#i think with his primate mobility

[1nt3rnalpu7ref4ct10n]

s3e3

[qjackmanifold]

A thorough exploration of "Time To Smile".

For context -- over a month ago, this YouTube channel called "Time To Smile" popped up, posting those spammy Facebook style positivity videos that are just viral clips with voiceovers on them. The weird thing about this channel is that all the voiceovers, for a while, were done by Jschlatt. (Some people assume that this was AI TTS - and the acronym of Time To Smile is... well I feel like it's fairly obvious).

I find it heavily unlikely that these videos are actually TTS, though. Here's a list, with examples, of each person featured on the channel (more than just Schlatt have appeared since the first few weeks of posting, though he remains the primary narrator). Pick whoever you're most familiar with, or SwaggerSouls if you're not particularly familiar with any of them. You'll notice that while the content of what they're saying is particularly generic, it's far too natural to be a text-to-speech generator.

Jschlatt Jack Manifold Yumi TommyInnit Slimecicle Wilbur Soot Ludwig SwaggerSouls

As to not clog things, I'm putting the rest of this post under a read more link :)

There's lots of aspects of this channel that point to it being more of an obscure bit than an AI text-to-speech spam channel. From the subtitles, which have the modern TommyInnit style bounce, the high focus on primates in the channel's earlier uploads (less so now, but still notable. Perhaps a reference to Schlatt's obession with monkeys), and the fact that multiple YouTubers (who are roughly in Schlatt's orbit) have leant their voices for this project.

The profile picture also gives off a deeply unsettling vibe, being an apple 3D emoji avatar thing on a sky with clouds, and a neon green ring around it. (Gonna mention here that there's an account on TikTok, @/timetosmile.tr, that reposts their videos. It's not an official account, which is obvious when you look at the profile picture).

They also respond to comments sometimes. Like This.

Every single video uses the same song as background music - First Step by Hans Zimmer. And the exact same snippet of it as well.

At some point, every video started to end with things like "subscribe if you think pigs are like people!" or "subscribe if you think Harpo deserves the world!", or just "Subscribe!". Eventually, the videos started to end with just "subscribe if you think-", without allowing the narrator to finish their sentence.

In the community tab, they often post polls (a tactic of YouTube channels to farm engagement, since you get channel posts on the mobile homepage from channels you've only watched once or twice... it's this whole thing.)

That is the only poll they post, over and over, occasionally interspersed with text posts that say "What made you smile today, Smilers?". More recently, the posts have gotten a tad sadder.

So you might be wondering, why?

I speculate a number of things:

It's a weird obscure parody Schlatt came up with that's he's roping his friends into for shits and giggles

It's an experiment to see if stupid "viral" content can really get 10M subscribers purely through YouTube shorts, to demonstrate how vapid and regressive the website's algorithm is (Schlatt is very vocal about the way YouTube is run in their Twitter replies)

It's a commentary on the mindless cycle of reaction content that Schlatt and a lot of his collegues have found themselves in. Commentating over others' content, but adding basically nothing to it -- but it pays the bills. It's heartless, lacks effort and passion, and yet if it stops, the views tank, and the channel fades to obscurity. It wears you down, constantly churning out content. Always content. Slop. Something so substanceless that huge quantaties of it exist and yet those who consume it are always hungry for more, constantly, unendingly, without slowing the pace or allowing time to digest or process any of it. Always starving, always being given more but never being satisfied. It's a nightmare for everyone, nobody is winning and yet the wheel keeps turning.

All of the above.

So, yeah. Jschlatt viral slop channel. Love it.

[unlikelyruinslight]

Disruption

"Can someone tell me what is happening with the ship, why isnt It respondind?!"

Infierno scream between all the alarms to his other companion who tried to do damage control

"The core of the ship seems to have damage with some kind of virus, it is consuming all energy and seems to be spreading through the s-shi-shiii"

The AI of the ship speaks before cutting and become an annoying mass of distorted words

"Damm It!" Infierno punches the control panel frustrated "Where is Red alert?!"

He ask, his companions jump by his rash behavior, their minds already in panic by the ship colapsing around them

"He said something about maintenance and told me to keep taps on the machinery, but he hasnt return"

Skids broke the silent as he open a digital map on his wrist that expanded quickly spilling data of the planet the were about to crash

"Organic planet, habitad by Homo sapiens-sapiens belived to be close descendand of primates, this planet has deposits of energy and primitive energy sources in these areas"

The holograma shorton showing the whole earth and pointing different places

"Do you think you could land us any place mear this points" Skids knowing the answer already

"It will be a miracle If I can even land us in one piece" Infierno said trying to control the ship mamually

"Less than one minute before impact, sta-sta-stai- recomende-e-e-ed" the AI of the ship said its monto voice cutting off every sentence

"Everyone we should-"

"INFECTED ON BOARD!" First aid scream at the entrance

Skids froze as the infected landed on the medic, his arms tremble trying to stop the infected from attacking him

"D-Dont look at M̵̞̫̞̥̟̳̎̎E̶̪̊̂͂̅̈́͛̀̊̆̐è̵̜̼͐̐̾̊̀́̿͠ͅÉ̷̢̹̖̣̭̤̮̗̘̉̿͒̕̚Ẽ̴̼̲̠̱̫͈̠̳̲̞̔̆Ḛ̷͖̳̭̈́̿̊̿e̵̠̱̥͌̽̏͂̄͘̚̕"

Sunstreaker plead as liquid fell from all the boles in his face and landed on the medics mask

"Sunstreaker!..." First aid murmur with pain in his voice

"T-T-Ten seconds before impact" the AI said as a distorded version the alarm went off as the lights in the ship fail

"Im sorry I-I though...could heal you"

First aid said pained as someone shooted at Sunstreaker off of him while Skids drag him away just in time as the ship crash with down

"AAAAAAH, AAAH!!"

Nautica scream as the infected claw her metal armor away

Her screams being conbined with many of smoller creatures

"Skids get First aid to safety!" Infierno bark as he burned away the infected that was on top of his friend

"Come on buddy you gotta help me here" Skids said to the medic on his shoulder as they limp away damage by the impact

First aid look around

Unkwon strucktures damage and small creatures bipedal creatures ran in all direction looking for hiding

Some mobiles like him carry the small creatures inside

Where the mal creatures their pets

His train of thoughts were interrupted when a sickening crunch is felt in his pedes

It is follow by the sensation of stickiness but he has no time to check what he had step on

His friend doesnt seem to even notice and they keep walking seeking somewhere to hide and be safe as stain of red is left in each of his steps

[the-firebird69]

Silverchair - Tomorrow (US Version) (Official Video)

They might be putting us into primates and they want us to hate them and make mistakes yeah it's a weirdos and I'm saying that you want us to hate and when I say you say is motivated you to try something it's true but I noticed you don't go over the top you need to tell the story he's abused to no end and the abuse is very intense but really we kind of hate the guy yeah he's out of control and we looked at it and the stash was in caches are not in good shape the ships aren't getting here the spaceships might try and break through they already have been and we're getting lower

Dan Dave

Yeah we're going to have to leave bja is at the last one he's resupplying them and we don't get anything it's because we keep backstabbing everyone I'm going to have to say it is not going to last and yeah Billy is he bent the glass at the wrong way what a pain in the f****** ass that guy is he's a stupid dick when it comes to any contact and he's going to pay for it and he already is and he's a loser and he dragged us into it now it's a s******* and this plan is crap so we are going to have to probably leave and I'm notifying mine we might have to evacuate Florida and other areas where we're doing this badly and there's combat to get here by others

Terry c

We do get the messages about here and what to do we do see we could be in trouble shortly within a day or two maximum

Uma

We have to try and get out of here

Dan dave

We see what we have to do and the singers are clones they're not really helping us by announcing what's going on and they're not really helping themselves this is a disaster

Terry c

They're actually running very low on their stashes and caches bja is positioning to take the final two no the last one from Trump and company they won't have a way of getting out of here they're going to be stuck in Florida pretty soon they're going to be evacuating over the next few days at the end of that there'll be a core here of duplicates and trumpsters of all sorts of types they will be military they'll try and take the stash in cash sometime in those three days while people are fleeing and that puts it around the 19th that they might try the attack and that's the commission date that they will be trying to stop the commission as motivation a partial and they're massively evil to our son now and daughter and we think they'll lose and they'll be out and the weekend will come and we think that he will be told about the trip it could go a lot faster though and next weekend he be on the trip but they might have the funeral in the 21st and he would return sometime the end of the next week that might happen

Thor Freya

We actually see what you're saying they've been saying you're going to go up there and it hasn't happened the move is on they're trying to mobilize these guys will be forced out and they'll try more and they'll be planning to do it in DC that would happen later this week we think that the stashes and cash issue will be tonight and they will make the attempt tonight and Dave Dan might be out tomorrow morning and he doesn't want to be with these people when they run themselves down to nothing they're uncomfortable for being there already they keep doing that stupid s*** he says and it's true we think that they would have kind of worn out their welcome here fairly soon it is going to be a heck of an event without the stashes and caches which will be depleted fully tonight we think they'll be without anything major so they have a decision to make today and the song is saying it's 12:00 it's a wonderful day it sounds like today people agree it is 12:00 and it's a wonderful day today and they're singing for a son to go to the town out there outside of Miami that's where the power plant is and they want him near them to trying to use him to take over and to threaten the power plant and in essence they're saying come out here but if they try and cut the power they're saying they'll cut his power which is not really true but they're trying to say that and it's very rude and evil and we don't like them for it we will make them pay we have several things to do here we have to have our son fed and we need him up and running and getting ready for this week and he says he's taking it easy and we mean that that's good we also need him to get the rent money and he's ready to do that we need him to get a couple things for this place to leave and not feel like everything will be ruined and some of what she's been looking at we need him to secure the apartment he's going to try and do that that he needs he really doesn't need to drill and all but he does need to try and put his bicycles up and we don't think it'll flood but if it does less things will be damaged it's not a real big deal but we think he should be trying to do it she's going to help and he's not really sure how to do it yet he doesn't think he can lift the bike up he thinks that he'll put two eye hooks and lift the bikes up slowly each side so he needs something to hold the lines in place as he pulls it up there is a device that does that or he might simply pull both at the same time somehow you might be able to do that he might be able to do that with police or pulley on each but then again it might work better with just rope in the standard eye hook he thinks he can probably do it maybe even looping through the eye Hook once and then again it's a process trying to do things here this is one of them

Thor Freya

Olympus

So three eye hooks one in the middle and you run the rope up from a point on the bike in the front and a point in the back up to the eye hook above it in each case and through an eye hook on the beam in the middle from each and then you pull it up separately and you can loop it through again or somehow clamp it while you're tying off the first one yes some clamps would be nice the third eye Hook is a good idea that probably will work nicely

Zues ok I think so Hera

The clamp would be very nice and they have them at home Depot no something like it but they're it's hard to do

Thor Freya

Olympus

[is-the-primate-vid-cute]

Do primates ever need glasses? I assume that would be fairly difficult to test, and convincing them to wear them would be even harder.

Yeah, primates don't tend to go for wearing things, even if they are useful. This is why disabled primates in captivity are given accommodations like ramps instead of prosthetics, they much prefer to work around their challenges than use assistive devices. That being said, I think it would be very interesting to give some great apes tools like magnifying glasses or telescopes to see how they use them! At the very least, it would probably be very enriching.

In the case of visual impairments and other disabilities, primates tend to rely on their troop members to help them out. There are many cases where primates both in the wild and captivity rely on each other for assistance, and while it is a disadvantage to have any type of impairment, great ape resilience is a force to be reckoned with.

There have been some advancements when it comes to human intervention to aid primates with disabilities however. Sparky the chimpanzee at Chimp Haven suffered an injury that greatly impacted his mobility, and the staff managed to get him to voluntarily participate in physiotherapy. Physiotherapy got Sparky from dragging himself places to avoid using his leg, to running around and throwing things like a champ. When considering intervention for primates we have to weigh the pros and cons for them, as the last thing we want to do is stress out already impaired animals. I don't think that corrective glasses would be feasible for primates even in captivity settings, but it is a very interesting idea!

- mod J

There are several things keepers can do to help animals will mobility or sensory issues. For loss of eyesight, it's important that objects in the enclosure and food/water sources are kept consistent so the animal can quickly maneuver the space and find what it needs. Ramps and rails may be added depending on the needs of the animal or it may be safer for the animal to be moved to a smaller enclosure that has a lower fall risk or otherwise is safer. As Mod J mentioned, we can't really adjust the animals' mobility outside of medications or surgeries (which are rarely done unless absolutely necessary or we are certain the surgery will be successful as anytime an animal is under anesthesia, there's health risks) so the best thing to do is adjust their living spaces and do our best to accommodate their needs!

- mod E

[journeytothewestresearch]

Story Idea: The REAL Reason Sun Wukong is Expelled from Subodhi’s School

Last updated: 05-24-2022

https://journeytothewestresearch.com/2022/05/15/story-idea-the-real-reason-sun-wukong-is-expelled-from-subodhis-school/

Sun Wukong is kicked out of Patriarch Subodhi‘s (Xuputi zushi, 須菩提祖師) school in chapter two of Journey to the West (Xiyouji, 西遊記, 1592) for showing off his transformation skills to his less-accomplished religious brothers. Upon their request, he changes into a perfect pine tree that’s completely indistinguishable from a real one. The subsequent applause greatly disturbs the Master, who reprimands and expels the Monkey King under the pretense of saving his life from those who would harm him to learn his heavenly secrets (Wu & Yu, 2012, vol. 1, pp. 123-125). [1]

This event is a turning point in Sun’s life, for he transitions from an inward pursuit of spiritual cultivation to an external quest for power, ending with an attempt to unseat the Jade Emperor (Yuhuang shangdi, 玉皇上帝). This ultimately leads to the Buddha imprisoning the seditious primate beneath Five Elements Mountain and punishing him to a hellish diet for 600 plus years.

Here, I would like to prepose a different reason, one that makes more sense and better aligns with some of my previous story ideas.

I. The story so far

Last year I posted a story prompt to reddit to inspire writers looking for a Xianxia (仙俠, “immortal hero”) plot. It serves as a good summation of my past ideas:

The novel briefly mentions that Sun Wukong lives for ten years in the mountain home of the Buddho-Daoist sage Master Subodhi. The first seven are spent as a junior Daoist monk doing menial tasks and learning basic religious or life skills. However, the last three years are spent as a close disciple of Subodhi, learning elixir arts, magic, and combat skills. The novel glosses over his early cultivation in order to jump directly into the action. But imagine a Xianxia story focusing on those three years.

Drama with fellow disciples could arise from Monkey’s supernatural aptitude for quickly learning and mastering a skill. After all, it only takes him three years to go from a mere stone monkey to a powerful immortal capable of going toe-to-toe with gods and demons with millennia of cultivation and combat experience. Think of the resulting battles between our hero and his jealous senior religious brothers and sisters frustrated with his great progress.

In addition, given Sun’s demonstrated knowledge in boxing, weapons, and troop movement, I came up with the story idea that Subodhi’s school is the training ground for an immortal monastic army akin to the famous Shaolin temple. Shaolin was mobilized by the Chinese government during the 16th-century to battle pirates attacking the coast. Records indicate that one historical Shaolin monk was made the leader, and he was later forced to singlehandedly defend himself against eight individuals vying for his position. Likewise, I imagine heaven calls up Subodhi’s army to battle some demonic evil, and Monkey might quickly rise through the ranks. This would naturally lead to more tension with his fellow disciples, causing him to defend his position. All of these challenges, plus any action seen by the monastic army in heavenly battles, would explain how Sun Wukong became such a seasoned fighter in such a short time.

Plus, there is the added bonus of Subodhi’s army being called upon to fight Sun during his rebellion against heaven. He might have far surpassed his religious brothers and sisters in skill at this point.

II. Additions

In chapter one, Subodhi is shown to have 12 generation names (zibei, 字輩) used to name the students of his religious lineage, three of which were historically used by Daoism. [2]

Guang (廣)

Da (大)

Zhi (智)

Hui (慧)

Zhen (真)

Ru (如)

Xing (性)

Hai (海)

Ying (穎)

Wu (悟)

Yuan (圓)

Jue (覺) (Wu & Yu, 2012, p. 115).

Monkey is part of the tenth generation (Wu & Yu, 2012, p. 115). This means that all of Subodhi’s students taken in around the same time would all have Wu (悟) in their name. Perhaps Sun trains with his fellow Wu cohort but quickly moves on to older generations as his skill rapidly progresses.

This leads me to my next point. Above, I mentioned that Subodhi’s army might be called to bear against Monkey during his rebellion. But wouldn’t they recognize him? This feeds into a common question asked around the internet: 

Why doesn’t Wukong run into any fellow disciples on the journey? 

Well, the simple answer is that this isn’t important to the plot. But I’ve considered two ideas to work around this miniscule plot hole: One, his younger religious brothers are likely still studying under the Master. And two, the older generations⁠—the ones serving in the monastic army⁠—probably don’t know what Monkey looks like because advanced disciples, within the present story, are made to wear a host of fierce, multi-colored masks (fig. 1) as a way to forsake their identity and subsume the self into deep spiritual and martial cultivation. They would represent the negative thoughts and emotions that keep humans trapped in the illusionary world of Saṃsāra and chained to the wheel of rebirth. Perhaps the face becomes more human and peaceful-looking as the students progress through their training. 

Fig. 1  – “Monk in dharmapala mask performs a mystery dance of Tantric Tibetan Buddhism on Cham Dance Festival” (larger version). Photo by Oleg Ivanov. Image found here.

Also, in my version of the story universe, all immortals and deities attain a halo upon achieving divine status. Here, for example, is a photomanipulation of a haloed Sun Wukong by Elijah McTaggart and myself. Take note of the fiery aureola engulfing the halo. This will come into play shortly (fig. 2). I imagine that these halos/aureolas respectively spin and shine brighter when a divinity’s spiritual power is used.

Fig. 2 – The Monkey King with a halo (larger version). As seen on deviantart. Based on my original photomanipulation.

III. Why he is really kicked out

The reason I’ve devised is connected to one of the aforementioned fights between Monkey and his older religious brothers or sisters. Perhaps Sun is attacked by multiple powerful assailants at once (just like the historical Shaolin monk), and when they start to overwhelm him, his anger ignites his halo, which begins to furiously spin and produce a radiant splendor. Instantly, he takes on a titanic cosmic form, growing 100,000 feet (30,480 m) tall and stomping on his assailants. At the same time, his docile-looking mask cracks and reverts to it’s original, fierce form. This, combined with a fiery aureola, gives him the appearance of a giant Dharmapala (Ch: Fahu, 法護), a wrathful “Protector of the Dharma” (Buddhist Law) (fig. 3) (Buswell & Lopez, 2014, pp. 249-250). This display of raw, untamed spiritual power frightens his older religious brethren. Subodhi himself is also taken aback as Monkey exhibits a great, fiery anger, while also manifesting advanced cultivation techniques that haven’t even been taught to him yet⁠—a testament to his great spiritual intelligence. The Master fears that this rage, combined with Monkey’s demonstrated talent for exponential spiritual growth and perhaps a problem with controlling this power (given Sun’s short years of study), will lead him down the path to villainy. 

This brings us back to the pine tree incident. Perhaps the fight causes Subodhi to uncharacteristically allow Monkey a chance to visit his generational cohort. And when Sun acquiesces to their requests to see his transformation powers, the Master uses this as an opportunity to expel his student.

Fig. 3 – A modern thangka of the Six-Armed Mahakala dharmapala (larger version). Image found here.

IV. My thoughts

I like this idea because it foreshadows Sun’s cosmic transformations throughout the novel (ch. 3, 6, 61, and 97). It also foreshadows his later mischief throughout the cosmos and eventual rebellion. 

Update: 05-16-22

I imagine Master Subodhi’s mask-wearing monastic army would have an ominous feel to them just like the stylized Persian “immortals” from the film 300 (2006) (fig. 4). 

Fig. 4 – The Persian Immortals from 300 (2006) (larger version).

Update: 05-20-22

On second thought, a better mask would emulate the six paths of reincarnation in Buddhist cosmology:

deva

asura (sometimes called “demi-god” or “titan”)

human

animal

hungry ghost

hell

As before, each would indicate the level of a disciple’s spiritual attainment. Perhaps Master Subodhi’s army would have different units of each category, each one being more powerful than the last.

Update: 05-24-22

Some readers might question why I’ve included so many Buddhist elements if Master Subodhi is a Daoist immortal. While this is true, I choose instead to refer to him as a “Buddho-Daoist Sage” as he preaches aspects of both religions in his lectures:

With words so florid and eloquent That gold lotus sprang from the ground. The doctrine of three vehicles he subtly rehearsed, Including even the laws’ minutest tittle. The yak-tail waved slowly and spouted elegance: His thunderous voice moved e’en the Ninth Heaven. For a while he lectured on Dao; For a while he spoke on Chan– To harmonize the Three Parties is a natural thing. One word’s elucidation filled with truth Points to the birthless showing nature’s mystery (Wu & Yu, 2012, p. 122) (emphasis mine).

He even advocates for his students to become Buddhas. For example, the poem that Subodhi uses to reveal the secret of immortality to Monkey ends with: “When that’s done, be a Buddha or immortal at will!” (Wu & Yu, 2012, p. 120).

It’s also important to remember that Master Subodhi is based on Subhuti, a historical disciple of the Buddha.

Notes:

1) I quote the scene of his expulsion below:

“You, Wukong, come over here! I ask you what sort of exhibition were you putting on, changing into a pine tree? This ability you now possess, is it just for showing off to people? Suppose you saw someone with this ability. Wouldn’t you ask him at once how he acquired it? So when others see that you are in possession of it, they’ll come begging. If you’re afraid to refuse them, you will give away the secret; if you don’t, they may hurt you. You are actually placing your life in grave jeopardy.” “I beseech the master to forgive me,” Wukong said, kowtowing. “I won’t condemn you,” said the Patriarch, “but you must leave this place.” When Wukong heard this, tears fell from his eyes. “Where am I to go, Teacher?” he asked. “From wherever you came,” the Patriarch said, “you should go back there.” “I came from the East Purvavideha Continent,” Wukong said, his memory jolted by the Patriarch, “from the Water-Curtain Cave of the Flower-Fruit Mountain in the Aolai Country.” “Go back there quickly and save your life,” the Patriarch said. “You cannot possibly remain here!” “Allow me to inform my esteemed teacher,” said Wukong, properly penitent, “I have been away from home for twenty years, and I certainly long to see my subjects and followers of bygone days again. But I keep thinking that my master’s profound kindness to me has not yet been repaid. I, therefore, dare not leave.” “There’s nothing to be repaid,” said the Patriarch. “See that you don’t get into trouble and involve me: that’s all I ask.” Seeing that there was no other alternative, Wukong had to bow to the Patriarch and take leave of the congregation. “Once you leave,” the Patriarch said, “you’re bound to end up evildoing. I don’t care what kind of villainy and violence you engage in, but I forbid you ever to mention that you are my disciple. For if you but utter half the word, I’ll know about it; you can be assured, wretched monkey, that you’ll be skinned alive. I will break all your bones and banish your soul to the Place of Ninefold Darkness [Jiuyou zhi chu, 九幽之處], from which you will not be released even after ten thousand afflictions!” “I will never dare mention my master,” said Wukong. “I’ll say that I’ve learned this all by myself.” Having thanked the Patriarch, Wukong turned away, made the magic sign, pulled himself up, and performed the cloud-somersault (Wu & Yu, 2012, pp. 124-125).

2. Ter Haar (2021) provides a list of such generational names:

Table 1. The use affiliation characters by People of the Way

Dao 道 (Huzhou, Jiaxing, Taizhou, Suzhou) (13 cases) – The Way Zhi 智 (Huzhou, Jiaxing) (6 cases) – Wisdom Yuan 圓 (Huzhou, Jiaxing, Taizhou) (5 cases) – Complete Pu 普 (Taicang, Taizhou, Huating) (4 cases) – Universal Miao 妙 (Deqing, Jiaxing) (3 cases) – Wondrous Jue 覺 (Huating) (1 case) – Awareness (p. 39)

Sources:

Buswell, R. E., & Lopez, D. S. (2014). The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism. Princeton University Press.

Ter Haar, B. (2021). The White Lotus Teachings in Chinese Religious History. Netherlands: Brill.

Wu, C. & Yu, A. C. (2012). The Journey to the West (Vol. 1). Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press.

[profspruce]

Hi! This my first ask ever, and I wanted to know, which Pokemon live in Philadelphia?

Thanks for the ask! I would love to answer this question!

Philadelphia is a city rich with history and culture. Much like other metropolitan areas whatever Pokémon would be found here need to be accustomed to the hustle and bustle of city life. However, that's not to say that there are no surrounding natural areas. In fact, as rich as the city is with culture, there is a plethora of wildlife in the marshes and farm fields just outside the city that can support a huge diversity of wildlife. The forest types outside the city are generally Northern Mixed Hardwood forests and Appalachian Oak Forests. Together with the multiple freshwater marshes, rivers, ponds, and grasslands, there truly are few limitations as to what species may be present!

Grass - Grookey

As the birthplace for many rock, jazz, R & B, and Hip Hop artists, Philadelphia has roots in music that run very, very deep. I think it's a safe bet that as a Pokémon that utilizes its natural sense of rhythm to attack but also nourish surrounding plant life, Grookey would be incredibly well adapted for life in the city. Considering its mobility and primate-like appearance I believe it is also adapted to be able to survive in the surrounding forests. Also, drumsticks used by musicians are commonly made from species like maple, oak, and hickory. These species are known as hardwood trees and because of their lack of non-supportive cells compared to softwood trees like pine, they are a lot stronger and slower growing than softwood trees. Thus, not only would Grookey have the "groove" necessary for life in Philly, but it would also have access to the best material to make its drumstick with!

Fire - Fennekin

To be honest it was difficult to find the right fire Pokémon for Philadelphia. There are a lot of factors to consider when trying to hypothesize how Pokémon may best be suited to their native environment. Frankly, it was a bit of a process of elimination, but I think this makes the most sense. Fennekin is based off of the fennec fox, which is a fox species native to Northern Africa. Although Philadelphia is nowhere near as warm as Northern Africa, the surrounding environment is home to both the Red Fox and the Gray Fox. Foxes are opportunistic predators, meaning they are not the least bit picky when it comes to their next meal. As there is a ton of wildlife diversity surrounding Philadelphia and in the rest of Pennsylvania, I think its characteristics based off of species in the fox family (vulpes) will allow Fennekin to thrive well in this area. Furthermore, Fennekin is constantly grooming itself and is always concerned with its appearance. This sense of fashion and self-image would come as an adaptation in a city so rich with culture!

Water - Mudkip

In the Heart Gold and Soul Silver Pokédex entries, Mudkip is said to "rest by covering itself in mud at the bottom of a river." With the Delaware River a big part of the Pennsylvania landscape, and with the many marshes and wetlands in the surrounding area, I think Mudkip would be well adapted for life in Philadelphia. Several other Pokédex entries say that it uses the fin on its head as a sort of radar to determine what is taking place around it. This may be useful in a busy city to help narrow its concentration and focus where there can be a lot going on at once. Furthermore, as I was concerned about its amphibian-like physiology, I was concerned at how necessary it was this Pokémon be close to water. However as I looked more into it, this Pokémon doesn't appear to require it be constantly submerged in water like the common mudpuppy (Necturus maculosus) which it is based off of. It is perfectly content being out of the water for prolonged periods of time.

I hope I answered your question! If you would like to know about the early route species or anything else just let me know and I can make an addition!

Thank you for reaching out!

[samuel-de-champagne-problems]

in the dark !!!

word count— 1.1 k

Spencer Reid x Gender Neutral Reader

(Sorry if this looks funky I’m on mobile)

***

If you could think of three words to describe Spencer, they would be nervous, smart and careful. Oh, so careful. Everything that Spencer does is with an abundance of caution and care. He’s gentle and sensitive and is probably the most emotionally mature man you know.

Which is why you feel bad for being upset that he hasn’t tried to kiss you yet. You’ve made a deal with yourself, let Spencer take the lead. Not for some patriarchal bullshit says the man has to be the one to take the lead. No, none of that. You decided, with yourself, that letting Spencer be the one to make the first move would give him the less likely chance of him running away. It’s not that you’re terrifying or intimidating. It’s like you said, Spencer is nothing, but a careful man.

So it’s not entirely your fault when you sit there in the dark, so close to Spencer that you can feel his bony hip on your ribcage. He’s arms are wrapped around you, holding you so close that you smell the essential oils he wears as cologne. You wear them too, switching the grapefruit and bergamot oils that didn’t give Spencer headache like perfumes did. His breathing is labored, yet steady. He’s a constant fixture in your life, and you desperately want to show him how much he matters to you, how much you adore him.

The only light comes from the very old television that sits tucked away in Spencer’s living room. The screen flashes in combinations of grays, whites, and blacks. You couldn’t say exactly what was happening in the show, you’re too caught up in the pressure of Spencer’s hands against your upper arm and his breathing on your neck. He’s never been this close to you before, and you’ll be damned if you never get to feel loved like this again.

“Enjoying the show?” you ask, attempting to regain your focus on it as well.

“It’s good—interesting,” Spencer says, his answer uncharacteristically short, “I honestly couldn’t tell you the name of the main character. I guess it’s a little hard to concentrate,” he explains, bravely nuzzling his head into your neck.

Your heart stops. Literally, actually, figuratively stops. Spencer seems to have that effect on you with his soft cardigans, soft hands and even softer soul.

“Why,” you venture, hoping that all those tacky romance novels weren’t just read in vain, “tell me goose,” you say, hearing Spencer groan at the name

“Because, I can’t stop thinking about kissing you,” Spencer professes, sounding breathless and terrified.

“Really, goose,” you say, unsure if you’ll ever be able to call him anything but a sweet pet name again, “I’m ready when you are. There’s no rush. I’ll wait forever for you,” you tell him, gently rubbing your hand against his arm to pacify the nervousness that seems to radiate off his body.

“Kissing is so strange,” Spencer starts, getting into the tone of voice that tells you he’s preparing for an infodump, “well according to Scientific American, in the 1960s, British zoologist Desmond Morris speculated that kissing evolved from behavior exhibited by monkeys. Primate mothers would chew food for their young and then feed them, mouth-to-mouth and with their lips puckered. Scientists believe that this later developed into a way to comfort hungry children, and then eventually to show love and affection. Through evolution, kissing evolved, too” Spencer tells you, getting quiet after he finishes. Perhaps waiting for you to kiss him or tell him a fact of your own.

“Well, love,” you start, propping yourself on your elbow, “if kissing is science, don’t all good scientists carry out experiments?”

“Yes, Y/N, Spencer says” licking his lips absentmindedly, making you love him even more, “that’s true,”

“So, tell me Dr. Reid, are you a good scientist?” you ask him, “Will you let me help you with this experiment?” you ask, your lips hovering above his, waiting for his okay to lock your lips to his forever.

“Yes,” Spencer says, like it’s the scariest thing he’s ever done, but the moment he’s been waiting for all his life.

And with that you lean in, finally kissing Spencer. It’s beautiful, yet messy. You always knew that he’s lips would be soft and plush. He’s constantly licking them, like he’s asking for you to do nothing all day, but kiss him. He silently accepts your mouth, and encourages your affection with whimpers and moans.

His lips part from yours, and he uses that moment to look deep into your eyes, searching for something. You want to call out and tell him that what he could find is your soul. You want to tell him to take it, it’s been his for a long time already, but before the words can leave your lips, his mouth is on you again.

You’re lucky your boyfriend is a genius, he picks up on things quickly and kissing you is no exception. Your hands are in his hair, feeling his soft curls in between your fingers. It’s soft and tickles your palms. He’s cupping your face, like you’re a delicate piece of glass. You find this funny, because between the two of you, Spencer is the precious thing.

Kissing him is soft and slow, languid and passionate. You can forget your name doing it and not care to ever remember it. You encourage him, taking a break from his lips to leave wet kisses along his collarbone and jawline. It’s a crime to not kiss him there, he’s too beautiful for his own good.

Finally, you rest your forehead against Spencer’s, breathing him in, drinking him in, savoring the moment. The television flickers, long forgotten, but neither of your care. All that matters in that moment is Spencer’s lips that explore the canvas of your neck, begging you let him love you.

[peppini]

Meet Wreck: (yes his name is wreck lol)

Here’s another concept sketch for a potential oddworld OC based off of the Chinese folk tale character monkey king. But he’d essentially be from a primate like race. Although I know the inspiration had Chinese origins I was thinking his people would be like the Picts.

He’s also gonna potentially be the main character in the next mobile game I’m working on when I finished with my dating sim.

He’s essentially a rebellious Asshole trickster who plays the bass and goes around causing trouble and disrupting and undermining authority. I was thinking his story could Revolve around him doing tasks and odd jobs trying to pay off his debt to Mickey, and he uses his bass guitar as a weapon to hit people with. His mom is a priestess and his dad is dead. He always feels bad about not becoming the man his mother wanted him to be but through his experiences in industrial society he finds himself finally understanding the lessons his mom was trying to teach him all his life. He also finds out who his dad is later on too.

Here’s the inspo:

Im also debating whether or not to give him horns

[wolfliving]

The Pointiest Urban Paths

MIT NEWS OFFICE

FOR RELEASE: MONDAY, OCT. 18,

Contact: Sarah McDonnell, MIT News Office E: s_mcd@mit.edu T: 617-460-9583

How the brain navigates cities

We seem to be wired to calculate not the shortest path but the “pointiest” one, facing us toward our destination as much as possible.

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Everyone knows the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. However, when you’re walking along city streets, a straight line may not be possible. How do you decide which way to go?

A new MIT study suggests that our brains are actually not optimized to calculate the so-called “shortest path” when navigating on foot. Based on a dataset of more than 14,000 people going about their daily lives, the MIT team found that instead, pedestrians appear to choose paths that seem to point most directly toward their destination, even if those routes end up being longer. They call this the “pointiest path.”

This strategy, known as vector-based navigation, has also been seen in studies of animals, from insects to primates. The MIT team suggests vector-based navigation, which requires less brainpower than actually calculating the shortest route, may have evolved to let the brain devote more power to other tasks.

“There appears to be a tradeoff that allows computational power in our brain to be used for other things — 30,000 years ago, to avoid a lion, or now, to avoid a perilious SUV,” says Carlo Ratti, a professor of urban technologies in MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning and director of the Senseable City Laboratory. “Vector-based navigation does not produce the shortest path, but it’s close enough to the shortest path, and it’s very simple to compute it.”

Ratti is the senior author of the study, which appears today in Nature Computational Science. Christian Bongiorno, an associate professor at Université Paris-Saclay and a member of MIT’s Senseable City Laboratory, is the study’s lead author. Joshua Tenenbaum, a professor of computational cognitive science at MIT and a member of the Center for Brains, Minds, and Machines and the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), is also an author of the paper. A preprint version of this study was posted to arXiv earlier this year.

Vector-based navigation

Twenty years ago, while a graduate student at Cambridge University, Ratti walked the route between his residential college and his departmental office nearly every day. One day, he realized that he was actually taking two different routes — one on to the way to the office and a slightly different one on the way back.

“Surely one route was more efficient than the other, but I had drifted into adapting two, one for each direction,” Ratti says. “I was consistently inconsistent, a small but frustrating realization for a student devoting his life to rational thinking.”

At the Senseable City Laboratory, one of Ratti’s research interests is using large datasets from mobile devices to study how people behave in urban environments. Several years ago, the lab acquired a dataset of anonymized GPS signals from cell phones of pedestrians as they walked through Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts, over a period of one year. Ratti thought that these data, which included more than 550,000 paths taken by more than 14,000 people, could help to answer the question of how people choose their routes when navigating a city on foot.

The research team’s analysis of the data showed that instead of choosing the shortest routes, pedestrians chose routes that were slightly longer but minimized their angular deviation from the destination. That is, they choose paths that allow them to more directly face their endpoint as they start the route, even if a path that began by heading more to the left or right might actually end up being shorter.

“Instead of calculating minimal distances, we found that the most predictive model was not one that found the shortest path, but instead one that tried to minimize angular displacement — pointing directly toward the destination as much as possible, even if traveling at larger angles would actually be more efficient,” says Paolo Santi, a principal research scientist in the Senseable City Lab and at the Italian National Research Council, and a corresponding author of the paper. “We have proposed to call this the pointiest path.”

This was true for pedestrians in Boston and Cambridge, which have a convoluted network of streets, and in San Francisco, which has a grid-style street layout. In both cities, the researchers also observed that people tended to choose different routes when making a round trip between two destinations, just as Ratti did back in his graduate school days.

“When we make decisions based on angle to destination, the street network will lead you to an asymmetrical path,” Ratti says. “Based on thousands of walkers, it is very clear that I am not the only one: Human beings are not optimal navigators.”

Moving around in the world

Studies of animal behavior and brain activity, particularly in the hippocampus, have also suggested that the brain’s navigation strategies are based on calculating vectors. This type of navigation is very different from the computer algorithms used by your smartphone or GPS device, which can calculate the shortest route between any two points nearly flawlessly, based on the maps stored in their memory.

Without access to those kinds of maps, the animal brain has had to come up with alternative strategies to navigate between locations, Tenenbaum says.

“You can’t have a detailed, distance-based map downloaded into the brain, so how else are you going to do it? The more natural thing might be use information that’s more available to us from our experience,” he says. “Thinking in terms of points of reference, landmarks, and angles is a very natural way to build algorithms for mapping and navigating space based on what you learn from your own experience moving around in the world.”

“As smartphone and portable electronics increasingly couple human and artificial intelligence, it is becoming increasingly important to better understand the computational mechanisms used by our brain and how they relate to those used by machines,” Ratti says.

The research was funded by MIT Senseable City Lab Consortium; MIT’s Center for Brains, Minds, and Machines; the National Science Foundation; the MISTI/MITOR fund; and the Compagnia di San Paolo.

###

Written by Anne Trafton, MIT News Office

The DOI number for this paper will be 10.1038/s43588-021-00130-y.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s43588-021-00130-y

[1nt3rnalpu7ref4ct10n]

Xtas commentary/notes S1

(warning: swearing, spoilers, typos)

S1E1

- Dude this series so far is fuckin Delightful /srs

- Jubilee is chinese American, and has foster parents

- Also her powers have somethin to do with machines n electronics

- All the fuckers are here, Gambit, beast, FUCKIN MORPH, Rogue, Storm, Wolvie, Xavier, Cyclops

- Also hold on, why are like half the team hangin out at the mall? Gambit kinda makes sense, but what the fuck were Rogue n Storm doin?

- Gambit's first appearance is literally just him buyin cards from some lady behind yhe register flirting with him

- Jubilee unironically says dweebs, i mean, it is the 90's and her default outfit includes neon pink visor shades n a yellow trenchcoat

- Oh also shes 3in shorter than Logan

- Storm is 5'11 n 127lbs and Rogue is 5'8 n 120lbs

Storm: Yes, Rogue has a Way with men

- The cashier lady that's bein smoothtalked by Gambit (unintentionally) literally was seconds away from bein killed by a giant 2 story tall robot and screams WHAT IS THAT, Gambit, this fucker, "Dont worry Chere, your insurance can handle it"

- Gambit is confirmed 6'2, also 190lbs

- THE SENTINEL CALLS GAMBIT EXPENDABLE

- This show is literally so unserious it fuckin hurts

Cyclops: Energy blast huh, Heres one from a Pro *laser beams the sentinel's head off*

- 2 things here, 1) Scott your brain damage literally stops you from being able to control your lasers without wearin ruby quartz over your eyes, 2) HOW HAS NO ONE THOUGHT TO DO THAT, THE FUCKING GODDESS THAT CAN SUMMON LIGHTNING DIDNT EVEN THINK OF ELECTROCUTING THE DAMN THING

- Jubilee accidentally shorts out the ekg meter she's hooked up to, and shushes it and tells it to be quiet

- BEAST LITERALLY HAS PRIMATE MOBILITY ALSO HIS

B: This would be concerning if it were to detonate. Disconcerting, yet provocative *as he's literally flipping from the pipes on the ceiling, onto the ground*

- Morph is an impish lil fucker, has the laugh of one too, sounds like one of them tiny species of monkeys

- Logan n Gambit are literally playin a more dangerous version of tag, god i love these dumbasses

- Jubilee gets confused by the danger room and thinks Wolvie n Gambit are tryin to kill each other (the second hand emabrassment), so she zaps Wolvie

Storm: *Rushes to tje door of the danger room with the others* Is the child alright?

W: *tryin to wake up after bein launched at a wall unsuspectingly* uhhggg, not fer long..

- BEAST N MORPH LITERALLY LAUGH AT WOLVIE AFTER JUBILEE EXPLAINS, which of course Logan threatens them with his claws, as he does

Gambit: Don worry Petit, you jus hurt Wolverine's pride, thats all.

X: *talkin about the mutant control agency*

W: *sits on the table literally not even inches away from Beast* so we get em, and shred em

G: Id get in there alone, easy

X: No, Storm will take 3 xmen in with her, Wolverine, Beast, and Morph

M: If it makes you feel any better Gambit :) *transforms their face into Gambits and does a kinda shitty Gambit impression* I go in like dis ah? ;)

- God i love Gambit

C: *tellin the professor how the x men were taught to use their powers for good but X rolls off to somewhere else*

W: whats tha matter.. teacher's pet got cold feet?...

C: *nonverbally threatens to use his laser on Logan if he dont shut up*

W: anytimmee, pretty boyy..

- GOD LOGAN'S SUCH A LIL BITCH

W: *literally shoves Gambit out of his way* outta the way, Gumbo..

G: *charges up a card* >:(

Cyke: Gambit! Let 'im go..

G: *tosses the card* Ah, hes not worth it >:\

- Morph responds to Beast's "Television👆:)" with "Prrogress :)👆"

- BEAST LOOKS SO OFFENDED AFTER LOGAN SAYS "Lousy luck.."

- ALSO LOGAN IN A TREE MOMENT

- HE GOT BIT BY A DOG WHILE TRYIN TO FIND JUBILEE OUTSIDE THE HOUSE

Morph: hey can u guys boost me over the fence Beast?

Wolvie n Beast look at each other knowing they're gonna fuvk with Morph, so they basically toss them over the fence

Wolvie: looks like we can >:)

- OH ALSO WOLVIE'S VOICE IN THIS SOUNDS FUVKIN AWFUL WHY DOES HE SOUND LIKE A ILL INTENTIONED SNAKE

- Logan claws through the solid metal door, just for Beast to walk after him sayin "the guards keys :) *jingles said keys*" logan responded with "..So I'll buy 'im a new door"

W: hold it, electronic beamss...

B: You can detect infrared spectrum?

W: I can smell em.. *sneef* ... Ooozooonnnee...

- BEAST STOP BEIN PHILOSOPHICAL WE'RE TRYIN TO FIND A FUCKIN KID

- BRO WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT FUCKIN OUTRO

S1E2

- GAMBIT, STOP. BRAGGING.

- Everyone, including Beast runs through the door smoother than butter in a hot pan, except Morph, sumbitch does that drift thing and hits their shoulder on the doorway

S: *tries opening the filing cabinets* It is Locked-

W: *tears out the lock mech on the specific cabinet* Unlocked.

- Certified nerd Beast

G: You wanna play with Gambit? Here take a card *launches a card at the tanks, which explodes* House wins.

- was that an animation error on Gambit's eyes?

- THANK YOU STORM FOR SHUTTING BEAST UP

- MOEPH DIED!??? NOOO MY SILLY LIL GREMLIN MAN(/NEU) NOOOOO

Cyke n Logan get off the blackbird, of course not without a creature Wolvie moment

W: CYCLOPS! *Angrily walks over*

C: I know how you feel about it Wolverine- *gets gut punched n doubles over*

W: You know Nothin Lil Man.. >:(

- God the tension between these 2 dipshits

- OKAY SO BEAST LIVED BUT NOT MORPH WJAT THE FUCK

- Logan rips up Scott's car and when Jean confronts him he goes

W: Tell Cyclops.. i made him a convertible.. >:(

- BRO THEY LITERALLY FORCED WOLVERINE AGAINST HIS WILL TO LEAVE BEAST N MORPH WHAT THE FUCK, I KNOW HES STUBBORN BUT HE'S BASICALLY FUCKIN IMMORTAL

- Its literally the only the 2nd episode and this is the 3rd time Logan's said "I go, where I wanna go.."

- This asshole at the bar literally takes off Scott's glasses and once Scott's lasers destroys "their" table, this rando begs Scott to put the glasses back on BROTHER YOU FUCKIN TOOK EM OFF HIS FACE WITH A POOL CUE WHATDOYAFUCKINMEAN

- Scott doesnt apologize for command decisions

- OH NOW STORM ELECTROCUTES THE SENTINELS WHAT THE FUCK

- Still cant get over the fact that Morph sacrificed themself to save Logan

S1E3

- the guards really think just cause Beast is a mutant that he cant read

- Ill admit, the pages are bein flipped backwards

- DUDE THE BUILDING IS LITERALLY BEIN ATTACKED AND BEAST IS JUST READIN

- WITH HIS STUPID FUCKIN MEDIC GLASSES

- Wow these guards are fuckin dumb, they're outside shootin at random, unbeknownst to them they're blasting the electric fences open

- MAGNETO PANTSED THE GUARD TRYIN TO THREATEN BEAST TO CALL OFF THE OTHERS

- MAGNETO'S GOIN ON ABOUT SOME MUTANT SUPREMACY SHIT AND BEAST JUST PUTS HIS ANKLE CUFFS BACK ON AFTER ERIK BLASTED EM OFF

- Sorry, M a g n u s, is what he's named here

Scott: No! Thats an Order!

- Scott, son, he aint gonna listen to you, especially after you n the others made him leave Morph n Beast, which yknow, is the reason Beast even got caught and you 3 are now in a fuckin court

Scott: Come on, theyre gonna kill him [Sabretooth]!

Logan: ..gOoodd.. >:)

Scott: *looks back at Logan* W h a t

Logan: *stands there n crosses his arms like a pouting child about to tell his parents no*.

-

Xavier: He [Sabretooth] was near death!

Wolverine: not near eNough..

- Xavier's srill tryin to tell Logan to leave Sabretooth alone (he's still not listening) and this fuckin clip

W: *actually getting emotional* but you dont know him... he Cant stay here.... (Territorial lil thing are we?)

Storm: Thats how we felt about you when you first came.

- BRO JUST FUCKIN STAB HIM WITH HIS OWN HAND WHY DONT YA

- AND THEN HE JUST

W: ... >:/ Get outta my wayy....

- HE LITERALLY STOMPS OFF LIKE A PISSED OFF CHILD AFTER HE SAYS "How come we're supposed to Trash your old enemy.. but we gotta go easy on mine...?" BRO I GET SABERTOOTH IS A SENSITIVE SUBJECT BUT UOU ARE LITERALLY ACTING LIKE A CHILD

- He's age regressing✨/hj

- Also he's impulsive as shit, doin everything by trial n error as opposed to "Think about this carefully"

- Oh you want Logan n the others to stop nuclear missiles, he's gonna go to the computer room that's got the timer n destroy all the computers, but not find the "off switch"

S1E4

- Im sorry but what in the acid trip is this, Professor?

- People under Charles' physic link can break it? What?

- Sabretooth really doesn't want Xavier to know anything, sumbitch literally made a concrete block to hide whatever it is he dont want Xavier to know

- Prof X looks like a character from Dragon Ball

- LOGAN HAVIN A DRINK IN XAVIERS OFFICE HE LOOKS SO FRUITY JUST LEANIN AGAINST THE BOOKSHELF

- Scott tryin to be Xavier's lil soldier, standin there abnormally fuckin straight

- God Logan's a territorial lil fucker

- SABRETOOTHS GETTIN THE SAME RECOVERY PSYCH TREATMENT LOGAN DID WHEN HE FIRST GOT THERE

W: I'lL PEnETrATe HIS RECeSsESss rrgrgrrrg *vibrating out of rage*

- he's growling like a guard dog now

- Logan stomps off like he did last time and

X: We'll deal with Wolverine's attitude later

- Magneto goin on his Mutant Supremacy rant again, this time, using chemicals instead of nuclear missiles

- Xavier fully knows that Magneto's usin the lab workers as bait; "He's challenging me :o .."

- WHY ARE YOU LEAVIN JUBILEE TO WATCH SABRETOOTH SHE'S LITERALLY A MINOR AND JUST STARTED FIGURING OUT HER POWERS

- HE'S LITERALLY A TWICE AS LARGE MORE FERAL AND UNTAMED WOLVERINE AND YOU LET THE CHILD LOOK AFTER HIM WHAT THE FUCK

- Magnus is really pissed over his ex (Charles)

- ROGUE X STORM MOMENT

- SHE CALLED STORM BABY

- Cyclops is the official pretty boy

- Okay so Rogue now has Cyclops laser beams cause she gave mouth to mouth with Scott

- Its not official yet that Scott's disabled, so Rogue had uncontrollable laser beams shootin out her eyes until she closed em

- BRO YOY JUST LAUNCH YOUR EX OUT HIS FLYING WHEELCHAIR WHAT THE FUCK MAN

- Magneto's helmet isnt anti-psychic yet

- HOLOCAUST BEAM BITCH

- Fuck Senator Kelly

- Sabre also doesn't like Senator Kelly

- WHY ARE YOU TRUSTING HIM NO YOU DUMBASS HE WORKS FOR MAGNETO

- LOGAN SNEAKIN AROUND LIKE A LIL GREMLIN

W: AlRighT You EGg SucKiN PieCe OF GuTtERr TRAsH, You AlWaYS LiKeD PuShIN aROUnD PeoPLe SmAlLeR ThAn You, WELL AIHM SMALLER, TRY PUSHIN ME RAGGHHGGHH

- Okay now there's the stabbin Logan with his own claws part

- ROGUE WHY ARE YOU FLIRTIN WITH CYCLOPS HE'S MARRIED

- X is really tryin to make Wolvie out to be the bad guy here

- "I shouldve listen to you" WELL NOW HE'S UNCONSCIOUS ON A GURNEY WITH HIS CHEST WRAPPED IN BANDAGES HOWS THAT THEN

- Magneto you cartoonish ass villian motherfucker

S1E5

- okay yeah Rogue, just casually call Gambit swamp rat

- STOP TALKIN ABOUT MORPH

- WHAT IN THE STONER SURFER DUDE VOICE HAPPENED TO GAMBIT "AwHh DhUUDe"

- MORE STORM X ROGUE MOMENTS

- Storm's havin a breakdown

- Storm has claustrophobia

- WOLVIE DOIN KARATE

- WOLVIE FALLIN FOR JEAN

- Cyke is zonin off, thinkin about not letting the professor down, daddy issues much Soldier Boy?

- TOAD MOMENT (5.20.25 edit: not toad, leech)

- Whole gang of mutants in the subway station

Cyke: Must be mutants.

- YEAH NO SHIT BUD ONE OF EM IS BLUE AND MADE A SOLID WALL OUTTA SLUDGE

- Okay so yeah without any ruby shit, Scott is practically blind

- WOLVIE RUBBIN JEAN PIC MOMWNT

- GAMBIT IN A SPWEDOYMOMENT WHAT

- FUCKIN HOT ATTRACTIVE CAJUN GINGER MAN JUMPSCARE DURIN AN EMOTIONAL WOLVIE MOMEBY WHAT THE FUVK WRITERS

- Logan cuts Scott out of the pic of Jean

- Okay not Toad, Leech

- The mutant gang also took Scott's laser eyes, and his glasses

- Callisto? What?

- Okay Callisto is a she, she's just got a muscular rectangular frame here

- Mutant gang are called Morlocks

- Callisto really wants Cyclops

- Okay nonconsensual face stroking, dont love it

- Callisto needs a companion, an heir, Scott's response: "So take out an ad. where's Jean >:("

- Belive Gambit went through somethin like this, forced marraige, until Gambit killed the bride's brother

- At least Gambit's concerned for Storm's claustrophobia

G: Scott n Jean pick one strange romantic hideaway, no?

W: Shut up.. im gettin a scent...

- ROGUE CALLED SUNDER A ROACH

- I never wanna hear Jean say mommy

- LOGAN JUMPSCARED "SCOTT" AWAKE BY STABBIN HIS CLAWS INTO THE GROUND ON EACH SIDE OF SCOTTS HEAD

W: Great warrior eh? How bout we take 'im back, in Pieces. *Stab*

C: *does the most comedic anime boy scream ive ever heard*

- Wait that wasnt Scott, it was a morlock

- Callisto really wants to keep Scott

- This episode is Really testin Storm's claustrophobia

- MORLOCK GAVE GAMBIT THE PLAGUE OR SOME SHIT LIKE THE PLAGUE HORSEMAN IN SPN

W: Run all you like lady, i like to Hunt.. >:)

- Logan's savin Scott just so Jean doesnt get upset

- How dare you use my feral boy's emotions against him?!? You Wench!!

- Oooh, lightsaber fight with Scott as a reward

- His purtty brown eyes

- Logan's jealous

- Gambit's unconscious, still recovering from the plague

- LOGAN TRASHED HIS ROOM, CUT UP THE PIC OF SCOTT N JEAN AND FUCKIN L E F T, AND SCOTT N JEAN WERE GONNA THANK HIM, NOPE HE FUCKIN BOLTED

S1E6

- WOLVIE GOES BACK TO LIVIN FERAL IN THE WOODS IN CANADA, ALL THIS, OVER JEAN

- He's so emotionally and mentally unstable and doesnt know how to handle any of it except violence and hiding <3

- How they gonna get a runaway animal back from out the woods

- Scott, you know its Logan, he aint much of a talker, and also he's Logan, he's dogshit at emotions

- Oh okay so he legit trashed his room n left out the window, got it

- Also his weightliftin shit is also in his bedroom?

- God ive never seen Scott so sassy, and also insulting Logan's lack of emotional mental stability

- Fuvk you Scott

- Ohhh da weasel boy gone skiin in a winter wasteland

- SABRETOOTH NO HE'S JUST TRYIN TO ENJOY HIMSELF

- So does Sabertooth just look like that? Cause they're out in the middle of nowhere Canada, and Logan has a parka on, Sabre is just wearing what i assume is his superhero costume thing, and doesnt feel shit i guess

- DUDE SABRETOOTH JUST DID LIKE A BITCHY RrrRAa- AaH~ WHEN LOGAN PUNCHED HIM IN THE FACE

- Well Congrats Victor, you broke the ice and Logan fell into ice water

- Okay so now Victor's yellin over Wolverine bein "dead"

- HE DOES HAVE MUTANT HEALIN POWERS WHAT

- Logan's still snarky even when hes grippin on to a block of ice for dear life

- GOOD LOAWRD SCOTT REALLY SUCKS HERE

C: I Wont have you spreading lies and Disrupting the Team!

G: You afraid you'll lose your job? You wont be leader no more?

C: You either Follow orders like the other members of this Team, or youre Out of it!

G: If you wanna settle this mon ami, then lets do it *charges up a card*

- X why are you accusing Gambit of Scott's bullshit, Scott's the one bein an ass

- "I thought it was Dangerous for Gambit to spread Unfounded Rumors" Fuck off ya boot lickin dweeb

- Dawg, Gambit grew up with the Thieves Guild, and Logan is Logan, he's bound to be in n out

- SEE X AGREES WITH GAMBIT YOU BOSSY LIL DIMWIT

- OH NOW HE AGREES TO GO TO GENOSHA JUST CAUSE X SAID THEY COULD I HATE YOU YOU FUCKIN KISSASS

- "Oh relax Cyclops, all work n no play make Jacques a dull boy ;)" as Remy walks out

- I hate this bitch so much, hes a different type of bratty lil bitch than Wolvie, at least Logan's relatable, you're just validation seekin from your higherups

Jean: *to Scott* Maybe we All could use a vacation~

Cyke: Yeah, from Gambit 😒

- Son i oughta slap the shit outta you

- Bro, one of the native dudes thought about usin Logan as a way to get money n a new waterski from the government

- Okay so the mission was to disguise as tourists to check out Genosha, and what does Gambit do, dress exact the same as he normally does, his fuckin suit, cowl, trenchcoat gloves, doesnt even bother coverin up his eyes

- At least Storm n Jubilee put effort into disguising themselves

- "It takes skill to handle the nets" bud you're talking to a man born n raised from Alberta

- Okay now he's just braggin, calm down bud

- ONE OF THE NATIVES SAYS LOGAN HAS THE STRENGTH OF A POLAR BEAR

- Yeah and if he really wanted to, he could probably kill one and chomp through the bones like chips

- Okay this dude is really jealous of Logan, calm down man, Logan aint stayin long

- LOGAN FEELS HAPPY N PEACEFUL FOR FUCKIN ONCE MY BOY :DDDDDD

- What the fuck is airsick

- Great Wolvie, you created a villain

- Im sorry did Sabretooth just "bap" this guy?

- Victor stop you tryhard

- This is all cause Scott pissed of Logan so hard that Logan left to Canada

- "Would he say that if he knew we're mutants" Remy i love you, but if yiu don't want the people to know you're a mutant, how about dont say it outloud like a moron, you're still fuckin dressed like a mutant you loveable imbecile

- His eyes are still on full display too

- Im sorry what in the psychic anti-mutant bullshit is this hotel

- Oh no not Sabretooth, why hint that shit to Logan what the fuck man

- I'm fuckin tired man there's too much drama goin on

- Oh thanks man, have part in Sabretooth's plan of destroying the last place Logan felt at peace, your people will be proud of you and your jealousy

- I know this is a show from 92, but the animation errors.. why does Logan's suit have arm hair, OKAY SO HE WAS WEARING SLEEVES AND IN THE NEXT FEW FRAMES HES NOT MAKE UP YALLS MIND ANIMATION STUDIO

- Logan's voice actor sounds like his throat's shot

- OH MY GOD LOGAN YOU ARE BORN N RAISED AND CANADA AND SNOW IN THE EYES DEBILITATES YOU??

- Belt grab moment, but it's Logan's belt this time

- And Sabretooth falls down an artic ravine

- DID LOGAN SLIP ON ICE THROWIN THE BOMB OVER THE LEDGE

- No Storm, its not genuine, they're just r e a l good at hiding they're plans

- "Maybe Genosha Is a paradise" Gambit says as people are literally about to swat the place

- Okay so Gambits cards work against these robots, but not the sentinels?

- NO GAMBIT GOT HIT WITH A LASER

- Dude theres always some robot tentacle shit goin on why?

S1E7

- "Previously on X men" Scott sucks and gets everyone in trouble and blames it on people not following his orders

- Gambit easily coulda dodged that laser, if im bein honest

- How is this slave labor camp allowed

- Oh great more robot tentacles

- Oh look, a sentinel

- Oh so he tells Jubilee to keep quiet n still when Storm's tryin to escape, but when the leader dude says to dispose of Storm, now Gambit wants to do something?

- Storm is from Cairo

- Gambit is real stubborn here

- "There's probably no trouble on Genosha" oh boy are you all fuckin wrong, Jubilee, Gambit, n Storm are locked in a slave labor prison camp

- Oh look, Gambit's gone

- THEY FUCKIN TOOK GAMBIT WHAT THE HELL MAN

- Storm is like, actually physically not doin okay

- GAMBIT NO

- Gyrich really is obsessed with mutants and the x men

- SMART MAN GAMBIT SLY SNEAKY DOG

- EY IT CABLE

- ITS FUCKIN CABLE

- "The Wild Man of Borneo"

- Soldier tf2 levels of patriotic (more so focused on the government rather than stars n stripes)

- Gambit has the audacity to comment on Jubilee's sweat while they're actively running away while bein shot at by laser guns

- Charged up bolt nuts are apparently enough to knock over a sentinel, but not his cards

- COLOSSUS?!?

- No wait not Colossus

- Gyrich has that nasally incel voice

- AYYY IT FUCKIN CABLE AGAIN, With his Scombine earpiece

- AYY ANOTHER ROGUE X STORM MOMENT

- I agree Rogue, Storm's been doin too much

- Cable loves his democracy, and is willin to toss the colonel/Leader over the bridge

- IM.SORRY WHY IS THE MEGA SENTINEL SENTIENT

- NO THE FUCKIN SCHOOL'S DESTROYED

- OH YOU CLIFFHANGER LOVIN BITCHES CURSE YOU

- Dude i am exhausted this is too much fuckin drama n tea

S1E8

- Wolvie's pickin his teeth with one of his claws

- The school's destroyed and Xavier is missin

- NO WHY WOULD CHARLES ELABORATE

- "ThE PrOFeSsOr WaNtS uS tO wOrK aS a TeAm" YEAH THATS RICH COMIN FROM YOU SCOTT, YOU'RE THE REASON GAMBIT N LOGAN GOT PISSED OFF

Storm: Where's Wolverine going?

Cyke: His Own way like he Always does😒

- SHUT UP YOU FUCKIN KISSASS BOSSY LIL BITCH

- THANK YOU JUBILEE SOMEONE UNDERSTANDS LOGAN FOR ONCE

- STORM NO SEPERATING IS ALWAYS SHOWN AS A BAD IDEA

- NO NOT MY BOY COLOSSUS LEAVE HIM ALONE (Not to mention the xenophobia) HE CANT HELP HE'S TALL AS SHIT

- PIOTR<43333

- Oh hi Logan, looks like Jubilee did find him first, or well, he found her

- LOOK AT THE GINAT SHINY MAN MY PRETTY SHIBY METAL BOY✨✨✨<33333

- Jubes, dont automatically assume Piotr crushed the mansion

- MY BOY PIOTR MAKIN HIS POWERS USEFUL

- Oh look, more xenophobia

- COMRADES<3333

- Im sorry, you see this guy demolish a building in less than 5min, and you think running him over with a truck'll kill 'im? What are you a fuckin moron?

- His poor English<33333

Piotr: Now you run away. What i have done wrong? :(

Logan: ..the First thing was Crushin the Professors Mansionn >:( *jumps off metal frame onto Colossus's shoulders, only to get flung off into a pile of rubble

W: oouughh.. guy's got a great arm...

- PIOTR NO DON'T HURT HER

- Bro what is Logan's deal with jumpin on Pitor's shoulders

Piotr: *holdin Logan upside-down by his suit* What do you want? I do not know of any mansion? >:( It is a mistake

W: .. *sniff sniff* youre right 'Ivan'

Piotr: *throws Logan aside into more rubble* 😒

- YEHA JUBILEE JUST CAUSE ITS A BIG MAN MUTANT DOESNT AUTOMATICALLY MEAN ITS PIOTR, ALSO LOGAN CAN LITERALLY SMELL BRAIN CHEMICALS, HE WOULD KNOW IF PIOTR WAS AT THE MANSION

- HOW WAS PIOTR THERE

- HE WAS JUST WANTIN TO OPEN A BANK ACCOUNT BRO

- WHO'S FRAMIN MY BOY

- "Remember Rogue, no scenes" AS ROGUE IS LITERALLY STILL WEARIN HER SUIT

- AYYY HANK IS BACK

- NO ONE FUCKIN QUESTIONED WHY BEAST WAS GONE WHAT THE FUCK

- Hank's just chillin hangin upside down from a metal pipe, he was chattin with Piotr in Russian

- God Beast you fuckin goody two shoes

- BEAST KNOWS RUSSIAN

Rogue: Dear dear, no back door :o

Colossus: *shifts and breaks the fuckin wall* Now theres a back door :)

- THERES THE SUMBITCH MAKIN MY BOY LOOK BAD

- INSTEAD OF SNEAK ATTACKIN JUGGERNAUT LOGAN JUST CLAWS THE MONEY BAGS OPEN SO JUBILEE CAN HAND SAID MONEY BACK TO THE BANK

- LOGAN IS GETTIN MANHANDLED A LOT IN THIS EPISODE HUH

J: Im Not a mutant, Tin Head >:( My powers are Magical. And none of you mutant Wimps can Handle them >:(

- Scott i really can't stand you

Cyclops: Ive got an idea. It'll take all of us working together *looks to Wolverine* For a Change

W: >:(

- okay so Juggernaut is just inherently evil, got it

- WHY IS ROGUE SCREAMIN WHAT THE FUCK

- ANOTHER ROGUE X STORM MOMENT

- Okay Rogue's fine now

- Juggernaut's up, and Jean gave him amnesia

- LOGAN LIKES PIOTR TOO

- PIOTR'S HELPIN REBUILD THE MANSION I LOVE HIM

- Logan gettin emotional moment, and Jubilee relating to him

S1E9

- Oh now we're back to the Genosha shit?

- Oh hey look its Warren

- HI CABLE :3

- Sneaky man Cable, despite him bein built like Logan, but twice the height

- Oh hey look, Angel got his wings

- Okay Angel's alone now

- Oh look, a recluse German man

- "I haven't told them about Adler's discovery, but its time i did" BITCH YOU DIDNT EVEN TELL THEM YOU FUCKIN LEFT TO SCOTLAND, GAMBIT STORM N JUBILEE GOT PUT IN A LABOR CAMP ON GENOSHA

- Oh hey look Gambit's here

W: Keep an eye on me Gambit, you might learn somethin D:| 👆 *slices a stack of wood in half with one of his claws* |:)

- Remy's just tryin to make the fuckin mortar mix man

W: Lemme put some nails in that for ya Jean. I always did like workin with my hands |:)

- WE GET IT YOUR A GRUFF RUGGED MANLY MAN SHUT UP

W: That mortar looks a lil thick, Storm. Better add some water :)

Storm: *creates a rain cloud for the water*

Gambit: Big expert. Always givin orders.

W: Makin up for Your screw ups, Gumbo. Too bad you dont know how to do anything, but pick pockets and steal candy from babies *uses his middle claw to spread the mortar n stack bricks*

- i love you sir, but i draw the line for your bratty bitchy attitude at Gambit

- GAMBIT CHARGES UP A BRICK HES ABOUT TO GRAB SNEAKY MAN :33

- Cylcops has the Audacity to scold Gambit for chargin a brick Logan was about to lay down

- "He better be more careful with his mouth ;)" IS RIGHT SON

W: You better stop worrying about my Mouth, and start worrying about These >:( *right claws retract*

- ROGUE PUT GAMBIT IN A MAKESHIFT CAGE YOU SHOULD PUT LOGAN IN THE CAGE MAAM, HES THE SPOILT PET NOT GAMBIT

- Bro Logan, you're fuckin canadian, you cant be xenophobic when you are literally not from America, Cajuns are American

- I love Rogue n her bein southern

- "You gonna shut up or am I gonna have tuh help yew?" >:(

- AY DA GAMBIT TRYIN TO COMFORT ROGUE

- Nevermind she threw him out her car

- HE JUMPED BACK IN

Rogue: You Know what happens when i touch somebody! You wanna end up in the Hospital?! >:(

Gambit: Maybe is worth it, no? ;)

- TWILIGHT ZONE AIRPLANE REFERENCE

- THERES A FUCKIN AUSSIE CHARACTER, Hes a villain BUT HE FUCKIN AUSSIE

- PYROS FUCKIN AUSSIE THE IRONY

- AYYYY CABLES BACK

- Oh look, this was referenced in the first movie, Rogue bein used to power a machine, and her first boyfriend gettin put in a coma just cause they kisses

- AYY LOOK IS CABLE

- PYRO CALLED CABLE "Old darling~ >;)"

- Cable: *shoots Pyro with his stun gun into the ocean* Dont call me darling |:(

- Okay so this german doctor (I FORGOT TO MENTION HES A DOCTOR) Is not actually a german doctor, its Mystique

Pyro: Personally, i foind this froightfully confusing

- CABLE WINK :3333

- God Cables like if you combined Solider n Wolverine

- HE LAUNCHED A PLASMA GRENADE AT ROGUE AND SPAT THE PIN AT "Dr Adler"

Cyclops: Drop, the weapon.

Cable: ..No |:( *shoots plasma or some shit at Scott n Jean*

- Angel really asked how Rogue flies without wings

- Why does Angel have a whole fuckin suit

S1E10

- Good god Scott's a nuisance, unless he was hinting at it, he didn't even realize he was makin Rogue uncomfortable talkin about some mutants would want to have their mutation removed, WHEN HE LITERALLY KNOWS HIM N JEAN BEIN TOGETHER AND SHOWIN PDA MAKES ROGUE UNCOMFORTABLE CAUSE SHE FUCKIN CANT TOUCH PEOPLE

- Oh man if only Angel knew that Dr Adler is actually Mystique oh wait he finds out, she shows him

- Also Mystique is doin all this for Apocalypse, btw havent mentioned it, its da guy that makes Logan the big fluffy alt man

- Is no wings Warren Mystique?

- Yes she is

- Apocalypse-ified Warren is now Archangel

- HORSEMAN OF THE APOCALYPSE

- Gambit is.. cant word this.. hes like how Deadpool likes that he n Wolvie had a battle to near death in the honda odyssey, that's basically Gambit for Rogue

- Rogue's too concerned for his health

- THIS SLUT

Gambit: You can drain my energy anytime Chere. Gambit has plenty~ Observe

- OH MY LORD HES LITERALLY RIGHT ACROSS THE POOL TABLE N YOURE TALKIN SHIT ABOUT HIM

Jean: Dont let Gambit get to you Rogue

R: Id like to wipe that smirk off his face >:( Serves him right if i Did give that Low Life a kiss

J: Maybe Monsieur Gambit's not as good as he thinks he is *telekinetically fucks with Gambit who's got his cue charged up so he rips the table n knocks the cue ball of the table*

- STORM JEAN MOVED HIS CUE

- Im sorry i cannot take Apocalypse seriously, i know he's literally shapeshifting and destroying everything and is basically a robot/cyborg but i cant with him

- YEAH WAIT "WARREN" SAID HE WAS CURED AND YET HERE HE IS, A WHOLE NEW GUY N WORKIN FOR APOCALYPSE

- Why does War have a bowl cut

- ROGUE YOU LITERALLY SAW ADLER SHAPESHIFT

- Mystique does her best Nightcrawler impression

- That was the most anticlimactic fall onto a bus ive ever seen

- Logan layin on the roof of that car in such a bbg fuckin way before that statue nearly fell on him

- Gambit helped him btw :)

Apocalypse: Weak and foolish mutant. You are corrupted by those who want peace! YOUCANNOTOPPOSEME!!!

- Slow down there bud, you're talkin to fast for even me, and i have constant problems talkin to fast

- Love the classic "exaggerate woman body so they look broken" artsyle n posing here

- NO WAR FLUNG GAMBIT WITH HIS LASER SHIT

- Oh look, Rogue absorbs more bad guy bullshit n screams

- OH MY GOD LOGAN YOU EMOTIONALLY UNSTABLE WEASEL

- APOCALYPSE WENT THROUGH A SECRET ELEVATOR THING AS LOGAN WAS ABOUT TO JUMP ON HIM, AND SINCE LOGAN'S NOW PISSED, HES JUST STABBIN THE FUCKIN GROUND

- Okay i guess Angel's reformed?? I kinda stopped payin attention for a sec

S1E11

- Recap on the anti mutant shit n politics so far

- Several years in the future, Kelly was assassinated and the city was basically destroyed n deserted, some people lived, like Wolvie n some other mutants

- No i have no idea what the city ks called

- LOGAN YOU DIDNT NEED TO JUMP OVER THE TUNNEL THERE WASNT A NEED FOR THAT WE KNOW YOU'RE THE WOLVERINE AND YOU LIKE HEIGHTS NOW AINT THE TIME

- ALSO WHY DOES HE LOOK LIKE THAT

- What was the point n shushin them if 2 sentinels are literally gonna show up

- THIS GUY "*destroys one of the sentinels that tells him n the lady to surrender, and then looks at his hands* what a shame, now we cant surrender :)"

- Okay Logan shows up, already in his iconic feral stance, claws extended, no reason either, cause he just stands back up seconds later

- Okay here's Bishop, and he's got Logan n the other 2 restrained so he can transfer em to where ever the fuck it is he works

- HE CALLS LOGAN SLEEPING BEAUTY WHEN HE SEES HE WOKE UP

- WOLVIE TRIES TO GRAB THE ROPE HE'S UNDER BUT ITS ELECTROCUTED

- "Hey, dont i know you from somewhere?" Yes actually but that's explained later

- "They treat the rest of us just fine >:)" NO THEY DONT THEY LITERALLY FUCKIN FIRED YOU AS SOON AS YOU ASKED ABOUT THE REWARD FOR TURNIN IN SOME REBELS

- Oh look, X men headstones

- Gambit aint there cause it's explained later and the reason Bishop goes back in time

- Someone was in 2019, Scott in 2032, Rogue in 2033, Storm in 2021, and Jubilee in 2010

- Why the fuck is Logan's face so detailed, it never was before, i do like that they made him scruffier

- He gets picked up by the sentinel he's tryin to gut and goes "Hey! |:< Watch the material!" And then gets nearly crushed by that samw sentinel

- WHY IS THERE A VILLAIN NAMED NIMROD THATS A TERRIBLE NAME CHOICE FOR A ROBOT THAT'S SUPPOSED TO BE FEARED

- Hi Forge

- Wolvie still doesnt like or understand technology <3

W: Got the, uhh.. transponder?

F: The temporal transceiver.

- LOGAN KNOWS WHO THE ASSASSIN IS/WAS

- LOGAN BASICALLY GOT OFFENDED HE GOT CALLED TOO OLD BY 2 DIFFERENT PEOPLE

- Oh look, here's Nimrod, and Logan immediately goes after him

- Bishop got keyhole eyes

- Gambit n Rogue are visiting Beast and Gambit wants to be a smartass

Gambit: Beast here is easy to shop for, no? Just buy the books with the most dust on em

- Beast is tryin so hard to be complicit n civil, Gambit cant take it

- Wait no they're not visiting, they're also in jail, the fuck did Rogue n Gambit do?

- Remy tries to charge up the bars but Beast stops him

- Gambit honestly probably does have some trauma from prison

- HI PUNISHER REFERENCE

- Does time travel really fuvj with your memory, or is Bishop just Bishop

- SIR THERE WAS NO NEED TO HIGHJACK A FUCKIN BUS

- Im sorry but who put Jubilee in charge of security?

- AND BISHOP JUST RAMS THE BUS THROUGH THE WALL OKAY THEN YA VIOLENT BITCH

- HI LOGAN :3

- Wait how does Xavier already have questions

- Doesnt Cable have the same type of weapon? I remember he had a gun that was put on stun mode

- "This guys a faker |:(" BRO YOU CAN LITERALLY SMELL BRAIN CHEMICALS YOU OUGHT TO KNOW IF HES LYIN OR NOT

- No Logan, uou just get even hairier and slightly grey

- At least Scott's agreein with Logan for once

Logan: What's goin on, someone in the future stealin your car?

Bishop: >:( Someone, or SomeThing, has come back through the time portal.

L: Check please! >:( Time portal? Gimme a break.

- Logan please i cant tell if you're bein sarcastic anymore, alignment shift cause of the portal? Really?

- Insults nimrod, and is immediately whipped with a laser thing

- And there goes nimrod, no wait, its "restructuring"

- WHY DID NIMROD HAVE A TEMPORARAL TRANSCEIVER

- WHY IS HE CALLED NIMROD

- "I dont remember, it could be any of you" and he loses his shit once Gambit walks in, Gambit was so happy to be back too until Bishop

Storm: It could be any one of us. We all have dark sides to our souls.

Logan: Speak for yerself lady. The only person im interested in takin out is our man Bishop here, if hes Lyin to us

Rogue: Maih maih, dontchyall look serious? And we've got company too. Whats up? :)

Gambit: Everyone can Relax, Gambit has returned ;)

Bishop: YOU! >:(

- Gambit still sound fuckin smug even while bein threatened by a dude from the future holdin a gun to his face

S1E12

- WHY DID BISHOP HAVE HIS GUN ANYWAY

- Jubilee calla him a tattooed freak when the only tattoo we see on Bishop is the one on his face

Xavier: He claims to be a time traveler, from the future

Gambit: Yes, and Im de Queen of France~ That's the best kinda lie, one cant Nobody prove >:( 👆 *is literally nose to nose with Bishop*

- CYCLOPS JUST STANDIN IM THE BACK LIKE 🧍🏽UNTIL BISHOP TRIES TO PUNCH REMY

- Oh look, metaphorical racism, as if this isnt what this whole thing is about

- Logan the fuck you shake your head for?

- Why the fuck would Gambit kill Charles?

- REMY AND HIS FRENCH I CANT

Gambit: You dont take this Poseur serious?! What we know about him?

Logan: Only a lil more than we know about youuu.. you've never been straight with us

Gambit: >:(

Logan: not completely

- i love how Remy speaks, also FUCKIN NOT EVEN ROGUE SAYS SHE TRUSTS HIM

- OH THIS SCENE ALSO Where's Logan's cowl?

- No like, what's the point of wearin the suit, but leave the cowl behind?

Scott: We cant let you go Gambit.

Storm: It is the Only way to be Certain

X: Bishop stays behind also.

Bishop: We'll be here when you get back, [no they wont] *Bishop and Logan looks to Gambit* only one of us may not be breathin

Gambit: :) But which one..?~

Logan: You kids better Behave yourselves.. Im stayin behind, to Babysit |:> [god why is he fuckin like this why does he sound like that]

- he fuckin sounds like if Venom was a Canadian cage fighter instead of a symbiote im so used to Hugh's voice

Bishop: I should've known better than to play poker with an assassin.

Gambit: *charges a card* Shut Up fool! >:( *Throws the card*

B: I can absorb your bio energy, and channel it right back [mutant equivalent of nuh uh]

Logan: I think he's gettin ready to raise ya |;)

B: *does the bio energy charge thing at Gambit*

G: *dodges the beam*

B: That's My mutant power >:)

L: how would you like to try absorbing These?*extends claws near Bishop's face* Now siddown, both of ya! Or cards wont be the only thing that gets Cut around here |:<

Gambit: >:(

- Why is Jubilee dreamin about Gambit

- REMY CHARGED THE DECK IN ORDER TO CREATE A SMOKE BOMB

Bishop: You let him get away. >:(

Logan: I didnt see You doin much! |:(

- Also Logan still doesnt believe Bishop

- Kelly still sucks btw

- Jean n Scott gently remove Pyro n Avalanche from the room

- WHY DID ROGUE NOT WAKE JUBILEE

- ROGUE X STORM MOMENT

- Pyro can make fire birds that function like blue shells in mario kart

- Blob got some nice tits

- LOGAN

Blob: Nothin hurts the BlOob >:) -

Wolvie: *Jumps onto the Blob's back n blinds him* Okay rRound Boy! Lets Dance.. |:) *while Blob is tryin to fling him off like a buckin bull*

- Hi Pyro

Bishop: WHERE'S GAMBIT D:< *borderline growling*

Cyke: Hes supposed to be with You, *looks to Logan* And you. >|(

- that kid just fuckin stands there

Kid: *starts crying*

Logan: This kids crying |:< Do somethin *passes her to Jubilee*

- I love Rogue's humor, southern speak✨✨

- MYSTIQUE FRAMED GAMBIT

Gambit: *busts in n charges a card* Hey! SuPrised to see me? I know I am~ >:(

- THANK YOU ROGUE FOR HAVIN SOME SENSE

- Minus the fact that Mystique reveals she's Rogue's mom and coerces Rogue into helpin her escape the building

- Someone smells oily accordin to Logan, i think its the senator

- Yeah why was Gambit just unconscious, no jacket, a whole makeshift bed made

- Hi Logan skeleton

- And Magneto kidnaps the senator, implied by Charles' watch stopping and bein magnetized to his super high tech wheelchair thing

- The end

S1E13

- They're watchin the news, post-Magneto-kidnaps-Kelly

Logan: *still not wearing his cowl* we save that jerk's butt, and look at the thanks we get!.. >:(

- Professor, theres literally been a continuous anti mutant fever

- Magneto was watchin what was supposed to be the assassination through a window

- Oh Kelly you have a family wife n kids n shit? This man went through the Holocaust

- OH WAIT PLASTIC SENTINELS STOP MAGNETO FROM KILLIN KELLY

- Magneto can still use parts of tje ship as projectiles though, so hes not entirely useless

- Oh theres Logan's cowl, sumbitch wasnt wearin it a whole fuckin episode despite wearin the rest of his suit

- GAMBIT YOU HIMBO

G: *sees somethin behind a bush of I beams n uses a charged card as a light source* Mes Amis! A sentinel! *Its a disembodied sentinel hand*

L: ..It takes a Whooolle sentinel to scare most people~ |:3 ..

- Hi Magnus, crushed under a piece of scrap metal, abdomen all tore up n shit

- AND HERE'S THE START OF THE SENTINEL TAKEOVER THIS IS WHAT YOU GET FOR MAKIN GIANT ROBOTS AND AN EVEN BIGGER ROBOT THAT MANUFACTURES THE GIANT ROBOTS LIKE ITS GIVIN BIRTH

- Gambit gettin put in the cerebro

- Gambit has canon trauma, he asks the professor to not go too far back into his memory

- GAMBIT MET GHOST RIDER WHAT

- Oh look, Gyrich, this bitch

- Cyclops asked Storm to stop Gyrich gently, she even says "As gently as the falling snow" makes it snow, and Gyrich crashes his car into a tree, Maam i know you're a goddess of weather but I wouldn't call that gently

- Oh this random guy that doesnt get explained

- LOGAN SITTIN ON THE LINCOLN MEMORIAL GETTIN READY TO POUNCE ON GYRICH BRO HOW DO YOU NOT SEE THE NEON YELLOW SITTIN ON THE STATUE

- Bro why the fuck would you make thousands of giant robots

- I AGREE WITH GAMBIT SAVIN SOME ASS WHO DOESNT CARE ABOUT MUTANTS IS A WASTE AND A RISK

- Girldad Logan moment

- Okay so Logan lets Jubilee go anyway

Magnus watchin the blackbird take off: You're all fools.. heroic fools... The brave, are always the first to die..

- Trask this whole fuckin idea was dumb as shit

- Gambit leavs a single charged card on the elevator as a distraction

- ITS A FUCKIN ANTS NEST OF SENTINELS TRASK YOU FUCKIN MORON

- Jubilee takes out a water tower in order to knock over n electrocute a sentinel and she goes "I got one :DD" meanwhile theres still a fuckin swarm of giant robots

- Why do the sentinels have tentacles im so confused

- Rogue got squished between a sentinel and a truck/train car

- MAGNUS HELPING HIS EX HUSBAND

Gambit n Logan are walkin through the tunnels

Logan: *stops n extends his claws* |:<

Gambit: You afraid of tha dark?

Logan: i ssmelll ssentilesss.. |:<

- god its like a family of bats in a cave

- WHAT

Logan: GET OUTTA HERE CAJUN *Runs with Remy to the doors but locks him out the tunnel unbeknownst to Remy*

- SO NOW GAMBIT CAN ONLY HEAR WOLVERINE FIGHTIN THE SENTINELS BRO TRAUMATIZE THIS MAN EVEN MORE WJY DONTCHA

- Logan jumping over the lasers n shit <333 struggling to keep up with the last remaining sentinel

- And then at the perfect moment, Remy busts open the doors with a charged up card, and Logan's flung back next to him, his suit all ripped at the chest, tiddies fully out, he's fuckin loopy sayin he aint finished yet

- EVEN THE SENTINELS AGREE WITH THE MUTANTS

- BRO ITS LITERALLY A FUCKIN ROBOT OF COURSE ITS INHUMAN WHY DOES IT HAVE INTELLIGENCE

- YES TRASK IT IS YOUR FAULT UOU FUCKIN GAVE THESE THINGS ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

- Okay so no more Trask, he blew up one of the propane tanks in the tunnels which is making the whole mine system to explode

- ROGUE HAS BEEN BEIN FORCEFULLY SQUISHED THIS ENTIRE TIME AND NO ONE DID NOTHIN???

- Hi Magneto weird time for you to show up, at the lasy fuckin moments of the fight

- OH NOW ROGUE CARES ABOUT GAMBIT

- LOGAN WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED TO YOUR SUIT YOUR COWL'S INTACT BUT YOU'RE MISSING THE ENTIRE TORSO SECTION AND ONE OF THE LEGS IS TORE UP AT THE THIGH

- Damn Scott, you dont see this man half fuckin naked standin over a sentinel? No it aint his fuckin day off he just got done killin sentinels

- ROGUE GOES TO KISS GAMBIT AFTER HE SURFACES AND

Gambit: *crawls out the tunnel Scott made and sees Rogue runnin up to him* I think maybe you miss me, eh?

Rogue: *covers his mouth so she can kiss him* I hatechu 👆>:( *hugs him*

Gambit: .. I don't understand this woman..

- LOGAN YOU FERAL SLUT

- Magnus helpin his ex husband destroy Mastermold

- He still threatens Xavier even after helping him destroy Mastermold as a reward for saving him from the ship

- HI HANK ITS BEEN A WHILE

- HES FUCKIN FREE LETSGOOOOOO

- Okay now Scott n Jean are married

- Who the fuvk is watchin Jean n Scott on the monitor

- OH I KNOW WHO THAT IS THAT SUMBITCH HAS MORPH

[brightingales]

I have a feeling that this fic may be polarizing, but whatever ;)

Written for @happyjarryholidays​ . Prompt:  Green: Nature, Growth, Envy...

Summary: James builds a nursery for Isaac. 

They agree to take things slowly.

It’s for James’s benefit, as much as his own, but Harry can’t help but notice how every meeting between the two of them has been carefully constructed to make Harry feel as comfortable as possible. Their dates are only even held in public places – The Bean, The Hutch, The Dog – with Harry acutely aware of the eyes watching them, waiting to step in should James put so much of a toe out of line. Conversation topics have been selected beforehand and James always seems to be sticking to a safe script of questions to ask Harry. They talk about films (always a shared love, even if their tastes remain wildly different), music, the food, their families… James even asks him about the football season and how well Harry’s team is doing. He’s making a real effort, and it shows.

Harry can’t decide if he’s annoyed or oddly charmed by James’s insistence that they date to a formula. He almost feels like they’re a courting couple in a Restoration romance like in the novels that James hides under the bed. They can’t go anywhere without a chaperone. They can’t stay out past eleven pm. They can’t touch bare skin above the wrist… It’s frustrating, and frankly upsetting, to Harry who genuinely meant it when he said, ‘I want things to go back to the way they were between us.’ But James has always been feet-first when it comes to Harry, and the restraint he is showing now only proves how much he wants to repair the damage he wrought.

So, they date – outside and in the open so that anyone can intervene the moment Harry feels even the slightest bit uncomfortable. He doesn’t. He might be mad, but he doesn’t.

It takes him a few weeks to persuade James to take him back to the flat. James eventually relents but makes a big show of ensuring that either Marnie or Romeo is there. Harry makes an equally big show of saying how much he misses being home and how he wants to be alone with James and how it’s funny that James is being so cautious with him when Harry is a big boy who can make his own decisions.

“It’s not just you though – is it?” James says quietly, hiding his ashamed eyes in his wine glass. 

He’s got a point. There’s Isaac to think of now.

While Harry would never push James into something that he is uncomfortable with, he also knows that James’s self-deprecating nature will probably make him think that he’s made way less progress with his therapist than Harry knows he has. And Harry knows – because he and James talk about it. ‘My therapist says’ is one of those safe topics of conversation, though Harry can see James’s internal wince every time he says it. So, Harry encourages him as best he can without making it seem like he’s pushing too hard to force their relationship back on track. He texts James every day so that he knows Harry is thinking of him. He sends pictures of Isaac being cute so that James feels like part of his life too. He makes sure that James knows that the reason Harry schedules their dates so early in the day is so that they can spend as much of their time together. Each action is a crack in James’s armour, a balm on the wound, a look filled with hope.

Harry has made his choice. It’s James – it will always be James. Now James just needs to make his.

He’s a bit surprised when James asks him around one afternoon. The flat has become their after-date sanctuary and James very rarely asks him to meet there.  

“I’ve got something to show you,” James explains.

Romeo and Marnie are there, of course, but when James leads him through the flat and towards the stairs, they do not follow. Instead, they hold hot mugs of coffee to their lips and smile at him through the steam.

He doesn’t dare hope that James is leading him back to their bedroom – that they’ll finally be able to shut the world out and just be with one another again. But James passes the door and reaches instead for the handle of the spare room.

The first thing Harry notices is the smell of wet paint. The windows are thrown wide open, but the acidic tinge is still lingering in the air. The walls are painted a soothing colour of mint green – the same shade as the walls of the corridor. Green is James’s favourite colour, so this is hardly surprising, but it looks to Harry that he’s just used leftover paint rather than choosing something new. Whatever James has done – it was done in a hurry.

Breathing through the paint fumes, Harry turns his attention to the furniture. If he had any doubts about this room and what its purpose is, they are quickly dispelled.

Taking pride-of-place in the middle of the room is a beautiful, white crib.

Harry’s brain takes a moment to process what is going on around him. In the corner of the room is a large dresser. A baby changing station is set up on top of it and Harry just knows that if he were to open the drawers, he would find many sets of miniature clothes all waiting to be put onto Isaac’s squirmy little body. In another corner, there are shelves of books and small knick-knacks that must have taken ages to collect. And pushed against the side of the room is a big squishy sofa with a soft fleece thrown over.

Harry goes to the crib. Above it hangs a mobile of different brightly coloured shapes. Most of these things that Harry has seen before (indeed the one that hangs over Isaac’s crime in his room at his dad’s place) are quite cheesy and tacky – with smiling cartoon characters made of obnoxiously coloured plastic. But James has managed to find a baby’s mobile that wouldn’t look out of place in one of those modern art galleries that James was always threatening to take him to. It looks like the sort of thing a parent who expects their child to become an architect would buy. Harry wonders if James had a similar motive when he bought it and his heart leaps at the idea that James might have thought about Isaac’s future and his own place in it.

Obviously, he has. Why else would he have made this nursery?

While the mobile is structural and classy, there is one cartoon animal to be found. Tucked inside the crib is a cuddly-toy lemur.

James must see Harry staring at it because he nervously coughs and says, “I remember you saying that some baby lemurs had been born at Chester zoon. I had planned to take you to go and see them on a weekend out, but then, everything happened… and I…”

He steps forward from where he’s been standing aside letting Harry explore the room, and fishes the toy out of the crib, holding it against his chest. The gesture makes James look so small and lost and vulnerable that Harry doesn’t know how he could ever have doubted his love for this man.

“I thought,” James continues, “that Isaac might inherit your love for small primates. I went up to the zoo on my own, and got this for him from the gift-shop.”

“James, this is… I don’t know what to say…” Harry can’t quite get his voice above a whisper.

“You don’t like it?”

“No. James, I love it!”

Looking at the way James is clutching the toy lemur to his chest makes him feel oddly envious. He wants to be the one that James is holding like that. So, he carefully takes the toy from him, takes James’s hands, and winds them around his own waist. More than anything that has happened today, standing here in a nursery that the man he loves has built for his son, finally being back in James’s arms is the thing that makes him feel most at home.

There’s so much to talk about, so after a few moments of simply standing together, swaying slightly with the force of their own heartbeats, Harry manoeuvres them so that they sink down onto the comfy sofa. Except, after a moment or two, Harry realises that it’s not quite as comfortable as he had expected. He sifts around a bit trying to find a position where he can both wrap himself around James and not have part of the sofa sticking into his back.

James notices his discomfort; “Sofa-beds are never as comfortable as the real thing; I’m sorry.”

“This is a sofa-bed?”

It’s James’s turn to shit around now, turning himself so that he can look Harry directly in the eye.

“I know I destroyed any trust that there was between us. And I still can’t quite believe that you’re willing to give us another chance. I don’t want you to ever feel like you are unsafe with me, but I know I have no right to ask you to trust me like that again. So, the sofa bed is here. If you want to stay over then you have this place, this space, just for you. And Isaac of course.”

Harry chooses his next words carefully.

“I know that you don’t think that you have made enough progress. But I can already see just how much you have grown.” He cups James’s face in his palms. “You’ve made space for me and Isaac in your life and you’ve tried so hard to make sure that we’re both comfortable and safe. I love you, James.”

“I love you too,” James replies. “I just don’t know if I can trust myself again.”

“That’s ok – I’ve got enough trust for the both of us. For the three of us, even.”

He leans up slightly so that he can press a small kiss to James’s lips. When he pulls back, James’s green eyes shine with tears. And underneath that – hope.

[papatonyinsandiego]

Non-Verbal Communication, Part Two:  Distancing Mechanisms and External Validation

Part One Can Be Found Here...

Pretty Privilege

In the gay Leather/Kink/Fetish community, just as in any other culture or subculture, there are the “👍 WINNERS! 👍” and the ….losers…  

Are we all sick of that?  I sure am.  My experience is that 100% of gay kinky men are done with being judged on externals that we have no control over.

It’s a primate-ape fact of life that desirable features make us more fuckworthy.  They can also be a trap.  I want to talk about it from the other side.  Pretty Privilege DOES exist in our Tribe.  I have made use of it myself.  

Back when I was young, virile and FINALLY getting a lot of approval from men, I attended a lot of five-star, crowded “elite” parties, both clothed and naked.  It felt GREAT to be “New Meat” and highly-desirable.  

If the gloriously beautiful men around me were bitchy and insecure, then I guessed I would try that on for a while.  I got way too good at it.  I am ashamed of my behavior back then.  A lot of the virtuous acts that I have performed since those days are my atonement for how I fell into bad behaviors for a while.

After a while, though, I noticed something odd.  The vast majority of men in my life had no interest in who was inside the pretty exterior.  I realized that I was just a mobile dildo to that crowd.  

In fact, I got picked-on if I stepped out of bounds in some way.  It was like trying to balance on a tightrope of other peoples’ expectations.  Fall off, and you would never get back on.  It was conditional approval.

The clincher for me occurred after a big fuck-party, when I showed up at Sunday brunch in a Hawaiian shirt, flip-flops and shorts.  My brunch companions refused to eat with me, unless I changed back into full black leather.  That was the last time that I associated with them, and with that subculture.  I happily stepped into a much, much slower lane.

At age 25, I gave up using my privilege at others’ disadvantage.  I chose a different path of seeking real and useful wisdom.

Assertions And Declarations

I assert that I am more than what you can see.  

There are depths to me that are worth knowing.  

I am an amalgam of many flavors, good and bad.

I am not just a single, obvious musical note.  I am a symphony.  

I assert the same about YOU.  There is majesty, worth, and a valuable contribution to the world inside all of us.  I take that attitude with me wherever I go, treating everyone as my favorite brother or sister.  I am rarely disappointed.

External Validation

Being given approval of any kind is delightful, so we work hard to get more of it.  We can spend thousands of hours every year, pumping up bigger and bigger muscles.  We can have our teeth straightened and whitened, along with hair-removal and spray-tanning, $3,000 leather outfits, and darkening that gray beard.

We may have experiences of all of those attributes and many more.  They can bring on flattering and pleasurable reactions, and allow us to “win” on some level.

No matter what, sooner or later, the crash arrives.  Age, sudden disasters, infirmity and gravity work against our following the same path forever.  That’s when we will be needing the emotional growth that we may have allowed to dwindle while we were otherwise occupied.

To this day, I still go to the gym several times a week, but I ALSO work on my social skills, and provide value to my circle of true friends.  My biggest struggle is with humility.  I’m still trying to figure that one out, and I am open to suggestions.

Distancing Mechanisms

The other side of that same coin has to do with keeping others at arm’s length.  Let’s start with WHY we would want to protect ourselves from others.

We are all born perfect, trusting and uninhibited.  We learn to be otherwise, when we receive wounds along the way:  

• “NO, STUPID!  The OTHER way!”  “People think that I’m stupid?”

• “Don’t talk to me, ugly!  Take those big ears somewhere else!”  “What’s wrong with my ears?”

• I’ll give you something to cry about!”  “It’s bad for me to cry?”

These wounds cause us to make decisions that we hang on to, long after they have become obsolete.  We may use ever-growing musculature to keep others at a distance. Or five layers of leather. Or whatever else helps us to keep possibly stressful interactions at arms’ length.

Those same predicaments can also create new, pleasurable possibilities, but we have to be OPEN to that idea in the first place.  

Cynicism protects our tender hearts, but it can also prevent us from noticing when the Real Breakthrough Opportunity shows up.

One decision that I still struggle with can be expressed as “I’m not going to let you reject me.  I reject you FIRST!”  That’s on a very deep, early level, but I am not being driven by it so much any more, now that I consciously recognize it.  Eventually.  I no longer feel that my foot is nailed to the floor, while I go around and around the same problem, doomed to repeat it.  Therapy helped.

I now laugh about my flaws as a personal foible.  At that point, I clean up my mess:  “Oh, there I go again.  Sorry.  I am glad that I caught myself.  My anger does not belong to you.  I’m not doing that any more.  Let’s start over.”

Attitude Queens with a Capital “A”

So when you see that gorgeous man who seems to have everydamnthing going for him, moving through the crowd with a fixed look on his face that says “Don’t bother me,” spare him some loving sympathy.  He is just as damaged as you are, despite external appearances.  He’s just expressing it in his own way.

He’s lonely too.  He is misunderstood.  He struggles with finding unconditional love and deep friendship, just like anyone.

If I see somebody who is broadcasting on that channel, I get right past his defenses, 99% of the time.  I do it by treating him as a good-hearted man, with value as a possible friend.  Like any human being, he is starved for honest respect and affection.

Our Brains React Differently With Objects of Desire

Recent MRI-scan tests have shown that our mental processes change radically when we meet a politician, a celebrity, or a porn actor.  We put them on a mental pedestal.  Star-Fuckers, World’s Biggest Fans and Celebrity Stalkers can be a real chore for someone who just wants to walk down the street unmolested.

Think of the porn actor who is making some extra money as a go-go dancer on an elevated box at a big dance-party.  He has drunks pawing at him like he was a piece of meat.  They are making his privates very public.  No matter how much he can rationalize this (”It’s all part part of the J-O-B”), he can also get pretty tired of it.  Feigning enthusiasm can be a tedious chore.

That's why I always do one, specific behavior with every go-go dancer:  I bring him some ca$h to stuff into his shorts, but I only do it in the area between his hip and his dick.  I am not going for the gold.  I smile in an honest, happy way, look him in the eye, and tap my cheek with two fingers.  He smooches me on the cheek, and throws his arms around me with honest pleasure.  I take that chance to express some honest compliments about his dancing, and then we disengage affectionately.

I gave him a Warm Fuzzy - A moment of sweet, honest human interaction.  As a result, I am loved and respected by that man, forever afterward.  I looked for the good in him.

The Calendar-Signing Party

I attended an event that turned out to be well-stocked with extremely handsome, muscular men.  They were in town to promote a charity calendar, and I was politely interested in knowing more.

After about an hour, a man came up to me.  He was the husband of the calendar’s creator, and he was curious to know more about me.  He had watched me speak to every one of the calendar models, and had noticed that they all dropped their shields around me in seconds, and were at their ease.  They didn't feel the need to be “on” with me. They all hugged me, as their own idea.  I almost never ask for hugs.  I prefer to earn them.

I get a lot of hugs.

The Bottom Line

The point that I am belaboring is that we can rise above our easy and obvious biases.  We can choose to let go of physical external appearance as a point of reference.  Those are just what we can see.  If we open up our own hearts to the possibility that somebody is a good man, then he may pleasantly surprise us.

I am VERY rarely disappointed.

[tauforged]

TRICK QUESTION you’re getting it anyway

i mentioned briefly before that there’s some genetic modification fuckery going on in whalefall, namely dr. maestro messing around with alien dna and seeing what happens when you put it in humans, BUUUUT i’ve been holding out on y’all for the details because i was originally thinking like ‘nobody can know this it needs to be a surprise!!!’ but fuck that i’m excited about these plot points.

body modification tends to be a lot more extreme and less looked-down-upon in human society in this setting, meaning it’s not unlikely to meet someone with full body tattoos or sharpened teeth or stylized cybernetic implants just going about your day-to-day life. this kind of technology is well refined to the point where it’s as common a form of self expression as dyeing one’s hair or piercing their ears. you might meet someone with digitigrade robot legs or a synthesizer installed in their larynx or horns and a tail or an extra robot arm just while walking down to your habitation ship’s convenience store and not even bat an eye.

(the majority of the story does take place on hab-ships, NOT because it’s one of those scifi stories where earth is uninhabitable for any reason - it’s just that the planet the story centers around is very far from earth, and what started off as ships just for ferrying researchers back and forth over generations turned into these massive mobile communities. i can go more into depth on how life on these ships work but that’s another post for another day)

in a world where genetic modification and the like are much less scary to the general public, things like cloning and such are a definite possibility. of course, cloning anything more complex or sapient than a rodent is HEAVILY regulated, and there are literal miles and miles of legal red tape and paperwork involved in order to ensure that everything is ethically sound. particularly well-to-do families might go about cloning a beloved pet dog or cat, and the possibility of human cloning for things such as blood and organ donation have been suggested, but not very well received in all circles and there are of course rumors that circulate that posit several public figures are actually dead and have been replaced by clones, because of course there are, but regulatory systems and scientific record maintain that human cloning remains a distant possibility, with even clinical trials in any primate being very slow and thorough so as to maintain ethical standards.

this, however, doesn’t stop everyone.

a few decades and some change before this story begins, a freak accident rocked the hab-ship in orbit of research site Rorqual 3-13. an interstellar whale descending to the planet’s surface at the end of its life suddenly swung out of its calculated trajectory, making impact with the spaceship and rupturing the hull near a residential area - by some miracle, the particular sector was mostly uninhabited, as that ‘neighborhood’ housed mostly researchers who spent the majority of their days in another wing of the ship, working to analyze the whales and their relationship with the planet below. most of the blocks were empty, and almost all of those that weren’t were lucky enough to not be in the direct impact zone and thus were able to evacuate with their lives.

unfortunately, the incident was not without casualty. one particular block was thoroughly decimated by the collision, leaving no chance for evacuation. it’s likely that the family living within had no idea what even happened to them - one moment they were living a normal, happy life… the next was nothingness. this block belonged to one Dr. Intehb, one of the head researchers in xenobiology at that time. he was away from home at the time of the impact, busy in his lab. his wife and daughter, unfortunately, were not so lucky.

overwhelmed with grief and guilt, Dr. Intehb felt he had no choice but to turn to a colleague he had never particularly been fond of, and whose research was actually coming under fire for questions of ethics— a Dr. Vladimir Maestro.

Maestro dabbled in genetics, and had a fascination for the unexplained mutative effects of the interstellar whales upon the human body. he was currently being investigated over claims that he had been cloning himself in order to obtain test subjects to observe how exposure effected the human body in a ‘more ethical’ manner. Dr. Intehb didn’t share his interest in the whales— but he knew that he’d been messing around with human cloning. so, being maestro’s superior, he made him an offer. find a way to bring my daughter back, he said, and i’ll make this whole investigation go away. it was an offer he couldn’t afford to refuse.

one of our protagonists, Rex, is an only child. she knew that she’d had an older sister, but that she’d passed not long after she was born— same with her mother. her dad didn’t like to talk about it. people always tell her that she looks so much like her sister, and it irks her in a way she can’t really put a finger on. as she grew older, she came to resent it. she changed herself, tattoos and cybernetics and piercings and dyed hair. she was sick of living in her dead sister’s shadow. her father always seemed somewhat melancholy about it, but he made it clear that he loved her no matter what, and just wanted her to be happy. even so, she always felt that something was “off”, but could never get him to talk to her about it.

can iiiii post about my ocs. do you guys want to hear about my ocs.

[reflektormag]

Gorillaz return with 40-minute synth-funk and pop odyssey, ‘The Now Now’

Daniel Lester

June 30, 2018

After a year of relentless touring, everybody's favorite animated bunch has unleashed a brand new studio effort in the form of "The Now Now",a 40-minute synth-funk and pop odyssey that serves as a follow-up to 2017's comeback album "Humanz". A lot has changed in the timespan between the two albums, mainly the shift in the band's leadership as Murdoc Niccals, the infamous bass player and mastermind of Gorillaz got arrested at the start of 2018. Taking over is the band's blue-haired frontman 2D who saw fit to try a different approach with this new album, marking a complete shift from the guest-heavy, and futuristic "Humanz". Of course, in true Gorillaz fashion, this new phase for the band comes with a few surprises of its own, namely the new bassist of the group Ace. Infamous for being the leader of the notorious Gangreen Gang, criminals who were on numerous occasions apprehended by the ever-so-loveable Powerpuff Girls. Ace seems to have settled down and is the replacement for Murdoc, and his presence can definitely be felt in this new record.

"The Now Now" is the polar opposite of Gorillaz' previous effort in nearly every way. Firstly, there are only 3 guest appearances on this album. The first single "Humility", a summer bop tune full of warm synthesizers and lyrics talking about isolation, features warm guitar licks by none other than the jazz legend George Benson. This unlikely collaboration results in a song that may surprise many Gorillaz fans, who expect the band's "dark pop" sound found on the majority of their releases. The second, and final song, to feature any guests is "Hollywood", that contains spoken lines by Chicago house veteran Jamie Principle, and of course, Snoop Dogg. The song itself features quite heavy and bassy instrumentation that perfectly contrasts 2D's moody voice when delivering the refrain about Hollywood and jealousy. The instrumentation becomes even wackier and ear-grabbing beneath Snoop Dogg's lines as he raps, contrary to 2D's criticism of jealousy "I put the cake on the plate/Jealousy and me?/Oh, we're making a date". The only weak point for the song is Jamie Principle, with his corny lines about Hollywood being his mistress, sounding like an out-of-place 80's hype-man, who turned up for the wrong performance.

If there is one word that one could think of when listening to this album it would be "warm". This is mostly due to the highly synthetic and bassy production, courtesy of Simian Mobile Disco's James Ford, the producer behind the latest album of another beloved British primate collective, the Arctic Monkeys. 2D's melancholic croons over the songs "Sorcererz" and "Fire Flies" give the impression that they could have been part of a dystopian Stevie Wonder compilation. Gorillaz are a band that is known for their enticing instrumentals that pull inspiration from many styles, but one key part of their recipe is the simplistic, yet highly memorable basslines. All the bass-playing on this album is reinforced by a filtered, 70s synth bass sound that further contributes to the "warmness" of "The Now Now". However, they are not as memorable as on previous releases, which brings us to the biggest drawback of this record; the lack of memorable tunes. "Tranz" sounds like songs that one would find in a 2000s rock playlist, hinting at Mando Diao and The Killers, rather than Gorillaz. While one of the more memorable songs it certainly doesn't feel like a Gorillaz song. Other songs on this album also feel like they would have fit better on certain Damon Albarn's projects, the long-time collaborator and mentor of the band. "Magic City" sounds like a long-lost Blur B-side, while "One Percent" could have fit snuggly onto Damon's 2014 solo effort "Everyday Robots". If there is one song that one could say ruins the entire experience and flow of the album, it would have to be the snoozer "Idaho". The song's opening features an acoustic guitar that sounds like it's setting the mood for Amber Coffman and Angel Deradoorian's vocals, rather than the Gorillaz' Damon Albarn-sounding frontman. The chorus also sounds like a throwback to Albarn's solo material. The song "Kansas" is also incredibly moody and forgettable, despite its impressively bouncy instrumentation.

While many tunes may not be "attention-demanding", the instrumental song "Lake Zurich" is certainly a welcome break from the breezy, warm compositions that occupy most of the album's runtime. "Souk Eye", the latin-influenced closer brings something newer to the table and is a solid way to finish off a sleepy, melancholic album like "The Now Now".

This is not the mainstream Gorillaz-fan album and seems like it would please only hardcore fans. While not bad or mediocre necessarily, it does lack the usual punch, innovation, and catchiness of a Gorillaz record, and seems to be more applicable to late night drive-playlist, rather than for a consistent experience for people who enjoy interesting songwriting, unique instrumentation and dystopian-sounding bangers and genre-defying tunes.

Best songs: Humility, Sorcererz, Fire Flies, Lake Zurich  

[is-the-primate-vid-cute]

I love your blog, and I love apes and monkeys! And I have to say that, beyond just the ethical issues (which are a dealbreaker entirely on their own), I think primates acting funny in a natural environment is just, like, inherently funnier? It’s just a lot more fun to see primates acting like primates, than the humour being that they are acting like humans, or interacting with humans (unless they are humans I guess gsggshdhd).

Do you have any more funny ape stories? I love those so much they are so funny with their WANTS and WILLS

Agreed! They are so funny in their own right!

Ape wants and wills.. hm. As far as first hand experience I can only speak about chimpanzees and whoo boy are they a particular bunch of kiddos.

We regularly gave the chimps blankets for nest building and one chimp made his nest every night in the drain of the enclosure, where the water runs off when we hose the indoor. So his blankets got wet every day and we had to replace them everyday.

And I've mentioned trading before so with a dry blanket, I can point at it and show my reward and the chimps would usually slide the blanket over to me. Sometimes one of the females would suddenly decide she wanted that blanket that was sitting in the dirt so she sometimes refused trades and that's her right. But I could never, ever get them to touch a wet blanket. They hated it even for 2 whole bananas they wouldn't do it. They would play dumb as if they didn't see what I pointed at and would bring me anything else around in an effort to get the reward. Wet blankies are icky!!

One of the female chimps would "dance" to music, she really liked a distinct bass and would rock side to side to the beat. The first few times I saw this I was worried about it being a stress behavior but she stopped whenever I would stop the music.

I've mentioned it elsewhere but every morning when I did first checks, the chimps all wanted to play chase. If I didn't do this, they would get very upset with me.

The matriarch of one of the troupes I worked with was older (59!!) And she she was slowing down and not as mobile as the youngsters so I had to be sneaky and get her extra treats and supplements because she sometimes would get her produce stolen from her. It was fun to sneak around with her bc we would make eye contact, look around to see if any of the other chimps are paying attention, I would flash what I had to give her and we had a spot we would meet where it was easy for me to shove the sandwich or whatever it was through the mesh at a spot where she could easily reach it.

The alpha male of that group was very fast and dare I say, selfish. It's not unusual for the alpha to want all the good stuff to himself but this guy would straight up steal from the elderly lady mentioned above. I always had to bring 2 extras of anything good because if his hands weren't full, he was charging to steal from the matriarch.

Occasionally, though, she would get mad at him for stealing something good and she would cryyyy so loud you could hear it a half mile away at produce storage. She'd swipe at him and yell and get mad and huff away and he would usually approach her later for grooms or other bonding.

A different female chimp had kinda bad hand eye coordination. To feed these guys, the paneling on the roof was wide enough for them to stick an arm out and we would toss up produce or enrichment and they could grab it from the air. Well, she wasn't good at catching and I'm not the best arm so sometimes I would have to toss the same apple or whatever a handful of times before she caught it and when she finally did, she would shake her fist at me and try to fake me out as if she was going to hurl the apple right at my head.

My groups absolutely loved vidoes. I even brought my own tablet from home so they could watch on a bigger screen. Anything with people or animals and especially other chimps were a huge hit and my go-to rainy day enrichment.

One of my groups was extremely difficult to get locked inside to clean the yard. They were super suspicious and wouldn't hang out inside if I was there, regardless of the treats I brought. But, like most chimps, they hated rain. So any day there was a big storm that group would be easily locked in and I had to do all my cleaning and maintenance in that habit in pouring rain. Thanks, guys.