#and what's the common factor guys? say it with me !

[taylorklosscomeout138]

Timeline asleep????

How can Begin Again be written about Dianna Agron if Dianna's family never celebrated Christmas??

So out of all the things in the world to bring up, Dianna is telling Taylor about the Christmas movies that her family watches when Dianna's family doesn't even recognize the holiday of Christmas whatsoever and celebrates Hanukkah instead??

Right.... okay.

"You throw your head back laughing" I wonder who we've seen do that every time she laughs with Taylor

And the muse of Begin Again tells Taylor she has as many James Taylor records as her, when Karlie was literally named after Carly Simon because her family was that big of fans of Carly and James???? Yet somehow it's crazy to suggest that lyric would most likely be written about Karlie- who factually does have a ton of James Taylor records due to her family and birth name origin

So now when we say the license plate in the Begin Again MV is not only fake and formatted incorrectly but that it would have to be quite the coincidence that it magically happens to correspond to Karlie's initials and birth year..... that's somehow more of a reach than these lyrics being written about Dianna when they simply fail to align with her??

I'm sorry but letter to number is one of the most basic form of codes to ever exist we literally did solve the message puzzles for it in grade school. You're telling me that's out of realm of possibility for the same Taylor who has us doing anagram puzzles, word unscramblers, or even more complicated puzzles?? That is just silly and bias.

11 = K letter to number that's just a fact.

That license plate straight up says

K EZK 92

Karlie Elizabeth Kloss 1992

And we are arguing that's a coincidence???

Sorry but the odds of that happening statistically among all other factors especially the James Taylor line with Karlie being named after Carly Simon is incredibly drastic

I'm not saying this is an entirely accurate estimate of the odds, maybe it's a bit dramatized, but all things considered all factors applied and all of it amounting to having nothing to do with Karlie and all being pure happenstance are at least 1 in a billion

And I want to be clear I am NOT saying this means Taylor didn't date Dianna, I am saying this PERFECTLY aligns with what Taylor told us in Folklore, and we literally all agreed that, "chase 2 girls lose the 1" is about Taylor pursuing Karlie and Dianna at the same time.

In which how could that be a reach when Taylor said she did that?? Unless you want to go with that she's talking about 2 different girls which sure be my guest but most people I've seen have found common consensus that that is about Swiftgron and Kaylor overlapping.

All that Begin Again being about Karlie would indicate is *when* this overlap took place which is... around the only time she dated Dianna anyway before she was fully with Karlie so I simply do not understand why people are so defensive about Begin Again being about Karlie with 0 effort to even fact check if the lyrics made sense for Dianna.

We don't actually know anything for a fact. So there's really nothing that wild about people finding the license plate and going woah that's weird that's kinda Karlie's exact initials and birth year maybe our understanding of the Red era has *slightly* been off.

Especially when Taylor asking Karlie to bake cookies with her and Karlie replying "your kitchen or mine?" happened at the start of 2012 which was a whole 10 months before Begin Again MV even released..... sorry but it is simply not even farfetched in the context of the public narrative we had.

It is okay to make timeline revisions based on new discoveries or new information Taylor deliberately presents. Such as how there is 0 evidence Karlie was at the 2008 Young Hollywood Awards with Taylor until Taylor herself did an interview with the guy who introduced Taylor and Karlie for the first time at that award show and then released the clip publicily, which is the only reason we are aware that is the first time they actually met.

It can't all be "Taylor's a mastermind leaving us clues about everything" until it's about Kaylor. That has the same energy as Swifties saying everything Taylor does is easter eggs besides anything that has to do with her being gay. And it's simply forced.

[not-a-ducc]

There is no evidence that Lucas Mother 3 can swim.

So ever since I played Mother 3 one thing that always stood out to me is the Sea Floor Dungeon.

It's notable for many reasons, but I always found it funny that, rather than taking a boat or even just swimming, the party just walks on the sea floor all the way to a small island. Then recently I started thinking, wait, can any of these guys swim?

I mean at the very least these guys can, this is a body of water large enough for a huge snake and a big ol' pile of bones, so there's no way they're not floating here.

The most common instances of seeing Lucas in water are these hot spring sections. It's not clear how deep these even go, they could all be only as deep as we see them, Lucas could just be standing in there and the spring is only deep enough for his head to poke out.

It's possible they ARE deeper, however. As Flint and other adult characters can stand in them with their heads still sticking out, though it's notable that pre-time skip Fuel pictured here has their head partially submerged. Lucas also gets submerged into a hot spring in Chapter 4, however here he's somewhat hunched over, so the true depth of the hot springs is still unclear.

While not a scene where Lucas is visibly in water, it's worth noting that in Chapter 1, no one ever specifically says they found the twins swimming down or up the river, they were just floating in it. Granted they likely were unconscious while this was happening, but I still wanted to include this for completion's sake.

Also there's the Hippo Reserve in the Empire Porky Building where Lucas is almost the same height as the hippos so I doubt the water is that deep here.

This is the last scene I wanted this point out here. This is an un-used scene of Lucas and Claus taking a dip in the water found in a scrapped Attract Mode sequence. It's notable cause this is the only scene in the entire game where Lucas is definitively shown SWIMMING, but it’s un-used, so does it even count? Is it even canon? I mean, technically not I suppose, but there's nothing in these Attract Mode scenes that contradicts anything from the main game. How should un-used and beta content factor into how we discuss these games? Mother 3 famously had a tumultuous development with tons of content gutted from it's story. Not all of it fits into the game we eventually got, but a lot of it still can fill in the blanks present in the main game. But none of this content is present in the main game, so have valuable is it in discussion? Is it wrong to dismiss these removed scenes and subplots because they were part of the team's original vision? How should we continue to analyze this game's development if, for all intents and purposes, we're looking at un-finished and un-refined versions of the final art piece? Is it a more pure version of the art by being un-sullied by creative and hardware restrictions, or does that un-finished nature make it less deserving of analysis? I mean realistically I don't think any of what I've said should devalue Earthbound 64 or any other work in progress versions of art. Seeing the process of creation unfold is just as interesting and worth preservation and analysis as the finalized art itself. I don't think it's wrong to bring in elements from Earthbound 64 for headcanons or to fill in the gaps of Mother 3's story, hell it's damn near necessary sometimes it feels like, I just think it's important to acknowledge that changes and revisions are just a given in any story based medium. It's not always an artist's intent getting neutered, sometimes an artist might just change their mind, or need to have certain ideas reeled back in for the sake of keeping the work cohesive. Anyways what was this post about? Oh yeah Lucas probably can swim he just is never seen doing it in the final game.

[guest-1-2-3]

holds my zukka fic wip in one hand. my jetko fic wip in the other. a circus theme plays and i begin to juggle at alarming speeds

[exeggcute]

the great reddit API meltdown of '23, or: this was always bound to happen

there's a lot of press about what's going on with reddit right now (app shutdowns, subreddit blackouts, the CEO continually putting his foot in his mouth), but I haven't seen as much stuff talking about how reddit got into this situation to begin with. so as a certified non-expert and Context Enjoyer I thought it might be helpful to lay things out as I understand them—a high-level view, surveying the whole landscape—in the wonderful world of startups, IPOs, and extremely angry users.

disclaimer that I am not a founder or VC (lmao), have yet to work at a company with a successful IPO, and am not a reddit employee or third-party reddit developer or even a subreddit moderator. I do work at a startup, know my way around an API or two, and have spent twelve regrettable years on reddit itself. which is to say that I make no promises of infallibility, but I hope you'll at least find all this interesting.

profit now or profit later

before you can really get into reddit as reddit, it helps to know a bit about startups (of which reddit is one). and before I launch into that, let me share my Three Types Of Websites framework, which is basically just a mental model about financial incentives that's helped me contextualize some of this stuff.

(1) website/software that does not exist to make money: relatively rare, for a variety of reasons, among them that it costs money to build and maintain a website in the first place. wikipedia is the evergreen example, although even wikipedia's been subject to criticism for how the wikimedia foundation pays out its employees and all that fun nonprofit stuff. what's important here is that even when making money is not the goal, money itself is still a factor, whether it's solicited via donations or it's just one guy paying out of pocket to host a hobby site. but websites in this category do, generally, offer free, no-strings-attached experiences to their users.

(I do want push back against the retrospective nostalgia of "everything on the internet used to be this way" because I don't think that was ever really true—look at AOL, the dotcom boom, the rise of banner ads. I distinctly remember that neopets had multiple corporate sponsors, including a cookie crisp-themed flash game. yahoo bought geocities for $3.6 billion; money's always been trading hands, obvious or not. it's indisputable that the internet is simply different now than it was ten or twenty years ago, and that monetization models themselves have largely changed as well (I have thoughts about this as it relates to web 1.0 vs web 2.0 and their associated costs/scale/etc.), but I think the only time people weren't trying to squeeze the internet for all the dimes it can offer was when the internet was first conceived as a tool for national defense.)

(2) website/software that exists to make money now: the type that requires the least explanation. mostly non-startup apps and services, including any random ecommerce storefront, mobile apps that cost three bucks to download, an MMO with a recurring subscription, or even a news website that runs banner ads and/or offers paid subscriptions. in most (but not all) cases, the "make money now" part is obvious, so these things don't feel free to us as users, even to the extent that they might have watered-down free versions or limited access free trials. no one's shocked when WoW offers another paid expansion packs because WoW's been around for two decades and has explicitly been trying to make money that whole time.

(3) website/software that exists to make money later: this is the fun one, and more common than you'd think. "make money later" is more or less the entire startup business model—I'll get into that in the next section—and is deployed with the expectation that you will make money at some point, but not always by means as obvious as "selling WoW expansions for forty bucks a pop."

companies in this category tend to have two closely entwined characteristics: they prioritize growth above all else, regardless of whether this growth is profitable in any way (now, or sometimes, ever), and they do this by offering users really cool and awesome shit at little to no cost (or, if not for free, then at least at a significant loss to the company).

so from a user perspective, these things either seem free or far cheaper than their competitors. but of course websites and software and apps and [blank]-as-a-service tools cost money to build and maintain, and that money has to come from somewhere, and the people supplying that money, generally, expect to get it back...

just not immediately.

startups, VCs, IPOs, and you

here's the extremely condensed "did NOT go to harvard business school" version of how a startup works:

(1) you have a cool idea.

(2) you convince some venture capitalists (also known as VCs) that your idea is cool. if they see the potential in what you're pitching, they'll give you money in exchange for partial ownership of your company—which means that if/when the company starts trading its stock publicly, these investors will own X numbers of shares that they can sell at any time. in other words, you get free money now (and you'll likely seek multiple "rounds" of investors over the years to sustain your company), but with the explicit expectations that these investors will get their payoff later, assuming you don't crash and burn before that happens.

during this phase, you want to do anything in your power to make your company appealing to investors so you can attract more of them and raise funds as needed. because you are definitely not bringing in the necessary revenue to offset operating costs by yourself.

it's also worth nothing that this is less about projecting the long-term profitability of your company than it's about its perceived profitability—i.e., VCs want to put their money behind a company that other people will also have confidence in, because that's what makes stock valuable, and VCs are in it for stock prices.

(3) there are two non-exclusive win conditions for your startup: you can get acquired, and you can have an IPO (also referred to as "going public"). these are often called "exit scenarios" and they benefit VCs and founders, as well as some employees. it's also possible for a company to get acquired, possibly even more than once, and then later go public.

acquisition: sell the whole damn thing to someone else. there are a million ways this can happen, some better than others, but in many cases this means anyone with ownership of the company (which includes both investors and employees who hold stock options) get their stock bought out by the acquiring company and end up with cash in hand. in varying amounts, of course. sometimes the founders walk away, sometimes the employees get laid off, but not always.

IPO: short for "initial public offering," this is when the company starts trading its stocks publicly, which means anyone who wants to can start buying that company's stock, which really means that VCs (and employees with stock options) can turn that hypothetical money into real money by selling their company stock to interested buyers.

drawing from that, companies don't go for an IPO until they think their stock will actually be worth something (or else what's the point?)—specifically, worth more than the amount of money that investors poured into it. The Powers That Be will speculate about a company's IPO potential way ahead of time, which is where you'll hear stuff about companies who have an estimated IPO evaluation of (to pull a completely random example) $10B. actually I lied, that was not a random example, that was reddit's valuation back in 2021 lol. but a valuation is basically just "how much will people be interested in our stock?"

as such, in the time leading up to an IPO, it's really really important to do everything you can to make your company seem like a good investment (which is how you get stock prices up), usually by making the company's numbers look good. but! if you plan on cashing out, the long-term effects of your decisions aren't top of mind here. remember, the industry lingo is "exit scenario."

if all of this seems like a good short-term strategy for companies and their VCs, but an unsustainable model for anyone who's buying those stocks during the IPO, that's because it often is.

also worth noting that it's possible for a company to be technically unprofitable as a business (meaning their costs outstrip their revenue) and still trade enormously well on the stock market; uber is the perennial example of this. to the people who make money solely off of buying and selling stock, it literally does not matter that the actual rideshare model isn't netting any income—people think the stock is valuable, so it's valuable.

this is also why, for example, elon musk is richer than god: if he were only the CEO of tesla, the money he'd make from selling mediocre cars would be (comparatively, lol) minimal. but he's also one of tesla's angel investors, which means he holds a shitload of tesla stock, and tesla's stock has performed well since their IPO a decade ago (despite recent dips)—even if tesla itself has never been a huge moneymaker, public faith in the company's eventual success has kept them trading at high levels. granted, this also means most of musk's wealth is hypothetical and not liquid; if TSLA dropped to nothing, so would the value of all the stock he holds (and his net work with it).

what's an API, anyway?

to move in an entirely different direction: we can't get into reddit's API debacle without understanding what an API itself is.

an API (short for "application programming interface," not that it really matters) is a series of code instructions that independent developers can use to plug their shit into someone else's shit. like a series of tin cans on strings between two kids' treehouses, but for sending and receiving data.

APIs work by yoinking data directly from a company's servers instead of displaying anything visually to users. so I could use reddit's API to build my own app that takes the day's top r/AITA post and transcribes it into pig latin: my app is a bunch of lines of code, and some of those lines of code fetch data from reddit (and then transcribe that data into pig latin), and then my app displays the content to anyone who wants to see it, not reddit itself. as far as reddit is concerned, no additional human beings laid eyeballs on that r/AITA post, and reddit never had a chance to serve ads alongside the pig-latinized content in my app. (put a pin in this part—it'll be relevant later.)

but at its core, an API is really a type of protocol, which encompasses a broad category of formats and business models and so on. some APIs are completely free to use, like how anyone can build a discord bot (but you still have to host it yourself). some companies offer free APIs to third-party developers can build their own plugins, and then the company and the third-party dev split the profit on those plugins. some APIs have a free tier for hobbyists and a paid tier for big professional projects (like every weather API ever, lol). some APIs are strictly paid services because the API itself is the company's core offering.

reddit's financial foundations

okay thanks for sticking with me. I promise we're almost ready to be almost ready to talk about the current backlash.

reddit has always been a startup's startup from day one: its founders created the site after attending a startup incubator (which is basically a summer camp run by VCs) with the successful goal of creating a financially successful site. backed by that delicious y combinator money, reddit got acquired by conde nast only a year or two after its creation, which netted its founders a couple million each. this was back in like, 2006 by the way. in the time since that acquisition, reddit's gone through a bunch of additional funding rounds, including from big-name investors like a16z, peter thiel (yes, that guy), sam altman (yes, also that guy), sequoia, fidelity, and tencent. crunchbase says that they've raised a total of $1.3B in investor backing.

in all this time, reddit has never been a public company, or, strictly speaking, profitable.

APIs and third-party apps

reddit has offered free API access for basically as long as it's had a public API—remember, as a "make money later" company, their primary goal is growth, which means attracting as many users as possible to the platform. so letting anyone build an app or widget is (or really, was) in line with that goal.

as such, third-party reddit apps have been around forever. by third-party apps, I mean apps that use the reddit API to display actual reddit content in an unofficial wrapper. iirc reddit didn't even have an official mobile app until semi-recently, so many of these third-party mobile apps in particular just sprung up to meet an unmet need, and they've kept a small but dedicated userbase ever since. some people also prefer the user experience of the unofficial apps, especially since they offer extra settings to customize what you're seeing and few to no ads (and any ads these apps do display are to the benefit of the third-party developers, not reddit itself.)

(let me add this preemptively: one solution I've seen proposed to the paid API backlash is that reddit should have third-party developers display reddit's ads in those third-party apps, but this isn't really possible or advisable due to boring adtech reasons I won't inflict on you here. source: just trust me bro)

in addition to mobile apps, there are also third-party tools that don’t replace the Official Reddit Viewing Experience but do offer auxiliary features like being able to mass-delete your post history, tools that make the site more accessible to people who use screen readers, and tools that help moderators of subreddits moderate more easily. not to mention a small army of reddit bots like u/AutoWikibot or u/RemindMebot (and then the bots that tally the number of people who reply to bot comments with “good bot” or “bad bot).

the number of people who use third-party apps is relatively small, but they arguably comprise some of reddit’s most dedicated users, which means that third-party apps are important to the people who keep reddit running and the people who supply reddit with high-quality content.

unpaid moderators and user-generated content

so reddit is sort of two things: reddit is a platform, but it’s also a community.

the platform is all the unsexy (or, if you like python, sexy) stuff under the hood that actually makes the damn thing work. this is what the company spends money building and maintaining and "owns." the community is all the stuff that happens on the platform: posts, people, petty squabbles. so the platform is where the content lives, but ultimately the content is the reason people use reddit—no one’s like “yeah, I spend time on here because the backend framework really impressed me."

and all of this content is supplied by users, which is not unique among social media platforms, but the content is also managed by users, which is. paid employees do not govern subreddits; unpaid volunteers do. and moderation is the only thing that keeps reddit even remotely tolerable—without someone to remove spam, ban annoying users, and (god willing) enforce rules against abuse and hate speech, a subreddit loses its appeal and therefore its users. not dissimilar to the situation we’re seeing play out at twitter, except at twitter it was the loss of paid moderators;  reddit is arguably in a more precarious position because they could lose this unpaid labor at any moment, and as an already-unprofitable company they absolutely cannot afford to implement paid labor as a substitute.

oh yeah? spell "IPO" backwards

so here we are, June 2023, and reddit is licking its lips in anticipation of a long-fabled IPO. which means it’s time to start fluffing themselves up for investors by cutting costs (yay, layoffs!) and seeking new avenues of profit, however small.

this brings us to the current controversy: reddit announced a new API pricing plan that more or less prevents anyone from using it for free.

from reddit's perspective, the ostensible benefits of charging for API access are twofold: first, there's direct profit to be made off of the developers who (may or may not) pay several thousand dollars a month to use it, and second, cutting off unsanctioned third-party mobile apps (possibly) funnels those apps' users back into the official reddit mobile app. and since users on third-party apps reap the benefit of reddit's site architecture (and hosting, and development, and all the other expenses the site itself incurs) without “earning” money for reddit by generating ad impressions, there’s a financial incentive at work here: even if only a small percentage of people use third-party apps, getting them to use the official app instead translates to increased ad revenue, however marginal.

(also worth mentioning that chatGPT and other LLMs were trained via tools that used reddit's API to scrape post and content data, and now that openAI is reaping the profits of that training without giving reddit any kickbacks, reddit probably wants to prevent repeats of this from happening in the future. if you want to train the next LLM, it's gonna cost you.)

of course, these changes only benefit reddit if they actually increase the company’s revenue and perceived value/growth—which is hard to do when your users (who are also the people who supply the content for other users to engage with, who are also the people who moderate your communities and make them fun to participate in) get really fucking pissed and threaten to walk.

pricing shenanigans

under the new API pricing plan, third-party developers are suddenly facing steep costs to maintain the apps and tools they’ve built.

most paid APIs are priced by volume: basically, the more data you send and receive, the more money it costs. so if your third-party app has a lot of users, you’ll have to make more API requests to fetch content for those users, and your app becomes more expensive to maintain. (this isn’t an issue if the tool you’re building also turns a profit, but most third-party reddit apps make little, if any, money.)

which is why, even though third-party apps capture a relatively small portion of reddit’s users, the developer of a popular third-party app called apollo recently learned that it would cost them about $20 million a year to keep the app running. and apollo actually offers some paid features (for extra in-app features independent of what reddit offers), but nowhere near enough to break even on those API costs.

so apollo, any many apps like it, were suddenly unable to keep their doors open under the new API pricing model and announced that they'd be forced to shut down.

backlash, blackout

plenty has been said already about the current subreddit blackouts—in like, official news outlets and everything—so this might be the least interesting section of my whole post lol. the short version is that enough redditors got pissed enough that they collectively decided to take subreddits “offline” in protest, either by making them read-only or making them completely inaccessible. their goal was to send a message, and that message was "if you piss us off and we bail, here's what reddit's gonna be like: a ghost town."

but, you may ask, if third-party apps only captured a small number of users in the first place, how was the backlash strong enough to result in a near-sitewide blackout? well, two reasons:

first and foremost, since moderators in particular are fond of third-party tools, and since moderators wield outsized power (as both the people who keep your site more or less civil, and as the people who can take a subreddit offline if they feel like it), it’s in your best interests to keep them happy. especially since they don’t get paid to do this job in the first place, won’t keep doing it if it gets too hard, and essentially have nothing to lose by stepping down.

then, to a lesser extent, the non-moderator users on third-party apps tend to be Power Users who’ve been on reddit since its inception, and as such likely supply a disproportionate amount of the high-quality content for other users to see (and for ads to be served alongside). if you drive away those users, you’re effectively kneecapping your overall site traffic (which is bad for Growth) and reducing the number/value of any ad impressions you can serve (which is bad for revenue).

also a secret third reason, which is that even people who use the official apps have no stake in a potential IPO, can smell the general unfairness of this whole situation, and would enjoy the schadenfreude of investors getting fucked over. not to mention that reddit’s current CEO has made a complete ass of himself and now everyone hates him and wants to see him suffer personally.

(granted, it seems like reddit may acquiesce slightly and grant free API access to a select set of moderation/accessibility tools, but at this point it comes across as an empty gesture.)

"later" is now "now"

TL;DR: this whole thing is a combination of many factors, specifically reddit being intensely user-driven and self-governed, but also a high-traffic site that costs a lot of money to run (why they willingly decided to start hosting video a few years back is beyond me...), while also being angled as a public stock market offering in the very near future. to some extent I understand why reddit’s CEO doubled down on the changes—he wants to look strong for investors—but he’s also made a fool of himself and cast a shadow of uncertainty onto reddit’s future, not to mention the PR nightmare surrounding all of this. and since arguably the most important thing in an IPO is how much faith people have in your company, I honestly think reddit would’ve fared better if they hadn’t gone nuclear with the API changes in the first place.

that said, I also think it’s a mistake to assume that reddit care (or needs to care) about its users in any meaningful way, or at least not as more than means to an end. if reddit shuts down in three years, but all of the people sitting on stock options right now cashed out at $120/share and escaped unscathed... that’s a success story! you got your money! VCs want to recoup their investment—they don’t care about longevity (at least not after they’re gone), user experience, or even sustained profit. those were never the forces driving them, because these were never the ultimate metrics of their success.

and to be clear: this isn’t unique to reddit. this is how pretty much all startups operate.

I talked about the difference between “make money now” companies and “make money later” companies, and what we’re experiencing is the painful transition from “later” to “now.” as users, this change is almost invisible until it’s already happened—it’s like a rug we didn’t even know existed gets pulled out from under us.

the pre-IPO honeymoon phase is awesome as a user, because companies have no expectation of profit, only growth. if you can rely on VC money to stay afloat, your only concern is building a user base, not squeezing a profit out of them. and to do that, you offer cool shit at a loss: everything’s chocolate and flowers and quarterly reports about the number of signups you’re getting!

...until you reach a critical mass of users, VCs want to cash in, and to prepare for that IPO leadership starts thinking of ways to make the website (appear) profitable and implements a bunch of shit that makes users go “wait, what?”

I also touched on this earlier, but I want to reiterate a bit here: I think the myth of the benign non-monetized internet of yore is exactly that—a myth. what has changed are the specific market factors behind these websites, and their scale, and the means by which they attempt to monetize their services and/or make their services look attractive to investors, and so from a user perspective things feel worse because the specific ways we’re getting squeezed have evolved. maybe they are even worse, at least in the ways that matter. but I’m also increasingly less surprised when this occurs, because making money is and has always been the goal for all of these ventures, regardless of how they try to do so.

[house-of-angst]

Y'all mind if I talk about Present Mic's quirk for a second? Great.

So, my partner and I have been having Erasermic brainrot lately, and while we were binging content with them, I became interested in Hizashi's voice quirk. I began searching stuff about how sound/volume works, and linking it to his canon stuff.

I'll just say, the info I found makes him a pretty scary guy. It's a shame he's so underused in both canon and fanon.

Frequency

First of all, I want to talk about something everyone knows about him: his quirk is potent enough to shatter glass. Now, when it comes to decibels, it's always important to consider the time and distance a certain note is held for, since these can impact the "hit" a certain sound wave can have when influenced by effects such as the air or vibrations.

(Please keep this in mind for the reminder of this post)

When it comes to glass, however, it breaks almost instantly under the pressure of his voice. Our most constant example of this is the man's poor lenses, but there is a scene I'd like to talk about the most, it being he one where he completely shatters Shigaraki's tank.

One might argue that the glass was already weakened from Mirko's kicks, but that's honestly part of something that makes this so impressive to me; Mirko's legs are strong enough to straight-up rip a high-end Nomu's head clean off, yet this tank was tough enough to withstand two attacks from her - including her ultimate move - before starting to leak; and the fact she was heavily injured doesn't fly here, as we very clearly could see she wasn't holding back one bit.

Now, let's get technical.

According to Google, a normal tone of voice would be around 50 decibels, while the required to shatter glass would be a minimum of 105. For comparison, that's roughly the same volume as a jackhammer. Now, you might be thinking, "Oh, that's not so bad! Some singers can do that!" and you'd be right, but there's also some other things to consider. Allow me to explain.

Some singers can reach a pitch that can make glass vibrate enough for it to break, but I've personally only heard of this happening if the person has their mouth close to a smaller, empty cup, and even then the volume would be distributed around. Hizashi, on the other hand, was standing several feet away from this reinforced tank and was able to shatter it immediately, using the directional speaker around his neck to aim the volume. This would naturally require for him to hit even higher decibels, specially when you take into consideration that one's frequency must match the glass' for it to vibrate, which drastically increases when it's dampened. (Read next topic for more info on this)

And then there's his glasses which, like I've stated before, are the most common thing he breaks with his voice. Obviously, this is not directed and it's not a total shatter, but there is something to be observed; say, did you know the necessary volume for lenses to crack, when not being directly aimed at, would be that of a nearby shot from a highcaliber gun? That's roughly 140-170 decibels.

Harm factor

Boy, oh boy! I'm betting most of you were looking for this part when you clicked the read more, right? Look no further, I've got you covered, you just better remember what I mentioned before about distance and duration.

Hizashi's parents were unfortunate enough to have a mutant child that was born with his quirk already active, and I'm willing to bet a newborn doesn't have the slightest bit of control over a power as destructive as a sonic-powered voice, which immediately resulted in everyone in the room bleeding from the ears.

Sound-related ear bleeding is most commonly associated with a ruptured eardrum, which can happen at around 150 decibels and is about the same as a jet engine taking off. While a baby most likely unleashed his maximum voice power on the first breath, I believe something like that would, thankfully, only develop fully after puberty, just like with non-powered people like us, since his quirk is a drastic intensification of a common function and not a new ability altogether.

With that being said... The Finals Exam.

In this, Hizashi was standing very far and, even with the directional speakers, there were many obstacles in the way that kept him from landing direct soundwaves on the students. Regardless, Jirou's ears bled in less than 30 minutes being exposed to this.

This could have happened due to the fact that she has a hearing quirk, which would make hers much more sensitive, but let's study this, shall we? We don't have the exacts of what happened there, but the students are visibly uncomfortable upon the first soundwave, which would suggest it was at about 120 decibels upon impact (with 85 already being enough to cause damage to your ears) and being emitted even higher by him, considering distance muffles volume. Still, I think all that would be nothing compared to the scream he let out after those bugs started crawling on him, with how unfiltered that was.

With Jirou, it comes to no surprise this volume at this distance and time almost rendered her deaf, and realistically would take several months of healing time. How much do you want to bet Hizashi got a solid scolding from Shouta? I mean, it was supposed to be a challenge, but homeboy came this close to breaking her quirk.

Another thing I want to point out is that his voice is powerful enough to actually fucking launch people, and this only happens due to an event called acoustic trauma, basically meaning Hizashi can surpass supersonic levels. Although, it's important to note that this effect is caused mostly due to pressure and not so much as sound, so while it's not freakishly loud (about the same as thunder), it can still cause hearing and psychological damage.

! WARNING !

The following part contains graphic mentions of injury, and death. Do not proceed if these are sensitive topics for you.

Now, we look at the disturbing side of Hizashi's quirk. Buckle in, because it's a wild ride.

Remember what I commented earlier, about him having to hit even higher frequencies to be able to shatter Shigaraki's tank? First of all, as the doctor was sent flying, this qualifies as supersonic, but that's not all. To shatter such a protected tank, with liquid inside increasing the density, he'd have to hit over 200 decibels; which is considered extremely dangerous and most definitely fatal, as the threshold of pain is of 115-140 - this can cause damage such as crushed ear bones, ruptured lungs, or embolism. For comparison, this would come close to standing right next to a Saturn V Moon Rocket during launch, and is no longer considered a "sound" due to the vacuum.

With that being said, the man came very close to dying by Hizashi's hands (voice?) twice. Not only was he so close during the lens incident, literally being inches away from his face and in risk of getting his eardrums ruptured already, but if Mic had decided to raise his voice even more during his rage, it'd be possible for the frequency to make the doctor's inner organs malfunction, or straight-up burst from the pressure.

But that's not the worst part.

After establishing that the lethal amount of over 200 decibels would be necessary to shatter the tank given the circumstances, if he exceeded 240 and the doctor happened to be in the way of this, it would be enough to cause his head to explode upon impact. That old man better be grateful that he was standing a feet few away, and that the supersonic blast blew him away a bit more, or it'd be an immediate game over.

With all this being said, how devastating would it be for this guy to scream his rage out?

(Please keep in mind that many of the extreme cases in this are actually impossible to happen in a real-life scenario and are purely speculation!)

[martian-astro10]

D9/ Navamsa chart observations - Part 3

Jupiter in 9th is a great placement, even better if it's the 7th lord or darakaraka in d1. Your spouse will be intelligent. there's also a chance that you may do your master's or PhD after marriage. Your spouse can also have a job related to spirituality (one of my mom's friends has this placement and his wife is a reiki healer and also teaches meditation and hypnosis)

Jupiter in 10th is another really good placement. You and your spouse could start a business together, or you may meet them in your workplace. This is one of the placements that indicate that you'll earn more after marriage or once you start working WITH them (okay, so this example is interesting, i dont know how many of you know this, but there's an Indian company, dabur, and one of my relatives got married to the daughter of the brother of the guy who currently owns the company and let me tell you something, they are RICH RICH RICH, and like they helped my relative set up his own company and whenever we visit them, they give us such expensive gifts, you won't even find them anywhere, like custom made stuff) so if other factors support this, then you can get married into a super rich household

Venus conjunct ketu in 4th is a super common placement but I've noticed that it gives different results depending on what the ascendant is. A common prediction would be, that you guys will not get along with your spouse's family, you're gonna think that they waste too much money when they already have less of it. This is especially true for mother in law (I know a girl with this placement whose mother in law spends a lot on shopping and then asks for money from her, and she has to give in because divorce is not an option) i would recommend you guys to marry someone who doesn't have a mother 🥲

I KNOW SO MANY PEOPLE WITH MERCURY IN 8TH and it's so fascinating how it has the same exact effect on everyone. Okay, so this placement gives you 2 things, first, you'll gain a lot of money through joint accounts with your spouse, this could also be a marriage where you guys stay together just for money, a lot of celebrities have this placement. Second, your spouse is gonna hide things from you, like their salary (i know a woman with this placement and her husband was promoted and he told his wife that he was still doing the low pay job and he opened another account where he saved that extra money, while their family was having financial difficulties and stuff, it was a BIG deal)

Mercury in 11th is a nice placement, this could indicate a friends to lover type of story with your spouse. They could also be an extrovert, especially if mercury is in gemini. You guys will be focused on earning money but your whole focus won't be on money, like in 2nd or 8th house, it's gonna be more like "oh, this looks like a good idea, should we invest in this" kinda thing, i would say this is more like, both practical and romantic relationship

Moon in 8th..... Not exactly the best placement. Almost all the people that i know with this placement have been cheated on by their spouse, and again your spouse could hide things from you, but this time it's more emotional. Also, i have noticed that a lot of people with this placement marry someone who's in the closet, so their partner isn't affectionate and loving towards them and they think it's their fault but it's not, but it still ends up hurting them. You, yourself, could hide your feelings as well, and your spouse can see that and that's why they hide THEIR emotions, it's like a cycle. (if you have this, i would recommend you guys to go to therapy, heal your trauma and only then get into a serious relationship and sometimes you push your feelings down and you think you're over it, but you're not)

Mars in 8th can give very different results, but it does give you a spouse who is very sexual (and believe me, it's not always a good thing). If Mars is strong then it gives extremely good results, the ability to defeat your enemies and win, i know a person with this placement and she's a woman and people around her have always tried to ruin her life and she still managed to get up and is now living a great life. But if Mars is weak or worse, debilitated, then it can give an aggressive spouse, i know a person but i dont think i should share her story with you all, but if Mars is weak then... Don't marry. BUT if 7th lord and darakaraka of d1 is SUPER STRONG in d9 then go ahead.

Venus in 2nd is like okay okay, not bad but not good. I feel like this placement works better when it's in the cart of a man rather than a woman. The spouse will be good but will be more focused on earning money, even if they're already rich. From what I've seen, men are okay with wives like that, but women aren't, they need emotional security so being with a man who is focused on money makes them sad and lonely, whereas, men with this placement are more than happy to get wives like that, In MY opinion.

Sun conjunct ketu in 11th is another placement that is common, I know a lot of people with this. So, you will gain wealth but it's going to come very slowly, the type to MAKE generational wealth but not able to enjoy it. Also, i have noticed that these people always end up marrying someone who is in a lower position than them, career wise and so they support their spouse and at the same time take most of the financial responsibility of the family.

Ketu in 8th is SUCH a strong indicator of having a kid before marriage, or atleast getting pregnant. All the celebrities who've had a kid before marriage have this placement, Angelina Jolie and Shakira are two that i currently remember but I've seen it in the charts of a lot more. And listen, THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH THIS, OKAY.

© martian-astro All rights reserved, 2024

[f1angelz]

filo girly request for oscar 🧍🏻‍♀️🫶🏼

im thinking of a scenario where reader is part of a love team and oscar gets jealous or she gets questions when shes on a show it interview about him and they love her and oscar together if a fc is needed i love atasha mulach's vibe

𝒐𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒔𝒊𝒅𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒄𝒓𝒆𝒆𝒏 — oscar piastri x reader

summary: oscar’s girlfriend is a celebrity and has an on-screen partner. when she gets asked about her and oscar’s relationship during an interview, what is she gonna say?

content warnings: none, just fluff. (not proofread sorry </3)

this fic contains tagalog phrases and words highlighted in italics. for non-filipino readers, translations are provided in small text. *(mahal = love)

── .✦

It’s 3 in the morning in Silverstone, and Oscar couldn’t sleep.

Maybe it’s because he arrived a few hours ago and can’t bring himself to rest, or maybe it’s because his girlfriend had an interview on the other side of the globe.

Oscar’s girlfriend is a celebrity in the Philippines, Y/N Y/L/N. She’s had multiple projects, endorsements, and films that have also gone global. Before getting into this relationship, Oscar knew the consequences that he would have to face— long distance, media, and other factors.

But he loved her. That’s what mattered the most, right?

Not until Y/N recently had a TV series that went viral, as she was paired with one of the most famous actors in Filipino TV. Their chemistry was undeniable— weeks after her TV series was released, she was all over the news along with her on-screen partner. There were fan accounts, edits, and even fanfiction about them.

Everytime a new post was written about them, Oscar’s jealousy grew. Although Y/N always reassured him that it was strictly on-screen, He really couldn’t help it.

Oscar’s thoughts stopped when he felt his phone vibrate on his chest.

my love 💞: hi, mahal! i know you’re still up. my interview is almost gonna start. watch me?

my love 💞 has sent a link.

my love 💞: there’ll be a monitor in front of us during the interview. i’ll be able to see it on screen once you’ve joined, okay? i love you!

Oscar smiled.

mahal 🩷: okay babe, i’ll be joining in a few. goodluck!

Oscar sat up and reached out for his laptop which was on the desk, opened it up and clicked on the link she sent.

The show was already starting, the hosts greeting the crowd both in the studio and livestream.

Y/N and her on-screen partner were introduced. Once they both entered, the crowd went wild, cheering for them with their ship name. Oscar looked at the livestream comments and sighed, everyone was crazy for them.

The show went on as usual, asking them about the TV series and how filming was going. Eventually, the hosts asked about their personal lives.

“So Y/N, We’re aware that you’re dating F1 driver Oscar Piastri. Kamusta naman kayo?”

(So Y/N, We’re aware that you’re dating F1 driver Oscar Piastri. How are you guys doing?)

Y/N smiled and let out a nod, “We’re doing really well. Actually, kakapanalo lang nya last week in the Austrian Grand Prix. I was there and I couldn’t have been more proud.”

(We’re doing really well. Actually, he recently won last week in the Austrian Grand Prix. I was there and I couldn’t have been more proud.)

The hosts smiled and fawned over their relationship, “I’m sure he’s proud of your career too. But we’re curious, hindi ba siya nag seselos? For sure aware naman siya sa love team nyo.”

(I’m sure he’s proud of your career too. But we’re curious, does he get jealous? For sure he’s aware about your love team.)

The studio crowd cood and Oscar’s heart started beating.

Y/N let out a small laugh, it was a common question that people asked her since their relationship was public.

“Hindi naman siya nag seselos, I wish.”

(He doesn’t really get jealous, I wish.)

She humored, and the rest laughed. Oscar laughed too at her response, assuming that it was something funny since he couldn’t understand.

“All jokes aside, hindi naman siya nag seselos. He knows very well that strictly for work lang yung ginagawa ko. He’s the best boyfriend I could ever ask for.”

(All jokes aside, he doesn’t really get jealous. He knows very well that what I’m doing is strictly for work. He’s the best boyfriend I could ever ask for.)

One of the hosts asked, “Do you have any message for him?”

Y/N cleared her throat, “Hi, mahal! I know you’re watching right now kahit sobrang late na diyan. Thank you for always being very supportive, you know how much I love you. I can’t wait to see you on Sunday!”

(Hi, love! I know you’re watching even if it’s super late over there. Thank you for always being very supportive, you know how much I love you. I can’t wait to see you on Sunday!)

The crowd smiled and teased, clapping at her message.

Oscar was smiling from ear-to-ear, and somehow, he wasn’t as jealous anymore. He saw the livestream commenting on their relationship and how cute they were. Maybe he shouldn’t be jealous after all.

The show eventually ended and Oscar closed his laptop, returning it on his desk. He opened his phone and sent Y/N a message.

mahal 🩷: you know i’ll always be here for you, right? no matter what time it is where i’m in.

my love 💞: i know, mahal. and i know you’re jealous too 😆

Oscar laughed, maybe he was bad at hiding it.

mahal 🩷: maybe i was a bit jealous.

my love 💞: oscar jack piastri, you literally have my heart and you’ll always have it. okay?

He smiled. God, he loves her so much.

mahal 🩷: i know, and i’ll do everything in my power to keep it safe. i love you ❤️

my love 💞: go to sleep, i know you’re getting tired, mahal. i love you too! see you on sunday ❤️

Oscar gave her message a heart react before turning off his phone.

And off he drifted to sleep, knowing that he was the luckiest man on earth that night.

── .✦

a/n: i had so much fun writing this, it’s been 2 years since i wrote a fic !! also i’m so grateful for those who requested. much love 🤍

[osakanone]

Crew attire cosplay?

Lately I've been thinking a lot about "what would separate mecha crew equipment from that of a tank crew, or a fighter crew": A lot of military surplus stuff is already really close to what we're going for, and I realized "Motorcycle boots look a lot more like mech pilot stuff than military boots do", which got me thinking what other odd equivalences exist.

The one which really surprised me was how famous mecha live action SF Gunhed used a wetsuit as a stand-in for "generic scifi bodysuit", and that it worked weirdly well, actually?

"Why not latex?"

Latex rips too easily in contact with straps and hard elements, overheats far, far too easily despite having the looks. Thin neoprene works. really well.

So I kept exploring.

One thing I did seriously debate is other than rappelling equipment, would a pilot need something like a rigid knee-brace for hard landings to protect the ACL when they disembark from the robot which is common with high impact parachute equipment.

Some varieties also include counter-weighted springs which make it harder for you to close your knee, but make lifting heavy things on your back and climb much much easier during the ascent phase.

That led me towards Deck Crew helmets, which meet the hood requirement, and of all things, chin wraps which are really unobstructive and you can eat and drink while wearing one pretty comfortably (I say this as someone currently stuck wearing one)

So what we're looking at here is the HGU-24 and HGU-25, often worn by deck crews because it gets along just fine with the famous MCU-2/P AKA "Millenium" mask famous with drone communities as they're designed to be worn together.

Its literally the exact same mask with a minor paint adjustment.

"What's the difference between a drone and a pilot?" "One wears AXENT and latex, the other wears HGU-25 and neoprene." "Anything else?" "Drones have less sex and do as they're told"

Its got the bash-plates you want for an ejector-seat, but it also has the padded foam you want for an impact element, and if it latches properly and the jaw mechanism is well made enough, you could probably include a hans mechanism attached to the jacket which locks into a socket in the pilot's seat to stop a pilot from breaking their neck in a collision.

What do you guys think?

Any suggestions? What I'm really curious about is what you think pilots would remove, customize or alter for practical or decorative purposes.

This is basically the result of roughly a year of casual research into pilot attire, outfits and looks.

The helm and the hood seem to be where the most manual cosplay stitching and 3D printing work is likely going to be required, with the wrap and helmhood.

Addendum:

I've not gone into waste management systems (UCL/FCL human-factors engineering stuff with internal and external recovery systems), since I'm looking at this mainly as an attainable costume or ensemble.

Edit:

I am learning some of you use aquatic mecha and find this unsatisfactory.

And you won't shut up about how the coolant mass flow rate lets you do really wild shit with your weapons my "land-loving" platform even can't dream of

While I am jealous by your sheer tonnage and the output of your reactors, I've got you covered.

Behold: Immersion suits.

They also make surprisingly good sleeping bags, even if you're on water.

They're literally designed to keep you alive if you're forced to abandon an oil platform, and are known to include a radio and even rations and a water filter.

[szhreii]

A very very wild crack theory: Maybe they're Muu's parents?

Alright, so I saw this tweet long time ago, and I was wondering what could possibly happen between Muu and Kazui in T3, like it's gotta be intentional right??

Not to mention in Kazui's bday art his watch is now gold and there's bee in it🐝

How did I come up with that theory? Well it's just that the bartender is always associated with gold, example, his wedding ring, his pins and the ornaments (?) at the bar, so I think it has something to do with him

Although I don't really want it to be taken seriously because it's a crack theory.. I think there's still possibilities

In both novelgram prisoners have connections/know each other, so i think it's not too far fetched to theorize about this and it'd be cool if MILGRAM do the same

Muu doesn't seem to know much about her dad. When answering questions about him, she always says "I think" she's unsure about it. Also guys Muu literally said her dad has multiple jobs. In Kazui's first birthday TL, he said that his friend doesn't live close to him and he rarely meets them. It's possible he doesn't know what his friend's daughter looks like.

Uhh starting with, Muu and bar lady have the same eyelashes

But wait their hair color are different though?? I have explanations for this, naturally blonde hair usually darkens as you age. This is why blonde hair is much more common in babies than adults. There's also another factor, which is hormonal changes especially during puberty (which means Muu is quite lucky lol), pregnancy etc. can affect melanin production. Your hair can even go blonde to brown because of this. Also I know that MILGRAM itself is very animek but like we see Mikoto's hair dyes fade during T2, besides Muu is the only prisoner with colored eyelashes instead of black eyelashes like other prisoners (like in their sprites y'know) and in Crying B, Es said that Muu must've stands out a lot (Idk Es there's literally a guy who has blue hair)

BTW you guys ever wondered about the wedding topper on Kazui's bday art?? Like why is the bride blonde? Well I think it might be the bar lady because I color picked and compared them and it's just few shades darker, which fits with this theory

Based on Muu's guess about her dad's age, it can be said that her parents married at a pretty young age considering in 2000s the average age of first time marriage for Japanese guy was 28/29

Next up, do you know that the cocktail she's having is called Manhattan? Which is known as the queen of cocktails dunno if this is just JP thingy or not. Meanwhile Muu T2 VD is called Queen B, crazy coincidence (sad fact about Manhattan though, in JP, cocktail language for Manhattan is "Heartrending love" or "Love that brings you pain")

"Import foreign furniture from overseas" chair in Half maybe? I'll elaborate the chair in half has Fleur de lis. Though I wouldn't count it as a proof due to the image quality

But welll Kazui's mask has Fleur de lis and Muu has it on her bday (obviously)

And Muu said that her dad might be a landlord, that reminds me, Kazui and Hinako live in an apartment right?

Muu's hobby is taking care of tropical fish, meanwhile Kazui's childhood friend hobby is fishing coincidence or coincidence (don't remember the TL so I use his interro instead)

Oh yea back to the wedding topper, I feel like the tailcoat tuxedo resembles a fish tail because large gaps(?) like that is pretty uncommon for a tailcoat tuxedo so I think it's on purpose idk. The bride wears a pearl necklace anyway what I'm saying is that all are related to sea

In Muu's T2 sprite we see her wearing gold shell earrings, which is again related to sea

And like Muu's mom is from Nice, France, that place is famous for its ocean and beach. Heck even Muu said it herself. This is MILGRAM guys even the place they chose have a reason for it, for example Muu lives in Minato, it has a high cost of living and do you guys know more than 10% of Minato’s total population is foreigners? Like they can chose something generic like Paris but they chose Nice specifically

Lastly, I've seen ppl mention about the missing ring in Half but guys Bartender usually take off their wedding ring so it wouldn't get lost/damaged when bartending

I think that's all thank you for listening to my yapping session🙏🙏 Also about the location I don't really think it's really a problem because adult don’t necessarily live close to each other… especially since Kazui use birthday to have an excuse to contact them yk

[radioactiverats]

Mentor Starscream x seeker!reader (5/?)

Inspired by @xarology amazing art - just my own wild thoughts on nose scar because HALAS;DFJL;AFJD

Thank you @jackalackqwq and @swiftyangx12 for lovely art and always following my random thoughts with comments ily guys <3 Literally bringing this story to life with the amazing visualisations! And ty everyone for the reblogs, likes and comments they keep me going!!

Nose scar: You crash due to someone's incompetence and totally crack your faceplate open. Cue Starscream screeching

The war had totally upended your previous way of life, but one thing that remained constant through it all was the nonstop training. That was fine with you for the most part, as it provided a mote of familiarity amidst all the uncertainty. But aside from improving your ability in the air, there was another practical reason for it.

Group attacks.

Common, of course, but there was an issue.

Back in the academy, group maneuvers were only introduced towards the end of the program. Not only did seekers need competence in solo flight, but friendship, for the lack of a better word, was a significant contributory factor to success. As it turned out, closeness was most important in determining the harmony of a group flight, so you were ordinarily given a few years to form bonds with one another before actually being allowed anywhere near group maneuvers.

However, the war affords you no such luxury, and you find yourself lumped in with bots you've never met before in preparation to attempt a group drill. As usual, Starscream had been in command with a few other lieutenants to provide air support, but as soon as the session started, he'd been abruptly called away to attend to matters on the bridge.

Scores collected from individual drills means that you've been assigned the lead, and you stiffen as soon as you hear this. Part of you swells with pride to see proof of your hard work - even though you're contented yourself with being a follower, you've always wanted to be like Starscream. Having your capabilities acknowledged to be of leadership quality pleased you immensely, but at the same time... Starscream would never have risked your helm by putting you in such a high-profile position. However, a lieutenant seeker was now temporarily in charge, and had no such qualms about putting you straight in the firing line. He’d glanced at the score when was your turn and promptly waved you to the front.

“But-”

“You telling me that someone with your abilities should be wasted in the back?”

You promptly shut your intake.

You glance at the two other bots you're with - older than you, and probably more experienced, too. But they hadn't said anything when you timidly stepped to the front of the formation. You hope they're not the sort to take offense.

Lifting off without issue, it’s smooth sailing for the most part. The extent of your communications remained blessedly limited to curt reports on flight conditions as you soared straight ahead, and you're hopeful for an equally peaceful descent before you go your separate ways.

Unfortunately, no such luck.

Just as you think you’ll be able to make it safely back, your sensors pick up on a strange wind pattern up ahead. The collision point of a Ferrell cell and a Hadley cell - this planet had its own unique system of atmospheric circulation, which led to the collision of strong, opposing winds at certain latitudes. Starscream had taught you how to recognise them before, with an ominous warning that flying into them could disable even the most experienced of seekers.

You activate your comms. "In eight hundred metres, bank right.”

There’s a momentary silence before your comms crackle back online. “What did you say?”

“There’s really strong winds up ahead. We can’t just fly through it,” You say. You’re getting a bad feeling about this. Now would be a horrible time for your partners to misunderstand your urgent instructions as a show of power, rather than an increasingly frantic attempt to save your sparks.

“Strong winds, my aft,” The other jet’s derisive laughter crackles mockingly through your comms. “My sensors didn’t detect anything. Maybe you’re just a weakling.”

“No! Just look!”

The worst thing was that this formation required you to fly together at incredibly close quarters - meaning that you weren’t able to stop, because the others would crash right into your wings.

Five hundred meters.

“Come on, don’t you guys want to impress the lieutenant?”

“He’s a fragging slaghead,” Was the immediate response you got.

Just as you truly begin to panic - “Wait,” The other jet suddenly says. “I think they’re right.” As you fly closer, the clouds almost seem to be distorting before your optics, warped by fierce columns of wind.

“A likely story,” The first one snorts. “How long have you been flying? Longer than our squad leader -" his voice takes on a derisive tone - “has been alive.”

“Two hundred meters,” You warn.

A tense silence falls over your comms.

“I’m following what they said,” Crackles decisively through. “You’ll have to send me to the scrapheap before I fly through that just to make a point.”

“Frag you,” Growls the other voice, outraged static marring his words.

One hundred meters.

“Come on,” You say again, frantic, on the cusp of pleading.

The other jet says nothing, but you can feel the spike of his EM field when the column of wind begins to make itself known against the plates of your altmodes.

Fifty meters. Surely he wouldn’t be that stubborn. It was hard enough to stay alive in a war - would a mech really risk his spark over something as inconsequential as this?

You decide to take a gamble. If he banks with you at the last minute, no harm, no foul. If he doesn’t…

Surely, surely he would.

Twenty meters.

Ten.

The screaming of engines overtakes your audials as you and the jet to your left swerve sharply to the right - and your optics widen in fear as you realize what the defiant jet to your right has decided to do.

He’d wisely decided not to challenge the whipping column of wind, but in order to defy you, he’d decided to maneuver upwards instead. You’ve been told that losing position is one of the worst things that can happen, and you’re about to find out precisely why that is. The jet’s altmode clips your wing. Being of a heftier build, he wobbles in the air before managing to right himself. However, you are not so lucky. The momentum of your turn sends you careening straight for the wind column. Burning pain radiating outwards from the dent in your wing, you find yourself buffeted by the winds and unable to regain control of your spiralling frame.

You hurtle through cloud layer after cloud layer in a wild tailspin, mist obscuring your vision as you’re tossed around like a ragdoll by the roaring winds. Next to the Terrans, you may be a giant. But at the mercy of the natural world, you may as well be an ant. Through the panic that fizzles your processor, you suddenly latch onto something Starscream had drilled into your processor before.

You were done for the day - you’d done everything exactly as he instructed and by all standards, the session should have ended on a high. But as Starscream had quietly turns round, ready to return to base, an oddly somber mood had settled over you both. It took only two steps before he was glancing back at you, seemingly torn over whether or not to share what was bothering him.

“Sir?”

“…If you ever find yourself without control over your frame in the air, and nothing you do is working,” Starscream says, “transform into bot mode. Less resistance on the wings.” His voice has an edge to it, but you can’t quite discern what the emotion tingeing his words is. “Understand?”

“…Yes?” To you, this felt completely out of the blue - advice, while you were certain of its value, had nothing to do with the maneuvers you practiced today.

Starscream pivots to face you head on, optics feverishly bright. “Repeat it.”

Your confusion lasts for a few nanokliks too long for his liking, because he bares his denta in a frustrated snarl. “Are your audials working? Repeat what I just said!”

“Uh,” You fumble, trying to gather your thoughts. “If I don’t have control over my frame in the air, I should transform into bot mode?”

“Because there’s less resistance on the wings,” Starscream repeats. He sniffs, even if his plating isn’t drawn so tight now that he knows you’ve listened to what he said. “I hope I don’t have to spell out the necessity of transforming back into your altmode as soon as you regain control of the situation.”

“No, sir.”

“Good.”

The mood when you walk back to base is considerably lighter, but what prompted that sudden piece of emergency spark-saving advice had always been a mystery to you.

Well, now in the air and reduced to a chew toy flung around by the screaming forces of nature, it clicks into place. With all your strength, you activate transformation protocols, and feel the acute resistance against your plates and gears even as you transform. The sudden shift in mass and surface area throws you off-kilter for a nanoklik, but it’s in your favour. You’re abruptly thrown from the column of wind and into open air before your frame continues its downward plummet, gathering speed as the lush colours of the Terran earth once more bleed into your vision.

The Earth is green, you realise. Oh so green. Blurs of Decepticon paint zip into view. You send a silent apology to Starscream, already having calculated your odds. You’re sorry for not obeying his orders well enough. You’re sorry for being an embarrassment. You’re sorry for making him worry.

You grit your denta and focus the last ounce of strength you have into transforming into your alt mode, thrusters screaming as you try to pull up - however, you simply don’t have enough airspace to pull it off successfully. It’s enough to save your spark, you think, as you make agonising contact with the unforgiving earth. You just don’t know how permanent the damage will be.

For a nanoklik, your sensors are so overwhelmed with sensation that the pain doesn’t kick in right away. Everything happens at once - a billion warnings leap up on your HUD, the agony flares across the entirety of your plating, arcing through your wires like electricity. Through the ringing in your audials, you hear shouts approaching - echoing, warping through your rattled processor. Vaguely, you could make out the lieutenant, your partners - and… was that… Starscream…?

Scrap.

Half of you didn’t want him to see you like this. The other half of you wept and screamed for him to comfort you.

It seemed you had no choice, though. When you tried to move, or at least transform back into bot mode, you realised that you were as good as frozen - systems locked as your frame desperately tried to minimise further damage.

“CADET!”

You only manage a horrific crackle of static in response. But through the pain, you can still feel Starscream’s warm servo on the nose of your altmode. You focus with everything you have on that source of warmth, of kindness. “Listen to me,” Starscream says, next to your shattered cockpit. He’s forcing himself to sound calm, neutral - but the underlying tension in his voice threatens to bleed through, stringing his words tight. “I know it’ll use up the rest of your reserves, but you need to transform now so I can take you to med bay.”

You want to obey, but you’re so tired, the fuzziness of pain and exhaustion weighing your frame down. You try to tell your commander this, through another slurred buzz of static and frag, that hurt. Didn’t even know you could hurt there.

Distantly, you feel the panicked fluctuations of Starscream's EM field. “For the love of Primus, TRANSFORM!” Starscream roars, panic rearing its head as he abandons all pretence of neutrality. They can’t fix you like this. Maybe on Vos, once upon a time. But Knockout, for all that he can do, is not a seeker - and there are limits to what can be done with the seeker altmode without specialised knowledge. Besides, you wouldn’t fit into his med bay, and all of these become urgent problems when Starscream can feel your EM field growing fainter by the nanoklik.

Blearily, you register the frantic spikes of his EM field against your plating. Was he upset? You didn’t want Starscream to be upset. You could fix it. What was that he was yelling at you to do?

Transforming hurts. Every inch of your frame screams as loose screws and fractured plates twist and warp themselves into bot mode. Two warm servos clamp down on either side of your helm, and Starscream’s panicked expression swims into view. “Good,” He murmurs, and you hear his vocaliser reset as he forces the tremor from his voice. “Now, was that so hard?”

No, you want to say, because it was you who asked it of me. But all that comes out is another garbled mess of incoherent static and this time, you’re more aware that there’s something wrong with your intake, beyond your vocaliser. Without thinking, you shakily raise a servo to touch, to find out exactly what’s wrong. But Starscream sees your servo move and promptly scolds you back into submission, even if his frantic worry steals the bite from his words. Slowly, you take in the warnings on your HUD and realise it’s way more than just your intake. Another wave of pain sweeps through your misfiring sensors, cracking through your helm and splintering across your faceplate. Oh, scrap. Was Starscream… holding you together? That would explain the look on his faceplate.

There’s so many things you want to tell him, but only manage to place your bloodied servo over his - a firework show of popups on your HUD are all the warning you get before you’re out like a light. It's a shame that the all warnings have to obscure Starscream's faceplate before that.

---

The screech of a welder is what you awaken to. Knockout abruptly switches it off as soon as he notices you're awake - you can't help but think that it's uncharacteristically gentle of him, but you're thankful enough not to question it.

"Nasty tumble you took there," He remarks, as you groan. The pain has lessened, but your frame feels like lead and the warnings on your HUD are relentless despite your continuous attempts to close them.

Knockout regards you for a nanoklik more before shaking his helm, tutting disapprovingly. "Such a nice paintjob, too. Now hold still, I'm nearly done."

Gritting your denta as the welder screams to life again, you wish you had just stayed unconscious because by Solus, getting soldered back into one piece fragging hurt. You note with surprise and pleasure, however, that you've regained your sensory systems in your faceplate. Gently touching a servo to your cheek, you gratefully realise Knockout has chosen to work in order of most to least pain - as he'd knocked out (you bite your glossa to keep the inappropriate laughter back) the most painful aspects of your repair while you were still unconscious. The crack across your faceplate from chin to optic has been welded and buffed to perfection, save for... you frown as your fingers find a sizeable dent in your nose. Knowing Knockout's perfectionist streak, you wonder why something so obvious would have been left out, but hesitate to ask since he's already done such a good job on the rest of your frame and you feel guilty asking for more. However, you fail to quell the disquieting sense of unease that bubbles up in your chassis, which tells you that Knockout wouldn't have left your nose out without a very good reason.

You're panting by the time he finishes, plates drawn tight against your frame as you work through the residual pain. The dull grey of your metal shines through in patches, having ungracefully smeared the Terran grass with your paint - but your once-fractured plates are perfectly smooth and polished thanks to Knockout's handiwork.

It's relatively smooth sailing up until that point, because the final part of your frame requiring repair is your wings. Tender, not to mention the pain that arcs through your leading edges, spoilers, ailerons whenever you move... Primus. You decide not to think too hard about it. You have no idea how Starscream managed to stay still under your trembling servos that time you had to patch him up - every touch of the welder to your wings has you seizing in pain, writhing under Knockout's servos no matter how he tries to soothe you. Finally, he clicks the welder offline, with your wings still largely in disrepair.

Your ragged in-vents are all that fill the med bay. "Primus," Knockout mutters. "This isn't working."

For some reason, you get the feeling that his disgusted snarls of frustration aren't directed at you.

You watch quietly as he paces the length of his med bay, before finally whirling around to face you. "No matter what you're about to say, kid, I'm paging Starscream," He informs you. "Primus knows how many times he's had his wings repaired."

Knockout tilts his helm towards the ceiling, optics shuttered and his intake set in a grim line. "After all that effort to keep him out of my med bay, too."

The mental image of Starscream attempting to force his way into med bay just to make sure you're alright is almost too mind-boggling to entertain. Still, now is not the time. Your wings droop as Knockout sends the message out, angry at yourself for causing so much trouble. The pain that radiates from your wing joints at such a movement is deserved, you tell yourself. Is this how you repay Starscream for all that he's done for you? However, your downward spiral is promptly cut short by aggressive hammering at the door of med bay - Knockout emits a long-suffering sigh before going to open it. Starscream all but hurtles into the room, but you'd sensed his EM field even before that - spiking in waves as he attempts to suppress the panic before it gets the better of him.

"Well?" He demands, having taken in your prone form, patches of paint missing and the bridge of your nose chipped.

"Calm yourself," Knockout sniffs. "This is some of my best work to date."

"Best?" Starscream hisses. "Look at their nose! What do you call that?"

"Ah." Knockout looks oddly solemn at that. "One of the reasons I called you here. Filling in a part of one's anatomy requires high quality metal - and as you know, our glorious leader has deemed it un-utilitarian to allow soldiers access to such materials."

"Then put it under my designation," Starscream snarls, but Knockout shakes his helm, almost looking regretful.

"Even if you could, we're simply too short on materials to conduct such an operation. Abundant on Cybertron, sure. On the Terrans' planet, however? In a word: lacking."

By now, you're sure the anger pulsing off Starscream's EM field could power a small spaceship. Unfortunately, Knockout isn't done yet.

"The more pressing matter, however," he continues, "is the repair of their wings. I'm sure you understand."

At that, Starscream freezes. His optics zero in on you with intense precision and in the next nanoklik he's striding over to you, no-nonsense. "Show me."

You shuffle your frame upright, baring your wings to him. Judging by Starscream's sharp in-vent, it's not looking good. A few tense nanokliks pass, and you swivel back round to see Starscream nod curtly at Knockout. "I'll take it from here."

Turning back to you, he jerks his helm in the direction of the door. "Come on."

Before you can protest, Starscream loops a servo round your waist to support you, mindful of your wings. You strain to stay upright in front of the wandering eyes of other Decepticons, thankful that Starscream is more or less holding you up. You won't disgrace him any further. You won't - but finally, in the privacy of Starscream's habsuite, you can't hold back the ragged gasp of pain as the door slides shut behind you.

"On the berth, wings up," Starscream says shortly. He's already dug the welder out. But in spite of your best efforts, you can't stop trembling, already anticipating the pain.

However, instead of the unforgiving heat of the welder, Starscream's warm servo lands comfortingly on an unblemished area of your wings. "Brave," he murmurs, in Vosian, and it nearly makes coolant spring to your optics all over again.

There's a few instances in which you thrash so hard under the welder that Starscream has to hold you down, but you understand why Knockout decided to call Starscream in for wing repairs. Starscream murmuring to you in Vosian takes the raw edge of pain off, gently stroking the broad sections of your wings in between welds.

You're exhausted by the time he's finished, tremors jolting your frame even as the pain subsides. "All done," Starscream says, even if his vocaliser clips out for a nanoklik. "Now, was that so hard?"

Another garbled mess of static is all you can manage, but you determinedly extend your EM field to brush against his. Starscream stiffens before ex-venting deeply and allowing your fields to merge. "Recharge," He commands gently, tucking your frame against his, mindful of fresh welds. Exhaustion sweeping over you like a tidal wave, you're distantly aware of Starscream lightly stroking a thumb over the jagged scar on your nose. "'m sorry," You mumble into his chassis. "Hush," Starscream scolds. "What are you even sorry for?"

"Didn't do your lessons justice," You slur. "'m a waste of time." Starscream's arms tighten around you at that.

"Don't you dare call yourself a waste of time," He growls. "It's not your fault that some slagheads can't deal with their own incompetence. You're under my watch. That's all you, and the others, need to know."

"Mm," You mutter, burrowing closer to his warmth. "Yesssir."

Starscream ex-vents, but it's fond. He gently strokes his servo over your wings, soothing you enough to fall into recharge.

"Patience," He murmurs, more to himself than to you. "One day, they'll pay for what they've done."

Previous / Next

Edit: Now with more art!!!!!

[starcurtain]

What do you think Aventurine would be like as a boss?

Aventurine's first character story tells us that people both outside the IPC and internal to the Strategic Investment Department are explicitly racist toward him, so I would say first that I suspect Aventurine's team is much, much smaller than other Stonehearts like Topaz. For example, we constantly see Topaz's dumb "support squad" following her around in most of the events she shows up in, while we've never been introduced to a single "Aventurine support squad" member.

My suspicion is that, between the rampant racism and the undoubtedly common rumors about Aventurine's dangerous behavior, very few people are even willing to be put on his team in the first place. I suspect he's much more likely to be paired up with one or two "strategic partners" (like Ratio) and sent to handle things that way, rather than actually having a large group of underlings he directly supervises.

But just logistically speaking I'm sure he does have a few underlings, and I think... He's probably a very difficult person to work for, for a couple reasons:

He will almost certainly beat assholes to the punch. If a majority of the people who have been assigned to work with him don't want to be there, you can bet he's not going to wait around for new people to prove they are racist garbage. I imagine that, for the most part, he's off-putting and offensive to new people from the get-go. You ask which desk is yours and he just goes "Oh, feel free to set your things anywhere!" then turns around like: "Wowwww. Jim, this rookie is trying to steal the desk you've had for ten years! How inconsiderate our new friend is proving to be~!" New people on his team probably have the worst few weeks of their lives. (Because... If people are going to hate him on principle alone, he might as well give them a reason, right?) However, this has the effect of weeding out most of the people who are incapable of dealing with Aventurine's antics, so I imagine that the few who persevere through the hazing are probably genuinely decent folks. Those that make it past the initial "Let's see how much you hate Sigonians and disrespect me personally" vibe check probably end up on Aventurine's good side, and I think he eventually eases off his newbies after a while. (Not before they've proven their exceedingly high tolerance for shenanigans and even higher ceiling for shock factor, though. If a new employee makes it past the first month of working for Aventurine, literally nothing else will ever phase them. An elephant-sized Warp Trotter could warp them all six galaxies over and they'd just be like "Anyone got a working cell? I need to tell my babysitter I won't be back by 9.")

I think he's just never there. Absentee boss in the extreme. It's not that he ever slacks or doesn't do the work--it's just that he's constantly going off and doing the missions all on his own. It doesn't matter how many times the higher-ups assign him to do a team task, tell him he has to take the full squad... He just scampers off and does the deal entirely on his own, comes back covered in blood, and is like "Hey guys, I took care of the problem; enjoy some comp time on me!" I don't think he drags his average-level underlings into his dangerous gambles; I think he just does all the work with their clients by himself or with a high-caliber partner. You would think this would make him a great boss to work for, but I implore to put yourself in such an employee's shoes: You go into the office every morning only to see your to-do list is empty. Your boss isn't there to give you any new direction. After twiddling your thumbs for four hours, you find out the reason he isn't in the office this morning is that he's recovering from betting he could take an entire pack of Borisin in a fist fight. He's not in the hospital because of the fight (which he won). He's in the hospital because he was then promptly shot in the back by the guy he was betting with. Why is your life like this? Why must you be subjected to the soap opera of your boss's own self-destructive spiral?

Even when he's around, he's probably weirdly awkward. Don't get me wrong, I bet when he's in a good mood he throws all kinds of extravagant parties in the office, and his employees would never lack for bonuses and perks. But I think he has never really bothered to learn--or perhaps simply does not care--about normal managerial behaviors and boundaries. Like, you slip up and tell him your mother-in-law is in the hospital. He comes back five minutes later to tell you he's just bought six bouquets (sent from your address), commissioned a personally embossed card for her with your monogram, and contracted the services of the best-reviewed individualized medical team in Pier Point under your name. He's patting himself on the back for being an incredibly thoughtful boss. You don't know how to tell him that you haven't spoken to your mother-in-law in years, not since her last attempt to poison you. Every six months he buys the whole team new cars. You have no idea what to do with all these cars. It's too many cars. Put some cars back. He calls everyone his "friend," but even after working for him for years, you still have absolutely no idea about his likes, dislikes, or hobbies outside of the IPC. You could not name his favorite food if someone put a gun to your head. Does he exist outside of the workplace? You literally can't imagine him anywhere but on a mission or at a poker table. He's constantly bringing an "I am the party!" vibe to the room, but everyone else is a bored 8-5 worker who doesn't have a drop of enthusiasm left in their veins. It's like when a singer asks the audience to cheer along with a song, but nobody in the audience makes a peep. Absolutely no one in the IPC cubicles can match his particular freak. Aventurine's a smooth-talker and a street-smart cookie for sure, but something about the way his smile looks like it's made out of plastic when anyone tries to engage him in chitchat at the water cooler gives you the vague impression that he's probably never had an actual friend in his life. If "uncanny valley" was a vibe a workplace could have, Aventurine's office would have it.

Long story longer, I think Aventurine has very few people willing to tolerate him as a boss, whether because they are racist or simply because his quirks are just too quirky. However, I like to imagine the few who have hung in there are ride or die. You know they have an "Aventurine Protection Squad" group chat. They probably all wear peacock-teal and gold accessories in solidarity. They have definitely disappeared people for talking shit on their boss before. Aventurine has no idea how much they actually like him.

[yellowocaballero]

i very much enjoy the extremely scientific analysis of the naruto verse in which there are three genders, aka naruto, sasuke, and Woman.

AM I WRONG? AM I WRONG? pulls down projection screen and plays powerpoint

Obviously let's give room for nuance. A ton of Naruto characters don't fall into these gender norms. This does predominantly apply to the rampant proliferation of the three-person dynamics that were assigned by the government and dictate your entire life. And, like, society. It does not end. Gender isn't a biological factor in Naruto, it's a social dynamic constructed entirely by your homoerotic tension with other men. And there are so many.

Madara (S), Hashirama (N), Mito (W). Izuna (N) and Tobirama (S) - tragically, Izuna died before women could be invented. Sarutobi (N), Danzo (S, horrifically) - see above about women not being invented yet. Jiraiya (N), Orochimaru (S), Tsunade (W). Yahiko (N), Nagato (S), Konan (W). Obito (N), Kakashi (S), Rin (W). Shisui (N), Itachi (S), that little deeply unimportant girlfriend (W). Um, fucking, Naruto (N), Sasuke (S), Sakura (W). Even - even, fuckin, Rock Lee (N), Neiji (S), Tenten (W).

And what do they all have in common????

(OT3. They're all OT3s. Is what I'm saying).

There is some room for alternative gender expressions here, like being butch or femme. Naruto gender expressions: teacher, otouto, woman who you can't even tell is woman gendered because she has no backstory but you just have to kinda assume that she has a polycule-based backstory where she was Woman Gender. I feel almost as if 2/3rds of the Rookie 9 are liberated from this. InoShikaCho just doesn't fit (their chaotic cousin energy is just too strong and Ino's too much of a lesbian). Hinata's too busy being defined entirely by a different throuple's N to have codependent dynamics with her own N and S (and I'm hesitant to even say that, since I actually don't know if Kiba and Shino have a codependent rivalry - do they?).

I get, like, the reason for all of this. Curse of Hatred. Cycles. N and S Genders being sourced from demigods or something. Narrative parallelism. Sympathy points. It's not the bad guy's fault he's evil, his N and W gendered counterparts died :(. But an extremely strange side-effect of this is that all of the male characters are, like, Just Naruto or Just Sasuke. But the vast majority of the female characters are - like, completely defined by the men in their lives - but also they are more likely to be a unique person. Mito, Sakura, and Rin have actually nothing in common. Writing so sexist it creates more interesting characters?!?!

Unironically, this is why I'm always saying that Sasunaru is the ship of all time, nothing will ever top it, you will NEVER do it like Sasunaru, etc. Every important relationship in the series is meant to evoke Sasunaru. (Notably, none of the explicitly romantic ones. But we're beyond such paltry understandings of the most iconic pairing of all time as fundamentally based in romance. We're operating on a higher level than that). This unbroken chain of toxic yaoi has culminated at the end point of Sasunaru, and it exists to parallel Sasunaru and define their relationship by the dysfunction of generations of tragedy. That's why Naruto has to consciously break the cycle and free them from the generational hate - it was the only way to save Sasuke. This is also why I'm always saying that Sasunaru is the point of Naruto, and that the entirety of Naruto is about Sasunaru. Come back to me when your work has invented new genders in the all-encompassing pursuit of toxic yaoi.

This also means that the only truly gender non-conforming individuals in Naruto are its mightiest heterosexuals: Minato (W) and Kushina (N). Truly insane. The N/S/W configuration is the societal norm, it's bonkers to make a major good-aligned male character a wifeguy. By Naruto standards Minato and Kushina are the only queer couple.

[maxleyrosebud]

Max and Bradley Comparison - Part 1 : Max Goof reputation

In AEGM, Max Goof and Bradley Uppercrust the Third are Rivals in the College X games competition and are presented as opposites. But like most rivals in fiction , they often do have similarities and are meant to contrast well together as foils. 

In this series we're going to explore Max and Bradley as characters and what they might have in common with each other.

For Part One, Two and Three we are just going to focus solely on Max. So if you love Max or just wanna learn more about him then here ya go :D 

Max’s bad reputation 

In A goofy Movie , Max claims while singing that people have been laughing at him since he can remember and refers to himself as Maxie the geek and Goof of the week- “They’ve been laughing since I can remember, but they’re not gonna laugh anymore! No more "Maxie the geek"! No more "Goof of the week" like before!”

Other names that Max has been called by while growing up are loser , geek , goofball , dweeb , goof , dork etc. Here are some examples.

A Goofy Movie

“No more looking at Loser’s like him”- Highschool class mate

“It’s dork and dork Junior”- Kid making fun of Max and Goofy

Goof Troop episodes 

“Hey. Wild Rider’s not for Goofballs”- Butch 

“Hey Lardo, where’s your pal , the little goofball”- Tooth to PJ

“No dweebs on the Pharaohs turf”. - Duke

“I smell a couple of geeky dweebs”- Duke 

“And you. Don’t you let me catch you , lettin him make you look like a geek again!”-Pete to PJ

Not only has Max been laughed at and name called, but he has also had his allowance stolen from bullies like Leech and from a classmate named Tooth.

What makes this worse is that Goofy and Max aren't as financially well off like other middle class house holds , so Max getting his money taken away puts him in a worse situation compared to other kids who may have gotten their money taken too. 

“Sorry I don't have any lunch money on me but it’s saturday”- Max to Leech 

“That day , all I had was three quarters and a serious problem named Tooth. Big for his age? This guy would've been big for the stone age. His motto, pay up or get beat up.”- Max

“You mean the goofball whose money you always steal?” - PJ to Tooth 

At high school , it's also shown that Max's has had his lunch taken away.

Now , It’s bad enough that Max has experienced bullying from his classmates as a kid and as a teenager in high school. But as a 11 year old kid in the Goof Troop series , Max has also gotten bullied by actual adults such as Leech , Duke ( for six months ) and Butch. 

Even Pete to some extent as Pete got joy from telling Max that Santa Claus isn’t real and through out The Goof Troop show and A Goofy movie he doesn't even seem to care if he upsets or says anything negative towards Max in general. 

“(Laugh) Ain’t that quaint. The Goofbrain thinks there’s a Santy claus.”-Pete to Max

So overall , Max has experienced plenty of name calling and bullying. But one contributing factor as to why Max get’s picked on is because he is related to his dad Goofy. 

Max being seen like his Dad. 

Max truly does love his dad and Goofy is a really good loving person in general. But having Goofy as a dad can sometimes be a detriment to Max as Goofy acts rather goofy , absent minded and clumsy. This eccentric behavior causes mishaps and mayhem where people either get mad at Goofy like Pete or they laugh at his expense. 

These moments tend to make Max embarrassed or make him look bad for being related to Goofy. So when people compare Max to Goofy , Max often sees this as a negative thing and gets self conscious about being a goof like his dad. 

‘Queasy Rider’

When Goofy is playing Wild rider , he accidentally smashes the arcade machine into all the other arcade machines. Butch then makes fun of Max for taking after his dad. -“Like Father , like goofball.”

‘Meanwhile , back at the ramp‘

Max doesn't think he looks like his dad but PJ disagrees and makes fun of Max for being like Goofy. This in turn makes Max annoyed and frustrated by the comparison.  

“I can’t believe you don't see it , Max! You look just like your dad!”- PJ

“Uh , I got an idea , toadstool.”- Max

“What?”- PJ

“You promise not to say that again , and I promise not to rearrange your earlobes.”-Max

“Say what? ( Mocking tone ) You look just like your dad?- PJ

“Death! That’s it!”- Max

“But you do!”- PJ

(Angry face before Max collects his composure) …

“Peej , let’s try this one last time, OK? Look at these ears. Nothin like my dad’s! Hey , look at my hair! Ditto! My chin , my eyes! Totally , totally different! PJ I’m nothing like my dad!- Max

( Max Falls of the skateboard ramp) 

“Hahahaha. Yeah! Right , Max-o. You and your dad even fall alike!” ( PJ continues to laugh)

“Cork it PJ!”- Max 

Then Later in the same episode after Pete calls Max a goof like his dad when he doesn't want Max using his skateboarding ramp, Max is pretty down by the comment and when Goofy tries to see what the matter is , Max admits that it bothers him that he is seen as a Goof like Goofy. 

“Well , if someone said you always goofed things up, what would you do?”-Max

“I usually do goof things up” - Goofy

“But , say you were related to that person?” - Max    

“It wouldn't bother me” - Goofy    

“But if it did bother you-” Max 

“Wait a minute, Max. What’re you getting at?” - Goofy    

“Pete! He said you’re a goof and I’m just like you!”-Max 

By the end of the episode , Max does accept that he looks like his dad but despite what he goes through in the episode , Max still doesn't want to be compared to his dad all that much. 

“Ah-hyuck! He’s just a chip off the old block! - Goofy referring to Max

“A small chip! Well actually , more like a…Splint. No , no , no, maybe sawdust”. - Max  

'A Goofy Movie' 

When Goofy dresses Max in a life jacket and fishing gear for the road trip , he states that Max looks just like him when he was his age but Max tells him not to say that. 

“You look just like I did at your age.”-Goofy

“Please don’t say that, Dad.”-Max

Then when both Max and Goofy are at Lester’s Possum Park , Goofy dances with Max but because everyone is laughing at them so much Max wants Goofy to stop as it’s embarrassing and he doesn't want to be laughed at.

When they finish ,a little boy then comes over and refers to Max and Goofy as Dork and Dork Junior , causing Max to look hurt by the comment and everyone to laugh more.

Max then angrily storms off and wants to try and get away from Goofy. 

‘The House of Mouse’

Another example of Max not liking to be compared to his dad is in ‘The House of Mouse’ tv series where in one episode, a Teenage Max takes the same Job Goofy has.  ( It’s a separate piece of continuity to the canon timeline of the Goof troop show and Goofy movies but I wanted to mention it anyway as a example of Max’s characterization) 

“Ah Max,that’s Great! Like Father like Son.” -Mickey

“I wish you wouldn't say that”-Max 

But it's not just bullies or Max’s classmates that make Max feel bad about being related to Goofy. Pete, who is supposed to be Goofy’s best friend , makes it very clear to Max on occasion that even being related to a Goof is a bad thing. 

‘Everything’s coming up Goofy’ and ‘Good neighbor Goof’

When Max first moved to Spoonerville and became friends with PJ , Pete wanted Goofy to not be his neighbour and therefore was against the idea of his son being friends with Max. However despite his objections to it, PJ still hangs out with Max and when Pete finds out he tells PJ that bad things will start to happen if he is friends with a Goof. 

“I’d recognize that paint-stealing stench anywhere. I smell a goof! I knew it! Goof mud! And it’s fresh! You’ve been hanging around that goof kid , haven't ya? Well , don’t you know what’ll happen if you get their germs on you? Why , your brain will shrink to the size of a mustard seed! Strange words will start creeping into your vocabulary, word’s like Gawrsh and Ah-hyuck, Ah-hyck. Ooh, and then you’ll do dumb things and then when you try to remember them , you can’t , because you’re too dumb.”- Pete 

“But…”-PJ

“No buts , boy! You just steer clear of that kid. And get out of those goof-infested clothes! Now!”-Pete  

Pete says this not knowing that Max is hanging outside the window , but regardless ,  Max still hears how negatively Pete feels about Max being a Goof. This in turn makes Max silently cry about what he just overheard.

It’s unclear if people had insulted Max for being a goof before he moved to Spoonerville , but it’s clear from this interaction that Max now understands that being a Goof is a negative association to have. 

‘Meanwhile , back at the ramp‘

After Max tries to skate on Pete’s skating ramp, Pete angrily says to Max’s face that he is a carbon copy of his dad.-“Beat it , Kid! You’re just a carbon copy of your old man anyway. A goof!”

'Mickey’s Once Upon A Christmas' 

When Max believes in Santa Claus like Goofy, Pete makes fun of this and mocks Max for having the Goof gene.  

“(laugh) Like father , like Goof. Kid’s got the Goof gene coursin through his bloodstream.” - Pete

So for most of Max’s life he has received negative remarks from being Goofy’s son and for being a Goof in general.  

It’s why as a teenager in 'A Goofy Movie'  , he has a nightmare of becoming a spitting image of his dad and why Max is self conscious of having the same laugh as him.

To Max, he's scared that being anything like his dad will make him unliked and ostracized, hence why he hides his laugh and runs away from Roxanne when she hears it for the first time. 

Max wanting a fresh start at College 

In AEGM Max thinks going to College will allow him more independence and that he will no longer have to deal with his dad’s well meaning smothering over him- “Do you realize what going off to college means. No more well-meaning but totally smothering , over protective , doting , ah-yucking dad’s?”. But another reason as to why Max is looking forward to college is so he can have the chance to become popular from winning the X games - “Hey , we have a sure fire way to shoot straight to the top of the freshmen heap. The College X games.”

Due to Max being Goofy’s son in the past , Goofy has been one of the contributing factors as to why Max has been given a negative reputation . So now that Max is going to College where Goofy won't be around anymore , no one will be able to associate Max with Goofy as no one at college will know who Goofy is or that Goofy is his dad. 

To Max , College will be a clean slate where he can have a fresh start without anyone comparing him to his dad and everyone can only judge him based on his own merit. He can just be seen as Max and only Max for a change. 

But when Goofy arrives at College and barges into Max’s class room , Max literally starts freaking out.  He screams out loud at the sight of Goofy.

Starts rubbing his face in a dazed panic saying "oh no" repeatedly to himself.

Then when Goofy spots him , Max grabs and shakes Bobby to kill him as he doesn't want to experience what is happening. 

Goofy then walks over to a panicked looking Max , sits next to him , shows of his afro wig and tells everyone that Max is his son.

This of course makes everyone in the room start to laugh and Max’s expression is of pure horror.

He then screams “NOOOOOOOOO” at the top of his lungs while sitting on top of his desk covering his eyes.

(I know we all say Bradley needs therapy but honestly, Max could probably benefit from some therapy too couldn't he? )  

It’s almost like Max is having a panic attack or going through anxiety, as in this moment Max is worried that he will gain a negative reputation again for being Goofy’s son and will continue to get embarrassed by his antics. 

But there’s nothing Max can do to stop Goofy from attending College now as Goofy needs a degree to get a job. All he can do is tell Goofy that they need some ground rules. First being for Goofy to get rid of his wig as in Max’s words it’s scaring people but really it’s making Max look bad for looking uncool. 

Goofy gets the sense that Max is worried about being at College so tries to assure him that two goofs are better than one but Max isn’t pleased by this and puts more emphasis on their surname Goofs ,  like it's a bad thing. This is either because he doesn't want both of them at college or because Max is starting to associate himself with being a Goof as a bad thing again.  

“I know you're worried it might be hard to get into the swing of things around here. And well, it might be. But I figure two Goofs are better than one.”- Goofy

“Two ‘Goofs’ alright”- Max 

Max being self critical of himself

Due to Max being unpopular and being compared to his dad so negatively , Max tends to self loath on occasion and wishes he could be seen as someone who is cool instead of someone uncool so he can be perceived by everyone more positively. 

‘Queasy Rider ’

After Goofy plays poorly on the video game and knocks over the arcade machines , Goofy takes Max home to make cupcakes. But due to this embarrassing ordeal of looking bad in front of Butch and everyone else , Max thinks he is doomed to be a dweeb. 

“I hear those cupcakes a-callin!”-Goofy

“Doomed to be a dweeb”-Max 

Then once Max is at home , he mopes around in his garage and is self conscious of the fact that he will remain uncool and that this won't ever change. 

“C’mon, Max-o. You can’t hide in your garage forever.”-PJ

“Look,PJ. The world is divided into two groups. The cool guys and everybody else. Butch is cool, I’m everybody else.”- Max  

‘Leader of the Pack’

When Max finds out that his cousin Debbie is going to have his room when she stays over , he complains that it’s bad enough that he's a dweeb due to Duke not letting dweebs in the Behemoth burger restaurant but now he has to suddenly give his room up for one. 

“No. Not bad enough I gotta be a dweeb. Now I gotta give my room to one.”-Max 

‘Talent to the Max’

When Max can’t do any of his magic tricks right , he thinks pretty low of himself and starts to think he's not capable of obtaining fame and fortune for himself.-“No talent , no show. Fame and fortune , yeah right. I can’t even play the harmonica”

‘Educating Goofy’ 

Refers to his life as pathetic. - “Maybe I’m overreacting. Maybe dad’s not intentionally trying to destroy what’s left of my pathetic life.” 

As a kid , Max’s self loathing isn’t too much of a problem as overall he has a confident go get attitude and plenty of spunk. But when Max is a teenager in high school he is seen as more moody by his dad and his self loathing goes up to a whole nother level where he is more critical of himself.  

A Goofy Movie 

When Max waves hi to Roxanne but she doesn't see him , he thinks she saw right through him but doesn't blame her for this as he thinks so low of himself. 

(singing) “She looked right through me! And who could blame her? - Max 

Later in the movie , Max criticizes himself for not being able to talk to Roxanne properly and for laughing like his dad Goofy. Even calls himself a spaz. - “I can’t believe I did that! She finally says "hi" to me and what do I do? I choke! Uhyuck! Like a big spaz!”

Then when Max thinks he messed up his chance to impress Roxanne with his powerline performance , he calls himself a failure and a Loser. - “ I’m a failure, complete loser! My one chance to impress Roxanne and I blew it.”-Max

Max however is successful in getting a date with Roxanne but later on has to cancel due to his dad taking him on a surprise fishing trip. So when Max goes to Roxanne’s house to tell her the bad news, Max once again thinks badly of himself - “You get and cancel your first date in less than an hour. Must be some kind of lame-o record. ” 

Later in the movie when Max and Goofy are at Lester’s Possum Park , Max refers to his life as a living hell but is cut off by the Possum costume guy saying hello before he can say hell. 

“My life’s a living ”- Max

“Hello , little Buddy”-Possum costume guy

AEGM 

When Max doesn't do well at the qualifying rounds, he doesn't think his friends would want him on the team and is self critical that they are starting in last place because of him. 

“You don't want me on the team anyway. I lost at my best event.”-Max

“If I can’t even beat my father. Who is probably the most athletically-challenged man in the universe, how can you expect me to beat the other competitors? We’re starting in last place because of me!”-Max 

Max doesn't like feeling inferior to others 

During the Goof Troop show , A goofy Movie and AEGM , Max has had moments of feelings inferior to others. 

‘Queasy Rider’  

When PJ says Butch is one cool dude for getting the high score on “Wild Rider” , Max feels challenged by this comment to show PJ how much cooler he is compared to Butch -“You wanna see coo-el? Watch me.”-Max 

‘Buddy Building’ 

Leech decides to pick on Max and PJ but they are both saved by Coopy Hatchback. Max thanks Coop but remarks “Not that I couldn't handle a wimp like Leech myself.” Then when Coop and PJ start bodybuilding together , Max is insecure about his own mussels and thinks Coop will replace him as PJ’s best friend if he is not musicalar like Coop - “If I don't grow some muscles fast , I’m gonna lose my best bud.”

‘Educating Goofy’

Due to Pete getting in Max’s head , Max starts to believe that Goofy is trying to ruin his life when Goofy attends his school and starts getting a better life and reputation compared to Max. Here are some examples form the episode.

Goofy gets nominated for student body president. But Max had wanted to get nominated. - “But I was supposed to be nominated.”

Max wanted to join Carlos and Bob’s club but they want to give it to Goofy instead even though they said Max could before.. 

“Ah,Max , we’re gonna ask your old man to join our club.”Bob

“What about me? You said I could join.”-Max

“Uh Sorry Max. But we only have one jacket. Um maybe next year”-Carlos 

Two of Max’s classmates call Goofy cool and make Goofy’s laugh into a Fad. 

“Hey,Max. Your dad’s sure cool. Ah-hyuck!”- Girl 1

“Yeah, totally. Ah-hyuck!”-Girl 2

“What’d you guys say?”-Max 

“It’s a new fad. Have a nice , ah-hyuck day!”-Girl 1

Later PJ knocks on Max’s door and Max assumes he’s there to see him to play Baseball but PJ is there to see Goofy instead. (This part was so out of character for PJ but I’m obligated  to mention it as it was in the episode.)

“Hey, Peej. I'll be right with ya.”-Max

“Yeah,yeah. Whatever. Actually , I’m here to see my best friend.”-PJ

“Huh?”-Max

“Sorry I’m late Peej.Ah-hyuck! Just oiling up my mitt. ( Falls down stairs ) Gawrsh! Must have gone a little too heavy on the 10w-30 Ah-yuck!”-Goofy 

“Yeah, I guess so. Ah-hyuck! See ya , Max”-PJ

( After PJ and Goofy leave) “I thought I was your best friend.”-Max  

Because of all this , Max wants to beat his dad at the spelling bee. - “It’s not fair! Dad’s tryin to ruin me! He’s gettin better grades , gettin better friends! But I’m not goin down without a fight. No siree. Ill beat dad at something.” 

'A Goofy Movie' 

During the assembly , Max see’s Chad asking Roxanne to the party and so Max becomes more nervous before he is about to perform and asks Bobby how it’s going with the equipment as he feels like he's running out of time.

Then later in the movie when Max tries explaining to a disappointed Roxanne why he can’t go with her on their date to the party , Roxanne tells him that she can try and find someone else.

“I’m sure I can find someone else”- Roxanne

“Someone else?” - Max

This in turn devastates Max and so in a panic of not wanting her to go with somebody else, lies about seeing Powerline’s concert in LA instead of going fishing with his dad. 

AEGM - Bradley 

When outside the Gamma Frat house , Max is looking at Bradley in awe with Bobby and PJ. But after Bobby and PJ gush about Bradley being the College X games King , Max looks at them with a frown before responding with a smile by saying - “Yeah , until we take the crown” 

Then during the scene where they are all skateboarding to the bean scene , PJ tells Max - “Cheek it out. Look who’s following us.” After Max see’s that it’s Bradley and the Gamma’s, Max responds with a smile while saying “Let’s just make sure it stays that way” as he wants Bradley and the Gamma’s to keep following him around instead of the other way around. 

Additionally , when Max and Bradley have their conflict in the Bean scene Max proclaims “Then will dethrone you and the Gamma’s your royal lowness. You’d be lucky to even be my towel boy” after Tank tells Max not to forget that Bradley is the King.

In this moment , Max is trying to make himself look better in comparison to Bradley as he is feeling challenged and doesn't want Bradley thinking that he is better than him.    

AEGM - Goofy 

Max doesn't feel like there's enough room for two goofs when Goofy becomes a more popular Skateboarder than him and steals his limelight. Even decides to transfer to a different college as a result of this. 

Max to Goofy before their midterm - “This campus just isn’t big enough for the both of us” 

Max to his friends in the bean scene” - “I’ve decided this school’s only big enough for one Goof. I’m transferring outta here.” Bobby however makes Max come to his senses and continue to compete by making a point that Max will let the people who once cheered for him, cheer for his own dad instead - “You wanna let the crowd who once cheered for you cheer for someone else? Especially when that someone else is your old man!”

It just goes to show that despite Max having such an easy going and cool demeanour that deep down , he is someone who is self conscious about how he is perceived by others and doesn't want to look inferior or be replaced. 

For now this is all I'm going to say about Max until Part 2. I know this was a little angsty and long to read but it will all be relevant and Part 2 and 3 won't be so long compared to part 1.

In Part 2 will be exploring Max's lower class background which will be out tomorrow :)

[windvexer]

This is also why I don't know how to recommend spells to people because to me most spells are just:

Find a Guy who's really good at the thing (probably other people talk about how good he is)

Ask him to do the thing for you

Provide auxiliary support to make his job easier (and say please and thank you!)

And one Guy can often do a lot of things. Like, Rosemary can help with memory problems, sleep, cleansing, protection, healing, and nightmares.

So you can show up and say, "Rosemary, when I drink this tea of you, please infuse me with good memory so I can remember important details of this upcoming conversation."

Or, "Rosemary, when I hang up this sachet of you, please stand as a sentinel of my sleep and guard against bad dreams."

Or, "Rosemary, when I place your pot by the front door, please cleanse the air of all sickness that may enter, and keep the home healthy."

(And yeah, there are Techniques to this, but that's not what this post is about)

But the problem is that sometimes, the Guy might not be that helpful until you get to know him a little more and things get chill between you two. Or he might show you hidden aspects to himself that are not common and not talked about by other people.

So you can get into a situation where you've been hanging with Rosemary for a while and have a really weird dream and all of the sudden, Rosemary can make other people tell you the truth.

That's not a Rosemary correspondence and it's probably not something that other people can do with Rosemary.

But it's something you can do with Rosemary because you've gotten to know each other on a friend level.

A missing factor for me, and maybe for other people, was treating spellwork like a potion-making game where you just gather X amount of Y-aligned correspondence and if you mix enough of them you get a Potion of Y.

Like if you need protection, you just go to a correspondence list and find enough Protection-aligned plants (regardless of how they work or their personalities or attributes) and put them together in a bag and saying an unrelated charm or prayer that you say no matter which plants you put in the bag.

Which is how people end up with 50 little jars of dead plants that stay dead because they have no connection to them, still looking up what ingredients to use in which spells.

Which is fine, but it's also like... not necessarily what everyone is looking for.

So my point is that if correspondences are reduced to 4-5 purposes on a chart, then you get the correspondence brainrot which is like "which kitchen herb is a gentle cleanser, and which kitchen herb is a strong cleanser," when the reality is that if a guy can Cleanse he can show up gently or strongly in his own unique way,

And it all makes more sense by just treating him like a Guy and asking him to do what you need to do.

I genuinely think that if a practitioner is looking for something deeper and more relational in their practice, a really good way is to scale everything back and start using like one activated (evoked, prayed over, petitioned, etc.) Ally in each spell and just asking if he, as a Guy, can or wants to do something for you.

Like if you go absolutely bonkers over a good cup of Chamomile tea, what's the harm in asking Chamomile to cleanse for you? What's the harm in asking Chamomile to protect your home, or bless your sleep?

At the very least you're going to begin learning a lot about Chamomile in an interpersonal way, where you can begin understanding the "correspondence" for yourself. And you can also learn some fucking cool stuff, like, isn't it weird that when I ask Chamomile to protect my home, we all started finding little bits of cash we had lost?

Idk. Magic is just easier when more things are Guys.

[bluedeedeedoop]

Alright! My Andor thoughts and a bit of a wild take of mine.

but to be honest, it shouldn't be considered a wild take.

(kind of spoilers under the cut?)

The people who say that Andor is boring, dull, too wordy, uninteresting, etc. are essentially outing themself for having 0 media literacy and comprehension skills.

You can not like the show, i'm not saying you can't, it can genuinely not be your thing and that's okay; but to outright say it's bad with zero genuine reasoning as to why you think that and then take the time to complain about it anyway, you're just setting yourself up at this point.

Along that note:

You can have your own opinions about whatever you want, but at the same time I feel as if we need to factor in some media literacy with this guys.. I thought it was common sense that a franchise practically about fighting fascists and fascism as a whole was going to include the good, the bad, AND the ugly. Meaning: darker themes were and are a major possibility. Andor itself was never shy about bringing up the intensity and crushing devastations that was brought along with the empire!

I recently saw a post but it was soon deleted, but I got the gist of it so i will quote what I recall.

Andor season 1 had horrific torture scenes, prison labor death camps, lynching, stalking, murder, bombings, you fucking name it. but the moment that there's a scene that depicts sexual violence, that being something that women ESPECIALLY undocumented women are at risk of, it's suddenly too dark?

I think it's important to address these types of issues in media in order to bring awareness to the severity of it! Not to mention it's quite literally happening as we speak!! Andor season 2 is ON THE DOT to bringing up real issues that are happening today, planet destruction, immigration abuse, immigrant violence, cmon guys! Do we just not like getting told what's happening right in front of us? And as for a supposed line being crossed with the Star wars franchise since sexual violence was brought up, when and where did we even draw that supposed line? was it with the child murder and child abduction? the genocide? the discriminatory violence? slavery? war crimes? murder? Honestly, that statement is so ironic on such an astronomical level that it's insane.

Yes, it is extremely distressing, and I think it's fair to assume everyone watching the scene with Bix and the officer felt absolutely sick to their stomach and that reaction is completely valid and non-negotiable.

However, that doesn't give us a reason to dismiss it. Could it have used a warning? Probably, but like I said before, Andor has never been shy about discussing intense issues in a series about political war and violence, so I feel like it's important to go into it already expecting dark topics. They have made it very clear that they aren't holding back. Do people think we enjoyed watching that extremely distressing scene? That we're happy that it was included? What, that everyone is cheering because someone said the word rape? If that's your take away from seeing everyone's reactions to it, that is quite literally, again, a media literacy issue.

And in my opinion, I think it's powerful to bring awareness to it in Andor since so many people can easily dismiss this type of thing in every day news, but not when it's in their fictional media. Now it's uncomfortable; now it's present.

Yes, Star Wars is an escapism for MANY but let me say this; Escapism does not equal ignorance.

Be as mad about the reality shown in Andor as much as you want, but don't go saying that Star wars "took it too far" because as I stated before, how far is too far?

And before people go throwing fits, AGAIN; i'm not saying you're not allowed to dislike Andor! Literally like and dislike whatever you want; I am simply stating and pointing out the irony and hypocrisy of many statements and arguments i've seen online so far.

[rederiswrites]

How did you end up having so many sheep to bottle feed? I didn't know anything about sheep, is disinterest from the moms normal/common?

I'd love to hear more about the sheep process in general it's really neat to see on my dash

Alright, so, first off, I am an inexperienced shepherd, and came into this (my first) lambing season FAR less prepared than I would've liked due to my mother being in the hospital for the weeks leading up to lambing. Not only that, but Soay are weird, mostly feral, archaic sheep, and a lot of the care principles that are expected for most sheep don't really apply to Soay, so you end up relying on the far, far smaller body of Soay-specific literature. So there's a lot I just don't know.

Sometimes, for any number of reasons, a ewe may reject a lamb. Rates of rejection vary so much with various factors that so far I haven't found anyone willing to give a simple blanket statistic on the subject. Nutrition, ewe experience level, environmental factors, breed, and a million other things could play a part. We've had two rejections out of eight births (one singlet and one set of twins), and I genuinely do not know how bad that is relative to baseline.

Soay are reputed to be good mothers and easy lambers, and so far that seems to be true for all the mothers who bonded with their lambs. Bonding is the critical period right after birth during which baby and mother get each other's scent, and baby begins to nurse. But bonding can be effected by the mother's experience--ours are all first time mothers; there's not a single experienced mother in the flock. It can be effected by disturbance during the bonding period after birth, like a human taking the lamb away for too long or getting its scent confused by washing or by handling with another lamb's scent on their hands, etc.

Our ram is currently in dog kennel prison, because after having seemed to be a pretty good dad for a while, he started running one of the ewes off her new lambs repeatedly. If he had done that with a previous ewe during the night, that might have caused one of the rejections, and we wouldn't have seen it. Larger or more controlled sheep operations might well separate the ram from the ewes during this period pre-emptively. That would have been laborious for us at a time when we're Fucking Swamped, like, just so underwater bro, just fucking drowning. So we didn't do it initially. We can't know now if one of the failures to bond might be his fault.

And of course it's entirely possible that we, the shepherds, effected the ewes in some way that our inexperience doesn't allow us to see. It's part of the process. Learning, when your learning experiences come at the cost of another creature's wellbeing, is one of the very difficult parts of animal husbandry.

What fascinates me is how willing the lambs are to bond to humans, and multiple humans at that. We jokingly refer to each other as Mama-mama, Papa-mama, Sister-mama, and Brother-mama, and just walking through a room right now is likely to net you a flurry of tippity-tapping hooves as all three bottle babies eagerly follow under your feet.

So what'll happen now is that these guys will continue to need a bottle roughly every four hours, day and night, for six weeks. During that time, it'll be up to us to haul them out to the pasture progressively more often, until they're getting most of their nutrition through grazing and a little feed. On a more traditional or established farm, the bottle babies might be kept in a barn, but we don't have anything resembling a barn. On the other hand, we're hardly the only people to bring a bottle baby into the house, given that you have to feed them in the middle of the night/constantly. Soay are hardy sheep who can do well even on fairly poor pasture, and don't need supplemental feed at all on good pasture. Maryland is, I think it's safe to say, a much gentler climate than the islands of the Outer Hebrides where Soay lived feral for a thousand years. So really, we only give our sheep grain-based feed to facilitate their bond with us as the goodie-givers.

Someday, Binabik will hopefully be a big, fine ram, and if we play our cards right, he will still be fairly trusting and affectionate to us, which will lead to the rest of the flock being somewhat more trusting. This should help us catch them for medical care more readily, so a bottle baby now and then is a good thing. We really, really did try to get the twins (whom we're now calling Minnie and Kazoo) to bond with their mother, because we did NOT need more lambs in the house. But here we are, and here I am, with three snoozing lambs around my feet.