#its the process of figuring it out. Maybe even more than the actual solution

[lagsemantics]

Hi! Would you like to talk about your Soundwave Misfire rairpair? It's actually pretty cute ngl. How did they meet?

bahah thank you for asking!!

i've laready pestered @robot-rarepairs-dotcom about this in this specific ask but, yeah, why not yell it out loud and proud for the people in the back? and come to think of it maybe i should make a comic out of it sometime someday??? or a fanfic? no, i shant...

so. from the top. the war is still raging on all fronts. there is the fighting with blasters, guns, cannons ad whatnot, sure. but. its said that wars are won off the battlefield. and soundwave, as the chief intel officer is here to secure the rightful victory of the decepticons.

but its not an easy job by any means. there is infinite amount of information to be sourced and only so many tasks sw can attend to at a given moment. so knowing the right cybertronians and having mechs in the right places was all but crucial. and the neutral underground is one such place. but here comes an obstacle. neutrals dont take kindly to 'cons. it'd be a long and tedious process to plant a new network in there. it'd be so much easier if soundwave could find anyone who is already a regular in those spaces. and time is of the essence. there must be something, someone...

...and here comes the idea to employ the scavengers as contacts.

soundwave is naturally skeptical of the idea. the scavs? the bottom of the bottom of the barrel? undisciplined, lousy and, most probably, disloyal? but that just further proves the point. no one would put them under scrutiny. no one would pay them any mind, no one would care. they could slip in anywhere, anytime, get what soundwave needs and then disappear with no trace, since no one even payed them more than a passing glance and a dismissive scoff.

their questionable allegiance is another thing. the one thing soundwave is certain theyre loyal to is survival. he can grant them that. the decepticon high command has a lot of shanix to spare.

and its not like they need to get any major missions, either. soundwave could run a test trial to figure out whether this solution was at all worth investing into.

besides, the scavenegers (as most of the low-ranks) were expendable assets, after all.

and so the chief intelligence officer yields. soon after they send an anonymous signal to the w.a.p., requesting to meet their representative in some shithole bar on a neutral planet.

misfire lost the straw pull and was chosen to be the representative. which in practice meant he was the one speaking with the mysterious figure while the rest of the gang was to sit around (mostly) quietly and listen. and enage if the things went south. because, where one goes, the others do as well.

only when the mission renders sucessful, soundwave reveals himself - to shock and awe of the scavs. but, nevertheless, a long term symbiotic relationship formed. scavengers did what they were instructed to, to mixed results, but they did nontheless. soundwave paid accordingly. all was well.

but there is more to it than meets the eye.

soundwave, though he would never admit it, would grow fond of the scavengers - the lowkey, chill and maybe even fun life they had. a far cry from what he was forced to put up with in the high command. no more power struggle, no more persisting rumors of war. for a moment, aboard of the w.a.p. he could no longer be the head of the decepticon intel office. he could... just exist. not sure how he feels about it, yet. he needs more time to figure it out.

at the center of this is misfire, naturally. the one who talked to him first and the one who was sort of ushered into the role of the one to build a figurative scavengers-soundwave relationship bridge. naturally at first misfire and the others didnt take too kindly to soundwave. as a team they had rather complicated views on the high command as a whole. and soundwave was the very idea of the high command. as skeptical as the scavenger would be, the relationship was beneficial. soundwave became a token of survival for them. but soon enough though, that was to change.

i mean, misfire isnt stupid. he's introspective. he likes people. he likes knowing people. even soundwave was not beyond his curiosity. and, accidentaly or not, he got to know soundwave. the little things about him, that naturally started to seep out of his hardened shell now that he could, primus forbid, finally relax. soundwaves concealed passion for music, his innermost philosophical reflections, the way he cares about his casettes. the mask faltered.

soundwave is being taught how to be his own mech - who he is and who he has potential to be off the battlefield. he's been taught about the importance of trust as a part of loyalty and to overcome the egoism and dispassionateness which emerged as a part of desensitization that came about from everything he has experienced. misfire has been taught of bravery, the many ways to be strong and how important it is to fight for what he believes is right - to live for something beyond just the sake of living.

soundwave has also been converted into a gamer. he's become frighteningly skilled at whatever the cybertronian equivalent of mario kart is. but he lets misfire win :]

oh, and since then soundwave has brought along his casettes to one of his w.a.p. visitations. misfire is slowly but surely advancing to become "the cooler dad". soundwave is not sure how to feel about this.

[seldarinesorcerer]

Ipcha Mistabra

In the Talmud, in Tractate Bava Metzia, Abaye and R. Pappa, two 4th century Babylonian rabbis, got into an argument. And like many arguments in the Talmud, what they disagreed about was which of two earlier authorities held differing opinions on a matter of Jewish law. You could see it either one of two ways – say you have an argument with your brother, for example, about a disagreement that went on years ago between your great aunt and your great uncle. You say it was your great-uncle that loved the Red Sox and your great-aunt who loved the Yankees, but your brother says it was the other way around (she loved the Red Sox) – and then he throws in the fact that Ted Williams was a better baseball player than Joe DiMaggio, now you have a full-blown rabbinic kerfuffle.

Getting back to the case of Abaye and R. Pappa, they were attempting to establish the basis for determining a fair market price for olive oil, which was a precious commodity in the ancient near east. It turns out that olive oil was sold filtered, no sediments were supposed to be in it; and the authorities carefully watched the seller’s and the purchaser’s assumptions about how much of this excess material got through the process anyway, got mixed in, and they’d establish the price based on their divergent assumptions. 

So after Abaye lays out his reasoning, lines up which side took which role in the argument, R. Pappa turns around and says “You’ve got it totally backwards - how they argued it out,” and he offers an 180-degree differing explanation about who (more than a century earlier) took which position and what was motivating them.

"Ipcha Mistabra" – the Talmud says. It’s Aramaic for “Things can be understood the other way around.” It’s the Talmud’s way of saying, hey, you might think that, here, this is the logic behind a certain dispute, but guess what! I’m going to illustrate an opposing, maybe counterintuitive, way of looking at the disagreement. You can see it from a different angle entirely.

Ipcha Mistabra

An editorial writer in Haaretz on August 1st this past summer (Haaretz being a totally secular newspaper) used the term to make his point. He suggested that in political circles we should all be asking what may be counterintuitive, even shocking – about why Netanyahu would assassinate the political leader of Hamas in Tehran, if the guy was a key player in negotiating a diplomatic solution to the hostage crisis and ending the war? (Keep in mind this was before the assassination of Nasrallah and the Hezbollah decapitations in Beirut!) The guy who got killed, Ismail Haniyeh, was a bad guy, for sure, but do you assassinate one of their chief negotiators? At the time, most commentators just drew the conclusion that Israel may have overshot its goals, made a tactical blunder. But the same writer went against the grain, by suggesting that Netanyahu intended it, he did it deliberately – he “outsourced” a tenet of Israeli escalation domination strategy to Iran – by calling its bluff – letting Iran figure out at what level – it would decide to retaliate. The reasoning for this, he continued, is that the Israeli prime minister actually wanted Iran to bear the risk of confronting the US. Force Iran to think about a larger war it can’t control by upping the stakes for itself and its proxies and sucking America into it. And, at the same time, the Israeli prime minister would divert attention away from the war in Gaza!

But I’m not bringing this up to get into politics, we have enough of that. See, what I’m curious about is this way of thinking – going with what’s counterintuitive that’s happening right in front of us. We’re often so sure about how things have reached the stage they’re in right now – but just suppose we pause to ask an alternative set of questions? In the dazzling novel Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck, a young woman from East Berlin falls in love with an older married man from the “other” side, only a year or so before Germany is reunited. As the wall falls, her reality and her fantasies disintegrate, better yet, are subsumed within a new mental mapping – and all that remains of a long, illicit affair is a ritual they go on performing whenever they part company (in Erpenbeck’s words): “When they leave a place together, he holds out her coat, she slips into it front-wise, briefly holds him in her arms, then slips it off and puts it on the right way.”

Ipcha Mistabra

I can remember, when I was a child, I used to walk down this (what I thought was a) long hall and peer behind the thin glass of a mirror on the wall, to see if there was something there looking through it – back at me.

Getting to the Truth is more than simply arguing the other side of a debate (that’s hard enough, standing in someone else’s shoes); sometimes it’s looking at the obverse of what we think we know – for everything we commonly think of as true and solid – there may be, in fact, something more unsettling to it. 

At the end of July, it was reported that William Calley died in a hospice in California. For those of you born long after the Vietnam War, Mr. Calley was synonymous with the My Lai massacre, the mass murder of a village filled with defenseless women and children, although in so many ways his conviction told us something more. It stood in for a senseless war fought by Americans for a regime that was terrible and corrupt – a war that our society eventually came to realize it should have no part in. It unmasked a larger issue: that something in our own society was rotten, had failed, and we needed to look ourselves in the mirror. Coincidentally, the same day that it was reported that Calley died, it was also reported that a Palestinian prisoner was abused in the crudest way by Israeli soldiers, and were it not for a whistle-blower, there was a likelihood that others would get away with this abhorrent behavior, and, in fact, probably already have. And yet, there were loud protests in Israel by people who think it’s somehow unfair to accuse prison guards who, after all, are put in charge of the worst of the worst.

Ipcha Mistabra

What do these moments mean for our hopes and illusions in a larger sense? How do they speak to our commitments to one another, to making a better world? Can we, in these Days of Awesome, marshal the fortitude to peer behind the hell-scape of the kibbutzim that were devastated on October 7th, the charred remains of homes, the wreckage of a dance festival? Is there a way to see behind the mirror – or maybe it’s for this very reason that we cover the mirrors in a house of mourning? And then there’s the cruelty to the hostages that keeps us looking away.

Ipcha Mistabra

Have you read Percival Everett’s great literary invention, called James? It takes Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn and turns it around, so that we explore, we come to know what’s behind the opaque figure of a slave, however benevolent, the character of Jim is in the original famous book. In Everett’s telling, that same Black human being, invested with dignity and chutzpah is brazen enough to steal… a pencil! He’s hidden it away deep in his pocket, because if he’s caught with it, he’s liable to get hung. The pencil is more valuable than anything else – and in Everett’s words, he writes “himself into being.” In fact, James’ supple use of language is his character’s animating force – he’s not just intelligent, but he’s a human being with his own desires and imagination. What you get is there’s another side to Twain’s story. And, I’d also go so far as to say that Huckleberry Finn in each telling of the story is a child who’s a tabula rasa – he’s malleable, sympathetic, not yet formed, our humanity without the artifice of race, that reflects what could someday be true of all of us. But in the meantime, it’s James who comes into focus in this new telling. 

Ipcha Mistabra

The same pattern of obfuscation-and-recovery holds true for Viet Than Nguyen, the writer of the wonderful novel from a few years ago, The Sympathizer, but who also wrote a scholarly nonfiction work entitled Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and The Memory of War. He calls attention to the design of the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, its shiny black granite surface, as bringing not just the names of those lost American soldiers front and center, but, we, the viewers, see ourselves observing it. The wall provokes anxiety – there’s a mirror effect – and suddenly we are implicated; and it subverts the patriotic American framing of this war being our tragedy. We’re looking away! We’re omitting the memories of millions of dead Vietnamese, after all. He calls it a “disremembering”.

I was talking to a rabbi in my community about this, and he told me that he and his wife had taken a trip to Vietnam this past spring. He said that he was hoping naively, as a Jew living at a time when our own prospects for tomorrow are in question, to understand how and to what extent the Vietnamese have come to terms with the past and embraced a different future... But in wishing to see things all ��repaired”, he very well could have been disremembering too. I wonder how the Vietnamese will write “themselves into being” again? 

So we know right now we’re standing at a crossroads in modern Jewish history. It’ll take decades to sort it all out: what we in the Jewish world should want, whom it is we think we serve, whom we fail to serve, and the memories that cloud our vision. There’s that mirror we hold up, as does Sarah in Genesis 21, with the opening line:

ויהוה פקד את־שרה כאשר אמר ויעש יהוה לשרה כאשר דבר 

It’s translated “G-d remembered Sarah just like God had said,” but it’s more than remembering – the verb פקד means “G-d performed an accounting, (as if there was something yet owed).” And the commentator Malbim explains that although G-d had predicted the birth of a child in Sarah’s old age, to her it was – until this point – lacking in credibility, unresolved – what with her passive husband yielding to her jealousy, nonchalantly leaving Hagar with her toddler out in the cold, the family in turmoil. After all, Sarah famously laughs out loud, she finds G-d’s prediction funny, even a bit disturbing. In this troubled Torah narrative, amidst her doubts, the future hangs in the balance.

Nachman of Bratslav teaches that when we are despairing, at odds with the people around us, we can become like a blank slate, a book that’s empty – Every one of us can be like “a human being,” שאין לו ספר. There’s nothing in the book – it’s vanished! An empty Torah scroll! So, he says, we begin, this is where we find ourselves, at this place of no place, but we still have this blazing desire in our hearts, a yearning to learn! Maybe we forgot something? 

And how does Nachman set it up? He says it’s like this: that somewhere out there in the world there are two tzaddikim, two righteous people, they’re conversing with one another, however – the only thing is – they’re walking along on two separate paths, this one tzaddik over here on this side of the world and this other tzaddik miles and miles away. Maybe it’s a bit like being online? But he goes on to say that this one tzaddik over here poses a question and the other one over there offers an answer, a way to figure it out. A question and an answer, but again – it’s just speech, our voices, often cacophonous, nothing more than that – but they can add up. It’s the vibrations that unite, and they can produce the purest Sound, the Voice of G-d. And it’s this Voice that ultimately connects one to the other, Nachman says – it’s this Voice that then gets written down as a ספר זכרון, we call the Book of Remembrance. We remember!

We may have during a long, hard year forgotten something about ourselves, what we really stand up for. It’s possible. We may have, on the arduous path – amidst our arguments, our public statements, our gatherings in solidarity or in protest – lost track of who we are, where we can vibrate with the Truth – where the Truth of humanity is. James Baldwin said it: “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” 

Ipcha Mistabra

Things can sometimes be explained the other way around, in a way we have as yet not fathomed, or refuse to see. We may never have expected it, we may never have imagined an entirely different future, or maybe we disremembered it all along! – but somehow, in seeing things differently, it might yet help us to get at the Truth. 

On this Yom Kippur, may we loosen the shackles of ideology, slacken just a little bit the cords of fear and recrimination and sanctimony, and help our adversaries, our neighbors, even the ones we love who’ve hidden their faces from us at times – to write ourselves “into being”. May we all be written and sealed for a year that gives us new life and hope and, G-d-willing, a focus on peace.

Amen.

[randomquadballpun]

DAY 19 (attempt no 4)

They were back to the improvised kitchen laboratory once again!

Admittedly, John was merely reheating some leftovers for dinner, while his two scientists occupied the table and most of the worktops with The Experiment.

Currently, Rosie was doodling on a piece of kitchen roll while Sherlock did … whatever with those new enzymes that he had ordered earlier this week and that had finally arrived in an entirely too big polystyrene box this morning.

The detective carefully pipetted together incredibly small volumes of incredibly unremarkably looking colourless solutions in small plastic tubes, moving them from ice to the now permanently repurposed water kettle at seemingly random intervals, before giving them several rounds in a dubious alternative for a laboratory centrifuge that he had built from a salad spinner and a couple of zip ties.

John, who was witnessing the process in its full glory for the first time could not help but marvel at the ingenuity of it all. Rosie, who was seeing it all for the fourth time now, was a little less enthusiastic about it. She was currently sketching what looked to be a wild-haired human figure wearing an oversized blazer and blue jeans onto the paper towel.

"Who are you drawing, Rosie?", John asked curiously while leaning over her shoulder, spoon still in hand.

"Oh, that's Mr Perez, our new Geography teacher."

If anything, that answer puzzled John even more. It just sounded like something very un-Rosie-like to be doodling a teacher. Unless this was the dreaded teenage years coming in a lot earlier than he had expected. He shuddered at the prospect.

"Oh … that's … is he a good teacher?", he stumbled for the right words.

His daughter simply shrugged. "I suppose he is okay. Drawing him is actually something that Sherlock suggested."

"Really?" John looked up at the other man with astonishment. He was reasonably sure that Sherlock had in fact moved beyond his teenage years by now.

"Yes, he says that it might help me remember small details about a persons appearance when I am trying to come up with new observations and deductions. And it really works!" She held up her doodle so both John and Sherlock could have a look at it. "He has small hairs all over his trousers. A lot of it down by his shoes but some goes up to here", she indicated the figures thighs with the tip of her pen. "So obviously he has pets and at least one of them has to be a big dog!"

"That's amazing, sweetheart", John let out, genuinely impressed.

"What is on his fingers?", Sherlock asked with squinted eyes.

Rosie looked at her drawing once again. "Oh, he always has dark ink stains all over his hands, sometimes even on his sleeves …" All of a sudden her eyes started glowing with excitement. "Do you think he maybe fakes paintings or prints money in his free time?"

Sherlock chuckled. "Possibly. Another option could be that he just does original art prints. Geography teacher? Maybe he prints maps?" But Rosie was already off on her own fantastical tangent. "I will need to investigate him and see if I can deduce even more! Maybe I can ask Teresa Templeton to be my detective assistant - just like having my own dad!"

"Like having your own dad?" John was left reeling while he tried to follow his daughters thought processes. "Please don't do anything that will get us another Parent-teacher conference invitation", he pleaded. "Remember, I am still sending Sherlock if anything comes up."

Sherlock nodded with a grave expression. "That's true. Please don't get caught doing anything that would warrant a conference!"

"That's not exactly what I said."

"Oh, I know."

--------------------

Troubleshooting, part 10/?

-> Currently waiting for the results to see if my experiment worked this time around (I am on attempt 7 or 8 now). Please wish me luck!

-> The next (very short) snippet can be read here.

-> Start reading right at DAY 0 or read the previous snippet here.

[pjisskullourful]

hey my gorgeous ones!

so my funk is continuing(hoofuckinray). theres just some shit going on in my personal life& the emotional fatigue has bled into creative constipation& im really struggling to get much of anything written. i've switched off commissions for the moment, just wanting to take it a bit easy on myself while im trying to get back on my bullshit

as a please-dont-hate-me for the delays that are ongoing, here is the first almost 2k of chapter 25 of stained sheets. its all i have sofar, there are two whole more scenes to write so i genuinely cant say when you'll be getting it

thanks for any patience& understanding you swing my way. stay selfishly happy my thotties

You paused from closing the fly on your high-waisted pants - you had been trying on the outfit you wanted to wear to dinner tonight, but something had caught your eye, distracting you.

A jagged, dark line reached up from just above the waistband of your underwear. This stretch mark was brand new to your eyes. It hit you like an actual wound, your gut twisting and your mind racing.

As your throat clenched, you stopped caring about checking that your choice of outfit was cute or not. You hated this intruder on the side of your tummy. This new line was a failure on your part, maybe if you weren’t so lazy, or spent less time playing video games, you could have avoided gaining another mark in your ugly collection. You were frozen with the top of your pants in your hands.

How long had this mark been on your body? Had Damiano seen it - what did he think when he looked at it?

This was supposed to be a fun day - the day before Easter, and some friends of his were hosting a dinner that would end in an egg hunt through their garden. You were going to be meeting more of the people he had grown up with. But most importantly, you were getting to spend the whole weekend with him, there hadn’t been many of those so far this year. There was no Måneskin-business to take him out of the country, he was just your boyfriend this weekend.

You didn’t want to waste any of this precious time with your insecurities. You wished you hadn’t seen the line, because it hadn’t been as simple as noticing it. You were having a full reaction to it. The change of mood inside of you was almost a tangible sensation.

You didn’t know how to resolve it, you just knew that you wanted the unpleasantness to stop. Your  solution was to physically move away from it. You undressed without completing the try-on process, so desperate to walk away and pretend this negativity didn’t exist. You just needed to refresh yourself and then you would be able to get back on the right track.

“I’m gonna have a shower.” You loudly announced without knowing if he actually heard you. He might be outside having a cigarette, or otherwise occupied too far from the bedroom.

You went into the bathroom and stopped at the vanity, pulling your hairbrush out of a draw. You took your hair down and started brushing through any tangles. Standing in front of the wide mirror, it wasn’t easy to keep your concentration on your hair. Your eyes wanted to wander, to find other flaws in the reflection to tear yourself apart over.

Until you were given the perfect distraction. Your boyfriend came into the room, his figure filling the reflection behind you. He was dressed in only a pair of underwear, wearing a festive headband on top of his short hair. It was enough to make you smile, even though you had to feign annoyance.

“Take those off.” You said as sternly as you could manage.

“You got it, baby.” He said, promptly taking his briefs off.

You were amused, even as you rolled your eyes. You turned your back on the mirror, more than happy to put all of your attention on him. “I meant the bunny ears and you know it.”

The fuzzy rabbit ears remained fixed on his head as he furrowed his brow. “I’m confused, do you want me to put the underwear back on?”

“Damiano.” You warned, but this only resulted in getting him to say your name back to you, in a sing-songy way, delivered with a positively devilish smile. “I never should have let you take the ears from my office…”

His eyes grew wide and he pointed an accusing finger at you. “You were the one who took them.”

You let this unserious discussion progress, exaggerating your shock. “How dare you accuse me.”

“No, how dare you. I was just there to pick you up from work. You were the one who pulled them out of the cute little window display and put them on my head.” He said.

“I didn’t think you were going to walk out still wearing them. And I was kind of distracted, I was working.” You added to his recollection. “Now you must take them off before they get stretched or broken ‘cause I’ve gotta put them back, they’ll probably be part of next year’s Easter display.”

He resisted, still. “I like them. You have to agree that they look better on me than they did in the window.”

“I agree.” You said. “Now take them off.”

The thing that was stopping you from simply snatching the accessory off of him, was the knowledge of how getting too close to him would change this situation entirely. He could physically overpower you in an instant and any illusion of you having some control would be banished.

“You can ask nicer than that, kitty.” He said, very clearly enjoying this teasing.

“Can you please take the ears off for me, please and thank you.” You said, even clasping your hands together in front of yourself to further sell it.

He cocked his head to the side. “I didn’t hear a single word you said. It’s kinda hard to hear you over all of those clothes you’re wearing.”

You reminded yourself how much you enjoyed being called a ‘good girl’ as inspiration to help you bite back any sarcastic comments. You even resisted the urge to roll your eyes.

You removed the two items that you were wearing - a bra and a pair of panties. You cupped your hands to either side of your mouth and spoke at a much higher volume. “Can you hear me now?”

He smiled and nodded. “Yes, did you have a request for me or something?”

“Can you please take those ears off for me, please?” You asked.

“Why, of course I can.” He said, plucking the accessory off of his head. “Here you go.”

You snatched it out of his hand, holding it securely in both of yours. “I’m gonna find someplace to hide these from you.”

“I can’t imagine why you would think that’s necessary. I’ll get the shower started while you do that, shall I?”

This made you pause from leaving the room. “Oh, you’re joining me?”

“Yeah, unless that’s not okay? I thought we should shower together, to save water.” He said.

You smirked. “To save water. Yep, that’s fine.”

You carried the confiscated item over to where you kept your work bag. It was enough to put it into your bag and shut the zipper. If he pulled it out of there he would be in the wrong - you’d both know it, and any argument would be in your favour.

When you returned to the bathroom, it was to find him standing under the stream of water. You were further distracted from your earlier issues as you admired how great he looked when soaking wet.

He turned his head and smiled at the sight of you, beckoning you in with a curling of his finger. You stepped in, sliding the door shut behind yourself. You shouldn’t have been surprised when he was instantly drawing you in for kisses, his hands cradling your face. There were times when the two of you could share a focused shower, spending as much time washing yourselves as you did making out.

But the look he had given you had indicated that this wasn’t the case for today. You linked your arms around his waist, indulging in this as the noise of the persistent water blocked out everything else. You felt how easy it would be to melt as his mouth worked tenderly against yours.

His hands left your face, slowly moving down to where the water had already reached. He started to kiss his way off of your mouth, his lips pressing against your chin before going lower. You couldn’t help arching your back into him as his lips worked across your throat. This was the closeness that you absolutely ached for when he was away, showers (like pretty much everything else) were so dull without him.

But -

“I need to wash my hair. This shower was supposed to have purpose.” You said.

He stopped what he was doing to look up at you. “Nobody’s stopping you from washing your hair. Look, I’ll even help. I’ve got lots of time to help with washing your hair these days.”

“I could return the favour and use my volumising shampoo on your hair.” You said of his well maintained buzzcut.

He wore a deadpan expression, blinking at you. “Hilarious. I swear, you’ve missed your calling in life. You shouldn’t be doing admin work- stand-up comedy, that’s where you should be. Netflix would give you a special so fast.”

“Because I’m a special girl.” You said as he let go of you to grab the shampoo bottle.

The intimacy wasn’t totally lost in this process. The two of you remained standing very close together (even though there was ample room for each of you in here) and you took every opportunity to touch him.

When he began to massage the shampoo into your scalp, you could have let out a moan of pleasure. You shut your eyes and soaked up every second of his attentiveness. His fingers slowly dragging across your scalp was the only thing that you needed right now.

“Stop making that face.” He said, his voice so stern that your eyes instantly snapped open, you were practically ready to apologise at once. “That’s a sex face and if you keep it up you’re gonna get me hard, which isn’t the purpose of this shower, right?”

You almost began giggling, you covered your face with both of your hands. “I didn’t mean to. I, I guess I was enjoying myself a little too much.”

“I’ll say.”

You parted your fingers to peek at him. “Did I really do a sex face?”

“Oh, yes. If you want me to get specific- it was your edging face. When I see that face I know that I’m doing it right and your brain is getting all empty.” He said before instructing you to tilt your head back under the stream of water.

As he rinsed all of the product out of your hair, you physically cringed. “Oh my God, I hope I don’t make that face when they’re washing my hair at the hairdressers.”

“Relax baby, I’m the only one who knows that face is linked to naughtiness.” He said.

You tried your best to stay in constant awareness, and control, over your facial expressions as he conditioned your hair. The lack of massaging on your scalp kept you from that floaty feeling.

“What do you think, is that up to your standards?” He asked, losing the careful look on his face that he had been wearing during this task.

You tested his work by running your fingers through the ends of your hair. “It feels perfect. Thank you, Daddy.” You reached out to tap the end of his nose.

[brionysea]

have been thinking very hard about if mike does know about his powers lately

when dustin called mike oblivious, he meant that mike was acting obsessed with el (a result of mike's powers - part of the irl game) and didn't see how or why lucas was getting jealous about that (because lucas cares about mike)

the secret that's causing all this damage from season 3 onwards isn't that mike has powers, it's that mike is possessed because of his powers, and no one's telling him that because the solution would be complicated and probably something he's not ready for yet. mike is a very solution-oriented person so that wouldn't stop him from diving into the deep end and probably hurting himself in the process

the quarry, most of all. mike thinks it's unfair and annoying that he always gets the blame for everything, but he still had that moment of attempting suicide immediately after being blamed (like thrice over) for all the weird stuff that's been happening. no mike = no danger. he's not stupid. i don't believe he just naturally wants to die, that doesn't mesh with his characterisation, and they showed with max that there's usually a reason for it. mike's reason is highly connected to what the party was arguing about (superpowers being dangerous vs. awesome and creating collateral damage)

the stuff about "if the brain dies, the body dies" is concerning if he knows and could be used as an argument that he doesn't, but mike's reaction when nancy was talking about needing to kill the source? sadness, disappointment, caught off guard that his own sister wouldn't be on his side if she knew? and the irony, nancy the source is right in front of you

there was also that whole thing in season 2 where mike was actively trying to mimic el when she used her powers to find people - sitting cross-legged in the fort with a static radio channel to try and hear missing party members on. and it kinda worked in its own way when mike saw el through the void before he drew a boundary about going into his head and walked away

it's interesting whether it's a subconscious thing or something mike is Aware of, but like... people can't really keep secrets from mike? he somehow knew that max said "yeah, well, boyfriends lie" and he threw that in her face in front of everyone, implying more spying through the void than what we were shown and that he knows everyone else knows about what he can do

idk. mike was intentionally, repeatedly using that subtextual way of talking about himself a lot in season 4 for someone who's truly oblivious. jonathan actually checking if mike even notices the constant hints he's dropping also makes this argument difficult - "maybe it's hidden in the code somehow?" "what you just said makes no sense" - but jonathan was figuring out mike's powers and his possession, and the possession is the thing that mike himself couldn't figure out so it could just be about that

mostly, i think that this whole thing with mike's powers, where they're this dangerous secret that everyone who cares for him knows about but can never talk about, and if anyone else finds out about them it would put him in danger (hello, season 4 witch hunt in hawkins, the government trying to murder el, and troy trying to directly kill mike after mike "did something"), makes mike's powers very queercoded, and if that's the case then he kind of has to be aware of them? no one knows their own queerness better than the queer person in question

[maaarine]

To grasp how serotonin works on the brain, look to the gut (James M Shine, Psyche, Jan 03 2023)

“You steer your car down your usual route in a largely automatic way, without having to pay deliberate attention to the steering wheel, the subtle movements of your feet on the pedals, or the ever-changing traffic conditions around you.

Yet if you encounter a sudden cognitive challenge, such as an unexpected road closure, you are quickly able to shift gears, identifying a new route home via a side street that you rarely use.

This kind of shift toward more deliberate thinking happens in a variety of different situations: for instance, when you have to carefully search for the solution to an especially tricky crossword clue, or think of a new way to frame an argument to change a stubborn friend’s mind.

How the brain balances between the cognitive modes involved in these scenarios – relatively automatic processing and more deliberate processing – remains poorly understood, which suggests we need new ways of thinking about it. (…)

My collaborators and I found a new way to tackle both the serotonin and cognitive-mode problems.

We started from an interesting fact: more than 95 per cent of the serotonin in the body is actually used by the gastrointestinal tract.

Serotonin released in the gut controls peristalsis, the involuntary muscle movement that pushes along the contents of the digestive system.

So, we wondered: what if we use the gastrointestinal system as an analogy for how the brain uses serotonin?

Instead of digesting (ie, processing) food, what if serotonin was being used by our brains to digest information – that is, to process information flow between the distributed circuits of neurons required to identify, decide and act? (…)

Through these processes, serotonin helps the brain continue with an automatic or habitual approach to a situation when that seems to be working well.

This is analogous to digestion: if the food you eat can be broken down easily, serotonin will help to ease its passage through the typical digestive process.

Sometimes, however, the in-built approach fails. Maybe the mug is oddly shaped, or turned away from the easy reach of your grasp. Or, going back to the driving example, your usual route home is closed off.

In these instances, excitatory 5-HT2A receptors in the cortex are poised to take over.

These receptors – which are activated by serotonin – coat excitatory pyramidal cells in the cortex and boost context-specific inputs to the cells.

In this way, serotonin increases the range of different cortical cells that can be used to solve the problem at hand – eg, to figure out a way to grasp the mug or to make your way home. This idea maps on to the situation in the gut.

If there is a blockage (perhaps caused by overindulgence at a fondue party), then the gut can turn up the peristalsis to deal with it.

We envision an analogous situation with cognitive problems: if there is a blockage (eg, your initial approach doesn’t work), then you need to create new options for solving the problem. (…)

Similarly, our perspective could help to reframe long-standing problems in psychiatry.

For example, individuals who compulsively focus on negative thoughts might be viewed as suffering from a state akin to cognitive ‘constipation’.

One possibility is that liberating serotonin in their brains (via commonly prescribed SSRIs) may contribute to a state of information-processing flux that opens up a set of possible options, potentially allowing individuals to reappraise situations that they had otherwise responded to relatively automatically.

(It’s worth noting, though, that conditions such as depression have complex causes and are not due simply to low levels of serotonin.)

In contrast, chronically heightened levels of serotonin in the brain might be conceptualised as cognitive ‘diarrhoea’ – even when all the problems (food) have been digested, there might still be a high amount of functionally unnecessary cogitation (peristalsis) that leads to dysfunctional brain states.”

[kodicraft]

I feel like this is actually interesting and worth looking deeper into. Batteries have the great benefit of allowing us to use electricity without having a generator. Generators are typically heavy and consume a resource, so this is quite good for portability: Imagine having to carry a 15kg generator with its fuel everywhere you go to use your mobile phone.

Batteries aren't magic though, they need rare metals in great quantities to work, they have a limited lifespan, they can have heating problems, charging batteries is inefficient... They're like a crutch to benefit from electricity on the go but at a significant cost.

So, isn't it strange that we use big bulky batteries in vehicles? I mean this about electric vehicles in particular, those that don't have their own generator built-in. We have a large and heavy vehicle that could carry its own generator but instead we use it to carry a battery that then needs to get plugged into another generator losing a lot of efficiency in the process. Sure, generating power from carbon products sucks for the environment, we know that already, but we don't have to do that. Hybrid cars, for instance, can generate power from the inertia that their thermal engines give to the car. This means that you can use the thermal engine to get some speed, and when you don't need that speed anymore you can convert part of it to electricity that you'll be able to use for a bit of speed later. These cars need much smaller batteries that cost far less in terms of money and resources because they can fit their own generator and are taking advantage of it.

Trolleys take this to the next level, the only "generator" they need is a transformer made from just some copper. They need to be plugged into power at all times, of course, but they don't waste that power into heat like batteries do and they don't use all those lithium ions the world needs so desperately.

So it seems that batteries are problematic for vehicles, they are worse than generating power on the go and worse than plugging yourself in the power grid. Entirely electric vehicles are really inefficient because they rely on batteries to get their power as opposed to hybrid or thermal vehicles.

Tesla, the popular electric vehicle company, has been recently found to indirectly produce as much CO2 as Volkswagen, even though Volkswagen's vehicles burn weather-go-bad juice. These indirect emissions seem to be in great part due to the batteries and the metals that they require. Batteries just aren't better for the environment than burning petrol, since the metals they require are mined from countries that depend on coal power (not their fault, might make a post on that some other time) using a whole bunch of various polluting techniques and the metals need to be processed using even more polluting techniques as well as various chemicals that have their own complicated production pipeline.

So maybe we do need to cancel batteries, at least until we (scientists) either figure out a more efficient way to store electricity and/or until we (energy companies) actually allow the countries that mine all of our precious minerals to produce power using more efficient and environmentally friendly solutions.

NB: I wrote this late while sleepy, if there's any mistake or if sources are desired please let me know

the only trolley problem i care about is that americans are arbitrarily resentful of overhead wires for some reason and so all electric vehicles have to move batteries around all the time despite them being very heavy and having a limited lifespan instead of using the strictly more energy efficient electric public transportation method that has existed since literally the 1880s, am i right

[sapphic-bifrost]

looking forward to feeling safe being vulnerable with someone again. looking forward to someone loving me because they want to, and not just because i asked. looking forward to trying hard and having someone actually actively help me figure things out. looking forward to more than a hypothetical and a promise. looking forward to hearing someone say “i dont know” and actually follow it up with “but this matters to me. you matter to me, and we’ll figure it out together”. and then actually trying to figure it out with me. looking forward to feeling heard and not like im waiting to be disappointed. looking forward to actually being enough for someone.

[copperbadge]

I’ve been doing more research on ADHD after the diagnosis, specifically watching some channels that you guys and others have recommended, and it’s actually a fascinating process coming at the diagnosis from the far side of forty instead of the near side of twenty. 

I have a ton of coping mechanisms, which I developed because “Well, I’ve got to deal with life somehow”. In the evaluation I had with the psychiatrist, I was basically diagnosed on them. Some of the more simple ones really seemed to fascinate him, like taking the doors off my kitchen cupboards and hanging my keys on the knob of my self-locking door.  

Many of the videos are about helping younger people develop these coping mechanisms -- not relevant to me, generally, although some of the tips are still useful, like the idea that whatever you’re doing to cope, it’s meant to lower the demand on executive function. I’m fortunate in that my diagnosis is inattentive, I don’t have the hyperactive angle, and thus don’t have a ton of need for fidget toys or sensory stimulation in the way the videos talk about. The fidget spinner I have is cool because it’s Captain America, but it doesn’t like...help, per se, and after about two minutes I get frustrated with the fact that there’s no result, it doesn’t produce anything. I do best in meetings and classes when I have something to occupy me, but it can’t be tactile, it has to at least partially engage my brain, and knowing that I need a brain-fidget rather than a hand-fidget will be helpful in coming up with appropriate (and socially acceptable) workarounds. 

Not sure what to do with all the discussion of emotional regulation; I feel like I’ve got that bit figured out but also like maybe my solutions aren’t the healthiest, so we’ll see. 

I think perhaps the most useful thing is the idea of identifying a need or issue and then finding a workaround for it as a conscious process, which is usually something I do instinctively. This one video was about going to Target specifically to shop for products for kids that could still help adults with ADHD, and while most of it was fidget toys, I liked the idea of browsing with the focus in mind of finding tools for workarounds. Which led to the idea of, well, what am I working around? and the concept of consciously identifying ADHD-specific issues. So that’s something to think on for a while -- aside from the Adderall, what are solutions to specific ADHD-driven issues I have? 

I suspect because I am older and well-trained in problem solving I may not get as much assistance from videos or books about living with ADHD as a younger person might, as I might have as a younger person. I think I may look for something more along the lines of a layperson’s medical text; I’d like to know what we know about how ADHD affects function, because that will be more helpful to me in identifying ways my experience of reality is not neurotypical, and then I can come up with my own workarounds. Because it is a trifle frustrating to look for more information and get a lot of stuff -- useful stuff, just not useful to me -- about fidget toys or bullet journaling. :D 

Plus...the biggest hurdle I’ve had is an inability to start and carry-through tasks, and the Adderall does a great job with that, so a huge looming issue is resolved, or at least on its way to resolution. Other than that I don’t really see many problems that are going unaddressed, but that’s where a more thorough knowledge of the actual biology might help me shift perspective.

Anyway. Get in losers, we’re going to Target even if we don’t need fidget toys, because Target is fun to shop at.  

[a-n-conrad]

Starlit Conversations (Cove Holden x Reader)

[Summary: Having a crush on your best friend sucked way more than TV made it seem. Maybe a night at the beach would help. Maybe even more than you had originally expected. (They/Them pronouns)

Warnings: Insecurity, Slight misunderstanding

Request: From my request survey! (https://forms.gle/D9rsJtkERoBPaKvv8)]

The beach had become a comfortable place for you throughout the years. It was familiar and calm most of the time. You had so many memories there that it almost felt like an extension of your home. Just like the hills behind your house that were always covered in poppies. However, the sound of the waves always helped you think, which was probably why the beach had become the place you wandered off to when you needed to process something.

You were having a bit of a crisis, after all. One that you really couldn’t trust your family to handle with any level of maturity. You knew they meant well, but they tended to tease. It was lighthearted, of course, but it still didn’t help. Not when you were trying to sort through your extremely conflicted emotions.

Falling in love with your best friend was unbelievably difficult. People often thought that it would be easy. You already knew each other. There was trust and affection there to build off of. But you had to work through the initial issues first. Change was terrifying. Especially when it came to something as important as your best friend. You wanted to think that your friendship wasn’t so fragile that a slight shift would shatter it, but you couldn’t be sure. Not really.

Cove Holden didn’t handle change well, after all. New things terrified him. And he had never been one to know how to accept affection without a bit of guidance. You didn’t want to just push your feelings on him out of the blue. Overwhelming him like that didn’t seem fair. But he also had a hard time picking up on hints. There was no way to be subtle about it that he would actually understand. You didn’t mind any of this about Cove, but it did make your dilemma a bit more challenging. 

So that was why you had walked to the beach late at night. It was summer, so it wasn’t like you actually had anything to do the next day. And your parents had been a little less strict about your curfew, so you were free to stay out for a bit as long as you didn’t stray too far.

It was a nice night. The air had cooled off enough that you didn’t feel like you were going to melt the way you had earlier. in the day. The sky was clear, giving you a beautiful view of the stars. You tried your best to find the few constellations that you could remember from your astronomy lessons. It was quiet and calm, a stark contrast to your overactive mind. Still, you couldn’t manage to calm yourself down the way you normally would have. 

Maybe that was because there wasn’t any clean solution. Eventually, you would have to take a risk if you wanted to resolve the situation. Your only options were to say something or to not. No amount of thinking would magically make a third option appear, and deep down you knew that. It was just a bit disappointing. You wanted there to be a solution that didn’t lead to a risk of you getting your feelings hurt. But things weren’t always that neat.

You were starting to think that it was time to head home when you heard something behind you. You tried your best not to look too startled as you turned around to see where the sound had come from. Sure, your town was peaceful, but it was tourist season. You never really knew who was around town during the summer. Your slight panic subsided as you met familiar green eyes and minty hair. The exact person you had just been thinking about. You almost wanted to laugh at the irony.

“What are you doing out here, Cove?” You asked, trying your best to hide any hint of the emotions still bubbling inside your brain. He wasn’t the best at reading people, but he had started getting pretty good at figuring out when you were in a bad mood.

“Uh,” he stuttered, a blush finding its way to his cheeks. He always flustered pretty easily, so you never read too deep into it. “I could ask you the same?”

You almost laughed at how unsure he sounded in his rebuttal. He always had such a cute way of handling himself when he was caught off guard, somewhere between nervous and standoffish. Unfortunately, him being cute was really only making your internal crisis worse.

“It’s peaceful out here. I needed a bit of alone time,” you eventually replied. You hated lying to him, so you chose to be vague instead. You knew it never worked, but you still tried.

“Are you alright?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

You could tell from the pout on his face that he didn’t believe you. That he was trying his best to drop the subject since you clearly didn’t want to share. But that was never something that Cove could do. He always wanted to help, even when you didn’t exactly want him to. Luckily, you found it more endearing than frustrating. 

Eventually he broke and asked, “Are you sure you’re alright? Please talk to me.”

You had a hard enough time saying no to him normally. The puppy-dog eyes that he shot you only made things harder. You knew you had to tell him what was going on eventually, but you still didn’t want to tell him everything. So you decided to continue being vague, even though you knew it wouldn’t actually help anything.

“Emotions are hard, you know?” You eventually laid back on the sand as you talked to him. He joined you, getting sand stuck in his hair. He never minded before, so you were sure he wasn’t about to start complaining about sand now. 

“I know. Do you, uh,” he paused, turning away from you to face the sky as he continued talking, “do you want to talk about it?”

You laughed a bit, “Are you actually going to let me say no?”

“Of course!” He protested. He had a hard time letting things go, though. You were sure that he would try his best, but he would eventually end up prying. Even if he didn’t exactly want to.

“I’m just not sure if I should tell someone that I like him or not. We’re friends, and I don’t want to ruin anything. But it kind of sucks to keep it a secret,” you tried your best to pretend you were talking about someone else. You always trusted Cove with everything else. Maybe it would actually help to talk things through with him before coming to a decision.

“Oh,” for a moment he seemed shocked. And then he was quiet for a few more moments. You didn’t look at him, not sure what kind of expression you would find. When he eventually spoke again, there was a slight wobble to his voice that you couldn’t really identify. It almost sounded sad, but you were sure that couldn’t be right. “I think you should go for it. You deserve to be happy, and you aren’t going to be happy hiding the way you feel.”

“Yeah, I know. But I don’t want to ruin our friendship. I care a lot about him, so it would suck to make things awkward because of this.”

“I’m sure he likes you back. Derek’s had a crush on you for ages.”

“Derek?” You were a bit confused as to why Cove was bringing him up. You knew that Derek had a crush on you, after all. But you had already turned him down, citing your feelings for Cove. 

“Is that… not who we’re talking about?” Cove seemed even more confused than you by the turn in the conversation. “He’s one of your closest guy friends, so I kind of assumed.”

“Um, no. I already talked to Derek about that. I’m not talking about Derek,” you replied, your face heating up a bit. You could feel the conversation getting closer to the point where you would have to tell Cove who exactly you were talking about. You just wanted to try your best to avoid it for a little longer.

“Then who are you talking about?”

There it was. The question you were trying your best not to answer. You knew it would come up eventually. And you knew that you couldn’t avoid answering it. You didn’t want to make Cove feel bad by denying him an answer. He would think you didn’t trust him anymore. And you couldn’t lie to him. You hated lying to him. It always made you feel guilty. So you braced yourself to answer the question, staring at the stars like you were hoping to float up there and join them.

“You, Cove.”

The silence that followed felt like it stretched for ages. You were conflicted all over again. This time the debate was about whether to look over at him or not. Did you want to see the face he was making? What could he possibly be feeling at that moment? Shock? Disgust, maybe? The thought was terrifying. But eventually you had to give in. 

You found him staring at you with shock and wonder on his face. It was the “too good to be true” look. The look of surprise and disbelief that came with hearing something that you were almost sure you imagined, because there was no way you could actually get that lucky. For a moment, you actually felt a bit of hope, making you bold enough to say something.

“I really do like you, you know. More than like. I just really don’t want to freak you out with anything too sudden. You don’t have to say or do anything. It just feels better to say it.”

Of course, you wanted a response. Hopefully a good one. But you didn’t want to push. Making him panic was exactly what you wanted to avoid, after all.

“I, um,” his face was bright red by the time he started speaking. His voice was wobbling so much that you barely understood what he was saying at first. Eventually he cleared his throat and started speaking again, this time just a little steadier. “I really like you too. I don’t really know how to do this, though.”

“That’s alright,” you replied, a smile plastered to your face before you could think to stop it. “We’ll figure it out together. We always do.”

He nodded at that, a dorky smile to match your own forming on his lips. The starlit ocean behind you giving the perfect backdrop for the moment. It was calm and beautiful, exactly what Cove deserved, even though you didn’t plan it. You couldn’t help but go just a little further.

“Can I kiss you?”

He nodded, and that was all you needed to finally press your lips against his softly. It was worth every moment that you had spent pining over him. He smelled like seawater, poppies, and cheap body wash. And for that moment, you felt more at home than you ever had before. 

[omegasmileyface]

hear me out: episode where the crew find some magical item that lets a human have the basic abilities of a ghost for a short period of time. they try to take it back to the ghost zone but it reacts poorly since it's designed to be on earth and used by humans, so they have to keep it somewhere on earth for a bit while somebody (idk, lets go with the far frozen) develops a solution. they need to put it somewhere they can keep an eye on it regularly, so its gotta be one of their houses. tucker's parents and nice and respectful but don't have a good track record with leaving things alone (see the flour babies), and god only knows what would happen to it if they left it around fentonworks. while they're trying to figure this out, they come across some kind of secret corridor buried in sams house! they can tell her parents dont know about it bc its dusty as shit. this makes sense, its a weird rich ppl house in a weird haunted town and sams parents didnt have it built, they just bought it. of COURSE theres going to be hidden passages and shit. so... they leave it there for sam to safeguard until they can find a permanent solution.

one day, sam ends up very frustrated after having a conversation with her parents about a politician that they trusted (she never did) who betrayed even their trust and has faced no repurcussions for it. shes sick and tired of there being no checks and balances, of greedy people only ever gaining power no matter how they treat the people who support them. and... well, sam is a wrathful person. and she's not known for her excellent impulse control. so she decides to use the artifact, just once, to scare that politician a little. she flies over to wherever he's staying and goes to give him a little Christmas Carol moment to hopefully spook him into considering changing his ways. but... something goes wrong, and she ends up straight up scaring him to death. fuck. well, if she runs away now, there will be no evidence of her. itll be an unexplained death and hopefully she won't go to jail for life.

sam is freaking out, but she cant TELL anybody! so she puts the artifact away and just tries to go on with life as normal. but the guy's death is on the news, and without a figurehead, some of his policies and movements are actually being fought against with more strength... one guy's death didnt destroy the ideology that supported him, but it was pretty effective in weakening it. sam is still freaking out and scared, but she also has a hard time not feeling proud of what she did. look! look how much she helped her people! this was direct action! and that guy deserved to be scared after he acted against his own! hopefully this would scare other people like him into respecting the working class more.

...but it doesnt, not really, and there are others like him in both the private and the public sector who are being painfully disrespectful. and now sam knows that she has the power to do something about it, and it goes against all her morals not to. and the process to find a safe place to store the artifact keeps getting delayed, so it stays at sam's house. ....so she goes again. a few more times, soon. every time, she really does just mean to scare the shit out of them, but she doesnt know these powers that well, and her targets die much of the time. she feels bad, but she learns to live with it, because what else can she do? if this is the cost of action, shes just glad she has to pay it and not anybody else.

the news is, of course, panicking about this string of deaths. team phantom wasnt that involved at first, not any of their business, until the deaths were shown to be consistently evidence-less... and those who survived reported seeing a dark specter who urged them to change their ways. THAT sounds like ghost shit. so the trio meet up to talk about it, and when sam says something about how maybe they should just leave it because its making people in power behave better than ever before, tucker figures it out. he waits to say anything until he can talk to her about it alone, because it feels very personal and he doesnt want to betray her trust on something THIS BIG. so theyre in it together now, tucker trying to convince sam to tell someone so she can get help because jfc, and sam promising to stop (and holding to that!) but trying to convince tucker that it isnt that big of a deal and they should both just move on (she doesnt believe that ofc, theyre both children scared out of their minds for being involved in actual straight up murder), and both of them trying to keep danny and jazz from figuring it out.

eventually, the artifact is just about to be moved to a permanent solution that was finally finished, but just before then, news comes out that an investigator into the deaths has made a claim that ghosts were involved and plans to provide evidence. sam freaks out! they could find out it was her, and even if they dont, ghosts will be public knowledge and a major public enemy! she cant let that happen! panicking, the only thing she can think to do is go scare (or kill, whichever happens) the investigator too so her actions dont end up permanently fucking over ghost-human relations! tucker obviously cant let her do ANOTHER MURDER and also hes trying to get her to see that that WOULDNT EVEN HELP and they fight over the artifact, both teying to take it and both furious at the other, and all the physical violence and strong human emotion ends up destroying the thing. a bunch of energy flies out of it— and it ends up instantly forming ghosts of the people sam has killed. whoops!

anyway i have no idea how this episode would resolve what with The Actual Murders and the Very Real Consequences but my point still stands

i know its a childrens show and they barely show outside of the town but danny phantom doesnt have nearly enough assassinations in it. youre gonna tell me a whole group of people who died unfulfilled have AT LEAST the ability to be completely undetectable, and they havent used that to kill any political figures? you really want me to believe that vlad "ive never hesitated once to mind control somebody for more power" masters hasnt left any unsolveable murders in his wake for the 20 years hes been doing this shit?

[mountmortar]

the OTHER THING about kris running the battle tower is that it could WORK as a little in-universe story even if you factored in hgss. what could be going on in hgss? well the johto battle tower (from crystal) has been all but forgotten because the sinnoh battle frontier decided to set up a little division in johto as well (right beside the battle tower, no less, which just adds insult to injury) and with new things springing up left and right like the pokéathlon and the safari zone it gets even MORE forgotten about. but the main problem, the Big Reason that the johto battle tower is dying, is the sinnoh battle frontier sticking its nose where it doesn't belong and drawing trainers away in favor of their bigger and flashier setup.

so the collective people who run the battle tower are all like okay. what's the problem here. what can we do to fix the fact that everyone thinks we suck major ass compared to the sinnoh battle frontier. and someone pipes up like well maybe it's because we don't have figureheads like the battle frontier do. they have people like the frontier brains and that make it more appealing to trainers who are looking for a Final Epic Battle to aspire to instead of just beating levels of a tower and calling it a day. so yknow they're trying to figure out a solution to this problem and trying to think of WHO would be a good intial figurehead for the johto battle tower. because it would have to be someone that the region KNOWS in order to garner attention. and who better than former champion kris who left the championship title for ethan and lyra to fight over because she didn't feel like dealing with the general indigo league insanity that comes with the title! who is actually in the process of challenging and winning the battle tower itself!

so she battles her way through and once she beats all ten levels she's greeted by what looks like Very Important People and she's like. Uh? until they offer her this proposition of being the main figurehead of the johto battle tower as it goes through some reforms to attract the attention of trainers again. johto pride over sinnoh and whatnot. and kris hears the words "you get to own a battle tower" and is like Hell Yeah, Sign Me Up, This Sounds So Much Better Than Lance's Stupid Old Indigo League. and soon enough with some tweaks here and there to the battle tower system, and with the addition of a figurehead to aspire to beat, the johto battle tower starts drawing in trainers again! and that's how kris comes to run the battle tower.

[unnocturnal]

robin/demetrius HCs

robin/demetrius is just the jock/nerd archetype but robin’s tall n buff n demetrius is an even taller lanky dweeb tbh BUT SOMEHOW seb is short

n i bet they banter alot n make each other laugh but people think their play fighting is actual fighting </3 like that “is a tomato a fruit” thing? i hc it wasnt serious at all LMAO

also. demetrius researching the best types of wood for robin’s sculptures n robin bringing home cool foliage for demetrius to study after she gets back from wood cutting

malewife demetrius n girlboss robin haha

both of them can cook but demetrius is more of the “i have to follow this recipe to the T or i’ll die” kind of cook but robins like *sniffs* “ok good enough” kind of cook

also!! they def help each other out with their respective work. demetrius helps with robin’s structural plans n does the math for the taxes for her business and robin helps demetrius out when he’s thinking too much and can’t see a simple solution right in front of him (which also why i believe he has a hard time processing his emotions cuz his brain wants to go through the most logical route which means analyzing his feelings instead of feeling them)

ah. robin picking demetrius up as a dare before they were dating but started to do it unironically when shes happy. she even picked him up during their wedding LOL demetrius likes the feeling of being held tbh

also touching on demetrius thinking too much. he definitely gets in his head alot and doesnt verbalize his needs, but robin can tell pretty well what hes thinking. i think part of why they click so well, cuz its like. they make up for whatever the other is lacking?

i think his tendency to overthink contributes to his distant relationship w sebastian ( who btw, might not like it but i think he inherited the same trait from him). he saw the aversion to letting another father figure into his life and let seb be, thinking maybe he wasn’t good enough to be a good dad to him yet, which is why he tries so hard w maru. SPEAKING OF MARU maru is also the kind of person to get stuck in her own head but shes able to recognize when other people are the same way and she’s quick to help them like her mom. but yea it makes me so sad dem has a book about how to be a good step parent i feel like he tried so hard to connect with seb but they probably just dont get along. its no ones fault rlly.

i also feel bad for robin cuz she has to mediate and be the middle man for the two when they start butting heads. i think shes naturally the mediator type but she wants them to get along just as much or even more than dem or seb do

[eloquent-vowel]

Hey! I have a request! Bucky x reader where the reader is from the red room. Maybe the avengers just got her out and Buckys helping her through the ptsd and stuff? Maybe she locks herself away to her room because she’s scared to do anything for herself? Also maybe some platonic nat? Sorry if that was too specific. Feel free to add your own ideas and change stuff or just ignore if you don’t like the idea! Thanks!

Hi! Thank you so much for the request, I'm sorry it took me so long, life has been evil to me and I may or may not have forgotten this blog actually had readers. I love me some good hurt/comfort. I hope what I have written works!

------------------------------------------------------------------------

When the Avengers had burst into the facility you had been kept in, with all the bravado of heroes you were shocked. You had heard whispers of these warriors that you were being trained eliminate. You had heard stories of the Black Widow who had betrayed the Red Room and while you didn't want to give yourself hope, a small part of you always longed to do the same. To be done with the endless list of missions and targets, to finally stop piling up the blood on your hands.

They had arrested you originally. You didn't blame them, you were one of the most active members of the programme, You had lost count of how many instructions you had followed, how many targets you had eliminated and you had no doubt that the Avengers had your face on their wall of targets.

That was why, when the Winter Soldier aimed a gun at your head you just knelt to the ground as you watched your seniors begin to fight the other Avengers. You didn't say a word in the carrier back to wherever they were taking you. It was easy to hide behind a bravado of stony silence, to pretend that your entire existence hadn't just been ripped away from you.

That was why, when the blank faces of the Black Widow and the Winter Soldier, stared at you from the other side of the interrogation table, you felt a panicked warmth creep up your neck. They begun to question you about the other facilities and to their surprise, you guessed by the way they looked at each other as you talked, you spoke truthfully and honestly to them. You told them everything you knew.

"If I can stop anymore becoming like me, I will. Everything I know is yours, I won't lie to protect something so hideous as the red room."

Because for as much as the red room tried to convince you otherwise, seeing young girl after young girl die by another girl was not right. Not right in the slightest. The more you saw of the world outside of the Room the more aware you became of this, so by the time it was to end, you promised to do anything to help the Avengers take down the remaining branches of the Black Widow Programme.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Around 6 months after you had been captured, you were settled into the avengers compound, much to your surprise. You had been there personally to help the avengers gain access to some of the branches and during those mission you had begun a strong friendship with Nat and a... a something with Bucky.

There was something about the gruff man that was so gentle that drew you in. The way his smile lit up when a certain song came on and the little dances he would do while brewing coffee made your heart flutter- despite how much you tried to convince it not too.

It was a nice life, in the compound, you mostly stuck to your room until you were asked to help on a mission, or if Nat asked to spar with you. You still had not gotten rid of the memories, however. These vivid memories haunted you, if you weren't keeping busy your brain would wonder to times before. To victims of the red room, and your victims, the ones you had killed.

Their faces didn't hover as much as their voices, every plea they made would ring in your ears whenever there was a moment of silence. They whispered from the corner of your room at night, nothing would stop them from filling the void of silence. This meant that sleep did not come as easily to you.

It was one of those nights. When every time you closed your eyes there would be nothing but whispers and your brain seemed determined to run through every memory you regretted. There was only one solution to these nights, a good cup of tea (with a splash of whiskey in). So you pottered over to the kitchen, footfalls naturally silent as you boiled the kettle. Tony probably had some fancy gadget that would do the whole process more efficiently, but the sound of boiling water was rather grounding.

Perhaps your focus on the water was why you didn't hear the figure walking up behind you until you felt a slight breath on your neck. Training and years of being on the run kicked into gear and you immediately whipped around to punch her assailant around the jaw, and kicked a foot out to trip them. The figure fell with a very familiar oof, one recognisable from training.

It was Bucky.

Oh god, it was Bucky. Kind, thoughtful, gentle Bucky who had probably come out to check on you. The same Bucky who made you coffee in the morning, that was now lying on the floor clutching his eye as you looked down at him. And then his face, his figure, was all your other victims. A woman in hospital garb, a man in a suit, a wife, a sister, a child. It was too much, you had to run.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bucky watched as they ran from the kitchen, he stood up from the floor as the sound of a door slamming echoed through the tower. He rubbed at his jaw, how could he have been so stupid. Sneaking up on someone who was struggling with PTSD and running on little sleep, he didn't think.

"You gonna get that?" Nat's voice was hushed as she offered him a hand up.

He took it, pulling himself up, pausing to think for a moment before walking hesitantly over to the door. He knocked as quietly as possible. He could hear the gasping sobs coming from the other side of the walls.

Nat hovered on his other side, staying within comfort radius in case she was needed.

"Heya Doll." Bucky started, as there was no sign of reply he continued. "You alright?" Still silence. "I'm sorry I snuck up on you like that, it was my fault, should've thought but as Steve would say, thinking ain't always my strong suit."

He caught the sound of movement, hesitant footsteps coming towards the door.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You managed to control your breathing enough to shuffle over to the door. You placed your hand over the door, where you imagined Bucky to be leaning. Guilt filled your conscious once more and the apology flew out of you before you could stop it.

"I'm so sorry, Bucky. God I am so sorry."

"It's fine, Doll."

"No, no its not!" You were practically yelling at the door now. "I hurt you. What if one day I kill you? You catch me with a knife in my hand and I jump, what then. For crying out loud I can't even make a cup of tea without hurting someone, I can't do anything. I'm sorry, I am so sorry that I'm so useless and I-"

"Hey, hey, hey breathe." Bucky's calm and even tone halted your rant. "Listen to me. Everyone of us has had moments like that, we all have our demons and those demons sometimes cause us to lash out. I've done worse than punch Steve many times, would you call me useless?"

You sniffed as you shook your head, forgetting he couldn't see you.

"Besides," He continued, "We all have our strengths, we all have our weaknesses but you know what's great? We are a team. Where one person can't make a cup of tea, another can make the best brew in the country. You don't have to face these things alone, Doll. We are all here for you, I am here for you, always will be."

You slowly began to open the door as he spoke, and looked up into the most sincere pair of blue eyes you had ever seen. There was a slight bruise coming up below his eye but he was smiling. He was doing that smile that meant his eyes crinkled, twinkling brightly- like stars.

"I'm sorry, Bucky."

"You don't have anything to apologise for, Doll, but you're forgiven."

You crept forward, reaching out for something, someone and the easy smile that filled your face as Bucky's arms wrapped around you in the most comforting hug you had ever had. You felt the faint echo of lips against your head and you gripped onto him tightly.

"You two are adorable."

The two of you separated slowly at Nat's voice. Not completely, there was still the comforting feeling of Bucky's hand against your back.

Nat's face was softer than you had ever seen it and there was nothing but understanding in her eyes as she spoke. "If you ever need someone to talk to come knock on my door. I know I would have loved to have someone there who knew."

Words caught in your throat as you nodded. You were soon wrapped in another comforting hug from Natasha, the scent of her perfume comforting and warm. The way forward would be hard but you knew that with these two by your side, your family, things would be a little easier than they had been.

[meruz]

once again i am answering asks in a big compilation post. included is... gotham, patrick stump, tips about drawing backgrounds, tips about drawing in general, links to my faq, and infinity train

like.... the tv series? No... I’ve drawn dc comics fanart before, though. But it’s been years since I’ve been really into it. I like jumped ship like 10 years ago when the New 52 happened LOL.

AFJHDSLKGH I’m sorry I (probably) won’t do it again??

Actually full disclosure I have a truly cringe amount of p stump drawings/photo studies in my sketchbook right now LOL. He’s just fun to draw... hats, glasses, guitar, a good shape... but I don’t think I’ll rly post those until I can hide them in another big sketchbook pdf.. probably Jan 2022. Stay tuned........ (ominous) 

(ominous preview)

These are all sort of related to backgrounds/painting so I grouped them together even though they’re pretty much entirely separate questions.... ANYWAYS

a) How is it working as a BG artist? Is it hard? What show are you drawing for?

I think you’re the first person to ever ask me about my job! Being a background artist is great. It’s definitely labor intensive but I think that could describe pretty much any art job (If something were rote or easy to automate, you wouldn’t hire an artist to do it) and I hesitate to say whether its harder or easier than any other role in the animation pipeline. Plus, so much of what truly makes a job difficult varies from one production to the next, schedule, working environment, co-workers etc. But I will say that I think while BGs are generally a lot of work on the upfront, I think they’re subject to less scrutiny/revisions than something like character/props/effects design and you don’t have to pitch them to a room like boards. So I guess it’s good if you don’t like to talk to people? LOL

A lot of my previous projects + the show I’ve worked on the longest aren’t public yet so I can’t talk about em (but I assure you if/when the news does break I won’t shut up about it). But I’m currently working on Archer Season 12 LOL. I’m like 90% sure I’m allowed to say that.

b) ~~~THANK YOU!! ~~~

c) What exactly do you like to draw most [in a background]?

@kaitomiury​ Lots of stuff! I really like to draw clutter! Because it’s a great opportunity for environmental storytelling and also you can be kind of messy with it because the sheer mass will supersede any details LOL. 

I like to draw clouds... I like to draw grass but not trees lol,,, I like to draw anything that sells perspective really easily like tiled floors and ceilings, shelves, lamp posts on a street etc.

d) Do you have any tips on how to paint (observational)?

god there’s so much to say. painting is really a whole ass discipline like someone can paint their whole life and still discover new things about it. I guess if you’re really just starting out my best advice is that habit is more important than product. especially with traditional plein air painting, I find that the procedure of going outside and setting up your paints is almost harder than the actual painting. There’s a lot of artists who say “I want to do plein air sometime!!” and then never actually get around to doing it. A lot of people just end up working from google streetview or photos on their computer.

But going outside to paint is a really good challenge because it forces you to make and commit to lighting and composition decisions really quickly. And to work through your mistakes instead of against them via undo button.

My last tip is to check out James Gurney’s youtube channel because hes probably the best and most consistent resource on observational painting out there rn. There’s lots other artists doing the same thing (off the top of my head I know a lot of the Warrior Painters group has people regularly posting plein air stuff and lightbox expo had a Jesse Schmidt lecture abt it last year) but Gurney’s probably the most prolific poster and one of the best at explaining the more technical stuff - his books are great too.

e) Do you have tips for drawing cleanly on heavypaint?

@marigoldfool​ UMM LOL I LIKE ONLY USE THE FILL TOOL so maybe use the fill tool? Fill and rectangle are good for edge control as opposed to the rest of the heavy paint tools which can get sort of muddles. And also I use a stylus so maybe if you’re using your finger, find a stylus that works with your device instead. That’s all I’ve got, frankly I don’t think my drawings are particularly clean lol.

f) Tips on improving backgrounds/scenes making them more dynamic practicing etc?

Ive given some tips about backgrounds/scenes before so I’m not gonna re-tread those but here’s another thing that might be helpful...

I think a good way to approach backgrounds is to think of the specific story or even mood you want to convey with the background first. Thinking “I just need to put something behind this character” is going to lead you to drawing like... a green screen tourist photo backdrop. But if you think “I need this bg to make the characters feel small” or “I need this bg to make the world feel colorful” then it gives you requirements and cues to work off of.

If I know a character needs to feel overwhelmed and small, then I know I need to create environment elements that will cage them in and corner them. If a character needs to feel triumphant/on top of the world then I know I need to let the environment open up around them. etc. If I know my focal point/ where I want to draw attention, I can build the background around that.

Also, backgrounds like figure compositions will have focal points of their own and you can draw attention to it/ the relationship the characters have with the bg element via scale or directionality or color, any number of cues. I think of it almost as a second/third character in a scene.

Not every composition is gonna have something so obvious like this but it helps me to think about these because then the characters feel connected and integrated with the environment.

Some more general art questions

a) Do you have any process/tips to start drawing character/bodies/heads?

I tried to kind of draw something to answer this but honestly this is difficult for me to answer because I don’t think I’m that great at drawing characters LOL. Ok, I think I have two tips.

1) flip your canvas often. A lot about what makes human bodies look correct and believable is symmetry and balance. Even if someone has asymmetrical features, the body will often pull and push in a way to counterbalance it. we often have inherent biases to one side or another like dominant hands dominant eyes etc. you know how right-handed artists will often favor drawing characters facing 45 degrees facing (the artist’s) left? that’s part of it. so viewing your drawing flipped even just to evaluate it helps compensate for that bias and makes you more aware of balance.

2) draw the whole figure often. I feel like a lot of beginner artists (myself included for a long time) defer to just drawing headshots or busts because it’s easier, you dont have to think about posing limbs etc. But drawing a full body allows you to better gauge proportion, perspective, body language, everything that makes a character look believable and grounded.

Like if you (me) have that issue where you draw the head too big and then have to resize it to fit the proportions of the rest of the body, it’s probably because you (I) drew the head first and are treating the body as an afterthought/attachment. Sketching out the whole figure first or even just quick drawing guides for it will help you think of it more holistically. I learned this figure drawing in charcoal at art school LOL.

oh. third mini tip - try to draw people from life often! its the best study. if you can get into a figure drawing/nude drawing class EVEN BETTER and if you have a local college/art space/museum that hosts those for free TREASURE IT AND TAKE ADVANTAGE OF IT, that’s a huge boon that a lot of artists (me again) wish they had. though if youre not so lucky and youre sitting in a park trying to creeper draw people and they keep moving.. don’t let that stop you! that’s good practice because it’s forcing you to work fast to get the important stuff down LOL. its a challenge!

b) I’ve been pretty out of energy and have had no inspiration to draw but I have the desire to. Any advice?

Dude, take a walk or something.... Or a nap? Low energy is going to effect everything else so you gotta hit that problem at its source.

If you’re looking for inspiration though, I’d recommend stuff like watching a movie, reading a book, playing video games etc. Fill up your idea bank with content and then give yourself time/space to gestate it into new concepts. Sometimes looking at other art works but sometimes it can work against you because it’s too close. 

Also something that helps me is remembering that art doesn’t always have to be groundbreaking... like it’s okay to make something shitty and stupid that you don’t post online and only show to your friend. That’s all part of the process imo. If you want to hit a home run you gotta warm up first, right? Sports.

I should probably compile everytime i give tips on stuff like this but that’s getting dangerously close to being a social media artist who makes stupid boiled down art tutorials for clout which is the last thing i want to be... the thing I want to stress is that art is a whole visual language and there are widely agreed upon rules and customs but they exist in large part to be broken. Like there's an infinite number of ways to reach an infinite number of solutions and that’s actually what makes it really cool and personal for both the artist and the viewer. So when you make work you like or you find someone else’s work you like, take a step back and ask yourself what about it speaks for you, what about it works for you, what makes it effective, how to recreate that effect and how to break that effect completely, etc. And have a good time with it or else what’s the point.

for the first 2, I direct you to my FAQ

For the last one, I don’t actually believe I’ve ever addressed artwork as insp for stories/rp but I’ll say here and now yeah go ahead! As long as you’re not making profit or taking credit for my work then I’m normally ok with it. Especially anything thats private and purely recreational, that’s generally 100% green light go. I only ask that if you post it anywhere public that you please credit me.

(and I reserve the right to ask you to take it down if I see it and don’t approve of it’s use but I think that case is pretty rare.)

a) @lemuelzero101 Thank you!!! I haven’t played Life is Strange but actually  that series’ vis dev artist Edouard Caplain is one of my bigger art inspirations lately so that’s a really high compliment lol. And yeah I hope we get 5-8 too...!

b) Thank you for sticking around! I’ve been thinking about Digimon and Infinity Train in tandem lately, actually. They’re a little similar? Enter a dangerous alternate world and have wacky adventures with monsters/inanimate objects that have weird powers... there’s like weird engineers and mechanisms behind the scenes... also frontier literally starts with them getting on a train. Anyways if anyone else followed me for digimon... maybe you’d like Infinity Train? LOL

c) @king-wens-king I’M GLAD MY ART JUST HAS PINOY VIBES LOL I hope you are having a good day too :^)

a, b, c, d) yessss my Watch Infinity Train agenda is working....

e) aw thank you!! i think you should watch infinity train :)

[centrally-unplanned]

Hot damn does this channel rock - finally someone willing to get into the real details of the production process, tool choices, org structures, etc over just being, a bird’s eye view. I have, through other *much* less accessible sources, learned a lot of of this information over the years, but it still has tons of great info that I am picking up from its videos.

The ‘intro’ video linked here is the most big picture, looking into how the individual staff members form a production pipeline and how their roles sit together, and it inspired some big-picture thoughts about how the anime industry over time is sort of a microcosm for the wider transformation in workforce structure that has happened over the years, and all the benefits (like efficiency) and issues (like inequality) that resulted from that. 

To recap for those who don’t know: Anime productions obviously have a ton of roles, but the core of any “shot” in a show are the key frame animators and the in-betweeners. The KFA’s start off a shot by drawing just a few of the most ‘important’ frames, that show off poses, positioning, effects, etc, which they sink a lot of time into for just a few frames. These are then passed on to in-betweeners, who draw the ‘rest’ of the frames (they actually re-draw the key frame via tracing as well, ty video!) that fill the space in-between the key frames, bridging those frames together to form a continuous animated shot. They spend much less time per frame doing this, which they can do since they are just tracing/altering the key frames. 

As you can probably guess the KFA’s have the ‘good’ job and the in-betweeners have the grunt-work ‘bad’ job. And you might not be appreciating how bad it is, but from a financial standpoint it is, uh, really bad. The average industry salary for an in-betweener in Japan full time is ~$10k a year. For comparison, the minimum wage full-time in Japan is ~$17.5K. They get away with it being way, way less than minimum wage by the usual trick of structuring it as contract work, which of course means it also includes absolutely no benefits. If you want to deep dive into how terrible these roles are, you can have at it.

So why do it? As the video points out, in-betweening can be essentially a mentorship. You can learn a ton from the process of seeing amazing key frames, interpreting them, and getting feedback on corrections, production speed, etc. And it is essentially mentorship because, in the early days of animation in Japan (so 1960′s-1970′s), it was *explicitly* a mentorship. Almost every animator would start as an in-betweener, work that way for 3-5 years, then be promoted to, well okay first to 2nd key frame animator, or in-between checkers, or maybe branch out to layouts, but *eventually* to key frame animator, and so on up the chain. It was essentially an apprenticeship, and that is how all companies worked in the 1950′s! Every division director of a company started out as a salesman, or desk analyst, or something, and promotions happened internally, and based on seniority. The low wages at the bottom were *justified* by the promise of future promotion.

But economies changed, and the anime industry did too. There are a million reasons why they changed, but for talent-based industries like anime, where the quality of a worker is in fact quite easy to observe, as the demand for anime skyrocketed the idea of trapping obviously-talented animators as in-betweeners for years to “pay their dues” made no sense. They left, joined new studios or founded their own, and by the 1990′s that system was totally falling apart. In-betweeners were no longer guaranteed promotions, and for many animators it would be the only job they would have in the industry for years before quitting entirely. Technology helped accelerate this - in the early days when animation was all done by hand, the in-betweeners and key animators sat in the same room, comparing notes and building connections, and letting younger animators learn from old. Now that they are all doing their work digitally, often they just get a file dump, and don’t even talk to each other (tons of org work has gone into building consistent ways of communicating, via notation on the drawings, expectations for what the in-betweeners need to do, so no meetings or human conversation is required. Efficiency! Also, alienation!).

And of course, as communication technology improved, wages stagnated, and demand increased, globalization came to the rescue. I don’t have solid figures, but I have definitely seen estimates that put the majority of in-betweening for Japanese animation being done overseas in Korea or China, where that 10k wage can go a lot farther (the town of Wuxi, in Jiangsu province, China, actually has an “Industrial Design” park almost solely devoted to doing outsourced Japanese animation work). This outsourcing is probably a net good thing for those workers, and for anime, don’t get me wrong! But as you can imagine, approximately zero of those Chinese or Korean animators get promoted into Japanese animation studios, while Japanese native in-betweeners are left competing with Chinese wages to afford a Japanese cost-of-living. All of these trends accelerate the winner-takes-all dynamic for the industry - just like every other industry in developed countries, neat!

But of course, its not like ‘outsourcing’ is new to anime - it was just done differently back in the 60′s and 70′s. Kyoto Animation is one of the most famous anime studios, and in particular is famous for having an uncommon number of female animation directors and leads. Certainly a big part of that is due to the fact that it started out as an outsourcing house for cel-painting for studios like Pierrot composed of otherwise-unemployed housewives picking up a side job! Female artists, just like female (and minority) workers in other industries, were the actual cheap labor backbone that justified the more ‘equitable’ salaries of the official workers for companies in the Good Ol’ Days. The inequity just shifted spatially, to new demographics, but has always been there. 

Yet there is something to be said for the fact that, of that early days Kyoto Amination clearing house approach, those women were almost all married to men in the animation (or other artistic) industries, and so those wages got pooled. They worked gruelling hours for less pay, but their *household* income was notably higher, as the men would universally have higher wages. Its how working for such wages got justified after all! If you are an in-betweener in Japan today, there is no such pooling, outside of by chance - yet the wage structure remains unmoved.

I think these days the plight of the in-betweener is increasingly well known, but to understand why its so I think the way the anime industry chased the trends in other industries helps not only understand it, but also understand the solution space, or in this case the lack thereof - what industries have solved this problem after all?