#its a lot better than five billion other things i could be doing and I don't post this anywhere anyways so it's fine

[rroundtable]

i dont get to front for over an entire month so when I finally get half a chance to do anything in front, i make the most of it*

*drawing skeevy robot x human bullshit

[queen-of-the-avengers]

CATFA: Part One

Pairing: Ikaris x Female!Reader, Bucky Barnes x Female!Reader

Word Count: ~2.2k

Warnings: canon violence, language, and angst

Author’s Note: any and all comments are appreciated <3

Earth is nothing like you expected it to be. There are a lot of planets in your home galaxy that can support life as well as millions of other planets in other galaxies around yours. Still, you never expected Earth to be so similar to your home planet, Xenia--a thriving ecosystem, corrupt governments, billions of people, and large bodies of water that cover most of the planet.

The only difference is that your planet is home to one of, if not the evilest man your galaxy has ever seen. Xenia became a breaking ground for bad ideas, and they all point to the one who made you: Markus Hottle.

To most, you look like you're in your late twenties or early thirties, but you're much older than that. You've just had your one-hundredth birthday, and you know you've got a lot more to go through before you die. What Markus did to you caused you to nearly stop aging; just another side effect of his experiments.

It's why you fled your planet and have been on the run ever since. You've spent fifty years jumping from planet to planet, always avoiding Markus when he sent his goons to chase after you. You've been running for so long that you don't know what a home is anymore.

Yours was destroyed the second Markus had your parents killed.

Will Earth be different?

Xenia has always thrived on the creativity and knowledge of other people. It's what made Xenia so successful with businesses, its own ecosystem, and its communities. Earth has none of that. You landed on Earth in the year 1000, and they're nothing like what your planet is like. This planet is filled with poverty, famine, greed, struggle, and a corrupt elite community who think they're too good for everyone below them.

With your knowledge and power, you could easily fit your way into the elite status, but then who would help out those in actual need? Who can they turn to when they need help? You don't have any healing powers, so you can't aid them medically, but you can offer them something else: agriculture and clean water. You're still getting used to your new life Markus forced upon you, but if you can help others while doing it, then you have the obligation to do so.

They don't have the resources to build a new world, and you're not going to freak them out by showing them you're an alien, so you'll use what they have to help them. Something you often did back home with your mother, was make clothes for all of your friends and family. You love sewing and creating something out of nothing, and seeing how the poverty is dressed, you think you can help them by providing them with clean clothes, blankets, and other types of means to stay warm.

It didn't take long before communities came to your town to buy your clothes. Most of the time, you didn't want them to pay since you're not doing this for the money, but some refused to take your clothes without paying for them. After five or so years of being in that town, you've come to make friends with almost everyone. Along with clothes and blankets, you'd offer clean water for them to take with them--as much as they needed. It's not much, but that seemed to make their day.

While Earth is not as technologically advanced as Xenia is, you're enjoying your time on Earth and hope that Markus doesn't find you here. Your home is on the other side of the known universe, so you think you're safe for now.

The bell on your door rings, signaling that there is a customer in your store. You look up and see one of your regulars with a tired look on her face.

"Alice, are you alright?"

"Yes. My youngest is not feeling too well. The poor thing is hot and cold and is not getting any better. I came in here hoping you might have something that could help?"

"Of course. I have more water for you to take home to your family. I have made some more blankets, which are in the back. Please, help yourself. I do not want your son to be cold."

"I do not know what this town would do without your generosity."

"I am just happy to help." The bell on your store door rings again, and you give Alice a warm smile. "I will be back there in a few moments."

She leaves to the back to browse your collection while you turn to the new customer. You're about to greet them when you see the most handsome man you've ever laid eyes on--and you've met millions of people.

He has a square jaw and pink lips. He's muscular which is defined by the blue and gold suit he is wearing. He has short hair with a sliver of white in the front. He has the prettiest of blue eyes--they sparkle like the ocean does when the sun is rising. You've only lived here for six years, but you've never seen this man before. Who is he? Why is he here? What does he want?

"Hi. Welcome in."

"I hear you are the best clothesmaker in town."

Ooh, and he has an accent.

"You heard right. What are you looking for?"

"Anything that will make it look like I belong in this town. This kind of sticks out like a sore thumb," he says and gestures to his suit.

"I have never seen that or you around here before. What is your name?"

"Ikaris."

"Well, Ikaris, I must pick your brain about where you came from, but I can help with the clothes situation. Follow me." You lead Ikaris to the section where you've made some clothes specifically for men. You grab something new you're working on and place it against his chest to see how it might look on him. You pause and look into his eyes. Wow, the blue in his eyes is shinier up close. "I believe this one will do."

"Thank you."

"Please, try it on. I do not want you leaving here without a proper fit."

There is a section you've blocked off with a wooden partition you've created. All the stores in Xenia have these, but you've resulted in using what humans have made available. A lot of businesses are run outside, but with your powers, you've managed to make a store big enough to have a few people in at a time. Humans wondered how you got there, to begin with, but they were easily won over by your generosity.

Ikaris walks behind the partition and tries on the shirt, and you grab a pair of pants you made before handing it to him. The partition is low enough so you can see his face, but you can't see anything else. He maintains eye contact as he tries on the clothes, and he smiles once he knows it fits.

"How do you like it?"

"It is very comfortable. How much for these?"

"No need. I do not need your money."

Ikaris walks out with the clothes on over his suit. You're not sure why he didn't take his suit off, but you don't comment on it. There is something about Ikaris that catches your attention, and you're not sure what it is. It's like he isn't from this world. It's in the way he speaks and the way he carries himself. He seems a lot older than what he looks like, and the more you spend time with him, the more you see that.

A couple of months have passed since you first met Ikaris, and you two have been spending a lot of time together. You're starting to really like him, and you believe he likes you too. There are some days you like to close up shop just to enjoy the day or buy food from the vendors around town, and today is no different.

You and Ikaris are walking down a beaten path in the woods behind the town you live in because it's less crowded.

"You never told me how long you have been here in town."

"Quite a while."

"You are very mysterious, you know that?"

"I do," Ikaris chuckles.

You two continue to walk, but you pause when you feel the ground rumble. You look to the side to see a gnarly yet beautiful creature inch toward you and Ikaris. The creature is bigger than anything you've ever seen on Earth, and it's iridescent blue and purple that shines whenever it moves. It opens its mouth to bare its very sharp teeth, and your eyes widen in fear.

"Look out!"

You push Ikaris out of the way just as the creature pounces on you. You go crashing to the ground as it drags you twenty feet. You reach up and grab its upper jaw to prevent it from snacking on you, and Ikaris looks at you just in time to see something truly amazing happen.

Your eyes shine dark red and orange and fire forms at your fingertips. As if it's second nature, you place your fiery hands on the creature and let the fire spread throughout. The creature cries out in pain, and you kick it as hard as you can which causes the creature to topple over you so that you're free from its grasp.

You gasp and back away from the burning creature only to back into Ikaris.

"You're bleeding," he says.

You look at your arm to see a huge gash where the creature must have scratched you.

"Don't worry, I'll heal."

Just like that, your skin starts healing from the damage taken to it, and Ikaris watches with curiosity and concern.

"Are you an Eternal?"

"What the hell's an Eternal?"

"Come with me."

He takes one last look at the deviant before taking your hand. He leads you to where he's been staying these past few hundred years, but there is nothing there to show. He stops at a clearing, and you look around in confusion. Before he has a chance to say anything, gold spirals and rings form in the sky until a black triangle forms. You're kind of amazed, but you've seen a lot of alien technology throughout your life.

You two are beamed up into the floating triangle, and you're greeted by nine other people in the same kind of clothing Ikaris was wearing when he first came into his shop.

"Ikaris, who is this?" the youngest and shortest one asks.

"This is Y/N, and she killed a deviant."

From what you understand, Ikaris and the other nine people on the spaceship are called Eternals, and they were put on Earth about six thousand years ago to protect humans from deviants, which is what you just killed. They all have special powers that they use to aid them in the war not a lot of people know about. When you had a feeling Ikaris was different, you weren't expecting him to be six thousand years old.

"If you're not an Eternal, then what are you?"

Makkari is the only one who speaks Sign Language, but you don't know much about the language to understand what she is saying, so Druig translates for her.

"I'm from Xenia, a planet on the other side of the universe. I was experimented on by someone who wanted to take over planets with fear. He created a serum that gave me the powers of shapeshifting, which is why I've been able to sneak in and out of the royal castle to steal food or pose as someone with wealth.

"Then, he started experimenting with the Tesseract or the space stone which is one of the six infinity stones. It's what gave me my second set of powers which is controlling the four elements. It's why I was able to kill that deviant with fire. It's also why I can heal quickly."

"How old are you?"

"One hundred. I left my planet at fifty years old, but I stopped aging when I turned thirty-three."

"How did it take you fifty years to travel across the universe? I'm not a math genius, but even I know that's impossible," Phastos asks.

"Because I was made using the space stone, it gave me the ability to create portals which I can open to anywhere in the universe. I had trouble adjusting to that power, so it took me a little longer to get away from my maker. I'm making a home here, and I'd like to stay here if that's okay with you."

"Of course," Ajak says. "I thank you for killing that deviant. We could use your help in killing all of them so that we may go home."

"Anything I can do to help."

And just like that, you became an Eternal-adjacent. It pained you to leave the small town that relied on you to survive, but if you don't take care of the deviants, then there won't be a town left at all. It's nice to be part of something that matters since all you've been part of is something evil for most of your life. You're not even sure where Markus is, but you hope that he doesn't ever find you.

The years blend as you and Ikaris grow closer. The more time you spend with him, the more you fall in love with him. You've never been in a serious relationship before him since you were too scared to start something, but now you feel secure enough to let someone else into your life.

It doesn't matter if Ikaris is human or not.

x

Follow my library blog @aqueenslibrary​​​​​​ where I reblog all my stories, so you can put notifications on there without the extra stuff :)

[artistotel]

tips for traditional artists (mostly painters)

so while i primarily post doodles and such on this blog, my true passion is traditional art. :) i see a lot of tips for digital artists but rarely for traditional ones, so this is just my own experience (before anyone goes like "oP tHaT iS nOt UnIvErSaL eXpErIenCe" (i know this site well enough lol) if the advice doesnt sit well with you feel free to ignore it because i am def not an end it know it all. and nobody is because art is so broad and there is no right way to do it.

EQUIPMENT

so, first of all, in my language we have a saying "the tools dont make a master", meaning a true master could create with anything. i mean, sure, to a point, tools wont replace your ability to conceptualize art, but cmon.

equipment matters, especially when painting. i mostly work with acryllics and markers. lets talk about acryllics.

paints

its important to get at least okay quality paints. the stuff i use is not insanely expensive - croatia has limited offers, and i am poor. however, i tried paints for like 1€ from tedi and they are far inferior to goya's paints i use (3-4€ cca per 100ml. and those 100ml are going to last you a very looong time if you work on small scale paintings, and i even managed to fit in large ones).

ESPECIALLY THE WHITE PAINT. i cannot stress this enough. if youre gonna buy cheaply, buy everything cheap except for the white. make sure the white is good. it will serve as a thickener for other colours and good white can even do a good job of covering up the black paint.

brushes: get good brushes. if you paint frequently with bad brushes (like the ones i get from muller; they seem fine but ehhh im constantly changing them) you will be spending more in longer run than you would if you invested in something better. im not talking about 100€ packs made of donkey tail strands or whatever, i mean normal brushes, but look at reviews a bit. i once ordered like 10€ pack of brushes from amazon and they performed muller ones by far (and were cheaper); they left thicker paint and didnt get ruined after five uses.

markers

now see, i dont have any advice here, but i wanted to contrast it with my previous talk about how i purposefully buy good paint. well, i purposefully buy bad markers. really bad ones. because equipment often depends on what style you are after. i use flomasters, and they do what i want: and thats a cheap and trashy look.

canvases and papers

if youre gonna invest into something, invest into paints rather than canvases. you can trick a bad canvas by putting on multiple colour layers, you cant trick bad paints. but there are differences to bad and good canvases, of course. however, if youre just starting out, just go get a bad one; i take most of mine from tedi, or order online. you dont gotta spend billion of euros on them.

paper is also important. i am a painter and i bought a Leuchtturm1917 though unfit one, and was annoyed as to why everyone thought it was great. then i bought the one with specific sketchbook paper and it works fantastic. if youre painting, you need appropriate paper.

learn colour theory and some art history

yes i know this sounds boring. but its not. draw inspiration from your predecessors. there are people making oil paintings of modern things. you heard "dont shade with black" (and thats my personal mantra too) but chiaroscuro was a valid art movement. if you take a look at my own art you will most likely say: oh, thats pop art! and you would be right. i am inspired by roy lichtenstein, andy warhol, and other pop artists. but thats just the surface. my use of colour is inspired by the impressionist takes on it; i dont shade with darker colours, i shade with different ones. i shade red with blue, yellow with purple or red, and so on. if you look at the topics and subjects of my art, you will find surrealism. if you look at my approach to art itself, you might find influences of croatian naive. learn about actual philosophies behind art movements you like; you might find something for you.

ok these are just some general thoughts i had, id probably have more lol but thats it for now

[sophieinwonderland]

what do you and ghost and other alters each like? as in hobbies and interests :o)

Can I tell you a secret? I'm actually the most boring tulpa ever. My primary interest is plural stuff. 🤫

Okay, maybe that's only partially true. See, I've always been fascinated with human psychology since before I became self-aware. I liked knowing what made people tick. I liked understanding the human brain.

And I feel like people don't fully appreciate how incredible it is that such an advanced piece of computing hardware came about through countless permutations of life beginning billions of years ago. Everything about our ability to think and feel emotions and perceive the world is incredible!

And we still don't understand it! We've learned to send people to the moon, we've seen 13 billions year into the past. We've discovered the building blocks of all matter, and found particles even smaller than those.

But we don't know how our brains work or what makes us tick.

So when I became self-aware and learned what I was, it was something new to marvel at. Because no one... really knew. Like, "multiple personalities" had been studied for about a hundred years exclusively in the context of trauma. But there hasn't been much effort to connect that to other similar phenomena like spiritual possession or other forms of voice hearing. And what research does exist is hard to track down.

So there are times when, as I joke above, I feel kind of bad because my primary interest is in plural psychology...

But at the same time, I feel like... how could it not be? How could I not discover my existence and then want to unravel its mysteries so I can understand myself and those like me better? When I realized that I had been thinking for myself for months even as I had been convinced I was imaginary... How could I not be amazed at this incredible potential of the human mind I discovered?

And it feels like we're on the cutting edge of understanding things most actual psychologists haven't really pieced together yet.

One of my favorite posts that I've written is the Manifestations post. And I mean, I think most of the information there was already in the community, albeit scattered. I think most systems knew headmates could exist in the inner world, they could switch, and they could be in a state where they're in the head but without any form. And the tulpamancy community at least knew imposition was a thing, and a lot of other plurals have described similar experiences. I don't think headmates being able to manifest in objects through Inhabitation is quite common knowledge yet. (And I had to coin Inhabitation myself.)

But even for those who knew of these experiences separately, I've never seen anyone put it together in a model like this, saying "here are these five distinct states headmates can be in while conscious."

And so that's a post I feel really proud of, for trying to codify experiences in ways that I think can make them easier to understand.

And I love expanding my understanding of plural psychology and developing new ways to think about it.

...

Anyway, Ghost likes superheroes, Star Wars, card games and stuff. Also Brandon Sanderson books.🤷‍♀️

(Abby is our local artist. But we're not that good at art so she doesn't do it very much, and the others don't really front all that much to develop their own hobbies.)

We have other interests too, but they tend to be more fleeting and on rotation rather being consistent.

...

Oh, and we're not alters. We don't use that word. And I don't really like it because of the association with "alternate personality." (Although nobody seems to be able to agree what alter actually means or where it came from.) It feels to me like it just sort of boils headmates down to what we look like to singlets. Personalities that takeover the body. And it erases the rich diversity of plural experiences.

[mariacallous]

Until the dramatic departure of OpenAI’s cofounder and CEO Sam Altman on Friday, Mira Murati was its chief technology officer—but you could also call her its minister of truth. In addition to heading the teams that develop tools such as ChatGPT and Dall-E, it’s been her job to make sure those products don’t mislead people, show bias, or snuff out humanity altogether.

This interview was conducted in July 2023 for WIRED’s cover story on OpenAI. It is being published today after Sam Altman’s sudden departure to provide a glimpse at the thinking of the powerful AI company’s new boss.

Steven Levy: How did you come to join OpenAI?

Mira Murati: My background is in engineering, and I worked in aerospace, automotive, VR, and AR. Both in my time at Tesla [where she shepherded the Model X], and at a VR company [Leap Motion] I was doing applications of AI in the real world. I very quickly believed that AGI would be the last and most important major technology that we built, and I wanted to be at the heart of it. Open AI was the only organization at the time that was incentivized to work on the capabilities of AI technology and also make sure that it goes well. When I joined in 2018, I began working on our supercomputing strategy and managing a couple of research teams.

What moments stand out to you as key milestones during your tenure here?

There are so many big-deal moments, it’s hard to remember. We live in the future, and we see crazy things every day. But I do remember GPT-3 being able to translate. I speak Italian, Albanian, and English. I remember just creating pair prompts of English and Italian. And all of a sudden, even though we never trained it to translate in Italian, it could do it fairly well.

You were at OpenAI early enough to be there when it changed from a pure nonprofit to reorganizing so that a for-profit entity lived inside the structure. How did you feel about that?

It was not something that was done lightly. To really understand how to make our models better and safer, you need to deploy them at scale. That costs a lot of money. It requires you to have a business plan, because your generous nonprofit donors aren't going to give billions like investors would. As far as I know, there's no other structure like this. The key thing was protecting the mission of the nonprofit.

That might be tricky since you partner so deeply with a big tech company. Do you feel your mission is aligned with Microsoft’s?

In the sense that they believe that this is our mission.

But that's not their mission.

No, that's not their mission. But it was important for the investor to actually believe that it’s our mission.

When you joined in 2018, OpenAI was mainly a research lab. While you still do research, you’re now very much a product company. Has that changed the culture?

It has definitely changed the company a lot. I feel like almost every year, there's some sort of paradigm shift where we have to reconsider how we're doing things. It is kind of like an evolution. What's more obvious now to everyone is this need for continuous adaptation in society, helping bring this technology to the world in a responsible way, and helping society adapt to this change. That wasn't necessarily obvious five years ago, when we were just doing stuff in our lab. But putting GPT-3 in an API, in working with customers and developers, helped us build this muscle of understanding the potential that the technology has to change things in the real world, often in ways that are different than what we predict.

You were involved in Dall-E. Because it outputs imagery, you had to consider different things than a text model, including who owns the images that the model draws upon. What were your fears and how successful you think you were?

Obviously, we did a ton of red-teaming. I remember it being a source of joy, levity, and fun. People came up with all these like creative, crazy prompts. We decided to make it available in labs, as an easy way for people to interact with the technology and learn about it. And also to think about policy implications and about how Dall-E can affect products and social media or other things out there. We also worked a lot with creatives, to get their input along the way, because we see it internally as a tool that really enhances creativity, as opposed to replacing it. Initially there was speculation that AI would first automate a bunch of jobs, and creativity was the area where we humans had a monopoly. But we've seen that these AI models actually have a potential to really be creative. When you see artists play with Dall-E, the outputs are really magnificent.

Since OpenAI has released its products, there have been questions about their immediate impact in things like copyright, plagiarism, and jobs. By putting things like GPT-4 in the wild, it’s almost like you’re forcing the public to deal with those issues. Was that intentional?

Definitely. It's actually very important to figure out how to bring it out there in a way that's safe and responsible, and helps people integrate it into their workflow. It’s going to change entire industries; people have compared it to electricity or the printing press. And so it's very important to start actually integrating it in every layer of society and think about things like copyright laws, privacy, governance and regulation. We have to make sure that people really experience for themselves what this technology is capable of versus reading about it in some press release, especially as the technological progress continues to be so rapid. It's futile to resist it. I think it's important to embrace it and figure out how it's going to go well.

Are you convinced that that's the optimal way to move us toward AGI?

I haven't come up with a better way than iterative deployments to figure out how you get this continuous adaptation and feedback from the real end feeding back into the technology to make it more robust to these use cases. It’s very important to do this now, while the stakes are still low. As we get closer to AGI, it's probably going to evolve again, and our deployment strategy will change as we get closer to it.

[nickgerlich]

In Your Cart

Now that consumers have returned to shopping in stores much like they did before COVID, retailers are ramping up efforts to figure out how to blur the lines between online shopping and that done in the physical world. It involves ever more use of our smartphones as savvy shops leverage technology as well as content that can be directed individually as well as to all.

You just thought you could put your phone away in pocket or purse.

Now before I continue, I must say that I am not doing any more shopping in-store after COVID than I was before. I am a huge fan of online shopping, and just don’t like being out among the masses. I get in, get out, and go home. But companies like Walmart are doubling down on the in-store experience, and it involves their in-house advertising arm, Walmart Connect.

A relatively new buzz word—omnichannel marketing—bridges whatever gaps there were between the digital and physical. In other words, use both methods to enhance shopping in the physical realm.

Basically, the shopping trip of the future is going to involve a lot of QR codes, from the shopping cart to shelves and displays. The goal is to increase customer interaction, and whether the content is a Walmart ad or one from one of their many vendors, it matters not. The goal is the same: Increase sales. The efforts even include in-store radio ads, pumped out through the house PA system.

You have probably already experienced some of these methods, and didn’t even realize it. An increasing number of convenience stores run ads at the gas pump, both visually and audibly. Think about it. That’s about five minutes of precious dead time that could be exploited by marketers since we have nothing else to do while refueling.

Interestingly, Walmart Connect works much like an advertising medium. Vendors buy ads to be used at either the macro or micro level, depending on the degree of specificity sought. Amazon is doing much the same in its online store. In fact, it has become a huge revenue maker for them, to the tune of nearly $40 billion in 2021.

I have noticed lately just how much phone-holding I do when getting my groceries at Walmart. Since I build my shopping list with Alexa at home, I am constantly looking at that list in the Alexa app, and then checking off items as I get them. And Alexa even offers me deals that Amazon knows about. My phone never gets a rest.

Maybe they should make shopping carts with a phone cradle. I’m afraid I’m going to drop my phone one of these days while maneuvering my cart through the maze of shoppers.

And if they were to do that, just think about how much more advertising could be done. Holding the phone is one thing, but having it within eyeball range is even better, because if we check in to a store via an app, they can now guide and direct us throughout the store, selling more stuff to us the entire way. In-store geo-fencing could be used to pin us down right in front of the pasta, for example, because the system would know where we are. And because we have logged in, ads can be aimed specifically at us.

In a twisted view of the future, now imagine shopping with a VR headset like the Apple Vision Pro we discussed a few days ago. We’d be walking around like a bunch of tech zombies in a sci-fi thriller, being served visuals and hearing voices in our head that craft an audience-of-one shopping experience.

OK, enough of that. I’m willing to hold Alexa’s hand���I mean hold my phone—while shopping, but I’m not quite ready for a totally immersive experience like that. Still, retailers increasingly see that in-store shopping will be more and more about the experience. The goal is to engage us more, better, and longer. In return, they hope, we will spend more money.

Meanwhile, I’ll just continue to shop online for everything else. I know. I could get my groceries that way too, but I still like to inspect my fruits and vegetables, and read labels. It’s hard to squeeze the lettuce or thump the melon if you’re not there.

Put all this in your cart and think about it.

Dr “Point And Click” Gerlich

Audio Blog

[aethelflaedladyofmercia]

I think the important thing to note is that Crowley wouldn’t get excited just because people could see his work.

Like, that’s better than not being seen, of course, but that wasn’t what upset him.

When he created his nebula, he didn’t know that anyone was going to see it. It was going to sit in its little quadrant of space slowly cooking for millions of years and then BAM! Stars everywhere! Also it was pretty, but it had a function. It was a cool piece of engineering that was going to do its thing.

And then, haha, no it’s going to be shut down before anything perceptible should happen. We just want a lot of cool-looking stuff up here on the off chance humans manage to look this way.

(And not just his! Think of all the millions of billions of galaxies full of stuff that even now are just shiny lights in deep space images. They’re packed full of awesome sights that may never be seen on an individual scale. Millions of angels doing all that work when really you just could have stapled a post it note on the sky reading MORE STARS HERE.)

I think what would get Crowley excited is people starting to UNDERSTAND the stars.

I can imagine him crossing his arms, grumpy and grouchy, when he hears the first stories about constellations. All that hard work just to be props in someone else’s stories. And the sheer disappointment when they work out that five “stars” move differently from the rest… only to assume they are in fact divine beings of some sort.

But then. The humans start doing math. They start to learn stuff. They calculate the size of the Earth using only shadows and geometry. They predict eclipses. And think about that, if you’ve only got one spot to look from, the pattern gets a lot harder to track. You need to assume there are other eclipses going on on the other side of the world that you don’t see or else the math never quite lines up. And humans did that.

They worked out that the earth and other planets go around the sun and that’s pretty cool. They identified that there must be THREE more planets based on the math, then found them. And when the numbers STILL didn’t line up, they found Pluto, and when they STILL didn’t work they found a whole bunch more.

They worked out that comets cycle through the solar system, that it isn’t just one appearing at random times or an endless series of different comets. That the same comet can appear twice in the night sky, on a predictable pattern. Do you know what the sample size for that is, by the way? How many comets visible to the naked eye can show up twice in a human life time? ONE.

I think somewhere along the way, Crowley resigned himself that humans were never going to see HIS nebula, and even if they did, they wouldn’t understand what it was.

So I think he learned to enjoy the new discoveries for their own sake, get excited alongside humans as they learned what they could, and also diversified his interests a bit. After all, Crowley loved his nebula because it did COOL STUFF and humans also create tons of COOL STUFF. He can appreciate a well-made machine (like, say, a classic Bentley?) without fully understanding how it works because he knows the all the passion that goes into designing and creating something like that.

I wonder if at some point he lost track of what astronomers were doing. It’s entirely possible; the latest discoveries can take a long time to reach the general population, usually with the more technical parts excised and the rest sensationalizes. Plus, he napped for at least half of the 19th century, and then there were a couple wars, which probably kept him busy.

So at some point he goes to see what the astronomers are up to now, and they’re MILES ahead of where he ever expected them to be! They’ve classified stars, learned to identify them by the kind of light they give off. They’ve found black holes, former stars so dense they trap light and can’t be seen. They’ve photographed distant nebulas and are developing even better cameras. They ran the math and found that the WHOLE GALAXY doesn’t have enough mass for how it acts and have started theorizing about dark matter, a substance we can’t interact with at all.

Suddenly there’s too much going on to even keep up with. Before he knows it, humans have worked out the entire life cycle of stars. They look at his nebula and they KNOW WHAT ITS FOR. It shows up everywhere from text books to posters, better and better images. Humans take turns diving in deeper and deeper, dissecting every part of it to understand how it works. Understanding his creation on a level he never thought ANYONE would. Seeing it in ways no other being but him ever had.

Think of the burning excitement of recognition. Think of the rush he gets from being truly known and understood. Think of the pride every time a new image appears showing another part of the nebula he spent a short eternity working on, another tiny detail he never thought anyone would see.

Then think of the awkward conversation when Aziraphale learns about THIS.

okay but do you think crowley was so fucking excited when humans started studying space. from the first telescope to satellites and space travel. do u think every new more powerful telescope and every new image of space that becomes accessible to the public excites him bc even though his creation wasn't mostly visible from the earth humans figured out a way to see it

[nimphontheshore]

7 months and my response to you.

I’m always so grateful, for everything that makes you… You. I know it’s probably silly, but your words can literally make me weep out of nostalgia. You know why? I remember this Nereid, just a year ago, right after I confessed, who was telling me that she’s not really opening up — in general… who doesn’t really get vulnerable around people; almost like she didn’t want to. But truth is, she was being vulnerable just by talking to me about it. At that moment, I felt that I had a glance inside this Nereid, Yeah, and I’ve made my mission to make her feel safe and seen around me. Even though I have always been a silly boy, I really just needed her to be ready, to feel like she could talk to me; and that I would keep anything she might feel close to my heart, good and bad. And look at her now? Confessing to me on our day… And to be honest, doing this everyday. Ain’t I lucky? But adding to that… That’s one of my greatest joy knowing you feel that safe, with me. That you’re not afraid of being seen entirely, and that you know I fall for you even more to your words and that I fall deeper and deeper — as if it was infinite. You always say that you’re not always so good with your feelings but I really think you’re perfect at it. When you find the words, they are always so good, and I relate to them so much.

For example, when you said you found that crazy, that we found each other in this really big ass world; I relate so much, you know? I’ve thought about this recently; I’ve stumbled upon a really cheesy sentence that went like “There’s 7.5 billion smiles on this planet and yours is my favorite” and that’s. Literally. It. Among all people walking this earth, I wouldn’t even look at someone else.

Or… when you said that you feel like we’re connected, that there’s something invisible, unsaid and yet, right there. A connexion that can’t be explained, et pourtant, dont on a conscience. And i feel that so much. Sometimes I don’t need to explain myself more than that, I know you know; I know you feel like I feel, I know you know… How much you’re meant for me, to me; how I would always do things for you, for us. That it will forever be you. That thought reassures me, you know. I’m a clumsy boy, I’ve been clumsy a lot since we started dating; and I’m always scared that you would get tired of those silly mistakes — or things I don’t notice — and run away. I know… insecurities. But at the end of the day, like I said, there’s something between us that makes perfect sense. You trust me, you feel me, you know I’m here for you. Days and nights, only you that really matter. The rest is just accessory, something I can go without.

So, yeah. You always find the right words. Better than me, even. Even do I talk a lot. And I’m so grateful for that, I’m so damn in love. It’s hella crazy? I’m still so excited to reply to you, to see you pop up. I get nervous, sometimes, just like a silly boy in front of his crush; I get insecure as if I was not secured as your boyfriend yet… I get so many emotions that feel so new alors que. They aren’t. I’m yours, ive been for quite some time yeah.

My whole entire world revolves around you. Really. And I can’t picture one without you in it, what meaning would it have? Absolutely none. I don’t even know how I managed to get through life for twenty-five years. I swear Doll, I swear. Couple of months before I met you, I was literally thinking of… well, yk. Just like I did a lot those past few years. I was such a mess, and I was so scared of the future. I’ve never ever pictured myself wanting to live, enjoying life, and even its struggles. Yes, its still tough sometimes, I still have a lot of traumas (I don’t like this word it makes me ick as if I was so woke on twitter please. It has almost lost is scientific meaning for me lol…), processing grief, lot of anxiety management but. Overall. I’m really doing good, I’m really happy, I would fucking beg for my life if I needed to do so. And that’s also the weird thing. And you know that already, you appeared to me just before, what I thought would be the hardest day of my entire life, and weirdly enough, it wasn’t. But you were here, you were this « new » thing, and I was so drawn to you, like I had to, like it was my answer. And you were, you really are my answer. You literally are the reason why I’m full of love right now, you’re the reason why I’m doing well, that I’m so happy, that I’m in shape, well enough to give back this love that I’m receiving. You’re the answer to everything in my life, and i see it so clearly now. I don’t function when you’re not around, its like I’m missing a whole lung and that I’m dying from an incurable illness. For real. I really fucking need you, and I will be on my knees until my last breath; because you’re the one with my whole life in your hands. Well… Okay. Out loud that sounds psycho. That even sounds like manipulation… It’s okay baby! I’m not that psycho. You know I ain’t~~~ More seriously. I will always root for you, my love. And I’m so so so happy knowing you feel safe with me, that you trust me with everything just as I trust you.

The most important thing for me is to see you happy. Whatever the cost, whatever that means now or in the future. You’re the only thing that matters to me and it feels so great, so reassuring, knowing that every step of the way, you’re gonna be right by my side. Everything feels easier knowing that,

Thank you again so much for your words and those seven months. And whole ass year. I will keep doing my best to take good care of you, suffocate you with my nerdiness, silliness, and most importantly. Love. I will do what I can to make any other day exciting or different and I promise you, I can always surprise you (well, I still hope so).

I love learning about you every other day, even when I feel like I know everything. I will have all my life to get wiser from your love and for who you are. I learn from you and your passion, always. And I’m so proud of the woman I have facing me. She’s extraordinary, and she is all mine.

My love is made for you, every bit of it. It didn’t exist before, and there’s no after if it’s not with you.

Ton Kier

[maneskinss]

Måneskin won Eurovision, then they took over the world

When tickets to Måneskin’s 2022 European tour went on sale, the members of the band placed bets on how long it would take to sell out the dates. “I was like, ‘OK, maybe one week.’ And (everyone) was like, ‘One week! That’s too little time! We need more time!’” says bassist Victoria de Angelis. “And after two hours, we saw our phones. We were like, ‘Fuck!’” The entire tour had sold out, with the Brixton Academy date selling out in 25 minutes.

Måneskin, meaning ‘moonlight’ in Danish (De Angelis is half-Danish), formed in Rome in 2015. David, De Angelis, and Raggi went to school together in Rome and found Torchio through Facebook. Having started out busking in the city’s streets, the group came second on Italy’s version of The X Factor in 2017, releasing their debut album Il Ballo Della Vita (The Dance of Life), a triple-platinum seller in Italy, the following year.

In March of this year, the band won Italy’s Sanremo contest, which meant they would go on to compete in Eurovision. Their song, “Zitti e Buoni”, with its blaring bass and wailing guitars, may have seemed an unlikely contender for the pop-friendly competition, but ended up taking home the top prize – making Måneskin the first Italian act to win the contest since 1990, and the first rock act since 2006.

Måneskin are dedicated to making rock music, favouring loud, gritty guitar, bass, and sprawling riffs, evoking the glam and classic-rock styles of decades past. Their influences include a mix of older and modern bands, including Led Zeppelin, Fleetwood Mac, Nirvana, Franz Ferdinand, Arctic Monkeys, the Sex Pistols, and Slaves. David says that he and his bandmates were drawn to the genre’s “energy and the fact that it allows you to express yourself in many, many different ways”.“It's not just a kind of music, it’s also an attitude,” says Torchio.

However, Måneskin were discouraged from making rock music throughout their career, as guitars fell out of favour with younger listeners. “We feel like we made everything by ourselves and I think that makes it even sweeter,” says David. “We had to fight a lot for what we believed in because everyone was telling us not to do it. But in the end, we did it and we did it to the top.”

Following their Eurovision victory, the band started to take off on TikTok, despite not being on the app themselves. The tag #maneskin now has more than four billion views. “I think that the cool part of TikTok is that any song can go viral, even after years,” says De Angelis, pointing to Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” as an example.

Måneskin experienced that first-hand when their 2017 cover of The Four Seasons’ “Beggin’” blew up on the app this summer. The song has been used more than ten million times on TikTok, and claimed the top spot on Spotify’s Global Top 50 chart for four weeks.

The band members, who recorded the cover as teenagers during their X Factor run, have mixed feelings about the song’s success. “Of course we were really, really happy (with) what was going on but when we look at the picture on that song, and we hear the mix, we just think that many, many things could have been done better,” says David. “We were very (young) when we made it,” says De Angelis. “(Whereas now) we have other songs we wrote ourselves which we think were done better.” “And other clothes!” adds David.

Thankfully for the band, “Beggin’” – which David compares to “the cringey video that your parents show at Christmas dinner… but it’s global” – wasn’t the only song of theirs to perform well. Måneskin became the first Italian band to have two songs – “Beggin’” and “I Wanna Be Your Slave” – in the Top 10 of the UK Singles Chart simultaneously, with the songs peaking at six and five, respectively. Over the past year, charts and radio are proving more amenable to guitar-driven music and rock has surged in popularity, as pop artists like Miley Cyrus, Willow, and Olivia Rodrigo turn to the genre, with Måneskin becoming the leaders of rock’s resurgence.

It’s not a position the band take lightly. “We feel like we have the power and a huge number of people listening to us,” says David. “So we feel like we can do something meaningful and useful.” Måneskin are committed to using their platform to share their message of self-expression and to empower those who face discrimination. Says De Angelis: “Growing up in Italy, which can be a very narrow-minded and conservative country, we experienced a lot (of discrimination), especially in the music industry, with the way we look and everything. And so it’s just a thing that is part of us and that we feel we can speak about.”

Their latest album, Teatro D’Ira: Vol I, released in March, has a running thread of refusing to conform, with recent single “I Wanna Be Your Slave” subverting gender roles. But these messages also come through in the band’s glam style, which landed them a starring role in a recent campaign for Gucci. “We hope we can inspire people to dress as they want and to behave as they want in everyday life,” says David.

The members of Måneskin proudly challenge gender norms and encourage others to express their sexuality, taking a stand against homophobia. In June, David and Raggi shared a kiss on stage at the end of a performance in Poland, amid rising anti-LGBT sentiment in the country. “We think that everyone should be allowed to do this without any fear,” said David during the performance. “We think that everyone should be completely free to be whoever the fuck you want… Love is never wrong.” It’s a message which has helped them connect with fans around the world, according to De Angelis: “A lot of people tell us very meaningful things and that we are helping them in many ways and this is unbelievably precious for us.”

At the same time, there are many who don’t understand what Måneskin are trying to do, and act “like we were doing something that was too much, too weird, too freak,” says David. But the frontman points out that Måneskin aren’t the kind of band to let reactions like that faze them, instead using them as fuel for their latest track, “Mammamia”. “It’s about doing something great (which) people don’t want to understand and just (make) judgments and bad comments. But in a very funny way, of course. We made fun of haters, basically.”

The brash song, with tongue-in-cheek lyrics like, “They ask me why I’m so hot / ’Cos I’m Italiano,” was written soon after the band won Eurovision, and came together quickly. “From the first time, we were like, ‘Mamma mia, this is a good song!’” says Torchio.

It’s been a whirlwind year for the band, with their summer filled with festival performances including Global Citizen in Paris – a far cry from the streets of Rome they played as teenagers. When asked about what advice they’d give to their younger selves, De Angelis says, “Nothing. Do exactly what you did. But make a better picture for ‘Beggin’.”

x

[demonio-divino]

Aziraphale and Crowley are morally grey. Though, Aziraphale's good actions aren't all pretend -to-be-good since if that was totally true Heaven wouldn't be on Aziraphale's case. As fucked up as it is, Aziraphale does try to justify murder with ineffability. And he does constantly Crowley's temptations because of the Arrangement. And he sent the man on the Bastille to his death. And because he thinks he doesn't have to help Elspeth and Wee Morag because they're poor. But, he is constantly breaking the rules, when he gives away the sword, when he didn't agree to God's plan for Job and his family, when he finally understands Crowley's point on corpse digging and changes his actions. Stopping Armageddon against Heaven's wishes. And as ironically as it is, from Heaven's perspective this is him being bad angel.

Crowley is constantly doing bad things. That is obvious especially in the book. One think I found funny between book!Crowley and TV!Crowley is the discussion between him, Hastur and Ligur before giving him the Antichrist. In the series makes it seem that the temptations he does are too soft and dumb, because look "how cute is that Crowley isn't able do be truly bad, he's soft" regardless of his point of "That twenty thousand people got bloody furious? That you could hear the arteries clanging shut all across the city? And that then they went back and took it out on their secretaries or traffic wardens or whatever, and they took it out on other people? In all kinds of vindictive little wass which, and here was the good bit, they thought sup themselves. For the rest of the day. The knock-on effects were incalculable. Thousands and thousands of souls all got a faint patina of tarnish, and you hardly had to lift a finger.

But you couldn't tell that to demons like Hastur and Ligur. Fourteenth century minds, the lot of them. Spending years picking away at one soul. Admittedly it was craftsmanship, but you had to think differently these days. Not big, but wide. With five billion people in the world you couldn't pick the buggers off one by one any more; you had to spread your effort. But demons like Ligur and Hastur wouldn't understand." All this freaking long explanation on how he is a smarter (better) demon is shortened to look way less threatening. He is in fact a bad person, but as it's as well said, Heaven paints him as a worse person than he is actually and he also crosses Hell's rules to what he thinks it's too much.

And that's why they like each other so much, they accept each other morally greyness. Crowley hates being called nice when he isn't because, as his point stands, no bad or good people exist and there's nothing special in knowing the difference between good and evil when for him everything is grey. And Aziraphale justifies Heaven's cruel actions on the 'Ineffable', his bad actions on means that justify its ending and even when he condemns Crowley's tempting he still turns a blind eye because he believes in Crowley's niceness.

can we just. accept that they're both fucked up and move on?

aziraphale tried to justify god drowning a bunch of people. crowley was willing to kill a child to stop the apocalypse. aziraphale was about to let god murder MORE people and try to justify that too. crowley used the scottish gfs to prove a point and aziraphale failed to even see the point because he's incapable of being self-critical. aziraphale used a bunch of humans like puppets for a chance to dance with crowley. crowley has probably killed several pedestrians with his driving style. aziraphale cares more about his books and booze than preventing the end of the world. they both killed a BUNCH of people over the course of six thousand years. aziraphale would let the world burn just to prove a point.

they're in a complex and incredibly dysfunctional relationship and no, crowley is not secretly a good person and neither is aziraphale. neither of them WANTS to be a good person. aziraphale wants to be perceived as a good person without actually having a single shred of compassion. crowley just wants to be fucking left alone and have some peace and then do some low-level evil shit for fun.

aziraphale hasn't been listening to crowley since the very beginning and crowley does not want to be called good because he isn't. he doesn't want to be called kind because most of the time he isn't. aziraphale went back to heaven for himself and himself only and hurt crowley in the process.

they're both messy and morally grey as fuck so can we just accept that and stop trying to twist things to make one of them look better than they actually are? please?

they're not good people and that's the point.

[niqhtlord01]

Humans are Weird: Soldier without a war. Part I

( Please come see me on my new patreon and support me for early access to stories and personal story requests :D https://www.patreon.com/NiqhtLord Every bit helps)

 “You sure the speks don’t patrol there?”

“If they did do you really think I’d bring this rust bucket along for a job?”

Melp strapped himself into the copilot’s chair and looked over the console readings one last time. All systems were showing minimal operational capacity which normally would have been setting off alarm bells but with how things had been going for him and his captain lately it was the best they could ask for.

Melp was part of the salvage company “Outlying Star”, co-owner in fact with his partner and current captain Galem. When the war against humanity had started the two had thought it was the best idea to make a fortune with all the wrecks floating between star systems from fleet combat and had went all in on a converted freighter to pick through the bones and sell what they could.

At first Melp and Galem had made a killing, bringing in semi functional sub space drives and salvaged fully automated hard shell loaders from human ships. They made enough to fund a fleet of five ships and live the good life back on Valfha without a care in the world; for a little while at least.

Galem thought it was because of the government’s restrictions on salvageable items that had hampered their business but Melp believed it was because they were just too good at it that and had inspired countless others to take up the salvage game. Soon markets, both legal and black, became flooded with salvaged goods and people willing to undercut each other to make a quick buck. Neutron cannon went from 3.5 billion credits in value to just under 300 million credits in the span of six months. As a side effect of the sudden influx of salvage parts the government began taking notice and cracked down hard. Salvagers were called “Scavies” and deemed criminals by the government and the military would all too happily fire on any scavy ship they spotted. Seems they weren’t too happy about people rummaging through the wrecks of ships that once held their friends and the government would turn a blind eye if a scavy ship was destroyed during “Live Fire Exercises”.

Soon the jobs became even riskier and Outlying Star lost three ships after they were caught and destroyed. Another had to be sold for parts and salvage and now the final ship, the Morning Gale, was the last hope for Galem and Melp to make back some money.

“How do you even know this site hasn’t been picked clean already?” Melp asked over his shoulder as Galem entered the cockpit and locked the door behind him. “We could be wasting our time on a fantasy.” Galem shook his head which did little to ease Melp’s concerns.

“I got it from a reliable source that there was a big fight in the Glipi Cluster that we lost to the humans.” Galem began as he took the controls and slowly pulled back on the engine throttle as the ship ascended. “It was so embarrassing that the navy wiped all records of the battle and said the destroyed ships were lost in a freak transition from sub space into a rogue comet cluster.”

“If the data was wiped how does your source know about it?”  Melp quipped as the ship breached upper atmosphere and exited the travel lanes for the jump point.

Galem smirked as he engaged the sub space drive.

“They were there.”

 As the salvage ship exited sub space Melp let out a gasp. He blinked several times and rubbed his eyes yet when he opened them all he could see was a shroud of purple. Galem saw Melp’s confused expression and chuckled.

“It’s the color of the gas filtering through this entire cluster.” He said calmly as he flicked on several scanners and filter units. “Try looking now.”

Melp looked again as the shades of purple faded away and let out a startled gasp. Upon gazing out of the cockpit window he could see why the navy had wanted to cover up this place so badly.

Floating around them were dozens of lifeless wrecks of Mibari warships ranging from light destroyers to several cruisers. Compared to their tiny ship it was as if Melp and Galem had entered the realm of giants. Melp was transfixed by the wrecks and became utterly enthralled when a massive shadow draped across their vessel.

“Is that what I think it is?” Melp spoke sheepishly as his blue hands trembled and changed to a soft orange color. Galem leaned forward in his seat to look out the window and whistled as his eyes caught sight of what had terrified Melp.

“A galaxy class troop carrier.”

The massive ship spun slowly in place like a top that refused to stop spinning, the metal interior exposed in several places from weapons revealing a dark interior of metal supports and long dead hallways. Melp looked towards the front of the ship as the command deck slowly spun into view and he was surprised to see the name of the ship had survived the damage it had taken.

“The Vault of Ohya…” Melp softly spoke. He reached out with an arm and shook Galem who was smiling like a hatchling on birthing day. “That’s the Vault of Ohya!”

“A piece of her hull to the right collector would be enough to refurbish this little dingy,” Galem said as he playfully smacked the command console, “into one hell of a floating casino.”

The two of them broke down into fits of laughter as if they had just been driven mad by their findings; but it was not of madness that now drove them but the sheer joy of their discovery.

These dozen ships floating lifelessly in the cluster were more than enough to bring the two of them back into the life of luxury they once held and keep them there until their dying days.

Melp was still star gazing at the shattered troop carrier when something else suddenly grabbed his attention.

“What’s that?”

Melp tore his gaze away from the Ohya and saw what Galem was looking at.

A new vessel slowly drifted out of the shadow of the troop carrier and came into view. It was clearly a human vessel of some kind; the lack luster design a clear give away. The body of the ship was missing sections of itself, but rather than appearing as if it had been damaged in the battle it looked more as if the ship had not finished being built. Sections of the body were lacking armor showing a complex network of pipes and corridors. The hull was painted in a soft grey color that stood out sharply among the ever shifting gas cloud surrounding it. Rows of gun ports ran along the sides, their openings revealing nothing of the pitch black interior giving them the appearance of small gaping mouths ready to consume Melp and his ship.  

The more Melp looked at the ship the more he felt something was just wrong with it. Galem must have felt something as well as he pulled up the virtual display and began interacting with it.

“Not sure what that thing is but it’s not listed in the records.” He said as he closed the display and leaned over the controls to get a better view of it. The tingling feeling at the bottom of Melp’s three stomachs was starting to grow stronger as his uneasiness did not subside.

“What does that mean?”

“It means that there’s no record of that ship variant from the entire war with humanity on any recorded file.” He popped open the virtual display again and flicked it over so it was hovering in front of Melp to view while he fiddled with the controls again. “Which means it’s worth a whole lot more than anything here.”

“How do you figure that?” As a response to Melp’s question he waved his arm across the scattered wrecks.

“Out of all the ships here the human ones are all clustered around that one as if they meant to protect it.” Galem said as he began moving the ship closer to the strange human ship.

“They could have bugged out and ran, but instead they all fought and died just to protect that thing; which means something on it must’ve been worth defending.”

Melp knew what Galem had some merit, but he still couldn’t shake the feeling that something was still very wrong; but before he could raise his concerns though a loud shudder ran through the scavenger ship.

“Get your suit on,” Galem said as he exited out of the cockpit, “let’s go find us some treasure.” ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If the exterior of the ship had uneased Melp, the interior down right terrified him.

No sooner had the airlock door opened the two scavengers leaped back in shock. Standing at the entrance was a humanoid looking figure. Galem screamed and grabbed hold of a nearby cutting tool and swung it at the figure before Melp could even say anything.

A shower of sparks eradiated off the figure’s body as the plasma torch cut into it, all the while Galem was continuing to scream, and cut a decent size hole through the beings torso.

“Shut it!” Melp shouted at Galem, forcing the scared halfwit to calm down some while Melp inched closer and retrieved the still burning plasma torch. The figure had not moved and inch even as the torch had melted away his exterior and as Melp moved closer still he noticed why.

“It’s an automated drone you idiot.”

Melp motioned him forward and the two of them inspected the machine.

It was human shaped but it was entirely of metal and wires, a mindless drone used for menial tasks such as inventory handling or maintenance. It wore a human uniform for some reason which clashed with its blank reflective visor face.

“Why’s it standing here?” Galem asked as he nervously tapped the drone. The touch pushed it off the ground and the dead drone slowly lifted off the ground in the zero-g environment and floated back into the ship, bouncing off the back wall before continuing to silently float away.

“Maybe it’s here to greet us?” Melp chuckled as he activated his mag locks and his feet latched on to the metallic floor. Galem followed suit and the two began entering the derelict ship.

“Can’t be,” Galem began as they reached the airlock secondary doors and began slowly opening them, “these tin cans would run out of power in a day and it’s been years since this tussle went down.”

With several loud grunts as the two strained with the manual release the inner airlock to the human ship finally cracked open. The two entered slowly, not knowing what to expect, and took stock of their surroundings.

They entered a long hallway that seemed to stretch out far into the distance passed the reach of their head lamps. Melp could see side corridors scattered every few dozen feet no doubt leading to other sections of the ship, but likewise they too were pitch black.

Something about Melp’s comment made him pull out his data scroll and do a quick scan. The device beeped rapidly as the scan commenced before ending with a loud “DING” and displaying a waterfall of information.

Melp read the data as the two continued to hover by the airlock entrance.

“It says here that somethings still giving off a power signature here.” Melp commented as he ran he scan again to be sure.

“Give it here,” Galem said as he turned to Melp with his hand outstretched, “you must be reading it-“

When Galem didn’t finish his sentence Melp looked up and saw something akin to a mixture of fear and surprise on his face. He was staring at something over his shoulder so Melp slowly turned in place , his magnetic feet latching heavily to the decking with each step like two magnets smashing together.

When he finally turned around he let out a yelp of surprise and tried to jump back, but his magnetic feet kept him firmly locked to the floor leaving him in an almost comical off balance state.

Standing directly behind him was another of the drones, this one dressed in what appeared to be some sort of security uniform even including an empty weapon holster at his side.

Neither of the scavengers knew how the thing got there as it most certainly hadn’t been standing there a moment ago. Before either of them could respond the drone’s visor lit up and displayed a pixelated face.  The visor was damaged with a deep crack running the length of it making the display flicker in and out on half the screen giving it an eerily ghost like visage.

“The captain,” the drone began as it stepped to one side of the hallway and extended a hand into the darkness, “requests your presence on the bridge.”

[captaincravatthecapricious]

Things You Said When it was Over

Somewhere else, anger, a truce, and fight, and a happy ending

cw Jon's typical level of wanting to die but not actually wanting to die, fighting, mentions of vomit but no vomit, mentions of stabbing, mentions of stitches, losing time

Spoilers for 200

Let me know if you enjoyed!  Stop back in a week for another fic. I am accepting Things You Said prompt list prompts for Jon, Martin, and/or Tim!  I have two prompts in my inbox and both have been back written, but if you are wondering if I have ignored your prompt, chances are I have not!

Being unwound hurts.  Unwound.  Rewritten.  Removed.  Pulled and crumpled and twisted and extracted.  Spun in with a web of tapes.  

Masses of crinkling magnetic strips.  Unsure where voice, and web, and body, and blood intersect.  

Woven and ripped through that careful crevasse.  

And it hurts.  Much more than being stabbed.  With that awful scratch and skittering of strands being eaten by an eager, hungry machine.  

As time and entities and two people are chewed through and eaten with all the care of a faulty cassette player.  

It’s a shriek of static, the thrumming whine of machinery wound wrong.  The deafening scrabble of unknowable and terrible things going Elsewhere.  Loud enough that the explosion doesn’t even register.  Just a background whine to the overpowering white noise of the end of the world moving.  

And Jon wakes up.  

With a gasp.  Small.  And so painfully normal.  Like his POTS flaring up and waking up in the break room.  Again.  

That hasn’t happened since the world ended.  Since things went wrong.  

A strange thing to reminisce about.  POTS isn’t something he thought he’d miss.  And… well… he doesn’t?  Didn’t?  Doesn’t know the tense to use because there was that slim, slim chance that everything is actually okay.  The smallest, most fragile idea that things are back to that idyllic normal of the safehouse.  

He doesn't move for a while.  Focusing on breathing.  It's cold.  He isn't sure if the air is cold or if he's experiencing cold himself, or if this is just a new way of feeling pain.  He can't tell.  

His chest hurts, but he can't make himself check for blood.  Moving is still a little too beyond him.  

He wants to open his eyes, and look for Martin, but he doesn't want this to go away.  Because if he's alive, then Martin must be too, right?  Martin was much more likely to survive this.  Not being... you know, stabbed?  

But what if only Jon is somewhere else?  What if this is somewhere Martin couldn't follow?

In that case, Jon would rather not be alive at all.  If he doomed all the other universes because he couldn't go through with it in the end... if he gave it all up for Martin... he can't live with that.  He can't.  More than not wanting to, he just... Can't.  

Then again everything is... kind of numb so he can't actually be sure that Martin isn't there... but he is never that lucky.  Jon never gets the privilege of the best case scenario.  

Breathing still hurts.  But he doesn’t think it hurts in the “breathing around a knife” sort of way.  Then again, after bearing witness to the pain of Everyone on the planet, a single wound is hardly a drop in that ocean with all the other pain just Gone.  

“Jon!  Jon!  Can you hear me?”

He cracks his eyes open, and is met with the safe house ceiling.  Eyes struggling to focus, trying to find the source of the voice that certainly sounds like Martin, but Jon is too sore to move.  The force of it hitting him out of nowhere, without him even trying to lift a finger.  Senses filling the void of 7 billion people screaming with the voices of scars and joints and exhaustion and hunger.  

The best response he can manage is a wheezy groan.  

Wheezy?

Does he need his inhaler again?  Did Martin pack that even?  He hasn’t needed it… since… the world ended.  

Everything’s blurry.  Where did his glasses go?  

“Oh thank Christ!”  

Jon makes to sit up, but stars burst in his vision, and his arms give out.  

Martin’s hands fluttering around him.  Flying to his chest.  

Jon carefully reaches for his chest also.  There is a hole in his shirt.  Well.  A lot of holes, but he’s only looking for one.  

He feels tacky blood on its way to drying.  And as he carefully probes further, he finds a tidy line of stitches in slightly sticky thread, that he has a sinking suspicion is spider’s silk.  A final gift.  A thank you.  He wants to vomit.  

But Martin’s hand catches his, stopping him from potentially hurting himself.  Jon stretches his free hand to cup Martin’s cheek.  He finds it wet.  

It occurs to him that Martin has been crying.  Is crying?  Jon can’t tell.  His face is too far away to see more than the fuzzy outline.  (Not that Martin’s face is actually far away, Jon just has shit vision).  

Crying, present tense, Jon assesses, when Martin shakes with a suppressed, silenced sob.  “How could you do that Jon?  Fuck!  I mean… I knew you would.  But how could you do that?  You Lied to me.  You could have Died!  And I know you didn’t.  But Jon, I… I can’t.  You Promised me!  You Promised!  I…  How could you make me do that?  To you?  How could you?  I…  Jon, how could you?”  Martin’s crying too hard to get anything else out, and Jon still hasn’t managed to find enough breath and energy to speak.  

Jon whines.  Too exhausted to even sign.  

Martin’s hand on his chest.  Still trying to keep the blood in, even when there is no blood trying to get out anymore.  Martin’s usually warm hand icy (Jon hopes with fear, and not the Lonely, but he can’t know.  Firstly because he can’t break another promise, Secondly because he doesn’t think he can Know anymore, and thinking about trying makes his stomach drop.)  

And Jon just… can’t.  He rolls on his side away from Martin.  Curling up tightly.  Against the angry words and the guilt, and the rest of the guilt, and the pain in his body.  He’s doomed infinite worlds.  He’s betrayed everyone who ever cared about him… who he ever cared about.  He caused so much pain and he sat back and watched.  It seared through him the entire time of unknown and uncountable quantity that made up the apocalypse.  

All the words that he could never say, the guilt he could never express, all his own fear that had been just as much a meal for his god choking him.  

And he braces for the hate and the rest of the yelling, and everything else he deserves.  Everything he brought upon himself, one poor choice after another.  

Squeezes his eyes shut and wills himself gone and wills that if he doesn’t just vanish out of everything that Martin will get done yelling quick so maybe Jon can grovel some comfort out of him, even if it isn’t forgiveness, it will be better than the aching nothing that has been threatening to overtake him since he tasted the bitter words of the false statement.  

Martin more than deserves his anger, but Jon can’t take it.  He’s literally held together by spider silk.  He’s worn and tired and battered.  Guilt plunging deeper than Martin’s knife ever could.  

Not that he’s not grateful for this time with Martin.  Not that he doesn’t deserve every centimeter of guilt piling up on him.  He deserves all the hate.  And all the anger.  

He’s spineless, and he knows it.  He Almost did the right thing, but he couldn’t.  And he almost lost everything he cares about.  And now he probably still has.  And… and what?  What now?  Martin elected to stay with him despite it all, on one stupid, slim chance that things could be okay, but how can they be okay ever again, with this aching hole of fault and blame and regret and shame pulling at his core.  And he wants to be pulled open and rip it out.  He wants to enjoy what he has, but he can’t and Martin has every reason to hate him.  

He’s lost time.  

Martin’s calling his name, and his limbs are stiff and numb from bracing for an impact that never came.  

“Jon.  Christ.  Jon!  I’m… I… I didn’t mean to scare you.  I… I don’t hate you.  I love you, I promise.  …I’m… angry.  And we need to talk about this.  But… but I think that should wait until you’re up for talking, and I’m up for not crying for ya know, more than five minutes at a time.  ….And Fuck.  I just… well.  You owe me a good screaming at, too.  And Goddamn it, you were just doing what you thought was right… and you tried to tell us… tell me.  I’m not saying you were right, because you weren’t… but I’m not saying you were wrong.  And.  Well.  We’re both here.  Please.  I’m sorry for yelling.  Can I touch you?”

Jon nods jerkily.  Because he can’t stand the distance between them.  He doesn’t care if touch can get him hurt, he’d take hurt over the space between them.  

Martin holds him like he’s precious and Jon cries.  

Harder than he has in a very long time.  

And when he’s done he’s empty and shaking and filthy.  

They shower and sleep.  In the morning they can shout at each other for broken promises and wandering off, and not communicating enough, and not listening when the other is trying to communicate.  And one leaves in a huff, and one cries himself sick in the bathroom, and there is hugging and a trip to town for tea and figuring out if this is the universe they saved or one of the infinite they doomed.  And there are years for the aftershocks of those arguments to bounce around, losing energy in the form of heat: tea, hugs, hot showers, overeager workouts, kisses a little too rough, hugs a little too tight, a strange combination between fierce affection, and things a little too much to make them feel like they are accomplishing something.  

And they can grow whole once more.  

And they can grow old.  

[boonki]

“It’s freezing. Come here.” from the prompt list please~!

okay same thing as the other one, i know you asked this like five billion years ago, but life has been A Lot recently so i’m sorry this is late!! but here you are. 

this one features anakin being a little shit, while also Hopelessly Pining~ 

enjoy, my dear!! ❤️

(also, all the science in this? fictional. would a space heater be picked up by scanners? would they be able to exist without life systems on? idk bro, just avert your eyes for the sake of the plot)

______

Ilum, despite its significance for the Jedi Order, is a horrible planet. Anakin shivers in the small space of the command room, his bedroll and blankets doing very little to keep him safe from the cold seeping in through every crack in the ship. Beside him, Obi-wan sits cross legged on his own bedroll, rubbing his hands together, buried under layers and layers of material. A large thermos of tea sits in front of him, shut tightly to keep the heat in; it has to last through Ilum’s long, thirty six hour night. 

Rumors of Separatist forces stealing bits of kyber from the crystal cave had snaked their way back to the council, which had been received with profound distress; the cave is sacred to the Jedi, not to mention a large component in making weapons. Anakin, nor the council, doesn’t think Separatists are making lightsabers, but the fact is, he doesn’t know. No one knows why they would be here. 

Thus, Obi-wan and Anakin, The Team, had been sent to investigate. 

Investigating looks a lot more like parking outside the entrance of the cave and sitting inside of a cold, nondescript shuttle with the engine and life support systems turned off, to ensure no scanners or droids would pick them up. The only light in the shuttle streams in through the transperisteel viewport from Ilum’s two moons, casting most of the command room into shadows. At least they had brought plenty of blankets, warm clothing, and a small radiant heater that had been charged prior to landing. 

Anakin notices Obi-wan shaking, his many layers and fur-lined jacket doing nothing to hide the tremors. His fingertips are pale around the thermos when he pushes the lid off, bringing it to his hooded face to let the steam waft up into his chin. He takes a small sip and closes his eyes, focusing on the warmth flooding his chest. He looks miserable, and Anakin feels helpless in making it better, cheering his old master up. He knows it isn’t his responsibility, and that Obi-wan is more than capable of taking care of himself. 

Still, he wants to do something. 

They’ve been sitting in silence for the better part of the night, having run out of conversation hours ago. When Anakin speaks, his voice is scratchy, like he had just woken up. 

“Hey, it’s freezing, c’mere,” he motions for Obi-wan to scoot closer to him. 

Obi-wan’s eyes blink open slowly, full of caution and distrust. “I don’t know what you’re planning, but absolutely not.” 

Anakin scoffs. “I’m not planning anything, just get over here.” 

“Anakin I practically raised you, I know when you’re up to something.” Obi-wan is still holding the thermos to his chin, huddled into himself. He closes his eyes again, and if Anakin didn’t know any better, it would look like he’s meditating. He does, however, know better.

“Just, get over here, will you?” Anakin makes an exasperated noise and pat pats the space next to him. “Let me warm your hands up.” 

Obi-wan sighs, as if the universe had cursed him with such a nuisance of a padawan, and peels his eyes open again. He pushes the lid of the thermos closed, disgruntled, and scooches closer to Anakin, pulling his nest of blankets with him. He begins to hold his hands out, but pauses, eyeing Anakin intently for any hint of mischievousness, and finding none, offers them to him fully. 

Too easy, Anakin thinks.

He grins like an imp and darts his hands out to grab Obi-wan’s wrists, pulling Obi-wan’s hands up his shirt and into his armpits, where he squishes them into place and fortifies his grasp, prepared for Obi-wan’s initial recoil. 

Obi-wan flinches, and screws his face up in disgust, trying to tug backwards. “Anakin, don’t be vile, let me go.” But Anakin is giggling like a schoolboy, clenching his arms down on Obi-wan’s hands, his grip on Obi-wan’s wrists impossible to break out of. 

“No, I’m warming your hands up.” Anakin teases, and takes in Obi-wan’s outraged expression, his murderous glower a stark contrast to the fluffy pile of blankets that hang off him, and can’t help the bubble of affection that expands in his chest. He used to love pranking his master, used to love setting up harmless traps to gain a reaction out of Obi-wan Kenobi, the perfect Jedi. It’s been years since he’s had the chance to laugh like this. 

Then a corner of Obi-wan’s mouth tugs back in a devious grin, and the bubble of affection pops, leaving only pure dread. Anakin immediately regrets his little stunt. 

Obi-wan manages to squirm a little in his hold, rotating his hands enough so that his fingers can poke into Anakin’s armpits, tickling him. Anakin vaults backwards, but Obi-wan stays with him, tongue poking out in between his teeth, a full smile on his face. 

“No, stop-” Anakin is suffocating with laughter, trying, and failing, to shove Obi-wan off. 

Obi-wan shoves him back and hooks a leg over his stomach, straddling him. “But, dear padawan, my hands aren’t warm yet.” He’s snickering, all of his blankets pushed to the side in the tousle. Anakin’s shirt is pushed up to his chest as he lays on his back, exposing his skin to the cold. 

Anakin knows he’s making obscene noises as Obi-wan tickles him, aborted laughs and high pitched yelps, and a string of incoherent no, stop, please, get off is bubbling out of his mouth before he can even think about it. Obi-wan’s eyes are alight above him, twinkling, full of glee. 

After what feels like years, Obi-wan relents, coming to rest his hands on the broad plain of Anakin’s chest. They’re both heaving air, breathless from all the play fighting and laughing. “And here I thought you were actually going to be nice to me, for once.” Obi-wan leans down towards his face, cocking an eyebrow at him. 

Anakin lets his head thump onto the ground, exposing his neck, and rests his hands on Obi-wan’s. “I’m always nice to you, I have no idea what you’re talking about.” 

“Shoving my hands into your armpits is you being nice, then?” Obi-wan snorts, and his eyebrow somehow hitches further up on his forehead. “If only that were true, darling.” 

Despite the cold, Anakin feels himself reddening at the pet name, and his rather compromised position underneath Obi-wan. Their faces are only about a foot away, which feels like inches to Anakin. If he propped an elbow up, he would be close enough to close the gap and kiss him. 

Sensing the sudden shift in energy, Obi-wan stiffens, as if suddenly aware that he’s straddling Anakin’s bare stomach, alone, in a dim and freezing ship. He clears his throat and awkwardly climbs off Anakin, gathering the mess of blankets left in the wake of their skirmish. In a better light, Anakin would’ve been able to see the blush burning away at Obi-wan’s ears, practically melting them.

Anakin sits up, yanking his shirt back down. “Do you want to-”

“We should-” They speak at the same time, and Obi-wan stops, gesturing at Anakin. “You first.” 

“No, you go.” Anakin can’t quite look him in the eye, and he focuses instead of wrapping himself in his blanket again. 

Obi-wan makes an exasperated noise in the back of his throat. “Anakin.” 

“Maybe, we should, I mean only if you want to,” Anakin fiddles with the corner of the fabric, “huddle for warmth?” It feels as ridiculous as it sounds, and Anakin regrets it as soon as he’s said it. 

“Oh, so you can maneuver my face into your smelly armpit?” Obi-wan jests, his tone laced with mirth, and he reaches for his thermos, always finding calm within his tea. 

“Hey!” Anakin’s mouth drops open. “I don’t smell.”

Obi-wan’s eyebrows jump once as he pops the lid off and takes a sip, shrugging. “Maybe not to you, my dear.” 

Anakin, offended, pulls his knees to chest, resting his head on his kneecaps. “I was being serious,” he mumbles into the material of his pants. He’s freezing from being subjected to the cold air for so long, all of his body heated lingering in the air around them. “What were you going to say?” he asks. 

Obi-wan makes a hm? noise as he lays down on his bedroll, and then says, “Oh, right. I was going to say we should try and get some sleep.” 

Anakin half heartedly nods his head best he can against his legs. A shiver tears through him, and he hunches into himself, wishing they could turn the ship’s heaters on. As fun as their shenanigans had been, it left them both significantly colder than before. He reaches out to see if the radiant heater will go any higher. It won’t. 

“Anakin,” Obi-wan says, softly. “Come here.” 

Anakin is dubious. “Why?” 

“You’re right. Body heat is probably our best option right now, given the circumstances.” Obi-wan unwraps his blankets and begins unzipping his thick jacket, holding the space open for Anakin. “Here, before I get cold.” 

Anakin’s heart stutters in his chest. 

He crawls over to Obi-wan’s bedroll and sheds his jacket, tucking himself into Obi-wan so that his back is flush with Obi-wan’s chest, Obi-wan’s breath hot on his ear. As Obi-wan snakes a cold hand to rest on his chest, Anakin pulls his jacket on backwards so that his arms stay warm, and spreads the blankets out on top of them evenly, best he can. 

He feels...at home in Obi-wan’s arms, he thinks, and mentally kicks himself. Obi-wan is only doing this because of the impending frostbite if they don’t. 

Silence settles over the pair, only the sounds of their slow breathing to keep them company. 

“Do I really smell, master?” Anakin whispers into the dark. 

Obi-wan snorts into his neck. “Always, dear one.” He pats Anakin’s chest to console him. 

Anakin turns in place, lifting his arms above Obi-wan’s head, shoving his face into his armpit. “How about now?” 

Needless to say, they sleep on separate bedrolls. 

Anakin shivers with regret the rest of the night.

[qqueenofhades]

Keeping my fingers crossed for that Black Widow meta

Aha, okay. As usual, I am ludicrously easy to enable, so let's take a crack at this. The ask obviously contains SPOILERS for the Black Widow film (and is also tagged "black widow spoilers" if you're planning to filter), and discussion/reference to other films/properties in the MCU, though I don't feel like any of those are still a secret.

Anyway, as I said in my earlier post, I can't believe I am actually still trying to critically analyse a Marvel production in the year of our Lord 2021, but then, I feel like we all have a complicated relationship with it. Likewise, the feeling of "oh wow NOW you're giving Natasha a solo movie after you killed her off in a cheap and fairly sexist way in Endgame?" If this film had come out ten or even five years ago, it would have been major, but holding it off until now seems to have left most of us justifiably unimpressed. Plus, as I am absolutely not the first person to point out, it renders Natasha's sacrifice in Endgame "because I don't have a family" even more narratively incoherent. I realize that this film was written after that one by totally different people, there's no point in expecting the MCU to make consistent canonical sense throughout its eighty billion different films/series, we were all stuck with a mess after the Whedonified Age of Ultron Nat, and so forth, but still. Natasha explicitly SAYS that she has two families (her wacky Russian found family of spies and the Avengers) and her decision to leap off the cliff in Endgame to save Clint and his retconned perfect white heterosexual nuclear family.... Hmmmm. To which I say to you, I do not bite my thumb at you, sir, but I do bite my thumb at Male Writers, sir.

Likewise, while I am wildly attracted to Florence Pugh as Yelena and deeply desire to be wrapped between her thighs, the movie felt more like her story than Nat's. Yelena drove most of the plot and the action, while Nat was just kind of along for the ride. As a solo piece, we really didn't learn that much about Natasha aside from the opening scene (which felt like it was straight out of The Americans and probably worked the best of the whole film for the reason) with her childhood in America. But even the infamous "what happened in Budapest" backstory with her and Clint was quickly info-dumped rather than shown, and they could have taken more narrative risks or included more flashbacks or otherwise given us more NATASHA, y'know??? Instead of cramming the film into the small space between Civil War and Infinity War and making it even weirder that Nat seemingly has no memory or reference to these events when she returns to the team at that time. Why not show her looking for Yelena or her actual defection to the Avengers or anything else we might want from a film that purportedly exists entirely to provide backstory for a now-dead character? It felt like even in the film universe, the main quest was being repeated -- she tried to kill Baddie McSoviet once before and it didn't work out, so she has to do it again, something something. Okay.

As for that, good ol' Marvel and its American Superiority TM. The only actual Eastern European actress in this film about Eastern Europeans was Antonia/Taskmaster, played by the Ukrainian Olga Kurylenko (and I was very interested in her?? If she's supposed to be a narrative foil and a ghost of Nat's past and mark of her former sins, etc., why not develop her as an actual character?) Everyone else were Brits and Americans hamming it up with even more chew-the-scenery fake Russian accents than Elizabeth Olsen's "Sokovian" accent as Scarlet Witch. If it's established that they all have perfect American accents at the start of the movie, why is Nat the only American-accented character in the modern day if she had presumably the exact same childhood as Yelena? I know it's another way to set her apart, but that and Baddie McSoviet (the Russians are finding a way to steal free will from people's brains! Zomgz!!! Is this 2021 or 1981?) were straight out of the Cold War in terms of its not-so-veiled American Supremacy Message. Likewise, making modern!Natasha a former KGB agent never really made sense, since she says in Winter Soldier that she was born in 1984, and we see her in this film as an 11-year-old in 1995. But the USSR collapsed in 1991, when she was seven, and the Red Room appears to be an entirely unrelated flying....lab....thingy run by a generic evil Russian (Ray Winstone, likewise Hamming Up Accent). So like. What is she, guys?? Make up your minds!!!

Likewise, Baddie McSoviet/Dreykov as a villain obviously plays into the hoary old Hollywood "All Bad People Are Recognizable As Being Terrible Sexists and Also Probably Russians" trope, but aside from that, he doesn't make sense. He has this entire army of basically unstoppable Widows and he has just been.... waiting around and causing random explosions? Or was just waiting for Nat and company to return so he could Put His Evil Plan Into Motion? Are we really supposed to believe that this guy has just been sitting up in his flying saucer and essentially never doing anything this whole time? He had about a million chances to launch this take-over-the-world plan long before Natasha ever got there. Plus, I.... am.... not sure what to think (aside from /deep sigh/ MARVEL) about the fact that all the Widows we see dying/getting killed on screen are women of color. (Then the Black surgeon who was about to remove Yelena's brain in the Red Room and the only other Black guy being Natasha's errand boy, which just... in context... YIKES.) I think the fact that there are random Black background Widows are supposed to mean that they're inclusive and badass or something? Scarlett Johansson also has her own issues with White Feminism and all the other things we've critiqued her for before, so after TFATWS and the Flag Smashers, Marvel clearly has found its subtly racist sweet spot. As usual?

The end of the film also just basically turns into the standard Marvel empty-spectacle/cool-looking fights/people flying through the air thing, and I wanted a lot more focus on the wacky found-family Russian-spy hijinks (I did love them, for reasons) and character dynamics, rather than all of them separately fighting baddies in different places. I did obviously have feelings about Natasha putting the parachute on Yelena to save her life. But why were we then denied Nat/Gamora parallels/relationships/any character development or interaction at all in Infinity War/Endgame? Both of them are trained assassins adopted into a non-biological family that they have a complicated relationship with, but end up forging a strong bond with their sister (Yelena/Nebula) nonetheless. Of course, that would have required Endgame to put more effort into its female characters than what it did, which was one (1) Epic CGI Charge Scene at the very end, and literally nothing else. Not that I am still salty about this or anything.

Anyway. The movie was genuinely fun in places. The wacky Russian found family of spies was definitely the best part, even if it made Endgame even more nonsensical as a result. But I wanted this movie to be a lot better than it was overall, though I probably would have liked it more if it had actually come out in a timely fashion and wasn't only released after they killed her off. It just feels like there were so many possible threads of potential that could have been done with Natasha if they were actually interested in experimenting and exploring the character and not just coming up with new baddies and ways to go boom, and it unfortunately missed the mark with that.

[nickgerlich]

Pillow Talk

The US has long been an economy in which we have had things delivered to us. It is not at all new, especially in light of all the e-commerce of the last 30 years, as well as DoorDash, Grubhub, and Uber Eats deliveries we get. No, it goes back more than a century, to when Sears and Montgomery Ward operated massive catalog operations.

Heck, Sears even sold mail order house kits—aka Sears Houses—that were delivered by rail and dropped off at a depot nearest your homestead property. It was then up to the customer to retrieve all of the materials, which included every last stick of wood, nail, screw, and whatever else held the thing together, and then assemble.

IKEA had a good role model, didn’t they?

As time passed we continued our mail order ways, maybe not so much out of necessity as Sears and Montgomery Ward serviced rural customers who never had access to large stores, but more out of convenience and access to things we might not otherwise find. It is hard to believe that these orders often took several weeks to arrive, a completely alien concept in the era of two-day deliveries being painfully slow.

I doubt anyone then ever thought about lofty goals like sustainability, even as recent as the early-90s. But once we settled into the Dotcom era, this uncomfortable thought kept coming up. We have grown increasingly dependent upon frequent deliveries, often piecemeal. And those deliveries require packaging. Ponder all of the energy that has been consumed delivering your merchandise to you, as well as all of the packing materials. It is no small amount.

Sure, we could reply that had we gone to the store, we would have used energy for that trip, which is very true. But unless you are running to town for one item at a time, the odds are good that by consolidating your shopping journey such that you buy many items, your carbon footprint is smaller overall. Never mind the energy used in getting goods from overseas and through the supply chain, which would probably be a wash whether we shop online or in-person.

Amazon, the gorilla in the living room, is having these conversations at HQ. It is doing everything it can to reduce the amount of packaging, and I can tell the difference. Whereas I once had mountains of empty Amazon boxes of all sizes cluttering a storage building, I see that pile going down fast. Cushiony paper mailers have replaced a lot of the boxes, which is fine by me as long as the contents arrive unscathed.

But what about packing materials inside of boxes? Those have been problematic, but Amazon and others are making big strides. Whereas we once used styrofoam peanuts, no doubt one of the worst products ever made, there was a shift to biodegradable peanuts, and then to air pillows. And now Amazon is doing away with even them, replacing them with recycled paper. I guess the child in us will just have to find something else to pop.

The company is replacing 15 billion air pillows, a big part of the 599 million pounds of plastic waste that Amazon generated each year. Since paper can hypothetically be recycled five to seven times before losing its basic fibrous qualities, that’s a lot of long-term benefit for the environment.

To Amazon’s great credit, they have also rolled out 13,500 EV delivery vans in major markets across the US. While no EV is perfect in the sense that they don’t leave some kind of environmental footprint, they are much better than fossil-fueled vehicles, whether their own or third party couriers like UPS and the Post Office. The custom vans are made by Rivian, and plans include for 100,000 in the long-run.

Short of a paradigm shift or hefty taxes on delivery services, I am convinced that our consumer behavior has changed sufficiently now to the delivery model. It is very different from what Sears and Montgomery Ward offered, though. Today, we value the convenience of it first and foremost, yet there is an environmental cost. Packaging and delivery are not free in any sense of the word.

But as long as companies like Amazon think long-run with an eye toward reducing the footprints we all leave, maybe we can leave this place no worse for the wear, and maybe even a little better.

Dr “Recycle This” Gerlich

Audio Blog

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Qualia

My latest Locus Magazine column is "Qualia," and it argues that every attempt to make an empirical, quantitative cost-benefit analysis involves making subjective qualitative judgments about what to do with all the nonquantifiable elements of the problem.

https://locusmag.com/2021/05/cory-doctorow-qualia/

Think of contact tracing. When an epidemiologist does contact tracing, they establish personal trust with infected people and use that relationship to unpick the web of social and microbial ties that bind them to their community.

But we don't know how to automate that person-to-person process, so we do what quants have done since time immemorial: we decide that the qualitative elements of the exercise can be safely incinerated, so we can do math on the quantitative residue that's left behind.

We can automate measurements of signal strength and contact duration. We can do math on those measurements.

What we *can't* do is tell whether you had "contact" with someone in the next sealed automobile in slow traffic - or whether you were breathing into each others' faces.

The decision to discard the subjective *is* subjective.

When the University of Illinois hired physicists to design its re-opening model, they promised no more than 100 cases in the semester and made unkind remarks about how easy epidemiology was compared to physics.

Within weeks, the campus shut down amid a 780-person outbreak. The physicists' subjective judgment that their model didn't need to factor in student eyeball-licking parties meant that the model could not predict the reality.

The problems in quants' claims of empiricism aren't just that they get it wrong - it's that they get it wrong, and then claim that it's impossible for anyone to do better.

This is - in Patrick Ball's term - "empirical facewash." Predictive policing apps don't predict where crime will be, but they DO predict where police will look for criminals.

Subjectively discarding the distinction between "arrests" and "crime" makes bias seem objective.

40 years ago, the University of Chicago's Economics Department incubated a radical experiment in false empiricism: the "Law and Economics" movement, which has ruled out legal and political sphere since Reagan.

Law and Econ's premise was that "equality before the law" required that the law be purged of subjective assessments. For example, DoJ review of two similar mergers should result in two similar outcomes - not approval for one and denial for the other.

To this end, they set out to transform the standards for anti-monopoly enforcement from a political judgment ("Will this merger make a company too powerful?") to an economic one ("Will this merger make prices go up?").

It's true that "Is this company too powerful?" is a subjective question - but so is "Will this merger result in higher prices?"

After all, every company that ever raised prices after a merger blamed something else: higher wage- or material-costs, energy prices, etc.

So whenever two companies merge and promise not to raise prices, we have to make a subjective judgment as to whether to trust them. And if they do merge and raise prices, we have to subjectively decide whether they're telling the truth about why the prices went up.

Law and Econ's answer to this lay in its use of incredibly complex mathematical models. Chicago economists were the world's leading experts in these models, the only people who claimed to know how to make and interpret them.

It's quite a coincidence how every time a company hired a Chicago Boy to build a model to predict how a merger would affect consumers, the model predicted it would be great.

A maxim of neoliberal economics is "incentives matter" - and economists have experience to prove it.

The Chicago School became a sorcerous priesthood, its models the sacrificial ox that could be ritually slaughtered so the future could be read in its guts. Their primacy in models meant that they could dismiss anyone who objected as an unqualified dilettante.

And if you had the audacity to insist that the law shouldn't limit itself to these "empirical" questions, they'd say you were "politicizing" the law, demolishing "equality before the law" by making its judgements dependent on subjective evaluations rather than math.

That's how we got into this mess, with two beer companies, two spirits companies, three record companies, five tech companies, one eyeglasses company, one wrestling league, four big accounting firms - they merged and merged, and the models said it would be fine, just fine.

These companies are too powerful. Boeing used its power to eliminate independent oversight of its 737 Max and made flying death-traps, and then got tens of billions in bailouts to keep them flying.

What's more, these companies are raising prices, no matter what the model says. The FTC knows how to clobber two companies that get together to make prices higher, but if those companies merge and the two resulting *divisions* do the same thing, they get away with it.

The only "price-fixing" the FTC and DoJ know how to detect and stop is the action of misclassified gig-economy workers (who are allegedly each an independent business) who get together to demand a living wage. In Law-and-Econ terms, that's a cartel engaged in price-fixing.

That means Lyft and Uber can collude to spend $200m to pass California's Prop 22, so they can pretend their employees are contractors and steal their wages and deny them workplace protection - but if the workers go on strike, *they're* the monopolists.

In Law-and-Econ land, the way those thousands of precarious, overstretched workers should resist their well-capitalised bosses at Uber and Lyft is to form a trade association, raise $200m of their own, and pass their own ballot initiative.

As I wrote in the column: "Discarding the qualitative is a qualitative act. Not all incinerators are created equal: the way you produce your dubious quantitative residue is a choice, a decision, not an equation."

There is room for empiricism in policy-making, of course. When David Nutt was UK Drugs Czar, he had a panel of experts create empirical rankings for how dangerous different drugs were to their users, their families and wider society.

From this, he was able to group drugs into "drugs whose regulation would change a lot based on how you prioritized these harms" and "drugs whose ranking remains stable, no matter what your priorities."

Nutt was then able to go to Parliament and say, "OK, the choice about who we protect is a political, subjective one, not an empirical one. But once you tell me what your subjective choice is, I can empirically tell you how to regulate different drugs."

Nutt isn't UK Drugs Czar anymore. He was fired after he refused to recant remarks that alcohol and tobacco were more dangerous than many banned substances. He was fired by a government that sat back and watched as the booze industry concentrated into four companies.

These companies' profits are wholly dependent on dangerous binge drinking; they admit that if Britons were to stop binge drinking, they'd face steep declines in profitability.

These companies insist they can prevent binge drinking, through "enjoy responsibly" programs.

These programs are empirical failures. The companies insist that this is because it's impossible to prevent binge drinking.

So Nutt made his own program, and performed randomized trials to see how it stacked up against the booze pushers' version.

Nutt's program worked.

It was never implemented.

Instead, he got fired, for saying - truthfully - that alcohol is an incredibly dangerous drug.

The four companies that control the world's booze industry have enormous political power.

So here we have the failure of Law-and-Econ, even on its own terms. Instead of creating an empirical basis for policy, the Law-and-Econ framework has created global monopolies that capture their regulators and kill with impunity.

That's why it's so significant that Amy Klobuchar's antitrust proposals start by getting rid of the "consumer welfare" standard and replacing it with a broader standard: "Is this company too powerful?"

https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/06/calera/#fuck-bork

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