for rural America told through a fever dream, an examination of a version of rural Appalachia where talking skeletons and robotic musicians live alongside gas station attendants and truck drivers.

Nothing about Kentucky Route Zero fits the typical confines of what we expect from a video game, and that includes its release. Developed by a team of only three, the first episode of the five-episode experience was released in 2013, but the final product was only realized in early 2020. That lengthy development cycle meant that the game’s scope and story could grow to only better encapsulate this moment in time, and the final product stands out as one of best games of the year. To say more is to spoil its excellent story. – CF

15. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2

Though it’s been a hot minute since skateboarding games dominated the console space, Vicarious Visions’ excellent remake collection of the first two Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater titles was a reminder of how the entire series captured a whole generation of players in the late ’90s and early ’00s. Whether it’s grinding down rails, performing kickflips, or landing the gravity-defying 1080 on a vert ramp, everything in Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 feels and looks exactly as you remember it but touched up with modern flare. That’s the mark of any great remake, and why this game in particular was the best example of the practice this year.

Classic skating locations like Warehouse, School and Downtown have all been faithfully remade from the ground up for a 21st century audience, effortlessly delivering the same thrills and balanced challenge as they did before. The fact that select mechanical features like reverts, which wouldn’t arrive until later entries, have been retroactively added is also a nice touch, instantly making Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 the definitive way to experience these skateboarding classics. – AP

14. Ori and the Will of the Wisps

The fact that Ori and the Will of the Wisps managed to usurp the critically acclaimed 2015 original in most design aspects speaks to just how well Moon Studios has mastered the art of the Metroidvania. Whisking players off on another tight 10-hour journey set within a mystical forest full of secrets to discover, this 2D adventure gives off a fantastical vibe in a way few others do. It’s an expert blend between smart combat mechanics, highly polished platforming, and emotional storytelling. That it runs at a silky 60 fps both on Nintendo Switch and Xbox is the cherry on top.

The major improvements Will of the Wisps makes over Blind Forest relate to saving and combat. Whereas previously it was the responsibility of players to lay down specific checkpoints, progress is now more in line with other 2D platformers and less punishing. Combat, meanwhile, has been completely revamped with the inclusion of special charms and upgradeable skills, most of which result in more flexible enemy encounters. These tweaks are implemented without ever compromising on Ori’s core hook of magical exploration and challenging platforming, instantly making it one of the best Metroidvanias out there. – AP

13. Call of Duty: Warzone

Call of Duty: Warzone was a natural and perhaps even necessary evolution for the long-running shooter franchise, carving out a space for it in the ever-crowding battle royale genre. While it’s largely derivative of battle royale titles that came before, the staggering 150-player count, always excellent CoD controls, top-notch presentation, and flexible cash system have made it eminently popular and fun for casual players and series vets alike. The CoD fan base feels vibrant again after years of stagnation in the shadow of breakout titles like PUBG and Fortnite, and that’s without going into how Warzone has revitalized the franchise’s presence in the streaming space.

One of the best facets of the game’s design is that the large player count all but ensures that, even if a player is new to the genre or series, the chances of them being the absolute worst player in the field is very low. Better still, the “Gulag” respawn mechanic opens up the possibility for ultimate revenge should you earn your way back into the match, which is a nice way to up engagement for those who suffer disappointing deaths.

The game doesn’t feel quite as dynamic or high-stakes as some of its competitors on the market, but it’s definitely one of the easiest to pick up and play. It’s no wonder Warzone has expanded CoD’s already enormous audience over the course of 2020. – BB

12. Astro’s Playroom

With launch lineups mostly filled with graphically enhanced releases of last-gen games, the release of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X has been more than a little underwhelming. The one bright spot is Astro’s Playroom, a little first-party Sony game that received virtually no pre-release hype and comes pre-installed on every PS5.

While at first glance a typical 3D platformer, Astro’s Playroom soon reveals itself to be a fantastic showcase of what’s possible with the new DualSense controller. In one level, you’re feeling the resistance from the controller’s adaptive triggers as you spring jump through obstacles dressed as a frog. In another, you’re expertly moving the controller back and forth to climb walls in a robotic monkey suit. Even just standing in the rain causes the controller to pulse ever so slightly with each drop. And all of this takes place across worlds celebrating the entire history of PlayStation, where you collect classic consoles and accessories, culminating in an unexpected boss battle throwback to an original PSX tech demo.

Astro’s Playroom may be short, but it’s an oh so sweet and exciting taste of what’s possible with the power of next-gen consoles. – CF

11. Doom Eternal

It would have been easy for Doom Eternal to be more of the same. After all, 2016’s Doom became the surprising gold-standard for single-player FPS games by virtue of its clever writing and gameplay that blended the best of classic and modern design concepts. Yet, Doom Eternal proved to be something much more than “the same but bigger.”

With its arena-like levels and resource management mechanics, Doom Eternal sometimes feels like a puzzle game set in the Doom universe. While the transition to this new style can be jarring, you soon find that Doom Eternal is speaking the same language in a different dialect. The brutal brilliance of a classic Doom game remains but it’s presented in the form of a kind of FPS dance that puts you in a state of pure zen once you figure out how to make that perfect run through a room full of demonic baddies.

Four years after Doom showed this old franchise could pull off new tricks, Doom Eternal proves that this series is at the forefront of FPS innovation once more. – MB

10. Demon’s Souls

Although initially released in 2009 for the PlayStation 3, Demon’s Souls would help define the next generation of gaming by establishing the Soulslike genre, which has influenced everything from recent Star Wars games to The Legend of Zelda. The “problem” is that the legacy of Demon’s Souls has been sort of eclipsed by the accomplishments of its successors.

That’s the beauty of the remake for the PS5. Aided by the power of the console’s next-gen hardware, developer Bluepoint Games pays homage to one of the most historically significant games of the last 15 years while wisely updating it in ways that show that the foundation of FromSoftware’s breakthrough hit remains arguably the best entry in a genre that isn’t exactly lacking in modern classics.

In a year where finding a next-gen console proved to be more difficult than any Soulslike game, Demon’s Souls remains the best reason to battle the bots at online stores in the hopes of joining gaming’s next generation as soon as possible. – MB

9. Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout

There were multiple times this year where couped-up players relied heavily on “bean” games to help maintain a human connection. Before Among Us dominated the Twitch streams, it was Mediatonic’s intentionally clumsy and hilarious Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout that had us competitively raging with our friends. It did so by merging the wildly popular battle royale genre with the inflatable-fueled antics of early ’90s game shows, where dodging swinging hammers and battling giant fruit against 59 others became the norm for a few weeks – all in the pursuit of winning a highly coveted crown.

Needless to say, making Fall Guys free to PS Plus subscribers for a month turned out to be a genius marketing move, urging everyone to hop into the game’s inventive gamut of levels and make a fool of themselves. Much of what sets it apart from other battle royale attempts is its low-skill barrier to entry, and thanks to frequent seasonal updates, new unlockable outfits and fresh mini-games always being added, bumbling to the top of the pack as a colorful bean remains consistent fun. – AP

8. Animal Crossing: New Horizons

It’s not an exaggeration to say that Animal Crossing: New Horizons should be included in history books about the Covid-19 pandemic. Releasing just as lockdowns were being instituted across the globe, New Horizons provided the escapism we so desperately needed while quarantining, attracting not just the usual Nintendo fanbase, but even those who had never played games in the past but were now looking for something to occupy their time at home. Whether we played it with friends or alone, New Horizons provided the routine and distraction that so many of us needed in a world suddenly thrown into chaos.

Of course, it helped that New Horizons is the best Animal Crossing game to date, with tons of new ways to customize your island (and yourself). And as Covid-19 restrictions have stretched much longer than many of us anticipated, New Horizons has kept pace, with Nintendo releasing a steady stream of new fish to catch, fruits to harvest, and events to participate in throughout the year. It may not be the game that everyone wanted, but New Horizons is the game that 2020 needed. – CF

7. Cyberpunk 2077

When Cyberpunk 2077’s legacy is written, there’s no doubt that the opening chapter is going to focus on the bugs, technical shortcomings, and empty promises that have turned what looked to be one of 2020’s guaranteed hits into one of modern gaming’s most debated debuts.

Yet, the reason that this game’s initial issues will likely not ultimately define it is that Cyberpunk 2077 reveals itself to be a special experience whenever you’re able to play it without crashes or bugs ruining your experience. From its stunning side quests that revive one of The Witcher 3’s best elements to its shockingly human narrative, Cyberpunk 2077 regularly showcases the undeniable talent of the individuals who battled internal and external factors to deliver their vision.

Cyberpunk 2077’s technical problems wouldn’t hurt as much as they do if there wasn’t a truly great game at the heart of them that people are begging to be able to play as intended. – MB

6. Final Fantasy VII Remake

The pressure was on for Square Enix from the moment it announced Final Fantasy VII Remake back in 2015. For those who obsessed over the original back in 1997, the prospect of a remake was the stuff dreams were made of, and this year we finally got to relive Cloud, Aerith, Barret, and Tifa’s grand adventure (the first act of it, at least) with fully updated, well, everything. Astonishingly, the remake actually lived up to expectations and delivered not just a faithful update to the original game but a modern RPG that stands as one of its generation’s best regardless of nostalgia.

The key to Square Enix’s success was its approach, which aimed not to duplicate the experience of the original game, but to capture the essence and spirit of it while using modern game design to deliver the story in a way that doesn’t feel retro or rehashed at all. The game looks dazzling by 2020 standards (Midgar never looked better) but doesn’t compromise the integrity of the original designs, and the real-time combat—arguably the biggest departure from the original—is a blast to play.

Time will tell how exactly Square Enix will follow through with the rest of the remake as we enter a new console generation, but in the meantime, they studio has left us with a terrific reimagining of the most celebrated title in the studio’s expansive oeuvre. – BB

5. Assassin’s Creed Valhalla

Ubisoft deserves credit for keeping a franchise like Assassin’s Creed, which is 13 years old at this point, thriving in an industry that is flooded with more open world games now than it ever has been. The series is always competitive in the genre, and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla proves why: it’s as refined as any of its predecessors and delivers a balanced experience with a rich world to explore, tons of strange stories to uncover, and a mash-up milieu that combines the eerie atmosphere of 5th-century England with the otherworldly spectacle of Norse mythology.

No open world game is perfect, and Valhalla certainly has a handful of shortcomings. But it’s a bloody good time to play, and there’s so much to do that there’s no question that you get your money’s worth. Eivor’s quest for glory and domination is also arguably the most cinematic story in the entire AC catalog, with some truly breathtaking cutscenes that rival those found in more linear games that can’t sniff Valhalla’s scope. Some of the more otherworldly moments in the back half of the game are pure, unadulterated, nonsensical fun, and overall, this is one of the best entries in the series. – BB

4. Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales

Insomniac is one of those studios that you can always rely on to deliver fun, polished games that shine in every category, and Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales only adds to the team’s sterling reputation. Building on the already brilliant formula the studio created with the original Marvel’s Spider-Man, Miles’s story is one of loss, friendship, identity, and the strength of the Black and Hispanic communities of Harlem.

The side-quel is also one of the best launch titles arguably ever. While it is a cross-gen game, the PS5 version is currently the best showcase of what next-gen gaming is capable of from a visual and performance standpoint. You won’t find a better-looking New York City in any other video game, period, and Insomniac’s outstanding animation work looks insanely good when bolstered by the PS5’s considerable horsepower. Miles plays differently than Peter Parker did in the original game as well, with his Venom Powers giving enemy encounters a new feel and rhythm.

Insomniac outdid itself with an excellent follow-up that would’ve been a forgettable DLC expansion in the hands of a less ambitious studio. But Miles Morales is one of the best modern-day superhero characters ever created, and it’s only right that he get a game that lives up to his greatness. – BB

3. Hades

The popularity of roguelikes has been calmly bubbling up for years now, yet only in 2020 did it truly become mainstream thanks to an ideal balance between gameplay and story as demonstrated by Hades. Players who previously took umbrage with the genre’s nature to wipe out all progress at each run’s end suddenly had a reason to jump back in, now inspired by Zagreus’ various tries to escape hell and overthrow his eponymous father. This alone sees Hades tower over most of its peers in terms of balance, further backed up by rewarding gameplay and a gorgeous comic book art style that makes the well-worn mythological Greek milieu feel fresh.

Developer Supergiant Games proved its penchant for creating flexible mechanical loops in prior titles, and in many ways, Hades feels like a culmination of all those ideas distilled in one neat package. It’s a great example of semi-randomized systems layering perfectly on top of other systems, until players eventually find themselves completing runs using distinct weapons, upgrading persistent abilities and slowly discovering which of the god’s many boons gel best with one another. Hades is always a hellishly good time. – AP

2. Ghost of Tsushima

The concept of honor has never been explored in a game as lyrically and philosophically as it is in Ghost of Tsushima, Sucker Punch’s story-driven samurai epic. Jin Sakai’s grand adventure is both brutal and beautiful, stretching across the grasslands and snowy peaks of the titular island, as he pushes the oppressive Mongol army out of his homeland, all the while wrestling internally with the kind of man, warrior, and leader he ultimately wants to be.

This game is outstanding on so many fronts that it’s difficult to list them all here. Visually, it looks so stunning that anyone who walks past your TV as you play is all but guaranteed to stop and stare for a while. The combat is fast and challenging, the stealth mechanic is on-point, the score is sweeping and sentimental, the character models are incredibly realistic, the online multiplayer mode “Legends” is actually a blast to play…and the list goes on. This poetic, pitch-perfect modern masterpiece is emblematic of the soulful, cinematic storytelling PlayStation Studios is known for, and it’s a wonderful way to send the PS4 off into the sunset. – BB

1. The Last of Us Part II (Also Reader’s Choice)

You can’t even say the name of our 2020 game of the year without sparking numerous debates that often make it nearly impossible to have a productive conversation about the game itself. That makes it that much more tempting to somehow find a kind of middle-ground that will “justify” the game’s lofty position to everyone regardless of where they stand.

The thing about The Last of Us Part 2,though, is that its divisiveness is very much part of the experience. Naughty Dog’s follow-up to arguably its greatest game is a bold attempt to live up to the franchise’s legacy by furthering what came before while trying to find its own way. Much like Ellie herself, The Last of Us Part 2 doesn’t always make the right decisions. Yet, at a time when bigger budgets are seen as an excuse to play it safe, The Last of Us Part 2 impresses through its willingness to present a big, bold, and personal adventure that is often anything but what was expected.

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Anyone can generate a little controversy by saying something stupid, offensive, or hurtful. The beauty of The Last of Us Part 2’s controversy is that it stems from a heartfelt attempt to advance the conversation through indie-like passion and big budget production. – MB

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a-skyfull-of-starz · 5 years ago

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Anime in the Time of Quarantine

This fine quarantine period, I have made it my mission to watch as much anime as possible, because I don’t know, I guess it’s better than wallowing in self-pity. Here’s a list of everything I’ve watched to date and how much I recommend them, because I don’t know, I’m bored or something.

This list does not contain anime I’ve previously watched, because that would make it normal life anime. So don’t ask me why Shingeki no Kyojin is not on the list. Of course it remains my favourite and I will continue to recommend it until my dying breath.

Also, this list is ordered in the order I watched them in, and does not reflect any standing other than that. Also also, I get bored really easily, so if an anime doesn’t grab me immediately, chances are I’ll close it very quickly. I’ve started a lot more anime than is on this list but got bored and closed it. Hence, this list is almost entirely positive recommendations. Also also also (I swear this is the last clarifier), I’ve been in a slice of life kind of mood, because my slice of life is boring and uninteresting to the extreme, so that genre is kind of over-represented here. So with that being said, on to the list (sorry that it’s so long, I have an issue with verbosity).

Stein’s Gate: I started watching Stein’s Gate two years ago, but didn’t make it past the five minute mark, because I just didn’t get it. I started watching it again a few weeks ago, and I still didn’t get it, but I persevered because I was bored and high on chocolate. By the end of the first episode…I still didn’t get it. I continued to not get it until probably midway through the third episode, but when I got it, holy hell did it hit hard. I absolutely enjoyed every second of this anime. I loved watching Okabe’s journey from imagined insanity into actual insanity and then back again. He went on a true hero’s journey, and I loved every second of it. Miyano Mamoru gives a masterful performance (I always watch the subbed animes, and I recommend that everyone else does too). The chemistry between Okabe and Kurisu is probably the best in anime that I’ve watched thus far (sorry Asuna and Kirito, your time has finally come). This anime is rich with emotion, humour, tragedy, (some) romance, friendship, mad scientists and beautiful characters. If you can stand being confused for the first three episodes, this anime will be an incredibly rewarding journey for you. I highly recommend it.

Ao Haru Ride/Blue Spring Ride: I saw a clip of this anime in a seiyuu video and I fell in love with the art style and decided to give it a watch. I have mixed feelings about this one. On the one hand, the plot is interesting, although having watched similar anime, a lot of it is kind of cliched. That being said, I did like the message of being true to yourself, no matter the cost. And I appreciated the fact that Futaba (our main hero) wasn’t a stereotypical anime girl (although she really does cry a lot and I agree with Kou that it is annoying). I found Kou (our love interest) a very interesting and compelling character. The clear winner of this anime though is the art style. It is beautiful to look at. Unfortunately, the first season ends on kind of a cliffhanger, and there doesn’t appear to be a second season coming any time soon, which is really disappointing. If you like high school romance stories with an edgy bad boy in it, then this is the anime for you, but don’t expect a satisfying ending, because, well, there isn’t one.

Stein’s Gate 0: I watched this because my friend said that it made her cry after every episode (I personally didn’t think Stein’s Gate needed a sequel, but oh well). Based on her recommendation, I went in with high expectations, which were kind of mostly unmet. The plot was way more confusing, less compelling, it felt like the stakes weren’t that high, mostly because they were only introduced way later in the series (I know Stein’s Gate did the same thing, but it somehow felt more shoved in with this one) and because we already knew how it would end. Also the ending felt incredibly rushed. The only episode I really wholeheartedly enjoyed was the reunion between Kurisu and Okabe (sounds weird out of context, but I’m trying to remain spoiler free). For the rest, I was left with mixed feelings, although I have to say, I probably love Okabe even more in Stein’s Gate 0 and Miyano Mamoru gives us another stunning performance. I would probably have been happier if this entire series had just consisted of Okabe trying to move on from the fallout of what happened in Stein’s Gate and there was no drama of World War III. So, I guess if you’re curious to see what happens if Okabe does not look for Stein’s Gate in the previous season, this is for you. Honestly though, I’d probably be happier if I hadn’t watched Stein’s Gate 0.

Shigatsu wo Kimi no Uso/Your lie in April: THIS ANIME OH MY GOSH!!!! I did not even know that this anime existed until I saw it on Kaji Yuki’s Wikipedia page (I’m a fan, so what?). He’s barely in this by the way, but that doesn’t matter, because this anime is amazing. I knew how it ended because I unfortunately saw spoilers when I was reading what the plot was about when I was deciding whether or not to watch this, and I still cried for about an hour after the ending (and I don’t cry easily, especially not with anime). The writing here is probably the best in any anime I’ve watched (yes, better than SNK, the king has been toppled from his throne), the soundtrack is amazing (I’ve been listening to it on repeat for a week now), the acting is beautiful, the artwork is gorgeous (apart from Kosei’s disappearing glass frame, that was weird), and all around, this anime is just…perfect. If you enjoy teenage romance and drama, if you love classical music, if you feel like bawling your eyes out for an hour because right now your life is pretty boring and pointless, then this is the anime for you. And even if you aren’t any of those things listed, I still recommend this anime because it is gorgeous and deserves recognition for how incredible it is.

Welcome to the NHK: this is probably the direct opposite of Shigatsu wo Kimi no Uso in every way possible. I haven’t finished this anime yet because it is extremely heavy, and I can only manage two episodes a night, but I still highly recommend it. It’s a fascinating take on a lot of modern Japanese culture, specifically surrounding mental health, the hentai industry and consumerism. It’s also got a lot of black comedy in it, which I love. All in all (and depending on the ending of the series), I highly recommend this one for its interesting writing and plot and excellent acting.

Lovely Complex: honestly, this anime sort of crept into my heart as one of the most adorable, refreshing, hilarious and unexpected love stories of all time. It basically tells the story of two idiot friends who slowly realise they’re in love with each other, how this impacts their friendship and how they navigate the very dark waters of teen romance. If you’re looking for an uncliched high school romance anime, where the heroine is the opposite of a cute anime girl, where the broody handsome guy is not the object of our affection and where you get flashbacks of just how dumb you were as a teenager and how grateful you are to be out of that age group (if you’re my age I mean, I’m mostly talking about myself here), then this is definitely the anime for you. Also, the opening song is ska, how cool is that?

Orange: another time traveling story, except the time traveling is even more confusing here. Just kidding, the time traveling is probably the least interesting part of this story, which examines suicide, depression, guilt and bullying, and does it in a pretty mature way. Our hero (dear lovely confused Naho) is unfortunately not very smart, but that’s ok, because she has Suwa, the best human being in the whole world, to help her out. Honestly, this story would have ended very differently if Suwa had not been around and he deserves every award that can possibly be given to amazing human beings. This anime is sort of 13 Reasons Why, but in reverse, less exploitative and with better friends (you’ll understand what I mean when you watch it). If you aren’t going to be triggered by discussions of suicide, depression and bullying, then I really do recommend this, as it is very interesting, well-performed, and largely well-handled.

So that’s my anime watch list thus far. I plan to finish Welcome to the NHK soon, and then start watching Mushishi, as I’ve heard a lot of great things about it. Also, now that you guys have seen what my tastes are, I would love it if I could get more recommendations. Lord knows, I’m not going to be doing anything else until I can find a way home, so I might as well expand my horizons. Also also…no, that’s it. Have a good quarantine folks!

#anime #stein's gate #ao haru ride #stein's gate 0 #shigatsu wa kimi no uso #lovely complex #welcome to the nhk #orange #anime recommendation #anime review #quarantine thoughts #gimme recs please #textpost

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yuanzhous · 6 years ago

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Oh could you do some Tim and Damian bonding with number 10 or just the batbros in general

Here you go! Sorry it took so long and thanks for the prompt! I had a lot of fun writing this, Tim and Damian are just Peak siblings constantly bitching at each other and I love it, lmaoo.

Tim was having a strange dream. It looked like he was in a video game, making his way through a castle that looked like a Super Mario level, only he was fighting an army of ninjas. Bruce and the others were waiting at the end of the stage, he knew instinctively, trapped inside a giant man-eating plant. He had to get to them fast, or the plant would digest them and it would be game over.

Then there was an earthquake. Tim cursed under his breath and struggled to keep his balance as he danced away from his opponents, but the shaking only got worse. Above him, the ceiling begun to crumble.

“Drake!”

Tim recognized the voice immediately. Damian. He sounded distressed – but something wasn’t quite right. Damian was trapped inside the plant with the others. Had he gotten out on his own?

“Goddamnit, Drake, wake up!”

Tim spun around, trying to pinpoint where Damian’s voice was coming from, but the ground collapsed below him as soon as he did and he was falling, falling. Tim closed his eyes and waited for the crash – instead, he became aware of some soft material below him, impossibly comfortable. Damian’s voice was ringing louder than ever, now having switched to Arabic to mutter his disapproval of…what? Tim’s general existence, maybe.

Tim rolled onto his back with a yawn and blinked up at Damian, who scowled at him and yanked his blankets away. He did so one-armed. In his other hand, Damian was cradling something small that Tim couldn’t see properly. Squinting a little, Tim sat up.

“What d'you want?” Tim asked, voice groggy with sleep.

Stay in the manor for the weekend, Tim, Bruce had said. I’ll make that chicken pot pie you like, Master Tim, Alfred had said. And because Tim was an idiot who deserved his fate, he had agreed. He had not signed up for being cruelly woken up by his pest of a little brother, thank you very much.

Damian deposited the thing – a small ball of spikes – on Tim’s lap, expression guarded. He shuffled his feet in a way that was uncharacteristic of him, almost skittish.

“I found this hedgehog on the grounds,” Damian said with great dignity. “I believe he is ill.”

Tim was prone to agree. The hedgehog was restless, scratching and licking itself, with its spikes sparser than Tim thought they ought to be, its skin dry underneath. There was something about being handed a creature so small and defenseless that made his chest hum with anxiety. He rested a tentative hand on top of the hog’s back, careful not to spook it.

He glanced at Damian, trying not to look as panicked as he felt. “Can’t you take him to Alfred, or –”

“We’re the only ones home,” Damian cut him off. His tone was curt, impatient, but he wasn’t going out of his way to insult Tim as he usually would. Tim detected a hint of concern. “And – as much as I’m loathe to admit it – I don’t know what to do.”

Tim’s eyes flickered to the hedgehog again, equal parts captivated and terrified. It was so small. Was it a baby hedgehog? Or was this their regular size? Spikes or no, Tim was gripped by the fear that he might crush it without meaning to.

“Alright. Here’s the plan,” he declared, ignoring the part of him that wanted to freak out and denounce all responsibility. “You’re going to do a google search and find out what we can feed this little guy, meanwhile I’m going to call a vet and try to set up an appointment. All good?”

“Very well,” Damian agreed, more easily than Tim had expected. “But the appointment must be for today. I will not risk his health.”

Tim bit back a sarcastic retort and tried to smile instead. “It will be for as soon as I can arrange one, Dames.”

Damian nodded tersely and grabbed Tim’s laptop from his bedside cabinet, plopping down on the bed and typing away at lightning speed. Tim wondered if it was worth protesting that Damian use his own laptop or phone instead, but he shook his head and let it go. Tim lifted his pillow and gave his blankets a shake in search for his phone. It fell out and tumbled to the floor.

It took a few tries to find a clinic that was both open at this time – 7 AM, Damian, what were you even doing outside so early? Tim had only just gone to sleep two hours ago and Damian was already up – and willing to accommodate them on such short notice. Luckily, the name Wayne literally opened doors, and Damian got his wish. They had an appointment for 10 AM. Tim wasn’t expecting so much as a thank you.

When Tim returned to his room, Damian was curled up in bed with the little hedgehog in his hand, feeding him little bites of Titus’ food with great care. Tim stopped at the threshold, mouth quirking up at the corners. It was so rare to see Damian unguarded like this that Tim wished for a moment that he had his camera on hand. He snapped a quick picture with his phone instead and then coughed unsubtly to alert Damian to his presence.

Damian sat up straighter at once. “I have found that we may give the hedgehog cat or dog food as long as it is not fish-based,” he informed Tim. “We may not give him milk.”

“Good job,” Tim said. “We’re going to the vet in a couple of hours. Think you can watch him until then?”

“Of course,” Damian said instantly. “Fetch me a baby bottle filled with warm water.”

Tim’s eyebrows twitched. “Please.”

Damian shot him a puzzled, irritated look. “What?”

“I’m helping you, Damian,” Tim said, as evenly as he could, “but that doesn’t mean you get to order me around. You could say please. Or at least make it a request, not a command.”

“Can you fetch me a baby bottle filled with warm water?” Damian rephrased, this time making it sound like he was doubting Tim’s ability to complete even that simple task.

“You’re lucky your little pinecone is cute,” Tim ground out.

He fetched Damian the damn baby bottle.

“Okay, so they’re doing us a favor seeing us so soon,” Tim reminded Damian as he parked the car outside the clinic. “So let’s not, uh, throw knifes at them, or threaten to eviscerate them if the results are not what you want to hear. Okay? Try it out. Pretend I’m the vet.”

Damian scoffed, but quickly smoothed his expression into something innocent and childlike, eyes wide and pleading. “Doctor, can you heal my pet? And by ‘can’, I mean do it or I’ll murder the town.” He gave Tim a bitter look. “Is that what you expect me to say, Drake? I do know how to behave like a normal human when the occasion calls for it.”

“Of course you – I didn’t mean –” Tim sighed and rubbed his temples. “You’re right. I’m just tired. Being an asshole. Sorry.”

Damian looked taken aback. “Yes. Well. Let us not dwell on it.”

Damian clutched the hedgehog protectively as they walked into the clinic and settled in to wait at the reception room. Tim busied himself with scrolling through news apps on his phone. It was a habit. He had priority alerts for certain terms, of course, Batman and WE and so forth, but it was important to stay informed on a larger scale too.

After a twenty minute wait, give or take, they were called to the examination room. Tim was quietly relieved that it didn’t take longer, because Damian had been growing restless. The hedgehog was asleep in his palm, curled into its side, and Damian was watching it so intently that you would have thought the poor thing would die if he took his eyes off it.

The vet greeted them with a smile and introduced herself as Dr Gleason. She took the hedgehog from Damian – who was reluctant to hand it over – and woke it up gently. She much have sensed Damian’s anxiety, because she took the time to explain each step of the procedure to him as she went about the exam. Tim stood to the side, a little awkwardly, but also marveling at how fixated Damian looked.

“Looks like this little buddy has mites,” she said. “It’s nothing serious, but if you have others pets I would suggest keeping him quarantined. How long have you had him?”

“I just found him today,” Damian said, and then, defensively, “They’re legal to have as pets in New Jersey. I checked.”

Dr Gleason nodded. “Well, he’s gonna need a cage, a hide box, an exercise wheel…you have to keep those all clean to prevent mites in the future, as well as any other toys or items you give him. Okay?”

“I will take good care of him,” Damian declared coolly.

Dr. Gleason prescribed an antiparasitic, instructing them to keep an eye on the hedgehog for a few days to make sure it was working properly. When they were about to leave, she held Tim for a moment longer.

“Is your brother serious about keeping him?” she asked.

“Yeah, pretty sure,” Tim said with a shrug. “He has a…thing. About animals. This would be his fourth pet now.”

Dr Gleason inclined her head. “That’s good, but you should know that hedgehogs have a relatively short lifespan. 3-6 years is the most common. Tell your dad too. Before you make that decision, you should all know what you’re getting into – that kind of loss can be devastating to a kid.”

Tim could testify to the fact that Damian had experienced his fair share of devastating things already, but there was no arguing that he’d be distraught if any of his pets were to die. He’d have to find a way to bring it up subtly, or better yet, pass along the information to Dick and have him handle it.

He smiled and nodded. “Will do, ma'am.”

Damian was waiting for him impatiently, frustrated at being left out. He grew even more so when he demanded to know what Dr Gleason had wanted to talk about and Tim gave him a generic response, but Tim didn’t budge. He’d done his brotherly duty for today – he would not be the one to have the conversation about the mortality of pets, at least not right now.

They got into the car and drove in silence for a few minutes, Damian’s anger dissipating as his focus returned to his newest acquisition. Distantly, Tim wondered if they should have asked Bruce before adding another member to Damian’s growing menagerie. He probably wouldn’t mind, would he? The little creature didn’t take up any space, so small that it could easily fit in Damian’s palm.

“I’m going to call him Drake,” Damian announced.

Tim almost crashed into a street sign, earning scornful honks from the drivers behind him.

“Damian, you can’t tell me something like that when I’m driving and operating on two hours of sleep,” he protested numbly. He’d heard Damian’s words just fine, but his mind refused to process them.

Damian bristled. “Two hours? You imbecile -”

“You’re naming the hedgehog after me?” Tim interrupted.

“That was the thought, yes,” Damian said irritably. “But if it’s going to cause you to kill us both in a car accident -”

“Sorry, sorry,” Tim said. “It’s just, you know. Between the two of us, I would argue that you’re the one with the prickly exterior.”

Damian gave him a scowl. “While I suppose you consider yourself to be oh so mellow and approachable.”

Something in his tone gave Tim pause. Had Damian been trying to reach out, to be nicer to him? Had Tim rebuffed him without realising it? They hadn’t had a serious fight in ages, and Tim couldn’t deny that he cared about the little gremlin, but he hadn’t exactly been campaigning to become Damian’s new best friend.

“I’m honored, I think,” he said. “I’d love for this little guy to be named after me.”

“You’re about as ugly as him,” Damian said without missing a beat.

And this time Tim could easily recognize it as banter, not a genuine attempt at insulting Tim, if only because Damian would never dream of saying anything bad about his pets.

He laughed. “Joke’s on you, I think he’s adorable.”

“I already prefer him to you,” Damian informed him grimly. “Drake the second is far less obnoxious.”

“Pot, kettle,” Tim quipped, and found that this back and forth came easily.

#damian wayne #tim drake #robin #red robin #batman #batman comics #batman and robin comics #red robin comics #batman fanfic #batfamily #batfam #batbros #my writing

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