#but the human ways in which he was driven to his limits were by far the biggest cause of his decline

[morethanwonderful]

Okay this topic has been haunting me for a while, because I feel like I have a wildly different perception of the Yin Tiger Tally's effects on Wei Wuxian than some other MDZS fans. Specifically, I've seen some takes that include the idea of the Yin Tiger Tally as some degree of corrupting force and/or supernatural drain on Wei Wuxian's mental health within the canon of the novel.

I really wonder if the different understandings stem from being influenced by which version of the story first sticks in your head. So! Indulge my curiosity:

Reblogs are helpful here, as I figure the answers from within my personal circle vs from the fandom as a whole will be pretty different :)

[glow-worms-are-believers]

Rain on my parade

I can’t find it but this is inspired by that post about how if you create a lot of cold air (like Danny with his ice power) you could potentially create a cold front which would cause rain! So thank you, this was inspired by that wonderful science-enthusiast.

It had been days. At first, Bruce hadn’t given it much thought, forecasts were wrong all the time. That a supposedly warm and sunny day had turned into a near-constant heavy shower wasn’t surprising, so Bruce had gone about his business. When the second day of rain had come around, the vigilante still hadn’t thought too much of it, but as the afternoon rolled around with no change, he got on the phone to make a few inquiries. By day three, he had called Dick in Bludhaven and on day four, the younger hero had actually answered. Considering how sparse communication was between them since Jason’s death, this was an indicator that something was very wrong.

Bruce had already sent out feelers into the underground, he’d contacted some of his less savoury acquaintances. He tried everyone, absolutely everyone, and yet. Nobody had heard anything about a new villain or a meta with meteorological abilities. By day five, Bruce knew he had to do something before everything went out of control. Non-stop heavy rain was not only unnatural for Gotham, it was dangerous. Already, hundreds of homes near the river bed had gotten flooded and people were being forced to find temporary refuge with relatives and hotels if they were lucky and could afford it. There had been no death reported yet, but the longer this went on, the higher the chance of it became. With more rain there would be more flooding that would encroach on the normally dry land and that meant more people being left homeless, not to mention what would happen if the river overflowed completely.

“Bruce, I’ve got something,” Dick’s voice came through the communicator.

“What is it?” The man asked.

“There was a sharp drop in temperature near Milford about six days ago,” the younger man said.

“Send me the coordinates,” Bruce answered as he started putting on the cowl.

They finally had a lead.

Danny was ecstatic. This was the best vacation he had ever had. He owed Jazz so many favours when he finally got back. Not only was she currently covering for him with the parents, she had driven him to the middle of nowhere with his camping gear when he’d asked. She’d said he needed time to relax and this week where he was technically supposed to be doing some kind of fictitious space program was her way of making sure he got it.

The out-of-the-way location was ideal for what Danny had wanted to do for a while, which was testing the limits of his powers. He had messed around with a few of his ability: intangibility, flight, strength, before starting on the newest and thus most exciting one: his ice powers. Since he’d gotten them he’d wanted to test his limits with it. At first he tried to see how much ice he could produce at once and how far he could shoot it. Then it was how long he could maintain the ice and how long it took for it to melt. Then, he decided to find out how cold he could go. This took more concentration and he fell into a state of sharp focus as he sent wave after wave of colder and colder ice away from him. Time started to become meaningless as his ghostly body didn’t need food or rest for a long while longer than normal humans.

By the time he “woke up” six days had passed and he felt as relaxed as he had ever been since he became Phantom. Danny let out a relaxed sigh as he sat down. Jazz would come by tomorrow as they had agreed on one week. That meant he had one last day to do whatever he wanted before he returned to Amity and his responsibilities. This was going to be fun!

[submissivewelshranger]

I found this amazing piece of fiction when looking up ponyplay information earlier. The credit belongs to:

What follows is every submissive’s wettest dream come true!

Kidnapped at the Fair

Despite knee-high leather boots that terminated in a horse's hoof, a latex clad body polished to a mirror shine, and a young woman busily tightening a thick, black leather armbinder around his arms, Dylan drew little attention from passersby as he stood in the partial shade of a tree.

Dylan found it hard to hold on to conscious thought as the overwhelming physicality of the moment dominated his mind, his limbic system taking charge and shushing his cortex.

It wasn't a bad feeling though.

The black latex catsuit, dappled by shifting patches of sunlight shining through the late summer leaves above him, Dylan wore had him feeling alternately hot and cold. More likely, the fluctuating sensations were driven by his anticipation - and nervousness - at being Lexi's pony for the Folsom Street Fair.

Dylan's anticipation belied the fact that he had been a pony many times before, but all his previous experiences had been lacking, leaving him unfulfilled, like a yawn cut short too soon.

Today was different.

Today Dylan would have his first experience at the hands of another who shared his own beliefs about pony play, namely that human ponies are behaviorally and visually at their pinnacle when they are controlled with a strong hand aided by copious bondage.

Dylan had all the gear, from hood to hoof, acquired methodically over the years. Although he had been fortunate enough to wear his pony gear with regularity, all his previous partners and handlers had treated him too much like a coveted pet, something to be pampered instead of the human-turned-beast-of-burden that populated his deepest fantasies.

Dylan wanted someone he could trust to take control of him for a couple hours (he was far too enamored with modern amenities to desire, even in his darkest of fantasies, to want to be treated like a horse for very long).

He craved for someone to restrain him in his meticulously collected pony gear and train him like a horse, pushing him to his limits, powering through his resistance, his hesitation, and all his complaints until he felt he could take no more. And then, finally, release him in a sweaty latex ball at her feet.

This was his fantasy.

While he would certainly compromise on the details, it was so far removed from what his past partners and trainers wanted from a human pony that Dylan slowly lost interest in pony play. His interest waned as he began to equate pony play with being cherished, doted on, and admired instead of forcibly harnessed, used and abused.

Eventually, Dylan's mind moved to other fetishes as his vision of pony play was entirely eclipsed by the ideas of those around him.

Then he met Lexi.

She rekindled his desire to become a pony, fanning a spark of desire for pony play, something Dylan had believed to be long extinguished, until it was raging within him again, stronger than ever before.

Dylan recalled the initial, tentative message from Lexi on the forums in which she expressed an interest in pony play and asked some vague questions about how one would train a human pony. He remembered how, after reading it, his heart jumped and he flushed a little. He didn't – still doesn't – know why that happened. Her message never specifically stated what type of pony training she might favor, but the way she talked about human ponies, the phrasing of her questions, it screamed to Dylan that she was like-minded.

As they exchanged messages, Dylan's instincts were proved correct. Their interests aligned perfectly.

Perhaps too perfectly Dylan thought at first: the more they chatted about hypothetical pony scenes, the more blurry the line between fantasy and reality became. Dylan eventually concluded that at some unidentifiable point in the past year, he and Lexi had switched from discussing pony play to online pony role-play.

Thus, it came as a huge surprise to Dylan when Lexi suggested they meet at the Folsom Street Fair, which she would be attending for the first time that year. She hinted that it would be especially fun if Dylan would be willing to be her pony for the day.

Dylan jumped at the idea. It was perfect in so many ways. He would get to meet Lexi and get to finally be the type of pony he wanted to be in a safe, highly public environment.

When Dylan met Lexi an hour before the fair, any remaining concerns he had about the day's planned activities were erased. Seeing her for the first time left him more incredulous than reading that first message from her 11 months before.

She was gorgeous, a statuesque 5'10", which was a perfect mesh with Dylan's 6'2" (in his opinion - not that he was thinking of a future relationship of course) with blonde hair that crested just below her shoulders and friendly blue eyes that were the antithesis of every depraved, filthy sentence she wrote to him for the past year.

Lexi was quick with a smile and just as affable in person as she was online. What's more, to Dylan's delight, she was dressed perfectly for the occasion. She wore English show clothes with breeches that accentuated her slim body and field boots polished to a shine that rivaled the steel spurs around their ankles.

She even carried a jumping crop (something Dylan had forgot to pack) and a riding helmet. Dylan thought the latter was a nice touch even though there would be no actual riding today. Her show attire was immaculate, but clearly not brand new, which gave credence to her claims of being a bio-horse rider.

Dylan waited patiently, as Lexi worked the thick leather sleeve up his arms and began lacing him into his new toy. The armbinder was so new that its flawless obsidian surface creaked constantly as Lexi jockeyed it into position. Each movement infused the air with the smell of fresh leather.

Dylan marveled that his first experience wearing an armbinder felt so private despite the fact that it was occurring on a busy sidewalk.

The armbinder was Lexi's idea but one that Dylan immediately loved. She told Dylan that while she liked the hand hooves ponies wore, she preferred the streamlined look of the monoglove. It reminded her of some of the first human pony photos and artwork she had seen and she likened the difference between hand hooves and armbinder to the difference between a horse at liberty in a field and a highly collected dressage horse during competition radiating immense power barely constrained.

Logically, the analogy was ludicrous, but on mulling it over, Dylan became convinced there was a truth to it though he never could consciously figure out why it felt so right viscerally.

Regardless, Dylan had never worn an armbinder and was quite curious to discover if it was as restricting as so many stories would have him believe. So, it didn't take much convincing for Dylan to make a trip to a renowned leather bondage shop near him and get fitted for a binder.

Luckily, the store was able to have his bespoke binder ready the morning of Folsom, and so it was on the sidewalk, in front of the store that Lexi began the process of fusing Dylan's arms behind him in an ocean of leather.

Dylan felt Lexi adjusting his hands at the bottom of the sleeve so they extended flat, palm to palm before he was jerked bodily as Lexi pulled the laces through row after row of eyelets. Finally reaching the top, a good couple inches above Dylan's elbows, she stopped momentarily to tie a loose knot.

The armbinder was snug enough that Dylan knew he wouldn't be pulling his arms out anytime soon. However, with a good 6 inches between his elbows, it was a comfortable restriction.

Dylan felt another pinch, this time in his armpit, as Lexi tightened the shoulder straps of the binder that snaked through Dylan's armpit and around his neck and shoulders. These straps held the armbinder up on Dylan's arms, so he couldn't work the sleeve down and off his arms.

Lexi's hand moved haltingly along Dylan's latex-clad chest as she positioned the square flap of leather, through which the two shoulder straps crossed in front of him.

Lexi moved out of Dylan's vision for a second time. Moments later, Dylan felt her commence a second round of lace tightening on the armbinder.

Dylan gave an involuntary grunt as his elbows were brought an inch apart.

"Are you okay?" Lexi asked

"Yes" Dylan responded in a low, but not-quite-strangled, voice.

Dylan detected something a little off in Lexi's tone, but he couldn't identify exactly what it was, if it even was there in first place. Her words were over so quickly that he couldn't be certain. No, it must have been his imagination, projecting his own nervousness onto her actions, Dylan thought. He dismissed the thought, but he started to feel uneasy, a small ball of anxiety forming in the pit of his stomach.

Apparently needing no further encouragement, Lexi continued tugging on the laces row by row until reaching the top of the glove for the second time. She redid the loose knot at the top to prevent the bulging leather sleeve from unraveling her most recent handiwork.

Lexi went back to the bottom of the armbinder to tighten all the laces for the third, and final, time.

Dylan was sweating profusely and taking rapid shallow breaths. As his arms were pulled closer together, he found it increasingly difficult to breathe. He was second guessing agreeing to wear the armbinder today. He knew he would be expected to wear his tack for an hour, or even two, so perhaps it was foolhardy to assume he could handle an armbinder for that amount of time when he'd never worn one before.

Lexi interrupted Dylan's thoughts with a satisfied sigh as Dylan felt her lacing reach his elbows for the third time. Dylan's shoulders strained as his elbows touched. Dylan felt an enormous force pulling his arms together as Lexi put all her weight into tugging the laces ever tighter.

A minute later, Lexi reached the top of the sleeve for the last time. This time she tied the laces off tightly and securely.

Dylan was wondering why Lexi was making it so tight. She could have stopped after the first pass. She should have stopped after the second pass. Dylan enjoyed bondage (really enjoyed bondage), but this was a little much for a first encounter. He would have to wear this, in addition to all of his pony gear, for an hour or two while the two of them walked around the fair.

Dylan debated voicing his objections but decided to wait. After all, he could ask to be let out at any time.

With the laces secured, Lexi tightly buckled the final three straps of the armbinder as Dylan craned his neck to watch: one just above the wrists, one below the elbows, and one above the elbows.

The straps were not needed to prevent him from getting free Dylan knew, but he had to admit they looked good. He really hoped he would be able to get photos of himself like this. Although insanely uncomfortable now, he knew it would be incredibly hot to look at himself bound like this later.

As a final touch, Lexi locked each of the buckles with a small padlock.

Lexi must have recognized Dylan's alarmed look at the clicking of the locks.

"They're mostly for show…but partly for security. There's no way you'll be able to unbuckle the straps, locks or not, but I like the idea that nobody else will be able to unbuckle them either. It's exciting to know that I'm the only one who can free you," she said.

"Oh," Dylan responded throatily.

A twitch of arousal coursed through Dylan as Lexi's words washed over him.

He couldn't deny the appeal of being so helpless, knowing that if he got lost in the crowd at the fair, there would be no easy way to release him from his bondage.

Still, the way Lexi said it bothered Dylan. My, what big teeth you have…the thought popped into Dylan's mind unbidden. Where did that come from? Dylan shook his head to clear it.

But it didn't go away. There was something so very wrong about how Lexi was acting, how she was speaking.

Even as his dick bobbed an enthusiastic yes to her words, Dylan's gut screamed a resounding "no".

"How does it feel?" Lexi asked, when Dylan didn't elaborate on his monosyllabic response.

She took a step back and seemed to admire her handiwork: the tightly secured armbinder restraining the latex and hoofboot clad Dylan.

"Tight." Dylan managed between gasps. He could safely say this was by far the tightest his arms had ever been bound. "My arms are feeling a little cold."

"They'll warm up once we start moving around," Lexi responded optimistically, "Are you ready for the rest of your tack?"

Dylan was most certainly not. He didn't imagine lasting five minutes with his arms bound like this, far less with his tack on top of it.

Lexi seemed to read Dylan's distress at his bondage. Her features tightened slightly.

For a second Dylan thought she was angry, frustrated, stymied even, but then he blinked, and he saw it was sympathy on her face, not anger.

Dylan tightened his resolve and said "Sure!"

This time it was undoubtedly relief that washed over Lexi's face. Clearly she was glad he wasn't in too much discomfort. Still, Dylan couldn't shake the anxiety in his stomach, which had grown into a twisted knot.

Dylan relaxed a little as Lexi ran her hand down the length of the leather glove that bulged with the strain of holding his arms together. The leather was like a second skin. It conformed to every contour of Dylan's arms, outlining his musculature and fusing his arms together from elbow to fingertip.

The cost of Dylan's aesthetically and functionally perfect bondage, and his wonderfully arched shoulders, was the strain on his diaphragm, evidenced by his rapid, shallow breathing.

Dylan calmed himself, consciously slowing his breathing as Lexi began attaching his harness. She pushed leather straps through the gap between his back and the armbinder, bringing them around his torso and tightening them across his chest.

Dylan was not enjoying the experience as much as he had hoped.

The straps of his harness, newly digging into his torso, added to the pressure on his diaphragm from the armbinder. The combination severely restricted his ability to breathe. Dylan fought down panic, the urge to safeword out of this, this degree of bondage beyond which he had ever experienced.

Still, the intensity of the helplessness he felt was undeniably arousing. He focused on his arousal and slowly, his panic ebbed.

Dylan felt Lexi's hands working over each of his thighs, attaching each thigh cuff to his waist belt. Her hand then moved down each leg, attaching more cuffs, first above, then below, his knees, and finally the much heavier hobbles around his ankles.

Little clicking sounds reignited the panic of being infinitely more helpless than he ever had before, "Wait, you're locking all the buckles?" Dylan asked.

"Yes," Lexi replied, "you'll look amazing!"

"Okay," this partially pacified Dylan. He did want to be a cross between a bondage and a show pony.

Nevertheless, for a first foray with a new handler, he wasn't sure how appropriate it was to lock all the buckles. It would take significantly longer to remove the gear, which could be a problem if any unexpected issues arose. On top of that, he was already a bit overwhelmed with the extent of the bondage.

Although there was no way he could free himself from his bondage without help, even without any locks, there was an undeniable psychological impact of being "locked" into his bondage. Dylan felt so incredibly helpless. He had never felt anything remotely like it before. It was truly overwhelming.

"Uhm...I don't think I can last a full hour like this," Dylan added, drastically understating how he felt.

"I completely understand. Don't worry," Lexi said, "As for the locks, they're all keyed alike, so it won't take long to remove them."

"Okay," Dylan repeated half-heartedly, though he felt marginally better after voicing his concerns.

"And remember, three paws of your feet – err hooves – and I'll release you immediately. Two, and I'll stop whatever I'm doing and check with you." Lexi added.

"Got it. Thanks." Dylan felt much better hearing her confirm his safe signals. Knowing he could get released whenever he wanted was like cradling his own personal totem.

Lexi brought a leather collar up to Dylan's neck. As she tightened it against his neck, Dylan felt a pair of cold metal prongs being pushed against the skin of his neck.

He recognized it as his shock collar.

It was 2 inch black leather collar that he modified to accommodate the unit from an off the shelf dog shock collar. It looked much better, in his opinion, than the thin nylon collar that was standard with shock collars.

Dylan heard another click as Lexi locked the shock collar in place around his neck, but he remained serene, knowing he could gain his release whenever it suited him.

The sound of another zipper being pulled followed by startlingly cool air flowing over on his crotch interrupted Dylan's thoughts.

"Wait...," Dylan began as he felt his erection pop out of the unzipped crotch portion of his latex bodysuit.

"It's okay. This will only take a second," Lexi said as she gently grasped his balls and pulled them free of the latex as well. She fastened a much smaller leather band around Dylan's balls.

The band contained another shock unit, and Dylan felt the cold metal of the prongs brought into snug contact against his balls. Dylan knew that both the shock units (neck and balls) could be controlled from a single remote because he was the one who made the pair (from a pair of dog training collars that could be controlled from the same remote).

Dylan had told Lexi about the pair of shock devices he had adapted, and how he liked how easily they could be used to control him, but he was surprised that she was using them today. He assumed it was for his benefit since he had raved about how much he liked the idea of being controlled at the push of a button.

Another click as the shock collar around his balls was locked in place. Dylan's cock made a small bounce at the sound.

Lexi carefully pushed his balls back inside the latex catsuit. Before doing the same with his cock, Lexi gave it a stroke, eliciting a groan of pleasure from Dylan as she zipped the crotch zipper closed again.

Dylan saw Lexi pocket the remote for the shock collars.

"Almost done," Lexi said as she lifted a mask up to his face.

The leather of the mask was shaped uncannily like a horse's head, complete with soft brown eyes (that were difficult to see through at the best of times), and attentive equine ears. The mask even sported a little bit and bridle that completed the look.

The mask twisted in Lexi's hand as she brought it up to Dylan's face. Dylan could now clearly see the inside of the mask, where he saw an inflatable butterfly gag in addition to several leather straps that would hold the gag, and mask, in place on his head.

It wasn't a new sight for Dylan (after all it was his mask), but he was surprised to see the gag in place. He had specifically removed it from the mask yesterday evening when packing his gear for today. He remembered dropping it in the gear bag, but even so Lexi would have had to rifle through the bag, find it, and put it back in place in the mask and do all of that while he was in the store paying for his armbinder.

It was puzzling, but likely innocuous, Dylan told himself since she knew he did like gags, and after all they had a safe-signal, not just a safeword, so he could still free himself whenever he wanted.

As the mask approached Dylan's face, Lexi's other hand came into view. At first Dylan thought it was to steady the mask as it twisted back and forth, but as her other hand came into better focus, Dylan saw that Lexi's index and middle fingers were each curled around a small grey foam ball.

Dylan's brief moment of puzzlement turned into panic as Lexi deftly pushed one foam sphere into each of Dylan's nostrils. Reflexively, Dylan opened his mouth to gasp for air as the foam expanded firmly into place in his nostrils.

Needing no encouragement, Lexi pushed the gag into Dylan's open mouth and had the mask over his face in less than a second. In another three seconds Lexi had all the straps secured tightly against Dylan's head preventing him from dislodging either the mask or the gag, completing his transformation into a horse.

With his mouth now plugged, Dylan fought for air and was rewarded by a small flow from his nostrils as the air took a meandering path through the thick but porous foam.

He greedily sucked air in as hard as he could. The strain on his diaphragm from having his elbows bound together behind him – and his tight harness - was exponentially magnified by the effort of filling his lungs through what felt like a yard-long cocktail straw.

As soon as the mask was firmly in place, Dylan felt Lexi attaching locks to each of the mask straps, locking the mask, and gag, in place. The mane of the mask would cover the little padlocks so the equine look would not be spoiled.

Dylan fought down real panic now. The gag was a surprise, but the foam balls shoved deep inside his nostrils, plugging his nose, barely allowing him enough air to live, were terrifying.

As Dylan struggled to keep his calm, he was dimly aware of Lexi attaching tie downs from the bit in the horse mask's mouth to the back of Dylan's harness. She then ran the reins through the rings of a martingale attached to his waist belt.

The tie downs pulled Dylan's head back, while the running martingale would pull his head forward and down (the degree to which it would do so depended on how much pressure was exerted on the reins, the more rein pressure, the further down Dylan's head would be forced).

The combination of those two pieces of tack effectively prevented Dylan from moving his head forward, backwards, or even to either the side. Not that he was paying to much attention to that at the moment.

It all happened so rapidly that not only did Dylan not have time to object, but he didn't even fully realize what was happening until it was far too late. He was still a little disoriented from the mask going over his head, the shift from bright sunlight to a dim greenish hue acting like a flash-bang inside his head.

Dylan heard muted noises that sounded like buckles and locks, and he felt his head being pulled backwards then forwards until finally it felt like his head was being held in a neck brace, but none of these sensations truly penetrated the sense of confusion that Dylan felt.

Dylan's senses slowly returned to him as he precariously maintained a calm demeanor. His eyes adjusted to the reduced light inside the mask and the limited peripheral vision allowed by the combination of the eye positions in the mask and the blinders of the bridle worn by the horse mask.

Dylan watched helplessly as Lexi grabbed the bulb of the butterfly gag, which was attached via a discreet rubber tube through the horse mask's mouth to the hollow rubber bladder held firmly in Dylan's mouth.

Dylan looked on as Lexi's hand clenched the blub, sending a rush of air through the tubing and…the flaccid rubber butterfly gag in his mouth, to his astonishment, came to life and began actively filling mouth.

Dylan tried to extricate it, but in addition to the strap around the back of his head that held the gag in place, there was another strap that went around his chin, which held his mouth clamped shut around the gag.

As the gag continued to inflate, Dylan gave up on trying to get it out of his mouth and focused his efforts on communicating with Lexi that he didn't want to be gagged. Try as he might, Dylan was unable to move his head to show his displeasure, and since speech was impossible with the growing rubber intruder holding his tongue immobile, Dylan protested as best he could by grunting.

But the gag relentlessly grew. Lexi kept pumping the bulb, over and over.

As she continueds pumping the bulb, Dylan transitioned from mildly worried to completely panicked. He realized the situation was completely out of control. He had no way of signaling Lexi, and she couldn't read the panic on his face because of the mask.

Dylan's panicked grunts became quieter as the rubber bladder filled his mouth, but Lexi seemingly couldn't help herself: she kept pumping and pumping. Dylan made a short glottal sound as he strained his muscles against the leather that encased him, but his arms and head were too well restrained to move.

To a casual observer he didn't appear to be in any discomfort (the horse mask hid the distress that would otherwise have been evident in his eyes) nor did he appear to be struggling, but the outward calm forced upon him by his bondage belied his hysterical state.

Then Dylan remembered: the safe-signal.

He pawed the ground twice in succession with such force he half expected to see sparks fly as the metal horseshoe of his boot struck the hard cement.

To his relief, the pumping stopped. However, after basking in the joy of not being completely suffocated, Dylan realized that even though it was not inflating further, the butterfly gag filled his mouth completely. The air-filled intruder occupied every crevice and corner of Dylan's mouth; it pressed into the roof of his mouth and held his tongue down in a cruel embrace. He would have bit down on it in the vain hope of rupturing the thick rubber, but the leather strap fastened under his chin already held his jaw clamped around the gag tighter than a vice.

Dylan tried to yell through the gag. He screamed at the top of his lungs, but the inflated rubber bulb and leather horse mask muted his efforts into what sounded like a hushed groan to the world outside the dim prison of his mask.

The effort of trying to make even that pathetic noise robbed Dylan of precious air thanks to the thick foam plugging his nostrils. His pulse quickened and his lungs burned. Try as he might, he couldn't seem to pull enough air through the foam in his nostrils, and what air he did pull through was hot and humid from recirculating in the confines of the mask he wore.

The mask that outwardly projected a happy horse face concealed a panicked human visage, contorted in fear and desperate for cool, fresh air, desperate for release. A face of a young man on the verge on passing out not just from lack of air but also from the pain of his bondage and the terror of his sheer helplessness – he couldn't even communicate his anguish through facial expression nor body language such was his costuming.

It took nearly a minute for the pain in his lungs to dissipate. And twice as long for the hysteria to subside.

"Ah, it looks like you figured out the purpose of the foam," Lexi said.

Dylan grunted in anger, but had to take another few seconds to catch his breath again.

"What you may not have figured out is that you're going to be my pony for a lot longer than this fair."

Lexi paused before continuing, "A lot longer."

Dylan went cold with fear. The blood in his veins turned momentarily to ice before the adrenaline hit him and his heart hammered in his chest. Restrained as he was, neither fight nor flight was even a remote possibility. He tried to control his body's age-old instinct. He couldn't afford the increase in his body's demands for oxygen.

He hoped he misheard her, but the twinkle in her eyes told him he had not.

How could he have got himself into this situation? His mind screamed at him. Instinctively he struggled against the ambinder and screamed for help. But he realized immediately what a mistake he made. His brief struggle used up all his air, and he doubled over trying to catch his breath.

Lexi laughed and said, "Feel free to struggle and make all the noise you like."

She tickled Dylan a little around his rib cage and Dylan felt like his lungs were going to explode. A constellation of bright dots clouded his vision and tears formed around his eyes, but nobody could see them. All they did was make it even harder for him to see out of the mask.

Dylan was about to paw the ground three times, asking (pleading really) for immediate release, but he held back.

This was game. It had to be.

Surely this was part of the scene.

She was toying with him. She knew he wanted to feel helpless. They talked about it endlessly in their messages, their role-playing.

That must be it.

She's fucking with me Dylan thought.

A mind fuck. Brilliant, and scary…terrifying really because of the timing and the expert way she nailed the acting. That made it all the more clever.

Dylan was able to get himself under control. This was what he wanted, an hour of helplessness, his limits pushed.

That's what he told himself, but a part of him, an ancient part, buried deep inside his brain knew the real reason he hesitated. It knew he hesitated to make the safe signal because his sanity would break if she ignored it. If he pawed the ground thrice, and she refused his release, he would, quite simply, go insane.

He wasn't ready for that yet.

"Time to go," Lexi interrupted Dylan's thoughts as she started walking, pulling Dylan forward by the reins.

Dylan hesitated, not sure what to do, but ultimately it didn't matter because as soon as the reins became taught, he was jolted forward.

Caught off guard, Dylan stumbled and nearly tripped as the hobble chain clanked loudly doing its job, keeping his feet no further than a foot apart.

Dylan barely regained his balance in the hoof boots before feeling more pressure on the reins as Lexi walked on, oblivious to - or worse still, reveling in - his plight. He didn't know which, and was too focused on staying upright and breathing at the moment that he couldn't spare the mental energy to evaluate the possibilities.

Dylan followed Lexi, stumbling, constantly on the verge of losing his balance or passing out, his shoulders screaming in pain at the unnatural position of his arms.

It felt like miles to Dylan, but when they finally stopped, he was able to make out a street sign, which indicated they were only now about to enter Folsom Street Fair proper. He groaned inwardly, knowing they'd only walked a hundred feet.

As they entered the street fair, the mask's eyes finally fogged up to the point that Dylan had to blindly follow the rein pressure, trusting Lexi not the lead him astray. He faintly heard the jingle of the hobble chain and the clip-clop of his own hooves on the pavement, but that was the extent of his awareness of the outside world.

His tail swished against his legs, and he felt where it attached to his harness even through the thick leather of the armbinder as his movement caused his arms to bounce against his back.

As they continued to walk around the fair, Dylan came to realize that he could, if he squinted, see out of one of the nostrils of the horse mask.

Through this tiny peephole, Dylan could discern that all the stops Lexi made were for passersby who wanted a photo with her and her pony – mostly the pony.

Lexi clearly loved the attention, and she seemed to enjoy making Dylan start and stop walking abruptly, over-correcting him with the reins and crop.

Dylan began to get fatigued. He was completely and utterly worn out.

His arms were numb, and he could barely breathe with the gag in his mouth and the foam filling his nostrils. Every step was a monumental effort. His calves were on fire, and the balls of his feet were numb at the bottom of his hoof boots from taking his weight for what seemed like hours - from the position of the sun, Dylan was pretty sure it had been hours.

Finally, Dylan saw that Lexi was leading him out of the fair.

Good! He was going to scream his fucking head off at her when she finally released him.

But for now, he was going to behave. While she was in total control he wasn't going to do anything to provoke her.

However, he soon saw that she was leading him to a horse trailer, the ramp of which was ominously down, the inside hidden in shadow, only the sweet smell of alfalfa permeated out of the blackness.

Every step toward the trailer amplified Dylan's worry. Finally, just under 20 feet away from the ramp, Dylan collapsed. Partially out of exhaustion, but mostly out of fear. He didn't want to go in that trailer. He couldn't get in that trailer. He wouldn't. Once he did, it was over. Once he was inside, the door closed, he knew she would have him forever.

Lexi leaned down, and looked directly into the nostrils of the horse mask, seemingly knowing that this was Dylan's small window to the world beyond his current pony hell.

"Get up," Lexi whispered.

Get up now!" the whisper became a harsh rasp.

Dylan didn't respond. He watched as passersby formed a circle around the collapsed human pony.

"If you don't, I'll do this," she held up the bulb which would inflate Dylan's gag further and gave it a few small pumps, "until you won't be able to breathe. Then I'll walk away. It will take them," she gestured to the forming crowd, "at least 30 seconds to figure out you're in trouble, and then a couple minutes to find a way to remove the mask that's locked onto your head."

"By then, you'll have suffocated." Lexi continued, her voice grave but with a wide smile on her face to assure everyone watching that this was just a stunt for their benefit, the disobediant pony playfully resisting his mistress.

"Either you get the fuck up now and get into the trailer, or I pump up this gag and leave you for dead."

Dylan saw the coldness in her eyes. He didn't know if it was a bluff (if it was it was a good one), but he didn't think so.

Dylan mustered all his strength, awkwardly twisting and contorting his severely restrained body until he was able to get himself painfully back on his feet in the cruel boots. His head would have dropped unconsciously in defeat were it not for the wide collar around his neck and check reins fastened to his mask that forced his head rigidly upright.

He walked behind her into the oblivion of the trailer.

[epicspheal]

hi cami! hope youre doing well! id like to ask.. have you seen that pokemon zensho is now fully available in english? i only found out recently lol. you can find it at mangadex! if you have, what are your thoughts on it?

Hi there @soulsilvers I'm doing well thank you for asking! Yeah, I actually didn't know that they full translated Pokemon Zensho until I got this ask, so thank you for alerting me to this I appreciate it! So of course I had to read it all last night! Link here for anyone who wants to read it! It was so cute honestly. First Pokemon Concierge, now Pokemon Zensho making me cry and I'm here for it honestly. Like you said on discord, it definitely is very rushed at only 9 chapters. I definitely would've loved to see it have a few more chapters to explore more about Red and Blue's friendship (well here called Ash and Gary) and going through the league (I always feel like the elite four part of the Kanto story always seems to get the short end of the stick). Despite it's rushed nature, it does make up for it in being the most true-to-gameverse adaptation. But what I appreciated the most was the details that were added were very grounded. Like the problems the gym leaders were facing felt real. It was cool to see how Giovanni became the way he was because it has been hinted at that he's not always been the ruthless Team Rocket boss but something made him that way. I've grown to like Lt. Surge a lot over the years and I feel like his arc was really wholesome too. Many people criticize Kanto for it not being particularly story driven (which to each their own, some people like story drive gameplay some don't, groups are valid), but to say it's completely devoid of story is false. The theme of Gen 1 besides exploration is relationships. It's why the key driver is the rivalry (and strained friendship) between Red and Blue. The orphan Cubone, Agatha and Oak, even Mewtwo's existence plays on the concept of relations in a subtle way. Zensho takes this concept and runs with it throughout as Red travels through Kanto. Much like Pokespe, Pokemon Zensho does a good job at bringing smaller but notable NPCs into the fold and it was done in a way that was not overbearing (looking at Marvin from SwSh Pokespe taking Hop's spot). It was cool to see the SS Anne captain and Game Warden get some more screentime. Also props for this manga low key making non-binary Bill canon! I know some people who read it may not like this version of Red not being "badass" in that he does earn some of his badges without actually defeating the leaders but I think the way it's handled here was okay. I think part of Red's character is supposed to be how he puts caring for others first despite being so talented at battling and I think it's okay that there are adaptations that don't just fall into him being a legendary battler who sweeps everyone. Even though this is a retelling of Red's story I would say if I'm honest this was really Blue's story. Blue got a lot of focus in this manga and outside of Pokemon Generations we don't really get to see into Blue's mindset. I appreciated as you mentioned on discord, how despite everything it did still focus on the fact that Blue was still Red's friend despite everything. It's not something that's focused on a lot in gen 1 adaptations. And of course the rest of the Oak family gets some shine too. This is probably my favorite portrayal of Oak in that it retains some of his flaws but humanizes him too (although I wish they had devoted some time to his and Agatha's rivalry). And Daisy...even with her limited screen time very much still shone especially with her calling out Professor Oak for his harsh words towards Blue. And then of course the revelation of what happened to Blue and Daisy's parents. Give those kids (and this Professor Oak) a hug. This is definitely my favorite of the four Pokemon manga I've read thus far and if we ever got a short miniseries for the Gen 1 games again I would hope it would take more of the Zensho approach and be game accurate while still expanding on little lore details.

[leaofthewolves]

Splathammer (Warhammer 30k x Splattoon) Part 1:

Honestly, I have had this AU on my mind for a while...

The Emperor of Mankind failed. He was unable to prevent humanity from destroying itself, despite the massive powers that he possessed.. not even he could prevent the rising of the ocean tides, nor the driving of humans underground.

He had revealed himself too late, albeit despite the humans despairing for a miracle. He watched as the last few humans died off. He had some idea of how and where his perpetuals were, but as far he had concern, as much as he hated it.. he had to move on.

He remained in the shadows, watching as the new species grow and change. The new species, although humanoid in appearance only two had the ability to transform into what was known as squids and octpi within his time of the earth.

In order to blend in, he used his biomancy to assume the prime form of their species, yet keeping somewhat of his more human features. However, despite the new races' inherited a shattered earth, they adapted it, and made it their own.

It surprised him, that they had created little miracles of their own... a large catfish to be able to produce enough electricity to power tons of cities, ink based weapons that were based on human tools that were long gone.

He witnessed the Great Turf War, where the octopus based amog them were driven underground, like the humans before them. In his heart, He thought that they should have won given their numbers and the odd way that they can reproduce.

To make sure that his plans went through, he went underground, but within the places that he knew that Octopus species would not touch. Although, his resources were limited, he had heard about the power of the Golden Eggs. So, he went on his own hunt, it was a ripe opportunity to get used to this form, and gain some of that precious resource.

He used it wisely, and crafted 20 beings like him... although it took almost a ton of his great power, and unfortunately... two of them didn't survive... He had to rest and he let the Golden Eggs power his creations.

Lion El Johnson

Species: Octarian

Alias: The Great Salmonid Hunter

Weapon Choice: Grizzco Splatana

Special of Choice: Ink Armor/ Reef Slider

He was one of the first to awaken after time gestating within his test tube. The lab in which he was "born" was rather dark and gloomy. Still, he was. he left the lab, and somehow used his senses to make his way above ground. Unfortnately, during that time... a Great Salmonid Migration was in process...

Millions of them, were rushing throughout the roads... each biting and chewing on anything they could get their fins on. Lion even noticed with great shock the some had consumed their fellows.

Despite this, he noted a worker fall, their clothing dissipated as they cried out in pain. His shock turned to rage as he grabbed the worker's fallen weapon and turned his rage upon the Salmoniods...

Eventually through many hours of hacking.. many corpses lay beside them. Including some Smallfry, which he took the time to crush underfoot. However, when he had turned to see the new species that came to embrace him after what he did... every thing just felt wrong.... And so... he left them.

Currently, Lion is trying to hunt down the hideouts of the Salmonoids, while using their precious golden eggs as bait.

Fulgrim

Alias: None

Weapon of Choice: Dapple Dualies, Dynamo Roller (if hes in a mood), InkBrush

Species: Inkling

Special of Choice: Ultra Stamp

Fulgrim was the second to emerge from his tube, but took a different path from his brothers. He made his way throughout the underground but arrived in Inkopolis.

Although he was a foreigner and had little memory in the city, he adapted to its culture well, and enjoyed his time after fighting in Turf Wars. In that, he realized that he was scarily good with that, it even got worse for his foes when he had picked up and settled on his main weapon of choice.

Currently, he is X ranked in almost every mode, despite using some of the worse weapons and kits within. In fact, many a team if their of whispers that he would be playing often forfiet out of fear.

When out of Turf Wars, he is a great artist, often using a modified Inkbrush and his own ink to create masterpieces. They are often abstract in nature.

Despite the fame of being so great...the X ranked matched sometimes get boring... and often he switches to his other weapon, the Dynamo. He purposely picked this weapon, as he had heard an off color comment about a player's intelligence if they used this weapon.

Perturabo

Alias: The Shelled Builder

Weapon Choice: None

Special Choice: Modifed Ink Armor

Species: Horsecrab/Octarian Hybrid

Perturabo was alive. He felt some level of higher awareness due to kind. He burst out of his tank and walked out of the underground. He noted that at least two of the other tanks were broken... there were others like him... but they were gone. He turned to the others still gestating.

He made a perfect mental note of their faces... he would come back.. yet they were not ready. Still... he had to escape.

He wandered the Underground endlessly, until he picked up a tune. A simple 5 tune jingle. Somehow he knew in his heart that it meant something. He followed the tune and arrived at a patrol.

They uttered something and he tried to recite the tune back to him, but all it uttered was confused. Still, the patrol went and brought him into the Octarian underground domes where they lived.

There he grew, and learned... He learned much about weapon design and armor and specials... He was promoted quickly. He had studied all that he had known about inklings and their weapons based on the data.

However all that changed when, he got news that he could be promoted no further... and for what... His heart was full of wrath and bitterness... Why couldn't he be apart of the elite...At that

Still he continued... the only times where he felt some level of joy was when his "leader" got captured by the Inklings...

Currently, he is still in the underground making wholely unspeakable weapons for the renewed war effort, and slowly making plans to overthrow and rule Octarian society.

[eaglesnick]

Britain’s Continued Lurch To The Right

Unelected Rishi Sunak and his Tory government are taking Britain closer and close to the extreme right in politics. According to the University of Oslo:

“Right-wing extremism is usually defined as a specific ideology characterised by ‘anti-democratic opposition towards equality'. It is associated with racism, xenophobia, exclusionary nationalism, conspiracy  theories, and authoritarianism.”

Although we are not yet an extreme right-wing nation there are those in the Tory party who would, and have, taken us further towards this goal than ever before. The most extreme Tory government was that headed by Liz Truss.

 A study by the Financial Times claimed the Tories under Liz Truss had become the “most right-wing government" in the world in terms of economic policies.

“The decision to slash tax for the rich, lift caps on bankers’ bonuses, and provide next-to-nothing for working class citizens has spooked international markets. Over the last few days, we’ve all looked on in horror as the value of The Pound fell like a stone.” (The London Economic: 30/09/22)

Liz Truss was very quickly deposed, but ONLY because the value of the pound went into free fall. If the money markets had not reacted so negatively towards Truss’s economic strategy she would still be Prime Minister along with all of her other right-wing policies. We have to remember that even before the Conservative party choose right-wing Liz Truss as its leader, the right was in the ascendancy, sparking headlines like this:

“The new Tory right is fanatical and dangerous…”  (Guardian:05/12/21)

That danger has not gone away with the appointment of Rishi Sunak as PM. His government has been full of right-wing politicians, from the now disgraced authoritarian bully, Dominic Raab to the anti-human rights Home Secretary, Suella Braverman. A former co-chair of the Conservative Party publicly accusing her party of failing to deal with “vile evidence of racism in the party a every level from MPs to activists”, while the present deputy chairman Lee Anderson has been accused of links with far-right groups, and of “parroting far-right information”.

The definition of far-right politics also includes the tendency to believe conspiracy theories and this is certainly a characteristic of Sunak’s government, Bully Raab firmly believed his civil servants were conspiring against him, which is one of the excuses he used in defence for bullying  his  staff.

We all know that despite the promises of the Tory Brexiteers things are not going as promised, their xenophobic and exclusionary nationalism leading to massive manpower shortages in our NHS, and a failing economy. Despite economic growth being at a standstill and inflation still in double figures, Sunak’s right-wing government continues to ignore the evidence of its actions and instead continues to push “free-market” economic policies because it is ideologically driven. While bankers have their bonus caps abolished public sector workers are expected to take real-term pay cuts and slide further towards poverty.

Worse, Sunak’s right-wing government is quite prepared to take workers to court to stop them from striking in support of a fair wage claim. And should anyone take to the streets to protest against this governments woeful running of the country then the police now have powers to stop and search individuals without suspicion, and the courts can ban individuals from being in certain places at certain times, and even limit the way they use the internet. 

The UN is so concerned about the new police powers that were passed into law only this week they had this to say:

“It is especially worrying that the law expands the powers of the police to stop and search individuals, including without suspicion; defines some of the new criminal offences in a vague and overly broad manner; and imposes unnecessary and disproportionate criminal sanctions on people organizing or taking part in peaceful protests…”  (United Nations:27/04/23)

If the UN is concerned about Britain becoming a right-wing police state then surely it is time we did the same.

[watching-pictures-move]

Movie Review | The Premature Burial (Corman, 1962)

This review contains spoilers in the last paragraph. I would strongly suggest skipping it if you haven't seen the movie.

One of the nice surprises about this movie is that it shows us Hazel Court in a very different mode than I'd become used to. Granted, the majority of things I'd seen her in I only watched over the last week or so, and it's unfair to draw conclusions based on such a small sample size. But in The Masque of the Red Death and The Raven, she'd played boisterously bad characters in performances that can be described as heave-heavy. Here, she is more reserved, seemingly driven primarily by her love and concern for her husband as he spirals into madness. And I come to the conclusion, seeing her go from characters so delighted in their sin, to one seemingly so steadfast in her virtue, that she's really been one of the highlights of these Roger Corman Edgar Allan Poe adaptations. Of course, the fact that the object of her love and concern, that she is so eager to marry at first, is none other than Ray "Dial M For Murder" Milland, should lead you to draw some suspicions. At best, her love seems ill advised, given that his best known roles cast him as an alcoholic who tried to kill his wife. Lady, this guy is not marriage material. (Okay, those were two different movies.)

Milland took the lead role as Corman's usual choice Vincent Price was unable to take the part thanks to contractual obligations, and I think the movie is better off as a result. Price can be very enjoyable in these movies, but there's an irrepressible delight he takes in playing such characters that would feel wrong for the movie. Milland is comparatively somber and human, someone seemingly done in by his affliction, not all too unlike his performance in The Lost Weekend. Apologies if I've framed some of this glibly, but I think the movie is pretty compassionate in this respect as far as these things go. Perhaps the most glib the movie gets, aside from the climax, is when he demonstrates his contraptions for escaping a premature burial, although the tone here is one of concern for his deteriorating psyche. (Although if you pulled what he did in real life, it might be a little funny. At least if you played it like a practical joke. Okay, maybe not to your loved ones. Okay, definitely not if you planned to dynamite your way out of your grave like he considers. I also imagine the insurance company would demand a refund.)

With the exception of Masque, these movies have felt pointedly small, most likely as a result of their budgets, but I think this uses that smallness best. This is about a character crippled with fear of catalepsy, who essentially imprisons himself in his home as he becomes increasingly obsessive about the condition. (As someone who's felt some unease going back to the world after the last few years, I perhaps identified with him a bit more than I'd like to admit.) Which means that limiting the story to a handful of sets serves both a diegetic and an atmospheric purpose, and the latter aim gets a little help from the abstracted graveyard scenes, where a little bit of fog goes a long way. (Remind me to fish out my foggy movie punchcards, I think I've seen enough for that submarine sandwich. Hopefully I didn't pull the loco gangster move of having multiple incomplete punchcards, something I've been all too guilty of in real life.) All of these have offered different modes of gothic horror, and this is the one that feels most decayed, most entombed.

**SPOILERS*** (You can skip this last paragraph if you haven't seen this.)

I do think the movie miscalculates with the last ten minutes. The climax, in which Milland breaks out of his premature burial and seeks revenge on those who've wronged him, feels clumsy where the rest of the movie has been executed with elegance and a lightness of touch. It's as if Corman remembered he had to serve up some overt scares to the audience and stumbles through them as quickly as possible, throwing deliberation to the wind. I am not immune to the charms of such sequences, but I do think it hurts the movie a little. But I also think the last minute twist, wherein Court is revealed to have orchestrated Milland's downfall, cheapens what had seemingly been a rich and nuanced relationship. I had grown to like Court as a good woman, and didn't like that we reverted to business as usual. But to atone, the movie nicely enriches the complex love Milland's sister Heather Angel had for him in the tender final moments, so perhaps all is not lost.

[rustedleopard]

In light of the "What Undertale SOUL Trait would the Undertale Yellow Characters have" polls that dropped, here's my personal opinions on what traits each character has (minus Clover, for obvious reasons). Please note that, as of today (Oct. 19th, 2024), the trait that the Red SOUL represents still hasn't been officially revealed so I will not be using that when assigning the characters SOUL traits.

Dalv: Green/Kindness. Dalv planted an entire corn maze and made signs around the Dark Ruins in an effort to make the place more welcoming to his friend. He may have driven fellow monsters away and kept everyone locked in the Dark Ruins, but that stemmed from his own paranoia, and he still cares about them. He kept Penilla's corn drawing she made for him, immediately let everyone leave the Dark Ruins after coming to his senses, and calls you out if you decide to kill everyone else but spare him. He wants to make books for children. He invites you into his house after fighting you and gives you a tour and lets you eat his sponge cake. He is a very kind person and his actions seem to stem from caring about others.

Martlet: Yellow/Justice. No questions about it, Martlet is THE monster that has the strongest ties to Justice out of everyone in the cast. She judges Clover at the end/nearly at the end of every run, is able to examine the Flawed Pacifist ending objectively (from her perspective, being unconscious and all, the situation looks like this: after trying and failing to talk down Ceroba/escape, Clover was pushed into a corner where they had to fight for their life and kill her. They were just in their actions, even if it resulted in Ceroba's death), and tries to plead Clover's case to Asgore because she sees it unjust that a (mostly) pacifist like them is going to be put to death for the "crime" of being a human. In the Neutral Run, she deliberates on whether or not to use the Determination and fight Clover, but ultimately refuses because she can sense some good in them and wants to give them a chance to better themselves in an act of restorative justice. Need I go on?

Starlo: Green/Kindness. He lets Ceroba stay rent-free in his "house," was incredibly kind to Clover/very supportive of them while they were doing their deputy training even if they were doing badly/made the "wrong" choices, and put on his whole North Star persona in an act to cheer Ceroba up. Almost all of his actions stem from the place of "I want to help/encourage my friends" ...at least until his ego got in the way and he started disregarding his friends' feelings as he leans too far into his North Star persona (which Ceroba regards as being out of character for him and he apologizes for). While it may seem like his SOUL would have the Justice trait because he is a lawman, keep in mind these two things: 1) The sheriff thing is an act and 2) At the end of a Flawed Pacifist run, Starlo sticks by the idea that Ceroba was in the right and Clover was in the wrong, even when her plans for them were premeditated murder and using their SOUL as a science experiment and she was the one who forced them into a fight. Even when Martlet lays out the facts, he refuses to accept them and sticks to the opinion that Clover is "lower than dirt." That doesn't sound very just to me.

Ceroba: Purple/Perseverance. Ceroba sticks to fulfilling Chujin's plan no matter the obstacle, whether that obstacle takes the form of injecting her dear daughter with an experimental serum, getting through a factory full of dangerous robots, earning the scorn of her friends (because of, y'know, the premeditated child-murder), damaging/destroying Kanako's mask and (what is implied to be) Chujin's staff, pushing herself to her limits magically, and outright attempting to murder a child she'd grown to like. She made a promise to Chujin to fulfill his legacy and she sticks with it until Clover proves to be too strong for her, in which case she begs for death; if she can't accomplish her goal of fulfilling Chujin's legacy then she'd rather be dead (at least until/if her friends change her perspective on what Chujin's legacy truly is). She says it herself: "[...] I'm drowning in a sea of mistakes like anyone else. But instead of sinking... I'm chasing the one ray of sunlight peeking through the surface. I tried letting go, moving on. But I guess deep down I'm too stubborn to live like that. This is my fate. This is how it must be." before activating her final form.

Chujin: Yellow/Justice. Chujin dedicates himself to volunteer work after getting fired from the Steamworks because the world is a dark and cruel place and he wants to remedy that in his own way. Chujin keeps building robots and presenting them to the King despite failing each and every time because he feels like he's the only one who can see that humans won't be welcoming to monsters when they break free and he wants to level the playing field. Chujin tries to make his Boss Monster serum to, again, give monsters a fighting chance. His whole perspective/reasons for doing things comes from "this world is unjust and dark and cruel and terrible and I want to make it right in my own way little by little. Even if I get fired/die for this cause, I will keep chasing it." You could maybe say that he's a Kindness/Perseverance SOUL, because he's kind and persistent, but what motivates his kindness is wanting to correct the injustices of the world, not the act of being kind itself; what motivates his persistence is wanting to correct the injustices of the world.

Axis: Orange/Bravery. His behavior in the No Mercy route compelled me to make this choice (that and I want a bit of variety in the SOUL choices I use). Him running around the Steamworks, warning robots about Clover despite how Clover shot half his face off and will likely kill him when they catch him is pretty damn brave. In the end, he stands up to No Mercy Clover in a fight while attempting to deescalate them when he could've ran and hid with the rest of the robots. I can also see him being a Purple/Perseverance SOUL because he's persistent in his attempts to capture/kill Clover (and maybe Ceroba) in a Pacifist/Neutral Run, including being able to revive himself when all the other robots get shut off; he only stops when he's dead/when he's low on battery and literally can't continue anymore in which case Clover (and maybe Ceroba, depends on the route) can try to appeal to him. But he's also following his programming, and I'm hesitant to say that a robot following its protocol is a sign of perseverance.

Kanako: Honestly, I don't really know. We know that Kanako was a kind child, but being kind doesn't necessarily mean that what motivates you is Kindness itself. For example, Clover in the True Pacifist Ending was regarded as a very kind SOUL. They sacrificed themself so that monsterkind may one day go free. BUT! What compelled them to sacrifice their SOUL was understanding that monsters were in a very unjust situation and wanting to remedy that. Yes, their action was kind but it came from a place of Justice. Kanako doesn't really exist as a fully fleshed out character with her own flaws and everything in the story (or maybe I'm just blind??? IDK, she was just "sweet child who had something bad happen to her that gives Ceroba and Chujin reasons why they do their actions" to me). I don't want to give her the Integrity SOUL trait solely because she was injected with Integrity' blue SOUL goo either; that's like saying that I become an influenza virus when I get my annual flu shot. She could maybe be Yellow/Justice because she wants to help her dad achieve her goal and be the hero of the Underground. But, again, we don't know enough about her as a person to really have a grasp on her character besides being the "cute, lovable child." I'm willing to take suggestions on this one if someone has some good explanations.

[betshy]

Fereidoun M.   Esfandiary's Predictions

Fereidoun M. Esfandiary, also known as FM-2030, was a renowned Iranian-American futurist, philosopher, and transhumanist who made several bold predictions about the future of humanity. Born in 1930, Esfandiary was a forward-thinker who believed in the potential of technology to transform society and elevate human potential. One of Esfandiary's most notable predictions was his belief in the concept of "upwinger," which he described as a person who is dedicated to improving the human condition and advancing the progress of humanity. He believed that upwingers would play a crucial role in shaping the future of society and ushering in a new era of progress and enlightenment. Esfandiary also predicted the rise of a global, interconnected society, driven by advancements in technology and communication. He foresaw a world where borders would become increasingly irrelevant, and people would be more connected than ever before. This prediction seems to be coming true with the advent of the internet and social media, which have brought people from all corners of the globe together in ways that were once unimaginable. Furthermore, Esfandiary was a proponent of transhumanism, the belief that humans can and should use technology to enhance their physical and intellectual capabilities. He believed that advancements in fields such as biotechnology, nanotechnology, and artificial intelligence would enable humans to overcome the limitations of the human body and achieve immortality. While these ideas may seem far-fetched to some, rapid advancements in these fields in recent years have brought us closer to realising some of these possibilities. Overall, Fereidoun M. Esfandiary's predictions may have seemed radical and improbable at the time, but many of them are gradually coming to fruition in the present day. His visionary ideas and forward-thinking philosophy continue to inspire and challenge us to think about the future of humanity and the potential for progress and innovation. As we continue to push the boundaries of technology and push the limits of human potential, we can look to Esfandiary's predictions as a guide for shaping a better, more enlightened future for all. Read the full article

[blockchainxtech]

What is Web 3.0 and why is it important?

Introduction

Over the last twenty years, the internet has changed dramatically. We have moved from Internet Relay Chat (IRC) to modern social media platforms. From basic digital payments to sophisticated online banking services. We have even experienced completely new internet-based technologies such as cryptocurrencies and blockchain. The Internet has become a vital part of human interactions and connectivity, and continues to evolve. So far, we've seen Web 1.0 and 2.0, but what exactly should we expect from Web 3.0? Let's examine the specifics and discover what lies ahead.

What is Web 3.0?

Web 3.0 (also known as Web3) is the next generation of Internet technology that relies heavily on machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI), and blockchain technology. The term was created by Gavin Wood, founder of Polkadot and co-founder of Ethereum. Although Web 2.0 focuses on user-created content hosted on centralized websites, Web 3.0 will give users greater control over their online data. 

The movement aims to create open, connected and intelligent websites and web applications with improved understanding of machine-based data. Decentralization and digital economies also play an important role in Web 3.0, since they allow us to assign value to content created on the network. It is also important to understand that the concept of Web 3.0 is changing. There is no single definition and its exact meaning may differ from person to person.

How does Web 3.0 work?

Web 3.0 aims to provide personalized and relevant information faster by using AI and advanced machine learning techniques. Smarter search algorithms and developments in big data analytics will mean machines can understand and recommend content intuitively. Web 3.0 development services will also focus on user ownership of content and supporting accessible digital economies.

Today's websites often display static information or user-driven content, such as forums or social networks. While this allows data to be published en masse, it does not meet the specific needs of users. A website should tailor the information it provides to each user, similar to the dynamism of human communication in the real world. With Web 2.0, once this information is online, users lose ownership and control over it.

Another key figure in the Web 3.0 concept is computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web. He provided his idea of ​​a future web in 1999:

I have a dream of a Web [in which computers] are able to analyze all the data: the content, the links and the transactions between people and computers. Though it's not yet a given, a "semantic web" will enable everyday processes like bureaucracy, commerce, and daily life to be managed by machines talking to machines.

Berners-Lee's vision has since been combined with Gavin Wood's message. An ocean of decentralized information will be available for websites and applications. That data will be understood and used in a meaningful way with individual users.  Blockchain acts as a solution to manage this online identity, data and property fairly.

A synopsis of the web's development

To better understand Web 3.0, let's look at where we are now and how we have developed. Over two decades, we have seen enormous changes:

Web 1.0

The original Internet provided an experience now known as Web 1.0. Author and web designer Darci DiNucci first used the term in 1999 to describe the difference between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0. In the early 1990s, websites were created using static HTML pages that could only display information. There was no way for users to change data or upload their own. Social interactions were limited to simple chat messages and forums.

Web 2.0

In the late 1990s, a shift toward a more interactive internet began to take shape. With Web 2.0, users were able to interact with websites through databases, server-side processing, forms, and social media. These tools changed the web experience from static to dynamic. 

With the advent of Web 2.0, user-generated content and interoperability across various websites and apps became more important. Web 2.0 placed greater emphasis on participation than on observation. In the mid-2000s, most websites transitioned to Web 2.0, and large technology companies began creating social networks and cloud-based services.

The future and Web 3.0

The evolution of a semantically intelligent web makes sense when looking at the history of the internet. The data was first presented statically to users. Users could then interact with that data dynamically. Now, the algorithms will use all that data to improve the user experience and make the website more personalized and familiar. You only need to watch YouTube or Netflix to see the power of algorithms and how they have already improved.

Web 3.0, although not fully defined, can take advantage of peer-to-peer (P2P) technologies such as blockchain, open source software, virtual reality, Internet of Things (IoT) , and more. Web 3.0 also aims to make the internet more open and decentralized. In today's environment, users trust cellular and network providers to access their data and personal information. With the advent of distributed ledger technologies, that could soon change and users could regain ownership of their data.

Key features of Web 3.0

Web 3.0 is still far from being fully adopted, but its basic concepts are mostly already defined. The four topics we mention below are commonly mentioned as the most important aspects of the future of Web 3.0.

Semantic margin

Over time, machines have gotten better at understanding the data and content that humans create. However, there is still a long way to go to create a seamless experience where semantics are fully understood. For example, use of the word "cheap" can mean "affordable" or "poor quality," depending on the context. For a machine to understand this can be incredibly difficult. However, with big data and more information to study, AI is starting to better understand what we write on the web and present it intuitively.

Blockchain and cryptocurrencies

Data ownership, online economies and decentralization are essential aspects of Gavin-Wood's Web3 future. We'll delve into this later, but blockchain provides a proven system to achieve many of these goals. The power of any person to tokenize assets, put information on chain, and create a digital identity is a significant innovation that lends itself to Web 3.0.

3D visualization and interactive presentation

In short, the appearance of the website will change greatly. We are already noticing a movement towards 3D environments that even incorporate virtual reality. The metaverse is an area that is venturing into these experiences, and we are already familiar with socialization through 3D video games. The areas of user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) are also working to present information more intuitively to web users.

Artificial intelligence (AI)

Artificial intelligence is key to converting human-created content into machine-readable data. We're already familiar with customer service bots, but this is just the beginning. AI can present data to us and classify it, making it a versatile tool for Web 3.0. Best of all, AI will learn and improve itself, reducing the work needed for human development in the future.

What makes Web 3.0 superior to its predecessors?

In theory, combining the key features of Web 3.0 will generate a variety of benefits. Don't forget that all this will depend on the success of the underlying technology:

1. No central point of control: By taking middlemen out of the picture, they will no longer have any influence over user data. This freedom reduces the risk of censorship by governments or corporations and reduces the effectiveness of distributed denial of service (DoS) attacks .

2. Greater interconnectivity of information: As more products connect to the internet, larger data sets give algorithms more information to analyze. This can help them provide more accurate information that is tailored to the specific needs of the individual user.

3. More efficient navigation: When using search engines, finding the best results can sometimes be a challenge. However, engines have gotten better at finding semantically relevant results based on search context and metadata over the years. This results in a more convenient web browsing experience that can help anyone easily find the exact information they need.

4. Improved Advertising and Marketing: No one likes to be bombarded with online ads. However, if the ads are relevant to your needs, they could be helpful rather than a nuisance. Web 3.0 aims to improve advertising by leveraging smarter AI systems and targeting specific audiences based on consumer data.

5. Better Customer Support: Customer service is essential for a smooth user experience of web sites and applications. However, due to massive costs, many web services that become successful struggle to scale their customer service operations. Through smarter chatbots that can talk to multiple customers at once, users can enjoy a superior experience when dealing with support agents.

How do cryptocurrencies fit into Web 3.0?

In terms of Web 3.0, blockchain and cryptocurrency have enormous potential. Decentralized networks effectively incentivize more conscientious governance, content production, and data ow Some of its most relevant aspects for Web 3.0 include:

1.  Crypto Digital Wallets: Anyone can create a wallet that allows them to make transactions and acts as a digital identity. There is no need to store your data or create an account with a centralized service provider. You have full control over your wallet and often the same wallet can be used on multiple blockchains.

2. Decentralization: Transparent dissemination of information and power among a large number of people is simple with blockchain. This contrasts with Web 2.0, in which big tech companies dominate wide areas of our online lives.

3. Interoperability: DApps and on-chain data are becoming more compatible. Blockchains created with the Ethereum Virtual Machine can easily support DApps , wallets, and tokens. This helps improve the absolute presence necessary for a connected Web 3.0 experience.

Web 3.0 use cases

While Web 3.0 is still in development, we have some examples that are already in use today:

Siri and Alexa virtual assistants

Both Apple's Siri and Amazon's Alexa offer virtual assistants that meet many of the conditions of Web 3.0. 3. Digital economies: New digital economies are made possible by the capacity to use decentralized transactions and own data on a blockchain. The more people use Siri and Alexa, the more their AI will improve recommendations and interactions. This makes it a perfect example of a semantically intelligent web application that belongs to the Web 3.0 world.

Connected smart homes

The ability to be completely present is one of Web 3.0's main characteristics. This means we can access our online data and services across multiple devices. The systems that control your home's heating, cooling, and other utilities can now do so in a smart, connected way. Your smart home can know when you leave, when you arrive, and what temperature you like your home to be. You can use this information, and more, to create a personalized experience. No matter where you are, you can use your phone or other online devices to access this service.

Conclusions

The evolution of the internet has been a long journey and will surely continue into new iterations. With the Due to the vast increase in data available, websites and applications are moving toward a more engaging online experience. While there is still no concrete definition for Web 3.0, innovations are already underway. It's easy to see the direction we're going in, and of course blockchain appears to be a key part of the future of Web 3.0.

[meteodrives]

the mental list she had put together seemed to have hit a lull upon cloud’s arrival, almost as if it were a holiday. his time by her side had been limited exponentially, visits few & far between. he disappeared without a word, rarely staying long enough to enjoy a meal. she assumed he had his reasons, but that didn’t dispel any frustrations — all of which stemming from concern. he was capable, if not childishly so ;  even if he left for weeks on end, there'd be not a drop of his blood staining him.  ( at least ,  none that could not have been washed away . )  that didn’t mean he was free from her commentary, slipping ever so often ;  but not a trace of malice could be detected in her words. 

          upon being greeted with his approach, his being as solemn as one could be, she turned her entire body to face him. he was geared to leave once again, it seemed. perhaps he'd part with a goodbye or a see you later this time. with no intentions to convince him of otherwise keeping about, knowing it would result in failure & a vague excuse, she’d wait for the day he did pick up the phone — the day he did tell her the truth.

❛  think you could  —  ❜   the thought was lost against abrupt vulnerability. 

   𝙲𝙻𝙾𝚄𝙳   :      

it was a day the geostigma he kept covered beneath a sleeve was getting to him. surely that was to blame for the thoughts & memories of the entirety of his life rushing through his mind. from his childhood of when he used to rush out his door just to burst into tifa's so they could play together, always hoping to get there before the other children, to when he'd left nibelheim behind to watching midgar, a place he learned to call home, become destroyed by weapon & meteor alike. cloud knows he's a terrible person who's done terrible things in the name of good for one one. this knowledge isn't enough to reset how his brain has been conditioned to work. through it all, he can still recognize tifa is trying to reach a part of his humanity cloud does not believe is there. guilt weighs heavy on him ;  he never could be what she wanted him to be — no matter how they both wanted it.

he silently approaches her & takes her into his arms for an embrace.

i'm sorry.

          the sudden contact was startling, but not unwelcomed. it’s in the split second before that she found herself battling against every pent - up emotion. the stress of uncertainty, the anger that seemed to have faded into grief & acceptance — even that little bit of joy was not safe from turmoil, overwhelming her with each shaky breath. it was embarrassingly quick how easily her arms reciprocated the gesture, allowing her strength to go unchecked as her mind refocused itself to the present.  ( peace ,  even if it would go without a reason  —  even if the cause would never be revealed down the line . )

clarity hit, a tender heart having grown tired of fighting against itself. had it been a few minutes? maybe daring to extend for an hour? there was no way of knowing. time had blurred itself together, merely grateful for the comfort to have been provided. whatever it was to prompt his sudden, earnest deed, it was followed with a silence that could’ve been studied for its foreboding yet forgiving nature.  ( speak ,  her mind urged  —  unaware of the bruising just endured . )  not one set of words could convey her thoughts in an honest nature. she feared that had always been the case. yet, he hadn’t been driven away entirely, leading to the suspicion this was his way of telling her that a moon phase or several was needed. a period of contemplation :  alone. tifa pulled herself away from him, no tears having been shed — saved for a later date ;  yet there were signs of a break that tried to emerge itself. a sniffling & reddened nose, a racing heart, the lump in her throat that felt like knives swallowing down. 

          ❛  cloud  …  ❜   she began, her own voice startling her. it felt foreign, croaking from lack of use. a million & one options of how to complete the statement came to mind :  you should stay for dinner! ,  can you tell me what’s going on? ,  when do you think you’ll be back? ,  & so on. one thing, however, took the forefront of her thoughts.   ❛  you’ve  …  gotta go again ,  huh ?  ❜   ( silence crossed them once more ,  just as bittersweet . )   ❛  be safe out there &  ...  thank you .  ❜   she wouldn't fight against it this time but would spare a moment in the near future to leave a voicemail in regards. 

*      ◞      @shinramade            |​            unprompted !

[softfae]

and one of the most important stories of Tomie in regard to this is “Gathering” - this story centers around a man, Umehara, who recently lost his fiancé, who he loved deeply and is currently grieving his loss. One of his friends, Miyagawa,  takes him to a gathering in an effort to “cheer him up”, where he finds tons of completely soulless, obsessive men who are vying for Tomie’s attention just like his friend Miyagawa, despite many of them being DECADES older than her current form. They are completely gaunt, have no other purpose and show increasingly horrific levels of jealousy and possessiveness over Tomie. 

Content warning for gore and murder coming up - please scroll away if this might be distressing for you!

When Tomie shows interest in Umehara, the men at this gathering are already expressing jealousy and hostility towards Umehara, despite the fact that Tomie does not reciprocate any of their advances and the fact that Umehara wants nothing to do with her. It’s evident to the reader that the men are already doomed by their violence and possessiveness over this young, beautiful girl and are already ready to kill each other and her for their own benefit, just like every other man in the stories so far (aside from Umehara).  After this, Umehara rejects Tomie’s advances immediately and leaves the gathering, returning home and thinking about Naoko, his late fiancè. It’s now made clear here that Tomie’s fatal seductiveness that everyone initially believed that no man was immune to is simply not the case, as Umehara is genuinely a good man who well and truly loved his girlfriend, and only men who always were possessive, misogynistic and violent towards women are affected and driven mad. Upon reading this story, your view of Tomie and understandings of the limits of her power are made more clear - she is not an invincible succubus driving poor, innocent men mad, but a beautiful yet heartless creature that simply brings out what already existed within them to the point where it ruins them completely. 

As the story continues, Miyagawa returns to Umehara’s home with multiple men from the gathering to kidnap him, and take him to Tomie, as she herself is fascinated by the fact that this man had become obsessed with her the way all the others had. Tomie’s experience with men has always been rooted in violence and obsession, and that obsession that eventually drives them to kill her is what ultimately keeps her alive. And now, finally, she has found a man who is different, which angers her as she has been invincible thus far and lives purely through manipulation and using obsessive men as pawns in her game, and so she is determined to make him like the rest to keep herself assured of her power. 

It’s also important to note that in previous chapters, Tomie when she has taken the form of a teenage girl has been preyed upon by men much older than her. In the very first chapter, it is revealed that her teacher has been cheating on his wife with Tomie, despite knowing her as his sixteen or fifteen year old student. Umehara is the only man who actually questioned her age and why she was in this dangerous environment and asks where her parents were. Despite wanting nothing to do with Tomie or this gathering, he expresses genuine concern for her as a young girl and immediately recognises the creepy and disturbing tendencies of these men vying to have her as some sort of trophy rather than a human. 

A few more events happen, in which the reader is being made more and more certain of the disturbing nature of the men. Miyagawa even asks Umehara why he won’t accept Tomie’s advances, implying his complete detachment and lack of empathy towards his friend who is literally grieving a deceased lover, further demonstrating his inability to see women beyond their physical beauty and failure to understand that Umehara was in love with Naoko. Miyagawa then confesses that he would do anything for Tomie’s affections, and that he had the urge to kill her and mutilate her body, just like the rest of the men in this cult-like gathering. 

By the end, the men succumb to those violent urges and try to kill her. Umehara attempts to help her escape, but the men of the gathering all end up killing each other, in a really fucked up attempt to kill Tomie and take pieces of her for themselves, the typical thing that happens each time. It is implied that they did not manage to kill Tomie and she somehow got away. Umehara also manages to escape relatively unharmed and throughout the story, never did he once have this urge to harm Tomie or anyone else. 

Simply put, it is very obvious throughout every single story of Tomie’s that all of  her “victims” never really were victims at all, but instead men who wanted to possess and harm her for shallow reasons, and became violent because of rejection and entitlement. Umehara is an example of someone who was harmed by Tomie, but still never ended up having the same fate as the rest, because he genuinely was not a fucking horrible man who views women as property before people. She was not some invincible succubus to him, but truly just a young girl who was clearly being preyed upon.  Did those men all deserve what happened to them? Maybe not, but one thing is for sure - their fate was of their own doing. Their entitlement to Tomie's body and morbid obsession with her despite her never returning their advances was what killed them in the end. Umehara was antagonised by Tomie and harmed by her commands, and yet he never hurt her. And while we do sympathise with Tomie's victims in some ways, we can also acknowledge that they were doomed due to their own misogyny too.

tomie is so good to analyze, especially from a feminist viewpoint

a major theme in tomie is misogyny and how the patriarchy treats its woman victims and male perpetrators. the horror of tomie is she is the humanization of how female victims of abuse, sexual assault, and murder are seen and stereotyped. as heartless and manipulative women who brought it on themselves. tomie is how incels view women, ( snobby, sluts, greedy, picky ) but in the form of a supernatural monster.

unlike other killers in horror media she doesn't kill them herself, she drives them to killing her. tomie is a girl who is manipulative, vain, and seen as absolutely gorgeous. she makes men fall in love with her with her good looks despite her cruel personality and egotistical nature. we feel bad for the male protagonists as she insults them, and so therefore agree when they are driven to rage by her rejection and cruelty. " she had it coming, she drove them to murder her. its her fault. why should his life be ruined over this? "

in the end what makes tomie a villain is instead of hurting men, she ruins their life. she drove them to murder, she shouldn't have been rude, she made them lose everything, its her fault, she had it coming. the manga parallels what is often said about men who hurt woman. its always the men who had their entire life ahead of them, and we the readers sympathize with them as society does with real violent men.

[bloodgulchblog]

Armor by John Steakley pt 1

I know a little more about Armor than I did last time I said anything about it. The book is divided into 5 sections, and I just finished the first. The next one starts the "space pirate section" which, if reputation is to be believed, is kind of a slog compared to the front end, so we shall see how that goes for me.

So. The front end.

Armor is about a power-armored soldier named Felix as he goes on his first combat drop onto a hellish planet called Banshee to fight the endless hordes of the ants (which is what humanity calls the bug-like aliens they are fighting.)

In keeping with the tradition of Starship Troopers (the very obvious inspiration for this book), the ants' motives are not known and there is no effort made to explore them. They are a soulless living tide of enemies, and nothing more. We also know very little about humanity's goals, or how the planet Banshee fits into any of them.

Felix, having proven himself naturally skilled with the armor in training, is chosen to be a Scout instead of a Warrior. This mostly means that Felix's odds of surviving this are even lower than they already were. Despite this, of all the soldiers on his team that drop, Felix is the only one who survives.

When he manages to link up with the rest of the force, he finds them in dire straits struggling to survive against an endless onslaught of ants that is far worse than anything any of them were prepared for.

It all goes very very badly.

This section of the book is written in the third person, so we spend a lot of time with Felix but we don't actually know a lot about him. We have some faint hints that his backstory might be interesting, but what we do know is limited to this: He thinks they're all going to die, he's probably right, he's bitter and frustrated and terrified. He keeps having these dissociative episodes where he feels like he isn't himself, instead being driven by this ruthless, cold, practical entity inside him he calls "the Engine" that is able to keep surviving no matter how much Felix the guy should probably be dying.

I'm too early on to comment on the book as a whole because I don't totally know where all of this is going, but I'm having an interesting time as a book nerd.

So far, the good:

Steakley is at least trying to do something interesting stylistically? That isn't to say that I think the prose in Armor is good, because it frequently is not. But I am the kind of reader who gives points for moxie when someone tries. I can't throw too many stones from my glass house, you guys know how much I love a dramatic turn of phrase.

Also, I guess I do want to know what Felix's deal is.

The bad:

There are some cool ideas in here, but Steakley's lack of experience as a novelist shows. Some details of the world building and the military strategy are dumb. For example: All armor has a self-destruct mechanism, but nobody is allowed to know about it because they might misuse it (???).

The philosophy he clearly wants to imbue this with feels kind of weak and generic. "War is hell" is true, but I've consumed so much "war is hell" that it really needs some fresh teeth on this truth for it to inspire me to feel anything. Compared to The Forever War, Armor is obviously written by someone with sincere interest but without really saying anything.

When people tell you Armor is Starship Troopers without the politics, they're kind of right. It doesn't have a project (at least so far) the way Heinlein had his whole "what if there was an authoritarian government where you had to join the military to be able to vote" project in Troopers. I think any time anyone writes about war it's inevitably political, and people who think they're writing apolitically about war are just blind to how their politics inform what they think an objective view of the world is, but that caveat aside: Armor is writing about the fantasy of an alien war where the enemy isn't people, you don't have to consider the personhood of the enemy for even a second, and thus that pretty much invalidates the depth of anything it has to say about "war" because "war" in this book is so unlike what real war is.

…That's not to get into the phenomenon of unpersoning the enemy to desensitize soldiers to killing them (a very real thing), but this section is getting long and I have other things I want to talk about.

Like style, again.

While I am positively predisposed to the effort I've seen so far and I think I am guilty of some of these sins often enough myself, I know what I am and what I'm about, I still have to say Armor feels a bit raw and over-written. It could've seriously used a much firmer editing pass than whatever it got, there are a lot of darlings in here that needed the axe. Steakley uses a lot of short, choppy sentences that would flow better with a little more connection. On the other extreme, he frequently describes things in super dramatic ways with obvious play with wording/sentence structure that are kind of cool but… he does it a bit too often. You can only make big plays so many times before you start getting more bad results than good. He sometimes pours way too much gravitas on moments that don't need it, and it becomes repetitive. Even worse, when he does give you a sentence that might actually be beautiful, it's drowned out by all the other things that aren't.

But speaking of repetition: Let's talk about the action sequences.

I feel like they are very polarizing. Some people love, really really love Armor for its action sequences. Steakley gives you punch-by-punch descriptions of a lot of ant fighting, and through cursory perusal it seems like the Internet falls along two camps about this:

One group loves and praises it. This kind of person wants every detail written out so they can see it in their mind's eye in perfect detail.

One group finds it incredibly tedious and repetitive, because there are only so many ways you can describe somebody punching an ant and the way the ant's body parts come apart, and there are thousands of these things and they have no emotional stakes attached.

….As you may have guessed by this juncture, I am definitely one of the latter camp.

But I'm not here to insult people for liking things I don't like. I'll accept there's a whole school of action writing (and action reading) that just isn't my dish.

If that is you, so far I think you might like this.

But I'm just in the first section, so I am not ready to endorse the book.

I've heard the back 80% of this thing is like, kind of rough and weird and also maybe not something I'll have positive words to say about.

But we'll find that out later.

…And maybe I'll loop back and talk about the plot in more detail.

In the meantime, here are some specimens of Armor's writing for you:

Here's some of Steakley being super dramatic:

Here's a fight scene:

(I think this is example is one that works better than a lot of the others? The ones from later in this section where a bunch of warriors are fighting ants paragraph after paragraph are worse.)

[cyberjulie]

BOOK REVIEW

“A Sustainable Digital Economy: Not Fear, but Trust Connects” is based on the dream of the writer, Ad Krikke, in combination with his real-life experiences. Krikke is the CISO of Royal DSM, a Dutch international chemical company that delivers a variety of business solutions for human nutrition, animal nutrition, personal care, medical devices, etc.

This book tells the story of a positive alternative for escaping the negative aspects of the current digital economy, seen from an information security perspective. The writer explains why fear is a bad advisor in today’s digital world and why the current information perspective approach is far from effective.

He starts his book with his digital dream and jumps into the year 2027, when there’s a sustainable digital economy with hardly any security and privacy issues. The dream starts with checking into a hotel by holding an electronic passport to a card reader that also opens the room. In this case, the hotel doesn’t require storing a copy of the guests’ passports anymore. This is just one of the examples that describes the "new" world. Other examples are describing a data collaboration process for production secrets (intellectual property) and a public-private partnership with governments and startup companies.

After this introduction, the narrator wakes up in current time and asks himself if we’re really stopping digital innovations, seeing cyber and privacy incidents all around, and experiencing an increasing demand for high penalties and strict enforcement. As a result, he begins to introduce alternatives for escaping the negative aspects of the current digital economy. He provides examples from practice to keep the story concrete and simple, but also shows that this digital dream is not an illusion and can become a reality. He describes these examples chapter by chapter.

After this introduction, the writer "returns" to the current time (2018) and realizes that the current information security approach is far from effective. The story of the sustainable digital economy starts with "setting the scene," in which the writer explains that the West experienced huge economic developments after WWII. He describes how in the 60s and 70s, people started to realize that the current situation was untenable and would endanger the continued existence of both the earth and mankind.

Krikke explains how the promise of the digital economy that brings us great wealth, but also cybersecurity and privacy incidents, is the modern equivalent of water and air pollution. In search of quick profits, data is pumped around the world as if it were the new gold. Negative effects aren’t limited to organizations that process this data. Our privacy and personal safety, both fundamental human rights, are at stake. These are the reasons the writer shows us that companies that opt for sustainability (instead of quick profits) as a core value can gain economic and social advantages in the digital domain.

In the chapter, "Fear is a Bad Advisor," fear is described from different views, but Krikke shows us that sustainable leadership may surpass fear. The main message in this chapter is that fear still drives information security and that we are involved in an arms race in the digital world, driven by fear.

The short-term approach, which seems inevitable in today’s world, is also explained. It’s stated that management should guide without fear because that’s the way to engage in long-term thinking and combine new opportunities. It is trust rather than fear that makes the connection we need for collaboration.

This arms race is hindering opportunities because organizations are continuously investing in cybersecurity technologies (tools), experts, processes and awareness courses. All these measures provide a brief increased level of information security, with the emphasis on "brief." In time, all these short-term measures are outdone by cyber criminals and other actors, resulting in new additional security measures, and the arms race becomes a fact. This approach leads to increasing costs, increasing complexity and the danger that digital collaboration between departments becomes more difficult.

Following that, he introduces important elements of a sustainable digital economy and describes innovations that reduce the need for security. Krikke uses different realistic examples to explain the elements of a sustainable digital economy, but especially his "Elephant Honey" example sets the scene for this different way of thinking about security in which public-private collaboration plays an important role. Everything relates to this example because it’s innovative, effective and extremely feasible for a sustainable digital economy.

The example, in short, is about a cornfield in Africa that was terrorized by elephants. They ate the corn and trampled the cornfield. The farmers couldn’t think of any solution other than shooting the elephants, despite this being prohibited by law. But this measure was not very effective, because the elephants would simply come back. Then an activist decided to work with the farmers and introduced the knowledge that elephants are afraid of bees.

The activist and farmers placed bee hives around the cornfields, interconnected via wires. When an elephant tripped on one of the wires, the beehive shook, causing the bees to emerge from the hive, spooking the elephants. By doing this, a win-win model was created because the farmers could produce bee honey, a product with high value in Africa, and the elephant problem was solved.

This example illustrates, in essence, the value of collaboration and the importance of looking for win-win situations. Krikke explains that if the farmers had listened to the weapon suppliers, probably no elephant honey would have been produced, but more and more weapons would have been produced, which refers to the aforementioned arms race.

Krikke notes that the average CISO’s mailbox overflows with emails sowing Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD) to push the latest cybersecurity measures. He says we should first look to the "Elephant Honey" motif to prevent rather than secure, and don’t let FUD distract us. The main advantage of the Elephant Honey approach is that we prevent the risk of an incident. Thanks to the win-win element, the solution is more effective and requires less enforcement.

Krikke also coins the term "ConnectMe," which he sees as the combination of the one-off data storage, described in the previous chapter, and the unique digital identity. These are both basic conditions for the sustainable digital economy.

He goes on to describe the difference between the seat belt in cars, which is implemented on a level playing field, and protective measures proposed for the unsecured internet of things (IoT), which are not implemented on a level playing field. There’s no digital uniformity, so the risks of all systems aren’t equal to everyone. Standardization makes sense for some measures. A seatbelt is mandatory for every car, but, Krikke argues, a roll cage is only mandatory for cars used in rallies. As with cars, implementing protective measures where there is a level playing field in the digital economy would drastically reduce the number of incidents and keep the costs affordable.

Krikke also introduces the term "Just culture" and describes information sharing and analysis centers (ISACs). In a discussion about the fear of liability and damage to reputation, Krikke demonstrates his experience on the subject of sharing and provides different insights. At the end of this chapter, he combines the "Just Culture" and the "Level playing field" into a new term: "DigiNorm." With this combination, it’s possible to achieve an affordable threshold for security that can adapt quickly to newly discovered vulnerabilities.

In the final chapter, Krikke combines all the various elements he’s included in the book with the "Elephant Honey" approach to make digital revenue models sustainable and inherently safe. The "ConnectMe" technology leads to responsible data use and secure access to digital solutions, and the "DigiNorm" concept provides affordable, effective security of digital systems. Krikke claims that this doesn’t stop all incidents and threat actors, but it’s good enough! The sustainable digital economy isn’t perfect, and it will never be, but it’s a goal, a dot on the horizon that motivates us to constantly improve to a level that we feel is responsible. It’s a journey, not a destination.

At the end of this book, Krikke describes in some "afterburner" chapters the journey and its most important elements, such as the public-private collaboration and the role of the information security officer. These final chapters are also filled with interesting stories from the front.

Overall, this book is an easy and interesting read, not because it consists of only 95 pages, but mainly because it makes you think! It’s an interesting book, written by a very knowledgeable and experienced security officer. My personal recommendation would be: “Just get this book and read it!”

Book written by Ad Krikke

Book review by Fred Streefland

[books]

Tumblr Exclusive: Forestborn

Do you like shapeshifters, epic quests, magic, dark forests, and obstinate princes? Well, have we got an exclusive excerpt for you!

Forestborn is an upcoming @torteen novel by debut author Elayne Audrey Becker. Becker graduated from Vassar College with a BA in classics and history. She is currently continuing her education at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland after time spent as an editor with a New York publisher. She grew up with a lake and woods as her backyard, spending long days outside and visiting national parks with her family.

Forestborn will be available at bookstores everywhere from August 31. Read the exclusive excerpt below, and thanks again to Elayne for sharing her inspiration moodboard with us!

Forestborn By Elayne Audrey Becker

One

I find her deep in the Old Forest, facedown in the dirt. 

Sharp pain needles my palms where I’ve balled my fists so tight, the nails have carved half-moon marks into the skin. Snaking across the twig-strewn ground, gnarled roots press against my boots like a warning as I roll the young woman onto her back. Best to be sure.

No, she is certainly dead. Cold, stiff, and hungry like the rest; even with forest debris masking much of her shirt, the threadbare cotton dips in unmistakable rivulets across her bony frame. I swallow my disappointment and push her eyelids shut, wanting to spare her kin the sight of those empty, pointless eyes.

“Sorry,” I murmur, sitting back on my heels. “I’m guessing you didn’t deserve this.”

Around us, the trees lean inward and down with ominous uniformity, leaves and branches straining against their holds, drawn to the dead woman as if tethered by ropes. The sway, the humans call it. I ignore the prickling in my belly. They’ll straighten out soon enough when the magic leaves her body. 

With a final nod, I push to my feet and wend my way back to the forest’s edge. It’s a close wood, with broad oaks in summer bloom crowding the grassy floor, their leafy canopy admitting shafts of sunlight that glitter like crystal chandeliers. All in all, too peaceful a setting for someone driven to madness to die alone. I breathe it in deep to savor the scent while I can, grateful that for whatever reason, these trees never seem drawn to the magic in my own blood. I’ve had enough of vengeful wilderness to last a lifetime.

“Well?” Seraline asks, her knuckles nearly white where they clutch the hem of her shirt. 

I shake my head. “Dead.”

Her shoulders sink. Though Seraline is sturdy as iron when she’s in her aunt’s tannery, shaping leather into draft horses’ yokes, standing a determined two paces behind the tree line now, she seems shakeable as snow.

“Come on,” I say, nodding to the stony town just across the open fields. “You’re going to be late.” I don’t ask if she plans to examine the body for herself. Seraline may have insisted on coming as a show of support, but our friendship has many limits, her discomfort with the dead and dying the least of them. 

After a brief hesitation, Seraline falls into step at my side, sweeping her seeing stick across the ground in broad strokes. “Poor thing.”

I nod, my jaw clenched tight. 

This time of year, the late summer air hangs heavy even in the early morning, enough that the back of my neck is already slick with sweat. The barley fields remain mercifully empty as we pick our way through the dusty rows, but still I plow forward with my head down and shoulders bent, half from habit and half spurred by the hour. Seraline isn’t the only one who’s running behind. 

“Will you not come with us?” she asks, her head tipping to the side as we near the town. “Aren’t you due back in Roanin, anyway?”

“I can’t,” I reply, making it sound like an apology. I’m not really sure why we still play this game when we both know it’s futile. “I have a few things to take care of first.”

“Today of all days,” she snorts.

“You know how it is.” In truth, I’d give my right arm to stay away from the capital today. But there’s no help for it.

“Her husband deserves to know,” Seraline adds after a while. “The two of them were inseparable.”

“He will know. The trail wasn’t hard to follow.”

Seraline is always trying to persuade me to talk to the deceased’s families. She believes I have a softer manner than many in uniform, and once she even called me heartless for refusing. That time hurt the most. But it isn’t my job to report any deaths I uncover to next of kin. Only to the king. And it’s not like she’s stepping up to volunteer, anyway.

Briarwend is a humble farming town that stretches all of three streets, a collection of squared off stone shops that deal in necessity rather than charm. Its weather-worn residents are the same. When I began seeking intel here four years ago, long days tending the surrounding fields made the people lazy and open over a couple of pints. Lately, they’re just hungry, poor soil and rising taxes leaving gaping holes that only tempers seem to fill. 

Each night under dwindling lamplight and over stained, sticky tables, the pub dwellers deal out anger and judgment like tossing seeds across the earth. The battered forest walker I helped home last night is not the only magical person I’ve found bleeding on cobbled streets. The humans’ anger is growing fists.

Seraline’s family is fixing their horse’s harness to an old wooden cart when we reach their cottage home. Most others have long since departed.

“Where have you been?” her mother demands, tightening the leather straps. The roan mare stamps a hoof, ears flicking nervously in my presence. “We should have left hours ago!”

“Lela needed my help. And you’re not ready, anyway.” Seraline shrugs.

“Nor are you. Breakfast is gone, so you’ll just have to wait. Go get changed.” She studiously avoids my eye, as if I’m not even there. 

Seraline bids me farewell with a light touch on the shoulder, which causes her little sister to quickly interlace two pairs of twisted fingers and pull them apart. The sign to ward off bad fortune.  

“You shouldn’t indulge my sister,” the dreadful Arden says once she’s gone, stomping over and swiping a greasy hand across his forehead. By far the weakest sibling in this family of four. “Seraline is delicate. She can’t be tramping about the kingdom with the likes of you.”

Which is ironic, really, since he was eager enough to sidle close last year, when he thought empty flattery might earn him a kiss. That was before a too-often empty belly soured his tongue, before he learned who and what I was. And though I truly could not care less what this boy thinks, I’m dismayed to find my stomach still burns with anger and something close to shame. My gaze drops to his pant leg, which bears splotches of dried blood from the night before. 

“Problem?” Arden sneers, white skin burned red from long days in the sun. 

A slow tingling feeling bubbles up from my core, threads of numbness that tiptoe across my arms and legs. I force myself to breathe deeply, to beat the threads back. “I know it was you,” I mutter. 

He traces his chapped lips with two fingers, beady eyes darting to his mother before he leans forward, his smile stiffening. “You know nothing,” he hisses.

“You forget I have certain resources at my disposal.” I raise a hand in front of his flaking face, where my nails have sharpened into claws. “And that I know where you live.”

I stare until a satisfying trace of fear tinges Arden’s expression before stomping away toward the town’s single inn, which is little more than a guesthouse with four creaking rooms. If Helos were here, he would tell me to not take the bait, that I’m better than that. What he never seems to understand is that I’m not better than anything at all.

[phoukanamedpookie]

Who is Azula?

Princess. Warrior. Commander. Strategist. Child prodigy. Ozai's favorite. Monster.

Azula gets a lot of labels and expectations heaped upon her. None of them are connected to who she is as a person.

As we've discussed before, Azula has spent the majority of her life trying to be what Ozai demands her to be in exchange for crumbs of approval (not affection, not love). She's so enmeshed in Ozai's expectations of her that no one, not even Azula herself, knows who she is.

Contrast this with Zuko...

"Never give up without a fight." —Earth Kingdom dagger gifted to Zuko by Iroh, "Zuko Alone"

"I loved watching you. That's who you are, Zuko. Someone who keeps fighting even though it's hard." —Ursa, "Zuko Alone"

At his core, Zuko is someone who never gives up. This is a kid who's been chasing a ghost for three years at the start of the show, and he doesn't back down even after witnessing, multiple times, the power the Avatar can bring to bear.

What about Azula?

I admit that I had to think about this for a bit. So much of Azula is wrapped up in how she performs that finding something deeper was difficult.

With only her accomplishments to go by, I thought about what they said about her. The following really stand out:

Bends blue fire, which no other human, not even Ozai, Iroh, or Jeong Jeong, was shown doing.

Conquered Ba Sing Se, the Impenetrable City, in a bloodless coup.

Mortally wounded the Avatar, master of all four three elements.

Defended the capital on the Day of Black Sun against the Avatar and his friends without her firebending.

Saved herself from certain death at the Western Air Temple with a hairpin.

What do all these have in common? They were things considered impossible until Azula pulled them off.

That, I think, is a huge clue.

Azula does what's impossible. Her achievements didn't fall in her lap. They came because notices and seizes opportunities that most miss, and she's driven to excel at everything she touches. Because of this, Azula can achieve anything she sets her mind to. The word "impossible" doesn't exist for her.

She's that person who'd get marooned on a desert island then show up in civilization a month later none the worse for wear. And somehow she'd have done it with a piece of fabric torn from her clothes, a raft made of reeds, and a Lion Turtle.

This would have far-reaching implications for her transformation. Azula's only limitation is who she chooses to be and what she chooses to do. The only person who truly has the power to make or break her is herself.

That's a liberating yet terrifying truth. She can change and find her own way to make her mark on the world, or she can go down the path of Ozai, Azulon, and Sozin, with no telling what horrors she'd unleash.