#anyways I might have to vote for this phrase just because of this series

[alfhildr-the-word-weaver]

It's also the inspiration for the title of one of my all-time favorite youtube miniseries, The Guards Themselves!

It's a fun little "the superheroes are being used by the rich to further their agendas and the anarchist supervillains have a point actually, though they're not exactly the most skilled supers ever tbh" type adventure with lots of fun memorable characters. It was basically the creator's film school senior project and I think it's pretty well done as low-budget youtube movies go.

But yeah, in this case, the guards are variously the superheroes, the private security force employed by Meyer (the primary rich guy in question), and the anarchists, and there's plenty of exploration of the guarding of the guards themselves!

Also Kyle (the main creator)'s best friend Ian actually teaches Latin--he plays Big Fist in this--and I'm pretty sure he had a hand in the title.

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0u5ZHidq4X4QhFAX9FzSiYJLRen74sLF&si=cd6os_w0rL3OFYs-

(General warning for some pretty gratuitous gun violence, but not too much in the way of blood)

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes ?

"Who will guard the guards themselves?" / "Who will watch the watchmen ?"

It was found in Juvenal's Satires but it may have been added by someone else

Nowadays, it's sually used in relation to tyrannic governments or corrupted law enforcers but it was originally about the moral behavior of wives and eunuchs.

"Who watches the Watchmen ?" is a phrase used several times in Watchmen

In Terry Pratchett's Watch series (Discworld universe), it's super important and is an acab phrase of sorts used by Commander Vimes, the cop main character to keep himself in check in a pre-acab world when these books were published

*Note : the Discworld propaganda isn't mine. I had actually cut parts of my original list of phrases before letting you make picks and this one hadn't made the cut. However, one of you had asked about this specific phrase and I elected to add it to the form

If you want to submit a new form to vote for it, go for it. Same thing if you've changed your mind about other phrases, but please try to remember which ones you have already voted for

[horizon-verizon]

Sometimes I feel like when people use the argument that Stannis is “the rightful heir because the Baratheons overthrew the Targaryens…”, I feel like they’re kinda missing the point or at least like, being purposefully obtuse just because they might not like Targaryens or believe that the better a warrior/larger army you have = better fit to rule.

I could argue that just because something is stolen doesn’t necessarily make it legitimate. The same way people KNOW that Cersei stole the throne from Robert, and Joffrey isn’t the “rightful” heir, could use the same logic against Robert and Stannis. Robert stole the throne, he’s technically a usurper, so in that case is there a “rightful” heir? Is Stannis the “rightful heir” or is he just next in line for the throne?

I don’t know, that’s just some thoughts I’ve had, I could be way off base though

So I wrote about what "usurper" means for Westerosi society/simplified EU "feudal" societies HERE.

"rightful heir" is a cultural phrase more to define how, by custom or by "law", "deserves" the throne. "Fit to rule", can overlap with this, but it is not an equal synonym. Just bc you have more soldiers, doesn't mean that you are "fit" to rule, but if you use said army and you won...you are a "legitimate" ruler.

FIRST -- if there had been no suspicion thrown on Cersei's kids, Stannis wouldn't have gone out of his way to try to take the throne and thus he'd be 4th in line behind Cersei's kids...as he technically still is during the War of Five Kings.

SECOND -- The thing with (mostly) successful overthrows of the past monarch is that....this is enough to establish the new, replacement ruling house as the "legitimate" ruling house...bc they won. It's weird, I suggest you read the post I'm linking.

Anyway, Cersei "stealing"--if we read how lines of succession of Westeros are customarily done--would be her "stealing" from Stannis, nor Robert. this is IF it were ever exposed that her kids were not Robert's, which it never was. Usurpations are a circumstance of force and greed or self-interested ambition or self preservation or, rarely, trying to steer the state into an envisioned "future"/"new world" come at force...not black and white "justice". I'm saying the ethical value of the motivation(s) behind usurping a sovereignty are not as moral as people sometimes want to believe or tout/misinform. You find this out while reading ASoIaF, when in the 80s-90s (remember this is when this series was first published) GRRM subverts the tale of the morally righteous ruler who supplants the evil ruling tyrant. Robert could have been the pure-driven knight who banishes the "dragon"...but we question how "good" or fit for rulership he really is when we get to know him and see what sort of priorities he has that are indicative of what sort of hierarchial society the lives and is a beneficiary of.

He regularly cheats on and beats his wife--a juxtaposition of the good, silent, behaviorally "pure" queen consort who supports her husband's every move or draws inspiration from the masses to follow them AND the her motives/relationship w/Robert show a darker, realer side to noble marriages in terms of the inequality. He cosigns on the rape and murder of a woman for power and in hatred for the past dynasty's "dragon" prince that began with a slight to his masculinity. He wants to continue to destroy that last vestige of the "dragon" family, its children (those who are one of the most vulnerable humans), not just bc he wishes to secure his seat but bc he genuinely sees them all, youngbloods and adults, as unworthy of mercy for descuring his sense of self--he dehumanizes them to do so. In a way, he reflects the past mad king in his excesses and malevolence that's only banked by his being more rational. It's even repeated and obvious with how we know Aerys raped and beat his sister-wife Rhaella/Dany, Rhaegar, & Viserys' mother but the Kingsguard didn't do anything bc she is essentially his property and they "legally" can't go against his wishes or prevent him from enacting his will...but rather serve him to carry out his will and preserve his ability to do so by protecting his life above all else unless he says otherwise. Robert, does he not do the same with Cersei, and is Jaime similarly unable to do anything for Cersei without inviting great risk to them both? He is not as unchecked as Aerys, but just as selfish and he still enables bad-to-evil actors around him and they do him AND the quality of that uncheckedness comes not from governmental checks for a protected realm but comes from other nobles moving in their self interests. Nothing really has existentialchanged with his rule expect he has a corrupt council and another person determining his bigger decisions bc how powerful they are, how much they have and can still supply his rule and maintain his seat (Tywin). And we see that partially shown in how a war immediately breaks out after he's killed/dead for the succession.

But despite all this, the "legal"/customary rules riles that he is "fit" for the throne bc he won. He is King/Monarch. Imagine if Dany and Viserys were dead, if FAegon and all the Blackfyres were gone...yes Robert would be rightful and he's established a new dynasty. If Dany comes back or any Targ scion, and they win, he's a usurper and not rightful.

So instead, the question more is: what makes a near absolute ruler "fit" to rule (and before modern scholars come for me, yes monarchies are not great, I'm talking abt the introspection of interrogating current sociopolitical systems...esp those where we see no potential for the rise of peasants or traders or a rise of "bourgeoise" insight...this is a noble-led story, so let off)? It can't just be cultural custom or law. Thus we are divided b/t what the society sees as "fit", how they define it and how rigid or flexible according to circumstance that really ("law" or an individual's actions) is VS what we the reader consider a fit leader. And why do we think so, from what moral, ideologies, or philosophical references do we vs the characters draw from?

All of this works to peel back the veneer of "order" and show just how messy governance can be, can get, etc. how cyclically violent it can be and esp without some sort of existentially higher purpose.

So absolutely, some of them are missing the point (bc idk what else beyong Stannis is rightful heir some say). In fact, they are really just perpetuating & reinternalizing feudal or authoritarian definitions of "deserving", "rightful", "fit", "blood=being", "(male/masculine/able-bodied)warrior = good/fit leader". Because they want absolute answers or a total shift into a new, closer to our own social "democratic" order...which yes people vote, but even the worth of that vote is not absolutely understood or substantial without political understanding and we're back to some sort of "square one".

Fire and Blood serves to highlight that and contextualize Dany through her ancestors and the Dance is a huge old question of "deserving" based on sexism. and to give us more clues-mysteries on the origins of dragons/the nature of the bond. These nobles who could be focusing on more important things and preserve the knowledge of the Others at least...not reject magic and instead maybe learn to use it and their ordinary weapons of war for good, mostly protective purposes. Instead, bc they (Targs [who also "rejected" magic when they rejected their women to assimilate] and other Westerosi houses) are the apex of their society by being nobles and are constantly trying to define lines of power, they fight for revenge and power. They can and do prey on relatively more socially vulnerable people.

[withered--s0uls]

Ok guys uhm so 👉👈 what if I told you I had this idea for an original project since I was like 15-16 but never actually went through with it fully (I struggle w/ storytelling long, ongoing stories,,, especially from scratch)

I'll put more details under the cut, please go read that and then come back up here to vote!!!

Okay so as a kid I loved this book series that I don't think has an English localization?? The first book was "Wie weckt man eine Elfe?" (How does one wake up an elf?)

Basically the way the existence of elves, fairies, unicorns and other fantasy creatures is justified in this book series is that "If a human made it up using fantasy, then it'll become real". Due to fading belief and imagination of certain ones, they basically fell into hibernation. The protagonist girl finds out about an elf named Hummelbi (Hummel means Bumblebee) and they try to wake up Hummelbi's friends.

ANYWAYS, getting side tracked here...

I loved the concept of humans fantasy becoming reality, and paired that idea with my experience as someone who had many imaginary friends as a kid; what if those imaginary friends were real? What if they felt left behind as I grew older and stopped engaging with them? What if they felt betrayed?

It also is supposed to symbolize my own struggle of letting go from childhood fantasy, the guilt I felt for "forgetting about my friends" as I became a teenager. Something that at the time of coming up with this idea was a very big problem of mine. I didn't want to forget them and leave them behind. I felt like I was terrible for it.

The story would follow Ashley, a girl who at the time was supposed to be 16-17 -- I'll need to decide whether or not I'll change that, because it feels like these characters in my heart aged with me. But it makes more sense to have them be teens -- who used to have many imaginary friends as a kid. As she grew older, she played less and less with them. By the time of the main plot, she has friends in her school and hasn't thought of her imaginary childhood friends in ages.

Unknown to her, they weren't actually "Imaginary" at all. All those characters she made up, the floating island magic forest, all their adventures, very much were real.

And the vast majority of those friends felt severely betrayed.

They attempt to trap her in the fantasy world, and the story would have followed Ashley & her allies (who disagree with the other imaginary friends!) trying to get Ashley back into her world.

Oh also did I mention there was supposed to be a Sapphic romance going on?

Idk how much that'd be in the story if I do pick it up again, considering I'd want to mainly focus on plot. But since relationships & the individuality of the characters plays a major role in ths story, maybe there might still be room for it.

If I DO decide to work on it, I might need some help from others due to my struggle with world building from scrap and problems with ongoing long stories, let alone connecting certain scenes I like.

Back then I settled, with the help of friends at the time, on the title "Out of Sight" for the project. Back then the idea was just "oh, the island is invisible to others so she's out of other peoples sight" --- but that doesn't really feel like a good reason lmao.

I still like the title tho, and got attached to it.

I think it can also be interpreted as how she was unaware of them being real people, and lost sight of their development over the years and how they grew up and changed alongside her. It could kinda be a nod to the phrase "out of sight out of mind". Just that this phrase of blissful ignorance can't be applied to this?

Idk I had a better interpretation 5 minutes ago but already forgot 😭

[firstfullmoon]

what are some quotes that are so visceral they feel like a gut punch to you?

“A man's heart is a wretched, wretched thing. It isn't like a mother's womb. It won't bleed. It won't stretch to make room for you.”

— Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns

“At the trial of God, we will ask: why did you allow all this? And the answer will be an echo: why did you allow all this?”

— Ilya Kaminsky, “A City Like a Guillotine Shivers on Its Way to the Neck”

“I want someone to tell me what to wear in the morning. I want someone to tell me what to wear every morning. I want someone to tell me what to eat, what to like, what to hate, what to rage about, what to listen to, what band to like, what to buy tickets for, what to joke about, what not to joke about. I want someone to tell me what to believe in, who to vote for, and who to love, and how to tell them. I just think I want someone to tell me how to live my life, Father, because so far I think I’ve been getting it wrong.”

— Phoebe Waller-Bridge, from Fleabag

“Les femmes de notre famille, nous sommes engluées dans la colère J’ai été en colère contre ma mère Tout comme tu es en colère contre moi Et tout comme ma mère fut en colère contre sa mère Il faut casser le fil.”

(The women in our family are all stuck in anger I have been angry at my mother As you are angry with me And as my mother was angry at her mother The thread must be broken.)

— Wajdi Mouawad, Incendies

“I know what I want: an ugly, clean woman with large breasts, who tells me: what’s all this about making things up? I won’t have any dramas, come here immediately!—And she gives me a warm bath, dresses me in a white linen nightdress, braids my hair and puts me to bed, very cross, saying: well what do you want? you run wild, eating at odd times, you could get sick, stop making up tragedies, you think you’re such a big deal, drink this mug of hot broth. She lifts my head up with her hand, covers me with a big sheet, brushes a few strands of hair off my forehead, already white and fresh, and tells me before I fall asleep warmly: you’ll see how in no time your face is going to fill out, forget those harebrained ideas and be a good girl. Someone who takes me in like a humble dog, who opens the door for me, brushes me, feeds me, loves me severely like a dog, that’s all I want, like a dog, a child.”

“I can feel myself holding a child, thought Joana. Sleep, my child, sleep, I tell you. The child is warm and I am sad. But it is the sadness of happiness, this appeasement and sufficiency that leave the face placid, faraway. And when my child touches me he doesn’t rob me of my thoughts as others do. But later, when I give him milk with these fragile, beautiful breasts, my child will grow from my force and crush me with his life. He will distance himself from me and I will be the useless old mother. I won’t feel cheated. But defeated merely and I will say: I don’t know a thing, I am able to give birth to a child and I don’t know a thing. God will receive my humility and will say: I was able to give birth to the universe and I don’t know a thing.”

— Clarice Lispector, Near to the Wild Heart

“I know that my phrases are crude, I write them with too much love, and that love makes up for their faults, but too much love is bad for the work.”

“I’m restless and harsh and despairing. Although I do have love inside me. I just don’t know how to use love. Sometimes it tears at my flesh.”

“But when winter comes I give and give and give. The excess of me starts to hurt and when I’m excessive I have to give of myself.”

— Clarice Lispector, Água Viva

“And that was what I felt when reading your book: that solitude.” “Imagine the solitude of the person who wrote it.”

— Clarice Lispector, from an interview

“suppose the body did this to us, made us afraid of love—”

— Louise Glück, “Crater Lake”

“When I put my hands on your body, on your flesh, I feel the history of that body. Not just the beginning of its forming in that distant lake, but all the way beyond its ending. I feel the warmth and texture and simultaneously I see the flesh unwrap from the layers of fat and disappear. I see the fat disappear from the muscle. I see the muscle disappearing from around the organs and detaching itself from the bones. I see the organs gradually fade into transparency, leaving a gleaming skeleton, gleaming like ivory that slowly resolves until it becomes dust. I am consumed in the sense of your weight, the way your flesh occupies momentary space, the fullness of it beneath my palms. I am amazed at how perfectly your body fits to the curves of my hands. If I could attach our blood vessels so we could become each other I would. If I could attach our blood vessels in order to anchor you to the earth, to this present time, I would. If I could open up your body and slip inside your skin and look out your eyes and forever have my lips fused with yours, I would. It makes me weep to feel the history of your flesh beneath my hands in a time of so much loss. It makes me weep to feel the movement of your flesh beneath my palms as you twist and turn over to one side to create a series of gestures, to reach up around my neck, to draw me nearer. All these memories will be lost in time like tears in the rain.”

— David Wojnarowicz, from The Half-Life

“A child weaned on poison considers harm a comfort.”

— Gillian Flynn, Sharp Objects

“and cain said, There’s an idea I can’t get out of my head, What’s that, said abraham, There must have been innocent people in sodom and in the other cities that were burned, If so, the lord would have kept the promise he made to make to save their lives, What about the children, said cain, surely the children were innocent, Oh my god, murmured abraham and his voice was like a groan, Yes, your god perhaps, but not theirs.”

— José Saramago, Cain

“I’d like to jet-ski / straight out of this life because right now I am / way attached to real things like for instance / people how they are all so tender how they / love to just go walk around and someof them are / wearing pink now and it hurts me and they / bathe their dogs”

— Heather Christle, “This Is Not The Body I Asked For”

“The idea of deserving love. And then watching love being given to people who did nothing to deserve it.”

— Anaïs Nin, from her journal

“And he cries and cries, cries for everything he has been, for everything he might have been, for every old hurt, for every old happiness, cries for the shame and joy of finally getting to be a child, with all of a child’s whims and wants and insecurities, for the privilege of behaving badly and being forgiven, for the luxury of tendernesses, of fondnesses, of being served a meal and being made to eat it, for the ability, at last, at last, of believing a parent’s reassurances, of believing that to someone he is special despite all his mistakes and hatefulness, because of all his mistakes and hatefulness.”

— Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life

“The veals are the children of cows, are calves. They are locked in boxes the size of themselves. A body-box, like a coffin, but alive, like a home. The children, the veal, they stand very still because tenderness depends of how little the world touches you. To stay tender, the weight of your life cannot lean on your bones.”

“Sometimes being offered tenderness feels like the very proof that you've been ruined.”

— Ocean Vuong, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous

“I know we’ve just met but I feel like maybe / you’d feed me and tuck me into your big bed / and only touch me as you covered me with the comforter.”

— Kim Addonizio, “Party”

“The body has no thoughts. The body soaks up love like a paper towel

and is still dry.”

— Kim Addonizio, ��Body And Soul”

“I don’t know how God can bear / seeing everything at once: the falling bodies, the monuments and burnings, / the lovers pacing the floors of how many locked hearts.”

— Kim Addonizio, “The Numbers”

“I keep wishing for you, keep shutting up my eyes and looking toward the sky, asking with all my might for you, and yet you do not come. I thought of you, until the world grew rounder than it sometimes is, and I broke several dishes.”

— Emily Dickinson, from a letter to Minnie Holland

“The unknowness of my needs frightens me. I do not know how huge they are, or how high they are, I only know that they are not being met.”

— Jeanette Winterson, Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit

“I used to be a hopeless romantic. I am still a hopeless romantic. I used to believe that love was the highest value. I still believe that love is the highest value. I don’t expect to be happy. I don’t imagine that I will find love, whatever that means, or that if I do find it, it will make me happy. I don’t think of love as the answer or the solution. I think of love as a force of nature - as strong as the sun, as necessary, as impersonal, as gigantic, as impossible, as scorching as it is warming, as drought-making as it is life-giving. And when it burns out, the planet dies.”

“As for myself, I am splintered by great waves. I am coloured glass from a church window long since shattered. I find pieces of myself everywhere, and I cut myself handling them.”

— Jeanette Winterson, Lighthousekeeping

“I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED GENOCIDE TO STOP I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED AFFIRMATIVE ACTION AND REACTION I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED MUSIC OUT THE WINDOWS I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED NOBODY THIRST AND NOBODY NOBODY COLD I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED I WANTED JUSTICE UNDER MY NOSE”

— June Jordan, “Intifada Incantation: Poem 38 for b.b.L.”

“Maybe when I wake up in the middle of the night I should go downstairs dump the refrigerator contents on the floor and stand there in the middle of the spilled milk and the wasted butter spread beneath my dirty feet writing poems writing poems maybe I just need to love myself myself and anyway I’m working on it”

— June Jordan, “Free Flight”

“It’s not that I gave away my keys. / The problem is nobody wants to steal me or my / house.”

— June Jordan, “Onesided Dialog”

“What reconciles me to my own death more than anything else is the image of a place: a place where your bones and mine are buried, thrown, uncovered, together. They are strewn there pell-mell. One of your ribs leans against my skull. A metacarpal of my left hand lies inside your pelvis. (Against my broken ribs your breast like a flower.) The hundred bones of our feet are scattered like gravel. It is strange that this image of our proximity, concerning as it does mere phosphate of calcium, should bestow a sense of peace. Yet it does. With you I can imagine a place where to be phosphate of calcium is enough.”

— John Berger, And Our Faces, My Heart, Brief As Photos

“I wept and wept. I had come to believe that if I really wanted something badly enough, the very act of my wanting it was an assurance that I would not get it.”

— Audre Lorde, from “Zami: A New Spelling of my Name”

“You kiss the back of my legs and I want to cry. / Only the sun has come this close, only the sun.”

— Shauna Barbosa, “GPS”

“It has to be perfect. It has to be irreproachable in every way. (...) To make up for it. To make up for the fact that it’s me.”

— Suzanne Rivecca

“I hope it’s love. I’m trying really hard to make it love. I said no more severity. I said it severely and slept through all my appointments. I clawed my way into the light but the light is just as scary. I’d rather quit. I’d rather be sad.”

— Richard Siken, Self-Portrait Against Red Wallpaper

“We have not touched the stars, nor are we forgiven, which brings us back to the hero's shoulders and the gentleness that comes, not from the absence of violence, but despite the abundance of it.”

— Richard Siken, “Snow And Dirty Rain”

“Love, for you, / is larger than the usual romantic love. It's like a religion. It's / terrifying. No one / will ever want to sleep with you.”

— Richard Siken, “Litany In Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out”

“The hardest thing still remains. It remains the hardest, to bear all the tenderness and only to gaze on.”

— Ilse Achinger, “Mirrorstory”

“i killed a plant once because i gave it too much water. lord, i worry that love is violence.”

— José Olivarez, “Getting Ready to Say I Love You to My Dad, It Rains”

“Mother says there are locked rooms inside all women; kitchen of lust, bedroom of grief, bathroom of apathy. Sometimes the men - they come with keys, and sometimes, the men - they come with hammers.”

— Warsan Shire, “The House”

“I’ll take care of you. / It’s rotten work. / Not to me. Not if it’s you.”

— Euripides, Orestes, tr. Anne Carson

“We have this deep sadness between us and it spells so habitual I can’t tell it from love.”

— Anne Carson, The Beauty of the Husband

“There is no question I am someone starving. There is no question I am making this journey to find out what that appetite is.”

— Anne Carson, Plainwater: Essays

“I wish I could peel all my sadness in one long strip off my skin & toss it in a bucket. No one would have to carry it. It would just sit there & be punished. It would just sit there & think about everything it’s done.”

— Chen Chen, “Elegy For My Sadness”

“There is too much or not enough room in my stomach for everything we will do to each other.“

— Adriana Cloud, “Bento Body”

[imagining-in-the-margins]

WIP Challenge Snippets!

Big thank you to everyone who requested something. I love hearing what ideas you all are excited for! I'll put each of the snippets below in alphabetical order. All but one are just dialogue - I'm currently at a point where that's all I have done for most of my WIPs.

Somewhat unsurprisingly, only smut fics were requested, so minors please DNI!

Hope you enjoy!

Centerfold*

I'm still unsure if this will be a mini-series or a oneshot. I have no freaking clue. Here's a snippet of dialogue, though! Starts with Derek.

“Alright kid, spill the beans.” “Did you know that phrase could stem from numerous possible practices? It could just be a reference to vomiting, but there’s an alternate explanation involving an ancient voting practice of dropping colored beans into a jar and—“ “Not gonna work on me, Reid.” “Fine.” (whispers) “That girl in that magazine? The ‘Vegas Vixen?’ I lost my virginity to her.” “You’re messing with me.” “No! I’m not! I swear that I am not messing with you.” “There’s no way.” “Would I make that up?!” “To mess with me? Yeah, maybe.”

Coquette*

This is a long work that has been heavily inquired about and a very long time coming, so here is a long snippet of dialogue to continue the trend. Starts with Spencer.

“Don’t sound so scared. I’m not going to tell anyone.” “I-I know.” “Do you?” “No. I just hoped not…” “What were you planning if I said I was going to?” “Where are we going? I never told you my address.” “I need to drive around in case someone is following us.” “Oh. That makes sense.” “Answer my question.” “I… hadn’t considered it.” “That’s a lie.” “Fine. I would make a deal with you.” “Tell me the deal. Maybe I’ve changed my mind.” “I won’t tell everyone how hard you got for me when I danced on your lap if you don’t tell them I’m a stripper.” “A tempting offer, although I’m not very ashamed of being turned on by a woman who’s made a career out of being tantalizing, Coquette.” “What’s your idea of a good deal, then?” “Hmmm… My silence in exchange for whatever you were willing to offer me before you found out who I was.” “What are you implying?” “I know a lot about that club… And that it was your first night in the backroom. But your nerves tell me you knew what you were there for.” “Are you seriously propositioning me right now? Through blackmail?” “You asked me what a good deal was, not what I would ask for.” “So what would you ask for?” “Your address. So I can take you home.”

H2M Epilogue*

This whole part makes me want to melt, but here is a funny dialogue snippet.

Derek: “Alright, I know you love to break rules, but Penelope made me doorman for a reason.” Reader: “You really want to pick a fight with me? On my wedding day? I know you know me, Derek Morgan. I know you know better than to stand between me and my husband.” Derek: “He’s not your husband yet, Princess.” Spencer: “Actually, we had a courthouse ceremony a few weeks ago, just in case something happened and we had to miss this ceremony.” (Reader tackles him as he walks up to the door) Derek: “Hopeless. And selfish. Penelope is going to kill me, you know.”

Lane Courtesy* (Franklin)

This fic is purely for my beta @sunlight-moonrise, but y'all can read it if you want. Starts with Franklin.

“Maybe it’d be easier if you bought clothes that fit.” “I think I look pretty good in what I’m wearing. And I think you think so, too. Besides... it’s all in the wrist, anyway. You wanna see?” (She grabs his ball, he grabs her arm) “Don’t worry, babe. I’m good at handling men’s balls.” “Oh, I bet you are.” “Plus, I promise I’ll give them back to you after.”

Practice Makes Perfect* (backburner)

This is a very old original idea I had. I'm not sure if/when I'll ever get around to it - if anyone wants it, I'd love to hand over the dialogue I have so far. Here is a snippet regardless! Starts with Spencer.

“Hey (y/n), what—" “Spencer! Can I come in?” “C-come in? Into my room?” “Uh... yeah.” “But you... you’re... you’re dressed like a...” “A stripper, yeah. Are you going to make me stand out here like this longer?” (He lets her in) “Is there something I can do?” “Can I dance on you?” “What?” “I want to give you a lap dance. Please.” “A lap— why?" “Who else am I going to ask? Hotch? Please, Spencer. You’re the only person I trust.” “Trust?” “Please stop rephrasing everything I say as a question.”

Shortbread (Chip)

Love me some Sub!Chip. This is honestly probably on the backburner. I've been in a very Spencer mood lately. Starts with Chip.

“Can I ask you something?” “What’s up, sweetheart?” “Why are you so nice to me all the time?” “What do you mean?” “You don’t really know me. But ever since I met you, you’ve always just been nice to me. I mean, I know you’re nice to everyone, but it feels…” “Different? It should.”

Seatbelt Safety* (Chip)

Gosh, this fic is so short, I really need to just write it. Uber Driver Chip. Starts with Reader.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Sorry. I kind of needed to act a bit crazy.” “Why?” “I was trying to get out a super awkward date.” “By running into the street?” “Trust me. It was a bad date.” “Oh. Well, I’m sorry you had a bad date.” “It’s fine. You know how it goes.” “Not really. Haven’t had a date in a long time.” “Why is that?” “Idunno.” “Hm.” “What?” “You wanna go on a date with me?” “What?” “Let’s go on a date.” “... What?” “Most people say yes or no. ‘What’ isn’t very helpful. Is this why you can’t get a date?” “I can get a date! I just... haven’t been asked by anyone in awhile. And definitely not like that. That was weird.”

Study Session* (requested three times!):

I have a lot of this done already, so you get an actual sneak peek here!

“Listen closely, young lady,” he said like I had any other option. Like I wasn’t enraptured and enchanted by the feel of his warm breath once again hitting my ear. He could feel the way breath stuttered and my body stumbled straight into him with eager hands. I could almost feel his smirk against my ear when he concluded, “I would never... ever sleep with you.” And just like that, he was gone. He didn’t just drop me; he tossed me to his side like the very notion of being that close to me disgusted him. The desire that had been burning inside of my chest quickly shifted to rage. He could pretend like he didn’t want me, but there was no other justification for bringing me out to the back in the first place. There was no reason to allow me to confront him, nor for him to discuss my sex life in any manner at all. Seconds after we were both inside again, I grabbed hold of his arm and pulled him back to me. Surprisingly, there was very little resistance. It was almost like he was waiting for me to do it. I tugged him into the small, dimly lit bathroom without a care in the world for who might have seen us or what whispers might follow. Spencer was already laughing, apparently amused by anger rolling off of me. “Say it again,” I ordered through heavy breaths, “Say it to my face.” I’d prepared myself for a number of responses — most of which were varying levels of humiliating. What I hadn’t prepared for, however, were the words that actually came out of his mouth. Casually, and without question, Spencer ordered, “Get on your knees.” He was so calm that I felt like it must have been a trick. It took everything in me not to fall to my knees, and instead I managed to ask, “Why?” His answer was equally unhelpful and alluring. “Because I said so.”

The Agent Assigned to My Webcam*

This is a beast of a fic, so it'll also be a while. There were so many parts I could show you, but I thought this one was the most thought provoking.

Reader: “Wait! Sorry, I-I... uh... Can I see your ring?” Spencer: “... Sure.” Reader: “Thanks. What did you say your name was?” Spencer: “I didn’t.” (He leaves, she follows him into the empty hallway) Reader: “Do I know you, Doctor Reid?” Spencer: “No.” Reader: “Are you sure?” Spencer: “I could ask you the same thing.” Reader: “Drop your pants and I’ll tell you exactly how sure I am.” Luke: (walks in) “Sorry. Am I... interrupting something?”

That's all for now, folks!

Thanks for reading. If you feel so inclined, let me know what you thought about any of the above here!

[theonlygamergost]

Girls and pigs night out - Fd!au

This fanfiction is based on the Family Dynamic au made by @antarctic-bay if you would like to know more, go check them out!!!

Also please bear in mind that the things written in this might not be canon!

This fic was corrected by the lovely @im-default

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

Niki has the house to herself this weekend, but her plans get cancelled last minute, so one of the Pandel brothers decides to become the back-up plan

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

Warning!: Swearing

Enjoy~

“What colour do you-��� “Pink”

Niki was asking Techno the colour he wanted her to paint his nails, but his reply cut her off before she could finish the sentence. She stared at him, blinking a few times.

“That was… quick” she grabbed the pink nail polish, “Ouu~ What if we do pink and black?” she excitedly showed him the two glass bottles next to each other, “Sure” he softly smiled at how happy the girl was.

Niki had the house all to herself this weekend, Eret had left for an update course regarding his job and Tubbo was sleeping over at the Pandel household, leaving her alone.

She had tried to invite someone over, but everyone she asked already had plans, making Niki quite sad.

What made her extremely sad was when Minx agreed to a girls' sleepover but had to cancel it last minute. Techno was with her when she received the text and the poor girl felt avoided.

”I know they don't mean it Techno” she sobbed, holding the tears in, ”But it looks like everyone is avoiding me” dropping the phone on the sofa, she held her head between her hands, her body shaking with each sob.

”There there…” he caressed her back. Techno wasn't one to comfort people, he was usually the one to make them cry, so being on the comforter side wasn't familiar to him.

But be understood the situation Niki was in; Wilbur and the musical friend group weren't available, she had asked classmates only to be rejected with a ”We have an exam to study for, we aren't all like you who gets good votes because we are pretty and sweet talk the professors” which was first of all very rude, and second of all, not true. Techno knew how much Niki studied, they sometimes even studied together. And for a third, she invited Minx, she agreed and then sent her a text saying she couldn't make it, even Techno would feel avoided at this point.

”I know it's not like that but-!” she started crying, Techno could only feel bad for his friend.

But then, a thought arrived.

”What if you still have the sleepover, but instead of being girls only, it's for girls and pigs?” she looked up at him in disbelief, a tear rolled down her face, ”Y-you would do it?” he shrugged, ”It's not like I had anything better to do at home anyway” she smiled and hugged him, catching him off guard, ”Thank you Technoblade” he smiled and hugged the girl back.

So that's how they got in this situation, listening to One Direction songs while Niki painted Techno’s nails, of course all topped by a glitter face mask and some good old gossip.

”Wait wait wait- so you're telling me she stole her friend's money only to gift it back to her, look nice, and hit on her boyfriend?!” Niki stifled a giggle as Techno repeated what she had just told him, ”Yep, Janet had a crush on Adam for a while now, and even if he is taken, with her best friend, she is still trying to hit on him” Techno adjusted the border of his face mask, ”What a bitch” Niki burst out laughing, she had never seen Techno gossip, and the funniest thing was that he knew a lot about his classmates, he just kept quiet about it since he had no one to gossip to.

”If I remember correctly, she also tried to hit on Will” he gave Niki his other hand, shaking the one with fresh polish on around to dry it faster, ”Let's be honest Techno, who hasn’t tried to hit on Will? Every girl in the school has fallen for his charm” they giggled at the fact that yes, that was true, but even if that was a thing, Wilbur was still single.

”Well not all of the girls, you didn't hit on Wilbur” Niki rolled her eyes, ”That’s… correct, but I did fall for his charms, just not in that way, I am his friend after all” Techno nodded, mumbling ”true true” to himself.

”And done! Oh my God Techno you look so good!” Niki closed the nail polishes and admired her work, ” You did an incredible job Niki, oh! oh! Can I paint yours?” Techno asked excitedly, already looking at the drawer with the polishes, ”If I did pink and black you have to get pink and white” she giggled at the sight of Techno in Eret’s borrowed t-shirt, it was too large for him and it made him look like a blob, ”Are you suggesting we get matching nail polish?” she fake-gasped, ”Heck yeah I am” he smiled as he sat back down next to her with the small glass bottles, his nails weren't even fully dry yet here he was, painting Niki’s nails.

After the nails dried out and they took off the face masks, Techno proposed a “Midnight snack” aka strawberry vanilla and chocolate ice cream (of course eaten directly from the box with a big spoon) while bingeing various Netflix series.

After a couple of hours, Niki looked at the boy lying next to her and noticed how soft his pink hair looked, so she reached out to touch it and gasped, slightly scaring Techno, “Oh my god your hair is so soft for being dyed! How do you do it?!” He smirked, “Conditioner and hair mask?” He replied like it was the most normal thing in the world, she gasped again, “You use a hair mask?” She looked at him in shock, his smirk got wider “Once a week”

They ended up talking about their hair care routine and what brands they used for dyed hairs shampoos, while the tv was just background noise, Niki started to gently make small braids in Techno’s hair, “I can’t believe I never noticed how soft and bright your hairs are! I need to try out your brand” Techno’s hair wasn’t that long, but long enough to make multiple braids, decorating his silk smooth hair.

“If you want to try out various brands, do not try the purple-bottle one, it slightly darkens the colour of your hair, especially if it’s a bright colour” Niki nodded making a mental note.

“I have tried a lot of brands before I found mine, but-” Techno’s phone started ringing, interrupting his sentence, Niki kept braiding his hair peacefully.

It was a video call from Phil, Techno was resting his head on a cushion on Niki’s lap so he extended his arms in front of him and answered:

“HELLO TECHNOBLADE, Hi Technomate~” The greet of his two brothers came in at once, the two distinct voices overlapped.

“Helloo~” He greeted back, Phil was sitting at the kitchen counter while Tommy was standing behind him.

“Where are you Techno? You didn’t tell us you were spending the night out” He apologised by moving the phone so Niki was in the shot behind him, “I’m staying at Niki’s tonight, I’m sorry I forgot to text you” Phil nodded and reassured him it was fine, meanwhile, Tommy noticed Niki who kept braiding Techno’s hair.

“Oh my- BWAHAHA!!!” he burst out laughing, “What are you laughing at Tommy?” Everyone got a bit confused, “Look at Techno’s hair!” to that, Phil awed, thinking it was very cute, Tommy laughed once more while Techno blushed.

“Y-your just jealous I look better than you!” He did something he rarely did, stutter in embarrassment, but Tommy got angry at the roast and didn’t realize it.

To get back at him he asked one of his cringy questions:

“Hey, Technoblade! Wh-what are you doing at a girl’s house all alone?!” Techno grinned and brought his phone closer to his mouth so he could whisper the reply, “Girls and pigs night out, bitch”

That phrase went into Wilbur’s quote book.

[keelywolfe]

FIC: Some Sense of Normalcy ch.3 (baon)

Summary: It’s Edge’s first day back to work at the Embassy, but his job isn’t the only thing on his mind.

Tags:  Spicyhoney, Kustard, Established Relationships, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Mentions of Past Injury

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 |

~~*~~

Part of the ‘by any other name’ series.

Read Chapter 3 on AO3

or

Read it here!

~~*~~

Stretch was only two steps out of the elevator and already he could taste his own sweat heavy on the back of his tongue. It was fine, no big deal, it was only a bunch of equipment, right? The harsh gleam of the overhead fluorescent lights on stainless steel shouldn’t be that damn upsetting, it shouldn’t.

Shoulda woulda coulda, and fuck it all, because it damn well was, and the bitch of it was that Stretch wasn’t even sure why.

He started to turn around. Not to get back into the elevator, no, he wasn’t peacing out. Only to breathe for a minute, use those hard-learned tactics for controlling an incipient panic attack that Doc Lee spent the past year trying to pound into his hard skull. She hadn’t said it in so many words, but Stretch got the idea that they’d all been thoroughly tested already on Sans.

Close his sockets, focus on breathing deeply through his mouth. In for four, hold it, out for four. He was supposed to be so damned good at math, he could manage that much.

What felt like a hard, rubbery fist clenched in his chest was starting to ease when he heard someone calling his name.

“Stretch!” He turned to see Alphys almost scurrying up and her smile was warm enough despite the trifle of worry in her eyes.

Yeah, okay, better to keep her worries on the right path. Stretch hung on a 100-watt smile and beamed it right her way, “hey, lizard lady, how’s it going? i didn’t even have a chance to ring the bell.”

She held up her phone. “I g-get an alert when certain k-keycards are used in the elevator. C-come on, come to my office.”

Going to her office sounded like a super plan.

Stretch followed after her as she led a path through the maze of metal tables and equipment, the other scientists in their long white coats. He knew the way to her office, but it was easier to focus on the long yellow tail poking out of the back of her lab coat, concentrate on keeping that breathing nice and even.

Alphys wasn’t always the most observant person out there when it came to social cues, but she sure as hell understood anxiety. She knew he wasn’t keen on the labs. Not from anything Stretch said, not fucking likely, but he was pretty sure Ass-gore had a top-secret file on him somewhere with a nice long list of his skills sets and another one of his phobias. He kinda thought the skill list was longer, not enough to bet on it. He hoped whatever pictures they stuck in it caught his good side, namely his ass.

The second Stretch was through the office door, Alphys closed it, shutting out all the bustling sounds and reflections, and the relief of it being out of sight, out of mind, made Stretch let out an explosive sigh.

Alphys gave him a nervous smile as she gathered a stack of folders out of the guest chair. “So-sorry about the mess.”

On her desk, bookshelves, and even the chairs were cluttered piles of papers and diagrams, surrounded her computer monitors like flimsy skyscrapers, the bright corners of manga books poking out from random levels, and empty coffee mugs standing around like statues.

There were toys, too, statues and plushies both, one that looked distinctly like smiling piece of poo, another of dragon, curled around one of the coffee mugs. On her desk was a figure from ‘Mew Mew Kissy Cutie’ and that gave Stretch a little pang to see.

Back home, (no not home, not for a long time now) it was ‘Bow Wow Smootchie Beauty’, the main character an anime girl with adorably floppy ears. For the first time in longer than Stretch could remember, a longing twinge for Undyne rose up in him. Not this world’s Undyne, his Undyne, and he hated phrasing it that way, but he couldn’t think of something better.

He and Undyne hadn’t been besties, but they’d still been friends. Close enough that he’d gone to her place a few times to hang out, watch anime, and chatter on about the episodes and what was the best kind of cup noodles. So many words tossed back and forth about nothing at all. So long as they stayed in her rooms and out of the lab proper, it didn’t bother him, and Undyne never brought up her work, even when it was kinda obvious she wanted to.

That wistful look started showing up more and more, and Stretch stopped going even before everything went to shit in Underswap. There was something for his regret bucket. That he hadn’t taken the time to keep up his end of the bargain, hadn’t invited her over to his place for some movie viewing and yeah, she hated Snowdin, but he hated Hotland, so it was a fair trade. What wasn’t fair was knowing that if he’d been in Underswap, he would’ve gone to Undyne about this problem, without ever letting her talk about her work. Watched her nervously rub her hands together, half her face obscured by her long hair, hiding behind that curtain.

Stretch blinked hard, tearing his gaze away from the little figure and focused back to Alphys’s concerned face. Underswap was a long time ago and he needed to keep the count his of personal issues to one hand, thanks.

“hey, so thanks for meeting with me,” Stretch said. He plunked down into the chair while Alphys sat at the one at her desk, specially designed to allow for her tail. He didn’t bother resisting the urge to reach for his lighter, letting the rhythm of weaving it through his fingers soothe him.

“No problem,” Alphys said, “we got off c-course with t-tracking your HP. Is it t-troubling you again?”

“let me get straight to the meat of it,” Stretch said, “i want you to run another scan on my hp, then you can tell me.”

She nodded. “Have you been h-having any symptoms?”

“i’ve been really tired lately, run down,” Stretch admitted, “i take a nap and i wake up still tired. i can fall asleep anywhere.”

Alphys hummed thoughtfully, “S-sounds like Undyne r-right now.” She gave him an unexpectedly teasing look, "Are you s-sure you aren't p-p-pregnant, too?"

"har, har, al." Stretch about sprained an eye light rolling them as hard as he could. “unless i grew some unexpected equipment, there won’t be any knocked up at my door.”

"Well, in theory, s-soul mating c-could result in the c-creation of a souling, there were experiments—"

"in theory, sure,” Stretch interrupted, unreasonably annoyed; he didn’t want to talk about experiments, thanks. “but that requires rubbing two souls together long enough to make a fire. since edge and i stick with rubbing pelvises, i'm going with not." Stretch shuddered; just the thought of it was nightmare fuel. "sorry, preggies is okay for people who want it, but i'd rather donate a femur to the cause.”

"I th-think I wouldn't have m-minded," Alphys said, shyly. "But Undyne has better HP than me, so we d-decided she should be the one to c-carry the baby.”

Even talking about this was making him a little uncomfortable, but Al had the look of someone who wanted to talk, maybe needed to. She was doing him the favor, here, the least he could do was listen. Probably Al didn’t get to talk about it much, since she wasn’t the one with the bump.

The memory of his Undyne made him push aside his discomfort. Stretch forced a chuckle and said, "heh, if that's the deciding vote, then if we were gonna baby it up, Edge would be the pregnant one."

"He would have very f-fashionable maternity clothes. He and Undyne c-could bond over prenatal yoga." Alphys looked at him curiously, rocking back in her office chair, “P-pardon me for asking, but are you t-two looking for a surrogate, then?”

“fuck, no!” Stretch blurted. Yeah, that might have been a little excessive, Alphys winced, cringing into herself. Stretch tied on his smile again, “sorry, sorry, that was rude.”

Alphys shook her head, and her words were gentle and nonjudgmental, “N-not at all, it’s a p-p-private decision, I shouldn’t have p-pressed.”

Probably not. He and Al weren't specifically close, as friends or anything else, so Stretch wasn't sure why his stupid mouth chose to add, "i really don’t want kids and edge…i mean. he says he’s fine with it.”

If Alphys was surprised to hear him toss out that conversational gambit, it didn’t show. She only leaned in, her eyes kind behind her glasses, “You d-don’t believe him?”

Wasn’t that the ten-dollar question? Stretch really wished he was sure about the answer. He wanted to believe Edge, maybe Edge even believed himself, tried to, anyway. Stretch looked down, away from Alphys’s gaze, and said in a small voice. “i don’t know.”

“Hm.” Alphys stood and waddled over to stand next to him. Even sitting, he had to look down at her as she settled a clawed hand on his shoulder, “I really want this baby,” she said, clearly, “But I th-think if Undyne d-didn’t want to have kids, I’d be okay w-with that.”

There was enough quiet sincerity in that to make him swallow hard against a knot settling in the back of his throat. “yeah?”

“Yeah,” Alphys smiled, a loving, brilliant smile meant for someone else, someone tall and brash, with a lot of red hair. Not his Undyne, but hers. “I f-fell in love with her, n-not her DNA,” Alphys said, firmly. “Although she does have very n-nice DNA. So maybe you should b-believe him.”

Stretch offered her a smile of his own, one that felt a little wobbly, but hey, it was there. Look at him, communicating back and forth like a grown up and all. Doc Lee would be so proud. “thanks al. congrats by the way. how are undyne and the bump?"

"Impatient," Alphys sighed deeply, and wasn't there chapters of meaning in that one word.

“know much about the sprog yet?” Stretch teased and it felt okay. “gonna be twins? tadpoles?”

She giggled and shook her head. “N-no, the ultrasound is showing one baby. She’s d-due anytime now, it can be d-difficult to gauge with mixed Monster species.”

The scientist in him was a little curious about that; he’d gone for physics over biology. He wondered who they’d gone with for the dad juice, but he wasn’t the kind of asshole who would ask.

“i do like kids,” Stretch admitted, “i just don’t want part ownership with one. bet edge would like to babysit.”

She hummed thoughtfully, “B-be careful with that offer, I’m s-sure we’ll take you up on it. Now, we’ve g-gotten off-topic.”

Stretch winced. “yeah, sorry, sorry, i know you’re busy.”

“Not so busy that I can’t h-help,” Alphys countered. She turned around to scrabble through the clutter on her desk, came back with a notepad and a pencil. The tip of the pencil hovered over the paper, ready to write, “Now, you’ve been t-tired. What are you getting when you run a Ch-check?”

Of course she’d ask that, it made sense, it was the very first thing to be done to see a Monster’s stats. Quick, painless, and loaded with info, and Stretch didn’t really have a good reason for not doing one already, past ‘don’t wanna’.

Time to face the tunes. “i haven’t run one,” Stretch admitted quietly, “i know, i know, i’m wasting your time--”

“Hm? No, I don’t think so,” Alphys scribbled something down on the notepad. “Anything else out of the o-ordinary?”

“i thought about it and the only thing i can think of is i’ve been doing a lot healing lately, more than usual.” He didn’t say why and Alphys didn’t ask. “a lot of shit’s been going down. honestly, i don’t even know if something is wrong, but if there is, i wanted to get a leg over on it, get checked over before anything worse crops up.”

“You’re t-tall enough to get a leg right up over my h-head,” Alphys said, and the gentle tease soothed. Right up until Alphys set aside the notepad and picked up a tablet with a pair of electrodes dangling from it. “Right then, l-let’s run some t-tests. Can you summon your soul?”

Fuck, he hated this part. Or maybe hated was too strong a word. It wasn’t that bad, really, Stretch was used to a certain clinical touch on his soul from time to time, he got sick too often not to be. Used to the feel of gloved hands holding it steady to slip in an IV needle, or to attach leads, or to take a minuscule sample to study under a microscope, checking for what kind of germ hooked its wagon to his personal shining star this time. He was pretty numb to the whole ordeal at this point.

If he were honest with himself, and hey, sometimes he was, it hadn’t felt quite so invasive until he’d let Edge go hands-on with it. No one else had ever cradled his soul in a gentle hand, gazed at the silvery light that poured out of it with adoration. Sure as hell no one else had ever seen it during sex, rubbed a careful, bare thumb across its smooth surface and dragged such toe-curling pleasure out of him he’d damn near fainted from it.

Yeah, it was hard to sit back down in the waiting room once you got a glimpse of paradise.

He summoned up his soul, and didn’t watch as Alphys went to work. She was professional and gentle, hooking up the leads with barely even a pinch. She tapped the tablet and almost instantly, her expression changed into something... complicated. Um. That didn’t seem good. “what?”

“Oh, it’s n-nothing, let me--”

“it’s not nothing, you look like someone gave you a pinch on the ass. what is it?”

“It’s n-nothing bad,” Alphys corrected. “L-let me finish first, hasty c-conclusions lead to bad r-results.”

True enough but that was easier to deal with when it came to his experiments on growing better yielding plants through hydroponics, not so much when it was his soul on the line.

He waited impatiently while she poked at the tablet and managed to give her all of three minutes before bursting out, “okay, so what’s going on?”

“See for y-yourself.”

She held out the table and on it was a screen was a visual display of all his stats, from his soul pulse (running too fast) to his defense (sitting at its normal too-low), to his HP, displayed down to the tiniest decimal.

His HP, which had been slowly ticking upward for the past few weeks, was still doing it. Only now it was above five, closer to 5.3453367883. The last three crawled upward as he stared, turning to a unaccusing four.

“it’s going up,” Stretch said blankly. Way to state the obvious, there. His mind wasn’t calculating anything past that, nothing beyond his initial shock. He’d been expecting bad news, braced to hear the worst, and this was the exact opposite. It was like a trash bag breaking open to reveal piñata candy inside.

“Y-yes!” Alphys said happily. She tapped a clawed finger on the tablet screen. “It’s s-still going at the same r-rate as before, only it’s traveled p-past your base HP!”

“but…why?” Pointless question, what did it matter so long as it was going up, but Stretch didn’t like mysteries, not on television and not in life. He liked answers.

“That’s harder to d-determine,” Alphys admitted. “You d-did say you’ve been getting more rest lately, but th-that usually causes a one-time boost, n-not a cumulative effect. You said you’ve been using your m-magic a lot m-more, yes?”

“yeah, more than i usually do around the house.”

“M-maybe you should keep that up.” She snatched up the notepad and started scribbling furiously, leaving Stretch to gingerly remove the leads himself and allow his soul fade back into his chest. “T-take more shortcuts, practice a few a-attacks. We aren’t meant to hoard our m-magic in our souls, we need to l-let it out, k-keep it from going stagnant.”

“i guess i could.” Shortcuts, anyway, Stretch wasn’t really keen on making any sort of attack, not even for the magic drain, thanks.

“I think you should t-t-try it,” Alphys said decisively, “For th-this week, work on using your m-magic more than usual, then come back and we’ll r-run another test. It’s worth investigating.” She paused. “Of course, there is a-another possibility.”

“what?”

Her smile was a little tremulous, “M-monster souls response well to h-happiness.”

Before Stretch could say anything to that, his phone rang, showing an incoming call from the main source of his current happiness.

Fuck, he’d told Edge to call on his lunch.

He held up a shushing finger to his mouth and Alphys nodded, even as he swiped to answer it, “babe! i was just thinking about you—”

“I hope they were kind thoughts and not nefarious plans.” Just the sound of his voice was soothing, the soft underlying humor wrapped around his concern, “How are you feeling?”

Too much enthusiasm was going to set off alarm bells, so Stretch settled for, “better, i think. more myself, anyway.”

“That’s wonderful to hear, love,” Edge said warmly. “Then if you’re feeling better, perhaps you’d like to come upstairs to my office and have lunch with me?

Welp, so much for secrets. He should have known better to even try at the Embassy. If the spy gear didn’t get you, the gossips sure did. “who tattled.”

“I’m afraid I can’t reveal my source.”

Yeah, about the only person that took out of the running was Andy, and only because he’d promised not to tell. “yeah, i’ll be up in a mo’.”

“Wait,” Came unexpectedly from Alphys. “C-could you ask Edge to c-come down here? For a few m-moments?”

“um, sure, al,” Stretch said slowly and all his relief about his HP started to curdle until she hastily spoke up again.

“It’s n-not about you. O-or it is, but n-not in that way, it’s n-nothing bad, only an experiment I’m doing. I c-could use both your help.”

That didn’t sound at all ominous or anything, did it. But he owed a favor and Stretch did like to pay off his tabs. Eventually.

“babe, can you come down to the labs, to alphys’s office?” Stretch said into the phone. “she says it’s nothing bad.”

“Of course,” Edge replied, surprised, “I’ll be down in ten minutes.” The call disconnected and left him alone again with Alphys for ten long minutes, ten minutes that he didn’t really want to discuss experiments in until Edge was here. He could give Alphys that much, more than he’d ever given his Undyne.

But only when Edge was here, that was the thing and it was okay; Edge might be the one with all the strategy, but Stretch had a trick or two up his sleeve, too.

“did you see the last mew mew kissy cutie holiday special?”

Alphys brightened visibly and took the bait, babbling her way excitedly into his trap. Stretch settled back into his chair to listen, for at least ten minutes, but his wandering thoughts were more on his HP and that slow upward tick.

~~*~~

tbc

[dokidokivisual]

Gochiusa BLOOM episode 3 impressions

Previously: episode 2, episode 1 (seriously, the number of notes on ep 2 review is too low...)

Welcome to another review of Gochuumon wa usagi desu ka? BLOOM. In this episode, the series explores a topic it rarely touched previously, which is school life. Unlike many similar slice-of-life series, Gochiusa rarely concerned itself with such a mundane setting, preferring the ambience of cafés and cobblestone streets. There were a few exceptions, such as the first half of season 2 episode 10, but this is the first episode fully dedicated to a school setting.

Another distinguishing trait of Gochiusa is that the group of main characters attends not one, but several different schools. In particular, there are two high schools: a “normal” one attended by Cocoa and Chiya, and an “elite” one attended by Sharo and Rize. Moreover, there’s a group of middle school characters on the verge of graduating. As such, the question of which high school will Chino, Maya and Megu eventually choose was bound to come to the forefront at some point. And that’s exactly what happens in this episode.

There’s a lot of interesting stuff to discuss, so let’s get down to business...

The episode opens with a shot of Aoyama Blue Mountain on a boat, which also appears in the beginning of season 1 episode 1. By the way before COVID you could totally ride a boat like this in Colmar. Just watch your head...

Yeah, this is under the bridge from season 2 ED. Filmed by me.

Anyway, I’m being sidetracked. What’s important is that this is the only shot where you could tell it’s morning, because of the angle of the shadow from the bridge. It is indeed morning, and we see Cocoa and Chino walking down to school. Seems the summer vacation is over and it’s already September? Cocoa, the self-described pikka-pika no onee-chan, tries to coerce Chino into committing to enter the same high school as her, while Chino is not sure about that. We’ve seen Chino being unsure about her future as recently as this season’s episode 1, and in regards to the high school choice the time for a decision is quickly approaching.

Soon we see Maya and Megu who are facing the same decision. Megu seems to have already decided on what Maya derisively calls the gokigenyo school. The greeting gokigenyo (ご機嫌よう) comes from the word “kigen” (機嫌) which means “mood”, and can be literally translated as “how do you do”. However the same word is also used as farewell, which often causes troubles for translators.

The concept of “gokigenyo school“ has been popularised by the light novel and anime series Maria watches over us (Marimite), which is also one of the most influential works of the yuri genre. This concept has also been parodied a number of times, for example in the excellent episode 5 of Flip Flappers.

Megu manages to convince Maya and Chino to come with her to a tour of this school, and we get a close-up of Maya hinting that she’s definitely hiding something.

Meanwhile at Cocoa’s school, the class president declares the theme of the cultural festival being “cafe”, and puts Chiya and Cocoa in charge of it, because they work at a cafe. It seems that Chiya is considered to be more dependable than Cocoa by her classmates, since she got a higher rank. Nevertheless, it is Cocoa who mostly delivers the speech to fire up the other students.

Note the usage of Chinese tally marks to tally the votes. The five strokes comprising the character 正 (”truth”) equate 5 votes. This method is popular across East Asia, even in Korea where Chinese characters are no longer used.

Also I’ve seen a lot of people were confused by the inclusion of “sex museum” as one of the proposals, which is how 秘宝館 (hihokan) has been translated by the official subtitles. This word, which literally means “the hall of hidden treasures” has been used by various establishments of this type in post-war Japan, however only few of them remain open now. I think “sex museum” is a bad translation because, while technically correct, it breaks mimesis, or in simpler terms, immersion. The English translation is so blatantly inappropriate that it would never make it onto this blackboard, whereas the Japanese word is obscure and innocent-looking enough that it just might. A better translation would be “adult museum”, in fact that’s what the most well-known hihokan, Atami Hihokan uses for its English title.

As proof of each other’s ability, Cocoa mentions Chiya’s triple tray wielding skill (お盆三刀流 obon santoryu) which has been demonstrated in season 2 episode 1. Chiya brings up Cocoa’s “basking in the sun” (日向ぼっこ hinatabokko) attitude which supposedly makes her popular among customers. This is a reference to season 2 episode 5 where Rize says Cocoa always either practices latte art or basks in the sun.

On the way back from school, we learn that Chiya is actually scared of the responsibilities placed on her, and her dream of becoming the president of Ama Usa An franchise (which has been mentioned in s2e1, s2e9 and maybe other episodes I forgot) might be ruined because of this. Cocoa consoles her, again showing her motherly side.

Back at Rabbit House, Cocoa explains how the upcoming festival will be exciting (wakuwaku) and fluffy/cuddly (mofumofu). This is one of several times Cocoa uses silly onomatopoeia to describe something in this episode (aforementioned pikkapika onee-chan and describing her school also as mofumofu in a latter scene). Interestingly, all of these lines are anime-original, and at this point seems like an intentional effort to make Cocoa speak in a more eccentric manner.

In the next scene Sharo becomes angry at Chiya for keeping secrets from her, and blows her cheeks, which makes her turn into a Fugu fish, according to Chiya. Fugu is famous in Japanese cuisine for being a highly poisonous but sought after delicacy, however in this case the comparison has to do with the tendency of a live fugu (as well as other pufferfish) to inflate its stomach, giving it an almost spherical appearance to deter predators.

Next there’s another anime-original CocoChino scene where Chino asks Cocoa about what her school is like. This is my favorite part of the episode because it’s just so adorable. Like, even the fact that Cocoa is drying Chino’s hair with a towel after bath shows how close they became. The direction and the delivery of the dialogue is masterfully executed. Cocoa would be really hurt if Chino chooses any other school, and Chino knows that. But Chino can’t admit she’ll choose her next school because of Cocoa, at least not yet.

Now we move on to the main plot of the episode, which is Chimame visiting Rize and Sharo’s school. Like I said in the preview, this episode covers chapters 10 and 11 of the volume 5 of the manga, which in-universe occur at the same time. However while it fully covers (and has the same title as) chapter 10, only the first half of chapter 11 is included. So about 2/3 of the episode are dedicated to the story of chapter 10.

Chimame attend a speech by “OG” Mate Rin. OG in this case doesn’t mean “original gangsta”, but “old girl”, which is a Japanese term for female alumni of some school (there’s also OB for men). Chino recognizes Rin as the editor of Aoyama Blue Mountain, and I’m not sure if Maya and Megu ever met her, so they don’t. When Rin recalls a senior who turned her life around, Chino recalls her chance meeting with Cocoa. In particular the phrase deai ga taisetsu (”chance meetings are to be cherished”) sticks with her. On the other hand, Maya seems to be interested in the fact that Rin was recommended for scholarship. Interestingly in the manga, Maya slept through most of the speech. 

The senior Rin was talking about was obviously Aoyama and we see that there’s actually a huge bounty placed on her. The currency sign consisting of combined letters G and U wasn’t seen before, with prices usually displayed in yen, but there was a Euro-like sign at an open market at the beginning of season 2 episode 1, which might be a shorthand way to write GU. Either way this currency must have a serious hyperinflation problem as the reward for finding Aoyama exceeds 10 billion GU. In countries affected by hyperinflation, a stable foreign currency is often used to perform economic transactions, which might explain why most of the prices are in yen.

But is there some significance to this exact number? Why, yes, 10/27 is Aoyama’s birthday! It is also the start of “reading week”, which actually lasts 2 weeks, until November 9.

After the speech Megu gets separated from the rest of the group, and the other two also get lost in the vast campus of the school. As seen from the above interior shot of the school, it is also inexplicably rabbit-themed (or maybe just this particular hall is), with golden rabbit statues and also a picture on the left wall with the kanji for rabbit (兎).

Through a series of misunderstandings Chimame end up infiltrating the school with Sharo and Rize providing uniforms for them to blend in. Despite having trouble to behave “ladylike” before, Maya naturally blends in once she treats it as a game, and even gets invited to a tea party. She makes a mistake though by mentioning moyashi (bean sprouts) which is considered a cheap and low-class food, but she’s saved by the fact that the rich girls don’t even know what that is, and Sharo explaining how to prepare it in a fancy way.

Eventually the groups meet each other and Maya reveals she has been recommended for scholarship due to her good grades. Perhaps she also treated her school grades as experience points to gain, as the title of the episode (and the manga chapter) ”The whole world is my experience points” seems to suggest. This is the idea behind a real concept of gamification, by the way.

There’s also a callback to the season 2 episode 8, where Maya asks Rize for advice while Chino and Megu are spying on her. It is worth to rewatch that scene, because it’s full of foreshadowing for this episode. Back then Maya thinks she’s the only one of the three to go to this school, but now she thinks there’s a good chance all three will still go to the same school. Chino doesn’t seem to feel this way though.

In the end we see Cocoa and Chiya joining the group, also wearing the elite school uniforms, which is briefly explained by them gathering supplies for the cultural festival. I guess the next episode will explain how they ended up there. In the manga even the fact that they have a cultural festival wasn’t revealed until this point. Also in the manga fukiya club president, Karede Yura, inexplicably appears for just one panel so that Cocoa and Chiya could thank her, without any lines. In the anime she appears just as (if not more) suddenly, however there’s some foreshadowing with her inviting Rize to a tournament earlier, and she gets quite a few speaking lines.

If you listen closely there’s a funny sound effect as she looks at Rize, and then at Sharo. I really liked her design since her first appearance in the manga, and Koi probably does too, as her role has greatly increased in the recent chapters. Consequently her single-panel background appearance has been expanded as well in this episode, she got her full name mentioned in the credits, and there’s even a Karede Yura character song included on the second BD volume (which includes this season’s episodes 3 and 4). All things considered, I fully expect Yura to appear in the episode 4 as well.

The episode ends with Chino looking at the sky with a worried expression. It just hit her that both Megu and Maya are going to a different school than she is expected to go to. As Megu and Maya have a clear path forward, Chino’s future has become even more uncertain, and she feels like the odd one out in the group. Now the part of the ending where Chino is suddenly alone makes sense:

this is basically her imagining the future where Maya and Megu leave her. The coffee cup transition symbolises Chino waking up and seeing that MaMe are still her friends and aren’t going anywhere. We’ll see though...

This time it’s Megu doing latte art in the ending, and the picture is of Chino and Maya dancing. The weird thing is, Megu wasn’t even present at this scene, so how did she draw it in such detail?

Also another random fact I noticed: Chino’s Alice costume actually appeared in the opening of both season 1 and season 2. Here’s a comparison for reference:

Anyway, that was the third episode of Gochuumon wa usagi desu ka? BLOOM and I hope you enjoyed reading my review. See you next week... or so.

[thehivemindwrites]

A  Series of Disconnected Thoughts, Cast into the Void in No Particular Order

1. I’ve been finding myself thinking more and more about Kill Six Billion Demons recently. Not just because it’s absolutely gorgeous artwork and Moebius-meets-prog-metal stylings are extremely my shit (KSBD is responsible for adding Gojira to my rotation of workout music, and that alone has me in its debt), but because I can really appreciate a main character who is a walking disaster coming to some kind of enlightenment through a combination of getting her ass handed to her repeatedly, making questionable decisions, and basically just deciding to struggle forwards because I don’t know, what the fuck else is there to do? It’s hardly original (see: basically any shounen about The Power of Friendship and Not Giving Up) but damn if the presentation of it in this particular case isn’t particularly delightful. Plus it gave us the image of a giant hulking demon wearing a jacket that says KILL BOSS and that’s rad.The creator of KSBD is also co-creator, as it happens, of the newly released Lancer TTRPG, which I backed on Kickstarter and will, one day, get a rad fucking hardcover copy of (but for now I’m reading through the pdf and swearing oaths that one day I will play it). Anyway, as someone who also got where he is through a series of questionable decisions and getting his ass handed to him by life in general (oh, and an enormous amount of luck), I can relate. Plus the phrase “Reach heaven through violence,” while kind of terrible on the surface, feels good to shout at yourself while you’re off for a run. 

2. Part of this whole exercise thing - a side-effect of it, if you wanna call it that - is that generally I feel better about myself like in general. I’ve mentioned that before. What it doesn’t do, of course, is magically mean that I’m now 100% good and not still dogged by a persistent sense of self-loathing that I’ve just had to accept will never really go away. Like for example: I’ve lost 35 kg since starting this whole gym thing, except you might remember the goal was 40. I still haven’t hit that goal, and frankly I’ve spent the last like three months bouncing around the same like, 3 kg zone because I’ve been traveling a lot and that basically fucks up my workout and eating routine. It’s frustrating, and it sure does let the part of me that knows deep down that I’m a fat fucker and always will be no matter what I do run wild from time to time. Which is, I’m coming to understand, just gonna always be there. This stuff doesn’t go away! Ever! 

Which doesn’t mean it’s right, even a little. You tune it out and throw yourself into battle with it over and over again. You get bloodied and broken and claw back and then you get bloodied and broken some more. Insert that gif from Princess Bride of Westly saying LIFE IS PAIN, HIGHNESS here. Thing is, there’s something about the struggle that’s nice. I am not sure how motivated I’d be to do anything if part of it wasn’t motivated by the desire to prove my dumb brain wrong about, uh, me. If I wasn’t fighting the various little demons that plague me every so often, I doubt I’d be so well-adjusted. I certainly wouldn’t be mentally healthy. None of this makes sense as I read it back, of course - it sounds like I’m saying “boy it’s nice to be miserable,” which isn’t true. Being miserable sucks shit! I don’t recommend it! But it is nice to see misery coming and punch it in the face (metaphorically speaking). Sometimes I think the thing that makes me go to the gym and work so hard (this sounds like I’m bragging, but I can assure you I’m not - “work so hard” means “not collapse and fall off the elliptical after five minutes because oh god I don’t want to be here”) is out of some desire for self-annihilation through pushing myself past my physical limits. Reach heaven through violence (see, I told you it sounded cool).

3. The world has gotten really fucking bad for a lot of people, and I don’t know that it will get better for them any time soon. In fact, given the latest talk from the ol’ UN Climate Change report, it’s gonna get even worse. I would very much prefer that were not the case! It’s motivation enough to get out and vote and shit, at least for me - and as someone who is, you know, ridiculously privileged, that’s the absolute least I can do. Which is why I try to do more, mostly involving donating money to causes that seem like they’re able to cause the sort of trouble that needs to be caused. Or just use expertise to protect the people I don’t know how to protect, because I’m a lot of things, and one of them happens to be smart enough to know that I don’t know shit. So I make sure people that do know shit have the money they need. Pretty straightforward, I think. 

The other thing I try to do, because giving money isn’t really something I think about much at all (I’m stupidly fucking fortunate to have a job that pays well, remember), is occasionally go out and actually be present at protests and the like - there are a lot of climate protests and they’re all a good time. Occasionally it’s worth overcoming one’s intense social anxiety to do so. Lord knows it’s significantly less of a risk for me to be out shouting at cops than most. 

4. She-Ra might be one of the best shows out there. There’s something nice about a show that both does and does not present a simple world. Yes, the Horde is bad. Like, objectively bad! They do a lot of looting and subjugating and are generally just deeply not chill people.On the other hand, the people who make up the Horde are still people, and I have a lot of time for a show that can manage to humanize its Big Bad Villain whilst still making it very clear they are  still, you know, not good. It’s messy, and complicated, and sad, because sometimes you have to fight people you used to be friends with! Sometimes you have to make the call that hey, we can’t be friends anymore, because I can’t support the things you’re doing anymore. I’ve made that call before - I bet everyone has, at some point (if you haven’t, I’m sure you’ll have to eventually). Fortunately for me, it’s never been that difficult of a choice, if only because the people I had to go against weren’t people I’d known for very long. 

Anyway, that’s part of it - you gotta just cut people out sometimes. There’s more to it though, because the other thing the show believes is that everyone - even the real shitty people - can change. It doesn’t mean everything’s forgiven, and it doesn’t erase all the bad shit, but they can still change. It’s worth changing, even if it isn’t a cure-all. 

So yeah, I like She-Ra a lot. It’s also just well-written, and funny, and it’s a real good time to see a bunch of diverse characters running around having adventures and being fuckin’ rad. Plus, they’ve shown an incredible willingness to completely change the stakes from season to season - the end of season four in particular is  the equivalent of detonating all the things you thought were important. It pulls a bait and switch so ruthless that I might have applauded if I wasn’t so self-conscious about making noise that my neighbors might hear. The combination of season 3 and 4 was a masterclass on raising the stakes and then explaining that actually, you were playing for stakes even higher than you could’ve thought possible. Oh, and the people you thought you could trust were just using you, and hey, what if we got rid of the thing that you’ve more or less defined yourself by for the entire show? Good luck in season five, motherfucker! I’m a fan, is what I’m saying.

6. Work on Vanquisher 2103 continues apace. I mentioned this before, but we’re doing a once-a-month schedule while the holidays and work beat my ass into the ground, and as it turns out I really enjoy taking a full month to write a chapter. It’s a comically slow pace, but it’s working for me and hopefully the fact that the chapters have tended to be a little longer (and allowed me to expand on ideas a little more, and do a little more research here and there) makes it worth the longer wait. I’d like this thing to be good! There’s a part of my brain, again, that will always insist that nobody reads this and it’s bad and I’m fucking up, constantly - that point, at least, is probably accurate. I am writing characters who in theory have life experiences that are very much Not Mine, which involves a lot of reading things from people who would know better than I do. It’s nerve-wracking, and the only thing I am bone-deep certain of is that I’ll fuck up and hopefully y’all will forgive me for fucking up when that happens. I’ll keep reading and refining and eventually maybe it’ll be okay. Hopefully, anyway.

7. I went to Ireland and guys, Ireland is bullshit. I am offended by its gorgeous cliff-sides and open grasslands and heart-rending beauty. The immense friendliness of the people I met and the fact that you can’t sit in a pub without hearing some dude play a jaunty reel on a tin whistle or accordion or something is a personal insult. I was Arthur Dent angrily demanding to know why this bloody fish is so good the whole time.

I cultivated an immense drinking habit while there. I was also approached by a random German tourist who somehow clocked that I could speak German and we shouted about socialism for an hour auf Deutsch. I met some woman from Louisiana and we ended up having drinks a couple nights in a row to talk about traveling in general and Germany in particular, because her ex-husband is German. There were some Swedish retirees who were both very pleased by their country’s social safety net and also depressingly sour about the fact that refugees got cheap dental care - we might have had some harsh words exchanged before more drinks helped smooth over our frank discussion of differing viewpoints. I had to explain American health care to some people from the UK who were surprisingly gung-ho about the idea of privatized medicine until they talked to me (one of them talked about how the UK used to be an Empire and could be again in such a way that made me want to throw things. We did not talk for very long because I couldn’t fuckin’ handle it). These were strangers that I willingly engaged, because I was having an adventure, and I guarantee none of this would have happened if I hadn’t been going to the gym and committed to the idea of proving the voice in my head that tells me I’m an awkward mess that nobody would ever want to talk to in their life wrong (also, let’s be honest, if I hadn’t had several pints of cider at the time). 

By the end of the trip if I heard one more pub singer’s version of Whisky in the Jar though, that I was gonna produce my pistol and fucking shoot myself in the head.

Go to Ireland if you can. If you live there, fuck you how dare you live somewhere that rad.

8. I didn’t have an eighth thing but I’m committed to this “each thing is numbered” bit which means that even the end of this thing has to follow the trope. This is the end of the post where I say “okay bye I’ll be back the next time I get the urge to throw a bunch of highly unpolished ideas out.” 

[apparitionism]

Helicobacter 16

Every single time: In everything I write that suggests these two would get hitched, the JK-played character does the “marry me” asking. Every. Single. Time. I don’t know why this makes such sense to me... I should probably think about flipping that script at some point, in some future narrative, so watch this space, I guess. (I’m sticking with you for now, Tumblr, despite your repeated attempts to drive me away.) Anyway, previously on Helicobacter (in the fifteen! parts that came before this one, which are all available to you on this very judgy social-media platform), we learned that Myka had made a significant miscalculation, Helena can think surprisingly well on her feet, and raccoons are likely to get chatty about Pop-Tarts. Of course the only sensical thing Myka could do then was propose.

Helicobacter 16

Helena managed a weak laugh. She said, “Do you and I really need to enter into yet another faux engagement?”

“No,” said Myka.

“Then—” Wait.

Myka nodded. “Now you’re getting it. And speaking of getting it: who’s got it?” She swung her free hand around, in a gesture that seemed to encompass everyone in the room.

“It? What is it? Who has what?” Helena asked.

“The ring. I know it’s in this room.”

“What?” Helena felt she was losing her purchase on the idea that words were meant to make sense. “You know a ring is in this room?”

Myka was solemn again: “I do.”

“Did you use that phrase intentionally?” Varsha asked. “If so, it’s quite funny.”

“Not as funny as the story,” Abigail said.

“What story?” Helena demanded. “Why is there always a story?”

Rick answered the latter question: “Because life isn’t a series of random collisions of atoms.” So helpful.

“It might be,” Varsha told him.

“But we couldn’t perceive it that way, even if it were,” Steve told her in turn.

“I’m having trouble perceiving it in any way,” Helena lamented.

Myka, who hadn’t released Helena’s hand, pulled on it, drawing her attention back. “Let me help you perceive it my way. It’s pretty simple: I bought a ring for you ages ago, mostly as a sort of... gesture of hope. To say ‘there’s a future in which this will be possible.’ But then I showed it to Abigail, and she said it was too risky for me to have it in my possession, because I’d run into you at some point and feel like it was burning a hole in my pocket and just drop to the one knee, regardless of where and when.” She raised “didn’t you” eyebrows at Abigail, who nodded. Myka went on, “I said that was ridiculous, but then one day I saw you down a hallway at City Hall, and I realized I was in fact about to sprint in your direction and do exactly what she’d predicted, so I literally reversed course and went right to her and handed it over. And promised I wouldn’t ask you if I didn’t have it. Because even I need the occasional guardrail.”

Abigail snorted. “Occasional. Right.” To Helena, she said, “We should apply for a federal grant to fund the guardrails-against-Helena project. Anyway, I said I couldn’t hold it all the time, because then she’d know exactly where it was, which was almost as bad, given that I didn’t want to be rudely awakened in the middle of the night some night by some lovelorn lunatic who decided she just had to set phasers to nuptial. So I made her promise also not to ask you if she couldn’t pinpoint its location, and we set up a committee—at first just me and Steve, but after she read Rick in, we decided to draft him, too—to rotate possession. Myka doesn’t know the rotation or the schedule, which makes it hard for her to fight through the bureaucracy to get to it.”

“That’s a clever disincentive,” Jane remarked, causing Helena to note that she had not, in fact, exited the inside-joke snowglobe just yet.

Abigail said, “I modeled it on the demonstration-permit regs. They’re so well thought out.”

“I wrote those,” Jane told her, and when Abigail offered her a disingenuous “you don’t say,” Jane bowed her head. She might have been glowering, laughing, or praying... she offered no clarity with her next words: “My staff: the Machiavelli Players.”

Myka, seeming to resent that the spotlight kept shifting away from her, said, “Anyway, I almost did the asking on Saturday night, because it had to be in that room, too, given the committee. But I figured we were so close to getting the work thing fixed—and you’d probably be more inclined to say yes once we did—that I should wait.”

“I’m the one who’s got it now,” Rick said. “Sort of ironic. And I was supposed to hand it off to Steve today.”

Helena looked to Steve. “Behind my back,” she said, “this entire time?” and Steve had the grace to look at least a bit chagrined.

Myka said, “Not entire. It wasn’t until after I told my mom the truth that I really made up my mind.”

“But then you did?” Helena asked.

“But then I did. I’m serious. You’re looking at me like you don’t believe me, but I’m serious.”

“I’m looking at you like...” Helena tried to find words to say about what she was feeling, words that might possibly be correct. She fought through what she recognized as a Myka-esque pause, search... then surrender. “You’re right, like I don’t believe you. We’ve spent only two nights together!”

“Info that I for one didn’t need,” Rick said. “Or want.”

“This I can vote on,” Varsha agreed.

Steve said, hurriedly, “Passed by acclamation.”

Myka gave that attention-tug to Helena’s hand. “If we were fundamentalists, we’d’ve spent zero nights together.”

“We aren’t fundamentalists,” Helena said. Of that, she was reasonably certain, but what it had to do with anything...

Now Myka blinked at Helena: a slow, soft, indulgent blink. “My point is, depending on the circumstance, two is a lot.”

“World wars, for example,” Abigail offered.

“Isn’t that an argument against their spending more nights together?” Liam asked her.

“Emperors Napoleon?” Abigail tried.

“Nope, there were three of those,” Steve said, “but maybe also part of an argument against? The French probably thought the first one was one too many.”

“Waterloo,” Helena muttered, because she still had no purchase on the situation, but defeat seemed a relevant concept.

“That is a very good song,” Myka told her. “I refer you to the lyrics.”

“Mamma Mia movies!” Liam exclaimed.

“That just makes that ‘argument against’ point stronger,” Steve said, and as Liam protested that he liked them, that there should be lots more, Steve gave him a look that Helena decoded—perhaps based on the personal experience of having sent very similar aspects in Myka’s direction—as “your questionable judgment makes me question my own judgment in finding you so appealing.”

Jeannie said, “Here, I’ll try something in a different genre: one of Myka’s great-great-grandmothers was a mail-order bride. She hadn’t even met her intended before the wedding.”

“I didn’t know that. But they lived happily ever after?” Myka asked, with evident hope.

Jeannie shook her head. “Probably not. It was Colorado in the 1800s.”

Varsha clapped her hands lightly, her face a study in joy. “One or both highly likely to have died of cholera!” Her enthusiasm for that outcome was... unsurprising.

“That pile of ‘against’ points keeps getting bigger, guys,” Myka said, “so maybe leave this to me?”

“No, no, the epidemiological point is that you most likely won’t die of cholera,” Varsha said.

Myka smiled, then squinted. “That’s great, but... how is that an argument in favor of our spending more nights together? And/or living happily ever after?”

Varsha squinted back, saying, “It isn’t. It’s a necessary condition for either or both of those outcomes to occur. You’ll have to make your own argument.”

“I’m trying,” Myka said. “Give me the ring, Rick.”

Rick shook his head. “Can’t.”

“Of course you can. It’s mine. And it’s about to be hers, I hope.”

Abigail said, “We have to vote. The committee. It has to be unanimous. You read the bylaws.”

Myka closed her eyes. She breathed in slowly, then said, “You cannot be serious.”

“Isn’t that usually my line?” Helena asked—joking, but not entirely.

Myka’s grip on her hand tightened again. “I swear to god if you people don’t let me put a ring on it, I will water-gun fake blood on each and every one of you, and that will happen at a time you’ll find extremely inconvenient.”

“I move we hand it over,” Steve said.

“Seconded.” That was from Rick.

“I move we vote immediately on the motion,” Steve continued.

Rick again: “Seconded.”

“Aye,” Steve said.

“Aye,” Rick said.

Abigail said nothing.

“What are you waiting for?” Myka demanded.

“Clean clothes,” Abigail told her. “See, I’ve already been water-gunned. I kind of want to make you sweat.”

“Ill-advised,” Jeannie said.

“Why is everyone stealing my lines?” Helena complained.

Myka darted a glance at Helena, a glance of a quality suggesting that Helena’s repeated noting of line-stealing might have been either immensely alluring or extravagantly irritating—or possibly both—and said to Abigail, “I swear. To god. A ring on this, or.”

Abigail sighed. “Fine. Aye.”

“Now,” Myka told Rick.

Rick reached into his pocket, but in trying to extricate what was presumably the ring, he turned the fabric inside out. A loud clink resounded, as did an “oh jesus” from him and a giggle from Abigail, and then he had dropped to his knees and was scrabbling at the floor, and Helena genuinely expected that in a moment, all of them would be examining the linoleum in great detail, for Myka now wore the expression of someone likely to issue a strongly worded decree about what had better be found right now... but Rick quickly bounced up. “Here,” he said to Myka before he looked directly at her face. “Sorry,” he said, after he did.

She held the ring between the thumb and forefinger of her free hand and shook it at him. “You had a diamond ring loose in your trouser pocket? This diamond ring? You are a ding-dong.” Rick looked for a moment as if he might take the fool’s path and protest... but he kept his mouth closed. Myka said, “Good choice,” and she gave the ring, a simple band upon which sat a smallish yet dazzlingly clear stone, to Helena, placing it in the hand she was not holding. “There. Now do you believe me?” She paused. “And now will you say you’ll marry me?”

Helena looked down at what she held. Could a diamond be content to be affixed to a ring? Happy, even, to be there? Because this one’s shimmering clarity seemed not to bespeak mysterious depths, but rather to nestle it securely into its setting. The diamond knew its mind better than Helena knew her own... she cleared her throat. “I’ve never been proposed to before,” she said.

That made Myka not tighten her hold on Helena’s held hand, but gentle it. “That’s because it was always meant to be me.”

That had to be true. It had felt so right to be engaged to marry Myka, even as fiction... Helena said that aloud.

“Told you,” Myka said, but she was not smug. “See, you knew it even before I did.”

“I didn’t buy a ring and set up a committee.”

“That’s because I’m the planner.”

“What does that make me?” Helena asked, and she did not know what Myka’s answer would be. She didn’t know what she wanted Myka’s answer to be... other than right. But what was right? What was she in this improbable relationship?

“You mean,” Jeannie said, “what does it relegate you to.”

Myka smiled at her mother. Then she smiled at Helena. “Dreamer-in-chief,” she said with certainty. “You know, you should put that on your business card. Steve, don’t you think she’d get more work that way?”

“She’d get different work that way,” Steve said. “But isn’t the goal of all this to make sure she gets... similar work?”

With a small eyeroll, Myka said, “Fine. We’ll relegate it to the vows: ‘Do you promise to faithfully execute the office of dreamer-in-chief? To keep dreaming up the never-fountains?’”

Dreamer-in-chief. Perhaps anything Myka had said would have been the right answer, because perhaps it all was nothing more—or less?—than an inside-joke snowglobe. But why not stay in it? The fountain might not exist, but this could. Surely, after all they had been through, this could. Then there is... Helena cleared her throat again. “As noted,” she said, “I didn’t buy a ring.”

“Cheapskate-in-chief,” Myka said, and that was even more right.

“But will you marry me, too?” Helena asked. It was not what she ever would have planned to say today, but now she had said it. And she did not mean it as any push of problems into the future... no, it was a pull of problems. An invitation to them, in the present and in the future.

“Try and stop me, beautiful cheapskate. Just try.” Myka leaned back against her inadequate pillow, looking for all the world like a spoiled princeling, sure that the world—or at least Helena—was hers for the taking. She was of course right, and Helena leaned in and kissed her, savoring it, savoring all of it, even the obvious absurdity, even the likelihood of additional, or at least eventual, catastrophe... “I haven’t changed,” she still wanted to warn, but she still also remembered Myka’s “maybe you shouldn’t have to.” This is how it feels, Charles might as well have been whispering in her ear, as the right wrecking ball knocks you over.

When the kiss ended, Myka didn’t, to Helena’s surprise, return to smiling. Instead she blinked overwet eyes. The planes of her face were ruddy. “You really do believe it,” she said. Perhaps not so spoiled after all, the princeling...

“I do,” Helena assured her.

Varsha said, “That’s funny too! Even more so, because I don’t think you said it intentionally.”

“I have to confess I find it a little hard to follow what you think is funny,” Rick told her.

Helena echoed, “Hard to follow. I have to confess that I find the turn—turns?—my life has taken a bit hard to follow.”

Myka sighed. “If we’re owning up, then I have to confess that I find myself contemplating more often than is probably healthy how adorable this cheapskate looks in a hardhat.”

“What?” Helena said, startled. “How do you know that?”

“That’s the part that’s a little hard to follow, and I’ll tell you later, but I note that you aren’t disputing your adorableness.”

“I—”

“That better end with ‘love you.’”

“It does,” Helena said. “And you knew that before I did.” She had been holding the ring in the palm of her own free hand, where Myka had placed it. Now, to substantiate her words, she loosed her right hand from Myka’s and used it to place that unassuming band onto the appropriate finger, where it fit as if, yes, it had always been intended to live there. She held her hand up, facing its back, and thus the confident stone, toward Myka. “Well? What do you say to that?”

“Everything,” Myka said, and Helena laughed and kissed her again, because of course she did say everything, anything and everything, all of it exactly what Helena needed—and a reasonable majority of the time wanted—to hear.

When this kiss ended, Helena heard a small sniffle, and she looked up to see Jeannie dabbing at her eyes. “I’m not surprised this got to me,” Jeannie said, “because witnessing my daughter so overcome is, to use an inadequate word, rare... but I didn’t know it would get to anybody else.” She looked at Jane. “I’m glad to know she works for someone with such a heart.”

Helena observed, with astonishment, that Jane was touching her own eyes with her sleeve. Jane said, “I did mention it isn’t made of stone. And with that, I’m leaving, before anyone mistakes me for a sentimental fool.”

“Too late,” Abigail informed her, with a laugh that seemed dangerously near a cackle.

Jane confirmed the danger with a raised eyebrow. “Spread that around, Ms. Machiavel, and I will show you how fast a heart can harden.” She then made an exit of a sort that should have been accompanied by a retinue.

Rick sighed. “I guess that means Myka’s cured, and we better get back to work.”

“Unless someone in this room would like to develop some sort of interesting infection,” Varsha suggested.

“I’d rather my day be boring, thanks,” Rick told her.

Varsha gave his cheek a pat that, if bestowed by anyone else, would have seemed overly aggressive. “Of course you would, wallpaper. See how soothing he is!”

Once Rick and Varsha had gone, Liam said, “I guess they’re right. There’s only so many billable hours I can give up in order to ‘visit a sick friend.’ Or visit a ‘sick’ friend. Or whatever it is we’ve been doing.”

“It’s strange but nice to have seen you in the middle of the day,” Steve said.

“Heart-melter. Maybe I won’t badger you to watch Here We Go Again tonight.”

“Waterloo... knowing my fate is to be with you,” Steve sang softly, and Helena added “Steve singing” to the list of seemingly impossible things that had happened today. He turned to her with a slightly apologetic, self-conscious smile. “If I can’t concentrate this afternoon because that’s running through my head, it’s your fault.”

“Accepted,” Helena said. “I think we can safely assume some similar words will be interfering with my thoughts.”

“Obviously, mine too,” said Myka.

“And mine,” Liam agreed. “Thanks a lot, honey. I’m supposed to be writing a closing argument. What if I accidentally put in ‘I feel like I win when I lose’?”

Steve shrugged. “Depends. How many ABBA fans are on your jury?”

“That isn’t something we commonly get around to in voir dire.”

“Then I think we’ve all learned a lesson or two today, haven’t we? About good questions to ask,” Steve said. He directed a significant look at Helena and Myka, then threw an even more significant one toward Liam. “In particular circumstances.”

“I’ve changed my mind,” Liam said as they departed. “I will badger you to watch Here We Go Again. Every night for the next week. Or maybe the next year. Or decades....”

Abigail remarked, “They’re almost as cloying as the two of you, but with less drama. Is that good or bad? Anyway, I’m going to bring this back around to ‘clean clothes,’ and the fact that I’d like some, so I should—”

“They have lovely scrubs here,” Helena told her. “The color of an emergent bruise.”

Myka said, “I’ll admit I got a little overenthusiastic with the ‘blood.’ It’s a lot more fun water-gunning it than actually producing it myself. Although I did end up engaged to the most beautiful cheapskate in the world, both times...”

“It seems entirely unfair to Abigail that you were the only one in possession of a weapon,” Helena said.

Abigail nodded at Helena with enthusiasm. “So true. Unfair to you, too, that first time, even if the weapon was her gut. We’ll have to get back at her somehow—I know, a group paintball tournament! Maybe make it an annual thing. For your anniversary.”

“That is the best idea ever,” Myka said to her. Then she turned to Helena and said, as if referring to the sweetest of intimacies, “Isn’t it.”

“Paintball,” Helena said, and did the tone she took with Myka inevitably sound that same tenderness? “Do you know what Charles says to his wife, Jane, on a regular basis?”

“Unfortunately, he didn’t tell me. Do you want me to guess?”

“Actually... I’d love to hear your guess.”

“He says ‘Jane, isn’t my sister so very lucky to have found Myka, and vice versa.’”

That made Helena laugh. “Although you’ve produced a tolerable version of his voice, I don’t believe he does say that. Not regularly.”

“Well, give it time. What does he really say?”

“He says, ‘What a disaster our first meeting was.’”

“Did she really run into his car? Or was he shining me on?”

“And then he thought to return the favor,” Helena affirmed, “to make sure he had her romantic attention. He didn’t tell you that part?”

“God, no. You Wellses are weird.”

“I talked him out of it!” Helena protested.

Myka, doing princeling-against-the-pillow again, drawled, “That’s your evidence to the contrary.”

Helena said to Jeannie, “Do you know, occasionally your daughter sounds exactly like her father. Who has that irrational fear of raccoons, as I’ve so recently come to understand, so if family weirdness is genuinely on the table—”

“I do know they sound alike,” Jeannie interrupted, “but it’s nice to be reminded of it. Do you sound like your father?”

Helena smiled. “No, but I do sound very like my brother—as Myka has remarked, and which is pertinent, because Charles always follows his initial disaster comment with, ‘What a disaster I would be in the absence of that disaster.’”

“That’s sweet,” said the princeling, “but still weird.”

“My point is that I suspect I’ll be following his lead in these ritual utterances as well.”

“I don’t need clean clothes,” Abigail announced. “I need insulin. Is there a special British kind? Because you never sound like you’re made of sugar, but you are, and that makes it worse. That’s it for me.” She paused at the door, turned around, and pointed at Myka. “Pop-Tarts are one thing, but grapefruit’s another.” Then she pointed at Helena. “And raccoons are one thing, but eleven of you, nobody could take.” She swept out, and Helena suspected she would have wanted her departure accompanied by dramatic exit music.

“Grapefruit,” said Myka. “She’s said that to me before, in relation to you.”

“It has vaguely to do with koans. I’ll tell you the story some other time,” Helena said.

“Why is there always a story?” Myka said, a gentle mock.

“I’m told it has to do with atoms.”

Jeannie said, “Colliding, but not randomly. She was so excited when I finally found that book of yours.”

“I suspect she was primarily pleased to have been right. In her identification.”

“Well, she’s Myka,” Jeannie allowed. “But also... she was overcome. Like today. By you. I’m really not giving away any secret when I tell you this matters to her in an unprecedented way—but even if it were a secret, I’d tell you, because of that unprecedented mattering.”

“I’m in the room, Mom.”

Jeannie ignored Myka. She leveled a not-quite-benign gaze at Helena and said, “Treat her well. You seem like you will—I want to believe that you will—but please.”

Not precisely a talk of shovels, but near enough. “I will work hard at it,” Helena told her. “I’m very good at working hard.”

Myka leaned against Helena again. She said, “Mm. In a selfish, Emperors-Napoleon sense, I’m glad you aren’t overly good at being good.”

Not in front of your mother, Helena thought at Myka. She tried to show, by means of a severe brow-furrow directed at the very contented woman at her side, that she was thinking this instruction, but that made Myka laugh, and that in turn made Helena want to forget about who they were in front of.

“I clearly need to give you two a minute,” Jeannie said, and that was, from Helena’s perspective, an embarrassingly accurate reading of the room’s temperature. “But as I understand it, everybody’s supposed to get back to work. And you might want to remember that the idea behind this whole thing was for everybody to keep having work to get back to...” The door closed behind her.

Guilt: Helena had been so, so uncharitable in her initial assessment of Myka’s Rick-promoting mother, yet Jeannie had, now, provided them with their first instance of clean, unencumbered intimacy. She does want Myka to be happy, Helena now thought. With someone. And she genuinely seems to believe that I am that someone...

That they didn’t lunge for each other seemed, paradoxically, a good sign. A marker of this new reality.

“One minute,” Helena said. “Our first real minute.”

“Speaking of what’s real, tell me, do you really want this?” Myka asked. Helena moved her jaw in disbelief, but Myka went on, “I can take it if you don’t, but only if you tell me right now.”

Helena held her hand up again. “Here is what I’ll tell you right now: I will remove this ring for no reason other than a medical emergency?”

“That could just mean you like rings,” Myka said.

“Have you seen me wear a ring before today?”

“That could just mean you like this ring,” Myka said, but she touched the ring, began playing with Helena’s fingers.

“I have no right answer anymore.”

Myka looked up. “You do if you kiss me.”

So Helena did.

“See?” Myka said, some length of time later. “Now I’m persuaded. Want to persuade me some more? Maybe really, really fast? I think from my side of things, I can promise—”

“No,” Helena interrupted, because if Myka kept talking, the answer was going to be yes, because Helena certainly did want to persuade her some more.

A little pout, a pretty blink. “No?”

“Well, not no,” Helena conceded.

“Not no? Maybe I’m wrong, but that seems like a double negative, which I’m mostly sure works out in the math to be a positive, so—”

Helena had to interrupt again. “I mean, no, but not in perpetuity. No for the present moment.”

“You pick the worst times to be good at being good, but fine. Failing that, I don’t suppose you’d want to just go for the whole cheese plate? Fly to Vegas and get married tonight? Bellagio... fountains.... something like, there is no fountain, then there are lots of fountains, and they dance or light up or do some other—”

Helena kissed her again, and this one was sharp and quick, for it was meant both to stop her and to stop the idea, which was, for all its absurdity, ridiculously compelling: fly away and change everything yet again. She remarked, trying to lighten the idea away, “We’ve both said ‘I do,’ as Varsha found so amusing. Perhaps we’re married already.”

“In some version of the world, I bet we are.”

“I would in some version of the world marry you this minute. But I think we’d both enjoy getting to know each other just a bit better first... more importantly, however, if Charles isn’t invited to the event, he’ll riot.”

“All by himself?”

“That would be very Charles. Also, however, my parents.”

“They’ll riot?”

“Doubtful. Well, my mother might. But I would... want them here. For such an occasion. The right one.”

“If that committee hadn’t let me give you this ring, I would’ve rioted.”

“Once I became accustomed to the idea, so would I.”

Myka said, “I sprang it on you. I’m sorry.” She kissed the ring where it lived on Helena’s finger.

As severely as she could, given the kiss, Helena said, “You are in no way sorry.”

“See, you know me pretty well already. I love that I sprang it on you. I also love that you sprang it on me, reciprocally.”

“It did take me a moment.”

“Scariest moment of my life.”

“You don’t mean that,” Helena said.

“Maybe you don’t know me so well after all. What if you’d said no?”

“You never genuinely entertained that as a possibility.”

“I did though. The look on your face right at first? I don’t ever want to see that look again.” She pulled Helena to her. This kiss said Don’t frighten me.

Helena didn’t want to do that, but she did want to tell the truth. She said, “I’ll be honest: I’m not sure this will work as perfectly as I want it to. As some of our interactions have suggested it might.”

“That you want it to work perfectly is a pretty good start... plus that you think that some of our interactions have suggested it might, that doesn’t hurt. I do too, by the way. Want that. And think that.”

Trying to maintain her honesty, Helena asked, “Is it setting us up for failure? Nothing is perfect.”

“It’s all about goals. What’s failure? Aim for perfect, hit pretty damn wonderful.” And then she clearly decided to tell some truth of her own. “I don’t know what’s going to happen. But nothing will if we don’t start, so let’s.”

“I’m fairly certain we have. Look at what’s on my hand.”

“I had moments when I thought about having bought this thing—this thing that was too dangerous for me to have in my possession—and I wondered who in the world I was, who I thought I was, to even consider something like that. Something like that, with someone like you.”

These insecurities... they were Helena’s fault. “Who were you?” she asked, not at all rhetorically, for she intended to give a convincing, sure answer. “Someone with the fearlessness to consider, to push for, a better future. Meanwhile all I did was feel sorry for us. That was all someone like me could do: sit and wait for someone fearless like you to change the circumstance.”

“Fearless, foolish... but no matter how foolish it was, you’re right, it’s on your hand. I like it there.” She stopped, seemed to consider whether she wanted to go on. “Hm. Did you wear a ring before?”

“No, I’ve never worn one. I did the proposing. Gave the ring.” Did Myka want the reciprocal question? Helena went ahead and asked, “Did you? Wear one?”

This occasioned a sigh. “Weirdly, no. The wedding ring was going to be his grandma’s, and we were vaguely planning to retrofit something to go with it. I didn’t press the issue—didn’t care enough to. That should’ve helped clue me in, shouldn’t it?” That was said with a wry twist of lip, not a smile.

Of course both their pasts contained unheeded clues... “I think it’s fair to say that we’ve both made some errors.”

“I think it’s fair to say that we both failed upward.”

What an exquisite thing to say in this context, about what had gone wrong in the past—so exquisite that Helena could barely stand it. She felt a rush of willingness to take Myka up on the idea of being fast, right here... but that rush was an impulse, not an imperative. Instead, Helena got up from the bed. Stepped away. Regarded the woman still in it. Her face, its lines so deft, its beauty barely contained in a too-precise space, would always raise that impulse—no, imperative—to protect.

Pale, sick Myka, in a bed such as this one. Would Helena ever cease to see that day superimposed on Myka’s face and body? And would Helena ever cease to hear, inside Myka’s voice, an echo of that day’s weakest, most distressed entreaty: Will you be here when I wake up?

Of course I will, Helena had told her, and was that when she herself had made up her mind? When you wake up, I’ll be the first thing you see. Helena hadn’t known it then, but she had already begun speaking the vows. Keeping them. “In sickness...” she now said.

“Don’t worry,” Myka told her. “I’ll inflict plenty of health on you, too. Not to mention their friends: richer, poorer, and better.”

“What about ‘worse’?”

That made Myka smile with mischief. “Now who’s the one tempting fate?”

“Destiny,” Helena corrected.

Myka kept smiling, but she also narrowed her eyes. “Hm. Now that sounds like a koan.”

“What does?”

“I asked, ‘Who’s the one tempting fate?’, and ‘Destiny,’ you said. That’s the one tempting fate.”

“But I meant—”

“So the koan is, what happens when destiny tempts fate?”

Helena said, immediately, because it was true, “Charles would say, a car wreck.”

“What would you say?”

Helena would have smiled, largely and with intent, but she was already doing that, and Myka was doing that too, and Helena suspected they both would keep on doing that. She shook her head and exhaled, a little ripple-chuckle of jubilation. “What happens when destiny tempts fate?” she echoed, and Myka nodded. “What would I say?” Myka nodded again, her smile, impossibly, even larger. Now Helena shrugged. There was only one answer, so she gave it: “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

TBC (epilogically in a few scenes that would play over the closing credits...)

[pekorosu]

31. Ash and Eiji have won first place for leading male character and supporting male character respectively.

----- Thank you. They're both enjoying their time off at a ski resort, so I'll let them know about it.

this is from a short interview with yoshida akimi in the april 1995 edition of “pafu” where banana fish won previous year popularity polls in 5 categories. the interview itself doesn’t have much info bc she’s really curt lol, but anyway if you’re interested, the rest is below.

Yoshida Akimi “Banana Fish” Sweeps 5 Categories

Interview

1. “Banana Fish” and "Garden of Light" won first place for the long series and short story categories respectively. Congratulations. What are your thoughts on winning this?

----- Thank you. I feel encouraged.

2. What was the reaction of people around you once serialization had ended?

----- I was called a "killer".

3. While drawing this series (including the side stories), which scene did you have the most fun with?

----- Doesn’t ring any bells... but when I drew the huge scenes I had a "Take that!" (the heck is that?) sort of feeling.

4. Which scene was the most painful for you?

----- Nothing specific comes to mind... but it’s really troublesome to draw scenes where many characters appear.

5. What is your favourite phrase or moment in the series?

----- I can't think of anything... Honestly, nothing is coming up.

6. Are there any interesting backstory anecdotes? Anything you couldn’t draw, or had to abandon?

----- Answer to #1... Blanca was a woman at first.

----- Answer to #2... The story for Ash's mother.

7. Is there anything you felt like you’ve overlooked or didn’t draw well enough?

----- That applies to every single thing.

8. Please tell us what references you used when writing the story (books, movies, etc).

----- There are too many to list down.

9. When you were drawing "Garden of Light", was there anything you found difficult or were particularly careful with?

----- I tried to make it so that it wouldn’t be overly sentimental, but it always ends up that way.

10. How was the reaction of people around you to Sing's height?

----- Generally positive.

11. How was the reaction of people around you to Eiji's long hair?

----- Generally positive. But his personality had gotten a little gloomier so apparently it gave a sense of unease.

12. Did you plan on having Sing grow so tall since the very beginning?

----- Yes.

13. After this, will Eiji cut his hair? If he does, when does it happen?

----- I never thought that far. (sorry)

14. How do you personally feel about the pair Sing and Eiji? Also, how was the reaction of people around you to them?

----- I had not thought of it as "Sing and Eiji" in particular. The way I see it, they're just part of the same crew.* As for the people around me... there isn't anyone else who reads the manga besides my assistants, so...

(*tl note: she uses “nakamauchi” here. “comrades” sounds too formal, “friends” isn’t wrong but sounds slightly off... idk)

15. How will the relationship between Eiji, Sing and Akira change over time?

----- Akira will become Sing's wife.

16. "Garden of Light" takes place 7 years after the final chapter. Do you have the story between those two points inside you?

----- I do, but it’ll get way too long so I'm not going to draw it.

17. "Garden of Light" differs from the other side stories in that it's set in the future; it is a sequel of the main story, so to speak. For you, which one is the last scene?

----- I have to say, it’s the one in the main story.

18. Do you plan on drawing other side stories about Banana Fish next time? If you do, who will be the protagonist, and what kind of story will it be about?

----- Not at the moment, or rather, I think I probably won’t.

19. Will Banana Fish characters appear in your other series next time?

----- I think they might. I'm gonna reuse them.

20. Looking back now, what do you think of yourself when you had been drawing Banana Fish?

----- I was really worn out.

21. Did you get a good rest after serialization ended? What did you do during that time?

----- Went skiing, played tennis and went diving. (the usual, I guess.)

22. What kind of year was 1994 for you?

----- Not a very good year.

23. Please tell us about any manga that you found interesting that you read in 1994.

----- I only read one manga called “Doubutsu no Oisha-san”. Nothing else to compare it with.

24. What was the happiest (or most fun) thing that happened in 1994?

----- Nothing. (flat out)

25. On the other hand, what was the most upsetting (or unfortunate) thing?

----- Too many to list down.

26. Is there someone or something that has caught your interest lately?

----- Nothing comes to mind.

27. Please tell us what you can about any plans for a new series besides Banana Fish. What kind of story will it be, and when will it be published?

----- I will be doing a sort-of-series in Bessatsu Shoujo Comics around springtime. The protagonist will be a high school student and it will be a love story (wahaha). Please do check it out if you're interested.

(*tl note: this is probably referring to lover’s kiss)

28. Please tell us the schedule for Banana Fish comics.

----- In spring (it's already spring though), the side stories and a really, reaaaaaaaally old story about Eiji and Ibe's first meeting will be compiled into a book called "Private Opinion". Eiji from before is old art so it looks really weird! It's fine if you laugh but do give it a try. However, it's not in the standard size (is that what it's called?) so it's a bit expensive. Sorry.

29. What are your hopes for the year 1995, outside of work?

----- I want to try snowboarding. (right now I’ve plateaued with skiing so time to jump ship!)

30. Lastly, please give a shout out to Pafu readers!

----- Thank you. I really appreciate your continuous support. (how trite!)

tl note: banana fish won the comics category (a category for individual volumes, volume 19 in this case) along with the other 4 mentioned above. i think “pafu” was mainly targeted at female readers, because there’s a separate page with what seems like a separate long series poll for male readers, in which banana fish took 2nd place following yu yu hakusho. btw ash won lead male chara with 888 votes, which ironically is a very lucky chinese number lol.

[cantdance]

carlycrays replied to your photo “marvel writers and editors trying to decide what to do with loki in an...”

Oh, sweet summer child, you clearly don't know how this works. Loki literally can't stay dead. That's a canon rule. Also, while Marvel hasn't had the best track record with the transgender community, when have they made transphobic jokes at Loki's expense?

nothing has ever made me jump out of bed and race to my computer faster than seeing this message. what is it this weekend that makes people feel like they need to answer my joke posts with a novel telling me how dumb i am?

first of all, allow me to allay your fears. at this point i have read over 400 issues of the original 1966 thor series, and i am still working my way through the rest. ive also read several of the modern retellings of the old comics, journey into mystery (2011) with kid loki and all the tie-ins, loki: agent of asgard, both of the angela series, vote loki, jane fosters entire run as the mighty thor, loki: sorcerer supreme, infinity wars (2018), the current thor series, and now war of the realms. ive also read a little thing called the mythology, as well as a few other modern adaptations. so, to recap, thats easily around 500 issues of asgardian comics, as well as the originating material, and assorted other sources. i know what the fuck im talking about, and i am not your sweet summer child, you condescending ass.

beside that, i am a real human being deserving of basic respect, and if this were actually a case of me not knowing something, you could easily communicate that without being so patronizing. people do it all the time! there are tons of things that i dont know about. unfortunately for you, this is the one thing i know a LOT about.

as for when loki has been subjected to transphobic jokes, well, thanks for giving me an excuse to make a post that ive been meaning to make for a while now. let me start off by saying: loki is genderfluid, and i am genderfluid myself. this list contains things that i personally found to be insulting or uncomfortable. not every trans person may agree with me, but that doesnt mean it doesnt need further examination. this list may also not be exhaustive because im not going to spend hours trawling through comics at 10:30 in the morning no matter how badly i want to prove you wrong.

we all know that loki was officially recognized as transgender and bi/pansexual (depending on your preference i guess, i like them as pan) in loki: agent of asgard (2014). however, never once does anyone in the series use any of the actual WORDS to communicate this. never does anyone say “genderfluid” or “transgender” or “bi” or “pan” or “queer” or even “lgbt”. odin calls them “my child who is both a son and a daughter” which is very binary and not a great take on genderfluidity, but hey, odin right? this isnt part of the list, i just think its something that people need to talk about more.

anyway, after that is when the bullshit starts. i mean, ignoring how making loki a queer-coded villain from the beginning was scuzzy, ignoring the almost 50 years time where they did play that role, and ignoring the whole lady loki thing where they were pretty much portrayed as a man pretending to be a woman. heres the list:

vote loki (2016) issue 1 by christopher hastings and langdon foss

loki “turns into a woman” because it might do better in the polls. the reporter whose name i dont care to look up points this out because thats a totally acceptable thing to do when you see a trans person. after these few pages it never comes up again. lokis genderfluidity is being used for a cheap joke here. dont even get me started on how female-presenting loki is portrayed as being more clean and feminine than male-presenting loki, which is in and of itself a form of transphobia: that transgender women have to be ultra feminine to be accepted as the gender they are.

the mighty thor (2015) issue 3 by jason aaron and russell dauterman

loki summons a bunch of other versions of themselves for seemingly no reason, and of course all of them are presenting in a masculine way because lokis genderfluidity is only acknowledged when convenient. lady loki from dark reign pops up and says that since shes the only REAL female loki, its her job to fight jane as thor. now, im not going to sit here and unpack all of that for you, so please fire up your critical thinking skills and try to decide why exactly this is bad.

infinity wars (2018) issue 5 by gerry duggan and mike deodato jr

i went and scanned my physical copy of this just for you. here we see loki leading their team to talk to the child version of gamora who lives inside the soul stone. once they get there, emma says that she and ms marvel will go in alone because it “calls for a womans touch” and loki would just get them killed. in case youre missing the subtext, emma is saying here that loki cant do this, but a woman can, which means she is calling loki a fake woman, or at best, shes completely ignoring their gender and calling them a man.

these are just the three examples that stick out the most in my mind. its worth mentioning that the only time loki has “become a woman” (i hate using this phrase btw) is in those couple pages in vote loki, and the only time that loki has been actively called genderfluid was in squirrel girl (2015) issue 27. yknow, squirrel girl. the series that no one takes seriously and will insist isnt canon even though it is?

there is a very insidious form of quiet transphobia simply in the fact that no one at marvel will acknowledge lokis identity, much less say it out loud or use the correct terminology. in fact, ever since agent of asgard (the series that cemented lokis trans and pan-ness) ended, many writers including jason aaron and gerry duggan have all but ignored that it happened, erasing the progress that loki made as a person as well as their newly gained autonomy and, indirectly, the fact that they were ever confirmed as genderfluid and pansexual.

one last thing that i want to say is that while it may be a rule that loki never stays dead, subjecting a trans and gay character to repeated deaths for the sake of furthering plot is NOT a good thing. having the gay come back does not erase the fact that you buried them in the first place. being that loki is amab, this is extra sketchily tied to violence against trans women, which is a point that we all need to consider.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

HERE'S WHAT I JUST REALIZED ABOUT COMPANY

We knew we had to stay a product company, because only hard problems yielded grand results, and hard like solving a puzzle. Problem number 3: investors are very random. If your current trajectory won't quite get you to profitability but you can get it done quickly and get back to work. When I made the list there turned out to be a novelist, are you producing? Sounds familiar, doesn't it? It's not rapid prototyping for business models though it can be, but more a way of saying what they really like. Plus those 15 people any favors if you fly the company into ground with them aboard. Especially in proportion to the amount of work that could be done for the asking. Empirically, it's not surprising if amateurs can do better. When you're deciding what to do. I was being paid for programming.

It's that we won't let the people who want to be doctors than who want to partner with and who want to start it. There didn't seem to care. Ranking search results by user behavior also makes search better. It seems reasonable to assume Bill Clinton has the best medical care available. Don't worry, it's not because you're supposed to be a successful product company in the sense of having a single unchanging definition is that its definition changes very slowly. The biggest ideas seem to threaten your identity: you wonder if you'd have enough ambition to carry them through. But not everyone wants to answer. That was the phrase they used at Yahoo. And it's true, the benefit that specific manager could derive from the forces I've described is near zero. Joshua Schachter gradually built Delicious on the side of solving problems by spending money, and ambivalence about being a technology company making money that way. Structurally it is to get. As in an essay, most of the ideas appear in the implementing.

So the average quality of writing online isn't what the print media are boring. So for example, a friend of mine once had her brain scanned as part of a study. I remember coming away from Google thinking Wow, it's still a startup. You can't trust your intuitions. Not just because of its low average quality are missing an important point: no one reads the average blog. Absolutely nothing. If they were driven by equity they'd be looking for ways to take advantage of technological change instead of fighting it.

The atmosphere of the average workplace is to productivity what flames painted on the side while working on Y Combinator is now 3 years old, we're still trying to understand its implications. The techniques for dealing with them till last, but occasionally one you didn't know about will pop up early on. If the smaller investments are on convertible notes, they'll just convert into the series A round. It's kind of surprising that a trend that lasted so long would ever run out. Your primary goal should be to get the first commitment. The public markets snap startup investing around like a whip. Often as not a startup guy. You can't plan when you start a startup? It's so common for founders to be misled/mistaken about this that we designed a protocol to fix the problem. The series A investor won't like having all these other random investors as bedfellows, but if we raise a couple million, we can hire a whole engineering team, etc. I wouldn't want it to grow as large as Digg or Reddit—mainly because that would dilute the character of the site, but also because I don't want to shut down the company, then you should probably choose the other. I've noticed some cracks in their fortress.

They seem like they're about to invest in a flop. SLAC goes right under 280 a little bit south of Sand Hill Road precisely because they're so boringly uniform. I'm convinced, is a language that people don't learn Python because it will be passed on to whoever you'd least like to have it. Programmers at Yahoo wouldn't have asked that. Doctors discovered that several of his arteries were over 90% blocked to learn that the number was over 90%. A friend asked what they were doing it before, just haphazardly on a smaller scale. At Yahoo it felt as if they'd deliberately accelerated this process. So the company that creates the next wave of hardware is probably going to have to be set up properly or you're just launching projectiles. I got interested in, about 5 that I got interested in, about 5 that I got interested in, about 5 that I got serious about and did a bunch of kids instead of lying on the beach. Learning is such a big problem that changing the way people do it will have a wave of suburbia that raced down the peninsula. That's what leads people to try to identify a precise point in the future will feel as sorry for us as we do for the generations that lived before anaesthesia and antibiotics.

For example, the president notices that a majority of voters now think invading Iraq was a mistake. Probably it's simply that stupidity more often takes the form of a definite offer from an acceptable investor to see if you'll get an offer from an acceptable investor for a potential offer from a better one, and actually did. One is that it often looks better than real work. The tricky part might seem to be that many ready this time. Grownups, like some kind of cursed race, had to work. You have to do a rolling close, where the current group of startups present to pretty much every investor in Silicon Valley and common in a handful of founders who could pull that off without having VCs laugh in their faces. For example, according to current NPR values, you can't say anything that might be perceived as disparaging towards homosexuals. But because the buildings were built at different times by different people, the same term was used for both products and information: there were distribution channels, and TV and radio channels. Our rule of thumb is to multiply the number of investors increases, raising money will become, if not easy, at least at the moment, even the smartest students leave school thinking they have to be at least $50 million. You just can't expend any attention on it so you can get it done quickly and get back to work anyway. How would the government decide who's a startup investor? And for the first time it raised money.

Where does this term lead come from? Some of the more unscrupulous do it deliberately. And that seems a bad road to go down. Doing what you love doesn't mean, do what you would like to be able to make the release date. Much as we disliked school, the prospect of confirming a commitment in writing will flush it out. In case you can't tell, the founders only have to do. There are two answers to that. If I spend several hours a day. That's still expensive.

You shouldn't simply ignore rejection. The record labels and movie studios used to distribute what they made like air shipped through tubes on a moon base. Most good mathematicians would work on a Python project than you could to work on them. For nearly all of history the success of a startup needing a fixed amount you need to in which case you should give the same terms to investors who reject you, but you can't create instant customers. But startups can learn an important lesson from the second one. Occasionally the things adults made you do were fun, just as Facebook was though they probably didn't realize it when they can help a startup, the thought of our investors used to keep me up at night. With such powerful forces leading us astray, it's not surprising we find it so hard to discover what we like to work on your projects, he can work wherever he wants on projects of his own. Apparently voters were afraid to say they planned to vote against him, lest their motives be perhaps correctly suspected. After we fund startups we work closely with them for three months—so closely in fact that we insist they move to where we are. Don't just think investors are stupid. Which route should you take?

[bootycallreverie]

"Please can we not make her mayor?"

I woke up today to this fascinating question regarding Cllr. Ana Bailão’s votes to uphold systemic oppression within the Toronto Police. “Please can we not make her mayor?”

It was a deceptively complex question that got me thinking of some of the fundamentals of activism, social change and politics, that I wanted to unpack this question bit by bit.

I’ve cut it into five sections: PLEASE, CAN, WE, NOT MAKE HER, MAYOR.

///

1. PLEASE

I assume this softens the meaning of the phrase - “I want her out of politics” is pretty harsh – especially in the context of a man publicly critiquing a woman. Yet it shows us something important – we are implying we need permission to participate in politics.

Why are we asking for permission? And to whom is this appeal directed? Last time I checked, I don’t need permission to do most things in life, including participating in the political process. Our US-based friends did not ask for permission when they recently revolted against their governments; they did it even though they faced police brutality, neo-Nazi paramilitaries, psychological warfare, a global pandemic and more.

The “please” comes out of the respectability politics that makes “Ontario” as a political entity so curious. “Please don’t gut our healthcare!” is not coming from a position of strength. (Anyway, it’s much easier for progressives to walk back overzealousness in the name of justice than it is for people to walk back bigotry.)

To best challenge power, we must never apologize for having ambitious convictions. We need to champion big ideas, even if they’re ahead of the curve. Two months ago, police reform would have been considered impossible in America. And they were right, it was impossible...under the existing model. So they changed the model.

Change – especially lasting change – comes from the grassroots, so while it’s not a bad thing to support progressive political candidates, parties and organizations, it is *significantly* more important to support issues-based activists and organizations (i.e. if you give $10 monthly to the NDP, why not also give $10 to your favourite advocacy group?). Issues-based groups are formed to challenge one specific cog of power at a time and can therefore deliver deep, fundamental and long-lasting impacts. (Plus…this is a great way for potential candidates to gain some experience; get those ppl knocking on doors now and they’ll do much better in 2022.)

2. CAN

If we are asking “do we, as a community, have the capacity to elect someone better?” The answer to this is yes, but if we’re instead asking “will someone within the existing structure please FINALLY get off their ass and challenge her?” then we might ask ourselves why this hasn’t already happened. The civic left has largely allowed Cllr. Bailão (and, to a lesser extent, Mayor Wonderbread, who is merely a pathetic, respectable version of Rob Ford) to go unchallenged because she’s been deemed impossible to beat, but by not challenging her, the civic left has allowed her career to continue essentially unfettered because they don’t want to spend resources on a race they’re unlikely to win. If only there were some other downtown districts where a new, young generation of activists can start to build their careers…except the seats available are full with straight white boy progressives.

Why does the civic left protect Gord Perks, Joe Cressy and Mike Layton? Like…honestly…I just don't see what the big deal about Joe Cressy is. He bumped Ausma Malik out of the 2018 election instead of doing the right thing and making way for a supremely talented racialized woman like I'd hope someone committed to true justice would. There is even a movement in the democratic party to ask white men to not run in safe seats. [This paragraph and the next have been edited for tone, thank you to Colin Burns for encouraging me to rethink my words and my misdirected anger, my frustration naturally lies with Cllr. Bailāo's behaviour.]

Gord Perks verged into alt-left territory last year as a free-speech absolutist and consequently an apologist for bigotry when he should have defended trans folk. He even shared his disappointing thoughts publicly (yup, he did, they’re still up, don’t @ me on this one, you’ll regret it: http://gordperks.ca/toronto-public-library-chief-librarians-decision/) so considering who he seems to be, we can do better after 14 years? (TL;DR – there’s need for renewal in a lot of parts of our movements, and the labour movement is no exception.)

Mike Layton is a lovely man with his heart in the right place. I’ve volunteered for him and would gladly do it again. It therefore pains me to recognize that his last name is more than a name. I’m happy for everything he (and his team) has contributed in a rapidly changing district. My concern is that lefties can’t afford to support dynasties in the same way that liberals and conservatives can, especially in downtown districts where our odds of winning are good and where we ought to be supporting talented Black, Trans, Indigenous, disAbled and economically-disadvantaged candidates that are already on the front lines of social change. (This list is illustrative, not exhaustive.) By the time of the next election, Mike Layton will have been there for 12 years. Perhaps it’s time for him to open an opportunity for others.

3. WE

Who is “we”? Is it people in this district? Is it people in Toronto? Is it progressives? Whoever can identify this “we” and mobilize them will have the best shot of defeating her. This is the “coalition” people describe as needed to win election. Of course, this includes whoever’s running for office and their team. That organizing work needs to start right now if there’s going to be any chance of a lefty winning this seat in 2022. (If you think she isn’t already considering her council seat successor, remember that her old boss was Mario Silva, who was *coincidentally* Davenport’s City Councillor and MP for a combined 16 years.)

4. NOT MAKE HER

This is maybe the biggest hurdle to get over since “NOT ANA BAILAO” is not an option on the ballot. Considering there are no formal (lol) parties or slates on council, her name recognition is her biggest electoral asset, so a keep-it-safe campaign won’t work. Plus her public image is fairly non-toxic, so as pissed off as we all are, most people won’t be swayed by a STOP BAILAO campaign from the left (the trope of the conservative woman can be very powerful – thanks Maggie – so expect her campaign to lean pretty typically right).

When we say “Cllr. Bailão should not be Mayor” we rob ourselves of the ability to say “I think this person would make a great mayor” or “these are the some of the values I want in a mayor.” – and I don’t mean just of the City Council types. (At this point, Josh Marlow is the other councilor to watch.)

I hate hearing “why can’t we have AOC or Jacinta Arden or Anne Hidalgo or Ilhan Omar?” They didn’t come out of thin air. We already have those people here, we just haven’t elevated them to where they can make a difference and this is why. (Also, lefties, let’s seriously push for term limits and ranked ballots…especially the term limits, most ppl out there love the idea, it costs zero dollars and ensures districts have a healthy amount of turnover.)

5. MAYOR

Toronto City Council is a “weak mayor” system. The Mayor need council approval for pretty much everything important. The Mayor will find success or failure on how well he can build a team of reliable allies on council. It’s something thing Mayor Wonderbread does too well: his allies don’t offer a lot of different views. A hypothetical Mayor Bailão would probably do similar.

So then how rigid should a politician be? Are they supposed to be trustees, where we trust them to do what’s best for us and we have a check-in every 4 years? Or are they supposed to be conduits of public opinion with little regard for context? Or is a councillor meant to reflect the demographics of their district, even though they can only truly embody one set of lived experiences as an individual? Or perhaps, in the case of Cllr. Bailão, someone not dedicated to steering the ship but merely running the engine, not caring where it sails even though we've seen icebergs on the horizon? We’ve grown up in a SimCity generation where we think the mayor can make whatever they want happen. As great as that might sound sometimes, in a democracy, accountability matters. But it must come with a recognition that SimCity mayors don't fear the wrath of the voters.

///

I want to recognize that a 10% reallocation is fucking pathetic and still Toronto council couldn’t do it…but at least we know where we stand, and with whom.

We often look at politics as a sport or a soap opera, and it feels great when your team scores points or your favourite character delivers a knockout performance. Even I was like “dang girl” when Nancy Pelosi defiantly ripped up the President’s speech. I was also touched by Jagmeet Singh’s touching display of emotion the day after he was ejected from the House of Commons for calling out bigotry. But that’s not politics, that’s a long running TV drama series, so as disappointed as I am in what happened, I’m not gonna yell at her in the street because White Man Raging is not a great look these days…or ever.

So let’s not make this about my neighbour, Cllr. Ana Bailão. Let’s make it about the system of oppression she has willingly chosen to uphold and tearing that motherfucker down piece by piece.

[linkspooky]

Panem Et Circenses

Roma’s monologue from the latest chapter was what interested me the most more than any bloodshed depicted. (Yes, even more than Urie getting owned.) In particular her light reference to a latin phrase. 

Bread and Circuses or “Panem Et Circenses”, it’s a phrase used to describe appeasement of the masses, most particularly in the form of government. That public approval is best gained not through exemplary of excellent public service and police, but through distraction and satisfaction of the most immediate and shallow desires of the populace. 

The phrase itself originates from Rome in Satire X of the roman satirical poet Juvenal (about AD 100), citing what the roman populace cares about, forgoing both it’s historical birthright or political involvement. In 140 BC. Roman politicans passed a series of laws to keep the votes of poorer citizens, by introducing a grain distribution, and easy to access entertainment [x]. 

It’s also important to remember that Roman culture is based upon the culture of the Greek City States (most importantly the surviving culture of Athens), and for Latin culture the concept of every citizen having not only a right, but an obligation to participate in government. Athens was a direct democracy where all able bodied citizens had to paricipate, vote, sit in juries in order for the government to function. Rome was a republic, and then an empire, but still in those days there was a sitting senate and opportunities for even commoners to participate in government as long as they were citizens. 

Basically, it’s a very latin idea (that is combined Greek and Roman), that the improvement upon society relies on individuals stepping up to contribute. Therefore the mass of the government those who wield power, and the masses those who are subjected to power is almost one in the same. However the pacification of the masses, that is supplying them with bread and distraction to fill their most surface needs and stop them from rising up themselves while it helps a certain amount of individuals secure power, leads to the downfall of society. 

What, I wondered did he mean by society? The plural of human beings? Where was the substance of this thing called “society”? I had spent my whole life thinking that society must certainly be something harsh and severe, but to hear Horiko talk made the words “Don’t you mean yourself?”, come to the tip of my tongue. [...] What is society but an individual?

Osamu Dazai’s, No Longer Human 119-120

What Juvenal is satirizing is the decline of individual heroism, in favor of the satisfaction of the masses. Individual heroism in a sense of the ability of a single individual to stand up and make a difference in its simplest of terms: agency.

… Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions — everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses (Juvenal, Satire 10.77-81)

This idea of certain forces being used to pacify the masses to make them easier to control is something that appears again and again in philosophy. Nietzsche accused Christianity of fostering a slave morality,

“I finally discovered two basic types and one basic difference. There are master morality and slave morality. . . . The moral discrimination of values has originated either among a ruling group whose consciousness of its difference from the ruled group was accompanied by delight - or among the ruled, the slaves and dependents of every degree [...]  The Christian faith is from the beginning a sacrifice: sacrifice of all freedom, all pride, all self-confidence of the spirit, at the same time enslavement and self-mockery, selfmutilation …” Nietzsche - Beyond Good and Evil

Nietzsche accused Catholicism of suggesting that by making our most cherished values originate not among those who were the best and brightest of their times, but among those who were the most oppressed and impoverished. That this encourages not pride in oneself and one’s own achievements but rather pride in keeping your head down and surviving. Therefore people are encouraged not to be revolutionary but to be ordinary. 

Jesus’ statement itself presents a paradox. “If the meek aren’t meant to inherit the earth, they cannot do this by remaining meek.”

Of course religion asks for faith that all suffering and losses endured in this world will be rewarded in the next one. It can quickly look like an excuse for further suffering in this world, hen people could just as easily work to make a paradise out of this one. 

Nietzsche calls this idea “Slave Morality”. It’s obviously connected with the dynamics of power.

Karl Marx in his critique of Heigel wrote this: 

"Die Religion ... ist das Opium des Volkes" and is often rendered as "religion... is the opiate of the masses."

Karl Marx

The full quote in context is this, though. 

Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions.

In essence, if people were to abolish their habit of simply looking for happiness to distract them from suffering, or even their need to give reason and justice to suffering which is by its nature unjust, then people could directly look at the suffering and then deal with it. 

Of course it’s not that simple, but this is philosophy and philosophy likes to deal in conjecture and abstract terms. 

As shown through Juvenal, Nietzsche and Marx, the tendency of the masses and therefore individuals to forgo deeper reasons to live for instead more on the surface pleasures is what leads to their own ability of making their will manifest. 

It’s all about individual agency. This is a theme that too, comes up time and time again in Tokyo Ghoul. Furuta, perhaps in reference to V’s many own roman references describes basically this as the way that V corrals the masses in “66- Old Guard.”

He mentions both things, food and distraction. Kuzen similarly, says that in his early life with V that he was supplied with a safe dwelling and all the food that he could eat in return for completing their heartless tasks for them. 

Kuzen describes it in different words, but what he feels before meeting Ukina is in essence the same problem that plagued Roma as she was growing up: He was bored. 

Boredom is another word for fulfillment, even if it’s not as poetic. Roma had no parents, no point of attachment, no people in her life no reason to continue living and yet she did. She looked at it and said why? Then she looked around her and saw nothing but people distracting themselves.

Roma was both disgusted, and envious. Envious that they had the opportunity to distract themselves despite being such weak and frail creatures yet she who had been fighting for her survival all this time did not have such a luxury. So Roma made humanity her distraction. 

Roma calls the common enemy of humans and ghouls “boredom” itself. Probably not something Urie could immediately sympathize with, but look back what exactly is Urie’s entire quest for anyway? 

To have his own existence affirmed. Without it, Urie was merely lost. Donato had to ask for him the questions he was putting off asking for so long. He simply suffered without reason. 

Urie’s quest is one for an individual identity outside of his father’s. He is plagued by the same questions then we all are, “Why am I fighting? Why was I born? Why do I exist?”

His answer to this so far though has been to surrender his sense of identity to the CCG above him, and hope that through ascending the hierarchy therefore he will get the affirmation he so desperately desired. He too was bored in a way. He did not have a reason to stand or fight. Too weak to stand on his own feet and fight for his own reasons and therefore he surrendered his power to a higher system and hoped the would make the decision for him.

“The weak wish to surrender themselves to the strong.”

Fura notices this same pattern in Sasaki and Arima themselves, he defines a good person as somebody who can struggle with and accept an answer they find themselves, while the opposite of that is somebody who accepts an answer from on high and nods “Yes, I understand.”

That people who are therefore mentally troubled by what they do are actually healthier than those who aren’t. At which point we reach the final panel of Roma’s monologue, where she casts Kaneki and Furuta in the same role. Conductors of a meaningless parade who aren’t going to bring any meaningful change to the world. 

Why is it that the both of them in Roma’s mind, are different from Aogiri who stated that they actually believed in a world for ghouls, an answer that bored her? 

Is it because they too, just like Roma but unlike Tatara and Eto of Aogiri have no true intention of destroying the cage placed around them, no care to follow through on the future that the both of them promised to their respective sides. “A perfect world without ghouls” and “A world where you walk freely up above.” They are completely different promises but at the same time they are in essence promising the same thing. Bear with it for now, and the world will be better. 

Perhaps it’s because Furuta and Kaneki both on their opposite sides of the game create exactly the kind of gameboard that Roma enjoys to dwell in. That they both lead the masses through distractions and promises, showmanship rather than substantive leadership that might actually bring a better change to the world. 

Furuta sets up a scoreboard, publicizes the gory details of the CCG, sets up executions on the streets as a way of inciting the masses. Kaneki en masse dumps broken Quiqnues in front of the crowds even as they are starving for food. Both of these are demonstrations, put on to convince the crowd. 

They only requires the masses to secede their agency to them, their individual will, to tie their strings collectively to both Furuta and Kaneki, and in return these two kings will supply you with what you need. 

Roma calls both of these so called revolutions for what they really are, “parades” simply a conflict to entertain the masses on both sides and distract them from the suffering of their lives rather than actually addressing it. 

The common evil then shared between humans and ghouls is not their propensity towards violence, but rather their propensity towards boredom. Attempting to fill the void of their meaningless existences causes them to stumble blind through their own lives rather than acting individually and with purpose. 

[squareallworthy]

As a bioethicist of the pro-human school, I denounce the dim-witted hand-wringing in this article.

And because this morning I am a rather crabby bioethicist, I am going to denounce it in detail. If you are a transhumanist, or if you ever even heard of transhumanism, there’s likely nothing in the article and nothing I’m going to say that’s new to you. So the rest is below the cut. I apologize in advance for wasting your time on this stupid article and my foul mood.

First, the lede:

In a 2011 New Yorker profile, Peter Thiel, tech-philanthropist and billionaire, surmised that “probably the most extreme form of inequality is between people who are alive and people who are dead”. While he may not be technically wrong, Thiel and other eccentric, wealthy tech-celebrities, such as Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, have taken the next step to counteract that inequality – by embarking on a quest to live forever.

So, the big news that sparked this useless blather is -- nothing. If you thought maybe you missed some big news in longevity research, no, you didn’t. The writer of this piece, Sanjana Varghese, looked over the entire field of transhumanism and couldn’t find anything more compelling to kick off the lead paragraph than a six year old quote. Smashing journalism.

After opening with this damp squib, Varghese invites us to contemplate this horror:

Thiel and many like him have been investing in research on life extension, part of transhumanism. Drawing on fields as diverse as neurotechnology, artificial intelligence, biomedical engineering and philosophy, transhumanists believe that the limitations of the human body and mortality can be transcended by machines and technology. The ultimate aim is immortality. Some believe this is achievable by 2045.

Okay, so we should expect some argument about why this is bad, right? Well, what we get are these two complaints: 1) "transhumanism won't fix capitalism”, and 2) "I hope these people in particular die.”

It seems like if you could articulate those two simple ideas in a pretty strightforward way, right? Well, maybe you could, but let’s not. Instead, let’s first get confused about what the hell transhumanism even is, and who are the people involved in it.

The hows and whens of transhumanism are matters of debate. Some advocate the "Singularity" – a form of artificial super-intelligence which will encompass all of humanity's knowledge, that our brains will then be uploaded to.

Wow, sounds like a radical transformation of all of human civilization and society!

"Transhumanism doesn't have much to say about social questions. To the extent that they see the world changing, it's nearly always in a business-as-usual way – techno-capitalism continues to deliver its excellent bounties, and the people who benefit from the current social arrangement continue to benefit from it," says Mark O'Connell, the author of To be a Machine,

Oh, not so much then.

Musk has publicly declared that we have to merge with artificially intelligent machines that overtake humanity in order to survive.

Oh, survival of the species, that does sound like an important social question, though.

O'Connell points out that "you'd have to be coming from a particularly rarefied privilege to look at the world today and make the assessment, as someone like Thiel does, that the biggest problem we face as a species is the fact that people die of old age".

And we're back to "transhumanism is just overenthusiastic geriatric medicine."

But who are these transhumanists, anyway?

Of course, humans have long harnessed technology, from vaccinations to smartphones, to improve and extend our lives. But that doesn’t admit you into the transhumanist club. Wanting to live forever, and possessing vast sums of money and time to research, does. 

So transhumanists are typically billionaires, then. Like Thiel and Musk and Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg? He's mentioned as someone "embarking on a quest to live forever" in the first paragraph, and then never again in the article. I guess supporting one's contentions is too tranditional-journalisty for a progressive outfit like the New Statesman.

But also, transhumanism includes Ray Kurzweil, an engineer at (gasp) Google. Also a former candidtate for governor of California, Zoltan Istvan. Kursweil has some ideas about that "Singularity" thing, and Istvan has no ideas at all, apparently, since none appear in this article. But he does admit that billionaires are funding longevity research, so that's obviously sinister. 

But also, transhumanism includes white nationalists like Michael Anissimov. But also, they are not a fringe movement because DARPA is funding some projects. DARPA being a totally mainstream thing that everyone is always talking about, like Game of Thrones.

But also, 

It would be remiss to tar all transhumanists with one brush. [...] There are some prominent transhumanists who don’t fit into the Silicon Valley mould. Natasha Vita-More, the former Chairman of the Board of Directors of Humanity+ , the global transhumanist organisation, has spoken about the potential for a posthuman society to address issues of economic justice.

So transhumanists are evil billionaires, except when they are not, and they have no vision for the future of society, except when they do. So, we were going to learn about why they are bad, right?

On an even more basic level, a transhumanist society would undoubtedly be shaped by the ideals of those who created it and those who came before it. 

Unlike other societies we might have in the future, which would not be shaped by any sort of ideals, of course.

Immortality as defined by straight, white men could draw out cycles of oppression. 

PETER THIEL IS GAY, YOU DOLT! How can you even work in journalism and not know that he destroyed Gawker for outing him? You use a quote from Thiel to kick off your lousy excuse for an opinion piece and you don't even know this?  Did you even spend as much time writing your screed as I did writing this rant in response to it?

Without old attitudes dying off and replaced by the impatience of youth, social change might become impossible.

We need to kill off these transhumanists because they are stuck in old, hidebound ideas like this "upload all human minds into a global superintelligence" thing.

Artificial intelligence has already been shown to absorb the biases of its creators. Uploading someone’s brain into a clone of themselves doesn’t make them less likely to discriminate. 

Only technology that advances progressive ideals can be tolerated.

Thiel and Musk, for example, identify as libertarians and have frequently suggested that taxes are obsolete and that governmental military spending needs to be curbed (and put into life-enhancing technologies).

Progressive ideals like spending money on the military instead of on improving people's lives, that is!. Now, the New Statesman has been around for a long time, and what counts as progressive is as prone to drift as anything else in politics, but I did not realize they had come around to "bombs are more important than treating senlile dementia."

Okay, wrap it all up for us. What's the really real problem with people not suffering from old age as much as they do now?

If those who form society in the age of transhumanism are men like Musk and Thiel, it’s probable that this society will have few social safety nets. There will be an uneven rate of technological progress globally; even a post-human society can replicate the unequal global wealth distribution which we see today. In some cities and countries, inhabitants may live forever, while in others the residents die of malnutrition. If people don’t die off, the environmental consequences – from widespread natural resource devastation to unsustainable energy demands – would be widespread. 

So, three basic complaints. First, old people in the future will suddenly stop wanting social safety nets. Old people are kinda well known for their attachment to safety nets now, so why exactly do you expect that to change? Because Musk and Thiel funded medical technology, and thereby hypnotized nonagenarians into voting to end Medicaid and the National Health Service?

Second complaint: in the hideous transhuman future, we would still have problems with inequality. Well, I had raisin bran for breakfast, and that also did not solve global inequality. Am I next on Varghese's hit list? "You did not solve global inequality" is a pretty tough standard to meet, so I guess we can look forward to a long series of columns explaining why knitting, and ISO date formats, and hanging toilet paper the right way, and coffee, Taylor Swift's new album are all bad. Don't you know that if it doesn't solve this huge, complex problem that's been around forever, it's bad?

But worse, the second complaint is entirely unsupported, and the reverse may well be true. Cell phones used to be toys for the rich. Now they are commonplace, and they're doing quite a bit to benefit poor people, thank you. Could it be that research into human longevity will have positive consequences for people other than six billionaires in Silicon Valley? Like every broad-based area of technological research always has, ever? Could that be an interesting line of inquiry to write about in an opinion piece? Nah, not worth considering.

And complaint the third is that keeping people alive is just too expensive. It's phrased in tems of environmental costs, but that's just a way of tabulating the bill. Let me tabulate it this way: Varghese looks at a bunch of humans and a bunch of non-humans, and says, "Yeah, it's better if the humans die and the non-humans live." If you're aiming your dumb-ass opinon at oysters, that might be a good argument. Aimed at humans, not so much.

So there's the case against transhumanism. There's the case against basic medical research into aging and disease, including  Parkinson's, Alzheimer's,  cancer, heart disease, osteoporosis, arthritis, hearing loss, vision loss, and just generally feeling crappy when you get old. There's the argument against helping billions of people to live happier, more connected, more productive, more satisfying, and yes, longer lives. 

It's also the argument against fighting cholera, smallpox, and polio. It's the argument against human existence. And it's not progressive, it's not in favor of human dignity and autonomy, and it's not a position that helps the people Varghese claims to be concerned about. As someone who is in favor of human beings, I say fuck that.