#and the problems I'm running into AREN'T EVEN CODING

[groteskens]

I have no idea what I'm doing :) the test room turned out cool at least

[ms-demeanor]

For those who are not aware: Bitlocker is encryption software, it encrypts your computer and makes it impossible to access the information on the computer unless you have the key.

It should be standard practice for IT companies to document the bitlocker keys as they are configuring bitlocker on a computer; generally you would do this by creating a record in your client management software for that specific device and putting the key in the record. Sometimes software can be used to extract that information in the event that it's necessary, but even if there's theoretically a way to extract the key, it should be documented somewhere *other* than on the encrypted computer.

This is something that a lot of IT people fuck up on kind of a lot (we've definitely had problems with missing bitlocker keys and I'm quite happy that the people who didn't document those keys aren't my coworkers anymore).

So what do you do if you want to use encryption software and you're NOT an IT company using a remote management tool that might be able to snag the keys?

When you are setting up encryption, put the encryption key in your password manager. Put it in your password manager. Document the important information that you cannot lose in your password manager. Your password manager is a good place to keep important things like your device encryption key, which you do not want lost or stolen. (If you run your password manager locally on an encrypted computer, export the data every once in a while, save it as an encrypted file, and put the file on your backup drive; you are going to have a bad time if your computer that hosts the only copies of your passwords shits the bed so *make a backup*)

This is my tip for home users for any kind of important recovery codes or software product keys: Print out the key and put it in your underwear drawer. Keep it there with your backup drive. That way you've got your important (small) computer shit in one place that is NOT your computer and is not likely to get shifted around and lost (the way that papers in desks often get shifted around and lost).

[irrealisms]

i've seen a lot of people talk about mcyt as a constantly burning library of alexandria recently, and to some extent that's true. people are constantly deleting their blogs, going scorched earth with animatics, fanfics, etc., that they made. but i've also seen people (three in the last few days!) make this claim about VODs, when talking about large fandoms like DSMP and QSMP, and.... guys. that was true in 2020. that's not true anymore. archivists have been working tirelessly for years now to make sure that isn't true.

the dsmp VOD masterlist is here. in november 2020, it's missing 16 VODs, if i am counting correctly--which is still a fairly small minority, but it's a lot, and it sucks!--but in november of 2021, it's missing one, and that's because the cc of that VOD does copyright takedowns, not because the archivists didn't save it. no one in the archivist project is deleting VODs off youtube with no backups the way people are deleting fanfics. three months ago, one of my dsmp archivist friends finished coding a tool that let them reconstruct VODs out of twitch clips, and reconstructed six tubbo dsmp VODs from 2020. not only are we basically not losing VODs anymore, we are actively gaining VODs that have been lost for years, that were thought to be lost forever. the library isn't burning anymore; it's being rebuilt.

the qsmp VOD masterlist is here. it is usually a month or two behind the present day, to give creators time to archive their own VODs, but... look at it. in january of 2024, every single qsmp vod was archived. the same is true of december of 2023, and november, and the vast majority of months for the past year.

i'm not going to say that there isn't a problem. just a few days ago, i realized that a lifesteal VOD from last year was missing--that its youtube upload was messed up somehow, and no one noticed and it wasn't mirrored on the internet archive and the person who uploaded it deleted the original file. and now it's gone forever. this made me super sad! like i said: i'm not going to say that there isn't a problem.

but... look at the lifesteal VOD masterlist here. lifesteal's a smaller fandom than qsmp or dsmp. open the 2022 tab and you'll see months and months of lost VODs, of no one's VODs being saved, because there weren't any archivists saving them. then open the 2023 tab and see: they lost four VODs, over the course of a year. even in smaller fandoms, archivists are working. they're making progress. they're saving VODs. in 2024, lifesteal archivists screenrecorded five streams on tumblr live to make sure they would not become lost media. mcyt may be a constantly burning library of alexandria, but the people with fire extinguishers are dedicated. they're making incredible progress. i know people with petabytes of VODs saved, who have spent money on extra storage for this. i know people who are constantly running up against their storage limits as they download/upload to the internet archive/delete for space/rinse and repeat. a decent fraction of the time, my internet at home is slow because it's downloading VODs.

and these aren't the only mcyt fandoms with archiving projects! the outsiders smp VOD masterlist is here. origins smp VOD masterlist is here. smp earth VOD masterlist is here. rats smp VOD masterlist is here. there are so many others that i just don't happen to know about. the older and smaller a fandom is, the more likely it is to not have an attached archiving project, or for the archive to be missing a lot of VODs. but... guys, we've saved a lot. there are people out there, working tirelessly to save even more. yes, mourn what we have lost--the archivists i know are also the ones mourning the most for the VODs that are, in fact, forever lost media. but don't dismiss how much people have saved. we are making progress. we are losing less and less every month. the vast majority of the dsmp and qsmp still exist, i am not going to say they're the same experience as watching live because they're really not, but.. they're out there. people have put in a lot of work to save them.

if you have publicly available VOD masterlists or other mcyt archiving projects that aren't on this post, please add them in a reblog. i want this post to serve as a reference for how much archivists have saved in this community; unfortunately, i'm not super connected to every community. but i know that--for every person deleting things, there are people working, tirelessly & with little external reward, in so many different mcyt fandoms, to save things. and we should appreciate that more often.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

“Humans in the loop” must detect the hardest-to-spot errors, at superhuman speed

I'm touring my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me SATURDAY (Apr 27) in MARIN COUNTY, then Winnipeg (May 2), Calgary (May 3), Vancouver (May 4), and beyond!

If AI has a future (a big if), it will have to be economically viable. An industry can't spend 1,700% more on Nvidia chips than it earns indefinitely – not even with Nvidia being a principle investor in its largest customers:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39883571

A company that pays 0.36-1 cents/query for electricity and (scarce, fresh) water can't indefinitely give those queries away by the millions to people who are expected to revise those queries dozens of times before eliciting the perfect botshit rendition of "instructions for removing a grilled cheese sandwich from a VCR in the style of the King James Bible":

https://www.semianalysis.com/p/the-inference-cost-of-search-disruption

Eventually, the industry will have to uncover some mix of applications that will cover its operating costs, if only to keep the lights on in the face of investor disillusionment (this isn't optional – investor disillusionment is an inevitable part of every bubble).

Now, there are lots of low-stakes applications for AI that can run just fine on the current AI technology, despite its many – and seemingly inescapable - errors ("hallucinations"). People who use AI to generate illustrations of their D&D characters engaged in epic adventures from their previous gaming session don't care about the odd extra finger. If the chatbot powering a tourist's automatic text-to-translation-to-speech phone tool gets a few words wrong, it's still much better than the alternative of speaking slowly and loudly in your own language while making emphatic hand-gestures.

There are lots of these applications, and many of the people who benefit from them would doubtless pay something for them. The problem – from an AI company's perspective – is that these aren't just low-stakes, they're also low-value. Their users would pay something for them, but not very much.

For AI to keep its servers on through the coming trough of disillusionment, it will have to locate high-value applications, too. Economically speaking, the function of low-value applications is to soak up excess capacity and produce value at the margins after the high-value applications pay the bills. Low-value applications are a side-dish, like the coach seats on an airplane whose total operating expenses are paid by the business class passengers up front. Without the principle income from high-value applications, the servers shut down, and the low-value applications disappear:

https://locusmag.com/2023/12/commentary-cory-doctorow-what-kind-of-bubble-is-ai/

Now, there are lots of high-value applications the AI industry has identified for its products. Broadly speaking, these high-value applications share the same problem: they are all high-stakes, which means they are very sensitive to errors. Mistakes made by apps that produce code, drive cars, or identify cancerous masses on chest X-rays are extremely consequential.

Some businesses may be insensitive to those consequences. Air Canada replaced its human customer service staff with chatbots that just lied to passengers, stealing hundreds of dollars from them in the process. But the process for getting your money back after you are defrauded by Air Canada's chatbot is so onerous that only one passenger has bothered to go through it, spending ten weeks exhausting all of Air Canada's internal review mechanisms before fighting his case for weeks more at the regulator:

https://bc.ctvnews.ca/air-canada-s-chatbot-gave-a-b-c-man-the-wrong-information-now-the-airline-has-to-pay-for-the-mistake-1.6769454

There's never just one ant. If this guy was defrauded by an AC chatbot, so were hundreds or thousands of other fliers. Air Canada doesn't have to pay them back. Air Canada is tacitly asserting that, as the country's flagship carrier and near-monopolist, it is too big to fail and too big to jail, which means it's too big to care.

Air Canada shows that for some business customers, AI doesn't need to be able to do a worker's job in order to be a smart purchase: a chatbot can replace a worker, fail to their worker's job, and still save the company money on balance.

I can't predict whether the world's sociopathic monopolists are numerous and powerful enough to keep the lights on for AI companies through leases for automation systems that let them commit consequence-free free fraud by replacing workers with chatbots that serve as moral crumple-zones for furious customers:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0747563219304029

But even stipulating that this is sufficient, it's intrinsically unstable. Anything that can't go on forever eventually stops, and the mass replacement of humans with high-speed fraud software seems likely to stoke the already blazing furnace of modern antitrust:

https://www.eff.org/de/deeplinks/2021/08/party-its-1979-og-antitrust-back-baby

Of course, the AI companies have their own answer to this conundrum. A high-stakes/high-value customer can still fire workers and replace them with AI – they just need to hire fewer, cheaper workers to supervise the AI and monitor it for "hallucinations." This is called the "human in the loop" solution.

The human in the loop story has some glaring holes. From a worker's perspective, serving as the human in the loop in a scheme that cuts wage bills through AI is a nightmare – the worst possible kind of automation.

Let's pause for a little detour through automation theory here. Automation can augment a worker. We can call this a "centaur" – the worker offloads a repetitive task, or one that requires a high degree of vigilance, or (worst of all) both. They're a human head on a robot body (hence "centaur"). Think of the sensor/vision system in your car that beeps if you activate your turn-signal while a car is in your blind spot. You're in charge, but you're getting a second opinion from the robot.

Likewise, consider an AI tool that double-checks a radiologist's diagnosis of your chest X-ray and suggests a second look when its assessment doesn't match the radiologist's. Again, the human is in charge, but the robot is serving as a backstop and helpmeet, using its inexhaustible robotic vigilance to augment human skill.

That's centaurs. They're the good automation. Then there's the bad automation: the reverse-centaur, when the human is used to augment the robot.

Amazon warehouse pickers stand in one place while robotic shelving units trundle up to them at speed; then, the haptic bracelets shackled around their wrists buzz at them, directing them pick up specific items and move them to a basket, while a third automation system penalizes them for taking toilet breaks or even just walking around and shaking out their limbs to avoid a repetitive strain injury. This is a robotic head using a human body – and destroying it in the process.

An AI-assisted radiologist processes fewer chest X-rays every day, costing their employer more, on top of the cost of the AI. That's not what AI companies are selling. They're offering hospitals the power to create reverse centaurs: radiologist-assisted AIs. That's what "human in the loop" means.

This is a problem for workers, but it's also a problem for their bosses (assuming those bosses actually care about correcting AI hallucinations, rather than providing a figleaf that lets them commit fraud or kill people and shift the blame to an unpunishable AI).

Humans are good at a lot of things, but they're not good at eternal, perfect vigilance. Writing code is hard, but performing code-review (where you check someone else's code for errors) is much harder – and it gets even harder if the code you're reviewing is usually fine, because this requires that you maintain your vigilance for something that only occurs at rare and unpredictable intervals:

https://twitter.com/qntm/status/1773779967521780169

But for a coding shop to make the cost of an AI pencil out, the human in the loop needs to be able to process a lot of AI-generated code. Replacing a human with an AI doesn't produce any savings if you need to hire two more humans to take turns doing close reads of the AI's code.

This is the fatal flaw in robo-taxi schemes. The "human in the loop" who is supposed to keep the murderbot from smashing into other cars, steering into oncoming traffic, or running down pedestrians isn't a driver, they're a driving instructor. This is a much harder job than being a driver, even when the student driver you're monitoring is a human, making human mistakes at human speed. It's even harder when the student driver is a robot, making errors at computer speed:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/01/human-in-the-loop/#monkey-in-the-middle

This is why the doomed robo-taxi company Cruise had to deploy 1.5 skilled, high-paid human monitors to oversee each of its murderbots, while traditional taxis operate at a fraction of the cost with a single, precaratized, low-paid human driver:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/11/robots-stole-my-jerb/#computer-says-no

The vigilance problem is pretty fatal for the human-in-the-loop gambit, but there's another problem that is, if anything, even more fatal: the kinds of errors that AIs make.

Foundationally, AI is applied statistics. An AI company trains its AI by feeding it a lot of data about the real world. The program processes this data, looking for statistical correlations in that data, and makes a model of the world based on those correlations. A chatbot is a next-word-guessing program, and an AI "art" generator is a next-pixel-guessing program. They're drawing on billions of documents to find the most statistically likely way of finishing a sentence or a line of pixels in a bitmap:

https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3442188.3445922

This means that AI doesn't just make errors – it makes subtle errors, the kinds of errors that are the hardest for a human in the loop to spot, because they are the most statistically probable ways of being wrong. Sure, we notice the gross errors in AI output, like confidently claiming that a living human is dead:

https://www.tomsguide.com/opinion/according-to-chatgpt-im-dead

But the most common errors that AIs make are the ones we don't notice, because they're perfectly camouflaged as the truth. Think of the recurring AI programming error that inserts a call to a nonexistent library called "huggingface-cli," which is what the library would be called if developers reliably followed naming conventions. But due to a human inconsistency, the real library has a slightly different name. The fact that AIs repeatedly inserted references to the nonexistent library opened up a vulnerability – a security researcher created a (inert) malicious library with that name and tricked numerous companies into compiling it into their code because their human reviewers missed the chatbot's (statistically indistinguishable from the the truth) lie:

https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/28/ai_bots_hallucinate_software_packages/

For a driving instructor or a code reviewer overseeing a human subject, the majority of errors are comparatively easy to spot, because they're the kinds of errors that lead to inconsistent library naming – places where a human behaved erratically or irregularly. But when reality is irregular or erratic, the AI will make errors by presuming that things are statistically normal.

These are the hardest kinds of errors to spot. They couldn't be harder for a human to detect if they were specifically designed to go undetected. The human in the loop isn't just being asked to spot mistakes – they're being actively deceived. The AI isn't merely wrong, it's constructing a subtle "what's wrong with this picture"-style puzzle. Not just one such puzzle, either: millions of them, at speed, which must be solved by the human in the loop, who must remain perfectly vigilant for things that are, by definition, almost totally unnoticeable.

This is a special new torment for reverse centaurs – and a significant problem for AI companies hoping to accumulate and keep enough high-value, high-stakes customers on their books to weather the coming trough of disillusionment.

This is pretty grim, but it gets grimmer. AI companies have argued that they have a third line of business, a way to make money for their customers beyond automation's gifts to their payrolls: they claim that they can perform difficult scientific tasks at superhuman speed, producing billion-dollar insights (new materials, new drugs, new proteins) at unimaginable speed.

However, these claims – credulously amplified by the non-technical press – keep on shattering when they are tested by experts who understand the esoteric domains in which AI is said to have an unbeatable advantage. For example, Google claimed that its Deepmind AI had discovered "millions of new materials," "equivalent to nearly 800 years’ worth of knowledge," constituting "an order-of-magnitude expansion in stable materials known to humanity":

https://deepmind.google/discover/blog/millions-of-new-materials-discovered-with-deep-learning/

It was a hoax. When independent material scientists reviewed representative samples of these "new materials," they concluded that "no new materials have been discovered" and that not one of these materials was "credible, useful and novel":

https://www.404media.co/google-says-it-discovered-millions-of-new-materials-with-ai-human-researchers/

As Brian Merchant writes, AI claims are eerily similar to "smoke and mirrors" – the dazzling reality-distortion field thrown up by 17th century magic lantern technology, which millions of people ascribed wild capabilities to, thanks to the outlandish claims of the technology's promoters:

https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/ai-really-is-smoke-and-mirrors

The fact that we have a four-hundred-year-old name for this phenomenon, and yet we're still falling prey to it is frankly a little depressing. And, unlucky for us, it turns out that AI therapybots can't help us with this – rather, they're apt to literally convince us to kill ourselves:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkadgm/man-dies-by-suicide-after-talking-with-ai-chatbot-widow-says

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

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

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

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

[lumenniveus]

I have to vent this out. It's hilarious though.

You know how I run a cc fixing side gig? Yea someone was asking about that "functional" toaster from Cowbuild and why it wasn't functional at all today. I took a look at it. It is an atrocity of an object.

Watch me lose braincells under the read more cut

The custom tuning of the toaster was made by Necrodog. That's fine on it's own, but it is incomplete. As in: Cow's toaster is NOT functional at all because half of the code is missing. You can't do anything with the CC you paid real money for. Cool, huh?

Second thing is the weight of that file. You know how EA uses 256x256 or sometimes 512x512 for smaller appliances? Cow's toaster uses 2048x2048 as texture. Just to put that into perspective, that's larger than the texture used for an entire sim and completely unnecessary for an object about the size of a microwave.

The mesh isn't any better. It has no LODs at all so you will run one single mesh the entire time. Okay, fine, I do that too sometimes when I can't shave off polygons but mine aren't 9938 Vertices to 15024 Polygons large. Yo, I could fit 6 of my Lamborghinis in that! Just saying, I'd rather have the cars than one broken AF toaster. Besides that none of the objects have shadow LODs. Yippee.

Anything else? The whole set is a problem zone. Everything is unoptimized and I know those of you who are running her CC have a laptop that's doing its best to imitate a jet engine. Those meshes are made for rendering, not for gameplay.

I love it when you bring me broken stuff to mess with. I love it even more when it gets fixed in the end. THIS is above my non-existing paygrade. I'm considering to blacklist Cowbuild CC from my cc-clinic just because there is no saving that. My sincerest condolences to whoever paid to get it.

[wrengrif]

I rub my hands together..

Because I am having more Thoughts.

Big thanks to @badaziraphaletakes for pointing out the fucking obvious to me.

We talk a lot in this fandom about trauma, how Heaven and Hell leaves different kinds of psychological, and physical scars on our angel and demon. Mostly though, we focus on the psychological damage that comes from Heaven and the physical torture that comes from Hell. I am of the belief that Heaven and Hell drop a lot of both on their environs, but that's a post for a different day.

Trauma isn't that simple, though. It doesn't matter what kind you face, your reaction to it is going to fall under animal instinct. What is truly horrifying is the realization that Crowley's and Aziraphale's gut reactions are completely the opposite of what their Bosses are.

When Crowley feels like he, or Aziraphale is in danger, instead of fangs out, he's looking for the nearest escape route. The easiest way to make the problem go away. He runs away -- but of course he runs away. If he doesn't run away, he's going to be tortured. He is going to receive physical damage for making a mistake. So flight is the best option. The ability to get away, to think of how to avoid that pain, one way or another, is so Crowley-coded. I've always stated that Crowley is the strategist, the one who makes the complicated plans. He takes himself away from the problem, so he can analyze the problem. He runs away, and then he turns back. Once he has enough physical safe space, he can sit back and look to see what can be done.

He never had a chance to do that really in the last days of Armageddon, because Hell was nipping right on his heels and he had to keep retreating. Until he was put in a corner, and then you saw the Serpent come out. His fear of pain lasts until he is more afraid of losing his life, or Aziraphale. For example, the bucket of holy water. Walking into a consecrated church. Walking into a burning bookshop. The M25 - he literally drove Right Into The Fire, even with Hastur there because he had to get to Aziraphale and he had to survive driving through a ring of fire. Crowley runs from pain, but that doesn't stop him from attacking if he's got no other options.

Aziraphale is the opposite. His trauma is one I am well acquainted with, and that is psychological abuse, and torture. Don't let it fool you - just because you aren't having someone hurt you with a screwdriver doesn't mean it's any less devastating to your body, much less your mind. What Heaven does is use Fear. Fear like a scalpel, or a baseball bat to your knees. The Fear of Falling, the Fear of being considered Unworthy of God's love. The Fear of being considered less than your fellow angels, although you'll always be lesser than archangel. Fear of being yourself, fear of being anything less than perfect. All the fucking time. Nothing can save you, but us, and if you turn against us, you're screwed. Aziraphale, though, he doesn't run. He's never run. He's a Guardian. A Principality. He held a flaming sword and he held it well. Oh, he will bald-face lie to God, to archangels, to Crowley, but he doesn't run. He will try to find a way out of it with the most convoluted stories. He'll smile, look pleasant and distant and not quite there. Don't notice me. Don't worry about me. I'm not doing anything wrong for you to hurt me. Only thing he fears more than Heaven is Hell, and he's not even scared of Hell as a concept, but as a fact of Hell will hurt Crowley. Hell will take Crowley away. Hell will reach up and snatch Crowley away in a heartbeat and there isn't anything Aziraphale can do about it. Fear, fear, fear. Yet he doesn't run. He fights. He fights with words, and when there's nothing left with that, he fights with his wits, and then when he has no more left of that - he stands his ground with a weapon. A sword. A halo. His own physical body, if necessary.

Where am I going with all this?

That Season 3 is going to be You Reap What You Sow. Crowley is trapped in his misery and he can't run from it, because Aziraphale is in danger. Aziraphale is trapped and afraid, and he can't do anything about it because they'll hurt Crowley. What neither Heaven or Hell has realized yet - and I especially mean Heaven in this juncture -- is that they haven't given Crowley or Aziraphale any choices. They've been trapped in a corner by both of their abusers.

Their abusers who have never seem to learn the lesson that if you trap Crowley and Aziraphale in a corner, they're going to turn around and bite. Bite as hard as they possibly can - just to protect one another.

[circlebuttons]

Coming down- Rafe Cameron

-

-Rafe is so Coming Down by The Weekened coded

A/N| i promise this is my last drunken/high Rafe crawling back to reader😭

-

Rafe Cameron has a bad habit of using partying and substance abuse to attempt to drown out his problems. His habits on top of his poor communication killed your relationship. He tried so many times over to quit, but the sensation of being faded and the bliss of being able to forget would also make him forget what you mean to him. It's never until he starts coming down, feeling alone, and lets reality sink in that he crawls back into your arms at night and now that you aren't there anymore he's beginning to spiral. 

As soon as you open his text, your phone rings again. You shut your eyes tight and take a deep breath before answering. You dont say anything and neither does he, both of you sit listening to each other breathe.

"I need you." hes calm, although slightly slurred.

You sigh into the phone, "You don't need me, just go to sleep Rafe."

"Well then I want you. I always want you." he declares, his voice containing a short burst of urgency that fades out.

"You only want me when you're coming down." you scoff at him, angry that he's putting you through any of this, angry at yourself for letting him.

"That's not true. You don't know what you mean to me." It hurt you to hear him speak like that because although he's prone lying to himself and you, especially you, it was true. You don't know what you mean to him because he's never told you. He never knew how to say it and because of that it kept you awake many nights trying to figure it out.

"Where's Topper?" You ask him, ignoring his comment.

"He left. I can't be alone right now, please-"

You cut him off, "Where's Kelce?"

"Sleep downstairs."

"I need you to go downstairs with Kelce and go to sleep." You tell him, patience slowly running thin, he's too old and he's hurt you too much for you to want to coerce him into bed like a child.

"I can't go downstairs." he mumbles into the phone quietly.

"Why not?"

"I'm outside."

You're stunned in disbelief at his admission. You take a deep breath before testing his bluff. "No you're not."

"I'm sorry, I am. They left my phone with me, I called an uber as soon as Kelce went down." He confesses, sounding selfishly sorry while you can't even begin to piece together why he's at your door. Kelce and Top are mutual friends of yours and take it upon themselves to make sure Rafe gives you space. They'll spend the night with him, locking him in his room, pocketing his car keys, and sometimes even taking his phone, but even exhausted, trembling, and nauseous Rafe is relentless and you know that. You say nothing before hanging up and making your way downstairs.

You pace, biting the inside of your cheek a bit before having the courage to open the door. You crack it at first, catching a glimpse of him sitting in front of your door with his head in his hands. He's quick to get up and face you once the door is open. "You shouldn't be here" is all you say to him.

"I know, 'm sorry." he emptily apologizes for the a thousandth time. He looks down at you and somehow transformed his sharp features into soft round ones, since he's still coming down he's quiet and dismal, everything he won't be once the sun rises. He looks so soft and sorry for the moment, it almost makes you sick. You don't even bother to accept his apology. You know it's never a good idea to receive apologies or promises from someone who isn't sober and you could smell a mixture of weed and tequila on him as soon as the door opened, knowing that there's way worse is in his system. You silently close the door behind him while he kicks off his air forces. He then stands and watches in silence as you walk towards the hallway closet to pull out spare bedding. The silence kills him, he wants to know what you're thinking and how you're feeling, but you give him nothing on the account of you feel queasy just at him standing there. You take your time calmly setting up the couch, before looking back at him, "There's ibuprofen in that first cabinet, leftovers and half a bottle of pedialyte in the fridge"

"Thank you." he mumbles while sitting down. He looks up at you waiting for you to say something. The eye contact is unbearable, he's looking at you like a kicked puppy and you feel like crying, screaming, and throwing up all at once. You just still can't find it in yourself to speak to him, so you turn to walk away. You're stopped dead in your tracks once you feel his hand wrapped around your wrist. You look down at where you two are connected and then back up at him, he's barely got a grip on you, but the only thing you can feel is him. His touch makes the hair on your neck stand up and goosebumps appear. Neither of you say anything, he just lightly pulls you towards himself. You curse yourself for the way your body submits to him, you let him pull down on top of him and he adjusts both of you to be laying down on the couch together.

"I am sorry" He's barely audible so you pretend not to hear him, but he holds you closer, repeating himself, begging for an answer from you. You say nothing, overwhelmed with emotions and thoughts. The toll he's taken on your mental is too much and you can feel yourself falling apart. Your head is pressed against his chest, so you listen to his elevated heart beat and before you know it hot tears are soaking into his shirt. He goes still before reaching down to cover the both of you in the blanket you had set out. Eventually you cry yourself to sleep in his arms while he clings to the feeling of holding you just incase it's his last time ever doing it.

[wilderness-of-thoughts]

".... Y/n?" You heard a voice on the other end of the phone. A familiar voice. It's three in the morning and instead of sleeping you're sitting and watching a movie. You grab the TV remote to turn down the background noise, because the voice is surprisingly quiet. "... I need your help."

∆∆∆

The fact is, the only reason you have a job supporting the jujutsu sorcerers is because your uncle is a Yaga. Your cursed energy is so small it's practically nonexistent. Sometimes you see curses, sometimes you don't. However, in situations where there aren't enough people in the field, you're sprinkled in in a support role... More like support for support. It never bothered you though. Your talent for being a person with curse energy is that you are almost normal. Almost sometimes makes a big difference.

But hey! Work is work and as long as they pay there's nothing to complain about. So when you were running through the streets of Tokyo in the middle of the night to the apartment of none other than Gojo Satoru, it didn't even cross your mind what was going on.

He's probably craving something sweet again, or come up with some stupid idea like - "So if you put more capsules into the washing machine, won't the wash be done faster? Damn. Okay, clean up this mess y/n." Or "I'm out of hair gel, I'm not leaving the house like this! Go y/n and buy me some." - being an errand dog defines your position more. Especially since one of the weakest of the weak in the world of the strong, you are a subordinate of none other than the strongest sorcerer. The Chosen One.

Meh... Could be worse. Right?

Right?

∆∆∆

You punched in the code to Gojo's apartment, breathing heavily. Fuck, why is Ijichi always the driver? Oh yeah, you failed your driving test.

"Gojo? What is it this time?" You asked with a slight note of irritation in your voice. You turned on the light in the living room, looking around the room for any sign of Satoru. With his height you usually had no problem finding him. But this time, all you were greeted with was a dark room. As if no one was here. "Gojo? If this is some kind of stupid joke..."

"Believe me, I would like to..." You heard his voice, strangely quiet but not weak. However, when you turned in the direction it came from, no one was there. "Listen... First, promise me that what you see will stay between us." Gojo continued talking, or rather his voice came from the side of the table in the living room.

"Um... Ok?"

"Secondly... swear you won't laugh."

"Did your students play some stupid prank on you? Did they shave you bald?"

"Promise me, fuck."

"ok ok I promise..." You slowly approaches the table, his voice getting clearer, but you still can't see him.

"Third... Fuck... Help me." His voice was a mix of anger, shame, and humiliation. You never thought you'd ever get to hear it. Ever.

"Okay Gojo... I'll help you, but where are you?"

After he told you to turn on the light and go to the table, you still didn't see him. Finally you heard some rustling and Gojo climbed onto the table top. Yes, he climbed it.

"you won't believe what happened to me..." He said, trying his best to protect his dignity by masking it with an amused tone of voice.

And so, before you on the night table stood the strongest sorcerer of modern times. The Chosen One. Except... He's the size of a doll now, with cat ears and a tail.

"WHAT THE FUCK?!"

Next:

[incorrectbatfam]

Do you have any angsty headcannons of Damian Wayne

Sometimes I wonder if he has any insecurities about being the youngest and the fact that he's fifth (sixth? seventh?) in a long line of batkids who have already done pretty much anything he can think of. Blowing up the League of Assassins? Tim did that. Starting a superhero team? Sure, Damian's done that, but it's kinda derivative of his siblings'. Dying? That's literally Jason's whole schtick. With older siblings, he's gonna invariably end up with some hand-me-downs and it's a lot harder to carve his own unique identity.

He's over the whole "blood son" thing, but he can't help but feel a little jealous when Bruce talks so fondly about the others' Robin days, meanwhile Damian is still referred to as "having potential" and needing to work on this or that. It's like when your siblings have a bunch of trophies and you know you're just as capable, but you haven't been given the chance.

As Robin, everything he did was measured up against his siblings. Dick stuck the landing better. Tim was more careful with evidence. Steph decoded the riddle faster. Jason could take on twice as many goons. Though Damian tries to do things his own way, Robin never feels like something that's fully his.

Even though the Waynes can buy ten of everything, he still ends up with some of his siblings' stuff—Dick's sweatshirt, Jason's books, Tim's old camera. Damian can try and pretend they belong to him, but then he comes across a scribble in the margins or an old picture of Young Justice and it's a reminder that he's still tethered to the people who came before him.

And maybe that's why he still picks fights and gives people a hard time. At his age, he'll do anything it takes to stand out so someone notices him, and being difficult accomplishes that. As an immediate result, he gains individuality by being known as the Demon Brat. And because he gets that instant gratification, he keeps doing it over and over.

It's no secret that he and Tim aren't always on good terms. I think part of it has to do with Tim being the next closest predecessor and Damian has an easier time picking him apart compared to facing off against Dick or Jason. Because of that, though, I think Tim would be the first to pick up on why Damian is this way.

Do they communicate about it? Mmm not yet. This is the most emotionally stunted family we're talking about, so instead of indulging Damian's behavior, Tim flat-out ignores it and it's one of those instances where ignoring works because Damian stops, at least with him.

But then he moves on to Steph, but her tolerance is way lower than Tim's and she lets Damian know that. She straight-up tells him, "Hey, quit being obnoxious. It works now because people are going easy on you, but one day someone's gonna screw you up and you won't have a Batman to run to."

He doesn't really believe her because 1) he was never one to care what strangers think about him and 2) getting the job done was more important than being liked to him.

Cut to school being back in session. Damian mainly keeps to himself—partly to lay low, partly because he never got along with other kids before and didn't see the point in trying again. His grades are stellar and for the first month or so, teachers praise him all around for being a model student.

But that eventually slows down as his straight-A's and thesis-sounding papers become routine—it's his norm, and teachers stop pointing it out as something remarkable.

And just like before: when being Robin stops working, be the Demon Brat.

He keeps his grades up, but the teachers start sending emails home about things like chewing gum and using his phone in class. Every time, Bruce just reminds him to behave.

One time Bruce offhandedly mentions how Jason was a well-behaved student and Damian can't help but think, "That's the point. I'm not Jason."

The emails pile up, now with new problems like extended bathroom breaks, breaking the dress code, and even one incident where he forged himself a note to get out of class early.

But the thing that lands him in detention is a snide comment to the wrong kid that spirals into a schoolyard brawl. And even though Damian pulls his punches, it still ends in bruises and a bloody nose, and it takes two teachers and the football coach to break it up.

And just his luck, Dick's in Bludhaven, Alfred has a doctor's appointment, Tim and Bruce are at a business meeting, and Jason wants to stay out of this, so guess who's there to pick him up at the end of the afternoon.

Steph doesn't beat around the bush. Her first response is, "What did I tell you?" And it pisses him off because she's right.

That evening, they go on a long drive where she eventually gets an explanation out of him. And she gets him, 100%. She tells him how she had big shoes to fill as Batgirl and how she always compared herself to Cass and Babs.

Then she says: "Robin isn't a personality you grow into or break out of. It's just a costume. Who you are underneath is who Robin becomes."

For good measure though, she goes to Bruce later like, "Hey, do you need a laxative? 'Cause you're so emotionally constipated that you forgot your son is his own person, not a work in progress or extension of someone else." Then she swipes his credit card and takes Damian to the arcade to make him feel better since he still has a week's worth of detention plus Alfred giving him double the chores.

After that, people will still occasionally slip up, but when Dick ruffles his hair and says they'll ace a mission "the Damian way," it's reason enough to believe that things are looking up.

[jester089]

Hello! Today I rewatched Titanic for the hundredth time, so I had an idea: https://youtu.be/EyPpMaIBgkI?feature=shared

do you know this scene in Titanic? In any case, here it is,if you haven’t seen this movie (I highly recommend it, crying every time lmao)

So, imagine that Rose is a character (Jax, Pomni, Caine/Kinger) and Jack is the reader

the reader (their s/o) begins to abstracting , the characters understandably end up next to the reader at this moment in a hope to stop the process, but then both realize that nothing helps, and before going completely crazy, the reader begins to calm down characters (just repeat lines from this scene lol) How would the characters react? I'm really interested in Jax's reaction.

P.S. If it’s not difficult, briefly describe how the characters will behave after the death of their s/o

So sorry for my English is so bad!!! I am not speaking it, hope you having a good day/night!!🫶🫶💋

Boat movie

Thank you for the request! I apologize to any Caine or Jax fans who hate how I write them. But hey you can always just not read it, and I write em how they are. Not how we all want em. From this post on I'm going to ask you all add something to your requests. When requesting either Caine or Jax specify if you want the real ones or the softer loving ones. Thanks! Caine, Kinger, Jax, & Pomni's reactions to Reader dying/abstracting in front of them/in their hands

Caine

You definitely aren't the first. And probably wont be the last. He understands that humans for whatever reason don't want to die alone so he stays with you. He stays there sitting next to you on the floor as you progressively get more and more glitched. Sadly he doesn't catch much of what you say as his mind is mainly just ready to put you in the cellar so you don't hurt anyone. Once your abstracted and in the cellar he moves on. Sure he felt slightly closer to you then with all the others digital circus's inhabitants but he'll get past it. Nothing really changes in the long run.

Kinger

Kinger found you abstracting and was about to turn tail and run to find help but you begged him not to leave. That's how you got to where you are Kinger holding you close while you gently cup his face. He listened to every word you said about how he was gonna get out of there and live his life. Have kids and die safe in his home surrounded by loved ones. He permanently searing every word into his brain. As you lean up to give him one last kiss before you fall off the deep end and abstract forcing Kinger to let go of you. He is crazy yes, but he's tough. And losing you makes him want to give up. But he'll get out of this place and live his life. If not for himself, for you.

Jax

Jax was sitting with you as you abstracted. He was just going to leave and do something else, but your pitiful glitchy voice got him to stay. He sits there staring at you as you progressively get worse not even listening to what your saying, his mind wandering to what he would rather be doing. Once you fully abstract he gets up and sprints away so he doesn't get hurt then leaves you alone to rampage about. Not his problem. Hey if someone else dies to you maybe their death will be funnier then yours.

Pomni

Pomni stayed with you. Despite every bit of code in her being telling to run and get Caine she knew she wouldn't be able to in time. So she stayed and held you gently using everything she had in her to not show how she felt. So you could have someone, have her there with you when you went. She listened to your final words and did her best to remember the feeling of you gently kissing her. Once you were gone she went straight to her room to be alone, and to write something down. In a journal Ragatha gave Pomni to try and help with stress she writes down you. You personality, your final words. And she draws you, draws you how you are (were). She isn't going to forget you. She will get out of this place. And if, no WHEN she does she's going to give you a proper burial. She doesn't have your body but she isn't just going to be the last thing she remembers of you, you or a version of you trying to kill her. (I'm feeling a little burnt out on angst asks. But I did enjoy writing this.)

xoxo, Jester

[fatphobiabusters]

Hank Green released a short about whether y'all people are more likely to get cancer. The answer is yes! Every 5 cm of height increases the risk of several cancers by 5-10%.

In the screenshot of the website explaining this he was showing, it said "unlike being ov*rweight or ob*se, height..." I assume that was followed by "cannot be modified." (Censorship mine). But of course weight cannot be modified either, and there's no proof it makes people healthier to force it. We certainly don't advocate for leg shortening surgeries or artificially halting growth hormonally when someone is tall.

Exactly, we don't encourage people to cut their shins in half "for health". I looked the youtube short up, basically bigger you are the more cells you have but fat cells don't actively divide like say, skin cells. You start with small cells, they get bigger and if needed will divide. So even loosing weight without lipo won't reduce your cells (weight loss basically changes density and size of the cell ? Is again my understanding i could be wrong) and it sounds like the cells aren't replicating like other cells. (My limited understanding is) Every time the DNA inside a cell is read to make a new cell it runs a risk of being read wrong which creates mutated cells (cancer) (iirc benign cancer is when it's read wrong but isn't spreading, it's made limited error copies and the other type of cancer is making nothing but the wrong copies) instead fat cells get big and split, there's no code reading.

I suppose it is correct that it is generally more accepted to perform liposuction on a person than one of those height altering surgeries (usually it's to make someone taller however).

This makes me wonder how much cancer rates change with appendix and gallbladder removal. Obviously without them you can't get those organ specific cancers but the thing about statistics is, there's always fine print.

"Your overall cancer rate drops 5% if you remove your appendix and gallblader" is a hilarious headline to imagine. When in reality your risk of appendix and gallbladder cancer goes to zero outside of like accidentally left behind pieces or something.

Anyway what a weird place for the article to go to. At most you can argue bigger bodies are at a higher risk of certain cancers related to hormones (I can't recall the exact phrasing) because fat cells can also store hormones (iirc) and could be problems for hormone sensitive organs like ovaries. So the website itself was being weirdly fatphobic for no reason if my grasp of things is accurate to the thesis.

But anyway, I'm 6 feet (182 cm) tall and come from a family of giants where I'm the shortest sibling so this is actually somewhat relevant to my personal life and something I'll be extra aware of!

-mod squirrel

[normal-enderman]

MAJOR MHA SPOILERS

Thinking about how..... Aoyama's parents didn’t really love him that much even if it might've seemed like they did....

They got him a quirk from AfO because they wanted a "normal" child, and probably rationalised it to themselves as "we're willing to do immoral things to ensure our child gets the best life possible, this is all out of love!" But really, it was about appearances, not love. If they had truly loved Aoyama, they wouldn't have given him a Quirk which would essentially indebt him to a criminal for the rest of his life. They weren't considering Aoyama's future or identity or feelings beyond a shallow level of "we want our child to fit in in class". It's a very insidious type of lack of love and care, because it doesn't stem from malice, but from weakness and fear of conflict.

I've met a few parents like this in real life. They aren't emotionally resilient and never learnt to deal with their issues, so the moment there is a problem, they take the most immediate action that will balm their emotions stemming from the problem even when it causes bigger problems later down the line. And will then insist that they were doing it for the betterment of everyone because they can’t grow beyond their flawed thinking.

If they really loved Aoyama, there were so many opportunities for them to avoid the situation they ended up being put in. They could have been gently honest with him from a young age about where his Quirk came from and why he wouldn’t be suited to join the ranks of heroes because of it, and encouraged him to explore his other interests and ways of helping people. Instead, they were too weak to have that conversation with him and instead allowed him to go down the path of heroism, which led to SO MANY PEOPLE being hurt. They put Aoyama in a situation where he had to DIRECTLY CONTRIBUTE TO HIS FRIENDS BEING INJURED because of their own selfishness. They allowed the worst outcome to happen because they didn't take ANY of the opportunities presented to them during Aoyama's development to guide him down a different path, because they are, fundamentally, cowardly people who take the path of least resistance and conflict even if it causes huge problems later down the line. And Aoyama DOESNT DESERVE THAT!!! He's not a coward!! He held up under horrific circumstances, the threat of his parents' death constantly hanging over him on one side and the immense guilt at hurting his friends on the other, and he STILL found time to look out for Midoriya in the middle of it all.

And there's the scene in his flashback when he's explaining how he got his Quirk.... in the scene, a young Aoyama, having just been granted a Quirk, is running to his family with happy tears in his eyes while they cry for joy. But this makes me wonder.... how was their attitude towards Aoyama BEFORE this scene, then? While they were not abusive per say, the scene really gives the sense that Aoyama's parents did not consider him "complete" until he had a Quirk. It's like they were so happy because they had finally "fixed" him.

So what was that like for young Aoyama? Growing up feeling like you are inherently flawed and incomplete and in some way a disappointment by dint of the simple fact that you are you? (This is also ties back to the gay experience + Aoyama being very overtly queer-coded ect but that's a talk for another day)

And now, Aoyama has left UA and all the friends he made, and is going back to his parents... stuck with the people who have put him through an unimaginable trauma, which he most likely will never be able to talk to anyone else about. He'll probably never grow close to the students at his new school, because the guilt will eat away at him. And the only people who share his experience are his parents, who ALLOWED THAT EXPERIENCE TO HAPPEN BECAUSE FUNDAMENTALLY THEY DO NOT LOVE HIM.

I just hope that Class 1-A stays friends with him :(

(Ps. I'm not a mha blog so don't follow for more analysis like this! I don't usually write stuff like this! Was just thinking thoughts about my favourite underrated character!)

[xxrhxysxx]

Heyyyyy saw ur requests were open for ghost can I get like reader(gn or fem idc) x Simon where like reader needs to borrow a shirt for whatever reason (idk it got ruined or something) and Simon ends up giving them one and they wear it around the safe house or around the others and bro goes feral idk just a thot

Thx

(hopefully smut but totally get it if not thx)

Him giving you his shirt is so baby girl of himΨ(≧ω≦)Ψ also thank you for requesting, sorry this took oh so long ☆

.

Simon(Ghost) Riley giving you his shirt

Gn reader x Simon Riley

. Warnings: sugestive, swearing,

(Sub coded!)Simon

.

. It had been really busy around the safe house in an attempt to calm down you made yourself cup of hot chocolate and were ready to head back to your room, on the way back bumped into Gaz who was play fighting with Soap, that causes you to spill the hot chocolate all over yourself, lucky you it wasn't hot but warm.

.

When you first knock on Simons door and ask for a shirt he's confused and flustered, he gives you the shirt and tells you you don't have to give it back, little did he know that this decision was the cause of soon to be problems. The next day when he woke up and came to the kitchen to make some tea the first thing he saw was you with a coffee in hand "good morning" you said but instead of replying he just looked at you, it made you nervous he stared at you a lot but this time it was different, it was intense, hungry almost, he had to snap himself out of the trance he was in, "good morning" his voice was a bit breathy and small. he was sweating trying not to say how good you look in his shirt, how much he wants to kiss you, despite how awkward the silence is you graciously excuse yourself from the room and go to the rest of the team. Whilst talking with the others soap points out how hard ghost is staring at you but decide to ignore it. Later that evening everyone decides to go out to a bar you decline because you aren't a big fan of drinking, while making yourself a cup another of hot chocolate since you didn't really get to enjoy the first one you spot a figure out of the corner of your eye you turn around to see Simon staring at you again but this time you decide to say something "Is there something wrong with how I look? This the the 3rd time I've caught you looking at me" he doesn't respond but you can tell he heard you after a few seconds pass you hear heavy foot steps that stopped right behind you. You turn around to Simon abnormally close you give him a look that hints at him to move, he scoots back a bit and with a apologetic look in his eyes " I'm sorry. I didn't mean to stare " it's quiet , barely audible "It's fine... Can I know why you're staring at me so much? " there's a pause, you can tell he wants to say something, but he's not, it frustrates you almost because you two have history, you both joined at the same time, you trained together, hell he had stayed over at your house a few times, you weren't besties but he could at least tell you why he was staring. After a few seconds you go back to making your hot chocolate "If you won't tell me it's fine. I'm just curious that's all" "It's just... you look really good in my shirt" he looks away from you, fidgeting with his hands you can tell he more to say than that but you don't push "Is that a bad thing? " you spoke "No but the things I'm thinking about doing to you are" you're in shock you never took Simon for the kind of guy to get hard from you wearing his clothes. You feel heat run though your whole body, you start to sweat as he steps closer to you he won't look at you though and to look into his eyes is the only thing you need right now. "Simon look at me please" he obeys "If you want me I'm yours but I need you to tell me exactly what you need ok? " "Okay" you guide as him to his room. As you both lay on his bed you can hear his heartbeat get louder, and you notice him sweating "are you nervous" you speak "a bit yeah" "why" he looks away as if he Hiding something. "I've wanted to do this for a while but I never thought I'd get the chance" he whispers. "Well now you have the chance so show me how much you wanted this".

.

.

. Once again I'm so so sorry that I took so long I just couldn't find the motivation to write but I hope you enjoyed and again thank you for requesting 🤎☆

[majachee]

did you say….a power rangers x td au?

IVE BEEN TRYING TO MAKE ONE BUT HAVENT BEEN ABLE TO THANK YOUUUUUUUUUU I owe my life to you power rangers was the shit

please yap about it I’m begging

IT CAME TO ME IN A VISION EARLY ONE MORNING, AND IT HASN'T LEFT MY BRAIN.

I am writing a fic about it, though it isn't my number 1 priority wip atm cuz its just smth silly and self-indulgent, but because I now know there's someone out there REALLY DIGGING THIS IDEA, it'll be moved up on my list by a few notches lol

This AU is heavily focused on comedy and action, so rather than assigning TD characters to PR roles that they'd actually fit, I went with what would be REALLY FUNNY to write about.

So the Rangers consist of Harold (red), Duncan (Black), Noah (blue), Courtney (yellow), and Heather (pink).

These guys were assigned to work on a lab/project for their science class, specifically on the effects of pollution, littering, and climate change. No take-backsies, they're stuck with eachother and 4/5 of these guys don't want to fail... 4/5 of these guys are also assholes.

After some healthy doses of bitching, they agree to meet up and study an abandoned rig. But GASP! They get attacked by some guys... made of putty? Damn dude that's CRAAAAAAZYYY

... this is specifically based on the MMPR tv show, and I'm very tempted to draw the putty monsters exactly like how their costumes look in the show (silver fullbody suits with seams visible and monster claws/masks.) Listen, the putty monster costumes bring me A LOT OF JOY, I genuinely love this show dO NOT @ ME (unless its for mmpr fanart... please @ me...)

Anyways, these assholes fumble through the fight: Harold shows off the skills he learned at Defensive Steve's Defense Class, Noah gets thrown off a small cliff because he weighs less than a paper weight, Courtney feels the exciting rush of bloodlust for the first time... Normal stuff, really!

Of course, this ends up with all 5 of them being summoned (lazer kidnapped) to Power Rangers Headquarters! And it's revealed that Zorgon's role was taken by Chris McClean I'm SORRY. Look, it's funny. He has the same personality he does in canon, but instead of running a reality TV show centered around teens, he has to babysit a small group of teens who hate eachother. This will be really funny in execution, I promise.

Some of the kiddos have a few words to say about the Dinozords... cuz half of them aren't even dinosaurs. Also, they do NOT like the idea of being forced to work together on a color-coded superhero team of all things!

Drama Bot is Alpha, it focuses on the team's publicity ratings.

Rita Repulsa? Meet Blainely McBlamey!! SELF EXPLANATORY!!

I love Rita Repulsa, so Blainely fans consider this a very high honor.

The Green Ranger is Alejandro.

I plan on having the AU mostly focus on campy episodic adventures with some character development sprinkled in, and having the more important PR plots be... well... important and more thoroughly executed, if I ever get around to it.

As for the main gang themselves?

Harold is quite stoked and honored about being a superhero, and quickly ends up being the team leader and team morale – due to his smarts, and quick-to-forgive personality. He doesn't take shit from anyone, but he also won't hold grudges, especially on the battlefield... Though he does have a slight problem with going on long tangents about certain factoids (same...)

He has a vast array of skills and knowledge at his disposable... It all depends on how/when he uses said skills lmao. So far he's probably the least developed one in this AU, right next to Duncan. That'll change when I write more of them.

Courtney? Oh... Oh you KNOW she likes being a Power Ranger. She preaches about the importance of morals, and upholding laws, and how some people ought to respect the responsibilities that come with being a Power Ranger... and some people are more deserving of being recognized as heroes than others. Courtney I love you and I hope I do you justice... mwah... She very much likes taking the lead, and claims that she should be the team leader... and valedictorian, and class president... Oh yeah, you KNOW she worries about her grades a lot, especially after becoming a Ranger. She becomes a lot more productive with her passion as the story goes on, and learns to trust and respect her teammates.

Noah takes on the role of reluctant tactician... Aka the smartass. Physical activites aren't his forte, and he plans on keeping it that way. He relies on his Zord the most, and when that isn't available he resorts to evasive maneuvers and hiding while the other guys handle it. Him staying on the sidelines, however, does lead to him being more observant to the enemies' weaknesses, which will eventually lead to him having a more active role in the team as the main tactician. I'd imagine once that happens, he'll have a lot of interesting back-and-forths with Harold and Courtney. Still a sarcastic, laidback asshole, but more active in his participation when it comes to the team.

Duncan... is more aligned with his season 1 and early season 2 personality. No cheating or love triangles here. He is still an ASSHOLE, though, especially to Harold and Noah. They don't take his shit. I dont have much to say about him yet iM SORRYYYYYY

Asshole punk with a heart of gold... that's his schtick alright...

HEATHER MY BELOVED. She looks hella good in pink and she knows it. She doesn't like being a part of this team, but by god will she put the effort in, because she doesn't want to die to some clay-freak. Her zord-buddy is the pterodactyl, which she finds to be quite convenient, considering it's on the smaller side and can fly, very easy for aerial advantage. Very hellbent on defeating Blainely McBlamey, because once she's defeated they can all go on with their lives. Presumably... evil grin...

I don't know how to really put it in more fancy words, but like... Heather is the most active participant along with Harold and Courtney. She's very headstrong, tends to butt heads with Courtney a lot (not only are they both stubborn, but they also both view themselves as the leader of the group. Nobody realizes it's Harold, not even Harold himself, dramatic irony at its finest.)

Everyone on the team loses their shit when Alejandro (the enemy[tm]) gets a frickin' DRAGON-ZORD of all things.

If yiu have questions about specific characters or MMPR episodes, I'll do my best to answer lol

[doberbutts]

Hey there! Before I begin, I totally understand if you aren't comfortable with answering questions about this. Feel free to delete this ask.

Would you mind describing the treatment of animals you saw when you were in Mennonite communities? I've heard Amish and Mennonite communities treat them more like tools than living creatures.....

Yes, Mennonites and Amish largely treat their animals as tools and a means to an end rather than like living creatures deserving of their own respect. Understand that this is very much hard-coded into the religion and culture itself, so it is a difficult mindset to combat. Even Mennonite-adjacent communities often treat their animals in a similar manner, even if they say that they don't like that type of ownership, because of the same.

In the Christian Bible, there are a lot of verses about man having dominion over the earth and nature existing to do two things: worship God and serve Man. And Anabaptists in general believe that the best way to worship God is through hard manual physical labor and rejecting any and all paths that make this labor easy. It's why the Amish don't do electricity, for a rather extreme example, but it's also why many of these communities seem addicted to the ideals of "work" and "discipline" being the way to a Godly life.

So... if animals exist to serve Man and worship God, and the best way to worship God is through hard manual labor and rigid discipline (read: punishment) for anyone who steps out of line, it follows suit that the animals are not treated particularly kindly.

Don't get me wrong. These communities are also filled with horrific human rights violations. From child labor to forced marriage and impregnation to abandonment of the elderly and disabled to rampant domestic and sexual abuse to denial of education and medicine... this is not just an animal problem. I know I'm running an animal blog, but it's really important that if I talk about the way they treat their animals, I also have to talk about the way they treat the women, the children, the elderly, the disabled, and anyone who dares think outside of their strict rules. The care for the animals is just a symptom of the same problem.

It is my experience that the Amish are worse about it than the Mennonites, but they are also sort of cut from the same cloth so various communities of either can really vary widely. Animals are expendable. They serve their purpose and then they die and the owners get a new one. Dogs, cats, horses, livestock, doesn't matter. Most of these animals are not pets and, even if they are, they are not pets in the same way that my dogs are pets. If they get sick, letting them die or killing them outright is usually the path taken instead of medicine. If medicine is used, it's what can be purchased from a trip to the local farm store, not actual doctors and prescriptions.

Unfortunately, pretty much every attempt to fix this problem has been met with "it's my religion" and thus it continues to be an issue. Again, I have to stress, this is a religious problem, there are very specific verses they are using to justify this. It also does not help that their religion teaches that "the world" (anyone outside of their local church community) will try to lead them astray by telling them their religion and religious practices are morally wrong, and so pretty much any "hey maybe don't work the horses on the plow until they literally fall over dead" or "hey maybe breeding hundreds of dogs per year with no vet care or oversight is not the nicest way to do this" is met with "THE DEVIL is trying to tell me THE WAY I SERVE GOD is WRONG, clearly this is an attack directly on my soul" and not like. "Maybe you are right and I should be nicer to my animals and not work them to death and provide vet care when they're sick and injured"

This is why I call both Amish and Mennonites cultists. You have to have experienced the religion and culture firsthand to understand how this all hooks together. It's not so simple as just improving the law because these communities believe they are not bound by the law in the first place.

[andwhentheangelscome]

go off about the DE debrief pls

Okay okay okay okay SO - gosh, where to even begin.

Okay, so: You're standing above the Whirling-In-Rags (which - by the way - is an INCREDIBLE name for this particular location, as Harry is quite literally caught in the storm of his own hopes and failures and responsibilities and poverty BUT I DIGRESS ALREADY), and you're invited to take in a view of the square which will comprise a central location for the game's central drama, and here, at the end of your first day - for a new player, spent running around haphazardly, talking to people who hate you, who have strong opinions about you and about this world that you barely understand - both as the player AND diegetically as Harry - and right before you try to pack it in and give it another go tomorrow, Kim does something important: he invites you into the story in a way that frames not only what you have done in a way that is encouraging (something needed as a player after all the disorientation) but also deeply personal for this character.

This moment isn't just about the narrative gameplay utility of taking the player aside after they've finished Chapter One (so to speak) and making sure they understood the major components of the story that they're in. It's about giving the player a chance to see Kim Kitsuragi - a character who is deeply straight laced, and particular, and necessary for Harry's potential to heal and to move forward from this point where he's found himself - in a moment of genuine vulnerability, and also genuine power.

Kim pulls a cigarette. His minor vice, his personal challenge, one of the markers of his Cool. He takes you through the days events, making sure that as a new player, you aren't completely lost as to what your goals are here, and what's central to achieving them.

(I had forgotten about this until I've been watching it back - he also compliments the snakeskin shoes!!! The green does compliment the orange!!! And those SHOES - one of the many things that makes me headcanon Harry as a closeted-even-to-himself bisexual, like - Kim KNOWS that it's a bold fashion choice and admires it, okay I'm veering off what's just in the text itself now here)

And then he "zooms out," so to speak. We get a discussion of the RCM, an organization which is core to Kim's belief system, which I read as being a steadfast commitment to the ideals of self-governance, of propriety in the social order, of there being a right way to carry a weapon, and a right way to protect the things worth protecting.

He talks about having been a Moralist (a political ideology coded as being similar to specifically European Liberalism), when he was younger, and falters when trying to articulate why he moved on from their beliefs, except for throwing in a comment about how their motto is more about "what they want you to think about them" implying that, for all their talk, they fail to truly meet those values of "Love, Compassion, Self-Discipline", a statement which the situation in Martinaise genuinely supports.

And it's hard to understate how good the music is in this scene too. Breathy and expansive and yearning and defiant and sad.... It's everything that the story is set up to make you feel. It's big, and it's aching, and musically it's all about how it isn't time to give up yet, not now, not while there's still some way to stand on your two feet and do something about all the problems in the world.

And what's insane about that feeling and that idea is that it's actually the central thing that Harry and Kim deeply share. It's what makes them good cops. The story tells us - both directly through text, and through their actions (assuming that you're not playing Harry as a fucking fascist) - that they get up, every day, broken as they are, and try to Do Good in a world that is beautiful, and hostile, and complicated, and impossibly hard to see clearly through all of the ideologies, and the daily grind, and all the pointless pain, but you still have to try to do the right thing. Because it's worth it. Because that's what you owe it.

Harry has been beaten down by this challenge. He's tried to be good, and smart, and tough enough to take on the problems of the world, and of his community, and he has been brought here: to his last leg, to the Whirling-In-Rags, certain in his heart that he's been beat.

But Kim refuses to accept that answer, and so does Harry's soul (a stand-in for us, as the player), he refuses to accept that nothing can be done, just because the problems seem so large, and intractable.

And then Kim does the best thing that he could for Harry, and for us, who are facing the same exact questions in our own, much bigger, just as complicated world:

He stares the challenge down with courage. And despite what he believes through the clarity of his sight, he hopes for a better world:

It's this line, this Perception check, that I always come back to, when I think about what this game really wants me to take away from this whole story. There's more to it than just that, of course, this game is full of lessons about money, soldiers, workers, sex, power, honor, and beauty,

but this is the thing that I need the most, when I'm trying to find my own way forward. I need to be able to acknowledge that maybe I won't see the world become more kind, more loving, and more honest before I die. Maybe it'll still be just as hard and bleak in 20 or 50 or 100 years.

But still.

I still have to believe that the struggle won't break me down. That the work, the very belief that trying is worth it, will drive me forward,

that it will make me look young. when it should make me look tired.

And then just like that, it's over. It's time to go back inside, to let the moment fade, and to take that courage as far as it will take you.

There are so many good scenes and interactions in this incredible masterpiece of gameplay and storytelling, but the Day One debrief will stick with me forever, I think.