#bot vs water yet again

[lets-try-some-writing]

Just read what you wrote about autobots reacting to rain, and now I'm wondering what would happen if they saw the kids jump into a pool full of chemicals (chlorine and whatever else they use to maintain a pool).

Basically, on a hot summer day the kids were complaining about the heat, so agent fowler got a pool for them to cool down in. The bots saw what the people assembling the pool put in the pool, and they freak out when the kids jump in with no hesitation.

Ooooooooooooooooh boy.

━━━━━━ ⊙ ❖ ⊙ ━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⊙ ❖ ⊙

The bots do not like rain. On Cybertron, the stuff was acidic and capable of killing a mech through prolonged exposure. Even on Earth, they still aren't fond of it. Big bodies of water have received the same treatment. Not a spark likes them. Bumblebee may appreciate the rain and running in it off and on, but not a single Autobot enjoys any large body of water. Its wet, gets everywhere, and most notably, could hide any number of threats that they cannot see. Not to mention their very code demands they remain away from anything that even resembles and acid pool. Optimus is especially wary due to his time growing up in the wilds.

These fears were largely not an issue due to the bone dry nature of Jasper. But one hot summer day, the children decided it would be a grand idea to swim. The team knew in theory what the concept was. They had seen enough videos and were largely alright with the children swimming in purified water. If Ratchet could run scans and have them come back with nothing but majority H2O, the team could be content. As such when Agent Fowler finally caved in and got the children a pool for the base as well as all the necessary cleaning tools, the children were thrilled.

They constructed the pool in the training room just to make sure they didn't mess with any of Ratchet's stuff and promptly began filling it up. Bulkhead and Bumblebee were roped into getting buckets to help fill it up faster while the rest of the team hovered nearby to watch. Once the pool was ready, Miko threw in the filter and got the pool cleaning systems running before scurrying away with the others to get her suit on. The team didn't know what she had done but remained passive for a long moment until Ratchet got suspicious. He dipped a chemical tester into the pool water and scowled at it as he waited for the results. By the time he read them, the children had already canon balled into the water and begun laughing.

But of course that joy was short-lived as Ratchet all but screamed and demanded the team get the children out NOW. The medic hurried to try and do something but skidded on the water on the ground and promptly lost his balance. Upon reading the results of Ratchet's scan for themselves, the rest of the team lost their minds.

Smokescreen who had not wanted anything to do with the pool backed away screaming as the children splashed him. He scrubbed down his armor in terror and flew toward the washracks. Ultra Magnus, Wheeljack, and Bulkhead were too large to get near to the children and all three were similarly terrified of the "Contaminated' liquid. Bumblebee and Arcee were the only ones small enough to take one for the team and put a pede into the pool and carefully scoop up the children. They shrieked as the liquid seeped into their seams and both dropped to the ground as soon as the children were handed to Optimus. The Prime for his part mentally prepared himself to have mangled servos for the remainder of his functioning as he rushed to the nearest pure water source and sprayed down the children with the hose.

The children were not pleased at all to say the least. However as they watched the team huddle around staring at them and their own frames in horror, their anger faded quickly. They instead felt guilty as Smokescreen began wailing about how he was too young to end up like a mech called Kup. The entire team was lamenting their fates as Ratchet checked them all, the medic having already come to terms with the possible mutilation of his back if the "contaminated" liquid was as bad as he initially thought. Miko fussed over her Wreckers, Jack went to Arcee and tried to comfort her as she looked at her leg sadly, and Rafael did his best to explain.

It was only after the team had quite a while to realize that they were not about to be mutilated for life that they looked over the children and came to the conclusion that, like rain, the water wasn't going to kill them.

Rafael: "What your scans picked up were just some cleaning chemicals. Chlorine and a few other things."

Ratchet: "Those are dangerous aren't they?"

Rafael: "Well they can be in large quantities and some people's skin don't handle it well, but it won't kill a person unless they eat it or something."

Smokescreen: "So... we aren't about to die?"

Jack: "Well I think you would be dead already if that were the case."

Yet another instance of the team nearly losing their minds over a simple thing. The Wreckers almost passed out from relief and while Optimus will never admit it, he was genuinely terrified of losing his servos. Bumblebee and Arcee looked at each other with completely deadpan expressions, both murmuring about how they "should have expected this". Ratchet merely grumbled and shakily stopped planning how to tell June and Fowler that the children died from being turned into sludge under his supervision. At the same time Smokescreen had to hastily wipe his face to try and act as though he weren't two seconds from a breakdown.

The team never spoke of the incident again and collectively acted as though nothing happened whenever the children brought it up. It was agitating to the children, but they got back at the team once they were allowed back into the pool again. There was always a bot there to watch them just in case they started melting or something, and whoever the poor bot on duty was, they got splashed. Most flinched or stepped away, but Smokescreen always. screamed.

The children find it hilarious to this day.

[ajbullet]

My thoughts on episode 4 of PJO: spoilers (chaotic edition because I JUST watched it and the thoughts are so fresh)

-First off: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

-Ok, good. Had to get that out. Second: best 30 minutes of my life

-I don’t think you guys will ever be able to fully comprehend how much I love Annabeth Chase and seeing Leah as her has only heightened that love. So imagine how elated I was to watch an episode full of my girl. She slayed, owned, and ate this episode. Whatever you want to call it. She did it

-“Are you awake?” The long-ass pause before Annabeth answered. As soon as Percy spoke, I was so hoping he was talking to her and not Grover (sorry I love him but). And then she answered

-She finally opened up to him!! We got some of her backstory!! She’s finally feeling comfortable!!!

-Percy’s face when she said she was seven. He was so surprised. I think he realized instantly how long this girl has been going through so much. They are only twelves years old. But she was a child when this began for her. Like you could tell he couldn’t believe it

-Grover mocking Annabeth was probably my favorite line from him yet. He’s so unserious I love him. Also, the food part was too relatable

-Small detail but the sky was so freaking pretty in the background. Such a unique thing to add and I loved it

-“Can I ask a dumb question?” As soon as he said it I knew Annabeth was gonna be the one to respond and she did not disappoint.

-“little girl” Annabeth’s reaction. I got chills. Leah deserves an Oscar/Emmy (whatever the actor award is) for that scene alone

-Loved Enchilada (don’t know how to spell her name and don’t feel like going back to check) but she talked too damn much. I was like get back to my kids please. Oh and back the hell up

-My BOY GOT STABBED NOOOOO. Oh he’s fine (plot twist: no he’s not)

-Annabeth took that mf DOWN for a second

-The monument!!! It was so cool!! Interesting that it’s a monument to Athena. I think I remember that from the book but either way that’s cool

-The. Entire. Conversation. Between. Percy. And. Annabeth. Oh. My. Gods.

-The fake accent??? Where did that come from?? I had to rewind twice just to make sure I heard right. Like what in Percy’s mind told him to do that? What wires crossed or came undone? How far had that poison reached? Because that was so unserious and I fell even more in love with his character

-He likeeeeeeeeeeees her

-Annabeth’s smile!! I’ve been waiting to see her smile like that and it was so cool to see! My girl is finally happy! for a second

-“You’ve done more for me in the past two days…” “If I had to pick someone, I’d…”

That required my BRAIN

-Plot twist: (again) Percy is not fine

-The splashing water was so funny. Like I get why but come on that was something else.

-Percy seeing what Annabeth has already sacrificed for him and his quest: her relationship with her mother. He sees what he has already cost her and what helping him means to her and omg it was heartbreaking

-One thing I absolutely adore about the books is that Annabeth’s intelligence is never in doubt by the reader. It’s not Percy or other characters saying she’s smart again and again with no proof. It’s not the narrative shoving the fact that she is smart in your face over and over. She proves she is smart. She proves she is inventive and strategic and intelligent by her actions and thought process and it’s almost never mentioned verbally. That whole idea of show vs tell? It’s perfectly shown through Annabeth acting intelligent instead of people talking about how intelligent she is.

Like how she splashed Percy with water or pulled the fire alarm. The viewers are shown she is smart, not just told.

-Annabeth’s willingness to sacrifice herself for her friends. Her only caring about Percy being poisoned, bot the monsters, and helping him. She knew she would die going up against the Chimera, even calls it the “demigod killer”, yet she does it anyway so her friends can succeed. She opened up to these boys and now she was giving her life for them

-Percy doing the same. Exact. Thing. The trick with the sword. The whispered words against the door, even as they shouted at him to open it. He knew for sure he would die and wanted it to be for a good cause. He didn’t even know if he could fight the chimera, but it was better him than Annabeth

-That boy looked so sick someone please help him

-oh, someone did.

-Dude I told my dad about the whole “Rick not knowing the River wasn’t right under the arc” thing and I was so excited to see how they did that and honestly it worked. Poseidon’s first way of helping Percy was by pulling him into the water, showing him to “just breathe”. My dad laughed when we watched it.

-oh I forgot! I love the first scene with Sally. Had some ptsd from swimming lessons but got to see young Percy so it was worth it

-Also the fall was shot so cool. I felt like I was falling with him

-He can breathe underwater! We knew this! But it’s still awesome!

I can’t even wrap my head around next episode. We are going to be fed so well after this short-ass episode and I am so ready. This episode already gave more Percabeth than I was expecting all season and I wanted to cry it was so adorable. This show is the only thing getting me through each week.

(Also, if you couldn’t tell, I finally figured out how to do italics instead of just capitalizing everything. Go me!)

[hestzhyen]

Food in the Edgy Sword Manga: A Summary

This is long because I hit the image cap but I at least managed to keep things succinct for once in my life.

In short: Kagurabachi has been using food as obvious symbolism for connection, trust, general well-being, and/or mutual understanding since the beginning.

Chapter 1

Moments like these are cherished memories that Chihiro keeps close to his heart. Note his relaxed, open posture compared to the next image.

Three years later, Chihiro is turning down Mr. Shiba's small offer of comfort. He still relies on Mr. Shiba and cares a great deal for him, obviously, but his heart is closed off now.

Vs. Sojo Arc

Chapter 3

Our first obvious glimpse into the kind nature Chihiro tries to smother with edginess. He'll turn down comfort from others but he'll easily offer some to a scruffy orphan. He even makes sure he gets down to her eye level to reassure her when doing so (Hinao also did the same earlier in the chapter). Take notes, Mr. Shiba.

World's Hardest-Working Uncle Figure doing the clarifying monologue shtick to perfection as always. Just so we know that this bit with Char is perfectly in-character for Chihiro.

Char doesn't trust Chihiro yet, but she's willing to help him with his own quest at least. They connected over the meal (short-lived as it was).

Chapter 5

Chihiro being run ragged by a hungry, lonely little girl should trounce any lingering doubts that this guy is an uncaring revenge bot. You can tell by his thoughts and dialogue here that despite his brusque attitude, he's more focused on Char's quirks and well-being than the information she can offer him. And Char reciprocates by starting to let her guard down- his altruism when providing security and comfort gets her to trust him completely.

Again food being used to reference someone's well-being. Living as a science experiment in captivity was terrible even when she still had her mom (obviously). But Char's safe now with access to good food through Chihiro. Or so she hopes.

Chapter 6

Chihiro's cherished memories of his dad are corrupted thanks to the trauma sorcerer. A meal interrupted, trust and safety shattered. Only hatred is left according to Chihiro when he comes to. ...But he's not exactly the most trustworthy guy when it comes to his own status.

Instead of the science lab or the cell itself we see a tray of indistinct mush and water in a cage. Just a gentle way of bonking us over the head that the food metaphors are supposed to be obvious- and that whatever is waiting for Char back there with Sojo is not good for her (or anyone really).

The comfort Chihiro offers is a bit awkward and messy, but it's still wholesome as fuck. He's willing to give it at his own expense too. Someone please give this boy a hug.

Chapter 11

Poor Mr. Shiba. One day he'll find someone who appreciates his awkward attempts to help people. At least Hinao didn't turn him down despite the poor presentation.

Between this scene and the grilled smelt from Chapter 1, it's pretty obvious that Shiba sucks at trying to be a source of comfort, but at least he tries.

Alone and back to being mistreated. Oh, Char...

Chapter 15

Just like Chihiro, this represents the precious memories Char has of her mom. When she was safe and loved.

And once again, safety and comfort are brutally ripped away from a child and their only parent.

... but what was lost can be found again in the right people.

May nothing bad ever happen to Char again. I mean it.

Chapter 17

Ah, one of my favorite tropes! Interrupting a fierce battle scene to show the combatants having a casual chat! This time, there's no comfort or security to be had through sharing food, though. Instead, this is exchange is purely about connecting and understanding each others' views.

A bit of trivia: these guys are probably eating hanami (a.k.a. sanshoku) dango which are usually eaten while viewing cherry blossom trees in the spring. They're sweet and thus extra unappetizing for Chihiro (he dislikes sweet foods and drinks in general).

Sojo initiates and eats a single dango. He begrudgingly accepts that Chihiro's view of Kunishige's legacy is legitimate.

As the conversation goes on, Chihiro accepts Sojo's interpretation in turn. Both of them are correct. And yet:

Chihiro painfully finishes his dango while Sojo is content to leave just the first one eaten. This is Chihiro being willing and able to swallow the whole truth and all it's implications, no matter how unpleasant the experience is. Meanwhile Sojo cares more about being the one with the "most correct" interpretation. Chihiro ended up getting more out of the conversation than Sojo did, which gave him the edge he needed to win the fight.

And that's the end of the Vs. Sojo arc. The food references aren't as common past this point, but they still show up to give some extra context in a few scenes.

Rakuzaichi Arc

Chapter 19

Hakuri's just a fuckin' mess dude- alone, insecure, and can't give himself any kind of reassurance. Given what what we can infer from his monologue, it's pretty obvious this guy is going through it and not coping as well as he thinks he is.

Chapter 26

Our spaghetti queen and parfait king share a meal to let us know that they're pretty comfortable with each other... though outsiders might not get what their deal is. It's casual and they chat like they've known each other for a while. Tafuku and Hiyuki's relationship is solid despite the yawning chasm between their personalities.

Once again Shiba's good intentions are turned down. At least Char is comfortable enough to let Team Goldfish know about her wants and needs now though!

Meanwhile, Hakuri isn't ready or willing to let anyone console him, but least we have better insight as to why he struggles to keep his shit together. Most people would- and we haven't even seen the worst of his circumstances yet.

Chapter 28

After a few days of encouragement from Chihiro and helping out, Hakuri finally lets himself be treated a little. He earned himself a bit of security and respite but is still uneasy, and thus quick to let the warm fuzzies go (hence passing the ice cream to Char instead of bringing it with him). Neither Chihiro nor Shiba have any themselves.

Chapter 35

Oh man. Oh boy. Time to really get into why Hakuri is the way he is. This could be a whole post by itself but I'll try to be brief. (Honest.)

Shout out to the KB Confession account on Twitter for letting me ramble in their inbox with that long-ass submission about how Hakuri relates to food in this series. I've reworked it poorly here (so much for being anonymous I guess).

Sazanami prison food looks better than what Char was getting, but it's not out of kindness- everything in this place exists for the Rakuzaichi. Hakuri obviously sees himself as no different. He threatens to keep Ice Lady alive no matter what she wants because that's his job; there's no affection or compassion involved when he provides her meals.

Ice Lady seems to want to genuinely connect with Hakuri though. Even when she fails to manipulate him, she keeps the offer of companionship open to him since she's empathetic to his situation.

It works as she thought it would, but maybe not as she hoped. We see him coming to trust and find comfort in her as she leaves less food behind each time, but she's unable to find the same in him. His insistence on their one-sided relationship through food only pushed Ice Lady further and further away despite her apparent growing affection for him. He got it all wrong because he didn't know any better. It's painful to love and be loved as a Sazanami- especially a worthless defect like him. Hakuri wasn't able to understand the ramifications of how fucked up his situation was until Ice Lady slit her throat in his face.

Up until this point, providing food was a positive thing- people connecting and usually finding comfort. At the bare minimum it allowed Chihiro and Sojo to understand each other before the end. But Hakuri inverted and distorted the meaning of sharing food with someone. His actions helped him break free from his family's grip by revealing that he doesn't know what it means to properly offer and reciprocate genuine human connection. So now Hakuri probably associates sharing food with being used and hurting other people.

That's why we haven't seen him share a meal with Team Goldfish or anyone else yet IMO. For all that he's attached himself to Chihiro, he still hasn't exchanged any food with him. Hakuri only trusts that Chihiro saw something worthwhile in in him, that through him there might be hope outside the cage after all. He's barely beginning to see himself as a useful tool. Once he gets to the probably not a horrible human being mindset is where we might see him be able to open up and try to share food again.

Chapter 43

The normal loving family that could have been, if not for Kyora and the clan's slavish devotion to the Rakuzaichi. It's sad but not suspicious that Mrs. Sazanami isn't included much in the meal- all signs from this chapter point to a joyless arranged marriage after all. Her not participating with her husband and sons speaks volumes about how distant and miserable she must have felt despite (presumably) making that spread. To provide care, comfort, and love while not being able to partake of it is all too common for mothers.

And so, another arc concludes with people sitting down to eat together despite some of them being doomed to die. And an exploding building. Gotta have both in Kagurabachi.

Kamunabi Arc

Chapter 45

Hey Chihiro, whatever happened to waking up with fresh hatred every morning? lmao

I love these goofs so much. It's just snacks on a coffee table, but it shows that Hiyuki and Tafuku have earned some level of trust from Team Goldfish. Shiba trusted them enough to supervise their stay in the same room as his sleeping nephews at least. And Char's already completely won over apparently. This manga does not miss on the found family wholesomeness.

Hiyuki might see the Kamunabi as a sort of family. At the very least, they're an important safety net for society as a whole. Hence us seeing the food again- protection and security.

So who and what will be next? Chihiro bonding with Hiyuki and Tafuku? Kazane turning someone's offer down? Chihiro, Hakuri, and some new coworkers chatting over lunch in the Kamunabi's cafeteria? I'm definitely going to be on the lookout! Until next time, Bachibros.

[wolfjackle]

I got tagged by @betasuppe, @greensword101, AND @insanely-creative-things for this game. Love all of you!

3 fave ships: Aziraphale/Crowley, duh. But for my current DPxDC fandom(s)? This is hard! I'm such a multishipper for DP, DC, and DPxDC. I don't think I can pick just two. So I'm gonna go with an old staple. Pride and Prejudice gives me Elizabeth/Fitzwilliam Darcy (look, when I say old staple, I mean it!). And... hmmm. Screw it, Emma/Knightley from Emma. I squee every time I read Knightley's proposal scene. Call me a basic white girl, I'll concede.

First EVER ship: Damn, I don't know. I got into shipping in high school, but not online fandom. It was either Naruto or Fruits basket, I got into both around the same time thanks to some friends. Fruits Basket gave me Kyo/Tohru (I loved them even when the manga was still teasing the Tohru/Kyo vs Tohru/Yuki love triangle). And for Naruto, I shipped Shikamaru with... I can't remember. I have no idea how I don't remember, but I don't. Used to look up videos and fanart with a friend all the time, but I went back 16 years in my youtube likes history and I can find no record of it. @betasuppe you were one of the ones who got me into Naruto back in high school. Do you remember who my huge ship with Shikamaru was? After those two came ATLA and then it was Zutara all the way. That was probably my first real exposure to online shipping discourse, so if that's what you mean, then there's your answer.

Last song played: Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald by Gordon Lightfoot

Currently reading: I actually just finished a four-part book series last night. The series is called A Mage's Influence by Melanie Cellier and it was so good. My next book will probably be A Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy by Mackenzi Lee (sequel to A Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue). But before that, I have some fanfic updates to catch up on. Next on that list is the latest chapter in If You Give a Bat a Burger which is fantastic and I'm so sad it's been a week and a half and I haven't read it yet.

Currently watching: Nothing, really. I binged a bunch of old disney movies with my friends over New Years, but I don't really plan to continue the trend.

Currently consuming: Again, nothing. I have a glass of water next to me, does that count? And I had a mint chocolate donut earlier that was amazing.

Currently craving: Honestly? A day away from people mostly. Haven't had that since before Christmas. For food? Uh... again. Nothing specific. Idk, I've had a lot of my favorite foods recently with the holidays and stuff. Not sugar. We had so many candies and desserts we had to eat from the holidays that I can't handle much more. (There's still a bunch left, hence the donut. I want to finish them before they go bad, but it's been so much sugar!)

Tagging: @gremlin-bot, @britcision, @thederpclub

[phoenixyfriend]

ok. karin vs anakin's genome being 50% the Force. go

Jesus fuck, okay. Uh, fair warning, I know very little about this subject, so it’s 90% bullshit. I am in no way qualified to talk about biology past the high school level.

Anakin's sixteen. He's part of a set of Jedi assigned to a weird mission regarding making contact with an isolated planet of near-humans with superpowers but no space travel. He doesn’t really have a Job here and now, he’s just there as Obi-Wan’s plus-one. There's an underlying plot about Sidious trying to acquire people from Ninja Land, but none of the Jedi are fully aware of it. Mostly they're distracted by all the ninjas and their bitching.

They call it the Shinobi Planet, because nobody can agree on a name for the planet when they ask and the last major international alliance was named after the shinobi profession, right? Good enough, you can change it later when you idiots can agree on literally anything, oh my god. The Samurai are very offended and it's a whole thing.

Anakin wanders a lot. He runs into various strange people and is mostly polite because, listen, half his friends are distinctly not human. When your immediate circle includes nautolans and besalisks and twi’leks and whatever the fuck Yoda is, you’re not gonna blink at a Hoshigaki or... uh... okay that kid just turned into a giant fox, is anybody gonna--no? That’s normal? Just him? Cool, cool, cool.

There’s a kage summit involved in the negotiations going on. IDK what’s being negotiated, probably something to get the ninjas to set up a singular spaceport so there’s somewhere to land WITHOUT ships being regularly shot down by village defense systems powered by that massive flaming purple skeleton warrior or the girl who punched down a mountain or the.. the literal desert? There’s a guy that can control the desert? Is there any way of keeping him away from Anakin?

(Gaara’s tickled pink that the reason someone wants to stay away from him has nothing to do with fear or respect for authority, and everything to do with ‘he is also from the desert and fucking hates it, so he’s staying away from the sand powers,’ because it’s very novel and kind of funny.)

ANYWAY where was I. Uh. Right, kage summit, lots of villages, they invite smaller villages to pitch in, but nobody ever ever ever wants Orochimaru anywhere near this situation, for hopefully obvious reasons, so Otogakure sends Karin.

Really, who else was it gonna be? Suigetsu? You want Suigetsu representing you on an interstellar political field? You want Juugo before he’s stabilized? You want Sasuke, master of ruining kage summits? You want these idiots representing you at the big kids’ table?

They send Karin. She’s a bitch with a temper, but at least she’s not as big of a political risk as... literally anyone else from the snakepit.

Anyway, Anakin wanders around, meeting people, trying foods, showing off when asked for demonstrations. He doesn’t have an Entire Protocol Droid, but he did cobble together a little floating helper that can do translations for him. Assume all translations are accurate and being done by the little helper bot. Bot’s name is G1-0T. Anakin calls it Glot.

He runs into Karin at one point, who’s not super into the whole situation, but at least Anakin’s interesting. She’s not interested in him, because he’s sixteen and she’s like... mid-twenties. And his hair is stupid. But! All these force-sensitive people feel weird to her, because sensor stuff, and it’s not chakra but it’s... something. Anakin is, of course, the weirdest.

(There are non-sensitives in the envoy, so she knows it’s not just a space thing.)

She strikes up a conversation about it, because hey, she hasn’t made it this far to not lean into... you know, being the kind of person who barges ahead with Weird Questions that might lead into fun science stuff.

Anakin is like. Well. This woman’s very strange, but it’s not like there’s anything against talking about midichlorians to random people. It’s easy enough to look up in the core. Not everyone knows about them, but it’s not a secret or anything.

“Wow,” Karin says, though not in so many words, “that sounds incredibly strange, and actually a lot like it functions completely differently from chakra, though maybe it intersects with nature chakra somehow. Can I take a blood sample?”

Anakin doesn’t want to give a blood sample to a stranger. Karin isn’t stupid enough to try to steal one. She’s seen what this Force Stuff can do, and this kid’s got a lot of it. She hasn’t got enough information on hand about it to know if he’d notice.

“How about I let you look at the blood of a guy that can turn into water?” Karin asks, because she’s not going to let him look at her blood. “I’ve got it with me.”

“...why?” Anakin asks, reasonably disturbed.

“He owes me,” she says, and does not elaborate.

“What, there’s nothing weird about your blood to share?” Anakin demands, like the ornery little bastard he is.

“People took my blood against my will for over a decade,” Karin says, with the kind of smile that threatens a stabbing. This is not secret information. Her healing factor is in the bingo book. Plenty of people still want her dead. “Nobody gets my blood except me.”

Anakin has no idea what to do with that answer. Most people wouldn’t know what to do with that answer. It’s not exactly a standard answer.

“So there is something weird about your--e chu ta what the fuck are those scars?”

Karin looks at her arm. She looks back at him. She raises an eyebrow.

“What do you think they are?”

He stares a little longer, and then very carefully does not say anything as she pushes her sleeve back down.

“So can I look at your blood?” she asks again.

“Uh--”

“You can look at mine under a microscope,” she wheedles. “You can’t take any, though.”

Anakin... does eventually agree. Eventually.

-----------

There is a very angry redhead yelling at a machine, and Anakin does not know what to do.

“Is something wr--”

“What the fuck is your blood?” she demands. “It’s glowing in ultraviolet. It burned the dye up. I tried to sequence your genome--”

“Woah, I did not agree to that.”

“--and look at this. Look at this!”

“I don’t know how to read your graphs. None of this is a language I know.”

“It’s garbage,” she hisses at him. Glot takes a few moments to process it. “Look at this. This is supposed to--fuck, where’s the Jiraiya file, he’s standard--this is what it’s supposed to look like for most humans with chakra. And this is a civilian, and a few bloodline users--”

“Do you just carry these around with you?”

“Shut up, you don’t exist. You have--you have more in common with summons than people. I ran a blood test on one of your human diplomats, the ones that aren’t monks--”

“When did they agree to that?”

“They didn’t, I’m just sneaky.”

“I should tell Obi-W--”

“STAY THERE, I’M NOT DONE YELLING YET. Do you see this? Do you see this shit? This is the one and only time I’ve managed to perform any kind of analysis on a bijuu. They don’t usually have blood. Shukaku is sand. Matatabi is literally just fire. This was almost impossible to make happen, but I did it because I’m a dedicated biomedical resea--”

“Because you’re unhinged.”

“--rcher, and you know what? You know what I’ve found?”

“What?”

“Your blood looks like you’re half demon,” she says, grabbing him by the shoulders and shaking, a little wild-eyed and clearly pissed at him. “Half of it’s human! Half of it looks like the non-physical chakra manifestations that were torn-apart remnants of a godlike demon. The fuckers can’t die. They also can’t breed. They don’t have reproductive organs! This isn’t just demon-tainted like a jinchuuriki, I’ve got that analyzed--”

“Why?”

“Because my cousin’s a moron, don’t change the subject. You--you shouldn’t exist. Your blood is stupid. Fuck, is this what I’d find if I analyzed the Sage of the Six Paths?”

“The what?”

She ignores him, frowning at papers. “Is--I need to call Haruno, she might still have some of Kaguya’s blood dried on her old gloves from the war, I know she kept those as a souvenir from the whole ‘punched a god’ thing.”

“I’m sorry, the what?”

“There was a thing a few years back, godlike alien demon princess who got sealed into a moon by her sons a thousand years ago, but her immortal sentient goo child brought her back with a giant tree that consumed all the tailed beasts-the flaming fox you saw earlier is one of them--and then used a giant eyeball to reflect off the moon to put everyone in a hallucination at the same time so she could eat our life-forces,” Karin dismisses. “It’s not important.”

“There is--what?”

Jedi see many things. Many of those things are very strange.

This is a little much even for Anakin.

“It’s over, if you want the actual details, talk to my idiot cousin,” she huffs. “But now I need to run comparisons between the actual nonsense that is your entire existence and the actual nonsense that is my cousin’s existence, and maybe Sasuke’s... fuck this is going to be a mess, I’m going to have to cross-reference all the clans with bloodlines we know are derived from Kaguya, she’s the only angle we have on gods like that, unless... maybe there’s still some black Zetsu goo somewhere... Orochimaru must have kept a sample...”

“Uh, can I--can I go? I’m not comfortable here.”

“I need to find Naruto so he can call the Sage of the Six Paths out of the afterlife so I can see if I can get blood from a ghost to compare to yours.”

[trashyswitch]

One Simple Mistake

It has long been decided one rule: NEVER leave the coffee grinds can out on the counter. One day though, someone forgets to put the coffee grinds away and suffers the DRASTIC consequences...

This is LATE! But, it's still relevant. Therefore:

Tickletober Day 23: Asking For It

It had started off like any other morning. The coffee-drinking sides had gotten their coffee, and put them back in the usual hiding spot. This was to prevent certain people from getting tempted into overdosing themselves on caffeine. It was always known that certain sides shouldn’t touch coffee grinds. Not even with a 10 foot pole! Cause they’ll find a way to get the coffee grinds into their system and go insane from an overdose. To prevent such overdoses, the coffee-drinking sides made a rule: after using the coffee grinds, always put the coffee away or hope you have the energy to handle the consequences…

But this morning, someone had accidentally left the can of coffee grinds out on the counter. It was one simple mistake...One tiny mistake…but even a simple mistake like that, had DIRE consequences:

“Mmmm! That’s that GOOD! SHIT!” someone reacted in the kitchen.

“ACID, BEER, COCAINE, AND DICK!” someone else shouted loudly.

“HAHAHAHA! You’re worse than Remus!” the 1st person laughed.

Logan groaned from tiredness and put his glasses on before walking out of his room. The people in the kitchen were gonna wake up the whole imagination at this rate! Logan was already awake. Did anyone else wake up yet?

“Logan?” someone asked beside him. Logan looked to his left, and smiled when he recognized the slightly blurry kitten onesie. “Was that you shouting profanities?” Patton asked.

Logan scoffed. “Oh please...I would say no such thing.” Logan replied.

“Then...who is?” Patton asked.

“I would suggest it was Remus, but...the last loud statement had proven me otherwise.” Logan told him.

“I FEEL AMAZING! LIKE I COULD KILL A PERSON!” Roman shouted.

Virgil bursted out laughing. “A KILLING SPREE: REMUS! VS. ROMAN!” Virgil joked and continued to laugh hysterically.

Patton dropped his jaw. “ROMAN?!” He shouted. He looked beside him and blinked in surprise. “AND VIRGIL?!” Patton shouted at him as well.

Virgil turned around and gulped. “Oops…” He thought aloud.

“QUICK VIRGIL! ATTAAAAACK!” ” Roman shouted, grabbing his hand and sprinting towards Patton.

“What the- OHGODNO!” Patton did a full 180 and took off screaming in horror! Roman was shouting a war cry and chasing Patton, while Virgil was screaming from being pulled absolutely everywhere. Logan, realizing he wasn’t enjoying being pulled, grabbed onto Virgil’s waist and pulled him out or Roman’s hand. Thankfully, Roman didn’t complain about losing Virgil and just continued to chase the screaming Patton.

“You okay, Virgil?” Logan asked.

“Ihihi...Ihi’m fine...I think.” Virgil replied. “I don’t think the coffee has kicked in yet. I had a couple cups of coffee a few minutes ago, so...I just have to wait.” Virgil admitted.

Logan looked at him. “H-...How did you find the coffee can?” Logan asked.

Virgil shrugged his shoulders. “I dunno. It was out on the counter this morning. Thought a cup wouldn’t hurt. But then one cup became 2.” Virgil explained, before lifting up his mostly empty cup to finish his coffee.

Logan pointed at the mug. “What number was that?” Logan asked.

Virgil lowered the mug, revealing his slight coffee mustache. He looked at Logan and blinked. “Number 4.” he replied before putting some tap water into his mug.

Logan sighed and rubbed his nose. “...And how many cups has Roman had?” Logan asked.

Virgil made an ‘I don’t know’ humming sound before dumping the slightly coffee-colored water down the drain. Logan walked up to the can of coffee and placed it in the secret hiding spot. “Oooooh...So that’s where it’s been?” Virgil muttered out loud.

Logan turned around and pointed his index finger at him. “Don’t tell Roman.” Logan warned.

Virgil smiled. “Okay.” He replied.

[An Hour Later]

“COME ON AND SLAM! AND WELCOME TO THE JAM! COME ON AND SLAM! IF YOU WANNA JAM!” Roman shouted, pretending to play basketball.

Virgil was giggling and laughing at the man. “Got any other songs you remember?” Virgil asked.

Roman gasped and snapped his fingers at Virgil. “THERE’S A HUNDRED AND FOUR DAYS OF SUMMER VACATION, AND SCHOOL COMES ALONG JUST TO END IIIT!” Roman shouted.

“AND THE ANNUAL PROBLEM, FOR OUR GENERATION IS FINDING A GOOD WAY TO SPEEEND IIIT…” Virgil continued.

“LIKE MAYBE!”

“BUILDING A ROCKET,” Roman shouted.

“OR FIGHTING A MUMMY,” Virgil continued.

“OR CLIMBING UP THE EIFFEL TOWER!” Roman continued, while Virgil conducted the ‘trumpet band’.

“DISCOVERING SOMETHING THAT DOESN’T EXIST-” Virgil shouted and pointed to Roman.

“MY GIRLFRIEND!” Roman shouted back.

Virgil bursted out laughing! “HAHA! OHOR GIVING A MONKEY A SHOWER!” Virgil continued.

“BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM! SURFING TITLE WAVES,” Roman shouted.

“CREATING NANO BOTS, OR-”

Roman joined Virgil. “LOCATING FRANKENSTEIN’S BRAIN!”

“IT’S OVER HERE!” Virgil added. “FINDING A DODO BIRD,”

“CREATING A COTTON LAYER, AND-”

Virgil joined Roman. “DRIVING OUR SISTER INSAAANE!” They shouted.

“PhInEaS!” Roman screamed in a mock girly voice.

“AS YOU CAN SEE, THERE’S A WHOLE LOT OF StUFF TO DO BEFORE SCHOOL STARTS THIS FALL,” Virgil sang.

Roman pointed to Patton. “COME ON, PERRY!” Roman shouted.

“SO STICK WITH US CAUSE PHINEAS AND FERB ARE GONNA, DO IIIT, AAAALLLL!” Roman sang.

Virgil pretended to rock the electric guitar while they both started screaming the last part: “SO STICK WITH US CAUSE PHINEAS AND FERB ARE GONNA, DO IIIT AAAAALL.”

To end it all off, Roman ran up to Logan and started waving and puppeteering the man’s arms. “MoOom! PhInEaS aNd FeRb ArE MaKiNg A tItLe SeQuEnCe!” Roman said in his mock girly voice. Roman put Logan’s hands down as Virgil strummed the last loud guitar note.

Patton giggled and clapped his hands. “That was great, you two!” Patton cheered.

Virgil got back up and snuggle-hugged him. “Thank you Pat.” he replied happily.

Roman was just laughing and pointing at Logan. “Good job playing Candace, by the way!” Roman complimented.

“I had no choice.” Logan reminded him.

“That’s besides the point.” Roman muttered as he lightly punched his shoulder.

Patton was squeaking and giggling at the affection he was getting. “Yohou’re so affectionate like this!” Patton reacted.

Virgil smiled at this and playfully shook his hair right into the side of Patton’s neck. Patton squeaked in surprise and let out some giggles! “HEHehehe! Vihihirgihihil! Thahahat tihihihicklehes!” Patton giggled up a storm.

Virgil brought his head back. “Awww! Ticklish, Pat?” Virgil asked with a smirk. Patton giggled more and nodded. “Perfect!” Virgil declared as he tickled Patton’s belly.

Patton doubled over and guffawed. “HAHAHA! WAHAHAHAIT! LOHOHO HEHEHELP!” Patton shouted.

Logan walked up to help him, but was stopped by a prince with a shit-eating grin on his face. “One single step forward...and I’ll tickle you till you lose all touch with reality.” Roman warned.

Logan lifted an eyebrow as he took a step forward. “Sounds like attempted murder to me.” Logan added.

Roman tripped Logan from behind and laid him down. “Not if it’s screams of laughter!” Roman declared. Roman started skittering his fingers on Logan’s ribs and sides. Logan jolted in surprise and tried to hold his laughter in. “Ooooh! Gonna hold out on me, huh? Tell me: how many times have you simply laughed on the Sanders Sides channel?” Roman asked as he paused his tickling.

Logan let out his breath and breathed somewhat heavily. Then, he tried to think. But the truth was, Roman was right: He has never truly laughed on screen! The one laugh he DID let out, was simply a half-assed ‘Ha’. And knowing Roman, that won’t count.

“That’s right! A big, flat, none! Therefore: LAUGH FOR ME!” Roman shouted before immediately blowing a raspberry right onto his core!

“GAHAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA! AAAHAHAHAHEHEHEHEHEHE!” Logan bursted out loudly.

Roman gasped and only continued to tickle him with his fingers. “YAY! AFTER ALL THIS TIME, YOU HAVE A LAUGH! VIRGIL! LOGAN HAS A LAUGH!” Roman shouted happily.

“I can hear that!” Virgil reacted. “And so does Patton!” Virgil added as he blew a raspberry on Patton’s neck.

“EEEEEEHEHEHEHEHEhehehe!” Patton laughed, curling his neck in.

To get Patton on the ground, Virgil gently tripped him and laid him down right beside the laughing Logan! But seeing Logan laughing like this, only made Patton wanna tickle him too!

But Virgil decided to squeeze his hips anyway. “Coochy coochy coo, Patty!” Virgil teased.

“WAHAHAHA-WAHAHAHAIT! IHIHIHI WAHAHAHANNAAAA-HEHEHEHELP!” Patton shouted to Virgil.

Virgil lifted an eyebrow in confusion. “Help? With what?” Virgil asked, pausing his tickling for a moment.

As Patton breathed heavily to regain his oxygen, Patton gave Logan’s closest side a squeeze. Logan squeaked! “AAAAHAHAAA!” Logan turned himself onto his left side. PAHAHAHAHAT!” Logan yelled.

“Whahat? Can’t handle another tihickle monster?” Patton asked, still slightly giggly himself.

“NOHOHOHOHOHO! TOHOHOHO MAHAHAHANY!!” Logan shouted.

Patton, Virgil and Roman all attacked Logan from all angles! It was now 3 to 1, (a completely unfair fight), and Logan felt like he was gonna die laughing! And yet...He was loving it! Something about laughing really hard after not laughing for years, seemed to feel amazing to the nerd. Maybe...psychological based? Logan may have to review the psychology theories again to come up with a more specific answer.

“THEHEHE MOHOHORE YOHOHOU GUYS TIHIHICKLEHE MEHEHE, THEHEHE MOHOHORE REHEHEVEHEHENGE IHI’LL DIHISH OHOHOUT! IHIHI HOHOPE YOHOHOHOU KNOHOHOW THAHAHAHAT!” Logan warned.

“Oh No! I’m So ScArEd!” Roman teased.

“YoU pOoR bAbY! pOoR lOgEy Is TiCkLiSh!” Patton teased.

“It's a shame that EvErYoNe is taking advantage.” Virgil added.

Everyone continued to destroy Logan with tickles just about everywhere on his body. Logan was LITERALLY GOING INSANE! YES! MORE TICKLES! If this is what it’s like having Roman and Virgil on caffeine highs, Logan needs to leave the coffee out a lot more!

Suddenly though, all the tickling stopped! And a bunch of yelps and shouts of surprise filled the room for a few seconds! Logan opened his eyes little by little and adjusted his glasses. What...happened?

Logan’s eyes widened when he noticed the 3 sides being held up against the wall by octopus arms! “I KNEW this would happen! No one can truly handle the GREAT, POWERFUL ROMAN on CAFFEINE!” Someone shouted in front of him. Logan sighed as he recognized the manic voice.

Remus.

“REMUS! LET GO!” Roman shouted at him.

Remus gasped and placed a hand on his chest in offense. “Such anger running through your veins! I must change that as soon as I can.” Remus declared as he summoned some floating green feathers.

Roman shrieked in horror and watched nervously as the feathers fluttered around his body and leaned in closer to his ticklish spots. Roman couldn’t stop the wobbly smile from forming on his face.

Remus giggled evilly and summoned more feathers to surround the two other sides. “Any last words before your ticklish fantasies finally come true?” Remus asked the three of them.

Patton gulped as the feathers neared his feet and belly. Those spots were the ILLEGAL spots!

Virgil tried to glare at the dark side, but his glare was quickly turned into a wobbly smile due to the feathers fluttering right over his neck and belly button.

And Roman’s whimpers faded into giggles as his ears were touched only the slightest bit.

“Would you like to help, Logan?” Remus offered.

Logan stood up and watched as all 3 of his friends were overcome by laughs and giggles, thanks to the many fluttering feathers. Logan had the mental sense to save them. But when Logan thought about it more, he realized his 3 best friends were also the 3 lers in the group, who were just asking to be destroyed! So:

“Okay.” Logan replied.

Logan happily helped Remus and the feathers with the tickles, and reduced his friends into wholesome messes of laughter all in the name of revenge. Logan knew the boys were gonna get it eventually. What Logan DIDN’T expect, was Remus’s eventual involvement.

But to be honest: He couldn’t have it any other way.

[purgatoryandme]

Hey! I can't seem to find the post you made with all the books references in Illuminate Me and the reason behind it? Is it deleted?

I know that there is an incomplete one floating around in my reply tag, and it should be in the Illuminate Me tag, but tumblr’s search features are so bad that I went back to the original word doc of the complete list, so prepare for that particular storm lol.  Quoted/Referenced Reading List (In Order of Appearance) Shakespeare: Macbeth I opened on a Macbeth quote (‘When shall we three meet again? In thunder, lighting, or in rain’) because I wanted to start with something immediately relatable. Most readers were introduced to more ‘dramatic’ plays through Macbeth. Beyond that, they were introduced to the concept of pathetic fallacy, which I think plays nicely with Tony as a character (a man who is CONSTANTLY imparting emotion onto inanimate objects…and then actually giving them their own emotions) and with one of the core problems in IM, which is deciding the emotions of others for them. I was hoping to get the ‘feel’ of that without having to lean too far into the actual concept. 

Bonus: I picked this quote in particular because of the importance of threes in Tony’s life (his core group of friends, iterations of the reactor, number of times reborn, his bot children VS his AI children, the number of lovers or almost lovers he has in the fic, etc). Milton: Paradise Lost ‘What is dark within me, illuminate!’ is a modernization of the original Milton quote ‘what is dark within me, illumine’ for readability. I actually feel a bit bad about changing this considering how many people think this is the original quote now. This wound up being a central (and title) quote somewhat by accident. I’m fond of it because of how much I liked a different one that I had originally wanted for Tony’s thoughts of the reactor: ‘yet from those flames, no light, but rather darkness visible’. I had originally wanted to start off on a sadder note, one that showed how much Tony hated losing his humanity, and so the flames of Hell and their physics-bending concept seemed thematically appropriate. I had always intended to eventually invert the imagery – instead of Extremis being (to Tony) flames capable of extinguishing light, the reactor would become a water-like blue light that couldn’t be choked or recreated by any of the shadows that pursued Tony in his life. I picked Milton SPECIFICALLY for the imagery of light and shadows. 

But, man, listen. Darkness visible is a great concept, but it’s also tired. It has, as you’ve noted, been discussed to death. So as I was reading ‘Milton’s darkness visible and Aeneid 7’ to refamiliarize myself with some of the broader themes attached to that particular piece of imagery, I wound up thinking about how to invert the darkness itself instead of the overall concept. The flames of Hell extinguish light instead of having to exist away from it. It is a bad that cannot be penetrated by good. 

Instead of chasing away shadows, which would be implied by shining a light ON them, the request Tony makes here is to actually invert the darkness - to have it illuminate in and of itself. It’s becoming something better instead of being removed or forgotten. On the flip side of that, the darkness within isn’t growing as light weakens, but rather under its own force. Two forces equal in nature and origin in a person. It’s a different take on lighting than the one most critics hammer home. Long ramble is long, but this was the basis for using that quote. It grew from there to have many different meanings, however the core has always remained. All in all I’m pleased with it.

EM Forster: A Room with a View Very forgiving even in its satirical takes on human nature. A lot of passages are very therapy-quotable in their urging to accept the inevitability of causing some harm in life. It plays on a lot of the same concepts with light being obvious metaphor for good and evil that Paradise Lost does, but softens them into more realistic shades of human existence. Isaac Asimov: Foundation Continuing on with themes of rigid morality vs the flexibility and romanticism of humanity, we have Asimov, master of machines and the three rules of robotics! There are lots of quotable epigrams in this beast. The quote pulled from this has two readings depending on what you assume of the man who has said it. If you see him as manipulative, there’s an insidious underpinning of killing off your own morals. If you see him as a kind man, then you could read it as foregoing morals in place of empathy. Tony’s therapist loves a very specific brand of double speak that lets Tony work through the conversation purely through interpretation. Tolstoy: Anna Karenina Tolstoy’s prose is lengthy...so so lengthy, but Anna Karenina is worth the read as long as you relate to at least one of its major characters. Frankly, I think you can choose to read a single character’s plot arc and leave it at that. It’s mostly a novel that is interesting, not because of its plot, but because of its study of relationship dynamics. Tolstoy was really invested in picking apart the idea of what makes a ‘family’ and, beyond that, what makes a class. It’s refreshing to see so much of the critique occurring within the lived experience of the characters instead of through a narrator or outside punishing moral forces. Baudelaire: Windows and Benediction I cannot recommend enough reading multiple translations of Baudelaire poems (fleursdumal.org has a wonderful array available). Benediction is a personal favourite. I love me some malevolence wrapped up in religion. Dante: The Divine Comedy There’s a lot of bleak humor in Dante if you look for it. Several interpretations insist of making each piece excessively grim dark, but faithful translations tend to have a hint of humor in them. It works well for engraving War Machine’s spine - a benediction and a mockery of human limitations. I try to pick quotes that not only fit the scene, but would still fit into the context of the grander themes from whence they came...unless I hate the author. Tennyson: The Lady of Shallot “I am sick of shadows” vs “I am half-sick of shadows”. Tony’s expressing more frustration here with being alone and his passive involvement in that loneliness. Another quote I feel vaguely bad about changing, haha. The Lady of Shallot is a very nice classical piece that I’m sad isn’t taught in schools alongside Hamlet. There are some nice Ophelia parallels here. I wanted a feminine influence on Tony’s loneliness and one that is somewhat youthful despite his age. Yeats: Vacillation I fucking hate Yeats as a person. That said, the man can write. The man can REALLY write. His pieces are almost always layered to the point of absurdity and he’s perfect to swiping quotes with multiple meanings. Definitely Tony’s kind of author. Goethe: Faust Speaks for itself and in the author’s notes on its reference.  Dostoyevsky: The Brothers Karamasov IMO a book that deserves all the acclaim of Anna Karenina and then some. Very VERY Russian in its ethical debates of, as always, religious morality vs free will. Also dips into familial struggles and patricide, because it wouldn’t be a Russian classic if it didn’t contain some deeply buried bitter resentment towards paternalism. I’m going off-script here, but this is a fucking excellent book. I don’t really have words for how much I enjoy how Dostoyevsky explores the concepts that he does. Shakespeare: Julius Ceasar Shakespeare: Twelfth Night Twelfth Night deserves more credit for its development and maintenance of an enigma. Twelfth Night has charisma in spades both because of and in spite of the exceedingly petty actions of some of its characters. It is also a refreshingly simple take on love for the sake of it. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland Stephen King: Lisey’s Story I consider Lisey’s Story to be the best of King’s work. The man has his obvious writing ticks and his even more obvious issues as an author. Lisey’s Story contains many of them, but navigates them far better than any of his other work. The monster here is all in the mind and is too vast to truly see or understand. It’s perfectly representative of a creeping sense of inescapable horror. It was fun to flip it on its head with a reference here – Tony isn’t terrified of dying, but he is terrified of his inescapable enjoyment of Bucky’s company. Maria’s family saying is inspired by Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass Armitage: The Death of King Arthur A genuinely fantastic classic tale of heroism, filled with all the drama, tragedy, and sacrifice that you’d expect with strongly feminine undertones. I’m a sucker for this kind of thing. TS Eliot: The Wasteland Excellent piece of poetry with many layered meanings and dual interpretations. I can’t really articulate my thoughts on The Wasteland, but I reference an essay at the end of this list that does that for me. Oedipus Rex Rupert Brooke: Safety Not directly quoted but obscurely referenced through Bucky and Tony’s war conversations + Bucky’s conversation about, you got it, being ‘safe’ with his therapist. His poetry is about WWI and is, largely, idealistic. Safety is…not quite an exception to that. His other poetry contains a certain sense of honour and duty, whereas safety, maintaining a seemingly light tone, has nothing of the sort. It is safety in the soul – something untouchable by the horrors of war or death. It treats that as a ‘house’, which leant itself to the article Tony send Bucky. Armine Wodehouse: Before Ginchy Not directly quoted but obscurely referenced through Bucky and Tony’s war conversations + Bucky’s conversations with his therapist. This is also WWI poetry, though far darker than Brooke’s work. It discusses the parts of the heart and soul soldiers lose. It is an extremely good piece AND references Dante’s Inferno. I had to work it in somewhere even if I didn’t want to directly quote it. Meyer and Brysac: Tournament of Shadows Referenced several times over in discussion of war, the great game, and British military history. Beautifully self-aware account of Britain’s insistence on rewriting history after the fact and the tiny hilariously embarrassing moving pieces that shaped what is often considered the heyday of espionage. Murakami: Kafka on the Shore I love Murakami’s response to questions about understanding the novel as a whole. There are no solutions, only riddles presented, and through their interaction the possibility of a solution takes place. It’s a great lens through which to view the book and individual passages taken out of it. Reminds me of The Wasteland having to be read in totality before you can begin picking it apart, after which each individual piece can be read of its own. Kafka on the Shore, with its musings on the uncertainty of fate and redemption, was the perfect book to outline Tony’s horrifying realization, which he is desperately suppressing, that he might be coming to accept Bucky’s feelings. This quote in particular, while I would’ve used it anyway, is also a great callback to the first chapter and its storms. Chapter 29 is a turning point. Beyond it there are some intentional quote contrasts that are probably more easter eggs than they are anything else. Yeats: A Dialogue of Self and Soul Great contrast with Vacillation. Some parts of self and soul are used in that poem and thematically they are connected and contrasted - self and heart vs self and soul. The symbolism and imagery in Vacillation is really on point and layered, but Self and Soul is peak Yeats for its reversal of the typical ‘the soul is pure and bluntly honest and the body is tainted and bad’ in Christian works. Also Self and Soul’s broader context is scrumptious considering the debate poems history of relying on divine forgiveness and lack thereof instead of on forgiveness of the self. 

It was fun to give this poem a double meaning in IM as both hugely ominous and ultimately pointing to the later forgiveness Tony receives from himself through the divine (if the soul stone can be called that) in the heavens (space!). There’s also another fun twist to ‘who can distinguish darkness from the soul’ in its contrast with ‘what is dark within me, illuminate’. To take that a step further, Vacillation was the beginning of the path of forgiveness for Bucky (understanding Tony’s heart…somewhat literally as he slowly gets closer and closer to the reactor itself), while Self and Soul is a final step (re: Bucky being presented the final hurdle of Tony deciding to move forward alone). Hermann Hesse: Siddhartha Hesse is wonderfully blunt at times. I gotta admit I love German takes on spiritual self-discovery because they always seem to tend towards much more straightforward answers than other countries. Hesse’s relationship with Buddhism in literature vs his lived experience is also really intriguing. Anyway, Siddhartha, in its humanizing of Gods, is wonderful contrast to the consistent imagery of the untouchable and unknowable forces of good and evil in previously quoted works. It has stopped bringing humanity to the divine and has started placing the divine within humanity. Emily Wilson’s translation of the Odyssey One of the ultimate poetic epics. Now that we are nearing the end, I’m going overtime with making the grander themes of this whole piece hit home. A lot of IM was built on a foundation of poetic epics, of heroism, and a bit of Greek tragedy. The Odyssey embodies all of those things beautifully. It also suited Thor too well to pass up. Yeats: An Irish Airman Forsees His Death Ah, Yeats. Very blatant foreshadowing here that is keeping with the foreshadowing from Self and Soul. Fate has, up till this point, been a bit of a question. It has been ‘when will it come to me’ and ‘how will I avoid or overcome it’. Now fate is a set point. It is knowable and present. ‘I know I shall meet my fate, somewhere among the clouds above’. This goes for the true onset of Infinity War and for Tony’s feelings towards Bucky – when he had no one, he allowed Bucky in after essentially promising himself he wouldn’t. If that’s not an accidental admittance of love, nothing is. Henley: Invictus Absolutely fantastic poem. Continuing with the heavy fate themes coming into this climax. Now that Tony knows his fate, truly knows it, he is choosing to take it on directly. Agamemnon (Anne Carson’s Traslation if you prefer a more modern language approach, Lattimore is you prefer a classic) Agamemnon is forgotten all too often in the world of poetic epics and it’s a damn shame. I cannot say enough good things about it. I always wanted to use lines from Agamemnon in a Tony fic because the Cassandra parallels were too perfect to resist. The chorus in this play was also a perfect narrative device for interacting with something of a hive mind. Yeats: The Wanderings of Oisin Another poetic epic. Nice contrast with The Odyssey, The Death of King Arthur, and Agamemnon. Here the dialogue is between an aged hero and a saint looking into the hero’s past. It has the kind of reflective and aged mood necessary for this stage of the story, but is actually a poem I sortof hate. The line ‘And a softness came from the starlight, and filled me full to the bone’ is absolutely gorgeous, though. Some final inspiration pieces:

The Penelopiad 

The Iliad 

House of Leaves (for surrealism in the final chapters) 

Dante at Verona (used in an author’s note as an intentional jab at the dull uninspired nature of the this particular take on Dante. Repurposed quote, essentially) 

a broke machine just blowin’ steam by themikeymonster (great character study of Bucky) 

Frank Kermode’s essay “Eliot and the Shudder” (inspiration behind Tony’s entire interaction with literature)

[moonchildsaurora]

The ex-Mercenary with the endearing dimples

»»—— Crew Member #5 of Space Pirates ATEEZ ——««

all aboard The Perihelion, welcome to the co-pilot’s log system! here you’ll be able to access the crew’s profiles should you wish to read about their journeys: (no nsfw content)

[CAPTAIN] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8]

“if you fall for those dimples, then you’re already half-way in the hunter’s trap”

only a handful of people actually know of his origins, and being a changeling sure comes with a lot of perks for his (previous) field of work

[database file: changelings are nomadic beings, and are able to shift both face and form at will. There are no official records of a changeling’s standard/normal form, and very rarely would anyone get a chance to witness it. Most changelings take on forms of existing beings, depending on the location they’re at and how much they want to blend in, some preferring to add their own artistic flair on appearance]  

San’s hair changes almost as quickly as he changes his dagger blades, his current hair of a rich dark brown colour with a turf of silver that never seem to stop shimmering slightly – much like moon light. Which makes his Selenian [database file: moon/silver elves] form all that more convincing

he started his mercenary life on the planet Tundaoria, where all main networks of black markets and underground work are based at

young blood with no last name, a growing reputation – San is an all-round enigma. But he had a talent for tracking, deadly accuracy and disappearing without a trace, hence nobody questioned him other than for getting a job done

he used to work with a small group, ‘Windstriders’, known for their efficient timeframe and clean work. People pay for the quality, majority of the time San worked with others but sometimes he might pick up a few solo missions on the side

earned the nickname ‘Dimples’ from his ex-team mates however whilst he seems harmless on first glance, “the kid? Aye he’s one big sweetheart he is”, he’s learnt to use that highly skewed perception to his advantage

that’s to say he’s managed to coax beings either to bed for a night of pleasure or their deathbeds, talk about deadly charisma  

“so on average, what are the chances of someone walking out of your room alive?” 

San prides himself with maintaining a level of morality, and won’t kill unless it’s the specific target themselves and/or out of self-defence for any unfortunate souls who decide to intervene with his job. Has nothing against stealing or gambling because, “what’s living without taking a few risks?”

lowkey has a soft spot for younglings and became unexpectedly close to a particular orphanage in a town on the far northern-side of the planet. The head guardian (most orphanages are cared by a guardian or two) found San passed out nearby after a particularly tedious mission and took him in for healing. Since then that place had become an unofficial healer’s spot and safe house  

the younglings absolutely adored having him visit, especially when “look, look! The Moon Prince is here!”, bearing gifts such as trinkets, new toys or aleagette pastries [database: assorted savoury or sweet pastry-type snacks that melt in the mouth when eaten, the surprise is that the flavour isn’t known until the first bite]. San would later on start contributing part of his earnings towards the upkeep of the orphanage as a repayment for the guardians’ hospitality (and it’s really for the younglings but he won’t admit that)

every time a youngling treats him to a toothy smile, a wild giggle or when the bolder ones would run up and wrap their petite arms around his legs his fondness grows exponentially. Once, a guardian caught him helping the younglings doodle whatever their hearts desired on themselves so they could match the many permanent silver ink patterns that decorated his arms and back

“already influencing the little ones with your ways, Sannie?” (another nickname that the younglings picked up on and would parrot it back)

“I’ll have you know what we’re doing here is called art”

the one time San was caught off guard was having a past target’s associate track him down to his safe space and carry out a revenge attack – “you took my family away from me and now I’m going to take yours”          

San never fully recovered (the invisible wounds at least) for causing innocents to get caught up in the crossfire, for realising too late how attached he’s become to these people and their meaningful presence in his life 

as a parting favour, the Windstriders helped San relocate the survivors of the orphanage far away to the much more peaceful city of Aeria (known as ‘City of Healing’ on the planet Cidestea). They said goodbye to a reliable comrade, to his old identity, to his previous lifestyle; mutually promising that contact will only be made again in a dire situation as a last resort – Dimples was off the radar for good

5 years later, after a successful loot haul The Perihelion stopped by Aeria for a re-fuel and mainly because Seonghwa wouldn’t miss an opportunity to stock up on his medicinal herbs (also adopting some new plant children). Hongjoong led his small crew after being directed by a local to “the best tea spot in town” which turned out to be ‘Mosaic Brews’ run by none other than San

now sporting a more turquoise shade of hair and a woodland elven appearance where once silver ink ran along his skin, now a bold black-brown. The younglings who decided to stick by him now have grown too, toughened up by life yet maintained their soft innocence under San’s care for the past years

curiously they stared in awe at Yunho and Mingi, clearly never seeing such giants (to them) before, the older ones enthusiastically brought out the multi-coloured teas for their new guests and the younger ones were spoiled by Seonghwa’s constant cooing. Hongjoong thought San was more than what met his eyes, the seemingly bright shop owner who’s dimples were on full display and heartily conversed with the young captain still had a guarded air around him

it wasn’t until Yunho and Seonghwa gave a few Urousbaines (with captain’s approval of course, one does not just hand out rarities for free) from their loot to the younglings and San’s nonchalant reaction that got Hongjoong’s eyes sparkling

“don’t worry little one, the flower isn’t frozen, here pass me that water bowl.” and the younglings are still convinced till this day that San is some intergalactic prince with magical powers. Because right in front of their eyes the supposedly frozen flower bloomed and the sunlight refracted off its crystal-like petals, casting a spectrum of colours to fill the small shop

“oh how wondrous! How did you know to do that?” (…and San has left the chat)

A LOT of convincing was needed to get San to hear Hongjoong out (by now the crew knew what their captain wants, he gets) and only after tucking the younglings in for the evening in their rooms on the upper level of the shop did the serious talk start

San swore to leave that life behind but he would be kidding himself if he said he didn’t feel a slight tug at his heart for adventure, yet again. It was a tug-of-war between what the head knows vs. what the heart yearns for

“But Sannie how are you going to save the galaxy if you’re stuck here?” came the soft-spoken voice of the youngest and the group nearly had whiplash turning around. The younglings had snuck downstairs and listened in on the convo, knowing it’ll be sad to part with San but even sadder for him to purposely hold back

the younglings won the debate, that they weren’t naïve nor helpless anymore and together they could take care of themselves and the shop – after all they’ve only learnt from the best (San did notify some of the locals whom were trusted regulars of his temporary leave and to keep an eye on the younglings in his stead)

Yunho offered a communication bot to keep in touch so San could check-in whenever he wished, the younglings were fascinated as the Sheirzoi showed them how to work it and a chorus of “oohs” and “ahhs” were heard when they saw the main deck of the ship through the screen. At present, he made sure to check-in at least once every week, all smiles & dimples when he sees the little ones’ faces squeezed into the single screen

San held onto the younglings right up until he boarded The Perihelion, and making sure to wave back until they were right out of sight. He packed simply but made sure to put up some of the drawings the younger ones gifted him up on his room’s walls and the ‘lucky charm’ that got braided into his hair was worn proudly (the older kids had woven a band with colourful beads & crystallised Echetta wings they found in the garden – from the ‘lucky butterfly’)

the crew reminded him of his old team, how they looked out for one another despite not being blood-related but nevertheless a family of sorts. Eventually everyone found out of his changeling abilities after he nearly gave them a heart attack, “SAN! YOU’RE PURPLE…WHY IS YOUR SKIN PURPLE?!”

Hongjoong never dug too deep into San’s past but was very grateful and appreciative of his fighting skills, thus made him in charge of training the others to be able to defend themselves at least. Cue strict combat trainer San to pop out (Yeosang adds a new curse word to his vocab list after every lesson)

they’ve seen his lethal side where he went on a rampage after Seonghwa got shot

Is probably the only one Jongho trusts to trial his new weapons without blowing something or someone up accidentally

argues with the hot-headed Wooyoung frequently that sometimes Seonghwa has to put them in time-out, initially was legit arguments but now it’s more with an affectionate undertone

Hongjoong and Seonghwa nearly gave him ‘the space dad & mum talk’ after, “bloody hell did you get attacked or something?” upon seeing an array of purple-pink marks across San’s neck when he came stumbling back to the ship just near dawn. The faint scent of perfume lingering and tousled hair gave away that much. “At least leave us a message if not we’re sending the precious cargo retrieval brigade next time”

recently adopted a Kiatrafel [database file: small winged feline-like creature that can spit fire], he calls her “my girl” and is in the midst of training it to not mark its territory everywhere (including on people)

“SAN! Your hellcat just pissed on Hongjoong...again and coughed up flames on Yunho’s notes. Captain says if you don’t come within 5 seconds he’s throwing her down the chute”                                          

(moodboard made with love, by @s1ardusk​ ♡)

[bionicdragonguardian1]

Voltron Rewritten Defender (1/8)

Also known as My Almost Raging Bitch List for this Goddamn Disastrous Disappointment of a Show

I binged all 8 seasons in under a week, so believe me when I say almost nothing was forgotten between seasons/episodes and I do tend to note that.

If it’s not obvious by the title, I’m planning an entire show AU. I am extremely open to people’s opinions on what I’m currently thinking and when I finally post this I’ll be open to criticism there too. If you would like to avoid seeing anything in regards to this feel free to blacklist #voltron_rewritten_defender because that’s what I’ll be using for this whole thing.

Enjoy, I guess.

Fair warning I am a multishipper, but for this show I leaned towards Klance, so if that bothers you that’s okay, I’m not going to be bashing any other ships (mainly just Dreamworks’ forced Allurance). If you think I missed something for any other ship lemme know! If you wanna have a ship discussion that’s cool too. The only other thing I can think of is that Allura’s attitude in S8 really stuck with me to the point that she bothered me throughout the entire rewatch (I was admittedly one of the people who thought she could be very Mary Sue ish when I first watched this) so that’ll show up now and again.

If you want to look at the Google Doc for the whole show, click the link, if not you can expand this post to see Season 1. I’ll be doing these in chunks, but as some of you know I do a FicRecList on one of my other accounts here @sorcerusdragonbionics​ so I’m gonna be alternating between that and these for the next couple days.

If you do the Google Route it’ll have you ask me for permission, this is normal and if you request it I’ll give you commenting abilities.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1t30IRJonrBFh0qvs8recf3ayGoQ0rx02y0Tg1e4NTaI/edit?usp=sharing

Key

Things I kinda wanna bitch about

Things I did genuinely enjoy and like 

Rewatch Thoughts (basically what I remember from further forward and how I feel like it reflects back on earlier seasons)

Ship Talk (behold my multishipping insanity)

Things I think I’ll do in the Rewrite

Writing Notes (mainly for me or as explanation for what I’m planning)

VA and Closed Captioning Things

Other Fic Thoughts

This ended up being music commentary in S8

Season One

Problems with the Season overall:

To be honest if I hated this season I wouldn’t’ve kept watching because by the time I started S3 had just dropped

Episode 1

Here’s the deal, WHY ARE YOU SO LONG BUT SO EMPTY?!?

Yeah, nope, that’s mostly it

Fix the problem of telling instead of showing about the other Lions and remove Allura’s explanation of the Lions if possible (thank you Kross for explaining why it felt so empty- this vid is actually where I started getting the idea to actually go through with a full series AU)

DON'T RUSH THE LION INTROS

Also let the 5 introduce themselves to Allura and Coran

Also Character Drive to Complete Mission Should Be A Thing

Flesh out Paladin Personalities so that the Aris Arrival is End of Part One (making it closer to the length of E1)

Flesh out Lion intros so part 2+3 are more like full Eps without Sendak

Episode 2

75 degrees… that’s definitely in Fahrenheit, which why?

How does no one have a watch with a date on them?

“A man can be driven to do anything if a beautiful woman is just really really mean to him”

More inbetween scenes bc I can

I will accept the transformation sequence here, I’m just not going to write it

Episode 3

Please watch the use of Earth Time Slices please, because it’s confusing

I love the portrayal of PTSD in this show and I would die before I change it

Bye bye transformation sequence

Pidge’s talk with Shiro can please change

Episode 4

“I say Vol, you say Tron” will come up again if it kills me

Lance, how do you know what hotdog water and feet taste like?

I love how Coran is completely nonchalant about the fact that he’s drinking a hair tonic

Shiro, don’t bring down the mood

Goddammit Sendak, you could stay for this arc, but god I want you GONE!

Keith, having an emotion? Really?

The Pidge plot DID NOT NEED TO HAPPEN LIKE THAT!

Fight me I will change it

Or minimally change the fact that their selfish motivations are revealed to BAD and should be changed

Oh yeah, let’s not give the ONE GUY with notable homesickness a character arc around that

That moment when you realize Allura is like ‘wtf is a peanut’

Allura, don’t push it, some people don’t want to talk about it

You will have something to talk about, BIOLOGY

Decryption happens here, and next attempt to find family occurs… when?

Poor Coran, if there is anyone who was more forgotten than Lance it was him

Keith isn’t wrong, but he also doesn’t know how to say it without getting mad, which mood

Just pointing out Lance is not only smart, but selfless, tell me how he’s not the main character

My inner Shance/Klance shipper is sobbing

“Bomb fuel” mentioned here, occurs… actually it’s ok

Timelines need to be a thing!

Can I make the fight scenes more intense? Yes, I write them for my YJ Scripts. Will I? Almost definitely.

Keith with that much fire your mask should be closed because smoke inhalation is bad

Can we explain Vrepit Sa before s6?

It feels like Coran forgets that 10k years have passed under an evil empire and part of me likes it, but it hurts me

Episode 5

The Katie flashback is hurts me

I want to add Gender Identity

Can we talk about how Shiro is a nickname for Takashi Shirogane?

That’s not how an EMP works

The Coran sitting on Hunk’s shoulders with a machine gun is everything

I know the back x-ray was a joke, but I still don’t like it

Rax is an idiot, just saying

Bonding Moment!!!

Episode 6

“Intergalactic time measuring competition.”

“We had a bonding moment!”

Where is Sendak’s arm?

Fight me, Pidge’s ‘gender speech’

It will be a gender speech if it kills me

Lance, why are you acting the way you are?

“I figured” and “We were supposed to think you were a boy” ARE NOT PROPER REACTIONS!

Rolo, sometimes I want to punch you in the teeth

Lance’s boner is going to get someone killed

Lance had 4sec of logic and then Nyma brings up Keith, which ofc does him in

Let’s expand on the Komar, yeah?

Quiznack means fuck and NO ONE can tell me otherwise

Keith’s ability to fly is impressive and it’s awesome

Friendly reminder that Lance acknowledged the bonding moment

Episode 7

I LOVE the laser gun sound effects!!!

I just realized that Allura has no clue what an Acronym is

We… literally just talked about this and YOU didn’t know that Shiro, I understand the point, but seriously?

LIONS are TELEPATHIC Shiro DID NOT need to say that aloud!

I do actually like the fact that Kieth gets excited before realizing what he did

FIRE and ICE PEOPLE come on! What the hell?! You barely had to try

“Yes sir?” Keith to Shiro, what?

I love them and their cute little arguments

Left vs Right, thank you Zamber

We be lovin’ Hunay bc it’s pure as hell

Thank you Shiro for validating Hunk’s concerns

You could check  a little faster, Allura

I LIVE for this scene

Was it actually Rolo?

Do they have teleporters?

Keith being weird is my favorite thing

I love good big bros who argue tradition to save their baby sis

Zarkon is a bit of a moron

THEIR LIVES ARE IN DANGER ALLURA!

They all came through different doors… how?

What if the answer was no?

I’m ok with Lance embarrassing himself when he’s cocky, some people seem to forget that

Bye transformation sequence, I explained you ONCE and that’s it

Prorock… why are you familiar?

Episode 8

I admittedly forgot that they didn’t know these things would be different

Flying fight scenes I can do, teleporting not so much

Poor Shiro he thought he had an idea and he was wrong

I love Coran’s reaction

Also NO SHIT Allura

UHHHH Pidge said that not and of the other three so how did He know?

Allura may piss me off, but I do love this speech

“Your Altean Energy”??? Coran, you’re an Altean, I’m confused.

The “Sacred Altean” thing I get, but you must be more specific cuz it makes Coran sound like he thinks he’s not a proper Altean.

Oof, angsty

Also, I  know we can’t kill Allura yet, but... 

I love that Hunk forgot they hadn’t formed Voltron

Bye bye transformation sequence

Ummm, they NEED to explain the Bayard Equip bc that’s… two very different things that occurred between Hunk and Keith’s Bayard Weapons

Why is this a scene? It’s not a dog. So, yeah, I’m with Keith here

Episode 9

THIS IS NOT HEALTHY ALLURA!

I just realized that this doesn’t come back until S..7? 8? Whatever, WAY too long

I can’t unhear “Training Dick”

Did they have homework on Altea?

Be still my Punk shipper heart

WHY is he SO pretty?!

Y’know, the glowing red eye is usually a bad sign

I could SO mean and hurt Keith here

That moment when you’re like 90% sure Shiro heard that somewhere

Not what haunted means Coran, but accurate

Why could Lance see Alfor for a second?

I too would like the answer to “where was the Red Lion?”

PTSD IS AMAZINGLY WRITTEN!

It’s a shame this is NEVER treated properly again

Thank you for NOT making the swimming thing a thing

You didn’t need to TRY Voltron, what the hell?!

Here’s the deal,  Altea not being Obliterated-obliterated is actually a really interesting idea

Lance still wins, for the record

If she was infected in any way this wouldn’t drive me crazier than a bot on Halloween

But she’s not so this is BULL

Shallura confuses me SO much…

Ok, admittedly the scene with Allura and Alfor is beautifully heartbreaking

Episode 10

The fact that Zarkon was a close friend to Alfor should be addressed

Also Shiro calling himself “an inexperienced Pilot” hurts

Allura’s a MORON!

YES! MASSIVE ISSUE WITH YOU COMING

Nice puppetry Hunk

What happened to THIS Allura?! She’s reckless but not INSANE (or so boring I might cry)!

Is this the same Druid from Season 8? Pretty sure it’s 8… I forget which, but the one Keith fought

“Don’t walk through that door!” / Keith does/ “I think I told him” // “You are a paragon of leadership, Lance”

Hehheh I love Hunk teasing Lance about Allura

I do actually the fact that I can’t tell what size the purple container is until Keith grabs it

Heheh the Allura interacting with the Galra soldier

The computer sounds like Lance

Also Shiro had that “holy shit” moment

I HATE WRITING TELELPORTING FIGHTS

I’m 99% sure that the ONLY reason I didn’t fall into the Galra Keith rabbit hole was the fact that I binge watched

This scene confuses me… so much now that I know Shallura was apparently never going to be a thing

So confused

Episode 11

That hair flip though...

Coran, I get it, but calm down

Okay, but Keith has a point. Seriously, he’s not wrong. 

For the record, Haggar scares me

So much makes so much more sense now that we know Zarkon is the Original Black Paladin

That… makes no sense… “enough essence to open a wormhole”

Why are you transforming? More pieces to shoot at is usually a smart idea…

Hey hey, THACE!

Why can’t you have two active at once? I’m honestly serious.

I mean too OP, got it, but you can maneuver around that for temporary stuff

Shiro, use your words, yeah?

“Thinking” uh huh you mean “telepathy” right?

I genuinely forgot that Shiro got booted from Black

Damn! Yes Shiro! Kick some ass!

Ok, here’s the deal, Keith’s not listening to Coran, but he doesn’t have all the info (LIKE THE FUCKING BAYARD), Zarkon’s the OG Paladin, and he’s in distress

I HATE TELEPORTERS!

“Could have been” … uh Kuron exists ?? 

Also, Shiro with yellow eyes is fucking terrifying

We ain’t ficking stupid VLD

Zarkon’s a fucking idiot

Written properly his power-hungry attitude works even with him destroying his own ship

But it wasn’t so it’s null

You aren’t even subtle about Galra Keith

How can Allura see through Illusions?

Nobody knows!

Shiro, you have no jetpack, how are you so fast?

“Who cares, wormhole!” mood

I… uh… I want to do SO many things with this idea

Preferably not what they actually do...

[klen7]

G-Fest Coverage Day 2 + 3

Saturday morning i went to the panel for Kazuhiro Nakagawa (an Assistant Director on Shin Godzilla, and Writer/Director of 'Day of the Kaiju')

If you haven't seen Day of the Kaiju yet, check it out. its great

he was directing the crowd running scenes for the Kamata-kun attack and said he had to keep telling people to look lower (instead of way up at normal Godzilla height) - many people took this to imply a different monster other than Godzilla was attacking

When asked about how Higuchi and Anno worked together he laughed and said to ask Higuchi - he [politically] said "They both wanted to make the best film possible"

During the Soggy Noodles scene Anno kept sending them back because the noodles werent soggy enough - "He can still eat that"

When asked what he was working on now or next he laughed again and said "I'm on vacation"

They all have theories on the tail, but Anno won't confirm or deny

Michiru Ōshima - I ducked out part way through this panel

Had only seen one Godzilla film before

Had not heard of Akira Ifukube

Has not heard of the Toho Kingdom animated fan movie that claims an original score by Michiru Oshima in the teaser

Lots of symbolism in the music, different instruments represent different aspects of Godzilla

Yuji Kaida

Name dropped Kaiju Club - (it was later revealed by Higuchi that Kaida did a lot to bring kaiju films back with film festivals, etc in the early 80s)

Bob Eggleton was the moderator so there was a lot of art related discussion

Shinji Higuchi

FIrst off, just wow on this panel - he seemed to shoot down a lot of the rumors we heard about production

The plan was always for Shin Godzilla to be CG --- This is why the tail is so long, because they wire constraints were gone so they could have a lot more freedom --- The puppets aren't complete because they were only intended for close up shots, however they didnt fit with the movie (i guess this the equivalent of the animation or stop motion in biollante)

Higuchi started off at Toho G'84, he did thinks like paint the wires to match the backdrop and give water to Satsuma, move the tail outside of the frame to give it more realism in frame without a wire setup

Higuchi is a complete goofball. lots of joking throughout

he spilled a lot of details on the Legendary deal with Toho, basically Shin had to come out in 2016 because American Godzilla 2 was supposed to be out in 2017 and they couldnt be out the same year. If Godzilla 2 had gotten pushed back to 2019 earlier, they would likely still be working on Shin Godzilla

Higuchi and Anno pitched a number of ideas with Godzilla mutating into something new (think the multiple headed concept art) - Toho said NO. so they had something turn into Godzilla instead

Higuchi does know what the front part of the first form (we only see the tail) looks like - but he didnt bring any pictures of it

The time he spent working on Daicon stuff seems magical and i want to go to there

They would film in public parks, and have look outs for cops and firemen before doing any pyro technics to keep out of trouble

Kaida was a bit of a mentor in this set up, provided the poster for their Orochi movie

He made a comment about how America is portrayed in the film as military super power well beyond Japan (so there's some American "nationalism" for those out there that are hung up on that)

At the Shin Godzilla screening he was joking a lot, he "apologized" for things - like the American plane at the end was actually a Japanese plane they painted, and that they thought Satomi's english was very good but he was sorry we didn't think so. Not sure how much of it was subversive jabs at the criticisms that he heard from the American fandom, but i thought it was funny. He also kept trying to walk off stage to the point RSF and Nakagawa had to jokingly hold him in place.

Kaiju Gaiden

Trailer for Outer Man

That tourism commercial with the fast tides

12 minutes of Atragon 2

Zeros vs Kushkun (sp?) - a "JUNGLE" short film

Godman fighting Gabara

Wolfman vs Baragon - This is the 1972 predecessor to Godzilla vs Wolfman featuring a very different Wolfman (dressed like Olvier Reed in Curse of the Werewolf"

a trailer for the Yongarry Chronicle Project documentary

a Music video from a band called Certain Distant Suns and a song called Bitter (its sooo 90s)

an 83 Godzilla fan film

Showdown of the Godz - a romantic dramedy about a couple where the husband is obsessed with Godzilla, also starring George Takai The 3 Koichi Kawakita films

Apollo Knight - pretty standard henshin hero

Battle Bot - I want to see more of this, its giant mechs fighting alien mechs

God of Clay - a beautiful, poignant short film, delightful yet bittersweet knowing its the last thing he worked on

Kiyotaka Taguchi (G, Gehara, Ultraman X/Orb/Geed)

This was amazing.

This was great

highlight of the trip.

He had two new indie films to debut that only a few people have seen in Japan - they were just was great as G and Gehara -- Zone - Felt very much like G. Lots of people spitting blood ----Taguchi - "i love violence" but can't put it in Ultraman, so I put it in my indie work ---- short and brutal, but the pacing and the reveals work so damn good, you had a room full of kaiju fans simultaneously gasping and reacting -- 701 - a comedy with a bit of adult humor ---- fans of a certain Ultraman X actress should probably seek this out ---- the comedy works really well. the timing is great, this was a big hit with the audience

[ryadel]

From Developer to CTO - Tech Leadership Training Bootcamp by Codemotion - Day 1

Today I was pleased to attend to the "From Developer to CTO" Bootcamp, the final phase of the Tech Leadership Training Course: an online program promoted by Facebook Developer Circles in partnership with Codemotion and designed to help developers in their journey to become Chief Technical Officers by combining strong interpersonal, influential and technical skills. Here's a quick breakdown of the previous modules: Module 1: Defining the CTO Role, focused on defining the role of CTOs by touching their main responsibilities and challenges. Module 2: AI/Machine Learning, dedicated to some strategic approaches to use this technology to create real innovation for a startup or company, and also focused on giving suggestions to the CTO to correctly introduce a new technology in a company. Module 3: Software Architecture/DevOps, based upon the concept of scaling and the analysis / review of the DevOps methodology, a modern and versatile full-stack approach that can be used to effectively deal with such problems. The bootcamp, being the final phase of the course, is meant to be a unique opportunity to summarize and empower the knowledge about the topics covered in the previous three modules by gaining valuable insights from a highly experienced group of Codemotion and Facebook experts.

The place

The bootcamp is a 2-days event hosted by Codemotion by the LUISS EnLabs & LVenture Group venues in Rome, Italy.

LUISS EnLabs, also known as "The Startup Factory", is one of the leading startup accelerators in Europe. It was established in 2013 as a joint venture between LVenture Group - a venture capital operator listed on the Stock Exchange - and LUISS Guido Carli University, and in just a few years it has accelerated over 60 startups. Twice a year LUISS EnLabs selects them for its Acceleration Programs and also organizes Open Innovation Programs to bring corporates into the world of innovation. Overall, the startups have collected 44 million euros, 11 from LVenture Group and the remaining from other international venture capital funds and Business Angels. Thanks to the support of its network of investors, corporates and institutions - including LUISS University - and its partners Wind Tre, BNL Gruppo BNP Paribas, Accenture and Sara Assicurazioni, LUISS EnLabs has grown into a real point of reference for innovation in Italy.

The Program - First Day

8:20: check in opening 9:00: Opening by Facebook 9:10: Opening by Codemotion 9:15: Talk by Codemotion: Data-Driven Decision especially in the CTO perspective, Andrea Saltarello, CTO @Managed Designs 10:30-10:40: Small Break 10:40: Talk by Codemotion: Business / financial management, Andrea Saltarello, CTO @Managed Designs 12:15: Talk by Codemotion: Tech Team Management (pt.1), Antony Mistretta, Founder @Inglorious Coderz 13:15-14:00: Lunch break 14.00-16.30: Talk by Codemotion: Tech Team Management (pt. 2), Antony Mistretta, Founder @Inglorious Coderz All the talks have been held in english language.

Openings

The Bootcamp started with a brief talk of Mara Marzocchi, co-founder and Codemotion and operating as Chief Content Officer since 2011. She briefly reviewed the daily program and explained the attendees a series of info related to the overall course and the Codemotion roadmap for the upcoming months - which will eventually lead to Codemotion Milan 2019, the largest italian Tech Conference (October 24-25, 2019).

It was then the turn of Willie Elamien, Facebook Product Partnership Program Manager, which explained what Facebook Developer Circles actually is: a brand-new Facebook project aiming to create an international community made from local developer groups in the various parts of the globe and connect them with startups and companies looking for developers, tech leaders and CTOs.

The main idea of Developer Circles revolves consists in helping their members to collaborate, learn, and code in the following ways: Connect with other developers: Access an exclusive local Facebook Group community and attend meetups near you. Engage with local experts: Each community is organized and run by local developer Leads. Learn about new tech: Learn about Bots, AI, IoT, React and other tools. Build with other developers: Collaborate with developers of all types using the local communities and meetups. For additional info, you can visit the Facebook Developer Circles Presentation Video or just take a look to the official program page.

Data-Driven Decisions from the CTO perspective

The third talk was hosted by Andrea Saltarello, CTO at Managed Designs, Microsoft Regional Directors member and successful IT enterpreneur. During his long (~ 3 hours) attendance, he did a great job by bringing a lot of very interesting topics to the table. He started defining the main aspects that helps defining a good CTO: relying to data-driven decision instead of gut feeling; acting as a translation layer between business expectations and technicians,  people vs strict way of thinking; being able to calculate how much amount you can afford to invest in knowledge in order to avoid the potential losses coming from innovations and breaking changes you might miss otherwise; being able to communicate with colleagues and employees and also enforce communication between layers; countinuosly sharing feedbacks, as opposed as keeping everyone in the dark.

He clearly explained how all these concepts, if properly embodied by a competent CTO, could help him in to match what company needs with what the employees - and the customers - like the most. He also introduced us to feenpal, a web-based e-invoicing SaaS he's currently working with, to make real-life examples of the decision-making tasks that a CEO has to perform when he's in charge of defining the launch of a new IT product. He explained how to rely with the other executive partners - the CEO, the CIO, the marketing manager and so on: once again, communication and knowledge sharing was the ultime key to success. He emphasized this concept a lot, and I think he pretty much nailed it: despite being obvious, most companies and startups just don't have it in their DNA, thus being unable to properly design and/or succesfully launch a new project.

It definitely was a great session, with a lot of valuable concepts to learn. I really liked the fact that most of the info transmitted by Andrea perfectly applies to any scenario - including the PMI-based Italian one - since most of these talks tend to give advices that are only fit for international companies.

Business & Financial Management

After a small coffee break, Andrea got the microphone back to talk about Business & Financial Management from a CTO perspective, consisting in a rather versatile and heterogeneous set of skills such as: planning the activities ahead, thus avoiding task switching; being able to handle the various aspects of the business plan, such as: anaging assets, evaluating the budget, being able to assess and prevent the risks, considering the change management costs and evaluate the gains & losses of present and future activities; being able to properly calculate the TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) using timesheets, GANTT and all the available data.

Again, the data-driven decision approach was granted a major role here.

Tech Team Management

Right after Andrea came the turn of Matteo Anthony Mistretta, the founder of Inglorious Coderz, who hosted a two-parts talk (before and after the lunch break) about Tech Team Management. I have to say that I literally loved his talk: during my 15 years of life spent as a lead developer, I can say I have experienced first-hand most - if not all - the scenarios, and samples that Matteo mentioned during his speech... and, most importantly, I approached them in the same way and reached the same conclusions - and, luckily enough, mostly achieved the same goals. That talk was almost a deja vu to me - to the point that I think I could also be an inglorious coder myself!

Jokes aside, Matteo made a terrific job explaining what being a Tech Team Manager actually means by making use of an enticing example-driven storytelling that encompassed the latest 20 years - roughly from the 2000s to the current days. Practical technical leading; the importance of communicating with the management - by properly "translating" the technical terms - and to push developers to do that as well; being a a leader, not a boss; the irreplaceable role of the metrics: pertinence, customizability, innovation, freshness and application, for the technologies; architertural skills, PM skills and trasversal skills, for developers; satisfaction and happiness, for the stakeholders; speed, cost, coverage and quality, for the actual development phase. Marco introduced and explained all of these concepts with an unique, passionate approach that could only come from the heart of someone who actually did that for a good part of his life, and the audience immediately got that.

The bootcamp lunch box: two big sandwitches, an Oreo pack and free water & coke! In the second part of the talk, he switched to Agile topics and introduced some key concepts of eXtreme Programming (XP), a development methodology that emphasizes  software quality and code responsiveness by making and extensive use of some proven good coding practices, such as: measurable, understandable Values; Test-Driven Development; Pair Programming; steady develoment speed; frequent iterations; constant refactoring (to keep the complexity constantly low while adding new features); and so on. He then explained his views regarding how to be a good Project Manager: planning, coordinating activities (and assigning them properly), keeping track  of what goes on (with timesheet and gantt), adapting to changes, driving communication, and - yet again - feedbacks. He then did the same with the key functions of a good Team Leader: assign responsibilities, making people grow, empowering people, leading by example, motivating.

Last, but not least, he talked about licensing management, first from the "buyer" and then from the "seller" point of view. He did his best to explain the differences between open-source and closed-source software, full packaged products (FPP), original equipment manufacturer (OEM), commercial use vs proprietary use, volume licensing, and so on. Truth to be told, this was perhaps the least intere spot of the whole talk - mostly because the previous topics were a blaze!

Conclusion

This was definitely a great bootcamp: the speakers did their best to give invualuable insights. I can only imagine how beneficial such "summary" would be for a young developer: I really wish I had these kind of stuff available when I started coding myself :) Can't wait for the next part!   Read the full article

[endenogatai]

Tech giants still not doing enough to fight fakes, says European Commission

It’s a year since the European Commission got a bunch of adtech giants together to spill ink on a voluntary Code of Practice to do something — albeit, nothing very quantifiable — as a first step to stop the spread of disinformation online.

Its latest report card on this voluntary effort sums to the platforms could do better.

The Commission said the same in January. And will doubtless say it again. Unless or until regulators grasp the nettle of online business models that profit by maximizing engagement. As the saying goes, lies fly while the truth comes stumbling after. So attempts to shrink disinformation without fixing the economic incentives to spread BS in the first place are mostly dealing in cosmetic tweaks and optics.

Signatories to the Commission’s EU Code of Practice on Disinformation are: Facebook, Google, Twitter, Mozilla, Microsoft and several trade associations representing online platforms, the advertising industry, and advertisers — including the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) and World Federation of Advertisers (WFA).

In a press release assessing today’s annual reports, compiled by signatories, the Commission expresses disappointment that no other Internet platforms or advertising companies have signed up since Microsoft joined as a late addition to the Code this year.

“We commend the commitment of the online platforms to become more transparent about their policies and to establish closer cooperation with researchers, fact-checkers and Member States. However, progress varies a lot between signatories and the reports provide little insight on the actual impact of the self-regulatory measures taken over the past year as well as mechanisms for independent scrutiny,” write commissioners Věra Jourová, Julian King, and Mariya Gabriel said in a joint statement. [emphasis ours]

“While the 2019 European Parliament elections in May were clearly not free from disinformation, the actions and the monthly reporting ahead of the elections contributed to limiting the space for interference and improving the integrity of services, to disrupting economic incentives for disinformation, and to ensuring greater transparency of political and issue-based advertising. Still, large-scale automated propaganda and disinformation persist and there is more work to be done under all areas of the Code. We cannot accept this as a new normal,” they add.

The risk, of course, is that the Commission’s limp-wristed code risks rapidly cementing a milky jelly of self-regulation in the fuzzy zone of disinformation as the new normal, as we warned when the Code launched last year.

The Commission continues to leave the door open (a crack) to doing something platforms can’t (mostly) ignore — i.e. actual regulation — saying it’s assessment of the effectiveness of the Code remains ongoing.

But that’s just a dangled stick. At this transitionary point between outgoing and incoming Commissions, it seems content to stay in a ‘must do better’ holding pattern. (Or: “It’s what the Commission says when it has other priorities,” as one source inside the institution put it.)

A comprehensive assessment of how the Code is working is slated as coming in early 2020 — i.e. after the new Commission has taken up its mandate. So, yes, that’s the sound of the can being kicked a few more months on.

Summing up its main findings from signatories’ self-marked ‘progress’ reports, the outgoing Commission says they have reported improved transparency between themselves vs a year ago on discussing their respective policies against disinformation. 

But it flags poor progress on implementing commitments to empower consumers and the research community.

“The provision of data and search tools is still episodic and arbitrary and does not respond to the needs of researchers for independent scrutiny,” it warns. 

This is ironically an issue that one of the signatories, Mozilla, has been an active critic of others over — including Facebook, whose political ad API it reviewed damningly this year, finding it not fit for purpose and “designed in ways that hinders the important work of researchers, who inform the public and policymakers about the nature and consequences of misinformation”. So, er, ouch.

The Commission is also critical of what it says are “significant” variations in the scope of actions undertaken by platforms to implement “commitments” under the Code, noting also differences in implementation of platform policy; cooperation with stakeholders; and sensitivity to electoral contexts persist across Member States; as well as differences in EU-specific metrics provided.

But given the Code only ever asked for fairly vague action in some pretty broad areas, without prescribing exactly what platforms were committing themselves to doing, nor setting benchmarks for action to be measured against, inconsistency and variety is really what you’d expect. That and the can being kicked down the road. 

The Code did extract one quasi-firm commitment from signatories — on the issue of bot detection and identification — by getting platforms to promise to “establish clear marking systems and rules for bots to ensure their activities cannot be confused with human interactions”.

A year later it’s hard to see clear sign of progress on that goal. Although platforms might argue that what they claim is increased effort toward catching and killing malicious bot accounts before they have a chance to spread any fakes is where most of their sweat is going on that front.

Twitter’s annual report, for instance, talks about what it’s doing to fight “spam and malicious automation strategically and at scale” on its platform — saying its focus is “increasingly on proactively identifying problematic accounts and behaviour rather than waiting until we receive a report”; after which it says it aims to “challenge… accounts engaging in spammy or manipulative behavior before users are ​exposed to ​misleading, inauthentic, or distracting content”.

So, in other words, if Twitter does this perfectly — and catches every malicious bot before it has a chance to tweet — it might plausibly argue that bot labels are redundant. Though it’s clearly not in a position to claim it’s won the spam/malicious bot war yet. Ergo, its users remain at risk of consuming inauthentic tweets that aren’t clearly labeled as such (or even as ‘potentially suspect’ by Twitter). Presumably because these are the accounts that continue slipping under its bot-detection radar.

There’s also nothing in Twitter’s report about it labelling even (non-malicious) bot accounts as bots — for the purpose of preventing accidental confusion (after all satire misinterpreted as truth can also result in disinformation). And this despite the company suggesting a year ago that it was toying with adding contextual labels to bot accounts, at least where it could detect them.

In the event it’s resisted adding any more badges to accounts. While an internal reform of its verification policy for verified account badges was put on pause last year.

Facebook’s report also only makes a passing mention of bots, under a section sub-headed “spam” — where it writes circularly: “Content actioned for spam has increased considerably, since we found and took action on more content that goes against our standards.”

It includes some data-points to back up this claim of more spam squashed — citing a May 2019 Community Standards Enforcement report — where it states that in Q4 2018 and Q1 2019 it acted on 1.8 billion pieces of spam in each of the quarters vs 737 million in Q4 2017; 836 million in Q1 2018; 957 million in Q2 2018; and 1.2 billion in Q3 2018. 

Though it’s lagging on publishing more up-to-date spam data now, noting in the report submitted to the EC that: “Updated spam metrics are expected to be available in November 2019 for Q2 and Q3 2019″ — i.e. conveniently late for inclusion in this report.

Facebook’s report notes ongoing efforts to put contextual labels on certain types of suspect/partisan content, such as labelling photos and videos which have been independently fact-checked as misleading; labelling state-controlled media; and labelling political ads.

Labelling bots is not discussed in the report — presumably because Facebook prefers to focus attention on self-defined spam-removal metrics vs muddying the water with discussion of how much suspect activity it continues to host on its platform, either through incompetence, lack of resources or because it’s politically expedient for its business to do so.

Labelling all these bots would mean Facebook signposting inconsistencies in how it applies its own policies –in a way that might foreground its own political bias. And there’s no self-regulatory mechanism under the sun that will make Facebook fess up to such double-standards.

For now, the Code’s requirement for signatories to publish an annual report on what they’re doing to tackle disinformation looks to be the biggest win so far. Albeit, it’s very loosely bound self-reporting. While some of these ‘reports’ don’t even run to a full page of A4-text — so set your expectations accordingly.

The Commission has published all the reports here. It has also produced its own summary and assessment of them (here).

“Overall, the reporting would benefit from more detailed and qualitative insights in some areas and from further big-picture context, such as trends,” it writes. “In addition, the metrics provided so far are mainly output indicators rather than impact indicators.”

Of the Code generally — as a “self-regulatory standard” — the Commission argues it has “provided an opportunity for greater transparency into the platforms’ policies on disinformation as well as a framework for structured dialogue to monitor, improve and effectively implement those policies”, adding: “This represents progress over the situation prevailing before the Code’s entry into force, while further serious steps by individual signatories and the community as a whole are still necessary.”

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8204425 https://ift.tt/34gWjLJ via IFTTT

[sheminecrafts]

Tech giants still not doing enough to fight fakes, says European Commission

It’s a year since the European Commission got a bunch of adtech giants together to spill ink on a voluntary Code of Practice to do something — albeit, nothing very quantifiable — as a first step to stop the spread of disinformation online.

Its latest report card on this voluntary effort sums to the platforms could do better.

The Commission said the same in January. And will doubtless say it again. Unless or until regulators grasp the nettle of online business models that profit by maximizing engagement. As the saying goes, lies fly while the truth comes stumbling after. So attempts to shrink disinformation without fixing the economic incentives to spread BS in the first place are mostly dealing in cosmetic tweaks and optics.

Signatories to the Commission’s EU Code of Practice on Disinformation are: Facebook, Google, Twitter, Mozilla, Microsoft and several trade associations representing online platforms, the advertising industry, and advertisers — including the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) and World Federation of Advertisers (WFA).

In a press release assessing today’s annual reports, compiled by signatories, the Commission expresses disappointment that no other Internet platforms or advertising companies have signed up since Microsoft joined as a late addition to the Code this year.

“We commend the commitment of the online platforms to become more transparent about their policies and to establish closer cooperation with researchers, fact-checkers and Member States. However, progress varies a lot between signatories and the reports provide little insight on the actual impact of the self-regulatory measures taken over the past year as well as mechanisms for independent scrutiny,” write commissioners Věra Jourová, Julian King, and Mariya Gabriel said in a joint statement. [emphasis ours]

“While the 2019 European Parliament elections in May were clearly not free from disinformation, the actions and the monthly reporting ahead of the elections contributed to limiting the space for interference and improving the integrity of services, to disrupting economic incentives for disinformation, and to ensuring greater transparency of political and issue-based advertising. Still, large-scale automated propaganda and disinformation persist and there is more work to be done under all areas of the Code. We cannot accept this as a new normal,” they add.

The risk, of course, is that the Commission’s limp-wristed code risks rapidly cementing a milky jelly of self-regulation in the fuzzy zone of disinformation as the new normal, as we warned when the Code launched last year.

The Commission continues to leave the door open (a crack) to doing something platforms can’t (mostly) ignore — i.e. actual regulation — saying it’s assessment of the effectiveness of the Code remains ongoing.

But that’s just a dangled stick. At this transitionary point between outgoing and incoming Commissions, it seems content to stay in a ‘must do better’ holding pattern. (Or: “It’s what the Commission says when it has other priorities,” as one source inside the institution put it.)

A comprehensive assessment of how the Code is working is slated as coming in early 2020 — i.e. after the new Commission has taken up its mandate. So, yes, that’s the sound of the can being kicked a few more months on.

Summing up its main findings from signatories’ self-marked ‘progress’ reports, the outgoing Commission says they have reported improved transparency between themselves vs a year ago on discussing their respective policies against disinformation. 

But it flags poor progress on implementing commitments to empower consumers and the research community.

“The provision of data and search tools is still episodic and arbitrary and does not respond to the needs of researchers for independent scrutiny,” it warns. 

This is ironically an issue that one of the signatories, Mozilla, has been an active critic of others over — including Facebook, whose political ad API it reviewed damningly this year, finding it not fit for purpose and “designed in ways that hinders the important work of researchers, who inform the public and policymakers about the nature and consequences of misinformation”. So, er, ouch.

The Commission is also critical of what it says are “significant” variations in the scope of actions undertaken by platforms to implement “commitments” under the Code, noting also differences in implementation of platform policy; cooperation with stakeholders; and sensitivity to electoral contexts persist across Member States; as well as differences in EU-specific metrics provided.

But given the Code only ever asked for fairly vague action in some pretty broad areas, without prescribing exactly what platforms were committing themselves to doing, nor setting benchmarks for action to be measured against, inconsistency and variety is really what you’d expect. That and the can being kicked down the road. 

The Code did extract one quasi-firm commitment from signatories — on the issue of bot detection and identification — by getting platforms to promise to “establish clear marking systems and rules for bots to ensure their activities cannot be confused with human interactions”.

A year later it’s hard to see clear sign of progress on that goal. Although platforms might argue that what they claim is increased effort toward catching and killing malicious bot accounts before they have a chance to spread any fakes is where most of their sweat is going on that front.

Twitter’s annual report, for instance, talks about what it’s doing to fight “spam and malicious automation strategically and at scale” on its platform — saying its focus is “increasingly on proactively identifying problematic accounts and behaviour rather than waiting until we receive a report”; after which it says it aims to “challenge… accounts engaging in spammy or manipulative behavior before users are ​exposed to ​misleading, inauthentic, or distracting content”.

So, in other words, if Twitter does this perfectly — and catches every malicious bot before it has a chance to tweet — it might plausibly argue that bot labels are redundant. Though it’s clearly not in a position to claim it’s won the spam/malicious bot war yet. Ergo, its users remain at risk of consuming inauthentic tweets that aren’t clearly labeled as such (or even as ‘potentially suspect’ by Twitter). Presumably because these are the accounts that continue slipping under its bot-detection radar.

There’s also nothing in Twitter’s report about it labelling even (non-malicious) bot accounts as bots — for the purpose of preventing accidental confusion (after all satire misinterpreted as truth can also result in disinformation). And this despite the company suggesting a year ago that it was toying with adding contextual labels to bot accounts, at least where it could detect them.

In the event it’s resisted adding any more badges to accounts. While an internal reform of its verification policy for verified account badges was put on pause last year.

Facebook’s report also only makes a passing mention of bots, under a section sub-headed “spam” — where it writes circularly: “Content actioned for spam has increased considerably, since we found and took action on more content that goes against our standards.”

It includes some data-points to back up this claim of more spam squashed — citing a May 2019 Community Standards Enforcement report — where it states that in Q4 2018 and Q1 2019 it acted on 1.8 billion pieces of spam in each of the quarters vs 737 million in Q4 2017; 836 million in Q1 2018; 957 million in Q2 2018; and 1.2 billion in Q3 2018. 

Though it’s lagging on publishing more up-to-date spam data now, noting in the report submitted to the EC that: “Updated spam metrics are expected to be available in November 2019 for Q2 and Q3 2019″ — i.e. conveniently late for inclusion in this report.

Facebook’s report notes ongoing efforts to put contextual labels on certain types of suspect/partisan content, such as labelling photos and videos which have been independently fact-checked as misleading; labelling state-controlled media; and labelling political ads.

Labelling bots is not discussed in the report — presumably because Facebook prefers to focus attention on self-defined spam-removal metrics vs muddying the water with discussion of how much suspect activity it continues to host on its platform, either through incompetence, lack of resources or because it’s politically expedient for its business to do so.

Labelling all these bots would mean Facebook signposting inconsistencies in how it applies its own policies –in a way that might foreground its own political bias. And there’s no self-regulatory mechanism under the sun that will make Facebook fess up to such double-standards.

For now, the Code’s requirement for signatories to publish an annual report on what they’re doing to tackle disinformation looks to be the biggest win so far. Albeit, it’s very loosely bound self-reporting. While some of these ‘reports’ don’t even run to a full page of A4-text — so set your expectations accordingly.

The Commission has published all the reports here. It has also produced its own summary and assessment of them (here).

“Overall, the reporting would benefit from more detailed and qualitative insights in some areas and from further big-picture context, such as trends,” it writes. “In addition, the metrics provided so far are mainly output indicators rather than impact indicators.”

Of the Code generally — as a “self-regulatory standard” — the Commission argues it has “provided an opportunity for greater transparency into the platforms’ policies on disinformation as well as a framework for structured dialogue to monitor, improve and effectively implement those policies”, adding: “This represents progress over the situation prevailing before the Code’s entry into force, while further serious steps by individual signatories and the community as a whole are still necessary.”

from iraidajzsmmwtv https://ift.tt/348Ajmc via IFTTT

[technicalsolutions88]

It’s a year since the European Commission got a bunch of adtech giants together to spill ink on a voluntary Code of Practice to do something — albeit, nothing very quantifiable — as a first step to stop the spread of disinformation online.

Its latest report card on this voluntary effort sums to the platforms could do better.

The Commission said the same in January. And will doubtless say it again. Unless or until regulators grasp the nettle of online business models that profit by maximizing engagement. As the saying goes, lies fly while the truth comes stumbling after. So attempts to shrink disinformation without fixing the economic incentives to spread BS in the first place are mostly dealing in cosmetic tweaks and optics.

Signatories to the Commission’s EU Code of Practice on Disinformation are: Facebook, Google, Twitter, Mozilla, Microsoft and several trade associations representing online platforms, the advertising industry, and advertisers — including the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) and World Federation of Advertisers (WFA).

In a press release assessing today’s annual reports, compiled by signatories, the Commission expresses disappointment that no other Internet platforms or advertising companies have signed up since Microsoft joined as a late addition to the Code this year.

“We commend the commitment of the online platforms to become more transparent about their policies and to establish closer cooperation with researchers, fact-checkers and Member States. However, progress varies a lot between signatories and the reports provide little insight on the actual impact of the self-regulatory measures taken over the past year as well as mechanisms for independent scrutiny,” write commissioners Věra Jourová, Julian King, and Mariya Gabriel said in a joint statement. [emphasis ours]

“While the 2019 European Parliament elections in May were clearly not free from disinformation, the actions and the monthly reporting ahead of the elections contributed to limiting the space for interference and improving the integrity of services, to disrupting economic incentives for disinformation, and to ensuring greater transparency of political and issue-based advertising. Still, large-scale automated propaganda and disinformation persist and there is more work to be done under all areas of the Code. We cannot accept this as a new normal,” they add.

The risk, of course, is that the Commission’s limp-wristed code risks rapidly cementing a milky jelly of self-regulation in the fuzzy zone of disinformation as the new normal, as we warned when the Code launched last year.

The Commission continues to leave the door open (a crack) to doing something platforms can’t (mostly) ignore — i.e. actual regulation — saying it’s assessment of the effectiveness of the Code remains ongoing.

But that’s just a dangled stick. At this transitionary point between outgoing and incoming Commissions, it seems content to stay in a ‘must do better’ holding pattern. (Or: “It’s what the Commission says when it has other priorities,” as one source inside the institution put it.)

A comprehensive assessment of how the Code is working is slated as coming in early 2020 — i.e. after the new Commission has taken up its mandate. So, yes, that’s the sound of the can being kicked a few more months on.

Summing up its main findings from signatories’ self-marked ‘progress’ reports, the outgoing Commission says they have reported improved transparency between themselves vs a year ago on discussing their respective policies against disinformation. 

But it flags poor progress on implementing commitments to empower consumers and the research community.

“The provision of data and search tools is still episodic and arbitrary and does not respond to the needs of researchers for independent scrutiny,” it warns. 

This is ironically an issue that one of the signatories, Mozilla, has been an active critic of others over — including Facebook, whose political ad API it reviewed damningly this year, finding it not fit for purpose and “designed in ways that hinders the important work of researchers, who inform the public and policymakers about the nature and consequences of misinformation”. So, er, ouch.

The Commission is also critical of what it says are “significant” variations in the scope of actions undertaken by platforms to implement “commitments” under the Code, noting also differences in implementation of platform policy; cooperation with stakeholders; and sensitivity to electoral contexts persist across Member States; as well as differences in EU-specific metrics provided.

But given the Code only ever asked for fairly vague action in some pretty broad areas, without prescribing exactly what platforms were committing themselves to doing, nor setting benchmarks for action to be measured against, inconsistency and variety is really what you’d expect. That and the can being kicked down the road. 

The Code did extract one quasi-firm commitment from signatories — on the issue of bot detection and identification — by getting platforms to promise to “establish clear marking systems and rules for bots to ensure their activities cannot be confused with human interactions”.

A year later it’s hard to see clear sign of progress on that goal. Although platforms might argue that what they claim is increased effort toward catching and killing malicious bot accounts before they have a chance to spread any fakes is where most of their sweat is going on that front.

Twitter’s annual report, for instance, talks about what it’s doing to fight “spam and malicious automation strategically and at scale” on its platform — saying its focus is “increasingly on proactively identifying problematic accounts and behaviour rather than waiting until we receive a report”; after which it says it aims to “challenge… accounts engaging in spammy or manipulative behavior before users are ​exposed to ​misleading, inauthentic, or distracting content”.

So, in other words, if Twitter does this perfectly — and catches every malicious bot before it has a chance to tweet — it might plausibly argue that bot labels are redundant. Though it’s clearly not in a position to claim it’s won the spam/malicious bot war yet. Ergo, its users remain at risk of consuming inauthentic tweets that aren’t clearly labeled as such (or even as ‘potentially suspect’ by Twitter). Presumably because these are the accounts that continue slipping under its bot-detection radar.

There’s also nothing in Twitter’s report about it labelling even (non-malicious) bot accounts as bots — for the purpose of preventing accidental confusion (after all satire misinterpreted as truth can also result in disinformation). And this despite the company suggesting a year ago that it was toying with adding contextual labels to bot accounts, at least where it could detect them.

In the event it’s resisted adding any more badges to accounts. While an internal reform of its verification policy for verified account badges was put on pause last year.

Facebook’s report also only makes a passing mention of bots, under a section sub-headed “spam” — where it writes circularly: “Content actioned for spam has increased considerably, since we found and took action on more content that goes against our standards.”

It includes some data-points to back up this claim of more spam squashed — citing a May 2019 Community Standards Enforcement report — where it states that in Q4 2018 and Q1 2019 it acted on 1.8 billion pieces of spam in each of the quarters vs 737 million in Q4 2017; 836 million in Q1 2018; 957 million in Q2 2018; and 1.2 billion in Q3 2018. 

Though it’s lagging on publishing more up-to-date spam data now, noting in the report submitted to the EC that: “Updated spam metrics are expected to be available in November 2019 for Q2 and Q3 2019″ — i.e. conveniently late for inclusion in this report.

Facebook’s report notes ongoing efforts to put contextual labels on certain types of suspect/partisan content, such as labelling photos and videos which have been independently fact-checked as misleading; labelling state-controlled media; and labelling political ads.

Labelling bots is not discussed in the report — presumably because Facebook prefers to focus attention on self-defined spam-removal metrics vs muddying the water with discussion of how much suspect activity it continues to host on its platform, either through incompetence, lack of resources or because it’s politically expedient for its business to do so.

Labelling all these bots would mean Facebook signposting inconsistencies in how it applies its own policies –in a way that might foreground its own political bias. And there’s no self-regulatory mechanism under the sun that will make Facebook fess up to such double-standards.

For now, the Code’s requirement for signatories to publish an annual report on what they’re doing to tackle disinformation looks to be the biggest win so far. Albeit, it’s very loosely bound self-reporting. While some of these ‘reports’ don’t even run to a full page of A4-text — so set your expectations accordingly.

The Commission has published all the reports here. It has also produced its own summary and assessment of them (here).

“Overall, the reporting would benefit from more detailed and qualitative insights in some areas and from further big-picture context, such as trends,” it writes. “In addition, the metrics provided so far are mainly output indicators rather than impact indicators.”

Of the Code generally — as a “self-regulatory standard” — the Commission argues it has “provided an opportunity for greater transparency into the platforms’ policies on disinformation as well as a framework for structured dialogue to monitor, improve and effectively implement those policies”, adding: “This represents progress over the situation prevailing before the Code’s entry into force, while further serious steps by individual signatories and the community as a whole are still necessary.”

from Social – TechCrunch https://ift.tt/34gWjLJ Original Content From: https://techcrunch.com

[lostsolsdestinyblog]

Examining Bungie's approach to Multiplayer/Matchmaking in 2018

July 15, 2018

This is a topic I've spoken on many times in the past, but I've never really gone super in-depth into why and how I feel we are where we are today with the way we are grouped and matchmade in Destiny. I think there is so much tied into the way we socialize in-game that affects the entire game (PvP and PvE) that it's time to at least shine a light on and discuss this.

Part One: A Brief History

There was a time once when the online console gaming experience was dramatically different than what we know today. Back in the infancy of Xbox Live, gaming online was a completely new and unknown experience for the majority of the players entering into that world and community. We had grown up playing in arcades, plucking down quarters at the bottom of the screens to claim our place in line on solo cabinets and then more and more playing alongside friends as multiplayer cabinets became more and more popular. When home consoles started creeping into living rooms across the world with early pioneers Atari, Colecovision and Intellivision, we discovered the joy of escaping to these virtual worlds we could drop into whenever we wanted and not be beholden to a pocket full of quarters. Then Nintendo kicked down the doors with the original NES. I can still remember the sheer disbelief of being able to play Super Mario at home and the wonder of actually having time to really learn and actually beat the game. The first system I bought for myself was the original Playstation. I will never forget sitting in a movie theater as the previews came on and instead of another BIG SUMMER BLOCKBUSTER; a trailer for FFVII came on and just floored the entire theater. To this day I could not begin to tell you what movie we saw that day, but I'm willing to bet I was not the only one to own a Playstation and that game within a few days after. The next real industry game changer was GoldenEye. Games like Doom had paved the way for first person shooters, but GoldenEye was the first game that all my friends and I had to play to where living rooms would fill up to take turns playing 4 player split-screen PvP (in our case on a 13'' screen!). It was a definitive moment in my life the first time I played that game, but while GoldenEye brought the FPS genre to the forefront of the industry, Halo was about to revolutionize the multiplayer experience. Suddenly players weren't just sitting taking turns on one console on split-screen and the ''wouldn't it be cool if teams could have their own screen'' was a reality and LAN parties became the way to get together in groups and play. Where 4 player PvP was a revelation in the N64 era, 16 players all battling on Blood Gulch was completely mind-blowing. I can still remember posts from Bungie from those days of the devs bringing in fans and the pictures of them all playing together in LAN parties at the studio. The problem was that it wasn't easy dragging consoles, cables and controllers all over to actually get those epic games going. Then Xbox Live happened and gaming hit in my opinion, a critical juncture in what the industry would become. I was not on the original Xbox Live for a long time, I joined a few months before the version we know today went live with the release of the 360, but I do remember it was very Wild West. There was this vast new landscape to explore with the ability to suddenly play other gamers from all over the world in Halo 2 and this is where we first got a real glimpse of some of the negative aspects of what that could mean with trash talking and insane cheating with players able to mod the game and destroy opponents. Xbox Live version 2.0 sought to smooth those rough edges with player reputations and systems to report positive and negative behavior and with the launch of the 360 we saw maybe the finest days online console gaming will ever see. Today when we get online to play, we generally don't expect to talk to anyone and everyone we meet in game. We are in private parties or games just don't opt players into that experience much like Destiny and D2. Things were different back then, you went online with a headset on and that was the experience; to play with, interact with and converse with these strangers from around the country and world as we played these games together and for a brief time it not only worked, it flourished and was as close to gaming Utopia as I've ever seen. Unfortunately like everything else in this world, nothing gold can stay. And here is where I think Bungie unwittingly played a huge role in altering the landscape of what online social interaction would be and to an extent even as they had just helped usher in this new age, they almost immediately cut the legs out from under it as well. This isn't a new revelation and it's something that I questioned on Bungie forums a decade ago, but it is something that has had a tremendous impact on not only how we as players game online, but it's directly impacted many of the challenges that Bungie face today in creating this game and universe. When the 360 went live, Halo 3 wouldn't be ready for another year yet and in that space there also weren't a ton of games actually available to play particularly at launch. I was first in line at my local game shop to get my 360 and came home with Perfect Dark, CoD 2 and Project Gotham Racing. The later 2, I barely touched, but Perfect Dark was everything I'd dreamed Xbox Live would be. I've written many posts on these forums referencing that game, particularly in regards to matchmaking and how the principals of PD could be applied to enable systems to match for raids and more in Destiny. We actually got a very watered down version of that for guided games, but to take a moment for those who don't know how it worked in PD, it went like this. When you played PvP in PD you could set matches to play with just a couple friends privately and fill in opponents with bots or you could allocate spaces for the game to bring in matchmade opponents. The games could actually be up to 25 vs 25 and map sizes would change depending how many players there were. The person who started the game and created the lobby was obviously the host and beyond determining the number of actual players, those allowed to mm in, map selection, weapon loadouts, scoring, number of bots and bot personalities, etc. These lobbies were static just like we see with private match lobbies in Destiny and D2 and players who were matchmade in would stay in that lobby until they left, were kicked or everyone quit playing. This approach to matchmaking and online multiplayer was then picked up by Epic Games and implemented for the original Gears of War; and maybe there were games that had done this on PC or elsewhere, but these early 360 games that adopted that philosophy ended up creating communities that were incredibly social and did more to build friends lists than anything I've seen since. The magic of the system was in keeping players grouped together from match to match. Yes there would be players coming and going within that, but it created a situation and environment where players had time to acclimate to each other and feel each other out. There were so many times a player would join a lobby and not be talking for game after game but then eventually they would get comfortable with the group and pick up on the personalities who were talking and eventually feel trusting enough to open up and join in the chatter. And yes there were also players who would try to troll, but they'd just get kicked and when being a dick meant not getting to stay in lobbies and actually play ever, it went a long way to tempering that kind of behavior.

Part 2: Bungie and the impact of their matchmaking philosophy

Then Halo 3 happened. Halo 3 was an incredible game. That cannot be debated, but it also was a turning point for that new world of social gaming and one I think that set it firmly down the wrong path. Halo 2 was basically the OG Xbox Live. It built the house and birthed a revolution, but it was the Wild West and it could be ugly. Xbox Live 2.0 seemed to learn from that experience and along with the early games I've noted, looked like it was built around where Halo 2 had gotten right as well as where it had missed the mark. Halo 3 unfortunately dragged it right back by releasing with essentially the same matchmaking system Bungie had used for Halo 2. It was the Wild West again and it got really ugly really fast. Were Perfect Dark and Gears of War had created lobby systems that cultivated being social and getting to know the people you were playing with and against, Halo 3 went back to disposable teammates. Players matched just like we still do to this day and when a match was over it was on to a new group of opponents and you most likely weren't going to see the other team again. This created an environment of endless shit-talking and hate speech as players knew there were no consequences and they'd never see each other again. Suddenly what was a positive of teams being able to converse before and after a match became some of the most toxic environments you could witness in gaming. And it's not to say it was everyone or that there weren't still great games, teams, opponents and friends made, but the lowest common denominators were empowered by the throw-away nature of play and like we see in the world all around us today, it doesn't take much for a small group of bad people to ruin life for everyone else. I think Bungie is an incredible company and I think it's done as much positive things for the industry as anyone, but this is something that I feel it got wrong and whether they'd want to admit it or not, helped pave the way for a lot of what is wrong with gaming culture to this day and again completely shaped the gaming experience we see today with D2 and the challenges it faces. And I do think Bungie understands that to a degree because we saw Destiny release with no ways to communicate in-game with teammates or opponents without going to party chat and even when chat options were added, they were opt-in and by that time players had been conditioned to just not talk or want to subject themselves to what a Halo 3 type experience could be. Unfortunately for Bungie and Destiny, while recognizing the game couldn't have the toxic chat environment of the past, the game (and company) didn't really figure out how it had gotten there or how to approach multiplayer differently to not end up in the same place. Instead it shipped with the same disposable opponent matchmaking systems for multiplayer and just removed all chat, thus taking away not only the chance of running into toxic players, but also of making friends and meeting the cool players as well. And it's seeped into the core of so much that plagues the game today. The decision to go with that same old approach to matchmaking has directly led to the problems the game has had with balance complaints (weapons, abilities, team compositions, and any other), populations in game modes, having to shift away from set modes like Clash and Control and to random playlists, the split to quickplay and competitive modes, the current online rage over solo players vs fireteams, all the issues with not having matchmaking for raids or Nightfalls, and even modes like Escalation Protocol and the issues its faced... It all can be traced back to Halo 2, the system that was built there and the lack of real evolution or change to the core philosophy over the last 15 years and the reason I'm writing all this is to ask the question, is it time to rethink everything? What could Destiny be if the system were different? I've posed this before going back to March of 2015 in regards to this game and so I'll pose this thought again. There are systems already in this game that are very much what existed in games like PD and Gears. Both Guided Games and private matches heavily use components of those types of matchmaking systems. What would Destiny look like if that was all rolled together and those private lobbies also became where we went to play everyone? A player can choose to host just like a private match now, but from there they can choose to allocate spots for the game to fill in players through matchmaking. The hosts can choose game mode, set rules for scoring, time, loadouts, etc. They have the ability to kick players (or initiate a vote to kick). This would immediately solve issues of random game modes, playlists, fireteams vs solo, constantly trying to match connection, skill etc after every single game. It would cultivate an environment for players to actually stay together and learn to talk and be social; and for those who have trouble talking in groups or social disorders it could give the opportunity to find where they fit in. And it's not just PvP. These lobbies could be set-up to be able to do PvE content as well with raids, Nightfalls, Strikes, and events like EP. Sure there would have to be some safety functions built in like easy ways to report, mute or block, and having the ability to kick disabled once a boss fight starts and for (x) duration after a clear to prevent griefing, but there is so much win in it and it solves so many problems that this game has and it's all right there. The other thing with this is that the current PvP matchmaking system could still be used (though maybe tweaked and still improved socially) for events like Iron Banner and Trials to really make them the open tournaments they're meant to be and I think they could flourish from having players going into those modes from a base multiplayer/matchmaking experience that encourages learning to talk, communicate and develop relationships and friendships over the course multiple games or even hours playing together in a group. I don't know that this could happen and I know that there are probably a million other factors that I not being a developer am not aware of, but I think it is a conversation worth having in this age and culture of anti-social behavior and the subsequent isolating of groups of gamers. Thank you.

[batchaoticcollectionnight-blog]

How much is an car insurance per month?

"How much is an car insurance per month?

im looking for an cheapfull covered car insurance for an 21 yr old female who is also an first driver and what company would be best thanks the make of the two cars if chosen are ford ka (2011 make) and kia pincanto thanks

BEST ANSWER:  Try this site where you can compare quotes: : http://financeandcreditsolutions.xyz/index.html?src=tumblr 

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when it pays you for dying. Annuities are really life insurance. They pay you in case you live.

Best Averaged sized car for a teenager?

So I'm going for my license soon and we're starting to look at cars to get me around. I want something that's pretty easy on gas, reliable, easy on car insurance cost, doesn't cost an arm and a leg but ALSO isn't a tiny car like the Chevy Aveo because most of the people in my family are pretty tall for instance my mom is 5'9 I'm 5'7 /5'8 and my other sisters are also about the same height. I've been thinking about the Prius because I hear it's got some leg room and is easy on gas, but people say that batteries are more harmful than regular ones and all this jazz. Then I thought about the Honda Insight but I heard that the headroom in the back is not comfortable. I was thinking the Hyundai Sonata, but the only model I really like is the 2011 and I don't think the insurance company takes kindly to teenagers driving new cars. I would prefer not too big or long a car like the Toyota Avalon, but it's manageable. Any suggestions?""

Will buying a previously wrecked car drive up my insurance?

Im a new driver and my parents want to buy me an Acura TSX. I found one online and went to test drive it and found out it had been in a moderate car crash, but had been completely fixed and repaired. I went to the mechanic and he ok'd the car for me. We want to buy it, but is the fact that the previous owner crashed it going to drive up the cost to insure it?""

Affordable Health Insurance for small business owner?

I own a small retail store in CT and just received notice that my health insurance (for my family as well as my employees) went up by 23% (!). Now I'm trying to research online what the best options are in terms of affordability and coverage. I looked into HSA but am afraid that my employees might not be able to pay the high deductible out of pocket. I also wonder if getting individual health insurance (not via the business) would work if I pay a portion for each of my employees and if those tend to be less expensive. I pay 100% for my employees now and partly for their family members and would like to continue doing that but the prices are just getting ridiculous. If anyone has any suggestions I really appreciate it. Sadly, I am not internet savvy so shopping online has proven to be hard and insurance jargon just seems like a foreign language to me... :) Thank you

Car Insurance - Young Driver 18 years old Male - NEED HELP PLEASE!!!!?

I have recently passed my driving test (3 days ago!) and will be buying a car ASAP as I have a job lined up and have just left school. I've tried tens of comparison sites and even rang some insurance companies direct to try and get a better quote... I have looked at the smallest possible engine size, that being 0.8l and 1l engines. I've looked at cars such as FORD KA, Vauxhall Corsa, Nissan Micra, Renault Clio and a few others too. The cheapest quote I have found for all of the cars is for a 2000 Ford KA 1.3l 3dr 4 seats (the smallest KA engine size possible) and that price was 3,800 paying monthly with a company called My Policy . However, I have used various other KA registration plates all the same engine size but some being 2003 models or 2005 and the insurance jumps to over 6,000! I haven't found another FORD KA cheaper than 5,500 and obviously if I can't get that one particular car out of the thousands for sale that insurance quote will be invalid anyway. Basically, I've tried everything. Adding named drivers (with lots of driving experience 30+ years), putting my car in a locked garage, on the road, tried different cars - models, registration plates, ages, engine sizes, and not to forget the countless comparison sites. The funny thing is with MyPolicy I went onto their site directly to get a quote and they were unable to give me a quote when entering exactly the same information into the Tiger.co.uk comparison site, that site brought up the 3,800 quote with MyPolicy but when I use their site directly they can't give me a quote... I know insurance is based on MANY factors, believe me I understand that. I tried entering different post codes (just out of curiosity) and it did help, but only fractionally. It just seems (other than the 1 obscure quote of 3,800 on ONE car, out of the 100+ I've tried) that I can't get a quote cheaper than 5,000 for a car with the smallest engine size and insurance group possible... It's ridiculous. Please don't advise fronting because it's illegal and I want to build up some NCD anyway. CAN ANYONE HELP ME GET A QUOTE CHEAPER THAN 3,500?! Thanks a lot, -Ash.""

If i dont have insurance and i drive a friends car in which he has insurance on it.?

What would happen? would my friend be liable, and would he have to pay everything? or would his insurance cover his car?""

Insurance and tickets?

I got pulled over for being on my cell phone but the cop gave me a ticket for not wearing my seat belt which is only $46, i can pay online, and i dont have to go to court. Will this ticket be reported to my insurance?""

What's the insurance estimate for a 2003 Toyota Celica?

I am turned 17 recently and I want to buy a Toyota Celica because I think its cool. i understand that if I want to know the insurance I just get a quote but that takes long. And if someone has other suggestions for a cool list of cars for teen drivers please help.

Insurance for a 1994 camaro?

I am 16 and have had my liscnse for almost 7 months now and have had no accidents. I want to buy a 1994 camaro but not sure what insurance will be. It is a v6 3.4L. About how much will insurance cost me? What about if the car is under my parents name?

Car Insurance/car buying?

I am a first time car buyer and don't have much experience with this stuff. Should I buy car insurance before I buy the car or can I buy the car and insurance at the same time? Thanks

Is Mercedes expensive to maintain?

im 18 just got myself first car 05 c320 4matic. my parents are paying for gas and insurance which is 350$ a month but i will pay for the car payments with a part time job and maybe repairs do you think it will be too much for me?

Cheap auto insurance?

im 17 years old driving a 2004 pontiac grand prix. im trying to find cheap auto insurance for sacramento california. is there any deals better than 69 dollars? i have 0 credit score, no job,sleeps in my own parking lot, i only drive it to school which is 3 miles 5 times a day, and clean history. full time student holding a 3.5 to a 3.75 gpa. i also live with my parents(they have gieco and im on it temprararly until i find something cheaper) they both ahve clean records and passed high school. my mom has an associates degree. they both work and crdit scores are well over 700. please respond soon.""

Why my car insurance is so high and how can I lower it?

Recently I moved my house and my insurance went off the roof. For a 03 reg ford-ka its 2300 whereas the car cost only 1400. I also have passed pass-plus, but in vain. Checked on gocompares and other sites, but of no use. I am 28yrs old. I don't know what to do, I love to drive and want that car so bad? Do you guys have any idea? Should I go and check out with my bank for insurance and stuff? please help?""

What is the insurance on a Yamaha R1?

I am thinking about buying a 2001 Yamaha R1. I am 18 years old. I have a clean driving record and have never been pulled over. (Knock on wood) I have a car already, if that matters. I would like to get it insured if possible. How much do you think the insurance will be a month/year? Also, what would be a good company? *Before you answer please I don't want your opinion on if it's a good idea to get the bike because I've seen a lot of answered on opinion of bikes and not what the insurance will be.""

Can I get my own car insurance policy with State Farm and still be covered on my parent's policy?

I have been on my parents' car insurance for a few years. I have a car that is covered by their policy, but I just bought another car (I still have my old one) and I need insurance. Can I get my own policy with State Farm, or do I have to bundle it with my parents' current policy? Will that be cheaper?""

Impact of Auto Insurance Quotes on Credit History?

I am with Geico currently and is up for renewal. I am planning to take quotes from different companies. May be they offer me a low rate. But I am scared by the fact that it will impact my credit score. Can you please advice? I have been driving for 4.5 yrs with clean record.

Short term car insurance (UK)?

I need to renew my car insurance policy soon but am going away in June for a year so cannot get a full years policy. My company has told me to take out a years policy then cancel it before i leave in June. Does anyone know of a UK insurance company that could give me a policy for just a few months to save me cancelling it later on. Thanks

What is the cheapest car to insure?

What is the cheapest, cheapest car to insure for a 17 year old in the UK. Cheers.""

How much is an car insurance per month?

im looking for an cheapfull covered car insurance for an 21 yr old female who is also an first driver and what company would be best thanks the make of the two cars if chosen are ford ka (2011 make) and kia pincanto thanks

Who really has the cheapest car insurance?

its gotta be cheap

Primary insurance?????????????/?

So I took my Daughter to the doctor today she is on ARkids. everything went fine at the Doctors but when i went to get her RX they said i would have to pay 81 dollars because of my primary insurance. I dont have Primary insurance she has only had ARkids. well they told me it was through her (sperm donor) father. that had not had anything to do with her for 2 years. she is 5 and when he did it was off and on. well how is this right I have custody of her. I can not afford her meds with his insurance making me pay. when it was just her insurance i didnt have to pay since it is his doesn't he have to pay? I dont know how to get ahold of him like i said no contact nothing for 2 years. she never gets sick.. i havent had to get her any meds or take her to the doc for like 5 mo.or more.

Misrepresentation of information for auto insurance in the state of florida?

What is the penalty for misrepresentation of information for auto insurance? Does the insured get sued by the car insurance company? Would that stop the insured form getting car insurance later on? Can that result in insurance fraud and if so...What happens then? this is serious so if you do not know the answer, doe not answer. no time for jokes.""

I have juvenile rheumatoid arthritis and no insurance?

Is there any doctor of Rheumatologists in Las Vegas that accept cash payments for people who have no insurance?

What is the penalty if police finds i have an old car insurance card in my car and not the current one?

i switched car insurance company, and i forgot to put the new car insurance card in the car, i still have the old one there but it expired. if the police stops me for some reason, will i get into any trouble? i have the new car insurance company phone number in my cellphone.""

How do I rent a car? without any insurance (i have no car)?

So I want to rent a Dodge Magnum, for about 9 days in May through Thrifty.I will be driving from Missouri to Orlando for a vacation. I assume that I will pay the fee for the loss damage waiver (about $11 p/d) Or maybe my credit card might just cover that. But why do they keep refering to my insurance?... I don't even own a car! Else why do they think I am renting? Anyway what advice would you nice people give a dumb person like me as to what I need to do or what other insurance I need to purchase, thanks.""

Why is the US government forcing health insurance on me?

My hate for the US government is growing by the day.

Average cost for medical exams?

Just curious about the 'average' cost of my upcoming medical exams: Sinus CT Scan, A VNG exam and VEMP exam...thanks!""

Whats cheaper car insurance or moped insurence?

im 20 and doing my lessons soon i do want to have a car but they are really expensive to run , do u think i should just stick to a moped and wait till i get a lil older plus how much on average is it to run a moped compered to a car including petrol+ insurance Only:)""

Is there a website for seeing what class of car you have for insurance to see how much it wil be.?

I know insurance have classes of cars based on a number. Like my old school might be a 7. but my Escalade might be a 20 or something. Please help.

What is the cheapest way to get insurance with a friends car?

I'm already practising my driving lessons and theory. Once I pass what's the best and cheap way to be insured.

About car insurance and the laws on it?

i just want to know if a car is insured but the driver of that car is not in the policy .. do i still get ticketed for not having the car insured? I don't know if i'm making sense.but let me explain .my car is insured fully covered but my daughter was driving it and got stopped by the police.and he claimed that my car was not insured. i called my insurance carrier and was told that it was because my daughter was not on the policy. I always assumed that as long as the car was insured it did nt matter who drove it. provided an accident was not involved. please help me on this. as soon as possible

Auto insurance cost for teen?

I am 16 years old and have a 2002 vw jetta. I was wondering how much it would cost for insurance?

How much money would I save on car insurence?

I have a 16 year old who I am debating whether I should put him in driving school to save money on insurance when he turns 17 and gets a licence. It would be added to my insurance. about how much money would I save on car insurance with a behind the wheel driving school in New Jersey? Please dont give me wbsites with a free quotes.

Do Americans really believe democrats & Obama want to give affordable insurance and not socialist medicine?

affordable insurance for 50 mil more people doesn't just grow on trees, or does it? in Canada too, the gov in the 60s and 70s first fooled people in as only an INSURER, then within 20 years, it grew to become the monopoly MANAGER, to the point where ALL PRIVATE CARE IS NOW ILLEGAL IN CANADA. Should we be fooled by this cheap attempt? Sources: http://www.brianday.ca/canada-health-act.html http://www.theadvocates.org/freeman/8903lemi.html""

Does your car insurance rate go up if you get a seat belt ticket in illinois?

Does your car insurance rate go up if you get a seat belt ticket in illinois?

Hello im a 18 year old male and am looking for car insurance?

the car i am looking to insure is a 1.3 tdci vauxhall corsa excite 75ps 61 plate the cheapest ive been quoted on moneysupermarket.com is 3118 but went on lv and was quoted 1620.60 fully comp and only one on policy and me as the policy holder does anyone else know where the cheapest car insurance is

Which company is best for a first time driver to insure with ?

I am 17 in April and will be learning to drive and was wondering if anyone could recommend the best insurers Cheapest most reliable. please help ive been going round in circles.

Health Insurance Policies For Smokers?

How are health insurance policies for smokers differ from that for non smokers?

Is my car covered under my insurance?

I have a 2008 car that has full coverage even though it is paid off. My wife is not on the insurance. I am a former cop and from what she told me, the other vehicle is at fault because he came into her lane and hit our car, but there was no police report. I already called my insurance company and gave the normal information. My question is... will my car be covered because she is not on my insurance? I have been reading and people say the car is covered, not the driver so it should be, but I also read someone who said if someone lives with you and you did not tell the insurance company they could have possession of your car, that they may not cover it. I was a cop, but only did the reports. I didn't deal with insurance so I am naive when it comes to this stuff. I am okay with things going the way they should, but I don't want the insurance company tricking me into some minor technicality that will keep them from covering me. Is there anything I should do or not do? It was damage from the front to the back and we cannot afford to pay for it ourselves.""

What is the cheapest legal way to insure 2 cars - 1 with just me with full ncb the other with me and my son?

My son is 22 and wants to insure a vehicle, but finds it very expensive. What is the cheapest LEGAL way for me to help him. I have full ncb on my own car.""

What do car insurance companies use to determine car value?

I just bought a 2008 used car. I bought GAP insurance (pays the difference between what the car is worth and the amount of the loan if the car is totaled) for $600. I have 30 days to cancel the insurance for a full refund (to my finance company). Do insurance companies use Kelly Blue Book retail value, private sale or trade-in value to determine the value they will pay for a totaled car? If they use retail or private sale, I can cancel and be okay if I get totaled, but if it is trade in, I will be $3000 in the hole with no car.""

What is the Best health Insurance???

I'm trying to get Insurance but I don't know if it comes with my job.....How do i get health Insurance..... I was wondering Whats the best Health Insurance out there that would help cover a lot of money.......Because since I'm older now my Fathers Insurance can no longer cover me and I'm trying to support myself...... Thank you all sooo much for your answers ^_^

Is it legal to have car insurance on your vehicle under someone's parent's name?

Is it legal to have car insurance if it's in someone else's name, and they are aware and okay of it? The specific situation is, I am getting a car from my dad, and the auto insurance is going to be under his name still. I am a licensed driver, and need to figure this out, because I do not want to drive with his insurance, if it is illegal.""

In North Carolina...How Do Get A Car && Insurance??

In What Order Do I Have To Get A Car My Licence && Insurance??

How much is an car insurance per month?

im looking for an cheapfull covered car insurance for an 21 yr old female who is also an first driver and what company would be best thanks the make of the two cars if chosen are ford ka (2011 make) and kia pincanto thanks

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/any-idea-how-much-car-tax-vauxhall-fronteraand-insurance-sharpe"