#i guess my thought is basically the tools used to bullshit matter less than the ease with which people accept the bullshit

[olderthannetfic]

Hi! I know you're one of the older fans on Tumblr & I wanted to ask you about the anti movement. I'm 19 & when I see people talking about the ages of anti fans, they're often within the 14-25 age range & I have no idea why. I also feel it's a little unfair to say that younger fans tend to be antis, though it is understandable since I've also made mistakes when I didn't know things. Why do you think most antis are younger fans? What should younger fans who aren't antis do to be more involved?

Hee! I’m 40, which, tbh, actually isn’t that old for Tumblr (though it’s certainly old compared to the common perception of tumblr), so sure, I can probably answer this. I guess there are two questions here: 1. Is it true and 2. why, if so?

1. Experience suggests that antis do tend to be young... but it does not follow that young people tend to be antis. (You’d have to know the proportion of antis relative to the overall population of fandom, which we don’t. I think the majority of people of any age tend to want to read fic in peace and not be roped into endless wank.) I definitely see some ringleaders who are older and good at manipulating fandom trends for their own ends too.

2. Why would this be the case?

When I was in college, we used to joke about all the freshman year Marxists. It’s an eternal phenomenon: people who don’t have much experience learn a new thing and are on fire to change the world using the one tool in their toolbox. (To a man with a hammer, yadda yadda.) There’s no passion like the passion of the newly converted, and young people tend to have a lot more energy and often a lot more free time to yell on social media. Antis may be one expression of this among people currently in that age bracket. It’s not like people my age didn’t do other annoying-ass things when we were that age. You just don’t see it because it was 20 years ago, a lot of it was never online, and all the websites/platforms from then have been systematically destroyed. (Often by yahoo. Fuck yahoo.)

The other half of the reason, in my opinion, is that there have been concerted efforts to sway lefty/socially liberal people in specific--often TERFy--ways. It’s somewhat reminiscent of the right wing radicalization of gamer guys.

People are susceptible to it because their lives suck and because they don’t know enough history or have enough confidence to form their own opinions and stand up for them. Sure, some people are going to go hardcore for anti views no matter how much they know, but a lot of people are just being swept along with the tide because something sounds superficially pro-gay or pro-protecting kids or whatever.

I cannot emphasize enough that the things that make someone ripe for the alt right are the same things that make them ripe for cults and for various kinds of toxic fandom shit: it’s usually the smart, sensitive overthinkers who don’t have enough close actual friends and who aren’t in a good place in their lives.

---

So what can you do?

You can try to make fewer more significant friendships and make sure your support system isn’t people you only know because you currently share a fandom. Most of my offline friends are people I found through fandom meetups, don’t get me wrong. I’m all for making fandom your life and only hanging out with fandom people, but we’re just regular friends who have dinner parties and shit (well, when it’s not the plaguetimes). Most of the time, we don’t share specific ships or fandoms. It’s vitally important to have a real support network that can’t be ripped away by social media wank.

The next thing we can all do is publicly stand up for what we believe in and not cave to pressure just because someone yelled “think of the children”. It’s important to be clear about the real history and logic behind these things, whether it’s the history of censorship that inspires people to support AO3′s extremely permissive policies or the fact that ‘queer’ was a fully reclaimed umbrella term in the 90s.

It’s okay if we don’t all agree. What’s not okay is appeals to emotion and ignoring science. A lot of anti bullshit is like “Rape fantasies are an abnormal red flag”, and this goes against every damn thing we know about human sexuality.

Part of this is examining our own stances for illogic and hypocrisy. If thought crimes aren’t real, then all of them aren’t real. I see way too many “Okay, but that one gross kink though!” comments from people who claim to be on my side, and this is very silly.

Possibly the biggest thing, though, is that we as a planet need to start being savvier about shitty social media and how it’s destroying our mental health. I don’t have a good overall solution, and obviously, I’m still on tumblr, but we all really need to cut down the amount of time we’re on sites like Facebook and Twitter and probably tumblr too. The more it has an algorithm and the less it has moderation, the more it’s a problem. Individual discords and spaces that can have moderation are better. It’s fine if some of them are 100% antis. The point is to have multiple spaces with rules that suit different groups.

A thing you can do is make your own spaces: be the owner of a discord for your ship, not just a passive participant at the mercy of shitty mods in an existing one. Run a fic exchange with rules you think are sensible and be firm when people try to scream about problematique things you don’t agree are a problem. One of the most pernicious anti problems is mods breaking the rules of their own spaces (usually a “no kinkshaming” one) to cave to social pressure from the loudest, most assholish set of people in the server. They don’t know how many people quietly disapprove and quietly leave their fandoms because they only fear the loud harassers, not the silent toll of caving to them.

Honestly, the climate of fear is the big issue more than a bit of yelling: I routinely meet 20-somethings who live in fear of being canceled and shunned. You can help this by... not being like that with your friends. If they’re friends with a canceled person, don’t ask them to drop the canceled person or face the same fate. If you disagree about some fandom hot take, talk about it calmly and don’t act like the friendship will be over in 5 seconds and you’ll use all your knowledge of them against them in a public callout because they didn’t instantly agree.

Basically, have some self confidence and don’t be fucking terrified all the time... which can be a tall order and probably explains the age thing also.

[fandomlurker]

A Ponderous Rewatch: Opportunity Knox and Cameo

We’re treated to something a bit special this episode! No, not the art and animation quality, as that’s…kinda weak this time. Or maybe I should say Brain is drawn and animated kinda nightmarishly in a lot of parts? Well, you’ll see.

No, the special thing about this episode is that it’s written by Tom Minton, the writer at Warner Brothers who was the original inspiration for The Brain! The general idea for Pinky and the Brain as characters and as a show came from Tom Ruegger having an office close by to Tom Minton and Eddie Fitzgerald, two writers and storyboard artists who he would often hear laughing and joking around together but usually couldn’t make out what exactly they were saying. Minton usually spoke low and quietly and was more introverted, while Fitzgerald was much more outgoing and loud…basically already like a cartoon come to life (Eddie actually did exclaim things like ‘Narf’ occasionally in reality, which was an aspect that was added to and exaggerated in Pinky’s character). The fact that these two guys who were viewed as total opposites by their colleagues were good friends and spent so much time working together in secret lead to everyone joking that they were secretly trying to take over the world.

That isn’t to say that Pinky and Brain are 100% cartoon copies of Eddie and Tom—our mouse duo definitely veered off into their own distinct personalities very quickly—but the basic bones of their characters came from these two real life men. That makes me wonder about how surreal it must have been for Tom Minton to write for episodes starring Pinky and the Brain. He only did so four times in Animaniacs (and Eddie Fitzgerald never directly worked on Animaniacs or Pinky and the Brain, to my knowledge).

In any case, let’s move on to the actual episode.

We open to a multitude of bubbling beakers of mysterious liquids and one scientist working alone at night in the Acme Labs. She sneezes a few times, and then exclaims that she’s only a few steps away from curing the common cold.

…Man, Acme Labs is a total shitshow when it comes to their work, aren’t they? In addition to all the blatantly cruel experiments on animals that they do, just look at how lax this scientist is about lab safety. I’ll give her props for at least wearing her lab coat properly and tying her long hair up, which is something most media usually gets wrong. The fact that she’s doing this medical experiment while not wearing gloves or proper eye protection or a mask is very troubling. Not to mention that she’s doing all this while being very sick, if her violent sneezes are anything to go by.

Hmm, that cage is looking suspiciously empty.

Well, well! Looks like our mousey duo is up to something.

“Ahehehehe, oh this is gonna be great, Brain! Narf!”

“Quiet, Pinky!”

OH LORD, SHE JUST CHUGS IT HERSELF! Lady, PLEASE! The fact that this “cure” is piss-coloured only makes it worse.

Sweetie, I think this needs more peer-reviewed, double-blind tests before you can truthfully say that you’ve made a cure for the common cold. You have no proper safety gear on and you’re doing this experiment all alone at night with no one to check up on you.

Oh no. Boys, what are you doing?

So they catapult some powdery substance on her and she goes into a more violent sneezing fit than before. She leaves the room to go “back to the drawing board”, but honestly I’m hoping that she just goes home and isolates herself for a while.

“Success, Pinky!”

“Egad, Brain, what is this stuff?!”

“A new strain of pollen I created myself, Pinky. It causes a temporary but uncontrollable fit of allergic sneezing in man.”

Pinky looks very disturbed by this (although I suppose it doesn’t help that Brain has that very smug and devious look on his face) until Brain says that the effect is temporary. It’s a nice little detail that shows us approximately where Pinky’s lines of morality are. Brain makes his own strain of pollen to cause humans to have severe sneezing fits? That’s amazing but horrifying! Oh, it’s only temporary? Well okay, then. It’s fine if it doesn’t cause any lasting harm.

“No human is immune.”

AAAAAAHHHHHHH! Holy fuck, show, don’t give me a jumpscare like that!

“Do you realize what we will do with this pollen, Pinky?”

“Umm… Open a boutique?”

GAH! I told you to stop doing that! Seriously, what’s up with the way Brain’s draw in this episode?

“Yes, that’s it. We’ll open a boutique and sell ladies’ clothing and pollen.”

“Egad, Brain, what fun! I like this idea, I do! Hehehahahaha!~”

Of course he would. Of course he’d like working in a more domestic setting and selling ladies’ clothing.

…Say, now that I think of it, I think this might be the first time we get a hint as to Pinky’s love of what’s stereotypically thought of as women’s clothing. Hmm.

BONK!

“Focus, Pinky, FOCUS!”

Brain, sweetie, not everyone goes into tunnel-visioned hyperfocus like you do.

“We shall do no less than go to Fort Knox, Kentucky: keeper of the nation’s gold supply. There, we will expose the guards to our pollen…”

Despite the general awkwardness of the animation this episode, I like the way Brain is drawn here from over the shoulder. Very nice work.

Also…”our” pollen? Brain, you made that yourself. I guess this is just another example of Brain subconsciously including Pinky in everything.

“…and while they’re sneezing uncontrollably, we’ll move into the vault and take the gold!”

Brain’s plan blueprints are such a treat. Gold! Gold! Gold!

“For he who controls this nation’s capital, controls the nation!”

Okay, this close-up is a little better.

“Off to Fort Knox!”

“Oh! Wait! But isn’t the nation’s capital in Washington, DC?”

BONK!

“Capital as in money, Pinky!”

Oh come on now, Brain. It was an easy mistake to make. Also “capital” in this instance can mean more than money if you want to get semantic about it.

Brain grabs Pinky’s tail to drag him away again. It’s a wonder that Pinky’s tail isn’t as kinked up and injured as Brain’s is by now.

Ooo, improvised tools time!

“But how are we gonna get to Fort Knox, Brain?”

“We’ll simply borrow one of the lab’s technological resources:”

“The minivan!”

Pinky, are you mildly swooning over Brain acquiring a minivan? I…

This does bring up a point I wanted to make, though. Sometimes fans will question why Pinky and Brain stay at Acme Labs despite being put through so much inhumane and humiliating bullshit. While it’s true that Brain doesn’t much like the experiments he’s subjected to (Pinky is…another story entirely), I’m pretty sure he keeps the labs as his home because it’s incredibly convenient for his world domination plans. These are ACME labs, after all, and regardless of how terrible the experiments are, Acme has access to just about every bit of technology in the Warner Brothers cartoon universe. Brain can find or order whatever parts he needs for his latest world domination plan whenever he wants, and no human bats an eye at mysterious bits and bobs showing up because, well, it’s Acme. Acme is in the business of doing absolutely everything. No matter what daytime tortures Brain goes through, the lab is an incredible asset to him, and he’d be foolish to give that up.

Hello again, Warner siblings! I hope you’re having fun tonight.

That’s an awfully tiny sack of pollen to take for this trip…

“Won’t we get in trouble, Brain?”

“’Get in trouble’? Pinky, we’re going to take over the world!”

I just like the tiny silhouettes in this screencap.

“Besides, we’ll have the van back here by 8 am.”

“Oh! All right, then!”

[Quickly googles how long it would take to drive from Burbank California to Fort Knox]

…Are you sure about that, Brain? Are you really, positively sure?

Oh my goodness, a little winch and pulley system! That’s a little convoluted, but it’s adorable.

“Oi! Nice threads, Brain! But, err, why the disguise?”

“If we are to succeed in our mission, I must pass for an average, non-descript motorist, Pinky.”

I agree, Pinky. Brain always looks good in a suit.

Also he’s on a literal soap box, holy shit.

“So while we’re driving, call me Mr. Perkins.”

A trillby?!? Put it back! Putitbackputitbackputitback!

“Say no more! Brilliant, Brain!”

“Mr. Perkins.”

Oh no, he’s threatening to punch the audience now!

“Ooo, right, right. Narf! Heh, Mr. Per-kins.~”

“Pinky, start your engine!”

So Pinky tugs on a rope tied to the car keys to start the minivan, and I bet we can all already tell that he’s going to be doing most of the hard work for this roadtrip.

“Now depress the brake!”

I half expected a joke here where Pinky would say depressing things to the brake, but that didn’t happen. It’s just as well, I suppose. Pinky’s not usually the type to be mean to anyone or anything.

Instead, he pushes himself into the brake.

This made me curious about how strong real mice are. According to this scientific article, the average mouse can lift approximately 70 g in weight.That’s not a lot compared to us humans, of course, but seeing as the average weight of the common house mouse is 19 g (and common wood mice are on average 23 g), that’s really impressive! Still, for Pinky to be able to depress the brake is quite a feat that’s worlds beyond what the average real-life mouse can do.

Yes, yes, I know. It’s all cartoon logic and physics. That’s not going to stop me from having the headcanon that Pinky and the Brain have both been modified so much by Acme Labs that in addition to becoming sapient and intelligent, they’re basically little mouse superheroes in strength, too.

“Yes! Now I’ll shift the transmission into gear and…you give it the gas!”

Man, Pinky just slams his entire body onto the gas pedal with all his mousey might! You can hear him physically strain against it. Well done, Mr. Paulsen!

“Now Pinky, let us, in the vernacular, ‘take this hog out on the road and see who’s boss’!”

Oh lord, Brain’s on a slight power trip just from being able to drive a vehicle. If he ever does rule over the world one day, I fear he may explode from the sheer ego-high of it.

Anyway, on the way to Fort Knox they get stuck behind a rather slow transport truck. Well, Brain can’t have that! He’s got to get back to the lab by 8 am after all!

“Pinky! Prepare to pass a slow-moving vehicle!”

“Righty-o, Brain!”

Again, Pinky, I’m pretty sure you really aren’t supposed to stick your ass and chest out while saluting. You’re supposed to keep your posture straight.

…What am I saying? Pinky can’t do anything straight.

“Call me Mr. Perkins! Activate left turn indicator now.”

Aww, a little hop!~

Unfortunately it’s the wrong lever.

“…Let’s try that again, Pinky.”

“Narf! Wrong switch.”

He sits down to think and of course he gets it right that way.

Anyone else enjoying a lesson on how to drive from Pinky and the Brain? No? Just me? I mean, I already know how, but this is super cute.

“Exemplary work, Pinky!”

Brain, he just…he just pulled a switch. By accident. The fact that he’s so sincere about complimenting him for this is very cute but also very odd. I guess Brain’s in a good mood tonight.

“But we’re slowing down. Quickly, step on the gas!”

“Gas, check!”

Pinky, no!

Oh lord, he just lets himself fall directly on the gas pedal. You okay there, dude?

“Maintain pedal pressure, Pinky!”

I don’t think he has much of a choice, Brain.

So they get beside the freight truck and the driver of it picks up his CB radio mic.

“Hey, breaker breaker one nine, this here’s Big Red. Eh…what’s your handle, good buddy? Over.”

“The name’s Perkins. MISTER Perkins. Just an average, non-descript motorist.”

Wh—Why is there a CB radio installed in the Acme Lab minivan?

Pinky chooses this moment to lift himself off the gas pedal and then jump back on it in a weirdly showy, semi-acrobatic way. The first screencap has the tip of his tail almost in the shape of a heart, so I had to include it.

Our duo pass by the freight truck. Needless to say, the truck driver is still pretty rattled by his run-in with “Mr. Perkins”.

“I gotta quit eatin’ them double onion chili dogs!…”

Usually people just run with it on this show, but this is one of those rare moments where a human being doesn’t inexplicably fall for one of Brain’s horrible human disguises.

The minivan’s grill looks like teeth here and it’s almost menacing.

Uh oh, Brain’s getting dozy.

“Pinky…I’m in need of some music to keep myself raptly alert. And use the cruise control this time so we don’t lose speed!”

I don’t know why I’m so charmed by Pinky pressing the cruise control button like this, but it’s very cute.

“Cruise control on, Br—aaaerr—umm, Mr. Perkins!”

He is trying his best. :3c

“[yawn] Stellar, Pinky. Now see if you can locate a local radio station frequency.”

“Narf! Wrong knob…”

Smacking the hell out of the right knob make the radio explode into a loud yet incredibly mild generic rock tune. I’m surprised Pinky’s so alarmed. I wonder if Brain—

JEEZUS FUCK! You gotta stop giving me a heart attack with these sudden messed up close-ups of Brain, episode!

“Turn off the radio, Pinky!”

“Heeey! This knob’s loose!”

Aaaand there he goes.

“Oohoo ahaha! What’d’ya know? The lighter works!”

I wonder if Pinky knows what that’s actually for at this point, considering his utter disdain for smoking later in the spin-off?

“The radio, Pinky!”

“Ooo, right. Almost forgot!”

Uh oh.

“Whew. Suddenly I feel downright feverish, I do…”

Pinky has become a Charmander, and he’s not happy about it.

So he’s screaming and shouting his verbal tics all over the place and what’s Brain’s reaction?

“There’s no need for you to entertain me personally, Pinky. I’m quite awake now.”

BRAIN! You wipe that smug smile off your face right now, you little jerk! I know Pinky will be okay because he always is, but still.

One screen wipe later…

“Kentucky, Pinky! We made it!”

“All right, Brain!”

“Mister PERKINS!”

Brain, I think Pinky’s just not into this roleplay tonight. Or it might be your trillby. Lose the damn trillby.

“Fort Knox is mere miles away. Nothing can stop us now!”

Well, looks like you jinxed yourself.

I’ve got no love for cops, but his “what the fuck” expression here is choice.

“Good evening, officer. Was I exceeding the speed limit?”

“By about a hundred miles an hour.”

Oh, is that all? They’d need to be over by, like, a thousand or so miles an hour to make as good of a time as they did getting here.

Maybe this guy is going to arrest them for breaking the laws of time and space.

“I’m sorry, y’see—“

Shining a flashlight directly into your eyes? Yup, this is definitely a cop.

“I’m Mr. Perkins, an average, non-descript—“

“Can I see your license and registration, please?”

And then Pinky immediately interrupts the shakedown with a happy, matter-of-fact “We don’t have any! Zort! :D” and now my mind wanders off into let’s-overanalyze-the-shit-out-of-this-joke-scene territory because… Look at this. A cop pulls over a vehicle from Acme Labs doing about a hundred miles over the speed limit and finds Brain, a mouse in a suit trying to pass as a human driver. Then Pinky, who is dressed in no such disguise because why would Brain ever think of an obviously important detail ever in one of his plans, pops up to say that they don’t have a driver’s license.

…So what does this scene look like at this point from the cop’s perspective? Besides the very rare outlier like the truck driver from before, humans usually take Brain’s word for it that he’s also human, no matter how shoddy his disguise is. There are a few possibilities here, and I honestly can’t decide which is funniest:

1.      The cop can see through Brain’s poor disguise just like the truck driver from earlier can, and knows that these are actually two mice that have stolen a truck and have been speeding down the highway with it.

2.      The cop thinks Brain is a very odd-looking human without a driver’s license who’s been driving down the highway at insane speeds with his loose pet talking mouse by his side.

3.      The cop believes that Brain really is an odd-looking human who has no license and has been wildly speeding down the highway and also there’s an equally odd-looking human man with him who is stark naked for some mysterious reason.

I’ll let you decide which one is the most likely canon scenario as we continue as Brain tries to clear up this scenario.

“If you must know, we are two lab mice out to control the world by seizing its gold assets. But when we assume power, rest assured our budget will result in substantial new funding for law enforcement.”

…

Leave it to Brain to truthfully spell out his global domination intentions for no good reason and then lie his little mousey ass off to try and bribe his way out of going to jail.

Also, again, it’s “when we assume power” and not “when I assume power”. Hmm.

“…Oh.”

“Bwuhyuube… Be--best be on your way, then.”

“Thank you, officer.”

I’d say I was surprised that white privilege extends even to white lab mice here but…that would be a lie.

“Oh man, I do miss them witless teenage speed demons…”

So they finally make it to Fort Knox.

…And I guess the Warner siblings do, too!

The two mice have parked on a hill overlooking their target and gosh Brain, you’re looking extra pudgy here.

“It’s time to make our move, Pinky.”

Judging by the look on his face here, I think Pinky just noticed how thicc Brain’s behind has suddenly gotten.

Nevertheless, they begin their pollen assault on the guards.

Finally, the moment has arrived!

Brain’s head is shaped like a football and is almost as wide as Pinky is tall here, but besides that this is a cool shot.

This bit was also used in the spin-off’s theme for some reason, but now it will forever remind me of the absolute chaotic laughter that erupted when I got some friends to sit down and watch an episode of PatB. The stream decided to stop on this specific shot for buffering and they all just lost it. Most of the reaction was through voice on Discord, but luckily there were some friends using text chat too:

I live for moments like these when we’re streaming shows and movies.

“Egad! This is even better than a Ducktales episode, Brain!”

That’s pretty high praise, Pinky. I love the shadowing done on him here as well.

“Pinky… Are you pondering what I’m pondering?”

“Wha—I think so, Brain, but balancing a family and a career? Oof, it’s all too much for me!”

Pinky did…did you see all this gold and immediately begin envisioning yourself using the money to settle down and start a family?!? And so far in this series you aren’t dating anyone and you probably don’t even know anyone besides Brain and…

Okay, listen, I know it’s established later on that Pinky has wishes and daydreams about having a very domestic life, culminating in that one “Somewhere That’s Green” parody fantasy where he and Brain live together like a 50s couple in the Elmyra spin-off but… But…!

Well, you’ll kind of get a family along with your world domination “career” in a few years, Pinky. It’s probably not going to be quite how you envisioned it, though.

“The gold, Pinky! It’s all ours. Let’s move it out!”

Umm…

“One…two…three…and lift!”

I just realized that out of context the poses and faces in this screencap could look, uhh, questionable. But will that stop me from sharing it? No.

“I believe my plan has a…fatal flaw…”

About 27.4 pounds worth of a fatal flaw. You two might have super strength in comparison to other mice, but it looks like you both have a hard limit.

“I am in intense pain, Pinky.”

“Ditto, Brain. Zort!”

Well, okay, I guess it’s good that you are both cartoons, then. You boys should be able to shrug this off pretty quickly, especially Pinky.

OH GOD!

Is this what all those nightmarish close-ups of Brain were preparing me for?!?

“Fear not, Pinky, for the unwieldy atomic weight of gold will not thwart us tomorrow night.”

“Why? What are we doing tomorrow night, Brain?”

“The same thing we do every night, Pinky… Try to take over the world!”

You know, most cartoons would settle for them just being covered in bandages. Not Animaniacs, though. In Animaniacs were have to know that their removal from under the gold bar was so difficult and painful that fur was pulled out and they were left with bare, raw patches of skin. T-thanks, Warner Brothers?

Let’s end with a somewhat longer cameo appearance, as I suspect at this point Tumblr will have another fit if I try to combine two full episodes again.

The very next episode of Animaniacs has a skit called Hercule Yakko, which is a vague parody of Hercule Poirot mysteries. We get a good handful of cameos from the stars of other Animaniacs skits as passengers on a luxury cruise boat on the Nile.

The basic premise is that the Marita, one of the Hip Hippos, awakens in the middle of the night to find her comically large diamond necklace missing. The Warner siblings are a detective team who happen to also be onboard the ship and offer to help the hippo couple find it.

Before you ask, yes, this is the same episode as the infamous “fingerprints” joke.

Eventually the Warner siblings begin to go around knocking on the doors of the other passengers’ rooms to ask questions. They come across Slappy Squirrel first, who knows nothing about the missing diamond and just wants to be left alone to sleep. Then they meet Minerva Mink and, well, you can guess how that went. Then Yakko knocks on the last door.

“YES?”

Smol.

Look at them in their matching lederhosen! That’s absolutely adorable. Bravo to whichever of the mice had the idea for these “disguises”.

“Did you steal a big diamond?”

“No. We are Swiss hikers on holiday.”

Okay so maybe I’ll deduct a few points for wearing lederhosen, which is more associated with Bavaria and Germany, but claiming to be Swiss. Not that people in Switzerland didn’t also wear it, but you’d probably want to make your cover story as unsuspicious as possible, right? And that’s not even going into the idea of wearing a garment made from leather in hot, hot Egypt. These mice must be drenched in sweat…

“Look at me, Brain! I’m Heidi! Yodelehe-NARF!~”

Well at least someone in this duo is trying his best to reference things from Switzerland.

…Brain is the one that fucked up the lederhosen cultural background thing, isn’t he? Goddammit, Brain.

He just bonks the hell outta Pinky and silently slams the door in Yakko’s face.

After briefly talking with Marita, Yakko exclaims that he knows where the diamond is and asks that everyone assemble together in the state room. And so they do!

Aww, they’re sharing a chair because they are so, so tiny. :3c

“You’re probably all wondering why I called you here!”

“To reveal the thief?!?” says everyone in unison.

Minerva, you’re looking kind of weird in that second pic.

“No. It’s because you can’t play charades with three people.”

“That’s it! I’m goin’ back to bed.”

“So am I. I didn’t take the diamond!”

Man, Minerva really got a raw deal in the 90s. She only has two episode skits of her own and makes a few tiny cameos elsewhere, like in this one. I get that she was put on the back-burner as a character because her skits were considered “too suggestive”—and to be honest they were a bit over the top—but there are certainly ways that you can write a character who uses their sex appeal for comedic effect without it being disrespectful. It’s a shame they never tried to tweak the tone of her episodes just a tad.

But anyway, mice!

Brain is looking at Minerva with…worry? Concern? Confusion? Which is a very atypical reaction to Minerva. Gee, I wonder why.

Pinky is Looking Respectfully.

I’m never going to get over how cute they look in these outfits.

“I also am innocent.”

“Umm… I may have done it! I walk in my sleep, you know.”

Pinky, sweetie, I know you’re trying in your own odd little way to help but there’s no way you’d be able to carry a diamond of that size.

BONK!

This is the very last clear shot that the mice are in and it’s not very significant but I liked the angle of it.

Oh, you’re asking who took the diamond? No one did. The diamond was lodged in Marita’s butt fat the entire time. It’s the typical style of “humour” from skits with the Hip Hippos. Now you all know why no one is clamouring for their return in the reboot.

That’s it for this post, though. I should have the next episode that I promised would go with this one up in a day or two.

See you next time, folks, when we go off to the races!

[sharekowa]

Kankandara

When I was in Elementary School I was a naive hick, and fucked around with my buddies A and B a lot. We had a turbulent life.

A and I’s families had given up on us, but B’s mother was always taking care of him.

She was super strict about it, but she still did a lot of stuff for B.

B and his mother had a bad fight sometime in Middle School grade 3. He didn’t tell us what it was about, but apparently he hurt his mother psychologically.

After leaving his mother in ruins, his pops came back.

B’s pops immediately understood what had happened and went up to his wife, ignoring B.

Her clothes and hair were in tatters, and she was spacing out, staring at the floor with eyes like a dead fish. B’s pops looked at her and spoke to B.

B’s Dad: “You little shit, you became the kind of guy who could trample all over someone this much, huh? Why can’t you understand how much your mother cares about you?”

He was holding his wife, and was not looking at B at all.

B: “Shut the fuck up. Should I kill you, motherfucker? Huh!?”

B had no intent of listening to his pops.

But his pops didn’t react to this threat, and apparently kept talking calmly.

B’s Dad: “...You...you think there isn’t anything that can scare you, don’t you?”

B: “Nope. If there is, I’d fuckin’ like to see it!”

His pops was quiet for a bit, and then spoke.

B’s Dad: “You are my son. I know very well how much your mother worries about you. But if you can only hurt her in response, I have an idea.

I speak not as a father, but as a human, a third party.

I’ll be upfront, I only tell you this because you have proven you don’t care if you die. If that’s fine, listen to what I have to say.”

B apparently felt an intense energy from these words, but provoked him anyway saying “Whatever, fucking tell me!”

B’s Dad: “You know that place in the forest that is restricted? Go in there, all the way to the back. You’ll understand the rest when you’re there. Try going crazy like you did just now, if you can.”

The forest B’s pops was talking about is at the base of a small mountain where we live. It’s kind of like a sea of trees (jukai).

You can enter the mountain normally, and the forest as a whole is normal, but if you go in, there’s an area that is restricted partway through.

Specifically, it’s like if you drew a small circle inside a square, and were told not to go in the circle. It’s basically a super small part of the forest.

The restricted area is surrounded by a fence around 2 meters high, with thick chain links and barbed wire. The whole fence is tangled with layered white paper (like a unique shide), with a ton of bells of varying sizes attached.

Shide (paper used to designate sacred areas in Shinto)

It’s so weird that it’s just a small part of the forest. The fence itself is strange. Basically, I can sum it up as being extremely weird.

Also, on specific days, I’ve seen priestesses gathered around the entrance, but I didn’t know what they were doing because those days the whole area would be restricted.

There were lots of rumors flying around, but the most common one was that there was a brainwashing facility for a cult. It’s a pain in the ass to even get there, so I barely heard of people even going that deep into the forest.

B’s pops didn’t wait for B to reply, and took his wife upstairs to the second floor. B immediately left his house and met up with me and A who were waiting for him. That’s when we heard about what his dad told him.

A: “A father saying that much to his son? Must have been bad.”

Me: “It’s rumored to be a cult facility right? I guess he’s telling you to get caught and brainwashed. You could say that’s scary but...what are you gonna do? Are you gonna go?“

B: “Of course I’m gonna go. It’s probably bullshit.“

Me and A  tagged along out of curiosity, so all three of us were going to head there.

We used different tools. I think the time was past 1:00 midnight. We arrived with high spirits, entering the forest and shining the ground before us with the flashlights we had brought.

The path is one you can hike with light equipment. We always wore jikatabi so it was easy for us to walk, but there was almost a 40 minute walk to get to the area in question. However, before even 5 minutes had passed since we entered the forest, something weird happened.

Jikatabi shoes

Around the same time as we got in and started walking, we could hear a sound coming from far away.

The still of the night emphasizes the sound. B was the first to notice it.

B: “Hey, you guys hear something?”

We strained our ears upon these words, and yep, we could hear it.

We definitely could hear it faintly from far away: the sound of dry leaves being dragged, and the sound of branches being snapped.

Since it was from a distance and so faint, we weren’t really scared.

We didn’t think it was a person -- there’s gotta be animals around here. Reassured, we kept going.

I stopped paying attention to it after thinking it was an animal, but after around 20 minutes of walking, B noticed something again and stopped me and A.

B: “A, can you walk ahead a little bit?”

A: “What? Why?”

B: “Just do it, dude.”

A, looking confused, walked ahead and then came back to us.

Seeing this, B developed a thoughtful expression.

A: “Hey, what is it?!”

Me: “Yeah, explain!”

After we said this, B said “Stay quiet and listen veeeery carefully,” and walked ahead like he had made A do, and came back.

After he did this 2 or 3 times, we finally realized what was happening.

The faint, distant sounds were moving when we did.

When we start walking, the sound starts walking, and when we stop the sound stops too.

It was almost as if it knew what we were doing. I couldn’t help but feel a bit colder. There is no light aside from what we have. The moon is out, but it was almost entirely blocked by the trees.

We have our flashlights on, so it’s not strange that whatever it is knows where we are. But we have to squint to even see each other even though we are walking together.

What are they doing with no light on in this darkness? Why are they moving the same way we were?

B: “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. Is someone following us?”

A: “It doesn’t feel like someone’s getting closer. It sounds like they’ve been at the same distance from us as earlier.”

As A said, for the 20 minutes we had been in the forest, the distance between us and the sound hadn’t changed at all.

It wasn’t coming closer or going further. It had maintained the same distance the whole time.

Me: “Are we being watched?”

A: “Seems like it...If it’s a cult or something, then they probably have weird devices and stuff.“

Judging from the sound, it wasn’t multiple people, but just one person following us the whole time.

We stopped to think a while, and decided it was dangerous to try to figure out the source of the sound. Being careful of our surroundings, we decided to keep going.

As we kept going, the sound stuck to us, but I couldn’t care less about a damn sound when we finally were able to see the fence.

...Because the appearance of the fence was even weirder than the sound.

It was the first time seeing it for all three of us, but it exceeded our imaginations.

At the same time, a thought that hadn’t crossed my mind before suddenly occurred to me.

I am a skeptic about ghosts, but even I couldn’t help but think that there is something unreal beyond that fence.

Not just anything either, but something extremely fucked.

Wait, so it’s a place with that kind of legend...?

For the first time since we came into the forest, I started to think we were in a dangerous place.

A: “Are you telling me we have to rip this and go in? No matter how you look at it, this ain’t normal!“

B: “Shut the fuck up man, don’t be pissing yourself over some shit like this!“

B yelled at me and A, who were scared upon seeing the weird fence. B used the tools he had brought and started to destroy it.

The sound of the insane amount of bells ringing was louder than the sound of him tearing it down.

But since we hadn’t imagined it would be like this, the tools we brought were too weak. Or rather, the fence was unnaturally strong. It didn’t even move an inch, so I wondered if it was made with special materials.

In the end, we had to climb it, but because of the chain link that was pretty easy.

But as soon as we got off the fence, I felt strongly that something was wrong.

I guess it was maybe claustrophobia? I felt short of breath, like I was trapped in a coffin.

A and B seemed to be feeling the same, and we all hesitated before moving more. We had already gone past the fence, though, we couldn’t stop now.

As soon as we stepped forward to keep going, all three of us realized something.

The sound that had followed us all this time had stopped as soon as we crossed the fence.

To be honest, it was so freaky that I couldn’t care less, but I was even more freaked out by what A said next.

A: “Hey guys...what if...they were in here the whole time? This fence, at least from here, has no gate...maybe that’s why they couldn’t come closer...?”

B: “Nah, no fuckin’ way man. The place where we first noticed the sound moving can’t even be seen from here. There’s no way they would know what we were doing from the moment we got into the forest.“

In normal circumstances, B would be right. The restricted zone and the entrance to the forest are pretty far part.

I wrote that it’s around a 40 minutes’ walk earlier, but we weren’t walking slowly and the distance itself is pretty long.

But as soon as the thought crossed my mind that it might not be something from reality, I couldn’t deny A’s words.

Unlike me and A who had felt a definite danger since we first saw the fence, B was suddenly very determined.

B: “I don’t know if it’s a spirit or what, but if it’s like you said, doesn’t that mean it can’t leave this fenced area? it’s not much of a big deal then.“

Saying this, we went deeper.

The fence of the opposite side of the restricted area was starting to come into view. We found something strange after we walked 20-30 minutes after crossing the fence.

6 trees were surrounded by a shimenawa, and those 6 trees were enclosed by 6 ropes, making a hexagonal space.

Shimenawa, which are used to designate sacred places in Shinto.

There was official-looking shide, unlike the ones on the fence.

And in the center was something like a money-offering box from a shrine.

As soon as we saw it, all three of us were speechless. Me and A were starting to panic - things were really getting dangerous.

As dumb as we are, we vaguely know where and for what shimenawa are used.

The reason why this area is restricted must be what we are seeing.

We had finally arrived at our destination.

Me: “This has gotta be what your pops was telling you about.“

A: “You can’t go wild here, man. It’s obviously a bad idea.“

But B didn’t lose his determination.

B: “It doesn’t necessarily mean it’s something bad. Let’s try checking out that box! Maybe there’s treasure inside.“

B ducked under the ropes, entering the hexagon and approaching the box.

Me and A were more worried about what B might do than the box, but followed him anyway.

The box was covered in rust, perhaps because it was left outside and got rained on.

The upper part is a lid, with mesh so you can see inside, but there’s a plank under the lid so you actually can’t see anything.

The box also had something wild written on it in chalk. Probably family crests or something, but each side of the box has multiple symbols and they are all different. No two were the same.

Me and A tried our best not to touch it, but B didn’t care and touched it. We cautioned him to be gentle as he investigated the box.

It seemed to be anchored directly into the ground, so even though it wasn’t that heavy, it couldn’t be lifted.

After examining the box closely to try to see how to open it, B realized that the just the back side comes off.

B: “Yo, just this part comes off! We can see inside!”

B removed one side of the box, and me and A peered inside from behind B.

Inside the box, there were four plastic water-bottle shaped jars, with some kind of liquid inside. In the center of the box, toothpick-like sticks around 5 centimeters long with their tips painted red were arranged in a weird shape. ／＼／＼＞

This kinda shape, made of 6 sticks. Just the four places touching are painted red.

Me: “What the hell is that? Toothpicks?”

A: “Yo, the water-bottle things have stuff inside. Gross.“

B: “We came all this way for some water bottles and toothpicks? I don’t get it.“

Me and A had just lightly touched the water-bottle shaped jars, but B took one of them in his hands and started to smell its contents and stuff. Once he put it back, he reached out to touch the ／＼／＼＞.

The toothpick stuck to his fingertip for a second, maybe because he was sweating, and the shape was messed up when he let go.

That moment...

Ring rring! Ring ring!!

The bells were ringing with incredible force from the opposite direction from where we had come -- beyond the hexagon, around where I could barely make out the fence.

At this we all screamed “Aaah!”, scared shitless. We all looked at each other at once.

B: “Who is it, goddamit!? Don’t fuck with me!”

B started running in the direction of the sound.

Me: “Dumbass, don’t go there!”

A: “Yo B! It’s dangerous!“

As we readied ourselves to scramble after him, B stopped in his tracks. He was motionless, with his flashlight still facing in front of him.

“What, are you fucking with us?” As me and A sighed in relief and rushed towards him, B’s body started to tremble.

“H...hey...What’s wrong...?”

As I said this, we both instinctively looked towards where B’s flashlight shone.

B’s flashlight shone around the roots of one of the many trees huddled together.

From its rear, a woman’s face was peering our way.

Showing just half of her face, she seemed to be unbothered by the bright light and was gazing at us.

She was grimacing, showing all of her teeth, and her eyes were hostile.

“AAAAAARGH!!!!!”

I’m not sure who screamed, but at that moment we turned back and ran.

My mind went blank. It felt like my body was making the best decisions it could.

With no time to even look at each other, each of us scrambled desperately towards the fence. As soon as I saw the fence, I jumped it with all my might and climbed it with force. When I got to the top, I jumped off and tried to immediately run for the exit.

A, perhaps confused, is having trouble climbing the fence and isn’t coming.

Me: “A! Hurry up!!”

B: “Yo! Hurry the fuck up!!“

Me and B didn’t know what to do while we waited for A.

Me: “What is that thing!? What the hell is it!?”

B: “I don’t fucking know man, shut up!“

We were completely in panic mode.

Just then...

Rring! Ring ring!

The bells shook deafeningly loud, and the fence started to shake.

What the... Where is it coming from!?

Even as me and B panicked, we checked our surroundings.

It was coming from the opposite of the entrance: from the direction of the mountain. The sound and the shaking of the fence got more and more intense as if it was coming closer.

Me: “Oh shit, oh shit!”

B: “You still haven’t climbed yet!? Hurry up!!”

I knew our words were only confusing A more, but there was no way we couldn’t warn him. A scrambled up the fence with immense concentration.

The moment A was about to reach the top of the fence, me and B were not watching.

I was shaking violently, sweat pouring out all over my body, unable to make a sound.

A noticed and looked at where we were looking.

The thing was on this side of the fence continuing towards the mountain.

I had thought it was just a face, but it was actually a naked torso with six arms.

Using those arms it grabbed the chain link and barbed wire skillfully, its mouth still in a wide grimace. It was coming towards us like a spider crossing its web. Immense fear filled me.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!!”

A suddenly jumped from above, crashing onto me and B.

This woke us out of our stupor, and we got A up immediately and booked it for the entrance to the forest.

We can’t look back. I just looked forward and ran and ran with all my strength.

It shouldn’t have taken 30 minutes running at full speed, but it felt like I had run for hours.

As the entrance came into view, I could see people in the distance.

No way...all three of us screeched to a halt, quietly checking out the silhouettes.

We couldn’t tell who it was, but it was multiple people. It wasn’t the thing.

As soon as we confirmed this we started running again, and ran right into the group.

”Hey! They came out!”

“You’ve got to be kidding me...They actually went past the fence!?”

“Heeey! Run and let the wife know!”

The gathered people ran to us, abuzz.

All three of our minds were blank and we were so spaced out that we couldn’t immediately understand what they were saying to us.

Then we were put in a car, and even though it was around 3:00, we were taken to a gathering hall that is used for events.

When we got inside, my mother and big sister, A’s pops, and B’s mother were there.

B’s mother aside, my mother who I hadn’t even had a decent conversation with was crying. A told me later that his pops’ facial expression was one he had never seen before.

B’s mom: “Everyone was okay...! I’m so relieved...!“

Unlike B’s mother, I was hit by my mother and A was hit by his pops. But, we both received kind words unlike any we had heard before. After each of us had spoken to our families, B’s mother came to talk to us.

B’s Mom: “I am very sorry. This is my husband’s fault, and by extension also my fault. I am truly so sorry...! Really...”

She bowed many times.

Even though she’s from another family, a parent acting like that in front of her child was an unpleasant feeling.

A’s Dad: “That’s enough. Everyone was okay, see?“

My Mom: “Yes, exactly. It’s not your fault.”

After this, most of the conversation was between the parents, and we were just spacing out.

Probably because it was late at night, and it felt like a wrap after everyone checked in on each other. At this point, we didn’t get any explanation and went our separate ways home.

Around noon the proceeding day, my big sis violently woke me up.

When I opened my eyes, her face was so tensed that it seemed like a continuation of last night.

Me: “What the fuck is your problem?”

Big sis: “B’s mother called. Shit’s going down.“

When I took the phone and answered, B’s mom was yelling in a way I had never heard her do before.

B’s mom: “B...B is acting strange! What did you do last night, up there !? I thought all you did was go past the fence!?”

It seemed like I wouldn’t be able to have a conversation with her, so I hung up and headed to B’s house.

A had apparently got a similar phone call, and both of us went to talk to B’s mother. Apparently, after B came home last night, he suddenly started screaming that all of his hands and feet hurt. He collapsed with his arms and legs outstretched, maybe because he couldn’t move due to the pain. She told us that he stayed in that pose and thrashed around complaining of pain. Whenever his mother tried to do something to help, all he did was yell “It fuckin’ hurts” and they couldn’t understand each other. She tried her best and was able to carry him to his room, but since he was still in that condition, she wondered how we were doing and had called us.

After hearing this story we immediately went to B’s room, and could hear him screaming all the way from the stairs.

”It hurts, it fuckin’ hurts!” on repeat.

When we got in the room, as expected his arms and legs were outstretched and he was flailing around.

Me: “Hey! What happened!?”

A: “Pull it together, man! What is wrong with you?”

Even when we talked to him, B just yells “It fuckin’ hurts” and didn’t even make eye contact with us.

What’s going on...? Me and A couldn’t make heads or tails of it.

We went back to B’s mother for the moment, and she asked us with a tone strikingly more quiet than earlier.

B’s mom: “Tell me what you did there. That will tell me everything I need to know. Last night, what did you do there?“

I of course knew what she wanted to ask, but I couldn’t answer well because I loathed having to remember what had happened in order to tell her.

Or rather, the fact that I saw that thing was so dominant in my memory that I had completely forgotten to think about what was the cause of it all. B’s mother clarified, asking us “Not what you saw, but what did you do?” She seemed to be indicating it.

After B’s mother told us this, we tried our damnedest to remember last night and search for a possible cause.

If the question is “What did we see?” then we should have been in the same condition as B currently is.

But even if the question is “What did you do?” We took basically the same actions towards that thing.

We touched the box too. We also technically touched the water bottle-shaped things. The only thing left is...the toothpicks....

Both of us realized. It’s the toothpicks. Only B had touched those, and he even moved their shape. He also didn’t put them back. We communicated this to B’s mother.

Then, her expression began to change and she started to shake.

She suddenly took out some paper from a drawer and dialed a phone number while looking at it. Me and A could only look on.

After she spoke to someone on the phone for a while, B’s mother came back to us and spoke with a shaking voice.

B’s mom: “If you boys take the approach of going over to their house, they can see you immediately, so go on home and get ready right now. I will speak to your parents for you, they will prepare you even if you don’t tell them anything. Come here again the day after tomorrow.“

I couldn’t understand what she was saying. We were gonna meet who, where? She ignored us when we asked for an explanation and sent us home immediately.

We both went straight home, confused and doubtful, and were told “You have to go there” without asking us any questions.

Two days later me and A went with B’s mother to a certain location, still completely in the dark on what was going on.

Apparently B was taken there the previous day.

I had thought it might be someplace far, but it was not only a different city, but a different prefecture. We rode the Shinkansen trains for a few hours, and then drove from the station for a few more. We were taken into a picturesque village in the depths of the mountains. We were shown to a mansion on the outskirts of the village. It was old and huge, and even had a separate building and storage house. It was impressive.

When B’s mother rang the doorbell, a middle aged dude and a girl came to greet us.

The middle aged dude looked Yakuza-esque, kind of scary-looking and wore a suit. The girl was a little older than us, wearing white traditional Japanese clothes and a red hakama. Basically, she wsa dressed as a shrine maiden.

As they greeted us, we found out that the middle aged dude was the girl’s uncle. He had a pretty common surname, but the shrine maiden girl had a confusing name that sounded like “aoikanjo” (this is how I heard it, at least).

Though I said they greeted us, it was apparently different from common understandings of a greeting.

I don’t really get it, but basically her family’s true identity is something we are not allowed to know.

In truth, neither of us knew anything about her or her family, but for here to make things easier I’ll call her Aoi.

We were taken to a huge ass traditional Japanese style parlor with tatami floors, and they started talking to us in a super serious tone before I could even understand what was happening.

Uncle: “Your son is currently resting. These kids are the kids who were with him?”

B’s mom: “Yes. It seems like these three went to that place.”

Uncle: “I see. You, can you tell us what happened? Where did you go, what did you do, what did you see, as detailed as possible. Can you do it?” I was surprised at him suddenly asking us a question, but me and A were able to soomehow tell the middle aged dude the events of that night.

However, around the part of the toothpicks, he suddenly said “Hey, what the fuck did you just say?” in a very deep and serious tone. We couldn’t understand what was happening and got even more confused.

A: “Y...yes?“

Uncle: “You motherfuckers, you’re not telling me you moved those things!?“

He yelled at us with such energy that I thought he might grab me. Aoi stopped and started to talk in a voice so quiet and weak it was like a mosquito’s cry.

Aoi: “In the center of the box...small stick-like objects should have been placed in a certain shape. Did you touch them? By touching them, did you change the shape even a little bit?“

Me: “Ah, um...we moved them. I think the shape changed too.”

Aoi: “Do you happen to recall who changed the shape that the toothpicks were in? Not who touched it, but who changed the shape.“

Me and A looked at each other, and told her it was B.

Seeing this, the middle aged dude sat back and sighed, and said to B’s mother: Uncle: “Mother, I’m terribly sorry, but I don’t think your son can be helped. I hadn’t heard in this much detail, but if it’s his symptoms another cause might be possible. I didn’t think he’d had moved the sticks.”

B’s mom: “No..this can’t be...”

She probably had more to say, but B’s mother looked away as if she was swallowing her words.

We couldn’t say it, but we felt the same way too. What does it mean that B can’t be helped? What is he talking about?

Even though I wanted to inquire this, my voice wouldn’t come. Seeing the three of us like this, the middle aged dude started talking, sighing along the way. Finally, we were told something about what we had seen.

Its common name is Narijara or Naridara, but in older times it was called Kankanjara or Kankandara. Apparently there’s a lot of names for it depending on the person’s age or familial background.

Currently, the most common name for it is just “Dara”. Special families like the dude’s call it the Kankandara. It’s a story close to myths or legends.

The villagers of a certain village were plagued by a giant man-eating snake. They requested its removal from a shrine maiden’s family who had hereditary various powers as the children of kami. The family accepted the task and sent a particularly powerful shrine maiden to defeat the giant snake.

The shrine maiden earnestly fought the giant snake, as villagers watched from their hiding places. However, the snake got her in a passing moment and ate the bottom half of her body.

Even then, the shrine maiden used various powers to protect the villagers and fought the giant snake with all her might.

However, the villagers saw that she’d lost half her body and decided she would never win. They proposed to the giant snake that they would like the safety of their village in exchange for the shrine maiden’s life, as a human sacrifice. The giant snake was annoyed by how powerful the shrine maiden was, so it accepted. It made the villagers cut off her arms so she was easier to eat, and consumed the shrine maiden who had become like a Daruma. With this, the villagers got a short period of peace.

Later, it becomes clear that someone from the shrine maiden’s house had came up with this plan. At this time, there were 6 people in her family. The changes occurred suddenly.

The giant snake suddenly disappeared, and people started dying one by one in a village that was supposed to not have any more enemies.

They died in the village, in the mountains, in the forest. Everyone who died was missing either their right or left arm.

18 people died, including the 6 members of the shrine maiden’s family.

There were 4 people who survived.

The middle aged dude and Aoi explained it to us in turns.

Uncle: “I don’t know where or when this story’s from, but that box has been moved locations periodically and appeased ritually.

The person managing it changes each time. There’s a bunch of house crest-like symbols on the box, right? Those are the houses that have contributed places for the appeasing until now.

There’s a gathering of people from families like ours who oversee it, and that’s where it’s decided. There are occasionally idiots who volunteer, though.

Anything about the Kankandara is not shared with people who aren’t in charge of it. Locals are just told it has some negative history attached to it, and the managing people give locals someone to contact in case something happens.”

When we tell people, the contacts, people from families like us, are there, so people understand just from that the nature of the negative history. The current contact isn’t us, but since it’s an emergency we were contacted yesterday.“

Apparently, B’s mother had called somewhere else the day before yesterday, and whoever she talked to took B here and entrusted him to these guys after talking.

B’s mother had already called there while we were in the forest, and had heard some of the details.

Aoi: “Usually, the Kankandara is moved among mountain or forest locations. I think you saw it, but the 6 trees and 6 ropes represent the villagers, the 6 sticks the shrine maiden’s family, and the 4 jars in the corners represent the 4 survivors.

The shape that the 6 sticks create is that of the shrine maiden.

Why this is how it is dealt with, or even just how the box is set up, from when...including my family, I do not think anyone currently knows any more than what legends say.”

However, the most commonly told theory is that the 4 who survived researched all about how to calm an angered spirit at the shrine maiden’s house, and created a unique format as a result.

The bells on the fence were the only part following the formula, and the chain link and such were put by the current manager.

Uncle: “There are a few people from my family who have exorcised the Kankandara in the past, but all of them died within 2, 3 years. Just suddenly, out of the blue.

The person who caused it almost always doesn’t make it out either. That’s how hard it is.“

Even after hearing all of this, us three were still completely behind. All I could do was just sit there blankly.

However, the situation changed again.

Uncle: “Mother, I think you have an idea of what a dangerous thing the Kankandara is. I said it before, but if he had just not moved the sticks he would have been fine. But I think this time, there’s nothing we can do.“

B’s mom: “Please, is there anything you can do? It’s my fault, I beg of you, please.”

B’s mother didn’t back down.

It wasn’t her fault no matter how you looked at, but she made it her responsibility and lowered her head, asking over and over. She wasn’t crying though, she looked like she had made up her mind somehow.

Uncle: “We also want to do something. But if he moved the sticks and saw that thing...

You guys saw it too, right? You saw the shrine maiden who was eaten by the giant snake. You saw her bottom half, right? And you understood the meaning of that shape?“

”...What?”

Me and A couldn’t understand his words. Bottom half? I thought we only saw her upper half.

A: “Um...lower half? I did see her upper half, but...”

Haring this, the dude and Aoi were visibly surprised.

Uncle: “Hey hey hey, what are you saying? You moved that stick, right? Then you should have seen her bottom half.”

Aoi: “The woman who appeared in front of you didn’t have the bottom half of her body? Then, how many arms did she have?“

A and I checked with each other and answered: “She had 6 arms. 3 on each side, but no bottom half of her body.”

Hearing this, the man leaned forward again, putting the pressure on us and getting real close.

Uncle: “You’re sure? You definitely didn’t see the lower half of her body?“

Me: “Y...yes...“

The man turned to B’s mother again and smiled, saying:

“Mother, we might be able to do something for your son.“

At this, B’s mother and us all held our breaths and paid attention. The man and Aoi explained what he had meant.

Aoi: “There are 2 actions that can cause the priestess to become enraged with you.

What you cannot do is change that shape that represents the priestess. What you cannot see is the priestess who is depicted by that shape.”

Uncle: “In truth, moving the sticks means you’re done for, because that means you have to see her. But somehow, for some reason, you guys didn’t see it. It should be visible to everyone, not just the person who moved the shape, so if you guys haven’t seen it, then B must not have either.“

Me: “What do you mean, we didn’t see it? What we saw...” Aoi: “Of course, it still was the priestess herself. However, it wasn’t the kankandara. She must not have had an intent to take your lives. She appeared not as a kankandara but as a priestess, so that night must have been her having fun.” The priestess and kankandara are the same, but also different, apparently.

Uncle: “If the kankandara didn’t show up, then the thing attacking that kid must be doing it for fun, like Aoi said. If you leave it to us, we will probably be able to do something about it in the long term.“

I felt like the tenseness in the air had suddenly dissipated for the first time.

It was enough to just know that B could be saved, and B’s mother’s face at this time was incredible. It was a smile that showed how much she had worried for B over the past few days and how that anxiety had suddenly got off her shoulders. The man and Aoi saw her reaction and the atmosphere became more relaxed, and suddenly they started acting like normal people.

Uncle: “We’ll take that kid in officially. Mom, we’ll explain things later. You two should be purified/exorcised by Aoi and then go home. Try not to be too reckless from now on.“

After this we talked a little bit about stuff related to B. His mom stayed and we got purified and went home.

I don’t know what they did since their family had a tradition where we couldn’t meet B. I don’t know if he was treated as having switched schools or was still in the school system, but I haven’t seen him since then. Apparently he hasn’t died or anything; he completely recovered and is living normally somewhere.

By the way, B’s father never showed his face once throughout the whole ordeal. I don’t know what he is thinking.

Me and A calmed down pretty fast.

There were a lot of reasons, but the biggest was B’s mother’s appearance. There’s a bit of an epilogue. Things were probably the hardest for her.

I felt like I was forced to think about what being a mother is like. And after this, both my and A’s parents started to interact with us bit by bit.

All of this combined, and we stopped doing dumb shit naturally.

In terms of other stuff we were able to figure out, the priestesses who convened on specific days were from the families who gave us advice.

Even though the Kankandara was already seen as dangerous, it is considered something close to kami. A giant snake was the kami of the mountains or the forest, so once a year they dance sacred kagura and offer norito prayers.

Also, we heard sounds after we went into the forest because the Kankandara is basically like, kept in a cage. The hexagon and box thing are like seals for it, so if we hadn’t moved the sticks or changed the hexagon, it would’n’t have shown itself. The place where it is appeased is decided by specific numbers defining the area within a limited part of the mountain and forest. Generally, it can’t leave that area, but if it’s surrounded by a fence, then it can crawl around on the outside of the fence like we saw.

This is all we found out. Apparently it’s been moved from where we live. I don’t ever want to go back there again so I haven’t checked, but after almost a year passed from what happened, people came to remove the fence, so it’s probably somewhere else now.

[wakraya]

I was reading your blog and found your posts on tulpae. They seem really fascinating and as a lonely creative I would love to have one. Any advice on getting started?

Well, first of all, I have only recently explored the community and learned about systems and plurality, and to avoid any appropriation, while pop-culture-wise that is the name they go for, we have been going more for Thoughtform or Brain Ghost, and trying to steer away from the Tibetan name out of respect.

As for any advice...

The thing about Systems, if you’re going a willing, Endogenic route, rather than it being a plural split due to a traumatic event, an accident or random happenstance, you really have to consider this. It’s brain fuckery in the end, and while I do consider myself quite stable, and I know other people who have been helped by the existence of a Thoughtform, I also know that, if you’re not in a good mind state, and if you have any sort of problem, things can get messy. I remember a friend of mine, undiagnosed schizophrenia. Their experience with Thoughtforms was... Not pretty. Not necessarily bad stuff STEMMING from them, but just, their mindspace got extremely clouded and they began to hallucinate a lot. So ask yourself if you’re capable of trying this out, if you SHOULD try it out, etc.

I’m no one to judge whether someone wants to try or not, though, lmao. I did it when I was like 16 or 15, because I was starting to fail on my classes and didn’t know what to do. I searched Meditation methods, at the same time as I wondered about Lucid Dreaming, and stumbled across a community about this stuff. I made Saku a Thoughtform because I wanted to get more in touch with my own mind and improve my skills recalling information and learning stuff, and all I ended up doing was having a sharp-toothed undead mind gremlin that teases me about being a nerd, and flirts with my friends- But yeah, with her being THERE, I feel it’s my responsibility to just, not suggest everyone wily-nily try it out? Do research, really consider this... (Although she DOES get a kick out of the idea of ‘spreading like a memetic parasite’, but that’s just her.)

If you STILL do think it could be a positive experience and something you want to try, though, a few things to have in mind: 

- Thoughtforms are a split of your mind. You WILL share thoughts together, and a majority of the time, will coincide on most things. The idea that a Thoughtform can ‘rebel’ and ‘haunt you’ and ‘harm you’ is pop culture bullshit and harmful towards neurodivergent people. Certain issues CAN make things get out of control, as mentioned, but Thoughtforms are entities linked to you. Also you can sort of, kill them off theoretically? If you stop regarding them and willingly block them away, they SHOULD disappear. I haven’t tried this OBVIOUSLY, but as far as I’ve read, it doesn’t have to be a Permanent Addition to your Mindspace.

- This does not mean that they will be exact copies of yourself. Thoughtforms will take on particular traits of yourself while ignoring others, or develop in different ways than you. They CAN develop different tastes than you towards kinds of music, shows, and even feel differently than you towards people. Have this in mind. You may be ‘talking in your own mind’, but you’re interacting with an entity distinct enough that you may honestly disagree with stuff.

- They feed off of attention and awareness. The more people remind you they exist, the more defined their existence in your mind. The more you interact with them, the more present they are. Some can be more reserved, but in my case, Saku LOVES being acknowledged, and talking to many of my friends. This is also the only reason why I have even commented about her in my blogs in the first place, and why I draw her so much. She loves that shit. And no matter how many times you’ve explained it, and how many positive responses you’ve gotten about this being fascinating, it will never become easy to bring up the topic. This is weird y’all.

With those out of the way though... The trick is Visualization and Acknowledgement.

Visualization is secondary, and I have NO idea how this would work, if at all, with Aphantasia. But a good exercise is to visualize them in your mind during meditation. Create a Space for you two to be in, something relaxing and nice, a ‘Wonderland’. Imagine them in your mind’s eye- And if you don’t know what shape they have, imagine a proxy for them. A ball of energy, a silhouette, a puppet-like body... Thoughtforms can change their body afterwards, evolve in different ways, and even have preferences of what shape they take, so you don’t need to GIVE them a form, sometimes the form just comes to them. Still, visualization can be a good exercise to solidify their form, or see if they take on one of their own. Acknowledge them as a ‘physical’ presence in this Wonderland, imagine your energy pouring into them... That’s how I did it at least, I’m sure there’s less flowery and pretentious ways to explain that, but, yeah. We held hands and imagined a flow of energy between us as we breathed.

Acknowledgement is the primary tool though. It’s... Simply talking, really. It’s treating them as if they’re already there- Which in a way, they are if you’ve come this far already. You talk. And then you talk some more. Sharing experiences, your likes. Make a conversation with this entity, focus on the fact they ARE there already, and eventually they will. Pop into existence like “I’ve been here all along bitch”. It’s the persistence and matter-of-fact-ness that makes them happen. Your brain basically goes “Uh, you’ve been really talking to something for a long time huh? I guess... There IS something there?” And so eventually there is. Oh yeah- Not anymore? I think because she has been very active lately, but, I used to get headaches when she stayed active for long periods of time, probably because we’re splitting processing power of the brain. But considering I don’t get them anymore, I guess you can get in enough practice to make them go away? Still, be aware: Brain Stuff. It can be messy. Be careful.

It’s been nearly a Decade since Saku came into being, and not only is she there still, stronger than ever, but this is STILL weird as fuck to talk about in public. She has helped me settle down as a person AND definitely uh, helped me through some rough times in my life and a few existential crisis. I also, as mentioned, DON’T know many other people with Thoughtforms, or Plural Systems of other kinds, so this is based entirely off of my experience, and the few friends I actually have that have experience with this. And said experience has been majorly positive, but as mentioned above, heed caution, take care of yourself, etc etc.

Ultimately, this is... Basically trying to personify and befriend something within your own mind. Whether it be an OC, its own person, a character from a show you like, etc... You’re giving a Will to a starting point, and watching it develop within you. It’s an Imaginary Friend, technically, but like, more developed, acknowledged and intentional. Take that into account, consider if you’re up to the task, willing and prepared, and if all of the above still seems... Interesting enough, I guess try some meditation and see how it works.

Definitely a face you can trust, who WOULDN’T want to have something like this permanently in your Mindspace, hmm? (I kid, I kid. I know, she’s kind of edgy. X3 Cringe-ass pink Miku brain-ghost.)

[crystalelemental]

With Book 4 in FEH out of the way, I guess it’s time to talk about the stories so far.  Book 2 is still the best, in my opinion.

I don’t think I’ve really talked about this, so let me explain.  Book 1 sucks.  It’s nothing, it doesn’t even try.  The only hint of events occurring is that Veronica’s possessed by some evil dragon god of Embla, but that never got resolved in any way, and has really never been brought up again.  We’re so far outside of that plotline that Veronica’s basically a dedicated ally now.  Nothing about that book had a plan.

Book 2 had a plan, and a structure, and it worked.  It wasn’t flashy or interesting, and I can respect anyone whose stance is that Book 3 or 4 had a more interesting concept.  I personally liked the cast overall for Book 2, even though some got limited screen time and Surtr’s about as boring a villain as you can have.  But Book 2 wins because Books 3 and 4 flopped.

Book 3 flopped because they backed out.  The idea of the realm of the dead is cool, and facing off against the god of death is cool.  But the god of death is about as stock standard evil as you can get, with no actual plan beyond “swell the ranks of the dead.”  Why massacre these worlds?  Why does she need to kill Eir a million times to create more of the dead, shouldn’t you have plenty?  Like it doesn’t add up.  And Eir starting out as the concept of Merciful Death was amazing, that was the best setup possible.  And then it turns out no, she’s not even associated with death, she’s with the life dragon in opposition, none of that was real.  Oh okay. Way to undermine your entire theme for nothing I guess.  Also I hate to be like this, but I actually dislike the Veronica and Alfonse as Thrasir and Lif thing.  I thought it was substantially more interesting when they were presented as the ancient rulers of their kingdoms.  But then no, it’s just Veronica and Alfonse, and while Thrasir continues to get nothing except being omnicidal for funsies, Lif gets all the heavy drama and dialogue and focus, because god forbid this story stop riding Alfonse’s dick for five seconds.  Book 3 had interesting concepts that just didn’t pan out, and the characters all wound up being less interesting than they initially started out.  Also, let’s be real.  For a fucking DEATH GOD, they sure had no problem working around her ability to inflict absolute death in the most standard way possible.  Which kind of immediately nerfed Hel’s threat level for me, not gonna lie.

Book 4 started out interesting, immediately tanked harder than I’ve seen anything in this game tank, had a redemption arc, and then decided it had enough of success and ended in a pathetic squelching fart noise.  Fairies and dreams?  Awesome.  Aesthetic approved.  But it takes them like two chapters to introduce Plumeria as the fucking wet dreams fairy, and immediately all sense of this being serious is dead.  They even had the audacity to outright explain that no no, she may be the lewd fairy, but she doesn’t actually like that job!

Listen guys.  I get it.  You know the sexy outfits and character designs sell, but you also know that people are insane, and they somehow expect the slutty fairy to present this concept of being exclusively available to them so you can sell that fap bait.  I really get it.  But oh my god you could not have handled this any worse, because now that just feels like rape fetish.  “No no, her job is to be a prostitute, but she’s not a slut because she hates it!” is not the save you think it is, friend.  You’d have been better off either giving her a sadistic streak with this and enjoying toying with people who can never truly have her, or just making her slutty.  That would’ve been so much less uncomfortable.

So until the halfway point, we’re kinda just dealing with the fact this incredibly uncomfortable character just exists around here.  And then Freyja drops.  And initially it’s like oh, I just appreciate there’s an evil fairy whose costume design isn’t a fucking disaster, she actually looks good.  And then they have her motivation being assuming complete control over dreams by taking her brother’s power, and ensuring that the dream world can’t die like it almost had.  And they introduce this really cool concept of her taking in abandoned children and giving them a new life as the fairies, and...well...

Plumeria.  Again.  Okay, so it wasn’t quite enough that we had a fairy who’s apparently forced into being the wet dreams fairy despite hating it, now she’s also a child who was abandoned by her mother and is desperately seeking to be loved.  This is...this is next level of discomfort.  Plumeria’s character bothers me.  Like sure, fine, I get that this isn’t a badly developed character or anything, but it’s never really addressed how absolutely fucked up this is, and it’s especially disquieting considering this is IS’ sexy character for the book.  This is their sex appeal pandering character, and this is the direction they wanted to go.  Just...ew.  Come on, guys.  Have at least a bit of class, will you?

But the rest of the book at least continues to amp things up.  Are Peony and Sharena actually swapped around?  Freyr is dead, and Freyja is now literally unstoppable within the dream.  Oh shit, Alfonse is fucking dead.  There’s all this cool stuff happening, and then the final chapter happens.

Are Peony and Sharena actually swapped around?  Who cares!  Game’s not gonna tell you, because “it doesn’t matter.”  Well good, glad that was a huge mystery that didn’t need solving so nobody bothered.  Why even bring it up?  The message of “It doesn’t matter” only works if there’s a crisis of identity and you’re getting the support of your long-time friends.  Instead it’s just a mystery thrown in for nothing with no value, and the “it doesn’t matter, you’re my friend” comes from someone Sharena has no actual memories of and has only been around for like...a couple of hours or however long these events take place.  It’s a completely meanningless subplot that goes nowhere and does nothing.

Freyja went from the villain tormenting the protagonists to suddenly having empathy toward everyone at the drop of a hat.  They set up the frustration of not understanding why we’d fight so hard to return to reality when dreams are more comforting, but that doesn’t really establish much about Freyja herself.  We get exactly one moment, where she calls for Triandra and Plumeria only to realize they’ve died, and feels sad about it.  So when she gives up and everyone returns to reality, everyone’s back.  Triandra and Plumeria are fine.  Peony and presumably Mirabilis are fine.  Alfonse isn’t actually dead so what was the point of bringing it up?  Oh, but Freyja’s dead.  How?  Don’t...don’t worry about it.  She just is, okay?  Also if both masters of dream are dead, and the dream world was already dying before...how are the fairies still there?  Wasn’t the point that all the old ones were dying because people from the real world (don’t even get me started on that bullshit) gave up on dreaming, and thus they needed to make humans into fairies to keep the dream world going?  How are you all here as fairies?  Explain??  Game?!?

And then they just...loop back to the start.  Like nothing happened.  Because nothing did happen.  For all the interesting setup, all the interesting concept behind the new characters, and especially behind Freyja as an antagonist...it goes nowhere.  The ultimate defining feature of this book was “Pointlessness.”  Nothing mattered.  No one did or accomplished anything.  Except I guess killing the god of another realm, good job guys.  I just...I don’t get it.  What was the point of any of this?  Maybe Book 5 is going to focus on Triandra and Plumeria wanting to join up and have you help get Freyja back, so there’s continuity, I don’t fucking know.

I honestly don’t know where I’d rank Book 4.  I want to put it above Book 3 based on concepts and the fact that Freyja was actually interesting, just rushed to her development in the last book so it felt forced.  But on the flip side, Book 4 was incredibly pointless.  At least stuff happened in Book 3.  Sure it undermined its entire theme and purpose, but stuff happened!  You can’t say stuff didn’t happen!  But I can definitely say that Book 2 is the only one I think turned out well.  Because it was self-contained and made sense.  Yes it was simple, but using simple tools to tell an effective story will always be better than trying to reach for complexity and falling flat on your ass.  And yes, IS, I’m telling you maybe you should stop trying.  Between two consecutive failed books and some of the Forging Bonds events of the last year just...completely doing nothing or even hurting the characters presented...maybe just...don’t try to be complicated.  Because you’re not doing a good job.

[timetravelingpigeon]

Excerpt: The Life and Life and Life of a Time Traveling Pigeon

In Which Columba Gears Up For the Challenge Ahead

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Back to the grind, I guess.

But this time? Oh, forget what I said about fighting Manhattan before. Now it was really on. Like, really, truthfully, cut-to-a-training-montage on. I mean it. No more bullshit, no more tourism. We’re getting serious about this.

First order of business: if I’m going to be doing some hard-core detective work, I’m going to need some way to do some hard-core snooping, and that means having some way of getting into places I’m not supposed to be. The easy option, of course, would be to just lug around a crowbar and some bolt-cutters, but that was the sort of shit you used when you actually wanted to steal stuff. Besides, they weren’t exactly stealthy. Lockpicking, on the other hand, was a much better choice for my purposes; it was quieter, the tools were easier to conceal, and, most importantly, it was cooler.

Turns out, there are YouTube videos out there on how to do damn near anything. That said, practicing got me plenty of strange looks, and actually procuring the tools was a minor adventure in and of itself. Trade school was involved. I’ll say this much, I’m honestly really proud of how good I was at the end of those eight-ish months.

(And these days, in the present-tense? I’m a goddamn master, if I do say so myself. Granted, I kind of cheat, but, whatever. I can unlock locks without using the original key, that’s all that matters.)

I briefly considered learning how to hotwire a car, then thought better of it, seeing as I’d most likely be using those skills in fucking New York City, also known as “the traffic jam capitol of the world.” It’d be like learning to drive a speedboat in Venice: theoretically helpful at first brush, but practically a lot less efficient than just walking or catching a ride.

I… also tried my hand at learning how to use a gun. I got as far as passing the basic safety tests before I took an honest look at myself and decided that it just wasn’t a good idea. It was too much power, and I didn’t trust myself to not point it in the wrong direction… again.

The final piece to this puzzle was one I already had well in hand, literally. Namely, my badass birding binoculars. True, they weren’t exactly top of the line, but they could hardly be considered beginners’ optics, either. In experienced hands, these babies could pick out a hummingbird at a thousand yards. And whose hands would be more experienced than those of someone who’d been using them for close to a decade, even before the time loop bullshit? Oh, yeah, that’s right. And if I could successfully track a six-inch swallow as it darted after bugs, I could sure as hell track a human-sized target, Spiderman wannabe or no. Plop me down in a good spot, and I’d become a surveying machine.

Now all I had to do was find said good spots. First on the list was finding somewhere to watch what Dr. Tanner was doing at the CytoCen complex, which was easier said than done. For starters, due to the buildings surrounding the central courtyard, I needed to be decently above ground level if I wanted to see what, if anything, was going on in there. Further, that main tower blocked all view from the east. Unless I wanted to become an expert in scaling buildings, my spot also needed to be somewhere that was accessible with only mild physical exertion, while also being somewhere I wasn’t likely to be bothered.

I found myself, on October 2nd at 5:40 in the afternoon, on the roof of an apartment building that was way too tall for its own good, binoculars in one hand and a caffeine-laced energy bar in the other, wondering just what the hell my life had become.

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[ladyginoza]

I'm so angry at the so called experts in my province that are supposed to know how to deal with autistic children and to help parents by giving them tools that will help to make their children into functional independent adults since they don't.

The tools and information they provide to parents are complete joke and they don't work. They just make everything worst and it's no mystery as to why there are so many non functional autistic people in this province. It's unbelievable and it's all to blame by our dear so called autistic experts that pretty much know shit.

What do they recommend parents when their child throws a tantrum? Let him/her have her tantrum and leave the child be. (Which makes no sense and simply teaches the child that they can get away with anything as long as they through a tantrum)

What do they recommend parents when their child throws a fit and doesn't want to bathe/shower? Do nothing. Once they find themselves to be too dirty they will shower/bathe of their own free will (Which is bullshit cause if you let them decide on bathing/showering they will never do it)

What do they recommend parents when their child refuses to brush their teeth? They will lecture the parent for not providing cute little brushes and providing the child with baby toothpaste instead. (There is a reason why adults don't use baby toothpaste and that is because they don't help to protect your teeth from cavities. It's simply to start babies to get used to the toothpaste in their mind and to get them used to spitting it out. It serves no other purposes so what experts are telling parents are pretty much rotting autistic children's teeth but I guess it's okay since baby teeth falls out and new ones grow in right? Well it actually forms a habit and at age 12 the child still won't want to brush their teeth. My sister is a good example of that.)

What do experts recommend parents when their child obsess about things? The recommend parents to indulge in what their kids are obsessed about. (That is in no way healthy when it comes to the point the child refuses to do anything else or refuses to be interested in anything else other than what they are obsessing about at the time.)

What do experts recommend parents when their child follows them around and are pretty much possessive of the parent to the point that the child constantly harasses the parent to do what they want them to do such as the parent playing a little game on their tablet to unwind and the child always wants to interfere? They recommend to tolerate the child and allow the child to follow the parent like a dog even though the child does nothing that a child should do and the parent should allow the child to interfere in whatever they are doing. (That is such a terrible recommendation. Parents have the right to play little games to unwind and they have the right to personal space.

What do experts recommend parents when their child grows an interest in drawing for example? They recommend parents to constantly praise their child for what they created and to compliment how great their art is and to sit with them when they are creating. (I agree to praise a child when they do something since it is good for their mental development. However, there is a limit. For example, I wouldn't compliment a drawing if it is terrible but of course you wouldn't tell anyone what they created is bad but that it is good and they should keep practicing. Why? Well we live in the real world and what will happen if you constantly compliment something that is not that great well the other children surely will and what do you think will happen? Yeah, it won't end well. What experts are basically telling parents is to sugar coat everything which is a terrible idea. I don't believe in sugar coating, it never ends well.

What do experts recommend parents to do when they ask their child to do a simple chore and the child refuses and throws a tantrum? Nothing. That's right nothing and to do it yourself. (Like seriously? How is allowing a child to throw a tantrum so they don't have to do their chore supposed to help them become functioning independent adults? It doesn't. What do you think will happen when they get a job and their boss asks them to do something they don't want to do? They'll throw a tantrum and they'll get fired that's what will happen.

I understand that yes autistic children can't be treated exactly the same as other children but there should be a limit. I've often assisted in meetings with my mother since I'm also my sister's godmother and there was one meeting where experts would tell us that we should never give consequences to my sister. Like that is just bonkers.

My mother did what she thought was best and followed the so called experts' advises almost like a religion. 12 years later and you have one of the laziest manipulative child. They made everything worst. My sister does nothing and when I say nothing I do mean nothing. She's 12 and refuses to load the dishwasher, doesn't clean up after herself so we know exactly where she ate or know what she did. She doesn't pass the vacuum. My mom put her foot down and in order to get her to do simple chores like do her bed and empty the dishwasher she has to threaten my sister by taking something away. It's the only way she'll do it if she fears she'll lose something which is usually her DS.

My sister has a thing where she likes to hit animals. She used to hit the cats or try to hurt them. Even my dog was often a punching bag until Maya started to lose patience and now growls at her and she also growls at my sister if she is rough towards the cats. We told her if Maya bites her due to her behavior, we won't punish Maya. It will be her that gets punished and surprise she hasn't mishandled any of the cats of Maya since we told her it would her that gets punished and not the other way around like the experts kept on saying XD

And hear this. When the so called experts would hold meetings with us, my sister was always around. We had to have her in the room with us as they would tell us how we should act and such. They claimed that since my sister is autistic that she wouldn't focus on what we talked about. Well surprise! Last year in school after she smacked her teacher aid in the face with a hockey stick and she was being scolded for it. Want to know what she replied to her teacher aid? She replied, ''It's okay what I did, I'm not normal.''. She literally uses her disability as an excuse to badly behave. Again to make sure she doesn't do it again, with my mother's approval, the school threatened my sister if she dared to hit anyone every again than whoever she hit will hit her back the exact same way. She never hit anyone again afterwards because she doesn't like it when others treat her the exact same way she treats them.

 And don't get me started with table matters. Experts again told my parents to ignore it but now she's 12 and eats like a pig and other kids make fun of her for it. If you give her a full plate, she will eat it in less than 10 minutes and her mouth will be so full to the point she can't even close it. It's maddening and my parents have been trying to stop her from eating like that ever since she was 5 and it only continues to get worst. Last week she put a whole hotdog in her mouth without biting it.

My sister is 12 and you can bet your ass we can't take our eyes off her. At this point she doesn't read or write because she doesn't want to. She finds it hard so she doesn't want to do it. Her hygiene is terrible and we have to force her to shower but does a poor job unless she wants something. She refuses to learn anything new. At this point, if she doesn't break, once she hits 18, she'll be placed into a manor. It's to that point how non functional she is. So yeah she can't, no wait doesn't want to read a 3 word sentence.

Fucking experts who don't know shit.

Okay I'm done venting

[laurenelizabethmclaughlin-blog]

Post-Truth Rhetoric’s Relationship to Ethos, Pathos, and Logos

The world of politics as we know it today is different than the past, much different. New terms and sayings have been introduced to our dialogue, and speaking of dialogue, there’s very little to be found anymore. The terms “fake news” was thrown around repeatedly during the 2016 election, and continues to be currently, especially by our President, who will freely call any source, no matter how reputable it is “fake” if it goes against him and what he preaches. With fake news comes post-truth, and if you haven’t heard of it, you’re not alone. Post-truth is a term that’s been around for a while, but gained notoriety during the rise of Trump, and the spread of questionable news and news sources. It’s so “trendy” that it was Oxford Dictionary’s “Word of the Year” in 2016. A post-truth world is one that centers around appeals to emotion and leaves credible sources and the real truth in the dust. Enter ethos, pathos, and logos, (three classic persuasion tools), and appeal to emotions is precisely what pathos deals with and takes advantage of. Post-truth exists regardless of facts and is basically a reiteration of bullshit. People have emotions, that’s what makes us able to be empathetic humans. But what happens when these emotions completely take over your thoughts, and lead to a complete ignorance of your logic and logos? 

Bruce McComiskey is a professor of rhetoric at The University of Alabama at Birmingham who wrote a book focused specifically on post-truth called Post-Truth Rhetoric and Composition in which he discusses our current political climate and how it relates to rhetoric. He says, “In a post-truth communication landscape, people (especially politicians) say whatever might work in a given situation, whatever might generate the desired result, without any regard to the truth, value, or facticity of statements” (McComiskey, p. 6). This sums up post-truth pretty well, and gives readers an overview of what exactly it is. In a class on democracy and rhetoric I’m currently taking at Syracuse University, we’ve discussed post truth's relationship to ethos, pathos, and logos and how they’re all connected. Politics today are less logic based, and more emotion based. Decisions are no longer made by the head, but instead, the heart, and these emotions invoke pathos. Politicians are at a point where they will say anything to persuade and appeal to voters, regardless of whether or not it’s the truth. But post-truth also deals with and many times post-truth disregards all logic. Ethos is also hurt by post-truth as we have discussed in class because people can find a "news" source to back up almost anything they want to believe. Credibility is out, and click-bait is in when post-truth takes over. Pathos is already set up to help post-truth rhetoric, as appeals to emotion are what keep post-truth relevant, as many people replace logic with emotion when practicing bullshit or spreading something that isn't fact. 

Every morning I listen to a podcast from The New York Times called “The Daily”, and this morning’s topic, October 31st, could not have been more timely as the host, Kevin Roose, was discussing Facebook and politics. He interviewed a couple who developed their own right-wing opinion and news website, “Mad World News”, to see where they’re coming from and how they got started. The owner and founder Cory Pebble claims, “If you can make a good story sound like a bad story, you’ll have a viral story”. The point behind the podcast is that both right and left wing news sites are developed in order to trigger anger, and you guessed it, play on your emotions, to make you believe something that you might normally question. Anger gets people fired up, and makes them more passionate about things they believe to be true. This is post-truth, and is a strong example to its relationship to ethos, pathos, and logos. This touches a little about social media, and politics, but I will be discussing this further in my next post. However, our reaction to post-truth news isn’t necessarily our fault , a 2017 CNN study that scanned participants brains as they discussed politics showed that our brain has a natural reaction to certain aspects of political conversations. The study found that, “when the participants were presented with evidence that challenged the political statements they agreed with, increased activity occurred in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex and decreased activity in the orbitofrontal cortex. The dorsomedial prefrontal cortex is associated with emotion regulation and the orbitofrontal cortex with cognitive flexibility”. (Howard, 2017). This explains the science behind appeals to emotion and how it affects your political beliefs and stances. 

However, pathos is not the only of the three effected by post-truth. Logos and ethos are also thrown into that mix, but in a different way. Ethos, the appeal to credibility is damaged, because many times people are using, I hate to say it but, “fake” news outlets to spread stories that make them angry and get them fired up, even if the facts aren’t necessarily all there. Logos, the appeal to logic also goes out the window when it comes to emotions. I will touch on this more in a later post, but people tend to forget what they believe in, and what they know is right when other factors, such as strong emotions, come into play.

[baddyxangel]

Scott is the flattest series regular in Teen Wolf. Teen Wolf dropped the ball with Scott. He’s surrounded by characters with amazing depth and character growth. He is the main character of the show and yet he’s the one everybody dislikes. I don’t dislike Scott. I don’t mind Scott, actually. He’s a good character, just like most characters in the show. But, I don’t love him. Same goes for a lot of people, as well. For a character we’re supposed to like, he’s not really that likable. In the beginning of the show, Scott started off as a bit of a naive, not the sharpest tool in the shed kid. But, I liked him anyways. His stupidity was funny to me and that gave him a bit of charm, weirdly enough. Then, seasons later, he becomes super mature. He develops a hero complex and has this thing against killing no matter what. He definitely took a turn for the worse throughout what you’d call character development. Scott became a flat character.

There was this old trend in literature about making the protagonist what you call an, ‘Epic Hero’. Basically, it’s a perfect hero. And Scott is by no means a perfect hero, but the show-writers gave a half-assed attempt to make him this God-like figure who could do no evil, who’s never selfish and always selfless, and who saves everyone because he loves everyone and tries to protect his friends no matter who’s bad or good. The thing is, we don’t like perfect heroes. Do you think an average person will look at Scott McCallHimPerfect and say, “he wants to save everyone. My god he’s just like me. He believes in good and evil. Damn I love him, just like me.” Nobody says that because Scott is not relatable in the slightest. He doesn’t have a personality other than, girls. Save people. Allison pretty wanna marry. Must not kill kill equal bad.

Do we even know anything about Scott? It might be just me, because I haven’t seen the show in a while. But what interests does Scott have? Because I don’t think we know the slightest about his hobbies and interests other than he plays lacrosse and likes to save people I guess. Do we ever see why he went to UC Davis? What does he want to be when he’s older? So yeah. Not only do we know next to nothing about what his personality and life is like outside of the supernatural, but he also acts all high and mighty. Bad combo.

One of the most annoying Scott moments—for many people—was when he yelled at Stiles for ‘killing’ Donovan without even listening to him. He took the word of Theo, some dude he barely knew, over his best friend. So, he was flipping his shit about Stiles killing someone because as he says it, “we don’t kill.” Despite the fact that almost all of the pack members and their allies have killed before. Scott develops this viewpoint on life throughout the series. He takes on this black and white view on life, thinking that if there’s someone against the pack, they’re a villain. They’re bad. But, if they’re an ally, they’re good. He doesn’t take into consideration that people are morally grey. He doesn’t recognize that the world isn’t black and white. There’s no such thing as good and evil. We’re all just...people. Scott never gets this fixed. He doesn’t make room for the thought that people who kill aren’t always evil. I feel bad for Stiles, because yeah, maybe Stiles could’ve explained what happened better, but the fact that his best friend wouldn’t give him a pass for self-defense is sad. Malia killed when she was eight and he never seemed to care. Kira killed that one guy when she revealed herself as a Kitsune and he she got a pass. Derek has killed many people and he doesn’t care. But the second Stiles kills someone, it’s suddenly an issue to Scott. Hypocritical, much?

In addition to all this, Scott’s also not the selfless hero everyone makes him out to be. He’s actually rather selfish and he’s proven this time and time again. Scott ditched Stiles time and time again to save Allison or someone else who never needed his help. He was also more than willing to throw Derek under the bus and blame him for some murders. I can’t remember any more times he’s done this, but let me know if you remember other examples.

I wish that he was more like his season one self. He went from 0-100 real fast in terms of ‘maturity’ and I found that annoying. His stupider self was more charming and was more interesting. Scott was struggling with dealing with his transformation and I wish this lasted for more than one season. It would’ve made him a much better character. And I do like Scott. I know it doesn’t sound like it, but I like Scott and most of the other characters. He has his moments. Some good moments, some times I really do like Scott. But I wish he wasn’t so flat. I wish we knew a little more about him. The hero complex is an old, overused cliché and I was Scott was....y’know....more relatable.

Here seems as good a place as any to say it, so...the true alpha thing is BULLSHIT and it completely ruined Scott's character. One of my all-time favorite Scott moments was in 3a when he threatened Gerard, saying that if Gerard lied about Deucalion and people got hurt because of it, he'd come back and kill him. And almost immediately after that Scott becomes a true alpha and is like "Oh, wait... nevermind, then." Stiles should have at least said something like "Dude, Donovan was trying to kill ME," but all he ever says is "He was gonna kill my dad," which is not at all the reason why he killed Donovan. Not to mention that he didn’t even deliberately kill Donovan, it was a complete accident. The writers did that whole, ‘he was gonna kill my dad’ thing on purpose. If I was Stiles, I’d say, “seriously, Scott? That psycho was literally trying to kill me! And I didn’t even kill him! He fell and impaled himself!” The thing about his dad was to create more of a divide. But leaving out that Donovan was legitimately trying to kill Stiles is even more annoying to me because it leaves them room for Scott to be like "I know the difference between murder and self-defense," later on when they reconcile. If Stiles says it outright then Scott looks like too much of a dick for not taking that into account. But all of that only still makes sense if you've forgotten that Theo specifically said that Donovan went after Stiles when he lies to Scott about how it happened. So, it's already been (at the very least) implied to Scott that it was a self-defense situation (that got out of hand, according to Theo), but because Stiles doesn't specify that it leaves some (less than plausible, but okay) room for Scott to backtrack and be all "Well, I didn't know THAT. THAT changes everything." That's why that "lie of omission" bugs me so much. Stiles was not obligated to share his trauma with Scott if he didn’t want to. And Scott’s neither Stiles’ alpha, father, nor authority figure, so he doesn’t get to judge/condemn Stiles or demand an explanation from him. Not to mention that Scott is the very same hypocritical scumbag who threw a temper tantrum when Derek didn’t let him assassinate Peter like Scott WANTED and DEMANDED in Season 1, tried but failed to assassinate Gerard because ”He threatened to hurt my mom! I had no choice!” in Season 2, and conspired with the likes of Deucalion to assassinate Josh and Tracy in Season 5. Scott committing premeditated attempted murder for his own benefit and using Derek as his own personal murder weapon is good, but Stiles accidentally killing Donovan in self-defense to protect himself and his father is wrong and Stiles is a monster?! Lmfao sure, Scott! Scott McCall is a true something alright. A true hypocrite Stiles didn't because he was in a self destructive spiral. He didn't think he deserved to be forgiven and he thought he should lose Scott. The Dread doctors were constantly reinforcing his negative thoughts about himself through Theo and his own hallucinations because that was his greatest fault and source of his trauma

in the beginning scott was more than willing to kill to get what he wanted (for example when he was gonna kill peter since he thought that would cure him), which was always funny to me idk. i do love scott though especially the first 2 seasons scott since he changes after that, but he’s not the strongest character in the series and they should’ve done the whole ‘true alpha’ stuff differently imo

Scott McCall is literally the blandest, flattest, weakest, most useless fictional character ever. He’s just a badly written and portrayed Gary Stu and a judgmental bigot with abusive tendencies and no character development. Scott became a “True Alpha” due to his canonically nonexistent strength of character, virtue, moral superiority, and force of will, he’s never held accountable for his abusive actions and behavior, and the only time people dump his toxic ass it’s either not his fault or they are being wrong, psychotic, and unreasonable. Scott is such a Gary Stu it’s like a 12 year old on an ego trip wrote him. Scott yelled at Stiles, played judge, jury and executioner with Stiles, and accused Stiles of being a violent, unstable, dangerous, inhuman monster and a serial killer for choosing not to share his own trauma with Scott and for daring to accidentally kill Donovan in self-defense in Season 5; and yet Scott’s the one who threw a temper tantrum when Derek Hale didn’t let him assassinate Peter Hale in Season 1, conspired with Gerard Argent behind everyone’s back and used Derek as his murder weapon because “He threatened to hurt my mom! I had no choice!” in Season 2, lied to Kira about her fox to control her in Season 5A, plotted/conspired with Deucalion to assassinate innocent chimera victims Josh and Tracy in Season 5B, played up an injury that had long healed just to convince his friends to help him and not abandon him again in Season 5B, and wanted to sacrifice Tierney and Jiang to a mob boss to save his own ass in Season 6. There are 100 episodes suggesting that Scott is more than comfortable with killing someone, with lying, and with engaging in violent actions (premeditated murder) to protect himself and his mom despite all his big “killing is bad and wrong” speeches. Scott McCall is a true something alright. A True Hypocritical Asshole and Toxic Friend I remember this one time where Isaac told Scott he liked Allison and wanted to kiss her and Scott just threw him against the wall for having the internal thought to kiss her. He didn’t even do anything!! Plus, when your friend, who’s a survivor of abuse, advises you to hit him, you don’t actually do it!

And I love how Scott gave absolutely no sign of being gay, he’s even said numerous times he likes girls. Take those numerous denies over Stiles’ silence when asked about liking boys. Sceo is the worst ship I’ve ever come across of. The only ships regarding Theo that make sense to me are Thiam (Liam x Theo) and Steo (Stiles x Theo). The others, however, are total crackships. The fact that Theo didn’t show any care or remorse after he killed Scott proves it. And, they barely have any interactions after season five and the times they do, Scott is advocating Theo being sent back to prison. How is that shippable material?

”I’ve heard a lot of the defense of Scott McCall SWAT team, and I’ve heard a lot of them are hypocritical and mean. You can’t pull the race card because we don’t like a character. Scott is just bland, it’s got nothing to do with racism” You took the words right out of my mouth. Scott Stans pull out the “Scott McCall is a poor oppressed Mexican brown boy leader protagonist” every time Teen Wolf fans criticize Scott’s canonical abusive actions and behavior. They also claim that pointing out that Scott was unhealthily obsessed with Allison is racist, even though anyone who watched the actual show knows that Scott is canonically unhealthily obsessed with Allison – so much that he abuses Isaac out of sheer jealousy and hallucinates Allison making out with Jackson TWICE Exactly! Especially because he shoved Isaac into a wall just for thinking about Allison, AND SCOTT AND HER WERE BROKEN UP. He is super possessive of her to the point where he is interfering in Allison’s love life when they weren’t even together. I know there’s a bro-code, but Isaac didn’t even do anything. All he did was think about kissing her and he got thrown into a wall. And yeah, the Tumblr post said Stiles was obsessed with Lydia and nobody calls it out. Stiles was obsessed, but at least he didn’t react poorly when Lydia moved onto another boy. Scott McCall being a toxic friend and an even shittier character is not a Latino thing. It’s a Scott McCall thing

[terrible-tentacle-theatre]

The Bestiary Revamped: Bobbit Worm

Disclaimer: While this article is founded in scientific fact, it contains hyberbole and conscious exaggerations for the sake of comedy. Do not take my ramblings at face value. You can find the sources at the end of the article and tools for scientific fact-checking under the “Learn more” link on my blog.

The old article can be read here.

(Note: While writing this article, I was listening to the Final Fantasy IV boss battle theme.)

(Okay, so. Anyway.)

Of all the phyla of animal life, you’d be hard-pressed to find any that is more prominent in the public conscious as the epitome of harmless, pathetic, and ultimately boring animals than annelids.

I mean, what else, would you call a taxon that’s most famous member looks like this?

Wow. Fascinating.

Let’s be honest: earthworms aren’t the most exciting animals, to put it mildly.  It’s truly difficult to imagine any more generic a creature than a tube of pasty and easily smearable flesh writhing on wet pavement after a light rain.

However, you might want to be careful when talking trash about earthworms and their fellow annelids. These pathetic all-organic homegrown noodles are essential to the circle of matter, and if they get fed up with your disrespectful shit they can just up and ditch the whole detritivorous routine, leaving you, and you personally, to literally eat dirt in their place. Be respectful to earthworms because they deal with all of the shit you don’t want to deal with, both metaphorically and in a literal sense.

But if that isn’t enough to convince you that you shouldn’t diss earthworms (in which case you’re probably an asshole to begin with), consider the following: if they can’t take more of your racist bull, they can tell on you to their big strong cousin. And pray to whatever transcendent being(s) you believe in that doesn’t happen. You do not want that to go down.

Why?

Simple.

Turns out, the ranks of the annelids apparently include the fucking Sarlacc.

*unholy screaming*

Meet the bobbit worm (Eunice aphroditois), the newest resident of your recurring nightmares. Who knew that the cousin of the lowly earthworm is a vicious mashup of one of those bendy rainbow pencils and Shai-Hulud that also happens to eat happy thoughts for breakfast? Standing at a maximum length of roughly three goddamn meters, this lethal length of rope will shear anything with the balls and/or the stupidity to approach it in half and look fabulous with its iridescent cuticle the whole time. That is no exaggeration, as you will soon come to see.

This terrible killer rainbow was discovered in 1788 by a German naturalist called Peter Simon Pallas. Imagine hopping on a boat in the late 18th century, in a time when most people still believed in the existence of a good and loving God, and finding this. Imagine his reaction.

Actually, you don’t have to, because we have his portrait and you can see his empty-eyed stare shining through. “Scarred for life” doesn’t even begin covering this bullshit.

Seriously, look into his eyes. Dude’s dead inside.

Sweet lord have mercy. This guy is the real reason why you don’t talk shit about annelids. You can boast about being  “the most intelligent creature on Earth”  and “the crown of creation” and blah blah blah. Fat load of good it’s gonna do ya against a 10-feet-long rainbow death worm with spring-loaded jagged mandibles quite literally the size of your middle fingers.

Crown this.

And guess what - that worm is fucking pissed at you. You talked trash about its phylum and now you’ll get what’s coming to you. Next time you’ll think twice before you try talking down on annelids.

To better put in perspective why you should soil your pants in fear at this prospect, let’s review the bobbit worm’s life and times, as well as its lovely feeding habits.

Oh boy!

This will be fun.

So, the bobbit worm basically comes to be from the worm jizz and eggs floating around in the ocean. (Keep that in mind next time you go for a nice refreshing swim on the ocean beach.) The fertilized eggs hatch into microscopic little specks called trochophore larvae, which then drift around in the oceanic currents as plankton like a bunch of lazy shits. Fairly humble beginnings for what will soon become the beast that is the bobbit worm. It’s a bit like how Darth Vader used to be a slave on a backwater desert planet as a kid.

Note: this isn’t a bobbit worm trochophore, but that of another polychaete worm (Pomatoceros lamarckii), used here for demonstration. Anyway, they’re difficult to tell apart but one hatches into a harmless tube-building worm and the other a ravenous ten-feet-long predator with a pair of garden shears for a face. Polychaete larvae are like Kinder eggs, Russian roulette edition.

After growing out of its larval stage, a whole lot of completely uninteresting shit happens (mostly the gaining of additional segments), ending with a small mature worm that embeds itself into the seabed in a sufficiently warm and sunny part of the ocean.

What follows next is something right out of Return of the Jedi. What, you thought I was kidding about the Sarlacc?

The bobbit worm spends all day laying low in the seabed, waiting silently, with only the tip of its head sticking out of the sediment. Said head comes equipped with five chemoreceptory tendrils, allowing the worm to “taste” the water around itself. This comes in handy, seeing as it is completely fucking blind and the thought of growing eyes never even crossed it’s mind (which is actually fairly complex for an annelid). It’s like one of those blind sword masters from wuxia movies, except it’s a terrifying giant worm instead.

Aaaaaanyway! If the worm senses anything that “smells” edible, it correctly deduces that it is, in fact, edible. Which logically means that something was stupid enough to approach it without hightailing it out there. Therefore, it becomes a one-worm Darwin Award Committee and does this.

Steppin’ on the beach, do do do doOOOAAAAAARGH

You know, the longer this article gets, the less it feels like this is biology and the more it feels like I’m writing some sort of weird Dune fanfiction.

I feel like I should note that the bobbit worm’s definition of “edible” is amazingly flexible. This fucker will eat anything that comes close to it’s terrifying maw. Crabs, shrimp, fish, worms - anything with or without a pulse is at risk of suddenly being snatched by a horrifying giant worm and swallowed alive to be digested into slurry. If you’re lucky, though, it will miss and only ends up cutting you in half with the sheer force of its strike, completely by accident. Sweet dreams.

Speaking of its digestion, there is absolutely nothing that it cannot break down. It has zero problems wolfing down entire animals twice its width, and one incident involving a bobbit worm sneaking into an aquarium had it shred wire traps furnished with fishing hooks to pieces, then swallowing the hooks and digesting them, followed by eating its way through 20 pounds of fishing wire. I’m pretty sure the next thing to be broken down in its gut will be human civilization. 

And if there’s nothing around to eat, the bobbit worm still firmly refuses to die. It will sustain itself just fine on detritus, algae and tiny little silica-shelled plankton called diatoms who are easily some of the prettiest things in the ocean.

It eats pure aesthetic and turns it into rainbow cuticle and mandibles that can shred any fish to ribbons. The bobbit worm is truly the pastel goth of the ocean.

They also have a nasty habit of occasionally burrowing into rocks when young, and ending up in aquariums in secret. There, being the insidious little assholes that they are, they bury themselves into the sediment and secretly start to munch upon the dumbass utopian fish society inside the aquarium, growing from angry shoelace to technicolor abomination in the process. Often it takes years to notice the bobbit worm hanging out in your aquarium, which is a pretty big feat. Imagine if you had to stay concealed in an glass-walled aquarium for years... while being three to ten feet long and covered in garish rainbow color. This guy could effortlessly drive Naruto out of the colorful ninja business. Enjoy your paranoia next time you buy live rocks for your aquarium.

In D&D, the bobbit worm multiclasses as assassin and barbarian.

Now I hope you understand that being a fish is akin to cosmic horror. Any moment you might be cruelly snatched out of existence by a being that is outside your generally accepted reality (the water) and also happens to be shit-your-pants terrifying and even have tentacles to round out the Lovecraft aesthetic. And they are covered in bristles that cause permanent numbness, just by the way. Just in case they weren’t horrifying enough, Mama Nature’s got you covered.

Oh, and one last thing: they are found in all three oceans.

So anyway, how’s planning that seaside vacation going? Have fun!

Sources:

Encyclopedia of Life (EoL)

Echinoblog

Global Biotic Interactions (GloBI)

Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS)

SCHULZE, Anja. The Bobbit worm dilemma: a case for DNA (Reply to Salazar-Vallejo et al. 2011. Giant Eunicid Polychaetes (Annelida) in shallow tropical and temperate seas. Rev. Biol. Trop. 59-4: 1463-1474)

The Daily Mail

[sonfaro]

@you-me-and-the-force-between-us Thank you for your rebuttal.  My response will be similarly long, and tumblr is being annoying so I’m switching to a new thread.

“Normal behavior isn’t always guaranteed by everyone. That’s life. Of course there are always going to be outliers of people who don’t think as they should. But they’re small compared to the number of people who CAN make these differences, so making comparisons like these are not only hurtful, but useless. It doesn’t matter WHAT language you use, somewhere out there–is going to fan over a serial killer or want to become one, because it’s not about language, it’s about personal experiences.” It DOES matter to those who are left behind.  To those who’s people are routinely NOT treated in this way.  Infantilizing dangerous white men at any level of media sets a tone.  To see that kind of behavior follow into fiction and NOBODY have a problem with it is beyond bizarre to me.  I’ve had friends locked up for far less who never got treated like the children they were, so forgive me if I’m a little sensitive to the subject. “People who sympathisize with these types of people are either going through some sort of fucked up, I’m edgy 100%, phase that they’ll grow out of or have some serious mental instabilities. It isn’t the media’s job to walk on egg shells with language,“ It’s the media’s job to present the truth with no spin.  When they do things like this, it absolutely poisons the well.  There’s no one to blame for his crimes but the monster, but there are people to blame for how that monster is viewed by the masses. “This other rhetoric about what’s being said and how it compares to fiction–it’s bullshit. And let’s be honest here for a second–just honestly speaking–looking through OP’s page you can very damn well tell this post isn’t done with good intentions in mind; it’s a clear attack on a group of people under the facet of being a good citizen who truly cares. Which also pisses me off.“ In what way?  I’ve literally seen someone claim that Kylo is ‘young’ and ‘doesn’t know any better’. That sort of language does exist amongst the fandom. “(I’ve seen people call others abelist for using the word crazy on this hellsite, but idc either way) “ You’re sympathizing with the villain is all.  Which is fine, “ Clearly it isn’t??? Because that’s OP’s point. That’s what OP has a problem with, saying that we’re like criminal sympathizers because we sympathize with a villain–so YES I agree, I’m JUST sympathizing with a villain IS ALL, nothing more. That’s the point.“ OP’s point is about the language being used: the infantilizing and woobifying.  I can sympathize with Erik Killmonger, but know he’s a grown man and his end in Black Panther is justified.  I’m not going to say “He’s basically a teenager lashing out” or nonsense like that - which IS a thing that Kylo stans have said. “ALSO JUST SO EVERYONE’S AWARE. This ISN’T the media saying this.“ Matt O’Donnell, listed below the lawyer in OP’s post, is a reporter.  He lists the killer’s status as an orphan (with no reason), his young age (with no reason), and suggests he had a ‘troubled’ background.  These are softening social cues. And the media doesn’t have to make these quotes the headline.  It is they who present these quotes as a worthy title for an article. “Darth Vader is one of THEE most popular villains of all time, and most people ADORE baby-fying him.” Not canon Darth Vader they don’t.  If you want an Alt universe Kylo (like Emo Kylo Ren) it’s whatever.  That's a separate idea. “He was Kylo BEFORE KYLO EXISTED–he’s WORSE than Kylo–so where’s all the hate there?“ I disagree.  Vader was a tool for the Emperor.  Kylo IS the Emperor now.  And the hate is largely gone because in canon Vader died sacrificing himself for the hero.  “Why isn’t the majority of the world turned into serial killer supporters by now?  A. The majority of the world isn’t into star wars.  We’re a big fandom, but the world is bigger B. and the majority of Vader’s fans don’t try to justify his actions.  He’s liked because he makes a great foil for our heroes. Why isn’t OP making a comparison to Darth Vader and attacking his fans? Again, Vader’s fans generally don’t make excuses for his actions. Because OP has an agenda to attack Reylos and make them seem like horrible people, because that’s just the way the shit rolls on Tumblr nowadays.  Agreed, he definitely does. “[...]Committing a crime due to violent media, is far less easy to prove, and there has been no direct connection thus far.“ Right, but your post flat said “It isn’t true”, and that has not yet been determined.  Hence my post. “All of these still prove my point–media alone does NOT transform you into a violent person UNLESS you already have a predisposition to being violent (like a history of abuse or a mental illness etc). It ISN’T true until you have enough statistics that back up your claim, and this doesn’t. What’s unhelpful, is not being well researched in a matter and making blatant claims. “ But I didn’t make a blatant claim about video games.  I literally said the jury was still out.  In response to you flat saying it wasn’t true.  -_- “The media compares Hux and FO to Nazism because there’s a legitimate comparison to make (I know some SW fans disagree with me, but there is blatant Nazism parallels imo), because that was done PURPOSEFULLY. They took one evil regime irl and were inspired by it to create a fictional one of it. Every writer and design EVER takes inspiration form real life things to create something, eve villains. But let’s give an example here of a rational comparison and a shitty one:- Hux is like a Nazi (this can be confirmed by the imagery in SW, and background information, etc)  - Hux is like a Nazi and therefore if you like Hux you like the Nazi party and therefore you’re a Nazi apologist. Hux is a Nazi and you’re a Nazi apologist.“ This is a bit of a straw man.  You’d only be a Nazi apologist if you thought Hux’s POV were correct.  Once more, liking a villain is fine - liking them to the point where your sympathy leads you to defend their views and actions is another thing entirely. “Saying that someone who likes Hux or the FO is like someone who might have agreed/sympathized with the deaths of millions of people is a HORRIBLE, inaccurate comparison to make (also Hux is LIKE a Nazi and Hux IS a Nazi are two different things, “ Again, that’s not what’s happening here.  OP is talking about a specific action (how shippers talk about Kylo). Not liking the character in general. “And if you’re going to make the point that forcing yourself into someone’s mind is akin to rape, and therefore Kylo’s a rapist (and therefore Reylos are rape apologists–no lie i hear this shit WAY TOO much) then guess what?Obi-Wan is a rapist.Vader is a rapist.LUKE is a rapist.”  I mean Vader definitely attempted to force himself into his daughters mind in ANH.  Dude was the villain.  The jedi mindtrick is more deception than anything else - morally suspect but not a painful violation unless there are more than one person doing it at the same time.  Which is the actual term Pablo Hidalgo prefers for what Kylo does to Rey in that scene - a violation. “She (or he idk and idc tbh) is basically insinuating that Kylo Ren sympathizers cause school shooters sympathizers.“ Or vice versa, that the media and how damaged white monsters are portrayed is the reason Reylo’s see Kylo as sympathetic.  Which was what OP’s excuse was IIRC.  Personally I think the fault for both lies more with societies internal preference for white dudes, but that’s my take. “//Also–just for future notice–I don’t suggest ever using a Buzzfeed article to support your claim because your credibility will go right out the window. Buzzfeed is a pandering shitfest that is really written more by biased bloggers than actual reporters. I suggest using articles without bias and an actual good writing team and reputation.//“ I mean at this point that’s every news organization ever - least in America as far as I can tell.  You can barely open a paper or watch the news without someone's opinion’s being clear.  And it’s hardly the only article: https://www.salon.com/2016/01/12/we_need_to_talk_about_ben_kylo_ren_star_wars_and_the_media_narrative_of_the_mentally_ill_school_shooter/ https://www.theverge.com/2016/1/1/10698090/emo-kylo-ren-star-wars-parody-twitter http://www.forcematerial.com/home/2017/11/5/we-need-to-talk-about-kylo https://geekmom.com/2016/01/trying-not-to-raise-kylo-ren/ Kylo being compared to real world evil isn’t new.  Shoot, there’s a bunch that link Kylo to the alt-right as well.  Double shoot, Adam Driver himself straight compared him to terrorists.  Kylo gets compared to lots of real world evil people.  It’s going to happen. “Yup that’s definitely what happened. It wasn’t like he literally saw Luke about to kill him in his sleep“ No, he LITERALLY saw Luke post realization that he was in the wrong but still holding his lightsaber (like an idiot) and jumped to the conclusion his uncle was going to attack him.  Luke’s behavior (which is a character assassination if I’ve ever seen one, but that’s an argument for another time) also happens only after peering into Ben’s mind and seeing nothing but evil.  Ben then definitely attacks his uncle after that - from his point of view in self defence, sure - but from the overhead view an unnecessarily. “Oh no–wait, I was wrong:“ ...the article LITERALLY lists him murdering the kids.  -_- “Oh so I guess it’s like I said before–people PICK AND CHOOSE their biases!! There is a UNMISTAKABLE comparison between Vader and Kylo FOR A REASON–the two ARE very much alike. But Kylo is a shooter and Vader’s tragic and grand?? GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE WITH THIS BULLSHIT.“ Uh, yeah.  Vaders complete arc requires six movies at two hours at least each to tell.  It’s pretty grand (lofty, big, etc).  His heel turn alone is a culmination of three whole films.  Also, the article presents Kylo as tragic as well, with Drivers portrayal being described as:  “a mixture of pain and hurt so raw it threatens to rend the fabric of the series every time he's on screen“.  Did you actually read it? “really made me want to pluck my eyes out. Holy hell my dude, why did you use this as a reference when it’s so clearly just—bad?? I think I lost five years of my life.“ Because it’s another example of Kylo being compared to the evil that is a school shooter.  Again, it’s not the only time, and it’s not the only horrible evil he’s compared to.  OP was insensitive about it though, given recent events. “And I want to make this clear–I don’t give a single FUCK if you don’t like Kylo Ren. That your opinion.“ I like his character a lot actually.  I think he makes an excellent, compelling villain based on Adam Driver’s work.  My issue is people attempting to pretend he isn’t one, or that his past trauma absolves him of ANYTHING he’s chosen to do, or that anyone owes him anything at this point, or pretending that this 30 year old man’s childishness can be justified at all.  My bigger concern is that sort of thing happens in the real world for folks just like Kylo and that the two often sound exactly the same. “ I CARE when you bring real people into stupid fictional shit and say “You’re the reason why this is happening. It’s YOUR fault things are this way” I don’t think that was OP’s point at all.  Least as far as he’s said. “ESPECIALLY when fiction is used right after a real tragedy like this. “ THAT I can agree with.  Dude was insensitive. “ It’s disgusting to be compared on ANY level with someone who might do something like this–and again–it isn’t true. “ No one compared you guys to the shooter.  How you TALK about the villain was compared. “ Read up on mental illness, debate gun control, read up on what actually causes school shooters to occur, look up psychological studies of BOTH sides, not just what Buzzfeed says–they aren’t accredited to make those calls in any way.“ The article I listed didn’t list the causes of school shooting at all.  Did you just skim it? “STOP accepting this shit behavior my dude. It ISN’T OK or educated AT ALL. It’s downright stupid.“ The behavior I don’t accept.  The point - that dangerous young white men are coddled both in and out of fiction - is all too true though.

[acoolguyscoollife]

Chapter 26: This is Complete Bullshit

“Bullshit.” I felt I had to recall what I had said to Tabitha the first time she had told me about what she had created, and as I looked around at the rest of the group, it was all but confirmed that the rest of them agreed with me.

“Hey, don’t shoot the messenger. I’m only telling you what the prophets told me.” The elder said nonchalantly, and Amy stepped forward angrily, Aki grabbing onto her shoulder to hold them back.

“This is our lives we’re talking about here! The least you could do is pretend that you give a shit!” Amy yelled at him, but he didn’t flinch. In fact, he didn’t seem surprised or even phased by our reactions. It was almost as if he expected it, which honestly, considering the subject, wasn’t surprising.

“I’ve had thirty years since the prophecies were created to mourn what I knew was coming. And, as I stated, nothing is set in stone. You could very easily choose not to be the heroes.” He said, basically ignoring us as he turned back around.

“It’s just… ridiculous though.” I replied, and he raised an eyebrow at me. Or at least, I think he did. It was kind of hard to tell. “You’re telling me that you have people who have mastery over Chaos Theory?” Aki glanced over to Amy, who was still angrily glaring at the elder.

“What’s that?” Aki asked, and Amy responded before I could.

“Basically, it’s a theory that somewhere, there exists an equation, and if you can work that out, you can predict the future. There’s more to it than that, but that’s the gist as far as I remember.” She explained, giving a strangely scientific response that I would have expected from Tabitha, but not her. She must have been able to tell that I was looking at her funny through the shades, because she spoke to me next. “What? I played the same game you did that you learned that from.” Crap. Now I looked way less smart.

“Chaos Theory is an interesting hypothesis, but you’re still talking about terms that fall exclusively in your universe. No matter how much your best scientists could predict their own futures, they would be unable to predict alternate realities and the effects they would have.” The elder smirked, clearly pleased with himself, before continuing. “While what we have falls to prediction and nothing more, the possible futures are slim. All roads lead to Rome, and whatnot.”

“Am I the only one not getting… any of this?” Seth asked from the side of the group. He was still shirtless, with the jacket he had been wearing unzipped and leaving him exposed to the cool air.

“I don’t think I am, either.” Aki almost whispered, but attention was back on Seth, with Tabitha clearly remembering what she had been doing before the elder had arrived. Either that, or it was an excuse not to think about the grim things we had been told about. Glancing between everyone, I was pretty sure that was what we were all doing, despite how much more sense it would have made to address it.

“Ow, jeez Tabitha, gentle!” Seth complained as Tabitha set on him with even more fervour, poking and prodding at him with tools I could see her heating with her fingers. Her magic reminded me of the dagger I’d been given, and I took the chance to look at it again. “Why are you even trying to get rid of this thing, anyway? I feel great!” The blade seemed to have engravings, which, while they looked pretty cool, would offer no tactical advantage whatsoever. Well, unless they were parts of the conduits for energy. I wasn’t exactly sure how to test out the more… energised feeling I had with this blade strapped to my thigh, and I made a mental note to ask Tabitha if she could figure out a way I could do that.

“You heard him, these things aren’t going to last very long, and if it’s me that causes that to happen, I may as well figure that out now.” Tabitha replied, through gritted teeth. There was something different about the way she was acting, and I wanted to try and comfort her, but I couldn’t figure out what to comfort her about. Luckily, while I wasn’t that great with this sort of thing, I could see that Seth was, at the very least, able to distract her.

“I know, but you could have at least bought me dinner before – ow – poking at me with various things. I’m more than just my chest, you know.” Tabitha’s movements slowed down, with her eventually stopping, expression unable to be seen by anyone apart from Seth. The elder seemed to be largely ignoring us now, most likely because he knew we were going to be ignoring him. Amy was looking over at Tabitha with a slight hint of worry, and at this point, I was sorta feeling that too.

“Should we… go?” Rose asked me, most likely asking about giving everyone else some space, but she made me realise what actually had to be done. I looked back at her to give her a nod, before moving to Tabitha and taking a look at her watch. She didn’t even object as I tried to figure out how it worked, eventually deciding to go for the emergency exit button. Before I pressed, I motioned for everyone else to move in close, since I still wasn’t quite sure how it worked and the last thing I needed was someone to lose their legs or arms. As we all moved in close, Aki turned around and cleared her throat, causing the elder to look at her.

“Guess what, furball? You might think you’ve got all the future stuff figured out, but we’re the heroes of this story. So if you’re expecting to give us cryptic metaphors and then expect us to help you…” She said, surprising me, and probably everyone else. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen her this serious. “…Then tough luck, because this gravy train is leaving the station.” And now everything made sense again. I didn’t wait for a response, pressing the button quickly. Within seconds, we were back in the lab, quickly noticing the difference in temperature and atmosphere. The low hum of the jungle was now replaced by another low hum, this time of technology that I would most likely never understand.

“Tab’, you okay?” Seth asked her, and she finally looked up. Now I could see her face, her feelings were slowly becoming clearer. She was despondent. We had just been told about our seemingly-grisly future, and, from what I had gathered, we had no leads to finding Uchen. But when she spoke, none of that came out.

“I just… don’t understand.” Tabitha began, voice slightly shaky in one of the only shows of emotion I’d ever really seen her give that wasn’t anger. “I could justify the magic, because it makes sense, right? It’s different energy reacting with our bodies in a way that allows us to utilise it like magic in fantasy.” She found her way to her desk, sitting in her chair roughly. “But soothsaying? How can I even pretend that that makes sense scientifically?” I opened my mouth to speak. “And I swear to god, if any of you say Chaos Theory, I’m going to blow up this whole building.” I closed my mouth again.

“Well, maybe it just… doesn’t, you know?” Seth offered, moving over to her desk and leaning against it. “Let’s face it, we don’t know everything in the world, right? Maybe shit’s just that confusing.” Tabitha looked up at him, giving him a slight smile, but behind it was clearly a lot of conflicting feelings.

“Or, maybe it’s even simpler than that.” Amy added, also moving over to her. I wasn’t sure why everyone was moving, we weren’t that far from her either way, but I felt like bringing that up might kill the flow of everyone’s brainstorming session. “So, we know that in these other worlds, things like magic and the like are just intrinsic parts of their universes, right?” She began, and I had a feeling that I’d have to listen carefully to make sure I didn’t end up not understanding something again. “Well, what if seeing the future is just a part of that universe, so while it may not make sense to us, it’s just a normal thing to them?”

“That’s simpler to you?” Seth asked, but his complaining was ignored by everyone in the room as Tabitha turned her smiling to Amy.

“I mean, I suppose it does. I just get in my head sometimes. Everything needs to make sense, you know?” Tabitha said, explaining what had really been going on in her head. For once, I finally felt like I could step in and add to the conversation.

“Well, think of it this way.” I began, using a convenient pause in talking to move closer to the rest of them. “Whether we can figure it out or not, these things do exist in the universe. It’s impossible for something that doesn’t make sense in some way to exist, it’s just that we don’t understand it yet. Like people’s emotions, or Inception.” I offered to Tabitha, who nodded along with everything I said.

“Hey, is that the one with Leonardo DiCaprio?” Aki asked from behind me, and everyone craned their necks to look at her. Aki and Rose were the only people left standing back at where we had come in, and Rose was frowning slightly at us. However, there were more pressing concerns.

“Okay, how in the hell do you know that?” Tabitha asked. “I thought you guys didn’t have any media down where you lived?”

“We didn’t have movies or TV. But I read a lot of magazines, and the novelization.” Aki explained, glancing between us. “The book makes it clearer that it stops spinning, by the way.”

“Aw, I hadn’t seen it yet.” Seth said under his breath.

“You’re really not missing much. Shutter Island was much better.” I said back to him, recalling when I’d been forced to watch it in a media class.

“Honestly, I thought The Great Gatsby was pretty good myself. Great music, too.” Amy said, continuing the same tone of voice that Seth had started in even though there wasn’t much point anymore.

“All of you are completely wrong. Titanic will always be his greatest film he ever did.” Tabitha interjected in a normal voice. “Wait holy shit, CG, is your real name Jack?” She added excitedly, motioning towards Rose, who was still stood there thin-lipped.

“I don’t even want to dignify that with a response.” I said, standing up straight. “I assume you’re feeling better now, then?” Tabitha nodded quickly, before talking again.

“You didn’t say no though, and I really want that to be true because that would just be perfect!” It was clear she wasn’t gonna let it go. However, I thankfully didn’t need to say anything, since Rose finally decided to add to the discussion.

“Nah, that’s not his name.” She said, leaning against a random other desk that I’d not seen anyone use since we came in.

“Wait, you know his name?” Aki said, her turn to be excited now. “Tell us!” Rose chuckled slightly, hopping onto the desk instead of leaning.

“Well, his real name actually is Cool Guy. Had it changed and everything, you know. He does also have a… well, normal name, for want of a better term. But that’s not really my place to say anything about it.” Rose was clearly having fun with this, now grinning from ear-to-ear. “But, for the right price, maybe I’ll tell you.” Immediately, I could feel everyone become interested.

“What do you want? I’ll give you my first-born!” Seth said quickly. A little too quickly, when it comes to promising children. Maybe he had a history.

“I was thinking about finding out something worthy of telling this secret. A soul for a soul, as it were.” Rose grinned evilly, and I knew I was powerless to do anything. “So what secrets do you guys have?” For a moment, no one said anything, and I thought that I was safe.

“I once licked someone’s nose for £200!” Seth said, and I knew it was only going to get weirder from there as Rose shook her head.

“I act smart but get most of my actual stuff from books!” Tabitha chimed in.

“That’s how everyone gets smart.” Rose replied, and Tabitha swore under her breath.

“I once dated a guy named Vince and a guy named Vaughn at the same time!” Amy said excitedly, and I wasn’t sure how that was supposed to be anything other than a slightly interesting piece of trivia. As Rose shook her head again, the room fell silent once more, with everyone weighing up whether their other secrets were worth more. Then, one of the voices that I’d not heard previously spoke up.

“Amy and I are dating, and I’m really excited because she’s one of the nicest people I’ve ever met!” Aki said from where she had stayed standing ever since the return. Rose raised an eyebrow at this, but she wasn’t given the chance to say anything, as I said something first.

“What the fu-”

[artsyarchangel-blog]

Gunbreaker (Part 2)

4

HERMES: They started out as weapon manufacturers funded by their countries, nothing suspicious about them, only that they provided  the tools necessary for killing. And since humanity so loves to kill each other, to snuff the flames of life, they rose in power and wealth and eventually in influence. For if you bring the money, everyone will soon bow to your whims. They bribed politicians, other public figures to speak favorably of their weapon-businesses, to pass little bills, just to make the life of an arms dealer a little easier. We now believe that these were just tests, to see how far they could go without being detected or obstructed. At some point they awakened to a truth: that whoever holds the power to kill someone, anyone, would be destined to rule this world. Suddenly, people lost their lives, political figures advocating a demilitarization, suffering convenient accidents or turning to suicide. The general public is a simple beast, but the frequency of these incidents raised even the suspicion of your average person. So they changed tactics and turned back to bribes and threats. I know this is a lot to take in, I let you take a minute, Initiate. ANON: No, it's fine! Please continue!

Really, I was glued to the screen as Hermes told his story.

HERMES: I see, as you wish. So in the end, these weapon manufacturers established a shadow government, with the acting prime minister as a mere puppet, needed to quell the suspicions of the people. That was the plan at least, but it never worked out, there were riots, there were rebels, people trying to convince the public of the truth, just as we do now. So they turned to extreme measures. Pumping out weapons, they supplied all the criminal scum they could get their hands on. Ruthless tribes, violent bands of mercenaries, the organized crime, all of them suddenly found themselves with a new stock of lead and were ready to wreak havoc. After it all became to terrible to bear, the citizens armed themselves and the world had an all-out war on their hands. Not struggle between nations, but simply between men. This massacre raged for years and now all that is left are the five cities, each ruled by a designated Warlord. ANON: This is insane. A war like that, someone has to know about it, an event like this can't simply be forgotten! HERMES: It is lost to time, simply because no one is alive to remember. Only the Warlords know about it, passed down through their lineage. We managed to obtain this information through great sacrifices.

They never told me how exactly they could get a hold of such vital intel, the real history of our world. It was groundbreaking, if it was true, but again, they showed me no proof, I just swallowed it all up. ANON: But what can we even do against an organization that plunged the whole world into chaos? HERMES: They needed a smaller population, to control them easily and indeed, the plan is sound. Our capabilities to strike back are basically nil. We don't even know the identities of these Warlords, only that they named themselves after animals. We are working on a breakthrough in that regard and you might be able to help us. We assume you are well-versed when it comes to hacking? Why else would you approach us, right? ANON: Of course, absolutely not a problem.

I lied without a moments hesitation.

HERMES: Good. Do not be alarmed, it is a simple matter. We need to gain access to the local warlords mainframe, but to do this, some of our members will stage a distraction. You just got to attack some official websites, keep their staff busy. We take care of the main task. Are you truly capable of that?

They must have felt that I was just bullshitting, they were pretty insistent and it felt really bad, when I repeated my lie.

ANON: I am willing and able to participate in this attack! HERMES: We will redirect you to another room, there you will meet the leader of your operation, but this can wait until tomorrow. Find some rest, digest everything we told you today and be ready. Your fight for liberation begins now.

I was stoked as I crawled out of my chair and into my bed. The monitor continued to shine its cold light into my room. I hardly ever turned it off. A million thoughts were running through my head, it was impossible to find any sleep that night, but I had my orders. Yes, starting with this night I saw myself as a soldier, a warrior for the network called Hermes, loyal and obedient. It's kinda scary how easy it is to manipulate some high-school-freshman. The problem remained however: I had no idea how to assist in this attack. Nothing, there was nothing I could contribute, all I had was a superiority-complex and a mouth too big for my own good. Well, surely, they would forgive me once they'd find out, right? We'd just laugh it off, what's the worst that could happen, it was just a game after all. Still, sleep would not find me. I entertained the thought to return to my computer-screen, play some games, but in reality, I was too excited to concentrate on anything. So Hermes tried to gather the identities of these so-called Warlords, that was their, our, goal at the moment, but it didn't go far enough. We had to truly and utterly erase all conflict on this planet. We had to get rid of the demon called “Weaponry”. This was my personal goal, but as I said, I was loyal, I wouldn't further my own interests when there were orders to fulfill. That is, until I started to warp the truth a little. I just assumed that my goal aligned with Hermes', that I acted in their interests and from here on out, it all comes tumbling down. Be assured though, no harm came to me. As I sit here, telling my story, reminiscing about my embarrassing childhood, I am still in possession of all my limbs and received no scars, be it physically or emotionally. Oh, and I am very much alive obviously, I won't pull a plot twist on you, someone else actually narrating the story, a close friend standing in front of the grave of the actual protagonist in the end. We will have none of that. But just because I say that, don't think that they are no stakes involved. No, terrible things happened, it's just that I am sturdier than the average person so none of these events ever really affected me. I am getting sidetracked here...So what I first intended, my first plan to erase all conflict was simply to tell everyone the truth. I was going to lay it all out, about the warlords, about the wasteland surrounding us, about our forged history, everyone needed to know. Screw the consequences, I had a narrative to share. The people deserved to know the truth. So when I finally fell asleep, I wasted no time, skipping school without even thinking about it and went online. I needed a new handle, a new identity and soon, all over the internet, a mysterious name popped up, educating the masses. The infamous GunBreaker. That's the title card right here.

5

So suddenly, the GunBreaker popped up everywhere, posting comments, writing long blog-posts, which seemed more like fictional writing, but the whole story was true! At least, I thought so, after all, I trusted my anonymous source, why wouldn't I? But as one can imagine, nobody believed me, instead they trolled me into oblivion. However, while I might have hated all these spiteful messages, the people who laughed about my crazy theories, I steadily gained some sort of twisted fame. People started to reference me, things like “A new conspiracy? Better get GunBreaker on the case.” or “not even GunBreaker would buy that shit.” Now, nobody took me serious and that was a problem, but it was still a weird feeling, seeing my new name popping up all over the sites I used to frequent, as a total nobody. They knew my name now and whenever I posted a comment, people were all over me, asking me questions, making fun of me. As I said, no one actually believed me or took me seriously, but also no one hated me. I was like the jester of the internet. Wait, that's something my teenager-self thought at the time, more realistically, they treated me like a retarded child. That's a little harsh, I know, but that doesn't make it any less true. And of course, how else could it be, I was happy about all this attention they threw at me. Eventually, I received another Invitation from Hermes, leading me into another room. Honestly, I almost forgot about the operation we were supposed to carry out, too caught up in my own hijinks. Yet as I saw the message, the memory returned, crystal-clear and I gulped audibly. I still had no idea how to “distract” the government, how to hack into any website. Damn, I was dumb, I had at least a little time, enough to understand the fundamentals at least. Here I was, completely clueless. So I entered the room, but this time, I changed my screen-name. GUNBREAKER: Hey, guys. Was all I typed and the response followed swiftly. DECOY: So it was you... I am the appointed leader of this operation, everyone else is already instructed.

Yet again, I found myself in a one-on-one chat-room, I guess to many participants would only complicate things, so it was fine by me.

GUNBREAKER: Nice to meet you. DECOY: I trust Hermes already told you? Our goal is to attack the official sites of some government institutions, like the high council, the ministry of finances,nothing to exciting. Every skript-kiddie would be capable of shutting these down for a few minutes, but that is exactly what we want them to think. While we strike at their main-frame, a treasure trove of information, the identities of the warlords will be the least shocking revelation if we actually manage this.

Man, this guy must have felt like some military commander instructing his troops right before they jump into a decisive battle. So embarrassing...

DECOY: We appoint the Ministry of city development to you, these sheeps will be surprised to find out that there is no information about the next construction area. Serves them right, being stuck in traffic for believing these lies.

Uh huh...

GUNBREAKER: I understand completely. When will we carry out the operation?

DECOY: At 2200, tomorrow, hit them at night, when their bosses sleep peacefully. We can deal with some bored IT-guys, no problem. It is imperative that you act on time. Shut down your designated homepage and keep them busy. Further instruction should be unnecessary, but do keep in mind that we operate on a tight schedule, every attack needs to happen, otherwise our professional team will miss the time to successfully break in and leave without any traces. Do you understand? Please confirm these mission directives.

GUNBREAKER: I understand my orders. Bring down the public website of the Ministry of City Development, I will not disappoint you.

DECOY: Understood, we meet at 2100, to coordinate the attack. Just be there, we will invite you again. Decoy out.

I was so fucked! Then again, why would a single attack matter? Who knows how many hackers and crackers were on the job, why should a single failure doom the entire mission? So the operation to liberate all of humanity was not at stake, what relief. However, I was still screwed, if the site of this ministry would not go down, if they noticed, then Hermes would know that I am at fault, that I didn't do my part. Surely, they would throw me out then. I couldn't let this happen! So naturally, I did what everyone would do in my situation. I sat down in front of my computer, brought up a search-engine and typed:”How to hack a website”

6

I actually found some interesting results! Judging by how heavily curated our network seemed to be earlier when I conducted my research, I expected absolutely nothing. Yet here I found multiple guidelines,  detailing how to easily bring down a webpage. There was just one problem, despite their claims, it wasn't easy at all! I couldn't wrap my head around it, what the hell? Maybe I could have, if only I had more time, but until tomorrow? There was no chance! I read about scripts, directory listings, source codes, saw some weird programming chains, remote files, none of it made any sense to me. Clutching my head, staring at the screen, I tried my darndest, but nothing would sink in. I was only a teenager, not even  particularly smart, no one could expect this shit of me. They would though, Hermes would expect this of me and  if I was unable to deliver, who knows what they would do to me. I seriously started to get a little scared, recalled the stories I heard about him, true or not. He seemed like a badass, I didn't want him to come after me... So I did my best, I spent all my time reading up on this hacker-business. Even an idiot like me could do this, I just needed to put in the effort. Some time later, I grasped some of the ideas. And I needed tools, these guides clearly stated I need some programs to actually start. Obviously, I looked for them...and found absolutely nothing. That was bullshit, the guide clearly stated that these tools were easily obtainable! There was absolutely nothing, no matter how hard I looked! Was that a joke, did the government intervene here? They leave the guidelines up, but then remove any possibility to actually follow through? Are they taunting me? Or worse tracking me as soon as I made my search query? What a scary thought, I just wanted to quit at this point. I simply was not allowed to, Hermes probably knew all about me already, if I just left now, there would be retribution. A new dawn rose, the sun annoyingly caressed my sleep-deprived face. Then, after a few hours of morning despair, I even went so far and visited some nearby bookstores, for the first time in my recent memory. Analogue reading is only done by losers after all, but I was running out of options here. “Programming for absolute Morons” caught my eye, but I didn't want to learn how to program, this was useless. “Even a skript-kiddie could do it”. Does this mean I'm  not even  on this level? What an embarrassment, how tragic! I seriously started to loose it, but there was nothing to be done. So at 9 pm I sat in front of my screen, clueless, utterly useless, but at least I was on time. As before, an invitation, it was second nature by now, I struggled to stay awake, being up for over 24 hours, as I entered the chat-room. This time it wasn't just me, multiple people were gathered, I counted eight including our operations-leader. Their names were such  typical products of a teenage mind: Iceglazier, Bloodedge, AcidicKiller, you get the idea. I vividly remember thinking how cool they all sounded, but I didn't need to hide. Gunbreaker was an awesome name, after all, nothing to laugh about. Well, I am laughing in embarrassment when I think back, especially since it only got worse over time. But wait a second, was eight even enough? Could we pull this off? I'm saying we, but obviously I couldn't really contribute. DECOY: So you all have gathered here, very well. Our role is just as important as the main groups work, without us, they can only fail. I just wanted to make this clear one more time.

Nobody replied here, this was Decoys show and he seemed to really enjoy himself. Or herself, hell if I ever found out.

DECOY: Everyone present here already received their orders and we got precisely 43 minutes until this mission commences. If there is everything still open, something that's not clear, now is the time to ask. There shouldn't be, though, we are professionals after all.

Yes, excuse me, but how do I exactly hack a website? I don't really get the bare-bone fundamentals. Like I'd ever ask something like that. But goddammit, what could I do instead? The truth was out of the question, my lie already to advanced to safely pull out now.

BLOODEDGE: How long will it take the main-team to fulfill their objective?

DECOY: We estimate around 15 minutes. Just clear your mission, that should give us enough time. Is there anything else?

No response. Maybe these guys actually were professionals. Or maybe it was just that nobody dared to ask a stupid question, just like myself. At this time in the past, I of course assumed the first point, no doubt about it.

DECOY: Then you are dismissed. Our mission is nothing less then the liberation of all humanity. Act accordingly and do not disappoint us. Don't let Hermes down! And do it for our future, do it for our children and do it for their children. And the past, can't forget the fallen warriors coming before us, the billions of lives lost in the great Wars that lead our planet into this cruel fate. Also, do it for Jenny, I'm gonna tell her my feelings after this!...yeah.

God, how did I ever get tricked by these losers?

DECOY: Afterwards, you will be invited again for a post-mission briefing, good luck!

Everyone left the room one after another and then there I was, slumped down in my comfy chair, staring blankly at the screen, while the clock was ticking. I had to act, I could not let them down. I opened the site for the ministry, just looking at it, expecting a clue to pop up, a gate leading me to a solution. Maybe I should have asked where the other ones got their tools from, but then I had to admit that I never done this before. Before I reached out to Hermes. Why, you might ask? Why was it such a big deal? This is so childish. The thing is: yes, exactly, I was a child after all, none of this shit really mattered if you think about it. But to a useless teenager, who had no talents, nothing he was really good at, this was very important, it was everything, a chance to finally be someone. Five minutes left until 10 pm. My head crashed on my desk in frustration, but more then a small bruise on my forehead was not achieved by this. Then I had to surrender, I had to finally admit, that there was nothing I could do, that I lost. I was lying to myself thinking I could achieve something, anything to change the world...with Hermes help! Indeed, I had to do this on my own, this was my conclusion out of this event. GunBreaker would go on a solo-mission, using his unflappable mind and his sharp rhetoric to open the eyes of the population. Hermes would become my rival, a friendly relationship, our goals aligned, yet our methods would be different and it would be very interesting to see who would come out on top. Just you wait, Hermes, you are not the only one who will free humanity of its shackles, breaking the walls of their cities. Curiosity, however got the better of me and I absolutely wanted to see if they could pull off their attack. It was 10 pm by now, so I just brought up the official site of our High Council and there it was. “This page is unavailable while we perform maintenance. Please refer to our social media-account for updates.” I kinda expected something more flashy, the Hermes logo all over the site, mocking words behind it, while the allegedly teenage hacker celebrated his victory over the stupid authority. Something like this, not some official statement, that might as well be a coincidence. I checked the city development page next and my eyes went wide. The same message? But I didn't do anything. That was very weird, really suspicious even! However, highschool-me just shrugged it off, like the moron that he was. Someone else must have taken my part as soon as they realized I wasn't participating, a simple answer to a rather complicated problem. They succeeded apparently, this was all I took from this, good for them. For my newfound rival, a worthy opponent. And for the following weeks, the net was haunted by the GunBreaker, more determined then ever before.